It reminded me of one of a series of training videos that were used a generation ago that often used humour to put the main points across. This particular one was “Meetings Bl****y Meetings!” and reading the webinar promotional blurb this morning made me think that maybe not much has changed if managers and bosses are still making the same mistakes (I guess they’re a different set of people now).

There are statistics from surveys quoting the number of hours per week spent in meetings, percentages on how many are ineffective and even a claim that the level of meeting effectiveness is the single most powerful factor in job satisfaction (?)!

It seems to provide reasonable content, though a bit basic but, in my opinion it shoots itself in the foot in two ways:

1. Though it goes on at length about people resenting their time being wasted in ineffective meetings, it assumes there is a valid purpose to each of them in the first place and doesn’t once say we should ask why we’re planning a meeting – is it necessary?
2. Neither does it tackle the question of who should attend and why (maybe that’s because it goes on to suggest you get everyone in your office – whether they set-up or attend meetings – to join in because as many as you like can attend for the one price…)

To me these two issues are key before any meeting is arranged. The skills we bring to making our meetings effective should be addressed, yes, but only after we’ve satisfactorily answered these two questions.

“…the Publisher of the Orange County Register in the USA (a newspaper that is the third largest in California) says: “The Register has to become a 21st century business… We can’t have the same model that worked 10 years ago.”

His approach has been to offer premium content in the subscription-
based Register, for a mainly older audience, to offer a hyper-local focus
through free community weeklies, and to attract a younger audience with free content on the newspaper’s website, ocregister.com.

“But this strategy has required a re-engineering of the business.” That’s a decisive, bold move.

Now let’s move to Birmingham, England:

“Trinity Mirror has announced wholesale changes planned for the city’s two daily newspapers. They are to shed around 80 jobs, turning
the Birmingham Post from a daily into a weekly edition and moving the
Mail from an evening to a morning paper.

A motion of opposition has been signed by at least 11 MPs of all
parties.”

I don’t have any further information on the second story but I wonder: These are indeed radical changes and I can’t believe the publisher came up with them without serious consideration of all alternatives. So that begs two questions:

Is this a knee-jerk, vote-catching move by the MPs concerned?

How many jobs will go if the changes aren’t made and the two newspapers cease to exist?

Here’s a round up on results of a survey with proprietors of 7,000 businesses (over 1,000 of which had started up in the last 2 years:

• 48% have seen decline in turnover
• 18% believe there will be a lasting negative impact from the recession
• A third said no difference
• Almost ½ say a positive impact
• 43% have invested in training
• 75% believe there will be an upturn in 2010

The REALLY interesting bit for yours truly was some hard hitting, straight talking advice from Lord Digby Jones: Worth skimming through the first half hour or so of the webinar just to reach these gems – believe me – he doesn’t hold back!

The panel discussion that follows is shaping up to be interesting, too…

You can see it here.

I came across a great blog posted back in the summer by Ian Hendry, CEO of wecando.biz

In it he talks about Social CRM: the coming together of social networks with Customer Relationship Management system to provide businesses with a wealth of data never before available.

Regular readers will know how often I’ve stressed the importance of talking to your customers and market to find out what they need.

Ian points out that few will answer and, those who do, can give you skewed answers. Whilst I don’t particularly agree with that (if you go about it the right way, listen to what’s being volunteered and tease out what’s not, you can get solid truthful data (quantitative) and amazing insights (qualitative).

He highlights the fact that

sort of information is available across the Social Web as those same customers update their profiles; post, tweet, StumbleUpon and Digg. Your customers are revealing aspects of their needs that they’d never bother sharing with you directly, but by knowing where they are online a whole heap of additional information can be at your fingertips before you contact them; helping to drive the dialogue you have before they’ve even started thinking about your company, let alone discussing it.

He deftly brings the CRM factor in with how to build your customer profiles and create their needs and wants.

The full article is here. If you’re not particularly “techie” or up on Social Media I suggest you talk to your youngest employee (or your teenage at home) for a quick lesson – you may find it’s worth it!

How have you brought in business in the past? And are those methods still working, or working as well as they used to?

Who are your most profitable customers? How did they ‘come on board’?

Where do your best customers ‘hang out’? How can you be there, too?

What do they say about you to someone who might need just what you offer? How easy do you make it for them to recommend you?

When was the last time you asked a customer for a recommendation? When is the best time to ask?

How do you create business inquiries? How do you handle them?

How long does it take to turn a ’suspect’ into a first-time customer?

What makes a one-time customer come back for more?

If the old ways of attracting profitable customers are no longer working, or not working as well as they used to, now’s the time to think and act creatively…

Let’s stay with the fundamentals a little longer because I think I glossed over one:

“What excites ME about what I can do for people and what that helps them achieve – and do I know for certain that it’s the same thing that will excite them?”

This is the raison d’être of your business: You need to be able to clearly articulate it and transfer that enthusiasm to your audience.

A client came to us three months ago. He runs a successful recruitment business that has grown over the years yet he realised he’d lost interest in it and for some time had only been seeing the problems there. He’s now regained his focus, made it into a leaner operation, re-energised his staff and is actively looking for and creating opportunities and solutions.

Many businesses can and do fall into coasting along when the economy is buoyant. Sometimes radical changes need to be made when circumstances alter and the economy takes a drastic nose dive. Those changes, whatever they may be, start at the top: With YOU.

I posted here last week about how my cousin took the tough decision to reduce the size of his workforce.

He hadn’t lost focus but there simply wasn’t now enough work coming in to continue to support the business as it was. Unlike corporations that are making hundreds, if not thousands, of employees redundant, these weren’t faceless names on a payroll – they were people he had worked with for years. Yet he had to do it to ensure the survival of the company and job security for the rest of the staff.

The last thing I’m advocating is that you let people go whose skills you will need to help take advantage of the upturn when it comes. But if you go back to basics, your core business, and involve your key people to see how they can contribute to that, you might find you have a few nice surprises!

If you’re ‘too close to see the wood for the trees’ why not bring in someone you respect and trust to work with you? While you’re at it it’s worthwhile remembering that saving is the other side of the coin to making money by increasing profitable business. A packaging & design expert recently saved a company thousands of pounds. The first thing he did was to invest time talking to the people on the shop floor, something their management hadn’t done for years…

Often when times are really tough we feel the need for action: To DO something – almost anything. But it may be worthwhile stepping back, taking several deep breaths and asking some different, really fundamental questions for starters, like:

Why would somebody WANT to do business with ME?

What do I offer that’s so terrific and better than anybody else who, on the face of it, does much the same thing?

What track record do I have – How can I demonstrate or prove that to my potential customers BEFORE they invest money with me?

What excites ME about what I can do for people and what that helps them achieve – and do I know for certain that it’s the same thing that will excite them?

Is there such a NEED for it that they will see the value and pay for it?

Frank Dobson, speaking a few minutes ago on The Politics Show referred to the hundreds of millions of pounds spent by the NHS on management consultants. He almost likened it to money going down the drain but said that would be unfair: Drains have a value…

He said he wouldn’t spend another halfpenny in this way.

We’d be interested to know whether you agree or disagree with him (and why).

Also, do you think this a warning shot across the bows to NHS management consultants OR a heads up to Andy Burnham, current Secretary of State for Health, that if Labour get back in, Frank wants his old job back? Or maybe both?

It seems it doesn’t matter what line of business you’re in or what your role is in it.

Based on comparative figures available from ONS (the Office for National Statistics) between February 2008 and February 2009 on benefit claimants, the only categories that were actually showing fewer claims were Senior Officials in National Government and Medical Practitioners.

And the only ones ‘holding their own’ were Pharmacy Managers, Dental Practitioners and School Crossing Patrol Attendants, who were showing the same number of claims.

True, this information was gathered during the early days of this recession, but, with no obvious upturn in the economy in the intervening months, the figures on benefit claimants are only likely to have continued rising.

We’re obviously not saying that all trades, professions and occupations have been hit to the same extent – for instance, those associated with property in its widest sense have suffered across the board almost from the beginning. Manufacturing and retail has been hard hit with resultant high redundancies.

All we are saying is that, apart from literally a handful of exceptions, there are no recession-proof businesses or occupations.

Like my relative, you’ve probably already cut back on costs where you can. So your best bet is to rekindle the flame that got you into your business in the first place, listen to your customers’ needs, focus on fulfilling them to the best of your ability and do everything in your power to be their partner of choice in hard times.

You’ll then be best placed to reap the rewards of the good times when they come round again.

And they will!

It became obvious earlier in the year that they would need to let some staff go. Some of them had been with the company for over 12 years and he said making them redundant was one of the hardest decisions he’d ever made and carried out yet he had no choice if the company was to survive.

The next thing he did was to assemble the remaining workforce and tell them that each of them had an essential role to play in the business and there would be no further rounds of culls.

Everyone had to be prepared to roll up their sleeves and muck in and that way they would emerge strong. And when enough money is made to ensure continued stability the profits over and above will be shared among all.

Since then he has a willing and committed team and the atmosphere has never been better.

Sometimes it’s tough at the top… effective leaders have to be able to take decisions that hurt.