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Leadership development is important for every business. It improves productivity, innovation, employee engagement, and customer retention and reduces employee turnover. A structured leadership development plan highlights how a company intends to train and help employees hone their leadership skills. 

In most cases, leadership development occurs in a formal classroom setting. However, individual leadership development plans, such as reflective journaling, coaching, and constructive feedback, are also effective. Implementing a leadership development plan helps businesses avoid the leadership gap that occurs following the unavoidable retirement or step down of current leadership. 

Below are a few tips for creating a leadership development plan. 

  1. Evaluate your business goals and needs

Identifying business needs and goals is crucial to creating a leadership development plan. This essentially involves identifying leadership qualities that can benefit your organization. Knowing what type of leader your company needs should be a priority. You should ask yourself the following questions:

  • How many leaders does your company need?
  • Are there notable gaps that need improvement?
  • Which strategies work well for your company?
  • How will the new leaders commit to organizational goals?
  1. Consult your employees

Employees play a key role in determining the success and productivity of the company. Therefore, you should ask for their perspective on leadership. Ask them what they want or looking for in a leader. They can help you identify leadership strategies that are working or not working in your organization. Taking their input can help you design an effective leadership development plan. 

  1. Define the type of leaders your company needs 

You should also define the type of leaders your company requires. For this, consider reviewing key business objectives and how they can be achieved. Below are a few tips to consider:

  • Create a detailed list of the skills you expect to see in leaders that fit your company profile. 
  • If one of the departments requires better leadership, create a different profile for the department.
  • Assess your current level of leadership. Use emails, anonymous tips, and feedback from your employees. 
  • Create a list of employees who are talented enough and interested in management roles.
  1. Identify the best method of development 

As mentioned, leadership development was traditionally hinged on formal programs. While they are effective, you should consider other leadership training methods, such as mentorship programs, working groups, and task forces. You should also choose between conducting in-house training or hiring a third-party company. 

Conclusion

Around 77% of companies struggle with leadership gaps. This explains why 89% of company executives agree that strengthening leadership development should be a priority for most companies. Having a leadership training plan can help your company mold successful future managers.

There are indications that tech jobs have resumed the positive trajectory after slamming into reverse during the pandemic. Figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimate that over 12,900 tech opportunities were created as of last year September. Interestingly, the number of job seekers remains at an all-time high, making the job market competitive. As such, succeeding in your next tech interview requires that you stand out from other applicants. Below are a few tips.

1. Understand your CV

While it seems obvious, many people don’t understand their CVs deeply, especially after applying for hundreds of positions. Besides tailoring your CV to suit the advertised position, memorize the version of CV you sent before the interview. This reduces the chances of going blank during the interview. Below are a few things to do with your CV:

  • Read the job description carefully – highlight transferable skills if your skills don’t match those required.
  • Have proof of success stories, key results, and challenges you mentioned in your CV.

2. Learn about your Employer

Researching your employer before the interview is also crucial. Check their website, social media, and featured stories in local and national media. For established tech companies, know the basics, such as their share prices, senior leaders, and company deliverables to customers, before sitting for the interview.

3. Show you are Always Learning

Tech is always evolving. Therefore, you shouldn’t stop learning after mastering a skill. If your specialty involves software, processes, and algorithms, show what you’ve been doing to keep up to date. If you recently completed a project that can help your employer, bring it up.

4. Prepare for Common Tech Interview Questions

Employers often use the interview process to learn more about applicants and their technical skills. Therefore, you should prepare extensively and expect tough questions. Simple questions, such as “why do you want to join this company? What are you looking for in this career move, and what qualities do you bring to this role” help potential employers gauge your suitability for the role.

You should also expect specific questions about your applied role. For instance, what experience do you have with specific technologies, or which problems have you solved using a specific technology? Depending on the vacant role, questions in the last stage become more complex. For instance, developers may be asked how to maintain a code base. Most employers also give candidates technical tasks to complete during the interview.

Conclusion

As you prepare for the interview, remember that new opportunities often come through professional connections and referrals. 30% of job candidates find opportunities from their networks. Therefore, you should keep expanding your network with professional peers and others.

Over the years, social media has become the go-to marketing platform for small businesses looking to build their brands and win over customers. The opportunity to run successful campaigns and reach a larger audience without spending a ton of resources makes social media quite irresistible among small business owners.

Similarly, the shift to digital expedited by generational changes has pushed social media marketing to greater heights. Most decision-makers in family settings and businesses are tech-savvy millennials who believe in technology more than their predecessors. Gen-Zers, who are digital natives, are also entering the workforce, plus they make a significant portion, nearly 40%, of the US consumer market.

If you are looking to optimize your social media strategy and boost your business bottom line, here are a few tips to keep in mind:

  1. Personalize Your Content 

Content creation, optimization, and management are at the heart of your social media marketing strategy. The content you get out through your social channels should be personalized for your unique audience. That means you should know your target demographics, what they like, where they spend their time online, and what type of content will engage them. If you fail to personalize your content, it will not target the right audience. Generic or poor-quality content can also damage your brand and business reputation.

  1. Provide Value 

Most business owners make the mistake of using social media channels just to promote their products and services. Typically, you want to build relationships and a sense of community with your customers to win their trust before selling to them. Where possible, embrace user-generated content and focus on educating and helping your audience understand how your business solves some of their problems.

  1. Be Flexible 

Before developing your content marketing strategy, you should identify the different social platforms you want to use to drive your marketing campaigns. A rule of thumb is to keep an open mind and to be as flexible as possible. Besides trying different social channels, you also want to use different content types, from videos and blog posts to webinars and case studies.

Get Started Today

As businesses look for cost-effective and results-oriented marketing techniques, social media is proving to be a perfect tool, regardless of the business size or niche. The tips we have highlighted above aren’t exhaustive but are worth considering when launching a social media marketing campaign. And while it’s apparent that social media is pushing the envelope on what’s possible in the marketing space, you still need a customized strategy to ensure success.

Your biggest competitor has a blog…you want a place on your website to showcase your achievements…you want to create fun content for people to share on Facebook and Twitter… You may have several reasons to create a blog for your business, but you don’t quite know how to get started.

Time spent by users on mobile devices is at an all-time high, and one of the biggest drivers of this is the mobile app, a new study reveals.

You’ve spent time writing a well-researched, compelling and readable work of content that will educate the consumer about your brand message. It’s sharp, conversational and ready to be published.

Now what?

Great stories make great content. The more memorable the stories are about your company or brand, the more likely they are readily shared by an audience you are looking to connect and engage with.

contentmktg6Creating content for your business’ website can be time consuming. Studies show that among the challenges facing content marketing pros is consistently coming up to unique, engaging content for the target audience.

So it’s not going to hurt business if day or two goes by between posts. Right? You don’t mind losing a potential customer today by not publishing content if you can get two tomorrow, right?

Infrequent posting is not the most successful of tactics when it comes to content marketing strategy, but it can work if the content is worth reading. Shareaholic’s Danny Wong says writers can overcome the infrequency issue by ensuring every piece of content they publish is consumed by the audience in its entirety.

In an article that appears in TheNextWeb.com, Wong goes on to say:

“The idea here is: you should write only when you have something original to say that’s worth your readers’ time, because only then will it have been worth your time to author and publish it.”

Most consumers may not even notice that a day or two goes by between website posts. But there are drawbacks to this, like making content publishing less of a priority down the road.

Grammar Chic, Inc. president and editor in chief Amanda Clark offers this tip in a recent article:

“My advice is this: Work ahead. Try to find a few hours during the week where all you do is find interesting info to post, write content, and prepare for the week ahead. This gets you in the right mindset and allows you to get second opinions, edit, and not stress as much about writing content at the beginning of every work day.”

Consistency is key when it comes to creating and publishing great content, and doing it frequently goes far in ensuring customer loyalty. Still, missing a day or two isn’t fatal to your content marketing efforts, as long as it doesn’t become a part of the process.

 

We are MyMobileLyfe and we can help your company develop a content marketing strategy to reach people on the go. Click here to contact us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

contentmktg6In creating written content, it’s best to focus on the basics. Shares and “Likes” aside, the consumer has to have a reason to be interested enough in the written article, blog or how-to guide to digest it, share it and engage with the company that’s producing it.

Those creating content and writing blogs should keep in mind the 5 Ws and H. These are questions whose answers are considered basic in information-gathering. To apply this, or not, can be the difference between creating and distributing informative content and making a sales pitch that can be easily pushed aside and forgotten.

As a content creator, ask these questions:

Who is presenting the content? That’s the company producing and distributing the content about the product or service.

What is it about? Is it information about a new product? A solution to a problem that consumers routinely face?  A point of view about a trend affecting the business?

Why is this being presented? You’re an expert, an authority. You have information the consumer wants and could share with others.

When will this impact the consumer? Right now? A few months from now? In the near future?

Where and How do I find out more? Send them to the website link for more information.

Creating content can be detailed, even complicated. But often the most effective approach is the basic approach.

 

We are MyMobileLyfe and we can help your company develop a content marketing strategy to reach people on the go. Click here to contact us.