Posted tagged ‘Technology’

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Lesson 7: Use Technology to Forward Your Business

April 12, 2009

We’ve laid the foundation for our solution by discussing numerous disciplines which will be incorporated for re-establishing marketing and sales control within our housewares industry, The remaining area for us to explore is technology.

As is always the case, technology is never the solution in and of itself. Rather, technology is a tool – a very effective tool for transforming the way one processes transactions on behalf of its customers or delivers products or services to them or communicates with them.

In recent months – and although it feels longer than that – it really is months -we have been exposed to a new use of technology, a tool called Twitter. Twitter takes texting to another level. This service allows people to send and read “micro-blogs” or “tweets” of up to 140 characters. That’s about the same length as one of the sentence in this paragraph. Here’s a quick overview.

People who use twitter a re called “tweeters.” They set up free accounts on Twitter and post these very short blurbs. Anyone with Internet access can log on and see these “tweets.” The difference though is this. People can elect to have these tweets sent to their cell phones, mobile devices or computers.

How can one sentence of posting make such a difference? Consider this report from the April 8th New York Times and reporter Ellen Barry.

“A crowd of more than 10,000 young Moldovans materialized seemingly out of nowhere on Tuesday to protest against Moldova‘s Communist leadership, ransacking government buildings and clashing with the police.

The sea of young people reflected the deep generation gap that has developed in Moldova, and the protesters used their generation’s tools, gathering the crowd by enlisting text-messaging, Facebook and Twitter the social messaging network.

The protesters created their own searchable tag on Twitter (ed. note: thus allowing you to look up links that are tagged with one or more subjects), rallying Moldovans to join and propelling events in this small former Soviet state onto a Twitter list of newly popular topics, so people around the world could keep track.

By Tuesday night, the seat of government had been badly battered and scores of people had been injured. But riot police had regained control of the president’s offices and Parliament Wednesday.

After hundreds of firsthand accounts flooded onto the Internet via Twitter, Internet service in Chisinau, the capital, was abruptly cut off.”

If political revolutions can be initiated, how can a business one be started?

On the site Read Write Web, http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/zappos_twitter.php) you can learn how Zappos, the Internet shoe retailer is using social media to forward its business.

There are literally more than a 100 Zappos employees with twitter windows open waiting to respond to customer service questions.

Here’s a short sample from today’s Zappos Twitter site. I’ve slightly modified each name and removed the links so as to be sensitive to the identities of the individuals since I am using this for a different purpose.

  • @samdeck I want to apologize for your hold time. We’re here for you 24/7 1-800-927-7671. Have an awesome day!!! about 2 hours ago from web in reply to samdeck
  • @onfiref I apologize for the confusion, but which shoes do you need a picture of? Let us know or call us 1-800-927-7671 about 2 hours ago from web
  • @Glorial congrats! We look forward to meeting you! about 21 hours ago from web
  • @mkntz we did upgrade you to next-business day shipping for free on your order! You should receive it 4/14/09 at the latest. about 21 hours ago from web
  • @hinia I would be happy to answer your question. There is no tax when shipping to California from Zappos. 2:30 PM Apr 10th from web

This is customer service in 2009!

Zappos though is also intent on building a community. There’s a dedicated site where you’ll find all of the twittering Zappos employees who tweet about what they are working on and interesting resources on and off the Zappos site. There’s an employee leader board that shows who’s on twitter an dhow many followers they have.

There’s also a page that aggregates all of the public mentions of Zappos. And Zappos has also set up pages for those who rave about the company and its products.

Want to know more about how to use Twitter in your business? Do a Google search on “twitter” and “business”…

Ah, technology as a tool…

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How Buyers Buy Professional Services

January 8, 2009

The editors of RainToday.com, an excellent site for those who market and sell professional services, recently released their 2009 benchmark study on how clients buy professional services. In their nine minute podcast, they talked about the top 5 ways buyers find their professional service providers.

The research involved asking 200 buyers of professional services (law, accounting, consulting, technology, training, among a whole range of services). The sizes of the buying firms were small to a billion dollars in revenue. The survey identified 27 different methods by which buyers choose professional services.

Here are the top five:

(1)   Referrals from colleagues (79% of respondents)

(2)   Referrals from other service providers (75%)

(3)   Personal recognition or awareness of the buyer / brand / reputation (73%)

(4)   In person seminars (66%)

(5)   Presentation at a conference

Here’s what the findings mean to me.

(1)   Your own client base is your greatest source of leads. It tells me that I’d better have the kind of support that keeps them happy and I’d better find opportunities to keep talking with them.

(2)   People in the industry talk. Sounds like it would be prudent to look after our professional relationships

(3)   Having a presence is important and being known is very important. This means that speaking engagements, writing articles and sharing and helping others is critical toward developing a prominent brand.

If you’d like some unique ideas about seminars, drop me a note at david_blumenthal@msn.com and we’ll set aside some time to talk about some unusual and really effective seminar development approaches taht will generate immediate opportunities.

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Preparing a Strategy: So Much More Than a Task

September 2, 2008

Preparing a strategy is not a task. It is also not a deliverable, such as a document or a book.

When a strategy has been created and delivered, it will alter an organization’s focus, and allow its leaders to determine what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and who will be responsible for key elements of the strategic program. A strategy is core to an organization’s identity and a roadmap for creating its future.

Not surprisingly, it is the dialogue and the exchange of ideas that really matters. These ideas, filtered by facts and perceptions and synthesized by a healthy debate, will produce a worthwhile result.

In order to create a well rounded, comprehensive approach, one needs many different perspectives represented in the room. Each person will bring her / his talents, experiences, personal marketing strengths and weaknesses, and biases into the discussions.

The first step in the process is then to inventory the talents and perspectives, and then determine who needs to be added to the conversation to compensate for any weaknesses without compromising strengths. In essence, the intention is to determine what we “know we don’t know.”

There are ten perspectives that should be included when we plan our strategy. They may be sufficiently present in a few people or they may require a body of fifteen, twenty, or more.

1)       Vision. Who has an ability to envision a new enterprise and how it will be marketed?

2)       Creativity. Who can see and avoid conventional approaches and envision and design the unconventional?

3)       Sense of timing. Who understands sequencing and timing? Who can implement steps that will achieve the desired result? The “whens” are as important as the “whats.” This would include choreographing the approach.

4)       Ability to spot key trends. Who understands current social, cultural, and political trends? These are NOT trends within the industry. Rather they are trends in our society at large.

5)       Penchant for details. Execution, execution, execution… Who is the master of details?

6)       Ability to change. Who sees trends within the marketplace and can lead the organization to make the necessary adjustments?

7)       A long-term viewpoint. Who takes the long view? Who’s looking to the future? While successful selling looks short-term, in the here and now, successful marketing requires one to look three to five years out. A completely sales-oriented personality will often have a problem putting together a marketing plan as s/he usually lives in a short-term, tactical world.

8)       Focus. Who can maintain her / his concentration on the steps required to move from the beginning to the end? Entrepreneurs are often tempted to go after more markets than they should. Because it is so difficult to understand a single market well, understanding several well enough to succeed is often impossible. Highly focused entrepreneurs tend to go after markets sequentially.

9)       Passion. Who is the product or service evangelizer? Who feels strongly about your products or services and can express how they will make a difference to our customers? Who believes in our goods and services and their value? Who enrolls others in that excitement?

10)    A technology and information orientation. Who understands technology and information systems? This person must understand what systems can be developed that will have an impact on the organization. Successful marketing increasingly depends on the leader’s ability to make effective use of marketing data and information.

With the right perspectives present, the likelihood of the success of your strategy will grow exponentially.

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