MoxieWorks

5 Ways to Boost Workplace Trust

I have been working a lot lately on issues in regards to trust in the workplace and realize that, for the small business owner, it can be extremely hard to trust your employees. The scenario I see happen all of the time is that owners give their trust to an employee with no responsibility or understanding of the impact they have on the business, the employee somehow dishonors that trust, the owner feels burned and they then have difficulty trusting any of their employees.

The things I see happen are owners/managers reading their employees email, not giving them ownership to make decisions with customers/clients, listening in on telephone conversations, asking other employees to spy on each other, and all other types of behaviour that not only makes the workplace inhospitable but it creates a nonproductive atmosphere.

I get it, trusting and being burned over and over make it difficult to trust again. Here's the thing though, if you don't trust your employees even a little bit, they are going to eventually feel as if they aren't part of the team and don't need to be on the job at all. Instead of giving trust away freely though you have to do it with responsibility tied directly to it and remember that the ultimate goal is to boost productivity, create a positive work environment and create exemplary customer service.

5 Ways to Boost Workplace Trust

Values: Are your values communicated on a regular basis to your team? I am fortunate to work with a leader in our community on the Main Street board who consistently repeats our core values when we are flustered about a circumstance - we lead by example, with integrity in our work and words. The idea that the companies values are consistently shared; at meetings, one-on-one, in print and via email are a reminder of what is expected in every situation. What are your core values? Do your employees know them? Do you abide by them as well?

Goals: Do your employees have both shared goals with the company and their own personal goals within the company? I like to think of this like team sports. The Razorbacks (to use our local team as the example) work together to win - obviously an ultimate goal, but they each have individual records for their own performance that they are trying to improve. Knowing what the team and the employee are working towards can be a huge benefit to improving trust.

Integerity: Do the owners and managers work with integrity? Do they gossip, spy and cheat? You are not going to gain trust if your own behavior looks suspicious. Putting on your big girl/boy pants and being a grown up in the workplace is your job. Stop the games and intrigue right now and show your team how to develop professional skills. Lying, cheating and playing games have no place in a productive workplace - and you need to model that behavior - remember, employees learn from their leaders and will do what they do.

Reward: Are employees recognized for accomplishing their goals? Do they get the positive reinforcement needed to know they are on the right path? Rewards and recognition do not always need to be financial - they can be part of the culture to support the good that is happening in the workplace.

Listening: Do you listen to your employees with a sense of openness and caring or are you to busy plotting your next move? People need to feel heard, even when you don't have time to do it. Working in an environment where people are listened to will create a sense that their ideas matter - and they will gain the trust that they need to share the good and the bad with you and the team.

Stuff happens. You get bad eggs. You have to honor the work each person does and not judge everyone through the lens of your past experiences. Start by becoming a trusted leader. Be honest, truthful and above all, stop the games. Your team isn't there to be hoodwinked by you or anyone else, they are there to learn to do a better and better job. Give them small amounts of responsibility, with clear understanding of the commitment, reward them for doing a good job and build on the trust.

The To Do Files - Jody Dilday

I first met Jody at the Arkansas Women Bloggers Conference in 2011 and was utterly impressed with how composed and motivated she was. This is a woman who is the executive driector of a busy nonprofit organization, has a family, attends church regularly, in engaged in her community, and manages to get to the gym at some ungodly hour every day. When I saw her email interview come in I was overwhelmed with the sheer awsomness of her system - so detailed, so organized.

Jody, what To Do system are you using now? Online, paper, mix?  Because I always have my email open on my desktop, I’m using the TASK list in Microsoft Outlook. I also put project deadlines on my Outlook calendar and schedule time leading up to those deadlines to complete the projects.

Wow, that is completely impressive. What really works for you to get stuff done?  Blocking off time on my calendar to dedicate to certain important tasks.  For example, scheduling a half day to “work on 2013 budget” or “complete grant report.” 

Do you keep multiple lists? What kinds?  No, unless you count the grocery shopping list.

Can you explain what that is and how you made the switch to digital?  For a long time I would sit down at my desk first thing everyone morning and jot down all the items that had been racing through my head all day.  Then, as the day went on, I’d find myself adding other notes to my To-Do list, which not only cluttered it up but it also filled the page.  Out of necessity, I’d have to turn to a clean page and, it’s true what they say, “Out of sight, out of mind.” 

Now, I keep my To-Do list in my TASK list in Microsoft Outlook, and I can still have that sheet of paper at my side to jot notes, etc.

What do you struggle with to get it all done?  Distractions (email)  and interruptions (phone calls from board members, text messages from my kids, staff questions).  I’m also prone to follow the occasional  shiny object.

Your system is amazing how do you reward yourself when you cross things off your list?  Going home at the end of the day without a million things running through my head is its own reward but the truth is, I rarely do! When I complete a BIG, BIG project – like a significant grant or grant report – I’ll go home early and sit on my deck. 

Have you been successful at getting family or coworkers to adopt your to do strategy?  I assign tasks to my staff and use the Outlook calendar to indicate deadlines for them as well.  I don’t know if they “adopted” it for themselves for other projects, but they do utilize it for those things that I assign!

Because life is full of silly moments, what is one of the strangest, funniest, odd things that have been on your to do list in the past?  When I worked as the Director of Development in another nonprofit, we utilized shared Outlook Calendars.  One of the most important deadlines I had was to have my Depo-Provera shot every three months.  My male boss told me (with a beet red face, I might add)  that it embarrassed him when he saw that appointment pop up every few months.  I told him he could either deal with the occasional embarrassment, or he could expect that I’d be taking significant maternity leave within the next year.  He opted to deal with his own embarrassment. 

Inspired? You can follow Jody on Twitter, or go make a donation to the Single Parent Scholarship Fund where she is the Executive Director.

More about Jody: Jody Dilday (@jdilday) has spent her career raising awareness and support for nonprofit organizations.  Currently she serves as the executive director of the Single Parent Scholarship Fund of Northwest Arkansas (@SPSFNWA), where she leads a dedicated team of staff and volunteers to achieve the mission, vision and strategic goals of the organization.

Jody was introduced to blogging while on assignment with the public affairs team assigned to the Houston Astrodome during the American Red Cross disaster relief efforts following Hurricane Katrina.  She returned home and started a “mommy blog” – purely as a hobby and virtual scrapbook.  In 2008 she decided to integrate blogging into her organization’s overall communications plan.

Jody is a founding member of Womenade of Northwest Arkansas, and a member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals.  She serves on the board of directors of the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce, and is a past president of Northside Fayetteville Rotary Club.  In 2010 Jody was included in the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s “Forty Under 40.”  But she is most proud of her role as WIFE to Mark Dilday and MOM to Gracie, Ethan and Genna.

#MoxieToDo

Stop Listening

Yesterday I was given some powerful advice that I wanted to share. Sometimes I have the tendency to want to listen to everyone. I want to get their feedback. Although this practice, often, causes me conflict and I feel overwhelmed by all of the opinions expressed.

My goal is to hear everyone out. Get their buy in to what I am doing. The problem with this is that people aren't always interested in the good or the best, they are interested in themselves. Clearing through that clutter can be difficult.

The advice: create a strategy, implement the strategy - doing good work, shut your ears to all the babble

Yep. Stop listening to one more critique, idea, thought, improvement, etc. of the work that you have developed, planned and are accomplishing. Instead, create a mechanism for them to give you feedback where you can assess it in your own quiet way. 

Seriously, do we need to check in on every single thing we are doing? Can't we just do good work and leave it at that? The constant need to reach out is beginning to seem more like trying to get approval. That old people pleasing instinct that we all have so deeply rooted within us. 

Now, I'm not saying don't collaborate, don't get input in the development stage or even feedback at the end. I am just saying that maybe we can shut our ears to the constant critique by people NOT doing the work while we are busting our butts.

This is advice I am trying. Care to join me?

Pinterest for Small Business, Bloggers and Nonprofits

Yesterday I presented to The Belford Group team about using Pinterest for Small Business, Bloggers and Nonprofits, a presentation that is part of my Crash Course series that I teach Main Street communities, Chambers, and more.

You can see the presentation that I uploaded to SlideShare.

After the presentation I do a live demo, that is not included.

How to be Pinteresting - Pinterest for Small Business, Bloggers and Nonprofits:

• Pinterest Basics
  • An overview of what Pinterest is and what the terms are. "Think of yourself as a curator of your own museum."
• Let's Organize Ourselves
  • Creating a profile strategy, setting up boards, and using your own images from your own site.
• Gaining Followers
  • Email Strategy, Facebook Strategy, YouTube Strategy, Twitter Strategy, 
• Photos that Make You Go Ahhh...
  • I include the types of photos that most often are on the Most Popular page of Pinterest, yes puppies!
• The Top 10 To Gain Traction
  • Relationships, #Hashtags for SEO, and more

Then I do a live demo showing examples of Pinterest - it is a lively good time where we can take your clients and see how Pinterest can work for them. 

I will be presenting this at the Destination Downtown Main Street conference in September 2012. You can follow my work on Pinterest too.

Which Train Are You On?

It happens all of the time. You do an event, project, host a party and someone right after or during wants to talk about who isn't there. Who didn't show up, why they didn't, and analyze the reasons they weren't there. Basically, discounting everything that you have worked towards and focusing on who wasn't around to witness it.

Human nature? Maybe, but I think we need to put a stop to it. We need to take a moment and celebrate the good that we are doing. Not in a PollyAnna kind of way, but in a refreshing look at the momentum that was created to get from Point A to Point B. Talk about what is going right, who is there, how the project or party made a difference. We spend so much time tearing what we do apart that we can't even enjoy the good that is happening right around us.

There will always be time for careful reflection about how to improve the project, but even the negative can't overwhelm the positive. Sure, you might not do it the same way next time, but you can take in some good vibes for what you did do.

And what if someone is always critiquing who is there and who isn't? Shut them down. Seriously. Tell them that you need them to focus on what is happening and attend to whatever needs doing right then. If you let them continue down the line with their negative talk you will soon be on the "my event sucked train". Seriously. So, shut them down and start enjoying the good you are doing.

Moxie Answers: Leave the Drama at the Door

You have questions and we have answers! I get asked all kinds of business questions and I thought that some of them might be best answered on the blog. Granted, if I don't know I send them to an expert who is more qualified.

Small Biz Owner Question: My employees seem to have a lot of family and personal drama in their lives. They do the job they need to do, but they seem bent on sharing all the ups and downs that are going on at home. It isn't that I don't want to know, but really, I just want to maintain a professional relationship with them. What should I say the next time it comes up?

Moxie Answer: Professionalism is taught and can continue to be taught throughout a persons career. If you want to maintain a bit of distance with your employees, I suggest that you let them know that although you care about their personal life, at work you would like to focus on work. Yes, it sounds harsh, but it would help tremendously to just be honest instead of half hearted-ly listening. If they are young or new to the working world this is a great time to just tell them that work relationships are different then gabbing with their best friends. If they are older, just be clear. When it comes up again, because it will, just let them know you are busy right now, but happy to talk to them about it after work. 

Professionalism in the workplace matters if you are running a small five and dime to a large corporation. When the edges get completely blurred it can be hard to do the things that often need to be done with employees. Friendly is different then friends, sorry to say.

To help employees get on track you can suggest that they focus on being competent, reliable, honest and respectful. Those four components of the workplace will offer more for them at your business and in the future. Leave the drama at the door! 

Have a question? Send an email or leave it in the comments and we will get you a Moxie Answer!

Low Tech To Do List Works

My old fashioned, low tech to do list is back! The lowly composition book. You would think that I would transition to an online solution, use the Reminders App on my iPad, or find something else that is high tech. I have tried all of those, but what I have found are two things:

1. It is extremely satisfying to cross something off a list
2. I can have it with me everywhere, paste things in it, take notes, etc and feel like I am not taking time writing on a crummy little keyboard - I feel like I am getting things done

Sure, I put big deadlines on my calendar. I schedule all appointments, bills, events, meetings, and anything that is timed in iCal. But for the myriad of tasks that happen on a a day to day basis I needed a place where I could do a brain dump. I know from countless years, that keeping it all in my head is not good for my productivity, balance or decision making. If I can get it all on paper I can move onto the more creative and juicy bits of my life. Crossing things off one at a time.

Sure, a high tech version would be great, but after 6 months of trying every type of option I could find for my iPad I gave up. There just isn't anything like the simplicity and direct act of writing something on a list and crossing it off.

15 + 15 = All The Time You Need for Social Media

Small Businesses are often overwhelmed. They can also be pretty hit or miss on what they are doing in with their advertising and marketing. They WANT to do the right thing, but they often have so many right things to handle that they just keep putting off Social Media.

The solution is easy: 15 Minutes + 15 Minutes Social Media Experiment will put you in the right place in your Social Media Campaigns. You won't be the life of the Twitter party, but you won' t be absent either! Let's break this down:

• Day 1: Searching for relevant terms in Twitter and responding to Tweets + Scheduling Tweets for the next 2 Days + writing  a 15 minute blog post and posting
• Day 2: Posting a photo on Facebook, Scheduling 2 days of posts on Facebook, responding to comments + writing  15 minute blog post and posting
• Day 3: Pinning your blog post pictures to Pinterest, liking relevant items for your Pinterest boards + writing  15 minute blog post and posting
• Day 4: Responding to any Tweets, scheduling Tweets + writing  15 minute blog post and posting
• Day 5: Writing 2 blog posts and scheduling one for the weekend, responding to any blog comments
• Day 6: Get lost down the rabbit hole of Twitter or Facebook and like, share and explore for the whole 30 minutes
• Day 7: Take a Social Media Sabbatical - even you need to take some time off

I am serious about the 15 minutes. Set a timer and go. Don't go farther on posting, searching, liking. Stop and switch to blogging or do that in another 15 minute block later in the day. 30 minutes of concerted effort is a million times better than doing nothing, or doing big spurts of something which is what I see social media doing right now.

Small businesses usually don't have the benefit of hiring someone to just handle their social media. They are usually figuring it out themselves. If they do have someone handling it, I suggest that person is responsible for developing bigger followings, spending more time on Pinterest, hosting Tweet Chats, and managing advertising on Facebook, Twitter and possibly even Google Adwords. You, the owner still need to have a presence on Social Media - you are the voice of your enterprise and leaving it all up to a paid person isn't the same thing. People LOVE talking to the owner! That is what makes a Mom & Pop so attractive compared to a Big Box Store!

Rules of the Road: Get a timer, use it, commit to trying this for one week, write down the number of likes you have a the beginning of the 15 + 15 Social Media Experiment, after a week see where you are at, and decide if committing to 30 minute blocks will improve your presence online.

 

Interview with Handmade Success

I have been reading Jordan Moore's blog Handmade Success for sometime - she does a really phenomenal job supporting Etsy sellers. When she launched her idea to create inexpensive WordPress sites for businesses and creative folks I jumped on board! I wanted to offer what she can do to everyone I know. As part of that I wanted to share a little of what makes Jordan so special with an interview:

What made you have the big Aha Moment that Wordpress was the platform that small business and creative people should be building their sites with?

I first started building my own sites with Wordpress when I heard it could be updated without touching any html. I am a competent developer, but it is still nice to not have to drudge through long bits of code just to change a sentence. Once I started using it I started thinking just how much easier this would make having a website for all of my non code-happy clients and friends. I also discovered that google REALLY liked it,
too. If google already likes it, that takes a lot of the headache out of making one’s self visible. The more I used it, the more the reasons piled up in favor of it. Every time I had a new use for it I found it could still do the job, and if it couldn’t at first, it was still easy enough to make it do it. On top of already being a great tool, the teams of people who have created Wordpress, and the community that supports it, are constantly working to improve it. I don’t think there’s any software out there that works as well and is as regularly updated. At this point, a creative entrepreneur would be doing themselves a great disservice by using anything else. The best thing of all about it is IT’S FREE!

What are the top 3 things you like to see on a site?

 

1. Good navigation is hands down the most important aspect of any website. It doesn’t matter how good your content is, if people have a hard time navigating, they wont stick around.
2. Probably second to that is a really awesome first page. I always like to see all of the basic necessary information anyone might be looking for on the first page. There should always be more detailed information elsewhere, but everything important should be on the front page, and easy to find. You want to grab your readers in the first 3 seconds. If you don’t, they probably wont be coming back.
3. Finally, it should be clean! No body likes a mess, and your website is no exception. Adding a lot of keywords to your pages is fine as long as they make sense there. You don’t need huge lists of keywords just to have keywords. Google doesn’t like it anymore anyway. A clean layout with proper margins and medium sized text always looks nice. Just as important as having the important information on the front page is keeping everything else off of it. If you can put it on another page, than do so. Not everything needs to be on the front page. You also only need the most important navigation visible at all times, everything else can exist in just the places it is relevant to.

What aspects of Wordpress make it easy for small biz owners to take charge of their website?

Wordpress has, hands down, the most intuitive control panel of any system like it. That is not to say it is always easy, but the teams at Wordpress have put a lot of work into making sure all of the tools you use regularly are easy to find and make sense. If you are having trouble, the forums and instructions on the Wordpress.org website will help. You can also find many videos on youtube showing you how to do all of the basic tasks on Wordpress.

If you could give advice to someone switching or starting fresh with Wordpress what would that be?

Take a little time to learn how to use it. I know as soon as you have a website you want to just jump right it, but it is a new tool, like getting a new computer, and you need to get to know it before you feel comfortable. There is a lot of information out there on how to use your new Wordpress, and it is definitely worth reading. Choosing a host that likes Wordpress as well. On the Wordpress site, they have a list of hosts that they work with. This will definitely give you a big advantage, especially if you run into any problems along the way. Finally, Wordpress is free. You should not be charged for Wordpress. There are many themes and plugins that people sell, but in my experience the free stuff almost always works better, is more compatible, and has better support. I’m not saying this is always the case, but know what you are getting before you buy it. At least if it’s free and it doesn’t work, all you wasted was time.

What do you want most for a client when you help them get their site up and running?

Have fun! Wordpress opens up a whole world that used to be reserved only for the trained web designers/developers. This is your chance to be creative and show it to the world! Add fun plugins, write fun articles, why else are you doing this?? Even if it gets frustrating at times, take the time to figure it out, and you can’t imagine how much fun it can be.

I can’t stress enough that it is FREE FREE FREE!!!! Plus it’s all yours once it’s on your server. No one can take it away from you, but don’t forget to make backups. You should regularly backup all of the files, and the database. There are plugins for that, so it isn’t very hard. As long as you keep backups (And I recommend keeping multiple backups) you will never lose your site.

The web is constantly changing, and websites are constantly changing with it. Wordpress makes it easier to keep up since updating your look is as easy as installing a new theme. All of your content is preserved. Wordpress also adds new things all the time both to it’s core and to the vast user-generated plugin library. If you see another website doing something cool and new, check the wordpress plugins that are available and your site will likely be able to do it too.

Also, once something is published online, it is legally published and therefore copyrighted. This doesn’t seem to be common knowledge. This means that your words are yours once they are written, but this also means that copying and using someone else’s words without crediting them is plagiarism. Blog safely!

Great advice and really - jump in with Jordan. Take advantage of her new Wordpress design offer (I am an affiliate). It is a seriously good offer to get your site designed the way you want it to be. Be bold, be sweet, be whatever you need to be, but get a new site that YOU can control. Learn more about the Handmade Success Piece of Cake Wordpress Site offer.

Relationship Marketing Our Way

I love Ted Rubin. I do. He is smart, engaged, and he believes in relationship marketing as the primary source of connecting consumers to products. It is as if he and I drank the same marketing Kool-aid. When I as with Carlson Marketing Group our tagline was Relationship Marketing Matters or some other thing - so I have been doing this a long time... this relationship stuff.

So, where do Ted and I differ - you KNEW that was coming.

I believe that relationships shouldn't be based on getting something. See, he says Return on Relationships #RoR... which is such a guy thing. They want something for the dinner they buy you. Ladies, you KNOW what I am talking about.

My take is that you engage in relationships with people to expand your reach of your brand, learn from your customers or targets, and practice engagement - we are constantly practicing how we engage with other people. That is what the continued practice of relationships is all about - learning and growing.

Sure, we want people to like us, we are ALL a little bit like Sally Field in that respect, but the ultimate goal should be that we are making connections. Those connections should someday connect you to something that matters, but you can not predict that and you can't have that as your ultimate goal. You need to build relationships because you see the value in doing that even if you don't see the payoff.

This is a primary difference I see with men in marketing and women. As women we understand that if we build a good base of relationships on and offline we can see the web that is being built. It is a slow and laborious process, but we value that process as part of the work that we are doing. We don't expect to catch every fly in that web, in fact, we might not catch any, but we might hook onto something that becomes integral to our work. So in so, might know so in so, that connects us to so in so, which equals a bingo!

Bottom line? I believe that if you are building relationships to get something you are already losing - we will see through you. Be real, make real connections, spend the time, and the payoff will happen.