If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Today I had my 1-1 with one of my long-time mentors Sterling Lanier. We covered a bunch of things (my companies, my blog and my upcoming books etc.). I am deeply thankful to Sterling and all the 1-1s over the years.

In the end, Sterling shared a poem that totally touched my heart. I got his permission to share it with all of you. I hope you will enjoy this as much as I did.

Here we go..

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon…
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it
or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own,
if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day.
And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

© 1995 by Oriah House, From “Dreams Of Desire”

Let us say we are doing a thought experiment…

You are your own client and your most important project of your life has been handed over to you as your consulting project. You will be paid “real” money if you are delivering results and “no money” if you don’t perform well.

The project is running late and you are now supposed to explain it to your boss (this case it is you) why it’s running late. The rules are clear. You don’t get paid for an explanation - pay is only for results. You will get empathy for the best explanation but no money.

What would you do?

For a large majority of the people, the most important project of their life is slipping and all they have is a great explanation for lack of results.

Are you part of the rule or are you an exception to this rule?

I could not believe when I read this email. I read it again. This is a lesson on business models - really about what should not be your business model. Globat tried this last year and they are repeating the same this year

This is a long letter so if you are busy, just read the highlighted part.

=========

Dear Rajesh,

We have some exiting news! Based on customer requests and in-depth analysis of usage patterns, we’ve created a mega-sized new Web hosting package that’s currently only available to select customers like you.

In 10 days from this date, we will be upgrading you to this exclusive new package, the TeraByte Ultra Plus(tm) for the low one-time upgrade fee of $49.95. You’ll get an enormous 200%* more hosting space and 200%* more transfer bandwidth.

Go to Globat.com and you’ll see our most popular package, the TeraByte Xtreme(tm). While that package is the one most people will see on our Web site, this new package, the TeraByte Ultra Plus, is not available to the public! You won’t find these packages available anywhere on our site:

• 3 TB (3,000 GB) of Web Hosting Space – 200% MORE*
• 3 TB (3,000 GB) of Data Transfer Bandwidth – 200% MORE*
• 15 MySQL Databases – 400% MORE*
• Host Unlimited Additional Domains – The 10-domain limit is gone!

*Versus our standard TeraByte Xtreme package

Of course, the features you’re used to such as GloBlog(tm), the Globat Photo Gallery, and other 1-Click Installs will still be part of your enhanced hosting package. The TeraByte Ultra Plus is an upgraded package designed to bring you more features and give you the best Web hosting package available anywhere.

Click the link below to read more about the new TeraByte Ultra Plus.
(If the link doesn’t work, please copy and paste the entire link into your browser.)
http://www.globat.com/learnmore-ultraplus.htm

As your trusted Web host, we strive to provide current and relevant products and services to maximize your experience with us. It is our pleasure and honor to host <<domain name>>, and we appreciate that you continue to give Globat.com the opportunity to serve your Web hosting needs.

Since we began our upgrade program, we have received lots of feedback from our customers who only heard about these upgrade promotions too late or through a friend. Many customers then suggested that we utilize an automatic upgrade process along with some form of an additional incentive to initiate these upgrades. Well, we have listened to your feedback and we are now acting on it!

= = = Important: This Is an Automatic Upgrade = = =
As one of our most valued customers and based on our customer feedback, we are absolutely certain that you want to take advantage of this opportunity. This truly is the largest and most feature-rich Web hosting package we’ve made available and we’re sure you do not want to miss out.

For that reason, we will automatically upgrade your current hosting package to the TeraByte Ultra Plus and charge the $49.95 one-time upgrade fee to your account on file on Thursday, February 21, 2008, unless you specifically tell us not to upgrade you by clicking on the link at the end of this e-mail.

Last but not least, your upgraded account will also qualify for 3 free months of hosting once the upgrade is complete and you are fully satisfied with it. I know that this sounds too good to pass up, but if you for any reason do NOT wish to take advantage of this incredible upgrade promotion, you will need to tell us so by clicking on the link at the end of this e-mail.

= = = TeraByte Ultra Plus – The Best Ever = = =

Our customers told us they wanted more space. Done. You wanted more transfer. Done. In addition, you wanted to be able to take full advantage of your space and transfer by hosting as many different sites as you want. Well, that’s done too. We also know that many of you run dynamic sites requiring more MySQL databases. Done and done! The TeraByte Ultra Plus was created to give you everything you wanted and address the concerns you voiced to us.

If you are still not convinced that this is a tremendous opportunity and you are positive that you do not want to participate, you need to tell us not to upgrade your account by clicking on the link below. (If you do not click this link, your account will automatically be upgraded and you will be charged the $49.95 one-time upgrade fee.):

NO, I DO NOT WANT this upgrade and hereby decline my 3 free months (click below):

<<opt out link>>

(If the link doesn’t work, please copy and paste the entire link into your browser.)

Thank you for your continued trust! If you have any additional questions about this new package, please contact us anytime at tbupgrade1@globat.com, or call us at 1-877-245-6228 option 2.

Best regards,

Globat.com - Sales and Marketing Team
(877) 245-6228 for US Customers
(323) 874-9000 for International Customers

=========

Sad story!

Answer: Trucks

I didn’t realize this until Hari (Hari Shetty of Jiffle) mentioned this to me first. We were passing next to a truck from 1-800-GOT-JUNK on El Camino Real. When I mentioned to Hari that this truck has been parked there since yesterday, Hari told me that I was wrong. He said it has been parked there for months. Later he explained to me that this probably their advertising model.

[Note the photo above is not the one of the truck that I mentioned. This is from Flickr]

Thinking about it further, it makes a lot of sense. There is no legal restriction on using parked trucks for advertising and it is definitely cheaper than buying advertising on billboards. Bonus - you also get the advantage of depreciating that asset.

Interesting?

The context:

Game: Cricket

Speaker: Goeff Boycott (former England opener)

Reference: Shaun Tait (young Australian fast bowler who announced stepping away from playing indefinitely at age 24)

Geoff Boycott was providing his opinion about Shaun Tait’s “sort of” retirement from the game. One part of that response was about when your character is really tested. Here is an excerpt:

“Your character is tested when you fail. Not when you are a raving success. When you fail, when things don’t go your way that’s when you got to pick yourself up, you got to be mentally strong, you got to try and try again”

Simply brilliant!

Glenn Gow (president of Crimson Consulting; Blog: Achieve Market Leadership) and I belong to the same Vistage Group and have been there for years. A few weeks ago, Glenn shared some of his initiatives in Social Media Marketing - all for his firm’s large technology clients. Generally, I hear more about social media initiatives by small and mid-size firms - so this was different. I decided to explore more and Glenn (as usual) was kind enough to share some of his insights on social media for large technology businesses.

RS: Glenn, most of your clients are large tech companies. What prompted you to look at social media for your clients?

GG: Raj, our technology clients are typically on the cutting edge, and yet, in the area of social media, it was our consumer clients like Verizon and Disney (see example of our work for Disney) who were ahead of the curve. We bring best practices to our clients. We saw how the application of social media strategies could be applied to large technology companies as well. We saw how much it was changing how companies go to market and – how important it was for our clients to get ahead of the curve from a competitive point of view. So we focused on it.

RS: We only hear about how the emerging companies are using social media marketing. Can you give me some examples of your work with the clients. Also, what is that you have been able to achieve for them that you could NOT have achieved without social media marketing?

GG: We help our clients in a variety of areas:

- Helping them get established with corporate blogging (see Starting a Dialog with Your Market: 8 Steps to Establishing a Successful Corporate Blog)
- Establishing and hosting wikis for the sharing of information, both internally and externally,
- Creating and moderating online communities (see Pleoworld.com Community Example of Excellence in Social Marketing)
- Tracking how people are talking about our clients and what they are saying using a variety of tools and resources (like Buzzlogic, Buzzmetrics, etc.)
- Online portals to establish community (see our work for Verizon).

RS: How open were your clients for this new approach? If they resisted, how did you overcome the resistance?

GG: We absolutely see resistance. People are concerned about risks and how it affects them personally. We understand that and help them understand the risk vs. reward payoff. It takes someone willing to stand up for what they believe in to make it work. (see Corporate Blogging: Getting Past “No” if You’re Not the CEO)

RS: How is social media marketing different from traditional marketing?

GG: At Crimson, we put a simple, but powerful twist on the idea. Traditional marketers often look at a three-phase cycle with their customers called acquisition, retention, and growth.

Our twist is to change that to attract, engage and extend. Rather than “acquiring” customers (since loyalty is becoming even more fleeting), we help companies “attract” customers. To “retain” customers we focus on “engaging” them through compelling content and social tools that enable them to interact. Finally, we work to “grow” them by “extending “ our clients’ content through various devices and viral tactics.

RS: What are many marketers not getting about social media?

GG: We’re now in an ongoing dialog with our market. We’re no longer just publishing. We are now expected to listen and respond. Because consumers trust each other more than large brands, then tend to trust key influencers (because those influencers are, or are viewed as, consumers), more than they trust the brand. We help our clients become part of that conversation.

RS: What are some issues to consider when someone embarks on a social media marketing initiative?

GG: Here are some important considerations:

- Be comfortable taking on this challenge knowing that measurement is very difficult
- Develop clear goals to establish clarity around your efforts
- Consider skunk-works experiments for internal activities
- Gain support from Sr. Management for any external activities, or you will fail
- Be patient and recognize that you are in uncharted waters that will likely take time to prove its worth
- Monitor the activities of your competitors
- Study what others are doing inside your industry and outside your industry to be on top of Best Practices as they develop.

RS: Where do you think social media marketing is headed?

GG: We will see more:

- Enterprise communities and forums
- Corporate blogging
- Tracking and responding and inviting people to participate (see Dell’s Web 2.0 Effort Can Do Better)
- Collective intelligence management
- Virtual worlds (job fairs are actually a viable use of these worlds)

The future does NOT include twitter-like products (at least for B2B). It may have applications for B2C, but they will be niche applications.

My friends AnnaMaria Turano and John Rosen are releasing their book “Stopwatch Marketing” this week. I read the early version last month. A quick introduction to the book is here:

Sometimes shopping takes minutes, but is still too long; sometimes shopping takes months, and the shopper is sad to see it end. In Stopwatch Marketing, you will learn that time isn’t money; it’s much more important than that. Understanding how much time and energy consumers are willing to spend shopping for a particular purchase – their shopping strategies – is the single most important (and overlooked) thing you need to know in order to succeed in selling your product or service to them.

In Stopwatch Marketing, we identify four basic shopping strategies – impatient, reluctant, painstaking, and recreational – and show how to analyze, evaluate, and exploit the time that represents every shopper’s most important resource; how to understand and measure the length of time your customer will spend searching for your product or service; and how to make absolutely certain that your product or service is close to the front of your customer’s queue.

RS: Tell me what the book is about…
AnnaMaria and John: Stopwatch Marketing is about understanding how much time and energy consumers are willing to spend shopping for a particular purchase and recognizing that this is the single most important (and overlooked) thing you need to know in order to succeed in selling your product or service to them.

In Stopwatch Marketing, we identify four basic consumer shopping strategies – impatient, reluctant, painstaking, and recreational – and show how to analyze, evaluate, and exploit consumers’ available time to make certain that your product or service is close to the front of your customer’s queue when they’re ready to buy.

RS: Why is this concept of Time more important than ever before?

AnnaMaria and John: Consumers are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information and choices available today – in any category. Wading through the vast amount of information and weighing multiple options takes TIME – whether you are buying a fruit juice or replacing your car’s flat tire – something which is all too precious in today’s over-worked and over-stressed world.

Studies show that today’s consumers would be willing to literally pay money to get back more time in their day. Every marketing plan today needs to be informed by a deep understanding of the time and energy which your customer is willing to spend shopping for your product, the value consumers put on their time, and the exact moment at which they make a buying decision.

RS: What industries can benefit from applying Stopwatch Marketing principles?

AnnaMaria and John: Retail is an obvious industry as retailers can make the practice of shopping easier - and sometimes more fun – as in our case study of Whole Foods. But, our consulting work across industries has shown that any industry – whether someone is selling boat locks or a college degree – can benefit from understanding how much time and energy a consumer is willing to spend listening to your message and making a purchase.

RS: Why is Stopwatch Marketing something that should concern more than the marketing department?

AnnaMaria and John: Most companies are organized by function–manufacturing, advertising, marketing, sales, HR, etc. which leads to the natural sales vs. marketing or marketing vs. R&D struggles. Instead, we we argue that companies should organize and budget around CUSTOMERS and CUSTOMER BEHAVIOR – and that the most competitive companies have wisely reorganized their business functions and budgeting around time and how time influences their customers.

RS: What’s the biggest surprise you found in researching how companies leverage their understanding of customers’ time?

AnnaMaria and John: Healthy profits! Seriously, we found that those companies which understand their customers’ available time and energy and have re-designed their products, services, and marketing strategies accordingly have more margins vs. their competition. In the case of some categories, significantly more margins!

RS: What are your suggested actions to a marketer who wants to apply Stopwatch Marketing principles?

AnnaMaria and John: First, start gathering consumer information on how much time and energy they spend considering a purchase and making a purchase decision so you can better understand your customers’ shopping style. Second, determine the ideal shopping style for your brand. And lastly, time your marketing activities to “jump the queue” at the time when your customer is most likely to buy. The more insight you have on your customers’ shopping style, the more you’ll be able to get the timing right.