I always like those bumper stickers that say things about the owner has gone fishing or would rather fish than work and all the derivations of each of these. While stuck in a traffic jam one day and wishing I was actually fishing instead of looking at orange barrels I started calculating how much money I was losing because I was in the middle of a traffic jam and not at my laptop, phone, or in front of a client selling something or billing out my time to a project.
just for the record, I would not recommend you start calculating how much money a traffic jam is costing you, it could be hazardous to your mental health and possibly the physical health of the next construction worker you see stacking another orange barrel right in the middle of the only lane that isn't already blocked and jammed up!
Ah, but alas I am on a tangent. My point is that too many business owners (of all sizes) waste time or have their time wasted by other activities, like orange barrels and hence are not able to do activities that help make them money. Question, is your web site in this category? Does it help you make money or simply waste your time and hence cost you money?
Simple question for some, more complex for others. A recent statistic I read said that most white papers (those prolific 7-12 page marketing pieces that are rarely printed on white paper) are delivered electronically more than in any other format.
This little nugget of information combined with the rage at the orange barrels created the fishing model in my head. If my web site had a great, well written bait piece, call it a white paper, booklet, tip sheet, etc. on it and people were finding it and downloading it while I was stuck in traffic doing absolutely nothing than I would be making money and gathering leads for when I got back to the office.
Ok, some of you are saying "hey genius, people have been doing this for years on the Internet, where have you been". I would respond I didn't realize it because I have been in this stupid traffic jam for the last several years! No seriously I realize this is not rocket surgery, but I am still amazed at the number of web sites that doesn't have this material on it and don't create fresh versions of these materials to continually gather leads while they are doing other things. I still come across tons of sites that have the typical about us, services, products, pictures of our employees (including pets) and many other things that couldn't interest the prospect less. So while the model is not actually mine nor is it completely new and innovative it also is not being followed by a large amount of buisnesses.
However imagine a prospect that comes to your web site and instead of being put to sleep by reading about your latest "about us" overhaul he/she finds some well written copy talking about a new booklet you have made available called "How to Create a Profit Centered Web Site" (one of my own creations) do you think they might be enticed to download it? I am guessing if they don't know the last person that called them because of their web site they might want to.
Now you don't just include a simple link where they can download this document, you ask them to give you their email address, name, and maybe phone number and then once they submit this information then you roll them over to another page where they can't download the document...yes you read that correctly I don't give them the bait at the rollover page. Why? Because years of driving around orange barrels has made me a cruel and insensitive human being. No, because if you are a fisherman like me the fish come up and take your bait and at the end of the day your net is still empty.
I recommend that you roll them over to a page that offers your newsletter sign up, information about your downloadable products, the ability to refer a friend to your site for another free download that was even better than the last and of course a note that tells them that an email will be arriving shortly with a download link. By doing it this way you will be assured that whatever email address they gave is actually real and you can actually deliver a message to.
In addition, you should have this email message go out automatically. Don't make the person wait until you get the message and respond because if you do they will get upset and may even forget 10 minutes later they visited your site and asked for it. You want them to have it right now, after all it is a bait piece and designed to move them one more step into your sales process. Here are the items I think this strategy must have to be successful...
- A way to make your prospects aware this document exists on your web site and why they want to get it. This can be done with an email blast, radio ad, direct mail postcard, or any other vehicle designed to alert people.
- Fantastic copy that gets the reader's attention as soon as they land on your site letting them reinforcing and expanding on the message in your step above as to why they want this and how to get it.
- A truly well written and (important point) educational document that is not just an oversized brochure for your company. People want information, not just sales crap.
- A web site processing system that collects their contact information and attempts to alert them to other things you might have available they might find interesting.
- An automated way to send them the document they just asked for.
- A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system to put the lead into and track it to the successful close of the sale (a story for another day).
- A catalog or other sales piece that is built right into the white paper or email message that tells them about all the products and services you offer. If they find your bait piece valuable and informative you want to make it very easy for them to buy your additional items.
If you follow this simple, but proven model on your web site the next time you are in a situation where your time is being wasted you can be confident that your web site is constantly fishing and delivering new leads and prospects to you.
This little bit of information may keep you safely within the little white lines on the road when you are stuck in the next traffic jam. You won't necessarily be making piles of new money, but you also won't be wasting all your time either...you will be fishing.
Michael Temple
In the early 80s when M-TV launched the very first song they played was video killed the radio. This was their idea of saying a revolution had occured and radio lost. Now music would be delivered with video and music and change the way people enjoyed both. Now this trend is continuing yet again only it is our old friend the Internet doing the killing.
A recent story in the Wall Street Journal (June 12th, 2006) talks about how local TV stations are struggling to stay alive as the consumer finds new sources of entertainment and ways to get that entertainment delivered to them. The article discusses how local TV stations used to be some of the most profitable businesses in the country, but now that people are using the Internet more and content is also being delivered via through cable companies they are hurting. The article goes on to say that advertisers are not putting as much money into these stations as it did in the past because the viewers just aren't there.
In MBA lingo this is known as a paradigm shift which is a fancy way of saying the ground rules are changing for these guys and is fundamentally changing the industry. Industries that have this happen to them either adapt and find new ways to exist or fade away.
Now enough about the downside, what is the upside here. Well quite simply it is opportunity! The advertisers that are no longer spending money with local TV stations are going to be spending that money somewhere and since the Internet is the thing stealing viewers attention away I am willing to bet that a large chunk of that cash will be diverted to the Internet.
The next question is where on the Internet are all these stacks of dead presidents headed? Of course it will be with those web sites that attract and retain visitors or as the Ad industry calls them "impressions". Is your web site in a position to get some of these ad dollars? Well if you have visitors coming to your site and those people read, download, and spend time on your site doing stuff and (key point here) you know who that group is then you can bet your bottom dollar that advertisers will be willing to spend some cash with you.
I am going to start a new thing here called TIR which is going to be my own acroynm that stands for "Temple's Internet Rules" since my name is the front of that acryonm I get to make the rules up. My first rule is going to be...
TIR #1: Create compelling, fresh, and innovative content and visitors will come and return to your site.
It doesn't matter what your site is about as long as it attracts an audience. On any given day I browse the web for news, politics, economics, finance, hobbies, etc. You name it I have probably browsed a site about it. The good sites I put in my favorites menu, the crummy sites I have totally forgotten the name of... bad news if you want to attract advertising dollars.
With the continuing spread of high speed access to the Internet video will play an increasingly larger role in dynamic content as well as the old standby of text, photos, audio and dynamic content like database driven information. The web site owners that create this content and get larger and larger shares of viewers the more likely they have ad space to sell.
Once this content is created you can sell ad space, sell memberships to premium content, sell information products and many other methods of making money off of this content. You can deliver this content with video, podcast, audio, text, ebooks, etc. To those that can generate this content you are on the verge of a new world of opportunity.
Now I don't know about you, but I think buying a radio or TV station is a little bit more expensive than starting a web site so the future will be in the content itself not the capital it takes to broadcast this content. Local TV stations 10 years ago probably thought they were indestructible, today they are wondering if anyone got the license plate number of the truck that just hit them.
Question, are you driving the truck or laying under it?
Michael Temple
It has been a little while since my last post. I have been working with several clients recently on completing new web sites. On a few of the projects I am getting a distinct impression they want me to go away and so they can actually pay for their kids to go to college instead of paying me so my kids can go to college! Building and designing an effective web site can be a large undertaking for any business, but especially a small business.
It is expensive and time consuming and many clients just want to take a deep breath once "it is done" and throw my business card in the garbage and be glad that they are done paying me. Not so fast, unfortunately you have only paid enough for my kids to get through their Freshman year, so we need to find something else to spend your money on! Fortunately for me I have just the thing... Maintenance!
I am obviously being coy here, but the point is an accurate one. Too many individuals want to just forget about their web site once they get it finished, but unfortunately you can't do that or your investment in a new site will be quickly lost.To get the most value from your site you need to keep working it like a farm. Most farmers wouldn't last long if they just planted some seeds and stopped working.
Your web site needs to grow and mature and that is where the work comes in. Fresh content is the only thing that keeps people coming back over and over again and brings in new people from word of mouth and/or better rankings in the search engines.
Here is just a partial list of things I have found to add to a company's web site after they were created...
- Articles
- Discussion boards
- Reviews of new products
- Technical support docs and forums
- Calendar of events
- Product/service manuals
- Tip sheets
- Booklets of new functionality, services, information
- Videos
- Audio files of shows, events, and other content
- Free reports
- Newsletter archives
- Links to stories/info your customers would find interesting
- eBooks
- Podcasts
- Blogs
As you can see the list is basically a long one and with a little thought I am sure you can come up with items I didn't add to the list. Now you obviously don't have to add all of these, but if you did imagine the visitors you would have!
The point is that once your perfectly crafted text about who you are and what you sell are done you have a lot of work ahead of you to keep the leads and customers coming back. Your web site is a lead generating and tireless salesperson for your organization, but it needs one thing to keep going...new fresh information and content.
Now how do I create all this "stuff" you may be saying. Good question, a lot of it you can find from other sources and just post the content on your site (with the author's permission of course), some of it can be developed by research and in some cases you will need to hire a professional copywriter to help develop certain things like white papers. Did I mention I also am a copywriter... hey my kids want to be doctors, you know how expensive medical school is :)
Seriously, you don't have to create all of it at once, it is done little by little each month or quarter and you will update old stuff while adding new things, eventually before you know it you have a kick butt web site that gets tons of visitors and lots of kudos for the great content you have developed. Remember growing content and your web site is a marathon, not a sprint.
So once that project is finished don't just forget about your site and hope the leads and sales will start pouring in, because they won't.
Michael Temple
One of the things I ask clients and prospects alike is what they want from their web site or Internet marketing strategy. Some have exact answers and some don't have a clue. Some tell me they are not sure, but they are being told by people that they have to have a web site. Now don't get me wrong I love marketing and helping people but if I was alive 60 years ago and someone came to me and said their was this great new thing called TV and I should be advertising on it for my business I think I would want to know how that is going to benefit my business. I think I would want to know the exact effect it would have on my company's bottomline. Unfortunately not enough business owners ask those questions and for the small business person that can really create a hard ship as they toss money out that could be better spent somewhere else.
Now somebody reading this right now might be scratching their head wondering why I would be willing to turn down business from someone that couldn't answer this. I would tell them I don't do it often, but I have turned people away because I tell them I don't think I can help them and in those cases I won't take their money. To most people I simply need to coach them through the thought process and we can come up with a strategy that will work and a way they can benefit.
One of those strategies is the direct response web site. This is where the site literally guides the user into a certain course of action just like a piece of direct mail would do. I work with the client to figure out what the "thing" the person is supposed to do is and then we plan the strategy around it. This strategy is a combination of traffic generation, site architecture, copy, and offer.
This last element the offer is really a key piece. People are not going to call you or give up their email for no reason. They are going to have to find something on your site that is so interesting and so valuable that they give you their contact information so they can have this item in your offer. It could be free subscription to your newsletter, it might be a tip sheet, software trial or might be a white paper or even e-book. Whatever "it" man, that sounds like eBay, is what is going to cause them to say they trust you enough to give up some information to get this information from you.
It helps to get this information if you also have a rock solid privacy policy that basically says you won't spam the crap out of them or sell their name to every email list on earth. In otherwords that you and you alone will use this information to communicate with them.
In direct response marketing this is known as the "bait piece" and is so named because it gets an otherwise nameless prospect to talk to you and thus allow you to "catch" them. However you must then show respect to the trust they gave you by respecting their privacy and giving them the information or thing you promised. If you execute this step well then moving the person to the next phase will be easier. If you blow it at step 1 by sending them a bunch of crap or the thing you promised never arrives or is a blatant marketing piece your chances of moving to step 2 have probably dropped to zero or worse!
The information that you offer should do two key things. First it should set the standard for what you are selling and in the process show why you or your company meets that standard. Second, it should give solid easy to digest information that is going to help them today. If all you do is mail or send them one of your 3 panel brochures you have just thrown a great opportunity away.
Other things the bait piece should do is demonstrate that you or your company is the expert or the premier company to deal with on whatever it is you are selling. This will be done through the quality of the information you present in your bait piece and from quoting or referencing other credible sources to back up your statements and position so people can see you actually do know what you are talking about.
This strategy needs to be carefully thought out and executed to work well. I help people all the time to develop these marketing pieces and place them on an effective web site that will actually accomplish something besides sucking up server space on the Internet. However too many individuals don't think this through and then can't figure out why they don't get any leads or help from their web site.
A direct response web site includes all the same elements as any direct response media, get attention, get them interested, get them to desire what you have, present a great offer, and fufill your promises. Do these and you will be amazed at the responses you get from your web site. If you want more information on this type of stuff please check out the articles section of my web site to learn more or sign up for my awesome e-newsletter.
Michael Temple
I seem to have a theme here about coming down hard on all the fancy "jee-wiz" technology someone can incorporate on a web site. Now don't get me wrong, I use and believe that technology is necessary for your web site, but that shouldn't be the only thing that makes your site "great". People come to a web site for information and unfortunately when you have flashing ads, fancy Flash intros, and scrolling ads etc. you don't give them this information.
The best way to give them this information is through copy on the site. This copy is typically delivered through text on the page, but could also be delivered through a video or audio file on your site as well. Your copy needs to get the visitors attention right away and pull them into the body copy. As the person reads you need to build interest in your business, service, or product. In addition, you need to convert this interest in desire to have what you are selling. Finally, all the desire in the world is no good without action. Get the person to take action!
This principle is called AIDA which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. This is one of the many models that copywriters and advertisers have used in developing marketing pieces for years. There are many other models, but they are just others ways of saying the same thing.
Now the question probably arises is how do you accomplish this task? Write about the benefits of your service or product not the features. What is the difference, well my smart ass answer is higher sales. Features are the facts about your product or service such as it has a 80 GB hard drive and 3.2 Ghz chip etc. Benefits by contrast is what someone will get out of doing business with you. For example, a computer that is faster allows you to access files faster, complete work more quickly and hence makes you more efficient and more profitable.
If you don't remember anything else I wrote here remember this...
People buy benefits not features!
If the copywriting on your web site or in your marketing materials follows AIDA and is benefit based writing and not just features you will find your web site more productive and not just an alter to the gods of fancy but useless technology. Copy is truly King, those that know this sell more and those that don't give jobs to the rest of us by keeping useless web sites on the web and mailing out tons of worthless marketing materials. Hmm, come to think of it, maybe you should just continue doing all the web sites and marketing the old way so I will always have a job!
Michael Temple
No matter what size your company is or how big your web site the question of creating added value with your web site for your prospects and clients is a critical one. All too many companies decide that the web site is about them and their company, but it is not, at least not in the way most companies think.
Ask yourself what can you do to your site that will get people to come back and visit if they are not a customer? Is it articles, free resources such as software, eBooks or bulletin boards that add value to the user's life and create a positive experience for them. Creating a community of some type around your site is a way of building a base of visitors that come and visit; even if they don't buy something or call right now, if they keep coming and learning about you eventually they will want to do business with you.
I know a web site that I visit regularly because the owner posts an MP3 of his talk radio show he does each week. Plus he puts articles and other great resources up there. Over time I have really come to appreciate his philosophy on life and business. His offering is seminars that he teaches, which are pretty expensive.
Had this guy emailed me, sent direct mail, advertised on TV or radio or heck even called me I probably wouldn't have been interested. Instead I found his site on the Internet while searching for something because he did the right things to give exposure in the search engines. Once I was on the site I started looking around and it wasn't long at all before I could see all the value this guy was offering.
The more I listen and read his "free" stuff the more intrigued I become with him. I am sure eventually he and I will meet and I will be forking over the hefty sum of cash for his seminar because I already have a good idea what I am going to get from it and I want more. He has taken the time to build a relationship with me through the offering of his resources and ultimately that is what every owner of a site that hopes to sell something, anything has to do.
Now for people that are already a customer for this guy his site continues to add value on topics of information they may not have taken from him. They will learn and grow because of listening to his additional programs and reading the articles. Because they have already had at least one class from him they now have even a better appreciation for his philosophy and I have no doubt over time will be repeat customers over and over again.
If your web site is simply an overview of your company and services/products with a contact page and it only gets updated once a year weather it needs it or not (sarcasm intended) then it is doubtful you will ever win as many customers or get repeat ones from your web strategy.
Remember your site is about the prospect and customer. If you spend time giving them value they will in turn provide your business with value. Help them get something more from your site besides a list of your services and a phone number and you will be surprised how many new customers come from your web site, but you will also be developing stronger loyalty to your existing ones.
Now this strategy can go much deeper with online communities that people sign up for with newsletters and forums as well as web casts and "member only" types of information and account information, but that is only the same strategy I am already talking about taken to a higher and more refined level.
It is all about added value and if you give it you will get it back many times over. If you choose to keep a simple "brochureware" site, save yourself the hosting and development money and mail them a brochure instead it is cheaper and will get about the same pathetic response.
Michael Temple
The old saying that cleanliness is next to godliness should be applied to many web sites today. There are tons of sites on the Internet that can't decide if they are promoting their company or trying to attract gamblers from Las Vegas with the banners, animation, blinking and flashing ads, scrolling text and other distracting elements. These sites look like a bill board on the Vegas strip! Unfortunately these companies are trashing their web site with elements that probably have very little to do with the stated purpose of their site (see post below) and as a result all the junk on their site is just a distraction to visitors.
Research has proven over and over again that adding the newest and most "glittery" technology and animation you can find won't increase your conversions of prospects to customers. It may look cool and cost you a bunch of cash as your webmaster tells you how complex it was to create so he/she can keep their job, but at the end of the day it probably won't have any marginal effect on your bottom line.
Web sites should be kept lean and mean, which means minimal outside elements that aren't directly tied to the key purpose of your site. Create logical and intuitive navigation, plenty of white space, clean tasteful graphics that DON'T blink and flash to get attention. If they are designed well they will create a positive image without all the animation. However the most important element on the site is always and will always be the copy (text). People visit a site to learn things and the copy on the site needs to get their attention, be easy to read, and most important get them to take some type of action. Flashing graphics and spinning logos aren't going to do that, but powerful and well written copy will. Creating a site with these elements will always be more effective than the site that has too much junk on them and contains poorly written copy.
In Ayn Rand's famous book The Fountainhead the main character is an architect named Howard Roark. He is practicing his trade at a time when creating ornate buildings was the standard practice. The architects that are his competition believe all buildings need to have ornate carvings, pillars, and other dramatic designs more like a Greek temple than a modern office building. Roark stands alone among the men of his day that believe buildings should be clean and modern without all the excess of classical design. His ideas are attacked, but in the end we see today they are the standard rather than the exception. I know some of my ideas of minimal sites are also not shared by others in the industry. How could they be with all that cool Flash that let's you create the "classical" look to the site, but there are some, and the number is growing, that know the future of the web is well designed, clean, minimal sites with sharp copy.
If your site is one of those that looks like it belongs in Vegas then bust out the Mister Clean and get to work making a site that has a stated purpose and is minimally designed for that purpose with sharp and effective copy. Your business will thank you for it and so will your customers!
In my consulting practice I often come across many small and even medium sized businesses that can't really answer the question of what the purpose of their web site is, why does it exist? What do they hope to gain from having it? They often give some vague answer that it was created to promote the company. Promotion is a worthy goal for a web site, but it is also an indirect benefit of your web strategy. In other words having a successful Internet marketing strategy will promote your company, but will also accomplish much more if it is designed and executed well.
For example, does your company have an eCommerce site? If yes, is the goal to create a new channel to sell your products or is it to "promote" your company. The obvious answer is it is created to boost sales. That is an easy one, but if you don't have an eCommerce site is the purpose of your site to get people to sign up for your newsletter (building your list), to call your sales department (increase sales through direct response), or is the purpose to provide information to your customers that improves their position and creates loyalty with your company and site?
Your purpose could be one of these or it could be all of them in different degrees of importance. It could be another reason like pre-qualifying customers, or creating online customer or vendor service channels to reduce costs. No matter what the primary goal of a web site is you need to know that purpose and have all of your online marketing goals prioritized.
If you don't know what your primary goals are how do you expect your customers that visit the site to know them? Once you know what your all your goals are for your web site then you can start the process of ranking them and organizing your site, navigation, information architecture, copy, and other elements of your site to channel or "push" your customers to that purpose.
However if you don't know what those goals are and have made no effort to channel your visitors to meeting that goal or purpose then your web strategy is most likely missing the mark. If you are one of the countless sites out that has an about us page, our services, and a few other "canned" elements that may entice a visitor one time to look at them, but give them no reason to stick around or come back you have what is known in the industry as a "brochureware" site. These sites will always fail to accomplish much accept take up server space.
To have a successful Internet marketing strategy know what the purpose of your site is and what all your goals in order of importance are. Work with your marketing and web departments to organize your site around these goals and give your customers a reason to spend some time on your site and come back.
I have a new article on my site on this very topic and I invite you to take a moment to visit my site and download/read the article. Pass it along to your friends in business and hopefully you will gain something from it. To access the article click on this link:
http://www.michaeltemple.com/Articles/Purpose.pdf
P.S. I also have other articles that you may find interesting and have an awesome free eNewsletter that you can sign up for.
I have been asked many times why I continue to use the brand "spinning the web into gold". This tag line appears on my web site and in my articles. I have decided to end the mystery with my first post.
The Original
The Grimm Brothers published a story almost 200 years ago called Rumpelstiltskin. If you have read this story you know that a Miller who wanted to improve his station in life lied to the King and said that his daughter could spin ordinary straw into gold. The greedy King immediately takes the daughter and locks her in a tower with a bunch of straw and an ordinary spinning wheel. She is given the command to spin all of the straw into gold by morning or she will be executed.
Of course she can't do this and gives up all hope. Eventually Rumpelstilskin arrives and agrees to spin the straw into gold for her necklace. She readily agrees, but this doesn't satisfy the greedy king. Again on the second night she is given the same command and again Rumplestilskin comes to her aid. On the third night she has nothing left to offer and Rumpelstilskin agrees to do it if she will give up her first born child to him. In despair for her situation she agrees.
The King thinking he has a great thing going here marries the Miller's daughter. She eventually has a child and Rumpelstilskin comes for his payment. He agrees to let her out of the bargain if she can guess his name. Through some stupid actions on his part the daughter hears him by the fire one night shouting out his name. When he returns to claim the child she guesses his name and the deal is foiled.
By now many of you are saying I need to put down the fairy tales and tell you why I developed the tag line. I couldn't help but see as I read this story to my kids the modern translation it had, so let me tell you another version of the story...a modern version.
A Fairy Tale For Modern Times
Once upon a time there was a CEO of a company who was perplexed about how to raise profits for his company. Try as he might he couldn't come up with a way to boost sales. The board of directors was about to throw his sorry butt out of his job when in a desparate attempt to boost his credibility with the board he promised that the Internet would be the gold the company was seeking.
He could turn their ordinary web site into gold. The board of directors being shrewd managers took him up on his offer and locked him away with the ordinary web site and orders to spin this site into gold. Naturally he doesn't know how to do this and despair quickly sets in.
Then our hero arrives. He a is dashing and handsome non dwarfish Internet consultant (hey, this is my story, I will tell it my way). He agrees to spin this ordinary site into gold for a fee to which our CEO agrees.
Our skilled consultant quickly spins this ordinary site into gold for the company. The board rejoices, but being greedy they demand more. The CEO eventually pays up and our consultant again spins more straw (our ordinary boring web strategy) into yet more gold.
Unfortunately for our CEO his budget runs out and he is forced to face the fact that he must admit to the board he can't really spin straw into gold unless he can find something else to pay with.
Our dashing and handsome consultant has two children and is not interested in taking the CEO's kids and besides his name is on the contract so it really wouldn't be fair to ask the CEO to guess it.
To give our story a happy ending the CEO finds more money in his budget because he pays for actual results and realizing he is getting them pays our dashing and handsome consultant to continue doing what he does best, spinning the ordinary straw of the Internet (badly outdated and poor Internet strategy) into gold for its owners. The CEO and company live happily ever after.
The Actual Point of All This
Ok, I know many of you think I need to get out more, so let me explain in plain terms. Many companies and investors were sold a bill of goods back in the 90s that the Internet would totally change the way we did business. In many ways it has. However the problem as with most business problems is that it still relies on solid business principles to work and requires good old fashion work and innovation to realize the true gains.
Looking around the technology landscape one can see all the "straw" that abounds. Straw fills up a lot of space and is expensive to keep and grow, but unless your a horse it doesn't have much value. Many web sites and Internet strategies of today are not unlike this. They are poorly conceived and executed. They become expensive to keep and in the end don't produce much value.
Along comes the army of fake consultants who promise to turn this straw into gold, but alas all they do is make it shiny with lots of fancy flash, floating graphics, little movies, poor copy and charge piles of money to do this. At the end of the day the strategy is still poor and fails to produce true value.
I figured out what was missing. It is not always the technology stupid. It is the strategy behind the technology that creates the value. It is the tactics and techniques of marketing, management, sales, and business that creates the value. I founded my company on this principle.
Like the original Rumpelstiltskin I come along and use this "magic" to transform the straw into real gold. In short I create value using the things that has been producing value since the beginning of time. Giving customers what they need to make their lives and jobs easier. Producing value where there was only straw before. It only seemed fitting to use such a tag line.
Before you hire the next consultant who starts talking about how cool this new technology or technique is start asking yourself the simple questions...
- How does it improve the business?
- How does it add value to our customers?
- How much value does it add?
- Will it improve our bottomline and can we track that?
Simple questions, but certainly ones that still elude many companies both big and small today. Until my next edition of fairy tales...sleep tight.
Michael Temple
