National association OF
ISSUE 19/ NOVEMBER 2015
MOTORCOACH operators Monthly
it’s okay
to bury bad reviews
GoMotorcoach Starts a New Era
MCI to join
New Flyer Industries
FMSCA sends
entry level driver
training rule to white house
MCI TO JOIN NEW FLYER INDUSTRIES, CREATING A NEW NORTH AMERICAN POWERHOUSE IN BUSES, PARTS AND SERVICE. DEAL CLOSING AT YEAREND/
Uniting the two leading public and private transit and motor coach brands in North America...
WHY SOME AIRPORTS ARE GETTING POSH HOTELS/
FMCSA SENDS ENTRY-LEVEL DRIVER TRAINING RULE TO WHITE HOUSE, FINAL STOP BEFORE PUBLICATION/
Scan the lodging options around most big U.S. airports, and you’ll find an...
A proposed federal rule set to spell out required minimum training standards for new....
GET MORE STUFF DONE AT WORK: 8 SCHEDULING STRATEGIES/
Time is money -- and nobody knows that better than salespeople. Every call you...
FOSTERING BETTER ONLINE COLLABORATION/
Research indicates that online collaboration could save more than five hours each...
IT’S OKAY TO BURY BAD REVIEWS/
You know the old saying, “The best defense is a good offense.” Well, turns out that’s true...
THE SCIENCE BEHIND HOW PAY AFFECTS PRODUCTIVITY/
In 2013, three Harvard researchers decided to see how different levels of pay would.....
LEADING TO LIBERATE: FREEDOM THROUGH DISCIPLINE/
THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN B2B BUYERS’ DECISION MAKING/
The most effective leaders know how to teach their employees the value of one powerful...
GOMOTORCOACH STARTS A NEW ERA/
RUNNING A SMALL BUSINESS? STAY AHEAD OF CASH FLOW WOES WITH THESE 5 TIPS/
Social media is a big deal when it comes to chasing those… well, big deals. The role that...
At its semi-annual meeting in Phoenix on October 29th, the Motorcoach Marketing Council...
Ah, cash flow. Is there anything more terrifying or essential to a small business’s survival?...
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Chairman’s Message Winter isn’t here yet but are your coaches ready? With winter fast approaching maybe now would be an excellent time to prepare your coaches for the cold winter months. Listed below are just some recommended items to inspect and/or service to prevent difficulties due to colder and freezing temperatures associated with some parts of the U.S.
16 Auxiliary heater operation: clean points & electric eye sensor / flame detector (Refer to Espar, Proheat or Webasto maintenance manual for these and other pre-winter preparation instructions.)
1 Coolant mixture strength and P.H. level. Refer to coolant manufacturer for proper specifications.
19 Belt and bulb kit.
2 Main blower motors: brushes and amperage draw. 3 Defroster motors: brushes and amperage draw.
18 Spare tire.
20 Fire extinguisher. 21 Replace cracked or chipped windshields.
14 Windshield washer operation.
If the heat waves of this summer are any indication of what the cold waves are going to be like this winter, we should prepare ourselves for lots of brutal weather. Unlike the western and southern regions where snow and sleet are practically urban legends, areas to the north and northeast experience enough of the white stuff to wish summer would sneak into the wrong season once in a while. During winter days, staying warm is what keeps people moving. The same idea works for the bus industry. Maintaining the function of buses and motorcoaches allows operators to continue doing business, especially when many people would prefer not to be out in the first place. Focus on the road Lack of visibility is a concern during the snow-inducing months for obvious reasons. Because of the cold outside temperatures, snow and ice will not wipe off windshields as quickly as rain and can also accumulate much faster. If a driver cannot see through a windshield, transporting passengers clearly becomes a safety issue.
15 All tire valve stem caps installed.
When an emergency or accident occurs on board
4 All heater cores and air filters. 5 Batteries: clean posts and check water levels; hydrometer check. 6 All electrical cable connections. 7 Immersion heaters & connections: engine, lavatory holding tank. 8 Heater water valve operation. 9 Voltage regulator settings. 10 Suspension air filter. 11 Air dryer: desiccant and heater. 12 Windshield wiper blades. 13 Windshield wiper motor operation.
4
17 All exterior lights and connections.
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the vehicle, the need to have the proper equipment immediately available is of vital importance. The daily pre-trip inspection by the driver must include the positive identification that the equipment is available and in proper working order. The list of on board equipment could be unlimited and must be adjusted and appropriate to the location of the system, either urban or rural, and potential high-risk conditions a system may encounter such as weather, road conditions, types of passengers, etc. This section provides a list of necessary equipment appropriate to all types and sizes of vehicles and organizations.
Biohazard kit
On board safety equipment should include at a minimum:
Cell phone and emergency telephone numbers
Working ABC fire extinguisher (10lb.+ preferred) When it comes to fire extinguishers, bigger is indeed better. A 10 lb. extinguisher will provide between 10 and 30 seconds of fire extinguishing capacity. Web cutters (2) One web cutter should be permanently mounted in the securement area where persons with disabilities ride. The other cutter should be immediately available to the driver at all times.
Biohazard kits should be immediately accessible to the driver and meet OSHA specifications for passenger transportation. Most importantly, restocking of the biohazard kit should at a minimum occur during each preventative maintenance inspection. Warning triangles A minimum of three (3) warning triangles should be kept in a sealed container and be available to the driver. It is not recommended that flares be carried in a passenger vehicle.
ASK YOURSELF ARE WE READY? The above information is just some suggestions and things that you might want consider saving yourself, your driver, and your customer’s difficulty as they travel down the snow covered and ice filled roads that we take our groups on. Daryl Johnson J and J Charter, Chairman, NAMO
First aid kit First aid kits should be immediately accessible to the driver and meet OSHA specifications for passenger transportation. Most importantly, restocking of the first aid kit should at a minimum occur during each preventative maintenance inspection.
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5
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6
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7
Entry Level Driver Training Rule
FMCSA sends entry-level dri House, final stop before pub A proposed federal rule set to spell out required minimum training standards for new entrant truck drivers has been sent from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to the White Houses’ Office of Management and Budget for approval. The OMB is the rule’s last stop before publication in the Federal Register. As this is the proposed version of the rule, the agency will take comment from the trucking industry, stakeholders and the general public for 60 days following the rule’s publication. The rule has not been made public yet, so what it will require of drivers and carriers is not yet known. The rule was produced via a so-called “negotiated rulemaking,” meaning a committee of drivers, fleets, regulators and other industry stakeholders met several times to flesh out the basic form of the rule before handing it to FMCSA to finalize and put into the regulatory pipeline. As reported earlier this year by CCJ, the committee’s key recommendations for the rule included requiring 30 hours of behind-the-wheel training time, establishing a registry of driver training providers and establishing certified curricula for CDL applicants. The OMB’s rulemaking portal says the White House received the rule Nov. 7. The OMB typically clears rules within 90 days of receiving them. The rule should be published shortly after its clearance by OMB.
Article by James Jaillet seen on www.ccjdigital. com. READ THE ORIGINAL
ARTICLE ONLINE
8
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iver training rule to White blication
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9
Get More Stuff Done At Work
Get More Stuff Done at Wo Strategies 10 www.greenazine.com
Time is money -- and nobody knows that better than salespeople. Every call you make and every meeting you take is an opportunity gained (or sacrificed) to bring money to your company and, ultimately, to yourself. Because of this, your calendar is your single most valuable property. You’re probably (we hope) already using one to keep track of prospect calls and internal meetings, but it might just be in need of a facelift. If you feel your schedule getting away from you, use these strategies to declutter your calendar -- so you can spend your time selling.
Before You Begin: Complete a Calendar Audit Before you can fix a problem, you have to understand where one exists. Perform a calendar selfaudit: Review the past month and ask yourself the following questions: •
When are productive?
you
most
•
On average, how many meetings do you have per day?
•
Are there any recurring meetings on your calendar that only happen sporadically or have stopped occurring?
•
When do you generally take breaks?
Once you know how you’re spending your time, you can optimize your schedule.
ork: 8 Scheduling www.greenazine.com
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8 Scheduling Strategies to Streamline Your Day
4) Put “available to book” times on your calendar.
1) Book time for prospecting every day.
Don’t leave your colleagues in the dark. Make it explicit when you’re free for internal meetings or quick chats. This way, they won’t have to ping you asking if you’re available during a certain time -- they can just book you.
Prospecting is a salesperson’s lifeblood, but it’s easy to skip if other tasks are piling up. Without dedicated time each day to generate new opportunities, your pipeline (and your paycheck) will quickly run dry. You should split up your call and email prospecting so you’re not switching back and forth between two tasks. Align your call times with your territories’ local time, and make calls between 8 and 9 a.m. in your prospects’ time zones. It’s important to schedule prospecting multiple times a week so you can follow up with inbound leads in a timely manner. Research shows that it’s best to call prospects within five minutes of receiving an inbound lead.
2) Schedule internal meetings strategically. It takes about 25 minutes to return to productivity after an interruption, and while you can’t minimize the number of unexpected distractions you encounter throughout the day, you can design your schedule to make yourself more efficient. Schedule internal meetings right before or after lunch, or back-to-back if you have multiple meetings in a day. That way, your day isn’t punctuated with several short interruptions from your regular sales activity. If you’re a manager, hold one day per week for all of your one-on-ones with your direct reports and your administrative work. This way, you’ll be able to devote the rest of your time to helping them sell. Of course, when it comes to prospect meetings, you won’t always be able to apply these best practices.
3) Hold specific hours for sales meetings. You should defer to your prospect’s schedule if they have a preferred meeting time that can’t be moved, but you’ll make it far easier to schedule meetings if you hold a consistent time for prospect calls. You’ll be able to avoid conflicting internal meetings, and you won’t have to worry about reshuffling your schedule to accommodate your prospects.
12 www.greenazine.com
5) Remove unnecessary recurring meetings. As a sales rep, the only recurring meetings you absolutely need to have are one-on-ones with your manager to review your pipeline and discuss your career path. For any other recurring meetings, make sure they’re completely necessary. If they’re not, or have already fallen by the wayside, get them off your calendar.
6) Build lunch into your schedule. Ideally, you’ll be able to take breaks from your work throughout the day, but sometimes things get busy and you just can’t. But something you can’t afford to miss is lunch. Not only does eating improve your productivity, the extended time away from your desk gives you the mental break you need to enter your afternoon refreshed.
7) Leave 10-15 minutes between each prospect meeting. Always leave buffer time between calls in case your prospect dials in late or the conversation runs over -you don’t want to choose between cutting off a meeting and being late to the next one. The extra time can also be used to fire off a follow-up email or write call notes while the memory of the meeting is still fresh in your mind, instead of at the end of the day when the finer nuances may have escaped you.
8) Every Sunday, review next week’s schedule. In a salesperson’s life, a calendar is more of a suggestion than a prescription -- last-minute things will always come up. But you should start your week with as organized of a schedule as possible, so spend 10 minutes every Sunday reviewing next week’s meetings and making sure everything that’s on your calendar needs to be there. Article by Leslie Ye seen on www.blog.hubspot.com
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13
MCI To Join New Flyer Industries
MCI to join New Flyer Ind North American powe and service. Deal closin 14 www.greenazine.com
dustries, creating a new erhouse in buses, parts ng at year-end www.greenazine.com
15
Uniting the two leading public and private transit and motor coach brands in North America, KPS Capital Partners announced on November 10 that it will sell Motor Coach Industries (MCI) to Winnipeg-based New Flyer Industries creating a powerhouse in top-selling vehicles, parts and service. New Flyer is the largest builder of heavyduty low floor transit buses. MCI is the largest builder of motor coaches, and distributes the German-built Setra S 417 and Setra S407 coaches. At closing, MCI will operate as a separate division within publicly held New Flyer, with no changes planned at its Winnipeg and Pembina plants, Louisville, Kentucky, parts warehouse or six MCI Sales and Service Centers in the U.S. and Canada. “Both companies hold the No. 1 position with iconic brands and have complementary products that do not compete,” said Rick Heller, MCI’s CEO who will leave the company after the deal closes at year-end, though the rest of MCI’s top leadership will remain. “We couldn’t ask for a better fit strategically,” said Heller. “We will continue to support our MCI and Setra customers with the best service organization in the business, which will become even more powerful as New Flyer and MCI leverage best practices in aftermarket parts, service and support.” The deal recalls MCI’s origins in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where the company was founded in 1933 by Harry Zoltok, who became an early pioneer in over-the-road, highway coaches in Canada and the U.S. Heller, who took the helm at MCI when KPS purchased the company in 2010, explained that MCI has successfully implemented quality improvements and production efficiencies that now produce highly-reliable coaches with the lowest cost of operation in the industry.
16 www.greenazine.com
The New Flyer deal means that MCI will enjoy “more opportunities, including financial resources to build from here, while we stay focused on safety and taking care of current and future MCI and Setra operators.” During KPS’s ownership, MCI entered into a strategic partnership with Daimler AG in 2012 to distribute Setra motor coaches and parts in the U.S. and Canada. Once the New Flyer deal is completed, Daimler will no longer have a minority ownership stake in MCI but Heller explained the strong relationship with Daimler will carry on and the luxury Setra S 417 and Setra S 407 lines will remain in MCI’s product portfolio with training, parts and service support at all six MCI Service Centers in the U.S. and Canada. “We already have the best team of people in the industry,” said Heller. “Now MCI will be larger and more powerful with owners that understand our business.” Press release seen on www.mcicoach.com
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In regards to the Motorcoach Marketing program, we love it. So far, we have made the 1000 postcards, and we did some full page handouts. We just got a stand up banner. When I get some time, I’ll be making new rack cards for both offices. We made 500 church theme postcards and 500 in the safety theme. We sent out the church cards through a local mailing company to every church within 50 miles. So far, we have had a great response and 4-5 people booked trips from it. I plan on using the safety ones soon by sending them to our new customers. All of our staff and drivers love the modern design and the finished products. Only one of my staff has watched the videos so far, but we will be working on that next month. So far I’m very happy with the service. It works well and looks great!
Chris Knittel
Owner/General Manager New Mexico Texas Coaches, LLC
We Help Operators Sell More Charters To More People. Easier. Faster. Far More Effective. MotorcoachMarketing.org www.greenazine.com
17
Airports Getting Posh Hotels
Why Some Airports Are Getting Posh Hotels Passengers in general have increased their expectations of airports,” said Kim Day, chief executive officer of Denver International. “They want higher-end shopping, better food, and they want better places to stay when they stay. 18 www.greenazine.com
Scan the lodging options around most big U.S. airports, and you’ll find an abundance of humble accommodations—along with a few best described as frightening. The tony hotels are typically found in city centers, where business travelers, tourists, and conventioneers tend to congregate.
The post-recession U.S. hotel boom is changing that, with upscale airport hotels now planned in Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York City, Atlanta, and a 500-room Westin opening Nov. 19 at Denver International Airport.
Given the generally higher costs for a full-service hotel such as a W or Hilton, these projects haven’t traditionally mixed with airport traffic that comes and leaves quickly, often because of weather-marred flights. But two travel trends are converging to change that math. Commercial real estate developers are
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19
seeing airports as fertile locations, driven by rising demand for rooms and conference space. And U.S. airports are upgrading their facilities to appeal to a more sophisticated clientele, the kind who want such amenities as spas, trendy bistros, and even yoga spaces. “Passengers in general have increased their expectations of airports,” said Kim Day, chief executive officer of Denver International. “They want higherend shopping, better food, and they want better places to stay when they stay.” That also means a stroll to the hotel lobby from the terminal—no shuttles—along with cutting-edge design, full-service spas, chic bars, and upscale restaurants. This new breed of airport hotel also affords ample space for business meetings, given that many companies like the idea of flying employees to a central point near (or in) an airport and getting down to business without the hassles of transit. And with occupancy rates near record levels for most fullservice hotels, it’s harder for a business group to find room at the inn, which changes the economics of putting a full-service property at or near an airport. Room demand at airport locations has grown from an average of 55 million room nights in 2010 to 65 million today, according to STR, a lodging data and research firm. Average room rates at airport locations have also increased, in line with the overall industry, and now top $110 per night. “The occupancies are so high now some players are saying wait a second, maybe this [airport] is a place we should look,” said Jan Freitag, an STR senior vice president. The Denver hotel, which has endured a history of fits and starts since the airport’s 1995 opening, is designed as a destination for business travelers to meet and a way to bridge the airport with central Denver, which sits nearly 30 miles to the west. In April, a new light rail train will connect the Westin and airport with downtown via a $9 ride that’s 37 minutes. Day predicts that line will help make the hotel a destination for weddings and other events. This summer, officials at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International sought bidders for a 300-room, “toptier” four-star hotel to be built as part of a “travel
20 www.greenazine.com
plaza” that would have office space, a gas station, and possibly residential units. Atlanta vies with Chicago’s O’Hare as the world’s busiest airport hub but has no hotel connected to a terminal, as airports such as those at Detroit, Tampa, and Huntsville, Ala., offer. “In the 1960s and ’70s, airport hotels were for distressed passengers” grounded by bad weather or a broken airplane, said Tyler Morse, chief executive of MCR Development, which is building a 505room hotel in the former TWA Flight Center at JFK International Airport. JetBlue Airways is a minority owner of the project, which will be connected to the airline’s Terminal 5. The hotel is planned to open in the third quarter of 2018. “They thought ‘I should have this as a backstop. Let’s do the bare-minimum kind of thing,’” Morse said. “And now people are saying, ‘Hey, I can make money by having a higherquality product.” Stephen Joyce, chief executive of Choice Hotels International, said the deep airline capacity cuts of the 2000s led airports to retrench as business travel waned. Hotel developers then looked elsewhere, and much of the airport lodging stock aged. Today, the airport market is “becoming more interesting,” Joyce said in a recent interview. “I bet we’ve got 10-12 projects in and around airports” that are under various stages of development. In Minneapolis-St. Paul, Graves Hospitality is planning a $115 million hotel with a spa, rooftop suites, and as much as 40,000 square feet of meeting space. The 300-room property, attached to the airport’s primary Terminal 1, will command rates that are 15 percent to 30 percent higher than local competing properties, at $225-$250 per night, said Benjamin Graves, president and chief executive. “The primary business is corporations that are dealing with mid- to high-end travelers that fly in, go to a meeting; they don’t have to get a taxi, they don’t have to figure out the market and how to get different places,” Graves said. Graves Hospitality is negotiating with a trio of major chains—Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Hilton Worldwide Holdings, and InterContinental Hotel Group—about which will brand and operate the property, which is scheduled to open in January 2018.
Other than in Vancouver, Canada has a similar dearth of full-service accommodations at airports. The upscale Fairmont Hotel at Vancouver Airport has been something of an anomaly for both airports and the hotel industry since its 1999 opening. (The hotel says it is the only airport hotel in the world to make the Top 100 Gold List of properties compiled by Conde Nast.) Graves said the Fairmont’s success has caused developers to take notice. “Go to any airport,, and there’s a zillion hotels within two miles,” Morse said. “To really do this right, you’ve
got to be physically connected.” And at many airports, a day spa doesn’t hurt either. Article by Justin Bachman seen on www.bloomberg. com
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21
Social Media On B2B
The role of social media in B2
22 www.greenazine.com
B2B buyers’decision making Social media is a big deal when it comes to chasing those…well, big deals. The role that your online presence now plays in the decision making process means it warrants some serious thought if you’re to ensure you’re getting the most out of it. To put this in perspective, one American university study found a massive 75% of B2B buyers were influenced by information they found on social media – showing that having a well thought out strategy really can prove vital. When it comes to preparing such a strategy there are a number of issues surrounding how B2B buyers use these types of platforms that you need to consider. For example, which sites are they visiting? What are they using them for? And when in the decision making process are they viewing them? As well as pinpointing where the potential buyers of your particular product or service may be, a killer social media strategy will be fully integrated with your wider marketing plans, the objectives of your sales team and aligned to company goals. How social media is used continues to evolve and change as the technology is evolving and changing, so what may have been true 5 years, 3 years, or even just a year ago may no longer be the case. Just because a strategy worked in the past doesn’t mean it will still be as potent today. You also need to check you’re striking an effective balance between your existing customers, new prospects and other influencers.
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one American university study found a massive 75% of B2B buyers were influenced by information they found on social media. For organisations across the world, capitalising on the influence that social media and other digital platforms can have on sales remains a hot topic. There have been loads of studies carried out into the attitudes and behaviours of B2B buyers when it comes to such sites. Here is some food for thought and a snapshot of some of the most interesting findings: Stages of the sale Different channels are used by buyers at different stages of the buying process, according to Buyersphere Report 2012. Here, researchers divide buying into 3 distinct phases: Identifying and defining the need (Awareness stage). Identifying potential suppliers. (Consideration) and final supplier selection (Conversion). According to their findings, Facebook and blogs are most useful in the first phase. LinkedIn and blogs are the most effective in the second phase and Twitter and Facebook are most useful in the final stage of buying. It’s good to talk Interviews conducted with B2B buyers as part of a study by Carnegie Mellon University Heinz College and Dell revealed that 57% strategically browse existing conversations on social media as part of their purchase research. So taking part in those industry-related conversations and showing off your expertise online is a must. This is backed up by findings in the Buyersphere Report 2013 which found two fifths of
24 www.greenazine.com
respondents had used some form of social media to find information or advice ahead of making their purchase. The most popular sites used being industry-specific forums, which stood out from the rest in terms of both usage and their influence. Content In a survey of B2B tech buyers by Eccolo Media, case studies and success stories were by far the most popular type of content, cited by 25% of buyers. This was followed by guides/white papers (16% each), podcasts/emails (13% each), blogs/ infographics (12% each) and videos/product brochures or spec sheets (11% each). Google Love them or hate them, it’s worth mentioning here that Google still remains the first place many people will go when they want to search for something online – be it a product, service or company, reviews or other information. That means being ‘top of the search’ and easy to find online remains important. Your social strategy should include online activity that will also help you achieve that. Website refresher Finally, don’t forget the part that your website will play in all of this, as if you’re targeting prospects you’re likely to be driving them to check out your site. A B2B web usability report by KoMarketing and BuyerZone found a big disconnect between what B2B buyers wanted to see on a website and the content that was actually there. For the buyers they surveyed, the top must-haves they wanted to see were clear contact details, lots of product information and specifications and pricing. More than half also said product reviews were a must. Check that your website offers all of these things and when it was last reviewed and updated. Article by Michael Gibson seen on www. customerthink.com
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Leading the industry starts with a winning team.
MCI J4500 Top-selling private sector model for 2014 and for 11 years running
Parts World-class fill rates and inventory for all makes and models
Support 24/7 via in-house ERSA, Technical Call Center and extensive field support
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Training Online LMS, LEARN webinars and Technical Tune-ups
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25
GoMotorcoach Starts a New Era
GoMotorcoach Starts a New Er
At its semi-annual meeting in Phoenix on October 29th, the Motorcoach Marketing Council announced a new Executive Director to help the council move its objectives into the future. Chinook Holdings and its principal, Christian Riddell, have been named to fill the position. Christian has been the spokesman for the council during the previous 2 years and has been instrumental in the development of the council’s products, services, and trainings. 26 www.greenazine.com
“We are excited at this new chapter in the history of the council,” said Peter Shelbo, the council’s chairman. “This is a very exciting new direction for us. We are thrilled at the opportunities this presents to us and to the industry we serve.” Riddell has a long history in the motorcoach industry, starting his career as a driver and sales manager for a small operation in Portland, Oregon. After a decade away from the
industry, where he spent the interim time working to hone his marketing skills (including the opportunity to serve as the Creative Director for a large west coast company), he came back to bring his expertise to the business he is so passionate about. In the last 5 years he has created several companies that all serve the motorcoach industry, including the development of websites, marketing materials, industry newsletters and more.
Era
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“I love this industry. It is something that I am very passionate about. It is an industry filled with good people, working day in and day out to deliver a service that makes North America a better place to be. I am thrilled that my company can continue to help operators sell more chapters to more people for more money. This new position allows us to help take the council to the next level. The future of this great organization is very exciting.”
The Motorcoach Council’s GoMotorcoach program… has recently been receiving international attention and has helped hundreds of operators around North America create powerful inexpensive marketing materials, train their sales staff, create powerful social media campaigns, recruit new drivers and market more effectively. Press release seen on motorcoachmarketing.org
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www.
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Online Collaboration
Fostering Better Online Col 28 www.greenazine.com
llaboration
Research indicates that online collaboration could save more than five hours each week on tasks like writing email messages and searching for information. Tools like video conferencing, document sharing, instant-messaging, and other platforms enable quicker contact and easy sharing of resources among coworkers and authorized third parties, saving time and money for your business.
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Research indicates that online collaboration could save more than five hours each week on tasks like writing email messages and searching for information. Tools like video conferencing, document sharing, instantmessaging, and other platforms enable quicker contact and easy sharing of resources among coworkers and authorized third parties, saving time and money for your business. There is overwhelming evidence that effective online collaboration can increase productivity at organizations of all sizes. Technology-based collaborative working leverages internal and external social networking, video conferencing, document sharing, instant-messaging, and other platforms to enable quicker contact and easy sharing of resources among coworkers and authorized third parties. Research by consulting firm McKinsey & Company found that office workers spend an average of 28 hours a week writing emails, searching for information, and collaborating internally. It estimated that improved communication and collaboration through social technologies could increase productivity by 20 percent or more. “Online collaboration can benefit small and mediumsized businesses by creating an organized--this part is important--central location for them to share information,” says Nick Brattoli, founder and lead consultant at Byrdttoli Enterprise Consulting. Files and projects can have metadata added to them, making them fully searchable, which enables knowledge sharing among employees and teams, regardless of their physical location. “If one department solves a universal problem, maybe related to project management or information about a client, everyone else can have access to it, too.” One of the most significant benefits online collaboration offers businesses is workforce flexibility, as technology enables workers--whether they are full-time employees, part-timers, contract workers or consultants--to work from anywhere on any devices. “As the workforce changes, the way people work is changing, too,” Brattoli says. “Work is no longer a place you go from nine to five. Instead, it is what you do, and it can happen from anywhere, at any time. Online collaboration software makes this much more possible.” Businesses are utilizing many different types of online collaboration in today’s environment, with scenarios
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involving mobile workers, remote workers and teams, virtual teams, outsourced work reporting to a project manager, and inter-organizational partnerships, says Diane Gayeski, dean of the Roy H. Park School of Communications at Ithaca College and a professor of strategic communications there. Gayeski points out that each kind of collaboration may require slightly different management techniques and cites several common collaboration challenges and ways to address them: •
Keeping in touch without face-to-face contact. Managers should establish ways to connect workers and establish trust and camaraderie. This can be done through regular “catch-up” meetings, similar to what might be done over coffee in an office.
•
Ambiguous responsibilities. In remote situations, it’s imperative to clarify who is accountable for making a project happen, who else is involved, and what each party’s specific responsibilities are.
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Establishing communication norms. This should cover what media is used for which tasks and when individual team members are available for collaborative exercises. It should take into account different time zones and work shifts, if applicable.
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Learning new tools and managing the overhead associated with them. “There is a plethora of online tools for collaboration, and they are always changing and improving,” Gayeski says. “This can be a challenge, and managers need to set aside time to investigate and learn new technologies for their teams.”
The many dozens of potentially useful online collaboration possibilities fall into four general categories, with some products straddling multiple categories: •
Knowledge management solutions. These tools make it easy to compile, sort, and access the tremendous amount of critical information that even small businesses compile. Some popular small business programs include Communifire, HyperOffice, Interact, and Simple Intranet.
•
File sharing. These tools let SMBs share almost any kind of file securely and enable simultaneous review and revision by multiple users. File sharing programs such as Soonr Workplace, Hightail,
Microsoft OneDrive, and others eliminate many of the problems associated with multiple email attachments. •
•
Web and video conferencing. Business apps such as AnyMeeting, Cisco WebEx, Fuze, GoToMeeting, and others give managers, employees, vendors, and other third parties the benefits of face-toface communication without the costs of business travel. Communication apps. While email remains a primary communication tool for businesses, apps such as Slack and Yammer create a more freewheeling or conversational communication, providing the functionality and ease-of-use common to many social media platforms.
workplace collaboration are no longer limited to a pre-scheduled meeting around an oak table in a big conference room,” says Steve Schult, director of products at LogMeIn. “SMB organizations, their workers, and their customers are using cloud-based tools in ever-increasing numbers, driven by the need to work from anywhere, at any time, and from any device.” Article Contributed by Productivity@Work seen on www.cbcommunity.comcast.com
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“Companies looking to embrace a culture of collaboration need to remember that meetings and
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To Bury Bad Reviews
It’s Okay to Bury Bad Review
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ws You know the old saying, “The best defense is a good offense.” Well, turns out that’s true when it comes to your online reputation, as well. All it takes is one unfortunate situation with a customer or one disgruntled employee to wreak havoc on your business. Today, when someone wants to check you out, they ask their friends and then turn to Google - even when their friend gives a strong recommendation. They type your name into a search engine and find your website. But, around four or five search results down, they also see a nasty review or a blog post using hyperbole and calling your business “the worst ever” or a “shame to the neighborhood.” Pretty much anyone, for any reason, can publish information about your business, for better or for worse. And that information gets indexed by search engines. While I’m not suggesting you hide your flaws, I am suggesting you not let them define your good work. I’ve been suggesting this very tactic since about 2006, and it’s still just as valid. When someone searches for your company, why not work to make the first 10 or 20 listings they find something in your control? And the good news is that it’s not really that hard. Sure, you have to put in a little work, but the rewards and potential risks you avert are well worth it. The first thing you need to know is that Google loves social networks. Claiming, linking to, and promoting your company social media profiles is a great start to your reputation offense.
I have a number of websites that I use for my business and also have other branded assets such as a podcast and books. But a search on Google for the term “Duct Tape Marketing” still turns up my company Facebook page, Twitter page, LinkedIn page, Wikipedia page, Instagram page, YouTube channel, Google+ page, and even a CrunchBase profile -- all on the first two pages. Even a search on my name turns up half a dozen properties that I control, including personal profiles on many of the networks mentioned above. When someone asks me if they really need to be on all of these networks or if they need to guest blog and create Tumblr pages and submit their podcast to Stitchter, I say, maybe you don’t need to be in all of these places to survive, but your reputation may need you to build brand assets in all of these places in order to thrive. The same can be said for reviews. You always have customers that keep returning and are happy with your business. Asking those who haven’t reviewed your business to do so will help keep positive reviews on top, and push down the negative ones. Again, the point is not to mask shoddy work, it’s to make sure that one bad experience or unreasonable customer doesn’t control what the world gets to see. Article Contributed by John Jantsch seen on www.cbcommunity.comcast.com
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Pay Affects Productivity
THE SCIENCE BEHIND HO PRODUCTIVITY
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OW PAY AFFECTS In 2013, three Harvard researchers decided to see how different levels of pay would affect the amount of work they got. On the freelancer contracting site oDesk, they posted jobs typing in CAPTCHAs, those hard-to-read words or codes used to authenticate that a real human is accessing a website. “This is a four-hour job, with the goal of entering as much data as possible while minimizing the number of mistakes,” stated the postings. “Specifically, we need as many correctly entered words as possible in four hours because we need the data for a future task and only correct entries can be used.” One of the postings offered $3 an hour for the job. Another offered $4. From those who responded and qualified by having done data entry in the past, the professors replied, “Great, you are hired,” to 136 at the $4 rate and 404 at the $3 rate. From the group promised $3 an hour, the researchers peeled away 135 and gave them a surprise. “As it turns out, we have a bigger budget than expected,” they wrote. “Therefore, we will pay you $4 per hour instead of $3 per hour.” $3 + $1 > $4 The group initially hired at $4 an hour worked no harder than those hired at $3. “When someone is paid $4, even though it is more than www.greenazine.com
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Reciprocity affects the perception and effect of compensation as much as it affects everything else.
People are not just another category of resources that happens to be human. They expect fairness. They appreciate generosity. Their value to the company varies greatly depending on how they believe they are being treated. Positively and negatively, they reciprocate the intentions of their employers. they are used to making or expecting, there may be no reason for them to interpret this as a gift or concession from the employer,” said Deepak Malhotra, one of the researchers. “More likely, they just assume that their expectations were wrong, and $4 is ‘the going rate’ for this type of work.” But the group that hired on at $3, then got $4 per hour, worked substantially harder. Among those who were most experienced and had worked most recently—those who best understood the generosity of the surprise pay increase—the raise “actually increased productivity more than it increased cost.” The difference between being paid $4 as the market rate or being paid $4 as the market rate plus the employer’s generosity may seem “innocuous,” said the researchers, but it’s not. In the employee’s mind, $3 + $1 is greater than $4. Generosity of pay leads to generosity of effort.
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THE EXPECTATION OF FAIRNESS Chief financial officers and procurement managers are supposed to get things for the lowest price. In buying resources, that’s imperative. A great deal on a piece of land. Optioning oil at a three-year low. Locking in high-quality, exotic coffee beans when supply is high and demand is low. A volume deal on laptops. It’s just smart business. The land certainly is not insulted that it was bought on the cheap. The oil does not burn cooler because it was acquired with a well-timed call option. The coffee is just as aromatic at the lower wholesale price. The laptops don’t operate any differently. But when a chief financial officer or some other leader applies the resource procurement strategy to people, it quickly disintegrates. People are not just another category of resources that happens to be human. They expect fairness. They appreciate generosity. Their value to the company varies greatly depending on how they believe they are being treated. Positively and negatively, they reciprocate the intentions of their employers. YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR A company that treats its people like widgets, that demands its people work as hard as they can for the lowest possible wages, gets the mirror response in return: People who want to work as little as they can for the highest wages they can get. Who can blame them? A company perceived as cheap implicitly gives permission to its employees to be miserly with their effort. Eventually, the company backs itself into the psychology of employees of Soviet state-owned enterprises in the 1980s: “They pretend to pay us; we pretend to work.” A firm can slog through under that kind of transactional, mutual selfishness, as many heavy with labor unions do, but the company will be at a structural disadvantage. Working relationships eventually fail when neither side really cares about the success of the other. Employees are expected to look out for the longterm financial health of their organizations. Is it
unreasonable to expect that the company should look out for the financial trajectory of the employee? In my own recent research, 38% of employees I spoke with say their companies understand this concept. Their firms, they say, are “actively helping me reach my longterm financial goals” and “want me to make more money as the organization becomes more profitable.” It’s with favorable attitudes like this about the intentions behind the pay that compensation gains real traction. Among Americans who strongly agree that their firm is helping them reach their financial goals, less than 4% want to defect, and an astounding 92% say their jobs bring out their best ideas. On the other extreme, among those who strongly disagree that their company wants to see them reach their financial goals, seven of 10 wish they were working somewhere else, and only 12% say their company gets their best ideas.
To Homo economicus—or “Econs,” as behavioral economist Richard Thaler calls the fictional, idealized species that economists have invented (and which leads them to make so many bad predictions)—our survey statement, “Over the long term, I believe I can earn more here than I could somewhere else” would be more predictive than questions about the employees’ perceptions of their leaders’ intentions. It’s the opposite. To real people, it’s the thought that counts as much as the cash. Article by Rodd Wagner seen on www.fastcompany. com
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Luxury
©2015 MCI | Setra – a brand of Daimler AG
is Standard Equipment.
When you choose a Setra TopClass S 417, average is not an option. That’s because luxury is the standard. It starts with world-class German engineering and benchmark safety features. Encompasses an unparalleled choice of custom-tailored interiors. And evokes a sense of comfort, well-being and confidence in all who see it, experience it, and own it. And support? That’s standard-setting, too. Read more, get more, and find more at setra-coaches.com. MCI Distributor of EvoBus GmbH for Setra Buses and Setra Parts in the United States and Canada.
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setra-coaches.com | 866-624-2622
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Leading To Liberate
Leading to liberate: Freedom 40 www.greenazine.com
m through discipline
The most effective leaders know how to teach their employees the value of one powerful quality, one that most likely helped them rise to the top themselves: Discipline. The great sports coaches are transparent examples of this. Teaching and emphasizing discipline to prepare for the contests to come is what best guarantees that under the pressure of competition each player will feel free to make the right decisions and execute to the best of their abilities. None did this better than Vince Lombardi, considered along with John Wooden as one of the two greatest coaches of all time. Lombardi’s faith in “Freedom Through Discipline,” a motto etched on an archway at his alma mater, Fordham University, was absolute. Lombardi trained his players to discipline themselves to identify and cultivate their talents, and then prepared them as a team ahead of each season and before each game. He believed deeply in identifying and cultivating talent. He knew that getting the best from each athlete, what that athlete uniquely had to offer, was the key to success. As he said to Hall of Fame quarterback Sonny Jurgensen, “I don’t want you to be anybody else but you. I need you to be the best version of who you are.” Never was “Freedom Through Discipline” better demonstrated than in the greatest game of Lombardi’s career, the 1967 NFL Championship Game between his Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys. Referred to by historians as the “Ice Bowl,” it was
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The most effective leaders know how to teach their employees the value of one powerful quality, one that most likely helped them rise to the top themselves: Discipline. played in game-time weather of 15 degrees below zero on a frozen field. The players on both teams had trouble gaining traction on the ice-like ground. When the trailing Packers had the ball on the Dallas 1-yard line with a chance to win the game in the closing minute, their runners could not gain firm enough footing to run the ball across the goal. With 16 seconds left, Green Bay quarterback Bart Starr called the Packers’ final timeout and came to the sideline to confer with Lombardi. Starr told Lombardi
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that he and the offensive lineman thought that there was a way to create a path for Starr to dive across the goal line — a play that was not in the Packer playbook. Lombardi quickly agreed, but when asked by the Packers bench what play Starr was going to run, Lombardi shrugged: “Damned if I know.” Starr scored on the play, and the Packers won the championship (and then the Super Bowl). All of this happened because, on the most disciplined team in football, the quarterback and two of his linemen felt the freedom of thought to devise a new plan at the most crucial moment of their season, and the freedom of action to execute it. Because of his focus on discipline, Lombardi was regarded by most of the public as a controlling master who micromanaged his teams. In fact, the opposite was true. On game days he often had very little to do, as he left most of the onfield decisions and execution to his players. John Wooden, the UCLA basketball coach who rivaled Lombardi in greatness, took a similar approach to develop the full potential of his players. In training and practice sessions Wooden drove each player to cultivate his best. During games, however, Wooden was largely hands-off. In a move that today would be viewed as heretical, he did not like to call time-outs near the end of close games, believing that his players were better left to figure out what to do for themselves. One of Wooden’s players described his coaching method this way: “There was total structure and complete freedom.”
The success of Lombardi’s and Wooden’s methods has gone down in the history books: Lombardi led his team to five championships in seven years, and Wooden won 10 NCAA championships in 12 years (including an unprecedented streak of seven championships in a row). As micromanaging has increasingly become the norm
for too many managers today, these stories are a timeless and worthwhile reminder that, with some faith, the hands-off approach can lead to great success. Although seemingly a paradox, “Freedom Through Discipline” turns the difficult into the reachable, in a way that is natural and stress-
releasing. Managers and those in leadership positions who instill in their employees a discipline to focus on and nurture innate talents, giving them freedom and independence to take ownership of their decisions when it comes to “crunch time,” will see the empowering dividends pay off.
Article by Keith Danko seen on www.smartblogs.com
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Cash Flow
Running a Small Business? Woes with These 5 Tips Ah, cash flow. Is there anything more terrifying or essential to a small business’s survival? Manage it well, and you won’t just feel amazing, you and your business will be. Manage it poorly, and the last business-related sounds you may ever hear are the sounds of your own tears being drowned out by the repo man’s engine as he pulls up to your office to repossess the furniture you leased. Don’t manage it poorly. Stay ahead of any cash flow problems with these five tips.
1. Don’t Count Your Chickens Until They Hatch It can be very tempting during lean times to believe that the client who has always paid you on time will continue to do so. Why not go ahead and send that check out? The money from your client should be in the bank by the time the vendor cashes it, right? Wrong. Don’t count your chickens in the cash department until they’ve hatched. Not only do you risk alienating a valuable vendor, but the charges and fees you’ll accrue if the money doesn’t come in will only make your cash flow problems worse. Instead of crossing your fingers and relying on an unknown future to go the way you hope it will, look into what will be required to get a bank loan or line of credit before you need one. You should also have a credit card for small business needs. While credit cards can create their own problems if managed inappropriately, they can also fill in necessary gaps from time to time.
2. Get a Deposit Even if you’ve worked with a particular client for years, when jobs are especially large or hairy, it’s best to get a deposit upfront so you can give yourself a little cushion to survive an extended period of work on a project. The fact that you’re gong to make a killing in six months is no comfort when you need to pay the electricity today. Get a deposit on jobs that will lighten cash flow for a period of time, and keep paying 44 www.greenazine.com
? Stay Ahead of Cash Flow
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yourself, your employees, and everybody else who keeps you in business.
3. Know Who Really Has to Be Paid Many small-business owners are excellent managers of their own finances — it’s one of their many good qualities that gave them the confidence to take a risk and go into business for themselves in the first place. Because of their positive history in managing their own finances, however, many small-business owners approach their business finances with the same rigor and practices they’ve applied to their own finances. On the surface, that seems like an excellent idea. In practice, however, it can be disastrous. Just because you’re used to always paying a personal bill the day it arrives doesn’t mean your business has to take the same approach. Is the due date 30 days out? 60? Be wise about who you actually have to pay and when since doing so can mean the difference between making payroll or not. Oh, and your employees always have to be paid.
4. DO NOT Use Tax Money All that money you’re setting aside for sales and use tax, quarterly taxes and the like needs to be treated as if it doesn’t exist. For small businesses in a cash flow pickle, however, that can feel like madness. After all, what’s the harm in borrowing from the tax stash if you pay it back in time? None, provided you pay it back in time.
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But learning to cover your cash flow troubles with tax money that absolutely has to go to the government isn’t going to solve your cash flow troubles. It will, at best, buy you some time, and, at worst, get you in serious trouble with Uncle Sam. Resist this temptation at all times and all costs. It just isn’t worth the risk.
5. Incentivize Getting Paid When you’re a small-business owner, it can sometimes seem like everybody who owes you money is suffering the same cash flow concerns you are. One way to tackle this problem is to incentivize getting paid. If a client gets a 10 percent discount for paying early, they’ll definitely be more inclined to do so. After all, that will save them money and help solve any cash flow worries they’re currently embroiled in themselves. If you can’t offer lower prices as an incentive, offer a discount or special service on future work when cash is delivered early and on-time. From incentivizing getting paid to letting the future remain unknown and uncounted-on, follow these five tips to stay ahead of cash flow trouble in your small business. Article by Jenna Throne businessblogshub.com
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