What’s a Website For?

A business purposed website exists to either
(a) sell something to a potential Customer or
(b) sign them up for a newsletter.

IT REALLY IS THAT SIMPLE.

If the site does not help visitors accomplish at least one of those two things, then the site provides very little benefit to the business.

That’s basically all there is to it.
Buy, join, or leave.

There is no other option.

With that in mind, do you already distribute an industry newsletter that your potential Customers might value?

If not, this would be a very good first step in the right direction.
Always remember to use benefit’s based selling methods, track those downloads, keep good clean statistics and test what works best for your business every chance you get.

Folks, if your goal is to make more money online, then do something about it and sign up for our Newsletter right now. BoxOnline is a team of professional, business process consultants dedicated to helping people like you sell more, earn more and basically get the results that you desire.

Make Better Decisions Today

What have you got to lose?

A training course designed to help you make better decisions takes approximately 2 days. Can you afford taking two days to learn the skills needed to make better decisions for the rest of your life?

We deliver training to companies and individuals that want a methodical process for making and supporting decisions. Along these lines, our corporate Clients typically want three things.
a) They want to make better decisions using a process rather than ‘gut feel’
b) They want their teams to make better decisions
c) They want to present clear reasoning, proof that risks were evaluated and that the best possible alternative was chosen for each decision made based on the company’s objectives.

BoxOnline consultants have been providing the tools, training and guidance needed to help make better decisions for both groups and individuals since 1996.

In the case study below, the focus was on selecting the best possible alternative for an information technology purchase decision. This decision involved selecting a vendor, the appropriate software, hardware, infrastructure, staff support and an implementation partner. It was something of a complex decision to tackle and thus worthy of review here since so many of our Clients need to make exactly this sort of decision at least once every 5 years.

The decision analysis or ‘DA’ process can be used on simple decisions as well. You can adapt the DA process to meet EVERY decision making situation you are likely to encounter in both your personal and professional environments.

Knowing when to apply the DA process is important as well.

The method we teach is a tool you can apply when you need to make a selection from a set of alternatives to meet your specific objectives for a given project.
Personal examples include selecting a new place to live, rent or buy decisions, buying a car or even selecting a gift.
Work examples include leading the Board of Directors toward a mutually acceptable decision based on facts rather than emotions, selecting a distribution partner, hiring staff, choosing the best possible option for growth, selecting marketing events given time and budget constraints. There are literally millions of ways to use this powerful tool.

The plain fact is that the pressure is on to make decisions rapidly in today’s market, including choosing which software and services suppliers to partner with to deliver on strategic objectives. Responsible managers want to deliver on objectives in a timely way, yet protect themselves from career jeopardy. Can they achieve both?

One approach to making the best possible decision is to use a highly logical process. The DA (Decision Analysis) methodology used and taught for 40+ years by top business process consultants world-wide is something that we have adopted and applied for many of our Clients. Yes, it’s a time proven process that even NASA uses and it involves many well-orchestrated and synchronized steps. The BoxOnline DA process is designed to avoid some of the classic pitfalls typical of the way many people make decisions today.

Here are the key steps when evaluating alternatives for a decision:

• Clearly state the decision to be made.
• Set the strategic and operational objectives.
• Classify objectives based on Client’s musts and wants.
• Weight the “wants.”
• Generate alternatives.
• Screen alternatives through the “musts.”
• Compare alternatives against the “wants.”
• Identify adverse consequences.
• Make the best, most balanced choice.

IT decision making requires additional steps:

• Decide on technology standards into which the decision fits.
• Recognize the major pitfalls typical in each step of the IT purchase process.
• Use the “relationship manager” between IT and business organizations.
• Evaluate vendors against objectives.

Setting Strategic Objectives

The decision analysis method begins with the decision statement, which provides the focus for everything that follows and sets the choice’s parameters. The criteria to be developed will follow, detailing the decision requirements. Alternatives will be evaluated according to those requirements. The decision statement always indicates a choice and its intended result, and it often implies a prior decision has been made, such as to select a services vendor for a certain operation. The decision statement sets all activities in motion, so be sure to word it carefully.

Conducting a full decision analysis for every decision you make is not very time efficient. Sometimes, just agreeing on a decision statement and objectives will give you and your team the clarity needed to make a sound decision.

Decisions must meet objectives. Once the decision statement is drafted, objectives are established. Alternatives are discussed and identified possibly only after objectives are established. The opposite of decision analysis would be a process in which the course of action is identified first; then a case is built to support it. You would not believe how many engagement offers we received just last year to help support such pre-made decisions. In those cases, decision analysis is not a process that would help move our Client’s project forward; in those cases, we use a process called PPA to protect the plan.

Objectives related to technology strategy are important for selecting software and services providers. You need to know if the company is trying to build a platform for the future or keep existing systems cobbled together. Some strategic decisions will include certain vendors and technologies, and thereby eliminate others. In essence, the guts of the technology platform should be well understood, covering strategic areas such as security, data, development frameworks, communications standards, infrastructure and available people skills. This view enables the IT manager to attain a strategic perspective.

Some common mistakes in this phase include overemphasizing cost objectives and defining requirements without Customers in mind. There is a whole class of criteria for front office people or users of the system, that will have different weights for different Customer needs. Costs must be estimated, and viewed according to whether the project is strategic (an investment is justified) or tactical in which case low cost is an important criteria in the decision process.

Many times a manager is not exposed to the real project requirements and thus, looks at the estimated price tag and says, “We can’t do that – it’s too expensive.” You might find that you are unnaturally constrained by a budgetary concern that has nothing to do with the problem you are trying to solve.

Getting back on track again:
Decision analysis divides objectives into two categories: musts and wants. Musts are the minimum requirements, not necessarily the most important. When alternatives are later evaluated against objectives, any alternative that can’t fulfill a must objective is immediately dropped.

Objectives must be measurable to screen against alternatives. In IT decisions, measurable objectives may include response time, mean time between failures, service levels and access speed.

Must objectives need to be reasonable. For example, requiring .Net programmers to have five years of experience might be unrealistic, if the .Net framework was launched less than 5 years ago. To require e-business service firms to have such experience would knock out many options. To rate vendors, IT managers need to establish their minimum requirements. This is an absolute priority.

Once must objectives are clearly defined, all other objectives are called “wants”. Wants are used to provide a picture of how alternatives compare.

A common IT pitfall is to base objectives on ‘new’ or ‘compatible technology’ when actually, the Customer’s needs may be satisfied by older technology. IT guys should not purchase products simply because they are new. Newness has to be weighted against factors such as potentially longer testing cycles.

The second largest stumbling block to decision making success is when a group responsible for making the decision begins their process with what from our perspective is a comparison of the alternatives; Thus System A may be compared to System B, or Product X to Product Y, or Hardware C to Hardware D. This comparison of one to another so early on in the decision making process launches the team into a challenge / defense mode and is clearly not a productive way to reach the best possible decision outcome.

Creating a written record of the reasons why a specific decision was made is an additional benefit of the decision analysis process. In the real world, when people are making decisions, some things are more important than others. If you can get that on the table, it really helps move things forward. This also demonstrates to people both in the decision making quorum as well as those outside (perhaps sitting on the management team or board of directors) that logic, fairness and process were used to reach a mutually agreeable conclusion that also took into account potential risks and probability of occurrence among other factors.

Try using decision analysis to determine which projects to work on. Your objectives should include the anticipated results of the project, as well as resource and other restrictions you face.

When a group is choosing between a current and proposed course of action, both are considered alternatives. Both are evaluated against the objectives as if both had been proposed. In the absence of any alternative, the group can usually build an alternative from available components.

Never get tangled up in the alternatives before you define the objectives. IT people are typically analytical, so they go for a system involving weights and scores, but that is not an end in itself. The decision meeting is about making the decision not influencing your favorite alternative with a high score. In fact, the KT method has some brilliant built-in checks and balances to ensure that the best possible group decision gets made. Use the objectives to help the team keep an open mind while working toward a viable solution and be sure to keep score.

The final step in decision analysis is to consider adverse consequences for all feasible alternatives. Once a decision has been made and implemented, any negative effects can grow into real problems. The effect of the decision always outlives the process that led to it. Before making a final decision, the group must explore and evaluate adverse consequences. When the group identifies a risk, it can plan to avoid the risk or reduce its likely effect. A risk may not be fatal, provided someone recognizes it in time to do something about it. Omitting this step is an invitation for disaster.

It can all be overwhelming: strategic objectives, alternatives, weighting, scores and implementation plans. Many IT organizations now have defined the role of “relationship manager” to bridge the gap between the IT and the operational business worlds. The decision process outlined in this article helps you figure out how to start. Since we all know that IT people come from different planets and speak different languages than their business counterparts, the clearly defined process helps them understand exactly what needs to get done on the road to making a good decision. After a few minutes of bewilderment, most people physically relax as they learn this 40 year old time proven methodology for making the best possible decisions. There is an order and a logic that helps the IT people become more like internal consultants. They are not just throwing stuff over the cubicle wall, but rather listening to their Customers and applying their knowledge to come up with viable solutions.

Here is one more tip regarding your MUST criteria. When you evaluate your MUSTs consider if you would accept something slightly more or less than described in the objective? If the answer is yes, then the objective is a want, not a must.

If you’d like some help getting started with your own decision analysis just drop us a line – we love getting results for our Clients and the DA process delivers consistently great results. It is truly a tool that you can use for the rest of your life. Go ahead, make better decisions today!

Business Case Basics 101

The most obvious reason for putting together a business case is to justify the resources and capital investment necessary to bring a change project to fruition. This may imply that a business case is simply a financial document but please don’t be mislead – business cases need to include financial justification but more importantly, they need to link all of the relevant facts in a cohesive story outlining the what, when, where, how and why for investing resources into a project. The purpose of a business case is to capture the reasoning for initiating a project or task. It is often presented in a well-structured, written document but may also come in the form of verbal argumentation. The logic of the business case is that when resources such as money or effort are consumed; they should support the business. Upgrading a given piece of kit (hardware, software etc) to improve system performance is a good example because the “business case” is that better performance would improve customer satisfaction.

Essential elements of a business case include:

• Reasons why the project is necessary.
• How the project or results generated by the project will solve given issues or capitalize on specific opportunities facing the organization.
• Focus: Exactly what ‘problem’ or ‘issue’ does the project address or solve?
• What is/are the recommended solution(s)?
• What are the benefits to the business?
• What will happen to the business if the project is not undertaken?
• Timing: When will the solutions be deployed?
• Resources such as money, people, and time needed to deliver the solution and realize the benefits?

The Business Case Process should ensure that:

• The required issues and concerns have been thoroughly considered and documented
• Both the value and risks inherent in the proposed project are clear
• The project is sponsored by, and has the commitment of an executive with the capability and authority to deliver the benefits
• The delivery of the outcomes and benefits can be tracked and measured.

Your Business Case should contain some or all of the following information types (depending on the size, timing, scale and availability of information):

• Reference; project name/reference, origins/background/current state
• Context; business objectives/opportunities, business strategic alignment (priority)
• Value Proposition; desired business outcome(s), outcome roadmap, business benefits (by outcome), quantified benefits value, costs/ROI financial scenarios, risks/costs of not proceeding, project risks (to project, benefits and business)
• Focus; problem/solution scope, assumptions/constraints, options identified/evaluated, size, scale and complexity assessment
• Deliverables; outcomes, deliverables and benefits planned, organizational areas impacted (internally and externally), key stakeholders, dependencies
• Workload; approach, phase/stage definitions (project (change) activities, technical delivery activities, workload estimate/breakdown, project plan and schedule, critical path)
• Required resources; project leadership team, project governance team, team resources, funding
• Commitments (required); project controls, reporting processes, deliverables schedule, financial budget/schedule

While one of your primary goals may be to get funding, your chances of success will be greater if you keep the following goals in mind as well:

• Make it interesting; remember someone will need to read it.
• Keep it clear and concise.
• Minimize jargon and conjecture.
• Provide the reader with a clear vision of the end state.
• Communicate all facts as part of the overall story – if you’ve done your homework, here is the chance to prove it.
• Demonstrate the value the project brings to the organization, Customer(s) and financial bottom line of the company.

After preparing your business case you and your team will likely experience some positive side effects including:

• CLARITY: Organization of thoughts, activities and knowledge
• REALITY CHECK: An objective review of the ideas and facts related to the project
• STRENGTH: The ability to identify holes, inconsistencies or weaknesses in the effort
• ELEVATOR PITCH: An improved ability to communicate the purpose of the project
• ROI: Financial justification for the effort

Below we offer an outline that includes many of the above recommendations. Remember that your business case should describe to the reader the problem or opportunity that exists. Then, the business case should describe how the problem will be solved or the opportunity exploited. The outline presented below shows you how to effectively tell the entire story of your project and concludes by demonstrating the expected ROI and financial impact you expect to achieve.

Executive summary:
Pretend that you have two minutes to tell someone about the project and justify your requests for resources and funding.

Each paragraph in the executive summary should succinctly convey vital information about the project, and communicate the story to the reader. The information in each section of the executive summary is typically extracted from the detailed sections of the business case. We recommend creating the executive summary after you have completed the rest of the sections.

Current state assessment and problem statement:
The situational assessment or current state assessment refers to the details regarding the problem or opportunities facing the organization. It is a statement about what is happening in the organization today. Most projects are started by the original project stakeholder or champion because something is wrong, or a major opportunity is being missed. Every project usually has one or two key themes related to issues or opportunities. In one paragraph or less, clearly state the specific business problem.

Project Overview:
The project description section introduces your reader to the details of the project. This section should give your stakeholders confidence that your team will professionally, efficiently and aggressively seek the best processes, systems, and organizational elements to enable your company to overcome the issues presented above. There are two main components of the project overview section:

• description and scope
• objectives

Use a maximum of nine bullet points to state what the proposed solution is expected to accomplish. Some examples may include purchasing hardware and software or selecting a new vendor.

Solution Overview:
Summarize the solution that your team recommends to address the issues and opportunities presented in the current state assessment. Be sure to cover the following topics:

• Current Process and ‘fit’ into the big picture
• Requirements
• Alternatives
• Compare Alternatives
• Additional Considerations
• Action Plan

Current process: Identify the organizational processes that the proposed solution will likely affect, including the departments within your organization, relationships with Clients, external partners, and the competition.

Requirements: List the resources needed to complete the project, such as staff, hardware, software, print materials, time, budget, and so forth.

Alternatives. Outline at least three other options to implementing the proposed solution. Be sure to include basic requirements and an estimation of project risks for each, ramp-up time, training costs, and potential project delays.

Compare alternatives. Compare and contrast each of the alternatives with the proposed solution and the other alternatives. State similarities and differences, benefits and detriments, and costs associated with each option. Basically, answer the question: “What is the cost to get to the future state, and is it worth it?”

Additional considerations. List critical success factors other than ROI metrics; for example, affects on partnership agreements with specific vendors or the potential need for help desk or Customer support.

Action plan. Now that management understands the solution and the financial return that will be realized from implementing the solution, they will want confirmation that the solution can actually be implemented. Propose specific action steps. State your short-term (first three months) and long-term (three months to conclusion) action plans, including major milestones. This section will reassure management that your team has carefully and professionally considered all major issues of the implementation. A number of major elements are important to successful implementation. Your implementation section should address each area.

• Implementation components
• Implementation timeline
• Major milestones
• Major dependencies

Critical assumptions and risk assessment:
Most business improvement projects will make assumptions in order to develop the solution. It is vital that the business case documents these assumptions. You should test your assumptions with project stakeholders and operational managers prior to placing them in the business case. The statement of assumptions should be followed by an impartial discussion of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) that are associated with the recommended solution. It is also important that the business case discuss the risks associated with both implementing and not implementing a solution, the seriousness of the apparent risk should it occur and the probability of the risk occurring.

Conclusions and recommendations:
This section closes out the business case. It should reiterate the key themes that caused the project to be undertaken. It should restate the solution in at a high-level. It should identify the return on investment and the overall benefits of the solution. It should restate the risks of doing nothing and re-convey a sense of urgency. Finally this section should state the conclusions the reader should draw from the business case, and your recommendations for next steps.

Successful Hiring

To build a successful team is not a magical secret nor is it an exact science but to increase your probability of success, we have collected a few suggestions from our Clients whose teams outperform their competition year after year.

Firstly, the interview…
We could dedicate an entire blog to the art of the interview so rather than delve into this topic today, we will post articles on successful interviewing techniques, top 10 questions to ask and what to look for during and immediately after the interview process. Suffice it to say that the interview is where both parties (the employer and the prospective employee) get to strut their stuff and present themselves in a positive light creating feelings of desire in a similar method to some dating rituals we witness in the western world. Should a candidate actually receive and accept a job offer, the trial period begins and this is the focus of our article today.

There are several reasons for the trial period and one of them is that it gives each party an opportunity to walk the walk – can the employee actually deliver what they claimed to be capable of delivering during the interview process? Successful companies with successful teams require existing employees to accept some HR related tasks in their workload and one of these tasks is the process of inducting new hires into the complexities of existing business processes and offering them some form of introduction to the company culture at the same time. In the top performing companies, such an induction involves up to 10 employees for each new hire with two distinct outcomes; one is to have 10 different people assess the new person over a period of 3 months and the other is to offer the new hire the opportunity to bond with a few existing employees or even model someone that has achieved the recognition or status that the new employee aspires to attain.

Many companies have decided that a one month trial period is sufficient and I argue against that view based again on the dating game analogy. It takes months to get to know someone well enough to be able to assess their performance and come to a conclusion if this person adds value to the team or not. The most successful method that we have seen in the trial period phase of assessing new employees and determining if the fit works is a review 2 to 4 weeks after the new employee starts work. Questions such as How do you feel when you’re at work? Is something missing that we can provide to help you get the job done? What might we have promised you, but haven’t yet delivered? Do you look forward to coming to work each morning? What could we improve regarding teamwork? How do we compare to other employers? etc etc etc…

The answers to these sort of questions help to remove potential road blocks that could derail an employees good intentions and positive moral so you want to ensure that the communication channels are left open and that there is a healthy dialog between the new employee, management and the existing staff. At the same time, it is often valuable to gather feedback from the entire team involved with the introduction of the new employee to collect their opinions and ensure that everyone has what they need to get the job done effectively. After all, a business oriented team is like a football team in that the players have one major goal in common and they all need to pull together to score. The issue with many new hires in companies today is that often their input is ignored during the trial period and thus the new employee learns to play ping-pong rather than football. Incidentally, the game of ping-pong relates to the process of throwing a business issue back and forth between employees rather than gathering forward momentum and getting a job done. Several of our Client’s employees decided that ping-pong was their game of choice especially when it came to Customer service and this is one of the reasons that we were hired to restructure the organization and build a strong football team.

Would you like more information on how we might be able to build a football team for you? Please tell us about your current situation and your objectives – we would be honored to help you to score the next goal.

Your knowledge is worth more than you think

A few years ago an engineer I know retired after 30 years of loyal service for his employer, a large industrial company in Switzerland. After weeks of attempting to solve a problem with one of their largest and most productive machines, the company decided to bring in this retired engineer to try to solve the problem. After all, he was the best problem solver the company ever had. The engineer accepted the challenge and spent a day analyzing the large piece of equipment before making an X with his black pen on one specific component of the machine’s electronics. ‘Replace the component with the X on it and your problems are over’ said the engineer. The part was replaced and sure enough, the machine roared to life and within hours was back up to full capacity. A few days later the company received a bill from the engineer for 50,000 CHF for his consulting services. The company demanded a detailed report to justify the high cost and the engineer replied immediately with the following:
A single identification marking with black pen: CHF 1.00
Knowing exactly which component to replace: CHF 49,999.00
The problem solving engineer received full payment for his services within the month and is still comfortably retired.

A more believable story comes to us from a lady in New Jersey who says that she got a plumbers bill for $1000.00 and can’t believe it since the plumber was in her cellar for less than 5 minutes. I know this lady, so I asked her to get the plumber to present a detailed invoice. Here is what he sent her the very next day:
Dear Mrs. Smith,
Despite the fact that it was past midnight when you called me to put a stop to the loud noises in your basement, I will not charge you for interrupting my beauty rest. Here is my detailed invoice for the services performed at your home two days ago.
1. Use of hammer $0.99
2. Knowing exactly which part of the boiler to hit $999.00
Total Cost for this service call $999.99

Thanks for your business.

There was no argument – the plumber knew what he was doing and this bill was paid that same week.

Let’s look at the above from a different perspective, If you need experience something that you did not expect to experience… perhaps something with a negative outcome… and you do not know the most probable cause… and you have to solve this problem… Then call a professional. At BoxOnline, we provide our Clients with professional problem solving process in addition to experienced professionals in a variety of industries. If you have a problem that needs a solution, contact us today.

How Big Is Your Pond?

Why you want to be a big fish in a little pond
rather than a little fish in a big pond…

Explaining this issue to my Clients got my wheels spinning last year and today, I think I have come up with a reasonable analogy.

For several years, Manchester United was the top team in football (soccer for those of you across the pond). The team’s shining star, David Beckham was bringing in more than £80 million per year while some of his team mates on the bench earned the league minimum of £200,250.

Same winning team. Why the 300:1 difference in pay?

Because Beckham was slightly better than everyone else – he developed a specialty – he could practically fly across the field and score and his PR team took advantage of this to drive sales of footballs, soft drinks, clothing, books in Barcelona, toothpaste in Torquey, bubble gum in Birmingham, shoes in Sussex, telephones in Tokyo, T-shirts in Toronto, sneakers in Sydney, Sheffield and San Diego… you get the idea.

Joe Benchwarmer got a salary but very little else – not because he lacked talent but because the perceived difference between being the best in the world and being on the team is dramatic.

The gap between first place and second place grows larger with each passing season. The gap between first place and last place is now enormous.

In many fields there is rarely one winner, but those near the top reap a disproportionate share of the rewards.

The potential market for any product or service, any author or actor, for any singer or songwriter, for any doctor or lawyer, for any athlete or academic, now extends from one end of the world to the other. Yes, we truly have achieved a global marketplace.

Lesson learned?
Either you dominate the global market in your niche or somebody else will.

The name of the game is not being “The Doctor.”
It’s about being The Specialist for Catheterization for Patients over 60.

It’s not about being “The Lawyer”.
It’s about being The Attorney for Intellectual Property, Copyright and Digital Rights Management Law for the nano imprint lithography industry.

Yes, you leverage your expertise to hyper-specialize in a given niche market so that even on the mighty Internet, you can be a big fish in a little pond.

When you’re #1 on the net for that niche – you win big time.
So, sit back, relax and plan your move into a smaller pond. Business wise, it’ll be the best move you ever made.

If you’d like some help thinking through a solid strategy that works, be sure to ask for our specialist.

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Curtains

Another year draws to a close and those that are not yet caught up in the turmoil of the subprime mortgage scandal or related corporate governance issues are probably focused on revenues and earnings objectives for the coming quarter. It never ceases to amaze me how many managers plead innocence publicly prior to knowing the facts and especially before claiming ignorance as they beg for forgiveness when the shit hits the fan because a few investors actually bothered to read between the lines as they picked up on sub-par decisions embedded for eternity on the balance sheet that the CEO signed off just weeks earlier. Am I referring to any company in particular? Perhaps… Do I have some sort of conflict with certain management teams that believe that they are above the law. Nay, nay for their day is nigh.

Yes, the shortfall in forecasted ROI has struck me too… How can the large, multi-national organizations that claim to spend so much effort getting things right make such ridiculous miscalculations with our money? We investors need to be vigilant and show our support for those doing the right thing. We investors need to reduce the pompousness at the board level and dig into the virtues of the truly great managers in order to pull out some sanity and coach our teams to do the right thing. Come clean say you?

Do the right thing and you are clean say I.

OK, you got me… perhaps that diatribe was a bit o’er the top but this is my official end of the year cautionary note – you ain’t seen nothing yet folks… the subprime beast shall rear its ugly head in the coming months (errr years) and we will all get a taste of how badly this calamity has affected the companies we invested in when the Q4 numbers are released. I have already looked into the crystal ball my friends… it ain’t pretty.

Anyone care to set up a pool and take bets on which giants of industry will be the next to tumble? How about a bank… If there were a pool, I’d place my money on UBS, Citigroup and Merrill Lynch not necessarily in that order.

Do You Really Need A Coach?

Ever come across a successful football team without a coach / trainer / manager?

How about a top basketball or ice hockey team?

Each player has his/her specialty, each has a training program to improve skills, abilities and experience yet the coach ties it all together for each player and then again for the entire team.

Typically, the coach has been there before – they have played on a variety of fields and can leverage their experience to benefit the whole team. Ever notice that the coach does not put on a uniform and replace a non-performing player? The coach has a different sort of job that is oriented around managing people rather than executing on a given play.

Interesting that when comparing sports to businesses, only the most successful businesses have coaches. These coaches or mentors help guide executives by providing external input and expertise so that the business person can score a goal.

Why is it that only the most successful business people have a coach?

On the one hand, you could interpret this as “in order to be successful in business, you need a coach” or “When you have achieved a certain level of success, you can get even further with a coach”. We believe that the answer is something of a combination of the above scenarios in that, an external coach or mentor is a tremendous asset to any given business. Sadly, business people today typically come to the conclusion that they need help only after they encounter an obstacle crossing their path to success.

Why not hire a coach before you run into an obstacle?

If a coach can review your strategy, your plans, tactics and team profiles, do you think you could increase your probability for success?

Given what we have learned from coaching 25 companies during the past 10 years in addition to the learning we captured from our own coaches, the definitive answer is YES, coaching makes a positive difference. Here is how we came to this conclusion.

Many companies have learned that their employees can overcome self doubt, fears and concerns created by corporate restructuring or poor leadership by hiring a coach. Today, more and more firms are looking for support by bringing in a coach rather than sending employees out for additional education. Depending on the challenge at hand, a coach often is able to deliver results to a company faster and for less investment (time and money) than sending a team to an offsite for a few days.

For a coach, there is no secret recipe that can be applied to all Clients. The coach needs to explore the needs and objectives of each Client separately and then tap into a library of experiences, tools and resources to be able to deliver results that can make the difference between missing quarterly objectives and over-performing by 20%.

Several years ago an investor came to us to help get his bank get back on track. A few areas within the bank were delivering adequately yet not enough to offset the poor performance in one key division. This division of the bank had a ‘new’ manager who apparently lacked leadership experience and as a result, was losing many key employees. This particular manager was promoted one week after the former director passed away unexpectedly, more than 10 months ago. The manager may have been a good deputy director but was not prepared for the challenges faced by his boss and thus, the team wanted out.

The knee jerk reaction would usually be to remove the new manager and reform the team however, banks don’t necessarily work this way. They are very slow and resistant to change. Removing this manager was not an option but providing him with guidance in the form of a coach was in line with the bank’s culture and objectives.

The coach observed the manager in action, took notes on the methods he used to lead his team, plan for the future, inspire others and instill a sense of belonging in typical day to day situations. In the process the coach noticed that this manager allocated very little of his time dealing with employee’s needs or even listening to his people when they had feedback for the team. There was little doubt that this was one of the most probable reasons for the mass defections and the coach found a way to get the message across to this manager that a percentage of each day needs to be allocated to the bank’s most important asset.. its people. The coach provided a few models and some guidance on active listening techniques and then participated in a few sessions with employees while the manager put his newly acquired skills to work.

The first objective was to initiate a change in the way that this manager dealt with his staff so that each staff member felt as though they were able to communicate openly with their boss and that their voice was heard. The second objective was to ensure that the manager scheduled time to resolve the issues that each employee had raised and then to report back to the employee and close the circle. Mission accomplished: company board members happy, company execs happy, employees happy – a win-win-win result.

What exactly is coaching in today’s constantly changing business environment?

During a recent restructuring project there was a component of reorganization which created not only an uneasy emotional environment but outright confusion among staffers and management alike. Managers that go through a change process like this often have no one to turn to for advice or guidance. Access to a good coach is key to the manager’s well being and success. A coach’s role in situations like these is to create a sense of security so that all involved are able to see things clearer thus bringing a sense of calm into the organization. Also, as an external observer, the coach is often able to present a totally different perspective to the Client thus encouraging each member of a team to move toward something positive rather than away from something negative – but that is an entirely different topic that we will cover later this year.

If you believe that hiring a coach might help you to:

• see things more clearly
• introduce a sense of calm to your team
• leverage experience to provide you with guidance
• motivate yourself and inspire your team
• identify obstacles in your path to success
• better prepare for your business challenges
• achieve success

you are probably right on track and we’d be delighted to hear about your needs. Who knows, perhaps our coaches might be able to help you and your company achieve your mutual objectives this quarter.

There is a real difference between managing and leading, managing ends up being the allocation of resources against tasks and projects. Leadership focuses on people. My definition of a leader is someone who helps people succeed. Is there any way we can help you succeed?

Landing Pages

Landing Pages are the weapon of choice for many marketers.
Marketers who do not employ Landing Pages either do not understand the
concept, or they are just plain lazy.

A Landing Page is more than just a duplicate of your sales page renamed
for a PPC campaign. A Landing Page often strips out many elements of
“effective design” and focuses on selling the product or service.
The main purpose of your Landing Page is to give the visitor two
choices: Buy or Leave. Nothing else. Don’t distract them with other
options. That is why they are there – don’t make the mistake of giving
them too much to choose from. If you want to get them to subscribe for
more information, fine. Then create a “name squeeze” page, but don’t
confuse yourself. Landing Pages are for one reason and one reason only
… to make a sale.

Here is a short laundry list of what I do when I create a Landing Page:

Font Face, Color & Size:
There is one thing that most people hate, and that is 4-5 different
fonts that clutter up the landscape of the page. Different Fonts for
headlines is fine. Different fonts in your body text is not good, it is
distracting. Don’t do it. Keep to one font in your body text. Testing
shows that the best “off line” (print) font is Times New Roman. This is
why it is the default font on the internet. Big mistake. Testing shows
that Times New Roman is one of the worst fonts online. Why? It causes
rapid eye fatigue.

The best fonts? Verdana and Arial. Standardize on Verdana as it
consistently outperforms every font out there in terms of reducing eye
strain and increased readability. Use standard fonts in the body of the
page, if you want an usual font for a headline, create it as a graphic
so it will look the same on every computer. You want your message to
have the look you intended.

The text should be readable. The standard size is “2”. Text should
always be dark on a light background (black text on a white background
is preferred). Landing Pages aren’t designed to allow you to show off
how “cute” you can be. This is serious stuff, you are selling. Put on
your “best face”.

Make the Links Easy to Find:
Now, having a cool CSS file that makes the links change colors, add or
remove underlines is fine on your site. Knock yourself out. However,
they have no business on your Landing Pages. Why? Because confusing a
visitor is not your priority, getting them to buy is.
Use standard linking practices to avoid confusion. If a potential
customer can’t distinguish between text and a link you are going to
lose. That’s not good.

Standard colors are:

* Unvisited Link – Underline in Blue
* Active Link (when the mouse “hovers” over the link – Red
* Visited Link – Purple

I recommend not messing around with the visited link, just have the
standard unvisited and hover so the visitor has some interactivity and
the link will “catch” their eye. I have done a ton of testing and the
standard linking practices always have better conversion ratios.

Color Scheme:
The colors you choose should match the product or service you are
selling. Soothing yellows, greens and blues are best for skin care. Pick
your color carefully as they will either bring the visitor in deeper
into the sales process or turn them away. A site for men shouldn’t have
pink as the primary color … or secondary color for that matter.

Not sure the colors to use? Look at the competition, as it is a great
place to start. And if you still aren’t sure, test.

White Space:
White space has been referred to as “negative space” by many designers
and thus, avoided. All of those designers should lose their jobs. This
is not high school art class. You are selling here, remember? White
space is good. White space is your friend.
When I look at a Landing Page with effective use of white space, I see
perfection. Without white space, text becomes unreadable, and the
graphics and other important elements become “washed out” and the
message is lost.

White space is more than just a background “color” – it is a part of
your conversion design. This also leads into another area, page
backgrounds. Don’t use them. Over the years I have seen floral designs
on iPod sites, vacation pictures as backgrounds, and even a woman and
her cat as the background …. and these were ALL landing pages.

Page Width and Page Height:
Have you heard the term “above the fold”? I am sure you have. It comes
from the newspaper industry and referred to ads and information that was
above the folded area. Testing found that 86% of the people who picked
up a newspaper at an airport, train station, office waiting room, never
“flipped” the paper over … they just looked “above the fold” only. The
same is true online. Did you know that of the people who don’t scroll
down that 6% of them don’t because they don’t know how?
Yes, you read that right. They don’t know how.

If your landing pages scrolls vertically on a 1024×768 resolution you
need to redo it. And if you are forcing a visitor to scroll
HORIZONTALLY, you are guilty of one of the worst web design mistakes of
all time. The scroll bar is your enemy. All of your important
information, including your Call to Action must be above the fold. Period.

Page Theme:
A Landing Page is geared to sell a particular product or service. So, if
I am doing a search for left-handed golf clubs or a Hawaiian vacation, I
am expecting to see a page about those topics. Don’t be lazy. Deliver
what I want, and I will be more likely to buy. Don’t dump me on a cookie
tracked version of your home page either. The content needs to match my
search. If not, I will most likely leave.
Stress Benefits, Not Features – Very few people care about features,
most care about benefits. Stress the benefits of the product or service
and you will increase your conversions.

Call To Action:
A no brainer, right? Wrong. Too many sites fail to have an effective
Call to Action. This is typical of most new and non-experienced sales
people. They fail to ask for the order. They just assume that the
prospects understands. Newsflash: They don’t. Explain what you want them
to do in easy to understand language, or an effective graphic. A “Buy
Now” is a Call to Action, and often a very effective one.

That’s it – we know you’ll be able to put these simple, but tested and
proven landing page strategies to work in your own business, whether
you’re an affiliate or marketing your own products.