by Fronetics | Mar 17, 2015 | Blog, Talent
Losing an employee is expensive. Here are 5 strategies to improve employee retention.
The cost of replacing an employee can range anywhere from 50 to 400 percent of an employee’s annual salary according to the Society of Human Resources Management. Meanwhile, The US Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that more than 2 million people voluntarily leave their jobs each month. What do these numbers mean? They mean that the cost of replacing an employee with an annual salary of $45,000 could be between $16,000 and $160,000. And the cost of replacing your employee with an annual salary of $150,000 could range from $60,000 to $600,000. Losing an employee is costly — very costly. Yet, many organizations don’t know how to ensure that its human resource assets don’t just walk away.
Here’s what Maynard Webb, author of the New York Times Best Seller Rebooting Work had to say in a 2013 interview with Tech Crunch about cultivating a company culture in which employees choose to stay.
“You can create an environment where people have a say…the best way to have your people be happy and satisfied is to earn the right to have them come back to work for you the next day, knowing that there are tons of other places… you are going to create an environment where they’re challenged, and inspired, and learning.”
For companies that are willing to put in the effort to create the culture that Webb describes, the payout will be particularly sweet in the face of recent jobs outlooks. The Tompkins Supply Chain Consortium projected an increase in turnover within the supply chain industry in its most recent 2013 Supply Chain Talent Report. The report expected the most impacted positions to be in planning, procurement, and manufacturing. Reasons for employee departure included plant closures, outsourcing, and the need for more specialized skillsets. The Consortium isn’t the only one to recognize employee retention is worthy of attention. Accenture conducted a study (across industries) and found the top four reasons why employees quit their jobs are: a lack of recognition (43 percent), internal politics (35 percent), a lack of empowerment (31 percent), and because they don’t like their boss (31 percent). For managers, there are several lessons to be learned here.
Consider these employee retention strategies before prematurely bidding adieu.
Build buy-in and create opportunities for success
It’s important to gain buy-in from your employees. If an employee is going to be motivated to not just do their job, but to excel at their job — they need buy-in. Gain buy-in from employees by giving constructive feedback regularly and creating opportunities for employees to succeed and realize progress. A great resource on achieving buy-in and enabling success is The Heart of Change by John P. Kotter and Dan S. Cohen.
Recognize employees
Much in the same way that creating buy-in is so key to an organization’s success, employee recognition motivates and encourages employees – leading to happier clients and customers. Whether you use informal or formal employee recognition techniques, it’s important to acknowledge a job well done. Recognition lets your employees know you appreciate them and strengthens communication, which is especially helpful when working through tough issues that might arise.
Empower employees
Take steps to ensure your employees feel empowered. Make the path to advancement clear and regularly provide challenging work that expands an employee’s skill set. Set clear expectations for employees; beyond conveying unambiguous responsibilities, make certain employees know how and with what frequency they can expect to have their performance measured.
Remove the red tape
Staid bureaucracy and tumultuous internal politics can make anyone want to leave a work environment. Create a culture that values openness by eliminating red tape and increasing communication between departments and employees working within different functions. Start by moving financial reporting from monthly to quarterly, making senior managers responsible for their own strategies, or broadening approval levels of internal reports.
Explore a transfer within the company
If an issue is only germane to your team, or if it is impacting productivity and team morale within only your department, consider the transfer of an employee within the company. This approach addresses the specific issue at hand, but ensures the company retains top, and importantly, already trained talent.
While the time and expense of retaining an employee may seem daunting, the cost of losing an employee is much greater. Want to learn more about improving employee retention and hiring top talent? At Fronetics we work with clients to understand and execute on talent acquisition, performance management, learning and development, and succession management. Additionally, we offer management and leadership solutions to organizations within the supply chain and logistics industries during times of transition.
by Fronetics | Mar 16, 2015 | Blog, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
How your business can use social media to generate leads.
Leads are essential to the growth of your business, and your marketing strategy is built around finding and connecting with leads. So when 92% of all marketers indicate that their social media efforts have generated more exposure for their businesses, you should take note and make social media part of your prospecting strategy.
Building a network of online connections is an effective way to find new leads. And with social media, you can find new leads by doing something called social prospecting. Social prospecting is the art of searching the social web, identifying potential prospects for your business, and engaging them in a manner that draws them to your company’s website and through your funnel. At the core, social prospecting is about listening. It’s about listening to social media conversations in order to generate leads for your business. It goes beyond monitoring keywords to engaging people that may or may not know what your business can do for them.
As you build your social prospecting strategy and develop new approaches to connect with leads, keep these 25 handy tips close by to guide your efforts.
Twitter
- Post content that draws prospects back to your website.
- Aim to share useful content on Twitter two to three times per week.
- Make customers feel appreciated by prioritizing their questions.
- Keep prospects engaged by retweeting some of their organic content.
- Favorite tweets with content that leads share.
- Respond to and offer help to industry peers’ questions.
- Delight customers by replying or favoriting tweets when they mention your company.
- Engage with potential prospects by offering help using relevant content.
LinkedIn
- Post at least twice a week to your company’s LinkedIn page.
- Join five LinkedIn Groups that could connect you with potential prospects.
- Join conversations in the group where you can add value with your content.
- “Like” content that others are sharing in the group.
- Share your own content to the group.
- Use LinkedIn Answers to respond to questions posted by others in your industry.
- Make a habit of routinely reviewing the content posted within your groups.
- Comment and add value to posts from others in the group.
- Ask for an offline meeting with your most engaged prospects.
Facebook
- Link to your blog from Facebook.
- Add calls to action to posts.
- Promote a special product or service offer solely for Facebook fans.
- Create and post visual content, like infographics and videos.
- Share a quote or industry statistic with your fans.
- To draw more comments from fans, pose a question.
- Create a Facebook event to promote trade show appearances or webinars.
- Update your company’s profile and cover photos routinely.
Ready to build a more full-bodied social prospecting strategy? We’ve laid out the quickest ways for you to find more leads and prospects on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+ in our social prospecting workbook. In a dedicated worksheet to each of those social media platforms, you’ll find every worksheet includes: a short preparatory work to make the actual prospecting easy; visual instructions on how and where to find prospects; pro tips that will help you get the best results; prescriptions (Marketing Rx) for success; and take-home exercises for follow-up prospecting. To get started growing your prospecting opportunities and building alternative lead generation and nurturing strategies, download our free workbook.
Curious about what we’re up to on social media? Find out.
by Fronetics | Mar 16, 2015 | Blog, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
How your business can use social media to generate leads.
Leads are essential to the growth of your business, and your marketing strategy is built around finding and connecting with leads. So when 92% of all marketers indicate that their social media efforts have generated more exposure for their businesses, you should take note and make social media part of your prospecting strategy.
Building a network of online connections is an effective way to find new leads. And with social media, you can find new leads by doing something called social prospecting. Social prospecting is the art of searching the social web, identifying potential prospects for your business, and engaging them in a manner that draws them to your company’s website and through your funnel. At the core, social prospecting is about listening. It’s about listening to social media conversations in order to generate leads for your business. It goes beyond monitoring keywords to engaging people that may or may not know what your business can do for them.
As you build your social prospecting strategy and develop new approaches to connect with leads, keep these 25 handy tips close by to guide your efforts.
Twitter
- Post content that draws prospects back to your website.
- Aim to share useful content on Twitter two to three times per week.
- Make customers feel appreciated by prioritizing their questions.
- Keep prospects engaged by retweeting some of their organic content.
- Favorite tweets with content that leads share.
- Respond to and offer help to industry peers’ questions.
- Delight customers by replying or favoriting tweets when they mention your company.
- Engage with potential prospects by offering help using relevant content.
LinkedIn
- Post at least twice a week to your company’s LinkedIn page.
- Join five LinkedIn Groups that could connect you with potential prospects.
- Join conversations in the group where you can add value with your content.
- “Like” content that others are sharing in the group.
- Share your own content to the group.
- Use LinkedIn Answers to respond to questions posted by others in your industry.
- Make a habit of routinely reviewing the content posted within your groups.
- Comment and add value to posts from others in the group.
- Ask for an offline meeting with your most engaged prospects.
Facebook
- Link to your blog from Facebook.
- Add calls to action to posts.
- Promote a special product or service offer solely for Facebook fans.
- Create and post visual content, like infographics and videos.
- Share a quote or industry statistic with your fans.
- To draw more comments from fans, pose a question.
- Create a Facebook event to promote trade show appearances or webinars.
- Update your company’s profile and cover photos routinely.
Ready to build a more full-bodied social prospecting strategy? We’ve laid out the quickest ways for you to find more leads and prospects on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+ in our social prospecting workbook. In a dedicated worksheet to each of those social media platforms, you’ll find every worksheet includes: a short preparatory work to make the actual prospecting easy; visual instructions on how and where to find prospects; pro tips that will help you get the best results; prescriptions (Marketing Rx) for success; and take-home exercises for follow-up prospecting. To get started growing your prospecting opportunities and building alternative lead generation and nurturing strategies, download our free workbook.
Curious about what we’re up to on social media? Find out.
by Fronetics | Mar 12, 2015 | Blog, Marketing, Social Media
Integrate digital and social media practices into trade show routines to increase leads to drive profitable customer action.
The world became enchanted by the Koh-i-Noor diamond in 1851 when Queen Victoria opened the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London. This first of its kind exhibition, sometimes called the world’s fair, served as a platform for countries around the globe to display their innovations and achievements. Throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries, these exhibitions routinely drew millions of people and connected the world in a way that hadn’t been done before.
While exhibitions continue into the present day, some critics argue that they are becoming irrelevant as a result of globalization and increasing interconnectedness. Proponents, however, are actively working to ensure modern day exhibitions reflect the changing nature in the way humans communicate and connect with one another.
In a similar way, modern trade shows serve the purpose of connecting industries and showcasing the best of a company’s product or service offerings. Indeed, trade shows remain a staple of many marketing budgets and practices. Offering unparalleled access to leads and face to face communication with prospects and customers, trade shows prove to be a successful marketing strategy for many companies. But is your company making the most of trade shows? Companies that integrate modern digital communication practices into tired trade show routines are likely to increase lead to customer conversion rates while shortening lead and sales cycles.
Promote enhanced and continued engagement with trade show contacts by formulating your trade show social media strategy using the following approaches.
In the weeks leading up to the trade show your company is scheduled to attend, publish Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn posts promoting your attendance and providing pertinent information to attendees. Set up a landing page with an accompanying call to action on your website where visitors can download a brochure or RSVP to speak with you at the show. Review the list of trade show attendees and perform prospect research using social media. In the days before the event, draft relevant and timely marketing and lead nurturing email templates to be sent during and after the show. Connect with high value prospect attendees on LinkedIn to arrange a time to meet up at the event. Use the trade show’s Twitter hashtag to tease display materials and connect with other attendees.
During the show, use social media to keep the conversation going with customers and prospects. Continue your use of the show’s hashtag to monitor conversions on social media and see what’s being said about your company. Connect with LinkedIn users you meet. Post pictures of your booth on Facebook and Twitter and videos of product demonstrations or customer testimonials on Youtube. Schedule and send the lead nurturing email templates you prepared weeks ago. Make note of recurring questions from attendees and industry trends being discussed.
Following the show, prepare your company’s blog editorial calendar for the next few months using your notes on customer questions and industry trends as a guide for developing post topics. Make event presentation or speaking materials part of your lead nurturing activities by sharing them with prospects using Slideshare and automated emails. Segment contacts for enhanced communication. Continue engagement with leads through Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Much like the way world exhibitions are being pressured to evolve in order to provide continued value to citizens of the world, trade shows should be viewed by companies as opportunities to leverage new technologies to grow prospecting opportunities and build alternative lead nurturing channels. Continuing engagement with customers and prospects through digital and social media enhances the nature of prospect follow up and customer communication, extending the value of the trade show far beyond location-specific activities.
by Fronetics | Mar 12, 2015 | Blog, Marketing, Social Media
Integrate digital and social media practices into trade show routines to increase leads to drive profitable customer action.
The world became enchanted by the Koh-i-Noor diamond in 1851 when Queen Victoria opened the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London. This first of its kind exhibition, sometimes called the world’s fair, served as a platform for countries around the globe to display their innovations and achievements. Throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries, these exhibitions routinely drew millions of people and connected the world in a way that hadn’t been done before.
While exhibitions continue into the present day, some critics argue that they are becoming irrelevant as a result of globalization and increasing interconnectedness. Proponents, however, are actively working to ensure modern day exhibitions reflect the changing nature in the way humans communicate and connect with one another.
In a similar way, modern trade shows serve the purpose of connecting industries and showcasing the best of a company’s product or service offerings. Indeed, trade shows remain a staple of many marketing budgets and practices. Offering unparalleled access to leads and face to face communication with prospects and customers, trade shows prove to be a successful marketing strategy for many companies. But is your company making the most of trade shows? Companies that integrate modern digital communication practices into tired trade show routines are likely to increase lead to customer conversion rates while shortening lead and sales cycles.
Promote enhanced and continued engagement with trade show contacts by formulating your trade show social media strategy using the following approaches.
In the weeks leading up to the trade show your company is scheduled to attend, publish Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn posts promoting your attendance and providing pertinent information to attendees. Set up a landing page with an accompanying call to action on your website where visitors can download a brochure or RSVP to speak with you at the show. Review the list of trade show attendees and perform prospect research using social media. In the days before the event, draft relevant and timely marketing and lead nurturing email templates to be sent during and after the show. Connect with high value prospect attendees on LinkedIn to arrange a time to meet up at the event. Use the trade show’s Twitter hashtag to tease display materials and connect with other attendees.
During the show, use social media to keep the conversation going with customers and prospects. Continue your use of the show’s hashtag to monitor conversions on social media and see what’s being said about your company. Connect with LinkedIn users you meet. Post pictures of your booth on Facebook and Twitter and videos of product demonstrations or customer testimonials on Youtube. Schedule and send the lead nurturing email templates you prepared weeks ago. Make note of recurring questions from attendees and industry trends being discussed.
Following the show, prepare your company’s blog editorial calendar for the next few months using your notes on customer questions and industry trends as a guide for developing post topics. Make event presentation or speaking materials part of your lead nurturing activities by sharing them with prospects using Slideshare and automated emails. Segment contacts for enhanced communication. Continue engagement with leads through Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Much like the way world exhibitions are being pressured to evolve in order to provide continued value to citizens of the world, trade shows should be viewed by companies as opportunities to leverage new technologies to grow prospecting opportunities and build alternative lead nurturing channels. Continuing engagement with customers and prospects through digital and social media enhances the nature of prospect follow up and customer communication, extending the value of the trade show far beyond location-specific activities.
by Fronetics | Mar 11, 2015 | Blog, Marketing, Social Media
How to use social media as an innovation engine.
Innovation is a powerful way to drive growth, but traditional approaches taken by companies to develop innovative products and services are increasingly being found to be unsuccessful in creating growth. The emerging shift in how companies and customers interact is ushering in new practices for companies seeking growth through innovation.
Traditional marketing logic sees the customer and company as separate and detached; the customer is seen as the passive recipient of a company’s product or service offering. The modern marketing paradigm recognizes customers as co-creators of value and collaborators alongside companies in their innovation process. How then can your company successfully engage customers to develop new products and services? How can your company innovate faster? How can your company innovate better? Harness social media as an innovation engine.
Conversations taking place on social networks about brands, companies, products, and services can provide your company with a wealth of information and be a source of innovation – innovation that can drive growth. Here are some dos and don’ts of making social media part of your innovation process.
DO
Monitor conversations about your company and its products and services
What are customers saying? What do customers like? What do they dislike? Are there questions that are repeatedly being asked by customers about your company and/or a specific product or service you offer? By passively listening to these conversations, you can determine how your company and its offerings are being perceived in the marketplace.
Learn about creative ways customers are using your products
Ikea products are constantly being “hacked” or used in ways that the company had not intended. Learning “off-label” uses for your products can help you to identify needs within the marketplace, new marketing opportunities for your products, and can generally get your creative juices flowing.
Look at social media to identify trends
Is there a way that your company can take advantage of specific trends? Can you introduce a new product or service? Can you re-purpose a product or service to meet the demands of a specific trend? Even more basic, if you already have a product or service that is trendy, make people aware that you have what they want. How you ask? Engage them on social media.
DON’T
Be afraid to ask questions
Users engaged with your company on social media can be employed similar to a focus group. Posing thoughtful questions to your followers can elicit responses that are likely to provide valuable insight your company would otherwise have to pay for. Practicing active listening to social media conversations also makes customers feel engaged, valued, and appreciated.
Dismiss feedback provided by customers
Don’t dismiss feedback provided by customers via social media; embrace it and its honesty. Learn from the feedback provided. Engage with customers to learn more. Use the intelligence that you gain from social media to fuel innovation.
Forget about your competitors
What are customers saying about your competitor and their products and services? What do customers like about your competitor’s products? What do they not like? Are your customers using your competitors products in an off-label way? All of this information can be used to fuel innovative for your company.
David Burkus, founder of LDRLB and assistant professor of management at Oral Roberts University, wrote that “in most organizations, innovation isn’t hampered by a lack of ideas, but rather a lack of noticing the good ideas already there.” The conversations taking place via social media offer a wealth of good ideas. Your company can capitalize on the information and intelligence provided, or you can ignore it. If you choose the former you can turn social media into an innovation engine for your company – one that will help your company grow not in spite of, but because of the current environment and customer demands.
