Category: Best Practices

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Custom Branding – The soft nudge

Every business-idea is the seed of a concept. It is only after careful deliberation by the founder(s), does this germinate into a business venture. So, it is only understandable that they put their heart and soul into this venture to make this a success. Successful ventures already have a “Brand identity” in place , while the upcoming ventures strive to achieve the a certain level of excellence with their “Brand identity”. So, what’s with custom branding and success of a business venture? Well, it is so much and so less.

As a business owner, I would guess that you want that your organization be remembered amongst your clientele and most definitely, your business process would be steering towards excellence in the chosen field. But, if you ( or your business) is just a “Name”, then it is only wishful thinking that the client remembers you when a similar project comes along. The fact is, you are one of the many business associates from the client’s perspective. He (the client ) is most likely to remember the details of those with whom he has a project in progress, or those who have made a remarkable difference to his (client’s) business.

There is nothing to loose heart about here. Face it! ..that’s just how the human mind works. But like everything else, there is a work around. There are subtle ways of reminding the client, that you are well in business, grown wiser over the years, and have acquired new levels of competency without having to shout from rooftops. Make good use of “Custom Branding Solutions”, both online and offline. It is likely that you are already familiar with this, but just didn’t realise the term up until now.

What is Custom Branding?

Ever noticed those “Company Mails”, that land in your mail box both in paper & paperless offices?. Even before you take a second look, you are able to recognise the sender, from the unique stationary that is being used. Such correspondences usually have a water mark with their company logo, accompanied by their contact address and the actual message printed over this stationery. Well, simply put, it is the company’s “Letter Head”. See!, you already knew it.

Why Custom Branding?

The company could have printed ( or emailed) the actual content in a plain sheet of paper ( or a word / pdf document). Instead they have chosen to “Customise” for the fact that , this customisation is expected to trigger an offshoot of thought reflecting your association with the said company. Well, it worked .. didn’t it ?, Hence Custom Branding.

Corporate Identity – A Pre-requisite.

In order to begin with Custom Branding, it is essential that you ( your company) have a “Corporate Identity” to customise. By “Corporate Identity, I am referring to your Company Name, Company Logo & Unique Marketing Tagline , if applicable. Your company ceases to be “just another Name “, once you have these three entities in place. Rest is just a matter of affordability in time and money.

You might already have your “Company Name” registered. Perhaps you already have your tagline in place, just did not realise it. Go ahead! call a General Body meeting and conceptualise on the look and feel of the logo, rest the Graphic Designer will do it for you. An experienced Graphic designer should be able to provide you with a Logo (Graphic) that looks great in Print , Web , Colour , Greyscale ,and Completely Scalable Vectorised format.

Best Practices in Custom Branding.

As I mentioned at the start of the post, the idea is to provide that little nudge to jog the memory, not push him (client) overboard. So, subtle the better.

  1. Office Documents :-
    • The header should include company logo, address, phone & email of the executive in charge , and url to company website.
    • The footer should include things like “Private , confidential , page numbers ” etc.
    • An unobtrusive logo as watermark is welcomed, but if this hinders with the viewablity of the text, then it’s a strict “No”.

  2. Shared Applications
    • With the strides in technology, geographical boundaries have shrunk tremendously. This can be attributed to the hoards of web applications made available for multiple users.
    • If you are using any of these applications, take a second look. There might be a chance that you have missed out on customising the look and feel of this application to match that of your website, such as upload company Logo, update company profile , Customise signature etc.

  3. Printed Stationery
    • Items such as envelopes, scribble pads , pens , pencils can be embossed / engraved / printed with your company logo.
    • Very effective during client meetings, where a set of stationery is provided to the client.
    • Printed mugs, Tee-shirts, Daily Planner, are costlier stuffs, which are usually “gifted” during Christmas and other occasions.

Think about it, you have a Word Template in place for business correspondences with the header, watermark and footer in place. All that need be done is to reuse it , instead of having to include every item separately for every document. Same goes for official presentations ( ppt slides). The graphic, and color schema is all in place, except to add content.

Custom Branding is a bit of “extra work” to start off with, but nevertheless, pays dividend in the long run.
PJ – 🙂 Do you think I can apply for “Trademark”ing the term “Custom Branding ” :-).. what do you say ?

Deepa’s
Virtual Assistance
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Outsourcing Disasters – 3 Major Conceptual Errors

This is something that outsourcing naysayers would love to rave about, the dreaded Outsourcing Disasters. They are more adept at providing statistical details regarding the number of outsourcing ventures that hit the dirt coupled with heated, critical arguments. So, I will leave the harangues to them.
For a change, why not take a look at this from the perspective of a business? It has been widely known and understood that being in business means to take calculative risks. Much like our first history lesson, “Man is a social being”, I would say , “Business is a social venture”. It is impossible to launch, thrive and flourish a business venture without any association with other businesses. Outsourcing is no different from this, and the businesses that seek outsourcing services are also bound to this principle.
However, listening to the success stories that came out of outsourcing, many enthusiastic business owners started to look at outsourcing as a miracle cure to cut costs and increase productivity. They failed to look deep into the same success stories focusing on the amount of preparation and governance model that was employed, which eventually lead to the success of an outsourcing deal. This eventually led to the germination of misguided outsourcing deals.

  1. Bird’e Eye View :-
    • Most buyers have only the bird’s eye view of the end result. This is fine when you are actively involved with the project. But when this is conveyed to a certain outsourcing partner, a ‘bird’s eye view’ of things is just not sufficient.
    • Most failed ventures will reflect that the buyer has limited the communication to the ‘bird’s eye view’ of things without giving full details
    • Failed ventures will also reveal that ‘multiple mails requesting information’ were looked down upon , and the outsourcing partner stands the risk of being labeled as ‘incompetent’.Beware, you really need an inside scoop to get this information.This reflect the arrogance of the buyer, and not the much hyped incompetence of the outsourcing partner
    • Eventually creating a huge void in communication and leaving everything to assumption
    • Assumptions lead to misguided project management, leading ultimately to the failed venture
  2. The Aspirin Approach :-
    • No one ever thinks twice before popping an aspirin. Same goes for the outlook towards outsourcing among the buyers who want to ‘get things done as fast as possible’.
    • Buyers jump to the conclusion that outsourcing is a quick fix for all their financial problems. Somehow they fail to realize that cost cutting is only a by-product of outsourcing, while the actual objective is to get the process done elsewhere.
    • This requires the buyers to shed the ‘aspirin approach’ to outsourcing and take up the ’surgical approach’ to things.
    • Failed ventures will most certainly showcase haste in outsourcing their project without due the necessary preparation with respect to the governance model required to see the overseeing of the project’s progress.
    • Pop-and-forget may work for aspirin, but attention to detail and extensive preparation is needed when a surgical procedure is being considered. The surgical approach is certainly lacking in failed outsourcing ventures.
  3. Blame the Mailman :-
    • Both parties are dissatisfied at the end of a venture that has failed terribly. The dissatisfied buyer ends up blaming cultural and geographical differences as the reason for failure.
    • I wonder how come these differences did not surface when the deal was being finalized.… Both parties were well aware of the offshore working model. Both parties would have been communicating in the same language (I assume it is English). I am sure that both parties would have had a satisfactory time period before declaring a venture to be a failure.
    • Just as the mailman cannot be blamed for delivering bad news, it is unfair for the buyer and the outsourcing parther to blame each other soley for the failure. Success is result of compatible team-work, but failure seems always to be the result of incompatible teaming with the buyer and the outsourcing partner.
    • With lack of timely communication and information exchange, irrespective of an outsourcing deal or not, any business venture is sure to fail.
    • I would further site ‘ego-centric’ communication within the buyer’s institution as a cause for failure, such as ‘ Since you (outsourcing partner) did not ask for a certain information, I did not think it was necessary to give you’. With this kind of approach, is it fair to blame the mailman ?

Everyone wants to succeed in their business. The buyers want an outsourcing deal to succeed because someone else can do it better for less, and the outsourcing partner wants to ‘be in business’, which is possible only if his client is satisfied with the performance. Both parties aspire for the project to succeed.
My request to the naysayers of outsourcing would be, to consider that every business venture starts out with an aspiration to succeed. It is no different for outsourcing deals. It would be prudent to only look into the actual cause that lead to a certain failure and not thrust the blame solely on the outsourcing partners. I am sure that you will agree that business involves making deals and taking calculative risks. Isn’t this the basic principle of running a business? With every business, there are some great deals and some disaster deals. Then why is it that everyone is coming down heavily on failed outsourcing deals?. Perhaps, that ’s because everyone loves to say “I told you so!”

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Delegate when you are overwhelmed.

Small business owners in their zeal to expand their business, tend to bite off more than they can chew. I am not saying that is wrong or unacceptable. It completely gets them by surprise when more than 5 marketing leads display symptoms of maturing into business deals, all during the same time. The business owner is indeed overwhelmed at the good news of a new business deal, or, should I say “few” new business deals. This is indeed a happy moment for the team.

It is normal to see the in house activities take a backseat during these times. Most times, it is the last minute scramble for getting things done for ourselves when we are overwhelmed at work. I have witnessed that the same goes true for small business owners as well. The fact of the matter is, existing staff is already working on the newest deal and it is difficult to get a new recruit and train him / her within a short time.

I would recommend that you seek virtual assistants who have prior experience in the kind of tasks that is causing a backlog in your business. This does not completely eliminate the training period, at least you now have some one who speaks the same business language. My bet is, with just a couple of mails, outlining , ‘What need to be done’ – ‘ When it has to be done’ – ‘Any particular way in which you want it to be done’. With these, the induction programme is complete.

Think about this, you can be overwhelmed about your new deals without having the nagging thought about in-house backlogs. Now, isn’t that a better way to be overwhelmed?

Deepa’s
Virtual Assistance
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GTD – Getting Things Done ( Your way)

Before we delve into the principle and tools of GTD, it is my responsibility to tell you that GTD® is the acronym for “Getting Things Done ®“, and is the trademark of David Allen Company
Don’t we all have our deadlines to meet, personally and professionally ? Isn’t it a common scenario that you contemplate and decide to complete a certain report over your morning cup of tea, but by the time you reach your office, you are so engrossed in the immediate activities to an extent that, compiling the report literally slips out of your mind until it is time to head back home ?. I was a victim to this kind of scene up until recently.
While I was blog hopping, a casual glance at Getting Things Done , cleared my mind to such an extent that it feels like opening your window overlooking the beach: Fresh air not only penetrates the room, it permeates into your thoughts too. So, allow me to share what I have learnt about GTD in the past few weeks.
GTD is something that will push us, or rather motivate us from “Must do a task” to “Actually doing it”. You cannot just think “Must eat this apple”, and not actually eat it. Understanding GTD will allow us to become better performers, as we will be actually doing the things that we ought to be doing.
The principle behind GTD is … our mind is filled with plethora of thoughts, and every passing second we are putting more thoughts into it. We believe that our mind records the thought and remembers it for us. This puts lot of pressure on our mind, and that is why we end up with a “burnt out feeling”. If we would transfer our thoughts from the mind to an external medium ( say a notepad, physical or digital ), then this act would free our minds to give more attention to actually doing the task.
To quote from Wikipedia at Getting Things Done
GTD rests on the principle that a person needs to move tasks out of the mind by recording them externally. That way, the mind is freed from the job of remembering everything that needs to be done, and can concentrate on actually performing those tasks.
GTD is a 5 phase process, and takes practice for at least 15 – 30 days initially to get used to the idea, after which it becomes a habit.
PHASE 1 :- Record your thoughts now
PHASE 2 :- Collect them at one place
PHASE 3 :- Organize them as natural flow of events
PHASE 4 :- Review on resources
PHASE 5 :- Do it now
We have a wide range of GTD tools before us, and perhaps some of you might be already using them without realizing that they are infact GTD tools.
PHASE 1 : Record Your Thoughts Now

  1. Stenographer’s Note Pad:

I have them all over the place with a pen tied to the binding. This does not give me the excuse to “I will write when I find a pen”. So, if anything is on my mind, I would write it down, tear off the page and put in my pocket. This also works when I am on the move, and does not require wifi connectivity.

  1. Handy MS Excel :

I have an Excel window open while I am working at my desk. The rows and columns are already in place. All that is expected from me is jot down my train of thoughts, which usually follows after reading an email. Nothing elaborate here, something like, “Request for project specifications from Mike”, or , “Collect agenda from Stacy”, or “Remind Joe about module submission,”etc . Do not forget to write the date on top.
So, one is digital while the other one is not. Yet both gives me complete flexibility to progress with the next phase of GTD without depending too much on internet connectivity.
PHASE 2 : Collect Them in One Place
My thoughts are safely recorded but strewn all over a >notepad and Excel sheet. Just as one would “collect one’s thought” before delivering a speech, I have to collect my thoughts into a single streamlined course of action before acting on them. It is here I actually “Think about how to do this task”.
Now, in a new sheet in Excel, I write down the course of action in order of their execution. On a typical day, my task list will look something like this.

Mike Request Specification email
Stacy Collect Agenda
Joe Remind module submission phone
Team Upcoming status email
Me Research on Product A internet
Me Compile report
Boss Submit report

For actions to be taken on later date, I add a new column and note the date. Btw, Having dates also helps to keep track of events along the timeline.
PHASE 3 :Organize Them as a Natural Flow of Events
There is nothing much to do here, if you would perform Phase 2 with due diligence. Plus, Excel always allows you to insert a new row in between tasks.
PHASE 4 : Review the List
This is like double-checking to see if anything has slipped out while writing them down.
PHASE 5 :Do It Now
Well, Now is the time. You no longer have excuses for not doing the things on your list. Handle one thing at a time. Remember to add a new column that says “Status” and write “DONE” in big bold red color once you have finished doing it.

Mike Request Specification email DONE
Stacy Collect Agenda DONE
Joe Remind module submission Phone DONE
Team Upcoming status email DONE
Me Research on Product A internet In Progress
Me compile report Pending
Boss Submit report Pending

It really feels good to see so many “DONE” items in the list. Believe it or not, once you get used to doing this, you just cannot wait to get “DONE” across all the things in your list.
The best thing about GTD is it really “Gets Things Done”. But there is a catch – You have to make a conscious effort towards Phase 1 and Phase 2. If you fail these two phase, then you fail at GTD.
Tell us about how you organize your daily routine. The idea is to “get things done”. If a system works for you do share it with us. We would like to know. Do you use sophisticated GTD tools , or do you have a “Back-To-Basics” approach?.

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