The very best leaders are great communicators

Today’s blog post is a little bittersweet. You see, it’s my last one for Crain’s.

For my last post, I thought it would be helpful to prepare you for your leadership role in 2013, from a communications perspective.

You see, study after study has been done that shows the very best leaders are great communicators. And, as a communications professional, I run into people all the time who think everyone communicates so there must be nothing to do it. Right? Wrong!

Being a great communicator takes skill and years of practice.

In this month’s Inc., Jason Fried (the co-founder of 37Signals here in Chicago) talks about how he’s taking lessons in Ruby on Rails so he can better communicate with the programmers who work for him. Because his expertise is in design, he doesn’t speak the same language as the people programming the company’s new applications. He decided it would be smart to learn enough about what they do in order to communicate with them.

I love this. This kind of earnest curiosity is part of what makes him successful.

But I’m not saying you necessarily need to go back to school to learn how to be a better communicator.

According to SmartBlogs on Leadership, there are six things you can work on in 2013 that will help you hone your skills: Three are foundational and three surround people.

Foundational Communication Skills

As leaders, we sometimes think we’re being extremely clear in our communication. After all, we’re the leaders so everyone must follow what we say. But what we soon discover is not everyone in our organization has access to the same information we do. That means we end up communicating at a level they can’t understand.

Following are three ways to increase your foundational communication skills:

1. Public Speaking. The nice thing about public speaking is it helps you learn how to explain things in a way that make sense to every audience member, no matter how much (or little) information they have about your topic. But it also drives an incredible amount of referral leads to your business. In fact, speaking is our number one driver of new revenue for Arment Dietrich. Why not hone your skills and do business development?

2. Messaging. As a communications professional, I’ve spent most of my career helping executives learn how to create clear and concise messaging that not only tells the story, but helps employees understand why you’re doing something. Bill Clinton is the master at this. Anytime you need some tips on how to better deliver your message, watch him do it.

3. Planning. If I were speaking about this topic, instead of writing it, I would ask you – by the show of hands – how many get up away from their desks and walk the halls or the plants or the stores to talk to their employees. Typically it’s less than 10 percent of leaders. Before this year ends, take some time to plan when you’re going to have all staff meetings, when you’re going to do town hall meetings, when you’re going to take live questions, and when you’re going to leave your desk. A simple spreadsheet will do, but it will force you to get out there and communicate more efficiently.

Employee Communication Skills

These are a little more difficult to define because they are softer skills, but if you work on the following three things, I think you’ll see a big difference in employee morale and company growth a year from today.

1. Honesty and Transparency. When the economy hit us really hard in 2009, I had to quickly make a decision about whether to be honest with my team or (what I thought) protect them from what was going on. I chose the former, which allowed us to have crucial conversations about the health of the organization and what that meant for their careers. Today I run the business by sharing revenue goals and where we stand from week-to-week. When I tell other business leaders I do that, they cringe. But I’ve found that level of honesty and transparency allows us to focus on the right things instead of my team trying to figure out why I’m making the decisions I do.

2. Rapport. This one should seem so intuitive, but it’s not. Shake people’s hands, look them in the eye, listen to what they have to say. I mean, really listen. You may not agree, but it is helpful not only from a communications perspective to listen, but it opens your eyes to how the decisions that are being made affect all of your employees.

3. Feedback. This one is hard. No one wants to tell the boss they’re bad at something. But if you allow honesty and transparency and you build rapport, slowly they’ll begin to tell you the truth. Sometimes it will hurt and other times it will feel nice, but the important thing is you create a safe environment where people can give honest feedback that you’ll use to better hone your skills.

What can you take away from this to improve your communication skills in 2013?

Though this is my last post here, you can find me blogging every day at Spin Sucks. Hope to see some of you there. Happy Holidays!

Editor’s note: Gini’s let the cat out of the bag — the Entrepreneurs blog will indeed be winding down at the end of the year. It’s been a great run — and Gini was one of the very first contributors. We’re ramping up a new blog to take this one’s place. Watch for it in this space starting Jan. 7.

Gini Dietrich is founder and chief executive officer of Arment Dietrich Inc., a Chicago-based firm that uses non-traditional marketing in a digital world. Follow Gini on Twitter: @ginidietrich.

Join Crain’s LinkedIn group for Chicago entrepreneurs. And stay on top of Chicago business with Crain’s free daily e-newsletters.

Got the right entrepreneurial stuff? Take this 5-point test

I was at dinner with a friend the other night and she mentioned an invite she’d received to spend New Year’s Eve “rubbing elbows with entrepreneurs.” I joked that if she came to my house on New Year’s Eve, she could rub elbows with entrepreneurs there.

It made me stop and think, though. How many entrepreneurs are in Chicago? Have we become a hotbed for start-ups and technology companies?

Boulder, Colo., reportedly is a hotbed for tech start-ups. And who can blame those entrepreneurs? I’d want to live there, too.

Austin, Texas, with the annual SXSW gatherings, Whole Foods, Dell, Livestrong and others is another hotbed.

Is Chicago soon to be added to the list?

An economy like we’ve had in the past few years is a great time to see whether or not people have what it takes to become entrepreneurs. Not only do people who are laid off find innovation in crisis, but their skills are quickly tested.

Skills such as persuasion, leadership, and personal accountability.

Entrepreneurial Skills

A recent study from Target Training International shows those three key traits, among others, are what makes an entrepreneur.Researchers say that if an entrepreneur excels in these areas, there is a 90 percent likelihood they will build not one, but multiple organizations (otherwise known as serial entrepreneurs).

The study goes on to say:

In contrast to ephemeral notions that entrepreneurial success comes as a result of perfect timing meeting brilliant ideas in a cosmic moment of alignment, this research indicates entrepreneurially successful people are successful for a reason — that many of them highly display certain personal skills.

Do You Have the Skills?

The interesting thing about this study is it highlights skills that are not inherent. They are things that can be learned, developed, and honed throughout your career. If you have the inkling to build companies from scratch, consider these things.

Persuasion: Can you convince people to join your mission? Do you deliver powerful presentations? Can you get people to say yes to implement what may seem to be crazy ideas?

Leadership:. Do people take risks to support your vision? Are you competitive? Have you been criticized for being too competitive?

Personal accountability: This is a big one. I hear my peers say quite often, “I can’t grow because no one is there to hold me accountable.” You have to do this one on your own. Are you recognized for achieving results when others could not? Are you criticized for holding people accountable? (We have a client who calls me the accountability task master.)

Goal orientation: Do you set SMARTER goals? Are you known for overcoming obstacles? Are you most productive when working with others to achieve goals?

Interpersonal skills: Do you get along well with people? Do you consider other people key to your greatest accomplishments? Can you calm people who are emotionally upset?

These are the types of questions the study asked to discover the key traits associated with entrepreneurs.

If you didn’t answer yes to each of these questions, don’t fret! Because these are all learned skills, you now have some goals for 2013.

Gini Dietrich is founder and chief executive officer of Arment Dietrich Inc., a Chicago-based firm that uses non-traditional marketing in a digital world. Her column appears on Crain’s blog for Chicago entrepreneurs every Friday.

Follow Gini on Twitter: @ginidietrich.

Join Crain’s LinkedIn group for Chicago entrepreneurs. And stay on top of Chicago business with Crain’s free daily e-newsletters.

The likability trap: How women undermine their own success

I love men. I love them as role models, mentors, and friends. I have four brothers (and one sister) so I relate very well to men.

Beginning in childhood, I’ve learned a lot from boys (not men yet). I learned from my brothers how to climb trees and change the oil in my car. I learned how to stick up for myself and how to get what I wanted.

As I entered the work force, I learned from men how biting my fingernails undermined my intelligence, how to present ideas in logical and unemotional ways, and how to think critically under fire.

And, as I’ve grown my business, I’ve learned from men how my personality best leads, how to ask for what I want, and how to put a real value on my expertise without apology.

I love men.

But they’re not the end all, be all.

Women have a significant place in this world, as well. In fact, according to Why Women Should Lead Boldly, there are several studies that show how well organizations do with women at the helm.

• Pepperdine University reported businesses with more women in leadership reported better financial results than those with fewer women leaders.

• The Massachusetts Institute of Technology found the only high predictor of a group’s creativity and effectiveness was the number of women in the group.

• Harvard Business School reported peers, bosses, direct reports, and associates rated senior executive women up to 10 percent better as leaders than male senior executives.

• Credit-Suisse Research Institute found companies with women on their boards outperformed those with all male boards.

But we have one problem facing us: We have an innate need to be liked, which has serious and long-lasting implications.

You see, men don’t care if you do or don’t like them. They don’t care if you don’t like their decisions. They don’t care if you are envious of their success. If they have a problem with another man, they’ll go out back, fight it out, and then have a beer together.

But women? We adjust our behavior to be likable. We do care what you think about us and that gives us less power in the boardroom and in our personal lives.

In a world where we want the top jobs and equal pay and equal rights, we have to stop playing a supporting role in our own lives. By wanting to be liked, we are more concerned with what others think about us than with doing the very best job, even if it’s not popular.

Sure, some of this requires a pretty big culture change, but that change can begin with each of us. Would you rather live your life how you think others want you to do so or determine your own path to success?

Gini Dietrich is founder and chief executive officer of Arment Dietrich Inc., a Chicago-based firm that uses non-traditional marketing in a digital world. Her column appears on Crain’s blog for Chicago entrepreneurs every Friday.

Follow Gini on Twitter: @ginidietrich.

Join Crain’s LinkedIn group for Chicago entrepreneurs. And stay on top of Chicago business with Crain’s free daily e-newsletters.

Sorry, CEOs: Social media is a hands-on task

I’m in Amsterdam right now speaking at a conference. I know, I know. My life sucks.

Yesterday I was talking to a local reporter about social media and its role in an executive team. He asked me, “How important is it for the leader to be involved in using social media if they want their organization to use it?”

I said it’s extremely important and emphasized the value in leading by example.

Take, for instance, Richard Branson or Mark Cuban. They both run very successful organizations (both of them run more than one) and they both are active on the social networks. They don’t have someone tweeting for them, for instance — they do it themselves.

And, even though they are the chiefs of multibillion-dollar companies, they find the time to connect and engage with their fans, followers and connections.

Outsource Social?

Right after that conversation, a friend and I had a similar exchange. He said it’s a shame organizations outsource all of their social media because when the relationship ends (and it always ends), the intimate knowledge of the people you connect with go away.

Sure, the fans, followers, viewers, listeners and connections remain with the organization, but knowing that Sally stops by your restaurant as a special reward when she reaches her weekly weight goal or Ben has bought and donated several thousand bottles of your product to schools in Africa . . . that knowledge is gone.

You see, social media is just that — social. You are supposed to build relationships with real people out there on the Interwebz. Yet most organizations, particularly business leaders, treat it as another way to broadcast about how great they are and ask people to buy.

Sure, you can outsource your social media, and most of you should. But if you want intimate knowledge of some of your biggest customers? Those relationships should belong to you.

Lead by Example

Just like anything else, if you lead social by announcement (write a memo, say it will be done and expect everyone else to do it), it won’t work.

The culture has to change in order to embrace the new way of building those relationships, understanding the nuances of your most enthusiastic fans and actually making money from the effort you spend online.

Just like you would with any other culture change, there are four things to consider:

1. Make expectations explicitly clear. Why are you spending time on the social networks? What do you hope to achieve? What are the goals? Are they truly measurable (and I don’t mean more fans, followers and connections)? Define your expectations in something that is objective, not subjective.

2. Hold everyone accountable, including yourself. This is the “lead by example” piece. I know it’s hard. You don’t have time. You don’t care what someone had for lunch. I’m asking you to stop thinking about it that way and spend just 15 minutes a day having a real conversation with just three to five people who are commenting in your Twitter stream or on your Facebook page. Just 15 minutes.

3. Be a consistent role model. See No. 2. No excuses.

4. Connect with employees and customers daily. The awesome thing about social media is you can do this without ever leaving your desk (though it is advisable to talk to your employees face-to-face). Ask them how’s it going. Ask them what they like about working with you. Ask them what they don’t like. Gather some great intel by having those real conversations you started in No. 2.

It’s not easy. We expect to be able to hand off social media and be done with it. But if you want it to work, and if you want to make money from it, you have to be involved.

Gini Dietrich is founder and chief executive officer of Arment Dietrich Inc., a Chicago-based firm that uses non-traditional marketing in a digital world. Her column appears on Crain’s blog for Chicago entrepreneurs every Friday.

Follow Gini on Twitter: @ginidietrich.

Join Crain’s LinkedIn group for Chicago entrepreneurs. And stay on top of Chicago business with Crain’s free daily e-newsletters.

Apple Maps debacle reveals true cost of coddling prima donnas

A couple of weeks ago, Scott Forstall, the Apple executive in charge of iOS and the maps debacle associated with the iPhone 5 release, was categorically fired.

According to Gigaom, Mr. Forstall was asked to co-sign (with Apple CEO Tim Cook) an apology letter to customers for the maps issue. He refused, which looks to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Though he’d been with the company — and Steve Jobs — since the NeXT days, his Jobs-like behavior (minus the genius) was too much for the more calm and collected Mr. Cook. It has even been reported there was silent jubilation when it was announced he was no longer with the company.

Which brings us to a very good lesson: Too often the prima donnas are revered because they create a ton of revenue or build amazing products but do so much damage to morale and culture they’re rarely worth keeping around.

No Room for Prima Donnas

I’m sure you know the type. In fact, you may employ the type right this very second. It’s very common to think, “I can’t do without the revenue he/she generates” so we keep the person around even though we know it’s really bad for the culture we’re building.

But it’s not always a top revenue generator. It could be someone who has built the right relationships with the decision-makers.

Case in point, we once had an employee who was very young and didn’t yet generate any revenue, but my second in command loved her. She did a ton of damage, particularly to our interns and newly graduated young professionals, and there was a lot of back stabbing and low morale. It went against everything I was building, culture-wise, but I couldn’t persuade our COO to let her go.

Eventually our COO left and so did this young woman (not by her own choice), and I was amazed at how quickly morale turned around. In fact, the culture I fought so hard to build began to happen naturally and I no longer had to fight the uphill battle.

Fire the Prima Donna

It’s not an easy decision to make. That’s why they say hire slowly and fire quickly.

Executive coach Scott Eblin offers three reasons you should fire the prima donna today. He says, “You’ll get more from the rest of your team, you’ll send the right message, and you’ll save yourself headaches in the future.”

Let’s dissect each of those reasons.
1. You’ll get more from the rest of your team. Like Apple employees were silently celebrating with the news of Forstall’s firing and my team’s attitudes changed when we let our prima donna go, your team will do the same. Right now they spend a lot of their time complaining about the prima donna, which is preventing them from doing their very best work. You’ll be surprised at how that revenue you think you’re going to miss is quickly made up with a more productive team.

2. You’ll send the right message. Most of your team is looking at you to lead by example. If you allow the prima donna to continue ruling the roost, the only message you’re sending is that money is the most important thing and you’re willing to let people behave badly if it means you can put more dollars in your pocket at the end of the year. If that’s true, by all means, let your prima donnas continue to ruin your culture. But if culture and team collaboration is important to you, get it done!

3. You’ll save yourself headaches in the future. It’s going to hurt in the short-term. You may have to work twice as hard to fill the empty pipeline left when you fire the prima donna. In fact, it may by you, yourself, who has to pick up the slack on top of your already full day. Think of it as a long-term investment. It’ll hurt right now, but eventually you’ll come out better for having made the cut.

What other lessons do you have for business leaders when it comes to firing the prima donna?

Gini Dietrich is founder and chief executive officer of Arment Dietrich Inc., a Chicago-based firm that uses non-traditional marketing in a digital world. Her column appears on Crain’s blog for Chicago entrepreneurs every Friday.

Follow Gini on Twitter: @ginidietrich.

Join Crain’s LinkedIn group for Chicago entrepreneurs. And stay on top of Chicago business with Crain’s free daily e-newsletters.

Facebook’s ‘Promoted Posts’ switcheroo

By Gini Dietrich

The awesome thing about the web and social media, in particular, is it levels the playing field. No longer do you need millions of dollars to spend on PR firms and ad agencies in order to build your brand and reputation among the masses.

Today all you need is a good writer, a self-hosted website or blog, and organically grown social networks. With those three things, you suddenly are competing with the big boys for reputation and credibility. You’re seen as a thought leader in your industry. You’re creating kinship among your prospects. And you’re selling in a way that has never before been possible.

All of the tools are free so it’s a really low barrier to entry. And it works.

The big social networks continue to run their platforms free to us because they consider us the product, not the user.

We’re the Product

Take Google for example. They have been successful because they keep introducing free features – analytics, blogging, RSS feeds, Google+, Docs, Hangouts, and more. Their thinking is of course, if they offer really good free features, we’ll continue using them, which boosts their pageviews and drives advertising.

Advertisers are their users. We are the product. And it works really well for them. They do, after all, have a market cap of $25o billion.

So why is it Facebook is trying to squeeze more money out of its users? Why not look at us as Google does…as the product?

Sure, I understand they’re now a public company and they have to find new ways to make money, but there are several business models before it lighting the path.

And yet.

If your business has a Facebook page, you’ve likely seen a decrease in “Likes” and interaction. We have one client who went from 10,300 interactions per day to less than 3,000. Overnight.

Promoted Posts

Why? They’re not using Promoted Posts to increase their visibility. In other words, they’re not paying Facebook to show their updates to the more than 63,000 people who have voluntarily liked their page and opted in to have them in their stream.

Only 30 percent of those people are seeing their updates. The other 70 percent? My clients have to set aside a budget to pay to promote their posts to those people.

Yes, those people who’ve already said, “Hey Facebook! We want updates from this company.”

If they were to pay for it, they’d need a budget of $228,800 to reach the people they were reaching for free before the social network’s IPO earlier this spring.

Small Business Implications

I run a small business in Chicago. We update our Facebook page 20-25 times per week. We have just a tad more than 3,500 fans so we wouldn’t be charged as much per post as our client. But we’d still have to spend in the $25,000-$30,000 range to reach the people who have voluntarily liked our page.

So I would have to decide if it’s more important to reach all 3,500 of our fans or pay for half a person to help service clients. I think you know which way I’d lean.

Suddenly the playing field is no longer level. We’re both the product and the user at Facebook.

Seems like a pretty big conflict of interest.

To read more on Facebook’s new policy, check out this article — “Facebook, I Want My Friends Back” — on the pop culture website “Dangerous Minds.”

A sampling: “I can sympathize with Facebook’s travails on the stock market and I can appreciate that they are providing a value—a great one, unprecedented, really—by connecting such a vast number of human beings in an electronic global village. But I can’t pay them $2000 a day and $672,000 a year for the exact same product that I was getting for free back in March!”

And here’s a potential way around the problem, courtesy of All Facebook.

Gini Dietrich is founder and chief executive officer of Arment Dietrich Inc., a Chicago-based firm that uses non-traditional marketing in a digital world. Her column appears on Crain’s blog for Chicago entrepreneurs every Friday.

Follow Gini on Twitter: @ginidietrich.

Join Crain’s LinkedIn group for Chicago entrepreneurs. And stay on top of Chicago business with Crain’s free daily e-newsletters.

Why even the smallest business needs a social-media policy — pronto

By Gini Dietrich

I am not an attorney. I don’t even play one on TV.

But I am a communications professional who spends a lot of time online and I can tell you, without a shadow of a doubt, you need a social media policy.

I spend a significant amount of time on the road, speaking to business owners, entrepreneurs and leaders, and what I’ve discovered is a very small minority have policies.

You have an employee handbook. Your employees know how to answer the phone, what to put in their email signature, even what to wear to trade shows. But you haven’t told them how to behave online.

The Legal Ramifications

Peter Fischer, an attorney at Stokes Roberts & Wagner, says it’s best to have a policy with a signature line on it where employees put their John Hancock.

In accordance with National Labor Relations Board laws, he recommends the following:

1. Employers cannot restrict anyone from commenting on his or her work life.

2. Employers can make sure employees sign confidentiality provisions.

3. Employees can’t lie.

There aren’t clear-cut laws (yet) on what can and can’t be said by employees — or how employers react — on the social networks.

That said, if a group of employees complains about a policy or procedure on their personal Facebook pages, the NLRB allows that. But if a single employee posts something harmful to the company, the employer has more rights.

For instance, a few weeks ago, a young lady tweeted that she hated her job and her boss. The CEO of the company saw the tweet and tweeted her back, “That’s good because you no longer work here.”

The Social Media Policy

But don’t worry. It’s not as scary as it seems. Your social media policy doesn’t need to be drawn out and overly legal. It can be an addendum to your employee handbook.

It should include:

1. Be transparent. State where you work and, if you’re distributing content for a client, make that clear.

2. Don’t lie. Don’t misrepresent the organization, your customers, or your competitors.

3. Be meaningful and respectful. Don’t spam or argue.

4. Use common sense and common courtesy. If in doubt, don’t post.

5. Stick to areas of expertise.

6. Do offer insight and wisdom, but don’t provide any confidential information.

7. Don’t swear.

8. Be polite. Don’t be antagonistic.

9. Do not comment on any legal matters or litigation.

10. If the topic is one of crisis, do not comment.

11. Google has a long memory. Be smart about what you post.

12. Don’t post about competition unless you have written consent from them to do so.

13. Don’t be stupid.

Of course, these are just guidelines and you do want your attorney to review whatever it is you put together.

If you need help, there is a directory of social media policies already written and legally approved that you can use for your templates.

Gini Dietrich is founder and chief executive officer of Arment Dietrich Inc., a Chicago-based firm that uses non-traditional marketing in a digital world. Her column appears on Crain’s blog for Chicago entrepreneurs every Friday.

Follow Gini on Twitter: @ginidietrich.

Join Crain’s LinkedIn group for Chicago entrepreneurs. And stay on top of Chicago business with Crain’s free daily e-newsletters.

If This, Then That (IFTTT) lets you automate the Internet

By Gini Dietrich

There is a new tool available that allows you to automate the Internet. Don’t have time to get yourself organized? No problem. IFTTT to the rescue.

IFTTT stands for “if this, then that.” It allows you to create, what they call recipes to “put the Internet to work for you.”If you use different social networks, RSS readers, writing tools, automatic lighting or sound in your home or the cloud for easy access to files, IFTTT allows you to automate some of the things that make you more efficient.

For instance, living in the Windy City, it’s pretty important I know how hard the wind is blowing before I go out for a bike ride. If it’s more than 30 miles an hour, I know I’m going to either get knocked off my bike (which will hurt) or I will be riding into a headwind and it will be like climbing to the top of Pike’s Peak.

So I have a recipe that texts me when the wind is blowing more than 20 mph, and from which direction. This morning, I received a text that said, “The wind blows! 24 mph from the Northeast!”

Create recipes

There are endless recipes you can create, and you don’t have to be a social media geek to use it. For instance, my husband has a recipe to tell him the ratings of the weekend’s released movies.

Other recipes you can create:

• When Netflix releases its new movies and shows each week, you can have it email you, text you or save to the cloud.

• When a celebrity posts a new picture on Instagram, you can be alerted immediately.

• If you favorite a tweet or a blog post or article, it can be pushed to Evernote, Dropbox, or Pocket (formerly known as Read it Later).

• Every time you change or add photos to Facebook, they will automatically save to a Dropbox folder so you have an archive of them.

• Same thing with your Instagram photos.

• If you want to know if it’s going to rain or snow, have a text sent to you.

• If you like a particular magazine (Wired, for instance), you can have the photos from its Instagram feed sent to you.

• When Spotify releases new albums, you can have it email you.

• Using WeMo, you can email to let it know when it should turn on or off lights at home.

Get it today!

As you can see, this isn’t just for uber-nerds.

Right now it has nine active channels with nearly 300 different recipe combinations. As the site grows, it has the opportunity to add another 46 channels, opening the recipes to thousands of cool things you can do.

But I must warn you: Block out at least 30 minutes to get on there. You’ll be sucked in. Quickly.

Gini Dietrich is founder and chief executive officer of Arment Dietrich Inc., a Chicago-based firm that uses non-traditional marketing in a digital world. Her column appears on Crain’s blog for Chicago entrepreneurs every Friday.

A version of this post first appeared on Spin Sucks.

Follow Gini on Twitter: @ginidietrich.

Join Crain’s LinkedIn group for Chicago entrepreneurs. And stay on top of Chicago business with Crain’s free daily e-newsletters.

How I spent three days off the grid without crashing my business

By Gini Dietrich

This past weekend, a very close friend got married. At a summer camp in the middle of Maine.

Seriously.

It was summer camp as you experienced as a kid, but with booze. And, just as you experienced as a kid, there were no phone calls or emails home. There was no service except in one spot in the middle of the camp, where everyone could see you on your phone. It was as if they had prepared to massively embarrass those of us who needed to get our fix.

We decided to extend our stay a few days and drove to the coast, where there was cellphone service, but I decided to turn off the email on my phone (and iPad) for three whole days. In fact, the iPhone makes it super easy to unplug. You just switch the mail icon to “off” in the settings and voila! No more email.

Even the blog, which publishes a new post from me at 8 a.m. every day, set expectations that I was on vacation and not responding to comments — a feat in itself!

I have to admit I cheated a little bit. I had my laptop with me so I did scan email and blog comments once a day (very quickly) to be sure there wasn’t an emergency. As it turned out, only one thing was kind of important, but it wouldn’t have been the end of the world had it waited until Thursday, when I got home.

But there were a couple of things that elevated my blood pressure and, because my out-of-office message clearly stated I was not checking email, I decided to let them sit (which, as it turns out, gives you time to stew and think before you respond).

Three days’ vacation was not enough, but it did allow this completely connected, addicted entrepreneur to take baby steps.

When I got home, I read an article in Fast Company called “Traditional Vacation Is Dead. Long Live Vacation.”

In it the author, an entrepreneur, suggests three ways to take two weeks’ (!!) vacation without things falling apart at home. One of those suggestions is to block off a few hours each day to work.

I’m not sure I agree with that. As I experienced, just checking email briefly took my focus away from having time off and I wasn’t fully present because I was stewing over a couple of items.

But, if you haven’t yet taken your summer vacation or are planning something for this autumn or winter, there are some very easy ways to make sure you have uninterrupted time off while the business continues to tick.

1. Start communicating months in advance. Most of us plan our vacations. Start telling people as soon as it’s booked. Set expectations with clients. Work internally to prepare. And keep the dates front and center so everyone is prepared.
2. Train someone to take your spot. Even if you aren’t an entrepreneur, you need someone to fill your spot. This is scary for some because we like to feel like we’re indispensable, but training someone to fill in for you while you’re gone gives you the peace of mind you need to fully be on vacation. No one minds helping you out because they know you’re going to be there for them when it’s their turn.
3. Allow re-entry time when you get home. This is one I use when I travel for work; my assistant typically keeps the day after a long business trip free of meetings. It allows me to reconnect with my team, get through emails and actually do some work. If your vacation begins on Friday as soon as you’re finished working and goes until midnight Sunday, you won’t have time to decompress before going back to work.
4. Turn the email off completely. I don’t know how it works on Android, but the iPhone makes it super easy to turn off the email. Just switch the mail icon to “off” in settings and you’re good to go.
5. Don’t answer your phone. Because you’ve taken care in Steps 1 and 2, you likely won’t get any phone calls. But, if you do, don’t answer it. It’s unlikely there is a true emergency; rather someone just forgot. If it truly is an emergency, they’ll leave you a message to that effect and you can quickly return the call.

You could, of course, not take your phone or iPad or laptop on your trips, but that might be going a little too far. For me, my Apple devices serve also as my camera, my gaming, my reading, my writing, my social networking and more.

Gini Dietrich is founder and chief executive officer of Arment Dietrich Inc., a Chicago-based firm that uses non-traditional marketing in a digital world. Her column appears on Crain’s blog for Chicago entrepreneurs every Friday.

Follow Gini on Twitter: @ginidietrich.

Join Crain’s LinkedIn group for Chicago entrepreneurs. And stay on top of Chicago business with Crain’s free daily e-newsletters.

How I spent three days off the grid without crashing my business

By Gini Dietrich

This past weekend, a very close friend got married. At a summer camp in the middle of Maine.

Seriously.

It was summer camp as you experienced as a kid, but with booze. And, just as you experienced as a kid, there were no phone calls or emails home. There was no service except in one spot in the middle of the camp, where everyone could see you on your phone. It was as if they had prepared to massively embarrass those of us who needed to get our fix.

We decided to extend our stay a few days and drove to the coast, where there was cellphone service, but I decided to turn off the email on my phone (and iPad) for three whole days. In fact, the iPhone makes it super easy to unplug. You just switch the mail icon to “off” in the settings and voila! No more email.

Even the blog, which publishes a new post from me at 8 a.m. every day, set expectations that I was on vacation and not responding to comments — a feat in itself!

I have to admit I cheated a little bit. I had my laptop with me so I did scan email and blog comments once a day (very quickly) to be sure there wasn’t an emergency. As it turned out, only one thing was kind of important, but it wouldn’t have been the end of the world had it waited until Thursday, when I got home.

But there were a couple of things that elevated my blood pressure and, because my out-of-office message clearly stated I was not checking email, I decided to let them sit (which, as it turns out, gives you time to stew and think before you respond).

Three days’ vacation was not enough, but it did allow this completely connected, addicted entrepreneur to take baby steps.

When I got home, I read an article in Fast Company called “Traditional Vacation Is Dead. Long Live Vacation.”

In it the author, an entrepreneur, suggests three ways to take two weeks’ (!!) vacation without things falling apart at home. One of those suggestions is to block off a few hours each day to work.

I’m not sure I agree with that. As I experienced, just checking email briefly took my focus away from having time off and I wasn’t fully present because I was stewing over a couple of items.

But, if you haven’t yet taken your summer vacation or are planning something for this autumn or winter, there are some very easy ways to make sure you have uninterrupted time off while the business continues to tick.

1. Start communicating months in advance. Most of us plan our vacations. Start telling people as soon as it’s booked. Set expectations with clients. Work internally to prepare. And keep the dates front and center so everyone is prepared.
2. Train someone to take your spot. Even if you aren’t an entrepreneur, you need someone to fill your spot. This is scary for some because we like to feel like we’re indispensable, but training someone to fill in for you while you’re gone gives you the peace of mind you need to fully be on vacation. No one minds helping you out because they know you’re going to be there for them when it’s their turn.
3. Allow re-entry time when you get home. This is one I use when I travel for work; my assistant typically keeps the day after a long business trip free of meetings. It allows me to reconnect with my team, get through emails and actually do some work. If your vacation begins on Friday as soon as you’re finished working and goes until midnight Sunday, you won’t have time to decompress before going back to work.
4. Turn the email off completely. I don’t know how it works on Android, but the iPhone makes it super easy to turn off the email. Just switch the mail icon to “off” in settings and you’re good to go.
5. Don’t answer your phone. Because you’ve taken care in Steps 1 and 2, you likely won’t get any phone calls. But, if you do, don’t answer it. It’s unlikely there is a true emergency; rather someone just forgot. If it truly is an emergency, they’ll leave you a message to that effect and you can quickly return the call.

You could, of course, not take your phone or iPad or laptop on your trips, but that might be going a little too far. For me, my Apple devices serve also as my camera, my gaming, my reading, my writing, my social networking and more.

Gini Dietrich is founder and chief executive officer of Arment Dietrich Inc., a Chicago-based firm that uses non-traditional marketing in a digital world. Her column appears on Crain’s blog for Chicago entrepreneurs every Friday.

Follow Gini on Twitter: @ginidietrich.

Join Crain’s LinkedIn group for Chicago entrepreneurs. And stay on top of Chicago business with Crain’s free daily e-newsletters.