Why Marketers Should Care About Diversity

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It’s easy to say that everyone should care about diversity. Of course everyone should care about diversity. But this is a blog for marketers, and marketers should care about diversity for a very specific reason.

Diverse teams are happier, more innovative, more productive, and get better results than teams that are less diverse.

Study after study have shown, and numerous publications have noted, that diverse companies are more successful companies. As a marketer, your job is to improve the performance of your company. And a more diverse team seems like a good place to start.

Why?

  • Diverse teams bring together people from different backgrounds, which helps the creative problem solving process. We look at things and approach solutions in different ways. This is where productivity and innovation are boosted.
     
  • Diverse teams know how to create and market products to diverse consumer groups. When your team more closely matches the consumers you are marketing to, you would expect your marketing to be more effective.

Prioritize New Hires

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For many entrepreneurs and small business owners, one of the greatest joys that comes from running your own business is being able to hire new employees. It just feels good to be a job creator, to give others an opportunity they might not have otherwise had.

May we all be so lucky to be able to hire new people. But just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Or at least you shouldn’t rush into it.

Because the big question remains, who should you hire?

The keys to prioritizing new hires:

  1. Fill a gap – hire someone who can do something you urgently need and can’t do yourself
  2. Free up your time – hire someone to take on tasks you’re doing that are keeping you from more important chores, like growing the business
  3. Open new doors – hire someone who knows how to do something you don’t, preferably someone who can lead new growth, ie. Product development, marketing, business development, sales

For a small business, your first hires are incredibly important. As the team grows, those first hires will help you lead and grow, helping to establish a culture and define strategy. So make sure you are hiring the right people, for the right positions.

Market To Mondays – Part 10

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Welcome to the latest edition of our new weekly blog series, Market To Mondays. Each week, we will introduce you to a new group of people you should market to. We’ll tell you who they are, why you should market to them, and how you might get started.

Last week’s group was Loyal Customers.

Today’s Group = Your Employees

Your employees are the life blood of your company. Without them, you’ve got nothing.

They also have the potential to be the biggest advocates for what you do and the products you offer. But don’t assume that just because they work there, they’re champions of the company. It takes work.

Companies like Apple, Google, Zappos, etc. have dedicated programs to make their employees excited about what they do, what the company offers, and how they can help. Loyal employees who believe in the company mission are a great benefit to the marketing department.

If you can’t make your employees believe in the mission, how are you going to make customers believe?

But how?

It doesn’t cost anything to market to your employees. But it does take time and dedication. It can’t be an afterthought.

The marketing team, along with HR and upper management, need to work collaboratively to develop an employee engagement program. A well-executed program will generate a more enthusiastic team, greater productivity through engagement, less turnover which leads to cost savings, and brand advocates.

As soon as a new employee is hired, they should be enveloped in the company culture. A dedicated training program should introduce them to the details of the products and services offered, introduce them to a mentor within the company that can coach and train them, and teach them how the company markets itself to consumers, regardless of what department the person is in.

The training program should never end. Instead, after someone has been on board for a month or more, it should turn into something new. Regular training sessions should be a part of all employees’ routines. They should be the first to hear about new products and strategies. They should be connected with top managers in all departments so they can get all of their questions answered.

The Employee Engagement Team, as I’ll refer to them, should make it their job to keep morale up. Anything you can do to keep the team excited about coming to work each day should be considered.

Happy employees are better employees. And they will become advocates for your brand without any additional incentives.

What group should we cover next? Now accepting submissions for audiences that we will cover in an upcoming “Market To Mondays” post. Submit your ideas via our contact page or in the comments section below.

3 Tips for Better Meetings

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Meetings suck. Not just because they’re long and boring and wastes of everyone’s time. Though they are that. But also because they all too often get nothing accomplished, result in more confusion, and lead to even more meetings.

It’s time for a meeting revolution. Meetings done well certainly still have a place in today’s office culture. But they have to be done right. And that means rethinking meetings in their entirety.

Here are three tips for better meetings:

  1. Clear agendas. A good meeting is one where the agenda was prepared well in advance of the meeting. There was a clear reason why a meeting was necessary. The meeting has a goal. An agenda was created and shared with everyone for feedback ahead of time via email. Everyone knows who is leading the discussion and what role they’re expected to play during the meeting. Nothing ever comes up for the first time in a meeting. If it’s not on the agenda, it is not discussed.
     
  2. Clear outcomes. The conclusion of any meeting should be a clear set of next steps. Decisions should be made, and work should be assigned. Someone should be assigned to take notes, create a task list, and distribute a copy of those tasks to all meeting participants directly after the meeting is over. Those people that have work assigned to them should know when it’s due, and a follow up should be set to see that it’s done on time and to the satisfaction of all parties involved.
     
  3. Strict time and attendance limits. The biggest problem with meetings today is that they are overcrowded and never-ending. No meeting should last a second longer than it absolutely needs to. Along with the agenda, there should be clear start and end times, for each topic if necessary. If a discussion requires more time than the meeting allows, reconvene at a later time. Commit to ending the meeting on time, every time. And only those people directly involved in the decision making process should be involved. If a team member is not deemed critical to the topic being discussed, don’t drag them in.

Keep them lean and short. Prepare ahead of time. And get things accomplished. That’s how you do meetings right.

Top Tips for Today’s Managers

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Since 2013 I’ve been an occasional contributor to the PreScouter Journal. PreScouter’s mission is to expose the world to innovations that might otherwise be lost or go unnoticed. The PreScouter Journal is part idea sharer, part how to guide, and part news. Contributors across a wide variety of industries help to make it a must follow source of content.

Below are the four posts that I’ve had published to date, with a brief summary of each. I hope that you find something that interests you and hop over to PreScouter’s site to read the article in full.

Redefining Leadership and the Role of Managers

What it means to lead an organization today is different than what it meant years ago. And as such, we expect our managers to approach their jobs and responsibilities differently. This post includes my own theories of what is expected of today’s managers and what it means to be a leader.

Motivating Today’s Employees: How to Get the Most Out of Your Team

Building off the first post, this one makes the argument that today’s employees are different. What it takes to manage them, coach them, train them, and keep them has changed. And so it is important for managers at all levels to understand what they can do to help their teams.

Ask Not What Your Employees Can Do for You

The role of the manager is not that of a drill sergeant. But that’s how many still approach it. Instead, this post argues that the role of the manager is to make your employees’ lives easier. What can managers do to help make their employees better at their jobs?

Seek Out Cooperation

We do not live in a perfectly competitive world. When our company succeeds, it does not come at the expense of all others. So to compete in the real world, sometimes you have to seek out help from other companies or institutions. This post is about how to instill that sense of cooperation in your organization.