values Archives - Talixa Tech Blog

As a small business owner, I am always trying to improve my social network. It’s an essential part of business development and the main point of LinkedIn. During the last decade, I’ve communicated with clients, prospective customers, old colleagues, and people I went to school with via LinkedIn. Unfortunately, now that I’m a business owner, I increasingly find that too many LinkedIn users behave like they’re at a sleazy bar. They connect with me to ‘grow their network’, and within a month I’ve received a half-dozen unsolicited messages to give them my business. I find this utterly annoying. Just because I connected to you doesn’t mean I am looking to outsource to your company, purchase your health care, use your accounting services, or anything else. And your behavior ensures that won’t change.

Previously, I wrote a blog about Social Media Etiquette. In that blog, I mentioned the Like/Know/Trust model. The idea is that you move connections from the outer circle to the inner. I start by getting you to like me, then get you to know me better, and finally get you to trust me with your business. Unfortunately, when you start by spamming me, I don’t like you. If I don’t like you, I will never get to a point where I trust you.

Why are people engaging in this sleazy behavior? I assume, sadly, that it gets results. If you spam enough people, you only need a small percentage of conversions to consider your method a success. But what happens to your reputation among those who didn’t purchase your product? It’s possible that I may have purchased your product at some point, had I ever gotten to know you, but now I never will. You have lost a potential customer who, because of your sleazy business practice, will never be converted to a client.

My advice for social media: slow and steady wins the race. Develop meaningful relationships with people, share meaningful content, engage your network. Through this process you will earn friends. And we all know that given the choice of working with a friend or a stranger, nearly everyone will chose to give their business to someone they know and trust.

To those who spam me on LinkedIn: my new policy is to immediately remove you from my network. You bring nothing of value to me. I get enough spam in my email, I don’t need it on social media too.

Over the past decade, the deep rooted traditional business methods have taken a shift, arguably for the better. In the Information Age where almost anyone can find out what they want to know, it’s much harder for businesses to feign values. People quickly become aware of any inconsistencies between what the businesses say they stand for and what they truly are. The same applies to company culture.

To note one thing in particular, the difference between a business that stands out as genuine versus the alternative comes down to looking at how control and responsibility are at play. A business feigning values will often have a structure of controlling more than they should, while shirking responsibility for mistakes onto those who fall lower on the totem pole. Rather than accepting a lack of sufficient leadership, they often play the blame game in an arrogant attempt to avoid displaying vulnerability or weakness.

Fortunately, in looking at the structure of Talixa, I see quite the contrary. Our business is exceptional at delivering quality through the services we offer, yet I see selflessness from our leadership and the other team members. Rather than trying to micromanage and control every part of the business, we each have lanes suited to our skills and experience as well as having a plethora of opportunities to excel. Since responsibility is shared across the board, team members are not afraid to admit to their flaws and work together to develop and grow. By filling in our gaps and working for the good of the team and the community, we are better equipped to scale as a company.

Hardly anybody likes when people pat themselves on the back, though. As far as I personally am concerned, I can’t take credit for the company culture and the success we have seen. I can, however, speak on behalf of the wonderful people that are also a part of this team and working to bring new industry and growth to our community. The more I get to know them individually, the more I am blown away by their willingness to serve. Where does your business or employer land on this spectrum of control and responsibility? If your business is community driven at its core, we’d love (insert shameless “Happy Valentine’s Day” plug) to develop a relationship with you.

Tag: values

Control and Responsibility