Harley's Blog

How long was it since you last had a ‘big moment’; since you felt really good for just being alive? We associate these feelings with life changing events but in fact they don’t need to be. Of course there are those key moments: the first kiss at Summer camp, passing one’s driving test, getting that first important job after leaving college, and for many the biggest of all,  the birth of a child.  These are the big moments that make our lives our own.  But how often do we encourage Big Moments at work? 

As leaders, do we recognize big moments in the careers of those we have influence over and do we encourage them?  For many a simple meeting with a director or senior manager can be a big moment, motivating them to try harder and to excel in their career.  But it is also important to remember that the injection of exhilaration and motivation gradually wears off and the reality of daily life kicks in again.  A leader needs not to forget this and to ensure that they do their best to create a structure in their department or organization that can at least try to keep motivation alive by encouraging considerate acts that make people feel special, needed and appreciated.

By giving someone the opportunity to present their findings at the next management meeting, or simply recognizing that for the person you are interviewing that this is probably a big moment for them, is the first step to creating more of them.  It is all too easy for us to forget the impact we have on others and that how we behave can make a real difference.  After all where would we be today without the lucky breaks, the moments when people gave us opportunities we may not have expected?

Inspiring others to excel requires us to give up some of our own precious space and to share it. Giving a junior the chance to open an important meeting is a natural thing to do, how else will the next generation ever learn?

Our lives are made up of a series of big moments. If we have the opportunity to inject a few into the lives and careers of others, then we owe it to ourselves to do it, without desiring any more in return than the satisfaction of observing and understanding the effect it has on the lucky recipient.

Have a good week,

Harley

Firstly a big ‘Thank you’ to all my contributors for taking over my chair while I was away this summer, the break was much appreciated and your input very welcome!  (If you would like to contribute a blog next summer, or be available as a stand in, please feel free to contact me).

Last week the British athletics' team won more medals in the European Championships than ever before, coming only third to
Russia and France. But among their jubilant celebrations and
enthusiastic flag waving, the coach of the English team, Charles Van Commenee was still not happy!

He told reporters: "The women were a disgrace and the men were not much better,"  he then went on to say how there was still much work to do and that he would have been embarrassed had the British team not won the medals they did.

And when you might begin to think that he is being too harsh, you might be surprised to learn that the team having nothing but respect for this very impressive coach.  He is passionate and speaks his mind and indeed has been described as ‘fiery and eccentric’ but he is also described as ‘calm, influential and really sensitive to a person’s needs’.

And so it is, coaches and leaders must not be afraid to show genuine disappointment when an individual or team has screwed up.  If you are passionate about what you and your team is doing, it would be rather strange not to show it, especially at a time of sub standard performance. 

However, the point is that great coaches, like great leaders, also know how to work on an individual level; one to one.  They know how to listen and to understand not only the words they hear but the context from which they come.  And by doing so, they can quickly decide what it is that those in their care really need.  And by connecting at that level they inevitably win the trust and respect that is so essential in any coaching/leadership role.

So the next time you think about celebrating an achievement, don’t be afraid to mention the bad points too; the wasted opportunities the areas where things could have gone better – speak your mind.  

There is nothing worse in business than a leader that goes around praising everyone, even when their team clearly has not performed to their best ability.  After all failure is failure and all you can hope to get from it is a lesson on what not to do next time.

Have a good week,

Harley

Today, we present you Tamara Gielen, who will talk about her passion for email marketing. She shares some lessons learned and talks about the synergybetween email and social media.

Back in 1999, when Harley interviewed me for the role of sales coordinator at Eonic Systems, he immediately figured out that I was a marketer, not a sales person. And hired me as a marketing assistant.  Eleven years later, I am now recognized as an authority in the field of email marketing, speaking at conferences across the world.

Email marketing is my passion, and it has been since 2001 when I sent out my very first email campaign inviting customers and prospects to an event.

With social media being all the hype these days, I'm often asked if email marketing is still working. And I can tell you with confidence, yes, it is. Companies are not likely to drop email in favor of social media, first of all because not everyone uses social media, but also because everyone has different communication preferences.
As a marketer you have to provide your content wherever your audience is consuming content: in the inbox, on your blog or in an RSS feed, on Twitter, on Facebook etc.

Email and social media are really a match made in heaven. Twitter, Facebook and blogs are excellent places to build relationships with people and get them to sign up to your newsletter. Email is a great channel to help move prospects through the sales funnel, to get people to buy from you or to increase customer loyalty.

Social media are also excellent channels to drive people to from your emails to continue the conversation. One company that does this extremely well is Hubspot (http://www.hubspot.com). Read their blog, sign up to their newsletter and take notes.

When it comes down to it, both email and social media are about content and relationship building. If you don't provide value in your tweets, your Facebook updates, your blog posts and your email messages, you'll lose followers, fans, readers and subscribers.

A short story:  re the early days of e-mail marketing and the mistakes that people still make today.

Back in the early days (2001), like everyone else at that time, we used Outlook to send out the message to 500 names at the time (because that was the maximum number of addresses I was allowed to enter in the bcc field).

I'll spare you the details, but we very soon got blocked by the mail server at one of our biggest customers. Even messages from our sales and support teams couldn't get through anymore. They had blocked our entire domain. And it took quite a while for them to allow our emails again. Needless to say that sales was a little upset with us. Yes, that's an understatement.

So we decided we needed a dedicated platform to send out our email campaigns. Not only would that prevent the issue from happening again (because the emails would be sent from a different IP address and mail server), we would also be able to see who had opened the emails we sent and who had clicked on our links. If you've ever hit the send button on an email campaign, you know how fascinating it is to watch these numbers go up immediately after you launch a campaign.

Fast forward to 2010. I still see a lot of companies using Outlook to send their email campaigns and everytime I come across one, I cringe. Why would you risk getting blacklisted when sending out an email campaign through a dedicated email service provider costs peanuts?

Apart from that, I'm glad to see that more and more companies are starting to use email marketing but it also means that competition in the inbox is tough. You literally have 1-2 seconds to convince someone to open your email and once they've opened it, you have less than 5 seconds to get them to click. So you better make sure your message is good.  Each and every message has to provide value to the subscriber. If it doesn't, they'll unsubscribe or, even worse, they'll mark your emails as spam.  Send them 3 emails they don't find interesting, and you can be sure that they'll be quick to delete the 4th one without even opening it.

So your email campaign is only as good as the last message you send out. Sending one message to everyone isn't working anymore. In fact, it never worked. Just as you would do with postal mailings, you need to send the right message at the right time to the right person. And that's easier said than done. It requires integration of databases, it requires vision and strategy, it requires a deep understanding of who your audiences are and what their needs are at various stages of the buying cycle.

You also need their permission if you want to add them to your list. Not only is that a legal requirement in the EU, it's also good practice to only send emails to people that have given you explicit permission to do so. I don't care that the law allows you to send emails to your customers without having permission. It's a bad idea. You'll find out quick enough why that's a bad idea when you get blacklisted and you have to prove to the blacklist owner that you have permission to send emails to the people that reported your emails as spam. Always ask permission first.

I could go on and on and on about email marketing but I'm sure I'd bore you to death :) I guess I'm blessed to have found a niche that I am so passionate about and where work never feels like work.
If you're interested in reading more about email marketing, I invite you to check out my blog  (http://www.b2bemailmarketing.com).

Tamara's biography

Tamara Gielen is an independent email marketing consultant. She helps companies use email marketing to more effectively reach their goals and objectives. She is the author of "Be Relevant" (http://www.b2bemailmarketing.com), a well-known email marketing best practices blog, and the founder of the "Email Marketer's Club" (http://www.emailmarketersclub.com), a community of almost 4,000 email marketers from all over the world.

Today you will be taken into a very meaningful story by Kurt De Ruwe, CIO at Bayer MaterialScience, Kurt holds a solid track record of delivery and innovation both for business process and IT technology related activities.

Kurt's Blog:

When Harley asked me to write a blog I initially thought about writing about the difference in the sales and marketing approach of two big software companies.  One has good software but has sales people that are not able to explain and sell it, the other has sales and marketing people that are capable of selling hot air but the software does not always work as they make it appear.

I read Harley’s blog almost weekly and for me a good blog needs to leave something behind.  A little teaser in your brain that in the days after you have read, pops up now and again and makes you think or makes you dream. 

A recent event reminded me of how important family is and this is why you will now get something totally different.

Since 3 years I work during the week in Germany and return to spend the weekend in Belgium.  My wife handles nearly everything but when it comes down to mathematics and helping the boys this is my task.  Some time ago my eldest son had a big test on a Wednesday and on that Monday we spent nearly 4 hours using Skype, MSN, webcams… to get him to a point where he got the concepts of what he had to learn.  The Tuesday afternoon he called me almost in panic as he still had not grasped it.  I cancelled my afternoon meetings and drove to Belgium.  We sat down and surprisingly 15 minutes later he got it.  He was embarrassed because I drove so far but for me it was worth it. 

Before you start seeing me as ‘Super Dad’, I must admit that this is one of the rare occasions where I put everything aside to help him out.

Often we sacrifice a lot of things for our career and unfortunately it always is when it is too late or nearly too late that we realize this.  The remainder of the blog is a text I received myself which I would like to share with you.  Hopefully it will trigger something.   You can stop reading here but if you continue you need to read to the end.  I do not know the author but I relate to it from time to time.  If you recognize yourself in it then know that you have the power to do something about it.  I wish that my sons, when they were 5 or 6 years old, would have asked me for 7 Euros.

A man came home late from work, tired and irritated. His five year old son sat in front of the door waiting for him:
Son: “Daddy may I ask you something?”
Father: “Yes, of course, what is it?”
Son: “Daddy, how much you earn per hour?”
Father: “That none of your business, why do you ask such things?” said the angry father.
Son: “I just want to know. Please tell me how much you earn per hour?”
Father: “If you really want to know, I make 14.00Euro per hour"
Son: “Oh” said the son with his head bowed
Son: “Daddy may I please borrow 7.00Euro?”
The father was furious. If the only reason why you ask me so you can borrow money for some stupid toy to buy then you can immediately go up to your bed. And think about it why you are so selfish. I’m not going to work hard every day for such childish silly things.
The boy quietly went to his room and shut the door.
The man sat down and was still angry about the questions of his son. "How dare he ask such things just to get money?"
After an hour or so, the man calmed down and started to think:
Maybe the child really urgently needs to buy something with the 7.00Euro, and actually the child never really asks much about money.
The man went to the boy’s room and opened the door.
"Are you asleep, son?" asked the father
"No, Daddy. I’m awake." Said the son.
"I’ve been thinking, maybe I was too hard for you. It was a long day and I have vented on you. Here is the seven Euro you asked."
The boy laughed and sat upright. "Thank you daddy!" he cried. Then he took from under his pillow some coins.
The man saw that the boy already had money and became angry again.
The boy sat quietly counting his money, and then looked to his father.
"Why ask me money if you already have money?" the father grumbled.
"Because I did not have enough." Replied the boy.
"Dad, I now have 14.00Euro. Can I buy one hours of your time? Please come home tomorrow one hour earlier. I would like to eat with you."
The father was touched. He put his arms around the boy and asked him to be forgiven.

It is a little reminder to all who work hard in life. We cannot let time slip through our fingers without spending any time with those who really count for us. It is all about finding a balance.

Kurt's Biography:

Kurt studied Economics at Antwerp University.  After early assignments at IBM and then Mobil focusing on business analytics he joined ICI in the role of Development Manager.  By the age of 33 Kurt was appointed Global IT Director, holding that position until 2007 when he became Global CIO for Bayer Material Sciences in Leverkusen, Germany. Kurt has a solid track record of delivery and driving innovation both for business process and IT technology related activities. He has built a reputation for daring to take on the seemingly impossible and driving it through to successful fruition, if there is a strategic advantage for the business to embrace technological change then Kurt is not afraid to be the first to use it.  Strategic advantage often means getting there first.