Social Engagement for the Small Business

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When you combine artwork created by children with an organic bakery, you get an innovative campaign that generates 30,000 new Facebook likes and a handful of honorable awards. This original idea created for Rudi’s Organic + Gluten-Free Bakery by Vermilion Design + Interactive anticipated far less participation than it received with 18,000 submissions for the “Let’s Doodle Lunch,” where young artists would receive a free customized sandwich box with their design on the lid. A more humorous concurrently running campaign, the Toast-a-Gram promotion allows fans to create their own toasted masterpiece – usually their own photo uploaded to a custom Facebook app that makes it look like it’s been miraculously ‘burned’ onto a piece of toast. The resulting image can be posted, shared and emailed to friends, and has generated more than 20,000 likes and almost 6,000 coupon downloads to boast product trial.

Since that campaign, the quarterly social media efforts for both the organic products and especially the newly introduced gluten-free products have grown the size of the Rudi’s online community more than tenfold. And while it’s hard to tie revenues to specific Facebook campaigns, sales are expanding at a 20% annual clip, and Rudi’s continues to grow their Facebook and digital marketing efforts. Building, supporting and engaging a growing fan base through social media is working for this innovative bakery.

In order to achieve these strategies, marketers need to have a perspective on the potential strength of each idea, to evaluate its connection with consumers and to align its outcomes with business goals. By taking data-driven research, insights, and creativity, they can achieve their goals and get results. Some approaches to achieve these results include:

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About the Author

Bob Morehouse founded Vermilion in Boulder, Colorado in 1980. The Yale University graduate chose Boulder because of its outdoor lifestyle and the eclectic creative community that inhabited it. Morehouse has been very active in Boulder’s nonprofit community, serving on a number of boards and providing probono services to nonprofit organizations. In 2009, he was awarded Business Person of the Year by the Boulder Chamber of Commerce.

6 Silent Productivity and Profitability Pitfalls, part 1 of 7

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The last decade ushered in an economic meltdown and technological breakthroughs that have forever changed the business world as we knew it. The changes have been so dramatic that most companies are still scrambling to figure out the new rules of the game.

We are facing a new world – one that calls for new approaches to generating consistent competitive advantage. Unfortunately contemporary management theory and practices have ill prepared us for our current reality. The near-universal rush to cut costs and headcount is more likely distracting us from, rather than enabling, the real work of retooling our enterprises to be competitive in this new world. The world is making tectonic shifts, which most business leaders are meeting with puny incremental responses.

Historic innovation often comes during times of historic difficulty, as these breakdowns create the demand for something new to emerge. As such, they are also times of great opportunity, providing a new way of seeing the world.

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About the Author

Chris Majer, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Human Potential ProjectChris Majer, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Human Potential Project, is the author of The Power to Transform: Passion, Power, and Purpose in Daily Life (Rodale), which teaches the strategies corporate, military, and sports leaders have used to positively transform themselves and their organizations in a way readers can adept to their own lives and professions. He may be reached at www.humanpotentialproject.com.

StrategyDriven Editorial Perspective – The Government has Created a Monster

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The Government Has Created a MonsterThe Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has served as an integral part of the nation’s financial system since its inception in 1933. Our trust in this institution is so strong that it is rare to find someone with a checking account in a bank that lacks an FDIC placard in the window. Nonetheless, the failure and resolution of Texas-based First RepublicBank, reminds us that the hand of government can harm as well as help when it wrestles the invisible hand of the market.

More than an insurer of accounts up to $250,000, the FDIC also regulates financial institutions and serves as a receiver in bankruptcy. The latter role was codified in the Federal Deposit Insurance Act of 1950, which provided the FDIC “additional powers to both expedite the liquidation process for banks and thrifts in order to maintain confidence in the nation’s banking system,” the FDIC’s Resolution Handbook explains.

RepublicBank merged with InterFirst Corporation in June 1986, and formed First RepublicBank Corporation, the largest bank holding company in the Southwest at the time. Then FDIC Chairman William Seidman expressed concern about the merger of two weak banks, “however, without the merger, both banks were more likely to fail, and they would cost even more [apart] than if they failed together,” Seidman recalled in his memoir Full Faith and Credit1.

Seidman’s concerns were warranted. With both banks highly concentrated in the weak Texas real estate market, the deal ended up helping neither bank. As the bank’s losses mounted, depositors fled. Just nine months after the merger was completed, the FDIC had to step in to resolve the failing institution, and at $3.9 billion, it was the most costly bank failure in FDIC history.

Though much can be blamed on the poor condition of the bank’s assets, some of the government’s deal-making “proved to have some room for improvement,” according to the FDIC’s review2.

Included in the resolution was a servicing agreement between the FDIC and NCNB Corporation of Charlotte, NC, the acquiring bank of First Republic’s assets, which required the FDIC to cover costs associated with managing the troubled asset pool. This agreement turned out to be a major source of income for NCNB, and gave them an incentive to hold on to the assets rather than liquidate when the market strengthened. All told, the FDIC paid $1.9 billion in management fees to NCNB.

Another issue was taxes. The IRS had negotiated with NCNB (and no other bidders) $700 million in tax savings with the acquisition. A letter from the IRS allowed the acquirer to treat the deal as a “tax-free reorganization and to carry forward losses from the failed banks to offset future income,” according to the FDIC’s analysis3. These tax savings allowed NCNB to compete aggressively in the Texas market, offering above-market deposit rates and below-market loan rates.

“The government has created a monster,” Chris Williston, the president of the Texas Independent Bankers Association, told American Banker in 19904.

In stepping up when banks fail, the FDIC provides “an element in the readjustment of our financial system more important than currency, more important than gold, and that is the confidence of the people,” President Franklin D. Roosevelt said in 1933. But the example of First RepublicBank reminds us that infusing government into any market-based transactions can change the outcome for better and for worse. In restoring public confidence, the more invisible our government can be, perhaps the better.

About the Author

Cara WickCara Wick writes about American financial and political history at www.bankersnotes.com. She holds a BA from Williams College and an MBA from the University of Iowa. Cara can be reached at [email protected].

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References

  1. Full Faith and Credit, William Seidman, p. 147
  2. Managing the Crises, p. 612
  3. ibid., p. 596
  4. ibid., p. 605

Effective Handling of Employee Personal Problems is Critical to Maintaining Workforce Efficiency

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As a leader and manager, it is quite likely at some point during your career that you will encounter employees with personal problems. Employers must be concerned about the stress levels of their work force as it can have a damaging impact on employee productivity. Personal problems can hinder the job performance of employees who are traditionally productive causing them to under-perform. In addition, it can also have a negative impact on co-workers who become distracted or influenced by the personal issues introduced into the workforce. But with empathy and careful planning, successful managers and leaders can minimize the impact of personal problems in the workplace to ensure that your work force remains efficient and that normal productivity is restored as quickly as possible.

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About the Author

Julie Bowen is a freelance writer and full-time mom. After graduating college, she put a lot of effort into her career as a businesswoman with several successful enterprises, but when motherhood came along, she decided it was time to pull back and take up her other passion, writing. Now she writes about business and finance and finds her work-life balance far more enjoyable. When not working and caring for her children, she likes to go for long walks with her dogs, though she is considering using Rollerblades so they can pull her.

The Advisor’s Corner – Can Failure Be My Friend?

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FailureQuestion:

How can I stop being so worried about failing?

StrategyDriven Response: (by Roxi Hewertson, StrategyDriven Principal Contributor)

Too often, our self-worth and confidence are all tied up with having to succeed all the time at everything. No one succeeds at anything, even their best skill set, all the time! Absolutely NO ONE. Think about it. Thomas Edison had it right when he said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

To jump-start an internal paradigm shift about failure, consider these 6 ways to lead using failure as a tool.

  1. SAFETY: make it safe for people to experiment and fail within reasonable ranges.
  2. AGILITY: expect and encourage agility and flexibility to move from a non-working idea to a possible one.
  3. LISTEN and encourage fast feedback on results, concerns, no matter whose idea it is.
  4. LEARN: consider every failure, every mistake, to be a learning opportunity.
  5. TEST: pilot test new ideas and projects and welcome mistakes and failures that show up.
  6. SHARE: what you’ve learned and the mistakes you’ve made to help prevent repeats and others having to re-invent your wheel.

The fear of failure often runs a close second to the fear of dying for a lot of people. Consider this – the fear of giving feedback to your boss equates, for some, to dying, which is… failing to live. Let me prove it to you. The under-a-second internal dialogue goes like this: “If I give my boss feedback, he/she might not like it and fire me; if I’m fired I won’t have any money; if I don’t have any money, I can’t buy food; if I don’t have food, I’ll die.” Snap! Just like that we’ve equated the risk of telling our truth to the boss to… dying. Wow! How did that happen? It happens because the amygdala in our brain sends us all kinds of fear signals, rational or not. Unless we stop, pay attention, and put other parts of our brain to work, we’ll keep letting fear of failure rule too much in our lives.

All failures are not equal. While some carry more baggage than others, they can also carry more opportunity. It’s a choice point every time we and/or those we lead, ‘fail.’ How do we choose to respond? What good can we gain from our failures?

It’s up to each of us to choose whether or not to make a paradigm shift. We know it’s impossible to experience joy with out knowing sadness, or appreciate the calm without ever having seen the storm. We often tell ourselves that if we don’t risk much we can’t fail much. Is that really true? Well, it depends on what you want and need out of your relationships and career. The phrase, “No pain, no gain,” has it’s roots in this very premise.

We can choose to look at failures, at least in our daily lives, as life practice, learning, a pilot project, as experimentation, or even a legitimate part of any innovation process. Failure can be our friend when we take another, deeper look. After all, when children learn to walk and talk, they fail constantly. We happily cheer their successes, but let’s remember, it’s all those failures that got them up on two feet in the end.

About the Author

Leadership authority Roxana (Roxi) Hewertson is a no-nonsense business veteran revered for her nuts-and-bolts, tell-it-like-it-is approach and practical, out-of-the-box insights that help both emerging and expert managers, executives and owners boost quantifiable job performance in various mission critical facets of business. Through AskRoxi.com, Roxi — “the Dear Abby of Leadership” — imparts invaluable free advice to managers and leaders at all levels, from the bullpen to the boardroom, to help them solve problems, become more effective and realize a higher measure of business and career success.

The StrategyDriven website was created to provide members of our community with insights to the actions that help create the shared vision, focus, and commitment needed to improve organizational alignment and accountability for the achievement of superior results. We look forward to answering your strategic planning and tactical business execution questions. Please email your questions to [email protected].