With thanks to found_drama on flickr.com

I have noticed three fundamental patterns in IT project failures over the years, and though the consultant often takes the blame it is not always his/her fault. Each pattern is reflected on both sides of the consultant+client equation. Projects with one or more of these patterns are practically guaranteed to fail. Watching it happen is like watching a train wreck in slow-motion.

All of these patterns can be prevented and/or fixed with honest discussion and objective analysis.

1. Unrealistic Expectations

• The client expects the consultant to magically solve all of their problems without further input beyond the initial consultation session.
• The consultant expects the client to tell them everything relevant, and fails to ask the appropriate and serious/hard questions.
• I call this the “fairy godmother” problem, as each side expects the other to magically know when and how to rescue the other. Only continuous, quality communication and honest answers to difficult questions will resolve problems. Most of the time, the problem the client thinks they have is not the real problem, but merely a symptom of an underlying problem. Treating only the symptom results in eventual failure, as new symptoms manifest. Mutual understanding of the problem and the solution is required for success, especially the goal of the solution. If the solution has no quantifiable goal, there is no way to know when it is complete and no way to know that it is correct. Relationships like this often end in a finger-pointing death-spiral, with both sides having become so heavily invested in being “right” that viewpoints fossilize and saving face becomes a priority instead of solving the real problem. It is not unusual for this situation to result in expending a lot of effort trying to solve the wrong problem!

2. Unqualified Participants

• The consultant takes on an assignment for which they have no particular expertise.
• The client puts people in charge – often a committee – that has no fundamental understanding of the issues or stake in the outcome.
• When this situation occurs by accident, I call it the “empty suit” problem. When it occurs on purpose, it is far more insidious; I call it the “vampire” problem. When the consultant is an empty suit, success cannot be delivered. Instead, the consultant attempts to prolong the project until the budget and participants are exhausted, or the consultant magically acquires the necessary expertise. If the consultant goes into the commitment knowing that success is impossible, the empty suit problem becomes the vampire problem. When the client is an empty suit – or a committee of them – making decisions becomes a near impossibility and the project stagnates. Or worse, decisions are made that have no bearing on the technical reality of the project. In all cases, huge sums of money can be wasted before the project is killed. But when both sides are empty suits, the project can go on so long that it drains the life out of the company.

3. Misaligned incentives

• The client has no particular incentive for the project to succeed; in many cases, they have no idea what success would even look like.
• The consultant has no incentive for the project to succeed, and cannot (or will not) get the client to paint even a rough picture of success.
• This situation is common when committees are running a project. Endless rounds of meetings, RFPs, and vendor presentations result in no decision and no action, because there is no incentive for the committee to commit to a decision, and great risk if they “guess wrong”. When the consultant’s incentives are not tied to project success, the temptation to turn into a vampire – even if not an empty suit – can be overwhelming. There is nothing more frustrating to a consultant than working with a client who has no incentive to succeed, and vice-versa.

Deadly Combinations

Combinations of these patterns are common, e.g. a client with unrealistic expectations hires an unqualified consultant, and they structure the project with misaligned incentives. This is a sure-fire recipe for an long, drawn-out, expensive failure!

What combinations or other patterns of project failure have you observed? Fire away in the comments. If you managed to recognize the pattern and avoid failure, tell us how you did it!

Drive a Stake in it

So how do you prevent the deadly embarace of empty suit and vampire? The answer is simple and direct: drive a stake in it.

Situations like these are often complicated and interrelated. For example, a committee with no incentive or deadline to act and little technical qualification may be quite content to bleed money to vampires until the original issue either goes away on its own or becomes someone else’s problem.

To prevent this, create a reasonable but short deadline (on both sides of the table) for a definitive action. Name a specific result, or concrete plan that must be produced. This may not eliminate the empty suits and vampires completely, but it will limit the damage and delays.

A measurable/testable result by a specific date can be used as a stake in the ground to provide an anchor for the project. This anchor serves as:

• a short-term target/goal
• a feasibility test of a proposed solution
• a competency test of those involved
• a visible measure of progress
• and a deterrent to ‘analysis paralysis’.

Example: a committee formed to create an Enterprise Service Bus architecture for the company may be directed to implement a pilot project in one department within the first 6 months and provide certain relevant measures of throughput. It must be okay for the committee to take action and even to fail, as long as they learn something useful from the process that will improve the next decision/action. Otherwise, the path of least resistance and least risk will default to studying the problem indefinitely.

Prevent Horror Stories

Horror stories of consulting gigs large and small gone awry abound. When the project becomes a deadly embrace, the end result is often lawsuits, bad publicity, and discorporation. Nobody wins.

Instead, speak honestly and carry a stake!

Of course not.

Social Media is Just a Tool

Social media is a highly efficient way to connect and collaborate across the room or across the planet. But the real answers are people. People who share your values, people who share your dreams, people who support your goals, people who are interested in that you have to say or even sell.

Technology doesn’t solve problems, people solve problems.

Social media is a great tool, but it is still just a tool. If all you use it for is exchanging pleasantries and posting pictures of your cat, no significant change is likely to occur. Its impact will be purely entertainment (and there’s nothing wrong with that).

On the other hand, some of the people that LOL’d at your cat pictures may end up becoming your business partners, or life-long friends, or both.

Connections and Relationships

Social media is not about the tools, it’s about forming the connections and relationships that lead to the people that have the conversations that spur the actions that solve the problems.

Sometime around my second month on Twitter I got a message from some guy with a “crazy” idea asking if I would help. Since I was (at that time) offering a free one-hour consultation (I no longer do this except by referral) I could hardly refuse. The fellow’s idea was intriguing, and I think my advice was helpful (he says it saved him a bunch of money), but what has become more important to me is that I now count the gentleman as one of my “real” friends – even though we’ve never met. I follow the progress of his company and vision with great expectations, and even a little bit of pride.

Rewards Require Risks

Connections start because people take risks. They risk putting themselves “out there”, they risk expressing their opinions and hopes and dreams to people that they don’t really know. The risks need not be large, but there is always a risk – of rejection, of disappointment, of attracting spammers and loons, of “wasting time”, of finding out things that change your mind.

How has social media changed your mind?

Here is the original survey response:
Problem:

[I want a] Directory of gift-shops or other retail outlets in the area who sell locally made products.

Fear/Frustration:

Unsold inventory.

What does success look like:

[no answer provided]

CAVEAT: I had to “read between the lines” a bit on this one because the survey response was very brief.

The Presenting Problem

As is often the case in consulting, the problem presented (the “presenting problem”) is not necessarily the real problem or the entire problem. In this case the client wanted to find a directory of local retailers and gift shops that sold locally-made items. But the real problem is disposing of the unsold inventory; local outlets are just one possible solution.

Addressing the direct question, how to find local outlets, offers a few solutions, though none of them are quite satisfactory/guaranteed:

1. targeted geographical web searches may turn up candidate retailers
2. social networking queries may yield more candidates and/or bring them to you
3. business directory listings may yield viable candidates

Targeted Geographical Web Searches

Google maps offers geographical searching. For example, a google maps search for:

    stores that sell local products near Chattanooga, TN

yielded four pages of noise, except for two organic grocery stores which support local growers.

A search for:

    gift shops that sell local products near Chattanooga, TN

yielded many more pages, the same two grocery stores, and a half-dozen gift shops and art boutiques.

Cold-calling the half-dozen gift shops and art boutiques may be appropriate (cold-calling can work if the targets are “warm”). Narrowing the search to certain kinds of products may also help, especially in a large metropolitan area. It is important to use google maps for the search, instead of the regular google web search, to limit the scope to the geographic area.

It will take a little time to run the searches and filter out the noise to find useful candidates. It will be helpful to keep a list of them as you find them and track contacts and responses as they occur.

Social Networking Queries

Social networks like facebook.com or twitter.com are another avenue of investigation. Chances are that outlets of interest are on there, and more importantly, people who know about such outlets are likely to be on there. Facebook’s search is available through their advertising page, but does not seem to offer an option to only look for businesses. Twitter search may yield better results. Searching for the kinds of outlets desired and the products you have to sell should yield better results than generic searches like ‘gift shops’.

Create accounts on both, and post and tweet about what you have and who you are looking for. This process may take a while (since social networks grow voluntarily) but you may find people who can recommend local outlets, and this also may spur candidates to contact you (make sure your contact information is part of your online profile) directly. It helps to use relevant keywords in the posts so that others searching for you or your products can find them. For example, you might post something like

Anyone know of quality retailers in MyCity that sell locally-made products like X, Y, and Z? Inventory must go! Please RT, thanks!

(assuming it’s short enough, I didn’t check it) three or four times throughout the day for a few days to see if it generates any leads. Be sure to respond to anyone that posts back, and to thank people for re-tweets.

The bonus for this approach is that it may stir interest in your inventory, and lead to direct sales and/or sales outlets that you had not considered!

Business Directories

There are a number of business directories that may yield relevant information. A google search for “local business directory” yielded 183M results! The better-known ones include the Google Business Directory, yelp.com, CitySearch.com, and the Yahoo Directory.

Caveat: Your Targets May Not Be Online

The drawback to this approach is that your targets may not be online, or even mentioned online, and in that case you won’t be able to find them directly. This is where social media helps, by amplifying word of mouth to reach businesses that are not online.

Additional Options

There are other avenues, such as attending local craft fairs, inquiring at tourist shops in your area, cold-calling everyone in the yellow pages, et al. These are also good options, and can be used in conjunction with the suggestions above.

Problem:

Our company needs to enter the “social media” age. I’d like to add a blog about our products on facebook, twitter, linkedin but not sure of the elements. Plus, my marketing budget is cut to nothing this year due to a slowdown in sales.

Fear/Frustration:

Getting the attention of more retailers and end consumers with our furniture line. We were a startup 5 years ago and are doing well but need more visibility.

What does success look like:

Increase visibility to millions of shoppers, establish or heighten credibility, and a way to reach out to customers and inform more about our products.

CAVEAT: I am not a “social media expert” nor a “social media scientist”. And frankly, I doubt most of those who say they are. It is incredibly difficult to be an expert/scientist in a field with frequent disruptive changes. So if someone tells you that they are an “expert social media scientist” and they also sell insurance/shoes/widgets/whatever, back away slowly.

I firmly believe that getting an education is better than an expert, in the long run. (Useful education links – and real experts – at the end of this article).

There are strategies and tactics that work, however. Social media is just one aspect of so-called inbound marketing (though I like Seth Godin’s concept of permission marketing better). Social media is just one “conduit” that can bring potential customers to you.

A brief digression on terminology:

• I use the term “conduit” to refer to kinds of things that can bring you visitors,
• and the term “channels” to refer to specific technologies that serve as conduits.

So, for example, “social media” would be a conduit, while twitter.com and facebook.com would be channels. There are only a few conduits, but there are many channels.

Back to the micro-consultation.

Elements of Social Media

The “elements of Social media” can be summarized in two words:

1. conversations, and
2. conduits

It’s really that simple, essentially:

• Find people to talk to,
• Engage them in conversations and really listen,
• Decide what to do based on this feedback.

You do this via one or more conduits, with one or more channels per conduit. Together these form your “social media network”.

Three Kinds of Conversations

There are basically three kinds of conversations:

1. Reactive – fix a problem, answer a question, address a complaint
2. Proactive – float ideas, seed concepts, share knowledge
3. Chitchat – pretty much everything else; if it doesn’t move relevant information on your social channel, it’s noise.

The first two are important; the last one will happen, as a side effect of people interacting as people. Concentrate on the first two, and don’t worry about the third. (Strangling the third kills your channel’s personalities and believability.) In fact, just do the first one, and put most of the planning effort into the second one: proactive. Because that’s how you help it grow.

There are a few major conduits:

• social media
• email
• newsgroups/discussion sites
• blogs
• advertising
• publicity
• internet TV
• surveys

There are many possible channels in each kind of conduit, with more being created frequently. The channel(s) chosen must be effective and measurable, but above all populated.

Where to Start: Social Media

Social media is the easiest place to start, since it’s free and doesn’t require a lot of writing. That also makes it the most croweded and noisy, so your content needs to stand out and be useful to the intended audience to get attention. In a random social media population, some small percentage will likely be your intended audience – but it is critical to define who you are targeting first.

Identify Your Target Audience

Know who your potential customer is, what they read, what they like, what they’re interested in, when they’re online and listening, etc. This is Marketing 101 and is fundamental to all conduits. Chances are that your potential customers are very similar to your existing customers, so get to know them first. Then say things they might be interested in hearing/reading.

Decide Who You Want to Be

On the Internet you can be anyone or anything you want to be. So choose carefully! Again this is Marketing 101 (“positioning”) but it is easy to forget in all the excitement. Your business will have a personality (whether you intend it to or not) so it pays to think about that in advance.

Pick Your Channels Based on Who’s There

Unless there is a specialized channel for your target audience, concentrate the most popular general channels. Pick one or two or three to start with. Use the search facilities, if any, to see if your potential customers are there by looking for keywords related to your business and products/services (twitter and facebook have excellent search capabilities; linkedin’s search is barely adequate at present). Express opinions, share information, ask questions, post surveys (surveymonkey.com is free and easy to get started), and become part of the conversation. Don’t just sell sell sell, people will tune you out; instead, engage, like a gracious host at a party (we’ll come back to this analogy later).

Plan and Budget for Focused Results

Once you’ve done your homework, it’s time to plan your strategy and tactics and budget the time to make it happen. That’s time, not money. Social media, especially, can expend a lot of time for little results if approached haphazardly. Reign in the temptation to just jump in and start tweeting and make your efforts more effective and efficient by:

1. Define your goals clearly – is it more leads? blog traffic? phone calls? Subscriptions? Hint: Building your mailing list is almost always a Good Thing
2. Decide who is going to be responsible for keeping the channels open and flowing
3. Determine how much time will be needed, or can be allocated
4. Find or create the content/information to be shared
5. Plan how the conduit will help lead the customer to the goal
6. Track it; if you can’t measure the results, you can’t improve the process!

The last item is probably the most critical: if you can’t measure the impact of your social-media marketing effort, there probably isn’t one. Plan so that it is measurable. Then measure it, learn from it, and improve.

“What Can I Do For You For Free” Survey Example

The original survey (see “What Can I Do For You For Free? Survey Blog Post”) is a simple example. I created the survey and asked people to take it in a few LinkedIn groups, and posted about it on twitter and facebook. I used a free account at SurveyMonkey.com and posted using bit.ly for shortened links (which provides more tracking).

I looked at the statistics daily, just out of curiosity, but after about a week (before the survey closed) I could see that:

• 40% of the survey visits came from facebook
• 10% from linkedin
• but 50% seem to be from twitter, which is about what I expected.

I could also see that:

• 10% of the people who visited the survey left without filling it out
• 20% filled out the survey with junk
• 70% of visitors filled out the survey completely, including joining the mailing list
• The overall engagement rate is estimated at one-half of one percent. The same rate as junk mail, coincidentally. Could be better. Much better. Or not.

The response from facebook was much higher than I expected, while the response from linkedin was far lower than I expected. The response from twitter was about what I expected. The number of people who visited the survey without filling it out (the “bounce rate”) was lower than I expected. The percentage of surveys filled in with junk was a complete surprise (what was the point of that? bots? bored?). The 70% of visitors that completed the survey and joined the mailing list (the “conversion rate”) was a very pleasant surprise. The overall engagement rate was probably better than the estimate (which was based on questionable numbers in the first place), but there’s still a lot of room for improvement.

Improvement is the Name of the Game of Science

And that’s the name of the game: improvement. Measure it, and improve upon it. The “lab science” of marketing is a little more visible now: Observe, Theorize, Experiment, Improve.

Initial observation is looking at the search trends in your target demographic for your specific products and services. If there are some, you may be on to something, and should research competitors. If there aren’t any, you may have to educate the buyer, which is more challenging. Or it may be a bad idea

The theory part is the idea part. “People would really like camelhair socks” or “Current recliners may be unsafe for older people” or “People are unaware that recliners can be dangerous” or “A ‘His and Hers’ recliners Valentine’s Day sale would be well-received”

The experiments are the surveys, questions, and conversations generated. The results of experiments must be measurable to have impact, and they must be capable of directly impacting the thing being measured.

It’s the Same, But Different – Only Harder

Social media marketing is different from advertising-based marketing. It’s harder, in some ways, and easier in others. It can be highly automated, but doing so can strangle the life out of it. Think of your channel as a corporate party and you are the host. Hand out info-cookies (links, quotes, tidbits, freebies) and little sips of Kool-Aid (brand-building/positioning) and ask lots of (relevant) questions to keep the party going. Occasionally sell them something they want (as pleasantly as the Beer Cart at a golf course).

It’s Your Party

Social media is not a formal channel. Be yourself. Talk to people. Serve refreshments. It’s your ongoing customer-appreciation party, so it’s ok to have some fun.

So, for a trite example, a weekly blog post highlighting your newest line of wingback chairs is not going to do much for you – there’s no story, there’s no engagement, there’s no interaction. On the other hand, a blog post asking people how to make the safest sitting-room recliner for them is engaging, and may lead to new product ideas. Note: not the “best” recliner, but the “safest” recliner. Because (a) it is more specific and (b) it implies a story, both of which should increase engagement (but measure it to be certain!).

A video (home-movie style, perhaps) demonstrating “severe recliner failures” (but don’t harm anyone in the process, please) might even go viral on youtube.

Oh, one more thing: pay attention to search-engine-optimization (SEO) factors on every post on every channel. This doesn’t have to be complicated; it can be as simple as just using a consistent set of keywords in all titles and tweets. But since the search engines are the major traffic drivers at present, and they operate on words, the words matter (just as they always have; would you rather have a “used” car or a “pre-owned” car?), plus now you must use the words that your customers use. Or else they can’t find you!

Once they find you, they have to like and trust you.

Then they’ll buy. And if you keep them engaged, they’ll keep buying, and telling others about you.

Lots more information (no affiliation) at:
http://Hubspot.com
http://sethgodin.com

I had some spare time a couple of weeks ago (see prior blog post), and thought I’d try to use it productively. I wanted to create some small information product – an ebook, blog article, simple software, etc. – to solve some common problem. But I didn’t know what! I had several ideas, of course, but instead decided to just put out a survey and see what people wanted, what were their areas of concern, what were their problems and frustrations.

Survey Results

The results of the survey were surprising, to say the least. I expected the survey responses to be from developers about technical problems, minor annoying issues like “How do I get Visual Studio 2005 to work on Windows 7?” (Answer: install the service packs) or “How do I track visitors to my web site?” (Answer: use Google analytics).  I didn’t get what I expected, I got something much more interesting: a mix of technical, non-technical, social, and business problems from a wide variety of people, none of whom were software developers.

My intent was to examine the survey results and discern a pattern, a common theme or themes, a recurring issue, and design an info-product to address that. But there wasn’t one, at least, not in the form I expected. But, upon reflection, there was a pattern, a glaring unfulfilled need staring me in the face: micro-consulting.

Micro-Consulting

These people had problems and ideas that had them feeling overwhelmed; they were stuck, and didn’t know how to get un-stuck. There were too many options, or not enough options, or too much information, or not enough information, or they simply lacked direction and/or confidence.

“Well, gee, I am a consultant,” I thought, “maybe I can help!”

So I gave each survey respondent a free micro-consulting session; this is typically one or two emails and involves me asking questions to shake up the situation, providing a link or two to engage the imagination, and one or two concrete actions to move the situation forward.

Here are some of the responses:

• “I like your approach.  Your questions were helpful.” –G.H.
• “Thanks for your considered reply.  It has helped me clarify a few of my own thoughts.” –J.C.
• “This is good stuff … Am reading now, thanks.” –C.M.

Here are some of the issues raised:

• how to find local retail and gift shops to sell my (hand-crafted) unsold inventory
• how to organize a web site for a coaching business
• concerned about ownership of template-generated web site content
• urban decay and renewal frustrations
• automated article submission for business growth
• how to raise awareness of road rage and driver negligence
• how to monetize a well-established blog
• how to enter the “social media” age properly, with no budget
• application for lottery enthusiasts

Conclusion

This experiment has proved far more interesting and rewarding (I like helping people!) than I had imagined. So here’s what I’m thinking:

1. Publish a series of blog posts to address the issues raised by the survey responses, anonymized and generalized.
2. Consider offering a formal micro-consulting service.

What do you think? Comment below, and please subscribe using the sign-up form on the right, and follow nov8r on twitter.

So I created a survey on SurveyMonkey.com and mentioned it in a few LinkedIn groups, and babbled about it on Twitter and Facebook.

The survey is now closed, and the results are very interesting. Details forthcoming!

Special thanks to everyone who participated, and please sign up for the newsletter (in the box on the right) for updates!