Quote for June 17, 2008

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." -- George Bernard Shaw

When I read this earlier today, I was reminded of the last job I had before starting Private Label.

I was fired.

It was the summer of 2000. Companies were imploding right and left. The DotCom where I was Managing Editor was running out of money and the CEO was scrambling for more angel or VC money. The problem was that he did not have a clear vision of what the business was, so he rewrote the business plan after every meeting. It was as if he were jumping from one piece of flotsam to the next piece of jetsam after the boat had already gone down miles from shore.

When I was hired, we, or, at least, I had what I thought was a very clear picture of our mission. And, it was working as evidenced by all the emails I got every day from our faithful readers. But, no one wanted to hear that our site visitors were SAHMs home schooling their kids. They thought it was 25-34 guys.

So, I was fired for being negative, counter-productive, not a team player, and a general PITA. The company crashed and burned six weeks later, out of ideas and money.

In this challenging economic environment, it's easy to get spooked and lose the faith, lose the vision, and stray from the company's mission. Business evolves and companies need to adapt. However, if the map of a clear vision and mission has been drawn at the beginning, the route to the future is already there to follow. It takes accurate observation, a clear action plan, and strong, confident execution minus the Pollyanna-ish platitudes.

In other words, this ain't a popularity contest, except to serve the best interests of the customers!

And, they will give the company kudos when they talk about you!

Is "Lynda" There?

Just to be perfectly clear, my name is Lydia. But, it seems that not only will telemarketers calling from thousands of miles away stumble over my name, but also inside sales people, the majority of whom have degrees in Business or Marketing or English, can't seem to manage my name.

Just to be perfectly clear, Lydia is a very old name. It was the country in the Middle East where King Croesus ruled and the first country to use money, rather than barter.

So, why do so many people have a problem with my name?

Don'tcha think that if someone is calling to ask for something, they'd bother to figure out how to pronounce the name of the person at the other end, uh, before they get on the phone!?

Click!

The next kind of call which is even more common is where the "professional" calling requests to speak to whomever, usually me, by name (after I've answered the phone with my name) without identifying him/herself, the company they represent, or the purpose of the call.

Excuse me! Why should I want to waste my time or anyone else's time on a total stranger? What's with the subterfuge? Am I supposed to be more disposed to give them time? these are inside sales people who are following up on my having downloaded a white paper or registered for a Webinar, a warm lead. So, why am I being treated so disrespectfully? Is this how they've been trained to initiate phone calls? Have they even been trained?

The only people I know who are reluctant to reveal who they are and the purpose of the call are bill collectors. Why do I know this? Because I was a bill collector a million years ago!

Click!

So, if you're an inside sales person, employ inside sales people, responsible for training inside sales people, operate from a position of professionalism and integrity. Be proud of what you do and the information and resources you bring to the people at the other end of those calls. Introduce yourself, your company, and the purpose of your call, then ask for the person you want to reach, then ask that person if s/he has a couple of minutes to speak.

I will respect you and what you're doing and give you the time and attention you deserve.

That doesn't mean I'll buy!

Summer In The City

Hot town, summer in the city
Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty
Been down, isn't it a pity
Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city

All around, people looking half dead
Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head

But at night it's a different world
Go out and find a girl
Come-on come-on and dance all night
Despite the heat it'll be alright

And babe, don't you know it's a pity
That the days can't be like the nights
In the summer, in the city
In the summer, in the city

Cool town, evening in the city
Dressing so fine and looking so pretty
Cool cat, looking for a kitty
Gonna look in every corner of the city
Till I'm wheezing like a bus stop
Running up the stairs, gonna meet you on the rooftop

But at night it's a different world
Go out and find a girl
Come-on come-on and dance all night
Despite the heat it'll be alright

And babe, don't you know it's a pity
That the days can't be like the nights
In the summer, in the city
In the summer, in the city

Hot town, summer in the city
Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty
Been down, isn't it a pity
Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city

All around, people looking half dead
Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head

But at night it's a different world
Go out and find a girl
Come-on come-on and dance all night
Despite the heat it'll be alright

And babe, don't you know it's a pity
That the days can't be like the nights
In the summer, in the city
In the summer, in the city
From: Summer in the City
The Lovin' Spoonful
(John Sebastian - Mark Sebastian - Steve Boone)

Just got back from two brutally hot weeks in New York, specifically Manhattan. That is New York for me, but then, some would call me a snob about that among other things. Everyone was looking for a cool drink, including this guy hitting up the girls at a bar on Clinton St. on the LES. He probably had a greater level of success than most! Because, if you don't ask, you definitely won't get!

Serendipity is a wonderful thing and happily, I got to experience that on this trip, too.

I keep a really sweet 3-D Racing SS (that's single-speed to you!) bassboat red (don't know why it's called that, but it's a deep red w/ metal flecks that is just sexy gorgeous) at the NY apartment. Flat tires, old worn-out pumps and a resulting broken stem sent me to one of the coolest bike shops in the city, BikeWorks, located just off Rivington at 106 Ridge St., New York, NY 10002, (212) 388-1077. They're serious about cycling, closing on Wednesdays so they can do the track races out in the far reaches of Queens and on Sundays so they can go for a ride, too, like everyone else. They cater to the bike messenger community, fixies/single-speeds, but they love bikes and know how to treat the high-end, low-end, everything-in-between-end spectrum of bikes.

So, this aloof, tattooed chick wrencher takes my bike under her wing to make it all better. As we're talking, I'm thinking I know her, so I introduce myself first to get her name. Lo and behold, it is KT, a bike messenger I bugged until she would talk to me years ago riding across Houston St. (Bike messengers, like bike mechanics, are slightly loathe to mix with the general population of people on bikes.) I ended up loaning her a few $$ to take the ferry to Jersey to then ride to Philadelphia with a herd of messengers for the Bike Messenger Worlds after the week of Metropoloco in New York, summer of 2000.

As narrow as margins are in bike shops, she didn't hesitate to comp me for the new tube and the work without objection from Dan the Man. Good customer service! Good karma! Cool experience all the way around on a sweaty August afternoon.



KT's teaching wrenching to women each Monday evening in the basement at Times Up on E. Houston St. and I went to check it out. Full house, despite the heat and humidity.

She asked about GirlGroove.com. Seems every direction I turn, someone is reminding me that I need to relaunch this bike chick online mag. With a commitment from one of the best chick wrenchers in the US to write a regular column, I guess I'm going to have to take the plunge.

Stay turned for the re-launch in the near future as a Web2.0 blog thing.

You Never Know Who You Might Run Into...

This past Saturday was windy and cold here in Marin County, so I decided to do a hike instead of a ride after running errands, catching up on some work (ah, the perks of being the CEO in start-up mode! more on that later...).

So, on the way back from Whole Foods in Mill Valley, I turned off onto the short road that leads up to the Tennessee Valley parking lot. Since it was Saturday, the lot was nearly full and there were quite a few people preparing to set out and more coming back. I have to qualify "quite a few people" as fewer than 40 total. Nice, huh?

This hike/walk into a part of the Marin Headlands follows a paved road slightly downhill to where the pavement runs out and the roadway is fine dirt. You get the feeling of being embraced by the surrounding hills that rise up covered in a variety of natural plants in a subtle range of grey-greens, straw yellow, dark greens, and dun. All along both sides of the roadway were a beautiful variety of wildflowers in blues, pinks, oranges, yellows.

Living in New York your iPod is a first line of defense for creating a bubble around yourself to escape the sometimes unwelcome cacaphony of sirens, cellphone conversations, horns, etc. more than as a source of entertainment when you go for an urban hike, bike ride, or just a cross-town busride. When I first moved to Marin, I'd go out the door similarly "armored" for a workout. Now I leave the iPod behind to enjoy the immense silences broken by the sounds of birds or the crash of the surf on the beach.

The approximately 2 miles to the beach is just right to clear your mind and open up to creative solutions. At one point, you reach the crest of a little hill that reveals the ocean, beach, and lagoon behind it framed by this V of hills folded back to expose this incredible vista.

I go to the beach, spend some time watching the surf, casually look for something to bring back to commemorate this walk. Sometimes I find something, sometimes not.

On the way back I notice the seagulls taking baths in the lagoon water, beating their wings against the water to createmakeshift showers. A little further on, there were three or four quail hens with what must have been 30 babies, skittering off the side of the dusty road into the bushes. Just as I was at a turn in the road framed by several large eucalyptus trees, I look down and see this chubby little fella just hunkered down staring back at me. Didn't move a muscle.

So, we looked at each other. Chubby didn't move...and, I went around and left Chubby to do what newts do.

You never know who you might meet or run into during the course of any given business day. Past experience guides us in choosing the proper action when confronted with a new challenge and helps us avoid disasters. That's what we're working on making happen easily for you in your business every day using the Venntive solutions.


More later.

Hint: When Your Service Is Your Sales Pitch...,

Get Your Act Together!

A good friend who also happens to be a very smart guy, Martin Focazio, recently completed a research project for a major client and shared his findings with us over at the WWWAC List.

The WWWACies, as we like to call ourselves, are survivors of the Y2K DotBomb. It was founded 12 years ago by people like Kyle Shannon and Courtney Pulitzer as the organization for the plaid flannel shirt guys, curmudgeonly programmers, developers, designers-the guys who wrote the books. NYNMA was for the suits in the suites. NYNMA doesn't exist anymore. As a sales and marketing flack, I tag along to learn what everybody will be talking about next year.

Anyway, companies pay Martin lots of money to get the straight dope on various topics. He's also a top-rated speaker for the American Management Association. And, he's actually started a blog by popular demand. It is NC-17. Well, just some strong opinions, really!

Here's his post -
"I recently had a research project to investigate best practices an
innovations in "Click to Chat" platforms;

I reviewed the offerings of the following 40 companies over a period of 4 days:

Aestiva LiveHelp
Akiva Chatspace
BluLark LiveSpider
Boldchat
Chat4Help
Click Chat Sold
Click&Care
ClickSeva.
eGain eService Enterprise
eLiveService
eStara
FaceTime IM Director
Get1on1
Groopz
InQ
InstantService
KANA
Kayako
Ligne Directe
Live Advisor
Live Office LiveSiteManager
Live2Support
LiveHuman
LivePerson
MayWeHelp
Netlert
Novomind
Omnistar Live
OrbitSupport
ProvideSupport
RightNow
RightNow Live
Sales N Stats
SightMax
Sitechatter
StarDevelop
SubjexCSR
Talisma
WhosOn
Xigla

Of the 40 companies, 31 of them didn't have anyone online via their
own live chat system between the hours of 9AM-5PM on a weekday. That
makes 78% of the firms offering Click To Chat too busy or something to
turn on their own click to chat system to service inbound enquiries.

I can excuse some of the companies that were just providing a link to
a PHP platform or some such, but for companies actually offering a
click to chat service, especially those offering a hosted service,
here's some news: if you can't be bothered to use your own product to
service your own leads, then I, as an evaluator, won't feel all warm
and fuzzy and you won't even make it through the first evaluation
round .

Second. LINK TO YOUR CUSTOMERS. Don't claim "a leading biotech firm"
uses your product unless you can cite an example. If your
implementation isn't open to the public, then grab and sanitize some
screen shots, write a 2 page case study and give a freakin' reference
name so we evaluators can check your claims.

There's a reason why LivePerson.com can charge 5 figures a month for
what is a true commodity service, it's because they make it easy to
feel good about the purchase decision.

Take heed all entrepreneurs. Demo or die."

Uh, can you say "customer service"?

Just Because You Can Doesn't Mean You Should

Maybe it's just me, but conscious and unconscious speech affectations on a Web seminar or podcast are as distracting and off-putting as misspelled words on a Website or in a business email.

I used to register for Web seminars just to be eligible to get access to the archived version at some later date. And, as we all know, that doesn't always happen. But, when I did go back to listen to the recording, I realized why I never scheduled the time. Way too many presentations are delivered in a monotone as if it's the Monday morning meeting that no one wants to attend.

Recently, I've been registering and actually blocking the time to attend the live event.

But, most times I've clicked off almost as quickly as I've joined. One instance was where the presenter not only had a very strong accent that made it difficult to understand him, but also had several habits, e.g. tooth sucking noises, that made for a quick exit even though I really needed the information. Another was one where the presenter did that thing with her tongue against the roof of her mouth as if she's "tsk"-ing the audience, but really just telegraphing a new thought. And, of course, there are still those monotone presentations that lull me to sleep.

It's great that so many companies are being so generous with their expertise and anecdotal experience. But, competition is fierce for people's attention and the presentation needs to be as professional as it would be at the annual customer conference or major tradeshow. What are little speech anomalies in person are magnified when you're staring at a PowerPoint or shared desktop presentation and just hearing a disembodied voice. Even though it is a global business environment with people from all over the world working in companies all over the world, for the most part we still look for presenters to speak with little or no accent and in English not only for US presentations, but ones with global audiences. People bail out very quickly and it's that much more difficult to get them to come back for the next online presentation.

So, make sure your presenters are completely prepared and confident in the material they're presenting. Practice. Test a recording on colleagues. You've spent time and money on everything else leading up to this online presentation.
Invest a little more time and money on professional instruction to really set your company apart from all your competitors. It will definitely translate to the bottom line when you put on a great presentation in a confident, knowledgeable, and entertaining manner.
Prospects will demonstrate their appreciation by becoming clients.