Facebook Marketing Conference

Last week I worked with Chinwag to programme the first Chinwag Insight event, held in Covent Garden. We had over 30 speakers from brands and agencies talking about their recent work on Facebook.

The conference focused on how Facebook links in with marketing strategy and we covered everything from the latest changes announced at the F8 to FB ads, pages, apps, metrics and more. 

For a summary of the event and links to all the slides go to http://bit.ly/p3v1nl.

cc chinwag.

How to build a visionary company (part 1)

 Mention ‘vision and mission ‘to most people and you can see eyeballs role, it is corporate speak. If you have ever read some vision and mission statements you might have noticed that  they can verge from being entertaining and not in a good way, to being so dull that reading a company’s health and safety notice can be inspiring by comparison.

However, done right, both can be really valuable to your company, can sustain it for years to come, attract the right business and partners and maintain your relevance, irrespective of market changes.

This 2 part blog will look at:

• How to build a visionary company - Create a company which will be here tomorrow
• Mission Possible- Maintaining your relevance, by understanding one of the biggest mistakes you can make in your business.

Why is this all this important?

Companies have been telling me for a while that their budgets have been cut, and more businesses are competing for contracts/briefs. When you have to work harder to stay afloat and have 100 both urgent and important things on your list sometimes the last thing you want to think about it is the big picture. Here is why it is exactly the thing you should be thinking about now to stand out from the crowd.

What is the difference between vision and mission?

Simply put, a vision is big picture and future oriented while the mission is focused on the present. It is the vision that defines the end game and the mission is the road map that will take you there. For vision think leading, for mission, managing.  

How do we create one of these vision things?

A vision is something that will set you apart from other digital, social, corporate companies that are doing something similar, it will bring your brand to life.

Many experts have concluded that a vision should be made up of two parts:

Core ideology - defines what you stand for and why you exist.

Your envisioned future - is what you aspire to become, to achieve, to create—something that will require change to maintain. This should be made up of huge goals, ones that would take 10-30 years to achieve and a colourful picture of what it will look like when you get there.

Core ideology is made up of:

Core values - the 1-3 things that you stand for that will not ever change i.e. if you had enough money never to work again would you still adhere to these values?

And, Purpose – why are you here and doing what you are doing?

When looked at in this way vision contains some big answers to some really big powerful questions. By asking these questions you can really get to the heart of what you are doing and why you are doing it.  

How to find your purpose?

The key part to understanding purpose, it is it never reached but will guide you from afar.

One of the purposes I love is 3M’s. They define their purpose as’ the perpetual quest to solve unsolved problems innovatively’. This statement will automatically lead them into new sectors and innovations whatever they create and links all the things that they do.

To find your companies purpose ask ‘Why?’, a lot. Generally, it is useful to do this as part of an exercise but if you fancy doing it anyway it can really throw your colleagues when you start acting like a 3 year old in meetings. The kinds of ‘whys’ you could include are: ‘Why do you offer this product or service?’ ‘Why is that important?’ After 5-6 whys are the verbal equivalents to a giant spade, they help you dig deeper; you will get to why you do, what you do. That is your purpose, it is not something that you can fake, pluck from thin air or ask people to follow like a rule, it is intrinsic to what you do and why you do it.

Visionary companies understand what should change in a business and what should not.  Your core values are core to your business. Everything else is not. It can create agility in larger companies and should infuse everything your company does both internally and public facing.

This blog post is only a guide for what you can include in a vision statement, yours might be one sentence, or a paragraph but try and define one and see the difference it can make in your business.

Checklist for your vision statement

It need to be short, and use non-management speak

It should not be ordinary but extraordinary and colourful

Does it inspire you and bring your mission and people to life?

Next week we will look at :

Mission possible- Maintaining your relevance, by understanding one of the biggest mistakes you can make in your business.

 Picture by Todd Huffman

How to build a collaborative event

Guest blog for Chinwag.

Building a collaborative event is not for the faint hearted. Many event producer has run for the hills when faced with a large committee of partners let alone trying to lead a large team of stakeholders.  If, however, you are brave and follow a few guidelines the benefits of collaboration can be mind-blowing and much bigger than you could ever manage on your own.

Here is a guide based on my learnings directing Social Media Week (SMW) the London Games Fringe & Onemedia.  During SMW we had over 53 event partners, 50+ venues, 110 events and 40 experts on the advisory board. All of this was accomplished in under 16 weeks and here is how:

Choose passionate people to be part of your A team.  More specifically, make sure they are passionate about what you want the event to be about!  They have to be motivated to work for free, donate time and problem solve throughout the process of creating the event not just at the beginning.

Know what you want to achieve – What are you asking people to buy into? You need to have a clear vision, whether you create that yourself then find people who also share it or whether you build it as a group, it has to be a strong vision that does not change. How you get there will change day by day but you all need to head in the same direction.

Some people will contribute more than others , it is easy to get frustrated at this but try and remember  80/20 rule  10% + will be very active and 10%+ will be pretty active, the rest will contribute in their own way and can still make a good contribution i.e contact for a venue, a speaker suggestion also unless you are paying them wades of cash, they are doing this voluntarily.

Hand over responsibilities- probably the hardest thing to do, let go of some control, especially if you have not seen the results in the time you expected, but you need to let others have some ownership. It is easy to think, I will do this myself, but then you will create a habit of picking up the pieces. Co-ownership  and responsibility is good and people will surprise you, mostly in a positive way.

It might take longer to see results- as the group of people learn to work together and share ideas, things can look a bit chaotic for a while. Breathe through it, when it starts to come together it will grow and grow…

Create a fun environment – lots can happen virtually but there is no beating a physical meeting fuelled by food and/or drink. You might not be paying people but you can certainly make being a part of your event enjoyable!

Have a collective online system /space– when you can’t meet but need to brainstorm, solve problems. Make sure that everyone knows how to use it as that can be a barrier to entry.

Share achievements – When things go well, you can’t take all the credit for it, share achievements and also share when things aren’t going so well.

Photo curtsey of Brownslakeaquaducks

Why battery farming employees is killing your business.

Yes this is a picture of a seemingly naked man with chickens. Why, you may ask. Well, am not sure about the lack of clothes and have my fingers crossed that the bubble coming out of his mouth does not contain some expletives but I wanted a picture to represent the battery farming of employees’.

A friend confided in me the other day about his job (let’s call him Sid) and how it the company he was working for had decided to deal with the current economic changes. Sid mentioned that like many organisations in the current climate, his were trying to cut spending;  they merged with another organisation, froze pay, and cut costs. Nothing new there unfortunately, but the thing that shocked me the most was the other conditions that he was working under:

Being kept in the dark- Employees  at his organisation were not informed of decisions that affected them. They were given very little notice when the company merged and some of the staff were told the week before Christmas that a letter would arrive on Christmas Eve letting them know if they had a job or not.

No basic rights – New rules came into play if you are sick, you lose pay for the days that you miss and you will receive £30 fines if you are 10 minutes late for work no matter how late you stay in the evening. New responsibilities are added to their jobs, without consultation, and they are told do it or lose your job.

No room to grow/develop - Not surprising, what was originally an environment for productivity, creativity and laughter has now been replaced by fear, stress and doing only what you need to do. Sid’s colleagues are scared to say or do anything for fear of losing their jobs. 

Obviously, this is only one side of the story and yes, companies are having tough times but there are things that you can do even when times are tough to improve the way you work and become sustainable.

How to free range your employees

Ask for help and listen - Each year this organisation would make thousands of brochures that no one ever used.  In Sid’s office alone, the cost for this ran into 5 figures, enough to pay for a person for a year. As someone on the front line, he knew what was working and what wasn’t. Let’s imagine that each employee would have at least one idea to cut costs or improve productivity, what could that do to transform an organisation?

Collective growth – Apologises for continuing with the chicken analogy but people, like chickens, are sociable, intelligent animals which need to be free and grow. By giving them space to collaborate, to jointly solve problems and build a workplace that is strong enough to overcome problems will improve moral, create a stronger culture and create ownership.

Be open – Even after all of the above has been taken into consideration, there still might be a need to make difficult decisions but do it openly, by involving  your employees.

We are in the 21^st not the 19^th Century but some practices are very antiquated and until companies make changes it will destroy their business.

Please feel free to share and post some of your stories or companies that are behaving badly or those that are being really innovative with their employees. By Mellissa Norman

Picture by @modalaci some rights reserved. 

Battery Farming employees is killing your business

BEYOND THE PITCH – Top tips on how to increase your Business sales 7TH JULY - SOHO

PREVIOUS WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS HAVE INCLUDED; PRELOADED, DISNEY, BBC, BAFTA, TWOFOURDIGITAL, NIXONMCINNES, TYNESIDE CINEMA, YIPP FILMS, ILLUMINA, COGAPP, KEO FILMS.

Pitching is only one 7th of the process that you will go through with clients to win business. Learn the other 6 steps to:

 Increase your incoming business.

 Overcome the ‘don’t have the budget’ objection, without lowering your fees.

Cut the time it takes to make a sale.

Where -www.01zero-one.co.uk in the heart of Soho

When - July 7th  9.30-5.30pm

                                               Price- £300 early bird discount before 24th June, £395 afterwards. (Price includes tasty grub.)

  Click here to read reviews from previous workshops     

 Who is it for? ‘Beyond the Pitch’ is for you if you have to pitch, write proposals or approach new clients. You are an accountant director, sales director or company owner who is responsible for business development or a creative who is involved in the pitch process. This is a tailored workshop to sharpen your skills and take you from good to great.    Book now for Beyond the Pitch

Beyond the Pitch’ is specially designed for our industry enabling you to increase the value of the business you can bring in and reduce the time it takes to do so. Most pitching workshops just focus on the pitch itself and the time you spend in front of a potential client.  This is an intensive workshop, on the whole sales process, giving you the skills to sell ethically by focusing on your client’s needs. 

This is a 1 day workshop that will limit your time out of the office. It is interactive so you will get chance to practice, ask questions and apply your learning to your day to day activities. We will also have some lovely food to fuel your brain cells. 

 By the end of the workshop, you will be able to:

 Apply a ‘7 stage sales framework’ to your business development activities to increase turnover

 Apply the sales process to face to face meetings, phone calls and digital platforms.

 Understand how to deal with objections and difficult clients

 Learn the different ways of improving sales, and building a lasting relationship with your client.

Mellissa Norman - Mel has worked in traditional and digital media over 16 years and won the ‘Socially Responsibly’ category, part of the 360 degree competition at MIPtv. She has also worked as a sales consultant with over 50 different companies including BBC, Npower, NixonMcinnes and Business in the community to develop their ethical sales and business development process.

Mel recently directed Social Media Week in London, with over 110 events along with partners Nokia, Microsoft and Market Sentinel; We are Social, Brightlemon and Propel amongst others.  Mel has been trained as a trainer and tends not to use jargon and big words for things that are, in fact, quite simple.

Press here for more info

 Book now for Beyond the Pitch