BizCoachDeb's BizBuzz -

Archive for October, 2008

Instead of making a long post on coaching, I decided to keep it light today and catalog two links I seem to share constantly with clients and friends; they are two different videos offering two distinctively different styles on coaching. And be aware, they are both hockey-related.

In the Don Lucia video, you’ll see that Coach really embraces the idea of making the game fun and working on the fundamentals to empower people. In business, it’s the same; if it’s not fun, why the heck are you doing it and if you’re not building people up, what ARE you doing? Remove the obstacles that sap the fun and some how the good things start happening and when you build people up, you position them for success. Coach Lucia on Coaching

The other clip of Coach Jules is more of a comedic take on hockey and while you might grapple with the strong language,  don’t miss the idea…again, fun, just a different kind. If you like “Pulp Fiction”, you’ll love this one. Coach Jules (Samuel L Jackson)   The rest of the story...

I first heard the news from another Circus Animal cookie enthusiast – my daughter’s best friend. “Deb, I have some really horrible news to tell you,” she started, almost scaring me. “Circus Animal cookies are being discontinued and they are not even on the shelves at the Safeway!” You see, Cat knows that in my house, if someone comes in bearing a package of these morsels, nearly all is forgiven or someone will be getting their way. Now, apparently that leverage is gone. It sounds pretty silly, but I was really very saddened by this news. It’s a little piece of childhood/adulthood, crumbled to pieces.

To confirm for myself about the demise of this 92 year old cookie legacy,  Mother’s Cookies and their sister company, Archway, of course I went online and sure enough, they appear to be filing for bankruptcy reorganization protection under Chapter 11. Workers have been reported as saying they think there is (the new buzzword for all companies that go down) corporate greed or a hope to break the union, but what really hasn’t been clear is any plans for either  getting this company back up and running, or if there will be another player to come into the picture and add some much-needed capital so their doors can reopen; they apparently have liabilities of more than $500 million, not exactly chump change.
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Moments ago, I handed my ballot to my mail carrier and for some reason a calm came over me as I realized I am now done with this political process for this election period. Come November 4th, our country will decide on a newly elected leader. It’s pretty likely we won’t have a unified country after this happens and it’s a certainty that things will get harder before they get better; I only hope people will pull together and start digging in, rather than pointing fingers and hoping “they” will fix it all. We the people have put us here, we have elected the people that are in office, WE are supposed to hold them accountable, and voting is part of it. The ugliness of this season has revealed a really horrible side of our political process, but I suppose we should be happy we’re allowed to take part in one at all.   The rest of the story...

There you have it, the whole reason for even having a social media program in your business, all tucked into a tiny little nutshell. If only…with such a complex web of interaction possible, why do you think most businesses even consider social media? In a word, “money”. Many believe that if they are there, some how the customers will magically part with their hard-earned cash, then everyone goes home happy. Right? No. Not right, not even close. The common mistake right now for a lot of business models is using social media to pump out information chronically on your company and ignore the customer. What does this method say? It says, “It’s all about US, we don’t care what you have to say.” Once a business buys into this line of bull and moves forward with it, they have are doomed to fail with their social media endeavor and they make it harder on other businesses trying to get started. Want an example of this mistake in action? I have asked Starbucks no less than 6 times why they discontiued their Almond syrup flavoring; I’ve asked through Twitter, through my own blog, and their blog, and their “tell us” website. No response, nothing! This is truly bad form. Purposeful outreach through  social media means creating a touch point with your customers that should be built carefully and with the commitment to serve.
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As promised, I recently tested out a couple new (to me) WordPress Widgets and the results are in – I really love these two: Snap Shots and WP Cumulus Tag Cloud. Snap Shots is set up fairly straight forward, but take the instructions literally and it will be more of a piece of cake for you than it was me. Apparently the interface doesn’t have controls through WordPress, with the exception of “activation.” Instead, the controls are on the Snap Shot website and “feed” to your WP site based on the key code. Once configured, if properly coded in your page, links to other pages will pop up a little window, giving a tiny preview of the linked page. Pretty nifty and makes your own page seem a little less static. A guest can actually move the Snap Shot page wherever they like on the page while viewing.   The rest of the story...