Contributed Post | Mike McRitchie | Resume and LinkedIn Profile Writer | Telecom Marketing Content Writer

What Do Truly Great Leaders Do Every Day?

March 7, 2019 by Contributed Post 1 Comment

What does it take to be a truly great leader? It’s a question which often gets asked, as everyone wants to pin down a formula. But great leadership isn’t necessarily about a set of personality traits. It’s more about a set of actions which can be performed regularly – something anyone can cultivate. You can build yourself and your leadership up – if you follow some simple behaviors, every day.

Communicate Clearly

We’re often told to lead by example, and while that is undoubtedly important, it’s also crucial to communicate your intentions clearly and frequently in order to be motivational. Aim to be direct, but to avoid causing any friction. Remember, communication is a two way street – it’s just as important to develop your listening skills so you can take on board what other people are really saying to you. When we communicate clearly, it becomes easier to develop trust and create the kind of relationships you need in order to flourish in the workplace.

Learn When To Delegate

Business leaders are often guilty of taking on too much themselves, while leaving those who work for them feeling a bit disempowered. When you’ve had to start up your own business and grow it, it can be hard to relinquish a bit of control, but you’ll never be able to grow beyond a certain point if you don’t learn the art of delegation. Place your faith in those you work with and let them handle projects as learning opportunities, from choosing a Commercial Roofing Contractors for that warehouse refit to giving them bigger client accounts to manage.

Plan For The Future

When setting the vision and values for your company, you will gain a clear steer on your future direction. Planning ahead is a key trait of any successful leader – from being able to interpret the macroenvironment and predict how it will affect the business to succession planning to develop employees and fill personnel gaps as they arise. Actions like these lay the foundations for greatness and create a legacy.

Keep On Learning

Never standing still is something else that great leaders tend to have in common. Instead, they’re in a state of constant development – both for their businesses and themselves. There’s always something more to learn, whether it takes place as a formal qualification such as studying for an MBA or whether it’s more along the lines of finding a great mentor who can challenge you to do better. Just don’t ever let your ideas stagnate.

Make Time For Staff

When you’re super busy, staff one to one’s seem like the easiest thing to drop, but to do that is to make a grave mistake. You’re sending the message that you don’t value your staff and prioritise their concerns. Meaningful interactions with those who work alongside you are absolutely crucial. People need to feel safe to voice their opinions and know that they will be heard. Plus, you gain valuable knowledge from the ground up that you may otherwise risk losing touch with.

How Could You Be The Right-Hand Of A CEO?

February 26, 2019 by Contributed Post 2 Comments

There are lots of pathways that lead you to becoming a CEO one day. The most common and perhaps the most difficult is actually, climbing up the ranks. Form the lowly employee that is seen as expendable only until they prove themselves, to the apprentice, you can climb up the corporate ladder to be the top dog. However for someone who perhaps hasn’t been in the workforce for too long at all, such as a young mother or a mature woman who wants to change career, there are other routes. If you see in yourself the drive to be a leader one day, then take these nonlinear routes to reaching the top of the tree with serious curiosity. Often times you can learn how to become a CEO by behind the right-hand man or right-hand woman to someone in this position. Working closely with them, the first hand experience you will receive is priceless. But how can you get to work directly with a CEO?

Not always c-suite

Traditionally, the aim to becoming a right-hand person for a CEO would be to become a c-suite title holder. This could be a chief of any area of the business such as, Chief of Marketing, Chief of Design, Chief Operating Officer etc. Yet in today’s very fluid modern age, you don’t need to always be a c-suite before you are considered worthy enough to listen to the confidential conversations in boardrooms. There are many roles that are needed around the CEO that are not linked to a c-suite position. For example if you took an online mba finance course you will learn how to financially understood a business from top to bottom. A lot of it is administrative work so again, understanding how to keep things in order is a huge asset. Using modern tools and systems, and mba can net you skills that will improve your organizational skills. With such skills and knowledge you can become a financial analyst which every CEO has beside them at all times. You can also become a risk manager which again, every CEO always has near them to get key advice.

Understand the playing field

If you’re a woman who wants to change career, takes things slow. One of the best things you can do for yourself is to be prudent in your new career choice. It’s important to understand that technically you are behind other professionals since you just started. Yet, you are capable of catching them up if you study your career and role of choice. For example, just watching and understanding how the market is now operating can get you ahead. Businesses always want to invest their profits so essentially their money makes money for them. Study how index funds have evolved to be the safer, broader bet. Study how mutual funds have evolved. If you become adept at this you can be an investment manager for businesses. Small businesses especially want some kind of investing guidance making it a good place to begin for you.

There are many ways to get to the top in the world of business. Learning how you could become a CEO can be done by working for a CEO. The right person will be a right-hand for a CEO, someone they can rely on for great advice, for analyzing the finances and risks.

Filling The Gap Between Products & Users

February 25, 2019 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

How do customers engage with a product?

This is the oldest question in the business book, and one of the most challenging too. There is a natural gap between a material item – your product – and an individual that you need to fill. When you understand how to make the gap disappears, your products engage enthusiastic customers and can even find loyal advocates in no time. If the gap is left unattended, you will find it tricky to appeal to your audience or even to create an emotional attachment to your offering. Filling the gap is about making an inanimate object part of someone’s life by giving it an additional value that goes beyond its practical functions.

A fork is only a piece of cutlery, for instance. But a fork that goes the extra mile to connect with the user becomes an object of consumer’s desire. Filling the gap is about giving your product an extra dimension that taps into the customers’ sense of goodness and quality. Ultimately, how do you make your fork go the extra mile?

Let the product do the talking

Products are inanimate objects. While some can move and display interactive behavior such as toys when powered, there is a thin line between a product that interacts within a programmed sequence and a product that can stand up for itself. Therefore, more and more companies are looking for solutions that would help their customers to make decisions about the products available, such as by providing an integrated digital supply chain of information. The information could be accessible via QR codes and breach the gap between the point of origin of the product and the customer. An alternative solution is to bring augmented reality into the user’s life to help them choose the best option by comparing products within a known environment. IKEA, for instance, uses AR to project furniture into the customer’s home.

Create an ethos that goes beyond functionality

Environmentally conscious entrepreneurs benefit from a powerful differential factor. Their business, and consequently their products, are as sustainable as possible, which enables them to tap into a new market. Indeed aside from tax advantages that are inherent to sustainable operations, your products also appeal to an audience group that recognizes its ethical values on top of its functions. It’s not just a fork, it’s an eco-friendly fork, and per se, it integrates into the lifestyle of green customers.

Build an ecosystem of products

HUman beings need to cultivate a sense of belonging. We are naturally attracted by communities, and we want to belong to a community. Consequently, isolated products can have a difficult time piercing through a crowded market. However, products that can connect with each other to enhance their respective functionality can build a powerful and attractive brand ecosystem, such as Apple products. For customers, there’s more than a sense of belonging when joining the ecosystem. It’s about defining their perspectives on life through the brand – in the case of Apple, the debate between Mac and Windows users has been running for decades and goes beyond product specificities to include the life aspirations, mindset and creative abilities of customers.

In conclusion, your products need to engage with customers by using digital communication, maximizing their ethos, or creating an all-included community that supports their aspirations. If you want your object to appeal to people, you need to give it emotional qualities that appeal to your customers, from the ability to interact effectively to building a sense of belonging.

The Secret To A Great Photograph

February 14, 2019 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

Taking the perfect photograph can be a big challenge. It involves a lot of work on your part and a lot of preparation with the settings, editing and everything else afterwards. The perfect photograph can speak a thousand words and this is why it is important for yourself and for your business that you take the ideal image. A good image can attract people and stop them in their tracks, which is why today we are going to share some tips for taking the ideal shot.

Lighting

The most important thing to think about when you want to take a great photograph is the lighting, and the way you light up your set is crucial to the quality and overall look and feel of the piece. If you want to grab the attention of your audience, you have to make sure that your lighting is bright. That will allow the photograph to highlight all the details and fine points of the subject. You can use a ring light to emphasize on the features of the photograph.

Colour

The colour and the theme of a piece can be a huge drawing point for audiences. If you are thinking about Personal Branding Photography and how to convey your message to the audience you will want to think about the colour scheme you use for a picture. Make sure that you always decide on a colour scheme which fits the brand or the time of year and this will help your photograph get noticed. For example now that we are coming into spring, light tones and pastel colours are the ideal choice.

Use props

If you are taking a photograph of an object and you want to make the image look a little more exciting, one thing you can do is create a flat lay. A flat lay is an image which has a main focus and will have props around it to make the image look more exciting and professional. An image of a notebook could be ideal paired with a pen, some glasses and a cup of coffee. Creating a scene which people feel like they are part of is a good way to bring a photo to life.

Try a new angle

One of the main mistakes people will make when taking photographs of a product is sticking to the straight on method. Although of course a straight on image of a subject can be helpful, it can also make the image look like everything else on the market. Make sure that you think about taking your image from a new angle for some more fun this year. For example rather than taking a photograph of a person from head on, take it from slightly above to create interest. Using angles is always a great idea and you can gain a whole new perspective for the image which will help it to stand out from the crowd.

5 Fantastic Business Card Ideas That Are Sure to Get You

February 12, 2019 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

The Rolodex isn’t dead, but it’s barely breathing.

Although there are still a few strongholds out there in the older generation who refuse to give up their business card flipper, it’s mostly dead. At least for people on-the-go. Why?

In a word, technology. Smartphones, CRMs, and mobile apps are the go-to choice for people who need mobility.

Ironically though, business cards are far from dead. And now more than ever, you need to make yours stand out. Even if a prospect creates a digital version of you, your card should scream, “I’m too cool to throw away!” Whether you’re an old pro or starting a new business, here are five business card ideas to do that.

1. Stand Out or Die

Die-cut cards have been around forever, but the ability to play around with the shape of the card gives you almost limitless ways to be creative. You can ditch the rectangle and create any shape you want.

Die-cutting even allows you to “punch out” shapes or larger text inside the boundary of the card, or create ways to create additional shapes with fold lines.

2. Silver and Gold

Ever heard of dye-sublimation? Imagine your full-color design on a piece of silver or gold aluminum. It’s a real eye-catcher that makes an executive statement, and it won’t get tossed because it’s so unique.

It can be a bit pricey, but if you need larger quantities or want to have several designs, you might check into getting your own sublimation printer.

3. A New Dimension

Embossed and debossed cards are still a thing because it’s different than the boring, plain and flat. It’s okay to get creative here. You can deboss/emboss more than your logo or name. Try an embossed border, and if the printer can, a double deboss or combination of debossing and embossing can create a real wow effect.

For another take on dimensional cards, look at options like foil-stamping, textured surfaces, and lithographic printing.

4. Business Card Ideas That Promote

For a real stand-out card that’s guaranteed not to fit into a Rolodex, try promotional products that represent your business. What if your card is the only one among hundreds that must be put on the CEO’s desk?

There are literally hundreds of thousands of promotional products that can be imprinted with your contact info. If you’re a plumber, get small imprinted pipe wrenches. If you’re a trash service, try small imprinted trash cans, and fill them with candy before handing them out. The possibilities are endless.

5. Get Playful

Some of the best business card ideas are those that play off the name of the business or owner. If that doesn’t work, create a tagline for your business that does. Try combining the other ideas above with this playful creativity. A few examples might be:

Green or natural business: kraft paper or laser-engraved wood cards.
Public speaker: podium shaped cards.
Yoga instructor: flexible rubber cards.
Window cleaner: clear business cards.

If you don’t have the budget for unique materials or die-cutting, you can make your own business cards stand out with a little mental elbow grease:

A wine-maker did this by creating wine stains on her cards. She used real stemware and red wine to give her cards a chic look—and every card was unique.

A lawn service company had a cool business card idea by putting flower seeds into business card-sized manila envelopes and used a green rubber stamp to imprint his info on them.

Please, No Limits

The important thing to remember about creative business card ideas is to color outside the lines and make your own rules. Don’t think outside the box—shred the box and burn it. Come up with a few ideas, write them down, and sit on them for a couple of days. You’ll likely improve on those or come up with even more ideas.

If you want to create real momentum in your business, or have questions about strategy and branding, check out our services page.