In August, I was pumped to be starting on a challenging project at a new client.  I had met the team, and was content with the fact that I was faced with a few long days of ramp up.  I had all of the documents laid out on my desk and only one thing was missing – my standard afternoon Diet Coke.  So I strolled into the break room, and BAM.  It hit me.  There it was, like a shining beacon of despair.  The PEPSI machine.

I think Coke takes better, and I’m not alone.  Yet Pepsi and Coke alike have blasted us with their blind taste test campaigns to try to turn their non-believers.  I’m not buying it.  What I am buying, is the notion of Brand Imagery, supported scientifically, that when study participants are aware of the brand before they drink, three quarters of the participants chose Coke over Pepsi.

American Cancer Society VP Andy Goldsmith gives you more detail in his article Coke vs. Pepsi: The Taste Test They Don’t Want You to Know About. Goldmith highlights studies that suggest that there is such a thing as Brand Imagery:

The brain studies suggest that Coke’s iconic brand and arguably stronger cultural connection may in fact make a difference in preference. And that preference is linked not just to taste (hello, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex) but also memory-related brain regions that are related to cultural influences.

At the most basic level, this means that your company, and your product, are not evaluated on quality alone.  It means that your sales process has to appeal to both rationally and emotionally to your target customers.   This example focuses on the Coke vs. Pepsi debate, but the phenomenon certainly transcends consumer goods.  Technology vendors and consulting firms need to be aware that there is an emotional response to their brand that affects their ability to penetrate new accounts and grow their business.

You may be a handshake company that doesn’t need marketing or fancy brand strategists.  I won’t disagree… that type of overhead isn’t a fit for all organizations.  But there is no denying that there are no companies that are isolated from science and human psychology.  If your sales are lacking or you are having trouble convincing new clients to invest in your product or services, your lack of focus on brand positioning may pose an improvement opportunity for your company.

Now can someone get me a Coke please?  This Pepsi vending machine has got to go…

Coke vs. Pepsi: Brand Image is a post from: HR Think Tank

Yeah I know, this is a blog about business, social media, and getting things done.  Awe inspiring posts (okay, that might be a little optimistic!) about the value of relationship marketing, being in the conversation, and solving tough problems for clients.  So why I am cross-posting about the PMC and a rider raising money to arm the Dana Farber Cancer Institute with the funds it needs to battle cancer?

Because I am a believer in causes that transcend ‘typical’ business relationships.  The PMC is my cause.  It’s motivates me to continue to do more.  I think the PMC is critically important, and people like Pete Getchell are the ones that make it happen.

When I reached out to Meghan M. Biro of TalentCulture about joining as a sponsor for cyclingagainstcancer.com in support of my 2010 PMC, I didn’t even have to ask twice.  And it wasn’t because there was a big business deal hanging out there as a carrot for her sponsorship.  I think she sponsored because she believes in rallying a community behind a cause, and I thank her for that!

Similarly, my coworkers and friends at SEI have been very supportive.  I asked my CEO, Dan Pierce, for a donation, and he supported without question.  The firm also has a generous gift matching program for charitable contributions.  It makes me even more proud to be working for the company.

I have been incredibly busy this summer.  I’m riding 80-120 miles a week, supporting client work, and moonlighting in support of internal SEI operations like interviewing, and looking for new business and partners.  HR Think Tank has taken a bit of a back burner, but it’s still important to me, and I thank you all for sticking with me.

I hope that you will check out my charity blog, cyclingagainstcancer.com, and read about Pete Getchell.  I’ll be featuring more riders and stories in the next few weeks as we steam towards the 2010 PMC (August 7th and 8th).

Want to support my cause?  I could certainly use your help.  Retweet this post, send people to cyclingagainstcancer.com, and if you are so inclined, donate here.

2010 PMC and Rider Spotlight: Pete Getchell is a post from: HR Think Tank

The recent recession has been a significant game changer for business in a lot of ways.  There were the obvious changes, specific to the recession, such as a significant power shift to the employers.  We all watched (and some of us, unfortunately, participated) as hordes of qualified candidates piled out of the workforce and into applicant tracking systems where companies could be selective about who they hired, and at what cost.  Then there are the more long term game changers – the things that have the traction to outlast the recession and continue to be a major part of business strategies moving forward.  Amongst those – the significant increase in the use of the virtual workplace.

The virtual workplace isn’t a new concept – for the last decade industry analysts and organizational change management consultants have been hypothesizing about the benefits of virtual teaming and the best ways to manage the virtual global workforce.  Their findings are well documented and at a high-level can be summarized like this: identify if a virtual workplace fits with your corporate culture and organizational objectives; identify jobs and individuals that work in a virtual model; modify processes to manage and engage remote employees; keep a razor sharp focus on evaluating effectiveness and continuous improvement of the program.

In 2007, Gartner reported that by 2011, 46.6 million corporate employees globally will spend at least one day a week teleworking, and 112 million will work from home at least one day a month.  This pace has been accelerated further combination of the recession, the emergence of ever-improving document management and collaboration platforms.

This all means that chances are good that you will find yourself working virtually at some point in the near future.  In the last three years of consulting with SEI, I have worked virtually at least 50% of the time – both in support of my clients and in collaboration with our other offices in Cincinnati, Atlanta, Phoenix, and Dallas.  I have found that working virtually can be even more productive than working in cubicle-land if you employ a healthy dose of organizational discipline.  Here are some of the approaches that work for me:

1. Use your ‘Commute time’ to get organized. One of the biggest benefits of working virtually is the ability to recover your commute time.  For some people, this could mean an additional 3 hours added to productive time in your day.  For me, this is the time I use to brew up a nice pot of Dunkin Donuts, prioritize my task list (beginning of the day commute time), and then note any follow-ups for early the next day (end of day commute time).  Know what the first thing you want to work on the next day is.  Don’t sleep through this time, you will leave an opportunity on the table.

2. Learn to manage your inbox(es). When working virtually, your computer is your command center.  It’s impossible to know what you need to focus on if you have 1,600 unread messages and nothing is flagged for follow-up.  Personally, I use three flags – personal, SEI, and client, and then prioritize accordingly.  Once you close an e-mail, file it in the appropriate folder and repeat.  I like to keep my inbox to 50 e-mails or less.  Find out what your sweet spot is, and try to stick with it.

3. Prioritize your work by the 80/20 rule. There is always a small percentage of your work that will yield a larger return.  Identify those items, and nail those first.  Do the 20% of work that gives you 80% of your results. Remember, excuses don’t matter.  What matters are results.

4. Take a Lunch Break and Reward Progress. Virtual work is loaded with distractions.  Laundry waiting to be done.  Playstation 3 and Modern Warfare.  Facebook.  Twitter.  If you are disciplined about the way you structure your day, you can use these distractions to your advantage.  Take a lunch break and knock out a few non-work related things while you eat.  Reward the fact that you are absolutely slaying your to-do list.  Trust me, manage this right and you will waste less time at home than you do around the water cooler at the office.

5. Establish a ‘Virtual Hierarchy’ that allows you to close issues. When working virtually, it’s very easy to fall into the trap of getting into an endless e-mail conversation on issues without seeing any real progress.  I like to apply time-frames and a sanity check on these issues, and then immediately schedule a teleconference to discuss if I don’t feel like progress is being made.  This includes knowing who the stakeholders are, what the escalation path is, and documenting when documents come in and go out for review.  At the top of this hierarchy – that’s right – a good old fashion face-to-face.  Nothing beats it.  Ever.

This is a short list, and many bullets and sub-bullets can be added even to these.  Are you working virtually or have you worked virtually in the past?  What’s working for you?

In Today’s Virtual Workplace, Organization is King is a post from: HR Think Tank

I get it, some of you may never like soccer.  Some of you just can’t stomach the annoying buzz of the vuvuzela for 90 minutes just to watch a game end in a 0-0 tie.  Like it or not, the World Cup is the biggest sporting event in the world.  So big in fact, that according to Digital Blog All Things Digital, the World Cup is creating some unparalleled buzz out there on Twitter.

Trendrr, which pulls data from Twitter’s API had 48 different World Cup-related terms showing up about 150,000 times an hour, similar to the intensity from Monday at Apple’s iPhone 4 unveiling. Kafka goes on to note that while the iPhone 4 traffic crested only in the last hour of Steve Jobs’s presentation, the World Cup intensity has been pretty steady with more than 8,000 per minute (that’s a rate of 480,000 hourly) right after the first goal of the tournament.

Love it or hate it, the World is passionate about soccer.  There’s just something about national pride that incites a level of passion that’s unifying and really cool.

I use soccer as the example, because the World Cup is hot right now.  You get a similar unifying force and passionate outpouring for the Olympics and in any big sports city right here nationally.  I was at the Celtics – Lakers game last night and it was so loud, you would have though everyone in the crowd knew each other and had coordinated chants in Sully’s Tap before the game.  Red Sox fans are so loyal, they have long eclipsed the consecutive sell-out record (455 games was previous record, broken September 8th, 2008 – I was there) , and are still adding to that tally.  We are so unified we refer to ourselves as Red Sox Nation, and we have a President, the Rem Dawg!  I use Boston as an example, because I live here and love Boston sports, but there are fans like this in Philadelphia and Chicago too.  Great sports cities with rich tradition, and a knack for developing passionate fan bases.

Here’s my challenge for the businesses out there: Try to replicate that kind of passion amongst your workforce around your brand.  I know you already have at least 3 excuses in your head for why it can’t be done.  I can hear them now – my company is too big, we need these strict corporate policies, our employees can’t buy $7.50 beers two at a time like they can at the Fenway.  I know, I hear you, but I think you’re wrong.  In fact, think there are a lot of companies getting this right, and the dividends are incredible!  Talent attraction AND retention!

Who is getting this right?  Video interviewing firm HireVue definitely comes to mind.  Here’s a company that has a ton of momentum, and I think it’s because of their people.  Give Josh Schwede 15 minutes over a beer and tell me that you aren’t an advocate for what they are trying to do, or that you don’t want to replicate that kind of passion in your company.  Need something bigger?  Locally, one company that I consistently see employees buzz about is EMC.  Here’s a sample of tweets from Polly Pearson, VP of Employment Brand and Strategy Engagement from last week:

“Just got EMC’s 2011 FORTUNE Best Places to Work For book: “Innovation, Passion, SUCCESS!” Includes refs to 2.0, TWITTER + EMC Tweeps”

“Excited to share EMC’s story at BU tomorrow! Attendees are business leaders looking at new models for innovation, workforce management”

3 of Polly’s top 5 words in her tweet cloud are #emc, EMC, and thanks.  Her top 5 hash-tags: #emc, #emcworld, #emcs, #jobs, #1.  I know what you are thinking.  Jason, that’s obvious, because Polly is EMC’s VP of Employment Brand and Strategy Engagement.  Isn’t that her job?  Yes, of course.  But she’s out there talking about her company, and people like me are writing about how it’s cool that there are people out there being passionate about their company.  And let me ask you – does your company have a VP of Employment Brand and Strategy Engagement?

That’s what I thought.

(Note: If you were wondering, neither HireVue nor EMC are clients of SEI-Boston, LLC. or of me personally at the time of this post.  I am, however, guilty of liking soccer, going to Sully’s Tap before Celtics games, and being a loud and obnoxious member of Red Sox Nation.  Now stop reading this disclaimer and go out and make your company a great place to work)

Sports and Business: Are Your Employees Passionate About Your Company? is a post from: HR Think Tank

Today’s guest post is from Eric Leist, a Public Relations major in Boston University’s class of 2010.  Eric blogs over at Meghan Biro’s firm Talent Culture and on his own blog, EricLeist.com

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You’ll never figure out what’s wrong with me. Am I lazy? Arrogant? Rude? I’m an enigma. A puzzle waiting to be solved. I have wired veins; technology is my DNA. I pay for pre-ripped jeans. And yes, I do expect to wear them to work.

I’m Gen-Y. Hear me roar.

Like it or not, my generation is charging into the workforce. Yep, all 70 million of us. We’re a talented herd, too. HR directors will play Ringling Brothers trying to tame us, hire us, and retain us. Most will fail.

The Gen-Y stampede of talent cannot be stopped and refined. It must be harnessed.

So for all you HR directors out there struggling with the wild Gen-Y animals, here are five characteristics we look for in the workplace. Know them. Embrace them. Love them. You’ll need to in order to attract and retain the top talent in my generation.

1) We want to wear jeans. But it’s not about the denim. It’s about the casual atmosphere. We want coworkers we can hang out with. We like relaxed environments. We’re not afraid to log long hours. We’ll get our work done before the deadline, and the results will be stellar. So what difference does it make what we wear when we work? If you don’t let us wear pajamas, at least let us wear jeans.

2) We want flexibility. Forget these formulaic job descriptions. You won’t be able to force our skill sets into roles defined by previous generations. You’re better off creating roles around our skill sets. Give us the freedom to work from home, and we’ll prove we deserve it. Gen-Y-ers don’t mind checking in on their BlackBerry over the weekend if they have the option of working remotely.

3) We want the latest and greatest gadgets. Our generation was the first to grow up with computer classes. Cell phones and texting were everything in high school. We get frustrated when we know better, faster, sleeker technology is out there and we don’t have it. The most defining value of Gen-Y is the desire to be tech-savvy.

4) We want mentors. Our grandparents held long-standing relationships with employers. We don’t. People work for people; not brands. We want to work for people who take a genuine interest in our careers. We seek out the opinions of our peers and our superiors, and we’re equally as willing to give advice.

5) We want to contribute, and we want to be paid for it. The Internet wove incredible information access into our upbringing. We competed fiercely against our peers for college admission. We’re deeply in debt after slaving over coffee machines and data entry programs at unpaid internships. Yes, we expect to be paid handsomely, but we’re eager to earn the cash and the respect that comes with it.

If we can’t find these things, we’re not afraid to start our own businesses. We’ll sculpt our own corporate cultures to fit our needs.

Eric Leist is a senior at Boston University and currently interns with TalentCulture. He has previously interned with the New York Giants, Mills & Company and 451 Marketing. When not studying Public Relations and Business, he’s an anchor and producer at BUTV10′s InsideBoston and VP of BU’s Public Relations Student Society. Eric also coaches a competitive public speaking team in Newton, MA and spends his extra time experimenting in the kitchen.

Photo Credit: Deanwissing

Harnessing the Gen-Y Beast is a post from: HR Think Tank

Even in a down economy, employee retention is a key management issue.  Despite rising unemployment, some employees have critical skills and intellectual capital that make them very attractive to your competition.  These employees, likely amongst your top performers, will look for continuous reinforcement that your company is right for them, and that they should stay.  If you don’t identify, recognize, and reward top performers, the inevitable WILL happen:  Your best employees will be working for your competition.

It’s no secret that this is a complex topic.  Employee retention sits somewhere at the intersection between stimulating and challenging work and recognition and rewards. What I do know is that intrinsic rewards are a huge factor.  In 2002 I participated in an extensive analysis of the results from a longitudinal study on Air Force retention across two types of motivators: extrinsic, intrinsic (for a full analysis, altruistic and social motivators could also be considered). The study found that intrinsic motivators – such as personal development, intellectually stimulating work, and the ability to produce feelings of accomplishment – outweighed extrinsic motivators like level of pay and yearly pay increases.  With that being said, I’ll leave the real heavy lifting around incentive, recognition, and reward strategies to guys like Paul Herbert but I’d like to talk about one critical piece of employee retention that should not be overlooked: Company Culture.

One key to retaining top talent is to establish a meaningful relationship between the employee and the company.  It comes down to creating an environment that breeds bidirectional loyalty.  What does this mean for you as a company?  In a world of thinner margins and tighter budgets as long as compensation is within a reasonable range, you can retain employees by focusing on your corporate culture.  Good, transparent “what you see is what you get” leadership and a strong focus on hiring and protecting the door can go a long way in developing loyal employees.

The importance of team chemistry cannot be emphasized enough.  I can speak from experience – In 2006 when I was making the decision to leave the Air Force, the one thing that kept nagging at me was the feeling like I was letting my coworkers down.  I felt an intense loyalty and closeness to the people I served with, and despite traveling 180-200 days a year, and being paid about 25-30% less than my market value, I didn’t want to leave.  Lucky for me, I eventually landed at SEI.  Recruited by another colleague who I have immense respect for, I’m working for a company that really get’s this right.  SEI has an intense focus on recruiting the right people, and then reinforces a strong business model with an engaged leadership team.  Recently, leadership reinforced their proactive approach by unveiling a well planned 5-year succession plan, which in itself was architected with a focus on ensuring the long-term viability of our unique corporate culture.

So when considering retention, focus on what matters and what you can readily influence – your corporate culture.  Hire the right people, protect the integrity of your organizations culture, and don’t sacrifice long term team chemistry for short term revenue gains.  Be loyal to your employees, and give them a reason to be loyal back.

(Photo Credit: http://www.aurora-tds.co.uk)

Retention Issues? Focus on Culture First is a post from: HR Think Tank

A few Friday’s ago I spoke candidly about what I thought about Casual Fridays, and the message was pretty clear: The dress for your company should be driven by your culture, and your culture should be aligned with your business.  When companies recruit and hire good, smart candidates that are a fit for their culture – they should know how to police their own wardrobe to represent the company.

With that being said, if your company does have a loose Casual Friday policy, or if you work somewhere where you can wear whatever the hell you want, check out some of your selections below, with my reviews.  Alternatively, you can rock these at the bar on Friday night.  Do it, and take a picture, and I’ll start a whole new page on my site dedicated to people in Geeky T-Shirts all over the world!

T-Shirt #1 – Social Media Venn Diagram

Geeky in their own right, Venn Diagrams are show logical relations between a group of things.  The guy in this photo alone cracks me up – dude, haircut – ASAP. But anyway, how true is this geeky T-Shirt?  It shows the relationship between Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter to Narcissism, ADHD, and Stalking.  If you missed my post on Foursquare last week, I laid out the undeniable fact that “Stalkers everywhere are rejoicing and high-fiving each other at the sheer joy of Foursquare!”

This T-Shirt is available at Despair, Inc’s website.  Get it.  Love it.  Take pictures.

Tweeter most likely to have this geeky shirt: Chris Hoyt

T-Shirt #2 – Peace – Love – Human Resources

Peace.  Love. Human Resources – Makes you want to just hug it out eh?  It also symbolizes everything that is wrong with HR.  Not too long ago, Sarah White did a post on her blog about candidates being way too nice.  This goes for the HR pros out there as well.  We get it – some of you have to deal with employee relations and other touchy feely employment issues.  For the rest of you, focus on applying Chris Ferdinandi‘s Renegade HR philosophy to Human Resources: Recruit great people, and help them do amazing things that drive your business. 

If you are in human resources, don’t be afraid to mix it up, especially if you are in a systems role – projects don’t manage themselves.  It’s not always about Peace and Love.  It’s about getting the right people.  Delivery.  Protecting the door.  Being overly protective of your company’s brand and culture.  In the meantime, buy this geeky shirt anyway from Cafe Press – also available in pink and neon green – and don’t forget to take pictures.

Tweeter most likely to have this geeky shirt: Laurie Ruettimann

T-Shirt #3 – Darth Vader’s “I Want You for the Dark Side”

Are you a recruiter?  Star Wars fan?  You get the best of both worlds here with the Vader “I Want YOU For The Dark Side” recruiting T-shirt!

That is a great idea for a blog post by the way – talking about the parallel’s between Star Wars and Recruiting passive candidates.  Maybe the HR Capitalist could make that happen.

As of this posting, this product is ‘currently unavailable’ from the Star Wars Shop.  I’m assuming this is because the Twitter recruiter circle has bought them up already.  You know who you are.

Tweeter most likely to have this geeky shirt: Geoff Webb

T-Shirt #4 – Corn On The Job

Blogger Rich DeMatteo has taken the geeky t-shirt to a whole new level with his Corn Heads Community on his blog.  If you read Rich’s stuff, you know that he has a diverse following made up of HR/Recruiting folks, job seekers, vendors, professional resume writers, and students who will soon be entering the work force.  He plans to bring these people together by granting them Corn Head status.  That’s right – get a t-shirt with this fancy logo on the front, take a picture, and wallah – you are a… Corn Head.

Who would do that right?  Lots of people.  Check out the early adopters on his Corn Head page.  Don’t laugh, yours will be there soon enough.

Tweeter most likely to have this geeky shirt: James Oley, Samantha Karol, Sarah White, Samantha Ogborn, and tons of others.  It’s like a cult!

Have a favorite t-shirt that didn’t make the list?  Already have one of these?  Planning to invest in one of these shirts for your high school reunion?  Don’t be shy, let us hear it in the comments section.

#FunFriday – The Best of HR & Social Media Geeky T-Shirts is a post from: HR Think Tank

Imagine your candidates showing up to their interview totally unprepared – not at the top of their game – expecting you to look past the wrinkled clothes, poor resumes, and bad attitudes and hire them anyway.  It isn’t the first impression you hope for when you greet the candidate in the lobby.

First impressions matter – in person, on the phone and especially online.  Similar to how you are judging your candidates, your customers will make inferences about your capability as an organization based on the quality of your website, and candidates will make snap judgments about the attractiveness of working at your company within minutes of seeing your careers site.

In fact, everything you put out there in the social media space has the potential to play into someone’s impression of you as an individual, or as a company – twitter bios, tweets, blogs, websites, LinkedIn profiles, Facebook pictures – all fair game.  And when it comes to securing new customers and attracting new talent to your organization, none of these are more salient than your corporate website.

The company I work for, SEI, is going through a complete website redesign.  I tell it like it is, so I’ll say that I have been hesitant in the past to show this website openly to potential clients.  While I’m completely confident our service offerings adapt to change with the demands of the market to meet the needs of our clients, our website remained static.  Even more importantly, a stale and out of date website has the ability to affect recruiting.  It’s tough to on one hand say you are a premier business and technology consulting firm, and on the other have your careers page asking candidates to fax resumes.  Best practices for website development have changed rapidly – content density matters, and the best websites have gotten increasingly more visual and interactive.  Did we lose candidates because of our website?  It’s too hard to know, but the risk alone has us engaging in a redesign.

How do you know if your website needs a redesign?  Basically, if you start to feel like your website doesn’t reflect your company’s employment brand, people, or culture without you sitting next to the reader, don’t wait.  You should assume that you only have one shot at the next candidate that goes to your page.

If you are okay with candidates that don’t reflect their true value in your interviews, then sit tight with your sub-par careers page, but if you expect your candidates to be their best during their interview, pitching their experience and value proposition to the firm, you should be making sure your company is doing the same.  If not, your competition will.

Photo Credit

People Will Make A First Impression From Your Website: Don’t F It Up! is a post from: HR Think Tank

As I was debating over what to write about, my buddy Anthony suggested I blog about the whole NBC situation. Their Jay Leno experiment had ratings dropping faster than 09′ stock prices.  So NBC is reshuffling again, with all of their hopes tied to a guy with a huge chin and one funny skit -  headlines.  So that’s all you get NBC, 50 words on #FunFriday.  I’d rather watch Eddie Murphy on YouTube.

Anyway, I digress.  You know what is funny?  Casual Fridays. Laurie Ruettimann at Punk Rock HR did a post this week on corporate dress codes and some of the comments were pretty funny.  It got me thinking about dress codes and how companies try to make up for having overly strict policies by also having Casual Fridays.

Remember the guy in high school with the strict parents?  What did he do when he got to college?  They had no personal judgment and were the first ones passed out on the sticky frat house floor waking up covered in permanent marker tattoos.  People love to go to extremes.  You make me wear a suit Monday – Thursday, so on Casual Friday I come in looking like I am about to hit the beach.

So, Corporate America, here’s an idea: Set reasonable expectations for appropriate dress.  Hire smart people that know how to adjust their business wardrobe based on their daily schedules.  I’m a fan of applying the common sense principle here.  Not every company can have a dress code like Rackspace.  As a consultant – I certainly can’t show up at client meetings wearing “hippie wear and flip-flops”.  The dress for your company should be driven by your culture, and your culture should be aligned with your business.  When companies recruit and hire good, smart candidates that are a fit for their culture – they should know how to police their own wardrobe to represent the company.  This might mean a suit, but it might mean jeans and a this cool social media t-shirt.

If someone is sitting in their cube everyday and will never see another person other than coworkers – don’t make them sport a suit and tie.  But if you do require that for no reason, remember that you are like the strict parents sending your kid off to college – just asking for your employees to rock Hawaiian shirts and overly short cargo shorts on Fridays.  The equivalent of waking up markered up on the frat house floor.

#FunFriday – Casual Fridays is a post from: HR Think Tank

Back in March, I was asked to write the monthly ‘Living the Value Proposition’ column for my company’s monthly newsletter.  In a very Jerry Macguire-esque effort – I stayed up all night thinking about value propositions – the tough to define, ever-continuous search to define the elusive catch-phrase that pops into peoples minds when they think of our company.  I wasn’t looking to write marketing collateral or website material here – I wanted to dish some old school stream of consciousness thoughts on some basic questions: Why do people work here?  Why do clients hire us?  What enables us to get long term traction?

I decided to talk about the value of people and trust, and what they meant to our company – About how they defined our sales and delivery approach.

I wasn’t on Twitter yet – but I found Amber Naslund (@AmberCadabra) who wrote in her blog back in 2008 that “Delivering something worthwhile is not achieved in a board room with big flip charts or spreadsheets and ideation sessions. It’s not delivered with a slick brochure or well-written copy, or a stack of press hits in the Wall Street Journal.  It’s not delivered in key messages or brand attributes, even.  It’s delivered in the work that you do with and for your customers, each and every day.  The hard stuff, where you roll up your sleeves and show what you’re made of.  Solving real problems for real people.” When I read this – it instantly resonated with me – it sounded like my company.  It was at the heart of why we were experiencing real traction with clients.

I used Amber’s message as a spring board into talking about our hiring model as a key differentiator for the firm.  We don’t hire ‘revenue streams’ for short term opportunities; We don’t bend on out model to snatch up a high performer that isn’t a cultural fit; We don’t have partners and directors and mangers and associates and note takers in an endless ongoing hierarchy of escalating bill rates.  We hire good people that do great work and we give those people the opportunity to be part of a great company, and it works – Good candidates come here – and stay here – and we’re better because of it.

I also ran across Chris Brogan and Julien Smith’s blogs and their pre-Trust Agents eBook called Trust Economies.  They spoke about a business universe build from decades of empty promises, overused buzz words, and buyer skepticism.  They were hitting on the key to our value proposition: linking great people with great clients with a relationship grounded in the common currency of trust.

As we know all too well, a typical sales person (and in many cases a typical consultant) has a short-term mindset, focusing on monthly targets, quarterly/yearly quotas, and high-profit engagements.  But in the Trust Economy – it’s the relationship that drives the sale. Some companies will come in with glossy paper and big names and sell on reputation, but their long-term viability and stickiness are hampered by the lack of a sound, trusting relationship with their clients and numerous cases of non-delivery.

Companies and individuals alike can learn some valuable lessons here.  A strong commitment and focus on building sound relationships, and then adding value to those relationships without a greedy, take more than you give approach can lead to long-term benefits.  Focus on selling this way – Deliver.  Do what is right.  Focus on doing what is best for the client, without selfish and misaligned agendas.  Don’t gouge clients on rates because you can, and don’t change order clients to death. Take Amber’s advice and treat them like peers – roll up your sleeves and solve real problems together!

It’s about the Fuzzy Stuff: People and Trust is a post from: HR Think Tank