Just finished reading Jason Van Orden’s excellent new book Promoting Your Podcast. Highly recommended for newbies. There’s so much to learn just in order to create a decent podcast, it can be daunting to take the next steps, the ones that get you heard. Jason does a fine job of hacking through the jungle of feeds, directories, statistics, and community-building.
Thanks go to Lee Hopkins for recommending the book.
Last week I thought it was only a joke when I read a blog post saying that the NFL might forbid people having “Super Bowl parties” because of trademark infringement.
But now this, from the Des Moines Register .
Apple wants the Lift, a Des Moines downtown bar, to stop using the name “iPod Monday” to describe a weekly event in which patrons share their musical tastes via their iPods.“Please choose a name for your product that is consistent with Apple’s guidelines (that does not include iPod or any other Apple trademark or variation thereon),” reads a letter from Apple representative Pete Alcorn to Curtis. The e-mail refers to the event’s Web site, ipodmonday.com, and related podcasts and online broadcasts.
My first tempation: to say “Gee, do I need to comment on how stupid this is?”
But on second thought, it’s a perfect follow-on to my last post.
Apple is a very smart company. As Paul Graham points out, though, smart is not wise. This isn’t stupid, it’s just far from wise.
Smart says: if someone uses our trademark, we go after them.
Wise says: we do what’s in our interest. What’s in our interest is to encourage people to spread our trademark for us.
Wise, had it been present at Apple, would also have said, “It’s not in our interest to be perceived as badly as this will cause us to be.”
P.S. Legal departments in big companies are there to keep other departments from making very costly mistakes. But who’s watching over the legals?
There’s a fine post at Instigator Blog: Top 10 Reasons Why Proposals Fail, by Ben Yoskovitz. I’d like to add a few notes of my own.
Point 1. Killing pain is nice, but thriving is better.
Ben is very right to focus on the prospect’s pain, if and when he’s right that pain is the reason they’re asking for proposals in the first place. But desire for the absence of pain is a negative motivation. It’ll get you to take an aspirin and a client to take the consulting equivalent.
But every time an organization is in pain, there’s also an upside opportunity, either right in there with the pain, or lurking nearby. And it’s important to find that and focus on it.
Sometimes the client is perfectly aware of it. Very often the pain is simply a missed upside target. (”We only grew 12% topline last year, and the industry grew 11%. Barely beating the average is unacceptable; we want to double it.”) This organization is giving you some gain to talk about, and that’s a lot more fun, for you and for the client, than just talking pain. In many cases, though, the client won’t show you the upside, and you need to find it yourself.
Some organizations have the wisdom to call in help for upside reasons, but more companies need to do so more often. And you, as a consultant, should be looking for clients with that level of wisdom. If a client only calls you in because of headaches, look for a better class of client, one who’ll make you a partner in their success and not just a school nurse.
Point 2. A focus on gain allows you to offer a menu. Menus are good.
If at all possible, your proposal should offer a menu of options.
Offering a menu provides several advantages, which I won’t list exhaustively (perhaps in another post.) But I’ll mention one: few of your competitors will offer precisely the same menu, and so your proposal will have to be considered separately from the pack. If the prospect allows you any way to break away from the pack, do so. Better yet, don’t even start inside a pack. Read on….
Point 3. A proposal that isn’t a recap is way too much like a cold call. Brrrr!
Ben seems to assume that you’re on a level playing field with a batch of other consultants. But if that’s the case for more than a third of your proposals, then you’re one of the following:
After a couple of years in business, most of your proposals should simply be recaps of what you and the client, in private discussions, have already agreed needs to be done. Even if the client writes an RFP detailing what you and they agreed on, and your competitors respond to the RFP, you still have a leg up. Why? Because in the process of talking through the need, you’ve demonstrated your insight. The prospect will view you as able to perform what you, and only you, talked them into.
Ben’s points are good. But there’s a lot more to this proposal game, and the ultimate goal is to get business without writing proposals. With my last client, by the time we agreed on what needed to be in a proposal, we were also clear on what needed to be done and that I was the one to do it. The next paper transaction between us? He handed me a check while telling me to get started. It won’t work in every industry or practice area, but you’d be surprised how many it will work in.
(Cross-posted to Management Consulting Lore.)
In five months I leave my pastorate at Berkeley Friends Church. At that point I’ll emerge from my semi-retirement and go back to full-time consulting. And just what, you ask, does my consulting consist of?
I help intelligent people and companies sound as smart as they are. I give them the tools to be thought leaders, and help them use these tools to achieve their goals, further their causes, and propel their careers.
In the next month, I’ll chronicle the work I’m doing to prepare for the full launch of my business. This will start, today, with some of the joys and sorrows I encounter as I return to active blogging after several months away from it.
You are currently browsing the archives for the Business Development category.
