Randy Cooper's Blog

Sharing the technology that makes my world

4 things you can learn from pegboard

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Now that I’ve finished business school, I have my weekends back. After spending every weekend for two years doing homework, I spent the first few weekends just relaxing, watching sports on TV, and generally being lazy. I’ve been talking about cleaning out my garage for the last few years and I finally got around to it.

My workbench is the heart of my garage, and the heart of the workbench is the pegboard above the bench where all of my tools are displayed. Collected from every nook and cranny throughout the house, I now have all of my tools collected and organized. Isn’t pegboard awesome?

Organizing your tools on a pegboard is a lot like starting a business or any other project. Sometimes, you don’t know what you don’t know. The farther along I got in my organization, the more tools began appearing. Heck man, I found tools I didn’t even know that I had! And why does anyone need three hammers? In any case, the takeaway is that sometimes you don’t have all the information, but you need to take action anyway.

Once I got all of my tools on the pegboard, the last adjective that would have come to your mind would have been ‘organized’. Sure, all the tools were on the pegboard, but similar tools were located in different areas. More commonly used tools were the farthest to reach, while tools I haven’t used in years were right in front of me.

Much to my dismay, I realized that I needed to delay my strong sense of accomplishment and make some changes. Its often that we rethink plans and make changes. Not to venture into ‘scope creep’, its entirely acceptable to evaluate a project and think “I can do better”. Don’t be afraid to start all over again. You learned something from the first time, the next time will be way better.

Pegboard is cool, but it doesn’t snap the tools automatically back into place. If you use a tool, you have to put it back. In the same way, as you work, be organized. Nothing infuriates me more than feeling like I am not prepared or getting into a situation where I have to ‘wing it’. Organization take discipline and discipline takes practice.

I never thought I would be looking for business lessons while organizing my garage, but I discovered some gems along the way. I could have cleaned the garage and not noticed those things though. Just like that you need to remain open-minded and ready to try new solutions, even when you’re not looking to reengineer.

After two grueling years, Saturdays are really good again.

CRM: Suspects, Prospects, MQL, SQL, Customers and Advocates

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Source: Pixabay.com

Source: Pixabay.com

When we talk about marketing automation, it is built upon the foundation of a CRM. This is where contact information is stored about suspects, prospects, customers, and past customers.

Suspects are leads that have not yet been qualified. If we follow the traditional funnel analogy, these leads are at the top. Our goal is to segregate suspects into prospects and those which are of no marketing value.

A prospect is a marketing qualified lead (MQL). This means that they have been recognized as having the characteristics to become a customer. They have both a need for our product or service and the budget necessary. It’s a no-brainer that we have to determine if the person or company has a need for our product, but when it comes to pricing we need to determine if we’re on the same page.

For example, I was looking for backup solutions. I was contacted by many vendors. I knew my budget was under $7000, so why would I even bother wasting time discussing solutions that were 15-20k? Not only did I rule them out, they ruled me out because I didn’t have the budget for their product. Naturally, if you’re disqualifying a lot of leads for price, one has to look at if your product is over priced or you need to build a cheaper product to meet lower budget requirements.

The Holy Grail is to convert a prospect into a customer. Part of that is to establish that we are working with a sales qualified lead. BANT is an acronym which stands for budget, authority, need, and timing. We’ve already established their need and budget. Are we working with the right contact though? Do they have they authority to make the deal? Or are they the one responsible for making a recommendation to be approved? In either case, this could satisfy the criteria to becoming a sales qualified lead (SQL). Good salespeople use pain points, the problem that your product or service solves, and makes sure their customer understands the pain and how your product or service solves that problem better than any other available option. Timing is also a big consideration. If it’s January and you tell me that this decision will not be considered until Q4, my time is better spent talking to someone who can buy now and I’ll call this customer back in late August.

Once a customer, we never want to lose them. In fact, our mission at that point is to turn them into an advocate. We want them to send us referrals and recommend our products to their network. Nothing, nothing, nothing beats a word of mouth recommendation from a trusted source.

If by chance we do lose touch we a customer, let’s find out why. Is there a fault in the product that caused buyer’s remorse? Did we fail in providing superior service? Is there a reason you no longer need these types of products or services? Maybe we just lost touch and need to reconnect in order to reestablish our business relationship? Either way, let’s find out the answers so we can bring this contact back into the fold.

Understanding your CRM and where your contacts are on their buyers journey, helps you to segment your list and provide relevant content to them depending on where they are towards buying your products or services.

Lead Nurturing 101

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office-336368_1280At my company we are working on our first lead nurturing campaign with our new marketing automation system. As with most of these types of systems, the difficulty is not with the technical aspects but with the content generation and forming the message.

I spoke several weeks ago about buyer personas. Buyer personas define the different groups or segments that we craft our message for. We want to tailor our message so it speaks specifically to a single buyer persona, using their language and addressing the pain points that are applicable to them.

A survey by Marketing Sherpa, states that 79% of marketing leads never convert to sales. Lead nurturing sends crafted communications to your prospect that guides them through their buyers journey. This content adapts based on their behavior and activity, so that it is truly personalized for them. The goal is to build a relationship, trust and eventually, advocacy.

Buyers don’t want to be “sold”, they need information to make the right buying decision. They need education about the problem they are facing, a discussion of the available solutions, and why your solution is the best to meet their needs.

The content in your lead nurturing campaign speaks volumes towards creating that relationship with your prospect. How that message is crafted, the language you use, the tone of your message, and the style in which you communicate, helps set the tone just as it would if you were calling on the phone.

Digital marketing relies heavily on written communications, but don’t forget that you can also use video to further engage your prospect. Video is also extremely useful when it comes to forming relationships. Just as we identify with characters on television and feel as if we have come to know them, so also do buyers establish a bond with your spokesperson through the effective use of video.

A positive lead nurturing campaign effectively communicates your message across multiple channels to your buyer personas and engages them through the buyers journey toward conversion and ultimately advocacy.

Predictive Analytics: Designing Marketing Campaigns from Google Analytics

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board-935455_960_720As an MBA student, I often wonder “why all the math courses?”. When I recall statistics and probability courses as an undergrad though, I remember how this excited me about running my Google Analytics numbers through some of those algorithms – just to see what would turn up, right?

I continued after graduation by taking some data science courses that further helped me understand the relationship between past analytics and predictive marketing. As a marketer, no phrase is truer than “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it“. We should constantly evaluate our statistics to see if we can improve upon the areas we have done well and change the areas where we have done poorly.

When it comes to analytics, I saw a presentation months ago although I cannot remember the source. The speaker said that past analytics was descriptive, present analytics was streaming, and future analytics was predictive. This made perfect sense to me.

Descriptive is the perfect word for past analytics because it describes what took place. The thing I like about number is, number don’t lie. The numbers themselves cannot be twisted, only the interpretation of the number can be twisted. Analytics is a powerful tool for marketers to understand the effectiveness of their campaigns and provide feedback for designing future campaigns.

Present, or streaming, analytics refers to real-time analytics. Have you seen Google Analytic’s real-time mode? Its really quite fascinating, because you can actually watch activity on your website as it happens. Although I do question its overall usefulness, I do find it interesting to watch during the day.

This brings us to predictive marketing. How cool would it be to create marketing campaigns based on past analytics? If you really dig into your data, you might be doing that already. For instance, if you find that your demographic is 65-70% female, this would probably change the way that you approach the topics that you’ll use for inbound marketing content.

Its all about relevancy and understanding your users. What better way than to study past behaviors and use that to design content and campaigns that you’ll use in the future. Welcome to predictive marketing.

Apple Watch: Frivolous Toy or Companion Gadget?

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IMG_2680I decided to take the plunge into wearable technology and get Apple Watch for my wife and me. I’ve been wanting one for about six months and since Santa hasn’t been answering my letters since I was 12, I figured if I wanted one I should just go get one.

Day 1, it didn’t take long for me to ask the above question. Did I just make a frivolous purchase? Is this more toy than tool? It didn’t take long for my question to be answered.

A hammer is just a hammer to the unskilled. To a craftsman though, its an essential addition to his tool belt. Ergo, it is not the device. It is how useful the device is to the person.

After my first full day with the Apple Watch, I was demonstrating to my wife all of the cool things I learned that it could do. In about 20 minutes, I’d exhausted the depth of my newfound knowledge that it had taken me all day to acquire.

After three days with Apple Watch, I’ve come to rely on it. I find I use my phone less to check notifications and to send or read text messages. I like not wearing a watch and a Fitbit. The Apple Watch Activity Tracker syncs up perfectly with the MyFitnessPal app, something the Fitbit never did for me. It may sound stupid, but I really like the photo album watch face option that displays a different picture every time it I look at it.

Could I go without the Apple Watch now? Nah, not really. It really helps you stop being a phone zombie. You know, those people who always have their head stuck down in their phone? A gentle notification ding and a buzz on the wrist let me know I have a notification to review. With a simple turn of the wrist, I can read a text message or see what the notification was about. That’s much less obtrusive and rude than pulling out the phablet.

Yeah, the Apple Watch is the shiznet for me.

Why Every Leader Needs a Sandbox

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kid-395660_1280

Image Source: Pixabay.com

There’s a concept in software development known as a sandbox. It’s a simulation of your production environment where you can perform development work and test out new ideas. I think this can be replicated on a broader scale to almost every industry.

I think we should always be trying out new methods. It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about software development, marketing or business in general; things seem to keep changing all of the time. In order to adapt to those changes and thrive, as leaders, we have to continue to make course corrections, adjustments or even completely new ventures to keep the ball moving forward.

I come from five generations of carpenters and the phrase “measure twice, cut once” was drilled into my brain from the time I was old enough to hold a hammer. I also learned the value of practicing on small projects before attempting a large project. A sandbox gives leaders the space they need to try projects on a small scale without impacting the business until success has been proven for that method.

Inside the sandbox, we learn what works and, more importantly, what doesn’t. We sometimes uncover challenges that we had not considered previously. The sandbox gives us the opportunity to demonstrate concepts that might be difficult for others to grasp without visuals. This allows for additional input from our trusted advisors for consideration in our decision marking process.

Much like a brainstorming session, we should feel free to try projects at will. Even though many ideas fail, they may lead you to another idea that you would never have thought of had you not gone through the experience of the first idea. Much like an inventor, failure should not be considered to be a negative, but rather another step on the journey of reaching the destination of a solution.

Naturally, some ideas are unable to be presented on a small scale. Some concepts need the ability to reach critical mass before they will ever grow legs. In cases such as this though, one might be to segment various steps of the overall process and put those in the sandbox for testing and evaluation to help minimize risk on the overall project.

The sandbox can be a wonderful tool for leaders to test new concepts on a small scale with minimal risk and investment before launching projects on a broader scale. It is only through experimentation and innovation that we continue to grow and achieve our goals in today’s changing environments.

How to Become a Video Ninja in 10 days

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videographer-698667_1280It’s been a few weeks since my last post. That’s because I actually DO practice what I preach and have been busy honing my skills to become a video ninja. Ok, maybe not. How about a video Jedi? Not hardly, but I think I’m better than most people are at creating videos.

What does it actually take to produce pretty decent videos – besides $2000 for a professionally done video? Understand first that there are multiple skill sets involved that you will need to become familiar with. Notice I say “become familiar with” and I didn’t use the word “master”. If we could master these skill sets then we could start charging $2000 for videos, right?

Mastery also takes more time. My goal is to produce a video of sufficient quality to be better than most. For me, I just want to work on content production and pushing that content out, rather than spend days trying to produce a perfect video.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that I am not new to this. I have producing video content for the last three or four years but that was using a Windows PC and Camtasia (it’s what Windows Movie Maker is based on). Now that I have a Mac, I wanted to use the Adobe product suite. BIG learning curve! More on that later. I am still learning and I do not consider myself to be a video ninja although most people give me that credit because they wouldn’t know how to start putting a video together.

The first thing you need is some decent equipment. You don’t need to spend $1000 or more to get this equipment although you can easily spend way more than that. I shoot all of my video and still images right on my iPhone 6 Plus and get great results. For my audio, I have found that my Plantronics Bluetooth earpiece gives me awesome sound. These things I already have! I did buy a nice quality microphone with a pop filter and boom for my home office but I mostly use that for webinars and such, not my audio recording. All three set me back about $50 and my audiophile friend told me he paid over $200 for the same exact stuff just two years ago.

You’ll need the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite, which now I think is only available by subscription. It’s about $50/month but I got grandfathered in at the student rate at $29/mo. SWEET! If you’re going to be recording audio, you get learn a little about Adobe Audition. When my audiophile friend saw me recording in QuickTime he shuddered. He told me that Audition is the way to go and it’s just as easy to record in that and you can edit it right there too.

Obviously with video, you’re going to be working in Adobe Premier. Its pretty straightforward if you have any exposure to any other video editing tools. The thing that really tripped me up was learning how to pan and zoom still images. This is sometimes referred to as the “Ken Burns” effect because of the many documentaries that use this technique. It’s a way to use still images but make them more interesting by providing a point of focus and animation. The secret was this video Create a Ken Burns Effect in Premiere Pro CC .

Last but not least, you need to be able to create graphics in Photoshop. You can easily create some nice titles and other images for use in your videos. Using some of the skills you learned in the “Ken Burns” video, you can really make some nice additions to make your videos appear quite professional.

I think the stumbling block for many people when it comes to creating video content is just coming up with ideas, but that’s a topic for another post! Best of luck creating your videos!

Confessions of a #Podcast Listening Driver with @MichaelHyatt @soniasimone @brianclark

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podcast-listenerI think some of the biggest gains I have made in my personal development time has been spent listening to podcasts in my car on my evening commute home.  Carnegie Mellon came out with a study that just listening to cell phones significantly impairs drivers. In this case, I am doomed.

Regardless of what your area of interest is, or whether its business related or not, chances are pretty good that you will find a podcast of someone discussing your topic. With an iPhone its stupid easy. With an Android, I’m not sure but I am just guessing its not that difficult. Check out this AndroidCentral article on podcasting.

If you’re new to podcasting or haven’t full embraced podcasting, let me encourage you to try this sometime. In Atlanta traffic, I blow 8 hours a week driving. I’m by myself and I’m a horrible singer. I realize this most when I try to sing along with the radio. But, I am a pretty good listener and it really helps me in my personal development to listen to some of these podcasts.

One guy I really like is Michael Hyatt. I’ve listened to over a dozen of his podcasts and this guy is spot-on. The show always maintains my attention and I feel like it equips me to be better in so many areas. I highly suggest checking out this podcast.

If the area of digital marketing interests you, then you need to listen to Confessions of a Pink-Haired Marketer with Sonia Simone. I’ve never met her personally but I feel like I have. She is totally authentic and just sounds like the nicest person you’d ever want to meet. More than that though, she gives you some straight scoop on digital marketing and conducting business online. I have found her to be a valuable resource.

Finally, I also like to listen to Brian Clark and his show New Rainmaker. I really like his style and the format of the show. I cannot tell you how much I learn sitting on my butt in traffic! It’s truly amazing!

Regardless of what Carnegie Mellon has to say about it, I want to encourage you to listen to podcasts while driving. It redeems the lost time of driving and turns it into an experience to look forward to!

Captain Obvious, Are You Going To Do Online Video or What?

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online-videoCisco released a report in May 2015 forecasting a large increase in video traffic by 2019. They have a very scientific way of stating the obvious. Of course, when Cisco looks at traffic they are accounting for all forms of streaming video such as television broadcasts, set top boxes as well as services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Instant Video. In this post though, I wanted to address video and how it is going to increase in content marketing over the next few years.

Let’s face it, when YouTube came out in 2005 it was a game changer. 10 years later, we have more funny cat videos than we know what to do with. In much the same way, live streaming has been around for a while with services like Ustream, but the technology is going through a period of rebirth with services like Periscope and Meerkat. User-contributed live streaming video now seems all the rage.

One thing I like about such a medium is the authenticity factor. It’s live like a 50s TV show. There’s no editing, no retakes, no post-production – heck people are holding up cards with words printed on them to clarify points or display important information like their website URL. Worse still, there’s plenty of five year olds dancing and teenage girls using the camera as a mirror and primping. It’s enough to make you walk away from it all but every once in a while you find a gem or make a solid connection and it all seems to have been worthwhile.

I love webinars. I think the thing I like most is when rich media content is mixed in with the speaker’s presentation. What I hate is boring Powerpoint presentation and, worse yet, boring speakers.

Both of these two mediums share some things in common. Both are live and require no editing. The webinar traditionally does a lot more on the front-end in promoting the session and recruiting viewers. With Periscope or Meerkat, its much more of an impromptu audience. Webinars almost always feature the Powerpoint presentation. Periscope or Meerkat feature the speaker.

These aren’t the only options. Google Hangouts On Air is also available. Youtube also has a live streaming option and even Facebook offers this if your profile is classified as belonging to a public figure (look for this to change though).

Just as Web 2.0 heralded the advent of user contributed content, live streaming video will change the way we interact with one another and the way companies interact with their customers.

Your organization may have a video or two, but most organizations don’t have a strong effort to produce videos as they do textual content. I think you’ll see this change soon. The level of interactivity with live video is too strong for brands to ignore. The opportunity to engage with video content and the messages that can be conveyed make us realize just how limited our efforts of today truly are.

Video is coming to your organization, Captain Obvious. Now what are you going to do about it? A few months ago I met Ryan Felton on LinkedIn and his site AVA is pretty awesome and will tell you more about online video and serves as a pretty killer resource. That’d be a good place to start!

GO AHEAD, make me remember ONE MORE PASSWORD!!!

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dashlane-linkedinHow many passwords do you have rambling around in your head? How many places do you use the SAME password? Do you use complex passwords that contain both upper and lower case, numbers and symbols?

Let me introduce you to my new friend –DASHLANE. I think I have gotten at least 25% more brain space available by switching to Dashlane. We all have way too many passwords to remember. We have financial passwords for banking accounts and investments. We have passwords for work, in some cases up to a dozen for various systems. We have passwords for websites that we use. We have password for online shopping accounts. The list is seemingly endless and it also seems to be growing. Every time I turn around it seems some place else wants me to create an account.

Do you really want to see me go ballistic? Ask me what your password is! “Well, you helped me change it the last time” is not a valid answer. I have my own passwords to remember, do you really think I’m going to be able to remember yours too?

dashlane-iconEnter Dashlane. Download the app on your Mac or Windows PC and it reads all of the stored passwords from your browsers. Next, it analyzes your passwords and gives a security grade for each letting you know what passwords you might want to consider changing.

If you want to get fancy, you can go for the premium subscription (starts at $39/yr) and it will sync across your devices so you won’t ever be left wondering what your password is even with just your phone or tablet.

If all this weren’t enough, there’s a cool area for you to store information you want kept securely. I think this is a great place to put banking information, how to access your safety deposit box, girlfriends phone numbers (just kidding, honey). Additionally, it safely stores your credit card information as well and that makes online shopping a breeze!

If you absolutely hate keeping tracking of passwords, Dashlane is going to change your life! You can download it by visiting dashlane.com and downloading the app for your OS and be sure to try it on your mobile devices also. It’s a free 30 day trial so you can see how it syncs to your mobiles but I think I’m stuck on Dashlane and am just going to bite the bullet for 3 years at 99$.