However, family businesses also come with their own set of challenges. Working alongside loved ones can often blur the lines between professional and personal relationships. Miscommunications and disagreements can arise, which can cause tension within the business and family dynamics. Assigning roles and responsibilities without fairness and accountability is always hard but becomes even more challenging when family rivalries and emotions enter into the decisions.

Despite these challenges, family businesses can provide a strong and rewarding sense of community for both the business and the family. With proper communication, planning and problem-solving skills, family businesses can thrive while building a legacy for future generations to come. This article provides an overview of some of the most common issues we see in our work with family businesses.

Poor Planning and Lack of Clearly Defined Goals

Many of the family businesses we work with fail to take planning, goal setting, OKR tracking and strategic meetings seriously. Lack of planning can be a downfall to any business, but family businesses usually have a unique reason to avoid planning. People in a family business assume that everyone in the family knows what needs to be down without formal planning and documentation. Families use shortcuts with each other in their communications and believe that everyone is on the same page without having to lay out specific plans.

Unfortunately, this leads to a lot of confusion and a lack of clear direction. Without five-year and annual plans and fitting OKRs, family members can often disagree with each other on responsibilities and results. Those kinds of disagreements are bad enough in a regular business, but in a family business it leads to personal conflicts and tensions.

Without a clear plan, family businesses are also bad at communicating expectations between family members. Just because two leaders in a company are related it doesn’t mean that they automatically agree on perspectives, purposes and values. Poorly communicated expectations lead to a lack of consensus and an alignment. Without a clearly stated mission, family businesses can make decisions that conflict with each other, waste resources and miss out on new opportunities.

The key is to not take anything for granted. When we teach our clients our specific methods for planning and goal setting that are fun, repeatable and realistic, many family businesses find that their work life and home life improve dramatically.

Lack Of Professional Experience

Probably the biggest reason that family businesses participate in our Enterprise Velocity program is that many leaders in a family business lack experience in other businesses. They don’t have the range of experiences that comes from working in multiple companies that can help them develop new strategies or create repeatable operational systems.

There are of course some strengths that come with family business expertise, such as a deep knowledge of what has worked in the past. But when new problems or opportunities arise, family businesses sometimes need an experienced voice at the table with outside perspectives.

In Enterprise Velocity, we teach leadership teams how to develop repeatable systems of growth and operations that are proven through their use in the many successful companies we work with. And we provide you with guidance through difficult issues, so you have an objective opinion when family members disagree on paths forward. By investing in the development of their family members’ business skills, family businesses can improve their chances of success and achieve long-term sustainability.

Not Involving Family Members in Decision-Making or Business Strategy

When it comes to family businesses, it can be tempting to give preferential treatment to certain family members. Unfortunately, this can result in some family members being excluded from important decision-making processes. This can lead to conflicts, a breakdown in communication, and may even put the success of the business at risk.

There can be many reasons why family businesses ignore some of their family members in decision-making. Here are a few possible explanations:

• Lack of Qualification: Many family members may not have the necessary qualifications or expertise to be involved in the decision-making process. As a business owner, you need to ensure that the people making decisions are competent and capable of doing so to achieve success.
• Personal Conflict: Family dynamics can be complicated, and this can spill over into the business realm. If two family members have a personal conflict, it may be difficult to work together effectively, which can lead to a breakdown in decision-making and communication.
• Favoritism: Family members who are not involved in decision-making may feel that there is favoritism or nepotism at play. They may feel as though they are being excluded because they are not the “chosen heirs” who have been given decision-making power.
• Lack of Trust: Trust is critical in any business, and this is especially true when it comes to family businesses. If family members don’t trust each other, it can be difficult to make decisions together and move the business forward.
• Power Struggles: Family businesses may also struggle with power dynamics, where certain family members try to exert more control than others. This can lead to conflicts and disagreements, which can impact decision-making.

This may surprise you, but we don’t believe that every family member should be treated equally when it comes to decision making; however, they should all be treated fairly for the good of your family relationships. Not all family members have the same level of commitment to the business. Some still lack skills and expertise, so while their opinions may be valuable, they often come with blind spots. If a family member is still new to the business, it doesn’t make sense to give them an equal say.

So how do you treat everyone fairly and respect their input while still deciding on the right direction for your company? The key is to establish clear, documented processes, metrics of success, and decision-making systems.

Documented processes help your business run more smoothly, help you diagnose issues more quickly and help you onboard new employees. But they also help promote fair treatment among family members because there is a set of processes, rules and expectations that everyone knows to follow. This helps to minimize conflict and disputes in the family. It also means that everyone has a defined role and set of responsibilities in the company. A young family member may not understand the entire big picture for your markets and customers, but they can dig deep in the specific area you assign to them.

Clearly defined measurements and metrics also promote fair treatment. Your OKRs and KPIs are benchmarks for success that allow family members to work together toward common goals. They are the lighthouse that everyone can point toward, so even during times of disagreement, they provide a standard that looks forward and backward. For example, let’s say the Vital Profit Metric you established in your company is order size. When dealing with a dispute between two members with different strategies, focusing on impact on order size can give you an objective, dispassionate way to choose between the strategies. And when you put a particular strategy in place, you can then measure its impact on order size to decide if it should continue. This helps to take the personal element out of the decision and make it about what is right for the business.

We often work with family businesses on creating systems for decision making. If you have processes for making decisions, you take favoritism out of the equation. In Enterprise Velocity we give you models, matrices and maps to help you make the right decisions while treating everyone fairly.

Poor Communication

We are not psychologists; we are experts on business growth. Yet we have seemed many common reasons why family members communicate with each other poorly.

Emotional Baggage

Family members may have unresolved personal issues, rivalry or past conflicts that affect their ability to communicate effectively in a business setting. These personal issues can build up over time if you don’t address them, leading to a breakdown in communication as family members struggle to separate their personal feelings from their professional obligations. A neutral third-party is critical in bringing an objective perspective to the table so that personal issues don’t get in the way of a productive work environment.

Different Communication Styles

Why won’t Sophia just text me back with a simple yes or no? Why is Liam always calling so early in the morning? Family members may have different ways of expressing themselves or different expectations when it comes to communication, which can lead to misunderstandings and conflict. Communication styles can vary widely between family members due to factors such as personality, upbringing, cultural background, and life experiences. Some individuals may be more direct and assertive in their communication; others may be more passive and diplomatic. Some family members may expect frequent and open communication; others may prefer more privacy and autonomy. These differences lead to misunderstandings and conflict when family members fail to understand or respect each other’s communication styles and preferences.

Power Struggles

Family businesses often involve complex power dynamics, with some family members holding more influence or control than others. This can create tensions and make it difficult for everyone to communicate on equal footing. As we mentioned above, power struggles can arise due to the involvement of multiple family members in the decision-making process. Often, some family members may hold more sway or have greater control over important aspects of the business, such as finances or operations, than others. This dynamic can create imbalances and tensions within the family, making it challenging for all members to communicate and collaborate on an equal footing. These power struggles may also be exacerbated by personal relationships and histories, leading to conflicts that are difficult to resolve.

Lack Of Clarity Around Roles and Responsibilities

When family members aren’t clear about who is responsible for what tasks and decisions, it can lead to confusion and disagreements. Family members may assume that someone else is taking care of a certain task or deciding, when in reality, no one is. Additionally, family members may have different expectations for what each person should be doing, leading to conflicts and resentment. Clarity around roles and responsibilities is crucial for effective communication and teamwork within families. It helps to ensure that everyone is on the same page and working towards common goals.

Overlap Between Personal and Professional Lives

In a family business, it’s difficult to separate personal and professional relationships. This can create tension and make it difficult for family members to communicate in a purely business-focused way. When family members are also business partners, it can be challenging to separate personal relationships from professional ones. Family dynamics, emotional attachments, and biases can make it difficult to communicate effectively and make decisions based on facts, logic, and objective analysis rather than subjective feelings.

We work with family businesses on communication styles, training, and planning to make sure that communication is consistent and clear. Some of these areas might include things like status reports, company updates, weekly tactical meetings, quarterly strategic sessions, common key messages, employee training and even things like email etiquette. Communication planning ensures your communication is consistent, clear, and effective, helping you build stronger relationships and achieve your goals.

Generational Conflict

Generational conflict is very common in family businesses. We’ve seen many examples of this in our work with family businesses.

A common area of conflict involves technology adoption. Different generations have different preferences and habits in technology usage. Younger generations are “digital natives,” who were born into a world surrounded by technology. They are generally more comfortable with new technologies and may even prefer them to traditional methods. They may push for the adoption of new technologies and be quick to embrace them, seeing them as a means of making things faster, easier, and more efficient. Older generations who grew up in a different era may be more cautious about new technologies and less likely to change their ways. They may prefer to stick to traditional methods that they have used for years and be hesitant to try out new technologies that they perceive as more complicated or unnecessary.

Issues with business strategy are similar. Generational differences can be particularly challenging when there are conflicting opinions on which direction the business should take. While the older generation may have a deep-rooted attachment to traditional values and tried-and-true methods, younger generations may be focused on innovation and expanding into new areas. These differing opinions can lead to tension and disagreement, which can ultimately hinder the company’s growth and success. It’s important for businesses to find a way to bridge the gap between these generations and create a strategy that incorporates the strengths and ideas of each generation.

A very common but often overlooked area of generational conflict is work-life balance. Younger generations put more emphasis on maintaining a healthy balance between their professional and personal life. Older generations tend to prioritize work and consider their job an essential part of their identity. The disparity in priorities can create tension in the workplace or at home, especially, as different family members may have varying expectations about how they manage their time.

Succession planning can often be an area of conflict, but many family members are uncomfortable discussing it. No one wants to admit that mom and dad aren’t getting any younger. Succession planning is about formally identifying and developing potential successors for key leadership positions in your business. In many cases, older generations may hold on to these roles for extended periods of time, creating a sense of frustration among younger employees who may feel that they are being blocked from advancement opportunities. This can lead to resentment and a lack of engagement among younger members. You must spend at least a little time each year on effective succession planning strategies that ensure a smooth transition of leadership, foster talent development, and promote employee engagement.

Every Family Business Needs Some Outside Advice

As you’ve read above and probably experienced daily, family businesses often face unique challenges due to the overlap of family dynamics and business operations. Emotional ties and personal relationships can sometimes interfere with sound business decisions, and addressing family conflict can be especially sensitive. Bringing in qualified, objective outside consulting can provide several benefits for family businesses in these situations.

Perhaps the biggest benefit of working with us on Enterprise Velocity is our ability to offer unbiased insights and recommendations about your business. We can be more objective than family members, who may have vested emotional interests in specific business decisions. Additionally, we bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to help you create repeatable, sustainable business processes to ensure long-term business success.

When it comes to family conflict, we also provide a neutral perspective while also offering a safe space for family members to communicate and share their views. We can often help to uncover underlying issues and provide guidance for effective communication and conflict resolution.

If you operate a family businesses and are looking to improve operations, create sustainable business processes, and navigate sensitive family dynamics, please contact today for a free consultation.

The post Common Issues with Family Businesses appeared first on Boston Turner Group.

• If an unexpected problem arises, do you let your team follow their processes, as opposed to jumping in to solve it yourself with new ideas or trying to reinvent processes?
• Do you patiently listen to new ideas or suggestions from team members, or are you usually jumping to a conclusion about their idea before they can finish?
• Do you feel that you must micromanage tasks or else nothing gets done correctly? Do you often thing, “I’ll just do it myself,” and fail to delegate?
• Can you accept that failures are just some of the steps your employees take to learn?
• If a majority of your leadership team differs with your opinion, do you feel it is a blind spot for you or for them?

Why is letting go so difficult? Usually, it’s because as a founder or visionary, you became successful by knowing what works and leading by example. But if you don’t allow your team to find their own way, they can never grow into the leaders you need them to be to take the next steps in the growth of your company. You must learn to be more of a coach to your best players than a micromanager. They need to become more entrepreneurial in their own thinking to drive you company forward and they cannot do that if they remain overly concerned with your opinion as the ultimate decision maker.

You need to empower your team to think for themselves and make their own decisions about solutions and paths forward. Your approval doesn’t matter, company results matter. By giving those closest to you autonomy, they will have no choice but to grow and take on the mantle of leadership in your organization — transforming it into something that surpasses even your original vision.

If this feels like it could be an issue in your organization – that you and your opinions might actually be a bottleneck – I want you to consider the following ways you can loosen up a little.

Recognize And Accept the Value of Diverse Opinions and Perspectives

Acknowledge that everyone has different ideas and views and encouragingly listen to them, making sure they are respected and heard.

When your company grows, it often faces great complexity. The right solutions to complex problems often come from diverse voices. There is great value in different opinions and perspectives. By listening to other people’s ideas and views without judgement, you can gather important information and ideas that might have missed. Differing backgrounds and points of view provide us with a bigger picture of what we’re working on. Being open to others’ perspectives encourages your own intellectual growth, as well as mutual respect.

Think of each new perspective as a new window in your office. If you only look out of the windows of your corner office, you only see the same view every day. You might not learn of the new bank opening on the west side of your building or know when the taco truck arrives on the north side or get to watch the bicycle race on the east side. If you don’t have other perspectives, you approach different problems with the same solution and the same perspective. That may have gotten you to a certain point, but it will stunt your growth at some point as well.

Foster Respect

Be careful when seeking diverse opinions. Most entrepreneurs are highly opinionated and intuitive, so you are probably going to hear things you don’t like. You need to be open-minded and most importantly, make sure that everyone’s opinions and views are heard and respected. As the leader of your company, it is your job to create a safe space for individuals to share their thoughts and give all employees the opportunity to learn from each other and broaden their own knowledge. Respect encourages collaboration where every voice has equal weight and importance in the discourse.

Respect ultimately leads to better decision-making processes because employees feel greater freedom for creativity and innovation.

Be Consistent in Your Delegation Style

Too often we see founders try to be more hands off, only to return harsher than ever. They may tell themselves that they are trying to make their team more self-sufficient, but in reality, they aren’t giving them enough feedback to improve and make good decisions. Then when a mistake happens, they insert themselves in ways that make their team feel like they cannot operate correctly without the founder’s constant supervision and involvement.

We ask leaders to think about five areas when they delegate:

1. Does the employee have the skills, bandwidth and experience to be successful? If not, how can you help them become more independent through the process?
2. Do they understand your criteria for success and decisions in the area you are delegating?
3. Can you track and manage their goals and progress? We prefer the OKR methodology, but even simple status reports help.
4. Did you make your desired result as clear as possible? Assume nothing when you are delegating, make your expected outcomes unmistakable.
5. Did you look for opportunities to reward more than you do opportunities to criticize.

Empower Your Team to Make Decisions

Delegate more responsibility to team members by giving them the power to make decisions without first relying on you for approval.

The first step is better delegation. This forces your team to think about outcomes without seeking your approval on each step. They earn a greater sense of ownership over projects and the success for your company. They gain confidence. They encourage and motivate others to common ends. If you want to grow further and faster, your team needs autonomy, so they are relying on you for each decision and outcome.

It is important to put together decision-making frameworks for helping your team make decisions that are based on:

• Your core values
• The value you bring to customers
• Weighted decision criteria
• Legal guidelines
• Outcomes from similar situations
• Mutual accountability

If you need help making better decisions, contact us today to discuss our “Good Call,” training and coaching programs where we lead your team in some proven and practical decision-making processes.

Ultimately empowering individual team members not only gives them a sense of importance but also saves time from having to constantly consult one another for approval on every decision. This means that tasks become easier and faster to complete which results in smoother workflow throughout the organization.

Establish Clear Communication Channels

Make sure there is open dialogue between yourself and your team members where all questions or concerns can be voiced freely so nothing gets missed out in conversations.

You need regular message threads, meetings, status reports and keep an open door. Regular communication – communication that is so programmed and rhythmic that input is expected — allows your employees to ask questions, express their opinions, and raise concerns without fear of judgement. It’s not unusual to give feedback, it is considered part of their job. This gives everyone the opportunity to be heard and understood, helping to avoid any misunderstandings that could arise from miscommunication.

Your office has a door for a reason. Keep it open to encourage drop-ins. If you delegate appropriately, you should be willing to spend time with people who need your time. Don’t be afraid to invite others in as well to share opinions. But also, be willing to close that door for respect and privacy. Having open dialogue between yourself and your team members encourages collaboration and trust within the group. By creating a safe space for people to express themselves without any intimidation or pressure, it allows for more productive discussions where ideas can be exchanged freely and constructively.

Poor communication often happens because of simple gaps. An issue may seem too insignificant to mention unless you make it part of your regular meeting and status processes to mention such problems. If it’s not addressed, it may get overlooked. Schedule regular tactical meetings and check-ins to keep everyone on the same page and working toward common objectives. Review OKRs as a team.

Ask For Feedback Regularly

Regularly ask your team for feedback on how you are leading from their perspective; this can help identify any areas where improvement is needed in order for you to become a better leader.

You need to be aware of your blind spots because they won’t be apparent to you on your own. That’s why we call them blind spots. Because most entrepreneurs are highly intuitive, it doesn’t occur to them they could be wrong. That comes with having the confidence you need to start a company in the first place. Asking for feedback regularly is an important part of growing and developing as a leader. By getting feedback on how you are leading from your team’s perspective, this can help identify any areas that need improvement so that you can become an even better leader.

Having regular communications about your own leadership style can also lead to fruitful conversations about leadership issues on your team. Knowing that you trust them for your own growth helps them to open up to you about areas they need to grow as well. Knowing that their opinions are valued can give people a sense of importance within the group, helping to improve morale and foster positive relationships between individuals throughout the organization. These moments often lead to constructive discussions about topics such as workflows, timelines and processes. It also provides an opportunity for everyone involved to have a seat at the table when it comes to making decisions about projects or tasks, giving people greater ownership over their own work.

Give Credit Where It’s Due

Take time to recognize and thank team members for their contributions.

Giving credit where it’s due makes your team feel great about contributing. Taking the time to recognize and thank your team members for their contributions helps to foster a sense of appreciation among individuals and encourages them to keep up the hard work.

Nothing is too small to be celebrated. Life is too short not to celebrate every chance we get. It doesn’t have to be a party around every corner. Public praise goes a long way. Several times a day, gather people in impromptu settings to say things like:

• “I want to thank Mary for pointing out that we didn’t need to require sign up forms every time a client came in, that really saves a lot of time and makes the clients happier.”
• “Bob helped me finish an email to investors, and while I know that doesn’t help a lot of you in your jobs, it reduced my stress level and that means I get to be a lot more fun to be around today.”
• “Zhang showed me how to use a whiteboard on Zoom and that saved me on my last call.”

And on a selfish level, people hold a higher opinion of other people who are humble and give recognition. So, it actually adds to your reputation that you accepted and appreciated help in areas.

Retain a Sense of Humor

Keeping a lighthearted attitude within the workplace helps create an atmosphere of positivity amongst team members; making it easier for people to take risks without fear of retribution or judgement.

A sense of humor in the workplace is an important part of creating a positive working environment. It can reduce stress levels, build team morale, and encourage people to take risks. This can ultimately lead to more creative thinking and higher overall productivity in your company.

Not everyone is Melissa Villaseñor. I’m not advocating that you create a comedy routine for your leadership style. I’m just asking you to consider the fact that with every negative situation, you have a choice to frame it in your mind as a tragedy or a comedy. Generally, if no one has died, you should choose to see the comedy in the situation.

Try to look at the situation from an outside and objective vantage point. This can help you see the absurdity or irony of the situation, rather than focusing on how it affects you. When I was a young manager, I learned to look at confrontation as if I was watching a movie. It turned a lot of difficult situations into entertainment for me because I could see the frequent absurdity of watching people get so upset over small things

When something goes wrong, most employees really want to be reassured of two things: you’re not going to fire them, and the company will survive. Those two things are almost always true, so approaching each situation with levity can let your employees off the hook so they can worry about what is important.

Provide Constructive Criticism

When offering criticism, keep it focused toward improving performance rather than tearing people down.

Providing constructive criticism is an important part of any successful team dynamic. Offering criticism in a way that focuses on improving performance, rather than tearing people down, will benefit everyone in the long run. This type of feedback helps to promote mutual respect between members and encourages individuals to take responsibility for their actions.

Be direct but respectful and eliminate any harsh edges. I generally find it useful to wait a day if possible to offer criticism. That gives me time to reflect and it removes any raw emotion that could color my words if I respond in the moment. I also like to write down what I’m going to say, even if it’s just bullet points. It allows me to be more thoughtful, considerate and direct in what I want to convey.

Continue To Lead by Example

Demonstrate good leadership practices by taking responsibility when things go wrong and staying humble in victory because it sets a good precedent for others to follow suit.

Encouraging others to step up doesn’t mean you stop leading. It reinforces the idea that no one is above the team or their peers. This shows that success comes from collective effort, not individual struggle. Demonstrating some of the tactics we’ve discussed above encourages team members to take responsibility and stay humble.

The post Ending Command and Control Leadership appeared first on Boston Turner Group.

Mentorship is different from formal training programs. Mentorship is more personal, hands on and involves a less formal one-to-one approach at making your team work more cohesively. It’s about assigning the most important people in your organization to mentor the best and brightest newcomers so that you can expand your abilities with confidence and consistency.

Growing Your Talent Pool

Growing your talent pool within your growing company is more important than ever. But unfortunately, not everyone in your company is suited for mentoring. We often work with entrepreneurs whose employees and leaders may not have the experience, passion and bandwidth for the roles they are asked to fill. Those employees may be in their positions because during periods of growth, no one else could take on those roles and they stepped up. But if you’re serious about growth, it’s important to have people who love what they’re doing in the right roles.

There isn’t much you can do about their passion for their role, although mentorship can help employees stay motivated and engaged.  But if bandwidth and competence are an issue, then mentorship can be the solution. Many times, a lack of bandwidth comes from not having the experience and training you need to be efficient in your role.

As your company grows, positions enlarge making it more and more difficult for your key players to take on multiple roles. That also cuts into their bandwidth and limits your ability to continue to grow. Mentorship helps you with succession planning so that you can anticipate changing roles and help your leaders prepare for transitions and future needs.

Most importantly, many entrepreneurial leaders initially grow their company by means of personal heroics. You know everything about your own company, so you can jump in to almost any situation with new ideas and solutions. But you are also establishing yourself as a major choke point if your employees feel they need to check all their decisions through your office.

If you want to continue to grow, you must be willing to let go and allow your best employees to take on a new range of skills and expertise so you can spend more of your time on vision.

Make Mentoring a Formal Part of Your Cadences

Mentoring usually doesn’t happen by itself. You must make it part of your culture and dedicate specific cycles to it.

1. Choose Your Mentors

These are not always managers. Some people are great at specific tasks while other are great at organization. Pick people who know their job very well and are good at working with others. Make sure they are committed to growing the organization.

When you choose a mentor, be very clear in your communication to them how important they are to you, so they don’t feel threatened in training others. Let them know you appreciate them so much that you want to “clone,” them as much as possible so they feel secure in their job. That confidence will let them mentor more freely.

2. Assign Trainees

You may already have a list of people in mind in your company that you want to develop. Ask your mentors for their lists as well because they are on the front lines and can help you identify employees with initiative. Give each mentor a list of up to three people to mentor at a time. This is a purposeful number to keep the workload down, but also help spread more connections through your company.

3. Work with Your Mentors on Setting Goals

The goals should be specific to the situation each employee faces. Again, this isn’t a formal training program, so the goals won’t be related to getting 20 employees certified or moving more support tickets through the queue. They will be goals that relate to the unique growth needs of each employee.

You should meet with your mentors each month – it is fine and even preferred to do this as a group – and lay out goals specific to the employees they are mentoring. Things like:

• I think Bradley doesn’t feel comfortable with Adobe Illustrator, I’d like you to spend some specific time this month showing him training resources.
• Helen seems a little introverted, can you help her expand her network this month? Take her to lunch with five other people next Thursday.
• Oliver is smart, but his emails are really making people mad. Can you work with him on being more detailed and empathetic? Maybe ask him to visit with people in their cubicles before sending an email.
• Maria is ready to take on level two support, but I think she lacks report building expertise. Work with her on building five new reports so that she feels more confident.

4. Dedicate Time to Mentoring

Make sure they know that mentoring is an important part of their job. They need to calendar at least one hour per week for each employee they are mentoring. It can be a formal meeting, or lunch, or a walk around the building to check in. But it must be a calendared commitment. And you should calendar time with them to check in. As mentioned above, it is preferable to bring your mentors into a single meeting each month. It is more respectful of everyone’s time. But more importantly, it gives you mentors the chance so share ideas and improve collaboration and friendships. Regularly scheduled meetings can provide valuable opportunities to discuss issues related to business strategy, career development or any other topics that may be beneficial for the growth of your company.

The post Do You Have a Mentoring Strategy? appeared first on Boston Turner Group.

Part II of the Series: 10 Ways to Untangle Your Product Launch

When I was a young writer working for the Entrepreneur Media Group, one of my tasks was to write new product and company launch articles for two of their magazines and their online community. I was a voracious consumer of press releases in those days. I would read every release that crossed my desk searching for something interesting to share with our audience.

At the risk of exposing my advanced age, the year was 1994. That was also the first year of NAFTA, Bill Clinton had just ended his first term, movie tickets cost $4 and Weezer released their debut blue album. Good times. There was no such thing as Facebook or LinkedIn. There were no blogs–we were all writing dead-tree indie ‘zines.

In other words, press releases mattered a lot more than they do today. Writers like me actually read them and put them into articles.

Today, you cannot afford to simply rely on press releases. Press releases have to be part of your long-term corporate public relations campaign. If you are a hyper-growth company, “long-term” might mean six months. Other companies need to think 18-36 months ahead.

Product Launch as Inflection Point

While explaining the ins-and-outs of a corporate PR program is well beyond the scope of this post, the general goal of your PR program should be to raise awareness and build trust in your company. A product launch is an inflection point in the history of your company that provides many opportunities to develop your reputation and even overcome bad market perceptions.

Product launch public relations is one of the most frequent PR activities most hyper-growth companies pursue. Because it is a significant inflection point, it can be used to support a number of marketing and sales goals:

• Promoting a new product launch as we’re discussing in this series
• Raising awareness of the depth and expertise of your company
• Correcting perceptions about your company that you may feel are less than accurate
• Increasing the knowledge of your products among your employees, customers and partners
• Driving wider adoption of your products in your base or in new markets
• Providing a critical plank in your enablement, nurturing and top-of-mind-awareness (TOMA) programs

Public Relations Tactics for Product Launches

A good public relations campaign is really more about relationships and nuance than it is about any specific tactic. But since we’re talking about building your product launch plan in this series, I’m going to outline the most important consideration that I think you should incorporate into your product launch PR steps.

Where Should I Look?

Before you begin, realize that the consumption of your PR content is not that different than the consumption of your other marketing content. Two important rules still apply: you need to go where your market already is because they won’t come looking for you and you need to hit them with 27 touches.

The good news is, you have a lot of opportunities to consider. Here are just a few suggestions to get you started. Your industry will have it’s own unique areas to consider as well.

• Issuing a press release about your new product is essential. Perhaps you should consider a series of releases related to the new product, webinars, case studies, white papers and more.
• Can you wiggle your way into some product surveys for magazines and analysts?
• Your new product undoubtedly involved some sort of innovation, right? Can you contribute articles that relate to your super-human development efforts and complex thinking?
• Can you talk someone from outside your organization into writing a clever article of how-tos that feature your product? Better yet, write it for them.
• Ghost write some articles for your R&D team to supply industry publications with new content.
• Get your evangelists and sales reps to start blogging and tweeting.
• Develop an ROI related story for industry publications featuring statistics. Here’s a dirty little trick. If you can get one publication to mention one of your stats (e.g., “XYZ software saves 20%), then you can start quoting that stat as if it was fully vetted by a third-party (e.g., “According to Industry Pub, our software saves 20%…”) Sure, it’s circular, but who is going to research it out that far?

Using PR for Demand Generation

One of the biggest choke points in your demand generation efforts is probably a lack of education in your markets. Here are some ways that PR can help you get new leads.

• Getting more links back to your site for traffic and SEO
• Promoting case studies and white papers which will drive new clicks and hand-raisers
• Featured articles that promote the thought leadership of your executives and employees
• Promotion of free offers, ROI calculators, surveys and other demand generation tools
• Promotion of a contest or social media campaign that drives viral effects for your product launch

Should I Hold a Press Conference?

Yes, you should. I’m assuming that your product release is critical to your company and important to the market. If not, why are you releasing it? A press conference allows you to meet with journalists, editors and analysts in person (or voice-to-voice) and brief them on details that would otherwise be missed.

A press conference sounds really difficult. It isn’t, really. The hardest part is usually getting your executives to participate. Today, a lot of what you want to do in a press conference can be handled virtually and without a lot of expense. Here are some tips for you to hold a successful event.

• Treat it like any other event, road show or webinar. That is, focus on value for your target audience and apply all of your promotional muscle.
• Don’t just invite journalists and analysts, invite customers, partners, vendors and your mother-in-law. More people means more buzz.
• Give everyone plenty of notice and if you can, try to time the event with the editorial calendars of your most important publications.
• Design press packages. These can be electronic but they need to look good and professional bold and sexy. You should include background information, product details, literature, photographs or other graphics, statistics, customer quotes and more.
• Make sure your executive team is available. They will need to be coached. You will need to make appointments on their behalf. You probably even need to buy their plane tickets and book their hotels if necessary, because executives aren’t good at details.
• Book interviews with key journalists and analysts with your executives throughout the day. Make them feel like an exclusive group with access others don’t have. If they can’t make it, schedule a private web briefing just for them.
• Your team should split up that night and each take out one journalist and two customers for dinner. It will sweeten the deal for the journalist and they’ll appreciate your candidness by being willing to let them grill a real customer all night.
• Record the briefing and put it all online, but only after the live event happens. You want to maintain the air of a “scoop” and some exclusivity for the event itself.

Avoid These Mistakes

Product launches are busy times filled with many opportunities for mistakes. Let me help you avoid some of the bigger ones that seem to happen all the time.

• Failing to leverage the results. If you manage to get some good ink, spread it around. Send articles to other analysts. Send them in your direct mail. Blog them, because link love is the universal currency of today’s social and SEO. Put them in your newsletter. Ask and order reprints because the publication will make some money and be more likely to write about you in the future. Quote the articles everywhere.
• Being all about “you” and not about “them.” Most companies write about how great their products are from their own perspective with their own jargon. Instead, you need to write about the benefits for the customer and the market. Make it interesting with real life examples. You know who does this really well? Microsoft. Take a look at this cloud article. That doesn’t really look like PR flak, it looks like research.
• Writing something that is basically unpublishable. I almost titled this mistake, “targeting the wrong editors,” because it is basically the same thing. Know your publications inside and out. Don’t assume that everyone will be equally interested in your message. If you do, you will waste your ability to pitch to them in the future
• Assuming journalists know anything about you at all. Journalists are busy. They aren’t surfing your site and interviewing your customers hoping to find something interesting. Even if they know you, they may not be up to date with your current offerings. Maybe they scanned a press release, but they don’t know how it relates to their readers. Take time to nurture them like you would your prospects so they know you and the company background already.
• Letting product people do your job. Product people are great interviewees, sources and bloggers. But don’t let them write your press materials. Take what they give you and rewrite it to suit your goals, drive interest and improve readability.

I hope this was a helpful list to follow when considering your public relations options in your next product launch. When we next return to this series, we’ll talk about one of my favorite topics of all time, lead nurturing playbooks for product launches.

The post Public Relations for Product Launches appeared first on Boston Turner Group.

Your business is your primary investment – is it running like you’d want it to run if you were going to reinvest today?

When an investor is looking to buy a business – setting aside certain strategic reasons like increasing the size of their product footprint or consolidating competition – they want to know that it is successful, systematic and repeatable. They want more than just a track record of success; they want assurance that you have created a system that can promise success into the next five to ten years as well.

There are many ways to demonstrate a proven, repeatable system of success, but the following four areas are the most critical:

1. Demonstrably Profitable Business Model
2. Proven System of Operation
3. Reliable Leadership Team
4. Customer Loyalty

1. Demonstrably Profitable Business Model

I know a lot of software CEOs and you might be surprised how many times I hear something like, “a friend of mine sold their $2M company for $20M, so I’m planning on a 10X for my company, too.”

Well, not so fast.

I can point many $2M companies I know that sold for a 1-2X revenue multiple. The difference comes down to several factors. As I mentioned above there could be strategic benefits like build vs. buy R&D investment decisions, competitive advantages and migration plans for a large customer base that drive higher multiples. Those advantages aside, your valuation boils down to proving you can add profit consistently. So, a company that went from $0 to $2M in 18 months with a 92% gross margin is going to command a higher multiple than a company that has hovered around $2M for several years because of high churn rate or other issues.

An investor wants to know how fast you are growing your profits. A business that grows its profits at a higher rate than average will be considered more valuable, while one that stagnates or decreases in profits will decrease in value. This applies to both large and small businesses, both public and private businesses. Look at public profit multiples for SaaS companies. It has been shown year over year that there is a linear correlation between growth rates of ARR, MRR or EBITDA and your valuation multiple. That is, the faster you add profitable revenue, the more your company is worth for the same amount of revenue.

Why is this true? Two big reasons.

First, investors feel more secure in their calculations of value if they see consistency in your growth and speed of growth. The consistency provides some faith sales will continue to grow, but the speed tells me you have competitive advantage. The speed of growth means that even if the new owner screws things up a little after the acquisition of your company, they’ll probably be able to recover.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, companies of any size can experience rapid profit growth if properly managed. When you tell me all about your unique business model, competitive advantages and happy customers, it’s a lot more believable when I see a fast growth rate. It tells me you’ve built a demonstrably profitable business model.

If you want a more realistic picture of your business’s enterprise value, contact my friend Garrett Stearns at SD Business Advisors. He’ll provide you with a confidential and customized assessment.

2. Proven System of Operation

I tell my clients that they need a franchise-able business. That doesn’t mean I want them to turn their business into a franchise, although I’ve worked with franchises on perfecting their operations. Franchise-able means you have the right people doing repeatable processes without constant surprises, customer complaints, fire-fighting and micro-managing.

What it means to your investor or exit partner is that they can reliably run the business after the owners and some key leaders leave post-acquisition. This is where our Enterprise Velocity program comes into play. We help you build a more valuable business by creating a repeatable, systematic process for growth.

Our work with hundreds of companies revealed the five disciplines of growth that set successful companies apart, and we help implement those in your company alongside your team.

1. Ideals: Many companies are so preoccupied with achieving their short-term goals that they often neglect to establish core values. Without these essential touchstones, a company’s culture may fail to prosper and reach its intended potential.
2. Velocity: The practice of velocity revolves around having a team that works within a measurable and repeatable system, along with a commitment to continual improvement. It is about establishing reliable procedures, rather than randomly reacting to events.
3. Measurement: What are the crucial metrics for your company that will keep you pointed in the right direction, and alert you to any necessary changes or improvements?
4. Cadence: Cadence is all about establishing the rhythms of your business. Many quickly growing companies can often find themselves stuck in a never-ending cycle of constantly responding to events. Cadence helps keep you centered and proactive.
5. Creativity: Logic and linear thinking have their place in strategic planning, but they can also restrict creativity and growth. True innovations only come from intuitive and non-linear thinking, and we have methods to help your team break free.

3. Reliable Leadership Team

The owner usually leaves after a healthy exit. If your company requires a larger team (e.g., a 75-person managed services company, not a three-person coffee shop) then the investor wants to know they can count on a cohesive team and not spend all their time micromanaging and hiring new employees.

In Enterprise Velocity, we work with you to assign the right people to the most important elements of your Revenue Blueprint. Then we work on bringing your team together, so they are energized, accountable and place their trust in each other. We do this through regular strategic and tactical sessions along with one-to-one coaching programs where appropriate.

4. Customer Loyalty

What’s your churn rate? All things equal, investors want to buy a company with low churn rate. Current customers are always more profitable than finding new customers.

Customer loyalty is a critical factor in determining the value of a business. Loyal customers provide reliable, long-term revenue, which increases the valuation of the business. They also help to create positive word-of-mouth publicity and help to bring in new customers. Loyal customers are more likely to purchase additional products or services, thus creating further revenue for the company. This is especially true if the company that buys your company is interested in growing their product portfolio.

Do You Want to See if You Could Boost Your Valuation with a Repeatable System of Growth?

We help our clients build what every successful company needs to create growing, sustainable and valuable businesses.

• Repeatable systems that replace chaos and confusion
• A common language so the team understands their mission and their performance
• A clear voice that motivates different audiences (visionaries, drivers and customers) with the appropriate messages
• Authenticity so that your core team, your employees and your customers connect to your mission with enthusiasm and passion
• Risk protection to capture value, keep what you’ve built and reduce your stress levels
• A healthy culture built on trust where people love coming to work and collaborating toward your dream
• Total alignment through systems of communication, decision-making, measurement, accountability and trust

Please contact us to learn more.

The post Would Someone Buy Your Business Today? appeared first on Boston Turner Group.

Your website is the first sale rep people meet at your company. Unfortunately, many marketing teams can quickly find themselves overwhelmed when trying to tackle all of the elements of their web strategy– websites, SEO, blogs, pay-per-click, email integration and more. We want to take the mystery and frustration out of using your web elements in a successful product launch.

Use this post as a handy guide anytime you have a new product release and want to make sure you are covering your bases on your website.

Impact on Brand Equity

Before you can decide on the exact tactics for your website, you have to answer the question, “what is the impact of this launch on brand equity?”

Option 1: This product launch enhances brand equity.

The product is part of our core service offering. If so, fasten your seat belts, there really isn’t a single step you should skip. Your website is the first place most of your prospects will interact with your brand. You can’t afford to leave parts of it out of date with regard to a central brand offering.

Option 2: This product launch borrows from our brand equity.

If you’re a software company, you might refer to this type of launch using Geoffrey Moore’s term, “Plus One.” In this case, you may not need to address every page on your site but instead consider a subset in your product areas and enhance your click paths. You’re not off the hook with social media either, because you will have some explaining to do when all those customers ask why your plus-ones don’t come free with their standard product.

Option 3: This product launch has the possibility of cannibalizing our brand equity.

Perhaps you’re launching an extension of your current product set into a new market. This is especially risky when moving downstream. First, you may be losing money in new deals as prospects and customers decide that the additional functionality in your premier product suite isn’t worth the additional investment. Your new small or SaaS-based offering is good enough. Second, research has shown that the market will perceive a reduction in the quality of your brand as you move downstream. It’s not so easy to move upstream either. That’s why when Toyota wanted to rival European luxury automobiles they went to market as Lexus. If you think you might cannibalize your brand equity, you should really consider a separate suite name, with a separate microsite. You might even consider a separate business unit or even a separate company. You’ll thank me later for not eating away at your current revenue sources.

Option 4: The product launch has the ability to confuse our market.

If you think there is a real contradiction between your current brand position and your new launch, run it as another brand, company or division. You can only own one brand position at a time, and then only if you’re really good or really lucky, usually both. Here are some of my favorite brand confusions:

• Who is Martha Stewart? Is she a curator of sophisticated taste and if so what was she doing at one point or another in Home Depot, Kmart, Staples and J.C. Penney?
• Have you ever seen Quaker Oats Breakfast Cookies? Yes, cookies. Isn’t Quaker Oats supposed to be about health? I’ll believe the rice cakes and even the chewy granola bars (even though both are far removed from anything your cavemen ancestors would have put into their mouths). But cookies?
• Stop reading here if you have a sensitive gag reflex: Cheetos Lip Balm and Sylvester Stallone Pudding. Those were real things.

End Confusion with More Content

Assuming you have a workable website, the general principle for any new product launch is more equals more. This is true even if you decided to take your potentially cannibalistic product to another site.

Too many people are depending on your content to make their lives better: sales reps, prospects, channel partners, journalists and analysts and more. Let’s face it, most of the people in your own company have trouble explaining all of your offerings today. It’s not going to improve after the launch of your new products.

With all that new content, your website is going to do the heavy lifting. So let’s now turn to the specific areas you need to address.

Product Areas

This should be the most obvious but you’d be surprised how many company leaders I talk to tell me, “don’t go by what’s on the website, it’s a little out of date.” And by a “little out of date,” they mean that none of the products on the site actually match what they sell. Here are four things to consider:

1. Do a complete audit of your web site against your current product offerings. Make sure they match up.
2. Present your products in a way that makes sense to your prospects. I know you really like the name “Turbulator 5000,” but I have no idea what that thing does. It’s better to refer to it by its function than it’s name if the name isn’t on the nose. Call that page and navigation link “Warehouse Management,” or something as specific. As a bonus, you’ll pick up some search engine love along the way.
3. Decide on your organization. Which are the main product suites, which are the plus-ones, which are modules and what content simply describes additional functionality? Or, will you organize by industry grouping? I suggest doing both because again, more equals more.
4. Get an outside person to navigate and read the content to make sure it makes sense to the cultures that live outside your tribe. In fact, find out what your grandmother is doing next Saturday. Is the copy filled with insider jargon? Are you making assumptions about how much people already know about your brand?

Blogs and Social Media

We’ll cover public relations and social media in a future post for this series. We’ll also be returning at a later date to discuss what you need to do to generate hype during the prelaunch phase. But for now, you have a blog, you have social media accounts, so start posting. To get you going, here are 10 things you could blog or tweet about:

1. Your five favorite new functions
2. Installation tips and tricks
3. Profile someone in R&D
4. Photos of the product or better yet, videos of the product in action
5. Customer and partner testimonials and shout outs
6. A challenge you overcame in the development of the product
7. Provide some guidance on return on investment
8. Talk about how your industry is evolving and why your new product shows you are a leader
9. Promote a webinar
10. Roll all of the nine things above into a white paper or e-book and tweet for downloads

See, wasn’t that easy?

PR Announcements

These are pretty standard. The harder work is to get an actual story out of a product launch. But most trade magazines need the content so they will at least pick up a blurb or two for their web site.

Here are the three releases I think you should plan at a minimum:

1. The standard new product announcement. These aren’t as important as they were a few years ago but a lot of people still cover new products. At the very least, you can generate some new links to your site this way.
2. Announce a case study of a client using the product. These do drive a lot of activity and can even get you some ink.
3. Promote a series of events at which you’ll be demonstrating the new product: webinars, trade shows, road shows and more.

Microsites

When they are done correctly, microsites can helps generate urgency, excitement and buzz. The easiest way to pull off a microsite with a product launch is to focus it either around product content–especially social and video–or focus it around an industry you serve. As an added bonus, you’ll pick up some search engine links from another domain.

In addition, if your launch has the potential to cannibalize your brand, a microsite can help. Or perhaps your current product offering is so large that you worry about getting lost with your new launch.

If you play it right, a microsite can look educational and not self-serving. That could pick you up some links, shares, likes and retweets.

PPC Campaigns

You may not need to change anything with your pay-per-click campaigns with a new product launch. Your markets and core pain points are the same, lucky you. But chances are you’ll at least want to review them and add a few of your new selling points to attract new prospects. As with all new PPC campaigns, this will set off a series of tests to make sure you’re hitting the right notes in your copy, design and ad headlines.

Search Engine Optimization

As long as you’re building all those new pages and posts, you might as well take the time to optimize them for SEO and get you link structure working to your advantage. This is too large a topic to cover in this post, but a new product launch is a great opportunity to grab some SERP real estate. At the very least, do a little keyword research in your market to see if there are some keyword phrases you haven’t approached that could use you brilliantly written copy.

Landing Page Development

You’ll be doing a lot of campaign work–calls, mail, email and more–that you need to track. You also want to drive conversions as quickly as possible with as few clicks as possible. Enter the landing page. Here are eight basics you want to cover:

1. A headline or grabber that is very specific and let’s the prospect know he or she is on the right page
2. Clearly written copy and subheaders that drive the reader to an eventual action
3. A video or a photo
4. Grammatical perfection–the page needs to be perfect to reduce bounces
5. Social proof–testimonials, awards, analyst mentions, PR blurbs and more
6. A call to action: download a white paper, sign up for a demo, purchase today, etc. Make it as obvious as possible.
7. Load up your additional analytics code to track conversions and A/B testing
8. Consider some other unique URLs. Make them pretty, not some weird code. In other words, www.yoursite.com/wow is a lot better than www.yoursite.com/100eiai$$?asp~blahblahblahblahblah.

Interactive Elements

Interactive elements have the potential to go viral. You don’t have to add them right away, but if you can it can really boost the number of likes and shares you get. Some of the most popular involve games, movies, recorded demos and ROI calculators. These have the added benefit of demonstrating your empathy with your prospects, which is why they encourage viral behavior. Make sure you encourage them to pass the information along through email and social media.

Click Paths

Once you have everything lined up above, you want to bring it all together with click paths. Most people only think about two click paths. First, a big splash on the main page. Second, navigation links. But why not put display ads and calls to action on the appropriate interior pages as well. A good click path strategy can boost your conversions by 20% or more.

Automation: The Last Mile

The last mile in your web strategy for your product launch should be automation. According to the Aberdeen Research Group, companies who use marketing automation convert 107% more leads than their Luddite counterparts. Here are five things you should be able to do with automation:

1. Automatically fire off emails based on profiles
2. Link prospect behavior (e.g., downloaded a white paper) to future action (e.g., get a call from a sales rep)
3. Automatically score and add prospects to your CRM system
4. Integrate into other campaigns so that you get a whole view of your prospects interactions with you
5. Put your prospects on a proven path of lead nurturing based on results and best practices

That wraps up our discussion of web elements in a product launch. I’m not pretending that this is the end-all list; however, if you do these things you’ll be doing more than 85% of your competitors are doing. Next time we talk about product launches, we’ll cover public relations tips and tricks.

The post Website Elements for a Successful Product Launch appeared first on Boston Turner Group.

Most product launches fail.

According to the Harvard Business Review, only 3% of new consumer packaged goods exceed the benchmarks set for a successful launch. Lack of a successful launch strategy for a technology company can reduce your profitability by as much as 35%.

From an outbound or downstream marketing perspective, the biggest problem with a new product launch is education (sometimes referred to as enablement). Of course, I’m assuming you’ve already done the important inbound/upstream marketing:

1. there’s a market for you product,
2. you’ve built it correctly to meet those needs, and,
3. you’ve created a hype-cycle within your niche of followers.

If you’re not sure that you nailed the inbound marketing, you should stop here because your product launch will only fail faster if you follow my steps with a bad product.

Unfortunately, even if you have a terrific product, your launch can easily get tangled up in a sea of confusing chatter. How many of you have suffered these symptoms of a tangled product launch?

• Sales reps who continue to sell older products
• Web sites that are not updated to reflect new functionality
• Journalists and analysts who continue to refer to your old product names
• Customer support reps who email the wrong information about your products
• Trade show booths that still reflect old products
• Product catalogs that were never updated
• Resellers who are confused about your new offerings and pricing
• Contracts that aren’t up to date
• Customers who recently upgraded but feel cheated out of the new product

Here is the final impact on the cohesiveness of your team:

• your R&D team starts blaming your sales team for not taking the time to understand the new product
• sales blames marketing for not producing enough training and marketing material for them
• marketing blames implementation for not screwing the product in properly and creating bad buzz in the user community
• implementation blames development for a buggy product that is hard to install, when in fact the product is perfectly designed
• your CEO blames everyone, and rightfully so

Be a Product Launch Hero

All of these pains can be avoided with the mastery of a systematic outbound launch process. And that is why I’m writing this series of blog articles. I want to teach you how to be the hero of your next launch by giving you insights into the 10 key areas of your education cycle during a new product launch. These 10 steps will include:

1. Website elements that every successful launch requires
2. Public relations tips and tricks
3. Lead nurturing play books for product launches
4. Branding considerations that can add velocity to your launch
5. Email guidelines to coordinate your messaging across teams
6. Event guidelines to inject product launches into other niches
7. Mail coordination tips and tricks
8. Reseller channel product launch needs
9. Networking ideas for referrals and social proof
10. Customer advocacy to turn your product launch into a loyalty builder instead of a loyalty killer
11. Bonus: How to build a launch team

I hope you’ll join me for what I hope will be a fun and useful set of articles that help you with your next product launch. Please follow on LinkedIn to be notified each time a new article is posted in the series.

The post 10 Ways to Untangle Your Product Launch: Part I appeared first on Boston Turner Group.

The start of a new year is always an exciting time for most entrepreneurs and business drivers, as it provides an opportunity for personal reflection and goal setting. Putting meaningful goals in place can often help us stay focused and motivated throughout the year. Setting a clear path can also provide direction and help us make progress towards our ideal outcomes. By implementing goals, we can acquire knowledge and skills, build on our talents, and increase our self-esteem

However, it is important to recognize that goal setting can become a double-edged sword if we are not mindful of the successes and risks associated with obsessing over goals. Balancing progress with perspective can help ensure that our focus remains productive rather than becoming all-consuming.

Obsession Usually Leads to Failure

Obsessing over goals can have serious negative consequences in a person’s life if they become too fixated on achieving them. This behavior can lead to anxiety, stress, and even depression when the goal isn’t reached or takes longer than expected to accomplish. It is often difficult for people to recognize when their drive for success has become unhealthy, and it is important to take steps to ensure that goals are not the sole focus of one’s life.

One of the most interesting aspects of my life as a business growth consultant is that I meet many energetic and visionary leaders and get a peek into their personal lives. So often with entrepreneurs and company founders, their personal lives and business lives intertwine. Family members are also drivers in the company and that can magnify the impact of over-obsession on company goals when it becomes hard to turn off your professional mode when you’re hanging out with friends and family.

As an example of how obsessing over goals can actually hurt your progress, I had two clients in the last two years ask for my help in stopping drinking. Disclaimer: I am not a trained addiction specialist by any means, but these two clients knew that I gave up drinking almost five years ago and asked for any guidance I could give (you can read more about my reasons here). One person was successful, the other was not. The successful quitter reoriented their thinking and their life in a way that allowed them to develop habits to replace drinking without having to think too much about it. The unsuccessful quitter worried about failure at every turn and constantly thought about not drinking. Which meant they were constantly thinking about drinking. The successful quitter didn’t feel like he was missing anything while the unsuccessful quitter had FOMO like mad because it was all they thought about for 104 days, which is how long they made it before relapsing. I realize I’m oversimplifying both of their situations and there are many more complications with these kinds of things, but it underscores the point I’m trying to make that if you want to achieve your goals while staying healthy and not becoming an obnoxious broken record to everyone around you, you need to build support systems and balance into your goal setting.

Identifying What Matters Most to You

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m a lot more likely to achieve goals that are important and interesting. To achieve a healthy balance between goals and life, it is beneficial to identify what matters most in all aspects of your life, such as relationships, career, self-care, endeavors, etc., and prioritize them accordingly. This will help to ensure that you are making progress towards your goals without sacrificing other important areas in your life.

This is why “Ideals,” is the first and most foundational element of our Enterprise Velocity system for creating new business growth. You need those touchstones for behavior and success first before you can make real progress.

When creating your goals — both personal and professional — it is important to take a step back and assess what matters most to you in life. Keeping your purpose and intentions top of mind when setting goals can help ensure that they align with what is meaningful for you. Once these have been identified, it is important to prioritize your goals accordingly. This may mean adjusting what you are focusing on or taking a step back to focus on one goal at a time.

Every person and every company we work with is different in how they think about priorities. But here are some areas we workshop with entrepreneurs and their leadership teams in our Enterprise Velocity program:

• What are your core values and passions? How would your best employees answer this question?
• Do the goals that you’ve set speak to you on a personal level? Can you visualize where you’ll be at the end of the year if you achieve your goals?
• How does your goal fit into your Impossible Dream — the big reason why you started your company in the first place?
• Is this a goal you must achieve or is it something that you think others expect of you, or something you think similar companies “just do?”
• We often consider business goals in terms of our financial success — have you looked at them through the lens of your family life, health and psychological well-being?
• Can this goal be broken down into meaningful steps and milestones throughout the year so you can maintain momentum?

Aiming For Progress Rather Than Perfection

Aiming for progress rather than perfection is key to having a successful and fulfilling experience with your goals this year. Seeking perfection can set an unrealistic bar that could be difficult to reach, leaving you feeling frustrated and overwhelmed. Setting smaller accomplishments and milestones along the way to your ultimate goal helps keep you motivated, as it allows you to view your progress in incremental successes rather than one grand triumph. Celebrating even small victories also helps maintain your emotional commitment to responding and adjusting to challenges that arise on your journey towards achieving potentially larger goals. When seeking progress over perfection, it’s important to set achievable goals that allow you to build upon past successes while still pushing yourself towards something greater in the future.

It can be easy to become overwhelmed by our goals as we strive for perfection. To prevent this, it is important to take a balanced approach while setting goals and to remember that progress is more important than perfection. It is okay to establish high standards for ourselves, but it’s also important to recognize when we are pushing too far beyond our limits.

Create Intentional and Mindful Practices Around Your Goal Setting

Again, the biggest difference I see in my clients who are successful in their goals is that they have reoriented their daily practices, thinking and systems to support their goals. They don’t have to obsess because they put a system of ideals, values, goals, OKRs, metrics, meetings and accountability in place.

Our Enterprise Velocity program coaches your entire team in managing these achievement systems. But if you’re not ready for that or just want some personal ways to get started, here are some important elements of my personal goal framework that have helped me immensely over my many trips around the sun.

First, get as much out of your head as you can and put it down on paper, or Evernote or a to-do list. If you try to keep your goals and progress in your head, you will end up in an endless loop of worrying, obsessing and waking up in the middle of the night wondering if you could have done more. If it’s written down along with the step you need for progress, you can relax and just start punching things off your list.

I personally like and recommend Getting Things Done. We all have ideas and inputs from many areas — customers, emails, LinkedIn, calls, partners — and the GTD system is a great way to make sure you collect all those ideas, inputs, to-dos and steps and keep track of their progress. I also use Appigo’s To-Do cloud version which allows me to keep my GTD system in one place accessible from my iPhone or web browser. I’m also a fan of Rocketbook and they have released a Panda Planner version which is helpful to get out of your day to day space each week and morning to refocus and make sure you stay on track. There’s something about writing with a pen that helps my brain more than typing, so I like the practice of writing in my Rocketbook. So you know, I am in no way compensated by any of these businesses, I just use and recommend them.

I’m a big fan of contemplative prayer, meditation and journaling. I’m always running at breakneck speed and it’s important to stay grounded. I’m spotty on my discipline of morning pages, but I find it helpful when I do it. It’s kind of like emptying my brain’s wastebasket every morning. We don’t always achieve our goals. That can set off a lot of panic and emotional alarms, especially for A-type personalities that usually become entrepreneurs. Mindfulness reminds you that those emotions are just warning lights on your dashboard, and you can stay present in the moment. It seems paradoxical yet staying in the present so you can achieve small steps is what makes you successful in the future.

Here’s to a great new year for all of us. It’s okay to set high standards for yourself while still having realistic expectations. By finding the balance between these two things and putting systems in place, you will find success in achieving your goals in 2023.

The post Achieving Your Goals This Year Without Obsessing Over Them appeared first on Boston Turner Group.

• Your sales reps need content to nurture prospects.
• Your website needs fresh content so prospects know you are active and up to date on the issues.
• Your marketing team is already overworked.
• You want to get more clicks from LinkedIn and SEO but aren’t sure how to start.

These issues are all related to social selling with content.

If you’re in sales and marketing, then you know that social selling is one of the most effective ways to connect with potential customers and close deals. But what exactly is social selling, and how can you use it to your advantage? In this blog post, we’ll explore the ins and outs of social selling and provide some tips on how to use content to master the art of social selling.

What is Social Selling with Content?

You are reading social selling content right now.

Social selling with content is a powerful approach to sales that utilizes content like blog posts, videos, and other digital media to help establish relationships and build trust with potential customers. The most common way sales reps share social content is through LinkedIn, blogs, and email, buy each industry has its own favorite social media channels that respond to effective content.

By providing quality information that helps educate buyers on the product or service being sold, social selling helps make it easier for prospects to understand why they should purchase that product or service. This approach can be used to build relationships with prospects, nurture leads, and help close more deals. Additionally, content marketing can also be used to generate more referrals and drive word-of-mouth sales for the business.

It works. Here are some actual results from clients:

• A software client of ours increased their leads from LinkedIn by 200% with content.
• A small managed services provider receives over 300 likes on LinkedIn and YouTube each time they post a new video. It would take all month to reach those same contacts with phone calls.
• A distributor increased their web hits by 3X with new content for blogs and email newsletters.
• A consultant client increased their subscription list from a few hundred to over 15,000 after a year of publishing social selling content.
• An analytics client grew their LinkedIn followers by over 2,500 new contacts.

Now that you’re sold on providing social selling content to your team, here are some ideas on how to get started.

Define Your Target Audience and What They Want to See from You

I’m always surprised how many of our clients don’t carefully define their target audiences.

However, it’s an essential part of creating content that resonates with your intended audience. It’s important to do research and develop an in-depth profile to help you envision your ideal consumer. Once you identify the behavioral patterns, interests, socio-economic backgrounds, and other traits of your target market, you can begin crafting a fun and informative message that speaks specifically to their needs. Crafting a unique message that accurately reflects your brand while still appealing to the most desirable consumer segments is the key to standing out from the crowd. With a little bit of research and dedication you can create engaging marketing messages tailored to specific groups.

Plan And Create Content That Is Interesting and Engaging for Your Target Audience

Content creation is a great way to reach your target audience. It involves choosing the right topics that are specific to the interests and needs of your key demographic and delivering them in an informative yet entertaining manner that can both educate and captivate.

Creating content for successful social selling requires effort and planning because different thinking styles require different content formats.

• Social selling to executives requires easily digestible video content
• Search engines and data-driven buyers prefer written content
• You need reports and longer-form content for click bait
• Your sales team needs sales enablement help with slide decks and emails

You’ll want to create a content plan based around themes or topics that will resonate with who you’re targeting, be active on all relevant social media channels, consider video, audio, written pieces and more – it’s up to you how unique and creative you get. Remember though, clever content will always yield better results than something mundane. Take the time to build an interesting concept for your ideas and you may just capture the attention of many people who wouldn’t have noticed otherwise.

Post Regularly, But Don’t Spam Your Followers with Too Much Content

Regular posting is important for keeping your followers engaged but don’t overdo it. Posting too frequently can fill up your followers’ feeds and lead to decreased engagement. Try mixing up the type of content you post and give your followers something unexpected occasionally. This will help keep them interested while still allowing you to stick with your regular posting schedule. Creating a balanced plan that considers how much and what type of content you post will ensure that you avoid annoying your faithful followers with an overload of posts.

Respond To Comments and Questions from Your Followers in A Timely Manner

It’s no secret that responding to your followers can be time consuming and a bit challenging, especially when you’re extraordinarily busy. However, we believe that building a relationship with your followers through replying to their comments and questions is an essential part of growing your presence on any given platform. Whether it’s adopting a more casual or professional tone depending on the topic at hand, saying “thank you” and being sure to be polite will ensure that your relationship with them continues to grow stronger. It doesn’t have to be complicated; just taking the time to engage with your audience in some way will make all the difference.

Use Social Selling Techniques to Build Relationships with Potential Customers

Social selling is a great way to build relationships with potential customers and make an impact in your industry. It involves using social media platforms to interact directly with prospects, engage them in conversations, and convert them from leads into customers. While some may think it’s just about pitching sales whenever you can, if done correctly, social selling allows you to create meaningful connections between yourself and the customer without feeling overly sales-y. By building these relationships before any money changes hands, you’ll be able to better understand their needs as well as give you an opportunity to showcase why your product or service is exactly what they’re looking for. So don’t hesitate – start taking advantage of social selling today.

Monitor Your Analytics to See What’s Working Well and Adjust Your Strategy Accordingly

Regularly monitoring your analytics is an essential part of devising a successful strategy. By carefully evaluating data on topics like website visits, user engagement, and website performance, you can gain valuable insight into what’s working well and where you should focus your efforts. Armed with this knowledge, it becomes easy to adjust your strategy going forward to ensure that you can reach your online goals. There will be expected highs and lows throughout the process – but that’s all part of the adventure.

We Can Handle This for You, Completely Turnkey

If you want to increase your sales, it’s important to understand how social media works and how you can use it to reach your target audience. By following the tips above, you’ll be well on your way to building a successful social selling strategy that will help you close more deals and grow your business. However, we understand that not everyone has the time or inclination to blog or create videos. If that describes you, then contact us today. We specialize in creating quality content for our clients so they can focus on what they do best – selling.

Contact us today for affordable packages that will get you on your way to monthly content that sells for you.

The post How to Master Social Selling with Content appeared first on Boston Turner Group.

Here are ten things I’m telling all my clients to keep in mind over the coming days.

1. Make time for yourself – take a break from work and indulge in some self-care.
2. Spend quality time with family – make sure to prioritize those special moments around the holidays.
3. Get creative – find new ways to express your holiday spirit. Hand draw a holiday card or wear a Santa beard around the office.
4. Reconnect with friends – use this time to catch up and have meaningful conversations with friends and acquaintances.
5. Give back – contribute to causes that are meaningful to you, whether through donations or volunteer opportunities.
6. Have fun – plan activities that bring joy like sledding, ice skating, or a friendly snowball fight.
7. Try something new – explore a different culture’s traditions or whip up a new recipe—be adventurous!
8.  Reflect on your accomplishments and set goals for the future – review your 2022 goals and corporate OKRs and plan how to reach your goals in 2023.
9. Practice mindfulness – focus on gratitude and appreciate all the good in your life during this season of reflection and renewal.
10. Relax – it’s ok to take some down time during the holidays. Put away your phone, turn off notifications, take deep breaths and enjoy the peace of mind that comes from letting go of stressors for a while.

Wishing you a peaceful, joyous holiday season from all of us at Boston Turner Group. As entrepreneurs ourselves, we understand the demands and pressures that come with growing your business. We hope you take time during this special season to enjoy the things that matter most to you. From all of us here, we want to thank you for your continued trust and loyalty in our work together.

Happy holidays!

The post Happy Holidays — And 10 Tips for Entrepreneurs to Manage Stress and Find Joy appeared first on Boston Turner Group.