Marketing Rodent Blog

Now it has been some time since my last blog post, but I have been really really busy. Being busy comes with using your phone really often, as I was on the road a lot, it is a cellphone of course. Not only one, but I did test a whole of around 10 different cellphones. From the flashy iPhone, other smartphones, strict business phones like the Nokia E51 and even Walkman phones.

The result is rather horrifying for me: None of them (yes even the iPhone) is what I really needed.
So I started asking around, fellow business men, my mom, fellow golf players, fellow guitar players, people at the gym and so on. The end result was even more funny: None (yes as in ZERO) of them said that their phone is what they really wanted. They all had to settle for the product with the fewest downsides. This I think is really really sad.

So let me give you some examples:
Nokia was a company that I envied for their great marketing. They went from rubber boots to mobile phones by following lateral marketing, they managed to put out groundbreaking products like the "Matrix" banana phone or the first really usable thumb scroller. But these days are sadly long gone. Now they make stylish but useless highend phones, smartphones that are unusable or use input devices from 10 years ago and have screens that are a thing of the past. Production quality has also gone downhill since all Nokias I tested came with severe bugs in software and/or had quality issues (vibra call not working, backcover did not close correctly,....). The only thing they do nowadays is jump on the music bandwagon, with a marketing strategy that is bound to royaly fail, with products even worse than Sony Ericsson. Do they listen to what the people really want? Nope.

iPhone:
While this phone is the only one I tested that was really cool and easy to use it has some really really bad things also going for it. Some simple features that you would expect from a phone simply do not work, like using it as a modem for your laptop. I do not even start with AppStore stuff which I hate. Also while office integration is now more friendly and works at least mediocre, other phones can do that better.
Add to that a screen resolution that is no longer up to date and I have to pass. I give the iPhone that it is the phone with the most potential and I really hope they work those quirks out. I keep my fingers crossed, as I really really would want it to work, as the usability is so nice.

Other smartphones:
I had the usual suspects from Samsung, QTec and the like. All the newest stuff with the new Windows Mobile 6 platform. Most of these phones replace the standard Windows GUI with something new and sometimes iPhony stuff. The sad thing here is the nearly unusable Windows Mobile. The usability, even when pimped by the smartphone company, is bad. Most of them are unusable without a stylus and I hate these things. Also even getting your email to sync if it is something else than Exchange is horrible at best. But the worst part is what these things are built for -> making calls. Sometimes I got messages that people did not reach me, when I clearly was logged in to my cell provider. The phone simply rejected the call and I had a missed call message. Not to speak of the usual Windows crashes. I really felt like in the old Windows 95 days (I actually use Vista and it is quite stable). Sadly the Windows Mobile is nowhere near the stability of Vista or Server 2008. But I run a business, I need to receive calls any time of day and this is where these phones royally fail. Sad story.

Other phones:
Well all the other phones lack features that I would like to use. Skype over Wireless LANs, PTT, 3G calls, Email, Java Support, Navigation Support, Bluetooth (yes there are still phones without it) etc. There is no single phone that can do it all.
Well actually I found one, from all the Nokia bashing it is actually a Nokia. The E51 can do all that. Sadly its screen sucks big time and the usability is up to the worst you have seen since the 80s. Not to speak of the really bad built quality. Unacceptable for a business phone.

So from all the marketing people in the world? Where is your product management going with this? Are you really unable to put out a phone that can do some really simple things?

What would I want (and this seems to match many people I know):
- Simlpe to use phone, that can be used without a stylus
- Really good screen resolution, screen size of the iPhone is fine
- All the office stuff that works (not only Exchange Email!)
- Installable Apps from any location
- No resource hog mobile center to install on my PC/laptop
- Can connect to Mac and PC
- Has a good standby time
- Wireless LAN, 3G, GSM Tri-Band, Bluetooth, Infrared, USB
- Can be used as a modem via Bluetooth and USB
- Has a usable browser (like iPhone)
- Can read office documents and PDF
- Can use flash and flash movies
- Can play many different movie formats and resize it to screen resolution
- Can play many different music formats and has a good sound output
- Can upload all of that stuff like on a USB drive and not use proprietary software
- Can exchange the battery on my own and have multiple batteries with me
- Comes with car charger
- Can be charged via USB

You notice that I did not even mention a camera, as this is no mandatory feature for me. Many people I know agree with this list.

DISCLAIMER:
All the views expressed here come from my own experience and are things how a used that phones in real life situations and are not ment to discredit any of the named companies.
If you think I am wrong and you have the right phone already in your product lineup, feel free to send me an Email or send me a test phone (I do not want anything free, I will send it back after testing). I will absolutely write what I felt in the test. I will however always post what I think about it and not some marketing text you send along.

So what can we learn from this kind of marketing:
You should never detach from your market. It is my feeling that most of the mobile phone companies are only driven by their competitors and look at what they do and try to copy it badly and they do no longer listen to what the customer wants.
So they cry about decreasing sales figures and ever slowing down market sales.
I would say: No wonder. They should step back again, come to a screachy halt. Stop pushing out vaporware every 3 months. Sit down and make a real study what their customers would expect from a next generation device. Even if it takes long to develop such a device. And then put out something really cool that will blow us away.
Currently they are pushing and pushing towards total failure, even the big Nokia brand name is losing its appeal to many...

So if you are in a technology company that makes devices, keep this example in your mind. Never let only your competition drive you forward, you have to listen to your customers and you will be rewarded BIG TIME.

Posted by Thomas Mikl

To fill up a slight pause in our regular blog, I bring you an interesting example of how even the most innovative companies can royaly fail.

In this case it is Apple. Many times did people defend Apple and Apple fanboys and loyal customers were beyond anything, that any other geeky company could ever achieve. Even when they did not include features in the iPhone, that other phones had or skipped out on some features like GSM or UMTS in their laptops, they were forgiven as there were easy ways around it.

That royal fail that Apple now just did curiously came in the face of a really really innovative product. The new MacBook.

Now that thing really screams INNOVATION from its heart.
- New excellent display with LED backlight
- multitouch gestures
- excellent trackpad
- very nice keyboard
- cutting edge grafics

For the geeks:
- Cool backlit keyboard (on some models)
- rigid built
- top chipset
- top notch grafics

Now why is this new creation an epic failure?
It is the smallest thing actually. The simple Firewire port that is no longer present.
While the first horribly marketing foobar is, that Apple essentially left out a port that they themselves created and is vastly superior to USB, it is essential to many of Apples core customers.
Many of the most religious Apple customers have thousands of dollar worth of Firewire peripherals, like Camcorders, Soundrecording gear, Harddisks, etc.
Now while for Harddisks there is a solution with similar performance (eSATA), the MacBook does not have that one, the users of semi-pro soundgear or good camcorders are now left in the rain.

One of the most important (seldomly used, but marketing wise very important) features is Apple's Target Disk Mode. For those of you who do not know this: You can boot any Mac into Target Disk Mode and it will behave just like a Firewire Harddisk. You can then use it as a Harddisk, perform diagnostics or use Apple's Migration Assistant and easily migrate your existing Mac to a new one. The last feature is a real killer. I updated my MacBook twice so far and after an easy upgrade via Target Disk Mode had all my apps backup and running and all data restored on the new device whtin an hour. This is no longer possible with the new MacBook.

Well companies do that now and then, why will this small fact really hurt Apple?

Firstly because their most hardcore fanboys are now crying out in the thousands. I have friends that are Mac followers since their epic failures in the 90s and even followed Apple through that hard times until now. One of them even considers to switch to a PC laptop... JUST BECAUSE OF A SIMPLE PORT!

This simple fact and the fact that so many bloggers already started to blog about this killerfeature and the killer target disk mode, that will no longer work will also scare off all of those lovely iPhone converts.

Even for me (I am using PCs and Macs alike) the lack of this feature made it more likely to buy my new laptop with Windows AND a firewire port. Just because I have lots of firewire externals like harddisks and firewire delivers much more performance than USB 2.0.

Will this be the end of the Apple phenomenon?

Certainly not. The grade of innovation in their products still leaves many others in the dust and their overall marketing is excellent. But it will certainly hurt the A LOT. The sales of this new little bugger will be nowhere, where they could have been.

All of that just because leaving out a small port, that the chipset would support and prolly would have cost them 5 bucks to include, which most customers would have gladly payed....

Posted by Thomas Mikl

Last week a friend of mine approached me. Due to the fact that he is in Japan and I am in Europe and he cannot afford flying me in for consulting, he wants a local japanese consultant to setup his marketing, for his startup. So the good thing: "He already realized he is a tech geek and has no idea about marketing." Which is a good thing. He also followed my steps on how to not fail and he has the drive to do it. (No business details due to privacy on this site!)

But his question was a rather good one: "So how do I pick a marketing consultant that is really good and wont scew me? How do I recognize a good one?"

This is a very good question. So excellent that I thought it was worth a rather lengthy blog entry (but you should be used to long entries by now).

First of all you need to check for the total rubish consultants and the ones you want to investigate further.

How to identify the ones that really blow:

- Consultants that only talk to you about advertising
- Consultants that only talk to you about your business plan
- Consultants that only talk to you about your Vision(TM)
... you see where this leads. Those consultants that only have a single point approach should be avoided first. They may even have nailed that perspective of marketing, but prolly are totally overwhelmed with all other aspects. For some big companies those might even work, if they need help only in a single topic, but a startup needs help in every aspect of marketing.

The next thing you want to watch out for is NLP. Some consultants have excellent communication skills, but lack anything else. They are best identified: They always overdress (mony others do that too, so this is no indicator alone), they tend to try to get in the position to ask all the questions, but only ask open questions (questions where you talk a lot and tell them anything they will recommend to you). Furthermore they will try to recommend you things first that you already know, so you have a positive feeling towards them. They will also try to lure you into repeat traps (ask you several questions where you answer "yes" until they ask you a key question where you automatically say "yes" too). So be weary of those consultants. They can be good ones, but try to get in the asking questions position yourself and ask them blunt and direct questions and see how they react. If their only defense is to counter with a question themselves, they have nothing to say...

Check the background should be of course way up your list:
- What have they done so far
- Are they known in the startup scene
- Do they know at least basics of what you do
- Can you make them understand
- What is their success list

For pointers on what to ask look at: AllBusiness

At the point you talk to them you either already have a business plan or not. Show them your plan if you have one and see if they approach all levels or just have a standard procedure for everything. Many consultant companies (even and mostly the big ones) only have a set list of standard procedures that "always work" and tend to not care about your details. So check if the consultant really, in depth, understands your plan and bases his recommendations on your goals. If you do not have a plan, at least jot down your Vision and your goals.
Your goals should include goals for the first 2 years and all goals should be SMART (S - specific, significant, stretching, M - measurable, meaningful, motivational, A - agreed upon, attainable, achievable, acceptable, action-oriented, R - realistic, relevant, reasonable, rewarding, results-oriented, T - time-based, timely, tangible, trackable). Base the consultants work on this goals.

Now some of this consultants are "only consultants", so they will write you a report with recommendations and leave you with it. This is not what you want! You want someone who will care about you, if things change in your goals, which will happen especially with startups, you need someone to come up with a backup marketing plan. So a simple straight line recommendation is not enough for you. Have them also make at least a Plan B. A good consultant will keep in touch with you and at least peripherical track your success and look in on you from time to time on his own budget (of course also to score a new deal with you, but caring is rather important here). The serious ones also will not to try to keep you as a customer through lengthy contracts, but rather focusing on high quality work, which will speak for itself and make you come back to them anyways. If their contract is longer than the paper with recommendations you should avoid them.

Also avoid consulting firms that send you a sales employee to an interview rather than the consultant you will be working with "'cause he is to important and has to much to do". This is big BS in most cases and even if not, you do not need them...

Look into having them not only send you a paper of recommendations, but also planning of a budget according to your business plan combined with again SMART goals inside their recommendations. I think it is also a rather good way to not have fixed dates for marketing actions in a recommendation paper, it should be "trigger based". So whenever you reach one of your goals according to your business plan (e.g. Go-Live Milestone, failure on initial market, outperforming success in initial market,...) a set of marketing actions is triggered. This is followed by measuring the success of said actions. By the way: A consultant that will not provide you the tools to measure the success of his recommended actions should be thrown out the window, head first.

Now the really good consultants will also offer you to look into your business processes and try to help you to include marketing ideas in your process modells and strategy planning.

Now last but not least, consider the person in front of you when you interview a consultant. You will most likely have to work with him/her for quite some time. So you should get along well, but not to well. You are business partners and must not be best buddies, but if you cannot stand the person you will not like working with them either.

If you can have someone with at least basic understanding of marketing join the interviews. Someone you can trust and someone who is not a "wise guy".

Finally the rest is luck. This is the hard cold truth. The final decission if your invested money into marketing was a wise choice is up to the market. I know this is not what you like to hear, but that is it. Even consultants that made 20 startups flourish and their founders wealthy might eventually fail.

Posted by Thomas Mikl

Now until we can talk about some really cool stuff, we have to get the basics. As I see there are so many cool Startups failing, simply because they have no clue about the marketing basics and some do not even care, as "we are the one". Yeah, sure, whatever...

So I will give you a brief overview of some simple steps you should take, before you go on your endeavour to fame, glory and the big buck. I did not come up with this stuff myself as I said this are some marketing basics, most of them are agreed upon by the marketing community and found their way into the marketing bibles like Kotler's Books.

The first thing you should think about is your product. Now this sounds obvious, but it is not. Many startups have a clear thought about several cool things they will put into their plattform and why it is nice and will "win". But if you ask them: "Describe me your platform in one sentence." None can answer.
So think about what makes your plattform better than others. Which needs does your platform cater to. How does the current economic state effect your plattform (will it be used less, as people currently spend lower money on subscriptions, or is you platform free to use?). And finally: Do you love what you do, or are you just doing it for the big buck? This is not to be taken lightly, sometimes you will spend several years of your live developing your product until you finally make the big buck or fail. So you should at least have a good time doing so.

The second most important thing, and funny the second thing most startups fail to recognize is their customers. The simple questions: Who will be using your plattform? Will comsumers or businesses use it (or both)? Is it something completely new you adress, or do you just think I am better in filling need X than company Y (and why do you think that)? Is there something you are offering as a "killer feature" that will beat your competitors (and how will users be able to recognize it, in the minimal time you have to explain this)? How are you different from the other 2000 startups in your market? Is someone else trying something similar and how are you different?
All this questions need answering BEFORE you start. If you do not know your market and your customers, you will fail. Or sometimes through plain luck, users will use your platform for something totally different like you intended and you will be bought by Microsoft or Google. But that chance is very slim, just look how many startups got actually bought out and how many try to startup... Then calculate your numbers, I'd rather play in the lottery or go to a casino.

Next check yourself, if you are up to the simple tasks you will need to do running your business:
- setting appointments and the self-management
- ordering supplies (inlcuding servers, bandwith, cloud computing time,...)
- bookkeeping
- MARKETING!
- filing
- answering the phone like a CEO
- handling your e-mails
- MARKETING
- communication with finaciers, VCs, Angels
- communication with your bank
- can you handle the stress of a (big) loan
For many of the things you can get help, or have someone else do it. But if you run your company you should have a clue about any of those tasks AND you should be able to do them yourself in case of emergency and for controlling purposes.

Now I hope this few simple things are some food for thought for you until I go on my vacation. I will be back in 2 weeks with a blog about how to prepare yourself for business.
Until then... Never hesitate, never panic, always look cool and keep going

Posted by Thomas Mikl

This is something I wanted to get off my soul for a long time, so this will also be a fairly long read. I hope it is worth it for both geeks and marketing people and company CEOs.

Companies spend thousands of dollars or many times tenfold that money to recruit the best of the best, the ultra geek and "the man" that does it all. During the recruiting process these employees get all the courtesey of a president and their mothers compined.
Then when they finally signed their contracts, which they forgot to read... GAME OVER PAL.

This is the sad truth, at least on this side of the pond, I know that for many US companies the things I will write about are totally different and employees especially those lucky ones at google, have a much different live.

Now what European companies still do not get is:
Your employees are the most important capital you have. If you lose that employee that cleans out the garbage, well sad (although good cleaning personal is just as hard to get, trust me on this), but if you lose that guy that can handle 8 assignments at once and manage 6 other people while programming 2000 lines of code, this is also sad... FOR YOU THE COMPANY.

Now I know that for short term savings every stupid consulting company and their brother (no names here, but you know which ones I mean) will tell you to fire the people you do not need and some more, then quit giving everyone benefits and drive a harder bus to school. In the short term this will exactly accomplish what they need to get their benefits, you will save money for a little while, then the productivity of the rest of your employees will start to go downhill rapidly and the good geeks you have left will jump ship as soon as they can. And trust me the good ones can.

This is the age of Web 2.0, we geeks are no longer closed minded morons who sit behind their screen 24/7 without thinking 2mm above the screen. Nope. We got organized. For everything we do not know, we now know at least 200 people who do know. Via cool Web 2.0 portals. We drive to barcamps, do LAN parties with the marketing department, go to dance with the finance crew and smoke some... cigars with the CEOs of other companies. We are a well informed villain of the Web 2.0 age if you do not care about us.

But we are actually quite easy to handle and if you do that, well productivity will fly through the roof. Look at the examples of google, ideo and other companies with a lot of incentives. Not only have they less people quitting jobs, no their average employee has a productivty that will drive tears into your eyes.

Now you do not need to go the whole way to benefit from that, google is nearly over the top, prolly feeding several small families of each employee... But in Europe in most companies we do not even get free coffee!

Coffee and drinks is a good example. To have good fresh roasted coffee (not that crap in the plastic cups) is something we Europeans really like and some cool beverages, especially in the hotter regions of Europe cannot be to bad either. Now many companies offer this, but you have to pay for it. Huh? Yes you heard right, we need to pay for coffee. Into somekind of self-organized coffee kitty. Out of this most of the time results bad bad fire. Someone forgets to pay, someone doesn't have enough change and decides to pay later and so on. The time the one person organizing this kitty will no doubt lower their productivity and the 20 people talking about it all day if they see someone not paying even more. In the end this will cost your company so much money, that you will wish you had payed for every single drop of liquid your personal drinks every day. I have done this research in several companies and after getting them to pay for all the drinks and coffee, aswell as tea and sometimes even some snacks or fresh fruit every day, they thanked me over and over, how much money they actually saved. Not only by putting an end to all the discussion and organizational time sinks, no suddenly productivity of nearly every single employee raised at least 15%. It is really easy to make more money, if you know how. But sometimes you have to spend some, to get even more.

The moral really is you need to take care of your employees and especially your geeks, or they will be on jobpilot before you can say nancy boy. Of course you can overdo the whole thing. To give every employee a personal hug as the CEO every day, is not something you should consider. And to give them 3-5 free meals every day, like google, can be a little to much possibly. When they argue more about who gets the next go at the table tennis, than to do some work, you shot over the target. But most of the time the right way is NOT to take that things away, but to find some regulations that will help you do so and help your employees to get motivated through the day. Simple rules like: On tuesdays after 4pm you get a 20min massage. No table tennis during XXX hours and so on. If your team structure is healthy and your team managers are responsible nice folks, then they can handle such things as they see fit. This will have a real positive influence on the people and the climate in your company. Again -> good climate -> no dropouts -> happy employees -> more productivity -> more revenue. It is really easy to make more money, if you know how. But sometimes you have to spend some, to get even more.

You also need to start trusting your employees. Overcontrolling is the next bad step. It wont work. Every company I have screened so far, if they do time recodring and productivity accounting IS LIED TO ON A BIG SCALE. Most employees will organize on a big scale and just put into the accounting what sounds plausible to them. Most of the time it will be. None will ever know what really happened. I do not say you should skip controlling, if you did that your planning would fail on a grand scheme.
The solution is project oriented controlling. Your managers should do a good amount of project planning with enough milestones in doable portions of time for each employee they manage. The employee just subscribes to the job and updates each day how much he got to the goal and if he still is on track. If he is done he ticks of the milestone and subscribes to the next job(s). (Yes they even can subscribe to more than one, they are not stupid you know...) If he gets off track he can easily escalate the matter to his manager and they can workout a solution. Of course some European laws tell you, you need to do time recording, but an easy come/go system is sufficient for that. Put these 2 things together and you are set.
Having 12 different SAP or Navision instances running just to handle all the booking and having to pay 12 additional employees just to correct all the errors such systems make will cost you dearly.

The next thing with trust is real money. The average employee in a European company without a management role has a yearly budget of 200 Euros. MY 12 YEAR OLD NICE GETS MORE THAN 10 TIMES OF THAT ALLOWANCE! The average company really has to get to the point where they do not always think, if they do something good for the employees that they will get screwed. Because most of the time you wont be. The few times you will be, will be far outweight by the positive effects on your company.

Your employees are not only creating the company climate inside your company, each and everyone of them will take that climate with them and outside. (We geeks got organized you got that right?) Even if they have no contact with customers directly, word will reach the ears of customers and potential new geeks that you want to recruit. They will talk to their families and friends about your company. Those friends will talk to friends and so on. The word of mouth is still the best marketing tool you can have, or are you still wondering why nearly every geek on the planet wants to work for google... (I think they are still number 1 this year). This also holds true for small companies in a more closed environment. Given some time, the whole city will know how you treat your 20 employees and your customers will know for sure.

On the other hand, if you managed to create a nice company climate, even integrated this rules in your company lifestyle (yes make your company not only an employer, but a lifestyle). You are in for a surprise. Geeks are organized you got that right? You will be hyped. There will be buzz about your company all over the social networks, on twitter, in blogs, on facebook, they might even make movies about you on youtube or 12seconds. Not only to mention they will hype you in their families, talk with friends and so on. Every geek, their brother and moms will want to work for you and those that already do will make your companies profits go up and up, as they will be more productive than your competitors geeks.
So at last you have to realize: It is really easy to make more money, if you know how. But sometimes you have to spend some, to get even more.

Now for you geeks that are still not organized and work in a crappy company... Get out there and get a new life! Show your companies that they cannot exploit you, withtout giving anything back to you! The real power is you! Without you, your companies are just a bunch of managers, that can then manage themselves going downhill and getting expensive consultants to save money they could have easily made elsewhere...

Of course I could go on with this topic for ages, but if you did not get the point until now, chances are you never will...

Stay tuned for the next episode, where we will talk about some missconceptions on the geeks side about marketing and why several cool platforms fail in the early stages of their development.
If you made it that far... thanks I hope this was a good read for you

Posted by Thomas Mikl

This is just a short update to remind everyone about the upcoming barcamp in Graz.
I hope this will be as productive and nice as the past barcamp in Traunkirchen, which was totally awesome due to the extremely nice countryside.
You can find all information about the Barcamp Graz here: Barcamp Link
Stay tuned for the next update, as promised with more marketing background...

Posted by Thomas Mikl

Finally this blog has been setup.
The reason for writing this blog is quite simple. In the age of Web 2.0 there are many (oh yes a great many) startup companies that are driven by awesome technology and even more awesome ideas.
Sadly though, many of them hit the financial bottom rather fast and are gone, or worse their owners are discouraged etc.
Most of the time it is not a bad idea (although this may happen) why this startups fail, the most common failure is simply -> they are not used, they have no real business modell, they hope google will buy them and heck they don't, they do not reach potential customers .... the list goes on but can be put to one simple term -> the marketing fails.
Now many geeks (such as myself long time ago) thought that marketing is for nancy boys only and if the idea is good enough, it will sell itself. Well I woke up... It won't sell itself. Well some do, but it is like winning the lottery.
So as a tech geek I got my master in marketing, because I just wanted to know WHY?
So simply put I may still be geeky to the marketing crowd and I may be a little bit nancy to all the geeks and nerds out there, but I sure hope this is not a bad thing. As I want to try to bring them together and provide "the missing link" here in form of my discovery blog.
I hope to update at least twice a week with findings as I always search the web and will tumble upon things and provide my feeback here.
Sometimes of course I wont find anything, so I will simply blog some stuff that comes to mind, which you may or may not find interesting.
So stay tuned for updates, I hope you will enjoy my blog and find something useful...

Posted by Thomas Mikl