by Belinda Lui | Jan 2, 2014 | Business Success, Latest
It’s common at the end of each year to reflect upon what happened, what worked, and what we can learn from. In our personal lives, we make resolutions to improve certain areas that aren’t up to par – so why should it be any different for your business? It isn’t good enough to simply resolve to be better if you can’t measure and quantify this success. Learnings are a crucial aspect to improving but only knowing that something went wrong isn’t quite the same as knowing how it went wrong.
Measure this year’s success with the following tools:
1. Website:
A great measuring tool for your web ranking is Alexa Sparky: it provides a global and national ranking for your website in comparison to other sites on the internet. Knowing where you stand against your competitors is a great way to measure site appeal. Google Analytics is another great way to measure website successes: this tool breaks down the traffic for each page and subpage of your website.
2. Social Media:
Buffer, Instafollow, and Sprout Social are all great ways to measure followers, demographics, and behaviour on your social media accounts. Sprouts Social even allows for you to generate white label reports on your statistics.
3. Blog:
Wordpress Jetpack Site Stats is a great plug-in to add to your blog so that you can measure the likeability of each post and compare the success of them to other posts you’ve written.
4. Internal:
Create a spreadsheet that clearly lists quantifiable goals such as, “50 new clients/month” or “website refresh by February 1, 2014”. It’s great to set goals but if you have no way to measure the successes, then it is impossible to put things into perspective.
There are a plethora of tools available to measure the goals you’ve set out to achieve this year.
What are some of the tools that you use to measure success? We’d love to hear your thoughts!
by Belinda Lui | Dec 30, 2013 | Business Success, Latest
I was once told by a friend that success is to “work smarter, not harder” — what she meant by this, was that it isn’t impressive to be the last person to leave the office if it’s because it takes you 12 hours to complete a task that might only take 5 hours for someone else to do. We get caught up in the details, paralyzed by fear of making mistakes if we work faster. We might feel a little unmotivated at times because our position isn’t a challenging one. And if it is an overly-challenging position, we might even feel burnt out and too overwhelmed to do better. So what to do?
Here are some ways to work smarter, AND harder for success:
1. Show up, Sit Down, Get it Done
This point seems like common sense, but it’s surprisingly not. A lot of people shy away from the opportunity to own a project or job task. The way I see it, don’t make excuses or create hurdles for yourself — just show up, sit down, and get it done.
2. Reputation, no matter the industry, follows you
We think that the things that we do may not come back to haunt us, but what we might be forgetting is how small this world actually is (especially with social media). Impressions (first, second, and one hundredth) are extremely important. All it takes sometimes is one bad review to cancel out all of your great achievements when trying to land your next gig.
3. Flexibility and fun breeds innovation
It’s important to have structure in your workflow but not necessarily in your workplace. If you find that you’re much more productive in a coffee shop or with headphones in, then do what works for you. Oh, and have some fun while doing it.
4. Breathe. Don’t let the nerves get to you.
We all have moments at work when things seem to be a bit overwhelming – a deadline, a boss, a co-worker, all of the above, etc. The key to success here, is to breathe. Things aren’t as bad as they seem. If you can keep calm and divide and conquer, I promise things will be easier.
5. Be the hardest worker.
Contrary to what my friend told me, I think it’s important to be the hardest worker as well as a smart worker. Being smart isn’t enough if you’re lazy or doing your work without intention. The trouble with choosing one over the other is that you think that they aren’t two separate entities that need to work together in order to achieve success. Work smarter, AND harder.
What advice do you have to be a smarter and harder worker to achieve success?
by Belinda Lui | Dec 27, 2013 | Design, Latest
Innovation can be defined in many ways. You can deliver innovative design or an innovative user experience. In any scenario, innovation stems from the desire to either create something unique and original that has never existed before, or to take an existing product or service and make it even better. Here at 3H, we thrive on the being innovative and thus, put together a list of some of the companies we thought were the most innovative companies of 2013:
2013’s Most Innovative Companies:
1. Burberry: The company’s cutting-edge vision of creating a new user experience brought the runway to the physical stores — through the mirrors. Using RFID chips, which can be read by screens and mirrors, when a customer is trying on clothes, the mirrors can respond by showing images of how it was worn on the catwalk or details of the garment’s construction.
2. Sephora: It’s exceedingly frustrating to choose a foundation when your skin tone keeps changing with the seasons. Without an endless cycle of trial and error, finding the right colour can be a tedious task. Thankfully, Sephora has a handheld device, whose technology is based on that used in graphic design, which holds over 1,000 SKUs of colour to determine an exact match for customers.
3. Flipp App: This is an app that aggregates information from users and retailers to provide the ability to search flyers by interest and your location. Magazines have gone digital, why wouldn’t flyers? This is considered one of 2013’s most innovative companies because they identified a need: making a necessary part of everyday life more convenient, while being environmentally friendly.
4. Crate & Barrel: The retailer’s 3D Room Designer gives customers the ability to ‘try on’ a piece of furniture in their rooms before buying it. Users simply upload a photo of the room they would like to furnish to Crate and Barrel’s online platform and provide their room’s dimensions. The photo is the wiped clean of its furniture, enabling shoppers to substitute pieces from the retailer’s online catalog and visualize them as they would appear in the room. Shoppers can then email the modified photo of their room to the nearest Crate and Barrel and schedule a personal design appointment with an associate.
5. Uniqlo: The Japanese clothing giant has made “fast fashion actually fashionable” (a distinction that some other fast-fashion retailers might disagree with), citing its collaborations with such designers as Jil Sander and Rei Kawakubo.
What examples of innovative companies weren’t mentioned here? We’d love to hear your comments!
by Belinda Lui | Dec 24, 2013 | Latest, Social Media
If you’re a company that’s looking to hire for Social Media Consulting, there’s a lot to consider prior to engaging with a consultant. Understandably, without a clear understanding of how social media exactly works, hiring on outside source may seem daunting. For starters, and to facilitate proliferation, your consultant must learn how your company works… and what is is all about in terms of products, services and brands. More importantly a sound knowledge of company culture, voice and persona is integral in establishing a social media context. Only then, can one create and deliver a social media strategy to spread ‘social’ throughout your organization.
Social Media Consulting should begin with research, followed by a concise strategy, finally resulting in a transparent and easily understandable analytic report.
But in the meantime, here’s what you should be hearing from your consultant:
“What’s your goal?” Some social media gurus think the big prize is community. That’s a fine start, but for a business, it’s also a means to an end–which is whatever your company’s larger goals are, whether they be sales, brand awareness, or traffic. Your social strategy should not end with the creation of an online conversation.
“Here’s the ROI.” Consultants may tell you that social investments can’t be justified in a quantifiable way. Wrong. The data is out there. If they want you to spend $75,000 on a Foursquare badge, they should explain how that investment will help you reach your goals.
“I don’t care about follower counts.” Companies obsess over how many followers they have, and consultants play to that. But Facebook ads and “Like this page” contests often don’t boost consumer engagement. Rather, you should be courting influencers–trusted insiders with engaged followers (such as bloggers, niche celebrities, or active tweeters), who can help spread your message.
“Facebook and Twitter are only a start.” Consultants should know which platforms are best for your businesses. For example, if you are a fashion designer and your consultant isn’t talking about collage platform Polyvore, they’re doing something wrong.
“Let’s look at data.” Your consultant should find smart ways to interpret data that platforms provide, and track down new data sources as well. They should also identify the best social measurement, management, and listening tools for your company’s needs, so you can look up those data yourself after they’re gone.
“Your website should be social.” Don’t just rely on other platforms. Your consultant should optimize your own site for sharing and data collection. To start, connect to Facebook’s Open Graph and measure social activity–including “likes”–within your domain, in addition to measuring that activity within Facebook itself.
(Information from: Fast Company)
What are some of the success/horror stories of when you’ve worked with social media consulting companies?
by Belinda Lui | Dec 20, 2013 | Communications, Latest
The art of communicating, in my opinion, isn’t given enough weight when discussing business success. Being able to formulate questions that deliver useful answers, is a skill that every professional (and people, in general) should hone to ensure a better chance at success. Good questions can move your business, organization, or career forward. They squeeze incremental value from interactions, the drops of which add up to reservoirs of insight.
The problem is, most of us ask terrible questions. We talk too much and accept bad answers (or worse, no answers). We’re too embarrassed to be direct, or we’re afraid of revealing our ignorance, so we throw softballs, hedge, and miss out on opportunities to grow.
But we don’t have to.
The following advice can help you with communicating, not to mention being a better conversationalist:
Don’t Ask Multiple-Choice Questions
When people are nervous, they tend to ramble, and their questions tend to trail off into a series of possible answers. (“What’s the most effective way to find a good programmer? Is it to search on Monster or to go on LinkedIn or to talk to people you know or … uh… uh… yeah, is it to, um…is there another job site that’s good …?”) You’re the one with the question; why are you doing all the talking? Terminate the sentence at the question mark. It’s OK to be brief.
Don’t Fish
“The really ‘bad’ questions are leading ones–the questions where you’re fishing for a particular answer,” says veteran journalist Clive Thompson. First of all, if you know the answer, why are you asking? If you’re seeking confirmation on something you already suspect, ask objectively, and ask directly. You’ll come off as confident (and less of a chump), and you’ll get more honest answers.
Interject With Questions When Necessary
Stopping a conversation to ask the right questions is far superior to nodding along in ignorance. Notice how great interviewers like Larry King or Jon Stewart maintain control of their conversations; it’s almost always through polite interruptions–not with things they want to say, but with questions that keep the Q&A on course. Mature people will rarely be upset by interruptions that let them continue talking. To the contrary, additional questions make people feel like they’re being listened to.
Repeat Answers Back For Clarification Or More Detail
If you’re getting vague responses–or complicated ones for that matter–restate the answers in your own words. (“So, your software will email me any time there are important news stories in my industry?”) This will typically yield either a definitive “that’s correct,” or a clarification with extra detail. Either way, it’s useful for getting a precise answer.
Don’t Be Embarrassed
The worst kind of question is the one left unasked. There’s typically no point in pretending you know something when you don’t. People are much kinder than we often give them credit for. If you are unsure about something, just ask.
And if you ask a bad question from time to time, it’s okay. It happens to the best of us. The advice in this article, however, is a good starting point to asking better questions, communicating more effectively, and moving forward in your professional success.
(Information from: Fast Company)
What other tips can you suggest for asking better questions?
