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The Big Picture of Business – How to Maximize Trade Show Exposure

The number of companies participating in trade shows increases each year. While sales objectives are most common, trade shows may also be behavior, product, distribution or marketing oriented. Booth exhibitions at trade shows are viable and cost-effective sales tools to:

  • Achieve new customers, in order to grow and increase profits.
  • Introduce new products. Most of the visitors come to see what’s new.
  • Target a select group of visitors.
  • Allow your staff to interface with the public.
  • Perform informal market research.
  • Educate the public about what your company and your industry do.
  • Enhance your company’s image.
  • Assess competition and the overall business climate.

Trade shows generate sales leads at a lower cost per contact than a typical sales call. Research shows that industrial sales calls costing $252 to reach a prospect, with 4.6 follow-up calls necessary to book an order = $1,158. At a trade show, you might spend $133 to reach a prospect, with .8 follow-up calls necessary to book an order = $334.

Exhibits can be designed to appeal to all the senses: sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. Research shows that 75% of what show visitors recall after expos is what company representatives told them.

Exhibiting in business-to-business shows requires different skills and approaches. The objective should be qualifying prospects, rather than selling. One meets more business prospects in a faster period of time at a trade show. Today’s customers are becoming increasingly complex and more difficult to identify. They are knowledgeable, sophisticated and have increased expectations about what they want. Customers are now under more pressure to act immediately.

These pointers are offered to prospective exhibitors before the show:

  • Determine your correct mission for participating.
  • Evaluate each trade show for what it contributes to your sales objective.
  • Determine who you want as key prospects.
  • Delineate other categories of visitors, and develop a strategy for maximizing your time with key prospects.
  • Develop action plans for accomplishing your goals and getting the right people to visit with your company at the show.
  • Be sure that booth personnel understand what they are responsible for…and what they are selling. Untrained staff can lose qualified prospects and leads.
  • Employ professional counsel to format your exhibit, thus maximizing your investment.
  • Keep labor costs to a minimum.
  • Be sure that every member of your company is aware of the exhibit. Encourage all to invite prospects and to attend themselves, even if not involved in exhibiting.
  • Market your presence at the show in advance via mailings, distribution of VIP tickets and inclusion of your booth in advertising. Invite your current clients to visit your booth. Most attendees go to the shows in response to invitations to visit specific exhibitors. * Notify your trade media that you will participate. Engage public relations professionals to publicize your involvement.
  • Work closely with the show’s management. They too are interested in the same audiences as you: attendees and the media. Invite the board of the sponsoring organization to visit your booth.

These pointers are offered in order to maximize the way in which you should exhibit the product-service:

  • * Graphically describe and show what you do. Don’t expect the product to show itself. Don’t expect people to know about you already. This is a fresh opportunity for you to communicate.
  • Keep your focus upon your products, rather than pretentious displays.
  • Keep the booth simple, clean and organized.
  • Give facts and simple explanations of your products. Since many visitors may be unfamiliar, don’t assume that they know what you do.
  • Ask questions and listen. Don’t concentrate on giving a sales pitch.
  • Good lighting, decoration and booth dress are always relevant to the product.
  • Show a maximum number of products.
  • A good demonstration convinces visitors that your product is all you claim it is.
  • Show what the product can do for them and what it has done for others.
  • Give samples, if possible.
  • Encourage audience participation.
  • Distribute professionally-produced, factual literature, or don’t give out any literature.
  • Use video as interactive demonstration elements, augmented by signage.
  • Collect business cards, as the basis for follow-up activities.
  • Make appointments to have in-depth presentations to serious prospects.
  • Trade show selling requires high energy levels. Booth people must be pro-active, greet all prospects and learn how to qualify.
  • Approach large numbers of people within short periods of time, determining how to best process each contact.

Research shows that trade show booths that have dishes of candy tend to draw twice the number of visitors than those without candy.

The value of premium giveaways lies in lasting impressions, increased name identification and paves the way for faster follow-ups with prospects.

These observations and recommendations are made for booth exhibit personnel:

  • Booth personnel must be equipped to give precise, detailed information on your product.
  • Train booth attendants for show duty. If possible, stage a dress rehearsal. Follow procedures for literature distribution, trash cleanup, conversation and public demeanor.
  • Work out approach statements in advance. Have talking points in writing. Follow a step-by-step process.
  • Staff with a technical representative, as well as a greeter. You can never have enough well-trained people at the show.
  • Avoid the high-pressure approach.
  • Do not smoke, drink or eat in the booth.
  • Booth personnel should look and act the part. Stand up straight. Keep your hands out of your pockets. Use approachable body language. Do not sit down unless you are with a client.
  • Dress conservatively.
  • Keep small talk with other booth personnel to a minimum.
  • Arrange and follow duty schedules. Keep staff alert and on their toes.
  • Make booth visitors feel welcome at all times.

Lead collection and follow-ups must be treated seriously. After the show is over, don’t forget to follow through on details, promises and intentions:

  • Send follow-up letters to each visitor who left a business card.
  • Send out requested additional materials within one week after the show.
  • Set a lead follow-up program, since early response is vital. Follow up on sales leads for at least two years after the show.
  • Evaluate your results.

Your company’s commitment to participate in trade shows represents a big step. You should always want to improve the exhibit each time, thus insuring a return on the investment. The process of strategizing your exhibit relates directly to your company’s promotional and business development philosophy. This process inevitably makes every company’s marketing position much stronger.


About the Author

Hank MoorePower Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.

Hank’s latest book functions as a ‘PDR of business,’ a view of Big Picture strategies, methodologies and recommendations. This is a creative way of re-treading old knowledge to enable executives to master change rather than feel as they’re victims of it.

Power Stars to Light the Business Flame is now out in all three e-book formats: iTunes, Kindle, and Nook.

The Big Picture of Business – Business Success Checklist

When you own and operate a business you need to have certain procedures for an efficient and seamless function. Sometimes the difficulty of managing your time makes for a haphazard operation. An inefficient operation results in unproductive activities which often miss the point and worse yet, result in wasted time and wasted resources.

One of the ways in which you can optimize your business activities would be the focus and attention to detail that a checklist can stimulate. Here is my own business success checklist that will help you optimize your activities for a more efficient and purpose oriented endeavor. Success is inevitable.

Clearly defined purpose.
Having a clearly defined purpose will focus your activities to a customer-oriented perspective. When a business loses sight of the customer and what they really need they often run into difficulties. Your clearly defined purpose can also center the attention and be a source of inspiration for your employees.

Provide leadership.
A leader’s purpose and job is to give direction and purpose and motivate his people. Leaders must also provide support for the emotional needs of their employees while they are at work and even sometimes when they bring personal concerns to the working place. The business absolutely needs energetic and emotionally mature leaders for it to prosper.

Focus on excellence.
When a company is content with being merely mediocre it may survive but it will never do extremely well. The company must have an emphasis on high standards, a desire to create and give value to customers, accountability to the employers and to your customers, and the drive to learn. If these are incorporated into the culture of your company a culture of excellence in all things will soon be prevalent.

Plan for the future.
When your business has contingency plans for future scenarios you will seldom be caught by surprise. You never know when the next big recession will hit. Most successful businesses have planned responses to most scenarios because they took the time to think “What If”. It is important to identify swings and trends so that innovation can remain a strength of your business.

Instill discipline.
This is often an unpopular issue but this is a critical matter. The sharp focus and direction on your objectives and goals can only be maintained with constant monitoring of your procedures and processes. Whether your focus is on customer service, profits, investing, marketing, or company growth a constant awareness of your current position in relation to where you want to be is essential.

Business Success Checklist

1. The business you’re in

  • Study and refine your own core business characteristics.
  • Understand “The Business You’re In” and how it fits into the core business.
  • Design and re-engineering of products-services.
  • Development of technical abilities, specialties and expertise.
  • Utilization of industry consultants or technical specialists.
  • Development of core business supplier relationships.
  • Make investments toward quality controls.

2. Running the business

  • Objective analysis of how the organization has operated to date.
  • Formalize the organizational structure.
  • Document practices, procedures, operations and structure in writing.
  • Communicate policies and procedures to employees.
  • Physical plant is regularly studied, updated and modified.
  • Distribution standards are documented, practiced and measured.
  • Time management and “just in time” concepts are applied.
  • Plans are in writing to address inventories and reducing surplus.
  • Legal compliance and precautions plan is annually updated, with measurable goals.
  • Outsourcing, privatizing and collaborating plan is annually updated, with realistic, measurable goals.
  • Purchasing plan (with processes and vendor lists) is in writing.
  • Repair and maintenance contracts are routinely maintained.
  • Purchase and lease of equipment plan is annually updated, with measurable goals.
  • Continuous quality improvement plan is annually updated, with measurable goals.

3. Financial

  • Cost containment is one (but not the only) factor of company operations.
  • Each product-service is budgeted.
  • Long-term investments plan is annually updated, with realistic, measurable goals.
  • Assets are adequately valued and managed.
  • Cash flow, forecasting and budgeting are consistently monitored.
  • Written, consistent policies with payables and receivables are followed.
  • Strategic Plan includes provisions for refinancing, equity and debt financing.
  • Accounting firm utilization plan is annually updated, with realistic, measurable goals.
  • Banking and investing plan is annually updated, with realistic, measurable goals.
  • Payables plan is annually updated, with realistic, measurable goals.
  • Receivables plan is annually updated, with realistic, measurable goals.
  • Finance charges are negotiated.
  • Insurance plan is annually updated, with realistic, measurable goals.
  • Benefits plan is annually updated, with realistic, measurable goals.

4. People

  • Corporate culture reflects a formal Visioning Program.
  • Employees know their jobs, are empowered to make decisions and have high morale in carrying the company banner forward.
  • Top management has as a priority the need to develop and practice People development, skills and team building responsibilities.
  • Human Resources program is active, professional and responsive to the organization.
  • Incentives-rewards-bonus plan is annually updated, with realistic, measurable goals.
  • Personnel Policies and Procedures are written, and distributed to all employees.
  • Each employee has his-her own Position Results Oriented Description plan.
  • Training plan is annually updated, with realistic, measurable goals.
  • Professional development plan is annually updated, with realistic, measurable goals.

5. Business development

  • All members of top management have Business Development responsibilities.
  • Company has and regularly fine-tunes a communications strategy.
  • Sales plan is annually updated, with realistic, measurable goals.
  • Marketing plan is annually updated, with realistic, measurable goals.
  • Advertising plan is annually updated, with realistic, measurable goals.
  • Public relations plan is annually updated, with realistic, measurable goals.
  • Research plan is annually updated, with realistic, measurable goals.
  • Marketplace development plan is annually updated, with realistic, measurable goals.
  • Creative collaborator-vendor plan is annually updated, with realistic, measurable goals.

6. Body of Knowledge

  • Consultant plan is annually updated, with realistic, measurable goals.
  • Performance reviews are conducted annually updated, with realistic, measurable goals.
  • Company learns how to benefit from changes.
  • Organization predicts and stays ahead of trends.
  • The company leads the industry.
  • Everything that goes on outside our company affects our business.
  • Willingness to invest in research.
  • Commitment toward collaboration and working with other companies.
  • Maintains active government and regulator relations program.
  • Maintains active community relations program.

7. The Big Picture

  • Shared Vision is crafted, articulated and followed.
  • Ongoing emphasis upon updating, fine-tuning and improving the corporate culture.
  • CEO accepts and ideas and philosophies with employees and stakeholders.
  • Creative business practices are most welcome here.
  • Strategic planning is viewed as vital to business survival and future success.
  • Outside-the-box thinking does indeed apply to us and will be sought.
  • The organization maintains and lives by an ethics statement.
  • The organization subscribes to continuous quality improvement ideologies-processes.
  • Maintains active crisis preparedness and prevention program.

About the Author

Hank MoorePower Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.

Hank’s latest book functions as a ‘PDR of business,’ a view of Big Picture strategies, methodologies and recommendations. This is a creative way of re-treading old knowledge to enable executives to master change rather than feel as they’re victims of it.

Power Stars to Light the Business Flame is now out in all three e-book formats: iTunes, Kindle, and Nook.

The Big Picture of Business – Quality is Important for Business: Real Quality vs. Arbitrary Metrics

There’s this thing that websites do. They use the term ‘metrics’ out of context. Their metrics are arbitrary, and they jerk the chains of sellers with figures that are unsubstantiated. They arbitrarily disable accounts. Sadly, this is what is thought of as “quality” in the digital age.

Websites that sell products are digital platforms, not the arbitrators of quality in the business world.

Metrics are easily skewed and do not reflect the overall customer satisfaction. A criticism of performance metrics is that when the value of information is computed using mathematical methods, it shows that even performance metrics professionals choose measures that have little value. This is referred to as the ‘measurement inversion.’ Metrics seem to emphasize what organizations find immediately measurable — even if those are low value — and tend to ignore high value measurements simply because they seem harder to measure (whether they are or not).

To correct for the measurement inversion other methods, like applied information economics, introduce the ‘value of information analysis’ step in the process so that metrics focus on high-value measures. Organizations where this has been applied find that they define completely different metrics than they otherwise would have and, often, fewer metrics.

Quality is not something that managers assign others to achieve. It is a mindset that permeates organizations from top-down as well as bottom-up. Rather than assume all is wrong or right with an organization and take a defensive posture, management must view quality as essential to their economic survival or growth. Quality entails four concepts:

  • Success is determined by conformity to requirements.
  • Quality is achieved through prevention, not appraisal. The quality audit by objective outside communications counsel is merely the beginning of a process.
  • The quality performance standard is zero defects. That means doing things correctly the first time, without wasting counter-productive time in cleaning up mistakes.
  • Nonconformance is costly. Make-good efforts cost more on the back end than doing things right on the front end.

Organizations measure quality by overall involvement. It is not enough for management to endorse quality programs; they must actively participate.

Quality should be viewed as a journey, rather than a destination. It applies to service industries and manufacturing operations. Even non-profit and public sector organizations must utilize quality approaches for staff and volunteer councils/boards.

Employees must buy into the process by offering constructive input. All ideas are worthy of consideration. Life-threatening experiences (loss of business or market share, economic recession) signal the urgency for the team to collaborate.

Empowerment of employees means they accept the challenges and consequences. They must view the company as a consumer would… being as discerning about buying their own services as they are about fine dining, premium clothing, gifts for friends, a car or a home.

What if we were all paid based upon customer perceptions of our service? That would make each of us more attentive to what we offer and whether our value is correctly perceived.

Each member of an organization must view himself/herself as having customers. Each must be seen as a profit center and as having something valuable to contribute to the overall group. Each is a link that lets down the whole chain by failing to uphold their part.

What is missing in most organizations is the willingness to move forward, not the availability of information or room/desire for improvement. Willingness requires complete and never-ending commitment by management. The first time the organization tolerates anything less than 100 percent, it is on the road back to mediocrity.

The most common pitfalls toward success include:

  • Taking a piecemeal approach to quality.
  • Thinking that quality needs apply to some other department, company or industry, not your own.
  • Thinking that you are already doing things ‘the quality way.’
  • Failing to address structural flaws that fuel the problems.
  • Focusing upon esoteric techniques, rather than true reasons for instilling quality.
  • Saying that something is being done when it is not.
  • Failing to engage customers and suppliers into the process.
  • Failing to emphasize training.
  • Setting goals that are too low.
  • Communicating poorly with the organization and its publics. Without employee communications, suggestion boxes, publications, training videos, speeches and other professionally prepared instruments, the company is fooling itself and its customers about the commitment to quality. Without good communication from the outset, the program will never be understood and accepted.

Quality improvement is the only action that can simultaneously win the support of customers, employees, investors, media and the public. Productivity translates to profitability in an advantageous climate in which to function.

Investment Toward Economic Survival and Growth

Research shows the by-product costs of poor quality are high for any business, up to 40 percent. Lack of attentiveness to quality has cost the United States its global marketplace dominance. Other nations preceded the U.S. in adopting the quality process and overtook our nation in many areas.

In 1981, more than 70 percent of U.S. automobiles realized defects within six months of purchase. That figure has now dropped below 40 percent, compared with just under 30 percent in Japanese cars. Had quality been a focus in Detroit years earlier, then the obvious would not have transpired.

The Japanese have always viewed quality as a national issue… not just an individual company matter. The real victim of America’s late entry into the quality process was every employee whose livelihood was endangered. Consumers did not worry; they simply bought goods and services elsewhere.

Success via competitiveness has many dimensions:

  • Production efficiency became America’s focus by the 1950’s.
  • Marketing’s importance was fully embraced in the 1960’s. Marketing departments deal most often and immediately with the side effects of poor quality.
  • The 1970’s brought the first wave of strategic planning. Without mapping a course, how can any organization reach a destination?
  • The 1980’s brought us the quality process… which is the bow that wraps a package containing the other three elements. At the start of the decade, many executives viewed the quality process with indifference or fear. By decade’s end, virtually all (92 percent) agreed that quality is the main prescription for survival.

Though quality is one element of competitiveness, it cannot cover defects in the other areas. The quality audit by objective outside communications counsel can also examine the production, marketing and strategic planning functions.

Companies must place demands upon their own organizations to embrace customer service tenets. Satisfied customers talk to others… encouraging them to buy based upon quality of the company. Dissatisfied customers will aggressively discourage higher numbers of prospects from buying.

The mark of any professional is the manner in which he/she corrects mistakes. Most often, this means correcting misperceptions about company attitude, rather than the condition of goods. The faster the correction, the better the level of satisfaction. Quality is the sum of impressions made on the customer.

Payroll is the biggest overhead item. Improvement can be quantified by increased productivity, reduced turnover and heightened employee morale.

The empowered team is trusted to seek quality on their own. Bad managers will fall by the wayside. Employees who do not pull their share will stick out like sore thumbs. The team will not be judged by the superstars but, instead, by the average. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

In order to complete the chain, organizations must insist that suppliers, professional services counselors and vendors show demonstrated quality programs, as well as ethics statements. Educational and incentive programs should be implemented.

During tough economic times, investment in a quality program is not costly. Anyone who is unwilling to spend for quality is hastening company decline.

Business Strategy Steers the Quality Process

Quality is one of the most vital ingredients of competitive success. Total Quality Management (TQM) is recognized as a prerequisite for survival. One fourth of all corporations now administer quality programs.

The focus on quality has gone beyond the finished product and addresses all processes throughout the organization. Evaluating quality is not just a question of meeting customers’ expectations… but rather exceeding them.

Paying attention to quality can realize:

  • Lower operating costs. Research shows they can be cut in half.
  • Premium pricing for preferred goods/services.
  • Customer retention.
  • Enhanced reputation.
  • Access to global markets.
  • Faster innovation.
  • Higher sales.
  • Higher return on investments. TQM has increased profitability in some corporations up to six times.

Total Quality Management is customer-focused and strategy-directed. It is a top management activity… steered by public relations counselors. The human relations component is strong, but quality programs are substantially communications-driven.

The successful quality program empowers employees, who will achieve quality on their own. The more positive results are shown, the more universal will be participation. The quality process must have substance–not just rhetoric–in order to build momentum. There are no magic shortcuts. If the process is given proper attention and support by top management, it is a money maker.

How to Institute a Quality Program

Much has been written about Total Quality Management. Change is painful for most people but is necessary. Conducting “business as usual” means standing still… which means losing ground while other companies move forward.

Quality does not mean that true perfection will exist. It is simply a commitment to keep the wheels of progress at top-of-mind motion.

To change and improve requires methodically and systematically undertaking actions that will make your company ‘world class.’ These actions include:

  • Education.
  • Communication.
  • Reward and recognition.
  • Employee suggestion systems.
  • Involvement teams.
  • Benchmark measurements of accomplishments.
  • Statistical management methods.

Research shows that most companies implement quality programs as a reaction to a perceived negative image. Data is gathered in scattered areas, usually to produce flashy charts for customers. Because upper management does not know which programs to implement, the quality process stagnates.

Doing things for the wrong reasons or to temporarily pacify someone else spells failure. There are no quick fixes. Applying band-aids will just reopen the wounds at a later date. Quality can never be identified too broadly enough.

In order to put a quality program into place, the following steps must be taken:

  • Study the activities of admired companies. Interview them to provide insight. Set meetings to review what works for them. Read case studies of Malcolm Baldridge Award winners. Companies can and should be role models for each other.
  • Retain outside experts. Quality programs are communications driven and should be captained by public relations counsel who possess this expertise. They will conduct communications audits and strategic planning. This is not something that can be conducted alone by internal human resources departments. Good experts will tell you the hard facts and what needs to be done.
  • Research drives most communications programs. Commission customer and employee surveys. It will provide comparisons between the realities and perceptions that are held.
  • Ask counsel to write a plan of action for putting the quality program into place.
  • Assemble an internal quality team… making sure that all major departments are represented. Together with outside counsel, this committee will pursue its objectives, per the written agenda.
  • Set realistic timelines for putting recommendations into place.
  • Set schedules for routine review of the process. This includes repeating surveys to assure that you are making adequate progress.

By successfully combining employee involvement, process improvement, customer focus and demonstrated management endorsement, any company can succeed at quality. Even on a limited investment, quality can be attained.

The challenge is to discover what mix of price and quality the customer wants and to deliver it. Slogans only create adversarial relationships. Once the system owns up to its shortcomings and responsibilities, then a true quality process will occur. Failure to read the ‘handwriting on the wall’ will thwart company growth and, thus, the overall economy.


About the Author

Hank MoorePower Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.

Hank’s latest book functions as a ‘PDR of business,’ a view of Big Picture strategies, methodologies and recommendations. This is a creative way of re-treading old knowledge to enable executives to master change rather than feel as they’re victims of it.

Power Stars to Light the Business Flame is now out in all three e-book formats: iTunes, Kindle, and Nook.

The Big Picture of Business – Avoid the Tired, Trite Terms: Encourage Original Thought, Focus on Priorities and Strategy

Words count. Put together, they reflect corporate culture. Used out of context, words become excuses, gibberish, rationales and basically wastes of energy.

When people hear certain words and expressions often enough, they parrot them. Rather than use critical thinking to communicate, many people often gravitate to the same old tired catch phrases.

I sat in a meeting of highly educated business executives. The presenter was dropping the term ‘brand’ into every other sentence. The word had lost its power and came across as a fill-in-the-blank substitution for a more appropriate though. Many people used to do the same thing with the word ‘technology,’ using it far from its reasonable definitions.

These clichés do not belong in business dialog, in strategic planning and in corporate strategy. These expressions are trite and reflect a copy-cat way of talking and thinking:

  • ‘Solutions’ is a tired 1990’s term, taken from technology hype. People who use it are vendors, selling what they have to solve your ‘problems,’ rather than diagnosing and providing what your company needs. It is a misnomer to think that a quick fix pawned off as a ‘solution’ will take care of a problem once and for all. Such a word does not belong in conversation and business strategy, let alone the name of the company.
  • The ‘brand’ is a marketing term. The strategy, culture and vision are many times greater and more important.
  • ‘So…’ In the 1960’s, TV sitcom writers began every scene with ‘So…’ After enough years of hearing it, people lapse that dialog into corporate conversations. It is intended to reduce the common denominator of the discussion to that of the questioner. It is monotonous, and there are more creative ways to engage others into conversation aside from minimizing the dialog.
  • ‘Value proposition’ is a sales term and is one-sided toward the person offering it. It implies that the other side must buy in without question.
  • ‘Right now’ is a vendor term for what they’re peddling, rather than what the marketplace really needs. Expect to render good business all the time.
  • ‘Customer care’ means that customer service is palmed off on some call center. “Customer experience” comes right out of marketing surveys, which rarely ask for real feedback or share the findings with company decision makers. That is so wrong, as customer service must be every business person’s responsibility. Service should not be something that is sold but which nurtures client relationships.

Many of these stock phrases represent ‘copywriting’ by people who don’t know about corporate vision. Their words overstate, get into the media and are accepted by audiences as fact. Companies put too much of their public persona in the hands of marketers and should examine more closely the partial images which they put into the cyberspace. Our culture hears and believes the hype, without looking beyond the obvious.

Here are some examples of the misleading and misrepresenting things one sees and hears in the Information Age. These terms are judgmental and should not be used in marketing, least of all in business strategy: Easy, Better, Best, For all your needs, Perfection, Number one, Good to go, Results, World class, Hearts and minds, Cool, The end of the day, Virtual, Right now, Not so much and Game changing.

Street talk, misleading slogans and terms taken out of context do not belong in the business vocabulary. Business planning requires insightful thinking and language which clearly delineates what the company mission is and how it will grow.

These are the characteristics of effective words, phrases and, thus, company philosophy:

  • Focus upon the customer.
  • Honor the employees.
  • Defines business as a process, not a quick fix.
  • Portray their company as a contributor, not a savior.
  • Clearly defines their niche.
  • Say things that inspire you to think.
  • Compatible with other communications.
  • Remain consistent with their products, services and track record.

About the Author

Hank MoorePower Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.

Hank’s latest book functions as a ‘PDR of business,’ a view of Big Picture strategies, methodologies and recommendations. This is a creative way of re-treading old knowledge to enable executives to master change rather than feel as they’re victims of it.

Power Stars to Light the Business Flame is now out in all three e-book formats: iTunes, Kindle, and Nook.

The Big Picture of Business – Diversity is Important for Business

This year is the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I was on the committee that wrote that legislation.

Diversity is most important for business, the economy and quality of life. I have conducted many diversity audits of companies. I have seen corporate America embrace diversity in many practices, including the workforce and suppliers.

Several years ago, we realized that specialized positioning and communications are necessary for social harmony and a global economy. We are a diverse population, and the same ways of communicating do not have desired effects anymore.

Diversity is about so much more than human resources issues. It means making the most of the organization that we can. It means being anything that we want to be. Diversity is not about quotas and should never be perceived as imposed punishment. By taking stock and planning creatively, then we can and will embody diversity.

The premise of multicultural diversity is ambitious and necessary to achieve. It is a mindset that must permeate organizations from top-down as well as bottom-up. If not pursued in a sophisticated, sensitive way, good intentions will be wasted.

The following pointers are offered to companies who communicate with niche publics:

  • Seek and train multi-cultural professionals.
  • Contribute to education in minority schools… assuring that the pipeline of promising talent can rise to challenges of the workforce.
  • Design public relations programs that embrace multicultural constituencies, rather than secondarily appeal to them after the fact.
  • Interface with community based groups, sharing in activities and civic service… to learn how communications will be received.
  • Realize that minority groups are highly diverse. Not every Asian knows each other, nor speaks the same language. There are as many subtle differences in every ethnic group as the next. Thus, multicultural communicating is highly customized.
  • Realize that multi-cultural communications applies to all. Black professionals do not just participate in African American community events. Cultivate communicators toward cross-culturization.
  • As media does a good job of showcasing multicultural events, note it positively. If thanked enough, media will continue to shine the light on multicultural diversity.
  • Sophistication in the gauging of public opinion will result in a higher caliber of communicating. The demands of an ever-changing world require that continuous improvement be made. Attention paid to writing and graphics quality will enhance the value of multicultural communications.

The old theory was that society is a Melting Pot. That philosophy evolved to the Salad Bowl concept. In either, one element still sinks to the bottom. We must now see it as a Mosaic or Patchwork Quilt. Each element blends and supports others. Diversity is a continuing process where we keep the elements mixed.

People believe that they are now thinking differently and creatively about diversity issues. In truth, they are really rearranging their existing prejudices. To be diverse and united, societies must be sealed with common purposes.

We can be diversified and unified at the same time. We can remain culturally diversified. We still can and should work together as a society. We all hold cultural values. One set is not better than another.

Look at the issues and how they affect the total person. Actions are always required. Good intentions and political correctness are not enough.

It is short sighted to ignore changes in society. It is good business to recognize opportunities for practice development. In the Chinese culture, every crisis is first recognized as a danger signal and always as an opportunity for overcoming obstacles.

Every professional must embrace a set of ethics:

  • Things for which each professional holds himself/herself accountable.
  • Holds benchmarks for Continuous Quality Improvement.
  • Realistically attainable goals.
  • Contains mechanisms to teach and mentor others.
  • Continually re-examines and adds to the list.

There are many good reasons why diversity relates to your livelihood:

  • Embracing diversity is politically correct.
  • Society will make increasing demands that you address these issues.
  • It makes good business sense.
  • It opens your services to additional market niches.
  • It embodies the spirit of open communications, the basis of winning companies.
  • This process creates more job opportunities for multicultural professionals.
  • And it is the right thing to do.

Quotes About Diversity

What is food to one is to another bitter poison.”
Lucretius

Variety’s the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavor.”
William Cowper, The Task

Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy.”
Mao Tse-tung (1956)

No pleasure lasts long unless there is variety to it.”
Pubililius Syrus

It were not best that we should all think alike. It is difference of opinion that makes horse races.”
Mark Twain

Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices. Just recognize them.”
Edward R. Murrow (1955)

Diversity is the one true thing we all have in common. Celebrate it every day.”
Proverb

When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.”
President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), honoring poet Robert Frost at Amherst College


About the Author

Hank MoorePower Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.

Hank’s latest book functions as a ‘PDR of business,’ a view of Big Picture strategies, methodologies and recommendations. This is a creative way of re-treading old knowledge to enable executives to master change rather than feel as they’re victims of it.

Power Stars to Light the Business Flame is now out in all three e-book formats: iTunes, Kindle, and Nook.