Jon Samsel

It’s been said that the key to sales success is learning how to budget your time. But the term “time-management” seems to create a false impression of what a person is able to do. Time-management is actually self-management. Time can’t be managed. Time is uncontrollable; we can only manage ourselves, and our use of time.

It’s interesting that the skills we need to manage others are the same skills that we need to manage ourselves: the ability to plan, delegate, organize, direct and control. Part of this includes being able to recognize what wastes your time.

Here is a list of common time-wasters:

1. Shifting priorities and crisis management
2. Lack of priorities/objectives
3. Procrastination
4. Too much clutter
5. Attempting too much

Ideas for Effective Self Management

1. Define your objectives as clearly as possible. Do you find you are not doing what you want because your goals have not been set? One attribute of successful people is their ability to work out what they want to achieve using written goals, which they review constantly. Your long term goals should impact your daily activities and be included on your “to do” list. Without a goal or objective people tend to just drift personally and professionally
2. Analyze your use of time. Are you spending enough time on the important things? If you are constantly asking yourself “What is the most important use of my time, right now?” it will help you to focus on ‘important tasks’ and stop reacting to tasks which seem urgent (or pleasant to do) but carry no importance towards your goals.
3. Have a plan. How can you achieve your goals without a plan? Most people know what they want but have no plan to achieve it except through hard work. Your monthly plan should be reviewed daily and reset as your achievements are met. Successful people make lists constantly. It enables them to stay on top of priorities and enable them to remain flexible to changing priorities. This should be done for both personal and business goals. The value of a good plan is to identify trouble spots early and seek out solutions. “I don’t let a single day go by without knowing why I didn’t capture a sale. Be sure to measure the progress you make toward your goals because what you can measure you can control.

Self-management is not a hard subject to understand, but unless you are committed to integrating time-management techniques into your daily routine you’ll only achieve partial results. The lesson to learn is that the more time we spend planning our time and activities the more time we will have for those activities.

To show proof of concept, many writer/designers painstakingly produce working prototypes or demos of their ideas. Sometimes this is done to secure financing. Other times it’s to demonstrate a concept. Demos or prototypes can also help you land a new job.

Whether a published blog or a fully-functional interactive game, a demo or prototype can serve as an ideal calling card to exhibit the quality of your work. And in business, companies tend to want to work with writers and designers who understand their industry and needs. Demos can sort out the wanna-be’s from the true contenders.

What is a prototype?

A prototype is an application made up of several key elements loosely thrown together to demonstrate a basic sense of what the project is and how it works. A prototype can be as simple as a sketch-up of several screen shots, sample music, and some narration. Or a prototype can be deeply interactive, including elaborate graphic designs, maps, and concepts ‘borrowed’ from other projects for illustrative purposes.

What is a demo?

A working demo looks and feels much like the final product. A website demo might include a home page, several interior screens, active hypertext links, interactive tools, along with several design variations to consider. A game demo might include an interface that illustrates the basic navigation, interactive methodology, game play, music score, sound effects, sample puzzles and other obstacles.

Beside the obvious benefits (landing a job), prototypes and demos can also serve a myriad of functions:

• Road test new ideas before your final product is put together
• A crash course in production (nothing like building something on your own to really learn)
• Marketing deliverable (use a sample game to serve as link bait on your website, or as CD leave behind on your next job interview)
• Shareware (as in game demos, you introduce a few levels of functionality in the hopes that some players will ‘try before they buy’ and purchase an upgrade to your full application)
• Key ingredient in your new business plan (to demonstrate proof of concept)

Nondisclosure agreements (NDA’s) are typically one-page agreements whereby each signing party agrees to share proprietary or confidential information and each side agrees not to divulge that information to a third party.

Why are NDAs so commonly used? It is not so much distrust as it is legal maneuvering by attorneys to protect a client’s interests at all costs. Many companies have been sued because they were pitched a project that was similar to something the company was already developing. A dated NDA helps establish when the exchange of ideas occurred, a date that can be cross-checked with the copyright date on the original source material.

However, the main reason NDAs are used so often is to prevent people from talking about the other side’s “intellectual property” in advance of that knowledge going public.

1. Start off with a teaser (hook the audience, then reel them in)
2. Emphasize elements that will keep audiences coming back for more
3. Pitch with conviction and passion (your idea must be infectious)
4. Humor helps (used sparingly and in the right situations)
5. Pitch from a common frame of reference (use of terminology)
6. Show your ability to create hybrid entertainment that can be franchised to other mediums such as television or books (think of the ancillary rights and merchandizing possibilities)
7. Concentrate on the most exciting aspects of your project, rather than all the minor details
8. Try not to resort to reading notes (if you can’t eat, sleep, and breathe your pitch, you’re probably not ready to deliver it to a room full of people)
9. Take command of the room (confidence sells)
10. Have fun! (don’t take a pitch meeting too seriously; many great ideas are rejected the first time they are offered to others; keep your chin up, smile, and try again another day)

Pitching is the art and business of taking your content idea (whether it’s a work-for-hire project or an original idea) and convincing someone on the other side of the desk to support it (usually by funding the project). Seems simple enough. In fact, many writers are great at pitching. However, for every writer who can really work a room, there are probably ten others who are lousy at it. And that’s unfortunate because poor presentation skills will lose you work in this highly competitive industry.

Larry Kay, an accomplished interactive writer/designer and producer, gives his thoughts on pitching:

“Before I pitch an idea, I put together a fairly full proposal. Sample writing, navigation maps, concept illustrations, etc. I pitch somewhat selectively, and try to prequalify that a producer might be interested in this particular category or may consider me for one of their assignments. A successful pitch more often leads to a writing assignment than to actually placing my spec project. Placing a spec project happens very rarely, but pitching one of my own original creations gives a producer an idea of what my own peculiar passions and voice are all about.”

Multimedia guru David Greene shared some of his thoughts on the pitching process:

“It is very important to understand the individuals you are going to meet with. Are they technical people who are more interested in the technology than the story, or are they marketing types who are more interested in the demographics than the specifics of the project? You will often find yourself modifying your pitch for your audience. Granted, this is a pain, but you need to target your pitch to your audience; otherwise, you stand a good chance of losing their interest rather quickly.

If possible, try to do more in-depth research on the individuals you will be meeting with. A lot of companies actually have biographies of their primary officers listed on their Web site. You don’t want to pitch your new concept ‘CyberChrist with an Attitude’ to a company run by a born-again Christian. A little research might save you time, effort, and embarrassment.”

I was rummaging through some old files when I came across the following business article I co-wrote with Laurie Windham. At the time, Laurie was CEO of her own market research firm, Cognitiative and I was a senior e-business consultant working for her. I am pretty sure the article was published in an online magazine, circa 1999. I can’t for the life of me remember which one it was. A quick search on Google revealed no results. I thought I’d share the article as I know many up-in-coming writers are looking for examples of what a 300-350 word article might look like. This article is 334 words.

The Six Most Common Barriers to Developing An Effective Web Business Strategy

When it comes to leveraging the Web as a critical business vehicle, companies are realizing that the biggest obstacle to success is themselves. The challenge for executive management today is how to overcome internal resistance to the inevitability of the Web. Based on thousands of hours of Cognitiative’s “Voice of the Customer” research and studies we’ve conducted with a range of large companies, we’ve identified six common barriers business leaders face as they take on the challenge of defining and deploying a Web business strategy: 1) Knowledge of what customers want, 2) Existing business strategies and practices, 3) Leadership, organizational structures and funding models, 4) Existing skill sets, 5) Technology solutions, and 6) Internationalization.

Let’s probe the first two barriers a little deeper.

Knowledge of What Customers Want
Addressing the needs of online constituents in a fulfilling and differentiated way requires a deep understanding of them. We suggest approaching this as if you were developing a new product –– define your market requirements, survey the market and competitive landscape, talk to your target constituents; find out what business partners want; test the usability of the site experience; and track satisfaction. The key is to understand why people come to your Web site and what actions they take when they are there so that you can develop a proactive site strategy that satisfies their needs. And be aware––this process never really stops. Keep a constant pulse on your efforts because Web savvy customers are increasingly demanding.

Existing Business Strategies and Practices
Resolving conflict with existing business strategies is another critical barrier to doing business on the Internet. This can run the whole gamut from pricing, product development, logistics, channels, required investments, and how customers are served. An interesting exercise is to construct a hypothetical Web strategy for your market as if you were a start-up company. What would your business model be? Where would you invest? How might a competitor invade your space? Addressing these issues can help drive clarity on the required business strategy.

Defining the maximum revenue potential of any given website is a business theory I’ve been tinkering with lately. The topic inevitably comes up in any website creative project pitch - as the suits in the room debate critical business topics such as creative agency and development spends, timelines, online advertising budgets, SEO, web publishing/syndication, staffing, and the revenue potential/profits that a website might generate.

Knowing the maximum revenue potential of a website is important because it sets the stage for what is possible, and every decision thereafter can be focused on closing the gap between actual and potential profitability. Decisions about design, coding, calls-to-action, methods of interaction, frequency of placement, size, etc. – could be impacted when Maximum Revenue Potential is taken into consideration.

The concept of Maximum Revenue Potential first came to me after reading an intriguing article on how Gamal Aziz helped the MGM Grand casino resort dramatically increase its revenue by restructuring foot traffic and re-aligning high-revenue retail outlets throughout its property.

That got me thinking – could this same concept be applied to a website? Imagine if a website redesign project was looked at through this lens and a web marketer first asked, “What is the maximum revenue potential of my website?” Could an equation be developed to establish a baseline metric for how much revenue a site is capable of generating – and what the opportunity gap currently is? Wouldn’t this information be extremely valuable to business people trying to justify a site redesign project – or the website channel itself?

To calculate the maximum revenue potential for a website, one could calculate as follows:

If every site visitor purchased a product or service that generated the highest revenue (yes, this goal may be unrealistic, but hang with me a second)…

and…

…a website were able to reach its maximum, yet realistic, traffic growth goals…

Example

1 million site visits annually

x $50.00 (max revenue per product/service sold)

Maximum revenue potential = $50 million per yr

Subtract this from the actual annual revenue generated from the website…

Actual annual revenue = $1.34 million per yr

Difference = $48.7 million

$48.7 million is a company’s ‘lost opportunity.’ The goal for the website would be to close this gap – and close it substantially. (Note: Rather than looking at external variables, I have limited my analysis and thinking to known variables such as a realistic number of website visits and actual average revenue per sale on a single product. External factors such as a new competitor entering the market and taking away market share is out of scope for the purpose of this discussion).

Next Steps

• Look at leverage points and consider how much impact each change to your website might have on the bottom line. Look at effort v.s. reward. Idealistically, we’re always looking for the next activity to be the one that makes the biggest impact on results for the smallest amount of money / effort.
• Divide a web page into 100 grids and then determine the percentage of real estate that has been allotted to each product / service and corresponding action – and then see if some simple design adjustments can be made to the page placement and size of your content, offers, navigation, or calls to action so that the highest revenue generating products / services stand out.
• Of course, a good website is not all about attaining maximum profitability. Fulfilling customer needs as well as promoting a company’s other lines of business / products / services are important counterbalances to consider.
• Reducing clutter on a given page is key. Try this out. Look at your website and count the number of actionables you have on your homepage – hyperlinks, navigation drop-downs, footer links, buttons, phone numbers, tools – anything that is actionable from a site visitor’s P.O.V. Let’s examine a random website I pulled up – the Bank of the Web homepage.
  

I counted 159 actionables on the homepage alone! Now, when you give your site visitors 159 things to do on a given web page, not only is it a cluttered experience, but some portion of your visitors will do each of those 159 things. Meaning that the top 5 actions you hope your visitors will take will be watered down by the other 154 things they try instead. Wouldn’t it be better to first go through a serious clutter reduction exercise to streamline the number of actionables – by say, 50% or more? What if Bank of the West surveyed its visitors and asked them what the top 10 things they expected to be able to do on the bank of the West site – and then balanced consumer demand with Bank of the West’s desire to promote its top five highest revenue generating products / services?

The resulting website could be a streamlined homepage design that not only does a better job directing consumers to where they want to go, the the site restructuring could also send a higher number of site visitors down the most profitable action paths.