Culture

Building a Great Culture Starts at your Front Door

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A truly great workplace culture is composed of many different facets, from the way you hire to the coffee you serve in the lunchroom, but, the most important aspect is the workplace itself.

In many ways, your workplace defines your culture. It’s the physical embodiment of your beliefs, your standards, and your theories on how to treat your employees and run your business. Your company’s culture truly does start at the front door of your workplace.

Keep Things Clean

Imagine you walk into an office and see boxes everywhere, stacks of files falling, drab colors, and scratched and dented furniture. You’d be shocked – and not in a good way. That is not the kind of environment people are compelled to do their best work in.

Making sure your office is always clean can seem unimportant compared to all the things you have to do. You’re busy running a rapidly growing business, but keeping it looking nice is more worthwhile than it seems. That messy office isn’t going to get and keep great employees. It’ll barely even keep okay ones!

“You better have a crazy compensation package on your dreary, white table if you think you are going to attract any top talent to your little, beige office. These top talents read enough blogs and watch enough TV to know what kinds of environments the best, cutting edge, start-up companies are offering” – Cameron Herold

Work Together

You want people to know you have a great company culture from the moment they walk in, meaning things must be clean and stay clean. This doesn’t have to be a difficult or boring task. Instead, try doing something to encourage everyone to work together to keep the office clean, such as picking one day a week for everyone to contribute to keeping the office neat and tidy.

Working together to do this also improves the company culture. It makes everyone care about keeping things tidy and also works as a team building exercise. With teamwork and tidiness, the energy in the building is much better. What’s not to love about that?

Take a Look at Your Desk

They say that a clean desk is the sign of a sick mind, but that saying is entirely untrue. Who can think clearly and efficiently when they are trapped on all sides by stacks and stacks of looming files?

Not only is it visually unpleasant, but it has a subconscious effect of adding pointless mental clutter. Most brains are wired to desire order and cleanliness and yours will likely add tidying the mess to its unconscious “to-do” list. It won’t remove itself until it’s been done!

This isn’t to suggest that you put on a glove and spend hours scrubbing your desk. The idea is simply to keep your desk, your office, and the entire building free of unnecessary clutter.

People should get an instant idea as to what your company is like the second they walk through the door. A messy, disorganized space sends the wrong message about your company’s culture.

What do you do to ensure that your office stays clean? Let us know in the comments below!

If you have questions or would like more information, I’d be happy to help. Please send an email, and my team will get in touch with you!

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in December 2013 and has been edited for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

Culture is King

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One of the biggest, most important questions that any business leader can ask themself is, “What’s the most important thing to do to grow my business?”

The shortest answer is this: To grow your business, you have to develop a world-class culture. A commitment to building an awesome culture is also a commitment to making all aspects of your business better.

Culture and Employees

Think about it, you need top-notch employees to build a successful company. You’ll never recruit the kind of people you want if your company’s culture is too uncomfortable or rigid. Young, ambitious types of people feverishly avoid this kind of environment. If you have a culture that they want to avoid, you’ll end up with average applicants just looking for a paycheck.

If you build a culture that nourishes and inspires people, entrepreneurial applicants will flock to your company. Who wouldn’t want to work in an environment that encourages everyone to work their best and feel good while they’re doing it?

Culture and Cost

A lot of companies shy away from building a truly great culture. They think it’s either too expensive or not important enough. Well, companies that think like that are probably doomed.

Truly great companies look at the money spent on benefits and perks as investments in their culture and therefore investments in their people. For this, they can expect to be paid back tenfold in the quality of work they will receive from their employees in return.

“You better have a crazy compensation package on your dreary, white table if you think you are going to attract any top talent to your little, beige office. These top talents read enough blogs and watch enough TV to know what kinds of environments the best, cutting edge, start-up companies are offering.” – Cameron Herold

Culture and Success

Look at Google, one of the biggest and most successful companies on the planet. Their offices are bright, colorful, and packed with nap pods, pinball machines, and similar paraphernalia. Now, is Google staffed by slackers and goof-offs? Of course not! In fact, it basically has its pick of the top candidates in any field any time it hires.

“By creating an outstanding reputation, Google gets to pick and choose from the cream of the crop when recruiting. Then, as these innovative new hires inject new ideas and create new revenue streams, the company is able to sweeten their recruitment package even more. It’s a self-sustaining spiral of success.” – Cameron Herold

Some argue that it is high compensation and stock options that create the opportunity for great recruiting for Google. That simply isn’t true. Google’s rich culture is responsible for attracting the kind of talent that allows it to offer such rich packages.

It isn’t just video games or funky furniture that creates a great culture, though. It’s things like vacation time, how you encourage ideas, and even what you stock in the fridge that go far in fostering an environment of success. In other words, there is no blueprint for creating a winning company culture. Companies that get this are the companies that are built for success. Emulate them and you’ll see your business take off.

What do you value in company culture? Let us know in the comments below!

If you have questions or would like more information, I’d be happy to help. Please send an email, and my team will get in touch with you!

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in January 2013 and has been edited for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

All Work and No Play Keeps Good Employees Away

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Regardless of what your company does, the office is where serious work gets done. But does that mean the environment everyone works in has to be serious, too?

So many companies get this wrong. They think building a fun, light social atmosphere will invite horseplay and cause people to lose focus, and productivity will suffer as a result. But it’s been my experience that creating the right social environment is just as important to your company’s success as keeping productivity high. In fact, I argue you’ll never get the most out of your employees without building a workplace culture that makes them want to be at work.

Your company culture just may be the single biggest determinant of success or failure. It affects so many parts of your business, from hiring to sales to customer service. Companies that get this are already way ahead of their competition.

Take Achievers (formerly I Love Rewards), a client of mine. Every Friday at 3:00pm, their employee lounge becomes the Red Point Lounge and everyone gathers to imbibe in the company’s signature drink, the Red Point (1.5 shots of Crown Royal, 1.5 shots of Sour Puss + 3 shots of Red Bull, in case you were wondering.) It’s a fantastic way to let off some steam after a hard week. Everyone looks forward to it and catches up. They call it “First Drink Fridays”.

And there are unexpected side effects. For one, talk inevitably turns to what everyone’s been working on and what kinds of problems they’re been running into—that’s when things can get really interesting. I can’t tell you how many times these Friday afternoons have lead to impromptu brainstorming sessions. Mix up different departments, add a little liquid inspiration and you’ll be amazed at what kinds of creative solutions happy, motivated employees can come up with.

Secondly, these Red Point lounge sessions have become such a part of the company’s culture, they have printed up laminated cards detailing the drink’s ingredients for employees to use when they’re out of the office. These cards are an amazing icebreaker and unparalleled recruiting tool. People see the Achiever’s logo and know instantly that it is a progressive, fun place to work.

And have these social events turned the company into a laughing stock of half-­‐drunk misfits? Far from it. In fact, they have been voted one of the top companies in Canada to work for a few years in a row and continue to attract jaw-­‐dropping amounts of venture capital.

Am I suggesting you need to get your employees drunk every week to be successful? Of course not, but creating an environment where employees feel comfortable, free and appreciated is absolutely crucial. Don’t scoff at the power of team lunches or sponsoring office dodge ball teams or even organizing cliché events like bowling during office hours. Employees remember and respect the effort.

So let’s raise a glass to building a fun office environment. Next round is on me!

Top 5 Ways TINYpulse Improves Culture, Recognition, and Results

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I asked EOer David Niu, CEO of TINYpulse to write a guest blog post for me – I’m on his Board of Advisors… And I love what they are doing to help companies create awesome workplaces.

Try it out…

Enjoy –

Cameron

***

TINYpulse was inspired by interviews I had with business leaders from around the world about their pain when it came to culture, retention, and recognition. As a result, we built TINYpulse to address these issues and to help them get a pulse on how happy, frustrated, and burnt out their people are before retention sinks and issues become cancerous.

1. Assess How We’re Doing Today. When clients start with TINYpulse, we establish a baseline on how their company is performing and benchmark it against others. We quickly reveal (1) How happy the employees are (2) What percentage know the organization’s vision, mission, and cultural values (3) What the staff think the company does well. We’ve seen companies with Happiness Average as high as 9+ and as low as 3, and we’ve seen businesses where no one knows their vision, mission, and values (including the CEO).

2. Benchmark Improvement. We’re big believers that one can’t improve what they don’t measure. Once we have the baseline, we ask the Happiness question on a consistent basis to create trending. From our research, it takes 6 to 12 months of concerted effort from the management to generate long lasting cultural changes. This benchmark is vital to see how the office culture and morale trend over time as TINYpulse drives positive change.

3. Empower Employee Recognition. As a leader, I may be traveling in and out of the office, but that doesn’t mean that people aren’t going above and beyond for customers or their team. With Cheers for Peers, employees can give recognition to anyone either anonymously or with their name attached. It’s also hugely beneficial come performance review time when all Cheers can be sorted by recipient. It’s so popular that we’re humbled to receive feedback like the following on a regular basis:

The Cheers system is great. I love both receiving one and sending one. I have received and given recognition that would have otherwise gone unspoken.

4. Engage the Power of Team. What’s the worst thing that can happen after soliciting feedback from your team? Doing nothing about it! Sharing the responses, recognition, and suggestions back with the team is the most powerful way to engage them and crowdsource improvement. Of course, we allow the administrators to hide any comments that are insensitive or inappropriate.

5. Create a Safe Place. High performing and self-aware leaders cherish and value continuous 360 feedback from all those around them. However, it is challenging to receive frank feedback from those who they manage. So we’ve architected TINYpulse to protect anonymity (our commitment to anonymity) to create a safe place for employees to voice their opinions without fear of repercussion. Anonymity is key to creating a safe outlet before office talk turns toxic and issues turn into unexpected resignations. Here’s feedback we’ve received regarding anonymity:

You should also know that a group of us were on a break last week grousing about something (in the typically unproductive way that coworkers do) and TINYpulse came up and the conversation changed.  We felt like we had a safe way to honest provide feedback on the thing that was frustrating us, so we didn’t feel compelled to gossip and moan about it among ourselves.  That’s a powerful thing for keeping morale up and negative side-talk to a minimum.

At the end of the day, our mission is to “make employees happier” because happier employees provide better service, are more loyal, and are more productive. See how TINYpulse impacts buuteeq as the CEO and VP of Talent share their experience with screenshots:

Destroying Silos Isn’t Just for Farmers

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In the past, I’ve not been shy about my disdain for private offices. I’m a fan of open office environments, and while I was at 1-­800-­GOT-­JUNK?, we lived by it. No one had private offices. In fact, I often sat at desks in other business areas just to keep the pulse.

I have also always worked hard to ensure that silos don’t get created inside a company. “Cross Pollinating” can prove to be more successful than imagined.

The most obvious and immediate change is a big bump in company morale. Everyone’s social circles expand and department-­‐specific cliques disappear. Team relationships continue to be fostered in the day-­‐to-­‐day collaboration, but suddenly when business areas are working together, and walls are taken down both physically and metaphorically, you see members of the IT team eating lunch with HR staffers and sales guys reminiscing with folks from operations about their weekend hijinks. Human resource gurus spend their careers trying to foster that kind of team spirit, and it can be done by moving a few desks, and ensuring teams work together to select key projects to work on, and in working on them as well.

Another unexpected by-­‐product of cross-­‐pollination is a major improvement in how the business parts work together. Without silos, stakeholders from different departments develop a much better idea how other divisions function. Fresh sets of eyes and different backgrounds bring new solutions and better ways of doing things. Its remarkable.

In one instance, I witnessed a senior employee from sales was sitting amidst compliance and operations people. Through the regular office chitchat that surrounded him, he began to hear of repeated instances of waste we’d never even considered. He reported it up the chain and steps were taken to remedy it. That’s the kind of intel businesses need to stay solvent. It’s also the kind they pay consultants top dollar to unearth.

Some employees might pine over the plethora of knickknacks and photos they use to create a sense of home at their desk. This mobility doesn’t preclude them from personalizing their spaces, it only means they have to cut back a bit on the teddy bears or pictures of their cats.

Office managers might balk at the logistics of a rotating seating chart. But we are in an age where the entire contents of an old school office can fit inside a laptop the size of a legal envelope; there is no real need for rigid floor plans. Office workers are as mobile as ever, and the benefits of untethering and mixing them are great. Add that to the benefits of teams working on projects to drive the company goals & profitability as well, and the silos will fall.

I cover a lot more on culture here but only click if you’re keen to turn your company into a magnet for great employees.

For more information on this topic, check out: Building a World Class Culture.

 

The Love Guarantee (Guest Post by I Love Rewards)

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The Love Guarantee

109bThe members that constitute a business community drive the bus and create demand. Providing an innovative product is only half the battle. Sustained success lies in keeping customers happy and coming back for more. Any company can claim superior customer service, but can they walk the walk?

I Love Rewards has been wildly successful in this, and we have the raving fans to prove it. Here’s why every company should develop their own version of our Love Guarantee:

Clients don’t have power, end users do. Clients won’t keep buying a product the user isn’t happy with. Dedicate a team to manage member happiness, and not only will that keep members happy, but clients loyal.

Customers are brand ambassadors. Marketing dollars buy presence and are essential, but reputation and credibility in the business community trump when it comes down to closing a deal. Keep customers happy and they’ll go to bat for you when you call on them for prospect referrals.

Competitors offer a viable alternative (and are trying to do it better). Competitors are well versed in your strengths and weaknesses, so don’t grant them an opportunity to fill a gap in your customer service. Establish a guarantee that is open ended and maintain a stop-at-nothing attitude to take satisfaction to the ultimate level: loyalty.

An I Love Rewards member, Michael McNamara, recently redeemed points to surprise his wife with a night at the Horseshoe Resort for a birthday, wedding anniversary, and Mother’s Day celebration. Unfortunately the redemption certificate was slow to arrive and upon booking his stay the reservation was refused based on a new two-night minimum policy.

His call to Member Support brought a happy ending. Within minutes one of our representatives found the problem, and an above and beyond solution. The bad news was that the vendor had failed to communicate the resort’s policy change. The good news was that they offered to cover the cost of the second night. We took an extra step to have flowers delivered to the room. In response, we received these words of praise from Michael:

“As a manager for front line Call Center employees I can be very hard to impress as my expectations are extremely high. I am very happy to say you not only met but exceeded every expectation I had”

The Love Guarantee Lesson: The Love Guarantee is our secret ingredient, ensuring that clients and their members love everything about their interaction with our company. Our promise to customers is, “We’ll stop at nothing to make sure your program members love everything about their experience”. We convert system hiccups and member concerns into opportunities to exercise the outstanding service and make continuous improvements. We welcome and challenge you to borrow our idea to do the same.

For more information on this topic, check out: Building a World Class Culture.

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Meetings Suck: Turning One Of The Most Loathed Elements Of Business Into One Of The Most Valuable

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We all know that meetings suck, right?

You hear it all the time. It’s the one thing that almost everyone in business can agree on.

Except it’s not actually true… 

Meetings don’t suck.

We just suck at running meetings.   

When done right, meetings not only work, they make people and companies better.

In Meetings Suck, world renowned business expert and growth guru Cameron Herold teaches you how to use focused, time effective meetings to help you and your company soar.

This book shows you immediately actionable, step-by-step systems that ensure that you and everyone in your organization improves your meetings, right away.

In the process, you’ll turn meetings that suck into meetings that work. 

In life, we always hear about people who’ve made huge decisions from their gut – without data.Today, I want you to make a decision, not only from your gut, but also from some data.  A decision that is only $12 per employee but will be priceless for your business.

Right now, your gut is telling you something is wrong with your company’s meetings.  You KNOW everyone complains about meetings.

People HATE going to them, they HATE running them, and they really have NO idea which meetings are truly necessary but they hold meetings simply because they think that is what they SHOULD do.

Even some of the smartest CEOs in the world complain about meetings – Elon Musk publicly told employees at Tesla & SpaceX to walk out of meetings if they weren’t being run properly.

I sent Elon a message saying that wasn’t going to fix anything – the key is to fix the root of the problem – NOT continue to ignore why meetings suck.

A Meeting is – Any phone call, video call or occasion where 2 or more people meet to discuss or work-through office topics.

Most employees on average spend 1-2 hours per day in meetings.

And likely, none of those employees – front-line staff or leaders – have had any training on how to attend meetings or participate in them, LET ALONE How to RUN THEM.

Consider this…

If the Average employee spends just 1 Hour per day in meetings – that’s 1/8th of their time.

If the Average employee earns $50,000 per year.

And they’re spending 1/8th of their time in meetings, that means you’re paying $6,250 dollars per year for just ONE employee to attend meetings.

The reality is, employees spend 1/8th of their time – and 1/8th of your company’s payroll – doing something they have literally NO idea how to do.

The Reality is…

95% of employees are booking & leading meetings – and they have NEVER been trained on how to run them.

95% of employees have had NO training on how to show up and participate in the meetings they attend daily.

And 95% of employees and companies have no idea what meetings are even necessary to hold.

Meetings CAN be hugely effective – IF you know how to run them

Meetings don’t SUCK, we just SUCK at running meetings. 

Investing $15 per employee – to help ensure the $50,000 a year you spend on them is an obvious and easy choice.

This could be the most impactful $15 you’ll ever spend and will save the company’s money, time and resources instantly.

Buying a copy of Meetings Suck for 100% of your employees and having them read it this month will have a huge impact on your company’s success.

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Free PR: How To Get Chased By The Press Without Hiring A PR Firm

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Public relations has always been an essential part of doing business which is probably why you’re shelling out big money to an outside PR firm. But the truth is that you don’t need them. You already have all the necessary tools in-house to do as good a job as the so-called experts. 

Cameron Herold and Adrian Salamunovic have taught thousands of company execs how to exploit free media coverage and ditch these expensive, often ineffective outsiders. 

Cameron & Adrian have also built in-house PR teams, spent decades learning how to generate Free PR and how to leverage public relations to complement their sales and marketing strategy. 

In Free PR, you’ll learn how the media world operates while you gain invaluable insider knowledge and actionable advice on how to: 

  • Build your own in-house PR team
  • Provide effective interviews
  • Score great media coverage for free with just a few easy steps 

Landing public relations coverage for yourself and your company is a powerful tool to help elevate your personal brand. PR is easier to generate than marketing, PR is easier to leverage than marketing and PR is more cost effective than marketing. In other words, Public Relations is more critical than ever in growing your brand and your business. 

You’ve got more passion, commitment, a larger stake, and a deeper understanding of your business than any outside PR firm could ever have. So stop wasting money and take the reins yourself.  Learn the secrets to landing TONS of Free PR for your company.

What they’re saying:

“I think PR is the core for promoting any business. Public relations acquires customers! That’s what’s cool about this book.”

– Kevin O’Leary,  Shark on ABC’s Shark Tank

“The ultimate guidebook for those looking to get press, grow their brand, and get in front of the masses. Free PR is the roadmap you’ve been looking for.”

– Peter Shankman, Founder, Help a Reporter Out (HARO)

“Adrian and Cameron will show you the secrets of getting massive exposure for your business. This book is packed with actionable insights from two guys that actually know how to to do it.”

– Dan Martell,  Serial Entrepreneur & Investor (Intercom.io, Unbounce)

“I told Cameron to write the book on generating free PR. I’m excited to see that he’s finally sharing his secrets with the world. This is a must read for any entrepreneurial company and marketing team.”

– Verne Harnish, Founder of Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) and author of Scaling Up (Rockefeller Habits 2.0)

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Vivid Vision: A Remarkable Tool For Aligning Your Business Around a Shared Vision of the Future

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Many corporations have slick, flashy mission statements that ultimately do little to motivate employees and less to impress customers, investors, and partners. 

But there is a way to share your excitement for the future of your company in a clear, compelling, and powerful way and entrepreneur and business growth expert Cameron Herold can show you how. 

Vivid Vision is a revolutionary tool that will help owners, CEOs, and senior managers create inspirational, detailed, and actionable three-year mission statements for their companies. In this easy-to-follow guide, Herold walks organization leaders through the simple steps to creating their own Vivid Vision, from brainstorming to sharing the ideas to using the document to drive progress in the years to come. 

By focusing on mapping out how you see your company looking and feeling in every category of business, without getting bogged down by data and numbers or how it will happen, Vivid Vision creates a holistic road map to success that will get all of your teammates passionate about the big picture. 

Your company is your dream, one that you want to share with your staff, clients, and stakeholders. Vivid Vision is the tool you need to make that dream a reality.

miracle-morning

The Miracle Morning for
Entrepreneurs: Elevate Your SELF to
Elevate Your BUSINESS

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READY FOR EXPLOSIVE GROWTH AS AN ENTREPRENEUR AND ACCELERATED SUCCESS IN THE REST OF YOUR LIFE?

A step-by-step guide to enjoying the roller-coaster ride of growth — while getting the most out of life as an entrepreneur. A growth-focused approach: The book is divided into three sections, which cover planning for fast growth, building a company for fast growth, and leading for fast growth. Each topic the author covers — from creating a vision for the company’s future to learning how to generate free PR for a developing company — is squarely focused on the end goal: doubling the size of the entrepreneur’s company in three years or less. A down-to-earth action plan: Herold’s experienced-based advice never gets bogged down in generalities or theory. Instead, he offers a wealth of practical tips, including: How to design meetings for maximum efficiency; How to hire top-quality talent; How to grow in particularly tough markets; How to put together a board of advisors — even for a smaller company; How even the busy entrepreneur can achieve a work/life balance.

READY FOR EXPLOSIVE GROWTH AS AN ENTREPRENEUR AND ACCELERATED SUCCESS IN THE REST OF YOUR LIFE?

Hal Elrod’sThe Miracle Morning has helped redefine the mornings and the lives of millions of readers since 2012. Since then, careers have been launched, goals have been met, and dreams have been realized, all through the power of the Miracle Morning’s six Life S.A.V.E.R.S.

THESE SIX DAILY PRACTICES WILL FUEL YOUR EFFORTS TO CREATE AND SUSTAIN POSITIVE CHANGE IN YOUR LIFE.

Now The Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs brings you these principles in a whole new light—alongside the Entrepreneurial Elevation Principles and the Entrepreneur’s Elevation Skills. These are essential skills that you need to create a successful business and personal life. Cameron Herold— Bestselling Author and a widely-respected expert on entrepreneurial mindset—brings his wisdom and insight to you using Hal Elrod’s powerful Miracle Morning framework.

DEVELOP A VISION FOR YOUR BUSINESS, AND BECOME THE INFLUENTIAL AND INSPIRING LEADER YOU WERE ALWAYS MEANT TO BE.

The principles and skills you’ll find in this book will help you to channel your passion and achieve balance in a remarkable new way. – Learn why mornings matter more than you think – Learn how to master your own self-leadership and accelerate your personal development – Learn how to manage your energy—physical, mental, and emotional – Learn how to implement Hal Elrod’s invaluable Life S.A.V.E.R.S. in your daily routine – And much more… You’re already an entrepreneur. Now discover how to take your success to the next level by first taking yourself to the next level. The Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs is your roadmap to masterfully building an empire with a powerful vision, utilizing your areas of personal genius, with the right team at your side.

Start giving your business and your life the very best opportunities for success, right now.

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Double Double: How To Double Your Revenue And Profit In 3 Years Or Less​

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A step-by-step guide to enjoying the roller-coaster ride of growth — while getting the most out of life as an entrepreneur. A growth-focused approach: The book is divided into three sections, which cover planning for fast growth, building a company for fast growth, and leading for fast growth. Each topic the author covers — from creating a vision for the company’s future to learning how to generate free PR for a developing company — is squarely focused on the end goal: doubling the size of the entrepreneur’s company in three years or less. A down-to-earth action plan: Herold’s experienced-based advice never gets bogged down in generalities or theory. Instead, he offers a wealth of practical tips, including: How to design meetings for maximum efficiency; How to hire top-quality talent; How to grow in particularly tough markets; How to put together a board of advisors — even for a smaller company; How even the busy entrepreneur can achieve a work/life balance.