Gennaro Cuofano's Blog, page 186

Elevator Pitch In A Nutshell

An elevator pitch is a short speech that introduces an individual, business, or product. Brevity is particularly important in sales, where a pitch must be able to sell itself quickly. Brevity also demonstrates that the person making a pitch has personal and professional aptitude and can think on their feet during unexpected situations.

Understanding an elevator pitch

The primary purpose of an elevator pitch is to explain a concept quickly, clearly, and persuasively in less than 30 seconds.

It is this brevity that gives the elevator pitch its name, referring to the average amount of time one spends in an elevator. 

But why is brevity is important?

Brevity is particularly important in sales, where a pitch must be able to sell itself quickly. Brevity also demonstrates that the person making a pitch has personal and professional aptitude and can think on their feet during unexpected situations.

Elevator pitches can also be used for:

Interview preparation – where an interviewee will inevitably be asked to tell the panel who they are and what they stand for.Resume preparation – as part of a cover letter or professional summary statement.Networking at events and gatherings where industry contacts are present.



Creating and then delivering an elevator pitch

Creating an elevator pitch begins by answering some exploratory questions:

Who are you? Don’t make the mistake of diving into your elevator pitch before you have introduced yourself. Describe yourself and your role in the business – but keep this introductory information to a minimum.How is your company making an impact? Do you know what your employer stands for? Again, it’s important to be succinct.What is the value proposition? In other words, what value does your business provide that is unique and specific?Deliver the hook – the most important part because it can be used to grab attention and build rapport. Perhaps it is an attention-grabbing statistic or fact. Perhaps it is a compelling story that somehow relates to the prospect being pitched. Here, it’s helpful to have a good understanding of the target audience to pre-emptively solve a problem they are experiencing.Include a call to action, sometimes called the “ask”. That is, what is the desired outcome of the pitch? Prospects that hear lots of pitches are used to being asked for something. Do not neglect a call to action for fear of making the wrong move.Revise and refine. Before delivering an elevator pitch, read the written version out loud to ensure that it is conversational. Practice is vital. A tone that is too formal or indeed too informal may convey a lack of confidence or conviction.



Delivering an elevator pitch

In delivering an elevator pitch, understand that flexibility is key. Elevator pitches are not intended to be delivered like speeches. Instead, they must flow in an organic, conservational manner. While each pitch should follow the same basic structure, each must be customized to the particular nuances of the industry or prospect being pitched.

Indeed, the prospect will often ask questions that you haven’t prepared for. But this is the ideal outcome because in most cases, questions are a sign of interest. The ability to handle left-of-field questions is often dependent on how much prior research on the prospect has been performed.

Lastly, be prepared. Keep copies of a business card or other promotional material on your person to close the interaction strongly.

Key takeaways



An elevator pitch is a short, persuasive, and versatile speech that can be used to sell or introduce a product, business, or individual.A successful elevator pitch is dependent upon brevity, which conveys confidence and professional aptitude.To create an elevator pitch, a preliminary written version should follow a basic structure. When delivering the pitch in person, remember to remain conversational and end the interaction with a call to action.

Main Guides:

Business ModelsBusiness StrategyMarketing StrategyBusiness Model InnovationPlatform Business ModelsNetwork Effects In A NutshellDigital Business Models

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Eisenhower Matrix And Why It Matters In Business

The Eisenhower Matrix is a tool that helps businesses prioritize tasks based on their urgency and importance, named after Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States from 1953 to 1961, the matrix helps businesses and individuals differentiate between the urgent and important to prevent urgent things (seemingly useful in the short-term) cannibalize important things (critical for long-term success).

Understanding the Eisenhower Matrix

The Eisenhower Matrix is named after Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States from 1953 to 1961. In that time, he championed the construction of the Interstate Highway System, ended the Korean War, created NASA, and welcomed Hawaii and Alaska to the union among other things.

Eisenhower was an industrious president who understood the fundamental difference between urgent and important tasks. Some three decades later, self-help author Stephen Covey repurposed Eisenhower’s insights in the form of a matrix.

The matrix helps businesses and individuals differentiate between the urgent and important. This is crucial in eliminating time-wasting tasks, which creates more time for tasks that drive a business forward.

The four quadrants of the Eisenhower Matrix

The Eisenhower Matrix divides tasks into four quadrants according to their urgency or importance (or lack thereof):

Do it (Urgent/Important) – these tasks receive the highest priority because they are both urgent and important. These are typically same-day tasks or tasks with an impending deadline. Efficient businesses make sure that wherever possible, urgent and important tasks are completed first thing in the morning.Schedule it (Not urgent/Important) – in the second quadrant are important tasks that are not urgent. This quadrant encompasses countless tasks such as responding to emails, scheduling appointments, advertising, and recruitment. Given that these tasks are important, they are commonly associated with long term goals that aid in growth. Businesses should set time aside to complete these tasks , otherwise they run the risk of being overwhelmed as “Schedule it” tasks become “Do it” tasks. Delegate it (Urgent/Not important) – tasks in this quadrant require immediate attention, but their lack of importance means that delegation is appropriate. Delegation often involves subordinates but in some cases, a business may opt to delegate large aspects of its operations to another company. Uploading blog posts and some email correspondence or customer service falls into this quadrant.Delete it (Not urgent/Not important) – these are invariably time-wasting activities that must be avoided. In the workplace, these tasks are often associated with procrastination – such as excessive social media usage, email inbox sorting and desk reorganization.



Eisenhower Matrix best practices

While a business will never be able to completely avoid time-wasting activities, there are a few tips to help them stay focused on tasks in the first two quadrants.

To-do lists containing tasks that are both urgent and important help businesses focus on high-impact activities. Completing tasks from the “Do it” and “Schedule it” quadrant gives an organization energy and momentum for the remainder of the workweek.

Some have also found it useful to set a limit on the number of tasks that can be scheduled for each quadrant. Other individuals work well with the Pomodoro technique, where 25-minute intervals are spent on high-priority tasks until they are completed. 

Key takeaways



The Eisenhower Matrix is a time management tool that helps businesses prioritize the completion of high impact tasks.The Eisenhower Matrix segregates tasks according to four quadrants with varying degrees of urgency and importance.In quantifying the completion of high-impact tasks, the Eisenhower Matrix discourages time-wasting tasks that are often the result of procrastination or a lack of delegation.

Main Guides:

Business ModelsBusiness StrategyMarketing StrategyBusiness Model InnovationPlatform Business ModelsNetwork Effects In A NutshellDigital Business Models

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Cost-Benefit Analysis In A Nutshell

A cost-benefit analysis is a process a business can use to analyze decisions according to the costs associated with making that decision. For a cost analysis to be effective it’s important to articulate the project in the simplest terms possible, identify the costs, determine the benefits of project implementation, assess the alternatives.

Understanding a cost-benefit analysis

Before undertaking any new project, a business must conduct a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) to determine whether the project is financially viable. In other words, does the forecast revenue exceed the forecast costs?

A cost-benefit analysis is also important in guiding the decisions that are made within a project. This gives project managers a systematic approach to determining the worthiness of various transactions, tasks, investments, and other business requirements.

Ultimately, the cost-benefit analysis gives project managers objective guidance on the approach that will best minimize costs. It also prevents businesses from falling in love with ideas that sound good on paper but which do not generate any return on investment.

Performing a cost-benefit analysis

There is no universal approach to performing a cost-benefit analysis, but certain steps will apply to most businesses and industries:

1 – Articulate the project in the simplest terms possible

First, the project must be clearly articulated and defined in simple terms. This step is important because clarity in defining the problem leads to less clarification work later on.

For example, a farm machinery company looking to add new models to its fleet should assess each model based on whether or not consumers would buy it. It should not, on the other hand, look to increase its fleet based on unpredictable future climate cycles or commodity prices.

2 – Identify the costs

When identifying the costs, it’s crucial that businesses think laterally and include:

Direct costs – manufacturing, inventory, and raw materials.Indirect costs – rent, electricity, and other utilities.Intangible costs – or impacts a decision will have on relevant stakeholders.Opportunity costs – for example, the costs associated with hiring new staff members versus outsourcing the work temporarily.Risk costs – or the costs associated with risks related to environment, compliance, or competition.



3 – Determine the benefits of project implementation 

Are real or perceived benefits worthy of investment? That is, do the benefits align with broader company goals or objectives?

Benefits might encompass:

Revenue and sales.Enhanced employee safety or morale.Customer satisfaction through faster delivery or valuable product offerings.Competitive advantage and attainment of market share.



4 – Assess the alternatives

Does there exist a more economical way of achieving the aforementioned benefits? This process is called the opportunity cost, defined as the benefits that are realized when choosing one alternative over another.

Regardless of whether an alternative course of action exists, compare the total costs against the total benefits to make the most informed decision. Businesses can do this by considering the payback period, or the period required for the business to recoup costs and break even.

Cost-benefit analysis best practices



The CBA is best suited to projects involving policy development, capital expenditure, asset usage, and protocol establishment. Each will require a robust economic analysis that may require the external consultation of an experienced evaluator.The most effective cost-benefit analyses consider a broad and holistic view of costs and benefits over the short and long term. By ensuring that the analysis is comprehensive, there is more chance that every affected stakeholder will be included.Much of the risk involved with this analysis lies in subjectivity. Stakeholders or other interested parties can sometimes exaggerate benefits while understating costs. There can also be a reliance on historical data to predict future trends. In this situation, businesses must perform a rigorous initial analysis to counteract any pre-existing biases 



Key takeaways



A cost-benefit analysis provides an objective assessment of the costs and benefits of taking a particular action.A cost-benefit analysis begins with clearly defining a simple problem and identifying the costs and benefits in the context of company objectives. Then, alternatives are assessed according to the time required to realize profitability.A cost-benefit analysis is a broad and holistic analysis that should include all relevant stakeholders. But it does require that businesses maintain objectiveness without reliance on historical data or pre-existing biases.

Main Guides:

Business ModelsBusiness StrategyMarketing StrategyBusiness Model InnovationPlatform Business ModelsNetwork Effects In A NutshellDigital Business Models

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Social Media Marketing And How To Measure Its Success

Analytics is the efficient use of numbers and statistics to monitor the success of your marketing strategy. After putting your strategy to the test, you need to see how well it is working; if the numbers say something different from your expectation, and then you can re-strategize or identify what you are doing wrong and improve on it.

For proper analytics, it is important to know what you are measuring, and this cannot be achieved without properly defining the goals for your marketing campaign. Generally, the main goals for influencer marketing are to increase engagements, increase reach, improve brand reputation, hence, boosting revenue. Still, for more detailed analysis, you need to properly define your business’ objectives so that you can appropriately judge success. Some examples of these objectives are traffic driven to the website, reaching a new audience, engaging an existing audience, and increasing your brand awareness.

There are different Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to track your goals, and each KPI says something different about your campaign. A few of these Indicators are:

Engagement rate

One of the most important metrics that says a lot about your campaign’s various aspects is your engagement rate. The amount of engagements your influencer gets has a great influence on brand awareness. The more engaged it is, the more people can see it. Social platforms, in fact, have an algorithm that frequently displays highly engaging content on the timeline of users – even beyond your target audience.

Engagements can be monitored through social media tools like BuzzSumo, HootSuite, and a few other tools that will track the engagements of your choice and give you a detailed summary of how well your campaign is engaged by your audience. However, you can manually check specific engagement numbers to see how well your campaign is performing.

Metrics for judging engagements include Likes, Reactions, Retweets, Shares, Comments, Clicks, and Views for a video, traffic, etc.

Likes

Likes are on almost every social platform. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and almost anything you can think of. They are the most common form of engagement. More likes will increase the visibility of your influencer’s posts about your brand, especially for people who haven’t seen the post, enabling further engagements for such posts, hence reaching a wider audience. Retweets and Reactions also have the same effect as likes. Retweets are specific to Twitter, and Reactions are specific to Facebook, where you can give a different reaction other than “like” to a post. It usually gives the same effect as a like.

Comments

Typically, social media engagements will involve fewer comments than likes or retweets because many people would rather observe than contribute, despite enjoying the content. It, however, doesn’t speak less about the importance of comments. Though they are less common than likes or retweets, they are a clear indication of how well the audience accepts your content because comments can be inquisitive, positive, or negative. Comments will indicate whether your product or service is acceptable or not, or people don’t know enough to give an opinion. Either way, it creates a string of discussions, and your campaign attracts attention.  

Clicks

If you have a CTA in your influencer’s posts, it is important to measure clicks; this will indicate how many people found the posts special enough to see what extra thing you have to offer. This indicates a willingness to purchase. If your offer is compelling enough, they may just be your next customer. 

Shares

When your content is widely shared, then it is an indication that people found value in your content and feel it will be useful for their audiences, even on other platforms. This is a good indication that you should enjoin your influencer to publish similar content as it is highly valuable. 

Reach

Your Influencer’s reach tells you how well your content was circulated on social media. This is an important metric to note if you are a new or relatively unknown brand to increase your popularity. This can be analyzed by the amount of impressions your influencer’s posts have (most social platforms provide this information as only visible to the account owner). You can request this data from the influencers you are in partnership with. Whether a person likes, comments, share your post or not, as long as it appeared on the person’s screen – indicating that he or she saw it. Your followers are also a good determinant of how far your reach will be. If you have 1,000 followers and they all share your post, it will still have fewer shares than a person with 10,000 followers and 30% shares from its audience. So for a good reach, it is optimal that you have a sizable amount of followers. You can also measure impressions on your website through Google Analytics, which enables you to track the new visitors, returning visitors, time spent on the website, more especially when you are actively running the campaign. If awareness is your main goal, then reach is the most important metric for you. 

Conversion Rate

Conversion simply means the rate at which people will buy your product or use your service due to your campaign. You want to appropriately convert advertisements into sales. One of the primary reasons for influencer marketing and other digital marketing efforts is to increase sales. It is important to track how well your sales have improved during this period, the conversion rate indicator is the right one for measuring that. To know-how, it is important to take accurate data of your sales before, during, and after the campaign, and observe the how well you have converted traffic into an engagement. You can get more accurate data on your conversions by using affiliate links for your influencers. This will help you perfectly know the exact amount of sales you have gotten through each link. By observing the difference in sales per visit, you can only observe a general change, but these links will give you specific numbers. This can also be beneficial as it allows you to identify your most productive influencers if you are working with more than one, making you decide who to engage for future campaigns. 

You can also measure other things with the conversion rate metric. If you have a Call to action that can be traced from the influencer campaign, then you can calculate conversion for that particular action, ranging from signing up on your website, subscribing to be on your email list or newsletter, or probably streaming or downloading a particular content. These are called non-sales conversion metrics. 

Referral Rates

Like conversion rates, referral rates let you know how many people have patronized your business due to the campaign. Conversion rates may not give an accurate representation of your campaign success because it will only tell you how many people patronized. Still, referral rates will give you a figure of the total number of visits to your website due to the campaign, whether or not they patronized you. A prospective customer may love your content and really get attracted to it on social media but not purchase for many reasons. Like the inability to ship to that location or the prospective customer not getting a color or size variant they want. To monitor why people visit your website but end up not buying items from you, you really should have an on-site survey to ensure you set things right to get better conversions from subsequent campaigns.  To monitor your referrals, you can use the same affiliate links and coupons to track them whether you are using one influencer or work with a team of influencers.

Audience Growth

Audience growth – like reach, will let you know how well your content circulated. It is similar to reach and awareness, but reach only tells you how well your content is circulated. Audience growth gives you extra insight into how many more people you have been drawn to your brand due to your campaign. The amount of new fans you gain is important to your campaign’s success. Even if they don’t buy at that moment, they can always return in subsequent campaigns, some don’t even need a new campaign to patronize you. To monitor your audience growth, you can monitor the rate of increase in followers via social media analytics only available to you. You should also check for that of your influencers as they are the main people publishing your content. Check your sign-ups, subscriptions during the period of your campaign, and you will get an insight into how well your audience has grown. 

Using your analytics, you could get even more detailed statistics about your expenditure, income, and Returns on Investment from influencer marketing. A few common ones are;

Cost per Engagement

Your estimated cost per engagement is the number of charges you have incurred for every engagement you have. If you have paid 5 influencers $100 each for a campaign, and you eventually get 50,000 engagements from the campaign, then you have incurred a cost of $0.002 or $2 per 1,000 engagements.

Return on Investment (ROI)

Your return on investment is the percentage increase from your total campaign cost to your total campaign revenue. If your total campaign cost is $1,000 and you get a revenue of $3,000, then you have an ROI of 300 percent.

Read Next: Influencer Marketing, SEO, Email Marketing, E-Commerce.

Read More:

Business ModelsBusiness StrategyMarketing StrategyBusiness Model InnovationPlatform Business ModelsNetwork Effects In A NutshellDigital Business Models

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How To Become An Influencer

All digital marketing medium requires strategizing as an essential for marketing success, and influencer marketing is no different. It is not enough to locate influencers, choose, and properly pitch your brand to them. You must pull together a string of strategies to ensure that your hard work in identifying appropriate influencers for your brand won’t be a waste. Some of these strategies are discussed below.

Appeal to the Emotions of Your Audience

As much as humans love to be in denial, we favor emotions more than logic in many of our purchase decisions. Influencers can appeal to the emotional side of their audience, telling your brand’s story and how inspiring it is, going from the bottom to a great stage, and even gunning for more greatness. If you have properly gone through the arduous process of selecting an influencer for your brand, then you must have gotten a creative influencer. The creativity and uniqueness of your influencer can do a lot for you in this regard as they will be your storyteller. They will present your brand’s story in an inspiring way that their audience will want some sort of connection, defying logic if need be. Business owners must learn to exploit emotions a lot because it largely accounts for purchase decisions.

Freebies and Giveaways

Another way to pull attention towards your brand is through giveaways and contests. People love free things, even if they are in a good financial position to purchase that item multiple times. If they could, they will rather get it for free. Don’t you like free things? Contests with hashtags can be held to win certain products, audiences can be made to do a video of them saying or doing something related to your brand. If you run an online pizza outlet, you can make a contest, asking users to mention all the types of pizza available in a video with a hashtag “#PizzafestivalWithYourBrand,” and you will select at random, a few. This will generate a lot of traffic on that social media platform, even beyond your audience. Since it’s free, as many people as possible will participate, they have nothing to lose. Contests are usually good for awareness campaigns as many people will get to know about the product you sell or the service you render, even if they don’t really care about it. Giveaways can be targeted to a more specific audience to reward their loyalty. It could also help increase the followers of the brand if there already exists a social media page. Although one major drawback of giveaways and contests is that because of its huge reach, it could attract many people who aren’t your target audience, thus giving you a wrong metric to judge success from.

It is important. Of course, your giveaway item should be valuable to attract people to the campaign; if it is not, you risk a huge waste of money and effort.

Use multiple Influencers simultaneously

After your research and you come up with a list of influencers for your campaign, you can use a couple of influencers within the same niche to promote your product at the same time. This strategy works well because of the multiple audiences you can reach at the same time. It is, however, important that despite taking influencers from the same niche, their content must be distinct. Because they are in the same niche, their posts may talk about the same subject matter many times, but the distinct approach of each influencer will get him his own separate followers. Although the followers of different influencers may intersect at some point, uniqueness will ensure that the level of audience repetition is small. When a campaign is run by multiple influencers, it feels like your brand is everywhere at the same time, hence doing a proper job of awareness for you.

Use Influencers who already like your Brand

A good strategy to approach the world of influencer marketing is using influencers who already have a thing for your brand. Collaborating with those influencers makes them an official brand advocate because they will speak in your favor even more, and because they have been doing it slightly before, it won’t seem like a forced plan. The question now is how to find influencers who already make posts about you online. You don’t want to be combing through the entire internet for that, so you can use social monitoring tools like HootSuite or brand watch to see who has been talking about you and what they say about you. Choose one or more, and watch the increased growth your brand will experience.

Use Hashtags

Hashtags are very important in influencer marketing for a couple of reasons. Your hashtag should be so unique that it catches the attention of people when they see it. Apart from the fact that it gives your campaign an online drive, probably hitting trend tables if you are organizing a contest, it gives you an avenue to monitor your influencers if you are using more than one for a campaign. When you search for your hashtag, the results will contain all influencers’ posts, so you can see whose posts are gaining more attention, indicating who is doing something right.

Reviews

Reviews from people, is a very good way to achieve excellent social proof. People love to feed off the experience of others to make decisions, they use this as a means of looking before they leap. A review gives the perfect opportunity for this, and if it comes from a trusted figure like an influencer, even better. Reviews are important for new businesses because your products haven’t really been tested by people, and they may be skeptical about trusting you with their money no matter how great your offer seems. Giving your influencers a few products to test and give honest reviews is a great strategy, as they see exactly everything with the product, and they can capitalize more on the exceptional things your product has to offer that are different from others. This will inspire a number of their audience to try out the product or a firsthand experience of the product, thereby giving you a whole new customer set. I need not emphasize the importance of making unique products because if there is nothing special about your products, it will make the task of selling your brand to an audience a difficult one. It is important to note that when you create review content, it shouldn’t sound too promotional, consumers can smell it a mile away.

Sharing User-Generated Content

User-generated content is a collection of content posted by your audience rather than your influencers or your brand account; because this content does not come from your affiliated account, they are usually very powerful and will probably boost your reliability far better than your own content. Getting your influencers to interact with these posts and bring up some engagements around posts like that is a great strategy at improving social proof. User-generated content is very useful because this content comes from fellow users of the product. Typically, we do not want to miss out on any trend, so properly harnessing these contents will boost your brand’s credibility on social platforms. Hence, positively impacting purchase decisions towards your products.

Adequate Knowledge of the Brand

Any influencer needs to be in the business of promoting you to have deep knowledge about your brand. The influencer would be communicating with a wide audience and may need to clarify or answer questions. The influencer mustn’t assume. Instead, he makes decisions based on facts and figures because one message communicated wrongly can harm the entire campaign. It is imperative to properly lecture them about your brand and products, simulate questions that people may ask to make sure that you are prepared for nearly all scenarios. Information you let out on the internet is almost impossible to retract, so your influencer mustn’t relay the wrong information to your audience.

Co-create content with your Influencers

While you pay influencers to run a campaign for you, it is important that you just don’t leave them to “do their job.” This is a mistake that many businesses make. Although it is important to give the influencers freedom to ensure the best of their creativity for quality content, it is also just as important to work with them to share your ideas to ensure that they are properly handled from start to finish in your campaign. Two good heads, they say, are better than one, so a collaboration between you and your influencer will improve your working relationship and help you develop better strategies.

Competitor Analysis

Check out businesses in your niche, study their influencer strategies, and the type of influencers they employ, identify what works for audiences that your niche pitches to. This helps you avoid ineffective methods and focus on things that will produce maximum results based on the insights you get from your analysis. It also gives you a metric to judge your campaign and know how well you’re doing.

Stay in touch with your Influencers

You must keep the influencers working on your campaign updated about the latest happenings within your company to ensure that they give their audience firsthand updated information, increasing their credibility and getting their audience more attached to them, making your campaign and subsequent campaigns successful. You can offer them incentives and coupons for their audiences to remain in their good books and help you properly connect to their audience. Staying in touch also improves the relationship with the influencers, making it easier to relate with them and even foster better negotiations for future campaigns.

Use Calls to Action

Calls to action are usually one-button command prompts. After sharing your link via your influencers’ posts, you should have some set of phrases, very conspicuous and short. In your link, you can add a command that says, “I want to benefit from a 20% discount bonus”. You want to make it easy for the people from your audience who love your influencer’s posts and want to know more about your company to have a one-click method of doing that, even better if it comes with a discount or coupon code. This can also boost your website authority for search engine optimization.

Respond to Comments

Good customer service is a universal tactic for a business that works every time. If you have a brand social media account on your favorite social platforms. It is important to request tags in posts of the influencers and adequately get your social media manager to respond to a select few. Thank people for positive reviews, promise to render better service to those who have complains – good customer service often make customers attached to your brand. This will keep you in a cordial relationship with your audience and boost your business’ reputation as a trustworthy one.

Product Demos and How-To Tutorials

If you have released a new product for public usage, especially one that could be technical or involving some sort of set up. Making your influencers educate their audiences, especially on platforms like YouTube, can bring about very high engagement. Especially showing special features that they never thought of, or even easier handling methods that are different from the regular method. This is a very useful tactic in the technology and gadgets industry. A video’s title could be “5 things you didn’t know about your Brand Ear buds” would do.  Because it’s a video, they can see a live and easily digestible representation of how that equipment or gadget works. Even if it’s not just your product that has these special unknown features, because you have content about it by an online authority, it will shape the decision of many to buy your product. You mustn’t go all out listing how great your product is because most people will get bored with that. It is better to show them content that will intrigue them and draw their attention. The high number of engagements generated from it is a great boost to your online authority.

Pitching Your Brand

After getting a shortlist of influencers you’d like to work with, you need to make great offers that are inspiring to the influencer while meeting your goals and in line with your budget. If you keep making offers to influencers without success, then there is a good chance that you aren’t properly selling yourself. Make the influencers know what your brand has to offer. People who are good with their craft won’t promote you across their channels if you are unclear about your offering because they want to maintain credibility and influence within the social space. It is also possible that your brand has had some negative reviews in time past that makes people skeptical about associating with your brand. This is why you have to pitch your brand properly, with an influencer brief to make them see your offers, expectations, guidelines, performance indicators for judging success, and many other things that the influencer needs to know. If you have had a difficult reputation in the past, the first part of your campaign may be to give out freebies, giveaways, contests and get your name on people’s lips. A human largely have a bias towards recent things, so make your intention and plans to regain your image known, and if you can achieve proper clarity, you would get influencers willing to work with you. 

An influencer brief is a set of documents that you send to influencers to pitch your brand after gaining their attention. In this document, you are expected to “brief” the influencer about your project, how you want to partner, your expectations, and the metrics by which you’ll judge success. Disclaimers and clauses are also expected to be part of the brief, as the influencer needs to know his task from the very beginning. This will summarize everything that will be explicitly outlined in the contract; hence clarity is important to avoid confusion and foster a smooth working relationship.

A brief also makes it easy for you to judge a campaign’s performance before even considering analytics. Since you have properly outlined goals, an evaluation will be straightforward as you only have to review your objectives.

What your Influencers’ Brief Should Contain 



Basic information about your brand and what you offer should be the first thing in your brief. You must state your values and what you aim to achieve, the products or service you’d like to focus on, and why you are contacting them.Give the influencer a lowdown of your projected campaign, explicitly describing what success means to you; if they are popular amongst several platforms, be sure to be specific with the platform you’d prefer for the campaign. You should also include the duration of the campaign hashtags you want your campaign to be associated with; if you have one, make sure you let them know if you want your handles tagged and even followed by their audience.Be sure to indicate your website, links of landing pages you want people to click on, etc.Give specific information about all details, and while you should give a guideline, you shouldn’t be too rigid, as influencers need a bit of freedom to be at their creative best.Remuneration type is a very important topic; the influencer should have information on how much he will be paid, what products he will be getting, etc.Indicate where you want to claim legal access to content, probably for use in other marketing mediums. Reusing content that you don’t have authorship over may cost you some legal fees.



CONCLUSION

Generally, influencer marketing is a lucrative marketing channel due to its direct contact with the audience. It boasts billions of dollars, and it is perfect for increasing revenue and increasing brand awareness if proper strategies are applied. On every successful influencer marketing campaign, an average of 500% ROI can be made.

Influencer marketing utilizes recommendation, the popular word-of-mouth marketing model, which directly convinces people to use a product or service based on other users’ experiences contributing to the huge success of this medium of marketing. So, erase your doubts and get your influencer marketing campaign started. Good luck!

Read Next: Influencer Marketing, SEO, Email Marketing, E-Commerce.

Read More:

Business ModelsBusiness StrategyMarketing StrategyBusiness Model InnovationPlatform Business ModelsNetwork Effects In A NutshellDigital Business Models

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Types Of Influencers

Mega Influencers

Mega influencers have a lot of pull power due to their large audience. They may have very little knowledge about the subject, but they can publicize your product or service to the reach of millions in seconds. Celebrities are major examples of Mega influencers. Cristiano Ronaldo, for example, has 200 million followers on Instagram, and in a minute, his post can generate a million engagements. Mega influencers are only hired by top companies because they are usually expensive to approach. Even if the company has an ambassadorial deal with the celebrity, it still costs money to maintain that relationship. Ronaldo is a Nike ambassador and may not collect any money to post adverts for Nike, as his ambassadorial duties may include that, but to get that deal signed, he would receive benefits in cash and in-kind. Mega influencers, despite their reach, do not target specific audiences. In all honesty, a post from Cristiano Ronaldo may reach 30 million people, but how many of these people are really your target audience? Well, you can’t tell. Mega influencers, despite their reach, aren’t the best for all campaigns, and if wrongly used, it can cause very huge losses.

Macro-influencers

Macro-influencers also have very large audiences on social media, typically between a few hundred thousand to a million followers. Unlike actual celebrities that got fame through sports, music, or other forms of art, Macro-influencers are usually popular as a result of the internet. Popular Bloggers, Vloggers, Podcasters, and the likes fall into this category. Bloggers usually have knowledge about the subject matter, even if they are not professionals of that field or niche, they have enough information that they feed knowledge-seeking internet users who visit their blogs because of the valuable content that they publish regularly.  They also utilize their large volume of social media followers to promote their blog content.

A good example is Pat Flynn, the Owner of the blog “Smart Passive Income” boasting of a verified Twitter account with 158,000 followers; he also runs a podcast and a verified YouTube channel of 268,000 subscribers. On his blog, he mainly teaches easy techniques for running E-commerce businesses and harnessing passive income opportunities. If you have a useful service in this field, such as SEO tools, Pat Flynn can dedicate a series of blog posts to discuss this topic, or a YouTube tutorial video while recommending your tool for use with several backlinks to your own website.  He can also discuss you in his podcast as he has several ways to reach his audience.

Macro-influencers are the best bet when you want to reach out to your target audience based on your subject while ensuring that you reach out to many people, especially in the awareness stage of your campaign. Bloggers and Vloggers can work wonders for you due to their loyal audience, which looks up to them for information because they have found them trustworthy over time.

Pat Flynn is a rare one, as he engages in blogging, Vlogging, and Podcasting. But many Macro-influencers use just one medium of sharing content with their audience. Macro-influencers help you re-strategize content, boost your brand awareness, and you can find them for almost any category you want, fashion, gaming, technology, music, and so on.

Micro-Influencers

Micro-Influencers usually have followers ranging from a few thousand to 100,000 or, on some occasions, slightly more. They are typically more invested in the subject matter and closer to the target audience because of closer interactions and engagement via social media. They aren’t necessarily the best for awareness, but they are good for promotion campaigns. They also work with cheaper and less flexible budgets, making them affordable for businesses with tighter budgets. They also receive payments in different methods, cash, products, free services, and many more.

Some of these people are well-known professionals in their fields, and their followers see their recommendations as professional advice without appearing as a means of promotion at times. A micro-influencer can be a dietician who gives expert advice on what to eat to improve certain things in the body or even lose weight. A company in the food industry can adequately get promoted by such a micro-influencer through recommendation. The dietician could recommend pleasant sugar-free edibles for diabetics, and companies who produce this can get huge promotions from this. The trust gained from these people due to expertise makes them ideal for promotional campaigns as they can drive a large percentage of their relatively small audience to consume a product. A lot of times, these micro-influencers are usually ignored or less prioritized. This is, however, a wrong move because each level of influencers has their levels of engagement, and different stages in marketing require different approaches.

Nano Influencers

Nano influencers usually have a similar or slightly smaller range of followers as Micro-influencers, but they do not possess the knowledge and the professional touch of the micro-influencers. They are very vocal with their advocacy for a brand and very convincing too. Nano influencers speak about a brand positively at any chance they get, jumping under Twitter threads or social media posts that criticize or bring up a bad or wrong image about a brand to defend them publicly. 

Because of their less professional approach, however, they might come off as controversial. Still, they usually have loyal supporters who would take their words as it comes, because they believe these nano influencers do not see the posts as promotional, they see it as an honest opinion that they should follow. They are also relatively cheap to deal with.

Mini Influencers

These influencers are usually respected people due to their knowledge of the subject matter like micro-influencers, although not necessarily professional, have a good online reputation, and they are known to recommend your product or service to their followers and anybody who cares to ask. Because of their reputation, their recommendations are usually followed.

Some of these categories can be mixed together to achieve good results. You can have a celebrity post a new product you have while running a side campaign with bloggers to make reviews on it, with a backlink to your page. While the celebrity’s post is doing rounds on social media – reaching millions of people in no time, the macro influencer can do a YouTube video comparing a product with other trendy products, highlighting and focusing on yours, making both campaigns effective the same time.

At certain times the influencers’ works will go so deep that even users of your product will join these influencers in promoting your product or service (provided it suits them), becoming a loyal customer, hence amplifying the jobs of the influencers on social media. They are a very good source of social proof easily acceptable.

Locating Influencers for Your Campaign

After deciding on the type of influencer you want for your campaign, you need to locate them to pitch your brand to them, briefing them about what you want to do, how you want it done, your expectations, and the metrics by which you will judge their performance. 

Mega influencers are the easiest to locate; all you need to do is go to the social media page of the influencer that fits your brand and check his/her bio. Usually, they have many direct message requests from numerous fans, so it is best to get their email or business contact information from their bio. This way, you can easily get in touch with their managers to schedule an appointment. 

Macro-influencers, too, are not difficult to find, as they are relatively small when compared to other micro and nano influencers. Since they are typically Vloggers and Bloggers, it may be a good idea to do a YouTube research on topics that you find enthralling to your target audience, note the Vloggers that present them and check their subscriber count, from suggested videos and related videos too, you will see similar Vloggers, this will help you locate the Macro-influencers in your niche, and you can easily contact them from links in their bio, most notably an email address.

You can also reach out to blogs that rank well on Google for your preferred content. Search for a series of words you think people who need your products/services will probably be searching. Certain websites will show up repeatedly on Google’s first page with different keywords searched. These blogs have a good ranking, and users will likely visit these blogs when finding answers to their questions; simply visit the blog and locate the contact information from there.

Looking for Micro-influencers and Nano influencers can be herculean. There are several hundred thousand of these on Instagram and Twitter, and selecting at random isn’t a good idea. 

Hence it requires a more dedicated type of approach to locate these influencers.

It is important to know what has been trending online for a while and the people who create these contents. Buzzsumo, Content Studio, SproutSocial, and HootSuite are good examples of tools that can help scan several social media websites, even with a streamline to your location, and understanding in general what content will work best for pushing your brand. Some of these tools can also help you discover the people who get the most attention on these social media platforms, giving you a lead on who you should check their profiles. Upon checking their profiles, you will find details on contacting them. They don’t have overcrowded direct messages like influencers, so you can briefly engage them with a direct message to know their availability and see if they would love to be a part of your campaign before you proceed to send a brief via email. Some popular micro-influencers do not manage themselves, and you need to get in touch with their management to pitch your brand. Other ways to locate micro, nano, and mini influencers include:

Conduct a survey with your audience, asking which social media platforms they use the most, and focus on prioritizing your influencer hunt from there.Check LinkedIn for professionals who have a large following on other social media platforms, especially Twitter and Facebook, where interaction is high. Check Twitter’s “trending” for hashtags and see the leading influencers from those tags. It is also a current indication of how active they are – you don’t want an inactive influencer to run a campaign for you.Engage in competitor analysis to know the people your competitors are partnering with. Obviously, you cannot partner with those particular set of people, but it should give you an insight into who you should be on the lookout for.Use Famebit (a platform on YouTube) where you can find influencers for various niches; Famebit makes it easy for micro-influencers to sign up without asking for any fee and collects 10% of the fee the influencer gets, hence there are thousands of influencers on that platform. Using Famebit, you can sort through influencers by different demographics like age, follower count, impressions, and engagements. Famebit gives you an easy way to connect with micro-influencers, especially for long term partnerships with different influencers for your products.

Whether you’re in the fashion industry, beauty, technology, etc., there is always a pool of influencers for you to select from.

Read Next: Influencer Marketing, SEO, Email Marketing, E-Commerce.

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What Is Influencer Marketing And Why It Matters In Business

Influencer marketing involves the marketing of products or services that leverages the popularity, expertise, or reputation of an individual. Influencer marketing is often associated with those who have large social media followings, but popularity should not be confused with influence. Influence has the power to change consumer perceptions or get their audience to do something different.

Influencer marketing explained

In simple terms, influencer marketing is a hybrid of old and modern marketing techniques. It harnesses the power of celebrity endorsements from the past with a modern, content-driven marketing strategy. 

When researching potential influencers to partner with, businesses should assess the following characteristics:

Reach – usually defined as the ability to deliver a message to a large group of people. However, reach is less important in influencer marketing because influencers with small followings often possess higher credibility and a more targeted audience.Credibility – or the level of trust an influencer enjoys because of their perceived knowledge or authority in a niche.Salesmanship – influencers who possess salesmanship can convince others of their point of view because it is told with confidence and conviction.

Influencer marketing is also a less transactional and more authentic form of promotion, in that there is more collaboration between brand and influencer. Collaboration means that the goals and values of both parties need to be aligned. 

Importantly, businesses must respect the influencer and how they have built their audience. Successful collaborations result when businesses resist the temptation to change an influencer’s goals or values to suit their own purposes. 

Why is influencer marketing important?

Influencer marketing is important because conventional digital marketing is now largely ignored.

A study by Harris Interactive found that 90% of Americans ignore digital ads. 66% of consumers are also overwhelmed by the sheer volume of digital ads and use the quantity of such ads to consider whether to boycott certain brands.

By partnering with influencers, brands can insert themselves into consumer conversations and leverage influencer trust to reduce the chance of being ignored.

When businesses get consumers talking about their brand, they create genuine conversations that can never be replicated through traditional marketing strategies.

Examples of influencer marketing

To spread the word on the benefits of grass-fed beef, producer La Cense Beef collaborated with food-bloggers who had an audience of dedicated meat fanatics.

The company set up a website detailing the benefits so that influencers could spread the message about their brand in an informed and authentic fashion.

A less typical example of influencer marketing can be seen in the case of carmaker General Motors (GM). GM created an insider’s club for car fanatics who possess a deep passion and affinity for the maker.

By sharing exclusive news and offers with insider members, General Motors was able to encourage their most loyal supporters to spread the word about their brand.

Key takeaways



Influencer marketing is a form of marketing that utilizes those with influence in a particular industry to increase brand awareness and encourage them to take a specific course of action.Influencer marketing relies on shared goals and values between the concerned parties, and not on transactional arrangements.Conventional digital marketing is now largely ignored by consumers. Influencer marketing is seen as a more authentic marketing strategy.



Types Of Influencers



Mega InfluencersMacro-influencersMicro-InfluencersNano InfluencersMini Influencers



Choosing an Influencer for Your Campaign

After knowing the channels to locate influencers for your campaign, you need to choose one that properly fits your goals and objectives. There are a thousand influencers available in your pool, but not all will be appropriate for your campaign. There are general goals for influencer marketing to increase brand awareness, thereby increasing sales and revenue. However, each business has additional targets that they aim to achieve with influencer marketing.  Some really want to reach out to their customer base in a particular age group or expand their reach from a certain sector, so you must be able to identify your goals, to adequately help you determine your choice. Influencers can reach targeted audiences, so properly defining your goals will help you streamline your search and ensure you pick the right person for your campaign.

Below are steps you need to take in incorporating your choice with your goals and objectives.

Research

During the research phase, there are many decisions you need to make, depending on your brand strength, your audience, your budget, and your preferred means of remuneration. 

You need to conduct a survey about the social media platforms your current market is well-populated to give an insight into where to focus. As a beginner in influencer marketing, it is recommended to start with a channel, even if there is no clear indication as to where you should focus. For example, fashion, beauty, and lifestyle really excel on Instagram because of the opportunity to regularly use pictures to publish content. Technology, gadgets, and mobile trends largely excel on YouTube. There is always one influencer or the other doing a review or comparison of certain gadgets and what the specifications mean; if you have built a game, then twitch is the best place to get your audience as it is exclusively for gamers.You should also look into the type of influencers that will suit your campaign before selecting one. If you want an awareness campaign to reach millions of people without necessarily targeting a specific audience, then mega influencers is the way to go. On the other hand, if you want some high level of awareness in a more targeted audience, then you could use macro-influencers. Perhaps, you want a smaller reach, in a largely targeted audience, you should consider using micro-influencers and nano influencers. Your budget will also be determined by the type of influencer you decide to employ for your campaign, so you should look around, do a market survey of how much each of these influencers charge, and you should know what your campaign can afford. It is, however, important to consider your product type and how much money you can generate per item on average. If you sell very cheap items, it is unadvisable to select expensive influencers to enable you to get your returns quick.Ensure that the influencers on your shortlist are “legit” – they haven’t amassed fake engagements and followers. Check through their posts painstakingly to see their follower-to-engagement ratio. Someone with 10,000 followers shouldn’t struggle to get 100 engagements; if they do, it could be a red flag of poor content, fake or inactive followers. The comments shouldn’t also be stereotyped like robots. If all the comments you see on an influencer’s posts are short and identical, it could be fake or simulated. There should be a proper flow of interaction.Check out the influencers’ previous campaigns, what brands they have worked with, how similar those brands are to yours, and how successful the campaign turned out to be. Also, check out their posts and be sure they can communicate about you to their audience without sounding excessively promotional. You need interactions, not a robot.



Look for an advocate

Many influencers just want to make money from campaigns, and so they don’t put genuine effort into the campaigns; they just want the campaign to end as soon as possible, so they can get money from other campaigns. This is usually dangerous to the campaign’s success, as there is usually little creativity in terms of content. This is why the influencer you choose must be ready to dedicate effort to ensure the campaign’s success, rather than just make random posts about your product or service. From previous campaigns of an influencer, you will get an insight into how creative he is with campaigns. If you can ensure that your choice influencer can advocate for your brand, you will totally win over his audience, and it will be evident in your sales and revenue.

Choose according to your business scope

If your business scope is small and not even beyond your country, maybe in just a few select states, it is advisable to use micro-influencers because of their closer interactions with people who form your target audience. Even if you feel like you can afford the celebrities, there will be little effect as those influencers have a much larger scope than your audience. If you have a brick and mortar store in Just one state in a European country, it might be out of scope to contact a celebrity as their fans are people all over the world, and many people won’t travel down to patronize you because a celebrity they like is talking about you. However, mini influencers, nano influencers, and micro-influencers can reach out more specifically to people within your scope. As word spreads locally, the number of customers will increase, and from there, you can think of expansion to other states, probably based on requests of people who engage posts.

Consider many engagements

Before committing to an influencer, especially micro-influencers and below, it is important to know how well they get their audience engaged. As previously said, micro-influencers usually engage with their audiences more, so there is evident goodwill, but this engagement should be well measured in terms of percentage. An influencer with 100,000 followers but has an average engagement rate of 10,000 likes, comments, shares, retweets, etc., is doing worse than an influencer who has 30,000 followers with an engagement rate of 7,500. So when making decisions, it is important to properly consider followers considering engagements, don’t just choose an influencer because they have a larger audience. How well influencers’ audience engages their posts is a testament to how valuable their content is, and hence how useful they can be to your campaign. Ideally, the average engagements for posts on social media should be from 3% to 5% to ensure that you are dealing with a loyal set of followers.

Select from your niche

You will see many influencers with impressive numbers and previous campaigns that look good, but be sure to select from your niche for two main reasons.

You want to be sure that they can provide useful content for your brand. In the past, their content might have been great because of the knowledge they possess about the niche of those brands. But if they don’t know much about your niche, you greatly risk a failed campaign due to poor content.

It is also possible that the influencers have gained their target audience from posting things that their followers are conversant with. The majority of that audience followed them because of that campaign. If your choice influencer brings up a strange topic, it might be difficult for them to relate, and they altogether ignore it.

Your target audience:

As a business owner, you could be selling directly to consumers (B2C marketing), or you may target other Businesses (B2B marketing). In choosing an influencer for your campaign, it is important to know the influencers that are already popular with brands. Such influencers that are popular with brands are great for B2B marketing. If you target businesses as your customer base, your influencer must be reputable. A reputable and well-known influencer can be appropriate for this kind of campaign because fellow businesses will trust them better. For individual campaigns, several influencers can be used, even relatively new ones, as long as there is an audience and the influencer can create quality content.

Type of remuneration

It is important to determine whether you want to give out cash, products, or both to your choice influencers for a successful campaign. If you render a service, you can show past jobs and services you have rendered to your influencers to critique and see how much knowledge they can garner about your brand because audiences will have a lot of questions. You definitely do not want your influencer ignoring them. You can also give out new products for them to use and have an honest opinion about it and look at the product from a customer perspective; that way, they will relate with the customers better in their posts. Commissions are also ways to get your influencers well invested in your campaign, you just have to reach a fair agreement with the influencer, and if you are using more than one influencer, you can make use of dedicated links for them so that each of them will have a collation system for leads that were gotten through them. Influencers are sometimes skeptical about using commissions as the sole form of payment, but it can be mixed with other means of remuneration. If you are paying cash only, you need to ensure that you are not promoting an entirely new product. Products already in the market but have dipped in demand can be promoted. Hence there will be fewer questions, and even fellow consumers can have the answers to the questions of others. 

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7 Steps To Problem-Solving

The 7 steps to problem-solving is a disciplined and methodical approach to identifying and then addressing the root cause of problems. Instead, a more robust approach involves working through a problem using the hypothesis-driven framework of the scientific method. Each viable hypothesis is tested using a range of specific diagnostics and then recommendations are made.

Understanding the 7 steps to problem-solving

The core argument of this approach is that the most obvious solutions to a problem are often not the best solutions. 

Good problem-solving in business is a skill that must be learned. Businesses that are adept at problem-solving take responsibility for their own decisions and have courage and confidence in their convictions. Ultimately, this removes doubt which can impede the growth of businesses and indeed employees alike.

Moving through the 7 steps to problem-solving

Although many versions of the 7-step approach exist, the McKinsey approach is the most widely used in business settings. Here is how decision makers can move through each of the steps systematically.

Step 1 – Define the problem

First, the scope and extent of the problem must be identified. Actions and behaviors of individuals must be the focus – instead of a focus on the individuals themselves. Whatever the case, the problem must be clearly defined and be universally accepted by all relevant parties.

Step 2 – Disaggregate the problem

In the second step, break down the problem (challenge) into smaller parts using logic trees and develop an early hypothesis. Here, economic and scientific principles can be useful in brainstorming potential solutions. Avoid cognitive biases, such as deciding that a previous solution should be used again because it worked last time.

Step 3 – Prioritize issues

Which constituent parts could be key driving factors of the problem? Prioritize each according to those which have the biggest impact on the problem. Eliminate parts that have negligible impact. This step helps businesses use their resources wisely.

Step 4 – Plan the analyses

Before testing each hypothesis, develop a work and process plan for each. Staff should be assigned to analytical tasks with unique output and completion dates. Hypothesis testing should also be reviewed at regular intervals to measure viability and adjust strategies accordingly.

Step 5 – Conduct the analyses

In step five, gather the critical data required to accept or reject each hypothesis. Data analysis methods will vary according to the nature of the project, but each business must understand the reasons for implementing specific methods. In question-based problem solving, the Five Whys or Fishbone method may be used. More complicated problems may require the use of statistical analysis. In any case, this is often the longest and most complex step of the process. 

Step 6 – Synthesise the results

Once the results have been determined, they must be synthesized in such a way that they can be tested for validity and logic. In a business context, assess the implications of the findings for a business moving forward. Does it solve the problem? 

Step 7 – Communicate

In the final step, the business must present the solutions in such a way that they link back to the original problem statement. When presenting to clients, this is vital. It shows that the business understands the problem and has a solution supported by facts or hard data. Above all, the data should be woven into a convincing story that ends with recommendations for future action.

Key takeaways



7 steps to problem-solving is a methodical approach to problem-solving based on the scientific method.Although a somewhat rigorous approach, the strategy can be learned by any business willing to devote the time and resources.Fundamentally, the 7 steps to problem-solving method involves formulating and then testing hypotheses. Through the process of elimination, a business can narrow its focus to the likely root cause of a problem.

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What Is The Eight Disciplines Model And Why It Matters In Business

The eight disciplines (8D) model is a problem-solving framework that is used to identify, correct, and then eliminate problems. The eight disciplines model was first used by the U.S. Military in the Second World War. In more modern times, it was popularised in a 1987 Ford Motor Company manual on a team-oriented approach to problem-solving, based on eight sequential steps.

Understanding the eight disciplines model

The model can be used in any industry that experiences difficult, critical, or recurring problems. It is particularly useful in process-oriented businesses that are looking to scale or are suffering growing pains as a result of scaling.

Problems in the model are tackled by addressing eight key disciplines that help identify (and provide corrective actions for) the root cause of a problem.

In the next section, we’ll take a look at each in more detail.

Using the eight disciplines model in practice

Applying the model to a real-world problem involves working through the following steps sequentially. 

Discipline 1 – Assemble a team

The first step is to assemble a team with varying degrees of experience from different departments within the organization. By considering a diverse range of opinions, there is more chance the problem will be solved. A team leader should also be appointed to ensure a collaborative process.

Discipline 2 – Describe the problem

Using data or whatever information necessary, describe and define the problem by way of a problem statement. To arrive at this point, ask questions according to the 5W and 2H method:

What is happening? In other words, what is the problem?Who is being affected by the problem?Where is it occurring?When – or how frequently – is the problem occurring?Why is the problem occurring?How does it take place?How much is the problem costing the business? Quantify in monetary terms where appropriate.



Discipline 3 – Formulate a containment plan

Containment involves isolating the problem from regular operations until permanent preventative action can occur. This step is especially important when customer or employee safety is at risk.

Many businesses stop here and confuse containment with a solution. However, addressing the symptoms of a problem are likely to lead to problem recurrence.

Discipline 4 – Identify the root cause

With the problem in containment, more resources can be devoted to root cause identification. There is a raft of methods available to achieve this, including the 5 Whys, Fishbone diagrams, and Pareto charts.

[image error]The 5 Whys method is an interrogative problem-solving technique that seeks to understand cause-and-effect relationships. At its core, the technique is used to identify the root cause of a problem by asking the question of why five times. This might unlock new ways to think about a problem and therefore devise a creative solution to solve it.



[image error]The Fishbone Diagram is a diagram-based technique used in brainstorming to identify potential causes for a problem, thus it is a visual representation of cause and effect. The problem or effect serves as the head of the fish. Possible causes of the problem are listed on the individual “bones” of the fish. This encourages problem-solving teams to consider a wide range of alternatives.

Regardless of the method chosen, root causes should wherever possible be backed up by hard quantitative data.

Discipline 5 – Analyse and verify corrective actions

With the data from the previous step, perform small-scale tests to verify whether the solution works in a real-world scenario. If the tests fail, go back to step four.

Discipline 6 – Implement corrective action

Once solutions from small-scale tests have been proven, they can then be implemented on a larger scale. When doing so, corrective actions must be monitored closely to determine their long-term viability.

Discipline 7 – Prevent recurrence

If a solution proves to be a long-term fix, then all systems and associated policies and procedures must be updated to reflect the change. 

It’s also helpful to brainstorm how this solution might be applied to other problems – whether they be pre-existing problems or potential future problems.

Discipline 8 – Evaluate the process

Lastly, it’s important to thank each member of the team for their contribution. If a business is so inclined, it may choose to reward staff with a financial bonus or by mention in company announcements. This builds culture which results in engaged employees working collaboratively to identify and address critical problems.

Key takeaways



The eight disciplines model is a team-oriented problem-solving methodology for addressing recurring, critical, or difficult problems.The eight disciplines model was originally used by the U.S. Military during the Second World War. It was later adopted for use in business by Ford and today, can be used in virtually any industry.The eight disciplines model must be performed in sequential order so that problems can be temporarily isolated while a permanent solution is devised.

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What Is The ADKAR Model And Why It Matters

The ADKAR model is a management tool designed to assist employees and businesses in transitioning through organizational change. To maximize the chances of employees embracing change, the ADKAR model was developed by author and engineer Jeff Hiatt in 2003. The model seeks to guide people through the change process and importantly, ensure that people do not revert to habitual ways of operating after some time has passed.

Understanding the ADKAR model

Within a business, change is usually met with resistance from employees. This means that the main determinant of successful change comes down to the acceptance of the employees concerned.

The five principles of the ADKAR model

ADKAR is an acronym of five principles that must be achieved to institute successful change. Let’s discuss these in more detail.

1. Awareness

Awareness entails informing employees of the need for change by providing context. Context is important because many are simply afraid to step out of their comfort zone and need a concrete reason to do so.

To create awareness, some difficult conversations may be required. Some uncomfortable facts may need to be shared so that people understand the problem and become more motivated to act. Ultimately, employees need to be told that the status quo is not the most viable option moving forward.

2. Desire

Understanding the reasons for change is one thing, but wanting to change is another. To increase desire among employees, they must understand the benefits.

For example, the automation of a production line may mean that certain employees have to learn new skills. However, they are more likely to be open to learning if automation leads to increased output and a subsequent pay rise.

3. Knowledge

This principle of the ADKAR model involves training and education. Employees will be more open to change if they have a clear understanding of how their responsibilities, skills, and processes will be impacted.

The training must also be specific to the individual. If new software is being installed throughout an organization, this responsibility will fall to IT staff. Once rolled out, however, the responsibility of learning to use the software falls on staff from other departments.

4. Ability

Knowledge is worthless without the capacity to apply it to the real world. Ability, then, means that the employee can apply new skills or behaviors competently.

Hands-on training is one of the most effective ways that employees can show demonstrated ability in certain processes. It also helps them start slowly with small wins to build confidence.

5. Reinforcement

Earlier, we mentioned the potential for employees to revert to old habits. This can be negated by rewarding the continued practicing of new habits to increase motivation. The presence of poor habits, on the other hand, should be addressed through private mediation.

As employees continue to settle into their new roles, continue to collect feedback. There may still be some aspects of the change causing distress which were initially overlooked.

Key takeaways:



The ADKAR model helps businesses institute successful change through motivated employee buy-in.The ADKAR model consists of five core principles: awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, and reinforcement.To drive change, the ADKAR model focuses on empowering and supporting employees throughout the transition. In theory, this makes employees more resilient to future change and ensures that they do not fall back into old habits.

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