E-Biz Booster Blog

No matter if you offer a standardized or custom made product, are you sure that your customers knows what they will get? Very often your customers and your business will rely on implied assumptions that can be quite the opposite of what the other party believes.

As a professional business person, you will have to find your way to avoid embarrassing situation and make sure that your customer and you not only speak the same “language“, but also mean the same.

You might have heard about the chain of communication:

mean ≠ say
say ≠ hear
hear ≠ understand
understand ≠ accept
accept ≠ do

There are 5 possibilities that the communication between 2 people produces unexpected, unwanted results. It goes well beyond what has been said. It can start out with a customer, who cannot articulate properly what he means, and end with a company delivering something the customer does not want. Some companies are arrogantly thinking, “We know it better than the customer, anyway. He'll love it.”

Avoid those risks altogether by making sure the expectations on both sides match objectively.

A fictional story

A chain of communication between a small business owner (BO) and a Web design firm (WD) could go like this:

BO thinks he wants a Web site, because he has read about a competitor, who has launched a Web site successfully and his sales sky-rocket. But he is also afraid of spending too much money on the Web design firm. However, he is convinced that once he has his Web site, his sales will go through the roof as well.

BO says: “Well, I want a small Web site to promote my store. Nothing fancy.”

WD hears exactly the same. There is no distortion in audio here.

WD understands: “BO wants a small Web site. He doesn't want to spend a lot of money on it.”

WD accepts: “I don't offer him additional packages. If I tell him, that it costs money or that it takes time till a Web site becomes profitable, he probably doesn't order the design from me. Well, I need his business now.”

WD delivers a small, nice Web site. That's it.

BO did not think about promotion for the Web site. He thought it is sufficient to have a Web site in order to get more sales. WD on the other side was afraid of offering more.

If you think the Web designer was a little bit unfair, I agree. He simply could have asked BO how he is going to promote the site. There would have been room for additional business. BO does not even know the basics of Internet marketing.

In other Blog posts I wrote about the importance of an educational marketing strategy. In this fictional case it could have worked nicely.

The conclusion of this short story is that both parties, customer/prospect and the business representative should ask a lot of questions and give honest answers. In the case of a standard product load (but don't overload) the sales page with detailed information and answer objections a prospect might have. Of course keep it benefit driven as much as possible. Actually I stop here, because this not not a course in copy writing.

Yours
John W. Furst

Many people, who use the Internet as a tool professionally complain about the ease on how you get distracted. You start out with a task and all of a sudden you are 15 clicks away from your original goal. Well, it's just that you found the trail to some tools or information that could make you more efficient. You follow that trail believing that you will save time in the future. In reality you get off your schedule and it will be hard to recoup that lost time.

Don't understand me wrong: If your task is to find tools or anything on the Internet, then pursue it, but if your task is to complete a simple task, then just complete that simple task.

Later, when you see you need to perform that same simple task repeatedly, then of course look out for some efficiency boosters, or even better, outsource that task altogether.

This was just an example, it could be about chasing info about more profits, less work, better conversion, better rankings, …

I though I write some tips on how to stay on track without getting distracted. But above is not really distraction, it's your choice to click a link that you simply should not click at this time. A real distraction has something external to it, like a coworker or your spouse rushes into your office and … That's a distraction, but I showed you how to deal with that kind of situation in my series of Blog posts about Getting Things Done.

Enough of a prelude, here are the bullets:

1. Read my post “Touch It - Do It - Get More Done!” again.
2. Write your task list every morning. First thing to do.
3. Stick with it, no matter what. Focus on what you are doing.
4. Most important tasks are tackled first on the day. The fact that they are mostly challenging and important will keep your attention in the morning.
5. Just write URLs or whatever you find interesting down on the back of your to do list or bookmark them not wasting more than one click. You can follow those in your spare time.
6. Don't deal with products or information that you do not need at this time. There will be another one time offer from someone else or probably the same vendor in the future.
7. You should have procedures for repetitive tasks that you can follow. Those tasks should be outsourced anyway. As long as you are doing everything by yourself, you are more prone to get thrown off the track by new information.
8. Simply don't throw away your strategic plan, after you have learned something new. Keep your business on track and apply small changes at a time. Experiment with new tactics in a separate, new project. But your core business should run smoothly already before you do this.
9. Limit the number of people, who's advice you are following. That also means you can unsubscribe from a lot of email newsletters and RSS feeds.
10. A real business should neither depend on you, nor on a single employee nor a single contractor, etc. Strive for that. Then you can surf the Web all day long and it won't hurt you at all.

What are your tips to stay on track?

Yours
John W. Furst

It's in the human psychology that everybody is a bit selfish. Marketing and sales experts rephrase it as a question.

“What's in it for me?”

Everybody is constantly asking this question in all sorts of situations.

• in family situations
  
• in personal relationship
  
• at works
  
• in business
  
• when shopping
  

We tend to act only, if we perceive that there is enough value in it for us.

However, it turns out that there are people, who are more giving than others and vice versa. It is interesting to note that success with an Internet business is highly correlated with the giving mentality of the entrepreneur. I actually don't have any data at hand to backup this claim right now. But it's the essence of the teachings from successful Internet marketers that I follow.


Okay, what's in it for you today?

I want to serve you — my readers and email subscribers — better. I want to give you

Articles and infos that better suit your needs
and I will answer the best questions here on the Blog.

That's in it for you. Interested?

Here is what I need you to do. Leave a comment here on the Blog answering my 2 questions. The 3^rd question is optional, but I appreciate any answer on that, too.

1. Pick 3 topics or subjects that you would want me to cover on this Blog on a consistent basis.

2. What is the single most important question you have about your most important topic (from question 1)

3. Optional: Just 1 or 2 sentences, please. What's your situation, why are you reading this Blog or my Newsletter? Are running or starting out with an Internet business? Are you a manager in a corporation?

You have time until

Tuesday, December 18, 2007, 3 pm PST (Pacific)
which is 23:00 UTC (London)

The comments will be moderated, your privacy is assured and you cannot get distracted by the questions of others. I will answer or will have your questions answered next week.

Thanks for your participation and, please, prove that you — my readers — are action takers.

Yours
John W. Furst

Enjoy the weekend

Welcome to the December 11, 2007 edition #30 of the Carnival Of Small Business Issues.

My name is John and I am your host for this “Canarian Edition”. As this Carnival grows it is getting harder to select articles from the growing number of submissions.

Thanks to everyone who contributed.

Instead of limiting the number of promoted articles to some arbitrary number, like 20, I have decided to give you more, and introduced a new category “Online Marketing Special” just for this edition.

Question of the day: How Would You Promote Innovation? If you are a member of a management team or a business owner, how would you answer this question? Charan “CA” Atreya, the organizer of this Carnival, runs an open answer survey on his blog. If you have something to say, please, do so on his Blog.

If you are interested in hosting this Carnival or submitting a blog post, you'll find more information at the bottom of the page.

Today we have the following categories: Marketing, Online Marketing Special, Human Resource, Operations, Personal Development, Finance, Business Tips
→ Continue reading:

You probably already have seen, that I promote Rich Schefren's latest milestone type of report — The Attention Age Doctrine Part 2 — very prominently on this Blog. I even have shot a brief video.

The core message of the report for many businesses is

“You are no longer in control of your branding, positioning and marketing.”

Wouldn't you believe someone, who had made enough money to retire at age 25, but has so much drive that he just moves on and since then helped his coaching clients to make some hundred millions of dollars additional income.

“Don't ask any further questions?
Just download the free report and read it.”
(It won't be available forever!)

So what are the lessons that I have learned from this?

I had 2.7 times more visitors on my Blog than usually on Sundays. I am already curious for todays figures. All because I decided last minute, that I will participate in Rich's 66 seconds promotion video contest. So why did I get more traffic yesterday? Because I took action to participate in an event (the contest) that has a lot of attention. It is that simple.

Do you remember my post about one key factor for success: The Speed of Implementation. If not, go back and read it. It is one of my top posts.

Even though the video contest had a sharp deadline only 36 hours after it had been announced, my situation was worse. I did not “pay attention” until 2 hours before the submission deadline. That's when I decided to do it.

All of a sudden I had hundreds of ideas, but no time to put them on screen. Furthermore I never made a promo video like this. But I wanted to participate, I wanted to see, how it effects my Blog. So I focused on the essentials and kept everything to the bare minimum.

• Writing a script, the text.
• Filming myself speaking
• Trying different setups, quickly.

I just didn't like any of the intermediate results. But I kept going. The clock was ticking. Finally I realized, I have to make the video some kind of funny to cope with all those no-time, no-budget, no-preparation, no-outsourcing type of issues in this Saturday night mini project. Originally I wanted to get into the informational or compelling category, but … no music, no third party material to be edited into the video, …

I kept rolling, registered for those sites, and submitted the video 6 minutes before the contest submission deadline.

• What do you think? Is the video funny or just plain stupid?
  About Rich Schefren's Doctrine (John's Video is no longer available)
  Please, leave a comment here on the Blog.
  
  
• Do you have anything else to say about the doctrine, Rich, or myself?
  Say it, in the comments.

Do you see what was driving me?

It was not perfectionism. And excuses like there is not enough time or how could I win and compete against everybody else, … could not stop me. Today I have seen videos from my competitors in this contest that blew me away. I am also relieved, because — at least in my opinion — my video is not the worst one.

I was driven by the determination to enter this competition. Nothing stopped me. I used what I had available, which was not much at this time as far as my Internet video skills and tools are concerned, but I am proud that I did it.

I have proven to myself that I am an action taker and that I am capable of getting to speed quickly. That is what counts. It is much more important for me than this particular contest. Of course, if I won, it would boost my business tenfold or more, But I am confident that I'll be able to boost my business anyway.

Yours
John W. Furst

What will you be doing, if your computer does not boot, your hard drive dies, or your DSL modem goes up in smoke? Can you continue to work? Will your business survive, if your office is flooded?

While most business owners are very aware and active about protecting and insuring their real estate and physical assets, they miss out having the same level of care for their virtual assets and productivity tools, which is the data and applications needed to run their business.

Here are a few “sharp” bullets to think about, some minimum requirements.

• You will need UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) for your desktop/server computer(s) and everything that is connected to it. It's like the battery in your notebook. Just a bit bigger. It also protects your hardware from power surges through lightening.
  
  
• Have two computers setup and ready to work on. Have spares for your staff
• Have your current data on at least two computers, media, and locations.
  
  E.g. Online storage accessed from an Internet Cafe could be one solution for a home-office guy, whose Internet line is down for days or his computers have been stolen.
  
  
• Use RAID (your data is on at least two hard-drives) for your desktop/servers. You want a second disk controller, too or true hardware RAID.
  
  
• Anti-Virus and malware protection.
• OS/Software Upgrade policy.
  
  
• Regularily “burn” data backups. I prefer DVD RAM, it behaves exactly like a hard-drive. On the road I use CD-RW or an USB stick. Offline-Backups are not only for disaster recovery. They are also good for files that you have deleted too quickly!
• Don't forget about system/configuration data.
• Have local backups of your online services, like blog database, ...
  
  
• When using online storage or an online Email archive syndicate with your local computer. Don't forget: Two different places, two media, two computers. You don't want to rely on your Internet connectivity as well.
  
  
• TEST your backup strategy.
• Verify your backup. Randomly check every backup. Sometimes do a full verification.
  Many people waste time doing backup to find out that they are worthless later on. I remember a corporate client, who did backups to tape daily, but none of them was good for a consecutive period of half a year. Till I told them.

Combine those bullets into something that works for you. But keep in mind:

“Simply do not rely on a single point of failure!”

You should setup a process that let's you forget about this stuff otherwise it will become a huge productivity killer in no time. Specific advice needs to be tailored to your work habits and your business. It might be smart to hire a consultant for setting up those procedures, recommending software, etc. Especially, when you're business is already off the ground, but you never thought about this topic.

Otherwise, expand it as you grow.

Some advanced issues you can think about:

• Categorize data according to importance need for online availability. This will reduce the requirements for a backup plan and has your productivity in mind. You won't need XX% of the data you have stored, again. Might be the famous 80% (Pareto principle 80/20 rule).
• Encryption and data security. Some critical data should be encrypted on the storage medium!
• Support for cooperative work
• Legal requirements for storing financial data, emails, customer data, ...

Thanks to Pat Doyle, who inspired me to write about this subject with her post, “Declare Independence From Your Computer”

Yours
John W Furst