Are you effectively maximizing your employee creativity and brain power across teams? Organizational silos are an unacceptable hindrance to your success. Learn how Blinds.com works across teams (from the contact center to marketing to IT and beyond) to enhance business strategy, day-to-day communications, customer experience, profitability and more. Key Take-Aways: - Actionable steps to promote cross-team communication and collaboration – how does this work? - Top 5 questions your contact center should ask other company departments to succeed – where do we start? - Success stories on interdepartmental projects that could change the way you do business – what are the opportunities?

1. Profitable Collaboration:
Smart Communication
with Great Results
Sean Graham
Sales Director
Katie Laird
PR Manager

2. Unexpected collaborators

3. Welcome to the Blinds.complex!
o The power of Culture
o Tips, tricks + tools
o Success stories
We play well together here.

4. Power of
Company
Culture

5. Frank Blake says:
AWESOME
Core Values

6. Experiment without
fear of failure.
o Failure is NOT a bad word
o Empower people to
innovate
o “Test” tubes
o ‘Open Idea’ policy

7. The importance of place
o Chance encounters
o Group work space
o Meeting room variety
o Beautiful, fun, smart

8. Intrapreneurship
o Group support
o Public accountability
o Hire from within
o Share results publicly

9. Invest in your ideas

10. Collaboration
Tips, Tricks
+ Tools

11. How easy are you making it?
o Make it habit, make it a no brainer
o Dedicated ‘Idea Email’ account
o VIDEO!!
o Senior leadership driven
Ease of use changes behavior.

12. WOWeachother!

13. It’s all in the
communication mix…
o Passive communication
o Collaboration tools
o ‘Special guests’ in team meetings
o Walkabouts
o Remote working stations

14. Transparency matters
o Where is your Roadmap?
o Start a SayJay (or ‘HeyKay’)
o Align company +
employee goals compensation
o Culture of celebration

15. Collaborative
Team Success
Stories

16. The art of listening
• CEO letters
• Ratings + reviews
• Website surveys
• Social Media buzz
• Online brand monitoring
• “How did you hear about us?”
Success
tip:

17. Social Media + Sales
o Smart content marketing + sales = BFFs!
o Track EVERYTHING:
o Video interactions
o Social conversions
o Last referred domain
o Love thy Social Media Marketer
2013 Social Sales YOY
Up 40% +

18. A typical Social Sale story
Meet Joshua!

19. Social Media + Service
o Pro-active searching for challenges
o Product training for PR team
o Online PR training for Contact Center
o Set ‘rules of engagement’ for networks
2013 Twitter @ replies
2500 +

20. Social Service stories
Meet Steven!
TIMING!
- Same biz day from PR
- 2 hour response from CC
Ask for public update when
things are made right.

21. The ultimate collaboration
The CUSTOMER!

22. Speed + power matters
VS.
Empower your people to
make decisions and ACT!
How fast can you turn
on a dime?

23. 5 questions to ask your team
1. WIIFTC?
What’s in it for the customer?
2. Does this align with our Roadmap?
Just a cool idea or totally on point strategically?
3. What is the impact?
Will it move the needle in your business?
4. Who has the skills?
Be open minded + look across teams and departments.
5. How does success look?
What metrics will you use to measure ROI?

24. Final Thoughts
o Improve continuously
o Communication mix +
tool experimentation
o How fast is your boat?
o HAVE FUN!!!

25. Thanks!
Katie Laird – PR + Marketing
katiel@Blinds.com
@happykatie
Sean Graham – Sales + WOW
seang@Blinds.com