Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | February 22, 2021 | Worcester Business Journal 23 10) Public relations helps SEO. Professionally placed media stories in reputable outlets result in backlinks, which then result in higher rankings on Google, so more people find your website. 9) Success breeds success. Stories highlighting your customers' results show your targets why they want to work with you. 8) Third-party endorsements lend credibility. When you're covered by a trade publication or local business journal, the exposure can have greater weight than content you produced yourself. 7) Press coverage builds brands. Repeated coverage in the media outlets your sales targets are visiting will increase awareness quickly and help close sales. 6) Reputation matters. Your target buyers do their research online. Positive press coverage showing up in a Google search makes prospects feel good about working with your company. 5) People want to work with experts. When your company's executives are featured and quoted in the press, people feel confident about working with them. 4) You control your story. In today's environment, anyone can share their opinion about your company online; good PR can tell your organization's story on your terms. 3) PR provides aircover to sales. Press coverage helps open doors when sales calls on prospects, and good customer stories help reinforce the promises your sales team is making. 2) Press coverage helps introduce new offerings. If your business has changed because of the pandemic, strategic PR placements can help get the word out. 1) People want to know how you are doing. The pandemic has hit many companies hard. By showing up in the press, you can help reassure buyers, partners, and others your business is doing well. K N O W H O W How servant leadership keeps companies together C reating and fostering a strong remote workplace culture helps not only retain existing employees but can attract job seekers as well. A positive company culture – even when work is remote – shines through. Employees must know their opinions matter, that all team members are productive and accountable. Here are some ways managers can keep remote work culture healthy. Facilitate check-ins. It should be someone's responsibility to actively check in with remote workers, as colleagues aren't seeing each other in hallways, cubicles and around the water cooler as they used to, says Forbes' Carrie Kerpen. ese one-on-one check-ins should have a purpose of gathering information as they impact office culture and should be done regularly. "Both qualitative and quantitative data are useful here, so do individual chats for anecdotal information if possible, but surveys are also a great way to fill in the missing puzzle pieces with numbers," she writes. Create virtual ties that bind, based on in-person office life. eBalanceCareers.com cites a survey showing 68% of employees feel virtual workshops create a strong remote work culture. Weekly virtual staff meetings were the next most popular offering, at 66%. "Retain your day-to- day reminders of the culture you want to have and reinforce," says Susan M. Heathfield. "Did you eat lunch together once a week when working in the office? en, eat lunch together virtually." Teams can set up practices that strengthen their remote-work bonds and share them with other teams in the company, she says. Suggest teams try silent work video chats, keeping cameras on while they work. For some teams, keeping the camera on helps foster a spontaneous- idea environment more like a real office. Alison Goldberg and Jen Jamula at eMuse.com say it can be a boost for morale and mood, mimicking a co- working space, alleviating isolation. 10 T H I NG S I know about... ...Using PR to ramp up business BY JULIA BECKER COLLINS Special to the Worcester Business Journal O nce you have employees, your business changes. Leadership isn't defined by what you lead, but how you lead. Who do you put first at your business? Yourself ? Your team? Your customers? ere are no right or wrong answers, but they all form different types of leaders with different strengths. I'm a big believer in servant leadership, and it's through the strengths of this style I've helped guide the company through some of our darkest days, especially for myself. What servant leadership means My first responsibility as a leader is to serve my employees, full stop. Let's put the altruism aside for a moment and be clear: I do this because it works. My staff gain the skills, tools, and mindset to tackle problems, be productive, and work independently. Our relationship is smoother and doesn't strain under tension. ey are happier, and my joy comes from my amazing, skilled, and enthusiastic team. Great leadership is great people management Servant leadership isn't new, being around far before 1977 when Robert K. Greenleaf coined the phrase. It's used at some of the top-level companies around the world. Even for traditional leadership methods, everyone can learn from it, especially when it comes to managing people. • e best leadership is taught. e best leadership is purposeful and needs to be learned, which is why I teach it. • Your best asset is your people: grow them. More than training people on their jobs, you need to be building them up. Help them grow as people and managers in their own right. • Setting examples for your employees. People look to their leader for guidance: this is where I think servant leadership really shines. Because I focus on serving them, they focus on serving me and each other. Everyone wins. Servant leadership during a crisis In 2020, my company, Vision Advertising, faced the economic hit of COVID along with my clients, while I personally struggled with thyroid cancer (still being treated). It wasn't easy to balance the needs of my staff with the sudden medical needs of my own, but it was worth it. Because I put my team first and made sure they had the headspace and tools they needed, my business is still here as I return from medical leave. People leave managers, not companies at's a message from the author Marcus Buckingham. COVID is putting an incredible strain on every company, forcing you and your staff to come together or fall apart. Even aer we get past COVID, the actions you and your leadership team do right now, the calls you make for your staff, will affect who stays and who goes aer. Because I've put my team first, they know I have their backs. It's helped us all get through this. Retaining talent, keeping morale up, keeping your team focused and growing: these are the strengths of servant leadership. For my team and me, servant leadership works. It's what has kept us going during the one-two punch of COVID and cancer. It keeps us motivated and ready to tackle the next problem. Aer all, this crisis isn't over yet. Julia Becker Collins is the chief operating officer at Westborough full-service marketing agency Vision Advertising. She can be reached at julia@vision-advertising.com. BY SUSAN SHALHOUB Special to the Worcester Business Journal By Liora Bram Liora Bram is a senior marketer supporting entrepreneurial organizations at MyHelp, Inc. in Grafton, where she is a co-founder. Email her at lbram@myhelpinc.com. 101: M A I N T A I N I N G C U L T U R E W W W

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