Consulting Pulse

July 5, 2009

Free is not a business model, it's a competitive advantage !

Google is free. If you want to search, email, store files and pictures, analyze your web traffic, publish an RSS feed, write a blog or publish a website - Google is the free online option for you.

But somebody pays..and today it is through their mammoth advertising coup with Adsense.

In fact, when the web history iof this epoch is written there will probably be some pretty large questions over how everyone thought that Adsense could just go on underwriting the entire Web 2.0 business models forever.

LinkedIn is free for most, but if you want a little extra then it costs you. Fair enough, I pay extra for that. DimDim.com is also free if you are happy with the basics, but if you want something a little more polished and powerful then that will cost extra. Again, no problem with that - I pay that too.

Free is not a business model, and unless you are Wikipedia neither is a model built on donations. Low cost is a business model, if it is backed by volume.

Exclusively expensive is a business model also, (The China White club in London for example) but thanks to places like Dubai it is a bit crowded in that space for anyone to make money these days.

It is a fascinating time to be working in the consulting arena. Knowledge and information is transforming from something that was once highly valued, to yet another commodity. Just check out what is happening to the news; once considered a scarce and valuable product.

At the same time the skills and technologies to develop software programs, from on premise to online, has never been more abundant.

So what is happening here? Can it all really be free?

No, not at all. Google is free for the end users but somebody pays for it. Namely the advertisers. In the process it locks Yahoo! and Bing out of the fierce competition to organize the worlds information.

LinkedIn has spurred many income streams from jobs, to increased access, through to sponsored ads also. By doing so it remains the only really financially viable networking portal for B2B networking. (We business types like to put our trust in "financially viable")

Salesforce.com has turned the 30 day demo into a highly-likely-to-convert sales pipeline that others are keen to follow. In doing so it locked itself into the online CRM Industry as the natural leader. A model that others such as ProjectOffice.net or DimDim.com are very VERY keen to follow.

Free may not be a viable business model, but if it is backed by one then it is a very sharp competitive edge.

If an organization like (say) LinkedIn can continue to offer something scarce and of value, like networking between the worlds B2B decision makers, then the free element of that will continue to create gravity for the funded part. The part that people like me and many recruiters will pay for.

How can you turn "free" into a competitive advantage for you and your company?

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July 4, 2009

Consultants and the Cold Call

There has been a lot said about the consulting profession and the cold call. Some are vociferous in their contempt of the practice. Tending instead for an approach to pre-meeting prospects in networking events such as trade shows, or to draw prospects to them via their brand.

Strangely, the people who repeatedly make statements like that are not actually in the B2B marketing game at all, instead they are selling their own books and seminars to the public, or a slice thereof.

Others are effusive in their defense of the cold call, employing telemarketing services to drive up attendance at public seminars and training courses. This does work, I have used it myself. Although it tends to convert into future work less than attendees who were found through more traditional marketing means.

I returned to Australia after over a decade working around the globe. (15 years if you skip over the short break) My network is essentially outside of Australia in Europe and the US in particular.

I have had no option but to use lots of different versions of the cold call to generate work. But (and this is important) I never cold call with the hope of closing a sale. Selling consulting services, as with everything else, is all about scarcity, value and principally about trust.

Trust that you are a decent human being, and that you can deliver what you say you can deliver. Sales will not happen without trust in the equation.

However I always cold call with the hope of starting a relationship.

Here are some versions of the cold calls I frequently use, listed in order of efgfectiveness. (Or maybe it is just my own preferences)

1) The LinkedIn cold call.

Directly to the person in question, or via an introduction by an intermediary. These have been exceptionally useful for me and I recommend you check out the article I wrote a while ago about generating revenue via your LinkedIn LogIn.

Always a humble Inmail. followed by a short email, followed by a phone call / visit or whatever. There are other ways, connecting first followed by a contact Inmail some weeks later is often very successful also.

2) The Book cold call.

I send a copy of one of my books on Engineering, accompanied with a brochure on the services and products our company offers, complete with client referrals. Always focused on the business sector associated with my prospects company.

I actually almost always get a reply from this approach. The combination of a trust based asset, the books and referrals, combined with the targeted information in the brochure is often enough to get me at least a hearing with the prospective clients.

Also works with unsolicited reports if they contain actionable and valuable data.

3)The Telephone cold call.

I love these. I really do enjoy making contact via the telephone, and particularly on cold calls. Call me masochistic....

Following up from a conference, chasing down information on a certain issue, reference checking or just to introduce your product. Once you have a good reason to speak to somebody, and they are willing to give you a hearing, you can often generate a lot of opportunities for near term discussions and to build a relationship.

4)The email cold call.

Less effective for me as their is so much garbage floating through everyones inbox every day. It is really hard to get noticed this way.

The times that I have it has been because my personal brand was already known to the prospect, making him or her at least interested in what this could be about. Not great unless you can back it up with some form of brand recognition. For me, only partly useful sometimes.

These are my methods of cold calling. Always personal, always to start a relationship - not to make a sale, and always done with the confidence that I am representing something that could fundamentally improve their lot in business life.

Good luck.

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July 2, 2009

Great tools for work offline

With social media marketing I am now connected, often at a personal level, with more people in more places than my father could have ever dreamed of.

This sort of hyper connectedness of course, holds out great promise. promise that we spend a lot of time pursuing online...often at the expense of real possibilities offline.

Instead of relying totally on online order taking systems like Paypal, make sure you have a credit card machine handy in the office or on the road. Easy to forget that people actually have their credit cards with them when you talk to them. And they could probably pay for your course/ book / seminar (whatever) right then and there.

Instead of relying totally on Twitter and email type marketing, try using LinkedIn to make initial contacts, followed up with meetings shortly thereafter. (The higher the better.)

Instead of spending days and nights trying to build your Twitter following, try to build an offline following. It is more resilient, and it translates easily to your work on the web. And in case you missed it - those who enjoy real success on Twitter already have a very strong off-Twitter brand.

Cold calls, visits to clients, follow up meetings, public courses and seminars, speaking at conferences and tradeshows... you name it.

The world isn't all online... it just seems like that.

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The cream always rises

After 10 years working abroad there has been a lot to get used to when I returned to Australia.

One of the real eye openers has been that so many of the people I used to network with, and work with at times, have done exceptionally well for themselves.

From mid sized businesses, to extremely high level positions, through to influential roles throughout their chosen industries...it has been a very welcome surprise.

But...looking back, it doesn't surprise me.

They were always going to do exceedingly well. They were the people who always (ALWAYS) put in a bit extra. The fanatics who weren't really too sure where all this would lead, but they knew it would be somewhere better than if they didn't do it.

Sometimes intense, always driven, and always people with vision, high ethical standards, and who worked hard because they loved it - not because they feared what would happen if they didn't.

Anybody around you "obviously" on their way to achieve something great? Maybe you...?

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June 26, 2009

Don't trust me...

Ever worked for a company who started an engagement in a passionate love affair with the client.. and then was somehow able to turn that good will into loathing and contempt?

The sorts of consulting or software firms where repeat business is done begrudgingly because there is nowhere else to go, not because they want to do business with them.

What is wrong here? how can something so good turn so bad?

When you hold somebodies trust you have an awesome responsibility. A responsibility to not make them look bad. People hate to admit when they are wrong. They hate it even more because they will often not admit it very quickly.

When a client trusts you they will help you through the rough times, they will even defend you if you make a mistake. (Which we all do at sometime or other)

But if they finally decide that you are not worth trusting. If they come to believe that your character or abilities were not what they had been led to believe, then they feel betrayed and humiliated.

And they will not trust you so easily next time.

In fact, they will go out of their way to use their brand, their "trust account" with other people to ensure that others do not make the same mistake that they did.

So why does this happen? More often than not it is because somewhere along the line; between the hype, the close and the delivery...someone (or a group of people) acted in a dishonest way. Misrepresenting the deal, the skills, or the capabilities of whatever it was that they were selling.

This just screams "don't trust me"

And after a while of blaming the market, the clients, their workers or their products... the realization that something is rotten just has to sink in or whatever value you had to get them won't be enough to keep them.

In a world where trust is scarce and getting even more rare, it is vital to nurture the trust based assets that you have today...they won't be so easy to come by tomorrow.

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June 24, 2009

It is sometimes better left unsaid

Authenticity is like power. If you have to tell somebody you have it - then you don't.

Never trust anybody who says trust me = Never trust a company who has to put honesty as one of their values. (It is just a condition of entry, not something they have to strive for)

If you are the "leading (whatever)" then you don't need to lay claim to it. People know. Ever seen a Google ad telling you they were the leading search engine? (Okay, so there are no Google ads - but you get the point)

"We're excited to be..." - I (the consumer / prospect) don't really care about you, I care about me. Good luck with your excitement.

Unsurpassed - Sure... prove it.

We care - Great, we don't. We just want this problem fixed, this need met, this want delivered. YOur caring is great for Oprah, not so great for me. (The prospect) What I am interested in however, is the number of people willing to line up to praise your track record of achievement.

If you want your news release to create marketing blindness, then just use the terms above. Oh yeah, you can also include some timeless classics like "Win-Win", "Paradigm", "Synergy", and the ever present (but dangerous) "Value added". (So it had no value before huh?)

But if you want to write news releases that get read then give it an emotion inducing title. Questions or research outcomes are always good. Write a great story, telling of a great case of overcoming adversity, ("The Heroes Journey" courtesy of Dan Pink) and with something they can take away of value, as well as something they may have to do to find out more.

Or, you could just go back to being excited about the synergies offered for win-win agreements by your new unsurpassed service solution which is paradigm shifting. A great value added offering.

(See...garbage isn't it?)

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Fortunately we aren't cats !!

The bankers, traders and economists who were in part responsible for the economic crisis were as motivated, intelligent and hard working as you are.

Lets think for a minute that most of these people were actually honest types, and most of them were, as you are, competent.

How then could this happen?

The answer comes from Warren Buffet and what he calls "Mindless imitation of your peers." Something that is worth thinking about.

Hard work, motivation intelligence and ambition are not the things that drive success.They are merely the price of entry. We are all hard working, motivated, ambitious and intelligent.

For me, the thing that separates the truly successful from the also-ran's is curiosity.

The ability of Marc Benioff to ask (so the story goes) "What if all business software was delivered like Amazon.com?"

Or the ability of Jeff Bezos (Amazon founder) to ask "How can I minimize the regret of missing the dot com boom?"

Or Larry Page to ask "How can we better organize the information scattered all over the internet?"

Why can't we run your business on a subscription based service? Why can't you cut costs by pushing stuff into the cloud? What would happen if you turned your small niche software package into a combined web based platform and service?

Curiosity is what makes people take the obvious (build something worth talking about) and turn it into the phenomena that Seth Godin launched with Purple Cow.

Curiosity killed the cat, fortunately we aren't cats!!

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