If you’re part of a consulting firm and you’re hesitant to engage in marketing…you’re not alone.    

Some consulting firms have been burned by agencies or by the wrong in-house hires, while others just don’t see how marketing can support business growth in a relationship-driven industry. They say things like, “It’s about who you know, not how many emails you send,” and “SEO can’t close a million-dollar deal.”

Savvy firms understand that marketing can not only drive lead generation but also support business growth, like one healthcare services firm that acquired 13+ new clients and over $2M in a pipeline from Google AdWords and 26 new clients from website leads over the course of two years.  

Before they decide to engage with a marketing partner, consulting firms often make some marketing mistakes. Here are the top nine:

1. They rely too heavily on referrals and WOM marketing – While referrals and WOM are excellent business drivers, they’re not consistent.  It’s nearly impossible to build a sales forecast (and therefore predictable revenue) when you can’t control when the next referral will come in.  Marketing can put consulting firms in the driver’s seat towards growth, and when done right, it can also fuel referral business as well.

2. A junior marketer is hired to handle all of marketing – Many consulting companies have a junior or mid-level marketer in-house.  This decision may be a result of financial pressures, because a talented individual on the team transferred into the marketing department, or because the firm doesn’t truly understand the strategic role marketing can play in supporting business growth.  If a junior marketer is running marketing programs, they’re not always focused on the areas that offer the greatest opportunities for the firm.

3. Sales isn’t ready to handle leads – One consulting firm was creating excellent thought leadership content and generating high-quality leads. Although marketing had been delivering the leads to Sales regularly, the team wasn’t equipped to handle the additional volume on top of their existing activity.  The leads sat untouched for weeks, which is a sales and marketing nightmare. Ensuring the team has all they need to follow up in a timely manner (e.g. timeframes, email templates, additional resources, etc.) is a critical component of any marketing effort. At a more strategic level, it’s most effective when marketing for consulting firms includes not only lead generation, but sales enablement, streamlining the lead follow up the process, and marketing and sales alignment.

4. The sales funnel has drained – In the consulting world, there is a constant tension between sales and delivery.  If you’ve been more focused on delivery and the well has run dry, you’ll want to get demand generation programs in place as soon as possible to help fill the funnel.  Ideally, you’ll want to consider lead generation programs three to six months ahead of your typical sales cycle. If your sales cycle is three months, you’ll want to get these in place six to nine months before you can reap the benefits.  Plan ahead so you’re not stuck when you need leads next week.

5. The Head of Sales and Marketing is ignoring marketing – We get it: the pull of sales is strong.  When one person is in charge of sales and marketing, they often have a stronger sales background, which means marketing isn’t always being done justice.  Not all marketing is in the direct line of sight for sales. For example, brand awareness, partnerships, and lead nurture programs are important, but may fall out of the purview of someone who has a quota to meet that quarter.  

6. Current marketing efforts are hurting, not helping – Many consulting firms have a website, but it’s outdated, and the messaging doesn’t reflect who they are and where they are heading.  Some also struggle with what we like to call “The Flair Up Phenomenon,” which is when marketing activities flair up when time allows and then fade back into darkness when things get busy again.  If you’re experiencing this phenomenon, it could be hurting your business—your audience fills in the gaps on their own about why you’ve suddenly gone quiet. Regular cadence is critically important, even if your volume of activity is low.  

7. Marketing opportunities are left on the table – Some consulting firms (typically managed services firms) have MDF (Marketing Development Funds) at their disposal. MDF are provided by some brands to help channel partners or resellers sell its products. In many cases, consulting firms leave MDF on the table.  When asked why they say that they don’t know what to ask for or what they’d do with them if they did. Firms are always surprised to find out the traction they can make using their MDF when they work with a partner that understands this ecosystem.

8. Consulting firms launch their first product and don’t consult product marketing experts – Many consulting firms build up enough IP over the years to create a product that is completely separate from their service offerings (e.g. a management consulting firm in the customer experience space launches a survey product that measures the strength of customer relationships).  When clients see this new product offering as business as usual, an opportunity is missed—these products can be applied across accounts to make them even more profitable.

9. Budgets are way off – Creating a marketing budget is no easy task.  This issue plagues many firms in the consulting industry, where long sales cycles and multiple touch points with prospects make it difficult to track whether your marketing budget is directly connected to conversions.  While the CMO Survey recommends that 6.8% of company revenues are spent on marketing, we’ve seen that number vary depending on company size, industry, desired growth trajectory, go-to-market model, and sales structure.  For firms in the 10-50 employee range and that are just starting to expand marketing efforts, we tend to see smaller budget numbers—investments of between 4-8% of revenues.  Many of these firms start at the lower end and grow their investment over time as they better understand the role marketing can play in their growth—and more specifically, understand the right investments to make and expand.

The decision to scale up marketing efforts is not an easy one as it requires an investment of time, resources, and perhaps even some soul-searching on how you want to be perceived as a firm.  In any case, investing in marketing is a decision that many firms wish they had made sooner as they begin to experience the vast benefits for their business.  Avoid these nine marketing mistakes by choosing a marketing partner that has deep expertise in the consulting space and beyond.  

Natalie Nathanson is the Founder and President of Magnetude Consulting. Find additional content on the Magnetude Consulting Blog. Follow her on Twitter: @_Magnetude

Over the past five years or so, the goal of having a fantastic corporate culture has been at the forefront of many CEO’s minds.  For years it went ignored or, at best, misunderstood. Gone are the days where culture was considered “soft stuff.” At this point, thousands of articles, conferences, and consultants have been shared, each of which promotes the gospel on why a strong culture is imperative to the overall health of a business.  Even investor extraordinaire Warren Buffet is a staunch believer. 

And yet if it’s so important, why do so many companies struggle to build a strong one as a foundational element to their success? Because it’s difficult.

Every culture is unique and is the culmination of a variety of factors. There is no silver bullet, nor is there a blueprint that will satisfy the needs of all companies. That said, there are a handful of elements that are shared by every healthy culture I’ve come across. Identifying and understanding where your organization measures against these is a decent place to start.

KNOW WHO YOU ARE, AND WHO YOU ASPIRE TO BE.

Many companies start with a compelling mission or vision statement. If done well, it should be fueled with purpose. Consider Patagonia’s: “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.” If you read their core values, they map directly back to that statement.  In other words, the statement is clear about the direction they are headed and what they hope to achieve in their business. The five core values they selected directly map back to that vision. There is no guessing on the part of the employee or the customer; it’s abundantly clear what is valued, and the behaviors they expect to achieve it.

PRO TIP: Wandering aimlessly is fun if you are exploring a new city, but it’s a dangerous approach to take when you are leading a business.  Whether it’s “landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade,” or Bill Gates’ original mission for Microsoft of "A computer on every desk in every home", ensuring you create one that serves as a clear north star to your employees and customers alike is imperative. Don’t know where to start? The internet is loaded with sources, but here are a few basics. How to Write a Mission Statement and Answer 4 Questions to Get a Great Mission Statement.

UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU VALUE MOST.

While a vision statement aids in articulating why you exist as a business, identifying a set of core values is the foundation of behaviors and mindsets necessary to achieve it. Start with what matters most to your company; whether it’s how you treat each other, the customer experience, collaboration, etc. Many companies attempt this by crafting a handful of clever words, but then fail to execute on them. (how do you measure “have fun?!”)  What matters most in selecting your core values is that they are completely authentic to your company.

PRO TIP:  Whether you are a startup and taking your first pass at identifying values, or you are an established company looking to do a cultural revamp, including the input of “cultural icons.”  These are people representing every level, every team, every office, who are known to embody what your leadership truly values. When we started this exercise at Rapid7 eight years ago, we did just this.  A group of about thirty diverse perspectives came together over the course of two months and did the hard work of determining who we were...and who we aspired to be. Obviously, our executive team had signed off before we rolled out the final product, but by following this approach we not only ended up with values that represented us well; we also have 30% of the company bought in and serving as ambassadors because they had played a role in the process.

PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH.

You’ve now done the hard work of understanding what your company’s raison d’etre, and have identified the core values to support it. Now comes the hard work.  Every single element of your employee lifecycle - from the day you first reach out to a potential candidate, to how you onboard them, to their development, to their promotions straight through to the day you part ways - should be infused with your core values.  It’s one thing to have them hanging on a wall as a subliminal reminder; it’s quite another to have your people embody them to the point where they are guiding behaviors and decision making. For example, if your company espouses “teamwork” as a value, but creates an environment where only the loudest voice in the room makes all the decisions without encouraging others who are quieter to share their perspective, you aren’t truly living that value. It’s not enough to state what’s important; it must be reinforced in reviews, promotions, awards, and the daily operations of your business.

PRO TIP:  This isn’t just a human resources/people strategy exercise.  Leaders of the company should take an active role, and model the behaviors you wish your employees to live on a daily basis.  It’s hard to inspire people to, for example, innovate, if they are penalized for pushing boundaries and taking risks when they sometimes fail. In other words, no matter what values you select, they must be woven into your everyday activities to actually take root and work.

CELEBRATE THOSE WHO EMBODY THE CULTURE.

Outlining and articulating your mission and values is one thing, but embodying them and living them on a daily basis is where the real magic happens. It’s virtually impossible to build a strong, healthy culture without people who don’t just buy in and embody it but contribute to it as well. Being able to identify people as positive cultural reference points are imperative; they are the people you want to celebrate for their part in strengthening the culture.  Whether through awards, promotions, or just plain daily kudos, be mindful of the people and behaviors you are shining the spotlight on. No matter what role they play in the company, others will look to them for cues on what success looks like.

PRO TIP:  This is where hard decisions come into play. If you have a sales leader who is crushing their number but misaligned with your values, what do you do?  Do you look the other way because of the revenue they are bringing in? The real “secret” to building a healthy culture is nurturing it. Every time you celebrate someone who is NOT aligned with the values of the company, you chip away at its effectiveness. Take the time to hire people who are aligned from the start, and coach them if they are struggling with the values once they arrive. If misalignment continues to exist, make the tough calls. Your other team members will thank you for it.  

STORIES &  ARTIFACTS

There is exceptional power in the storytelling of your culture.  It offers the opportunity to share the history, the context, and importance of why your company believes and operates the way it does.  It’s irrelevant if this is done formally or informally; everyone who works there should know and understand that narrative. Those elements, in our case, about how a moose came to represent teamwork or how “meaningful customer partnerships” took a new meaning with an infamous Kentucky Derby mishap, it’s all part of our lore.  Supporting these stories with artifacts just serve to reinforce the messages more.

PRO TIP: Often companies try to be clever and create fun slogans or moments to highlight how fun or progressive the company is. Again, the reminder here is to be mindful about your stories and artifacts supporting the culture you want to build, not just how cool you think you are.  As with all of this work, authenticity is paramount.

WORKPLACE EXPERIENCE

The dynamics of the workplace have shifted radically over the last several decades.  Long gone are the days of beige walls and cube farms. If you think of your environment as the physical manifestation of your culture, it begins to shape how you design.  For example, if you value collaboration but have all your people sitting in separate offices, aren’t you sending mixed messages? When selecting cities and countries to open new spaces, are you doing the diligence ahead of time to select local cultures which align with the values? How and where we work is the in-your-face representation of our culture. Where often values can be felt in subtle ways throughout the work day, there are no hiding misalignments when you can visually see them on daily basis.

PRO TIP:  Whether you are a tiny startup or a rapidly growing firm, you can embed the workplace experience into your cultural planning. It doesn’t have to break the bank; even the simplest elements which support your values and the way in which you want people to work (collaboration spaces, quiet spaces, places to eat, etc.) all make a significant difference.  

There is a multitude of factors which influence and shape a company’s culture, but the above help set a basic blueprint to get started or recalibrated.  No matter what you do, however, remember authenticity, consistency, and engagement sit at the center of success.

Christina Luconi is Chief People Officer for Rapid7. Follow her on Twitter: @peopleinnovator

For the 70th episode of our podcast, I interviewed Nate Walkingshaw, Chief Experience Officer for Pluralsight.

Nate is widely known as a pioneer in technology product development and his Directed Discovery methodology. He is a master in the craft of building and designing amazing products, to the point where he actually co-authored a book on the subject called Product Leadership: How Top Product Managers Launch Awesome Products and Build Successful Teams.

Pluralsight is an enterprise technology learning platform that delivers a unified end-to-end learning experience for businesses across the globe. The company went public just last year and was recently recognized as one of the 2019 Best Workplaces in Technology by Fortune and Great Place to Work.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover lots of great topics like:

• Nate’s background starting out as an EMT, what that taught him about empathy, and how that translates into building successful products.
• How this experience took him down the path of entrepreneurship and starting a company that invented the most recognizable hospital evacuation sled called the Paraslyde.
• His transition into the tech industry and his work as a startup advisor and founder of Tanner Labs.
• All the details behind Pluralsight, their mission and products, plus the company’s social impact.
• What the team is working on in the Boston office and future growth plans for this location.
• What he looks for when hiring and advice for pursuing a career in product management.
• Plus, a lot more.

Just in case you didn’t know, Pluralsight is aggressively growing their office in Boston. The company is looking to hire across multiple function areas like marketing, product, engineering, data science & analytics. Go to venturefizz.com/pluralsight to check out all of their openings.

You can listen to the podcast in the player below. To make sure you receive future episodes, please subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or Soundcloud. If you enjoyed our show, please consider writing us a 5-star review—it will definitely help us get the word out there!

This past long snowy weekend had me largely holed up in my house with my kids. A storm had hit our area fairly hard, so we took advantage of the quiet time to study for midterms (them) and catch up some way overdue work (me).  Though they actually got out of the house and saw their friends, the amount of time they were technically connected to their people was remarkable. As I looked up from the sea of laptops, iPhones and tablets sprinkled all over our kitchen, it started me thinking: are all these devices bringing us closer together, or farther apart?

In our growing and very distributed company, finding ways to collaborate so we can maximize the skills and ideas of all of our holistic teams is one of the biggest challenges we face in our work environment.  The ability to do this - to reach out and make connections that we all benefit from - is a huge factor in hiring and promotion decisions.  The need to connect and collaborate is huge; and yet we increasingly are working with a population of people who default so heavily on technology, I started considering how we might be poisoning our ability to do this through an over-reliance on technology.  The ying and the yang of technology and collaboration, if you will.

First, a reality check:

There may be no right or wrong answer here.  My parents took a look at how reliant I was on my phone during a recent visit, and I was shocked.  Compared to my kids, I feel like I’m not nearly as tech-obsessed.  And yet, there is a reality that we all socialize differently. While my parents might not understand that I think it’s amazing to be able to catch up with high school friends on Facebook, I can’t get my head around why Gen Z takes thousands of selfies and shares them via Snapchat with each other.  In other words, just like any other social change, we all experience and engage with it differently.  How you view those might be largely influenced by your generation or a variety of other factors.

CONS & PROS:

CON: Tech distractions can affect productivity. With a huge upcoming biology midterm, I was helping my daughter study with Quizlet (why didn’t this exist when I was in high school?!).  In the twenty minutes it took to get through the flashcards on her laptop, the number of times she received text alerts was astounding.  It was compounded by the flashing pop up ads we couldn’t get rid of,  and were completely distracting. With so much coming at us all at once, it’s no wonder we get distracted. At work, we need to set intentional boundaries for ourselves so we don’t get completely distracted from our work by the slew of personal texts, social media and the like when we are needing to be focused on the work at hand. Sure, we might start by sitting down at our computers to do legitimate work, but only to get completely distracted by something that appears on our machine and we proceed to spend time on something completely unrelated to work. Identifying - and sticking to - good technology work habits aids us in being more productive and focused.

PRO: Tech can increase productivity. As mentioned above, technology and the information it supports can result in some serious unfocused behavior, it can also do wonders to aid us in our ability to get our tasks accomplished in a more efficient and engaged manner. From automating simple tasks to the way we manage our workload and share information, it’s been a complete game changer in terms of our own ability to get stuff done. That is, of course, if we stay focused.

CON: Tech can take a toll on our interaction opportunities. When we rely so heavily on technology, we give up those simple activities that allow us to further a connection.  It’s one thing to tweet to your network about your excitement about the upcoming series finale of Game of Thrones.  It’s a missed opportunity, however,  to chat about it in the office kitchen with your colleagues as you pour yourself a glass of Kombucha. It’s been an amazing advance in partnering to have tools that allow us to connect virtually, no matter where we are. However, relying on them to the extent that you are constantly Slacking your teammate rather than spinning your chair around to collaborate with them in person is just a missed opportunity to strengthen a relationship.

PRO: Tech can help foster a team environment.  Of course, it’s critical to build relationships to foster strong and productive work environments.  Creative work spaces that are tech-enabled (we have one that feels like you are in a cool living room) allows people to gather and connect in a more intimate, collegial setting.  This can lead to a stronger team atmosphere. In other words, use technology to help strengthen the team dynamic, not just as a transactional tool.

CON: Tech can negatively impact the mojo of a team. No team can receive outstanding results unless it collaborates well together. Technology and tools have enabled people to work together around a virtual whiteboard, or share ideas from wherever they sit around the world.  However, as reliant as we have become on these tech enablers, it’s just as important to build actual relationships.  If collaboration and real teaming is vital to the success of a team, engagement, passion and feeling like you are adding impact are the elements that fuel that success. Taking the time to actually build human relationships in addition to the tech ones allow a far greater change for long term success.

PRO: Tech can aid us in building strong relationships. Technology provides us countless ways to build and maintain relationships, join communities, and express ourselves in a way that might be slightly less intimidating than the doing so in the “real world.” While we sometimes see people hide behind their screens to engage with others, consider all the IRL connections that have been made because people had the benefit of an online start. For those colleagues you don’t see often, balancing a tech connection (Slack, text, etc) with real human contact can bring you even closer.

In contemplating the pluses and minuses of how and why technology can be both a help and a hindrance to collaboration, my mind started spinning with numerous other examples.  From helping/hurting us in taking responsibility for our actions to sharing information to community building, technology is changing our worlds in countless ways. And as we build businesses in today’s environment, the use of technology - especially collaboration technology - is a necessity. A goal of our company is to understand and consider a variety of different perspectives to arrive at the right solution. There is no doubt to me that technology is creating a whole lot of good when it comes to aiding us in fostering collaboration.  However, like just about anything at work, nothing can replace good old fashioned human relationships when it comes to fostering collaboration.  A little balance is a good strategy with just about everything.

Christina Luconi is Chief People Officer for Rapid7. Follow her on Twitter: @peopleinnovator

There is a tremendous amount of speculation and hype surrounding blockchain and its potential impact on business.  A lot of venture capital is funding startups from Boston to Silicon Valley (as well as abroad) hoping to capitalize on this technology that portends to disrupt business as usual. Despite all of the hype, finding someone that actually understands what blockchain is seems oddly difficult.  You can spend a couple of hours watching YouTube videos on the subject and come away more confused than informed. This has led me to try to piece together a Blockchain 101. Fundamentals are important and this topic is amazingly complex.

Blockchain Origins

In 1991 Stuart Harber and Scott Stornetta published work in the Journal of Cryptography on how to time stamp a digital asset. That is widely considered the origin of the idea of blockchain - although that term was not used at the time. It wasn’t until October 2008 that blockchain, in its current incarnation, was introduced to the world. A person (or group of people) that identified themselves as Satoshi Nakamoto published a paper on a cryptography mailing list called "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System".  On January 9, 2009, Nakamoto released the first version of Bitcoin and with it created the world's first blockchain database. To this date, no one knows who Satoshi Nakamoto is.

Blockchain is not Bitcoin

Bitcoin requires blockchain to operate.  However, blockchain doesn’t require Bitcoin - or any cryptocurrency for that matter.  There seems to be much confusion around that.

Blockchain is a distributed ledger system that utilizes cryptography, a complex mathematical transaction verification system and a peer to peer network to ensure the integrity of the data in the ledger.  It is a ledger without a central authority.

It can be utilized for currency but also for a host of other applications such as smart contracts - pretty much anything that utilizes a ledger.

How Blockchain Works - A - B - C

1. A “block” contains 3 data elements

1. Data related to a transaction of a blockchain enabled application such as Bitcoin or Ethereum (buyer, seller, amount, timestamp, etc)

2. A cryptographic hash (a digital fingerprint unique to the block)

3. The cryptographic hash of the previous block (to ensure proper transaction sequencing) - the “chain”

2. Each new block goes through a process called “Proof of Work” in order to be added to the blockchain.  This is a process where the proposed new block is vetted for being added to the chain via a mathematical challenge that requires immense computing power to solve. People that allocate the computing power to solve these challenges are referred to as “miners”.  The person / entity that successfully solves the challenge and subsequently elevates the new block to the blockchain is rewarded in some fashion (typically coins or transaction fees). This process is incredibly complex as the blockchain continues to grow the computing power required to solve these challenges grows. There is a competing approach to Proof of Work that is emerging called “Proof of Stake” which eliminates the computing power requirement and replaces it with a miner’s stake in solving the challenge - a stake meaning what they are willing to tie up currency for a period of time in order to solve the challenge.

3. Blockchain was designed to exist on a peer to peer network - meaning no central control or authority.  So for example - with Bitcoin everyone that utilizes Bitcoin by downloading the application also gets a copy of the entire Bitcoin blockchain.  That means everyone gets a copy of every Bitcoin transaction, since it’s beginning, and that blockchain is modified everytime a Proof of Work is successfully completed - on every peer system.  This is an important component of the system - as it guarantees that the blockchain is decentralized. There are some negatives associated with this approach - performance and reliability being the most obvious. This approach does open up the possibility that if someone can gain control of 51% of the nodes on the network - they can control that blockchain.

As of 2018 the Bitcoin mining pools were extremely concentrated - which means a few groups of people control the vast majority of the currency - specifically in China.

Bitcoin Mining Pools by Country - 2018

Bitcoin Mining Pools by Organization - 2018

Blockchain Innovation

There is a lot of investment around utilizing blockchain in private industry.  From smart contracts to global banking, etc. However, these innovations are largely private blockchain systems - with a central authority - which essentially is the opposite of what blockchain started out as. Perhaps these innovations will be quite successful and useful, however, they will not be peer to peer solutions - and thus it can be argued that they aren’t blockchain at all - just distributed networks and applications that borrow from blockchain’s cryptography roots.

PredictiveHR’s SaaS platform utilizes machine learning to gain insight into how a company’s HR team is operating on a day-by-day basis.

The company's Co-Founder and VP of Business Development and Marketing Strategy Scott Santoro spoke with us to talk about the team’s experience in the HR space and how it gives them an advantage working in the HRtech space. Santoro also went into detail on how their software works and how they are constantly updating it to assist organizations that need it.

Scott Santoro [SS]: Our founder, Jamie Troiano and I had worked together for 10+ years in different organizations.  Each time we moved to a new company, the same issues around reporting, the quality of the data, timeliness of being able to report on the data and data integrity were always consistent issues.  In addition, combining our HR data with Finance data was always a challenge; HR and Finance Headcount data never the same which brought up question the integrity of the data. Trying to map this data to external market and industry trends was equally challenging. Jamie and our CTO Charlie Occhinio took upon themselves to build a solution to this problem, which is now our proprietary AI tool AIEr, and Executive Lens reporting suite.

CB: Similar to other industries, the human resources space has an abundance of problems within it. What are some of the problems that PredictiveHR is looking to solve?

SS: People Analytics, Predictive Headcount Modeling, and Cross-Functional Reporting. The quality, timeliness, and structure of people analytics that supports decision-making. The cost of staff is usually the highest cost within any organization. In addition, those people also have a major impact on a company’s productivity, product or its overall health. The ability to utilize the data that HR “sits on” in a more effective, timely way is what we set out to improve.

Our reporting capability is system agnostic and includes data from outside of HR including Finance systems as well as data from third-party organizations outside of the company.  All of this data in a real-time dashboard can be very impactful. PHRs AI tool has the capability to also utilize the information to build predictive models of staffing, talent, retention, succession, etc. into our suite of dashboards visualizations.

CB: Pretend that I am a new user of the PredictiveHR platform, could you please explain to me how it works?  

SS: PHR is a SaaS platform that enables people analytics by utilizing machine learning to predict talent trends and their financial impacts to business outcomes. The PHR Platform aggregates people analytics, predictive workforce planning solutions and HR systems expertise in a comprehensive data set with a real-time dashboard with rich data visualizations.

CB: Who are some of the clients of PredictiveHR? Are there any use cases that have stood out to you?

SS: Being a newly created startup, we have beta customers that we are continually learning from.  Each has brought an interesting view of how their unique situation can utilize our product and tools.  This has been tremendously helpful for us as we approach the market and fine-tune our messaging. We started with the approach of being a customized solution for our clients, so we value the partnership. For example, one client was interested in learning where and what the skills were of their international employee base.  The information we were able to provided included the cost of staff, location, skill sets, performance, gender, retention, and training of each employee. With this data, they were able to model out a future workforce plan based on their business plan. The results also helped to identify staff that required additional training, utilizing staff that had desired skills and the optimal location based on available resources and market trends that would best service and optimize their business.

CB: How big is the team and are there any other positions that you are looking to hire in the next few months?  

SS: Our team is made up of individuals with years in HR and HR systems.  Each of us has held senior-level roles in Human Resources, HRIS, and Talent Management for companies across the IT, Healthcare, Education, Hospitality and Education industries. Combined with our technology platform, the team brings a unique understanding of the HR industry to our customers. Currently, PHR is made up of 11 people. We are adding to our Product Development and our Talent Acquisition team.  

CB: What is the company culture like at PredictiveHR? Is the company involved with any Meetup groups?

SS: We are all HR and talent specialists. We try to participate across the HR spectrum. This year we participated in NEHRA, SHRM, Boston TA and TO groups as well as HRLF. We are trying to get our company name into the market; we think we have a product that can really help the industry. We are very much a startup cultural!

CB: There seem to be more HRtech startups coming out of stealth mode or starting out. Could you share some advice to aspiring startups who want to get involved with human resources?

SS: Stick with it, believe in your product and leverage your networks! It takes passion and the idea that based on your experience your product and services can elevate the function.

CB: It’s always interesting hearing how a startup came up with its name. How did PredictiveHR come up with its name?

SS: The Predictive capability of our platform is what we thought really differentiate PHR so we wanted to include that in the name somehow.  Yes, there are many that say we can do attrition or hiring calculations “on the back of a napkin approach”, but have all the impacts and trends at your fingertips o model out scenarios is impactful and empowering for HR leaders.

CB: Any other additional comments you’d like to make?

SS: Having been in HR leadership roles is a real differentiator of the PHR team. We have been there and understand the pressures that HR is facing around Talent and Talent Management in this day and market.  People analytics, and really being able to put that data to actionable insights will be an effective tool for managing and keeping talent and increasing a company’s overall productivity. We see the same challenges in each of our customers, lot’s of good data spread across multiple systems, multiple spreadsheets and the HR operations team trying to pull it all together. There has to be a better way and we think we have that to offer.

Throughout the most recent years of my career, I’ve helped transform tech teams from some form of Waterfall process to Agile. A challenge I always seem to run into is the team over committing to work. Whether you’re on a tech team or are managing your personal life, many people struggle with saying “no” or “not right now” to work they had not planned for. Despite all your best intentions, not being able to say no leads to overcommitting.  Overcommitting doesn’t come without its issues, in fact, this can affect your productivity, quality, and deadlines in the end.

We all want to make our customers (whoever they are) happy, but sometimes when we’re not vigilant, we can find ourselves in a position of overpromising (or being overcommitted). Here’s how and why we fall into that trap, how to get out, and why we MUST say no to ensure long term success.  

Although many of the solutions I will describe are processes of Scrum and/or Kanban -- two incarnations of Agile –I’m purposefully trying to stay away from directly pushing an Agile methodology because, frankly, this is about managing your demand, and the processes I’ll describe can fit into almost any work management process.

How and why this happens

How long ya got? Maybe a friend in another team didn’t realize they needed you/your team to do some work on one of their critical projects. Or perhaps a new initiative came about as part of an organizational change. The reasons are many. And so you or your team is now faced with disappointing a friend or taking on work they really don’t have room for.

Overcommitting can be explicit, in that you or your team may say you can get something done at a requested time even if they aren’t sure when or how exactly to do the work. It also can be implicit if the culture at your work is such that it’s ok to send someone work and the expectation is they will complete it on time.

How to free yourself from the trap:

1. Create a visible backlog

It’s important to display all the work you’ve been tasked with and ensure you can tie it back to the organization’s strategic initiative. This is especially critical if your environment is particularly political – tie the request to its sponsor. Whether or not people want to believe it, they do compete for your time. It’s helpful for them to see who they’re competing with.

2. Track your throughput

For you to say you don’t have the capacity to do the requested work, you’ll need to know how much work you do. Start by tracking the number of completed “widgets” your team produces over a period of time. The units of measure are not terribly important but need to be something that resonates with your user community, such as environments built, user stories, features developed, sandwiches made. You get my point.

I should note I have mostly worked on Operational teams who are tasked with “keeping the lights on,” therefore, they may struggle with how much Project work they do vs. Operational work.  This is a question that’s really more of a distraction. If the organization sees fit to have one group perform both types of work, then it’s more about tracking what you actually do. If these numbers drive the organization to invest in your team, then that’s an added bonus. Focus on tracking project work you complete.

3. Have an open and public time/forum for selecting work

It’s time to train your dragons…err…stakeholders.  

Before the meeting, work with your stakeholders offline to prepare them for this process and advise them to stack rank their requests. I’ve seen many stakeholders try to have priority rankings of ones (aka needs immediate attention/most important) and twos, and so on. This isn’t good enough, however, you may not be able to get them out of that approach. To set expectations, be clear that they will likely not be able to get all of their ones completed in the first go around, so they had best be prepared to select which ones they want first.

Make sure your team takes the time to estimate the size of the requests in advance using the benchmark metrics you established when you documented your throughput.

When officially meeting, I like to go around the room -- not unlike a fantasy football draft -- and let people select their top request. You can track who goes first, then switch it up. I’ve heard of (not seen personally) groups having fun when coming up with a “draft order.” One of the things Agile has taught me is that if you can make a new process fun and engaging, it will diffuse some resistance (note: some resistance).  What’s amazing is over time the stakeholders will begin to “horse trade” or manage themselves. They will say things like, “Well, I don’t need this in February. It can wait until xxx date, and you can take my spot this time around.”  

Why you must say no to succeed

Plainly, when everything is the priority, nothing is. If you allow everyone to foist work upon your team, you will either work 80+ hours per week, which will drive burnout and team defection. Or you will disappoint many stakeholders, damaging your team’s image and credibility. You need your organization to believe in your word: when you say something will get done, that needs to be perceived as set in stone. For that to happen, you have to have been very close to hitting all your commitments all of the time. For that reason, you must get comfortable with saying no so you don’t overcommit.

It’s amazing when the team begins to “get it.” When they’re vigilant with their commitments -- and in fact when we tell someone no, or not right now -- it demonstrates that we are committed to the overall success of our organization. And that’s a goal we can all get behind.

For the 68th episode of our podcast, I interviewed Pat Kinsel, Founder and CEO at Notarize.

You know, some of the most successful tech companies have triumphed not only because they have a great technical solution, but also because they had to totally disrupt an antiqued industry. I’m referring to really hard things like changing laws or regulations. Think of what companies like Airbnb and Uber went through in their earlier days.

Notarize, which has raised $31M in funding, has been in a similar situation, where they are taking the centuries-old process of notarizing documents into the modern, digital era by allowing any person or business to get their documents legally notarized online. It is a massive market opportunity, as over 1 billion documents are notarized every year.

Pat Kinsel is a serial entrepreneur and a venture capitalist. His prior company Spindle was acquired by Twitter, and after the acquisition, he joined Polaris Partners as an investor where he has led rounds of funding in companies like Drizly and Lob.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover lots of great topics like:

• Pat’s background growing up on the West Coast and why he moved East.
• His experience working at Microsoft’s FUSE Labs in Cambridge and how that experience set the stage for his next company.
• How Spindle raised capital from top investors on both coasts for their social discovery app and the details behind the acquisition.
• His experience joining Polaris as an EIR and eventually becoming an investor.
• The story of a critical mistake that led him down the path of exploring the world of notaries and ultimately starting a company to disrupt this industry.
• Advice for entrepreneurs looking to raise capital.
• Practical advice for purchasing domain names.
• Plus, a lot more.

You can listen to the podcast in the player below. To make sure you receive future episodes, please subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or Soundcloud. If you enjoyed our show, please consider writing us a 5-star review—it will definitely help us get the word out there!