As a business that sees hundreds of entrepreneurs and startups every year we have started to develop that kind of sixth sense for what works and what doesn’t. Apart from all the prospect and client startups we see every year we have also had several of our own businesses. We currently have a significant stake in five early-stage businesses and are negotiating a sixth. A few weeks ago we discussed how our little web design business has become the ideal startup incubator and listed some of the success factors we’ve experienced. If we turn the spotlight on the people that run those successful businesses for us we see some patterns too.
Here are the key success factors that we look for in both our client’s and our own investments: Read more
This sticker on a product I bought recently got me thinking – “Visual imperfections will not affect performance”. I wonder how many websites we would sell if we didn’t take responsibility for imperfections? Not too many I suspect.
I’ve always known that something wasn’t quite right with corporate websites, and after seeing things like Dustin Curtis’ mockery of American Airlines, I couldn’t help but explore the topic furthur. Why is it so hard for a large corporations to create successful strategies online? Bureaucracy.
Designers need to sell ideas to middle managers, middle managers in turn sell those ideas to upper management. If upper management doesn’t scoff it then and there, it may make it to that illusive decision maker. I’ve found that communication can quickly stray from it’s original message in any chain of conversion. It’s hard to tell if your intended message makes it all the way through. As designers we need to realize that it is our job to shake things and force influence upon decision makers from time to time. If we aren’t loud we’ll never be heard. Why is this so hard to do in a corporate web design environment? As Andy Rutledge beautifully puts it, “It’s usually about trying to keep the dumbest people in the room (or in the company) from shooting themselves in the foot.”
The reason this sort of thing is allowed to happen is because the corporate model for projects does not work for a design project. Design can only succeed when all of the relevant business needs and expectations: for the brand, end-users, marketing, conversion, as well as decision-maker concerns are communicated to the designers. And it helps to know just who the ultimate decision makers are. But this so seldom happens in the corporate world, as decision makers are hidden behind layers of administration and process, so designers often end up working without the information necessary to satisfy them.
blog [blog]
A weblog.
intr.v. blogged, blog-ging, blogs
to write entries in, add material to, or maintain a weblog.
overload [v. oh-ver-lohd; n. oh-ver-lohd]
(used with object)
to load to excess; overburden: Don’t overload the raft, or it will sink.
n.
an excessive load.
Be careful, combining the two words mentioned above can be an extremely unhealthy combination, especially for someone trying to launch their own blog. If you are someone developing your own blog, you will more than likely find yourself hunched over your computer, dishing obscenities into the air, on your sixth double shot espresso from Starbucks, wondering why you ever thought blogging would be a good or even fun idea. Sounds pleasurable, right? Or you may be like many of our clients and hire an outside firm to create your blog, but once it’s done how will you populate the blog and keep the momentum going? Fear not my friends, a blog can be launched successfully and you can avoid “blog overload” as long as you are prepared with the proper tools. Anyone can create a blog, but only a few blogs come to full fruition and are truly successful at mastering the blog-o-sphere.
Launch [lawnch, lahnch] – to set going; initiate: to launch a scheme.
You should only launch your blog when it is complete. Sounds simple, but more often than not individuals rush to launch a blog before it’s entirely ready. Launching a complete blog means that the blog is working correctly and that all information is present. Forgetting to add a contact or about page may decrease your blogs overall success, or potential leads you receive from the blog. Take your time. Review the template, navigation and make sure every element of your blog is functioning properly before the big launch.
Skill #4: Financial and Employee Management is Daily Task
Do you know how much cash you have in the bank? Do you know who owes you money and how late their payments are? What’s your sales pipeline look like? Who’s the person in your business most likely to leave in the next 6 months? What projects are profitable and which will lose money?
If I called you any time night or day would you have these answers at your fingertips? The only way you can know these things is to have systems which are updated daily. It doesn’t matter how big or small your business is you need to know what’s going on every day. Don’t wait for the monthly management meeting or the annual sales conference to get the bad news. Know every day how the business is doing.
We use a series of very inexpensive web-based tools, project management systems and processes to monitor our business. We’ve even gone so far at to use our iPhone’s to monitor or bank accounts, projects and profitability. On a recent trip overseas I was able to check in on the team and the fifteen or so project we were working on. In about 5 minutes I was able to check on the work progress, project and employee profitability, accounts receivable and payable and cash flow.
We use a daily list of tasks to manage everyone’s schedule. These tasks are broken down into simple daily to-do lists. Each morning a team member will check the backlog and know exactly what their priorities are. The managers can check the aggregated to-do lists, called universal backlogs, and see who is doing what.
If you’re a manager you need to be spending about 30 – 40% of your day working directly with your team members. This might be a series of short meetings or updates. On the days that I’m in the office I walk around and ask each person a series of informal questions. Some examples are, “what are you working on?”, “anything you need help with?”, “any client or project issues that you need some help with?”, “is there anything blocking you from getting your project done?” and “have you spoken to your client contacts recently?” I find that by doing this daily I can solve lots of small issues instead of waiting until review time when the issue has now become a monumental festering problem.
Skill #3: Be a Squeaky Wheel – Ask, Ask, and Ask Again!
This is a skill I learned from my kids. Keep asking for what you want and you’re bound to get it. In any endeavor asking for what you want is more than half the battle. The kids version of incessantly asking for things is whining. You’ll get nothing without asking but if you ask more than once you’ll get tens times more than the next person. Get into a habit of asking for what you want. Don’t let people try guess what you need from them
If you’ve got kids or if you’ve watched a family in the toy store you’ll know that whining tends to work a lot of the time. It’s generally easier to give into a whine than it it so fight it. The adult version of this is to be a squeaky wheel. This works in sales, in project management and in collections. We always ask our prospects what their budget is so we don’t have to play the guessing game. If it’s too low we simply pass them onto our strategic partners who handle smaller web projects.
If a client owes you money then ask for it every second day until you get it. You don’t have to be rude, you just have to be persistent. Keep bugging them and you’ll train them that you can’t be ignored. If you’re managing staff then start a routine of asking them each morning what they are working on. Ask where the roadblocks are and how you can help them. Ask your sales people where they need more support or coaching. Ask your designers if they can show you what they are working on and explain what their optimal working times are.
Recently we were able to save over $150,000 on a 5 year lease by asking for better terms. When our first requests were ignored we just kept asking in different ways until the landlords came back with a better agreement.
There is no business on the planet that doesn’t require some human contact. Chances are your business demands human contact. That’s a good thing because most of us are supremely wired to connect with humans. The bad news is that most people prefer to sit at their desks than go out and make those connections.Desks and the laptops that they support have a huge amount of gravity associated with them. They suck you into doing email and paperwork when you should be out there speaking to clients, partners, investors, and employees.
Even if you are a very small, work-from-home, type of business you need to make an effort to get out and meet the people you do business with. Go to networking meetings, conferences, trade shows, or join a local commerce group. My rule of thumb is to set at least 5 meetings a week. I generally allow for one full day at my desk so I can catch up on admin, writing and uninterrupted thinking time.
If you’re in a traditional sales role you need to be out of the office at least 50% of the time. That’s including time you might be on conference calls or doing virtual presentations. Being in front of real people allows you to make real connections that are immeasurably more important than virtual relationships. Use your virtual connections to identify the top people to connect with and then arrange meetings with them.
In our business we have seen close-rates on deals increase by more than 60% when we take the time to meet with the prospect face-to-face. It might not always be convenient or possible to set up in-person sales meetings but if you can filter your prospects effectively you’ll be more likely to close than if you just rely on email and phone calls.
This is the first in a series of posts that I’m writing on entrepreneurial skills. I’ve written a lot on this topic before but the fundamentals always remain the same. These are a collection of irreducible concepts that make sense in every business and every period of growth. I’ll post one a day until I run out of these little pearls. Please feel free to comment and add your own insights.
Skill#1: Be Brutally Honest
Nothing shakes up a company more than bullshit. It generally starts with unrealistic forecasts but it can be as invisible as office politics. Manage by fact, and know that facts can change over time. What’s true today might be false tomorrow. There was a time when we thought the sun revolved around the earth. Imagine such a crazy thing?
Being honest means you have to ask yourself the really hard questions. You need to look for the bad news and avoid drinking the Kool-Aid of overly optimistic outcomes. Everything in business takes three or four times more effort, money, and time than you plan for. Ask yourself and your team what you’ll do if you don’t succeed in raising money, landing the big client or reaching a million pages views. What will you do then? What’s your plan B?
You also need to be honest with everyone around you. No amount of hyperbolic storytelling will guarantee your success. There is no room for companies that are not 100% transparent. If you lie to your staff or your clients it will come back to bite you. If you cross them there is no end to the harm they can do to your reputation. In a world where Twitter, Facebook and text messaging is more ubiquitous than clean drinking water you better have you story straight and your facts double-checked.
There is a dangerous culture to the web world we live in. It’s the belief that as a web entrepreneur you can have success without making money. The recent article in the SvN blog makes a strong stand against such businesses. There is an illusion that is perpetuated by the media and by entrepreneurs themselves. An illusion that all you need is a cool looking web app and some media coverage to secure your financial success.
Every year we see hundreds of new businesses pass through our doors. Even though most of our clients come to discuss their websites and digital strategies we always end up discussing their business models and economic ambitions. Through our own entrepreneurial experiences and those of our clients we have become really good at recognizing the ones that are hyped up on this illusion.
