This month we have some insightful information on recruitment interviewing and marketing. These bite-sized articles are concise and aim to offer useful information to your business in less than five minutes.

Our Alliance Rewards Program is again running the triple points bonus in February. Since Alliance’s inception in September last year we have been inundated with funeral homes signing up to the free program to earn their Alliance points. There are 1000+ rewards on offer currently, and I am thrilled to announce that we will soon have a section on the Alliance website where your points can be used for travel.

Warm regards, Rohan.

Reforestation

Ashton’s Tree Replanting Program assists to regenerate Australian ecosystems

600 tonnes of timber material is used by Ashton each year during manufacture of our coffin and casket ranges.

Ashton’s Tree Replanting Program has been in place for over a decade with the aim of offseting some of the timber that is used each year during the manufacturing process.

Ashton’s Tree Replanting Program recognises the importance of timber as a resource and forms part of the company’s commitment to a sustainable future.

For every purchase from Ashton’s specially selected coffin and casket range a donation is made to The Men of the Trees society. The society is a non-profit, volunteer group formed in 1980, which are dedicated to planting and maintaining trees in the community.

Funeral directors will find a certificate inside each of the coffins or caskets which form part of the program. The certificates can be given to families and outline the tree planting actions taken by The Men of the Trees society on their behalf.

Talk to your Ashton’s Account Manager or call our office for more information on The Men of the Trees society or Ashton’s Tree Replanting Program.

Simple, free, fun.

Ashton’s Alliance program rewards you every time

The Ashton Alliance Rewards Program is free for all Ashton customers to join. Reward points are earned for every dollar spent with Ashton.

Points can be redeemed for over 1000+ products and services ranging from appliances, cameras, entertainment events, gift cards, homewares, magazines, technology, toys, travel goods, food and alcohol, home entertainment and sporting products.

Why not use your rewards as staff incentives? Or shout your partner a gift.

Click here to see the rewards that you could be earning on every purchase from Ashton.

Signing up is easy: call us on 1300 COFFIN and we will walk you through the 2 minute account setup process.

10 Recruitment interviewing tips

1. Prepare for the process: Before you advertise, take time to review the role and what you are looking for. Write down the skills and experience a high performer in the role will need to have, as well as the qualities that you are looking for in a great employee. These become your selection criteria – the things you measure each candidate against to check their match.

2. Set time aside: Book time into your diary to review applications, make appointments and interview candidates. Unless you schedule in uninterrupted time you will rush through the process and make poor choices.

3. Work out what’s in it for the candidate: Be clear why your business and this role is a great opportunity for candidates. You need to convince people to apply these days so work out why you stand out from other employers.

4. Listen more than you speak: When you get to the interviewing stage, you want to listen to the candidate more than you speak. Ask questions and don’t be afraid to probe for more information. Listen to tone of voice, ease of answering and clarity of answers.

5. Aim to get the best out of each candidate: You want each candidate to show you the best they can be. This is not a competition to see how they perform under pressure. Any interview is by itself a stressful situation. Work out ways to make it easy for them which could include giving them the main questions you are going to ask a few minutes before they come into the interview.

6. Take notes: After a long day of interviewing it is hard to remember exactly who said what. Try and take verbatim notes of answers as it helps when you are comparing candidates.

7. Make sure your questions are legal: All questions must comply with anti-discrimination legislation. This means you can’t ask questions about things such as age, marital status, if they have a disability, if they are pregnant or planning to become pregnant, if they are union members, their childcare arrangements or their religious beliefs.

8. Tell the truth: Don’t try and oversell a role or dance around negative parts of the job. You are more likely to get and retain the right candidate if you paint an honest portrait of the role and all it involves.

9. Make your next steps clear: Be clear to candidates on the next steps of the process. If you are going to conduct referee checks (and you should), check the contact details of referees. Explain when you will be making your decision and how you will contact them.

10. Keep your process fast: The best candidates don’t stay on the market long. If your recruitment process drags on you are likely to lose them. Aim for a quick yet thorough process, no more than 7 days in length from time of close of applications to decision.

There are a lot of factors that go into a successful recruitment process. If you keep these ten foundation points in mind you will be more likely to achieve the results you are looking for in filling your role.

Are you making this marketing mistake?

Jon McCulloch—The first question I always ask a new client is, “what business are you in?”. And invariably, I’ll get a reply like, “furniture retail”, or “I’m an estate agent – I sell houses”, or “plumbing services”. The answer is always the same, in the sense they tell me their business is the business of selling whatever “thing” they’re selling.

And… they’re wrong.

Because for everyone who thinks they’re in the “thing” business, no matter what that “thing” is… the truth is they’re really in the marketing of the “thing” business!

And if you think about it, this makes sense, because marketing is what brings us clients (I prefer to use the term “client” because it better defines the relationship you should be developing with your market, whereas a “customer” is just someone who gives you money). And if we don’t have any clients, we don’t make any money, and if we don’t make any money, then we don’t have a business at all.

Although it’s counter intuitive and probably the best-kept secret in business, the truth is marketing is the most important thing you can ever do in your business. It should always be your priority.

Now, often at this point I’m asked, “so, Jon, what is marketing, then?”. It’s a good question and the answer might surprise you. Because it’s not just advertising and sales, although they definitely come into it.

No, marketing is anything and everything about your business your clients or potential clients perceive. It’s your attitude, the way you look, the way you act, and, most important, the way your clients feel about doing business with you.

Sounds complicated, doesn’t it? And I know from most business owners’ experience, marketing is a bit like a visit to the dentist: you know you’ve got to do it, but it’s painful and expensive, and you really wish there was an alternative.

Unfortunately, there is no alternative, not if you want to stay in business. But, marketing can be fun, and is an investment rather than a cost when it’s done properly, and, once you get the hang of it, you’ll wonder why you were so resistant to the idea and hesitant to get your teeth into it.

It really boils down to three fundamental areas: your message, your market, and the media you use to reach them. It’s that simple; although like all fundamentals, you’ve got to get them right, because they form the foundation of your marketing.

Ultimately problems arise because business owners get these three fundamentals the wrong way around. They’ll often choose the media based on expediency, and then try to figure out a message to appeal to the market the media reaches.

And this is the wrong way round. The first step should be to find a market eager to buy. The late marketing guru, Gary Halbert, said you should “look for a starving crowd”. Then once you’ve identified the market – the people who you want to buy from you – you can craft a message to get them eager to do business with you.

And then, and only then should you think about how to reach them and choose the right media to fit.

Unfortunately, the truth is most business owners are sold on the marketing strategies and media they use by default – meaning they drift into a strategy or a medium almost by accident rather than as a logically thought out and considered step in a sound marketing strategy.

As often as not they’ll choose a medium simply because the Yellow Pages rep happened to knock on the door that week, or a magazine or local paper made a well-timed cold call.

There’s nothing wrong with these avenues – that’s not what I’m saying. No, the point I’m making is, just like a ship with a port in mind, your marketing has to have a clearly defined goal so you can plan a way to get there.

If you don’t have a direction and you try to be all things to all people, you’ll end up being nothing to anyone, and ultimately, that will dramatically reduce your income potential.

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