As we’ve all learned, most of life’s lessons don’t travel in a neat formation accompanied by bugles and cavalry. They arrive filthy and unkempt, prominent in the mess we’ve made around our foxhole. These lessons are typically the offspring of hubris, naivete and ignorance … or from overlooking the land mines hidden beneath our feet.

Every Tuesday, we’ll share valuable and practical leadership tips and tools to help you BE a better leader so you can BECOME a better leader. Remember … you won’t BECOME a better leader until you start BEING a better leader  … implementing NOW the changes necessary to adopt the proven strategies of successful leaders. You might start by building on the communication matrix and making sure you’re defending the castle to get done what only you can do. Make some time so you’re thinking past today.

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Leadership Lessons | Are Incentives the Cornerstone of Life? is a post from: Sword Tips – the Exkalibur blog

It happened again the other day. I was chatting with a client and in the course of our conversation about someone they said: “I checked him out on LinkedIn.”

LinkedIn has become the de facto “go to” resource for researching companies and most especially people to learn more about them. And, if you’re very interested, you can usually find someone in your LinkedIn network to chat with and “get the scoop.”

LinkedIn now has 100 million members

LinkedIn doesn’t get covered as much in the media as its more glamorous cousins, Facebook and Twitter, but it has grown steadily as a powerhouse in the business environment and now stands at 100M+ members, adding 1 new member a second!

Unlike Facebook, people don’t hang out on LinkedIn for hours, they get in and get out – usually with a specific business purpose in mind. The information you get isn’t about a new restaurant or cute kid stories; people actually share information that’s useful to other business professionals on LinkedIn and use it as a research and networking tool.

LinkedIn is a powerful business marketing channel

Since LinkedIn members are there for business reasons, it’s become a highly receptive marketing channel for you to leverage for a variety of business purposes, including Business Development and Brand Management.

Business Development gets a boost when you leverage the capabilities of LinkedIn.Your sales team can get valuable background information by finding people to speak with who will give you insights you can’t learn from reading a company’s promotional material (former employees are a great way to do that). My favorite business development use of LinkedIn is to leverage your own network members to facilitate a warm introduction.

LinkedIn offers a lot of valuable tools

Once you get your foot in the door of the company you’ve targeted, guess what they’re likely to do? That’s right – check you out on LinkedIn! You can put your best foot forward by “tricking out” your LinkedIn profile with help from the following apps:

• SlideShare Presentations
• Google Presentations
• Behance Creative Portfolio

Behance is a multi-media application that enables you to add video to your profile. Both SlideShare and Google Presentations enable you to add presentations to your profile. You can control your message and present a picture of vitality to anyone who checks you out.

Use it as a tool of brand management

Brand Management has never been so easy and these tools greatly enhance your flexibility in how your brand is perceived. Yet it’s also helpful to know what people might be saying about you and LinkedIn has an app for that as well: Company Buzz. Company Buzz monitors what is being said about you across the Internet and arms you with actionable intelligence to help you manage your brand.

If you’d like to take a more proactive stance using LinkedIn, then seriously consider extending your branding reach through LinkedIn Ads. This tool enables you to target by company (how cool is that??!!), job title, group, gender and age. You have the option of using Pay Per Click or Cost Per 1,000 Impressions (CPM) and can advertise with a budget as low as $10. There’s a lot more to this and I encourage you to check it out.

If you’re not there, it’s time to get there

There are a number of additional apps and internal LinkedIn functionalities that are really terrific. The great part about a lot of them is how they make life easier for you through automation and how they can contribute to your business success.

Are you using LinkedIn to power your business? Have you found specific tools and techniques that have really made a difference?

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About the Guest Author

Celeste Bishop is an Internet marketing guru whose firm, Bishop Market Resources, works with businesses to improve their results through more effective use of their website and Internet marketing channels. Ready for more information you can use about LinkedIn? Try: Easier Social Media Marketing with LinkedIn’s 100M.

Social Media | LinkedIn’s 100 Million Members ARE a big deal is a post from: Sword Tips – the Exkalibur blog

~ Dwight D. Eisenhower, (American 34th President (1953-61). 1890-1969)

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Most of us weren’t around during World War II … but D-Day was the largest amphibious invasion of all time, with over 250,000 troops and 15,000 ships landing along a 50-mile stretch of the Normandy coast on June 6, 1944. Luck? Accident? … or the result of rigorous strategic planning and project management?

Did General Eisenhower, the Allied Supreme Commander, lead this effort without any planning? Of course not, and even if our business plans aren’t quite as extensive, we know (deep down, we know for sure) that we need some sort of an organized planning process to build a successful business.

We need to make sure that everyone’s headed in the same direction … that we don’t ignore the obstacles or overlook the great opportunities on the road ahead … or don’t squander valuable resources chasing rainbows.

That’s why you should listen to our 5-part podcast series that demystifies planning and describes a simple discipline to get you started.

Do I really have to plan to have a successful business?

I find myself using General Eisenhower’s phrase repeatedly for at least two reasons … it’s true … and it reflects the view of most executives about plans … they’re useless! Most of us get that rumbling feeling in our stomachs when we think about the planning process. A lot of that comes from past experiences with ponderous, tedious, painful planning processes that wasted a lot of time … and worst of all, were never implemented.

We plan to meet … and then meet to plan … but there’s no plan!

I remember meeting with a senior executive at a client’s office recently who surprised me when she told me they held an annual strategic planning every year. They brought in all of the troops from different parts of the country and reviewed their plans and ideas for the next 12 months.

I was rather stunned to hear this because the CEO earlier told me they had no plan, which was why I was there. So, I probed a little more with this executive to learn about her experience and what came out of it each year. “Oh, nothing”, she said. “We never did anything with it. We spent most of our time reviewing what we said the previous year and wondering why nothing happened with it!”

Ideas are not plans … and plans may not be a strategy

A little history lesson reminds us that an awful lot went wrong on D-Day, and even more thereafter … yet, the Allies were ultimately successful. Without a resilient plan that was continually modified and updated as circumstances changed … the Allies would have failed and we would have faced a cluster of truly global proportions.

Does Jabberwocky help? Brainstorming? Strategery?

So, what shall we call this miserable planning business? Jabberwocky? Brainstorming? My favorite, Strategery? Whatever works to make planning more accessible and less intimidating is what you should use. Make up a name … create an iconic character … do anything to make it an energetic, fun and invigorating process that really puts the company in the driver’s seat to achieve greatness.

Here’s the thing about planning:

1. We’ve got to have a target at which to aim … and we’ve got to find some way to separate the crappy ideas from the good ones.
2. We’ve got limited resources, so we can’t go after everything.
3. We need to apply consistent criteria to every idea and opportunity so we don’t … choose something that we’re good at but that everyone else is already doing … or something that no one else is doing but that we don’t know the first thing about.
4. What’s most painful of all is that if we don’t arrive at a few strategic choices that differentiate us from everyone else, we’ll have to start over.

With limited resources to invest, we can’t afford to screw this up

That’s it in a nutshell. Relying on gut instinct or picking favorites only works if you have unlimited resources and can squander them without consequence. Sadly, that’s not the ship most of us are steering.

It’s a cliche, but we’ve got to “get the biggest bang for our buck”. We know that the benefits of some of these initiatives will not come quickly, so in addition to focusing our limited financial resources, we need to avoid chasing rainbows so we don’t also invest a bunch of time only to discover that it was wasted effort and we have to start over.

Do I need a consultant to tackle this?

About now, some of you are saying … “yeah, yeah, you consultants are always trying to sell some big strategic planning project”. Not hardly, my friend.

This does NOT take a big planning project, an Ivy League MBA or the GE auditorium. It does take some dedicated time to evaluate the opportunities you have to build our business. To do that effectively, you do need to use consistent criteria … but you can get it done yourself if you devote the time to it. At the same time, don’t avoid getting outside help if you need it because the cost of not doing it is far greater than the investment to get it done right. But above all … DO IT!

Start with our 5-part Building a Business Podcast Business

In less than 30 minutes, you can listen to all 5 of the episodes in this podcast series by visiting our Learning Center. We’ve also provided a transcript of each podcast that you can download for convenient reference.

Start with First, Kill All the Strategy Myths. Then, turn to the next 4 episodes that describe the important criteria to evaluate the opportunities to build your business:

– how to assess your current capabilities,

– assess the competitive landscape, and

– consider the external, and often less controllable, forces that affect your businesses …  industry trends, markets, demographics, technology changes and other external factors.

– what do YOU really WANT to do?

What’s next?

This is the first step to setting your Strategy Statement and beginning the outline of your Action Plan. If you get bogged down in getting this off the ground, drop me a note and I’ll do my best to help you get started.

Have you tried this before? What happened? Did it work? Did you really execute the plan and get the results you wanted?

Do you have a Battle Plan – or is Hope your only Strategy? is a post from: Sword Tips – the Exkalibur blog

In this episode of our Building a Business podcast series, we conclude our conversation about the criteria you should use to evaluate all of the opportunities available to build your business:

You’ll recall that we started our planning discussion by killing all of the strategy myths. We dedicated the following 4 episodes to understanding the 4 important criteria to evaluate the opportunities you have:

– how to assess your current capabilities,

– assess the competitive landscape, and

– consider the external, and often less controllable, forces that affect your businesses …  industry trends, markets, demographics, technology changes and other external factors.

In this podcast, we explain why what YOU want to do is a critical component of this process.

Planning for Success – What Do YOU Want to do? is a post from: Sword Tips – the Exkalibur blog

The holidays are just around the corner, and we’re still trying to figure out how we’re going to get it all done. So, instead of asking you to work at something – anything – I’ve decided to give you a gift of holiday music. Elmo did it, so did Ren & Stimpy, Winnie the Pooh, Shrek, the Muppets … so with animated competition like this, what can go wrong with my first effort at song-writing?

Yeah, I know, don’t quit your day job. So, feel free to sing along to the tune of the 12 Days of Christmas. Key of D Sharp, please.

All together now:

The first thing in business that’s such a pain to me … is the never-ending stinking eee-mail.

The second thing in business that’s such a pain to me … stuff a-cumm-u-lating … and the never-ending stinking eee-mail.

The third thing in business that’s such a pain to me … meetings, meetings, meetings … stuff a-cumm-u-lating … and the never-ending stinking eee-mail.

The fourth thing in business that’s such a pain to me … cell phones a’ringing  … meetings, meetings, meetings … stuff a-cumm-u-lating … and the never-ending stinking eee-mail.

The fifth thing in business that’s such a pain to me … bubble-headed numbskulls … cell phones a’ringing  … meetings, meetings, meetings … stuff a-cumm-u-lating … and the never-ending stinking eee-mail.

The sixth thing in business that’s such a pain to me … worthless status updates … bubble-headed numbskulls … cell phones a’ringing  … meetings, meetings, meetings … stuff a-cumm-u-lating … and the never-ending stinking eee-mail.

The seventh thing in business that’s such a pain to me …  jam-packed airplanes … worthless status updates … bubble-headed numbskulls … cell phones a’ringing  … meetings, meetings, meetings … stuff a-cumm-u-lating … and the never-ending stinking eee-mail.

The eighth thing in business that’s such a pain to me … tweeters tweeting nothing … jam-packed airplanes … worthless status updates … bubble-headed numbskulls … cell phones a’ringing  … meetings, meetings, meetings … stuff a-cumm-u-lating … and the never-ending stinking eee-mail.

The ninth thing in business that’s such a pain to me … linking, linking, linking … tweeters tweeting nothing  … jam-packed airplanes … worthless status updates … bubble-headed numbskulls … cell phones a’ringing  … meetings, meetings, meetings … stuff a-cumm-u-lating … and the never-ending stinking eee-mail.

The tenth thing in business that’s such a pain to me … never-ending traffic … linking, linking, linking … tweeters tweeting nothing  … jam-packed airplanes … worthless status updates … bubble-headed numbskulls … cell phones a’ringing  … meetings, meetings, meetings … stuff a-cumm-u-lating … and the never-ending stinking eee-mail.

The eleventh thing in business that’s such a pain to me … tracking people down … never-ending traffic … linking, linking, linking … tweeters tweeting nothing  … jam-packed airplanes … worthless status updates … bubble-headed numbskulls … cell phones a’ringing  … meetings, meetings, meetings … stuff a-cumm-u-lating … and the never-ending stinking eee-mail.

The twelfth thing in business that’s such a pain to me … New Year’s resolutions … tracking people down … never-ending traffic … linking, linking, linking … tweeters tweeting nothing  … jam-packed airplanes … worthless status updates … bubble-headed numbskulls … cell phones a’ringing  … meetings, meetings, meetings … stuff a-cumm-u-lating … and the never-ending stinking eee-mail.

Be with your loved ones in person and in spirit. Get some rest. It will all be waiting when we return.

Happy Holidays!

KBO

•••

Lary Kirchenbauer is the president of Exkalibur Advisors,providing practical business strategies for family and other privately owned businesses in the middle market. Exkalibur works closely with senior executives and their businesses in the wine and other industries, and hosts the Exkalibur Leadership Forum for leaders of middle market companies in the North Bay. Please visit Exkalibur.com for a library of valuable resources, articles and insights or connect on Twitter, LinkedIN or the Exkalibur fan page on Facebook.

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The North Bay Business Journal, a publication of the New York Times, is a weekly business newspaper which I have served as a regular columnist for about three years. The Business Journal covers the North Bay area of San Francisco – from the Golden Gate bridge north, including the Wine Country of Sonoma and Napa counties.

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Article published as Vol. 79 on December 20, 2010: The electronic version of this article, as published by the North Bay Business Journal, may be found here. ******************************

Any related materials or articles referenced in the published column, or otherwise applicable, are referenced in this digital version of the article.

Vol. 79: The 12 Pains of Christmas is a post from: Sword Tips – the Exkalibur blog

Yes, the holidays are here and already the list of things to do continues to grow – completing the annual budget, planning parties, visiting with friends, figuring out what to get who for when … and so it goes. Yet, my spirit remains strong, so I’ve prepared a menu of 12 holiday treats that I hope will slide down like Amaretto eggnog in front of a winter fire.

I’ve even scoured some of my earlier columns to find the most delectable morsels. So, here’s a smorgasbord of lessons learned – a few appetizers, a choice of entrees, a little dessert – from executives of both extraordinary capability and numbing incompetence  — that should grace your executive table.

1.     It’s never about you. It’s always about them. Customers, employees, suppliers … family, friends, colleagues. Be clear about it and thrive. Get it backwards? Fail.

2.     If you don’t think you’ll ever have a management succession problem, you already have one.

3.     Build your compensation plan based on performance. Period. Skip all of the egalitarian schemes and make sure you’ve set clear expectations so that the rewards actually promote your objectives.

4.     Forget about economic news. Don’t allow the naysayers to take you off your game. Press forward, be aggressive and instill a positive attitude throughout your organization.  George Bernard Shaw famously said, “If all economists were laid end to end they would not reach a conclusion.” So, focus on what you can control. Change what you can. Leave the rest to someone else.

5.     Get out of the discounting mindset. Think value, service, delivery. How can you defend your value proposition and find a way to nudge prices upward and increase value? The discounting path is a descending staircase … and we all know it’s much harder to climb the stairs than to go down.

6.     There’s no such thing as over-communicating. Talking too much, yes. Saying little, not good. But reminding your colleagues, customers, employees and vendors what you stand for, where you’re headed, how you’re going to get there? Keep saying it. Again and again. You can’t say it often enough.

7.     Growth is a magic elixir in many ways. It stimulates stronger relationships, greater buying power, opportunities for people development … and the list goes on. It’s also a death trap if it’s not managed. The unexpected lack of cash surprises companies on a growth path more than those struggling to survive. The latter group understands the problem clearly. The first group doesn’t know there is one.

8.     Banks and accountants are valuable allies. Don’t go into battle without them. If the relationship’s not working, check the mirror. The solution is probably smiling back at you.

9.     While this is an appropriate time to remember the “family” part of the “family business,” never overlook the equally important discussion about the “business” of the family.

10.  “Incentives are the cornerstone of life” sayeth Steven Levitt in “Freakonomics.” Figure out if they’re working and if not, fix them. If you don’t have any, get some. They work. Believe it.

11.  Most experienced executives know the right answer, they just don’t like it. As a result, they get wrapped around the axle and trapped in inaction justifying all the reasons they can’t decide. If you’re right, you’re right. Make the decision. It will work out.

12.  Have fun like Jimmy Buffett. He always seems to be on a beautiful tropical island, sipping margaritas, guitar in hand, sun baking the sand. An occasional company picnic or an after-hours pub-crawl isn’t enough. Neither is a ropes course or a team-building cook-off. They’re the ruffles and flourishes. The heart of a company is its values; its brain is a leadership team that’s serious about its mission but doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Make sure you take some time to have fun. Just for the fun of it.

KBO

•••

Lary Kirchenbauer is the president of Exkalibur Advisors,providing practical business strategies for family and other privately owned businesses in the middle market. Exkalibur works closely with senior executives and their businesses in the wine and other industries, and hosts the Exkalibur Leadership Forum for leaders of middle market companies in the North Bay. Please visit Exkalibur.com for a library of valuable resources, articles and insights or connect on Twitter, LinkedIN or the Exkalibur fan page on Facebook.

**********************************************************************************

The North Bay Business Journal, a publication of the New York Times, is a weekly business newspaper which I have served as a regular columnist for about three years. The Business Journal covers the North Bay area of San Francisco – from the Golden Gate bridge north, including the Wine Country of Sonoma and Napa counties.

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Article published as Vol. 78 on December 4, 2010: The electronic version of this article, as published by the North Bay Business Journal, may be found here. ******************************

Any related materials or articles referenced in the published column, or otherwise applicable, are referenced in this digital version of the article.

Vol. 78: 12 Holiday Morsels to Strenghten Your Business is a post from: Sword Tips – the Exkalibur blog

This happens to virtually every growing business because there are always more opportunities available than resources to support them. That’s why even a little planning can go a long way … why we need to kill all the strategy myths … and simply focus on prioritizing the opportunities that make the most sense to build our business. How do we do this? By applying consistent criteria to each of the opportunities before us.

What about external factors … industry trends, markets, technological change …?

In our previous podcasts, we discussed the first two criteria: your company’s core competencies and the competitive landscape. The 3rd factor needs to be the broader external forces that affect our businesses …  industry trends, markets, demographics, technology changes and other external factors. What do those cards look like? How do we select the right opportunities and build our strategy to deploy our limited resources in the best possible way?

Are you spending quality time to understand industry trends? Do you know what’s happening in your markets?

If not, why not?

The shocking truth about planning? It’s simple! is a post from: Sword Tips – the Exkalibur blog

Remember in building your business … think big, take action and make sure you’re integrating these concepts of Strategy, Finance & Leadership into your everyday decision making.

The #1 way to understand your competition is a post from: Sword Tips – the Exkalibur blog

Social media has stimulated countless phenomena … but connecting with our communities is probably one of its most valuable outcomes … which is why this new UPS commercial really caught my eye. Remember the lesson that if the railroads realized they were in the transportation business, they might not have collapsed?

UPS believes they’re really in the “life” business … that logistics is making life better … parts on time, always in sync, compete effectively, track everything, no lost gifts … logistics just “makes the world work better”.

So, isn’t that the shocking truth about having fun … that it’s actually possible to build it into our work if we work at it? If UPS can put fun and some pizzaz into logistics, shouldn’t we be able to add some fun and excitement to our products and services?

Surely they’re more exciting than shipping and delivery? Am I right? Am I? Right?

The Shocking Truth about having fun! is a post from: Sword Tips – the Exkalibur blog

You’ve got to read the ultra serious letter from the law firm, even the first page, along with ThinkGeek’s rebuttal. What a hoot!

I wonder what they’re serving in the lawyers’ dining room?

Unicorn meat? Delicious! is a post from: Sword Tips – the Exkalibur blog

Watch his provocative video from the TED conference and see if you’re clear about WHY you’re in business. Do your customers understand this? Does this provide the foundation for your relationship with them? If not, how can you go deeper to create that connection?

Why are you in business? is a post from: Sword Tips – the Exkalibur blog

HBR recently published some research by Biologist Christoph Randler, who surveyed 367 university students about “what time of day they were most energetic and how willing and able they were to take action to change a situation to their advantage.” More of the morning people agreed with statements like “I spend time identifying long-range goals for myself”.

Which are you? Do you think it effects your performance, say compared to some of your colleagues? Can you change it? Do you want to?

Night Owl or Early Bird? is a post from: Sword Tips – the Exkalibur blog

Simple concept, Provocative Ideas. Free lemonade, anyone?

Lessons from a Lemonade Stand! is a post from: Sword Tips – the Exkalibur blog

Leaders have a lot to consider in a struggling economy. When you can be easily bushwhacked with the latest industry gossip or monthly performance report, rigorously applying these characteristics will optimize your chances of keeping your team together, focused on a practical strategy to persevere and succeed in an unpredictable economy.

How to lead during a recession! is a post from: Sword Tips – the Exkalibur blog