Roger Parker, Guerrilla Marketing Coach, will be interviewing me on Wednesday, October 8th, between 7:00 PM and 8:00 PM EST. To attend, visit the Guerrilla Marketing Association, or e-mail Roger C. Parker.
Note: there will be an opportunity to ask questions during the call, and you’re invited to submit questions in advance as comments, below, or via e-mail.
Tim Berry
Founder and President
Palo Alto Software
{ 0 comments }
Entrepreneur.com quotes the Princeton Review on this list of the top 50 Entrepreneurship schools. I can’t say that it’s my favorite list–I’m sorry, I’m biased, but you don’t leave Stanford and Notre Dame off these lists entirely, for which I guess the only consolation is that Harvard isn’t on it, either. But still, a good list.
I was confused at first because it says 50 schools but only lists 25 . . . but I think that’s because it has two top 25 lists, one for undergrad and one for MBA programs.
{ 0 comments }
Ok. Maybe the title is a little bit harsh, but it got your attention, right? Why is it that more and more these days I feel that companies I purchase products and services from are telling me to “shut up and take it”. Let me give you just a few real examples of times I have felt disrespected as a customer in the last few months:
So I could go on. But you get the picture. More and more companies seem to be taking this approach. Charge the customer everywhere and anywhere. Promise them one thing, deliver another, and then be annoyed that they point it out. As you think about your customer interactions, I challenge you to create policies and customer experiences that put the customer first. That goes back to the old adage that “the customer is always right.” I can guarantee that you will see a positive change in your business if you re-think the customer experience. Don’t join the new line of thought that treats customers like they are idiots to be taken advantage of. Think about how you can make sure that your customer is truly always right. Listen to your customers. Give them what they want. Your business is sure to be better off because of it.
Sabrina Parsons aka MommyCEO
{ 0 comments }
What do investors want? This is a common topic for blogs, entrepreneurs and investors. So here’s another view on it, from somebody who knows:
Naval Ravikant, the speaker, has been through the ringer a few times, on both sides of the investment table. I watched one of his ventures, epinions.com, very closely, because my daughter and son-in-law were employees. So now, a few years later, I follow his Venture Hacks blog.
Most of what he says here is pretty standard. And if you’re interested, his fellow blogger transcribed this interview on Venture Hacks. Some highlights:
“I look for two things that are paramount above all:
- Great team. It’s obvious. It’s a tautology. Everybody says it. You have to be working with some of the best people in the industry you’re in.
- Huge market. Niche markets just don’t work because the first idea never works. You always have to change the idea, so you need room to maneuver in a big market.
“There are three more factors that I look at. Not all three of them are required, but I prefer a company to have at least two of them:
- Difficult technology that is compounding over time.
- A proprietary distribution channel. A clever viral marketing, or SEO, or partnership, or whatever strategy that gives them a leg up over competitors.
- A direct monetization model. Something more than throwing up 10 cent banner ad CPMs.
Ravikant has more authority on this than I do, but his reference to niche markets bothers me a bit. I like niche markets in a world that is constantly splintering and dividing itself into finer and finer pieces. Some of the biggest markets there are started as niches: Facebook, for example, focused first on a few university campuses. Yahoo was a niche–the Internet–when it started. Starbucks was once a niche (gourmet coffee, affordable luxury) in the Northwest.
{ 2 comments }
As the Marketing Manager for Palo Alto Software, I interact regularly with entrepreneurs or those helping entrepreneurs start their businesses. And with that comes a lot of encouragement to plan. It’s very easy to tell people they need to plan and without planning, they won’t have a roadmap for success. But actually sitting down to do the planning is a very different story.
I have been meaning, for quite some time now, to sit down and do some planning of my own. I want to get a marketing plan in place for the channels I manage so I have a better understanding of my market, my strategy, my goals, etc. And so I am actually going to (finally) do it. I am thankful for our newest product, Marketing Plan Pro powered by Duct Tape Marketing, because not only do I have a tool to help me get started and focused on the right things, but I also get the wisdom and advice of John Jantsch right at my fingertips.
I know that may sound like a shameless plug for our product, but I promise it isn’t. I am not interested in shoving our products down people’s throat. I am interested in helping those who want to plan, start and grow their businesses and making them aware of valuable, affordable tools that can assist them in the process.
That being said, I am off to start my own planning. Wish me luck!
Kristen Langham
Marketing Manager
Palo Alto Software
{ 0 comments }
One of the most overlooked, forgotten, and intentionally ignored sections in a business plan is the analysis of the competition. Don’t kid yourself. You have competition. Everyone has competition.
It might be direct competition; another business selling the same service or products. Say you sell house paint. There are probably several other paint dealers and home improvement stores in your area selling paint as well.
It might be indirect competition. Using the same example, stores which sell wallpaper, wood paneling or vinyl siding compete against you. Even the house painter/contractor may compete against you by convincing a “do-it-yourself” homeowner to pay for the job on a “time and materials” contract where the painter provides the paint, purchased from his favorite supplier.
Read more about the competition in Tim Berry‘s Hurdle: the Book on Business Planning online: What you Sell and The Business You’re In.
Here at Palo Alto Software, we have read hundreds of business plans over the years. Our Business Plan Pro business-planning software includes over 500 sample plans. Time and again we’ve read a plan where someone thinks they have a unique service or product and proclaims they have no competition. Wrong. So very wrong.
Remember, before anything else, that every potential customer you identify has the option to not spend their money at all. They can choose not to buy from you, choose not to buy from anybody. Or they can spend their money on something entirely different.
Your competition is the savings account, the electric bill, the school tuition, the 401(k), the groceries, the kids’ allowance, next year’s vacation fund, etc.
When you develop your business plan, whether it is a startup plan for the bank or your day-to-day operations roadmap, spend some time thoroughly finding and analyzing your competition. From this you can evaluate what the other businesses are doing right and what they are doing wrong in marketing themselves, how well they are generating potential leads, and then converting those leads into customers.
For a marketing perspective on competition, visit John Jantsch’s Duct Tape Marketing and do a search on competition. Here is one of the many good articles from the list; Analyzing your competition.
Steve Lange
Senior Editor
Palo Alto Software
{ 0 comments }
How fast the phone environment changes, and how many opportunities. 
The news this week is the new Google phone, powered by the Google Android platform. This seems like another open playing field for new opportunities.
{ 0 comments }
Regardless of whether you are based in San Francisco, California or London, England, we all agree that recent months have been pretty unstable from an economic perspective. What should one do with all of the business uncertainty we now face? As these two articles by Alan Gleeson of Palo Alto Software Ltd, U.K. describe, it is not a time to “batten down the hatches”. Instead Alan describes a number of solutions to help you manage your business through these times of unprecedented business uncertainty.
In Planning in times of Extreme Turbulence he suggests that managers revisit their business plans, undertake some scenario planning and also that they look for new opportunities as competitors scale back!
In his article, Steps to Recession-Proof your business plan he describes how it is important to assess your own businesses vulnerabilities as well as ensuring that all aspects of your credit control system are functioning effectively.
As he concludes:
“The increased uncertainty in our environment means that planning for the future has become more difficult. However, it is how we deal with this extra risk that will determine how our businesses fare over the coming months and years.”
Tim Berry
Founder and President
Palo Alto Software
{ 0 comments }
The science behind email behavior is extensive, I’m sure, and not something that I purport to know much about, from a factual standpoint. Most of the email-based thoughts and assumptions I make throughout my day are driven by a fair bit of intuitiveness — with a dash and a half of instinct and a peppering of intelligence gathering.
I would hazard a guess that most people fall into my category — that is, if they think at all about email as anything more thhan simply a communication medium.
But not Kaitlin “Ducky” Sherwood. You can click on her name to read her full bio, but I’ll give you enough information to establish context. She’s written two books on overcoming email overload, was the first Webmaster at the University of Illinois (during the Mosaic creation days) and just recently earned an MS in Computer Science.
I got to spend an hour on the phone with her, aggressively asking for her opinion on email and cautiously tip-toeing into her thoughts on Email Center Pro.
Sherwood speaks with confident conviction about all manner of topics, but, for my purposes, focused most of her energy on email. Much of what was said centered around the idea that, as yet, the perfect email system doesn’t exist. And the reason for that is that no provider is meeting all of Sherwood’s standards — many of which have to do with efficiently and effectiveely moving through email in a reasonably organized way.
She chuckles at the notion of “Inbox Zero,” the popular concept that basically mystifies people into thinking they’ve properly dealt with all of their messages just by clearning their inbox. But, have they? Have they adequately addressed that communication channel, or have they simply shifted it from one place to another so as to better manage the guilt associated with 100 unread messages?
Sherwood argues for the latter, asserting that the psychology of seeing “0″ as an Inbox tally is ggiven disproportionate weight in relationship to proper management of email as a communication vehicle — creating a false sense of security, if you will.
Much of that, Sherwood continues, is driven by the passionate pursuit of perfect filtering. Users constantly seeking to compartmentalize the various buckets of information flowing into their Inboxes chew up time that can’t possibly be recovered through the convenience associated with “more easily” scanning through those folders.
In essence, filters/folders/etc. are not effective means of organizing data — given the existence of an uber-powerful search function. Wiith the reality of virtually limitless data storage, it no longer makes efficient sense to try to organize things the way we needed to when filing cabinets held all of our pertinent paper work. Without proper paper management, I might lose a week looking for a single document. Now, I type “2006 tax returns” into the search bar and PRESTO!
In light of that, it’s comforting to know that an advanced search functionality provides the infrastructure for version 2 of Email Center Pro, which is scheduled for release in the next couple of weeks.
So, do the psychological aspects of email resonate with you? Do you struggle against the rising tide of email overload? What is your method for managing your inbox?
Jason Gallic
Product Marketing Manager
jason@paloalto.com
{ 0 comments }
Yesterday Cale Bruckner had his 13th anniversary with Palo Alto Software. Vie Radek had hers on April 15, Connie Muller this Thursday, and Jake Weatherly and Teri Epperly next year.
So I know that 13 years is nothing compared to Microsoft or IBM or General Motors, but what’s cool about these anniversaries is that there were only 10 or so employees back in 1995, and most of them are still with us.
That, in small business, is an achievement. Their achievement, putting up with the ups and downs of a small software company; and ours, in keeping the good people.
There are 45 of us now. When Vie and Cale and Connie started, Business Plan Pro was in its first version, and was just barely making it in retail. Today it’s in its eleventh version.
The picture here was taken just two months shy of 12 years ago, in November of 1996, at a roller skating rink. The people shown here were more than half of Palo Alto Software’s employees at that time. The key people missing who are still with us are my wife Vange, who (I think) took the picture; and Jake Weatherly, who had just joined.
From the left, you have me, Luke Walsh (now with Right Media, a Yahoo subsidiary), Cale Bruckner, Connie Muller, Cristin Berry, Vie Radek, and Teri Epperly.
If you add Vange and Jake back into the picture, who were very much a part of it but not pictured, then the only people from back then that we’ve lost were Luke, now at Right Media; and three others, also not pictured, one who retired in his late 50s, one who moved to the East Coast when she married, and one who, well, didn’t fit. And he’s doing well on his own, in sales. Cristin, also pictured, was 13 when that picture was taken, but she’s also been a full-time employee since she graduated from Whitman College four years ago.
And I might add that it’s been more than 18 months now since the new management team took over, and Vie, Cale, Connie, Teri, and Jake are still with us. That speaks a lot for continuity, and what’s good about them, and us. That makes me proud.
Tim Berry
Founder and President
Palo Alto Software
{ 1 comment }
Subscribe via RSS