Second, I agree with what she has to say about 95% of the time.

But in Robin’s November issue of her Marketing Strategy Brief – her monthly newsletter to members – I think she has led
her members astray.

Let me clarify.

In this issue, she has an article titled “Expensive Lessons and Unfiltered Facts Every Small Business Owner Ought to
Know BEFORE Spending a Dime on Google AdWords” that she apparently wrote for the Wall Street Journal.  In it, she had this to say about Google AdWords:

“Google AdWords is simply another form of media, just like direct mail, Yellow Pages ads, or radio advertising.  There’s no magic in it.”

The rest of the article is filled with great advice, but I think this statement is dead wrong.

Why?

My reasons are simple yet powerful.  The most important reason is summed up in one word:

SEARCH.

AdWords is of course part of the Google SEARCH Engine.  SEARCH is the operative word here.  Every day, depeding on the products or services you are selling, hundreds of thousands or even millions of people are SEARCHING for your products and services!

SEARCHING!  THEY ARE LOOKING FOR YOU!

Please don’t let the power of this simple statement go in one ear and out the other.  This is the simple reason that Google has exploded onto the business scene, becoming a goliath in only 11 years.

It’s the reason why online marketing is now surpassing television, radio, and many forms of print advertising
in many of the major markets of the world.

It’s the reason why small businesses are rapidly moving their advertising dollars online.

It’s the reason why Everon has been able to average 50 inbound managed services leads per month for years now, enough to give our business a growth turbo-boost.

And it’s the main reason why Google AdWords and other forms of search marketing are more powerful than other media.

With the exception of the Yellow Pages, every other form of media is an interruption.  This is why the Yellow Pages has traditionally been the most successful form of advertising for many businesses for years.  The only reason someone opens the Yellow Pages is to search for something.

So then is it fair to compare search engines to the Yellow Pages – it’s just another media, right? Ask the executives at the Yellow Pages companies if Google is “just another media”.  They’ll try to answer you through their tears as they look at their rapidly declining Yellow Pages revenue!

Which brings me to the second reason why online marketing is not just another media:

ADAPTABILITY.

There is no other form of advertising where you can place an ad, get results, modify the ad, get more results, decide to include a video in your ad, then change your mind and take it down – all in a 24 hour period!

If something isn’t working online, change it that day and test your new results!  Can you do that with a
newspaper ad, direct mail, or the Yellow Pages?  No!

And all of this can now be done by a non-technical person, like me.  I manage all of Everon’s online advertising and I don’t have a technical bone in my body.  The result is that small businesses are now truly empowered to take marketing into their own hands.

And finally, the third reason:

PAY FOR PERFORMANCE.

No other media lets you advertise to millions and millions of people without spending a penny until somebody responds to your ad.  This single innovation has opened up marketing to an audience of advertising buyers that would probably have never advertised otherwise because they saw the risk of spending money on traditional media as too high.

Now…hear me loud and clear.  I’m not saying this is the only media that should be used.  I’m a big believer in the value of direct mail, radio, and television advertising when used properly.  They are still very effective in many cases.  But online advertising is hot for a reason, and it’s not just because there are a lot of people out pitching online marketing services, as Robin suggests.

Online marketing is hot for one reason: IT WORKS.

AdWords and online marketing just another media?  That’s like saying a Ferrari is just another car.

Sorry Robin, but I have to disagree with you on this one, and I have to strongly encourage ALL small businesses – including managed services providers trying to find more powerful and effective ways to market their business – to explore the incredible online marketing opportunities that are available to them.

Mike

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The official MS video is a bunch of fluff and not really worth watching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60Oxw_Qzfyk&NR=1

But this video from someone at the store when it opened is interesting. I wonder how hard it was to find a bunch of happy screaming MS fans to rush the store when it opened.

One of the best comments I have heard is that they should have PC laptops running MAC OS on boot camp or something to get the MAC crowd into the stores… good luck with that.

Anyway, win 7, MS retail stores, discounted office licensing online…. times are a changing that is for sure.

Josh

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Today I was reminded that we all learn quite differently and that a blended approach to learning is most impactful.

I am sure you are familiar with different styles of learning, I know I am from Psychology studies and I would have told you with 100% confidence that I am a Physical learner – I do things to learn them. Everything I do in my learning is driven by this because it sticks better for me.

After completing this quick questionnaire I now will pay more attention to my learning and my habits as i came up as a Auditory / Physical learner, which makes sense when i think about it but I would not have been conscious of it otherwise.

Anyway, check out the link to the file from Brian Tracy and if you are not familiar with his stuff check him out in general. He is an authority on self development, writes a great newsletter, and from the materials of his that I have bought, is right on with his guidance and focus.

Josh

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We lost our first client to Dell Managed Services today and it sucks!! (by the way I will probably say a bunch of not nice stuff about Dell in this post as well and wonder if their blog team will show up to try and defend them)

The client is a manufacturing company that has been with us a little over a year (we take great pride that our average client has been with us 3.5 years) and has always been a bit hard to wrangle. You know the kind of customer that calls you at 2am on a Sunday night to tell you their network is down and by 10am Monday morning it has become clear that their internet line has been shut off due to them not paying the bill and somehow you are to blame for the business interruption because it takes Verizon 48 hours to do anything…

So needless to say our relationship was not at the level we like it to be but our account team was actively working on gaining first position with the client. And yet it was difficult, the client never seemed to have enough time to talk to us about their business or technology needs and never really provided much insight into how we were doing as their technology provider.

The last communication from the main contact despite repeated attempts to setup a call from our Client Services team and our Project team was that he wanted us to purchase a server and have it sent to the office. As you can imagine if any of your clients asked you to “purchase a server and send it to their office” you would try to get in touch with them to talk about what they are doing with the server at a minimum, never mind helping them think strategically about IT, so you would know how to spec the system appropriately.

This is where I think we all need to learn a lesson: Dell is actively calling and marketing to anyone that has ever purchased anything from them……. I know, this is not news, they have been doing this since launching their managed services and I for one have always held the position that they will never be able to provide the same level of service, personal interaction, and support that you or I can provide. I still believe this to this day, in fact the organizations I have spoken with that have used Dells service have reported exactly what we all have been talking about since Dell first launched their service, things such as: you get stuck talking to techs that do not know you, they have strict limitations on what they will and will not help you with, bla bla bla, who cares because that is not the important part. Their service could suck and it would not matter because of how top of mind they are making their service.

Think about this, your happy customers will never leave you for Dell, in fact your sort of happy customers will probably never leave you for Dell, but your unhappy today customers can click a button while purchasing a PC or server and be gone….

Unhappy today customers are customers that have experience a service bump and you are working to restore their faith in your service, we all have them. Heck you have probably gone through something like this with your best customers considering managed services is a lot like a marriage: there will be disagreement, fights, and even times of doubt but if both sides are committed to making it work in the long run things always move back to a good place.

The problem is what just happened today, my customer was not out looking to replace my service (by the way he was a $60k annual customer not including project work) he was simply going through a “not happy today” time period. He was not excited about the 48 hour business interruption no matter who’s fault it was and he had sent us an email to buy him a server that in his mind we had not had delivered yet. When he got to the point of frustration about the server where he called Dell to buy it himself they got him. He was in a place that allowed them to move him from my service to their service today.

That is the major problem we all need to be aware of with Dell’s marketing power (they recently launched Pro Managed Services or something like that as well for SaaS solutions by the way), their access to customers when purchasing hardware, and their list of all clients that have ever bought anything from them it is easy for them to be top of mind. And top of mind is what we all want to be when any small business owner is “not happy today” about their IT. That is the moment we win customers, the moment they are willing to make a change even though they may have had six previous years of good service with their provider, it is just that time.

I don’t believe my client would have gone out and shopped for new providers given his level of “not happy today” with our service. I believe we would have worked through the issues and been his long term provider but given the option to click a button when purchasing his server or check a box on his contract with no shopping or thinking he took it………

Two lessons I take away from this (yes I know we f’ed up building our relationship and we need to fix that as well):

1. Keep your customer’s away from purchasing anything Dell – I know it sounds silly but if you so much as ship something to your customers address they have them and they will start marketing to them.
2. Be more aware than ever of your “not happy today” customers and quickly move them back to happy. I know we all do this but you have to admit that there are customers you know are going through this period and you know will come around eventually so maybe you are not very panicked or urgent about it. Lose that attitude, build a program that allows you to put an overwhelming effort into fixing any “not happy today” customers right away and if you are not successful let them go.  It is becoming too easy for customers to jump ship with the click of a button.

I am not trying to paint Dell as the evil empire I just had one of those moments today where I sat back with my team and asked the question “how in the hell did we lose a customer to Dell managed services” and thought i would share my thoughts.

As always comments and feedback are appreciated.

Josh

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Also of interest in the comments on the site is the following from Vicki Brown at MindShift talking about their private label strategy.

“BTW, we’re currently working on a Private Label program for VARs, MSPs, ISPs, and Hosters who can resell the new Hosted Desktop service — under their name and brand. This private labeling enables resellers to offer this as a service from them; the mindSHIFT and NextDesktop brands are invisible to the customer.”

My question is do you consider MindShift a channel partner or a competitor and how will they be able to overcome the channel seeing them that way.

I sit on the fence in terms of their Next Desktop solution. They have done such a nice job branding it and making it simple that it seems only natural that we would private label it as an MSP and provide it to customers. But at the same time I have two questions that will need to be put to rest:

1. Is there a demand for the service out there? How will the small business rationalize purchasing computers to connect to the hosted desktops in the sky?
2. How does MindShift plan on handling competitive situations? Say a prospect is in the vetting process and it comes down to two vendors, us and them, what do they do?

I am interested to hear your thoughts on this as well so don’t be shy to leave comments here or shoot me an email as always: jclifford@everonit.com

Josh

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MRC

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Here is the full post from Perry Marshall:

“Sometimes Google AdWords is the least effective way to reach your target customer.”

A chance conversation in New York City shows why other advertising media may be better for you – because each form of advertising slices the world in a different, unique way

On a beautiful day in May I was in New York City for Gary Bencivenga’s now-legendary copywriting seminar, and taking the day off on a lovely Sunday afternoon. Just off Broadway and a few blocks from Central Park, I was drinking coffee in a donut shop when two guys struck up a conversation with me.

Turns out one of them was a senior sales executive for the Thomas Register. In case you’re not familiar, the Thomas Register is a very old company that, pre-Internet, used to make a gigantic set of green books that you would see in a company library, purchasing or engineering office. These books, which probably weighed 100+ pounds, were the national ‘Yellow pages’ for every kind of manufacturing you can possibly think of.

And pre-Internet, if you wanted to buy machine tools, adhesives, pump controllers, conveyor belts or literally hundreds of thousands of other items, the Thomas Register was probably the easiest way to find all of those things.

But now you just do a Google search. Right?

And that’s what this guy hears when he’s selling space at ThomasNet.com (they don’t even print those big books anymore) – his prospect says ‘Hey, I don’t need to advertise on your site, I’ll just advertise on Google.’

Well nobody’s in a better position than me to say that sometimes Google AdWords is NOT the best way for his prospect to reach a new customer! Sometimes it’s a lousy way to reach your target customer. Let me give you some examples:

• Last year I had a client who manufactures AC Adapters – you know, those big black plugs that provide power for your CD player or charge your cel phone. We tried mightily to make Google AdWords work, and couldn’t. Why? Because this company sells custom lots of 500 units or more to manufacturers, but all the traffic for “AC Adapters” and related keywords is everyday consumers looking to buy one unit at a time. Our Google campaign was a total failure, despite our best efforts to dis-qualify the customer. The ads would say “minimum lots of 500,” but Joe Consumer would click on the ad anyway, then leave. A manufacturing directory is a much better way to reach other manufacturers than Google in that situation.

• Let’s say you sell some kind of high-end equipment, software or consulting to high level exectutives – and lower-level people are a waste of time for you. (Very common scenario!) Is bidding on keywords a good way to target those executives? No, not really. Maybe only 1% of the people searching are executives, the rest just waste your clicks. Direct mail would be much, much better for that. A FEDEX envelope on the executive’s desk is a rifle shot.

• Keyword based advertising only works when people know they have a problem and can describe it to themselves and believe that somebody on the Internet has a solution. But many people have severe problems they don’t even realize they have. If that’s the case, search engine marketing isn’t a very good way to reach them. You need to interrupt them instead. So again, direct mail, ads in magazines they read, TV, radio – all of those media might be better. Search engine marketing only gets you people who are proactively looking to solve their problem right now.

• Sometimes search traffic gets you, ironically, the lowest quality, least-interested and least qualified prospects. People who regularly visit specific web sites are much more interested and much more qualified. Here’s an example: Let’s say you are doing fundraising for environmental activism. You could bid on the keyword “environment,” but what you’d probably get is high school kids doing homework assignments and writing papers about the environment. Now it may be nice to reach those kids with your message, but you ain’t gonna get any money out of them. And if you think about it, people who are already active and interested in that probably are not typing “environment” into a search engine. They already have sites they like to go to. You get much better traffic, and more donations, advertising on those sites. (That’s why, in some categories, AdSense gets you better traffic than Google searches.)

Every kind of advertising media slices the world in a different way. Bidding on keywords slices the world according to who’s got an itch to scratch, right now. Direct mail slices the world according to what magazines people subscribe to, what mail order products they’ve purchased, what charities they’ve donated money to. Compiled mailing lists slice the world according to where they live, what income level they’re in, what positions they hold in their jobs, what kind of home they live in.

“Rock – Paper – Scissors”

Print advertising slices the world according to topics people are interested in – if you advertise in Bass Fisherman magazine, you get guys who are rabidly interested in bass fishing. If you advertise on the radio at 7:30 in the morning, you get people who are on their way to work. The pros and cons of every form of advertising are sort of like that game “Rock – Paper – Scisssors” where each has its unique advantages and disadvantages.

So I told the Thomas Register exec that he just needs to come out and say that yes, sometimes Google is hands down the easiest, cheapest way to get new customers. (His prospect will be rather surprised to hear him say that! Coming clean will boost his credibility.) But he can point out that also sometimes, as with those AC Adapters, Google may also be one of the worst ways to get a new customer.

For most people, the truth is somewhere in the middle. For most people, Google is a great way to get a certain amount of high quality leads, but there are only so many available. It’s like an oil well that pumps out just so much every day, and no more. Plus you never want to have all your eggs in one basket, that makes you very vulnerable. So you need to explore other avenues.

In conversations I’ve had, people have been using any or all of the following ways to acquire new customers:

• Buying space ads in e-zines
• Endorsed email blasts from affiliates
• Pop-under and popup ads on other sites
• Postcard mailings
• Direct Mail
• Magalogs – catalogs that look like magazines
• Spots in other peoples’ catalogs
• FEDEX envelopes to highly-targeted prospects from carefully selected mailing lists
• Banner ads
• Radio
• TV
• Telemarketing
• Issuing a Press Release
• Writing a Book
• Being an “Expert” on a Talk Show
• Exhibiting at Trade Shows
• Flyers distributed house-to-house or business-to-business
• Doing a custom teleseminar for another person’s email list
• Ads in magazines
• Remnant space in local newspapers, purchased at a deep discount rates
• Speaking at seminars
• Card Decks – i.e. packet of postcards that comes in the mail
• Writing magazine articles and e-zine articles
• “Buyer advocate” sites like Thomas Register and Globalspec
• Flyer inserts in newspapers, magazines or mail-order shipments (that’s called “Insert media”)
• “Lumpy Mail” – sending people interesting objects, like one guy I know who mailed out a six foot canoe paddle

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So save this list for the next time you have one of those days when it seems impossible to find a new customer!

Remember that every other advertiser out there has access to some customers, and many of them know they can make a little more money (and not lose any business) by giving you controlled access to their customers. And many times even though those other media may have a higher customer acquisition cost, the customers may be higher quality.

To your success,

Perry Marshall

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At $39 / hosted PC I have to admit that the offering looks pretty attractive and i even like the branding of the nextdesktop.com site that they have done.

For a long time vendors have been talking about delivering the PC experience hosted in the sky to the small business client but this is the first product that looks like they might have it right when you look at it. They have made the pricing simple and adding features seems painless, not to mention that you can provision your service online with a few clicks of a button. The real test will be to see if clients are willing to adopt the model and what happens when the bandwidth can’t keep up with the demand on the PC.

I suspect it won’t be long until this type of offering is available through vendors for all managed service providers to bring to their customer base but for now MindShift gets to claim they are the “First”. Hopefully they will work all the kinks out for the rest of us.

Josh

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We have not tested the tool yet but I could imagine my key engineers or on call personnel carrying an iTouch or iPhone and being able to instantly from anywhere access our servers here in the office as a jumping off point to service clients. I know this is not the first application to allow a smart phone to remotely access a PC or Server but it, on the surface, is the first that seems to just make intuitive sense.

Check it out and let me know if you have taken it for a test drive.

Josh

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One of the benefits of attending these events is the side conversations you have with other MSPs.  One conversation I had almost made me choke on the lunch I was eating.

Sitting next to me were two well-dressed gentlemen from an MSP from Colorado Springs, a good-sized city in Colorado.  These guys looked more like two MBA graduates than the typical MSP, and I immediately assumed they must be pretty business savvy.

Upon talking to them, we began discussing Everon’s new web services offering and how I believe it’s a good example of what the MSP of the future will have to do to survive – broaden their service offering beyond that of core infrastructure and application support and into other high-value business services.

As we discussed the pros and cons of the model, one of the gentlemen said to me:

“I think that’s a big mistake.  I want my customers to see me as a Windows Server expert, not a business expert.”

Commence choking.

The following questions started running through my mind:

- Did he really just say that?

- Was he serious?

- Has he been completely oblivious to the trends of cloud computing and SaaS?

- Does he not realize that business experts make unlimited incomes in this world, while Microsoft Server experts willmost likely never again crack the six figure mark, and are predicted to be nearly decimated in the job market over the next 5 years?

- How could we possibly see things so differently?

The answers to those questions are the answers to the future of this industry.  I believe that we are on the cusp of dramatic changes in this business – more dramatic than the initial shift to managed services the industry just went through – and that many MSP’s will not survive.

- Consolidation is going to happen.

- Cloud computing is going to happen.

- Hardware as a Service is going to happen.

- The telecoms entering the business are going to happen.

I believe that being seen as a Windows Server expert is just about the worst thing you could hope for going forward in this business!  Why?  Your clients couldn’t care less about Windows Server – or just about any other technology for that matter!  They care about themselves and their business results.  More sales, more profits, more time off.  Sure, you want to have that expertise, but that’s not the position you want to have in the minds your clients.

This point is critical.

The position you have in the minds of your clients will determine if you are able to successfully introduce new products and services when necessary, and survive as a company as this next big shift happens.  If you have the right position, you’ll succeed no matter what today’s technology trend is; if you have the wrong one you’ll struggle to keep up with your client’s changing demands.

So what is the position you want to have in the minds of your clients?

That’s for you to figure out.

I’m not trying to avoid giving a specific answer; I’m suggesting that the position you have as a business should be based on where you think the marketplace is heading, what you are excellent at, and what you believe your customers will buy now and in the future.

- You can be a low cost provider, or a high-end white glove provider.

- You can focus on Windows PC’s or Mac’s – or both.

- You can focus on a specific vertical or be a generalist.

- You can focus on small businesses or larger ones.

- You can focus on one city or provide services around the globe.

All of these factors – and many more – will determine how you position your company in the marketplace.

Take Everon for example.  We decided to offer web services to clients because we realize that the reason most small businesses aren’t taking advantage of web services is because they don’t know how to effectively deploy the technology needed to do so.

It’s a technology problem that is limiting their business results.

That’s exactly where Everon wants to play.  We want to be positioned in the minds of our clients as a company that uses technology effectively to solve business problems – not as Windows experts or Mac experts or (insert your favorite technology here) experts.

That is a very conscious decision on our part.  We have a long term positioning strategy that we believe will resonate best with the clients we are going after, and offering these types of services are a part of it.

In my last post, I discussed the possibility of the large telco’s really getting the managed services marketplace figured out and putting a large dent in our potential marketshare.  If you are going to thrive against them, you had better have a consciously thought out strategy for positioning yourself against these large companies!

And let me give you some clues around this:

- Positioning your services as cheaper isn’t going to cut it.

- Positioning your services as being more convenient isn’t going to cut it.

- Positioning your services as generalists is going to cut it.

The big companies will have you beat at all of these things right out of the gate, that’s why they are big.  By their nature, they have to offer services general enough, convenient enough, and cheap enough to reach a mass market.  You can’t compete here long term and win.

You must differentiate yourself on some other factors.  And you’d better get started now!

Assuming you can get this positioning thing really figured out, you are leaps and bounds ahead of the competition – no matter how big or small they are. But it’s not enough.  To compete in the future of this space, I think you’ll need to execute on some other factors very successfully.

This post is long enough…we’ll save the others points for the next post or two.

MRC

PS – this positioning thing and its impact on business results is always easier to see from an outside perspective.  Read this article about Starbucks and their positioning challenges and how it’s impacted their business.  It’s very enlightening and educational.

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