Month: June 2013

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A Targeted Sales Letter Can Work Magic for Direct Marketing

Hand slipping a white paper into a brown envelope

Guest Author: Jan Hill

Targeted Sales Letter

Photo Credit: http://mrg.bz/L74uGu

Direct mail marketing need not be expensive or complicated. According to Forbes, a simple letter can be extremely powerful, all by itself. Whether you are planning to send a physical letter or an email, the elements of a successful sales letter stay the same.

When Letters Are Your Best Bet

There are times when a sales letter is most effective. One is when you notice that certain customers have stopped being your customers. A simple “We miss you and want you back” letter can encourage them to come back to you where an email may not have the same personal feeling and individualized effect. Conversely, an email can be scheduled to arrive in your customer’s inbox at a time that can maximize its effectiveness, so your approach will depend on your product or service and campaign goals.

According to Deliver magazine, if you’ve got a story to tell and it is going to take more than a few words, a sales letter is the way to go, especially if your product or service is costly — big purchases require more persuasion than small ones. Reply cards, coupons, a bulky item (to encourage that the mailer get opened), and customer testimonials can and should accompany your letter to increase its effectiveness.

Emailed sales letters are best when timing is crucial. For example, if you sell food products it might make sense to send an email around 3pm, when your target audience may be experiencing post-lunch low blood sugar and snacking might be front and center in their mind. Or, you might want to target customers in advance of a known event, like sending a sales email about stocking up on cyclist clothing before the largest bike ride of the year. Email sales letters pair nicely with online storefronts and impulse purchasing.

Introducing a new business? You need a letter to engage your target in your story. You can also share updates about your products or services and offer discounts with a well-crafted sales letter.

How to Write a Winning Letter for Direct Marketing Success

Tony Attwood of Hamilton House Mailings offers some tips for writing effective sales letters. First of all, there’s the headline. It should be powerful, get the reader’s attention, and be placed about one-fourth of the way down the page, where the eyes naturally fall.

Make sure your sales letter follows good design practices and has a positive visual impact. There are many sales letter templates available that will incorporate your company logo, branding, and colors to give the document your personal touch.

A sales letter should be easy to read, using short paragraphs of two or three sentences each, including lots of white space at the margins and between paragraphs. It should always be written to an individual, not a group, and have a tone meant to engage your readers in a conversation. It should sound like you do, casual and informal, not stiff, stilted, and filled with bizspeak.

Sales letters need to have staying power, according to Microsoft Business Hub. You need to make your letter memorable and encourage the reader to tuck it away for future reference. You can quickly build trust by placing an endorsement from a former client or associate at the top of your letter to quickly create interest.

Because many readers are skimmers, the first few words of each paragraph need to draw the reader in by addressing problems and offering a solution — “One argument might be…,” or, “The best way to solve this problem is…,” or “Potential benefits are…”

Don’t Forget Your Conclusion

Hopefully your letter has done the job of convincing your readers that they need your product or service. Now you need a good, persuasive closing, and a strong call to action, telling the readers what they should do next — call or email you, or say that you’ll get in touch with them. Then make sure you follow up by doing what you said you’d do.

A call to action should clearly state what you want your readers to do; make the action easy by including order blanks, postcards, or postage-paid envelopes. If it’s an email letter, make sure to include appropriate links to more information or contact forms. Provide a date by which you want the contact to respond; and give them a benefit to stimulate action. This benefit, sometimes referred to as a “clincher,” appears appropriately at the end of your sales letter. It serves to motivate your readers and emphasizes how your product or service will benefit them.

Author Bio:

Jan Hill is a freelance journalist who writes for VistaprintDeals.com, the official source for Vistaprint coupons for small businesses across the globe. Jan has covered marketing topics for many newspapers, magazines and business sites over the last 10 years.

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A Response to Leaders and Trainers

a-trainer-with-trainees-in-a-boardroom

Learn & LeadI received a comment on one of my blog articles in which I think the reader totally misunderstood me, and I certainly bear some responsibility for not being clear. A case of bad communication certainly. I should begin by telling you he agreed with something I knew I didn’t say and I couldn’t leave it hanging. I may like this response to his comment maybe even a little more than the original article, The Anatomy of a Trainer. Sometimes writers aren’t fond of everything they write and sometimes they surprise themselves with a very creative piece. Hope you like this one. It’s short and sweet.

Although the title may seem to be misleading, it really isn’t. I talk about leaders and trainers throughout. When I responded to his comment, this was my response:

“I think you misunderstood my basic premise. Sorry that it has taken me so long to get to this.

“For the most part, I am saying that trainers can be located anywhere in the organization. We are not all created equal. Nor are organizations.

“I do not always agree a subject matter expert (SME) is the best choice of a trainer. Having an SME standing by to answer questions and clarify points and using the trainer more as a facilitator works best. If the SME is not a good communicator, he or she is likely to give too much information and literally gag the audience.

“I did start out my piece by using the same places where leadership may be found–the idea being that trainers are often found that way, too, and may often exhibit leadership qualities. In fact, I have written pieces that encourage trainers to be leaders in their own organization, to take initiative, to motivate employees, to advise the boss; after all, the trainer represents the boss, the very image of boss’ vision, every time he or she stands in front to train.

“Now, I have students who would agree with you about online learning and training themselves rather than being in a classroom. That depends on so many variables. How devoted the student is to learning. How good the program is. What about retention? Is the program memorable enough over time?

“Some subjects where little has to be retained and is of minor interest (usually box-checking) are perfect for a packaged program, and we’ve had them around for years in one format or another. If the online learning involves you actually performing the task you are learning, then it is beneficial. There are some that use writing discussions. What about those who don’t write so well; they are disadvantaged. Again, we have to talk about retention.

“Bad classroom training gets old quickly; good classroom training, which is dynamically presented and involves the trainees in various tasks, can actually be fun.

“The major point to take away is: not every training session has to conform to any particular form except that which best suits the subject you are training about. Something to think about. Trainers teach leadership. Can leaders teach training? Training leaders and trainers to lead works best. In my humble opinion.”

Happy Training.

That’s all for now. These are my words and opinions. Please feel free to disagree and comment, or contact me. If you’re interested in more of my points of view–my Cave Man way of looking at things, I have a website where you can find other items I have written. For more information on my peculiar take on training, check out my best selling The Cave Man Guide To Training and Development, and for a look at a world that truly needs a reality check, see my novel about the near future, Harry’s Reality! Meanwhile, Happy Training.

For more resources about training, see the Training library.

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Motivating Employees: Maslow vs. Machiavelli

team motivated by their job

All managers and organizations have their philosophies about how to motivate employees and manage their teams. Some seek to create cooperation and loyalty. Others rely more on the competitive spirit to get things done. And the truth is different approaches can work, but it’s important to understand what kind of work environment you’re creating with your approach. So the question is: Are you more Maslow or Machiavelli.

Are You More Maslow or Machiavelli?
These two paradigms are familiar to many in the business world, but they represent very different ways of managing people.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs tells us that people have certain requirements that have to be met before they can be truly fulfilled. In the workplace, this theory demands attending to the needs of each employee. Making enough money to live, job security, belonging to a team, excelling at a job, and doing meaningful work are all motivating factors. The idea is that if employees are happy at work, they’ll be more creative and produce more.

The Machiavellian style is very different. It states that it is better to be feared than loved. Rules are strict and punishments are harsh. Employees are motivated by fear of losing their jobs, but also by the yen to beat the competition. It produces a program of survival of the fittest that attracts people who can think on their feet and get the job done regardless of circumstances. And it’s an efficient way of shedding dead weight.

Which Model is Better for Business?
We all know of instances where both styles are used. Most lists of the best places to work are full of companies that take a more Maslow-oriented approach. Google is often at the top of these lists with a huge sports complex, subsidized massages, free food, and a company mission statement that everyone seems to be able to get behind. And who can argue with Google’s success?

But we’ve all seen glimpses into the white collar marketing and financial worlds where productivity means survival. You’re either rising or falling and every coworker is vying for the same promotion you are. These companies have impressive balance sheets of their own and it’s obvious why the best and brightest would embrace a chance to shoot for the stars.

Maslow’s approach is great for building team unity, loyalty, and stability. But it’s susceptible to employee complacency and cliché, in-the-box thinking. A Machiavellian regime can be very effective to push employees to great heights of creativity and production at an individual level. But know they’re only on board as long as your goals are aligned with theirs.

So which way is better? That depends on your goals. Maslow’s approach is much better at promoting strong teams. This is important if your business relies on a great deal of cooperation. It also gives you a chance to groom future leaders who you expect to stick around for the long haul. The Machiavellian way is effective where individual performance is key. Employees may not work cooperatively but they can learn by seeing how others succeed … or fail.

Can There Be Balance?
The truth is, most managers recognize the need for a balanced approach. We use a combination of policies designed to build employees up and light a fire under them when they need it. If we do this well, unity and security can coexist with vigilance and audacious creativity. The key is to find a way to strike this balance without becoming wildly inconsistent. It takes wisdom to know when to give and when to take away — especially as markets and technologies, and therefore work policies, change.

So can a manager consistently be output oriented without forgetting the value of human assets? … Balance tenure with performance? … Promote teamwork and individual excellence at the same time? One thing is certain — it’s easier said than done.

—

Matthew Goyette, MBA
www.steton.com
Email

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Red Robin Blows off Social Media Crisis Management

happy-friends-using-social-media-with-their-smartphone

Online reputation issues can be a double-edged sword

Not a week goes by recently that we don’t see an organization that’s in need crisis management after releasing a new commercial or web video that is CLEARLY going to press the buttons of one group or another.

The latest is an ad, from burger chain Red Robin, that’s stirred up vegetarians because of a Mom-type character’s sarcastic line, “They even have a garden burger, just in case your teenage daughter is going through a ‘phase.'”

In browsing the Red Robin Facebook, we saw a whole lot of comments like these:

redrobin post3 redrobin post2 redrobin post1

The frequency of these “accidental” reputation crises begins to raise another question…are companies inciting drama on purpose? It’s certainly not a new tactic, and it’s a proven, highly effective way to generate conversation about your brand, as well as grab anywhere from a couple hundred to tens of thousands of new followers. It’s also a risky one that can quickly backfire if you don’t have the amount of support, or as large a reputation cushion, as you thought. In this case, while there is certainly a hefty contingent of Red Robin supporters defending the organization, many of the negative posters on social media are piling on to discussions of the commercial with other complaints, like dirty tables or poor service, that would probably otherwise have gone unvoiced.

As for Red Robin? The organization doesn’t sound too upset, only replying to a handful of social media posters with, ““… our intent was to indeed promote some of our different menu offerings with our Gardenburger ad, and we appreciate you sharing your feedback here,” hardly a heartfelt apology. In the end, the company may have analyzed stakeholder reactions and decided that losing a percentage of their already-marginal vegetarian customers is nothing compared to pulling in equal or higher numbers of burger-hungry carnivores while reinforcing the loyalty of others.

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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, author of Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management and Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training. Erik Bernstein is Social Media Manager for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

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More Direct Mail: Bequests III

White envelope on a brown desk

In May I helped you write your direct mail bequest letter.

This month, tips on what to do with your letter.

If your budget won’t allow direct mail, don’t worry. There are plenty of other bequest promotion channels and I’ll get to them.

These ideas will improve your direct mail bequest letter:

Personalize. Use full inside address and a formal salutation (Dear Miss/Mrs./Ms./Mr.). Please don’t use “Dear friend” or “Greetings!” The subject is too personal.

Don’t Invoice. Use a closed outer envelope, not a window carrier. The subject is personal, private, and serious, so your letter shouldn’t look like an invoice.

Reply. Include a reply card with options for people to tell you they’d like more information or would consider including you in their will, and—most important—that that they already have included you.

Secure. Your reply card gets returned in an envelope. Don’t design it as a self-mailer. The return information is sensitive. I don’t even like self-mailers that fold over to conceal responses because they don’t feel as secure as an envelope.

Stamp It. Apply a live stamp, at the first class presort rate (to save money over first class). I don’t like bulk mail or metering for your personalized, sincere letter.

Direct mail gurus may disagree with what I recommend. They may even have research supporting different advice, but the research I’ve seen is never based on long-term, informational mailings. This is what I do for clients, and it works.

Your objective isn’t strictly to hit a target rate of reply. Largely, mailings like this are educational and informative. Although you need to include the reply device, you’ve hit a home run if someone saves your letter for retrieval when meeting an attorney years from now to prepare or revise their will. This is long-term fundraising.

In July we’ll digress from promotion and I’ll explain why bequests are the foundation of your Planned Giving program and why we’ve started promotion there.

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Tony Martignetti, Esq. is the host of Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. He’s a Planned Giving consultant, speaker, author, blogger and stand-up comic. You’ll find him at TonyMartignetti.com.
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Have you seen
The Fundraising Series of ebooks ??
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Do Your Homework for Great Presentation Skills

A young lady presenting at a meeting with her laptop

32149925Sam didn’t know what a great business presentation looked like. He had joined his organization right after leaving school, and when he presented, he was alone with his clients. Other than all-hands meetings, he just hadn’t been exposed to many presentations, so it was hard for him to evaluate his own presentation skills.

Some of us learn what to do by observing great speakers, and seeing what they do well. If you are like Sam, and don’t really have positive role models, imagine how powerful it would be to have some great examples of what to do for presentation success! You would be able to focus on the positives, and build your own skills and confidence.

It’s a little bit like watching lots of home-improvement TV before tackling your own project. You will want to get lots of great ideas, decide which ones fit your house and your style, and then adapt them to your situation.

So, do your homework. See what great speakers do. Increase your level of self-awareness. Experiment. Get some feedback. Do lots of fine-tuning. In time, you will be the great speaker that others can learn from. Here are a few ways to get started.

Watch your boss. He or she may or may not be the ideal presenter, but this is the person you will probably see presenting most often, as well as the person who will likely be giving you feedback on your own presentations. What are this person’s strengths? What habits can you pick up from watching this person? How do you want to be like your boss as a speaker? And how would you like to be different. These could be great discussions for you both to have.

Watch your colleagues. They may be team members, or people from other functional areas. If you get a chance to sit in on their presentations, do it. Again, what do they do well? Observe their presentation structure, their slides, their delivery skills. How do they respond to the audience? Make note of 2-3 ideas you could “borrow” and adapt.

Watch your competitors. If you get a chance to go to trade shows or conferences, you may have a chance to sit in and watch your competitors in action. What do they do differently than you do? Where are their weaknesses that you could exploit by building corresponding strengths in your skills? For example, if they tend to have weak openings, you might be able to craft and rehearse stronger openings to capture audience attention faster.

Watch TED talks. If you haven’t seen any TED talks yet, I recommend highly that you scoot over to TED.com and start watching. The topics are associated with technology, education and design, and the speakers do vary, but generally you will have a chance to see some great speakers in action. How do they command the stage? How do they use humor? How do they convey a lot of technical detail in just a few minutes? What do their visual aids look like? As a rule, these talks are extremely well designed and executed, and you could learn a lot here about what to do.

Go to conferences. Whether the content is pertinent to your field or not, you can sit in on a large number of speakers and see how they are all different. Take a few notes about what appeals to you and what does not. For each speaker, look for at least one thing you like, and at least one thing that does not appeal to you. Keep notes, and look for trends. Remember, content, slides, delivery, and audience interaction are all great topics to evaluate.

Go to webinars. There is no reason NOT to see speakers in action when you can sit in on free webinars day or night. Listen to the voices. Focus on the content and how it is presented. See how they engage their audiences, or not. Some webinars are extremely well done, polished pitches. Others are home-spun and imperfect. But you can still learn from them without leaving your desk.

See yourself. It is very hard to “see” yourself as others do, and just as difficult to evaluate your own skills. Many of us are way too hard on ourselves, others think we are better than we really are. The best way to begin to understand your own strengths and weaknesses is to video yourself, either in rehearsal or in the actual presentation, and then watch it with an unbiased eye. This is not easy, and you may need to get someone to help you through it, but it is critical to building genuine confidence tempered with humility.

A few words of caution: if you have been learning how to give presentations by avoiding the mistakes others make, you may be overly focused on what NOT to do. With this mindset, it is easy for us to feel nervous or unsure of ourselves. So look for the good in your observations, as well as the not-so-good.

You might also fall into the trap of observing a great speaker and then wanting to be just like them. Not a good idea, as you will fall short every time, and end up being less sure of your own strengths and abilities. The goal is to adapt, not copy, what you are seeing.

That said, if we observe others who are good at public speaking, we can “try on” some of the behaviors that appeal to us and see what fits us and what doesn’t. By picking and choosing from a number of skilled speakers, you are more likely to find your own style. And that is something you can be confident about.

Author Gail Zack Anderson, founder of Applause, Inc. is a Twin Cities-based consultant who provides coaching and workshops for effective presentations, facilitation skills for trainers and subject matter experts, and positive communication skills for everyone. She can be reached at gza@applauseinc.net.

Web site: www.applauseinc.net

Blog: www.managementhelp.org/blogs

twitter: @ApplauseInc

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3 Common Meeting Dysfunctions and How to Handle Them

A-business-man-addressing-colleagues-in-a-meeting

Here are three common dysfunction types I’ve seen in the meeting room. (Haven’t we all?) Let’s look at these specific dysfunctions and simple actions you can take to address them.

1. The Late Arriver/Early Leaver

Dysfunction
The Late Arriver/or Early Leaver

Behavior
Habitually arrives late to the session or leaves early
Action

  • Remind the group of the ground rules (i.e., start and end on time).
  • Discuss privately during the break to ensure there is not an additional problem.

2. The Loudmouth

Dysfunction
The Loudmouth

Behavior
Dominates the discussion
Action

  • At the start of the next process, use a round-robin discussion to get everyone involved.

You (Facilitator): “Let’s hear from everyone on this next point. With this question, I would like to start with Sandra and go around the room. The question is…”

  • At the break, solicit the person’s assistance in getting other people to speak. Remember to empathize with the symptom. Let them know that from time to time you will purposely not call on them to encourage others to speak.

You (Facilitator): “I appreciate you being willing to speak, especially given that most have been pretty quiet. I need your assistance, though. I need to get other people speaking more. Any thoughts on how we might do that.”

Participant: “You’re right. I often find myself dominating the discussion because no one else is speaking up.”

You (Facilitator): “Why don’t we do this: after the break, I’m going to be using a lot more round robins to try to engage more people in the discussion. And from time to time, you might want to say something, but I will intentionally call on others to get them involved. Will that work for you?”

Participant: “That’s fine. Thanks for letting me know.”

  • Occasionally, make it a point to acknowledge the person’s desire to speak, but call on someone else.

3. The Drop-out

Dysfunction
The Drop-out

Behavior
Silent, lacking participation, facing door or window
Action

  • Remind the group of the ground rules (i.e., every one speaks).
  • Employ a round-robin brain-storming activity to get everyone involved. Start two or three people before the drop-out to avoid putting the person on the spot and to provide the person time to prepare an answer.

You (Facilitator): “Let’s hear from everyone on this next point. With this question, I would like to start with [Jeff] and go around the room. The question is…”

  • Discuss privately during the break to ensure there is not an additional problem.

What about all of the other dozen or so dysfunctions in your meeting room? How do you deal with the Whisperer, the Workaholic, or the Naysayer? Surely, you’ve seen those in your meetings too. Leadership Strategies’ course, The Effective Facilitator, teaches you techniques on how to handle those dysfunctions too. Plus, you’ll learn the general formula for responding to and preventing dysfunction so that your meetings don’t turn into disasters. Download this free eBook – Managing Dysfunction – for extra support.

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Certified Master Facilitator Michael Wilkinson is the CEO and Managing Director of Leadership Strategies, Inc., The Facilitation Company and author of the new The Secrets of Facilitation 2nd Edition, The Secrets to Masterful Meetings, and The Executive Guide to Facilitating Strategy. Leadership Strategies is a global leader in facilitation services, providing companies with dynamic professional facilitators who lead executive teams and task forces in areas like strategic planning, issue resolution, process improvement and others. The company is also a leading provider of facilitation training in the United States.

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7 Key Activities a Strategy Leader Should Do

Man in suit playing chess

As a strategy leader, you have seven activities to which I recommend you pay close attention to build a strong strategy that has full buy-in and commitment. Let’s examine each of these activities.

1. Gain your team’s commitment and buy-in to the process.

If your leadership team members are like most with whom I have worked, they are stretched for resources and have more on their plate than they can likely accomplish with the time they have. Therefore, for many of them, the prospects of taking valuable time and resources to develop a plan that will come up with more to add to their already over-loaded plates is NOT a welcomed idea.

So how do you gain their commitment to planning and their buy-in to a planning process such as the Drivers Model? I consider this my secret weapon for buy-in: the management briefing. With the management briefing, you will have your team identify the most critical issues facing the organization; then they will make adjustments to the planning process as needed to ensure that the process addresses those issues. The management briefing increases commitment to planning by providing your team with a road map that shows how what is important to them will be covered during the strategic planning sessions.

2. Ensure all voices are heard.

The fundamental secret of facilitation indicates that you can increase buy-in and commitment by having those impacted by the plan involved in the creation of it. However, everyone in your organization will be impacted by the strategic plan. Does that mean everyone should be at the table creating the plan?

No, of course not. Nor is it necessary. Involvement does not necessitate being at the table. For some, just giving them a chance for input through a survey or a suggestion box will be adequate. For others, focus groups, one-on-one interviews or other methods for gaining in-depth input may be more appropriate. One of your important roles is to determine who should be at the table and to put in place other avenues to ensure all voices are given the opportunity to be heard.

3. Ensure key information is brought into the room.

You may have been in the room when a team has made a decision based on the best information available, only to discover that if they had been aware of other information that had not been brought into the room, they would have likely have made a different decision. Sound familiar? Well, part of your role is to ensure that this doesn’t happen with your planning activity.

My company’s work in the area of consensus building has shown that one of the primary reasons people disagree is due to a lack of shared information. Many disagreements can be resolved, and even prevented, by making sure all parties have the same information. With the Drivers Model, the briefing book serves the purpose of ensuring all your team members start with a common set of information.

4. Get your ideas on the table without overpowering the group.

As indicated earlier, it is important that all voices be heard, and that includes yours. Unfortunately, if you are like most leaders, your voice comes with considerable baggage. When the boss speaks, people listen. And they listen differently from when other people speak.

Sure, there will likely be some people in the room who treat your voice like every other voice in the room. Whether the idea comes from you or a first-year manager, these people will state their agreement or disagreement with the idea in the exact same way, regardless of the source. Unfortunately, this probably isn’t the case for most of the people at the table. When you speak, most may be quick to respond when they agree, and very, very slow to respond when they disagree – so slow, in fact, that sometimes they may never get around to it!

As a result of the lack of challenge many leaders experience within their own walls, the views of the leader can easily overpower the group.

5. Ensure that the plan components meet the quality checks.

With the Drivers Model each component is dependent upon the components that came before it. So, for example, if you do a poor job of defining your mission and vision, your goals and objectives will reflect this. Likewise, if your goals and objectives are misaligned, your critical success factors and barriers will also be off. And if your critical success factors and barriers are inadequate, your strategies and action plans will be inadequate as well. Therefore it is essential that you do a quality job every step of the way through the planning process.

The Drivers Model is designed to help you do this. From vision and mission through to strategies and action plans, the Drivers Model provides a specific quality check for each component of the strategic plan. These quality checks help ensure that your plan is comprehensive, robust, inspiring, and implementable. As the leader, it is your role to ensure that each component of the plan passes its quality check.

6. Follow through and hold people accountable.

If you have been involved in strategic planning processes, you know that far too often it is a game in which considerable energy is placed in developing a plan that is then put on the executive’s shelf, only to be looked at when it is time to do strategic planning once again.

The Drivers Model strives to end this game. As see in Chapter 14 of my book, The Executive Guide to Facilitating Strategy, you and your team will assemble a detailed process for aligning the organization and ensuring monthly check-ins, quarterly reviews and an annual update to the strategic plan. This structured monitoring process is intended to help ensure that the plan moves from paper to implementation.

7. Decide if an outside facilitator would be helpful.

With an activity as critical as strategic planning, it is essential that the effort be facilitated by someone who is skilled in facilitation but also has considerable experience guiding a team through strategy. Some organizations have internal resources with both the facilitation and the strategy expertise. But others choose to bring in outside professional facilitators with years of training, experience and proven results.

When should you bring in an outside facilitator? It is your role as the leader to make this call. Get help making that call with these guiding questions.

________________________

Certified Master Facilitator Michael Wilkinson is the CEO and Managing Director of Leadership Strategies, Inc., The Facilitation Company and author of the new The Secrets of Facilitation 2nd Edition, The Secrets to Masterful Meetings, and The Executive Guide to Facilitating Strategy. Leadership Strategies is a global leader in facilitation services, providing companies with dynamic professional facilitators who lead executive teams and task forces in areas like strategic planning, issue resolution, process improvement and others. The company is also a leading provider of facilitation training in the United States.

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In Government Grant Proposals … You Should Address The Needs of The Reviewers

Grant reviewer going through a government grant proposal

In the process of applying for government grants, we often talk about the need to address the specific agency’s hot buttons and issues in our proposals. But how many of us address the way in which reviewers of our proposals make decisions?

Over the past twenty years, there has been a great deal of research in the fields of psychology, cognitive science, economics, learning, decision-making, and others that should inform the way we design and write proposals. This field is called Heuristics, or the study of how people make decisions.

Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist, has been one of the more influential people writing about decision making. His many articles address the ways in which we think, and discuss the typical biases and errors that are part of that process.

He was the first psychologist to be awarded (in 2002) the Nobel Prize in Economics … for his pioneering work in that field, and his findings have important implications for proposal development.

Thinking, Fast and Slow
For a clear and enjoyable summary of Kahneman’s work, read his best-selling Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011). To summarize his themes, this is what he says about our decision-making processes:
• Most people use fast and frugal mental processes to make everyday decisions and
solve problems because their cognitive resources are limited.
• Most people make decisions and solve problems with the least amount of effort
and information possible. Good decisions do not always require amassing large
amounts of information.
• We use straightforward mental processes to make decisions because of time
pressure, incomplete information, and the inability to calculate consequences.
• These mental processes usually lead to accurate decisions.

Design Proposals from the Reviewers’ Perspective
Based on the research of Kahneman and his colleagues, you should design your government grant proposals with the following characteristics to help reviewers evaluate them:
• Make it easy for reviewers to read and understand.
• Make it easy for reviewers to gather and process information.
• Make it easy for reviewers to move through your proposal quickly and with
as little effort as possible.
• Make it easy for reviewers to quickly find and understand the information
that interests them.
• Make sure that all your major themes have solutions, benefits, and proof.
• Write your grant proposal for non-technical reviewers.
• Use good visuals to emphasize your features, benefits, and major themes.

In grant proposals, as in life, “cues and clarity foster recognition and recall.” A good grant proposal that is easy to evaluate is more likely to be scored higher than a great proposal that is difficult to evaluate.

Read Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow and learn how to design grant proposals that take into account the decision-making processes of the people who will be reviewing those proposals.

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Dr. Jayme Sokolow, founder and president of The Development Source, Inc.,
helps nonprofit organizations develop successful proposals to government agencies. Contact Jayme Sokolow.

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Look for Jayme’s ebook on Finding & Getting Federal Government Grants. It’s part of The Fundraising Series of ebooks

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From a fuzzy idea to a survey to actionable intelligence: How to plan an employee survey to encourage organizational change.

employee survey


From a fuzzy idea to a survey to actionable intelligence: How to plan an employee survey to encourage organizational change.

Guest Post

Written By David Chaudron, PHD

David shares his 11 pointers that allow movement from the “Yeah, we need to find out what our employees are thinking” to specific actions based upon the data collected.

  • Create and communicate clear, specific actions from the employee survey data.
    Suggesting that “management communicate more” or “we need team spirit” doesn’t do much. What really needs to change? It is also very easy to throw some communication training at supervision, hoping this will paper-over management’s unwillingness to tell hard truths. Training someone implies that lack of skill is the cause of your problems. What if the cause is a systemic issue instead?

 

  • Include the survey process into the normal business planning cycle.
    Syncing the schedule of the survey with the normal budgeting cycle increases the chances that recommendations will be funded. For example, if budgets are due in November, and next-year’s objectives are due in October, develop recommendations in September, and conduct your survey in the Summer.

 

  • Don’t try to “game” timing of the survey. I’ve had clients suggest that they don’t want to do a survey now, because they want to announce something “good” right before employees take it.

 

  • First use numerical surveys, then follow with focus groups.
    Using focus groups first allows “squeaky wheels” to have too much influence. Allow input from all employees to prioritize issues, then use focus groups to gather richer detail.

 

  • Avoid using agree-disagree scales.
    Agree-disagree scales, while commonly used, have response-bias issues, and most importantly, are difficult to interpret, even with norms. To give a quick example: How can you prioritize survey items where one shows 37% agree, but 42% disagree, with another item that is 22% strongly agree and 17% agree?

 

  • Don’t look for what you already see.
    Conducting a training needs survey assumes lack of skill is the cause of company problems. Conducting a wide-ranging survey at the start will help avoid agreeing with what you already believe.

 

  • Use multiple survey methods.
    No one method (numerical surveys, open-ended questions, focus groups, etc.) is the gold standard of data collection. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.

 

  • Keep the data anonymous, but communicate the actions.
    Some employees may be to paranoid about tracing their data back to their computers, we’ve had to revert to paper surveys for some of our clients.

 

  • Decide how to analyze data before you gather it.
    How will your graphs and reports look? If they look a certain way, how will you interpret them?

 

  • Decide on your sampling plan, and how to “break out” the data.
    Deciding whether to do a 100% sample of employees, or a random sample, is an important statistical (and buy-in) question to ask. Asking too many questions, like gender, location, job title etc. can violate anonymity or the perception of it.

 

  • Involve influential employees in the survey effort.
    We involve key employees in the planning effort of the survey. They can become mighty advocates of survey recommendations.

 

  • Never survey without acting.
    Even if management decides they cannot (or will not) solve a problem employees raise, it is still important to acknowledge the problem and state clearly why management is not taking action at this time.