XBlog

Marketing’s Easy Once You Do the Math

Connecting with your audience isn’t complicated. The movie American Beauty, which won an academy award, earned a decent amount for its investors and gained the adulation of movie goers, was a calculated attempt at capturing the audiences’ and critics’ imagination. The writers, producers and creatives behind the production used a set scheme of symbols to invoke the reaction the movie received.

By playing on themes of vulnerability, overcoming vulnerability and the frailty of human existence American Beauty captured the imaginations of movie goers, satisfied its investors and convinced the Academy of its effectiveness in motivating culture.

Your Self Perception

So if it’s that mathematical why all the confusion?

The problem isn’t what you’re putting out, the problem is what you see when you look in. We like to see ourselves as independent, rational creatures; unfortunately this is simply not true. Divesting yourself of this illusion is one of the first steps towards becoming effective in business.

1 + 1 = x

If you trust that you are unmoved by the mathematics of marketing then you’ll flounder about trying to find some magic key, but admit you’re deeply affected and you’ll find ample market analysis in your own reactions.

If you solidly apply yourself to learning the very basic ideas behind projecting motivation through common cultural cues you’ll find success isn’t so hard to achieve after all. Production cost was an excuse prior to the availability of digital tools. Now the only thing holding you back is your vision of what is possible and your honesty about where you stand.

One great tip to turn your business around

This is a reprint of an article Arthur Zards, President and Co-Founder of XNet, wrote for the April 9th, 2009 edition of The Business Ledger, a newspaper focused on leading Chicagoland businesses.

This is not an article on the obvious things your business can do to survive an economic downturn. Cutting down your office supply expenses, not printing as much paper, and getting rid of the free coffee are all things that will help, but lets be honest, these aren’t magic bullets that will keep your business in the black. And as a small to medium sized business, don’t expect a government bailout either!

Thriving, not just surviving

Instead of all the obvious money savers, I would like to share a great tip on not just making it though a downturn, but something that can help you completely turn your business around.

One of the challenges of running your own business is that, well, it’s your own business. You’re in control, you make the rules, and no-one knows it better then you. And that can be a problem. It’s easy to gain tunnel vision on what you think works and doesn’t work. You’re wearing blinders right now and don’t even know it.

What if you could have an extra set of eyes and ears looking at your business from an outsider’s perspective, offering feedback and fresh ideas on what you are doing? Telling you from their perspective what appears to be working and what isn’t. Asking you probing questions that you would never think to ask yourself. It’s easier then you think.

The “Unofficial Board of Directors”

What you want to do is create an “Unofficial Board of Directors.” In short, you create a small handful of trusted, experienced advisers to view your business at a board of directors level. You meet with them once a quarter, you share with them everything, and they offer you feedback and direction.

Share everything? Yes.

It’s not an easy thing for a business owner to share a full disclosure of your business, your profit/loss, even your own compensation information. But you will be surprised at the value of having different seasoned sets of eyes and ears giving you valuable feedback. I personally know businesses that have turned around 180 degrees after starting this practice and this process helped XNet weather some tough times during the Internet bust.

SCORE.ORG

Your board can be anyone, a parent, a friend, an old teacher, or a retired executive. The key is you must trust them, and you must feel that they bring a level of experience that you need. What seems to work very successfully is retired executives.

Organizations like SCORE offer easy access to thousands of retired executives who bring decades of business experience and are all aching to get back in the game. Your unofficial board will sometimes point out things to you that you don’t like, nor do you want to hear.

That’s the best part. These tough issues are the issues the very issues you must hear and become aware of. The things you choose to ignore while running your ship are often the key items you need to handle to keep your business afloat, or to get to the next level.

A Century of Experience

Still not convinced this will help?

Just three retired seasoned executives can add over a century of business experience Or imagine that all your competitors each have their own unofficial board of directors offering all their years of business experience and knowledge, and you don’t.

So instead of canceling this year’s Christmas party to save some money, get your own unofficial board of directors. After all, it works for free, doles out invaluable advice, and leaves you in full control of your business.

If you don’t know of any retired executives or trusted partners in your community check out the website for  SCORE . At the very least try using their online mentor search to see the talent pool that you can access. You’ll be impressed.

Toothpicks and Chewing Gum

We’re always vocal about the cost of downtime. Having been in this business since 1992 we’ve seen a good deal and we know that when it comes to risk mitigation and disaster recovery toothpicks and chewing gum solutions don’t cut it.

Stormy Weather

There have been some significant storms passing through the Midwest this summer and the Chicagoland area has already suffered a few power outages.

It’s times like this that you see the real merit of all those meetings and planning sessions. Discussions in the board room are one thing, but quite often reality has a way of surprising even the most forward thinking among us.

24 Hour Mark

After the last storm a number of businesses in the area were left without power for close to 24 hours. We had a chance to talk with the business owners who were affected and it became clear that having a well developed risk management plan really does make a difference.

It’s probably a no brainer at this point, but it suffices to say those who had solid plans kept going at pace, those who didn’t…well, there’s probably some pretty heavy operations and planning meetings going on this week.

How did your risk management and disaster recovery plans hold up when push came to shove? Did they pass the 24 hour mark?

A New Voice for the XNet Blog

Those of you who’ve been loyally following the XNet blog may have noticed a bit of downtime over the last couple of months. Well, we’re back on track with a new Blogger and I’ll be keeping you all up to date on the weekly happenings here at our Critical Computing Facility.

A short walk

My name is David Metcalfe and I’m the newest addition to the XNet team. Over the years I’ve worked with MaconRaine, Inc. and the former Bradley Wiltjer Marketing Group, both sponsors of the Silicon Prairie Social, so I’ve been on the periphery of XNet for awhile.

Beyond my personal associations with the folks here, due to the fact that I live in Lisle much of what I do is supported by XNet in one way or another. They host services for Morton Arboretum, the Lisle Library and the Village of Lisle itself. As an active naturalist, reader and resident they support services that I use on a weekly basis.

Off time pursuits

A fascination with culture has lead me to explore every aspect of history, music, art, literature, politics and science that I can unreasonably cram into my day.  Outside of XNet I’m the Creative Director/illustrator for The Absurdist Monthly Review, an internationally distributed e-journal that explores avant-garde literary theory, experimental writing techniques and the history of absurdism. I also do a bit of scrawling for my own e-publication The Eyeless Owl and for a variety of bloggers and online authors as the mood strikes me.

On the horizon

It’s exciting to have an opportunity to work with XNet directly rather than just hovering on the border. All the activity around here is giving me a chance to stretch my professional skills and put those nights researching the ebb and flow of culture to good use.

Keep your eyes open for XNet’s newsletter in the next couple of weeks as well as announcements on upcoming Silicon Prairie Social events and an XNet Open House coming sometime in October. We had a blast at the last SPS in April and we’re looking forward to seeing everyone again in September. Also, if you’re a Twitter user, check us out @xnetinfosys .

How Not to Call Email Marketing Prospects

Earlier today I received a phone call from a local company with whom I’m quite familiar. The salesperson opened by saying, “I saw you opened our email today, what interested you in the email?” The message I had read was advertising a seminar series the company has been aggressively pushing.

Admittedly, I was taken aback. I felt like I was being watched. I also felt that if I had been interested in the email, I would have signed up for the seminar or responded with questions myself. All in all, my feelings were equal parts 1) creeped out, 2) mildly annoyed and 3) strangely intrigued that this is how they were still marketing after all of these years.

It didn’t stop there, however. My limp response to his dead-on-arrival opener behind us, he kept firing:

“Can I interest you in a free ebook?”

“What’s the e-book about?”

“Secrets of Success”

“Sure.”

“Can I also interest you in a free coaching session?”

Waaaait-a-minute!

Here’s where I should have asked, kindly, “What’s the catch?” instead of “no, thank you.” Given how the call had already gone, in retrospect I’d have loved to hear him describe the coaching session.

Their entire dialogue and approach to initiating and nurturing a relationship was broken from the very beginning. He was all about features, saying nothing about how I would benefit from reading his email, his e-book, or attending his coaching session.

Email marketing is an excellent, cost-effective way to nurture relationships that turn into leads. The analytics that come with most all email marketing platforms give you very useful information about who is reading what you write and sharing it with their friends. You can use this information to grow your business, however, it’s best not to creep out your prospect in the process.

So, what can you learn from today’s awkward call?

Here are three better ways you can handle calls to your targeted email lists:

1. Give a legitimate and non-creepy reason for your call. After first asking your prospect if you’ve caught them at a good time, mention something your company is doing that’s of immediate value, and communicate that value immediately. “Next week we’re hosting a seminar on helping sell more widgets. People who went to last year’s seminar tell us they’ve more than doubled their widget sales after putting into practice our techniques.” Now you have my attention, and you’re leading with value, not a hook.
2. If you’re calling a web lead, only offer one premium. This salesperson’s two eager offers; the vaguely-titled e-book and the equally mysterious “free coaching session,” screamed desperation. Though they were determined to hook me with something, they didn’t believe in it (or me) enough to tell me how I would benefit from any of it.
3. Instead of tiptoeing around your point, tell the prospect what’s in it for you while communicating value to them. This can be easily accomplished by filling them in some context. Something like this:

“Of the 200 professionals we coached last year, those who stuck with the program the entire year doubled their businesses in 12 months while building systems that allowed them to work on average 25% fewer hours. Could I interest you in a complimentary session with one of our executive coaches to discuss your objectives and how coaching can help you reach them?”

Do you have an example of an exceptional sales call you’ve received? An exceptionally poor one? If so, please leave a comment below, we’d love to hear it!

Three Scenarios to Illustrate the Total Cost of Downtime

It’s easy to dismiss a couple hours of downtime as a simple inconvenience. A time where your staff, frustrated that they can’t get their work done, takes to chatting around the water cooler or catching up on filing. In reality downtime has much greater consequences; each idle employee, every hour of technician time spent restoring your systems, and every moment your critical systems are down has a cost associated.

Have you ever taken the time to determine what this actually costs you?

We took a few typical company scenarios; a small service business (perhaps a consulting firm), a slightly larger company, and a mid-sized OEM. The numbers below are hypothetical but are a powerful illustration. Note that the cost for even two hours of downtime could far exceed the cost of hosting a full rack of servers at XNet for an entire year!

The table below is a simplified version of Sudora’s Cost of Downtime Calculator (referenced with permission from it’s creator, Charlie Meyer). To figure your own cost using your own numbers, use the original calculator here.

Typical Company Scenarios*

* Note: These are hypothetical scenarios designed to approximate the total cost of downtime to various sized organizations.

You can easily see from the above that 2 hours of downtime can cost more than you would have imagined.

Now, think of a situation where you can’t access your mail or database server, even for an hour. What happens in your office? Take yourself through the line items above and estimate your own cost using Sudora’s calculator.

In light of the above, “expenses” relating to securing your equipment and keeping it online 24/7/365 should be viewed as trivial. If you’ve thought before about hosting your equipment but have opted not to due to cost, don’t wait until the next power outage or server failure to revisit it.

• How many power outages do you have each year?
• How much time does it take to bring your critical services back online?
• How many non-technical employees stood idle during this time?
• Were the phones not ringing? How long was your Customer Service unable to serve your customers?

If the total cost of downtime is more than you’re comfortable paying, or if you don’t like your answers to the above questions, perhaps we should talk.

Naperville Sun Article: The big generator that could

Last week, XNet was profiled in the Naperville Sun in the article “The big generator that could: XNet keeps businesses on the grid.” The article focuses on our boutique data center services and how our infrastructure keeps small and medium-sized businesses online in the event of a storm or power outage. In the article, XNet customer Mark Mayle of Equitas Group LLC talks well of his experiences with us over the last seven years. Thanks, Mark!

Read the article on the Naperville Sun web site.

Business Ledger Article: Surviving power outages without going broke

XNet’s Arthur Zards wrote this article that originally appeared in the January 21 TechLink section of The Business Ledger.

Surviving power outages without going broke
By: Arthur Zards

The most common IT disruption for small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) is by far a general power outage. From rolling brownouts in the West coast, to springtime Chicago storms; power outages are fairly common and are on the rise due to an ever increasing commercial demand for power, and limited resources to meet the growing demand.

When looking at your business continuity plan for a loss of power (you did do this, right?) You probably found out that there are not too many cost effective options. A typical UPS (usually your only option) will add only minutes of emergency back-up power. Plus, the more computers you stack on the UPS, the less time you have. With how heavily companies rely on technology, a power outage can grind business to an immediate halt. No power means no email, no servers, no website, and equally as important—no Internet access.

Are there any cost effective options for your critical computers? Luckily there’s one, you just may not know about it. The boutique datacenter.

For many non tech-oriented executives, “the datacenter” conjures up thoughts of gigantic warehouses filled with technicians in labs coats busily managing gigantic supercomputers—at a price tag far beyond your budget. This may have been true years ago, but due to the growing need for business continuity for the SMB market, there are now numerous smaller, boutique-style datacenters that cater specifically to the SMB.

What is a boutique datacenter exactly? It is a facility that has all the features of an enterprise datacenter; redundant power with a UPS, back-up generators, industrial-grade cooling (with back-up units), that’s networked across multiple locations with two or more backbone-level Internet connections. Translation: if any one piece fails, you stay connected. These facilities allow you access to your equipment 24×7 while keeping it secure, and best of all, the services are all tailored especially for the SMB.

Boutique datacenters serve small businesses who need to host as little as a single critical email server, where larger facilities require minimum space allotments that dwarf these customers’ needs. Plus they add special services to help the small IT department manage and grow their company network and systems, so their network can keep pace with their growing business. Best of all, they offer friendly, helpful services to non-technical executives who know they need their equipment secure, but might not know exactly how to accomplish it.

If this is you, and you are not too sure how to protect your systems from a power loss, contact a boutique datacenter that caters to your market. You’ll be surprised at the level of IT help they can offer you, at a price that is very attractive.

Bio:
Arthur Zards is President and co-founder of XNet, a Lisle-based boutique data center, the XNet Critical Computing Facility. Since 1992, XNet has been instrumental in growing Internet technologies in the Chicago area, and is now the largest independently owned Internet service provider in the Chicago area.

The “shocking” cost of downtime due to power outages

According to a 2005 whitepaper by APC (PDF Link), manufacturers of uninterruptable power supplies (UPS’s) and power conversion equipment:

“A recent study in the USA has shown that industrial and digital business firms are losing $45.7 billion per year due to power interruptions1. Across all business sectors, an estimated $104 billion to $164 billion is lost due to interruptions with another $15 billion to $24 billion due to all other power quality problems. … Loss of processing in a large financial corporation can cost thousands of unrecoverable dollars per minute of downtime, as well as many hours of recovery time to follow. Program and data corruption caused by a power interruption can create problems for software recovery operations that may take weeks to resolve.”

When looking at national figures, it’s easy to say “that’ll never happen to me.” Let me bring this a little closer to home:

• If your 24-hour courier business relies on a dedicated server with software to dispatch your drivers, what happens when you have a power outage that last several hours?
• If your e-commerce site is down for even an hour, how much does that translate to in lost revenue?
• How do you calculate the value of the lost opportunities when a storm knocks out power to your server room and your sales force can’t access your pricey CRM application? (Remember the storms this summer?)

The average office battery backup lasts a half hour or less. Power outages due to storm damage can take hours to days before power is restored. Fortunately, the recent ice storms didn’t hit the Chicago area as badly as they did Oklahoma City, where:

“About 468,000 homes and business still had no power Wednesday in Oklahoma, suffering its worst power outage on record. That was down from a peak of some 618,000 customers Tuesday, but utility officials said it could be a week to 10 days before power is fully restored.”

To avoid having your business go down in a similar incident — summer or winter — host your servers in a fully-redundant data center like XNet’s Critical Computing Facility™ with backup generator power and full network redundancy. To arrange a tour or for questions on services and pricing, contact us via the web or phone at 630.983.6064.