Customer relationship management (CRM) is integral to the long-term

success of a company. Now, with online community participation and

social media usage at an all-time high, social CRM is quickly being
adopted. Quite possibly the missing link between sales and marketing,
social CRM allows companies to monitor and engage customers like never
before.

Definition of Social CRM (sCRM)

There are many definitions of social CRM available, but this one best
defines the concept.
[Social] CRM is a philosophy and a business strategy, supported by a system and a technology, designed to improve human interaction in a business environment. Esteban Kolsky, Three Reasons You Will Do Social
CRM
The core function of successful sCRM is to integrate data pulled from
social media platforms and use analytics to determine customer sentiment, industry trends, and social media return on investment. Social customer relationship management is the act of monitoring, engaging, and
managing online conversations with prospects and clients.

Benefits of sCRM
The key to effective social CRM is transparency. And the secret to successful transparency in a business environment is to have a plan. Salespeople have call objectives, marketers have conversion goals, and customer service representatives have issue resolution plans. Social CRM
combines all of these departmental aspirations into one unified customercentric strategy. The number one benefit of successful sCRM is being able
to actively seek out and engage prospects in the communication channel
of their preference.

10 Step Check List for Successful sCRM

Social customer relationship management is a necessary business strategy. However, what works for one company may not work for another.
The specifics of what will make your companys sCRM efforts successful
are unique to your business and its target audience. When laying the
foundation for your social strategy, here are ten key steps to consider:
1.

Assemble a team

An effective sCRM team should include employees from all relative

departments, and a supervisor or manager who oversees daily activities,
content distribution, and overall strategy execution.
2.
Audit all social media accounts
Before implementing a social customer relationship management initiative
it is important to identify what accounts a company currently uses, determine which employee accounts will be used for brand advocacy, and create any accounts that are missing from the social media portfolio.
3.
Create a style guide
To ensure consistent messaging, it is essential to create a style guide. A
style guide will outline the tone, industry-specific terms, desired hash
tags, and general messaging guidelines for all online conversations.
4.

Create a disaster plan

Be prepared for negative engagement. A disaster plan will dictate how

employees should respond to negative feedback and any potential disaster. Create scenarios and openly discuss with employees to determine the
most appropriate response timeline.
5.
Train team members
The nuances of online communication are integral to building and maintaining successful customer relationships. To guarantee success, all team
members should participate in communication skills training to improve
their ability to converse effectively online.
6.
Monitor prospect and customer conversations
Actively monitor brand name mentions, customer and prospect conversations, and industry experts across a variety of social media platforms.
Proactively monitoring will aid in deflecting customer issues, staying
aware of industry trends, and knowing what customers need and want.
7.
Respond and resolve
Response time is crucial to successful sCRM. Always respond to everyone,
positive or negative, and do so in a timely manner. Be sure to include
specific timeframe expectations in your social customer service strategy
for questions and service or product issues.
8.
Amuse fans and followers
Social media channels are an ideal platform for promoting content, and
also for creating amusement and distraction. Add value to your content
stream by including the occasional witty quote or funny office photo. Peo-

ple bond to people, and showing a human side every once in while will go
far in building rapport.
9.
Engage and educate audience
While it is fun to see a funny photo go viral, do not forget the goal of your
social media activity is to engage and educate customers and prospects
with your content. Always aim to add value and attract readers by appealing to their various needs and wants.
10. Convert
Effective sCRM opens the door for developing a permission-based dialogue between a company and customer. Successful social customer relationship management will increase revenue by directing a higher volume
of qualified leads to your website and/or specific conversion pages.
The value of social business practices and engaging in social selling is
undeniable. Are you maximizing your social media activities?

CUSTOMER
APPROACH

RELATIONSHIP

MANAGEMENT...A

STEP

BY

STEP

by Adrian Payne
Published: 01 July 2002
CRM is a management approach that seeks to create, develop and
enhance relationships with carefully targeted customers. It should be
viewed as a strategic set of activities that commences with a detailed
review of an organisation's strategy and concludes with an improvement
in shareholder value. The notion that competitive advantage stems from
the creation of value for the customer and for the company is key to the
success of CRM. This demands that responsibility for value delivery is
shared across functions and hierarchies. Because CRM is a crossfunctional activity a systematic approach is essential

1: The Strategy Development Process - Where are we and what do

we want to achieve?
Who are the customers that we want and how should we segment them?
Most companies today recognise that their future depends on the strength
of their business relationships, and most crucially, their relationships with
customers. Before turning immediately to a technology solution,
managers need to first consider CRM in the context of overall business
strategy. CRM must actively reflect and reinforce the wider goals of the
business if it is to be successful. The strategy development process
therefore demands a dual focus on the organisation's business strategy
and its customer strategy
2: The Value Creation Process - How should we create and deliver
value for our customers?
How should we maximise the lifetime value of the customers we want?
The value creation process is concerned with transforming the outputs of
the strategy development process into programmes that both extract and
deliver value. The value creation process consists of three key elements:
determining what value the company can provide to its customers;
determining the value of the organisation receives from its customers;
and, by successfully managing this value exchange, maximising the lifetime value of desirable customer segments.
First Direct bank is a good example of an organisation that provides
superior customer service and receives strong revenue and profits from
its key customer segments. It improves customer lifetime value through
successful cross-selling and up-selling and creating advocacy and
recommendations amongst its very satisfied customers.
3: The Multi-Channel Integration Process - What are the best ways
for us to get to customers and for customers to get to us? What
does the perfect customer experience', deliverable at an
affordable cost, look like?
A great number of interactions occur between the customer and the
organisation across different channels. The multi-channel integration
process should therefore start with the identification of the most
appropriate channel options for specific segments. These options fall into
six main channel categories, ranging from the physical to the virtual, as
shown in the strategic framework. Some will be employed in combination
to maximise commercial exposure and return, for example, voice over IP'
(voice over Internet protocol) integrates both telephony and the Internet
4: The Information Management Process - How should we
organise information on customers? How can we replicate' the
mind of the customer?

The information management process is concerned with the collection and

collation of customer information from all customer contact points; and
the utilisation of this information to construct complete and current
customer profiles which can be used to enhance the quality of the
customer experience. As companies grow and interact with an increasing
number of customers through an increasing diversity of channels, the
need for a systematic approach to organising and employing information
becomes ever greater. The key material elements of the information
management process are the data repository and analytical tools; IT
systems; and front office and back office applications.
5: The Performance Assessment Process - How can we create
increased profits and shareholder value? How should we set
standards,develop metrics, measure our results and improve our
performance?
The performance assessment process ensures that the organisation''s
strategic aims in terms of CRM are being delivered to an appropriate and
acceptable standard, and that a basis for future improvement is
established. Shareholder results provide a 'macro' view of the overall
relationships that drive performance, while performance monitoring gives
a more detailed 'micro' view of metrics and key performance indicators.
To achieve the ultimate objective of CRM the delivery of shareholder
results through an increase in shareholder value the organisation must
understand the four key drivers of shareholder results: building employee
value; building customer value; building shareholder value; and reducing
costs.
SUMMARY
Breaking CRM down into several manageable processes helps to
communicate its strategic role, and to demonstrate the interdependence
and cross-functionality of CRM activities. It is worth emphasising that
CRM requires visible top-level backing and the full commitment of the
workforce and other partners throughout the supply chain. No amount of
IT can compensate for this requirement of human investment. CRM is
admittedly a complex task, but equipped with a better strategic
understanding, organisations should be able to better realise the huge
benefits of effective CRM.
To view a diagram of the Strategic Framework for Customer Relationship
Management,
please
visit
http://www.crmresearchforum.org/downloads/CRM.pdf

The
By

Eight
Jerry

Sparger,

Steps

to

President,

Global

CRM

Success

Business

Solutions

By some accounts, as many as 70% of all customer relationship

management (CRM) projects fail to meet their intended objectives.
Technology failures get most of the blame, but technology isn't the cause
in most cases. Many failures are due to inadequate business strategy,
poor process development and lack of employee support. If you correctly
implement technology that supports the wrong strategy or processes, you
have automated your failure. To get your CRM used, you need employees
to embrace it. A successful CRM project balances strategy, process,
technology and employee initiatives so that you address all of them within
the
time
and
resource
limitations
you
face.
This article explains the necessity for each step, provides a summary of
how to implement each step and explains how the steps reinforce one
another to create a successful CRM project. I want the reader to gain an
understanding of how to use all these steps in concert to create a more
useful
CRM
solution
for
his
company.
A CRM project isn't successfully complete when you have implemented
new processes or Software. A CRM project will be successful only when it
helps
the
company
achieve
its
strategic
Goals.
The eight steps discussed in this paper are all critical to the long-term
success of a CRM project. Often, companies will skip some of these steps
because they think that they don't need them or that they have already
completed them. To have a successful CRM project, you must complete all
of these steps with your customer relationship in mind. There are no
shortcuts. In the following sections, we will discuss each step and its
importance to a successful project and provide an overview of how you
might
approach
each
step.
The

steps

are:

Create a customer-centric business strategy.

Translate your customer-centric strategy into goals and objectives.
Communicate your goals and objectives to your staff.
Work with your staff to define your business processes.

Define clear requirements for technology to implement your

processes.
Plan your process and technology changes to minimize impact on
your staff.
Implement a smart rollout.
Sell
and
reinforce
the
value
of
the
project.
STEP 1 -- Create A Customer-Centric Business Strategy
A good strategy addresses the question, "How do I capture and
retain the right customers for my business?" By defining the right
customers for your business and then determining what you need to
do to capture and satisfy those customers, you will focus your
business efforts on customercentric activities. Creating a customercentric business strategy is an important first step in a successful
CRM project because it creates a broad definition of what you want
out of CRM. The right customer for your business is one that can
provide the business rewards you need for the current stage of your
business
and
one
that
you
can
successfully
serve.
For example, a high growth start-up might want to acquire
customers that are willing to take risks with a new company or
product. Such customers might expect more handholding to
compensate
for
early
adoption
of
a
new
product.
The opportunity for revenue might be more important than profit. A
CRM strategy for such a company might focus on product
customization and special client support more than sophisticated
sales support. Conversely, once the start-up has proved itself in the
market, the priority might shift to those customers that offer a
greater long-term profitability opportunity with less risk. Customer
segmentation, sales support and help desk functions now become
important investments. You will have successfully completed this
step when you have a clear definition of the right customer for your
company, know where to find them and have defined the strategic
activities
necessary
to
capture
and
satisfy
them.
STEP 2 -- Translate Your Customer-Centric Business Strategy
Into
Measurable
Goals
And
Objectives
Once you have defined the right customer and developed the
strategic activities for capturing and retaining those customers, you
must document the specific goals and objectives you must set to
meet your customer-centric strategy. Goals are broad statements
about where you want your organization to be in the future.
Objectives are specific, measurable courses of action that support
your strategies. Goals and objectives provide the framework for
optimizing the work of your staff and the investment necessary to

meet your strategy. For each objective, you can define metrics that
you can use to monitor your performance. You can use an approach
such as the balanced scorecard by Kaplan and Norton to measure
performance against a set of metrics that balances the various
aspects of your customer-centric strategy. You will have
successfully completed this step when you have measurable goals
and objectives that, if met, will successfully implement your
strategy. You also need a means of routinely measuring
performance against these goals and objectives. Involve your
management staff in this step to ensure acceptance of the goals,
objectives and metrics you create. You need their input on what you
can
achieve,
and
you
need
their
buy-in.
STEP 3 -- Communicate Your Goals And Objectives To Your
Staff
Once you have created your goals, objectives and metrics to
manage your performance, you need to communicate them clearly
to
your
staff.
Communicating goals and objectives is more than a series of
memos and e-mails telling your staff what you have decided.
Develop a communications campaign that continuously reinforces
your goals and objectives and provides your employees comments
on how the project is going. This could take the form of a kickoff
meeting followed by monthly communications, or postings of
Performance against metrics. Above all, emphasize how these goals
and objectives will benefit them. If they understand that, they will
more readily embrace changes to process and technology.
You need an executive to sponsor the CRM project to demonstrate
its importance to your staff. Communications regarding the project
should come from the executive sponsor. You have successfully
completed this step when you have begun to roll out a
communications campaign. The campaign must provide for initial
and ongoing communication of goals and objectives and of status
against
these
goals
and
objectives.
STEP 4 -- Work With Your Staff To Define Your Business
Processes
To define business processes that will fulfill your new objectives
with the least cost, you need to understand how your operations
currently operate. Then you can modify your business processes to
meet your new objectives. The best way to understand the nuances
of your current processes is through the staff that does the work
today.
Involving your staff provides several benefits. First, you gain

valuable understanding of the processes employees use to currently

perform their jobs. Second, employees will be more inclined to work
hard to make the project succeed if they have a sense of ownership.
Third, your employees can learn more about the project from
firsthand involvement than from training alone. I can best
demonstrate the value of employee involvement with a real
example.
A large corporation had created a new account-management
process and had obtained software to automate its sales activities.
It customized its software to provide specific functions for calendar
management and meeting coordination. It instructed its users to
use the new software for meeting coordination because it created a
history of meetings by account. Project management didn't
understand that all users were heavily dependent on Microsoft
Outlook. The new software didn't integrate with Outlook. Due to
cost constraints, account support personnel didn't have the new
software.
The

Eight

Steps

to

CRM

Success

The result was that account managers couldn't create meetings without
using both outlook and the new software. Since the two didn't talk to each
other, users had to manage the meeting process instead of letting the
software do it. Users refused to use the new software for meetings,
customization money was wasted, users and managers were frustrated,
and users viewed the software as deficient. This could have been avoided
had the project team better understood how users did their daily job and
implemented a process and software that was consistent with the needs
of
their
users.
Activities

to

involve

your

staff

include:

Brief your staff on the process-development activities, the reason

you are doing them, the involvement of the staff and the
importance of the staff to the process. Be prepared to discuss the
impact of your efforts on their jobs, because most people view
process development as an excuse for layoffs.
Identify essential personnel from affected groups to assist in
process development.
Brief the essential personnel on your objectives and define what you
need from them.
Assign a project leader with experience in developing business
processes.

Use a process-mapping tool such as ARIS to document the current

processes and to allow you to examine alternative scenarios in
terms of effectiveness, efficiency and resource impact.
When done, review the new processes with the team of essential
personnel and then with employees to gain any additional
comments.
Finalize your new processes. you have completed this step when
you have created new processes with employee involvement and
can track those processes to your strategic objectives.
STEP 5 -- Define Clear Requirements For Technology To
Implement
Your
Processes
Make sure you know what you want your CRM software to do before
you purchase it. Often, companies start by evaluating software
before completing objectives and processes. This might appear to
save time. It won't. It will cause more difficulty and expense when
the chosen software doesn't effectively implement your process.
Some vendors market their software under the premise that their
standard software contains the best processes for their clients. This
isn't always the case, since companies are unique. Your processes
are your discriminators. Regardless of whether you decide to let the
software influence your processes or not, you need a clear picture
of how you want your processes to operate before selecting your
software. You have completed this step when you have a clear
statement of requirements, prioritized against the processes
documented in Step 4. These requirements then become the
selection criteria for the software you would chose for your CRM
solution.
STEP 6 -- Plan Your Process And Technology Changes To
Minimize
Impact
On
Your
Staff
Companies often try to roll out new business processes and
technology all at the same time. This can create more work for
employees, with less benefit. We have seen cases where employees
just did their job the old way, while keeping separate information to
satisfy the new way. This is extra work, and often not effective. You
should gradually implement processes and technology, either by
time-phasing the implementation, or by implementing small,
isolated
groups.
This will keep users involved and motivated, yet minimize the shock
to your organization. Step 6 follows easily from steps 2 through
5.When a project is very complex, with a lot of process change and
radically different software, you might find a pilot worthwhile. This
has the advantage of reducing impact on employees, getting them
involved and allowing room for comments and course correction

before affecting a large group of users. This also minimizes business

risk by ensuring that your business won't become reliant on new
processes
and
technology
prematurely.
You have completed this step when you have a clear plan for rolling
out new process and technology, one that is well embraced by
managers
and
employees
alike.
STEP
7-Implement
A
Smart
Rollout
Once you have a good rollout plan, kick it off with a strong
management message to ensure that your staff embraces your
plan. Provide customized training that ties the daily business
process with the technology. It isn't enough to know how to use
technology. Your users must know how to use it as a seamless part
of
their
daily
jobs.
Consider customized documentation that provides clear guidelines
in process and technology use, quick user guides for critical steps
and coaching. By using a combination of annotated screen shots
and flow diagrams, you can walk users through the steps in using
the technology to implement your process. You have completed this
step when your staff has accepted new processes and technology
and are using them to perform your routine business.
STEP 8 -- Sell And Reinforce The Value Of The Project
People resist change because they fear it will make their job harder
or will eliminate their jobs. Change forces people to regress to what
they know and avoid what is new. When implementing new process
and technology, you need users to embrace it. In addition to good
communications and employee involvement, salesmanship is
appropriate.
Sell the project and its value to the users, just as you would sell to
a client. A management dictate might get them to try to use a new
solution, but it won't get them to give their best effort and to be
patient
while
the
inevitable
bugs
are
worked
out.
You have completed this step when you have a sales campaign in
place that obtains user buy-in and support for your new initiative.
Summary
Bear in mind that a CRM project isn't successful until it has helped
you achieve your strategic goals. The eight steps discussed in this
article will help you fulfill this objective. It is certainly possible to
complete a rollout of CRM processes and technology without some
of
the
eight
steps.

The question you need to ask yourself is, "Does the successful
rollout of my new processes and technology guarantee that I will
achieve my strategic goals?" The eight steps have the advantage of
helping you reach your strategic goals and can be implemented for
minimal additional costs. Each step prepares the way for the
implementation of subsequent steps.

Jerry Sparger has over 30 years of experience using technology to solve

business problems. He has over 10 years of executive management
experience with Burroughs, GTE, Comsat and NCI Information Systems,
and 4 years of hands on management consulting in customer relationship
management, supply chain execution and knowledge management. He
brings domain expertise in sales, marketing, customer service and
general management to consulting assignments. He recently completed a
Master of Arts program in International Commerce with emphasis on
global strategic planning and the use of IT to enable global strategies.
Jerry can be reached at:jerry.sparger@verizon.net.

In order to set up and manage your relationships with individual

customers, you have to accomplish four basic things:

Identify customers individually. Obviously, you cant have a

relationship with an audience or a population, but only with an
individual. So before you can establish a relationship you must be

capable of identifying customers, one customer at a time. You don't

have to have each customer's name and address, but you need to
know that the customer on the phone right now is the same one who
was in the store yesterday, or on your Web site the day before that.
Differentiate customers, one from another. Customers differ from
each other, in terms of both their value to your business, and what
they need from your business. What a customer needs from you will
drive behaviors that you can observe. And behaviors will create (or
destroy) value.
Interact with customers. Almost by definition, a relationship depends
on some interaction between two parties. You want those
interactions to be cost-efficient, so drive more and more interactions
into more efficient channels. But you also want them to be effective - that is, to tell you something about the customer's needs or value,
for instance, that you can't learn simply by observing.
Customize for customers. The pay off step for managing a
customer relationship comes when your business behaves differently
toward that customer. We call this "customization" even though
we're not necessarily talking about it in terms of literally customizing
the product or service. But whenever I treat Customer A different
from Customer B, based on what I think I know about their

differences, I am "customizing" the customer's treatment.

If youve ever studied Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
academically, there's a good chance that these four steps identify,
differentiate, interact, and customize are already familiar to you. Martha
Rogers and I wrote and edited the CRM textbook for graduate-level
business students, Managing Customer Relationships: A Strategic
Framework, based on this I-D-I-C methodology. And at our consulting
firm, Peppers & Rogers Group, a large proportion of the work we do can
be understood in terms of dissecting how these tasks function (or dont
function) for a clients organization.
But a couple of other things are worth pointing out about the I-D-I-C
model of relationship management. The first two tasks identifying
customers and differentiating them are steps that a company can take
in the privacy of its own IT department. Your company has a database of
individual customer records, you track the transactions of individual
customers in order to better understand both their value and their needs,
and yet the customer herself never really has to participate in the

process. The customer, in fact, may not even be aware of the data you
are compiling.
By contrast, the third step interaction demands the customers
personal attention and participation. You cant interact unless theres
someone else on the other end of the interaction, right? And the fourth
step, customizing your behavior in some way to a particular customer,
also involves the individual customer directly, as the "recipient" of this
behavior.
So you could think of the first two steps of the I-D-I-C model as
analytical CRM, while the next two steps are operational CRM.
Analytical CRM is required to develop better customer insight, while
operational CRM is how you deliver a specificcustomer experience.

Think about the process of managing your own customers individual

relationships with your firm through your Web site, your loyalty
program, your contact center, at the point of purchase, or in after-sale
service.
In
upcoming
posts
Im
going
to
show
how
literally everything your company does, with respect to managing
individual customer relationships, can be understood in terms of how
these four I-D-I-C steps are executed.
The One Question Every Boss Should Ask
Dec 2 2014
By Jack and Suzy Welch
If there's one question that every leader must ask, its: Am I alone here?
Theres something about being a boss that incontrovertibly lends itself to
isolation; its as if every natural force is working to protect you from
reality. Good news travels up fast, but bad news festers in the trenches
where those who possess it hope they can make it go away before anyone
notices.

When youre a leader, you have to get aggressive against that creeping
insularity. The last thing you can afford to do is allow yourself to be
pushed into a corner where you end up plucking decisions out of the air.
Instead, youve got to create a culture of candor and an operating system
that together bring to light information from every nook and cranny of the
organization.
How? Every day spent behind your closed door is a day youre not out
learning about your people, processes, and market realities. Since you
cant rig your chair to give you electric shocks, how about a sign on your
desk that reads: Why are you here? Visit stores, trading floors, regional
offices, factories. And customers, especially the ornery ones.
Just as important as getting yourself outside is whom you surround
yourself with when youre inside. Yes, most leaders have a standing group
of advisers comprised of direct reports. But without an operating system
and culture that reward candor, such committees can easily fall into a
grind, with dialogue devolving into them telling you what they assume
you want to hear. You can alter that dynamic by reaching into the
organization and creating new sets of advisors depending on the
particular situation, independent of their level in the organization but with
expertise at their fingertips. Try to avoid the usual suspects, and make
sure you draw in people who are sworn change agents and inveterate
cranks. The best of them are usually onto something and have candor in
their veins. Ignore them at your peril.
Finally, leaders can prevent insularity by doing something that may feel,
at first, terribly counterintuitive. They must act like the dumbest person in
the room. Sure, as a boss, people will turn to you for all the answers, and
youll want to supply them. But instead, show people that your job is to
have all the questions. Greet every decision and proposal with What if?
and Why not? and How come? Then wallow in the answers, dropping
every artifice of formality during the ensuing conversation and debate.
In time, this approach will breed an atmosphere of vigorous engagement
and straight talk, drawing the best ideas out of the group, and yes, even
exposing a buried crisis that may be about to blow.

Jack Welch is Executive Chairman of the Jack Welch

Management
Institute at Strayer
University.Through
its
online MBA program, the Jack Welch Management Institute provides
students and organizations with the proven methodologies, immediately
actionable practices, and respected credentials needed to win in business.
Suzy Welch is a best-selling author, popular television commentator, and
noted business journalist. Her New York Times bestselling book, 10-1010: A Life Transforming Idea, presents a powerful decision-making
strategy for success at work and in parenting, love and friendship.
Together with her husband Jack Welch, Suzy is also co-author of the #1
international bestseller Winning, and its companion volume, Winning: The
Answers. Since 2005, they have written business columns for several
publications, including Business Week magazine, Thomson Reuters digital
platforms, Fortune magazine, and the New York Times syndicate.

How to Be Ridiculously Likable

If you want people to like you, be 100% comfortable in your own skin.
Hands down, there's no more attractive quality than a person who is
utterly comfortable with who they are. This quality transcends physical
appearance, intelligence, education, income or personality. It is the
cornerstone of success in business and in life.
Here's the best news of all: your internal "comfort level" is not fixed; you
can change it.
In the spirit of complete disclosure, if today you are insecure and selfcritical, overnight you are not going to change into George Clooney. But
you can certainly move in the right direction, and the more that you do,
the more other people will like you.

To make progress, you need to do three things:

1.) Accept your qualities you cannot change. Don't waste any psychic
energy on things such as how your parents raised you or whether your
feet are too large. (If this is a sensitive point for you, I apologize and
mean no offense.)
2.) Recognize your ability to change is FAR greater than you once
thought.You can't change your height, but you can change how hard you
work, how grateful you are for your blessings, how open you are to new
ideas, how you approach difficult challenges, and how willing you are to
pay the price for what you most want in life.
3.) Be persistent. It takes time to build confidence and competence.
Invest the time, even on days when you feel as though you are sliding
backwards.
To generalize a bit, no one likes incoherent thinking. We hate it when an
attractive person complains about being unattractive. We dislike hearing
someone make empty promises over and over again. Although we may
not understand exactly what's happening, we are not attracted to people
who have obvious internal conflicts.
Or at least I'm guessing that's what happens. All I know for sure is that
people love people who accept who they are. You know what I mean:
we've all seen people with obvious limitations utterly charm a room,
because they focus on their blessings rather than on their curses.
There are ten million theories (a rough guess) about ways to be likable;
most are hopelessly confusing and complex.
This one is pretty simple: accept yourself, and others will do the same.
Bruce Kasanoff is a ghostwriter for entrepreneurs. Learn more
atKasanoff.com. He is the author of How to Self-Promote without
Being a Jerk.
40 Incorrectly Used Words That Can Make You Look Dumb

While I like to think I know a little about business writing, I still fall into a
few word traps. (Not to mention a few clich traps.)

Take the words "who" and "whom." I rarely use "whom" when I should -even when spell check suggests "whom" I think it sounds pretentious. So
I use "who."
And then I sound dumb.
Just like one misspelled word can get your resume tossed onto the "nope"
pile, one incorrectly used word can negatively impact your entire
message. Fairly or unfairly, it happens -- so let's make sure it doesn't
happen to you.
Adverse and averse
Adverse means harmful or unfavorable: "Adverse market conditions
caused the IPO to be poorly subscribed." Averse refers to feelings of
dislike or opposition: "I was averse to paying $18 a share for a company
that generates no revenue."
But hey, feel free to have an aversion to adverse conditions.
Affect and effect
Verbs first. Affect means to influence: "Impatient investors affected our
roll-out date."Effect means to accomplish something: "The board effected
a sweeping policy change."
How you use effect or affect can be tricky. For example, a board
can affect changes by influencing them and can effect changes by directly
implementing them. Bottom line, use effect if you're making it happen,
and affect if you're having an impact on something that someone else is
trying to make happen.
As for nouns, effect is almost always correct: "Once he was fired he was
given 20 minutes to gather his personal effects." Affect refers to an
emotional state, so unless you're a psychologist you probably have little
reason to use it.
Bring and take
Both have to do with objects you move or carry. The difference is in the
point of reference: you bring things here and you take them there. You
ask people to bringsomething to you, and you ask people
to take something to someone or somewhere else.
Can you bring an appetizer to John's party? Nope.

Compliment and complement

Compliment means to say something nice. Complement means to add to,
enhance, improve, complete, or bring close to perfection.
I can compliment your staff and their service, but if you have no current
openings you have a full complement of staff. Or your new app may
complement your website.
For which I may decide to compliment you.
Criteria and criterion
"We made the decision based on one overriding criteria," sounds fairly
impressive but is also wrong.
Remember: one criterion, two or more criteria. Or just use "reason" or
"factors" and you wont have to worry about getting it wrong.
Discreet and discrete
Discreet means careful, cautious, showing good judgment: "We made
discreet inquiries to determine whether the founder was interested in
selling her company."
Discrete means individual, separate, or distinct: "We analyzed data from a
number of discrete market segments to determine overall pricing levels."
And if you get confused, remember you don't use discretion to work
through sensitive issues; you exercise discretion.
Elicit and illicit
Elicit means to draw out or coax. Think of elicit as the mildest form of
extract. If one lucky survey respondent will win a trip to the Bahamas, the
prize is designed to elicit responses.
Illicit means illegal or unlawful, and while I suppose you could elicit a
response at gunpoint ... you probably shouldn't.
Farther and further
Farther involves a physical distance: "Florida is farther from New York
than Tennessee." Further involves a figurative distance: "We can take our
business plan no further."
So, as we say in the South (and that "we" has included me), "I don't trust
you any farther than I can throw you," or, "I ain't gonna trust you no
further."

Fewer and less

Use fewer when referring to items you can count, like fewer hours or
fewer dollars.
Use less when referring to items you cant (or havent tried to) count,
like less time or less money.
Imply and infer
The speaker or writer implies, which means to suggest. The listener or
reader infers,which means to deduce, whether correctly or not.
So I might imply you're going to receive a raise. And you might infer that
a pay increase is imminent. (But not eminent, unless the raise will
somehow be prominent and distinguished.)
Insure and ensure
This one's easy. Insure refers to insurance. Ensure means to make sure.
So if you promise an order will ship on time, ensure that it actually
happens. Unless, of course, you plan to arrange for compensation if the
package is damaged or lost -- then feel free to insure away.
(While there are exceptions where insure is used, the safe move is to
use ensurewhen you will do everything possible to make sure something
happens.)
Irregardless and regardless
Irregardless appears in some dictionaries because it's widely used to
mean without regard to or without respect to... which is also
what regardless means.
In theory the ir-, which typically means "not," joined up with regardless,
which means "without regard to," makes irregardless mean "not without
regard to," or more simply, "with regard to."
Which probably makes it a word that does not mean what you think it
means.
So save yourself a syllable and just say regardless.
Number and amount
I goof these up all the time. Use number when you can count what you
refer to: "Thenumber of subscribers who opted out increased last
month." Amount refers to a quantity of something that can't be counted:
"The amount of alcohol consumed at our last company picnic was
staggering."

Of course it can still be confusing: "I can't believe the number of beers I
drank," is correct, but so is, "I can't believe the amount of beer I drank."
The difference is you can count beers, but beer, especially if you were
way too drunk to keep track, is an uncountable total and
makes amount the correct usage.
Precede and proceed
Precede means to come before. Proceed means to begin or continue.
Where it gets confusing is when an -ing comes into play. "The proceeding
announcement was brought to you by..." sounds fine, but preceding is
correct since the announcement came before.
If it helps, think precedence: anything that takes precedence is more
important and therefore comes first.
Principal and principle
A principle is a fundamental: "Our culture is based on a set of shared
principles."Principal means primary or of first importance: "Our startup's
principal is located in NYC." (Sometimes you'll also see the
plural, principals, used to refer to executives or relatively co-equals at the
top of a particular food chain.)
Principal can also refer to the most important item in a particular set:
"Our principal account makes up 60% of our gross revenues."
Principal can also refer to money, normally a sum that was borrowed, but
can be extended to refer to the amount you owe -- hence principal and
interest.
If you're referring to laws, rules, guidelines, ethics, etc., use principle. If
you're referring to the CEO or the president (or an individual in charge of
a high school), use principal.
Slander and libel
Don't like what people say about you? Like slander, libel refers to making
a false statement that is harmful to a person's reputation.
The difference lies in how that statement is expressed. Slanderous
remarks are spoken while libelous remarks are written and published
(which means defamatory tweets could be considered libelous, not
slanderous).
Keep in mind what makes a statement libelous or slanderous is its
inaccuracy, not its harshness. No matter how nasty a tweet, as long as
it's factually correct it cannot be libelous. Truth is an absolute defense to
defamation; you might wish a customer hadn't said something derogatory

about your business... but if what that customer said is true then you
have no legal recourse.
And now for those dreaded apostrophes:
It's and its
It's is the contraction of it is. That means it's doesn't own anything. If
your dog is neutered (the way we make a dog, however much against his
or her will, gender neutral), you don't say, "It's collar is blue." You say,
"Its collar is blue."
Here's an easy test to apply. Whenever you use an apostrophe, uncontract the word to see how it sounds. Turn it's into it is: "It's sunny,"
becomes, "It is sunny."
Sounds good to me.
They're and their
Same with these: They're is the contraction for they are. Again, the
apostrophe doesn't own anything. We're going to their house, and I sure
hope they're home.
Who's and whose
"Whose password hasn't been changed in six months?" is correct. Use the
non-contracted version of whos, like, "Who is (the non-contracted version
of who's) password hasn't been changed in six months?" and you sound a
little silly.
You're and your
One more. You're is the contraction of you are. Your means you own it;
the apostrophe in you're doesn't own anything.
For a long time a local nonprofit displayed a huge sign that said, "You're
Community Place."
Hmm. "You Are Community Place"? No, probably not.

Did You Know That You Have a Personal Assistant?

Did you know that you have personal assistant? If not, you two should
meet.

Right now.
That personal assistant is your email program.
You are probably shaking your head or rolling your eyes in disbelief
wondering if you just read the last sentence correctly. Is it even
conceivable that your email program could ever be that helpful, let
alone, your personal assistant? Your inbox is a constant source of angst
and frustration. It creates work for you a lot of work. It certainly
does not reduce your workload like a personal assistant.
I want you to start to think about your email program differently
especially as we gear up for a busy, end of year, flood of emails. What if
your inbox could actually reduce your workload? What if it could be your
personal assistant?
In writing my new book, Work Simply, coming out in January, I realized
that people were significantly underutilizing the technology tools available
to them in their email programs. They were overlooking the fact that their
email programs are designed to support and assist them in completing
work and accomplishing goals.
So, I am asking you to suspend your disbelief about the capabilities of
your email program. (Suspend your belief at least until you have finished
reading this post.) Because today is the day that you meet your new
personal assistant.
Let me get you two re-acquainted; let me show you what your assistant
can do for you.
Ask for what you need. Even an exemplary personal assistant cannot
read your mind. Neither can your inbox. It is time to starting asking what
your email program can do for you instead of just assuming that all it can
do is consume hours of your day. You are actually in control. Start asking
your email platform to do more for you. It can automatically file your
messages, send automated responses and schedule tasks. If you want it
do something and you are not sure if it can, just ask. Ask Google. You will
be pleasantly surprised to learn that the answer is most likely yes. As my
former sales manager told me, if you dont ask, you are guaranteed a no.

If you ask, you have a 50% chance of a yes. Go for the yes. Ask your
email program for what you need.
Halt interruptions. Assistants are gatekeepers. They do not allow
interruptions. Why shouldnt your inbox also be a gatekeeper? Use
AwayFind, an application that works across email platforms. It will halt
your daily barrage of email notifications, except for the ones that include
senders and keywords you designate as urgent. Also, turn off all of the
new message alerts those pings, buzzes, and pop ups that interrupt
you. You do not have to be interrupted. Let your assistant halt
interruptions.
Schedule your meetings. Assistants manage calendars. Ask your email
program to help you schedule your meetings. Eliminate the back and
forth emails trying to determine a time to meet. Click on the meeting
shortcut icon (available in Outlook and Outlook for Mac) and immediately
turn that email into a meeting request. Now, you will have access to that
persons calendar (if they shared it) and you can schedule the meeting.
As an added bonus, the text of the original email is pasted into the body
of the meeting request so everyone has background information on the
meeting.
Remind you of your pending requests. Assistants help you keep track
of all of your open tasks and pending requests. Ask your email program to
remind you of the requests you have made via email where you are
waiting on a response. Automate your follow-up by setting up and using
the waiting for rule.
Heres how it works: When you send an email where you need a response
from the recipient, cc: yourself on that email. That email will then be
automatically saved in a folder you have designated for all of your follow
ups. As new messages are automatically added to this folder, the numeral
indicating how many messages are in the folder will become bold. No
longer will you spend hours searching through sent messages or trying to
remember if you have followed up on your open requests. Your personal
assistant will remind you.
Prioritize incoming messages. Assistants support you in prioritizing
messages. Let your email program prioritize your incoming messages.
Color code your incoming message by sender priority. For example, you
might color code your manager red, your top clients in green and turn the
messages where you are cc:ed to light gray. So, when you open your

inbox, you can quickly scan looking for the most urgent messages, those
from your manager or key clients.
Surprised? You do actually have a personal assistant. And that assistant is
readily accessible right at your fingertips.
Its time you realized that your email program can do more for you. So,
let it. Then, you can get back to doing what you do best.
What can you do now?
Google one action you wish your email program could
perform for you.Ask for what you need. If you dont ask, you will
not receive.

Download AwayFind and turn off all of the new email

message alerts.
Set up custom rules. Set up the waiting for rule and color code
your incoming messages.
Connect with me on social media! I'd love to hear from
you! Say hi via Twitter at @thecarsontate or on Facebook at Carson
Tate; I offer more tips and ideas to take back control of your inbox
on a daily basis.
Pre-order Work Simply for additional ideas, tools and
strategies to take back control of your inbox.

This post is the fourth in a series of five posts about email management.
Do You Need to Switch Jobs to Advance Your Career?

Given how much time most of us devote to our work, we want it to have
meaning. Instead of just plugging away at jobs day in and out, we want
careers. Through them, we hope to leave a legacy that is worthy of a
lifetime of work.
Its almost impossible to develop a great career without changing jobs
along the way. Without change, theres little room for personal growth.
The best careers sometimes come from changing industries, changing
geography or changing job functions. Other times, they require switching
companies or even starting over. Truth be known, staying put often
requires the greatest change of all changing ourselves. In career
development, as in evolutionary biology, Change or die! is the
imperative.

Father Greg Boyle, the Jesuit priest who founded Homeboy Industries has
dedicated his life to working with former gang members in the toughest
neighborhoods of Los Angeles. He provides job training in the
organizations various enterprises. He started out with a simple bakery,
and then expanded it to include a farmers market, a dairy, plumbing
services, diners and cafs. His own career objective has been remarkably
constant over the years: Save and change lives. And while the jobs to be
done have extended into new industries, products and services, his core
mission giving former gang members a way out of the cycle of violence
has never wavered. He found his career early on only the jobs have
changed.
In our workaday world, our missions and ambitions might not be as
constant, clear or inspiring as Father Boyles. To home in on a worthy
objective may require significant introspection, including asking, What
would I do with my life if I didnt need a paycheck?
Its as good a question as any to get you to brainstorm ideas for a career
plan. But its not enough. Once youve answered this question, you have
to consider whether anyone would pay someone to do what youd be
willing to do for free. And if they would, are you good enough to get paid
for doing those things? (For example, Id play Major League Baseball for
free; but there are very few slots for people who cant run, hit or throw!)
Still, if possible, consider a career thats a close cousin to what youd do
for nothing.
Then ask yourself whats keeping you from moving toward that career. Is
it your present job? Your employer? The industry youre in? Your pay?
Your boss? Your future prospects? When you figure out the key obstacles,
decide whether you need to go outside your current employer or industry
to pursue the career you want.
If you decide you can stay put, contemplate career paths available within
the enterprise that currently employs you. And keep in mind that just this
past summer, Rodney McMullen, who started 36 years earlier as a stock
boy at Kroger was named the CEO of the $100 billion enterprise.

If nothing with your current employer interests you, consider an elegant

move i.e. one that doesnt hurt your employer, that doesnt involve
going to or becoming a competitor and that secures a great
recommendation and a permanent invitation to alumni get-togethers.
If youre seriously contemplating a career change or active career
development, consider the following:
1. Know yourself. Get an evaluation of your skills, values and
interests to better understand how you fit with the career that
interests you. Use assessments from supervisors, peers, teachers or
coaches to understand your skills and proclivities. And on the job,
regularly seek feedback wherever and whenever you can find it.
2. Study up. Seriously research the business or industry you think
might be right for you attend trade shows, conferences or
functional training sessions. Read industry journals. Consider formal
classes. And above all, talk with successful people in the career that
attracts you. See how they got there, what prices theyve paid, what
they like about it and what they dont. If youre interested in
switching industries, hang around some you think you might like. In
spending time with politicians, for example, I found that I would not
generally like having them as my colleagues, so I changed playing
fields at a young age.
3. Manage expectations. If you switch careers, be realistic. Youll
likely need to start at the bottom. This could mean less
compensation, lower status or fewer direct reports; so be ready to
make this investment.
4. Broaden your horizons. Pick from as long a list of target
industries, functional duties or companies as you can develop, and
ask friends and family who they know. Warm leads are always better
than cold ones.
5. Dont be in a rush. If it takes an extra year in a 40-year career to
find the right path for you, dont be surprised and dont panic. You
dont want to make a career change only to find that the grass was
not greener on the other side of the fence after all.
6. Ride developing waves. The best careers are often ones where
demographics or disruptive technologies are on your side. Wherever

there is growth and profitability, there are usually rapid career

development opportunities as well.
7. Pick your moment. Career changes can be stressful, so if your
family members have health problems or you dont have resources
to tide you over, think about taking a bit more time. I had a PhD
agronomist friend who decided he wanted to repot in new soil, and
by carefully choosing his moment, he became a commercial lender to
farmers before ending up as a bank president.
8. Think about starting your own business. This can be stressful,
but its a good option if you have a clear plan, the resources you
need and a fallback if things dont work out. Building a business is
hard work, but for the right person, it can represent an exceptionally
gratifying career.
9. Dont do it for the money. You wont find fulfillment from money
alone. It may be worth changing jobs or employers for an increase in
pay, but making a career change should be for reasons that will
sustain you over a lifetime and give you a sense of legacy at the end
of the day.
On Mary Lou Quinlans 45th birthday, she asked herself, What do I love
to do? As an already successful CEO of an advertising firm, she set out
on her own to interpret female consumers for corporate clients, writing
books along the way. Before long, shed written a one-act play and found
herself performing as an actor in it. For her, repotting meant following
passions that couldnt be fulfilled in her CEO role.
I did the same thing at age 45, and for the past 22 years Ive never
looked back on teaching as a second career.
****
To see upcoming posts from Joel in your LinkedIn news feed, connect to
his account by clicking the "Follow" button at the top right of the page.
@JoelCPeterson's recent posts:
Can You Afford to Fail?
Should You Join a Big Company or a Startup
What To Do About a Boss From Hell
Photo: DNY59 / iStockphoto.com
Olive Garden could have done the easy thing, maybe even the expected
thing.

When it was reported that Matt Tribe, a customer in Ogden, Utah, was
using his Never Ending Pasta Pass to feed local homeless people, my
initial thought was this guys heart is in the right place, but the
companys going to have an issue with it.
The Never Ending Pasta Pass promotion, in case youre not a big fan of
chain Italian fare, ran earlier this fall and let customers fill up on unlimited
pasta, bread sticks and salad for seven weeks, for an up-front cost of
$100. Figure if you dine at Olive Garden 10 times during that period, the
promotion pays for itself.
Matt Tribe, however, went a lot more than that. In fact, according to ABC
News, he got take-out twice a day and gave it to friends and family.
Nothing specifically prohibited using the promotion for meals to-go.

After a while, he hit on an idea: why not order out, and give the meals to
those in the most need? A friend helped him, and they videotaped their
social project as they handed out care packages. He called it "Random
Acts of Pasta."
Its a heartwarming story, especially when Tribe relates how one
homeless woman immediately said she was going to share her bounty
with a friend. So as I read, and knowing how corporate America often
behaves when dollars are at stake, I feared the other tortellini was going
to drop.
This is not how the Never Ending Pasta Pass promotion was intended to
be used, nor do we encourage the passing along of our food items to third
parties, as we cannot guarantee its quality or safety once it leaves our
premises, I could easily imagine a corporate spokesperson saying.
But in a comment particularly well-timed for the holiday season, an Olive
Garden rep said We applaud Matt for his generous use of the Pasta Pass,
and we're proud to play a small part in his powerful story. The
spokesperson went on to note that Tribes actions aligned with the

companys own harvest program, which encouraged restaurants to

donate over 4.2 million meals to local food banks.
I too applaud Tribes spin on this promotion. And kudos to the Darden
Group, Olive Garden's parent, for taking the unexpected path, focusing on
an unintended social benefit of its promotion instead of potential lost
revenue or horrors! copycats. While the Never Ending Pasta Pass is
past, there might come a time when the company chooses to renew it. If
it does, no doubt it will go in eyes wide open to the fact that it might be
feeding more than just its own gluttonous patrons, and its down with
that.
I think Ill take my family to Olive Garden this week.
Gary Frisch is founder and president of Swordfish Communications, a fullservice public relations agency in Laurel Springs, N.J. Visit Swordfish
online atwww.swordfishcomm.com.