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bwells

Let’s Talk… New Employee Training at Incept

Most companies focus their efforts on teaching specific job details and responsibilities when training a new employee. At Incept, we approach training with a focus on welcoming new team members into our company culture. By creating an open and comfortable atmosphere we empower each new Conversational Marketing Expert (CME) to be at their best from their first day on the job.

Once our new team members know they’re a part of the team we focus on learning step by step how to have productive conversations by using techniques like role-playing in the classroom. From there it’s a short, natural (although sometimes uneasy) step to having conversations with real donors and customers on the phone.

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Because our employees come from a variety of sources (many of them are referred by current members of the Incept team) we think it’s critical to make them feel welcome to our culture. An employee who feels like they’re on the outside looking in is a lot more likely to go looking for work elsewhere than one who feels like they belong.

Interested in becoming a part of our team?
Interested in putting the Incept Team to work for you?

If so, visit our website and Let’s Talk…Results.

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Brian

Keeping Cool: Tips on Staying Positive in the Workplace

How do you stay positive at work?

Life isn’t always perfect.

Depending on what is going on in your life, your mood can be drastically changed. For many folks (including myself), sometimes it is just really hard leaving problems, moods and general negativity in the parking lot before coming into the office. Whether you just found out your girlfriend was cheating on you via Facebook, forgot to make your credit card payment, or heard your favorite basketball player would be taking his talents to South Beach, there seems to be a never-ending laundry list of possible scenarios for people to become upset and boil over with pessimism. People say that a good mood can be contagious, but the same goes for someone dealing with something less than a pleasant state of mind.

It is okay to be upset with something or someone. Being upset or angry is simply how humans try to cope when they feel wronged, and it does indeed feel good to get cynical feelings off your chest. Still, negative moods can be hurtful to productivity in the workplace and can rub off on your fellow coworkers. Not every day is always filled with endless sunshine, perfectly brewed pots of coffee or easy assignments galore when it comes to the professional world. There are going to be days where the sky is that lifeless white-gray, the coffee in the break room is long gone and your tasks are more than unpleasant to deal with. Nonetheless, I am a firm believer that life is ten percent of what happens to you and ninety percent how you react to it.

At Incept, do people have bad days? Of course. However, it is important to remember that you are the one in control of your mood and how you deal with it. Here is a quick list of ways to be positive (and their benefits) during a rough day at work:

  • Remember, this too shall pass…

Remember this: whatever problem you had that made you feel angry or discontent before work will ultimately, in most cases, be waiting for you when you are done with your shift. While you are at work, take the time to put outside problems you are having on pause, and focus on your job. The benefit of this method is that you have time to calm down, focus on matters unrelated to the source of your negativity and will be able to greet your predicament with levelheaded judgment when you go home. Use the workplace as a positive retreat from external disarray.

  • Be appreciative of the people you work with…

At Incept, when I’m having a bad day, I can almost always count on my friends and colleagues at work to cheer me up. Showing them equal appreciation is a great way to relieve ongoing stress and create teamwork around the office. Take some time and rather than focusing on what is bugging you, focus on saying thank you to someone. A simple thank you can go along way in lifting someone’s mood while also strengthening company culture. Ultimately, it’ll make you feel good. Plus, it’s probably one of the easiest ways to create positivity.

  • Question if it is worth being upset or complaining about…

It is easy to complain – anyone can do it. I have complained to the point where my better judgment speaks up, and I actually think to myself, “Wow! You are complaining a lot about this!” Then I end up feeling almost embarrassed. Ask yourself, “Am I that upset about the situation or circumstance that I need to openly complain?”  In doing so, you will put things into perspective for yourself. One should also stay away from being sarcastic. Sometimes things are not worth the effort or time to complain about.

  • Take a mental break…

Sometimes all that is needed is a quick step outside – or just away from your desk – to regain a quick bit of sanity to keep you going throughout the day. Taking a brief drink of water or coffee is also a good way to mentally relieve stress. People deal better with circumstances when they can slow things down and evaluate not only the situation causing them grief, but also the choices they can make in an effort to keep positive the rest of the day.

When it comes to keeping positive, it’s not all about productivity. It is also a reflection of your company’s culture. Are your employees ready to tackle their assignments or tasks or do they seem constantly depressed and dragging? Positive thinking can create positive results. Next time you feel like you are having a bad day at the office or feel a tug of negativity on your heels, try one of the above tips and take the first step towards keeping positive at work.

What are some ways you stay positive while at work?

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Stephen Smith

Community Management Tools of the Trade: The Whiteboard

I’ve talked before about the tools I use to execute the Incept social media plan, but as my position and responsibilities have evolved so have my preference of “go-to” tools.

I’ve moved away from Word documents and Excel spreadsheets (which still have their place, of course), and I’ve started to realize that being able to get hands-on with ideas instead of digitizing them really lets the creative floodgates open up.

The Changing Tide

The age of the social media guru is coming to an end, and the age of the community manager is fast approaching. For me, community management means a number of things. Most importantly, it means planning for the organic growth of a socially networked community.

You can talk all you want. You can pump out tweets faster than the competition. You can write blog posts that score above the fold on Google until the cows come home. However, if you don’t have a solid foundation laid for the community you are trying to build (and then rally to your cause), you’re going to fail, plain and simple.

Enter the Whiteboard

Enter my dear friend, the whiteboard. It never fails that every meeting I get involved in at work starts the same way: everyone sitting at the conference room table with documents neatly stacked in front of them, taking notes. They all end in the same way too: everyone up out of their chairs, leaning on cabinets, desks, etc. And there’s always someone standing at the whiteboard directing the symphony of brainstorming while making sure that only the best ideas stick.

The beautiful thing about brainstorming this way is that it’s all interchangeable. Ideas that don’t make the cut just get a swipe of your thumb, and they’re gone. You can make ideas that are important bigger than less important details. If you run onto a mental side street, you just grab another color out of the marker cup and allow your train of thought to run its course. Exploration is the key, as letting ideas flow freely allows our team to explore all of the options available to us. Then once we’ve narrowed everything down, we just organize it into some form of readable layout and snap a picture for reference.

The “Isn’t There an App for That?” Mentality

Right now, you might be thinking, “But Stephen, there has to be an easier way to do that!? There’s got to be software that can do that for me, right?!” My response is simple, “Why have the ‘There’s an App for that’ mentality?” What happens when you start digitizing the “think tank” is that you lose the human element that makes team brainstorming effective.

Community management is all about developing the human connection. Social media has the potential to build a wall around people, to make them feel as though they aren’t obligated to become involved. If things get too intense or require too much personal connection, they can always just close their browser window and forget it ever happened. Building a community online is about breaking down that wall and making people aware that the connection they share within their social media networks makes them a part of something more personal than they think.

If you plan a community without ever meeting in person, or sharing personal interactions or insights, you’re predisposed to creating a network that mirrors the model you used to build it – cold, lifeless and impersonal. Your community reflects the model you used to create it, so by meeting in person and brainstorming, you create a personal connection with the members of your team. That personal connection is going to be the foundation of your community.

And what better tool to use to organize your collective thoughts and ideas than a whiteboard? What tools do you use to plan your communities or projects?

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meredith

Live the Brand | How to Moderate a Meeting

At Incept, I’m part of the Live the Brand subcommittee, Learning Never Stops.

The group is made up of conversational marketing experts (CMEs), coaches, supervisors and Sam Falletta, President of Incept. We meet once a week to discuss how to help our fellow employees meet their personal and professional goals through education.

When I first joined the group, I assumed that Mr. Falletta would be leading our meetings. Instead, every week we take turns moderating. Almost everyone has had a turn so far, so I’ve been able to observe a half-dozen different leadership techniques.

The Incept Conference Room

Here are the top-5 ways to lead a meeting:

  1. Sit in the middle of the group. I mean that literally. In the Incept conference room, there is an oval table with black office chairs around it. A leader’s natural seat is at either end of the table – not physically above the group like a throne but slightly separate. I’ve noticed that the leaders in my committee purposefully sit in the middle chairs. This action communicates “I’m with you” rather than “I’m above you.”
  2. Begin and end the meeting on positive notes. The Live the Brand committee meetings start by sharing “Wows.” We go around the circle and everyone talks about a “wow” moment they had that week. Usually, we’re “wowed” by another employee who went above and beyond their job description. The meetings end with each member stating what they thought was the most productive part of the conversation and the most meaningful result. Then members pass out an Incept poker chip. The chips are given to fellow employees who did something that represented an Incept value. It’s a way to publicly reward exceptional work.
  3. Keep everyone on task. It’s always difficult to stay on topic, especially when the people in the meeting are friends you want to catch up with. The fact that they are friends can also make it harder to rein them in when they get off topic. It’s OK to let people inch from the main subject for a few minutes, but like any good shepherd leading sheep, a leader has to steer the conversation onto the most productive path.
  4. Summarize. Every few minutes, especially if you’re about to go to the next topic, make a decision or if everyone in the group has different opinions, be sure to summarize the discussion. Make a one-sentence statement that mentions what you’ve accomplished so far, what you still disagree on and what steps to take next.
  5. Ask questions. The moderator of a meeting has to always be prepared to ask questions. It could be a question to an individual group member to clarify what he or she is saying, or it could be a general question to keep the group thinking.

What additional advice do you have for moderating a meeting?

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Brian

Embracing Positive Company Culture

There’s no doubt that a positive company culture is a strong asset to a business of any size.

“The thing I have learned at IBM is that culture is everything.” ~ Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. former CEO IBM

First of all, what is company culture? A generic definition of company culture is the combined overall values, practices and habits of the employees of an organization. In reality, it goes a lot deeper than that.

Google is a company that is at the forefront of embracing positive company culture as a foundation of their business. Throughout the offices of Google headquarters (located in Mountain View, CA) you can find game rooms stocked with video games, exercise areas for a quick workout and even rooms stocked with assortments of food – ranging from candies to more health-conscious choices. But what does taking on all of these additional expenses for employees really mean?

How does your company's culture feel?

The simple thought is that positive company culture starts with the company making the workplace the best place possible for employees to work. A positive environment will not only encourage employees to do their best, but to consistently perform together to reach an overall goal as well.

Obviously, Google is a pretty extravagant and over-the-top example, but one doesn’t have to start with lavish offerings and inflated expenses. Here are some great and simple tips to embrace while improving your company’s culture:

  • Figure out your company’s overall goal

Working without a vision or goal to work towards is comparable to painting a portrait in the dark: you cannot plan or even make a guess about what the future outcome might be. Figure out your company’s goals, and then assess your company’s current culture. In doing so, you can figure out what needs to be changed to align your company’s culture with those goals.

  • Understand that little things can make all the difference

Any company can put its core values on the wall and state that they adhere to those values when it comes to their clientele. But what about goals for their own employees? Using Incept as an example, our core values aren’t just the base for determining how to best serve our clients, they also help to define how we live and interact with each other in the office. Incept’s Vice President of Contact Center Results, Dave Walter, is a guy that everyone in the company can approach – one who most know on a first-name basis. Having a member of the company hierarchy visible and available, who is willing to help and personally interact with the employees, really shows that everyone is part of the team at Incept. This helps to break the “Us vs. Them” mindset that so many companies unknowingly embody when dealing with their employees.

  • Realize that company culture can always change

“Nothing is static. Everything is evolving. Everything is falling apart.” ~ Brad Pitt, as Tyler Durden (Fight Club)

The above quote isn’t just because I love Fight Club, it’s also because it holds a sense of truth regarding company culture.

Align your company's culture with the change you desire to make.

With new employees there will always be the meshing of new personalities and values with what you have already developed. It is essential to understand that while your culture might change over time, you are still the one with the power to keep it on track towards your previously established goal. Staying in tune with your employees and consistently analyzing the growth of your company culture is how you are going to be able to address any changes and stay on the path to success.

Personally, I describe company culture as the vibe given off by a workplace. Obviously, a company that yearns for a positive company culture is going to be altogether more successful than one that fails to acknowledge the bigger picture of valuing culture. It’s all about getting with the times.

What are some other ways a company can increase a positive sense of company culture? What are the rewards of positive company culture?

Photo Credit:

http://www.freedomvoice.com/

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/

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Stephen Smith

Finding Incept: When a Job Makes You Stronger

[This post was written by Melissa Kollar, a new Conversational Marketing Expert (CME). Melissa's life was turned around by her experience as a member of the Incept team. She wanted to share her experience with you. So, without further delay, I'd like to introduce Melissa...]

Sometimes Life Throws You A Curve Ball

Sometimes life makes you wonder if everything is going wrong for a reason. Sometimes life throws you a curve ball without any inclination to warn you. Not to make this into a pity party, but that mostly summed up my life right before I began working at Incept.

I was a full-time college student working a full-time, third shift job (plus a part-time job, as well). I had just moved out of my parents’ house and was trying to be a big girl in the real world. I had moved to a new town to be closer to my college, so I had no friends… yet. Not only was money an issue, but finding time to actually sleep was also becoming more and more difficult.

Finding Incept

In the midst of all this, I decided to go to a job fair. Once I got there, the staffing personnel told me all about Incept. I must say, it was love at first sight when I saw the Incept Facebook page. It completely blew my mind that a company was using Facebook and actually posting regularly! The attitudes of the employees floored me, and the work environment (from what I could gather) was so welcoming.

Naturally, when I went in for the interview, my walls were up. However, as soon as I saw the people, I was astonished once again. They not only acted awesome on the internet, they were just as wonderful in person. The first person I met at Incept was Brian, my trainer. He was so much fun to talk with, and so excited about his job, that he got me thrilled to start.

Doing a 180

Since Day 1, I keep meeting new people and making real friends. I have been at Incept for about two months now, and let me tell you I am NEVER leaving. I never thought a job choice could turn things around for me, but my stress level has done a 180. I couldn’t be happier with where I’m at now; I couldn’t be happier that I’m at Incept.

(We’d like to thank Melissa for sharing her story with us. If you’d like to share your story with our readers, please feel free to get in touch with us on our Facebook page.)

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Stephen Smith

One Year of Blogging at Incept | My Incept Results Top 10

Recently I talked about how March is the one-year anniversary of our adventure into blogging at Incept. I sat down, read just about every blog we (as a team) had written and picked my Top 10 Incept Saves Blogs.

It only seemed fair to go back, look at them all again and pick out my favorite Incept Results Top 10. Here they are:

  1. “Conversations: Quantity Versus Quality” ~ December 2010, by Sam Falletta
  2. “When ‘No’ Actually Means ‘Maybe’” ~ April 2010, by Sam Falletta
  3. “Listening to the Message Between the Words” ~ November 2010, by Dave Walter
  4. “Compliance = Listening” ~ April 2010, by Sam Falletta
  5. “You ARE the Company” ~ December 2010, by Jim Beuoy
  6. “The Internet Conversation Cycle for Brands” ~ September 2010, by Nate Riggs
  7. “Customer Service in Reverse: Everyone’s a Customer” ~ December 2010, by Stephen Smith
  8. “How Far We’ve Come and How Much Further We Can Go!” ~ February 2011, by Jim Beuoy
  9. “The Golden Rule & Standing Orders” ~ June 2010, by Stephen Smith
  10. “365 WOWs” ~ December 2010, by Sam Falletta

I have to compliment my good friend and mentor, Mr. Sam Falletta, for taking ownership of this list I put together. All of these blogs posts are great resources of insight and information, and I hope you enjoy reading them as much as we enjoyed writing them.

So here’s to our first year of blogging (and many more to come)!

Did I miss a post that you liked? Which post(s) would you have picked?

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meredith

Incept Leads: 5 Ways to be a Leader When It’s Not in Your Job Description

If you want to move up in your career or improve your business (blood centers, conversational marketing, social media or otherwise), rule #1 is to do more than is asked of you.

Incept does that every day. We offer free services to potential clients, whether they end up hiring us or not. We make “thank you” phone calls to blood donors to show our gratitude. And there are a hundred examples of Conversational Marketing Experts (CME) going above and beyond the call of duty: making food, volunteering at bake sales, working extra hours in Incept’s contact center, carpooling, etc.

If you want to advance to the next level in your career, you have to do more than your current job description calls for. If you want to be a leader in your company, you have to start to cultivate the skills now. Even if leadership isn’t in your job description, start to do it anyway. Here are 5 ways to set yourself apart from the crowd:

  1. Follow. Good leaders are good followers. If you want to show people how to follow your lead, model it after how you follow others. Good followers are respectful, honest, and they communicate with their leaders. As Stephanie Stanley pointed out in her blog post, good leaders lead by example in everything they do.
  2. Speak up. Leaders don’t sit in the corner and quietly watch everyone else. They volunteer for additional responsibilities. They give their opinions. They sit in the middle of the conference table and join in the conversation.
  3. Be proactive. If something needs done, don’t wait to be told to do it. Show that you can work independently and foresee problems before they exist. Leaders need to be able to anticipate.
  4. Imitate good leaders. Observe the leaders in your company, and follow their example. Watch how they handle situations, make mental notes about what you would do if you were in their shoes and, as Brian Dodson points out, listen.
  5. Recognize effort not just results. Initially, this statement may seem backwards. Personally, I don’t give myself much credit for my efforts if the results are not what I want. But in a leadership role, it’s important to encourage followers no matter what.

Leaders aren’t necessarily “natural-born.” Leadership, like most skills, can be learned.

What will you do today to become a better leader?

[Photo Credits: Mitchell Kapor Foundation http://blog.mkf.org/2010/03/
Life's Little Secrets http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/why-do-bird-flocks-move-in-unison-1090/]

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Jim

How Far We’ve Come and How Much Further We Can Go!

Back when I first entered the job market, management style was very different from how it is today.

In those days, management taught us to do our jobs a certain way, and we did it that way. After all, we weren’t as experienced as management in process analytics and process improvement. Management had conducted a lot of tests on the best way to achieve results, so it only made sense to follow the proven path rather than make the same mistakes that they had already learned from.

Of course, business was different then. American commerce was mostly manufacturing defined products and then marketing those products. In my short lifespan, our economy has transitioned from a manufacturing base to one that is more heavily dependent on services. Providing services by its nature, rather than defined products, requires us to be more adaptable.

At the same time, people like W. Edwards Deming taught us a better way. He and others introduced us to Total Quality Management (TQM). TQM taught us that we achieve a higher level of client satisfaction when we involve not only management, but employees, suppliers and even customers in meeting and hopefully exceeding customer expectations. This is one of the concepts that Incept alludes to when we use our phrase: “leading though listening.” It would be interesting to hear any specific examples of leading though listening that people see here at Incept. Share those insights with me, would you please?

All of us as today’s employees, make a significant impact on management style as well. We now have a workforce that wants to do a lot more than just punch a time clock, put in their hours, take their paycheck and go home. We have people who want to be a part of something bigger, who want to really contribute ideas for delivering service faster, better and at a lower cost. Most of you appear to want to be truly engaged with the goals of the organization.

It brings me a lot of pride to be connected with a company like Incept that listens to those needs and gives all employees that opportunity to help us reach a state of continuous improvement. When the Live The Brand Steering Committee first embarked on making Incept a world-class place to work, one of the primary steps was to ask employees about the kinds of things that stood in the way of enhancing relationships and producing meaningful results. We spent literally hours and hours reading and re-reading comments from focus groups, suggestions from the suggestion box and recommendations that came through the management channels.

Later this month, I’ll write a little about our interpretations of what we heard and how we responded. But for now, I’d like to hear how this engagement made you feel.

Do you think asking employees how to improve culture is a good way to go about creating a world-class culture?

Would you rather simply be asked to identify likely barriers to meaningful conversations or is it important for management to also ask employees to help come put with potential solutions?

What other methods could we use to gather team member feedback? I’m truly eager to hear your ideas!

I’m all ears!

[Picture Credit: mobisinc.com]

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Stephen Smith

Reflections: Changing, Leadership, Values and Incept

In my almost three years at Incept, I’ve seen changes made to improve the quality of experience that comes from working at Incept. Such changes focused on everyone from our newest agent on the phones to the very top of our leadership team.

As I stood there filming our Let’s Talk…Results Launch Event on Saturday, January 15th, 2011, I realized that those changes weren’t individual milestones meant to fix one small problem at a time; they were a well-orchestrated evolution meant to improve the quality of everything involved in the Incept experience.

Looking Back

Only a few short months after I joined the Incept team, I was asked to become a part of what we then called the Employee Retention Committee. It was a group spearheaded by our Vice President, Dave Walter, with the sole purpose of seeking out weak points and strengthening them in order to make Incept a better place to work.

I was excited by the opportunity to work with veteran members of the team and jumped at the offer. The months that followed were filled with questions that were difficult to answer, but the result, for me, was a chance to improve my workplace and get an inside look into how our company was run.

After a while, Incept continued to grow, and it became eventually clear that the committee had fulfilled its role. Hence, we closed the book on that chapter of my Incept experience. I walked away with a deeper insight of the decisions that made Incept what it was, as well as a strong feeling of ownership for the role I played in making Incept something special.

In The Middle

Time kept turning, and Incept kept growing. By the time November 2009 had arrived, our company had almost doubled from when I first applied. There was still a feeling among the Teleservice Representatives (TSRs, as we were then called) that we worked for a company that had something special about it. The problem was not many of us knew what that special something was.

November 13th, 2009 changed that feeling completely. Incept hosted a huge launch event where a new logo, new mission and new values were introduced to every member of our company. Incept had become a Contact Center, specializing in Conversational Marketing and employing Conversational Marketing Experts (CMEs). Our leadership team explained their new titles and what role each played within the company to every employee face-to-face. Everyone walked away from that event knowing what everyone else did to contribute to the team effort.

More importantly, that day marked a change in Incept’s values. We were all introduced to our company values: Integrity, Never Satisfied, Compassion, Everyone’s A Customer, Present and Tenacious. Each value reinforced the others, and I think that was the moment when everyone knew exactly what made Incept special. It valued its employees just as much as it valued its customers. From that moment on, everyone was accountable for everyone else. Incept had become something completely different from the rest of its competitors… and it felt good.

At that moment, Incept stepped into the lead and set the pace for the new standard of customer service both internally and externally.

Everyone got a t-shirt with all of our new Service Standards on the back.

The Present

Saturday, January 15th, 2011, marked another step for our company culture and values. At the Let’s Talk…Results Launch Event there was food and fun, but most importantly there was education. Our leaders stood up and spoke in turn about our new Service Standards, which were based solely on feedback provided by our Conversational Marketing Experts (CMEs).

I think everyone walked into that event expecting to hear what changes our Live The Brand committee had made to our policies. Instead, we were all told that the changes were 100% up to us to make. Incept had just been handed to the employees to steer the company where we want to take it. Let me tell you, that felt good!

That some fabulous prizes were given out was a plus, but in order to put into perspective how exciting the event truly was you have to understand the schedule of events at the Launch Event. Dinner was served while the members of our Live The Brand committee spoke in front of the company. As dinner moved along, a few small prizes were given away here and there. After all the speakers had finished up, we were told that we would have a one-hour break, and that five committees of employees would be formed to take ownership of every one of our Service Standards. Each of those committees was represented at a table in the lobby, and interested parties were to go and apply, if interested. (But we needed to be back in one hour, because the four BIG prizes were going to be given away then.)

A few employees spend time at the event applying to join the Service Standards committees.

That hour went by quickly, and it came time for the big prizes (and I do mean BIG) to be given away. However, it seemed that everyone was still in the lobby applying for and talking about committees. Apparently, the excitement over getting to become an active part of rebuilding Incept from the ground up was more overwhelming than the excitement over winning an iPad or a 42″ plasma screen TV. Who knew?

The reality of what had just happened dawned on me at some point while the big prizes were being given away – Incept was now in the hands of the employees. Management had turned the company over to us. But now us even had new meaning. It was no longer the Management team and the Conversational Marketing Experts; now we all had equal control over where Incept was heading. The playing field had just been leveled in a big way!

The only way I can think to describe what Incept has become is this: “Something beyond special. Something innovative. Something incredible.”

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