The Women Entrepreneurs Blog @ Simon

Discovering Untapped Markets

by Lauren Dixon

While 2010 is the "The Year of the Tiger," it might also be the year for businesses to discover untapped markets!

The fragmentation of media and technology presents an exciting mix of challenges and opportunities, allowing companies to target specific customers in unique ways. Technology makes it easier than ever for entrepreneurs to self-market using social networks and websites, but how can they best earn customer loyalty and trust while maintaining a focus on their core businesses? 

Since advertising is primarily focused on the individual with a personalized approach, there is so much information available to consumers that it is a challenge for businesses to stand out. Where can companies leverage their media dollars and invest their time to get a ROI?

Businesses must not only grab the attention of potential customers through traditional forms of communication and media, but they also have to monitor blogs, social networking sites, and Twitter activity. Collaborating with web experts and media professionals can help companies make sense of the "clutter" while staying focused on their core business. With the breadth and depth of media choices to reach customers, there is unlimited potential for finding untapped markets.

Discovering effective ways to reach busy consumers and attract new customers is a critical part of success in 2010 and beyond!

Make 2010 A Year to Refresh, Renew, and Recharge

by Lauren Dixon

Often people make New Year's resolutions only to find themselves unable or unwilling to keep true to them throughout the year. How will 2010 be the year you attain your goals, "WOW" your employees and customers, and resolve to share your passion and creativity?

Setting a mix of realistic goals, as well as higher aspirations, makes for a more sound and strategic approach to the New Year. In 2009, there was unprecedented change in the business world and economy. 2010 is the time for a fresh and meaningful approach.

One of the most common resolutions is to be healthier - whether it's by exercising, eating a better diet, or merely having an overall positive attitude or work/life balance. Although this leads to a flood of new gym memberships in January, many people soon discover that they cannot stick to a regular exercise schedule.

This example can be applied to undertaking a new business endeavor - understand what you have committed to, and resolve to set a realistic goal that also accommodates your lifestyle. It is much more rewarding to have a sense of accomplishment after achieving a goal rather than the frustration of failure or shortcoming.

Make 2010 your best year ever!

Marketing on a Tight Budget

by Lauren Dixon

Marketing on a tight budget can be a challenge for any business. To determine how to make the most of your marketing dollars, a solid and strategic approach to marketing is needed. There are three easy steps to ensure that you maximize your marketing dollars.  

The first step: Plan ahead. Creating an annual marketing plan and a realistic budget provides a foundation for the entire year's marketing effort. Setting budget parameters is an ideal way to ensure that the marketing dollars you DO have are put to the best use possible. It also ensures that your marketing team clearly understands the available funds, and works to keep any of their potential tactics within those budgets.

The second step: Set tangible goals and implement tactics to achieve those goals. By holding your team accountable and setting goals, you will best be able to define and determine success. With tactics in place to meet these goals, your team will be clear how to accomplish what is expected, with the finances available. Is success measured in sales, attendance figures, or traffic to a web site?  By defining success, you will be able to gauge the results of your effort.

And finally, step three: Be prepared to adjust and change course if something isn't working. While this may initially appear to contradict the first step, if a particular approach is clearly not effective, (perhaps there was not a measurable or significant ROI for example,) don't repeat it! If marketing dollars are tight, you will want to be flexible enough to embrace change and adjust.

The best antidote to the challenges of a tight marketing budget – a positive success story to share at the end of the process. There is no better way to justify enhancing a marketing budget for next year than to show that your team can strategically and creatively use their existing budget to maximize results.

Recruiting Talented Employees

by Lauren Dixon

Even in a challenging economy, it is vital to attract, recruit, and retain talent. While you might hear and read about a glut of workers in the marketplace, demand is always steady for outstanding workers - you can never have enough talent in your workplace. 

Internal and external recruiting strategies can help to identify key talent.

Your top performers internally are often the ideal candidates for other positions in your organization, and promoting them helps to boost morale, build loyalty, and grow your organization from within. Internal job postings and word of mouth can also aid an internal recruiting effort.

If you need to bring in new talent from the outside, tactics to drive external recruitment are critical. Be sure to adhere to any legal guidelines such as offering equal employment opportunities as well as any applicable federal and state laws that apply to your company.

Area educational institutions are a wonderful source of new talent, as are recruiters and government and community-based programs. Posting your job on web-based employment sites, radio and TV, and ads in newspapers is another recruitment method. A referral or bonus program for existing employees is an ideal tactic, offering a way to build a broad talent pool and attract top performers who will best fit your company's culture.

Recruitment is really only half the battle - retention is the other important piece in attracting and keeping talented workers. Once you have hired an employee, your onboarding process is will ensure that your new hire is happy and ready to start building a successful career at your organization.

Responding to Generational Differences in the Workplace: Understanding the X Y Z's of Today's Employees

by Lauren Dixon

In many of today’s publications and news sources, it seems as though one expert opinion after another surfaces about the varying roles of Gen X, Gen Y, and Baby Boomers in the workplace.

Perhaps a better assessment of what makes people tick can be achieved by focusing on the individual worker rather than categorizing or stereotyping an entire generation. By understanding individual personality types, employers can get to the heart of what employees want in the workplace. 

Implementing personality type evaluations, such as Myers-Briggs Type Indicators, may give people a greater understanding of themselves and a better idea of where and how they fit in with organizational teams and groups. In addition, regularly surveying employees to determine their opinions and perspectives on key issues can help bridge generation gaps and create a forum for collecting and responding to employee concerns.

Dixon Schwabl regularly surveys our employees using not only the annual Great Place to Work survey process, but also newly developed in-house research techniques.

Outcomes that have emerged from these surveys include:

•  An expansion of the firm's Green Team (recognizing the commitment to the environment from Gen Y,)
  

• one-on-one appointments with the financial team from AXA Advisors (for Baby Boomers and Gen Xers concerned about the ups and downs of the financial markets as they think about retirement and savings,) and
  
  
• company yoga class (in response to cross-generational feedback about convenient wellness programs.)

Certain issues span generations, such as the need for flexibility to attend appointments during the day and for a family-friendly culture. Employers must take time to acknowledge and appreciate what is important to employees. The best way to do that is to ask precisely what employees want and determine whether their views correspond with your company culture. Creating an open door policy ensures that employees of any generation feel comfortable voicing their opinions.  

Ad Futurists Hint at Most Effective Forms of Advertising

by Lauren Dixon

Today’s ad industry scarcely resembles that of even one year ago. The explosive growth of social media and interactive tools has forever altered the advertising landscape.

Still, with these dramatic changes, it is important to note that two key advertising industry mainstays endure—the appeal of emotion in advertising and the importance of a solid strategy prior to selecting media tactics. 

Advertising has to emotionally connect to customers to be effective, and this connection is increasingly necessary in today’s fast-paced, interactive communities. In choosing the most effective advertising, it is critical to determine a strategy before selecting the form of media to use in a campaign. While many firms are eager to jump into social media, effectively implementing any form of this requires a significant investment of time—perhaps even hours per day of monitoring and writing. 

Techno marketer and blogger Matt Dickman believes that social media is about “reaching the right 10 people who reach 100 people who reach 1,000 people.” Other ad futurists also place a high value on social media; Ben Hourahine, based in London for Leo Burnett, views social networks as already “dictating everyday life.”

What else does the future hold for ad marketers? Branding will likely play an even larger role in advertising as consumers embrace global purchasing as the norm, inspiring shoppers to become very selective and open to worldwide options. Michael Richarme of Decision Analyst in Texas believes that shared interests rather than geography will steer advertising in the future.

The future also holds great promise for screen-based media – television and video available on buses, gas stations, grocery stores, as well as in the home—as it take on unprecedented importance to advertisers and consumers alike. Ironically, it seems as though the only constant in advertising is change—get ready for an exciting future! 

Tip of the Week: Make It Happen

by Lauren Dixon

Maintaining a positive work/life balance is critical in today's workplace. Employees who are able to keep personal and workplace issues in alignment are apt to be focused and energized at work and relaxed at home.

How do employers "make it happen" for employees at work so that they can attend to personal matters when necessary?

One way is to offer employees conveniences and services to eliminate the time and effort outside of work spent on errands or personal issues. Perhaps arrange for a dry cleaning or lunch delivery service. Your employees' lives will be less stressful and more efficient.

Employers might also consider providing other services that may take a little more effort to set up but reap enormous benefits in the end. Instituting wellness programs (ie. on-site sports teams and yoga classes) is a social and healthy option.

At Dixon Schwabl, we have an on-site flu clinic so employees do not need to take time away from work or with families and friends to get their annual flu shot.

We also offer one-on-one meetings with financial advisers so employees can call on expertise that they normally would need to seek outside on their own.

Sometimes, companies only consult their management team for workplace decisions, which may result in a misplaced benefit or perk that in fact benefits no one at all. One West Coast firm brought in three meals a day for employees, assuming that their workers would enjoy and appreciate the convenience. However, this made employees feel pressured to work around the clock.

To avoid a situation like this and to decrease risks, determine which conveniences would be most valued by your employees before implementing them at random. Survey your workforce and encourage open communication to receive honest feedback.

Endless Sources of Innovation in Today’s Workplace

by Lauren Dixon

Innovation is a popular buzzword in today’s workplace. But what exactly is innovation, and what makes a business innovative? 

For many companies, innovation is part of the overall experience they create for both their employees and customers. Innovative ideas can come from any source; approaching innovation with an open mind will ensure that all voices are heard.

A company’s management team can embrace innovation by welcoming new ideas from employees. As important as it is to listen to employees' suggestions, it is equally critical to take action and follow through with their proposals. Implementing an idea brought forth by an employee helps encourage and inspire the rest of a company's workforce while demonstrating a commitment to act on employee initiatives. 

Experience shows that truly innovative ideas can come from any employee, at any level.  All that is needed is the opportunity to be heard. So you may never know unless you ask! 

Our firm regularly surveys employees to learn what they want or need at work. Finding out what employees truly value can only be achieved by asking them directly. Seeking input may seem simple and apparent, but often the most obvious points are overlooked unless the door is open for people to suggest them. 

By encouraging creative thinking and requesting feedback, managers will gain knowledge of everyday happenings, while gaining valuable insight from employees.

Dixon Schwabl has implemented several innovative ideas pitched by employees. As suggested, we renamed our three conference rooms to reflect the creativity and energy of our firm, (Conference Room A became the “Imagination Room,” for example,) and we added electronic internal systems to eliminate paperwork and increase efficiency. 

Nearly a decade ago, a team of former interns - now Dixon Schwabl employees - spearheaded the expansion of our internship program. Since then, over 700 students have been able to experience and benefit from the program. 

Ordinary or extraordinary, innovation is advantageous to any company. As long as it reflects your business' values and vision, you are sure to be rewarded by the power of innovation.

Tip of the Week: Reducing Your Environmental Impact Makes Good Business Sense

There are many ways businesses can demonstrate a commitment to the environment and promote better use of resources to employees, vendors and even clients. There are probably employees in your company who have a strong interest in creating a “greener” workplace. Working with these employees to effectively apply their time and talent on a strategic environmental effort can not only build a renewed focus on the economic bottom line for your company, but also improve the environmental bottom line to make the community a better place to live and work.  

Empowering employees to apply their ideas to everyday improvements at work can help build camaraderie and a strong “can do” approach to the culture of your company. Dixon Schwabl and its employee-led “Green Team” has grown from a handful of employees into a 12-person team dedicated to changing the way the agency approaches day-to-day activities.

All Dixon Schwabl, employees are encouraged to submit their green ideas through the Dixon Schwabl intranet. Our agency replaced the power strips with "smart strips" and is conducting an energy audit with an outside vendor to conserve energy.  We offer organic fruit or fresh-baked cookies to eliminate snack waste at meetings, and encourage use of the new Dixon Schwabl compost system.  Our printers and copiers use 100% FSC-certified paper, and all printers print double-sided.  At Dixon Schwabl, we believe that with an innovative approach, any company can go green!  Encouraging employees to participate or even lead the process is a great way to make it happen!

Should you cut your marketing budget in tough times?

This economy is challenging all of us to think and act in new ways. When economic challenges impinge on budgets, marketing is often seen as an easy item to cut; however, ask yourself this one question:

 “In a marketplace where every single customer is more critical than ever before, why in the world would I want to stop talking to potential customers?”
 
The correct approach is to rethink and reform your marketing efforts to allocate resources more efficiently. An example of this is using online tools to cost-effectively and tactically reach existing or prospective clients. 

Setting up creative, well-targeted email blasts is one way to reach a certain audience. Another interactive approach is to incorporate a blog on an existing web site, or an online survey to immediately gauge customer feedback about a certain product or service. By using a variety of tools in the marketing arsenal, businesses can approach their budgets in a smart, organized and clear manner, applying the best marketing resources for the project. 

Public Relations is another ideal way to build awareness, maximizing key messages in the process. Editorial essays, grassroots publicity efforts, and well-timed press or charitable events are PR tools that can be cost-effective and high impact at the same time. 

Reaching a targeted audience with a focused approach can help businesses navigate short-term challenges without altering a marketing budget and causing long-term issues. Don't let a tough economy dictate your marketing needs--customers could forget who you are and what you do if you aren't using the right tools to reach them!