Talking shop … store, booth, garage, and office…
Business networking events aren’t for everyone. For some people, such things are the awkwardness of an office soirée but without the benefit of free alcohol for that bit of Dutch courage, and swapping out the unwelcome overtures of that not-so-special someone who you avoid like the plague for the overt advances of a bunch of salespeople who talk at, over, and through you.
Worse, the dreaded speed networking event — eek!
Choice of venue aside, I’ve found the optimal angle of approach is to ask the other person what it is they do and then wrap their explanation in a contextual proposition of what it is Octane does.
It’s the difference between:
“We help small businesses deal with big business problems.”
… and:
“We’d create a secure web application to manage the life cycle of [Widget X, Gadget Y, Service Z, or Events 1, 2, and 3], and…”
… or:
“We’d look at trimming your workflow down from 7 stages to about 5, or — if possible — 3, and then digitising the whole thing, then…”
… in each instance, continuing with additional, contextual ideas specific to their business, accompanied with essential benefits, such as reducing costs, and improving efficiencies, among others.
While apocryphal, it’s worth mentioning something that Albert Einstein never said because it’s a useful shorthand:
“If you can’t explain it simply you don’t understand it well enough.”
We often have an intuitive understanding of what we do, but then struggle to articulate that to someone else, so — as I said — context is everything, as is practice.
I often avoid explaining the specifics of what Octane does (because it’s technical and therefore either: 1. confusing; 2. boring; or 3. a combination of 1 and 2) and instead focus on the expected results, and the benefits we would bring to them.
In the end, simplifying the raison d’etre of a product or service isn’t so much a strand of self-promotion or some branch of your marketing strategies as it is the communication of an idea such that its purpose is self evident to someone, whether it’s applicable or relevant to them or not.
Because if someone else understands what you’re capable of accomplishing, then you have the makings of a message that is communicable to others by others, via word of mouth, and fingers to keyboard or touchpad, which could then — in modern parlance — go viral.
The 20-80 rule
You’ve heard about the 80-20 rule. What about the 20-80 rule? I’m guessing not.
Some time after a running a marketing campaign, which attracted a scant few new clients, we ran into difficulties with one particular new client.
Now, it’s worth prefacing this with an explanation about their particular circumstances. Having spent a large four-figure sum on a major overhaul to their website, in the end, there was almost nothing to show for it. Worse, due to some naivete on their own part — and I didn’t get a complete picture of things — there was no legal recourse.
I came along to “firefight”, which had been about 75% of the work Octane had been doing since 2001; clearing up the chaos caused by a number of web design agencies who seemed to be popping up like mushrooms between 2000-2006 who either failed to do the job or had no intention of doing so.
As you’d imagine, the budget was tight and the profit margin became razor thin. Complicating things further was the clash of personalities, which — for me at least — manifest itself in a fundamental lack of appreciation for the task at hand, its scale, and the challenge of accomplishing much of what had been asked of the previous web designers but on a fraction of the budget.
I didn’t have either the time or the patience for capturing the Moon and putting it on a lollipop stick for a fraction of the price, deliverable by last week. At the same time, a number of other clients had been growing more vocal and more difficult to deal with.
In fairness, these were hard times, but we weren’t doing great either. I came to a realisation — that 20% of the clients were responsible for 80% of the problems we were having, such as:
- poor lines of communication;
- late or non payment (I took two clients to court and won both claims);
- high-maintenance support requirements, but an unwillingness to pay for the service;
- difficult and obstructive personnel;
- unethical and immoral business practices.
… the list went on.
It was a difficult a decision to make (not so much where there was a lack of morals and ethics), and more so given the economic climate, but I made the decision to cut that 20% loose, and — over time — reaped the rewards, the most immediate benefit was that we had more time and resources to deal with the work coming from the remaining 80% of the client base.
Photograph from Pixabay.
Cutting the social web down to size for the perfect fit
While at the launch of the Northern Hub of Enterprise Nation, at the Digital Media Centre, in Barnsley, I had the pleasure of speaking with Reynaldo Robinson, the co-owner of Vyn Johns, a specialist in vintage bridal gowns and menswear, based in Sheffield.
It’s always fascinating to talk to people from different business backgrounds to myself, and Vyn Johns are as different to Octane as anyone could imagine. But, despite the differences, there are the same themes: too few hours; making difficult decisions about which jobs to take on; meeting the expectations of the customer of client. The list goes on.
Reynaldo has a background in marketing, who — as you might imagine — is making solid use of Twitter, Facebook, et cetera. Please, take the time to skim down their Instagram feed, where you’ll discover a fascinating use of tiled images of two large photographs, because the effect is very impressive.
As a business that creates and curates vintage bridal garments, the photography is everything, and Vyn Johns making the most of that.
Sizing things up
What’s clear is that Reynaldo has everything under control, so there was little I could recommend, other than tightening things up a little, which Reynaldo is aware of, and on his to-do list.
So where do I come in? Little of what I suggested was news to Reynaldo, which is encouraging to see. So instead, I’ll write up those thoughts, recommendations, and suggestions for the benefit of everyone else.
But first, if you’re not using Google Analytics for your website, then you’re missing a big trick.
Getting a feel for social media
So you’re on Twitter and you’ve completed your profile by adding a link to your website. Good. Now let’s imagine someone visits your profile and follows the link straight to the home page. We can better than that.
Social media is about creating a dialogue and establishing a narrative around yourself. Here, you’ve already warmed the person up enough for them to visit your website, so why not keep things going by sending them to a web page which expands on you, your business, and what it is you do?
I point people to a page that isn’t that easy to find (via the website itself), so when people visit that page, I’m 99% certain they came from Twitter, which I’m able to see in — you’ve guessed it — Google Analytics. I’m able to quantify where people are coming from with a bit more precision, and I’m keeping that conversation moving along.
You can do the same thing anywhere (Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, a Page on Facebook, et cetera) that allows you to add a link to your website.
Almost anyone can jump into social media, but it’s all about quality and not quantity. Here, the goal is to create a feel, and a texture that speaks about you and the passion you have for your work.
A one-size-fits-all website
I often describe Google as being a fussiest 13 year-old who wants to read everything, but has a short attention span. It’s a shame I don’t take heed of my own advice! Fortunately, my clients do. The goal here is to write articles and to write often, to keep little Miss Google enthralled. This might seem a daunting task, but — again — it’s all about being specific.
Reynaldo attends trade fairs up and down the Yorkshire and surrounding regions. If, like Vyn Johns, you’re often out and about, why not announce this in an article ahead of the event, giving those prospective far-flung customers the chance to meet you.
If you’re going to be writing articles, you’ll need to best tools to do it, and I would recommend WordPress. You have two basic options:
- a “hosted” version of WordPress, whereby you sign up and get going within minutes;
- or you download WordPress, configure it (which involves a degree of technical knowledge) and then get going.
WordPress is very flexible, with a wealth of options to configure it exactly to your tastes and needs. Here, the second option offers the most flexibility, but that comes with the cost of being more technical to configure and manage.
Once up and running, you have the power to write articles whenever you choose, without having to pay for the services of someone like me!
Making adjustments for a tighter fit
So you’ve got yourself in on the social media act, and you have your website, which you control. Now what? We begin joining the dots.
You’re at the trade fair, you have prospective customers approaching you, and you need to give them something tangible, as a reminder. You also need to quantify those people, and in doing so, you get a measure of your own relative success; after all, it’s pointless attending a trade fair if you have no idea whether someone who came to your booth or stall made a purchase at a later date.
A pattern for landing pages
Everyone has seen those adverts on TV asking us to call a number or visit a website and either quote or use a code. We can do the same. It’s cheap and easy to print out fliers containing your campaign code, which you then hand out.
Now, on your website — powered by WordPress, or similar — you create a page whose link address would be, for example: www.your-website.co.uk/campaign-code, which you include on your flier.
What’s a landing page? It’s a clutter-free page with one purpose, and that is to encourage the visitor to do something. That something is either:
- buy a particular item;
- make contact with you for further information;
- download an ebook, or some other digital item;
- or perhaps sign up to a newsletter.
A common pattern for landing pages is the minimalist approach, in that they don’t include any of the navigation elements a regular web page would, for the simple reason that you don’t want anything to distract the visitor, and to detract from the experience, where you’re attempting to funnel them towards a specific goal.
In the case of the trade fair, perhaps have photographs of the items you had on show, with a call-to-action, such as a “Buy Now” button, for example.
As people visit your landing page, you’re quantifying the interest you generated at the trade fair, and perhaps converting that interest into actual sales.
A seamless narrative
While at the trade fair, why not have your own hashtag, so that like-minded visitors to your booth or stall get to share in and become part of the narrative. Similarly, take photographs of your display, talk about what’s happening, encourage visitors to mention you, and for them to take photographs, too.
Afterwards, all those photographs, the conversations, and the happy visitors mentioning you and your efforts that have been working so hard, building layer upon layer of an on-going tapestry, where you treat each moment as a success, one on top of the other, so that — in effect — you’re creating a continuous and seamless narrative, made to measure.
How to respond to failure. Or, after the problem came the procedure.
Encountering problems and making mistakes is a consequence of life, business, and everything else — and unavoidable. But the value is in how you respond to them.
As I said on Twitter this past week:
I’ve found that the best lessons in life — by far — are those where you learn how NOT to do something.
But still, as good as vicarious experiences are, they only get you so far.
In the beginning, there was the mistake…
By gum, was it a doozy! I’ll spare you the gory details (because they are — for the most part — irrelevant) but it was less a bug and more an infestation in the code. In the grand scheme of things, it has caused problems for our schedule, but the Under Cloud remains on course.
Stripping the whole problem down and tracing it to its source, it was — as these things often are — a failure to communicate, which resulted in team members and myself labouring under the assumption that something was when it wasn’t.
And then came the procedure…
So how did I respond?
We’re using a number of things to manage what we do. As a team of 3, we don’t need a lot, but we find that Slack and Trello are enough to keep things together, although we often find things said and done become lost inside the whirring cogs of the communication machine!
I created a list in Trello and added a card entitled: “Deprecated”, within which I wrote the following description:
“Here are all of the parts, components, and libraries of the application that have been deprecated, and what they’ve been superseded with.
Please update this card as and when required, but also refer to it, too!”
Some might argue it’s just a patching of holes, while some might claim it’s only of any use if people follow the procedure, but I would counter by saying that’s life, business, and everything else…