This also means that if a business is already listed on our site, it can be “claimed” and updated by an authorized representative of the company.

Every company on our site that is added or claimed will feature a Verified badge. This badge indicates our highest level of information accuracy because an authorized person from this company has edited and approved the info for this company.

All business additions and changes are checked by a person. Many business directories that provide free listings don’t do much in the way of reviewing submissions for quality. Not so at Bizcompare.com. Every single business addition and claim is reviewed by me, Geoff Vincent, and spammy or low quality submissions will not be published.

Users can interpret information with more confidence. Actually, we already have great information about the companies on our site, but there is a natural decay of data that occurs as time goes by. Users who are viewing a verified company can count on the freshness and accuracy information because the company provided it.

Companies can ensure they put their best foot forward. By adding or claiming a business, a company owner takes 100% control of their business profile on our site which ensures that the representation of their vital company information is spot on with their marketing messages.

Information that a company can profile on our site includes:

• Company name
• Address and phone number
• Website address (do follow link)
• Key contact and title
• Company description
• Products & Services
• Keywords
• North American Industry Classification System (NAICS)
• Standard Industrial Classification (SIC)
• Bizcompare Industry Classification
• Annual business sales
• Employees
• Years in Business

At the moment, we are only able to accommodate U.S. based businesses. It is my hope to extend this to Canadian businesses in the coming months. If you would like to be notified when Canadian companies can be added, please send me an email with words “Add a Canadian Business” in the comment field.

I invite you to check it out and also to pass this blog to your friends and colleagues.

Thanks for reading my blog and please visit again.

Vincent out.

Authored by Geoff Vincent

Throughout each week, I share what I consider to be interesting articles, blogs or web pages/sites about B2B and small business. I appreciate quality so I’m somewhat selective about what I pass along.

The best way to keep track of these is to follow me on Twitter at @bizcompare. But in case you missed any, here’s a list of my faves that I sent out this past week.

Sales & Marketing:

• LinkedIn 4x Better for B2B Leads than Facebook or Twitter
• What B-to-B Brands Are Learning About Content Marketing
• 10 Email Marketing Tips That Will Drive Results
• B2B Content Strategy Should Never Be a Wallflower
• Policies that put #B2B marketing and sales on the same page.

Leadership, Management & People:

• Praising People: The Trick Is Keeping It Focused on the Positive
• Getting Back to Management Basics: Communicating, Listening and Trusting
• Why Vulnerability Can Be Your Biggest Strength
• What are analytics? And whose job is it anyway?

Web & Social Media:

• Ten Questions Your Web Designer Should Be Asking You
• 9 Tweet Types For Your Twitter Strategy
• Why Social Media Engagement Can Still Be Found at the End of a Telephone Line!
• Beyond Facebook: How Small Businesses Can Use Visual Marketing to Build Brand

Thanks for reading my blog and please visit again.

Vincent out.

Authored by Geoff Vincent

Word cloud for all the content from this week's favourites.

Throughout each week, I share what I consider to be interesting articles, blogs or web pages/sites about B2B and small business. I appreciate quality so I’m somewhat selective about what I pass along.

The best way to keep track of these is to follow me on Twitter at @bizcompare. But in case you missed any, here’s a list of my faves that I sent out this past week.

Sales & Marketing:

• 12 Key Steps to Improve Your Sales Team
• 4 Small Biz Internet Marketing Tools
• 5 Ways to Build a Solid Email Marketing List

Leadership, Management & People:

• Running a Business Takes Action, Planning
• Why a remote workforce is bad for startups
• Free Business Templates for Your SMB From Google
• How Retention is Like Gardening: At Times, You Need to Change the Soil
• How to Be a Horrible Boss

Thanks for reading my blog and please visit again.

Vincent out.

Authored by Geoff Vincent

The CEO’s issue: He has no effective way to track his field employee’s hours and productivity. Employees showing up late or taking too many breaks can wreak havoc with project completion dates (and presumably costs).

“Being 15 or 30 minutes late can have a massive snowball effect on productivity.”

If he knew for certain exactly how much time an employee spent at a job site (not on breaks or late) he could better plan how long a job would take and the workload for the company.

You can read the full story here called How to keep better track of employees’ time.

The experts suggest:  

• Hire roaming supervisors to visit job sites.
• Seek worker input into what hours work best for them
• Investigate time-tracking technology on the market.

What to do?

There is a good possibility that there is an underlying issue at play here and that issue is CEO control (It would hardly be the first time that a small business CEO had his/her fingers in everything and was reluctant to give up control).

In this case, I’m going to guess that the CEO hired every single employee and has a personal relationship with each one. When his company smaller, this style probably worked very well for him because he could be at every site and interact with the employees daily. And as a result he built up a trust factor with them that belied the need for more direct supervision.

But with 40 field employees he is spread too thin to know everyone well and it sounds like employees are taking advantage. Time sheets are easily fudged so what to do?

In this case, there has been no mention of team leaders and I think this is exactly the role that he needs to implement at every work site (a roving supervisor will not work).

The team leader is the de facto boss at the site. S/he gets paid a some amount more to be responsible for the quality of the entire job which includes the general performance of the employees including their attendance.

Concurrently, the CEO needs to bring down the hammer on chronic lateness. Every employee under the sun is expected to anticipate their commute conditions and arrive on time every day. Period.

Every small biz CEO that I’ve ever met tends to hate implementing “layers” of people for fear of losing direct control. In this case, the CEO has ALREADY lost it so to regain it he’ll need to permanently hand over some degree of control to others.

This is something that I’ve written about before and have a few more things to add in a minute. The bottom line is that there are some very easy things that we can all do to ensure the user experience on our sites are good ones. And its still amazing how many sites still do not adhere to even minimum good web practices.

Firstly, from the prolific writers the HubSpot, we have The 15 Things That People Absolutely Hate About Your Website:

1. Pop-up ads
2. Automatically playing multimedia content when a page loads
3. Disorienting animations
4. Generic stock photography
5. Including a ‘Contact Us’ form in lieu of contact information
6. Unintelligible ‘About Us’ page
7. SEO-driven copy
8. Not including social sharing buttons on your content
9. You don’t have a blog
10. Titles and content are incongruous
11. Your call-to-action copy doesn’t align with the offer
12. Your internal linking isn’t user-friendly
13. Sliders that take forever to load
14. Using flash
15. A site where I don’t know what to do.

Secondly, courtesy of the Search Engine Land, we have a nifty graph of survey results for the question What information is MOST valuable to you on a local business website?

Source: Search Engine Land - Simplicity Is Key To Converting Local Consumers To Customers

Lastly, over a year ago, I wrote about how a “bashful” CEO can be detrimental to his/her own efforts. In it, I offered 8 things that a small company can do to come across as credible and legitimate:

1. Publish your company address
2. Publish your phone number
3. Publish a company email
4. Have an About Us page
5. Have a blog.
6. Provide a photo of yourself
7. Be on Twitter
8. Be on other social media sites

As I see it, there are a few key themes that emerge from all these sources:

1. Less is More. Don’t clutter up your site with useless information, images, effects, etc. It just distracts people.
2. But Sometimes More is Better. There is clearly some minimum information that should always be on a site. These are generally the practical things that users look for like prices, location, contact info and the like. Common sense stuff.
3. Social Media is a Must. Like them or not, they are here and not going away. Blogging, Twitter etc. are a mandatory part of today’s marketing mix and web presence.

My final comment is something that I highlighted in my year old blog, but I think is more important now than ever:  I personally believe its important to put a name and face to a company. Literally. On the About Us page, there needs to be information about the actual people behind the company. For a small company, its the CEO. For medium to large size companies, it could include the leadership team.

To me this is all about credibility and the absence of this information gives me pause about that company.

Thanks for reading my blog and please visit again.

Vincent out.

Authored by Geoff Vincent

Their numbers to date are impressive: With 120 employees, they achieved $12 million in sales last year and have an annual growth rate of 30%. However, all of this revenue is derived within the province of Quebec and the owner feels that this growth rate is not sustainable without expansion to Toronto, Ottawa and Calgary.

One option is to open offices with his own employees and grow the business organically. The other option under consideration is to buy a similar company with an existing customer base and revenue stream (Target company size: $1-million to $3-million in annual revenue, with 15 to 25 employees for purchase price of $1-million and $2-million).

One more point of info: He previously expanded to Montreal from Quebec City and while it has become successful for him, there were growing pains. The owner characterizes a new office opening as not unlike starting a new business from scratch.

See full story here called Growth path: Open new office or make acquisition?

What should he do?

Considerations:

• This company has no experience with company acquisitions and that should make them ultra cautious with this option.
• On the other hand, he does have direct experience with opening a new office.
• An acquisition comes with instant employees, market presence, customers and revenues. But even with due diligence, there is still a risk that the employees suck, the customers are uncommitted, etc., etc. In other words, he could be buying into a world of hurt and a tremendous time drain taking on a whole new company.
• I’m no M&A expert but buying a $3 million revenue company for $2 million seems really low and unrealistic. Let’s assume that the target company earns a 20% profit or $600,000. So a $2 million purchase price and valuation would be a P/E of only 3.3! I don’t think so.

What would I suggest he do:

Firstly, forget about the acquisition option. Go the new office and organic route. IMO there is simply too much risk with buying someone and he has no experience doing so. Also, I think he’s dreaming about how big a company he can expect to buy with $2 million.

Smell test: Let’s reverse roles and assume that Momentum Technologies earns 20% profit or $2.4 million. Would he consider SELLING his company for a P/E of 3.3 or $7,920,000? Highly doubtful.

Secondly, focus on one city at a time for expansion. In this case, focus on Ottawa because its only 2 hours by car from Montreal and also because it has strong mix of French and English people with whom he deals with already in Quebec.

Thirdly, identify a core group of 2-4 current employees who would be interested in re-locating to Ottawa to start up the office as a skeleton team. Clearly he’d want to go with “go getter” types who would thrive in a start up environment. Plus, he should provide an incremental financial incentive package that is tied to revenue and other targets for the first couple or 3 years.

Fourthly, leverage the team members in the Montreal office to support the skeleton team. It would not be very costly (relative to buying a company for millions) to send teams of people to Ottawa for 2-3 day working stints a few times per month. Thus, he achieves the physical presence of people that is so important to developing new business.

Once the Ottawa business starts to build up, the company can gradually start to hire locally instead of sending folks from Montreal (or offer to re-locate Montreal staffers if they are interested).

This approach is WAY less costly and much more controllable than acquiring a company. Assuming he has success with the Ottawa initiative, he can take those best practices and roll out to Toronto and Calgary.

Thanks for reading my blog and please visit again.

Vincent out

Authored by Geoff Vincent

It is better to be loved than feared.

We have all heard this age-old adage, and some of us even subscribe to its meaning. However, there are still a large number of managers and workplace leaders that instill more than a little fear in their employees and team members; thinking that it is the only way to get the job done.

Many managers, once they achieve the position, feel they yield a sort of power. Using that power to motivate, reward and punish those under them, accordingly.

Merriam Webster’s dictionary defines power as the ability to act or produce an effect. That is no doubt the responsibility of the manager. However, the synonyms of the word beg more reflection: might, force, strength, authority.

If we are to look at the common conceptions of the word ‘power’, we see that the consensus is that power is a more specific way of producing an effect. And perhaps, just maybe, not the only way.

Dr. Thomas Gordon, with his PhD in clinical psychology, discusses the use of power in his book Leader Effectiveness Training.

“Power is derived from possessing the means to provide others with what they need in exchange for compliance to the desires of the person with power,” he wrote.

The leader, in essence instills a fear of punishment or deprivation in their employees.

Gordon continues by stating the simple fact that nobody likes to be coerced into doing something that they would rather not do. In Dr Gordon’s trained opinion, employees and team members develop coping skills to help them deal with this type of environment.

The Seven Employee Coping Mechanisms

Rebellion and Defiance – Resistance and disagreement toward an authoritarian leader’s ideas and demands are often translated as being directed toward the manager himself. Often this is not the case and it is a simple resistance to the type of leadership and the inability to be a part of the problem-solving, decision-making processees.

Buttering Up and Other Ingratiating Reactions – This type of response to coercive leadership has spawned the proverbial ‘yes man.’ Getting on the good side of the manager insures the most occurrences of rewards and the least chances of punishment. The employee does just what is asked, no more, no less.

Reduction in Upward Communication – Often employees become reluctant to share their problems with leaders who, they have learned, will undoubtedly impose their solution to the problem and demand that it be carried out, often without regard to the employee’s suggestions.

Destructive Competitiveness and Rivalry – Turning on their co-workers, some employees begin to gossip, defame and even ‘rat out’ their fellows. This is, to put it more simply, a corporate form of ‘sibling rivalry.’

Submission and Conformity – Some employees decide that obedience and compliance are the surest way to secure the rewards they so depend on. The drawback to this coping mechanism is the destruction and eventual lack of creativity or initiative on the part of the team member.

Withdrawing and Escaping – Some employees choose to keep their heads down and mouths closed. These types completely avoid participation at team meetings and keep interactions with the authoritarian leader to a bare minimum.

Forming Alliances and Coalitions – Groups form to balance out the heavy hand of power. There is strength in numbers, as evidenced by the formation of Unions against unfair demands placed on employees in certain trades.

Leaders who yield power as their primary motivation for employee productivity tend to have fewer satisfied employees and higher turnover rates.

The Five Costs of Wielding Power

The Cost of Time – The effectiveness of being a unilateral decision maker is negated by the time it takes to encourage, or coerce, employees and team members into carrying out these decisions.  

The Cost of Enforcement – Employees who do not feel invested or in agreement with decisions they are required to carry out often find ways around the situation. The manager must then be on constant vigilance to make sure his decisions are, in fact, being carried out.

The Cost of Alienation – To avoid accusations of ‘playing favorites’ many managers feel they cannot get too close or personal with their employees. This robs the leader of the joy of having personal relationships with those he works with and is near many hours of the day.

The Cost of Stress – Leadership positions often come with increased levels of stress, but the added stress of enforcing decisions, punishing others and the guilt associated with yielding power over other intelligent adults often increases stress to unnecessary levels.

The Cost of Diminishing Influence – Those in a position of authority inherently hold a certain amount of influence. But, if we were to consider three types of authority and look at the result as an equation:

the Authority derived from a position + the Authority derived from knowledge – the Authority derived from coercion or Power = the Influence one holds over employees

…we would see that instilling fear in those dependent on us for guidance and leadership reduces the amount of influence we gain from experience and knowledge.

Power is a double edge sword.

Those in positions of leadership can be a blessing to both team members and the company at large, but they can also become a detriment. There are many ways to manage a team and more than one way to get employees to take responsibility for their productivity. Wielding the mighty sword of Power and Coercion should not be one of them.

Our guest blogger today, Belinda Callin, is a journalist by education and is currently investigating the topic of Leadership Training and Active Listening.

Herein is a compendium or digest of all my blogs related to Sales Compensation. This will enable you to quickly scan all my blog titles on this topic and then click through to the ones of most interest or relevance.

Going forward, I will add to this compendium chronologically and date stamp the blog.

Happy reading and thanks for visiting my blog.

Vincent out.

V.1 March 26, 2012:

Smallbiz sales compensation: Pay for results, but don’t pay too much.

• See a Basic Sales Compensation Plan that’s adoptable by most small business sales environments. It pays for performance, not for lack of it.

Sales compensation for new products. Product launch tips.

• What’s the right approach with sales compensation for a new product? And what other tactics are advised to ensure a successful new product introduction?

Quick Tip #5: Pay your sales reps well. Then pay them more.

• Should your sales compensation plan pay a lot or a little? What’s better for corporate revenue and the company’s P&L? Pay more!

Sales Force Dynamics: Instituting an Ideal Compensation Plan

• Considerations for development of an effective sales comp plan with enlightening survey data that shows what to expect to pay for good sales reps, and why.

Interview on DIYMarketers.com About Sales Compensation for Small Business

• How do you strike a balance between sales comp incentive and reward? Learn about an easy approach and see a terrific sales compensation calculator.

Sales compensation planning – 17 things to understand

• Sales compensation planning: Culture, design, roll out, path, alignment, complexity (not), competitive and 10 more things to think about.

9 Key Steps to Sales Compensation Design

• How effective is your existing plan? Is it in line with and does it contribute to the accomplishment of your corporate goals? If not, what needs to change?

Introducing: Cost of sales and pay for performance calculator.

• Sales Compensation Calculator: Quickly and accurately calculate total sales compensation and cost of sales based on 5 key variables.

Sales Leadership and Sales Compensation are keys to success.

• Why reps miss their sales quotas? Two big reasons: Poor sales leadership and uninspiring compensation program.

Other Bizcompare Digests:

B2B Marketing

Authored by Geoff Vincent

The survey dives deep into what people and institutions are trusted and has a decade of results for comparison.

Here is the chart that I found most interesting. The rankings for trusted information sources from the point of view of CEOs and employees:

A few observations and thoughts:

1. Firstly, you have CEOs and employees trusting each other the least, next to government. That’s wild.

Is this a chicken and egg thing? Who started to mis-trust the other first? In any case, IMHO, the CEO is virtually 100% responsible to assume that it started with him/her and therefore must make the effort to build trust once again with employees. When successful, I think the mutual ratings will skyrocket.

2. Government official or regulator. I would hypothesize that when the average respondent hears the descriptor “government official or regulator”, they think of politicians and not government department leaders and workers (i.e. the ones that work FOR the government). So its hardly surprising that this group is at the very bottom.

3. There is a clear inverse relationship between the trust granted to a group and that group’s perceived sense of self importance and interest in personal or organizational gain.

At the top you have academics and technical people. Arguably, they are primarily motivated by and  interested in espousing only what is accurate and true to the best of their knowledge and ability. Conversely at the bottom you have CEOs and politicians who, fairly or otherwise, are labeled largely as self interested: How much money I can make (CEOs) and how much power can I wield and how can ensure I get re-elected (politicians).

So its easy to hypothesize that you’d trust someone more if their perceived motivation is not self centred.

For CEOs of small business, its never been more important to earn the trust of your employees to ensure the success of your business and ergo, your own personal financial success. This survey should be mandatory reading for every CEO. And the honest and gutsy ones will realize they’ll be better off if they make the first move to build great employee relations and engagement.

Thanks for reading my blog and please visit again.

Vincent out

Related posts:

• Smallbiz culture and office politics? The CEO ALWAYS sets the tone.
• Employee retention and engagement? Give them Freedom and Involvement

Authored by Geoff Vincent

Word cloud for all the content for this week's favorites.

Throughout each week, I share what I consider to be interesting articles, blogs or web pages/sites about B2B and small business. I appreciate quality so I’m somewhat selective about what I pass along.

The best way to keep track of these is to follow me on Twitter at @bizcompare. But in case you missed any, here’s a list of my faves that I sent out this past week.

Sales & Marketing:

• Why B2B Companies Need To Up Their Communications Game | Fast Company
• An Extensive List of Taglines | via @namedevelopment
• Sales and Marketing Alignment: How to Sell To A Sales Person

Leadership, Management & People:

• Are Women Better Leaders than Men? from HBR
• 3 sure-fire ways to lose your top talent | SmartBlogs
• What You Think You Know About Business Planning Can Hurt Your Business

Web & Social Media:

• Facebook’s New Business Pages Means Marketers Must Evolve
• 13 Brands Using LinkedIn Company Page Features the Right Way
• LinkedIn: More Important Than Your Website?
• Leveraging Pinterest for B2B Marketing: 6 Practical Tips
• A Guide to Your B2B Social Media Marketing Plan

Thanks for reading my blog and please visit again.

Vincent out.

Authored by Geoff Vincent