It’s Called Work For a Living, by Larry Winget, a Review

My usual rotation for reading follows a pattern of a business book, a religious book, and something else. Last time around, I was a little burned out on business books, so I went to the bookstore with the thought of getting a book that has some valuable insights, but is also a lot of fun to read.I ended up buying a copy of “It’s Called Work for a Reason”, by Larry Winget. Larry is a self- proclaimed “irritational speaker”, who gets in the readers’ face by pontifacting on things that you and I already know, and maybe are guilty of ignoring.
Some of Larry’s thoughts:

• Teamwork doesn’t work. Being a successful manager involves making stars out of your employees..
• You aren’t being paid to enjoy your job. You’re being paid to work.
• You’re responsible for your own results.

It sounds pretty simple, and it is, but Larry reinforces a good work ethic in a straight forward, humorous fashion, that I found very refreshing.

If you want a quick read, that will make you better at what you do, I’d suggest you take a look at Larry’s book.

You’d Think They Would Know Better ZD-NET and SPAM

Once a year or so, I unsubscribe to everything email. Newsletters, marketing, things I want, things I don’t want. It doesn’t matter, it’s a purge, a way to get things in my inbox back in order.

This year, I’ve only had a bad experience with one company, and to my surprise, it was ZD-NET.   Their emails keep coming, and coming, and coming, like the Terminator.

So, I sent a nice email out to  Jason Young, CEO at Ziff-Davis pubishing.

Jason,

I know this is not intentional on the part of your teams, but ZD has grown so much that when it comes to email, you are a victim of your own success.

Half of my inbox was being filled up with your publications, and despite multiple what appeared to be successful attempts to unsubscribe, I’m still getting them.

I’m a reader, I know that ZD frequently rallies against this type of issue. Could you have someone on your team investigate the issue, and see what’s going on?

Thanks

Paul Misner

I didn’t get a response from anyone on Jason’s staff, but I did have the Web Buyer’s Guides Stop coming, but other email from Ziff Davis keeps coming and coming and coming.  At least 5 more since I wrote this letter.

The Can SPAM act requires

that your email give recipients an opt-out method. You must provide a return email address or another Internet-based response mechanism that allows a recipient to ask you not to send future email messages to that email address, and you must honor the requests. You may create a “menu” of choices to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to end any commercial messages from the sender.

Ziff-Davis has been made aware that this is a problem, yet they are not addressing it.   What’s up??

Note: Class Action Attorneys, count me out. I don’t want a free subscription to PC World for 2 months, while you collect a big settlement.

What a Company Can Do to Keep Me as a Customer

I started writing this article shortly after being locked in an airplane on a runway for 2 hours. The first draft was noticeably more negative than I normally am. So, here is the much calmer second draft.

I’m a salesperson. I love it. But I’m also a customer too. And sometimes, I’m a very difficult customer.

Sometimes I don’t live up to my own high standards. I try to achieve perfection in my profession, but it’s an unreachable goal. I’m human, but that doesn’t stop me from everyday trying to do my best.

Ocassionaly, when I write an article like this, I’ll get an anonymous message from someone who has some complaint about my past service. Please, don’t be anonymous. Let me know what I’ve done, and we’ll see if together, we can make it right.

OK, so here are 10 things that any salesperson, or any company can do to raise your chances of keeping me as a customer.

1) If I call you, Ms. Salesperson, and you are not at your office, don’t leave a voicemail telling me to call you on your cell phone. Please forward your calls. (The technology is only 10 years old or so, so pick it up).Anytime a customer wants to talk to me, it’s important. Important enough that I forward my calls. If I don’t answer your call, just leave voicemail. I’m with another customer, if it’s during business hours. One number to call: 877-VPNDude (876-3833). It’s simple to remember too.

2) If, Big Company, you have me on hold, please refrain from having a taped recording that tells me how great your company is, and don’t use that message to try to sell me anything. Each minute I’m on hold is a minute that I’m thinking about taking my business elsewhere. If your company was really great, someone would answer my call. I know that sometimes you are slammed, so at the very least, play music. I can then put you on speakerphone, and get some work done while you finish up with the other customers.

3) Please know what makes you different from the competition, Mr. Salesperson.

A lot of my competition doesn’t read my website. Don’t worry, I’m reading theirs. I know all about what they’re doing. I know where I’m better than them, and I know where they’re gaining on me. I know their financial picture and what the analysts are saying about them. If you want to know about my competitors, call me. I’d be happy to give you a brain dump.

4) Read my website. Google my company. Don’t ask me what I do.

I do my homework. It is a privilege to have the opportunity to spend time with you, and I like being prepared. I check your website, Google your company, and Google your name.

5) Please don’t leave me a voicemail without your phone number, Mr. Salesperson. I don’t have my phone book handy all the time, but I will have your message.

If number my competitor does that to you, remember that my phone number is easy to remember- 877-VPNDude. If they send you an email, and it doesn’t have their number, again call me, the number is 877-VPNDude.

6) Please don’t arrive consistently late for meetings, Ms. Salesperson Most of us live and commute in DC traffic, and we know that even the best of us will, sometimes, hit a snag. Many of us have kids, and they get bloody noses or fall just when we’re just getting ready to leave for the call. It happens, but not every time.

I give myself one hour before my first appointment in DC in the morning. If I’m running late, 95% of the time, it’s because my earlier appointment is running late. I’ll call you if that happens.

7) If you want to sell me something by conference call or Webex, please don’t be late. If I have a team of people on a call, and I’m waiting for a salesperson, it’s costing my company a lot of money.

I am on a conference call 5 minutes before it begins, and 10 minutes before a Webex begins. If I’m not on time, it means that my last customer call has run late. I’ll do anything in my power to let you know that.

If you don’t love your product, or your job, please don’t bother to call me, Ms. Salesperson.

I have never taken a job with a company whose products I did not love. Here’s why. Because I’d know I’d stink at it, and I’d waste my time and your time, and maybe do irreparable damage to my relationship with you. I’ve worked with products that were difficult to sell, that I couldn’t sell, but I believed in them, and still do.

And sales… I love it. I love getting on the phone, calling you, educating you, having you educate me, writing emails, doing my newsletter and website. I work a whole lot, but have unbelievable freedom at the same time. My job uses all my creativity, I never run out of things to learn, and I get to talk to my true bosses, YOU, everyday.

9) Fight like a madmen internally for me, when I have a problem. That’ll keep me as a customer.

I learned this one the hard way, and it won’t ever happen again. I had a customer, the World Bank, who I absolutely loved to work with, but who was having some problems with the product I was working with. My customer at the World Bank knows more about Linux and Unix than probably 95% of us, and he probably knew more about my products than most of my first tier engineers at the time. He had a problem that I escalated to the head of support, who just sat on it, and sat on it, even though I called a couple of times to follow up. By the time I was able to get an engineer to help him, it was too late. I lost the customer

World Bank, I can’t tell you how bad I felt losing you, but I can tell you that I’ll never lay down for anyone when I’m representing a customer.

That being said, I’ve been extremely excited about the responsiveness I’ve seen from Product Management, and Technical Support since I’ve joined Websense. They all know me, I think I’ve only had to shout once.10) Please don’t waste my time, Mr. Salesperson, trying to sell products that don’t work for my organization.Guess what? I am always trying to find a reason that I can’t sell to you. I’ll let my product managers know that reason, and if they can’t or don’t want to fix it, I’ll be the first one in the conference room who says good-bye. And if I’m in that conference room, you better believe that I’ve done everything before my first call to you to see if I can’t sell to you.and the bonus…11) Put yourself in my shoes once in a while, Ms. Salesperson. Download your demos, try your own products, and take notes. Let your inside team know the problems, and try to get them fixed.

Search Engine Optimization: Tuning Your Site for More Visitors

The Internet is a very large and somewhat intimidating environment. With well over 60 million pages on the Internet, and with the Fortune 500 pouring millions of dollars in Internet advertising and paid placement, the adage. “If you build it, they will come”, simply is not true.

The true currency of the Internet is information. That’s what users are looking for, and if you provide end users with valuable information for your targeted group, and organize your website so that search engines will give you a high placement, then you will get the audience that you desire. Money may help in getting placed on the Internet, but intelligent information is still is of greater value to the search engines, and by definition will always need to be so. If a search engine takes a user primarily to sponsored sites of little value, the user will most likely find an alternative search method.

Search Engine Optimization

A search engine optimization (SEO) plan should be a part of any web marketing strategy. A business can pay tens of thousands of dollars for a search engine consultant, but it is not necessary. There are a number of free and low-cost tools out there to do analysis for you. Combined with hard work and a bit of ingenuity, you can find yourself in the prime time search engine space, the top 20 of Google, MSN, Yahoo or Ask.

Throughout this article, I will use the example of a typical hardcover book to draw analogies to what search engines are looking for.

What are you about?

And who do you want to reach? You wouldn’t try to write a book without a theme, and you shouldn’t have a website without a theme. Your theme is the mission for your site, and should be consistent with your overall marketing and sales plan. You should frame your mission in the following way.

I wish to provide my readers with information on _______________________ and I will receive __________________.

The first portion of this statement is what you are giving. If you provide nothing of value, then a searcher or a search engine probably won’t arrive at your site. The phrase “unique value proposition” gets thrown around these days, but in this case the phrase is entirely appropriate. The more unique and valuable the information you provide is, the greater the chance you’ll be placed higher on a search engine.

The second portion lists what outcomes you want. Your goal for a business site should ultimately provide some financial value. An objective like “raised brand awareness” is only a partial objective. “Raised brand awareness which will ease my access into major accounts and result in more, faster, and better sales,” is a much more complete mission.

Meta Tags

Meta tags are equivalent to the keywords a library database would have about a book. Once you have your mission down, you should be able to further break down the information topics you provide into keywords. These keywords should be added as Meta tags to your website. Meta tags should reflect precisely what information your site provides. You should keep your metatags at a limit of 300 characters.

Title Analysis

The name of your website is probably more equivalent to a title of a book, but a website also has a title. This website title is the subtitle of your site, and will be used by the search engines to categorize your site. A title should be relevant to your site and also your geography, if you do business in a certain area. For example, you should be “Washington, D.C.’s number one ad agency” if that is your market.

Robots

A robot, or crawler, is used by a search engine to read your site. You should check and see if robots can read your entire site, except for those areas that you don’t want the search engines to crawl. There are tools to do this mentioned below.

Keyword density

When a search engine’s robot reads a site, it is looking for a percentage of keywords that are the same or similar to each other. While in normal writing it’s good to mix things up, on the Internet consistency is the rule of the day. Try to have 4%-7% of your content using the keyword topics. Don’t overdue it, the search engine bots will flag your site for keyword spamming. A good rule of thumb is just to mentally focus on your keywords while you write your content. Much of the time, this conscious focus will be all it takes to get you in the correct range.

Backlinks

When you pick up a book at a book store, you probably look for the reviews on a dust jacket. There are probably a number of quick one-liners on the back from other famous authors. If a book merits a thumbs up from another author whose work you enjoy, it is more likely you’ll pick up the book.

Backlinks work in much the same fashion. Search engine robots are looking for sites that are connected to you. Each site that is connected to you has a relative rating or value placed upon it by the search engines. Your placement is largely based upon the relative value of the other sites and the number of sites backlinked to you.

Authority Sites

When a site is deemed authoritative by a search engine, it receives higher rankings in terms of site value. A link from an authoritative site is a great way to raise your value on a search engine. It’s even better to become an authoritative site. Groups such as trade organizations, museums, or industry publications seem to be deemed authoritative more often than ordinary sites.

Tools and other sites

There are a number of tools that you can use to analyze your site for search engine optimization. Some of the best are free.

You can get some great tools for free from: www.fromshawn.com . Shawn Pringle is an excellent Internet marketer in his own right, and he’s giving away some of the best tools on the market for search engine optimization. Shawn is just a fantastic guy, and he’s a pleasure to do business with. I also love his shareware PR Prowler tool.

The Google toolbar provides a great resource for quickly looking at page rankings.

I have a good, very low cost hosting provider, www.siteground.com. The free SEO tools that they offer are to me worth the cost of signing up for a website, even if you don’t use it. A year of service at Siteground is $6.95 a month, which includes their free SEO tools.

Last but not least, check out www.seochat.com . In my opinion, it is the most definitive site devoted to search engine optimization.

You shouldn’t expect results overnight, and in fact you should be planning your SEO strategy to start bearing fruit in six to nine months. It’s been rumored that Google “sandboxes” new sites for up to nine months to keep them out of top rankings, so be patient.

Snake Oil SEO

I was asked recently by a friend if doing SEO could get her in trouble with the search engines. The answer is “NO” if you use ethical techniques like the ones described above. You are actually helping the search engines improve their ability to find information by using these techniques.

Beware of the “SEO Snake Oil Salesmen” who promise top placements in days for a fee. These are equivalent to “get rich” schemes. They frequently involve using tactics that could get you in trouble with the search engine providers. The only way to get a better placement is to follow the rules, and provide legitimate value.

Search Engine Optimization is a science, but it’s not rocket science. If you use the tools available to you as well as some ingenuity and hard work, you will move your website into the forefront, and you will make your business more successful.

When I Love My Competition

I love my competition when:

1) They ask you to call their cell phone number on their office voicemail, especially if it’s important. Anytime a customer wants to talk to me, it’s important. Important enough that I forward my calls. (The technology is only 10 years old or so, they might want to pick it up).  If I don’t answer your call, just leave voicemail. I’m with another customer, if it’s during business hours.  One number to call: 877-VPNDude (876-3833). It’s simple to remember too.

2) They keep their customers on hold, and have a taped recording that tells how great their company is, or try to sell you something. If their company was really great, someone would answer your call. At the very least, play music. Then you can put them on speakerphone, and get some work done while they finish up with the other customers.

3) They don’t read my website. There’s a lot of good information out there, things that could make them better salespeople. Don’t worry, I’m reading theirs. I know all about what they’re doing. I know where I’m better than them, and I know where they’re gaining on me. I know their financial picture and what the analysts are saying about them.  If you want to know about my competitors, call me. I’d be happy to give you a braindump.

4) They don’t read your website. Or Google your company.  I do my homework. It is a priviledge to have the opportunity to spend time with you, and I like being prepared. I check your website, Google your company, and Google your name.

5) They leave a voicemail, but don’t leave their phone number. If my competitor does that to you, remember that my phone number is easy to remember- 877-VPNDude. If they send you an email, and it doesn’t have their number, again call me, the number is 877-VPNDude.

6) They are consistantly late for meetings. Most of us live and commute in DC traffic, and we know that even the best of us will sometimes hit a snag. Many of us have kids, and they get bloody noses or fall when we’re just getting ready to leave the call. It happens, but not everytime.

I give myself one hour before my first appointment in DC in the morning. If I’m running late, 95% of the time, it’s because my earlier appointment is running late. I’ll call you if that happens.

7) Who are late for conference calls. If you have a team of people on a call, and you’re waiting for a salesperson, it’s just plain rude. I am on a conference call 5 minutes before it begins, and 10 minutes before a Webex begins.  If I’m on time, it means that my last customer call has run late.  I’ll do anything in my power to let you know that.
They don’t love their products, or their jobs. I have never taken a job with a company whose products I did not love. Here’s why. Because I’d know I’d suck, I’d waste my time and your time, and maybe do irreparable damage to my relationship with you. I’ve worked with products that were difficult to sell, that I couldn’t sell, but I believed in them, and still do.

And sales… I love it. I love getting on the phone, calling you, educating you, having you educate me, writing emails, doing my newsletter and website.  I work a whole lot, but have unbelievable freedom at the same time. My job uses all my creativity, I never run out of things to learn, and I get to talk to my true bosses, YOU, everyday. And you pay me very well, thank you.

9) Who don’t fight like madmen internally for their customers, when needed.  I learned this one the hard way, and it won’t ever happen again. I had a customer, Abrao G. with the World Bank, who I absolutely loved to work with, but who was having some problems with the product I was working with. Abrao knows more about Linux and Unix than I’d easily say 95% of us, and he probably knew more about my products than most of my first tier engineers at the time. He had a problem that I escalated to the head of support, who just sat on it, and sat on it, eventhough I called a couple of times ot follow up. By the time I was able to get an engineer to help him, it was too late. I lost the customer

Abrao, I can’t tell you how bad I felt losing you, but I can tell you that I’ll never lay down for anyone when I’m representing a customer.

10)  They waste their time trying to sell products that don’t work for your organization.  Guess what? I am always trying to find a reason that I can’t sell to you. I’ll let my product managers know that reason, and if they can’t or don’t want to fix it, I’ll be the first one in the conference room who says good-bye. And if I’m in that conference room, you better believe that I’ve done everything before my first call to you to see if I can’t sell to you.

Short Negotiations Review

I’ve created a short 18 minute course on negotiations, based on the Karrass book, Negotiate to Close. I’ve embedded the youtube version below, but if you want to see a better version or download the powerpoint or mp3, go tohttp://www.salespowwow.com/nego/nego.html

Book Review: Words that Word by Frank Luntz

A couple of pages into this book, I said to myself, “Oh, this is the guy.. Frank Luntz, who, for want of a better term, is the speech engineer of the Republican party, and is responsible for a number of terms that we are all now familiar with, such as “the death tax” (formerly known as “the estate tax” ), and “exploring for energy” (aka oil drilling).

Between the covers of this book are an overview of how to speak so that your audience will hear what you want them to say.
Drilled through the book is the subtitle, which should be placed on top of every desk in America.

It’s Not What You Read, it’s What People Hear.Dr. Luntz gives a detailed overview of 10 rules to effective speech, including:

• Simplicity
• Brevity
• Credibility
• Consistency
• Novelty
• Sound and Texture Matter
• Speak Aspirationally
• Visualize
• Ask a Question
• Provide Context and Explain Relevance

This book is for anyone who wants to communicate effectively. I felt that I got my money’s worth out of the first 20 pages, and that in total, reading this book provided me with more value than most of my courses in B-School.

If a business communications class was able to have a baby with a marketing class and a political science class, this it what it would look like.

I couldn’t put the book down, and my copy is filled with underlines and crease marks.

You do not to agree with Luntz politically to understand his methods, and pick up a few good pointers to make your own speech more effective.

Even if you totally abhor spin-masters like Luntz, it’s probably a good idea to learn his tactics. You can get the book from a library or a used book store, you won’t be directly filling his pockets.

World Orphan Week October 1-7

I’ve had a lot of good experiences working with WOW, and I hope that you’ll consider pitching in.

 World Orphan Week (WOW) began in 2005 to raise awareness of the needs of orphaned and abandoned children around the world, and to inspire and activate volunteers to raise funds for vital programs that can support these children.

This year, volunteers all over the country are organizing fundraisers on behalf of the children of SOS Children’s Villages, from bake sales and bike-a-thons to simply collecting donations from family and friends. WOW 2007 is calling attention to the causes of child abandonment: HIV/AIDS, war and extreme poverty, as illustrated through the personal stories of children from Botswana, Lebanon, Jamaica, and Cambodia.

more info at

http://www.wowusa.org

15 Minute CXO Meetings- The 3 Minute Abs of Sales.

I’ve been doing a very large number of calls at the CISO level lately, for a security product that they need.  I’ve been very successful doing something new, asking for, and getting a 15 minute appointment.

15 minutes? Why? Because that’s all the time you need to greet someone, give them an overview, and close. The closes for a 15 minute meeting are

1. to get a longer, secondary meeting.
2. to get myself in the consideration as one of the important people in this space
3. to see if there are any red flags in doing business with this customer, and if you I do business with them, abort the process right there.
4. to find out the who’s, when’s and and how’s of any evaluation process.
5. to feel out management, and see if I want to work with this account.

Many times, the meeting extends longer than 15 minutes, and that is my first buying signal.

If You Work at a Technology Company, You’d Better Learn Misner’s Theory of Open Source Competition part one

Here’s the law, really simple.

For every popular high priced application, over a period of time there will be an open source (free as in beer, not as in freedom, in this case) application that will have 80% functionality of that application within 1-4 years. So, in a period of at the most 4 years, you will have a free competitor in your space that at least 80% as good as your highly priced product.

Every salesforce.com will give us a sugarcrm.com.

Every Camtasia will have a Camstudio and a Microsoft Movie Maker

Netscape brought IE and Apache. IE brought Firefox.

Sure, there are exceptions to this rule, but they are so few that you really need to consider this theory in your product life-cycle. It’s not enough to add a couple of features every release date. You’ve got to take measures to make sure that what you sell remains relevant.

Let’s start out by what doesn’t work.

Not doing anything, or ignoring my theory,didn’t work for Netscape or Sun. Sun has changed it’s tune, by reaching out to the open source community. And the only remnants of Netscape are those bits of code that Frank Hecker memo’d to become open source.

Doing worthless, incremental changes, will only work until customers get wise to you. In the end adding unneeded features raises the complexity of end user operation, and the software company’s product costs.

I haven’t bought a copy of Mindjet’s Mindmanager since version 2002. Why? Because the product took on a bunch of features that had no value to me, and I wasn’t going to pay for them. It’s Mindmanager 2002 that’s competing against the free and low cost shareware products, and those alternatives, are just as good.

Putting out a “dumbed down” or “lite” version of your Enterprise Product. You are better off simplifying your pricing, or lowering your costs on the enterprise product. By having a lite product, you either take out needed components, which makes your product less competative than the free products, or you remove unneeded features that cannibalize your existing product.

What partially works?

Adopting a large market share in the beginning, will lengthen the amount of time before Computer Associates buys your product and puts it on the shelf with their other dead acquisitions, squeezing every little bit of life blood out of your remaining customers.

Locking your customers in with a proprietary solution will work once, but you can bet that once those customers are free from the chains you bound them with, they will look elsewhere.

Part 2 tomorrow.