Robert Braathe: February 2012 Archives

With all of the ways to communicate, the type of person you are as a communicator and can impact how successful you are at growing your network.

What grade would you give yourself? Let's look at the different type of networkers according to this scale...

FF - Frightened Freeloader - the FF networker meets as many people as can as much as they can, collects business cards, makes promises, yet fails to make any or many strong relationships. They often are afraid of any competitor coming in to take what limited business they have and have a scarcity mentality

DD - Doutbful Dominator - the DD networker doubts their own abilities, but finds it necessary to dominate every conversation they are involved in. They don't find time for others but always seem to dominate the circles they are in

CC - Consistent Connector - the CC understands the value of connecting, but doesn't follow up quite enough to make network effective. However, they do spend a great deal of time out in public and on the scene so people know who they are.

BB - The Brave Businessperson - the BB uses tools like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook to find others who have unique complementary skills and abilities, and seeks contact in between network events. They reach out to competitors to establish rapport and referrals. They realize not every contact they meet is worth following up on.

AA - The Alliance Athlete - the AA does everything the BB does, but does it better. They form strategic alliances with competitors, follow through on every person they meet, subtracts contacts with those that aren't a good fit, and strengthens contacts with the core people they already have a relationship with.

Where do you fit on this spectrum? What would you add to these descriptors?

When I talk to fellow entrepreneurs as well as those employed by a corporation, the resounding reoccurring theme and commentary on innovation is that it begins inside of a company, not outside of it.

Many people turn to consultants and advisors to provide insight on how to innovate, and this often causes innovation to occur; however, there has to be innovation at the core of any organization in order for it to thrive.

Many business ideas have been born when someone works for an organization. If the organization doesn't see the value in the innovation, often the employee will take the idea and use it on there own or move on to a company who has more of an innovative mindset.

Don't feel constrained if passion for innovating is in your blood yet you are working for someone else. As many entrepreneurs will tell you, you can still work for someone else and innovate and create on the side; many great companies have been started by people who worked for someone else and eased out of the role as their own innovation grew.

It is a well known fact in my circle that restaurants who don't have urinal walls generally close or turnover owners very frequently. It was a running joke for a while until we realized after several group discussions that a common thing among these poor restaurants was the lack of walls in the men's room between the urinals.

In business, little details like urinal walls can be overlooked. Creating comfort for your people can take many forms, and it's not just with comfort in the restroom. Having fresh, clean water available, a coffee machine or food service on premises, on-site workout facilities, and more do cost some money but not having them could cause a lot more pain than the investment would be worth to have these amenities on site.

Like the businesses that fail because of little details (like urinal walls), don't miss out on the opportunity to take care of the little things in the workplace that can make a difference between a satisfied employee and one who will leave for greener pastures.

Pinterest is the newest social media site that allows you to pin pictures of items, people, and products to create links to them in a visual way.

From an HR perspective, Pinterest could be used to

1. Promote classes you are offering
2. Promote the names of the people who work for you
3. Share photos of the products or services you offer, making it easier for your people to share them with others

There are many other uses of Pinterest, but from my initial studies, it seems like a platform that would be of value to most people to explore.

For more information, visit http://www.pinterest.com

A disturbing trend I've witnessed over the past few years is the trend for someone to avoid doing business with someone because they have been told "no" or "we're not interested" in a service provided by another.

The pattern is as follows:

1. Party 1 comes to Party 2 interested in offering a product or service.
2. Party 2 takes the time to listen to Party 1's offer but politely declines
3. Party 1 runs into Party 2 again in the future, and dismisses anything Party 2 has to say because they were rebuffed prior.

Over and over again in business, I've seen this pattern repeat itself. Here are some steps Party 1 should follow to gain perspective from the turndown

1. Party 1 should see how they can address Party 2's interests in a different way
2. Party 1 should on their own seek answers inside as to why Party 2 would decline using their product or service.
3. Party 1 should treat Party 2 with respect with people that do business with Party 2, because badmouthing Party 2 could be a turnoff to the people who actually do business with Party 2.

I've especially seen this last one (the badmouthing) be such a relationship crusher and trust buster in many lives; it only makes Party 1 look bad and makes people who deal with Party 1 think that they must be badmouthing everyone.

In high school, when I was working at Copps Hill Shell in Ridgefield, CT, we were one of the first gas stations in the area to get credit card readers at the pumps for customers to pay at the pump. The learning process for the customers was a bit haphazard, but one of our jobs working there was to introduce the service to customers as they arrived for the first 4-6 weeks of the new readers being in place.

There were a handful of customers who still preferred paying inside of the building, and we didn't discourage customers from paying that way, as it enabled us to capture some sales inside of the convenience store.

Some of the learnings we took out of this were that there is no simple way to train the same way in every situation without having a good system in place. We set up a basic system to follow.

1. Greet the customer with a hello and telling them about our new card readers
2. If the customer said they'd rather pay inside, we'd show them how to do it so they'd become more comfortable the next time around
3. For customers paying cash, we'd also show them how it worked in case they wanted to change their payment method in the future.

Following these procedures got us to know our customers better, educate all customers regardless of whether they'd use the technology or not, and enabled us to be more than just the guys who worked at the gas station.

Tune in to a special edition of Capital District Business Profiles on Valentine's Day featuring motivational speaker and career counselor Dr. Tom Denham.

Dr. Tom has worked with colleges, students, and career professionals for many years in the Capital District and has great insights on how to make a career transition.

Have you fallen in love with your career? If you haven't, it may be time to listen to your heart and also listen in to our show 330-415 on Valentine's Day.

You may be in a situation now where you are unsure where the next step may lead, and its time to remove the fear from your life by facing it and moving on!