It was '96 when I made the first successful sale of a website. I admit that the customer was really interested in new technologies and ways to sells his products. We started around April and published the project on early September. The product was acceptable by the public and the sales arrived almost immediately. The ROI was fast and the customer was pretty satisfied. Competitors where also interested to develop similar websites, and they started changing radically their marketing policy. The website survived two and half years. It still exists but the orders are 10% of the starting months. Why? It is still the same brand, the same products and the same marketing. Though, the last one misses an "e" in front.
E-marketing extends the principles of the standard marketing (the well known marketing mix of the 4P's - Product, Price, Promotion, and Positioning) in the following points:
Update: Keep your customers, always wanting to access your website. Provide them with new products but describe them briefly in a way not just to convince them, but to make then feel that your product is what they want. Websites that do not update their home page and do not allow customers interactions / feedback, in about two years maybe be found in Google archives, just because their managers assume that products are more important than existing or potential customers and how to establish relation with them.
Design: Voice of the customer: "I want my website's elements to move... to drag them and drop... to listen to my favorite music... to have a large image as background with extremely good quality... plus I want it blue as my favorite color". Reactions:Developer/Designer: faint or over tired - Customers: watch for 45" a label telling them "Loading, Please wait..." (it will also move) and visit the competitor. Of course we want and need the best way to present our company and products but this doesn't exclude that simplicity is also nice. Customers need to access information fast, which they are presented accurately and nicely.
Service - Support - Privacy: Write always a Disclaimer and always prove that you follow it. Relations between companies and customers (like eBay or Amazon) are successful due to the fact that those companies honored what they claimed.
Budget: Why are, most of the financial department head confused when they a digit with more than three zeros after it, with the "e" reason in front, ready to get a stroke? They should think that this budget will secure also their salary. Don't forget, we are living in a difficult era!
E-Learning comprises of learning as well as teaching methods which are electronically supported. When incorporating eLearning methods in the learning process, some of the following may be utilized: delivery via computer and/or internet, use of dedicated CD-ROMs as well as software programs, audio and video techniques.
"eLearning is the effective teaching and learning process created by combining e-digital content with local community and tutor support along with global community engagement." (Business Bible, Elearning p. 473)
Facts:
40% of Internet users are on the age scale of 18-29. A critical age range, where they are stabilizing their knowledge field. They are also familiar with computer and Internet use.
More and more universities use e-Learning as an additional learning method, and are actually gathering international students as well.
Many country members of the European Union, are now using emerging technologies in most situations on governmental, but they do not utilize "e" learning on universities even thought there are several EU funds that are not even approached.
After 1999 – 2000, during which time there was a boom, still many EU countries private sector and IT&T companies are not interested on developing and applying e-Learning model in projects for public sector or other academic / learning institutes anymore, and of those attempts that succeeded, the results are on a low quality level.
Some time ago, I demonstrated our protocol system to an organization. Everybody was happy. The FC manager the HR manager the IT manager, even the General manager was happy (in organizations you have many managers). Except for one lady that was (of course) manager of the protocol department. She asked me a question: Do you think that you can have all these protocol books inside a computer? (I hoped she meant electronically). This is my work of years (20+) and nobody can do it.
Well, to tell you the truth, I don't remember the times that friends or customers called me saying: "Hi, I want a website with a simple but really cool design, maybe with a product gallery and also an e-shop, maybe also a forum would be nice and of course I want to update it myself and not to forget RSS for the news."
Nice approach. The customer / friend knows what he/she wants. And then you get to the point telling him that it would cos X thousand euro. If he/she will not hang up instantly it's your lucky day. "So much? I expected something less, something like 300 euro". Then you hung up the line.
A nice 300 euros website background
Lets evaluate the meaning of the 300 euro cost for a website. - 1 hour of a web designer costs from 18 to 30 euros > average: 24 - 1 hour of a developer costs from 25 to 42 euros > average: 33.5 So approximately you have around 10 working hours for both of them (almost five from each) to build a brand new and also unique website. No further comment! :)
In marketing and advertising, what you pay is what you get!
It is said by Peter Drucker "Marketing and innovation are the two chief functions of business. You get paid for creating a customer, which is marketing. And you get paid for creating a new dimension of performance, which is innovation. Everything else is a cost centre". Marketing is the essential element for a company in order to transform the products or services to necessitates for customers and finally to transform the investment to profit. Companies are adjusting their marketing mix strategies to reflect anticipated market differences in the EU market. The condition of four P's (4Ps) has major impacts and finally dictates if a company will be healthy or not.
Price - Promotion - Place - Product
The World Wide Web (WWW), as a market, is rapidly moving through the stage where the novelty of buying on the web is giving way to a more sophisticated customer who has more and constantly improved demand for product and for services. In the market and especially in the Internet Market the space for small and medium companies, not only exists but also encourage this fact. Let us not forget that Amazon.com has achieved to harmonize the four Ps and maybe in few years more than 50% of consumers will trust companies like this one.
Saturday, 07/APR/2007 - 06h45 | Total emails:0 Monday, 10/APR/2007 - 00h02 | Total emails: 509 / Emails cut by server side: 476 Actually I am afraid to leave my emails for more than one hour. Would there be a software embedded that will "broadcast" my email address book and of course my personal email to some spam collector softwares and then... you know the rest!
Wellesley, Mass.,—April 2, 2007—Nucleus Research, a global provider of information technology research and advisory services, today announced that the spam epidemic is costing US businesses $712 per employee each year in lost worker productivity.
According to a survey of 849 e-mail users conducted during March 2007, Nucleus Research and KnowledgeStorm found that two out of every three e-mail messages received by today's business users are spam.
As a result, users are spending 16 seconds identifying and deleting each spam e-mail, which translates into an annual cost of $70 billion to all US businesses.
The piso is usually denoted by the symbol . This symbol was added to the Unicode standard in version 3.2 and is assigned U+20B1 (₱). Due to the lack of font support, the symbol is often substituted with a simple P, a P with one horizontal line instead of two (available as the peseta sign, U+20A7 (₧), in some fonts), PHP, or PhP.
Let us have a look of this nice landscape located in Sweden. There are three colors. Yellow, Green and Blue. The trees are in three different positions, in the Blue, in the Green or in between. Yellow is the basis for all. Let us now make the following connotation:
Yellow = Knowledge
Blue = Experience
Green = Revenues
The basis of all is Knowledge. But targeted knowledge. Achieving certain goals and being in top means that the knowledge you acquire you also prove it in your daily work, and also your daily life. Appreciation is coming only after hard work and reading. Especially in the IT field, a blessed field, that each day new things are explored and coming to us, via e-collaboration and communities, to stay away from IT daily news and tactics, will lead you out of the market. Youngsters have the passion and the powers to work allot, but they are not well paid. On the other hand, experienced on IT, are getting more revenues, but also bored. There is no intermediate state. The solution is one, you should have dreams but also be patient and work hard, and when you achieve the first step, think of your past, and how you got here.
I often pick up the telephone and listen to the almost same story:
"Hi, I have a company named XYZ and I want a website, but please I need it fast. Can I have it in two-three days?".
First time this happened, and I said ok, we will do it (since I like to cope with difficult deadlines), there was a major crisis in my office. I had to buy at least 15lt of Coca Cola, and a new coffee machine. I think one of my developers mixed Coca Cola and Coffee finally. Of course we made something nice (as always) but, the problem is again on the customer side.
Let us take Cinnamon as an example. About 80% likes cinnamon, but if it isn't in powder, then it is really difficult to spread it over a cake. What I mean is, you may have the perfect product, the ideal company that would be both mostly appreciated by customers. But if you don't pay attention to the image and the market positioning, then a website or an advertisement, may produce negative influence.
Look closely at the photo. When I first saw this picture last week, and I thought it's a nice view... of north pole, perhaps. My mind would never go that it is a place named Pamukkale, which means cotton castle, which is a natural site and attraction in south-western Turkey in the Denizli Province. The ancient city of Hierapolis was built on top of the white "castle" which is in total about 2700 meters long and 160m high. It can be seen from a great distance, eg. when driving down the hills on the opposite side of the valley to the town of Denizli, which is 20 km away.
The tectonic movements that took place in the fault depression of the Menderes river basin did not only cause frequent earthquakes, but also gave rise to the emergence of a number of very hot springs, and it is the water from one of these springs, with its large mineral content — chalk in particular — that created Pamukkale. Apart from some radioactive material, the water contains large amounts of hydrogen carbonate and calcium, which leads to the precipitation of calcium bi-carbonate. The effect of this natural phenomenon leaves thick white layers of limestone and travertine cascading down the mountain slope resembling a frozen waterfall... (Ref: Wikipedia)
Without knowledge, which actually is information, we are leading in assumptions that may not reflect reality. The way that we present things should well defined. We are focusing on Search Engine Optimization (Ref: Wikipedia SEO) without even understanding the value of our products, of our business image and our sector. There is a simple way to define it. Take a piece of paper,
step 1: write down ten words describing (but ten...)
your business
your sector
your product
your expectations
step 2: strike through 7
step 3: voila!
This is what you want to do, this is what you want to sell, these are your META-DATA (Ref: W3C Metadata) of your actual business.
The five senses, some centuries ago it was considered evil to explore... Today it is considered as the only way that we may explore the world...
Education. First of all it is something that we get from the day we get borne, realizing the worlds through it, going from the unstructured (family) to the structured (school) and then in between we decide what we want to achieve. An architect, a dentist, a mathematician, an Information Systems specialist and so on, is a reflect and a filter of others would want us to be and finally... we select. If our selection is based on conscious then the theoretical base that we will get from the schools and universities will be just the basis of what we will do in the future. I say just the basis because, imagine a youth getting in the university. Though, the books and material that will get is out dated. Diplomacy perhaps, in most universities they teach materials of the 19th century. Where is the present? Of course somebody would say, these are methods proven... but work is something that is dynamically changing each day due to the modern factors of communication (Internet), where universities and schools can not follow.
I strongly believe that education should now-days be more dynamic, challenging and based on the present era. Otherwise, the only use for university title, is to use it under our cv to convince that we know our job that we learned via experience ...
The principle benefit of and reason to outsource is that it allows a firm to focus its activities on its core competency. Simultaneously, the firm outsourced to will be acting in its core competency. That provider firm brings a number of advantages to the performance of its task including access to state-of-the-art technology; economies of scale with regard to hardware, software, and personnel; and aggressive use of low-cost labor pools. The outsourcing firm focuses on broader business issues, or maintains a clearer strategic focus, while operational details are assumed by an outside. Outsourcing can deliver considerable savings on office space, general overhead, company cars, pensions, insurance, and salaries. Since it is their core competency, providers are more likely to remain abreast of technological innovations in their field. The outsourcing firm then gains easier access to expertise and new technological developments.
Providers can be more flexible with regard to workload than an in-house process; this can allow a firm to turn a fixed cost into a variable cost through outsourcing. They are more inclined to be flexible because of their customer/supplier orientation, an orientation that may well be absent in an in-house arrangement. In summary, outsourcing is thought to be beneficial because of economies of scale, improved access to new technology, and the flexibility inherent in the outsourcing relationship.
(23/08/2007) "As of today, thanks to the EU's continued pressure, consumers can now fully assess what's on offer across Europe as regards the new Eurotariffs for mobile roaming," said Viviane Reding, EU Telecom Commissioner. "I note with satisfaction that all mobile operators now appear to comply with the law, and that also the few black sheep we noted three weeks ago have returned to the fold in the meantime. However, the fact that the picture is now complete does not mean that the job is done. Together with the national telecom regulators, the Commission will now look into the quality, transparency and consumer-friendliness of the new roaming offers. In autumn, this will allow us to assess whether there is now more competition in the roaming market and whether consumers actually get a better deal."
The Commission's website, launched on 2 August, lists the Eurotariff on offer per operator in all 27 EU Member States (see IP/07/1202). The table is based on responses to a questionnaire sent in mid-July to 95 mobile operators in the EU. Initially the Commission received 74 responses. Some operators only later informed the Commission about their offers or corrected the information they had sent. Today, with the last two operators - Estonia's EMT and Cyprus' Areeba - having communicated their offer to the Commission, the EU-wide overview is now complete. Read the full story.
FYI: The girl is just playing... The boy doesn't know it!
I often get the question: "Why should I have a nice website, I have a great company and a adequate web page with my contact information and some products... why pay to make it better?"
Simple answer:
You will gain appreciation
You have a store 24/7 with low cost ready to bring you money!
You will get more customers and unexpected sales
I suggest:
Have a perfect design for your website that will be in common with your corporate profile
Optimize your website for the search engines (SEO)
So, let's start the project... but what is a project?
Organizations perform work. Work generally involves either operations or projects, although the two may overlap. Operations and projects share many characteristics; for example, they are:
Performed by people.
Constrained by limited resources.
Planned, executed, and controlled.
Operations and projects differ primarily in that operations are ongoing and repetitive while projects are temporary and unique. A project can thus be defined in terms of its distinctive characteristics—a project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service. Temporary means that every project has a definite beginning and a definite end. Unique means that the product or service is different in some distinguishing way from all similar products or services. Projects are undertaken at all levels of the organization. They may involve a single person or many thousands. They may require less than 100 hours to complete or over 10,000,000. Projects may involve a single unit of one organization or may cross organizational boundaries as in joint ventures and partnering. Projects are often critical components of the performing organization's business strategy. Examples of projects include:
Developing a new product or service.
Effecting a change in structure, staffing, or style of an organization.
Designing a new transportation vehicle.
Developing or acquiring a new or modified information system.
Recently I am reading allot of views and articles about Internet Marketing. First of all "Internet marketing, also referred to as online marketing or Emarketing, is marketing that uses the Internet. The Internet has brought many unique benefits to marketing including low costs in distributing information and media to a global audience. The interactive nature of Internet media, both in terms of instant response, and in eliciting response at all, are both unique qualities of Internet marketing". But how can somebody achieve a prosper M@rketing. There are three basic methods:
create a nice website with an affective design reflecting your company identity (I am not going to start again commenting how important this is),
send periodically targeted newsletters to your subscribed users (NO SPAM!!!) that will inform them about your products and services.
Now, just think of the last moment you spent on these three points. How did you feel? Was it a moment of enthusiasm or just a moment that you were thinking: "Oh my God... thousands of companies before me do the same thing... what am I going to do? How am I going to sell???". Now lets go back to the previous question... You could think that the kitty is a big company and the rabbit is you (nothing personal!) ... who is scared?
Have a look at this picture... it does give you the feeling that you would like to go there! Try booking a hotel and a flight with orbitz or expedia (my favorites) or some of your choice. But, where is this place? Assume now that you are in a business fare or a conference, that is exactly what you ever wanted to be in order to meet important persons for your business or even to sell. Which are your weapons? Your smile, your non smelly breath, your nice suite... everybody has that. But then what? ... Your business card... Without this, that important person for you, will simply forget you after one hour or five minutes, and never reach you. In order to persuade though with your business card, it should have the following characteristics:
clean (yes... clean!)
provide immediately information such us:
Company name, logo and moto!(I can't make it blink...)
LAST NAME, First name
Position in the company (if not managerial)
Address
Telephone
Website
nice design
not simple 3mm paper, but something that will be noticed by the sense of touch (one of the five senses)
not blank on behind
Now to solve the mystery, the photo is taken from the Menara Gardens, a paradise on earth...
Wednesday, 10/10/2007. Only a few weeks before 2008. Do you remember the business targets you had the first day of this year? Which where they? Let's see:
more customers
more sales
more revenues
more projects
But if you take a closer look you may find that the basic factor of all is "money" ... call it euro, dollars, yen... money. But this is not a target that will bring you results! I know it sounds strange, but thinking of money wont bring you customers. On the contrary! It will make them go away, since they will feel threaten that you are after their wallet. Especially in IT, where customers will say "why does it cost so much and I should pay you?!?!" before even making an analysis of the benefits that your service/product will give, they will not even let you demonstrate your offerings! Let's now alter these targets just for the remaining weeks of this year and let target for:
In life there many kind of pleasures. Name them... But one of them is having a special position in our mind. Chocolate! Milk, vanilla, ginger, black, coffee, lemon, cherry, strawberry... whatever combination you can imagine! Recently I ate duck with sauce of chocolate and balsamico, and it was delicious. And then, you can also drink it, with 40% of milk 20% chocolate and the rest 40% water... the perfect combination. So imagine now, you are in a snow shelter, and its cold outside. I bet the only thing that would make you feel nice... is a hot cup of chocolate.
So today, we reserved (thanks Markos) the domain www.ilovehotchocolate.com which will be the official name of this website (logo). The main reason that I did is because I trust that it gives a positive feeling. We all kind of want that to start our day. Don't we?
It started all in '02. I was in front of a fantastic marketer in Nürburgthat asked "I am having a commonly appreciated product, a good reputation as a company a nice marketing plan, but... I can only get an increase of sales from 5% to 10% per year ... what is happening?"
What I did was distributing a simple survey to his best customers. Questions:
do you need this product?
will you buy it again?
did you like the price?
how old are you?
Results:
36% Yes
64% Yes
43% Yes
22% 10-20 / 38% 20-30 / 25% 30 - 40 / 15% 40 - 50
For me #1 and #2 are contradicting the #3. Then I also bought the product. And I was still buying it while I've been to that area. Why? Because of a unique factor. In modern marketing, what I think is missing is more human interaction and understanding... A marketing plan that would be not based on fundamental human needs but based on supplying confidence and trust from the advertisement to each support level of the company, will finally be a win-win situation for both parties. But again, already part of this is happening. So what is missing in order to get on top and differ from your opponents is first of all belief on your product/service, some communication experts to train the sales and the support department and a really smart advertising plan concentrating on why your product exists and is useful. So... what was the factor: the smile on his sales persons face! :)
Workflow: buy milk - give milk to Mewo (the kitty) - have a happy Mewo!
Sometimes, being a project manager, you will either get bored or tired with the progress of your project. There is like a white or black situation (no gray). The problem is that the white is when you are getting tired (which means the projects goes fine) and the black is when you get bored (which again means that you might have your head on a plate soon!).
So, you go at work the morning (around 10h00 just to tease the rest that are going maximum at 09h15), you say "good morning" to everybody (which means you check who is there or not) and then you ask "how is it going" (which means you check the status of the daily tasks of your project). Then you smile or make some nasty comments, and off to your computer checking emails, news, blogs and so on. This is a nice job!!!
But then, what happens is that one day, your head (there is always one), will come and say "I need to see the progress now". If that person is not satisfied for about two to three times... you would have to check for a new project on monster.com wondering what is missing to you and you can't complete a project.
Actually there are two major things missing:
gain appreciation from your colleagues
be the project!
You may have as many certifications as you want and a CV of more than ten pages, but making happen the two abovementioned values, will bring the project and you on top!
Since I was a kid I loved lemon but never ate it, till the day I was in Napoli, and a friend of mine threaten me that either I will eat it ... or there would have been no nice Cucina Italiana that day... I was sure that you can only eat orange, but I finally I tasted it. It was a special selection of lemons that are those that they create lemoncello. Delicious!
Let's now consider of two major values: time and quality. It is said, that you need allot of time in order to achieve quality. Doesn't it sound like an excuse? There are certain quality patterns that by following them it can be assured that a) the expected quality will be achieved and b) the project will be on time. Let's see a nice method:
Planning
Doing
Checking
Acting
This is also referred as the Shewhart Cycle or the PDCA. Sounds simple? Let's start it!
A: finally I like them both, specially with hot chocolate on top!
White hot Chocolate with fruits (specially dedicated)
It's the end of the day... and suddenly I realized that I am going through many... but many websites, each day, mainly for information recall and business related websites. So I did an analysis to myself on what and how I spend my e-web-day.
My theory, the more you click ...in conscious ... the more you get information which means knowledge about your work and how you will improve it. Internet is a place that if you don't get better each day, then you will not get more benefits, and actually in small period of time your % incomes will decrease.
I found a nice recipe for white chocolate tart... click here
There is always a bright Sun behind the dark clouds!
Some months ago, we got a telephone from a customer saying: "Hello, I would like to get a price for registering a DNS through your company, could you give me a price?". He didn't want a web hosting, he didn't want a website project... just a name registration. The policy we follow is that we don't charge anything more than the nominal price, to our customers or sometimes we even do it for free when it's included in a project. The new customer was happy not because he didn't spend $10 more than the other companies asked, but because he understood that we are honest.
After twenty days, we closed a deal with the customer ... for $20,000.00
What matters in sales is:
Belief in your products
Accurate, Sincere and a nice designed marketing plan
I had an interesting lunch with a Public Relations master (lets call him StA) this week [Link: I - II ], discussing on how we are approaching and finally penetrating the market and also how we intend to expand Apogee's brand recognition. As I have already stated my three fundamental pillars are:
After a couple of minutes of silence StA told me, "you know what you miss? a clear and focused plan on how you will approach a targeted market. This will guide your marketing efforts not assist them". It took me some minutes to realize what he is saying... But it's true.
In a competitive world and e-world were many companies are desperate for our attention, there are only some minor details that define who is the best. Electronic and traditional Media exposure delivers credibility. But even more, consider who is accepting the information and then the value is increasing only if that person will be in a decision making position.
PR is one of the most highly effective ways to establish your business in a market. Placing articles in trade, business, and special- interest publications is an easy way to begin your targeted (?) PR efforts.
Have you ever thought why you are building or reading specifications, on why and how you will proceed on the development of a simple or a complex application? I will give you not one but five reasons:
You will not loose time on developing something that will be then altered
Your customer and you will compromise on final deliverables
You will have a solution approach model
The customer will not ask more than those that are written down
You both know what you do!
A specification is an explicit set of requirements to be satisfied by a material, product, or service. Before even starting writing the specifications is that there is not only one type of them, but again ... five. These are:
The following story took place in Paris. "Rainy day in Paris... I got used to it after one and half year here... Big buildings around me filled up with companies. I just wanted to make some sales. So I got in a big building that was hosting 5 companies.
First floor: A company that was building and selling structures to hold safely buildings.
Second floor: A PR company
Third floor: A Real Estate company
Fourth floor: A company that was designing structures
Fifth floor: A company that was specialized in big constructions
So I have been to the fifth floor. What are your needs, I asked. They told me that they have a big project on constructing a 8 floor building with an underground parking of at least 4 floors. So I said, whats the problem. They said that they want that the building but also the parking should be of material that will be really a) familiar with the local environment b) authentic and c) elastic since there was a lot of wind and specifically for the parking they wanted day light down there (something like Louvre).
Imagine what I did (Hint: climbing up and down the elevator for three hours). Finally I won that day $20.000,00. Sweet isn't it?"
The whole problem of the companies that were in the same building is... communication! And the Second floor did not help! It always need a person that will smell the opportunities and do not hesitate.
When you started your business activity, the first thing that you checked was your competition. Actually what you did was trying to "imitate" your biggest competitor (I did...). So finally if you observe it in a different angle, that competitor, which you hated so much being the best and also many years in business before you... is your best business consultant! Why? Because when you started you didn't know :
the market
your products
your potential
they did though, and you learned from them. Also now, let's say that you are ready to start a business perhaps in Knowledge Management then check: Autonomy.
I feel that the main question of the majority of sales and business men is: how can I get this big project? In this process the only enemy you have is you. Consider this, a dog would byte you only if it would feel fear from your side. Let's bring this now in the sales situation. If your customer or partner would feel fear, then you loose the case because it means that you don't trust either your company or your products. And finally you don't trust yourself.
I will give you now two choices: change attitude or change job... you decide. Now if you decided to change attitude I would propose to follow this road-map:
Read what you sell and "feel" it!
Identify the key elements of your business and your products.
Identify your customers need (why else would they pay you?).
Be honest.
Think big and smile! :)
Today instead of flavor of the day I would like to share a certain emotion: Love. You can measure everything in this life, but this emotion! So, put some love in your sales recipes!
Yesterday was a nice day. I got to one of our customers, and I heard the following: you are great on support! I always smile, but that moment I felt proud of my partners, and I got a bigger smile!
Of course there is a special trick. We never leave more than 12h to respond to a case. We are not many (we will in time), but we are all more than able to be there, to understand and to control situations and bring the best outcome for both parties. Plus, we learn from our mistakes by first of all admitting that we do mistakes! There is a certain procedure that we follow on mistakes:
we identify the reason for that mistake
why we didn't see it
why we didn't avoid it (yeap it's different than the above)
what are the impacts - act!
what would be the best solution not to repeat it
And then after, we apologize to the customer/partner while we have already fixed (maybe spend a night) on it. I have been in situations that IT companies are trying to "blame" the customer somehow, that it was their (the customer's) mistake! Finally, those companies lost many of their customers.
So... be sincere, to yourself (company) and then to the customer and everything will run smoothly even in a crisis situation!
We always talk about business and how to expand it, create more revenues and so on. But who does the job? Simple answer... not you! Your employees, those that you staff or you order contracting. But what are the principles on how to treat them:
Be Flexible and understand. There are rules to respect and rules to bypass... a good manager should know how to act on them!
Treat employees like adults. Employees want to be treated as unique, mature individuals. Don't you want the same?
Convince them by actions of your understanding but define also their position and their limits. It's always hard keeping balance, but that's the beauty of HR!
[which is the information and which the communication part?]
Yesterday it was a nice day. I participated in a conference for communication. No actually it was about disseminating information. No no ... wait... it was about communication. Or... Communi-rmation?
Information is the result of processing, gathering, manipulating and organizing data in a way that adds to the knowledge of the receiver. In other words, it is the context in which data is taken.
Communication is a process that allows organisms to exchange information by several methods. Communication requires that all parties understand a common language that is exchanged with each other.
I think the difference is obvious and simple. Communication is using Information and actually enhance it. But communication would be useless if there is no productive dialogue. It is noted that only 5% of all readers are going through the total of documents/articles and only 3% is absorves the information. What can we do to make it better? Dialogues! And internet is here to support it either by Fora or Blogs or even Chat.
It's a common conclusion, things are not as they seem to be! OR at least with marketing they seem better. Like the Bananoctopus, a used banana (Chiquita are my favorites) that you would throw it away, suddenly it has new meaning, because it has an unusual shape, an octopus (20000 leagues under the sea - The Legend of the Giant Octopus by Jules Verne), so it attracts your attention. But still, it's an almost worthless eaten banana. Great marketing for a bad product!
Now, talking about products, you, have a product. What are the values of this product? Forget about competition. Competition will always exist to make you work harder in order to enhance first yourself and then your company. Forget about taking euros, dollars, yens, pounds or name whatever else! That's not how business is done. Your product has ONE value and based on this value you can base your marketing and communication to the targeted niche and get results by providing this value to your customers. Simple isn't it?
There are two kind of job interviews. Those that go well and those that don't. There is no mid situation. Most of the HR managers know from the first five minutes what is going to happen but they need to follow the questioning procedure. I am sure you have heard of questions:
Did you find it easy to get here?
Tell us a bit about yourself...
What are your three strong and three weak points
What are your expectations from this job opportunity
Why would you like to work for us?
Have you ever thought to answer sincerely to this questions? Like:
No, you are in the middle of nowhere... they would have the same problem each day.
Well I am Nektarios Baziotis, two words that define in your mind who am I. But this is not what defines me... I don't get into details, each one of you should know YOUR answer.
Because I found your advertisement and I need a job in this particular field. It would be the same to me to work in another company that has the same profile as you, but you approached me. now don't say it exactly like that!
Now three tips before your next interview:
Be confident but not overconfident
Understand why you want that job
Be honest with your potential employer, but first be honest with yourself!
Yesterday I was in an exhibition about new media. It was so glamorous and really impressive. Some pretty big companies where participating. You know, those that need to spend a lot of eurodollars each year in marketing, brochures and flyers. So I took three brochures. I believe it was not a coincidence, but the overall context was the same. As in... the same! "We arethe best" (of course), nobody could compare with us, we are also the cheaper provider in our services and so on. There were a lot also of nice pictures of happy people since, I assume, they bought their products. But the thing is, like me they did attract people to at least take those brochures.
I could identify three elements that attracted me:
A friend of mine from New York, called some hours ago telling me that she is having a really difficult presentation in front of the board of directors of an international company. The outcome of that presentation will determine if they will sign a contract with her company. Their are few tips that came to my mind:
Create a powerpoint presentation with four slides and only! Don't use not even one word, just images and arrows. You will find that it will assist you more than just reading.
Don't present yourself make a small introduction and get to the point, "we are here to discuss a)... b)... c)...".
Try to maintain eye contact. Not to just one of them, but all.
NEVER say mmm, aha. Use positive words and take small gaps if you need to think. Thinking is not a crime. On the contrary, they will appreciate it.
When you say something, you better mean it. Otherwise, it's better not to commit on something you can't fulfill.
Give room for questions. Dialogue is better than monologue.
Often, I get questions about the quality of websites. Most of the times I reply it's quite good. But... you don't follow some principles:
First of all, Quality means: Act + Plan + Do + Check (APDC) with the mentioned order. Most of the websites don't have a serious plan and they are not thourougly checked.
What I mean in plan is the WWW questions: "Why - Who - What" . Why you publish the website, Who is your audience / niche, What is your target. You don't just need to sell and provide your products / services but reassure that those will be of value to the public.
Now check is having three dimensions and you should put same gravity on each:
marketing
content
technology
Next one is the content and actually how direct you are. Take this an example, before we had:
Apogee is an innovative software applications development company. Based on the maximum utilization of the web platform, Apogee focuses on Intranet and Extranet modeling and enhancement. It was formulated and established in the middle of 2002 by distinctive and experienced Information Technology Professionals and distinguished Marketing and Sales Executives.
Now we have... At Apogee, we develop software solutions and provide services with a focus on covering the actual needs of medium/large sized companies and organizations. Since 2002, we expanded our provision of services in the majority of countries across Europe.
Finally... Gautama Buddha - Siddhartha said that "All that we are is a result of what we have thought". If you think that you are small, then you will be. But if you think you are big... then you will!
When I was a kid, I hated early morning wake ups. I remember that the bus would come to pick us up at 07h45 and I was ready to leave 07h40. Not to mention, that with the famous technique I-don't-sleep-I-just-think I was sleeping the first hour. But. there was a day that I would be ready even at 07h30 and wouldn't fall asleep during the class. Wednesday! First lesson: Arts & Design.
I still remember the gentle expression of our teacher, that with compassion to our suffer, would tell us the subject. One day, she told me "You design so nice" and I respond "I like painting" and then back "No, Painting means Art, and you are only 7 to understand it". Well I was pretty angry.
For many years that I was painting, I was always thinking what is missing. And finally one day I understood.
Art, is the expression of the divine part of ourselves. The soul.
Design, is the result of logical workflows.
Now, let's get back to you. I have a simple question. If you look at your website, your brochures, your logo, is it A or is it D. Or is it both?
I was a kid, admiring my grandfather for his ability to create a perfect full Winsor knot. Of course, while trying that I was just destroying his ties... but again he taught me that a tie on me would be the reflection of my emotions, because it's in front of my heart! Today, I was to a customer's premises, and suddenly a person came by to let an invoice to be paid. He was a typical accountant! Thin and tight knot! Let's see some examples
well... thin tight accountant
thin loose, reporter
big tight, stressed to organize and disciplined manager
big loose, fearless manager
straight knot, trustworthy person
not straight to the left, a person that is always willing to help others
not straight to the right, a person that will take advantage even of himself!
Mostly what I do, is make without a mirror my knot, in order to check my emotional status before an upcoming meeting. In times that it's not successful, I revise my plan and strategy. It means that deep inside, there is something that holds me of being confident. So, I change it! By deciding to change it! And of course, always the full Winsor (loose) knot...
There are many people that I meet each day. I finally realized that I do remember only those that look me in the eyes. They "dare" to do it. Most of the people finally are not able to ask what they want, so, they speak with their voice but not the feelings. There are many things that you can of course achieve with the voice, but nothing without feelings. Don't et wrong the word. Feeling is the way you ask, the way you express your need of success (I take as granted that you have this need).
You are in an interview. You have in front of you, your potential employer. How do you look at that person? Do you express that you will be a valuable "tool" in that business model or someone that just need a job for the money. It depends of course, of what you want. But I trust you want something more!
There are many people that I meet each day. I finally realized that I do remember only those that look me in the eyes. They "dare" to do it. Most of the people finally are not able to ask what they want, so, they speak with their voice but not the feelings. There are many things that you can of course achieve with the voice, but nothing without feelings. Don't et wrong the word. Feeling is the way you ask, the way you express your need of success (I take as granted that you have this need).
You are in an interview. You have in front of you, your potential employer. How do you look at that person? Do you express that you will be a valuable "tool" in that business model or someone that just need a job for the money. It depends of course, of what you want. But I trust you want something more!
Finaly some vacations. Have you ever considered why we have vacations?
to relax
to gather energy
to have fun
to forget about work (well... don't pose this one!)
I personally view it as a unique opportunity to set goals, especially when you can combine it with the year's dawn. Yes. We will again discuss about setting up goals. I bet that some days ago you did an evaluation of 2007. How was it? Good? Not as expected? Even better than that? Though when it started, you already felt how it it's going to be.
Now, let's take 2008. Perfect year for business and results! But. Would you need to alter your philosophy and let your company get bigger? How? You already have the keys. The only thing that is missing is only the decision on setting specific goals. You feel you deserve more as a company and as a person. you feel that it is the correct time. So what are you waiting for. I use the following simple approach of the famous WDIW-HWIG. What do Iwant - How Will IGet! Simple as that. You want better marketing? Build a new website. You need better performance? Hire experienced consultants to analyze where you do a mistake in your business. It's simple. No?
Most of the times our mind is bringing images of the time that we have been a kid. Running, playing, discovering where some of the key elements of that period. But there are two that we forgot doing.
asking what is this?
having no fear
Today, Tuesday, do you remember one moment that you asked something that you tried to find an answer first but you didn't? How many hours did you spend by searching a solution when your colleague knew the answer already? Did you do it just because you needed to prove yourself in front of you or your boss? Who finally won?
When I was a kid I used to try to fly (no luck though...). I remember climbing a big ladder and falling from there! If you would pay me to do that now I would not even consider of doing it. S, now, infront of you have a different situation. You have a perfect idea to approach your customer, but you don't call him, because you are afraid! Most of the cases of non successful sales are because of fear. When you will realize that, you will just become a millionaire!
In Apogee my policy on sales is based on the fact that I trust that there is no limit. Each day to set targets and challenges and try to bypass the limits that even my mind sets, not to mention those of the market. It is also necessary to find people that share a common philosophy. People, that you can see in their eyes the fire! It's not that it's missing but it needs some more woods!
In sales it's important to feel proud and strong!
Try to remember when you are in front of a customer. Do you remember your posture? You should give importance to the following things:
tie in combination to shirt (don't wear red! it's provocative and not enthusiastic... who got that idea anyway.... My adorable combination is black and white or blue white or blue black.
sit comfortable as you have been there many times
don't be three dimensional! try to think also the past (your accomplishments and clients nature) and the future (the contract you will have!).
look straight and smile! Most of the sales persons look the client with fear, if they look at him/her and never smile!
Let's play a game. Take a post-it, write one sales target on it (not two...just one), and stick it behind your screen. After a week check what happened.
This time I was the one to buy! As you might have understood, mobility in Apogee is something like air for fire. Therefore, we need to arrange accommodation for our partners/staff across Europe. Of course we have an agency that we cooperate. After some calls of our administration, for a specific need of an apartment we had, and their let's say not-on-time-return-call, I called them.
10h30
Hello Mr. X, this is Mr. N. calling, how are you? I am calling for an apartment we need immediately and Mrs. M. told me that you don't have one.
Hello Mr. N. Yes we don't have one, but I can give you Mr. Y phone number, he also have an agency, and he might be able to help you.
10h32
Hello Mr. Y this is Mr. N. I got your phone number from Mr X. and I need an apartmnet
Could we meet at 11h30 ?
11h35
deal! I got the apartment
13h30
Hello Mr. N. this is Mr. X (the first one) I called you because I do have an apartment for you!!!
...
This is the perfect example of not calculating / understanding correctly your resources / capacity and furthermore giving your customer to a "friend".
Olga insisted that I give some tips on interviews. Let's see...
First of all, you need to understand for whom you apply for a position. It is actually for your benefit since you will work there, and if you don't like it, it will mean that at the beginning you didn't observe small things that would have annoyed you.
Who is the person that you are going to meet? Do you have some information about him/her? Do you know his/her position in the company? I remember long time ago I had an interview in front of a panel of five managers of an International company and I was prepared to answer with specific words to each one of them that they would expect to hear in order to be sutisfied.
Think: you don't have a second chance to make a good first impression.
Smile always. Have in mind your values, and how these values will contribute to the company. Never say negative comments about previous companies that you have been employed.
Be confident but not arrogant! I remember that many arrogant people left my office with the head down, because they didn't realize that are not perfect, and someone can spot those tiny details that will expose you!!!
By the way... I have failed in two job interviews and I tell you... I became a better person after that. It always matters how you will treat a failure. My choice was to become better as a person and as a professional and I thank those people for their behavior. What was yours?
There are fights that you will always remember! In sales, in management, in negotiations. In every aspect of your business life. I trust though that you remember more those that you lost more. Have you ever considered why is that happening? "My God! I won $1.000.000". "What was I saying?" "Oh yes... remember that time I lost $1.000??? That @!$%&# made a better offer than me and tricked us!" Yeap! that's exactly how you treat yourself! It is said that a miracle can remain in your memory alive only for three days. A sad situation maybe even for a life time! But why? Any thoughts? It's really simple!
Today is Wednesday. What do you remember of last Wednesday? It's only seven days away! I remember that we were not accurate in one offer we did. Nothing else. Then I search my calendar and I see that I signed two important contracts! No it was not Thursday but Wednesday!
The answer: When you loose... your ego is hurt! And our ego status is not under negotiation! Nobody is able even to touch it. Though! To loose is also a part of the game, but to loose means that your tactic and strategy was not correct. You may use such situation as a paradigm to avoid. Actually a path to win! What was your greater loss? Do you remember how you felt? Scary ha? In business there are only two options. Quit... or Conquer! What is your choice?
Hi! We again started re-designing our re-designed brochures! Yeap. Almost each year we change design. It's not because we like selling. It's just because we like creating! Yes we do have a lot of running projects. Yes we are close to deadlines. But what should we do? Not express our creativity for Apogee? But if we will not, who is going to buy our services? Who is going to say "ok, they care about their image, it's also nice , so I will have a contract with them! (repeat please)".
There is no discussion about changing logo or business moto. If you do it after four years of your business existence then you are out of business. But, to change design in brochure it's just ideal especially for potential customers that they come to your website, they download your brochure, they store it, they totally forget about you ... and then they return to your website and so on.
So, when exactly your last time that you spend on re-designing your brochure? And finally when you do that, don't use just some standard templates. Create!
For the past one month, I am trying to learn some Chinese words. It's not because I only like it, but I believe in that market. I understood some interesting things!
In order to think (the first level before speaking) you need to wash out everything you know about the way that the rest languages are set. If you stay loyal to your language of thinking... just forget it. Learn HTML. It will be easier! Use reverse logic!
When you start a new language you need to decide to do it and also identify why you are doing it! Respect your time!
Read each word you learn seven times. As Socrates said "if you repeat something seven times you will never forget it". Be persistent!
So let's sum it up! In challenging situations, in order go through them just use your reverse logic by respecting your time and being persistent on the solution and not the challenge!!!
Yesterday, I had a nice discussion with one of our customers about brochures (finally today we finish ours). He has a lot of experience in this field. He discovered one ellement in our new brochure that I would have never seen. He said, your brochure has a unique style. We are not imitating any other company in the field. Of course we pray God to have inspiration... but it's true. When we started it we followed the workflow mentioned bellow:
Why do we need a new brochure? It's 2008 and the company is moving on, the 2007's brochure was nice for that year, but now we want to achieve more!
What will be the appropriate length for the brochure? I spent a night thinking of that. 2006's and 2007's ones where having about 5-6 pages. Is it what we need ? YES! Potential partners and especially customers will never read more (I wouldn't either!). They will be impressed, but never read it.
Do we continue wanting a new brochure? No... Simple as that. We will modify some pages and add some customers and we will PDF it!
What else do we need? A small booklet, for those that are really interested reading about Apogee's accomplishments and also for public procurements and tenders!
What will be the design? And she said "do a prototype in Microsoft Publisher". The what? Really, I only know Adobe Photoshop... What's that? I am telling you... without that, it would have taken ages to build it... (of course I rendered the images in Photoshop first!). We did the prototype, send it to some professionals to take feedback (I am talking about the first content page) and voila... it's almost done! 24 pages!!! (3 are blank).
In project management, to redirect your effort to another goal, it doesn't mean failure, but deep understanding of the situation and retaining the uniqueness!
Have you ever stepped back and observe your situation? How much money do you take this moment for your job? Is your home big or small? Is your car big or small? And ok... you work and work... and work... to do what? How do you see yourself in 20 days time? (I don't dare to ask in a year time...).
You probably think you do not deserve more than $1500 per month... guess again... YOU DO! But you can have everybody around you telling you so, but if you don't finally decide it, you will always stay on the same level...
I will say it again... in Bruxelles, we don't have so much sun! But the last days it's amazing! It's like living in a frozen Ecuador! Really... -3 this morning and a perfect sun!
Let's remember the three gold rules of business that I believe in:
Accuracy
Evolution
Quality
This weekend (finally) we finished our brochure (remember?) so... here it is Apogee-Brochure-2008. I would love to see your comments!
