A friend asked me Friday, “If you’re busy, why are you doing seminars and mailings?” Good question. For all businesses.
The traditional answer for consulting firms has been to stop marketing once they were busy. And–as I taught CPE classes years ago–it assures that the work load is never equal. In our business, the average time for a client to decide to move forward on a project can be anywhere from a few months to a few years. Our business isn’t like retail, where Sunday’s newspaper ads bring in Monday’s customers. What we do today brings in clients two years from now.
So if we’re busy today and we ignore new business, we’re going to be out of business tomorrow. So, at DGG, we’re never too busy to discuss another project. And we appreciate any referrals you may send our way
Monthly Archives: July 2006
I Know You’ve Seen the World’s Most Annoying TV Ad
“HeadOn: Apply directly to the forehead. HeadOn: Apply directly to the forehead. HeadOn: Apply directly to the forehead.” By the end of the commercial, all you know is the product name and that you apply it directly to the forehead.
Turns out the woman rubbing what appears to be a tube of chapped lip medicine on her forehead is trying to get rid of a headache. And the stuff has a mix of herbs and other homeopathic remedies.
What’s interesting about this is that it works. Uhh…I mean the commercial, not the HeadOn…and I don’t want to get into any arguments about whether homeopathic remedies work. You believe what you want to believe.
But the COMMERCIAL works, at least by all the measurements we typically use for commercials…focus groups…product demand…sales. Interesting. But perhaps not too surprising.
The best technology (like the best marketing) makes use of simple concepts…like the idea that the computer does repetitive things extremely well…and non-repetitive things very poorly.
What makes the commercial work is that darned phrase repeated over and over: “HeadOn: Apply directly to the….”
Maybe if I apply my forehead directly to my monitor, I can get rid of the headache the commercial caused.
The mesmerizing ad for HeadOn. By Seth Stevenson
I Hate Webcasts…but I use them!
Everybody seems to be picking up on the trend. Trainers, marketers, sales organizations. Everyone. Even the Tennessee Society of CPAs is offering on-line Webinars, Web Meetings, Webcasts…whatever you want to call them.
I think they’re great…really…I’m sure they save someone a bunch of time. Check out the link below for yourself to be convinced…or not!
Tennessee Society of CPAs – Online CLE and Seminar Catalog
I must say I’m tired of my inbox filling with this or that vendor wanting to show me the “latest features” of their product via the web. Always seems to turn into more of a sales presentation than a learning presentation. When, for example, was the fact that the product has gained market share a new feature? Or the fact that users rated it 4.75 stars out of 5 stars on usability? Or that PC Week Magazine named it “Least Likely Software To Crash and Burn While You’re Trimming Your Toenails?” Who cares?
Show me what I want to know: How will this software help me in my business or life?
If it can help me lose weight or be more likeable, bring it on. Otherwise, I can do without it. I’ve got better things to do than memorize stats on someone else’s software. Like learn the new features…
Ok, How About A Real Entry
Blogging [this IS a blog] is the trend of the day. I started a blog (in fact, two), several years ago, and never made much use of them. I was sporadic in posting, never checked the post backs, and rarely mentioned it. I’m not even sure you could get to it from the DGG Web site.
This blog is a bit different. There’s a lot of material coming out that our clients and associates ask us about, and technologies like RFID, ERP, MRP II, Vista, and Project Green (to name a few) (more later about these) are beginning to or threatening to have a serious impact on even small businesses.
So here’s my opportunity to talk about some of those technologies, and your opportunity to talk back. I hope you’ll talk back, because it’s kinda boring talking to yourself…which is what this is like if you don’t talk back.
Hopefully, you’ll get good information on a number of technologies.
Oh, one more thing. This isn’t edited. It isn’t approved by the marketing or legal folks. Those of you who know me know that I’m a bit irreverent…particularly about the computer industry…after all, I’ve been around since before there was a computer industry…but that’s another story.
It’s good talking to you.
New Web Site Design
I guess the question of the day is, “Why would anyone want to change their web design?” After all, the old design was pretty decent. I know we spent a ton of money on it (it was one of those things that went about 300% over budget, and we only got about 50% of what we originally bargained for). Why would we pay for something like that? Why didn’t we insist on getting the entire project completed? Answer: we had already waited 6 months longer than the 6 weeks we were promised for the design to be completed, and we had to get the new site up and running.
Enough on that soap box, I guess.
Anyway, the new site design from DGG uses CSS and less graphics. That makes it faster, load quicker, and gives us opportunities to change it rapidly in the future. In addition, it makes it easier to change. So here’s the new design. Hope you like it.
If you don’t like it, I can give you the name of the designer that did the old site. Maybe sometime in this lifetime you can get them to design one for you [name withheld to protect the guilty]!