Providing great client service is a claim that nearly every insurance agency makes. Being able to provide that great service, versus just promising it, is dependent on a number of things being in place.

It begins with a definition of what great service means to your company.  And that is dependent on what you would like the client to experience every time they have an interaction with your company. Which is dependent on…well, let’s just take a look at how this works.

Defining the company

• Starting from the top, the purpose of your agency must be clearly defined so everyone knows why he or she works so hard every day. What end are their efforts trying to achieve?

If it’s just to put more money in the owner’s pocket, then it’s not a very good motivator for treating clients well or knowing what to help them with beyond answering their questions. If it’s to help clients better manage their HR or risk management programs, then that’s a different focus altogether. Now answering questions with that “better management” end goal in mind, means they can also proactively make suggestions to the client or to the account team on how to better help the client achieve those goals.

• Next, the agency values must be clearly defined. Values are used to help shape and direct behaviors. When the values are known, everyone is able to use a consistent method of treating clients and making decisions. Without defined values, everyone is left to use their own set of decision-making criteria, which might not produce the results the agency expects.

• Everyone needs to clearly understand the cultural expectations of the agency and leadership needs to actively reinforce it. It’s important to promote/reward appropriate behaviors and reprimand ones that don’t reinforce the cultural expectations. Without this, the culture becomes a fractured grouping of behaviors and does not promote consistency across the organization.

Some say you can’t define a culture; it develops naturally. To some degree culture is a naturally developing personality of any organization, but just like raising children, behavioral expectations should be put in place to be the guiderails for good decision-making.

• Now that your company values and behaviors are defined, describe what you want a client to experience when they interact with your company. We have to define what great service looks like in order to deliver on it.

• Determine what processes and procedures must be in place in order to deliver on this experience. This means having the right people performing the roles that play to their strengths, and they’re given responsibility and authority to make decisions and deliver on good service. After all, you’ve defined your purpose, values, culture, and client experience – they should be well equipped now to know how to make great and consistent decisions that reflect the best intentions of the agency.

Follow through on the details

• Once you’ve determined what the roles are to effectively deliver on the service you’ve defined, there will be some training gaps to fill in. Maybe it’s for technical skills, new content skills, proficiency of tools, or even good personal relations. Consistency in training will help reinforce consistent behaviors.

Finally…

• Leadership must be regularly communicating and reinforcing company purpose, values, and expected behaviors. Using multiple forms of communication is important, but even more so is demonstrating it through behaviors and actions.

And as you create these collective definitions, be sure to take an honest assessment of where your customer service really is today – is everyone in the agency actively working to Wow! clients and make them exceptionally happy? Or is it a more reactionary style in answering client questions and really just meeting the minimum expectations of customer service?

Without clear company definitions and ongoing communication so everyone on staff knows it as well as the leader, the “great service” claim is sitting on pretty uncertain ground.

Based on individual life experiences, everyone has his or her own ideas of what “good”, “best”, or “exceptional” looks like. Don’t leave the success of your company to chance or hope that your definitions match those of each of your staff.

Photo by Seattle Municipal Archives.

@wendykeneipp

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Running a business is difficult.  Even under the best of circumstances, it will occasionally stress and test the best working relationships.  Add to the mix, owners/leaders who don’t like, trust, or communicate with one another and the results can be devastating.

Unfortunately, I see the situation all too often where one or more of these vital ingredients is missing.  It holds back the best companies and threatens the sustainability of the rest.

Like

Let’s start with liking the other owners/partners.  To be honest, you don’t have to like one another to be successful.  It’s great when that’s the case, but being best friends isn’t a prerequisite for being a successful team.  However, you do need to like what one another brings to the table.  

The strongest teams have very complementary skills, talents and ideas.  The skills, talents, ideas and the resulting benefits are what you need to like.  When you happen to like one another, it’s easy to see the positives they bring along.  However, when you don’t like someone, you will likely have to look harder to find what they have to contribute to the cause.  But, do it.  It’s worth the effort.

Communicate

If effective communication is important to any relationship, it is critical amongst the ownership/leadership group.  Nothing can be communicated effectively to the rest of the organization until it has been communicated effectively within the very top level.  Not sharing honest opinions, not being willing to address the “elephant in the room”, not contributing to the discussions that will lead to critical decisions, and not speaking with a unified owner/leader voice are all inexcusable.

Trust

Trust is the most critical of all.  I would argue that lack of trust among owners/leaders is an organizational cancer that if not addressed aggressively, will bring the eventual demise of even the best company.  At best, it will result in every single decision being over analyzed, challenged, and critiqued to the point that its diluted result will have very little remaining contribution.  When the rest of the organization sees the lack of trust at the top level, they will either be forced to pick sides, or even worse, no side at all.  Trust at the top is key to harmony throughout.

Leading through crisis

These are the challenges in ideal situations (and how often are things “ideal”?).  Now think about how it would affect you during times of organizational stress.  What happens when you are threatened by an aggressive competitor, when your clients/employees start to leave, when new clients aren’t materializing, or when the ink is red?  

Experiencing a crisis like one of these will absolutely expose the current situation.  If you are a strong, cohesive team, the crisis will make you even stronger and bring you even closer together.  However, if you are a loosely aligned group of individuals who don’t really like one another, can’t communicate effectively, and mistrust one another’s intentions, you will likely find that you are fighting amongst yourselves more than you are fighting the common enemy.

I don’t know about you, but when (not if) I find myself facing one of these stressful situations, I want to make sure I’m facing the situation with people whom I like, trust, and with whom I know I can communicate effectively.

And remember, none of those happen by chance.  These are team characteristics that have to be built and maintained every day.

Photo by Nils Rinaldi.

@kevintrokey

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When you change your client value offering and your sales model, you have to change the way the company supports these new efforts. Taking the time to evaluate your current structure and making changes to support the new model is critical to successfully executing on and delivering on your new value proposition.

When you make the commitment to what the new structure is going to be, you’ll have to take on the possibly daunting task of implementing on it. And it might not be fun because many people don’t like change – it’s unknown and that can be scary.

Anticipate the reactions

When you make the commitment to undertake a major change, or any change for that matter, you need to recognize that people will react differently. Be prepared for this and have a plan in advance.

• You’ll have your enthusiastic change agents who can’t wait to get started and are planning the details before you’ve finished explaining the end goal.
• You’ll have your naysayers who sincerely believe that this is doomed before you’ve finished explaining the end goal. They will work to remain as status quo as possible.
• The balance of your folks will be in the middle. They’re the fence-sitters.  They have very little opinion and are susceptible to going either direction.

The choice is yours

Now, you’re faced with a couple of choices:

Spend your time with the naysayers, trying to convince them why this change is a good idea.

Or, spend your time with your excited change agents who are already planning the next 90-day implementation plan.

Whichever you choose will yield results. It just depends what results you want to see.

Getting the swing vote

When you focus your attention on the naysayers it’s giving credence to their lack of support and belief in the new model. You will get frustrated trying to explain and convince someone who doesn’t want to change that change is a good idea. All the while you’re trying to convince them that this “will be okay” is time that you are not moving ahead with your new plans.

If, however, you focus your attention on the supporters, you’ll be helping them help you. They can take an active role in developing and implementing plans. You’ll begin moving ahead immediately with their support and efforts.

You’re eventually going to get the swing vote from your fence-sitters. They’ll sit by and watch, waiting to see how things play out. Whichever group appears to get management attention and resources is going to win.

• If it swings it toward the naysayers, you’ll have a resistance revolt on your hands with nearly your entire staff, and making any changes is going to become near impossible.
• If it swings toward the supporters, you’ll have nearly everyone ready and willing to help drive the company forward toward a new reality. The whole group can then actively participate in initiating and implementing the necessary changes.

It’s not all roses

Chances are pretty high that there will be some employee fallout from the changes, regardless of how well you manage it. There are some people who just don’t like making changes and they’d rather leave than tough out the process. That’s okay. Let them go. You need to make the best decision for your company, and having people onboard who don’t support the company goals and the company vision shouldn’t be allowed to bring down the team and thwart their efforts.

The choice for change is yours. You just have to decide which path better suits your desired end game.

Photo by Hunter Desportes.

@wendykeneipp

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I’m concerned about the social media activity I see from so many benefits and insurance agencies. In the quest to say “we’ve gone social!”, unfortunately many have gotten off on the wrong path because they got started without really understanding what they were getting started doing.

Social media:

It is like a relationship – two people have to actively participate and be interested in one another in order to make it work.

It isn’t a one-way marketing activity where we just put our promotional information out for others to see and hear.

Have you ever been in a meeting or maybe at a dinner party where you just sit and say nothing because the other person does all the talking? They don’t really care what you have to say, and don’t even need any social queues to keep going.

I don’t know about you, but when I’m in a situation like this, I often end up not listening because my mind has moved on to any thought that doesn’t involve the current “conversation”.

When people or companies choose to participate in social media and they don’t understand that it’s a two-way relationship, then they are guilty of committing this very same social flaw.

Take an assessment of your own or your company activity

If all you do on social media sites is log on, Tweet or post your seminar information, blog post, or most recent charity contribution, and then log off, you really don’t understand the purpose of social media. You’re losing out on valuable opportunities to connect with others, build relationships, and keep current with your clients.

Interact with others

When you log on, you can do each of those things I mentioned, but you should also:

• read what your clients are doing and saying.
• read what your industry partners are doing and saying.
• check out your center of influence folks and see what they’re up to.

What are these people looking for? What’s going on in their worlds? What kind of needs do they have or things to offer?

Once you’ve read this information – you should respond. Say something.

• Tell them congratulations.
• Click the Like button.
• Tweet or share their article - tell others to check it out.
• Comment on the importance, relevance, or interest of their topic.

Share your ideas

Your stream of activity tells a story. A story about you and what you’re like – as a person, as a businessperson, or as a business if you’re tweeting under the company name.

Be intentional about what that story says. Have a plan.

• Decide who your target reader is on the platform. Maybe you share B2B information on LinkedIn and Twitter and share your personal lines/individual information and tips on Facebook.
• Decide what topics you want to be sure to cover. For what topics do you want to be known as the go-to resource? Sure you can have other information included – we like it when you mix it up a bit, but have some type of continuity.

Ideally, you want to provide ideas and share articles that compel people to read it and hopefully respond to you. Challenge people by making them think about ideas they’ve not previously considered.

What story are you telling?

Look at your own stream of activity. If you were a client, would you find it interesting and compelling? Would you learn something new? Would you recommend a friend also follow because what you share is so relevant to their business and makes them think?

If it doesn’t immediately catch your attention as being interesting and interactive, then you’re probably being glossed right over as people take a few minutes to catch up on activity. There are people you follow who you know always have something interesting to say.

And then there are those whose avatars you see and skip right past without reading because you know they have nothing interesting to say – they’re the infomercials of social media and thankfully you’ve got the TiVo remote.

Let’s look at an example

If you chose workers’ comp as a regular topic and talked about it, shared your ideas and thoughts, offered helpful tips, and found relevant articles then you’d be building your story as being a go-to resource for workers’ comp. Then when you wrote a related blog post I’d want to read it because it’s obviously in your niche. And if you were holding a seminar or webinar, I’d be interested in attending. Because you’ve proven you are genuinely interested in this topic, find it important, and want to help me improve my situation. Now your information is interesting to me as a reader.

Don’t make your own business promotion the center of your activity.

Instead, build your base of contextual information for your go-to topics and then you can share your own business information around that established foundation of relevant and useful topics.

@wendykeneipp

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Each year, we have an overriding theme on which we focus throughout the year.  Last year it was “Execution & Implementation.”  This year we will be focusing on the ideas of “Teach, Tailor and Control.”

While these aren’t new ideas for us or our members, we wanted to highlight these ideas as we see them being critical for the continued evolution of the broker model.  Additionally, we see now being the time that producers/agencies need to make sure they are mastering each of these ideas.

We felt particularly validated when these same principles appeared in a series of recent articles published by Harvard Business Review.  These articles were based on the book “The Challenger Sale” by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson, which shares the results of a recent study on selling performance.

The authors explain the study they conducted on over 6,000 sales reps where they grouped salespeople into five basic categories based on similarities of behavior attributes: Relationship, Hard Worker, Lone Wolf, Problem Solver and Challenger.  With the possible exception of the title category, most are self-explanatory.

Their study went on to show that while there is a fairly even representation of each category amongst salespeople, the distribution skews significantly when you start searching for the “high performers.”

In a so-called “typical sale,” the percentages of high performers are broken out as follows:

• Relationship Builders (7%)
• Hard Workers (17%)
• Lone Wolf (25%)
• Reactive Problem Solver (12%)
• Challenger (39%)

The results get even more interesting when you look for the high performers in a “complex sale” environment (which I would argue applies to you):

• Relationship Builders (4%)
• Hard Workers (10%)
• Lone Wolf (25%)
• Reactive Problem Solver (7%)
• Challenger (54%)

Clearly, regardless of your natural style, it is worth the effort to become as much of a Challenger as you can.  So, what is a Challenger?  Challengers commit to understanding the business of their customer at such a deep level they are able to push the prospect or client’s thinking and take control of the sales conversation.  Challengers makes their audience think in ways they haven’t before.  They’re confident enough in the value they can bring that they are not afraid to share even potentially controversial views and assume an assertive position to move the prospect forward.

As interesting as the findings of the study were to us, what we found even more interesting were the three traits that the authors used to describe what it is that makes a Challenger so effective.  You may have guessed, it’s the same three principles that we have made the centerpiece of the approach we use within Benefits Growth Network and on which we are focusing this year – Teaching, Tailoring and Controlling.

Let’s explore why we see these areas as critical to the future success of brokers.

Teach

If you are going to continually bring value to a client, you have to embrace the responsibility of always bringing them new ideas and educating them on ways you can help them improve their performance.  The most important time to assume the role of teacher is during the sales process.  Rather than trying to demonstrate your value by providing the same spreadsheet as everyone else, prove your value by helping them better understand their own situation.  Most employers can clearly see the challenges they are currently facing.  However, far fewer have the vision to see the challenges that are out there on the horizon.  This is the “lesson” you need to be bringing to the table.  This is your opportunity to bring a conversation they likely aren’t getting from anyone else.

A couple of areas where they need your vision:

Turnover – Between retiring baby boomers and dissatisfied employees, employers are facing unprecedented levels of turnover.  And, because of the “jobless recovery,” very few see it coming.  You need to educate them on why this will be the reality and challenge them to be honest about how prepared they truly are.

Communication – Communication impacts virtually every aspect of an organizations operation, but let’s just look at its impact on benefits spending.  A recent study by The McKinsey Quarterly shows that benefits costs can be reduced by 20 percent through more effective communication.  You need to educate employers as to what effective communication truly looks like, explain to them the challenges that stand between where they are and what their goal should be, and show them how to make effective communication their reality.

Tailor

Rather than trying to impress the prospect with your list of value-added services or manipulate their situation to fit your “solution,” you need to tailor your solution to fit their situation.  Not only that, the way in which you communicate your recommendation needs to be tailored to your audience.

A couple of ways the message needs to be tailored:

Tailoring to their situation – Assume that your competition has the same solutions to offer that you do.  If by chance they don’t today, they will tomorrow.  Rather than try to sell the prospect all of your solutions, focus on learning where they truly have needs and then align your solutions with those identified needs.  After learning of needs they didn’t realize they had, the prospect will find much more value in your solutions and be much more compelled to hire you to fix their newly discovered problems.

Tailoring to the audience – You make presentations to all types of roles—Director of HR, CFO and CEO are the most frequent.  You need to have a clear understanding of the driving objectives that come with each role.  If your presentation doesn’t address these varied objectives, not only do you miss out on an opportunity to pick up a supporter, you run the risk of unintentionally creating an adversary.

Control

Perhaps the only thing worse than an empty prospect pipeline for a producer is one that is filled with stagnant prospects.  I argue that this is worse because you have someone who is actively wasting your time and giving you a false sense of security.  The stagnation is the direct result of a producer who has ceded control of the process to the prospect.  Instead of establishing a peer level engagement with the prospect, the producer has assumed a subservient role.  While we don’t condone that the producer take an aggressive role, we do recognize the need to be assertive in moving the prospect forward.

A couple of things necessary to establish and maintain control:

A full pipeline – If you don’t keep your pipeline full, you will irrationally hold on to every prospect you have.  Without a full pipeline, you will rarely walk away from an “opportunity.”

Belief in the value you can deliver – Until you are passionate about your ability to help a client, you will lack the confidence required to take control.  It is that confidence that will allow you to challenge and push the prospect to look at their situation in new ways, to even push the prospect out of their comfort zone for the purpose of finding their catalyst to change.

So, as the book pointed out, there are five ways to be an average salesperson, but one clear way to be exceptional.  Being exceptional starts with challenging your prospects to think in new ways.  You won’t be able to challenge them until you challenge yourself.

My challenge to you: how badly do you want to be exceptional?

Photo by Jacob Bøtter.

@kevintrokey

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Marketing has undergone a colossal shift in just a few short years.  If you haven’t actively been paying attention, it’s quite likely that you’ve not even noticed. When you’re working as a reseller of someone else’s products (e.g. insurance carriers) and when you have a direct sales force that makes one-on-one contact with prospects and clients, actively marketing your agency is something that probably doesn’t hit very high on your radar.

Someone said Marketing?

It’s quite common to find insurance and benefits agencies without any formal marketing plan, defined marketing activities, or anyone who knows much about marketing at all.

In fact, it’s pretty common that marketing in an agency is not referred to as the discipline of marketing your company and your value offering to prospective clients. But rather marketing is referred to as the process of promoting client businesses to insurance carriers. It means promoting or showing a client risk in the most attractive light to the carrier to get the best possible rate for the client.

These concepts definitely share similarities and both are technically marketing.

It’s time to get serious

However, the idea of externally marketing an agency’s value offering to prospective clients is something that needs to begin taking on a new level of focus and importance in any agency that is serious about the long-term sustainability of its business.

Marketing days gone-by were focused on telling people what you did and how great you were at it. Communication pieces would promote your great service, low prices, length of time in business, name and/or number of carrier relationships.

Now it’s a different story. A different approach altogether is required to capture the attention of prospective clients.

With the Internet, consumers have access to literally hundreds of options to consider for their insurance needs. Which means that if everything you say online says the same thing that every other insurance agency says, why should the prospective client bother calling you?

You have to find a way to make yourself attractive to the client – not just make your client attractive to the carriers.

But how?

How do you do this? Well, all those online tools you know come into play in a big way. It really doesn’t matter so much which ones you use, it matters how you use them.

• You need to clearly identify who your target client is.

Talking to everyone will actually gain you less business than if you narrow your focus to that very specific type of client who needs and values what you have to offer.

• You need to identify what their needs are.

This includes knowing what they currently need help with, in addition to helping them see what they might not even yet be aware is a need.

• You need to educate them.

Instead of telling clients how great your service is and how knowledgeable you are, show them. Share you knowledge, share your advice, and help them see firsthand that you know what they need and that you can bring them answers. Take a stand, challenge their current thinking, and make them say, “I never thought about that before.”

• You need to share your personality.

The days of the corporate façade are gone. People expect to see the individuals (pictures, profiles) of key people (CEO, managers, producers) in the company. They expect to learn about these people and find out what they do, what they think, and what they can expect when you finally get to meet face-to-face.

• You need to make it an ongoing activity.

Marketing should be a defined role, or a part of a role, within your agency and it should be a daily activity to get your message out there and make connections with clients and prospects.  Your marketing person should be in charge of making sure the agency message is being communicated properly throughout the company and in all the company activities.

Marketing your agency value offering is an incredible opportunity for supporting your sales-driven company. It’s not been a focus for many agencies, and it’s not been done well by many who do participate. If you put a plan together and execute well, you can find yourself light years ahead of your competition in a very short time.

Photo by Jacob Bøtter.

@wendykeneipp

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We have spent quite a bit of time in this space talking about how you establish the brand you want. A big part of the brand revolves around the things you need to be talking about and where you need to be talking about them.  What you also need to consider and be equally aware of is how much what you don’t say affects your brand, as well.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but it seems the general rules of professionalism and communication protocol have become very loose, or abandoned altogether.  All too frequently, I experience the following:

• No-shows for conference calls/meetings with no prior notice
• Promises for follow-up that never happens
• An inability to just say “no”

When I experience these behaviors, it tells me a lot about the individual; it tells me that they are unorganized, less than professional, and lacking the confidence to state a position. It influences the “brand” I assign to them.

I realize that most of the time, this probably isn’t a true reflection of who they are, at least all of the time.  I’m sure that in their minds they would never behave this way when “it really matters” for them (like with clients).  However, I would caution though that they are on a slippery slope.  Bad behaviors have a way of becoming bad habits and habits become who we truly are.

I’m sure that most of them also excuse their own behavior because they witness it in others around them and believe, therefore, it must be a new acceptable standard.  If that’s true, it’s very sad commentary on our general state of professionalism.

If this lack of professional courtesy in communication is the new standard, think about how strong your brand could be by comparison if you are the exception who:

• shows up for scheduled meetings on time,
• follows up on promises in a timely manner, and
• is confident enough to just say “no”.

Photo by humboldthead.

@kevintrokey

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2011 was an incredibly busy and blazing fast year for us. Or it sure feels that way! We have been very involved with creating and training, and time seems to be defined by each of those mile markers along the way. We’ve learned a lot of great lessons and continue to incorporate each of them back into training, resources, and blog posts – where you’ll find our experiences and lessons diligently documented!

We started out the year launching our new sales system and digging into training sessions throughout the spring. Then there were on-site strategic planning sessions we conducted with individual agencies. That definitely kept us moving and thinking a lot about agency business models and the need to evolve that model. We rounded out the first half of the year with our networking conference, BGNLive.

From the conference we had several takeaways to develop for the remainder of the year. That included additional training and vetting new strategic partners. Another big project was getting an internal social networking site up and running for agencies to discuss ideas and share files & best practices with one another.

While we’ve learned many things along the way, here are a few key summarized lessons that we met again and again this past year which have been invaluable:

• Set your mind to it, create a plan, and commit to getting it done. Persistence, persistence, persistence.
• Making public commitment statements to your clients/community is a great motivator to keep going even when it’s difficult.
• Listening to clients’ struggles provides great opportunity to develop new/improved solutions/offerings.
• Asking for accountability is an amazing way to get things accomplished.
• Repetition, repetition, repetition. One time and one method of communication is not enough to learn something new or change thinking and behaviors.

Coming Up Next

As we move into 2012, we are looking to go deeper and get more specific on training, both at the network level and within each agency. Another area that will receive increased attention will be driving more interactive agency networking as a means for faster and more effective implementation.

We have our sights set on transforming agencies into independently thriving businesses regardless of the outcome of the various economic and healthcare challenges we face. You can be sure that we’ll continue to take every opportunity to learn and incorporate those lessons back into what we do every day to make our member agencies and brokerages more successful.

Thanks for a great year and here’s to another one to come!

Photo by Dharmit Shah.

@wendykeneipp

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First impressions can have a pretty big impact on what happens next – or doesn’t – in a relationship. When you contact a potential new client, what is the first thing they’re going to do after they get off the phone or back to their desk? They’re going to search your name and your agency name. What they find is that first digital impression.

What will your prospect learn about you?

Search yourself and search your agency. Look at it from an outsider’s perspective, someone seeing those results for the first time. What will they learn from the results of the search?

I see three likely scenarios based on how you participate in online activities. Take a look through these and see which one best describes your participation and subsequent search results.

#1: You’re…

• actively involved in your community or your industry
• have completed profiles and many connections
• a topical expert and participate in discussions and share relevant information
• generous with your knowledge and interested in helping others improve their businesses

#2:

You have profile accounts with virtually no information. Your LinkedIn profile or Twitter account was forgotten almost as soon as it was set up.

#3:

Either there are no search results for your name or maybe just an old outdated press release about your CIC designation.

Scenario #1 tells the prospect that you’re serious about your business, your career development is an important part of the business, and you are interested in and likely capable of helping the client with their business. And you believe the Internet offers powerful tools for conveying your message and conducting business.

With #3, it’s a mixed bag. There are many possible speculations about those without any results, but we can’t know for sure. A likely possibility is that you don’t believe in social networking as an effective tool for business development. And we don’t have anything to go off of in terms of rating you as a businessperson, so it’s all just unknown.

Now, #2. This is the most dangerous and damaging of the possible scenarios. You know what I mean – you created an account and didn’t finish completing the profile (no photo, no bio, only 3 connections, no experience or only the most recent listed, etc.) or you got really excited and started using it…then stopped. Like 6 months ago. We call these ghost town profiles that have obviously been abandoned. And what this tells that potential new client is that you don’t take Internet tools and networking opportunities seriously, you don’t follow through on what you start, and you leave half-finished projects just laying around.

Does #2 sound familiar? If so, then go fix it right now.
As you go through your search results, make a list of everything that you need to clean up, then go do it.

• I understand trying out a social site and realizing that it’s just not for you. When you get to that point, then make the commitment to that decision and close the account.
• If you have a Twitter account connected through your LinkedIn profile, but you don’t actually use Twitter, then go IMMEDIATELY and disconnect it. Professionals look at your LinkedIn profile – guaranteed. And a link to an account that never got started or was abandoned is BAD for your professional reputation.
• If you decide at some point that you want to come back, you can always set up an account at a later time.

Avoiding scenario #2 is definitely in your best interest. Cleaning it up will be time well invested in your personal and agency reputation.

While #3 is actually better than #2, understand that clients and prospects who are looking you up online must believe in the power of the Internet as a business tool. So if you are falling into either of these two scenarios, you’re already at a disadvantage with those prospects before you even get started.

Take control of that first impression and put your own positive message out there for people to find.

Photo by Bill Marrow.

@wendykeneipp

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Managing the performance of your employees is the key to maximizing their productivity.   A Hacket Group study backs this up showing that companies who excel at performance management post earnings that are 15% more than their competition who are less effective at managing performance, they show a 22% improvement in net profit margin, and they spend 6% less on HR overall.

As important as they should be, almost nobody likes performance reviews.  They’re uncomfortable for the giver and the receiver, largely because managers aren’t adequately trained in how to make performance reviews meaningful.  While I would certainly encourage you to make that training investment, I would like to suggest a simple way to improve in this area right away.

Instead of thinking of performance reviews as an annual event, start by thinking of the review process as an ongoing dialogue, a dialogue that needs to start with the right questions 

David Farr, CEO of Emerson Electric, is noted for asking every employee a short list of questions such as . . .

• How do you make a difference?
• What improvement idea are you working on?
• When did you last get coaching from your boss?

Together, the answers help employees discover how their role links to the overall company direction, puts a sharp focus on continuous improvement, and highlights how much coaching and development is valued by the organization.

When people choose for themselves what to do instead of just being told, they are always more committed to the outcome.  So, although as a leader you likely feel a responsibility to tell your employees how to improve, you'll do better by asking them questions that will help them reach their own conclusions about how to improve.

Photo by takomabibelot.

@kevintrokey

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