6 Leadership styles to get RESULTS

Posted on May 29, 2012 | Leave a comment

I found a great article this morning from the site FastCompany.com called 6 Leadership Styles, and when you should use them.  The article is based on a study by Daniel Goleman.  The study called Leadership that gets Results appeared in the 2000 Harvard Business Review but you can read the highpoints for free here.  Goleman found 30% of a company’s bottom-line profitability stems from the manager’s leadership style.  Most of us have a particular style with which we are most comfortable.  The study shows long-term success is reliant upon the ability to utilize the appropriate style based on current conditions and goals.  I summarized the styles below.

  1. The pacesetting leader expects and models excellence and self-direction.  This is the “do as I do, now” style.   This is great for an already motivated and skilled team and quick results are needed.  If it is overused it can overwhelm team members and squelch innovation.
  2. The authoritative leader mobilizes the team toward a common vision and focuses on end goals, leaving the means up to each individual.  This is the “come with me” style.  This is best when the team needs a new vision because circumstances have changed and inspires an entrepreneurial spirit and enthusiasm for the mission.  It is not ideal if working with a team of experts who know more than the leaders.
  3. The affiliate leader works to create emotional bonds that bring a feeling of bonding and belonging to the organization.  This is the “people come first” style.  The affiliate leader is best in times of stress or when the team needs to rebuild trust.  Sole reliance on the praise and nurturing from this style can cause mediocre performance and a lack of direction, so it should not be overused.
  4. The coaching leader develops people for the future.  This is the “try this” style.  This style effectively builds lasting personal strengths in teammates making them more successful overall.  It is not affective with defiant teammates, teammates unwilling to change, or a leader lacking proficiency.
  5. The coercive leader demands immediate compliance.  This is the “do what I tell you” style.  This is most effective in times of crisis, company turnaround, takeover or during an actual emergency such as an earthquake or fire.  This style controls a problem teammate when everything else has failed but should be avoided in nearly every other situation.  The coercive leader tends to alienate people and stifle flexibility and inventiveness.
  6. The democratic leader builds consensus through participation.  This style is summed up as the “what do you think” phase.  The democratic leader is most effective when the leader needs the team to buy into or have ownership of a decision, plan or goal.  It also works when the leader is uncertain and needs fresh ideas from qualified teammates.  It is ineffective in emergent situations, when time is limited, or when teammates are not informed enough to offer sufficient guidance.

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Posted in Small Business

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A Checklist before hitting SEND

Posted on May 22, 2012 | Leave a comment

Who hasn’t hit the send button on an email only to realize a few seconds too late there is a typo?  Or a broken link landing the recipient on an error page?  Well, maybe you have not but embarrassingly I have.  When mistakes occur in the email marketing sent to your entire list, it is exponentially worse.   I found a great article from Hubspot with a helpful checklist to rundown before pressing the SEND button.  I’ve included a few here that are applicable to most people.  The more technical items I left off but can be found in the original article.

  1. Broken links including broken social media links.  Typos happen but when the typo that is supposed to link back to your business website or your Facebook page is broken it does not make a good impression.
  2. Spelling and grammatical errors.  If you have a grammar/spelling whiz in your life, make use of them.  Spell check sometimes gives you the wrong version so you cannot always trust it.
  3. Distorted images.  Make sure your images display they way you want them to.  Distorted, stretched or squished images do not impress.
  4. Color issues.  Not all color fonts and backgrounds are easy to read.  Some email programs your recipients may use do not show background color.  If you use a dark gray background and white text and my mail client does not accept the gray background, I cannot read your white text.  That means I hit delete and miss your message.  In my opinion white background makes the most sense.
  5. Subject Line/Sender Name – the personal touch is always best.  Emails sent by a person are more likely to be opened than those sent from a company.  Also, subject lines with more than 50 characters are likely to be cut off.  Keep it short and to the point.
  6. Fulfilled CAN-SPAM Requirements.  I posted an article in September 2011 called CAN-SPAM compliance…what you need to know.  I suggest you review that article to make sure you are compliant.
  7. Plan text formatting.  Some email recipients prefer text only emails so they will not receive the pretty formatting and images you included.  NALA’s email program allows you to view the text format.  Don’t forget to make sure it is enabled and look it over.

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Posted in E-mail Marketing

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Use social media to increase revenue w/ existing customers

Posted on May 16, 2012 | Leave a comment

Do you Tweet?  Do you Facebook update?  Social Media Examiner featured an article last week called Five Ways Social Media can Increase your Revenue from Existing Customers.  The eListings program from the NALA automatically creates a Facebook page, so NALA Members are ready to go.  There are two strategies involving existing customers.  The first is offering customer service through social media, and the second is increasing value to the customer experience.  Unless you have the time to manage your social media on a daily basis I might focus more on the value increase over the customer service tool.

Tip #1:  Give incentives for making more frequent purchases.  Increase revenue by encouraging customers to make purchases more frequently or offer deals and specials exclusive to your social media followers.  You could post a secret word on your Facebook page every day, and customers that come into your business and utter that word, receive a pre-determined discount or special.  Make sure your staff know in advance and create marketing in your business alerting customers to the social media promotion.

Tip #2:  Give customers a reason to spend more at each purchase.  Promote package deals for services that bundle offerings together.  Use social media to drive awareness of the offerings with a clear call to action.

Tip #3:  Combine email-marketing offers.  Make sure your email marketing provides social media share buttons.  You can also upload your email marketing to your social media.

Tip #4: Educate your customers about other products and services.  Make sure customers are aware of other types of services and products your company offers.  You can feature a product or service of the week on social media.  Make sure you follow he 20% rule below though.

Tip #5:  Provide Consistent Value.  If you customers find value in the content you provide they are more likely to keep coming back.  For this reason remember the 20% rule.  Only 20% should be about your company with offers and promotions.  The remaining 80% should provide information of interest to your customers.  That information should ignite conversation between your social media followers and you.

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Posted in E-mail Marketing, Facebook, Social Media

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Facebook Daily Deals for Local Business

Posted on May 8, 2012 | Leave a comment

On May 3rd Facebook announced the creation of a program similar to Groupon and Living Social, running on the Facebook platform and free to administrators of local business Pages.   It is called Facebook Offers and the only requirement to take advantage of it is a local Facebook Page.  It is not available for personal pages.

Did you know the NALA has a Daily Deal program available for members?  Members can contact their project manager can tell you all about it.  In addition, as a member of the NALA,  eListings creates a local page for your business, so getting started in promoting your business products and services is easy.  Here is what you need to know directly from the Facebook Help Center.

  1. Free to post and free to claim.  That means you will not pay for posting your offer in your news feed.  It also means Facebook is not charging when someone buys your offer  so you keep 100% of the proceeds.
  2. When someone claims an offer, that offer also ends up posted on your customer’s news feed, increasing your exposure.
  3. The larger your fan-base the better response you will get for your offers.  Facebook is hoping you will buy ads to increase your fan-base.  You can do this by running an ad or a sponsored story.
  4. You must have a local business page and right now they are limiting the number of those.  They expect to be out of the beta phase soon and launch the program broadly.
  5. If you want the ad to stop you simply delete it.  No worries about selling more discounted deals than you can afford to deliver.
  6. There is no minimum discount however they do recommend discounts of at least 20% off regular price.  That is a recommendation, however that is entirely up to you.
  7. To claim an offer people click “Get Offer” to see the details and terms and conditions you created, click claim offer to have it sent to their email address, and bring the offer with them to redeem at your business.  They do not make purchases in advance.

For more information check out the help center link above or contact your NALA Project Manager.

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Posted in Facebook, Social Media

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Facebook ‘Offers’ Goes National – comp

Posted on May 7, 2012 | Leave a comment

Facebook ‘Offers’ Goes National – competing with Groupon and Living Social for the local business market | ClickZ http://bit.ly/ITSoGV

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Posted in Uncategorized

Irresistible Email Subject Lines

Posted on May 2, 2012 | Leave a comment

I’ve written several blogs over the last few years about the value of email, the value of the email list, and the value of email subscribers.  One important step in the process is a subject line that will inspire your recipient to open your email in the first place.  Copyblogger and a helpful article I thought I would highlight for you called The Three Key Elements of Irresistible Email Subject Lines.

Think of an email subject line like a newspaper headline attempting to attract your attention.  Because it is so similar to a headline, the same rules for headlines apply here.

Headlines should be useful, ultra-specific, unique, and express a sense of urgency.  Emails are similar but different in the following ways.

  1. Identify yourself.  Your recipient agreed to receive email from you so make sure they know you are the one sending it.
  2. Focus on useful and ultra-specific but make sure you do not overuse unique and urgency or you may begin to sound like a spammer.
  3. Only use urgent when there is a compelling reason to act now.  Perhaps you are sending out a Memorial weekend sale email or some other time sensitive information.  If everything is urgent though then nothing becomes urgent.
  4. Rely on spam checking software and when trigger words come out replace them.  It won’t matter how compelling your subject line is if you land in a spam folder.
  5. Shorter is better.  Subject line real estate is valuable and short.

My best advice is to open your own inbox and make note of the emails you open and the emails you don’t.  Are there specific subject lines that draw you in and others that cause you to delete without opening?  If you have any insight in this please share it.  I would love to hear your thoughts.

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Posted in E-mail Marketing

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SMBs & Charity Partnerships

Posted on April 24, 2012 | Leave a comment

Local business and charity partnerships provide powerful marketing and public relations opportunities for both the business and the charity.  We at the NALA feel so strongly about giving back that our program maintains an optional charity component and charity directory.  The goal is to facilitate opportunity for charity partnerships with our members at both the local and national level.

Last year I posted an article offering reasons why SMBs should support charities.  Recently I came across an article from Growth University called Small Business Marketing & Charitable Partnerships that offered a few simple tips to create effective charity partnerships of your own.

The goal of involving your business with a charity is threefold.   Hitting all three below is a recipe for success.

  1. Improve the life of the charity
  2. Create a sense of goodwill with your customers and your community
  3. Create a positive buzz in your community.

Three tips for creating effective partnerships are:

  1. Create seasonal campaigns avoiding December.  Many charities do well in December and struggle the rest of the year.  Pick a charity you believe in and ask if they have anything coming up that you can participate in.  Maybe you can sponsor a booth at a fundraiser or offer items for a silent auction, or even allow your business to be a donation drop-off point.
  2. Brand your campaign.  If you name the charitable campaign in a way that makes it easier to spread the world, it can increase the level of attention you receive.
  3. Press the issue.  Press releases are powerful methods of otherwise free advertising.  The NALA offers a press release product that will not only write the release based information you provide, but also distribute it to the appropriate news agencies on and offline.

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Posted in charity, Press Release, Small Business

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