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Advice on Starting and Building a Great Business – A #GrowSmartBiz Interview with Jake Weatherly of Palo Alto Software

November 18th, 2009 ::

PasLOGO_highres_webMany people might not be familiar with the name Palo Alto Software, but I bet if I said “Business Plan Pro” or “Marketing Plan Pro” you would probably say “oh, yeah, I have heard of that” or “I used that to kickstart my business plan process”. This is a credit to their branding and ability to be on almost every retail shelf where software is sold.

Jake_Weatherly_WebJake Weatherly is VP of Customer Experience, which covers all customer service, support, retail presence and non-web sales efforts. He has been with the company since he was 19 as a part time employee while in college. He was the 12th person hired by Tim Berry, the company’s founder, President, and original author of Business Plan Pro. Over the years he has been responsible for everything from partner engineering, to product marketing, education, training, and product evangelism.  I recently had the opportunity to sit down and talk about effective business planning and the role of software in helping small business owners grow their business. Here is a transcript of that interview:

Steve: Jake, Palo Alto Software has been around for over 20 years and as technology and business models have evolved, how has your product mix evolved to help businesses large and small?
Jake: For businesses large and small, the value of planning is about the process, not just the plan. Over the years our business planning and marketing planning lines have grown to include a UK version, products for nonprofits, social enterprise planning software, programs to write business plans in Spanish, a monthly recurring revenue model, and the list goes on. Our customers have benefited from our software constantly evolving with new technology, and we have made business planning exponentially easier and faster year after year.

Looking just at products and features, however, does not tell the true story. Our software catalog has evolved from an original focus on creating a document to become a comprehensive set of tools and services to help you start, run, and grow business. Sure we consistently help small business owners and executive teams all over the world obtain their start-up and subsequent rounds of funding, but our customers quickly realize that the value of planning lies in the process itself; it’s not just about creating the document. Business Plan Pro and Marketing Plan Pro help companies large and small take action and develop leadership in their respective markets. Palo Alto Software customers compare their monthly and quarterly achievements against what they planned, and as simple as it sounds, that’s the difference between achieving successful results versus being slow, reactive, and cumbersome in the marketplace.

Steve: Palo Alto Software has shifted its mission to not just providing software to help a business stay on track but to teach them how to be more effective with your tools. Could you elaborate on that more?
Jake: Simply handing off a tool and moving on to the next potential customer will not lead to long-term success. Our responsibility is clear; we help people succeed in business, and central to that role are our training, implementation, and support services. For entrepreneurs who wish to work with experts, we have a team of business success coaches who hold people accountable to achieve their objectives. For the do-it-yourselfers, we offer a vast library of training and help resources. Our support and product specialists are available to ensure successful implementation of ongoing planning and forecasting. The bottom line? Our customers are succeeding everyday by turning to us to help with starting, running, and growing their businesses.

Steve: You have adapted best practices of software as a service and the move to web based software. What are some things you are doing to build community or streamline the planning process with these kinds of offerings?
Jake: We have created web-based tools and a long-standing community of experts and entrepreneurs who contribute content that we make available for free on our websites www.Bplans.com and www.Mplans.com. We were early adopters of live and on-demand online training, we’re big in the blogosphere with our own blogs and partners, and we are part of the entrepreneurial community online using social networking technology like Twitter and Facebook. With these kinds of offerings we are able to be anywhere anytime and everywhere all the time. In the end, it’s about effective collaboration, and all of the stages of business from start-up to growth and maturity benefit from being part of the conversation instead of observing from the sidelines.

Steve: Many people are familiar with Business Plan Pro or Marketing Plan Pro. What are some other products and services that Palo Alto provides that small businesses should be aware of?
Jake: Very near and dear to my heart are our two latest products: Email Center Pro, and Start, Run, & Grow Your Business.
Email Center Pro helps companies respond to their customers quickly and accurately every time. It’s the result of five years of engineering for my support, customer service, and sales teams to decrease their email response time to customers. Before we created this SaaS offering, our customers were getting responses between 24 and 48 hours after asking their question – unacceptable. We now respond to customer emails in less than an hour, and so we released Email Center Pro just over a year ago to help people achieve the same results to manage customer email and get out from under their inboxes.

Start, Run, & Grow Your Business is huge. Years of discussions with hundreds of thousands of businesses about their needs and a solid history of quality partnerships brought the program together. Start, Run, & Grow Your Business combines best-in-class solutions with educational content to help you reach more customers, sell more products and services, and improve business productivity. Successful business owners today are using awesome logos; they’re sending email newsletters; they have great web sites, and they love learning from industry experts. Start, Run, & Grow Your Business delivers all of this for a super low price, and that means we will be working with more entrepreneurs than ever before. That’s really exciting.

Steve: To wrap up I always like to ask a “five things” question. So for you, what are five things a small business should consider when beginning the planning and forecasting process?
Jake: I am going to keep this one simple by focusing on actions and not words:

  1. Start anywhere, and start now.
  2. Forecast your sales and expenses and then regularly compare against what you achieve. Adjust your plan accordingly, and repeat the process.
  3. Only do what you need now. Get to the other parts as you need them.
  4. Don’t get stuck in the details. Remember to stay focused on the future.
  5. Use the Internet, join the online conversation, and get out on the street to research your customers, your competitors, and build your strategies.

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Posted in Entrepreneurs, Grow Smart Business Conference, Interviews, small business, Technology | 5 Comments »

Interview with Gary Vaynerchuk, Author of “Crush It!” Part 2

October 20th, 2009 ::

Here is the part two of my interview with Gary Vaynerchuk author of “Crush It! Why now is the time to cash in on your passion”. If you missed it, you can read the first part of the interview here.

Mike Dougherty: If Misha’s grown up and she’s entering the work force, like you did, what life lessons would you pass onto her?

Gary Vaynerchuk: Well first, I would instill in her so much self esteem in her along the way, that she would be more than capable from the get go, she wouldn’t need much. That being said, you know, it comes down to really understanding that it’s all about doing what you want. There’s nothing else. There really isn’t. Cash is bullcrap and its overrated.  It’s all about happiness. Nobody was ninety-five, laying on their deathbed, and said they wished they worked more or made more money. They wished they’d spent more time with their family. They wished they did things they liked.

So, one thing I’ve been very good at, and I hope she picks up DNA wise, is I do what I want. While loving everyone else and doing all the right things for my family, the second I felt any negativity, or one percent unhappiness, with Wine Library retail I started Wine Library TV.

Do what you want. I want her to realize it’s ridiculously hard work to achieve anything worth while. There’s two ways to build the biggest building in town. One is to just build the biggest building and the other is to tear all the other buildings around you down. I think ninety percent tear and I want her in that ten percent that just builds the biggest building. That’s something somebody said to me and I’m very proud of. This older business gentleman said, that I was one of the best examples of building the biggest building. Not trying to hurt anyone else around him. I thought that was nice. It was a nice compliment and it stuck with me.

Mike Dougherty: It was very nice. So is that a key factor for you, when you do business, is to try to get the biggest bang for the buck while not causing collateral damage all around you?

Gary Vaynerchuk: Yeah, I think that’s imperative. You don’t want to hurt people. As an aggressive retailer you sometimes hurt wineries, brands, but it’s about communication and we speak to our wineries heavily.

Mike Dougherty: You’ve gone through the honeymoon phase several times with multiple projects. You’ve gotten the project done. The idea is on the table. What is your best advice for somebody who started a small business, or is in a small business, and the honeymoon phase has peaked and they are getting a little bit burnt out, and crispy, but they are still in love with the idea?

Gary Vaynerchuk: Reinvent it…slightly. It’s like sex. Dress up, right? You’re not changing your partner.

Mike Dougherty: You’re changing the experience.

Gary Vaynerchuk: Right. So spice it up. Change the displays in your store. Bring in a new product launch. Go into a new niche in your consulting business. Don’t fish where all the fish are. I mean, that’s what I did. I got into tech, because I started fishing in tech because wine places were the place that I didn’t necessarily feel like I wanted to fish at. I mean I did, but I wanted to find new ponds. And I found Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, and all these other new worlds that have been influential in my growth.

Mike Dougherty: Speaking of those, you’ve been in this for about three years now. How have you seen this little are we are in called social media this grow and change over the past three years?

Gary Vaynerchuk: Well, it got renamed from Web 2.0 [laughs]. It’s become a lot more businesslike and less kind of dreamy and zen. And that bodes well for me because I’m a business man. Actually, that bodes less well for me, because I liked when everyone was hippie about it, you know, because I’m an entrepreneur. At the end of the day, I think it’s maturing, but I still think it’s completely under appreciated and underrated. I still don’t think people really realize what’s going on.

Mike Dougherty: So when are you looking for the next book to come out?

Gary Vaynerchuk: Next year this time.

Mike Dougherty: Do you want to give away what it’s about or do you want to keep it a secret?

Gary Vaynerchuk: I’ll give you a hint that it’s focusing very heavily on contradictions.

Mike Dougherty: And to wrap it up, last question, because I like to do something weird, what’s your all time favorite wrestler from the 1980’s?

Gary Vaynerchuk: That is the easiest question I’ve been asked of all time. It’s the Macho Man Randy Savage.

Mike Dougherty: I’m a [Jimmy] Snuka guy.

Gary Vaynerchuk: Are you a Snuka guy?

Mike Dougherty: I am.

Gary Vaynerchuk: So Macho Man came along when every single person liked [Hulk] Hogan. And Hogan’s liker Federer, Tiger Woods, Wayne Gretzky, and [Michael] Jordan to me. There’s just no fun in rooting for them. I want to work for it.  And so it was Macho Man for me.

Mike Dougherty: Nicely done, sir. Thank you for a great interview.

Gary Vaynerchuk: Thank you so much.

With that Gary went back to his daily hustle and I header back home to get the interview committed to paper…um…laptop. After spending some time with Gary in person, I can tell you that he is not just an online persona. What you see is what you get and that, dear reader, was refreshing and inspiring.

As I mentioned before, my review copy of “Crush It!” arrived the day of the interview. So you’ll have to wait till the end of the month for that review, but Gary was kind enough to offer two free copies of the book for me to give away. I’m going to give away the second book at the end of the review, but to earn this first copy you need to need to be the first person to respond, in a comment below, with the answer to the following questions:

1) What is the tagline of Cork’d?

2) What did Gary say his brother AJ is finally getting? And what does that mean?

3) Where do you send your receipts to get a personalized video from Gary as part of Crush It! – The Experience?

I would love to hear your thoughts on this interview so leave a comment here. You can reach me on Twitter by following me @wickedjava, or on Facebook at facebook.com/mcdougherty.

As all ways, if you have been reading, thank you and stay wicked.

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Posted in Entrepreneurs, Interviews, Marketing, small business, Thought Leadership | No Comments »

Interview with Gary Vaynerchuk, Author of “Crush It!” Part 1

October 13th, 2009 ::

So there I was, no kidding, driving up to Wine Library, in Springfield, New Jersey, to meet Gary Vaynerchuk author of “Crush It! Why now is the time to cash in on your passion”. My review copy arrived the day of the interview so, with the drive and only reading one chapter that was offered online, I had a lot of time to think about what I wanted to ask. I mean what do you ask a guy who’s probably been asked the same questions over and over to keep an interview like this fresh?

As I drove by Wine Library, trying to find a café with wireless to kill some time, I was in awe in the size of the building. Had I not been looking for it I might have thought it was just another office building, but knowing that this is a wine store taking up damn near a full block of real estate…I knew I was in for a great experience.

I entered Wine Library and was met by Matt, Gary’s right hand man, who took me up to Gary’s office, where Wine Library TV is filmed, and lets me know that Gary, true to his word, was in a day that was full of hustle. Matt let me know, Gary was wrapping up a business meeting for the store and would be right in to talk afterwards.

Gary exited his meeting displaying all the passion, and thunder, he’s been known for and was ready to go. After a few minutes to set things up, giving Gary an opportunity to take care of a few things, we got right into it.

We had a lot to talk about so this interview will be broken up into two parts. Next portion of the interview will be released next Tuesday. Here is the transcript of our interview:

Mike Dougherty: First question, Gary, how are you doing?

Gary Vaynerchuk: Phenominal.

Mike Dougherty: You’ve got a bunch of stuff going on today.

Gary Vaynerchuk: [laughs] Yeah, man. It’s always hustle, it’s always grind, and it’s always exciting. And things are good.

Mike Dougherty: So you’re putting out a book.

Gary Vaynerchuk: Yup.

Mike Dougherty: You’ve got CinderellaWine.

Gary Vaynerchuk: Yeah you can see a lot of chatter out about that today.

Mike Dougherty: And then the gourmet site.

Gary Vaynerchuk: The GourmetLibrary.com site. It’s funny. You know they kind of got announced together. And I think all the hype is on CinderellaWine.com. And then there is Cork’d, which I only launched a month ago.

Mike Dougherty: How are they all going at the same time? How are you going with all of this at the same time?

Gary Vaynerchuk:

Good people around me. You know, that’s always the key. And it’s what I want to do. That’s the kind of entrepreneur I am.  I want to scratch those itches. I want to do as many things as possible.

Mike Dougherty: So without giving anything away, how many irons in the fire do you actually have besides what you just launched now?

Gary Vaynerchuk: The ones that are launched now….these were my big secrets. As of August I had Cork’d, CinderellaWine, and GourmetLibrary all primed for push. They are now out. I think I’m kind of….there’s one more. There’s one more that will be out very shortly and then everyone’s going to be completely stunned by my insanity. Wine Library, Wine Library TV, the book, Cork’d, VaynerMedia, CinderellaWine, Gourmet Library, and one more really cool site.

Mike Dougherty: How is VaynerMedia going by the way?

Gary Vaynerchuk: Really well. You know my brother AJ is well on his way to getting his daps, not being my brother or getting a free ride. People are starting to interact with him and realize he’s got a lot of chops. Working with NHL, the Jetts, and a lot of cool brands and really enjoying it. Consulting is hard, you know, because the way I work, speed and hustle wise, is not normal. I’m starting to realize that. And it’s obviously very different for brands that are big, corporate, and fortune 500. There are a lot of cool things going on, but I’m enjoying it.

Mike Dougherty: Nice. For someone getting into “Crush It!” for the first time, or experiencing you through Wine Library TV or maybe GaryVaynderchuk.com, what is the best advice that you can ask for them to take away from “Crush It!”?

Gary Vaynerchuk: That everything has changed. That everything I wrote in this book was not real five years ago. And that’s really important to understand, because at the end of the day everything has changed and there’s so much opportunity. The fact that cash is now not king. The fact that sweat equity and caring and hustle and innovation is…that’s a big deal. The fact is that cash has been neutralized by the growing platforms of the internet.

Mike Dougherty: How long was “Crush It!”, from beginning to end, as a journey for you?

Gary Vaynerchuk: Writing it or the thesis of the book?

Mike Dougherty: The entire process from concept to creation.

Gary Vaynerchuk: From the actual practicality of the book. Probably four months. Not to bad.

Mike Dougherty: No, not at all.

Gary Vaynerchuk: You know, this is kind of my manifesto. So I very much dictated the whole thing. I can talk a lot so I banged it out. So it wasn’t too hard.

Mike Dougherty: So talk about the things people can do if they buy multiple copies of the book.

Gary Vaynerchuk: You mean the Experience thing I did? You like that?

Mike Dougherty: I love it.

Gary Vaynerchuk: Yeah it was pretty cool. I really think this is the future of bands and content in general. You know, three books you get a wrist band. So on crushitbook.com, if you go there, you’ll see a big button that says “the experience” so you can buy three books. You can buy thirty-five books and get me to make a special video for you, which I think is pretty fun. I think it’s one hundred fifty books for a Skype call and I have this one day in December for two hundred and fifty books. Then there’s dinner and consulting for five hundred books. And so it’s just creating new and fun ways to interact with my audience. You know, it’s not the cheapest way, but for the one hundred fifty, two hundred fifty, and five hundred copies those are really for corporations. It’s going to be fun.

Mike Dougherty: Now how are you balancing all of that plus fatherhood?

Gary Vaynerchuk: That’s a great question. Not as well as I hoped, at some level right now so far, if I’m being honest and transparent. I would like to spend a little more time with Misha. Early on, it’s good that she’s still in that four months and under range. But this is a real big push for me with the book and all these launches. I’ll definitely be settling in, in 2010.

That wraps up Part One of my interview with Gary. In Part Two Gary gives the advice he’ll give to Misha when she enters the business world, his philosophy on doing business, and a really great answer to an odd question. Plus, you’ll learn how you can get a free copy of Gary’s “Crush It!”.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this interview so leave a comment here. You can reach me on Twitter by following me @wickedjava, or on Facebook at facebook.com/mcdougherty.

As all ways, if you have been reading, thank you and stay wicked.

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Posted in Entrepreneurs, Interviews, Marketing, small business, Thought Leadership | 8 Comments »

For Start-up Businesses, CRM Software is Not the Answer

October 9th, 2009 ::

Instead, it is the question.  Small businesses, new businesses, unintentional businesses are still looking for the answers.  When you are still concocting the winning sales strategy, determining the right pricing structure, exploring service channels and developing your company’s voice, you can’t plug a handful of purchased leads into a preexisting  sales pipeline and expect a reliable return.  When your business is growing  1 or 10 or maybe  100 customers at a time, you need to be able to follow each relationship where the customer leads it.  Not where the software dictates it go.

At this stage of the game you need to understand your customers including who they are, why they buy your product, how much they can afford to pay for it, when they like to use it and why they tell their friends about it.  Then you can start determining some sales and marketing strategies.  If you are selling kids clothing online, you might see your mommy customers spreading the word on Twitter. If you are selling live bait to seasonal  tourists, Twitter might not be the way to go . There are no magic growing beans for new businesses.  The fun part is figuring it out as you go.

With this in mind I have a few suggestions for building a small business CRM (customer relationship management) tool  that will grow with your business:

-          Collect as much information as you can about your customers.  At every point of contact reach out to them and be sure to save every nugget of information they are willing to give.  Have an e-mail list sign-up in your retail shop. Keep detailed records of all purchases and decisions behind them (how they found you, what they bought etc).  If they send an e-mail to your support team, add their signature data (phone number, address, company web site etc.) into your CRM as part of the  logging process.

-          Ask for their personal or business web site address.  Or glean it from any e-mail messages sent in to your sales or support teams.

-          Periodically surf the web sites of your best customers and collect any information that might be helpful market research (their business type, location, personal interests, etc.). Save it all in your CRM system so that you will start to notice trends (my 9:00 AM coffee clients are apparently all chess players, all our customers in Australia are service businesses, etc.)

-          If they include any information about social media profiles, capture that in your CRM.  Look for a link to any blogs they contribute to, their Twitter account, their LinkedIn account, etc. You may not be networking in social media, yet, but when you do it will be nice to have some friends there to reach out to. And it is a great way to learn more about the things your customers want you to know about them.

-          Periodically survey your customers or potential customers about your product or service.  Limit the demographic questions to 1 or 2 short questions (i.e., “what type of business”, “annual sales”, “number of customers”, etc.) and have the rest of the questions focus on ways that you can help them (ie feedback on your product, pain points they are experiencing, ideas for new features, etc.).

-          Keep your data clean.  Right now it might be easy to scan an excel spreadsheet and read through the business categories your survey respondents typed in themselves.  But if you make that field a multi-select form (rather than a text field) in your web form then you will be able to more easily spot trends over time as you slice and dice your data with custom reports and graphs.

-          Integrate your CRM with as many of your other applications as possible – with your mobile phone, your e-mail software, your invoicing software, your web forms, your shopping cart software, etc. You do not have time to do double, triple, quintuple entries for your growing network. And it is helpful to know that John Doe bought one of your products, but the real insight comes when you see that he has bought the same product every quarter for 3 years, always pays promptly, has recommended it to his friends on Facebook, always reads your newsletter and rarely needs customer support.

I’m Pamela O’Hara (@pmohara on Twitter) the co-founder and owner of BatchBlue Software, the maker of BatchBook small business CRM product and host of #SBBuzz, a weekly Twitter chat discussing small business technology.  We’ve designed our  CRM product to be as flexible and agile as the entrepreneurial businesses that are using it. We understand the importance of a CRM solution that helps you ask the right questions and manage the answers.

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Posted in Business Development, Entrepreneurs, Marketing, sales process, small business, social media, Technology | 8 Comments »

Eight things to keep in mind on during your project

October 8th, 2009 ::

It’s time for another excited edition of “Mike Dougherty’s Eight Things”. In other posts in this series, I’ve gone over things to have figured out before you meet your designer, things to help you choose your next marketing piece, and things to think about before you start your logo. I’ll get back to other things about different pieces, like websites and such, but for now we’re going to talk about things to keep in mind during the project.

A project is much more than just figuring out what you want and hiring a designer. You have a place, and a job to do, in the project as well. Without any further ado, here are eight things to keep in mind during your project.

  1. Home Runs aren’t common. As a designer, there are reasons we do comps (mock-ups of the possible project design) and ask a lot of questions. It happens, but very rarely, that a designer will nail the exact nuances of a project on the first try. The main reason for that is we, designers, are not mind readers. We’re more like detectives trying to figure out what the final image will be by asking you for your input. We’re more like archeologists of imagination. We keep working till we find that magical, mysterious beast that is your project.
  2. The Milestones of your project. There are steps, in any project, that deliverables and notes are required. Make sure you, and your team if you have one, are keeping on schedule so that when it’s time for your approval, or notes, the window of time for response doesn’t turn into a gaping hole.
  3. Your approval process. It is critical for you to be fully, mentally and physically, present for the approval process. If you sign off on a design know now that you have just completed that portion of the project. Going back to make changes, because you didn’t invest the full amount of time you needed to make it right…is going to cost you time and money. Before you put your pen to paper to approve…see #8 of this list.
  4. That your scope isn’t being “creeped”. You, and your designer, agreed to a list of certain items, and tasks, that would make up this project. Adding things, after the project has been agreed upon and started, will cost you time and money as well. Rather than go on about it here, read my previous post “It’s called a SCOPE of work, you CREEP” here on GrowSmartBusiness.
  5. Your friends won’t live your choices.  I’ve seen, time and time again, people take the comps, the designer gave them to approve, to their friends for feedback. Bottom line, you have to live with this design…not your friends. Very rarely will your friends be brutally honest with you. More often than not they will not want to hurt your feelings. A better source of feedback is your current, or prospective, clients. If you are unsure yourself it might mean that you aren’t happy with the design and can’t articulate why…which is ok, but work with your designer to see what you can do to get you to #8.
  6. The designers’ time is just as valuable as yours. When it comes time to meet with your designer, for the first time or on Milestone steps, make sure you dedicate that time to your designer. They cleared their schedule for you, and your project, the least you could do is do the same. Let the phone go to voicemail or someone else get it. The emails will be there after the meeting to be addressed. And for, Pete’s sake, do not try to close a sale while your designer is present. Yes, all of these things have happened in my presence and I’ve actually had to say, “If this project, and my time, is not important to you…then maybe we should put this on hold”.
  7. If you want to add more…it’s a new project. I know you love your designer and you two have become friends. Or you think you’re designer is such cool frood who knows where his towel is (if you get that reference award yourself 20 geek points…I’m keeping track), but anything beyond what was agreed upon, I hate to say this, is a new project and will add time and money (gee…do I sense a theme) to your project. Take a minute, if you haven’t already, and review the eight things to help you choose your next marketing piece. These could help ensure that you, and your designer, successfully get you to #8.
  8. You have to be happy with the results. This process takes time, but at the end of the day you, the client, ultimately have to be happy with the results. It’s partially your job to make sure you are. You need to be so excited about your marketing piece that you want to tell it to the mountains. If you aren’t, keep working with your designer to get there…as long as it is within the agreed scope of the project of course.I, personally, don’t believe in the “these are your only three choices to pick from” game that some designers play. I know that’s going to make me very unpopular, but ultimately we’re providing a service. IF your designer wants to keep you in a “only three choices” box that only allows you so much room…get a new designer, but know that you have to respect #6 to get to #8.

I want to know if there’s anything you think I’ve missed. Who knows, you could inspire another “Eight Things” list, which you would be credited for.

You can always reach me on Twitter by sending a message to @wickedjava, or on Facebook at facebook.com/mcdougherty.

As always dear reader, thank you for reading and stay wicked.

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Posted in Branding, Marketing, Thought Leadership, Web Design | No Comments »

Eight things to help you choose your next marketing piece

September 17th, 2009 ::

After some exchanges with a few readers of my previous post “Eight Things to Have Figured Out Before You Meet Your Designer”, I’ve been seduced by the list style blog. I know I’ve written that I don’t understand them, but, well, I’ve had a change of heart because they have said it helps them make a bit more sense of the process, something I love.

So with that in mind, I am going to start a periodical series of blogs called “Eight Things”. I am going to try to break down, either, the information you need to know or the steps you should follow to accomplish a task in your marketing goals.

I am going to assume you have your logo, business card, and a basic website, but you’re finding you need to make that next marketing choice. I am going to begin here with “Eight things to help you choose your next marketing piece”.

  1. Do you have a project in mind – Starting a project just for the sake of it is the sure fire way to end up with costly marketing piece lining your closet. Bounce ideas off of a designer, marketer, or someone who can give advice but without being bias. Take their comments as suggestions and not criticism. Sometimes what we think will be great, might only be worthwhile to us.
  2. What can your budget withstand – You’ve read me going over this before. And I’ve been victim of it early on, but make sure this project is not going to break the bank. Unless you are taking an EXTREMELY calculated risk with your finances, don’t create a piece that isn’t going to provide you a good Return On Investment.  I personally feel that you should be able to see a $2 gained for $1 spent for each marketing piece over the course of one year. For example, if your business cards cost $500 and in the course of one year they bring you $1,000 in a sale, or sales, then they are a success.
  3. Who is your intended audience – Marketing skateboarding to the elderly, or happy purple dinosaurs talking about safety to the corporate sales force, may not be the best audiences for these strategies. Know who will get the most value out of your marketing piece and tailor your piece to them. It might reduce the amount of pieces you create, but by focusing on your target you increase your chances of success.
  4. Do you have a plan to measure success –You should be able to track a sale or potential customer touch back to each piece you create. You can drive people to a specific web page, a specific phone number, or ask them to say a certain phrase. While there are some things you can’t measure, there are things you can with simple questions like “How did you hear about this [insert marketing campaign drive from your marketing piece]?” Keep this in the front of your mind as you’re creating your piece.
  5. What is the added incentive to contact you – Is it a discount code, a limited time offer, something for free if purchased, or simple…humor. Don’t forget that sometimes what you give might be a chuckle. Countless times I have been driven to learn more about a company from an entertaining advert, an emotion provoking commercial, or the incentive to get something more than what is being offered. Don’t limit yourself to needing to have more if you can give something of value for free.
  6. When do you plan on rolling this out – Timing can be everything. If you are targeting college students to do something during the school year…reaching them in the summer might not be the best time. Remember that the desire on your end to move NOW could be driven by the possible outcome you see this marketing piece giving you. A little patience could be the difference between success and a closet full of brochures.
  7. Will all of your current pieces have to be updated, even minimally – If you’re budget can’t withstand it, creating a marketing piece that completely redesigns your logo (so it also needs to be redone on your business card, website,etc.) might not be the best strategy. If your marketing piece does require a global marketing piece change, do a limited run of the effort and plan that in. It might mean you do less pieces initially or it might mean a complete re-branding of your company, but that’s up to you.
  8. How are you going to get this piece to the people – This is just as critical a step as any of the ones above and often the one most ignored. You’ve got the design, how your going to measure it, have your plan for when this will go live, but…how is it going to get in the hands of the masses? You need to come up with a plan on how each piece will get in the hands of those who need it. There are tons of ways to get it out there. Just choose one and stick with it until they are all gone.

I hope these eight small nuggets of advice give you some assistance when it comes time to start your next marketing piece. While some of these are assumed to be common knowledge, it’s been proven time and time again that sometimes common knowledge…isn’t so common.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this and see if there is anything you think I missed. You never know, your comments might make it’s way to being one of the “Eight Things” in a future post. Of course credit will be given where it’s due.

You can leave a comment here, reach me on Twitter by sending a message to @wickedjava, or on Facebook at facebook.com/mcdougherty.

As all ways, if you have been reading, thank you and stay wicked.

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Posted in Generational Marketing, Marketing, small business | 9 Comments »

Customer Service Through Marketing

September 15th, 2009 ::

I recently came home from a convention with some of the best, and worst, examples of customer service through marketing I have ever seen.  Let me preface this with the fact that I won’t name names, but I will give examples of both. I also want to clarify what I mean by Customer Service through Marketing, but before that, so we are on the same page, let me explain what Customer Service is as defined by, the great, Wikipedia:

According to Jamier L. Scott. (2002)[1], “Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_service)

When you provide a marketing piece that requires the user to follow an action, or call out, and somewhere on that marketing piece you provide clear, and helpful, instructions or tips…to me you’ve provided Customer Service through Marketing.

Personally, I believe that your marketing pieces, both physical and digital, have the ability go transcend the elevator speech type format they are traditionally used for.  When those geniuses of marketing decided to turn those pieces into a way to do more for the person holding them then just a sales pitch…they have gold. When they try too hard, and reach for the sun too soon, they end up leaving a bad taste in the potential clients’ mouth that ends up resulting in…well, you know, negative press. And unless you’re all ready a star…bad press is bad press.

So let me get the bad out of the way first. The hotel I was staying at recently touted that they had a fast internet connection in every room. They had signage at the front desk, in the room, when you turned on their TV, and on every marketing piece I got my hands on. After all this I’m seriously excited because, since it’s a hotel, I am expecting an experience greater than I get at home.

Now it doesn’t matter much to me that they didn’t offer wifi, paid or not. It also wasn’t that big of a hassle to reach in the cramped desk drawer push past their additional marketing pieces, and religious paraphernalia, to find the cable to connect my laptop to their…well…router.

Where they earned a Customer Service through Marketing FAIL was in their log in screen to sign up for the internet service. I try to log in and I’m having difficulty because the “Discount Code” they offer me for staying in the room, not that I would actually have access to their internet services outside the room, wasn’t working. Their Sign In screen offered a “Live Chat” service for help. I opened it and typed my concern. What came back was clearly automated. How do I know? After getting frustrated at the clearly pre-scripted as I began to type anything from “How did the chicken cross the road” to “Why can’t you help me” and the response back was “I don’t know the answer to your question. Please retype your inquiry”. The only thing “Live” about it was the human being sitting on my side of the laptop getting ready to rip the Ethernet cord out of the wall and run down the hall screaming to find a local Starbucks (located in their hotel lobby that does offer limited free wifi).

Clearly they assumed an automated FAQ cleverly disguised as a chat feature was more than enough Customer Service, because their front desk was even less help giving me the same responses that the automated prompt gave.

The hero of Customer Service through Marketing ironically the airline I flew home on. This airline was offering new in-flight wifi, at a cost, but they were offering the first use free. I was met at the gate by a young lady wearing a t-shirt with the phrase “Ask me about free wifi on your flight”.

I followed the first activity, in a series, that the airline hoped would enhance the experience enough that I would to engage their product. Their hope paid off, because the attendant informed me about the new service. Once I said I would give it a try, she gave me a card, the size of a business card, which had all the information of the service on one side and the complete instructions, including discount code, which would allow me to use their service on the other.

Once we were in the air, I tested out the service. I was more than impressed to know that their instructions were more than crystal clear. The wifi service even had a chat based Customer Service feature that, surprise, had a human being on the other end. I got all of my questions answered about which flights carried wifi, terms of service, and, since I am not a regular flier, a list of their payment plans which ranged from per flight to monthly basis. Needless to say, but I will be using their service again once I fly out on that airline.

The main reason, if not obvious, that I chose these two to talk about is that they are polar opposite examples, of the same service, of Customer Service through Marketing. One showed that they were only willing to go so far to increase the level of customer satisfaction that their service offers. While the other showed they valued their customer every step of the way.

The question I leave you with is this, dear reader, do each of your marketing pieces increase the level of engagement, and satisfaction, that your customers have with your product, service, or brand? Or are you simply providing just enough information to get by.

As all ways, thank you for reading and stay wicked.

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Posted in Entrepreneurs, Generational Marketing, Marketing, Resources, small business, social media | No Comments »

Eight Things to Have Figured Out Before You Meet Your Designer

September 8th, 2009 ::

I was talking with Steven Fisher about a few projects we’ve been working on.  We realized that most people who start projects haven’t fully planned out what they might need before sitting down with a designer. This, inevitably, ends in the client, the designer, or both frustrated and annoyed with the process/project. This also usually results in the client not jazzed enough about the final product to want to market it effectively or the final product not being the best it could.

Now there are a ton of reasons why this doesn’t happen, but the most consistent, from what I can see, is just lack of education on the process. To elevate that, I’ve come up with the eight things I’ve seen that clients can think about prior to starting a project. Having most of these prepared, or planned for, a client and designer might find that they both get everything they need from the project.

  1. Be realistic about your goals, budget, and intentions BEFORE you get a designer. Just because you “think” you need, or are ready for, a brochure, website, or whatever, doesn’t mean you should just jump in without thought or planning. Just showing up and expecting the designer to have all the answers about your project is a sure fire way to have this fail. As far as your budget…be realistic. Just like the time you are taking away from your clients/projects, they are doing the same. You can’t get a Porsche for the price of a Honda without something wrong with it. You get what you pay for so treat your project as an investment.
  2. Be clear about your ideas UP FRONT in your initial meeting. Before I go into this, let’s start by promising me you will remove the phrase “I don’t know what I want, but I’ll know it when I see it” from your lexicon immediately. If you feel that you are getting talked into, overly pressured by your boss or staff, or see that other people in your industry have the marketing piece and you aren’t sure, or feel it isn’t right for you right now, stop where you are until you know YOU are ready and it makes some amount of sense to YOU. This is your marketing piece after all.If you know you need a marketing piece, but aren’t sure what it will look like…this is the opportunity for your designer to get creative and they love that. But you need to have some idea of what you are looking for, even in the most general sense. The best way to do this is to find some examples of other companies’ materials that you like and bring them to the meeting. This will help give the designer a visual idea of what you are looking for.
  3. Listen to what the designer tells you is, and isn’t, possible based on your goals, budget, and intentions. Unless your designer is as new to the process as you are, which may be cheaper but has major downsides, the designer you higher probably knows more about how to create the best possible outcome for your project. This might mean that your idea doesn’t fit your budget, but there are some creative solutions that designers can bring to the table if you are clear, up front, about what you want to do. Do you see a pattern?
  4. Make sure you understand what you are getting before you sign. I know this might seem like common sense. You’d be surprised how many people agree to a website, brochure, and etc. then realize what they signed up for was either more, or less, than what they needed. Just be sure that when you are ready to get started that you’ve asked all the questions you needed to. That’s your time to make sure you’ve got your I’s dotted and T’s crossed…on more than just paper.
  5. Just because it seems simple…if it’s not in your agreement don’t ask. What may seem like a “simple” change to you could actually be more labor intensive than you think. Often people will ask “That seems pretty easy for you. You can just add it in quickly right?” That, my friends, is the beginnings of scope creep. When you sat down with your designer and went over your contract things should have been pretty specific as to what you’ll get. Anything beyond that is a new project or an addendum. I went over Scope Creep in a previous post, which I encourage you to read, but here is a good question for you.If you go into a grocery store and, as the cashier is ringing up all of your items, you say, “You know it seems pretty easy for you to just add this other item into my bag without paying for it,” what do you think the reaction will be?A better question is, would you accept that from one of your customers?
  6. Be involved in the process from the beginning. All too often a project gets started and the client doesn’t give much focus or attention to it until it get’s close to the end or things are running behind. In those times, clients will really start taking a hard look at what they are getting and want to make changes because they “didn’t notice that before” or “were too busy to give it some thought” (actual things said to me).This is your companies marketing pieces. You need to be invested, from the beginning, so that the project isn’t delayed by changes like this, derailed by an over zealous designer or sales person, and stays on track…before it’s too late. Ask as many questions as you like. This is your time to make sure your marketing pieces turn out the best they can.
  7. Be sure you’re 100% happy before you sign off on the design. Long after the designer is gone, the project is completed, and the last payment clears…you are left with the piece you had designed. If you were negligent on any of the steps above, you probably aren’t too happy with your piece OR you got really lucky and your designer hit a home run without much input, or feedback, from you.If you were, you had every opportunity to walk away from the project, unless you got cramped for time and backed into a corner, because sometimes clients and designers don’t see eye to eye. That’s ok if you don’t. You don’t have to accept the first designer you see because you need something.If you are unhappy with a marketing piece, and you can honestly say you weren’t involved, clear on your intentions, or didn’t understand what was going on from the beginning, let me be blunt and honest, part of that is your fault. Before you fully lay all the blame on the designer, take a look at what you could have done from the beginning and do that next time.

    If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been expressing a great sense of ownership on the clients’ part to this project. This is the marketing piece YOU are paying for after all to market YOUR company. Shouldn’t you want to be involved?

  8. Remember the marketing piece ultimately isn’t about you. Last, but not least, when working with a designer, remember who your target audience is. You aren’t buying your own services so just because you love it…doesn’t mean your clients will. It’s ok to have a different style than your clients, but if you are a Dentist and you love the designs of Horror flick posters…you can see where I’m going with this.Go to your local networking group, current valued customers, or people you explicitly trust to be brutally honest with you, and create your own mini focus group. Share the design with them and get their feedback, but make sure that you aren’t abusing the review time you and the designer agreed upon in the contract. If you do…you can’t blame the designer if the project goes beyond your expected completion date.

The list above is vague enough to fit both print and web based projects. I know, if we put our collective contractor thinking hats on that we could come up with more than eight, but here’s where I ask for your contributions. What other things do you think need to be thought of before you sit down with a designer?

Thank you for reading and, as all ways, stay wicked.

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Posted in Entrepreneurs, Generational Marketing, Marketing, Resources, small business, Web Design | 9 Comments »

Not Everything That Can Be Counted Counts

September 1st, 2009 ::

Albert Einstein was known to keep, and quote, a sign on his wall: “Not everything that counts can be counted; not everything that can be counted counts.”

This got me thinking about the obsessive search for a Return On Investment, or ROI, in Social Media. This is mainly sought after by either people, or companies, wanting a quick fix to their marketing pains or the executives/manager who only know that you should track every marketing initiative to the Nth Degree.

I have watched as social media halted midway are abandoned and social media tools are abandoned, because there hasn’t been the immediate gratification of a high number of a return. I listen as these seekers of the magical silver bullet of marketing success cry when they only have 100 followers on Twitter, 250 Facebook Page fans, and insert a fairly conservative number of followers with a social media tool and this could go on and on. “Our competitors have [insert number far greater] followers on [insert social media tool]” is often the cry. “How are these tools effective if we can’t amass a large number of followers to do our bidding and pass on our one directional message?” Ok, that last one was overly dramatic, but it’s far more an honest question than the ones that are often asked.

Social media tools, and campaigns, take time to grow organically, because what is truly viral is lightning in a bottle. What those of us who use social media tools want is honesty in your intentions of the tools, a conversation, and to grow to trust your message if we have never heard of you before. If we have heard of you, this is your chance to shine and show us that we can/should believe in your product/services/etc. In my previous post “10 Ways To Get More Followers Using Social Media”, I gave some good tips for using social media tools effectively to get results. I invite you to take a minute and read it.

I come back to Einstein’s sign. Ok, maybe you only have a very small number of followers, but I have a question for you. If you’ve gained passionate small group of followers who believe in your message and want to help you get it out…is that less valuable than four times that many people who don’t care nearly as much about your goal/product/message/service/etc.? Using social media tools, you have the ability to grow long term connections that could reap you great rewards down the road, but may take nurturing and patience before you see the results from traditional media.

Now don’t misread what I’m saying. I am in no way saying you should track your social media tools, but I am asking you to be realistic about what you’re seeing. If you find that you are getting quality results out of a low number of followers then you are having thousands of followers who lurk around your blog, facebook, twitter feed, and etc., but never interact with your brand or share your message…why would you ignore these few, but faithful, followers?

It comes down to the age old question, is it quantity over quality?

I would love to hear which it is for you.

Thank you for reading and, as all ways, stay wicked.

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Posted in Customer Service, Entrepreneurs, Generational Marketing, Marketing, Resources, small business, social media, Technology, Thought Leadership | No Comments »

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