Marketing

Finally I am thinking about marketing in a holistic way, as a continuum of activities:

1. Building name recognition.
2. Making it easier for people to find us.
3. Building a referral network, making it possible for people to become aware of us at the exact moment when they have the need.

There is a new buzzword I’ve been noticing: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques to help your web site rank a little higher in web search results. I belong to a CIO network in LinkedIn and the CIO skill most in demand is SEO, people looking to be found when someone is looking. It’s often coupled with Internet Advertising through Google Adwords but is a emerging as a stand-alone discipline as well.

I attended a Consultant’s Seminar on 9/25 and someone told me about Barbara Bix’s talk on marketing through referrals a few months ago. She had written an article on the same subject earlier in the year. Interesting ideas and a potentially fruitful direction for our company.  I have added her blog to the Blogroll.

Networking to find a job isn’t what it used to be, says Alina Tugend in The New York Times. Why should marketing through referrals have stayed the same? After all, referrals is a form of networking. Tugend ends up recommending LinkedIn. I concur.

We will use a blend of these approaches, thus:

1. SEO changes to the web site. We get so little traffic on our web site, one might wonder whether an SEO effort would have any significant payoff. Well, it is another field that lends itself to quantitative analysis that we have to think of it not only for increasing traffic to the web site but also as a potential new offering.
2. Referral strategy as defined by Ms. Bix. Developing an “elevator pitch” and letting all potential referrers know about it.
3. Creation of a “Application Performance Professionals” group in LinkedIn, promoting discussion among professionals in the field.
4. Periodic participation in the CIO Forum on LinkedIn with a view to building name recognition.

Awakening the CEO within

The question had hung out there for too long and demanded an answer.

What will we be known for? Who will know about us? Will there be enough good will for them to pick up the phone and call us when there is a need? Will there even be the recognition of what we do? And when we need something, perhaps some tests run, perhaps information logs to be read, will we know whom to call?

But a consultant’s stock in trade is the subject matter. How can a client be sure they are dealing with an expert? How can I be sure they will be dealing with an expert when they call? If I expand beyond Financial Services, into Health Care, say, shouldn’t I know a bit more about it?

I’ve been drawn toward reading subject matter books and articles, writing white papers and the like, to have and be able to demonstrate a complete grasp of the domain. It’s something I excel at. One can look at the end of the day and read a white paper with satisfaction, having enjoyed the learning that came from having written it. It’s a tangible sign that I made progress.

But that’s not where the real battle is. The battle is about action: who will pick up that phone, compose that e-mail, create that budget line item. Nothing very tangible for me to do — the spark will come from other people — but that’s all that matters in the end.

It’s the people, stupid! The ratio may only be 51/49 but since I have been devoting a lot of effort to the tangible side of the business lately, I will tilt in the other direction for a while.

Blogito ergo sum

I always have time to blog even when there are so many other things to do in getting a business started. Why?

Blogging as Connection. The reason I started this blog was that it would provide a way to stay connected with friends and family, keep them abreast of goings on.  Allow them to check in at their convenience, not mine.

Blogging as Meditation. Writing is a lot slower than reading, even slower when you fuss over every word — as I do. It allows a focus on one thing to the exclusion of everything else and makes for a deeper reflection.

Blogging as Muse. How else would one get to be one’s own advisor, to observe with some detachment, to observe without jumping in and doing, doing, doing?  How else would one know what to research on the internet? How else would one be surprised by one’s own insights?

Blog as Koan. What I said above.

Know the Dark

Here in the land of marketing, we are driving to Financial Services City, looking for big construction projects to work on. There are no good maps, really, none that know about where the construction is.

A lot of traffic in the other direction. Lehman Borough, a suburb of Financial Services City, has been devastated and people are fleeing. The date is 9/11. The earthquake has weakened a lot of the buildings. 

There ought to be a MapQuest and a GPS device that adapts to changing conditions and tells you, in that assuring voice, Tell the Pig about Lipstick. but there isn’t. Hasn’t been invented.  And maps? So much has changed since the last maps were created just a few months ago. Financial Services City is not the same place it was when the maps were constructed.

To Know the Dark
by Wendell Berry
To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark.
Go without sight, and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

We will stop frequently to visit with people along the way. We will ask them for directions, knowing that they may not know. We will share what information we have, help those we can, and keep looking.

Billion Dollar Start-Up

I attended a meeting yesterday on how the state expects to spend $1B over the next 10 years establishing Massachusetts as the leader in the Life Sciences. Impressive speaker, I must say.

What struck me the most was the theme of “we can’t be all things to all people, we have to prioritize and spend the money judiciously”. Furthermore, her goal was “focused investment at a sufficient level”.

What does that mean for Quantitecture? The constraint isn’t money, really. It is time. The services have to be developed to a sufficient level so they will make a difference to our clients and make them feel they got their money’s worth.  But generally, what is true for a B$SU is even more true for Quantitecture.

We have left the shore, we’re on open water now. I feel the need for knowing where we are and whether we are going forward or just drifting and which way to go next. This is another lesson from the meeting yesterday: the need for a “Board of Directors” or Advisors. I am fortunate to have a broad set of friends and well wishers who have been key to progress thus far. How to inject a bit more consistency into the process?  For the B$SU, there’s a lot at stake and the money has to be spent wisely.

For Quantitecture, the need for accurate navigation is even greater!

As soon as we have paying customers, the needs for accurate navigation will increase!  At that time, I will look into creating a small Board to help guide the business.

Creation and Evolution

I started this journey with an idea, a vision about the business driven by a mission.  It took 6 days for the idea to be formed, those first now-what conversations with family and friends, that first PowerPoint, that first web site.  It was as if the idea had arrived fully formed, perfect in its creation. On the 7th day, heeding the advice of a friend, the family went out to celebrate a new beginning.

Armed with the PowerPoint and the web site, I started discussing it with anyone who would listen.

Little inconsistencies appeared in the story; they were patched up.  ”Did you think about x?” — I hadn’t so I went ahead and did so.  More evolution.  Evolving a complex idea is a funny thing: the package doesn’t stay self-consistent. I’d make a decision on x but the remainder of the message stayed the same.  Pretty soon someone would say: you’re telling me x and on your web site you say y.

The inconsistencies mounted in number until I couldn’t keep track of them all.  My perfect picture, ripped and sewn back together.  But of course the seams all showed.  Finally I took a few days away from everything else to rewrite the whole thing from one end to the other.  Major sections of prior thoughts got hacked away. The process was as destructive to some thoughts as it was creative to the new ones. At last, there it was: a new, fully formed story, perfect in its creation.

Little inconsistencies appeared in the st…

I’ve done 3 major revisions in my conception of the business in the 90 days since that first creation. Thankfully, the original mission is still the same. Each time, the creation is a little better, a little more self-consistent, a little more feasible as a business.  Dare I say it, a little more perfect? 

There is this weird recursion going on: creation = (creation + evolution)ⁿ.

Finally this: If the inconsistencies bother you too much, you will either not evolve at all or spend all your time getting consistent again — not good for business.  If they don’t bother you enough, your execution will be sloppy — not good for business. So here’s that balance thing again.

Gates

I heard Before the Law many years ago and read it soon after.  Now I revisit it every so often, once every couple of years.  Its imagery has stuck with me all these years — so much so that it has occasionally featured in my dreams over the years.  Despite the first gatekeeper’s prohibition, I went past him earlier this year.

Once inside, it took a while for the eyes to adjust to the darkness but I can see now: it’s not just one door in front, it’s many.  There are further choices to make.

The web site will need to be revised yet again, reflecting the new clarity and a sharper message.

And that first gatekeeper?  Sometimes I still think of him fondly.