Ever heard of Elance.com? It’s a website where freelancers all over the world can compete for jobs involving everything from design work to admin support to ghostwriting. Those doing the hiring can readily view the track records of those providing services – previous project titles, customer comments, and cumulative Elance earnings, which makes it easy to narrow your search to serious, competent, and reliable providers. When project opportunities are posted, freelancers respond with proposals. May the best proposal win! Prepared with a relatively small project, I decided to give Elance a try. I posted my project providing quite a bit of detail as to what was required, my concerns, and my desired outcomes. I gave it a one week response window since I was in a hurry to get some action before leaving on vacation.
I didn’t think I would like an electronic reader. I love books too much. And I thought it was silly to be dependent on one more electronic device that needs charging. I succumbed for travel purpose. One skinny, light Kindle is a lot easier to haul around than a stack of books. But now I love it! Some of the reasons may surprise you! It doesn’t close while I am flossing and brushing my teeth. I can increase the text size with just a couple of clicks if the light is fading and making it hard to read. I can download additional books at the drop of a hat as long as there is a WIFI connection. It is really light-weight, balances on one leg easily, and requires barely one knuckle to turn the page. It never loses my page, even if I drop it.
Strategic clarity is essential if an organization is to use resources wisely and get great results. And the relevant decisions are made by everyone from the CEO to each individual contributor. Below are ten indicators of insufficient strategic clarity. How many of these affect you or the people around you? Priorities and goals seem to jump around at a moments notice Many can not confidently enumerate their top few priorities, let alone those of the organization People are feeling stressed by tasks that languish and efforts that don’t align with official goals The tail often wags the dog – new ideas and events derail plans Cynicism and resignation are more common than enthusiasm for the future New initiatives or projects are often launched before current projects are completed There are simply too many priorities, which means there are no priorities
I ordered two items online Monday night at 7:30 PM. Today, Wednesday, in the middle of the afternoon, I received an email providing a UPS tracking number for one of the items. It isn’t in the UPS system yet however and the best arrival date suggested is Friday, two days away. The worst case specified is a week from tomorrow. I paid $5 in shipping charges for this item. Let’s call this Company A. The other item arrived yesterday afternoon. Less than 24 hours after placing my order. I paid nothing for shipping; they upgraded my shipping method free of charge. Furthermore, I will pay nothing for shipping if I return the item. I would have ordered both items from this company but they didn’t have my size. Let’s call this Company B. Is Company A clueless about their competition? Or do they make all their money on the items Company A runs out of? They were slightly cheaper, but not for long if returns are involved and shipping charges add up. Or perhaps they are counting on people not discovering Company B. Does Company B have a great strategy? What do you think? Anyone care to guess the name Company B? If you guessed Zappos.com you would be correct. You can’t argue with service like that!
I am trying to place an order online for duplicating a video of a speech I did. I am on a roll – great speech, happy audience, excellent videography, nice DVD, great label design, simple order process – and ready to press the “Submit Order” button when a little red note pops up admonishing me to submit a single layer DVD only because they can’t duplicate multi-layer DVDs. I have no idea how to tell if my disc is single layer! Screeching to a halt, I wonder how to get an answer to my question. I click on the Help button. It reveals chat, email, and phone options. Good! I like options. The chat option promises service beginning at 8:00 am EST. I’m in luck; it’s 7:55 am. But instead of waiting, I send an email.
If you are a small business owner, you learn early that regardless of your business, marketing is your business. Not only must the quality of your products and services drive referrals, repeat business, and word of mouth advertising, every word and every action becomes a part of your marketing package. While marketing is the most important thing you do, you must not confuse marketing with sales. If you do, every word and every action becomes all about selling rather than marketing. There is no better way to hurt sales than to let selling become the only dance there is. When selling is the focus, people dance. They dance around answers. They dance around questions. They dance around objectives. And they dance while potential business dances away.
I called Apple to resolve a technical difficulty. I knew exactly what I had done, was pretty sure that restoring some files would undo the damage but didn’t know which files I needed to restore. The (second) technician I spoke with directed me to the correct folder and I was up and running quickly. Well, almost. When I logged in to my Apple Care package to figure out how to contact them, I was informed that I was entitled to some 500 days of support. If only I could figure out how to get that support! A wonderful little online utility asked me repeatedly to identify the source of my problem and provide an explanation. After several iterations of reading irrelevant solutions, I started searching elsewhere for a phone number. When I finally found a number I hoped would work, the recording told me it would be 15 minutes and that I should try finding my answer online. No way! Been there! Failed at that! Please let me talk to a competent, knowledgeable resource who speaks English!
Buying a Kindle book on Amazon as a gift is a wonder and a joy. The recipient receives an email and clicks to accept the gift. Before they know it, the book is downloading to their Kindle. If they don’t want to accept the book, perhaps because they already have it, they can easily choose something else instead of choosing “accept.” The entire process is fast, easy, and magnificent. After sending a Kindle book as a gift to one daughter, I wanted to do the same for the other daughter who has a Nook. I searched Barnes and Noble’s website for that option and instructions, but found nothing. Not to be deterred, I called technical help first and then sales help. In both cases, I was told I should just send an electronic gift certificate. I pointed out that a gift certificate is not the same thing and explained the beauty of Amazon’s approach and then encouraged them to pass the word on to the powers that be so Amazon doesn’t eat their lunch, and their Nooks. What would a smart response sound like? What would prevent me from walking away and telling everyone to buy a Kindle instead of a Nook?
SWOT – Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats. It’s an analysis tool frequently used for formulating strategy. Unfortunately, it is simplistic, random, and misguided. Typically, members of a strategy team collaborate to fill the four quadrants of a double axis chart, two reflecting the internal state of the company (strengths and weaknesses), and two reflecting the external world (opportunities and threats). From there, a strategy is supposed to emerge. But is this a good approach for aligning the company’s strengths and resources behind the greatest opportunities? No. SWOT as an approach to strategy formulation is flawed for many reasons. The Customer is Conspicuously Absent There is no C in SWOT. No V either. And yet, creating value for the customer is the name of the game. How can you not start with the customer? Market need, desire, and change, the most important factors, are merely a subset of one of the four SWOT boxes. That is too little too late.
Secretly now, do you cringe when you hear people talk about missions, visions and values? Do you feel like the business world got lost in the semantic twilight zone years ago? Ever seen a company spend tons of time, energy and money trying to navigate the mumbo-jumbo of strategy development while the obvious was neglected? I’ve felt it and I’ve seen it so I know just how you feel. Somehow, the entire process of developing a strategy, which is a completely natural process to many, has been derailed and obfuscated. There is more focus on the quality of the vision statement than the value of the vision it is meant to express. Your mission statement may be in limbo because it is said to be missing a critical required component even though your personal sense of mission may be strong and clear as can be. Books and speakers seem to differentiate themselves by promoting yet another set of definitions and process handcuffs. Bright people are silenced by their embarrassment at having to ask repeatedly for clarification.