PPB May 2018

by Jen Alexander MARKET SHARE The Power Of Passion Let brand loyalists do your marketing for you. Is it possible to grow a business without engendering some loyalty? Ninfa Laurenzo, famed Texas restaurateur and founder of Ninfa’s Mexican Restaurant, will tell you no. From a small café on the east side of Houston to a statewide institution, Ninfa’s grew in popularity on the good word of loyal patrons who discovered Mama Ninfa’s delicious take on a regional staple. Encourage this same word-of- mouth growth by asking customers to share their positive experiences on your site and social media pages, as well as on their own accounts. Tolga Tanriseven, co-founder and CEO of the digital community GirlsAskGuys, tells Forbes that websites and their host brands benefit most from focusing on the community first when designing customer experiences. “People with passion are micro-influencers— people who are knowledgeable and eager to share information about a niche,” Tanriseven says. Giving loyalists a place to discuss their experiences with your brand allows for ongoing interaction—and well-placed questions from brand managers can stimulate organic conversations within communities that magnify a brand’s search engine optimization; in other words, if a prospect poses a specific question through a Google search, the odds of your community’s responses popping up in the results become much greater. By opening up a space for brand loyalists to engage, and by planting seeds within that space for loyalists to germinate, your brand finds itself in a better position to attract new followers whose needs are supported by your passionate influencers. WATER COOLER Roll OutThe Welcome Mat Memorable onboarding for managers has benefits for the whole team. New employees who are not in a position of leadership are often surrounded by a support system during their onboarding process—a system that includes at least one immediate supervisor and likely an HR staff member as well. Between meetings with coworkers and thorough training, good onboarding can lead to long-term employee satisfaction. But when new leaders come to the company, shouldn’t they get the same red-carpet treatment? Yes, according to the Society for Human Resources Management. Providing a thorough onboarding process for managers can ensure a smooth, positive integration that trickles down to the manager’s team. If it’s time for your company to spruce up your onboarding process, begin with these guidelines from Loubna Noureddin, an organizational development leader and executive coach based in South Florida. 1. Connect Establish a connection with new managers ahead of and throughout the first 90 days of employment. Maintaining this connection relieves some of the stress associated with getting to know a new role at a new company. 2. Align Assign a mentor to the new manager to support them throughout the onboarding process. Mentors should be trained to provide support and help managers acclimate to the company culture, as well as to recognize and demonstrate emotional intelligence, influence and trust building. 3. Manage Connect daily with new managers, sharing values and expectations for the role, as well as your vision for how those values and expectations will be realized. Work with managers to design a personalized development plan and assign an internal or external coach to ensure smooth integration. 4. Plan Set weekly milestones for the new manager and his or mentor. Schedule meetings and shadowing appointments with stakeholders, and encourage strategic discussions as well as conversations about career development and growth. 5. Streamline Track managers’ weekly milestones and development plan progress. Incorporate team lunches, a mentor-shadowing day, and a meet-and-greet with senior management or executive team members. 58 | MAY 2018 | THINK