Tag Archives: Business

1 Reason Why Your Company Should be Blogging

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Should Your Company Blog?

Do you believe a blog is important for your company? If you said no it wouldn’t be a big surprise. Chances are most businesses wouldn’t think so. For example, according to research by Socialtext released in December of 2009 only 15.8% of the Fortune 500 companies are blogging. If you’re a Fortune 500 company then you probably don’t have to worry about it. If not, you’re likely hungry for more business so you may want to reconsider.

Why, you ask? An interesting study from HubSpot came out in January of 2010. HubSpot looked at 2,300 of their customers and found a trend. Businesses that were actively blogging had 126% more monthly leads than non blogging companies. Yes, 126% more monthly leads. On average the non blogging companies did grow their leads by 73% but the blogging businesses saw their lead growth shoot up 165%. According to HubSpot this statistic is relevant regardless of the blogging platform.

You may argue that this study doesn’t prove blogs are the one and only reason for this. I would argue the same. But, it does hint that companies who are actively marketing themselves through social media avenues seem to be generating more leads and gaining more exposure.

So there you have it. One reason why your company should be blogging: improved lead generation. Now should be a good time to plan and execute your company’s new blogging and social marketing campaign. What do you think?

Technology-less Personal-less Job Recruitment

(Question 1) Does technology kill the creativity of recruiters?

(Question 2) Are head hunting human resourcers becoming lazy due to the Internet?

(Question 3) Is the Internet and technology destroying common courtesy?

(Bonus Question) Can we stop our world’s downward de-humanizing spiral encouraged by the Internet and technology? Is there any hope?

As finding an additional form of stable and enjoyable work is my focus as of late, I expect there to be further articles on this topic. So stay tuned or run away because here we go.

As mentioned, I am looking for additional paying gigs. A few potentials have lead me to read, “Finding Keepers : The Monster Guide to Hiring and Holding the World’s Best Employees”. I admit, I am only 36 pages into it but recent experiences and thoughts generated from this book have me questioning the whole human resources world. This article will touch on the aforementioned questions.

  1. The employment industry (is this what we would refer to it as?) and recruitment systems seem to be lacking in creativity due to technology and the Internet. Now, before I get lambasted, the fact is many businesses and industries have this same problem. For recruiting it seems to me they are using new transport systems for old and possibly out-dated methodologies. I like to refer to this as the ‘Build it and they will come’ syndrome. They also seem to be dropping the personal touch which in my opinion shows more about a person than a creative resume or CV.

    For example, where it once was the norm to place jobs in print (newspapers) it seems Craigslist is now that current workhorse. Where there was a quick resume drop off there is now email. Where there was once word of mouth… well I guess there’s still that.

    My point is that the Net and technology should allow for some interesting recruiting and screening practices. I may be missing something, but where are the ‘Meet and Greet 2008 in IRC’ or ‘Four hours with <insert company and name> on video chat’ or ‘Play our online Manhunt Talent Game’ or ‘Join our Virtual Tour on Second Life”. At the very least, why are companies not asking for a Video Resume/CV?

    These are off-the-cuff ideas. There are many possibilities with our current technology yet the same old practices are applied to such a powerful medium.

  2. I will say, I do believe there are many more applicants for jobs than their used to be. It is just too simple to throw your hat into the ring with an email as opposed to mailing it, dropping it off in person or what-have-you. This may be a large factor in what is quickly becoming the standard ‘no phone calls’, ’email only’ and lack of business name or address in ads.

    With that said, shouldn’t the current technology help handle many more applications? Shouldn’t it open hiring staff or agents more time for the personal touch or possibly a little more two way communication?

  3. This leads us to common courtesy. This is a no brainer. The fact is email and the Net and the concept that “it’s just business” all have negative effects on common courtesy.

    What I find mind boggling is the lack of even the most simple form mail stating your resume/application has been received. This problem, in my opinion, also crosses over into the laziness point.

    How difficult is it to create a email template stating the position is filled, that you don’t meet or that you exceed their requirements? This is down right unbelievable and should send a message to potential employees about the company practices and priorities.

There are some companies who are considerate and personable when it comes to hiring. They are proactive and have creative ideas. This is a generalized article based on some of my experiences and by no means is meant to attack or insult any one or multiple entities.

I saw a statistic on the news (sorry, no reference) that soft skills were narrowly the number one priority for companies and that this was an increasing requirement. Current pre-screening methods really aren’t considering this. A resume is not an indicator of a person’s soft skills. First off, a resume is spun a specific way and there is no telling who created or helped tune it.

Additional considerations for the recruiter or HR representative, as stated in ‘Finding Keepers’, and what I believe is general knowledge at this point is that people are increasingly more informed and considerate about their jobs. The fact is you have to sell someone on working for you. There has been a slow shift from where the employee was happy to have a job to where the employer is happy to have a productive worker. There is more to keeping an employee than money and the threat of job loss. There are human factors to consider and it should start with hiring practices and considerations, from the ground up.

I will leave the bonus question for you to answer. Any comments or enlightenment would be appreciated. Expect some further articles on hiring an ego and the forgotten art of training and ‘growing’ your most important resource, people.

Go Daddy, Whoa Daddy!

I got surprised today! Shocked too! The source? Go Daddy.

The surprise: A nice, polite email telling me how much my auto-renewed domains cost. Not such a good surprise. I prefer gifts with some kind of value, be it monetary, physical, emotional, you know, good stuff. Directed to me of course, not other people.

Yes, it is my fault for not being diligent and luckily it wasn’t too serious. Three domains renewed all with private registration. It wouldn’t have been too bad if I hadn’t just renewed two domains the other night for $2 less per domain. So I was looking at a $6 dollar slap on the hand with a $27 dollar chaser for good measure (the 3 private registrations).

Thoroughly surprised and appalled at such an affront I was out for blood and so I called Go Daddy and I did it quick. Quick and aggressive. I punched those numbers on my phone with determination and a steel heart.

The Shock: After listening to the automated message routing me to who knows where (no shock) I end up talking to Moses in billing. Moses I say! Further, I understand him! This guy is speaking a language I know and he’s doing it better than I am.

Without crying I tell this Moses guy I was just billed for 3 auto-renewals with privacy options and I want it canceled. To add to the shock, Moses is nice and friendly. He tells me my options without even a hint at how I’m a dumb <something> for letting it happen. No preaching at all. He just tells me I can delete the order but the domains would be available for anyone to take.

This Moses guy is way too professional for me. I explain to my friend Moses that I renewed two domains for cheaper just the other day. Unfazed and again without any hint of me being stupid for letting this happen he explains he can’t drop the price after the fact. But we do figure out we can cancel the privacy options and get a refund for that.

Now, I’m pretty certain I could have worked it a bit and had the privacy dropped with a refund and redo the transaction with a discount but Moses was working his magic on me. I figured I’d eat the difference, it served me right. So we agree on this and Moses transfers me to support. Yes, the dreaded transfer.

Take a wild guess what happens next? Next thing you know, I’m talking to Linda. She must be related to Moses because she’s all nice and friendly and I understand her! Me and Linda strike up a great convo after I give her my account number, tell her my name and give her a password.

I’d say she wasn’t exactly sure what I was trying to get across with the cancellation of the privacy option. Either that or she wasn’t sure of the process. Even so, without missing a beat she gets things going. She’s on the ball and arranges it with the supervisor, sets it up and passes to me… and I fumble.

Seems I have to cancel the privacy on domainsbyproxy.com before they can process the refund and like I have any idea what my ID or password is. She helps me a bit by telling me its the same password as my Go Daddy account but a different ID. After that she waits patiently while I don’t find my account info. After fumbling around for a couple of minutes and feeling like a dolt, I ask if I can call back. She’s agreeable and tells me it’s ready and there’s a note in the file, I just need to cancel and let them know.

Things are really rolling now. I find my account details post-haste and do my part like a professional. I get the job done and call back. Now, obviously you know and expect what happens next?

I get in touch with John. John too is part of the same family, he’s all nice and friendly. I tell him once what the deal is and like it’s nothing to him he asks me for a couple minutes to get the job done. So, bing bang boom, with less than two minutes of silence John gets back to me and apologizes for the delay. He tells me it’s done and asks if there’s anything else he can do for me.

Well, shiver-me-timbers, who said customer service was dead? It’s alive and well at Go Daddy! I’m not sure what they’re feeding their support staff but I like it. Considering Go Daddy is well known as a low-cost option for a variety of web services I was not expecting such a pleasant experience. I can’t recall the last time I had such an easy exchange with any kind of support.

So, as much as I hate to push the ‘big-boys’ if this one experience is any indication of what Go Daddy is providing I’m in. I’m in enough to at least pay $2 more per domain!

A couple closing notes:

– Go Daddy can be found at: http://www.godaddy.com/
– Unfortunately their 24/7 support line is not a 1-800 number.
– Fortunately the wait times were quite acceptable. My initial wait time was estimated at 4 minutes, I would say they answered in under 3 mins. When transferred to support another wait estimation of 4 minutes and again I was talking live in under 3. My second call was estimated at 6 minutes and I’d say it was under 4 mins.
– They have a nice option of being on hold with or without music.