PCA Magazine Fall 2019

PREMIUMCIGARS.ORG SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 | PCA The Magazine 39 Bing’s “SEOKeys to Success” to help and to find a program, like Hootsuite, that can help you post onmultiple platforms from one program. During the panel, Scott Regina, owner of Emerson’s Cigars Virginia Beach, Virginia, also emphasized the power of customer email lists and the programs that will help you use them. “The most important thing is to pick what email client you use,” he said. “Products likeMailchimp or Constant Contact are built to help businesses communicate, so find one that works for you. They both have tools they make available to build out your message. Also list on Facebook so they have a way for them to sign up for emails. Same goes for your store. Have an information card they can fill out or an iPad in your store so people can sign up that way.” Scott continued, “In addition to getting contact information, give people the option of what kind of information they want to receive, such as information on events, new cigar alerts, specials and promotions. This allows you to do some segmentation so you can send relevant information to the people who have signed up. “Then focus on how the campaigns are doing. Look at the open rates but also look at the time of day. This allows you to maximize your message by determining the best time to send it.” As far as content, Yue noted that she oftenmirrors what she puts on Instagram and Facebook. “It’s kind of a marriage, you need to use both platforms. Facebook serves a more seasoned demographic, whereas Instagram is more of a millennial generation platform. So you need both to get the full spectrum of the clientele you are targeting,” she said. What to post? All agreed that the most important thing is to create an identity, and it shouldn’t just be a store or selling a product. You are dealing with people and they want to learn about you, so share your personal side as well. As for Facebook blocking cigar-related content, it’s all about being creative. “We advertise events on Facebook and we are super creative on this,” said Nichols. “If we are doing a cigar event at a restaurant, we have the restaurant advertise the event without the word ‘cigar’ in it. To let people know it’s a cigar-related event, we do it on the back end and link it to the ability to purchase tickets on other sites.” HIRING, TRAINING AND RETAINING THE RIGHT PEOPLE A business is only as good as the employees that represent it. Kurt Van Keppel, co-founder and former president and CEO of Xikar, believes to find and retain the right people youmust “replicate yourself through your employees so that every single day they are communicating the brandmessage.” To do this, Van Keppel outlines a three step process: identifying your business’s core values andmission, using those values andmission to identify the right people and then implementing strategies to train and retain those people moving forward. The process of hiring people doesn’t begin with the hire, said Van Keppel, but with the mission. What are your values and culture and do you reflect those values and culture consistently? “It’s better to have no cultural statement than to have one that isn’t consistently executed by you and your people every day,” said Van Keppel. “It’s that inconsistency that will cause a loss of trust.” Once your values have been defined, it’s then time to hire the right people through a vetting process that consists of a telephone interview, in-person interview, team interview and personality assessment. Van Keppel particularly emphasized the benefit of having other employees interview a candidate. “They can give me a perspective I probably wouldn’t have otherwise had by asking the same 12 questions in an atmosphere, having a cigar, that is much more relaxed then being in my office,” he said. “Sometimes it caused us to hire somebody that I was unsure of and other times it caused me to have second thoughts when my teammembers were able to identify things that I just didn’t see.” Once you’ve made the hire, finding the right “seat” of job for the hire is important. Youmay come to find that the new employee doesn’t fit the job he was initially hired for but if he embraces the culture and values of the business and is a responsible worker, it may be best to find a different job that fits better. “People want meaning, purpose, autonomy and recognition,” said Van Keppel. “The way to hire, train and retain is by replicating you. We hire the right people, we put them in the right seats and we train to retain and elevate fromwithin.