So, Let's Talk strategy! (Part 1)

"Perception is strong and sight weak. In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things." - Miyamoto Musashi (1584 - 1645), Japanese Swordsman

"The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do." - Michael Porter

NOTE: This is part one of this article, and parts 2 and 3 will eventually provide more detail.

Strategy Foundations
LJB and I had a super strategy session this morning...and I plan to share a specific info about it in the very near future...but first, I want to provide some foundational thoughts to strategy. At the end of the day, authors want to connect with people and share something of value with the them. In return, profit-oriented authors make money. So, how do we devise a strategy for your work to make money?

Betalkaboutable Strategy #1 - Know Your Freakin' Customer!
Aside from stealing or counterfeiting, the ONLY way to make money is to help people...and get paid for your product or service that helped them. So, you need to know how your work is helping your fellow human. If you've failed to figure this out, keep failing and don't stop...but make sure you learn from each failure! Know your customer better than they know themselves!



Betalkaboutable Strategy #2 - No Sucky Content!
There are a million things you can do to try and make money as "an author," but your content CANNOT SUCK! You have to have a great, talkaboutable product if you are an author (or an artist or musician for that matter). CC and Ann wrote contentrulesbook.com, and it covers a lot of this type of info about content. To disclose, CC is a friend, and he totally knows what he is talking about. Other than that book, I would study any other great authors and any good content out there on the internizzle...study it.



Now, I believe firmly in a concept (and am pretty sure I came up with the concept) called "Return on Content." This is based on the marketing operations measurement work I've done...for example, we invested in white papers at Siebel. Those papers took time/money to make...and some produced way more leads and business than others! The same rule applies to media companies who will shut off a TV show that doesn't have enough audience (as audience = ad dollars). Authors, marketers, media companies, and software companies create a TON of content...it's endless. Where do you focus? How do you maximize the return on the investment in content? Well, first...it really helps to think of your investment of time and/or money in content as something that needs to maximize a return. Then, you manufacture content, measure the return, and optimize it. So, that means you need to get a feedback loop in place ASAP...that way, you know when you are creating good content and you know what metrics you are moving the needle on. If you don't know where to start, you gotta start somewhere! Take a an educated risk.

betalkaboutable Strategy #3 - betalkaboutable!
This should be obvious, but if people don't want to talk about your content, it sucks. If people aren't talking about your content/media/work, refer to rule #1 and #2. In the world of social media, people are in a constant state of talking, liking, twitching, and talking about content as noted here. It's now part of human behavior...if you have great content, people will talk about it...and being talkaboutable leads to sales!

That's it for now! Feedback always appreciated!

Market developments, another thing to write about soon: http://ping.fm/i3L6Y

Launching Businesses: Process versus Design - 3 Considerations for Growth

My friend Dean recently emailed me about his company, ZeroDragConsulting.com. Dean is quite an amazing guy…besides being extremely good at what he does, he is a triathlete. He knows and loves how to push himself to his limits and grow from it…that’s freakin’ cool.

He asked me a direct question about his business, but I thought that I’d answer in a general way as well…and publish on “ze pervaziv blog” (meant to be said with a Jacques Cousteau accent @;-).

Basically, the question was around the amount of “process” that start-ups need to grow. Here are 3 key summary considerations that I see and more detail follows (click read more):
1. The Design Process
2. The Process of the 5th Discipline
3. Balancing the Two



The Design Process

My perspective on “design” comes from two things: One, I studied industrial design at Georgia Tech with an undergrad thesis in HCI…two, I love design…my old blog (though currently down, the new is here) was about all things design…it is one of my passions…and I apply design principles to everything I do, every second, of every day. From an entrepreneurial perspective, I’ve started about 8 or so companies (most failed)...and worked as part of many start-ups and launched products at various companies (e.g. iXL, WebMD, Fibermarket, eSasa, Kinzan, Siebel, Oracle, Podshow/Mevio, MarketingCentral, Unica).

Entrepreneurs and intra-prenuers must be creative…they are doing something the world has never seen before and looking for feedback from the world (I am guessing this might also be the origin of hello world). If you are really following a true design process, feedback comes in two main forms: One is “I like that…I’ll give you money for it” and ...two is “I don’t like that…but I’ll tell you why.” This applies to the design of anything…a product, service offering, business, main entree, painting, song, sales pitch, call center script, etc.

Entrepreneurs have to design an entire business that surrounds their new product or service. To do so, they have to learn…and evolve fast. If you go to market with something that customers don’t respond to (with money), you are out of business. After you create, you have to learn AND change to grow. Creativity is critical to being an entrepreneur…I’ll call this the createlearnchangegrow model.

Having trained for a sprint triathlon with Dean a while back, I also know that the createlearnchangegrow model applies to the human body…to grow you don’t just do the same thing again and again…you cross-train, you push your limit to do more, you learn from others who have been there, etc. I just launched a project for The Atlanta Beat yesterday, and I asked Christa “what makes a woman pro soccer player tick?” She said something along the lines of “it’s about pushing yourself to be the best you can be…you are in a constant, hard-core state of wanting to improve and be your best.” Now, that is a super lesson for all entrepreneurs and product launch peeps.

Net/Net: Bringing something new to market requires a certain amount of flexibility while you iron out the kinks…or re-invent yourself on the fly…you have to have enough change built in to get it right…and not get crushed by process. When I met Rabble, I found out first-hand that Twitter did this…but that is a story for another time.

The Process of the 5th Discipline

My perspective on “process” comes from Siebel and Oracle. I spent about 6 at Siebel and 1 at Oracle. At Siebel, I ended up running a world-class, award winning marketing operations team…our processes and measurements were some of the best in the world. If you’ve been in the software business for any length of time, you probably know that the industry exists largely to automate things…to make processes better, faster, cheaper, and more measurable. Oracle asked me to lead a global implementation of Siebel CRM…strong process discipline is required to implement CRM on a global scale and get results. For example, in my few conversations with Judy, it was clear that she wanted to measure results to optimize them…and to get that…you need processes.

So, at some point…a start-up or even some new product/service launch wants to scale or grow. From a biological perspective, the strongest survive and replicate. You’ve figured out a formula, now you want to manufacture it. So, entrepreneurs also have to design a business that can grow, scale, replicate, etc. Once you know a large enough customer segment likes your product, you grow. Growth can be painful or not. Before Google, Siebel was the fastest company in the history of the world to grow from $0 to $1B. That is why I went there…I wanted to learn everything I could. My experience was that they largely lived the 5th Discipline and were very strong on developing feedback processes and measurements.

Again, in my training with Dean…I’d listen to my body…I could push myself to grow, but there was a limit. As well, I couldn’t just train once…I needed discipline to improve faster, to help my body heal faster, to grow more. This discipline is process…it is replication.

Net/Net: At some point, a start-up or new product launch has to replicate, grow, scale, etc. Processes, tools, measurements become very important to help with growing pains and ultimately improve ROI.



Balancing the Two

Balance the two is the key to success. For me, balance is part of every aspect of my life…I’ve tattooed a symbol for balance on my body twice (two times so that it is balanced out @;-)...cause I find that I need to always remind myself of this. If there is too much focus on either creativity and design versus process and scale, then things die. Now, some friction between the two is required…it’s even ok if it creates smoke or fire, but the friction needs to be managed so that it does not kill the business… alignment, timing, balance, lack of ego…these things allow frictionless-ness. As examples of problems…an entrepreneur can be the most amazing creative on the planet…someone who can evolve and flex effortlessly…and their lack of focus means they never focus on addressing a specific segment and growing revenues…or the entrepreneur could put too much process in place too early and miss the mark with their product or service while suffocating the business with unnecessary overhead.

Net/Net: Balance design and process. Design the balance into the process.

Again, this is just one person’s perspective…so, I’d be quite curious what others think and appreciate any dialogue on this topic.