Monthly Archives: October 2013

The Remuneration From Reputation

Posted by Bill Zeinert on October 25, 2013

Welcome to the Neck Up blog for Premier Community Bank.

As you might remember, we’ll be providing one blog and four emails for each of the six primary leadership tools that will be covered over the next year. As you might also remember, responding to 5 of the 6 blogs is one of the requirements to obtain the level 3 reward associated with the Neck Up program (i.e., 2 days of PTO or $200 cash).

This is not one of the six blogs, yet we encourage you to post responses. Yes, we are so fired up about enhancing people, Premier, and communities through leadership development that we will not be able to hold back on some really exciting material and will occasionally throw in a bonus blog or email.

During the October tent pole, Tom noted the thousands of hours of community service provided by Premier employees. This is tremendous, a testament to your team’s character, and oh by the way – great for the company too. The link below will take you to a Forbes article that thumbnails some research on what drives consumer choices. The research shows that a person’s “willingness to buy, recommend, work for, and invest in a company is driven 60% by your perceptions of the company—or its reputation, and only 40% by your perceptions of the products or services it sells”. Does providing thousands of hours of community service boost Premier’s reputation? According to the research – yes.

Furthermore, seven characteristics appear to drive reputation. Three characteristics that drive 41% of your reputation are collectively called “corporate social responsibility”. According to the study’s authors, “[CSR is] a core element of reputation and can be used to help establish trust and goodwill amongst stakeholders. [Almost half] of people’s willingness to trust, admire, and feel good about a company is based on their perceptions of the corporate social responsibility of the company, so this is a key tool for companies to use to improve support from stakeholders like consumers, regulators, financial community, and employees.” What helps drive CSR? Your values…exactly the things we talked about during the tent pole.

Simply, the research tells us that people buy your reputation first (60%) and your products second (40%), and your reputation is built upon many factors, including your community service and a strong, transparent values system to which your clientele connects.

What are some methods that you and the Premier team can use to further enhance reputation?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2013/10/02/the-companies-with-the-best-csr-reputations-2/

211 – 212 – 213

Posted by Bill Zeinert on October 24, 2013

Knowing when to stop is as important as knowing when to start.

Water boils at 212 degrees.

Stop at 211, it never boils.

Push past to 213, it never boils more.

Vince Lombardi once said that if you chase perfection you just might catch excellence. And he was right. But Vince played in a game with seasons, time limits and rules.

Football has defined goals. You know when you win. You know when you loose. And maybe most importantly, you know when to stop. Time runs out. Games end. Seasons come to a close.

None of this is true for a small businesses owner.

There’s no buzzer to go off, telling you it’s time to leave the field. You may be spending good money after bad, chasing perfection long after the game is over. Hanging on, when you need to let go.

And this is painful enough in a loss, but even worse when you’ve won.

Don’t push for 213 degrees when 212 is all you need. Or as the furniture store sales manager told me “when you’ve sold the couch, sit down”

Ask yourself if there are problems you are solving to 213 degrees while other challenges languish at 211. Define your goals, so you know if it’s half time, Miller Time or you’re out of time.

Because, time, in the end, is your only inventory. Use it wisely.

Every Day Leadership