The Results Leader

Fundamental to the success of any small to medium sized company’s marketing campaign and their marketing plan is understanding the concept of the sales funnel.

Yes, whether you like it or not, marketing your services is key to your success and just like any other professional service such as business consulting, legal services or even psychological counseling, your services oriented company is a business that needs to follow the fundamental rules of marketing in order to succeed.

The cornerstone of any successful marketing method begins with an understanding that not every person you or your firm comes in contact with, is ready to become a Client. In fact, many prospects will never become Clients.

In other words, your marketing efforts will generate leads and these leads go into the top of the sales funnel but only a small percentage will drop out of that funnel as Clients. If the percentage of conversions is greater than 50% then you simply need to market to a broader audience – the shape of your sales funnel in this case will appear more similar to a pipe than a funnel indicating that conversions are unusually high.

Many firms tend to concentrate (generally to the exclusion of all else) most of their marketing efforts on improving the conversion rate or closing rate which amounts to the percentage of prospects that they have converted to Clients.

This helps to explain the fascination with networking, luncheons, presentations, meetings, seminars etc. The idea being: “If we spend more time trying to build relationships we will close more new deals.”

So called ‘thought leaders’ tend to foster this approach and sadly it’s very misleading as a marketing concept. Please allow me to illustrate. Charles Green, author of the book “Trust Based Selling” has written an excellent article titled: “Why Your Sales Process Matters Less Than The Psychology Of Selling.” The article is well written with numerical analysis of an entire sales pipeline start to finish. Unfortunately it misses the whole point of what a sales funnel is supposed to do.

An ideal sales funnel is designed to generate the maximum amount of QUALIFIED prospects possible from within a given marketing universe. It is from that pool of qualified prospects that we might apply the concept of relationship building so that prospects are converted into new Clients over time.

Here is the point of today’s article.

Regardless of how skilled you are at relationship building, you simply will not close any deals if you don’t have anyone to sell to. Here’s the good part, the more people you have access to, the more new Clients you will likely acquire (even if your relationship building skills need work).

Here’s a simple example.

Suppose you are a sales superstar ‘relationship’ builder and you have 10 qualified leads to work with. Over the course of a year, you wine them, dine them, schmooze them, golf with them and literally do anything they want using the company’s marketing budget as your weapon of choice.

Let’s say that at the end of a year, you were able to sign up 60% of them and thus 6 new Clients were acquired for the firm. If the main success metric your firm used were conversions from prospect to Client, you would be considered a ‘sales genius’. In reality, the average sales professional closes around 14% of qualified prospects in today’s competitive world.

What if I, on the other hand, through my integrated marketing efforts have created a pool of 100 reasonably qualified prospects. I’m just an average person so I close 14% of these prospects over a twelve month period. This is not a bad ratio it is simply average.

Pop quiz: If all deals are of equal size, who made more money?

I will have 14 new Clients and you will have 6.
You are almost 330% better at closing (read ‘building relationships’) than I am.

Please reread the above until you understand it.

Even though your interpersonal skills are 3x better than mine, I have made more than twice the amount of money you made during the same twelve month period.

The lesson here is if you are able to cost effectively convert prospects into Clients, you need to open the flood gates and fill your sales funnel with qualified leads. Good examples of tactics that provide you with tons of leads are going to be the subject of upcoming articles. In the meantime, if someone were to give you 100 highly qualified leads, what would you do with them to improve your relationship building skills and make more money next year?

I don’t know how you answered the above question, but I’ll take those leads any day over solely relying on my relationship building skills and I think most of you out there would agree.

More highly qualified leads equals more money no matter what business you’re in.

That is called results.

No disrespect to ‘thought leaders’, but I’d rather be a results leader wouldn’t you?

What’s in a Name?

What makes a good name for a business? I mean, what’s really in a name? There has been much psychological research into the process of naming a company and even more investigation into names that helped propel a firm into the Fortune 500 stratosphere. In this article we are going to explore a few of the best methods known and outline the process we use for our Clients at the same time. Up to now, this was a highly confidential document kept in our vaults because we have used it in the past to create some very compelling brands for our Clients.

Generally speaking, there are four key similarities that winning brand names have in common. The number of syllables in the name, the visual appearance, the meaning or implied meaning of the word or phrase and the linguistic elements that make the name memorable and easy to speak when communicating it to others.

Let’s start with syllables – a good name should have an absolute maximum of 4 syllables in order to make it easy to remember and pronounce, examples here include APple, AMaZON, iPHONE, GOOgle, YAhoo SWISSair etc.

The next similarity all winning names have in common have to do with their visual appearance – for businesses where the name needs to be communicated primarily in writing, words which form visually interesting shapes help to anchor the success of the name. Examples that come to mind include: Google, Apple, Sony, Oracle, Levis.

Meaning – having words which have specific meaning, implied meaning, double meaning or evoke certain thoughts or emotions in a person are said to be powerful in generating a strong, memorable name for your company. This does not always need to be an obvious or business descriptive meaning but can be based around controversy; Virgin is a great example of this and so is Big Ass Fans and RedBull.

Lastly, let’s review the most complex of these similarities – linguistic elements such as plosives and fricatives. Plosives are sounds formed when airflow to the vocal tract is stopped. Words that use P, T and K are good examples. Fricative sibilants cause us to roll our tongue. Examples include ‘s’ and ‘z’. When words use both plosives and fricative consonants the word tends to have a stronger and more memorable impact on both the speaker and the listener. Examples include Prozac, Microsoft, Kodak and Pepsi.

So with a bit of the psychology presented, how do you create a really great brand name?

For folks with no time to spare and a dream of running an online businesses that have a flair for something different and exciting in the web 2.0 space, check out this site, it is loads of fun!

For those of you with your feet more solidly planted on the ground, there are a few ways forward. One is to use a dictionary, a search engine, a thesaurus and a healthy dose of imagination to brainstorm your way to the idea brand name… this is what most people do until they get a bit frustrated and basically run out of time or patience (whichever occurs first). At BoxOnline, we prefer a process oriented approach because it opens the team up to new trains of thought that allow participants to really think out of the box. The net result is a bigger list with much more diversity and a strong focus on the product, the Customers who will pay for the product and the industry in focus.

When the list has been prepared, our team of analysts use resources such as The National Business Register to check each idea against registered business names, domain names, limited companies and trademarks. There are other such resources as well and this is an important step prior to presenting executives with a list of viable candidates.

Many of our Clients claim that they don’t have the time or the money to invest in something like a name generation workshop. They believe that they can do it on their own and, to this we politely offer our best wishes because during the past 20 years we have held 400 name generation workshops and we deliver results for our Clients. In fact, we even guarantee our Clients that we will find a winning name that is still available for registration or we will refund your money… it’s that simple.

If the name of your business and the image it conveys to your Prospects and Customers is important to you, then let’s sit down to establish the strongest possible brand in a structured best practice workshop.

The process oriented approach to developing a brand name for your business takes a lot more time and effort that reviewing a word list or playing around with the dotomator but the results are usually very rewarding and lasting.

Are you ready to have a look behind the curtain?
The first step is gathering enough relevant information. Below are many of the questions we ask in our data gathering phase of the workshop. If the team, the timing and the element of creativity are all positive… we usually produce a list of 10 to 20 viable names which then need to be checked and cross checked to ensure that they are not yet trademarked or registered to another business before we begin exploring or confirming domain availability.

Name Development Process

Understanding Your Purpose and Your Product

The word “product” refers to whatever you are naming, whether it’s an object, a person, a company, a service, a piece of intellectual property, an event, or an abstract idea. Sometimes product and company will both be used to clarify the meaning.

“Customer” refers to whomever you want the name to attract.

Save every name you think of, regardless of quality. A poor name may become the kernel of an outstanding name.

Begin brainstorming the name itself.

Consider the four most important issues in creating a memorable name:
the purpose of the name
the nature of the product
the nature of the person you want to impress and
the impression you want to make.

Here’s the first set of questions to get you launched into our process approach:

How convinced are you that this project is worth the effort?
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What is the expected lifespan of the name, and what does this imply for the amount of time and money you should devote to it?
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What would you gain or lose by delaying the project; and how long might you delay it?
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What are your personal feelings about the project?
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If your feelings are less than enthusiastic: what is the reason, and what would it take to change your mind?
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What if you were to quit the project now?
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Who else is involved in the naming:
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Who else may be working on this name–or on other names for the same organization? How about pooling resources?
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Who will decide upon the name, and when?
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HOW will the decision be made? Do you still need to decide how to decide?
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How much research of reserved and registered names are you expected to do before submitting your recommendations?
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At this point, does everyone agree on the importance, the required resources, the division of labor, and the final deadline?
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If not: what are the differences? How should they be resolved?
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IF YOU ARE CHANGING A NAME: [Consider the next 13 questions. Otherwise skip to “DEFINING THE PURPOSE OF THE NAME.”]

Why was the current name selected? (What impression was the name supposed to convey? Was the selection arbitrary or political?)
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What are your reasons for changing the name?
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How sure are you that a change is justified?
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Could it be that a winning name has simply become boring to people within the organization?
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What are the dangers of weakening the market position held by the current name?
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What if you change a component of the marketing formula OTHER THAN the name?
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redesign the package–size, shape, material, graphics
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target to a different customer
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change the method of distribution
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What if you REVITALIZE the name, rather than risk losing what it has gained?
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modernize the visual image of the name and the logo
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modernize the sound of the name or the sounds associated with it
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update the people/things/activities associated with the name
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DEFINING THE PURPOSE OF THE NAME:

Are you seeking a name with local appeal, regional appeal, national appeal, international appeal, or a combination of these?
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As part of your total marketing effort, what do you want the name to DO?
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help position a new product in people’s minds
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help position a new company in people’s minds
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help position a new company along with its primary product
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help revitalize/reposition a mature or lagging product
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help revitalize/reposition a mature or lagging company
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help overcome a damaged reputation
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help entice people to attend an event
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What type of person do you want the name to impress or attract?
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What thought have you given to the FIRST IMPRESSION you want the name to make? (What do you think it should immediately imply or immediately bring to mind?)
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What thought have you given to the TYPE of brand name/trade name/service mark you’re seeking?
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coined, arbitrary, fanciful: Bic, Kodak, Pringles, Tic Tac
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coined, suggestive: Cheerios, Crayola, Jif, Kleenex, Polaroid, Purex, Rice-A-Roni, Ziploc
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real, arbitrary, fanciful: Birds Eye, Carnation, Corvette
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real, suggestive: Airstream, Bronco, Budget Gourmet, Grape Nuts, Janitor in a Drum, Midas, Safeway, Tiger Paw
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real, descriptive: Jiffy Lube, Murphy’s Oil Soap, Tender Vittles
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If this is a technical product for a scientific/technical market: what if you choose a friendly, nontechnical name?
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If you’re positioning a company along with its primary product: should their names be similar? Which one should you focus on now?
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If the product creates a new product category: should you concentrate first on a name for the category, or first on a name for the product?
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If this is one item in a product line: what thought have you given to creating, maintaining, or preventing similarity among names?
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UNDERSTANDING THE PRODUCT:

What is the CORE IDEA behind the product you are naming? (What is the customer to expect from the product? What is the promise? What miracle does the product perform?)
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Which words that pinpoint the CORE IDEA offer clues for a name?
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What total package of benefits does the user of the product receive?
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What does the product help a person save, gain, improve, achieve, or enjoy?
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What new or different expression of the good life does it provide?
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What fear does the product reduce?
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What loss does the product prevent?
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What is the ONE KEY BENEFIT, and how might it be expressed in the name?
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What are you really selling? (For example: soap, or cleaning power? Fax machines, or speed of information?)
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What important problem or difficulty does the customer often face, for which this product would be a help or solution?
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What name might suggest an answer for the problem?
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What is most interesting about the USE of this product? Imagine the name expressing:
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what the product is doing; the reason it’s being used
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the unique way it’s being used
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the special time when it’s being used
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the important place where it’s being used
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something else the person can do while using it
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What desirable aspect of product DESIGN might be reflected in the name?
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convenience, accessibility, maneuverability, ease of operation
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durability, longevity, reliability, repairability
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elegance, beauty, grace, color, style
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practicality, comfort, economy
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shape, size, weight, portability
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speed, power, strength
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versatility, adaptability, flexibility
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association with an historical period or with the future
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association with a country/continent/geographic area
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association with a particular group of people
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What distinct or unusual SENSORY PERCEPTION is associated with the product? Is it so essential that it warrants expression in the name?
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What sight, sound, taste/flavor, odor, or texture?
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When the product is handled or experienced, what “feel” does it have, and how might you convey this feeling in a name? (such as well balanced, delicate, sturdy, snappy, smooth, responsive)
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What other intangibles are associated with this product or with this KIND of product? Is one of them strong enough to center your thoughts about a name?
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fantasy, whimsy, escape from the ordinary
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friendship, love, romance
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insight, understanding, higher awareness
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joy, fun, happiness, cheer
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loyalty, devotion, admiration, respect
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progress, improvement
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quality, rarity, excellence
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safety, protection
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status, prestige, success
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thrills, excitement, adventure
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trendiness, timeliness, agelessness
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What ACTIVITY is synonymous with this product? What images do you associate with the activity?
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What MOTION or RHYTHM is peculiar to this product, and what does it suggest for an attention-getting name?
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For varieties of movements, see the IdeaBank Topical Category called action/motion/movement/rhythm.
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What CHANGE or EFFECT does the product bring about? How might the name of the product point to this desired result? (as in Downy fabric softener and Perma Soft shampoo)
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What special effect does the product have on people?
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Does the product decrease, minimize, or eliminate something?
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Does it increase, expand, maximize?
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Does it attract or bring together?
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Does it energize, invigorate, activate, embolden?
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Does it promote, enable, empower?
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Does it save, keep, preserve?
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Does it strengthen, fortify, reinforce?
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Does it serve as a catalyst to transform or convert something into something else?
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Does it transform itself? Does it create something new?
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What value does this product add to an existing product or service?
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What if the name communicated the value added?
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Because you want your customer to think “this is my kind of product,” what words could you use as metaphors of its character?
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aggressive, competitive, fierce, intense
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calm, tranquil, serene
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cheerful, cheery, optimistic
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capable, competent, qualified, skillful, proficient
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charismatic, persuasive, irresistible, compelling
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comical, funny, witty, clever, entertaining
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friendly, kindly, comforting, likable, tactful, loving, helpful
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honest, genuine, dependable, predictable, trustworthy
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smart, bright, intelligent, brilliant, knowing, wise
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smooth, sophisticated, suave, urbane, first-class
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splendid, incomparable, peerless, superb
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strong, confident, forceful, persistent
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If the product could talk: what words would it use to describe itself? How would it describe its own identity?
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Imagine listening to what the product is trying to tell you. What is it saying about the name it would like to have?
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DISTILLING YOUR MESSAGE:

To summarize your analysis: what position do you want this product to occupy in the customer’s mind? (Where, in people’s thoughts about the product category, do you want THIS PRODUCT to be?)
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To achieve this position, which focus should your message take?
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suggest what the product is or does
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suggest the main benefit of using the product
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suggest both its purpose and its main benefit
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If you’ve not yet distilled the essence of the name: should you try harder, or should you consider an ARBITRARY name?
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If you do select an arbitrary name: should it be coined, or should it be a real word? Does that matter?
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Should it be fanciful? Or suggestive of the product?
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What should be the TONE, including the SOUND, of the name? (What would be inviting? What tone would be in tune with the customer?)
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assertive, forceful, commanding, take-charge, leader-like
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brilliant, sparkling, twinkly, shiny, bright
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chic, sophisticated, subtle, elegant, honeyed, moneyed, smooth
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classic, ageless, timeless, eternal
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exquisite, lovely, beauteous, handsome, rare
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intelligent, intellectual, educated
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flamboyant, reckless, creative, risk-taking
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futuristic, modern, forward-looking
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helpful, cooperative, sympathetic, soothing, gentle
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macho, competitive, military, rugged, burly, bullish
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mysterious, intriguing
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nostalgic, sentimental, hearkening to the past
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outdoorsy, woodsy, nautical, environmental
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patriotic, nationalistic
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powerful, potent, lusty, healthy, robust
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practical, reasonable, no-nonsense, businesslike
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quick, crisp
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romantic, flirtatious, passionate, risque
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scientific, technical. high-tech
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warm, homey, comfortable, steady, down to earth, protective
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whimsical, light, flighty, humorous, merry, happy, joking, jolly
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young, trendy, upbeat, vibrant, energetic
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zippy, zingy, tangy, hot
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SUMMARY:
You have now addressed the basic issues in naming:
the purpose of the name
the nature of the product
the nature of the person you want to reach and
the impression you want to make

The next step would be either continue brainstorming with
questions about the Customer – Competition – Market or
use questions from our Name Generation Techniques.

If you still need a good name for your product, please do get in touch with us and let us know how we might be able to help?

Do Performance Reviews?

Most of us go through the process of performance reviews each year and this year I thought I’d try to share a few tips on making them more effective for all.

To start with, think about the following:
1. Journal your thoughts
Dedicate 4 pages for every member of your staff. Throughout the year note specific points on achievements, failures, Client feedback, project involvement and results, behavior within the team etc. I love to use a mind map for this sort of thing. So, if Autumn is the season for performance reviews, all you will need to do is whip out your mind map and create a summary for the discussion.

2. SWOT Analysis
This has always been a favorite tool for me. It is really nothing new but it sure is efficient. I typically use page 2 of the employee’s section in my journal to jot down the person’s strengths and weaknesses as they unfold during the year. Then I add to that the opportunities both inside and outside the firm in addition to the threats that I perceive relevant to this team member. I do the same SWOT for the firm as it applies to this employee such as the threat of losing this person to the competition or the opportunity to promote this person to run a new project should we land the big deal next quarter. It is very helpful in keeping my thoughts clear when decision time is upon us managers.

3. Review the Mantra and if you don’t have one… the mission statement will do. This element of the review relates performance to our company’s goals and with our company culture. One thing that I do is compare an employee’s performance with our mantra… Have they helped us to live up to our goals? How can they improve or do the goals need some adjusting? This is what I reserve page 3 of the journal for.

4. Management principles
I am asked once in a while to review a company’s management principles and rate management’s performance against these principles. This is such a ridiculous task since most managers have not memorized the principles and are expected to follow them. The real joke is that the principles are usually very honorable and inspiring but rarely if ever adhered to in the real workplace. These docs are handed to me with pride, but few managers are able to provide concrete examples of how they live up to such ideals in their daily business. How sad is that? My 2 cents… drop the ideals and get a grip on reality. Either write something that your people will use as helpful guidelines or simply stick to the mantra. End of story.

5. Client feedback
Each employee should have a folder or binder containing feedback from Clients. It serves as a reminder of good performance, gratitude and it inspires your people to keep over-delivering. I too keep a list on page 4 in my journal of every instance (that I am aware of) where Clients have provided me with feedback on my employee’s performance and whether it was positive, negative or neutral in each case. I can highly recommend this as it is usually a very real reminder of things that went right during the past year.

Since I have suffered through several ridiculous performance reviews in the past using standardized forms and the happy face vs sad face methodology which inevitably lead to more smiley faces than you can shake a stick at, I decided to ban such nonsense and get on with pissing people off when they need to hear the truth and delighting others when they over deliver and make my Clients happy – I don’t wait until the annual review, I offer my feedback on a job well done immediately.. OK, I am the first to admit… I offer my 2 cents when something goes wrong as well. After all, my goal is to over deliver and thus delight my Clients so that I can live by our mantra and help you to succeed.

SEO Lessons from the Field 1

This is the first of a series of posts we are going to publish on state of the art search engine optimization techniques to help you rank your site organically in the top search engines as high as possible for your top keyword phrases.

There are two main areas that search engines consider when they’re deciding how to rank your page and the first is what you publish on your page and how relevant that is to what people are actually searching for. We call these on-page elements. The good news is that you can optimize on-page elements easily. All you need to do is edit the text on your website.

The second thing the search engines look at is how popular your site is on the internet.

• How many other sites are linking to you?
• Do you have important authority sites linking to you?
• What text do such sites use to link to your site?

These are called off-page elements and we will address them in the next post on this topic.

On-page elements are important in determining your rankings but off-page elements are even more important. You’re unlikely to get to the #1 spot in Google, MSN or Yahoo purely because of your on-page elements, but they could mean the difference between being on page 3 or page 1 – So be sure to read Lesson 2 in this series for some off-page tips.

Here are a few critical on-page elements that you need to optimize in order to get reasonable organic listings for your keyword phrases.

Ensure that your <title> tags include the keyword phrase that you are optimizing for.

<title></title> tags indicate the title of your web page and gives the search engines a strong clue as to what a specific web page is about. This text appears on the very top of your browser window when you are on a given web page and this very same text is what the search engines will display in their organic listings as the clickable text link to your site. So, it’s really important that your <title> tags contain the keywords that you’re optimizing that particular page for.

For example:

If you wrote an article about how to read text faster, then the title of the page could be:

How to read text faster | Read Text Faster.

notice that I used the separator ‘|’ to boost the importance of my keywords for this page: this is an easy and natural way of doing it. You can use another separator if you wish, the idea is to present your keywords clearly for both users and search engine consumption.

Ensure that your <h1> tags include the keyword phrase that you are optimizing for.

Search engines read H1 tags first to find out what your page is about like headlines in a newspaper. If the search engine spiders discover your most important keywords in your <h1> tags, your page will be seen as more relevant for that search term and you will rank higher.

In your first 50 words of text be sure to include your keyword phrase.

Many search engines pay more attention to the first 50 words on a page than to the rest of the content on that page so be sure to include your keywords at least once within the first 50 words for each page you publish.

Keyword density: at least once in every 100 words of text on your page, incorporate your keywords and keyword phrases.

Your keywords need to appear a few times on your page integrated into the text but not more than 4 times for every 100 words. This is also known as 4% keyword density. If you go any higher than 4%, your site may be penalized for using a spam tactic.

Your internal site links need to include your keywords.

Search engines use the words in your link text (otherwise known as “anchor text”) to estimate the nature of the page you’re linking to. This can be used to your advantage in your on-page SEO efforts, giving your pages a little boost for your keywords.

We have many Clients who struggle to rank well in the search engines until they understand the importance of this tactic. Prior to working with us, they insisted on having a link on their site called ‘Home’. These people are actually optimizing their home page for the word “home” when they should be optimizing it for their main keyword instead! If they were to change the text “home” to “Read Faster Home”, or “Improve Reading Comprehension home”, they would give themselves a boost for “read faster” or “improve comprehension”. If your keyword for a page is “optimize your website”, then link to it from your menu using the text “optimize your website”, or “How to optimize your website”.

The same goes for all pages on your site. Don’t ever link to a page on your site using “Click here” unless you’d like to rank well for the phrase “click here”.

Original content means that visitors will spend more time on your site.

The search engines don’t want to display twenty sites with the same content. It doesn’t provide a good experience for their users. So you’ll find that many search engines have implemented “duplicate content penalties” for sites that seem to be displaying content very similar to content found on other website(s).

So what do you do if your content is the same as someone else’s?

This happens quite often, particularly if you’re using content from private label rights (PLR) articles, where hundreds of other people might be doing the same thing. The trick is to reword the article to make it unique. Shuffle the paragraphs, use synonyms, and try to change the article by at least 50%, and preferably more to be on the safe side.

Get the best quality content that you can for your site, because the search engines will also pay attention to how long people spend reading your pages. The longer visitors stay on your pages, the more relevant your site appears to the search engines for the keywords you have optimzed the page for. If visitors leave your site within a few seconds, the search engines may interpret this action as a poor fit for your keyword phrases. So try to write text that your visitors would be interested in and thus, try to increase the amount of time visitors spend on your site.

Mantra Mantra Mantra

I just asked the key managers employed by my latest Client to tell me what exactly it was that their company did – the response was so shockingly bland that I decided to escalate my curiosity on a more personal level. I asked the same folks to tell me what they do at the company – After an hour I was speechless. You see, a few months ago this company hired a consultant for $20,000 to help them bond as a team and then use the synergy of the moment to draft and approve a new mission statement that would help propel them forward, somehow… magically. The statements I listened to lacked purpose, focus and cohesiveness among other things. To put it bluntly, several managers were fighting with their counterparts in other divisions – Sales was determined to place some form of blame on Engineering and Engineering had it out of the folks in Finance. This is not healthy – nor is it productive so when the CEO asked for my help I wanted to be sure that I understood what I was getting into. I’d been tasked with making a positive change in the work environment so that the team could identify and then achieve common goals yet the issue seemed to stem from something much more basic and a lot less complex.

In many ways this situation reminds me of companies that hire a consultant to conduct a two day ‘broaden your horizons’ type of company event away from the office with team building exercises leading up to a brainstorming session designed to create a mission statement, a USP (Unique Selling Proposition) or something in between. The event usually goes like this:

Day 1: A day of exercises, games and puzzles designed to improve relationships within the company and encourage trust among colleagues. One such activity includes turning your back on the group, closing your eyes and then falling backwards hopefully into the arms of your co-workers. Another one involves sticks and ropes to encourage the team to work together to achieve a common goal.

Day 2: Usually the rain day plan (an indoor activity) where the entire group assembles to create a mission statement. The room is usually too small to contain the entire team and there are pens, paper, white boards and usually a facilitator who knows nothing about your business. Everyone in a managerial position and above in the company is present and encouraged to contribute. After several hours you typically get something like:

‘The mission of Moevenpick is to deliver superior quality products and services for our customers and communities through leadership, innovation, and partnerships.’

Don’t get me wrong. I love Moevenpick, but I’ve never thought I was participating in ‘leadership, innovation, and partnerships’ when I ordered an ice cream there. The basic reason for mission statementosis is that people contributing to a company’s direction usually worked for McMinsey or Boston Consulting Group, have a MBA or some combination of all three.

These days, it is probably more helpful to have a mantra than a mission statement. A mantra contains 6 words max (the fewer the better) and if your receptionist is able to retain it for more than a day, you probably have something interesting.
A few examples:

• Domino’s Pizza “You got 30 minutes”
• YouTube “Broadcast Yourself”
• UPS “What can brown do for you?”
• McDonald’s “i’m lovin’ it”
• PHILIPS “sense and simplicity”
• M&Ms “melts in your mouth, not in your hand”
• Red Bull “Gives you wings”
• INTEL “Leap Ahead”

So, although you may have wanted to hire that consultant for $20,000 to help build some team spirit and get everyone to pitch in and create a mission statement – think instead about taking a weekend off to relax – do something you really enjoy and then on Monday, dedicate time to creating a memorable mantra for your company. If you still want to outsource this to some creative types, get in touch, we may be able to help.

As for my Client, we were able to identify the issue within two days. Our team addressed the major concerns in a consultative session called Potential Problem Analysis and created viable solutions within one day. We were then hired to implement 2 of the 6 solutions and project manage the remaining 4. The solution that seemed to make the most difference at the end of the day was the mantra. I still can’t believe it – the mantra was missing and when it was selected and put in place, 20 very different managers walked back into their arenas to fight the competition instead of each other. This case was fun, rewarding and delivered with excellent results. Does your company have a mantra yet? Tell us about it.

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.