Massaker.Me

Social Media is supposed to have brought about this new era of transparency. But has it?

My business partner (Jeffrey) and I got into a disagreement regarding this the other day and I thought “Let’s see what the rest of our small world of FaceBook friends and blog readers think”.

Jeffrey, had found a forum post on a product review board on the Dell web site which slammed some new tiny computer that they had recently put out. He emailed me the link saying that transparency was not good in this case. Having read about Dell Hell in Jeff Jarvis’ What Would Google Do?, I was inclined to immediately disagree because Mr. Jarvis made a very good argument to the contrary – that publicly calling Dell out had resulted in him getting what he wanted and that his small set of the articles spread very quickly over the web, becoming a PR nightmare for Dell. Dell finally reacted and learned their lesson and made many other customer service related corrections as a result of this.

However, I have given it some more thought and I have to say I’m not totally convinced that 100% transparency (much less 75% or even 50%) is good for every business, especially small business. Dell is a very large company, many people had never even heard of the Dell Hell incident – I had not until reading his book. Despite the bad PR, Dell remained relatively unblemished. I’m not sure that I could say the same if it were to happen to my small business. They could lose 10s of millions of dollars, perhaps 100s of millions, and remain relatively unscathed. For small businesses that operate in a smaller market those results might be catastrophic.

So ponder on this:

• Would you publish a publicly viewable forum where anyone could write what they wanted about your company and anyone could read what had been written?
  • How would you handle negative commentary?
• How would you react to web site that are erected for the sole purpose of discrediting your company by having users share their negative experiences (e.g. www.dellhell.net)
• Is the concept of transparency more relevant/practical/necessary for big businesses and government than small businesses?
• Does this even matter for service-based businesses?

By the way, what do you think about the transparent canoe? Cool huh?

Instead of telling you what I think, I want to know what you all think. In a commodity type business, such as IT support, you look for any distinct advantage, any method of differentiation that you can to market your business. It’s tough because there are so many strategies. If you develop a new product or service that no one has in order to differentiate yourself, you will soon be copied and lose that edge. Re-bundle your services, same thing.

When I sat down with our customer advisory council about this, we were told our biggest distinction was our customer service. However, I am finding that difficult to market because I want the message to rise above the status of a platitude. When is the last time you went to a networking function only to hear people say the same old crap:

“We pride ourselves on customer service”

“We the most reliable, dependable, etc.”

blah, blah blah. It’s all talk unless you can prove it.

What I want to market, the story that I want to tell the world, is that we are the best at what we do. Something like:

“Everyone claims to have great customer service, but we can prove it!”

Some of the ideas I have had are:

• Promoting that we are the most recommended IT consulting firm on Linkedin.com (already using this)
• Customer Service Award from the Better Business Bureau or some other type of entity (we have a competitor that has done this

I’m not thrilled with the idea of awards because I think people today realize that many such awards are shallow victories. The chance of you winning an award these days seems to be more about who you know than actually possessing the merit to deserve the honor.

I need a way to prove that Carceron is the best at Customer service and I need a way to spread the word. Can you even market customer service?

P.S. If you have any other ideas around differentiation for a managed IT services business such as mine, I am all ears.

P.S.S. I’m not looking for a marketing consultant, so please don’t reply with a solicitation.

Strategic Alliances, often little more than a business buzz phrase, can have a very real impact on your bottom line if executed correctly. Some of the benefits of Strategic Alliances include:

• The ability to compete against stronger competitors through the creation of synergistic partnerships
• Development and exploitation niche markets faster
• Increased activity throughout the entire sales pipeline – all the way from lead generation to closed business.

So what is a Strategic Alliance and how do you form one that works and lasts? I’m about to tell you:

First, let’s look at some definitions for “strategic”:

• Pertaining to, characterized by, or of the nature of strategy
• Important in or essential to strategy
• Of an action, as a military operation or move in a game, forming an integral part of the stratagem

Next, let’s look at some definitions for “alliance”:

• the state of being allied or confederated
• a connection based on kinship or marriage or common interest; “the shifting alliances within a large family”; “their friendship constitutes a powerful bond between them”
• an organization of people (or countries) involved in a pact or treaty
• a formal agreement establishing an association or alliance between nations or other groups to achieve a particular aim
• confederation: the act of forming an alliance or confederation

Finally, the definition for a Strategic Alliances, (as defined by Wikipedia)

A Strategic Alliance is a formal relationship between two or more parties to pursue a set of agreed upon goals or to meet a critical business need.

I like this definition due to its emphasis on formality and “agreed upon goals”. One thing that I think is missing from this definition is that the relationship should also be mutually beneficial – as this is key to making the Strategic Alliance last.

Some Strategic Alliances Basics

The are many kinds of strategic alliances. Most center on revenue creation. Examples include:

• Reseller / Affiliate Model: You become a reseller of a certain product or service in exchange for sales and marketing support of said product or service.
• Outsource Relationship: Over time you come to realize that certain parts of your business are better handled by another entity outside your business because it is more profitable, efficient, etc.
• Business Development: Referral Partnership, Co-Marketing, etc.

It is the last type of Strategic Alliance, business development,  that I would like to spend some time on. This can be one of the easiest to form and at the same time the most powerful. Who should you strategicly partner with? The obvious answer is professions that you naturally get referrals from already. For example, I own an IT company, so I receive a great deal of referrals from an ISP broker and telecom hardware vendor that I have allied with. Another great example of a good strategic alliance would be composed of a CPA, financial planner & estate planning attorney.

It is important to formalize this relationship as much as possible to get the maximum results. Formalization should create a culture of accountability in the alliance which is critical to the success of it. Here are some ideas.

• Meet at least once a month and share sales pipe line reports
  • What deals are you working on now?
  • What deals have you recently closed?
  • Discuss referrals that have been passed around the alliance. (status, quality, etc.)
  • Create a list of specific prospects that you would like to get into and go over the list with your alliance. Use Linkedin and other business social media sites to make connections.
  • Are you have trouble closing any deals? If so, how can the alliance help?
    • Powerful Example: If the prospect does not have the budget for your project or service, is their anyone in the alliance that can create the savings through their product or services that essentially creates the funds for your project? I use my telecom broker in this regard. He can come in and save them hundreds to thousands a month, the savings from which cover most or all of the cost of my proposal.
  • Side Note: If, when I say “sales pipe line report”, your eyes glaze over, then you probably need a customer relationship management (CRM) system, such as ACT!, or Microsoft CRM. I recommend Alanna Galiano or Emerging Technologies to get your up to speed.A good CRM is essential to making this strategy work.
    
• Develop a joint Needs Assessment
  • If you already have a Needs Assessment, this is easy, just ask each member of your alliance for the top 3 questions that you should ask when conducting a Needs Assessment on your prospect that might generate a referral for them. For example: I always ask a few questions about their phone system to see if there is a possible referral opportunity to the telecom hardware company in my alliance.
• Joint Marketing
  
  • Create a “Partners” page on your web site and add logos with link backs to each of your partner’s web sites. Make sure they do the same.
  • Co-sponsor an event together, such as a conference or tradeshow. Obviously the event should contain target prospects that you are all are going after.
  • Find other ways to cross market:
    • Drop a brochure or coupon from an alliance member into your invoice mailings.

More Advanced Strategic Alliances

Want to take this concept to the next level?

Form an alliance around a business process or event. One idea that came from my friend, Bob Hill of Hill Corporate Partners, centers around office moves. Think about it. When someone want’s to move their office, they need the following:

• A commercial tenant rep, like Bob Hill, to find the new space
• An office furniture company to furnish the new office
• A moving company to move the stuff in the old office to the new one
• An IT company, like Carceron, to restore the computer network
• A telecom broker, like Elite Telecom Services, to get the telephone lines and Internet service going
• A telecom hardware company to setup the phone system for the new location
• A printer to handle change out of all collateral such as business, cards, brochures, letterhead, etc.
• And probably a CPA

You could market the alliance with an informational web site that is search engine optimized (maybe everyone chips in for some pay per click advertisement as well). Make sure that there is good quality content on the site. In the case of the office move, perhaps some check lists, Dos & Don’ts, etc.

Getting Started

If you don’t know all of the people that you need to form your alliances, I suggest joining a BNI or Corporate Connections referral marketing program. Corporate Connections chapters, like Synergy, are developing a strong, structured program for strategic alliance creation and development. Another venue might be Vistage. I am a director for Corporate Connections in the Atlanta market, so please feel free to contact me directly with any questions about that program.

What are some other ideas for an Advanced Strategic Alliance?

While I have written this in 1st person, I hope that I do not come across as being “bitchy”. This is a list of personal pet peaves that I suspect others share with me, coupled with common business sense.

1. Don’t hand me your business card unless I ask you for it. I promise to do the same. I meet a lot of people and if you’re someone that I don’t think I can help, or you can’t help me, or you can’t help someone I know, then what’s the point? We should be honest with one another. If you do force me to take a card, you’re getting added to my email marketing list and getting spammed – fair warning.
2. Don’t issue cheesy status updates to any of the various social media outlets (FaceBook, Linkedin, etc.). Make sure what you post is interesting enough to read. A good rule of thumb is the “So what” contest – if another person posted what you were going to post, would you say “So What?”. If so, it’s probably not a good post. I know the idea behind status updates and micro-blogging is to talk about what you’re doing right now – what they forget to add was “What are you doing right now, that is interesting to the people you are connected to?” Otherwise, I’m clicking the “hide” button. If my posts bore you, feel free to “Hide” me by all means. Here are some examples:
   • Good
     • I am at the Networking in ATL event at Sutra Lounge with Brandon Miltsch, owner of FireWolf (tells you where I am and who I am with, both of which might be of interest)
   • Bad
     • I’m going to ________   [mom's, bed, the toilet]
3. Don’t call me and try to sell me something the day after we have met. If I took the time to get to know you, I will have told you on the spot that we need to set a follow up appt to discuss your services or product. If I didn’t, and you want my business, then help me pay for what you want to sell me via a referral. This goes a long way. I promise to do the same (and already do).
4. Don’t send me invitations to cheesy FaceBook applications like “Snowball Fight” or Kidnap. These are annoying time wasters. ’nuff said.
5. Don’t hand me a brochure or any other kind of sales collateral at a networking function. Your business card will suffice. I assume that you have a web site if I need more information. If you don’t, I have a referral for you.
6. Don’t ask me to become a fan of or join a group related to something that is obviously not interesting or of benefit to me (e.g. cosmetics)
7. Don’t assume that I remember you if we’ve only met one time. Reintroduce yourself to me every time until we have had a 1:1 meeting, beers together or whatever. I promise to do the same. Again, I meet a lot of people (as you should be) and it is impossible to remember everyone after just one meeting in passing. (Exception: if you are someone important to the networking function I am at, i.e. chapter or associations president, etc.  – leadership has its perks)
8. Don’t connect to me on Linkedin with a free-mail email address as your primary contact email address. Freemail accounts are, for example: @yahoo.com, @gmail.com, @bellsouth.net, etc. (Exception: this only applies if you are a business owner. I understand the case for sales people to maintain control of their profiles with their personal email address? Also, this it is ok if you’re between jobs or retired)

As we start a new year and a new decade, we will once again set goals & create resolutions. What is so special about this time of year that we feel the need to do this? I have a few ideas:

1. A year is a significant amount of time for to allow for the completion of many long term goals.
2. The holidays allow us to renew ourselves with some relaxation and time with family & friends.
3. The holidays are a slow down period for many businesses which allows many of us to “catch our breathe” and re-group.

It’s this slowing down that is of greatest interest to me. What this tells me is that if we are given enough time to slow down and think in a relaxed state we’re pretty good at knowing where we need to go. So why do so many (including me) that set goals and create resolutions fail to reach them? It most cases it simply comes down to execution – doing what needs to be done. But human beings are complex animals, and while we are very good at giving advice and holding others accountable, it is much harder to hold ourselves accountable for the necessary execution required to complete our goals. This is why people hire personal trainers and business coaches -  not to help them with execution, but to hold them accountable for the execution. After all, your personal trainer won’t do the lifting or heavy breathing for you (wouldn’t that be nice?).

So how will you hold yourself accountable this year? I can tell what I have done and what I am going to try.

First, set your personal goals and business goals, making sure that they are very clear to you and to anyone else that they affect (employees, family, etc.). One of the biggest tips on increasing accountability is to set yourself a deadline. When you have a deadline, you should feel some kind of pressure to complete the goal. See my article “Leadership & Goal Setting for 2010″ for more on this.

Business Goals:

Be as transparent to your staff as possible and hold monthly meetings that focus only on the goals that you have set. I believe strongly in leadership by example, so I can’t very well show up to a meeting where I have not made any progress on my goals and they have. That is my accountability system for my business. Another excellent way to add accountability in business is to have a client advisory council. Then you are getting accountability from 2 different directions.

That being said, it is a goal of mine to hire or engage a mentor/coach as there are certain things that I like to bounce of other experienced business owners that may not always be appropriate to share with employees or a client advisory council. It’s taken me a while to come around to the concept of purchasing “accountability” through coaching – but I am getting there. That being said, I currently have several friends that are also business owners that serve this purpose.

Personal Goals:

This one is tougher. It’s been my experience that friends and family do not always make good accountability partners unless you’re both working on the same goal – and even then, one may have stronger discipline than the other making it a bit one-sided. Why do I emphasize the importance of the same goal? Because many friends may not care that much about your personal goal, are poor role models relative to the goal, and/or they “love you just the way you are”.

What’s the answer?

The easy way out is to hire a life coach, but who has the budget for that?

My answer…

Using friends with the same goal is a good start and better than nothing I guess. However, for me, if I can get a group going or join a group related to the goal that I want to accomplish, it makes it a lot easier. The same principles that motivate me to meet the goals of my business (fear of disappointing my employees) drive me to not disappoint the group and my new friends. Obviously this works best if you immediately get to work befriending people in the group which creates the necessary ties to make them care about you. It may sound a bit shallow – but if you think about, many of your friendships had to start on a common bond of “something”.

Review Your Goals Regularly:

Whether you have personal or business goals, review your goals regularly. Monthly is probably a good frequency. If you’re behind on your achieving your goals, devise a game plan to catch up. Deliberately set aside time to catch up – a day on the weekend or a couple of nights – whatever it takes. Also, make sure that your goals are in some kind of digital, easy to access format. I recommend using one of the tools below.

Tools:

There are some great tools that can provide varying levels of accountability depending on how much you are willing to share with your friends, coach etc.

LifeTick: This is a simple to use goal tracking web site. Pay $20 for the 1 year subscription and start tracking all of your personal goals. The site enfores SMART goal format and will email you impending and past due goal deadlines. It also has some mild reporting capabilities and a journal entry feature.

Screenshot of the LifeTick.com Interface

NSight EPS: This is like LifeTick on steroids. Still in beta, NSight runs about $300 per year but has a very cool interface and much more depth of content than LifeTick. It has locations for personal SWOT analysis, personal and company vision and mission statements, and a slew of other features. This service also has a coaching module and is great for group coaching (think Vistage).

Screenshot of NSight

How do you plan to hold yourself accountable?

Leadership

Most people that know me know that I am very goal oriented and focused on results. I was not always like this. I had always considered myself a good leader perhaps due to my empathy, perhaps due to my time in the Army… who knows? But actually using this natural leadership to any great effect has been my challenge ever since starting a business 8 years ago.

What I came to discover is that I simply had charisma – I could get people to like and respect me, but that was only half the battle (more like 25% of the battle). It’s what you do when you have this respect that matters. This what I have come to learn as true leadership: deserving the respect of those around you enough to have their confidence to lead them in a particular direction – preferably a productive one – and then actually doing it. The other lesson that I learned early on in business is that people want to be led… expect to be led, and are uncomfortable when there is not a strong leader at the helm.

Armed with this knowledge, I finally began to understand what all of the hoopla was about concerning vision, mission statements and core values. I had been through several exercises on how to develop a vision and a mission statement, but they always seemed more like “wishful thinking”. It wasn’t until I understood the bigger picture, derived from countless books, seminars and a little bit of coaching, that it all made sense regarding how to use these tools.

Vision: An ever-changing horizon affected by changes in economy, your industry personnel, etc., I prefer Kimberly Douglas’ interpretation of vision as not heading towards a single mountain to conquer, but having several mountains in the distance, and you choose which mountain as you get closer it. Kind of like a plan A, B, or C. To much changes too fast in today’s world to have a rigid vision. You need to be open and develop strong skills of adaption. The only exception to this that I can think of is if you have a patent on something so new and innovative that no one else has it.

Mission: Ours is simple “You should be able to expect us to do anything for you that an in house IT technician or CTO would do“. That’s it. It’s easy to remember and speaks to the customer service levels that I demand from my staff. It also saves a lot of time on questions like “Should we do this? Because it’s not specified in the contract“. Most times I just refer them back to the mission statement and ask them to update me as to what they decided later (mostly for my own curiosity and coaching purposes). By the way, if you’re mission statement is more than 1-2 sentences and/or is hard to memorize, it’s too long. Simplify, simplify, simplify. (Thank you, Dr. Bob for this useful bit of advice)

Core Values: Most people think this is what you and/ or the company hold’s valuable, and to some extent it can be. However, what core values really do is apply guide rails to a decision making process. Care values are an invaluable tool for a leader looking to delegate because core values provide a decision framework for your staff to work by. Every time there is a crisis, adhering to the core values that you established should handle 90% of the hard decisions subordinates need to make before ever getting to you. When subordinates make mistakes, you can always counsel them on how what they did conflicted with the company’s core values. When you write out your core values, make sure to also write an interpretation for each.  For example:

Professionalism

Carceron professionals conduct themselves in a business-like manner at all times. They dress sharp and are well groomed and aspire to higher and broader levels of technical expertise and make good ethical decisions.

Of course all of these things can and should change as the business changes, but not so often that people become confused. If you make a change to any of the above, then you should explain why to all of your employees.

Goal Setting

Once all this is in place, you have the foundation for goal setting. Indeed, it is hard to imagine setting goals without a vision, or a mission in place (what would you base your goals on?). When you’re setting company goals for the year, it is very important to involve your staff – your managers at a minimum. This is your front line and they have important information that you will need. Ideally you should spend some time brainstorming off site some where. Get a professional facilitator if it is within your budget  (I recommend Kimberly Douglas of FireFly Faciliation) otherwise have a agenda that runs something like this:

1. Ask for ideas for goals in next year. Try to do so by department – do this even if you don’t have any departments. You don’t need an HR department to set goals of establishing a 401k program or improving benefits
   • Encourage creativity and “out of the box” thinking”
   • Accept all ideas (you’re just brain storming in this phase)
   • No open criticism of ideas should be allowed… yet
2. Discuss and prioritize the goals that you have come up with, remove any that are superfluous or redundant. You may also find that some goals are subordinate to other goals or are tasks to be completed in support of the larger goal.
3. Write all of the goals in a SMART format, which stands for:
   • Specific - Make the goal as specific as possible by making sure it meets the next 4 criteria as well as any other specific criteria you feel is pertinent
   • Measurable - Define the goal line for success. Describe what success looks, smells, tastes and sounds like. Bad Goal: Make more money this year. Good Goal: Make $3,000,000 this year
   • Achievable - Is the goal actually achievable given your current resources (employees, cash, etc.). 200% growth is probably not achievable.
   • Relevant – Is the goal relevant to the vision, mission or core values? If not, then why are you doing it?
     
   • Timely – What is the timeline to complete the goal? Many people work better under a deadline, otherwise, things are too easy to blow off.
4. Now write all of the tasks needed to complete each goal. Make sure to drill down deep here and be as specific as possible. It’s best to have the person that came up with the goal also come up with the necessary tasks needed to complete that goal in most cases. For example, let’s say you that you had a goal of “Upgrade Computer Network by End of 2010″ some of the tasks for that goal might be:
   • Gather computer and network inventory
   • Assess which machines need replacement first
   • Get quotes from 3 different IT solutions providers
   • Create refresh plan with solution provider (don’t be afraid to involve vendors with your goals)
5. Have all goals and tasks in a centrally accessible location such as on a spreadsheet on a server, on your company SharePoint site or using a goal planning web site like LifeTick (this is what my company does).
6. Conduct monthly meetings that focus on goal progress. If you don’t think you’re going to make a goal within a certain time frame, then discuss what you need to do to make that happen (e.g. every one works late one night or on a weekend) or discuss pushing the goal up a quarter (don’t get in the habit of this however).
7. Repeat this process in October or November of each year.

A great resource that I would recommend to you if you plan to run your own agenda without an outside facilitator is a book called The FireFly Effect by Kimberly Douglas.

Best of luck in 2010!

As an owner of an IT company, I am constantly asked my opinion on allowing FaceBook (or other Web  2.0 platforms like MySpace) into the workplace. Like so many other things in life, the answer is that “it depends”. It depends primarily on who in the company is using it and also how your company is structured.

Let’s start with the “who” should be using it: anyone in marketing, sales, or most management – assuming that they use it to some extent for business purposes and that your business is suitable for use on a social media platform. If you manufacture skateboards or provide marketing services, you should be using FaceBook. If you’re a defense contractor… not so much. FaceBook and other social mediums are becoming more used as the de facto communication tool, so allowing these platforms to be used by people in business development makes sense. As of this writing, I am guessing that a full 20% of my own business communications are going through FaceBook or Linkedin.

If your company is structured as a performance-only culture, then I say “Open the flood gates!”. By performance-only culture I mean that every single employee’s salary is somehow affected by incentives and/or commission based on performance metrics. In this case, FaceBook should not make a difference since all that matters is putting scores on the board (who cares how it is done short of breaking the law). Incidentally, this is crucial for employees that telework as you do not have any ability to block computers on their home network from accessing these sites.

Since I have told you “who” and “what types of companies” you should allow, here is the “why”: Blame it on the millennials. This generation wants to work from wherever during whatever hours they want and the ability to collaborate easily which is what tools like FaceBook provide. In the end it is all about collaboration, very current information, and staying “in front” of one another. Social media is a great place to announce events, post blog article links, links to other useful resources and to show a more human side of you if you’re willing to open up a little. Why is the latter important? Because people buy from people, not from companies – unless you’re just that well branded.

My company, Carceron, has allowed FaceBook because it is a medium we sometimes communicate on and also a medium we communicate to customers and fans with on our Carceron fan page.

In summary, there is no one size fits all answers to this question. Seek expert advice from experts in information technology, especially those in security.

Side Note: For those of you not aware of how web sites are blocked, many solutions exist that allow a business to block specific web sites like FaceBook, as well as generic web sites by category, such as: pornography, hate groups, etc. This is usually done by a small investment in a higher level firewall, such as a SonicWall, with a content management subscription. If that does not provide enough security, there is software that can monitor and record everything a user does. SpectorSoft makes such a product and is the solution of choice for Carceron.