Category Archives: Consulting

April 15, 2013 · 10:55 am

Four Misunderstandings About Social Media

As you’ve probably aware if you’ve spent any time here on the screed, I take a great interest in how business folks think about social media.

Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

I am one of those people who believe that over time the word “social” will vanish as all media becomes more social and what we classify today as “social” media becomes more mainstream (although I’m not sure how Facebook could become more mainstream when it seems damn near everyone is on it!).  How businesses can use social media is one of the areas in which I advise clients and so I took great interest in an info-graphic I came across the other day entitled “How Small Businesses Are Using Social Media (and why they may be getting it wrong).  If you click through I think you’ll find some good information on it but you’ll also find four terrible misunderstandings.

In the section labelled “Why Small Businesses Are Using Social Media” there are four points.  Each one is, I guess, something that these businesses believe to be true.  Unfortunately, they’re not.  Take point one:  it’s inexpensive.  Sure the tools are free but supporting your business on each platform is not free.  In fact, to do social well and to cover all the potential social bases (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Google+ for starters) in an active way that will engage your customers requires planning, writing, and responding.  It all takes time, and as we all know, time is money.

Point two: it’s easy to use.  Another half truth although I’m sure businesses believe it.   The tools are not overly complicated but creating great, engaging content is hard, as you can probably tell from the attempts to do so in this space.

Point three:  their customers use social media.  Yes they do, but as the term “media” indicates  they’re in a lot of places doing so.  The aforementioned “big” guys are just the tip of the iceberg, and new players emerge and grow every day.  Reddit, Vine, and Stumble Upon are just three places where a lot of the customers are but the brands aren’t.  Add to that the fact that to gain any sort of visibility with the majority of your customers on the big guys (Facebook and Twitter in particular) requires you to be a paying customer.  So much for “free.”

Point four:  It doesn’t take a lot of time.  Totally wrong unless you add “to do it badly” to the end of that phrase.  Supporting multiple platforms with engaging content and responding to consumer interactions takes a lot of time – ask any of the brands that do social media well.

That’s my take – what’s yours?

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April 10, 2013 · 9:24 am

My Life As An Auto Mechanic

It’s been over five years that I’ve been out on my own working as a consultant to all sorts of companies. For all the clients I do and have had over that period, there are at least twice as many companies with whom I’ve had exploratory meetings and conversations and I’ve learned a few things I’d like to share.  One of the things one finds out pretty rapidly in the consulting world is that you’re pretty much in the same boat as auto mechanics. That may seem odd so let me explain.

Auto mechanics are a necessary fact of life.  Most of us own cars, few of us really understand how they work and, more important  how to diagnose and fix what’s wrong with them.  Some people try to do the simple stuff like oil changes themselves but recognize that doing your own brake job can kill you if you screw it up.  Enter the mechanic.  While grudgingly accepted as needed, he’s not really beloved and the things people do to them show that.  First, there are the people who will try to get a free diagnosis.  They drive in and spend a fair amount of the mechanic’s time telling him about what they think is wrong but refuse to spend a few bucks to let the mechanic devote an hour of his time to do a real diagnosis using his knowledge and  equipment.

Once car owners get past the acceptance that they need the mechanic and the diagnosis he made, they spend an equal amount of time haggling over price.  Now as a car owner, I recognize that a discussion with the repair person with respect to what’s really needed before the work begins can save you a fair amount of money.  However, haggling over what to charge for the agreed-upon work is insulting.  If the shop is too expensive, move on.

Then there’s the dark side of the unscrupulous mechanics who put used parts in cars and say they’re new.  There are the guys who do unnecessary work just to run up the bill.  Heck, there are shops that don’t do the work they say they did at all.   They give all the honest shops a bad name.  Finally, having a good mechanic can be a life-saver.  If you have an ongoing relationship with them, most will drop almost everything in an emergency to get your car back on the road for you.

Now go back and read that again, except change “mechanic” to “consultant” and “car” to “business.”  Just call me Cooter!

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April 4, 2013 · 11:11 am

Are You A Middleman?

I was having lunch yesterday with a business friend and he remarked on some new eyeglasses I’d recently bought.

eyeglasses

(Photo credit: Lynn Kelley Author)

I told him about the purchase process and how the next time I bought some new specs (these were an emergency purchase due to a misplaced foot) I’d be doing so online. I talked about Warby Parker and how they are selling high quality frames and lenses for under $100. I went on to talk about an article in the Times this week on how there were companies like W/P who are cutting out the middlemen in areas such as bedding (Crane and Canopy), office supplies (Poppin), nail polish (Julep), tech accessories (Monoprice), men’s shoes (Beckett Simonon) and shaving supplies (Harry’s).

As I drove back from lunch I thought about how that process really should raise a question for each of us and every business:  what value are we adding?  The reason the above companies are successful is that they’re offering the same high-quality products at lower prices by cutting several layers out of the business transaction.  Obviously, if the quality of the end-product remains the same, all of those layers were adding nothing of value but were adding to the costs.

Disintermediation is probably the biggest effect the internet has had over the last twenty years.  It’s not just in the retail chain either.  Video on demand services such as Netflix cut out the local video store.  The ability for program creators to access audiences directly has cut out distributors such as TV networks and even cable systems.  The easiest way for any of the middlemen to remain a part of the equation is for them to define the value they bring to the sale and make that value very apparent.  This is true, perhaps even more so, if you’re in a service business.

There is a tendency to think that the technology is simply making things more efficient.  If clarifying the value chain means “efficient” then I guess I agree.  If you are a middleman of any sort, you need to be doing that clarification yourself, both internally and externally.  Does that make sense?

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