Does Your ‘Trust Battery’ Need a Charge?

Sunday’s NY Times Corner Office profile about trust in the workplace got us thinking. Tobi Lutke, CEO of the ecommerce software provider, Shopify, described how every new employee starts at Shopify with their “trust battery” charged at the 50 percent level. As time goes on, the charge level goes up (or down) based on interactions with managers and whether the employee becomes more or less trustworthy and whether or not he or she delivers on what they promise.

Sound familiar?

If so, you can apply the trust-battery concept to your dealings with your clients, vendors, strategic partners and independent contractors. They’re doing the same with you. They’re asking themselves if you’re delivering on what you promise. Are you contacting them proactively or waiting for them to call you only when there’s an urgent matter? Are you paying your bills on time? Are you blowing off weekly, monthly or quarterly progress meetings? Are you constantly rescheduling or making excuses for missing deadlines, information requests or deliverables?

According to Lutke, there are only two kinds of days—“one when your team gets better and ones when your team gets worse.”

While the article didn’t go into great depth, we ask you to look at your team and your client roster? Is anyone’s trust meter below 25- or 30-percent? If so, it’s time to take remedial action or else, set them free.

Our blog and website have more about this and related topics.

Conclusion

Everyone’s hyper busy, but at the end of the day we’re all accountable. If you think every client and team member is 80-percent or better, we suggest you check you meter and make sure all the circuits and wiring is up to code.

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TAGS: Tobi Lutke, Shopify, trust in the workplace, delivering what you promise

Incorporating Video into Articles and Posts (and vice versa)

It’s no secret that we’re visual creatures. Most of us would rather watch TV than read when given the choice. So we’re not surprised that more and more of you have been asking about creating videos to supplement (or replace) your text-based articles, posts, tweet and emails.

Research shows that 90 percent of information transmitted to our brain is visual. Our client Naylor, LLC is pretty aggressive about experimenting with content and they’ve documented the value of adding videos and images to your tweets and newsletters.

But don’t chuck out your keyboard and scratchpad yet.

We first started discussing the merits of blending video and text about two years ago in this blog.

As was the case in 2014, adding video to your written content can substantially improve engagement and recall with the written content. On the flip side, a concise text-based summary that accompanies your video will greatly increase viewership. Our client, Coyle Financial Counsel found that viewership of its twice weekly video blogs increased substantially when it started offering a text-based summary right below its video player. The text summary always includes snappy “Key Takeaways” or as Naylor calls them, “Tweetables.” That’s right, each of the key takeaways in Naylor articles can be instantly tweeted by using a handy embedded widget (scroll down first page here).

While it’s easy in this era of disruption and killer apps, to replace old with the new, most things in life are not so binary. It’s not a matter of either/or, it’s a matter or either and or.

Even those in the media trade are questioning the ROI of video once you get past the cool factor. It’s certainly harder to produce and distribute well compared to good old fashioned text. Another drawback to video is that it’s harder to summarize and preview than written material is. Remember, most of your clients and prospects have become a gun shy about clicking on video players and having their browsers co-opted by intrusive video ads that can take 30 seconds or longer to play before you have the privilege of watching. Who has time for that in this day in age?

This Stanford University study is not a light read, but it does confirm the need for thumbnails and other forms of video summarization. Also, the penalty for a poorly produced video (bad lighting, bad sound, amateurish editing) is significantly worse than the penalty for sub-par written material.

Our blog and website have more about this and related topics.

Conclusion

Just as a well-diversified portfolio usually outperforms a concentration in a single stock, sector or country, a well-diversified thought leadership strategy should include a blend of text, video, infographics, PDFs and multimedia, that work together to keep your message relevant, clear and worthwhile sharing.

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TAGS: Naylor, LLC, Coyle Financial Counsel, video in text, video in emails, tweets, Stanford University study on video summaries, Folio magazine on video ROI

Working Out the Changing Nature of Our Work, Part 2

Last week’s post about the changing nature of our work, generated more feedback from usual. Chris Shay, Global Sales Manager at ADP, Global Enterprise Solutions, said we were basically on point, but that the workforce has a way to go in terms of being comfortable with criticism. “For some reason, I find current feedback is a) sandwiched between niceties, b) given in a performance review as a one-time event to check the box, or c) not given because it's uncomfortable,” said Shay.

Shay also found that NextGen is better with constructive criticism in the workforce, “but unless you play pro sports, or work for [hyper-transparent hedge fund mogul] Ray Dalio, you likely have to solicit feedback. Maybe the point was criticism, which is raw feedback, will be rampant. If it can become constructive the business and the individual will gain,” added Shay.

Jennifer Johnson of Raleigh, NC-based Johnson Meeting Group, said NextGen’s attention is split more than ever by communication from different areas (social media from work, family and friends; email from work, family and friends and on-line entertainment." Johnson's advice? "Do SOMETHING noteworthy to grab their e-attention and then try to hold it by being RELEVANT to them. And we cannot have a bunch of 40 and 50 somethings determine what is relevant to the next-generation. We need young people’s input.

Our blog and website have more about this and related topics.

Conclusion

Whether you’re brand new to the workforce or counting the days to your retirement (and handing over the reins), the modern workplace moves faster with more transparency and flexibility than ever before. Longtimers can learn a lot about adaptability, technology and pivoting from their younger colleagues (i.e. reverse mentoring), but NextGen needs to respect not only their elders’ experience, but their ability to think on their feet, speak and present in person and build relationships while unplugged from the grid. As with most things in life, the truth lies somewhere in between the extremes.

Enjoy your friends and family on this special weekend. Best, HB

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TAGS: ADP Global, Ray Dalio, Johnson Meeting Group, Millennials in the workplace

Working Out the Changing Nature of Our Work

Did you see Sally Krawcheck’s post this week about career transitions and the changing nature of work? Yes, that Sally Krawcheck, once one of the highest-ranking women on Wall Street who left Citigroup during the global financial crisis because she clashed with management about doing more to protect clients who’d been burned by investments that Citi sold them. Krawcheck is now the CEO and Co-Founder of Ellevest, a digital investment platform for women, to be launched later this year.

We’re not here to plug Ellevest, whose goal is to close our country’s “gender investing gap.” We’re here to call attention to career agility for employees, business owners and independent contractors alike. Krawcheck’s argues that successful careers will increasingly be built not by climbing the ladder at one organization, but by finding interesting work at many different organizations and building one’s skill base and contacts through strategically-planned lateral moves. Keep this in mind if you or a close colleague or client is considering a career “pivot.”

Most businesses are changing, pivoting and being disrupted at lightning speed. Krawcheck points to “the forces of technology and globalization are fundamentally altering any number of industries; that means what worked for decades won’t be a given any longer, she said. Whether you’re in media, financial services, technology or any other line of work, Krawcheck argues that we have less job security than ever before, but more career flexibility and business startup opportunities thanks to cloud-based computing instead of buying servers, shared workspaces instead of multi-year leases, video-conferencing instead of business travel, crowdfunding instead of venture capital money or bank loans and freelancers instead of full-time hires. We couldn’t agree more.

Krawcheck offers five keys for success in the new world of work and we’ll weigh in on each below:

1. Successful leaders will ditch corner offices as well as a strong, decisive management style. Instead, the will encourage open-mindedness, intellectual flexibility and an interest in understanding others’ perspectives. Our take: All good attributes, but without strong decisive leadership—and having an ultimate decision-maker willing to make tough calls, you are vulnerable to analysis paralysis and institutional inertia that plagues so many academic and not for profit organizations filled with smart, talented people. Also, whether you’re at the helm of a Fortune 500 company or the ground floor of a startup, company leaders need to close the doors to the office from time to time in order to think things through and have private conversations (see #4 below).

2. Embrace a certain intellectual discomfort and a willingness to fail. This one can be tough because Krawcheck argues that females tend to take a failure harder than men do, personalizing it. We agree you have to embrace discomfort and be willing to fail in order to get better—we don’t think women take failure harder than men. Failure’s hard for everyone. We all fail. It’s all about how quickly you can bounce back. Let’s not confuse willingness to talk about failure with feeling the sting of failure, Sally.

3. Get comfortable being criticized. Krawcheck says this is another tough one for women because “so many of us were socialized to prioritize relationships.” We don’t agree. You can’t learn or get better if you don’t receive constructive feedback from your clients, peers, bosses and subordinates, regardless of what your gender is—or theirs.

4. Give yourself the time to really think things through. Amen to that! We agree with Krawcheck that It’s more easily said than done in our hyper-connected 24/7 world. But you’ve got to do it. One thing that works well for us….turn off your email and text messaging SEVERAL TIMES EACH DAY. Unless you work in a hospital, air traffic control tower,  emergency dispatch center or missile control room, for how many things in our work lives really demand an immediate, ASAP, instantaneous response?

Conclusion

Finally, Krawcheck advocates “playing in traffic.” That means going out and engaging with people, getting a feel for a new industry or position. Don’t wait for a headhunter’s call or a colleague to pick up the phone—be proactive, she added. Or, as ancient Roman philosopher, Seneca the Younger famously observed: “Good luck happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

Keep plugging away. Listen to your self and make your own breaks!

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Saluting Great Work by HB Clients

This month marks the 6^th anniversary of the Association Adviser media channel that we created for Naylor, LLC in 2010. What began as a monthly eNewsletter for Naylor’s 11,000 trade association clients and prospects, has morphed into a robust website, blog, social media platform, web TV channel and annual industry benchmarking study with over 1,000 executive directors and CEOs taking part. During that time, Naylor has acquired an event management company, an online career center provider, an association management software company and an online learning solutions company. As Naylor has grown and evolved over the past half dozen years, we’ve been privileged to grow along with it.

But, Naylor isn’t the only HB client evolving and doing great work. In January, we helped Gary Klaben of Chicago-based Coyle Financial Counsel launch his third video blog, Grown Up Money, just for millennials and celebrated our third year helping Wayne, Pennsylvania-based Independence Advisors produce its Independent Thought blog. Meanwhile, Rochester-based Professional Financial Strategies recently launched a new website with a robust video and white paper library. Stephen Haidt, founder of Mobile, Alabama-based Retirement Advisors, Inc. has a new e-book, The Retirement Answer downloadable on his website. 

Paul Carroll, founder of Houston-based Efficient Wealth Management has a new financial planning eBook for United Airlines pilots. Christi Staib of Silver Sail Wealth Management, has a new e-book addressing the financial needs of widows and divorcees and Irvin Schorsch of Pennsylvania Capital Management has a forthcoming book, Reinventing Wealth: More Money, More Memories and More Meaning.

Conclusion

Keep up the great work. Don’t be shy about sharing your personal story, expertise and leadership philosophy with the rest of the world. You never know who might be reading or tuning in.

Our blog and website have more about this and related topics.

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TAGS: Coyle Financial Counsel, Professional Financial Strategies, Independence Advisors, Retirement Advisors Inc

Nice Gig if You Can Get It

NPR linguist Geoff Nunberg, recently anointed the noun “GIG” as the word of the year. Whether you’re a business owner, full-time “monogamous” employee or independent contractor, you’re affected by our increasingly on-demand economy aka, the “1099 economy”, “peer-to-peer economy”, or “freelance nation.” According to the Financial Times our work will be less secure, but a lot more exciting in the future since we have the freedom to make our own schedule and hours, pick the projects that interest us, work from anywhere and try our hands at different trades.

But most of you reading this blog already know about what Nunberg calls "solopreneurs" and "free range humans" with "portfolio careers." You’re entrepreneurs or at least intra-preneurs for your organizations.  Many of you run your own financial advisory practices, media properties or professional associations. You have built your enterprises by hiring the past and brightest independent contractors you can find. In most cases you pay them well, treat them well and refer them well.

If you’re a wealth advisor, chances are your overhead is pretty low, but your earnings are quite high, since you bring in CPAs, estate planning attorneys, tax specialists, planned giving officers and more, depending on each client’s case. If you’re running a media property, you keep the full-time staff low and bring in designers, content shapers, web gurus, social media specialists, independent sales reps, videographers and production people as needed. If you’re running a trade association, you’re full-time staff is low, but you’re a master at wearing multiple hats and bringing in highly talented volunteers and centers of influence from your industry to help on any task imaginable.

See my latest Corner Office profile of Betsy Monseu of The American Coal Council for more on the joys of wearing multiple hats.

 As our client Gary Klaben, of Coyle Financial Counsel posted last week, “The idea is to team up with people who complement your skill set. Don’t try to do it all yourself. In today’s Internet age, it’s never been easier or less expensive to find highly qualified specialists for every task imaginable and to put together a great team.”

Conclusion

Figure out what you really do best (and like to do best) and leave the rest to the experts. You’ll get more done in less time and have more hours in the day for your friends, family and passions. Who knows, one of those passions may turn into your next Gig!

Our blog and website has more about this and related topics.

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TAGS: Gig Economy, solopreneur, Betsy Monseu, American Coal Council, Gary Klaben, Coyle Financial Counsel, portfolio careers, Geoff Nunberg, NPR

Can Anyone Explain the Suspicious Market Sell-Off Since Jan 1?

Like many of you, we’ve been fielding lots of questions lately about stock market turmoil and the global economic slump. While we work with many talented financial advisors and wealth managers, we’re not licensed financial advisors ourselves and don’t pretend to be.

Maybe some of you who are can help explain what’s going on.

From where we sit as individual savers and investors, things shouldn’t be all that bad. To no one’s surprise, The Fed finally raised interest rates a little in early December and it didn’t cause a market meltdown. Throughout 2015, the Middle East remained highly unstable, the Chinese economy slowed dramatically, oil prices plummeted, corporate earnings in the U.S. were mediocre, and the U.S. dollar rose consistently against most other major currencies thus, making our exports more expensive.

OK. We get it.

But what’s really changed since Jan 1?  All these factors were at play long before the calendar flipped over to a new year and most U.S. stock indices ended 2015 flat +/- 1 percent. Why are we down about 10 percent already this year, the worst start to a new year in history?

We’re also confused because the domestic economy—while not great—hasn’t had a single quarter of declining GDP. We believe you need two of those in a row to have a recession, right? Also, the jobless rate fell to an 8-year low of 4.9 percent and the past six months were the best extended period for employee paychecks since the recovery began 6-1/2 years ago. Housing supply reached the lowest level since 2005 and the “quit rate” hit a 9 year high–that’s the percentage of workers who quit their jobs voluntarily to take a new job or who have the confidence to find a new job soon after leaving. Finally, with oil prices at such low levels, shouldn’t U.S. consumers be benefitting from much cheaper prices at the pump and much lower home heating bills?

Conclusion

Again, these are concerns of rational, individual (i.e. non-professional) investors and savers. Please contact us directly if you can share any light from the trenches. We’d love to hear from you.

Have a great Valentine’s Day. Be thankful for the one’s you love.

Our blog and website has more about this and related topics.

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TAGS: bear market, recession, volatility, stock market

Great Content Builds Biz in "Grind It Out" Years

Let’s face it. 2016 hasn’t gotten off to a great start and it’s not likely to be a banner year. Between the global economy, the Fed, the markets, the overvalued dollar, the weather and North Korea acting up again, many are asking for a “re-do.” And it’s only January.

OK. It’s going to be one of those “grind it out” years. One thing that’s cheering us up is the number of you who are using thought leadership content to build your businesses and practices. We’re not talking about selfies, tweets and Vines. We’re talking about relevant, substantive and concise blog posts, mini-articles, videos and eBooks that showcase your expertise, but don’t put your audience to sleep or have them scrambling for the delete key.

How long is enough?

As you might imagine, we get lots of questions about how often to post and how long each post should be. There is no magic number or one-size-fits all solution for business and financial professionals. But the frequency of posting and average length of post may surprise you.

According to research from Orbit Media and Marketing Profs:

·         Three out of five business marketers (59%) consider blogs to be their most valuable channel.

·         Most business bloggers (85%) post at regular intervals—typically 1 to 6 times per week.

·         500 to 1,000 words is the most common length of post (57% agree).

We bet that’s more than you thought. Again, we’re talking about serious business professionals, not celebrity watchers, mass market retailers and cat video enthusiasts.

If you’re new to blogging, start with a once-per week “cadence.” Try to post on the same day each week and keep it to 500 words per post. Don’t worry about which platform or blogging tool to use. Start with the “Publish” tool in LinkedIn and just make sure you have something relevant to say. Always include a photo with your posts--it makes a big difference as an experiment with our longtime client Naylor LLC confirmed.

In these uncertain times, there are still plenty of opportunities, but it won’t be automatic. You’re going to have to earn the business (and keep earning it after you get it). Well-crafted thought leadership content—i.e. informative without being salesy--is one of the best ways to stay top of mind with clients and prospects without being pushy.

Conclusion

Even Bill Gates, a chief architect of the technology revolution, is a big advocate of reading and the written word. “[Reading] is one of the chief ways that I learn, and has been since I was a kid,” he mentioned in a recent NY Times interview.  “I visit interesting places, meet with scientists and watch a lot of lectures online. But reading is still the main way that I both learn new things and test my understanding.” Gates is also a prolific blogger. And what does he blog about in Gates Notes?

The books he’s reading.

Our blog and website has more about this and related topics.

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TAGS: Bill Gates, blogging frequency and length of post, thought leadership content

If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try Again (200 More Times)

We were going over our web analytics the other day and were surprised to discover that our recent post Your First Draft Sucks—So What was one of the most popular.

If ever there was a time to be making mistakes, procrastinating and not having your thoughts together it would be now. The Holidays are over. Work’s piling up. The weather is pretty crappy in most parts of North America. There’s not much to look forward to except tax season, paying off credit cards and fielding calls from nervous clients as the financial markets drop days after day without a plausible reason.

No one really likes to do tasks over and over again. But that’s how all the great athletes, artists, musicians, actors, and business minds do it. SO why can’t you? We rarely nail it on the first, second or even third try. But each time we rewrite, we’d like to think it’s better—at least less bad. Full Disclosure: This certainly wasn’t the first draft of today’s post.

Pros get it done on low-motivation days

You’re a professional. Your clients trust you to lead the way and be there for them 24/7/365 with words of wisdom, or at least a sympathetic ear. As we mentioned in last week’s post, basketball great Julius Erving once said, “Being a professional is doing the things you love to do, on the days you don't feel like doing them.”

In this short video clip Nobel laureate in Economics, Eugene Fama, tells Dimensional Fund Advisors co-CEO, David Booth that it often takes him several hundred drafts to get a paper or presentation right, even when working with his longtime collaborator, Kenneth French.

Fama tells his students, “Don’t give something to me until it’s as good as you think it can be. And then I will try to improve it.” In order to know how people think about things you can’t just read it, argues Fama. Otherwise everyone could do that. “You really have to listen to them. There has to back and forth feedback.”

Conclusion

Clients often ask us what the secret is to writing clear powerful copy under tight deadlines, or how we take mountains of data, notes and audio files and turn it into a short article or post that gets noticed. There is no secret. We just do it over and over and over again, perhaps a little faster and with more purpose than the average person. And when it’s not going well—everyone has days like that—we may know a little earlier in the process when to trash a draft, chuck a headline and start over without torturing ourselves for failing to produce a final draft or X-hundred words before lunchtime.

Celebrate what you accomplished at the end of the day—don’t dwell on what didn’t get done.

Our blog and website has more about this and related topics.

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Is Free Time Overrated?

Being a professional is doing the things you love to do, on the days you don't feel like doing them.

The Holidays are over. You’re swamped at work. Bills are piling up and it’s still getting dark by 5pm in most parts of North America. “If only I had a few more hours in the day,” you think to yourself, “I could catch up on everything that didn’t get done last month.”

Nice thought. But, unless you have a magic genie bottle or a highly sophisticated app that lets you manufacture time out of thin air, you’re out of luck and probably “pissing into the wind” as my college track coach used to say.

We’re not workaholics here, but we try to keep our clients out ahead of DOS (dangers, opportunities and threats). Hopefully you got an early start on your New Year’s resolutions as we recommended last Thanksgiving. Even so, you’re probably feeling a lot like three steps backward for every one step forward. That’s to be expected. Now is the time to dig in not to procrastinate. As Hall of Fame basketball legend, Julius Erving once said, “Being a professional is doing the things you love to do, on the days you don't feel like doing them.”

In a recent study and related article in the NY Times, Stanford University sociology professor, Christobal Young argues that that time is a “network good.” In other words, its value depends on the number of others who have the same schedule of time available. “It’s not just that we have a shortage of free time; it’s also that our free time, in order to be satisfying, often must align with that of our friends and loved ones.”

 

The week after I graduated from college, I headed West for some of the best skiing of my life—late May, deep powder, bright sun in Snowbird and Alta, Utah. I literally had the mountains—and Cottonwood Canyon--to myself.  No lift lines. Dirt cheap prices and great conditions. A skier’s paradise, right? Not exactly. Like I said, I literally had the place to myself, and since this was in the days before smartphones and selfies, I had nobody to share the experience with. Most of my friends spent a cold rainy drunken week at the Jersey shore—eight to a room—in a rundown motel, and probably had more fun.

As Young observed, “We face a problem, of coordination. Work-life balance is not something that you can solve on your own.” Same goes for telecommuting, flex-time, job-sharing, etc. We’re freer than ever to work where we want to work, how we want to work and when we want to work. But we’re also expected to be “on call” 24/7/365. There’s no question that workplace flexibility has many benefits. But Young research “suggests that a disadvantage of these efforts is that they may lead us even further from a weekend-like system of coordinated social time. They threaten, ultimately, to exacerbate the decline in civic engagement and social contact known as the ‘bowling alone’ problem.
Or skiing alone.

Conclusion

Work smarter, not harder. But make sure everyone else in your life is on the right page.

Our blog has more as well as the FREE Resources page of our website.

Tags: work life balance, free time over-rated, Julius Erving, Christobal Young


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Use Images to Sell Your content, but Be Smart About Visual Choices

Is a picture really worth 1,000 words? That’s debatable, but there’s no doubt that adding visuals to your blog posts, newsletters, case studies, research reports--and even your tweets--will substantially improve engagement. If you can include images of people, that will push the engagement needle even further than simply images of things and places. So forget about writing and just publish photos and video content right?

Not so fast.

Since 2010, we’ve been co-publishing a newsletter, website, magazine and annual research report for trade association execs with our client, Naylor, LLC. It’s all under the Association Adviser brand. Last month, in the Association Adviser eNewsletter, we decided to see for ourselves if images really made a different. As Naylor’s Brianna Lawson explained in The Power of Visual Content in Association Communications, we published two versions of the monthly newsletter--each version had identical content, but one version included images and the other did not. We ran an A/B test in which each email was first sent to a small number of subscribers. Then, our mailing system measured which version earned more engagement in terms of opens and clicks.

The result? The email with images garnered 33 percent more clicks to articles on our website.

The newsletter with images was also more likely to be forwarded and more likely to be shared via social media. Naylor repeated the exercise with some of its own clients and found similar results.

According to HubSpot, twice as many people prefer emails with images than prefer text only emails (65% vs. 35%). Tweets with images receive 18 percent more clicks, 89 percent more favorites, and 150 percent more retweets than text-only tweets. And according to Social Bakers, which looks at the top 10 percent of posts made by more than 30,000 brand pages. Facebook posts with photos saw the most engagement – accounting for 87 percent of total interactions.

Conclusion

People like to look at people and 90 percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual, according to Market Domination Media. But don’t go overboard. As we’ll discuss in next week’s post, new research from Carnegie Mellon University, the brain makes mistakes because it applies incorrect inner beliefs, or internal models, about how the world works. So, take the time to find the right images to complement all the hard work you put into your writing and presentations. Just as a stunning photo, can keep people interested in a poorly written article or post, a dull or poor choice of images will kill potential interest in a brilliantly crafted post.

Have a happy Holiday and think before you post.

Best, HB

Our blog has more as well as the FREE Resources page of our website.

Tags: adding images to email, Hubspot, Carnegie Mellon University, Social Bakers, Market Domination Media

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