This is an interesting point for entrepreneurs to consider, because for most of us, we are inclined to believe that asking a question about a customer’s behavior is going to give us meaningful information. To be sure, asking is often far easier and more affordable than watching — especially if we do not get the opportunity to sit in the same room with our customers and observe their behavior.

However, one need only look to several popular industries to be reminded that what people say they do and what people actually do are two different things: diet programs, organizing systems, time management programs, etc. are all large industries based on the fact that what the habits people want to have for themselves are different from the ones they actually have.

In brick and mortar businesses, many of these types of things can be readily witnessed simply by re-arranging physical space: move products around, change the layout of the menu, change the items closest to the cash register or watch how customers interact with your environment. This can be extremely telling, and a good way to know if your customers are likely to grab that Snickers bar as they stand in line to check out, or if they are more likely to order off the Specials Menu if it’s a separate menu than if it’s attached to the regular one.

But what about online businesses? Believe it or not, in the world of online analytics this may be even easier — assuming you know how to set up proper testing, and how to track the results.

A/B testing is a common method used for seeing what really grabs your customers and what doesn’t. The idea behind A/B testing is very scientific: take two virtually identical pieces of content, and then change a single element to differentiate one from the other. Whether it’s the subject line, the color scheme, the main graphic, an advertisement or the font size, this method is a common one to use on landing pages, email campaigns and other published online content. Monitoring the results is a great way to test what your customers are responding to. (Subject lines and graphics are often big factors, by the way.)

The trick to doing A/B testing, however, is being able to track the results. You can start with a free package, such as Google Analytics. You can quickly and easily set up your testing to show you how one option fared versus the other. (If you want to attempt A/B testing for email campaigns, all standard email campaign applications, including WorkingPoint’s partner, VerticalResponse, offer analytics to help you do the same thing.)

I do not entirely agree with the authors that asking your users a question is of no value at all, though. While I can concede their point when it comes to collecting very specific feedback about an individual product, the fact is that most small businesses and entrepreneurs will often find a great deal of value in asking open-ended questions of their customers as a first step.

One of the biggest perils that an entrepreneur can face is the assumption that he knows what his customers really want. While a good entrepreneur may have an idea, the only way to start planning how to iterate on your offering is to start by asking questions. Open-ended questions and on-going feedback are important to understand how to proceed next. I often recommend this to clients, before they start getting more scientific about monitoring results. Otherwise, how do they know what to test for?

Of course, there is another really important reason to start by asking your customers and creating a two-way conversation with them: it shows them that you care. And while that may not be the highest priority for large enterprises, that is a must for any small business to thrive.

Conversely, his wife is one of the top selling agents in the area. He has watched while, even in a down real estate market, she has continued to out-perform nearly every one of her competitors. She follows a very specific (albeit relatively informal) process, designed specifically to build the necessary relationships in order to successfully close sales.

I was thinking about this example when reading Scott Olsen’s recent article on VentureBeat, “Need sales leads? Think like an editor.” Scott breaks everything down in clear and specific terms that are refreshingly focused: the purpose of your content is sales.

In the world of web strategy and content development, I often see an endless stream of white noise on this topic. People will get sidetracked with search engine optimization, social media, online marketing, email campaigns, multi-media formatting debates, customer engagement strategies, analytics, driving traffic, etc. Every single week I see these debates rage, and I am constantly finding myself puzzled at the focus.

All of your content, across all of your communications channels, are a means to an end — yet all too often, I find people forgetting that fact, and framing these discussions as if they are an end in and of themselves. They aren’t. Why do you care about your customer engagement strategy? Why do you care about your email marketing campaign? Why do you care about your social media presence? To drive sales. Period.

I recently heard a sales training specialist illuminate a valuable point: Marketers market to organizations. Salespeople sell to people within organizations.  Sales is about relationships, even more than marketing is. Good marketing can and should lay the groundwork for potential sales, but by the time it becomes a sales process, it must shift to a more personal process.

My friend’s wife outsells other real estate agents in her market because she understands this. Even though she and her husband are both major tech geeks, she understands that her customers are not — and even if/when they are, that’s not the most effective way for her to build a relationship with them that is going to build the level of trust needed for her to be successful.

In her case, it is literally a matter of using the phone and in-person meetings versus relying on email. She is a great — and low-tech — example of Scott’s point: becoming a trusted source depends on delivering relevent content to your prospects in a format that is in-line with their needs, not simply what is most convenient for you.

In my web-based world, this is often an easy trap to fall into without even realizing you’ve done it. Scott outlines some great solutions for maximizing online content to help meet these needs, but what about the offline world?

Phone: This one is still a biggie for most people. Pick up the phone and call. However, as someone who can’t stand the telephone and who tries to avoid answering it at all costs, I always give major bonus points to a salesperson who asks me what my prefered method of communication is.

USPS: Good old fashioned mail still has its place, especially if you send something personalized. I recently met a real estate agent at a networking event, and two days later I had a hand-written “great to meet you!” letter in my business mailbox.

Local Business Groups: In the end, there is nothing like face-to-face when it comes to building trust. No matter how well we ultimately virtualize our world, enhance our technology or distribute our business models, human beings rely on far too much subtle, contextual information when we interact with people. Unless or until we have a solution that can convey body language, tone of voice and even things like smell, face-to-face will still be the most effective way to engender trust and build a relationship with someone.

Scott’s point is a great one: we should always remember that one size does not fit all, especially when what we are really trying to do is to build the trust necessary to close a sale.  Don’t make assumptions about what channel works best for what purposes.  Dig in and find out — and if you aren’t sure, then ask.  More than anything, though, make sure that you keep in mind that “content”=”communication” and that whether you are focused on your SEO or your weekly YouTube video, that content is a means to an end, and the “end” that will ultimately matter is a successful sale.

Scott’s analogy, to “think like an editor” is an interesting one (and nicely non-threatening). In the end, though, his point ultimately amounts to “think like a good salesperson.”

The big one of these, of course, is the hot button topic for business: “process.”

Back in 2007 and 2008, you couldn’t go a single day without seeing, hearing, reading or discussing the importance of business “process” with someone. Everything was about process: building it, documenting it, automating it, measuring it, monitoring it, auditing it, and then when that was all done, starting over and starting again.

Of course, there are good reasons for that: inefficient processes can destroy an otherwise good business. The best example in my career came from the Valentine’s Day blizzard in New York City in 2007, while I was working at JetBlue Airways.

While the storm itself was on Valentine’s Day, the chaos in the airline lasted from then all the way through President’s Day Weekend. Why? Process. As an organization, many of our core operational processes were still manual, and the wide-spread impact of the storm itself (combined with an operational philosophy that made more sense for a small airline, but which we’d really outgrown by that point) created an domino effect throughout the entire business.

While our competitors were able to bounce back from the storm within a day and return to normal operations, it took us five days to untangle the mess and get things back to normal. And we infuriated more than a few customers over that highly traveled holiday weekend.

And once the dust settled, there were only two words on everyone’s lips: “process improvement.”

So, of course, process efficiency is important. But there is a downside to a single-minded process focus, and it’s one that I often see inadvertantly choking startups: too much process can quickly become a hinderance to innovation and execution.

The real danger, in this quagmire, though, is a matter of degrees. How far do you drive the development and improvement (and, where possible, the automation) of process, before you start resembling Mel Brooks’ satire “The Twelve Chairs“?

(And, in honor of “process running amok” a classic clip, courtesy of Mr. Charlie Chaplin.)

In the early days of my career, chaotic startup environments (pre-bubble burst) were notorious for being process black holes. It wasn’t uncommon to hear corporate types scoff in distain about the unsustainable immaturity of startups, because it was taken for granted that structured process was a prerequisite for success.

Naturally, there is some truth to that. Sound process is at the heart of critical success factors such as “scalability” and “reliability” — two words which, while not necessarily sexy, are vitally important, especially to your customers and invetors. (See JetBlue reference above.)

Our current recession, however, has shown me the other side of the coin: displaced career long corporate warriors — well steeped in the virtues of structure and process — taking the opportunity of being laid off to start a new venture. And I have watched more than a few of them struggle with how to be successful in a startup world, where decisions are often made in an instant and change can happen over a cup of coffee.

I once made the mistake of hiring a person to join my startup’s IT Operations team who came from a solidly enterprise-centric, big business background. She was obsessed with not working more than 8 hours per day. If circumstances required that she log any extra time, she would keep a tally of it to trade for a comp day once she’d hit 8 hours. Legalities of this aside (IANAL: “I am not a lawyer”), this was devestating to the morale of the team, because we were in a culture where — like it or not — no one else worked less than 55-75 hours per week.

For some people this transition is not a big deal: over time, our preferences change. What seemed like a great foundation of structural support at one time, can feel like crushing suffocation a few years later. Former career-long enterprise professionals who leave their cushy, well-paid gig at a Fortune 100 for a major pay-cut with insane hours to go to a startup often do it for this reason: a lack of predetermined process and structure leaves the door open for having a more significant impact.

Over time I’ve developed a heightened sensitivity to the maturation lifecycle of startups, and what I now understand is that the degree of process necessary in an organization is directly related to disposition of the clients, the demands of the market, the stability of the technology and the maturity of the organization itself.

There are points in time when a startup is better off with a wild-eyed gun-slinger mentality; and other times when discretion, caution and deliberate consideration make the difference between astronomical success and crushing defeat.

The key is walking the line, and over the years, I’ve found that the line is actually easier to find than most people think. Almost every employee engagement survey in modern times says the same thing: autonomy is one of the most coveted traints that a person looks for in a job. People who feel that sense of autonomy are more highly engaged, stay in their roles longer, and out-perform their peers.

So the question to ask yourself is this: how much process can I put in place to build stability, while leaving enough fluidity so that my team maintains their sense of autonomy?

The tricky part, of course, is that line is different for everyone. The solution isn’t tricky at all, though: talk to you people and ask them. If they really believe that you are looking to make sure that they are happy (and, truly, any boss who doesn’t actively try to find ways to keep their employees happy in their job is asking to lose their employees, no matter what condition the economy is in), most of them will tell you. Just be sure that when they do, you are listening.

As we march forward into 2010, businesses need to recognize that a lot has changed from the early days of the web.  What was once under the strict purview of elusive technophiles, has morphed into the purview of marketing, and is now shifting again into the hands of the every-person.

It’s an exciting time to be on the web.  Finding your voice and expressing that to your customers is more important than ever.  Do you know how to put your best foot forward?

Unfortunately, the answer to this question is not as straight forward as most people want. The good news, however, is that — long before an entrepreneur starts looking at expensive outsourcing solutions — there are a TON of things he or she can do for themselves.

Our SEO Plus Workshop is about just that. The class consists of one part lecture and information, one part interactive collaboration and brainstorming, and one part personal plan building. Designed specifically for entrepreneurs, this workshop includes tons of valuable information to get every entrepreneur on the right track — on their own! Our training is designed to accomplish three critical things:

1. Help you understand what you need to know to manage your websites online presence yourself.
2. Build a plan, based on your specific business needs, on how best to move forward given your resources.
3. Understand how to find the appropriate SEO resources at the right time, and not be sold something you don’t need at a price you can’t afford.

The way we do this is by educating entrepreneurs on the most vital elements of online marketing solutions (including SEO) for themselves. And since we are not an SEO firm seeking a monthly SEO contract, we have no conflict of interest about sharing information with you. One way that we do that is by giving workshop attendees an additional half hour of face-to-face consulting time, plus on-going access to our student-only online services.

The class is being held on the evening of Monday, November 9th at Tech Ranch from 7:00-10:00 p.m. You can register for it at Eventbrite. And if you have any questions, please contact us and we’ll be happy to answer them.

Barn Builders matches unemployed professionals with start-ups and other small businesses in need of their talents.  Barn Builders focuses primarily on building social capital to rebuild the economy.  The hardcopy version of ABJ includes the article and picture on the cover.

At the time the new association launched, there were a small handful of businesses involved: BatchBook, FreshBooks, MailChimp, Outright and Shoeboxed. The companies involved were starting the affiliation and announcing that, though a series of API-based integrations, they were offering a new capability to their customers: integration between their services. Since each solution provides a single slice of back-office functionality for small businesses, by integrating with each other, they are able to support a much more robust lifecycle of back-office activity.

The requirements for joining were simple but essential:

First, a public, demonstrated commitment to customer service.

Second, a technology solution that includes an API.

What I love about this is that, though most business people may not know what an API is, they know what it does: it makes their lives easier. It makes a huge difference in a socially-interconnected eco-system. The fact that these applications are all capable of communicating with each other, sharing vital data, eliminating duplicate entry and providing a much broader view of small business activity, by re-using the same data across multiple areas of their business.

What I love even more, though, is seeing how many additional businesses have joined the original handful since launch earlier this year. If you look at the list today, twenty-seven (27) additional companies are on the list. Not all of them have integrations (not all of them need it), but they are all companies serving the small B2B market. It is one of the first resources I send small business owners to, because it’s a great place for them to see what is available at price points they can afford.

My only lament, of course, is that unless or until we all become part of The Matrix, consultants can’t have APIs, so we can’t join.

I still vividly remember client phone calls in which executives on the other end of the phone could barely contain their disdain, because — in their view — the web was a fad that would eventually fade away, and there was no reason for them to invest anything in it at all. Obviously, even the most die-hard ludites have eventually capitulated to the realities of an online world and succumbed to the importance of the web for the survival and growth of their business.

One of the most critical lessons we have learned over the years, though, is how to get better about separating out the technical parts of a solution, so that it no longer takes hand-coding HTML in order to update content. The advent of the straight-forward, open source CMS is one of the greatest things that could have ever happened to small business.

Of course, with power comes the power to make mistakes — and in a world where your customer’s first impression of you is often your website, that means that developing an appropriate and aesthetically pleasing website is vital to your online success, even if your core business is not web-based.

Indigo Heron is excited to announce the launch of a new set of products and services tailored to meet this need. In addition to our consulting services, designed to provide this capability for our clients, we are now also developing the training needed to help clients understand the basics, and learn to self-serve as much as they would like to tackle on their own. Training will be available in class settings, on-site private sessions for your team, or online.

Training services will focus on:

• Getting a straight-forward CMS implemented
• Configuring the most relevant widgets and add-ons appropriate for your site
• Organizing your content to support good Information Architecture practices
• Understanding SEO’s most vital Do’s and Don’t's
• Writing strong SEO-friendly site copy
• The basics of online marketing and advertising
• Social media tools, how to use them and when
• eCommerce best practices, technologies and solutions
• Website hosting needs, considerations and options

As always, Indigo Heron is available to provide any of these services (and more) to companies in need, but we also realize that for the best possible on-going care and management of your website, a basic understanding of how things work and why cannot be skipped or assumed.

If you are interested in joining an upcoming training session, or in having us come on-site to your business to provide training for you, your team, or your group, please contact us.