Your Family or Your Staff???

Even if you’re of the best health you’ve probably had some kind of conversation or read something about healthcare reform this year.  If not, here’s some news for you!
Starting October 1st, 2013 the people of the United States will have the opportunity to  apply for medical benefits facilitated by the Affordable Care Act or ObamaCare as the media has coined it.
This is so significant to small business owners (which are the majority of businesses in the US) because a lot of them have been leaving their staff out when it comes to medical coverage. 
All too often I hear business owners say “I don’t offer my employees benefits, but I’m all taken care of.”  When did this divide happen?
It’s been gradual, but now according to the Kaiser Family Foundation about 56% of employees are covered by health plans offered by their employers.  At the same time though, most of these plans come with a deductible of $1,000 or more, but these same workers statistically have less than $1,000 in savings (about 51%) and 60% of people say they live paycheck to paycheck!₁
So what do we do for 44% with no coverage or the 40% living paycheck to paycheck?  That is what the ideal of ObamaCare is.  Yet, why do so many small business owners not care to educate their staff on what is going on?
69% of small business owners are either not prepared or don’t know that to do for the October 1st deadline set by the Department of Labor to simply educate their staff₂. 
So why is their family more important than their employee’s family?
Once their was a time when your employee was family.
Now I’m not asking every business owner to invite their employees over for brunch, but at least realize they are your most valuable asset.
Yes, you are the visionary, the drive, and the force, but they are the business. 
It’s like a great composer is nothing without an orchestra.  At least tell them where to get instruments……..
60% of employees look to their boss for information about benefits₃.  If you’re not going to offer any benefits then at least take this milestone as a chance to improve morale. 
If you just show an employee “hey, I can’t pay for your benefits, but I’m going to try to help you find the best thing for you and your family” it will speak volumes to them.  Heck, it may gain you an employee for life.
Do something different with this huge change.  Don’t follow the herd.  Mainly because the herd thinks that this whole thing only applies to companies with 50 employees or more.
WRONG!!!!!!
Read for yourself and be a real leader to your staff.
1.http://www.creditdonkey.com/increase-savings-2013.html
2.http://ifawebnews.com/2013/03/28/small-businesses-confused-about-aca-will-need-help-moving-into-2014/
3.https://sell.aflac.com/Training%20and%20Resources/Business%20Insights/HCR%20Page.aspx

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3 Things The Zimmerman Trial Taught Me

This is a very controversial and emotional topic right now for many, but I need to weigh in the importance of some of the things I personally learned from this trial.

The stage was already set for a firestorm when a case of a young black teen is slain by a half Caucasian adult and the state wants to sweep it under the rug.

Interestingly, when the stage is set for trial finally, you can see some masterful marketing and psychology at hand.

1. Know Your Audience
• 85% of court cases are won at jury selection according to Herald Price Fahringer in 1993.  Why is that?  This is simply due to the fact that either side of the court room can use demographics, education, gender, income, etc to pick a panel that can best understand “their side.”  Marketing needs to do the same process.  If you know who can best benefit from your products or services than you can present their needs in the best light.  This is where you start seeing what people say on your social media channels or even what your competitor’s customers are saying.  If you don’t know who needs what you have then you’re pretty much doomed…….
2. Fear Of Loss Is Greater Than Desire To Gain
• The jury had the task of basically deciding if Zimmerman sought out to kill Martin.  Not if he did it because that is evident, but if he planned or chose to do it maliciously.  With that task they can gain the joy of Martin’s family getting justice or have the Zimmerman family lose their son and the jury having to hold onto that loss of freedom.  Not to say one choice is better than the other, but the defense did an excellent job of instilling that point.  Approach your customers this way.  Nobody likes making a decision to go forward with a financial decision and then losing money on it.  MAKE SURE THEY WON’T LOSE ANYTHING!!  If they are, then tell them.  You may not earn any business then, but you will gain their respect and possible future business. 
3. Use Emotions To Your Advantage (Ethically)
• One interesting thing to note from Anderson Cooper’s interview with juror B37 is the fact how she kept referring to the defendant as George.  Not Mr. Zimmerman or Zimmerman as most of us know him.  The women felt sorry for Zimmerman or felt horrible about what they had to do.  Think about how your prospective clients feel about you or your product.  You have to know why or how they will feel good about a decision to accept what you offer.  Communicate with them with that in mind at all times.  Use it to help them come to a conclusion that will make them happy.  That’s how we gauge decisions.  We want to feel good about decisions.  If you have to bring up how sad someone will be when they don’t work with you (ie not having life insurance when your spouse dies……) then that is ok just as long as you turn it into a positive and you first and foremost know you will benefit them with your offering. 

This tragedy will go down in American history for many reasons.  I just choose to look at things from various angles.  Ultimately what I witnessed was great application of psychology from the jury selection phase to the verdict.  That is my way of taking something positive from such a long and drawn tragedy. 

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4 Reasons Why You Need the AWESOME Google+

Ok, I have a Gmail (awesome), use Chrome as my browser (double awesome), and I use an Android phone (double dipped awesomeness).
You may say I'm a little biased in my loving the Google+ update, but here's why you will love it (if you don't already)

1.Currently, Google+ is bigger than Twitter with 359 million active users!

• I always talk to business owners who don't understand the point of Twitter.  For a lot of business types, Twitter doesn't help much.  On the contrary, everyone needs a Google+ account to link to their former Google Places entry.  At 2 billion searches a day you need to be as integrated with their platform as possible to be included in the searches.  In 2010 it was found that 94% of web traffic from Google comes from being ranked 1st on a page.  Plus with the +1 feature, if any of a person or their friends +1 your page then you are more likely to show up in their results (recommendations from a friend are more relevant than a stranger).

2.The Layout is the best combination of Pinterest and Facebook (I call it PinBook!)

• Pinterest is the fastest growing social network ever and Google noticed.  Only thing is it is not very "social".  The comments are pretty much buried in the stream.  The new layout is clean and engaging.  Any business owner can arrange their products in a very clean professional way without needing a fancy web designer!  Plus, your posts will directly link to your Google+ Local listing.

3.If You’re in Any Business With High Quality Imaging This Is A Must!!

• Google+ is now going to be your darkroom!   In an all cloud based system Google can automatically enhance the color and contrast tones in an image, remove read eye, make your plush greens really pop, soften skin, sharpen certain parts of an image remove noise, create an HDR from a set of images, and toggle back and forth any changes easily!  The greatest feature is called Awesome.  Basically, if you ever upload a series of images, Google+ will try to animate them in a GIF automatically………..If you take a bunch of family portraits it will stitch together the best possible one………If you panorama it will create the best from your batch………..This is all on autopilot people!!!!

4.Lastly, The Hashtag System is  A Marketing Dream

• Ok, everybody knows what a hashtag is.  It can be a great marketing tool to tie into a niche, but many don’t use it.  Honestly, before the update I only used them on Twitter and Pinterest.  Google has them beat! 
• Basically, you can set your own hashtags or Google will set one for you based on the context of the post!
• Behind the scenes Google will identify and rank any relevant conversations across the network.
• When you click the hashtag, it flips the post over and you can see related content within that card!!  That is live SEO and potentially far more successful if done correctly.   Gee wiz!!!
• This system gives you an extremely easy way to be found in someone’s interests as long as your posting relevant content that others find useful. 

 

In short,

 

Google+ has arrived!

 

There are a total of 41 improvements to Google+, but those are just my top 4.

Photo credit:  www.myviralweb.com

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