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Scams, Spam, and Pork: A Week in an Email Inbox

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I heard someone once say “your inbox is someone else’s to-do list for you.” It is not under your control and should not be the guide to how you run your day. In an effort to manage this I decided to track my inbox distractions.

I was originally planning on this being “a month in an email inbox”, but after just one week, I had more than enough non-essential emails to analyze and see just how much time I was wasting. In an attempt to streamline my own workday and become more efficient, I’m adding these to my Daily Distraction Total (DDT-not to be confused with this or this).

In just one week I received 125 emails that I consider Scams (blatant attempts to steal my identity, money, or compromising photos), Spam (business related emails that I had no connection to), or Pork (business related emails that I did have a connection to).

  • Surprisingly, I only received 7 outright Scam emails, or 5% of my email DDT. Luckily, I did not fall for any of these, although I did make some international friends that are starting new business ventures. You can’t do much about these, so I crossed my fingers that my filters will continue to work well.
  • Likewise, I only received 16 Spam emails. These newsletters/offers may be interesting to some, but I had no idea how they got my email, and the content was not at all relevant to me. These were all a quick ‘unsubscribe’. This 12% of my DDT is now permanently gone, and I won’t think twice about it.
  • What I didn’t expect was that the vast majority (75%) of my DDT was from emails that I had control over, or Pork! I had 92 emails that were newsletters I had signed up for, social media notifications, and professional organization event notices. I went on a rampage of unsubscribing and setting my email permissions to take in this information in a usable manner. However, I did have a couple that I stayed with for relationship preservation reasons, even though I don’t consistently see value in them.
  • When it all came down to it, I had 10 emails that I wanted, anticipated, and enjoyed, a mere 8%. Good content is hard to come by!

Managing your own time is a key to remaining and improving efficiency. Reducing email distractions is just one way. What other tools do you use to keep focused?

While you think about it, I need to go take those compromising photos off the cloud.

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Your Pancakes are Getting Cold

Your Pancakes are Getting Cold Image

The other day, my seven-year-old son was at the breakfast table. He had a plate of pancakes in front of him, and he was making a noise over, and over, and over again, as he often does. While I tried to ignore it, my ten-year-old daughter told him to stop, then poked him to stop, then yelled that he was annoying and to STOP RIGHT NOW!

Take a guess and tell me if that was effective. Of course not!

What I explained to her was that she was focusing on how she felt, and what she wanted, and that was not the best way to achieve her desired result. She needed to pay attention to him, and determine what was important to him, in order for him to subscribe to a mutually agreeable outcome.

The same mentality applies to many business interactions, among them:

  • Sales
  • Management
  • Employee Development

In Sales, the key is to discover your customer’s frustrations, and offer a reasonable solution to address them. This is often called a ‘pain point’, but can just as easily be related to the effects of success as it can struggle.

In Management, the interaction with employees is best aligned when the employee incentives mesh with the overall company goals. And the employee should be involved as much as possible in this as a collaborative process. This is the most reliable way to have buy-in, loyalty, and a concentrated team effort.

For Employee Development, it is incumbent on the employee to put themselves in the shoes of co-workers, bosses, and customers to best manage those relationships. Each one has its own pressures, and the most effective way to agree on a positive outcome is to appreciate where others are coming from.

In other words, understand the other person, and use that knowledge to adapt your viewpoint and tactics.

As for my daughter, I try to have her see the world through others’ eyes. And it is a daily struggle to deal with two younger brothers. She could have refocused her brother by saying, “Your pancakes are getting cold.” And perhaps that would have worked. Because even at seven, he knows nobody wants to eat cold pancakes.

 

Thanks to Recipes Hubs for the image.

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Wrapping Up Your Customers

Wrapping Up Your Customers Image

As the Christmas and holiday season comes to an end, and we look to the New Year, I was thinking about the parallels for how businesses interact with their customers.

My social media feed was filled with friends and family staying up to all hours of the night wrapping presents, and then being exhausted on Christmas day. This was done for the enjoyment of their children and the perpetuation of the myth (spoiler alert!) of Santa Claus. Parents go the extra mile for their most important relationships, and wouldn’t have it any other way!

In business, you similarly go the extra mile for your most important relationships, providing an experience to cultivate loyalty. And just as parents vary the experience for different aged kids, a business should tailor the engagement to customers in different stages. When a customer is new to you, it is critical to show your value, provide a timely service, and set your name apart from the competition. As customers grow, showing that you can grow with them and continue to provide a high level of service becomes paramount. After all, it is much more costly to find a new customer than to retain an existing one.

The alternative is one-and-done customers, with no brand loyalty. This results in a constant advertising and lead generation phase and a race to the bottom of discounts and gimmicks.

Do right by your customers, and they’ll do right by you. Here’s to a great 2016!

 

Photo courtesy of the Huffington Post.

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Productivity and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones

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How can I be more productive? It’s a question on everyone’s mind. Most current ideas about productivity involve changing everything you do, using the latest smartphone app, or outsourcing your administrative tasks.

While there is certainly value in some of those ideas, most people can start by examining what they already know about themselves. This introspection will help target how you can be the most productive.

Each person will be different, but when I try to focus my efforts, I look at these three factors:

Time: Night owl? Early bird? Afternoon delight? (Well, maybe not that last one.) I am more focused at night, and often my strokes of creativity happen well after dark. Knowing this, I plan my workday and sleep schedule to use that to my advantage. I try to schedule time for specific work into my calendar so I know I’ll have the dedicated time to focus on specific work.

Environment: Library quiet? Or coffee shop background noise? Music, or not? Bright lights or the sole glow (not Soul Glo) of a computer screen? My go-to is bright lights and music. I go crazy in library quiet (the result of growing up with five siblings!), and can’t focus with the activity of a coffee shop. When I perform administrative tasks, I listen to podcasts. When I’m responding to emails or writing, I prefer upbeat music with lyrics. Right now, I’m listening to The Mighty Mighty Bosstones “A Jackknife to a Swan“. When I really need to focus, I play some calm jazz or classical music with no lyrics.

Idea Generation: Shower, driving, or pillow? These are three locations or activities that seem to get my creative juices bubbling. We can’t control when an idea strikes, but we can make sure we don’t lose the idea. I use pneumonic devices to remember ideas that hit me in the shower. I use the voice recorder app on my phone while driving. And I keep my phone and a notepad and pen on my nightstand to quickly jot down any idea that comes right before bed.

By understanding how these factors support or limit your own productivity, you’ll be able to maximize your capacity to do creative, focused, and shareable work.

What did I miss? What helps you be more productive?

 

Album Cover Art courtesy of www.bosstonesmusic.com

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Growth Metrics and Employee Measurement

As business owner’s strive to grow a profitable company, metrics and measurement are critical aspects of that growth. Employees need to be measured for quality of work accountability and incentive calculations. Companies need to be measured to set goals and plan for the future.

In a recent article for ESPN The Magazine, Pablo S. Torre and Tom Haberstroh discuss the future of metrics for the NBA: Biometrics. We see here how a organization with financial resources looks to optimize their resources by using blood samples, sleep studies, and nutritional habits, among others, to maximize the performance of their athletes. (I’ll leave the ethical question of how much personal data an employer should have access to for a different discussion).

For any organization, measurement is key. A manufacturer needs to know his production data. A salesman needs to know his sales history. It stands to reason that a sports team would optimize their most important asset: their players.

 

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Four Ways to Grow Your Business During Vacation Times

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School’s out for summer! Thanksgiving weekend! Holiday vacation! Spring break!

To some business owners, these times are synonymous with a slow down. But do they have to be? Can these slow times be an opportunity for growth? These are great times to focus on the four core areas of your business that make up our VICE Analysis™ (Vendors, Inventory, Customers, Employees).

VENDORS– Ask vendors to come to your office. Most will jump at the chance to get face time with an important customer. They can offer product demos, discuss new R&D, and get a better sense of how they can service your company’s needs. It is also a prime time to renegotiate your pricing, terms, and exclusivity agreement with the vendor.

INVENTORY– Do a spot check on inventory. Give non-warehouse employees a detailed tour of the warehouse and those hard-to-sell items, and ask for their feedback and ideas on how to move them.

CUSTOMERS– Reach out to your best customers and offer to visit them, buy them lunch, and try to solve more problems for them. Offer them a deep discount to keep sales up. Propose something unique to help them grow.

EMPLOYEES-If everyone is gone, how can anything get done? Pick a traditionally heavy vacation week and black it out well in advance so your whole team is at the office. “Shut down” the company to the public and have a targeted, focused week on the strategy and projects that you’ve been putting off. Focus on the back burner R&D and fast-track feedback to end with a focused project with timeline and launch date at the end of the week. This can be a great time for interdepartmental bonding and teamwork for employees who don’t often collaborate. The teamwork is invaluable for camaraderie, employee relations, and culture maintenance, which can suffer as a company grows.

By focusing on these areas, you can continue to grow your company without losing momentum during traditional vacation times. If those aren’t feasible for you, try cleaning the office. Have an end of week BBQ. Do a team building charitable outing. Don’t just let the days tick by!

And there is never a bad time to maintain your network. Have coffee with an old contact. Bring ideas as to how you can help their business grow. Continue to get fresh perspectives and you’ll be amazed at how it can clarify your own ideas.

How do you keep the ball rolling during vacation times?