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In today’s sound bite/140 character culture, we’re used to seeing the same old business maxims. One of the most popular is that in order to succeed you have to have laser focus. As with all things in business, the answer is more complex than that.

When you are setting up an innovative startup, the key thing you are testing is whether you are able to solve a problem in a new or better way (or for the first time). I agree that you have to be crystal-clear about what that problem is, or you are going to struggle to create an effective product, or communicate what you are doing to customers.

What might not be so clear is the execution strategy, the product features, what the best target sector is, the best route to market, the pricing strategy and so on.

Even if you are taking an established idea you are probably trying a fresh approach. This raises all these questions, even if you know the need is there.

The reason that startups are generally exciting places to work is that there is constant testing going on – confining yourself to one strategy, target market, or pricing model may doom a great idea to failure. There’s just a balance between testing what will work best and spreading yourself too thin.

Testing in my view is taking multiple bets to increase your chances of success and managing risk.

Some of the classic errors people fall into is spending far too much time developing the product, when really the minimum viable product (MVP) is all that is required to test the concept. Additional features not only slow you down, they cost time and money. They can also make the product harder for the end user to understand.

For larger, more established, companies or if you want to scale rapidly focus is essential.

If you have a clear strategy and have resolved issues like pricing and route to market, then you can hire great people, tell them your focus and allow then to use their creativity and initiative to achieve it. Without that clear statement of goals, people find it impossible to just get on with adding value.

Your focus will mean you have a clear proposition to customers, investors and staff

Even if you have 100 things you want to improve, try to focus on the top 1-3 of them and make sure they are done right. Trying to do ten things at once spreads your attention too thinly.

I believe focus is hugely important, you just need to make sure you are applying to the right elements of your business, and for the right reasons.

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This pretty much summarises the general approach to sales letters. No interest in the needs of the client, just an attempt to ram sales messages down their throat and close a sale. I’m going to try and give a counterpoint to that. There are huge quantities of free information about writing compelling copy on the web, so I’m not going to go into that level of detail here. I’m going to highlight some key principles, give some examples and leave it to you to build your own compelling and successful sales letter.

First off, what is your objective? If you are not crystal clear about that, you are pretty much doomed to failure. Are you trying to get people to sign up, buy something, or are you just trying to get some initial contact going so you can develop a relationship? My approach is that if you’re not going to do a full sale by email, try to get people that might be good prospects for you to identify themselves in some way.

Content

1. Make it relevant and targeted. By putting in the effort to make it targeted you hugely increase the chance of someone opening it and reading it. It does take more time, but your response rates could be 10x higher. Relevance can be by industry sector or job function or likely interests. Don’t try to appeal to everyone at the same time, you’ll lose people’s interest. Split the audience into specific groups and write different messages for each one.

2. Make it engaging. Don’t just talk about you, think about them. What are their concerns, and how would they express them? Can you give them anything useful (industry data, trends, opinions, tips) that will draw them into reading more?

3. Stand out. Whatever you want to say, everyone else wants to say, and is saying. Therefore when you say it you blend in. “We are one of the UK’s leading companies for x” is not a novel approach. What makes you unique? Your service offering? Your customer service? Give people convincing reasons why they should work with you, and back it up with data, examples, testimonials.

Tips and tricks

1) Think about your subject line carefully, it’s all about the first 50 characters that people see in the preview. Get a compelling reason to open the email into that space. Ask a question or clearly articulate an issue that the target client is likely to engage with. Start your email with a sentence (as opposed to ‘Dear so-and-so’, and again focus on the first 50 characters. This line also often shows up in previews. You can put the salutation after the first sentence.

2) Give people enough information to make a decision whether to respond or not. Long copy always sells better than short copy . The key is to get the most important summary information in at the beginning and then go into more and more detail as you go through the letter. Anyone can decide to stop reading, but if your letter is too short, no one can decide to read more if there is nothing there.

3) Use multiple response media and calls to action. All through your letter you should be giving them opportunities to respond, and they should be offered the full range of channels: phone, website, email, Twitter – any way they can reach you, include it. Different people have different preferences for how they contact you – don’t lose someone because you didn’t offer them their preferred channel. Start giving them reasons to contact you and response mechanisms from the start. Think about your objectives carefully at this point: what is the easiest way they can connect or respond that will give you the starting point for building a relationship – do you have an email newsletter or blog, a LinkedIn group, a Twitter feed? Give them options to engage with you.

If all else fails, send a second message after the first saying “please ignore my last message”, this will pretty much guarantee the first one gets read.

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When I was running my first company there was one thing that made me really angry. That was when hiring managers approached recruitment with the attitude that candidates were bound to be grateful to get offered a job, so all they had to do was make them jump over hurdles and decide if they wanted to hire them.

This attitude also manifested itself in other ways. They would regard recruitment as a chore and take their time reviewing CVs and getting candidates in for interviews. They would set big gaps between the first and second interviews.The interviews would be all about the candidate and very little about us.

We’d then make the offer ASAP after the interview, generally the same day, and in person over the phone. Many people worry that this looks desperate, but that’s why you have to sell your company well, be clear that you have very high standards, and make them jump through hoops.

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It’s a question I get asked a lot, so I thought I should try and answer it.  The difficulty is that TalentPuzzle* is a tool and like many tools can be used in a lot of different ways. There are definitely employers that post jobs onto TalentPuzzle that engage agencies through the site, do not talk to them and just invite relevant candidates to interview.  On the other hand there are employers that use TP as a way of finding new agencies, and from that point integrate them into their recruitment process in the usual way.

The first category of people often engage very different agencies each time they use the system, the second type often engage the same agencies.

As a generalisation, it seems to depend on the fee the employer is willing to post: those that are posting very low fees are in effect getting a similar service to a flat-fee recruitment site. They are not paying much in fees, and they will not be getting a great service from the agents: but they will be getting the obvious matches from the CV databases and job boards.

Those employers that pay higher fees tend to engage more with the agencies, speaking to them on the phone and meeting them.  We suggest they do not engage many agencies so those that are engaged are much more motivated to work on the role as the chance of filling it is higher.

Because there is a particular sweet spot for TalentPuzzle in helping companies find agencies for roles that they do not recruit for often, no matter how they went about it they would find it hard to build a meaningful long-term relationship.

*TalentPuzzle is a online recruitment marketplace that allows employers to find the best agencies that are prepared to work at the fees they set.

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Over the years, I’ve noticed an odd rule: when I met entrepreneurs who will not tell me anything about their business idea, I generally do not see that business becoming successful. On the other hand, many successful businesses have been very open about their strategies and plans.

I can’t remember the number of times I’ve met people who say words to the effect of “I’m launching something in the ‘x’ space, I can’t tell you anything more about it, but you’ll know all about it next year”, and then I never hear from them again.

I think that this is primarily because if you do not tell anyone what you are planning, you don’t open yourself up for constructive critisism.  Particularly if you think you have a great idea that no one else has thought of.  There are very few of these ideas around, so it is much more likely that someone (or several people) have tried it and failed, or just dismissed the idea after some research – you won’t see anyone else doing your idea, but not for the reason you think.  You also miss out on advice and suggestions that could improve your business.

Generally successful startups are in growth markets and a number of similar companies will be launching at the same time: if not, I’d be sceptical of the quality of the idea, and it’s also worth bearing in mind that launching a brand new concept is very hard and you’ll need to be very well funded.  Why is that? Basically because competitors grow the market by informing more people that your type of product/service exists and create a demand for it.  It is much easier to sell to someone who is already saying that they need, say, shared online workspaces than it is to explain what one is to someone who has never heard of them and then sell it to them.

Obviously there is always commercially sensitive information, and you have to know where to draw the line, but you don’t have to be totally secretive.

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If you are running a fast growing company, you will be doing lots of new things and having to change from the old way of doing things to the new way. This is a major headache. There’s a huge amount of inertia that means people tend to do things in the old way because they feel more comfortable with that.

However, there are some simple things you can do that will help the change process

1. Make sure everyone understands why the change is necessary. If you can’t clearly express the benefits to the business, it’s probably not worth doing. How does this affect the team undergoing the change? Why will it make things better for them? It’s very easy after a lot of thought and discussion about something new to assume that everyone will ‘get’ the idea quickly. This is rarely the case. If they can’t articulate the reasons and benefits in their own words they are unlikely to have really understood it. If you can get people to take ownership of the change, they are much more likely to make it happen.

2. Don’t rush out lots of changes at once. It’s very easy to sit in a meeting and come up with a long list of new things that you ought to be doing as a company, then dole out tasks to managers. Often this results in things getting half done or ignored as people can only take so much change. I know it is tempting once you have discussed how amazing your business will be after these changes to rush into them. After you have come up with your list, prioritise first (by whatever metric you prefer: quick wins might be a factor, biggest impact on profit, the need for new product, market share etc – just make sure you decide on the priorities). Then look at which projects overlap (involve the same people). Then you can start on the projects with the top priorities that affect only one group of people. As another note, if you have lots of meetings where you generate ideas, you are likely to run into difficulties unless you are always comparing them to your master list of priorities. If you are not doing this you just aren’t managing your business, you’ll always be working on the hot new idea.

3. Have a project leader/cheerleader. You need someone that is on the front line of the project that really ‘gets’ it, and can make sure everything is being implemented properly.

4. Have clear objectives that are measurable, and check on them. Don’t assume that just because you’ve had a great idea and explained it clearly that it will happen. You need to have regular checks. If people never feel they will be checked on, what’s to stop them taking the path of least resistance and carrying on doing things the same old way. Also, you need to check that the changes have been implemented correctly. Again, if you’re always focussed on the shiny new ideas, old change projects will just run out of steam and noting will happen.

If you follow these steps, you will start far fewer change projects, but get more completed. Remember, there’s a limited amount of time available – you can only get so much done in a given period of time. Starting more will not result in more work getting done. I like the story about the British general who said during WWII that our problem was we planned a battleship for a year and took four years to build it whereas the Japanese planned a battleship for three years and took one year to build it.

Worth bearing in mind!

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I don’t know how much time ineffective meetings lose annually, but I bet it’s a huge amount (and people complain about Twitter!). There are few things more irritating than having to constantly go to meetings where you are often not needed, decisions are rarely reached, and if they are reached not acted on.

Amazingly running effective meetings is incredibly simple and the little extra effort saves you ten-fold. If I had to pick one thing that would immediately increase a company’s productivity by 10%, it would be effective meetings.

So, how do you do it?

1. Think carefully who you invite – do they really need to be there?

2. Always write an agenda, explain why the meeting is necessary and what the end aims are. Some meeting ideas will die naturally at this point! Circulate the agenda with the meeting request so people that feel they have nothing to add can opt out in advance.

3. At the start of the meeting, reiterate the aims of the meeting, and think about how long you need to dedicate to each agenda item to get through the meeting in the allotted time

4. Make sure only one person speaks at once, and that they do not go on for too long. This generally requires a chair, and it can’t be a chairperson that exploits their power to go on and on about their own points.

5. At the end of each agenda item make sure you record what decisions have been taken, what actions result from those decisions, who is responsible for delivering them and by when. Take this opportunity to think about who else in the company will be affected and make sure they are informed.

6. Schedule reminders to follow up on the actions to make sure they have happened.

It really is that simple.

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Everyone wants to have a team working for them that they can trust to get on and do the job, be full of new ideas, and not come to them every five minutes asking for help or approval. Some people naturally develop their teams this way, most of us have to work at it.

Some key things to watch out for

1. Make sure you recruit the right people in the first place. If you do not trust them from the beginning, you’ll watch them too closely, give them too much instruction and stifle their creativity. This is a vicious circle, because you do not trust them, you micro-manage, because they are micro-managed they don’t feel free to be creative.

2. When people come to you with suggestions, be very careful how you react. Maybe you’ve thought about their idea before and decided it wouldn’t work. Maybe you’ve tried it and it didn’t work. If your first reaction is to tell them that, they will just feel that you dismissed it. Listen to their suggestion carefully, ask them questions about it, check there isn’t a new angle you might have missed, then explain why you think it might not work, and listen to their response.

3. When you set out your plans for something new, do you ever get dissenting voices? These people are not necessarily being negative (although they might be), so listen carefully and make sure you understand why they are saying what they are saying. Often it takes great courage to tell the boss he is wrong, so these people may be your best staff, as they are showing they really care. If you never get dissenting voices, it is more likely that you have effectively taught people that there is no point dissenting than it is that you are right all the time.

4. Make sure that when people do something new that you recognise it – either directly to them or publicly (or both) – even if it didn’t work that well (provided it didn’t work well because it turned out not to be a good idea, not because it was poorly implemented).

5. When setting strategy, set principles and outcomes, not processes. If you set processes, people will just do what they are told even if it is not achieving the desired outcome. If you make people responsible for outcomes, they will innovate to achieve them.

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I attended an excellent course recently run by Cambridge Leadership. The key thing the course teaches you is that most people do not communicate in a way that is likely to get results when they are trying to correct underperformance. Managers either dress the criticism up with some praise e.g. “you’ve always done such good work, but you really need to improve in this area” or they just openly criticise. Neither way is the most likely to get the desired result, but obviously works in a number of cases.

The key thing you need to do is to get the person to accept that their performance was not up to scratch, and to do that you need to also make sure that it really was sub-standard. Once they accept that they have underperformed, you can start a productive discussion on how to sort it out.

The mental tool they suggest is to frame the meeting as follows.

1. Do not start with anything other than the problem issue. State the problem clearly, and explain why you think it is a problem. This is done in the following way: “It seems to me that you are not achieving {whatever it is}, because I have noticed /heard/been informed {whatever your evidence is}”.

2. Make sure the stakes are clear. Is this something that if they do not correct will affect their ability to stay in the job? Will it affect pay rises or performance bonuses? If the person does not understand why they need to improve, they won’t try that hard.

3. Ask them what they think about what you have just said, and listen properly. If they have reasons that would excuse the poor performance, then fine. If not, and if they do not say that they accept that what they did was less than what was expected, you need to start again at 1. and make it clear why you still think it is their responsibility.

4. Once they have accepted responsibility, then ask them how they plan to get back on track. It is much more effective if they come up with the plan than if you impose it on them

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Recruitment agencies are a solution to a market inefficiency. To see clearly the problem they solve, let’s look at a simple example. A small firm wants to hire a financial controller, they only need to hire someone in the finance department every few years, but in order to fill that job with a good candidate they would need to do several adverts and see lots of candidates, incurring huge costs. The costs for a recruitment agency would be about the same, but they can pass the good candidates on to a number of different companies – a more efficient system.

Unless you are recruiting a huge number of the same type of people, recruitment agencies are a good solution, so why don’t all companies use recruitment agencies all the time? It all comes down to cost. Recruitment agencies are often too expensive. If you have a high margin business and ensuring you always see the best pool of candidates is your main priority you can bear these costs. If you do not have such high margins you may have to compromise on quality.

This begs the question of why the fees are so high if the agencies are creating market efficiencies. The answer is that in order to win business from employers, they need to employ large teams of sales people. Because they need to cover the wages of these sales people, they need to charge high fees. This in turn distorts the market – the successful agencies are likely to be the ones that are most effective at promoting themselves. They may also be the ones that are best at attracting the best candidates and matching them with vacancies, but they might not be.

Despite predictions of the internet revolutionising the recruitment market, recruitment agencies have not been disintermediated. Now, however, on both sides of the Atlantic new services are springing up that could solve this problem. BountyJobs in the United States and Talent Puzzle in the United Kingdom are two examples of companies using web 2.0 concepts to create market efficiencies in the recruitment market.

By providing a web-based tendering platform for sourcing recruitment agencies, they bring the jobs directly to the agencies, lowering the cost of acquiring new clients, and by allowing employers to rate the agencies, they make the market more efficient by enabling other employers to identify the best agencies.

The end result is that the incentives are aligned in the right direction for both parties. The agencies have less of an incentive to focus on selling themselves and more of an incentive to focus on identifying and matching the tight candidates. Less focus on selling means lower costs, which in turn means lower recruitment fees.

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