Social Commerce Trends – What we expect in 2015

Social Commerce Trends – What we expect in 2015

   May 28, 2015       prabhakardalvi

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Social Media Platform for Start-up Business

After Social media revolution make tweets, fb promotion, we don’t found any progress in sales charts. We have analytic but hard to track impact of social channels on people who regular or rare use of social media. We have knowledge, with social media we build awareness, consideration of company products or services. 

Social networking sites understand this trend and are making changes to make it even easier to purchase directly from within their platform.

Social commerce for interaction:- 

Someone post on facebook or twitter, running shoes for promotional purpose. We wait for like on fb post & after this we looking for someone clicks on link who represent our website. Some description, some hastag command useful for promotional & sales.

This tech use for sharing of content but in present use for improve sale in short period. In this tech we share link through Affiliate or Advocate style to improve clicks with specific design ads.

Above all this start-up but we want customer review for specific brands or products.

Snapchat Commerce

Another platform making strides with social commerce is Snapchat. Snapchat partnered with Square to deliver a transfer system it’s calling SquareCash. With this system, users can register their debit cards and then transfer and receive money — which is being called Snapchash — to and from their friends on Snapchat. While it’s currently a free service, Snapchat plans are to allow its users to buy products from its platform.

Facebook Commerce

This summer, Facebook shared a mobile screen of what its “Buy” button is going to look like. A suggested post will show up in your newsfeed with a product or service and an image of that product or service, which you can buy right then and there by simply clicking the “Buy” button in the post. I imagine Facebook will be rolling this out in 2015 after they figure out the payment and privacy details.

Twitter Commerce

Twitter is one platform that’s been rolling out its social commerce plans. In the early part of 2014, Twitter partnered with Stripe, a company providing all the back-end payment processing for Twitter. Twitter, and other social networks, haven’t wanted to store users’ credit card details, so Stripe is taking on the challenge. You can view and buy a product directly within your Twitter feed by simply clicking a “Buy” button that will appear alongside an image of the item that’s for sale. Twitter’s head of commerce Nathan Hubbard told The Verge in an interview, “Anything with a perishable component, temporal nature, or limited supply, is going to thrive on Twitter. Given the speed at which word can spread across our network, it feels like an opportunity to create a new kind of sales.”

{{ The Guest Post Blogger organization was not involved in the creation of this content. - Dalvi Prabhakar B, Founder & Digital Manager (SEO,SEM,SMO) }}

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Twitter Has Become A Major Source Of Information Affect Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Twitter Has Become A Major Source Of Information Affect Your Digital Marketing Strategy

   May 21, 2015       Unknown

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The newly announced partnership between Google and Twitter will see social media marketing come of age as Google will now include real time Tweets in their search results pages. The partnership will replicate the real time placement of tweets on Bing searches that already takes place – the major difference being that Google is the world’s top search engine.

From a marketing perspective, the new deal will see business’s tweets, including those sent out as part of a marketing campaign, subject to those all-important Google algorithms. This could lead to more time being spent developing effective social media strategies that will use high quality content and keywords.

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Inbound Marketing with Facebook Ad improve your Market

Inbound Marketing with Facebook Ad improve your Market

   October 16, 2014       prabhakardalvi

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Facebook logo Español: Logotipo de Facebook Français : Logo de Facebook Tiếng Việt: Logo Facebook (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Inbound Marketing with Facebook Ad improve your Market

Retargeting Helps Accelerate Exposure - Facebook 

In the world of online marketing, exposure is everything. If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around, did it actually happen? If you write a blog post and get zero traffic to that page, what’s the point?

Retargeting allows you to speak directly to the people who have already had a touch point with your brand – this is powerful stuff!

Whether it’s through Facebook’s retargeting platform, or through a third-party retargeting source like AdRoll, making a move to get started here after you have some relevant traffic flowing to your site is a great idea.

Another wonderful option is Facebook’s Custom Audience targeting. Let’s pretend you have a list of users subscribed to your blog, or perhaps a list of people who have downloaded a piece of gated content from your website. You are missing a HUGE opportunity if you don’t use upload those emails into a Custom Audience list on Facebook. They’ve already indicated interest in your content by downloading or subscribing, and if you’re bidding on a CPC basis for these ads, it should be a no-brainer.

The omni-present ‘they’ say that it take approximately seven touch points to make a sale; why not automate a few?

Provide Value to the Right People at the Right Time

The first thing we have to do here is define the right people. For the most part, every business in every industry will be targeting different personas. When all is said and done, sending the right message to the right person at the right time is the key to a successful marketing campaign.

You can take the deep dive into Facebook analytics reporting, or even Google Analytics, to help identify with whom your message is resonating.

This is huge because it allows you to not only craft and optimize the messaging in your Facebook campaigns, but the messaging in your marketing campaign across all mediums.

I wrote a post a while back about getting more out of conferences with Facebook ads, and I feel like that approach is definitely a product of the findings you generate through data you collect running these campaigns. You will be able to better define who your consumer is and put that information into play during your outreach at conferences.

Headline Testing and Audience Data Extraction

The value of data is going to be different for each person. If you make a lot of data-driven decisions in your company, the value can be tremendous. Regardless of how often you reference your web data, it is undeniably helpful to the growth of your company and execution of future initiatives.

In the world of content marketing, bad headlines are any contributor’s kryptonite. Fortunately, setting up headline tests with Facebook ads is super-easy to do. Simply make two ads that run at the same time, with the only variable at play being the headline, and voila – data!

This is incredibly important if you are planning on launching a new gated piece that will be responsible for a number of future downloads. A solid headline can make or break the success of your published content, so use Facebook ads as a great way to test the waters. You can collect a ton of valuable data with a budget of less than $20.

You can also use ad data to determine which content is getting picked up the most by your target audience. If a certain topic is generating a higher click-through rate, or a higher download rate in some cases, make more! With any A/B testing, it’s important to keep as many variables constant as possible, so in this case you would simply be testing different offerings among the same audience.

If you really want to take it to the next level, combine your Facebook data with Google Analytics data to gain awesome insight on geographic location, browsing patterns, and even device preferences to make informed decisions with your content moving forward.

For instance, if you notice that most of your content is being picked up on mobile devices, optimize your content to look amazing for those devices, and reap the benefits of increased readership, subscriptions, and leads.

There has been a great divide between paid advertising and inbound marketing, when in reality you are only shooting yourself in the foot by not leveraging both sides to make your overall digital marketing strategy more effective.

Facebook ads are a great tool for enhanced reach and research, and finding ways to make your inbound campaigns work harmoniously with your Facebook ad strategy should be a top priority.

What other ways are you using Facebook ads to leverage your inbound strategy?

{{ The Guest Post Blogger organization was not involved in the creation of this content. - Dalvi Prabhakar B, Founder & Digital Manager (SEO,SEM,SMO) }}

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Why Twitter Will beat Facebook in Future Digital Market

Why Twitter Will beat Facebook in Future Digital Market

   August 20, 2014       prabhakardalvi

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Now, those who are still Facebook addicts and find it impossible to unplug from your "FB" network of friends, fans and likes, not to fear. There will always be a Facebook-like app out there that connects people, it's just that it may have a different name with different features.

Still, here are six reasons Twitter will have more staying power than Facebook:

• Twitter is a news source. We can follow news outlets and more importantly newsmakers on Twitter and get up to date, quick information. We are seeing this more and more in politics and sports where the person of interest is "broadcasting" the information they want disseminated. They determine when they want the public to "get the news." In many cases, it's unfiltered and spoken directly to that person's following. They can and sometimes do, respond directly to questions. Can Facebook be used as a news source? Absolutely, but it's predominantly a neighborhood for people to connect and share. Even more interesting is the way that media have started to quote people's Twitter posts - as if it's a quote in the paper or a soundbite for television.
• News media members have embraced Twitter. A while ago, I wrote this piece on how media members can now create and demonstrate value to their employers by creating their own personal fan base. Television news organizations have relied on things like "Q" ratings to see how "likable" their viewers find their talent. Anchors and reporters were usually not privy to that information. Today, if you want to see how well watched a news personality is, check their fans. Check their TweetReach. Consequently, savvy "social media" members are actively engaging their followers through insight, inside information and live updates on Twitter. Best of all, many are also talking to people through Twitter. Yes, they can do this on Facebook as well, but real time engagement isn't as effective as it is on Twitter.
• Engage with "famous" people on Twitter. Let's face it, famous people have Facebook Fan pages, but mostly it's one way communication. Typically, there's not much chance you're going to engage with a famous person on their Facebook page. I believe there are many reasons for this, but one may be due to the "public" nature of the wall and how information is posted. In my experience, it's easier to receive a comment back from a famous person on Twitter than on Facebook. One reason for this may be that it's simple to reply a 140 character (or less) message to someone on Twitter than on Facebook.
• Twitter is easier to use on a mobile device. Don't get me wrong, it's pretty simple to post stuff on Facebook from your mobile device, but Twitter is crazy simple. It's a matter of opening your app and posting a thought, picture or video. It's actually easier than texting. There are no "notifications" that you have new messages, no waiting for pages to open, it's quick and easy.
• It's easier to avoid annoying people on Twitter. Let's face it, we all have a handful of people that drive us nutty on Facebook. So, rather than "unfriend" them, we either put up with their inane, boring, self-serving posts or we "hide" them. My gosh, you'd hate to insult one of your Facebook "friends!" On Twitter, it's real simple. If someone bugs you - don't follow them. Honestly, how often do you comb through your Twitter followers to see who is following you? There is a personal "distance" that is built in to Twitter. A polite separation can get closer if you'd like, but generally speaking, it's not nearly as intimate as the Facebook connection.
• Commercialization will kill the Facebook experience. Marketers will ruin Facebook for a large number of people. Facebook was cool when it was like the band you liked that no one else had heard about. As soon as the band makes it big, they aren't nearly as cool. Facebook has already become that for a lot of people and now that it has become so household, marketers have found ways to tap into that audience. We can learn about our audience and find out what they like and dislike and then go sell to them. Sorry, but what about just hanging out and re-connecting with friends? It's like being at a restaurant and having someone come by every few minutes to sell you something that aligns with their demo. Ok, gasp marketing friends, but I think somewhere deep down we all know this is true.

Like I said, I'm no prognosticator and my disclaimer is that I've been wrong a million times before and that some of these points are generalizations. That said, it's just my opinion, I'd love to hear yours.

{{ The Guest Post Blogger organization was not involved in the creation of this content. - Dalvi Prabhakar B, Founder & Digital Manager (SEO,SEM,SMO) }}

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Twitter experimental changes how favorites work angers users

Twitter experimental changes how favorites work angers users

   August 18, 2014       prabhakardalvi

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Twitter is experimenting with a new feature that is downright blasphemous to experienced users. Some users are seeing a few tweets in their timelines that have merely been favorited by accounts they follow. Other tweets are showing from accounts that your friends follow. That's a massive change: Twitter has fundamentally only shown tweets and retweets posted by accounts you personally follow (as well as advertisements) in timelines to date.

The experiment is particularly concerning for some because the favorite has always been rather mysterious. Despite its name, many do not use the favorite in the same way as a Facebook "Like." Some use it as a simple acknowledgment of receiving a tweet or as a way of saying "thanks." It can also be a simple way of saying that you found something funny. Others use it as a type of bookmarking system.

Don't you dare mess with my timeline

Favorites have also been pseudo-private; while you can view a list of favorited tweets from an account's profile page or on a tweet's detail page, typically only the "favoriter" and the "favoritee" ever know about it. If Twitter starts surfacing favorited tweets in timelines, they've suddenly become far more public. The change — and the backlash — is somewhat similar to Facebook's attempts to share just about everything "friends" did with Open Graph. The company has largely given up on those efforts.

It's not impossible to see how this experiment could be beneficial for those who haven't carefully curated a list of accounts to follow. Seeing what other people favorite could help new users see how people use the service. It could also reveal some of the excellent back-and-forth conversations that are easily missed unless you follow many accounts that interact with each other often.

Let's face it: favs are pretty arcane

Even if you are up in arms about the experiment, it seems unlikely that the feature will see a wide rollout in its current form. It's currently unclear how many users are seeing the experiment in their timelines right now. I noticed the feature late last month in my own account, and a quick search of Twitter shows some others have as well. The experiment gained attention earlier today when The Next Web published a story on it.

Twitter has not yet responded to requests for comment, but in a generic blog post on its site about such tests, the company notes that it "experiment[s] with features that may never be released to everyone who uses Twitter." The company adds that the "they help us decide what not to do –– which is important as we work to keep Twitter simple while improving the user experience."

{{ The Guest Post Blogger organization was not involved in the creation of this content. - Dalvi Prabhakar B, Founder & Digital Manager (SEO,SEM,SMO) }}

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Social Customer Service Metrics improve your business

Social Customer Service Metrics improve your business

   July 01, 2014       prabhakardalvi

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What I love most about getting to focus the majority of my work on social customer service is that there are actually ways to measure that you're making a difference to the bottom line. First let's distinguish between two type of numbers.social customer service

Vanity metrics. Numbers that look good on a chart when they're trending upward but really don't prove a lot on their own (followers, likes, members, comments,  retweets, etc.)

Value metrics. Numbers that may use vanity metrics as part of larger formula and produce a measure that shows you're moving the needle on something your VP cares about. Think decreasing transaction costs,  increasing agent efficiency or increasing NPS.

I know all of you who are currently only reporting on vanity metrics are now are now standing up and yelling, "Damn straight, we want value metrics!" Here are a few ideas:

Transaction costs. This is a pretty straightforward formula. What you're really figuring out is the cost of servicing a customer viaTwitter vs. telephone.

Determine the cost of a call.

Determine the cost of a tweet.

Determine what % of Twitter transactions would have been painful enough to warrant the customer actually calling? (I wouldn't presume every tweet would have been a call).

Derive your "estimated" cost savings per month.

Then do the same for Facebook, and generate the average transaction of servicing over social media.

Finally, get someone credible in the organization to reality-check your calculation.

Agent efficiency. This formula can range from simple to complex, depending on how air-tight you want to make your story. Some standard call centre metrics are fine to start off with. Time to Respond (TTR) and mean time to resolve (MTTR) will work. Take a look at what these metrics look like for you traditional channels  vs. social over a period of time and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. Social is designed to be the fastest service channel on the planet. Oh right, if you aren't piping your serviceable issues from social media into a case management tool that can report on these metrics, it will be much harder to do this.

 Customer satisfaction. So now you've proved that you can service customers faster AND cheaper, but are customers happy with the service? Let's find out. Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a pretty standard CSAT metric these days. My experience tells me that when you start to measure this you'll be hated by the rest of the call centre managers because your score for social will be so much higher. The way I'll describe it is just for Twitter and is a little manual but I think it's a good place to start and get a bit of a baseline. Here's how it works.

Each week, grab a certain number of Twitter handles from customers that you serviced within the last week. The more the better; not everyone will respond.

DM them and ask the NPS question in a fun way. "How did we do? On a scale of 1-10 would you recommend our service to your pals?"

Throw all the responses into a spreadsheet and calculate your Twitter NPS. Do the Snoopy dance.

Book a meeting with the VP to let him or her know how much higher the call centre NPS is now that you've averaged your score into it.

Some of the more robust listening tools try to calculate NPS using their sentiment engine but it never hurts to ask people directly too.

So there you have it, a few ways to measure the actual value of your social customer service in a way in which your VP will take you seriously instead of staring at your report and asking, "What's a retweet?" -  3 Social Customer Service Metrics that will Make You a Rock Star

{{ The Guest Post Blogger organization was not involved in the creation of this content. - Dalvi Prabhakar B., Founder & Digital Manager (SEO,SEM,SMO) }}

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Good Content to Increase Engagement for Covert Business

Good Content to Increase Engagement for Covert Business

   June 11, 2014       prabhakardalvi

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Good Content to Increase Engagement for Covert Business

Engagement is the end game for content marketing. Getting people interested in and involved with your product is half the battle in making a sale. When your customers know that they can look to you for stellar insights and advice about the industry, you’ve succeeded. But achieving this goal is not easy. It takes a lot of time investment to create the high-quality content you’ll need.

Below are Some tips on how to use content to increase your audience’s engagement.

• Create Gated Content 
• Run a Live Q&A Based On of a Controversial Piece of Content  
• Include Calls to Action at the Bottom of Content 
• Ask Questions at the End of Blog Posts to Increase Comments
• Be Consistent at Something

Create Gated Content for SE ( Search engine )

“Gated content” refers to information or whole sections of your web site that are only available to people who agree to provide something in return. Gated content creation can be tricky to execute, but when used well, it’s a great way to not only pump up engagement but also to generate leads. For marketing purposes, that “something” is usually contact information, such as:

1. Geographic location
2. Name
3. Email address
4. Phone number
5. Company information

Gated content may also require payment for information, such as whitepapers or exclusive video, but generally speaking it’s just another rung on the sales funnel.

Not every company is comfortable with using gated content. Some are wary of alienating potential customers who are not ready to establish contact, or sending them to competitors who do not have gates. It’s best to reserve gated content for premium information; be sure to leave product descriptions and blogs free to navigate for any visitor.

For instance, a site such as Gate to Garage, which sells a wide variety of furnishings and décor, would not benefit from walling off its product listings to visitors. But it might consider requiring potential customers to submit an email address for future contact if they want to see a how-to video or white paper.

One thing to keep in mind, don’t gate all your content. Leave blog posts and info graphics as free material for everyone. That free material will drive traffic to your site and then special gated content can be used to increase engagement and build an email database.

Run a Live Q&A Based On of a Controversial Piece of Content  

Live chats have a colorful history on the internet. They’re one of the earliest ways that companies engaged with their customers, dating back well before the age of social media. Though they’ve evolved over time, they still remain a great way for businesses to gauge opinions about not only their products but also their industry. The smartest way to draw people in is to play off a piece of content that’s gotten a lot of attention.

This type of content will inspire strong opinions on both sides, which will draw people into the conversation. Be sure to promote the Q&A beforehand, but don’t just rely on live questions to fuel the discussion. Solicit questions and topics beforehand via social media, and keep things open-ended so that you can engage as many people on as many aspects of the issue as possible. If you’re doing the chat on Twitter or Facebook, look over your analytic beforehand to decide what the best time is to hold the conversation.

Last year Paper.li, an online content curation service, sponsored a live Twitter chat to promote awareness for bloggers, who make up the hottest area of its community. The success of the Q&A surprised even the company’s community manager, who personally heard from more than 200 people after the chat via email and on Twitter asking for help and offering their input. The chat also reached people in other countries, a bonus Paper.li hadn't expected.

Include Calls to Action at the Bottom of Content 

Sometimes when you become engaged in a great piece of content, whether it’s a whitepaper, a blog post or a podcast, you’ll forget how you stumbled upon it and your true purpose for looking into the subject. Don’t let that happen to your potential customers. While you don’t need to hammer them over and over with sales pitches, you do need to gently remind them as they reach the end of their time with your content that there’s something they need to do. That may mean registering for something, buying a product or filling out a form.

Whatever it is, make sure your call to action is clear and concise so that you don’t lose your fish from the hook. On the blog for Writers Relief, an author submission service, posts end with reminders that the site can help make writing dreams come true and a link to their submission page, a succinct but effective call to action.

Ask Questions at the End of Blog Posts to Increase Comments

This sounds like an obvious way to increase engagement, but a surprising number of sites do not try to interact with their readers this way. They’re missing out on a huge opportunity. Once you've finished discussing the topic at hand, ask your readers what they think. Many blogs put a daily question at the bottom of a blog post in bold, training readers to look for these queries and answer them, thereby increasing engagement.

Don’t just get people to comment, though. Interact with them in the comments section and see how you can further engage them. For instance, the Gawker network of web sites have perfected this approach. Writers interact with readers, exchanging ideas — okay, and often insults — in such a way that the comments sections themselves have become must-reads.

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How to Close Leads for Better Business in Inbound Marketing

How to Close Leads for Better Business in Inbound Marketing

   May 21, 2014       prabhakardalvi

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How to Close Leads for Better Business in Inbound Marketing

You’re on the right track. You’ve attracted the right visitors and converted the right leads, but now you need to transform those leads into customers. How can you most effectively accomplish this feat? Certain marketing tools can be used at this stage to make sure you’re closing the right leads at the right times.

Closing tools include:

Lead Scoring

You’ve got contacts in your system, but how do you know which ones are ready to speak to your sales team? Using a numerical representation of the sales-readiness of a lead takes the guesswork out of the process.

Email

What do you do if a visitor clicks on your call to action, fills out a landing page, or downloads your whitepaper, but still isn’t ready to become a customer? A series of emails focused on useful, relevant content can build trust with a prospect and help them become more ready to buy.

Marketing Automation

This process involves creating email marketing and lead nurturing tailored to the needs and lifecycle stage of each lead. For example, if a visitor downloaded a whitepaper on a certain topic from you in the past, you might want to send that lead a series of related emails. But if they follow you on Twitter and visited certain pages on your website, you might want to change the messaging to reflect those different interests.

Closed

Loop Reporting- How do you know which marketing efforts are bringing in the best leads? Is your sales team effectively closing those best leads into customers? Integration with your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system allows you to analyze just how well your marketing and sales teams are playing together.

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Novelty gift ideas for Offices and Home

Novelty gift ideas for Offices and Home

   May 07, 2014       prabhakardalvi

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Novelty gift ideas for Offices and Home

Subcategories for  Novelty gift ideas for Offices and Home

• Album, Photo
• Baby Gift Sets
• Basic Leather Keychains
• Basic Metal Key chains
• Basic Plastic Keychains
• Beeswax Products
• Ceramic Products
• Collectible Memorabilia And Souvenirs
• Colour Changing Mugs
• Culinary Art Bottles
• Cultural Icons
• Designer Lunch Boxes
• Digital Voice Recording Keychains
• Emblem Or Button Badges
• Emblem Or Lapel Pins
• Executive Magnetic Or Kinetic Novelties
• Fancy Or Cartoon Keychains
• Flashing Pins And Magnetic Body Lights
• Gift Boxes 
• Gift Tins
• Glow In The Dark Novelties
• Idols
• Incense 
• Led Keychain Lights
• Maps And Historical Prints 
• Memento
• Mobiles
• Money Clips 
• Mugs
• Multifunctional Keychains
• Music Boxes
• Nautical Gifts
• Novelty Aquariums 
• Novelty Calculators
• Novelty Cards
• Novelty Digital Voice Recorders
• Novelty Flags And Windsocks
• Novelty Lamps
• Novelty Lanterns
• Novelty Pens
• Optical Fibre Lamps
• Pinwheels
• Tea Coffee Coasters
• Thermoware And Plastic Giftware
• Trinket Jewellery Boxes
• Trophies And Medals
• Watch Giftsets

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The Mean Boss that Made Me a Kind One - Naomi Simson

The Mean Boss that Made Me a Kind One - Naomi Simson

   April 22, 2014       Unknown

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The Mean Boss that Made Me a Kind One - Naomi Simson, Career Curveballs

I like to think that I have been in charge of my own life, that I am in the driving seat rather than in the back seat along for a scenic ride – observing but not participating. But I confess that if it were not for other people’s actions, I would not be doing what I’m doing. I wrote about this particular curveball some months ago in "Can You Fire Your Boss?"

A career can be a series of Sliding Door moments: one door closes, another one opens, and often we are not quite sure which door is next. One thing is for sure there have been plenty of curveballs flung at me. I think my workday is going to go in one direction – and then before I know it I am off in another direction. Ultimately these sliding doors did lead to me start my own business.

In the early 1990s I worked in the aviation industry during the deregulation of the industry in Australia. I was proud and excited to get this job for such a prestigious iconic Australian brand, I called all my friends – there was no Facebook in those days – sharing the great news. I was jump-for-joy happy. It took me four hours to work out what to wear for my first day, wanting to make a good impression.

Yet within six months I lied about where I worked, and before the year was out I knew that this was not a long-term career company for me. It was the curveballs that made me realize this.

My role was as marketing manager for the loyalty club program and I was then asked to join the launch team on the first points-based frequency program to ever exist in Australia. It was a big deal back then; we thought it might even make front-page news. I was putting every ounce of effort I had into doing great work, even though I had to do two jobs at the same time. My workload had more than doubled, my salary stayed the same.

Month after month I toiled endless hours to get the program launched. My immediate colleagues saw my contribution. But my superiors had no idea of the work involved in getting the launch right whilst keeping the marketing effort for my original role in full flight.

After many months waiting to be acknowledged and see my salary reviewed, I finally got up the courage to go upstairs to the general manager's office:

“I’m enjoying the work, but my role has doubled. I have now been managing the two roles for more than six months. In what time frame would a salary review be undertaken?” I asked.

“Who do you think you are to come into my office and ask for a pay rise?” he retorted. “How do I know what value you add to this business?”

I left his office trying to hold back the tears, feeling not only diminished, but also angry and hurt. I was indignant – How could he not know my contribution?

Was it management’s job to notice what I did? Was it my peers? Or was it mine to speak up and share what I achieved? In hindsight of course it is a mixture of all these things. One thing I knew is I never would allow this to happen again.

Finally, my direct manager negotiated a salary review of my role. The outcome was a $5 per week pay rise. This was as insulting as the lack of recognition for my work. The general manager received my resignation the next day. Door closed!

Within weeks I joined Apple as a marketing manager. Door opened. And the rest, as they say, is history.

What I do know is this curveball galvanized what I believe about work places:

• I believe that everyone deserves to have a great day at work.
• I believe that if people know what they are there to do, if someone notices and they go home feeling like a winner, then they are likely to play full out.
• I believe that appreciation is the simplest and most effective way of valuing the contribution made by an individual.
• I believe that what gets noticed gets repeated.

And that is why I preach what I practice and work to support other businesses on their 'best employer' journeys. It is all about RED (Recognize Every Day) and without the curveball of having a mean, nasty, small-minded general manager as a boss 25 years ago, perhaps I would not have created such a successful business.

This post is part of a series in which LinkedIn Influencers share how they turned setbacks into success.

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