Wendy Weber on Executive Recruiting

Nice piece by Julie Joyce in today’s edition of Search Engine Watch.

“A good link will send you nice link juice and help to boost your rankings so that you’ll get more traffic and hopefully more conversions. A great link will do the same thing but it will send you traffic on its own.”

Joyce talks about why links matter, the differing importance of different links, and why some links don’t accomplish anything!

To read the piece in its entirety, please click here.

Social Networking is getting all the attention these days.

I am very active in my social networks, including LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

But this post is about traditional, face to face networking. I get out regularly to attend events in direct marketing, digital marketing and social media. There are lots of reasons why people attend these meetings, not the least of which is to “get business” or “get a job”. To be sure, those are good reasons. I would be lying if I said I didn’t hope to secure new business when I attend such functions. But it’s not the only reason. I genuinely like being around direct marketers!

I have always believed it is invigorating to get out and meet your industry peers. When I was on “the other side of the desk” as a practitioner of direct marketing (the first 12 years of my career), I often attended industry meetings. I saw them as an opportunity to learn from others, and gain new insights. I met lots of people. One of them ended up hiring me! We casually met at a direct marketing luncheon, and months later she called me when she had an opening in her department. You never know…

I hear that people are “too busy” to attend industry events. And budgets are tight. I’m not buying it. People have always been busy, and budgets have always been tight. Plus, some events are in the evening. And some are free!

I just don’t think you can be too busy to invest in your own career. I talk to people every day who have found themselves unhappily employed, or worse, unemployed, who wish they had built a network of professional colleagues they could reach out to for advice or job leads. LinkedIn has its place, but it is a poor substitute for a human connection.

Here are some events I will be attending this month. Please consider attending, and if you do, look for me!

April 11th: Direct Marketing Club of New York networking event
You say you’re too busy to get out during the day? This one is at night!
At Hurley’s – 232 West 48th Street, NYC
To register: http://dmcny.org/event/2012-april-12th-evening-event

April 19th: Direct Marketing Club of Long Island luncheon
At the Plainview Holiday Inn – 215 Sunnyside Boulevard, Plainview NY
To register: https://www.dmali.org/index.php/events/event-registration

April 19th: Social Media Club of Long Island Tweet-Up ** FREE & In the Evening **
At The Morelly Center – 510 Grumman Road West, Bethpage NY
To register: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/3082883989

If you don’t live in NY, find out what meetings are happening in your neck of the woods.

Let me know how you fare!

A monthly ExecuNet survey of executive recruiters finds the highest levels of confidence that the executive employment market will improve over the next six months since May 2011.

In March, ExecuNet’s benchmark Recruiter Confidence Index revealed that 59 percent of 123 responding executive recruiters indicated they were “confident” or “very confident” the executive employment market would improve over the next six months.

That was up eight points from February and the fourth consecutive month in which recruiter confidence stayed above the important 50 percent level that historically indicates optimism for a broader expansion of the jobs market. It was also the highest register of recruiter confidence since this hiring outlook barometer hit its recent bottom in September 2011.

“Executive recruiters are expressing continued confidence that opportunities will open up for executives as companies really zero in on the resources, ideas and leaders they need to grow their operations,” said Mark M. Anderson, president and chief economist of ExecuNet. “Recruiters are expecting good things from 2012 in terms of an increase in executive search assignments, and if that materializes, it will invariably stimulate executive career mobility.”

…so begins a piece by Rachel Emma Silverman for the Wall Street Journal entitled “My Colleague, My Paymaster.”

She outlines a new concept in which some bosses are taking decision-making power out of the executive suite and asking employees to help identify-and reward-talent by experimenting with internal markets in which workers “invest” in co-workers’ performance and ideas.

Workers are granted “stock options” to distribute among co-workers in whatever way they choose, with the goal of rewarding people that management might not otherwise recognize. Highly visible employees; or those with “big titles” are not always the biggest contributors…in one company, the largest bonus was awarded to a remote developer who handles small tasks and spends a lot of time helping others.

Although a distribution curve of all the bonus grants may be made public so that workers can see what the highest and lowest bonuses were, names are not attached.

Interesting way to determine who your superstars are!

I attended an interesting luncheon meeting of the Direct Marketing Idea Exchange today.  Matt Blumberg, CEO of  Return Path and DMA Chairman, was the presenter:

I learned quite a bit about email marketing measurement and accountability.  Here is an interesting slide from the presentation:

In case you cannot read it clearly, only 76.5% of email actually gets delivered!  15.1% goes “missing”, and 8.4% is labelled as spam.  I was unaware that email typically only reaches 3/4 of the intended audience!

I asked a question that I have not been able to get an answer to:  How many emails can I send at a time to my email list without being labelled as a spammer?  Although candidates have provided their contact information (including email address) because they would like to hear from Crandall Associates, I have heard conflicting answers regarding how many emails are “too many”.  When I posed the question to Matt Blumberg, he said that the reason I had not received a clear-cut answer is because there is no clear-cut answer.  It has to do with many factors, including the expectation of your audience, and your “usual pattern” of emailing.

He mentioned a website called Senderscore.org that I plan to check out.  I believe it provides your rating as an email sender.

At the end of the meeting, Matt put on his “DMA” hat, and shared some interesting information about the DMA.  One thing I was unaware of is that they have opened a Silicon Valley office, to expand their presence on the West Coast.  He also mentioned that there has been a shift in their thinking regarding events, and that there has been more focus on smaller, “community focused” events.

2 Bloggers (Eric Jackson and Erika Anderson) from Forbes.com comment about why top talent leaves:

“…We’re genuinely curious: What would make a very senior executive – someone who most certainly has been courted by his or her organization and then paid huge sums of money to join – decide to pack it in?  Is it greed (an even richer offer down the street)?  Hubris? Short attention span?  Or do 1%ers actually leave jobs for the same reasons  as the average Joe or Josie?…”

The answer:

Top talent leave an organization when they’re badly managed and the organization is confusing and uninspiring.

I have come to the same conclusion.  In fact, I have a candidate up for consideration right now that holds a senior level position at an “enviable” organization.  He has reported to 4 CMO’s in the 2 years that he has worked there.  It has worn on him, and when I approached him with a new opportunity he was receptive.   I have seen this many times before.

The cover page of the Business & Finance section of Saturday’s Wall Street Journal ran a piece entitled, “Stores Smarten Up Amid Spam Flood”.

Not since the days when direct mail was referred to as “junk mail” have my hackles been raised in this way.

The article, by Dana Mattioli, begins, “Retailers have started to wear out their welcome in customers’ email inboxes, forcing stores to rethink their spam strategies.”  No, Dana, they’re rethinking their EMAIL MARKETING strategies.  No responsible retailer implements a “spam strategy”.

While it is true that email marketing on the part of retailers is up 87% since 2007, and consumers may be overwhelmed by the sheer volume, it’s only spam if you didn’t opt-in for it and you don’t wish to receive it.  Please don’t call email marketing spam!

To read the piece in its entirety, click here.

Opinion piece by Delia Ephron in today’s New York Times:

Ephron writes about how her website was “name jacked”.  She had left responsibility for renewing the domain to a family member, who had neglected to take care of it.  The result was a seven month odyssey to reclaim her name: click here.

Follow @wendyweb

What does it mean to be a multi-channel retailer?

It means one company sells its products utilizing multiple sales channels.  The customer can purchase those products through a website, catalog, or – in some cases – a brick & mortar store.

Why is this beneficial?

For the retailer, it provides a way to reach “all” customers…and a synergy that can result in incremental sales.

For the customer, it makes the shopping experience convenient.  Some people prefer to order online; some prefer to flip through the pages of a catalog, and some prefer to go to the mall and touch the products before making a purchase.

So why do some multichannel retailers (you know who you are, Brookstone!) allow you to buy through any channel, but only return through certain channels? I recently encountered this issue when I was trying to return some items. This holiday season I spent close to $1,000 at this particular retailer, purchasing items through both the website and at the retail store. But when I wanted to return an item purchased online at the store, I was told they would “have to check” to see if that particular item was sold in the store. Otherwise, I’d have to pack it up and ship it back.

This is nonsense! I, the customer, do not care about your internal accounting – or channel conflict. If you accept the synergy of having the multichannel name recognition then you have to accept the inconvenience of customers purchasing through one channel and returning through another. If, while I happen to be in the store making a return of an item originally purchased online, I happen to notice an item that I decide to purchase on impulse…I very much doubt that you would tell me that I really ought to purchase that product online. So let’s not be silly.

As it turns out, I was lucky. Since the items I wanted to return were also sold in the store, they “permitted” the return. Thank you, but I do not consider that a favor.