Tag: internal marketing

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Engagement Marketing

Why Nonprofits Need Engagement-Part 2

Upon learning about my new book, Share of Mind, Share of Heart: Marketing Tools of Engagement for Nonprofits, my friend was puzzled. “I don’t get it,” he said, “especially when nonprofits are so mission-driven. Aren’t the people who work there more engaged than those who work in the for-profit sector?”

My friend’s presumption about nonprofit engagement is a common one. Regardless of whether an organization is profit-driven or mission-driven, the quality of workplace engagement depends on the organizational culture and how its people are treated. Nonprofits can’t claim any advantage based on employees’ and volunteers’ passion for the mission.

As nonprofit employee and consultant Jinna Halperin wrote in Voices from the Field: Nonprofit Workplace Culture – Why it Matters so Much to Us:

“All nonprofits are dysfunctional in some way or another and figuring out where to hang your hat requires one to assess whether the level and type of dysfunction is personally tolerable …

“I am no longer driven only by the mission of the organization. Having so many issues about which I feel passionate and on which I have worked, I have come to believe that employment happiness at nonprofits is more about how one is treated and whether one’s contribution is respected …”

An inspiring mission may attract talent employees and volunteers to an organization, but it takes much more to get them to stay. People need to feel they matter as much as their work.

Note: To get a look inside my new book on nonprofit engagement, stay tuned for next week’s post.

 

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Engagement Marketing

Why Nonprofits Need Engagement-Part 1

My love of nonprofits started in my teens when I volunteered to work at a summer camp for intellectually disabled children. Since then, I’ve served a variety of nonprofit organizations in a range of roles that include frontline volunteer, committee member, advisory member, board member, board chair, and in a professional capacity as a marketing & organizational advisor.

Here’s what I’ve learned based on my personal and professional experience:

1. Mission matters – it provides organizational focus and intention. It also brings together the people who share a passion for the mission and want to do something about it.

2. The people behind the mission also matter – the employees and volunteers who carry out the mission through their dedication and commitment.

3. People’s passion for the mission should not be taken for granted – employees’ and volunteers’ passion for the mission does not guarantee their continued commitment to an organization.

These valuable insights are the basis for my new book that I’m excited to introduce here. I wrote Share of Mind, Share of Heart – Marketing Tools of Engagement for Nonprofits to help nonprofit leaders, executives and managers better engage the employees and volunteers who carry out their organization’s mission.

My book will be published shortly. In the meantime, I’ll share more about nonprofit engagement and my new book in the next two posts.

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Engagement Marketing

An Almost Perfect Workplace

One of my favorite business books is Zappos.com’s Culture Book that is published annually. It’s written by Zappos employees who share, in their own words, what the company culture means to them.

I ask participants in my internal marketing workshops to consider if their organizations would be willing to solicit employee comments about their workplace culture, publish the results, AND THEN make them available to the public? The responses reflect how confident and proud managers are of their organizational culture.

Occasionally I encounter people who joke about companies, like Zappos, that are known for having a strong employer brand. Typical comments include:

  • “Yeah, they’re the ones who put the ‘cult’ in culture!”
  • “I wonder how much Kool-Aid the company trucks in?”
  • “Where DO they find all those happy employees?!”

I find the folks who make these jokes to be cynical, even downright dismissive, as they struggle to comprehend an engaging place where employees actually enjoy going to work.

Yes, Virginia, there are such workplaces … and most of their employees appreciate how fortunate they are to be working in such organizations.

Just as important, these employees also know that an engaging workplace doesn’t ensure an idyllic one. Engaged employees accept that not every day will be perfect. As a Zappos employee acknowledged in the latest Culture Book:

“A lot of people might say that Zappos employees work in an unrealistic culture, where everyday frustrations don’t occur and cupcakes grow from rainbows in our break room. While I’ve yet to see the cup-cake-producing rainbow, I can say that we do have all of the same pet peeves as everyone else, but because of our Zappos Culture, we rise above it and overcome.”

Well said!

[2010 Culture Book excerpt used with permission. © 2012 Zappos.com, Inc. or its affiliates.]

Categories
Engagement Marketing Training & Development

Do You Love Your Work?

I was energized after teaching AMA’s Nonprofit Marketing Bootcamp in Atlanta several weeks ago. The wonderful professionals I met who work in nonprofits and organizations that serve nonprofits truly love their work – even with all the challenges they face on a regular basis, such as dealing with limited resources, silo’d communications, internal politics, and “what-were-they-thinking?!” decisions. A woman who works in a social services agency shared her frustration in striving to meet community needs when grant funding didn’t arrive until nearly a year after it was promised. “I must be crazy,” she said, “but I love my work!”

It’s true that most nonprofit professionals are passionate about their respective organizations’ mission. It’s also true that sometimes even passion for the mission isn’t enough to keep them engaged. But as long as they continue to love what they do, without falling victim to burnout, they’ll stay committed.

In the course of my work in internal marketing, I’ve been fortunate to meet people who are dedicated to their work in both nonprofit and for-profit organizations. They are positive, yet realistic in that they are not immune to becoming  discouraged every now and then. Face it – we all have those days that make us question our sanity. But do you love what you do enough to get back on track?

Do you love your work?

Note: If you missed the program in Atlanta, I’ll be conducting another AMA Nonprofit Marketing Bootcamp in Houston next month.

Photo credit: elycefeliz’s photostream

Categories
Engagement Marketing Training & Development

Internal Marketing Spotlight: Just Born

Although I work primarily in the services sector, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to showcase Just Born, manufacturer of “quality confections” including well known brands Peeps®, Mike & Ike®, Hot Tamales®, and Peanut Chews®. The company made headlines in the business press and blogosphere last year when it sent one of its sales teams to Fargo ND for falling just short of its sales goals.

Just Born is based in the Lehigh Valley, PA area where I reside, so I’m familiar with the company and its commitment to the local community. The business was founded in 1923 and now employs more than 500 associates. In response to the growing popularity of its brands, including the cult status of its marshmallow Peeps®, the company will soon open its second branded retail store.

The more I learn about Just Born from a business perspective, the more I continue to be impressed. So I sat down with co-CEO Ross Born to gain more insight into the company’s operating philosophy and culture.

QSM:  Just Born’s vision is “Continuing as a family-owned confectionery company, our commitment is to be a market-driven, quality business enhancing our reputation as a progressive, ethical and respected employer, manufacturer, marketer, and member of the community.” I notice that you list your role as an employer first.

Ross Born: If you have the right people, they’re number one. You take care of them, they’ll take care of your customers. They’ll make sure the product is right; they’ll make sure they’re treating the customers right. We look for people that really care about what we do, that care about our brands. Just Born’s two most important assets are our brands and our people who nurture the brands.

QSM: When I read your company’s philosophy, I was struck by the frequent mention of employee engagement-related statements such as:

  • We believe vision, compassion, courage, and integrity are the cornerstones upon which we build each day and each endeavor.
  • We believe in building and sustaining an environment where people, ideas, and creativity can flourish.
  • We believe in promoting a healthy and safe work environment.
  • We believe trust is the foundation of all personal, interpersonal, and organizational achievement, and the building and maintaining of trust is our top priority.
  • We believe great things happen when everyday courtesy, kindness, and humor are woven into all our personal and professional interactions.
  • We believe in treating others as we would like to be treated, creating a common connection from co-worker to customer to consumer to community.
  • We believe in nurturing respectful relationships with one another and encouraging the best in each other.

Caring about people is really important at Just Born, isn’t it?

Ross: Let me respond first by sharing an experience I had when talking to a group of middle school students. They asked me what I do at work, what are the important things I do. They were surprised when I told them ‘I say hello to people. I know people’s names.’ They were expecting me to talk about the reports I read, the meetings I go to, and the decisions that needed to be made. I do all those things, but the most important is I care about people.

It’s not enough to say ‘we care about our people,’ they have to know that they’re cared about. I remember visiting a company that was decorated with motivational posters. As I was reading some of them, an employee walking past me whispered, ‘Don’t believe everything you read.’

Part of caring is giving people the right tools and in the right environment. It’s also about doing the right thing. For example, we had a situation with a water main break that occurred as a result of construction on someone else’s property nearby. We had to send people home and lost two days of production, but we paid those scheduled to work those days. It wasn’t a matter of ‘let’s check out our insurance coverage first.’ I didn’t want our people to wait until we got paid by the insurance company. Even though the situation was out of our control, it was our responsibility to ensure our people were taken care of. That’s an example of putting actions to our words that we care about our people. If we had waited to see what the insurance company would do, that would have sent a message that we care more about money than our people.

QSM: Another part of your philosophy states, “We believe there is much to learn from one another and much to teach one another.” Tell us more about how you live this philosophy.

Ross: We provide a lot of training and cross-training. One of our ongoing in-house programs is our High Performance Leadership Development training that emphasizes effective decision making, problem-solving, communication and coaching skills, along with continuous improvement tools. More than 140 people have gone through the program so far. We’ll soon be introducing the program for everyone, including all our production people. Participants in this training apply what they learn in individual and group projects that they come up with, and the projects have to be of measurable benefit.

QSM: I know Just Born is also committed to the local community.

Ross: We care about our community; having a strong community is essential for a strong business. We encourage volunteerism – giving back to the community. Volunteering builds character in addition to promoting camaraderie among our associates. More than half of our associates are active, regular volunteers in projects ranging from packing meals at the food bank (very popular) to cleaning the kennels at an animal rescue shelter. Community projects involve associates from all parts of our business, and some are team based.  Everyone of our associates is given 24 hours per year of paid time to volunteer, and a significant majority of our associates also volunteer on their own time.

At Just Born we believe it’s possible to be socially responsible while maintaining a growing, profitable candy business. We’re doing it!

QSM: Now that’s what I call a sweet approach where everyone benefits. Thanks for sharing, Ross!

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Tribute to Bob Wood

This weekend, I lost a hero. I share my sorrow with the Lehigh Valley PA community in the loss of a beloved friend and philanthropist: Bob Wood.

Bob was the former Chairman of Wood Dining Services, a large regional food service management company based in Allentown PA.  Prior to becoming part of Sodexho, Wood Dining Services employed more than 15,000 people serving more than 500 accounts in 28 states – with an impressive 99% client retention rate!

I had the privilege of working for The Wood Company many years ago as a training consultant and learned of the company’s people-first commitment. Bob was the epitome of an engaged and engaging leader who truly cared about his employees and customers. He maintained a corporate culture that was best described on the back of one of the birthday cards it sent to employees:

“The Wood Company’s recipe for success is developing and nurturing its people. We value and understand the difference they can make in pleasing our customers. We believe in celebrating our people’s success and important events in their lives.”

Making people feel valued

I interviewed Bob for my first book, Taking Care of the People Who Matter Most: A Guide to Employee Customer Care.  Bob & company were featured in a chapter on how internal marketing could be woven through “ordinary, everyday activities rather than extraordinary events.” Internal marketing wasn’t a distinctive approach practiced at The Wood Company – it was something Bob did intuitively.

Here is one of my favorite stories about Bob and the power of employee recognition. Bob spent a lot of time in the field visiting clients and staff. In his pocket he carried a handful of small gold plastic pins in the shape of pineapples, the international symbol for hospitality that was also part of the Wood Company’s brand. Whenever he saw an employee doing something right, he gave that person a gold pineapple pin. Bob said he never ceased to be amazed at the employees’ reaction when he gave out the pineapple pins.

“I think these pins cost 47 cents … but these people think you gave them a pile of gold. Everyone wants to be part of something … everyone wants to feel that they are valued, that they made a difference. To the degree we can celebrate our people, that’s our greatest tool.”

In making people feel that they mattered, Bob, you made an incredible difference. I am honored to have known you and will continue to celebrate your memory in my book and workshops.

Categories
Engagement Marketing

What I Did on My Summer (Blog) Vacation

Thank you for your patience during my blog break. What did I accomplish this summer?

Most of my time was spent researching and writing several chapters for my new book on how nonprofits can use internal marketing to engage employees and volunteers. I interviewed colleagues and experts in the field and will connect with more of them this fall.

As part of my research, I read the following books (and I highly recommend them):

In addition to keeping up with my client work, I managed to get in a few days of vacation and enjoyed spending time with friends and family.

Hope you had a great summer!

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Special Request Over My Summer Blog Break

Note to my loyal blog followers:

It’s time for my annual break since blog traffic is typically slower in summer. What’s special about this year’s break is that I’ll be using the time to research and write my new book for nonprofits: Engaging Nonprofit Employees, Volunteers, and Consumers: A Manager’s Guide to Inside-Out Marketing (the “working title” at this stage).

Please let me know if you want to share any good or bad examples of internal marketing in nonprofit organizations. The “good” examples of nonprofits that effectively engage staff and volunteers (including board members) I choose to use in this book may include the organizations’ names, pending their permission. However, I won’t name nonprofits with “bad” examples of what not to do when it comes to engagement or, conversely, how to alienate staff, volunteers, and (ultimately) consumers.

Note to new readers:

Welcome! I hope you’ll take a few minutes to explore my blog that offers an abundance of thoughtful content – more than six years worth! I also invite you to share good and/or bad examples of nonprofit engagement.

See you in September

I’ll return to posting this fall with new content – including updates on my new book. In the meantime, enjoy the summer!

 

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Tribute to a Services Marketing Leader

This is a special post that pays public tribute to one of my mentors, Dr. Stephen W. Brown. Steve recently retired from Arizona State University as a well-respected marketing professor, researcher, and founder of the Center for Services Leadership in ASU’s W.P. Carey School of Business.

Before I tell you how I met Steve, here’s a bit of background. Steve Brown is internationally known for his pioneering research and thought leadership in services marketing and management, service recovery, and building a service mindset in product-dominated companies. He is a founder of the Center for Services Leadership (CSL) which he helped grow to become one of the premier centers of research and education in services marketing and management. (I highly recommend CSL’s annual Compete Through Service Symposium and Services Leadership Institute. ) As a result of his research and leadership contributions to the field, Steve received numerous international and university-wide recognition, including honorary doctorates from Finland’s HANKEN School of Economics and Sweden’s Karlstad University.

Mentor, Advisor, and Sounding Board

I feel privileged to have learned so much from Steve even though I was never in one of his classrooms. I first met Steve in 1983 when he was President-Elect of the American Marketing Association. I was newly elected to the AMA Board of Directors and learned a lot from Steve’s leadership style. He laid out an inspiring vision for the marketing association based on the profession’s growth and its role in the emerging field of services marketing and customer satisfaction. Shortly before I took office as AMA Chair-Elect in 1996, I met with Steve to gain insight on leading the association.

My career path closely followed the growth of services marketing as a new field, and Steve was most generous in sharing his research and helping me learn about this new discipline. I also reached out to Steve for advice before I launched my business as a services marketing consultant (more than 20 years ago) and when I wrote my first book on internal marketing.

I am fortunate to have benefited from his guidance and friendship. And I am only one of many students and marketing professionals who have been helped by this man throughout his distinguished career. How lucky for us that in your new role as Emeritus Professor, you’ll continue to be involved with the Center for Services Leadership.

Thank you, Dr. Stephen W. Brown, for giving so much of your time to teach, guide, and inspire. Best wishes in your well-deserved retirement!

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Customer service Engagement Marketing

Internal Marketing Spotlight: Mohonk Mountain House (Part 2)

This post continues my interview with Jackie Appeldorn, General Manager of Mohonk Mountain House, a family owned resort and historic property in New Paltz, NY. Mohonk is known for outstanding guest service, and I can personally attest to its warm and welcoming hospitality. My husband and I have enjoyed staying at Mohonk for the past several years and plan to continue our annual visits there.

QSM: Jackie, in our previous interview you described employee involvement in perpetuating a guest service culture. Please share one of your favorite Mohonk stories of employee-customer care.

Jackie: Earlier, I referred to a quarterly publication titled Mohonk Bits that is produced by employees for employees. One of the regular features of the publication singles out an employee who provided exemplary service. (We provide a $50 award to the individual who is singled out in the article.) Rather than repeat the story in my words, I’ll share the entire article from our current issue. It not only provides a wonderful example of one of our employees taking the initiative to “Save the Situation” (one of our 14 Service Steps), it also offers some insight into the way our employees view one another and what we do here. The individual cited here for exemplary service is a Mohonk valet.

About Legendary Service
by Alex Sherwood, Mohonk Director of Recreation

It was a Saturday in late November and I had pulled the MOD [Manager on Duty] card. Prepared with a fresh from the cleaner’s shirt, tie, and awesome staff, I was ready to take on the day. The shift had started smoothly, and the Mohonk operation was up and running like a well-oiled machine. Guests were having a great time, and staff were meeting or exceeding their expectations … then I received the call from Guests Services!

“93, Manager on Duty? Could you please call Guest Services?”

With cat-like reflexes, like all our MODs, I was already dialing the 2015 extension before the radio transmission was complete. What I heard on the other end was a fellow employee putting into motion the action team we have in place to take care of challenging situations, and by the tone of this request a challenge this was going to be.

As I gathered what information I could, I armed myself with the LEARN defense system [“Listen – Empathize – Apologize – Resolve – And Never prove a guest wrong”] and made my way to Guests Services, where I was told the guest needing assistance would be. The background to this point was there were two Fed Ex packages which this guest had shipped out the day prior that had not been delivered to their respective parties. As I arrived to the desk, there stood a guest, who by her body language was easy to identify as the earlier mentioned challenge. Immediately this person turned and, with a small chuckle, remarked: “Looks like you’re the one they sent to take care of this… good luck!”

As soon as this guest had been turned over to me, you could quickly see many others scattering for something else to do, as the guest explained how, upon arrival the day before, she had dropped two Next Day Fed Ex packages at Guest Services to be delivered that morning, and according to her, one of these recipients had called to inform her the package had not arrived. This guest had come to Guest Services to find that both packages were indeed still in our possession. It quickly was apparent that why this happened was of little importance; what we were going to do to fix it was all that mattered.

Through a little further conversation this guest revealed the contents of the first package contained New York Knicks tickets for Saturday’s game which tipped off at 1:05 pm. It was now 12:15 pm, and I was pretty sure I was doomed on this one and prepared myself for the guest’s whipping. As the sense of defeat overwhelmed me, in walked David Kelso from Guest Services, with his hand raised in the air to get my attention.

What follows may be one of the all-time greatest “Save the Situations” ever conceived. Dave pulled me aside and informed me that he had taken it upon himself to open the package, retrieve the two game tickets, place a call to Madison Square Garden’s ticket office, introduce himself, and explain the situation he was trying to resolve. He then faxed copies of the tickets to the ticket office and received confirmation the tickets could now be redeemed by the person who was to receive the tickets in the first place.

Armed with this bit of information I was able to inform the guest that a resolution to the first part of the problem had been found. In disbelief the guest questioned, “How could this be?” I explained to her what David had done and said she could inform her client they could still make the 1:05 tip off. With a phone call, the client was on the way to the game. David’s fast thinking and willingness to create a solution to the problem turned a complete loss around to a positive resolution … which may be talked about for many years to come. It was amazing to have a staff member who was willing to assist in resolving the challenge.

Great job, Dave!

QSM: Thank you, Jackie, for your time in sharing a bit of what makes Mohonk such an exceptional place. I look forward to seeing you and your wonderful staff on my next visit!