Clark Buckner - Serious Startups

How Honest Feedback In Your Startup Can Lead to a Happier Team

This interview was conducted by Clark Buckner from TechnologyAdvice. They provide expert comparisons on the best hr software, strategic employee engagement software, innovative employee programs, and much more.

Claire Lew just wants people to become happier at work, so much so that she started a company to make that happen. KnowYourCompany.com has helped businesses like Kickstarter and Airbnb learn more about their employees. Lew talked about her company and a simple way to increase happiness at work while being interviewed at Converge FL.

When asked about a recent interview she did with The Iron Yard’s Gio Difeterici, Lew elaborated on a key point she made in that video: the success of a business lies within the success, and even the happiness, of its people. More than worrying about its products, services, competition, or customers, a business ought to concern itself with engaging its employees. When such a focus occurs, the rest should take care of itself.

The Art of Truthful Feedback

One of the ways she believes companies can help engender a happier atmosphere is by learning how to offer better feedback. Such feedback doesn’t sugarcoat the truth; rather, it delivers constructive criticism in a thoughtful manner. Lew said that the following three questions can help any worker, whether a manager or an employee, learn how to provide better feedback that solves problems without sacrificing employee morale.

What result do I want to see occur?
Know the ultimate result you want to see happen after offering your feedback. Without clearly knowing what outcome you want to see, getting the person who needs the feedback to also see the goal will be difficult.
How should the other person feel?
Lew smartly encourages people by ensuring that she talks about the problem, not the person. In other words, she’s careful to use phrases like “This is what the company means” or “From my perspective.” By doing that, she removes the focus from an employee’s skills or personality and onto the issue at hand. This makes the person feel empowered to actually make the change being requested.
What obstacles are in the way?
Such obstacles could be many in number, but they must be addressed before getting to a viable solution. For instance, if an employee always displays defensiveness when getting feedback, that hurdle has to be overcome before any real solutions to the problem at hand can be discovered.

Cheesin' at my first podcast interview with @ClarkBuckner @Technology_Adv in sunny Jacksonville #ConvergeFL! pic.twitter.com/CB8X0cET2S

— Claire Lew (@cjlew23) November 7, 2014

When giving feedback, Lew said that “you just have to be relentless about wanting to tell the truth, and you have to believe that it does no good to hold the truth it.”

While providing feedback can oftentimes be challenging, especially from one co-worker to another, utilizing Lew’s tips can help you give feedback that’s both helpful and increasing both you and your co-worker’s happiness.

To learn how your company might increase its employee happiness, visit KnowYourCompany.com or email claire[at]knowyourcompany.com. She can also be contacted on Twitter at @cjlew23 or @knowyourcompany.

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This interview was provided by TechnologyAdvice, an Inc. 5000 company that connects buyers and sellers of business technology through meaningful relationships. Interview conducted by Clark Buckner.

Why Should Your Company Adopt Social CRM?

The following summary is from TechnologyAdvice, a free website service saving small business owners time on finding the right crm lead management software, marketing automation tools, SaaS platforms and much more.

In this Business Technology Whiteboard video session, TechnologyAdvice Content Manager Zach Watson covers the basics of Social Customer Relationship Management, or Social CRM. He outlines why all companies should care about Social CRM and the three general methods that companies employ when using social media as a customer relationship management tool.

Traditionally, CRM refers to collecting prospects’ data in order to better target them so as to get them into a sales funnel and move them toward a purchase. Social CRM is a bit different because on social media the customer, rather than the company, controls the conversation. Of the millions of social media users in the U.S., 90 percent expect brands to have a social media profile. The ones that leverage Social CRM the best are those that respond and take a “customer-centric approach” to meeting their consumers’ needs.

Often, companies believe that posting marketing content on Facebook, Twitter, or the dozens of other social media channels is enough. Yet 60 percent of American social media users expect companies to interact with them through social media. Consequently, companies need to understand and deploy Social CRM tactics in order to be effective and successful in converting social media follow to real-world dollars.

Three Methods for Social CRM

Social CRM can be broken down into three broad categories:

Text Analytics and Social Media Monitoring – Using Social CRM software, a company can specify what keywords it wants to follow, whether that’s the name of its own product, the company name, or even their competitors’ names. The CRM tracks those keywords and alerts when the brand is mentioned online, allowing the company to see real-time reactions and quickly engage with social media users. Such online conversations help companies position themselves as experts in their field or as a helpful resource, as well as taking a proactive stance against negative feedback.
Paid Media – This CRM method is more traditional in nature, though it takes on a modern look when social media is included. By using the data it has accrued about its prospects, a company can pay Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn to show highly targeted ads in users’ newsfeeds.
Granular Data – Lastly, Social CRM can take advantage of accruing granular data about consumers and their habits based on the company’s social media interactions with its customers. A company can add social interactions to its list of email and phone interactions in order to gather a more robust view of its customers.

Social CRM can be an invaluable tool in a marketer’s toolbox, providing a customer-centric approach that allows companies to get to know their customers on a one-to-one basis. Social CRM isn’t just software; it’s a methodology that all companies should put into practice on a consistent basis in order to better serve their customers.

A shot of Whiskey, a Shot of Espresso, and $22 Million from Andreessen Horowitz

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The following interview was conducted at Millennial Media’s Annual Developer Summit by Clark Buckner from TechnologyAdvice.com (they provide expert comparisons on the best crm solutions for entrepreneurs, marketing automation tools, project management platforms for small businesses, tech conferences and much more).

“No.”

“Maybe.”

“Let’s wait.”

CEO and Co-founder of Skout Christian Wiklund was prepared for those answers. After all, he’d heard them before and he was pitching his social network to one of the most well-known venture capital firms in the world, Andreessen Horowitz.

Wiklund consoled himself with the fact that Skout didn’t necessarily need their investment. They’d already attained profitability, but who wouldn’t want to be invested in by that firm?

Following Wiklund’s keynote address at the Millennial Media Developer Summit in Baltimore, I spoke to him about that rapid-fire, 48-hour series of events that landed him in a pitch meeting with two of the world’s top venture capitalists.

Pitching from the Hip

Wiklund’s initial meeting with Marc Andreesson was to simply tell him about Skout’s upcoming fundraiser, an event still a few months into the future. On that particular Thursday night, Wiklund had no intentions to pitch Andreesson, but Wiklund had an 80-inch TV behind him during this meeting showing four key graphs outlining Skout’s health.

The numbers Andreesson saw in regard to revenue, daily active users, daily messages sent between users, and daily new connections caused him to call in his business partner Ben Horowitz. Andreesson then began pitching Horowitz on the site.

The next morning Wiklund received an email requesting his presence at a formal pitch meeting the following Monday.

Up on Deck

Over the weekend, Wiklund assembled a twelve-slide pitch deck to present Skout to the thirty or so venture capitalists he’d soon be seeing. His deck focused on three compelling areas:

Robust Recent Activity – In the previous eighteen months, a majority of Skout’s tracked metrics had increased tenfold. With such an obvious uptick in engagement, Wiklund used these stats to convey an instant sense of credibility, growth, and possibilities.
Core Identity – Investors want to know whether a company can sustain success. Consequently, it’s important for them to have an understanding of the company’s origin and history as well as the company’s value proposition for its customers (as well as its investors).
Future Potential – Lastly, Wiklund focused on what the investors most what to know about: future growth. To that end, he described how Skout would continue to generate and grow their revenue, how the social media site would continue to increase their user numbers, and what the company would do to smartly increase the size of their team when necessary.

Out of the Park

For other entrepreneurs seeking venture capital, Wiklund offers a few pieces of advice: don’t give up, create a simple yet compelling pitch deck, and try as hard as you can to raise money when you don’t need the money.

7 Insider Tips on Conference Networking Like a Pro

Seldom do successful startups begin with an inexperienced, untrained, disconnected leader at the helm. Rather, startup founders often seek as much information as they can from those with experience in their particular field. Smart startup founders will then seek to form a relationship with those thought-leaders so they can continue to glean insight from a proven company founder.

Nowhere does such information-downloading and opportunities for connection better occur than at a conference. In the following list, three conference junkies share their best tips for making the most of your conference attendance.

1. Do Your Research

Travel and media writer Kristin Luna echoes what Dave Delaney, Director of Strategy at TechnologyAdvice, shared in his interview on “How to Conference.” Use social media to do your due diligence on people you think you’d like to meet. Be sure to use Eventbrite’s open attendee list to see who will actually be attending the event.

Luna recounts her success with social media networking prior to speaking at a parent blogging conference as a non-parent. She contacted someone in the event’s Facebook group who provided insider information about the conference that helped her deliver her speech. That person later become a close friend. Luna also parlayed a Twitter relationship into a writing gig for Southern Living.

2. Party Down

Luna recommends hitting the bar after an event as well. As a sometimes event organizer herself, she knows the benefits of offering after-parties. They provide a relaxed and comfortable environment where people might be less self-conscious in approaching each other, and especially in approaching any keynote speakers that might be in attendance. Additionally, these post-conference mixers may be the only time you meet other people who’ve attended different workshops than you did. Take advantage of this time to personally connect with others.

3. Introduce Others

If you know two people in a room who don’t know each other but should, be the one to introduce them to each other. Luna calls this “good business karma.” Though such introductions shouldn’t necessarily be made for personal gain, Luna adds that you never know how you might ultimately benefit from having connected those two people.

4. Refrain from Instant Following

Chief Rippler at Ripple Central Steve Harper suggests refraining from instantly connecting with someone on LinkedIn following an initial in-real-life meeting at a conference. Harper believes that “some people collect LinkedIn connections like coins.” Why does Harper choose that path? Because he believes you should show your worth to that connection over time before forging a more professional connection on LinkedIn.

5. Plan Your Conference Time

Harper encourages conference-goers to have a game plan before attending. Know the workshops, breakouts, and can’t-miss keynotes you want to attend. Look at the speaker and/or guest list and know who you want to meet. Give equal weight to the content of the conference as well as your networking opportunities. Don’t be that person who “attended” the conference but was never seen in a breakout session.

6. Be Real

Deb Cole, author of the first book on Twitter and Marketing Director for the New Media Expo, encourages face-to-face meetings at conferences so that social media relationships can go deeper. While there was a time when some believed that IRL conferences would be replaced by digital conferences, Cole has seen the opposite to be true. When people use social media correctly—to connect with other humans—their real-life meetups at conferences take on a much more robust character.

7. Don’t sweat the cost.

Cole knows that conferences can be expensive, especially when long-distance travel might be involved. However, she looks at the expense in terms of ROI. If the total cost of attending a conference is $5,000, but she meets a new connection that turns into a $50,000 business deal, her ROI is through the roof. In other words, she can’t afford not to attend. Plus, even more than possible financial gain, the relationships she makes and knowledge she gains will likely serve her well for many years to come.

To hear more tips on conference networking, listen to the TechnologyAdvice podcast interview above with Kristin Luna, Steve Harper, and Deb Cole, hosted by Clark Buckner: