Fix The Incongruency - Consider Blogging for Your Company for Fun & Profit

Today I was perusing a marketing book by Chris Baggott et al. (that I haven't actually read yet in full)...and I came across the below passage in the first chapter. I thought it summed up pretty well one of strong arguments for considering having someone within your organization blogging (among other means of connecting with your customers and other constituents such as newsletters, etc.). Give it a whirl around your brain and send me your comments -- if you have any:

What's really funny to me is the fact that when you talk to organizations about what makes them different (worthy, if you will), this answers always lands somewhere in the top three: our people.

So why do you hide your people behind the facade of a brand or an institution? At the end of the day, people associate themselves with other people that they like. Your constituents want to like you and have a relationship with you.

-jr

Focusing In Tight Times....and in Good

Barry VanderKelen, who heads up the San Luis Obispo County Community Foundation, has a column entitled Nonprofit Strategies that appears from time to time in the SLO Tribune. I often catch it on-line when it appears. Today's is entitled Stay Focused in tight times. In it he asks Israel Dominguez, who became the new director of Cuesta College's Small Business Development Center in November, "how does a nonprofit organization navigate tough economic times?"

What I liked was the advice given by Mr. Dominguez is good for non-profit....and for profit enterprises alike. And not only in bad times -- but good ones too.

You may want to read the article yourself (link again) then come back here. Anyhow, I'm not known for lacking in opinions so I had a bit to add which is below:

For directors (and business owners), it shouldn't be a matter of thinking in terms of good times versus bad times but a matter of thinking: Who really are my customers? What do they truly want right now? How might I give it to them? And, critically, how do I communicate to them in a compelling way that is compatible with their current mindset?

Good times just means we get to be a bit more lazy in our planning and implementation of all of the above while still drifting by. :-) True success -- the kind that is sustainable anyway -- takes deliberate analysis of the marketplace. Once you're in that position you stop worrying about the ups and downs of the economy other than as variables to incorporate into your analysis about what needs and desires you should be meeting for your customers and making sure your marketing is appealing to them in the new context.

Ironically, with a bit of creativity and persistence, economic downturns can actually be incorporated into ones product/service development and marketing messages. All changes and cycles present opportunities for the astute director/manager/owner.

"You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out." -- Warren Buffet

Underwater Telecommunications Industry Geeks

For those who are interested in the inner workings -- both technical and business -- of the submarine fiber optic cable industry, take a look at SubOptic. Particularly recommended are the presentations from their last conference which are available to freely peruse all you like here.

Is Risk Aversion Our Greatest, Uhm, Risk?

Are WE Holding Ourselves Back?

(This is a draft of an informal essay I wrote today. Figured this would be a good place to post it and garner some feedback). A brief excerpt:

"Often we're concerned about failure. The great irony about the perception most humans have about taking risks and failing is that it nearly insures that most of us will, in fact, have the greatest failure of all: never seeing our most fruitful ideas turned into reality and achieving our most important goals in life. Our built in risk aversion is really, quite ironically, our greatest risk of all. A wolf in sheep's clothing."

"The truth is that most of us can handle far more “risk” than we currently do. On the other hand, we could do with a lot less of the risks we do chose to take on...."

Most of us are capable of far more than we give ourselves credit for. Fortunately, we are the only ones holding ourselves back.

Usually due to a combination of starting something worthwhile but not finishing it and coming up with a good idea but not doing anything about it (taking action), we stand still or, at best, make very very slow progress. Thus, at best, even if we make some progress towards our goals we still do not end up actually passing the goal line.

Often we're concerned about failure. The great irony about the perception most humans have about taking risks and failing is that it nearly insures that most of us will, in fact, have the greatest failure of all: never seeing our most fruitful ideas turned into reality and achieving our most important goals in life. Our built in risk aversion is really, quite ironically, our greatest risk of all. A wolf in sheep's clothing.

Our perception of the risks of most failures are outlandish. While there are certainly some things that are risky enough they could, say, kill us outright, most failures are far less dramatic. Some types of failures can be quite stressful to be sure. Some may even shorten our lives by a few years (due to the stress, though even a bit of short-term stress can sometimes be worth it if it makes the remaining years that much more satisfying). But nowhere near the percentage we think -- of “risky ideas” that we all come up with in our day to day lives -- are even half as horrifying in impact, if we were to take action and fail, as we might convince ourselves they are.

Our comfort zones hold us back. However nearly all good things that come to us, arise from somewhere outside of our comfort zones. Taking on our first real job. Driving for the first time. Taking an entrance or certification exam for a college program, to teach, or some other program we want to pursue to push our careers forward. Marrying for love. Having our first child. Flying for the first time. Learning to swim. Passing a difficult test that forced us to really learn the subject matter rather than simply memorizing a few key concepts. Learning to take our first step (though most of us will lack firsthand memory on this one). Asking someone attractive (in whatever way you deem important) out on a date or even simply for coffee. Starting a blog and posting our real thoughts, opinions, and ideas out there for the world to yell back that we're wrong. :)

While each of these can be stressful in the moment, that feeling soon subsides (especially with practice and time). Without these stretches, life would be so boring and, well, lifeless. We grow, becoming more comfortable in our new terrain. When viewed with a receptive mind, we even learn a lot from our failures.

Nearly all “firsts” in our lives are outside of our comfort zone. In fact, some of them may even be far more realistically life threatening than the other ideas and opportunities that we chose not to take action on. So much for our built-in perceived versus real risks radars.

When I was starting my most recent consulting business I knew there was a good chance that cash would get a little tight for a while. Since I knew that was a high probability outcome along the way towards my goals, I could plan to address it. I could take some actions to handle the looming issue and I could think through some of the options I'd have, depending on how bad things got when the time came. To me, that wasn't really a risk. I trusted myself and thought my way through it. There are few situations in life where we have absolutely no options. It wasn't that I didn't worry about having money to pay the rent and buy food. It wasn't that it didn't stress me out. It was more that the real risks that scared me more than the others were the things that I might have fail(ed) to anticipate and plan. To a certain extent, the ones entirely (or mostly) outside of my control, were a big deal but, again, it's all about having options. As long as I was confident I'd have options, the number of real risks in my world quickly shrunk and became manageable.

The truth is that most of us can handle far more “risk” than we currently do. On the other hand, we could do with a lot less of the risks we do chose to take on....

Our perceptions that result in us not taking on risks that we should while continuing to do things that we shouldn't are even more humorous when considered in another light. I got my first credit card when I was eighteen. It was an American Express. A Mastercard soon followed. At first, I had the money so it really wasn't a big deal. Then I left my comfy job to try my hand as a pseudo-partner in a friend's business venture. That fizzled out. I had some savings from a well timed stock option sell-out. It didn't take long to burn through that. After all, I'd gotten used to a pretty good salary (even if I hadn't been only eighteen at the time). I temporarily struck out on my own (consulting without any specific plan other than to explore new business opportunities) and then, a short time later, became a partner in another new business venture. Well, my financial situation changed quite a bit over that time period. And, like many early entrepreneurs without a solid win under their belts, my partners and I didn't pay ourselves much since we were in start-up mode. But, hey, I didn't have to change my lifestyle – I still had all those credit cards, right?

Give nearly anyone a few dollars and they'll have no problem finding a way to spend it to get something they need (let's not worry about the distinction between need and want for today). Now combine that with easy access to credit (credit cards and home equity loans are the most common current incarnations). Coupled with the basic desires that we all have to please ourselves, get a bit of instant gratification from time to time, and reward ourselves for a job well done or some ill we suffered that day, and our perceptions of risk go out the door.

Suddenly we're no longer thinking about how we'll afford to pay off that large credit card balance next month, how much extra we'll really have paid for today's little indiscretion due to the compounding interest we'll have paid before the balance is gone months or years down the road, and, worse in my mind, the opportunity cost that slowly at first and incrementally over time builds up until we have convinced ourselves that we “just don't have the money to do whatever we want”.

We want everything now so much that we put ourselves in a permanent position of never actually getting what we want. Irony can hurt, especially when it's wired into the standard operating procedure of our brains. It's a bit like the inverse of “wanting to have our cake and eat it too”. We use perceived risks as excuses not to do the things we really should if we actually want to achieve our goals. And we toss out the real matter-of-fact risks when it comes to acquiring the things we could probably do without for just a bit longer. If only... If only...

“I want it now, the future be damned!” Don't get me wrong. There's a time and a place for this attitude – it can be what gets us through some days. We're all human and I doubt we're supposed to be perfect all the time. Besides it's no fun to be perfect. The problem is recognizing when it has become a habit, a regular occurrence, and something that we keep doing even while making excuses about not doing the things we know we really should. (Sadly it can become a feedback loop unto itself, it almost being worse if we are aware that this is what is going on but don't have the strength left to pull oneself out of it so we feed the indiscretion monster more to get through each day and it gets worse -- so watch out!)

While we can be our own worst enemies, remember that is a good thing as well. It means it's under our control. While it's not easy to fight what is hard wired into our own brains, it can be easier than many other battles we participate in outside of ourselves. It's certainly a more important (and probably much more effective) fight. I challenge you:

1. What is one really attractive goal you have?
   
2. What step, or even steps if you are really on it, have you taken in the last day to get you there?
   
3. What about in the last week?
   
4. The last month?
   
5. The last year?
   
6. The last decade?
   
7. Don't beat yourself up over the answers to #2-#6. More importantly, what are you going to do TODAY?
   
8. Now, to make it a little easier to stay on the ball tomorrow with your new ambition, what is something you can do tomorrow as well?
   
9. And the next day?
   
10. And the next?
    
11. Good work --- keep it up! Momentum has a tendency of building, even from nearly nothing. You'll be there in seemingly no time if you keep it up. But you do have to START somewhere. Get moving. NOW.
    

-jr

Food For Thought: What Do You Think of My Idea?

Chris Lyman, the CEO/Janitor of Fonality, made an insightful post on his blog regarding entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs here. I don't have much to add -- I thought it was good food for thought and wanted to file it somewhere so what better place then on my blog.

I think it's a good idea to fill your thoughts constantly with lots of inputs from all over. Just don't take any one of them too seriously. Consider everything and then decide where you want to go, on your own.

Here's an excerpt from Chris's post:

For 10 years now people have approached me with business ideas, and asked: "What do you think of my idea?"
[...]

And I have always taken their "What do you think of my idea?" very seriously. After all, asking for an opinion on something that you have labored over is difficult - it's a moment of vulnerability as you open yourself up to a potential battery of cerebral criticism and intellectual pugilism. It's not easy ...and I know this.

Thus, I listen to their pitches, I read their business plans, and opine. I try to give thoughtful advice on the "what-ifs" and the "how-tos" and I introspectively incant my "lessons learned."

But, it never sits right with me. And, slowly I have come to hate this question. And, finally I know why.

The entire act of questioning before leaping is fundamentally opposed to the true spirit of entrepreneurialism. Being an entrepreneur is about doing something NEW that has NEVER been done before, or doing something old in a totally NEW way. You just don't build a bad-ass business by being a me-too. In short, you gotta bring the NEW to outdo the OLD and the NEW can never be known because it hasn't happened yet and therefore ANY attempt to discuss the new as if you know what the hell you are talking about is an ego-trip and I don't want a ticket to that ride.

Let me illustrate my own idiocy at predicting the future:

In my last company, I had a Director of Sales named Jon Venverloh. One day, in late 1998, he showed up to work and said he was moving up north to take a sales job at Google. I laughed at him and asked him why the heck he would go to a company with no revenue and no revenue model. Remember this is 1998. He said: "I like Northern California better and I can ride my bike." Believing he was making a lousy career move, I wished him luck. Well, I just googled (hehe) Jon and he is currently listed as an Executive in charge of Federal Sales for Google, Inc.

Go figure. Nobody knows who is going to be the next Google. Least of all me. And the mere fact that you are asking means that you are doubting yourself and doubt is what you CANNOT have as you strive to create the NEW. Don't let the opining and the opinionated slow you down.

-jr

177 Megawatt Solar Project in SLO County Announced

PG&E and Ausra just announced a 177 megawatt solar thermal power plant in San Luis Obispo County. It will cover one square mile (640 acres) near the Carrizo Plain. Nifty!

The local paper has a good article here. It will be built on private land. Other coverage here, and elsewhere.

Ausra projects that the power plant will create over 350 skilled jobs on-site during construction, and an additional 100 permanent jobs in the area. The plant will burn no fuel, use minimal water, and have no air or water emissions.

The CPUC application and related documents are here and here.

It sounds like the deciding factor as to the location was the similar to what come up when deciding where to build a data center. You can build one in all sorts of places, but proximity to {major fiber routes, transmission lines} can be a deciding factor because it determines whether the project will have a reasonable cost and ultimately be a success.

John O’Donnell, executive vice president of Ausra, said the site identified for the plant, north of Highway 58, is ideal for the project.

“In developing large solar power plants, the biggest problem is not finding the sun or the land, but finding a place where you can transmit the power,’’ O’Donnell said. “And one of the real shaping things in serving PG&E is looking at the California electric grid and for places where we could put power into the grid. The Carrizo Plain is a major transmission line. That was one of the biggest drivers.’’

and:

Although these agreements dwarf the deal with Ausra, New Energy Finance analyst Nathaniel Bullard said that Ausra is well-positioned.

Other solar thermal energy projects such as Solel’s Mojave Solar Park, to be constructed in California’s Mojave Desert, will be far away from populated areas and the electric grid. Ausra’s plant, to be located about ten miles north of Carrizo Plain National Monument, may get less sun than the Mojave Desert, but it will be directly under a PG&E transmission line, O’Donnell said.

Ausra’s proposed plant will only need “850 feet to connect,” said Bullard. They’ll be able to “tap right into the electric grid. It’s a lot less expensive and it speeds up the process.”

The high cost of the feeder and trunk lines required to connect to the grid from a long distance are often well outside of a smaller developer’s range.

-jr

(Better) Invoicing & Time Tracking for Contractors/Consultants

When I set out on my own again, especially once the consulting gigs started to really pick up, I needed a solution to handle invoicing, time tracking, and accounts receivable management. In the past, I'd known myself to procrastinate (gasp!) generating invoices.

The procrastination was really the symptom of something else: I'd never really taken the time to automate the process. I'd started off on the wrong foot to begin with. I was tracking minutes in text files, adding them up manually, etc. Further, even if I'd used a fancy system to track and generate the invoices, I have this apparent aversion to addressing, stamping, and walking to the mailbox. Guess I'm just lazy.

So, a bit back, I spent a few hours seeing what was out there these days. Ultimately I settled on three (hosted Web 2.0-ish, if you will) solutions as the major candidates that met my needs:

• FreshBooks
• Blinksale
• Cashboard
  

After getting test accounts with each of them I ultimately went with FreshBooks. The main thing that did it for me was that FreshBooks allowed me to send paper invoices without actually touching a stamp, envelope, or printing anything. Yep, they mail it for me and even include the return envelope with my address!

I do actually send all of my clients e-mail invoices -- since that has become much more acceptable these days -- avoiding hard copy whenever possible. However I like having the option and it can also be handy when someone is taking their time paying..

Technically, FreshBooks doesn't e-mail the invoices but sends out an e-mail with a URL that contains the invoice. While others include the invoice in the actual e-mail, I have found it nifty that FreshBooks' approach allows me to see who has viewed their invoice (and they even provide an RSS activity feed to track client invoice reads!).

Since going with FreshBooks, all three billing solutions have added plenty of functionality. And Cashboard, which was in beta when I first looked at it, is now out of beta. I may re-look at each of them at a later date, but I really am pretty satisfied with FreshBooks for the moment.

If you suspect you spend too much time on invoicing, take a look at what's out there these days!

-jr

Can Technology Geeks Be (Good) Managers?

If you are a technology geek currently serving as a manager, you better figure out how to become a business manager, if you intend to lead a successful IT department, group, team, or project. You owe it to yourself, your direct reports, whomever you report to, your colleagues in other departments, and your company. You will get a bigger budget, better compensation, more respect from all of your constituents and stakeholders, greater cooperation for your projects to help them be more successful, and greater satisfaction from your career.

It's not all bad for the technology geek turned manager though. If you can grasp the business side, by taking a bit of initiative to learn it, and combine that with technology savvy (even if you let your direct reports worry about the deep down details) you can have the best of both worlds. The last thing technology geeks want are clueless managers. It doesn't matter whether they are clueless about business or about technology -- they are still going to make things more difficult, albeit unintentionally, for their employees.

IT managers should know how to write business plans, prepare budgets, use financial concepts competently such as: the difference between cash flow and profit as well as grasping present and future value calculations, tie projects to business objectives, communicate and be held accountable in business terms, systematically assess and explain risk and uncertainty in ways that relate to the overall business, and communicate with non-technology management in regards to strategy.

This doesn't mean you need an MBA. If you don't understand all of these concepts there are options:

• Take a basic accounting course (or two) at your local community college
• Sit down with your CFO, controller, or accountant and ask for some tutorial sessions
• Buy some books. Ask your CFO, controller, or account for some recommendations (and get them to promise to answer your questions if you take the initiative by reading the books they suggest).
  
• Ask your CEO if you can peak at the organization's overall business plan. Afterwards consider and discuss how your department, group, or project fits into the bigger picture. Ask if there are ways you might better consider and communicate your group's vision, goals, successes (and, yes, failures too) as part of the bigger picture.
  
• I'll also try to highlight, in a future post, some specific resources that have helped me out.

-jr

Local company, Shopatron, gets $6m in Additional Funding

Congratulations to the folks over at Shopatron, a nifty San Luis Obispo (California) based company. Until relatively recently, they were called Firepoppy while Shopatron was the name of their primary product. They have picked up some additional capital and continue to be working hard on solving problems in their niche.

Shopatron solves problems for manufacturers that don't or cannot sell their products directly, namely connecting their customers (say, visiting their web site) with their retailer/distributor network. They do it in a way that is conducive to the customers desire to "buy now", with less hops to jump through, and make it a win-win all around (win-win-win, uh, win, really) .

It's one of those niches that makes a lot of sense once you hear about it and they've been working hard at perfecting it for a number of years now. And, since they are so focused on solving one particular problem space (and it's a real one at that, as best as I can tell), rather then solve every interesting opportunity that they run across haphazardly, they are sure to be successful.

Congrats Ed, Sean, Dave, and the rest of the crew over there.

Further Related: Links:

• Shopatron takes $6M funding to capture in-store pickup crowd
• Shopatron closes $6 Million in Series B Funding
  

A Promising New Book: The Pragmatic CSO (Chief Security Officer)

Last week I ran across a book I had not seen before. From the looks of things it reasonably could have been entitled "The Pragmatic CIO/CTO/IT Director/IT Engineer/IT Consultant". It is actually called The Pragmatic CSO. CSO stands for Chief Security Officer. Even if your organization doesn't actually have a CSO, there is a de facto one -- whomever is in charge of IT.

Since anyone within the IT group involved in spec'ing solutions needs to have a connection to the underlying business drivers in order to get buy-in from management for their project to proceed, this book ought to be useful to IT manager and geek alike. At least those that want to see their budget requests approved. :-)

This appears to be a promising resource with some good food for thought and practical approaches all collected together in one place. And, to boot, the approaches that look to be discussed should be readily applicable beyond IT security, to any IT project. No IT project proposal will get very far without a business case.

The book's web site is http://www.pragmaticcso.com. It is available as a regular book or electronically. You can get a sample section e-mailed to you from the web site. Or you can d/l the introduction chapter directly here:

http://www.pragmaticcso.com/Pragmatic-CSO_introduction.pdf

I have only read through the Table of Contents and Introduction and poked around at a few reviews at security blogs I monitor. If anyone else gets a copy and reads through more of it before me, please share your comments.

-jr

Who Surveys the Surveyors?

(Questions That Every Survey Should Ask)

Four out five times I'll just toss out those surveys that get printed on the receipts from retailers, restaurants, coffeehouses, etc. If I'm looking for a distraction (or remember that I stashed one in my wallet the next time I'm there while I'm standing around in line anyhow) and the freebie I get for doing it entices me, I'll do one.

It's pretty frustrating to be willing to provide feedback only to discover the survey is your main gripe about the establishment. Based on my survey experiences, one of the following queries should be appended to every survey any company ever does. They basically all boil down to: "Did this survey suck?"

Q: On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate the friendliness of this survey?

Q: On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate the length of this survey?

Q: On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate the clarity of this survey?

Q: On a scale of 1 to 5, would you be likely to take a survey like this every again under the same pretenses?

If it's a written, online, or in-person survey (difficult to do with an automated phone survey) they might even ask something like: Do you have any ideas about how we might make this survey better?

If I had a great experience otherwise, well, we can all spell i-r-o-n-y, right?

-jr

Verifying Your Financial Advisors Advice - Service provides watchdog for investors

See article @ http://www.pacbiztimes.com/index.cfm?go2=articles/wk_091707e

This is an interesting idea (follow article link above or see excerpts below). I think there might be some other ways of implementing this that could be even more useful but I certainly agree with the sentiment. And, for the price, it's a cheap second look at things to make sure you are not entirely getting simply "told a line" by your broker, financial advisor, financial planner, etc. while still being more formal than getting your friend "Bob" to take a quick look at your portfolio. Mostly what caught my eye was seeing another way for more folks to easily get a second set of eyes looking at their portfolio, ideally in a quasi-independent and professional manner, especially without the hired trying to take a big bite out of it themselves.

While it's not stated outright, it sounds like he's doing Monte Carlo simulations, so he's contrasting ones existing portfolio with a group of model portfolios of various supposed styles that have been back tested with historical data to supposedly ascertain their "risk". (The more mysterious part, at least to me, is just how to ascertain an individuals "risk" tolerance, which can be taken to mean many different things -- and whether that is even as relevant as the size of their portfolio relative to their overall net worth and their timeline for needing the principal back, but that's a digression for another day).

To compare this with another industry, this service is a bit like the automated security scans from the likings of ScanAlert (with the green "Hacker Safe" shield logo) that IT folks responsible for e-commerce sites have grown accustomed to. The results can be useful, sometimes annoying, but they also just might not mean anything. You still need to know their basis and how to interpret them for your particular environment.

Anyhow, it's not a perfect method but it's a start.

-jr

David Donaldson plans to revolutionize the investment industry by bringing accountability to financial advisers.

“I just can’t stand when I see people who are individual investors who get taken advantage of,” Donaldson said. “My goal is to be kind of a watch dog to make sure financial advisers are doing their job.”

On Aug. 27, he announced the launch of Advisor Check, a service that analyzes investment portfolios so that individual investors can see whether their financial advisers and asset managers are addressing their personal investment goals. Donaldson is the managing director and senior portfolio analyst for Advisor Check.

[....]

“It turns out what we found is a majority of people really want someone to give them a second look at their portfolio, but are afraid that if they go to someone else like a financial adviser, they’ll just be told what they want to hear,” Donaldson said, adding that he rushed to launch the service officially because of the current volatility of the market.

[....]

“I would say that about 79 percent of the portfolios we look at are improperly allocated and expose clients to more risk than they actually need to be taking,” Donaldson said.

Donaldson offers his clients an unbiased, third-party analysis. In order to avoid any conflict-of-interest, he does not offer advice or sell any services beyond a comprehensive portfolio analysis.

“If anything, it gives [investors] the ability to ask the right questions” of their advisers, he said.

“It gives financial advisers – if they do a good job – a lot of kudos for what they do, but if not, it’s a good reality check for them,” Donaldson said.

[....]

Take the Time to Be Specific

One of my fairly serious hobbies is seeking out, analyzing, and (rarely) investing in under appreciated excellent companies. And I'm a ferocious reader, consuming a growing list of business, success, finance, investing, entrepreneurship, and related books, blogs, papers, articles, and similar texts. I've also had hands-on involvement in several start-up and more mature businesses in various capacities of responsibility.

It is interesting that a common problematic theme I come across is that of the business strategy being too fast and loose. This happens in large public companies just as often as it happens in small one-person businesses. Sometimes you hear about "needing more focus", "defining your market", "defining your niche", etc.

While this can manifest itself regardless of the stage of the business, it often becomes more dire (or at least externally apparent) as more people become involved in the business and more customers/clients are taken on. Scaling is tough due to the lack of clarity across the organization. Things get dropped. Micro-managing ensues. Mismatched product and service lines and extensions are rolled out. Resources are chaotically allocated. Turf wars can occur. Otherwise preferred and ideal customers/clients leave and similar prospects drag the sales cycle on longer. People quit in frustration -- no longer having the energy to see things through. Seemingly dumb decisions are made by otherwise highly intelligent and competent people throughout the organization.

This is all about and so often can be addressed by the same thing: Be as specific as you possibly can about your market, your niche within that market, and the characteristics of your customers. Once you do, everything else (i.e. next actions, tactical moves, where to allocate limited resources, who to hire, which investments to make, which investments to cut loose on and re-evaluate) becomes quite suddenly far far easier.

Your risk is immediately reduced and communicating your value proposition becomes a day at the beach. Lest you think this is just a business problem not applicable to our personal lives, consider how being more specific with your goals usually makes it more likely you'll achieve them. Don't shortchange yourself or your business. Draw a specific line in the sand and say there is where I'm/we're headed (don't be afraid to do it because you suspect it may change down the road, that's just fine and shows you're thinking about it).

But that's not the entire story either. An ancillary theme -- and perhaps one causation of the prior problem -- I've noticed takes the form of over eagerness used as an excuse to keep the market/niche/customer defined so loosely. By this I mean not just that the entrepreneur (or equivalent within an existing company pursuing a new product/service concept) is eager to get started with development or selling but that their ambition is so large that they fail to realize that the way to most effectively attack a broader market is often to start by attacking a segment of it first not the entire thing (and then chip away until the entire thing is yours).

Most supposedly "large markets" are really groups of smaller micro-markets. Each of those micro-markets has slightly different needs and other characteristics which make them unique. You are making your job tougher by trying to attack the "whole thing" at the start. It's a question with differing answers -- not because the question is complex but because the question isn't specific enough.

This is a constant problem all over the place. Just this morning I was reading an article posted on GonzoBanking entitled Understanding the Decline and Fall of the Banking Industry (it happens to be told in a satire-like way which makes more sense if you end up reading the entire article but the excerpt is applicable regardless):

Excerpts from strategic plans in this period, however, indicate that bank management was still trying to target all customer segments, all product lines and all delivery approaches. Quotes from this period in business are somewhat comical as bankers write that they aspire to be “best in class,” “high performance” and “customer driven,” but none of the historical strategic plans seem to include what any of these terms actually meant.

My background is not in marketing. I'm actually stereotypically pre-disposed to think that "most marketing folks are fools and liars" since I'm generally thought of as a technology/IT geek (most of "us" tend to be cynics about all forms of marketing and advertising in seems). But that's an unfortunate, naive, and misguided reactionary opinion. After all, what geek wants to build stuff nobody wants to buy/use?

No business should be in business if it doesn't know exactly, and specifically:

1. who it's target customer's/client's are
2. why they are (or should be) doing business with you (from their perspective only, not yours),
3. how they find you and acquire your products/services
   

This is not just another of one of those "it'd be nice if we did this" To Do items to be filed away that you can limp along without. One (or more) of the following will happen, in time:

1. You're current (or not yet in existence but looming future) competition will consume your customer base and eat you alive
   
2. You will spend money on the wrong things and go out of business (or be forced to merge with a stronger competitor, more on their terms than your own)
3. You will be relegated, unbeknownst to you, to the least profitable and most difficult customers/clients in your loosely defined market to serve
4. You will spend incredible and blackhole-ish increasing amounts of money acquiring (marketing to) new customers without adequate return on your investment
5. You will burn out (and, if you have other staff and management, they too, which has it's own direct and indirect costs which will manifest themselves even if you keep plowing ahead oblivious) sooner rather than later and, along the way, probably burn bridges, alienate clients and partners, grow frustrated with seemingly piling up problems that lack a framework to prioritize them objectively within, inability to successfully delegate, freezing up and putting off critical major difficult decisions that only you can make, and otherwise eventually "giving up" (perhaps not even entirely consciously).
   

If you are in this boat, don't fret. You're also probably quite smart, analytical, and adaptive. You just took an early misstep. It's correctable though. Take a few moments and complete the following challenges. Go from there. The future should get clearer as you go along.

CHALLENGE #1: As specifically as possible (and if you think you are already to that point, challenge yourself to see how much more specific you can get) write down your initial gut feeling of:

1. who your target customer's/client's are
2. why they are (or should be) doing business with you (from their perspective only, not yours),
3. how they find you and acquire your products/services
   

CHALLENGE #2: Concisely whittle down the text from Challenge #1 to its essence. This should be a quick sentence or two that clearly articles what you REALLY do as a business from your customer's/client's perspective and who your "sweet spot" customer's/client's are.

Doing Less is More

There is a great irony in marketing any product or service. One goes to great lengths to uniquely position their product or service. Then we are careful to convey all the wonderful benefits our product/service will offer the potential buyer if only they'd become an actual buyer.

The counter-intuitive thing is that this entire process is a whole lot easier if we promise less to the potential customer. Not only will we have to work less hard to actually implement all those things we are promising but then:

1. it will be easier to convey the benefits to a potential buyer -- it'll be easier to hit them over the head, albeit politely hopefully, with a much simpler value proposition that stands out from the crowd
   
2. there's less risk that we'll fail to deliver
3. there will be less disagreement as to what we promised to deliver
   
4. it'll be easier to up sell them later upgrades, accessories, add-ons, etc. when we develop those
   
5. it'll be easier to over deliver, if we so chose, to gain the loyalty of our customer for a much longer period
   
6. our execution steps and decision making will be clearer
   
7. it'll be easier realize and to change direction if we discover we're offtrack
   
8. we will have to work less for, at worst, equivalent net gain and even, due to less resistance and energy loss from stress and indecision, quite possibly for a greater net gain.

If you want repeat business from the same client/customer....
If you want to reduce your marketing expenses by relying more on word of mouth....
If you want happier employees....
If you want less stressed management....
If you want your potential customers to really understand why you're better....
If you want more satisfied customers/clients....
If you want less employee burnout....
If you want a better sales close ratio....
If you want to shorten the sales cycle....
If you want to simplify your strategic planning...
If you want to lower your customer service support costs....
If you want to improve your execution....
If you want to increase your profits....

Do less. Simplify. Strip things down to the bare essentials.

Promising less really does mean more -- for the customers, for staff, for management, for the business owner. Everyone gives up a bit less and gets a bit more.

Doing less is more. Really.

Some ideas:

Focus on a very specific need within a very specific target market (e.g. tourists visiting Philadelphia who are seeking to learn more about early American history).

Do not try to be all things to all people -- even if you ultimately intend to serve a larger market with a broader set of offerings. You are much more likely to succeed -- including serving that larger market -- if you focus first and expand later. Select a more specific niche within your long-term target market until you are able to nail it down to a very simple set of features/functionality and clearly stated value proposition. Nail it and move on to an adjacent niche.

If you are having problems keeping a project on deadline, don't change the date -- change the scope.

Avoid making promises where there's a decent chance you won't be able to deliver.

Under promise always and, at times, over deliver.

QUESTION : How simple can you make your business, your products, your services, and still make the same amount of profit while working less? If in doubt, what is the basis -- other than fear -- for your current belief?

CHALLENGE: Do more with less.

Mid-State & Rabobank & Brand Equity

According to their press release Mid-State Bank & Trust will be switching to their new parent's, Rabobank, brand name:

The Mid-State franchise will be integrated into the Rabobank organization immediately but will continue to operate under the Mid-State Bank & Trust name until the Fall, when it will be renamed “Rabobank.”

So much for the tremendous local brand equity demanded by the Mid-State Bank name on the Central Coast. Seems to me that focusing on "synergies" behind the scenes such as infrastructure, processing, outsourcing, advertising economies of scale, and perhaps even more visible but still not completely destroying the brand equity areas such as best practices, products/services, management structure, etc. would make the most sense.

It's not as if Mid-State was a teeny tiny acquisition for Rabobank N.A. (though their ultimate parent is much larger admittedly). Though I presume the idea is that Rabobank, in the long-run, intends to expand their North American presence considerably and their plan is to do so under one brand -- which has obvious benefits in the long run.

I wonder if a slower approach was considered -- stick with the Mid-State brand until Rabobank N.A. has a larger piece of the pie in the U.S. then announce the change as a simple "same bank, same ownership, different name". It would be less abrupt and alienating for customers. Right now I'd argue that the Mid-State brand has more stickiness value in its markets than the Rabobank will for quite awhile. Why alienate (and probably lose) more customers before Rabobank has even had an opportunity to prove itself?

Then there's how similar sounding "Rabobank" (especially when spoken fast) is to a criminal activity that banks (and their insurance companies) tend to frown upon. Apparently "Rabo" is a combination of the letters from the original two Netherland-based banks that merged in the 1970s. Rabobank is huge but has a much smaller presence in the U.S. I wonder if they'll make some tongue-in-cheek ads in the U.S. about their name? :)