At L&A, we are learning on a daily basis! Through the Living & Learning at L&A initiative, we will share what we’ve learned on various topics in hopes it will free you to enjoy life. This month, our Personal Insurance Account Executive, Erin Price, shares her journey with running and simple tips to help get you from the couch to a 5k.  

I could never run. Not even a little. It started way back in gym class…I was that kid everyone had to wait for to finish up the mile. Since I began running, I’ve completed numerous 5ks and just recently signed up for the Broad Street Run (10 miles—Gasp!). I’ve heard it said that running is addicting and it’s true! I’m in no way a professional runner or claim to know all about running, but here are a few tips to get you started:

1. Get fitted for good sneakers. After I began running, I got terrible blisters on my feet. I suggest going to a running store and get yourself properly fitted for sneakers. Locally, we have North Wales Running Company. They find the perfect shoe for your feet. The right shoes make a difference!
2. Start Small. It’s important to realize that building up to running 3 miles consecutively takes time. There are many training programs; the most well-known is Couch to 5k. This breaks up weekly runs into small goals (i.e. run 1 min, walk 3 min, run 1 min, and so on). After following the training plans for a 5k, it’s amazing to see your endurance slowly building up.
3. Consider using technology. There are apps for phones or iPods to help track your distance. I like using the Nike+ app. Having the nice voice telling me in my ear that I’m halfway done keeps me motivated. You can use this program while also listening to your music.
4. The right music makes a difference. You have one mile left and a slow song comes on your iPod–not exactly motivational! Create running playlists. There are websites where you can put in your mile time and it will populate songs that help keep you on beat. I’ve found that this makes a difference.
5. Have a running buddy. I twisted my sister’s arm to join me in running my first 5k. It was great to have someone for accountability and also to run with.
6. Running is mental. I believe running is as much a mental thing as it is physical. Tell yourself you can do it and you will! I often say mantras in my head over and over while I run. My favorite is, “Just keep running!”

Hope this convinces you to give running a try. If you need extra motivation, check out these health benefits and other tips to get you started.  Grab your sneakers and I’ll see you out on the road!

Interested in training for the Broad Street Run, try this training plan.  And, check out our Facebook polls and album for more information on Living & Learning at L&A. 

We are happy to have Kevin Trokey as a guest blogger.  Kevin is the President & CEO of Benefits Growth Network, a membership based consulting firm specializing in growth strategies for employee benefits agencies, departments, and their producers.

Many of the things that will get your clients talking positively about you require little effort and cost almost nothing to provide.

A friend of mine recently shared with me some research done by John Goodman.  Not the John Goodman from “Roseanne”, this John Goodman is the Vice Chairman of TARP Worldwide.  For those of you not familiar with TARP, they are considered one of the world’s premier organizations specializing in the customer experience.

The research looked at the cost effectiveness of trying to “delight” customers.  They were quick to point out that while there is certainly nothing wrong with trying to “delight” customers, some methods are definitely more costly and time consuming than others.

Their research found that efforts to “exceed the customer’s expectations” and “delight” the customer will lead to a 12-14% increase in the likelihood of your customer recommending you to someone else.

Not bad.  However, they shared four relatively simple actions that result in twice the likelihood of a recommendation.

1. Creating a personal connection by interacting briefly with your customer about something other than the basic transaction will increase the recommendation likelihood by 26%.
2. By telling a customer about a new product or service that fills a genuine need, an increase of 30%.
3. By providing consistently good service, 30%.
4. By proactively educating the customer about how to avoid problems or get more out of a product or service, 32%.

To summarize their findings:

• Be personally/genuinely interested in the whole person, not just the part of them that makes them your client.
• Deliver at a consistent, high level – we all want to know what to expect.
• Be aware of your client needs (not just those related to your typical transaction) – even if you can’t fix it yourself, just by introducing them to someone who can will earn you client goodwill.
• Proactively communicate/educate – don’t make them ask you for help.

There’s nothing expensive about these suggestions from either a time or dollar perspective.  I don’t know about you, but I would be delighted with anyone who did this for me!

As a child, and I have to admit even as an adult, I love to hear stories.  Stories have a way of moving us emotionally and engaging us in ways that data and figures never do.

I am currently reading the book Tell to Win by Peter Guber.  The premise of the book is the notion that most of us miss the mark when communicating to others in business and in life.  We share information in a way that is not meaningful and does not connect with our audience on a personal or emotional level.  This idea caused me to reflect on all the speakers I have listened to over the years and more importantly remembering the memorable ones.

I noticed that the ones I remember all have a common characteristic – they all use stories or illustrations to capture my attention.  Their content connected with me emotionally.  Whether I had a shared experience in which I could relate or I was captivated to know the outcome, I connected with them.  I was motivated to listen.

Think about the last time you were moved by a story.  Was it a video you watched on YouTube, a presentation by a business leader, a message from your minister or simply a story by a child?  Would you have listened as well if the information would have been relayed to you as facts or figures, a data dump so to speak? My guess is you would have had a completely different reaction and may not even remember the content the next day.

My challenge to you is the next time you share an idea or concept, spend some time preparing a story or a creative illustration to relay your message. 

Here are some questions to get you started:

• What story can I tell to capture the emotions of my audience?
• What do I want my audience to remember about my message?
• How can my story be memorable and motivate others to listen?

I am preparing to embark on the most distant and time significant road trip of my life.  I’m driving from Pennsylvania to Montana.  Now, that’s a trip!  When thinking about the long hours in the car, the last thing I want to worry about is not having an alternative route to my destination if I run into traffic or road construction.  I don’t want to make the 35 hour drive any longer than it needs to be!  So, what’s the best way to plan ahead and actually enjoy the ride?     

Know Your Options
Understand your main route and map out one or two alternative routes.  One of the best inventions of the modern roadway travel era is the GPS (not to mention smart phones with GPS).  The best and worst thing about GPS is that you don’t have to think!  In the good ole days, trip planning meant spreading out a map prior to travel and carefully plotting out the routes of travel and the points of junction, leaving you with a greater sense of your position and possible alternative routes to your destination should your primary route become impeded. 

Don’t get me wrong, the GPS is great, but know your options for alternative routes.  That way, you can switch gears quickly if you run into any issue with your primary route. 

Use Technology
If you have a smart phone, you have an added bonus.  It not only comes equipped with a GPS system, but it gives you up-to-date traffic patterns.  Along the way, periodically look at upcoming traffic patterns using your smart phone (not while driving of course).  You could find alternative routes to a traffic jam prior to getting stuck in the middle of it. 

Break It Up
35 hours seems a lot more daunting than 5 or 8.  Look at various locations along the way and see where the best place would be to stop for gas, food, lodging, etc.  Breaking up your long destinations into shorter ones makes it a little more manageable and gives you the feeling that you’ve made progress along the way. 

Have Fun
No matter where your destination takes you, enjoy the ride – Soak in the scenery, stop at landmarks, make a road trip playlist or sing Free Fallin’ from Tom Petty at the top of your lungs.  The point is – you may only make this trip once, so figure out how to make the most of it.

We are happy to have Roger North as a guest blogger.  Roger is the Founder and President of North Group Consultants, a consulting firm focusing on leadership, culture and organizational development. 

Did you ever shop at Genuardi’s? A wonderful family owned supermarket chain, Genuardi’s was Wegmans before Wegmans. It was Whole Foods before Whole Foods. Whatever happened to Genuardi’s anyway?

Founded in 1920 by Italian immigrants, Genuardi’s was in family hands for five decades. By 2000, this one time corner grocer had grown to 39 stores with a brand known for two things: upscale foods that competitors didn’t carry and hyper attentive customer service.

Genuardi’s had created something great, and it was noticed. Safeway, a west of the Mississippi grocery chain, purchased Genuardi’s from the founding family at the end of 2000 for $530 million. Then in a more recent transaction, Safeway sold 16 of the remaining 27 Genuardi’s stores to Giant Food Stores for $106 million.

What do we see in those numbers? In about 11 years of ownership, Safeway took a “best in class supermarket” and turned it into a “good in class supermarket” according to food marketing professor John Stanton of St. Joseph’s University.

Now, I have no particular bone to pick with Safeway. In fact, I know little about them. But as I read about these transactions, I can’t help but see evidence of one of my colleague’s favorite sayings: Culture eats strategy for lunch.

Genuardi’s was led by the same family for five decades. I think it’s safe to assume that the family had particular beliefs and practices that profoundly affected how they and their employees did business. Surely providing unique, fresh, attractively displayed foods chartered their culture. Even more surely, hyper attentive customer service did.

When Safeway took over they emphasized efficient, tight management of inventory and stores. And why wouldn’t they? That’s Safeway culture. But it wasn’t Genuardi’s. While the name remained on the stores, the brand commitment was gutted. The two companies’ cultures were just too different.

So what does all this public company stuff mean for you and me? I think it tells us (again) that culture matters. In fact, it matters in a big way: your company culture is quite likely the only competitive advantage your competition can’t duplicate.

By the way, did you notice how culture matters when it comes to money? Well, Safeway paid Genuardi’s $13.6 million per store.  Price in the recent sale of stores to Giant? Only $6.6 million per store.

Culture eats strategy for lunch!

Mom was right when she would say to me, “Watch what you say.”  She would have preferred that I use “Please be quiet” rather than “Shut up”.  She was trying to teach me that there is always more than one way to say something and that I should be respectful and polite.

Words are powerful and our choice of the words we use is important.  Similar words and phrases can appear to have the same meaning, but their interpretation can make a big (and possibly expensive) difference. 

I recently participated in a case study of a recent Pennsylvania court case.  The question that was raised at the beginning of the study was, “When is a General Contractor (GC) required to pay its subcontractor?”  The assumption was that the subcontractor completed their part of the contract to the complete satisfaction of the GC.  The primary issue at hand was whether the contract between the two parties was a “pay-when-paid” or a “pay-if-paid” agreement.  “If” versus “When”.  What is the big difference?  In this particular case, the difference was $5.5 million dollars that the GC did not have to pay its subcontractors. 

Contracts are a way to clarify and transfer responsibility (risk) from one party to another.  Contract language and risk transfer has broadened significantly over the last 20 years. Here are some things to consider as your review your contracts: 

• Is the language clear and unambiguous?  Is it susceptible to only one interpretation?
• Is the nature of the contract language broad and all inclusive?  Do you see words like “all”, “any”, “any and all”, “no” or “never”? 
• Are there changes to the contract that would make you more comfortable?  Can you cross out a word or phrase?  Can you add conditional phrases that would narrow the scope?  These would include:  “”unless and until”, “if and only if”, “provided that”, “subject to”, “except”.
• Would it benefit you to make the meaning more ambiguous?  Where the courts are doing the interpreting of these contracts, the greater the ambiguity, the less weight is given to the transference of risk.

A disclaimer is needed here.  I am not an attorney!  When evaluating your contracts, there is no substitute for having your attorney review it, and to do so before you sign it!

At L&A, we are learning on a daily basis! Through the Living & Learning at L&A initiative, we will share what we’ve learned on various topics in hopes it will free you to enjoy life. This month, our Personal Insurance Account Executive, Kevin Ketterer, shares his tips on how to get your car ready for winter.

Today we’re going to discuss the topic of “winterizing” your car. While we have not had a “snowpocalypse” like last year, we should all prepare our vehicles for winter well before the first snow arrives. Car care has interested me even before I could drive. I can remember checking the oil, tire pressure and tire tread well before my foot ever touched a gas pedal. Winterizing your car is an important step to take because it is not if we get snow – rather it is when. Before last year, I would lackadaisically check my tire pressure, windshield wipers, tire tread and wiper fluid. However, this year I prepared my car for the winter in mid November. Here are my tips for how to get your car ready for winter:

Tire Pressure & Tread
Handling a car in adverse weather conditions will greatly depend on having the correct tire pressure and tread life. Purchasing snow tires would be ideal to making sure your car will be able to handle snow and ice.  However, maintaining your current tires is the next best option. Most cars will have the correct tire pressure on a sticker located on the driver’s side door. Tire tread can be a little tricky, but I have always utilized the penny head trick. 

Windshield Wipers
Windshield wipers are a part of the car I find people replace only after it’s too late. If you can say “yes” to the following questions, your windshield wipers should be replaced.

• Do they leave a streak on your windshield?
• Is the rubber cracked or heavily worn? 

For more information or to see if you need to replace your windshield wipers, click here.

Other Items
Checking your fluid levels and lights are simple things you could do visually. It is important to make sure that if you need to change a headlight, fog light etc, you should do them as a pair so that each light projects equally. Getting your belts checked is a good thing to do when you do an oil change.  Most shops and dealerships will give your car a visual inspection and let you know if you should replace any components.

While I am a car enthusiast, I am certainly not a professional and asking a mechanic to see if your car is winter ready is always a good option. I hope I have helped shed some light on the proper steps needed to make sure you don’t get stuck out in the cold this winter. If you want more information, check out this six minute video on Winterizing Your Vehicle. 

Food for thought: if we “winterize” do we also “summerize”?

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This past year, Lacher & Associates conducted an employee engagement study with all our team members.  One of the topics that arose from the study was the need to re-evaluate our performance and compensation structure to fit our emerging culture and strategy.  As a part of our re-evaluation, I’m taking several months to learn from other organizations as to how their performance and compensation reviews are structured.  For the sake of this discussion, I’m going to focus on performance reviews (maybe we’ll tackle compensation in a later blog).  Here are a few things I’ve learned so far…

Negative Association
With all the organizations I’ve talked to, including our own at times, performance reviews are dreaded across all levels of an organization.  Employees enter cautiously into the conversation wondering what areas of their jobs need improvement, if their work is perceived as valuable as they perceive it, or at worst, question if they will even have a job because of the current economy.  It becomes an event more than a conversation. 

Never Come with Surprises
We’ve always been an advocate that anything discussed in a performance review shouldn’t come as a surprise.  Yet, many companies I spoke with say their employees fear the unknown of the conversation, almost as if they will be blind-sided with an issue.  It’s a general rule of thumb that a good manager should have on-going conversations with their employees regarding their performance instead of holding an issue or words of affirmation for the annual review.  This brings me to my third point…

Are Performance Reviews Really Necessary?
This is something we are processing (we don’t have all the answers).  My point is that as good managers, if we are having on-going conversations with our employees about how they are doing, how we can help them be successful in their roles and how they can contribute to the success of the overall organization… why turn it into an event?  Why not leave it what it is – a relationship.  A relationship that is built on mutual trust and works toward the good of the company.  Maybe then they would be motivated by performance conversations instead of feeling like they are walking into a principal’s office.

What thoughts/feedback do you have on the topic?

As we start a New Year, many of us have taken time to reflect on what worked well in 2011 and what could go better in 2012.  However, mostly we focus on how quickly a year goes by and how hard it is to get it all accomplished.  We wonder how to enhance our productivity, shorten time to convert prospects all the while serving the needs of clients and employees.  Stephen Covey has a one word solution to this conundrum and that word is – Trust.

Speed happens when people . . . truly trust each other.  Edward Marshall

Covey’s engaging, thoughtful and practical book entitled The Speed of Trust proposes that trust is the accelerant that we all too often overlook.  Our tunnel vision focused on facts, figures, product and price, misses the basic need for others’ genuine trust.  Covey’s book doesn’t just propose that trust is a multiplier; it actually lays out four terms that clearly define how to build trust with speed – Integrity, Intent, Capabilities and Results.  Covey postulates: Integrity is consistent/congruent behavior, Intent is showing our desire to help others best interest, Capabilities is the ability to ask the right questions and Results is the act of bringing consistent value from the other’s perspective. 

Covey lays out the second half of the book in much like his father’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, demonstrating 13 behaviors from Transparency to Accountability that build trust quickly and sustainably.  What I find most remarkable about the book may be that it is under-hyped (for once) yet really delivers a practical, accessible game plan to build trust and accelerate the performance of your organization.

Transcendent values like trust and integrity literally translate into revenue, profits and prosperity.  Patricia Aburdene

Greg Ash has been working in branding for the past 10 years. He is Associate Creative Director of Two Paperdolls a design and letterpress studio in Wayne, PA. Greg and his wife Sarah live in Germantown, PA with 4 kids, a dog and a cat – all under the age of 6. You can reach him at @gregpash.

I have two sons. The youngest is four and the oldest is six. To keep them occupied while I make breakfast, we like to play a drawing game. We stumbled upon it one day, and it turned out to be great fun. It also happens to be a great illustration of how differently we each interpret messages. 

This is how we play: 
I will ask them to draw a shape on the page, say a huge triangle for instance. Then I’ll have them draw a bunch of circles on the triangle.  Then maybe a zig-zag line over it. And finally squares at the bottom. We’ll keep adding elements until one of them can guess what we are making. 

The fun part for me is the end result. I’ve given them both the exact same instruction, and yet the images couldn’t be more different. They each translate the message differently. That should be expected, right?

For a long time now, brands have been in the “talking” business. The idea being that with enough of the right talking, positioning, and communicating about a brand message, an organization can maintain control of its image in the marketplace. 

The unfortunate part of that philosophy is that our customers aren’t robots – they’re people. In the quest for consistency, we are missing the chance to be uniquely personal with our customers and create personal brand experiences. 

So now the big question – How? I believe it is less complex than we think. It starts with embracing the idea that our customers are humans—needy, insecure, and charming humans. Each one of them perceives your organization a little differently. The beautiful thing about customers is that given the chance, they love to talk. If we can take a little time and listen, really listen, it might just change our own perceptions.