How Building Effective Teams Can Supercharge Your Business

How Building Effective Teams Can Supercharge Your Business

Team building can be an overused cliche in business circles, but there is something truly magical about what a cohesive team can create together. Individuals working alone are able to contribute specific tasks towards a goal, but a team working together adds energy and power to push their achievements higher. This is one of the reasons there are so many books and manuals focused on building effective teams. If you have never seen this in action you may not believe the synergy that can be attained -- it is almost like a force of nature. See how building effective teams will maximize employee productivity and happiness as well as helping you retain your hardest workers.

Effective Teams Bring Their "A" Game

A Gallup article from a few years ago stated that up to 70% of employees are showing up to work disengaged, costing the American economy billions of dollars every year in lost productivity. When you find ways for these individuals to connect to one another, they become invested in seeing each other become successful. Engaged, enthusiastic employees are ones who are constantly looking for ways to innovate and exceed expectations. If you could move the needle on even 20% of your mediocre performers, the impact to your bottom line would be significant.

Effective Teams Provide Diverse Ideas

The age-old saying that 'two heads are better than one' is extremely valid in today's business world. The complexity of ideas and interconnectedness of our systems means that it is difficult for any one person to have the knowledge needed to innovate and excel. Bringing together your team in a safe space allows for the free flowing of ideas between members -- and the ability to synthesize these great ideas into something actionable for leadership.

Effective Teams Blow Through Restraints


Where one person working alone may be worried about going down a specific -- and potentially risky -- path, a cohesive team has the bravery to take the leap. These leaps are what drive lasting change in an organization. Without this shared risk-taking and an ability to literally blow through restraints, your business can become stuck in the rut of doing things the way they've always been done.

Effective Teams Inspire Others

Let's face it, everyone wants to be a part of a winning team. When you see one team that seems to get all the awards, recognition and respect, you want to see what makes them special. Many times, it's their ability to work effectively together and collaborate to achieve a shared vision and goals. When one team in your organization is able to attain this level of cohesiveness, it will inspire and motivate others to do the same. This breeds a more positive working environment for all.

Effective Teams Have Fun Together


When work ceases to be work and becomes something that you enjoy doing during the day, you are able to devote your heart more fully to the tasks at hand. This joyful passion shines through in everything that you do. Ineffective teams can cause this light to dim, but having fun together can create a bond where individuals connect at a deeper level.

There are so many ways that effective teams create a sum that is greater than the individual parts. When the team truly works together as a single unit, the strengths of each person are multiplied allowing for an oversized impact on your organization's effectiveness. Bring your teams together if you want to truly supercharge your business! 

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Post-Show Followup Techniques You Will Want to "Borrow"

Post-Show Followup Techniques You Will Want to "Borrow"

Trade shows are one of the most exhausting, yet exhilarating, ways to spend your marketing dollars. You not only get to meet with your customers face-to-face, but you can also see what your competitors are up to, get great ideas for the future, and generally feed off the energy on the show floor. However, if you're not using the time after you return to the office effectively, you may be wasting much of the goodwill that you created at the show. Here are some great tips and techniques from marketers that will help you knock your post-show communication out of the park.


Capture Contacts Logically



Before you even start to pull together samples and brochures for your event, you need to determine the best way to capture contacts for later follow-up. This could be anything from a name badge scanner provided by the event coordinators to the low-tech solution of a giveaway fishbowl where contacts drop in their business cards. Simply gathering the information isn't enough, you need a solid plan in place of how you're going to get these new names and their requests into an actionable marketing database.


Create a Specific CTA



Your call to action is just that: a way to encourage your audience to take a specific action that leads to your desired result. Starting with the end in mind allows you to craft a campaign where each step builds towards the logical conclusion -- your customer placing an order or asking for a demo. The first step may be a quick email, while the next step could include mailing a sample with a custom printed letter. A final step of a phone call or postcard a few weeks after the show proves to your audience that you're committed to meeting (and exceeding!) their expectations. 


Sort and Assign Leads



If you're using an automated solution for capturing leads, you may wish to begin immediately by sending an email as soon as you return from the show. If this isn't possible due to volume, go through your lists and segment your leads into hot, warm, and cold. If you're able to immediately assign the hot leads to a team member to call and can convert them to customers, great! Most people spend a day or two regrouping after a show, so timing is everything. Call too soon, and you're likely to get a voicemail recording which is generally a dead end. Call too long after the show, and people have forgotten all about you. This is one of the reasons that a branded, high-quality print piece is a fantastic followup. If you start your print project quickly, your materials can be there soon after your prospects are back in the office. 


Nurture Your Prospects



Create a formal and ongoing communication strategy that allows you to continue the conversation with your various audiences. Some people may be very interested in your products or services, but perhaps they don't have the budget to start a project immediately. Others may be lukewarm in their interest levels, but you can see how you're adding value to their organization. What's important is that you tailor your messaging to your audience to convert as many as possible into customers.


Now that you know the basics of trade show and event follow-up, you're ready to hit the road. You will see the true benefits of growing your audience and communicating effectively with all the new customers and sales coming your way!

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Why Your Marketing Should Be Actionable Above All Else

Why Your Marketing Should Be Actionable Above All Else

One of the traps that even seasoned marketing veterans often fall into involves crafting collateral that has far too much information for its own good. Marketing messages start out simple enough, but as brands continue to grow and evolve, the marketing messages do the same until it can be difficult to remember what that short, sweet, actionable idea was in the first place.

And if you think your marketing has lost focus, just imagine how your audience members probably feel.

When your marketing starts to suffer from a lack of direction, it starts to become much too passive. Thankfully, the solution is simple - strip away the noise and focus on the action of it all. This, of course, requires you to keep a few key things in mind.

What is Actionable Marketing?

Think about your marketing the same way you would something like a call-to-action. A CTA is effective because it's clear and concise. It tells your readers exactly what you want them to do, how you want them to do it, and most importantly, what they're going to get in return.

It's a way for them to take the experience they've already had and elevate it to the next level by continuing their relationship with your people or your brand.

Passive marketing, on the other hand, does the exact opposite. People may see one of your flyers and become aware that your brand exists, but they're not motivated to do much with that information. They certainly don't know why they should care or what you can do for them that nobody else can. Passive collateral just... is. That, most definitely, is a problem.

To put it another way, every element of your collateral - from the color design of a flyer to every last word on a brochure - needs to be building towards the eventual action that you want someone to take. It's like a CTA on a larger scale and rest assured, it pays dividends.

The Byproducts of Actionable Marketing 

Actionable marketing requires you to target your audience. You need to know who people are, what demographics they fall into, what they like, and what they don't like. You then have to address a specific need that they have and direct them to take your desired action.

If all of this sounds familiar, it's because these are the types of things you should already be doing. Making action a priority simply allows you to double down on these efforts, allowing them to rise to the surface.

The real benefit of actionable marketing is precisely that - it creates its own momentum. It has an energy that passive content just can't match. You can use that energy to create new opportunities for yourself, not only in terms of up-selling or cross-selling your products but also with regards to increasing the overall lifetime value of your customers.

Simply put, if your marketing content is active your customers will be, too, and that's the type of opportunity you do not want to overlook.

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