How not to write an email

I sign up for industry emails and it appears they sell the lists so I get the odd call and or email from sales people. This is an unsolicited email and a prime example of how not to send an email.

I feel for the rep. Likely I wasn't the only potential lead he burned with this poorly cut and paste form letter.

The lesson here? Test your form emails before you send them or set your send receive to delay by a few minutes so you can catch emails before they actually get sent.

I hope this isn't an example of how Sugar CRM works!

Top 10 over used business speak of 2010

If you're like most business people, you've probably read your fair share of jargon-filled emails this year. Bursting with sentences that sound like Dilbert comics, these messages do almost everything but get to the point. As the year winds to a close, time has come to recall some of the more popular and most obnoxious such phrases of 2010.


Boil The Ocean

Definition: To try to "boil the ocean" is to take on a task that is so difficult, or requires so many company resources, that it would be just about as easy to boil the Atlantic Ocean. Often however, this phrase is used by an office drone who wants to make his meager responsibilities seem like herculean efforts.

"I want to make sure this deal goes through, but we don't want to have to boil the ocean here. Let's come up with a game plan we can all play ball with."

Disambiguate

Definition: An unnecessarily pompous word used in place of "to clarify." Generally, this term is uttered by a clueless manager who can't understand exactly what is being discussed, but doesn't want to reveal himself as an imbecile. Rather than admitting to be lost in the conversation, he might dress it up a bit and throw this gem out there to ask for clarification.

"Your last email looks pretty good, Mark, however I'm going to need you to disambiguate the part about our quarter 4 figures so that I can rally the troops back at base camp and break it down for them."

Game-Changer

Definition: A game-changer is any new product or strategic decision that brings about colossal profits and monumental success. Ever since this phrase was spoken by rapper P-Diddy in the 2010 comedy "Get Him To The Greek," few executives have been able to stifle the urge to utter the phrase to their subordinates.

"Johnson, your proposed deal was on the right track, yet ultimately underwhelming. What we need here is a real game-changer!"

Moving Forward

Definition: Moving forward is a business speak for "from now on," and is usually used in a disciplinary statement. Some executives want to feel like every decision they make is in some way instrumental to the direction of the entire organization. Using this phrase in place of such common expressions as "in the future," and "starting now," lends itself to the fantasy that new office policies will make them business literature legends.

"I didn't always mind the way your department represented our brand in the past, but moving forward we're going to have to ask you to follow protocol to the T."


Net-Net

Definition: A shorter and more urgent way of saying "get to the point." This phrase is often used when you want to appear as if your time is very important and you aren't sure if simply asking for the bottom line will convey this strongly enough.

"I see a lot of fluff and necessary chatter in your email here, can you just give me the net-net on the situation?"

Socialize Internally

Definition: The hip new way to say "talk to my coworkers." From social networking to social media, movies about Facebook to popular new social phone applications, 2010 has been the year of "social" everything. It was only a matter of time before the business pop culture adopted the craze and applied it to areas where it doesn't belong.

"Thanks for your speedy reply on this proposal! Things look good at a glance, so I'm going to socialize internally over here and get back to you by the end of the business day."



Value Add

Definition: Simply put - any completed work that improved a product or service. Around bonus season, it sounds more powerful to reaffirm that you are "adding value" to the company, rather than simply "doing your job."

"While the rest of the team circles back to discuss the accuracy of the flowcharts, I'll be working on several value adds for the current project."



Low Hanging Fruit

Definition: A tasty phrase used to describe a deal that is easy to obtain. If you ran a used car lot, for example, the male teenage driver with an eye on your red muscle car is low hanging fruit, because it won't take much more than a conversation about girls and speed to put the keys in his hands and a loan on his credit.

"Moving forward, we need to remember that this business is all a numbers game and go after the low hanging fruit as often as we do the big accounts."



Screw The Pooch

Definition: A polite way of saying "you are not really working and your may want to reconsider your work ethic." It's bad etiquette to utter profanity in the board room, so while you may have several choice words for the guy who dropped the ball on the big account and cost you your holiday bonus, it's best to use this phrase in place of the expletives.

"I know we're all excited about the new direction this project is headed, so as long as none of you screw the pooch on your deadlines, we should be able to get the deliverables in front of some eyeballs by this time next week."

Action Items

Definition: A very puffed-up and consequential nickname for "tasks." Of course, no one ever feels as cool John Rambo slashing through the jungle and knocking down enemy camps with nothing more than a cross bow and combat knife when they call their work "a bunch of tasks." To avoid this belittling feeling, some business folks have begun referring to the things they need to do as "action items." When has organizing the mail room sounded more exciting?

"I'd love to put in some face time and go over the contract ASAP, but I'll be working on several action items today and won't have free time until tomorrow."

Thanks to Focus.com for the content, gently tweaked by me

Dealing with Specific Types of Difficult People

Tim McClintock, PMP, Global Knowledge Instructor

Introduction
About 10% of the typical workforce falls into the “Difficult People” category. Some people are "surprised it's so little!" Sometimes it feels like they are everywhere! What is a difficult person? Perhaps the better question is: what is a difficult person for you? Perhaps it's someone who is disruptive. Or . . . it might be someone who is too quiet and hard to draw out; not a good listener and always interrupts; someone who bullies and is very abrupt.

The effects they have on the organization vary greatly, but usually involve the following: Low moral, increased conflict, group attitude goes as their attitude goes, intimidation, insults, team demoralization, decreased productivity, rising costs, increasing project risks, need for additional resources, etc.

What happens to you when you deal with a Difficult Person? Everyone has a slightly different reaction, but some common reactions include a rise in blood pressure, racing heart, lump in the throat, "fight, flight, or freeze" syndrome,” or getting red-in-the-face.

One thing you can be sure of: If you don't do something about the "thing" that someone is doing that makes them difficult for you, you'll continue to get more of it.

What Are the Different Types of Difficult People?

There are many types of difficult people. In general, they can be rolled into these main groups:

The Steamroller

This is the bully of the group - always interrupting, insulting, and yelling.We all know those types.

The Sniper

These are the folks who hide in the back of room, always sniping - taking shots at everyone, constantly nitpicking back at you, sending out comments, etc. They always want to do this from "under cover." If you call them on it they say, "Oh, I'm just kidding," or, "Can't ya take a joke?" or, "I didn't say anything!" They always have a comment.

The "Can't Say No" Person.

Will not say no to work. The problem is they won't say no, they won't say no, they won't say no . . . and then they finally just collapse!

The Know-It-All

Do I have to say anything else? Need I say more? They know it all!

The Complainer

Chronic complainers! Chronic whiners! To them, life is one big complaint!

The Staller

The Indecisive Staller. This is the person who just will not make a decision. They will not commit to anything; they are always stalling.

Time To Take Action!

No matter which one of these personality types is the difficult person for you, you must learn to effectively deal with them.

Dealing with Specific Types of Difficult People

So that leads to the question: How do you deal with these difficult types of people?

Dealing with the Steamroller

When dealing with a steamroller, also known as the verbal "big bully," stay calm. Typically, they are trying to "rile you up," wanting you to elevate your emotions to their level. Don't let them do it. Keep eye contact with them. Remain assertive. Let them go on and on, let them unwind. Then when they spool down a bit, interrupt them!

When you interrupt them, you will have the chance you need to become assertive. That's when you pick up the ball. One effective approach is close to Muhammad Ali's Rope-A-Dope! Muhammad Ali was known to have the ability take a great many punches to his mid-section. He would lean against the ropes, and let his opponent "box himself out"/get tired. He would wait for his opportunity, and then, BAM! He would knock them out. In a similar fashion, you should do the same thing verbally when dealing with the steamroller. Allow them to verbally wear themselves out, and then, when you see your opportunity, BAM! You take your turn.

Call them by name, and then say, "OK, now wait a minute, I have something to say. I've been listening to you, now you listen to me." You will start, and what will happen? They will interrupt! What should you do? Be assertive! Say, "Hey, I said wait a minute. I listened to you, now it's my turn." Don't back down! That's what they expect! Also remember to keep eye contact. Just don't back down. You may not "win" the argument or
discussion, but once you stand up to them, they typically will become your best buddy. It only takes one time!

They may still bully other people on your team, but they won't bully you any longer. By going "toe to toe" with them, you may have just earned their respect.

Dealing with the Sniper

Again, these are the folks who hide in the back of room, sending out comments, always sniping, taking shots at everyone, constantly nit-picking back at you. Think back to your high school classroom days. What would your teacher do with these guys? Most of the time, the teacher would call them out. For example, the teacher may say something like, "Excuse me, did you have something to say? Something to share with the entire class?" Of course they would rarely, if ever, stand up and say anything; they would always back down and say something like, "Oh, no, I was just kidding," or, "No, I don't have anything to share."
This approach works most of the time. Call them out; don't let them get away with it. Clarify: "Excuse me, but I thought I heard something in that comment. Do you have something to share with everyone in the meeting?"

One word of caution: be careful. Most of the time they will stop their sniping behavior, but occasionally they will shift gears and become the bully - the "Steamroller." But now you know what to do with a bully.

Simply switch tactics, do your own version of the "rope-a-dope," wait for your opportunity, and then when it's time, seize the moment.

Dealing with the "Can't Say No" Person

This is the person who has a hard time saying no, especially as it relates to work assignments. They will attempt to undertake any assignment, even those given to them by people other than their own boss.

Why would they do this? Some people really are afraid to say no. They are afraid to be seen as incompetent or unable to carry enough of the load. Some people simply do not know their limits, or worse, they ignore them.

In other situations, it is because the employee is a rookie on the team and doesn't want to let the others down; for others it is a personality issue, or even the result of the culture in which they were raised. In some cultures, saying no is highly discouraged. As a result, people raised in this environment have a hard time when it comes to balancing the work-load effectively.

In dealing with the "Can't Say No" person, the first thing you want to do is to build a relationship with them.You need to earn their trust and get them to be comfortable with you. Then, let them know what you are concerned about.

Once you have built a good level of trust, you can begin by asking questions that are designed to help them understand that they are out of balance. Be careful, though, as they will often be very sensitive. In their mind, they are doing a really good thing. From their point of view, if they were not doing the work, it really would not get accomplished. Quite often though, even if they do manage to complete all of the work that they have taken on, the quality of that work will suffer.

Occasionally you will find the "Can't Say No" person who is able to accomplish all the work with an acceptable, and even excellent, quality level. The problem here is that rarely will they be able to maintain that momentum, and they will eventually burn out. At that point, they will be of no use to the team, but more importantly, they will have done harm to themselves. Recovery from a true burnout stage is more than difficult.

Our goal is to prevent the "Can't Say No" person from ever reaching anything close to that stage. There are several things that you, as the boss, can do that will be helpful.

You can make suggestions for alternatives; there may be many people who can do the work that they have taken on, but they will not see that. You can point out the obvious, but quite often you will need to become their work filter. You will tell them that they are only allowed to take on work assignments that are passed through you. No one is allowed to give them an assignment that does not come by your desk first. They will resist this, because they will feel it to be an embarrassment. They will try to stall you and put you off. Just be firm, and reassure them that things will be fine, but they must continue to trust you.

You will need to keep on top of them, continually getting agreement that this is the best approach. You need to be their sanity checker. You can do a workload histogram to show them exactly how much work they have been doing. This will show them exactly how much they have been out of balance. It's almost like a 12-step program. They need to learn in baby steps that it's okay to say no, at times, and the world really will continue.
The work really will get done.

Dealing with the Know-It-All

In dealing with the Know-It-All, here are some bottom-line items to be aware of.

Typically, they have been around a long time, and they do know a lot. So, make sure you know your stuff, because if you don't, they will point it out very quickly. Recognize it, and respect it, but show them that maybe their ideas aren't always the right answer or the right way.

The typical Know-It-All tends to be a bit of a bully as well. They have their idea, and they just won't let it go. You can try saying things like, "That's a really good point, but have you thought of this? What if this or that happens?" Basically, you need help them see the alternatives. Will they ever admit they are wrong? Typically, not. It's like trying to catch a greased pig. Most of the time, it's not going to happen.

If you find yourself dealing with a Know-It-All in a meeting, ignore the temptation to make them look bad. Do not alienate them. Throw an idea out there, and let it sit for a minute. Sometimes they may actually come around to it, but quite often, they will want to spin it so that it will seem as if it were their idea. And you know what? That is okay sometimes. Occasionally, selling an idea someone else wants to take credit for, once in a while, is okay. Your job is done, and the elimination of conflict will be better in the long run.

Dealing with the Complainer

Understand that to them, life is one big complaint. Complainers typically come in one of two delicious flavors.

The first type of Complainer really doesn't care about solutions; they just want someone to listen to them. They will come into your office in the morning, and they will talk, and talk, and talk, until you finally chase them out! Here's what you can do. Listen for a while, and then move them to a problem-solving alliance.

Acknowledge their feelings, deal with the emotions if necessary, but try to push them toward finding a problem-solving solution. You can say something like this, "Okay, I hear your dilemma. Let's see if we can solve it."

The secret is when you move into problem-solving, they will typically leave. Very quickly. They really don't want to solve anything. They just want to complain!

With the second type of complainer, it's a little bit different. These are the folks who complain because they are paralyzed - they really don't know what to do. When you move to problem-solving, you really will help them. One thing to be careful of though: don't facilitate their dependence on you, otherwise they will come back again and again for the very same issue or problem. As the saying goes, you can feed someone, or you can teach them to fish for themselves. If you fail to do that, it is now you who has an additional problem, one of time management. Learn to be upfront. Say, "Okay, I will show you this one time. Here's a pen and a sheet of paper; I'm going to talk, and you will take notes. I will show you this one time. I will stay here all day if necessary, but when we leave, I expect that you will really have 'gotten it'. I expect that you will be able to do this for yourself after this conversation, so make sure to pay attention and ask as many questions as you need to understand."

Use a tone that is gentle, yet firm at the same time. By having this conversation, you will actually have helped two people, you and them.

Dealing with the Staller

Ah, the Indecisive Staller. They don't want to upset anyone, which really means that they want to please everyone.

In their mind, the way to accomplish this is never to make a decision that ends up upsetting everyone!

They don't want to take a stand. Instead, they take the attitude that if they just leave the issue alone, it will go away. Yes, quite often it will go away, but only because someone else will have done the work, and now they're mad too!

One way of helping them is to discuss the benefits of deciding. Talk about all the good that comes through getting off the fence and making a decision: work actually is accomplished, people are happy, morale will go up, projects will be able to move forward, and they get to continue drawing a paycheck! Another thing you can do is discuss a few options with them. This is basically the old salesman’s trick. Instead of saying, "Would you like to buy the vacuum cleaner today?" you say, "Which of the vacuum cleaners will you be buying today, the red one or the blue one?" What you are doing is narrowing down their options, and forcing them to make a decision.

Summary

From our short analysis of difficult people, one definite conclusion can be drawn. If you don't do something about the difficult people in your life, you will simply continue to get more of their problematic behavior.

Whether it is the Steamroller, the Sniper, the Can't Say No person, the Know-It-All, the Complainer, or the Staller, you must take action. Be gentle, but be firm, and remember they are human, just like you are. But, after all, it's a place of business, and work needs to be accomplished. And in the accomplishment of that work, sometimes the more difficult conversations need to take place.

Top 10 tools for Small Business

If you are a small business, here are the top 10 things to implement in 2011:
1. CRM: How can you possibly know who you are selling to without it?

2. Twitter: Will improve your search engine ranking and introduce you to people you never would have met ither wise.

3. Linked In: Because your best referrals and potential new customers are from people you already know.

4. Blog: Become a thought leader, industry guru, a go to source for potential customers. How fun is that! 

5. Sales Training: If you have new employees or old dogs, sales training will net you more sales or help you realize you need to replace your sales force.

6. Monthly Employee Reviews: How else will people know if they are doing a good job or why they were managed out?

7. Employee Recognition Awards: Because this is the easiest low cost - high value campaign that will drive the right behavior.

8. Vendor Costs Review: Telecom, Wireless, office supplies – whatever your major expenses are. You are likely spending too much money. It may be easier to save a $ than earn a $ some months.

9. Customer Communication Strategy: If you aren't talking to your customers, someone else likely is. Email Marketing (like Constant Contact), Twitter, Face Book and phone calls help you be in the right place at the right time when folks are ready to buy.

10. Make your office fun! Comfortable and homey. It should be conducive to working, building solid relationships with colleagues and keeping employees on task. Life can be a hamster wheel. At least decorate the cage, maybe even offer a Hamster in a ball!

Social Media for Business: What are people saying about your brand?

Have you googled your business lately? Try different search words combined with your company name like love or hate. You may be surprised!

The conversations taking place on social networks can build or erode your brand, your reputation, leads, sales and revenue. Outspoken and respected individuals can influence masses of friends and followers to change their opinions about you. They can trash you or defend you. You can soothe them, cultivate them and turn them into your strongest advocates; or not.

Take Trip Advisor as an example or Rogers. Google "I hate Rogers" and you will see an entire web site dedicated to irate customers. There are videos on You Tube and even an "I Hate Rogers" Face Book fan page!

I am interested in hearing about what's working, not working and why for your social media business strategy.

Drop me a comment!

20 Top Reasons that Startups Fail

Here is an insightful article posted on Chubby Brain (love the name!) on why Start Ups fail. As a Sales, Marketing and Productivity organization, it's not surprising that poor marketing was #4 and ignoring customers was #1. Simple stuff that everyone knows but companies run out of bandwidth to execute on.

Enjoy!

_________________________________________________________________

We’d previously highlighted the top startup failure post-mortems of all-time here (32 in total) written by a group of startup entrepreneurs gracious enough to share their lessons learned from their startup’s failure. Many of you read those post-mortems and asked, what are the most common reasons for failure cited across those posts?


Well, we’ve done the work, and below are your answers. After a thorough analysis of those 32 start-up post-mortems, we have determined the common reasons founders gave to compile this list of the top 20 ways to have your startup fail. First, a handy chart to highlight the top 20 reasons for failure followed by an explanation of each reason and relevant examples from the the post-mortems.

If getting VC or angel money is one of the ways that will help you avoid failure, why not check out the free Funding Recommendation Engine here?

#20 – Start the company at the wrong time

Many companies that failed started during the recent financial crisis (and continues to suffer through), and some startups highlighted the larger market negativity as a reason for their ultimate demise. The negativity either impacted investment funding (venture capital fell off a cliff in 2009) or the customers they were targeted as was the case for Untitled Partners who were building a platform for fractional art ownership. In their post-mortem, on this topic, they wrote:

Our analysis was supported by articles in the Wall Street Journal and the NYT, as well as the Mei Moses art index, which suggested the art market was countercyclical and had a low correlation to the S&P. What we didn’t account for was the magnitude of the current correction and the effect that it would have on discretionary luxury spending even within a population that financially could still afford our product. We were obviously wrong about Untitled Partners’ ability to grow through the subsequent downturn.

#19 – Not working on it full time

Startups are hard. There even harder when you’re pulled in a couple of different directions aka a day job. This came through in several post-mortems. If you’re working another full-time job with nobody fully invested, you are running the risk of burning out, acting with less urgency and just not having enough hours in the day to get what you need done. Also, with another job, there is the risk that a team acts with less urgency given they have sources of income. The team over at Overto felt the lack of at least one full-time resource was the primary reason for their failure writing:

We thought we’d able to run internet service after hours. To some point that was true. As far as nothing bad was happening with the servers and the application it was all fine. We were working on new features when we had enough free time. Problems started when we faced some issues with our infrastructure. We weren’t able to resolve issues on the fly and had several downtimes. You can guess how it influenced user experience. That also backfired on service development since we had to focus on current problems instead of adding new functionalities. Lack of person working full-time and being able to deal with maintenance and bug fixing was the most important reason of failure.

#18 – Location, Location, Location

Location was an issue in two different ways. The first being that there has to be congruence between your startup’s concept and location. By way of crude example, if your building innovative trading software for Wall Street, be where you customers are and where you can best network. Location also played a role in failure for remote teams. The key being that if your team is working remotely, make sure you find effective communication methods; else lack of teamwork and planning could lead to failure. Location issues were given as a reason for failure 6% of the time. In their startup post-mortem, Nouncer discussed their decision to be in NY as one that hurt their company stating:

In my case, New York didn’t lack money, community, able workers, or smart people with good advice. It lacked the audience my product needed to succeed – the early adopters web hackers looking for the next cool toy to play with. I can count on one hand the number of people I’ve met in New York meetups and events that fit this description. In San Francisco one can find hacking events on a daily basis, as well as many unconference events where people get their hands dirty playing with code. This is a very specific audience dictated by my decision not to build a consumer product.

#17 – Be unable to Attract Investors

While this may be a cousin of reason #20 (starting the company at the wrong time), there was a group of founders who candidly expressed that their inability to attract investors was the reason for their ultimate demise. If there is no money out there for your idea, reassess whether there is a market for it, and reassess your approach.

#16 – Get outcompeted

Despite the platitudes that startups shouldn’t pay attention to the competition, the reality is that once an idea gets hot or gets market validation, there may be many entrants in a space. And while obsessing over the competition is not healthy, ignoring them was also a recipe for failure in 10% of the startup failures. Marc Hedlund of Wesabe talked about this in his post-mortem stating:

Between the worse data aggregation method and the much higher amount of work Wesabe made you do, it was far easier to have a good experience on Mint, and that good experience came far more quickly. Everything I’ve mentioned — not being dependent on a single source provider, preserving users’ privacy, helping users actually make positive change in their financial lives — all of those things are great, rational reasons to pursue what we pursued. But none of them matter if the product is harder to use, since most people simply won’t care enough or get enough benefit from long-term features if a shorter-term alternative is available.

#15 – Burn Out

Work life balance is not something that startup founders often get and so the risk of burning out is high. The ability to cut your losses where necessary and re-direct your efforts when you see a dead end was deemed important to succeeding and avoiding burnout as was having a solid, diverse and driven team so that responsibilities can be shared. Burning out was given as a reason for failure in 12+% of the startup failures. The post-mortem of Diffle talks about the impacts of burn out after one’s startup fails which was quite telling in that burn out doesn’t end when the startup is over. It lingers for a while as this post-mortem reveals:

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was flying when I closed down Diffle – running on pure adrenalin. Part of this was from working with the YC startup, and part was just that entrepreneurship tends to put you into this highly-focused, tunnel-vision state that feels just slighly unreal.

That all crashed down about a month later, which happened to be about a week and a half after I started the job hunt. I ended up getting rejected by FriendFeed, and then told the other companies that I wasn’t quite ready to go back into the employee world and needed a few months to figure out what I really wanted to do next.

For anyone faced with winding down a company, I’d highlyrecommend taking a while off before making any big decisions, and not just the two and a half weeks that I’d initially tried. You’re not thinking straight when your startup dies – your perspective may be a bit different in a few months, as might your preferences for what you want to do next.

#14 – Lose Focus – Distracted by Shiny Objects

Getting sidetracked with all the ‘could-bes’ was cited numerous times as a contributor to failure. It is important to get one thing out on the market and focus on one product else you risk ending up with too many almost finished products that are not valuable to customers or you. In the post-mortem of Kiko, Mahesh Piddshetti writes:

Most entrepreneurs have lots of ideas. Often times, many of them may be really good. I don’t know about you, but my favorite part about startups is talking about new products and new business ideas. If you’re a creative person, it’s very easy to get side-tracked on side ideas when you really should be working on your main one. This is bad. Bad, bad, bad. We did this a lot with Kiko, and it caused many delays in getting the product out the door.

#13 – Disharmony with Investors/Co-founders

Discord with a cofounder was one of the most fatal issues for a company. Bricabox cofounder advises, “When a co-founder walks out of a company — as was the case for me — you’ve already been dealt a heavy blow. Don’t exacerbate the issue by needing to figure out how to deal with large equity deadweight on your hands (investors won’t like that the #2 stakeholder is absent, even estranged, from your company). So, the best way of dealing with this issue is to take a long, long vesting period for all major sweat equity founders.”

But acrimony isn’t limited to the founding team, and when things go bad with an investor, it can get ugly pretty quickly as evidenced in the case of ArsDigital. Investors and founders did not see eye to eye on what was best for the company, and eventually investors began to run the company per this account of failure. The post-mortem of ArsDigita takes the cake for candor and illustrating in graphic detail what goes on when investors and startup management have a falling out from the startup’s perspective. Phillip Greenspun writes:

For roughly one year Peter Bloom (General Atlantic), Chip Hazard (Greylock), and Allen Shaheen (CEO) exercised absolute power over ArsDigita Corporation. During this year they
1.spent $20 million to get back to the same revenue that I had when I was CEO

2.declined Microsoft’s offer (summer 2000) to be the first enterprise software company with a .NET product (a Microsoft employee came back from a follow-up meeting with Allen and said “He reminds me of a lot of CEOs of companies that we’ve worked with… that have gone bankrupt.”)

3.deprecated the old feature-complete product (ACS 3.4) before finishing the new product (ACS 4.x); note that this is a well-known way to kill a company among people with software products experience; Informix self-destructed because people couldn’t figure out whether to run the old proven version 7 or the new fancy version 9 so they converted to Oracle instead)

4.created a vastly higher cost structure; I had 80 people mostly on base salaries under $100,000 and was bringing in revenue at the rate of $20 million annually. The ArsDigita of Greylock, General Atlantic, and Allen had nearly 200 with lots of new executive positions at $200,000 or over, programmers at base salaries of $125,000, etc. Contributing to the high cost structure was the new culture of working 9-5 Monday through Friday. Allen, Greylock, and General Atlantic wouldn’t be in the building on weekends and neither would the employees bother to come in.

5.surrendered market leadership and thought leadership

#12 – Do not use your connections

We often hear about startup entrepreneurs lamenting their lack of connections so we were surprised to see that one of the top reasons for failure was entrepreneurs who said they did not not properly utilize their own network. Whether it was for advice or introductions, almost 16% of the startup post-mortems stated that the team did not use their connections well enough, which led to failure. So what does this teach us? If you have a network (and everyone does), be judicious in using it, but be sure to use it.

#11 – Pricing Issues

Pricing is one part science, 10 parts art. And a dark art according to a large number of startups which failed and who attributed product pricing that was too high or too low to make money. For example one entrepreneur said, “It took a lot of key chains bought at 50 cents and sold for $1.25 just to pay the phone bill.” The founder of EventVue said that their deadly strategic mistake was that they “went after enterprise sales model with a non-recurring, small price.”

#10 – A “User Un-Friendly” Product

Not sure there is any revelation here, but bad things happen when you ignore a user’s wants and needs whether done consciously or accidentally.

#9 – Do not cut your losses a la Pivot at the right time

One of the most overused startup words of 2010 was Pivot, but pivoting away from a bad product, a bad hire, a bad decision, etc quickly enough was cited as a reason for failure often. Dwelling or being married to a bad idea is not a good way to allocate resources. It’s not just ideas – if you make a bad-hiring decision, take corrective action (euphemism for let them go) sooner than later. As soon as you see that your product is not getting a response in the market, think about what product changes might be necessary. Letting inertia and stubbornness limit your growth and ability to change your business model was cited as cause for failure almost 1/5 of the time.

#8 – Lack Passion and Domain Expertise

There are many good ideas out there in the world, but our startup post-mortem founders found that a lack of passion for a domain and a lack of knowledge of a domain were key reasons for failure no matter how good an idea is. The co-founder of Untitled Partners stated, “I underestimated the importance of a relationship between our corporate and personal identities. “About 18.8% of the time, the post-mortems cited lack of passion as a cause of failure. In their post-mortem, NewsTilt candidly spoke about their lack of interest in the domain they selected writing:

I think it’s fair to say we didn’t really care about journalism. We started by building a commenting product which came from my desire for the perfect commenting system for my blog [17]. This turned into designing the best damn commenting system ever, which led to figuring out an ideal customer: newspapers. While there, we figured they were never going to buy, and we figured out a product that people were dying to use if it existed.

But we didn’t really care about journalism, and weren’t even avid news readers. If the first thing we did every day was go to news.bbc.co.uk, we should have been making this product. But even when we had NewsTilt, it wasn’t my go-to place to be entertained, that was still Hacker News and Reddit. And how could we build a product that we were only interested in from a business perspective.

This compounded when we didn’t really know anything about the industry, or what readers wanted.

#7 – Release product at the wrong time

If you release your product too early, users may write it off as not good enough and getting them back may be difficult if their first impression of you was negative. And if you release your product too late, you may have missed your window of opportunity. “This requires balance, if it is a critical user-based website where users need to depend on it like Ebay or Mint.com, an outage could mean catastrophe. But if it a website like Twitter, an outage is a joke. Know your website, don’t take forever to get it to the market. But, if it’s critical then make sure its sound.” As Reid Hoffman said: “If you’re not somewhat embarrassed by your 1.0 product launch, then you’ve released too late“. This was cited as cause for failure more than 20% of the time.

#6 – I got this product. Now I just need a business model.

Sure Twitter gets away with not having a business model, but they’re not the norm. Perhaps we’re old school, but if there is not a plan to bring in more revenue than expenses, that’s a problem. Failed founders seem to agree that a business model is important. Unfortunately, in 1 of 4 failure post-mortems, the lack of a business model was cited as a reason for failure.

#5 – Ran out of cash

Money and time are finite and need to be allocated judiciously. The question of how should you spend your money was a frequent conundrum and reason for failure cited by failed startups. The decision on whether to spend significantly upfront to get the product off the group or develop gradually over time is a tough act to balance. The team at YouCastr cited money problems as the reason for failure but went on to highlight other reasons for shutting down vs. trying to raise more money writing:

The single biggest reason we are closing down (a common one) is running out of cash. Despite putting the company in an EXTREMELY lean position, generating revenue, and holding out as long as we could, we didn’t have the cash to keep going. The next few reasons shed more light as to why we chose to shut down instead of finding more cash.

#4 – Poor Marketing

Knowing your target audience and knowing how to get their attention and convert them to leads and ultimately customers is one of the most important skills of a successful business. Yet, in almost 30% of failures, ineffective marketing was a primary cause of failure. Oftentimes, the inability to market was a function of founders who liked to code or build product but who didn’t relish the idea of promoting the product. The folks at Devver highlighted the need to find someone who enjoys creating and finding distribution channels and developing business relationship for the company as a key need that startups should ensure they fill.

#3 – Not the right team

A diverse team with different skill sets was often cited as being critical to the success of a starti[ company. Failure post-mortems often lamented that “I wish we had a CTO from the start, or wished that the startup had “a founder that loved the business aspect of things”. In some cases, the founding team wished they had more checks and balances. As Nouncers founder stated, “This brings me back to the underlying problem I didn’t have a partner to balance me out and provide sanity checks for business and technology decisions made.” Wesabe founder also stated that he was the sole and quite stubborn decision maker for much of the enterprises life, and therefore he can blame no one but himself for the failures of Wesabe. Team deficiencies were given as a reason for startup failure almost 1/3 of the time.

#2 – Building a solution looking for a problem, i.e., not targeting a “market need”

Choosing to tackle problems that are interesting to solve rather than those that serve a market need was often cited as a reason for failure. Sure, you can build an app and see if it will stick, but knowing there is a market need upfront is a good thing. “Companies should tackle market problems not technical problems” according to the BricaBox founder. One of the main reasons BricaBox failed was because it was solving a technical problem. The founder states that, “While it’s good to scratch itches, it’s best to scratch those you share with the greater market. If you want to solve a technical problem, get a group together and do it as open source.”

#1 – Being inflexible and not actively seeking or using customer feedback

Ignoring your users is a tried and true way to fail. Yes that sounds obvious but this was the #1 reason given for failure amongst the 32 startup failure post-mortems we analyzed. Tunnel vision and not gathering user feedback are fatal flaws for most startups. For instance, ecrowds, a web content management system company, said that “ We spent way too much time building it for ourselves and not getting feedback from prospects — it’s easy to get tunnel vision. I’d recommend not going more than two or three months from the initial start to getting in the hands of prospects that are truly objective.”


So brave startups, you now know the top 20 reasons startups fail based on the experiences, generosity and candor of 32 of your fallen brethren. We hope this checklist will come in handy on your startup journey and that you’ll share it with other startup cofounders who may benefit from some of its key messages.

Special thanks to Chandni Shah, a Carnegie Mellon graduate, for her fantastic work poring through these post-mortems to compile this analysis and assist with this write-up.

Twitter for Business: 5 reasons Twitter makes sense for business -- and IT

OK - it's true. Scot Finney is my new favourite. Business owners ask me why Twitter. Scot sums it up concisely here.

Many IT shops consider employee use of social media a nuisance or time waster. And though LinkedIn and Facebook offer a measure of business value, it's not difficult to understand why.


Twitter might look like just another social media tool, but in truth, it's utterly different, with strong potential for business ROI. (See "Cashing In on Tweets.")

Technically, it offers little more than Facebook's status message, but the advantage comes not from the tool itself but from the community of people using it and the way they do so. Here's why Twitter is a much better social medium for IT professionals and other businesspeople:

1. It's got a real business use. More than any other social media site, Twitter is used by a great number of businesspeople, who are tweeting about professional topics. According to a comScore study, people aged 45 to 54 are 36% more likely than people in any other age group to use Twitter. You may be surprised to learn how many of your colleagues are tweeting -- and not just to report what they had for lunch. Meaningful discourse occurs on Twitter most every hour of every day.

2. It's OK to follow people you don't know. It's not cool on Facebook or LinkedIn to friend people you don't know at all. But Twitter is about information, and "following" people you don't know -- merely because of the interesting things they might say -- is the rule. Unless someone has invoked Twitter's "protect my tweets" setting (and very few do), you don't need permission to follow anyone. In order to spread your word, you need followers on Twitter. But you can still gain significant benefit along the way by listening.

3. Twitter delivers news, unique perspectives and stellar information. This is the key benefit, and it doesn't get talked about as much as it should. Like Digg and Slashdot, Twitter has a large content-recommendation culture. The tool is designed to do that with a built-in URL shortener. And with Twitter, the best content bubbles to the top. People tweet or retweet (forward someone else's tweet) only the most interesting things. Spend a couple of hours following smart people on Twitter, and you'll likely learn things you might not learn any other way. That makes it an excellent environment for following trends, gathering information, gauging buzz and researching topics of interest. You can also interact with people and pose questions to get discussions started.

4. You can mark your company or personal brand. Twitter can be used for many business or professional goals: building your personal or company brand, enhancing your business relationships, interacting with customers, doing market research or selling. Once you build up a large enough following, Twitter becomes a microblog. It's a powerful one-to-many tool that reaches a very influential, engaged audience.

5. There are no cliques or hurt feelings. You fully control the stream of tweets you see. Don't like someone's bald self-promotion? It's easy to "unfollow" someone, and it doesn't send them a message such as "Scot Finnie stopped following you and therefore clearly doesn't like you anymore."

A couple of tips for smart tweeting: Follow only people you're genuinely interested in. Following everyone may help you get followers, but it defeats half of the benefit of Twitter: reading the thoughts of the most insightful people.

With a tool like TweetDeck, you can create multiple groups consisting of the tweets of people who are generally focused on a specific topic. You can also follow hash tags -- or Twitter searches -- to see tweets on specific topics. I used Twitter for over a year before I tried TweetDeck. Once I did, the value of Twitter increased markedly for me right away. There are many other Twitter tools. To learn more, see "8 Free Twitter Clients for Better Tweeting."

Scot Finnie is Computerworld's editor in chief. You can catch him at twitter.com/sfinnie, or contact him at sfinnie@computerworld.com.

How to be more Persuasive

One of the more successful sales initiatives I have introduced with the last 3 teams I led was a Book Club. Every other month I would buy books for my entire team and once they were read, we discussed them. We would read the classics: 7 Habits, Good to Great, How to wind Friends and Influence People, The Trusted Advisor, Getting to Yes etc.

I have always had fantastic feedback from people on how these books helped them not only in sales but also in their personal relationships.

At Recite Conferencing, we just finished reading Winning Friends and Influencing People and the book is timeless. I love Dale Carnegie's eloquent writing style. The man was clearly ahead of his time.

As more research is being done on persuasion, a recent article from Harvard Business Publishing confirms what these business masters have been telling us about for decades. What I particularly like about this article is it's relevance to today's work environment and our functional roles and requirement for positive interaction.

Enjoy!

Susan Corcoran


Three Ways to Be More Persuasive
by Judith Ross

Tags:Communication, Managing yourself, Personal effectiveness

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That's where persuasion comes in, says Robert Cialdini, Regents' Professor of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University and coauthor with Noah J. Goldstein and Steve J. Martin of Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive (Free Press, 2008).

Much as martial arts combatants overcome their opponents using leverage, inertia, and gravity rather than brute strength, you can persuade others by exploiting the principles of social influence. These include the feelings of obligation generated between two people when one does a favor for the other, the tendency to say yes to people we like, and the desire to act in ways that are consistent with our commitments and values.

Activate reciprocity
One good turn generates another. Any favors you do today are likely to be reciprocated down the road:

Championing a colleague's idea in a meeting when others are giving it only tepid support. Sharing useful information with a coworker in another part of the company who otherwise wouldn't have received it. Pitching in to help a teammate finish a presentation or prepare for it. Don't be insincere and don't be cold-blooded; people will see through you and be on their guard. Just look for opportunities to be a good person. You won't just feel good; you'll create a network of indebted colleagues who will actively look for ways to help you out.

Reciprocity can also repair relationships that have gone sour, though not quite in the way you might expect. If you are trying to mend fences with a colleague, ask her for a favor. This sounds counterintuitive, but it works. You're giving her an opportunity to see herself as magnanimous. So ask her to help you out.

Cialdini recommends that the favor be in keeping with the person's job and will make him look good. From his own experience he cites a time when, after winning a heated debate about hiring, he immediately reached out to a colleague who had been in the opposite camp. Walking the colleague back to his office, Cialdini asked him for advice on a paper he was writing. "He gave me a few books and suggested resources," he recalls.

In the course of that discussion, Cialdini also learned what the colleague was working on. By the time he was ready to return the books, he had found some resources to recommend in return, thus cementing a positive relationship. "We didn't have a pleasant exchange in that faculty meeting. As soon as my side won, I could tell there was likely to be bitterness. But because I asked for his help, we've never been less than friends," he says.

Focus on the other person's positive attributes
Like reciprocation, focusing on a person's positive attributes is an ideal way to begin a relationship. This technique requires that you consciously look for something you genuinely like about a person. Even if he is a terror at work, there might be something you can admire about his personal interests, his past experiences, or the causes he supports.

Once you have identified the positive trait, compliment him on it. By showing your approval, you help him to like you. And that, says Cialdini, is when the barriers come down. "People feel safer and are more open and trusting with people who like them. They are more likely to give them the extra information that will help them succeed."

Focusing on the positive can help improve relations with a colleague you have historically disliked. For example, a manager at a pharmaceutical company had a tense relationship with her boss and the two were often at loggerheads. Using this technique, she realized that his tendency to hold work up was due to his desire to get it right.

When she complimented him on those values, his face lit up. The next morning he gave her the kind of information he'd never shared before: a detailed heads-up on what she should emphasize and be on guard for in gaining buy-in at an important meeting that afternoon.

"Without that information, things would have gone wrong. In the process of saying 'I admire your high quality standards,' she also gave him a reputation to uphold," notes Cialdini. He realized that if she appeared in a positive light, he as her boss would, too.

Invoke the person's previous opinions and behaviors
When you remind someone of his previous position on an issue — "Remember, Mark, how you argued that the company should devote greater resources to educating the sales team about the new product line?" — he is more likely to behave in a way that is consistent with that position. This is an example of the phenomenon known as labeling.

To use labeling to influence someone, you're giving him a reputation to uphold. If you want his support on a proposal to shift more marketing dollars from print to online ad buys to drive widget sales, invoke his track record of preferring online advertising for items similar to the widget. You want him to perceive that supporting your proposal is in line with his previous positions.

Labeling, as you can imagine, is especially effective with someone who thinks highly of his own decision-making prowess.

This technique requires familiarity with a person's priorities, values, and stated positions. If you have not worked extensively enough with someone to gain this insight, review presentations he has given and discreetly probe for information about him in conversations with those who work with him more closely.

Influence is ultimately about relationships. The more you have and the stronger they are, the better able you'll be to bring others to your side when you want their support.

This article can be found on the Harvard Business Blog: http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/hmu/2009/03/three-ways-to-be-more-persuasi.php?cm_re=homepage-031909-_-lede-_-image