How Your Manager Views Social Media in the Workplace

This morning, I had a lengthy conversation with a good friend of mine who is a higher up in the banking industry. We discussed the topic that seems to be ubiquitous these days: social media. 

Specifically, we spoke on how social media has affected his workplace...negatively and positively.

On the positive side, he pointed out how channels such as LinkedIn and Twitter have allowed him to create extremely productive relationships with clients and new accounts.

"LinkedIn provides different channels for networking and ultimately allows me to connect with people I otherwise could not have." (He chose not to disclose his name)

On the flipside, he pointed out how the potential for causing distractions at work has made him and other executives wary about social media usage. Their immediate response has been to block and filter websites, but more and more companies are beginning to realize that this causes a separation in networking opportunity.

"At the end of the day, I feel that if a company has enough trust to hire an employee, they should have enough trust in the employee to do the right thing. In other words, giving them the benefit of the doubt."

While I agree to an extent, I also find it interesting to note that evaluating your employees based on production is really the measurement of whether or not they can handle the freedom to be able to check their Twitter, and as social media is becoming more integrated with our overall internet usage, is their any real way for us to monitor these distractions? 

Jon Negroni is the Director of Public Relations, Promotion, and Marketing at Richter10.2 Media Group. For more information regarding Richter10.2, check out our introduction video here.

Image Courtesty of techinasia.com 

Order and Expansion

Over the past few weeks I've been on a mission to put order into every single area of our company. Meaning, I am making it orderly, implementing systems etc. The magic of "order" is limitless. Each little area that we've put order into results in things magically getting better. In other words, we made our company more orderly in one area and found that it impacted our growth just that much for the week.

Look around your company and make a list. Find every single area that you can to put order in. Then, simply address them one by one.

Here are a few examples:

- Make all workspaces neat and tidy to improve production

- Make a revision to a contract to ensure it reads correctly

- Address some old "need to get done's" and do them

- Implement a new checklist to help make a process more efficient and swift

- Get rid of a redundant task or function that causes extra work

These are but a few areas. Just start listing out all of the areas that you want to make orderly and then do so. You will be completely blown away at how this will impact you sales, growth, expansion, morale and the list goes on. It's complete magic.

- Robert Cornish

CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group

Why We Hate Butterflies

Sounds like a funny title but the truth is, butterflies are a serious problem in the business world. Chasing them that is. In today's busy and sometimes chaotic world it's easy to get distracted and end up dreaming or chasing butterflies rather than staying the course and focusing on your goals, mission and the immediate tasks at hand. My advice, learn to hate butterflies as well. 

Focus on who you are, what you do, what the goal is and your next most immediate step toward it. Get focused in every aspect of your company from knowing what target audience or vertical market you want to go after, exactly what you sell and what your value proposition is making sure that you aren't trying to be all things to all people, getting your people focused on their mission and tasks to attain your focused goal and only promoting and selling to your focused market etc. 

There are zillions of things that can take you off course. Distractions. Butterflies. Get rid of them and learn to simplify your company to get focused and then get tunnel vision about that focus to work toward goal attainment. It may sound more "fun" or sexy to chase the constant new adventure or idea but it's wasted time and effort. They prevent you from true victory and goal attainment. 

 

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Focus

The other day I was going through my Twitter feed and saw a tweet asking a question to Gurbaksh Chahal  (a very successful entrepreneur who sold his last company for $300MM and the one before it for $40MM) about whether he get's tempted to work on other ideas while he is working on a company. His response... "never. Focus is everything." 

To me one of the biggest elements of failure or simply lack of success lies in most people's lack of ability to stay focused. I'll admit, I love millions of ideas as well and have a tendency to daydream from time to time but being that I have owned four companies, I know the power of focused attention and the deadliness of distractions or dispersals. Focus is everything. 

 

If you know what your company stands for, sells and delivers and have clearly named out or defined your product or service and then defined your goal or vision the only next step for you to take is to do everything that is focused toward executing the goals to attain the vision. Do not get distracted and do not let any other "bright ideas" enter the equation. Focus your time, energy and effort on your goal. 

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The Best Deal

There is a saying in business that goes like this.... "sometimes the best deal you made was the one you didn't". In other words, it's the deal you turned away or left on the table. It's always tempting to take on every single deal that comes your way in business due to the woo of possible profits related to it, but I would advise to you closely look at every deal to ensure the prospect fits your criteria and will truly be profitable for you.

This may mean that if something doesn't feel right about a deal or the prospect is being difficult upfront or it's outside of your core competency or or or... etc, well you may need to get up and walk away from it for the sake of your company. It most likely will be for the best saving you and your company huge amounts of wasted time and effort not to mention money. 

One of the most profitable angles in business is knowing who your target public (audience) is and who is a desirable client to take on and who isn't. If you can peg who isn't you will avoid 90% of all headaches for your company. The ability to spot problem child's early is a vital tool toward a growing and profitable company. Sure, you may end up leaving a few perfectly good deals on the table but you don't need to worry about that. Focus on distilling the deals that don't fully align with your goals, purposes and policies and I assure you that you will be ultimately more profitable and happier. 

 

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The Best Deal

There is a saying in business that goes like this.... "sometimes the best deal you made was the one you didn't". In other words, it's the deal you turned away or left on the table. It's always tempting to take on every single deal that comes your way in business due to the woo of possible profits related to it, but I would advise to you closely look at every deal to ensure the prospect fits your criteria and will truly be profitable for you.

This may mean that if something doesn't feel right about a deal or the prospect is being difficult upfront or it's outside of your core competency or or or... etc, well you may need to get up and walk away from it for the sake of your company. It most likely will be for the best saving you and your company huge amounts of wasted time and effort not to mention money. 

One of the most profitable angles in business is knowing who your target public (audience) is and who is a desirable client to take on and who isn't. If you can peg who isn't you will avoid 90% of all headaches for your company. The ability to spot problem child's early is a vital tool toward a growing and profitable company. Sure, you may end up leaving a few perfectly good deals on the table but you don't need to worry about that. Focus on distilling the deals that don't fully align with your goals, purposes and policies and I assure you that you will be ultimately more profitable and happier. 

 

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The Makings of a Group

The ultimate pursuit in business. To attain a group. A true team. Loyal, focused and driven to attain the goals of the group. It's fantastically difficult to attain but virtually indestructible once created. 

Here are the makings of a group as I see it:

1) Everyone is focused on an agreed upon goal. In other words, there's a mountain and everyone see's it and is focused on climbing it without any deviation or distractions. The goal needs to be completely known throughout the group, intertwined into everyday actions, targets and programs. "What will we do today to take the mountain?" Get a goal, make it known and pursue it.

2) The group thinks in futures, meaning that everyone in the group is focused on their future within the group. Where will we be in 2 years, 5 years, 20 years..... This then breeds loyalty to the group and therefore strengthens the group as a whole. A great group is one that no one would ever want to leave. 

3) The group works as a unit, synchronizing every action and coordinating efforts. No individuals are in the group, only one unit that operates as a unit knowing and acting with every area, division and department fully reliant and responsible for each other. 

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Aim Small - Miss Small

There was a line in the movie "The Patriot" where the character Mel Gibson plays is about to ambush a group of British soldiers to save his son. He tells his other two son's to remember what he has taught them.... "aim small miss small"

The other day I was in a meeting with our production team and while we were discussing strategies to attain client reaches, that exact phrase came out of my mouth... "aim small miss small" which lead to this blog.

It's a great concept and relates exactly to business and client growth. Focus your efforts. In other words, identify a segment you want to go after by profiling who you sell to now. Who buys from you? Then take aim at that small segment and go after them heavy. We are not aiming at the whole audience here, we are aiming at your audience. The people most likely to need, want and buy your products or services.

 

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Can April Fools Mean Better Productivity?

The methods used to handle April Fools are indeed as varied as people experiencing it. Some live for the prank and love to laugh and others just wish it would go away, but what about in the workplace? On one hand, you have stifling seriousness and on the other is all the endless ways people think of to goof off. Funnily enough, both end up in exactly the same place; low productivity and low morale.

As with all things, I'm sure there is a happy medium (pun intended). While it is certainly true that workplace matters rarely reflect the thrill of sinking a long putt or landing a marlin, it is just as true that if you view the tasks in your day as enjoyable you will get a lot more done.

In my own workplace I have watched an enormous shift in our productivity on this interesting point. Last year we had eight staff in one department who were delivering a management service. Things were quite serious on a daily basis and it was a "grind" to get everything finished each week. A year later, we have a team of 4 doing more work than the eight could and finishing it by Thursday afternoon most weeks.

The difference? We got organized and started having some fun! We decided that things weren't quite that serious and with that were willing to mix things up and evolve so we could get it right. Cracking jokes is certainly not going to magically make a business an overnight success, but injecting a little levity into the average day WILL make a difference.

Posted via web from richter102mediagroup's posterous

Can April Fools Mean Better Productivity?

The methods used to handle April Fools are indeed as varied as people experiencing it. Some live for the prank and love to laugh and others just wish it would go away, but what about in the workplace? On one hand, you have stifling seriousness and on the other is all the endless ways people think of to goof off. Funnily enough, both end up in exactly the same place; low productivity and low morale.

As with all things, I'm sure there is a happy medium (pun intended). While it is certainly true that workplace matters rarely reflect the thrill of sinking a long putt or landing a marlin, it is just as true that if you view the tasks in your day as enjoyable you will get a lot more done.

In my own workplace I have watched an enormous shift in our productivity on this interesting point. Last year we had eight staff in one department who were delivering a management service. Things were quite serious on a daily basis and it was a "grind" to get everything finished each week. A year later, we have a team of 4 doing more work than the eight could and finishing it by Thursday afternoon most weeks.

The difference? We got organized and started having some fun! We decided that things weren't quite that serious and with that were willing to mix things up and evolve so we could get it right. Cracking jokes is certainly not going to magically make a business an overnight success, but injecting a little levity into the average day WILL make a difference.

Posted via web from richter102mediagroup's posterous