First, the bad stuff. Depression and stress disorders represent the fastest growing category of disability claims. They currently account for more than $9 billion in disability claims, or 30 percent of the estimated $30 billion that disabilities and presenteeism (the problem of employees being at work but not fully functioning) cost Canada’s economy each year (as reported by the BC Business and Economic Round table on Mental Health).

One of the most disturbing things about this increasing trend toward depression, stress and other mental-health related disabilities in the workplace is the fact that, while 80 to 90 percent of people with these disorders can be treated successfully, only one third of them actually seek help.

So what does all of this have to do with networking?

This month I attended the Canadian Mental Health Association’s annual conference on mental health in the workplace where one of the most inspiring and empowering speakers was a tiny, dark-haired, passionate woman in her 50s, Sandy Naiman.

An accomplished journalist, broadcaster, teacher, mental-health advocate and public speaker, Sandy has also struggled with mental illness since she was 12-years old – a journey that has included 20 hospitalizations and four different diagnoses. As I listened to Sandy’s stories, it dawned on me that what had allowed her to create such a successful career, despite a serious mental illness, was her ability to cultivate her network.

The secret to Sandy’s success, however, is the exact opposite of what most people are taught to do when building their network. Sandy was fortunate to have a mother who both encouraged her to discuss her illness openly and not to see it as a defining factor in who she was and what she was capable of.

Sandy became equally comfortable describing both her limitations and her strengths. When she wanted to attend journalism school, for example, she walked into the office of the chairman of Ryerson University’s journalism program, sat down and explained to him that she had a serious mental illness, but that she very much wanted to be in the program. After listening to her story, he admitted her on the spot and later was instrumental in paving the way for her to work at the Toronto Sun.

We can all take a lesson from this when building our personal and business integrity, as well as strengthening our networks. In this day and age, where customers and employers are becoming increasingly suspicious of anything that sounds too good to be true, being honest and open about limitations builds trust.

I believe that it was Sandy’s acknowledgment of her weaknesses that helped to lay the foundation for her confidence in her strengths. In presenting herself as a whole person, rather than hiding her weaknesses, she learned that she was useful and valued just as she was.

The lesson for networking is this: building a strong network that will help you and your business to thrive is not only about promoting your strengths. In today’s economy it can also hinge on your willingness to be vulnerable. Vulnerability builds trust, the key to solid relationships in all areas of life and work – and to high-performing organizations.

This kind of authenticity also builds my confidence and trust in yourself. Seeing that others, with all of their imperfections, have succeeded, provides confidence that you can too.

If we would all have the courage to begin building our networks by presenting ourselves as whole people, with both strengths and weaknesses, it would go a long way to stem the rising tide of stress, depression and mental health issues in the workplace.

Leadership participants were given a list of statements and asked to choose which ones excited or inspired them. Interestingly, many said they were inspired until they saw the organization the statement belonged to. One example was an international company whose purpose was “to give unlimited opportunity to women.” That statement was questioned because it came from a cosmetics manufacturer and the group perceived the beauty industry to run counter to creating better lives for women.

Clearly there is a large gap in many companies between their asserted brand promise and its actual fulfillment. But where does this begin and who is to blame? Is it the ad agencies pushing hype beyond true promise? Is it the company itself, ‘over-visioning’ and under-delivering? Or is it emblematic of a society overwhelmed by constant big company marketing bombardment? Do these messages mean anything anymore?

An abundance of marketing data has given companies the ability to become very sophisticated in hitting the hot buttons that entice customers to buy, yet these techniques backfire dramatically when the product or service doesn’t live up to the claims. Just as broken promises have led customers to become increasingly cynical about “marketing hype,” the disconnect between the claims organizations make to their own employees about being an “employer of choice,” and the degree to which these claims are actually fulfilled, is leading to increasing employee cynicism and turnover.

An example of this is the recent trend to tout “work-life balance” as a key value and principle. While I can think of several organizations that make this claim, few deliver as much as they promise. In one instance working with a client, I had to applaud the courage of one new employee in the HR department who stated she felt her department was one of the worst offenders in terms of not delivering on the work-life balance promise.

Marketing is conventionally thought of as being about building a brand and selling products to customers, but this view of marketing is incomplete. Marketing is about building trust both internally and externally.

As with building trust in real life, it is more a result of what you do than what you say. It is about integrity. Building trust with customers begins and ends with internal marketing – that is, the degree to which an organization not only communicates, but delivers on its “employee promise.” When a company makes false claims about a product or service or does not deliver on the promises it makes, then customers lose faith in the product and eventually the company. When employees experience this same loss of faith as a result of broken promises, a business is doomed. Employees who see that the organization does not value promise-keeping will be less inclined to worry about keeping promises themselves – both to customers and to the company.

A final thought, as purpose, mission and values statements are meant to be aspirational and call the organization to higher ground, no organization is ever perfect on delivering these promises. Fortunately, perfection is not required – just constant and authentic intent.

Take this leadership challenge:

Do you know what your organization’s promise is to your employees? If you can’t readily list the purpose, mission, and values of your organization, chances are high that you are not delivering on them as well as you could. What’s more, if you can’t list at least three regular practices, systems, or habits that demonstrate on a daily basis how these are being lived in your organization, there is plenty of room for growth.

Andrea Jacques – kyoseigirl

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On the recommendation of a friend who knew my passion for all things Asian, my first afternoon escape led me to a little café called Sakura Japanese Coffee and Tea in the nearby town of Parksville.

Walking through the front door I was overcome with “natsukashii” – an expression that conveys a complicated and favorite Japanese emotion, the bittersweet nostalgia for something lovely and loved, now past – and settled in for a productive afternoon of writing. I loved the place so much that I returned there almost every afternoon in that second week. As much as I loved the place, however, it was evident to me by how empty it was that business might not be so good.

Even though I was supposed to be focused on my writing, I can never resist offering a helping hand to a small business in need, so by Friday I was compelled to strike up a conversation with the owner. Naoko, a very young and energetic looking forty-something woman, had emigrated from Japan ten years ago due to her husband’s work. The first few years had been focused on raising their son, but as he got older, she found herself needing something more to occupy her time. After a few years of unsuccessfully searching for work she would enjoy, she determined to open her own business.

I asked Naoko why she had started her business, aside from earning an income for herself. The main reason, she confessed, was that in her forties with her son entering his teens, she was at a point in her life where she wanted to re-establish a life for herself as “just Naoko,” rather than as Mrs. X or X’s mom.

She also loved baking and drinking coffee and had missed the Japanese-style sweets and coffee that she was used to back home. This was the basis of her business concept. She believed she could differentiate herself in the market by running an authentic Japanese café serving green tea, Japanese-style coffee and homemade Japanese-style baked goods.

Unfortunately the market was not too keen on the latter two product offerings. Sales in her first month were dismal. The Japanese-style coffee was too strong for Canadian tastes and the authentic Japanese baked goods were perceived as too high in fat, too sweet, or simply unfamiliar. She changed her menu to offer weaker Canadian style coffee as well as lattes, cappuccinos, and traditional baked goods such as muffins and cookies. This had led to a small increase in business, but still not enough to cover her monthly expenses.

A friend suggested adding Italian sodas, ice cream, sushi and panini sandwiches, popular in other cafés, to her offerings. These items had definitely added to increased sales. Over the few weeks that I was there word seemed to be getting out about the sushi in particular and regular customers were growing steadily. Still, the tables were mostly empty with customers trickling in to order sushi or grab a quick coffee one or two at a time. Most of these customers were summer-only traffic due to her location in a resort area, so Naoko was concerned that her business would not be able to make ends meet come fall.

While we were chatting, one customer stepped in the doorway, looked around and then quickly stepped out saying “just looking” when Naoko caught her eye. Naoko looked at me in frustration and told me that scene repeated itself numerous times each day. Some of the customers did end up coming back in at a later time, but many did not.

As I stepped outside my own original love of the place brought on by many fond hours spent in similar Tokyo cafés and looked at the décor with fresh eyes, I suddenly saw how it might not meet with customers had come to expect from the other coffee shops in the area. The other homegrown coffee shops in Parksville hit the funky-cozy end of the continuum. Naoko’s café, by contrast would have seemed almost stark and cold. In short, Naoko was feeling frustrated and fearful. What had inspired her to open her business to begin with hadn’t been received well by the market and now she was scrambling to compromise in order to survive.

I have seen similar scenarios occur in many small businesses and the results are never good. If they hit on the right mix and the business ends up surviving, the owner ends up stressed-out and unhappy because they find themselves heavily invested both with their money and time in something that they do not have a passion for. If they don’t hit on the right mix, the owner frantically jumps from one new idea to the next trying to figure out what the market wants, leading to inconsistency in both marketing and product offering eventually closes the doors.

So if you find yourself in this dilemma, how do you get out of it?

The ideal would be to avoid it in the first place by making sure you do your due diligence before opening your business. All too many small businesses do not bother to write a proper business plan let alone do proper market research before diving in and opening their doors.

Being an entrepreneur myself, I believe that this is at least partly due to the fact that the entrepreneurial mindset has a tendency to combine risk-taking and pig-headedness in a potentially explosive combination. In our not-so-practical terms this means that once us entrepreneurs get an idea in our head that we believe will work, we have a tendency to tune out any information and opinions to the contrary.

Now I’m not saying that you should listen to every naysayer about why your business won’t work or how it needs to look to succeed. Many of the most successful businesses of our time have grown out of ideas that were contrary to what was endorsed by successful businesses at their inception.

I’m just saying that you need to listen to these opinions and information enough to take them into account and develop strategies and contingency plans to address them.

Assuming you didn’t write a business plan or do market research when you started your business and you now find yourself in a dilemma similar to Naoko’s, stop and take the time to write one now. I’m not talking about taking months to do a two-hundred page document. Probably anywhere from three to ten pages will do for a start, depending on the complexity of your business. If you are in a position where your business is already up and running this really need not take you more than a few hours over a period of a few weeks as the challenges and successes you have had up to this point will have given you a much better understanding of the market and where you want and need to focus your business.

Your tendency even now is probably to ignore this advice. You are probably thinking that it is more important to rush out and implement the latest idea you have to save your business. Stop. Take a deep breath. Now honestly ask yourself whether that “jump first, think later” attitude is what might have brought you here to begin with.

Sometimes you need to slow down to speed up. Take the time to stop and determine how best to build a strong foundation for your business. Don’t give in to the survival fears that may be driving you to just run out and do something, anything, to bring more money in the door. While you might get some short-term payoffs, it may be at the expense of the long-term health of both yourself and your business.

On a final note, never lose sight of the real reasons that you started your business. What were the passions that you were trying to pursue? For most small business owners, their business began as much more than just a way to make money. If, in order for your business to survive, you need to change it so much that it no longer serves these passions, then you are better off to let it die.

Building a successful business requires putting your heart and soul into years of hard work. If your business is designed to serve your heart and soul then all of the hard work is not only worth it, it is a huge part of the payoff long before you see the financial returns rolling in. If your business does not serve your heart and soul then even the perfect recipe for making money will exact a far greater price in misery.

As for Naoko, we ended up coming up with some great ideas to help her refocus her original concept in a way that would be better received by the market and still help her meet her key objective of having a place where she could be “just Naoko” while sharing her love of baking, coffee, and Japanese culture. The key strategy, due to her location being somewhat off the beaten path in a tourist resort area, was that she would need to make her coffee shop a destination – a place that people would go out of their way to come to because it had something special to offer.

To support this she decided to warm-up her décor by making it more Zen and Japanese to draw customers in and encourage them to stay awhile. To further make it a destination and to tie in to her desire to share Japanese culture with her community, Naoko also came up with a plan to promote and run regular events such as classes in sushi-making, Japanese flower-arranging, tea and coffee appreciation, and even baking.

In Naoko’s case, we were able to increase her likelihood of success by amplifying the real reasons she had started her business – to create a place to connect with her community and share her culture – and integrating them more fully into her business concept and marketing strategies.

While this may not be possible in every case, you are always going to build a stronger foundation for success and fulfillment in your business by asking “how can I make more money by making my business express more of who I am or be more of what I want?” than you will by asking “What things that I want do I need to compromise to make this business work?” Remember, you probably left your job because you didn’t want to sell your soul to the company store. Even if it’s your own store, selling your soul still has the same result.

-Andrea Jacques (aka. kyoseigirl)

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Surviving, however, is not the same as thriving.

To thrive, it is important to recognize that blind spots can undermine the integrity of even the most well-conceived brands, eroding relationships with customers and employees in the same way that one’s individual blind spots erode integrity and relationships at a personal level.

The challenge is that blind spots, by their very nature, are invisible to us. To build both your personal and brand integrity, you must be willing to do some digging, sweep away some cobwebs of denial, and clean off those filters so that you can finally see what you normally can’t – or simply don’t want to see.

Most organizations only consider two key areas when building their brand. First, they think about what they will look like at their best. Because most businesses these days recognize the power of branding, many begin building their brand before there is even a real business to base it on. The second area is in consideration of what the market actually wants. They look at the latest consumer trends and fads and try to ensure their brand hits as many of those “hot buttons” as possible. It is when they fail to honestly consider a third element  – the element of who and what they actually are – that they risk eroding their integrity in the marketplace.

First, let’s look at branding on the individual level. This is especially significant for small business where the product or service is often indistinguishable from the owner. Many people make the mistake of trying to portray themselves as something they are not because this is who they think they need to be to get business. In reality, it is more important that your personal brand is authentic than trendy.

My last hairstylist, T, is a perfect example of this. I stopped seeing him last year, despite being very happy with how he did my hair, after he made an offhanded comment about how recycling and other such environmental do-gooding were pointless. I knew that it was futile to try to convince him otherwise, but felt that in continuing to give him my business, I would be supporting this stance, so I switched to a salon that specializes in products that keep our environment and our bodies pollution-free.

I’m happier because I am now getting my hair needs met somewhere that more accurately reflects who I am and what I want to stand for. T, however, might get another client for the very same reason that I left. While you might not be on trend, being authentic makes it easier for the customers who resonate with you and your unique brand to find you.

Not only is it important to be clear on who you are, but on where you are on the growth curve. Several high-flying technology companies I’ve observed over the years went public early on because they were in the latest hot new market. Investor funds poured in, giving these companies the illusion that they were actually profitable. The reality was that they were not yet actually making money, only spending it. Of course, because they were all aspiring to be Google-esque, many began to immediately invest in all of the fun perks that such companies have become known for. Fitness trainers were hired. Gym memberships were purchased. This was a great perk for employees and carried some cachet in stories on them in the press, but it was neither realistic nor responsible to be spending investor money in this manner for the negative-cash-flow stage they were in.

Unfortunately many of those companies didn’t make that shift from promising idea to profitable product. It wasn’t because their idea was flawed, their staff were lazy, or even that they didn’t have a good brand. It was because the person captaining the ship was determined to see the company as being somewhere that it was not. It is great to have a vision of the kind of company you want to be, but it is harmful when this vision of who you want to be causes you to be blind to the reality of your current situation. This blindness is often the source of people and businesses alike putting the proverbial cart before the horse.

Ultimately, brand integrity comes from an alignment between what the market wants, who you say you are, and who you actually demonstrate yourself to be through your actions and decisions. At the end of the day, if you are true to this, you may end up targeting a smaller market niche, but that niche is far more likely to be ardent, loyal, fans of your business – and keep you afloat!

-Andrea Jacques (aka. kyoseigirl)

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I didn’t always see this as a good thing. When I was in my teens she was bitten by the network-marketing bug … several times. At first I was too young to really care. I just kept switching products as she did – using whatever face cleanser or vitamins she was selling at the time. After graduating with a psychology degree, I was old enough to be enrolled in her latest venture. I was so caught up in her enthusiasm that I eagerly signed on the dotted line…to sell water filters.

That ultimately didn’t work out too well for either of us. I took my knocks and vowed never to do it again. Not so my mother. Over the years I questioned her integrity many times as I watched her switch from promoting one “business opportunity” to the next with equal fervor.

I couldn’t understand how she could do this. First I thought she was lying to people just to make a sale. Then I figured she was lying to herself. Eventually I came to realize that she always believed 100 percent that her latest product or venture was, in fact, better than sliced bread. When it turned out that it wasn’t, she was devastated. But part of what makes my mom a sales diva is her ability to believe – in people, in products, in a company – but mostly – in herself.

As my own career helping organizations excel progressed, watching her allowed me to develop a greater appreciation for her ability to work her sales magic. She performs despite the fact that many of the companies for whom she has worked were woefully misguided, if not tragically toxic. From “cat fights” on the sales floor over commissions, to subtle backstabbing, and less-than-subtle power games, she has seen it all.

“In the best organizations I have worked with, management was able to keep their personal relationships with long-term employees separate from their business role and responsibilities,” she says. “When a new person came on board, especially a high performer, they welcomed it as an opportunity to shake things up and did not let a sense of ‘loyalty’ or friendship with old employees allow them to be complacent about taking action on feedback from the new person.”

Of course, she has also worked for her share of the ‘unbest’ companies.

“In smaller, privately-owned organizations, the managers often lacked management training and ability. Many had been promoted to management because they were good at sales and they had survived in the role because of their social networks, despite the fact that their performance was less than stellar,” she says.

“To keep the best people and to be a leading organization, managers need to constantly embrace new blood and encourage people to provide honest feedback and instigate change.”

I now understand that what motivated my mother’s many changes was the desire to work for something or someone that was worth believing in. While money is a motivator, salespeople, just like everyone else, have a strong desire to believe in the organization they work for and the products or services it represents. They need to believe in the integrity of their leaders and, more importantly, see it in action on a consistent basis.

So the next time you think your sales team needs another motivational seminar or how-to session to boost company profits, think of how many frustrated sales divas may be under performing because of organizational failings that undermine true teamwork and strangle individual excellence. Building the talent and integrity of your management team is far more likely to inspire lasting performance and commitment in your sales force.

-Andrea Jacques (aka. Kyoseigirl)

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