Click To Hit

Considering we’re combining social networking with product reviews here at SharedReviews, I’ve been following the progress of companies like Judy’s Book for a while that focused on the local service space. I thought the move that Judy’s Book made last year to re-focus their business model on local deals versus local service reviews based on mounting competitive pressure was a good one. I noticed on Andy’s blog, and Techcrunch this morning that they’ve announced they’re scaling operations, letting go of most of their staff, and re-focusing efforts to find a strategic acquirer for the assets of the company.

If you’ve ever doubted Andy’s abilities at communication, read his post on the subject here. If I ever have to face such a hard decision and announcement that affects so many, I hope I’ll be able to do so with similar style and grace as he did in his post. Good luck Andy, and we’ll miss Judy’s Book. You were all doing some very cool stuff we’re going to lament not seeing come to fruition.

We launched the referral program over at SharedReviews yesterday. It’s pretty basic to start, everyone who signs up and references an existing member earns a free review credit which is worth about $2 each. The person who was listed during the signup receives a great bonus themselves, earning up to 4 review credits ($8) when their referrals achieve certain milestones of approved reviews themselves. Specifically:

* 3 Approved Reviews = 1 review credit
* 10 Approved Reviews = 1 review credit
* 25 Approved Reviews = 1 review credit
* 40 Approved Reviews = 1 review credit

We’ve also launched some buttons that people can use on their site. When someone clicks on any one of them, the sign up page locks the user name of the account that generated the button so make sure you login and get your own button code. Since I don’t want to earn any referral credits for my own account, I figured I would reward our top 3 reviewers by placing their nicknames behind the sample buttons below.

Here’s the Button:

Here’s the Banner:

Here’s the Medium Rectangle:

We’ve finally launched our startup SharedReviews.com. We’re all exhausted and a bit wiped from burning the midnight oil trying to ensure everything went smoothly today. So far everything’s gone extremely smooth (knock on wood), but there’s definitely a mental note in there somewhere to invest some additional time prepping before the next launch.

We’ve had some blog exposure that’s helped the generation of consistent signups since we opened the doors late this morning, although we do hope to get even more soon. Such a long road, but we are extremely excited to see all of the positive reactions we’ve received to what we’re trying to do.

Here’s a link to our first corporate blog post. The excerpt is below and I’ll keep posting as more developments happen or when I catch my breath, whichever comes first.

It’s been a longer road than I thought it would be to get to this point (isn’t it always), but we’re finaly here and really look forward to throwing our ideas into your hands for some feedback. I thought long and hard about what to put into this first post and decided to start off with the ideals behind what we are attempting to accomplish before getting into the gritty details of how we plan on doing it…

I’m an avid reader of Guy’s blog and I have to say I’m a huge fan. I’ve posted about how my favorites were his posts on the top ten lists of lies by both VC’s and Entrepreneurs that elicited a few smiles to say the least. Although, there was one thing that kind of perturbed me as I read them. It almost appeared to me that he had a bias against or negative perception of entrepreneurs in general.

Now I’m not saying Guy intended this negative tone on purpose. He was on the other side of the table for many a “pitch” by hungry entrepreneurs, and I’m sure a few of them left their ethics hats in the closet that day incorrectly thinking it would get them closer to achieving their dearly needed capital. Although I never agree with a “ends justifies the means” approach, it does happen with the unexperienced and desperate so I could see how facing it repeatedly could lead to some negative stereotyping.

That’s why I found the newest post on Guy’s blog especially interesting. He’s switched sides and became an entrepreneur himself with a new venture called Truemors. His latest post was about a previous request he made for testers, and a few of the resulting comments that blasted the business idea. His new post basically stated that as an entrepreneur you have to take negative criticism with a grain of salt, and if every entrepreneur believed all the ‘naysayers’ then nothing truly innovative would have ever been created. Very true, and it’s great to see that he now sees the playing field from the other side of that table.

I can support that by highlighting some of our experiences. I’d say that out of all the startups I’ve worked on, the new one we’re launching next week has the best foundation from an operational, user value, and potential revenue perspective than the others combined. I know, like I would say anything different, but we’ve had some extremely positive feedback from experts in many Internet verticals so these aren’t just a bunch of pie in the sky statements I’m making here folks. We’ve even been in the unique position (at least for me) of having to turn down investment offers due to a lack of strategic fit. (Disclaimer: We already secured enough seed capital to get to launch so we wanted more on the table than cash alone.)

With all this going for us you’d think the skies the limit, but I’ve been both successful and unsuccessful with investment groups that gelled strategically. No matter how solid your business idea or the fit, you will come across those that just don’t “get it”.

That’s why I can’t extol the need to grow a thick skin more, especially when dealing with critics before your business model’s been tested. Be prepared for those that make negative assumptions without doing their research, those that misunderstand your goals or vision, and even those that will break your efforts down just for the sake of not wanting to see you succeed.

No one will believe in your ideas if you don’t have unwavering faith in them yourself, and for those that will never believe, your proof can always be in the pudding.

One of the first questions I ask during interviews to increase the ranks here at the startup is

“Do you have any hobbies or other ways to vent stress?”

That’s a very important question, and I’m reminded of it more often now that things are ever approaching our new site launch where unmovable deadlines rear their ugly heads. Stress can be a wonderful thing, it inspires heights of production and creativity you can’t imagine, but you have to have the stamina and the outlets necessary to be able to cope with it in a healthy manner. Otherwise, it can quickly run you down and pop any bubbles of grandeur your vision may have portended.

Stress is something I’ve personally always thrived on, if I don’t have stress I feel like I’m slacking or not progressing down the road of goals I’ve set out for myself. I live, breath, and eat stress, and the only times I can truly say I had concerns for my ability to cope at work was when stress was completely removed from the equation. It’s probably one of the biggest reasons I’ve always gravitated towards sales environments where you only get to eat what you catch.

Now stress does not mean conflict, although conflict will happen in any work environment especially when inevitable levels of brow furrowing startup stress builds within the ranks. It’s important that any conflicts that arise are put to good use such as challenging preconceived notions, or communicating your ideas with vigor and passion. That type of conflict I can handle everyday. It’s when you let conflict become the crux of a problem, instead of being used to solve problems that things can go awry.

When any conflict arises it’s important that those involved always take a step back and communicate after the fact to ensure everyone felt things were constructive and helped you down that path to achieving your goals. Copious amounts of communication can move mountains, and especially at critical times like these should be used without abandon to ensure that misconception and miscommunication don’t ruin the great chemistry that you’ve worked so hard to develop with your partners and co-workers.

Remember that stress is an integral part of any startup, and especially for those who are stress junkies like myself; the way you handle it is one of the most important ingredients to being a successful entrepreneur.

So I made the arduous decision to switch blogging platforms as you can tell by the shiny new digs. It was a tough decision but one that was coming for a long time. I still love Blogware, it’s a great platform and something I would recommend to anyone starting out or new to the blogosphere, but my requirements have matured over the years and I felt it was time to graduate to something a little more versatile. With a fantastic supporting community, and really cool widgets / plug-ins I can play with, Wordpress is the new platform I tapped for the next iteration of Sales Mindset.

Needless to say I’m still working my way up the WordPress learning curve, and I’ve lost allot of the links built over the years due to some quirkiness in the way Blogware created permalinks, but thanks to Frank (Thanks Frank!) and his wonderful DNS skills, I at least have my feed redirected and all of my permalinks go to the monthly archive for the original posts so you shouldn’t get lost trying to find the right article.

My next step is to look for a good stats package since the one my Hosting Provider gives by default melds all of the domains I have associated in the account. If anyone can share any recommendations on something free I can try, or something that doesn’t cost too much but does a fantastic job, let me know.

Goodbye Blogware, after over 3 years I’m truly going to miss you (sniff)

One thing about a startup is that you’re continually being challenged by your budget. It’s a nasty beast that threatens the vision you’re trying to shape on a daily basis, and unless you learn how to tame it and make it work for you, you’ll face huge challenges down that final mile to your launch date.

One important factor in shaping the use of that budget is defining your weak points and addressing them. It’s pretty easy to identify strengths, but defining the areas you’ll need help with is something you should work hard to identify earlier rather than later. It can be scary, but identifying your weaknesses early is a key to any success in early stage companies. Once this has been achieved, you have a few choices of addressing them dependant on how strategic they are to your plans where consultants and contractors offer a boon of resources that usually provide a hell of a lot more bang for the buck than hiring staff.

You like to think you’ve covered your bases when it comes to the key components of your management team, such as technical, marketing, sales, finance etc… but working with experts who live and breathe one of these verticals daily makes all the difference. Working in a startup requires a generalist’s approach even when focused on a particular area, and just the mere distractions that occur on a daily basis can take away from the output in areas you consider yourself to be an expert in.

One thing I truly believe is that when it comes to certain key areas, you can’t “No Frill” your way to success, and I was reminded of that after a 3 hour brainstorming session with the brilliant Marketing/Design team we contracted to help us with the brand strategy of our closed beta. We went through a thorough RFP process to identify our vendor of choice, but after the legal contracts were out of the way the fruit really started to shine as we’ve progressed to digging in on actual work.

I’ve learned it’s very important to focus on quality versus quantity when outsourcing important segments of your project. Identify the best, because even though they may be pricier than someone in your family or network, the output is almost always worth the expenditure. Top firms, whether they are a law firm, design firm, marketing firm, or tax consultants, attract the best talent when they consider new additions to their team. That talent and the associated deep resources are what you’re trying to leverage with your limited budget. Even though they may take a somewhat bigger piece of your budget pie, the odds are in your favor that they’ll have the resources and creative to go beyond your expectations in filling out your weak points.

I buy a lot of stuff, from gadgets, to clothes, to cars to all kinds of things my fast paced modern lifestyle requires. Throw my wife and family into the mix and there’s a whirlwind of consumption that makes Twister look more like a board game than a blockbuster movie.

With all of this hard earned income being spent, what are we gaining? Allot of stuff, sure, that’s why we’re buying things in the first place, because we need stuff… but I mean what do I gain as a consumer? What power am I acquiring and effectively using to improve my life?

They say the consumer has the ultimate power; they can sway markets and dictate the growth or demise of any business all through how they spend their dollars. Sure, where I choose to spend my money combined with all of the other buyers out there does affect the market, but is that the end of where our power lies?

I personally question whether my power as a consumer ends there. I think that with all of the hard earned income I dispose of on a daily basis I can influence things much more than just through my buying choices. With the advent of the Internet which allows me to interact with others in ways never dreamed of there has to be a better way that I can band with other consumers so that we may influence the market to meet the needs of our specific lives.

Specific life is the key term in that statement, feedback to manufacturers has been around for a while but that isn’t what I’m talking about. Some unnamed feedback form will never give the manufacturer the data they need to cater to my specific needs. I’m talking about something different, a vehicle that will allow me to leverage my buying power to its utmost, and maybe even assist with future purchases down the road.

That to me would be the vehicle that would enable me to fully leverage my true power as a consumer, and we hope to bring that vehicle to the market very, very soon.

There’s been a ton of press lately pertaining to big business jumping in on the Social Networking bandwagon. From NBC, to the BBC, and even Proctor & Gamble, everyone seems to want to create their own social network in order to leverage all of that user generated goodness to promote their brand. Although there are huge opportunities to be discovered in how Social Networks can build new revenue streams and strengthen brand loyalty, to me the strategy of trying to create your own mountain is the wrong way to go, let me explain…

Social Networks provide the ability for people to create friend’s lists, nurture a controlled image of oneself, and interact with a community in ways that can become an extremely rewarding and addictive experience. This is obviously a simplistic description of what’s taking place, but when it comes to the net effect social networks have, these features are what I see as the most common denominators driving the success of the top players in the market today. A problem starts to become apparent when you think about the effort versus reward of maintaining your presence in any one of these specific networks. No matter how rewarding emotionally or otherwise, the number that you could reasonably dedicate enough time to garner any viable reward has to be limited unless you don’t need an income and can resign yourself to button mashing as your only contact with the outside world.

If we assume that  you actually have a normal life such that you’re a disposable income generating consumer, only one, two, or maybe a max of three networks will be able to garner enough of your time to make the relationship rewarding. If this is the case, no matter how much you love a brand, product, service, or vertical niche, would you be able to spend enough time to help the community grow if you’re already maintaining profiles and relationships on MySpace, Bebo, or any other of the plentitude of social networking sites that exists today?  Not unless you decided to jump ship, in which case their network better offer something amazing that I've yet to see.

So, if I were a brand manager, would the first thing I do once I realized just how much potential Social Networks have in store be to hire a bunch of developers / marketers and try to build another a-typical Social Network? Or, should I find Social Networks that compliment my brand strategically by leveraging those that have users who match my customer target profile in order to achieve my goals? I'm thinking the latter, and I may be able to show you proof sooner than you think.

I read an interesting article in the globe yesterday where this quote by David Jacobson, a technology director at PricewaterhouseCoopers, struck out at me:

“The world is moving away from capturing people's attention to capturing their intention,”

The article talks about viral marketing, social networks, and the participatory revolution that’s opening up new opportunities in online advertising today. Looking back at the explosion in online advertising over recent years, you’re hard pressed to disagree with the validity of Advertising on the Internet and whether it works or not, so the future in this market won’t necessarily be about any huge revolutions, but more so about innovations to improve targeting and efficiency. Today, billions are spent quarterly by businesses to acquire the attention of internet surfers hoping that they’ll eventually purchase their products or services, but how can we improve the efficiency?

What the quote above highlights for me is that we’re witnessing a subtle, yet powerful change in focus from attention to intention. This means that traditionally I as a business owner wanted my message plastered in front of as many people as possible to increase my sales, but I now realize that the highest conversions and best efficiency for my advertising dollar takes place when my message is displayed in front of a person who’s interested in my vertical. Even more ideal is if you can catch them with their hand on their wallet ready to make a purchase, but that’s another story for a different day.

How can you get your marketing message in front of a pre-qualified buyer? It all comes down to the field of battle, where is your advertisement being displayed and who you’re targeting. The world of social networking and community niche marketing has provided the ability for you to start down the road of testing that strategy today. So, when you spend your next online advertising dollar, think about how to target user intent and you may find your online advertising budget stretching farther than you ever imagined.

Based on a Businessweek report, Google and Ebay have announced an exclusive deal where Google will provide all text advertising on Ebay International sites. This comes on the heels of a deal announced back in May between Yahoo and Ebay where Yahoo cornered exclusive advertising rights on their US based properties.

The key to this new announcement is the fact they are promoting the advertising medium of “click to call” which allows a surfer to enter their phone number directly into the ad itself, where the system will then call both the surfer and the advertiser and connect them on a conference call. Both Ebay and Google have VOIP solutions through their respective GoogleTalk and Skype technologies. 

This move is a definite boost to the concept, which had allot of hype when I first posted about it back in November last year, but hasn't really materialized into as popular of an advertising medium as I had originally thought. In my previous article I hailed Click Per Call as an advertising medium to watch since it provided a tangible and manageable process to online sales, something that PPC could only dream to achieve. An interesting comment came in lamenting the hype, stating that although Click per Call had some immediate applications, anything that didn't have a complex sales cycle wouldn't necessarily see an immediate benefit.

In hindsight the statement was quite prophetic, and IMO this deal was more to foster buzz and communicate the benefits of this advertising medium for both of their VOIP solutions versus anything really revenue related. Neither company is willing to confirm that this deal will affect their bottom lines for at least the next two years, and they were unwilling to commit as to which of their technologies would be used, so to me this has more of an awareness and marketing strategy behind the announcement than anything tangible from a revenue perspective.

I've really been trying to wrap my mind around the science of Direct Navigation as of late, and I had a bit of an epiphony recently that most of you thinking about this space have probably already thought of but few may be willing to admit… and that's the Internet industry's renewed vigor in the “eyeball” hunt.

That's right, I said it… Eyeballs… it's not a dot boom relic like my last entrepreneurial effort, but a confirmation that most of the predictions around online advertising and site “visitors” were correct albeit definitely a little ahead of their time.

Ok, so the market's matured, most surfers are on broadband, most are comfortable with shopping online… so what does this mean for Internet Traffic and why is it important to think of all of these coveted valuable and monetizable streams as “eyeballs” and not just a faceless term that removes the humanity from the gold almost every search and media company online is striving to compete for?

My realization started when I was sitting at the airport waiting for a flight to Los Angeles last week… the flight I was on was packed, there was no room to breathe and I was wedged into a middle seat between two big guys with 17″ laptops watching Soprano's and Lost episodes respectively. If you've ever been on a United Airlines mid-jumper you'd know exactly what I mean since I swear that airline has the smallest amount of legroom in the industry.

Being trapped in that claustrophibic position without the ability to breathe let alone grab my laptop or a magazine to take my mind off the grueling 3 hour flight, I couldn't help but find my mind wandering back to when I was standing in line and watching the cram of people bumping and shoving there way to check-in as if being first in line would speed up the trip itself. I remembered looking around the room noticing everyone almost stepping over each other trying to get into position when it hit me… Although they were from all different walks of life, had different  reasoning behind why they were there, where they were coming from, and where they were going… they all shared one very important commonality…

They were all following the same instinctual human process to achieve a shared intent, arriving at their destination expeditiously by aggressively jockeying into position to check in even though they all knew it wouldn't necessarily speed up the trip itself.

Why is this a very important realization you may ask? Of course traffic is comprised of people you may say. Well, one of the things I think most hunters of online traffic forget is the catalyst, the intent or the reasoning behind the origin of the traffic which results in a transaction that fuels the e-commerce food chain. IMHO, we focus too much on conversions, traditional search versus direct navigation, click through rates and all of the demographics and labels for the process that we use to describe how people find and acquire what they want online.

I realized that without understanding the psychology behind the motive from a sometimes flawed human perspective, you will never understand the true underlying science behind Direct Navigation traffic, it's dominance, logevity, or market share in the online search space. It's like trying to figure out the meaning of the existence of the universe without understanding the intent or logic behind the big bang, it all becomes hit and miss conjecture or theory no matter how much we understand of what has happened since.

I'll expand on my attempted discovery of this “intent” and how that fits within the different search methodologies popular today in future posts, but if I may leave you with one message with this article its: Eyeballs are good, Traffic is bad, which may be a little contradictory to what everyone's comfortable opinion of this space is today.

Google, Yahoo,and Marchex have all been making waves by adding Pay Per Call types of advertising to their range of Lead Generation services in the last month. This clearly highlights the value of this new advertising medium that a few smaller players and even AOL have been experimenting with for a while now.

Think about it for a second… a key element in any marketing strategy is to ensure a quick turnaround time on lead generation to get the interested party in front of the purchase while still warm and “excited” about the advertising message. With current Internet Pay - Per advertising available today, this is all left in the hands of the potential buyer.

With Pay Per Click, or even the new Pay Per Unique models dominating the advertising networks, you have a potential buyer who sees a marketing message and is interested enough to click for more information… this is the point any supplier would love to deploy their human marketing / sales  resources to get in front of the potential customer in order to qualify and capitalize on the interest. With the current models of advertising control is lost to the whim of the potential purchaser allowing the opportunity for doubt to creep into their buy decision due to a potential objection that may not even exist thereby risking the sale. That type of scenario always negatively affects conversion numbers.

Imagine if you could immediately initiate a conversation with the potential customer the moment they clicked that link and you now start to see the potential of this advertising model and why the big boys are all clamoring to get into the mix. Add to this the benefits provided to local SME's who can geotarget the ads and you see a whole new market emerging for Internet Advertising since brick and mortar's have traditionally shied away from anything online. They prefer to use the yellow pages where the majority of leads are, yes you guessed it, funneled through the telephone.

The interesting new twist on this application is Google's entry with a service that's rumored to connect the seller and the buyer without exchanging any numbers or personal information. This is clearly a differentiator for users who are scared they'll be added to telemarketing lists or have their privacy compromised that may generate even more results compared to the competition in this privacy conscious environment the Internet has become.

In Google's case, a phone icon has begun to appear with some ads; after clicking on it, users can enter their phone number. Google then generates a call between the user and the advertiser, according to a frequently asked questions (FAQ) page detailing aspects of the pilot program on Google's Web site.

The call is free to the Google users.

It'll be interesting to see what happens in the near future as the market reacts to this model. My predictions are Pay Per Click will be relegated to the back burner as Pay Per Impression has and there'll be many new positions for inside sales reps and customer service agents to fill their time and pocket books.

I was reading this article today on Wired discussing how with today's technology, we as human beings can accomplish 10 times more work than ever before and goes on to debate whether employees should be just because they can. My understanding of the author's intent was to remind us not to let technology get in the way of fulfilling our personal and spiritual needs, in effect don't take work too seriously…

Interesting point but I disagree, let me explain.

Technology allows you to accomplish more, definitely, and the growth curve in this hyper competitive market ensures that we will continue to have longer and longer work days where even today I consider myself “on-call” weeknights and weekends for my employer and customers. Now IMO, this is not because of technology… it's because I have Passion for what I do.

The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence, but in the mastery of his passions.

Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809 - 1892)

I have been in a corporate environment now for a good portion of my career, but as you can see allot of my experience is centered around Entrepreneurial endeavors. Having passion is a key ingredient in any start-up effort, and a requirement when developing creative thought processes in order to transform a vision into reality. I feel that the passion I harbor and infuse in everything I tackle no matter the odds is what has fueled what success I have had on either side of the entrepreneurial / corporate fence. The one really shocking thing that I've run into working with some people in corporate environments is that passion is sometimes even frowned upon.

Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things.

Denis Diderot (1713 - 1784)

Anyone who doesn't believe in a project are quickly cast out of a start-up environment, but sometimes you'll find that in a corporation you'll have people who exhibit the emotional attachment to their efforts of someone who seems to only work for their next pay cheque… ”It's just a job”.

In terms of my compensation outside of commissions I'm no different. I do have a small investment in the company I work for but that's out of my own interest and nothing to do with any serious ownership stake that would fuel any passion in and of itself. So when you look at me from the outside, you may (and it has happened) ask the question “Why is he so serious about his job?”.

Every man without passions has within him no principle of action, nor motive to act.
 
Claude A. Helvetius (1715 - 1771)

That answer is Passion. I apply passion to both my professional and personal efforts. I take advantage of every minute of every day to accomplish as much as I can to enrich my life and proceed as far down the road we call life as possible before my journey ends.

Passion holds up the bottom of the universe and genius paints up its roof.

Chang Ch'ao

So if you're not sure if you have passion about your work… you may want to ask yourself these:

If you find that your duties displease or stress you out to the point of being negatively emotional… you may not have passion.

If you decide that solving problems is more important than growing and taking calculated risks for success… you may not have passion.

If you focus on the follow through of processes to the detriment of your results… you may not have passion.

If you stop caring about what pains your customers, or the employees whom you are accountable to… you definitely do not have passion.

If you asked yourself these questions, and you find you don't have the passion you thought you did, I'm not sure how you can get it since it definitely doesn't grow on trees.

What I do suggest is that you find something in your life that you find passion in and stick with it. Even though you can fake it in the sea of faces at a corporation, passion for what you do will be the only avenue to your true personal and professional success.

All humanity is passion; without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual.

Honore De Balzac (1799 - 1850)

And I have to say, it's about time… It's great to see some of the more successful and noteable business leaders such as Mr. Trump and Mr. Cuban stepping up to the blogging plate to share their thoughts, experiences and ideals. These snippets of wisdom being brought forth through this new medium will foster more innovation, creativity, and motivation for new young entrepreneurs everywhere.

In taking a look at his first articles, what truly stood out to me is his latest on Business Ethics citing the example of recently ex-CEO of TYCO Dennis Kozlowski. He had quite the scandal emerge where he was recently convicted of being caught with his proverbial “pants down” for receiving bonuses that were not approved by the board of directors.

Ethics, Morals, and Character are things that are not always synonymous with business, and it's examples such as this that makes building trust a sometimes difficult thing to create in any industry. I've had my own experiences and dilemmas in my professional history and chose to take the bite and walk the right path which is not always the most profitable, at least it wasn't for me in the short term. Mr. Trump proves you can do both, and someday I will as well.

I saw this on Gizmodo and HAD to blog it. It's rare that I have the opportunity to blog about two of the main professional passions of my life at the same time, Sales and Blogging.

In this Gizmodo has a funny quip quoting an old favorite movie of mine… Glengarry Glenross… Perfect example for the application. I wonder if Tucows would be willing to give all of us in the sales force free Ipods… Tucows?… hello?…. anyone? … Bueller?….

“…..First things first. These are the new leads. These are the Glengarry leads. To you, these are gold; you do not get these. Because to give them to you would be throwing them away. Put that coffee DOWN! Coffee is for closers!”

An amazing article on Entrepreneur.com, and definitely a good read. John Osher who founded and sold a couple of businesses to large corporations jotted down all the mistakes he made and he saw other entrepreneurs make along their paths to success.

As a former and eventually future badge holder, I have to agree with every single point. There are 17 of them that he initially jotted down on the back of a napkin when he sold one of his first businesses to Hasbro, and then used as a guideline in his amazing success of the “SpinBrush” toothbrush that was America's #1 selling toothbrush less than 15 months after launch, and which he eventually sold to Procter & Gamble for a cool $475 million.

Here are the mistakes with some brief descriptions as provided by the article.

Mistake 1: Failing to spend enough time researching the business idea to see if it's viable.

This is a continuation of my very first post to this blog that was basically a bit of a rant with no clear direction. I found this amazing article on 7 ways to to stop “selling” and start building relationships by Ari Galper that describes solutions to address the need to focus not so much on how to alleviate old-school preconceptions of sales stigma, but more so how to avoid leaving customers with the impression they were forced into a buy decision against their will that creates this stigma in the first place.

I have always subscribed to the philosophy that if the service or product does not fit a client, don't sell it to them. You only damage the relationship and eventually lose the customer. One of my biggest qualifying questions when I was in discussions with a prospect for domain registrations was …

 ”Is price your biggest concern? Or does reliability and service level have any weight in your decision?”

If the answer was yes to the former and no to the latter I would explain my opinion on why I believe the opposite, then offer to conclude my discussion and provide my contact information for when / if they change their mind. I plant the seed, but I know I will never be successfull until they feel direct “pain” from their beliefs.

Price is not how Tucows competes. Dedication to wholesale, a 5 star platform, and one of the most experienced sales and support staff in our industry is how we compete. We sell solutions, not just domains and ancillary services. We only make money if our resellers are successfull, not if they fail since they purchase from us on a transactional level at the time of purchse from their customers. That is the trust we provide in the solutions we suggest to our clients.

Here is a great teaser for you to go and take a look at the article itself which is an amazing read:

New Thinking = New Results

Maybe it's time to take a different approach. Maybe we need to seriously analyze our sales thinking so we can identify why we're not making more sales. Take a look at the table below and thinkabout your current selling mindset. How would your selling behaviors change if you changed your sales thinking?

One great strength for any successful salesperson or business is the ability to adapt to a new situation. SME’s and even large Corporations are constantly changing their business model and product / service offerings. So how do you teach your sales staff to sell Blogware if it is a big departure from what they normally have sold? 

One of the first steps in a sales approach is identifying your client profile. If you know what type of client you are looking for with services you already sell, what is the client profile of a blogger? This is pretty simple to do for Domain owners, Hosting customers, ISP customers, Digitial Certificate or Email customers. Hell, you don't even have to use one of these services to effectively sell it.

So why is this so difficult for blogging customers?

Well, I believe that one of the reasons is that since Blogs are applied on so many diverse verticals and new uses are being discovered daily, looking at the application of one doesn’t necessarily give you any better of an indication of client profile than who a cellular customer calls with their cell phone. It may give some indications of the value proposition to analyze a call history, but with people calling so many different places that use wouldn’t be able to “profile” a cell user any better than how a publisher uses their blog. These are just people who need to communicate.

I personally think it is much more psychological in nature, or the need to be “heard”. A blog is a perfect way of doing that and no matter the application this is the end result, you share what you want, when you want, and with whom you want.

How do you quantify that? What percentage of customers have this personality trait? I really don’t know other than to say that I love to be heard, I know most Sales people love to be heard, and the fact I use my blog all the time makes it really easy for me to sell the service to my clients. If you are not at least somewhat emotionally invested in an offering, you will never be very successful at selling it.

The key behind blogging is that it is part of a new culture that is developing. It’s a belief in the ability for everyone to be heard, its Mass Media controlled by the Masses. What does that mean? It means that the target profile is anyone who has ever voted, called into a talk show, provided feedback, coordinated a party, has a special interest, wants to be successful at anything business related… or just likes to keep track of their thoughts.  This means most of everyone.

Blogware has been designed from the ground up to be intuitive for anyone who has surfed the internet, used an operating system, and knows the basics of any email client. The fact it is database driven and dynamic means immediate gratification to publishing on the Internet and no need to understand FTP delays or understand what a “HTML Page” is. This immediate gratification and ease of use lowers the bar for entry to the majority of internet surfers out there whose attention span is less than 3 seconds, and although it may be a little too much for your Gram and Grandpa, it’s not too much for your parents, you, or especially your children, and that means the Hosted web presence market has opened up significantly past business applications which is the majority of paid Hosting customers today. This results in a very broad target market and more customers for you. All you have to do is help your clients “get it” by exposing the benefits of Blogging. Traditional Mass Media is doing that today by mentioning blogs and bloggers on a daily basis in major news articles. Prominent Bloggers are doing this every day on their own creating a viral marketing effect for all of their visitors.

The only way for you to do this from a sales perspective is to insure your sales staff “gets it”. The key is blogging is “Sticky” and so rewarding that although strongly encouraging use of the tool by your sales staff may be a burden at first, as the benefits of networking through this revolutionary Internet Printing Press are exposed, people become addicted. This is the same process your clients will go through, and if your sales reps have as well then they will be way more effective in evangelizing the use of the tool to your customers.

The key is use. If you use it you “get it”. If you “get it” you can sell it. The rest works out in the wash…

Perception, meaning, understanding, delusion, ignorance, amazement……. These are just words. One who reads each of these words should derive an emotional response of some nature. Each one of us are unique, but when presented alone without context each word will have it’s consensus interpretation. These words might, but not all.

So here I will present the one word this article will be focused on. When looking at the recent history of humankind, this one, small, 5 letter infant of a word has instilled reactions of horror, love, inspiration, abandonment, indifference, excitement, accomplishment, creation, destruction, and about every other possible expletive for a reaction any emotionally based creature such as your breathing consuming self can have.

Now…..take a deep breathe……clear your thoughts….. and be prepared for the unveiling of this momentous and history changing word that IMHO has been the single factor in shaping the way the world is today, no matter whether you view that to be in a positive or negative light……..and that word is “Sales”. Don’t close that browser yet!

Why the long winded lead up to a common everyday word you may ask? Am I trying to “sell” you something with this post? Nope, no products, no services, just wipe away the expectations, any negative experiences, and just think about that word for a second and what it means to you. Take a moment to view and compare your thoughts to the different literal meanings of the word sales. Also, please take into consideration that it is 3 in the morning right now, I am the Sales Manager for the world’s largest wholesale domain Registrar, and I just can’t sleep

Maybe it was the fact that today, and for the second time, I have been introduced by one of my senior level co-workers as an Account Manager. Is this because that person is unaware of my title or just forgotten it? Definitely not, this individual’s intelligence I would never question since I have personally witnessed a portion of the brilliance he/she (No finger pointing here) is capable of. I have even had a further descriptive thrown where I have been artfully described as a Farmer and not a Hunter in my relationship with my clients in a further attempt to shamefully kick the can and hide the word …..sshhhhhh …..”Sales”.

When I questioned this introduction I have been offered the explanation of the fact that the unanimous view and feedback from our clients is that they do not like to be sold, whether we agree or not with their perceptions, this is the case.

I thought about that for awhile, does this mean that they grudgingly log into their ordering interfaces through a web browser and purchase our products and services with a gun pointed to their head? Are they fending off their client’s request’s as they clamor up the path to their office with pitchforks and torches screaming “GET ME MY DOMAIN NAME!”. Do they place their orders while they curse the name of the supplier that has two heads and forces them into a situation where they MUST purchase something and be “sold” a product or service against their will by the evil bovine aggressors?

Maybe….but I hope not.

I'm not sure what view of society our clients have as this is a very internal interpretation of the world around them and can only be surmised through intimate conversations on a personal level of which I have only had rare opportunities to carefully explore with some long-time clients. Remember Sales 101? NEVER discuss Politics or Religion with a client!

What I can do is explore my interpretation of the world around me, and all I can see is consumption. I see shopping malls, I see huge discount stores, I see restaurants, automobiles, houses, clothing stores. These are all the establishments we go whenever we receive any compensation for the work we do and are derivitives of the commodity based society we live in. I acquire personal satisfaction and gratification from the work I do, but let’s face it, a fuzzy feeling doesn’t taste all that great with ketchup! We work in order to be able to consume, we live in a society bent on buying more than your neighbor and are brought up that way, this is what capitalism is, free market competition.

The ONLY truly non-consumer based individual, or person who does not REALLY want to be sold anything is someone who barters for the things they cannot hunt or create themselves, and is a rarity in even the third world countries that exist today.

WE LOVE TO BE SOLD! So why do some people get a prickly sick clammy feeling every time they hear the doorbell ring and see a man with a vacuum standing behind it?

I quote a couple of idioms of the word “sell”:

sell a bill of goods Informal
To take unfair advantage of.
sell down the river Informal
To betray the true trust or faith of.

Yes, very very bad….have I ever sold a product or service that did not meet the highest standards of ethical or moral belief for a value not greater than it may be perceived by the general populace? Have I ever prescribed to the belief of Caveate Emptor? You may draw my answer from one of the most famous people in recorded history:

“Let him who is without sin cast the first stone”

Have you ever exaggerated in your life to accomplish a goal? Have you ever made a statement to delude or dissuade someone’s belief for what you believed to be the greater good? If you said no to either of these questions then you have never t(s)old your children about Santa Clause or the Tooth Fairy.

Sold – Told
Sell – Tell
Sale – Tale

Interesting isn’t it? Why is this simple word so similar to the descriptor of communication? IMHO it is communication, just a more effective means. Anyone who has had their own company and raised capital has sold investors on their ideas or plans. This means every CEO or President in today’s society. Why are these people chosen? One primary reason is their ability and talent at the fine art of communication.

An associate asked me recently why I do not invest in the stock market. He knows I have a great understanding of how it works, more than the average investor anyways. I have had my own company and been involved in a couple of start-ups so raising seed capital and looking at options for taking the company public were two areas I definitely had to focus on. With the burst of the bubble in 2000 my dreams were dashed, that happens, oh well, I am stronger for it, but I digress with that rant and I’ll save that for another day

I told him why I would NEVER invest in a company that I did not have complete control over, and this is something any stock broker who promotes mining stock on a Canadian exchange may not want you to hear, so if you have sensitive ears, or are a former Bre-X shareholder please skip the following paragraph:

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS AN ABREVIATED DESCRIPTION DESIGNED TO COMMUNICATE AN IDEA SO MAY BE CONSIDERED A SELLING TACTIC!!! IT IS DERIVED THROUGH EXPERT TESTIMONY FROM INDIVIDUALS IN THE MINING INDUSTRY

Back in the late 80's, any mining company who was looking to raise capital in order to drill a prospective property to see the amount of gold or silver or other precious material for the later development of a mine, first creates a prospectus based on a Geological Survey. This document is similar to a business plan and is used to “sell” investors on providing capital to facilitate the drilling attempt. A geological survey may consist of many components including but not limited to surface samples that are analyzed for mineral content, expert testimony from a Geologist that did a survey on a particular property in order to calculate the potential of a find and qualify the investment amount. This would be the majority of the basis for the prospectus used to raise sometimes millions of dollars to initiate drilling operations on a particular location or locations to acquire core samples for the “proof” of the potential of a particular property. Something that is never written is the fact that you had absolutely NO way of judging whether one location had a specified potential amount of minerals over another until you actually drilled it, and your geological survey has about the same amount of a chance of predicting this outcome as if you went to your local Fortuneteller and paid him/her $10 to sign the damn prospectus instead of the Geologist. In terms of the idioms above, a geologist who signs these “surveys” is more of a salesman that I am, and I have been excelling in this field for over 10 years.

This can be applied on a lesser or greater level for any start-up in most industries from what I have seen. There is no way to definitely tell what the potential of a specific company is until they implement the business plan. It is all pretty much a dog and pony show, and unless I can personally speak with that CEO on the telephone or in person to judge their character, I would never invest.

So beware the SALES voodoo! Do not believe anything you hear! Never buy anything again! Marketing is not shunned like sales because it’s not some sleazy sales person trying to force a set of encyclopedias down your throat! It has to be truth if it is in a TV commercial or in a magazine, just not when a real person whom you can judge and perceive communicates it effectively to you!

I hope I have entertained you with my rant today, and I also hope that the next time you hear that someone is selling something, you don’t immediately run for the hills and think about it for a second first. You may realize they are just trying to communicate what they truly believe is an opportunity for you in an effective manner………pssssst….. “buyer beware”