SAMBA Blog

Do something amazing

The Zen Habits guy - Leo Babauta - made a rather radical suggestion recently. One that came down to essentially working for just a few hours a day, then rewarding yourself with a nap. (Not Seth, obviously.)

The difference in this kind of day versus the eight, nine, 10 hour days someone else worked?

That two to four hours was only to be spent on something amazing.

The kickers (which he doesn't get into) are these:

1. Amazing isn't necessarily fun. So picking that something amazing to work on doesn't mean the time is going to fly by. It's work. And sometimes the most amazing results come from doing the stuff we hate most.

2. Can you even pick something amazing to do for that time? Or has your job come down to so many unimportant details that you find your plate doesn't actually have any amazing projects on it to work on?

Do you have something amazing to do for a couple of hours a day? Can you find it? Less than amazing is just wasting your time. And you don't get your nap.

Using the Abacus in a Petabyte World

Web analytics, easily had for free, could tell you a lot about what you don't know about your online business. We're truly in an age where the lack of technological resources no longer works as an excuse.

Unfortunately, even though we have a wealth of resources and metrics, we have a glaring lack of understanding and artistry. It almost feels like we're still stuck in the early days of the web. Everyone still focuses on pageviews and member count.

Pageviews don't work when we can go much deeper. We can go granular and look at what people are actually doing on every web page requested and rendered. Why is a "view" valuable when what we're really trying to drive implies a more consequential interaction that suggests risk! Buy something, sign up for something, opt in for something - we don't want people just to look. That's too safe.

And what's with people who count members? It always only gets bigger unless you give folks a way to cancel their accounts. Self-congratulatory entrepreneurs keep celebrating as the absolute numbers of members grow. It's like a Depression-era widow watching the dollars in her savings account grow while inflation runs away from her. What is the rate of growth? How does that compare against competitors? More importantly - what is the level of engagement amongst the membership? How much time do they spend with you? Do they bring others with them? How top heavy is your membership base or do you have a widespread base of evangelists? How many have abandoned altogether?

We can't handle the truth! Long live the truth!

Baked in magic

Walt Disney didn't build an amusement park and then decide later to make it magical.

Tony Hsieh didn't start Zappos and then, in year three, decide to deliver the best service the industry has ever seen.

Herb Kelleher didn't build and operate Southwest Airlines and then decide to turn the airline industry on its head.  (The original flight attendants were chosen by a committee that included the same person who had selected hostesses for Hugh Hefner’s Playboy jet.)

Delivering true magic isn't something that can be fixed with a half-day training class.  Because everyone works in marketing, 'wow' has to be baked in to the company's culture.  The larger the company, the harder it is to change the culture.

Frank Eliason and his team are doing great work trying to improve Comcast's customer service and image using Twitter, but that's customer support, not magic.

Magic has to be baked in.

How to save the publishing industry

Traditionally, what a book publisher brings to the table is two sets of relationships.

1. Relationships with the people who buy books...the middle men (not the readers).
2. Relationships with the people who review books...the editor of the Times book review section.

There's a problem with this. Books are now being bought directly by the readers, increasingly online from sites like Amazon. The readers are increasingly being influenced by a different type of reviewer. This reviewer doesn't write for the Times, she writes for herself, and her blog audience.

There's a huge opportunity here. The question is who will figure it out first? The authors or the publishers.

We all agree that successful authors have nascent tribes. The opportunity lies in connecting authors with their audience.

Authors make the bulk of their income from their advance.  If a publisher wants a successful author they offer them a larger advance than their current publisher and there's a decent chance the author will walk.

But, what if the publishers actively helped their authors build tribes online? They'd be doing the authors a huge service and no author could afford to leave their publisher, because they'd be walking away from their tribe.

If the publishers don't help the authors do this, the authors will start doing it themselves.  And once they've developed their own tribe, what do they need the publisher for? I believe that publishers are in the perfect position to do this, because authors are used to the publisher brokering these relationships and most authors have no idea where to start.

At this point, the publishers by and large don't get this (with the notable exception of Hachette). A couple of months ago I received a referral from a publicist at a large NY publishing house who wanted me to help one of her authors build his tribe (on the author's dime). What most publishers still haven't thought through is that they should be the ones building the communities.

If publishers helped their authors build and serve their tribes they just might save the publishing industry.

Becoming an Agent of Change

Once upon a time there was a girl named Bethany. She loved music and got her dream job at a top 5 music record label. Bethany started on the bottom but had big ideas. She would share her ideas, however, the people at the top were afraid to try new things, and her ideas would vanish into managerial bliss. Bethany started to figure it out - the people at the top had been in the industry a long time liked the way they have always operated. New marketing such as social media and embracing community like Olafur Arnald was risky. Bethany decided she had two options. 1) watch her company downward spiral into the ground or 2) remember that this was her dream job and become an agent of change to make things happen. Bethany chose #2.

The following are steps for Bethany to become an Agent of Change

1. Gain trust and respect - Do small unrelated things all the time to show that you can get things done successfully and efficiently. This could be as small as ordering lunch or planning a program/speaker.
2. Take responsibility - Organize your world so the person who has to give you room does not have to take responsibility. In today's economy people want to hold on to their job and do not want to take a risk on new projects. How can you make it so the responsibility and risk of the project point to you and not your boss?
3. Communicate vision - Talk honestly about the goal of your project. Start a blog, write a manifesto, create a weekly update. Whatever you do, make sure to share it with your team and throughout the company. As your project gains momentum and creates success, the more people will want to help and be associated with it.
4. Be modest - Give other people credit for your successes. You have to boost their ego to make things happen. Create the feeling that, "If things go wrong you can point to me. If things go right, we can point to you."

Good luck Bethany, I know you will make a difference!

Department of Go vs. Department of No

In every company, there are two departments that don’t show up on the flow chart. One is in charge of saying yes and the other is in charge of saying no.

You don’t get assigned to these departments by HR. You may not have realized you were even in one of them. (And maybe you aren’t. You could be in the biggest and most boring department of all – the Department of Maybe, which just waits to be told what to do.)

The Department of Go is full of ideas and chases after new opportunities constantly. On the other end of the curve, the Department of No operates from fear and struggles to maintain the status quo.

Choose wisely.

7 Tips for Leaving Great Sales Voicemails

One of the biggest hurdles (and most frustrating) to making a sale is getting the right person to call you back. As ancient as voicemail seems to be these days, it's often the primary tool you have to persuade someone to talk to you. Here are 7 great tips for leaving good voicemails.

1. Explain the benefit of the call, not the service - Don't try to sell your service in a voicemail message (you won't have enough time), just sell the conversation. Tell them what will they get by calling you back? A free assessment, advice, peace of mind...what will motivate them to want to talk to you?

2. Understand unconscious language triggers #1 - Don't start out your message with "Hi, (customer's name) my name is (your name)..." because most telemarketers and strangers start that way, it often evokes a negatively conditioned Pavlovian response. Try using "Hi (their name) it's (your name)" this is the language a friend or acquaintance might use, and usually accesses a positive unconscious trigger.

3. Understand unconscious language triggers #2 - Robert Cialdini describes how the word "because" is an unconscious trigger that increased the likelihood someone will comply with your request. If you use the word "because" when you describe why someone should call you back, you might be surprised at your increased response rate. Click here if you'd like to understand why.

4. Create curiosity - If all the information you want to convey is already in the voicemail, why would they call you back? Create curiosity. Tell them you have information that is really valuable to them, but they have to call you back to get it. 

5. Express urgency - Why do they need to call you back right now? How can you create an emergency? What will happen if they don't call you back right away? But don't just focus on content. The urgency you create will be largely based on the tone of voice you use. If your family was being held hostage and their life depended on this person calling you back...what tone of voice might you use?

6. Use good VM etiquette - No one likes a really long VM, keep it as short as possible. And say your number in the beginning of the message and at the end - not everyone has an iPhone.  If the person misses your number the first time they hear the message, and they have to playback the entire message to retrieve it, it's less likely they'll call you back. Just use common sense.

7. Sell your message second by second - Just like any written sales copy, realize that if the first part of your message sucks, they're likely to press delete right way. Make your first 5 seconds compelling so they'll listen to the second 5 seconds, and make those 5 seconds make them want to listen to the next 5 seconds and so on.

Leadership - Assuming the Position

The first guy to raise his hands and assume the title of leader isn't always the right guy. He's perhaps the most aggressive. He's definitely conditioned himself to think that he's a leader. He's been rewarded previously for volunteering early. This guy usually has made a habit of this. But real leadership is not granted by virtue of nominating yourself.

If it were easier to find the right guy simply by seeing who speaks up first, we would not have Barack Obama as President of the United States. We'd have Mike Gravel instead. Obviously, it just isn't that simple. As you can see, this argument seems to work well in a political setting or within SAMBA where, amongst the fellows, no one owns the agenda.

In private enterprise however, where an entrepreneur is usually the first and only one to step up - there is a clear leader by default. He's staked his future and what little risk capital he has to own the agenda. He can fail or succeed but the buck stops with him because he put up the bucks!

If you're in a situation where everyone is "created equal" - be skeptical of the one who always jumps to be first to nominate himself. The selective leader understands when he can be effective - his recognition of timing comes from an understanding of his true strengths. He knows when it's his turn to be most impactful. Doesn't that imply that he's also the best marketer? He isn't trying to be all things to all people all the time - only when relevant.

Angels and Daemons

I was asked to speak for 8 minutes about angel investing recently at the Levin Institute. The audience was composed of 35 entrepreneurs who had all started a business.

***I'm paraphrasing here so I sound much better in text than I did live and improvising at the event.***

I'd like to talk about the celebrated "friends and family round." It seems almost all entrepreneurs have raised money from friends and family. How many of you in this audience have raised money from friends and family? (I think 3 raised their hands with pride)

I'm going to argue today that raising a "friends and family round" first is the wrong thing to do. Everyone does this first before they go out to raise money from strangers or the bank. I'm going to argue that this is the exact wrong order. Why?

Since we're talking about angels, let me get a little biblical on you. In the beginning....(pause) everything looks good. You've got a great idea. You're going to get fabulously rich while making millions of customers very happy. You have more enthusiasm and energy than you've ever possessed before. You believe 100% that you will succeed. This is when you are most seductive. Worse yet - your friends and family are the people most likely to believe you and be seduced by you! Except for your mother-in-law but she's another story.

But your friends and family are the last people you should be seducing. Because as history runs its course, your startup will encounter disasters of biblical proportions. There will be droughts, famines, and pestilence in the form of flaky suppliers, non-paying customers, unreliable employees, and the dreaded cash flow devil. Things will inevitably go wrong. How you solve the problems will determine how successful an entrepreneur you will become.

But when these disasters happen - investors go crazy. They start breathing down your neck and asking why you haven't made them a fortune already. You don't want these people to be your friends and your family. You want these people to be strangers.

You see, when you raise money from investors, you should treat that money as sacred. You're going to be aggressive and try to build a company of great value for sure, but you should be very careful how you spend that money. It's a balancing act that requires passion and rationality. But when that money comes from Aunt Ruth or Uncle Ralph or your buddy Frank, all sorts of emotional demons come into the picture. This emotion hampers your ability to make rational and passionate decisions. This in turn hampers your ability to be the best entrepreneur you can be. Your startup may still succeed - plenty have with friends and family money - but they probably could've grown bigger faster better without.

You should raise money from strangers. If you can't sell your vision and a part of you company to strangers, then how will you be able to convince a stranger to buy your product? One of the keys to success as an entrepreneur is how well you sell. Everything. You, your vision, your company, your product, your service. To everyone. Your customers, your suppliers, your vendors, your bank, and even your investors.

So you might as well start by selling to the most difficult people. Strangers, real angel investors who are skeptical. Not your Uncle Bob or your buddy Sam who want to believe in you.

So do it backwards. Friends and family. They should be a last resort not the first resort! Raise money from friends and family after you've tried everyone else! After you've lost that initial shine as a brand new entrepreneur. After you've faced a ton of rejections. After you've become a little less seductive. Then if you still need their money, and let's hope you won't, they'll know exactly what they're getting into. Because when the difficult times come, you're going to need your real friends and family to be there to support you and love you.

Thank you all for your time. I think what you're doing is amazing and a big inspiration to me.

(Their questions afterward were pretty good too.)

An Inspiration 8 years in the Making...

A friend of mine posted this video on Facebook. After I overlooked it 10 times, I finally decided to watch. In it is Aziz Ansari, one of the stars of the new TV shows "Parks and Recreation." Rolling Stone Entertainment Weekly, and NY Magazine have all dubbed him "a comedian to watch."

While watching the video, I couldn't stop laughing. By the end of the interview I was in tears.

As I watched, I couldn't help feel like I knew him from somewhere...like I had seen him before. After I replayed the video 3 more times, it finally hit me!

8 years ago, during my first year at NYU, my friends and I went to a famous club called Comedy Cellar. All the comedians were semi-famous and really funny, except for the opening act--a young Indian kid, who stood out like a sore thumb. It looked like his very first time performing. His jokes were horrible, his timing sucked, and he was close to getting booed off stage. "He doesn't belong in the business" I remember people saying.

Ever since, that comedian has been a running joke among me and my friends. We would retell his horrible jokes sarcastically to make each other laugh. As time passed, the jokes survived, but the origin of the jokes and the memory of that horrible comedian did not. Until...

8 years later I'm watching him on Jimmy Kimmel as an up and coming superstar. The reason I didn't recognize Aziz more quickly is because he's like a completely different comedian. His comedy has improved so much. I guess that's what 8 years of practice does.

There's no clever or original moral to this story. Just an inspirational one. Other people will always judge you and tell you that "you can't". But practice makes perfect. Never let failure (or other people)stop you from achieving your dreams. Aziz clearly didn't.

Questioning assumptions

A few of us in the SAMBA program have spent the last week stumped by a puzzle created by thinkFun. The puzzle is brilliantly designed to force you to look at it a certain way, to make a set of assumptions. We spent hours following what appeared to be the rules. But, only by questioning those rules and challenging your core assumptions are you able to solve the puzzle.

Many assumed that people wouldn't buy shoes online. You had to go to a shoe store because that was the only place to try shoes on. Tony Hsieh questioned those assumptions, added free shipping both ways and a one year money back guarantee. It changed the way people looked at buying shoes and Zappos was born.

By questioning our basic assumptions and changing the way we look at a problem we can often uncover incredible opportunities.

A few of us in the SAMBA program have spent the last week stumped by a puzzle created by thinkFun. The puzzle is brilliantly designed to force you to look at it a certain way, to make a set of assumptions. We spent hours following what appeared to be the rules. But, only by questioning those rules and challenging your core assumptions are you able to solve the puzzle.

Many assumed that people wouldn't buy shoes online. You had to go to a shoe store because that was the only place to try shoes on. Tony Hsieh questioned those assumptions, added free shipping both ways and a one year money back guarantee. It changed the way people looked at buying shoes and Zappos was born.

By questioning our basic assumptions and changing the way we look at a problem we can often uncover incredible opportunities.

The White House joins the conversation

President Barack Obama started his career as a community organizer in Chicago 20 years ago. In the Presidential Campaign he applied these skills to create the successful community organizing website, MyBarackObama.com. Now that he is in the White House, Obama is turning to the American community again to help embody his goal of making government inclusive, transparent, accountable and responsible. This past week he announced the launch of the Office of Public Engagement with the mission to serve as an open front door to the White House. To do this, the goal of the office is to engage in online and offline conversations with American Community. Online they have created Whitehouse.gov as a way to communicate the latest happenings in the US Government using social media such as blogs, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter. The website also serves as an online outlet to send questions, comments, concerns, or well-wishes to the President or his staff. Offline they plan to hold town halls and other in-person events throughout his term (not just during the campaign).

Gone are the days of the one-way, closed communications. In a Web 2.0 world, where the consumer holds the power through the web and social media tools, companies must adjust to survive. The Office of Public Engagement is a great example how one of the largest organizations known for red tape and one-way conversations has made the change. It's all about having conversations with your customers and not at. What are you doing to engage and listen to your customers?

That sneaky status quo

Likely, you remember the game of <i>Where's Waldo?</i> The guy in the red-striped sweater was hiding somewhere in plain sight in a crowded picture, just waiting for you to find him. And once you did, he was so obvious you wondered how you could have been so blind.

The same can happen with the status quo, particularly when it's the most common practice in your industry. You look and look for innovations and improvements and incremental changes and fail to see the biggest possibility right in front of you.

This can be especially true when one group sees something as a right that is actually a drain on the company. It could be commissions paid to salespeople. It could lawyers and accountants charging by the hour. It could be accepting credit cards.

Too often, just like Waldo, the obvious improvement is right in front of us, just waiting to change. If we can just see it hidden in the "musts", "have to's" and "always done it that ways" of our businesses.

The Age of the Generalist

Left and right we're being bombarded by proponents of different modes of thinking. Some say we're entering the age of creatives, that right-brain thinking will rule the day. Others say we're in the age of numbers, that left-brain competing on analytics will conquer all.

Can we point out what has been obvious to common-sense thinking people throughout the ages? That it's the generalist who can alternate between both modes of thought with aplomb that really excels as creator of value. Don't go West young man, but don't go East either. Fly back and forth between both sides and do it with logic and style.

How? Look to the Pareto Principle for a clue. Master the art of connecting disparate dots and become a whole-brainer.

What to do if you don't want to compete on price

How would you like to have raving fans, who'll drive hundreds of miles to your stores to pay higher prices than your competitors charge?

REI has stores like that and I love to buy from them. They have great gear and knowledgeable staff (who actually use the gear). But they don't always have the lowest prices. In spite of that I go out of my way to buy from them rather than their competition.

Why?

Here's why:

That's right. A 100% satisfaction guarantee, no questions asked, for as long as you own the product.

I have a friend who went into an REI store with a tent he'd purchased over a decade ago. He wanted to order a replacement pole for one that he'd lost. They told him they couldn't get one exactly the right size. So they gave him a brand new (and better) tent.

Did they lose money on that transaction? Absolutely. But, they understand the lifetime value of a customer. And they understand that outdoor lovers talk.

The cost of a tent was a small price to pay for the number of people who've heard that story since it happened. REI's customers think they'd be crazy to take the risk of buying from someone else.

What's the story your customers are telling themselves?

Accomplished or acquainted?

Taking a piano lesson doesn't turn you into a master.

Strapping on skis doesn't qualify you for the Olympics.

Buying a router doesn't make you a carpenter.

Becoming an accomplished person isn't about what you do. It's about how often you do it and how much effort you put in. It's about making new habits, sticking with whatever you choose to do. Otherwise, you're just someone who's acquainted with activities, foods, ideas.

Can you make the commitment to be accomplished? Or will you only ever be acquainted with the concept?

Jamming a Square Peg Through a Round Hole

Local newspapers and their websites continue to lose readership and revenue. We just don't seem to care about the content they produce nor their gradually accelerating demise.

"But we're online now! And we're free too! People should be reading our stuff!"

Newspaper publishers looked around and first ignored the Web. Then they started to fear it as it grew. Then they decided to join it when they couldn't beat it and its legions of amateur bloggers.

First, the newspaper folks made people pay to read. Then they made it free. But it still doesn't quite work.

In newsrooms across the free land we hear, "Why doesn't anyone read good newspaper-quality content?"

Maybe they are asking the wrong question? It ought to be, "Why doesn't anyone read good Web-quality content for local topics?"

When new mediums or distribution channels arrive, they demand a new form or style of content. The radio folks couldn't figure this out when TV blasted onto the scene. You cannot just port your usual stuff and expect it to work in the new new thing. That's boring and awkward.

Write for the Web. Distribute for the Web. Not for newspapers in digital format. It's why TechCrunch and Huffington Post are winning. DailyCandy, Flavorpill, and UrbanDaddy have figured out a way to win too. They're wagging the long tail of interesting and focused local topics.

The people in your life love you...but they want you to fail

We assume the people in our lives, our family, our friends, our colleagues are rooting for our success. It's nice to think that isn't it? Unfortunately, it's simply not true.

Of course there will always be people in your life that genuinely wish for your success, but much more often than we'd like to think, even the people who love you the most, may wish for your failure and in some cases even try to sabotage you (before you get mad, give me a chance to explain...)

There are two reasons for this:

1. They don't want to lose you. Often times the people around you subconsciously don't want you to succeed because they're afraid that success will take you away from them. On some level they think that you'll move on to "bigger and better things."

This happens in so many contexts, but weight loss is a common example. A woman may think she actually wants her husband to lose weight for health reasons, but subconsciously she may be terrified at the idea of him actually being successful, for fear he may leave her when other women find him more attractive.

2. It makes them feel inadequate by comparison. Think about an area in your life that you're really dissatisfied with. Let's say it's your finances (you're struggling to pay the bills). Imagine that tommorrow you get a call from a friend who tells you he just sold his company for 10 million dollars! Are you happy for him? Be honest...

You might be happy for him. But if you were really honest with yourself you may admit to being at least a little bit resentful (often times darn right jealous). Why?

When the people around us succeed, especially in an area of our life that we are currently experiencing dissatisfaction in, we are forced to evaluate ourselves by comparison. At this point we have two choices:

1. Use their success as motivation to inspire us to achieve similar success in our own lives.

or

2. Criticize and tear this person down!

Which one do you think is easier and therefore most people do? Option 2 of course. This doesn't make them a bad person...it just makes them human.

Here's the point: The people in your life love you. That's a fact. But change makes us act irrationally, and most of the time we're not even aware of it.

I'm not saying that you should go around second guessing everyone in your life, trying to determine whether they're genuinely happy for you or not.  But you'd be foolish to ignore the possibility that they aren't fully rooting for you. So what should you do?

The best thing to do, is to love the people around you. Know that they really do care about you, but find your true advice and encouragement from people who you know are congruent in their support and even better: have an incentive for you to succeed (like a paid coach). This isn't a romantic notion, but it works.

Calling all comic book fans

The comic book industry is rallying old and new comic book readers encouraging them to check out their local independent comic book store. As a way to reach out to the community, they have created a yearly event called, Free Comic Book Day. This is exactly what the name implies. Specialty comic book shops across North America give away comic books absolutely free to anyone who comes into their shop. The day has three main purposes:
1) To introduce everyone to the joys of reading comics.
2) To call back former comic book readers.
3) To thank current comic book buyers for their continued support.

The event first started in 2002 and is coordinated and marketed by Diamond Comic Distributors. In its first six years, more than 2000 retailers in more than 30 countries have given away more than 12 million Free Comic Book Day special-edition comic books. The overall effect of Free Comic Book Day is a welcome boost to comic book sales (to participating retailers) and positive impact to the overall health of the comics market.

The good news is that this is an annual event. The bad news is that you just missed it yesterday on May 2nd. Hopefully the PR around this day (such as my blog) encourage you to not wait another year and to step back into your local comic book shop.

Maybe you shouldn't be talking

You lead the team. You have the fanciest title. You are the boss.

So of course, you make the presentation, right?

Wrong.

Your company gets one shot at this. The best presenter, speaker, seller should be front and center. Even if it's the mail guy.

If you aren't the absolute best presenter on the team, you shouldn't be talking. Period.