Take control of your personal brand

Have you googled yourself lately? What would google say about you? That you are a great professional?, that your rock climb?, that you are a drunken frat boy/girl with antisocial behavior?  Most people pay very little attention to what is published about them on the web and most will recklessly document their good, the bad and the infamous part of their lives in Facebook, twitter, instagram, pinterest… but being so non-chalant about the information out there will not help us in our career or our personal lives. It can even affect your credit score. Dispel your illusion than your personal and professional lives are separate.

As more and more companies use some sort of social media background check, it has become increasingly important to own what your presence is on the web – you need to take control of your personal brand. These are the first five steps to take:

1)    Define your personal brand – what do you want to represent?

2)    Google yourself and figure out how far from your personal brand you are – document what you find, and your ranking in the page. Identify possible issues – somebody with the same name a rapist? A convict? A novel laurate?

3)    Visit your Facebook page as a friend – what does it show? What are your security options? Are there photos of you drinking? Doing something stupid?

4)    Take control of your name:

a.    Buy your domain name (if available) and establish a web presence for your brand.

b.    If you haven’t. Create appropriate profiles in all relevant social networks: Facebook, Linkedin, Google+, Plaxo, etc.

c.    Register in all appropriate professional associations.

5)    Update or establish your online presence

a.    Update all social networks with relevant information (remove everything that doesn’t fit your brand)

b.    Start a professional blog  - keep it updated

c.    Visit professional forums and blogs and leave opinions and tips, be sure to add value to the conversation – use your real name for all professional forums (nobody knows who dirk117 is)

After a few weeks of this, google yourself again and check if you ranking or your presence have improved… keep at it. It takes time to build the online presence that you want.

BTW, let me know what you find about yourselves.

Avoid the Startup Trap

Working in startups can be fun and engaging (when they are succeeding) or can be overwhelming and depressing (when they are failing).  As team members, we invest our lives in the companies we work for (and sometimes they even deserve it) – nowhere this is more true than in startups. Sometimes, in large companies we can coast on the inertia of the company and hide in the employee herd, as long as we don’t stand out we will be fine. But in a startup, every character flaw in our business makeup is exposed to the team, every bad decision is apparent to everyone and any cracks in your armor are plainly visible (think small town hell).  Avoid dreams of working in a startup if:

1. You hate motivating yourself – in a startup you have to drive as much as being driven. There won’t be long strategy sessions or project management meetings or detailed job descriptions. This is do or die.
2. You dislike confrontation – if you dislike having to defend your ideas or expose them to criticism (often without warning), a startup is not a place for you.
3. You hate arriving early and leaving late – very often, startups are a collection of teams of one. When there is only you to rely on, expecting to keep a 9 to 5 is unrealistic.
4. You hate having savings – startups can be easy on, easy off. That is, teammates may change faster than you can say Constantinople. In startups, company pockets may not be big enough to let you go with a nice parting bonus.
5. You hate open spaces and sharing your browsing history – a lot of startups are open floor, open desk and visible screens all the time (it is cheaper that way). So if you like to read CNN for 45 minutes after you arrive, it will get uncomfortable fast.
6. You expect a large payout – two issues here
• The days when every employee got nice stock options are gone. You may get some, but never enough (unless you are close to the founders)
• Most startups fail… enough said.

By now, you should have a very good idea of whether you can work in a startup. If it is not your cup of tea, by all means remain in corporate America (not a bad option by the way).

The mobile financial services space is exploding

A good indicator for an industry is the number of job it requires to fill. In recent years the mobile financial services space has seen tremendous growth as you can see from the increase in the number of job postings with the words mobile financial services. From indeed.com we can see an amazingly good upward trend.

mobile financial services Job Trends

Mobile Financial Services jobs

This is good news for the financially underserved as they will certainly benefit from some well thought out services. MFS companies have their work cut out for them as they are creating a new space and as usual a lot of them will choose the wrong business model. Some of the biggest concerns for these type of services are:

• Legislation - In LATAM countries like Peru are issuing a whole new set of regulations regarding emoney and the type of companies that can provide services. In others, like Argentina, this is a grey area and in others there is no regulation.
• Adoption - making services that people use is difficult. Earning the trust of the consumer, being user friendly- and fast- enough to be practical. Having the right product mix, etc. etc.
• Competitors - everybody and their uncle is getting in on the action. Although, the primary entrants are the incumbent financial industry and the MNOs legislation may open the door to new entrants (like in Peru where MNOs are by law required to open their USSD channels).
• Competing technologies - USSD, SMS, apps, email. There are plenty of technologies to choose from and not a single one is a clear winner.
• Price - this one seems like an easy one, but remember that you are competing with cash so the price of the primary competitor is zero. Pricing a P2P under these conditions is hard. At the end of the day somebody has to pay for the service (infrastructure, commissions, etc.)

In any case, this is an interesting time to be in this space and the company that gather momentum and volume (like MPesa in Kenia) can reap the benefits or dominating this market.

What to do with self-sabotaging people – part 2

What to do with self-sabotaging people? How do you coach/deal with them? In my previous post (here) I explained that self-sabotaging people are basically stuck and not moving forward. They seem incapable of doing what needs to be done.  Can you coach/manage someone like this? The answer is yes, if they are willing and, specially, if you are willing to put the effort required to unstuck them.

One thing first, if you can avoid the relationship altogether is a better course of action. Wasting time on somebody who is doing their earnest to destroy their lives is a bad bet.  Remember that these people are masters are sucking up time and energy, so be wary of their games. But in the case that you won’t or can’t avoid it, then this are the actions that may help you:

• Determine what you want to accomplish: are you there to save a career, save a buddy or just make someone more productive?  Your efforts should focus on that and not on solving everything.
• Recognize that you cannot change anything yourself, they need to do their own work.
• Be very clear about the boundaries in the relationship – define what you will do, what you won’t do and what you expect them to do, and even how to do it – did I mentioned that this requires a lot of time?
• Set clear goals, but focus on the short term. Giving them too many long term goals will cause them to procrastinate. Don’t give them that chance – keep it short and sweet.
• Set meeting guidelines. Your door should be open but be wary of too many unscheduled meetings or emergencies. Keep track of the time you are spending.
• Make sure they are doing their work and making their own choices. It is too easy to fall into the “I-can-solve-anything” mode. You are there to guide and mentor, not do their job.

One last thing, even if you do all of the above perfectly, there is a big chance that they will not respond or, despite what they say, perform what was agreed. So, be ready to drop them if that happens.

Improve your productivity with co-working

It has been five months since I started using a coworking space at Buro Miami: Urban Workspaces so I wanted to give you an update. It definitely has been an very positive experience. I will give you my appreciation of the good, the (not-so) bad and my final thoughts.

The good

• The place is always clean and the environment nice and friendly.
• Lots of energy and people taking care of business - it motivates you.
• Environment/decor is great for bringing clients to your office - plan ahead if you need to reserve a meeting room.
• The people around you are, for the most part, quiet and respectful of your space and will generally walk away to an empty space to have phone conversations - I do the same thing. 
• The dress code depends on you and your aim for the day so it ranges from fully relaxed (short and a t-shirt) to business formal. 
• Full service office: copier, fax, mail room, receptionist, etc. 
• Many additional services/benefits: discount card to local businesses, sandwich service to the office, Spanish lessons...
• For me, it is a tax-deductible expense (check your tax laws).

The (not-so) bad

• Parking is not in the building so you have to walk (a block tops). It is only a problem if it rains.

Final Thoughts

For me, the thing that sealed the deal is that my productivity skyrockets when I am there (as compared to my home-office) because I get into full work mode. As you can tell, I like everything about the place. I would recommend anyone working from home to give co-working a try.

Helping a partner regain their performance edge.

An under-performing partner or coworker can bring down the performance of a division or the whole company – this may in turn, affect our end-of-year bonus, profit share or work environment. So, rather than saying that it is her or his problem and letting them be, sometimes it is in our best interest to help the under-achiever.

Recently I was working in a venture with a person that was under-performing and it was bringing the whole partnership productivity down. We were both responsible for parts of the venture that were complementary but mutually exclusive. My problem was how to help her achieve the desired performance without destroying the partnership by being invasive and controlling. The reasons for my decision to help were:

• It seemed fixable (no drug use, alcohol or any of the sorts). 
• Her past performance indicated that she was capable of much more than she was delivering. 
• Dissolving the partnership would have been a complicated and messy affair – and not good for both our reputations. 

My plan was to approach this person and state the problem and my intentions in a clear and respectful manner. I set up an appointment to discuss the situation in a non threatening environment and out of the office. During the conversation I setup myself as a supporter and ally and not a fixer – this is important! You are there to help not do their job (unless it is a problem in your area). At the end of the meeting we established an agreement that we would work on the problems and setup a general plan. Keep it simple.
Over the next few days, we clearly identified the problems, their causes and devised plans to fix and correct each one of them, as well as establishing indicators and goals for each one of them (you have to know when you are done). We identified everything that may be affecting her performance, from rebellious employees to over-dependent clients, and put a plan in place to correct them.
Over time, we tracked our plans and made corrections, while keeping our eyes in our indicators and goals. As problems started to disappear her productivity went back to what was expected and we developed a better working relationship.

Business opportunities: gut vs. numbers

Recently I have been interacting with small to medium-size business owners to discuss the topic of business opportunities whether it is an expansion of their current business or an evaluation of parallel income opportunities (like diversification). Our discussion usually starts with the business objectives and their assessment of the opportunity, I noticed that all of them, without fail, are using back of the envelope calculations, and nothing more, to evaluate their opportunity. No a single cash flow spreadsheet was used, the due diligence was a personal visit with the other company (to meet the owners, partners, etc).

This way of doing business clashes to some degree to what you see in business schools - where there is no investment without a lot of due diligence. We can learn from these successful people and use our gut to make business decisions. In our big corporations by having some degree of freedom in what bets we allow our trusted employees to place.

Like in everything, there is a threshold to the amount of money you can trust to your gut. If the amount is large enough, use the tools that MBAs, M&A people, investment bankers, VC have always used to evaluate business decisions. The amount should depend in your company's cash flow and in its risk culture.

Co-working spaces

After a year of travelling (that is the life of the consultant) I am back home with the dreaded notion of having to find a place to call "my office" - home is not an option as the capacity for distractions is so high that it makes it a bad option for me - you have to know yourself and how you function best.

After visiting some colleagues in Boston, I decided to try a co-working space in Miami in a place called Buro. After a few days the experience has been a very positive one. I can work with minimal distractions and it feels the same as an office (with the added benefit that the boss or client are not there). In this case the decor is very nice and the view from the floor is very Miami (lots of palm trees and sun).

I will keep you posted on my experience as it progresses.

Triggering a full reorganization

How often do you stir things up in your company? I was turn to this topic by a conversation I had about operational efficiency. I was thinking about how often you should look at what you are doing and look for ways to improve it. If you go by the Kaizen methodology, then you are doing this constantly... this works great for small changes but not for big ones. Full-on reorganizations can be triggered by traumatic events but the price you pay in organizational stress is great.
I recommend you are always on Kaizen mode; it is a great way to do business and life in general. But, how do you decide is the right time to do a full-on reorganization? The conditions I think could trigger a full reorganization are:

• Financial results are not there for 3 quarters or more. You are underperforming and it is not the result of a disaster, and the recovery trend is not there.
• You tried incremental enhancements and they are not having enough impact.
• Your key decision processes are convoluted or ineffective.
• Key players leave or arrive into your organization (for example, after a merger or acquisition).
• Your market conditions have changed dramatically (new and strong competitors; new business models)

These are a few of the conditions; your individual reasons may vary and add to this list. If you decide that a reorganization is in order, just be careful to fix the issues with a holistic approach.

What to do with self-sabotaging people – Part 1

I was just in a discussion with one of my Linkedin groups as to how to handle people who are self-sabotaging. First things first, how do you spot a self-sabotaging person? Here are a few of their characteristics:

 

1. Self-sabotaging people are aware of what needs to be done, but do something else.
2. They stop learning and listening - they believe they already know what they need to know.
3. They stop asking for counsel or use the wrong advisors [we should use only wise and trusted advisors].
4. They spend their energy in menial things and events; they don’t pick their fights – they sweat the small stuff and everything is a conflict to the death.
5. They’re forever looking at the past: what mistakes they made, what [they think] people did to them, how they were wronged.
6. They are always looking at the future [but do nothing to achieve it] – they wish upon every star but never lift a finger to make things happen.
7. They make excuses for their behavior and don’t take responsibility – my parents treated me bad, my [condition] excuses my [behavior].
8. They believe the labels they apply to themselves – I am [neurotic, unlucky, ugly, fat] so I can’t change [something]
9. They always believe things are too difficult and find the negative in everything.

They not only waste their time, but yours. They come into your office and take precious energy away from people and things that really need it, they leave you exhausted and little less alive than before, they don’t leave anything behind but stress and desperation. But, what should you do with them? In my next post, I will present a good list of solid advice as to how to handle this type of person.

Deciding on controversial features for products

I’ve just discovered that leaving your account logged on Facebook allows CNN.com to somehow connect to it and see who of your friends have linked to CNN stories. To say the least, I was a little surprised to see a friend’s name with a link to a CNN.COM article, since I wasn’t logged into CNN and they didn’t ask for permission to connect to my Facebook account. My first instinct was to see behind my shoulder to see if the illuminati were behind me.

I did a little experimenting, logging out of Facebook and reloading the CNN page got me blank box with the caption that friends’ links would be shown there. Logging to Facebook again reintroduced the news about my friend’s link. Somehow they were getting access to my friend lists.

From the Product Management perspective, how do you decide on this type of features? I can think of several people who will love it, and a many more that will hate it. Obviously you want your product to remain competitive and offer features that go the extra mile for your customers. At the same time, if it takes a PhD to customize your preferences that would be a turn off.

To address this type of features, the steps I would follow would be:

• Prototype the hell out of it.

• Use customer’s panels and demo it in front of large groups

• Announce it and highlight it when it is shown for the first time.

• Build a “quick kill” or “shut down” button into the feature.

• Prepare for fallout in case it goes the wrong way.

Obviously I am simplifying the situation but the approach may help your company avoid Facebook-like privacy problems.

Don't steal their thunder

I was in a conversation with an HR person today and the topic turned to good and bad coworkers.  The conversation brought me the following memory:

"I was part of a team of four that was working on a new strategy for the company. We worked for several days putting together a document that would help launch the strategy effort  and sent it to the VP in charge of the new strategy. The VP, who didn't really help with the document, changed a few words and sent a message to the CEO and others saying that HE worked on the document ALL NIGHT and asking them for feedback. We would have never learned of this, if not for the fact that the CEO sent a reply to the whole team saying that the document was brilliant and thanking HIM for the effort"

We were speechless. He had passed our work as his own! Nobody, but me, in the team confronted the VP and he ended up taking the glory (and later, a promotion). Our associated continued for several years, and I never forgot the incident. I was very cautious as to what material I sent him, and always made sure that people who needed to know were CC'd.
My takeaways are:

1. Always make sure to let the right people know the job you are making - there is nothing wrong with proper self promotion.
2. Give credit where credit is due. People will ALWAYS remember if you steal their thunder.
3. When in this situation, confront the person. Don't shy away from establishing your role in the effort. It is not humility to let somebody steal your credit.

Has this ever happened to you? How did you manage/resolve it?

Blog post for Author's Globe & customer's rights

The blog post for Author's Globe was published yesterday here . It was a tremendously informative conference by Dan Ariely. I had a lot of fun writing the post.

On a separate note, I have been having a difference of opinion with a service provider and wanted to share it with you. The situation is this, I have contracted a series of services from provider "A", and for the past 3 months one of the services has been unavailable, after a lot of going back and forth I found out that the service in question is subcontracted and the reason for the lack of availability has been that the service provider "A" hasn't been paying the subcontractor - according to service provider "A", they forgot to pay (for two months the story was very different and I did everything I could to help restore the service). Now, service provider "A" has paid his past dues and the service will be restored in the future (there is a built in one month delay to reactivation).

After learning all of this I substracted the amount for the services that I did not receive from my next payment and informed service provider "A" of the adjustment. The amount substracted is less than 5% of the total service bill. Service provider "A" is now in a tiffy as to the amount substracted - mind you that he didn't complain about getting paid for services he was not providing.

This situation got me thinking: What are your customer's rights? Does your company offer a customer's bill of rights? Explicity stating what your customer are entitled to (friendly customer service, 24 hour response to inquiries, automatic deductions from lack of service provided) will help create trust in the relationship . Think about how you are today defining your relationship with your clients; and how clear statements about how you are offering to treat your customer would go a long way to create a mutually beneficial association. In this case, service provider "A" has ensured that I know he is not interested in keeping me as a customer, and that I will be looking at every aspect of the service and payments with a magnifying glass. Ours will not be a relationship with trust in it, and may end up being cut short as a result.

Three quick notes

I will be guest blogger at the Author’s Globe blog – my blog entry will be published on Monday May 10th. The conference I will be blogging about is: Predictably Irrational: Hidden Forces Shaping your Decisions given by Dan Ariely from Duke/MIT and is on May 7th at 12 PM.

I will publish a longer post later but I just have to comment. The economy is still creating unusual situations: a friend of mine was told they didn’t have any projects for him anymore… after only three weeks on the job. How would you explain that at your next job interview? In your company, who is in charge of determining resource acquisition and demand? Also, I have learned of another IT executive leaving Miami for colder beaches (North Carolina). Need to find a way to stop the brain-drain affecting the area.

Last, but not least. I will be becoming a Venture Coach for the The Launch Pad at the University of Miami. The Launch Pad is a UM program for promoting and helping entrepreneurship in the area. (Hopefully) I will be coaching several of their startups. Helping new companies find their way is a great way to keep your edge. Will keep you posted.

Do you taste your own service?

How do you know your service? Do you test it? How do you test it? When I speak to companies about testing their service I usually get a positive answer ("yes, we do QA"). Excuse me, but testing the service is more than doing QA. I propose that you taste all aspects of the service from OUTSIDE your corporate wall - that means: experiencing the service using conditions similar to your clients, and calling customer service with real problems. To see how good do you taste, do the following:

• Use your service from outside your corporate network - use your customer's PC/device if possible. What if there are problems with their ISP? or some other thing outside your corporate network? Do not use any corporate advantage or identify yourself as an employee - do not seek preferential treatment. No VIP pass for you.
• Taste during high peak times - no experimenting at 3 AM when the servers are at 0.0001% utilization (unless that is your peak time). Do not use an super-machine with an infinite bandwidth connection (routed through NASA and a private line to the president).
• Call customer support with real problems - but use the customer's line (don't listen from the call center or call from HQ). I recently had a call with a company's customer service. I am pretty sure my call was between me in the US, one customer rep in India and another company's customer rep in the US. The quality of the call was horrible and it dropped several times.
• Do experiment with different ways to use the service: PC, iPad, Laptop, old PC... and call from landlines, cell phones, international phones (get your overseas relatives involved). 

Live your service from the outside. Get the real picture and the real taste.

Balancing growth is a must!

Every company dreams of getting larger and having more customers (hopefully capturing more value out of each transaction). Unfortunately, uncontrolled growth can disrupt your finely tuned-processes, it can overwhelm your Customer Support infrastructure, and thus, creating a situation where you are growing but dropping in customer satisfaction and repeat customers (it happened to Dell a few years back). So, what is the right choice? Control your growth? or Grow and fix things latter?

If you just grow and expect to fix things latter you may be in for a surprise: bad habits will have set in, your reputation may be already tarnished, your competition will be runing ads making fun of your service, and your customer will be looking for the next new thing! Internally, because of your hurry, you didn't build things the right way, you lost good but overworked persons and lost employee goodwill. Fixing things will cost you a fortune. I believe myspace would have been the Facebook of today if they had manage their growth better and kept their ears to the market.

Controling your growth may be the better answer. It allows you to keep your existing customers happy, while making shiny new customers. The difficult question for me is: what is the optimal speed for growth? The way to gauge your optimal growth speed is to use your "ears" to the market to determine when you are sacrificing quality for growth and shift your focus accordingly (hint: it isn't easy).

This is where your Product Management and Customer Service organizations are invaluable in getting a readout on the market (if you don't know what your customers think about you, you are in trouble). You need to be bold and put new infrastructure in place to support your growth, but as soon as customer satisfaction drops, you need to refocus on getting things under control again. If you keep doing this as fast as your organization is capable of, you are getting the best of both worlds. Hopefully, you will be fast enough as to not give your competitors a window of opportunity.

Don't let Customer Service ruin your customer's experience

There doesn't seem to be a customer service bone in some companies this day. I sent a scathing letter to an airline after five consecutive trips where every trip was either delayed or canceled – Their response was that they didn’t have time to answer my letter because they have received so many complaints lately that they couldn’t respond to them all.
After the initial shock was a sense that the company was no longer interested in customer service. The text of the response was neither apologetic nor palliative. It was matter of fact with no promise to address issues in the future. It was a customer’s dead end.

I have to wonder where does Customer Service at this airline sits with Product Development and Marketing – Is Customer Service even present when the company is addressing service problems. My guess is no. The communication showed no interest in their product, no Product Manager that I know of would sent that letter; and no rational Marketing person would sent such a diminishing communication. Their customer service board must have been asleep at the wheel on this one.

Negotiation - the lost art

I've been reminded of a lecture I attended at the Author's Globe because of a negotiation that I am currently involved with .  At the lecture, one of the exercises was to try to divide 7 marbles between two people. As expected most people tried to get 3 or 4 of the marbles, but there were a few participants that wanted all 7 of the marbles - and were being very vocal and proud about it.

The persons I am negotiating with is like that. They are pricing themselves out of the market, they want every benefit and they do not want to negotiate on anything. I have tried to create a win-win situation, but that means that we need to agree to divide the marbles. I understand that it may be a tactic on their part, but the offer is so out of the market and their attitude so final that I have started to wonder if what they want is for me to leave the negotiating table.

If we do not resolve the issues we will loose the 7 marbles and we will pay extra penalties, both parties will have to put extra marbles out of our pockets. Resolving the issue will create the most economic benefit to both parties, so I don't understand the hold out.

This also creates a bully-type situation, where if you concede too much (say less than 3 marbles) you are never going to be able to negotiate anything with them again - you would become a pushover. In this case unless somebody talks some sense to the other side we may have to end up leaving the negotiation table.

Business life vs. personal life - no difference

There really is no distinction now. Everything you do, can and will end up in your public profile: from that picture when you were drunk at that party to your profile in match.com (try goggling yourself). We all know that employers, business partners can look at our life footprint. Why do me still keep thinking that we have some privacy?

I was talking to an expert on managing your online presence and the conclusion we draw is that we are always "on". The paparazzi have invaded everyone's life. It is not only the high fliers of the world. Every time you go out of your house (physically or virtually) you are leaving a footprint that can haunt you for a long time - there are cameras everywhere.

This came about for two reasons: Tiger Woods' apology - BTW, he shouldn't have apologized to the golf community and media; and, the man who flew his plane into the IRS building. The amount of photos, video, texts, web pages that have been dug up and exposed is frightening. If you were involved in a high profile situation: how would your profile portray you?

You should know your economic environment style

I am always thinking about ways to make a business more efficient and cost effective. When functions, processes and companies are not well organized I can almost see the destruction of economic wealth. Because of this, there are two economic environments that suit me rather well:

1. The downturn. Companies are looking for ways to be more efficient and reduce costs. This plays beautifully into my natural way of thinking.
2. The boom. Increasing capacity by increasing efficiency is the name of the game. Companies recognize that it takes time to put new resources into place - so the more well thought out the processes, the better they can cope with accelerated growth.

What about you? Describe the variables that make your work more interesting (for you). Think about your strengths and apply them to the current environment. This should give you some insight into why your work feels so rewarding sometimes and why in others it just feels blah.

Now, turn the thinking around. Think about your company and what different environments increase your worth to them. Make sure they know your value proposition based on the current economic environment.