How can the ATM impact your business?

You may or may not have heard that an important inventor died recently. While this passing did not make news around the world, this inventor’s innovation made a world-wide impact and transformed the entire banking industry. The inventor was John Shepherd-Barron from Scotland, and his invention was the automated teller machine (ATM). During the 1960’s, Shepherd-Barron created the ATM because he was frustrated that he could not cash a check when his bank was closed. Today, there are more than 1.7 million ATM’s worldwide, according to the ATM Industry Association.

Think back to the pre-ATM world. In order to get cash, people had to walk into banks and wait in line – not out of choice, but out of necessity. There were no machines at supermarkets, airports, sporting events, or movie theater lobbies. In order to cash checks, make deposits, and change currency denominations, face-to-face interactions were necessary inside a bank.

But, today, thanks to Shepherd-Barron, the ATM has transformed the entire banking experience. Simple tasks, such as, deposits, withdrawals, and even postage stamp purchases, can all be completed in a matter of seconds at external bank ATM’s, stand-alone ATM’s scattered at a myriad of locations from gas stations to shopping malls to airports, etc., or while seated in your car at drive-thru ATM’s.

There is no doubt that many in the banking industry were not as exuberant about the invention of the ATM as customers were. But today, there are still customers in banks, and there are still “live” tellers. While some may have predicted the death of banking, the ATM has become an important aspect of the overall banking experience.

Now, consider your company and your industry. How can you create a product or service with the potential to transform your industry? Despite naysayers, there are always improvements that have yet to be developed, and customers are always eager to embrace improvements. So, at your next brainstorming session, think about the ATM, and maybe, your company will introduce this century’s greatest invention.

Top 10 Resources for Teamwork and Organizational Behavior

Teamwork – everyone talks about, but how many people genuinely embrace it? How many times has a supervisor said “there is no I in teamwork” but you would have preferred to work on a project on your own? You don’t have to answer. The simple truth is that the creation of effective teams is one of the hardest jobs a leader has. And, more often than not, leaders are unsuccessful in this area, which is the reason that many management/C-level executives change companies so often. Here are some resources to assist with team-building at all levels within a business (small, mid-sized, or large) in any segment (B2B, B2C, or non-profit), which will also improve organizational behavior and corporate culture.

X-Teams: How to Build Teams That Lead, Innovate and Succeed
By Deborah Ancona and Henrik Bresman
c. 2007

Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Field Guide for Leaders, Managers and Facilitators
By Patrick Lencioni
c. 2005

The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player: Becoming the Kind of Person Every Team Wants
By John C. Maxwell
c. 2002

Teamwork 101: What Every Leader Needs to Know
By John C. Maxwell
c. 2008

How NASA Builds Teams: Mission Critical Soft Skills for Scientists, Engineers and Project Teams
By Charles J. Pellerin
c. 2009

Extraordinary Groups: How Ordinary Teams Achieve Amazing Results
By Geoffrey M. Bellman and Kathleen D. Ryan
c. 2009

Results Without Authority: Controlling a Project When the Team Doesn’t Report to You – A Project Manager’s Guide
By Tom Kendrick, PMP
c. 2006

Radical Collaboration: Five Essential Skills to Overcome Defensiveness and Build Successful Relationships
By James W. Tamm and Ronald J. Luyet
c. 2005

Organizational Behavior
By John R. Schermerhorn, Jr., Dr. James G. Hunt, and Dr. Richard N. Osborn
c. 2008

Organizational Behavior: A Strategic Approach
By Michael A. Hitt, C. Chet Miller, and Adrienne Colella
c. 2005

Lastly, in the words of H.E. Luccock: “No one can whistle a symphony. It takes an orchestra to play it.”

Customer Service Geniuses – How Do They Do It, and Can You?

When someone talks about customer service, do you roll your eyes? Or, do you happily recall an experience with a company that transcended all of your expectations? Did you have a delicious meal where waiters constantly refilled your beverage glasses without interrupting your conversation? Did you ever lease or buy a car as a result of a helpful salesman? Or, by contrast, did you ever stay at home for ten hours waiting for a TV repair person who never showed up? The truth is, many companies state in their collateral and on their websites that they provide “quality customer service,” but sadly, many fall short because they don’t understand how valuable this competitive advantage is and how it creates loyal customers for the long-term.

Here are some great books to help your company develop excellent customer service – so that you can add quality customer service to your list of competitive advantages.

The Cult of the Customer: Create an Amazing Customer Experience That Turns Satisfied Customers into Customer Evangelists
By Shep Hyken
c. 2009

The New Gold Standard: 5 Leadership Principles for Creating a Legendary Customer Experience, Courtesy of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company
By Joseph A. Michelli
c. 2008

Lexus: the Relentless Pursuit
By Chester Dawson
c. 2004

How Dell Does It – Using Speed and Innovation to Achieve Extraordinary Results
By Steven Holzner
c. 2005

The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture and Coolness
By Steven Levy
c. 2007

Blue Streak: Inside jetBlue, the Upstart that Rocked an Industry
By Barbara S. Peterson
c. 2006

The Southwest Airlines Way – Using the Power of Relationships to Achieve High Performance
By Jody Hoffer Gittell
c. 2005

The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary
By Joseph A. Michelli
c. 2006

The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence: A Handbook for Implementing Great Service in Your Organization
By Robert Spector
c. 2005

The Wonderful World of Customer Service at Disney
By J. Jeff Kober
c. 2009

Ben & Jerry’s: The Inside Scoop: How Two Real Guys Built a Business with a Social Conscience and a Sense of Humor
By Fred Lager
c. 1995

And, for some amusing final thoughts:

What to Say to a Porcupine – 20 Humorous Tales That Get to the Heart of Great Customer Service
By Richard S. Gallagher
c. 2008

Top 10 Management Books

There is an old saying that “management is easy, except for the people.” While that statement may be amusing, it definitely contains an element of truth because there is an art to effective management. But sadly, many individuals don't understand how to be good managers, and more often than not, companies don't spend the time to train people to become good managers.

Just think, how often have you been asked or even spent the time to consider:
• How long have you been the manager of a team or department?
• How would you describe your management style?
• How many employees are you directly responsible for?
• What is most important for you to see in the employees that work for you?
• How do you measure the success of your employees?
• Do you mentor your employees?

A quote from “Becoming a Successful Manager” by Jack H. Grossman says it all, “Now you’ve earned your reward: a staff to manage. [But] from now on, your success no longer depends on just your technical abilities and specialized knowledge. You will only prosper if other people do their jobs well.”

Here are some great management books to assist you as you build your management skills and become an effective and inspiring manager!

First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently
By Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman
c. 1999

Now, Discover Your Strengths
By Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton
c. 2001

The First-Time Manager
By Loren B. Belker and Gary S. Topchik
c. 2005

What to Do When You Become the Boss: How New Managers Become Successful Managers
By Bob Selden
c. 2007

Becoming a Successful Manager: How to Make a Smooth Transition from Managing Yourself to Managing Others
By Jack H. Grossman and J. Robert Parkinson
c. 2001

The New Manager’s Handbook: 24 Lessons for Mastering Your New Role
By Morey Stettner
c. 2006

101 Biggest Mistakes Managers Make and How to Avoid Them
By Mary Albright and Clay Carr
c. 1997

Managing
By Henry Mintzberg
c. 2009

The No Complaining Rule: Positive Ways to Deal with Negativity at Work
By Jon Gordon
c. 2008

The Disney Way: Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company
By Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson
c. 2006

Lastly, if you would like to avoid new manager mistakes, check out this list of the top 10 common mistakes: http://bit.ly/df05Kk.

Top 10 Website Development and Design Resources

Everyone is online, and that’s great, but how often have you visited a website and thought, “WHAT were they thinking?” Either the company’s mission was hard to understand, the product display was disorganized, links didn’t work, contact details for customer service or tech support were missing, or the site was just ugly. How many times have you visited a website and wondered who created it (the marketing department, the tech department, or the second-cousin of the owner’s wife)?

To assist with your website development and design initiatives, here is a list of my top 10 resources. Enjoy!

70 Website Marketing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
By Raynay Valles
c. 2010

Letting Go of the Words – Writing Web Content that Works
By Janice (Ginny) Redish
c. 2007

Building Findable Websites – Web Standards, SEO, and Beyond
By Aarron Walter
c. 2008
http://buildingfindablewebsites.com/

Web Design and Marketing Solutions for Business Websites
By Kevin Potts
c. 2007

Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning
By Dan Brown
c. 2006

Neuro Web Design – What Makes Them Click?
By Susan M. Weinschenk, Ph.D.
c. 2009

Content Strategy for the Web
By Kristina Halvorson
c. 2009

The Complete Guide to Affiliate Marketing on the Web
By Bruce C. Brown
c. 2008

Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity
By Avinash Kaushik
c. 2009

Website Marketing Association & Annual WebAward Competition
http://www.webmarketingassociation.org/
http://www.webaward.org/

Leaders Can Learn, Too

There are some leaders in CEO-land and senior management-land who are exceptional. They build professional environments where all employees are dedicated to their jobs, embrace the company mission, become brand ambassadors, and consistently go above and beyond performance expectations. These leaders communicate to their teams and share information, and their employees are given the tools and the space to do their jobs.

However, there is also another type of leader. Sadly, this type of leader operates behind closed doors. This type of leader creates an environment that is more of a dictatorship rather than a democracy. There may be a team of senior management types, but any authority that they might have is just an illusion – they have no say in major decisions. This type of leader does not allow senior management to lead their own departments, but instead, this type of leader micro-manages every aspect of a company, which eventually, leads to its demise – or limited existence. Employees will become disillusioned over time, and there will be no one to actually work.

However, there is help for the leader who is attitude-challenged and results-challenged. A recent article detailed an interesting experiment conducted by two inspiring CEOs who lead two companies from Fortune’s Best 100 Companies list: Maxine Clark of Build-A-Bear and Kip Tendell of Container Store. The two CEOs traded jobs for a day – I know, it sounds like a movie script – but what they learned was invaluable. Both CEOs stated that their one-day job switch provided them with incredible insights into employee training, customer interaction, and overall customer experience. Just think what would be possible if other leaders could gain this amount of insight in a single day!

Fortune article:
http://money.cnn.com/2010/01/21/news/companies/build_a_bear_container_store.fortune/

Kip Tendell’s blog post:
http://blog.nrf.com/2010/02/14/container-store-ceo-gives-inside-scoop-on-we-love-our-employees-day/

Top 10 Public Relations Books

According to The Public Relations Writer’s Handbook, The Digital Age, “The media that can cover your company’s story now include hundreds of niche cable channels, high-definition split-offs of radio stations, thousands of online publications, and millions of blogs. Neither a few well-placed advertisements nor even a comprehensive, multimillion-dollar advertising campaign in broadcast and print can dependably reach the majority of consumers these days. [So, as a result of] finding conventional advertising less effective, companies are increasingly turning to public relations for new ideas. [As a result,] public relations spending is growing at almost double the rate of advertising.”

To assist with your public relations and media outreach, here is a list of my top 10 public relations books. Enjoy!

The Public Relations Writer’s Handbook: The Digital Age
c. 2007
By Merry Aronson, Don Spetner, and Carol Ames

Strategic Planning for Public Relations
c. 2009
By Ronald D. Smith

The Associated Press Stylebook 2009
c. 2009
Edited by the Associated Press

Making News: A Straight-Shooting Guide to Media Relations
c. 2006
By David Henderson

Press Releases Are Not a PR Strategy
c. 2007 (second edition)
By Linda B. VandeVrede

Media Training 101: A Guide to Meeting the Press
c. 2003
By Sally Stewart

Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media Is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR
c. 2009
By Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge

The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly
c. 2010 (second edition)
By David Meerman Scott

Never Say “No Comment”
c. 2003
By Ian Taylor and George Olds

How to Get Your Point Across in 30 Seconds or Less
c. 1990
By Milo O. Frank