Author: Robert Umenhofer

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Recently, we were asked to help a trade school fill seats for the new H.V.A.C. program they were starting. They also wanted to increase the overall enrollment in their other programs as well. It was imperative that the potential students were not only open to a trade school education but a good fit for the type of services that the school was looking to fill seats for. The school’s new curriculum featuring H.V.A.C. would be offered with several other mechanical trades such as welding and auto/diesel mechanics. These other programs were already in place and producing trained professionals, the school was looking to repeat this process for their new endeavor. Conventional direct marketing could help them reach their goal of student numbers but could not guarantee that those placed were the best possible fit. Again we needed to find not only prospective students who were able to afford and willing to attend a 24 month course but ones who would most likely graduate. There were accreditation issues that were at stake. The school had to maintain a certain percentage of graduating students to receive federal tax money and available grants. What we needed to do was find students that statistically profiled their best students, the ones who graduated.

The school had a particular idea of who was attending and what market those students should fall into. They did some interviews of the attending students and the results were similar to what the school had expected and what they thought was their typical student. The results of the interviews profiled their students as a male, 25 years old, single and living with their parents. This was however not their ideal student. This would become evident when we would run the optimizer or reverse metric on their ideal student. Remember their ideal student is not necessarily the man in the class on any given day but the student who completes the course, graduates and is working in that trade.

The school supplied us with the names and addresses of their graduating students from the past 10 years. This was their ideal student, someone who had completed the school and would go on and into the job market not only as a trained professional but a promoter of the school as well. 861 graduating students were looked at and when the data was adjusted, since some had been out of school for up to ten years, the results were surprising.

We now knew their ideal students were much older, in the range of 40 -55 years old. Surprisingly 40% were married with 1 or more children, and their dependents were 10 years old or younger. We knew their ethnic background, their median household income, the value of the house they lived in and we knew that their ideal student came from four specific zip codes. The information ascertained from the graduating technicians included 26 metrics. These 26 metrics could now be used to market directly to their ideal prospective student.
The attributes that showed the most significant matches for them were:

 

  • Region…..Zip Codes 151, 152, 153, 154 (95%)
  • Dwelling Type…..Single (88%)
  • Home Ownership…..Definite Owner (84%)
  • Gender….Male (65%)
  • Direct Mail Responder….Double/Multiple (64%)
  • Length of Residence…..15+ Years (63%)
  • Mail Responsive Buyer….Multiple Mail Buyer (60%)
  • Median Home Value…..50K – 100k (58%)
  • IPA Cluster Code….0- 24,000 (47%)
  • Credit Card…..Bank Card (45%) 

 

With this new information, it was directed that their ideal students were not in high school or recent grads but older men who had already taken a bite out of life but wanted more. Their ideal student, as it turned out, was one who was looking for a career change, not just a career.

Below are several excerpts from their report. Note the penetration index – for each attribute, the relationship between the percentage of their students sharing the attribute and the percentage of those living in the designated geographic area sharing the same attribute. Indexes above 120 are highlighted and this is considered significant to their overall student profile. Once the names and addresses are profiled in the Optimizer, they are then destroyed and the list is purged and deleted in accordance to HIPPA regulations. No names or addresses are used in any other fashion but to generate an "Ideal Student profile."

market research

marketing research

Market to find student

 

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unique presentation packageRecently, we were asked by an engineering firm to come up with a concept for packaging one of their division’s services, geological comparison software. The engineering firm produced a software package that did soil and geology based work with software that was used by their customers in evaluating terrain and subsurface geology. This software package used a dongle for continued operation and along with accompanying corporate literature would be sent to purchasing clients. The complete software package would be mailed to their customer and as of right now this meant placing the dongle in a padded manila envelope complete with a string and circle tag attached. The dongle or thumb drive was small and the accompanying literature could be designed to fit any space or size that would make the presentation package that unique experience they were looking for. The overall governing issues to this project would be the quantities that would be ordered. The engineering firm would place or sell only 25-50 of these software packages a year. Producing a sui generis package that was cost effective meant that it couldn’t be printed, die cut, addressed, and mailed in such low quantities. We had to go digital and it had to be pre-die cut.

 

Mohawk Specialty Digital line was our Johnny Bravo, it fit the suit. We designed a wrap around full color geological vista with soil and rock layers to a 4” x 4” cube. An image of a cement slab complete with logos adorned the box top. A small screened white panel on one of the sides would be suitable for the mailing address. A return address above the mailing address completed the box. The address panel could be variable addressed at the time of printing, keeping the production down to a single pass through the digital press. Two pieces of convoluted foam sheets were cut to provide stability and structure for the mail piece. The dongle would fit snugly and quite safely between the 4” x 4” pieces of foam. The accompanying literature was placed on top of the piece and fastened with a small piece of clear cellophane tape and postage affixed. A $1.95 postage stamp would send the box to any location in the United States via first class mail. The piece was shrink-wrapped and mailed. Because we were using stamps produced on-line through Stamps.com, the stamps did not have to be cancelled and could be covered by the clear film.

unique gifts and business presenationshipping ways to be different

Production of the piece was a facile and uncomplicated process. With an online template available, the design and set up of the piece progressed efficiently. The 12” x 18” parent sheet ran in a single pass through our digital press and the piece, complete with address, was soon ready for finishing. Popping the box from the parent sheet might have brought back memories of punching out play pieces from Johnny Bravo’s time but the process was brief. The box assembled quickly and was ready to receive the convoluted foam sheets, dongle and company literature.

 

This specialty digital line certainly would not have been the answer, if the quantities were in the thousands due to the labor involved but these specialty stocks seem to be the answer for short run full color unique packaging solutions. The Mohawk Specialty Digital Line has a multitude of dimensional, embedded, magnet, pressure sensitive and synthetic stock available in low quantities for a slew of applications.

slew of applications

Unique packaging can be a complicated adventure and a coordination nightmare with all of its various parts but the end result can be well worth the effort. Hippoface can help you create a killer package for that next project or event.

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Time to stop treating Facebook like the redheaded step child and look at it as the necessary evil that it truly is. Social media is changing the way businesses have to market their wares and these Social Media outlets continue to evolve and change with remarkable urgency. Staying on top of this curve has become careers for some and nightmares for companies that do not employ specific individuals as social media managers. The bigest changes for Facebook include the following 5 but we’ll look at only one in depth.

  • Star Ratings
  • Social Graph Search
  • Clickable Hashtags
  • Facebook Replies
  • Trending Topics

These are the 5 new changes that occurred in late 2013 or in 2014 that you need to be concerned about when keeping your Facebook or social media up-to-date. On the top of the list is Facebook's new Star Ratings. This rating process is similar to Yelp, the online Urban Rating Giant that has been slapping around restaurants for years. Facebook's Star Rating system has been available for quite some time too but in late 2013 Facebook placed this rating prominently just below the business name. This feature can be disabled but doing so can arise some questions in your user’s minds, questions that need not be asked and certainly not ones you would want to have to answer. No one ever deletes positive feedback or reviews!

 

Star Ratings are a helpful tool in measuring customer's satisfaction beyond the simple click of “like”.  Use the Star Ratings features to focus on obtaining qualitative feedback and begin to engage your fans and loyal customers by asking them to participate on your Facebook page and rate your business. The feedback from your customers or let’s face it, your revenue streams, is an invaluable source of information. How your customers feel, rate, and what they find complimentary or critical is always a useful metric to consider.

 

Getting those five star ratings doesn’t have to be a laborious chore. Start by doing what you do best, focus on your business. If you focus on your customer's satisfaction and not the ratings, the reviews will come. Resist the temptation to have employees skew the numbers with their own reviews, this is akin to cheating at golf. The public has become savvy with self-imposed reviews and this will just confuse the situation. The largest benefit, other then letting your customers know what a juggernaut you are in the industry, is the self analyzing and conclusions that you will draw from what you customers think. The following is directly from Facebook and their instructions on the review process.

How do I review a business on Facebook?

You can review some businesses (ex: restaurants, hotels) by going to their Page.

To review a business:

  1. Use the search bar to find their Page and click to select it
  2. Scroll down to Reviews on the right side of the Page's Timeline
  3. Click the gray stars to leave a rating and fill in an optional review
  4. Click to select your audience from the dropdown menu
  5. Click Review

Keep in mind that your review will appear on the Page and will be Public unless you change your audience. For example, if you select Friends as your audience, only your friends who visit the Page will see your review. To change your rating, click the stars.

Note: Reviews are not available on all Pages. A Page must add their address to allow reviews.

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identifying real customersIdentifying, targeting and then being able to attract your ideal customers is where your marketing budget needs to be directed. Buyer personas are just the first step in determining who your ideal customers are but reaching those personas can be the tricky part.

Reverse Metrics at Work

Recently, we were asked to help a trade school fill seats for the new H.V.A.C. program they were starting. They also wanted to increase the overall enrollment in their other programs as well. It was imperative that the potential students were not only open to a trade school education but a good fit for the type of services that the school was looking to fill seats for. The school’s new curriculum featuring H.V.A.C. would be offered with several other mechanical trades such as welding and auto/diesel mechanics. These other programs were already in place and producing trained professionals, the school was looking to repeat this process for their new endeavor. Conventional direct marketing could help them reach their goal of student numbers but could not guarantee that those placed were the best possible fit. Again we needed to find not only prospective students who were able to afford and willing to attend a 24 month course but ones who would most likely graduate. There were accreditation issues that were at stake. The school had to maintain a certain percentage of graduating students to receive federal tax money and available grants. What we needed to do was find students that statistically profiled their best students, the ones who graduated.

Defining Their Ideal Student - Persona

The school had a particular idea of who was attending and what market those students should fall into. They did some interviews of the attending students and the results were similar to what the school had expected and what they thought was their typical student. The results of the interviews profiled their students as a male, 25 years old, single and living with their parents. This was however not their ideal student. This would become evident when we would run the optimizer or reverse metric on their ideal student. Remember their ideal student is not necessarily the man in the class on any given day but the student who completes the course, graduates and is working in that trade.

Their Student Data - Metrics 

The school supplied us with the names and addresses of their graduating students from the past 10 years. This was their ideal student, someone who had completed the school and would go on and into the job market not only as a trained professional but a promoter of the school as well. 861 graduating students were looked at and when the data was adjusted, since some had been out of school for up to ten years, the results were surprising.

Who to Look For

We now knew their ideal students were much older, in the range of 40 -55 years old. Surprisingly 40% were married with 1 or more children, and their dependents were 10 years old or younger. We knew their ethnic background, their median household income, the value of the house they lived in and we knew that their ideal student came from four specific zip codes. The information ascertained from the graduating technicians included 26 metrics. These 26 metrics could now be used to market directly to their ideal prospective student.
The attributes that showed the most significant matches for them were:

 

  • Region…..Zip Codes 151, 152, 153, 154 (95%)
  • Dwelling Type…..Single (88%)
  • Home Ownership…..Definite Owner (84%)
  • Gender….Male (65%)
  • Direct Mail Responder….Double/Multiple (64%)
  • Length of Residence…..15+ Years (63%)
  • Mail Responsive Buyer….Multiple Mail Buyer (60%)
  • Median Home Value…..50K – 100k (58%)
  • IPA Cluster Code….0- 24,000 (47%)
  • Credit Card…..Bank Card (45%) 

 

With this new information, it was directed that their ideal students were not in high school or recent grads but older men who had already taken a bite out of life but wanted more. Their ideal student, as it turned out, was one who was looking for a career change, not just a career.

Where to Find Them - The Results 

Below are several excerpts from their report. Note the penetration index – for each attribute, the relationship between the percentage of their students sharing the attribute and the percentage of those living in the designated geographic area sharing the same attribute. Indexes above 120 are highlighted and this is considered significant to their overall student profile. Once the names and addresses are profiled in the Optimizer, they are then destroyed and the list is purged and deleted in accordance to HIPPA regulations. No names or addresses are used in any other fashion but to generate an "Ideal Student profile."

market research

marketing research

Market to find student

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Take Aim with your Marketing Munitions

Offers to generate leadsAny campaign, whether it’s a military objective or a new marketing plan has to start with knowing who your customers or adversaries are, along with clear goals or objectives in mind. Knowing who you want to reach, were you want to go, and the time that this will take, is the first leg in any marketing venture. Only when specific goals are outlined, can you then begin to plan on how to attack and obtain your objective. In both of these types of campaigns, the lack of specific goals can negatively affect the overall success of the campaign. Strategies that are attached to specific personas and goals, when they are realistic, are the benchmarks of a sound marketing campaign. Unlike in a military campaign, where the outcomes can re-write history and cause the loss of life, marketing objectives, although a bit more reserved, are still essential. Without a clear and measurable starting and end target clearly defined, one can easily get lost and not see any real improvement. What can be far worse is actually gaining in market share but not being able to measure your achievements. If you are unable to define the metrics of your campaign with their respected gains or losses, then it is impossible to know what is working and more importantly what is not.

Start by Defining your Target Market

Define your Buyer

Determine who your ideal customer is and speak directly to them. Create a detailed buyer persona for each type of customer that you have. These personas are a fictional representation of these ideal customers and can help you refine your marketing strategies.

Most companies will have between 1 – 5 personas. To make things a bit more manageable, just concentrate on one or two personas to start. Buyer personas will help in all aspects of your marketing and they should be considered when writing or creating the following:

  • Keyword Strategy - Website, blogs, s.e.o, etc.
  • Blog Post - Write in the language of your persona
  • Offers - What is your persona looking for
  • CTAs - Calls-to action, their sole purpose is drive traffic
  • Landing Pages - Pages that speak to your persona
  • Thank You Pages - Good places to feature additional or new offers
  • Lead Nurturing - Leads that match your ideal customers will drive sales
  • New Services - Will these help your persona's pain points

 
Buyer personas focus your activities. A well researched and defined persona will help in getting the right traffic and leads to your website or landing pages.

Common FAQs on Buyer Personas

  • They help every company, regardless of the type of business
  • They are mostly created through research
  • Most companies have between 1 – 5 personas
  • They take time and effort to complete and can evolve over time

Clearly Develop and Write your Goals for the Upcoming Campaign

  • Develop a True and Smart Marketing Goal – Every marketing campaign needs a goal to judge its success.
  • Be Specific – Visits to a website, increase in leads or customers
  • Measurable – Provide numbers, start to finish
  • Attainable – Understand Benchmarks (time, money, length)
  • Relevant – Relates back to overall goals and the persona that you are trying to reach
  • Timely – Include a time-frame but also be precise

Smart Goal Example – Increase website visits by 50% (5,000 per month to 7,500 per month) by September 30TH, 2014

Marketing campaigns can be a complicated adventure and a coordinating nightmare with all of its various parts but the end results can be well worth the effort. Hippoface can help you create a killer campaign and start turning those prospects to leads and ultimately into sales.

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How to Integrate your Inbound Marketing Strategies with Traditional Direct Mail.

 

It is not surprising that you have spent a considerable amount of time designing and testing your landing page for your next marketing campaign but if nobody lands on it then we have"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound", scenario. Not to take away from this philosophical thought experiment that raises questions regarding observation and knowledge of reality but if no one sees your landing page, it’s clearly not going to work. Driving traffic or precisely Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL) to your landing pages is what in turn increases sales. Don’t be resistant to publish the landing page’s URL in print media or a well designed and targeted mail piece.

 

The amount of information that is available though purchased data bases is staggering. Whether your targets are Businesses or individual consumers, these lists are extremely accurate and economical to purchase or rent when compared to list that offer e-mails. E-mail list are notorious for being outdated and extremely expensive. Add this to 30% or greater attrition rate per year for e-mails and it becomes obvious that purchasing an e-mail list is clearly a tree falling in a remote forest. Captured e-mails from your Calls-to-Action via your landing pages will fair better than a purchased list. This stands to reason since they are being supplied by your customer at the time of action. It is however important to keep all e-mails, even the ones captured by your offers up to date, purging those that are no longer valid or have been hard bounced.

 

The same best practices that are used for your e-mail, blogs, social media and landing pages still need to be followed when creating these offers and exposing them through direct mail. Segment and categorize your list by personas and speak to them in their language. You will have to be a little creative when assigning personas to a purchased list but with the amount of information that is available for each household or business, a rough persona can be gleamed from the data.

 

When creating your mail piece use some of the same best practices that you used for the landing page.

  • The offer must provide value. Be aware of the different stages of the buying process. Since most of the leads that you will purchase are probably in the initial stage of the buying process make sure that the landing page and offer associated with it, reflects this.
    • Convey the offer clearly
    • What is being offered
    • What the benefits are
    • Why they need it
  • How to get this offer. More than likely, this is going to be through the landing page’s URL, so be cognoscente of this when creating the URL. Create a URL that is not too long and is easily remembered when typing in a browser. If using a page that is already published and its associated URL is unimaginably long, think about shorting it though “Tinyurl” or another like application
  • Convey the offer in 3 ways
    • Use a header to show what you will receive and how to get that amazing offer
    • Clearly explain the offer in 1–3 sentences and keep the offers to one idea
    • Visually communicate the offer with stunning images that have a clear and precise impact relating to the offer.

Creating that unique mail piece that features and compliments your landing page not only opens the door to new prospects but can also be used to pound your message home in a hard and hold able piece to all of your contacts. The more exposure any marketing campaign can gain, whether through on-line clicks or via conventional mail pieces, will only serve to increase awareness.

 

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Take Aim with your Marketing Munitions

2015 marketingAny campaign, whether it’s a military objective or a new marketing plan has to start with knowing who your customers or adversaries are, along with clear goals or objectives in mind. Knowing who you want to reach, were you want to go, and the time that this will take, is the first leg in any marketing venture. Only when specific goals are outlined, can you then begin to plan on how to attack and obtain your objective. In both of these types of campaigns, the lack of specific goals can negatively affect the overall success of the campaign. Strategies that are attached to specific personas and goals, when they are realistic, are the benchmarks of a sound marketing campaign. Unlike in a military campaign, where the outcomes can re-write history and cause the loss of life, marketing objectives, although a bit more reserved, are still essential. Without a clear and measurable starting and end target clearly defined, one can easily get lost and not see any real improvement. What can be far worse is actually gaining in market share but not being able to measure your achievements. If you are unable to define the metrics of your campaign with their respected gains or losses, then it is impossible to know what is working and more importantly what is not.

Start by Defining your Target Market

Define your Buyer

Determine who your ideal customer is and speak directly to them. Create a detailed buyer persona for each type of customer that you have. These personas are a fictional representation of these ideal customers and can help you refine your marketing strategies.

Most companies will have between 1 – 5 personas. To make things a bit more manageable, just concentrate on one or two personas to start. Buyer personas will help in all aspects of your marketing and they should be considered when writing or creating the following:

  • Keyword Strategy - Website, blogs, s.e.o, etc.
  • Blog Post - Write in the language of your persona
  • Offers - What is your persona looking for
  • CTAs - Calls-to action, their sole purpose is drive traffic
  • Landing Pages - Pages that speak to your persona
  • Thank You Pages - Good places to feature additional or new offers
  • Lead Nurturing - Leads that match your ideal customers will drive sales
  • New Services - Will these help your persona's pain points


Buyer personas focus your activities. A well researched and defined persona will help in getting the right traffic and leads to your website or landing pages.

Common FAQs on Buyer Personas

  • They help every company, regardless of the type of business
  • They are mostly created through research
  • Most companies have between 1 – 5 personas
  • They take time and effort to complete and can evolve over time

Clearly Develop and Write your Goals for the Upcoming Campaign

  • Develop a True and Smart Marketing Goal – Every marketing campaign needs a goal to judge its success.
  • Be Specific – Visits to a website, increase in leads or customers
  • Measurable – Provide numbers, start to finish
  • Attainable – Understand Benchmarks (time, money, length)
  • Relevant – Relates back to overall goals and the persona that you are trying to reach
  • Timely – Include a time-frame but also be precise

Smart Goal Example – Increase website visits by 50% (5,000 per month to 7,500 per month) by September 30TH, 2014

Marketing campaigns can be a complicated adventure and a coordinating nightmare with all of its various parts but the end results can be well worth the effort. Hippoface can help you create a killer campaign and start turning those prospects to leads and ultimately into sales.

Author Published on

Marketing and Design 2015How much is too much when it comes to marking up jobs to be resold. The numbers that agencies and print shops use to mark up work they don’t produce can be a mystery and even to the ones working for them. I have worked at shops that used a double variable slide rule technique. This process does not include the all but forgotten “slide rule” that preceded calculators but the “I think we can get away with this amount,” rule.

 

The process would go as follows:

  1. Calculate the total cost of the job that was being farmed out
  2. Use a predetermined scale to cross reference the cost and its associated mark up. Example: Total job cost $2,650.55. Find the number in our mark-up table. Jobs between $2,500 - $3,000 would receive a 1.65% mark-up or $4,373.40 ($1,722.85 profit)
  3. Now if the company was deemed to be loose or not watch every penny, these numbers and the associated mark-up would escalate. I have seen owners and not so ethical managers disregard previous business mark-up tables and charge 3 to 4 times the actual value. These people would fit in well with the white pants and white belt world of used car salesman. Hidden in the invoice programs these companies use, are plenty of surcharges that ad to the total but never become listed as a line item. Box charges, delivery fees, digital imposition charges, specialty services and on and on. This added fluff becomes a necessity for ill run businesses.
  4. Aggravation factor. This process has two parts that are intently entwined. The first part deals with how much a customer or the company they represent is important to the firm doing the printing. Companies that are necessary for the survival of a provider may get a pass on additional charges. However, they are not immune to the increased mark-ups above. The second part deals with customers that have little chance of returning or do not account for much revenue over the year. An additional charge or aggravation factor may be assessed to theses accounts.

 

There is really no rule of thumb when it comes to pricing jobs that done or re-sold by providers. This is where it becomes especially necessary to do you homework and never allow complacency to enter the decision. I have seen too many large corporations that trust a provider and end up paying 3 – 4 times for business collateral than they should.

 

5 Tips to prevent overpaying for printing.

 

  1. Quotes - Get quotes from companies that specialize in the job that you are in need of. No provider can do it all and will always job out before they tell you they can’t provide something. This may not always be easy and it’s not always clear to what specialties a provider may produce or ones that he will job out. Due diligence is required here and these providers should be changed frequently to assure a quality mix of potential venders.
  2. Line Item - Ask to have separate line items for each part. Design or concept work should never be included in the printed price. You just might end up paying that design charges again and again when you re-order in the future.
  3. Mailing Charges – Ask for the postal statement and provide your own check written out to the post master. Do not allow your postage to be marked-up.
  4. Charges - Get all the charges up-front, this includes shipping, delivery or any other charges that may be added.
  5. Quantity – You never want to order more than you will ever use but some common sense here can save you thousands. Quantity discounts if you can combine orders with another branch or just ordering enough for the entire year can save a lot of expense. Ask for a discount if you increase your order or what is the next price break on each order.

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mobile workforceSome of our first insights of the future of telecommuting came by way of Hanna-Barbera’s Mr. Spacely’s wonderful treatment of the inept George Jetson and his R.U.D.I screen. Not exactly today’s Face Time but R.U.D.I. or the "Referential Universal Differential Indexer" was for George, a step in that direction. Mr. Spacely, with the help of his right hand robot, Uniblab, always managed his telecommuting employee, George, the same, he fired him. Mr. Spacely’s management skills although lacking in leadership or any assemblage of etiquette was concise and bold to a point. Two things in Mr. Spacely’s favor, you knew were he stood and exactly what he expected. Developing leadership and managing a mobile workforce starts with clear communication and specific goals that encourage and build a team with a common objective.

Communication – phones, e-mail, Instant Messaging, Virtual media, Go-to-Meeting, Web Conference, Skype, Face Time  

There is no shortage in ways to keep in contact with a mobile workforce and for the latter there is no real way to hide as well. Messages sent on multiple platforms can not be easily ignored or intentionally forgotten. Team leaders can keep in contact with their entire mobile force and schedule times and media devices so that when a group is needed to convene, it is not only possible but convenient for all members of that specific team. Daily interactive messages from leaders to their team members can keep a team on specific time frame and reach their objectives set. Team members' accountability for participation and engagement is also critical if the mobile and distant work force is going to succeed. Leaders and members must develop a consistent conversation etiquette that keeps their group informed and updated but falls short of blowing up the team members' phone.

Goals – Precise, Consistent, Clear  

Team goals need to be set early in the process or success from a mobile workforce will be erratic at best. Without a precise, clear and attainable goal for your mobile workforce in place, your teams’ efforts can not be tracked. If you cannot track your metrics then it is almost always impossible to determine if you are successful.  Detailed protocols that arrive around your set goals include: deadlines, R.O.I. Sales or lead Numbers, etc. must be in place and fairly enforced for the entire group. These goals must be attainable, set high but not out of sight.

Teamwork – Face-to-Face, Celebrate, Fun and Creative

Building an effective mobile working team can have a far reaching positive effect on all aspects of a company. An energetic and knowledgeable work force that is delighted as well will put a very positive spin that is felt through the company and the profits that are generated. It’s not always possible to meet your mobile employees in face-to-face scenarios but this should be tried at least twice a year. Companies need to allocate realistic budgets so that team members can reach their goals. Regularly scheduled team events such as celebrations, conferences or seminars establish trust and go a long way to delight your mobile workforce.

As companies look to reach worldwide and set their sights on a global community, their work force and the hours they set have become more than the standard hours of 9-5. Telecommuting has stretched the work force and the managers guiding them to meet these goals.