5 Tips for Successful Change Management

 

Change is hard, change is constant, and change is how companies evolve. When you bring on an RPO firm, it requires change. The goal of change management is to make change minimally disruptive, so that people can focus on performance while change is implemented. What can you do to make change easier to manage?

Here are five tips to help you navigate and manage change:

1. Develop a common “change” language and tools
When everyone knows the process for how change is communicated and implemented in your organization, they won’t see change as so disruptive. People want to know what’s being changed, how it impacts them, what they need to do, what to expect overall, and who to turn to with questions. By using a common change language and process across the organization (such as Six Sigma), you reduce anxiety and make change more “normal.”

2. Be aware of the ripple effect
Organizations operate as multi-layered, interwoven systems. One small change ripples out and impacts something entirely different. Look out across the organization; then look out even farther. Ask for people’s input and understand how change is going to affect processes and the way things are done. Risk management and change management go hand in hand, so be sure to understand the full impact as deeply as possible.

3. Emphasize your company values
Frame change in light of your company values. Remind people of your culture, your mission, and your values. Share the vision of how the change will benefit the company and employees. When change aligns with shared values, even difficult changes feel right. And that helps to garner a sense of purpose and community.

For example, if your company prioritizes growth and values excellence, moving from an internal to external talent acquisition system in order to accommodate the demands of opening new locations will feel right to employees. However, this will also mean people currently serving as internal recruiters will be out of their jobs or reassigned. The change will be seen as aligning with the priority of growth and as a further way to ensure excellence.

The shared values bond people together as they understand it’s for the “good of the company.”

4. Communicate
You cannot over-communicate when it comes to change. Communicate in a variety of mediums to accommodate people’s different learning styles. Be repetitive and pay attention to the tone and manner you use to express the change. What do people need to know before you make the big announcement? What are they going to be afraid of? Be clear, simple, and answer questions up front to help people navigate the change. Point people to resources and have a central data location they can access if they need more info or to remind them of what they need to do.

5. Involve people in the solution
As an RPO firm, we make a point to include the people impacted by our presence in our onboarding. We ask the employees what they think and for their advice. We want to be a partner, not a competitor, and we certainly don’t want to come in and be seen as “taking over.” By including people who are most impacted by the change, you can help transition roles and responsibilities and leverage the wealth of knowledge and expertise they have.

Change is inevitable and constant. It’s a process and not an event. The easier and more “normal” you can make it, the smoother it will be. The more knowledge and understanding people have about the process, the less anxiety they will feel. Be mindful and thoughtful as you implement change and people will find it easier to embrace.

Emily Gordon joined Seven Step in 2012 as a Strategic Director. Emily brings more than 10 years of talent acquisition experience to lead effective and results-oriented staffing practices. Her focus on improving the hiring process for clients and candidates goes hand-in-hand with her passion for rallying teams to work cohesively to meet mission-critical goals. She has built and implemented multiple national delivery centers while working with one of the largest global staffing and sourcing providers and has acquired a Six Sigma Green Belt Certification. Emily is a University of Michigan graduate who can often be found chanting “GO BLUE” as she cheers on her alma mater or spending time with her five-year-old daughter.

 

7 Ways Leaders Maintain Their Composure in Difficult Times

Leaders need to show more composure than ever before in the workplace.   With the change management requirements, increased marketplace demands and intensifying competitive factors that surround us, leaders must have greater poise, agility and patience to minimize the impact of uncertainty.   How leaders respond to these and other growing pressures is an indicator of their leadership preparedness, maturity and acumen.

The composure of a leader is reflected in their attitude, body language and overall presence.   In today’s evolving business environment, it is clear that leadership is not only about elevating the performance, aptitude and development of people – but more so about the ability to make people feel safe and secure.   Employees have grown tired of working in survival mode and thus want to be part of a workplace culture where they can get back to doing their best work without the fear of losing their jobs.

I worked with a colleague that lacked composure and was always in a panic.  Though he had tremendous credentials, he lacked the ability to remain calm and thus often made his employees feel uneasy. His leadership role was just too big for what he was capable of handling.   He was often too dramatic and the smallest of problems  launched him into crisis management mode.   Needless to say, his wasn’t an effective leadership that could deal with real crisis and change.    Because he was unable to reinvent himself and adapt to the unexpected, his tenure was short-lived.

The 21^st century leader sees adversity through the lens of opportunity.  Rather than panic, a leader with composure takes a step back and begins to connect the dots of opportunity within adverse circumstances.   These types of leaders quickly detect the causes of adversity and solve for them immediately.  They then enable the opportunities previously unseen that could have avoided the adversity to begin with.  Many times crisis results when composure is missing.

The next time a problem arises, ask yourself if you or your leader could have shown a greater sense of composure and avoided the problem from surfacing. 

When leading – especially during times of uncertainty and adversity, crisis and change – you must avoid showing any signs of leadership immaturity or lack of preparedness that will make your employees feel unsafe and insecure. Here are seven ways to maintain leadership composure during the most pressure-packed moments:

1.  Don’t Allow Your Emotions to Get in the Way
Seasoned leaders know not to wear their emotions on their sleeves.   They don’t yell or get overly animated when times get tough.  These types of leaders have such emotional self-control that even their body language does not give them away.

When you allow your emotions to get in the way, employees interpret this as a sign you are not being objective enough and too passionate about the situation at hand.  Strong-willed leaders can maintain their composure and still express concern and care, but not to the point that their emotions become a distraction – or that they can’t responsibly handle the issues at hand.

2.  Don’t Take Things Personally
Leaders shouldn’t take things personally when things don’t go their way.   Business decisions and circumstances don’t always play out logically because office politics and other dynamics factor into the process.    As a leader, remain calm and don’t get defensive or think that you always must justify your thinking and actions.

When you begin to take things personally, it’s difficult to maintain your composure and make those around you believe that you have things under control.  In fact, when leaders take issues too close to heart, they allow the noise and politics around them to suffocate their thinking and decision-making capabilities.

3.  Keep a Positive Mental Attitude
Employees are always watching their leader’s actions, behavior, relationships and overall demeanor.   During the most difficult of times, leaders must maintain a positive mental attitude and manage a narrative that keeps their employees inspired and hopeful.  This is where your leadership experience and resolve  can really shine – by staying strong, smiling often and authentically exhibiting a sense of compassion.

Leaders set the tone for the organization they serve.   A positive attitude can neutralize chaos and allow a leader to course correct through any negativity.    Employees feed off the attitude of these leaders during times of uncertainty.   Keep a positive mental attitude and never stop moving forward.  Stay focused on building positive momentum for the betterment of the healthier whole

4.  Remain Fearless 
When leaders project confidence, they instill it in others.  During uncertain times, leaders must remain fearless and project a cool persona that communicates composure to those they lead.

I’ve been through ups and downs in my career and have learned that when you begin to fear adverse circumstances, you not only put yourself in a position of vulnerability, but it becomes extremely difficult to act rationally and objectively.    When you panic, you mentally freeze and your mind loses focus.

When you begin to get fearful, ask yourself:  What is the worst possible thing that can happen?  If you are objective about it and have the will and confidence to face it, you will eventually realize that the situation is manageable and can be resolved.  Faced with adversity several times over, your fears will eventually vanish and uncertainty will become your best friend.

5.  Respond Decisively
Leaders who maintain their composure will never show any signs of doubt.  They speak with conviction, confidence and authority – whether they know the answer  or not!  With their delivery alone,  they give their employees  a sense that everything is under control.

Recently, Mack Brown, the former coach of the University of Texas (UT) football team, was put under a lot of pressure to resign as a result of his team underperforming in 2013.  Though the University handled his forced resignation poorly  – considering Mr. Brown had coached the team successfully for the past 16 years – his decisiveness the day he announced his resignation made you feel that his transition out of the job was a positive thing for the university.  Human nature will tell you that he must have been hurting inside, but his decisiveness and presence of mind made those that were watching him speak believe that the future looked bright for UT football.

6.  Take Accountability
Leaders are most composed during times of crisis and change when they are fully committed to resolving the issue at hand.   When you are accountable, this means that you have made the decision to assume responsibility and take the required steps to problem solve before the situation gets out of hand.

When leaders assume accountability, they begin to neutralize the problem and place  the environment from which it sprung on pause – much like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie did when he announced that he did not have any prior knowledge of the decision his aides made to close down access lanes to the George Washington Bridge.  Though there may be legal woes to come, the manner in which he handled the initial news conference (temporarily) neutralized the crisis – as he answered all of the reporters’ questions and took full responsibility and accountability to punish the perpetrators and keep something like this from happening again. 

7.  Act Like You Have Been There Before
Great leaders know that one of the most effective ways to maintain composure during difficult times is to act like you have been there before.   Leaders that act to show they have been through the problem solving process numerous times before are those with strong executive presence who approach the matter at hand with a sense of elegance and grace.    They are patient, they are active listeners, and they will genuinely take a compassionate approach to ease the hardships that anyone else is experiencing.

Just ask any technical support representative.  When you are on the phone with them, their job is to make you feel that even your most difficult challenges can be easily resolved.     They are there to calm you down and give you hope that your problem will soon be solved.    Pay attention to their demeanor and how they are masters at soothing your frustrations.  They always act to show that they have been there before; their composure puts your mind at ease.

It’s easy to lose composure during times of crisis and change if you let concern turn into worry and worry turn into fear.  By maintaining composure, the best leaders remain calm, cool and in control – enabling them to step back, critically evaluate the cards that they have been dealt and face problems head-on.  A show of composure also puts those you lead at ease and creates a safe and secure workplace culture where no one need panic in the face of adversity.

As the saying goes, “Keep Calm and Carry On!

 

Glenn Llopis

7 Reasons Employees Don't Trust Their Leaders

Glenn Llopis, 

 

As the world mourns the loss of Nelson Mandela and commemorates his greatness as a leader, we would do well to remember that one of the  many hallmarks of his leadership was trust.    The greatest leaders in the world gravitated toward Mr. Mandela because he was genuinely trustworthy and his purpose was to support peace, prosperity and unity not only in South Africa – but throughout the world.   Mandela was able to lead people in ways that many find impossible to do. As he famously said, “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

Unfortunately, trust is in rare supply these days.  People are having trouble trusting each other, according to an AP-GfK poll conducted in November 2013, which found that Americans are suspicious of each other in their everyday encounters.   Only one-third of Americans say most people can be trusted – down from half who felt that way in 1972, when the General Social Survey first asked the question.  Forty years later, in 2013, a record high of nearly two-thirds says “you can’t be too careful” in dealing with people.

This same sentiment can be carried over into the workplace, where employees want their leaders to be more trustworthy and transparent.   Employees have grown tired of unexpected outcomes resulting from the lack of preparation.  They want to be informed of any change management efforts before – not after the fact.   Employees desire to know what is expected of them and be given the opportunity to reinvent themselves, rather than be told they are not qualified for new roles and responsibilities and can no longer execute their functions successfully.

Leaders are challenged between informing their employees of the entire truth and holding back certain realities so as not to unnecessarily scare   people or lose top-talent.   More and more leaders today are being placed into uncomfortable moral dilemmas because they are attempting to salvage their own jobs while trying to maintain the trust and loyalty of their employees.

The growing tensions between leaders and their employees are creating productivity challenges as uncertainty becomes the new normal in the workplace.  Furthermore, leaders are beginning to lose control of their own identities and effectiveness as their employees begin to lose trust in their intentions because of hidden agendas and political maneuvering – casting clouds of doubt over their futures.

Employees just want the truth.  They have learned that the old ways of doing things just don’t apply (as much) anymore and more than ever they need their leaders to have their backs.  Unfortunately, many leaders are operating in survival mode and don’t have the sphere of influence they once had; without leaders to sponsor and mentor them, high-potential employees must now figure out the changing terrain on their own.

Here are seven early warning signs to look out for so you can course-correct when employees are having trouble trusting their leaders:

1.  Lack Courage
Leaders that don’t stand up for what they believe in are difficult to respect and trust.   Too many leaders today battle the gulf between assimilation and authenticity.   They waste too much of their valuable time trying to act like other leaders in the organization – rather than attempting to establish their own identity and leadership style.   This is why less than 15% of leaders have defined and live their personal brand.

Perhaps leaders don’t believe that their employees are paying attention to this behavior – but they are intently observing.    Employees are always in tune to what their leaders are doing and how they manage themselves.   Employees know that if their leaders are not savvy enough to move themselves into a position of greater influence, it will make it that much more difficult for   them to get noticed and discovered as well.  The influence of a leader carries a lot of weight when it comes to how their colleagues judge and evaluate the potential of their employees.

When leaders lack the courage to enable their full potential and that of others, it becomes a challenge to trust their judgment, self-confidence, self-awareness and overall capabilities.

2.  Hidden Agendas
Leaders that are too politically savvy can be viewed as devious and inauthentic.  Employees want to follow leaders who are less about the politics and more about how to accomplish goals and objectives.   While being politically savvy is important, leaders must be careful not to give their employees the impression of orchestrating hidden agendas.

Employees want to believe that their leaders are focused on the betterment of the team.  If this requires well-intentioned political maneuvering to advance team goals and objectives, then great.  However, if it comes across that a leader is solely intent on protecting themselves and their own personal agendas – trust from the team will be lost quickly and difficult to recapture.

3.  Self-Centered
Hidden agendas make it difficult to trust that a leader’s intentions and decision-making are not self-centered.  When a leader is only looking out for themselves and lacks any sense of commitment to the advancement of their employees – this shuts-off employees quickly.
 
Great leaders are great coaches and are always looking to help their employees grow and prosper.   When leaders lack any real desire to mentor, coach and/or guide the career advancement of their employees – it becomes increasingly difficult for employees to trust them.   I’ve often said that leaders can’t go at it alone.   But when leaders are too disruptive, their employees sense that they are in it for themselves and/or don’t trust the talent around them.

Also, when leaders are self-centered their ego stands in the way of advancing others – further eroding trust.

4.  Reputation Issues 

When people begin to speak negatively about their leader, it makes it more difficult for others to trust their intentions and vision.  For example, look at what has happened to President Barrack Obama since December 2009 when his approval rating was 69%.
  
  According to the Rasmussen Reports, four years later (as of December 7th), Obama’s approval rating is now at 43%.  Nearly a 30% decline has created massive disruption to his reputation and many who have followed and supported him for years are now having troubling trusting him.

If you conducted a comparative approval rating survey in your workplace, how would your employees rate the performance of your leaders?

Every leader must be aware that they are constantly being evaluated and thus they can never grow complacent.   When they do, this begins to negatively impact their reputation and the trust employees have in their leadership.

5.  Inconsistent Behavior
People are more inclined to trust those who are consistent with their behavior.   Isn’t it easy to begin questioning one’s motives/judgment when they are inconsistent?  For example, I’ve worked with clients who appear to be on the same page – only to notice that they begin to disconnect when they believe that the direction of a project is not allowing them to mobilize their own agendas.   In order words, when everyone but the leader is on board with a strategy – you begin to wonder if their intentions are to support the organization’s advancement or their own.

Leaders who are consistent with their approach and intentions are those who can be trusted.   This is why so many leaders need to refresh their leadership style before they lose the trust of their employees.

6.  Don’t Get Their Hands Dirty
Leaders must touch the business, just as much as they lead it.    When leaders are over-delegating and not getting their hands dirty – employees begin to question whether or not their leader actually knows what is required to get the job done.    Distrust amongst employees begins to rise.

Though leaders cannot be expected to have all of the answers – they should not play at arms-length either. The 21st century leader must be more high-touch in order to effectively evaluate the business and coach-up their employees.    How else can a leader establish the standards to maintain and improve workplace performance?

Are your leaders getting their hands dirty or are they merely acting the part?

Leaders must earn the trust of their employees and stop believing that their titles, roles and responsibilities automatically warrant trust from others.

7.  Lack a Generous Purpose
When a leader doesn’t genuinely have your best interests at heart, it’s difficult to trust them.  When leaders are not grateful for your performance efforts – and are always attempting to squeeze every bit of effort they can out of you – it’s difficult to trust that they have intentions to be more efficient, resourceful and collaborative.

Employees don’t ever want to feel taken advantage of – especially during a time when everyone is being asked to do more with less.   Leaders must be more appreciative of their employees and more mindful of their endeavors.

Leaders who lack a generous purpose and are not compassionate towards their employees are difficult to trust. How can leaders expect their employees to give them everything they’ve got to increase their performance impact when they are not willing to do the same?

These seven behavioral traits are becoming much more prevalent in the workplace and if leaders fail to course-correct they will be putting their employees in positions of increased risk – disrupting their focus and the momentum of their careers.

This is what today leaders must consider: how to lead in new ways that focus less on oneself, but more on the betterment of a healthier whole. Leaders must enable positive social change through ethical innovation   – what I call “innovation humanity.”

Let’s honor Mandela’s courage and compassion by letting his leadership inspire us now as it did throughout the life he lived with such generous purpose.


  Glenn Llopis Contributor

Get the Most Out of Executive Coaching

 

Remember “light bulb” jokes? My favorite was, “How many shrinks does it take to change a light bulb? One, but the light bulb must want to change.” It’s true: Unless or until a person decides to commit to change wholeheartedly, no coach can help move him or her one-millimeter off the dime.

 

Worse yet is the fact that, unlike light bulbs that lack the capacity for self-deception, humans bamboozle themselves all the time. Whether it’s a smoking cessation program or working with a coach to improve management skills, people claim they want to change or drop dysfunctional behaviors from their lives, but then fight like Ninja warriors to defend them. Worst of all, irrespective of how intelligent or professionally powerful a person is, it is a virtual certainty that after embarking on a change process, they will be partially or fully derailed by the feeling, “Better the devil I know than the devil I don’t know.”

The reason why backsliding on our ostensible commitments to change is so common is because most change is the result of compliance to a demand, incentive, or threat. “Lose weight or you’ll suffer a heart attack” coming from an M.D. is a directive most folks won’t ignore. Unfortunately, when incentivized to change in this manner falling off the wagon is common because our motivation wasn’t to change, it was to avoid a premature death.

Psychologists who have studied intrinsic and extrinsic motivation since the 1970s — most notably, Professor Edward L. Deci — demonstrate that when a person acts in response to extrinsic motivators — the promise of money; the threat of punishment — commitment to a behavior is short-lived. This is why when the cat’s away, mice will play. Mice don’t want to change their behavior, i.e. playing games, but they do when cats are present. However, since change (the cessation of play) was instigated by an extrinsic force — Tabby — if Tabby isn’t monitoring the mice, thse rodents instantly revert to form.

What, then, should you do if you think you want to change and, like so many of your peers, put your faith (and a huge financial commitment) in a coach? Is it possible to develop an authentic commitment to executive coaching through sheer willpower alone? No. But what you can do is develop a mindset — i.e. new “automatic” cognitive messages — that will help you counter your own resistance to change. 

What follows are the exercises I use most often to help new clients initiate coaching with the best mindset possible. If, prior to the onset of coaching you experience the attitude adjustments they are designed to foster, the change process should be profoundly less anxiety- and resistance-provoking for you than it is for those who dive in unprepared. 

1. Ask yourself, “Cui bono?”
Recall a golf lesson or the clumsiness you suffered during an introductory yoga class. Now recall how you responded when the club pro or yogacharya gave you critical feedback. No big deal, right? Well if you’ve never been to an executive coach, I guarantee that the first critique you receive will not be a NBD experience. Why? Golf or yoga are peripheral to an executive’s definition of self. Being a stellar manager is central, so when someone pokes that realm of your self-concept the usual reaction is “ouch!”

The best way to reduce the possibility of being stung by an executive coach’s constructive critical feedback is to remind yourself that it is (a) not ad hominem and as such, (b) comparable to the club pro’s efforts to correct your slice. To do this with ease, learn to employ the Latin phrase “Cui bono?” — literally, “as a benefit to whom?” — after each critique you receive. The rational portion of your brain knows that no competent coach would gratuitously put you down. Now you need to train the more primitive, more reactionary parts of your brain to think that way too. By making “Cui bono?” the mantra you bring to assessment sessions with your coach, you can learn to accept that any and all feedback from him or her is intended to be helpful, not hurtful.

2. Be sure you wouldn’t rather hire a cheerleader than a coach.
Many consultants and coaches know that they can build lucrative client bases by treating protégés the way Little League coaches deal with their pre-teen charges: Everything the kid does evokes a “good job” or “atta boy!” 

The problem with an automatic “good job” reaction is that it is useless and often — even by pre-teens — seen for what it is: Balm for under-developed egos. An 11-year-old with burgeoning self-esteem would much rather hear “keep your eye on the ball” after striking out than “good job,” but if you want to hear cheering regardless of how you perform, caveat emptor. An ethical coach doesn’t bring pom-poms to meetings with clients, so hire to your needs.

3. Learn the difference between participation and commitment.
Having spent 30 years as a psychotherapist and coach, I can assure you that acting the role of a “participant in a change process” is not nearly the same as being committed to actually changing yourself. Many people claim to be involved in a change process when, in fact, they are holding their true selves in abeyance. Years ago, many gay men married women because they held the deluded belief that the process of being part of an intimate heterosexual dyad would change who they were. In time, virtually all discovered that suppression doesn’t work and that role-playing without conviction has no chance of effecting change.

Coaching cannot change you one iota unless or until you’re really committed — until you have skin in the game. Before I work with a client who needs to make major changes, I share the aphorism my baseball coach once told me to drive home the distinction between authentic commitment vs. going through the motions: “There’s a huge difference between participating in baseball and being committed to it; it’s like a bacon and egg breakfast. The chicken participates in the breakfast. The pig, on the other hand, was fully committed.”

Since you won’t change unless you really want to, and nothing — not the highest-priced coach or public declarations about your intention to change (which, presumably, will humiliate you if you fail) — will help you to succeed, it behooves you to learn how to thwart your worst tendencies in advance of tackling change. This is what cartoonist/philosopher Walt Kelly, in his possum persona, Pogo, was referring to when he said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” If you accept this fact of life, coaching — and every other change process you initiate — will become surprisingly simple.

Steven Berglas

A faculty member of Harvard Medical School’s Department of Psychiatry and staff member of McLean Hospital for 25 years, Dr. Steven Berglas is now an executive coach and corporate consultant based in Los Angeles, CA.

17 Essential Content Templates and Checklists

 

By far, the most popular post we have ever published at the Content Marketing Institute is 10 Must-Have Templates for Content Marketers. Though this post is almost two years old, our readers still seem to clamor for this type of information and advice. 

To that end, we wanted to provide a refresher on the most popular templates and checklists shared by the CMI team and our guest contributors. Some of these are “oldies but goodies” that we included in the first list, and others are new. All are intended to simplify some part of the content marketing process — and all can be customized to your particular needs. 

Buyer-focused resources
Buyer persona template: The first rule of content marketing is that whatever you create must be relevant to your audience. Here are tips on how to create a buyer persona:

Content mapping template: If you sell something with a complex sales cycle, you’ll need to map your content requirements to stages in the buying cycle. 

Content and process organization
Content marketing team and workflow checklist: You can’t create a successful content marketing program if you don’t have the right skills, resources, and experience on hand to support your efforts. Learn more about the essential roles and recommended processes for building your team and workflow plan.

Editorial calendar template: To keep all of your content projects planned and organized, you’ll likely want to develop an editorial calendar. This template will serve as a great starting point.

Content kick-off checklist: For a content project to succeed, all stakeholders — from the client to your content creators — need to be on the same page. We suggest answering these 15 questions before you start any project.

Content request template: Have too many content ideas, or too many requests from across your organization? Use this checklist to help you prioritize your projects, or those being developed by your team.

Content technology questionnaire: Are you considering a technology purchase to simplify your content processes? This checklist includes 14 questions to ask to make sure you select a solution that will meet your unique content marketing needs. 

Creativity and design
Readability checklist: Not all websites are created equal. Here’s a checklist to follow for designing pages that are clear and readable, and can be easily navigated by your audience.

Killer web content template: If you are creating web content, use this template to help you make sure you’re driving action on each page.

Creating valuable content checklist: As you work through all of your content ideas, keep these key considerations in mind to ensure that you will be providing value to your audience.

Title evaluation scorecard: The importance of a great title for your content efforts shouldn’t be underestimated. This checklist walks you through the essentials for creating relevant, engaging headlines that will draw readers in.

Keyword selection checklist: While quality content rules, you shouldn’t ignore SEO. Here are 12 questions to ask to make sure you are targeting the most relevant keywords for your business. 

Publication and promotion
Content publication checklist: Once you’re ready to share your content with the world, be sure to review these key steps that will help you prepare your publication for optimal reach, engagement, and ROI.

Content distribution template: Even after you’ve published, your job is not done. You need to market your content, and this template will walk you through the need-to-know basics.

Blog post promotion checklist: If you are promoting a blog post, there are lots of things you can do to position it for success. Check out our most recent list of tips to help get you started (you can also go deeper by reading our original post on the topic).

Localization checklist: If your content is targeted to audiences in different global markets, consider this checklist of tips and considerations for localizing the content you’ve created.

Content marketing success checklist: Of course, you will want to see which of your content efforts are performing best, so you can continue to deliver the information your audience wants. This checklist walks you through how to measure content marketing success.