Archive for category: Build A Better Business

At the beginning of 2021 Kia launched a new logo as part of a brand refresh. Kia chose for symmetry and rhythm. This logo was meant to show a commitment to transformation underlining the new tagline, “movement that inspires.” Yet, while many people can recognize the “KIA” letters within its new look, there are still tens of thousands of searches for “KN Car” each month.

At the moment if you search for “What is KN Car,” you’re going to get a full page of non-Kia websites writing about the confusion regarding the logo. You’ll only find two Kia stories on page one of your search, both from savvy dealers who took the time to write SEO-winning content. These search results, more than two years after the logo change, represent a wasted opportunity for Kia, but some great lessons for business owners.

Know What Others Are Saying About You

Most businesses these days have to have a digital strategy, which includes monitoring what is being said about your business, either by reviews, inbound links, or general chatter (think of Google Alerts for various keywords).

It seems that early on that Kia knew people were confused about the rebrand, but didn’t really help those who were. Even now, as noted above, you only find a couple dealerships that have addressed the issue.

With a fraction of the budget that it spent on the brand refresh, Kia could have built some marketing campaigns to win the search results through paid and organic results.

Paid Strategy

Kia could have launched a keyword campaign to advertise for those searching for “KN Car.” These people were curious enough to ask the Internet after seeing the logo in real life and might even have been potential customers.

The advertising links could have clicked through to explainer pages similar to the ones done by the dealers we mentioned or to something more fun and self-deprecating (though the latter would have assumed some kind of humility regarding the logo failure).

Semi-Paid Strategy

Kia could also have written some of its own content, some of it serious and some of it fun, while encouraging it to be picked up by media outlets always looking for news. They may have tasked some internal assets with creating the content, while the organic reach that the content would garner would be free.

Don’t Abandon Your Branding

Perhaps the biggest mistake Kia made in this brand refresh was going from a globally recognizable logo to something abstract and asymmetrical. Worse, it was so strong a departure from the previous logo as to be unrecognizable for many. 

If we’ve learned anything in the era of Nike, Apple, and Chipotle, it is that consumers gravitate (understandably) towards simple logos. This also makes marketing easier, since complicated logos can be harder to reproduce in various sizes and formats.

If you’ve got something that works and your customers know, go for smaller changes rather than radical ones.

Don’t Be Afraid to Say You Were Wrong

Kia could have done what Gap did exactly six days after releasing their new logo in 2010: go back to the previous one. The backlash against the logo from allies of the brand and even neutral consumers was enough to realize they messed up.

While it didn’t mean Gap didn’t have egg on its face from the attempt at a new logo, it did mean that they at least began to wipe most of that egg away.

Are you thinking about a new logo or a brand refresh in general? We know some experts who can help you with that. Give us a call.

Most business owners today remember when the big computer concern for their businesses was antivirus software. Then came phishing and those strange links in your email you weren’t supposed to click. But what is coming now is a perfect storm of ransomware and difficult-to-trace cryptocurrency. Before you become one of the many business owners who say, “I didn’t think it could happen to me,” you should take the time to make sure your business is secure… or you might end up losing it entirely.

What is Ransomware?

Ransomware is what it sounds like. Various vectors that can be used to trigger an attack often encrypt all or almost all of a company’s vital systems, making them inaccessible unless unlocked by a decrypt key. Threat actors offer the decrypt key in exchange for a ransom, usually to be paid in cryptocurrencies like bitcoin which are difficult, but not impossible, to trace. As companies without other resorts fold to the pressure, even if they do pay a ransom and get a decrypt key, they face a possible exodus of customers who have lost confidence after an attack.

Why Me?

So often cybersecurity experts will lead off a talk by referencing some Main Street business, say an accounting firm in Idaho with five employees, sharing that the first reaction from the ownership of that business after they got ransomwared was, “I didn’t think it would happen to me.” This is due in part to sensational news stories of high-profile breaches. But those stories should set alarms off, not make business owners complacent.

If large companies, with entire departments dedicated to cybersecurity, can still get breached, how likely is it that you could too? Even LastPass, a company who knew it had a target on its back (because it stores passwords) was breached recently. The threat actors want the same things from these big companies as they want from the smaller ones:

1. Data: if you have proprietary technology, state-backed threat actors may come to take it to give their country’s industries a nudge forward.
2. Money: since most people are ill-prepared to deal with a ransomware situation, they are willing to pay up to receive a decrypt key and stop the pain.
3. Customers: if the threat actor can get their hands on the information of your clients, they have even more opportunities for ransom. Threat actors know that that Idaho accounting firm, even if it only had 50 clients, was an opportunity for multiple hits, especially if they went after the clients of the clients, and so on.

Basic Security Measures

The same cybersecurity experts who talk about the attack on the Main Street business that never expected it also note that even the most basic cybersecurity measures were not in place. Weak passwords were permitted, or weren’t regularly forced to be changed, or were written on post-it notes on the computer. All because people were “irritated” at security measures.

No one wants friction between tasks, or wants to verify a login with a text message code, but these are measures that were not dreamt up by the nerds in IT, but are basic responses to ever-escalating attacks from threat actors who want to exploit basic societal norms of trust. Here are some basic cybersecurity measures all businesses need to take:

• Keep clean machines: make sure your computers are using the latest security software, browsers, and operating systems and that they are consistently patched for software updates.
• Have a firewall in place for your Internet connection.
• Make regular backups of important business data and information and store them in physical and cloud locations.
• Train your team in cybersecurity principles and establish penalties for violations of company cybersecurity policies. These policies should include the use of unique passwords that should change every 90 days, however annoying that is to everyone. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is also a must, which requires additional verification beyond a password.

Finally, the “when, not if” plan involves having a cybersecurity action plan, which is a written (printed-out, in case it gets encrypted along with the rest of your data) document outlining how a company responds to incidents. A key partner for creating this action plan, beyond your IT team, will be a cyberinsurance company, like Datastream, who has had experience drafting cybersecurity action plans and keeps up with industry best practices.

Need some help getting your cybersecurity house in order? We know some nerds who can help! Give us a call.

Over the past three years we’ve talked about the rise of remote work and questioned the future of office space. Those questions have accompanied disruptions in business, including companies insisting they would never go remote (until they did) and that they would always retain office space (until they didn’t). Still, as old-school managers insisted on a 100% return-to-office policy, and employees with newfound leverage refused, hybrid work has emerged as a compromise of the moment. But can it last?

Pain Points

One of the reasons people don’t like coming into the office is a commute. Long commutes have been shown to lead to lower job satisfaction and productivity and a recent study showed that up to a third of employees would be willing to take a pay cut in exchange for a shorter commute (or no commute at all). Of that third, almost 90% would take a cut as high as 20% of their salaries.

But apart from the downside of a commute, aren’t there positives to in-person working? Definitely.

One of the challenges many companies shared, particularly those who did not previously have remote work as part of their organizations, was the difficulty of imparting culture, particularly in the onboarding process. Many were used to activities like job shadowing or the informal interactions that build trust and camaraderie that happen in hallways or at water coolers that just can’t happen in things like “virtual happy hours,” however well-intentioned such cringe events are.

Factors in Considering Hybrid

So what do companies need to consider if they aren’t fully committed to remote work as the no-turning-back future but also know something big has happened and demands of “everyone back to the office” are falling on deaf ears and leading to resignations of some of their top talent? While each company has different needs, these four factors are common considerations when deciding if hybrid work makes sense:

1. Productivity — are your team members more productive at the office or working remotely? There’s been plenty of time to accrue data on this question.
2. Physical Space — do you need the same level of physical space that you did prior to the pandemic? If a large amount of your team is now remote, they don’t need permanent work stations.
3. Client Wants — are clients expecting to see you in person, and if so, are they expecting the sort of space that you had prior to the pandemic?
4. Talent Acquisition — what are the employees you are currently recruiting asking for? Do they want to come into an office, or are they expecting at least some kind of remote arrangement?

The answers to these questions will determine whether a company should use a hybrid work environment to bridge differences in their staff, or fully commit to one form of work or another. While some advocates of hybrid work seem to point to this as a wave of the future, others see it as an uneasy compromise or necessary phase for companies to use in order to find their future path, which may lie in remote or traditional working.

How Does Hybrid Work?

Many companies are requiring 2-3 coordinated days in the office, usually in the middle of the week to offer people maximum flexibility with their weekends. The rest of the week is remote. On the in-person days leadership knows everyone will be together so certain meetings are prioritized on these days. With the emphasis on collaboration, often these days will not be times for the focused, deep work that remote work can empower, but for the sorts of casual drop-in interactions that can help drive team cohesion and understanding.

Companies are also offering more social interactions on these days, whether that’s lunches together or drinks after work, to maximize the shorter amount of in-person time people have, giving them some time with their colleagues that can help power the rest of the week and give them something to look forward to the week after.

There are no “rules” for hybrid work. Many companies are writing those rules now, for however long hybrid work remains a phenomenon. But perhaps what business owners should most consider is not so much what they want or prefer, but what their team members want. 

If they are building a business to sell, they need to look forward to how things will be done in the future, not on “how things have always been done.” A seller wants to take over a business in which the issues of how the company works have already been settled — whether by experimentation or practice — not something he/she is going to have to figure out after you leave.

Are you thinking about your work environment and how to prepare it for a future sale? We’d love to talk to you about it. Give us a call today.

We’ve talked about the value of annual meetings to help summarize the year that was and to look at the year to come. One of the tools you can use to frame an entire year is a watchword.

Some may already be familiar with watchwords as a tool for personal development. A watchword is a word or phrase that expresses a core aim or belief. For example, people might choose “family” or “fitness” or “love” to help them stay focused on a particular goal that year.

Now a watchword doesn’t do well on its own. It has to be tied to specific routines and KPIs in order to have an effect. If you claim your watchword for a given year is “fitness” and you have no fitness plans or goals, that watchword will become a joke, like “fit-ness whole pizza in my mouth.”

If you haven’t had a business watchword for the year before, the best time to implement it would be at the year-end meeting or something similar. Employees are then given a sense of what the next year will be about, and that word will be something to rally around all year.

How to Determine a Business Watchword

There are many questions business owners can ask themselves to determine a watchword:

• What does the business need more of in the year ahead?
• What does it need less of?
• What one thing can the company do to be more successful next year?
• What have we struggled with in the past that we want to finally beat this year?

Once you’re clear on a word, then you’ll want to frame a narrative around it.

The word doesn’t have to be fancy. It could be something as simple as sales. Let’s say your revenues have been flat or not growing as much as you would like. Setting “sales” or “revenue” or “add more revenue” as watchwords puts all departments on the same page: this is what matters this year. When, for example, operations is reminded that “sales” is the watchword for the year, it can not only think about ways to cut costs to make those sales stand out more, but also look for tools and aids to help the sales team do better.

Add KPIs

As we noted already, a watchword doesn’t mean anything without a plan and KPIs. Let’s stick with our example of “sales.” Let’s say that you want to grow revenues 7%. You’ll need to look at your existing lines of revenue first in order to make up that number. Add on any new lines of revenue you hope to introduce.

You can then create a plan to reach those KPIs as a finish line.

Setting an annual goal and setting a plan to reach it is nothing new for most business owners. But sometimes the way a goal is achieved is by psychological markers here or there that help nudge someone forward, particularly when they are feeling weak or demoralized.

The same is true of a business. Every fiscal year is a long slog for business owners and their team members. By having a watchword to guide the year, at least one particular focus will stay in front of everyone for the year, giving it that extra psychological boost, and helping coordinate team efforts around a single idea.

If your watchword for the year is “systematize” or “prep for sale” we’ve got you covered! Give us a call.

Even in the last decade we may have been astonished at the pace of change in technology just in our personal lives. Imagine what it’s been like for businesses, and even more so, for businesses more than ten years old. But in that change lies a lot of opportunity, and we often see a lot of prospective buyers’ eyes light up when they hear how “behind the times” a successful business is. That’s because being “behind” technologically signals a whole lot of opportunity. 

If a business is successful despite not having a website (or a good one), or the owner thinks SEO is some new band the kids like these days, or the 1970s is calling, asking for their branding back, that means customers like or need the products and services enough that they don’t care. 

But that also means that every effort into these areas will gain new customers and enhance links with the ones you already have. Bottom line? These changes offer a lot of upside with not a whole lot of investment. Here are some areas that buyers should be scrutinizing during diligence, to add to their “get this improved ASAP” list.

Bad Branding

Sometimes companies are long overdue for a brand refresh or even a rebranding. The logos and taglines were done ages ago when the company first started out and haven’t been touched since. This may have been because the company has been doing well and it hasn’t been top of mind. But that doesn’t mean that an improved brand won’t gain more business.

This is especially true if that improved branding is seen on window displays or vehicle wraps or other advertising venues.

Website

Websites have come a long way from the equivalent of hanging an online shingle. Today’s websites have to perform many key functions. Just a few of them include:

• Brand representation — does your company look professional through a clean and easy to navigate website?
• Consumer education — customers now come to websites to learn about the products and services you offer. Do you have content for them, in audio, visual, and written form, that they can consume in their preferred format?
• Email capture — is there a way for website visitors to get on your mailing list so they’re getting your news, information and offers?
• Call to action — now that they’ve found you and educated themselves, do you give them an opportunity to act, whether that means giving you their contact information or actually making a purchase?

No SEO

One of the keys for any business is getting found in search, whether that’s through traditional searching by keywords, or newer forms of search like voice through tools like Siri or Alexa. You can earn your search ranking through solid and persistent content or you can pay for your ranking. Either way, potential customers can find you, but if you’re not doing any SEO, you’re not even there to be found.

No Backoffice Tech

There are so many pieces of software out there that make life easier for business owners and allow them to collect data on their prospects and clients. But many businesses are still functioning with paper and pencil…and fax machines (seriously!) Again, there’s nothing wrong with that. These businesses have been successful for a reason. But without that tech assist, there’s a ceiling as to what they can do.

With communication tools like Slack or marketing tools like Hubspot or SEO research software like Ahrefs, the sky’s the limit as to how you can communicate with your team or keep customers in your sphere of influence or what you can know about the customer journey.

Final Thoughts

None of these changes will cost new owners a lot of money. In fact, they are all classic examples of low investment, high return. And remember, the reason these changes were never made is likely because the owner wasn’t aware of them, because they were too busy running a successful business. That’s a good problem to have, right? And it’s even better to, in a way, gift these easy wins to the new owners. 

If you’re looking for businesses that offer these early easy wins, we’ve always got new ones listing each week. But call us soon, as they tend to go fast.