Year: 2010

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Your Best Elevator Pitch

Simple Steps to Create a Dynamic Marketing Message

How do you cut through the sheer marketing clutter and make your mark on your prospects’ minds? Create one distinct, memorable message that you use at every opportunity.

Core Marketing Message

Every business needs to distill their message down to an effective core marketing message that each employee can deliver comfortably at a cocktail party, and becomes the foundational message in company literature, videos; essentially, all advertising or promotion. It is also called your elevator pitch, and it focuses on solving your customers’ pain or problem.

Info You Need to Prepare to Develop Your Elevator Pitch

You can spend days or even weeks in this process, but we’re going to make it really easy for you. To get right down to the point, first answer these questions – IN WRITING:

  1. Profile your ideal target customer/customer. Include demographics and lifestyle choices.
  2. What PROBLEM, PAIN, or challenge does this target customer face?
  3. What SOLUTION does your product or service deliver for this problem or pain?
  4. What PROOF do you have, such as a customer success story?
  5. What makes you different from your competition? (It MUST be a difference that matters to your customer.

How to Develop Your Elevator Pitch

REMEMBER THIS: DO NOT start talking about your product or service and what you do. Read that sentence again. INSTEAD, start talking about your customers and how you help solve their problem and ease their pain.

Imagine that you’re asked, “What do you do?” Here’s how to respond:

  1. Start with who you work with; “I work with small business owners and entrepreneurs…”
  2. Continue by telling about their pain or problem; “…who need help taking their business to the next level…”
  3. PAUSE. WAIT FOR A QUESTION OR RESPONSE.
  4. Tell them about a customer you’ve worked with and the results you achieved; “…For example, I’ve worked with a 5 year old family business that needed a business plan to raise money for expansion…”
  5. This could lead to more conversation about problems & solutions.
  6. Tell them your solution and what makes you different; “…we get very good results, and have been told by venture capital investors that our plans are among the best they’ve ever seen.”

Now you have opened the conversation to focus on problems, and even if they can’t benefit, they may know someone who can!

This approach is a natural to develop the company’s core marketing message for all advertising and promotion. We’ll cover that in a later post.

What’s YOUR elevator pitch?

(Thanks to Action Plan Marketing for the concept and inspiration.)

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman: With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her customers as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

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@PigSpotter

The-twitter-icon

A rogue Twitter user is making waves in South Africa by posting alerts about speed traps set by police. The user, who posts under the name @PigSpotter, has angered local authorities so much that they have charged the person responsible with “defamation, impairing the dignity of another person and ‘defeating the ends of justice.'” CNN was able to land an interview with the author, who had this to say about his motives:

“I am surprised by the amount of media attention. It was never the reason for starting PigSpotter,” said the man, who has more than 17,000 Twitter followers. “Now that police corruption is in the limelight, maybe we can turn the negative into a positive, by working with the police, rooting out the bad apples/corrupt members, we can restore faith into the police of South Africa.”

The police are not making things any easier on themselves, responding with a quote that’s a classic example of repeating negative allegations in the context of denying them, a crisis management no-no:

Mnisi (spokesman for the Ministry of South African Police) denied the charges of police corruption. “We are not out there to punish people,” he said. “We are not being hard or inhumane.”

One person’s campaign can be another’s crisis, and in this case the person (or people) responsible for the @PigSpotter account is causing serious headaches for police with this quest to expose corruption in South Africa. If anyone actually needed more proof, this case is a perfect example of just how much Twitter can amplify a single voice.

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc. , an international crisis management consultancy, and author of Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training.]

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Asking For The Major Gift – Part 1 of 3

a-cultivator-soliciting-for-funds-from-donors.

One of the things I find most frustrating about teaching classes in fundraising is the frequency in which people cry about not knowing the best/easiest way to ask for the gift and/or ask when/where will be the next class in “How to Ask.”

O.K. I understand. A significant percentage of volunteers/leaders who are involved in fundraising for their NPOs are afraid/ashamed/embarrassed to ask others for money, even when it’s to help people who really need the help!!

My approach to Asking for The Gift is simple: Don’t ask until the donor is ready to say, “Yes.” If the Ask is done at that point, the cultivator/solicitor knows the dollar figure for which s/he is going to ask … and the donor should have that same figure in mind.

Wow !! Sounds like magic, but it isn’t….

In my postings on Prospect Cultivation (see: https://staging.management.org/blogs/fundraising-for-nonprofits/2010/08/31/what-is-major-donorprospect-cultivation/) and Prospect Evaluation (see: https://staging.management.org/blogs/ fundraising-for-nonprofits/2010/09/07/ evaluating-your-major-gifts-prospects/) I indicated that the person who does the cultivation is the person who will eventually do the Ask. And, since this person was close to (or became close to) the prospect, s/he also needed to be involved in that prospect’s evaluation.

Since the cultivator has (ideally) transferred to the prospect the same feelings for and commitment to the NPO’s mission/programs and the interest in being recognized for his/her gift, when the time comes to Ask, both the cultivator and prospect should be at the same place intellectually and emotionally.

As part of the cultivation process, the cultivator has talked about his/her support of the NPO, how it’s made a difference and how good s/he feels about having given and having been recognized for his/her gift(s).

There has been discussion about the NPO’s programs (current and planned) and what funding will be needed to provide for all the people who are being and will be served.

This process is not intended to be sneaky. If the prospect isn’t aware that s/he is being cultivated and that an Ask is in the future, then s/he is probably in a coma.
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Watch for Parts 2 & 3 of this topic – Next Tuesday and Friday

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Have a comment or a question about starting, evaluating or expanding your fundraising program? With over 30 years of counseling in major gifts, capital campaigns, bequest programs and the planning studies to precede these three, I’ll be pleased to answer your questions. Contact me at AskHank@Major-Capital-Giving.com
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Have you seen The Fundraising Series of ebooks ??
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If you would like to comment/expand on the above, or would just like to offer your thoughts on the subject of this posting, we encourage you to “Leave a Reply” at the bottom of this page, click on the feedback link at the top of the page, or send an email to the author of this posting.

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Moving Into Management

Two-professionals-talking-about-their-career

How can you ramp up quickly and start getting results?

There are few career moments as exciting, and these days as perilous, as being promoted from an individual contributor to a manager. Here are seven career tactics with quotes from professional who have successfully moved into management.

1. Begin your transition before you start the job.
What are the key challenges? Which functions are strong, and which ones need to be overhauled? What are your expectations in the first month, after 6 months, within a year? Use that information to develop an action plan from day one.

“The interview process is where you start. That’s where you begin asking questions to find out what it will take to be successful.”

2. Acknowledge what you don’t know.
Identify those around you who are the experts and don’t be afraid to lean on them. No one expects an incoming manager to know everything. And there is nothing more off-putting to a future team than a know it all boss.

“I had lots of credibility as a manufacturing engineer. But suddenly I was responsible for tool design, fuselage definition, all kinds of areas that weren’t in my background. I had to get up to speed fast.”

3. Be an elephant hunter not an ant stomper.
You can’t fix everything at once despite the pressures that are on you as the new manager. Everyday you must go out hunting elephants, those high priority goals, rather than stomping ants, those tasks that are quick kills but do not put much meat on the table.

“Typically, you can’t do everything you want to do, so you need to make some strategic choices. This is where you begin to align your goals around your organization’s key initiatives.”

4. Target a few early wins.
Nothing succeeds like success. It’s critical for a new manager to create momentum during the transition. Pick some problems the organization has not been able to solve and figure out a way to fix them quickly.

“I didn’t want to solve world hunger in the first three months, but I was looking for a couple of things that would pay immediate dividends. Where I could get the attention of my boss and show her I can be effective.”

5. Keep an eye on the clock.
Make sure your time is used to its best advantage. If you’re like most hard-charging managers, you’ve got a well-articulated to-do list. Now take another look: Where’s your stop-doing list?

“We’ve all been told that managers make things happen and that’s true. But it’s also true that good managers distinguish themselves by their discipline to stop doing anything and everything that doesn’t fit.”

6. Fix your mistakes faster than you make them.
Taking over a top job exposes a new leader to all kinds of pitfalls. Accept that you can’t know everything in your first six months and can’t insulate you from making mistakes.

“The key is to assess yourself and your progress and to be prepared to make your own course corrections as you go along”.

7. Balance the big picture with front line views.
Go where the action is. Get out of your office and walk the shop, retail, plant floors. Talk with your front-line people, your peers, your customers and even your suppliers. They generally will give you the “real” scoop rather than what you tend to hear from your direct reports .

“During my first six months, I visited more than 50 stores and met with more than 500 team members. I knew they could tell me, better than headquarters, what the company needed to do in order to keep on growing.”

Your experience moving into management.

What lessons have you learned that would help the newly promoted? I would enjoy hearing from you.

Do you want to develop Career Smarts?

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Women in Leadership (by Kathy Curran)

Diverse successful businesswomen smiling and walking together in modern workplace

In his last post, Steve Wolinski amplified the conversation I started this month on women and leadership. He ended his blog entry with an assertion based on recent research that shows while more and more women have reached the ranks of middle management, still woefully few of us are represented at the top. His conclusion was that it seems that women are not perceived as possessing enough of the more so-called masculine traits, such as “being keenly focused on the financial bottom line, capacity for critical and strategic thinking, and the ability to make risky and independent decisions.”

I would argue that it is actually more complicated than that. In her 2010 book, Developing Women Leaders, Anna Marie Valerio presents a compelling case regarding the factors that impact women’s rise to the top. Many of the issues relate to gender stereotypes and how they affect how a woman is perceived as a leader. She offers a number of strategies that HR professionals, managers and female leaders can undertake to address and surmount these perceptions.

Valerio groups personality attributes under two broad categories, agentic, as Steve mentioned, a term which is usually associated with masculine traits, and communal which is usually associated with feminine traits. Research shows that there is little gender difference in fact in terms of whether men or women possess greater or lesser amounts of agentic or communal traits: we are about equal. Managerial behaviors are often associated with agentic qualities. However, when women display too many of these agentic behaviors we are likely to be seen as too aggressive or strident, and when we display too many communal behaviors (listening, sensitivity, preference for harmony, giving, etc.) we are seen as too soft. Herein lays a double bind!! Women cannot simply display assertive behavior, independent thinking, because it may be to our detriment. So, I wonder what is really at play in the research that Steve quotes – do these women actually have less of those desired traits? Or are they carefully treading the double bind, because they lose if they are perceived as having too few of them or too many of them?

Here’s the advice, first for women leaders themselves, and then for HR professionals and these leaders’ managers. A strategy women leaders can employ is to use a feminine typified communal strength – a penchant for collaboration – as a basis for our leadership style. For example, a collaborative leadership would call for listening to others and taking their opinions into account (communal), as well as then moving the conversation forward to action in a facilitative style (agentic), rather then displaying the more masculine typified decision making style of command and control. For those of us for whom this may not come naturally, this may require skill development, but it will likely be perceived as effective, and is, all in all, a desired trait for a leader to have anyway.

Other advice for HR professionals and managers comes from research that shows that women often receive fewer stretch assignments than men, and also get less performance shaping feedback. Whether it’s based on the feminine culture’s somewhat conservative attitude toward risk taking, or a masculine reluctance to give out these assignments to people (women) who do it differently than them, women are often not picked for these leadership-skill developing assignments. Coupled with this, women often receive less feedback, either because men are afraid of how women might take it (will they cry?) or that they might be perceived as being discriminatory or perhaps harassing if they try. Therefore, managers and HR professionals concerned about women’s leadership need to look for ways to make sure women get these assignments. They also need to make sure that women get the feedback they need, either about the assignment itself or just in general about their performance at work. (Valerio, 2009) Bottom line, promoting women’s leadership is also about promoting diversity – in thought, style and execution. And other research shows that corporations who avail themselves of this gender diversity at the highest ranks of the corporation, including the boardroom, reap tangible rewards: they report these corporations perform better with respect to profits as a percentage of revenue, assets, and stockholder’s equity by a range of between 18% and 69%. (Cohen and Kornfeld, 2006). So, not only is women’s leadership a matter of gender equity, it’s just plain good business.

Cohen, R and L. Kornfeld, “Women Leaders Boost Profits,” Barron’s, Sept. 4, 2006

Valerio, Anna Marie, Developing Women Leaders, 2009, John Wiley and Sons, Malden, MA.

To learn more about Kathy Curran, PhD, and her upcoming workshop, Using Power in Relationships with Women and Men at Work, go to her website at www.powerandleadership.com or contact her at 651-293-9448 begin_of_651-293-9448 or kcurran@powerandleadership.com

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5 Tips To Improving Team Communication

Work-colleagues-having-a-tea-break-during-work-hours

In our 19 years of helping teams develop ‘communication’ has always been listed as one of the areas team members would most like to improve. In the case of the crew on US Airways Flight 1549 which successfully ditched into the Hudson River in 2009, it was the difference between life and death.

Is communication important?
Is communication important?

Despite all our high tech gadgetry it seems we could all be more productive if only we could communicate more effectively. Here are a five techniques we’ve discovered: Continue reading “5 Tips To Improving Team Communication”

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Carrying the Stones – Empathy

Message about empathy on a whiteboard

Well how did you do last week listening for people’s feelings and needs? Have you noticed when you’ve carried someone’s stone that wasn’t yours to carry?

The final part of this blog series is Empathy- How do we authentically and honestly express Empathy for others as they are dealing with problems and struggles?

In my classes on Communication and Emotional Intelligence, I have my participants examine the difference between Empathy vs. Sympathy. It’s an important distinction when it comes to hearing your co-workers’ problems.

Empathy is about understanding their problems. As you practice listening for feelings and needs, you seek to understand what is going on for them. You are not necessarily trying to fix their problem for them. Empathy does not mean to share their feelings with them, only that you understand what their feelings are. You don’t have to agree with their feelings. This is important. Empathy is not about agreeing with or liking how the other person feels. It’s about staying present to their feelings in an open and understanding way when they are sharing those feelings or expressing them.

Sympathy means to feel the same feelings as another person. You share their feelings. If they are hurt or upset, you are hurt or upset. Sympathy can be tricky if you want to show that you care about someone. Often people will try to suck you into their pity party. They want you to agree with them about how awful a situation is.

You may genuinely feel how they feel about a situation. Empathy is often described as walking in another person’s shoes. With this view of empathy we might feel how they feel. If so, honor that. Just pay attention. It may be that your co-worker is trying to bait you into having an ally in their pain. You can decide if you want to go there with them!

Sympathy may drag you into their emotional problems and lead to you joining them feeling crummy. You can play the “aint-it-awful game” with them if you want. Just know you will start carrying some heavy stones that way.

When you want to refrain from taking on another’s problem, yet listen empathically as they vent, Marshall Rosenberg suggests asking a question “What’s alive in you right now in this situation”? This question often directs attention to someone’s own feelings rather than on what another person is doing to them. I’ve also found this question helpful for myself when I’ve felt upset about something. Asking ‘What’s Alive in me?’, helps me to get more clear on what I am feeling and needing in a troubling situation. From there I can take steps to meet those needs in a caring and understanding way.

See how you can be present to someone who is struggling this week. Notice if you feel an obligation to share those same feelings as your co-worker. Feel what it feels like for you to simply listen to understand what your co-worker is going through. Show up in a caring authentic way with them and allow them to express their feelings without trying to fix, fade, or share their feelings.

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For more resources, see our Library topic Spirituality in the Workplace.

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Linda is an author, speaker, coach, and consultant. Go to her website www.lindajferguson.com to read more about her work, view video clips of her talks, and find out more about her book “Path for Greatness: Spirituality at Work” available on Amazon.

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Coaching Tip – Stay in Motion

Man running on roadside

During a recent coaching session, my client and I discussed how the principle “a body in motion stays in motion” could assist her in getting her project completed.

We set up a plan where she worked on a specific aspect of the project each day until it was completed. She came to the realization that she was much more efficient in doing small sections of the project daily rather than trying to tackle big sections intermittently.

She learned that it took too much time and energy to get reoriented to where she left off after too much time had elapsed. It felt “jerky” – like she was always starting over. So she stuck with it to keep the momentum.

How about you? How do you stay in motion?

For more resources, see the Library topic Personal and Professional Coaching.

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Pam Solberg-Tapper MHSA, PCC – I spark entrepreneurial business leaders to set strategy, take action, and get results. How can I help you? Contact me at CoachPam@cpinternet.com ~ Linkedin ~ 218-340-3330

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Get Updated

Close-Up-Shot-of-Keys-Spelling-Update-on-a-Red-Surface

Chief financial officers have dealt with auditors since the days of the abacus. Smart chief technology officers bring in friendly hackers to test the ability of firewalls to withstand cyber attacks. Facilities managers conduct evacuation drills.

However, aside from airlines and a few industries susceptible to high-profile incidents, it is rare to see mandated, periodic reviews of a company’s crisis communications plan.

This quote, from a PRSA article by Dave Armon, is an excellent way to explain a phenomenon that confounds crisis managers everywhere. Although businesses see the need to test or double-check themselves in many areas, crisis communications plans often sit untouched long after crucial details have become outdated, greatly reducing or completely negating their effectiveness.

As communication options evolve, not only must plans be updated, but employees also need to be trained to take advantage of new platforms and techniques. These days the name of the game is Web-based and social media, and you’d better believe that any organization that has neglected to adapt their planning is taking a hammering when it comes time for crisis management.

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc. , an international crisis management consultancy, and author of Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training.]

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Email Marketing Tips

Email Blocks on Gray Surface

How to Design Emails That Work

Many of us feel inundated and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of emails that show up in our inbox every day. However, email is still a powerful marketing tool. In order to capture your audience’s attention, use these tips to boost your email open rates and begin to engage your readers.

Craft Effective Email Subject Lines

Remember that people scan for interesting information. Like newspaper or magazine headlines, if you don’t grab their attention and convey the right message in the subject line, consider them lost.

Things you can do that make email subject lines really work:

  1. Keep your subject line under 40 characters. That’s an effective quick glance for the reader, but even more importantly, most email browsers will cut off anything over 40 characters.
  2. Use sentence case, rather than all caps, which conveys screaming and low credibility.
  3. Concisely state your offer (the benefit to the reader). Then, in the email copy, deliver exactly what you promised. You must build trust in each and every subject line, or you will lose your reader forever to the dreaded ‘unsubscribe’ button.

How to Write Effective Email Content

Online marketers are becoming very good at honing the craft of creating effective emails. Best practices are emerging, which focus on content, format and style.

Just like everything else in the marketing world, email best practices are evolving fast, but the best performing emails integrate some basics that increase click throughs and conversions:

  • Place some of your most important content in the first two sentences. Readers will give you 2-3 sentences, but if they don’t find value almost immediately, they will delete it.
  • Design the spacing in easy-to-grasp chunks (like this post!) Use headings, subheads, bullet points, short paragraphs, and white space.
  • Personalize your email. Many email platforms make this easy.
  • Include images, but no more than 20% of the entire space. Always include image tags or titles, so if the image doesn’t come through to the reader, they can still grasp the idea.
  • Always include links back to your site or source, and test them before sending the email. (You’d be surprised at how many folks don’t take the time to test links!)
  • Proof read it slowly and carefully. Even if you are in a hurry. Typos undermine your professionalism and credibility. Then have someone else proof read it, too.

(Many thanks to www.VerticalResponse.com for the inspiration for this post.)

What email tips make your campaigns more successful?

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman: With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com