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f938a94b8e6f25ed8a5553e02707d8c7 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2012/12/19/college-footballs-most-valuable-teams-texas-longhorns-still-on-top/ | College Football's Most Valuable Teams: Texas Longhorns On Top, Notre Dame Falls | College Football's Most Valuable Teams: Texas Longhorns On Top, Notre Dame Falls
The world of college football has lately been obsessed with conference television deals, and rightfully so. Those wealthy contracts are the main driver behind the many recent conference realignments. The Big 12’s 13-year, $2.6 billion deal with ESPN and Fox attracted TCU and West Virginia, the latter of which paid $20 million to join up as fast as possible. Louisville, Pittsburgh and Syracuse also wasted little time jumping to the ACC to get a taste of the conference’s new deal with ESPN, worth $3.6 billion through 2027.
But even as TV deals drive up conference distributions and reshape the landscape of college sports, a college football team’s financial success still relies on what it earns individually.
Take the Texas Longhorns as an example. College football's most valuable team is now worth $133 million, up from $129 million last year. The Longhorns generated $104 million in revenue in 2011, the first time a college football team has ever cleared the $100 million mark. While the Big 12’s conference distributions increased to $19 million in 2011, about 40% of Texas’ football income still came exclusively from ticket sales ($32.4 million) and sponsorships ($8 million).
Gallery: 2012 College Football Team Valuations 21 images View gallery
And those non-conference revenue streams were actually diminished from previous seasons because Texas hosted just six home games last year, one fewer than the previous season. Home games are the lifeblood of college football’s most financially successful teams. Almost every school-specific revenue stream – ticket sales, contributions, sponsorships, merchandise – is at least partly influenced by a team’s number of home games. And the financial impact of home football games reaches beyond the schools, as each team’s local community enjoys a sizable economic boost from the thousands of fans who flock to the area on gamedays.
Our methodology, explained in detail below, considers the economic impact of visiting fans, and it’s often quite big. A single home game could inject anywhere from $5 million to $10 million of direct spending into a school's local economy, depending on the team. Each Longhorns home game attracts more than 40,000 visitors to the Austin area, and we estimate those fans spent over $10 million per game last season. For the Longhorns to increase in value despite giving up a home game is a truly impressive feat.
Complete Coverage: The Business of College Football
Further proof of the importance of home games is that the Nebraska Cornhuskers, ranked No. 11 with a value of $82 million, were willing to pay Southern Mississippi $2.1 million to move their 2013 game from Hattiesburg to Lincoln. The move will certainly pay off for both the Huskers and the Lincoln community; an eighth home game means a roughly 14% increase in gameday revenue for the team and as much as $8 million in additional visitor spending for the local economy.
The dual impact of an added home game also contributed to the biggest change in this year’s valuations: Michigan has unseated Notre Dame for the No. 2 spot on our list thanks to a 28% increase in value. The Wolverines, now worth $120 million, were one of just three teams on our list to play eight home games last season (the others being No. 9 Tennessee and No. 15 Oregon). That eighth game alone generated more than $6 million for Michigan’s football coffers.
The Fighting Irish, in turn, played one fewer home game last year and experienced an accompanying slight dip in value from $112 million to $103 million. The loss of a home game especially hurts Notre Dame’s value because the team’s fans are unrivaled when it comes to traveling and paying to watch their team play. Yet while the team is down in this year’s valuations, we expect an undefeated season and title game appearance – worth a unique $6.2 million BCS payout to Notre Dame – will have the Irish fighting back toward the top next year.
A final note on home games: Increased gameday revenue is also partly responsible for the inclusion of our valuations' two newest members: Oregon and Washington. Oregon went from six home games in 2010 to eight last season, surging up to No. 15 on our list with a value of $74 million. Washington added a seventh game and took the 18th spot with a value of $65 million. The two teams are likely here to stay because of the Pac-12's new TV deal, which is currently in its first season and worth more than $20 million annually to each conference school.
But while we expect the Pac-12 will maintain its newly expanded representation (USC, just behind Oregon at $68 million, rounds out the conference’s three schools), Oregon and Washington may soon witness a decline in value. Part of Washington’s climb in revenue, which is up 35% year-over-year, is the result of seating contribution income that is distributed to the school every five years. Oregon, on the other hand, may see diminished profits with the passage of Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber’s budget proposal, which would redirect state lottery money from collegiate athletic programs to other educational initiatives.
In Pictures: College Football's Most Valuable Teams
Complete Coverage: The Business of College Football
Our college football valuations use a weighted scoring system to measure the value created by each team for four key areas. The four components, in order of weight, are the team’s university, athletic department, conference and local community. Academic value is the football profit (football revenue less expenses) directed toward the university’s academic programming, including football scholarships, while athletic value is considered the remaining team profit used to support other sports teams and athletic initiatives. Conference value is the distribution of bowl game payouts to fellow conference members, and community value is the economic impact of visiting fans detailed above.
Financial data is from the 2011-12 fiscal year, and we standardize revenues and expenses in order to account for differences in each school’s methods of reporting financial data to the Department of Education. Take luxury seating contributions as an example of such a discrepancy. Some schools will allocate a portion of contribution revenue to football while other schools will instead group the income as athletic revenue unallocated by sport, even though football is attributable for its vast majority. Another example is an item like loan collateral, which is included in team expenses by some schools but omitted by others.
The 20 most valuable teams are worth an average $86 million with team revenue of $65 million. The SEC dominates the top of the list, as usual. Seven of the top ten teams come from the SEC, led by fourth-ranked LSU, now worth $102 million. Though the Tigers generated less revenue than some of their SEC rivals last season, they made up for it with unrivaled value to their conference. The undefeated Tigers earned the SEC a $22.3 million payout for making last season’s BCS National Championship. Alabama, which defeated LSU in the title game, claimed a much smaller $6.1 million conference payday for being the SEC’s second team in a BCS game.
One of the biggest drops in value had nothing to do with home games, and it doesn’t come as much of a surprise either. The Penn State Nittany Lions, ranked third last year, fell to No. 13. The team's value is now $79 million, down 21% from a $100 million valuation last year. The sudden slide was expected as the team felt the first financial implications of the Jerry Sandusky child abuse scandal. Penn State's severance payments to former football staff and contributions to child abuse initiatives helped drive the team's expenses to $30 million in 2011, up 55% year-over-year. The team's revenue also fell $6.5 million last year, though for reasons unrelated to the Sandusky scandal.
Two teams fell off our list this year: Texas A&M and Iowa, which were ranked 17th and 20th, respectively, last year. We expect the Aggies will make a rapid return to the list thanks to its new SEC membership and the fanfare surrounding Johnny Manziel’s Heisman-winning season. Oklahoma State also barely missed the cut for a second straight season. The Cowboys had a superb year financially, boosting revenue by $8 million despite hosting one fewer home game, but it wasn't enough to crack the top 20.
In Pictures: College Football's Most Valuable Teams
Complete Coverage: The Business of College Football
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47681f634fd40797e41fecb73b94437b | https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2013/01/07/the-money-behind-the-bcs-national-championship/ | The Money Behind The BCS National Championship | The Money Behind The BCS National Championship
The BCS National Championship has finally arrived, ready to put Notre Dame's vaunted defense, the stingiest in college football this season, to the ultimate test of stopping Alabama's punishing running attack. Yet regardless of either team's success, the two competitors will still enjoy a healthy portion of the millions of dollars being passed around by ESPN and the BCS.
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As the SEC's top team, Alabama will earn its conference a hefty $23.6 million payout from the BCS. The independent Notre Dame doesn't have a conference to share with, but it does have one of the best deals in college sports. The Fighting Irish will receive a unique $6.2 million payout for making a BCS bowl game this season (and the team even collects about $1.9 million in years it fails to qualify for a bowl). Tonight's combined $30 million in reward money is worth roughly 25% of the BCS's annual net revenue.
Don't worry too much for the BCS, though, because it will have no problem making that money back thanks to wealthy TV deals with ESPN. The network pays more than $150 million per year for the rights to all five BCS bowls. And those paychecks will only get bigger as college football moves to a playoff system for the 2014 season. ESPN is in the process of securing the playoff TV rights, and many expect the network will eventually have to pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 million annually for them.
Why pay so much? Because sometimes the network strikes gold. Tonight's showdown could potentially break the TV ratings record for college football's title game. It would be quite the feat considering that the record holder - the 2006 Rose Bowl between Texas and USC - featured two undefeated teams, two Heisman winners and four eventual top-ten picks in the subsequent NFL draft. That game was viewed in nearly 22% of American households with a television.
Fans may also be surprised to learn that while millions of fans will be tuning in from home, demand for tickets on the secondary market has been falling fast.
A final note on the business of tonight's game: it features two of college football's most valuable teams. Notre Dame ranks third, worth $103 million, and Alabama is fifth with a value of $95 million. Our valuations are based on how much money each team generates for its university, athletic department, conference and local economy.
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565493d25434ca914e6262fb237a96a9 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2013/04/12/sec-espn-to-announce-sec-network-likely-the-most-valuable-tv-deal-in-college-sports/ | SEC, ESPN To Announce SEC Network, Likely The Most Valuable TV Deal In College Sports | SEC, ESPN To Announce SEC Network, Likely The Most Valuable TV Deal In College Sports
SEC commissioner Mike Slive. When we released our January ranking of the most valuable conferences in college sports, as measured by annual revenue from TV deals, bowl games and the NCAA basketball tournament, many were surprised to see the SEC ranked fourth behind the Big Ten, Pac-12 and ACC.
The reason that the conference fell behind is that it still relies on revenue from 2008 TV deals with CBS and ESPN that pay a combined $205 million annually. For comparison, consider that the Big Ten and Pac-12 each take home somewhere in the neighborhood of $250 million per year from television revenue alone.
Yet as we explained in January, the SEC had little reason to worry because it was in the process of negotiating a new conference-specific network - a la the Big Ten Network - with ESPN that would be far more valuable than its current TV deals.
According to Sports Business Daily, ESPN and the SEC are finally set to announce that new network early next week. It will go live prior to the 2014 football season. More details from SBD:
The SEC and ESPN plan to formally announce the creation of an SEC channel on Tuesday. The two parties have begun to reach out to key constituents to let them know about the 12:00pm ET announcement at the Atlanta Hyatt. University presidents, ADs, SEC Commissioner Mike Slive, ESPN execs and the conference's corporate sponsors are among those being invited to the news conference. The SEC and ESPN have been working on plans to form a channel since the fall of '11, and the new channel is expected to launch in August '14. The channel is expected to have its studio headquarters in Charlotte at the ESPN Regional Television offices, while the primary sales outlet will be based in Atlanta.
Financial details are not yet available, but there is little doubt that the new network agreement will be the richest conference TV deal in college sports. No collegiate sport moves the needle like football, and no conference does football like the SEC. Seven of the ten most valuable college football programs already call the SEC home, and that number can only go higher once the conference's rich new deal kicks in.
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Gallery: The Most Valuable Conferences In College Sports 11 images View gallery
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5eeff3d94c926b468fc6bc6d8af9cc3c | https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2014/04/23/the-nba-is-destroying-the-nhl-in-the-battle-for-postseason-cable-tv-ratings/ | The NBA Is Destroying The NHL In The Battle For Postseason Cable TV Ratings | The NBA Is Destroying The NHL In The Battle For Postseason Cable TV Ratings
Many hockey fans feared that last year's lockout-shortened NHL season might put a damper on the sport's growing popularity in the United States. Those fears appear to have been unfounded as hockey viewership is up big this year, but even with that success the NHL is still way behind the NBA in terms of postseason viewership.
Through the first week of NHL postseason play, the league's narrative has been one of incredible success. A recent NBC press release touts that NHL postseason ratings are way up from last year. Games on the NBC Sports Network averaged 621,000 viewers through the network's first ten games, up 61% from the first ten postseason games on the network last year, and CNBC's average 295,000 viewers are up 25% from last year's comparable games.
But while that sounds impressive - and the growth truly is important - it's still nothing compared to the NBA.
Through Monday night, the NBA aired eight playoff games on cable networks (three on ESPN and five on TNT). Those eight games averaged 3.5 million viewers, or more than five times the audience tuning in to the typical NHL game on NBCSN. On Saturday, the NBA's three opening playoff games led all cable programming in viewership, and Sunday's games ranked as three of the top five most-viewed shows.
Meanwhile, the only NHL game to even register among the top-viewed cable programming was Saturday's double-overtime thriller between the Columbus Blue Jackets and Pittsburgh Penguins. The game's ratings numbers - a 0.3 rating with 850,000 viewers - rank it just behind an afternoon SpongeBob SquarePants episode and a late-night Full House rerun.
The cable numbers don't tell the whole story, of course. Casual or curious viewers are far more likely to know where to find ESPN or TNT as opposed to networks like NBCSN or CNBC, plus the NBA's first-round national cable broadcasts aren't blacked out in local markets like the NHL's (in other words, fans in Dallas can watch the Mavericks on TNT/ESPN if they'd like, but Stars games can only be seen on local carriers). And these numbers don't reflect viewership of the handful of games broadcast on over-the-air networks; so far, that's two NBA games on ABC and three NHL games on NBC.
But even with the NHL picking up steam from last year, the reality remains obvious that, despite a lack of exciting storylines in the NBA, hockey poses little threat to the NBA's dominance in postseason viewership.
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WATCH: Counting down the NBA's highest-earning players of 2014
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77d734099260f9d94484c78b791dd8dd | https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2014/06/12/the-biggest-sponsors-of-brazils-2014-world-cup/ | The Biggest Sponsors Of Brazil's 2014 World Cup Spend Big To Engage With Fans | The Biggest Sponsors Of Brazil's 2014 World Cup Spend Big To Engage With Fans
Every four years the FIFA World Cup arrives to global fanfare, the obvious reaction to the biggest possible event for the world's most popular sport. That global audience is a veritable goldmine for corporations around the world, and especially so for the tournament's official sponsors.
FIFA's major partners, which reportedly pay some $25-50 million per year, are Adidas , Coca-Cola , Emirates, Hyundai Motor Group, Sony and Visa . Added to that are FIFA's World Cup sponsors, a group that includes global brands like Budweiser, Castrol, Continental, Johnson & Johnson and McDonald's, plus European organic food producer Moy Park, Brazilian telecom company Oi and Yingli Solar, the world's largest solar panel manufacturer. Those second-tier sponsors pay in the range of $10-25 million per year.
That's not an easy club to be a part of. In 2013, FIFA generated $404 million from marketing rights associated with this year's World Cup, which comprised 29% of its annual revenue.
Gallery: 2014 FIFA World Cup Sponsors 11 images View gallery
These companies are featured on FIFA's website and in their World Cup promotional materials. They will also have signage at matches and air commercials during World Cup coverage. The memorable TV ads will not only run throughout the duration of the tournament, but they'll also live a much longer life on the internet. Companies are spending big for the exposure, with one report suggesting that ad spending is up over 40% from 2010.
FIFA sponsor Adidas first unveiled "The Dream," a thrilling spot featuring Lionel Messi, Louis Suarez and a brand new Kanye West song. Then a week later the German apparel company released "House Match," a much funnier ad with legends Zinedine Zidane and David Beckham playing against Gareth Bale and Lucas Moura. Fellow sponsor McDonald's took a series of trick shots, which are all the rage online, and turned the highlight reel into an exciting ad - without the use of a celebrity endorser:
Even companies that aren't officially sponsors can pick up traction off the games with TV ads. One example is Nike's "The Last Game," an animated short that stars the company's highest-profile athlete endorsers in a battle to save soccer in a dystopian future:
Other non-sponsor commercials that have been popular online include Cup of Noodles' soccer samurai and Beats by Dre's "The Game Before The Game" spot. But while non-sponsors are free to air soccer-themed commercials, they still can't get the same brand activation that official sponsors pay for.
Take Budweiser as an example. The Anheuser-Busch InBev beer brand not only rolled out a new commercial for the World Cup, but it's also opened the Budweiser Hotel on Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana beach. The fan destination will host both former Brazilian soccer players and EDM artists like Nicky Romero and Major Lazer, who will perform on the hotel's roof.
Another sponsor going all-out is British motor oil company Castrol. The company has unveiled what it calls the Castrol Index, which uses player-tracking technology to rate player performance. Castrol has also partnered with Brazilian soccer legend Cafu for star power, and it's held a contest that will send one lucky fan to follow the US Men's National Team and share highlights of the experience on social media.
Similar attempts at fan engagement are being made by the other official partners, and why not? The billion-dollar business of the World Cup is booming, and the tournament's official sponsors have invested millions to ride the wave.
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5198e609ee1cd63a98efe73a36231821 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2015/01/16/could-a-super-bowl-commercial-really-be-worth-10-million/ | Could A Super Bowl Commercial Really Be Worth $10 Million? Suprisingly, Yes. | Could A Super Bowl Commercial Really Be Worth $10 Million? Suprisingly, Yes.
NBC executive Seth Winter made headlines when he told reporters on a recent conference call that the network had already sold 95% of its ad inventory, with 30-second spots selling for up to a record $4.5 million. And yet, despite the price increase of $500,000, or 12.5%, from the $4 million or so that Fox charged last year, Winter went on to argue that the asking price is a steal for advertisers. In fact, he said that the true value of exposure, which includes things like online views and other positive PR associated with the game, is closer to $10 million:
We did an analysis around last year's Super Bowl that Fox ran, and our analysis showed that with all of the video distribution pre- and post-game, the value of the PR, the value of all of that which advertisers used to activate around their investment that it reached a very solid good foundation number of $10 million.
Winter of course isn't suggesting that a Super Bowl commercial ought to sell for $10 million, but that total value figure is still enormous. Even with a telecast like the Super Bowl, could the true value really be more than double its current asking price?
The network was kind enough to share its research and, believe it or not, the numbers add up.
That $10 million value is based on four main components. First is basic television viewership. Last year's game had around 112 million live viewers, just edging out the previous all-time record set two years prior when the Giants defeated the Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI. And surveys of last year's viewers showed what advertisers have long intuited: Super Bowl ads create a particularly strong brand recall. After all, what other event has viewers tuning in just to watch the commercials? It turns out the typical advertiser received 54% higher brand recall from a Super Bowl ad than it did for commercials aired in primetime over the previous year. In other words, those 112 million sets of eyeballs were the equivalent of more than 170 million viewers.
And that's just on TV. The second component is social media, which, between YouTube, Facebook and Twitter , adds another 19 million impressions. Keep in mind that's just an average, and that particularly successful ads can do much better online - Budweiser's popular "Puppy Love" spot has some 55 million views on YouTube alone. Adding that 19 million to the base audience brings the total up to 191 million impressions for a typical Super Bowl ad, or 1.72 impressions per live viewer. In other words, a price tag of $4.5 million - which, again, companies have been clamoring to pay - would give advertisers a true consumer ad value of $7.7 million.
The third part is the value generated by widespread media coverage of the game's commercials. Market research firm Repucom calculated that the typical Super Bowl ad generates another $480,000 in TV and online media exposure, bringing the total ad value to just over $8 million. Rounding out the final $10 million is a roughly estimated component comprised of increased brand awareness, an immediate boost in company sales and a measurable surge in stock prices, as detailed in this 2011 study by researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
Advertisers have long recognized the Super Bowl as far and away television's single greatest ad platform, and these numbers perfectly illustrate why that's the case. And while detractors might quibble over the true value of things like media exposure and stock price movement, you can throw all that out and still come to the conclusion that advertisers are getting a serious bargain. In fact, on brand recall alone $4.5 million is a discount price.
The typical way to determine an ad cost's real value is CPM, a measure of an advertiser's cost per thousand viewers. Last year's game had a raw CPM of $37, and this year's pricing would bump it up to around $40 if the game's audience size remains stable. Those are right in line with other major TV events; last year's Academy Awards had a CPM of $42 thanks to an audience of 43 million and a record ad cost of $1.8 million.
But nobody tunes into the Academy Awards to watch the commercials. As highlighted above, because commercials are so central to live Super Bowl viewership and so popular online, each live viewer really counts as 1.72 people, thus generating an effective audience of around 190 million. With a price point of $4.5 million this year, advertisers are getting an effective CPM of just $24. That's an insane steal. Even tossing out the social media impact would still give you an effective CPM of $26.
Put another way, if a CPM of $42 is considered fair value for such a major event, then an effective audience of 190 million people would suggest a total ad cost of $8 million. That means advertisers in this year's game are essentially getting a 44% discount on what the fair base price of a 30-second spot ought to be, and that's without even accounting for additional benefits like media coverage and stock price movement.
That's not to say every company should invest - for those unable to capitalize on ad value, Super Bowl commercials can be wasted spending - but, simply put, no other TV property allows advertisers to squeeze so much value out of every dollar spent.
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5641d3787e245cb4426aa233b90ae06e | https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2015/02/18/nascars-most-valuable-teams/ | Nascar's Most Valuable Teams | Nascar's Most Valuable Teams
The effects of the 2008 financial crisis were felt in the pro sports world, and perhaps no pro sport was hit harder than auto racing. Tracks suffered as race attendance slid and sponsorships dried up fast as companies reconsidered their spending initiatives. It was an especially dangerous time for Nascar, which had the added concern of negotiating new TV deals amid plummeting viewership. Things were, in a word, dire.
Less than a decade later the sport appears to be back on track. While things are nowhere near the pre-recession highs, TV viewership has started returning while new mega-rich TV deals are signed and ready to start in 2015. Most importantly the sponsors, the sport's very lifeblood of financial success, have been returning with renewed interest.
“We’re seeing momentum ever since that time period, whether it be the number of fans engaging in the sport, through all the different mediums from broadcast to digital to social media,” says Nascar COO Brent Dewar, “and we’re also seeing more sponsors in the sport today than we’ve ever had before.”
That's a big deal, considering that last year Nascar's teams relied on sponsors for two-thirds of their total revenue, and it's especially great news for the teams hoping to make up some ground on Hendrick Motorsports.
Gallery: Nascar's Most Valuable Teams 2015 11 images View gallery
Nascar's most valuable team is now worth $350 million, and it boasts the sport's most valuable sponsorship portfolio. Last year the team collected nearly $120 million from sponsors alone, while only two other teams generated that much in total revenue. The biggest source of that earning power is the four stars that Hendrick has behind the wheel: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Kasey Kahne.
In August, AARP's Drive to End Hunger diminished its sponsorship commitment to Gordon's No. 24 car, now covering just 13 of its previous 22-race agreement. That hole was filled days later when manufacturing company 3M left Roush Fenway Racing's Greg Biffle to sponsor 11 races per year on the No. 24 through 2017. When Earnhardt lost his longtime National Guard partnership that same month because of governmental spending restrictions, the team was able to quickly expand its new Nationwide Insurance deal to cover 21 races per season over the next three years.
Full Coverage: The Business of Nascar
Tack on some stellar on-track performances, and you've got the sport's best recipe for success. Last season was a down year for the team, and yet it still finished with $23 million in winnings, second only to Stewart Haas Racing, which won the Sprint Cup and only edged out Hendrick with winnings of $26 million. Add in a booming engine business and other income from licensing and manufacturer subsidies, and Hendrick was able to clear $14.4 million in operating income - earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization - on $180 million in revenue, both the most of any team.
Second behind Hendrick and closing the gap is Joe Gibbs Racing, up 18% to a value of $201 million this year. Gibbs has maintained strong relationships with companies like FedEx, Dollar General and Mars, which sponsors Kyle Busch's famous M&Ms car. And in 2015 the driver lineup of Busch, Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth will be joined by Carl Edwards as Gibbs expands to four cars. It will be only the third team to do so this year, joining Hendrick and Stewart-Haas, which went to four last season.
And Stewart-Haas, now at a value of $186 million, is third on the list. That 26% surge in value over last year should be little surprise to fans of the sport. The team has been consistently improving, and revenue has climbed from $68 million in 2010 to $120 million last year. The most recent increase was thanks in large part to Kevin Harvick, who joined the team last year. Harvick not only brought a 22-race sponsorship with Budweiser over from Richard Childress Racing - last year the team ranked second in total sponsorship income with around $87 million - but he also then won the 2014 Sprint Cup in the premier of Nascar's new Chase format. Harvick's stellar season was worth $12.8 million in total winnings; only one other driver managed to break $9 million.
And this year the financial importance of winning on the track may increase as Nascar's new TV deals with Fox and NBC kick in. The two ten-year agreements pay an average $820 million per season, a 46% increase over the $560 million-per-year average payout of the previous arrangement with Fox, ESPN and Turner. While it's yet unclear exactly how the race purse might be adjusted to account for that increase, 25% of that money goes is guaranteed to go to the teams.
But while the sport is getting stronger, team values are up just slightly this year. Where owners might find some real room to grow, however, is with franchise ownership. As things stand, buying a Nascar team means little beyond acquiring the physical assets and a handful of driver and sponsorship contracts that typically don't extend beyond three years. A franchise model, as used in pro leagues like the NFL and MLB, would mean capping the number of teams and thus granting team owners far greater control over their sport - and an asset that could seriously grow in value.
It's been a long-rumored change - Richard Petty was banging the drum back in 2007 - but one that may start picking up steam now that nine team ownership groups have banded together to form the new Race Team Alliance. A de facto owners' union, the RTA has formalized what was previously a loose collaboration among team owners.
And while franchising might be a stark contrast from the way things have always been done, many of the sport's owners don't come from the sort of racing background that might make tradition important. Richard Childress Racing minority partner Chartwell Investments should presumably be interested only in the potential return on investment. Franchising supporter Petty, one of the biggest names in the sport, has partnered with business execs in Opus Global Holdings' Douglas Bergeron and Medallion Financial's Andrew Murstein.
Full Coverage: The Business of Nascar
And with plans to open RTA's doors to all team owners, more outsiders are set to join the ranks. Front Row Motorsports, Nascar's tenth-most valuable team at $22 million, is owned by Bob Jenkins, who made his money operating fast food restaurants. Same story for BK Racing's Ron Devine. Other small-budget team owners include furniture magnate Barney Visser and JTG Daugherty Racing's Tad and Jodi Geschickter, a Proctor & Gamble marketer and US Airways flight attendant, respectively.
Nascar might be the nation's second-most popular sport after pro football, but most team values don't even stack up against the NHL's least valuable teams. But getting to that point is a long-term goal; for now the top Nascar teams are raking in an average $7 million per year in profit and, considering where the sport was less than a decade ago, any further success is icing on the cake.
Full List: Nascar's Most Valuable Teams
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58ec35b4d889f2e81cbb043d79fea9a2 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2015/07/20/the-sec-is-finally-the-most-valuable-conference-in-college-sports/ | The SEC Is Finally The Most Valuable Conference In College Sports | The SEC Is Finally The Most Valuable Conference In College Sports
General view of the SEC Network pregame braodcast during the game between the South Carolina... [+] Gamecocks and the Texas A&M Aggies at Williams-Brice Stadium on August 28, 2014 in Columbia, South Carolina. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)
One of the biggest stories to come out of the SEC's annual media days was flashy footwear, with both Mississippi State's Dan Mullen and Arkansas' Bret Bielema showing off some extravagant kicks. And after the year the SEC just had, it's safe to say the conference can afford plenty of new shoes for the rest of its coaches.
Last year the conference generated $476 million between payouts from football bowl games, the NCAA Tournament and TV deals with CBS and ESPN . That $34 million per member school was easily the most of any conference; the Big Ten had the second-most with some $28 million per member school.
The SEC earned $64 million from the College Football Playoff alone, thanks to a $50 million base payout and $14 million in bonuses, including travel subsidies. Other bowl games nearly doubled that football income, thanks largely to a $27.5 million payout from Mississippi State's Orange Bowl appearance. NCAA Tournament play added another $17 million, the fourth-most earned by any conference last year.
But the real game-changer was television. We estimate that the SEC generated a staggering $347 million in TV money last year. Nearly $300 million of that total came from ESPN between rights fees and the conference's share of SEC Network profits. The conference-specific network wasn't projected to generate a profit until its third year, but it well exceeded expectations in its first nine months, kicking off around $112 million for the SEC.
Gallery: The Most Valuable Conference In College Sports 2015 11 images View gallery
As in the past, we're comparing the conferences according to their three biggest revenue streams: football bowl games, the NCAA Tournament and conference TV deals. Bowl game revenue is a combination of money from the College Football Playoff, which distributed some $400 million among ten conferences last year, and contract bowls. The NCAA Tournament's prize money system operates on a six-year rolling period, with conferences receiving around $250,000 per tournament game played over the last six seasons.
And as noted above, television income accounts for the massive rights fees and, in some instances, profit sharing from conference network partners. Unlike in years past, when we've used the average annual payout of TV contracts, this year we've estimated the actual TV revenue earned in the 2014-15 fiscal year.
As always, those TV deals are the real difference maker. Live sports telecasts are among the last DVR-proof properties, which has turned them into some of the most valuable TV programming around. That's particularly true of college sports. We estimate that the ten most valuable conferences generated a combined $1.3 billion in TV money alone last year. A whopping 27% of that was collected by the SEC, while the Big Ten took 21% of the total.
Though the SEC has grabbed the top spot and will likely stay there thanks to its increasingly profitable network, the Big Ten isn't going anywhere just yet. In fact, the conference will soon be renegotiating its first-tier rights agreement with ESPN, meaning its member schools are in line for a serious windfall. The conference has already projected that member schools will receive $44.5 million apiece as soon as 2017-18.
The Big 12 is well behind its Power Five peers in terms of total revenue, but with just ten schools it's neck-and-neck with the Pac-12 in terms of per-school income; last year both conferences generated just over $25 million per member. The per-school figure is important because the more schools a conference has, the more teams it can send to bowl games and the NCAA Tournament. Even more importantly, the additional regular season games provide more content to be sold to networks. With 15 members, including football-independent Notre Dame, the ACC lags behind at $22 million in revenue per school.
An important reminder: Our per-school figures represent how much revenue each conference generated per member school, but not necessarily how much will be distributed to each conference member. Conferences typically keep a slice of the total revenue pie in order to cover conference-level expenses like executive salaries. For instance, the SEC generated $34 million per school from its biggest revenue streams last year, but the conference's actual revenue distribution was $31.2 million per member.
And as the above graph illustrates, the world of college sports is very clearly split between the haves and the have nots. The back half of our list - comprised of the American, Mountain West, Big East, C-USA and MAC - generated a combined $213 million last year. Consider that the Big 12, the lowest-earning Power Five conference, took home $253 million. And that wealth gap would be even wider if not for the College Football Playoff, which shared $80 million among the so-called Group of Five (AAC, MWC, C-USA, MAC and the Sun Belt Conference).
That massive difference in conference revenue also explains why many schools often appear so eager to abandon their conferences for greener pastures. Maryland, Rutgers, Notre Dame, Louisville, Missouri, Texas A&M and TCU have all moved in recent years, and it's all been for the single purpose of trying to find the best conference revenue pipeline available. And if one thing has become abundantly clear it's that, right now, there's no better home than the SEC.
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12d2d1f8037f03f5fbfba199139cf74d | https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2017/02/02/it-looks-like-the-price-of-super-bowl-commercials-cant-go-any-higher/ | The Price Of Super Bowl Commercials May Be About To Stall | The Price Of Super Bowl Commercials May Be About To Stall
Buick has paid Fox more than $5 million just for 30 seconds of airtime for its Super Bowl commercial... [+] featuring Cam Newton. (Emma McIntyre/Getty Images)
We're a few days out from the Super Bowl, which is both the NFL's championship game and the biggest day of the year for TV commercials. Those ads draw tremendous viewer interest, and this year Fox is charging advertisers more than $5 million just for 30 seconds of air time. But while ad rates have soared in recent years, some indicators seem to suggest that rapid growth in Super Bowl ad rates may soon come screeching to a halt.
Five years ago I suggested that Super Bowl ad rates could double from $3.5 million to $7 million within a decade (from 2012 to 2022). My reasoning was that the networks had room for price increases - at that point in time Super Bowl ads represented a tremendous bargain in terms of cost per viewer - and that the networks would need to take advantage of that pricing power to cover the greatly increased spending caused by a new set of TV deals with the NFL.
Thus far that prediction has been right on track. We're halfway between 2012 and 2022, and this year Fox is reportedly charging an ad rate of between $5 million to $5.5 million per 30-second commercial, which is right at the mid-point between $3.5 million and $7 million.
But while ad rates have surged at a rapid clip, it's appearing increasingly unlikely that they'll be able to keep up this growth rate. In fact, there may not be much room at all for any further price increases.
Advertisers often measure their spending in CPM, or their cost per thousand viewers. And once upon a time, the Super Bowl's low CPM reflected why companies were often so eager to air commercials during the game. Advertisers airing commercials at Super Bowl XLV in 2011 paid $3 million to reach an audience of 111 million people, or the equivalent of a $27 CPM. With hit shows posting CPMs of $35 or more, the NFL's title game offered tremendous bang for the buck.
But increases to the Super Bowl's ad rates have greatly outpaced audience growth, and title game commercials no longer represent such a great bargain. Last year's game had an audience of around 112 million and CBS charged $5 million per 30-second commercial; in other words, advertisers paid a CPM of $45.
Few shows outpace that sort of cost per viewer. The NFL's premier weekly games certainly don't come close. This year's Sunday Night Football broadcasts averaged around 20 million viewers and charged $650,000 per 30-second ad spot, giving the games a rough CPM of $33. ESPN's Monday Night Football telecasts averaged 11 million viewers and charged $372,000, good for around $34 per thousand viewers.
And though advertising at a marquee event like the Super Bowl will obviously come at a premium price, a CPM of $45 is still around the ceiling of what advertisers have paid for major telecasts. The Academy Awards, which are the nation's next-biggest annual TV event, typically have viewership between 35 million and 40 million people while charging ad rates that have recently closed in on $2 million, giving the show a CPM of nearly $50.
So if Super Bowl networks have nearly maxed out their pricing power, then they need the game's audience to grow in order to support future price increases. And therein lies a key problem: Viewership isn't growing.
For a while it seemed that the Super Bowl's TV audience would increase forever. The game's viewership constantly grew from 2005 through 2011, when it hit 111 million viewers. But since then growth has been hard to come by. Viewership stayed flat in 2012, dipped in 2013 and then bounced back to 111.5 million viewers in 2014. The highly anticipated Patriots/Seahawks game two years ago boosted the TV audience to 114.4 million viewers, marking a new record, but last year the audience dipped once again, dropping below 112 million.
With viewership of four of the last six Super Bowls hovering under 112 million viewers, regular-season NFL ratings dropping off and cord-cutting reaching new highs, it seems we may have already found the limit for the number of people watching the Super Bowl on TV. And without a growing audience to support future ad rate increases, networks may have also found the cap for what they can charge advertisers for Super Bowl commercials.
Case in point: Advertisers are already showing a reluctance to invest at the current prices. In 2012 NBC was able to sell out its entire ad space inventory by Thanksgiving, yet three years later the same network was still making deals in January. Three years ago Fox had sold out its Super Bowl ad inventory by the first week of December; this year the network is still trying to sell its last units during the very week of the game.
Ad rates have already stalled out for the league's premier weekly games. Monday Night Football ad rates have been on the decline for at least three straight years, and NBC's Sunday Night Football has only seen modest 2% gains in each of the last two seasons. The Super Bowl long seemed immune to such slowdowns, but it looks like even the biggest TV event of the year may have already found its peak.
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963318348917a67aef56c5c206fbc5f8 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2017/02/15/lebron-james-passes-cristiano-ronaldo-on-forbes-sportsmoney-index/ | LeBron James Passes Cristiano Ronaldo On Forbes SportsMoney Index | LeBron James Passes Cristiano Ronaldo On Forbes SportsMoney Index
The NBA has been remarkably successful in recent years, and it seems just about everyone with a stake in the action is cashing in. The average NBA team is now worth $1.4 billion, and the New York Knicks remain the league's most valuable franchise at a whopping $3.3 billion, a 10% increase from a year ago. Players have also been growing richer off the flood of money entering the sport, and none moreso than LeBron James, who sits atop the throne as the game's top-paid player with $86 million in earnings this season.
And the surging business of the NBA has caused quite the shake-up in the first-ever update to the Forbes SportsMoney Index. The SMI, which we debuted at the beginning of the month, ranks the 430 most powerful teams, athletes, brands and agencies in sports business. That ranking takes into account both financial power and relationships with others in the sports business world. With our new NBA data plugged in, the Knicks have moved up two spots to No. 11, and LeBron James receives a bump as well, passing Cristiano Ronaldo as the top athlete at No. 5 on the list.
James has greatly increased his income this year: He's now making $86 million, which is up $9 million (or 12%) from last season. That makes him the world's second-highest paid athlete behind only Ronaldo, who clocks in at $88 million. What pushes James past Ronaldo in the SMI, however, is that he has one of the most impressive collections of endorsements. His major partners include Nike, Coca-Cola (via Sprite) and Kia, and this year James has added two more with Intel and Verizon.
Also moving up the SMI ranks is Kevin Durant, whose total earnings of $62.5 million are up more than $6 million from last season and make him the league's second-highest paid player. That pushes Durant up to No. 21 in the SportsMoney Index, passing Carmelo Anthony, Drew Brees and Neymar (as well as ESPN, the Chicago Bulls and others among the non-athlete categories). He's now the second-highest ranked NBA player. But Durant's recent surge is nothing compared to that of his Warriors teammate Steph Curry.
Design: Nick DeSantis, Forbes Staff Curry is now the NBA's third-highest paid player with earnings of $47 million. Unlike most of the league's top-paid stars, Curry makes the majority of his money ($35 million) from endorsements. The huge increase in earnings launches Curry from No. 113 to No. 49 on the SMI, putting him just one spot below Dwyane Wade.
On the team side, one of the biggest movers is Curry’s Golden State Warriors, which moved up 32 spots to No. 16 on the SMI. The Warriors have turned on-court dominance into financial success, and the franchise is now the third-most valuable NBA team, worth $2.6 billion. Thanks to relationships with the likes of Curry, Durant and sponsors that include Nike, American Express and BMW, the Warriors are now the second-highest ranked NBA team in the SMI behind only the Knicks.
Other teams moving upwards in the SMI include the Los Angeles Lakers (No. 27), Cleveland Cavaliers (No. 36) and Houston Rockets (No. 52). For more details on why they’ve been so successful, check out our story on NBA team valuations. And you can explore how our new NBA data has impacted the world of sports business - including boosts for player agencies, like James Harden's Landmark Sports Agency and Russell Westbrook's Wasserman Media Group, and NBA-associated brands like Samsung and BMW - by visiting the Forbes SportsMoney Index.
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71b8257f2b507acb6d745871b8e6da5e | https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2018/09/11/college-footballs-most-valuable-teams/ | College Football's Most Valuable Teams: Texas A&M Jumps To No. 1 | College Football's Most Valuable Teams: Texas A&M Jumps To No. 1
Texas A&M unseats the cross-state rival Longhorns as college football's most valuable program. 2017 Getty Images
For years, the Texas Longhorns have been hailed as college football’s ultimate cash cow. In 2011, Texas was the first college football team ever to record $100 million in revenue. In 2014, the team generated more in profit – $92 million – than all but two teams made that year in revenue.
But there’s a new No. 1, and you don’t even have to leave the state to find them: Texas A&M is now college football's most valuable program.
Across the three years prior to last season, Texas A&M averaged annual revenues of $148 million, the most of any program in the nation. That not only tops the Longhorns; it leaves them in the dust. Over the same time period, Texas football averaged $133 million in revenue, making the Longhorns a distant second.
Gallery: College Football's Most Valuable Teams 2018 26 images View gallery
It's been widely reported that the Aggies closed the gap with the cross-state rival Longhorns because of a vast increase in contributions. And indeed, from 2014 through the 2016-17 season, the Texas A&M athletic department earned $260 million in contributions, nearly double what any other school made in that time. For reference, in those years, Texas had total athletic contributions of $123 million; Florida, which ranks second in the category, totaled contributions of $138 million. Texas A&M, meanwhile, allocated $119 million of its total contributions just to the football team.
Texas A&M's rise to the top isn't just from alumni contributions, though. The team ranks third in ticket revenue, averaging some $41 million per year, and it's sixth in money from royalties and licensing. And the 2012 move to the SEC certainly hasn’t hurt – the conference’s most recent revenue distribution was $41 million per member school while Big 12 programs each received just $34 million from their conference.
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Yet while there's no denying the Aggies’ tremendous financial success, there's also an important, lingering question: How long will it last?
The surge in contributions is the Texas A&M faithful's response to fundraising efforts started in 2014 to fund some major construction efforts: Kyle Field underwent a $485 million renovation that made it college football’s third-largest stadium, and another $68 million was put toward building new stadiums for softball and track and field. But as those projects are completed, the contribution revenue should ebb back toward normal levels. And if the team's on-field performance doesn't soon improve from the mediocre finishes of the last few years, then some of those other revenue streams may also begin to dry up.
Lying in wait is Texas. Although the runner-up this year, the Longhorns remain a financial powerhouse across the board. The team is among the best in nearly every revenue stream that's not tied to conference money or bowl game payouts; the Longhorns are top-five in contributions, ticket sales, endowments, concessions and even youth camps. And Texas football's $31 million from licensing, royalties and advertising is 50% more than any other team makes from the category.
No wonder, considering Texas athletics gets nearly $10 million per year on average from Nike, making it the third-biggest apparel deal in college sports (UCLA and Louisville rank first and second). Texas also receives increasingly juicy rights payments from ESPN for the Longhorn Network; this year, the university and its athletic department will split $11.6 million from the school-specific network, and that payout increases by 3% annually. The LHN contract runs through the end of June 2031.
Note: Financial data are estimates based on annual financial filings made to the NCAA and Dept. of ... [+] Education. Chris Smith/Forbes
Michigan edges out Alabama for third on our list; both have averaged $127 million in football revenue over the three most recent years for which financial data is available, but the Wolverines come out ahead in our ranking thanks to greater profits in that time ($75 million to $59 million). Alabama actually ranks just 10th in team profit, since no other program comes close to matching the Crimson Tide in spending: Alabama football spends an average $68 million per year, a staggering 22% more than any other team in the nation. Ohio State rounds out the top five with $120 million in average annual football revenue.
This is the first time Forbes has ranked college football teams since 2015, and this year we’ve taken a different approach to the endeavor. Our list of college football's most valuable teams ranks the nation's top programs by average annual revenue, rounded to the nearest million. Ties in revenue were broken using average profits, and any ties in both areas were broken by using single-season revenue for the 2016-17 fiscal year.
Read More: The Most Valuable College Apparel Deals 2018
To determine team revenues and expenses, we relied on annual filings made by each school's athletic department to the NCAA and the Department of Education. Revenues and expenses allocated to football were also adjusted to account for differences in accounting practices among athletic departments. In order to prevent year-to-year aberrations from skewing things, our revenue and expense numbers are three-year averages across the 2014, 2015 and 2016 football seasons, which are the three most recent years for which data is available. Financial data for last season won't be reported to the NCAA until January.
The SEC has long dominated the sport on the field, winning nine of the last 12 national championships, and the conference is also the strongest when it comes to money: Our financial top 25 features 10 teams from the SEC, the most from any conference. The Big Ten comes next with seven programs, and no other conference has more than three teams on our list. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the SEC and the Big Ten are the two conferences that have experienced tremendous success with their conference-specific networks.
The one outlier in the conference talk is, of course, the football independent Notre Dame, which ranks seventh with team revenues of $112 million. Although the Irish don't get conference money for football, the team still receives a reported $15 million per year from NBC for broadcast rights to its home games. What's more, Notre Dame's athletic department doesn't even report the vast majority of contributions tied to the football team's ticket lottery, since most of those are made directly to the university.
The SEC is college football's most dominant conference both on and off the field. 2017 Getty Images
Following Notre Dame are four SEC teams: Auburn, LSU, Florida and Tennessee. Calling the SEC home means a huge boost to conference-level revenues, and each program also excels in a different area. LSU, for instance, ranks fifth in ticket sales with an average of $37 million per year; Florida is second in contribution revenue, taking home some $40 million annually. This group also rounds out what's essentially college football's upper class, as there's a precipitous drop from No. 11 Tennessee at $108 million to No. 12 Oregon, which has averaged $92 million in annual revenue.
By our count, college football’s 25 most valuable teams generate a combined $2.5 billion per year in revenue, and they clear more than $1.4 billion annually after expenses. A tremendous portion of those earnings goes toward supporting non-revenue sports like softball and swimming, which helps explain why even some of the nation's biggest athletic departments can still struggle to break even.
But when it comes to college football's elite class, it's hard to believe any arguments that there isn't enough money to go around. From 2014 to 2016, the 23 teams at public schools on our list combined to spend an average $239 million per year on salaries and severance for football coaches, but just $90 million per year on student aid for football players. In the 2016-17 fiscal year alone, those teams’ athletic departments spent a combined $800 million on capital expenditures and $250 million on debt service for athletic facilities. That year, those same athletics programs combined to transfer just $65 million back to their universities to support academic programming.
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5a98fd513ce4991f5d5a460369711c6e | https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith1/2020/06/03/the-top-10-mistakes-entrepreneurs-make-in-their-first-virtual-vc-pitch-meeting/?sh=6a98c6a76303 | The Top 10 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make In Their First (Virtual) VC Pitch Meeting | The Top 10 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make In Their First (Virtual) VC Pitch Meeting
Without sufficient planning, a first (virtual) pitch meeting with a VC can end up like this. Getty
You have finally secured a pitch meeting with a VC. The well planned strategy you spent months crafting has worked and you avoided the common mistakes entrepreneurs make when approaching investors.
This is your chance to secure funding to build out your dream. You feel a mixture of excitement and nerves. You want to prepare and do your absolute best.
There is no blueprint for success. As with any other relationships in life, there needs to be the right chemistry and mutual interest to move forward.
That said, avoiding these top 10 mistakes will increase your chances of getting investors to meaningfully engage, which is the critical first step.
Going in mob handed. Showing up with your whole team was never a good idea. It raises immediate questions. Why can the CEO not handle this themselves (they should be able to) and do they really have so little to do building their business that they can spare the time (they should not be able to). Investors are obsessed with efficiency. Seeing the CTO or other founders sit in an initial investor meeting twiddling their thumbs just in case they get asked a question is grossly inefficient. They will be involved in the process later on. Having just the CEO attend has an added benefit using video calls – it creates a far more direct, personal interaction with the investor when they see your full face on their laptop screen and vice versa.
Wrong choice of tech. Do not let an esoteric choice of video calling platform frustrate the smooth running of the meeting – Zoom, Hangouts or Teams. These are the options. Try to figure out the investor’s preferred one and go with that.
Not having a back-up plan. Jerky video. Muffled audio. Talking across each other. Tech problems happen and they are frustrating to everybody involved. They can change the whole mood of a meeting and sap energy from the room. If they persist for more than a few minutes, offer up your cell phone number and suggest a telephone call instead.
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Underselling or overselling yourself. Impostor syndrome hits us all from time to time. Do not let it be in an investor meeting. Being self-effacing and humble, qualifying successes or making unnecessary negative statements do not work in this environment. Prepare thoroughly for the meeting to build confidence and put your best self forward. Keep your energy levels high. Do not, however, let this flow over into arrogance – being overly confident and bragging is not a good quality and will be seen through.
Not being authentic. It is important to be yourself. Acting a certain way that you think the investor wants is unlikely to work in the long run and is no fun to sustain. Remember that, yes, you are trying to secure funding, but more importantly the aim is to build a relationship that is going to be mutually beneficial for the next 5 to 10 years. Those tend to work best with mutual honesty and trust.
Sticking too rigidly to the script. Enter meeting room. Laptop on. Connect to screen. Go! This may allow you to be in your comfort zone but putting up a presentation and running through it non-stop rarely works. This is even more the case in virtual meetings where sharing your screen reduces your face to a thumbnail and allows the investor’s thoughts to drift. The key here is maintaining engagement. Ask the investor how they would like to run the meeting and take their lead. Be prepared for a back and forth Q&A. Do not skip over your personal story – investors love to understand your ‘why’ and it adds context and life to whatever you are going to say next.
Talking too much. We have all been at a dinner party with that person. They open their mouths and pause for breath only when coffees are being served (if you are lucky). Do not be that person. Your aim is a two-way dialogue. You want the investors to ask questions because this keeps them engaged and raises the chances that they get interested in what you are doing. Talking at them for an hour, unless you missed your real calling on Broadway, will bore them.
Not reading the (virtual) room. Use your EQ. Monitor facial expressions. If the investor seems distracted or disinterested, change it up. Modify your tone, move onto a different topic, or ask the investor a question. Remember that your aim at all times is to keep the investor engaged. This gives you the best chance to gain their interest and excitement about what you are doing.
Not asking the right questions. The meeting is not just an opportunity to sell your vision. You need to learn as much as you can about your potential investment partner. At the very least, ask some screening questions to figure out how much you should be prioritizing this investor. What is your process from here? How does your IC work and who is involved? How does your fund support its portfolio companies? And a Covid-19 bonus question: how many new deals have you done so far this year and how does this compare to last year?
Not setting follow-up actions. Founders too often leave a meeting with the ball in the investor’s court to follow up in an undetermined time frame. Try and agree action points on both sides. Founders who agree to send additional materials that help the investors understand the proposition and do so quickly after the meeting stand out. Demonstrate your responsiveness. Try to agree when the VC will get back to you if you can. Having a timeline from them – and seeing whether they are early or late – is a useful benchmark on their level of interest.
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29104403185bfa6ab38589cb65431df5 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisstrub/2019/08/14/elpasochallenge/?_scpsug=crawled,7423239,en_51b584d480481ba2244fa6c003ad3938dfb404b6e04918cb903dbe77cfbabee0 | Internet Embraces Sixth-Grader's #ElPasoChallenge To Spread Kindness | Internet Embraces Sixth-Grader's #ElPasoChallenge To Spread Kindness
Acts of kindness movements have occurred in the wake of mass shootings before. In this 2015 photo, ... [+] slips of paper adorn the wall of Pleasant Valley Elementary in Connecticut after the anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. ASSOCIATED PRESS
If you've purchased a cup of coffee, rented a DVD, or even just walked through a door in a public place this month, you may already be familiar with the #ElPasoChallenge.
In the wake of the tragic mass shooting that took place on August 3 in El Paso, Texas, 11-year-old Ruben Martinez challenged people through social media to commit 20 random acts of kindness in their own communities.
"How: I'll challenge each person in El Paso to do 20 good deeds for each other," Martinez wrote in a hand-written note that has gone viral across the social media spectrum.
His stated purpose? "To honor the people who got killed in our city."
The hashtag #ElPasoChallenge has been used more than 26,000 times on Twitter since the massacre occurred.
One of the biggest beneficiaries of the challenge so far has been the teachers of El Paso. To date, 30 projects have been fully funded on DonorsChoose.org, with 19 more projects still seeking funding.
"Words fail to describe how appreciative I am of all the amazing support from DonorsChoose donors and matching funders!" wrote Parkland Middle School special education teacher Alejandro De La Pena. "I literally went to sleep last night having just posted this new project and I woke up to find it FULLY FUNDED! I feel like many teachers do, a little invisible sometimes and afraid to ask for help. But in light of the tragedy our city is still going through, I forced myself to show myself and not be afraid. You all let me feel that "we are seen" and you are "here to help".”
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The wave of kindness has spread well beyond El Paso. Rental kiosk conglomerate RedBox retweeted an image of bags of microwave popcorn taped to one of its machines, with anonymous notes reading, "Please enjoy this bag of popcorn with your next movie #ElPasoChallenge."
"Challenge accepted!" Tweeted Eileen Barrett, MD, MPH, an internist at The University of New Mexico. "Today I was able to buy drinks for 22 people at the hospital’s coffee counter. The wonderful barista told everyone about Ruben’s idea and asked them to pay it forward in some way. Thank you, Ruben Martinez, for inspiring us to do better. #ElPasoChallenge"
Martinez and his mother, Rose Gandarilla, have experienced some of the random acts of kindness themselves around the city of El Paso, encountering an unidentified man holding the door for customers at a gas station.
While the lengthy healing process in El Paso continues, the challenge is making an impact on at least one young child affected by the tragedy.
"(Ruben) seems to be doing better," Gandarilla told CNN, "and says that hopefully, the world will be a better place with all these random acts of kindness."
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1bed4144650ab0b88af4385f6cd76b6c | https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisstrub/2019/10/01/ngoreport/ | More Nonprofits Use Facebook Than Have A Website: Global NGO Report | More Nonprofits Use Facebook Than Have A Website: Global NGO Report
Ninety-nine percent of nonprofits polled recently in the U.S. and Canada have a Facebook page. ... [+] Pictured is Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. BLOOMBERG NEWS
Nine in ten nonprofits around the world regularly use social media to engage their supporters and donors, according to the newly released Global NGO Tech Report produced by Nonprofit Tech For Good.
Organizations’ social media usage is one layer of the multifaceted, 33-page report, which polled 5,721 NGOs from 160 countries worldwide.
The report offers a comprehensive region-by-region breakdown, with statistics for usage of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and WhatsApp. Nearly all (99%) nonprofits in the U.S. and Canada are shown to have a Facebook page, with 56% using Instagram, 64% on Twitter and 37% leveraging LinkedIn.
Live-streaming usage in the U.S. and Canada lags behind global rates: Facebook Live (43% U.S./Canada, 43% global); Instagram Live (34% vs. 41%); and Twitter Live via Periscope (13% vs. 20%.)
NGOs worldwide are found to use different aspects of Facebook to varying effects. While a vast majority of nonprofits (97%) globally have a Facebook page, 54% say they use Facebook stories, while 44% have a Facebook group. Thirty-six percent use Messenger Bots, while 47% say they purchase ads on Facebook.
And while Facebook is generally the preferred channel for nonprofits worldwide, more than half of the organizations polled – 56% – responded that they do not have a written social media strategy.
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Of the six regions polled – Africa; Asia; Australia & New Zealand; Europe; Latin America & the Caribbean; and the U.S. & Canada; the U.S. and Canada had the lowest percentage of organizations with a written social media strategy (40%).
Even without an outlined strategy or an editorial calendar – 58% said they do not use an editorial calendar – 94% of respondents agreed that social media is an effective tool for online brand awareness.
Globally, the 42% of nonprofits that have Instagram profiles average 3,322 followers. Of those with an account, 66% use Instagram Stories, ahead of the U.S. and Canada rate of 56%.
The report included questions about web and email communications, as well as productivity and emerging technologies. Ninety-seven percent of respondents in the U.S. & Canada said they have a website, with 85% accepting donations through their site – the highest rate of the six regions polled. However, only 6% offer live chat, well below the global average of 12%. Worldwide, just 4 in 5 (80%) of NGOs were found to have a website.
Of the 5,721 total NGOs polled, 27% reported participating in #GivingTuesday 2018, with 59% saying they raised more than they had on the day in 2017. And 40% of those polled worldwide said they use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to track donations and manage communications.
The report, in its fourth edition, is sponsored by Funraise. The fifth biennial report will be released Sept. 15, 2021.
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bdfcf26475d4f72f30e125d8e06de1e4 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisstrub/2019/12/31/gt2019/ | Giving Tuesday Facebook Fundraising Dips 4% In 2019 | Giving Tuesday Facebook Fundraising Dips 4% In 2019
Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, announced recently that Facebook users had ... [+] donated $120 million on Giving Tuesday 2019. BLOOMBERG NEWS
The world’s largest social media network helped 97,000 nonprofits raise $120 million in a single day, according to a statement from Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.
“Wow! Over 1.1 million people on Facebook raised $120 million on #GivingTuesday for causes they care about,” Sandberg wrote in a Facebook post. “Donations went to 97,000 nonprofits supporting disaster relief, animal shelters, cancer research and so much more. A huge and heartfelt thanks to all of you for being a part of this incredible moment and for working to make our world better.”
FacebookSheryl Sandberg
The company shared that an additional $20 million had been raised on Facebook in the week leading up to Giving Tuesday, which falls on the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving — this year, Dec. 3.
But the $120 million figure represents a surprising year-over-year decline for the social media juggernaut. On Giving Tuesday 2016, Facebook users raised $6.8 million; that number jumped 561% — to $45 million — on Giving Tuesday 2017, as the company eliminated its 5% transaction fee, and featured a $2 million match from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
On Giving Tuesday 2018, Facebook users nearly tripled their contributions, to $125 million. The company incentivized donations with a $7 million match that was exhausted “in seconds.”
This year, Facebook made some cosmetic changes to its mobile apps, adding a ‘Donation’ sticker to its Facebook and Instagram Stories platforms and an optional ‘Donate’ button to nonprofit business profiles. (Data on the usage of these features has not been made available.)
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But Facebook stuck with its $7 million, first-come, first-serve match. Nonprofits will learn in January what, if any, portion of its Giving Tuesday donations were matched by Facebook, and those matching funds won’t be available until February.
The match — which is capped at $100,000 per nonprofit and $20,000 per donor — has been a controversial topic among nonprofit leaders.
“Facebook also limits donor information and disburses funds slowly, which our nonprofit members have reported make it difficult to thank their contributors and report on Giving Tuesday fundraising success,” said Molly Trerotola, Director of Strategic Engagement at Give Lively.
The fundraising drop doesn’t mean there aren’t success stories. Facebook pointed to individual nonprofits like I Be Black Girl and Turtle Mountain Animal Rescue.
But experts concur that because of its organic nature, Giving Tuesday is unlikely to have a “hockey stick moment” of sudden awareness growth, like Cyber Monday. “Instead, it will grow steadily, sustainably, and over time like a redwood tree that will stand the test of time,” Whole Whale Founder and CEO George Weiner told The Nonprofit Times.
As of Dec. 30, 2019, Facebook’s estimated net worth exceeded $593 billion. Founder Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth is estimated at more than $65 billion. Facebook boasts more than 2.45 billion monthly active users, and according to the latest Global NGO Tech Report, 99% of nonprofits in the U.S. and Canada have a Facebook page.
According to Giving Tuesday, $511 million was raised online in the U.S. on Dec. 3; that represents more than 25% of the $1.97 billion estimated to be raised on- and off-line.
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510d1b0a6136ea88e705234ead9b246f | https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisstrub/2020/01/07/npoemail/?sh=20e4cde0bd73 | Nonprofit Email Open Rates Rise Nearly 5% In 2019: Report | Nonprofit Email Open Rates Rise Nearly 5% In 2019: Report
Nonprofits boasted an email open rate of more than 25% in 2019, according to a new report from ... [+] CampaignMonitor. Getty
Nonprofits’ email open rates rose nearly 5% in 2019, a stark contrast to a slight decrease in worldwide email open rates, according to a new study.
With an average open rate of 25.20%, nonprofits trailed only government organizations (30.50%) in a benchmark report released by email marketing software provider CampaignMonitor.
The average email open rate across the 20 measured industries for 2019 was 17.80% — a 0.12% dip from the same report in 2018, in which nonprofits led the field with a 20.39% open rate.
CampaignMonitor found that, for nonprofits, Wednesday (26.20%) was the highest-performing day; in the 2018 report, Sunday (22.9%) had been the No. 1 day for nonprofit emails.
While nonprofits exceeded the average for open rates, the average click-through rate for nonprofits settled at 2.60%, matching the global average for 2019. Nonprofit open rates lagged slightly from 2018, when they were measured at 2.66%.
Certain other industries also saw stark improvements: government open rates improved by a stunning 10.71% (from 19.79% to 30.5%), while education open rates improved by 4.5% (from 18.9% to 23.4%).
Mondays and Wednesdays rated the best for nonprofit click-through rates, at 2.70%; Sunday, Thursday and Friday trailed at 2.50%. Overall, Tuesdays were the best day for email open rates across industries, at 18.30%.
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Nonprofit emails also slightly exceeded the global averages in bounce rate (1.00% to 0.7%), and unsubscribe rate (0.2% to 0.1%).
Campaign Monitor said in a press release that the report was developed after analyzing billions of emails sent globally using its platform.
“Marketing has evolved to become a data-driven discipline, and marketers need to actively measure the effectiveness of their campaigns and programs,” said Lane Harbin, director of marketing at Campaign Monitor, which boasts more than 250,000 customers worldwide. “Savvy marketers can use this information to quickly double down on areas where they are excelling and determine where they need to make improvements in 2020.”
For nonprofits, the latest findings reinforce an industry-wide trend toward email marketing. Another 2019 report from CampaignMonitor and QGiv found that a plurality of donors – 42% – say they prefer to hear from a nonprofit via email.
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899016624fc4b20c10cabdf36cd7f1b0 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisstrub/2020/01/17/ariapart2/ | DoSomething CEO: Social Media Helps Young People Assemble To Drive Change | DoSomething CEO: Social Media Helps Young People Assemble To Drive Change
Aria Finger accepted a Webby award in 2013 on behalf of DoSomething, which was named the Best ... [+] Charitable Organization/Nonprofit. Getty
With the dawn of a new decade comes a wave of resolutions, personal and professional, as people around the world cement their vows to, well—do something.
But for Aria Finger, doing something isn’t a fad or an impulse—it’s her calling. As the CEO of DoSomething, Finger, 34, leads an organization with a constituency of young people from every U.S. area code and 131 countries, all of whom share that mission to take action, in a variety of ways.
In 2019, DoSomething managed more than 30 civic action campaigns, activating more than 1.1 million members worldwide. The organization this week kicked off its 2020 voter registration drive, the first of a similarly ambitious slate of initiatives planned for 2020.
In Part 2 of this two-part interview, Finger offers a deeper look at the mission and the long-term success of DoSomething. Read Part 1 of the interview here.
Chris Strub: You've been with DoSomething.org since 2005, but the organization dates all the way back to 1993. Young people inspired in the '90's and early 2000's aren't so young anymore. Have you traced any success stories of people who have taken that message of positivity, change and action into their careers? Are there staff members at DoSomething.org who consider themselves shaped by DoSomething.org's efforts?
Aria Finger: Yes! We are so lucky to have so many incredible DoSomething Alumni who are now leaders in their respective fields. A few incredible former DoSomething members and grant winners include Van Jones, the CNN commentator and NGO founder, Michael Tubbs, one of the youngest ever mayors of Stockton, CA, and Micaela Connery, the disability rights activist and founder of The Kelsey.
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It’s also really exciting to see current staff members who are former DoSomething members. In fact, we just added two new team members, a DoSomething Campaigns Lead and a brand new Head of Campaigns, both of whom were former DoSomething members.
DoSomething.org CEO Aria Finger speaks at the Pennsylvania Conference for Women 2016 in ... [+] Philadelphia. Getty
Strub: The nonprofit industry is often characterized by high staff turnover. You've been with DoSomething.org since 2005. What has inspired you to stick with the company for 15 years, and what specific efforts have you undertaken in your leadership role to retain talent over the years?
Finger: There are a lot of reasons why people stay or leave a job. For me, it’s always been about working on a mission that inspires me, working with incredibly smart and kind people, and being able to personally grow within my role. I’ve been incredibly lucky that I’ve received all three in spades at DoSomething. I truly don’t know if a smarter, more generous, more passionate group of 60 people exists on the planet.
I certainly haven’t always made the right call, but as an executive team we do try to make DoSomething a place where you are constantly learning and growing and also feel like what you are doing is positively impacting the world. Another great program for talent retention is our sabbatical program. Once you’ve worked here for just two years, you can take one month off, paid, to volunteer anywhere in the world, as long as you commit to a third year with the organization.
‘Young people are often the most creative when it comes to using social media for social good.’ Aria Finger, CEO, DoSomething
Strub: DoSomething.org pre-dates all forms of social media and casual internet access. Across campaigns, how can young people utilize social media to make the world around them a better place?
Finger: Today's young people are digital natives—they've never lived in a world where technology is not a part of their daily lives. As a result, young people are often the most creative when it comes to using social media for social good. One perfect example? Our campaign, #RedefineBlack. In online dictionaries, the word ‘Black’ was defined with negative, racial epithets. Through DoSomething’s campaign, and following the lead of Dictionary.com, young people created a firestorm of tweets to apply pressure to decision makers at other dictionaries to follow suit.
In general, there's no one-size-fits-all way to make social change through social media. Still, for young people, it's often the best place to find out what's going on and join in, to turn an individual into a collective demanding change. Whether it's #RedefineBlack, or Greta Thunberg as the spark that led to the recent youth climate strikes, or even the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, social media has the power to invite young people in, to raise their voices, ignite movements, and change the world.
Strub: One of the most historically popular DoSomething initiatives is Teens for Jeans, through which more than 5 million pairs of jeans have been collected and re-distributed. After a several-year hiatus, rumor has it that Teens For Jeans will be back in 2020. Can you talk about the partnership with Aeropostale and the impact that you expect to make with Teens for Jeans again in 2020?
Finger: We are so excited to be partnering with Aeropostale again for this year’s Teens for Jeans campaign! It’s a marquee campaign for DoSomething that started back in 2008 to benefit youth experiencing homlessness. Our conversations with shelter directors have told us that one item that teenagers commonly request in homeless shelters is a pair of jeans. We help young people across the country run jean drives in their schools and communities and drop them off at their local Aeropostale stores to be donated to local shelters.
First and foremost, we hope to impact over 250,000 teenagers experiencing homelessness by providing them with a pair of jeans, donated through the campaign. The other important impact of this campaign is on the DoSomething members themselves. This campaign is a great way for DoSomething members to rally their friends, their school and even their entire community around a critical cause. Many people say that Teens for Jeans was their first ever volunteerism experience and because it was such a positive one, they’re going to engage in many more DoSomething campaigns.
Aeropostale Senior VP of Marketing and Ecommerce Scott Birnbaum, actress Kristen Bell and then-COO ... [+] of DoSomething.org Aria Finger attend a Teens for Jeans Kick-off Party in 2012 in Hollywood. WireImage
Strub: Last question—what would you say to someone who says that the internet—and social media—is only full of negativity, hatred and bad news?
Finger: Open your eyes! Listen, social media and the internet can be TOXIC. I’ll never disagree about that. But, social media and the internet can also reflect what you yourself curate. One of the best things I’ve done is curate my Twitter feed so that I get a diverse array of perspectives on the most important issues of the day. I try to follow folks from different backgrounds from my own and a variety of youth leaders to keep the pulse on the good things that are going on in their worlds.
Plus, for your daily dose of enthusiasm and positivity, follow DoSomething! I have to say, I’m incredibly lucky. When the world seems to be falling apart, I can just open up my DoSomething slack and see the incredible young people that have created change in the past week, and I’m hopeful for the future.
Read Part 1 of the Q&A with Aria Finger here.
This story was updated to clarify the roles of DoSomething.Org and Dictionary.com in the #RedefineBlack campaign.
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3cfd5c7093ff539113f7bf61ac1560f3 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisstrub/2020/02/10/nonprofithr/?sh=3bb6f87215ca | 45% Of Nonprofit Employees To Seek New Jobs By 2025: Report | 45% Of Nonprofit Employees To Seek New Jobs By 2025: Report
45% of respondents to a recent survey by Nonprofit HR said they will be looking for new or different ... [+] employment in the next five years. Getty
A new study from Nonprofit HR reveals an “alarming” trend on the horizon for nonprofit organizations around the U.S.
The company revealed that 45% of responding nonprofit employees indicated that they will seek new or different employment in the next five years. Of that group, 23% said that nonprofits would not be among the types of organizations they intend to pursue.
Of the 45% who said they’d seek other employment, a plurality — 49% — said that nonprofit organizations do not pay enough. Additionally, 19% said that nonprofits do not offer good long-term career opportunities, and 12% concluded that nonprofits are not well-run businesses.
“These statistics are alarming and should serve as a warning to social impact organizations of all types who have not adapted a talent attraction strategy to remain competitive,” said Lisa Brown Alexander, CEO of Nonprofit HR. “Gone are the days of talented professionals being willing to take a vow of poverty to work for a cause or a mission they are passionate about. The social sector, rich with diverse and rewarding career opportunities, has long faced the misperception of being low-paying with limited opportunities for professional growth. These results confirm how pervasive this misperception is across the nation and re-ignites urgency in refuting this myth.”
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Employee turnover has long been an issue for the nonprofit sector. According to ExactHire.com, the voluntary annual turnover rate is 19% — far outpacing the all-industry average of 12%. The Nonprofit Leadership Alliance even created a ‘Cost of Employee Turnover’ calculator to help nonprofits measure their own circumstances. “Spoiler alert: Turnover costs your organization more than you think!” the site exclaims.
The Nonprofit HR data represents 1,004 nonprofit employees from “the four regions of the United States, covering a broad respondent demographic,” according to a press release from the company. According to a spokesperson for Nonprofit HR, the nonprofit line of questioning was part of a broader survey, from which the 1,004-person subset was deemed qualified to respond. The company declined to release additional information about the data collected.
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02ac5eb454d90101b4b2e30e92ef2fdd | https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisstrub/2020/02/12/digital-marketers-crowdfund-10000-for-australian-fire-relief/ | Digital Marketers Crowdfund $10,000 For Australian Fire Relief | Digital Marketers Crowdfund $10,000 For Australian Fire Relief
The Orroral Valley bushfire continues to burn out of control in Canberra, Australia, on Feb. 1. Getty Images
An idea born from a Facebook post in early January has raised $10,000 and counting for Australian Bush Fire Relief.
The Rainmaker Digital Summit, billed as “A Virtual Business & Marketing Summit to Benefit the People and Animals of Australia,” runs through March 2, and consists of recorded sessions from more than 40 international speakers. The recommended minimum donation is $50 USD; for $100 USD, attendees receive lifetime access to the materials. Each price point also includes bonus materials, as well as an opportunity to win additional prizes.
The summit materialized after California-based digital marketer Kelly Noble Mirabella posted the following on her Facebook page on Jan. 6:
I have been thinking that with all the SUPER talented Marketing friends I have maybe we can all come together and put on an online summit with all the proceeds going to the Australian Fire non-profits. Each person can record a 30-45 minute session or give a guide book about their specialty in Marketing, Social Media and/or Business. Any takers?
Reactions and comments quickly poured in on the post, with dozens of digital marketers from various backgrounds offering their services. Within 24 hours, Mirabella had 21 volunteer commitments; the summit currently features 42 on-demand sessions, plus one from Mirabella herself.
Mirabella, one of the world’s leading chatbot experts, said that the inspiration to start the summit came to her after a December visit to Australia.
“In December I had the opportunity to go to Sydney Australia for the first time to speak at a Kerwin Rae K2 Mastermind. While there I met some of the nicest people I have ever come across,” Mirabella shared on Facebook. “But as I walked around this beautiful city the sun was darkened by the smoke and ash rained from the sky. It broke my heart. As someone who has been evacuated from my own home due to fires ... I knew I had to help.”
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Registrations for the summit are handled by a Facebook Messenger bot. “ZERO cost associated with this campaign and did it WHILE I WAS SICK with the flu then bronchitis,” Mirabella Tweeted today.
Volunteer contributors to the summit include Andrew and Pete, founders of the popular U.K. marketing event Atomicon; Jessika Phillips, founder of Social Media Week Lima (Ohio); Dr. Ai Addyson-Zhang, founder of Classroom Without Walls; and Owen Hemsath, founder of The Video Marketing School. Sessions cover a wide range of topics, including Facebook Advertising, SMS Marketing, Blogging and Micro-Influencers.
Sponsors for the event include Agorapulse, ManyChat, Bobby Klinck, Kim Garst and Quicc.
According to NBC News, torrential rains around Australia could extinguish the fires that have ravaged Australia by week’s end, but scientists have expressed concern about the long-term viability of the forests.
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fee5059304fa9aa69a9bc964e16ce000 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisstrub/2020/07/27/fshd/ | Virtual Walk & Roll Event On Sept. 12 Targeting Muscular Dystrophy Cure | Virtual Walk & Roll Event On Sept. 12 Targeting Muscular Dystrophy Cure
The third annual National FSHD Walk & Roll virtual event will take place on Sept. 12. FSHD Society / Provided
With a goal of finding a cure to facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) by 2025, the FSHD Society’s third annual Walk & Roll To Cure FSHD will take place virtually around the country on Sept. 12.
Participants can sign up for one of 24 informal local events in communities around the U.S., from the Pacific Northwest to Southwest Florida; anyone without a local Walk & Roll can sign up for the National Virtual Walk & Roll.
“The Walk & Roll is first and foremost a fundraiser, generating critical funds to support the search for treatments and a cure, but it is also about so much more,” said Leigh Reynolds, Marketing Director for the FSHD Society. “On event day, for a few hours, we all join together as one. Living with FSHD can be a lonely road. At the Walk & Roll, we realize no one makes the journey alone.”
To help foster that community feel, the society will broadcast a live radio show, hosted by Tim Hollenback, live on Facebook on Sept. 12. Celebrity guests, researchers, doctors, Walk & Roll leaders, and participants will call in to voice their support and share their stories. Former Glee actor Max Adler will serve as national ambassador for the event.
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In 2019, the Walk & Roll included over 1,300 participants at 11 locations around the country, raising nearly $500,000 from nearly 2,500 donors. This year, the society’s goal is to exceed that half-million dollar mark.
Participants are encouraged to share their experiences at the event using the hashtags #NationalFSHDWalkRoll and #CureFSHD.
“We need a cure, and I am passionate about being a part of finding it in any way I can,” said Meredith Huml, FSHD Society North Carolina Chapter Director and Walk Leader, who was diagnosed with FSHD as a young teen. Her younger brother was diagnosed more recently but his symptoms have progressed more rapidly, and he is now in a wheelchair.
FSHD is among the most prevalent of the nine primary types of muscular dystrophy affecting adults and children. The genetic disorder is estimated to affect nearly one million individuals worldwide, causing progressive weakness, typically in the face, shoulder blade, arms, legs, and torso, but may affect almost any skeletal muscle in the body. There is currently no known treatment or cure to FSHD; approximately one-quarter of patients become dependent on wheelchairs.
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5a23f822464bfefff95b7cd3c0f01046 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisstrub/2021/03/23/jameela-jamil-joe-gatto-to-join-experts-for-virtual-mental-health-roundtable/?sh=32a8cab43920 | Jameela Jamil, Joe Gatto To Join Experts For Virtual Mental Health Roundtable | Jameela Jamil, Joe Gatto To Join Experts For Virtual Mental Health Roundtable
Actors Joe Gatto, left, and Jameela Jamil, who co-star on 'The Misery Index,' will participate in a ... [+] mental health roundtable discussion on Thursday night with experts and the CEO of the YMCA of the USA. Getty Images
Several national nonprofit organizations will collaborate with big-name celebrities this Thursday night in a free and open Facebook Live discussion about the mental health effects of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
The 90-minute event, hosted by actress Chase Masterson, founder and CEO of the Pop Culture Hero Coalition, “will feature meaningful and educational discussions with experts and authors on the topics of youth mental health, trauma and resiliency one year into our screen-dependent pandemic.”
Starting at 8:30 p.m. Eastern, English TV star Jameela Jamil and slapstick comedian Joe Gatto will join a list of acclaimed psychologists, experts and authors that includes Dr. Janina Scarlet; Dr. Andrea Letamendi; Dr. Chris Coker; Dr. Rheeda Walker; Dr. Michael Rich; the Rev. Rob Lee; Carrie Goldman; Larissa May; and Kevin Washington, the President and CEO of YMCA of the USA.
“The global pandemic has exposed families to unprecedented levels of slow-burn trauma and stress, exposing the gap in resources for how children can manage and recuperate from prolonged levels of uncertainty and anxiety,” said Goldman, co-founder and curriculum director of the Pop Culture Hero Coalition, the event’s lead sponsor. “While we have spent the past five years developing a groundbreaking social emotional learning curriculum for kids, it’s more relevant now than ever as they start to recover from the difficulty and trauma brought on by the pandemic.”
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Earlier this year, the CDC released updated guidelines on how Americans can best cope with stress, including eating healthy, getting enough sleep, keeping a regular exercise routine and avoiding excessive alcohol, tobacco and substance use. A new study published in the journal Psychiatry Research found that among young adults, levels of clinical depression among those surveyed jumped from 14.9% in fall 2019 to 34.7% in May/June 2020.
“Covid-19 has had a devastating impact on the mental health of many people, but especially kids, teens and families,” Washington said. “Social isolation, virtual learning, societal unrest and general stress and anxiety have all taken a tremendous toll on parents and children alike. By bringing together celebrity champions of mental health and experts in psychology and youth development, we hope to raise awareness and provide families with tools that can help them recover from this pandemic and thrive once again.”
“The cacophony of opposing opinions on digital use and the impact of screens on children often leaves us confused, overwhelmed and wary,” said Rich, who serves as Boston Children’s Hospital Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Founder of the Digital Wellness Lab. “Working together with organizations such as the Pop Culture Hero Coalition and YMCA of the USA is the perfect example of how doctors, scientists and teachers are coming together with technology innovators and content creators to build a digital environment that promotes individual and societal wellness.”
“Having worked with Pop Culture Hero Coalition for several years, including in the Be Kind campaign, I’ve seen firsthand the impact they make,” said Gatto, of Impractical Jokers fame. “Broadening the reach of the Coalition’s work with this partnership is a powerful step for the lives of kids and teens. It’s really exciting to see them grow and be able to do so much more good in the world.”
More information about the event, officially titled ‘Resilience, Empathy, Healthy Screen-Time: An Honest Conversation,’ can be found here.
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9824af2d473fea18fb37c63877dbe98b | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christeare/2015/11/21/8-ways-to-win-or-lose-a-college-offer/ | 8 Ways To Win, Or Lose, A College Admission Offer | 8 Ways To Win, Or Lose, A College Admission Offer
About the same time that US News &World Report started ranking everything in sight, another more important publication hit bookstores: Howard Gardner’s Frames of Mind, in which the Harvard scholar promulgated his theory of Multiple Intelligences. Students and parents who scour US News would be better served to understand MI and watch the way it wins in the college process.
At the time Gardner published his findings, the SAT was two-dimensional: Verbal and Math. MI starts with those linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences, which are still measured to a flawed extent by standardized testing, but which are better evaluated by the high school transcript as students challenge themselves to understand the world through words and numbers. College admissions officers know that English and math are not the only curricular venues for such work; history and foreign language require linguistic intelligence, and success in science—especially chemistry and physics—depends upon logical-mathematical aptitude.
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Gardner’s insight is that those two intelligences do not describe human capacity; they’re just two pieces of a larger puzzle.
So MI posited the bodily-kinesthetic, visual-spatial, musical, intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligences. To these five he later added a naturalist trait that some of us apparently possess to a greater degree than others, and he has since considered other possibilities. Crucial to success in the college process is understanding that a holistic application review seeks information on at least seven ways a candidate is intelligent—or, to his or her peril—deficient in these measures. The more ways a candidate is intelligent, the better. Here’s how it works:
Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence is what dancers and athletes possess to a greater degree than the general population. If you don’t think recruited athletes have an advantage in the American college admissions process, Do Not Pass Go—or apply to universities outside the United States, where such criteria appall or amuse admissions officers. Remember that stateside schools have many levels at which one can make a bodily-kinesthetic contribution to a campus: Even within small college Division 3 sports, there are multiple levels of competition, to say nothing of club and intramural sports that are increasingly popular. Dancers should take heart, too, for alternative, non-competitive modes of employing bodily intelligence continue to grow.
Visual-spatial intelligence has to do with artists, cartoonists, graphic designers, film makers, video game designers and the like. While these talents do not fill arena, stadium or theater seats the way athletes and dancers do, many colleges nevertheless have essential niches to fill with young people who possess talents in these fields. Where I work, Drew University, the Dorothy Young Center for the Arts has three spokes around the hub of its atrium: for theater, visual arts, and music.
Musical intelligence is thus next on our tour, and colleges do not need to have conservatories to care about the instrumental and vocal gifts of applicants. Institutions like ours, deeply committed to the liberal arts, will nevertheless not only evaluate auditions or recordings for the purposes of additional scholarship monies, but also welcome non-majors into musical ensembles of various types. Those who visit college campuses are well aware of ubiquitous a cappella groups, and yours truly stumbled into a great glee club by matching pitch in the bass section.
The final two of Gardner’s original seven are the intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligences. The first has to do with how well an individual understands her or himself. The personal statement or essay and an interview, if available, are the ways college admissions officers discern a candidate’s intrapersonal intelligence. What we’re looking for is not so much what a candidate has done but how and especially why. The other day I interviewed a young man who had lost his place at an outstanding private high school due to a bad decision. I wanted to know how he had learned from the experience; his words and actions since the event impressed me. If he applies, he will have my vote.
Interpersonal intelligence includes empathy, a quality that some scholars and observers believe is in short supply in a society that produces more than its share of “look at ME” narcissists. Harvard’s longtime dean Bill Fitzsimmons once told me that they sometimes get to a point in committee deliberations where they ask, “Does anybody want to room with this kid?” After all the linguistic, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, visual-spatial, musical and intrapersonal intelligence hurdles you may have cleared, you don’t want to trip and fall by being judged a jerk.
In the years since I first read Gardner, he has added an eighth intelligence, that of the naturalist. I’m not as clear on that one, but I live and work on a campus known as “The Forest,” go grocery shopping with a bag emblazoned with DREW and the words, “I Used To Be A Plastic Bottle,” and am hoping for at least a Pass where this criterion is concerned.
For those want an offer to a great college, the more of these eight intelligences you can demonstrate, the more reasons the institution of your dreams has to offer you a place. SATs and ACTs are too often about saying "No"; MIs are about getting to "Yes" , because the admissions committee’s job is to repopulate a quarter of a residential village after the seniors graduate. The more intelligences the new class brings, the better the experience for all. Demonstrate a high MIQ in the threshold linguistic, logical-mathematical, intrapersonal, and interpersonal criteria broadly necessary for college success, then offer the community at least one of the other three in the ways of an athlete, performing or visual artist, and more doors will open.
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48941952f2ff94b844009092b66b65f2 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christeare/2016/05/14/amusing-ourselves-to-death-with-donald-trump/ | Amusing Ourselves To Death With Donald Trump | Amusing Ourselves To Death With Donald Trump
As Donald Trump moves toward the Republican nomination, a book may help explain the otherwise inexplicable. Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business first made an impression on me 30 years ago when I was a television anchorman. The author’s argument, and the fact that none of the newscast’s viewers seemed to be learning anything other than whether they liked my smile or voice, led me to leave TV and return to education. That a Reality TV star running for the highest office is being taken seriously by millions of Americans would not surprise Postman, so I offer his short, prescient “Foreword” for your consideration:
A Trump supporter takes a selfie with a photo of his candidate. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
“We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn’t, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.
But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell’s dark vision, there was another—slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny 'failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.' In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.
This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.”
Other than develop real estate, marry three attractive women, sell his name to products he does not produce, and tell people, “You’re fired” on a Reality TV show, what precisely has Donald Trump done that would qualify him to hold the most demanding political job in our nation and arguably the world? This post would be a stretch from my usual topic of education, except that his candidacy may be the most significant piece of evidence I have seen for how woefully our schools—and presently polarized politics—have served us.
I get that well-educated people can be deeply and truly conservative (e.g. the late William F. Buckley, Jr. of Yale); however, I don’t understand how—no matter how much you despise Hillary Clinton or fear Bernie Sanders—someone with a good education can support a political empty suit for President.
Because Postman published his book during the Reagan Presidency, a comparison between the Brylcreemed gentleman who once introduced GE Theater on black-and-white television and the orange-haired bully who mocks opponents in full color is tempting; however, by the time he ran for the Republican nomination for President, Ronald Reagan had been Governor of California for two terms. He knew how to wear pancake make-up, but he had also been tested in an executive office to which he was re-elected. Some said he was simple-minded and insensitive to those with AIDS and those living in poverty; but others saw that his apparent simplicity was the rock-solid certainty of the hedgehog that knew one big thing: Communism was evil and had to be defeated. Buckley had longed for a candidate who could carry his conservative message to the broadest number of people, and Ronald Reagan became that man.
I cannot fairly paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen from his famous Vice Presidential debate put-down of Dan Quayle in 1988 by saying, “I knew Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan was a friend of mine. And you, Donald Trump, are no Ronald Reagan”—because I never met the Gipper; however, I was in the White House Briefing Room one day the year Postman’s book came out, and witnessed first-hand Reagan’s magnetic wit. Months into his second term, in a most likable way, he made that room of veteran, skeptical, perhaps even cynical reporters laugh.
Trump has charisma, and he is funny in a class clown, make-fun-of-others way. But he lacks the politically-useful inclusive humor of Reagan, who could disarm even those who disagreed with him (e.g. Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev and Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill). More important than differences in style, Trump has no accomplishments that rise to qualifications for the Presidency. Yet, due to his TV stardom and current disgust with some politicians, he will soon be nominated by the GOP. Party of Reagan: Are you serious?
If those of us of a progressive, liberal persuasion were to choose a candidate of similar TV-star qualifications but different political views and personal style, we would be nominating Oprah. But we’re not. Every time I read “Make America Great Again,” I think Amusing Ourselves to Death. With what’s at stake at home and abroad, that’s no laughing matter.
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fa275b08354b13372bc5d77fefd0ec93 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christiankreznar/2018/09/18/indigo-agriculture-closes-250m-to-launch-digital-farmers-market/ | Indigo Agriculture Closes $250M To Launch Digital Farmer's Market | Indigo Agriculture Closes $250M To Launch Digital Farmer's Market
This morning, Indigo Agriculture closed its Series E funding, bringing in $250 million and officially launching the Indigo Marketplace, a digital market that directly connects farmers and buyers.
It’s an ambitious next step for a company that made its name by bucking the norm. Founded in 2014, Indigo set out to apply advances in microbiology to agriculture. Just as the human microbiome provides a wealth of symbiotic benefits, Indigo worked to develop bacterial microbiomes for crops to ensure strong yields with fewer inputs. If biotech research and digital marketplaces seem to fall into different worlds, they’re both working toward the same goal: shaking up the dominant trends in agriculture to benefit farmers, consumers and the environment.
“The current system of agriculture was created about a hundred years ago,” says David Perry, Indigo’s CEO. “We’ve come a long way since then. Indigo’s core hypothesis is ‘We don’t have to do it that way anymore.’”
The Indigo Marketplace is intuitive. Growers register and provide information on their crops, and buyers build profiles with their specific preferences. They’re matched based on location, supply and demand and then agree on price and quantity. The pitch is straightforward. For growers, the marketplace promises greater transparency, making them less captive to opaque local prices. It also lets them connect with specialty buyers willing to pay more for a particular variety. For buyers, it gives them the chance to directly source crops with extraordinary amounts of detail. That translates into profits for both.
“Consumers are increasingly interested in where their food comes from and how it’s produced. The evidence for that is ‘organic.’ The consumer has much more information at the time of purchase: Was it treated with chemicals? Was it irrigated?” Perry says.
Mark Bryant, who farms outside Washington Court House, Ohio, has worked with Indigo for a year and half. “We’re early adopters. We were involved with Granular when it started. We helped beta test it. We’ve always looked for companies that think outside the box. That’s what really intrigued us about Indigo.”
Earlier this summer, Bryant registered with the Marketplace, a process that took only three days after he’d conducted a full inventory. Once his grain was tested by Indigo’s partner lab, he was ready to start selling. (The process is similar for buyers; Indigo estimates a registration period of three days for financial due diligence.)
The process might seem familiar to users of a different sort of matching app. The grower sets a radius, and the app begins connecting them to potential buyers in the selected area. Also like dating apps, the Marketplace employs a freemium model. The base platform is free to use for buyers and sellers, with additional pricing and matching services for a fee.
Bryant’s not alone. Since the early rollout in June, Indigo says thousands of growers and over a thousand buyers have registered with the Indigo Marketplace. “I’ve been in farming since I got out of high school in 1983. It’s amazing to me the splash that Indigo has made in the agriculture community,” Bryant says.
There are still substantial barriers. Traditional retailers and buyers are often in the same community as growers and have long-standing business relationships. Plus, they’re looking to go digital as well.
“Growers are consumers, too. They’ve had experience with Amazon. They’ve grown used to online commerce,” notes Rob Dongoski, a partner at EY Agribusiness. “[For retailers], it’s not a question of ‘Should we do digital?’ [They] have to be digital.”
With traditional markets stepping up their game, Indigo will have to keep elevating its own. It already provides agronomic assistance, quality testing, and farm storage for partners, and Perry hints at more services down the line. If this latest round of funding is any indication, investors are confident it will deliver.
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c85afdcd2c5c22b493a01d68a4165fe4 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christiankreznar/2019/03/15/how-an-esop-made-all-the-difference-for-an-early-entrant-into-the-craft-beer-business/ | How An ESOP Made All The Difference For An Early Entrant Into The Craft Beer Business | How An ESOP Made All The Difference For An Early Entrant Into The Craft Beer Business
Mass Bay's brewery in Boston. Mass Bay Brewing Company
Before there was a craft brewery on every corner, there was Mass Bay Brewing Company. Founded on Boston’s waterfront by Dan Kenary, Richard Doyle and George Ligeti, Mass Bay was in the vanguard of the current craft beer movement. A postgraduation trip to Europe in 1982 had introduced college friends Kenary and Doyle to the range of beer available outside the American market. Artisanal coffee and ice cream were surging in popularity back home, and the two thought they could do something similar with beer. After brief detours—Kenary tried his hand at banking in Chicago, and Doyle went to business school, where he met Ligeti—they reunited in Boston in 1986 to open Mass Bay.
“We were frustrated beer drinkers, not home brewers,” Kenary, now the company’s CEO, recalls. “If you’re going to start a company, being in your mid-20s with no kids or family, that’s the time to do it.”
Leaning on friends, family and favorable word-of-mouth, the three began raising funds, eventually buying a property from the city of Boston in the Seaport district. They sold their first kegs of Harpoon Ale in Boston in June 1987, gradually expanding to 30 varieties of beer sold in 25 states.
By 2014, Kenary and Doyle were in a quandary about what to do with Mass Bay (Ligeti had left in 1990). Doyle wanted to exit and favored selling to an outside investor. Kenary planned to stay but hoped Doyle would sell his shares directly to the workers through an employee stock ownership program (ESOP). Their once-small company had grown considerably over the years and both realized the potential repercussions of Doyle’s sale. Rather than butt heads, the two decided to seek another perspective on the direction they should take. Mass Bay had done several buybacks since its early days, and Kenary and Doyle both held just under 45% of the company. The remaining 10% was split between six others—two outside investors and four senior managers. “We thought, why not treat those six like a jury?” says Kenary. The pair gathered the shareholders, and each made the case for his preferred approach, then left the six to deliberate. Two hours later they called the shareholders back: All six voted in favor of employee ownership.
In July, they hired an ESOP trustee and began the fundraising necessary to buy out Doyle. That same month they held an all-hands meeting to introduce the employees to the new owners of Doyle’s minority stake—themselves.
Today, Mass Bay sells its beer as far west as Minnesota and employs 200 people. In 2018, revenue was $60 million. The ESOP now holds a 48% stake in the company, and Kenary credits the ESOP with Mass Bay’s newfound sense of unity as well as its recent acquisition of Clown Shoes Brewery, whose former owners were drawn to Mass Bay’s engaged corporate culture. And perhaps more significantly, the founders have survived to see their dream of a dynamic American beer market become a reality. At the beginning, “we were fighting a lonely battle,” says Kenary. “You would go to Europe, say you were brewing, and they’d ask, ‘What sort of Budweiser are you making?’”
While the current beer landscape is far more competitive, Kenary sees Mass Bay’s employee ownership and culture as giving the company its edge. “Millennials, to their credit, don’t want to have a disconnect between their values and those espoused by where they work,” he says. “There’s a tremendous sense that we’re in this together, and that didn’t exist before the ESOP.”
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8785bfe47c88201b0204410567f2d566 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christianmiller/2021/04/21/do-girls-negotiate-differently-than-boys/ | Do Girls Negotiate Differently Than Boys? | Do Girls Negotiate Differently Than Boys?
Research suggests that women tend to negotiate differently than men, and this becomes more pronounced when the other party to the negotiation is made up of men. For instance, women tend to request less money in negotiations, and also carry them out less frequently in the first place.
Female entrepreneur shaking hands with coworker at workplace getty
One question that has received almost no attention, however, is the age at which these differences start to emerge in development. In particular, do children show gender differences in negotiations, and if so, when do they start to emerge?
A newly published paper in Psychological Science may begin to shed some light on this important question. The researchers, Sophie Arnold at New York University and Katherine McAuliffe at Boston College, studied children from ages 4 to 9 to see if there were any gender differences which showed up in their negotiations. There were indeed.
In their study, children had the chance to negotiate for stickers. They first performed a series of tasks that were unrelated to the rest of the study. Then a person in charge (the evaluator) would commend them for their work on the tasks, and offer stickers as a prize. For some of the children, this evaluator was male, and for other children female. That will turn out to matter below.
The evaluator would then ask the child: “How many stickers do you think you should get for completing the game you just played?” No limits were placed on the number here.
If the child asked for two or fewer stickers, that request was accepted and the study was over. However, if the child asked for three or more stickers, then there would be another round of negotiation. Now at this point the evaluator would say that the requested number of stickers was too high, and that he or she could not give out any more stickers than was allowed. At this second round, if the child then asked for two or fewer stickers, that request was accepted and the study was over.
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But if the child asked for three or more stickers in the second round, there would be one final round. The evaluator would decline this request from the child, and finally clarify that the number of stickers he or she was allowed to give out had to be lower than three. The child would make one final request, and then the study would be over.
So to illustrate in the case where a child went all three rounds, here is one possible scenario:
“How many stickers do you think you should get for completing the game you just played?”
“8”
[Declined]
“4”
[Declined]
“2”
[Accepted]
Arnold and McAuliffe ran their study with children in three different age groups: 4-5 year-olds, 6-7 year-olds, and 8-9 year-olds. It is this last group where the most interesting results emerged, which will be reported below.
One set of results had to do with the average number of stickers requested per child, and whether that was effected by whether evaluator was male or female. For boys, it did not matter much. They requested an average of 4 stickers when the evaluator was male, and 4.75 stickers when the evaluator was female.
Things were significantly different for the 8-9 year-old girls. When the evaluator was female, their requests were in line with the boys: 4.85 stickers. But when the evaluator was male, the average request dropped all the way to 2.75.
Another set of results had to do with persistence. For how many trials would the child ask for more than two stickers? Across the different age ranges, boys were fairly consistent in how long they would ask for a large prize. The same was true for girls when the evaluator was female. The one exception was that as age went up, persistence tended to go down for girls when the evaluator was male.
Arnold and McAuliffe note two possibilities for explaining these results. One has to do with status. Perhaps by age 8-9, girls will tend to regard themselves as of lower status with regard to a male but not a female authority figure. Another potential explanation involves stereotypes. Perhaps by this age, girls have started to internalize negative stereotypes about intelligence and ability which lead to them being less willing to make requests of others. These two explanations could even both be partially true.
What can be done practically to address these results? In a recent piece in Scientific American, Arnold and McAuliffe offer some practical recommendations: “We can start by borrowing lessons from adult negotiation skill workshops. For instance, we can help girls think in concrete terms about what they want before entering into a negotiation where someone else’s wants and needs may interfere with their own. Parents could pay special attention to how they react to the requests of their daughters and sons, bringing awareness to how their responses may convey lessons that they may not want to teach. We could even incorporate negotiation training into elementary school curricula, emphasizing that both girls and boys should feel comfortable advocating for themselves.”
These all make sense, but we also need a lot more preliminary research too. Note that their study had very small participant numbers. For the 8-9 year olds, for instance, there were 20 girls in the female evaluator group and 20 girls in the male evaluator group. What would larger participant numbers find? The participants also were all in the Boston area. What results would emerge in other locations? Also worth noting is that the male and female evaluators were the same individuals for every single child. It is possible that there were some idiosyncratic features of the male evaluator in particular. And finally, what about other rewards besides stickers. Do the results generalize there as well?
So as with so many findings in psychology, a lot more research is needed before we should move to training and education reform. But Arnold and McAuliffe have carried out a fascinating study that will hopefully inspire much more work in this area.
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ec6098a771ca4215191d75b6015b1334 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christianowens/2019/10/17/wework-proves-theres-no-such-thing-as-a-tech-company-you-build-software-or-you-dont/ | WeWork Proves There's No Such Thing As A 'Tech' Company. You Build Software, Or You Don't. | WeWork Proves There's No Such Thing As A 'Tech' Company. You Build Software, Or You Don't.
Markets need to stop valuing “tech” companies as though software is their core product. Getty
Just because most of your customers are tech companies, doesn’t make you a tech company. Just because you use technology to operate, doesn’t make you a tech company. The market has learnt this, watching the WeWork saga play out, and there has been plenty of excellent coverage on “Why WeWork isn’t a tech company”, but a real estate one, with the build-out costs and lease obligations to prove it, that just uses tech.
I’d like to take this a step further: if WeWork is a tech company, so is every company on the planet (that uses the internet, takes payments, manages subscriptions, collects data). If it isn’t, the pertinent, valuable distinction worth drawing today is: do you build software, or not. Caveating for hardware and R&D businesses, either you build on the internet, or you don’t.
Asserting “tech” is effectively a dead label warrants further explanation. I’m borrowing much of this from Union Square Venture’s Fred Wilson who, in turn, was inspired by an Axios newsletter. I think it’s a great framework through which to view software, and where the world has got to with the greatest technological innovation of our time (the web).
To start with, understand how much margins matter. This is a paradigm where venture values everything as though it’s a software company. Software companies achieve gross margins of around 75%. Why? Because the beauty of software is that the infrastructure to power it is getting cheaper and cheaper, once something is built, it can be resold over and over, and the marginal cost of getting a customer to use it diminishes with each new sign-up.
Any software company, and particularly those built on recurring revenues, should be valued in a way that reflects this. But a real estate company will see gross margins of around 20%. Spotify – the lowest ebb of software when it comes to margins because of its relationship with content creators and the time it takes to build a two-sided marketplace – has now hit gross margins of almost 26%.
But business models like that are the exception in software. It plays out on public markets too: look at the IPOs of Zoom, Cloudflare and Datadog. A month into trading, Zoom stocks had more than doubled after the firm’s April IPO, trading at more than 400 times projected earnings, according to Bloomberg data. Compare those to the likes of Uber, Lyft and Peloton. These are treated as tech companies, but they are not software companies – they don’t build software as their core business. Their margins are smaller, yet public markets treat them in the same way. We may be setting ourselves up for a fall.
Of course, if you are a non-software business producing gross margins of between 75% and 80% on a recurring revenue basis, then perhaps you should be valued like one. But bear in mind how difficult it is to generate exponential value, and to capitalise on network effects over the long term, outside of the software landscape.
Ten years ago, the “tech” label might have been a very helpful one. Now, it is not – but software is. That is the distinguishing factor in terms of value generation. Maybe in 10 years’ time, every business will be a software business, and we’ll be using another label (if someone can actually find the use cases for quantum, or crack energy storage) to determine the companies adding the most value the fastest.
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1ecd3d5cfa2be4dbca03016679588cbb | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christianred/2021/04/16/the-new-york-mets-franchise-paid-a-heavy-toll-for-fred-wilpons-and-saul-katzs-ties-to-bernie-madoff/ | New York Mets Paid A Heavy Toll For Fred Wilpon’s And Saul Katz’s Ties To Bernie Madoff | New York Mets Paid A Heavy Toll For Fred Wilpon’s And Saul Katz’s Ties To Bernie Madoff
Then New York Mets owners Fred Wilpon (r.) and Saul Katz talk to reporters outside the Manhattan ... [+] federal courthouse on March 19, 2012, after reaching a settlement with the trustee of Bernie Madoff's victims. ASSOCIATED PRESS
Even though Fred Wilpon’s short speech suggested that happier days were ahead for the New York Mets, his facial expression and that of his brother-in-law Saul Katz told a different story.
“Stick with us. We’ll be there. We’ve done it before, twice. We’ll do it again,” Wilpon told reporters outside the Manhattan federal courthouse in late March, 2012, a short time after it was announced in court that he and Katz had reached a settlement with the trustee representing the victims of Ponzi scheme artist Bernie Madoff.
With Katz standing by his side, Wilpon made the plea to Mets fans not to give up on the Queens baseball team, promising that the club would add to its two World Series titles (1969, 1986) despite the tumultuous times that enveloped the jewel franchise.
The Mets did eventually make a World Series run, three years after Wilpon’s courthouse speech, but the Kansas City Royals prevailed in the 2015 Fall Classic. There was another Mets playoff appearance in 2016, but before and after those two consecutive postseason berths, it was and has been trying times for the Flushing faithful.
And the cause for much of the team’s hardship over the last 13 years — the public legal drama involving the $1 billion “clawback” lawsuit filed against Wilpon and Katz in the Madoff saga; the dramatically reduced Mets team payrolls in the years after Madoff’s December 2008 arrest; staggering yearly losses for the Mets — can be traced directly to the Wilpon-Katz association with the disgraced financier, who died Wednesday in prison at age 82.
Six months before Madoff’s death, Wilpon and Katz sold the Mets to billionaire hedge fund manager Steve Cohen for a record $2.4 billion, closing the door on an ownership regime marred by the link to Madoff. Cohen has already shown that under his ownership watch, spending money on free agents or contract extensions shouldn’t be an issue. Francisco Lindor, the 27-year-old star shortstop the Mets acquired in a trade during the winter, was signed to a 10-year, $341 million extension last month.
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The same kind of big-money deals were few and far between before Cohen took over the Mets, however. After Madoff’s arrest in December 2008, Wilpon and Katz became embroiled in the scandal when they were sued by the trustee representing Madoff’s victims. Irving Picard originally sought $1 billion from Wilpon and Katz, alleging that the then Mets owners long knew of Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and willfully turned a blind eye to the financial malfeasance.
“These are very sophisticated people," said Picard’s attorney David Sheehan of Wilpon and Katz in 2012, before the settlement was reached. "It's what they would have known which is the critical part. They made a conscious decision not to look because they didn't like what they would find.”
A federal judge had reduced the $1 billion amount Picard sought, to $386 million before the trial was to begin. But Wilpon and Katz settled, and agreed to pay $162 million to a fund for the Madoff victims. In 2016, that amount was slashed to $61 million.
On the baseball side, the Mets were hamstrung on all fronts. Current Mets president Sandy Alderson was the club’s general manager starting in late 2010, and in the first few years of Alderson’s GM tenure, payroll plummeted while the team continued to miss the postseason. Each winter, big-name free agents would sign elsewhere while the Mets remained mostly idle.
Some of Alderson’s biggest moves were via trades — pitcher Noah Syndergaard and catcher Travis d’Arnaud came to the Mets in a 2012 deal with the Toronto Blue Jays for knuckleball pitcher R.A. Dickey. Cuban slugger Yoenis Cespedes was traded to the Mets at the 2015 deadline, and he was an integral part of the Mets’ World Series run that year.
Alderson presided over Cespedes signing not one, but two free-agent deals with the Mets, but the outfielder was hampered by injuries during much of his Mets’ pact, and he played in only 119 games over the 2017 and 2018 seasons, missed all of 2019, and then opted out of the pandemic-shortened 2020 season after appearing in just eight games.
Saul Katz (l.) and Fred Wilpon pose with the NLCS trophy after the Mets defeated the Chicago Cubs ... [+] for the 2015 National League pennant. Getty Images
But Wilpon and Katz were all smiles in October 2015, after the Mets won the National League pennant and advanced to the World Series. A playoff appearance came the following year, 2016, before another lengthy postseason dry spell in Flushing.
Steve Cohen’s ownership kicks off a new Mets chapter, while Madoff’s death marks the close of a previous one, a part of the team’s history that Mets fans will mostly remember with heartache and frustration.
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0b231f5533b829b24d39a960d980c6d5 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christianstadler/2014/12/01/companies-ignore-history-at-their-own-peril/ | Companies Ignore History At Their Own Peril | Companies Ignore History At Their Own Peril
U.S. bookstores typically have a large self-help section. If you skim the titles, chances are you'll come across several examples of inspirational reinvention stories. The hero might be a city clerk retiring to open a quaint B&B in a picturesque seaside town, or a manager who quits the world of corporate back-biting to find new challenges as a mountain guide. While these stories are undoubtedly heart-warming, they are also dangerous. They create the impression that we can simply disregard our personal histories and start something entirely new. Not only will we lack some of the skills required for the new job, but our experiences are also rendered worthless.
Companies are frequently subjected to the same danger when a new strategy is formulated. CEOs hoping to make their mark, new competitors entering the market, or customers drifting away to new offerings are likely to spur calls for a bold plan, a radical new strategy. On paper, these grand visions usually look fantastic. The problem is that a good strategy consists not only of a bold objective and an assessment of the market, but also a solid understanding of a company’s own resources and an implementation plan. This is why history matters. Understanding the history of a company means a solid understanding of available resources and a realistic expectation of which strategy has the greatest chance of success.
A look at Daimler , the German car manufacturer, shows us what happens when you ignore company history. In 1987, Edzard Reuter became the new CEO. He pushed for a radical new strategy. As competition for premium cars was increasing, he convinced the board that diversification was the only way out. A series of over-priced and ill-fitting acquisitions followed. Daimler had no history and hence no experience in implementing such a strategy. Some of the most controversial acquisitions were in the defense industry. Producing weapons was much more controversial in Germany at the time, in light of its activities during World War II. In the past, working for Daimler had been a source of bragging rights, but no longer! You suddenly had to explain why you were working for a company manufacturing weapons. It is unlikely that this would increase your enthusiasm to co-operate with the new division. But without such co-operation, the synergies envisioned by Reuter never materialized. In 1995, he was forced to retire and Daimler declared a loss of 5.7 billion German marks, the largest in the country’s post-war history.
His successor, Jürgen Schrempp, was not exactly a historian, either. Once again, he decided on an ambitious strategic move, ignoring Daimler’s lack of experience in the the mass market. In 1998, he acquired Chrysler with the intention of turning the niche player into a global force. But the Detroit-based, mass market producer was a bad fit. Synergies never materialized and performance nose-dived. To get rid of Chrysler, Daimler eventually paid $650 million to Cerberus Capital Management in 2007.
Daimler’s story shows that ignoring history can threaten the implementation of a strategy. Carefully considering the history of an organization might slow things down, but chances to successfully implement a strategy or make needed changes will increase.
In 1994, Shell’s Return on Average Capital Employed – an important indicator in the oil industry – dropped to 7.9%, while Exxon’s was 11.1%. Cor Herkstroeter, Shell’s chairman, was aware that a new and more efficient approach was needed. Shell was a highly decentralized organization which optimized at the country level. At the same time, the leadership team was keenly aware that this approach had a long history. It was also not without merits in an industry where local contracts were crucial.
Shell (Photo by ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/Getty Images)
Herkstroeter eventually decided that only small steps were needed. A global team of change agents started to train people to become more efficient, but no substantial structural changes followed, at least not under Herkstroeter. Only when the oil price fell below $10 a barrel (today oil companies moan about a price of $85 per barrel) did his successor, Mark Moody-Stuart, start to re-organize and centralize, but never to the extent of Exxon. Shell remained a country-focused and loosely connected company. Maybe not ideal in all ways, but the company continues to show robust performance and remains the main competitor of Exxon-Mobil.
So how can organizations take history serious? For starters, they can promote from within rather than from outside. The idea that only outsiders can make big changes is wrong. They might have bolder ideas but they rarely have a sufficient understanding of the history of an organization. Secondly, they should not follow the recommendations of consultants blindly. Daimler’s diversification journey was supported by McKinsey, one of the world's most prestigious consultancies. But as an outsider, they were unable to fully understand what was achievable and what was not. It is not their job, either, so treat them as advisers, but don’t let them drive the company. Thirdly, they should study their histories. This is not purely an exercise for anniversaries. Understanding where an organization comes from and why certain things are the way they are, is very important. The goal is not necessarily accuracy, but an understanding of how history shaped the thinking and resources in a company. Finally, it is always good to be wary of bold visions. There are rare occasions when they work out, but without a solid implementation plan grounded in the experience (i.e. history) of an organization, they are bound to capsize.
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e88a21ebd85d9b33197202edd3f4bd0f | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christianstadler/2021/03/29/how-boutique-consulting-firms-can-outflank-mckinsey-bcg-and-bain/?sh=49fb4fa9760a | How Boutique Consulting Firms Can Outflank McKinsey, BCG, And Bain | How Boutique Consulting Firms Can Outflank McKinsey, BCG, And Bain
Small consulting firms can prevail if they offer something distinct getty
McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Company dominate the consulting industry, most notably the field of strategy as Forbes highlights in its annual US consulting ranking.
The big three have obvious advantages when executives are shopping for advice. For starters, the efforts of building a strong alumni network is paying off, as many decision-makers started their own careers with one of them. Then there is the opaqueness of the subject. How do you judge which advice is likely to be the best? Reputation obviously comes into play here. The Boston Consulting Group, for example, forged its back in the 1970s when the founder made the BCG matrix popular. All three invest heavily in idea generation, reinforcing their brand as thought leaders in books and Harvard Business Review articles. Finally, there is scale. For smaller players it is hard to gather a big team at a moment’s notice, let alone do so on a global level for multiple projects.
But while global industry leadership is not up for grabs, small companies can still outflank McKinsey, BCG and Bain occasionally. Their business models rely on an army of MBA graduates with little experience. Information asymmetry that often gave them an edge is also harder to sustain in the age of Google. And none of them have found a way to fully embrace the opportunities brought by new technologies.
So if you try to beat them, keep strategy 101 in mind: offer something they don’t or can’t.
Winning through fresh ideas
Yes, the big three are strong in idea generation. But the rigorous machine they built in their core consulting practices almost by definition restrains creativity. It is not a coincidence that some of the most exiting ideas come from ‘independents’ such as Adam Grant, Margaret Heffernan, Roger Martin, and Gary Hamel. Some of them are associated with smaller boutique consulting houses. Innosight, for example, was founded by the late Clayton Christensen whose ideas around disruption continue to dominate the thinking of many executives.
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The association with creative thinkers is not as impossible as it might seem. Search among the legions of university professors! IMP, a German consulting firm, for example, has nurtured such connections from the very beginning. When Kurt Matzler, a strategy professor at the University of Innsbruck, started to contemplate what opening up the strategy development process to stakeholders outside of the c-suite like workers on the shop-floor or even organisations outside of the company could achieve, this converged with IMP’s own early experiments.
Over time the firm built a suite of unique tools (I am co-authoring a book on this together with Matzler, Julia Hautz, and the firm’s managing partner Stephan Friedrich von den Eichen). What’s particularly attractive about this idea is that the very nature of how McKinsey, BCG and Bain approach strategy rests on the assumption that they have superior expertise. Opening the strategy development process does not square well with this and so makes it more difficult for them to develop a similar offer.
Betting on technology
So far, the consulting industry seems immune to disruptive technology. Firms use more powerful databases to collect information but the process and methods have not changed much for decades. Some small firms, however, are experimenting with more technology-heavy offerings. Strategyzer, for example, have developed a set of online tools that allows customers to build their own business model. A 30-day free trial gets potential customers through the door, where training and master classes as well as additional advice also awaits.
Right now, such solutions are not replacing the tried and tested approach of consulting. But this is the very nature of disruptive innovations. When hydraulic technology was first used in excavation, it was not able to move big quantities of material so quarries and mining companies were not interested. But farmers in the US mid-west needed to move much smaller amounts of material. Over time the technology improved forcing those companies, who had dominated when mechanical technology was used in excavators, out of business.
Apps like the one developed by Strategyzer or other small firms such as in-Manas, an Austrian firm, are used as virtual assistants at the moment. More often it is smaller firms that do not want to spend on consultants who use them. Right now, it seems hard to imagine how digital solutions could be used to develop corporate strategy for a large multinational, but this is also what the producer of mechanical excavators thought when they first heard of hydraulic technology.
Leveraging a particular expertise
Each year a big German study is conducted to identify the hidden champions of consulting. To qualify, a consultancy needs to meet three criteria. First, only 15% of those running Germany’s largest companies—those with revenues above one billion Euros—have heard of them. This makes sure they are ‘hidden’. Secondly, they have clients working also with McKinsey, BCG or Bain. Finally, based on a large survey of executives, they are considered to be better than the three in either a particular topic or industry.
One of those hidden champions is consus clinicmanagement. As the name suggests, the firm is all about hospitals. This is a highly specialized market so it helps that three of its partners have practiced as doctors and the fourth spent his prior career as an executive in Europe’s largest hospital group. With 70 specialized employees they also achieve scale in the German market that is hard to match even by the large firms.
While the razor-sharp focus on an industry is one way to prevail, another one is expertise in a particular topic. Digitalization, for instance, is pursued by a growing number of specialists, such as the JMAN Group. D-fine, specializing in analytics is another fine example, with 90% of its 900 consultants having a background in the sciences such as physics, math and information technology. But there is also room for rather old-fashioned expertise. Hakluyt, a British firm, was founded by a group of former MI6 spies. A typical assignment for them starts with executives wondering what their rivals are really thinking. Their work is entirely analogue, relying on networks and relationships to get an in-depth understanding of such questions. Even its output is an old-fashioned report, not a slide deck and a presentation.
Sparring partner model
“They say CEO is a lonely job—and two-and-a-half years later, I know it’s true,” wrote Josh Leslie, the CEO of software company Cumulus Networks, in a recent article. “I have no peers for the first time in my career and I feel their absence.” Like everyone else, senior executives value sparring partners.
Conova Consulting, a Swiss firm, has only three partners. “We personally spend 98% of our time working with clients,” explains one of them, Yvonne Rumler. Florian Hechl chips in: “The projects we worked on were never shorter than nine months” This means that they work alongside senior executives, who become their sounding board.
The Big Three work quite differently. They deliver a solution rather than working it out together with the client. Mind you, these solutions are often excellent and delivered in record speed, but not all executives want this. Seeking out clients who want to be in charge of the whole process can be a winning strategy for small but highly experienced consulting teams. Partners at large firms are preoccupied with acquiring new projects and client engagement. They simply don’t have the time to be always on-site. “We spend as much time with our clients as more junior consultants in large consultancies” Hechl points out. This way transferring skills becomes part of the deal.
And remember, you are small
McKinsey, BCG, and Bain are great at what they do so trying to beat them at their own game is almost foolish. Success will come through positions that are deliberately distinct. Having said that, using them as a motivator in a David versus Goliath game does work! The adrenaline rush that comes with beating them at a pitch is pretty motivating I am told.
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bffcdb340da662a9b9d0e9a793f32080 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christianstadler/2021/04/27/3-strategy-lessons-from-the-european-super-league-fiasco/?sh=3ee57e137a70 | 3 Strategy Lessons From The European Super League Fiasco | 3 Strategy Lessons From The European Super League Fiasco
Graffiti of Juventus President Andrea Agnelli one of the driving forces behind the the new European ... [+] Super League AFP via Getty Images
On Sunday April 18th Europe’s richest soccer clubs announced their intention to form a new Super League. While they planned to stay in the national leagues, the cartel-like league would draw away lucrative broadcasting money.
The beautiful game was in for some serious off-pitch drama. Fans took to the streets. Former and current players revolted. Managers were deadly opposed. And even politicians weighed in. Within 48 hours the league was history.
Countless commentators with far superior knowledge of the game have taken us through the hours of reckoning. In this article I want to focus on the lessons to be learned for strategists more general. The fiasco highlights that the old world of closed-door deliberations of a selected few and little more than PR-type considerations for other stakeholders is likely to end in tears. Executives who don’t realize this are stuck in 20th century thinking not fit for our times.
Lesson #1: The old shareholder value module has run its course
It has been almost two years since the Business Round Table, an association of America’s leading companies, redefined the purpose of a corporation. The laser sharp focus on shareholder value was replaced by a broader consideration for all stakeholders.
As Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JP Morgan and Chairman of Business Roundtable put it: “Major employers are investing in their workers and communities because they know it is the only way to be successful over the long term. These modernized principles reflect the business community’s unwavering commitment to continue to push for an economy that serves all Americans.”
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Apparently not all of JP Morgan’s clients got the memo. At least not those running Europe’s richest clubs. From their perspective the Super League seemed like a great opportunity for guaranteed income. No risk of failing to qualify for games that come with lucrative broadcasting deals. What’s not to like?
For other stakeholders, however, the initiative violated the very fundamentals of the game. “This is a decision of greed to line the pockets of those at the top and it has been made with no consideration for the loyal supporters, our history, our future and the future of football in this country,” the Chelsea Supporters’ Trust announced in a statement.
The clubs’ players agreed. “Dreams can't be bought," Manchester United midfielder Bruno Fernandes wrote. So did the excluded clubs, FIFA, UEFA, politicians including French President Manuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Even Prince William weighed in.
The lesson is clear here: ignore your stakeholders and you will suffer! For owners of Arsenal and the other Premier clubs the repercussions go beyond missing out on the spoils the Super League promised. The UK’s government has brought forward the proposal of a fan-based review that is likely to curb their powers.
Lesson #2: Be careful which ideas you pick from elsewhere
Where should you look for new business ideas? One of the most fruitful avenues is a peek into adjacent fields. For starters, fresh ideas are more likely to come from outside your own industry. But even more importantly ‘neighboring’ industries are more likely to provide ideas that work in your competitive setting as well.
With that in mind, the founders of Super League seemed to be on to something. “The plan for the European Super League was, in fact, made in America.” James Montague wrote in a New York Times OpEd. Liverpool's John Henry, Arsenal's Stan Kroenke, and Manchester United's Glazer family wanted to copy an N.F.L.-style cartel that avoids the risk of relegation. The problem: They picked the wrong lesson.
The threat of relegation has a long historic tradition in Europe. It keeps everyone on the edge of their seat. Substantial revenue sharing across teams—another aspect of American sports leagues—would have been a more welcome idea. It ensures a more even playing field and thereby increases the pool of potential winners. That increases the excitement. Without removing the threat of relegation, of course, it is less appealing an idea for owners.
When picking up an idea from elsewhere it is crucial to understand cause-and-effect relationships. European soccer fans show up because the game is so unpredictable. The Super League tried to take this away.
Lesson #3: Secrecy is overrated
“By discovering the enemy’s dispositions and remaining invisible ourselves we can keep our forces concentrated, while the enemy’s must be divided.” Sun Tzu writes in the ancient Chinese manual The Art of War.
The architects of the European Super League—like many executives—took this lesson to heart. For months they drew up the plans in great secrecy. As the rumors intensified Aleksander Ceferin, the president of UEFA called his close friend Andrea Agnelli, the president of the Italian league champion Juventus. According to the New York Times he was assured that there was nothing to worry about and the two men started to work on a joint statement. This happened just hours before the Super League was announced.
Ceferin was not the only one kept in the dark. Not even the coaches of the Super League teams were in the loop. “We were not involved in any processes, not the players, not me. We didn't know about it,” Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp said.
Executives who think that keeping a strategy secret as long as possible will enable them to surprise everyone are right. But a surprise in this context has drawbacks as it makes execution more challenging. That is a big drawback considering that Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan, and Charles Burck explain in a best-selling book that “strategies most often fail because they aren’t well executed.” And people who are not consulted during the development of a new strategy often don’t take kindly to it—particularly when it amounts to radical changes. In other words they will resist new strategic initiatives.
For the Super League it is therefore hardly a surprise that Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola’s response was swift and brutal: “It is not fair when one team fight, fight, fight, arrive at the top and cannot qualify because success is already guaranteed just for a few teams. It is not sport if you can't lose.”
If the main stumbling block for new strategies is execution, executives need to be more open while they develop fresh ideas.
A new era in strategy
The strategy pursued by the owners of Europe’s richest clubs was deeply rooted in the old way of thinking. A statement by Liverpool’s owner John Henry suggests that they realized this: ”It's something I won't forget. And shows the power the fans have today and will rightly continue to have.”
Whether this was a PR exercise or a true understanding of how successful strategists operate today is less clear. Many organizations have used more open and transparent approaches in the marketing and product development domain. And some of them have realized that this is also needed in the strategy domain.
A “fan-based review” may not be what the owners want, but in the long run it is likely to secure football’s world domination. Surely, the owners will sign up to this.
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d5db49384347c3493d1b1459859964d0 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christianweller/2019/03/21/only-large-policy-interventions-such-as-reparations-can-shrink-the-racial-wealth-gap/ | Only Large Policy Interventions Such As Reparations Can Shrink The Racial Wealth Gap | Only Large Policy Interventions Such As Reparations Can Shrink The Racial Wealth Gap
As this presidential campaign season gets under way, the racial wealth gap is getting a fair amount of attention. African-Americans typically have about one-tenth the wealth of whites. Several presidential hopefuls such as former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro as well as Sens. Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren have supported the idea of reparations for the descendants of slaves to rectify this massive inequality born out of an unspeakable historic injustice.
A new paper from researchers at the Cleveland Federal Reserve now argues that almost all of the wealth gap between African-Americans and whites is driven by the racial income gap – African-Americans earning about half of what whites earn. One of the main findings of the paper rests on hypothetical scenario that sets African-Americans’ earnings equal to that of whites from 1962 to the present and finds that African-Americans would have had 90% of the wealth of white by 2007. The paper concludes by arguing that addressing the racial wealth gap would require focusing on fixing the racial income gap.
The single focus on income as the driver of racial wealth inequality rests on a model that strips away all of the systematic biases that result in lower incomes for African-Americans. Many of these directly relate to the racial wealth gap and the policy biases that favor whites. After all, income builds wealth, but wealth also generates future incomes and systematic obstacles in building enough wealth hold back African-Americans from getting a fair shot at equal pay. Focusing then only on income ignores the real importance of enacting policies that can quickly close the racial wealth gap, such as reparations.
The racial wealth gap is the result of decades, even centuries of systematic economic barriers to African-Americans’ economic progress . Starting with slavery to the Jim Crow era to today’s mass incarceration, U.S. policy has held back African-Americans and denied them an equal opportunity for centuries. The factors contributing to the racial wealth gap are multitude and their interplay is complex and differs from community to community, from time period to time period. It is virtually impossible to identify one single leading cause for the massive racial wealth gap.
Earning the same money as whites then requires African-Americans to have more wealth to begin with than is currently the case, so that they can actually catch up to whites. After all, current earnings in no small part depend on people’s past opportunities, afforded to them by their families’ wealth. These include, but are not limited to the quality of neighborhoods, schools and colleges. More wealth will allow people to move to better schools, to send their children to better schools, and to support their college education. Many African-Americans do not have these choices because of a lack of wealth. They then cannot gain the income that would give them and their children the same opportunities as whites have.
Additional policy interventions need to occur to make sure that when African-Americans have the same amount of income, they can also build the same amount of wealth as whites. The evidence shows that at comparable income and education levels, for instance, African-Americans have systematically much less wealth than whites. Their incomes often don’t translate into the same amount of wealth because they face additional obstacles such as housing and mortgage market discrimination, resulting in residential segregation and fewer economic educational and labor market opportunities.
The link between higher earnings and more wealth needs to be the same for African-Americans as for whites and that means eliminating systematic biases in housing, mortgage, credit, labor markets and education to begin with. For instance, even when African-Americans enjoy the same opportunities at an education, they often face systematic obstacles in the labor market, which means lower earnings and fewer benefits. A college education for African-Americans still goes along with lower earnings, more unemployment and less wealth than is the case for whites. Systematic obstacles such as outright discrimination, mass incarceration, occupational steering and residential segregation cost African-Americans income right now. Several of these obstacles can be overcome with more wealth that would allow people to move to safer, more diverse neighborhoods, to access similar education opportunities, among other changes.
Policymakers need to consider the challenges of shrinking the racial wealth gap comprehensively. There is no single driver of this gap, but a system that is still heavily stacked against African-Americans . Without massive policy changes it would take African-Americans 260 years to get 90% of the wealth of whites. This just underscores that the massive systematic historic and current hurdles for African-Americans to get ahead will not go away by themselves. Because there are many factors at play here and because this injustice has gone for far too long, addressing wealth inequality will require a large and expeditious approach to fix it. Such a comprehensive approach will likely have to include large-scale reparations for past injustices in some form as an approach to shrink the wealth gap in a meaningful way. The alternative is the continuation of piece meal, gradual approaches that have not made a dent in the racial wealth gap.
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eb50b781726f9135d09130da5ecfff71 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christianweller/2019/07/08/americas-working-families-lost-two-decades-of-economic-security/ | America's Working Families Lost Two Decades Of Economic Security | America's Working Families Lost Two Decades Of Economic Security
Working-class families are finally seeing their wealth getting back to where it was before the Great Recession started at the end of 2007. This comparison, though, ignores that families had already lost a lot of ground by then. Slow wage growth and rising costs led people to borrow a lot. Mortgages, credit cards, student loans and car loans all soared after the labor market boom of the late-1990s ended , contributing to a massive decline in household wealth after 2000. In early 2019, average real wealth for the bottom half of households was about half of what it was in 1999. Middle class families didn’t just lose one decade. Instead, they are nearing the end of their second decade of persistent economic insecurity.
Families rely on their wealth to get ahead and to help them pay their bills in tough times. They can use their savings to move to new jobs when better opportunities arise, start a business, finance part of their and their children’s education and support a dignified retirement, among other things. Wealth also helps families to pay their bills in an emergency such as a layoff, cut back in hours, and a medical incidence or chronic illness.
Wealth has become more important for families over the years. Education and health care, among other things, cost a lot more. And when people now lose a job, they need to keep looking longer for a new one and thus rely on their savings longer than in the past. Families also need more money to fund their retirement. They live longer and the age for full Social Security retirement benefits keeps going up to 67.
Just as working-class families needed more wealth, their wealth fell sharply during the Great Recession and only slowly came back. All families in the bottom half of the wealth distribution owned 1.3% of all wealth by the end of 2019 (see figure below). This was also their share at the end of 2007. It declined during the Great Recession so much that it actually became negative by the middle of 2010. Working-class families owed more money than their savings were worth, mainly because they still owed a lot of debt but the value of their houses had dramatically dropped. It took another nine years for the share of wealth belonging to working-class families to just get back to where it was in late 2007.
Wealth Share Of Bottom Half Finally Back To Pre-Recession Levels Federal Reserve's Distributional Financial Accounts
Contrast this to what happened to the wealth of the top 10% of households. By the end of 2007, they owned 68.1% of all wealth. During the Great Recession, their wealth share barely declined to 67.9% before it quickly increased again. Since 2017, the wealthiest 10% of household owned 70% or more of the country’s total wealth.
Expressing wealth in shares, though, doesn’t tell us much about working-class economic security. Average wealth for the bottom half of households amounted to $17,512 in wealth (in 2019 dollars) by the end of 2007 (see figure below). It fell to a negative $2,833 by June 2010, grew again to between $17,000 and $18,000 by late 2017 and early 2018 and to $20,506 by early 2019. This amount is comparable to their average wealth in early 2007 – a few months before the Great Recession got under way.
But this comparison is misleading. The same amount of wealth now needs to go a lot further than in the past. It now buys less economic mobility and security than it did before the Great Recession.
Average Household Wealth In 2019 Still Only About Half Of The Level In 2000. Calculations Based on Federal Reserve's Distributional Financial Accounts, U.S. Census Households and Bureau of Economic Analysis' National Income and Product Accounts
It may also sound good that working-class families are finally getting back to where they were more than a decade ago. But this comparison overlooks the steep decline in wealth before the Great Recession actually got under way. Average wealth at the start of 2007 was already far down from its peak at the end of the 1990s when it averaged more than $39,000 (see figure above).
Compare this again to what has happened to wealth at the top. Using Fed data and adjusting for the number of households available from the Census, the wealthiest 10% of families owned an average of $4.4 million (in 2019 dollars) at the end of 2007. It fell to $3.7 million in March 2009 and started to go up again before the Great Recession even ended. Average wealth at the top exceeded $4.4 million by the second half of 2013, just four years after the recession ended, and kept rising. The wealthiest families owned an average of $5.6 million by early 2019, the largest level on record, dating back to 1989.
This wasn’t just because the top 1% pulled away from everyone else. The average wealth for all other households in the top 10% -- those between the 90th and 99th percentile – amounted to a record $3.1 million in early 2019.
Working-class families have seen improvements in their economic security over the past decade. The economy and the labor market have steadily grown, debt has stabilized and house values have eventually increased again. Families had been waiting for a long time for these improvements. These gains, though, only got families back to where they were more than a decade ago. Their wealth is still well below where it was almost two decades ago before the labor market substantially weakened, employment opportunities disappeared and income and wealth inequality sharply went up from already high levels. Working-class families now find themselves near the end of the second decade of struggling with rising costs and little savings to help them get ahead and back them up in an emergency. It is high time that policymakers made sure that the economy actually works for working-class families, not just for the wealthy few.
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c700d9ef32c20517adda8d11c5e79f57 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christianweller/2020/01/29/trumps-wasteful-tax-cuts-lead-to-continued-trillion-dollar-deficits-in-expanding-economy/?sh=57efb81b66c4 | Trump’s Wasteful Tax Cuts Lead To Continued Trillion Dollar Deficits In Expanding Economy | Trump’s Wasteful Tax Cuts Lead To Continued Trillion Dollar Deficits In Expanding Economy
The Federal Deficit Will Total $1 Trillion in 2020 According To The Congressional Budget Office Getty
Less than a week after Treasury Secretary Mnuchin repeated the fanciful claim that the Trump tax cuts of 2017 would pay for themselves, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) proved him wrong. If tax cuts actually paid for themselves, they would reduce deficits based on faster revenue growth that comes from faster economic growth. Deficits immediately shot up after the 2017 supply-side tax cuts. And CBO forecasts that those deficits will continue to stay high for the foreseeable future. This is the opposite of tax cuts paying for themselves.
CBO released its regular update to the economic and budget outlook on January 28. The new estimates show a deficit of $1 trillion for 2020. This is the equivalent of 4.6% of gross domestic product. The federal budget deficit will grow to 5.4% of GDP by 2030, according to GDP.
This is a much worse outlook for the current deficit than CBO showed just before Congress passed the Trump tax cuts. In June 2017, CBO anticipated a deficit of 3.6% of GDP for 2020. The current deficit is thus 27.8% greater than CBO projected before the tax cuts. Moreover, this one percentage point difference in the current projected deficit and the prior projection equals $221 billion for 2020. This is a substantial gap that follows in large part from the tax cuts, especially since the economy continued to grow during this time.
A temporarily larger deficit may be worth it, especially in a world of very low interest rates, if it translates into faster economic growth. But that is not what has happened. Economic growth increased briefly in early 2018 but quickly fell back to or even below the modest levels that persisted before the 2017 tax cuts (see figure below). Not all deficits are bad, but the ones from the supply-side tax cuts have proven to be.
Growth Has Slowed After A Short Increase Following The Tax Cuts Calculations Based on Bureau of Economic Analysis, National Income and Product Accounts
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Congress enacted the trickle-down tax cuts, known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, in December 2017, aimed at accelerating growth. The argument in favor of these cuts went something like this: Giving corporations a lot more money and showering the richest households would give them more cash to invest. This would lower the cost of investing and spark a boom in investments in new manufacturing plants, office buildings, vehicle fleets and energy upgrades, among other things. These new investments would translate into faster productivity growth, higher economic growth and stronger wage and employment gains. That was at least the argument for selling lopsided tax cuts for the biggest winners in the current economy.
But the first step in this chain — faster business investment growth — never happened. This should not have been surprising. Corporations were already profitable and sat on piles of cash in 2017. The richest households had also reaped the benefits of the economic expansion since 2009. And interest rates were very low. Yet none of these factors were enough to spark an investment boom. Those looking for cheap money for their investments didn’t have to look far. The problem was that there weren’t enough companies looking to invest.
Other factors likely held back investments. Most notably, incomes have grown only slowly, households face increasing costs for health care, housing and education and continue to be burdened by massive amounts of consumer debt. There was and still is no reason for firms to invest in more capacity to make more stuff since they know consumers are maxed out and can’t by the additional things.
This has important implications for using the federal purse to boost economic growth. Rather than wasting the money on trickle-down tax cuts, Congress could have spent the money on badly needed infrastructure improvements, on making education and health care more affordable and on greening the economy, to name just some of the bigger ideas. The result would have been direct income and job gains for American workers. Families would have gotten help with necessary yet costly items such as health care and education. And the cost of doing business for all companies would have been lower, not just for large cash-rich corporations. Both the economy and workers would have won. Investing in people and the country instead of wasting money on the lucky few actually works.
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8fb452d23ac8ca6c553225ef6ae2f654 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christianweller/2020/04/17/the-recession-hits-an-already-hollowed-out-middle-class/ | The Recession Hits An Already Hollowed-Out Middle Class | The Recession Hits An Already Hollowed-Out Middle Class
Middle Class Wealth Never Recovered From The Last Recession, Leaving Families Vulnerable To The ... [+] Current Crisis Getty
A massive recession is coming. Already financially weakened American families are desperate. In many regards, America’s middle class has not yet fully recovered from the last big recession, more than a decade ago. The government’s response to the current crisis thus has to do a heavy lift or fail to help millions of struggling families because of massive and growing wealth inequality in the past.
The early signs of the recession point to a massive onslaught on jobs and economic growth. The unemployment rate in March 2020, which only captures the first week or so of public responses to the pandemic, rose to 4.4% from 3.5% in February. All workers suffered from the loss of jobs, but African-Americans, Latinx workers and some parts of the Asian-American community felt the brunt of rapidly weakening labor market more than white workers. And, more than twenty million Americans have now filed for unemployment insurance benefits in the first four week of shutdowns. With much of the country still locked down in a fight to slow the spread of the deadly virus, this massive economic decline will continue.
It is on the federal government to stem the tide of economic losses. State and local governments will need to keep preventive measures in place for some time to avoid a resurgence of the virus, to save lives and to assure their citizens that they will be protected as best as they can be. A premature opening of the economy would be devastating in terms of people’s lives and health and wreak even more havoc on the economy than the current slew of social distancing measures. Only the federal government has the financial wherewithal to offset much of the decline in private sector activity. Congress has already passed three rescue packages, but as demand for small business loans and data from individual states make clear, more is needed.
Massive wealth inequality among American families is yet another reason why the federal government’s response needs to be big. Families build savings during good times to help them pay their bills in an emergency and to allow them to plan for their future. Yet in many parts of the economy wealth has not recovered from the onslaught of massive job losses, slow wage growth, falling house prices and rising health care and education costs during and after the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009.
Consider what happened to average wealth by income. Broken down by income quintiles, average inflation-adjusted wealth was still lower at the end of 2019 than it was in December 2007, just before the Great Recession started, for the bottom 60% of the income distribution (see figure below). In fact, for the bottom 40% of the income distribution, average wealth at the end of 2019 was either at or below the levels recorded in March 2001, before the recession before the Great Recession got underway. The current recession hits as many families are woefully unprepared for an emergency.
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Household wealth never recovered from Great Recession for bottom 60% of households. Calculations Based on Federal Reserve, Distributional Financial Accounts and Survey of Consumer Finances, Washington, DC: Fed.
The situation is even worse than these numbers suggest. Many costs, especially for health care, education and housing, have risen faster than incomes for much of the past decade and risks such as job instability have also gone up at the same time. And many of these past costs drove families deeper into debt. They borrowed on their credit cards, take out car and student loans, to pay for these higher costs. By the end of 2019, non-revolving consumer credit, mainly car and student loans, stood at a near-record of 18.6% of after-tax income (see figure below). These loans do not go away just because the economy is tanking and jobs disappear. Families will now struggle to stretch their limited savings because they face large fixed costs amid rapidly shrinking incomes.
Non-revolving consumer debt -- car and student loans mainly, reached record highs just before the ... [+] recession. Calculations Based on Federal Reserve. Financial Accounts of the United States
Data from the Federal Reserve highlight the financial struggles of many families across the income spectrum. Even among families with incomes between $50,000 and $75,000 in 2018, many were financially insecure before the current crisis. In this income group, 47.3% ended up with medical debt when they encountered an unexpected medical emergency, 18.9% could not pay all of their bills at the time, and 28.6% skipped medical procedures then. Not surprisingly, only 56.3% of households in this income group could access $400 in an emergency and only 43.7% had saved three months of their incomes for an emergency in 2018 (see figure below).
Many Middle-Class Families Were Financially Insecure Even Before the Current Recession. Calculations Based on Federal Reserve. Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking
The quickly unfolding, massive economic decline is hitting a hollowed out middle class. The federal government’s response needs to reflect this reality. It needs to be big to offset the lack of private savings for many families as well as the weaknesses in the country’s social safety nets. It needs to lower the costs of health care and student loans, for instance. It needs to reach not just the poor, but also middle-income families. And, it needs to be sustained for some time as the economic recovery still looks very uncertain in terms of timing and shape. The last economic recovery never felt like one for many families because they continued to struggle financially. Congress and the administration need to both understand this reality and make sure the next recovery creates broadly shared prosperity.
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7ef3063d5b613200f352f9d8217227cc | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christianweller/2021/04/09/president-bidens-policies-will-create-faster-more-inclusive-growth/ | President Biden’s Policies Will Create Faster, More Inclusive Growth | President Biden’s Policies Will Create Faster, More Inclusive Growth
President Biden's Agenda, If Enacted, Could Result In Much Faster Growth getty
For decades, the conservative story of trickle-down economics—including, particularly tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, cutting funding for the common good, and deregulation to promote corporate profits at the expense of workers—, was all the rage. Supposedly, it would create much faster growth. Yet massive inequality amid sluggish growth has proven this argument wrong.
The country needs faster productivity growth, more innovation, and faster technological advances to address the current and looming challenges of climate change, an aging society, and massive inequality, to name just some of those challenges. President Biden has proposed and started to enact an agenda that will accelerate economic growth and build the foundation for stronger longer-term growth. In addition, it will also make sure that the vast majority of Americans benefit from faster growth. If fully enacted, President Biden’s agenda will allow the country to tackle its looming challenges.
President Biden’s agenda could generate real, lasting economic growth. This would especially follow if his American Jobs Plan — a large economic package amounting to more than $2 trillion dollars in spending investments over the years ahead – were enacted. At about $2.25 trillion in public investments, plus another $400 billion in clean energy incentives, the American Jobs Plan might be one of the biggest public investments in economic growth, jobs, and workers since the New Deal. It also constitutes a return of government to fulfilling its responsibility to lay the foundation for sustained prolonged economic growth in America.
Economic growth has been very slow over much of the past two decades, averaging an annualized 1.8 percent during the last business cycle, from the end of 2007 to the end of 2019. Less investment, high inequality, and widespread income uncertainty have all contributed to lower productivity growth. During the last business cycle, labor productivity growth averaged 1.4 percent, or half of what it was during the preceding two business cycles. This was also the slowest productivity growth of any business cycle since the late 1970s.
President Biden’s jobs plans focuses on boosting productivity growth and expanding the capacity of the economy to grow without igniting inflation. How will these investments spur growth? The key is that President Biden’s plan will ensure that the workers and businesses will have cutting- edge technology at their disposal and that they will have the resources, including time, to grow and contribute their skills and talents. The capital base grows with investments in infrastructure such as ports, roads, water, electric and internet infrastructure. A stronger capital base will lower the costs of doing business and hence boost private investment in manufacturing and other sectors where business investment has been weak for over a decade. And President Biden’s plan supports workers in caring for the elderly and people with disabilities, which will provide many workers with an opportunity to stay in the labor force and pursue their careers while enabling a fulfilled workforce.
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Infrastructure investments will also provide another positive follow-on effect. This necessary spending will also speed the recovery in crucial sectors and get people back into jobs to prevent the skill loss that poses real threats to productivity growth d GDP for decades to come. Manufacturing jobs are down half a million from the start of this recession, down 1.5 million from the start of the last recession, and down 4.7 million from the recession before that. Construction jobs never fully recovered the great recession and are down more than four4 percent from a year ago.
The care investments are especially well-timed and well-targeted to some of the hardest hit parts of the labor market. Nursing homes have shed 11.5% of employees in the last year, child care jobs are down more than 16%, while state and local governments employ 1 million fewer educators than a year ago. Most of these care workers are women, especially women of color, and the vast majority of unpaid care work is borne by women, as well.
President Biden will likely announce an additional suite of policies soon, designed to spur growth by investing directly in people and their potential in the labor market. Paid leave, universal pre-k, and free community college will lead to growth – but even more importantly, they will make a meaningful difference in the financial stability of families, and in who gets to share in the benefits of a growing economy.
Overcoming decades of lackluster and unequally-shared economic growth requires large investments. The American Jobs Plan delivers a series of investments of historic proportions that enables a transition to an environmentally sustainable economy that may grow at higher levels, delivering high-quality jobs and more broadly distributed economic benefits to all people.
President Biden’s jobs proposals invest in infrastructure that is continually modernized to mitigate challenges like climate change, in early education to support every student and future worker, and in a care economy that allows all men and women to be productive—that is the path to sustained economic growth that benefits all Americans. This is a historic opportunity to change course from the past decades of disappointing economic performance. It can demonstrate a real path to sustained economic growth that benefits working-class and middle-class Americans, not just the wealthy.
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ae8a5f63bbb4ec1c729db0831feee1bf | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christianweller/2021/04/16/republican-senators-push-social-security-medicare-and-medicaid-cuts-after-supporting-ineffective-tax-cuts/ | Republican Senators Push Social Security, Medicare And Medicaid Cuts After Supporting Ineffective Tax Cuts | Republican Senators Push Social Security, Medicare And Medicaid Cuts After Supporting Ineffective Tax Cuts
Republicans Target Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid getty
The economy is recovering from the depths of the pandemic in large part due to the massive relief packages that Congress passed in 2020 and 2021. Just in time for this recovery, Senate Republicans are pushing for cuts to vital programs. According to news reports, five GOP senators are proposing a commission that would come up with proposals to balance the federal budget within a decade. Given that four of the five sponsors of this idea have signed on to the tax pledge to never, ever under any circumstances raise taxes, they are looking for programs to cut. They consequently take aim mainly at cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
These targeted programs are already and will continue to prove crucial to the financial and physical health of millions of Americans that have suffered from the pandemic. Many workers, especially older ones, have lost their jobs permanently and will move into early retirement with permanently lower benefits and little or no savings outside of those benefits. Millions of Americans, again particularly among older ones, experience long-term consequences from COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel virus. Those hardest hit by pandemic will need strong, expanded retirement and health benefits, not cuts to an already basic system.
It is worth considering bringing government spending and revenues more in line with each other over time. But a balanced budget is a completely arbitrary public finance goal. A country that has strong growth amid historically low interest rates can and will shrink its debt burden – defined as either the ratio of debt to gross domestic product (GDP) or as the share of interest payments out of GDP. By both measures, the U.S. government’s finances are manageable. This is especially true since the pandemic-related fiscal measures of 2020 and 2021 are expected to provide a substantial boost to economic growth. The Federal Reserve will also likely keep interest rates low for some time. Congress will eventually need to worry about the long-term health of the U.S. government, but that does not mean a balanced budget, especially one that is achieved by cutting only vital programs. The federal government instead will need more revenue to start closing the gap between revenues and spending.
The program-cutting push for a balanced budget ignores two key aspects of fiscal policy. First, it matters whether fiscal interactions create temporary or permanent deficits and second, it matters whether the spending or tax cuts underlying the deficits resulted in faster growth. On both counts, using the pandemic-related fiscal measures to justify cuts for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is wrong.
The pandemic-related deficits are mainly temporary. Congress enacted the CARES Act in March 2020, which offered temporary relief mainly to families, unemployed workers and closed business. Most of its provisions expired in the second half of 2020. The newly elected Congress then enacted the American Rescue Plan in March 2021. It supports people, businesses and state and local governments with substantial yet temporary financial relief. Most measures will expire in 2021 and Congress will expand few if any of these provisions.
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Contrast this to the tax legislation that most of the five senators now worried about long-term deficits helped to pass in 2017. Donald Trump’s signature legislative achievement was the Tac Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. It showered trillions of dollars on highly profitable corporations and the richest American households that had seen the largest economic gains in the wake of the Great Recession from 2007 to 2009. Moreover, many provisions of this tax legislation are now permanent fixtures of the tax code and many temporary ones, such as tax cuts for high-income earners will likely become permanent, if past supply-side tax cuts are any indication.
Many of the Republican senators now supposedly worried about deficits supported the tax cuts for corporations and the rich but opposed the most recent round of fiscal relief. Yet the TCJA’s effect lasted possibly for a short period of elevated growth, while most of its benefits went to support shareholders and top-income earners. In contrast, the CARES Act offered much needed relief amid the worst unemployment crisis since the Great Depression, while it helped to stem the tide on declining economic growth. And experts predict that ARPA will boost economic growth to its highest rate in decades. This will help the economy to recover most if not all losses from the pandemic’s early months and lay the groundwork for faster growth in the years to come. The temporary fiscal interventions of 2020 and 2021, which the senators opposed, provide a much higher bang for the buck than the long-term budget busting trickle-down tax cuts of 2017, which many supported.
Where do Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid fit into the picture? The pandemic has highlighted the importance of these programs. Congress expanded support for Medicaid in particular with its pandemic relief efforts. The immediate benefits are less inequality and better health outcomes, both of which ultimately support stronger economic growth. Improving revenues for these programs by, for example, increasing payroll taxes on the top income earners will ultimately result in stronger growth and shrinking federal deficits. Yet most of the senators trying to find solutions to the deficits have already taken any revenue increases off the table. They are not serious about finding solutions, only serious about cutting vital programs for American families.
The entire commission idea showcases cruel hypocrisy on the part of the senators. They are now worried about deficits and programs that are sorely needed by low-income and middle-income Americans. They even opposed the last round of fiscal relief, the American Rescue Plan, while they were fine pushing trillions on companies and people that did not need extra help getting rich.
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3292a9439ba9537dfc67705776b688aa | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christianweller/2021/05/02/key-takeaways-from-latest-gdp-numbers/ | Key Takeaways From Latest GDP Numbers | Key Takeaways From Latest GDP Numbers
Economic Growth Accelerates While Inflation Remains Under Control getty
Economic growth accelerated sharply in the first three months of 2021. The economy expanded by an annualized inflation-adjusted rate of 6.4% in the first three months of 2021, accelerating growth from the prior three months and thus extending growth for the third quarter in a row. As a result, the economy was 0.4% larger than in the first quarter of 2020.
This puts the size of the economy almost back to where it was before the recession started. After all, the first three quarters of 2020 include the sharp decline of economic activity in March 2020. The economy was 0.9% smaller in the first quarter of 2021 than in the last three months of 2019. But, assuming that the momentum of the economy accelerated in March of 2021 due to the massive financial injection from the American Rescue Plan, the economy already recovered all of its losses from the pandemic or will do so soon.
Recovering those losses, though, will not be enough. The population and the economy’s productivity have both also increased in the meantime. In March 2021, there were 8.4 million fewer jobs than in February 2020 before the labor market nosedived. To gain back these jobs, the economy will need to maintain its momentum for some time.
Inflation is still subdued amid this growth acceleration. The key measure – the price index for personal consumption expenditures — increased by 3.5% in the first three months of 2021. This was up from 1.5% during the last three months of 2020. Yet consumer prices in the first three months of 2021 were 2.1% higher than prices in the fourth quarter of 2019. So far, inflation is still relatively modest.
Several factors will likely limit future inflationary pressures. For one, global competition will constrain price increases. Imports jumped by 5.7% in the first quarter of 2021, continuing the sharp expansion of imports that started in the middle of 2020. This puts U.S. firms in greater competition with overseas producers and thus makes it harder to raise prices. At the same time, exports fell by 1.1%. This frees up capacity at domestic producers to meet domestic demand. Further, much of the increase in spending in the first three months of 2021 likely met pent up demand that will not last. The largest contributions to economic growth from consumption came from spending on new cars, in restaurants and hotels. These spending increases are unlikely to persist. There are only so many new cars people can buy, so many restaurants they can go to and so many missed trips to catch up on. Finally, people saved a lot of the additional income that they received from the various benefits that the American Rescue Plan delivered. The personal saving rate jumped again to 21.0% from an already high of 13.0% at the end of 2020. Mental health data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey suggest that people cared as much about having additional spending as they did about having more wealth that they can rely on for an emergency. The additional savings will only gradually make their way into more spending, limiting price pressures. These various trends will moderate inflationary pressures.
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Business investments shifted from physical structures to computers and software. Investments in structures such as office buildings declined, while investments in computers and software went up by an annualized rate of 65% after increasing at double digit rates for much of 2020. This could herald a continued emphasis on remote work. It could also mean slower net additions to the country’s capital base since computers and software depreciate more quickly than offices, hospitals, manufacturing plants, and other physical structures. Over time, slower growth of the country’s available capital base could translate into less productivity growth. Businesses will need to increase their investment spending faster and continue such elevated business spending at higher rates for some time.
While consumption and business investments on computers and peripherals accelerated, the momentum in the housing market appeared to slow. Spending on new homes increased by a still relatively strong 10.8% in the first quarter of 2021, but that marked the second quarter in a row that housing spending growth was well below the levels of the previous quarter. If this slowing trend continues, it would again suggest that the bump in savings does not translate into a spending boom. People are not turning their new wealth into more housing, even amid low interest rates.
Finally, the growth in state and local government spending was fairly modest. In the first quarter of 2021, state and local government spending increased by an annualized inflation-adjusted rate of 1.7%. This marked the first positive increase after three quarters of sharply less spending. But, considering the sharp drop in state and local government spending for most of 2020 and the fact that the American Rescue Plan provided substantial resources to cash strapped state and local governments, this increase appears to be relatively small. In part, this may have to do with the timing of the American Rescue Plan, which was only enacted in March. State and local governments may not have had time to adjust their spending in response to the legislation. It could also mean that state and local governments used the additional funds to fill holes in their revenues and put money into reserves rather than to increase their heavily decimated public services.
The latest data on economic growth are welcome news. Consumer spending accelerated as did some forms of business spending. Whether these trends continue and other spending will improve as well, will determine where and how quickly much needed jobs lost during the recession will return.
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ef131a1d461ece6589a61d343ba1744e | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christianwolan/2011/03/25/dont-worry-about-nuclear-power-all-2012-candidates-will-support-it/ | Don't Worry About Nuclear Power, All 2012 Candidates Will Support It | Don't Worry About Nuclear Power, All 2012 Candidates Will Support It
Image by Getty Images Europe via @daylife
Though public opinion, high capital costs, and lagging private investment may concern America's stalled nuclear industry, a lack of political support is one worry they will likely not have.
Barack Obama
In President Obama’s State of the Union address, he urged a shift in energy policy toward alternative energy. “By 2035,” he pledged, “80 percent of America's electricity will come from clean energy sources.” After pausing for applause, Obama continued, “Some folks want wind and solar. Others want nuclear, clean coal and natural gas. To meet this goal, we will need them all -- and I urge Democrats and Republicans to work together to make it happen.”
Taking the first steps toward that goal, Obama’s proposed 2012 budget allocates an additional $36 billion to the current $18.5 billion in loan guarantees for new nuclear power plants. According to The New York Times, Obama also hopes to get $500 million for research into smaller modular reactors.
Even in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, Obama has not retreated from nuclear option. The United States recently signed an agreement with Chile to help operate research reactors, train civilian nuclear technicians and ensure proper safety measures, just a year after the country was rocked by an 8.8-magnitude earthquake.
Newt Gingrich
During his speech at the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference on February 11, Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House and presidential hopeful, remarked, “There are two things about nuclear power. One, we should dramatically go through and streamline the regulatory process for the big plants, but two, there's a whole new generation of very small nuclear power plants, that are very, very safe, that should not come under the certain kind of regulatory design for a huge, giant multimillion dollar plant. And we could go to a much more effective nuclear power, very fast and have a very big job creation technology.”
Mitt Romney
Even after the Fukushima disaster, Mitt Romney’s commitment to nuclear energy has not diminished. “Governor Romney believes that we should review the safety and design of nuclear plants as a result of what we’ve learned in Japan,” a spokeswoman for Romney’s Political Action Group said, “but that nuclear power has to be part of the energy mix going forward.”
Romney’s words echo a line from his 2010 book, “No Apologies,” where he wrote, “In my view, the risk to liberty, prosperity and human life is greater due to our dependence on foreign oil than it is when we build nuclear power plants.”
Sarah Palin
Though her 2008 rallying cry was “Drill, Baby, Drill,” the former Alaskan governor has called on every state to consider the nuclear option. As John McCain’s running mate, Palin promised to break the 30 year taboo that emerged after the incident as Three Mile Island and build more nuclear energy plants.
“Absolutely I can see nuclear playing a role in our energy agenda.” Palin, speaking about small-scale nuclear modules in Alaska, told The New York Times. “Nuclear obviously plays an important energy role in our country.”
Donald Trump
It is unclear if the Donald will toss his hat into the ring, and we won’t know until the Celebrity Apprentice wraps up in June, but in light of the Fukushima disaster, Donald Trump has come out and shown his support for the nuclear energy industry. “I’m in favor of nuclear energy, very strongly in favor of nuclear energy,” Trump recently told Fox News . “If a plane goes down, people keep flying. If you get into an auto crash, people keep driving. There are problems in life. Not everything is so perfect. But we do need nuclear energy, and we need a lot of it fast.”
Mike Huckabee
Similar to the other presidential hopefuls, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee shares the view of a varied approach. "We have to explore, we have to conserve, and we have to pursue all avenues of alternative energy: nuclear, wind, solar, hydrogen, clean coal, bio-diesel, and biomass,” he said. “Some will come from our farms and some will come from our laboratories."
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1b46f56e4abb188992285b09fa5bc94f | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christianwolan/2011/04/14/the-real-story-of-twitter/?ref=hackernoon.com | The Real Story Of Twitter | The Real Story Of Twitter
Image by The Economist via CrunchBase
So you've watched the The Social Network and are convinced that Mark Zuckerberg is a real jerk. You may soon be thinking the same thing about Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, only this time, it's not just a movie.
The official version of Twitter's conception begins in Williams' apartment. Williams, along with former Google employee Biz Stone and investor Jack Dorsey set out to build a podcasting platform called Odeo, but after Apple launched iTunes, the company quickly became obsolete. Instead, Williams bought out Odeo’s investors and shifted the focus toward a little idea about 140 character status updates.
However, Business Insider reports that the real story is not that simple, or innocent. Notably, it leaves out one of the social media giant’s co-founders, Noah Glass.
Nicholas Carlson reports, “According to interviews with about a dozen early investors and employees, the story of how Twitter was actually founded begins with an entrepreneur named Noah Glass, who started Odeo in his apartment."
The longer, "real" version goes like this.
Odeo began in Glass' apartment, it later moved into Williams’. Eventually, it expanded to an office building and 14 employees.
In 2005, Odeo's expansion was halted when Apple announced iTunes. Williams, who by now was Odeo’s CEO, asked his employees for a new direction to salvage the company. That's when Jack Dorsey's light bulb went one and he came up with the a social networking site based on a person's "status." Noah Glass developed the concept with Dorsey and presented the idea to the company.
"After that February presentation to the company, Evan Williams was skeptical of Twitter's potential, but he put Glass in charge of the project," Business Insider reporter. "From time to time, Biz Stone helped out Glass's Twitter team."
Odeo investor George Zachary told Business Insider "there were two people who were really excited [about Twitter], Jack and Noah Glass. Noah was fanatically excited about Twitter. Fanatically! Evan and Biz weren't at that level. Not remotely."
Almost a year after Williams asked his employees for ideas, he told investors about Odeo’s Twitter project. In those early days, nobody knew that the company would one day be worth over $5 billion, and Williams, hoping to save investors a loss, offered to buy back Odeo’s stock. Odeo's investors accepted the deal, though some believe they got conned, believing Williams knew more about Twitter’s potential than he let on.
After taking ownership, Williams first order of business was to change the name to Obvious Corp, his second was to fire Noah Glass.
The most common explanation among the company's early employees was that Glass’ boisterous personality clashed with the quiet and contemplative Williams. Other suggest Glass' push to run Twitter himself didn’t sit well with the chief executive.
In any case, Williams remained at the helm of one the of the most successful social media companies, and Glass’ name was largely erased from the history books.
Glass, whose Twitter page says "I started this," admits he didn’t do it alone. He credits Dorsey and others, saying the site's genesis happened through "conversations." Though Twitter's biggest advocate, who gave the site its name, insists that the story given by Evan Williams and Biz Stones does not acknowledge the contributions he made. He said, "I do know that without me, Twitter wouldn't exist. In a huge way."
In a small recognition of that fact, after Business Insider published the story, Williams wrote on Twitter “It's true that @Noah never got enough credit for his early role at Twitter."
But who’s fault is that?
Read the full story at Business Insider
And while we’re on the subject, Follow Me On Twitter.
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ac757634f0f1c39bdbb73b5dbee4f723 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christieterrill/2017/05/16/what-you-need-to-know-about-cybersecurity-and-the-internet-of-things/ | What You Need To Know About Cybersecurity And The Internet Of Things | What You Need To Know About Cybersecurity And The Internet Of Things
The Internet of Things (IoT) has moved from a marketing buzzword to a household term. And while IoT generates more headlines as a consumer issue, it’s a topic that businesses need to pay attention to as well. According to a 2016 study released by Gartner, more than half of major new business processes and systems will include an IoT component by 2020.
Unfortunately, the rapid spread of IoT brings a proliferation of security risks. In my second installment of cybersecurity facts versus fiction, let’s explore three related to IoT security in the workplace.
LAS VEGAS, NV - JANUARY 04: Tim Baxter, President and COO of Samsung Electronics America, speaks at... [+] CES 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Fact or Fiction? The Internet of Things provides more attack vectors than ever before.
Fact: The rate in which the Internet of Things increases attack vectors is much higher than anything we’ve seen previously.
Solving the Problem: The challenge for organizations is multi-faceted.
If your company has some stake in the IoT market, services must be integrated mindfully into IoT devices. Make sure you are prepared for integration from a security perspective. A poorly designed device can lead to fallout in a number of ways, such as a potentially fatal loss of consumer trust like what happened with Petnet.
For IoT devices connected to your organization’s internal network, the responsibility lies with your IT team. Ensure they are following best security practices. Network segmentation will become an invaluable ally in ensuring IoT devices (common offenders include routers, alarm systems and Nests) don’t wreak havoc with more traditional connected devices (such as mobile phones, printers and laptops).
You may also want to institute a policy with your employees stating that they need to seek some sort of permission before connecting any unauthorized IoT device (such as a Fitbit) to your business network.
Fact or Fiction? Spying on employees or cyberstalking is a major risk from IoT.
Fiction: While it’s evolving very fast, the Internet of Things is still in its infancy stage. Could someone hack your smart security system to break into your corporate office? Yes, it is plausible, but not likely at this point. Widespread surveillance may eventually become a more common problem (a taste of which we’ve seen with recent news regarding smart speakers), but right now the real risks to watch out for are hacked devices being used for other nefarious purposes, i.e. as part of a botnet or being leveraged by criminals to hide their true origins.
Solving the Problem: Concentrate on the much more realistic threat posed by botnets and the like. Last year, the internet came to a standstill thanks to the Mirai botnet. The cause of this botnet? Countless unprotected IoT devices. And these botnets will become only more common as the IoT explosion continues (some reports claim it will blow up by 200 percent in the next five years).
Botnets are gainful entities, as attackers profit from causing the denial of services to large numbers of hosts. And those affected will typically pay out to ensure no further loss of business as usual.
How do you avoid (inadvertently) joining a botnet? Again, security hygiene plays a role. One critical but overlooked IoT security best practice is changing default credentials. It can’t be emphasized how critical this is, as all devices come with these credentials. Once an attacker has one default password, they have them all.
As mentioned previously, network segmentation is another key to defending against IoT attacks. Other controls like firewalls and network traffic monitoring should also be standard practice.
Fact or Fiction? Security needs to be part of the product lifecycle when designing an IoT device.
Fact: Security can no longer afford to take a backseat when creating a connected device. Unfortunately, in the interest of taking these devices swiftly to market, security is frequently just an afterthought that follows the implementation of required features. This creates challenges not only for the companies that are developing these products, but for the organizations that purchase these products to use in their business operations.
Solving the Problem: This is a problem that should solve itself by market need. Realistically though, this will not happen since usability and convenience always seem to override security concerns. In the European Union (EU), they are developing new IoT security rules, and the U.S. should follow the EU’s lead and take a legislative approach to these problems as well. But before that happens, expect the problem to get worse, not better.
In the meantime, the best approach is a mixture of vigilance and due diligence. Before you (or your team) purchase any IoT device for your business, research it thoroughly. Is it associated with any known vulnerabilities? Does it have any history of insecurity? Although sometimes a device might be appealing from a financial standpoint, it may do more harm than good in the long term.
Once you take any previously unconnected device and join it to the internet, the moment someone detects a vulnerability in it, this device no longer belongs to you. Install updates on your devices as soon as you see them, research products before you purchase and deploy them in your organization and ensure you are doing everything you can to mitigate potential IoT risk through all the supporting controls available.
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6159e07ffba2c0370cda32be15dc2340 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinaliao/2019/10/16/uber-mopeds-cityscoot-in-paris/ | Uber Is Bringing You On-Demand Mopeds In Paris—Here’s What You Need To Know | Uber Is Bringing You On-Demand Mopeds In Paris—Here’s What You Need To Know
Uber is partnering with Cityscoot to offer on-demand mopeds in Paris. Photo: Courtesy of Uber
There’s a lot to love about Paris. Whether it’s the delectable cuisine, romantic ambiance, fabulous hotels, or world-famous attractions, there’s no doubt that the French capital is one of the finest destinations to visit in the world. But what can be particularly dreadful is the traffic, which is one reason why you’ll find many locals getting around by bicycle or moped. For travelers, having immediate and temporary access to either was previously impossible, but that has all begun to change in the past few years and Uber is making it easier than ever for their users to get around the city.
What started as a ridesharing company has quickly become a one-stop shop for just about every mode of transportation. In Paris, the company launched electric bikes and scooters last April, providing not only a convenient way to get from point A to point B, but a fun one, too. And the two-wheeled options aren’t stopping there. This morning, Uber has announced that they’ll be partnering up with Cityscoot to offer on-demand mopeds in the City of Light.
The mopeds will be displayed in the app using a blue icon. Photo: Courtesy of Uber
The mopeds, made by Govecs, are all electric. Eco-friendly modes of transportation have become a subject of increased importance, but particularly in the French capital. Esther Porte, Uber’s product marketing manager on new mobility, notes that “the congestion in Paris is getting worse and worse, and so [the mopeds are] another way to get around. And the fact that it’s electric, green, and environmentally friendly is super important for [Uber], but also for Parisians.” (Local authorities have vowed to ban all petrol- and diesel-fueled cars by 2030 and the mayor recently announced that the city’s first four Arrondissements will go car-less once per month.) Each of the mopeds comes equipped with a skirt that goes over your legs and has a clear, touch-enabled pouch where you can keep your phone. Tucked away in a compartment under the seat you’ll find a helmet, hairnets, and a reflective vest. Riders will have to bring their own gloves, however, which are required to be worn by law.
Upon making your reservation, you'll receive a four-digit pin code that you type into a keypad on ... [+] the moped. Photo: Courtesy fo Uber
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When reserving a moped, you’ll be required to scan your driver’s license for verification. Once approved, you’ll have 10 minutes to pick up your bike by entering the four-digit pin code presented in the Uber app. For first-time riders, Cityscoot offers training courses in Paris, but there are also detailed instructions in the app, including notes on traffic laws and an emphasis on safety measures. The mopeds are also capped at 45 kilometers per hour so that you’re not zooming off at unexpected speeds. And included in your 0.29 euro (about 32 cents at the current exchange rate) per minute rate is an insurance plan by Allianz so that you’re covered in case of any accidents.
The app will provide detailed instructions on how to use the moped in addition to safety taps. Photo: Courtesy of Uber
The mopeds will be available to book in the Uber app starting in November and while there are currently no set plans on expanding to other cities, Billy Guernier, Uber’s head of new mobility platform, isn’t crossing anything out. “Moped sharing in particular is a big market in Europe, it’s starting to be big in the United States, and there are signs that it’ll be big in Latin America and potentially Asia. So we’re excited about the possibilities and we think it’s a really nice complement to the business that we’re already in,” says Guernier. We’ll just have to wait and see what the transformative company has up their sleeves next.
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674b0d877a046b465d1209ddc6a88378 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinaliao/2019/11/19/holiday-gift-guide-2019-the-9-best-headphones-for-travelers/ | Holiday Gift Guide 2019: The 9 Best Headphones For Travelers | Holiday Gift Guide 2019: The 9 Best Headphones For Travelers
Sennheiser Momentum Wireless headphones deliver superior sound quality and look stylish Photo: Courtesy of Sennheiser
As the holidays near it’s that time of year again to start searching for the perfect present for your loved ones. When it comes to the jetsetter in your life, one gift they’ll certainly appreciate is the perfect pair of headphones to bring along with them during their travels. For the frequent flier, noise-cancellation technology is a must, but a standard pair of earbuds that are light and easy to carry around also come in handy when running around a new destination all day.
To help you pick the right pair, here are nine of the best options for travelers.
Sony WH-1000XM3 Wireless Noise-Canceling Headphones Photo: Courtesy of Sony
Delivering both on sound and noise cancellation, Sony’s WH-1000XM3s are the best all-around headphones. These wireless over-ears are also optimized for atmospheric pressure, providing high-quality audio at high altitudes. Sony headphones also offer both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, and through their app you have access to the Adaptive Sound Control technology, which detects your activity and automatically adjusts ambient sound settings to suit your environment.
Jabra Elite 75t Photo: Courtesy of Jabra
When it comes to true wireless earbuds that are ideal for an active lifestyle, Jabra’s Elite Active 65t have long been a favorite. And while the new Elite 75t earbuds aren’t sweat-resistant, they are dust- and water-protected. They’re also more compact than its predecessor, which were already fairly small, meaning they’ll take up even less space in your bag. The battery life on these are amazing, too, with up to seven and a half hours of playback on full charge and 28 hours including the charging case.
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Bose Noise-Canceling Headphones 700 Photo: Courtesy of Bose
While Bose’s QuietComfort 35 IIs have long been the brand’s best over-ear, noise-canceling headphones, the recently launched 700s have managed to top the bestseller. In addition to being compatible with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa and an updated sleek look to fit modern times, it also features a four-microphone system that isolates your voice while drowning out all of the noise surrounding you, making it perfect for the traveler who’s always taking calls while on the run.
Sony WF-1000XM3 Wireless Noise-Canceling Headphones Photo: Courtesy of Sony
When it comes to wireless earbuds with noise-canceling technology, the Sony WF-1000XM3s are currently leading the industry. Even though it won’t block out as much noise as its significantly larger over-ear sibling, it still gets the job done and it’s astonishing what the exemplary electronics company has been able to pack into such a compact design. The earbuds also boast great battery life, offering 6 hours of noise-canceling listening time at full charge and three additional charges with the elegantly designed case.
Bose QuietComfort 20 Acoustic Noise-Canceling Headphones Photo: Courtesy of Bose
While there’s a tendency for all things wireless these days, some—like anyone who is afraid of losing an earbud while asleep on a plane—still prefer a classic cord. And if you’re in search of a pair with active noise cancellation, no one has been able to match the Bose QuietComfort 20s. In addition to blocking out ambient noise, these earphones deliver up to a whopping 16 hours of play time per two-hour charge and come with the company’s proprietary silicone tips offer a secure and comfortable fit.
Sennheiser Momentum Wireless Photo: Courtesy of Sennheiser
For the serious audiophile who also loves good design, Sennheiser’s Momentum Wireless headphones will do just the trick. You won’t get the same level of noise reduction as Sony or Bose’s offerings, but it still does a great job and the sound quality is stellar. Plus, its retro look will surely turn heads and might even become a conversation starter as your loved one makes their way around a new city.
Apple AirPods Pro Photo: Courtesy of Apple
The Apple devotee in your life undoubtedly has their eyes on the new AirPods Pro. The latest incarnation of these earbuds now support active noise cancellation in addition to a new design that offers a more customizable courtesy of silicone tips. To make them even more special, you can have them personalized—for free—with your loved one’s name, initials, or phone number.
Jabra Elite 85h Photo: Courtesy of Jabra
While most noise-canceling over-ear headphones have a battery life that lingers around 30 hours, Jabra has gone the extra mile at up to 36 hours with the brand new Elite 85h. The company’s first pair of premium ANC headphones has also been designed to withstand the elements by nano-coating its internal components. And its two-year warranty against water and dust will certainly put one’s mind at ease.
BeatsX Photo: Courtesy of Beats
If the person on your list wants something compact but has a tendency to lose things, true wireless earbuds probably aren’t the best option for them. Instead, opt for Bluetooth earphones that are connected by a cord like the BeatsX. Plus, your forgetful loved one will be grateful for its fast-charging capabilities (five minutes gets two hours of playback) when they’re getting ready to run out for the day and explore a new destination.
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b04296f051208c098519efdbd07f152b | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinapark/2014/12/15/chick-fil-a-fails-to-stop-eat-more-kale-trademark/ | Chick-fil-A Fails To Stop 'Eat More Kale' Trademark | Chick-fil-A Fails To Stop 'Eat More Kale' Trademark
A kale enthusiast has successfully trademarked the phrase "Eat More Kale," despite objections from fast food giant Chick-fil-A. Bo Muller-Moore announced Friday that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has approved his federal trademark.
“This is more than just about a victory for ‘eat more kale,’” said Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin at a press conference. “It’s a victory for grow local. It’s a victory for Vermont’s small food and farm agricultural renaissance, and it’s a victory for Vermont.”
A Legal Battle
Chick-fil-A had tried to stop Muller-Moore’s use of the phrase “Eat More Kale” on printed T-shirts and bumper stickers. The fast food chain argued that the phrase was confusingly similar to its own slogan, “Eat Mor Chikin”. In Chick-fil-A’s ad campaign, “Eat Mor Chikin” is a misspelled plea from cows seeking to save themselves by urging chicken consumption.
In 2011, Chick-fil-A sent Muller-Moore a cease-and-desist letter. The fast food chain claimed that “Eat More Kale” is “is likely to cause confusion of the public and dilutes the distinctiveness of Chick-fil-A’s intellectual property.” The letter cited 30 examples of others who had abided by Chick-fil-A’s demand to stop using the “eat more” phrase.
Refusing to back down, Muller-Moore forged ahead with plans to trademark the slogan and continued selling T-shirts on EatMoreKale.com. He was backed by a legion of loyal fans, including over 15,000 Facebook followers and over 42,000 supporters of an online petition, which called for Chick-fil-A to "stop bullying small business owners."
“There are certainly the purists, and they think of kale as this superfood,” Muller-Moore said to the New York Times in 2011. “I think other people see it as more of this local food movement… [and] other people see it as a shirt printed by Bo down the road.”
The Accidental Activist
In a 2012 TED talk, Muller-Moore recalled his journey to becoming a T-shirt artist, entrepreneur, and self-described “accidental activist”. It all started with a $30 T-shirt kit, given to Muller-Moore by his wife for Valentine's Day.
Muller-Moore found an old T-shirt and printed it with a single word – cheese. He wore it to work the next day. To his surprise, he started receiving T-shirt orders almost immediately.
A farmer asked him to print shirts with the slogan “Eat More Kale.” They were well received, and Muller-Moore began promoting his shirts more widely. He traveled to music and art festivals, distributed bumper stickers, and established a web and social media presence.
People sometimes refer to Muller-Moore as the “Eat More Kale” guy. His recent trademark victory has been viewed as a win for Vermont, the local food movement, and small business owners.
While Chick-fil-A has lost its legal battle, it appears they haven’t lost their sense of humor. A spokesperson for the company told the Associated Press, “Cows love kale, too.”
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91cb0dd01aaf6e5ef56f74852699b392 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinasettimi/2015/09/14/the-nfls-female-financial-scorekeepers/ | The NFL's Female Financial Scorekeepers | The NFL's Female Financial Scorekeepers
"It's a real misconception that football is a man's sport," said Kelly Flanagan, the CFO of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
That’s the experience of a 31-year old who has spent two-thirds of her career working for NFL teams. After three years with accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Flanagan joined the finance staff of MetLife Stadium in its last year of construction in 2009, essentially working with both the New York Giants and New York Jets. She headed south in 2012 to follow her boss, Jaguars current president Mark Lamping, and was promoted to CFO of the team at the age of 29. She’s not the lone female in upper management. She works alongside Megha Parekh, the team’s senior vice president and general counsel, and a former member of Forbes 30 Under 30 sports list, a testament to the philosophy of the NFL's first ethnic-minority owner Shahid Khan.
“I grew up in an era where gender wasn’t a factor in sports so it feels more of an accomplishment that I am here despite my age, not my gender,” said Flanagan. “It takes moments like going to a sports business conference and looking around at how few women there are to put it into perspective that it hasn’t always been easy and still isn’t always easy for women in the sports business.”
Gallery: The NFL's Female Financial Scorekeepers 10 images View gallery
The fact is the NFL has a way to go to create a workforce representative of the employment population and their fan base, which is estimated to be 45% female. In the 2015 NFL Racial and Gender Report Card released last week by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports at the University of Central Florida, the NFL received only a C+ for gender hiring practices.
But the good news is progress is being made, and not just on the field as was seen this year with the first female coach, Arizona Cardinals intern coach Jen Welter, and the first female official, Sarah Thomas. The percent of female vice presidents within teams increased substantially from 17.8 percent in 2014 to 22.9 percent in 2015.
Including Flanagan nine women are responsible today for keeping financial score of an NFL team – eight as CFO and one as Chief Accounting Officer – and while they may be few, they are powerful. These women managed an equal portion as their male counterparts did of the $11.1 billion in revenue generated by the league last year – a combined $3.1 billion to be exact. The average value of their nine teams is $2 billion, versus the league average $1.97 billion. Seven of these women have female colleagues in VP positions or higher; three of them work for teams with female owners or chairs. They average 15 years in the league, 9 years in their current position and range in age from 31 to 60 years old.
Full Coverage: The Business Of The NFL 2015
The oldest, Marilan Logan, CAO of the Houston Texans, has spent 35 of her 37 years in sports working for the NFL and is the only one among these women who has worked for two NFL teams. Her first stint was as the controller of the Houston Oilers from 1978 until they moved to Tennessee in 1997. She then spent two years as the controller of Houston’s former minor league hockey team owned by Chuck Watson while working as part of Robert McNair's group that won the bid to bring an NFL team back to town. In 2000 she officially joined the Texans as vice president and controller and was promoted to her current position in 2011.
“The finance department is one of the best from which you can affect the entire team and the fan experience,” said Logan. “Women should know this is an option for them in sports, and one where gender doesn’t matter if you work hard as part of a team and want to keep learning.”
So what exactly do the CFO and CAO do?
“People hear CFO and certain things of a transactional nature easily come to mind. We have to run payroll, receivables, handle the audit,” said Flanagan. “But in the NFL the role has evolved to one of a strategic partner in engaging all stakeholders to build strategy going forward.”
Despite the league making billions in revenue and counting more than half the population of the U.S. as its customers, each woman said their team was still run like a small business. Accordingly, each reported that they oversee at least one additional non-finance department.
“I broadly oversee general and administrative functions but my day varies a lot,” said Cipora Herman, CFO of the San Francisco 49ers who has north of 50 people reporting to her through the finance, HR, IT, legal and community relations departments. “But one important thing is that we all have a seat at the table and are cross-functionally aware.”
Two of her biggest achievements in her 3 years with the team were raising $1 billion in external capital to finance Levi Stadium, which opened last year, and helping project manage completion of it. “It allowed me to be a lot more effective in my job and forced me to interact with all on the business and the football side of things,” she said. The 49ers had the biggest one-year increase in value (69%) of any NFL team this year because of their move to the revenue-rich stadium and are now worth $2.7 billion.
Herman, 41, is a Yahoo and Facebook veteran who handled investor relations at the latter during its IPO. She draws parallels between the technology and the sports world. “In a world where people only have a limited amount of spare time, both are about growing your share of people’s time and attention.”
That’s why come game day, while fans are concerned with what’s happening on the field of play, these women are laser-focused with what’s happening with fans -- hosting special guests, monitoring how many people are coming through the gate in real-time versus how many tickets were sold, seeing how long it takes them to get in, and checking the per capita spending per attendee.
Jenneen Kaufman, the Tennessee Titans' first controller (after the team moved from Marilan Logan’s Houston in 1997) and its CFO since 2004, said game days are spent walking the stadium trouble-shooting, wearing a name tag so as she greets fans they will know who the 44-year old is. She recalls having to make sure a bathroom was replenished with toilet paper and even wiping down a messy concession counter.
But Titans fans with seats in the upper deck may best recognize one of her contributions to their game day experience. An original personal seat license holder, purchased before she officially got the job with the team, Kaufman was particularly interested in the time it took fans to trek up ramps to that area. So in 2010 as part of stadium upgrades that included new HD scoreboards and a distributed surround sound system, she also worked to get funding for six elevator banks to be installed to whisk fans up, and down to any other level for something unavailable in their own.
How much do the CFO/CAO interact with the football team?
“Every year I review the budgets with the GM and the coaching staff,” said Karen Murphy, 42, who has been with the Chicago Bears since 1999 and the CFO for the last 13 years. “Different coaching staffs bring different philosophies. So in a year like this one where we have a new GM [Ryan Pace] and head coach [John Fox], it is important to give the football side as much time they want so we all are on the same page: balancing the budget to win today.”
Every year Murphy conducts a rookie orientation on how payroll works. One thing she introduces the players to is the concept of taxes. “I explain that if your normal weekly paycheck is this, it will be this net of tax, and then hear groans when I show the impact,” she said. “One rookie told me he didn’t want taxes taken out and asked if I could put a note of that in his file. Another signed his contract out of state, so he didn't want our local taxes taken out.”
How does a woman get into NFL?
Depending on how it’s asked, that may be one of the more tiring questions women in sports get that they know their male counterparts do not.
“Someone once asked me, ‘How does a girl like you end up in the big bad world of football’,” said Allison Maki, Senior VP of administration and CFO for the Detroit Lions.
The answer is easy.
“I joined Ernst & Young out of college in 1997. Two years later the Lions became one of my clients, when they were still at the Silverdome. I was working really hard for EY and needed a change. The team’s CFO at the time noticed and brought me on board in 2004.”
“Football is our business but it’s still a financial world,” she added.
The Seattle Seahawks' Karen Spencer joined the team as a staff accountant in 1991, after working with them on a year-long loan from its accounting firm Arthur Andersen. The now 52-year old was promoted to her current role as CFO in 2009, taking over for another woman, Martha Fuller who left to join the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning in the same capacity. From May 2009 to April 2014 Spencer also served as MLS’ Seattle Sounders CFO, part of Seahawks’ owner Paul Allen’s sports interests.
The women in this group have degrees ranging from an associates in accounting to an M.S. in Sports Management to an MBA, and a handful are certified public accountants.
No matter the exact details of how they got where they are, there was one resounding theme among them, best summed up by one trailblazer's story.
“I am a firm believer that if you make gender an issue it will be an issue,” said the San Diego Chargers’ Jeanne Bonk, the NFL’s longest tenured female CFO. She went to PwC after college and the Chargers were a client for 8 years. When the team’s CFO position opened up she put her name in the hat. This season marks her 25th with the team and the 54-year old now adds Executive VP to her title. “If I look around I say ‘oh yes, I am the only woman in the room’ but I never let that hinder me.”
FACTS ABOUT WOMEN IN NFL
Number of Players: None. But in 2012 the NFL ruled women could play.
Coaches: One. Jen Welter became the first as an intern coach of inside linebackers for the Arizona Cardinals during the 2015 preseason.
Officials: One, officially. Sarah Thomas is the first full-time NFL this season. Shannon Eastin, hired as a temporary official during the 2012 NFL referee lockout, officiated the first NFL game that preseason.
Owners/Chairs: 14
VP or above in League Office: 24
VP or above (non-owners) at a Team: 63
VP or above in Finance: 9
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c930f5d4bf23c60e990c326ba30f7833 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinasettimi/2017/08/16/major-league-soccers-best-fans-two-rivals-have-to-learn-to-share/ | Major League Soccer's Best Fans: Two Rivals Have To Learn To Share | Major League Soccer's Best Fans: Two Rivals Have To Learn To Share
The biggest rivals in Major League Soccer have one less thing to argue about: whose fans are better. That's because in our inaugural ranking of the league's best, the Portland Timbers and Seattle Sounders tied at No.1.
Heated rivals and MLS's best fans: Seattle Sounders at Portland Timbers, June 25, 2017 Seattle Sounders
They can clutch their scarves all they want. But they are equal, and better than fans of the rest of the league, based on four quantitative fan consumption metrics: attendance figures for the last two full seasons, television ratings for last season and season-to-date, latest merchandise sales – all provided by MLS – and social media followers on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Within each metric, every team was scored. For attendance and television ratings, we considered the raw figures and changes in them, weighting the latter heavier. Because MLS fan bases are tribal, we calculated social media reach as a percentage of the local metro area population. (For two-team cities, we divided the population in half.) We gave that more weight than total followers. Merchandise was a straight ranking supplied by the league and since the cost of a jersey is the same coast-to-coast no adjustment was needed.
Gallery: Major League Soccer's Best Fans 11 images View gallery
Our final ranking is a weighted scoring of the four metrics. Attendance was weighted the heaviest since it is the major team revenue driver; social media was weighted the lowest due to its soft economic effect. Sounders fans have led the league each season in average attendance since joining in 2009, but after all metrics were considered, it was a draw between the Timbers and them.
While the primary goal of our ranking was to measure which fans are most engaged with their club at this point in time, the results highlight how great heated rivalries are for MLS.
The Timbers and Sounders one is unrivaled. Their 42-year beef with each other extending back to their days in the North American Soccer League has resulted in the Pacific Northwest becoming a hotbed for authentic and multi-generational soccer culture. They are a large reason why MLS introduced Rivalry Week, currently sponsored by Heineken as part of a larger 5-year league deal worth $50 million.
Report: Heineken Is Taking Over North American Soccer
Clashes between the clubs are great for business. Per online ticket seller SeatGeek, when Seattle visits Portland, ticket demand spikes 62% compared to the average Timbers home game. When Portland goes to Seattle, there’s a 25% increase in demand, equally impressive considering Century Link Field leads the league in capacity.
Ratings on television during their match-ups are top draws too. During their last meeting in July, the 98th between them, ratings on ESPN2 were up 26% versus the league’s historic performance on the network. Expect more fanfare and events around their 1ooth match-up.
Both clubs can thank their supporters' groups for leading their fan charge. These are the super fans, the religiously devoted who operate independently from the club (but within club code of conduct guidelines) to organize the fan base. A phenomenon unique to professional soccer worldwide, these groups are the ones responsible for the fan atmosphere – the uniformed songs and chants, the flag-waving and banner reveals, and match-specific scarves. They are also the ones who coordinate viewing parties and away game bus trips. Both the Sounders and the Timbers groups sell-out their allotted away game tickets when they visit one another.
Timbers Army supporter section during a home match. Nicole Barker, 107IST
Timbers Army counts 5,000 paid members to its membership core, 107 Independent Supporters’ Trust, according to its president, Scott Van Swearingen, making it the largest supporters' group in the league. The Sounder’s main group Emerald City Supporters has 3,700 members per its website, to rank right behind 107IST. The Cauldron of Sporting Kansas City, which ranks No. 9 among our best fans list, rounds out the top three biggest supporters' groups, per MLS.
In total, the league recognizes 60 supporters' groups across its 23 clubs, including LAFC’s The 3252. The expansion club is set to begin play in 2018 and is not included in this fan ranking.
Full Coverage: Major League Soccer's Most Valuable Teams
The Timbers and Sounders should watch their back if they want to maintain the claim to having the best fans. New rivalries are gaining ground, including the one brewing in the City of Angels.
LA Galaxy fans are already nipping at their heels. They ranked a close No. 3 on our list. Then there is LAFC, coming out of the gate with 3,252 seats in the supporters’ section (hence the name of their group) and similar Hollywood backing that the Galaxy has enjoyed. Soccer legend Mia Hamm Garciaparra and baseball hubby Nomar, Lakers great and Dodgers part-owner Magic Johnson, and actor Will Ferrell are among the star-studded ownership group. The recent reveals of head coach Bob Bradley, of US soccer's first family and father of Michael, who captains USMNT and Toronto FC (ranked No. 5 among best MLS fans), and La Liga import and Mexican national Carlos Vela as the club's first designated player, have added to the club's allure. This is on top of the fact that LA is ripe for the soccer fan picking. It has previously been named the top in the country for the most fans of the beautiful game.
The rivalry between the New York Red Bulls, ranked No. 6 on our list, and NYCFC, ranked No. 7, has grown from manufactured marketing ploy into a genuine territorial dislike. Bridge and tunnel fans of the original metro area club actually based in, gasp, New Jersey, and fans of the newer club playing within actual NYC limits in Yankees Stadium, have met online and in person in some red card-worthy clashes.
That's creating for one of the hottest tickets in MLS. In the case of the New York Derby, when NYCFC visits the Red Bulls, ticket demand increases by 60%. When the Red Bulls visits NYCFC, demand increases by an average of 42%.
Minnesota United and Atlanta United were excluded from this ranking since this is their first year in the league. But if this season is any indication, Atlanta will rank near the top next go-around. The club has seemed to capture lightning in a bottle. It sold more than 30,000 season tickets ahead of its first game, a record for a MLS expansion team and the second-highest in the league this year, and is averaging 46,000 fans a match. Those numbers are expected to rise when they move into Mercedes-Benz Stadium, their new $1.5 billion home they will share with the NFL's Atlanta Falcons, in September.
Atlanta United is killing it on screen too. Television ratings are among the top, and its 626,000 Twitter followers is best in the league. That gave the rookies some confidence to start trash talking their rivals to the south. Ahead of a July match, Atlanta purchased a billboard about two blocks from Orlando City’s stadium that read, “Orlando, we’re coming to conquer.” The Florida club ranks No. 4 on our list of best fans, for now.
What our ranking excludes is pageantry and noise. The march to matches, smoke bombs, tifos, banners and songs are no doubt rich in color and a reflection of fan loyalty -- worthy of saying MLS has the most passionate fans all of U.S. major league sports. As a financial publication though, we prefer measurable statistics and are interested in how they affects business. Die-hard fans should be too. If their traditions work, their base will increase, the money will follow, the league will continue to thrive.
To that end, it is little surprise that we found a direct correlation between our fan ranking and our MLS Valuations. The overwhelming majority of revenue generated by each club is done so locally, and mainly through gate receipts. Market size of a club mattered less in our fan ranking.
That plays out well for three of the top contenders for expansion cities -- small markets Cincinnati, Nashville and Sacramento. FC Cincinnati, which currently plays in the United Soccer League, is breaking records for attendance and already making a mark in MLS. The two-year old club had already beat the league's Columbus Crew and Chicago Fire to advance to the semifinals of the U.S. Open Cup, the oldest ongoing national soccer competition in the country. Last night before a sellout home crowd of 33,250 — the second largest in tournament history -- it fell in a late 2-3 stunner to the Red Bulls.
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b9684bb8824b1d6db3a186f0da3c8e5f | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinasettimi/2020/03/29/cristiano-ronaldo-agrees-to-juventus-wage-cut-but-still-on-track-to-become-first-1-billion-footballer-this-season/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=sportsmoney&cdlcid=5d23afcd953109375ebf7a78 | Cristiano Ronaldo Agrees To Juventus Wage Cut, Still On Track To Become First $1 Billion Footballer This Season | Cristiano Ronaldo Agrees To Juventus Wage Cut, Still On Track To Become First $1 Billion Footballer This Season
Cristiano Ronaldo and Juventus played Internazionale behind closed doors at Allianz Stadium due to ... [+] the coronavirus. Serie A play was suspended indefinitely the next day. (Photo by Claudio Villa) Inter via Getty Images
Italian soccer club Juventus announced yesterday that it had reached an agreement with its players and coaches to implement a wage cut to help control costs while sports are shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The club said it expects to save $100 million by reducing compensation over four months, March to June. It further explained it will pay normal salaries when Serie A resumes play. The amount shaved is equivalent to 30% of the Bianconeri’s annual total wage bill, the highest among Serie A clubs, per Sporting Intelligence. Juventus is worth $1.512 billion, according to Forbes, and made a profit of $47 million on $480 million in revenue last year.
European media outlets are reporting that superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, Juve’s best-paid player, agreed to sacrifice $4.24 million—not enough to make much of a dent in his annual earnings and only 4% of the club’s expected savings. In an email with Forbes, Juventus declined to comment but advised against misleading reports and added it will not comment on individual players’ salaries.
Last year, the Portuguese striker earned $109 million, including $65 million in salary and bonus, to rank as the world’s second-highest-paid footballer and among the best-paid athletes in all sports. As Forbes outlined last week, even at the reported 30% pay cut under consideration by all Serie A clubs, Ronaldo could see a $20 million paycut and would still earn an estimated $46 million annual paycheck—an amount greater than the total earnings (salary, bonus and endorsements) of all players in the world except his rival Lionel Messi at Barcelona and Neymar at Paris Saint-Germain.
With the additional $45 million he makes as a walking billboard, pitching products head to toe for the likes of Nike and his CR7 line of underwear, footwear and cologne, Ronaldo can still earn $91 million annually to retain his standing among the best-paid in all of sports, and still become the third active athlete to crack the $1 billion mark in career earnings at the end of this season. Tiger Woods was the first to do so in 2009, 13 years into his professional career, followed by boxer Floyd Mayweather in 2017.
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Ronaldo has already donated $1.8 million to hospitals in his native Portugal to help with their coronavirus efforts. Contrary to previous circulated reports, Forbes confirmed with his representatives that the 35-year-old father of five did not buy an island where his family could self-isolate until it was safe to return to Italy, or offer up his namesake hotels in Portugal to be used as hospitals.
In its statement, Juventus said it will finalize personal agreements with players and coaches in the coming weeks. If individual merit-based arrangements are made, Ronaldo should fare well.
The five-time player of the year made an immediate impact on Italy’s most storied club when he arrived in Torino in July 2018 on a four-year deal worth $340 million. Within 24 hours of his transfer from Real Madrid, the Old Lady’s social media accounts grew by over 2 million followers, and they have since grown 40%. More than a million of his jerseys were sold in his first year of play, contributing to a 58% increase in revenue from products and licenses.
On the pitch, he was Serie A’s most valuable player last season and led the club to the quarterfinals of the Champions League. This season, he’s already scored 21 goals, equaling the number he scored all last season.
Juventus is the latest among many European clubs, including German Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, to institute wage cuts while play is suspended. Just yesterday, Atlético Madrid in Spain’s La Liga announced wage reductions, and rival Barcelona is currently negotiating one.
Last week, Barça’s players rejected a reported 70% reduction. As it stands, Messi, the team’s star, could accept that cut and still be among the top three highest-paid athletes in the world. He currently earns $90 million annually in salary and partially guaranteed bonus, before taxes, thanks to a contract extension he signed in November 2017 that commits him to Camp Nou through June 2021. With endorsements from the likes of long-term sponsors Adidas and Pepsi, he banked $127 million in total earnings last year to rank as the highest-paid athlete in the world.
On March 9, Serie A play was initially suspended until at least April 3 because of the coronavirus outbreak. The hiatus has since been extended indefinitely. Italy has been the European country hardest hit by the pandemic, with related deaths surpassing 10,000 yesterday according to WHO.
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bd74af4451937b385e310fb73ae0a779 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinasettimi/2020/04/09/faze-clan-closes-funding-round-led-by-music-mogul-jimmy-iovine-and-ntwrk-a-mobile-player-backed-by-lebron-james-and-drake/?sh=1803aadf65ee | FaZe Clan Closes $40 Million Funding Round With Jimmy Iovine And Celebrity-Backed E-Commerce Company NTWRK | FaZe Clan Closes $40 Million Funding Round With Jimmy Iovine And Celebrity-Backed E-Commerce Company NTWRK
Rapper Offset, a FaZe Clan investor, and its CEO Lee Trink at a merchandise pop-up shop in Los ... [+] Angeles, CA in December. (Photo by Jerritt Clark) Getty Images
Updated: April 17, 2020, 11:10a.m. E.T.; Adds the value of the raise and additional names of individual investors.
Esports company FaZe Clan announced that it has closed a $40 million round of funding led by music mogul Jimmy Iovine and NTWRK, a mobile e-commerce platform known for working with top brands like Nike NKE and Puma, as well as celebrities like Billie Eilish and DJ Khaled.
The exclusive partnership grants NTWRK the direct-to-consumer rights to FaZe Clan’s products and allows them to do limited-edition merchandise drops.
“I do not look at this terrible moment as an opportunity,” Lee Trink, CEO and co-owner of FaZe Clan, said about how he managed to raise money during a pandemic. “But we are fortunate we are in the right industry for a moment like this, when everyone is turning to esports and streaming, and we are positioned to be bigger on the other side of it.”
He added, “That’s why you see investors like Jimmy getting in on this, and for the long term.”
Forbes valued FaZe Clan at $240 million in its most recent ranking of the most valuable esports organizations. The company has uniquely positioned itself as much as a lifestyle company as an esports one, reliant more on the former category than the latter for revenue. It only recently joined the esports franchise trend, opting to license its name to Atlanta Esports Venture’s Call of Duty League team, Atlanta FaZe. Its bread and butter is its seven-figure deals with Nissan and Gfuel to sponsor its content.
Trink confirmed the multimillion-dollar investment involved a small single-digit ownership stake, and gave Iovine a board seat. Through a press release FaZe Clan later revealed the full amount raised was $40 million. In addition to rapper Offset, who originally invested in the company in August 2019, individual backers include music industry veterans Guy Oseary, Sylvia Rhone, Troy Carter, entertainers Pitbull, DJ Paul, Chris O’Donnell, and NBA players Josh Hart and Jamal Murray, among others.
Jimmy Iovine adds FaZe Clan to his investments that most notably include Beats Electronics and more ... [+] recently the Professional Fighters League (Photo by Rodin Eckenroth) WireImage
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“We are more valuable because Jimmy brings more than money,” Trink said, noting the paths of the two masters of promotion crossed in their previous lives when Trink was president of Capitol Records and Iovine was at Interscope, which he founded in 1990. “Jimmy brings Jimmy to the table.”
FaZe Clan has more than 40 individual video gamers signed on as talent and 20.3 million social followers across YouTube, Twitter and Instagram, more than the Dallas Cowboys (7.5 million) and the New York Yankees (6.9 million) combined. It recently held a charity gaming event, Fight2Fund, to raise money for coronavirus relief initiatives. Professional athletes including NBA stars Ben Simmons, Andre Drummond and Josh Hart and NFL player JuJu Smith-Schuster and retiree Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson have joined gamer Dr Disrespect and Faze Clan member Nickmercs in fighting it out in Call of Duty: Warzone. The initiative has raised nearly $125,000 over the past four weeks.
Iovine most notably partnered with Dr. Dre to create Beats Electronics, which they sold to Apple AAPL for $3 billion in 2014. Last April, he entered the world of mixed martial arts, leading a $30 million funding round backing the Professional Fighters League.
NTWRK, founded by his son Jamie Iovine and two partners in 2018, counts LeBron James as an investor and most recently closed a Series A round of $10 million last September led by Foot Locker FL , Live Nation Entertainment LYV and rapper Drake, a co-owner of esports company 100 Thieves, valued by Forbes at $160 million. Matthew “Nadeshot” Haag, the founder of 100 Thieves, was involved with an exclusive headphone set drop on NTWRK last October.
Trink clarified that while the deal with NTWRK is an exclusive and that FaZe will be the only esports company it forms such a partnership with, NTWRK can continue to do one-offs with other esports organizations or their personalities. “We want them to be successful,” he added.
FaZe will continue to lead all merchandise branding efforts and partnerships, like the one it has with Champion for colored hoodies, while NTWRK will power the back-end operations and be able to ship around the world. Trink said it will help save FaZe the capital required for merchandise fulfillment but declined to comment what cut of the merchandise sales NTWRK would receive. FaZe’s pricing strategy will remain the same, though. Of the $35 million in revenue the company generated last year, Forbes conservatively estimates 35% was in merchandise sales.
MORE FROM FORBES'Awful Business' Or The New Gold Rush? The Most Valuable Companies In Esports Are SurgingBy Christina Settimi
As to whether the coronavirus pandemic and its effects on the economy will negatively impact his business, Trink is optimistic.
“As soon as schools closed and sports and live events shut down, we came out of the gate and reacted to the moment with all the assets we had,” he said, referring to the increased content his team of influencers produced. FaZe is currently generating over 500 million page views per month, which Forbes estimates helps the company generate another 35% of revenue in advertising.
While he expects an overall shrink in advertising, Trink remains bullish because the money spent in esports is still such a small part of a marketing budget.
“If I were a CMO, I would be studying us like it was the finals or the SAT,” quipped Trink. “Sports and entertainment are dark, canceled for the foreseeable future, even postponed another year. CMOs still need to spend their money, and here we are, far less expensive but providing a much higher rate of return. Here’s the moment where smart CMOs can beat out their competition.”
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2e7481c204d29118b9c7c0355fb9a9e8 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinasettimi/2020/07/21/serena-williams-natalie-portman-and-uswnt-legends-part-of-female-ownership-group-bringing-womens-professional-soccer-to-los-angeles/?sh=191e9ac12767 | Serena Williams, Natalie Portman, USWNT Legends Bringing Women’s Soccer To LA In NWSL Ownership Group | Serena Williams, Natalie Portman, USWNT Legends Bringing Women’s Soccer To LA In NWSL Ownership Group
Julie Ertz of Chicago Red Stars takes a penalty kick during a match against OL Reign during the NWSL ... [+] Challenge Cup (Photo by Bryan Byerly/ISI Photos/Getty Images). Getty Images
A majority woman-founded group led by Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman, venture capitalist Kara Nortman and gaming entrepreneur Julie Uhrman was awarded the franchise for a Los Angeles expansion team, the National Women’s Soccer League announced today. The franchise, which is nicknamed Angel City, will be the 11th team to join the eight-year-old league and begin play in 2022.
Women’s soccer is riding high on the wave created by the U.S. women’s national team’s World Cup championship last summer. Last season, NWSL attendance rose 22%, ending at 792,409, a season record. The future is looking brighter with soccer interest at an all-time high, the Olympics set to take place next summer and the next World Cup slated for 2023. Looking to capitalize, a star-studded roster of powerful women has joined forces to bring a top-tier professional women’s soccer team to California.
In a telephone interview, Nortman tells Forbes that the official name, training facility and stadium partner will be announced later this year. Uhrman, the former CEO of the gaming console company Ouya, will serve as the team’s president. Nortman recruited her during a “women in tech” basketball league game, calling her the team’s “north star,” and then created a cap table.
Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian led the investment for the group, which includes his tennis icon wife, Serena Williams, and their daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr., who at 2 years old becomes the youngest known professional sports team owner. Williams, one of America’s richest self-made women, also owns a small stake in the NFL’s Miami Dolphins, a team Forbes values at $2.76 billion, and she launched Serena Ventures to invest in startups founded by women and minorities.
Fourteen former U.S. women’s national soccer team players have also joined the group. Julie Foudy, now an ESPN soccer commentator, reportedly rallied those based in Southern California to join her in becoming part-owners, among them Rachel Buehler, Shannon Boxx, Amanda Cromwell, Lorrie Fair Allen, Ronnie Fair Sullins, Joy Fawcett, Angela Hucles, Shannon Mac Millan, Tisha Venturini Hoch, Saskia Webber and Mia Hamm, who teased the announcement of the expansion team in a tweet Monday evening.
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Hamm may have needed the least convincing. Along with her husband, former Major League Baseball player Nomar Garciaparra, Hamm is part of the ownership group of Major League Soccer’s LAFC, which Forbes values at $475 million. Last year, she was quoted as saying it was that organization’s priority to bring an NWSL team to the city. LAFC’s supporter group, the 3252, backed her up and even flew banners and flags with the NWSL logo saying, “Bring NWSL to LA.”
But Nortman says that, as of right now, Angel City has no affiliation with any men’s pro team. Of note, Los Angeles is also home to MLS’s Galaxy, owned by the Anschutz Entertainment Group and worth $480 million.
The remaining female founders are rounded out by fellow two-time USWNT World Cup and Olympic gold medalists Lauren Cheney Holiday and Abby Wambach, along with her author wife, Glennon Doyle; Netflix VP Cindy Holland; actors Uzo Aduba, America Ferrera, Jennifer Garner and Eva Longoria; talk-show host Lilly Singh; and Sabina Nathanson, a founding member of the nonprofit Baby2Baby.
“We’ve long sought the right partner in L.A. considering the NWSL fanbase that already exists in the region and the massive interest in women’s soccer in general,” NWSL commissioner Lisa Baird said in a statement. “Those factors, along with an incredible ownership group, make this an ideal situation, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to move forward.”
Racing Louisville is expected to make its league debut in 2021, ahead of Angel City. The Kentucky team is owned by Soccer Holdings LLC, parent of Louisville City FC of the United Soccer League, making it the sixth NWSL team to affiliate with a men’s pro team. PNC Bank has already signed on as a sponsor, and the team is taking season ticket deposits on the 11,700-seat, already-constructed Lynn Family Stadium it will share with the men’s team.
Last August, Portland Thorns owner Merritt Paulson told supporters that three teams were committed to joining the league by 2021. According to the Equalizer, Louisville City FC was among them, along with Atlanta United FC and Sacramento Republic FC, whose inaugural MLS season was just delayed a year. A spokesperson for the NWSL declined Forbes’ request for comment on whether any additional expansion teams would be announced, or if any specific group was interested in a team. In February, during the league’s public presentation of Baird as commissioner, Chicago Red Stars owner Arnim Whisler said he hoped Baird would help the league grow to 14 teams in the near future.
The NWSL was the first U.S. professional sports league to return to play in June after the coronavirus pandemic closures in March and is wrapping up its Challenge Cup tournament this weekend. Ahead of this season, Baird was able to sign a landmark three-year deal with CBS, paying $4.5 million for the rights to air league games on network TV for the first time, and a separate rights deal with streaming platform Twitch to reach an international audience. The viewership for the tournament’s opening game was 3.5 times that of the 2019 league championship game, which was the most-watched game in three years, and the NWSL has the best viewership on Twitch of any non-gaming sport.
“Next year is the Olympics, then we will start, then the following year is the Women’s World Cup,” Nortman says about the appetite for women’s soccer and the timing of her club’s launch. “We’re coming in at an ideal time in 2022.”
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d33dab95c32aae2a348c9405bf20ffae | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinatroitino/2018/03/10/ancient-nutrition-raises-103-million-from-100-investors-to-heat-the-bone-broth-market/ | Ancient Nutrition Raises $103 Million From 100+ Investors To Heat The Bone Broth Market | Ancient Nutrition Raises $103 Million From 100+ Investors To Heat The Bone Broth Market
Ancient Nutrition, a bone broth protein and collagen supplement maker, has raised $103 in funding... [+] from an impressive pool of 100+ influential investors from the health foods and wellness industries. Its recent growth represents 40%+ of the growth to the protein, collagen and gut health market. Ancient Nutrition
Ancient Nutrition, a bone broth protein and collagen supplement maker, has secured $103 million in funding through strategic minority investment led by VMG Partners. This funding is also attributed to Hillhouse Capital, ICONIQ Capital and 100+ influential investors across the health food and wellness industries. The company plans to use this funding to "elevate the current team's resources and company growth."
This massive pool of funding has been further hyped by its association to its impressive investors, including:
Jillian Michaels Ido Leffler (Co-Founder of Brandless.com) Joey Gonzalez (CEO of Barry's Bootcamp) Gary Hirshberg (Co-Founder and Chairman of Stonyfield Farm) Michael Kirban (Co-Founder and CEO of Vita Coco) Terry Tierney (CEO of Daiya)
This list of industry heavyweights may not be fully surprising considering the high profile backgrounds of Ancient Nutrition's own founders. Co-founded in 2016, Ancient Nutrition is led by Jordan Rubin and Dr. Josh Axe. Rubin previously founded Garden of Life, the leading brand in the U.S. natural supplement industry which was acquired by Nestlé in 2017. Rubin also wrote New York Times best seller The Maker's Diet. Dr. Axe is a natural medicine doctor and the creator of DrAxe.com, one of the most trafficked natural health websites in the world, receiving upwards of 17 million unique visitors monthly. Dr. Axe is also the author of Eat Dirt, a best selling book about leaky gut syndrome.
Dr. Axe co-founded Ancient Nutrition in 2016. Ancient Nutrition, a bone broth protein and collagen... [+] supplement maker, has raised $103 in funding from an impressive pool of 100+ influential investors from the health foods and wellness industries. Its recent growth represents 40%+ of the growth to the protein, collagen and gut health market. Ancient Nutrition
Jordan Rubin co-founded Ancient Nutrition in 2016. Ancient Nutrition, a bone broth protein and... [+] collagen supplement maker, has raised $103 in funding from an impressive pool of 100+ influential investors from the health foods and wellness industries. Its recent growth represents 40%+ of the growth to the protein, collagen and gut health market. Ancient Nutrition
Ancient Nutrition produces a line of bone broth protein and collagen powders and capsules. Its trademarked Bone Broth Protein is derived solely from chickens. Although their sourced chickens are compliant with the current definition of free-range, its website states that they are seeking stronger regulations on this definition. While its products are non-GMO, the company is currently testing whether its products are also free of antibiotics and growth hormones, as well as working to achieve USDA Certified Organic standards. Ancient Nutrition is currently selling at retailers including Whole Foods and Sprouts.
This round of funding represents a vote of confidence for the developing bone broth market. Although still a niche product, bone broth products have seen impressive sales growth in recent years . According to SPINS, US retail sales of bone broth tripled to $19.7 million in 2016. Ancient Nutrition has meaningfully contributed to its recent growth, experiencing a 266% growth CAGR between 2013 - 2017 and representing 40% of growth for the protein, collagen and gut health category during this period. Other companies in this space include bone broth maker Kettle & Fire and Bulletproof with its collagen powder and recent Whole Foods debut of its ready-to-drink collagen coffee.
Ancient Nutrition, a bone broth protein and collagen supplement maker, has raised $103 in funding... [+] from an impressive pool of 100+ influential investors from the health foods and wellness industries. Its recent growth represents 40%+ of the growth to the protein, collagen and gut health market. Ancient Nutrition
So why is the bone broth market coming to a seeming boil? Perhaps it is because bone broth products are a convenient and high protein food source. A 1-scoop serving (28 grams) of Ancient Nutrition's Organic Bone Broth Sweet Greens powder contains 20 grams of protein (40% DV). Consumers are also sold on its claimed health benefits, which according to DrAxe.com include support for joints, bones, skin hair and nails, as well as amino acids and electrolytes. Its website's footer notes that its statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration nor are intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
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99fe58a2cc3eeb2e6c5e996bb10d1131 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinatroitino/2020/03/18/chefs-launch-petition-to-save-restaurants-during-coronavirus-with-help-from-alice-waters-reem-assil-and-more/ | Chefs Launch Petition To Save Restaurants During Coronavirus, With Help From Alice Waters, Reem Assil And More | Chefs Launch Petition To Save Restaurants During Coronavirus, With Help From Alice Waters, Reem Assil And More
75,000+ restaurant industry members and concerned individuals who in the past 24 hours has ... [+] signed a Change.org petition seeking a government-sponsored aid package to protect the industry from its imminent demise amid the coronavirus pandemic. Getty
As the coronavirus pandemic worsens across the globe, the restaurant industry is clinging on for dear life.
Take it from Kyle Alano, a chef based out of Buffalo, New York: “I've been cooking professionally for over 13 years and now suddenly I’m unemployed and virtually unemployable for the immediate future. Don't take our passion from us.”
Alano is one of the 75,000+ restaurant industry members and concerned individuals who in the past 24 hours has signed a Change.org petition seeking a government-sponsored aid package to protect this essential industry from demise. He is joined by industry titans Alice Waters, Reem Assil, Chris Shepherd, Alon Shaya, Nancy Silverton and more in raising awareness of the chaos restaurants and bars are currently facing.
And the message is clear—restaurants are on the brink of destruction:
As chefs, bartenders, and restaurant and bar owners, we are writing to tell you that without swift action and commitment from our local and state governments, many of the restaurants that closed voluntarily—or by mandate—at this moment of crisis will not come back. That sounds like an exaggeration. It is not. We are on the brink of extinction. American Chefs petition on Change.org
As global governments move to limit dining room capacity or outright close dining rooms to limit the spread of the new coronavirus, restaurants and bars have suddenly been challenged with keeping staff employed while simultaneously trying to safely feed their communities.
And the task has been insurmountable, even for the industry’s most decorated figures, including Momofuku restaurant group’s David Chang who announced following recent closures that his salaried employees will unfortunately face a pay reduction, while hourly employees will be paid through March 20. Similarly, Noma has shuttered in order to focus on “family mode,” which includes providing take-home meals for its team and family members, while still offering staff paid leave.
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The petition seeks to grant emergency benefits to those workers who have faced reduced work or layoffs, including rent and loan abatement. To help owners better pay workers, the petition also looks to waive payroll tax for impacted businesses, as well as grant permission from state liquor authorities to allow the sales of beer, wine and cocktails by the bottle via delivery and takeout.
People wearing masks walk by an empty restaurant in downtown Lisbon, Portugal, on March 17, 2020. ... [+] With 448 cases of infection already registered and one confirmed death, the country is feeling the impact of the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by Pedro Fiúza/NurPhoto via Getty Images) NurPhoto via Getty Images
While some believe the transition to delivery and takeout alone would solve this industry’s woes, it is not that simple:
“I am an owner of a cafe and even though we can stay open and can do to-go orders, we are doing way less than half of our normal business,” explained Nancy Soylan of Grass Valley, California. “We are unable to staff our cafe with our employees. We will have to consider closing soon!”
The pivot to takeout and delivery represents a fundamental business model shift for many restaurants, including those who have never offered carryout options, like Seattle’s iconic Canlis who began offering to-go options yesterday.
“Even our pianists have offered to be delivery drivers. It’s this incredible ‘put me in, coach’ moment for us,” said owner Mark Canlis. “At the end of the day, we need to create 115 jobs for all of our employees.”
Let’s hope government officials listen before our beloved restaurants close the book forever.
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aa23afda7b781ffb43ce2cff27fd1850 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinavuleta/2016/06/29/tell-us-what-is-your-next-step/ | Tell Us: What Is Your Next Step? | Tell Us: What Is Your Next Step?
What's your next step?
At Forbes we are committed to helping every woman take the next step forward in her career. We believe that if every woman on the rise today keeps taking steps forward, we can break the future and create the change we want to see. We need to know what your next steps are so we can curate content to help you and advocate to remove the barriers that are holding you back.
To get the conversation started we asked women, "What if you could make your own fortune rather than have your fortune told? How would you #breakthefuture then?" Check out our new video to see what women had to say, then tell us how you want to #breakthefuture.
Join the conversation and start the journey with us. What is your next step in business? What do want to know more about to help you take that step? How do you want to create your own future. Tell us on Facebook or on Twitter with the hashtag #breakthefuture.
Onward!
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58fd3124656e69f0eafb750f11a5ef27 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinavuleta/2017/04/05/the-ambition-gap-how-age-and-economic-development-impact-womens-aspirations/ | The Ambition Gap: How Age And Economic Development Impact Women's Aspirations | The Ambition Gap: How Age And Economic Development Impact Women's Aspirations
With Women's History Month fresh in our minds, we were curious to look forward at women's future ambitions. Egon Zehnder, a global talent consultancy, recently completed a study measuring women's professional aspirations. In its second year, the goal of the Leaders and Daughters initiative is to stimulate conversations to accelerate career paths for the next generation of leaders. In addition to hosting panels with diverse leaders and their daughters in 40 countries, Egon Zehnder conducted a survey with 7,000 professional women across Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, India, the United States and the United Kingdom. The survey explores the opportunities and challenges facing women as they pursue their ambitions to reach executive levels in the workplace.
The study finds that while young professional women aspire to reach executive ranks, ambition gaps emerge based on age, seniority and economic development. I talked to Cynthia Soledad, who chairs Egon Zehnder’s diversity practice in the U.S. to get her perspective on these differences.
Egon Zehnder Leaders & Daughters Survey: 7,000 women, 7 countries Pexels, Flagpedia
Christina Vuleta: More women in developing countries aspire to be in the senior ranks than in developed countries. What do you think is driving this difference in women’s ambitions in developed vs. developing countries?
Cynthia Soledad: I think women in developed countries have more experience with the tradeoffs that accompany rising to the top. In the study, we saw work-life balance as a bigger issue for women in developed countries. This says to me that women are challenged by all the societal roles we are still expected to play. Women are still expected to do it all. In developing countries, the ability to participate in the workforce is still very new. There is a fire to overcome. These women are not feeling it’s a sacrifice. They are excited to be part of the change. There’s a real sense of optimism for all that is possible; whereas, women in developed countries are more jaded because they are still experiencing bias. Gender discrimination is not as overt now, but it can be a lot harder to fight the invisible enemy.
Egon Zehnder Leaders & Daughters Survey: 7,000 women, 7 countries Flagpedia
Vuleta: Your study shows interest in entrepreneurship is highest in the US vs. the other countries surveyed. What do you think is behind that?
Soledad: Alpana Singh, a restaurateur and sommelier who attended one of our panels in Chicago, told a story that speaks to this. She was on a corporate track with a well-established restaurant group here in Chicago, but she saw there were not many women in at the top levels of management. Instead of fighting to break through she thought, “Why not start my own restaurant? Why try to change corporate culture when I can create my own culture around myself?”
So first, I think it is reaction to a structure that doesn’t reward female ambitions or recognize women’s leadership potential. Then there’s the reality that women in developed countries have greater access to an infrastructure that supports starting your own business, such as small business loans and technology. While unconscious bias still exists, developed countries are beyond the overt discrimination and societal barriers that prevent women from entering the professional workforce.Further, independence is at the core of American culture.
Vuleta: Ambition declines with age as women face more challenges in the workplace. Obviously, there are big structural and societal challenges to overcome, but what have you seen as the most positive ways to create more opportunities for women from working with so many companies globally?
Soledad: People need to acknowledge that we have more work to do. The experience pool is smaller for women because we are dealing with generations of discrimination. Men need to be a part of this and need to believe that we will all win with more diversity. That means developing potential and taking a bet on people that are not like you. People think they can accomplish more with people who have a similar background to them. For a man to overcome innate gender bias he has to see so many similarities between himself and a woman. This makes it so important to work together to create a tipping point for women.
There are practices that help an organization do this. On a talent development front, identify high-potential diverse women and ensure from a developmental side that they are given opportunities to grow their functional skill sets. Make job rotation a priority so these high-potential women expand their skills beyond line management. Create dedicated sponsorship programs to provide opportunities to advance leadership competencies and develop the leadership crucibles to get onto boards. Develop succession plans to ensure there are more diverse pools of talent in the pipeline.
Vuleta: You have conducted the Leaders and Daughters panels across 40 countries. Anecdotally, were there any stories that stand out? Or unifying themes that you have seen throughout?
Soledad: A unifying theme is the need for both sponsorship and mentorship. Sponsorship is needed to ensure opportunities exist. Mentorship is need to build self-esteem so you can lean forward and take that next step. We know we need sponsorship but also recognize that we need to help each other.
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25fe2d8ce161091924e6e3f818e1b39c | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christineamourlevar/2017/12/17/sexual-harassment-in-the-workplace-is-singapore-feeling-the-weinstein-effect/ | The #MeToo Movement In Asia: Is Singapore Feeling The Weinstein Effect? | The #MeToo Movement In Asia: Is Singapore Feeling The Weinstein Effect?
In recent months, movie producer Harvey Weinstein’s abysmal fall from grace after high profile actresses, including megastars Angeline Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow, spoke out again him for his predatory behaviour, has sparked revelations by many other women about sexual misconduct by men in powerful places. Known as the Weinstein effect, the allegations have precipitated a wave of reckoning across the United States and Europe, with women pointing the finger at those who have wronged them.
#MeToo
Soon after, the #MeToo movement ignited on social media and has since become a rallying cry for millions of women (and men) who have posted the phrase to declare that they too have experienced sexual harassment or abuse. It’s clear that the floodgates have opened and the sexual harassment cases keep piling up. But is this state of affairs confined to the West, or is it also happening in Asia?
“Like other countries, sexual harassment is highly under-reported in Singapore and it’s hard to say exactly what the incidence of sexual harassment is,” says Corinna Lim, Executive Director of the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE). AWARE is Singapore’s leading gender equality advocacy group, and also runs the only Sexual Assault Care Centre (SACC) in the country.
Since the start of the #MeToo movement, SACC’s calls have doubled from 35 to 70 cases per month. According to Lim, “#MeToo has emboldened victims in Singapore to seek help from SACC and to find out what their rights and options are. There has been less public calling out, unlike in the West, probably because of cultural reasons.”
Inspired by the #MeToo movement, a sexual assault survivor in Singapore has recently started Hear to Change, an online platform to support people who have experienced sexual harassment. The website allows survivors to share their experiences of sexual abuse anonymously, and so far, they have received on average one story per day.
Reports rising
In 2016, SACC received 338 reported cases of sexual violence, up 27% from the previous year. Of those 338 cases, the biggest category (27%) related to workplace sexual assault and harassment. 44% comprised physical and non-physical sexual harassment committed by someone known to the survivor. Furthermore, according to a 2014 survey of 500 youths in Singapore conducted by SACC, one in three respondents have experienced some form of sexual violence. Lim, who is a former lawyer, has spent years lobbying the Singapore government to pass laws protecting individuals in the workplace from such harassment, and despite the recent progress, she feels more needs to be done.
In 2014, the government issued the Protection from Harassment Act (POHA), which criminalizes harassment, stalking and cyber-bullying. Molest and rape are also offenses under the Penal Code. “POHA is a step in the right direction,” says Lim, “aside from criminal remedies, it also allows survivors to file restraining orders against harassers. It sends a strong message that harassment is something that should be taken seriously.”
In 2015, Singapore launched the Tripartite Advisory on Managing Workplace Harassment, which advises but does not require employers to develop a harassment prevention policy. According to Lim, “the problem with POHA and the Advisory is that they do not create legal obligations on companies to address workplace harassment. Thus, most local companies in Singapore do not have the specific anti-workplace harassment policies and are not equipped to deal with harassment cases if they arise.” Even when a survivor of workplace harassment files a police report under POHA, employers are still not required to address the harassment itself. In this area, Singapore lags behind other leading business centres, like Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea, where there is a legal responsibility for employers to address workplace harassment.
More on Forbes: It's Not Just Hollywood -- There Are Harvey Weinsteins All Over Bollywood Too
A long way to go
Nevertheless, in recent years, the local media in Singapore has helped bring high-profile incidences of sexual harassment to light, including a 2016 case, where a 28-year-old woman was subjected to text messages containing sexual advances made by a senior officer with the Singapore Civil Defence Force. As a result of her making a police report, he lost his job and was later charged in court with one count under POHA.
Additionally, in the past months, several articles have appeared featuring an employee of Mediacorp, Singapore’s state-owned media conglomerate, who has been dismissed for making inappropriate remarks to a producer. Such reporting helps increase awareness and accountability, but workplaces and institutions still need to be more proactive. Dr June Goh, President of the Singapore Council of Women's Organisation, thinks so and recently stated that companies should work on building a culture that encourages trust, where women employees are able to turn to if troubled or distressed.
The #Metoo movement has also prompted more companies in Singapore to take an interest in the topic of workplace harassment. As a result, AWARE’s corporate training arm, Catalyse Consulting, has received more inquiries from employers to train companies on addressing workplace harassment.
It’s increasingly clear that to some degree, Singapore, like many other countries in the region, is feeling the effects of the Weinstein scandal. But ultimately, fixing sexual harassment in the workplace isn’t just about punishing the perpetrators. What survivors primarily want is supportive reporting, investigative measures and an assurance of accountability. Many psychologists agree that sexual harassment is more about power than sex. The bigger issue here is really about making women equal participants in the workplace and ensuring that companies have the necessary values, culture and policies in place to deter harassment. Only then can sexual harassment in the workplace truly become a thing of the past.
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add91e745ba44e3bc11a4d31dc01c62e | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecarter/2016/09/07/millennial-moms-how-to-be-transparent-with-your-boss-and-communicate-your-needs/ | Millennial Moms: How To Be Transparent With Your Boss And Communicate Your Needs | Millennial Moms: How To Be Transparent With Your Boss And Communicate Your Needs
Why are more and more companies striving to create a transparent work culture for employees? It’s not only a strategy to encourage job satisfaction, retain loyal employees, and increase performance-- transparency is also one of the top four qualities millennials look for in leaders at their organization. In the same manner, employers are looking for transparency from America’s largest generation, attracting, retaining and engaging young candidates who exhibit the attributes of transparency.
In order to demonstrate commitment and fairness to an organization, working millennial moms must be as transparent as possible with their employers. The professional needs of a millennial mother differ from the needs of the average millennial employee. For example, the average young worker values work-life integration in order to stay close to friends and have free time for recreation. But while all young people have around 15 waking hours each day, working millennial moms don’t have the luxury of spending nine hours of them socializing and on other activities, including traveling, shopping, and self-care. For this reason, working millennial moms require a more untraditional work schedule. An employer must understand all the personal and professional priorities of a working millennial mom. To that end, having an honest conversation with employers decreases absenteeism, poor job performance and employee turnover.
So while it’s not revolutionary for a millennial mom to have a career (in fact, more than half of men and women think a mom should work when they have children younger than school age), they do have certain needs. For those unsure about their needs, below are some common requirements of working millennial moms. Rank their importance by your own standards, then promptly- and candidly- communicate them. Also, be prepared to negotiate for those which most support a healthy work-life balance.
Photo by London Scout
High level of job security
Society incorrectly classifies millennials as employees who lack attachment or loyalty to their employers, but quite the contrary: young people stay with their employers longer than Generation X employees did at the same ages. For an employer this is music to their ears: they will benefit from the additional productivity associated with reduced turnover and working millennial moms will learn more on the job, reaping even more benefits for the employer.
Ability to work from home
Forty-one percent of the workforce already works from home, and Gallup reported those remote workers log more hours and are more engaged. Furthermore, if the previous requirement didn’t illustrate a working millennial mom’s dedication, consider the following: working millennial moms typically work more hours than the average young employee. Lastly, millennial moms spend about twice the time fathers do on both childcare and household maintenance. Eliminating commuting time would give some of these moms nearly an extra hour of their day back to complete household chores.
An acceptance of family dynamics
It’s more common for working millennial moms to be the sole breadwinners in their home. Though they should be commended for independently providing for their children financially, it’s also crucial that working millennial moms fulfill the emotional needs of their children. Employers must understand the importance of face-to-face time between a working millennial mom and her child when she’s the sole parent. Case in point: 93% of working parents would increase their volunteerism at their children’s schools or organized activities for more time with their children.
Flexible work schedule
Yes, 87% of millennials want to work on their own clock, instead of 9 to 5. But millennial moms have a credible reason to request a flexible work schedule; they go to work earlier than the average young worker and are more likely to have nonstandard work hours. In a recent survey by telecommuting job search site FlexJobs, 91% of working parents say having children living at home affects their interest in a flexible job. In Vermont and San Francisco, workers can request flexible work schedules without fear of retaliation but for working millennial moms in other states, the inability to find a flexible work schedule can make career advancement difficult. Keep in mind: a flexible job doesn’t just impact the amount of time a working millennial mom spends with their child, it also affects the mom’s finances, stress levels, health and overall quality of life.
Unfortunately working millennial moms are still responsible for a disproportionate share of child care. But congressional bills like the Schedules that Work Act strive to satisfy the working millennial mom’s requirements , primarily by improving workplace flexibility. Even without all these needs addressed, a very high percentage remains confident they can simultaneously be both great employees and a great parent. This is highly unlikely because they aren’t the average young worker. A working millennial mom can only achieve both when she is transparent with her employer, divulging her professional needs (like the ones listed above), and proves her dedication and integrity to the company.
More on FORBES:
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10598eae2699514b72e8c729d29b90ab | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecarter/2017/10/29/the-business-of-feeding-health-conscious-gen-z-and-alpha-children/ | The Business Of Feeding Health-Conscious Gen Z And Alpha Children | The Business Of Feeding Health-Conscious Gen Z And Alpha Children
Nurture Life packaged and plated meals. Source: Nurture Life
The World Health Organization defines health and wellness as the state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Later in their definition children are specifically mentioned, citing that ‘healthy development of the child is of basic importance’ and ‘the ability to live harmoniously in a changing total environment is essential to such development.’
The global healthy eating, nutrition and weight loss economy has reached $648 billion, and indeed millennial parents contributed to the increase. Millennials are committed to eating right and exercising more than other generations, and appropriately, are spending big dollars ensuring their children- generation Z and Alpha- are living lives grounded in health and wellness as well. There are about 65 million members of generation Z today and over 21 million members of generation Alpha… and counting.
In the Nielsen Global Health & Wellness Survey nearly 40% of millennials and generation Z say ingredients sourced sustainably are very important in their purchase decisions, more so than other generations. They are also more willing to pay a premium for healthy products, such as all natural, GMO-free, sustainable or vitamin-fortified foods. Interestingly enough, Mintel cites that though parents are willing to pay a premium for organic and natural products, they are still recession-hardened consumers. They will turn to large consumer products manufacturers to understand what claims should be on a products, but purchase with less-expensive alternatives and private label offerings.
The $648 billion figure also rose from previous years due to the rising cost of health care expenditures: health care spending on conditions such as ADHD, asthma and autism have increased and to reduce costs, parents are looking for healthy, natural alternatives to supplement treatment for medical problems whenever possible.
Younger generations are more active in discussions with millennial parents regarding what they eat; one-third of generation Z children say they help with meal preparation three times a week. Simultaneously, though one in three parents make their own baby food most time-pressed millennial parents wish they had more time to make homemade, healthy meals for their children. Two startups and one growing company capitalizing off these insights and disrupting the nearly $12 billion food and beverage e-commerce industry are Nurture Life, Raised Real and Yummy Spoonfuls.
Nurture Life baby meals. Source: Nurture Life
Nurture Life
Founded in 2015 by Steven Minisini and Jennifer Chow, Nurture Life’s goal is to be the premier consumer brand and market leader for fresh, healthy, pre-prepared meals for babies, toddlers and kids, delivered direct to consumer. One year after the company was founded their first customer orders were shipped, and in 15 months Nurture Life grew their revenue ninefold.
Minisini and Chow reveal they were inspired by their generation Alpha son James to start the company:
'When James was six months old and just started eating solids, we wanted to feed him fresh, high quality meals without compromises and couldn’t find this option available in the market. As a result, we planned, shopped for, prepped and cooked all of his meals ourselves. As he got older and we wanted to continually increase the variety of flavors he was eating, we found we were spending many late nights cooking for him. This experience inspired us to found Nurture Life. Our passion is to impact the healthy development of children.'
Nurture Life continuously innovates via their product offering, customer experience, internal operations, technology systems, even their distribution- though their primary channel remains direct to consumer, they have partnered with large companies like JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley Wealth Management to offer Nurture Life products through their human resources and wellness programs.
Raised Real delivery box. Source: Raised Real
Raised Real
Though they launched in April 2017, Raised Real has experienced direct to consumer executives supporting them. They cite direct to consumer pioneer Birchbox as their source of inspiration and its co-founder, Mollie Chen, as their advisor. Ex-CEO and Founder of Orange Chef Santiago Merea and CFO of Orange Chef Steven Kontz are the owners of Raised Real, along with registered dietitian Dr. Michelle Davenport. And while they don’t share ownership percentages, Raised Real’s main partner is Schwan’s Food Company, a $3 billion privately-owned direct to consumer food company.
The baby food newcomer redefines the idea of 'homemade' by giving parents the tools they need to feed their children high-quality food made with real ingredients without the hassle or time suck of starting from square one. They pride themselves on being transparent, having a direct relationship with consumers, and convenience. Davenport spent over five years studying childhood development and the effects of food, sugar, and processing methods on babies’ brains.
Raised Real Meal Maker machine. Source: Raised Real
Similar to Nurture Life, they promise all-natural ingredients, but Raised Real delivers beyond their food. Their 3-part system provides pre-portioned food, a Meal Maker machine, and a personal Baby Food Hotline supporting parents along the way. The flash-frozen ingredients are delivered direct to consumer and cost $4.75 per meal. Raised Real also has a constantly evolving ‘menu’ of plant-based nutritional recipes and promises minimal preparation and cleanup in 20 minutes or less with their all-in-one Meal Maker machine.
All three owners are interested in different aspects of the company, from product development to supply chain, but one interesting feature about Raised Real that excites them is their e-commerce platform. It offers account management and customer service through SMS.
Yummy Spoonfuls' new product line for young children. Source: Yummy Spoonfuls.
Yummy Spoonfuls
Another company that pioneered within the adolescent health and wellness industry 11 years ago is Yummy Spoonfuls. Agatha Achindu and Camila Alves (wife of actor Matthew McConaughey), have a 50/50 partnership in the company, and both believe training a baby’s palate from birth is the secret to a lifetime of good health. Achindu even meets with legislators on behalf of Yummy Spoonfuls to discuss policies and standards to improve the quality of food available to younger generations. Both partners feel high-quality food that tastes delicious should be a birthright, regardless of socio-economic status. Achindu adds:
' We live in a country where processed food is the norm, and at the same time, huge numbers of people are suffering from diet-related diseases. There is a definite connection. Diet and nutrition can make or break a family. If children are unhealthy, there is a tremendous strain on the whole family, not to mention the child’s lost potential. I want to change the way we feed our kids in this country, especially babies. Infants should eat the most nutritious food. The only way to overcome diet-related disease on a large scale is to educate and empower parents, so that every baby gets a great start.'
Similar to Nurture Life and Raised Real, Achindu is most passionate about Yummy Spoonfuls’ product development, citing it as the most critical part of the business. In the past decade they have innovated from convenient, made-from-scratch baby food products to toddler and big kid foods. 'We are looking at popular convenience foods and cleaning them up for a new generation of healthy eaters. As they’re growing up, the food is still there for them, meeting the same level of quality and deliciousness that they experienced with their very first spoonful of our Stage 1 baby food.'
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ba4f78249b104add63338471a3a0d302 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecarter/2018/07/22/three-career-development-professionals-weigh-in-on-the-recent-rise-of-job-hopping/ | Three Career Development Professionals Weigh In On The Recent Rise Of Job-Hopping | Three Career Development Professionals Weigh In On The Recent Rise Of Job-Hopping
With so many other professionals undergoing career transitions, it is easy for one to believe a leap... [+] to pursue the job of one's dream is simple. Pexels.com
In April, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that more professionals chose to leave their jobs at a rate similar to that of the internet boom in 2001. The difference? Today's professional is choosing to spend less than two years at an organization and is transitioning to new opportunity in hopes of a higher salary. The Wall Street Journal defines this as job-hopping.
Related to the notion of job hopping, two years ago median employee tenure started to decline. In 2016 the median number of years that wage and salary workers had been with their current employer at just 4.2 years (compared to 4.6 in 2014). It’s a safe assumption that number will decline once again this year when the 2018 Employee Tenure Summary is released.
With so many other professionals undergoing career transitions, it’s easy for one to believe a leap to pursue the job of one's dream is simple. Below three businesswomen offer their perspectives on the recent rise of job-hopping. While their answers are varied, they encourage all professionals (regardless of their interest in job-hopping) to set themselves up now for success in the future.
Alissa Carpenter founded Everything’s Not Ok, and That’s Ok Coaching after over a decade in higher education. Carpenter has advised millennials and generation Z students at institutions such as The Wharton School and Penn State. She offers professional development and career exploration coaching to companies, alumni groups, student advising units and individuals across the country.
For those not quite ready to job-hop but eager to fast-track their impact at an organization, Carpenter offers the following advice:
“Consistently being the “go to” person for specific content, knowledge or a skill set will help set you apart from the rest. Talk to your supervisor and identify projects that would be considered influential. Ask to be a part of them, work hard, be a team player and create a positive name for yourself.”
Some professionals consider job-hopping for fear of burning out at their current company. Carpenter believes these individuals should be realistic about additional responsibilities, projects and assignments they can take on outside the scope of their current role.
“Schedule a meeting with your supervisor and discuss your current and upcoming projects and what you’re considering delegating. Then, work together to come up with a plan moving forward. It’s better to speak up now before things get missed.”
Anne Ahola Ward is the co-founder and CEO of CircleClick Media. She has supported the career development of her team and was named one of the “Top 50 Inspirational Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2017” by Entrepreneur magazine. An entrepreneur for nearly a decade, Ward believes fear holds many people back from changing careers and monetizing their side hustle. For those not quite ready to job-hop but eager to fast-track their impact at an organization, Ward offers the following advice:
“Having an ego is good but having too much ego is bad for your relationships at work. Influence comes from trust and hard work; there's no shortcut to that. ”
For millennials (specifically millennial parents) considering job-hopping for fear of burning out at their current company, Ward states:
“Take breaks and take a lunch break every single day. Set boundaries for non-working hours, it's okay to have a personal life and put your family first.”
Ahyiana Angel is the host of the Switch, Pivot or Quit podcast. Ahyiana Angel.
Ahyiana Angel is the host of the "Switch, Pivot or Quit" podcast, a program in which Angel shares her insight and tips to help businesswomen decide if they should switch, pivot or quit their jobs. She also interviews seasoned professional women who provide clarity, practical tactics and actionable items for personal and professional development.
Many of Angel’s listeners are diverse millennial businesswomen, to whom she offers specific advice:
“Many of us witnessed parents who worked tirelessly to provide for their families in careers or jobs that sucked the life out of them. Our current employment climate is in favor of the employee, and there is no longer a strong negative stigma around changing careers and going after a career that feels more in line with your interest and skills set. The days of your parents are gone, you're free to explore!”
Some millennial parents are sold on the idea of job-hopping in hopes to improve the quality of life for their family. Those who fall within this category should consider Angel’s tip below:
“Rally your family behind your quest for a career change and use them to help keep you motivated and accountable. When you know that your kids are watching the drive to make them proud will propel you forward.”
For those not quite ready to job-hop but eager to fast-track their impact at an organization, Angel encourages them to find opportunities to develop their presence outside of their company.
“Work with organizations in your industry. Share your knowledge with mentees. Participate in panel discussions. Get involved in committees. Look into developing raw talents that can serve you in a potential side-project capacity.”
Angel adds that establishing your reputation as a leader outside the organization increases an employee’s value within a company and boosts internal confidence.
“You will develop influence as a by-product and opportunities to shine will naturally come your way without you constantly having to push your agenda.”
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fd43d5fb10dadd00aae70c47a14f4618 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecarter/2018/11/23/meet-the-black-millennial-bringing-diversity-to-stock-photography/ | Meet The Black Millennial Bringing Diversity To Stock Photography | Meet The Black Millennial Bringing Diversity To Stock Photography
In July 2015, frustrated from being unable to find stock images with Black women that were suitable... [+] for her audience, Neosha Gardner founded CreateHER Stock. Neosha Gardner
As more everyday consumers become content creators, stock photography agencies like Getty Images, Fotolia and Shutterstock are frequently used to depict the world in which we live. Yet many editors, content marketers and other communications professionals feel the selection of models, themes and holidays represented aren’t indicative of today’s society. White Americans are the racial majority in the United States, but African Americans and Hispanic or Latino Americans are large racial minorities- and these groups are frequently underrepresented on stock photography websites.
In July 2015, frustrated from being unable to find stock images with Black women that were suitable for her audience, Neosha Gardner founded CreateHER Stock.
“The ones that were available were either outdated, lacked ‘style’, and screamed cliché or stereotypical. I wanted to change that.”
Along with three other employees, Gardner is satisfying and unmet consumer (and corporate) demand, quickly turning CreateHER Stock into an external asset library for niche and mainstream publications. According to Gardner, CreateHER Stock has seen annual profitable growth since its inception, ranging from 12%-23% over the past three years.
“We help solve the issue with finding quality and real-life stock photography that feature women of color - with it majorly being Black women. Creators our images for blog posts, social media, graphic design projects, as placeholders within templates, banners, with freebies such as workbooks and free courses, and more.”
Gardner elaborates on the platform:
"We are a grassroots resource and digital space for stock imagery that can be used for lifestyle, business, and everyday content creation for bloggers, creatives, and online influencers. If you’re looking to search through thousands upon thousands of images, this may not be for you – but if you appreciate having a resource that keeps it direct and straight to the point – we got you covered. Who has time to search through a bazillion pages of photos anyway, right?"
Put into perspective, it has been reported that market leader Getty Images has an annual revenue of over $800 million. If Gardner manages to steal just 1% market share from the market leader with her subscription based platform in the next two years, the Atlanta millennial mom is in for a great payday.
CreateHER Stock, authentic stock images featuring women of color. Neosha Gardner
Currently CreateHer Stock targets African American female content creators and other diverse professionals. A targeted group, since the Bureau of Labor Statistics cites that of the 548,000 Americans employed in advertising and communications in 2016, just 4.1 percent are black and 12.3 percent are Hispanic or Latino.
Yet as the heads of households, Latina and black women have a combined consumer spending power that will reach over $3 billion in just three years, according to Nielsen. These women may not be well represented in corporate America, but they contribute to a sizable chunk of our nation’s economy.
“Some say catering to our particular audience may be one of the hardest as ‘Black women are known for being hard to please.’ But we cater to this audience because it's where we see the most lack. We took the problem, and gave it a solution.”
The assets found on CreateHER Stock (including free gallery images) are under a standard, non-exclusive license for personal, non-commercial use. Many of their images can be used in editorial pieces (newspapers, blog and website articles, non-commercial presentations, and magazines) and non-commercial advertising. CreateHER Stock does offer extended licenses for advertisers interested in purchasing assets for commercial sales, film, high-traffic websites, television, documentaries, or any other video or multimedia presentation/mainstream media.
Users can opt to have access to over 200 free photos via the platform or direct email. Over 2500 premium assets are available through four premium subscription plans, ranging in cost from $10 per month to $99 per year. Corporate premium subscription accounts are also available.
Asset categories on CreateHER Stock have been grouped with today’s Black or Latina woman in mind, drawing inspiration from everyday activities such as vegan grocery store shopping to independently raising a family. As an entrepreneur, Gardner draws inspiration from her core consumer. “My inspiration comes from and shines from who we serve. I can step outside right now (in Atlanta) and see someone I could serve within the service we offer. The inspiration is never-ending.” Gardner also promises innovation at CreateHER Stock in the coming years will be inclusive.
“We want to ensure we make the moves to provide a space where women- whether they identify as such or not- can find images worth using. For our core demographic, we want them to continue to feel as though if they can't go anywhere else, they can come to CreateHER Stock. We will have the assets both they and their audience are looking for.”
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3c9fe956abef6ee227674a0757b75b58 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecarter/2019/01/27/meet-the-black-millennial-lawyer-making-michelle-obama-more-accessible-to-baltimores-youth/?sh=39fc81106616 | Meet The Black Millennial Lawyer Making Michelle Obama More Accessible To Baltimore's Youth | Meet The Black Millennial Lawyer Making Michelle Obama More Accessible To Baltimore's Youth
Alicia Wilson is the senior vice president of impact investments and senior legal counsel for Port... [+] Covington Impact Investments LLC. She is the woman responsible for assisting the CEO Kevin Plank (the founder, chairman, and CEO of Under Armour) with strategic philanthropic investment initiatives in the city of Baltimore. Alicia Wilson
Alicia Wilson is the senior vice president of impact investments and senior legal counsel for Port Covington Impact Investments LLC. She is the woman responsible for assisting the CEO Kevin Plank (the founder, chairman, and CEO of Under Armour) with strategic philanthropic investment initiatives in the city of Baltimore. But also as a black millennial woman born and raised in Baltimore City, she is inspired to serve her community.
“I can recall several 30-minute mentoring sessions, expressions of generosity and exposure experiences that changed the trajectory of my personal and professional life. It is my desire to be for someone else what these extraordinary beacons of light in my community were for me. ”
The 36-year-old’s passion for Baltimore City youth is evident in her resume. Aside from her previous law experience in case management she’s helped Baltimore youth enroll in drug treatment and diversion programs, developed a mock student trial/oral advocacy curriculum, and created parent resource guides for the guardians of delinquent youth.
Wilson also serves as Chairman of the Board for CollegeBound Foundation, a nonprofit which works exclusively in Baltimore City public schools encouraging and enabling students to pursue a post-secondary education. Recently in her volunteer role with the foundation, she had the opportunity to introduce her students to an inspirational lawyer- author and former First Lady Michelle Obama.
Wilson previously met Obama through a mutual friend and had dinner with her more than a year ago. After discussing the foundation with her she was given the opportunity to escort 150 students to the Washington, DC stop of Obama’s “Becoming” book tour. Following a brief dialogue with thousands in the audience about what Wilson herself was “becoming,” Obama was brought to the stage.
“Without question, meeting First Lady Michelle Obama was transformative. I remember growing up and hearing that ‘so-and-so’ forgot where they came from… Mrs. Obama is no ‘so-and-so’ and it is evident that she has not forgotten. She not only looks back, but also comes back by extending her hand so that others might walk forward with her. ”
Wilson believes for today’s diverse youth, it will be seeing other transformational black female leaders like Obama that will ignite change in the law industry, as the challenges for young black women in the legal field have remained constant for decades.
“The vast majority of my professional day is spent in spaces where I am the minority with respect to my gender, race and, in many cases, socioeconomic background. I must help others understand the value of diversity. To me, it is not worthy of applause for only ‘one or two’ of ‘us’ to be at the table when decisions are being made that disproportionately impact those in the minority. I must translate and code-switch to ensure that the perspective of those not present is represented.”
Yet as less diverse millennial professionals are able to afford top-tier law schools, she sees a real need for traditional industries such as law to change their hiring practices.
“I think traditional industries would do well to realize this important fact: everyone that is going to work for the next thirty years is already here. The lead time to cultivate, train, and educate talent is 7-10 years at a minimum. If law firms, corporations, non-profits, and government remain rigid and unyielding with their assessment that only the top-third of the class that went to the top-tier law school is a viable candidate, they will miss out on a critical window to attract and retain talent that is much more resilient, enterprising… and diverse.”
Now as another popular black female figure descends to Baltimore, Wilson is once again excited for what her presence means for the city’s youth. California senator Kamala Harris has announced Baltimore will be her campaign headquarters as she runs for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2020 election. As another prominent black female lawyer in America, Wilson hopes Harris will courageously ask the hard but necessary questions, hear the answers with an open mind and help drive positive change.
“I have followed Senator Kamala Harris’s life and career since she announced her run for attorney general of California. The breadth and depth of her experiences and character inspire me. I think that her choice to open her headquarters here speaks volumes about what we can expect from her as a candidate and executive. I would say to with her with open arms- welcome to Baltimore!”
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ce2c89201d91975595d757d7860a76e6 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecarter/2020/03/12/childcare-as-a-workforce-issue-competing-for-female-talent-in-a-tight-labor-market/ | Childcare As A Workforce Issue: Competing For Female Talent In A Tight Labor Market | Childcare As A Workforce Issue: Competing For Female Talent In A Tight Labor Market
null Getty
According to a survey of 3,000 working parents conducted by LinkedIn and Censuswide, almost half of working moms take an extended break — time off from work beyond the maternity leave allowance — after the birth of their children. Women who take a break leave the workforce for an average of about two years, the study found. One of the biggest challenges mothers cited in the survey as an unnecessary obstacle in place, making it challenging for them to advance in their career: a lack of high-quality, affordable childcare (55%).
Families are struggling to find and afford high-quality childcare. Without question, childcare is often the second-largest monthly expense for families after their mortgage or rent payment. Several states–Louisiana, Maryland, Georgia, Washington, and Indiana–conducted reports and found that they each lose over $1 billion annually in economic activity due to breakdowns in childcare.
For both children and their parents, there are benefits to early childhood education. Children gain a strong educational foundation, and their parents can pursue careers or enhance their knowledge or vocational skills. Yet what is lesser known is the economic impact. Julia Barfield, senior manager of policy and programs for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, summarizes why America needs to understand the economic impact of early childhood education.
When employees leave the workforce, we need to understand better how much income they are sacrificing. Similarly, when employees voluntarily leave or miss work due to childcare issues, we need more information about how this impacts the employer.
The levves are doing their work in Cedar Rapids during the 2019 midwest floods Getty
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Let’s use Iowa as an American case study for this workforce issue. Included in Iowa’s nation-leading labor force are over 300,000 working parents with children under six years old. Though Iowa has the highest labor force participation rate in the country and businesses, regardless of industry or location, the state is still struggling to recruit and retain skilled workers. Michael Ralston, president of the Iowa Association of Business and Industry, explains:
Transportation, housing, training, several issues challenge our workforce. But perhaps paramount is what is happening with childcare.
In their latest report, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation found that Iowa loses $935 million annually as a result of childcare breakdowns. (Put into perspective, that amount was slightly more than the annual revenue of Peloton in 2018.) Other unique challenges: approximately 2/3 of Iowa is rural, and simultaneously, 1/3 of the state is considered a child care desert. Rural wages are lower, but the costs for child care are not significantly lower. Also, early childhood funding is in several Iowa state departments as there is not one sole Department of Early Childhood.
Further exacerbating the issue is childcare workers are among the lowest-paid occupations when compared to all Iowa occupations. Executive Director of the Iowa Association for the Education of Young Children Jillian Herink adds:
Child care workers themselves are also the workforce in this discussion. They don’t make livable wages, they don’t have benefits, and we need to consider them in solutions and understand that they are a critical workforce as well.
Fortunately, Iowa government and businesses have recognized the need to step up, understanding that is not just a workforce issue but also an economic development opportunity. Universities, for and non-profit businesses, communities, and the state government have united to solve the problem as all industries in the community were expressing the need equally. Herink explains how Iowa found where the actual problem stemmed from in the community:
Most of the work is driven across the state by the Iowa Women’s Foundation that conducts child care solutions tours. They worked on women’s economic issues and found out that many barriers to financial stability for women were due to child care issues across the state.
Aerial View Of Midwestern Green Landscape 2 Getty
To create localized, innovative solutions, it took many Iowa organizations working together, not caring who the lead was. Solutions included flexible hours for all employers, professional firms allowing infants to come to work with parents, sponsored paid family child care lots, and 24-hour and sick child care. Executive Director of the Fairfield Economic Development Association Josh Laraby says bringing all segments of the community together has genuinely been the success:
We ultimately looked at this through a workforce development lens, and as a workforce development initiative. We want to be the community of choice to live and work, and breaking down barriers such as access to child care is one of the opportunities we have to attract and retain working families in Fairfield, Iowa.
Laraby and the Fairfield Economic Development Association pulled together a six-step plan for Fairfield, Iowa, which included engagement through public-private partnerships, data-driven and innovative solutions, and measurable results for the city. He is confident the work that he and partners have been doing is replicable in other communities across the state and the country.
Ultimately, the state of Iowa is committed to fighting the problem together. The Iowa Association of Business and Industry is working with Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds and legislators of both parties to see additional state funding made available. Iowa state government is also seeking to solve the childcare issue through tax credits and cash support as part of a program called Future Ready Iowa.
Herink, Laraby, and Ralston all agree: there is not just one solution for the child care issue in Iowa or the United States. It takes multiple prongs of solutions, and they need to work together.
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127f9ba8064aeff8abbc146e1b0d785e | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecarter/2020/05/13/five-upsides-to-the-coronavirus-recession-for-millennial-families/ | Five Upsides To The Coronavirus Recession For Millennial Families | Five Upsides To The Coronavirus Recession For Millennial Families
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Four years ago The Great Recession was still impacting millennial families. And now thanks to the coronavirus recession, current U.S. unemployment levels are rivaling that of The Great Depression. Millennial families are once again hit with a national event affecting their mental and physical health, finances and overall livelihood.
With no end of stay at home orders or a cure to COVID-19 in sight, it can be difficult to think of silver linings the coronavirus recession has brought. But, here are in fact, five upsides to the coronavirus recession for millennial families:
Suspended payments on government-backed student loans.
Student loans are a significant drain on cash flow for many millennial families. If you have a government-backed student loan, there is an excellent chance that your payment is suspended until September. You can enjoy this reprieve or keep making your payment. If you choose the latter, your FULL payment will go to paying off your debt instead of being split between paying interest and your loan balance. “If your loan payments aren't deferred, now is the perfect time to look into refinancing your loan to lock in a lower rate,” says financial consultant Nev Harris. “One caveat here is if you're working towards the 25 years of payment for loan forgiveness, this may reset the clock. Coincidentally, there is also a bonus for those enrolled in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness. The six suspended payments count towards the 120 you need to make.”
A jump-start to retirement saving.
If you had been more likely to take advantage of spring break instead of the tax break you get with an IRA contribution, now can be an ideal time to jump-start your retirement saving. “With the market off its highs, there is no time like the present to get started. There still can be some rough times ahead, but retirement is a long game, and history shows that recessions make good long-term investing opportunities,” Harris adds.
Buying your ideal family home at a lower interest rate.
If your family has grown since you bought your current house, but you haven't been able to find a bigger affordable home in the area you want to live, you now have two factors working for you that might change that. “First, interest rates have hit and remain near historic lows. This allows you to buy a more expensive house for the same payment. Second, there are signs of a pending increase in supply to go along with the decrease in demand. Or to put it another way, you have more people needing to sell houses,” Harris explains. Those houses are sitting on the market longer because people either can't get approved or are apprehensive about making a purchase. This situation leads to falling housing prices, which, along with a drop in interest rates, can make that dream house more of a reality.
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Refinancing loans.
Now can be the ideal time to refinance a loan so you can lower your monthly payments. Just be careful consolidating several smaller loans into your mortgage. The interest rate can be lower and produce a monthly saving, but it can be much more expensive in the long run if you're paying interest on a loan for 30 years that would have been paid off in a couple of years.
Career change to a company that embraces working parents.
Do you enjoy being home for dinner, not battling rush hour? Do you find yourself able to think more creatively outside an office setting? It might be time to consider a career change. Some companies are now adopting more family-friendly policies, such as Twitter's decision to allow employees to work remotely forever. Or, this could be the perfect time for you to build a business that compliments your lifestyle and allows you the flexibility to be present with your family.
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6282b596828053ff88092d9d7debbf2f | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecarter/2020/06/04/without-question-biden-needs-black-mothers-to-win-the-2020-presidential-election/ | Without Question, Biden Needs Black Mothers To Win The 2020 Presidential Election | Without Question, Biden Needs Black Mothers To Win The 2020 Presidential Election
Political analyst and author Tiffany Cross previously served as the DC Bureau Chief of BET News and ... [+] the Liaison to the Obama Administration for BET Networks where she covered Capitol Hill, produced political specials, and oversaw the daily operations of the news department. Tiffany D. Cross
Four years ago, I penned an opinion piece substantiated by data on why President Trump would more than likely not be the preferred candidate of black female voters. While more than half of white women voted for him, he was not as popular among black females.
Trump remains unpopular within the black female community, with just 6% of them approving of him as President as of March 2020. And though black women did not turn out to vote as much as they did in the 2012 and 2016 election, they are still highly influential across other demographic groups, including Hispanics and black men. This means as the presumed Democratic presidential candidate in the 2020 election, former Vice President Joe Biden will have to convince them why he’s worthy of becoming the 46th president.
More specifically, Biden will need to convince black moms why he’s worthy. In light of the global pandemic and recent civil unrest, black mothers are exhausted. These women are being vocal about issues and injustices, seeking solutions from prospective political candidates- and voting out incumbents without answers.
Political analyst and author Tiffany D. Cross previously served as the DC Bureau Chief of BET News and the Liaison to the Obama Administration for BET Networks, where she covered Capitol Hill, produced political specials, and oversaw the daily operations of the news department. Tiffany worked as an Associate Producer for CNN, covering Capitol Hill for the network’s weekend show unit. She also previously served as a Field Producer for America’s Most Wanted and Discovery Communications. In an interview below, Cross shares precisely why she feels Biden will need black mothers to win the 2020 Presidential Election.
AUSTIN, TEXAS - OCTOBER 24: Tiffany D. Cross of The Beat DC speaks on stage during Texas Conference ... [+] For Women 2019 at Austin Convention Center on October 24, 2019 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Marla Aufmuth/Getty Images for Texas Conference for Women 2019) Getty Images for Texas Conference for Women 2019
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Christine Michel Carter: Does Biden need black moms because of their influence/network?
Tiffany D. Cross: When black women organize, they don’t just organize themselves. They organize the community. The 23 million black women in this country are the most loyal voting bloc to Democrats. Black women also have significant economic power—an estimated $1.5 trillion annually, according to Nielsen. Imagine tapping into those figures to elevate politics and policies that speak to our community.
Carter: (Russian digital advertisements in the 2016 presidential election were overwhelmingly focused on black American culture, and often specifically on black women with the goal of voter suppression. Nearly 1/3 of black women are moms, and they’re raising the most diverse generations to date, Generation-Z and Generation Alpha.) What issues do you think will be of importance to these women, and how does it differ from the 2016 presidential election?
Cross: This go-round, the burden is heavier on black women to drive turnout. The race must be decisive and indisputable as we have already seen Donald Trump threaten the peaceful transition of power. Issues driving the election this time are not that different from 2016. However, they are more punctuated. Black voters have always had more serious considerations than the rest of the electorate. But now it’s undeniably life and death.
Carter: Family is paramount to black moms, and according to Nielsen, nearly one-third of black people are under the age of 18. These women are more likely to be influenced by their children. While their children aren’t of voting age, how will their attitudes and behaviors towards government influence the vote of black mothers?
Cross: Given the heightened attention paid to police violence and unrest, the calls for brutality coming from the White House, and a Republican party perpetuating racist talking points and policy, black mothers, as they always have, will consider their children’s safety. But another issue that did not get as much attention on the campaign trail is public education. From dilapidated schools to attempts to privatize the education system, mothers will have to give serious thought to their down-ballot vote as well.
Carter: Except for New York, the largest number of black people reside in Republican states (Florida and Georgia). Yet, black women are the most important demographic to Democrats in the 2020 election. Can Biden inspire black moms in these states to usher in a political shift?
Cross: No, Biden does not need black women to switch states. Black women need GOP officials to stop promoting and perpetuating voter suppression that keeps certain states solidly red. Biden should also have a black woman on the ticket who will help adopt a comprehensive black agenda.
Carter: The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in March, unemployment rates for blacks rose to 6.7%- the highest for any racial group- and the unemployment rate was higher for black women than men. Working black moms are looking for solutions to the gender pay gap, maternal mental health, parental leave, and child care, perhaps more so than other races. Has Biden convinced black moms that his economic plans will be advantageous to them too?
Cross: I don’t want to let Biden off the hook with any messaging to black women. He definitely needs to do more. But what would be helpful to him is having black women validators at the local and national levels. And, again, having a black woman on the ticket who can energize this voting base and speak to this key constituency would be the most logical start.
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d73fd01d5d286214238ad726cc5eb0fe | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecarter/2021/04/22/how-jpmorgan-chase-avoided-most-employees-reducing-their-work-hours-during-the-pandemic/ | How JPMorgan Chase Used Back-Up Care To Support Working Parents During The Pandemic | How JPMorgan Chase Used Back-Up Care To Support Working Parents During The Pandemic
Mother doing home schooling with child while wearing surgical face mask for coronavirus getty
Bright Horizons is the largest provider of employer-sponsored childcare. Still, the company also provides nationwide coverage in the form of center-based or in-home care for new parents, parents of school-age children, and those who need care for adult dependents.
Last year, Bright Horizons was instrumental in supporting one of their clients, JPMorgan Chase, with back-up childcare. JPMorgan Chase has over 250,000 employees worldwide and operates in over 100 global markets. The company is one of the oldest financial institutions in the United States, managing over $2.6 trillion in client assets.
Back-up care minimizes disruptions in the workplace. For employers, offering back-up care ensures business continuity and demonstrates a commitment to working families. It takes the stress out of finding alternate care for families when employees' regular plans fall through and empowers employees to take on more significant roles and deliver more value.
In 2020 many primary caregivers- often women- stepped back from work to care for children or assist with remote learning. Bright Horizons reports that back-up has career-saving impacts for working parents and caregivers. Without back-up care during the pandemic, 50% of employees would have needed to reduce their work hours, 33% would have missed key deadlines at work, and 20% would have taken a leave of absence or quit their job. Indeed, In 2020, more than 1.4 million mothers left the U.S. workforce- more than the populations of Boston and Washington D.C. combined.
But JPMorgan Chase believes all the programs they put in place had a true impact on the ability of their remote employees to focus and successfully perform. Lilly Wyttenbach, Global Head of Wellness at JPMorgan Chase, explains: "Bright Horizons has really become an extended family. They live the ups and down with our employees through the good times and the bad times, which was never more prominent than this last year during the global pandemic."
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Wyttenbach adds that Bright Horizons' support was instrumental in helping their front-line workers. "They have not missed a beat in coming to work every day in our large locations where we have childcare centers." Offering back-up care supports front-line workers by providing high-quality care at rates they can afford. With their effort to show empathy for these employees, JPMorgan joined the likes of PepsiCo, who offered extra pay to front-line employees, and Truist Bank, where employees who earned less than $100,000 per year were given a $1,200 pretax bonus to help offset financial pressures caused by the pandemic.
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a4bc92ed263dc13ac6c8ec2f85e9b4b6 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecarter/2021/04/26/survey-working-parents-will-quit-without-remote-work/?sh=ae55d2a46205 | Survey: Working Parents Will Quit Without Remote Work | Survey: Working Parents Will Quit Without Remote Work
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To better understand working parents' experiences since the start of the pandemic, the leading job search site for flexible and remote jobs FlexJobs surveyed more than 1,100 parents with children 18 or younger living at home.
As before the pandemic, working parents cite increased productivity as a benefit of remote work (51%). Presumably, these working parents have found ways to make their environment set them up for success. Brie Weiler Reynolds, career development manager and coach at FlexJobs and Remote.co adds: "These professionals work best when they work for companies that trust them, allow them to work where, when, and how they work best, and understand that processes and results are often more important than location."
In thinking of the future after the pandemic, FlexJobs found 61% of parents say they want to work remotely full-time, while 37% prefer hybrid. Additionally, 62% of working parents say they would quit their current job if they can't continue remote work.
On a positive note, working parents have saved considerably by working from home – over 21% say they've saved more than $200 per week. Also, although female labor force participation hit a 33-year low in 2021, 66% of working parents think that continuing remote work will help improve gender equity.
Weiler Reynolds believes one of the biggest lessons of the pandemic is the level at which working parents value flexible work, and specifically, remote work. "Given the added stressors from pandemic living, the fact that 62% of working parents who worked remotely during the pandemic would give up their jobs if forced back to the office says a lot about how valuable remote work has been to them."
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As of early April, 6% of Americans are unemployed, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 38% of working parents had to either reduce their hours or quit their jobs entirely because of the pandemic and childcare responsibilities. More specifically, The COVID-19 crisis cost women around the world at least $800 billion in lost income in 2020. For working parents looking for a new job opportunity that would allow remote work, FlexJobs recommends researching the organization, being direct in the job interview, and figuring out whether or not the culture supports remote work in a more indirect way.
For those concerned with asking their manager for a hybrid work schedule, FlexJobs has prepared a few helpful tips. They include scheduling a specific time with your boss to discuss it and clarifying how your hybrid schedule will help your boss, the team, and the company.
Weiler Reynolds offers additional food for thought for parents who will be forced to make difficult decisions about returning to the office or finding a new, permanently remote job. "Keep this in mind: the long-term options working parents have for remote work have greatly expanded since the pandemic began. More companies than ever are hiring for long-term remote work and embracing at least hybrid offices post-pandemic. If your company isn't one of them, it may be time to find a new company."
A link to the full FlexJobs report can be found here.
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669bcae7d6e701a2a470c4fbf75dd39b | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecomaford/2012/10/21/hijack-how-your-brain-blocks-performance/ | Hijack! How Your Brain Blocks Performance | Hijack! How Your Brain Blocks Performance
So there you are, when suddenly you hear that song that reminds you of that person. And you’re emotionally hijacked—just like that. Good or bad, the song interacts with your neural net and triggers the emotions you have associated with it. Emotional hijacks happen every day, often unconsciously, often with debilitating results.
An expression on a team member’s face subconsciously reminds you of Mom at her most critical, yet you have no idea why you dislike speaking with her. But the team member actually has chronic indigestion, her facial expression has nothing to do with you, and she wonders why you haven’t shown her the report…invited her to the meeting…told her what’s up…smiled on the way to the coffee machine.
And so it goes. Trigger—response. Trigger—response. Trigger—response. All day, every day. Human beings are meaning-making machines. The trouble is we often assign meaning where it doesn’t exist.
Now most of these internal programs—the neural connections and associations we make that give experience meaning—are programs we “wrote” between the ages of zero and six years old. Many of our programs were either provided for us by our parents, or were coded by our very young and inexperienced reaction to what we perceived as threatening people or situations. Even the most wonderful, well-intentioned parents are going to make a few coding errors. I know I have.
Now that we are adults, the question becomes, how can we rewrite our own programs to set the meaning and get the results we want? Further, as leaders, how can we assist others to get the results and experiences they would like? How can we use this knowledge to increase our own and our team’s performance, innovation, and engagement?
In my upcoming blogs you’re going to learn how to deactivate your own and your team members’ fear triggers, and to assign appropriate meaning. You’re going to learn exactly what to do to create a team that acts as a team, one that supports each other to outperform, outsell, and outinnovate the competition. A tribe whose culture you created. A SmartTribe of whom you are justifiably proud.
The Reptile, The Mammal, The Executive
Our brains do an amazing and wonderful job, but they don’t usually like change very much. You may like the idea of change. Heck, parts of you may be very interested in change theory, talking about change, managing change—and especially describing how other people should change. However, actual change involving ourselves is scary to certain parts of our brain. The parts that exist to keep us safe have created elegant patterning based on one-trial learning.
Let’s take a closer look.
Basic Parts of the Brain - Copyright Christine Comaford Assoc 2012
Your brain has three essential parts. The first part—the brain stem—sits at the base of your skull. This part is commonly called the reptilian brain. It’s the oldest and most primitive part of the brain, and it controls balance, temperature regulation, and breathing. It acts out of instinct and is primarily a stimulus-response machine with survival as its focus.
Layered on top of the brain stem is the mammalian brain. The mammalian brain controls and expresses emotion, short-term memory, and the body’s response to danger. The key player here is the limbic system, which is the emotional center of the brain where the fight/flight/freeze response is. Its primary focus is also survival, though it is also the seat of anger, frustration, happiness, and love.
Let’s combine the limbic system with the survival mechanism in the reptilian brain. This creates the powerful combo pack we’ll call the “critter brain,” as my mentor Carl Buchheit of NLP Marin terms it. Once our critter brain has equated a particular phenomenon with safety or with survival, it will continue to carry out that program. And it will do so as long as we are not dead, because it really doesn’t care about our quality of life—it cares about survival. And speaking of staying alive, one key component of staying alive is belonging, or being like the other critters in the environment.
The third part of the brain is the neocortex. This part of the brain is most evolved in human beings, and the area of it we are most concerned with is the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex enables us to plan, to innovate, to solve complex problems, to think abstract thoughts, to have visionary ideas. It allows us to measure the quality of our experience, to compare it to an abstract ideal, and to yearn for change. The prefrontal cortex has enabled us to have a number of advanced behaviors, including social behavior, tool making, language, and higher-level consciousness.
For the purposes of simplicity we’ll distill the above down to two states: the Critter State, where we don’t have access to all parts of our brain and thus are reactive, in fight/flight/freeze, or are running safety programs; and the Smart State, where we have easy access to all of our resources and can respond from choice. (See Figures below.)
Figure 1. Critter State: Limited Access to Resources - Copyright Christine Comaford Assoc 2012
Figure 2. Smart State: Full Access to Resources - Copyright Christine Comaford Assoc 2012
Today, innovation and growth through the next revenue inflection point depends on making sure the Smart State--not the Critter State--is driving management decisions and behavior in relationships. Management methods that rely on fear to enforce compliance keep people in their Critter State, or in old safety and survival patterns, and reduce innovation. This cultural practice of keeping people in their Critter State has grown increasingly obsolete.
In my next blog we’ll explore how to get and keep people in their Smart State.
Christine Comaford combines neuroscience and business strategy to help CEOs achieve rapid growth and create high performance teams. Follow her on twitter: @comaford. Her current NY Times bestselling book is entitled SmartTribes: How Teams Become Brilliant Together.
Join her tribe and get free webinars, neuroscience resources, and more by clicking here.
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3bdff784fa4179e176a84c03491adc7e | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecomaford/2013/10/17/mortgage-leaders-triumph-in-tricky-times-infographic/ | Mortgage Leaders Triumph In Tricky Times [Infographic] | Mortgage Leaders Triumph In Tricky Times [Infographic]
What would you do if 37% of your business evaporated overnight?
Since mid-August, Regional banks and Mortgage originators have been facing a scary near-term prognosis. Scores of banks will likely suffer double-digit declines in mortgage revenue in the second half of 2013, according to Sterne Agee. Mortgage Bankers Association is betting the decline will be 37%.
To make matters worse, the cost of compliance continues to mount every month—add to that declining volumes, excess capacities and more competition than ever and you have a compelling leadership challenge.
How can mortgage leaders triumph in these tricky times?
Image Credit: SLKGlobal
My client SLK Global (@slkglobalsvcs) and I were considering how the mortgage industry has provided a fascinating case study for how leaders adapt in times teetering on crisis. They interviewed some of the top Mortgage industry thought leaders to distill their best practices. Here’s what they are:
1. Boost Quality Control To Handle Compliance And Regulatory Changes
Joseph Panebianco, CEO and President at Annie Mac Mortgage:
Embrace the regulatory changes earlier than later. You might lose some market share initially, but then you will be able to gain that market share back regardless of the interest rate environment.
Take a consultative approach with your borrowers so they understand the many steps that are required to make sure everything is 100% compliant.
Willie Newman , President - Mortgage Division at Cole Taylor Bank:
We need to invest in all areas in risk and compliance. To deal with compliance we are really broadening the awareness about compliance. Every employee of the organization at any level needs to have some knowledge of the regulations or compliance.
Donald Calcaterra, Jr , President at Towne Mortgage Company :
Our chief compliance officer is active in industry, regulatory and legislative circles to ensure our client’s needs are served and changes are implemented before effective dates
2. Monitor And Streamline Profitability With Rising Interest Rates
Roy Jones, CEO at Georgetown Mortgage:
Break down the processing job in several job descriptions. We have divided the processing function into three different jobs to get more efficiency and productivity because we found that processors were multitasking too much.
And we are also working towards the same for our underwriting staff as well. Greater consistency, greater speed and greater accuracy can be achieved by doing this!
Joseph Panebianco, CEO and President at Annie Mac Mortgage:
Rising interest rates are going to have a significant effect on the consumer’s ability to buy. What is more concerning though is the speed and the ferocity at which we have reached the current level of interest rates. When faced with significant and rapid change most people tend to freeze--they won’t act. Whereas the whole organization is looking at exactly the opposite and they need guidance and directions from their leader.
What is the volume goal for this year? is the wrong question. It should be What is your profitability goal for the year? If in our attempt to grow, the marginal loan becomes unprofitable, we simply will not do it.
3. Manage Fixed Costs Efficiently
Eric Bowlby, President at Amerifirst Financial:
As soon as the decline started we began to track our numbers closely for the next 30 days. So we know how volumes are going to go and make appropriate staffing adjustments. We feel that you should let go of anybody that you won’t need 30 days in the future.
Companies that are doing large amount of re-finance business have the tendency to go out of business. We have maintained our focus on the purchase business and so have been relatively less affected.
Roy Jones, CEO at Georgetown Mortgage:
We are constantly reinventing our loan manufacturing process, i.e. getting close to one touch or two touch processes. The goal is that the loan should be in best possible shape before it reaches the underwriter. Then it requires far less examination—and cost—to us.
Because the loan quality is very high, coming in, we are able to deliver more productivity and better better efficiency. 70% of our cost is human resource. So making human resources as productive as possible is the best thing we can do.
Joseph Panebianco, CEO and President at Annie Mac Mortgage:
We reward people very heavily on the upside—and make sure they understand that when the volumes are down they need to shore up and chip in more. We have a variable cost model unlike many of our competitors. So in boom times we pay more, but when volumes are down we end up paying less.
You’ll want to control your marketing costs by calculating your ROI on each channel. Then you can develop a hierarchy of where to spend your capital best. So when you need to cut back, you know that you are cutting back on marginal cost while keeping your best performing marketing channel going.
4. Focus On Customer Acquisition
Stan Middleman CEO at Freedom Mortgage:
Our business in response to rising interest rates will have reduced production. We are attempting to increase market share by competing stronger on price and becoming more efficient in operations to drive down its costs. The net effect is smaller margins. The target though is to get a bigger piece of the shrinking pie.
We have invested in acquiring mortgage servicing rights. In the last year we have expanded our reach to almost 200,000 customers compared to about 100,000 the same time last year. This way we get paid irrespective of how many new clients we create.
We have developed new business lines that allow us to get revenues in less interest-sensitive environments. We are investing in commercial mortgage spaces as well as in specific M&A activity to support our growth plans.
Eric Bowlby President at Amerifirst Financial:
It’s all about the tools you have. You need tools to attract real estate agents. You need tools to attract loan officers. We use CE hours to meet real estate agents. We have created a comprehensive platform where a real estate agent can build a single page website where they can create a webpage for the property they have listed or the listing they wish to win. So they have greater chance to find the buyers since 85% of potential buyers today go to the internet first. We do a lot to help real estate agents and loan officers get more business.
Donald Calcaterra, Jr , President at Towne Mortgage Company:
Regulation is effectively nationalizing the industry. Our challenge is to provide community lending solutions in a regulatory world that believes one size fits all
How is your business doing? Where can you streamline, optimize and add more value?
Join Christine’s tribe for free webinars and resources by clicking here.
Christine Comaford (@comaford) is a neuroscience-based leadership and culture coach supporting clients in remarkable growth. Her current NY Times Bestseller is SmartTribes: How Teams Become Brilliant Together (Portfolio/Penguin).
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f50767421301c0e670c04966518957e0 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecomaford/2013/11/24/get-horizontal-20-more-minutes-boosts-your-brain-power/ | Get Horizontal: 20 More Minutes Sleep Boosts Your Brain Power | Get Horizontal: 20 More Minutes Sleep Boosts Your Brain Power
Image Credit: collegefashion.net
What if 20 more minutes of sleep could boost your work performance 2-3x?
Would you get it?
Everywhere I go people tell me they’re not getting enough sleep. As an executive coach it’s key that I help my clients perform at their peak—sleep deprived or not. Recently I met with Dr. Jessica Payne, Cognitive Neuroscientist & Assistant Professor at Notre Dame. Payne specializes in sleep and how it affects stamina and our ability to perform. Here’s what I learned.
The State of Sleep--Worldwide
The amount of sleep you need is highly personal, and ranges between 4 and 12 hours per night, although the average is 8. Most of us fall asleep within about 20 minutes. During the first part of the nightly sleep cycle is where, we get most of our Slow Wave Sleep, which is deep, physically rejuvenating, and hard to wake up from.
Next we enter Rapid Eye Movement, or REM sleep, which is where we make mental connections, are most creative, and process plus regulate emotions. Those of you that have attended my firm’s trainings will remember our request to review your notes right before bed. Doing so gives your sleeping brain a “project” to work on, and our clients find they retain up to 40% more of our leadership training material when they review right before bed. Why? Because during Slow Wave Sleep you consolidate many of your most important memories, and during REM your brain is almost as active as when you are awake.
REM sleep is the time of night when your Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex, your executive command center is deactivated—meaning you are now wildly creative and open to all possibilities. This fabulous REM state dominates the latter part of your nightly sleep cycle… then you wake up.
Image Credit: blog.lib.umn.edu
We need both SWS and REM for the proverbial “good night’s sleep.” Yet our REM state gets short-changed when we have to wake up too soon—and what I call REM Rip Off occurs. And this, my friends, is where the trouble begins.
What Happens When Your REM is Ripped Off
Here are the signs of REM Rip Off: irritability, excessive focus on the negative/inability to see the positive/glass half empty/general crabbiness and less ability to enjoy life.
Why? Because your Hippocampus and Anterior Cingulate Cortex (part of the Prefrontal Cortex where creativity, planning, problem solving, innovation reside) are more active during REM. These essential parts of your brain put the brakes on, and regulate, emotions. So in REM Rip Off, these parts of the brain can’t do their job very well. The result is your Amygdala becomes overactive (since the emotional brakes aren’t on) and you’re more grumpy, unhappy and prone to only remembering the negative.
A full night’s sleep improves your ability to regulate emotions. Period.
The Solution = Stamina Boosters
Here are three strategies:
1-Get 20 More Minutes Sleep
Payne suggests that adding a mere 20 minutes more sleep per night can boost performance at work 2-3 times. Wow. How can you get 20 more minutes? Go to bed earlier, sleep later, take a 20 minute power nap, or perhaps even use what she calls a “sleep proxy” (mindfulness practice/meditation, reflective walking or another offline period during restful wakefulness). A 10-20 minute nap is tremendously effective too--just be sure to stop at 20 minutes to avoid sliding into Slow Wave Sleep (where you’re in deep sleep and will feel groggy upon waking).
2-Moderate Stress
Chronic stress results in your body cranking out cortisol, which is toxic to brain cells. Excessive stress may also shrink your Hippocampus and make your Amygdala hyperactive (grrrrrr). In escalated stress we focus on negative memories too. One solution is to activate your parasympathetic system with a 5 minute visualization [link to Got Inner Peace blog] or relaxation exercise, short walk, burst of exercise, or breathing exercises. All are likely to build neural tissue.
3-Boost Positive Emotions
More positive emotions will boost your stamina too. Watching funny movies, frequent laughter, doing nice things for others, all help. Here’s a quick way to forge a positive neural pathway around gratitude. Just in time for Thanksgiving, here’s the Gratitude Process we share with our clients:
Close your eyes. Focus on a blessing in your life… something you are thankful for. See an image of this blessing in your mind’s eye. Offer a silent “thank you” to the person or object of your blessing. Relax into the feeling of gratitude. Take a deep breath. Feel more gratitude.
Brain research (from UCLA) shows that six doses of feeling 30 seconds of gratitude daily (a whopping 3 minutes!) will enable your neurons to fire together and wire together around gratitude within a mere 2 weeks. This means you’ll more easily and frequently access the feeling of gratitude.
I did this process for 2 weeks and found I was internally saying “thank you” as I awoke each morning. So if you must be sleep deprived, use one of Payne’s strategies above, and bask in the benefits.
Happy Thanksgiving! Here’s my gift to you: a 6 minute video with a visualization + gratitude process combined. I am grateful to share my life with inspiring leaders like you.
Christine Comaford is a neuroscience-based executive coach who helps leaders navigate growth and change. Learn more from her New York Times Bestseller SmartTribes: How Teams Become Brilliant Together.
Join Christine’s tribe for new strategies, resources and invites to tribe-only webinars.
Want to learn how Christine and her team can help you get remarkable results? Find out here.
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d82bec6960e37227542764509bb01186 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecomaford/2014/05/28/top-10-takeaways-from-economist-cmo-conference/ | Top 10 CMO Insights From The Economist Conference | Top 10 CMO Insights From The Economist Conference
The Economist recently held its annual conference for chief marketing officers — dubbed “The Big Rethink” — at New York’s TimeWarner Center. I couldn’t make it, but my friend Steve O’Keefe of SixEstate did. Thanks to Steve we have his top 10 tweetable moments:
1. “40% of our marketing spend in China is digital.”
– Tim Mahoney, General Motors
When one of the biggest consumer advertisers in the world says his company is going to spend almost half its total marketing budget on digital — in the largest market in the world — it says a lot about the future of global business and digital marketing.
2. “What matters to millennials is what their friends think is cool.”
– Anindita Mukherjee, Frito-Lay North America
Mukherjee had some of the best lines at the conference. Concerning the controversial issue of paying Facebook for promoted posts that push content to your followers, she said, “If you do it right, the juice is worth the squeeze.” She also explained how FritoLay collaborates with Walmart to track promotions, noting that Walmart knows more about FritoLay consumers than FritoLay ever will.
3. “We are quantifying the value of the influencer.”
– Deanie Elsner, Kraft Foods Group
Deanie Elsner, one of the new breed of brainy-friendly-female CMOs, explained how big data analysis supercharged peanut sales for Kraft by refocusing marketing on women instead of men. It also led to marketing Lunchables to adults, tripling sales of that brand in one year.
4. “Interactive fans are more important than avid fans.”
– Simon Wardle, Octagon
“Only 1.8% of U.S. television programming is sports-related,” said Wardle, “but 40% of U.S. social networking postings are sports-related.” According to Wardle, a fan who shares is much more valuable than a fan who only watches. And what is the top content draw for sports fans online? “News, news, news.” What Wardle said applies to almost any field at any time: what your most valuable prospects are looking for is the latest news in their field.
image credit: economist.com
5. “Empowered consumers are in charge now.”
– Mayur Gupta, Kimberly-Clark
Before the conference, The Economist stoked a great deal of discussion with an article citing a Gartner stat that in 2017, CMOs will have a bigger share of the technology budget than CIOs. Gupta put the horse back in front of the cart, saying the whole organization needs to recognize that the customer is in charge now, not the CMO, the CIO, or the CEO. Neil Bedwell at Coca-Cola said much the same thing about marketing: “The days of talking about yourself are over. We’re telling fan stories now.” Michael Brenner at SAP says it’s true in B-to-B too: “Storytelling is the future of marketing — with the customer at the center of the story.”
6. “Customers expect you to know who they are and what they like.”
– Tariq M. Shaukat, Caesars Entertainment
Almost all of Caesars’ regular customers use the entertainment giant’s rewards program. That program captures 80% of all activity by customers. That includes deep data such as what people eat and drink in restaurants and how often they use amenities, along with more basic information about customer wagering, winnings, and losses. Caesars draws the line at storing data that might upset members if known.
7. “We will tell you who your significant other will be.”
– Amit Shah, 1-800-Flowers
Amit Shah was speaking about the future of digital marketing, but even in the present, your florist may know many important details about you and the people around you. With enough data, they really could point you to someone nearby with shared interests.
8. “Consumers are more concerned about the erosion of personal privacy than they are about climate change.”
– Laura Simpson, McCann Truth Central
Simpson stressed the need to compensate consumers for sharing their data. As an example, she said the men and women who spend up to two hours each day uploading data about themselves and their babies to the WebMD Pregnancy App believe they are raising better babies as a result. Consumers are willing to tolerate privacy invasions if it results in better lives.
9. “A human PLUS a computer beats a human OR a computer every time.”
– David Rogers, BRITE Columbia Business School
BRITE Columbia Business School Executive Director David Rogers made the marketers in attendance feel a little better after a day hearing how big data analysis is rendering us obsolete. Among other insights, he saw a “hollowing out” in marketing coinciding with the decline of the middle class: “Advertising production values are either very high or very low.”
10. “It’s not about being perfect — it’s about being the best at being better.”
– Peter McGuinness, Chobani
The last word here goes to Peter McGuinness, rock-star marketing head of yogurt dynamo Chobani. While McGuinness came across as an old-fashioned CMO (smart, male, intimidating), he explained how Chobani’s “How Matters” slogan applies to marketing. It really does matter how you handle your marketing, and the goal really should be continuous improvement — the best at getting better.
How many of these top 10 truths do you apply in your marketing?
Christine Comaford (@comaford) is a former serial entrepreneur, White House advisor and neuroscience-based executive coach that helps leaders build cultures of trust and high performance.
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9ee5b2fb917dacdbf3c279e884f8d00d | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecomaford/2016/05/14/got-millennials-heres-the-culture-they-need/ | Got Millennials? Here's The Culture They Need | Got Millennials? Here's The Culture They Need
Want to attract and keep more millennial talent?
Offering only financial stability won’t work.
Wait a sec—the millennial workforce has the highest rate of unemployment and underemployment in the U.S. What does this mean? We’re missing out on a huge resource of talent. The real shocker? Of the millennials that are employed, only 29% are emotionally engaged at work and love their jobs. Whoa!
Gallery: 10 Powerful Ways To Empower Your Employees 10 images View gallery
Why is this so crucial? Because the sheer number of millennials recently surpassed any other generational group. Both the economy and the workforce are highly dependent on this group. If millennials continue to be emotionally disengaged in their jobs the companies they work for will suffer.
How To Attract Millennials
According to a recent report from Gallup, “Millennials want what previous generations wanted: a life well-lived, good jobs with 30-plus hours of work a week, regular paychecks from employers BUT they also want to be engaged (emotionally and behaviorally), they want high levels of well-being, a purposeful life, active community and social ties. They want to spend money not just on what they need, but also on what they want. Only 29% of employed millennials are engaged at work and half of them say they don’t feel good about the amount of money they have to spend and less than 40% are what Gallup defines as ‘thriving’ in any one aspect of well-being.”
Let’s take a closer look at these engagement numbers.
• 16% of millennials are actively disengaged. These individuals don’t like their jobs and are actively ensuring others don’t either. Even if it’s not their intention, this will damage their company.
• 55% of millennials are not engaged. They are punching in and punching out but they are not fully present while they are at work. Energy and passion are out the window, the company suffers, their customers suffer, and ultimately the economy suffers. Indifference is a company-killer.
How To Retain Millennials
How do we create a culture that engages and compels millennials?
According to Gallup: performance management requires a constant focus on feedback. 44% of those polled are more likely to be engaged when their manager holds regular meetings with them. This means meeting on a regular basis, and offering consistent feedback. Weekly meetings are key, even if short. Clear and actionable feedback is too. They want to matter, and they must experience safety, belonging, mattering and be connected to a purpose. The purpose is what will compel them to perform well and consistently. It’ll also keep them with your company.
Gallup says there are six functional changes (The Big Six) that need to happen in the organizational culture to attract and keep millennial talent.
Gallup
Jim Clifton, Chairman and CEO of Gallup made the following statements. I am adding a few tools that will help you achieve the Big Six in your organization.
1. Millennials don't just work for a paycheck ― they want a purpose. For millennials, work must have meaning. They want to work for organizations with a mission and purpose. Back in the old days, baby boomers didn't necessarily need meaning in our jobs. Many wanted a paycheck ― and their mission and purpose were their families and communities. For millennials, compensation is important and must be fair, but it's no longer the driver. The emphasis for this generation has switched from paycheck to purpose ― and so must your culture. [Read: Leadership Lacking? 3 Fast Fixes To Boost Brains (And Hearts)]
2. Millennials are not pursuing job satisfaction ― they are pursuing development. Most millennials don't care about the bells and whistles found in many workplaces today ― the ping pong tables, fancy latte machines and free food that companies offer to try to create job satisfaction. Giving out toys and entitlements is a leadership mistake, and worse, it's condescending. Purpose and development drive this generation. [Read: The Evolution Of Employee Motivation Methods: Carrots, Sticks And Being Nice Aren't Sustainable]
3. Millennials don't want bosses ― they want coaches. The role of an old-style boss is command and control. Millennials care about having managers who can coach them, who value them as both people and employees, and who help them understand and build their strengths. [Read: How CEO Lunches Increase Employee Engagement]
4. Millennials don't want annual reviews ― they want ongoing conversations. The way millennials communicate ― texting, tweeting, Skype, etc. ― is now real-time and continuous. This dramatically affects the workplace because millennials are accustomed to constant communication and feedback. Annual reviews no longer work. [Read: How Great Leaders Build Trust With 4 Brain-Based Tools]
5. Millennials don't want to fix their weaknesses ― they want to develop their strengths. Gallup has discovered that weaknesses never develop into strengths, while strengths develop infinitely. This is arguably the biggest discovery Gallup or any organization has ever made on the subject of human development in the workplace. Organizations shouldn't ignore weaknesses. Rather, they should minimize weaknesses and maximize strengths. We are recommending our client partners transition to strengths-based cultures, or they won't attract and keep their stars. [Read: Discover, Engage And Sustain Workplace Talent In Three Simple Steps]
6. It's not just my job ― it's my life. One of Gallup's most important discoveries is that everyone in the world wants a good job. This is especially true for millennials. More so than ever in the history of corporate culture, employees are asking, "Does this organization value my strengths and my contribution? Does this organization give me the chance to do what I do best every day?" Because for millennials, a job is no longer just a job ― it's their life as well.
Take the time to implement the strategies listed above and let’s make work a whole lot more meaningful for this untapped talent pool.
Christine Comaford is the author of SmartTribes: How Teams Become Brilliant Together.
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0171f71c8dcd5eb8edc9435f451b07bf | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecomaford/2016/08/14/how-to-get-accountability-in-the-dna-of-your-team/ | 4 Brain-Based Ways To Improve Team Performance | 4 Brain-Based Ways To Improve Team Performance
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A well-orchestrated team depends on everyone doing their job, at the time they are supposed to do it, yielding the results they are supposed to yield. Everyone likes to think they are accountable. Are they? As a leader, you need to ensure that your team actually is accountable.
What does accountability mean to you? Does it mean that your word is your bond? That you can be relied on to follow through? That you’ll set expectations and ensure you’ll honor them? Are your team members taking on too little or too much accountability? How can we be more accountable and inspire our teams to be so?
Gallery: 10 Tips For Getting Your Colleagues To Work With You Better 11 images View gallery
Being accountable is essential to lead, to feel influential, and to help your team feel you are worthy of trust. When we’re accountable, we feel amped because we’re getting high-value results, and our team feels we’re transparent and trustworthy. So why is being accountable sometimes hard? Because consistently giving and keeping our word requires us to be truly considerate – of both ourselves and others. Accountability requires us to buck up and follow through even when we don’t feel like it. It also requires us to value ourselves and others.
How To Get Accountability In The DNA Of Your Team
We have to build appropriate “containers.” These containers are the structures that enable a group of people to achieve real accountability across the board, pulling together like a synchronized rowing team. There are four key practices that will help you do that:
1. Utilize the accountability equation.
2. Create clear accountability structures with Needle Movers.
3. Track results via weekly reporting.
4. Reward high performance and provide consequences for low performance.
Making these practices explicit keeps team members in their Smart State. They know what they have to do and how to do it. These practices not only foster safety, belonging, and mattering, they also help create two tasty brain chemicals: dopamine, which is triggered by the desire for reward; and oxytocin, which is triggered by the feeling of connection. Both are essential in fostering a SmartTribe.
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Utilize The Accountability Equation
Most of us encourage accountability by implementing rewards and consequences as part of our culture, this is highly effective. What helps even more is if accountability is one of your core values, and becomes ingrained and celebrated in your culture. Here’s my recipe for accountability:
Assigner’s Clear Expectation
+ Owner’s Agreement
+ Personal Rewards and Consequences
= Self-Ownership and High Accountability
Accountability starts at the top, and this is where many companies struggle.
When the leader takes responsibility for unspoken expectations, team members will mirror their boss. The flip side is true too, in low accountability cultures we see the trouble begins at the top. The team is simply modeling the low accountability that the executive team is displaying.
When accountability structures are used across a company, you’ll find people perform at much higher levels. If a bar isn’t set, people don’t know how high they can jump.
Where can your accountability be strengthened?
Christine Comaford is the author of SmartTribes: How Teams Become Brilliant Together.
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f25ac5b865baec157cd04426a2c8726f | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecomaford/2017/02/19/organizational-distrust-is-rampant-why-leaders-should-be-worried/ | Organizational Distrust Is Rampant: Why Leaders Should Be Worried | Organizational Distrust Is Rampant: Why Leaders Should Be Worried
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Distrust is rampant. It’s worldwide. It’s pervasive across all types of organizations in the business world. Even though the trust of CEOs is at an all-time low, we can help heal the distrust that may exist in your organization and boost your trust-factor among your tribe.
Are you ready?
You Can’t Buy Trust
As humans, we are wired to trust, we want to trust and have a connection with our tribe. Organizations can’t "buy" the trust of their team, but they can create and foster it through increasing engagement and avoiding common pitfalls.
A tribe that continuously activates the reward network -- smart tribe -- is more productive and effective.
via UCLA
A tribe that continuously activates the pain network suffers from three common leadership pitfalls:
• Pitfall #1: Asking for feedback yet not acting on it
• Pitfall #2: Unemotional or not compelling mission, vision values
• Pitfall #3: Ineffective delegation
When we activate the reward network, an organization inspires intrinsic motivation in their tribe. This intrinsic motivation creates an environment where your talent wants to rise up, be accountable, honor the organization’s mission, vision, values and deliver consistent results.
Thanks to Seth Godin, here is a clearly laid out map to ensure you’re building trust most effectively. While this applies to marketing your brand, you are not only marketing your brand to your customers, but you are marketing your brand to your potential and existing talent within your tribe. Potential talent interacts with your brand far before the interview ever takes place. Once hired, talent will continue to interact with your brand ongoing.
Here are Seth's nine factors/aspects of building a powerful brand that inspires trust:
• Word Of Mouth: If I’ve heard good things about you, I am more inclined to trust you.
• Direct Interaction: Have you already interacted with me?
• Tone Of Voice: Does the tone build the relationship and foster Safety, Belonging, Mattering?
• Offer: What’s in it for me to listen to what you have to say? Do I gain more if I listen with an engaged and sympathetic ear?
• Size Of Leap: What are you asking me to do? How big is it?
• Tribal Affiliation: Are you one of us? Am I one of you?
• Perception Of Transparency: When I can understand your intention, I’m more inclined to trust you.
• Longevity: How long have you been showing up? How do you consistently treat your tribe?
• Mass Acceptance: When I hear about you from other tribe members, what are they saying? Is what they are saying, positive or negative, based in truth (perceived or real)?
As an organization and as a leader, you will be judged. Why not ensure that you are judged in the best possible light?
Trust Drives Talent
Accountability is deeply tied to promises and trust. Safety, belonging, and mattering are quickly damaged when accountability is dropped. In previous blogs, I have discussed how as leaders, it’s key when administering consequences to determine if accountability is being dropped because the person is in their Critter State and is stuck, or if they are intentionally uncooperative.
In my experience, trust is broken in three levels: capability, commitment and character. The same applies to how trust is broken and egos are triggered from the perception of your tribe.
• Capability: Is the organization truly capable of doing what was promised? Capability breaches of trust are the easiest to fix if a company moves swiftly and is transparent.
• Commitment: Is the organization committed to following through on what was promised? Commitment breaches can be tricky. When an organization repeatedly drops commitments, we must find out what the underlying cause is. This can be achieved through leaders working with an executive coach and discovering/determining what they truly want to achieve using the Outcome Frame. This can also be achieved by listening to the feedback from the tribe.
• Character: If an organization keeps making promises and breaking them, who are they, really? An empowered and engaged tribe wants to be part of an organization they can count on. Character breaches are the hardest to fix since the tribe now doubts what the organization totally stands for.
Breaches in capability, commitment and character can take months or even years of demonstrating consistency to win back trust. The organizations that I’ve worked with typically see positive results begin within 6-18 months, depending on the level of Critter State among their team and the severity of the breach.
Trust Drives ROI
According to Paul J. Zak, founding director for the Center of Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University, “In its 2016 global CEO survey, PwC reported that 55% of CEOs think that a lack of trust is a threat to their organization’s growth. But most have done little to increase trust, mainly because they aren’t sure where to start.”
Compared with people at low-trust companies, people at high-trust companies report:
• 74% less stress
• 106% more energy at work
• 50% higher productivity
• 13% fewer sick days
• 76% more engagement
• 29% more satisfaction with their lives
• 40% less burnout
Two practices to increase trust:
1. Look at Seth’s nine criteria above and scale yourself 1-5 (5 being the highest)and this will show you where you need to work.
2. Consider your organization's capability, commitment, and character. How are you doing?
Christine Comaford is an executive coach and the author of SmartTribes: How Teams Become Brilliant Together.
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b310880d35acbe99b0f61e95dc5075fe | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecomaford/2017/07/08/the-surprising-link-between-customer-experience-and-employee-engagement/ | The Surprising Link Between Customer Experience And Employee Engagement | The Surprising Link Between Customer Experience And Employee Engagement
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How would your customers describe their experience with your firm?
Please take a moment and rate the Customer Experience (CX) that you believe you deliver:
• Better than all companies in any industry
• The best in our industry
• Considerably above average in our industry
• Slightly above average in our industry
• Average for our industry
• Slightly below average in our industry
• Considerably below average in our industry
Now, what CX would you like to deliver within 3 years?
CX in 3 years Temkin Group Q1 2017 CX Management Survey
Data: Q1 2017 CX Management Survey of 180 organizations with $500 million or more in annual revenues
According to Aimee Lucas, Customer Experience Transformist and VP at Temkin Group, 55% of all the companies surveyed want to be best in their industry or better than all companies in any industry when it comes to the level of CX they deliver they deliver within three years. That’s a big crowd wanting to get into a small, small slot.
As Aimee and I caught up at the recent North American Employee Engagement Awards it became crystal clear: it’s time to stress the connection between Employee Engagement (EE) and CX. Now.
Customers today have a louder voice (think Yelp and other rating sites), have access to more information on you and your competitors, and as a result expect an increasingly awesome experience. And they should.
Meanwhile your competitors are launching new products and services faster than ever before, and are consistently raising the bar on CX. And they should.
So what’s an organization to do?
Arm yourself with these 3 CX-Boosting Strategies!
3 CX-Boosting Strategies
1) Become A CX Leader — By Focusing First On Employees
CX leaders (companies whose CX is significantly better than their competitors) have more engaged employees. Here’s what Temkin Group found:
CX Leaders Temkin Group Employee Engagement Benchmark Study, 2017
Base: 5,552 U.S. consumers employed in for-profit organizations
How exactly does engagement work? What happens in the brain when we are engaged?
Engagement comes from feeling good, from passion for the company, from meaningful work, from attaching part of one’s identity with their job. And this comes down to some neurotransmitters and a hormone. As leaders when we intentionally help the brains of our employees to generate dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin we create good feelings for the organization. Dopamine (anticipation of reward) and serotonin (feeling good, well-being) and oxytocin (bonding, feeling connected to others) can be created via a number of programs in your Cultural GAME Plan.
So how do you become a CX leader and get engaged employees? First, the CEO and all key leaders (especially Sales, Client Care, Operations, Marketing) need to buy in. Next, this is where HR comes in…
2) Get HR To Connect EE And CX
HR owns the cultural programs, so it’s key that they are first looped into Employee Engagement (EE) so they can help support CX. First a strong mission, vision, values sets the tone for your tribal purpose and code of conduct (oxytocin). Next, acknowledging employees for being models of your values creates social validation (dopamine and serotonin). There are many more ways that you can read about in my many blogs on employee engagement and in #3 below.
Next, when HR runs regular SBM Indexes, you can easily diagnose and cure and engagement dis-eases so you can continuously raise your engagement bar.
To engaged employees the organization’s success is personal. It matters, it’s a reflection of them and what they believe in, who they are, how they show up in the world.
According to Temkin Group’s research when HR is significantly involved in CX the organization is 50% more likely to be a CX leader. Wow.
Is HR involved in CX at your organization?
CX Rising Temkin Group 2016 HR Professionals Survey
Which brings us to the next item to check on our list, specifics for creating EE and CX.
3) Clarify Exactly How/Where HR Can Support EE And CX
Here are some ways that HR can forge the EE-CX link…
• Employee communications – rich in safety, belonging, mattering and boosting positive feelings
• Employee training & new hire onboarding – see my blog on how to ensure key emotional touchpoints in the onboarding process
• Performance motivation – learn how to create intrinsic motivation in this blog
• Awards, celebrations, incentives – learn how to celebrate and incent in these blogs
• Employee listening programs – learn how to be a better listener in this blog
• Middle manager engagement efforts – learn how to engage leaders and the cost of low leader engagement in this blog
• Recruiting & hiring processes – learn the latest way to recruit with self-revealing questions here
All of the above examples and blogs will help you keep the brains of your employees in their Smart State, which will in turn help your customers spend more time there too! Smart State = Engaged, Aligned, Tribal, Together.
Has your organization forged the link between EE and CX? Try out the above tools and let us know how it goes.
Christine Comaford is a leadership and culture coach and the author of SmartTribes: How Teams Become Brilliant Together.
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2df551595ce979a9c51a8101288957c7 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecomaford/2017/09/16/the-five-factors-of-optimal-teams-and-where-to-focus-now/ | Five Ways To Get Optimal Outcomes From Your Team | Five Ways To Get Optimal Outcomes From Your Team
What makes a team optimal?
Alignment, communication, collaboration, energy management, leverage, trust, and what else?
Google did some comprehensive multi-year research on this topic. I’ll refer to it below and map it to my work during the past 30 years in the areas of safety, belonging and mattering.
I’ve found it all comes back to safety, belonging and mattering, no matter what structure you want to wrap around the idea of optimal teaming. Let’s look at what Google learned in its extensive research on the topic.
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Over the course of two years (ending in November 2015), Google conducted more tahn 200 interviews where it assessed more than 250 attributes of what makes an optimal team. The findings from the 180 teams studied were surprising.
While they had hoped to find a recipe for an optimal team (for instance, take one Ivy League MBA, one extrovert, one expert engineer), Google actually found that who was on the team mattered far less than how team members interacted, structured their work, experienced their contributions. The answer was in behavior and emotional resilience. The results echoed some of what Carnegie Mellon researchers found back in 2010 with their collective intelligence work.
They learned that five key dynamics resulted in optimal teams:
1. Psychological safety: Can we take risks on this team without feeling insecure or embarrassed?
2. Dependability: Can we count on each other to do high-quality work on time?
3. Structure & clarity: Are goals, roles, and execution plans on our team clear?
4. Meaning of work: Are we working on something that is personally important for each of us?
5. Impact of work: Do we fundamentally believe that the work we’re doing matters?
Five Factors of an Optimal Team per Google https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/five-keys-to-a-successful-google-team
Google found that psychological safety was by far the most important dynamic. Without this people don’t feel comfortable speaking up, asking questions, checking in. There’s too much risk of being labeled as “out of it” or “clueless.” All humans want to belong to a group, and we’ll take tremendous risks (such as not speaking out even if we feel it’s very important) if we feel we may become an outcast, lose status in our tribe or be ostracized somehow.
Googlers now use a tool they call gTeams. It’s a 10-minute check-in on the five dynamics. A modified check-in is below, one that our clients find works very well. During the past year more than 3,000 Googlers across 300 teams have used gTeams and focused on the fie factors above. They often will kick off team meetings with each team member sharing a risk they took in the past week. The net is that they’ve seen psychological safety ratings increase by 6% and structure/clarity increase by 10%. But the best part is the increased connection in the team due to increased communication.
Rate Your Team Per Google’s Five Dynamics
Consider the five factors from Google:
• Psychological Safety
• Dependability
• Structure & Clarity
• Meaning of Work
• Impact of Work
On a scale of 1-5 where 5 is excellent, rate your experience of each factor in your team. Now total up your score. Here’s our rating format. If your total score is:
Up to 10: High Risk. There’s a lot of work to do. Use the table below to map to safety, belonging, mattering. Get a neuroscience-based coach, and get to work healing your culture.
11-18: Risky. Your team is not performing nearly as well as it could. Let’s get everyone more connected and collaborative. Time for team training and coaching.
19-25: Solid. Congrats! You’re on a high-performing team. Time to raise the bar!
Below is a shortcut to help you figure out where to focus, how to get better, and a way to talk about this concept with your teammates in a structured way.
Let’s now map frameworks:
Safety, Belonging, Mattering Mapping www.smarttribesinstitute.com
Easy, yes? Everything basically maps to safety, belonging and mattering. All other models simply help you implement programs to deliver these three core human needs.
See how this model helps your team!
Christine Comaford is a leadership and culture coach and the author of SmartTribes: How Teams Become Brilliant Together.
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1dd047f1848606d7988715cdad35926c | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecomaford/2018/08/04/the-game-plan-for-an-engaged-company-culture/ | Want To Fix Your Company Culture? Get A GAME Plan | Want To Fix Your Company Culture? Get A GAME Plan
Are you helping your team build trust and increase emotional agility?
All leaders need a GAME plan to build sustainable tribal agility. But you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. I’ll provide a template in a moment!
Shutterstock
What Is A GAME Plan?
A Cultural GAME Plan provides cultural rituals so a person knows how to stay in the tribe (be safe and belong) and gain status (matter) in each of these four key areas. It not only establishes trust at the cultural level but it also supports a fulfilling work experience, which will yield the happiest and most committed, productive, loyal, long-term, constantly evolving emotionally agile team members. You deserve this. So do they.
GAME stands for the following:
Growth: How are you helping your team to aspire to greater knowledge and capabilities? Appreciation: How are helping your team to feel appreciated and valued? Measurement: How are you ensuring that your team performs and understands your expectations? Engagement: How are you helping keep everyone’s heart and mind focused on how much they love your organization?
Your GAME Plan Recipe
1. Do an SBM Index engagement survey to find what your tribe needs.
2. Create your GAME Plan based on your SBM Index findings. Your Cultural GAME Plan needs to encompass safety, belonging, and mattering throughout the entire employee experience (EX), which means you’ll want to include recruiting and onboarding, performance motivation, and ongoing talent optimization. This is how so many of my clients earn Best Places to Work awards—which make a huge difference in recruiting, retention, performance, and employee happiness overall.
Create an engaged culture with a GAME Plan. SmartTribes Institute
What you include in your plan will be customized to your needs, but here are some examples of how to increase SBM through specific structures, tools, and rituals for growth, appreciation, measurement, and engagement. Note how each part of the plan maps to SBM Index results (S for safety, B for belonging, and M for mattering):
Growth: How are you helping your team aspire to greater knowledge and capabilities?
Individual Development Plans (S, B, M) Leadership Lunches (B) Annual (Organization-wide) Learning and Development Plans (S, B, M) Feedback Frames (S, B, M) [Cindy—need to link to recent feedback blog] Turnaround Processes (S, B, M)
Appreciation: How are you helping your team feel appreciated and valued?
High Fives (M, B) Rock Star of the Month [M, B] Weekly Wins (S, B, M) Friday Toasts (M, B) Merit Money and/or peer-based bonus programs (B, M)
Measurement: How are you ensuring that your team performs and understands your expectations?
Accountability Structures (S, B, M) Weekly Status (S, M) Dashboards (S, B, M) Performance Self-Evaluations (S, B, M) Engagement Surveys (such as the SBM Index) (S, B, M)
Engagement: How are you helping keep everyone’s heart and mind focused on how much they love your organization?
Engaging mission, vision, and values statements (S, B, M) Impact Descriptions (S, B, M) Coffee with the CEO” program (B, M) Organization-wide contests (M, B) Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Structures (S, B) Optimal recruiting processes (to ensure value alignment) (B) Optimal onboarding processes (S, B, M) Visual, auditory, and kinesthetic goals (goals you show that people are progressing toward V, talk about A, and anchor in an activity K) (S, B, M)
3. Implement your GAME Plan on a monthly basis. After the initial programs have been in place for six to nine months, complete a new SBM Index to assess results. A GAME Plan will span many months or even years as an organization rolls out relevant programs.
The table below shows the first month’s programs for a client’s GAME Plan based on their SBM Index results.
What Why (Details) Benefits Owner Budget Create Culture Team Cross-functional group of 5 people to be sounding board and support and to roll out culture programs. Have internal champions, and avoid having programs look like they are “HR sanctioned.” Susanna NA Draft engaging mission, vision, and values Understand why we’re here, where we are going together, and what our tribal behavior code is. Increased retention, engagement, intrinsic motivation, and safety, belonging, and mattering (SBM). Tyrone NA Create High Five Program, Version 1 Anyone can appreciate or acknowledge someone across the organization for modeling our values. Start with flip charts in the kitchen, then we can get techy later. More belonging and mattering, values embraced more quickly. Generates good feelings about each other and organization overall. Susanna Need SharePoint for Version 2 Weekly Wins Celebrate the little good things that happen weekly. Provide format for leaders to use with their teams. Submissions due to leaders by 5 p.m. Thursday. Leaders’ and talent’s rollouts and e-mails sent out each Friday by 2 p.m. Increased safety, belonging, and mattering. Susanna NA, but may use Slack in the future Accountability Structures, Decision Spaces, and Weekly Status reports Gain clarity on priorities and performance expectations. Gain visibility on dependencies and contingencies across departments. Start with Google Sheets. Better decision- making. Everyone knows what they own and when it’s due. Jean-Claude NA, but may research software later
Note that what the organization craved most overall was belonging, so we put cultural rituals in place first to create connection and tribe. In the following months we would address safety and mattering as the experience of belonging was strengthened. In addition to the initial programs, we coached the investments leader to bring more safety to his team.
4. As you continue to implement your plan, you’ll enjoy increasing amounts of the benefits our clients love:
Increased employee retention by more than 90% Increased profit per employee by over 22% Increased performance by 35% to 50% Increased emotional engagement, agility, and morale by 67% to 100% Decreased time to recruit for open positions by more than 50%
The Net-Net:
A Cultural GAME Plan helps to foster a fulfilling work experience , which will yield the happiest and most committed, productive, loyal, long-term, constantly evolving, and emotionally agile team members. They will say, “I love my job, I trust my leader, and I’m ready to rock today!” This is true emotional agility and engagement.
Christine Comaford is a leadership and culture coach who helps businesses achieve growth. Learn more at SmartTribes Institute and see Power Your Tribe: Create Resilient Teams in Turbulent Times and SmartTribes: How Teams Become Brilliant Together.
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bff9963156b6d2d85d65de29dddccaf1 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecomaford/2019/07/14/the-neuroscience-of-motivation-why-we-do-what-we-do-infographics/?sh=658258c967ab | The Neuroscience of Motivation: Why We Do What We Do [Infographics] | The Neuroscience of Motivation: Why We Do What We Do [Infographics]
What creates passion, loyalty, drive, peak performance and even love for one’s organization? Motivation.
With a clear vision of success, available resources, who they can get mentoring with, you have a motivated employee.
motivated worker unsplash
What creates passion, loyalty, drive, peak performance and even love for one’s organization?
Motivation.
And what creates motivation?
Well, it’s not a quick answer. In this blog, you’ll learn how to unpack the motivators beneath human behavior, to understand why we do what we do, and how to offer alternative behaviors that feel even better than the behaviors a person is currently choosing.
Before we get into tools, here’s a quick refresher on emotional intelligence. This is key because most people could use some work on one--or both--of the below paths.
EQ Chart: SmartTribes SmartTribes Institute
For example, if a person isn’t very self-aware they may not be receptive to participating in using the below tools—you’ll need to use them on your own, then over time invite them in. If a person isn’t very socially aware, they may struggle with reading social cues or may be too wrapped up in their own experience to notice the impact their behavior has on others. So again, you’ll use the below tools on your own initially.
But first, let’s look at some research.
What Kills Motivation
Richard Clark of USC Center for Cognitive Thinking recently did some research on motivation. Here’s a high level of his findings, and I’ll help you implement them with tools.
The net-net is people lose motivation when they fall into what Clark calls motivation traps. They are:
1) Values Mismatch: “I don’t care enough to do this” – if the project isn’t tied to something that the person values, they won’t be motivated to do it. Key is to find out what they value (hopefully your projects can be tied to your organization’s emotionally engaging core values that everyone is inspired by!), ensure the project is interesting, help them expand their identity via the project and check in on what they are believing about it.
SmartTribes Institute SmartTribes Institute
Humans experience change in the above 6 “levels”. Might your Environment be affecting their motivation? It is conducive to collaboration and communication, as well as bonding and connection? How are the Behaviors of others: are they helpful, supportive, goal-oriented? Do they have the Capabilities, the skills, and tools they need? I’ll jump next to Core, because if the organization’s purpose isn’t compelling you’ll want to tune it up. In my coaching work, I’ve helped hundreds of organizations create an emotionally engaging mission/purpose and vision in even the most challenging industries. Identity and Beliefs are deeply connected to Core.
2) Lack of Self-Efficacy: “I don’t think I’m able to do this” – If an employee doesn’t feel they have the capability (either skill set or available time) they will lose motivation. Often confidence is the key factor here, and clarity on the project will help a lot. With a clear spec as to what success will look like, what resources the person has access to, who they can get mentoring/have check-ins with, you can often move past this de-motivator. Also making priorities and energy allocation clear with a High Value/Low-Value process will help a great deal. These tools will help:
HVA (High Value Activities) = tasks you are energized by, tap into your strengths, may be challenging but feel good to do, are how you add the most leverage to the company LVA (Low Value Activities) = tasks you know you should ditch, delegate, defer as they don’t bring great value to your organization (and they are draining, boring, something you’re not good at) or tasks you must do but need to move through them effectively Notice the total for both columns equals 100% (this represents their time at work).
SmartTribes Institute SmartTribes Institute
Then help the person to prioritize or ditch, delegate, defer or reframe tasks/projects to get them re-motivated.
Next, you may have some identity work to do. Again, go back to the Logical Levels graphic and note in our book Power Your Tribe we unpack identity in great detail. See number 4 below for another tool to help here.
3) Disruptive Emotions: “I’m too upset to do this” – This is where emotional resilience comes in. Since humans are highly emotional beings it’s essential that we all become more aware of our own and the emotions of others. If someone is snared by anxiety or depression or even good old fight/flight/freeze, it’s essential that we use these tools:
Emotion Wheel – find out how they’re feeling
Emotion Wheel SmartTribes Institute
Meta Model – ask “what specifically is [the emotion they named] about this?”
Outcome Frame – and now ask them what they’d like, and if a lengthy Outcome Frame is inappropriate or would take too long (you’ll need 15 mins), do some quick Reframing.
The goal is to help the person get back into their Smart State so they have more behavioral choice and emotional resilience.
4) Attribution Errors: “I don’t know what went wrong with this” – When something goes wrong and we can’t figure out why it’s deeply unsettling. This is where Quarterly or Monthly Business Reviews, project post mortems, and feedback help us understand the people, process, tools challenges that may have occurred. Also when we feel we can’t complete a task or succeed, due to an outside force. This is when it’s key to unpack what the person is believing (there we go again with beliefs!) so we can help the person get back in motion. I find attribution errors often are connected to Organismic Rights.
Here’s a quick summary:
We all have 5 basic rights as human beings:
1-The Right to Exist
2-The Right to Have Needs
3-The Right to Take Action
4-The Right to Have Consequences for Our Actions
5-The Right to Love and Be Loved
For an infographic on Org Rights, click here STI Organismic Rights. For a blog, click here to learn more.
Please start back here and all will be good:
Once we understand which Organismic Right(s) the person is struggling with, we can help them increase it to build more confidence in themselves, to feel better, to have more self-awareness and self-compassion.
Here’s a quick summary and click on my blog on this topic if you want to learn more: STI Organismic Rights
Once we understand which Organismic Right(s) the person is struggling with, we can help them increase it to build more confidence in themselves, to feel better, to have more self-awareness and self-compassion.
The Net-Net:
Clark found there are 4 “Motivation Traps” in the workplace The great news is there are brain-based tools that will help you and your team get out of these traps Use the above tools to re-boot motivation for yourself and others Key to helping someone exit these traps is to understand their emotional experience and beliefs
What will you do to motivate someone today?
Christine Comaford is a leadership and culture coach who helps businesses achieve growth. Learn more at SmartTribes Institute and see Power Your Tribe: Create Resilient Teams in Turbulent Times and SmartTribes: How Teams Become Brilliant Together.
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489b040e549112d5efa446b31d63935a | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecomaford/2020/01/02/power-of-reframing/ | Access The Power Of Reframing In Your Own Life | Access The Power Of Reframing In Your Own Life
Photo by Charles on Unsplash Photo by Charles on Unsplash
Many of us enter a new year with a sense of desire for change. We want things to feel different, and we set resolutions, intentions, or goals in order to make it happen. That’s all well and good, but no change will truly take hold unless we take a good hard look at the narratives we believe (and repeatedly reinforce in our minds), about the world, ourselves, and other people.
After all, the reality we live is completely shaped by the words, or stories, that we create.
In both your personal life, and in your role as a leader or business-person, you can use reframing to finally create the reality you desire.
What is reframing?
When we talk about reframing, we’re specifically referencing the unique way that each person views their world, and how that can be changed. This viewpoint includes each lived experience, as well as more intangible things: ideas, concepts, emotions, and more.
Each of those elements is a key piece of the reality that you personally live each and every day. And according to the work being done with reframing, you can re-examine each of those elements and literally reframe them to create a new reality!
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Ideally, you’ll take the time to consider positive, useful alternatives to your current reality, then use reframing to bring them in to being!
Too good to be true?
Try thinking of reframing as seeing the world (or a specific situation) through a different pair of glasses.
In the same way that simply changing the tint on your sunglasses can flood you with more light, leave you in the shadows, or give everything a rosy hue, reframing works by helping you see the world in a new way.
As I had shared on my website, “Reframing, mentally and linguistically, does the same thing. It changes the story you tell yourself about something.”
If it sounds powerful, that’s because it is! Rather than continuing to live the same old storyline again and again, reframing insists that you have the power to begin reshaping your reality.
Changing Your Business Story
Scholars from Harvard have done the research needed to prove that we truly do have the capacity to shape our worlds with the stories we tell ourselves.
Clearly, this is a power that can be used for better or worse. If you’ve ever felt trapped, unhappy, stuck, or even angry about your life, it’s quite likely that stories you’ve created for yourself are playing into that.
Rather than remain there, you can actually reframe those stories and start to see changes. And these shifts don’t have to be only in your personal life!
For example, imagine a job applicant who is 50+. They have experience, skills, and desire a new job — but they also know that the market is saturated, their age isn’t always seen in a positive light, and competition is stiff.
It would be easy for them to start telling themselves that there is no place for them in the job market, that they’ll never be given the role they desire, and that they’ve somehow passed their prime.
And sure, they could choose to believe that.
But what about a reframe?
Couldn’t they just as easily choose to recognize that they have knowledge, experience, and depth that makes them a stand-out candidate?
They could put together their resume in such a way that they highlight their vast store of related experience, and reveal why they are extremely qualified for any position they desire. They could even recognize that their ability to negotiate, bargain, and draw from comparative experiences has been honed in ways that a younger job applicant couldn’t yet dream of.
The vital piece here is that nothing changed...and yet everything changed.
Rather than create a story of defeat, despair, and discouragement, with a bit of a reframe they were empowered, excited, and enthusiastic about taking on their job search.
This can be done effectively by using tools like the Distorted Thinking Decoder, or Neuro Storytelling.
Changing Your Personal Story
In the same way that a job applicant or employee can tell themselves negative stories pertaining to their professional life, we can create personal narratives that leave us feeling disempowered and fragile.
People who do this tend to feel disengaged, apathetic, or frustrated with the way their life is. Little do they know that they have the power to reframe and create change!
For example, consider a young person that grew up poor in a small, rural town. They eventually realize that they didn’t have the same access to cultural experiences, travel, education, or personal connections that many of their similar-aged peers have had.
They feel isolated, and constantly have a sense of having “missed out” on important things.
Here’s the Reframe
This person could choose to release all the ideas about everything they missed out on or didn’t have. After all, they have strong, enduring relationships with their family. They got to exercise their imagination in wildly creative ways, were mostly unhindered by the rules and regulations of city life, and can now revel in the chance to explore a world they used to only dream of.
It’s the same childhood, but the reframe strives to recognize the power, joy, and strength that were created from the experience, rather than mull over all the ways that it was less than ideal.
With just a bit of a shift, both of our case studies were able to move into a world of empowerment and strength. By choosing to recognize truths beyond their initial stories, they changed their lives for the better.
When should you reframe?
Although you may leap to reframing some of the bigger things in life (which you can definitely do!), you can also choose to practice reframing throughout the regular bumps you face in everyday life.
For example, imagine your child “helped” out this morning by making their own breakfast. They’re cheerfully munching away, with apparently no concerns about the cereal that’s now all over the counter and floor.
Do you roll your eyes, emit a loud sigh, and start chastising them for creating such a mess that now has to be cleaned up (most likely by you)? Well, that is one option. But as someone who has the power to reframe any situation, you recognize that that is all it is: one option.
Here are two others -
Context Reframing
This type of reframing asks you to find ways that any behavior or incidence could be considered helpful or positive. By changing the context, we “change glasses” and have an opportunity to see things through a new lens.
In the case of the spilled cereal, we might use context reframing to say “I am incredibly privileged to have a healthy child who is growing into an independent young adult.” or even “Our family is so fortunate to be so well fed that we don’t have to worry if a bit of cereal goes to waste.”
Rather than focusing on the inconvenience that’s been created, you take a moment to realize the privilege inherent in being able to experience that annoyance in the first place.
Content Reframing
In this type of reframing, you actually alter the content, or meaning, of the behavior itself. If we consider our cereal again, a content reframe might have us saying something like, “That spilled cereal isn’t about you being clumsy or taking me for granted. I recognize that you’re actually trying to save me time and energy by making your own breakfast.”
Here, you realize that it’s just as possible for the reframed version of this story to be the truth, and you can decide if you’d rather feel annoyed and inconvenienced, or proud and hopeful for the growth that is to come. It’s your choice!
STI-Reframing SmartTribes Institute
The Net-Net
You have the power to change any story that you tell yourself about your own life and experiences; as the story changes, so does its meaning You can create new meaning quite rapidly when you use reframing regularly Shifting your perception of yourself, as well as the world around you and the people in your life, is practical
Enjoy this article? You can listen to more like on the podcast, Crack the Behavior Code.
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c1bf8b7380bab344db4cb4be9dd967eb | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecomaford/2021/04/14/want-more-meaning-at-work-do-these-3-things/ | Want More Meaning At Work? Do These 3 Things | Want More Meaning At Work? Do These 3 Things
Now more than ever we want to find and feel meaning in our work. And a cornerstone of meaningful work is who we are together, how we show up for one another, how our environment supports this, and how we know we are safe, belong, and matter at work. These prerequisites enable us to expand our identities via our work, and to become a bigger version of ourselves as a result.
Does your work environment enable this?
Here are 3 ways to create more meaning in your workplace now.
1-Your Leaders Create Meaning
It all starts with our leader, with the culture they put in place and continue reinforcing. Let’s unpack this. When we experience trust in our leader Serotonin and Dopamine are released, which makes us feel good because the result is:
Oxytocin (a human bonding hormone) levels increase Cortisol (a stress-related hormone) levels decrease
The result? Increased resilience and emotional agility in stressful times due to trust of our leader, and ultimately trust of our tribe. This then supports self-regulation, which is our ability to manage our emotional state. Self-regulation occurs in our prefrontal cortex and is only possible when we’re in our Smart State - where high engagement, collaboration, communication, innovation reign—versus being in our Critter State where we’re snared in fight/flight/freeze.
2-Your Environment Creates Meaning
There are two qualities of an optimal work environment that helps a tribe become and stay agile: an enriched environment and a reliable environment.
An enriched environment is an interactive, stimulating environment which leads to increased surface area of brain cells. The result? Team members making more connections, solving problems faster, figuring things out faster and innovating better.
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Enriched cultures create a more meaningful and purpose-driven workplace. A more meaningful and purpose-driven workplace yields countless benefits:
Two Basic Modes For The Human Brain SmartTribes Institute
Trust also creates reliable environments.
A brain in a more reliable (trust their leader) and enriched (stimulating) environment will have more branches. So the overall team will have more neural branches too. More branches = more surface area = more connections = more positive meaning is made.
More positive meaning results in:
More fulfillment More contribution More innovation More loyalty More emotional agility More retention More engagement
And to boost meaning we turn to a Tribal Identity rich in purpose. This helps us to feel powerful together, understand where we fit in and how to belong to the tribe, gives us shared beliefs, and increases the potency and power of our individual identity (because we belong to such a cool tribe).
3-Tribal Identity Creates Meaning
Tribal identity is how we describe ourselves. At Google they are Googlers and are collaborative innovators. In the early days of Microsoft the engineers were awarded lab coats for great achievements, as they were seen as brilliant scientists inventing the future. Some sales teams see themselves as cowboys and cowgirls out on the range rounding up customers. Our team at SmartTribes Institute sees themselves as providing Ritz Carlton-level 5 star client service. What is your tribal identity? Is it compelling? Aspirational? Playful? Engaging?
In my book Power Your Tribe we talk about a Cultural GAME (Growth, Appreciation, Measurement, Engagement) Plan and how to harness its power to transform your tribe into a highly engaged, thank-God-it’s-Monday group of high performing, healthy, happy people—to make sure your tribal identity sticks.
Yet a GAME plan is only as effective as the emotional experience that surrounds it and is reinforced by it. To boost the emotional experience you’ll want to:
Bring profound meaning to your workplace Craft a cultural identity and employee experience rich in trust Use neuroscience-based techniques that will increase human performance, cohesiveness, innovation
You probably have pieces of your Cultural GAME Plan already in place. Now you can craft or edit (if need be) your organization’s tribal identity and reinforce it with your cultural rituals. Note the lab coats above as an example. Fundamental to a solid GAME plan is a foundation of profound meaning.
Let’s check in…
Profound Meaning check in:
Are your mission, vision, values working as well as they could be? Mission - Our emotional (“we believe”) purpose, why we get up in the morning Vision - Where we’re going together (aspirational), and why it matters Values - Who we are/how we behave as we fulfill our Mission and drive toward our Vision—these must be alive, celebrated, modeled by all
You can’t change a person’s values very easily. Which is why we need to recruit for them. Here’s a link to our values-based recruiting process that our clients love.
Tribal Identity check in:
Does your culture have a clear identity? If so, what is it? Does everyone throughout your organization agree with it and feel inspired by the identity? Does your identity reinforce safety, belonging, mattering? Does your team have high trust and transparency around performance expectations?
Tribal Rituals check in:
How do your cultural rituals support your identity and values? Are they enough to motivate belonging and mattering? Example: some of our clients have annual mini golf tournaments in the office where each “hole” is a plastic cup for a given value. Once you get the ball in the hole you share with all present who models this value powerfully and how, and how you’d like to model it more powerfully. Another client celebrates the “super powers” of each employee as their tribal identity is of super heroes. Outside of each cubicle or on their Zoom background you see the person’s “super powers”. Now you know who to come to if you want to cultivate yours. Is it safe to fail in your culture? Do you see “failure” as simply feedback as to what didn’t totally work, or is failure condemned?
The Net-Net
Leaders, environment, shared tribal identity help us create more meaning at work With more meaning we are more productive, creative, engaged, collaborative, happy Any organization can create more meaning!
Let me know how the above helps you create more meaning for your tribe.
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d87250aa53efe1a30a3227e6a1fb5472 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecrandell/2011/01/28/why-your-old-corporate-website-should-die/ | Why Your Old Corporate Website Should Die | Why Your Old Corporate Website Should Die
From the moment our new corporate website was born we were already planning its demise. Corporate websites have become the communications cornerstone of every business - or so marketing departments would have you think. The URLs show up everywhere: on business cards, product packaging, and collateral. But is there life beyond their public-facing function as the corporate mouthpiece and information hub? Are websites really capable of real customer engagement? Most corporate websites are just as stale and one-dimensional as the corporate brochures they replaced over two decades ago.
Websites represent a terrific venue to get a bird’s eye view on how people really want to engage with the companies they do business with and how companies actually fulfill these desires for engagement. Customers want their conversations to be multichannel. They don’t care how they reach the company, they just want to reach them, however most convenient. They might start the engagement in social media, switch over to email, then to a community group, followed by a phone call. The expectation is that the company will maintain a history of communications and be able to recall their conversations so they can pick up ‘where they left off’ regardless of where the conversation took place. Not an unrealistic expectation. After all, this is the promise of customer relationship management: true engagement. It’s like a marriage: we just want to know someone is actually listening.
The reality is that while customers approach the engagement model holistically; companies approach it incrementally. Each customer touch point, while part of a broader strategy, is a unique activity that never quite connects with the others. After all the touchpoints are factored in, keeping an ongoing, cohesive conversation becomes a Herculean feat for companies. Yet this is what the customer was promised, what they have come to expect and what is required if you are to get the most out of your customer relationship.
It’s no surprise that customer messages have become so inconsistent, so siloed and so hidden given the many functional teams managing them in such diverse ways: the corporate website, the CRM system and the interactive marketing person managing the social media marketing. When the customer ultimately talks to sales or support, no prior knowledge of their social media conversations comes into play. No record of their site visits. No legacy is readily available. The customer and the employee have become frustrated strangers attempting to find a common ground. Instead of a marriage, it’s like a really bad blind date.
One traditional marketing vehicle companies can abandon is the business-to-business corporate website. Most analyses of B2B site visits demonstrate that after landing, visitors typical scan the pages on solutions/products, pricing, company, leadership, and news and then shove off. If there are multimedia, best practices tips or competitive comparisons, they might stick around a bit longer. Most visitors are looking for peer experiences, useful information, independent validation of value claims, and the ability to ‘talk’ with customers, users and company representatives.
Rather than boring your customers to death, there is a clear opportunity to put the dull corporate website to rest. Then resurrect it as a platform for true community engagement that functions as a hub for interaction with all customers and stakeholders, replete with media, public and private communities for ideation, customer advocacy, support, employee communication, vendor collaboration, training, media engagement and social media at the very infrastructure. I can’t count on all fingers and toes the times I have gone to a business-to-business website and clicked away wondering what kind of business the company was in, and then felt completely bewildered as to how I could EVER find that out.
Start the transformation by integrating live chat, communities, discussion areas, social media feeds, into your existing corporate website.
The goal for our website is to become a platform community over the next 24 months. The team knew it couldn’t make the transition overnight and chartered a course of gradually add in customer engagement capabilities.
The new website launched with conversations threaded into product pages plus other interactive elements. After less than three months the Conversations section became a hotspot where basic questions started pouring in. Anyone in the company was empowered to respond to with one guideline – no commercials. Our marketing campaigns are starting to usher traffic to the community discussion areas. The Conversations pages are already jumping with potential prospects asking and engaging with employees. Product and company content remain readily available but featured as a sidebar, with several links and points of reintegration based on visitor pathways and search trends.
I find conversations a whole lot more interesting to read and respond to. I discover what is top of mind and share what I know. If I do a good job, the customer will remember and return, engage again and hopefully transact. So kill your stuffy old website and bring it back to life.
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0374833c1ae604d8e2a011bc6fde670f | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecrandell/2011/05/08/three-metrics-to-measure-sales-and-marketing-alignment/ | Three Metrics to Measure Sales and Marketing Alignment | Three Metrics to Measure Sales and Marketing Alignment
Getting Sales and marketing to effectively team is the lament of just about every CEO. Achieving alignment goes beyond just getting these two groups to get along; growth depends on them working productively together. If sales and marketing are at odds it impacts the whole business, most notably revenue, customer satisfaction and company productivity. Add to that the reality that discord between these two groups damages the company's culture, it's easy to see why alignment is on the top of every CEO's agenda.
But why is alignment such a persistent challenge? Part of the reason lies with the CEO. While they are experts in measuring the effectiveness of sales, these same leaders are at a disadvantage with it comes to evaluating alignment. Most are unclear as to what the right questions are to ask in order to understand how well marketing and sales are aligned. Without that knowledge, it is hard to know which metrics are the right ones to focus on or how to isolate the root cause of misalignment. With this backdrop, it’s easy to see why measuring sales and marketing alignment can be an overwhelming task – and why CEOs fall back to the pipeline and lead generation metrics they’ve relied on in the past.
Moving to Metrics
What CEOs really want is visibility into, and confidence, in revenue cycle data. They want to understand the productivity of each stage, status of key activities, and the emerging issues they need to worry about. In managing the revenue cycle, and by default sales and marketing alignment, visibility is critical to helping them temper their instinctive response to the deluge of daily email, phone calls and meetings.
The best way to gain that visibility is with tools the CEO and Board are already familiar with, namely KPIs. With the right set of metrics, CEOs can better understand marketing's effectiveness as well as the impact alignment has on the top- and bottom-line. While there are literally hundreds of sales and marketing metrics that can be used; it comes down to three that measure alignment and frame that all-too critical joint conversation with sales and marketing about what's working and what isn't. Done right, metrics-based management can move a company toward alignment as well as help institutionalize cross-organizational transparency.
There are three key metrics that CEOs should start using to achieve this: End-to-End Conversion, Revenue Diversity and Outcome Profitability.
End-to-End Conversion Metric measures the conversion ratio for the full revenue cycle well as for each of the major stages - from market attraction through sales close and customer lifetime value. Benchmarked over time this metric highlights leakages and inefficiencies between stages, sales and marketing, and enables more accurate forecasting and target performance setting. Aligned organizations tend to have stable conversion ratios and use this metric to discuss how to improve the ratios between the stages and overall. A significant change up or down in conversion from one stage to another is a flag that warrants investigation.
Revenue Diversity Metric measures the productivity of lead generation. There are hundreds of lead sources like the web, direct mail, physical and virtual events, email, cold calls, eCommerce, other distribution channels, etc. This metric provides visibility into how broadly and efficiently marketing reaches target prospects, which lead sources are most productive and how effective sales converts them into revenue. Aligned organizations manage their revenue sources using portfolio management techniques to balance the diversity of lead channels. The key is to invest eighty percent of resources into high productive lead generation sources. The remaining twenty percent should be consistently invested in a wide and ever changing range of new channels.
Outcome Profitability Metric is applicable to companies that sell complex products or solutions. Since not every sale can have four walls and a roof where the buyer only cares about comparing product features; complex solutions need to link the buyer’s desired outcome, which is often role-based. Used in conjunction with customer-centric methodologies, this metric measures profit attributable to each specific business problem or “outcome” sold to. While this approach is counter to how revenue is typically analyzed, which is by product lines, it gives the CEO great visibility into how well sales and marketing understand the buyers, their business problems and how effective they are in pursuing those opportunities. Aligned companies should see consistent profitability trends for a handful of role-based outcomes and see the profitability track the outcome’s maturity curve.
These three metrics are starting points for CEOs looking to gain visibility into how aligned their organizations are. Reporting on these metrics will some require heavy lifting by sales and marketing as they are not standard reports in Salesforce.com or in Marketo. But that is part of the value because through the learning process to calculate these metrics, sales and marketing will have to work together and will jointly discover where gaps exist, systems aren’t integrated or conflicted, and where they can no longer assume popular held beliefs.
The learning process is more often more valuable than the metrics themselves. It forces sales and marketing to the table and forces the CEO to get involved and pay attention. The metrics shed visibility into alignment and empower CEOs to ask the right questions and lead the company to the next stage of alignment.
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356a4981fe0fb19a8be8d4c02812302a | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecrandell/2011/09/18/how-to-start-your-own-arab-spring/ | How to Start Your Own "Arab Spring" | How to Start Your Own "Arab Spring"
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The need for change is in the air; it comes up in every conversation. Marc Benioff, Salesforce's Chairman and CEO passionately espoused change at Dreamforce. His call to the world was that companies need to change or be left behind. He went one step further and gave a dire warning to CEOs – change thyself or fall from grace.
His rallying cry was for enterprises to start their own business “Arab Spring”.
Companies that do not become Social Enterprises will not survive this economic cycle. Becoming a Social Enterprise is, however, more than just having a Facebook page or a Twitter account. It is a transformation in how your business thinks, decides, works and collaborates. Brought into the enterprise by the Gen Y generation, social media has since redefined relationships within, between and among enterprises from the bottom up.
It was, however, the Millenniums who forced enterprises on the path of change. As they entered the workforce en masse, their refusal to use non-Googlesque technology and blindly follow processes dictated by corporate systems was the spark of the revolution. The rise of mobile as the new computing platform fueled the transformation to the Social Enterprise.
Successful transformations need roadmaps otherwise how do you know how to get from here to there. A roadmap for transforming to social selling is the Buyers Journey; a set of organizing principles for aligning company functions and roles to enable, engage and establish enduring relationships with buyers and market constituents. Through an ‘outside-in’ redefinition of how a company interacts with its markets, the Buyers Journey embraces and turns to an advantage the fact that over 70% of B2B purchase cycles are self-directed, trust-based, social and invisible to vendors and suppliers. Companies that embrace the Buyers Journey experience significantly faster revenue cycles, lower cost of sales and churn rates.
(c) 2011 NBS Consulting Group, Inc.
Like all transformations, the one for Social Enterprise is part people, process and technology. Changing people’s perspectives, beliefs, and attitudes about social technology is critical to the transformation. Frankly, that is Marc Benioff’s calling and one he performs very well.
My quest at Dreamforce was to discover if the technology was there to support Salesforce’s vision. Who were the technology vendors that help companies operationalize the Buyers Journey? While I didn’t find any paradigm shifters, I did discover some innovative solutions.
Optify, a social marketing automation vendor, discovers buyers who are starting their purchase journeys. Started in 2008 and with 35 employees today, Optify helps companies like LexisNexus, Skytap, Microsoft Office Live, and allrecipes.com optimize buyer enablement activities. Brian Goffman, CEO and co-founder of Optify, said “The company’s mission is to drive the very top of the funnel.” With a full set of SEO capabilities, the solution helps you know where your buyers go so you can get a jump start on identifying those ready to engage. Optify then reports on the ROI of social media marketing by linking keywords, tweets, etc. with ‘won’ and ‘closed/lost’ opportunities with full data drill down.
The solution connects the dots between keyword performance, page views, leads, and campaigns to help marketers hone their investment strategy. It even goes a step further and can recommend keywords to try to improve the results.
With all the data they collect, I wanted to know if they could discover and plot out the path buyers take in the early stages of the Buyers Journey. Sadly, not yet but they can report on the path taken after the first point of contact. Later this year Optify plans to release capabilities that “turn page views into real-time moments”. That’s great but they had me won over when they showed me how easy it was to correlate buyer behavior with social media ROI investments.
If you haven’t done the research to know the step-by-step moves buyers take, eTrigue can help. eTrigue marketing automation enables marketing to discover the longitudinal paths anonymous visitors take through your website, convert them into qualified buyers, and then customizes campaigns for them based on behavior.
eTrigue helps embrace the principles of the Buyers Journey with its time-based story board approach to analyzing visitor behavior and managing campaigns. Jim Meyer, eTrigue’s vice president of sales and general manager, emphasized that the only way Social Enterprises will be successful is if they “experiment their way to success”. His research found that the odds of reaching a buyer increases by tenfold if you call within an hour of their visit to your website and with their longitudinal history in hand your conversation will be more contextual which increases by six fold Sales’ ability to qualify correctly. Born out of an agency, profitable, and self-funded with 60 employees, eTrigue helps marketing build more intelligent social and traditional media campaigns.
Sometimes, however, Sales just has to do the heavy lifting. Finding a way into a target account can be one of the hardest tasks a sales person has to do and why a salesperson’s Rolodex – er, LinkedIn network – is their biggest asset next to closing skills.
Reachable supports social selling. The company is coming out of stealth mode and is already touting customers like Actuate and Heidrick & Struggles. With its own tab in Salesforce.com, it builds a social graph of your social and physical networks augmented with public data from Zoominfo and other sources. Based on whom you want to meet, you can create your own ideal networks, score contacts based on how well you know them (or how helpful they are), and Reachable tells you the best connection path to your target buyers. Sounds like something you’d use LinkedIn for, right? Not even close; Reachable is much broader. In fact LinkedIn would be a great partner for Reachable.
Reachable’s secret sauce is their graph engine that connects the social dots and data algorithms which scores and finds the best path between you and your target buyer. Reachable is a one-way social network where you can add contacts you know and expand your professional network without needing their permission. Reachable’s Share Group feature allows you to share your network with your sales team to greatly expand your reachable network and multiply the possible paths to your buyer. According to Al Campa, Reachable CEO, “the product helps you open new accounts and use a “Z” strategy to further penetrate accounts by targeting a whole organization and multiple constituents for a successful enterprise sale.”
Reachable is free for single user base functionality. For an additional $49/month/ per user you can share your network with your team and integrate Reachable with your CRM system. A reasonable price to eliminate those dreaded cold calls; making them or receiving them.
Solutions that discover and understand early stages of the Buyers Journey are key in aligning to buyers. Needed next are solutions that use social and mobile to engage and enable buyers as they evaluate suppliers and validate their purchase decision.
Seesmic, with 50 employees and funding from Salesforce, uniquely combines true social CRM with mobile. Seesmic is comprised of two product suites: Seesmic CRM and Seesmic Social. Seesmic Social is a suite of social media management applications, available on your mobile, desktop, and web specifically for the Buyer Enablement portion of the Buyers Journey. Seesmic sees marketing and selling very differently; for them these are acts of participation, co-creation, enablement and engagement between the buyer and vendor. “Social is an engagement platform”, says Bastien Vidal, Chief Operating Officer of Seesmic. That mindset is evident in how they have designed their applications.
The user interface is readable and seems simplistic until you watch someone use the applications. Watching Liza Sperling, Seesmic’s Director of Corporate Relationships, manage the company’s social interactions on her phone, it was obvious there are no boundaries between Seesmic’s mobile, social and CRM capabilities. Using Seesmic CRM, Liza generated an email to a contact, shared a question from the contact with an internal Chatter group, and responded to the contact along with a reference to some marketing activities all from her phone. One of Seesmic’s core design principles is to deliver a compelling experience that is easy to use and actually encourages adoption by mirroring common workflow patterns.
Bastien Vidal sees the transformation to a Social Enterprise “as a journey, not a set of yes/no decisions.” “Not everyone in the enterprise world understands how to leverage social”, says Vidal, “But it is the social component that is the game changer.” Two key factors that drive the transformation to a Social Enterprise are, first, an employee base that wants a consumer social experience at work and, more importantly, knows how to take advantage of it. Second, company leadership realizes that social and mobile technologies drives productivity which in turn drives better collaboration. Vidal went on to stress the importance that company culture plays in becoming a Social Enterprise.
Not every company is ready to become a Social Enterprise. How can you tell if you’re ready? Does your company see social media and mobile as a way to help people do their job faster and easier?
Becoming a Social Enterprise is a learning process and the Buyers Journey is a pathway forward. According to Seesmic’s Vidal there is a strong correlation between companies who innovate via co-creation, collaborate using social media and mobile CRM – these companies are culturally ready to embrace the Buyers Journey principles and become a Social Enterprise.
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9b0c93627b73436dda308d1299afe570 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecrandell/2011/10/15/eloquas-payne-talks-social-enterprise-transformation/ | Extreme Make-over Tips to be a Social Business | Extreme Make-over Tips to be a Social Business
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Becoming a Social Business, or Social Enterprise as some call it, is a multi-faceted transformation. We’re talking big “T” versus little “t” transformation and it starts with people, their attitudes, and how they work. No part of the company and its ecosystem goes untouched and that amount of change can scare people. Frankly, who has the time or the appetite to take this on when everyone is scrambling for revenue? If you want to survive this economic cycle, you do.
The big “T” will fizzle as quickly as a wet sparkler on the Fourth of July if becoming a Social Enterprise is just another strategic initiative added to the laundry list of corporate imperatives. If, however, we step back and consider that the underlying dynamics of our lives, relationships, work and economy have changed, we can approach it with a fresh perspective. The “T” becomes the roadmap to a reinvigorated company that is more successful, harmonious and, just maybe, more ‘fun’.
Joe Payne, Chairman and CEO of Eloqua, a marketing automation and revenue performance management platform vendor, believes the Social Enterprise big “T” transformation is rooted in four tenets: New leadership models, the Buyers Journey, alignment and technology. According to Payne, “The number one impediment to economic growth today is time and knowledge. The way businesses buy products and services in the new internet-enabled, social-enabled, mobile-enable world is very different than the way they bought products 10 years ago. Companies need to evolve their selling capabilities and processes to match this new world. A large part of the workforce doesn’t understand the new enablement and engagement expectations of a socially interconnected economy so it’s easy to see how companies, industries and communities are being left behind."
But all is not lost as Payne has high expectations for the 20-something generation. As they become leaders, he expects them to be the catalysts of change within their companies and communities. "Young people have grown up in this highly fluid, uber-connected world and they are quick to use new technologies to better serve their customers and prospects," shares Payne.
For organizations who cannot wait for the next generation, leadership from the very top is key. “CEOs can do a better job of managing Marketing and Sales,” said Payne. “They need to encourage marketing to report on results — this means acknowledging that half of all campaigns are "below average" by definition. CEOs should treat Marketing like it does Sales — don't focus on the losses or underperforming campaigns but build a culture of accountability and focus on the wins and how to get more of those. When Marketing and Sales are aligned and both are judged on the same metrics (and not by anecdotes), it is amazing the results that can be achieved." He goes on to emphasize that CEOs shouldn’t be so lenient on Sales, the lessons learned from understanding what is not working in Sales are critical to transformation.
Payne’s advice shouldn’t be interpreted as Marketing is on top of its game; it isn’t. CMOs are just as challenged as CEOs in understanding how best to lead. Most CMOs do not understand how to drive and measure their impact on pipeline. “They view this as a tactical activity delegated to a marketing manager when actually demand generation is a strategic responsibility,” said Joe Payne. “This is the primary reason why CMOs are losing credibility.”
CMOs should manage the revenue pipeline with an obsession comparable to the one the head of Sales has. Marketing must be able to generate revenue pipeline two to three quarters out and reconcile with sales’ forecast to improve predictability. To achieve that, Marketing has to build a marketing funnel and, together with Sales, define the rules for moving marketing leads through the funnel. Focusing on the whole funnel from marketing through win/loss and measuring along the way provides the transparency needed to understand what is happening in the business. That level of transparency sets the stage for Sales and Marketing to have the right conversations and technology like Eloqua’s Revenue Suite can play an enabling role.
(c) 2011 NBS Consulting Group, Inc.
Payne believes the seeds of actualizing the Buyers Journey lies in alignment. If Sales and Marketing are not having the right conversations about the right things, supported by automation, aligning to the Buyers Journey is not possible. “Technology, like Eloqua, can help companies understand the knowable,” said Payne. “It helps them build better knowledge about the Buyers’ Journey.” When Sales and Marketing talk about driving better results together, the conversation should focus on deciphering the behavior of Personas involved in the Buyer’s Journey. Payne’s experience is that typically “seven to eight people are involved in a company’s Buyers Journey and these people do not always follow logical, sequential steps. The real world is messy as buyers move back and forth across the Buyer Enablement stages of the Journey.”
Based on that knowledge, technology helps companies understand, evolve and align to their target markets’ Buyers Journey. In the end it comes down to knowing your buyers and delivering value at every point of interaction, regardless of communication medium. The result is accelerated revenue and that in and of itself becomes a competitive advantage.
Understanding what your buyer is expecting and having a company culture that naturally aligns to those expectations is a ‘must do’ if you want to become a Social Enterprise. Joe Payne’s parting advice is “do this well and you will dominate your industry; don’t and you will not be in business.”
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c7fd4de76af9a1ec0738521ce1a0776f | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecrandell/2012/02/14/six-ways-to-bust-the-social-media-hype/ | Six Ways to Bust the Social Media Hype | Six Ways to Bust the Social Media Hype
In a conversation with a CEO about the transformative effects of social technologies he declared, ‘We’re a social business. We hired an intern to manage our Twitter and Facebook account.” He became deaf to the discussion upon hearing that using social media in marketing does not equate to being a social business. Not surprising, “social” is in its hype phase. History repeats itself and the current social-mania reminds me of the late 1990s “e-business” hype cycle. Everyone claimed they were an “e-business”, few actually were.
Despite social-mania, or maybe because of it, the transformation has taken root. It is most evident in the battlegrounds over brand control. In a recent LinkedIn poll on sales cycles, over fifty percent of respondents said their sales cycles were changing or lengthening.
Listening to a General Manager of a telecommunication technology company lament about his pipeline reveals the extent to which the old world is clashing with the new. While his teams exceed their quota, it is becoming increasingly hard. The reason is lack of predictability. The poll echoes what this General Manager is experiencing, large numbers of qualified prospects disengage then return some time later to buy. However, their in-depth product and company knowledge is unnerving and their expectation of free stuff before buying can rule a vendor in or out of a deal. The challenge for Sales is that traditional methodologies and tools are not only failing but are actually damaging their ability to compete. As this senior executive put it, “I’m inadvertently shooting myself in the foot.”
Regardless of what industry you are in, how buyers buy has undergone a fundamental and permanent change. In a poll conducted by Optify, seventy-five percent of respondents had little to no idea where their prospects went or with whom they collaborated prior to contacting the company. The invisible portion of the purchase cycle, as Optify refers to it, is a secret the buyers are keeping to themselves.
B2B Marketers and sales teams are challenged in two ways. The first is their inability to spot emerging changes. The second is the lack of their organization’s capacity to do something about that change. Viewing markets, prospects, and sales cycles through traditional lens is the culprit. Companies that embrace the transformation a socially-engaged economy mandates are discovering unexpected fountains of growth by taking the radical step of redefining not only sales and marketing but the entire company’s relationship with their buyers. This requires more than a couple of cloud based applications or implementing Salesforce’s Chatter along with mandate of ‘though shall share’. It requires good old change management – social change - starting with people, then process followed by technology to make it sticky.
Six laws help companies understand their social change path to unlock their growth potential.
Discover the Invisible. With over seventy-five percent of the B2B
buy cycle invisible to vendors, most companies mistakenly assume that the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT), or first contact, is the beginning of the buy cycle. It is not.
Action: Embark on an in-depth understanding of the steps your target markets take in their Buyers’ Journey.
There are No Customers, Only Buyers. When a company makes a purchase they have not changed yet vendors insist on treating ‘customers’ differently often with disappointing results. In the social economy, all customers are buyers even when they’ve just bought but not all buyers are customers.
Action: Change the internal dialog around ‘customer’; treat them like you need to earn their business every day.
Forget Value Propositions. Most value propositions are inside-out broadcasts of what the company thinks its value is. Buyers buy outcomes not hubris. Understand the target outcome the buyer is looking for and wrap your messaging around how you deliver that.
Action: Change all company communications to be outcome-oriented; the first law will tell you what those outcomes are.
Align Outward. How buyers want to engage with companies throughout the relationship life cycle should define company processes, competencies and performance metrics.
Action: Instead of worrying about organization charts and titles; redefine every role in terms of how it should engage and enable buyers and the specific value each role should deliver.
Abolish Marketing and Sales. The model of marketing driving mind share to produce leads that are handed off to Sales to close is dead. Buyers want a consistent experience and research has shown they value that more than the product or service.
Action: Buyer expectations should dictate the sales model. Combine Sales and Marketing into a single team measured on enabling, advocating and building enduring relationships.
Value is a Stream, Not an Event. The expectation of value extends beyond what is being purchased and means different things to different buyers. Equally, that definition changes over time.
Action: Understand value expectations and align processes to fulfill those expectations as they change over time. That will build an army of buyer evangelists.
Great Places to Work Institute is a global services company that specializes in culture transformation. Last year it decided to eat “its own dog food” and change itself, as Paul Maritz of VMware is so fond of saying. They had become inwardly focused and comfortable; the growth rate wasn’t what the board of directors was expecting. The company needed to expand into new frontiers.
Susan Lucas-Conwell was brought in as the new CEO and embarked on a program to understand the steps her buyers, HR and line of business executives, took on their journey to build healthy workplace cultures. These buyers already realized what Harvard University had empirically proven in an eleven year study; organizations with healthy cultures out perform:
4.1 times higher revenues 12.2 time higher stock prices compared to peers 756% improvement in net income 15 times higher return on investment
Armed with an understanding of her buyers’ journey, she changed not only the company’s culture but also how Marketing, Sales and Services engaged and enabled customers. The Buyers’ Social Framework™ of what information buyers sought at each step, where they went for those answers, and the value they expected to realize provided the actionable insight needed to break old habits and invigorate growth. Starting with marketing and sales, and gradually involving all parts of the company, this services company learned how to view itself through the eyes of its customers. And that led to growth.
Busting social-mania is the first step in becoming a true social business. Your social change plan is rooted in understanding the relationship buyers want with you and how that changes over time. The first step in your social change plan is to assess where you are.
How do you score on the Buyers’ Social Framework? Find out by taking a 5 minute assessment to find out.
Together we’ll transform into the social economy…one step at a time.
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177e889f2975170668ee7db3aca9eb2b | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecrandell/2012/05/03/dump-your-social-media-strategy-its-not-customer-service/ | Dump Your Social Media Strategy. It's Not Customer Service | Dump Your Social Media Strategy. It's Not Customer Service
Rob Tarkoff, CEO of Lithium speaking in Keynote about predicting innovation (Photo credit:... [+] roohimoolla)
Companies of all types have jumped on the social bandwagon. The allure of having a deep, meaningful customer relationship is enticing and social media is so easy. Companies have multiple social media accounts across a wide range of channels including Twitter , Facebook, Tumblr, FourSquare, LinkedIn, Google+, and the list goes on. Anyone with a thousand or more employees will likely have over 170, mostly unmanaged, social media accounts. With each new tool introduced, like Pinterest, companies rush to get onboard without thinking about how it fits into their business strategy or customer expectations. Too bad all that time has been wasted.
Social media is not a destination; it is an enabler of business strategy. In and of itself, social media will not drive customer satisfaction, robust collaboration, or revenue. It’s like putting a toy sailboat in a pond and huffing and puffing into the sail to make it go. It will go but randomly for it lacks a rudder.
The rudder is a deep understand of the experience your customers want (and expect) from you. That understanding forms the foundation for a clear business strategy and set of objectives. Which, in turn, drives culture, internal alignment, and investment priorities needed to deliver that experience. Social media becomes execution tools in operationalizing the business strategy.
Finally a social technology vendor has heard the growing chorus of pundits, as Lithium Technology’s Chief Marketing Officer Katy Keim likes to call them. For the past year “the pundits” and thought leaders like Brian Solis have been calling for social technology vendors to rethink how they deliver on the social promise. Lithium heard them and delivered a compelling vision at today’s LiNC conference.
While Lithium’s roots are in the social community market, today they announced and demoed a compelling new company direction. One that is tightly aligned to enabling the transformation companies need to embrace and execute on. A combination of new cross-functional applications and packaged transformation services, Lithium moved beyond the noisy, crowded social community market. The new application is Lithium Response, an enterprise-grade social agent-based solution that can quickly sift through millions of posts to identify which ones warrant a response, automatically route it to the right agent or expert, and even suggest content based on past patterns of correct issue resolution.
Lithium’s deep integration between popular enterprise CRM applications like SAP and Salesforce.com and Lithium Response delivers a true 360 view of the customer. The integration enables posts to be matched to the CRM database and flags customers and prospects. Additional partnerships were also announced with VMware’s Socialcast, Shoutlet, and SapientNitro that further differentiate Lithium’s social marketing suite along with out-of-the-box community templates to minimize the need for customization services. To help customers transform and realize the benefits of social business, new packaged professional services were co-developed with Geoffrey Moore and aptly named “Social Tornedo”.
Rob Tarkoff, Lithium’s new president and CEO, has his fingerprints all over this new business strategy. Behind all the glitz and showbiz of the LiNC conference is a solid, well thought through approach to disrupting the market, gaining a lead and protecting their flanks. Lithium’s strategy is to white-label products and technologies from others to enable them to lily-pad over competitors like Jive as well as offer their own products up for white-label.
For instance, Lithium Response is a white-labeled product from an unnamed, super-secret “technology component provider”. Lithium is so bullish on this technology that Tarkoff claimed his company is now the “standard for social customer support” by offering peer-to-peer, self-service, and agent-based customer care. I’m sure everyone would like to know just who this super-secret vendor is but Lithium is not telling. Other partners, like Ipsos, are white labeling Lithium’s marketing solutions as part of their own social marketing offering. Coupling the white labeling strategy with a robust ecosystem, Tarkoff should be able to ride multiple market waves as he looks to drive significant growth. The hope is that the strategy and the $53Million in the bank will mitigate some of the inevitable risks that come with unpredictable market shifts, consolidations and white hot technologies that go cold overnight.
Broadening out of the traditional boundaries of social community market with purpose-built applications, extending the platform’s breadth and depth, and offering new social intelligence analytics show companies a path forward to delivering a holistic customer experience, as defined by their customers.
Lithium’s market timing for the strategy should be spot on.
The frustration from unanswered posts, blatant self promotion tweets, and a lack of demonstrable ROI opens the door to a new perspective on just what the role of social media is and how to deliver the experience customers want.
That’s important because customers are, after all, in full control of your destiny.
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8805debb2091f3b2d667e13579a98fbb | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecrandell/2012/09/09/is-your-2013-planning-a-budget-battle-try-something-new-preference-marketing/ | Is Your 2013 Planning a Budget Battle? Try Something New - Preference Marketing | Is Your 2013 Planning a Budget Battle? Try Something New - Preference Marketing
It’s budget season for most companies and a key part of the process is balancing revenue targets with investment levels. The CEO’s goal is to get to the right tradeoff between ‘almost-guaranteed’ sales revenue and marketing investment for a smorgasbord of hard and soft benefits.
The CEO has a revenue number they’d like Sales to commit to. Sales, in turn, looks to Marketing for a pipeline commitment and throttles the revenue target up/down according to its’ confidence in Marketing’s pipeline. We all know how the story plays out. In tight times, sales gets budget at marketing’s expense. In the face of clear growth opportunities, marketing may get more budget at sales’ expense. But it’s always a fight leaving all involved bruised and sore with a good amount of lost trust. This ‘zero sum game’ mentality damages culture and morale. Oddly, people wonder why Sales and Marketing don’t get along?
The irony is that both Sales and Marketing are wrong.
At the core, the fight is over leads – which team can generate more bookable leads, cost efficiently. That deeply engrained, age-old premise assumes Marketing and Sales is actually in control of the purchase process. They aren't – the buyer is.
Buyers took control when information became ubiquitous on the Web. No longer dependent upon marketing for information on trends or new ways to solve problems, and equally no longer dependent on Sales to navigate the pros and cons of solutions they were considering – buyers threw off the shackles and rewrote the rules.
Today, buyers engage in a self-directed, trust-based, social purchase process for everything from commodities to software and trains. They no longer buy products or solutions; they purchase outcomes. With their new-found freedom, they have redefined vendor relationships and interaction expectations. They are fully in control and know it.
(c) 2012 New Business Strategies
In fact, in a recent B2B Sellers’ Compass study we conducted with the Fortune 100 we found that regardless of industry, eighty percent of the purchase cycle is completed before the buyer contacts vendors. That means they had already completed the initial business case and conducted one to two rounds of vendor short-listing. When they did contact vendors, buyers knew more about the product and company than most sales people did.
I’m often asked by vendors how buyers can do that when pricing and other key information isn’t on their website. It’s out there on the web and in the social sphere. Trust me, it’s available.
Which brings me back to the problem with the budget conversation. With the buyer in control of the purchase process, focusing on leads is like trying to implement new management rules with New York cabbies in a snow storm. Constantly pushing more cabbies to be on the streets won’t work, they will do what is best for them regardless of what you say.
Instead of pounding on deaf ears with all sorts of creative marketing and sales development campaigns to ‘drive leads’; marketing and sales should focus on building preference. Preference, which is built over time, drives bigger deals, shorter sales cycles, at higher margins.
Buyer preference is rooted in trust, credibility and an understanding of the vendor’s unique differentiators and value. For vendors, preference is a heck of a lot cheaper to achieve than harvesting leads from complex, multi-touch/multi-channel campaigns or paying $800K for a good spot on DreamForce’s Expo show floor.
Preference is established time when you consistently offer the specific information (tool or activity) your buyers are looking for, in the places they go to get informed, at each step in their buyer’s journey.
How do you do that?
Understand the detailed steps your buyers’ take from when a new business issue is recognized all the way through implementation and adoption. For each step, understand the information they seek, where they go and whom they talk to get that information, and how they define value. Align each and every marketing, sales and customer service asset, role and process to these steps.
That being said, preference requires a mindset shift. It’s not about the type of relationship YOU want to have with your target markets but about aligning to the expectations buyers have of you.
For example, if your buyers expect an 8 hour turnaround on any inquiry, then you need to structure your processes, systems, resources and compensation models to ensure all buyers get a response in less than 8 hours, each and every time. If you don’t offer free trials and buyers want them as part of their evaluations - guess what - you need to start offering freemiuns even if it means your organization has to engage in a whole boatload of unnatural acts on the back end.
The mistakes most companies make in trying to build preference is they rejigger their marketing campaigns based on asset performance or implement some sort of a Sales overlay/GAM model. They’re missing the point that preference only comes when you understand, in depth, your Sellers’ Compass and align your marketing and sales to it.
Build preference within your target buyers and the annual budget debate will cease; your buyers will let you know what and where to invest to drive growth.
Want to know more about how to build preference? Listen in on this webinar.
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954a7ead9a19900c34f7a3379d9787ed | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecrandell/2012/09/29/3-tips-to-building-customer-loyalty/ | Stop Kicking the Can on Customer Loyalty | Stop Kicking the Can on Customer Loyalty
The adage says that it’s cheaper to keep a customer than to acquire a new one. Nevertheless, companies routinely don’t focus on “the customer” or on how the relationship is going. It’s often not until the customer complains or a quarter-end sales opportunity is identified that the state of the relationship is investigated.
Yet, every company holds up its net prompter score, renewal rate, and customer satisfaction rating as proof positive they are customer-centric company. These are ‘point-in-time’ indicators that are valuable but they fall way short of communicating the strength of customer loyalty.
Customer loyalty is not a score.
Loyalty is a business survival ‘must have’ that is rooted in a company’s culture. Yet few organizations have made the cultural and organizational changes needed to establish loyalty as the centerpiece of their financial success. It’s not about viewing the customer from a ‘how much money have they spent with us’ mentality but from a holistic perspective centered on ‘how well do we align with the experience the customer values”. Without that transformative mindset revenue will always be a challenge. The real test of loyalty is how well you measure up to their experience expectations.
Customer loyal starts long before the purchase happens.
The best way to build loyalty is to look at the end-to-end customer lifecycle and understand the experience expectation at every step.
Stop Kicking the Can
As you pass customers from marketing, to sales, to product delivery and then to support, each hand-off introduces risk. It’s like kicking the can of customer satisfaction down the road. Every time an experience disruption occurs the relationship diminishes, the customer starts to second-guess their choice, or, worse, a decision is made to make the vendor relationship short-term instead of a corporate standard.
Customers are continually testing their vendors at each step in the buyers’ journey, looking for bait-and-switches, evaluating their expertise, false promises, inconsistencies in processes and testing the vendor’s loyalty to the client’s best interest. Missed promises, miscommunication between departments, or a change in tone in the relationship all introduce doubt to the customer’s mind, even if the only change is a loss in social chemistry.
Stop kicking the can by re-engineering processes to deliver smoother, gentler hand-offs and by keeping and using contextual information on the customer throughout the journey. With the right systems and job roles in place a meaningful relationship can grow over time instead of being reset with each hand-off.
Be Your Buyers’ BF
Vendors love their products. They have a passion for what they are doing that is woven into the very fabric of their culture. Vendors are emotional, psychological and intellectual beholden to their products.
From the customer’s perspective, the product accounts for between twenty to fifty percent of what they’re really buying. Customers want a partner in their success, a friend and ally; someone who will help them advance professionally, network with their colleagues and showcase their successes to their boss. Buyers want a partner in success.
Vendors forget that. Sales, marketing and support overlook that the decision maker is putting their job on the line by advocating the vendor and the product. The relationship is uber-important to the buyer because it is the only assurance the buyer has that the vendor’s values align with theirs.
Relationships can’t be play-acted, they come from the heart. Look at your culture and assess how customer-centric it is. If something goes wrong does your organization refer to the customer ‘as stupid’ or ‘not listening’? Does customer support automatically close out trouble tickets and cases without customer’s approval because ‘the problem is with the customer, not our product’? How much time does corporate and product marketing spend onsite with customers. If it’s less than fifty percent, you don’t have a customer-centric culture.
You have Two Ears for Listening
Too often voice of the customer programs are based on automated surveys and tech support feedback. Instead of polling, surveying or subjecting your customers to automated, impersonal scoring mechanisms, why not just ask customers what they want. I mean really talk to them. Even the unhappy ones; especially the unhappy ones. In depth, honest and in-person interviews are one of the most efficient and fulfilling ways to understand the customer.
Listening with genuine interest can do wonders in repairing an unhappy customer relationship. In this age of technology, people have become too addicted to systems. The answers to what experience customers value most or what type of relationship they want with their vendors will never be found in Salesforce.com, Marketo or Eloqua, on Twitter, in some Big Data application, or via email. They help provide meaning, context and longitudinal understanding of behavior but they are not surrogates for listening.
The best approach is an in-person qualitative interview. People avoid primary research – fear of an angry customer tirade, being asked questions where the answer is unknown – fear of looking foolish. Realistically, that only happens in a very small percentage of interviews. However, only through interviews that you can construct the detail needed for an actionable Sellers’ Compass™.
Companies are starting to realize that the fuel of their growth lies in the quality and consistency of their customer relationships. By starting with culture changes, companies find the transformation easier and more long-lasting.
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243d4ece3faf7f4517065203481c27c7 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecrandell/2013/04/25/lithium-takes-a-stand-on-customer-experience-hype/ | Lithium Takes a Stand on Customer Experience Hype | Lithium Takes a Stand on Customer Experience Hype
The echo chamber on customer experience is so loud it almost drowns out any creative thought you might have floating in your head. It’s coming from all corners with everyone jumping on the bandwagon. As companies grapple with what it means, if it’s relevant for them and how the heck to get started, B2B technology vendors are circling like beasts eyeing a herd on the savannah.
Products, new and old (mostly), are dusted off, given a face-lift and billed as the secret sauce for driving greater customer success, deeper relationships, and loyalty. Vendors putting the customer experience spin on their messaging range from long-established CRM, contact center, knowledge management, and marketing automation to upstart big data analytics, sentiment, feedback, content management, and Salesforce.com add-on technology products.
Their promise is an alluring one - just implement their solution and you can check the customer experience box. No pain; it’s just that simple.
Not so fast.
The effect of everyone jumping on the customer experience bandwagon is a slowdown in the maturation of this new business discipline. Confusion abounds as does disbelief. No one wants to risk exposing their customers (and their job security) to new engagement practices that might increase instead of decrease frustration and churn.
However, the growing confusion opens unique opportunities for those technology vendors with real solutions that truly enable connective tissue between customers, employees and partners. Vendors that are willing to ‘go against the grain’ and step into the fray with methods, tools, technology and education that help their customers develop and implement realistic, measurable customer experience strategies.
Lithium Technologies, at their annual LiNC2013 user conference, launched a host of new social customer experience products. No stranger to going against the grain, Lithium also announced their blueprint for change which steers customers through the transformation process. Not a gimmick for selling more software but an actual step-by-step approach that guides on the what, when, why and how-do-I-sell-this-internally to deliver a consistent, valued social customer experience.
The four steps of the blueprint are:
Creating a disruptive mindset by reimagining your business and customer relationships. Making trusted content the center of your business strategy and customer experience. Infusing social customer experience across all business functional and digital touch points. Repeatedly measuring and proving the financial results.
Rob Tarkoff, Lithium Technologies President and CEO, said, “Lithium’s blueprint is in direct response to customer requests for advisory and insight services to help them make their social customer experience strategy a reality." He defines social customer experience as “unlocking the passions of your customers in the digital world in a way you can capture those insights, measure them and empower your organization to bring your customers along.”
I think the definition could be stronger and bolder. So, I’ll stick with our own definition which is “a buyer’s satisfaction and perceived benefit with or about a brand’s messages, people, processes, products or services, through any interaction across all touch points, over a relationship’s lifetime."
I’m not a fan of tacking ‘social’ onto the front of customer experience because sends a subtle misleading message to the broader market that this is limited to the digital world. Tarkoff’s position is they “use ‘social’ in conjunction with ‘customer experience’ because they are optimizing the social stream.” According to Katy Keim, Lithium’s chief marketing officer, “our customers talk to us about customer experience and social. There are thousands of companies out there that are just now wrapping their head around social in the enterprise, so it makes sense to call it social customer experience."
To a packed house of Lithium followers, a veritable cult, the social customer experience message resonated. For them the news wasn’t what Lithium called their new vision but the products being announced and the growing number of customer success proof points. It’s common practice at technology conferences to trot out the logos and talking heads. What isn’t so common is the depth of detail Lithium customers share with the audience; a practice that reinforces the cult culture.
Product announcements included Lithium Social Intelligence which enables brands to measure social customer programs and answer those pesky C-suite questions around ROI, benchmarking and role-based engagement. Mobile support was also announced along with a raft of enhancements to existing products.
A partnership with SAP was introduced. Certified by SAP, Lithium plugs social and voice of the customer data into SAP’s Jam system. It’s a corporate level relationship coming on the heels of SAP ’s investment in Lithium last year.
The partnership is strikingly similar to the relationship between Salesforce and Oracle where, according to Mark Benioff at DreamForce 2012, Oracle owns the transactional backbone and Salesforce owns all the interaction touch points. Could a square-off be in the making?
All speculation aside, it’s refreshing to see a technology vendor actually understand what customer experience means and walk the talk. I wish more vendors would ‘go against the grain’ and follow suit - for the sake of their customers and customers' customer.
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0e6b16218af6725bbda8451470a1aa13 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecrandell/2013/06/16/your-brand-promise-can-create-or-destroy-customer-loyalty/ | Your Brand Promise Can Create Or Destroy Customer Loyalty | Your Brand Promise Can Create Or Destroy Customer Loyalty
Guest post by Sree Hameed, Senior Strategic Market Advisor, Invensys – Software Business
“Marketing is basically a bunch of party-planners – it’s we, Sales, who actually bring in the revenue.” “You hide behind branding and buzzwords to avoid accountability.” “We, Supply Chain, actually build a product and get it to the customer – you just talk about what we do."
That’s how most colleagues from other departments see us in marketing. Their value was measurable and concrete; you could almost touch it. They would come to meetings armed with data and process maps for everything. When it was marketing’s turn, we’d talk about “influence” and “messaging” - wishy-washy things that executives budgeted for more on faith than on data.
I was frustrated; my colleagues under-appreciated the value of Marketing. They also had a point. So I stepped away from Marketing and into the operational world of Supply Chain to get a different perspective. I learned three valuable lessons that Marketing and Sales need to take to heart:
1. It’s all about making and keeping promises
The demand side (sales and marketing) makes promises, while the supply side (supply chain, support, R&D) makes sure that promises are indeed kept. Every time you make and keep your promise, you increase brand equity. If you don’t, you lose it. It’s that simple.
Here’s the hard part: Increasingly, the brand promise necessary to win the customer’s business is a moving target – what works today, may not work tomorrow. There is no steady-state. Consider the following three scenarios:
(a) Customer Expectation = Brand Promise = Satisfied Customer Experience
(b) Customer Expectation > Brand Promise = Poor Customer Experience
(c) Customer Expectation < Brand Promise = Great Customer Experience
If we believe that there is no steady-state, then scenario (a) is simply a point in time when we nailed it. The rest of the time we are either facing scenario (b), where we are reactively chasing the target, or scenario (c), where we are doing a great job exceeding the customer’s expectations.
Lesson #1: Cleaning up and communicating the brand promise is an important job, but taking true ownership of the brand promise is about bridging the gap between customer expectations and the actual customer experience.
2. It’s about tearing down the walls
Refreshing the brand promise is the easy part. But there are real-world constraints to how quickly we can change a product feature, find a new supplier, relocate a factory, or upgrade the skills of call center, etc., to fulfill the “new and improved” promise. All too often, companies go through the pain of realigning the supply chain only to find that the bar has been raised on the customer side.
Before 1990, the phrase “supply chain” did not exist. Today it is one of the most strategic positions in a company. It came to power from a purpose: To tear down walls between design, procurement, manufacturing, and logistics in order to consistently deliver the brand promise (in terms of right product, right quantity, right place, right time, right cost, etc.)
On the demand side, it is disheartening to see that the sales and marketing disconnect is still a leading topic in boardrooms as well as industry conferences. Because our colleagues on the supply side have stepped up to the plate – and are waiting for us to get our act together and finish tearing down the rest of the walls.
This is why Customer Experience Management has become so critical. It forces a company to take an end-to-end perspective encompassing all the different business processes involved, from making the right promise to keeping them in a way that customers keep coming back.
Lesson #2: Given how long it takes to realign the supply side, the goal should be to exceed, not meet customer expectations. Otherwise, you’ll be in catch-up mode forever. But you have to tear down all the walls within your business first.
3. True customer advocacy requires an outside-in view
Despite all our efforts, there remains one wall that is perhaps the hardest to tear down: The wall between the business and its customer. The only way to tear that down and be a true internal advocate for the buyer and user is from the outside-in. Marketing owns this but all too often it defaults to someone else who is not accountable.
When Marketing fails to be the customer advocate, others step in to fill the vacuum – and fall short because of an “inside-out” bias in determining what the customer wants. We naturally tend to confine our questions to the things we can control – and that puts blinders on our ability to discover the right brand promise. Sales falls short because of their “sell what I can book today” mindset and Operations falls short because of their “buy/build what I can ship today” mindset. So who’s left to step up to the plate?
Lesson #3: What I’ve concluded from my journey is that if Marketing cannot step up to the job requirements of true internal customer advocate, then no other function really can. Think if it this way – the job is there for the taking but you need to close the gap.
So where do you start? Despite all the technology and hype around customer experience, the solution remains old-school: Real, meaningful insight can only come from sitting right across from customers, in-person, and really listening to them. Listen like only a true customer advocate can.
Sree works for Invensys Software within their Enterprise Solutions team. His (infrequent) observations on the changing structure of business can be found at shapeofbusiness.com.
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549b81cbdfad555dfd028dcb5cb135a1 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecrandell/2013/08/03/crazy-makers-trust-busters-and-how-customers-get-even/ | Crazy Makers, Trust Busters And How Customers Get Even | Crazy Makers, Trust Busters And How Customers Get Even
Much of today’s discussion on B2B customer experience focuses on interactions. What is the buyer doing? What content are they interacting with and where? How can sales engage with the buyer earlier? While understanding the specific actions and motivations of buyers is important to delivering a valued lifetime customer experience, it is not everything.
An area that most sellers overlook is how buyers go about establishing trust. The belief is that trust between a buyer and seller is based on chemistry, responsiveness, and the relevance and accuracy of content. That explains why Marketing spends an inordinate amount of resources on content, web design, social media, and technology to track buyer actions. It also explains why Sales focuses an equally inordinate amount of time on establishing digital and physical relationships with buyer.
B2B buyers, however, build trust differently
While chemistry, relevance and accuracy are important, buyers see these as baseline behaviors. Alone, these trust builders will not differentiate you, they’re only table stakes. The list of attributes below factor heavily into how buyers determine if sellers are trust-worthy:
Behave consistently and be truthful, all the time. Respond to buyers within 8 hours, with factual answers. Forget marketing fluff; give buyers valuable information and make it easy to find. Don’t call buyers; they’ll call you and let you know when it’s OK to call them. Don’t engage in hard sell tactics; synchronize your sales cycle to their budget cycle. Keep the same sellers personnel assigned to buyer accounts. Be transparent about pricing and competitive comparisons; hiding these will not force buyers to call you. Offer free trials that are instantly available and convert into production systems. Don’t margin-optimize each transaction, focus on total revenue potential over time. Build a relationship based on deeply researching the buyer’s business to understand what they need. Consistently deliver on your roadmaps with products that perform ‘as advertised’. Respect that buyers the put their career on the line for you; help them be a hero.
Trust is not built in one meeting but over time. Likewise a trusted relationship between a buyer and seller is not reserved to just sales. All interactions – marketing, sales, service, legal, finance, engineering etc. – play an active role in establishing and keeping trust or eroding it.
The statistic is that over 80 percent of buyers will no longer do business with a seller after a bad experience. The reality is that it is never one event that destroys trust in a seller rather it’s the last bad experience in a string of disappointments that destroys any remnant of seller credibility.
The irony is that sellers inadvertently damage trust with their buyers. Bad behaviors systemic to seller cultures are often not questioned during a customer experience initiative. In our research with B2B Fortune 500 and SMB companies purchasing complex solutions, we discovered a number of seller crazy makers that have profoundly negative effects on buyer trust.
Marketing has no knowledge of detailed buyers’ journey steps. “I don’t know”, “I’ll get back to you”, providing inaccurate or incomplete information, and constantly referring buyers to the website. Sales assuming an uninformed buyer when buyers know more than SDR and sales teams. Finance, Legal, and Engineering out of the loop on buyer interaction histories and engage in heavy-handed tactics to resolve open items. Annual or quarterly ritual of reassigning sales or support personnel to different buyer accounts. Support, product management teams, and executives that never visit the buyer onsite. Product features that do not work or dramatic, unexpected shifts in the product roadmap. Phone numbers that are never answered by an actual human being. Revolving door of sales, support, and/or management teams. Asking buyers for feedback, repeatedly, and not acting on it or closing the loop. Customer success teams that are commissioned on up-sell and repeat sales versus buyer KPIs. Lack of transparency on company and product performance, and buyers hearing about bad news first on the internet.
For those sellers that believe their B2B buyer is “locked in” and can’t or won’t be defecting anytime soon, beware. Buyers have wised up and have a different opinion on this. We’re increasingly seeing buyers of all size companies implement hedging strategies early in the lifecycle of their vendor relationships to mitigate any unexpected risks associated with sellers not performing down the road. Many of the actions buyers take go beyond iron-clad legalese in purchase agreements or sharing disappointing experiences with their social graph. Buyers will go so far as to “play poker” in their interactions with sales and secretly purchase competitive products to have an immediate fallback position.
So how do you undercover your buyers’ trust builders and busters? Engage in deep qualitative research to discover the behaviors, beliefs and actions buyers take. Include trust-building as a step in customer experience re-definition, culture transformation and employee training. The benefit is greater revenue growth and customer loyalty with predictability.
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b2ac390f021114136508a9e264792ca1 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecrandell/2014/02/11/being-contextually-relevant-increasing-customer-loyalty/ | Being Contextually Relevant Increases Customer Loyalty | Being Contextually Relevant Increases Customer Loyalty
It’s like the old 1980s ad “When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen”; success today requires you to always be relevant.
Relevance is a table stake across the entire lifecycle of a seller-buyer relationship, not just when you’re making the sale or answering a customer service question.
As buyers move through on their journey, what is relevant to them changes. In fact, it changes at each step of the buyers’ journey. Relevance is defined by the situation, pressures and feelings the buyer has at each step; in other words it’s contextual. It applies as much to information as it does to actions taken. Understanding what is contextually relevant for each buyer at any point in time is a major challenge for vendors. It’s not like you can constantly ask them.
Now you don’t have to. There is a rise of software vendors that capture and analyze buyers’ digital actions and turn them into actionable behavioral patterns. Coupling these behavioral patterns with in-depth buyers’ journeys, vendors can decipher each buyer’s context. The result is actionable data to more effectively personalize content, landing pages, search results, emails, social communications, and sales and support calls, as well as products to meet evolving customer expectations.
Coveo, one of the industry’s fastest growing software vendors, couples content relevance with front-line collaboration. According to Louis Tetu, CEO, “Coveo builds a unified, federated knowledge index of all the fragmented data and information an enterprise has and merges it with what customers seek.”
The solution indexes every scrape of information within the four walls of an organization including data locked in mainframes, cloud applications and on the web to deliver a single view of the most relevant content based on a customer’s current situation. The index even tracks how different customers, market segments and employees rate the trust-worthiness of indexed information. For a call center agent, that can spell the difference between a successful customer experience and a frustrating one. To achieve this level of customer insight, Coveo believes companies need to put the Long Tail of knowledge to use.
The Long Tail of knowledge can pay off big time in a Seller’s quest to discover what buyers’ do before they ‘raise their hand’. Coveo compares the ‘experience’ patterns created by prior anonymous buyers with current visitor interactions to determine where the buyer is in their journey and what their contextual situation is. Based on the buyer’s current behavior, Coveo finds the closest ‘experience’ pattern and uses it to determine, in real time, the most relevant content, product, web page, etc. to present to that buyer. While Coveo matches anonymous visitors to the best-fit behavior pattern it also detects, in real time, when the buyer’s actions diverge and require different content and experience.
Tetu shared that “the more journeys you capture, the more information you collect, the more relevant your responses become.” He claims that vendors can use Coveo to define their content strategy based on the asset access patterns mapped to which types of buyers did and did not convert. Tetu believes that Coveo makes “one-to-one marketing a reality.”
Other vendors are approaching behavioral analytics in different ways. Totango focuses on identifying post-purchase behavioral patterns of SaaS vendor customers from the point of their freemium trial onward. Their knowledge base is heavily rooted in analyzing product usage to identify buy and churn signals. Integrated with help desk, inbound and marketing automation systems, Totango can personalize user interactions to keep customers engaged and loyal.
A European vendor making inroads into the North American market is Selligent. Their behavioral analytics platform utilizes big data to create actionable behavioral profiles that enable marketers to optimize lead nurturing, conversion and monetize targeting across channels.
Relationship and digital marketers face an array of challenges from rapidly evolving buyer expectations, changing media landscapes and new ways that consumers purchase products. Marketers need to go beyond demographic, psychographic and geo/location segmentation and capture, analyze and execute on behavioral data about their consumers. Campaigns must be contextually relevant, personalized, and synchronized across the channels that buyers frequent.
“It’s not enough to show increases in page views, paid search click-thrus, and emails open rates. The expectation is conversion into revenue that is directly traceable back to marketing campaigns,” says Andre Lejeune, CEO of Selligent. “That means delivering the right message or offer at the right time through the right channel to the right individuals. Unfortunately, traditional page-oriented web analytics, data management platforms, content management, and marketing automation systems were never designed to capture, analyze, and execute on behavioral data or deliver the level of detailed actionable insights that today’s marketers need to be successful.”
Marketing resources are not wasted by treating visitors with a one-size-fits-all approach; Selligent’s behavioral targeting is integrated with a robust marketing automation platform built on a real-time 360 degree, omni-channel view of the consumer. The Selligent’s Behavior application automatically scores each visitor, anonymous and known, based their intent to buy and the products of interest. High-value visitors are spotted in real-time and their potential lifetime value is quickly determined by pattern-matching their behaviors with the profiles of current “big purchasers” and key customers.
Purpose-built to drive higher marketing conversion rates, Selligent’s behavioral analytics are used to automate dynamic campaigns, offers and personalized interactions based analyzing, executing on and optimizing deep insights into the behaviors and opinions of known and anonymous buyers. This innovative solution reduces the noise that marketers battle on a daily basis and enables them to quickly identify, track and interact with the highest potential visitors.
A majority of companies don’t know what they know. And in the case of customer experience, this can have huge consequences. While many customer experience professionals are focused on siloed channels and interactions that map back to specific metrics – they need to look at the overall picture. Companies should be seeking a Return on Knowledge – or ROK – as Coveo says. Leverage the collective knowledge you have about your customers to improve their experience. But to do so, companies must first have access to this knowledge, and reuse it as much as possible.
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4ad79e5d33e2244c3463f80f3fb1ea0f | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecrandell/2014/10/01/integrating-fragmented-customer-conversations-into-a-valued-experience-takes-moxie/ | Integrating Fragmented Customer Conversations Into A Valued Experience Takes Moxie | Integrating Fragmented Customer Conversations Into A Valued Experience Takes Moxie
Two discussions are occurring in the marketplace around customer experience, one is focused on how to interact, inspire and influence buyers to trust and prefer your brand. The other conversation is focused on what to do with customers post purchase. Logically, these two are part of the same conversation; one a continuation of the other.
But in reality, that's not what is happening. Organizational silos, product-centric missions, short-term revenue obsession and company cultures are some of the factors that divide and fragment customer conversations.
To the customer it’s all one conversation regardless of where they are in the lifecycle of the relationship. They don’t care who’s responsible for the interaction, to them it’s all about consistency and continuity of value realized and the relevance of each interaction. What puzzles customers is why it’s taking brands so long to get it right.
I sat down with Rebecca Ward, CEO of Moxie Software, Inc., a real-time customer engagement software company, to understand her view on the challenge of compartmentalized customer conversations and how to re-integrate them into a valued customer experience.
What is the difference between "customer experience" and "customer success"?
“Customer success is when a customer is able to accomplish what they set out to do, easily. Customer experience describes their journey – what happened to them along the way in completing a task. Was it easy or did they struggle? Unfortunately, the latter is often the case even with the most basic of tasks. It’s no surprise that 97%-99% of people leave a brand’s website or mobile app without converting. To achieve customer success, companies need to engage with customers during the journey and "staff" the online store just as they staff a physical store.”
Why is getting multiple departments to deliver a consistent customer experiences is a major challenge for companies?
“A customer touches multiple departments and technologies throughout their customer journey. However, companies rarely have a unified strategy for consistently interacting with a customer, which creates a very fragmented experience.”
How much of the problem is culture versus technology versus organizational competences?
“Historically, each department (marketing, sales, service, etc.) has been tasked with deploying technology to achieve their specific business goals. On top of that, different aspects of the brick and mortar experience were transitioned online in different phases, which created even more of an inconsistent customer experience.
Today, organizations recognize that the customer embarks on a journey that crosses many departments. Applying consistent technology can break down these silos. For example, companies can use the same technology for chat whether selling to a customer or supporting them or use the same knowledgebase for employees internally as well as for customers externally to deliver consistent answers across the organization.
Several of Moxie’s customers are hosting internal innovation fairs where they are sharing existing technology with employees across departments to help them deliver consistent experiences across the organization. I’m excited to see happening more and more.”
As a CEO, what best practices have you implemented so understand and consistently deliver valued customer experiences?
“The most important thing for me is to build a culture that focuses on our customers’ and our employees’ expectations. Why do people buy from us? Why do employees work here? Sharing knowledge across the company is a critical component to the success of any organization, including Moxie. It is part of an ongoing process to enable customers and employees to continually share what they have learned. From a technology standpoint, we are broadening the use of our own knowledge base to ensure that best practices can be easily shared internally and externally with our customers.
Additionally, our company values spell out MOXIE to make them easy to remember.
M= meaningful
O= open
X= xenodochial
I= impactful
E= entrepreneurial
We focus on delivering innovative products that solve a compelling market need, being a company that is easy to work with and responsive, and having a culture of open communication so we surface ideas and identify problems to continuously improve. “
Mobile is today's preferred channel, how will the mobile application market respond to customers' evolving channel preferences?
“Today, many companies are still largely ignoring the mobile channel even though smartphone traffic continues to increase at a rapid pace. The smartphone offers a unique opportunity to capture new customers since it is often the only device that an individual will have with him/her at all times. The digital channel engagement model needs to be designed from this perspective.
One of the key changes in a mobile world is going from what I call a "tethered and tolerant" user, one who is sitting at a desk, to one who is "mobile and multi-tasking." The engagement model needs to change to support that. For example, on a website today, companies publish an 800 number as the only way to reach them for help. Even on websites, this is not an optimal engagement model. Why should I have to go from a computer to a telephone in order to get help?
In a mobile world, people are more comfortable messaging (texting and emailing) versus talking on the device. The mode of communication offered needs to align with the utility of the device – chatting with a company on a mobile device is a natural extension of what the device is already being used for. A consistent multi-channel experience offers seamless communication options and knowledge across the website, mobile, tablet as well as in store and kiosks. In the next 12 months, mobile apps and mobile sites will become more comprehensive as they evolve from part of a website that lacks key functionality.”
To integrate compartmentalized, fragmented customer conversations into a meaningful experience, one strategy enterprises must embrace is mobile applications built on the same framework – chat, email, knowledge, social media, and video chat – to deliver consistent experiences that customers value and seek out on all devices.
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18ca3fe7091bcf02acdf17d71a651403 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecrandell/2014/12/22/saving-the-cmo/ | How To Save The CMO | How To Save The CMO
Want make a room full of B2B executives uncomfortable? Start a conversation on whether the CMO role is dead or alive. The topic heats up every year as it has been simmering under the surface for years.
At a high level, the debate goes something like this:
CEO: “I don’t understand why getting ROI from Marketing is so hard. What do all those people do, anyway? I don’t understand the answers when I ask.”
Sales: “We need real leads that turn into deals. We need help in the field to tell a differentiated story. We need content that customers want. Why can’t Marketing deliver?”
Customer Success: “We have to create everything when it comes to supporting customer engagement. Why can’t Marketing help us deliver the experience customers value?”
Marketing’s response – aside from escalating frustration, burn-out and fear – is to reallocate scarce resources to address the tactical complaints and explain, again, the strategy, KPIs, ROI as well as the challenges they face. Most marketers, to survive, have adopted a four prong strategy:
Talk about marketing only in terms of revenue attribution. Automate, automate, automate and integrate. Keep the team focused on execution and aligned with the latest marketing trends. Implement an array of mitigation strategies to satisfy various internal stakeholders.
There are exceptions, CMOs that lead the direction and strategy of their companies. Elisa Steele, who was recently named President of Jive Software , Lisa Arthur of Teradata Applications, and Mariann McDonagh of inContact are a few. Most marketers, however, strive to define a job scope where they can survive and that’s often not a happy place. According to IDC “one in four CMOS will be replaced every year through 2018.”
What’s missing in the ‘CMO is dead’ or ‘alive’ debate is the role of the CEO. Just as a coin has two sides, CEOs bear significant responsibility for the state of marketing. While most CEOs and board members are not marketers that does not give them a hall pass from investing the time to understand how their biggest revenue generating function operates.
To fix the situation, CEOs and CMOs need to partner on understanding and optimizing the revenue line-of-sight from target market segments to booked business. The reward is predictable revenue growth.
The question these two executives need to answer, jointly, is - do I know my customer, deeply and actionably? According to IDC, “only one in five companies will retool to reach LOB buyers and outperform” their competitors in 2015. In other words, you don’t know your customers well enough to move the needle.
Knowing your customer is not about antidotal information or ‘inside out’ journey maps. It’s about knowing, in detail, the actions they take, whom they talk to, how they define value, and what cues trigger which behaviors along the lifecycle, from awareness through next purchase. Knowing this is important because therein lie the seeds of brand preference, loyalty, and satisfaction.
It’s about knowing what makes a prospect - not according to your qualification guide or lead scoring - but what makes YOU a prospect in THEIR purchase decision. This knowledge gives you the decoder ring for your marketing and sales strategy.
It’s about understanding how customers decide they can trust you. It’s about what kind of experience customers expect after they’ve purchased. Knowing this tells you what skills you need to have onboard and how to structure your processes to consistently deliver to customer expectations.
If CEOs want different results from marketing, they need to step up and partner with the CMO to understand, in detail, the above paragraphs. For those CEOs and CMOs that claim they know this already – I challenge you to an assessment to see how well your organization scores.
If you suspect that the CEO or CMO might not have the depth of answers needed to drive increased revenue attribution and loyalty, below is a four step framework based on the Sellers’ Compass™. Start with the “Learn” block, followed by “Fix”, “Align”, and “Innovate”.
The value in the CEO and CMO partnering to go through the framework is three-fold:
Both intimately understand their customers and expectations. The CEO will learn what marketing really means and what’s involved. The CMO will learn the business’ financial value chain and what marketing needs to deliver.
Along the way, the CMO role will be redeemed and redefined along with the skills CMOs must possess and their KPIs. CEOs will be more effective in providing the guidance marketing has needed and wanted. An example of what can come out of CMO-CEO-customer collaboration is a new structure and staffing model for marketing. Instead of a siloed team of employees, the marketing team is highly matrixed and comprised of a handful of specialized roles, strategists, project managers and behaviorists with the majority of work performed by employees from other functions like project management, engineering, sales, finance, etc. The model builds common understanding and shared goals across the organization of what it takes to win and keep customers, grow the business, and how each function contributes to the mission.
Most importantly, customers are the real winners because they’ll have a valued experience from a trusted partner they want to do business with – something they might even pay a premium for.
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a2bc9ea6414a1af51da60106be77e246 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecrandell/2015/07/09/2015-state-of-the-customer-success-profession/ | 2015 State Of The Customer Success Profession | 2015 State Of The Customer Success Profession
The "age of the customer" has had a dramatic effect on organizations. New positions abound that didn’t exist five or 10 years ago. One of those positions is the customer success manager.
The concept is to have a team of employees focused on exactly what the position’s title describes – the success of the customer. However, and ironically, companies have implemented the position to focus on getting additional revenue from the customer instead of ensuring the customer achieves their outcome first and foremost for the lifecycle of the relationship. The function, as well as the industry of customer enablement and empowerment, remains early despite market rhetoric.
The good news is that things are changing and rapidly. That is reflected in the challenges the 2015 Customer Success Salary Survey & State of the Profession Report found facing customer success teams. It speaks to the need for companies to rethink and realign the definition of customer success roles :
Reactive approach to customers Time management and focus Visibility into customers Scaling the team Clarity of the role and goals
Totango, a customer success management software platform, released the results from their 2015 Customer Success Salary Survey & State of the Profession Report. The study was based on a sample of 748 participants comprised of Chief Customer Officers (16%), Directors of Customer Success (35%), Customer Success Managers (36%), and other related roles. The respondents were almost evenly split across team sizes of zero to five, six to 25, and greater than 25 team members. "The ranks of Customer Success professionals are growing by leaps and bounds. It's not surprising that we're also seeing the growing pains of figuring out how to practically translate the ambitious mandate of "customer success" into the nuts-and-bolts of a day-to-day job," shared Kaiser Mulla-Feroze, Chief Marketing Officer, Totango.
2015 compensation levels, compared to 2014, are on the rise with the median annual compensation for:
Chief Customer Officer / VP of Customer Success between $150,000 and $175,000, Director of Customer Success between $125,000 and $150,000, Customer Success Manager between $75,000 and $100,000.
The most popular compensation structure is base salary plus bonus (54%) with a small portion of the sample (20%) paid some form of a commission. The criteria most commonly used to determine bonuses, in my opinion, contributes to the disconnect between the role’s title and customer expectations of the role. Thirty-seven percent of bonuses are based on renewals and upsells and over 55% of bonuses are based on team and/or company performance. For those customer success managers paid commissions, 57% are based on renewals and upsells, 23% on upsells only, and 20% on renewals only.
Based on the hundreds of B2B qualitative customer interviews I’ve conducted, when a customer hears that someone’s title is customer success, the impression is just that. The employee’s number one priority is that the customer achieves their target outcome and advocates for them within the organization. Since it’s been long acknowledged that people do what they are paid for, having bonuses based on company revenue performance or compensation based on renewals, upsell or commission generates a very different behavior and mindset than what the customer is expecting. An opportunity for expectation mis-setting and customer dissatisfaction to occur.
Over 77% of companies have had customer success teams for three years or less with teams coming from a wide variety of backgrounds. The study’s findings validate just how nascent this function is. While 34% of customer success teams are standalone functions reporting to the CEO, a significant increase over last year’s 15%, a disturbing 14% of teams still report into sales or marketing. While not a large amount, it speaks to the challenge of labeling something that it is not.
Measuring customer success based on revenue generated is not a proxy for customer satisfaction or loyalty. I know of one mobile application vendor in San Francisco that calls their sales reps customer success managers; they are still sales reps. Another SaaS vendor assigns and pays their customer success managers on renewal and upsell quotas. The result is sporadic customer engagement, underutilized products and an annual ‘re-educating’ of users on the vendor’s value.
The most effective compensation models include customer satisfaction metrics over the lifecycle of the contract, product adoption/usage, and customer rating of their customer success managers. According to John Ragsdale of TSIA, customer success / account managers should be responsible for renewal, increased adoption and identifying expansion sales opportunities. Sales should be responsible for closing expansion sales opportunities
Having the right person in the role is critical, not everyone is suited to ‘own the customer’. It requires individuals that are empathetic, patient, problem solvers, technical and committed to both the customers’ and the company’s success.
Totango’s study found that 43% of customer success employees come from sales and/or account management compared to 24% that come from support/services organizations. That background accounts, in part, for the role’s revenue focus instead of customer outcome attainment. Other fields from which customer success managers come from include marketing, product/engineering, finance and consulting.
The good news is that companies are starting to realize that an overemphasis on revenue runs counter to what they and their customers want which are to build enabling and enduring relationships based on lifecycle outcome attainment:
Product adoption – 57% Churn reduction – 55% Onboarding – 47% Customer advocacy – 42% Customer support – 39% Upsell – 20%
The bottom-line is that the customer success profession is critical to success in this "age of the customer." Companies have made great strides in the past twelve months in understanding how to staff, compensate and manage these customer-facing employees. Mulla-Feroze sums it up well, "The profile of the Customer Success profession is clearly on the rise. More teams are reporting directly into the CEO, and companies are investing heavily in growing the ranks of their Customer Success teams -- from CSMs all the way to VPs and Chief Customer Officers."
The one area the study did not measure is how happy, enabled and empowered the respondents feel they are. Happy, empowered employees are the quickest road to loyal customers.
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602ac8feeca94f8a945721b7e7c9bf6e | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecrandell/2015/07/22/big-data-will-select-your-next-strategic-partner/ | Big Data Will Select Your Next Strategic Partner | Big Data Will Select Your Next Strategic Partner
In an increasingly competitive but cost conscious world businesses are always looking for new ways to gain competitive advantages and revenue streams. Businesses are likely to be more successful in achieving their goals if they partner with others that bring unique experiences and skill sets to the table. Strategic partnerships offer routes to new markets, access to capital, ways to create new products and specialized knowledge. Partnerships have become a table stake these days for every company looking to accelerate growth.
Strategic partnerships have been around for some time and have evolved into varying types of relationships from casual partnerships (aka Barney Releases) to joint ventures and co-opetition between rivals. Identifying and securing partnerships is not as easy as it sounds. Success is mainly determined by having a dedicated person with the right Rolodex and direct access or personal relationships with the right people in target partner companies. We’ve all learned, however, that individuals don’t scale.
Enter the world of Big Data.
To find out how big data is changing this age-old business practice, I sat down with Doron Cohen, CEO and cofounder of Powerlinx.
Christine Crandell: Doron, why do you refer to partnering as collaboration?
Doron Cohen: We refer to strategic partnerships as the world of business collaboration because they should be exactly that – collaborative. Too often companies treat external partners like a purchase order or a vendor when they should be forming collaborative alliances. Many companies fear that they might sacrifice some of their power in the marketplace by divulging too much important information. However, when partners align on their goals, purpose and strategies we see strong alliances that lead to success for both parties.
Crandell: How big is the world of business collaboration?
Cohen: It is a dominant trend in business that has been overlooked because it has lacked a common language and central marketplace. But the numbers reveal just how big the world of business collaboration is. In a study by the CMO Council and Business Performance and Innovation Network (sponsored by Powerlinx), 85% of executives stated that strategic partnerships were vital to their growth plans.
Furthermore, 57% of businesses are already spending $100,000 per year on identifying, building and managing partnerships. This signals that strategic partnerships and business collaboration is a sizable market that executives are trying to navigate.
Crandell: What goals do businesses have when seeking new partnerships?
Cohen: An analysis of the more than 12,000 firms that use Powerlinx’s platform found that businesses typically have the following goals when seeking a partner:
Nearly 40% of businesses are seeking to reach new geographical markets or expand their online presence rather than focus on customers in their existing market. Around 12.5% of businesses are focused on finding partners who could help them diversify their product range and application. Over 10% of businesses are actively seeking a partner to help them raise capital. Around 3% of businesses are preparing to explore an exit and were in need of external parties to assist in that process.
Crandell: What factors contribute to a successful partnership?
Cohen: Relevance matters more than proximity. Geographic commonality once mattered but technology has allowed easy communication across state and national boundaries, which in turn makes it easier to engage in cross-border collaboration.
Factors that determine relevance include business characteristics, the compatibility of objectives, each firm’s place in their respective growth cycles and a history of successful collaboration. There are literally hundreds of data points to consider, which is why historically strategic partnerships have taken so long to develop.
Crandell: How is Big Data making strategic partnering easier?
Cohen: Technology and big data analytics are reshaping the way strategic partnerships are developed and opening them up to businesses that could never access them before. The traditional model is being disrupted as technology significantly reduces the cost and big data shifts the model away from a dependency on personal networks to a focus on analytics and machine driven smart decisions.
Big data analytics allows businesses to more easily identify opportunities while isolating competitive tensions and cost pressures are adding impetus to the need to distinguish between the two. Part of the challenge has been the lack of a market place for business collaboration but the need is clearly apparent with around 75 percent of executives reporting that automation and big data analytics would make the task of finding and connecting with the right partner easier.
Crandell: Give me an example of how this works?
Cohen: Everyday companies come to our platform looking to pursue a common business objective. For example, a food processor recently came to Powerlinx seeking a partner that could introduce innovation into their manufacturing process and extend the shelf life of their product so they could reach new geographic markets. Powerlinx was able to assess the specific business need and identify a potential partner with both the ability and intent to meet this need. The result was a revamped process that allows the product to be shipped distances previously considered impossible while maintaining quality.
In another case a metal manufacturer experienced declining demand in their core market of China and needed to identify new uses for their product. Powerlinx was able to identify new opportunities in Germany where the product could act as a substitute for an expensive core component in auto manufacturing.
In both instances the Powerlinx users were able to accelerate the process of collaboration through the application of big data analytics. Our engine was able to understand a need specific to each user, search our database of over 20 million companies and identify firms that had both the ability and the immediate capacity to work with our users.
Unlike the traditional approach, that would involve months of searching and negotiations, our engine and PowerScore was able to identify potential matches in a matter of hours and introduce the businesses to each other within a matter of days. As a result both users have experienced significant growth in markets never before considered. It is also why we has focused so much effort on the development of our PowerScore, which considers all of the available data points to provide a dynamic rating on the compatibility between any two firms.
The global economy is reshaping many industries and the effect is to create opportunities between businesses that were once fierce rivals. Being able to clearly distinguish between areas of competition and commonality is crucial to success for any businesses. Big Data doesn’t replace the business development executive with the deep Rolodex. It helps them be more effective by freeing up their time to negotiate the right terms with the right partners. Who would have thought.
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896d181cf56cdce4b1dd7f6222350045 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecrandell/2016/05/09/customer-experience-is-a-culture-problem/ | Customer Experience Is A Culture Problem | Customer Experience Is A Culture Problem
Customer experience has undergone a dramatic transformation over the past four years. Beginning as a new software category promising to help companies delight, convert and retain customers to where it is today, a business discipline, focused on aligning culture, strategy and processes to audiences’ life-cycle expectations.
The road has been a bumpy one. The software category matured, fragmented and is consolidating as vendors and users, alike, tried to achieve the promised ROI – revenue growth from customer loyalty. Companies ran into multiple roadblocks mostly from employee fear, resistance to change, lack of internal competences and mistaken belief that software could bypass change management. Vendors, on the other hand, introduced a steady stream of features at a cadence that outpaced the capabilities and understanding of the most sophisticated users.
Gallery: How To Overcome A Poor Yelp Rating 6 images View gallery
An impasse has been reached. Frustrated users are taking a step back to evaluate why delivering the experience customers valued was so hard. Robert Tas, chief marketing officer of Pegasystems, a strategic applications vendor for marketing, sales, service, and operations, summed up five key barriers as:
1. Companies are structured around products instead of customers ,
2. Treating digital experience as a "check the box" and not understanding what it means,
3. Line of business-centric funding models that don’t benefit other parts of the organization,
4. Disconnect between employee expectations with them being treated as consumers and how they ultimately treat customers , and
5. Not closing customer feedback loops and being transparent.
“Customer experience is not a technology problem – it’s a culture problem,” states Tas.
Breaking the culture paradigm requires different perspectives. “ Customer experience is a disruptive business phenomenon,” shares Tas. “As companies become more data, customer and digital centric, the speed of change will reduce barriers to entry and obsolete organizations.”
Customer experience is in the process of being redefined. It’s not software that automates engagement or predicts which customer an employee should or should not pay attention to. Customer experience is about all-inclusive strategic alignment between the customer’s engagement expectations, brand promise and the company culture behind the brand. To win, CEOs must be maniacal about that alignment .
One company that has taken this to heart is Qumulo, an enterprise data storage vendor. Karim Fanous, vice president of customer success, implemented a three-prong strategy to align the company to key customers and their lifecycle expectations:
People: Empower front-line employees to do what is right to meet customer expectations . Fanous takes a different approach to hiring customer success managers. He hires seasoned practitioners, storage and system administrators, that have scored high on empathy skills. These employees have the maturity and experience to make the right decisions and serve as advisors to customers that add value to every interaction.
Engineering is required to "man" the customer support center and answer support calls. Having the employees who design the product address customer complaints, questions and concerns results in better designed products that can be produced with fewer defects. In short, they take more care in doing their job because they are directly accountable to customers.
Automation: to remove complexity from the user interface of products. Fanous found that the ease of product use directly correlates to repeat purchase and higher NPS scores. Ease of use, however, cannot come at the expense of missing product features, value add or differentiation.
Other best practices that Qumulo has adopted include a dedicated Slack channel for every customer that is accessed by all employees; monthly check-in customer calls by sales, customer success, engineering and product managers; and full transparency on company business decisions and performance.
The CEO of Qumulo, Peter Godman, is equally maniacal about customer alignment. He mandated a customer-first policy across and up and down the organization. Godman openly engages with all employees to reinforce the importance of Qumulo’s customers and celebrate the successes. Achieving cross-organizational customer alignment didn’t happen overnight. It took two years and Fanous will tell you that the job is never done.
Customer alignment is still a nascent discipline with evolving best practices. Practitioners are just starting to understand the role behavior, emotion and cognitive marketing have on the intersection between customers and brands , B2C as well as B2B. That’s not to say that CEM/CX software is going by the wayside.
Software plays a part in analyzing data to discern intent and context which enables companies to make more effective strategic decisions and interactions to sustain alignment. CEM, CX, MA, CRM and analytics vendors are not there yet in terms of understanding their role in this evolve discipline. One thing is for sure, customer experience is not a marketing or customer service "thing." It is deeply rooted in your business strategy and touches every corner of the organization.
If the ROI you sought from embracing customer experience hasn’t been something to write home about, it’s time take to take step back and assess your approach. Don’t be afraid to hit the reset button on your customer alignment initiative and come at from a fresh approach. Start with first deeply understanding the customer from the outside-in, aligning company values and culture to, and define your business strategy around the customer.
The advice I give clients is simple: Focus on employees first, then customers, followed by simplifying processes and institutionalizing it with technology.
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7f7870e22f81c3328cb9eefb7a705fab | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecrandell/2016/06/10/customer_cocreation_secret_sauce/?sh=760cff6d5b6d | Customer Co-Creation Is The Secret Sauce To Success | Customer Co-Creation Is The Secret Sauce To Success
A quadrocopter remotely controlled DHL drone transporting medicines (INGO WAGNER/AFP/Getty Images)
In my experience, clients large and small realize that customer alignment leads to a transformation that exceeds their expectations, in a good way. The more customers realize their vendor is committed to listening, embracing and delivering their precise requirements, the more they want to be involved in that organization.
The operative phrase is to “be involved in.” Increasingly, that is taking the form of customer co-creation. Prahalad and Ramaswamy defined co-creation as “the joint creation of value by the company and the customer; allowing the customer to co-construct the service experience to suit their context.” In my work, I define co-creation as the “purposeful action of partnering with strategic customers, partners or employees to ideate, problem solve, improve performance, or create a new product, service or business.”
Gallery: Top 10 Business Trends That Will Drive Success In 2016 10 images View gallery
The concept has been around since 2000 yet has taken over a decade to catch on. Co-creation is not a customer advisory board on steroids or a clever sales and marketing tactic. It’s about jointly creating value , for the vendor as well as customers. To most managers, the thought of openly and transparently engaging customers, sharing detailed data is downright scary. The rewards, however, should cause CEOs to pause and reconsider.
Let’s look at how two very different companies are using co-creation to drive value.
The first is DHL, the global market leader in logistics, part of the world’s largest mail and logistics services company, Deutsche Post ("DP") DHL. You may know them by their yellow and red delivery trucks. Privatized 15 years ago, today the DP DHL Group employs some 490,000 employees around the world producing $57 billion in annual revenue. You might think a company this size would struggle being agile, let alone set standards in innovation and customer service.
What DHL discovered was its customers wanted help in rethinking their supply chains to improve business performance. “That is quite a challenge, as we are typically dealing with very complex global supply chains,” shared Bill Meahl, chief commercial officer at DHL, “one which fueled us to embark on a journey of customer co-creation.”
Embarking on this path meant more than just process and service changes, it meant picking the right customers to work with and deepening employee capabilities to understand how they impact customer business, customer perception and sustainability. A critical success factor was teaching employees how to “walk a mile in customer shoes so they intimately understand the dynamics of working with customers ,” according to Meahl. That competence is critical to developing a range of viable recommendations and new solutions that not only meet customer goals but demonstrate the value of DHL as a business partner.
DHL understands that innovation must be customer focused. One way they ensure this happens is by bringing customers and their DHL service partners together in specially built Germany- and Singapore-based innovation centers for workshops to share best practices and create value. The purpose is to “conduct intensive hands-on workshops that explore and understand technology, economic, socio-political and culture trends to develop new ways to manage supply chains and logistics.”
Sessions sometimes start with a look at what business could look like in 2050. Employing a proven methodology of scenario planning, DHL’s approach takes customers on a time journey which showcases a four-quadrant view of what the world could look like in 2050. The quadrants are radically different from each other; one quadrant is always a doomsday scenario and its opposite is a perfect world. The power of scenario planning is that it breaks mindset. The joint team then "walks" backwards from 2050 to 2020, which provides a platform for specific trend lines, core competencies, and problems that need to be solved. From there, the joint team brainstorms solutions and approaches.
Some of the innovations that have been launched as a result of the over 6,000 engagements conducted in DHL’s innovation centers and other customer co-creation formats include:
• Parcelcopter, a drone delivery research project, which may in future enable companies to be more responsive, agile and cost-efficient.
• “Smart glasses” and augmented reality, co-created with DHL customer Ricoh, to improve inventory and warehouse picking efficiency by 25%.
• “Maintenance on demand” (MoDe), co-created with DHL’s customer Volvo Trucks and other partners, uses sensors that automatically send back vehicle and component performance to identify when and where truck maintenance will be required.
• IoT Report, an industry report, authored by DHL and Cisco, that identified and evaluated the implications and use cases of the Internet of Things in logistics.
• Robotics applications that are currently being jointly tested with customers. These range from self-driving trolleys that support pickers to do their work in a less strainful way to collaborative robots that support workers for value-added services such as co-packing.
Meahl admits the co-creation concept was initially received with skepticism, internally and externally. Customers thought it was a clever sales tactic. Internally DHL has multiple business units who have differing business models serving the same customers. Identifying the right DHL leaders who “owned that customer” and aligning and coordinating multiple teams to productize the innovation workshop outcomes forced the company to take a hard look at its own structure and processes.
The result has been well worth it. CSAT scores are over 80% and on-time delivery performance is 97% or higher worldwide. Customer churn rates are down and revenue from new services/products is up.
At the other end of the spectrum is Phononic, an early stage technology company that develops solid state heating and cooling. Phononic sells into traditional industries that manufacturer refrigeration and HVAC systems.
The founder and CEO, Dr. Tony Atti, believes that “ companies should understand their customers’ desired experience and use that knowledge to work backwards to define company processes and culture .” In Atti’s opinion a core part of B2B customer engagement should be based on emotion versus engineering or technical terms. “ Co-creation is about helping the customer imagine a different future .”
Most of Phononic’s products are the result of customer co-creation -- these are highly complex, precision engineered equipment that can cost millions of dollars. Fully integrated team of engineers, supply chain experts, sales and marketers partner with customers to define new products, design requirements, prototypes, and finalize manufacturing specifications.
The result is a small company that is disrupting an old, established industry. Atti swears by the co-creation model for the entire customer lifecycle journey, not just product innovation. It is at the core of Phononic’s differentiation as well as its culture .
Along the way he has learned some valuable lessons:
• Don’t limit co-creation to just problem solving or new product definition; use it to define new markets to grow into.
• Be consistently honest and transparent about your business and its goals with employees as well as customers.
• Build a culture that constantly pushes the company beyond its comfort zone while “beating out the fear of making a mistake” through empowerment.
• Conduct annual “outside-in” journey mapping as the blueprint for processes, mapping emotions as well as actions taken.
Atti and Meahl both stress that for companies to structure their organizations and processes around their customers; co-creation is the new table stake of success.
Your strategic customers are expecting this from you. That being said, not all customers and markets are ready to embrace the commitment, transparency and responsibility of co-creation. Atti and Meahl will tell you to “choose your markets and customers wisely and go into co-creation eyes wide open.” But do it now.
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8c9e34e87dc959ac192bc56a6982cec0 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecrandell/2016/09/22/customer-service-shouldnt-be-responsible-for-solving-customer-issues/ | Customer Service Shouldn't Be Responsible For Solving Customer Issues | Customer Service Shouldn't Be Responsible For Solving Customer Issues
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Today’s digital experience has reshaped every aspect of business and our lives. Not just in how we shop, compare and decide what to purchase from whom to purchase but also in how we navigate life choices. Whether it’s trying to figure out which universities to apply to with the Schoold mobile app or how to stay calm, centered and mindful through stressful situations, there is Buddhify to help us.
The ease of digital experiences has changed how we communicate. We’ve all mastered the nature of asynchronous communications. That is until we hit a snag – a bad purchase, a vendor dispute, or a complex transaction going sideways. Then the world gets a lot less clear on how to go forward – do you call the other party or hash it out via email?
I sat down with Larry Friedberg, Chief Marketing Officer of Modria, who claims that dispute resolution, at scale, has been successfully automated, I wanted to learn how.
Christine Crandell: Does asynchronous communication help or hinder conflict resolution?
Larry Friedberg: When an end user customer experiences a transaction problem, the immediate reaction is visceral: Aggravation, anger, frustration, anxiety, and fear. Asynchronous communication can dramatically help issue resolution by providing a cooling distance. That helps to control emotional reactions and reduce the threat of escalation. It also enables parties to be at their best, because they can be more reflective in their communications. Our experience, however, bears out the need for companies to deliver fast and fair resolution within hours, not days or weeks.
Crandell: eBay and PayPal state they process 60 million dispute cases per year . Do customers feel they have more liberty/latitude to complain because the interaction is digital?
Friedberg: Let’s put that number into perspective, eBay and PayPal complete over a billion transactions every year. Only 1% - 3% of all those transactions result in a problem which typically falls into one of three areas: 1) “Where’s my item?” 80% of all cases are non-receipt. 2) The buyer received the item or service but it’s not what they wanted or it was materially different from the description. While these cases are in the minority they are typically the most challenging to solve. 3) Unpaid Items. Buyers clicked to purchase an item but for whatever reason never paid; these cases are all automatically resolved.
Customers don’t necessarily feel they have more liberty to complain merely because the transaction occurs online . Part of the problem, in the past, was that eCommerce companies would bury the access point to file a complaint deep within their websites. Doing so inevitably results in greater frustration, anger and anxiety for the buyer. By making access to filing a complaint easier, eCommerce companies learn that it empowers them to more easily make the process, policy and staffing changes necessary that build customer loyalty.
Crandell: What are new best practices for issue resolution and mediation in the digital economy?
Friedberg: In our co-founder Colin Rule’s upcoming book about online resolution he outlines ten best practices for the digital economy :
1. Resolutions should be fast and easy.
2. Discoverability [of reporting a problem] and easy access are very important.
3. Consumers aren’t motivated by giveaways.
4. Customer satisfaction (CSAT) is not a good measure of resolution effectiveness resolutions programs as satisfaction is correlated to outcome.
5. Sellers have structural advantages because they have access to all of the data across their entire customer base whereas customers have only a small purview.
6. You’ve got to set the right tone.
7. Sellers and buyers shouldn’t presume everything is fraud.
8. Outcomes have to be consistent and fair.
9. Resolution processes do not need to be legally binding.
10. Resolution systems need to be continuously learning.
Crandell: Are online dispute resolution systems only applicable to certain types of transactions or products?
Friedberg: Solutions like Modria are a “best fit” for the hardest and most challenging problems facing companies . Collaborative economy companies, marketplaces (tangible goods or services), payments companies, and large merchants are all great. The reason is three-fold:
1. Contact Deflection. Online dispute resolution platforms provide sellers with a policy center that can generate automated resolutions to any type of transaction problem and customize the resolution experience based on customer segment, product or service sold, or any other type of criteria. For example, with Modria a high valued buyer who spends $2,000 per year on an apparel site and files only one transaction problem complaint valued at, say $50, can be auto resolved with a full refund without customer support ever having to be involved.
2. Structured Buyer-Seller Negotiation. Online dispute resolution platforms offer a specialized workflow that empowers buyers and sellers, freelancers and clients, payer and payee to work out the issue between themselves without having to involve customer service. It’s incredibly effective.
3. Lawsuit Prevention. When the parties can't work it out and the issue is escalating, it can easily turn into a law suit. Modria has powerful online mediation and arbitration options that bring in a neutral party to help reach a resolution without having to go to court.
Crandell: Sounds like a situation for Blockchain?
Friedberg: Blockchains can create the next generation digital contract, increasing the trust in many kinds of transactions. We are considering blockchains as a mechanism to document the outcome of complex disputes. In the transactional context, blockchains can eliminate or reduce issues related to a buyer or seller repudiating a purchase . However, it doesn't address issues of non-delivery, late delivery, incomplete orders, incorrect fulfillment, or the desire to change an order after purchase. These issues arise even when the contract between buyer and seller is clear and authenticated.
Crandell: Aside from Blockchain, how do you see this software category evolving in the next five years?
Friedberg: The way we buy will be increasingly mobile, with new devices ranging from Amazon Echo, smart watches to connected cars and homes that extend the on-demand shopping experience across more touch points in our lives. Data about us, our habits, preferences, interests and patterns as well as vendor products, features, prices, and compatibility with our lives and careers will outstrip today’s imagination. Merchants and marketers will use this data to personalize experience and anticipate customer needs, fundamentally changing the way we interact online.
All of this means that problem resolution has to keep pace. Shoppers will expect the systems they use across their devices to know who they are, what they purchased, where it is in delivery, and will want to resolve problems at the pace of commerce, from any device. “Alexa, where is my package”. “Hey Siri, I want to return that sweater.”
We expect all of this to change the face of customer service. The role of support agents will evolve to focus on taking care of those interactions that require one-to-one relationships : Concierge shopping, high value complex purchases that need human judgement, and the really messy angry customer who needs to “talk to a manager.”
Crandell: Let’s make this real in today’s terms, what is the ROI?
Friedberg: Companies need to tune into the concept of “Return on Resolution.” They need to analyze what it is costing them to process a problem transaction versus any other type of contact. It costs an eCommerce company around $12 to handle a single transaction problem. After implementing Modria, the cost to handle that same transaction problem falls to under $5. Another major service marketplace provider has seen their time to resolution reduced by 25%. And that is not at the expense of loyalty or repeat purchases. The ROI is real.
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cde967f6ba9d63f0512c265f406d0393 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecrandell/2017/09/10/4-questions-every-small-business-must-ask-about-artificial-intelligence/ | 4 Questions Every Small Business Must Ask About Artificial Intelligence | 4 Questions Every Small Business Must Ask About Artificial Intelligence
Photo credit ODD ANDERSEN/AFP/Getty Images
This article was developed with Kevin Haaland, CTO of The Better Software Company, a SaaS platform to small business and franchise owners. Haaland was formerly the head of IBM’s Watson Analytics.
From Siri to Alexa, customers are becoming accustomed to AI-powered solutions and soon they will expect the same for their local businesses. Sure, an AI roll-out can be daunting, but by adopting a strategic approach and adding smart software, small businesses will not only be able to differentiate themselves from competitors, but compete with the industry giants as well.
While many over complicate the technology, AI’s behaviors are predictable – it’s merely an advanced system that is trained, not told. AI mimics the human brain in the way that it learns. It starts with no information, and after being given thousands of pieces of information, is able to understand and make predictions about data it has never seen before.
AI will become a threat to small businesses if owners believe it won’t impact them, or isn’t already impacting them. The fact is, AI has the potential to drastically help companies of all sizes work smarter and more efficiently than ever before.
Before acting on an AI roll-out, here are the top four questions small businesses should ask themselves:
What is it you are looking to achieve?
AI can provide great value for sales, marketing, finance, HR, customer service, and more. Hone in on what exactly you are hoping to achieve with the use of AI – where do you need to increase productivity?
By setting highly focused goals, you will be able to develop a plan that prioritizes specific applications for AI technology. This way, small businesses can slowly adapt and familiarize themselves with the software, that will, overtime, drastically enhance the bottom line.
The most immediate benefit of AI is that it will provide immense efficiency. There will be less time entering data and more time getting valuable insight to augment decision making. There’s a mass amount of data waiting to be analyzed and AI will guide businesses on how to act.
What data is already in a system of record?
You’ll never hear the words “too much data” and “AI” used in the same sentence. AI systems become more accurate and effective as the volume of data increases. The big industry players have been accumulating business intelligence and already moved on to predictive analytics.
The first step in your AI project is to systematize your business . With the widespread adoption of cloud based solutions (SAAS) and the rapid reduction in the cost of storage and processing, the first step is to start instrumenting all elements of your business. Your website, your marketing activities, your sales – including the business that you “win” and “lose.”
Unlike huge, multi-national companies that are able to capture and process peta-bytes of data, small businesses have had access to significantly less data. This is changing with the adoption of cloud-based products and services and the availability of open data sets from governments and other providers. The goal for small business owners is to have the appropriate systems and infrastructure needed to go and analyze data and extract even more business value.
What is your ability to explore your business data and understand what’s going on objectively?
If you’re looking at the raw data it’s easy to “torture the data” to get the answer you want to be there – don’t fall victim to this habit.
Your goal is to generate several hypotheses from the data. Examine outliers and the associations between data elements. Be careful not to draw conclusions too early though, as outliers could be caused by “bad data” that needs to be cleaned up, and the relationships may not be strong enough to make any definitive conclusions. We often allow our personal biases and expectations get in the way of looking at data. The numbers don’t lie, but if we look at them expecting certain results, we may end up manipulating the information to meet our expectations. In order to take full advantage of AI, we need to be able to trust the numbers.
You don’t need to use expensive tools; use the reports and dashboards that are built into the tools you already have and approach the problem with an inquisitive mind. Look for the unexpected and when you detect something that’s interesting, create one or more hypothesis to explain what you’re seeing, and then set about to prove or disprove it.
Are your technology providers able to support these capabilities to provide more meaningful insights?
AI will not provide any benefit if small businesses lack the IT infrastructure to support it. Start by upgrading your approach to IT – move toward a cloud-based resource that can support AI once implemented. Data is a prerequisite to introducing AI into a system, and a paper system is useless when it comes to incorporating AI.
Make sure your goals are aligned with the direction your software is going. If it doesn’t seem as though your software provider is working toward the same future as you, it might be time to consider another option. It’s important to ensure your provider is taking steps to remain relevant in the future of technology.
If you’re just getting started on the business analytics journey, begin by using the reports and dashboards that your systems have today. Become familiar with the digital assistants that are already on your smartphone; explore what they are already able to do and stay current with how these systems are evolving.
By making an effort to understand and embrace AI, small businesses are optimizing operations, improving customer-service, and growing their bottom line. Imagine where your company would be if you didn’t embrace the uncertainty of the internet or didn’t go mobile in the age of the smartphone. Artificial intelligence is the newest technology adding efficiency and intellect to small business – don’t be late to adapt; be better, faster, smarter operators with the use of AI.
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81d6ad3ac05a61e8556f10e80a305bf4 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinefletcher/2018/07/11/four-reasons-to-talk-to-your-kids-about-prenups-before-college/ | Four Reasons To Talk To Your Kids About Prenups Before College | Four Reasons To Talk To Your Kids About Prenups Before College
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Not long ago, I went to my son’s pre-prom party at a friend’s house. Nervous kids were mingling with their dates and parents, snapping pictures before climbing onto buses and limos. There was a lot going on, food and drinks, chatter about colleges, pictures on the cascading staircase. I couldn’t help but look around and think, “Wow, now is the perfect time to talk to these kids about prenups.”
Truth be told, that may not have been the ideal time to raise the issue with them, but my instincts were not so far off. I tell my clients to talk to their kids about prenups around the time they start dating. If you wait until the wedding plans are announced, your child may be reluctant, and the fiancé may be offended.
Here are four reasons why you should have this conversation before college.
Prenups are a good thing, not a bad thing. The reality is about half of all marriages end in divorce. I had a client who recently updated her estate plan, and was surprised to learn she was recently divorced. The divorce was super easy in her case because she just pulled out the prenup and was able to follow its terms. Clearly she was glad she had one, and it had been her parents who had encouraged her to do it. Demystify the concept. Talk to your kids when they are young so the concept of having a prenuptial agreement isn’t foreign to them when they do get engaged. Kids need to be familiar with what a prenup can do. Ultimately, they may decide they want one on their own, or their fiancé may ask them for one. Many of my clients raise the issue with their kids themselves and encourage them to sign a prenup. Protecting your wealth – and your kid’s future wealth – is important. Kids need prenups if they stand to inherit significant wealth, or if you have already begun to transfer wealth to them through a gifting program. They also need prenups if they have started to build up their own assets. It is not uncommon for couples to marry later in life, well into their 30’s when they may have retirement accounts, brokerage accounts and real estate. My clients often express concern that they do not want their kids to think they are wealthy or to know how much they stand to inherit. Be real. Your kids are smart. They pick up clues from your lifestyle – prep school, vacation house, fancy trips, expensive cars, etc. They may not know the exact amount of your net worth, but they have an idea. It isn’t a commentary about their future spouse. Talking to your kids about a prenup before they are in a serious relationship takes all of the emotion and potential bad feelings out of the equation. It’s more factual. If you wait until they are heavily involved with someone, raising the issue of a prenup may be interpreted as a sign you do not like or trust your future in-law. And if that is the case, then you definitely want them to have a prenup.
The earlier you talk to kids about prenups, the better. Find an opportunity during their later high school years for an initial discussion. You may want to relay a story in the news about a famous person getting divorced and then segue into what a prenup could have done. Or you may want to do something more formal with your lawyer or wealth advisor. Some clients will have their children sit with me to get a tutorial on estate planning and to introduce the topic of a prenup. This also gets kids used to having advisors. You will not be around forever and they need to know the right people to speak with.
At the end of the day, look at educating your kids about prenups as a critical part of their adult education.
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abd730a3fd00eeccac51d01335112480 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinefletcher/2018/09/13/5-ways-to-know-you-need-a-guardianship-for-mom-or-dad/?sh=2f4f2f7128d3 | 5 Ways To Know You Need A Guardianship For Mom (Or Dad) | 5 Ways To Know You Need A Guardianship For Mom (Or Dad)
Credit: Getty Royalty Free
As our parents age, our roles often reverse. We take on the role of parent, making sure they take their medications and get to doctors’ appointments. Our parents revert to the role of adolescent, often hiding health care information from us, or conveniently forgetting to tell us they have not been paying their bills. Sometimes, we are in the dark about what is going on until a friendly neighbor mentions, “Hey, did you know your mom’s electricity was shut off last week?”
So you start helping mom pay her bills. At first, you sit with her and organize the bills so that she can write out checks. You seal the envelopes and take them to the post office. Over time, you write out the checks and she signs them. Then you get to the point where mom does not want to deal with any of it, or maybe she is losing focus. Either way, it is easier if you just sign the checks too.
If this scenario sounds familiar, then hopefully you have already made sure that mom has updated her estate plan and signed powers of attorney and health care proxies. If mom names you as her agent in the power of attorney and gives you the necessary powers, you will then have the ability to sign the checks on her behalf. This will make things easier for a while.
However, even with a valid power of attorney, there are times when you will need to petition for guardianship. Here’s when.
Refusal to sign a power of attorney. This is not uncommon. I have had clients whose parent refused to sign any estate planning documents, even after the parent was diagnosed with early signs of dementia. In this case, you can have mom sign checks for as long as she knows what she is doing. At some point, you may have the uncomfortable feeling that she will sign anything you put in front of her. When this occurs, call your attorney and file for guardianship. Real property or investments have to be sold. Even if mom has signed a power of attorney, there may be instances where a guardianship is still required. Depending on the laws of your state and the type of power of attorney mom signed, you may have to have a guardian appointed in order to sell mom’s home or other investments. Disagreement over nursing home. If you need to admit mom to a nursing home and she will not agree to go, you must petition for guardianship in order to admit her to the facility. Medical intervention beyond the health care proxy. There are certain instances where you will need guardianship to protect your mom’s health. For instance, you may have to authorize mom’s medical care providers to administer certain drugs to her such as antipsychotic medications. Or, if mom cannot consent to medical treatment due to her inability to comprehend, you will often need guardianship. Sometimes, this court authority is required even if a health care proxy is in place. Decision-making is compromised in some areas. There may be instances where you want to ask for a limited guardianship. Courts are increasingly aware that individuals need help with one area of their lives, but can retain control over other areas. The courts sometimes prefer to allow for limited guardianships rather than taking away complete control from an individual. If the court finds mom still has some decision-making abilities, it may limit the guardian’s authority. For instance, if mom can still decide who she wants to run the family business, the court may allow her to make that decision while giving the guardian authority of other assets.
Filing for guardianship can be costly and time consuming. Any time you ask the court to act, you are at the court’s mercy and time schedule. Guardianships can often be avoided by implementing an effective estate plan. While mom still has capacity, talk to her attorney and consider creating a revocable trust where assets can be transferred now. Mom can be a trustee with a co-trustee named to serve with her. That way, the co-trustee can act if or when mom no longer can or wants to.
Also, make sure your parent’s power of attorney and health care proxy are up to date. Unfortunately, even with an effective estate plan, there are times when a guardianship cannot be avoided. Knowing what those times are will make you more prepared to deal with them.
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f1cf9249009c1fa7bb06036371afe011 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinefletcher/2019/07/29/why-writing-your-own-will-is-a-bad-idea/?sh=57b8aaee64dc | Why Writing Your Own Will Is A Bad Idea | Why Writing Your Own Will Is A Bad Idea
Why would someone draft their own will? An attempt to save money? Possibly, but the people I see who write their own wills can usually well afford to pay a lawyer. Perhaps it is ego driven – they think, “I’m smart, I can figure this out.” Or maybe, with all the do-it-yourself information that is available nowadays, folks just want to do it themselves because they can. They see it as a legal version of the Mad Libs we used to fill out as kids. Sometimes I think people simply watch too many episodes of Law & Order.
These are educated, accomplished individuals with significant assets to protect, and yet they think nothing of drafting their own estate planning documents. They do this at the risk of wreaking havoc down the road when their estate is administered. Not to mention the increased legal fees that their heirs will pay. They may have saved a few bucks now, but their heirs may incur large legal bills when they need to unravel the mess left behind.
Often when I review these self-drafted wills, I point out that they would make a great law school exam question. Sometimes my client will not even let me see what he drafted. When she does reluctantly produce the document, I often talk about the risk involved. For instance, if I needed to change an electrical outlet in my house, I could pay an electrician to do it, or I could do it myself with some instructions I found online. The benefit of doing it myself is that I saved a few hundred dollars. The risk is that I burn my house down or die of electrical shock. The risk is probably not worth the cash I saved. Here are a few other instances where the risk was not worth the money saved:
· Bill did a fairly good job drafting a simple will. However, one of the most important aspects of a will is how it is signed and whether it is self-proving. Self-proving means that the will has an affidavit signed by a notary public stating that the will was properly signed and witnessed and that it is the will of the person who signed it. Each state has its own laws for how wills must be signed in order to be valid. If the will is not properly executed, it could be declared invalid by the court. If it is not self-proving, the heirs will face challenges in getting the court to approve the will. Unfortunately, Bill’s will was not self-proving. His heirs all got along and did not dispute the will itself, but they ultimately spent a lot more in legal fees probating his estate because of the additional hoops the court made them jump through.
· Another estate involved an elderly woman who had supposedly asked her home health care aid to draft a will for her on a popular do-it-yourself website for legal documents. Coincidentally, the will left all of the elderly woman’s assets to the home health care aid. The day after the elderly woman died, the home health care aid was in the local probate court trying to probate the will. Since the will was not properly executed, it was thrown out by the court and the elderly woman’s assets passed to her brother who was her closest living relative. If the elderly woman really did want her assets to pass to her home health care aid, her intentions were thwarted by a do-it-yourself will.
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· In another situation, an accountant signed a prenuptial agreement with his new wife providing for her in the event of his death. The accountant then took it upon himself to draft his own will and trust. The estate plan was ambiguous and not consistent with the prenuptial agreement. After his death, his wife and children fought for years over what the estate plan meant and its impact on the prenuptial agreement resulting in large legal bills for each side.
· Sam, an intellectual property attorney, drafted his own will, which is akin to a dermatologist performing heart surgery on himself. Sam’s self-drafted will left real estate in trust for his children, but did not include any instructions for the trust. The will also left assets to people who were not properly identified. Needless to say, the will was litigated for years, resulting in legal fees well over six figures.
There are many tasks you can and should do yourself, but estate planning is not one of them. Work with your lawyer, and if you do not have an estate planning lawyer, reach out to your wealth manager or accountant for referrals. You may save a few bucks now by drafting your own will, but it will cost your family in time, aggravation and legal fees far in excess of anything you saved. That is not the kind of legacy you want to leave when you are gone.
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