Business Insight Zone

According to site statistics, these were the five March posts that got the most page views:

1. Why companies should explore social media, in a nutshell.
2. Using social media in public relations: an interview with Jessica Flynn.
3. The crazy dream.
4. Inbox-fu: the mystery of ReSaDoTh.
5. The big economy and your economy.

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Image by woodley wonderworks, used under a Creative Commons license.

This is your ride. What are you gonna do with it?

The other day I came across a good line from that master maker of apothegms, Zig Ziglar:

There’s not a lot you can do about the national economy, but there is a lot you can do about your personal economy.

Amen.

So your vehicle is old and rusty, and maybe you’re stuck out in the economic sticks.

So what? It is what it is. Work to make it better.

In the same vein — in fact, maybe the best thing I’ve read in this vein — Tom Peters on “Dealing with Recessionary Times.” (Warning: hard work ahead.)

It’s Monday. Time to go get ‘em.

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Image by Cody, used under a Creative Commons license.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: news headlines can be grossly misleading.

Example #1: Consumer Spending

Top story on the Google News business page this morning: the numbers are in for February’s U.S. consumer spending.

The Bloomberg headline is the most accurate; the Times headline is accurate if tepid; the MarketWatch headline is (in my view) simply misleading.

Larger issue: there’s a big difference between a decline (or “fade” etc.) in something and a decline in growth in something.

The Madness of Earnings Season

The worst offenses in this vein often come during earnings season, when things get much more complicated. The key reason for this is that there are so many numbers in play:

1. revenue
2. earnings (and, by extension, earnings per share)
3. revenue growth
4. earnings growth
5. analysts estimates of #1 – #4
6. share price

If all the numbers tell the same story, no problem. But what if all of these things emerge from XYZCorp’s quarterly report:

• flat revenue, ergo
• decline in revenue growth;
• increased earnings, but
• a lower year-over-year rate of earnings growth;
• dissapointment among analysts about one or more of these numbers; and
• a sharp decline in share price.

That set of facts could lead to many different headline interpretations, for example:

• “XYZCorp Sees Higher Earnings on Flat Revenues; Shares Decline”
• “XYZCorp Shares Hammered after Revenue Miss”
• “Lackluster Earnings Growth Pummels XYZCorp Shares”
• “XYZCorp Grows Earnings Despite Tough Economy”
• Et cetera.

The point is, the set of numbers is complex enough (and that’s before we get into things like EBIDTA, “pro forma” earnings, and the like) that the headline writer can often decide which spin to put on the story, then write the headline to suit — much to the detriment of the reader trying to make sense of things.

Example #2: Layoffs

Another story from the same page of Google News:

Again, Bloomberg gives a sober take on this, as does the Guardian. The top headline? . . . Not so much. The problem is “slash.”

Now, I realize that the story is appearing in the Boston Business Journal, and I grant you that losing “scores of job” in your area isn’t good news. But “slash”? No. A quick look at the historical financials page for our record on Google reveals that the company has had at least 3,000 employees every year since 2002, and that as of December 2008 it employed 20,222 people. Cutting less than 1% of a company’s workforce doesn’t — can’t — equate to “slashing” jobs.

Especially when the Bloomberg story clarifies thus:

The cuts will affect workers globally, Google said in a blog posting today. Employees will have a chance to find other positions within the company. There are no plans for further cuts, spokesman Matt Furman said.

The moral of this story: Especially since the real implications of the business news are bad enough these days . . . let the headline reader beware.

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Top image via the Library of Congress.

Want advice on whittling down your To-Do list? Oh, I’m full of that kind of advice:

• Toss something off the list.
• Change verb tenses to promote action.
• Banish multitasking.
• Parse ruthlessly.
• Make a STOP-doing list.
• . . . and so on.

Heck, I even wrote a little poem about to-do’s.

But while all of this advice aims to help you and me both get more to-do’s done, it’s possible that none of it goes far enough — at least if it doesn’t help us to change habits of inattention, overburden, multitasking, or mindless repetition. Hey, we’re human — our brains are wired to follow habits. No need to cry about it . . . but no need to remain a slave to old patterns, either.

The Prescription

This is the medicine I’m taking.

1. Pull all your to-do’s into one place. (If this means you have to have to fill 20 pages of a word-processing document, so be it.)
2. At the top of the list write “Maybe Do” in place of “To Do.”
3. Find a pad of paper, a blank table in a quiet room, and an undisturbed hour. (This may be the hardest step. But persevere.)
4. Read through the “Maybe Do” list without writing anything down. Just read through the whole thing, line by line, to remind yourself what’s on it.
5. On your blank pad of paper, make a heading: “To REALLY Do.”
6. Under that heading, write down the half-dozen things from the “Maybe Do” list that genuinely must happen — so you can keep your job, so you can be a good parent, so you can become world-famous, so your company can stop gushing red ink, or whatever is most important to you.
7. Seriously, limit it to half a dozen, at the outside. Go back and mark out items you wrote down on the “To REALLY Do” list until there are only six.
8. Do those things.
9. Repeat steps 4 – 8 ad infinitum.

What do you think? Try it and tell me if it works for you.

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Construction photo by hansntareen, used under a Creative Commons license.

Among many gems in Warren Buffett’s annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, this one stood out:

“The way to achieve this goal is to deserve it.”

There’s lots of pain in the business world these days, and far be it from me to add to yours. But it’s worth asking yourself . . .

• Are you actively working to deserve your customer’s business?
• If you’re going to avoid the layoff ax, will it be because you’ve earned it?

You might lose the customer anyway. You might lose your job anyway. The current economy is like that. I know plenty of good vendors who’ve seen contracts terminated, and plenty of good workers who’ve been handed the pink slip, even though the company doing the terminating hated to see them go.

But you don’t have to make it easy for the customer to walk away, or easy for the employer to cut off your paycheck.

Against gimmicks.

One of the reasons I like Buffett is that he represents, in many ways, the triumph of substance over style. He’s not a perfect man, but he’s earned the prestige he enjoys. Let me urge the same pursuit for you, just like I try to pursue it for myself.

What not to do:

• Anything that relies on the slickness of the marketing / packaging / line of talk to cover up the fundamental reality of the thing inself.
• Hide costs.
• Bait-and-switch.
• Pressure the user into something they don’t need or can’t use.

What to do:

• Deliver value.
• Pick up the customer hotline on the first ring. Then listen.
• Make problems go away for your users, even if doing so doesn’t earn you an extra dime right this minute.
• Hustle!

That’s how you earn your piece of the pie.

What would you add to this?

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Related posts:

• The Basic Basics — an Omnibus.
• Happiness is a clear set of acquisition criteria.

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Photo by Stu Spivack, used under a CC-Share Alike license.

One of the advantages of using social media for business is that you get to meet all sorts of nifty people who share interests with you on both personal and professional levels. Case in point: Jessica Flynn of Red Sky Public Relations in Boise.

I got to know Jessica a little bit from reading her blog and from talking with her on Twitter. Among other things, I found out that we both went to the University of Texas, and that we share an abiding love for the croquetas at Bar Gernika in Boise.

Like me, Jess brings a journalist’s background to the business world; also like me, she spends a lot of time thinking about how social media is changing the business landscape. Since she’s a P.R. professional, her particular areas of focus are (1) how social media can enable a more enlightened practice of public relations, and (2) how the Web is altering the traditional journalistic media.

Jess was nice enough to answer some questions I posed to her about her views on social media. Read on . . .

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How did you begin using social media in your professional efforts?

During my career as a journalist I used blogs to search for leads and find story contacts. That’s how I initially experienced the power of the social web — and the immediate sharing of opinions and information. The disappearance of the traditional news cycle and the move to news shared at the speed of thumbs. We began utilizing social media in earnest in our public relations efforts when we launched our agency a year ago. As communication professionals, I feel it is our duty to stay at the forefront of where the industry is moving. If you don’t engage and exist in the social media space yourself, you are not able to advise clients and develop strategy. I was fortunate to have a group of early-adopter tech friends who shared the KoolAid with me.

What do you and your firm use the social media for?

We utilize social media in three main ways: to promote our company through establishing and maintaining an online presence for us as individuals and therefore our agency; to monitor for industry trends and breaking news that provides opportunity or potential crisis for our clients; and to grow the reach and reputation of our clients through engaging in the social web.

All of our staff maintain Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn profiles, and several of us blog regularly.

Whether for yourselves or on behalf of your clients, what steps do you take to monitor social media conversations?

I have tried out several tools in Beta as they emerged — Twitter is great for giving you links and feedback on the latest tools available. Right now my favorites are TweetDeck as a platform for monitoring conversations. I have it set up to monitor for several client names and trends, and it has enabled me to place three stories/reviews for a technology client by tracking conversations and responding immediately. A colleague — Tac Anderson at New Comm Biz — turned me onto TechRigy, which is the latest software solution to monitor and measure social media. We’ve been using it for several weeks for a Fortune 50 company and a technology client and have been impressed with the measurement — sentiment analysis, trend comparisons, geographic analysis, theme detection, authority measurement, demographic, and geographic analysis. I also love my Google Reader — it is one of the key tools I encourage clients to utilize when I’m asked “How do you have time for it all?” I subscribe to industry blogs for PR/Marketing to keep up on the latest trends and industry blogs for clients to look for opportunities, and input my Google Alerts into my Reader as well.

You’ve been in journalism and P.R. long enough to see lots of evolution as first the Internet and now the social media have grown. What has changed for P.R. pros because of social media, and what has stayed the same?

What has changed is the transparency and PR’s so-called gatekeeper role. No longer can PR pros consider themselves as gatekeepers. The gates are open. Conversations are occurring whether or not you (or the organization you represent) chose to be involved. Social media has broken down the walls. In a way – I believe it has brought PR back to its true core. It is about communication and relationships again. Now it is about acting as a conduit for information. Finding the right channels to reach the people who want to hear your story. It’s also made relationships even stronger — bridged the gap in some ways between media and PR people. Made each other seem more human. I don’t believe that in our profession you can have a professional social media profile and a personal one — they are one and the same. Social media has made us all human again and able to communicate in a way that is intensely more personal and more meaningful.

Also — it has forced a lot of PR people out of their comfort zone. For the first time since the inception of the Internet, PR people have been forced to either get on the “bus” or get left behind in the dirt. Grow and evolve or go extinct.

About a year ago I got to visit Boise for the first time in 20+ years, and I was impressed with how cosmopolitan it seemed. That said, it hardly has the reputation of Silicon Valley or Austin for technology adoption. What’s it like being a social-media enthusiast where you live?

Hey! Entrepreneur.com thinks we’re the next Silicon Valley! Seriously, I don’t think you have to be a cosmopolitan-techno-hotbed in order to have a vibrant social media community. While Boise may be small, it is the very Word of Mouth culture that exists in communities like Boise that supports social media. There is a lack of pretense that makes the social media experience in Boise more approachable than it may be in larger cities.

And the beauty of social media is that, unlike other networking, there are no geographic boundaries. We are all on a virtual level playing field where my thoughts and opinions hold the same weight as those [of someone] in a larger city. It is about the quality of the conversation — not the size of the population. We handle clients and integrate social media strategies beyond our Idaho borders. I don’t have to be in a certain city to engage in conversations, initiate dialogue, monitor for a client’s share of voice, and craft a strategy to grow it — the world is now without borders. Those professionals engaging every day are the ones who will succeed — regardless of where they are.

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Thanks to Jess for sharing her thoughts. Be sure to check out her blog!

A couple of weeks back I spelled out my crazy dream for business. Since then I’ve been thinking about which companies are already living that dream.

Within a few days of writing that post, the mailman brought me both the latest Patagonia catalog and my annual REI membership report — complete with my annual dividend.

Both of these companies promote healthy outdoor activity and active ecological stewardship. Both of them put their money where their mouths are on these issues, both of them make good money, and both of them are known for treating their employees well (although REI has laid off some employees during the current retail slump).

So, I nominate Patagonia and REI for membership on the Crazy Dream List. What do you think?

And which companies would YOU add to the list?

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Image by Rick McCharles, used under a Creative Commons license.

Worth a watch: this multi-segment 60 Minutes interview with Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, who impresses me yet again as not just smart but deeply humane.

Watch CBS Videos Online

(Click here if the embedded video doesn’t work.)

We’re in a bad economic fix, but I’m glad to know that this guy is playing a key role to make things better.

(Thanks to Dave Livingston for pointing me to this.)

Four things I would like to bring to your attention:

Item the First — This week our corporate siblings at AllBusiness are hosting a D&B Digital Idea Exchange on a topic that couldn’t be more timely — “Sales: Surviving Tough Times.” Follow this link to sign up for a reminder about the video program, which will be streaming on-demand on March 24th & 25th.

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Item the Second — Although we do most of our business online these days, we at Hoover’s never forget our roots as a reference-book publisher — and it looks like we’re keeping our skills in that area nice and sharp. The Hoover’s Handbook of Industry Profiles just won gold in the 2009 Axiom Business Book Awards. (I believe the correct, professional response to this is “Woo-hoo!”)

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Item the Third — Last Friday I drew the fun assignment of talking with hosts Jen Zingsheim and Mark Story on the Media Bullseye Roundtable. We talked about: (1) how a bit of social-media inside-baseball (regarding Mzinga) has leaked over into the real world of business; (2) the mug’s game of predicting what’s going to happen in the social-media world; and (3) what I took away from South by Southwest. You can listen to the half-hour (no-)bull session via this link.

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Item the Fourth — A week ago, while I was at SXSW, I had the pleasure of meeting Crystal Beasley of StepChange Group. Crystal was pursuing a nifty idea: use a simple Flip video camera to record one-minute answers to short questions from social media pros. Here’s the twist: each person answered a question, then asked their own new question and designated who should answer it. Here is the “videochain” I joined.

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Photo by John Barreiros, used under a CC-Share Alike license.

Workin’ in the call center

Many years ago now, I worked for a few months in a call center for a credit-card company. The good news is that I was assigned to a group of reps that primarily handled accounts for high-end business travelers, who typically had plenty of money to spend and never ran into problems paying their bills.

The bad news was that . . . I was working in a call center for a credit-card company. I admire people who can do that work over the long haul, because inevitably you run into a lot of grief from customers who are unhappy because:

1. they screwed up;
2. the bank screwed up;
3. they’re in denial about what they can and can’t afford to spend;
4. their mama didn’t love them; or
5. whatever.

The big challenge for me was not to assume that the reason for the anger was #1, #3,  #4, or something similar. I worked for a well-run, non-predatory company that’s now part of JPMorgan Chase, but that didn’t mean that the bank was perfect — we made mistakes, too.

On top of that, even when #1, #3, or #4 was true, I couldn’t help the person on the phone — even if only to get them off the phone — if I didn’t LISTEN.

The same old lesson

“Sure, sure,” I can hear you saying. “Everybody should listen better. Of course.”

Yet we need reminding of it constantly. A wakeup call on this point came for me a few months back when I read this James Fallows item praising the interviewing acumen of Terry Gross:

She also avoids the common pitfall of highbrow public broadcasting-style interviewers: giving in to the temptation to show off how much she knows and how smart she is in the set-up to the questions.

What she does instead, and what she shows brilliantly in this interview, is: she listens, and she thinks. In my experience, 99% of the difference between a good interviewer (or a good panel moderator) and a bad one lies in what that person is doing while the interviewee talks. If the interviewer is mainly using that time to move down to the next item on the question list, the result will be terrible. But if the interviewer is listening, then he or she is in position to pick up leads (“Now, that’s an intriguing idea, tell us more about…”), to look for interesting tensions (“You used to say X, but now it sounds like…”), to sum up and give shape to what the subject has said (“It sounds as if you’re suggesting…”). And, having paid the interviewee the respect of actually listening to the comments, the interviewer is also positioned to ask truly tough questions without having to bluster or insult.

As a journalist and analyst, I’ve been on both sides of a lot of interviews, and I can confirm everything Fallows says.

The business application

It’s pretty simple, but bears repeating ad nauseam: If you’re going to solve someone’s problem, you have to listen to them to figure out what the problem is.

Somewhere, some customer of yours is confused or upset about something you could easily clear up. You could explain what needs explaining. You could rectify a mistake. You could undo a change they don’t like. But you don’t know what the “something” is yet, because you haven’t heard them.

So find them and listen to them so you can help them and, just for icing on the cake, learn from them.

Everything I’m saying here becomes even more important if you’re not in a customer-facing role, and an order of magnitude more important if you’re an executive in a non-customer-facing role. It’s much easier than we ever like to admit to miss the point if you’re not constantly in touch with the people who are actually using what you sell. When you take the chance to really listen, you’ll be shocked by how much your customer service reps know that you don’t.

I’ve talked many times about Peter Drucker’s “naive questions” — things like . . .

• Who are your customers?
• What do they want?
• Are you giving it to them?
• Are you making it easy?

Hold your own feet to the fire about asking and answering these questions — and make sure that the answers you get are based on listening to the customers themselves.

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Further reading:

• Matt Dickman: Three keys to better listening

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Photo by Stian Rødven Eide, used under a CC-Share Alike license.