Welcome to

My week is a mad rush of trying to cram in the newspapers I read between work and building my web empire. I finally got around to last weekend’s NYT business section and found an intriguing article, How to Improve It? Ask Those Who Use It.  The article points out a series of examples of product innovations driven by users (outsiders) rather than designers (insiders), maintaining that this represents a new trend.

 I’m not sure about the trend part, but there is a good bit of it going around, especially online. Firefox, Linux, Wikipedia, for example.

One takeaway is that it’s hard for insiders to think outside the box, since they live in the box every day. Outsiders can give that fresh perspective which can lead to breakthroughs. Outsiders who care enough to get involved will also self-select towards those who are passionate about the product (or what it does). This can bring a needed spark and energy to a project.

So it seems not just hip but also intelligent to involve some outside perspectives in your design process.

Perhaps you’ve read about one of various new products starting to appear which offer wireless power. That has to be one of the coolest things ever. I’m no scientist, it sounds like magic to me. In googling the term to learn a little more, I came across an explanation at How Stuff Works. Apparently ‘freakin’ magic’ is not the key technology, as I had assumed.

This strikes me as something that would be incredibly cool to market, kind of like bringing fire to the cavemen.

Just a sample of one of the products involved can be seen here: http://www.splashpower.com/. Imagine a day when power courses pervasively through a room, kind of like wireless internet. We’ll probably all slowly cook our brains, but at least we won’t be tangled up in cords anymore.

So I might join in as well. This guy wrote a book called Average American Male. His publisher did what publishers do, which is allocate about $47.95 towards promotion. To get the biggest bang for the buck in promoting a book about guys and what they think about (haven’t read the book, but I can bet the answer is Sex), they did a few quickie ads which depict guys thinking about… sex.

It winds up to be a great example of viral advertising. This thing hit YouTube and blew up. The instance of one of the ads which I happened to link to below was uploaded Mar. 14 and has been viewed over 66,000 times. Now that is a promotional campaign which is getting some attention.

Over at my real estate investing calculator site Real Estate Genius, we’ve just launched an affiliate program. If you have a blog or a website, here’s an opportunity for you to make some money from your traffic. Affiliates will earn 50% of revenue generated by customers they refer… that includes 50% of ongoing monthly membership fees! If you refer other affiliates to our program, you’ll also earn 25% of any revenue they refer.

As an additional incentive, you’ll earn $5.00 just for joining! 

To check out the details and join, visit:
Real Estate Genius Affiliate Program

I’m involved in a CRM implementation at the moment. You may have come across statistics that something like 90% of CRM implementations fail (ok, I jest, but it’s pretty high). In my own experience, I’m 0-for-1, so the failure rate is 100%.

Just out of curiosity, I asked the consultant we’re working in what he would point to as the reason for failure in any implementations he’s been involved with. He didn’t have to think very long– “Lack of commitment from sales management.” Zing.  I think you could probably argue that “Software doesn’t perform as one was led to believe by the software sales team” would have to be a contender as well.

It’s kind of remarkable that companies are willing to blow tens of thousands (in some cases hundreds of thousands) of dollars on software packages which are likely to fail… because of lack of leadership commitment!

With the current project, I think we just might beat the jinx. Time will tell…

I’ve heard some buzz about Squidoo, but hadn’t had time to look into what it’s all about until this weekend. I’m still not quite sure what to make of it.

Squidoo provides a way for people who don’t want to be bothered with learning web stuff to quickly create new pages. It’s free and easy to use. I guess it’s kind of like MySpace for business. Squidoo offers a few incentives for people to bother creating pages:

• Google PageRank - if your page earns pagerank, the links you make from there to your own website will help with your website’s google rankings.
• $$$$. Squidoo shares with you the revenue your pages generate via Google ads and a number of various affiliate programs you can add. So by throwing up a bunch of pages, you may be able to make some cash.
• Exposure and traffic. Squidoo claims to be able to deliver traffic to your Squidoo pages, some of which may convert to traffic to your own website.

You can check out my Squidoo page on real estate investment analysis, which I built to promote my website Real Estate Genius. This took me about 10 minutes to make, so it is pretty easy.

I’m not quite sure what to make of Squidoo. On the one hand, it might turn out to be the world HQ of spam. A brief sampling of some of the pages previously created reveals lots of low-content, high-personal-hype. On the other hand, it could turn out to be a MySpace/Wikipedia sort of merger, ie. tons of content, a search engine monster. In any case, it’s an interesting concept, so I’ll throw up a few pages and see what happens.

Poison their pets. In case you missed it, Canadian company Menu Foods which apparently manufactures pet food under contract for a number of major brands has been selling poisonous food.  Most outrageously, it first learned of the problem Feb 20, but has only recently been pulling food off the shelves.

Killing someone’s dog is probably not the best way to build your brand equity. This company has earned whatever it now has coming, which is probably a whole pile of lawsuits.

You’ve got a problem…

You want to run a special promotion, or launch a new product on your website, but you’re finding it hard to do it the way you want while staying within your website’s look and feel. Or maybe your website offers too many distraction to let you fully capitalize on the traffic which comes in for your promotion.

So here’s an idea: instead of trying to cram a square peg into a round hole, go start a mini-site specifically for your promotion.

See Think Outside the Web Site for Post-Click Marketing for a detailed explanation of this idea. You can have the best of both worlds- your primary site retains a consistent look, while your promotion is allowed to step outside your usual template, without risking dilution of your overall image.

I had dinner with clients at a well-known, rather upscale steak chain restaurant. Let’s call it ‘Chuth’s Rris’. My first time at this particular establishment. Our waiter made several recommendations. Oddly enough, each of his recommendations just happened to be the most expensive item in the category. Glass of wine? (not that he was asked, and not that he asked my preferences)… “I recommend such-and-such” (at $20 a glass). He actually capped that one off with “It’s our best, and believe me, I  know a lot about wine.” Me too- there’s red, there’s white, and don’t drink it out of plastic cups or add ice.

Steak cut (not that he was asked)… “I recommend this one”… Appetizers, salads, on and on it went, with not-so-subtle nudges towards the priciest item, with no justification other than the nudge itself.

You wouldn’t expect to feel nickel-and-dimed at a place where steak entrees run $35/per, not including the potato. But there you go.

I relate this story today because I think it says something about how (not) to upsell, and it goes back to the primary rule of marketing - “What’s in it for me?”, with ‘me’ being the customer, not the salesman. It’s not enough to tell someone what they should buy. You need them to believe that they want it. In fact, if you’re really good, you can make them believe they chose it. And if you’re great, you would know them so well, you’d be bringing them what they wanted before they knew they wanted it.

Another potential lesson from the story is that you can put together a great marketing plan, and build a great reputation, but you’ve got to deliver on it day after day. And every day, you run the risk that your plan will be undermined where the rubber meets the road by the people who have contact with your customers. Your reputation precedes you, and so they enter your doors expecting to be blown away, and leave feeling a little bit used. Ouch.

I drove 5 hours tonight, so I don’t have any recommendations for avoiding this, just observations.

PS The steak was great, albeit overcooked.

I got a voice message from a guy trying to sell me something:

“Hi, this is So-And-SO from Company X. I do such-and-such, and I wanted to discuss with you whether it would be in my interest to send you a promotional package. Please give me a call back at 555-1212.”

Something struck me as odd about the message, and then I realized he’d said “… I wanted to discuss with you whether it would be in my interest…”. In HIS interest? Hasn’t this guy ever heard the golden question of marketing:

What’s in it for me?

Perhaps he HAS heard it, but got confused about who was supposed to be asking the question… the CUSTOMER, not the SALESMAN!

Maybe it’s a Freudian type of slip. Saying what meant. Every salesman naturally cares about his/her own interest. But the whole trick is to make people feel that you’re really working in their interest. I mean, hopefully, you are actually working in their interest and not just selling them snake oil. But it’s the way they feel about it which makes the sale, not the reality. It seems like the best salespeople are the ones who really do actually care about their customer’s interests. People can sense that, and they respond to it.

I’m not sure how people respond to someone who outright tells you they’ll put in an effort only if it’s worth their while, like my caller did. I know I didn’t call him back.