Look at Your Website

Two things are happening fast: the Internet is changing Everything and customers want a LOT more.

The Internet makes things transparent. Your Customer Service, your network, everything is available in a search. User Reviews is what Web 2.0 is all about. Web 2.0 is all about user generated content. People want to hear from other users what to expect when they spend hard earned money. Transparency.

Action for YOU: Video Testimonials from your customers.

Ideas: use SightSpeed and a conference call with each client and record it. Or video tape in front of the client's shop - a commercial for you both.

The Internet means shopping 24/7. Cyber Monday will likely be bigger than Black Friday numbers.

• How easy is it for people to buy from YOU?
• How easy to sign up for your service?
• How many questions does your website answer?

You need to update your website! Why? If I have to explain it to you, you won't do it anyway. (But you can read Why here). I know. I know. I don't have time! Outsource it. There are many folks on Guru.com and elance.com that will redesign it for you. (Or call my VA, Ricki, and she can help you).

Luckily, Customer Service from the Duopoly is at best Poor. So you only need to be a little better than that to be Excellent. Your website can help. So can other tools like a Newsletter, Twitter, your blog, online classes or videos, a FAQ, network update widget, customer reminders (to upgrade O/S and to upgrade and run anti-virus), email reminders to back-up data. This is how you create revenue opportunities as well as Care for your Customers.

ISPCON Keynotes

In case you missed ISPCON in San Jose last month (and judging by the attendance most of you DID miss it), here are the write ups on the keynotes by Donny Smith of Jaguar Comm. talking about Fiber and John Todd of Digium talking about Asterisk.

Free Software for Your Customers

LifeHacker posts The 46 Free Desktop Software Applications, Webapps, and Projects We're Most Thankful For, which includes Firefox, Thunderbird, Avast, Winamp, and Google software like Gmail, Calendar, Picasa, and Docs. What a gift for your ISP customers! What a way to market your business by offering classes in all 46 pieces of software.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thank you for reading my blog. And if you commented or actually applied any of these ideas, thanks! (But you should drop me a note to let me know!) Just a quick note to my clients, thank you for helping me have another successful year. Hopefully you had one as well.

May the blessings of this Thanksgiving fill your hearts and home!

HostingCon 2009

HostingCon 2009 started early registration now till 12/31/08. HostingCon has new management that has moved the show to Washington, DC on August 10 - 12, 2009 at the Gaylord National Resort and Conference Center.

I just want to know when they accepted speaking proposals?

Don't Dwell on the Doom

Good article from Florida Trends magazine about the Recession. It coincides with what I wrote on TMC's On RAD's Radar this morning.

In combination with the housing bubble, we are experiencing an economic slow down. Our economy and capitalism is predicated on business cycles. Cycles have their ups and their downs. From 1937 to the present, we have had 13 recessions that varied in length from 6 months to 16 months. The important thing to remember here is that with each of these recessions, we emerged into a dynamic, growing economy. I promise you that we will come out of this recession probably in late 2009 or early 2010.

While the news is not good now, concentrating on the negatives that are bombarding us daily is not good for you or for your employees. All of this negative news is causing uncertainty and fear in your staff. They are fearful for their jobs, their families and so much more. If there is ever a time to be especially kind and compassionate with your staff, this is it. They need to see you upbeat showing them that we will get through this and be even more prosperous.

One thing that you can do is try not to watch excessive amounts of TV. There is so much gloom out there that it is contagious. You just cannot afford to catch this, “gloom flu.” More than ever, your staff needs you to be an upbeat leader who focuses on the positive and demonstrates the certainty that we will come out of this economic morass. Watching negative news stories will not help this at all.

Louisiana Seed Funding

Chris Schultz at Voodoo Ventures is doing wonderful things in New Orleans. Award504. Start-up School. BarCampNOLA. ApacheCamp. And more. Chris is a great resource to network with!

Today, he blogged (and twittered) some helpful hints for seed funding for Louisiana businesses.

I missed the events that Tulane put on in the last week for Entrepreneurs. Sorry. Calendar here.

E-Rate Services 2009

The FCC released the funding year 2009 Eligible Services List (ESL) for the schools and libraries universal service support mechanism (commonly known as E-rate) pursuant to section 54.522 of the Commission’s rules. On July 31, 2008, the Commission released a public notice seeking comment on the ESL proposed by the universal service fund’s administrator, the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), for funding year 2009, as required by section 54.522. The FCC declined to adopt any of the changes to the ESL proposed by USAC. As such, the funding year 2009 ESL we release today is the same as the funding year 2008 ESL. The list of Eligible Services for E-Rate runs about 48 pages. Read it here in text [PDF]

USAC also runs the Rural Health Care Program of the Universal Service Fund, which offers discounts on eligible services to eligible applicants.

10 Tips for Building a Profitable Biz

Brad Feld pointed out: "Ted Rheingold at Dogster has a great post up titled 10 Tips for Building a Profitable Business."

You have to run it like a business, not a hobby. Write a plan or some goals with dates, just so you have a sketch of a road map. Network with other business owners to learn best practices for Human resources, payroll, benefits, culture, etc.

#4 is about selling half the time. Jack Brandt and I often mention that selling is key. Make a couple of cold calls per day. Someone has to sell. And someone has to work ON the business, not just in it. If that isn't you, then get a partner.

Some of my advice:

Starting a Business Now by TechJournal South has some good advice - even for small businesses currently in biz. Like this:

Customers are examining every expense for ways to save, including asking eager entrepreneurs for price bids in order to replace current and expensive vendors.
An unfortunate reality of hard times is increased unemployment. But, for small business owners, this means more experienced talent is available in the marketplace, with more affordable salary requirements. [TJS]

Live Free

Microsoft Office Live Small Business is free direct from Microsoft. This is the "Basics" version of Office Live Small Business, which includes one free website, domain name, business-branded e-mail, and more.

Google Adwords Campaign

During ISPCON Marketing Spotlight session, we were discussing why an Adwords Campaign would work for Dial-up and Hosting, but maybe not other services. The main reason is that Dial-up and Hosting don't need pre-qualification. You can sign up the customer online and they can start using the service within 30 minutes. There's very few places for the sales process to break down. That is, as long as the Prospect can click the Ad, go to your effective Landing Page, and continue through to the sign-up form and auto-bill on a credit card, you can convert Ad Words into sales almost seamlessly. (And you can track where the process breaks down with available software packages).

That process works because Dial-Up and Hosting are ubiquitous, other services are not. The sales process is more difficult with DSL and Wireless Broadband because of the pre-qual process. DSL can't go every where and neither can wireless. This means that the sales process will not be complete. It will be a contact form instead of a sign-up form. That is a problem. It means you have to have a person contact the prospect and re-start the sales process all over. Time consuming. Not as successful.

Even T1, POTS, and VOIP have limitations with where it is available.

This is a work in progress. I'll be thinking about it and writing about it. If you have thoughts, please comment.

Sales medicine

This is a funny video about all that ails salespeople.

Moochers at ISPCON

This was a small ISPCON. Only 17 exhibitors. But how many vendors were there? Many more -- as per usual. Over the years, more and more vendors would by an exhibitor pass to roam the halls to sell to attendees. How do we fix that?

Digium's John Todd was a keynote and Tristan was a VoIP Panel Moderator. But no sponsorship at all (that I know of). Same with Google -- on 2 panels and not even a coffee sponsor. Redline and IKANO. Cogent's CEO spoke again - neither time has Cogent sponsored anything. That's kind of parasitic, don't you think?

I know the argument: Booths cost so much.

My reply: then you aren't seriously marketing your business and there were other options. If you can afford to send at least 2 folks from your company to the show to nose around for leads, then you should have chosen some level of sponsor - for the visibility and to assist the show financially to keep it a viable option for you to meet prospects and clients.

How Much is Verizon?

Full Month Charges from for 1 Biz Line (B1) from Verizon

• WorkSmart package went from $19.95 ===> $22.35
• Business line charge went from $32.00 ===> $33.44
• Federal Subscriber Line Charge (Profit) is still just $6.50
• Voicemail is $14.00
• Total Services = $76.29

Taxes and Fees

• Federal excise tax........$1.87
• State communications services tax....$4.30
• State communications services tax....$0.95
• Comm Tax ...........................$2.91
• Comm Tax ............................$0.64
• Gross receipts.......................$1.83
• Telecommunications Relay Service Surcharge...$0.11
• County 911 Funding Fee...............$0.50
• Federal USF..........................$0.74
• Total Taxes and Fees went from $12 per line to: $13.85

Total New Charges for Verizon B1 in Tampa is ...... $90.14

And they wonder why Cable is beating them. VoIP and cellular landline replacement is occurring because these rates are a huge Rip-Off!

The Telecom Sales Process Discussion

Not everyone has time to read blogs, but I would like to point out one blog that you should read lately: Bear on Business by Dan Caruso. Caruso was an exec at L3 and ICG, raised some money and started Zayo and Envysion. Envysion is a Managed Video as a Service company (don't ask). Zayo is a fiber play with divisions that sell Ip and VoIP -- so a small Level3. (I'm simplifying).

Lately, Caruso is writing about the Sales Process and how Salesforce.com has simplified it for Zayo. Also, how managing Churn and Sales Provisioning means Cash for the company. High concepts, I know, but things you should be thinking about.

Do you want a book?

Seth Godin's latest book, Tribes, is out. It is about Leadership. Leading a team or your community or your business. (You can read the 9 page summary / excerpt on Change This.com.)

Here's what I have to Give Away this week:

• Tribes.
• Small is the New Big (ChangeThis summary here).

Send me your shipping address. First come, first served. You just have to email me within 60 days to tell me what you got out of reading it. Just one thing.

Other Seth Godin books I have read (and liked)

The book, The Dip, was a short, but clear look at how you can become the best in the world at what you do. (The ChangeThis summary). You know how I always say Niche Niche Niche? This book explains why I say that. I don't have any copies of that to give away or his last marketing manifesto, Meatball Marketing. (ChangeThis excerpt here).

BTW, his BootStrapper's Bible is still available for download.

Pitching Property Managers

If you want to get into an MTU or MDU, you need to win over the Gatekeeper. That would be a Recruiting exercise. So what's the process?

• You make a list of the top 10 property managers that you want to talk to.
• Google them.
• Facebook friend them.
• LinkedIn to them.
• Follow any Twitter feeds.

Next part of the recruiting is meeting with them for breakfast, coffee, lunch once or twice a month. Keep notes. Have a gentle Pitch scripted.

If it doesn't work, keep contacting.

The contact and meetings should be about being a resource. How?

• Provide them independent research about the value of having an alternative broadband provider light the building.
• Talk about Redundancy, Business Continuity, and Disaster Recovery.
• Fast installation interval may be important for some clients.
• The building is "wired" and redundant. It's an e-Building.
• How deep are your current lit buildings in penetration and vacancy rate?

Senatorial Net Neutrality

Net Neutrality was the topic of heated discussion in one ISPCON session today. At the end, the Image Stream team felt that WISPA needed to address the Net Neutrality debate head on. JC Utter and I talked about it. My feelings: most ISP's don't care about it (nothing new there as many ISP's play ostrich often (see picture)).

The Senate is looking at NN legislation. That's what you want: a Congress Critter telling you how to manage your network. [see here.] It's not like they need new laws. They need to clearly enforce the ones on the books like Common Carriage, Title I & II, and Truth in Advertising.

To me, Privacy is a bigger issue than Net Neutrality. BTW, NebuAd sued over privacy claims. Oops!

Following Me

Are you following me on Facebook or Twitter?

Layne's Top 5 Mistakes

Layne Sisk of ServerPlus is talking about the Top 5 Mistakes You Make in Business (that you wouldn't make on your network).

"Think ahead. Don't let day-to-day operations drive out your planning." - Donald Rumsfeld or Spend time working ON your business not just IN it.

Have you written down your goals for 2009? How about for 2012? Who is keeping you accountable?"

Build as many systems as you can. (Policies and procedures too; that's what a wiki is for).

Layne mentioned Culture. Jack Daly says that Culture is THE most important part of building your business.

Pareto's Principle is every where. Don't let one issue or person hog all of your (mental) bandwidth.

Also, learn to delegate. (I need to do more of that and those systems things.)

Do you have a mental spam filter? Silly Pointless And Meaningless = SPAM.

Don't use Substandard Components. It's all about Talent.

Reporting: so you can baseline your business and know where the problems are. Make an appointment in your schedule to review reports. (Also, to make a couple of cold calls! :)

Get an outside perspective on your business.

Build redundancy into everything, including Knowledge. When you lose key people, you lose huge amounts of knowledge.

E-Commerce Tips from Liz

I'm at ISPCON listening to Elizabeth Bowles from Aristotle.net talk about E-Commerce. Here are some of the high points:

• Many sites experience abandonment issues. Cart abandonment is an issue for e-retailers.
• It's about being an expert with design, process, fulfillment, logistics. You make more money if you handle the whole process.
• Increase visitors with SEO.
• Increase outreach for follow-up with newsletters, e-zines, and email.
• Track!
• Google looks at Longevity.
• Chargebacks suck - for everyone but VISA/MC.
• "On the web we are not getting results anymore, but recommendations." (from Bernie at PUBCon)
• Developing companies - like China, Egypt, Vietnam - are buying the most books.

Great TV Commercial

Saw this commercial on TV yesterday for oovoo, which is a Skype replacement.

Why did I like it? Because it demonstrated what it does while doing what Ma Bell used to do in the old days with its Reach Out and Touch Somebody ads.

It makes a connection with the audience. The connection is an emotional bond. No talk of features or benefits. Perfect.

Wayport Bought by Ma Bell

Ma Bell wants to be the wireless company that everyone turns to. Or more likely the wireless company every HAS to use no matter how spotty the coverage or expensive the package.

Ma and Ivan Bell are in a fight with Sprint-Clearwire-Xohm and the Pivot cable cadre for the consumers' mobility dollars. By buying Wayport, Ma Bell adds 12,000 more managed hotspots to its network. It now has McDonalds on top of Starbucks.

Wayport last year was looking to work with ISP's to offer them a mobility option for their clients. None that I know of thought it was a good idea. Apparently when you have millions of customers, some want mobility though. Hence, the $275M cash purchase. I wonder if that SP program will be shut down.

In related news, AT&T has launched a new U-verse offer, boosting downstream speeds up to 18 Mbps.

It's Limiting

AT&T is testing broadband caps in Nevada. First, cable now Ma Bell. In both cases, the reason may have to do preserving TV revenue than anything. There is concern. It even popped up as a LinkedIn question.

DSL Prime is outraged over the cap and has a different view of what it means. (See here)

This is just further proof that duopoly competition doesn't work. The TIA is begging Congress for a Broadband Stimulus bill that they say will generate $1B in economic growth. Meanwhile, WISPA lobbied for a license-lite proposal for the "white spaces" spectrum, which was granted. WISPA members (mainly wireless ISPs) wouldn't mind some largesse from the government either to build out more towers and wireless links to actually bring broadband to places without it -- or to offer a third pipe. (The Clearwire-Sprint-Nextel merger was approved today as well, but that company is funded to the tune of billions. Give the money to small business, the engine of economic and job growth in America.)

K-Martin's Future Awaits at AT&T

Discussing the gifts that VZ has been given by Kevin Martin's FCC today. We had to add the swift merger approval for the VZ CDMA land grab of Alltel. But then K-Mart decides to investigate VZ along with cablecos on pricing. (He is also investigating T-Mobile to see how much of it is foreign owned by DT/T-Systems. DUH! Deutsche Telekom bought VoiceStream in 2002! Vodaphone owns 45% of VZW).

After reading this TechDirt post, I think that K-Mart will be spending 2009 working in the Death Star (Ma Bell).

PS, if AT&T execs read this post: Go away! I'm not changing anything and I don't work for you! But Kevin Martin does.

Mushrooms

Mushroom Networks sells a trademarked broadband bonding device. It goes on the client side not the DSLAM side. Here's the official description:

The first product offering of Mushroom Networks using the Broadband Bonding® technology is the TRUFFLE Broadband Bonding Network Appliance (BBNA). The TRUFFLE BBNA6401 is a standalone product designed for a small and medium sized business (SMB) that implements aggregation of multiple Internet access resources, for example, multiple DSL lines, cable modems, T1 access lines, etc.

I don't know anyone using it. I don't even know how viable it is. I ran across it when I saw a press release for $200 T1 bonding.

An Idea about Hosting

There was a press release from a "Virtual Private Server" hosting company today:

Bodhost introduces Guaranteed 100% Uptime Fail-Over VPS Hosting.... A renowned Dedicated Server Hosting and Virtual Private Servers provider announced the launch of its new VPS Hosting offering "Guaranteed 100% Uptime Fail-Over VPS Hosting!". The Fail-over VPS plan is a fully managed solution which combines the flexibility of Virtual Hosting with the luxury of 100% uptime guarantee at the most economical price. [PR]

That's one way to try to Differentiate. I would say start offering Joomla. Offer hosting with a Joomla CMS platform. Why? So people can feed their social media - twitter, blogs, etc. on to their website (like I will be launching on my site by January).

More and more folks are turning to blogging - are you offering hosted Wordpress? More folks are using Twitter. People want convenience and they want help with getting all the back end to work. They will pay for that ... and more than $10 per month.

How to Party this Holiday

A Twitter request went out for ways to save money on holiday party. Here's an idea: Go to your top 3 clients (unless they are really big) and share a party. Four of you in one room at a restaurant or hotel. Scale.

Tips on Persuasive Branding

Tips on Persuasive Branding from GigaOM by Cheryl Heller, the founder and CEO of Heller Communication Design in New York.

"Most of us think of our brand as a tool for communicating who we are and what we do. We think of logos or catchy names — totems that convey the mission or identity of our businesses.

A good brand does express identity, Heller said. But great branding goes one step further. You must think of your brand less as a tool for communicating identity, and more as a tool for conveying a promise."

Four Tips on Persuasive Branding:

1. Be brief. Be clear. “Clarity and brevity do not come naturally to entrepreneurs with a mission,” Heller lamented. Use the Ritz Carlton promise as an example. Notice it does not include words like “luxury” or “hospitality.”

2. Don’t clutter your brand promise with references to how you differentiate yourself. “Who you are and what you do is core to your brand promise,” Heller said. “How you do it, that changes as you grow.” Wizbang as your technology is, it is only one of your tools. Don’t mention it.

3. Avoid common words used by other companies. Heller’s examples: strategy, core values, mission, vision, operational excellence, efficiency, value-added, character, integrity, positioning, sustainability, corporate citizen, cause.

4. Speak to all your constituents: customer, partner, investor, or employee.

BarCamp Miami

Barcamp Miami is set for Feb. 22, 2009 - the first day of FOWA (Future of Web Apps show) which runs Feb 22-24, 2009. (I have my ticket, do you?) I went last year and had a good time. Good info and Networking in the social media space.

SalesForce.com Enters Hosting

SalesForce.com is now actively looking for SMB websites to host - they have officially become a hosting company! (See here). That's not such a stretch really. But they say it is for business efficiency:

"The goal is to bridge the divide that exists in many businesses between Web operations and internal information technology, says Francis. Not only are the two often run by different groups, but more importantly data doesn’t always move freely between the Web site and a business’s systems.:

Makes sense, if you move to be a Trusted Advisor / Partner. They are looking to be a GoDaddy. SalesForce is looking to be the outsourced IT Integration system. "Move all of your apps, databases, and IT systems to us. We will help you use your data better." Be amazed if they can actually pull this off, since data mining is so hard for most companies.

Selling Communications in a Recession

RingCentral is a VoIP Provider that Rich Tehrani at TMC talked to about selling in this economy.

In an economic slowdown, companies need to focus now, more than ever on their communications solutions. Today's technologies can make your company more efficient, save you money directly on communications costs as well as travel and even real estate.
What are the takeaways here? Small businesses are moving away from a centralized, physical office - working from home and on the road. They are also reacting rapidly to economic conditions as evidenced by the fact that almost three quarters are cutting overhead and a surprising 23% are cutting physical office space.
What is interesting is that in an environment where companies are looking to cut costs, they realize they can save money by being more productive and efficient. And the influx of new customers coming to RingCentral just show the world that today's communications services allow unprecedented levels of productivity and efficiency and ultimately pay for themselves quite rapidly. [TMC]

How are VoIP companies doing? Vonage is getting delisted. Cbeyond beat expectations. Packet8 is even. How are you doing?

As Rich says in another article, "We can without a doubt sell solutions to our customers which will make them more productive, save communications costs, save travel costs and in many cases save energy!" (See Cisco Energy Tax). Also, the President of Nortel's Enterprise Business says customers are now looking for ROI of a single year or even nine months! Focus on ways to boost efficiency, productivity and collaboration. If you can increase sales, that would help to (but without an actual case study, I don't know how you would prove that).

Taking Dial-Up Further

How do you increase the market?

By that I mean, Internet Access penetration into homes with computers has flat lined. These households have dial-up or broadband. How do you sell to homes without computers?

One answer is to lease out computers with broadband. Another answer is Presto. Presto is a printer that prints out email. It's carried in quite a few retail outlets. It's an HP product. Innovative thinking, even though it isn't too green (printing every email). Email is the killer app.