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/
Monday, March 15, 2010
TGIM...
TGIM.
That's right...Thank God its MONDAY!
Changing my opinion of Mondays and making 2010 sing!
In case you have not read it, Thank God is Mondays, by Roxanne Emmerich is a quality read. It simply helps you refocus on the important little things that make the important big things easy.
Its all about making the environment in which you work the best it can be...positive, focused, constructive and engineered for team success.
Its kind of like the Staples "easy button"....that was easy!
With the full and complete knowledge that it IS that easy...and at the same time it is NOT that easy. The difference? Attitude. Confidence. Team Focus.
At MarketMatch we are all about Focus. Momentum. Results. Three key words that sum up our mantra and keep us all working on the same goals with clients and rowing in the same direction.
I encourage you and your team to find that same type of razor sharp focus for you and your team.
It WILL make the difference and help to create a FUN/PRODUCTIVE/ENERGIZED working environment that will be creating great results along the way....
Cheers!
Bruce
That's right...Thank God its MONDAY!
Changing my opinion of Mondays and making 2010 sing!
In case you have not read it, Thank God is Mondays, by Roxanne Emmerich is a quality read. It simply helps you refocus on the important little things that make the important big things easy.
Its all about making the environment in which you work the best it can be...positive, focused, constructive and engineered for team success.
Its kind of like the Staples "easy button"....that was easy!
With the full and complete knowledge that it IS that easy...and at the same time it is NOT that easy. The difference? Attitude. Confidence. Team Focus.
At MarketMatch we are all about Focus. Momentum. Results. Three key words that sum up our mantra and keep us all working on the same goals with clients and rowing in the same direction.
I encourage you and your team to find that same type of razor sharp focus for you and your team.
It WILL make the difference and help to create a FUN/PRODUCTIVE/ENERGIZED working environment that will be creating great results along the way....
Cheers!
Bruce
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Checking 2.0 Executive Forum to Discuss Reg E Strategies and Economics
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Bank of America's Overdraft Announcement is Great PR
The problem is, Bank of America isn't doing anything that isn't already required by the Federal Reserve. They are just avoiding the cost of communicating with all of its customers to ask them to opt-in (at least for now). Excuse me if I don't believe that they will just walk away from millions of dollars in OD fee income.
In fact, I suspect customers will soon be confronted by messages on ATMs and discussions in branches to encourage them to opt-in much like all other banks are doing. There may even be a program to automatically offer a line of credit 'advance' if a person is about to overdraw their account at an ATM or at a retail POS location. Much like a credit card overdraft, the transaction could be interrupted by the opportunity for a customer service call where a representative offers a small line of credit to allow the purchase to continue as desired.
And there would still be a fee for every transfer made between linked accounts or from the reserve account.
Credit Bank of America for a very well timed public relations announcement, especially in light of the poor communication done by Chase Bank in some of their opt-in mailings. But be careful to give too much credit when the goals of Bank of America at the end of the day appear to be similar to most other banks. And expect most competing institutions (except Citi where there are no overdrafts) to begin to tout 'choice' as their response to Bank of America automatically opting-out all customers.
Upcoming Webinar: Google Analytics Custom Variables
Custom variables are one of the most powerful features in Google Analytics. With them you can segment traffic by almost any attribute. For example, you could compare traffic from first-time customers versus repeat buyers. Or, if you run a content-oriented site, you could see which authors produce the most traffic..
While powerful, setting up custom variables can be a bit tricky, so we’re holding a webinar so you can learn how to make the most of them.
We'll start with Phil Mui, Senior Product Manager for Google Analytics, who'll share with you the features and capabilities of custom variables. Next, we'll hear from Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Developer Evangelist. Nick will show you how to implement custom variables on your website and share best practices.
We'll also be joined by Jim Snyder and Peter Howley from Empirical Path, a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant. They'll share how they implemented custom variables for the Business Insider and the insights they've gained as a result. We'll close with a Q&A session with all the speakers.
We’ve set up a Google Moderator to take your questions in advance and so you can vote on the questions you’d most like to see answered. Ask your questions
Date: Wednesday, March 24th
Time: 10:00 AM Pacific
If you can't make the live webinar, we'll post a recording on the Google Analytics YouTube Channel a week or two afterwards.
It's Time for March Madness!
College basketball fans all over are getting excited about the upcoming national college basketball championship referred to as "March Madness." I am no exception! The intensity and quality of play as teams are eliminated provides a great deal of entertainment.
Productivity drops as countless office pools surface and conversations around the copier, water cooler, etc. last longer. Although most only invest one dollar in the office pool, they probably spend more time researching and picking their teams than they spend researching and picking a stock for their portfolio.
March also signals an opportunity for community banks and credit unions. People are receiving their tax refunds and need a place to put those refunds that is safe and secure. The effects of winter has taken a toll on landscapes, property, etc.. People are returning to the showrooms to replace that automobile that they made last "just one more year." Consumer confidence is returning and people once again are thinking about and planning that much needed vacation.
In short, "March Madness" might also refer to the consumer loan demand that is out there!
Is you institution prepared to respond?
How long has it been since your institution took a hard look at whether your consumer loan product line is competitive?
Does your market recognize your institution as the "best place" to go for a consumer loan?
If you answered "no" to any of the above questions, the time to act is now!
Have a great week/weekend!
Mike
Productivity drops as countless office pools surface and conversations around the copier, water cooler, etc. last longer. Although most only invest one dollar in the office pool, they probably spend more time researching and picking their teams than they spend researching and picking a stock for their portfolio.
March also signals an opportunity for community banks and credit unions. People are receiving their tax refunds and need a place to put those refunds that is safe and secure. The effects of winter has taken a toll on landscapes, property, etc.. People are returning to the showrooms to replace that automobile that they made last "just one more year." Consumer confidence is returning and people once again are thinking about and planning that much needed vacation.
In short, "March Madness" might also refer to the consumer loan demand that is out there!
Is you institution prepared to respond?
How long has it been since your institution took a hard look at whether your consumer loan product line is competitive?
Does your market recognize your institution as the "best place" to go for a consumer loan?
If you answered "no" to any of the above questions, the time to act is now!
Have a great week/weekend!
Mike
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Go Mobile! Series: A case study in optimizing mobile campaigns
More and more people are accessing the internet on their mobile devices. Take advantage of this trend by making sure that your ad campaigns are opted in to show on mobile devices with full internet browsers. If you’d like to take things to the next level, create separate mobile-focused campaigns so that you can optimize your keywords, ad text and landing pages for people using mobile devices.
To help you understand what mobile optimization looks like, we thought we'd share the approach that Razorfish, a global digital advertising agency, took for one of their retail clients:
- The Razorfish team started by duplicating the existing desktop campaigns and switching the settings to target mobile devices with full internet browsers.
- Since their client had a well-known brand name, they focused on branded keyword terms with enough traffic to help them learn quickly about what was working best for their campaigns.
- To measure performance, they tracked several conversion metrics including whether a mobile user looked up the brick and mortar store location or downloaded a coupon from the website. Right away, they saw a 7.5% lower cost per conversion on mobile devices, encouraging them to test ways to optimize their mobile campaigns.
- Razorfish tested whether variations in the campaign’s landing page would affect conversion rates. The team hypothesized that mobile users might be looking to take a specific action, and by starting the user’s experience closer to that action, the client would see better results. As it turned out, for this client, they saw much higher conversion rates when the user was directed to a landing page that showed nearby store locations.
- Finally, they tested variations in the ad text. Four versions of ad text were tested, including the original copy used in desktop campaigns. Each of the three new versions provided over 9.3% lift in conversion rate over the strongest performing copy in their desktop campaigns.
We hope you can learn from Razorfish's success and apply some of these strategies to your own mobile campaigns.
To learn more about the approach Razorfish took to optimize their client’s mobile ad campaigns, or read about other case studies, check out our Mobile Ads Success Stories.
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