December 2007

Average Cost Per Lead

Submitted by Corey Smith on Wed, 12/19/2007 - 12:50

How much are you willing to spend per lead for your sales efforts? Often, we only consider the cost per marketing piece (e.g. my postcards only cost me $.40 each). More often, we forget that some mediums are the more costly than we could ever realilze.

Average Cost Per Lead continue reading...

What Scarcity Causes..

Submitted by Corey Smith on Tue, 12/18/2007 - 12:25
My kids want a Nintendo Wii for Christmas. There is no way that I will buy them a game console... but Santa can. Of course, that means that I get to be Santa's helper... just to make sure it gets purchased in time and is set up appropriately. In November, my wife told me to go to Target or WalMart and get a Wii... they only costed $250. Like most good fathers I know, I procrastinated. I figured if they are available today for $250, they will be available tomorrow for $250. After all... how could anyone ever charge more for the product Finally, a few weeks later, I started to look around. I looked at Sam's Club. I looked at Costco. I looked at Target, WalMart, EB Games... I looked everywhere. I found nothing. "Sorry, we're out," was the mantra.  Well, I couldn't dissappoint the children (and by now, I became the hunter and 'had' to make my kill... no matter the cost). After all, how would Santa look if his procrastinating assistant didn't come through with the "goods." I turned to EBay. I found countless Wii Consoles... only for double the sticker price. I kept calling stores.... but the only consoles I found were on EBaby... for double the sticker price. We have friends who say that if you can figure out when the stores receive shipments, you can stand in line and wait to see if you can get one. Sometimes that works, but I also work... a lot... there was no way that I have time to do that. But, come on, it is for the children, after all. So, I finally succumbed. I placed my bid with confidence. I overpaid by double. Santa can save face. The children will have a good Christmas. Plus... I like cool video games anyway.
Corey Smith is a co-founder of Resumango where you can build a better resume for free. 

Why Businesses Don’t Blog

Submitted by Corey Smith on Tue, 12/18/2007 - 05:37

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you will understand that I am a big proponent of business blogging. I believe that business blogging can provide some significant opportunities for sales and marketing that are often not considered.

In my post titled "Expose yourself a little" I talked about how business blogging can provide a level of transparency in your business. I recognize that many companies really don't understand the benefits of being transparent to customers... but I don't really think that is the reason why companies don't blog.

One thing that I have noticed about business blogging is that most business blogs that are company sanctioned appear to be very well rehearsed. It is obvious they have taken the time to proof-read (or at least often that is obvious). They will often take the time to make sure that the wording matches their marketing message.

Often, it looks like very dry marketing information. continue reading...

What Web Developers Forget

Submitted by Corey Smith on Mon, 12/17/2007 - 05:23

Web development has gone through some significant changes over the last 20 years. I remember when I started working with web development in the 90s that most of the people that I knew that became web developers fell into two categories.

Category 1: Graphic Designers who learned HTML, ASP, etc

Category 2: Programmers who learned how to use graphics programs like Photoshop.

More often than not, these are mutually exclusive skill sets. More often than not, you can learn to be proficient at both, but not spectacular at both. There are some people that can truly be very good at both, but a programmer uses logic to design and a designer uses creativity to design. Neither is bad... just often are mutually exclusive skill sets.

Because of this divide in skill sets, the last few years has seen a turn in how web sites are developed. Specialization has become key to the modern website. Graphic Designers focus on their core competency and Programmers focus on their core competency. This is great because now you can get spectacular design and competent programming (although I still think that the majority of the graphic designers that are out there still think that designing for web interaction is the same as designing for static media).

But, what is forgotten? continue reading...

What is more important?

Submitted by Corey Smith on Fri, 12/14/2007 - 07:57

What is more important... that you do what you should or that you make people think that you do what you should?


Dirty Hotel Secrets Follow Up

When you make a committment to do something for your customers... make sure you do it.

You shouldn't have to worry about getting caught doing something you shouldn't. Then you don't ever have to say things like, "I am sure it was just that one incident" or "no comment."

Corey Smith is a co-founder of Resumango where you can build a better resume for free. 

Get the clutter out

Submitted by Corey Smith on Thu, 12/13/2007 - 20:20
I love to listen to internet radio. I am a big fan of Pandora. Also, there are certain apps that I have that need to run all the time. The problem is that I don't like it when the item clutters my task bar on my Windows machine (if only I could just move over to my Mac on everything). I found a cool little app to help me get the clutter out. Check out Minimize to Tray. It is a $10 app that allows you to minimize your window to your system tray instead of your task bar. That way you can have it available, but not cluttered with the other 10 windows you have minimized to your task bar. I have been using it for a month now and highly recommend it.
Corey Smith is a co-founder of Resumango where you can build a better resume for free. 

Get paid to be sold to

Submitted by Corey Smith on Thu, 12/13/2007 - 07:19
A few months ago, I found a site that lets you be paid for viewing advertisement. I had been meaning to write a blog about it all this time, but just haven't found the time. The site is Agloco. The concept is that if you are willing to have advertisement visible on your desktop computer, you can get a portion of the advertising profits. You could even get greater income by referring people to sign up for the service... sounded a lot like multi-level marketing. At the time I found this site, I installed the tool bar. I was pretty unimpressed. The tool bar was a pain to deal with... I couldn't move it to my other monitor to be out of the way; it was just too obtrusive. The toolbar didn't even show all the ads. I only got credit when I was viewing a website, and then I couldn't really tell how much credit I was getting. Of course, the builders of the site tout that you get a share of the company and that you can get cash and other benefits. So not worth it for me. The biggest question I had was, "Does it really provide a relevant advertising platform for companies to be willing to pay for?" This morning, I received an email from the company.
Dear Corey,     We would like to update you on the status of AGLOCO's operations.  We continue to believe in the AGLOCO concept, but our revenue is currently not sufficient to give Members a meaningful distribution. And though there are increases in membership, the resulting revenue is not enough to support operating costs.  As a development team we are unable to continue to use our savings to fund the operations.  If any Member would like to pursue continuing the operations of AGLOCO, you may contact us at agloco1@live.com .    We would like to thank every Member for supporting our effort to bring a piece of the Internet directly to the user.  We hope that we can find a way to keep the operations going. AGLOCO Development Team
Sounds like they are saying, "We have failed at making this idea a reality, so if anyone wants to bail us out, make an offer." There are two possibilities for this failure. First, they have a terrible sales team. Second, advertisers simply don't see the value. I think it is the latter. It was too much of a pain for me. I don't want advertising on my desktop. Some possible, future payout is not worth having a portion of my time taken up with dealing with some stupid toolbar. I struggle with desktop real estate enough as it is trying to get all my work done... the last thing I was is a loss of 15,000 square pixels to some advertiser I never intended to click on in the first place. At least they didn't address me as, "Dear Valued Customer..."
Corey Smith is a co-founder of Resumango where you can build a better resume for free. 

Standardization

Submitted by Corey Smith on Wed, 12/12/2007 - 09:41
100 years ago, Henry Ford introduced the assembly line. A Model T could leave the assembly line in 98 minutes. What a revolution. This allowed for the Model T to be sold for $825... reduced to $360 by 1916. Standardization of parts and processes allowed for this success. In fact, this allowed for Ford Motor Company to sell 15,007,034 Model Ts between 1908 and 1927. That record stood for the next 45 years. The fact is, standardization in manufacturing is just as important as standardization in business. By standardizing on one platform, you can streamline your business to provide greater operational efficiency. No doubt, you already standardize in certain areas of your business. You require your employees to use the same vacation request form. You use the same sales forms, invoices and statements. The more standard processes you build, the greater your operational efficiencies. Find the areas that you can standardize and you might be surprised how much more efficient you can be.
Corey Smith is a co-founder of Resumango where you can build a better resume for free. 

Web Jetadmin

Submitted by Corey Smith on Tue, 12/11/2007 - 21:38

Last post I talked in depth about print management. There are a number of tools available that you can use to manage your print costs. Many of the tools that are available cost some money and can provide different benefits to your organization.

I tend to think that Web Jetadmin is HP's best kept secret. The management capability from an IT perspective allows for you to control many aspects of your print environment. These management capabilities allow you to decrease your costs and increase your operational efficiencies.

I mentioned in my last post that there are three key areas that can allow you to positively affect your bottom line. These three areas are standardization, consolidation and location. The largest advantage of properly optimizing your print fleet to these areas is that you can utilize a tool such as Web Jetadmin to manage many of the features of the print devices on your network. Here are just some of the things that you can do with Web Jetadmin. continue reading...

Print Management

Submitted by Corey Smith on Tue, 12/11/2007 - 07:20

In my last post, I mentioned that I did a little research on HP. While I think that HP missed an opportunity to further the discussion with their customers, I think that they do many things very well.

One of the areas they have been very successful in is print management.

I thought I would take a moment to define print managment a little and how you can reduce your operating expense by employing an effective print management strategy.

The Challenge in Printing:

It is interesting to me that most organizations simply underestimate their cost of operation for their printers and copiers. According to a recent Gartner Group study, organizations underestimate their costs by as much as  50% and will spend up to 3% of their total annual revenue on document output. Fortunately, the bulk of my business is web development, so I use very little paper and print very little, however, I have found that most companies that claim to be paperless or who have employed an electronic document management system find they may even exceed those numbers. continue reading...

Tribute Media