Training? Bah humbug!

Giving your teams the skills to do their jobs properly is good for your business and good for everyone.

Training and development improves your business through performance, profit and staff morale. 

Naturally anyone who’s tasked with doing a job needs to know how to do it, yet firms often give people an additional remit but don’t train them. It’s as if there’s an expectation they’ll suddenly know how, which means that probably the job will get done badly or not at all. Wasted time, possibly damaged organisational reputation and certainly a frustrated team member.

Key benefits of giving your teams the training they need:

·         better customer service through better communication

·         improved productivity and profit

·         people who feel up-to-date on latest technology or industry best practice 

·         better loyalty and retention as people feel you’ve invested in them

·         retention saves you money

In addition, your people will have valuable new skills, increasing their contribution to the business and building their self-esteem. The training they do can take them into other positions within the organisation, positions with better prospects and/or better pay and which help your business. And they have fresh skills to do new and different tasks, which keeps them motivated and fresh.

So if you think training is a waste of time or resources when people should be at their desks, think again. If you don’t train your teams to communicate better, your key messages won’t be getting to the right customers or potential customers. That could be wasting the money you might already be spending on PR and marketing, and damaging your organisational reputation.

What if they take the training then disappear to a competitor, you ask. That's life. As I always say, it's the real world. Stuff happens. Deal with it but don't dwell on it.

If you’re using so-so photography to promote your business, you’re wasting time and money, and giving your competitors the edge.

If your personal brand doesn’t match that of your organisation or business, you’re potentially damaging your chances of success.

And if you want to know how to use social media to promote your organisation effectively, don’t just assume everyone can do it. It could all go horribly wrong!

Check out #ChimeraCourses – a range of training sessions with skilled, experienced and knowledgeable industry experts not copycats or wannabes www.chimeracomms.co.uk/courses.php

Don’t be a training humbug. Skills are for life, not just a sweetener!

“Imitation is a kind of artless flattery”

“Imitation is a kind of artless flattery”

English writer Eustace Budgell in the newspaper The Spectator No. 605, October 1714

Once again, we’ve been copied. It’s happened before and it’ll happen again.

We’re always flattered and delighted that our clients love what we’re doing and we’re also flattered that other companies in our industry find our ideas and writing so wonderful they have to cut and paste without a second thought. But I often wonder why they don’t come up with some original stuff of their own.

We’ve all used ideas from others over the years, after all it’s the real world and there’s no copyright on ideas. But really, are these people so desperate or uninspired that they can’t put their own grey cells to work and shine on their own?

We’ve had our website images copied on other sites, text lifted for social media profiles (yes, word for word), our training courses and our business model replicated. 

As I’ve said, it’s the real world and there are, I suppose, only a finite number of ways in which you can set up a business. After 13 years trading our particular way, someone was bound to copy the methodology at some point, and probably this has happened already more than once.

One company actually had the chutzpah to email under the guise of a student, asking for our fees and what would be included, in an effort to tease out how we go about things – without thinking that we would see through this immediately. The student was working as their intern and named on their website! Most likely, if they'd come and asked me in an open and honest way, I'd have helped them with advice if they weren't aware how much they should be charging.

Source: seanwes.com

So, I say to those companies out there: You know who you are. And we know who you are. So get on with running your own businesses, be successful in your own right, and look up what ‘integrity’ and ‘professionalism’ mean.

My own 30+ years’ knowledge, wisdom, experience and intuition for what we do and who we do it for, plus those of my whole team - together with proven results - are elements of a business which can’t be replicated.

“Imitation is a kind of artless flattery” said Eustace Budgell. To paraphrase The Eurythmics, “Who are we to disagree?!”

There’s plenty of business out there for everyone, so stand on your own two feet and be proud.

We certainly are.

You talking to me?!

If you’ve attended any of my training courses, you’ll know how frequently I stress the importance of talking to your target audiences (the different groups of people with whom you need to communicate) using language they understand. By this, I mean making it easy for your customers and potential customers, as well as any others important to your business, to ‘get’ what you’re all about, why you do it and how you can be of value to them.

No jargon, no patronising sector speak, just simple, straight talking.

The Chimera Communications strapline of ‘Simply Delivering the Message’ says it all.

I’ve come across several situations recently where organisations and businesses have made the mistake of assuming customers understand their language. With some sectors like finance, there’s no getting away from regulations requiring information to be delivered in certain ways. There are some companies incredibly effective in translating this to customers, but many are not. People get confused, and results can be misunderstandings, wasted energy and resource, and duplicated work as well as products.

Understanding your customers means knowing when you need to go the extra mile to explain things in the right way. It’ll save you more time and effort later on.

With online polls, surveys, questionnaires and emails, as well as the good old-fashioned method of actually talking to someone, there’s no excuse for not qualifying what your customers need.

So here are some tips:

·      * Ask your customers when, how and what information they’d like from you – in other words, what is of value to them

·      * Know your customers so well that you understand the language, tone and messages they need to receive, rather than what you churn out to them

·      * Ensure all your teams (if you have rotas or shifts) know what’s going on so customers don’t have to repeat themselves again and again, which is not only frustrating and irritating, but can lead to negative PR through word of mouth and bad online reviews

·      *Make things simple and easy to understand – that way, you’re far more likely to engage and do more business with them

If you don’t connect and build a relationship with your customers, the risk is they’ll go to someone else who ‘talks their language’.

I recently took part in a Dragons' Den event where I was a Dragon, along with three other eminent business people.

In one respect, it was a very different way to spend a morning. I learned much about the approach taken by the start-up businesses we met. But in another way, I realised it represented some of the conversations I have with potential new clients who have gone ahead and started a business without enough prior preparation and thought.

Our brief that day was to imagine ourselves as the Dragons on the TV programme, with a large pile of money on the desk in front of us. Which business would we invest in? The start-ups we were seeing had been briefed to use the time with us as a useful opportunity to practice what they might well have to do in the real world later on, but in a safe and 'friendly' environment.

Photo source: Thameside Media

First of all, it was particularly interesting to see that none of the start-ups actually asked for an investment. If you don't ask, you don't get, right? Will there be investors lining up to contact the start-ups, begging them to let them invest? Unlikely.

Secondly, each was incredibly emotionally involved in their businesses which is perfectly natural, but there needs to be a reality check which can't take place if you can't disassociate yourself from your business persona. 

My next observation was that some of the candidates had taken a perfectly good hobby and thought they could make a business out of it. Whether they'd read something in a magazine which said it was easy to do so or not, I don't know, but there had been little or no market research (professional or not) to see if there was a need for the product/service nor any real life experience or consideration of sourcing products, manufacturing, distribution, business management or marketing.

At some point, our role as potential investors turned into 'critical friends', and our feedback became as realistic as it had to be. Some must go back to the drawing board; some did have a sound business idea but needed a rethink on their strategic direction and some should go get a job working for someone else. 

Did we feel we could 'invest' in any of those start-ups? Sadly not, but let's hope the start-ups took on board our advice and will come back to us another time to wow us into handing over our imaginary dosh.

Managing social media for a charity

Guest blog by Kerrie Carter, Worthing Churches Homeless Projects

As a PR and Social Media Apprentice, I know first-hand what it takes to get a charity noticed online. There are so many platforms out there and it can sometimes be hard to choose which is best for the needs of your particular charity. You should really stick to two and do them well. Develop these platforms so you have a good following on each, aiming for key decision-makers and opinion-formers. It’s important that your followers should be invested in the service you’re providing.

Working for a charity that helps the homeless, I have to be incredibly careful about the message I put on social platforms as it can so easily be misinterpreted. There is a huge stigma attached to the topic of homelessness and every person has their own opinion to give, which they like to do on social media. It’s important to be neutral to all of this and remember your charity’s aims; those are what you have to deliver no matter what.

Besides, the majority of people who follow you on social media are genuinely interested in the service you give and want to support it in any way, and that’s the valuable thing you need to focus on.

Facebook is a popular platform for our target audience so I tend to post on there the most as we get more engagement. Occasionally we get a negative comment which I may hide if likely to cause offence to clients/supporters, but in most cases I don’t delete a comment as everyone is entitled to their opinion. When posting, I try to stick to the same tone and this is reflected by my colleagues as well so the audience knows what to expect from the charity. We also get the chance to be quite personal as it’s a fairly small, local charity and those in our area are the audience we want to be targeting. I find posts with photos attached to them always work the best for our audience as they like to see the work the charity is doing.

Twitter, on the other hand, is less prominent for us. We get more support from local businesses on here but mostly through the form of retweets and favourites. When we team up with other organisations, Twitter is a valuable tool for tagging and updating people on what’s happening. The same goes for fundraising events however, it’s easier to document these through photos on Facebook as this is where our dominant audience lies.

Scheduling tools like Hootsuite are brilliant for managing your social media accounts and for us, ensures there is content going out over the weekend so the account doesn’t suffer with loss of traffic.

There are other platforms we are considering using, such as Pinterest or Instagram, and we do post appropriate videos on YouTube, but since our following is constantly growing, Facebook and Twitter are the main forms of promotion. They are easy to use and can put out a powerful message although restricted to 140 characters on Twitter. Now that’s what I call effective marketing.

Kerrie had 1-2-1 social media training with us as part of her development as an apprentice with Worthing Churches Homeless Projects www.wchp.org.uk

My favourite new way to learn : webinars

I love webinars.

In what other context can you join experts in their field without having to leave your home or office, have the ability to raise any number of pertinent questions, wear your PJs if you want (if you work from home, naturally!), avoid hideous traffic jams/train delays/arriving late through no fault of your own and upsetting rows of tutting people, all for free and at a time that (more often than not) suits you?

OK, so some are in the middle of the night if they’re in a different time zone. But you can always ask to see the webinar afterwards.

And that’s another thing. I love that you get access after you’ve attended a webinar just in case you missed something or want to revisit a particular point.

Would it benefit you to hold one, or more? Here’s why you should consider being a webinar host:

You get to reach the people you want to reach – in a session that almost feels like it’s one-to-one

Find out what your target audiences want to hear about; it’ll show you what’s hot and what’s not in your sector. People are more likely to ask questions during a webinar without having to worry about putting their hands up in front of others, if they’re of a timid nature.

You can get across your key messages without sounding like you’re ‘selling’ and therefore people will be more likely to respond favourably.

Increase the reach – a webinar is for life, not just for the moment

Your messages will live on after the webinar is finished, through the ability to let people see it after broadcast. So don’t forget to give it some SEO welly too so you edge up those Google rankings.

Use different ways to grab interest

Show the breadth of your expertise by reinforcing what you’re saying through more than just talk. Use slides, animation, polls and any other method which captures the imagination without being visually unappealing or annoying.

Be a cheapskate

So much cheaper and easier than holding an event, webinars are also value for money as your database will grow with each one.

What’s not to love?!

Crisis? What crisis?

Every day brings a fresh batch of crisis situations, happening to businesses and organisations of all shapes and sizes, so it's no point thinking it'll never happen to yours.

Today's offerings include an execution, fraud, breach of duty of care, fire, massacre, trade pacts, taxes, raging hormones, social media posts, loss of drinking water through burst main pipes and a plethora of other situations. 

Depending where you work, these can range from murder, drugs raids, to fat cat salaries, food safety, outbreaks of disease, petty theft to a closed sign on a shop when it should be open, and everything in between.

So it makes sense to have a proper Crisis PR Management Policy on the shelf for when you do need it. This will cover who's in charge - and there should only be one person in charge when a crisis hits - to, if it's a housing issue for example, where people should be temporarily housed. If it's the drinking water case above, how long will it take to repair and what will you do to make people's lives run smoothly in the meantime?

Your policy needs to cover who does what, who says what and why, and who is going to investigate the situation and speak to the media. If you don't plan for this sort of eventuality, you can expect (in the worst case scenario) journalists to be camped outside your premises or even your home, waiting for the slightest glimpse of you and that's not very nice at all.

Make sure you regularly brief the media, if that's the appropriate action, and let them know when the next briefing will be. Even if it's to say you can't give any update, it's still communicating which is what people want in times of crisis. How many times do you hear that airlines haven't kept passengers in the loop while they spend many hours delayed without any information? It's relatively simple to avoid this, keep your customers informed and keep them customers in the future.

You'll also need to connect your policy to your Business Continuity Plan. This will ensure your business will carry on as seamlessly as possible if, for example, your premises are no longer available to use (through flood, fire, vandalism, riots etc). Where will your team go to work? How will they communicate with your customers? Mobile phones, social media?

All this needs careful planning and prior preparation. The odds of you being kidnapped and held hostage may be slightly lower than a four-hour power cut, but it's always better to think ahead and be prepared!