Employees Archives - Page 9 of 11 - McLellan Marketing Group

The romance is dead!

February 28, 2007

Ahh, the wooing. The courtship. The attention. The expressions of heartfelt love. A belated Valentine’s Day post? Nope. Just a reminder of how you behaved as you were chasing that potential client.

Until you caught them. Then the romance was over. No more flowers, candy, late night calls. Now it’s business as usual.

If this sounds uncomfortably like you — don’t worry. When you lose that client to the competitor who woos them away, you can always turn on the charm and find a new one. And so on and so on…

Or, here’s a novel idea. Keep the romance alive.

Cam Beck talks about this phenomenon over at ChaosScenario. As Cam always is — it’s worth the read.

Is everyone singing the same song?

February 18, 2007

This week, randomly stop 5 of your employees and ask them to describe your company’s brand promise in a single sentence.

If your own choir isn’t singing out of the same songbook, how do you expect your customers or prospects to understand why you should matter to them?

Flickr photo courtesy of MoToMo

Hey Cupid – Who loves ya baby?

February 14, 2007

It’s Valentine’s Day and at McLellan Marketing Group that means that cupid appears in the unlikely semblance of Telly Savalas.

For those of you old enough (boy, do I hate having to start sentences with that phrase!) to remember Telly’s performance as the NYC detective Kojak, you will recognize the lollipop-laden quip.

So here’s how I show and share the love to the MMGers on this day of affection. I gather up a bevy of Valentine’s Day themed prizes. Kissing Instructor boxers, red stuffed bears, boxes of truffles, a pink scented candle and the like.

Then, I get on the PA at the office and ask "Who loves ya baby?" followed by a holiday themed trivia question. It could be about a love story, how many women send themselves flowers on the holiday (15%) or who said a famous quote about love. The employees must then run (Yes, I want to hear the sounds of the thundering approach) and whoever arrives at my office first with the correct answer gets to choose from the prize pool.

Silly? You bet. Something fun to look forward to every year? I hope so. Something that both lets my employees know that I love them and because it’s a little off center, speaks to our brand — that’s my plan.

So on behalf of all the MMGers — Happy who loves ya baby day!

Do you actively look for ways to:

Give your employees something to look forward to?
Let your employees know that you love them?
Find a way to brand all the little things you do?

If not…when are you going to start?

It’s your fault!

February 3, 2007

Remember the discussion about Kohl’s right after the holidays. Paul (HeeHawMarketing) posted some photos about his experience in a local store. The place was a disaster.

I followed up with a post saying that Paul’s experience is a symptom of bad or a complete lack of branding. When an organization doesn’t have a clear direction — it generates some significant problems.

When your employees don’t understand your brand — even the best employees flounder around, trying to do what they think they should.
When you don’t invest in employee communication and tell them over and over what matters, human nature says won’t retain the message.
A good, solid brand sets the expectations for your customers.

But here’s one of the greatest risks of not having a rock-solid brand.

Finger pointing. It’s not my fault. It’s not my department. No one is accountable, because no one knows what they’re accountable for. For a real-life example, let’s go back to the Kohl’s story.

Paul got a voice mail from Kohl’s VP of Public Relations. Here’s what she said:

"Please know that it is our top priority to provide you, and all of our customers, a quality shopping experience. I’m very sorry that you recently encountered an unacceptable store environment, and from your pictures, clearly not up to our standards. I have advised our senior level management, they’ve been made aware, and they’re highly committed to addressing it. So, thanks again for letting me know. I do appreciate hearing from you and we do value your patronage."

In other words….nothing but smoke being blown up his skirt. So, then a Kohl’s employee wanted to step into the discussion.

As you might expect — it’s not their fault. Bad management, understaffed, under-appreciated employees, customers who are pigs, children who are unruly, etc. etc. And you know, he’s probably exactly right.

But also, ultimately wrong.

So what’s the solution? Someone has to care. Someone has to have a vision. Someone needs to set a course. That has to happen at a corporate level. And at the store level. And at the individual employee level. In other words, they all have to realize and believe that is is indeed their problem.

They need to discover their brand promise and begin to teach their employees how to bring it to life.

Until that happens, I suspect Kohl’s will continue to breed a culture of "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" not my problem, man.

Sad.

Are you sure you know what you’re communicating?

January 27, 2007

Denver. United Airlines. Snow. Wind. 5 hours of delays.

Finally get loaded on the plane. Just about fall asleep. The flight attendant comes on the PA to tell us that because of all the delays, our pilots are now declared illegal. The flight (it’s now 11:30 pm) is canceled.

Oh yeah — we can’t retrieve our luggage.

Did I mention I have my 13-year old daughter with me? Fun.

We scramble down to the hotel display and start dialing. We’re tired. We’re frustrated. We’re going to miss meetings, school and who knows what else. Oh yeah, and we have no clean clothes.

Cue Norma. She answered the Embassy Suites phone and reassures me, "don’t worry, we’ve got a room and we’ll get you all set up." 20 minutes later, the van shows up. Norma. She had bottles of water for us and an offer to drive through a fast food joint if we’re hungry.

God bless Norma. She dug up toothbrushes, deodorant and practically tucked us in. She turned an incredibly frustrating experience into an actually pleasant one. Simply by caring.

Which is why, at 2 am, I found myself on the Embassy Suites website, trying to figure out how to let the powers that be know what a gem they had in Norma. I found the "recent stay comments" section.

When I clicked on the drop down menu, this is what I saw.

You know what that says loud and clear to me? We expect our employees to trigger complaints. If I worked there, I wouldn’t hold out much hope to hear good things about my performance. I had to scroll down several more options before I could find a complimentary category to attach my comments to.

Yes, I am sure that many more people take the time to complain than they do to compliment. But, what impact would it have if the drop down menu started with all the compliments and I had to scroll through them to get to the complaints?

It’s how we handle the details, the little things, the "that doesn’t really matter" elements that speaks loud and clear to our customers, prospects and employees.

How are you doing on that?

Could you be a super hero?

January 17, 2007

We’ve talked quite a bit about branding and the importance of your employees intellectually and emotionally understanding and embracing your organization’s brand.

Part of your brand is without a doubt, how you expect your employees to make decisions, treat clients and conduct themselves with each other. It helps define how you hire, promote, reward and even fire those employees who do or do not live up to that expectation.

We’ve all seen the employee manual version…"We hold these values to be of the highest esteem — integrity, loyalty and a great work ethic."

Blech.

Nothing wrong with the sentiments, but the presentation makes it feel like it could apply to any company. So how do you make it meaningful, tangible and not sound like HR jargon?

Well, at McLellan Marketing Group part of our brand is that we work hard to be our client’s heroes. To that end, we have created the MMG Hero. ( Download MMGhero.pdf )

He is our very tangible way of setting the bar internally. We use it to hold each other accountable, to high five each other for really being a hero and to brainwash the new employees, so they clearly understand the standard we’ve set in the marketplace.

Maybe being a super hero doesn’t fit your brand. But the idea of personalizing your expectations sure should. Maybe it’s a country song. Or an epic poem. Or a letter from a customer who sums up their experience. How could you create a memorable, meaningful way to set the bar for your team?

If you don’t think you are quite up to MMG Hero status but would like to see what kind of super hero you might be, take this quiz.

Baby, it’s cold outside (and inside too!)

January 13, 2007

Winter has finally arrived in Iowa. Unfortunately it has also arrived inside my house. As you can see, it’s a balmy 56 degrees right now. And dropping like a rock.

I’m home alone (everyone else has been farmed out to warmer homes) and I am weighing whether or not I want to suck it up and pay the time and a half or wait until Monday to get it fixed. So I call my furnace repair shop of choice and I explain to the woman who answers that the furnace will not come on and its getting nippy.

I ask her what the difference in cost will be if they come out tonight or I wait until Monday. She politely tells me and points out where the cost variations are the most significant.

Ouch. Okay, I tell her…I think I will wait it out. After all, I have everyone outplaced and I am from Minnesota. We live for this weather. Being this cold will help me stay alert and get some work done, right?

Then, she says, "don’t forget to fire up enough space heaters to protect your pipes from freezing."

Hold up a second! I hadn’t thought about the pipes freezing. There’s only one space heater in the house. My mind does the quick mental math and going out to buy 5-6 more heaters or calling around to our friends and neighbors to borrow a bunch seems like a bad plan.

See what she did? Sneaky. She cared about my situation. She offered good counsel. She didn’t push her service. She didn’t argue with my decision. She actually tried to help me avoid buying from her tonight. And in doing so, she let me figure out that I needed what she was selling.

The very best selling looks a whole lot like helping.

Love me or let me go (part deux)

January 12, 2007

A couple days ago, I suggested that if you couldn’t love your clients — you owed it to them to fire them. Our clients deserve not only good service and competent skills. They deserve our love.

The same, I believe, is true of our employees. If you don’t love them — fire them. Of course, loving them doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t have to part ways either. Sometimes the best thing you can do for an employee who’s the wrong fit or can’t wrap their skills or attitude around your organization is to let them go. Give them the kick in the pants they need to find a place where they can be successful and contribute.

How does loving your employees benefit you, the company and your customers?

Selfishly, you get to work with people you love
It builds incredible trust and loyalty (both ways)
Your employees care about you, the business and your clients as though they owed the joint
Better profits, lower turnover, more fun
They get better because you care enough to help them get better
It’s authentic

Over at Innovation Compass, Susie de Ville Schiffli paints a nice picture of what a loving company looks like. If it doesn’t sound like your place of business — what can you do about that?

Flickr photo courtesy of omnia.

Love me or let me go

January 10, 2007

It’s really a simple idea. You need to love your customers. No, I don’t mean love their money. I don’t mean love that they send their friends to your business.

I mean love them. As people. Collectively as in "I love our clients" and individually as in "I love Lana."

If you don’t love them, you owe it to them to fire them. Because you will never be extraordinary. And every customer deserves that.

Sure, they buy your brain and knowledge. And they buy your end product. Those are the givens. But the "I’ll care as much about your business as you do" is not on the price list. It’s not for sale. You either give it to them freely or you can’t because you don’t feel it. And if you give it, you give it from love.

At the Conversation Agent blog, Valeria Maltoni talks about inspiring love rather than trust or loyalty, in terms of your product. I couldn’t agree more. And the way to get them to love you…is to love them first.

Steve Farber’s brilliant book Radical Leap is all about infusing love into your work.

I’m not sure why the word love is so taboo in business but it needs to stop. It’s a big part of why Kohl’s looks like a dump, why Wal-Mart employees were taking out TV ads against their employer, why Enrons happen, and why the people at the drive-thru could care less if you actually get what you order.

As consumers, we’ve not demanded love. We’ve accepted sullen. We’ve pardoned rude. We’ve tolerated mediocrity. As business people, we’ve offered acceptable. We’ve delivered good enough. And we’ve billed our clients for better than average.

I think it’s time for us to try a little love. Don’t you? (Part two coming….)

Photo courtesy of flickr and photographer Aaron Walsh.

:60 ticks marketing tip: Hold Me!

January 9, 2007

Grab it fast…it’s gone in about a minute. A :60 ticks marketing tip is 150 words or less…so read it in a minute and implement it in the next!

Don’t waste an opportunity to brand every customer experience. If you have to put a caller on hold, what happens? Consider these options over being lazy and just playing muzak or a local radio station.

Record client testimonials
Ask provocative questions (the current one at MMG is "if you were a superhero what would you insist went on your utility belt?") that reflect your brand
Answer a few frequently asked questions

Whatever you do, give them an option to hit a button and get to a live body. No one’s brand includes frustrating the stuffing out of a caller because they are caught in a voice mail maze.

That’s it. Go put it into action!

« Previous 1 … 7 8 9 10 11 Next »