It’s a mobile world from the moment you wake up!

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It’s hard to believe, or maybe not, but it seems that most mobile users look at their email on the phone or glance at Facebook posts within 29 minutes of rolling out of bed and reaching to turn off the alarm!

Sitecore, a customer experience management company recently published the results of a  survey of 4,500 global consumers and 450 brands analyzing behavior, purchase patterns and reasons for using mobile applications.

Although almost three fifths of the consumers in this survey say they have a mobile device within reach for eight to 10 hours each day, and they believe that convenience, security and speed are the key elements of a good mobile experience, only half of the brands surveyed personalize content for mobile web customers and have a mobile-optimized Web site in place.

In addition, while almost 100% of brands in the survey believe a good mobile experience impacts customer loyalty, a significant number still do not have a mobile strategy in place. In fact, the majority of brands in the survey are unprepared when it comes to implementing a mobile strategy and do not allocate sufficient resources to maintain, adapt, and improve the experience that customers expect.

So, bottom line, if you’re a brand that hasn’t yet woken up to the new reality the mobile world has wrought, you better wake up because if you continue to snooze, you will definitely lose sooner than later.

Read the full article here

Should I or Shouldn’t I?

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As I was reading this blog by Dave Girouard in First Round Review (Read the full article here), it brought to mind how important making decisions and making them quickly are to growing your business. All too often I meet business owners who just can’t seem to make a decision for fear that whatever decision they make, it will just not be the absolutely perfect or right decision to make. What they miss according to Mr. Girouard and I wholeheartedly agree with him, is that speed can be the ultimate weapon in business for beating one’s competition, whether you are delivering a product to market, or promoting the value proposition of your services.

As usual, these articles are long, and are worth reading. However, if your time is limited, here are some take-aways worth considering:

  • Deciding on when a decision will be made from the start is a profound, powerful change that will speed everything up.
  • To keep things moving, ask a lot of hard time related questions very quickly.
  • Speed, like exercise and eating healthy, can be habitual.
  • A good plan executed now is better than a perfect plan later.
  • You can either set the pace of the market or be the one to react. Whoever is fastest out of the gate is the one everyone else has to react to.
  • Always challenge why something takes a certain amount of time. Is your company or team working as smartly as it can?
  • Too many people believe that speed is the enemy of quality. On the other hand, if you use it appropriately, it can be your most important competitive advantage.

Dealing with the Troublemakers

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In previous posts, I’ve talked about scaling one’s company, and developing a company culture, but what happens when certain people, let’s call them your “troublemakers”, get in the way of your ideas, or the way you want to do things.
In her most recent post in First Round Review (Full article here) Bethanye McKinney Blount having spent twenty years in leadership positions in the tech industry has identified four types of “troublemakers” and how to deal with them.
I’m sure you’ve seen these types of people in your organizations: the HERMIT who works independently and won’t let anyone see his work while it’s in progress; the NOSTALGIA JUNKIE who harkens back to the good old days and talks of “the way” we’ve always done it; the TREND CHASER who is always ready to flick to the newest and greatest thought or gadget without seeing the entire picture; and the SMARTEST IN THE ROOM who always has to be the smartest person in the room without considering anyone else’s thoughts or feelings.
So how should you deal with these folks when you meet these types of people in your organization, because you know they are always there! Ms. Blount suggests you subscribe to the premise that most troublemaking is done unknowingly, and you as the leader or the manager must do your best to win them over in the long term. Of course, if you’ve really tried over time and been pushed long enough that you’ve stopped rooting for a person on your team, it may be better to find another alternative which could very well include termination. In the end, it is your commitment to the company culture you want to create that determines who stays and who leaves.

 

Full article here