8 rules for CEOs

At least once every day I consider replacing myself with a 'real' CEO. Then I could just be the nerd in the cave, writing and programming and SERPing and such. But Portent's my baby, so it's hard to let go.

Here are the big 5 rules I've increasingly tried to work and live by. I am in no way suggesting I've succeeded. But if I look back at the best and worst moments of the last 16 years, these rules either helped, or could have:

Before I started Portent, I worked for, in this order:

A boss who came to work so wasted his eyes looked like red-rimmed bottomless pits.A 9th-Circuit judge who, while chomping on pretzels, would still manage to call me a fascist (?!) and point out how much my writing sucked. Seriously. That was every meeting.3 bosses in a row who thought management improved with volume and obscenities.

Mix that together with my personality - hot-tempered, laced with swear words and generally negative - and I was the boss from hell at least 50% of the time.

Over the years, I think I've reduced it to 5-10%. But the most important lesson: Don't model others just because they're CEOs. Instead, take a look at leaders you truly respect, regardless of their roles, and emulate them. It works better.

Fortune can indeed be outrageous. If you're expecting every day to be sweetness and light, you'd better reconsider.

You've heard the obvious issues: Making payroll, cash flow fears, irrational employees/clients/whatever. Those happen. The ones you probably won't expect, though, are things like busted air conditioning pouring water into your office, the fired client driving down from Canada to accost you in your office, and of course the loss of phone service for five days (in 1997 - before VOIP).

Be ready for these kinds of things. Remember that, even a week later, you'll probably be laughing about it.

You can hire for skills, for smarts, or for chemistry. If you hire for skills, you get someone who can do the necessary work right away. Hire for smarts and you get someone who can learn a lot. Hire for chemistry, though, and you get someone who meshes your team, does a fantastic job in the long term and will probably be smart and skillful.

Of course I prefer all three. But when in doubt, I consider how a person will work with my existing team. They don't have to 'fit in' - they can disrupt and make people really stop and think - but they do need to enhance the team.

"Make lots of money" does not count. It will not get you and your team through the slings and arrows and the thin times. You need a real vision of where you want your company to be in 5 years. You also need a real vision of what you want to offer the world.

This sounds really corny, I know. But something about what you do has to solve a problem and make your customer/client's lives better. If you can't do that, you will end up on the rocks. I guarantee it.

The first four years I ran Portent - 1995-1999 - I was trying to make a living. The company slowly morphed from a credit card-based, one-person part-time job in my spare room to having 2-3 employees. Then someone came along looking to buy us, and I signed without hesitation. That was a very poor decisions. I made it because, at the time, I didn't really have a vision beyond "Make a living". That kind of thinking leads to disastrous consequences.

Portent's COO has been with the company for 10 years. He started here as an HTML jockey and designer. He became creative director. Then he became COO. He's shy, so I won't post photos or names. But he's become a crucial part of the company through effort and opportunity.

If you have the good luck to hire someone truly spectacular, teach them. All the time. Don't worry about whether they're going to leave or not. Teach them everything you know until they say "Stop! My head's exploding!" Pay them well. Send them to conferences. Encourage them to publish if they want to. Appreciate them. Challenge the hell out of them.

Talent in your company will change your business from "Ian's company" to "Portent". It brings real joy to your work, and it trickles down when the company gets to the point where you can't mentor every single person.

And, if a great person leaves for a fantastic job somewhere else, the worst case is that you helped them get there. Take some pride in that. It still stings, but take pride anyway.

You will have weeks when you work 7 days, 15 hours a day. Depend on it.

Make sure you have a routine that can sustain you: Take breaks, chew gum, listen to music, whatever. Make sure your workspace is perfect. And make sure you can make up for that with friends, family and yourself when the squeeze is past.

Physical well-being is crucial. Mental well-being is even more important: Your personality drives your company. If you start to fall apart, your company will, too.

People will tell you business isn't personal. That's utter crap.

When it's your business, it is personal. It had damned well better be, or you're going to suck at it. You shouldn't freak out and write psychotic blog posts about others (cough TechCrunch cough). But don't beat yourself up if the setbacks affect you personally. And don't deprive yourself of a little patting-on-the-back when things go well.

So yes, business is personal, at least for the CEO. Don't avoid it. Embrace it.

I knew someone who tried to start a company making super-specialized bicycle wheels. Problem was, he didn't know anything about wheels. So his idea of 'super-specialized' was a squirrel-chopping monstrosity that weighed so much most cars couldn't have spun it. Of course he was planning to improve it, but his venture failed long before version two could get anywhere.

You cannot build a company around a craft - and everything's a craft - if you're not a craftsman. Lots of folks try it, but I have yet to see it go well.

Know your craft. If you're running an internet marketing firm, you need these skills. Starting a burger joint? Know how to make a great burger. Building an online store? You must know your product and sourcing/selling.

You can't make good hiring decisions, strategic decisions or anything else without that kind of specialized knowledge.

comments (4) | trackbacks (0) | permalink

View the original article here

Market research is (often) worthless. Here's why.

Here's the short version: Knowing that someone has disposable income doesn't tell you what they want to spend it on.

I used to work for a (retail) company that had fairly deep pockets. Occasionally, we would reach into those pockets to buy market research.

Our database was scrupulously maintained, and could tell us basic stuff about our customers, such as name, address and complete purchase history. The market research companies we hired promised to expand on that data and provide rich demographic information about the folks in our database.

You can guess the next step. In strict adherence to the "birds of a feather flock together" model of marketing, the research company would then offer to sell us information (names and addresses, mostly) of people who were just like our best customers, with one distinguishing characteristic: they had not yet made a purchase from us.

Makes sense right? And especially tempting since, like nearly all retail businesses, we spent such a seemingly inordinate amount on trying to attract new customers.

Just one little problem: It didn't work.

For our tests, we came up with a very attractive offer and sent it out to three groups: Past customers; people who had a similar profile to our customers but had never purchased from us; and an equal number of randomly-selected households. All were within the same geographical area. Here's how it shook out:

The results were the same in three different trials, using three different profiling techniques.
I have mixed feelings about this. All thinking people should.

As a marketer, I was of course disappointed by the results. Everyone in business is always looking for the straightest and truest path to new customers. Intuitively, we are attracted to the concept that past behavior can reliably predict future behavior, and, to a degree, this is true. In our case, for example, we could reliably predict that people who were previous customers had a much higher likelihood of buying from us again, compared to folks who had never before made a purchase from us.

I'll say it again, with feeling: Knowing that someone has disposable income doesn't tell you what they want to spend it on.

What we couldn't seem to find, however, was an accurate profile of those individuals who, while not having yet shopped with us, still had a higher predisposition to do so.

The reality is that people are not that predictable regarding at least some activities in which they have never previously participated. In our case, just because someone had a profile that was in many ways very similar to that of our best customers, didn't mean he had any higher likelihood of buying high-end electronics.

Which, if you think about it, makes perfect sense in light of our everyday experience. Just because someone has disposable income doesn't tell you what they want to spend it on. Skiing is a relatively expensive activity. Yet we all know wealthy people who wouldn't dream of going to the slopes and poor students who somehow manipulate their budgets to indulge their hobby. It's the same with all sorts of non-commodity goods and services: wine, boats, concerts, travel...even relatively inexpensive activities such as movies or attending sporting events.

So, while as a marketer, I'm faced with a remaining challenge, as a member of the human race, I'm delighted that each of us is ultimately unpredictable - similar in many ways - but unique.

comments (6) | trackbacks (0) | permalink

View the original article here

Writing online? Put it at the top.

This is the most important message in this article, so it is placed here, at the top, where you're most likely to see it.

Put the message you most want to communicate at or near the top of your web page.

Marketing expert Roger C. Parker notes in one of his designtosellonline newsletters, that "There are no readers! There are, however, 'skimmers'. Everyone is in a hurry. No one, other than your spouse or your mother, really wants to read your message."

To that list I would add my spouse and mother.

All you need to do to bring this lesson even more clarity is to observe your own web browsing behavior. If you're normal, when you land on a web page, you want answers to three simple questions:

Have I arrived at the right place?Can this business be of benefit to me?Is it worth my time to dig deeper into the site to learn more?

Usually, you answer these questions in a few seconds. Then you either click away or stick around to learn more.

The absolute masters of this approach are the folks at Apple. For example, take this page for the MacBook. At a glance, you have answers to all three questions. Before you've read a word, the graphic design (layout, image and typography) alone tells you you're in Apple Land. The first things you do read are benefit statements (more speed, power and battery life). The subheads are welcoming and enticing - they make you want to know more.

To this I would add the effectiveness of redundancy.

Many years ago, I had a job selling stereo gear. A demonstration technique that made it easier for my customers to discern differences in sound was summed up in the little triplet:

Tell them what they're going to hear.Let them hear it.Tell them what they heard.

You see a similar technique used in the Apple site. The first two subheads (on fast graphics and long battery life) are reiterations of features stated in the headline:

Accordingly, I say again: Avoid putting your "bottom line" at the bottom line.

comments (3) | trackbacks (0) | permalink

View the original article here

In web analytics, everything is relative

What's a good bounce rate for my web site?

I get that kind of question a lot. What's a 'good' bounce rate? A 'good' time on site?

The answer, I'm afraid, is: Better than your current bounce rate. Better than your current time on site.

In web analytics, it's best to focus on your own data and on improving. Use yourself as the benchmark. This is your best strategy for two reasons:

Accurate, internet- or industry-wide data on keyword searches, or competitors, or just about anything else, is scarce. Non-existent, really.

'Panel'-based statistics like Compete.com (which I love) and Alexa (which I'm starting to like again) sweep in an incredibly wide range of web sites. The bounce rate on your online bike shop won't compare to, say, the bounce rate on the New York Times web site.Statistics within your own industry will include outliers at both end of the spectrum: At one end are the companies that have invested 100x your budget to become the shining pinnacle of conversion rate optimization. At the other, you'll be comparing yourself to the sites designed according to 1992 best practices. Even if you can narrow down the data in #1, it'll be inaccurate..Keyword data from Google is about as trustworthy as a credit default swap.Keyword data from other sources may be more trustworthy, but shows you a tiny sliver of total search traffic.

Even if you could get accurate benchmarks, they still lie. Your business isn't like your competitors', no matter how similar they seem. Competitor A just fired his head of sales, so conversion rates tanked for a month. Competitor B happened to get on Channel 5 News. Her traffic tripled, lowering her conversion rate, too - but her sales skyrocketed.

Unless you've got the whole story, the numbers will lie. And you can't get the whole story.

So, if you're trying to figure out how many visitors you should be getting for 'slobber knocker', the answer is? More than you get right now.

If you're trying to figure out where your conversion rate should be? Yep. Better than what you're getting right now.

That's what web analytics are for: Helping you improve. Which, as it happens, is also how you beat your competitors.

comments (5) | trackbacks (0) | permalink

View the original article here

Owl, reed, twisted flax, vulture, owl, owl, horned viper.

This is another great post by Bruce Lee, marketer and advertiser par excellence.

Most graphic designers would be happier in ancient Egypt.

Egyptologists disagree on whether this papyrus from the Eighteenth Dynasty promotes an energy drink (Red Ox) or a feminine hygiene product "with wings".

Due to the exclusive use of hieroglyphic symbols for communication, designers then could do what designers today long to do: arrange pretty pictures on a page (or papyrus, or stone). There was no ugly and superfluous "copy" to deal with. (Nor, they might add, ugly and superfluous copywriters.)

For many years, I've worked shoulder to shoulder with graphic designers. The way it usually works is I come up with a headline, then some body copy. I have an image in mind to accompany the copy - most times it's simply a beauty shot of a product. Anyway, the copy and the image are the puzzle pieces handed off to the designer. It's their job to assemble them into something that will capture the attention of the potential customer. I like to think the copy will then retain that attention long enough to explain the product's benefits and provide a call to action.

At least, that's the way I like it to work.

Instead, with the regularity of the rooster at the rising of Ra, I'm beckoned to look over the shoulder of the designer, to their computer monitor, the better to see the necessity of the action they're about to demand from me. Which is to cut the copy.

"Too many words! This copy block is too big," they say, patronizingly pointing out what they think is self-evident.

"But what about the selling message? Where would you would suggest I cut back?" I reply, knowing they already sense weakness in my challenge.

They immediately snatch the upper hand by wielding the weapon of low condescension. "I haven't read it."

You see, to the graphic designer, copy is merely a shape (a rather ungainly one) that, as often as not, interferes with the process of the Visual Processor.

And, as often as not, they're right.

Especially in a world stampeding to e-readers.

Recent biometrics research (which included EEG readings, eye tracking, surveys, interviews and perhaps TSA junk touching) on iPad advertising shows that "high scoring ads in the study had a clean look - and they didn't have a lot of text."

Further, it was reported that, "...when emotion and cognition measured high, the user was drawn into the ad. High emotion and low cognition were preferable readings - meaning the ad produced positive emotions without prompting the reader to think too much. Negative emotion and high cognition indicated the user was frustrated."

To those who think the point of advertising is to get people to think (and therefore make reasoned judgements), think again. The point of advertising is to get people to buy stuff. And this research is saying that pictures (with a minimum of annoying "words") may do that best, at least with this soon-to-be-dominant medium.

Is the movement away from copy merely a passing fashion or a larger and more lasting cultural shift? Are we heading forward or backward?

Maybe the Egyptians had it right the first time.

comments (1) | trackbacks (0) | permalink

View the original article here

2010 Trends to Ignore: How I did (not great)

Well, 2010 was interesting.

On the down side: Kidney stones and the ER; a wasp attack; head explosions.

On the up side: A fantastic year for my family; a great year for my company; a terrific team that's kicking butt.

But how'd I do with my predictions for 2010? Let's see:

Bing versus Google. I predicted Bing would flop. Eh - Bing now has 12% of the market. Not exactly beating Google's door down, but at least they didn't end up relaunching under a new name like, I dunno, Live. 75% for me.
Yahoo!. I said Yahoo! was done for. And what do you know - they're done for. 100% for me!
Mobile advertising. I said people would ask 'is it making money' and then stop using it. People, apparently, don't care if it's making money. So they kept spending money on mobile. 10% for me.
Web 3.0 The term didn't die, but at least it didn't take off. 65%.
Apple vs. Microsoft. I said it'd be Apple vs. Google in 2010, not Apple vs. Microsoft. Worth a B: 85%.
Boutique content sites. All bad for the boutique sites. Content sweatshops like eHow are winning. Which sucks. But worth an A-. I said they'd win. 90%
Corporate social media policies. I'd had high hopes that one big traditional company. One. Just. One. would get their head out of their tuchus and embrace social media. 'Embrace' means 'approach with affection', not 'approach like it has an STD'. Alas. F+ for Ian. 30%
Augmented reality. Failed. Utterly. 100% for me..
Google real time search. My exact quote from a year ago: "Eventually, we'll all realize that a real-time stream of poo is still poo". Eventually hasn't happened. The hype continues. 30% for me.
Green marketing. Should've died. Keeps going strong. Sigh. 0% for me.
"Don't be evil". Hm. Haven't heard that quote from the Googlers in a while. I said it'd starved to death for want of attention. Google frapped their rankings and is well on their way to becoming a data dictatorship. But I'll still keep buying Adwords. 100% right, but -20% for being a hypocrite.

Yikes. 60% for the year. I passed.

My prediction for 2011? I will not be making any predictions.

comments (3) | trackbacks (0) | permalink

View the original article here

Sorry, but your charts are ugly

I once got fired for improving sales 300%.

I showed a client a report. It was awesome and I was dang proud of the results. The report read like this:

Sales from organic search last year were $50,000. Sales from organic search this year were $150,000.

Sales from PPC last year were $60,000, against a spend of $30,000. Sales from PPC this year were $70,000, against a spend of $10,000.

The client read the report, pursed their lips thoughtfully and said "Yeah, but my ROI from pay per click marketing sucked."

I started getting a twitch in my left eye that persists to this day.

"No", I said, "See, last year you spent $30k to get $60k. This year you spent $10k to get $70k. That's better, right?"

"Well, OK, but my ROI can't have improved that much if you only added $10k to my sales."

Fired.

This is an extreme case, obviously. But since then I've considered the presentation of the data as important as the data itself. That may seem horrible—the content's what's important, right? But it's a harsh reality: When you're presenting internet marketing reports to someone who has about 30 spare seconds, image is everything.

Want to avoid my sorry fate? Here are a few tips I've stolen from others over the years:

3D? Faded colors? Shiny bar graphs? No.

I said no.

Take your finger away from the drop shadow button and step. away. slowly.

Look at this graph:

It's puuuurrrttttyyyyyy. But can you take it all in and figure out what it's trying to show? No, unless it's trying to show that someone bought the latest version of Numbers.

Now try this version, instead:

Still not perfect, but it's an improvement, right?

So, rule 1: No extra crap.

No 3D effects.No weird color fills.No 'creative' backgrounds.If you're feeling creative, focus that energy to making your data really easy to interpret.

If you've got multiple columns in your spreadsheet, and need to show separate trends for each, use separate charts. Trust me on this one - it always works better. Here's the example from above. I created a second Y axis so the 'conversions' line is easier to read. Yeah, right:

This isn't too bad, but it still makes your reader work. Try this instead—separate the graphs to multiple smaller ones:

A few hints on this method:

Where possible, use the same scale. I can't do that with the 'conversions' graph, at least on the Y axis. But for the 'Clicks' and 'Cost', I set them both to a maximum of 1000. That lets you compare like with like.Remove every non-essential decoration when you're using small charts like these. Even gridlines. Your reader isn't looking for precise numbers. You can have the data table nearby for that.I also removed the round circles that were plotting points. I'm not a big fan of those.

Sometimes it's tempting to do things like change the Y axis to have a higher minimum value. That emphasizes trends:

Please don't, unless there's a really good reason, and you tell the reader.

Sometimes, your client needs to really see the data. Don't be afraid to try creative approaches, like using repeating symbols:

Don't go wild, but sometimes using what Tufte calls 'small multiples' can really go a long way.

Really, all of this is about keeping it simple. A simple line graph. A simple bar chart. No decoration. Just the facts, ma'am.

If you want to learn a ton more about this, try

these books:

Everything I've learned, I've learned from these books.

comments (7) | trackbacks (0) | permalink

View the original article here