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 The ‘Startup’ mentality must give way to a ‘Business’ mentality.

As a person running a business for 10 years I don’t like the term ‘startup’ as it is used today. It seems to be used as some kind of license for mediocrity and experimentation. We get many calls a week from ‘start ups’, which is simply their way of saying, ‘Hey, I don’t have a big budget so don’t quote me your normal rates’. Not a very motivating way to approach a vendor.

The ’startup’ mentality affects everything from planning to execution and the general attitude is a ‘hail mary’ effort. If it works great, if not, too bad. As a serious business owner who has been busting his hump for the last 10 years, the idea is revolting.

If you want to do serious business with serious people then let go of the ’startup’ mentality and take on the ‘Business’ mentality. Raise serious funds, work on our business concept, avoid shortcuts and gambles and plan for the long term.

The Facebook effect – the one in a million shot – is it a business or a lottery?

The media celebrates those successes who get bought for a zillion dollars  for less than a years work. However it fails to mention that for every one idea there are millions who have tried and failed and lost.  Sounds alarmingly like a lottery. Everyone dreams of having the next Facebook. But the odds are severely against them.

VCs are mudding the water with their money and large investment spreads – the new age gamblers.

Investors in more sane times used to invest where there was some kind of physical or intellectual assets present. That seems to be a old idea.

VCs operate on the principle of spread a little money over a lot of ventures and see which clicks. Then cash in on the one that clicks. No matter how much due diligence they say they are doing, most VCs are investing in second rate ideas and very chancy teams.

The VC money creates a kind of feeding frenzy among the young techno savvy crowd but the end results seem to be either me-too ideas or mediocre gambles at best.

Nothing to fall back on when the economy goes to sleep

A lot of my clients who have brick and mortar businesses next to the online ones. They could fall back on them when markets tanked. Their physical shops and loyal customers (created over several years of painstaking work) are worth something. No such luck with the dotcom crowd.

When the economy goes to sleep as it seems to have done right now, there is nothing to fall back on. The same people who cruised by during the good times are realizing that they have neither created loyal customers or any kind of infrastructure worth something. In a nutshell – when times are bad, they are not worth anything.

A Me-too mentality has to be replaced with a truly unique approach to the market.

Recently a prospective client was not getting sales from his e-commerce website. He had subscribed to this web portal that allows for the fast creation of the e-commerce sites with a common interface and a generalized catalog and shopping cart. The problem was that all this person did was pile on his products and created a e-commerce website that looked just like the hundreds of others from the same web portal.

No differentiating factors. No unique approach. No sales.

From now onwards, unless they have a very deep pockets, each e-commerce player must approach the market with a truly differentiated creative approach. One size fits all is suicide.

Purse the ‘Long Tail’ – create and exploit niches within your target marketplace.

If you don’t have the ammo and deep pockets to fight for the head of the market than go after the ‘long tail’. There are many many niches in each market that are being under served. Find them, dominate them with creative offers and preferential treatment and go smiling to the bank. You might even be able to get a great margin in these niche markets. Remember, no big battles, just small skirmishes.

In conclusion I would say that the Indian e-commerce market has a long way to go in terms of professionalism and maturity. However considering the size of the market and knowing us Indians, i think its a market with tremendous potential.

Cheers,
Ron

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• 100 Lessons Learned for Project Managers

Cheers,
Ron

I recently sat across from a team of senior managers who shot down my ideas for digital strategy saying that the organization was simply not ready for it. What was sad was, it seemed, that they were resigned to the fact that their organization would never really change. They politely but firmly asked me to give them some conventional solutions and knowing which battles to fight, I tamely agreed.

Will such organizations survive the next 20 years? Maybe. Will they dominate? Unlikely. The fast and nimble will eat their breakfast, lunch and dinner.

So what are the obstacles that come in the way of creating a truly digital world oriented company? What are the factors that make a company ready for the digital age?

Decisions by committee and consensus is out. Quick fire decisions are now necessary.

While I have clients who change their websites every year; I have also come across prospective clients who take a year just to decide to change their website and another year to decide on how to change it and so on and so forth. Unless you take lightening fast decisions, the decision you previously took might already be obsolete.

Decisions on which initiatives to follow, what mediums and channels to spend on, which tools to use have to be taken quickly. Analysis paralysis is suicide in the new digital age.

Be prepared for wrong turns, false starts, and a bit of waste – try everything and keep what sticks.

In the new age of digital marketing you have to try a lot of things and when you try a lot of things, some will work but most might fail or not give results. You have to be prepared for a much higher failure rate.

In most Indian companies failure is not an option. A manager who takes decisions that do not pan out could find himself sanctioned or even fired. This attitude must go. Encourage executives to try out various ideas with the express permission that some of them might not work.

Not all blog posts can be hits, not all videos go viral and not everything the company produces will be considered golden. The idea is to keep churning out stuff and once you know something works, turn on the gas.

Small skirmishes versus big battles – guerrilla marketing is in, trench warfare is out. Nothing is permanent anymore.

Modern digital battles are fought as small skirmishes rather than a full fledged trench warfare. You hit whenever you see an opportunity. You use whatever tools are available to you. You milk it for whatever its worth and then you move on.

Top Indian executives still have a world war I mindset to marketing – large budgets, large campaigns and blanket coverage. What they do not realize is that the market has become highly fragmented and niche oriented. Rather than take a hammer blow approach, quick rapier jabs would be more effective.

Identify a niche target. Quickly create an offering. Unleash it. Take the results. Move on.

Transparency, openness, creativity and freedom of expression are critical in the new digital age.

The Indian culture does not allow transparency, openness and creative freedom. Most employees are never given an opportunity to shine. Do your job, go home, rinse and repeat is the credo.

Can your accounts guy write an inspired blog article? Is your sales person a twitter master? Is your front desk lady a master at engagement on face book? Do you know or care? Even if you did, would you allow them to express on behalf of the business? In most Indian firms the answer is a resounding no. 

What are they afraid of? That the employees might inadvertently reveal confidential information, might make fun of a senior manager or might piss off a customer? All these are valid fears but can be managed with good policies, oversight and incentives.

But the problem at most Indian companies is not about what employees might or might not do but that they are not supposed to. If its not in the job description, forget it.

Over-reliance on vendors, not partnering for marketing and slow adoption of tools and technology.

Indian companies traditionally operate in silos. Most times their only outreach is through their vendors. They only partner when its critical to their operations. Marketing in the digital age requires quick partnerships, fast adoption of new tools and technologies. An opportunity can go to waste simply because the company did not reach out to the right partners.

The level of engagement with marketing partners might be that of writing a cheque for an ad or sponsoring an event with their logo on the banner. Beyond that, there is no effective marketing. No leveraging of opportunities to its fullest.

Vendors take advantage of this mentality to increase their billing and protect their turf aggressively. Its not in the vendor’s best interests to allow third party partners unless they go through them.

The bottleneck at the top – the MD or the CEO.

This is perhaps the most frustrating part of dealing with Indian companies. No matter what the job title, the manager has to finally take approval from the MD or CEO. Decision taking ability of middle management is a myth in most Indian companies. I cannot express the number of times even simple decisions languished at the CEO or MD’s desk. Decisions that could safely and easily be taken by the middle manager. Micro-management is the standard operating procedure.

In the digital age you cannot afford such bottlenecks. Decisions have to be taken fast and managers must be trusted to take a call. They must be supported even though the MD or CEO might not agree completely with it.

In conclusion – its a culture thing.

I keep repeating myself, its a culture thing, its a culture thing. No changes will take place unless the culture changes to one of trust, openness and a can do attitude.

Cheers,
Ron

Case 1 : A good friend cannot access a wordpress website

A good friend called recently asking if there was any way to hack into a wordpress account. Apparently the designer whom he had hired to do a client’s website had disappeared without handing over the access details. Since the site was a mess and they could not access it to update it, my friend was in a real jam.

Case 2: A prospective client spent a small fortune on a wordpress site but now the designer cannot give him the time.

This highlights the dangers of amateur web designers getting overwhelmed with work and being unable to service their clients. The web designer told the client that she would be able to give him time only a month later! Unacceptable by any standards. If your web designer is unable to scale up to serve you then you are going to be stuck.

Case 3: A friend and colleague is embarrassed and stuck when his ‘friend web designer’ fails to deliver.

A common practise is to catch a ‘friend’ who is into web design, even if he/she is an amateur. But if the friend is not equipped or does not have the necessary expertise then your web project is going to be either delayed or become a train wreck as my friend discovered. Hire friends only after doing your due diligence about their capabilities.

What you should expect from a web designer big or small

A. They should be able to support the project after completion through a maintenance contract.

B. The designer should be able to provide additional services to scale up the website and improve it.

C.  The web designer should promptly respond to any requests by the client.

D. The web designer should hand over all access related information such as user names and password relevant to the client website.

E. Although not always feasible, its a good idea to get a backup copy of the website on a CD or pen drive.

Trying to save money in the short term leads to a long term losses.

This is something I have seen over and over. Trying to save costs by hiring a friend or an amateur might save you a few bucks in the short term but in the long term could end up doing a lot of damage to your business and your reputation when you site does not work as it should. Hire a professional firm which has the capabilities to grow and support your online initiatives.

Would you go to an amateur doctor, accountant or architect? Then why an amateur web designer?

Sometimes people just don’t appreciate how important a website can be for their business. They would not want an office in a building designed by an amateur architect or show their teeth to an amateur dentist. So why choose an amateur web designer.

Our commitment is absolute. We have clients who have been with us for over 8-10 years.

We have been in business for over 10 and a half years and we have retained many client for over 8-10 years. This shows our commitment and that we are here to stay. In an ever shifting web design world we have planted our flag firmly in the ground and our clients can always count on us to be there for them.

So the next time you are looking to create a website no matter how small, do consider it as an investment, and hire a professional.

Cheers,
Ron

 Avoid the jargon and the false statistics – what is social media doing in real terms for your brand?

Most social media experts will  show you charts and statistics of engagement and point to the number of ‘likes’ on your pages but all that could simply be hogwash. What you really need to understand is has your social media initiative connected with your target audience (customers, employees, prospective customers) in a meaningful way.

So what is the outcome you are looking for? Meaningful conversations!

Now ‘meaningful’ is also very subjective but I like to use the very simple metric – the conversation. Through your social media channels have  you had a conversation with the target audience which helped them with any of the following:

• Learn something new about your brand or company?
• Sort out some difficulty or confusion regarding usage of your services or products
• Received / Gave appreciation or feedback regarding your services or products
• Pointed the person to the correct product or service in case you could not service them
• Encouraged them with an idea or interesting concept.
• Offered them special discounts or other incentives for using your products / services.

In other words, did that contact feel human, natural and fulfilling? Did it feel like a win-win for both parties involved? Did both walk away with something of value, even if its a very small thing?

Meaningful Conversations can only come from clear objectives – duh!

In order to have meaningful conversation you need to seed the social media platform with relevant posts or you need to be able to recognize a post which matches your objectives and then respond appropriately. In a nutshell you need to be laser focused on what you post and respond to on the social media platforms.

This can only come from clear objectives. This is at times very difficult and requires a lot of debate and discussion. It begins with a simple but honest question, ‘What do we really need from our social media initiative?’. The answer to this question will dictate you actions. This question makes you think in real terms, measurable terms. It forces you to align the social media objectives to your broader business objectives.

Clear objectives help in the following ways.

• What you will post on the social media websites
• What tone and approach to use with the posts
• Which conversations to engage and which ones to close quickly.
• How to handle disgruntled visitors or manage a crisis.
• Get a feel for the direction of the entire effort.

 In the woozy world of social media measuring results is not easy.

Coming back to our initial point. Setting the objectives gives you clarity on what you post and how you respond. But do clear objectives help in measuring the response. What if your objective was, ‘To promote Brand A through the social channels by posting helpful content for our TA”. How do you measure the efficacy of the initiative. After all most of the general statistics can be gamed and do not really tell the whole story.

Its more of a seat of the pants kind of thing. You need to review all the conversations on the platform over a certain period and judge the response patterns. You take specific cases samples and analyze them. Unfortunately its not an exact science but common sense can help a lot to know if your social media initiative is on track.

Cheers,
Ron

“We are keen to give a fresh look to our website. We would like to have give the freshness with a new domain name, logo, entire re-vamp of the site, as per the latest trends, standards and happening!

Please revert to us, in detail (on email only) on how you can help us get into a new look for our company.

Based on your feedback, we shall call you and take the discussion forward.

Kindly do not send us your company profile, testimonials, or clientele. You are receiving this email, mainly because we have gone through your website/ someone has referenced you.

All that we are looking is ideas that are very relevant to us. If there is any specific question, please feel free to connect with me on my email id.

Our Current Website is (their website address)

Looking forward to your response no later than (date here). Based on our internal discussion, you shall be called for a small presentation of your capabilities after being shortlisted.

Once you convince us, we shall get into the discussion of Proposal/Quotes from you.”

Normally an enquiry results in an discussion and a meeting if possible. However this prospective client is not really interested in moving ahead until they hear some creative thoughts from us.

The client’s identity is of course protected for obvious reasons. Here was my response, an off the cuff review of the client’s website. This feedback may apply to almost all websites looking to redesign or revamp.

1. Firstly your site needs to be non-Flash. We don’t use flash anymore instead using Jquery and HTML5.
2. Design will have to be more contemporary with human elements to provide the organization with some sort of identity. The design should convey warmth. People buy from people.
3. Loading time needs to improve significantly as people no longer have the patience to wait. This will happen automatically with the non-flash site and web 2.0 standards code.
4. Current logo is nice but needs to be simplified. Modern logo design advocates simplicity and good font selection. Also logogram (the icon) needs to be seperated from the typography.
5. Your website needs to project the image of a knowledge partner instead of a vendor otherwise you will be slotted by price only.
6. Contact information has to be upfront on the homepage and in all the inner pages. Consider putting up a live chat to engage visitors further.
7. Navigation is not very intuitive. Its not apparent that I have to click on the thumbnail images to see the topics. Simple menus with dropdown structure would be ideal. Sometimes simple is best.
8. Content is very boring and neutral. Not at all engaging or valuable. It needs to address the heart of issues of your visitors.
9. Products and services need to be portrayed in-depth. Combined with testimonials, whitepapers, case studies and lots of supporting information.
10. Incase you are looking to hire people Careers section needs to be more elaborate with options to list existing vacancies.

Lack of content availability or fragmented data sources is the leading cause of website project delays.

Over the last ten years or so, professional web designers have become very efficient at delivering projects. Our processes and teams are in place to rapidly deliver from start to finish. But what puts the brakes on the process is data or rather lack of it.

Finalizing the site map is only the starting point.

One of the first steps we take in web design is working with the client to finalize the site map. However in many cases this is only the starting point. Getting together the material as per the site map is an entirely different challenge. Although the site map gives us the road map for content collation, in  practise it turns out more like a massive scavenger hunt to find the nuggets of information required for the site.

What you don’t have, you need to create – and therein lies another challenge.

Most of the material required is easily found within the client’s organization but many times a lot of it has to be written from scratch. It then becomes a challenge when the client promises to create and deliver it themselves. Due to pressure on time and other business related issues the clients find it very difficult to focus and get it done. Any intervention from our end is not welcome since the client sees it as a personal responsibility and wants control of the final output. So all we can do is wait and remind and then remind again.

Scattered stakeholders across geographical locations makes it very difficult.

Working for larger organizations means that the stakeholders are scattered both physically as well as departmentally. Many times red tape can cause inordinate delays in getting the most simple of information. Web designers literally have to become roaming agents with the client’s company and work across boundaries to get the information they require.

Web designers have learnt to ask, cajole, threaten and even beg to get the content together.

Web designers have become experts collection agents, but instead of collecting money (which we also have to do), we collect information and content from the organization’s stakeholders.  Using tactics like cajoling, threatening and begging helps gets results but does nothing for the self esteem of the web developers who are treated like intruders in many departments of the client company.

So the next time you are negotiating fees with a web designer or you are a web designer negotiating with a client, do keep in mind the extra effort that goes into data collection and saint like patience needed from the web designer.

Cheers,
Ron

I rarely re-read my books.

I had a great collection of self-help and business books. But I rarely re-read any of them. They were nice to look at in our living room shelf but were collecting dust. This way others can take advantage of them and I save a lot of space in my home. Also my wife thanks me for not filling the home with books. Happy wife = thumbs up.

Librarywala.com delivers unfailingly. I can request for them at any time.

In the 3 years I have subscribed to them, they have never failed to deliver the books I wanted. Right on my doorstep the very next day. Which means the books I want to read are just a click away. This means that effectively they have nullified the need for storage of books.

Initiatives like librarywala.com need to be supported and encouraged.

For book lovers, they are a god send. I cannot even calculate the amount I have saved in buying new books. Now I have to very occasionally buy a book when its not available on librarywala but after i finish reading it, guess where it goes. Yup. So for the sake of book lovers everywhere – Subscribe, donate and enjoy.

I will now stop gushing about Librarywala.com and simply encourage all book lovers to subscribe.

Visit www.librarywala.com

Cheers,
Ron

Cheers,
Ron