Mistake # 83: Text message in the wrong places

Are there etiquette rules out there for adults on text messaging? Anywhere? How about if you are at dinner with your boss and you receive a text message? Should you answer back in between bites of shrimp or prime ribs?

I say nay, nay. I was at dinner not too long ago and my direct-report received a text. He puts his fork down and answers away.  Head down to his lap to poke his fat fingers on the phone’s buttons, I’m still talking to his bald spot on his head. What’s with that?! Is that really necessary?! What happens when he’s at his desk and in the middle of a conference call on the office phone. Does he do that too? It’s unlikely that it is from a customer, because, let’s be honest, what customer would text message a representative for more information?!

Here are three rules for text messaging for employees:

* Text messages are like emails. Answer them when you can, but don’t stop the train to do so. Take a break and go out to a hallway or the work break room to answer your text message.

* Don’t text message in front of your boss. If you do, there are likely to be questions on how you are spending your time–at the computer answering customer questions, or on your phone answering your wife’s questions on what color she should color her hair.

*Don’t ever text message at dinner with clients or your boss. Ever. If you do, it will look like you are not paying attention to the conversation and you have other things to do tend to. “Dad, did u deposit my $ yet? I want 2 go 2 the muveez w/Jak!”

What are your rules for text messaging at work?

Mistake # 82: Create an office mess

My office—and the work stations around me—are a mess! I need a day to clean my space. I’ve got soda cans (due to the cold caffeine needed throughout the day), piles that I have yet time to organize, etc. In all the years (two to be exact) that I have been at my current job, I have never even had time to hang pictures! My office looks worse than a doctor’s examining room. Help!

What does your workspace look like?

Mistake # 81: Un-motivate and discourage your teams

Modeling. As a manager, you need to model your behavior to your staff. Motivate them and encourage them in order to drive high performance. Sounds so easy, doesn’t it?

Cripes! I eat lunch at my desk everyday because I never have time to go out with an employee and smell the roses. I jump in when they need me and end up putting fires out all day long. How is that modeling? I am frustrated with myself.

I read the Five Positive Traits that are Exhibited by A Successful Sales Manager. The first one, Lead By Example, is the hardest. You make one little mistake and they all know it and they spread it around in the company like wildfire. It’s so hard to be a manager. As much as I try to get better at it, sometimes I feel like a failure.

Well, enough already!

Here are three ways, and three goals, that I have for the remainder of the year so that I can motivate and encourage my staff:

* Take one employee to lunch once a week to talk. How’s their family? How are things going? What can we do to get better?

* Hold more department meetings – at least twice monthly.

* Develop a sales incentive program to launch 2010 to drive sales, bring moral up, and do some crazy, zany, fun stuff to make people laugh!

I can get myself more focused to do these! Really!

…I’ll keep you posted.

Mistake # 80: Hide

Okay. It’s obvious that I keep my identity hidden and quiet. I have several reasons for that. First of all, I started this blog as a result of a very horrible work experience with a company that went south very fast. The management had no clue and emotionally it was an experience I never want to repeat. Just about every person in the sales and marketing has left since I left. Well, one is still there. But, she doesn’t count. Long story, and I won’t go there.

Anywho, I started a job with a great company thereafter and am very happy. I learned a lot from my previous employments and want to share that. Funny how you see things differently when you are completely outside of them. How does that happen? I think it’s because you get so sucked into a job that you don’t even have any perspective after a while.

But, I am careful of not revealing too much here and respectful of who I work for, who works for me, etc., so that others can learn from the many mistakes that I have made, as well as other managers who I reported to. Let’s face it, no one is perfect. Every company has it’s fair share of disasters, fiascos, frustrations, and people who just make you go crazy!

I noticed an article in this week’s CNN site where bloggers who have come out have lost their jobs.

I’m not sure that that is the answer. I don’t believe in ragging on people who I work for, or who work for me. Where you work is really sacred ground, and workers need to respect that.

Hope this all makes sense!

Mistake # 79: Create a sweat-shop environment

I signed off for someone to take vacation this past week. She is sales support and cranks getting quotes out and orders processed. However, all hell broke out. Someone (from another department) even recommended me calling her back from her vacation to help the overloaded staff.

What?! Did I hear that right? We’re not curing cancer, doing brain surgery, or landing men on the moon. We are selling products and processing orders for those products. Yes, it was chaos. Yes, it was not good timing. But when is timing ever great?

I realize that, as a manager, I need to focus on work flow, when people should, and should not, take vacations. I also realize that I have final authority to deny vacations at any point in time.

But even I had to be out that week (taking my son to move into his dorm as a first year college freshman); and another sales manager had to take her mother for testing and needed to be out most of one day. Further, the President of the company was out for two days at the end of the week to fly to a family wedding on the east coast; and the CEO was out for two weeks during this time (after being back only one week in the office after his vacation) for a family wedding on the west coast, traveling with his family, and seeing the California sights.

So I it really wasn’t necessary to even consider bringing this person back from her vacation. I think the company will still be standing when she returns on Monday. In fact, I’m certain of it!

Mistake # 78: Market via direct mail only

Those were the days. Back in the 70s, 80, and early 90s, you could mail catalogs and marketing pieces to your hearts content, sit on your hands, and watch the returns come in. Oddly enough, several of my clients who are high volume marketers, until recently, were still using this model. They just couldn’t figure out how to readjust their marketing strategy. Honestly! As if they didn’t see the signs about nine years ago!

Certainly, we may see the USPS gone by then. The post office has almost put itself out of business by setting postal compliance with NCOA (National Change of Address), and other Move Update requirements. Now,  postal workers may be going to a five-day delivery with fear of losing more than $6 billion in revenues.

But what will marketing look like in the future? Francis Anderson’s blog, Making a Connection, claims marketing may hit a wall by 2020, indicating that marketers will need to compete for a much smaller share of a large market. Tim Ferriss, author of the 4-Hour Work Week, advocates marketing your products and services to a very narrow and niche market. Both Anderson and Ferris could be considered true visionaries!

What caught my eye this week was the NY Times article on the growth of marketers moving into statistics. Moving into Web 2.0 and the digital world, companies are now turning to statisticians for turning their data into meaningful information to chew on, then move forward with products and services.

I don’t have any profound assumptions or answers to this movement. All I know is that I’m going out in about ten minutes to buy a lottery ticket!

Mistake # 77: Keep it complex and accomplish losing market share

It’s been evident after the release of iPod and iPhone that Apple is stealing more market share away from Microsoft. It’s been reported last week that Microsoft has just closed one of the worst quarters in its history.  

Apple, led by Steve Jobs, shaved off most of the complexity and made things much more simple by focusing on cell phone and MP3 space, in addition to their PCs. Microsoft can’t handle the competition. It is still too complex and cannot retain a focus. And, clearly Microsoft is unable to meet Apple’s match on cell phone or MP3 products.

Google is also struggling. The economy, yes, has much to do with it since people and businesses overall are still holding back on spending.

Google, too, is focusing on too much, creating many divisions within the corporation by taking on libraries, maps, utilities, and other off-shoots that are making Microsoft look like a simple cookie jar.

So, as an iPhone user, Mac lover, and Apple advocate, I promote being just like Apple. Keep it simple, stupid! Stay good at the core of what you do, do it well, perfect it, and market it well.

As for Google, well… I still use Yahoo!

Stay focused!

Mistake # 76: Make it difficult

Seth Godin wrote in his blog about the reason why riding a unicycle is difficult. Not one, including me, likes to fail. It’s too hard, actually. It also requires mental preparation and focus. He advocates creating non-unicycle moments for your customers related to the products and services you offer.

It sounds so simple. But how often do we sell these to our customers without any sense of the customers’ perceptions? Is it too hard to grasp? The moment your product or service fails – just once – you are dead in the water.

It could also go the other direction, and be too good to be true! How do you create the balance between unicycle and non-unicycle products and services for your customer?

Mistake # 75: Turn old and die

This past week, GM announced it is emerging out of filing for bankruptcy. Over the past many months, the government spent $50 billion bailing GM out and now has a stake in the company, as well as GM shaving off manufacturing plants and let hundreds of workers go. 

So how does this company resurrect itself into the “new” 21^st Century? Will it have a new logo? New corporate name? Some are predicting so.

My wireless service happens to be AT&T. When I called customer service to ask a question last night, the representative answered with, “thank you for calling the ‘new’ AT&T.’ 

 Wait! “New”?? I didn’t know there was an “old” AT&T!

 It may have to be with the fact that they are creating a new customer service image. After talking with the representative, I felt as if I had been right there on a sofa next to him, with a glass of wine, chit-chatting about how my day was, how many kids I had, how work was a bear today, blah, blah, blah. Oh! And, by the way, can I ask you some questions about that last invoice?

In fact, there were spam texts on my bill that he immediately stopped and credited my account. (Having twin 18-year-old boys on my account who text can create a mother’s confusion on what is the text charge and what is the subscription to a game charge!)

I almost didn’t want to hang up. He was just too easy to talk to. Maybe that’s the “new” in the “new” AT&T.

But I wonder if others like me perceive AT&T as the “new” AT&T. And, how long will it take before GM becomes a totally new company.

 I’m going to have a cup of coffee and think about that one.

Mistake # 74: Don’t hire sales savvy people

The news of the day (yesterday, July 3) was that Sarah Palin is resigning as governor of Alaska. The news of the week for me was that I had hired and just brought on board two incredible sophisticated sales people for my team.

Unfortunately, I had to fly to a particular metropolitan area to fire an individual a week ago and could not announce one of these new hires until I had let the other go.

Letting people go is always painful.  I did the best I could knowing that this individual has a family with family needs, and, let’s face it: who wants to be let go? It’s never a good thing.

However, I was totally convinced that this person was working another business on the side. I just wasn’t getting the production and results we needed. Plus, he was always arguing with me.  Being Italian, I love to banter when things just go right. But there was a difference: he was fighting me every step of the way.  He said he knew the industry and he said he had contacts. I saw no results of either. Plus, he couldn’t put a proposal together to save his life. He had an MBA. Go figure.

So now I have two knowledgeable, driven, and motivated people who know the industry, brought in a bank of contacts with them, and jumped in with only an inch of learning curve needed to run out there and bring it in.

Maybe I have hired one of Fast Company’s top 100 creative people in business!

Already my stress level is down 150%.