Gravitas Is a Quality You Can Develop
Having gravitas at work means you are taken seriously, your contributions are considered important, and you are trusted and respected.
“Rebecca, I need more gravitas,” Andreas said to me at the start of our first coaching session, “but I want to be myself. I don’t want to pretend to be someone else.” As an organizational psychologist at the London School of Economics, teaching leadership development in executive education programs and coaching professionals globally for 20 years, I’ve had the privilege of hearing the development goals of hundreds of professionals. They regularly describe wanting to be valued and respected — but they fear that to do so they need to betray their own personality or values.
Having gravitas at work means you are taken seriously, your contributions are considered important, and you are trusted and respected. Gravitas increases your ability to persuade and influence and is likely to fuel the extent to which you rise in an organization. The organization also benefits: You’re more likely to add value if your voice is taken seriously.
It’s easy to associate gravitas with behaviors that fit a particular mold — what I call “surface gravitas.” Generally this involves posturing, dominance, or self-importance that are meant to charm or subdue. Taken to an extreme these behaviors can be counterproductive, eroding your relationships and influence, and even contributing to fear-based cultures that are anathema to innovation.
But even when it’s approached with the best of intentions, building gravitas by simply putting on an outward appearance can be harmful. Research suggests that authenticity — understanding your real self, including your deep-level and conscious thought, emotions, beliefs, and values, and acting in a way that reflects these — may be one of the strongest predictors of well-being. Many people sense this intuitively and shy away from trying to build their gravitas at all, assuming that if you’re not born with it, you can’t acquire it.
But in my work and research I’ve seen that you can develop your gravitas while being true to yourself. The key is understanding that your real self can change as you build a deeper set of meaningful, trusted connections with other people. These findings are based on our research with over 100 professionals across all organizational levels from a wide range of industries and geographies as well as work with coaching professionals specifically.
Consider Mitan, a financial analyst at a consulting firm. Mitan’s manager told him he needed “more gravitas” and specifically that he needed “to stand out more in the room and connect with clients more quickly and effectively.” Mitan regarded his boss as charismatic, but didn’t see himself that way, so he was annoyed and disheartened. “I’ve never been someone who wants to be the center of attention,” he told me.
But through coaching, Mitan was able to find a few techniques that actually felt right for him. The starting point was acknowledging that being able to connect with clients was part of his role. Based on more specific feedback from his boss and other colleagues, we set a new, specific goal for him: asking his clients about parts of their businesses he didn’t know much about, even though it felt safer for him to stick to topics he was more familiar with. Though Mitan was committed to this idea, he didn’t feel particularly confident. Still, he was surprised by how quickly his clients responded to his new approach, becoming more open with him about their challenges. That enabled Mitan to create new solutions for them, further driving their appreciation for him, and his own self-confidence.
Drawing on Mitan’s story and many others like his, here are five ways to increase your authentic gravitas:
Be clear with yourself about what you want.
If you’re explicit with your values and goals, you are more likely to act in ways that support them. Ask yourself, “If someone were to describe me to others, what would I want them to say?” Or, like Mitan, set a specific goal that relates to your work, and find your own ways to achieve it that are in line with your personal values.
Be open to feedback.
None of us achieve our intentions every time. But when our espoused values and commitments don’t align with the experience others have of us, it can undermine our ability to build trust and meaningful connections. Great leaders proactively seek to discover what others’ experiences of them are, take responsibility for them, and learn from them.
For example, in addition to reflecting on feedback from his company’s annual 360-degree reviews, James, a senior manager in banking, asks his team quarterly in one-on-ones: “What could I do differently to make my leadership and our working relationship more effective?” He asks his team and peers for real-time feedback after any meetings or presentations. When he gets a cursory response — “No, that was great, you were excellent” — he pushes back. “Thank you, and what are two to three things I could do differently next time to be better?” This feedback lets James know whether he’s having the impact he intends — and builds his relationships with others.
Create time for broader conversations.
It’s easy to rush from meeting to meeting, and agenda to agenda (especially when working virtually). The danger is that we miss what’s going on with the people we’re working with. What matters most to them right now? What are they excited about? What opportunities do they see? What are they concerned about? Choosing curiosity over efficiency gives you stronger connections and gives you information you can use to have a bigger impact.
Carve out small windows of time between small talk and specific agenda points to find out what’s going on with and motivating the people you’re working with. This can be simple: “Before we get into the details, it would be great to hear how things are going for you — any changes since we last spoke, what your priorities are right now, and what are the biggest challenges you’re facing.” The conversation doesn’t need to be long, it just needs to be meaningful. You may feel that you’re being nosy, but whether it’s with colleagues or clients, when you ask these questions with genuine interest they tend to be well received.
This practice “has completely changed my work,” one senior leader told me, describing how it helped her become more influential and better at driving collaboration. She earned more trust in her relationships, she was able to bring peers from different parts of the business into projects to benefit her clients, and she was better able to see opportunities to work with peers to offer solutions to complex problems.
Create time for broader conversations.
It’s easy to rush from meeting to meeting, and agenda to agenda (especially when working virtually). The danger is that we miss what’s going on with the people we’re working with. What matters most to them right now? What are they excited about? What opportunities do they see? What are they concerned about? Choosing curiosity over efficiency gives you stronger connections and gives you information you can use to have a bigger impact.
Carve out small windows of time between small talk and specific agenda points to find out what’s going on with and motivating the people you’re working with. This can be simple: “Before we get into the details, it would be great to hear how things are going for you — any changes since we last spoke, what your priorities are right now, and what are the biggest challenges you’re facing.” The conversation doesn’t need to be long, it just needs to be meaningful. You may feel that you’re being nosy, but whether it’s with colleagues or clients, when you ask these questions with genuine interest they tend to be well received.
This practice “has completely changed my work,” one senior leader told me, describing how it helped her become more influential and better at driving collaboration. She earned more trust in her relationships, she was able to bring peers from different parts of the business into projects to benefit her clients, and she was better able to see opportunities to work with peers to offer solutions to complex problems.
Beware the self-fulfilling prophecy of “needing more confidence.”
Jennifer, a senior analyst in a professional services firm, works extremely hard and is well-regarded by her peers. She described to me what she regarded to be her greatest professional obstacle: “I’m not confident enough. I should be more confident, I know, but I’m just not.” Because people often assume confidence is a critical aspect of gravitas, it’s usually a big barrier for those who feel they lack it — since they believe they must pretend to get it. What’s more, telling yourself you don’t have enough confidence can be a vicious cycle, with that negative self-talk decreasing your confidence further.
However, we found that professionals we studied who were considered by others to have gravitas didn’t always feel confident — far from it. They did, however, choose to be courageous, acting in pursuit of their goals even though they perceive risks and threats.
For example, Sarah, a leader in a fintech company, was described by others as confident. But she told us how she was regularly nervous and felt out of her comfort zone in her fast-paced environment. She told us that in the mornings she would often look in the mirror and give herself a pep talk, “You can do this. You’ve got this.”
Rather than faking confidence, she was clear with herself about her vulnerability and need for courage. From the outside we can wrongly interpret courageous behaviors as stemming from innate confidence. Instead, confidence can often grow from these acts of courage.
Commit to integrity.
Research has suggested that in addition to courage, integrity is one of the strongest virtuous predictors of C-level effectiveness. Furthermore, studies show that that integrity actually fuels courage. As we commit to integrity, we ignite our ability to speak up when it’s not comfortable and to share our views that might be different and therefore risky. In doing so, we increase the extent to which we positively stand out at work, and we can do so with authenticity.
The best kind of gravitas comes from this authenticity, from deep interpersonal trust that you build by being clear about the impact you want to make on others, empathizing and finding out about the people you work with, and adhering to your sense of integrity. You can increase your gravitas and still be you.
This article first appeared here.
How to optimize your visual content marketing strategy
“Consistency and repetition are the keys to brand memorability.” – Thibaud Clement.
The images your brand uses are so much more than just pretty accents to entice social media users to stop scrolling. Visual communication can be more powerful at achieving marketing goals than any ad or tweet copy, so the visual content you share deserves a great deal of attention.
Your visual content marketing strategy shouldn’t just be limited to social media, however. In fact, articles or blog posts with images get 94% more views than those without images. For example, driving organic article traffic from Google Discover, which prefers content with high-quality images, is just another reason to ensure your visual content strategy is well-defined.
To learn more about visual content marketing best practices, we spoke with Thibaud Clement, CEO at Loomly, a collaborative platform for marketing teams. This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
Why should brands use more visual content?
First, visual content has the power to appeal to our always-decreasing attention spans. In a world where all of us multitask and face constant interruptions from work and life, images can stand out on our screens and capture our focus faster and more efficiently than text.
Second, once something captures our attention, visual forms of content can convey more information and emotion than text, making a more profound impression. A picture is, more than ever, worth 1,000 words.
Third, as a consequence of the above, because visual content is better at capturing and benefiting from our attention, it tends to provide better memorability for brands. Repetition is a marketer’s best friend, and visuals are the perfect medium to maximize the impact of repeat brand messages.
How can brands maintain a visual identity while also allowing for diversity?
Fundamentally, maintaining a visual identity relies on clear brand guidelines, i.e., a set of rules to use fonts, colors, logos and marks when creating new image assets.
From there, when creative teams repeatedly need to create different types of visual content with consistent constraints — for instance, for social media, where post formats are standardized — a best practice is to use templates. These streamline the production process and focus on bringing new ideas to life rather than reinventing the wheel with every new creative asset.
Once the consistency is ensured through brand guidelines and creation templates, a surefire way to bring diversity and creativity to the table is to operate as a cross-functional team. This not only involves marketing specialists but also collaborators from the product, sales, human resources, legal and finance departments, who will all contribute with a fresh perspective and take content creation to new heights.
Finally, the ultimate strategy to maximize both brand consistency and diversity is to implement an approval workflow. This allows the creative team to make sure all types of content being pushed out of the door are on-brand, typo-free and compliant with all internal business policies.
What are some of the best social media marketing tools? Which tools offer the most freedom to manipulate images?
Adobe Spark’s Spark Post is a simple and efficient way to create social media posts. If you are looking to design impactful social media graphics, all you need to do is pick a photo, add text, and apply design filters or animations to stand out from the crowd instantly. No design skills are required.
Canva is another popular and effective option to create beautiful social media posts. With thousands of templates, graphics, covers and banners, it is fast and easy.
We designed Loomly to make the entire content creation and publishing process a breeze, from asset management in a dedicated library, to image-sourcing through native integration with Unsplash and Giphy, seamless visual design with Loomly Studio (cropping, filters, stylized text) and, of course, automated publishing to your favorite social media platforms.
How can brands use visuals to build a strong social media content strategy?
Consistency and repetition are the keys to brand memorability. When leveraging visuals to tell their story over time, with consistent visual anchors across multiple posts and ads, brands not only stand out and make themselves recognizable; they become memorable, which is the first step towards achieving brand awareness, brand relevance and ultimately, brand trust.
How can marketers better optimize images and other visual assets for different social media platforms?
Each social network enforces its own set of limitations regarding file weight, resolution, aspect ratio and type. For instance, on Instagram, images cannot exceed 1080 pixels in width, on Twitter images must be under 5MB, and LinkedIn requires images to be less than 40,000 pixels in resolution. Knowing those limitations helps marketers create and publish visuals of the highest quality possible for each platform to make their brands appear professional, polished and pixel perfect.
On top of that, social media supports different post formats, such as link posts on Facebook, Stories on Instagram or app install pins on Pinterest. Understanding how these post formats respectively show up in users’ feeds on each network is critical to optimizing brands’ presence on the screen real estate available to them. There are also creative hacks you can use with ads.
Of course, optimizing visual marketing assets for each platform can quickly become time-consuming. Using a social media management tool that can streamline the process is a productivity hack that, once again, allows marketers to focus on substance rather than form.
How important are visuals for a blog post?
How important are visuals for a blog post?Visuals are vital for blog posts as they tremendously contribute to SEO.
First, visuals make content more discoverable through search engines. Not only do Google and Bing reportedly rank posts that include media assets (photos and videos), images also show up in image search results, where competition tends to be slightly lower, providing additional opportunities to surface in challenging niches.
The key to making this happen is to diligently optimize visuals for search engines by carefully defining metadata (title and alt text attributes). Bottom line: Visuals help drive more people to a blog post.
Second, visuals tend to decrease the bounce rate and increase dwell time, which are two critical factors to determine a page’s relevance for a given keyword.
Indeed, relevant images have the power of capturing the attention of a visitor when they land on a blog post as they feel less overwhelming than long blocks of text-based content, which, in turn, makes them less likely to hit the back button (bounce) and more likely to spend more time on the page (dwell). In other words, visuals help keep people on a blog post once they find it.
How can brands turn blog posts into engaging Instagram content?
Three best practices to repurpose blog posts into engaging Instagram content include:
- Posting a visual from a blog post as the image of an Instagram post, teasing users with an excerpt from the blog post in the caption of the Instagram post, and inviting users to read more by selecting a “link in bio.”
- Combining all the visuals from a blog post into a quick slideshow and publishing it to Instagram as a video. Loomly lets you produce videos from photos in one click from your library, for instance, making this process a breeze.
- Illustrating the main takeaways or data points from a blog post and placing them into a simple infographic. The infographic can either be published in a vertical format (taking up real estate in users’ feeds) or in a horizontal format, sliced into frames and published as a slide show. The latter offers an immersive experience to users who can swipe to see more content, which appears as a continuous image.
How can brands make their blog content more engaging?
Making blog content engaging is all about capturing the reader’s attention early from the moment they land on the page, and sustaining it as they scroll through content. The following best practices can help achieve this.
- Including media, be it photos or video content, makes a blog post more appealing, digestible, memorable and shareable. As mentioned above, visual assets tend to increase dwell time, which not only boosts SEO but also maximizes brand exposure.Photos help deliver more information in a shorter time frame, while videos make the article more interactive as they require the visitor to select to play them.
- Featuring quotable excerpts with social media share buttons throughout a blog post is an excellent way to do your readers’ legwork, so they only have one button to click. This allows them not to have to think twice about which part of your text they should emphasize if they want to tweet your article.
- Sprinkling bucket brigades — bridge phrases often used by copywriters to punctuate text content — throughout your blog post is a proven technique to break down the article’s flow, give readers a break between longer paragraphs and sustain their attention until the end.
This article first appeared here.
7 Strategies for Better Group Decision-Making
Are more minds are better than one, right? Not necessarily.
When you have a tough business problem to solve, you likely bring it to a group. After all, more minds are better than one, right? Not necessarily. Larger pools of knowledge are by no means a guarantee of better outcomes. Because of an over-reliance on hierarchy, an instinct to prevent dissent, and a desire to preserve harmony, many groups fall into groupthink.
Misconceived expert opinions can quickly distort a group decision. Individual biases can easily spread across the group and lead to outcomes far outside individual preferences. And most of these processes occur subconsciously.
This doesn’t mean that groups shouldn’t make decisions together, but you do need to create the right process for doing so. Based on behavioral and decision science research and years of application experience, we have identified seven simple strategies for more effective group decision making:
Keep the group small when you need to make an important decision.
Large groups are much more likely to make biased decisions. For example, research shows that groups with seven or more members are more susceptible to confirmation bias. The larger the group, the greater the tendency for its members to research and evaluate information in a way that is consistent with pre-existing information and beliefs. By keeping the group to between three and five people, a size that people naturally gravitate toward when interacting, you can reduce these negative effects while still benefitting from multiple perspectives.
Choose a heterogenous group over a homogenous one (most of the time).
Various studies have found that groups consisting of individuals with homogeneous opinions and beliefs have a greater tendency toward biased decision making. Teams that have potentially opposing points of view can more effectively counter biases. However, context matters. When trying to complete complex tasks that require diverse skills and perspectives, such as conducting research and designing processes, heterogeneous groups may substantially outperform homogeneous ones. But in repetitive tasks, requiring convergent thinking in structured environments, such as adhering to safety procedures in flying or healthcare, homogenous groups often do better. As a leader, you need first to understand the nature of the decision you’re asking the group to make before you assemble a suitable team.
Appoint a strategic dissenter (or even two).
One way to counter undesirable groupthink tendencies in teams is to appoint a “devil’s advocate.” This person is tasked with acting as a counterforce to the group’s consensus. Research shows that empowering at least one person with the right to challenge the team’s decision making process can lead to significant improvements in decision quality and outcomes. For larger groups with seven or more members, appoint at least two devil’s advocates to be sure that a sole strategic dissenter isn’t isolated by the rest of the group as a disruptive troublemaker.
Collect opinions independently.
The collective knowledge of a group is only an advantage if it’s used properly. To get the most out of your team’s diverse capabilities, we recommend gathering opinions individually before people share their thoughts within the wider group. You can ask team members to record their ideas independently and anonymously in a shared document, for example. Then ask the group to assess the proposed ideas, again independently and anonymously, without assigning any of the suggestions to particular team members. By following such an iterative process teams can counter biases and resist groupthink. This process also makes sure that perceived seniority, alleged expertise, or hidden agendas don’t play a role in what the group decides to do.
Provide a safe space to speak up.
If you want people to share opinions and engage in constructive dissent, they need to feel they can speak up without fear of retribution. Actively encourage reflection on and discussion of divergent opinions, doubts, and experiences in a respectful manner. There are three basic elements required to create a safe space and harness a group’s diversity most effectively. First, focus feedback on the decision or discussed strategy, not on the individual. Second, express comments as a suggestion, not as a mandate. Third, express feedback in a way that shows you empathize with and appreciate the individuals working toward your joint goal.
Don’t over-rely on experts.
Experts can help groups make more informed decisions. However, blind trust in expert opinions can make a group susceptible to biases and distort the outcome. Research demonstrates that making them part of the decision-making can sway the team to adapt their opinions to those of the expert or make overconfident judgments. Therefore, invite experts to provide their opinion on a clearly defined topic, and position them as informed outsiders in relation to the group.
Share collective responsibility.
Finally, the outcome of a decision may be influenced by elements as simple as the choice of the group’s messenger. We often observe one single individual being responsible for selecting suitable group members, organizing the agenda, and communicating the results. When this is the case, individual biases can easily influence the decision of an entire team. Research shows that such negative tendencies can be effectively counteracted if different roles are assigned to different group members, based on their expertise. Moreover, all members should feel accountable for the group’s decision making process and its final outcome. One way to do that is to ask the team to sign a joint responsibility statement at the outset, leading to a more balanced distribution of power and a more open exchange of ideas.
Of course, following these steps doesn’t guarantee a great decision.
However, the better the quality of the decision-making process and the interaction between the group members, the greater your chances of reaching a successful outcome.
This article first appeared here.
How HR is reimagining the office of the future
Improved air systems and touchless elevators are among the plans.
HR executives are getting used to strategizing on the fly—and that includes when it comes to envisioning the office of the future.
With America’s continued high rate of coronavirus infections, as well as the inevitable long wait for a vaccine, a large-scale return to the office keeps being delayed. What’s more, many companies—seeing how newer technologies like Zoom have made it much easier to work from home and also needing cost-savings because of the virus-induced recession—are envisioning a future where most employees work from home most of the time.
But after several months of lockdown, many workers are saying, in essence, “Not so fast.”
As early as May, nearly three-quarters of U.S. office workers polled in a nationwide survey by company-review website Glassdoor said they were eager to return to the office, mainly because of missing opportunities to either socialize or work more collaboratively with co-workers. That has placed pressure on people managers to plan for that eventuality while keeping their workforce safe. Many HR executives say the search for solutions has meant forging partnerships with leaders in IT or building management that didn’t exist before the pandemic.
Alex Alonso, chief knowledge officer for the Society for Human Resource Management, says he believes the crisis and the need to rethink the workplace are also radically changing the role of the chief human resource officer, as CHROs worry less about right-sizing the company and more about how to make functions such as training succeed in a digital world and how to hold a scattered workforce together.
“They have to focus on maintaining a culture as much as possible,” he says, even if most employees are currently working from home.
For smaller and mid-sized companies, the challenge of envisioning the future workspace is no less than at a large corporation. At Submittable, a 100-person tech company, Chief People Officer Asta So spent a chunk of her spring reworking floor plans for the firm’s Missoula, Mont., office and drawing up an alternating schedule so employees would not work so close together. She says she has researched to “see how many people we might have within a particular office or room and how far apart desks could be.”
The commercial real-estate giant Cushman and Wakefield—concerned, not surprisingly, about the push to shrink or eliminate traditional offices—has begun promulgating what it calls “the 6-foot office,” designed with social distancing in mind. That’s certainly in keeping with the short-term conversation about working with the coronavirus, but many are also thinking about a generally healthier office after the pandemic. New ideas include improved indoor air systems, using antimicrobial materials in new construction and even touchless elevator controls.
SHRM’s Alonso said he believes the lingering trauma from the pandemic means more firms will station employee-assistance counselors or other mental-health professionals within the workplace, as part of rising concerns about how such rapid change is affecting workers emotionally. But Alonso also says he’s hearing more about innovative, income-producing ways to make use of suddenly available office space, including for day care, schools or learning centers as well as other more commercial uses.
At insurance giant Nationwide, the firm is likely to reap some cost savings by shuttering some of its offices, despite the cost of new technology and other tools or incentives to keep homebound workers connected, says Gale King, executive vice president and chief administrative officer. In the spring, Nationwide announced a new work-from-home strategy that would involve closing at least five U.S. office locations and focusing on four main facilities where thousands of so-called “hybrid” employees would report occasionally but not every day.
She says the strength of the established firm’s culture gives her confidence that the new hybrid model can work.
“We were comfortable that our people are committed, whether working from home or office,” she says, “and that we wouldn’t lose talent.”
This article first appeared here.
Following successful experiments, Twitter will prompt all users to read the articles they’re about to retweet
One of Twitter’s summer experiments — to get people to read news articles before retweeting them — will be rolled out to the rest of the platform “very soon.”
Twitter announced the experiment in June in an effort to “promote informed discussion”, as one of a few projects to improve user experience on the platform.
According to Twitter Communications, people opened articles 40 percent more often after they were they were prompted.
The next phase is to make the prompts smaller after a person sees it once (presumably so it doesn’t annoy or patronize users) and to make the feature available to all users worldwide.
TechCrunch’s Taylor Hatmaker writes that the feature is one of the small ways that Twitter is addressing the toxicity that the platform’s design created.
It seems like a small product change, but steps like this — and ideally much bigger ones — could be key to shifting the social media landscape to something less toxic and reactionary. Other test prompts on Twitter and Instagram warn users before they share content that could be harmful or offensive.
After building platforms tuned to get users sharing and engaging as much as possible, introducing friction to that experience seems counterintuitive. But inspiring even just a moment of pause in user behavior might address a number of deeply entrenched social media woes.
Ridding platforms of their problems won’t be easy, particularly for companies that are seldom motivated to make meaningful changes. But reprogramming user behavior away from impulsivity could help undermine the virality of misinformation, harassment, hyper-polarization and other systemic issues that we’re now seeing seep across the thin barrier between online and offline life.
This article first appeared here.
I’m Over the Obviously Fake Glassdoor Reviews
HR Games the System.
It was weird seeing it as an actual email. It came after a huge company party, with free food, music, giveaways.
The headline read, “We want to hear from you!” It was from HR. The email went into this whole spiel about how the company’s goal was to become a Best Place To Work Tampa Bay.
At the end, it said, “If you love working here, we’d love for you to fill out a Glassdoor review.”
The modifier to that sentence was telling.
My eyes would roll: I was a bit salty. Between the interviews and Glassdoor reviews, I felt like my job had been misrepresented. Outside of the company parties, the place was hell for everyone: long hours, limited growth opportunities, huge workload, and endless office politics. You could end up in this same situation. Workforce marketing has become an act of deception.
There’s an incentive problem
Glassdoor brands itself as a place for transparency, but that isn’t what hits their bottom line.
Glassdoor is paid by companies who post jobs on their site, not by the people who write honest reviews. In turn, the two marketing efforts are in direct conflict.
Here’s what happens (in blunt, simple terms):
- Company X is paying Glassdoor a bunch of money to post on jobs.
- Suddenly, Company X starts doing layoffs. Naturally, their reviews start to plummet. Company X’s CEO gets mad at the reviews and yells at the HR manager who manages the vendor account with Glassdoor.
- Company X rep calls Glassdoor and threatens to pull all ads with them unless they do something about their reviews.
- Glassdoor doesn’t want to be a total pushover. They need credibility. In turn, they do a “review” of those one-star reviews, looking for other reasons to pull them (personal attacks, profanity, poor formatting).
- Suddenly, Company X has an upward trending rating in the middle of layoffs.
One very common legal tactic is for company lawyers to subpoena Glassdoor and threaten a lawsuit for defamation. Per their own policy, Glassdoor doesn’t usually respond to these threats, but quite often, those ugly one-star reviews quietly disappear.
Even further, when companies do this, Glassdoor is required to notify anyone who wrote ugly reviews that they’re at risk of being sued. This often leads them to delete their posts.
So now that authentic reviews have been removed, we go to the next step.
HR Games the System
I spoke with an HR manager who wanted to remain anonymous, for obvious reasons. What I learned was eye-opening.
HR managers have performance metrics that relate to the brand of the company. This includes Glassdoor and achieving a very specific KPI for that rating. Consequently, a manager can simply pull a junior HR worker aside and “under the table” ask them to write a bunch of reviews.
It’s shockingly easy and relatively unpoliced. The employee just creates a few burner email accounts and spaces the reviews out by a week or two each. This tactic is pervasive in the industry.
The verification process is a massive joke too.
You could literally go online today, create an email account, and go write a review as the Former CFO. Glassdoor would just email you and say, “You prooooomise you are telling the truth?!”
Spotting Fake Reviews
It’s an imperfect science but, generally, anytime someone uses absolutes in one direction or the other, “the very best/worst place worst place to work,” bullshittery is afoot.
Example – absolutely no cons? Really?
Additionally, when you look at Glassdoor averages, note where you see a sudden spike in their average. The above company had a three-star change over the course of several months (1.9 → 4.9).
Lastly, one of the most telling signs? If the review is gushing about how good the place is to work, but it says “former employee.”
If it was that good — why did you leave?
I spent years frustrated with the process of job hunts. I always felt like I was reading between the lines when talking to employers. Glassdoor just became an extension of that — but it’s only gotten worse.You used to be able to guess between two extremes on where the truth existed. Now? Good luck.
It’s understandable that companies want to market themselves to local talent. I actually think it’s great that they respond to reviews and offer feedback. But if they want to brand themselves as a positive workplace, perhaps they should just be a positive workplace. Put that energy there rather than spending resources painting a veneer of tranquility.
Until then, I encourage the rest of you to take Glassdoor with a grain of salt. As a general rule of thumb, remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it generally is.
I have never been more grateful to work for myself.
This article first appeared here.
7 (and a half) Dos and Don’ts for Creating Winning Sales Campaigns
7.5 strategies of creating a winning sales campaign. It’s easier than you might think.
1: Know Your Audience
By now, we all know the importance of directing our sales campaigns towards a targeted audience.
Marketers who use segmented campaigns note as much as a 760% increase in revenue. Rather than taking a cookie-cutter approach when designing your sales campaigns, utilize the channels where your audience spends the most time. If you’re targeting restaurant owners, for example, you might not have the best luck on LinkedIn. Cold calling may be a better strategy. Your campaigns should be designed around the life and habits of your buyer.
While your buyer persona acts as your north star, you shouldn’t overlook the nuance of the human experience. Your buyers will shift, their struggles will evolve, and their habits will change. Keep a regular pulse on your audience to not only stay up to date, but to predict trends before they come to fruition.
How?
Simple: join the conversation. Not sure where to start? Your audience likely contributes to a micro-community. Whether that’s on LinkedIn, Facebook groups, or professional organizations, find the places where your buyers congregate and be ready to observe.
After monitoring conversation topics and emerging trends, bring your ideas to the table. This isn’t the time to mimic influencers; this is the time to find your point of view. Find new angles to interact with your audience, position your solution, and solve their problems.
2: Create Killer Content
Only 23.9% of sales emails are even opened. Effective content is what moves the needle from ‘opened’ to ‘replied’. So what does it take to create killer content?
It takes being obsessed with relevance.
74% of online consumers get frustrated when content appears to have nothing to do with their interests. (Again, keep a pulse on the conversation). To incorporate relevance into content, empathetically address your consumers’ pain points. “I believe we’d be a good fit” simply won’t cut it.
To create effective content, put your customer’s needs before your own. Your content should reflect their pain and their interests; not your own desperation to book a meeting. Consider making a smaller ask. Rather than always prompting to take a prospect’s time with a meeting, consider a softer introduction. Even requesting an email reply can go a long way.
Relevant content is created with an understanding of your consumer. In a recent Sales Hacker podcast, Sapper CEO Jeff Winters discusses tools and strategies for developing effective content:
“You need folks that are either on the front line or have recently been on the front line, who are not writing in the theoretical. They’re writing in the practical, which is different from marketing messaging. That to me is the difference. It’s the who, not the what.”
Finally, take your prospects on a hero’s journey. Share experiences of similar customers overcoming the very obstacles your prospects face. Be specific, be concise, and let your prospect feel seen and heard.
3: Follow up
We all consume content within the (often chaotic) reality of our lives.
Just because a prospect doesn’t reply immediately, doesn’t mean they aren’t interested. Contrary to popular belief, a lot of prospects appreciate the extra effort. Following up builds credibility and removes the obstacle of having prospects put forth the legwork.
It takes an average of 6-8 sales touches to generate a viable lead and follow-up emails are typically more likely to be responded to than an initial email. Put simply: follow ups pay off.
Just make sure you put in some effort. In the same Sales Hacker podcast, Jeff Winters mentions, “No lazy bumps.” If you’re following up with a prospect, get creative and add value. Consider attaching a relevant article or white paper, but it has to be more than ‘circling back on my last message’.
Keep in mind that this is not an opportunity to guilt your prospects. Following up with a “I look forward to a positive response from you soon” can read as presumptuous and off putting. Instead, position your follow-ups as a simple reminder of who you are, why you’re reaching out, and what makes you valuable.
Following up is the art of nurturing your prospect. Understanding not only your consumer, but their journey through your sales process is key to delivering the right message at exactly the right time.
4: Get Personal
A customer’s buying decisions are emotional rather than rational. An effective campaign speaks specifically to the pain of your audience. An understanding is created that the discomfort of change is much smaller than the pain of staying the same.
For this kind of personalization to work, segment your campaigns. Generalizing pain or duplicating messages for different personas won’t be effective. Remember to not confuse personalization with relevance: ‘I see that you went to Miami University’ is less compelling than ‘I understand that the pandemic has led to a decrease in new clients’.
When personalizing emails, it’s vital that the content doesn’t feel automated. Something as simple as “I was just picking up the kids from soccer and wanted to shoot you a quick note” can catch a prospect’s attention. Prospects want authentic interaction with real people.
By keeping up with the conversation, understanding your relevance, and creating credibility in solving the pain, you can humanize your sales conversation.
5: Utilize the ‘Stacking Effect’
It’s not always an individual intro email or follow-up sales call that converts a prospect.
When it comes to the highest performing sales campaigns, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. By designing touches around your ideal customer, you can ensure that your sequence or cadence builds familiarity, ensures consistency, and leverages reciprocity.
The ‘stacking effect’ is simply adding phone calls, emails, LinkedIn messages, comments and more to your campaign.
When you utilize the stacking effect, you avoid putting all of your eggs in one basket. You’ll want to utilize the channels that work best for your audience, but make sure you are embracing multiple channels.
For instance, there is a 93% reduction in replies in phone call-only campaigns, while 80% of top performing campaigns include a call and email on the first day.
In the story of your outreach, you have the opportunity to become a trusted advisor. Provide insights, point out trends, and celebrate successes in solving the pain of your clients.
6: Follow the Numbers
Data has taken over sales. Intuition, habit, and bias have been replaced by measurable insights and every modern sales organization is embracing the data. In your own marketing efforts, utilize reporting to optimize campaigns and strategies.
Most reporting platforms give you access to a multitude of data — but not all of it is your friend.
Don’t get distracted by vanity metrics. Open rates and reply rates are great but they only tell a fraction of the story. Always come back to the metrics that indicate your success: MQLs, sales meetings, or new clients.
Use data to guide your iteration through A/B testing. Slowly, you’ll learn what incremental upticks you can accomplish. Subject lines, CTAs, and channels are just a few of the variables to experiment with.
Don’t be afraid to A/Z test, or to scratch your entire approach.
Alter your approach, tweak your segmentation, add new channels. This can be an amazing opportunity to think outside of the box. From utilizing FaceTime in your campaign to creating custom sales videos, your creativity can take your data to the next level.
7: AI is Your New BFF
If we don’t start from where our predecessors left off, we won’t evolve. Utilizing (and fully leveraging) collective knowledge of campaign performance, industry data, and AI is the new table stakes of outbound.
That said, many companies become so absorbed in the operations of a campaign, they forget about the bottom line. Automating a broken process won’t get you ROI, and an iterative approach takes too long if you’re starting from zero.
Instead, use AI to start from a high performing baseline. By utilizing technology, you can lower the time to value and opportunity cost.
7,5: Just Start!
Don’t let lack of confidence stand in your way of a winning sales campaign.
Just start, be willing to fail, and repeat.
You could research and plan for years; but implementing intentional action (as listed in the steps above) is the only thing that will move you forward.
This article first appeared here.
Google and Facebook Look to July 2021 for an Office Return. Can You Do the Same?
Plans to resume business as usual by next July might be unrealistic. But you can learn from how the big companies are planning for it.
This summer, as many office buildings remained nearly empty and CEOs grappled with the question of bringing back remote workers to shared spaces, an unofficial “reopening” date emerged among companies such as Google, Facebook, and Uber: July 2021.
Organizers of major live events, like movie releases, concerts, and even the 2020 Olympics, also announced that they’d begun preparations to welcome back audiences next summer. While experts are cautioning business owners not to rely on that schedule, learning more about how these companies set next summer as the target will give you more tools for determining your own return date.
Save the Date – or Don’t
One thing the Googles and the Facebooks of the world are not counting on: a broadly distributed vaccine or even a widespread return to normality.
Planning for a return to business as usual by next July is “wishful thinking,” according to Tista Ghosh, a CDC-trained epidemiologist and former chief medical officer of the state of Colorado, who is now a senior medical director at digital health care company Grand Rounds. While it’s possible that a coronavirus vaccine will be approved by then, she says, it’s still unclear how effective any vaccine will be and how quickly and easily it can be produced and distributed on a national scale.
Still, corporations like Google are hiring consulting firms and epidemiologists to help them gather and interpret large amounts of information about Covid-19’s effects on the public. Facebook cited “guidance from health and government experts” in its public statements about its July reopening. And the International Olympic Committee is working with the World Health Organization and the Japanese government to monitor Covid-19 outbreaks.
Large companies are making timeline calls based on a host of factors, including observations about competitors, customer surveys, analysis of behavioral trends, and social media activity. They’re even tracking people’s movements via aggregated cell phone data, according to Darren Mahoney, co-founder and chief analytics officer at CompassRed. His company, a data-analytics agency in Wilmington, Delaware, helps big organizations like professional sports leagues and convenience-store chains study market trends and make predictions; during the pandemic, its clients have become increasingly interested in surveying employees, customers, and other stakeholders.
Companies thinking they may be able to return safely to the workplace sooner than July 2021 should likewise not be discouraged, according to Mahoney. “Big firms can afford to throw a really long timeline out,” he says.
What’s more, they almost can’t afford not to. For companies with large workforces–which are harder to bring back to the office on short notice–extending a remote-work policy a full year allows employees to better plan living and working arrangements, particularly their children’s school year, before having to return to a desk. The Wall Street Journal reported that these were factors in Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai’s decision to keep Google’s offices closed. An Uber spokeswoman expressed a similar sentiment to the San Francisco Chronicle:
“As a company built on flexible working, we want to provide our team with flexibility, choice, and longer-term clarity so they can plan ahead.”
In other words, when announcing the July 2021 return, many companies are factoring in the time it will take their workers to re-acclimate to office life as much as they are factoring in the likelihood of a vaccine.
There are other business considerations that may make a July 2021 reopening necessary for these organizations, even if Covid-19 has yet to be neutralized. The Olympics, for instance, are unique, quadrennial competitions with countless stakeholders worldwide. IOC president Thomas Bach indicated in March that canceling the Games wasn’t an option. Instead, the IOC’s announcement of new dates stated that holding the Games exactly one year later than planned would give organizers “the maximum time” to deal with the effects of the virus while minimizing disruption to the international sports calendar, including the 2022 Winter Olympics.
One Size Doesn’t Fit All
Reopening the office earlier or later than July 2021 depends largely on what your business goals are, says Patrick Callahan, CompassRed’s co-founder and CEO. If you are worried about liability, or more concerned with maintaining your business than with growing it, staying remote could be more logical, he says. On the other hand, firms that need to meet customers face-to-face, or that rely on getting people together to spur innovation, might be more eager to reopen their offices. Many companies are bringing workers back gradually, rather than risk the damage that could come from reopening prematurely and having to shut down again.
It will make sense for some small businesses to give up their office space and stay remote for the foreseeable future, says Raj Kumar, founding president and editor-in-chief of Devex, a media company that provides on-the-ground coverage of crises and disasters for international development organizations and major corporations. Kumar puts his own company, which has about 100 employees globally, in that category.
“We had a lease expiring, and we didn’t renew it,” he adds. “And why would you, right now, if you really don’t have a clear idea of when things are going to get better?”
Local Experts are Better Experts
While weighing broader national trends, small and midsize companies should monitor public-health data at the hyper-local level, according to Ghosh. To determine when to start bringing workers back, she says business owners should track infection rates and per-capita testing in their own communities via local health department websites or nonprofit resources like Covid Act Now (with which her company is a partner). To get the most timely information, she recommends contacting your local health department directly and trying to develop a relationship. Then, she says, take the recommended safety measures to protect employees on the job.
There’s still a lot to learn about how the SARS-CoV-2 virus spreads and how to contain it, and as more information comes to light, it’s possible that some companies will move their July 2021 target, Ghosh says. And others will live with the uncertainty and continue a gradual return to workplaces.
“I want to emphasize that it is possible to reopen safely,” Ghosh says. “We just need to take a slow, methodical, stepwise approach.”
This article first appeared here.
How To Stop Second-Guessing Your Biggest Decisions
One thing to keep in mind: The decision is the start of a process, not the end of one.
We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to make the “right” decision. People agonize over whether to take a particular job, because they are concerned they may not love the work. They spend a lot of time reluctant to start new projects, because they are unsure of the outcome. People are also worried that they will take the blame if things go wrong.
When you reach a decision, you want to be able to move forward confidently and to project that to others. Here are three things you need to do to ensure you can feel good about that choice.
Make Sure It ‘Thinks’ And ‘Feels’ Right
A great way to develop confidence in the choice you are making is to pay attention both to how the choice feels as well as the reasons for making it. Many theories in psychology propose that there is a fast intuitive system that provides a gut reaction to situations based on the familiarity of the situation to ones you have encountered in the past. There is also a slower more deliberative system that can be used to reason through problems.
When making a decision, you will get information about the options from both systems. Some options may “feel” great. Others may have great supporting reasons (they “think” great). The best decisions are ones that both “feel” and “think” right.
When you have a conflict between these systems, spend time exploring why your gut reaction differs from the reasons. Talk with others and help yourself to resolve the conflict. When you understand the basis for your decision, it is easier to feel confident in the option you select.
Be Prepared To Adapt
It is also important to remember that the decision is the start of a process, not the end of one. Most complex decisions lead to courses of action that will then unfold over a long period of time. As a result, the conditions you expected to hold when planning for the choice may not be the ones you encounter as you move forward.
Even before you announce a decision, prepare for things that might go wrong. Envision as many obstacles as you can, and think about what you will do when you encounter them. When you communicate to others about the decision, be frank about the potential problems and talk about some of the plans you have to handle them.
In the end, though, success is not really about great decision-making, it is about resilience.
In the end, you are being held accountable for what you are able to achieve. If you have to switch plans or even goals midstream, that is okay. People do not really care whether you reach your goals by the path you stated when you first made your decision.
There is an emotional component to this resilience as well. In complex situations, it is easy to get discouraged by outcomes that do not go as you had hoped. In those situations, you may not even want to admit that things haven’t gone well, because you may fear the reaction of other people. As it turns out, the best strategy is actually to enlist the help of others when you reach an impasse. Getting advice, assistance, and coaching is a great way to help you move forward when you are not sure what steps to take next.
Create A Bridgeable Gap
When you do step out in front of other people to announce a decision, you will probably need their help in some way. That means that people need to feel invested in the outcome, and they also need to believe that the option you have selected can ultimately be successful.
To prime other people to be ready for action, you have to energize them about your decision and then give them a channel to use that energy to move a plan forward. That requires creating bridgeable gaps.
A bridgeable gap starts with a statement about what you want to achieve that contrasts it with the present state. Research by Gabriele Oettingen and her colleagues demonstrates that the difference (or gap) between present and future creates energy to want to act. Channeling that energy requires a specific plan that will enable the future state to be achieved. When you are able to communicate both the desirability of the future goal and the steps that must be taken to get there, you increase people’s willingness to work with you. And that, in turn, makes it more likely that you will reach your goal.
This article first appeared here.
From playing to paying: The art of monetizing games in Asia
With so many different gamers to reach, market nuances to consider, and ways to drive revenue, choosing the right monetization model to succeed in Asia is challenging but crucial — especially in the wake of COVID-19.
Exploring how monetization models are evolving to serve Asia’s diverse, growing user bases and discovering where certain models are thriving and why more developers are embracing a hybrid solution.
Download the full infographic from here.