Rocks Are Hard

Double Forte Acquires The Barn Group

Well I haven't attended this blog in a long time, but have exciting news to share.

Double Forte has acquired long-term partner agency The Barn Group, a specialty artisan wine and food public relations and marketing services firm!

Together, Double Forte and The Barn Group bring deep expertise in large-scale national food and beverage companies as well as in smaller, artisan wine and food companies to offer exceptional experience from both worlds to our growing list of clients.

The Barn Group was founded by Managing Director Maggie Zeman in 2006; it will maintain its headquarters in Healdsburg, Calif. and will also have offices at Double Forte's HQ in San Francisco.

Maggie and her team have built a stellar reputation for The Barn Group with boutique wineries, wine organizations and food companies throughout Northern California.  She is a brilliant strategist, an amazing client advocate, and a consumate communications professional.  The Barn Group is a perfect complement to Double Forte's Food & Bev practice. 

I've known Maggie Zeman for a long time -- first as a competitor, then as a client, then as a colleague at Red Whistle, then as a partner firm and now as a partner.  

Frankly we've looked at partnering with many boutique firms in the last year or so and The Barn Group is the first to pass the Double Forte sniff test:

1.  "Do we have complementary work styles, ethics and priorities?"
2.  "Can we help each other?"
3.  "Will our businesses be stronger together?"
4. "Will we have fun together?"

I'm sure these are not in the right order, but they work for us! The Barn Group is in and already our clients are benefitting from the added expertise on both sides of the business.

I'm thrilled that Maggie and her team are part of the Double Forte family and we look forward to a great future together.

I invite you to check out The Barn Group at www.barngroup.com.

Cheers! 

 

Check Off These Three Boxes To Get Hired

The fur is flying in recruiting land....lots of people looking for work. Lots of work looking for people (many in the wrong places with the wrong criteria but that's a different post). 

When we started Double Forte, the criteria were a bit different than today:

- 10 years of experience or more?

- Significant in-house position?

- Like -- if not love -- to do the work, not only delegate the work?

Of course, that was 2002 -- we were 2 years into no one new getting hired, tens of thousands of professionals leaving the Bay Area for jobs elsewhere, and a whole slew of other conditions . Now 8 years later, with a revised model, a different economy(where would people go to to find work) - there are no people (yes I generalize) with 10 years of experience -- and there won't be for several more years -- so we hire against a different backdrop.

1. Are you interested in the world around you? Are you consuming news? opinion? questionable culture? yes? move on the next step. Can't tell us 5 or 6 things about what's going on -- thanks for playing.

2. Can you write a sentence. No, really. Can you write a sentence?  How about a paragraph that conveys a strong thought? This shouldn't be tough -- these people have degrees in something where they at one time had to write something down right? But no. This is not a given and must be tested. For even more on this topic read David Brooks' thoughts on humanities majors -- can I hear an Amen!?!

3. Are you a complainer? Whiner? Is everything everybody else's fault? Need to find perfect before you step into the world? Willing to sponge off people around you instead of seeking or taking positions that give you credentials? Think everyone around you is responsible for your success? Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

This weeds out 50 percent without breaking a sweat. Now you have a pool to pull from based on "real" criteria -- skill sets, experience, culture fit and performance.

For a while I thought it was just us. But, in talking with colleagues and competitors it turns out that it's not just us.  So job seekers if you make it past 1, 2, and 3 there is a ton of opportunity out there for you.

Sometimes Business IS Personal

"It's not personal, it's business." Can't help seeing Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in my head when I say, think or hear this.

So often we take things personally when it's not about us -- and when you're in a service firm, it's ALWAYS not about us.  When people react to an email or request without context it can feel personal, and I do spend time reminding my very conscientious, very hard working staff that "it's not about you -- it's about what they have to deal with" or "they don't know what they're asking."

(Frankly as a side note, "they don't know what they're asking" is probably more prevalent, because everyone thinks they know what we do all day, but most have no frickin' clue what it takes to make our work happen....but that's another blog post.)

HOWEVER -- sometimes business is personal....let me refrain, sometimes the service firm business is personal.When personality and fit and ability to serve define how well you can get your job done - business becomes personal.

And the first rule of personal business needs to be courtesy, or it will collapse regardless of results.  If you find yourself in a situation when you are not being extended the basic courtesies of business (they are: returning phone calls or emails in a timely manner, providing direction when giving feedback, being direct without being rude, being HONEST) that's when it crosses the line and it's time to GET OUT.

When business becomes personal it's time to change or get out of the game. 

Don't Let Mistakes Define You

We all make mistakes -- every single one of us.  From the big to the small. Of course, sometimes what we think is small is actually big, and what could be grounds for termination is actually not -- it all depends on perspective and situation.

For people with integrity - professionals who work hard every day to do their best and make it happen -mistakes are crushing. They can be earth-shattering.  As a manager, this is what you want -- to have the people who work for you feel and react to their mistakes with horror - knowing there is no excuse.   There is nothing you can do to make them feel worse. Nothing you can say to make it OK for these people. If you fired them, they'd think it was justified.

BUT -- mistakes very infrequently made by good people who work hard -- are not the problem. It's the repeated mistake made by people who don't care - who continuously cut corners, or leave their teammates hanging, or don't actually bother to try -- that you need to worry about.  Those mistakes aren't excusable either -- but they are more predictable.  Any predicted mistakes are YOURS, not theirs.

In the end, you don't want mistakes to define your staff -- I think you want how YOU react to them to define you and your business.

Everybody in the Pool!

There are so many things I love about running an agency -- this agency in particular.  Probably the biggest joy though through the day is seeing people we work with -- in the agency, at our clients, with our partners -- move forward towards their goals because we helped them.

While it might not feel this way at traditional firms, I think this is a universal truth: there is no incentive to NOT want your employees to succeed and achieve and advance. Truly. Advancement , when done well, means more throughput, more capacity, more good stuff, more opportunity for others. What's not to love about that?!

At the same time, just because we're incented for everyone to advance to where they want to be, does not mean that everyone gets there on the schedule they imagined.  Advancement is hard - and it doesn't usually happen within the confines of the work day. Business conditions may limit growth, but hello when flat is the new up, everyone puts on a different pair of glasses.

Remember when everyone with a pulse got a job or a promotion? Or when Sally came in with another offer, and you had to match it? Well...not that advancement left people high and dry when the dot com bubble burst and when the economy tanked in late 2008.  Social promotion -- what we get conditioned to throughout grade, middle, high school and college - does nobody any good.

What you need to be sure of is that you are in a place where real, earned advancement is valued. Because when it's earned you have lots of options. And when you have lots of options your career blossoms, even when you stay at the same company.

Everybody into the pool! Learn to swim, Don't let your colleagues drown, coach everyone to their edge and everyone wins.

Everything Is Feedback

Controversy always surrounds performance reviews -- to do them at all? how to do them? 360? top-down? self evaluation comparison? What does the form look like? and it goes on and on and on.

One thing I think is universal is that no review should be a surprise - your employees should have a good sense of how they're doing, what needs to be worked on, where they are excelling and how they can keep improving in that area (does a coach ever say - great job, no need to work out today over and over again?), and how their overall presence is perceived.

They should know this because we should all be having a constant stream of feedback, positive and constructive, throughout our day-to-day work lives.

The challenge is that everyday feedback is not necessarily heard - the positive or the negative.  I'm struggling with why this is true, but I know that it IS true. (Hell, one of the reasons we started Double Forte with a 10-year experience minimum was to remove ourselves from the constant barrage of social-promotion-conditioned inexperienced people who thought that they should all advance regardless of performance just because the calendar turned over.)

I don't believe we should stop providing feedback ALL THE TIME -- and hello, no feedback should mean that you're doing good.  But I do think we need to take the time to make sure the feedback is felt as seriously as it's intended. I'm not happy about it, but I know we need to shift something so that everything is HEARD in the way it is intended.

Feedback must not be given to tear down, but to help someone improve.  Really. If you don't want your staff to improve, go sit in a closet with a phone and a computer.  At the same time, we all need to LISTEN and ABSORB what we're told.

Everything is feedback. Everything counts. And if you're listening, nothing should be a surprise.

And I'll just keep riffing off of Nany Duarte....

Nancy Duarte is a BRILLIANT presentation designer -- she is probably the only designer of an Oscar Winner Slide Show  -- as she is the brain and hard work behind Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" .  She has written a new book slide:ology which I read part of the comps for many many months ago and which you can see here. I've just ordered my copy and will probably get it for my whole staff. 

So she talks about the "dirty work" of designing presentations. And I'm just going to keep expanding this to our work of media and blogger and analyst relations. It's hard. It's never neat. It takes a TON of effort to make the plan work. And I have to say that I'm proud of the fact that we do it over and over again, and are generally proud of our work.  The great work comes from great people and in the end the dirty work of running a consultancy when the work is hard is FINDING the RIGHT people and then KEEPING good people and making it VALUABLE to being here and doing the work we do.

Nancy tweeted on this presentation from Mike Rowe who is the star of "Dirty Jobs" which is my son Liam's favorite show (but he calls it "yuck!") and I want to share this here.  I love this presentation and his point of view that "we've declared war on work" -- Nancy thanks for sharing.

This is great!

Bring on Your A Game - Part Deux

So let's just acknowledge that it's going to be a tough year. The Media is shrinking, clients are looking for (justifiably) excellent return on their more limited investments, the economy is in trouble, which in turns makes us all nervous, I could go on, but I won't. 

Still now is the time to SHINE. Now is the time for your A game.

So, specifically, what to do?

• Be helpful -- to each other, to the media, to our clients, to our partners. If we help others, others will help us.
• Be nice -- say hello, and goodbye, Say please and thank you. You will feel good and the person you're talking to will feel good.  More "feel good" vibes in the world is a good thing.
• Dress the part -- now is not the time to just be comfy. Be comfy at home. At work, make an effort to be professional -- whatever professional means at your workplace. Unless you work at a surf store or in a flip flop shop, leave the damn flip flops at home. Take some time with your hair (I saw a few doozies on my way into work today). No rips, no wrinkles, no dirt -- pretty simple.  I'm considering putting up a sign on our building (not our office!) that says "if you didn't shower today GO HOME." 
• Act with a sense of urgency. What needs to be done by when? Work backwards and with a sense of getting it done RIGHT the first time (and hello RIGHT includes ON TIME). 

Do these things and you will be ahead of the game.  AND you will make the world a nicer place to be in. 

A Sense of Urgency

Now this may be repetitive, but it bears repeating - a sense of urgency (as opposed to panic) is the KEY to great service.

Urgency -- that it be done well

Urgency -- that you prepare for a good meeting, call, interaction

Urgency -- to deliver what you promise

Urgency -- to think AHEAD

Urgency is what separates us from all the crappy PR firms out there.

Be Urgent NOT panicked. Be planful and not knee-jeck. And secure your place in the ecosystem forEVER.

The End.

2009: Year of the "A" Game

Ok People - it's a new year and as with all new starts (a new month, a new year, a new page, a new notebook, Labor Day when I break out all the new pencils) it's time to cast a theme to help guide us.

And it occurs to me, among all of the turmoil in the economy and unpredicability around us that once again, focus is our friend and that if we control ourselves we will be FAR ahead of the game.

And what does control mean? It means BRINGING YOUR "A" GAME EVERY DAY.

We can have bad calls or less than stellar plays, but we MUST play an A game every day.

Decide what your A game is and play it.