Few people exemplify skill and teamwork better than a well-coached relay team. Whether at the Olympic Games or a high school track meet, the relays are often one of the most exciting events.

Relay teams typically consist of four of the most highly skilled runners at a particular distance. But skill alone isn’t enough. The teams must practice together to get their timing and execution just right. It takes a great deal of teamwork to win a relay event.

In a relay race, runners must pass the baton from one to the next within a predefined zone. If they fail to make the handoff within that zone, they are disqualified. At the same time, the runner receiving the baton cannot start their leg of the race from a complete stop. The amount of time they’d lose would be astronomical. That means the runner handing off the baton and the runner receiving the baton must time their running perfectly so that the second runner can pick up speed while still receiving the baton within the zone. This requires a level of precision that can only be developed with practice and considerable communication. When a team masters this aspect of running a relay and combines it with phenomenal skill, they can accomplishes incredible things.

How running a relay relates to running a business

Like running a relay race, running a successful business requires more than just having talented people. You could hire people who are absolutely genius in their respective roles, but if they can’t communicate well together, they won’t accomplish much.

Building a successful team in a professional environment requires finding employees who can accomplish their jobs effectively, but also fit together as a group. When a relay team is working together, they understand how their roles fit together to form a cohesive unit. The same is true of your organization. Everyone on your team must be clear about their individual role and how it relates to the end goals of the organization.

The handoff

As with a relay team, the handoff is critical in business, too. Every member of the team has their own job to do, and handoffs dictate how well potential leads and prospects are passed from one department or team to the next. When these handoffs are handled well, leads are moved seamlessly down the sales funnel, and relationships develop and grow.

The perfect handoff occurs when the members of the team know how to communicate with one another. They understand each other’s respective roles and strengths and know how to work together for the betterment of the team. For example, in a team with weak communication, the marketing department might hand off a lead to the sales team before that lead is ready to move along. However, when the two departments communicate and understand each other better, they improve their handoff skills, boosting the odds of conversion and success.

Track and field can be a source of entertainment, but also inspiration. The next time you see the sport, watch carefully how well the relay team fits together. Use some of their insight when planning your hires and organizing your business.

As you prepare your marketing plans for the year, one of your chief priorities should be website visitor engagement. As engagement increases, so do brand loyalty and conversions. Engagement helps page visitors begin to build a relationship with your brand. This in turn helps to increase their trust in what you have to say and makes them more likely to end up buying from you. Here are a handful of changes you can make to greatly enhance your visitor engagement and see measurable changes in 2015.

Make content easily shareable

Encourage page visitors to interact with your brand by sharing your content. You can accomplish this by making your content interesting and easy to broadcast across various social channels. Enable social share buttons on every piece of content you produce, and share the content yourself on a variety of social networks. If your content provides high value and is timely, readers will be more likely to want to share that information with their connections.

Use gamification and promotions

Use fun contests and games to encourage page visitors to remain on your website and tell others about your brand. There are a number of different types of games and promotions you can use. For example, have customers solve puzzles to earn coupons. Encourage them to share your brand with friends to earn points. Run contests on your social media pages that invite people to tell stories about their successes with your brand. Use these opportunities to encourage communication and build a relationship between page visitors and your company.

Encourage feedback

When customers know their opinions are valued, they’re more likely to feel loyal to your brand. Customers appreciate companies that go the extra mile to help them and make their experiences memorable. Encourage this level of engagement by letting customers vote on different topics they’d like to have featured on your website, leave reviews of your products and services for others to see, and offer opinions and feedback about your brand and their experience with it. Your page visitors will enjoy having their voices heard, and you’ll gain better insight on your customers, which can help you improve your marketing and customer service efforts.

Remember customers

Work with your website developers to create a website that will remember customers and their preferences when they return. Simple things, such as automatically filling out forms or remembering products that the customer looked at the last time they visited, can be excellent for boosting engagement. Such conveniences will make it easier for customers to convert, while at the same time helping them feel as though the services they’re receiving from you are personalized to their specific needs.

Make recommendations

In addition to remembering customers when they return to your website, add functionality that provides solid recommendations based on past purchases, too. Consider websites such as Amazon that offer recommendations based on the buying habits of others who have bought similar products in the past. These services encourage people to dive deeper into the website, increasing their interaction and improving the odds they will convert. Similarly, make sure your calls-to-action always fit well with the topic and intended audience of the content you’re presenting.

Increasing visitor engagement on your website can help your brand take its marketing efforts to new levels for 2015. Keep the above tips in mind, and see how you start building stronger company loyalty in the new year. If you’re ready to start developing a new marketing campaign, contact us today to get started.

Here’s an easy “side by side” Estimate & Invoice comparison you can do on your screen: (No Report Writer required)

Go to Reports > Daily Sales
Choose Report Format = New Estimates
Highlight all of the days you want for your time period
Hold down the Alt key and click the Select button
You will get a report for New Estimates Sorted by Sales Rep
Leave that on your screen, drag it to the right

Now, do the same steps except change it to New Invoices:

Choose Report Format = New Invoices
Highlight all of the days you want for your time period
Hold down the Alt key and click the Select button
You will get a report for New Invoices Sorted by Sales Rep
Leave that on your screen, drag it to the left

Now you can see exactly how many estimates and invoices you did for each rep “side by side”. Let’s you see how much activity they had.

(Obviously, you can print them out, but it would take a custom report to split the Reps on separate pages.)

FYI: Ron Teller from PrintSmith posted this on the EFI Forum:
————————
http://forums.efi.com/showthread.php?t=2475

Mac OS 10.7
Everyone, this is just a reminder that PrintSmith is currently not
compatible with Mac 10.7. They have dropped Rosetta which is required to
run the current version. We are working on a version that will be
compatible and hope to have it out by the 4th quarter.

We will let you know when it is available.
———————
In other words, don’t try to install 8.1.14 on a brand new Mac running OS 10.7 because the Rossetta emulation mode is no longer there. The next version required an entire re-write so things should get interesting when it finally arrives.

Setting up a Wide Format can be challenging if you haven’t done it before. Take a close look at this screenshot to see how to do it.

I included the Production Data window from a job to show how the Costing works for the job. The important things to remember are:

1. Check the Radio Button for Large Format, which uses a roll of stock.
2. Keep your Minimum Order Length small, in the 12 to 24 inch range.
3. Calculate your Costing Units by the Square Inches for the entire roll.
4. Your Cost should be for the entire roll because that is how you order it from your vendor.

Give it a try and be sure to test the results with an actual estimate or job. Good luck!

The Help button on the far right of the “Help Bar” should take you to a PDF of the manual of your choice.

To set the PDF it takes you to, do this:

Open your PrintSmith Folder

Find the “help.pdf” shortcut

Double Click on it

It will start looking for the PDF

Click the browse button to find the PDF you want.

I set mine to the 8.1 Release notes

You can download the support docs at:

http://w3.efi.com/en/support/overview/print-management/efi-printsmith-and-efi-printsmith-site/support-documentation