Jun 3, 2015 | Change, Governance, Management
For 20 years, Mary Meeker of KPCB has been collating and publishing an annual report on the growth and growth of the net and the services and products it carries.
This 20th publication contains information that will be useful to every business.
The local lemonade stand, to the huge Multinationals dominating the commercial landscape, there is vital stuff for you.
Just a few of the points that jumped out at me:
- Mobile data usage rose 69% last year
- 55% of mobile data traffic is from video
- Ads in mobile account for 8% of ad spend, but mobile accounts for 24% of time spent with media.
- Mobile use in underdeveloped economies is disproportionately strong. In effect, they are jumping the stage of fixed line infrastructure developed economies went through. If you want to do business in Asia and India, go mobile.
- Government policy, regulation and use of the net lags public usage substantially, around the world
- The number of hours a day people are spending in front of a screen s still growing, and though it has flattened off a bit, but it is 9.6 hours/day. (US data)
- The number of productivity tools becoming available is still exploding, as is the number of platforms for distribution of information and data
- The nature of work is changing rapidly, as is the location of those doing it.
Whoever you are, if you are in business, and want to stay there, it is worth flicking through the report.
PS. June 13.
Mary Meeker released a presentation of her amazing report, listening to her talk through the report makes it easier to absorb, way easier than just looking through the huge pile of slides.
Everyone should watch this, absorb it and figure out how to leverage it for your business.
May 18, 2015 | Change, Customers, Sales
mindset switch
Access to information, the tools to make up our own minds has not just changed our behaviour in the way the sales process works, it has changed our mindset.
In a fundamental way.
We believe information we source ourselves, and distrust anything we are told.
We filter the available information and make up our own minds about the bits we will accept, and blend into our version of the truth.
The power to say no” has never been stronger because there are a myriad of options available to us to get the information ourselves.
I work from a home office, and usually do not answer the home phone, as most of the time it is an unwanted cold sales call, and those who I need to be able to contact me almost always do it via the mobile or email.
However, last week I did answer the phone, and yes it was a sales call, but a pretty good one. A very nice Aussie lady, so her first language was English, rang and politely inquired if she could take a moment to speak about how her insurance company could save me a heap of money.
As it happens, I had been considering just that proposition, I am over 60, work from home, but still pay full whack contents insurance, so I had concluded that I should save some money by changing, or at least negotiating rather than just paying the auto premium.
So what happens when the nice lady rings, I surprise even myself given I had concluded that I should change and said “No thanks”.
It was not her, she did a good job, unlike most cold phone sales calls.
It was not that the timing was wrong, I had decided to do the research and take some action.
It was my mindset.
Being given information on a plate by someone who I saw as having a vested interest was automatically rejected.
Yes, I understood she could help, and that it was great timing, but the opportunity was still rejected almost without thought.
Imagine how hard it is to make a sale when all the stars are not aligned, when you cannot even get past the front door when they are!
Selling used to be a staged process with information delivered by someone who had the access you did not have, but needed to make a purchase decision.
No more.
The process has been completely disrupted and reversed, all the power is with the buyer, and if you try and sell them, even the if tools you use smell of you trying to sell them, you lose because the automatic response now is “No”
Think about it the next time you set about motivating the sales force at the Friday rev up, as you will probably just be wasting everyone’s time if you do not recognise and accommodate the mindset change that has occurred in the last decade.
May 4, 2015 | Change, Governance, Personal Rant
FEATURES: DT FEATURES – Warren Wed illo, 11.05.11.
A business that does not make money will not be around for long. While money is just the mechanism to count success, or failure, the lack of it is terminal in every case.
Well, every case but one.
Government.
They just keep on putting it on the national credit card, building debt to garner approval and votes.
As we approach the 2015/16 budget the blathering goes on from both sides of parliament, with occasional irritating rejoinders from the peanut gallery.
It is easy to poke fun at the pollies, and to be utterly cynical about their motives. Their collective and often individual behavior and demeanor make that cynicism almost mandatory, and it seems to make us feel better. However, it rarely adds any value, as the real issues become clouded by rhetoric, blathering, bullshit, and outright, bald faced lies.
Where are the facts, the data to support the various notions put by various interest groups?
We call ourselves the lucky country, as we are.
Supported as we have been particularly in the last 30 years by continuous growth, which we largely put down to the luck we had in being in a place well stocked with resources, but the worm seems to be turning, and we have little wriggle room.
Unlike a business, where the sustainability of the business relies on commercial decisions, and the impact collectively they have on their budgets, the sustainability of the Australian budget seems to rely on our political sustainability.
Up until the last few years we have a pretty good record, but the last few, powered by the fragmentation of the media and increasing ability of individuals to have a say and gather tribes of like minded people to their cause has changed all that.
I am concerned at the level of political unsustainability that seems too be evolving, and driven by that lack of a solid foundation, the sustainability of the national budget.
Roll on the May 12 crunch and hopefully after the debacle last year, there will be some sensible debate that adds to the political sustainability as well as to that of Australian small businesses, upon which the sustainability of the national budget relies.
Sorry, I have reverted to my Don Quixote mode, the chances of any of that must be almost zero.
Apr 27, 2015 | Change, Governance, Marketing, Small business, Strategy
value chain arbitrage
There may be a niche in the market, but is there a market in the niche?
This question was posed to me many years ago as I pondered a new product business plan.
There was pretty clearly a niche in the market that was not well inhabited by competitors, but I was asked:
“Is this because you are just smarter than others, and had seen something they had not, or was it that they had concluded that there was no market in the niche”
Identifying a niche with no commercial potential that would deliver an ROI on the investment may be an interesting observation, one to be filed away for a look again later, but no real value now.
I have kept an eye on that niche for years, way after I left the employment I had at the time, and observe that at the time there was no return in the niche, but now, post digital marketing, there is, and it has been mined extensively and profitably by those who saw it.
The parameters of marketing have changed radically since I first identified the niche.
No longer are we constrained by geography, value chain middlemen who control key points and strangle out rents on the arbitrage value, and expensive, pot luck advertising.
Those constraints are gone, and we are left with a landscape of niches that do have a market in them, recently uncovered by the power of the digit.
Small and medium sized businesses have been delivered the means to scale their operations in ways not imagined 20 years ago.
Niches are now global.
They may be narrow, and deep, but when you find someone down there, they are there for a very good reason indeed, and are usually very receptive to offers that reflect their deep engagement with the niche.
Rich pickings for niche Small and medium players who move quickly, play well, and play smart.
Apr 5, 2015 | Change, Leadership
Insight from Hugh MacLeod. Thanks
Marketing is all about engaging with people, real people, one at a time, and giving them something of value.
In the process, often you have to change their minds, give them a sense of what could be, and reflect their lives back to them in ways they had not seen themselves.
As marketers, and fellow human beings, we have to do it with ideas, arguments, humanity, and ……. Cartoons??
Yes cartoons.
I have been a fan of Hugh MacLeod for a considerable time, his combination of wit, humour, sarcasm and insight, that ability to distil the hubris and bullshit we see every day, while delivering a message of great value is wonderful.
It changes peoples lives.
This collection reflects his deep understanding and connection with people and business, headlined by his collaboration with Brian Solis.
It should be required reading although you do not really read it, you either get it at a glance, or you don’t.
Happy Easter, be safe, and love someone.
Allen
Mar 11, 2015 | Change, Marketing, Small business, Social Media
Designing websites requires the skill of a master juggler
Often I find myself working with a small business to specify a website and digital strategy, and sometimes I am actually taking a brief for a website design. Either way, the same questions keep popping up, so I thought it sensible to list them down.
For some unknown reason, I stopped at 69, although I am sure you can add a number more that have been missed.
Background information.
- What is the purpose of the site?
- What is it about your current digital marketing that needs to be changed, and why?
- Who are your most aggressive competitors?
- Where are the new competitors going to come from?
- If you were to start in business again today, what would you do differently to what you are doing currently?
- How has digital technology changed your competitive environment, and what impact do you think it will have in the next few years?
Your strategy
- What are your corporate values, mission, purpose, however you choose to articulate the reasons you are in business?
- What problems do you solve for your customers?
- What makes you different to your competitors?
- What do you do better that your competitors?
- Why should people do business with you rather than others?
- What are the things you will not do to attract or keep a customer?
Customers
- Describe your most valuable customer.
- Describe the customer journey, how do they typically end up with you?
- What are your levels of customer churn and retention?
- From initial contact, what are your conversion rates?
- What is your conversion cost?
- How do customers find you initially?
- How much is a good customer worth to you over a period of time?
- How long is the sales cycle?
- Do you have a good database of current, past and potential customers, and how is it managed and refreshed?
- Do you know why former customers stopped buying from you?
- Do you have a referral system that captures benefits for the referrer?
Competitors
- What elements of your competitors sites do you like/want?
- What elements of competitors sites do you want to avoid?
- What are your competitors doing to attract your customers and potential customers?
Technical considerations
- Do you have a site architecture or is it part of the design exercise?
- Do you have hosting, domain, email management services to be continued?
- Are the current arrangements if any, compatible with the needs of the new site?
- Are there any specific mobile requirements needed? It is assumed that “mobile friendly” rather than just “mobile compatible” is required.
- What analytics do you want?
- Do you have preferences about the CMS system used?
- How will the content management/ approval system work?
- Do you require log in and chat features, and will they be password protected?
- How will user names and access to the site CMS be managed?
- Are there content on demand requirements, i.e. hidden content becomes visible after a series of actions.
- Are there digital commerce and shopping carts to be managed?
- How will inventory and fulfillment be managed?
- Are there any general functionality requirements you need, such as data bases, and data base interrogation processes, site search facilities, calendars, maps, et al?
- What other digital systems are needed to be integrated, CRM, MRP, order/invoice?
- How will you manage SEO?
- What sort of content download requirements are there?
- What levels of skill are there in the business to apply to the site maintenance?
- Are these compatible with the requirements of the site or is training and outsourcing required?
Design elements.
- What are the most important three things in the design?
- What content and design elements of a current site are required to be carried over?
- What information will go where?
- What corporate logos, colours, designs and style elements must be present?
- How do you want the inclusions that are required, such as calendars & maps to work?
- Will different parts of the site have a different look and feel?
- Are there taglines, market positioning statements or other such marketing elements that need to be incorporated?
- Do you have the original artwork files of elements you want incorporated?
- Do you have photos, video, or other material you want incorporated, and if “yes” do you hold or have paid for the copyright use of them?
- What font sizes and styles are preferred?
- What contact information and automated functions do you want, and where do you want it?
Marketing strategies.
- How are you going to create the content for the site initially, and on an ongoing basis?
- Who is going to maintain the site?
- How does the site integrate into other marketing activities?
- When someone is on the site, what do you want them to do?
- What sites of any type do you like, and why?
- What are the pages you require?
- What social platforms do you want connected, how prominent should the connections be, and which pages do you want them on?
- How are visitors to the site going to be converted?
Project management considerations
- When do you want it? (oh crap)
- Who in your organisation is going to provide the content agreed?
- What content will the contractor provide, and at what cost?
- How will the approval process work as the project progresses?
- How much do you expect all this to cost?
- What are you now prepared to do without?
When you need someone who has successfully juggled in the three ring circus, and knows how to deliver you a great performance without stealing your shirt, give me a call.
