How to Rise Above Office Politics

Going to work in the morning can sometimes feel like walking on to the set of a soap opera aka the bold and the beautiful.... with intrigues, rivalries. Honestly it can be a nightmare to navigate through it all and actually get some work done! Throughout my career, I have never experience such an intense political environment to what I am experiencing now at my current work place. 

I have listed below some "tips" which might be able to smooth your path and make the office environment a much more pleasant place to be in.

1) Avoid office gossip

Gossip can also unfairly poison your opinions of your colleagues and influence your judgement if you have to take decisions which affect them. Participation in gossip is usually the fastest entry point into office politics – usually the person who is letting you in on the latest news is consciously or subconsciously trying to align you with their point of view, or negatively dispose you towards their ‘enemies’. Gossip is very often a two-edged sword: ‘whoever gossips to you will someday gossip about you’, so the Spanish proverb goes.

All of the above sounds like common sense; the chances are many of us realise the destructiveness of gossip and yet continue to indulge in it at the same time. Taking the decision to avoid gossip often requires overcoming your fear about standing out from the crowd. However, it might be possible to take that stand tactfully: one good trick is to deflect the conversation with a question about the gossiper’s own life – they will invariably relish the chance to talk about themselves!

2. Place long-term harmony above short-term gain
If you happen to disagree with a colleague over the best approach to an issue, try and take your own ego out of it and stand in their shoes for a moment. Office politics often tends to focus on the person rather than the idea, so try and detach one from the other in evaluating the competing approaches. In many cases, there may be little or no difference in the effectiveness of the two rival approaches, and it may be best to just go along with the other idea to keep harmony. A 90% perfect solution done in unison can often be better then the 100% perfect solution which was only achieved at the cost of civil war.

Whatever happens, don’t let a situation build up past the point of no return. It is very easy to hold a grudge against someone as a result of something that didn’t go your way; however these attitudes have a way of hardening into something permanent, to the stage where you feel totally unable to approach that person. Try to keep the lines of communication open to everyone, however slight.

3. Respect others’ territory
Often people regard their office competencies as their ‘territory’ and will jealously guard them against all-comers. They might feel they have absolute expertise in the area, and are seriously put out if people even question them about what they were doing. Often the best approach in this case is just to let them at it, and keep your own tendency to feel ‘you know how to do everyone’s job better than they do’ in check. But what if you genuinely do need to make a suggestion? One thing which has worked for me in the past is to draw the person concerned into a conversation on their area of expertise, and genuinely listen. Often this ‘territory’ attitude comes from a feeling of insecurity that no-one values their work, and listening in this way creates a space of trust where they feel you value their opinion, and helps to lower their barriers. It also helps if you aren’t defensive about your own territory, and judge any suggestion on its merits rather than by who said it.

4. Don’t get sucked into the promotion whirlpool
Of course, one of the main causes of office politics is because we are hoping to advance within the company, leading to the temptation to keep an eye on potential rivals for promotion. What we don’t realise is that all this worrying about others is essentially a lack of faith in ourselves, and that all the problems mentioned in the first three points – gossiping, territory etc. – are just ’shortcuts’ we take because we are afraid we won’t go places on our performance alone. But conversely, not indulging in these behaviours demonstrates strength, courage, tact and a feeling for managing people – qualities which many companies would kill for! You shouldn’t be afraid about standing out from the crowd for the right reasons – it could pay you back more handsomely than you think.

But now what happens if the gossip is about you? It happens that regardless of how well you have followed this advice (and I do as a rule in all aspects of my life) that one will become sucked into office politics as the object of said politics, i.e. people fight about you, because some dislike you and others don’t. That WILL happen, no matter how good you are at willingly avoiding getting into office politics, especially if you are put in a position of responsibility. Most people end up having some sort of responsability in an office at some point.

Well, it’s important to keep it all in mind. Let me know what your thoughts are in this?

Internet is no longer the "New Media".

I have noticed that many seem to ignore the fact that the digital space has been around for more than a decade. Really it is no longer the "New Media" as what traditional marketers, agencies or media owners are trying to "convince" in the corporate world. There is a new generation of digitally savvy users out there who are ready to take the digital world by a storm. All so ready to experiment, explore and be part of the global online citizen.

I remember having my first computer when I was between 6-9 years old. It was an old cluncky, brownish looking thing which I didn't think you can hook on to the internet with. But all the computer then did for me was..yes..GAMES! I enjoyed playing the "limited" games on the computer so much that one day the computer gave up on me. Oh well..

Then when I was bout 14 years old, my father brought home a beautiful laptop from the States and I was in love. I was in awe with the power of technology and yes was in love with the internet. I spent all my free time on the ever so famous IRC chatroom. I was hooked. There was no looking back after that.

Comparing the technology we had back then..gosh so much has changed. Who cares about IRC when we have MSN, Gtalk, Twitter and Facebook! 

The maturing digital community has created a critical mass that is so large, large enough for us marketing profesionals to market, measure and to understand the different behaviors aspects of the different segments within the market. 

This is the insight which is sadly not practiced (as much as we would like) in the marketing profession as measuring and analytics is not a discipline which most practicing industury marketer prefer to engage (sadly but true).

Is there a reason why?

Personally, I feel this lack of using the technologies we have available to our fullest will come back to haunt us as the digital space (moving forward) offers the best and most effective means to target our customers with the lowest possible cost, to measure and access our customers' preferences. I believe it is only through this insight that the marketing professional can make evolutionary changes to their products and services to match their customers’ changing needs.

Marketing leads

When planning your marketing efforts, should you cast a wide net to find lots of leads, or a narrow net to find highly qualified leads? Here's how to decide.

Should your time and money be spent in a concentrated fashion, courting a few potentially extremely valuable customers or should you cast a wider net, spreading your contact information as far as possible, in the hopes of catching a larger number of less individually valuable customers?

The answers depend on the type your business is in, the breadth and sophistication of your audience, your price-point, and the complexity of what you're selling. For example, consider the marketing of expensive, complex items such as passenger jets or nuclear power plant turbines. The volume of prospective customer contacts generated by your marketing is less important than reaching the correct high-quality contacts with a very deep and sophisticated marketing approach. For jets or turbines, relatively few people are critical to the purchasing decision. It's more important to reach them than thousands of people who don't matter.

Conversely, for inexpensive, simple items such as makeup items, volume of buyers is important. Marketing for maximum market share and end-consumer awareness creates success.

To understand the tradeoffs, consider:

• Quality (higher cost per lead)
• Quantity (lower cost per lead)
• Why the tradeoff exists and matters

Understand those three aspects, and you'll understand when each marketing approach should take precedence, and what "taking precedence" actually entails in tactical terms.

Quality (Higher Cost per Lead)
When product price is higher, complexity of product or installation is higher, or value per deal is concentrated in a few larger deals, the quality of leads has a direct correlation to sales efficiency and success. The valuable audience you need to market to will consist of only a few specific individuals. In this situation, accurate targeting of marketing efforts is of more importance than the volume of contacts created. Why? Cost. It's likely that the purchase process will be extensive and extended--that each prospective customer will require customized, in-depth education about your offering and its benefit to them.

So it's important to exapand marketing efforts on only the correct contacts. More research and planning time spent before programs launch, and investment in higher-value marketing programs focused on a select few individuals will result in more revenue.

Consider these examples of how such tightly targeted marketing programs might differ in implementation from more mass-market-oriented programs:

• E-mail: Instead of using mass-mail-merge and large purchased generic lists, send a personal e-mail to the target contact from an analyst related to the target company, with a "cc" to the marketing or salesperson from your company being introduced. .
• Seminars: Don't hold large, anonymous hotel or stadium-based events; rather, arrange in-person meetings or small executive-level forums or individual lunches. .
• Direct mail: Instead of generic postcards, send direct mail via FedEx, with a personal note from you, as your company's CEO, on wedding-invitation-quality cards. .
• Materials: Instead of generic case studies, use specific examples as applied to the target company's own systems, cost structure, and environment, showing detailed knowledge and understanding of the most important issues, and how your solution helps.

In sum, high-touch personal marketing will always improve the quality of your leads if initially directed at the appropriate market. But such marketing is expensive on a cost-per-lead basis. You won't be exposed to as many people, so success depends significantly on the ability to tightly define the target audience prior to spending on them.

Quantity (Lower Cost per Lead)
When the product price is relatively low, number of units sold is relatively high, and individual deal size is relatively small, large numbers of sales must be made for the business to show revenue growth. In these circumstances, your marketing goal should be a lower cost per lead, so that you maximize the number of people you reach on your fixed budget. Usually a quantity-driven product has a short purchase process, and one where decision authority is minimally permuted within an organization: only one person needs to be convinced of your product's value for you to make a sale.

Marketing efforts can thus be relatively straightforward and minimally customized, using larger volume and lower cost-per-target programs. Standard marketing programs might include:

• E-mail to lists purchased from magazines or trade shows.
• Webinars or open seminars by city.
• Direct-mail postcards.
• Mass-produced materials, with generic case studies by industry.

With the above caveat in mind, allowing your marketing message to depersonalize--to regress to the mean--can actually have a beneficial effect on lead flow, as your programs seek to attract as many as possible of the specified (large) segments. Put differently, a specific message applies perfectly to a narrow set of individuals; a general message applies less perfectly to everyone. So when choosing between quantity and quality, err on the side of quantity (within limits)--as by giving yourself more options when selecting prospective customers, you will likely increase your overall revenue.

Why It Matters
More is not always better. Lead generation costs money, and if you generate too many leads--in that your ability to follow-up on leads is overwhelmed--valuable leads are ignored and lost as opportunities.

Since the only thing worse than a prospective customer who hasn't heard about you is one who wanted to buy from you and was ignored (as far as they could tell, you couldn't be bothered to contact them and take their money), you need to balance the value of annoyed lost customers against nonacquired customers.

What do you think is the true meaning of creativity?

Do you get it? Well.. I am sure you did. The cartoon above tells us a lot about creativity, doesn't it? But what do you think is the true meaning of creativity? Is it just a catch/made up word for finding innovative solutions?

Creativity is a word that have been used over and over again especially in the advertising and marketing industry. 

Before I get into it, let me first bring out the academic side of me (:P), to what is the definition of creativity. 

From wikipedia:
Creativity is the ability to generate innovative ideas and manifest them from thought into reality. The process involves original thinking and then producing. The process of creation was historically reserved for deities creating "from nothing" in Creationism and other creation myths. Over time, the term creativity came to include human innovation, especially in art and science and led to the emergence of the creative class.

From Human Motivation, 3rd ed., by Robert E. Franken:

• Creativity is defined as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems, communicating with others, and entertaining ourselves and others. (page 396)
• Three reasons why people are motivated to be creative: 
• need for novel, varied and complex stimulation
• need to communicate ideas and values
• need to solve problems

In order to be creative, you need to be able to view things in new ways or from a different perspective. Among other things, you need to be able to generate new possibilities or new alternatives. Tests of creativity measure not only the number of alternatives that people can generate but the uniqueness of those alternatives. the ability to generate alternatives or to see things uniquely does not occur by change; it is linked to other, more fundamental qualities of thinking, such as flexibility, tolerance of ambiguity or unpredictability, and the enjoyment of things heretofore unknown. (page 394)

Interesting perspectives of creativity from the above two sources and I do feel the same. However as a person who likes to confuse things even further, here’s my attempt. Creativity is just something that I either consciously or sub-consciously create a solution which departs from the norm that tackles (or solve) the heart of the problem.

What do you think?

All ad agencies will tell you they are creative, afterall they are in the creative industry, its in their blood. Perhaps just ask them, what does creativity mean to them? And how do they measure creativity? a link to sales figures? to bottom line? cause there is a belief out there that if you can’t measure it you can’t improve it? does it apply to creativity? I wonder…and waiting to be intrigued.

What is an RSS Aggregator or an RSS Reader?

I keep seeing and hearing about RSS, XMS and RSS feeds. My husband who is also our Lead Developer once explained to me what it is. But honestly, as a marketer in this digital arena I barely have a clue of what they are. So I decided to do some research on it.

Ain’t jargon fun? RSS really means Really Simple Syndication and it’s a simple data-only version of a web page or what they call a web log. Now, why is this interesting? Because apparently it’s then easy to write programs which we can track XML formatted data stream and let you know when there’s a new material added to the site.

The problem is, I don't want to check 100 RSS feeds any more than I want to visit 100 Web sites every day, and that's where aggregators come in. Whether they're standalone programs, plug-ins for your favourite Web browser or email program, or Web-based services, RSS aggregators remember your subscription list, check each site on a periodic basis, and alert you to any new articles that have been published.

If you’re not thinking, wow this is cool then you are spending too much time visiting web sites! To scan headlines of just a dozen sites on an hourly basis would probably be a full time job and if you need to need to keep abreast of your industry, as I do, then you wouldn’t have any time to actually do anything else.

There are a few programs you can download that are RSS aggregators (or RSS readers, basically synonymous) for Windows and MAC. A few of the most popular are FeedReader for Windows, NetNewWire for MACs.

Don't like having yet another application running? Always a short cut with technologies. Apparently you can graft RSS capabilities into your Web browser (or run Firefox or Safari / which have elegant built- in RSS capabilities) or your email program.
 
Finally, you can subscribe to an RSS aggregator Web service which gives you a custom Web page that includes the newest information from your hand-picked RSS feeds.

Promoting your business

Here we are again, the end of the financial year and yes its the time again to start banging on our CFO's door. PLEASE I NEED MORE MONEY FOR MY MARKETING DEPARTMENT! PLEASE!!

Developing a marketing plan and a marketing budget seems easy. But not always the case when our budget gets cut before we even begin doing anything.

I have here some quick tips to develop a simple straight forward marketing budget. 

Every business needs to promote itself to acquire new customers, but traditional advertising is expensive.

It's a good idea to set aside a small, annual budget for traditional advertising. Decide which advertising medium--radio, TV, billboard and so on--will best help you reach your target customers. Also think about how you might team up on promotions and sponsorships with another firm, institution or even a client that has some synergy with yours. You will be surprised what you can achieve.

Next, get web-savvy. I love the internet and everything that comes from it. Knutsson Consulting provides web development services and I am a strong believer that website sells! An easy-to-use website is one of your best promotional tools, as well as a low-cost opportunity to reach your target customers. Think about how you can incorporate certain online tools, such as an opt-in e-mail promotion program, blogging, webinars, etc. 

A few other tips for promoting your business on a budget:

• Describe your company and the services in 10 seconds or less.
• Provide discount to your customers when they purchase in bulk or if they refer you new customers.
• Generate press coverage by pitching yourself to journalists as an industry expert available for comment.
• Ask customers to provide testimonials for your product or service.
• Sponsor a local event.
• Send thank-you notes to customers, suppliers and other people you come in contact with.
• And most importantly and what Marketers do best -- Relax--building awareness of your brand takes time.

7 Ways to Engage Readers of a Business Blog

People are always busy and in order to gain and keep readership as a blogger, you need to provide your readers with information that makes their lives easier, better and less stressful. 

Business blogs are a unique case because the general subject matter tends to be a bit dry. It’s up to you as the blogger to overcome that obstacle and provide the business information you are offering in a quick and easily digestible way.

How do you do that? Here are seven ways you can engage readers of your business blog and keep them coming back.

 1. Offer Advice
You’re likely blogging about business because you have business experience. One way to gain loyal readers is by sharing your knowledge and giving them practical information they can use in their own businesses. You can give your readers an instant benefit by avoiding abstract ideas and providing specific tips, advice and tools they can use right away.

2. Talk to the Audience
You’re already ahead of the game with this one, because the readers of your blog have interests that are common to yours, otherwise they wouldn’t be reading your blog. Get to know them by keeping an eye on comments, watching for trackbacks and listening to feedback in other forums. All of this input can be material you can use to make your posts resonate with your individual readers.

3. Share a Personal Story
Business is business and personal is personal, right? Not anymore. Today there is an increasing amount of overlap between the two, and people want to know a little more about the person behind the blog, beyond that they are an expert in business. So give a little of yourself to create a stronger relationship with your readers. 

4. Go Off-Topic
Throw in an occasional post that’s not exactly business-related. If it bombs, it bombs and you know to go a different route next time. But if it is successful, you can insert some comic relief, mindless banter and maybe even a personal story as listed above to give your readers a brief change of pace.

5. Keep It Short and Sweet
You could probably write some very long posts when you’re discussing your latest business endeavor or what it took to have your website redesigned. If that much information is necessary, split it up into a multi-part series. Use lists, subheads and images to break up heavy content whenever possible. 

6. Give Up the Wheel
Ask specific questions at the end of your posts to encourage reader commentary. For every few posts where you provide advice, throw in a post that asks for the answer. Involving your readers will give them an opportunity to take an active role in your blog.

7. Give readers what they want
Carefully read the comments provided by your readers. They are invaluable because they allow you to tailor your posts to the information your readers are asking you to provide. Acknowledge the comments, answer the questions, and address the requests and you’re on your way to building great relationships with your readers.

Share with us what some other ways to engage readers when we are blogging about business subject matter.