Richard Branson has just acquired your business.  He’s decided to run your business the Virgin way.  Tomorrow, he’s visiting to start the process.  Panic!

Aside from rushing around with the duster and filling cupboard boxes to stick out sight, what do you think he’d find?  What would he tackle first?  What stuff would he chuck in the bin? What structures are going to get busted up?  Who is going?  Who is staying?  How is marketing going to change?  How are you going to get more intimate with customers?

Point being.  Do you think he would do a better job of it than you currently do?  Would he add an element of “pzazz” to the brand that has been lacking for a while?  Would he inspire you to do great things?  To speak up with that idea you had to do something different?

This simple exercise which is used a lot in inovation workshops is a great way to get thinking about your business.  The things you should tackle.  Implementing the changes people would love to see.  Of course, we can’t all be Branson, he’s a special fellow.  However, you could take the essence of the way he does things and have a crack at doing something new.  If you don’t think differently every now and then, you’ll end up in a pickle, indifferent, undifferentiated and blended into a crowded marketplace.  Kick on.

Dont worry, this isn’t another 101 reasons for a business to be on Twitter, hopefully we’re getting over that one now, although I am still staggered at the number of small businesses that I meet who could benefit massively from micro-blogging.

Tonight’s article I want to focus on executives in business.  Why?   As usual, nothing gets real buy-in unless it comes from the top, is agreed by the top or understood by the top.  In many large businesses, the board is still dominated by Generation X Executive Directors.  As a result, there is a real danger of the business not staying relevant in the changing landscape of customer expectations.

To them, marketing means mailshots, sales means door-knocking and relationship managment means regular lunches or dinners with top customers.  That certainly did the business a decade ago, how things have changed.  Those things still matter, don’t get me wrong, but their priority has changed.

Social Media is something that all executives – in my view – should be practicing.  To keep an eye on their own organisation, their competitors and their customers.  A few examples: -

1)  I blogged recently about using the Linkedin company search tool to identify staffing movement in key competitors, this allows you to keep your finger on the pulse of what is happening in your industry.

2) A blog in itself is a fantastic way to communicate to staff, customers and potential customers about your views.  A great to underpin your key messages, strategy or positioning.  it’s ideal if you run a larger business where it’s hard to get round the floor.

3)  Twitter is a fantastic tool for reputation management and connecting your message directly to the people who may use your products or services.  There’s no quicker way to establish what people think about your business reputation than to read it in real time.

The key question is always, how much time is this all going to take? The answer all depends on the importance of managing your network and personal reputation.  For me, around half an hour a day.  10 mins at the start of the day to catch up on any major network changes or messages sent directly to me aswell as preparing any Twitter links to send out, 10 mins over lunch doing the same and 10-15 minutes at the back end of the day to run a blog out and again catch up.   In my time at home, I probably invest about another hour a week in total keeping up to date with my overall network.

And what is the financial reward? Return on Engagement is the new Return on Investment.  Like networking of any type, if you think that an immediate financial gain is the only thing that justifies your time, then you’re probably one of those executives I described in paragraph 2.  Looking back on a couple of years worth of time invested in business social networking at a personal level, I would say: -

1. I’ve recruited key staff into the business at no cost.
2. I’ve never been asked to speak at so many conferences ahead of my competitors.
3. I’ve never been asked to sit on so many judging panels, increasing regional and national profile for Brother.
4. I’ve been able to position the business as one of the leading voices on B2B social media in the UK.
5. My network of peer to peer contacts has never been so solid.  I was described recently by the Manchester Evening News as “one of the most connected people in the North West,” and feel I have a great list of C level people I know that I can call on for advice or help.
6. I’ve learned a tonne of stuff.  Twitter particularly is a like a free news channel that you can personalise to your specific taste/requirement.
7. Lot’s of people that I know on social media networks end up buying our products, simply because they know me.
8. The brand reputation has never been stronger.
9. People bring opportunities to you first because you’re accessible (they might not normally make it to you due to your Corporate layers of gatekeepers/filters).
10. You meet some really interesting people and all sorts of outside work opportunities/collaborations/friendships come your way.

Don’t be scared. As you can see, I can clearly demonstrate sound business benefits.  To get the same, you have to get started, throw yourself open to your audience and get engaging.  Don’t have someone pretend to be you, be authentic and Do It Yourself.  Need help or advice, connect with me on Linkedin here or drop me a note.

There are lots of reasons why you’d want to find out a bit more about a company.  Whether they are a competitor you are looking to profile, someone you’re looking to join for employment or a sales prospect.  I’ve written previously about the idea of the CIA in social media, that is, the ability to research and investigate on-line.

A little used feature of Linkedin is the company profile option, which holds some fascinating information.

Here’s how it works. Let’s just say that I wanted to find out a little bit more about Manchester City Council.  Normally with any large public sector organisation, knowing where to start is a nightmare.  So, in Linkedin, go to your top box where you search and change the drop down box to “companies” from “people.”  Then type in “Manchester City Council.”

You’re search return should come to this page.  It shows that there are 501 people on Linkedin who work for the council with profiles on Linkedin, ideal if you want to look through and see a target for connection.  Your direct connections are shown and recent activity.  At the bottom of the page is shows who has moved jobs, great if you want to drop someone a line. 

Here’s the bit that most people miss.  On the right hand side of the page is a hyperlink to “check out insightful statistics about Manchester City Council employees.”  Click that and it should take you here.  Now if you just work yourself round that page and see what level of information you can see about Manchester City Council.  Right from the number of graduates they employ, how long people have worked there, where people live, where people go to when they leave, whose got a new job title and whose just departed.  All in real time.

This is a stunning research tool, particularly if you are a recruiter or in HR.  What’s really great is that you can click the link at the top that says “Follow Manchester City Council” and this – a bit like Twitter – will send you a weekly or daily digest update on what is happening, job title changes, job changes etc.  If Manchester City Council were – for example – a major account of mine (if I were a salesperson), I’d be following them and keeping right up to date with whats going on within the organisation.   If a trusted contact of mine had a promotion, I’d drop them a card.  If a trusted contact left, I’d want to know where they were going in case there were a chance of business somewhere else.

It’s a terrific feature in my view and – when used properly – another powerful reason why social media should not be ignored by business to business sales organisations.

“Maybe what got us here, may not get us there,” proclaimed Manchester City Football Club Chief Executive – Garry Cook – at their inaugral City Business Leaders breakfast at the City of Manchester Stadium this morning.  Describing the process of change that the club has undergone, the club has benefitted from massive investment from its Abu Dhabi owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan and embarked on a programme of massive investment on and off the pitch.

Addressing an audience of around eighty business leaders, with a common interest in that they are all City fans, Cook went on to talk about the numbers, the culture change they have undergone, their global ambition and their “fix, build and grow” mode since being acquired in September 2008.   Flanked by CFO – Graham Wallis – who eloquently explained the massive investment phase of their cycle (hence huge annual losses of circa £121.3M), both executives went to great lengths to explain that this was part of the plan.  I did smile when Graham Wallis described them as being “virtually debt free,” (the club has long term commercial bank debt of £37M, not insignificant to many businesses), however in context of the fact that their owner has converted £305M of debt into equity, I guess it’s all relative.

What I was most interested in was the “City Code” guide that Cook introduced.  This is a 120 page document describing in great detail, standards of behaviour that they expect all employees of the club – including players – to ahdere to.  I couldn’t help but feel that this is a leadership challenge in the making.  Wayne Rooneys recent off-field antics and other Premier league players would challenge any code of conduct I’ve ever seen and from a leadership point of view, and  if the code isn’t rigorously applied at all levels, then they are simply words in a book, consistency counts in the leadership business.  A brave move.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t fail to be impressed by Cook today. He was very articulate and I could see that he is implementing a clear vision for the club, “one house of football” was mentioned a number of times.  Brand was aligned to values and carried through rigorously to the mulitple platforms they market via.  There is a clear expectation of where and how they want to grow and I liked his description of them being in the “talent management” business,   Cooks years at Nike clearly coming to bear there.  There must be a lot of pressure fulfulling the expectations of a fabulously wealthy owner, a fanbase with decades of expectation which previously have been unfulfilled and a workforce witnessing dramatic change.

Connecting business leaders within the fan base is a good idea, having Marco Pierre White do the breakfast is an even better idea and a great way to guarantee bums on seats, friends in high places.  For the next event (assuming there is one),  I’d issue attendee lists so that you could peruse who was there, issue name badges and start a Linkedin group for the invitees to really start connecting up before they come.  Still, was nice to be invited and was well worth the time to hear Gary share his vision.

Do do do da da do do , do do do da da do do -under pressure.  Yes, instantly recognisable, it’s the melody from the Queen song “under pressure.”  If you didn’t know, there’s a lot of it about at the minute.  Pressure to make decisions, get results and not make mistakes. 

Speaking at a recent event I held – Sir Philip Troudsell KBE CB - recounted the role that pressure played during his life as a General in the Army.  I’ve been talking to my team a lot about this recently, particularly about recognising the signs of pressure and took the opportunity to ask Sir Philip to give his views on it.  As a former Commandant of the Military College at Sandhurst , he’s overseen leadership training for some of the Armys finest, so I was interested to hear his views.   Here are a couple of snippets from his talk: -

1. –>Press decision making down your chain of command as far as you can to dissipate it.  If everything is bubbling up to you, then that’s a sure indication that something is wrong.

–>Delegate as much as possible.  If you don’t it’s not only disloyal to your sub-ordinates but also dilutes your own energy to stay strong for the big decisions.  He described it as “devaluing your coinage.”

–>Stress can be self induced.  Poor time management, anger, frustration are all consequences of choices we make in our behaviour.  Most of these things are in our control, how we choose to react to them is down to us.

We all need pressure in our lives to perform.  There is good pressure (challenging work), bad pressure (leading to stress) or no pressure (leading to apathy).  Often situations can be forced onto you (someone elses poor time or decision making unnecessarily impacting on your performance), these situations are – in the moment – difficult to control.  However, if you let those instances carry on, then you will never break the cycle.

Continuing to stay healthy, exercise, delegate and be honest with people are great ways to relieve pressure.  It’s important that we all understand what our triggers are and keep them well under control.

“AWESOME!”  That’s how Major Barry “Baz” Humphreys, Senior Flying Instructor of the Army Air Corps described the Apache attack helicopter whilst walking myself and my UK sales team around it on a very special visit to Wattisham air base earlier this week. 

We couldn’t agree more and “Awesome” became the word of the day for my sales team for a simply “one off” experience.  There have been very few events we’ve layed on that have had such an impact on my people as being so close to this helicopter gunship and being able to talk – first hand – to the guys who fly it in battle.

Organised by experential learning company Corporate Battlefields and hosted on the day by Major Mike Peters (who had us rolling about with his sharp sense of humour), aswell as hearing about the technical capability of the Apache and all the support infrastructure required to keep this bit of kit in the air, Major Humphreys talked in great detail about some of the situations he found himself in during the Afghan conflict and the importance of de-briefing after every sortie. 

We were captivated as he explained how the technology worked, what the weapons capability of the Apache was (you don’t want to know what a Hellfire missile will do when deployed) and the demands it makes on the pilot to keep one of these things in the air. 

I’m a great believer in looking outside of your industry to learn lessons and the British Army deploy a strategic framework called Mission Command, which I’ve implemented into areas of the business I run.  By visiting Wattisham, the entire team could really see, live and breathe how it works in action on an Army base.  A very powerful learning experience indeed.

During the evening, we were treated to a full regimental dinner in the Officers Mess with the Force Commander – Colonel Neale Moss OBE – in attendance aswell as Lt. Gen Sir Philip Troudsell KBE CB, who gave us an inspiring talk about some of his experiences under pressure.   That was an experience I don’t think any of us will ever forget (along with sharing ablutions in the quarters).

Chatting with Colonel Moss (who I was incredibly lucky to be sat next to over dinner), I couldn’t help but draw the leadership parallels between the forces and business.  All the challenges he has are not that different to commerce.  Budgets, people issues, targets, just on a different scale and wth differing dependencies.  Keeping people on track with the strategy, refining objectives, reviewing capabilities and vulnerabilitites, deploying campaigns.

Flying back from Norwich to Manchester on Wednesday morning, I’d learned a huge amount and a developed a brand new respect for the Apache pilots.  The officers who looked after us, couldn’t have made us more welcome, they were so open and were able to answer all of our questions, including how much an Apache pilot earns!  What was incredible is that it takes around four years training and four million pounds worth of training investment to fly an Apache, as a result, only the best of the best get to fly these beasts. 

A few days on, I’m still buzzing about it.  We had a photographer there on the day and we each managed to get a shot in the cockpit of the Apache, that one will go up at home somewhere.  Awesome experience.  Awesome people.  Awesome bit of kit.

Insider Magazine Editor – Michael Taylor - gave me the opportunity to write a blog for their readership following the IoD Award win last week.  Here’s what I had to say: -

“Against a backdrop of impending public sector cuts, and the impact that they may have on the wider regional economy, it’s easy for business leaders to get into a negative mindset and prepare for the future by salami slicing costs rather than looking ahead more positively.

When times are tough, leaders can become distracted. There’s a lot of pressure out there. Too much pressure leads to stress; too little, to boredom. Optimum pressure leads to optimum output, any sportsperson or psychologist will tell you that.

Salami slicing leads to too much pressure because everyone becomes focused on cutting what exists today, rather than doing something new like re-inventing a process, challenging your business model or looking outside of your industry convention. The flame of innovation dims. Research and development is cut, sustainable investment is cut, and hope is cut.

We need continued investment and good leadership in the private sector over the coming years. The regional and UK economy needs us to grow, take up the slack, keep things afloat. Salami slicing won’t lead to growth. It’s about finding new customers, new markets and coming up with new ideas. Having a decent plan A and B, being positive, but realistic.

By preserving time to think, by challenging your people with your problems, by living your values and creating a little space, innovation can glow brightly and provide you with new or renewed direction. The results could be far greater than any deep cut. At Brother, we call this 141 per cent – thinking bigger and bolder than the competition.

Creativity, leadership, knowledge and talent management, innovation and belief are just some of the key ingredients needed to keep one step ahead. For me it’s about identifying your critical capabilities (your major strengths) and your competitors’ critical vulnerabilities (their major weaknesses), then deploying your main effort to exploit both. Marry that with a clear vision, some decent intelligence and the right people (in the right seats) and you’ve got a good chance of doing something special.

So, if you’re going to cut anything, cut the amount of time you’re chained to your desk and get out and meet some new people, cut unnecessary processes and release unnecessary pressure, cut ties with unprofitable customers and win some new ones, cut a new plan and go somewhere new and cut yourself a break. Then, we’ll have a fighting chance to take up this slack and get right back on track.”

Was thinking earlier about when I first started out in sales.  Just had a mobile phone and an address book.  Laptop came after the 3 month trial!  Comparing that to now, there is just a huge amount of tools we can use to optimise our working life.  Here are the ones that I use most regularly: -

1.  MS Excel (the daddy of all things spreadsheety).

2.  MS Powerpoint (always been there , still unstable, slowly going to Keynote).

3.  MS Outlook (e-mail still the #1 communication tool).

4.  Twitter (fast catching up e-mail for instantaneous).

5.  Tweetdeck (best app for Twitter).

6.  Blogger (hosts my cycling blog).

7. WordPress (hosts this blog).

8.  Google (still the best search engine by far).

9.  Basecamp (Great cloud based project management tool).

10.  Adobe PDF (still the best at minimising documents for sending).

What are yours?

Quite a night, last night.  I managed to pick up the Manchester Director of the Year award at the annual Institute of Directors North West dinner, held in Manchester.  Around 360 of the great and good in North West business turned out in their best clobber, for a bit of dinner and entertainment.

The competition was really stiff across all the fourteen award categories which you can see here.  Some brilliant businesses and brilliant leaders, all well worthy of their place there on the night.

However, a fantastic evening got better as it went on.  I also picked up the overall award for North West Director of the Year, which is selected from all the entries, across all the categories, stunned is the only word that comes to mind.  It resulted in quite a night of celebration which went on to the early hours, a real career highlight.

Awards like this are fantastic.  It would be great if I could split it up like one of those 3D puzzles and give a piece to the brilliant team of people I work with at Brother.  Everyone in the business has contributed to help me look good, thanks to you all, you rock. 

In addition, there were loads of people I knew in the audience from the Manchester business scene, I was overwhelmed by the fantastic and generous comments I received on the night and the wonderful messges I’ve received today via e-mail and Twitter.  The support was terrific and really overwhelming.

In closing, a big thank you to the judges on the night, who chose to get behind someone that runs a big business, rather than a new start entrepreneur who continue to be en vogue.  Sometimes I’ve heard people think that running a big business is some easy ride, for some maybe, not for the one I run.  We have enormous complexity, a highly demanding marketplace and a high requirement for customer acquisition, so I’m delighted that the judges spotted that and felt it worthy for recognition.

Judging industry awards.   We’ve all entered them or attended them at some stage.  For many industries and sectors, awards are a great mechanism to celebrate best practice and give the marketeers something to talk about (aswell as a good excuse for an industry late night).

Having recently returned from the judging session of the some comms awards, there is no doubt that being invited to be a judge is a great use of time.  Arguably, when you are burning the midnight oil, reading through entry after entry and trying to collect your thoughts or prioritise the entries, it’s easy to disagree with that last statement, as it is a big personal time commitment.  However, the return on investment is good.

Why?  For me, three reasons. 

1. You get to read example of what people consider to be/and are best practice so you can benchmark your own performance (or panic). 
2. You get to meet lots of different people from different industries and go social to facial .  Yesterday I met three people in person that I only knew via social media.  It was very interesting to hear the views of others in non-competing industry sectors and to also hear their commentary, always plenty to learn.
3. You get your name associated as an industry leader with the awards.  Always good for reputation and profile. 

You do need to think twice before you accept to be a judge though.  Have you got the time?  The skills?  Is the sector relevant? .  If you have, I’d encourage you to do it.  You might well learn something or be able to bring back an idea from a non-competing industry to implement in your own business, you will meet some new people or contacts on the panel which might be useful in the future and your business reputation can only go one way.