Work-life balance experience can pay off in business

“Power Through Partnership: How Women Lead Better Together” by Betsy Polk and Maggie Ellis Chotas (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, $16.95).

When starting a business, partnership isn’t for everyone because sharing decision-making and working through issues can lead to contentious moments.

However, the authors, co-founders of The Mulberry Partners, found that women working together brought a shared perspective of the business and an appreciation of the importance of the time needed to raise a family.

Using the ideas of numerous women who successfully partnered, the authors focus on the intertwined benefits derived from partnering:

■ Flexibility: Balancing careers and families have helped women understand the need for work-life balance. Having someone you trust to step up or step back when these jobs intersect makes it easier to do what the moment requires.

■ Confidence: Being able to play off the strengths of each partner makes the whole stronger than the parts. Decision-making improves because of knowledge-sharing.

The authors state: “Whenever we’ve faced a task that seemed challenging,” all we had to do is remind ourselves that together we were sure to figure it out.”

■ Freedom: Women working together level their own playing field. They can bring their whole self to work knowing they won’t be judged by a female peer who grapples with the same issues.

■ Steady support: It’s more than knowing that someone has your back, it’s knowing leadership is shared and that second-guessing diminishes when there’s give-and-take about ideas, problems and potential solutions.

■ Mutual accountability: When people count on each other to make things happen, a business develops a laser focus on outcomes. Fear of letting a partner down provides continuing motivation.

■ Key takeaway: Women’s partnership relationships tend to zigzag between professional and personal and back again. The zigzagging makes collaboration more of a shared-life experience than a business arrangement.

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Fizz – Harness the Power of Word of Mouth Marketing to Drive Brand Growth” by Ted Wright (McGraw Hill, $25).

When it comes to buying decisions, a Nielsen study reports that the vast majority of consumers trust recommendations from family, friends and colleagues more than television advertising and online brand pages on which the corporate voice dominates.

The clear message: word-of-mouth marketing works. Yet, the message isn’t getting through; a marketing industry study shows only 17 percent of large companies describe this as a major spending category.

To capitalize on this, businesses must create a story that’s “talkable,” and then find influencers to carry the message. Who are these influencers? They are people “deeply involved in their community, however that community is defined.” They collect information about their passions in order to share stories. Trying new things keeps their stories cutting edge.

Once you have a “talkable” story, how do you find influencers? Wright cites Internet forums as a great source. They mimic the face-to-face interaction of a community. They go online to learn, comment and share.

There’s pro and con interaction and unvarnished authenticity. You can tell by the comments whether your story resonates. It takes time to engage with these people — time that’s not really return-on-investment-measurable because you don’t know how fast or how far they’re spreading the word.

Your story can’t be one-off. You need to constantly feed new stories to the community to keep the influencers engaged.

The bottom line: Everyone online can be a reporter, advocate, critic, publisher – and influencer.

Jim Pawlak is a nationally syndicated reviewer of books.