S&MM SoundOff

Holiday Productivity

I’m writing this at about 3 pm on the Thursday before New Year's and the office feels like a ghost town. It has for over a week now. Many people are taking the week off, but plenty are working—or at least physically in the office—and I wondered how much work is actually getting done. It got me thinking about how low worker productivity is during the holidays. We’ve always read about it but are there any real hard statistics to back it up?

So I started a search on Google and I found an article in The Dallas Morning News (registration required) that cited an Accountemps survey of 150 senior executives at the nation's 1,000 largest companies, which asked if employees are more, less, or similarly productive the week before a major holiday. The response? 44 percent said workers lack productivity during the holidays. So I was right. But on the flip side, other workers seem to pick up the slack: 23 percent of managers surveyed said they believe workers are more productive during these times.

How does the holiday affect your workers? Do you get more or less productivity out of them during this time? Or do you give your workers the week off?

My Boots Weren't Made for Walking

It's day two of the transit strike in New York City, and all I can say is, thank goodness for telecommuting. Without a home Internet connection, I'd have to brave a four-mile trek in below-freezing weather—which I may have to do at some point, but for now, I'm toasty in my heated apartment.

Staying at home, however, got me thinking about what it means to set up a proper home office. What I have right now—basically just a laptop, a cell phone for long-distance calls, and a cable modem—is good for the occasional work-at-home day, but I'm far from being a true telecommuter or member of the mobile workforce. For instance, having a proper hand or headset would be good to have for calls longer than a few minutes, and my company's Web mail isn't optimized for Macs, which is what I use, making it hard to check and respond to e-mails from my corporate address. But perhaps the worst thing about working from home? The ability to hit up the fridge whenever I feel like it. Hopefully, the transit issues will be resolved soon, and it will beback to commuting to work as usual. Until then, I'm enjoying the respite from cubicleville.

Not sure if working from home is right for you? Here are some tips to think about when working from home, or how to tell when working from home simply isn't working.

From Marketing Guru Scott Hornstein: Treat Your Best Customers Better

Do yourself a favor this holiday season: Be good to your customers, but be better to your best customers.  Right now, most marketing is on a short-term treadmill. The prevalent question asked by management (and Wall Street) is: What did we sell today? This takes our eyes off the prize, which is long-term profitability. And the surest way to leverage that is to generate happier customers that stay longer and buy more.

The most likely candidates are our best customers: the 20 percent of the customer base who generate 80 percent of the profits. There's no cost of acquisition, and they have proven that they already have a preference for your messages, product, or service.

What to do? Here are two ideas: If you are a merchant, forgive the shipping and handling. No advertisement up front, but when they go to check out, say thank you for all the business over all the years.  Notice I did not suggest discounting, which tends to devalue your basic value proposition.

Here's another idea. Send them a message that speaks of commitment, not sales promotion. Try a message like this: "As we look at the New Year, we're taking stock of what makes our company great. You. Here's our strategic direction for the New Year. Here are the challenges and obstacles we expect to arise. And throughout is our commitment to you, our loyal customer base."

There's an old joke about the gift that keeps on giving. This one's no joke.

Visit my Web site: www.hornsteinassociates.com

A Cup of Good Cheer

Each holiday season, you can bet you’ll be hearing the song “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” by Andy Williams. And just as Andy is a holiday favorite, so is Starbucks Christmas Blend coffee for me—in fact, some coffee hounds can hardly wait to get a cupful of that seasonal brew of choice.

Avid fans of Starbucks’ Christmas Blend (also called Holiday Blend) from previous years have even logged onto eBay in hopes of buying their favorite coffee blend online. Interestingly, many Starbucks fans believe that the company modifies its Christmas Blend just a little each year. Personally, I can’t tell the difference in the taste from one year to the next. Since coffee is a crop, I wouldn’t be surprised if the flavor is affected by weather, soil conditions, or other variables beyond Starbucks control.

Either way, I think it’s an interesting sales tactic: Offering a special version of your product for a limited time, and then tweak the formula each year. Consumers who love a particular item will stockpile the product out of fear it won’t be exactly the same next year. On the other hand, you may lose customers who prefer a consistent, high-quality product.

Is your company offering a special holiday version of a product or service to lure business? What are you doing to drum up holiday sales?

For more reading, check out S&MM’s sales strategy section.

Drucker's Legacy

When the father of modern management, Peter Drucker, died last month, it got me thinking—who were some of the best managers I’ve worked for, and what kinds of lessons have I taken from them?

I realized there wasn’t one single manager who rose above the fray for me; rather, all the good managers I’ve had seemed to share certain traits—and all the bad managers I’ve had demonstrated the opposite of those traits. I always valued bosses who gave me the freedom to make decisions (and mistakes); shielded me from upper management’s stupid ideas and unrealistic expectations; asked me for feedback (even when I didn’t really have any); and gave me a lot of personal space to work the way I felt comfortable, even if it was vastly different from their style.

I’ve also noticed that good managers tended to have good managers themselves; employee satisfaction always seemed to trickle down. One of the worst work-study jobs I had in college was in an academic office. The professor in charge was never really around, but his aura still pervaded the workplace; he was extremely critical of his staff, so my boss was always on edge. I was always aware of the fact that she was unhappy (especially the day I walked in and found her crying at her desk because of a comment he’d made).

My personal experiences proved to me the power of Drucker’s ideas, which have permeated our culture so much so that good managers still embody his principles whether or not they’re aware of it. After all, Drucker advocated worker empowerment and decentralized decision making back when employees were still viewed as cogs in a machine.

Who are the best managers you’ve worked for, and what management lessons have you taken from them?

E-Mail: Now and Forever?

I read an opinion piece last Friday where the author opined that e-mail was at a tipping point. She believed that problems like spam, phishing, and viruses devalue e-mail because they make it hard for recipients to know which e-mail was legitimate. In fact, she cited a survey that said respondents could correctly identify fraudulent e-mails 82 percent of the time— but on the flip side, they could only identify legitimate e-mails 52 percent of the time. As a result this has raised skepticism about e-mail use in general, in her opinion, and if industry standards on protecting e-mail are not put in place, the medium will be seriously impacted.

While I agree that there should definitely be industry standards in place for e-mail so that spam and phishing are not proliferating our inboxes, I don’t believe that users will ever want to give up on e-mail. They have accepted spam and phishing as part of their daily routine, and I think people accept the fact that there is a chance their e-mail may not be opened because of spam. I’ll even go so far to say that even if there isn’t much done in the way of standards put in place, people will still use e-mail because we have become very dependent on it as a primary form of contact. Just look at CAN-SPAM Act—has that really done much to curb spam? I haven’t seen a difference in my inbox.

Do you think e-mail will go the way of the Sony Betamax because of spam, phishing, and viruses? What do you think the government and/or companies can do to curb spam and phishing?

For tips on how to avoid phishing and other hazards Read our feature: Top Tech Scams for 2005

Are You a Marketing Whiz?

Think you know a lot about marketing? Ok, time to prove it.

Roll up your sleeves and break out those number 2 pencils for a test of your marketing knowledge with an online quiz from Copernicus Marketing Consulting. Click here to begin the exam.

Here’s some food for thought: the average marketing IQ of a chief executive is 79 based on a national sample of 1,000 chief executives, according to Copernicus. The highest possible score for this quiz is 160.

Tell us how you did. Are you a marketing force to be reckoned with or do you need a remedial course? Would you give this quiz to others?

For more reading, check out S&MM’s section on marketing strategy.

800-Pound Guerrillas

S&MM sister publication Brandweek recently unveiled the winners of its 2005 Guerrilla Marketers of the Year awards, and this year’s crop of master marketing campaigns spanned from Qwest’s scavenger hunt for teens around Salt Lake City (accompanied by giant inflatable dolls) to the Church of Scientology’s dispatch of volunteers to aid Hurricane Katrina victims.

In the B2B space in the past, guerrilla marketing has often been little more than hiring a magician to man a corner trade show booth. In recent years, however, it seems B2B advertising has kicked it up a notch. At least anecdotally, I’ve seen a lot more creative B2B ads in print, TV, and online (especially as the small and midsize  business market grows), as well as more examples of B2B guerrilla marketing efforts. In 2003, Web hosting firm C I Host tattooed their logo on the back of a guy’s head—a move that reportedly brought in about 500 new customers just because they saw the young man’s inked noggin. And a logo-design firm in Utah, LogoWorks, launched DateLance.com, and put up a billboard in their area, to find a mate for their eligible-bachelor marketing director. (No word on whether it brought in any business, but I’m sure the publicity didn’t hurt. Not sure if I can say the same for Lance’s dating life.)

But when is guerrilla marketing the right approach? There’s a possibility you could annoy customers with in-your-face tactics (Microsoft, for instance, was fined in 2002 when it angered New York City by plastering its MSN butterfly logo all over streets, sidewalks, and buildings). Or maybe it can attract customers like it did for C I Host. How do you know when guerrilla tactics will boost buzz—or simply end up being a bust?

In the Bag

Air travel can be hectic, and if you’re like me, trying to find your luggage at the baggage claim can be the worst part of the journey.

Well, take heart my friends. I’ve found a clever solution to our little problem, and no, I’m not going to suggest tying a bright red ribbon to the bag’s handle. Haven't you noticed how many people are looking for that same black Samsonite with the red ribbon on the handle?

This year, I’m buying one of the new brightly-colored offerings on the market. Luggage manufacturers such as Tumi, L.L. Bean, and Samsonite are rolling out travel gear in shades of hot pink, sunny yellow, steel gray, and even camouflage. A neon green duffel bag is guaranteed to stand out amid the piles of black bags rotating on the airport’s carousel. (For more on the latest innovation in luggage click here.)

Colorful bags aren’t for the faint of heart or staunch conservative, but they are a creative way to get you in and out of the airport in record time.

Tell us what you think. Would you buy a colorful piece of luggage? Do you have other tips to lessen the burden of business travel?