With global workforces now forced to adapt to a ‘new normal’, companies spanning multiple industries have had to re-evaluate their working practices to ensure staff can work remotely safely and securely. This has naturally seen a huge increase in cloud usage as millions work from home and expect to continue doing so. Indeed, some of the world’s leading tech brands have committed to more flexible remote working indefinitely including Shopify, Twitter and Facebook, with other well-known brands expecting to follow suit shortly.
As cloud computing becomes more crucial than ever, tech giant Microsoft has seen huge spikes in sales as a result of the ongoing pandemic. The health crisis has spurred the use of Microsoft’s services and helped drive a 59% jump in sales in the Azure cloud business. With 95% of Fortune 500 businesses using Azure, over $1bn has already been invested annually to protect Azure customers from cyberthreats.
So what are the key advantages of cloud storage during the pandemic?
It is more cost-effective and secure:
With the cloud, equipment downtime due to maintenance, theft or damage is almost non-existent. You typically only pay for the services you use, which provides a level of convenience and cost-control that’s almost impossible to achieve with on-site infrastructure. Additionally, they tend to be more reliable and flexible than on-premises servers.
Provides contingency against security threats:
Since the pandemic has forced employees to work remotely, there is increased demand for effective and efficient security and protection protocols. In recent weeks there have been several cyber-attacks made on businesses but with the cloud, your encrypted data will benefit from constant monitoring of version changes, automated backups and storage usage. This means in the unlikely event of your data being compromised, you always have contingencies in place.
Scale-up depending on usage:
Cloud services are available with flexible infrastructure giving you the ability to scale up or down automatically to ensure that optimum service is maintained. Flex servers are important for eCommerce websites that are particularly experiencing increased web traffic during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Collaborative working remotely:
With millions of us now accessing internal systems remotely, the old barriers of physical documents have all but disappeared. You can share information with staff from across the globe from any device and avoid the outdated method of sending huge files via email attachments. This is great for supporting distributed teams during and after the pandemic is over.
Reduces your company’s carbon footprint:
For businesses who wish to move to a more ‘paperless environment’, cloud storage is the perfect solution. Contribute to a more sustainable way of working and reduce wastage by keeping all documents safe in the cloud instead of printing them. By using cloud infrastructure instead of physical products and hardware, you can reduce your carbon footprint and improve energy efficiency.
More and more businesses are seeking virtual alternatives to the B2B trade shows and exhibitions they can no longer attend due to the pandemic lockdown. What options are there on the market? Can we get the trade show sales and connections online? In critical times of uncertainty like we are facing today it is crucial to review what online alternatives to trade shows are there.
Small businesses invest a considerable amount of money to be present at business trade shows and B2B exhibitions as a means to reach more new clients and get business leads. Luckily with digitization we are able to get the same benefits remotely via online business trade shows, B2B platforms, and virtual events.
Take time to build rapport
This is an ancient advice that applies to both in person and remote business negotiations. It’s very straightforward, people don’t feel comfortable to get right down to negotiating. It is important to take the time to build rapport with your negotiating partner. It will loosen up the situation and set up a more relaxed and friendly environment to begin your virtual negotiation. So remember, rule number one: resist the urge to get right to business.
Use video conferencing
Video conferencing tools are an amazing alternative to conference rooms and a fantastic means to organize your meeting. Set up a Google Meeting room and share the details with your virtual negotiator beforehand. It will give an organised and professional image in the other person’s mind and they will take you seriously and with respect.
Control your expressions
Body language says everything, it reveals and shows more than words. Therefore it is crucial to follow your expressions during a virtual business negotiation. Video meetings limit the visuals of the person and all the focus will be on you, making it impossible for the other negotiator to miss any expression you may make.
A handy tip is to keep an eye on your face on your camera window and you will be able to remain with your poker expression easier.
Suggest a break
Breaks are equally important in virtual business negotiations as they are in in-person negotiations. Suggesting a break or two during your meeting will ease the tension and allow you to reset the tone and atmosphere of the conversation. Don’t underestimate breaks, you can also use them to develop a more personal relationship with your partner negotiator even if it is a remote negotiation.
Finally, a good negotiator masters any environment in which the negotiation takes place. Why waste an opportunity by being ill-prepared. Take note of the above-mentioned advice and start practicing them today. It is crucial not to forget that your expressions go a long way, breaks help ease tensions and buy you time to think and simple chit chat builds rapport, setting a friendly atmosphere for the meeting.
More must-read stories from Enterprise League:
Generating leads during the COVID-19 lockdown is a challenge you can easily overcome. Follow these 4 easy steps.
Learn how your business can survive a recession with this business guide. You should start applying it now.
Martin Večeřa, CEO at lumeer.io, discusses work productivity and demystifies the things that make easy tasks harder to complete.
We are about to start our next project. We have done similar projects many times before. So there should not be any surprise, right? Or is there? How many projects are delivered on time and without a compromise on their size, features, properties etc.?
Fewer than a third of all projects were successfully completed on time and on budget over the past year. And there are even more scary reports on project management.
Fortunately, these troubles can be avoided if we know a few basic facts about our own bodies. Especially, about our brains.
The Future
When we try to estimate a difficulty of a task, we need to imagine a thing that does not exist yet. Something in the future.
We know what happened. We can perfectly describe the past and existing things.
FMRI studies show that the future is a complete strangeness to us. When people were tasked to describe the future themselves, their brain did something completely weird.
The brain starts acting like when you describe a completely different person.
The further in time you try to imagine your actions, your personality, the less connected you feel with that person. And not only that. At some point in the future, you even do not care about the person.
Maybe this is just a self-protective mechanism to live with the fact in mind that we are going to die one day.
Nevertheless, when it comes to planning some tasks, why bother feeling all the difficulties it brings when it will be some stranger dealing with the problem?
The Optimism
Second, people tend to be overly optimistic – many people are subject to optimism bias. We are prone to believe that we are less likely to experience a negative event than others. In other words, we view our own risks as less than the risks of others.
It is mostly seen in extreme cases. Just imagine that, while driving on a highway, we came to a traffic jam and stopped at the end of the queue of cars. So we are now the very last car.
Suddenly, you noticed something in the rear mirror. Another car approaching the jam. But it seems like the car is not slowing down. Not at all. Still running very fast. And getting closer and closer.
Somewhere in the back of your head, you believe that the car will ultimately stop. Because the optimism tells you so. Why would anything bad happen, right? Crash!
A neverending squeaking of metal sheets. You are being thrown from side to side. Airbags deployment like in slo-mo. Fortunately, you are not injured.
Optimism bias also happens for positive effects – we tend to believe that we are more likely to win in a lottery than others. However, it is more often observed for the negative effects.
One of the factors causing the optimism bias is a desire for the end state. This means the willingness to complete the project. We can see the benefits of the completed project and we want to be there, no matter what. Nothing can stop us, can it?
In project management, the crashes are not strong and usually not that painful to us. So we tend to keep our positive attitude.
Last time, it was just a coincidence. It won’t repeat this time. This time, everything will go smooth. We took measures to prevent similar failures.
So we have a task, we made our original optimistic estimate. We did not realize what possible risks are there. We start working on the task.
The 80/20 rule
Now, the Pareto principle kicks in. You have spent 20% of the time, accomplishing 80% of the task. That went well, you think.
However, the remaining 20% of the task seems like a never-ending story. And sooner or later, the deadline is due.
This might easily trigger several reasons for demotivation. We might feel overwhelmed by the goal. We lose a track of the goal and thus the purpose. So there aren’t any reasons to continue any longer.
Some people also put very high demands on themselves. Which often leads them to a belief that they should have accomplished much more by now. This then blocks the progress.
The Denial
And then as we move on with the task, we might start seeing the difficulties, risks, obstacles. However, these new facts are in contradiction to our former beliefs. So next, we become victims of cognitive dissonance.
Simply put, people have an inner need to ensure that their beliefs and behaviours are consistent. Inconsistent or conflicting beliefs lead to disharmony, which people strive to avoid.
There is a small part of our limbic brain called amygdala. It is a very helpful assistant. It protects our lives. When there is an immediate danger that approaches us, we might need to decide in a fraction of a second. Our high-level brain (neocortex) is smart but very slow for that.
Amygdala can recognize the threat easily, sends a signal to the neocortex “take rest, I have it” (i.e. it blocks higher thinking), and takes action. Like escape for instance.
Unfortunately, the amygdala is very simple. It cannot recognize different types of danger or stress. Is there a tiger getting ready to jump on us? Or is someone threatening our social status? Is someone trying to prove us wrong?
All these situations can lead to an unthinking response. Most people want to hold the belief that they make good choices. If there is a conflict between our perception and reality, we seek explanations. This is a physiological need, like hunger or thirst.
So we started to see that our progress is far from our estimations. We can convince ourselves that we will work harder and the next task will take a shorter time. This is where we’ll get back on track!
Or we can try to blame something outside of our control. Something that we did not count with at the beginning. A brand new risk that just happened to us. We are only poor victims.
I believe it is needless to say that such an approach does not make us good project managers.
How to leverage these factors and work more efficiently?
So how to avoid these difficulties? Or even better, how to turn them into our advantages?
Fine-grained planning
Nikola Tesla described his great imagination that saved him a lot of time, work, and money by first visualising things in his memory. And then turning them into reality.
It might sound too good to be true. Whether we believe his descriptions completely, or not, one thing is for sure. He used imagination to analyze the projects before building them. This is definitely a good way to follow.
Spend the time thinking about the task before you start working on it. Use your imagination! Imagine that you really do it. What happens? What are the outcomes?
Only during a detailed thinking process, we realize what we were missing.
And of course, use a good planning tool. Find the most fine-grained subtasks. Put them all on a board, provide estimates. Review and update everything regularly. Feel free to use the board for project tracking.
Focus on the journey
The optimism bias can be dismantled, if we push our team to focus more on the individual steps. This is easier in agile project management, where our desired end state is a completed sprint. A set of tasks for a 2-week-long sprint can be estimated more precisely.
If you do not follow agile methodologies, we always recommend to set several top priority tasks for the next week or so and focus the team on them. We need to build short term desires. But never forget the big picture.
Create synergies
The fine-grained planning also partially solves the 80/20 problem. If the tasks are small enough, they are easier to complete. However, some tasks contain more unknown variables, some less. It is good to know our team well. What types of persons do we have in our team?
Some people are more creative by nature. They like new things, prefer to kick things off and lose interest when they figure out a working proof of concept.
On the other hand, there are people who like to work on things with exactly defined conditions and borders. Unknown things introduce stress to them.
When you manage to create synergies between complementary personalities in your team, you can achieve better results. This is also described in the famous book of The 7 habits of highly efficient people.
Company culture
The cognitive dissonance is probably the most difficult attribute to deal with. Nobody wants to look bad. A project manager does not want to report that their project is heading towards a disaster. Individual team members do not want to admit that they are not able to manage their tasks.
You can definitely look out for some warning signs that your project is not on the right track.
However, the best approach is to have a company culture where values like transparency, collaboration, and accountability are reworded. A culture where an honest constructive feedback is not punished but rather seriously considered.
Then anyone in the team should be encouraged to speak up and point out the elephant in the room. Or you can easily ask for an independent review from your peer or a different team.
How to give realistic estimates?
The solution to many project planning problems is anchored deep in our minds, and in company values. Like usually, there is no single quick panacea. It takes courage and commitments. You can take the first step today and plan your project in detail.
To understand how business collaboration impacts the growth of SMEs we chatted a little with Carlene, CEO, and Zoe, Partnership Director, at Cloud9 Insight – a company that has had a 60% increase in profits and revenue in the past year, only because of partnerships.
John Donne said that no man is an island and we think the same principle applies to businesses as well. Finding the right partners and nurturing the relationships with them is what sets the successful businesses apart from the rest.
This interview will help you understand the importance of collaboration in business.
Carlene, as a business owner, what was your attitude towards collaborations before deciding it’s time for a Partnership Director?
I have always had a belief that the value a company creates is not just that which happens within the four walls of the business, but the value it also creates in its supply chain to include strategic partnerships. I even think competitors working together, sharing ideas and resources can be a great thing – coopetition can accelerate innovation and be a great thing for our customers and collective success.
Carlene Jackson, CEO
What exactly made you bring that decision after nine years of running a business without one?
Partnering is so critical to our success that it wasn’t enough for it to be a part of somebody’s role, it needed a dedicated creative and strategic thinker. The role requires a commercially minded relationship manager empowered to seek out and set up sustainable partnerships that create value for everyone.
18 months later, do you think you should have done it earlier? How has your attitude towards collaborating changed?
The Microsoft eco-system is very collaborative, but more so over recent years. Microsoft foster a community of partners that work together to better serve customers. In more recent years I have realised that collaborating outside this eco-system of tech partners, with partners such as legal firms and accountancies, that share a purpose of supporting clients’ growth can also be valuable.
Zoe, what were your thoughts on your first day? Were there major changes to be made and what were they?
The role was a new one which meant everything from the value of proposition, e.g. contracts, had to be created from scratch. We had to be agile and to really listen to partners. What we have found to be successful is that it’s important to be flexible to create win-win propositions that may differ with every relationship. Before my partnership role started, Cloud9 increased the standard day rate which has given us more margin to invest in marketing and partnership referral commission.
The marketing team has had an increase in demand on their time which has been initially difficult. They also have to consider an extended range of audiences when writing material and creating new product services.
Zoë E., Partnership Director
What types of collaboration do you have right now? How these collaborations impact the growth of Cloud9 Insight?
Our partnerships range from mutual referring of leads between other specialist Microsoft partners who don’t implement Dynamics 365 as we do, to alliances with local legal and accounting firms as well as other specialist professional services and businesses all of who are serving the same target customers. We have set up SMB Growth Hub, an alliance of 5 partners, which runs quarterly events to our clients base and has been a huge success for cross-pollination of customers. 70% of our growth in 2019 was from partner referrals, a credit to the success this has been for our business. Two people from our board participate in a Microsoft community membership body called IAMCP, which supports collaboration within the Microsoft eco-system.
Can you walk us through the steps of starting and maintaining a successful partnership? Is there any secret to it?
The secret to a successful partnership is having a good cultural match between the two businesses which target the same customer base. Sometimes the opportunity is not immediate and therefore relationships need to be nurtured which relies on great relationship management skills.
The value of the partnership, the definition of what a win-win looks like, should be discussed and identified early on. This could be a collaborative product development or simply a lead referral with a commission, or even about delivering high-quality services as a trusted supplier to your partner’s clients without any commission. It helps to have clear commercials and contracts in place, including an NDA, as trust is everything. We have found developing unique joint propositions can greatly enhance the value of the partnership.
How do you determine which partnerships to pursue or accept, and which not?
We have found the most critical factor in determining the future success of a relationship is cultural alignment. It is also imperative that both parties are committed to working collaboratively at every level within each business. In a true partnership, it must be a two-way long-term collaboration.
And what about breaking a collaboration? When do you know it’s time to let go of a partnership? How do you do it?
Breaking a collaboration is possibly similar to any relationship split. It should be by mutual consensus, hopefully with contracts that also cover the terms in the event of a termination of a partnership. Mutual clients should be proactively contacted to clarify the position of any termination. In most cases, termination may appear more like a gradual reduction in investment of time by both parties
What advice would you give to other business owners who put collaboration in the back seat?
Our revenue and profit growth of 60% in the past year has been entirely gained from an investment in partnering. Partnering should be a critical component of every company’s marketing strategy. Every company needs to innovate and serve customers’ current and future needs. Organisations are expected to be experts in their field and collaborate outside this with niche players to support and complement client success.
Also, are there any common mistakes companies usually make when it comes to partnerships? How to avoid them?
If companies have only one way of partnering this can limit their success. This can be avoided by being flexible or agile in your approach to partnering. Poor communication regarding successes can lead to a break down of trust. Set up regular catch-ups by using a platform, such as Microsoft Teams, to create a virtual team that is easily accessible between the sales teams.
In one sentence, tell us why collaborations are important for businesses.
Collaborations extend the value of your business and your customers, without the risk or cost and time that that may otherwise take.
Rebeca Mackay Miller, founder of BLOC + ROSE, discusses word of mouth and why it should be on your top priority marketing list.
A few weeks ago, I saw a call out for companies to share their ‘creative’ word of mouth marketing strategies. I devoured the request like a kid in a sweet shop, but it seems I was alone in my enthusiasm.
I wasn’t surprised.
Word of mouth (WOM) in its purest sense; organic conversations about brands that take place between real people, isn’t cool anymore. Or more to the point, other things are cooler. Influencer marketing has stolen its crown, creativity in this context now comes from the content creators, not the brands. My own somewhat unimaginative word of mouth marketing strategy lays testament to this. But more on that later.
It’s also hugely effective. According to a 2014 study word of mouth amplifies the effect of paid media by 15% and just one offline WOM impression is 5x (up to 100x) more effective than one paid media impression. Read that again.
Word of mouth serves up awareness, credibility, authenticity, and trust by the bucket load. But, if it isn’t generated by headline hitting creativity, what’s the driving force?
Human interaction powered by basic social needs. In nutshell; psychology.
Here’s what you need to know.
No one wants to talk about your business
First up, there are only ever three reasons why someone would talk about you:
1. BECAUSE OF ‘YOU’
They love, trust (or hate!) what you do and stand for enough to form an opinion and share it. ⠀
2. BECAUSE OF ‘US’
This is about the community. They feel like they’re part of something and are proud of it.
3. BECAUSE OF ‘ME’
You make them look good, feel important and connected.
What’s the thread that ties all three together? Them. The person doing the talking. Not you.
The dirty truth is that no one wants to talk about your business.
A person’s motivations for doing so are nearly always selfish and ego-driven. They’re using their experiences with your business as a platform to talk about themselves. A good word of mouth strategy should quietly enable these conversations, not shout “look at me”.
Penn & Teller have been performing together since the 70’s. At the end of each show, the magicians run through the audience and wait in the foyer to greet their fans. They take selfies, shake hands, talk. Each night 200 guests leave with a story to tell.
What makes us more likely to share one experience over another?
If you’re into acronyms, Jonah Berger’s STEPPS model might tickle your fancy. It summarises six reasons things go viral:
They provide Social Currency; give people something of value to talk about.
They’re associated to Triggers which kick start conversations. Red Wine & Cheese anyone?
They’re Emotional – when we care, we share.
They’re Public, we can see others using it (think iPads white headphones).
They offer Practical Value, hints, hacks, recipes etc.
They’re wrapped up in Stories that people tell.
Beyond the experience, basic social needs must also be met. Humans are naturally risk-averse creatures; we instinctively seek safety. When we sense danger or feel threatened our fight or flight response kicks in – a state unconducive to spreading positive feels about your brand.
81% of people site trust as key factor in the purchase decision-making process. It’s just as important for generating word of mouth; earn their trust or they won’t talk.
The good news is there’s a strategic framework that will help you do just that.
The five elements that make up a successful word of mouth marketing strategy
1. Your ‘Talkers’
These are the people spreading the word. They come in all shapes and sizes but will have three things in common: they’re passionate about your industry, have a degree of knowledge and as such credibility and they make it their business to be well connected.
Think outside the box here. Every time a new show opened a theatre director gave free tickets to local taxi drivers. In return, they’d rave about the show to their passengers. Within two years, sales had doubled.
Once you’ve identified your ideal Talkers, profile them. Understanding pain points is not enough; you want them to do more than buy your services, you want them to recommend you, so you must go one step further and understand their motivations for doing so. What’s in it for them? Once you figure it out, fuel it.
2. Connection – the contents of your content
All word of mouth starts with a message to spread, so being crystal clear on what it is you want to be known for is the bedrock of a WOM strategy. If you don’t know, how will anyone else?
As a starter revisit your list of Talkers and consider what they talk about, how you can add value there and build a content plan around it.
This is how I arrived at my word of mouth strategy, which is ironically the topic of word of mouth. It wasn’t intentional, it just happened that as no one else was talking about it, I became known for it.
If all else fails, be playful! Much like the hotel chains who have goldfish bowls in every room, to keep traveller’s company while away from home.
3. Activation – the format of your content
Next, make it repeatable. Simple. Easy to share. Think bullets and bitesize sentences, straight forward language and no sales or marketing spiel – no one talks like that in real life.
4. Participation – other people’s content
The beauty of word of mouth is that it’s a dialogue. You get to be a part of the marketing channel, to join the conversations already happening about your product, service, or industry, add value to it and importantly fuel it. The only rule is to join the conversation as an expert, never a salesperson. No one likes being overtly sold to.
5. Tracking
Word of Mouth doesn’t happen over-night, so keeping track of and learning which topics do and don’t work will ensure you stay focused. Shares and mentions on social media, email forwards and referral schemes are all great indicators.
My favourite tool is the Net Promotor Score (NPS). It’s easy to implement tells you how likely it is that your audience would recommend you.
So that’s all folks!
Word of mouth isn’t cool, but it can be fun. And when executed strategically is a bloody effective tool for growth. It gets my vote, even if it’s the only one.
