Today marks my last day working with Bizmanualz. It’s been a great experience, and I’ve learned a lot about the business world—and how it probably should be run.

I came to work at Bizmanualz straight out of journalism graduate school, and my background was steeped in writing, editing, new media, and everything current events. Working as the Web Marketing Manager gave me a completely new experience, and I’ve gotten to see how a company can look when it’s really using business best practices, focusing on continual improvement, aiming for lean quality management, maintaining an efficient and well-trained workforce, and caring about the customer’s wishes. It’s an experience that I’ll be able to take into my next position, and I am grateful for that.

The staff at Bizmanualz is a wonderful, close-knit group of caring individuals who truly care about each customer and ensuring all of the products and services provided to them are top-notch. I will miss them dearly.

I hope you have enjoyed my blog posts, Tweets, and other networking I’ve been doing for Bizmanualz for the past 8 months. Thanks for your comments, and I hope you continue to support Bizmanualz.

A recent upgrade of our php has enabled us to play around with Wordpress plugins for our blog. If you found this post on Twitter, Google, Facebook, or another external site, you might notice the greeting above the text that welcomes you specifically from that site. (Get that plugin here.)

Another great tool we’ve installed is Facebook Connect. Considering the rate at which people are signing up for Facebook, it’s a pretty strong possibility that a large number of your readers are on the social networking site. Facebook Connect gives your readers the option to comment on your blog posts by logging into their Facebook accounts instead of giving you their name and email (something that could be a detractor from commenting).

As an added bonus, commenters have the option to post their comments (and thus your blog post) to their profiles and news feeds, giving your blog more exposure.

Pop-up to Post to News Feed

Check out the Facebook Developers Wiki for information on how to install the plugin and troubleshoot  if you have any problems.

(Note: If you moderate your company blog comments, you will first have to approve new commenters. On their second comments, they will have the ability to publish to their news feeds.)

Bizmanualz is getting ready to ramp up our consulting services. We already provide great services for implementing quality management systems, putting policies and procedures in place, assisting companies with their sales and marketing efforts, and much more.

But we’ve seen throughout our many consulting engagements that something has been missing. While many of our clients have great intentions by trying to comply with an ISO standard or something of the like, the strategy and vision to back that up can be lacking.

“Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.” - Jack Welch

It all starts with a vision you have for your company or department. Is that vision being accurately and concisely communicated throughout the company? If not, the outcome can be far from what you envisioned.

For example, say your vision is to launch a social media marketing campaign to appeal to a broader, younger, Internet-savvy audience. What does that mean for your marketing team that is unfamiliar with social media networks? What does it mean for your sales team that has no experience with that type of lead? And most importantly, does your product make sense for that audience?

These are all questions you need to answer with a clear strategy before you launch a campaign that could end up costing your company. Our business experts are eager to help formulate your company’s strategy into clear steps that will lead to success. Contact us to learn more, and stay tuned for our brand new website just for our services clients.

Trying to explain to someone the value of certain social media applications, like Twitter, can be difficult, especially when the person hasn’t actually used the service. People want results that mean more than non-converting traffic. Creating relationships on Twitter that lead to actual results can take time—possibly more time than a company is willing to devote.

But a recent article has found it—the long-awaited small- business Twitter success story. And it comes with some great tips on how to market your small business to the local customers. Our local markets seem to be where services like Twitter and location-based applications like Loopt come in handy.

From the AdAge article:

“Twitter’s real-time messaging service is turning out to be a boon to local establishments, who are starting to get onboard-mostly because the message pops into users’ Twitter feeds and they’re close enough to act on it.”

Sure, it can be completely random. But if you have the right kind of local followers and you Tweet that you’re giving a 15% discount if you mention you saw the ad on Twitter, the response could be huge. And it makes more sense than blasting out into a sea of nationwide browsers.

To find Twitter users in your area, check out Twitter Local, LocalTweeps, CityTweets, or Hashtags.org (type in your city to find people talking about it).

Is your company a Twitter success story? Let us know about it!

So you have a company blog. Fabulous. The next step is to make it work for you by installing various plugins. The following Wordpress plugins will make your life easier and the blog experience better for your readers. (In no particular order of awesomeness.)

1)      Peter’s Collaboration E-mails

If you have multiple staff members contributing to the company blog, this is a great way to provide a streamlined level of approval. When a contributor saves a blog post as pending, the moderators receive an email so they can log in and review. If a post needs to go back to the writer for editing, the moderator can send it back to draft form, which sends an email back to the writer.

In our case, the moderators have a style guide the blog posts should meet that includes things like keyword headlines, outbound links, and of course, grammar and spelling.

2)      Photo Dropper

Photo Dropper Panel in Editor

Depending on what your company does and what your subject matter is, finding corresponding images can be difficult. But most people see a giant block of text and quickly hit the back button. We know images are important.

Photo Dropper lets you search for Creative Commons-licensed images on Flickr (be sure to check the “for commercial purposes” box) from your posting interface based on keywords you type in. It even sizes the photos and drops them into the post editor.

3)      Subscribe2

We just installed this one and have yet to test it out completely. But if it works as advertised, it should be a great tool. This is a great way to get started if you don’t already have an email database to send your own company newsletter to.

Subscribe2 puts a widget on your sidebar that allows readers to sign up for an email notification when new blogs are posted. The program sends the readers a plain text excerpt. The email can be sent out daily, weekly, or just whenever you want to. It also sends moderators of the blog an email notification when new readers sign up.

4)      SEO Title Tag

Not everyone who contributes to your blog is an Internet Marketer. While they may have a general idea of keywords to use, the preference is to write post titles that are catchy or that will solicit a lot of views by the Twitterverse-not Google robots.

Unfortunately, the Wordpress default is to reuse the headline for the title tag-that is, the string of important keywords for searches engines. But SEO Title Tag fixes that by providing an extra field in the post editor that creates a separate title tag. Voila!

5)      Twitter Tools

Have a Twitter account? Twitter Tools gives you the option to Tweet your blog post when it publishes via a little checkbox at the bottom of your post editor. Default is checked.

Have any other suggestions for great Wordpress plugins business blogs should be using? Note them in the comments section!

In the office—and on this blog—we throw around the term “effective communication” a lot. In a previous post, I talked about how your entire chain of dealing with suppliers, employees, and customers should be centered on effective communication—that is, clearly explaining your products and requirements and listening and understanding others.

Do we effectively communicate with our website?

You may think you do a good job of the latter. You have a method for collecting customer requirements and feedback. You have open channels of communication with your employees and suppliers.

But what about the former? How clearly do you explain your own products and services?

We’re working on a new website that will more explicitly state the services we provide to other companies. It’s a big part of our product offering, but until recently, it’s been a small part of our website. In formatting the homepage, navigation, and other design aspects, we’re constantly asking ourselves “What would make the most sense to the customer?” It doesn’t matter what you think about your products or services. What are they looking for?

This can be very difficult to use the right words when you’re selling customized services. But when you make sure the focus is on the customer—or flat out ask the customer for their opinion—it makes things easier.

When was the last time you asked your customer whether your communication is clear to them? Have you changed text or visuals based on customer feedback?

Telecommuting Policy by mccun934 on flickr.com

Thinking about offering your employees the option of telecommuting? It’s becoming increasingly popular for obvious reasons: nixes the commute, less distractions, decreases office politics and infighting between employees, etc. And as technology becomes more compact and less expensive, connectivity is no longer an issue.

In fact, I’m writing this blog post from my home workspace instead of my office cube. I don’t telecommute often, but it’s a great option when, like today, I’m not feeling 100% and don’t want to infect my colleagues. (No, I don’t have swine flu.)

But there are a lot of things to think about before implementing a telecommuting option—things that should go into a Telecommuting Policy. Bizmanualz publishes prewritten business policies and procedures, and we’re thinking about writing one that would erase all the prep on your part.

The policy should include which positions are eligible, who should pay for things like Internet access and equipment, how often or should the employee come in for meetings, will the hours change, etc.

So here’s where you come in. What would you (or what do you) deem an essential part of a telecommuting policy? I’d love to hear what you think is important to include.

Does your B2B company struggle with how to approach the often overwhelming world of social media (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.)? On one hand, you know you should be doing it. (”Everyone is doing it.”) But on the other, you’re not sure your professional clients will get it and/or participate in it.

We’ve been promoting our presence on social media sites quite a bit. We understand that some of our clients or potential clients (i.e., CEOs of small-to-medium-sized companies) may not buy into it yet, and that’s OK. But we’re about looking forward, not back. If we only looked at what has worked in the past, social media wouldn’t make much sense.

Looking forward, it’s not difficult to see the impact social media will make and already is making-especially in the business world. To put it into perspective: what if someone told you 12 years ago that a company website didn’t make sense? Well, this is just the next step.

We’ve become an interactive society. People don’t just want to read about your product. They want to try it, see pictures, make suggestions on how it could be better, forward it to their friends, Tweet about it, and subscribe to your feeds to make sure they like what you’re selling. Saying that your customer isn’t part of what is becoming the societal norm is like saying children don’t like candy. Well, maybe a minority don’t, but if you’re selling candy, which ones are you targeting? (By the way, here’s a ridiculous list of C-level Twitter users.)

It’s not enough to simply dip your toe into the proverbial social media water. If you have taken the plunge, promote it to show you’re in touch with current modes of communication-especially if you’re a B2B company. We feature icons to our social media pages on the bottom of our homepage, along the sidebars inside the website and blog, and on our social media web page.

What networks is your company on? How do you promote it?

There is “effective” communication—the kind that happens when one person says something and the other person understands and acts accordingly. Then there’s just talking and talking and never getting your point across, resulting in discontented colleagues and lack of project realization. There’s also talking and talking until your point changes completely, resulting in utter confusion and rework. The latter two equal waste (i.e., lost time and money). And I bet you can probably name one or two people in the office who fall glaringly into each category. But what about you?

Image by Smile My Day

Do you have clear communication channels with your employees? Your suppliers? How about your customers? You may be tempted to say yes, but when was the last time a project went over budget, or the paper company shipped you the wrong stock, or—hello—you processed a returned order? Look in the mirror, buddy, because clearly, you had a communication breakdown. I’m not saying it’s always on your end, but if there’s a pattern of these breakdowns, there’s also a common denominator.

It’s easy to “correct” these breakdowns. Discuss your employees’ lack of time management skills. Return the shipment of paper. Refund the customer’s money. Easy, right? But that doesn’t solve the problem. Those are simple corrections. Corrective actions—or digging to find the root cause of problems and then correcting them—are the right avenue (nice blog post on understanding root cause). But then you have to actually communicate the results to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

It’s all about communication, both internally to your employees, and externally to your customers and suppliers. Your system should reflect that.

What are your ideas for increasing the effectiveness of business communication? I’d love to hear your stories.

Building upon my last post, I thought it would be a good idea to write a whole series of blog posts on how companies communicate quality internally. After all, isn’t that what ISO 9001 is all about—communication?

Because all of these areas were highlighted during our recent ISO 9001:2008 Certification audit—and, well, because I work here—I’m going to show you another one of Bizmanualz’s methods for communicating quality. (But as I continue in this series, I want to hear your techniques. Email me if you’d like me to interview you and brag about your awesome quality communication methods.)

If you’re in the quality field, you probably know what Kaizen methodology is. But for those like me, who had no clue, a Kaizen is the Japanese philosophy that focuses on continual improvement (thanks, Wikipedia. Also, check out this article from TheEconomist.com via @JeffreyJDavis.).

Bizmanualz Kaizen Forms

For Bizmanualz, a Kaizen is an improvement that we record, track, and follow up on to ensure effectiveness and sustainability. Kaizens can also be classified into corrective actions, preventive actions, or simple corrections.

In an effort to get the whole staff involved, we created a spreadsheet that tracks how many each employee has done for the month (the goal is two each) and the running total for the month. We also post our Kaizen forms in our office kitchen to communicate all of these improvements to the employees.

Every time we put up a new Kaizen, we also take one down and follow up to make sure the change actually resulted in a sustained improvement. Our Managing Director, Chris Anderson, even implemented an incentive system: At the end of each month, he rolls the die and one lucky Kaizen submitter receives $50! The more Kaizens implemented, the better the chance of winning.

Could your company implement something similar? How about department-wide? Let me know other ways your company is working on improving the communication process.