Message Over Madness

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We’ve all heard the term “cleanliness is next to godliness” at some point in our lives. Its wisdom has followed us from our teenage bedrooms to our homes and our offices. Nothing says focus like a well-organized desk or ‘delicious meal’ like a sparkling kitchen.

There’s a reason this sentiment is so powerful. Science tells us that disorder makes it difficult for our brains to focus on a task and that cleanliness in one’s home is directly related to stress levels and mental wellbeing.

So, what does this have to do with your business? Consider how often people interact with your company. Now think about how often they come across your website, your sell sheet, or through our office doors. Every time they do that, they interact with your brand, messaging, and organizational personality.

Now think about your value proposition. Can you concisely tell someone what you do? In less than three sentences? How about just one sentence?

Getting back on message

It may come as a surprise, but many business owners struggle to explain to other people what they do. This is often because business leaders think of their organization as a series of reasons, actions, and results, each as important as the next. While this may be true when defining everything a business does, it can become extremely messy when trying to communicate your value to someone else.

This leads to misleading, messy, misaligned messaging (excuse the alliteration). The triple Ms can result in:

  • Website pages with way too much information, overwhelming visitors
  • Sell sheets that confuse instead of educating
  • Sales conversations that lead to headaches
  • Employees who struggle to stay aligned with organizational goals

Begin by asking the question: when people visit your website, how quickly will they be able to tell what you do? How easily will they be able to identify if your solution is right for them?

Our daily lives are filled with clutter, no matter how clean our home is. We have junk mail to sort through, advertisements interrupting our shows, traffic to navigate, and unnecessary meetings to get through. When it comes to finding solutions to our problems, we don’t have a ton of extra space in our brain to give to finding that solution.

The bottom line?

People won’t stick around to try and sus through your confusing website. They’ll leave for an easier one to understand. And they’ll make the decision in less than 20 seconds.

Every business offers a solution, whether you’re selling sweaters or software, which means that every business, everywhere, needs a clear value proposition. The clearer the value proposition, the more effective your messaging efforts will be. And the clearer your messaging, the easier it is to attract and retain customers and even employees.

A great value proposition should:

  • be easily remembered by every one of your employees,
  • be written in less than three sentences, and
  • be clear to any layperson who comes across it.

If you’re looking for some inspiration, check out these three books that can help you write a value proposition and clarify your message:

  1. Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller
  2. Start with Why by Simon Sinek
  3. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

A clear value proposition isn’t just good for your messaging. It’s good for your clients, prospects, and even your employees. The clarity it provides sifts down through every conversation, interaction, and decision made around your business. It creates trust and dependability, and it removes friction. If you’re truly interested in helping your organization remove the clutter, start by developing a powerful value proposition.

 

Content provided by Q4iNetwork and partners

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Pet Insurance – A Pet Owner's Best Friend

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Animal healthcare costs are rising, with $31.4 billion spent on veterinary visits and care in 2020. Because of this, pet owners tend to go into credit card debt and miss a payment on bills to pay for their pet’s care. In fact, a survey of 1,000 pet owners found that 45% of pet owners spend the same amount, or more, on their pet’s healthcare than they do on their own. 

If your employees have pets, chances are they consider them to be well-loved and beloved family members. Pet insurance may be a benefit you want to offer to your employees.

What is pet insurance, and what does it cover?

Pet insurance pays—in part or total—for veterinary treatment of a person’s ill or injured pet. It covers things like:

  • General wellness exams
  • Booster shots and vaccinations
  • Flea prevention
  • Medical costs for emergency care
  • Chronic conditions (e.g., arthritis)
  • Acute illnesses (e.g., allergic reactions)
  • Acute injuries (e.g., a bone fracture)

What is the main benefit of pet insurance?

Having pet insurance ensures that cost will be less of a factor when it comes to providing pets the best possible care. With the average veterinary visit being between $50 to $400 on average, and the average emergency vet visit costing between $800 to $1500, employees will not have to choose between paying a bill or going into debt to give their pet the care they need.

What are the other benefits of pet insurance?

1. Delivers peace of mind

Not having pet insurance can make employees who own pets more stressed if they don’t know how to pay for their pet’s care, either preventatively or during an emergency. By offering this benefit, employees may be less stressed by this financial burden—and when employees are less stressed, they are more healthy, focused, and productive. Also, research shows owning a pet helps soothe anxiety and reduce blood pressure.

2.  Encourages employees to own pets

Pets are a significant emotional investment and a significant financial investment as well—pets require not only health care but also:

  • Food and treats
  • Dishes for their meals
  • Collars and leashes (for dogs and/or cats)
  • Grooming and nail trimming
  • Over the counter medications
  • Items for mental stimulation (e.g., toys)

For your employees who don’t have a pet but are considering purchasing or adopting one, a pet insurance benefit makes the choice of buying or adopting a pet easier since employees know their pets’ health needs will be a bit easier to manage.

3. Demonstrates to employees that you care

There are pet-friendly hotels, apartments, and restaurants, and by offering pet insurance, you send the message to your employees that your workplace, in this regard, is pet-friendly. You also demonstrate and support the idea that pets are important family members and deserve to be loved and taken care of. That is a genuine, loving, and caring message, which can also positively impact hiring and retention.

Pet insurance—protection for a pet’s wellbeing

By offering pet insurance, you will create a positive relationship with your employees, and they, in turn, will know that their pets can get the best care possible. If you are interested in providing this supplemental benefit to your employees and want to learn more about how it works, talk to a trusted consultant or advisor.

 

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Lead Your Team Through Four Stages of Team Development

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Sometimes leading a small, growing company is like working as a rollercoaster attendant. You are constantly watching the twists and turns and the ups and downs. Through all this turbulence and volatility – and motion sickness – you will see teams make or break it, and people come and go faster than business cards can be printed.

 

Turnover and change make it difficult to form cohesive teams that are able to perform effectively. What if there was a model of team development that could help you lead a team to achieve, grow, face challenges, tackle problems, find solutions, and deliver results?

 

Apply the Forming – Storming – Norming – Performing model of team development and give your team a path to follow on their way to high-performance.

 

After applying, enjoy the benefits of identifying and understanding why team behavior changes so you can maximize team processes and productivity.

 

Forming

 

When teams form, people come together with excitement and positive expectations for the team experience. You will see people on their best behavior while they seek out similar people with shared needs.

 

At the same time, members may feel anxiety, confusion, and ambiguity since they are a group of strangers with little agreement or team purpose. They may question their “fit” in the team or if their performance will measure up.

 

Everyone at one point in their life experiences this excitement and anxiety when forming a new team, making it critical for the leader to provide guidance and direction. Use this time to guide the team to create clear structures, goals, direction, and roles so members begin to build trust and confidence.

 

Storming

 

Conflict and friction are inevitable when relationship styles, work ethics, and communication patterns arise and clash. For example, people may challenge each other for power or clash over team processes.

 

Lead your team to persevere through this phase because it can make or break a team! Lead your team through storming and learn the skills necessary to push through. If this phase is skipped, the group will keep revisiting until the skills are gained, such as task-related skills, group process, and conflict management skills.

 

Fortunately, storming is not always “glass half empty.” A little friction can be good. For example, conflict can reveal issues to solve innovatively and collaboratively and spur thought-provoking and challenging conversations. This respectful disagreement can increase a team’s open-mindedness and consideration of others’ thoughts and ideas. 

 

Norming

 

If you are norming, you will most likely notice team members solving personal clashes between their expectations and the reality of the team’s experience. But the storm passing over does not mean your work is over yet.

 

Encourage your team to set more flexible and inclusive norms and expectations, making the team stronger and more comfortable voicing their concerns and exchanging constructive criticism.

 

Once team members have established these norms and ground rules, they can re-focus on the team’s tasks as they persevere in becoming a high-performance team.

 

Finally, the team is performing!

 

You will know when your team reaches the performing stage when everyone feels satisfied with their team’s progress and comes together to be “greater than the sum of its parts.” They will share insights into personal and group processes and have a visible “can do” attitude. Roles will become more fluid as members take on various responsibilities as needed, and differences among the members are celebrated and used to enhance the team’s performance. For example, people will balance each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

 

Do not stop there, though. Team commitment and competence are strong, but there is always more opportunity to deepen individual skills and abilities, including continuously improving team development.

 

Celebrate

 

You cannot switch on teamwork. It takes time and team building for a team to move from strangers to collaborative co-workers. The progression through these phases is essential in ensuring that a group becomes a cohesive, functional unit. 

 

Imagine the positive impact it will make on your company. You can lead your team to perform optimally and manage crises, and you can foster an inclusive and equitable environment that celebrates difference, collaboration, and accountability.

 

 

Content provided by Q4iNetwork and partners

 

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Three Books to Help You Build a Powerful Business

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As a business owner, you most likely have a lot of expertise, experience, and vision that you rely on each day to build, develop, and grow your business. But no one has all the answers. And in a quickly changing society, it’s critical to keep your mind open to new ideas, approaches, and strategies to stay relevant and successfully meet challenges. Below are three books that have made a serious impact and helped business owners and leaders re-imagine and reach new heights in the past decade.

 

Measure What Matters

By John Doerr

In this book, venture capitalist John Doerr breaks down a revolutionary tactic to business management through the practice of goal setting using Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). In the book, he illustrates the power of using Objectives (which define the goal), and Key Results (which define the actionable steps needed to achieve the goal), through a broad range of case studies, each with its own success story defined by the implementation of OKRs.

As you read this book, you’ll see how OKRs create clarity throughout an entire company, from entry-level workers to CEOs, and help leaders make the tough decisions necessary to enable growth. Whatever industry you fall under, Measure What Matters can help you create clarity within your organization and develop a sure path towards growth.

 

The CEO’s Guide to Restoring the American Dream

By Dave Chase

In his book, Dave Chase breaks down the misconception that controlling health benefits spending is out of employers’ hands by demonstrating how public and private employers have successfully reduced their spending. In the book, he challenges employers to re-think the reason behind offering employee benefits in the first place, shifting the groundwork, goals, and measurements of success in a way that illuminates the true value of employee benefits.

This book does a wonderful job of breaking down the facts, uncovering the reality behind the challenges the health insurance industry poses to employers, and explaining how real-life organizations have come out on top and been able to reduce their spending by 20% or more. He challenges employers to re-think their approach, uncovering how they hold themselves back while offering solutions and strategies to help them improve their situation. Any employer, CFO, CEO, or HR leader interested in getting the upper hand on their benefits spending would be wise to give this book a thorough read.

 

The Go-Giver

By Bob Burg and John David Mann

The Go-Giver is celebrated in the business world for upending the widely held belief that to succeed, you have to be selfish. Burg and Mann tell a story illustrating how, when you act in service to others, you build a relationship based on trust and gratitude. The book explores how these relationships have a value and strength that surpasses the fiber of relationships built on self-interest.

While this may seem obvious, it’s incredible how often professionals unintentionally steer themselves into relationships based on self-interest, undercutting their potential by depriving them of one of the most powerful resources: a network of relationships based in gratitude, respect, and service to one another. Their story offers thoughtful and provoking insights into how changing your philosophy around building relationships can enrich and enhance your personal life, career, and business.

Get to reading!

Although it can be challenging to find time in your day to read, it is well worth the effort. By opening your mind to new ideas that challenge your way of thinking, leading, and building relationships, you create a significant opportunity for you (and your business) to grow. Plus, now you don’t have to come up with your next book to read! We’ve done it for you. So pick one up, curl up in bed, or sip your morning coffee, and get to reading—or should we say growing!

 

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Disability Insurance: Just the Facts

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Insurance protects your employees and their families against any unexpected financial losses. Health insurance protects against unexpected health expenses, and life insurance gives your employees’ families financial security after an unexpected passing. But what about disability insurance? What is it, and why is it important to offer to your employees?

Here’s what you need to know about it.

What is disability insurance?

Disability insurance, also known as disability income insurance or income protection insurance, is a type of coverage that replaces a portion of your employees’ income if an injury or illness prevents them from working. Disability insurance:

  • Provides financial security for your employees and their loved ones
  • Gives funds to your employees to use for whatever they like

Is it the same thing as health insurance?

Not exactly. Disability insurance replaces a portion of an employee’s income lost due to not being able to work because of injuries or illnesses. In contrast, health insurance covers medical expenses that arise due to an injury or illness.

What does disability insurance cover?  

While people may think of major injuries as the only thing disability insurance covers, here are just a few of the things disability insurance might cover:

  • Arthritis
  • Back pain
  • Cancer
  • Depression
  • Diabetes
  • Heart disease

It doesn’t mean injuries like sprains and fractures aren’t disabling. What it does mean is the scope of injuries that can prevent people from earning an income is broad.

Why is disability insurance important?

A massive 68% of non-government workers carry no form of disability insurance. With this in mind, here is why disability insurance is essential to offer—and necessary for employees to have.

  • Injuries are all too common: The chance of missing months or years of work seems remote. But more than one in four 20-year-olds will experience a disability for 90 days or more before they reach 67, according to the Social Security Administration. Disability insurance covers those “what-if” or worst-case scenarios. 
  • Disability insurance covers risk: People tend to shrug off the risk because they think only about worst-case scenarios. But the leading causes of disability claims are:
     
    • Pregnancy
    • Cancer
    • Mental health issues
    • Musculoskeletal disorders affecting knees, back, and hips
    • Digestive disorders such as hernias and gastritis
    • Injuries including fractures, sprains, and muscle/ligament strains

Disability insurance covers the risk involved with being affected by injuries, situations, or illnesses.

  • It prepares employees for long-term challenges: It’s common to plan ahead and think about how far you can go without one or two paychecks. However, not enough people plan for possible long-term or future challenges. A study of consumer bankruptcy filings found that the primary reasons for bankruptcy involved illness or injury of themselves or a family member.

Also, workers’ compensation and Social Security do not cover most financial challenges:

Disability insurance gives employees an extra layer of protection to help prepare them and their families for any long-term challenges.

Consider offering disability insurance benefits

Absence of emergency savings and rising medical costs are a concern for many employees. Without added income protection, people may experience severe financial difficulty if they miss work due to injury or illness. Consider adding disability insurance benefits to your employee benefits package and be sure to talk to a trusted advisor to learn more.

 

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Photo by Elnur