Who came up with the concept of how many hours are the right number of hours it takes to do something?

40 hours per work week.

8 hours of sleep.

1 hour for lunch.

Arbitrary numbers are all over the place.

Someone, somewhere decided that 40 hours of work per week is "full-time." However, if you are exempt, that number doesn’t really apply (though you may think it does).

Someone, somewhere decided that adults need 8 hours of sleep.

Someone, somewhere thought that the workday should start at 8am and end at 5pm. (Although I don’t get why this should be the case in service industries like healthcare or automotive because that is the same time your clients work).

The fact is, all these numbers are just arbitrary. Just because they are the numbers that people have used for so long, it doesn’t mean they are the right numbers to use.

I need 6.77 hours for sleep and a 23 minute nap in the middle of the day. Some people need more like 8.43 hours for sleep.

One of the first keys to success is stop living life by these arbitrary numbers we put on ourselves. We need to sleep for as long as we need sleep. We need to work for as long as it takes to get the job done. We eat lunch for as long as lunch takes.

You can never expect to become efficient in what you do if you determine that you are going to stop at the end of an arbitrary time period because the clock says so.

I am excited to launch another client website. Matrix Laser Care contracted our team to create a new logo and web presence for them. We are excited about what we came up with for them.

Here is a small excerpt from their press release:

“Over the past few years we have made significant investments in our offerings,” said Joe Garske, President. “The fresh new brand combined with the new website is part of our effort to communicate these new offerings to our clients.”

The company engaged ProspectBuilder.net to create a new logo and develop the new website.

“With the rapid move to installing color printers, our goal was to come up with a fresh brand that communicated the company’s new color offerings,” said Darrell Amy, President of ProspectBuilder.net. The new logo brings in a bright color along with an artistic brush stroke through the company name.“Many of our clients are realizing the benefits of outsourcing the management of their printers,” said Garske. “Not only do they save money, it also frees up their IT department to focus on more critical issues.”

You can see the full release at OfficeProductNews.net.

In light of my post about the irrelevance of phone books (but especially in light of the passion surrounding some of the comments there), I thought about the new ad campaign from Yellow Book.

Have you seen it yet?

I am not sure, but I don’t know that I see Yellow Book as a 1,000 Year Brand. In fact, I don’t know that they will be around for another 10 years… or at least be anything of any real significance unless they change their business model. If yellow book doesn’t have all the information now, how can we expect them to have all the information when there is 100 fold available by then.

The fact is, there is so much information available right now that YellowBook doesn’t even consider including.

As a quick comparison. Google has been around for 10 years (yup, that is it). Last year, it’s revenue was $10.6 Billion.

YellowBook has, essentially, been around twice that long (since about 1985) but it’s revenues are less than one quarter of Google’s at only $2.3 Billion.

You tell me which one is going to be around in the "future."

Advertising doesn’t make it so. A great product and brand make it so.

In 1992 when I left high-school and needed a Job, I found that AT&T was hiring. They were hiring for their leased phone division. Since the breakup of MaBell in 1984, AT&T maintained the leased telephone division.

The primary aspect of my job was to convince people that leasing telephones was a viable thing to do. (dumb, huh?) And I was very successful. I would lease cordless phones at $50 per month… and you could go and buy one at the time for $100.

I would very often get calls like, "I just noticed that I had a bill from you all for $4.95 for a Princess Phone. I don’t have this phone, please cancel my bill"

Upon further discussion with the client, we had been billing them since 1984 for that phone at $4.95 per month because prices never changed. (Our records didn’t go before the break-up) Nearly $500 over the 8 years. They often would not have seen the phone in 5 or 6 or more years… yet we were still billing them and they kept making the payment.

How does this apply today?

Well, at my phone book post, there has been a discussion about the thought that if a client buys an ad, he must think that it is worth something… it must provide him some value.

Nope. I don’t buy that sales line for a minute.

Sure, some people may actually see benefit. Some people may actually see an increase in sales, but, just because a salesman can continue to sell someone on something doesn’t mean it is worth the paper it is printed on.

Let’s not confuse the ability to sell something with the actual viability of the value of that product.

When I wrote my post on phone books, I didn’t expect to get some passionate responses in the comments area. I didn’t expect anyone to be so excited about phone books to argue passionately about the benefits of phone books.

One point really struck me as interesting by "kenc". He said, among other things, "The nearly $18 billion that companies spend on print and online YP speaks for itself."

His point, is that since people spend so much on advertising, it must be successful for them.

To that, I respond, "Huh?"

It reminds me of Cosmo Kramer in Seinfeld. In Episode #822, "The Summer of George," Jerry asked Kramer why the producers wanted Kramer to fire Raquel Welch. His response was:

Because they’re terrified of her. I heard from someone that when they cut one of her lines, she climbed up the rope on side of the stage and started dropping lights on peoples heads. Story like that has got to be true.

"A Story Like That Has To Be True!"

Just because businesses spend $18 million on an advertising medium doesn’t mean a darn thing. Business leaders waste money for a variety of reason. Not the least of which is because a skilled salesman showed them a stat that had to be true.

I am sure that some people see success. I would imagine that there are some companies that see success because of phone book advertising… and those are the stats that are bandied about. I tend to think that for the masses, it is a waste of money. In fact, even for those that are successful, I bet there are far better ways to spend those dollars.

Give me some proof other than conjecture and anecdotal evidence and I might change my mind.

On my door step today is the "current" edition of the Qwest phone book. I find it interesting that this is even printed anymore.

Oh, I know that people use it. I know that some people actually don’t have the internet. Not those in the circle I roll with, mind you, but I know they exist.

But still, I question the relevance of a phone book. I especially question the relevance of a phone book from one company.

You see, I have been so unhappy with Qwest, that I haven’t been a customer of theirs in three years. I know many people who have phones that aren’t Qwest customers. With wireless providers offering unlimited minutes, Cable getting in to VoIP (at a ridiculously high price, mind you) and all of the real VoIP providers like Packet8, Vonage, Phone.com and VoIP.com the percentage of customers that companies, like Qwest, have to put in the phone book is dwindling.

Because I haven’t been all that happy with VoIP providers, I have opted to use my cell phone with unlimited minutes for my communication. (I have to admit that my home phone is still a VoIP provider… no plugs because they aren’t great).

Here is what I am getting at. More and more customers are leaving traditional phone companies for other forms of communication. Not only that, phone numbers change. As fast the book gets printed, there are already changes.

I thought, maybe, the online form of the "phone book" at http://www.dexknows.com would have more data than just for Qwest. I am not listed because I am not their customer. So, I thought that I would check at http://www.yellowpages.com/ but, the same Corey Smiths show up on their list for Idaho. I thought that I would try out http://www.yellowbook.com/… they have two more listings for Corey Smith, but I am still not on the list. I wonder if, for the most part, they are just using the same database… could be.

At least I am on the first page at Google.

So, the phone book becomes obsolete the moment it is printed and even their online services don’t contain the phone number for people that aren’t their customer (not to mention people that opt out).

So, what is the purpose? Why does it exist? Why do people still use it?

At least I have some free fire kindling now.

I get questions all the time from clients about RSS… I am often asked to give them a newsroom area to posts current news and events, but then I am asked to simply turn off the RSS icon. I think that a lot of people must not understand the beauty of what RSS can do.

You can checkout my post titled What is RSS and Why Should I Care?

Don’t forget to subscribe to my RSS feed at the right.

I was thinking a little bit last night about how so often we are disconnected from our clients when trying to sell them our products. It spawned a post about remembering our audience on my blog at CopierCatlaog.com. I wrote what I think are the top five things your website (and your language) should include when talking to your clients.

Ken posted a response titled, Are You Being "sold to" or "told to"? 

Pretty good post. I recommend a read (plus, he makes me sound intelligible).

The fact is, if we understand how we buy, we’ll be able to sell more effectively. More to the point, if we understand how people buy, we’ll be able to sell more effectively.

The most important thing about buying is that we buy like we sell.

If are accustomed to selling fast and glossing over the details, we are likely to buy that way. If we focus on selling the commodity, we will want to buy the commodity. If we want to help our customer understand their business problem and want to help them solve it… even if our product is the best, we’ll expect sales people to honor us the same way.

You may not agree with this, but I dare you to take a step back and see how you sell things and buy things. Even if you are not a salesman professionally, you sell things every day. You sell to your boss, your co-workers, friends and your spouse. You try to convince people to "buy-in" to what you are "selling" every day. Think about the tactics you use to sell that. I would bet a nickel that you expect other people to sell to you the same way… if they did, you would likely be interested in buying from them.

Think about that when you sell to someone. If you are trying to sell like you buy, you may miss the opportunity. They buy like they sell. If you can cross that divide and offer them your services the way they sell, you’ll be far more effective.

Thanks to ZDNet, whom I stole the image from.

I couldn’t resist when I saw this. In my opinion, this is one of the best Dilbert’s ever.

Click through to see full size or to subscribe to their RSS feed.

Well worth the daily laugh.

For CopierCatalog.com, I needed to get a good live chat software. I wanted to make sure that I was available to talk with clients that needed immediate assistance. Both from a sales perspective as well as a support perspective. I started some research.

I first thought about using Skype as my software because I am in Skype all the time. But the problem with that is that in order for someone to chat with me via Skype, they need to have Skype loaded with an account. I wanted this to be easy for them so I didn’t want them to have to load anything. Skype should consider making an anonymous web client.

I looked at few services. One of the most common (at least that I see) is LivePerson. They have some pretty cool features, but it was more than I needed. They have tracking and analysis and the whole nine yards. But, the cost is $99 per month. Even then, I had to contact them to get the price.

I wanted something free. I wanted something reliable.

I ran across Volusion. They have exactly what I need. I downloaded and installed their free version of the chat software. I get pop-ups (configurable) when someone wants to chat. I can change the appearance with an easy to use interface. It is really easy to use.

The only catch is, I have to have a link back to their site… after all, they want to sell the service. That’s a fair trade off.

If you would like to see how the software works from a customer perspective, here is my chat. if I am online, you can chat… if not, it will just send me an email.

If you only have a couple of people that need the service, it will cost less than LivePerson at only $30 per user. When you are ready for your fourth user, you may consider looking at LivePerson, but I think this is a great service and offers a lot for the price.