Saturday, April 30, 2011

Making The Most Of 'Contact Us' To Gather Leads

Why listing your contact information on your website just isn't enough.

Every business website should have a "Contact Us" page. It's a must-do. It legitimizes your business by offering a real person to contact, and helps you gather leads. But are you making the most of your contact page?

First, study your website analytics to find out how people use your contact page. If you don't already have a web analytics solution--which helps you analyze your site traffic, including specific details of your visitors and how they navigate your site--sign up for the popular and free Google Analytics.

Is this the only page people send queries from? That means you only have one contact form. Instead, why not have one on every page?

People are used to receiving information nearly instantaneously online. Attention spans online are very short and people will use only the most easily accessible information.

If your contact form is hard to locate and visitors have to go through many pages to reach it, few will use it. But having the form on every page or including a link that goes to a page with the form, it eliminates the obstacle of having to find it, enabling people to easily submit queries.

One great thing about this technique is that it reduces the visitor's urge to close your website. If the contact form is right there, viewers are more likely to take action.

Now before you quickly move on and put a contact form or contact page link on every page of your site, here's another technique for making your contact form more effective. Anyone can put a contact form on every page, but it's the way you word your "call to action" form that makes the difference. Your "call to action" form must be worded in a way that clearly inspires visitors to take action and instructs them how.

Every website has a unique goal, whether it's to contact your company, download a particular product, purchase a product, set an appointment, or sign up for your newsletter. Your call to action depends on the nature of your website goal. You need to craft your call to action to not just achieve your goal, but to relate that goal to your target traffic.

Here's an example of a good call-to-action statement that relates to its targeted audience, describes clearly how to contact the business, and also offers a bonus incentive for doing so:

"To contact us, simply enter your first name, e-mail address, and comments below and we'll send you a free copy of our e-book The Seven Ways to Double Your Income, valued at $29.95. Contact us now."

Wording is crucial whenever you're writing a call-to-action statement. Words are powerful and must be carefully crafted to get your message across quickly and effectively. Also, the call-to-action font size must be large so it can be easily seen amid your website text.

Here are few ideas to get you started crafting a good call to action:

  • Include verbs or "doing" words.
  • Offer an incentive for people to contact you, such as a free cup of coffee, coupon or discount, free initial consultation or e-book.
  • Remove the risk factor for people by including words like "guaranteed" or "no obligation" so they don't feel pressured to sign anything or think that they'll lose money. Remember, no one likes to be pressured into doing things.
  • Instruct people exactly how to contact you. You'd be surprised how many people struggle to find your contact form or have trouble understanding how to complete it. Remember, it may be easy for you, but not for other people.
  • Don't require people to give up a lot of information. Many internet users want to remain anonymous and fear the security risks of sending private information online. If you ask people for too much information, they'll get scared or irritated and won't want to fill out your contact form.
  • Make the form easily accessible. Is it buried under layers and layers of pictures or text so it's hard to see? Make the form stand out.
  • Keep it simple.

Finally, direct visitors to an automatic thank-you page after they fill out the form. This builds trust and shows them that you care about them. It also ensures that the visit doesn't immediately end after the form is complete.

Khoa Bui, a corporate trainer and online brand consultant, is the founder of Khoa Bui International, an Internet-marketing firm based in Perth, Australia, and author of How to Increase Your Website Traffic from Entrepreneur Press.

Thanks to Entrepreneur Media, Inc.

 

12 Fatal Sales Mistakes To Avoid

12 Fatal Sales Mistakes To Avoid One of the best things about sales is that it is a skill. Like typing or golf, it can be learned. Now, does it help if you are a so-called "natural"? Sure, but it's not required. With some training and practice, almost anyone can improve their sales sills.

In his great book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey talks about the importance of "sharpening your saw," that is, the importance of continuously working to improve your skills. In that vein then, here are 12 mistakes business people commonly make when it comes to sales. So go ahead, sharpen your saw, and cut a few of these out of your shtick:

1. Thinking product instead of customer. Mediocre sales come from thinking, "I have a product I need to sell to this customer." Superior sales come from thinking, "I have this customer and how can my product help him?"

2. Trying to convince. You may convince someone to buy something once, but you will not earn a long-term customer because people don't become long-term customers by being talked into things. High-pressure sales are one-off deals. If you want to create a loyal customer, you work to inform, not coerce.

3. Judging. I have a pal who loves to share the cautionary tale of when he used to sell phone systems. A good sale could easily be $50,000. When he called on a business once and was met by a man in overalls and a southern accent, my friend blew the guy off. That "hick" ended up giving my friend's biggest competitor a six-figure sale. He never judged like that again.

4. Thinking the customer is dumb. A correlation to 3 is endemic in many organizations: Thinking you are smarter than the customer. The truth is, they know their business better than you. If you take the time to listen, be humble, and learn, you will be better able to serve them, and, sell them in the process.

5. Not being ready. A correlation to 4 occurs when you underestimate your need to prepare. Of course you need to know your product cold, but the more you know about to whom you are selling, the better equipped you will be to convey info, answer questions, and handle objections.

6. Not qualifying a lead. You can waste a lot of time if you try and sell something to someone who really cannot afford—or does not need—what you are selling. Make sure the prospect has the money, sincere desire, ability, and the authority to purchase.

7. Dealing with price before benefits. People do not know whether the price you quoted is a fair one until they know what they are getting for that. Stop. Reverse it. Benefits first, price second. By discussing benefits before price, you establish the value in the product and the price will make more sense.

8. Not realizing that no sometimes really does mean no. Salespeople love to say that 'no' really means 'maybe.' Well, yes, but 'no' also can just mean no and you need to learn to decipher the difference.

9. Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em. Recently, I spent many months trying to reel in a new customer while reason after reason was given as to why they "could not commit at this time." I wanted the deal so bad, I kept on going. Six months in and they still gave no commitment. After eight months, they said no.

10. Not asking for the sale. Yes, this is Sales 101, but it bears repeating. At some point you have to ask for the sale. Sure you risk getting a no at that point. But you also risk getting a yes. And at least you won't waste eight months.

11. Forgetting to ask for a referral. When I became a professional speaker, one of the best tips I ever got was to have in my contract a clause that says something like, "After the event, if you are thrilled with the speech I gave, you agree to write me a letter of recommendation or will refer me to another potential client." That clause has gotten me a lot of work and referrals over the years, and it's an idea that can be used by almost anyone in any industry. Ask for referrals.

12. Failing to follow up with leads. Leads are valuable, referrals are valuable, and both sure beat cold calling. Follow up, follow up, follow up.

Thanks to Steve Strauss / OpenForum
 
 

The Top 10 Business Blunders

When it comes to business success stories, there are plenty. But there are also many business blunders that we are not so familiar with. Those who were around when these blunders actually happened may remember them making the news, but others will be surprised to learn about some of the massive business blunders that have taken place.

 

Here are 10 of the top business blunders ever:

 

1.  New Coke. The Coca Cola Company had a popular product for 100 years. People loved Coke! But in 1985 the company decided to change the formula and come out with "New Coke," only to find out that the public wasn't having it. Soon after, the company had to come out with its original version, then deemed "Classic Coke." This was a prime example of how you shouldn't fix what isn't broken.

 

2.  The Aztec. When General Motors debuted the Pontiac Aztec, it was in for a surprise. The company had built it up as being something special, but it turned out the public didn't agree. People didn't like it, and it was actually named one of the ugliest cars of all time. This car, with the tagline of being versatile, turned out to be anything but.

 

3.  Arch Burger Deluxe. Yes, even McDonald's, with all its success, did a number on this one! They put out the Arch Burger Deluxe in 1996, hoping to attract sophisticated adult burger lovers, only to find that no one was willing to pay the price at the fast-food joint. That was $300 million that could have been better spent.

 

4.  IBM. Although IBM liked to bill itself as being a place that likes to think, the company sure didn't think it through when it didn't take a stake in Microsoft, which at the time was developing the operating systems for the company. Who knows what vast amounts of money were left on the table with this one.

 

5.  Schlitz. At one time, Schlitz used to be the second most popular beer company in the country. But increasing profits became the No. 1 goal, and that lead to cost-cutting and ingredient changes. That, in turn, resulted in the beer being recalled, which brought the beer company down, and it never made a full recovery.

 

6.  Ross Perot. Not only did he lose his run for the presidency, he also lost $60 million in 1974 in an attempt to save du Pont-Glore from Wall Street failure. Of course, on the bright side, he did follow that up in 1984 by selling Electronic Data Systems to General Motors for $2.5 billion.

 

7.  Edsel. It is estimated that Ford lost $2.5 billion on the Edsel blunder. Ford came out with the car in the mid-1950s and named it after Henry Ford's son. Problem was, people weren't interested in buying it, put off by the look, size, and price of the vehicle. Over $350 million was spent on trying to get people interested, but to no avail.

 

8.  Motorola. You probably have a cell phone. But, like everyone else, you passed on the satellite phone service that Motorola was offering back in 1998. The company couldn't get enough subscribers and filed for bankruptcy, after losing $8 billion.

 

9.  Enron. No list of business blunders would be complete with the infamous Enron fiasco. The company, once worth $78 billion, became worthless, and some of its top executives are serving time in the big house. It is estimated that the size of the blunder tops $93 billion.

 

10.  Louisiana Territory. Napoleon agreed to sell the Louisiana Territory in 1803 for just $15 million. Today, that land is valued at $750 billion. But that's not the only piece of land that was sold at rock-bottom prices. In 1626, natives traded New Amsterdam, which today is known as Manhattan, for just trinkets. Today, those 23 square miles are valued at a cool $1 trillion.

 

Thanks to Mike Michalowicz / OpenForum

 

 

Top 9 Smartphone Etiquette Blunders

We've all been in a meeting where the person across the room is busy Tweeting or Facebooking under the table. Or out to lunch with the person who so tethered to their smartphone that they place it on the table, right next to their fork, for the entirety of the meal. Meanwhile, you are getting antsy, wondering when your conversation will be trumped by the latest Rihanna ring tone.

 

Almost everyone has a smartphone these days. I was one of the holdouts until about two weeks ago, when I broke down and got the Verizon iPhone 4. I love it. But as a PDA late bloomer, I've spent the last two years becoming keenly aware of the loss of social etiquette when it comes to these devices. They don't call them Crackberries for nothing.

 

So what are the 10 biggest smartphone etiquette blunders?

 

1. Multi-tasking

 

"Don't multi-task and send text messages or read e-mails while you are in conversation with someone," suggests Shelley Davis Mielock, chief image expert at Mieshel Image Consulting in Lansing, Michigan. "If you are sitting at a table with someone and you are sending a text message at the same time, it shows the person in front of you that they are not important to you. It also makes them feel rushed."

 

2. Typing quickly

 

"Make sure to always use spell check," advises Davis Mielock. "Every message you send is an extension of your personal and professional image. I know people type in 'please excuse misspellings,' but you should really be checking each and every time. Take that extra second and treat each correspondence as if you were sending a letter from your office."

 

3. Turning on vibrate

 

"The vibration is a distraction—everyone can hear that," says Rachel Wagner, a certified corporate etiquette consultant, trainer, and speaker in Tulsa, Oklahoma. "Keep your device on silent and put it in your pocket while you are in a meeting. If you are expecting an urgent call, excuse yourself and take the call in a private place."

 

4. Participating in 'lap reading'

 

"Everyone can see when you head is lowered and you are focusing on your smartphone," Wagner says. "This causes you to look disengaged and prevents you from having eye contact. It is also really rude and gives a terrible impression."

 

5. Leaving long-winded messages

 

This one goes for all phone users. "Don't leave long, complicated voice messages where you speak so fast that it sends the other person scrambling for a pen to write it all down," says Alison Blackman Dunham, co-founder of Advicesisters.net, a life and advice site. "The best thing to do is to just say, "Hi, I need to talk to you about so-and-so. Please call me back.' Then leave your number and hang up…simple as that."

 

6. Putting someone on an extended hold

 

"When you say you are putting someone on hold for just a moment, it should be for just a moment," says Blackman Dunham. "Business people are busy. If you can't talk to someone, tell them you will call them back and give them an exact time; it is the courteous thing to do."

 

7. Having a ringback tone

 

"Ringback tones are not for professionals…unless you are a pop star," says Davis Mielock. "If I am calling a banker to inquire about a mortgage loan and he has a rapper ringback tone, I will call his credibility into question."

 

8. Talking in front of others

 

"Excuse yourself," Davis Mielock suggests. "Don't have conversations in front of other people at all, especially professional conversations. It is incredibly inconsiderate to the people around you."

 

9. Interrupting face-to-face conversation

 

"I've known people to be in the middle of an in-person conversation and just start typing away on their smartphone," says Wagner. "They don't realize how that comes across. That behavior sends the message that the text is more important than the person standing in front of them and causes feelings of disengagement from your conversation partner."

 

Thanks to Katie Morell / OpenForum

 

 

4 Essential Ways To Attract Investors

There really isn't a one-size-fits-all formula that can be followed for optimizing the chances of attracting professional investment.  Each company is different and faces challenges and issues that can be overcome only through creativity, perseverance and resolve .

There are, however, some elements that are so basic they cannot be ignored.  Most institutional venture investors either expressly or intuitively address these requirements whenever they evaluate a business plan for a potential investment. Here are four to be especially aware of.

Is it a company or is it a product? – With the dramatic level of innovation that's taking place through startups in the social media/Web 2.0/online business arena, this question is increasingly important.  Implicitly, investors want to know the product development – something that can go in a variety of directions.  For example, can the product be developed to include additional features and functionality that will effectively redefine the offering in the eyes of the customer?  Can the product be adapted to address the needs of more than a single vertical market?  Is the product so compelling that the emphasis in the business plan shifts to the customer acquisition strategy?

The mobile application market is a good example of a product category that, in general, doesn't offer a sufficient foundation to support a company.  Individual app developers typically don't require much capital or labor to be successful, and they don't require professional investors.  In contrast, there are online gaming companies—Zynga, Playdom, Social Gaming Network and others—whose product roadmaps concentrate entirely on the rapid development and production of new "hits".  Businesses like this require all the resources and disciplines of a full-fledged company to support their growth objectives.

How big does the market have to be to attract investment? – After the dot-com bust, the anecdotal answer to this question was $1 billion -  or at least an annual growth rate that would get you close to $1 billion quickly.

In 2011, there is far more latitude, depending on the business plan of the company.  With the advent of open source software, online development tools, cloud computing, and the ability to reach massive customer markets instantly through the Internet, startup companies have become much more efficient in product development and customer acquisition, and can more rapidly get to proof of concept and positive cash flow than ever before.

As a result, companies with online business models, for example, may not require nearly as much capital as they once did. Moreover, angel groups aren't swinging for the fences the way the mainstream institutional VC firms do.  Instead, (to continue the metaphor) they're frequently only looking to hit singles and doubles, and may be quite content to realize exits in the range of $10-$100 million.

Is prior management-level experience required? – Obviously, it doesn't hurt.  In particularly tough times, prior executive experience in managing a VC-backed startup may be a non-waivable requisite.  Management experience of any kind is always a positive factor, since it directly relates to the credibility of the management team in the eyes of the investor.

Obviously, there are many amazing startup companies that have been built by founders with no previous experience, and lacking this experience should not deter an entrepreneur who believes he or she can build a great company.  There are effective ways to work around the experience issue if it is an impediment to getting an invitation to present before a VC firm.  Teaming up with a co-founder who does bring the necessary experience, finding a mentor who carries personal credibility, or organizing a board of advisors with relevant experience and expertise are all ways of addressing the issue.

Do you need to have customers or even first revenue? – There is a lot of dialogue around the need to "bootstrap" early stage companies to the point where a product has been developed and commercially released.  This is particularly true of social media, gaming and other online business companies.  In seeking to access professional capital, it comes down to supply and demand.  Professional investors will look to tangible indicators of success and validation of the business model in evaluating a company's prospects.

These might include website traffic, conversion rates, your ability to launch a beta and more.  Without anything but an idea to show, very few companies get funded to any meaningful degree.

For more traditional "brick and mortar" companies, the ability to get to "proof of concept" through bootstrapping methods is much more difficult.  It is also likely that the amount of all-in professional capital necessary to support a company in this category to an acceptable exit—including the amount of so-called "seed stage" funding—is substantially higher than for a social media or gaming company, for example.  As a result, there may be a lower expectation that founders will be able to bootstrap to get to professional funding, but the emphasis will be commensurately higher on the other investment basics, including size of the market, likely market impact of the technology, barriers to entry, credibility of the management team and the like.  As a result, the bar to funding for companies in this category is fundamentally as high.

(Editor's note: Doug Collom is vice dean and an adjunct lecturer on venture capital and entrepreneurship for Wharton | San Francisco. He submitted this story to VentureBeat.)

Thanks to Venturebeat

 

How To Create New Business Concepts From Old Ideas

How To Create New Business Concepts From Old Ideas When it comes to the world of business you probably think that there is no room. It's all been done before, so what is the point in trying, right? A lot of things have been done before. That doesn't mean you throw in the towel and hang up your entrepreneurial dreams.

Rather than feel jaded that someone else has beat you to the punch on your business idea, get creative and think of what "else" you can do. Take your idea, along with another business idea, and create an entirely new concept. This is a little technique that I like to call the "the blend strategy."

Get Mixing

With the blend strategy you are literally taking the best parts of two different business ideas and merging them together to create a new concept that people are going to sit up and notice.

You may not even realize the number of businesses out there that have gotten their start by mixing together ideas like this, but there are plenty of them around. Take the ever growing in popularity Groupon. The Chicago-based company got its start in 2008 and already has over 70 million subscribers who log on each day looking to see what the daily deal is.

Groupon mixed together the idea of coupons and social media. Both of these concepts are widely popular, with local restaurant and service coupons often coming to your home mailbox, and millions of people getting on the social media bandwagon. Groupon doesn't have to do a lot to get people to sign up, because the deal itself reels in the subscribers and buyers, and if it is a good deal it goes viral, helping to rack up even more subscribers.

Opportunistic Mixing

No matter what you do in life, there are business ideas floating around that can be mixed together or changed to come up with a new concept. Fresh Healthy Vending, a San Diego-based company, took the idea of vending machines and all the news on unhealthy eating choices and obesity and created a whole new concept. Their line of vending machines features only natural, healthy foods, including fruits and vegetables.

Another great one is Cengage Learning (that I wish was around while I was in college). They took the idea of college students needing to save money and the fact that college professors often require books that are hardly ever cracked open during the semester and they came up with a whole new concept. Students can go to their website and download only the chapters they need from the required textbook, paying around $7 per chapter.

Look, Listen, Leap

If you have dreams of owning your own business then don't let the idea that other businesses exist keep you from doing it. New concepts are always going to be welcome, tried out, and evaluated. But the great thing about the blend strategy is that you are not having to come up with something new, you are just taking two ideas that already exist and mixing them together to create something new.

So look around, listen to what is going on and what is missing in your community or beyond, and then take the leap to mixed those ideas together to create a new concept. Ideas are everywhere, you just need to start seeing what would make a good fit for a new business concept, before someone else sees it and beats you to it!

Thanks to Mike Michalowicz / OpenForum

 

5 Awful Press Release Blunders To Avoid

A well-written press release is one of the simplest and best ways to get out the word about your restaurant or food business. But a poorly-written press release can do more harm than good. Here are some common blunders to avoid.

 

1. Being too positive

 

Of course, you're excited about your enterprise, and you want everyone to see just how remarkable it is. But the more glowing your praise, the more skeptical a reader will be.

 

Consider this opener from a cake shop's press release: "Approaching all manner of confectionery delights with an artist's aesthetic, a hint of nostalgia, and a great deal of fun, the treats at this new store will have you ooh-ing and ah-ing, all while licking your lips and quietly giggling."

 

What have we learned about the cakes? Nothing. They could be the work of an acclaimed pastry chef or the work of a bored 16-year-old at a bake sale. And this press release could be the work of any hapless PR writer trying to find something to say about an unremarkable bakery.

 

A better bet? Stress the hard facts. "Owner Amy Williams has opened three successful restaurants, the latest of which was recognized as one of Bon Appetit's 'Best New Restaurants of 2009.'" "Since chef-owner Tim Lee's graduation from the Culinary Institute of America, he has worked in many of the region's best restaurants, most recently as the chef de cuisine at the Michelin-starred Ecco." This tells you something about what to expect. "The treats at this new store will have you ooh-ing and ah-ing" does not.

 

2. Forcing a hook

 

Maybe Valentine's Day is coming up, or the Super Bowl—and you want everyone to know that they should be celebrating at your restaurant.

 

It's fine to send special menus when there's a real reason to do so: your Thanksgiving hours and menu, your New Year's midnight champagne special. But menu specials for Arbor Day? Oscar-themed drinks three weeks before the Academy Awards? Don't force an event that's not there.

 

And don't even get us started on "current event" hooks with no relevance whatsoever. Consider this recent press release for a hookah bar:

 

"While Libya's tribal-fueled strife to rid itself of the once charismatic Qadafi is tearing the country apart, the only thing all parties agree on is that Libya's national hookah flavor is still Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, also available at Hash 55."

 

Capitalizing on global unrest to promote a hookah flavor? Not only is it contrived, it's confusing, irrelevant and runs the risk of being offensive. This sort of press release doesn't just get a "delete;" it gets a "delete with prejudice," inclining a writer to stay far, far away from the place.

 

3. A long setup

 

"In a city like Manhattan, where restaurants are constantly popping up and popping out, it almost seems a waste to devote your precious time to one particular place. While restaurant loyalty almost seems passĂ©, there are days when even the most restless restaurant-goer secretly longs for a place to call home, even if just for the night…."

 

Fifty-seven words, and we've learned nothing about the restaurant? This e-mail has already been deleted. Get to the point.

 

4. Feigning familiarity with a publication or journalist

 

"Hi, Carey! How are you? Have you had a good March? Hope we get to catch up soon!" This came from a PR account girl I'd never met. If you start out with a fake-sounding greeting, the rest of your content will read as fake, too.

 

Just as bad is feigning familiarity with the publication you're hoping to pitch. "I was thinking that our restaurant would be a great fit for your Good Morning! feature" is a fine query if Good Morning! is a daily column, but a terrible idea if it's not a column at all—just the name of a recent article. Spend more than five minutes with the publication you want to pitch; the better you know it, the better you can pitch stories journalists will be interested in.

 

5. Not proofreading

 

Of course, this should be a given. But when an editor is reading through the 50 press releases she's been e-mailed that day, nothing makes her hit "delete" faster than a misspelled name or a sloppily-written document.

 

The most important things to check off? Spell the publication's name right. Spell the restaurant's name right. And if there are any dates or times, triple-check those. Nothing gets a press release deleted faster than three follow-ups correcting previously misstated information.

 

And one last thing? If you're attaching a document, make sure it's the right draft; not an old version with "FILL IN NAME OF CHEF" and "ADD ONE MORE PARAGRAPH HERE" in bright red. Yes, we've seen this happen!

 

Thanks to Carey Jones / OpenForum
 
 

A Teakettle With Star Power? The Upsides And Pitfalls Of Celebrity Brands

A Teakettle with Star Power? The Upsides and Pitfalls of Celebrity BrandsA little over 25 years ago, Kmart teamed up with Jaclyn Smith, the onetime Breck Shampoo Girl and star of TV's Charlie's Angels, for an exclusive line of fashionable, reasonably priced clothing and accessories. At the time, the discount chain was best known for its folksy "Blue Light Specials" -- where a store worker would light up a mobile police light and offer a discount in a specific department. The goal of the Jaclyn Smith partnership was to add a touch of sophistication to the chain. Today, the collection, which sells everything from faux leather jackets to silk table linens to velvet Christmas ornaments, is one of Kmart's most recognized and enduring brands.

But the collaboration signifies much more than the widespread availability of affordable wedge sandals and two-tone straw hats: It effectively blazed a trail for what might be considered the golden era of celebrities designing for big box stores. Today, for instance, Michael Graves, the architect, designs a line of hip teakettles and toasters for Target. Vera Wang, the A-list fashion designer, creates stylish shoes, sweaters and jewelry exclusively for Kohl's. Pop star Miley Cyrus has an allowance-friendly label for Walmart of tops, pants and graphic tees targeted at tweens. This summer, reality TV stars the Kardashian sisters will introduce their line of clothing, the Kardashian Kollection, at Sears.

In an otherwise price-driven economy, retailers are increasingly relying on a stable of private label and exclusive brands, according to Wharton marketing professor Barbara E. Kahn, director of the Jay H. Baker Retailing Initiative. These lines differentiate stores, give them more say over the marketing of their merchandise and perhaps most importantly, give retailers control over pricing, which leads to greater profitability, Kahn says. Profits on exclusive brands tend to be higher than national brands because chains are able to mark the lines down at their own speed.

"Retailers are in a difficult situation right now because the price of cotton is going up, as are labor and operating costs. But with private labels, they have many more pricing options and much more control over their brands," Kahn notes. "Attach a celebrity name to an exclusive store brand, and retailers get all that dazzle and panache along with all the profits. It's a way to create excitement in the store, and make it special."

But there are pitfalls to these partnerships. Exclusive lines represent an enormous amount of time, effort and expense from retailers. If stores do not properly execute the line in any way -- by stocking an ill-considered miniskirt or a shoddily manufactured appliance, for instance -- they are left with a large and costly inventory.

Retailers are also vulnerable to the personal foibles of their celebrity designers: If one misbehaves or becomes embroiled in a scandal, sales could fall. For example, now defunct retail chain Anchor Blue failed to score with a clothing line by reality television star Heidi Montag, better known for her multiple plastic surgeries and other controversial off-screen behavior. Finally, celebrities can find themselves susceptible to the declining fortunes of their retail partners: The bankruptcy of budget chain Steve & Barry's left exclusive lines by Sarah Jessica Parker, Amanda Bynes and Venus Williams without a place to call home.

Cutting Through the Clutter

One of the biggest challenges facing retailers is the lack of differentiation among the major department stores. Walk into any two strip malls in America and the monotony of merchandise on the shelves is apparent: shelf after shelf of the same trousers, toasters and tea towels. But an exclusive brand -- particularly one with a celebrity name on the label -- helps separate retailers from their competition, according to Stephen Hoch, a Wharton marketing professor.

"This is just one of the ways we're seeing that branding is more important than it used to be," he says. "What is new is that retailers are doing it more often, and these exclusive lines represent a higher percentage of their sales than they ever have before."

Last year, for instance, Kohl's garnered about 48% of its sales from exclusives, up from 44% the previous year. Exclusive brands at Saks Fifth Avenue stores until very recently made up less than 10% of the products for sale, but last year the up-market retailer announced several new product lines that will make exclusive items about 20% of its offerings over the next several years.

Celebrity lines are an obvious way for retailers to generate buzz. They also put a face on the brand and help crystallize the target market, notes Hoch. "It's a way to borrow some equity from the celebrity -- a way for stores to sell the same stuff, but with a measure of exclusivity.... Plus, everyone else is doing it. Stores reason, 'If my competitor is doing it, I have to do it to stay in business.' That's why it's more ubiquitous now."

Famous clothing and product designers are also much more open to the prospect of having a line at a major retailer, he adds. "Every designer is interested in the middle market. If they are only designing for the runways and doing haute couture, they will be famous in Women's Wear Daily, but they won't be rich. They know that the money is in the mass market. This is where they will get scale."

A second reason retailers seek out celebrity partnerships is to enhance their image and build loyalty among customers. Stores' own private label brands do not inspire allegiance because "there's an enduring notion that store brands are cheap and not as good," according to Jonah Berger, a Wharton marketing professor. But consumers feel better about brands with a "name" attached. "They feel better about wearing them, and they feel better about giving them as gifts. This is why name brands are more resistant to a downturn."

Consumers feel a personal connection to famous-name brands. Martha Stewart has lines at both Macy's and Kmart, and if you are a Stewart fan, "You know something about Martha Stewart as a person, you already have a connection to her, you get excited about her and you have a quality association with her," Berger says. "People buy celebrity brands not just for what the products do, but what they mean. Part of the reason people like celebrity brands is because they want to be associated with celebrities."

After all, celebrity sells. Take, for instance, Jessica Simpson, the pop star and actress, who has an eponymous line of moderately priced shoes, handbags, coats and clothing. According to Women's Wear Daily, the Jessica Simpson Collection took in $750 million in retail sales last year. At its current rate of growth, it could be the first ever celebrity clothing line to top a billion dollars in retail sales next year.

These labels not only add flair to the stores, but they also cause a "spillover effect." Customers are attracted to a certain retailer because of the cache of a given celebrity brand, but they may ultimately buy other items they hadn't intended -- a phenomenon known in the retail realm as "cross-shopping." "If you go into a Kmart to buy Martha Stewart pots and pans, you're more likely to buy other things as well because the very fact that they sell Martha Stewart -- a brand you have a connection to -- makes the rest of the store seem even better," according to Berger.

Gaining Control

In addition to differentiation, retailers seek out celebrity partnerships to gain control of their supply chain as well as control over how their products are marketed and sold. At a time when retailers are just starting to recover from the near-collapse of the financial sector in the fall of 2008 and the ensuing consumer slowdown, they are coming under new pressure from higher sourcing fees in China and the rising cost of materials and labor.

Exclusive brands enable retailers to gain more control over manufacturing costs, says Kathy Doyle Thomas, chairman of the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association (RAMA). "It also makes it easier for them to control inventory. A retailer knows it sells a certain number of black pants every season, so it makes economic sense for them to control the supply chain, and make the manufacturing cheaper. And if something is not working, the stores know what their margins are, so they know what they need to do to fix it."

This control over the supply chain also allows them to react faster to customer demands and trends, and enables big box retailers to be nimbler at creating so-called disposable fashion. Disposable or "fast fashion" is a specialty of retailers like H&M and Zara, which sell inexpensive, readily-available clothes designed to be worn a limited number of times before quickly going out of style. "The clothing may not be of the highest quality but it's very much in the moment, fun, and fashionable," notes Kahn. "Shoppers are not planning on wearing it forever so they don't mind that the product is not of the highest quality. It has a short shelf life."

There are other forces driving the movement toward private label brands, she says. Retailers are reacting to the fact that national brands -- such as Ralph Lauren -- are pulling out of department stores and instead selling directly to customers in standalone storefronts. "National brands want to have complete control," Kahn states. "When they have their own stores, national brands can be as persnickety as they want to be about their image. They can control how their products look on the shelves; they can dress the mannequins; they can determine how all the products appear in catalogs. And they also have a lot more control over price -- which is especially important when they are so vulnerable to prices of commodities."

When retailers launch an exclusive famous-name brand, they are able to wrest back some of that control over price. They are not beholden to national brands for markdowns, and the very existence of their in-house exclusive brand makes it tricky for customers to do a straight price comparison with similar goods. After all, it is hard to know the exact difference in quality between a Michael Graves lemon squeezer designed for Target and a generic one. And because there are no like-for-like comparisons, the product is no longer competing completely on the basis of price.

Of course retailers must pay careful attention to the marketing of their brands to make sure they don't become commonplace or over-extended. But generally speaking, these lines sell at a premium, says Theresa Williams, director of the Center of Education and Research in Retailing and marketing professor at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. She estimates exclusive brands have a profit margin of about 50, which is 10 to 15 points higher than a national brand.

"Exclusive brands create a sense of urgency in the customer's mind about owning a particular product. A customer at Kohl's will pay $64 for a sweater with a Vera Wang label on it," Williams notes, adding that $64 is quite expensive compared with other Kohl's sweaters. "To that shopper, there is something there that tells her that sweater is worth it."

The Downside of Fame

Partnering with a celebrity does have some disadvantages, however. Exclusive brands are very expensive to execute and require a significant effort on the part of retailer. Chains often must commit to large minimum orders to get the best prices on their in-house products, and if those products don't sell, they could be left with a big and expensive inventory.

"The cost is substantial mainly because they have another partner -- the celebrity on the label -- to worry about," says Williams. "It changes the way retailers source manufacturing, and the approval process becomes much more onerous. There's a certain aesthetic -- not just a look or style -- that really is the entire essence of the line, and everyone has to approve. It puts a much greater responsibility on the part of the retailer to keep the brand partner satisfied."

Williams estimates that partnering with a celebrity for an exclusive brand increases the cost of a product line by about 12%. Add the advertising dollars to create customer awareness, and royalty payments to the brand partner, which typically range from 1% to 3% of revenue and, "for a retailer like Target, that's a lot of money," Williams points out. "And if you miss the mark, or make a mistake -- you own it. You don't have guaranteed profitability with these lines."

For this reason, retailers must choose their celebrity partners carefully. "They have to think hard about who best represents the brand, who makes sense and who excites the customer," says Williams. "They have to look at the demographic and psychographic of their target customer and figure out who has the greatest 'stickiness'. They don't want to just hang their hat on the flavor of the month."

Thanks to Knowledge@Wharton

 

Should Performance Reviews Be Fired?

Should Performance Reviews Be Fired?"Performance reviews." The words strike fear and dread in the hearts of employees everywhere.

Their angst is understandable. Performance reviews typically are not done often enough and all too often are done poorly. A good performance review gives employees constructive, unbiased feedback on their work. A bad one demonstrates supervisor bias and undermines employee confidence and motivation.

The balance does not seem to have tipped yet in favor of the good ones. David Insler, a senior vice president at New York-based Sibson Consulting, estimates that only about 35% to 40% of companies do performance reviews well.

Frequency is clearly one of the issues. At most places, says Peter Cappelli, head of Wharton's Center for Human Resources, reviews occur annually. "If you wait a year to tell employees how they are doing, they are almost always surprised and unhappy if the results are not positive. Humans are hard-wired to focus on the negative," Cappelli notes. "So 'balanced' feedback always leaves us concentrating on the bad parts" of the reviews.

But he and others point to rapid changes in both the workplace and the workforce that are altering how performance is evaluated. For example, because more and more companies -- from software and engineering to advertising, accounting and consulting -- are heavily project-oriented, reviews are often done when projects are completed or at set points along the way. The annual review then becomes a no-surprises summary at the end of the year used primarily to share information about raises, bonuses and other compensation.

As for the workforce, the latest influx of employees includes a generation of millennials (those born between the late 1970s and early 1990s) who are accustomed to constant and instant feedback -- from parents, text messaging friends or social media sites. They want the same from their employers. As Daniel Pink, a workplace expert and author, noted in a recent article in The Telegraph titled "Think Tank: Fix the Workplace, Not the Workers," millennials have "lived [their] whole lives on a landscape lush with feedback." Yet when they enter the workforce, they find themselves "in a veritable feedback desert.... It's hard to get better at something if you receive feedback on your performance just once a year."

Competing Agendas

Cappelli cites studies showing that 97.2% of U.S. companies have performance appraisals, as do 91% of companies worldwide. Given their ubiquity, why do performance reviews have such a bad reputation?

Wharton management professor Matthew Bidwell suggests that reviews tend to have competing goals: Employees, for their part, are looking for frank, honest and helpful feedback, but know that if they don't use the review time to pump up their performance, they might not get the top bonus or best raise.

Meanwhile, organizations "want to allocate rewards according to performance and merit, and they want to provide developmental feedback so that employees can improve," says Wharton management professor John Paul MacDuffie. "But organizations also have to make tough decisions about who ranks higher and what kinds of bonuses people get. If the organization -- in trying to make everybody feel good -- doesn't allocate rewards according to performance, then it will be seen as an unfair process."

Also skewing the performance review process are biases that may be subtle or overt. For example, some managers tend to give better reviews to employees they themselves have hired. Other managers -- and there is "overwhelming evidence" of this, according to Bidwell -- show bias against women and African Americans, although there are indications "that those biases disappear over time." Still other managers can be motivated by organizational politics or influenced by manipulative employees.

Finally, some performance reviews under the auspices of human resources departments focus only on getting reviews completed -- "100 percent compliance" -- not on their quality. A Sibson Consulting/WorldatWork survey found that 58% of HR executives give their performance management systems a "C" or below, in part because managers don't receive the training they need to deliver effective appraisals.

Samuel Culbert, a professor in the Anderson School of Management at UCLA, is an outspoken critic of performance reviews. "They destroy the trust between the boss and the employee, and cost the company enormous amounts of money in terms of time and wasted effort. The people being reviewed worry about pleasing their boss before they concern themselves with delivering results to the company," states Culbert, author of Get Rid of the Performance Review! How Companies Can Stop Intimidating, Start Managing -- and Focus on What Really Matters. In addition, reviews encourage employees not to speak out about problems they observe because it could adversely affect their career paths and compensation, Culbert states. As examples, he points to "employees at Toyota, BP and the nuclear reactor site in Japan who knew about defects" in their companies' products, but failed to report them because of a lack of trust between employees and management.

Others are equally dismissive. Performance reviews "are rarely authentic conversations," writes Daniel Pink in "Think Tank." More often, "they are the West's form of Kabuki theatre -- highly stylized rituals in which people recite predictable lines in a formulaic way and hope the experience ends quickly."

Insler points to another problem with the traditional review. "Companies are concerned that if it isn't a quantifiable, very objective measure, then it's not a good measure." But in recent years, with the explosion of knowledge-based companies, "the ability to assess performance in a subjective and qualitative way" requires a process that looks at "first, what are the key performance criteria that are important, and second, how do you measure them when they are qualitative." He suggests asking employees during the assessment process "how they do their job, what [competencies] they have developed and whether they are continuously improving their knowledge skills." 

At Sibson Consulting, a division of The Segal Company, performance reviews are done at the end of each project -- which typically runs from six weeks to six months, according to Insler. The company also has a semi-annual process -- "focused on the developmental side of performance by noting employees' key strengths and working on how to leverage them" -- and then the more formal year-end review.

The company also recommends ongoing monthly or quarterly dialogue with employees in addition to the mid-year and year-end reviews. "Some supervisors in our client companies scoff at the idea of monthly or quarterly feedback," Insler notes. "They say that if they aren't talking to their employees every day, then they are missing something. We suggest at least a monthly conversation where you do a catch up review and offer the individual the opportunity to give feedback."

Feedback Loops and Other Innovations

Indeed, the importance of frequent feedback crops up in almost every discussion of how to improve performance reviews. Daniel Debow is co-CEO of Rypple, a Toronto-based social software company that creates products designed to help people share continuous real-time feedback and provide coaching. Rypple's target market is the 50- to 1,000-person knowledge worker firm focused on creative collaboration "where the model of a social network describes what is going on."

The target employees are millennials because "they grew up in an age where feedback was how you learn," says Debow, expanding on Pink's earlier comments. "The idea of getting feedback to help you improve is natural. Millennials are clear on what they want their career to be about. They don't expect to be in one company forever, but rather to develop a reputation and skill set that will carry them from job to job and help them establish their personal brand."

According to Debow, senior level executives benefit from feedback as well. "CEOs, for example, want to know where they stand, want to be able to ask questions about their strategy, their presentations, what they need to work on." The single most important determinant of whether people improve during coaching intervention "is whether they repeatedly ask for feedback from the people around them," says Debow, citing research by leadership coach/author Marshall Goldsmith.

The Rypple system is built to allow an employee to ask for anonymous feedback -- shown only to the employee and not to his or her manager or HR department. In addition, notes Debow, feedback is done in "small continuous loops" in real time so that employees can act on that feedback immediately. "It may be that someone says, 'Let me give you a constructive tip: You need to stop interrupting customers when they talk because it bothers them.'"

The system also includes the concept of recognition -- thanking and rewarding a team member for good work (with badges, for example), "which directly links to an employee's increased motivation," says Debow. The third part of the system is coaching. "Being a good manager means being a good coach. That involves setting goals and helping people achieve them through collaborative one-on-one meetings."

Joe Cruz, senior IT project leader at Wharton, has been using Rypple since October. "It is not a formal review process," he says. "It is more like, 'You did something cool with this software implementation -- kudos.' The kudos are the public posts. If I had a negative comment, that would be private; it keeps the feedback cycle going.... Rypple is not a replacement for the program we have," adds Cruz, "but a supplement to helping us maintain our high quality of execution."

Cruz and others in his division "set up teams on the Rypple site with relationships built in. So I am directly connected to three people on my team. We can provide to-do lists, goals and feedback about each other's performance. We use Rypple to drive our biweekly, one-on-one discussions and monthly group meetings. Because Rypple's communication system is separate from all the emails we get, there isn't as much noise in the experience. It can help filter out unnecessary information and keep us on track."

Other companies have come up with approaches to performance reviews that get away from the more traditional methods.

Culbert suggests performance previews rather than reviews, and he defines them as "discussions that take place when there is still time to get good results." He suggests that companies "change the politics by putting the bosses' skin in the game.... Their job is to make sure every direct report succeeds; to ensure this, their evaluations should be the same as their direct reports." And he advises setting up conversations between employees and bosses "to make sure they [find out] what they need from each other to get good results." In an article in The New York Times last month, Culbert elaborated: "No longer will only the subordinate be held accountable for the often arbitrary metrics that the boss creates. Instead, bosses are taught how to truly manage...."

In a different take on management involvement, MacDuffie points to a senior executive at Merrill Lynch who holds regular conversations with key supervisors about up-and-coming talent within the company. "He wants to keep an eye out for opportunities for these people," says MacDuffie. "He thought it was a good thing for employees to feel like there were managers at a higher level who were thinking about their advancement on a regular basis. It was a sign of being appreciated."

Pink in "Think Tank" suggests that performance reviews be done by peers. He tells of a large American engineering firm that allows employees at any time to award a $50 bonus to a colleague. Instead of annual acknowledgements from bosses "who may not remember your heroic deeds, these modest bonuses allow colleagues to recognize good work instantly." The result is a workplace where feedback "more regularly bursts through the dry sands of office life." In 2010, Pink reports, employees in the engineering firm gave each other close to 2,000 bonuses.

Other advocates of non-traditional performance reviews suggest 360-degree feedback -- a process whereby individuals are reviewed not just by their bosses, but by their subordinates, peers and, if appropriate, their customers and suppliers. The feedback is often anonymous and the idea is to have more than one evaluator.

Another approach is forced rankings. "If you look at complaints that people have about performance appraisals, it is that you always want to give everyone an A-plus," says Bidwell. Forced rankings don't allow that to happen. But the problem is "they foster a lot of competition among peers. Also, to the extent they are done across a large group of individuals, they are seen as political."

Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, would agree. In a Businessweek article, Pfeffer notes that "peer comparisons invariably create competition and discourage collaboration -- a big problem [when it is time to] transfer knowledge in the workplace." In addition, he writes, "many of us believe we are above average and resist being told that we aren't.... Since performance assessments often require half the staff to be rated below average, they can pose a threat to people's self-esteem. As a result, employees often discount them."

Besides feedback, a key theme in discussions about performance reviews is the need to "better train and educate supervisors and managers around how to conduct these discussions," says Insler. "We have all experienced good managers and bad managers. Good managers provide feedback and direction that will help individuals achieve success. Bad managers don't. They worry about who is at fault and who can get blamed if something goes wrong."

Case Study

SAS is the world's largest privately held software company, with 11,800 employees and worldwide revenues last year of $2.43 billion. Headquartered in Cary, N.C., SAS has more than 400 offices globally. In 2010 and again this year, it was ranked number one on Fortune's "100 Best Companies to Work For" list. The company is a leader in business analytics, software and services.

MacDuffie teaches a case study on SAS in his courses at Wharton, and over the years has invited senior executives from the company to be guest lecturers. Until the last decade, says MacDuffie, the company did not have a performance review process.

That changed, however, when the vice president of human resources saw that new employees hired from universities (often PhD or faculty-level statisticians) "were accustomed to feedback in the university setting" and felt the company would benefit from a formal appraisal process, MacDuffie says. SAS was certainly in favor of feedback, he adds, "but the belief was that good managers should be providing informal feedback all year rather than saving it for a formal annual review. And in fact, good managers were doing that. But those supervisors who were not good managers were not offering feedback at all. Their employees would get their merit increase and not have any idea where it came from or what it was for."

The company decided to pilot an appraisal process in one division and eventually instituted the process throughout the company. The system, based on a product bought from an outside vendor and then customized by SAS, "is systematically tied to a performance and merit reward cycle and therefore to promotions," says MacDuffie. "It does have a 360 degree feedback feature but that is only used for developing employees' competencies; it has no influence on pay and promotion decisions."

Because SAS's revenues hinge on customers choosing to annually renew updated licenses for SAS products, notes MacDuffie, "the company is very customer responsive, and innovation is driven by customer requests." Given that orientation, many of the managers also do programming, "actually sitting next to or near their employees and writing code. These interactions end up facilitating the feedback process."

That, in turn, has led to another innovation in the performance appraisal system. "While teaching managers how to do reviews, the company was able to identify those individuals who are brilliant technical people but do not have very good managing skills," says MacDuffie. "The company then created a separate advancement track based on technical competency, and called the people on that track 'SAS Fellows.' The SAS Fellows can now advance and get recognition and status without having to" play a management role as well.

A Critical Need

Despite criticism of performance reviews from all sides, very few experts would suggest throwing them out. According to the Sibson Consulting/WorldatWork survey, "an overall performance management process -- one that focuses on goal setting, feedback, coaching and clear statements of the company's performance expectations -- is absolutely critical" and indeed, is found in the highest-performing companies, says Insler.

And while some companies have tried to do away with performance reviews, the bottom line seems to be that, in some form or another, these reviews play a necessary role in company culture. "I don't really see how you run an HR system, how you reward people, without some form of performance review," says Bidwell. "It's not clear to me what the alternative is."

No matter how you run a performance review system, adds MacDuffie, "it's unlikely everyone will enjoy it. But if you neglect it or write it off, it can be incredibly destructive, create perceptions of bias and politics, and lead to [an atmosphere] of cynicism in the workplace. That corrodes the idea that there is any notion of performance that matters and is rewarded."

Thanks to Knowledge@Wharton

 

Stop Worrying About Your Weaknesses. Focus On Your Strengths

Some years ago there was a brilliant scientist at BBN, the company that built the original Internet, who had an amazing ability to envision the future and invent solutions to problems most people had not yet even anticipated. His list of patents for advanced network technology was so impressive that the company did what companies almost always do. It promoted him to management. Suddenly the scientist floundered, his strengths as a focused and brilliant inventor subsumed by meetings, employee issues and operational reviews. He was given developmental courses to help overcome his introversion, unconventional thinking and lack of business acumen. What had been his strongest assets were now his liabilities. He was notably weak as a manager. As that became obvious, his self-esteem and the respect he had enjoyed at the company melted away, and his value to the organization dissipated. He failed, and he ultimately left.

Business culture has long focused on weakness prevention, with managers and leaders spending untold time and energy trying to address deficits in themselves and their employees. It becomes a quest to fill the gaps where one doesn't have natural capability. Taken to the extreme, it attempts to make people someone they're not.

While we're busy trying to fix ourselves and others, we often minimize or completely overlook our most powerful asset--our strengths. Strengths are a person's innate talents, things they do well naturally. Every person has them, and when identified, nurtured and channeled appropriately, they can have a dramatic effect on job satisfaction and bottom-line performance.

Indeed, research suggests that the most successful people start with a dominant talent and then add skills, knowledge and practice into the mix. In other words, we stand a greater chance of success if we build on our authentic selves--who we already are--beginning with our innate strengths. Perhaps even more significantly for employers, a powerful connection exists between employees' levels of engagement and the extent to which they maximize their strengths on the job.

In 2007 the Gallup organization conducted a poll asking more than 1,000 people to comment on the statement "At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best." Among those who disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement, not one reported being emotionally engaged on the job. Other related Gallup studies have shown that people who do have the chance to focus on their strengths every day are six times as likely to be engaged in their jobs. How does this relate to the bottom line? In 2009 the consulting firm Watson Wyatt released a study concluding that employee engagement is a leading indicator of financial performance. It cited a direct correlation between companies that generated above-average returns and their levels of engagement.

Several factors, however, conspire against our uncovering the true strengths in ourselves and others:

First, all the time constraints and pressures on today's leaders have made management by anecdote--grabbing bits of information on the fly--a popular modus operandi. Decisions about talent are made based on sound bites supplied by others. The problem is that this information is reported through subjective lenses, by people who may or may not be astute judges of talent, who may or may not have agendas and who have only their own snippets of exposure to an employee on which to base their assessments.

At the same time, hardworking employees can become quite adept at their current jobs while never firing on all the cylinders of their true strengths. They may be in roles that fail to leverage what they're really good at, and if they're meeting the requirements of the job, management is none the wiser. Similarly, organizations often inadvertently reward success by setting people up to fail in new roles. Someone who is currently underperforming may simply be in a job that's a mismatch with his or her inherent strengths.

Finally, people are usually unaware of their own strengths. I have seen this truth confirmed time and again in my work with clients at various phases of their careers and with graduate students at Georgetown and New York University. When asked about their strengths, most shrug their shoulders, shake their heads and say, "I have no idea. I've never really given it any thought."

And so the cycle continues. People are not conditioned or trained to recognize strengths in themselves, and that makes it difficult for them to recognize strengths in others. In a twist of irony, this weakness can itself disable managers and leaders from unlocking strengths--and in turn, increased performance--within their organizations. But it doesn't have to be that way.

Among the effective approaches we can start using right away to manage our own strengths and those of our colleagues:

--Have leaders and employees complete objective assessments of their strengths (such as StrengthsFinder 2.0) and use the data in career and development plans.

--Incorporate an emphasis on strengths in your organization's performance management process.

--Beware of judging an employee's strengths based solely on anecdotal evidence.

--Open your mind to the possibility that an employee's optimal role (or your own) might be in a different job from their current one.

--Ask your employees, "Do you feel you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?" Listen to their answers and probe for understanding.

I'm not advising leaders and managers to turn a blind eye to shortcomings that could potentially derail themselves or an employee. Avoiding those crucial conversations, and the corresponding development work, can only lead to bigger problems down the road. As with so many aspects of leadership, it's a matter of balance and emphasis. But as BBN found out, there's a price to pay for trying to force employees into roles that highlight their weaknesses and don't play to their strengths.

Susan Tardanico is executive in residence at the Center for Creative Leadership, founding partner of the Authentic Leadership Alliance, a leadership speaker and a former corporate senior executive. She is an adjunct professor at New York and Georgetown universities.

Thanks to Forbes

 

Student Loan Debt Hell: 21 Statistics That Will Make You Think Twice About Going To College

Is going to college a worthwhile investment?  Is the education that our young people are receiving at our colleges and universities really worth all of the time, money and effort that is required?  Decades ago, a college education was quite inexpensive and it was almost an automatic ticket to the middle class.  But today all of that has changed.  At this point, college education is a big business.  There are currently more than 18 million students enrolled at the nearly 5,000 colleges and universities currently in operation throughout the United States.  There are quite a few "institutions of higher learning" that now charge $40,000 or even $50,000 a year for tuition.  That does not even count room and board and other living expenses.  Meanwhile, as you will see from the statistics posted below, the quality of education at our colleges and universities has deteriorated badly.  When graduation finally arrives, many of our college students have actually learned very little, they find themselves unable to get good jobs and yet they end up trapped in student loan debt hell for essentially the rest of their lives.

Across America today, "guidance counselors" are pushing millions of high school students to go to the very best colleges that they can get into, but they rarely warn them about how much it is going to cost or about the sad reality that they could end up being burdened by massive debt loads for decades to come.

Yes, college is a ton of fun and it is a really unique experience.  If you can get someone else to pay for it then you should definitely consider going.

There are also many careers which absolutely require a college degree.  Depending on your career goals, you may not have much of a choice of whether to go to college or not.

But that doesn't mean that you have to go to student loan debt hell.

You don't have to go to the most expensive school that you can get into.

You don't have to take out huge student loans.

There is no shame in picking a school based on affordability.

The truth is that pretty much wherever you go to school the quality of the education is going to be rather pathetic.  A highly trained cat could pass most college courses in the United States today.

Personally, I have had the chance to spend quite a number of years on college campuses.  I enjoyed my time and I have some pretty pieces of parchment to put up on the wall.  I have seen with my own eyes what goes on at our institutions of higher learning.  In a previous article, I described what life is like for most "average students" enrolled in our colleges and universities today….

The vast majority of college students in America spend two to four hours a day in the classroom and maybe an hour or two outside the classroom studying. The remainder of the time these "students" are out drinking beer, partying, chasing after sex partners, going to sporting events, playing video games, hanging out with friends, chatting on Facebook or getting into trouble. When they say that college is the most fun that most people will ever have in their lives they mean it. It is basically one huge party.

If you are a parent and you are shelling out tens of thousands of dollars every year to pay for college you need to know the truth.

You are being ripped off.

Sadly, a college education just is not that good of an investment anymore.  Tuition costs have absolutely skyrocketed even as the quality of education has plummeted.

A college education is not worth getting locked into crippling student loan payments for the next 30 years.

Even many university professors are now acknowledging that student loan debt has become a horrific societal problem. Just check out what one professor was quoted as saying in a recent article in The Huffington Post….

"Thirty years ago, college was a wise, modest investment," says Fabio Rojas, a professor of sociology at Indiana University. He studies the politics of higher education. "Now, it's a lifetime lock-in, an albatross you can't escape."

Anyone that is thinking of going to college needs to do a cost/benefit analysis.

Is it really going to be worth it?

For some people the answer will be "yes" and for some people the answer will be "no".

But sadly, hardly anyone that goes to college these days gets a "good" education.

To get an idea of just how "dumbed down" we have become as a nation, just check out this Harvard entrance exam from 1869.

I wouldn't have a prayer of passing that exam.

What about you?

We really do need to rethink our approach to higher education in this country.

Posted below are 21 statistics about college tuition, student loan debt and the quality of college education in the United States….

#1 Since 1978, the cost of college tuition in the United States has gone up by over 900 percent.

#2 In 2010, the average college graduate had accumulated approximately $25,000 in student loan debt by graduation day.

#3 Approximately two-thirds of all college students graduate with student loans.

#4 Americans have accumulated well over $900 billion in student loan debt. That figure is higher than the total amount of credit card debt in the United States.

#5 The typical U.S. college student spends less than 30 hours a week on academics.

#6 According to very extensive research detailed in a new book entitled "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses", 45 percent of U.S. college students exhibit "no significant gains in learning" after two years in college.

#7 Today, college students spend approximately 50% less time studying than U.S. college students did just a few decades ago.

#8 35% of U.S. college students spend 5 hours or less studying per week.

#9 50% of U.S. college students have never taken a class where they had to write more than 20 pages.

#10 32% of U.S. college students have never taken a class where they had to read more than 40 pages in a week.

#11 U.S. college students spend 24% of their time sleeping, 51% of their time socializing and 7% of their time studying.

#12 Federal statistics reveal that only 36 percent of the full-time students who began college in 2001 received a bachelor's degree within four years.

#13 Nearly half of all the graduate science students enrolled at colleges and universities in the United States are foreigners.

#14 According to the Economic Policy Institute, the unemployment rate for college graduates younger than 25 years old was 9.3 percent in 2010.

#15 One-third of all college graduates end up taking jobs that don't even require college degrees.

#16 In the United States today, over 18,000 parking lot attendants have college degrees.

#17 In the United States today, 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degrees.

#18 In the United States today, approximately 365,000 cashiers have college degrees.

#19 In the United States today, 24.5 percent of all retail salespersons have a college degree.

#20 Once they get out into the "real world", 70% of college graduates wish that they had spent more time preparing for the "real world" while they were still in school.

#21 Approximately 14 percent of all students that graduate with student loan debt end up defaulting within 3 years of making their first student loan payment.

There are millions of young college graduates running around out there that are wondering where all of the "good jobs" are.  All of their lives they were promised that if they worked really hard and got good grades that the system would reward them.

Sometimes when you do everything right you still can't get a job. A while back The Huffington Post featured the story of Kyle Daley – a highly qualified UCLA graduate who had been unemployed for 19 months at the time….

I spent my time at UCLA preparing for the outside world. I had internships in congressional offices, political action committees, non-profits and even as a personal intern to a successful venture capitalist. These weren't the run-of-the-mill office internships; I worked in marketing, press relations, research and analysis. Additionally, the mayor and city council of my hometown appointed me to serve on two citywide governing bodies, the planning commission and the open government commission. I used to think that given my experience, finding work after graduation would be easy.

At this point, however, looking for a job is my job. I recently counted the number of job applications I have sent out over the past year — it amounts to several hundred. I have tried to find part-time work at local stores or restaurants, only to be turned away. Apparently, having a college degree implies that I might bail out quickly when a better opportunity comes along.

The sad truth is that a college degree is not an automatic ticket to the middle class any longer.

But for millions of young Americans a college degree is an automatic ticket to student loan debt hell.

Student loan debt is one of the most insidious forms of debt.  You can't get away from student loan debt no matter what you do.  Federal bankruptcy law makes it nearly impossible to discharge student loan debts, and many recent grads end up with loan payments that absolutely devastate them financially at a time when they are struggling to get on their feet and make something of themselves.

So are you still sure that you want to go to college?

Another open secret is that most of our colleges and universities are little more than indoctrination centers.  Most people would be absolutely shocked at how much unfiltered propaganda is being pounded into the heads of our young people.

At most colleges and universities, when it comes to the "big questions" there is a "right answer" and there is virtually no discussion of any other alternatives.

In most fields there is an "orthodoxy" that you had better adhere to if you want to get good grades.

Let's just say that "independent thought" and "critical thinking" are not really encouraged at most of our institutions of higher learning.

Am I bitter because I didn't do well?  No, I actually did extremely well in school.  I have seen the system from the inside.  I know how it works.

It is a giant fraud.

If you want to go to college because you want to have a good time or because it will help you get your career started then by all means go for it.

Just realize what you are signing up for.

Thanks to TheTradingReport