Ian M Rountree

Copywriter, Project Manager, Digital Marketing

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Setting Expectations

May 12, 2011 by Ian Leave a Comment

Playground Ages 2-5 - Sadie Hernandez | Flickr

If you’re serious about keeping your business human in the face of social media, you need to set expectations.

Not just for yourself – but also for your clients, employees, and employers. Everyone functions better with expectations set.

Your clients need to know when you’re available – and when you’re not. This one’s easy; hours of operation are almost universally respected. Put them on your website, your Facebook page, your Twitter profile – anywhere they might be helpful.

Your employers need to know that when you’re at work, you’re at work. No personal Facebook or Twitter time, unless your personal brand is part of your job description. Your boss has a reasonable expectation that you’ll be mentally and emotionally invested wherever you’re physically located. Conversely, if you workshift, you need to keep your employer apprised of things that limit your working hours. Just because you’re on your computer doesn’t mean you’re working, ready to work, capable of working,or willing to work.

Where this gets complicated is as a leader.

Leadership – yes, you, you’re a leader somewhere – needs to be responsive to the needs of client and employee alike. Leaders need to know when their people can work, and when they cannot. We get that, right? But what about the subtle problems of being a leader who perhaps works more than their troops?

Leadership needs to not set the bar at 2am email flurries.

Leadership needs to not set the bar at retroactive enforcement.

Leadership needs to live by the same rules of engagement that everyone else does.

Even if you tell your people you don’t expect them to work as hard as you do, they’re going to try. They’re going to feel like they’re inadequate sometimes when they can’t spend sixteen hours on a project in one sitting.

Until they understand that their work habits are theirs, and your work habits are yours, your excellence has the hidden opportunity to make people feel like they are less.

And that’s a bad situation to be in. So, please, ask for an end of day response with that 2am email. Tell your people to go home on the weekends. If there’s a shower in your office, turn off the water on holidays. Convince your people that you expect them to take care of themselves.

Or not. Maybe your people work harder than you do. Do they? You’re so lucky. Oh man are you ever.

Unless they worry that they’re working harder than you, and you’re slacking off like a boss. That’s not a good place to be in. Do something about that.

Being awesome has a lot of requirements. One of them is making sure people know when and how they can be awesome too.

Let’s all be awesome together. Who’s with me?

Filed Under: Content Strategy, Social Media Tagged With: community, courage, futureproof, human business, human cost, human resources, human talent

Planning for Yesterday

November 10, 2009 by Ian Leave a Comment

Until time travel becomes possible, there is no benefit in planning for yesterday. It’s done; take the lessons as they are and move on. People understand this concept, so why can’t businesses?

Have you eve had trouble, interfacing with Them On High (ie: Your Boss’ Bosses) in your company?You know who I mean, people who repeat expectations like mantras, expecting that more drill means different results in the future. Einstein’s definition of insanity in action. We’re coming out of a recession, everything’s looking up – but none of the behaviours have been affected by what’s happened lately. The buying habits of our clients have changed and forward looking people knew they would but the line is still the same; keep the numbers up. Look for this percentage of gains.

What is this nonsense?

One of the first mentors I had when I was coming into management said once that no business plans for a loss. You don’t act on things you know will harm your goals, it’s the same for people as it is for businesses, so why do we see the same thing over and again? If you’re seeing this kind of behaviour, it’s a clear sign that your Them On High are doing just that. Corporate wisdom being what it is, they’ve convinced themselves that level is good enough, and have made the failing choice to be content.

The trouble is, if we’re not using the same metrics we always have, how do we decide on new ones? Hungry Mooks (read as: Shareholders) are limited by their usual lack of context in this, since they usually don’t spend a lot of time on the front lines, keeping the lights on by their every word. So how do we divine new numbers to make look pretty on charts?

Filed Under: Communication Tagged With: business plans, human business

The Commission Problem

August 11, 2009 by Ian Leave a Comment

Best Buy has a long-running ad campaign taking advantage of the fact that their employees aren’t on commission. This is just about the most desparate, jerk-driven campaign I’m aware of for a number of reasons.

If it doesn’t pay me, why should I learn about it?

On the flip side of this pressure problem, there are situations where it’s beneficial to the customer. Commission in many of the longest running retail companies is seen as an incentive – not to sell the biggest TV or best computer (which have the lowest margin and make the salesfolk the least coin) but to ensure that whatever gets sold, stays sold. If I sell you something I make commission on, and you bring it back for whatever reason, more likely than not I’m going to lose the money I made on that sale. It’s fairly logical, and it means that commissioned salesfolk have a direct interest in ensuring you get what you’re actually going to use. If they fail to do this, they’re doing it wrong.

Not all commissioned salespeople are pressure salespeople!

Yes. In a lot of places where the employee takes a cut of the profits, there’s an attitude of competition and a certain feeling of pressure for the buyer. Some of the worst experiences people can have are at the hands of greedy salesfolk who are solely interested in how much money they can make from you. We get that, Best Buy, it’s a unversal truth. You can stop beating the horse, it’s dead.

It’s easy to recognize the high-pressure salespeople.

But only if you’re paying attention! Listen to what you’re being told, and if in doubt, ask for proof of the salesperson’s claims, or do some research on your own. It’s that simple. Call over one of the other salesfolk in the store – there are bound to be more than one – and see if the stories match up.

Salespeople enjoy loyalty just as much as you do!

When I began working in commissioned retail, my mentor explained some of the best ways to use commission as an incentive for knowing your product, knowing your customers, and knowing how to put the two together in the best possible way.

Now, I’ve got a customer who’s followed me around for the last four years, because I was nice to him and listened for twenty minutes the first time we met. He was new to Canada, and didn’t speak English very clearly. He had spoken to five other staffers in my store, and was persistant enough not to up and leave when they didn’t help. As a result, I’ve sold him perhaps dozens of things he’s needed – and gladly accepted returns for what he doesn’t need, because by and large, they’re not actually returns! He trusts me enough to re-explain what he wanted, and in most cases, we can find something that will work, even if the process takes three or even four exchanges before we get it right. Because I’ve been loyal to his needs, he has been loyal to me as a salesperson.

We can’t get enough of this kind of behavior! And if Best Buy had their way, commission would be gone, and I’d have little to no incentive to make sure that when I train new staff, they learn appropriate habits for keeping people happy with what they buy, and not snowblinding them with dazzling displays of awesomeness. At the end of the day, the only business worth doing is business that’s beneficial to everyone in volved. Abused, commission can ruin retail and other kinds of businesses more effectively than any other kind of abuse. In the right light, it enhances interaction by providing incentive and fair compensation, making it even more possible to be useful to your customers, and encouraging customers to be loyal to your company, and even to you personally, as a salesperson.

We’re all trying to win. There’s no reason we can’t.

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: human business, retail, shopping

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