Do you suffer from MBI - Management by Inbox? Are you addicted to your inbox, or are you tethered to it like a wild horse that wants to run free, but can’t…What could you do with your business if you could escape the inbox? You might be more creative. You’d probably have more free time. You’d defiantly find that when it stopped pinging you with constant reminders about something to be done, someone to talk to, or something to respond to, you’d get back to the business of actually running your business! In 1993 AOL developed the inbox and it hasn’t stopped creeping in on our lives and cluttering our days, evenings and weekends since. Each message is urgent right?
NO! The problem is that checking it is such a habit now, we feel like we MUST respond. Are you inbox dependent?
- When you wake up in the morning do you just go straight to your iPhone, BlackBerry or computer?
- Would forgetting your phone at home give you more jitters than missing your caffeine fix?
- Do you send your staff, customers and prospects constant emails - then review the “sent box” to see what you’ve been doing to manage your business?
If those questions rang a little… too true, you’re probably an inbox junkie, and it’s probably a good bet that your mind and business is cluttered. You’re likely a “pusher” of the inbox drug in your business as well. The problem with MBI is that email isn’t very well organized. Living with MBI means it’s hard to manage tasks (even with advanced “Outlook Rules”), impossible to find things and incredibly distracting!
Is there a better way? I’ve spent a solid ten years of my life trying to get out of the inbox in my company and with our tools. I am very PLEASED to say YES! This week we released 1to1REAL with advanced business processes that can get you out of the inbox and back into your best business practices. I believe that you should model what makes your business unique - your processes and what you do best - and let your staff, support you and your customers by following your lead.
The mark of true leadership is setting the bar and expectations while walking your own talk! So, why not let technology do some of that walking for you? Take the best of the best of what you do and share it. Email isn’t designed to do that, but if you create a best practice process - even just one, you’ll be amazed how easy it is to avoid distraction and start transforming - getting new business and traction.
I’ll be doing a series on business process design on our newly launched 1to1REAL.com blog - so subscribe to the feed and watch for some exciting new ways to transform your business (and take back your evenings and weekends). Believe me, everyone from your staff to your wife, partner and kids will thank you - and you’ll start eliminating the stress of wearing too many hats and getting TOO much information with at buzz or a beep!!
Photo: Bcostin, Flickr
Published in
1to1 Connection Tips & Tools
Ever gotten into a good natured argument with a friend about a fact neither of you are totally certain about? For example, are Baboons monkeys or apes? This simple question, completely unrelated to anything important became a hotly contested item of debate for one CMAEON staffer. She solved the problem the way so many people in her generation do – she checked Wikipedia. Victorious in her assertion that Baboons were monkeys, life went back to normal.Situations like this probably happen millions of times a day, all around the world. Why?
Today, people are increasingly dependent on the Internet and sites like Wikipedia for instant information. If you have a question, you don’t ponder or go to the library – you Google it. Need to check some facts? Settle a bet? Want an opinion on a restaurant? Get an opinion from your peers? Internet. The quest for information isn’t a one way transaction where the consumer passively absorbs it from a book, a map or a newspaper anymore – it’s a conversation now.
“Can anyone recommend a good Italian restaurant for my big date?” “What’s the best route to get to the train station?” “Who is a good realtor?” Our conversations and quests for information drive us online to websites like Wikipedia, Yelp, Twitter and Facebook in a way that’s completely new and still evolving.
So what does this mean for businesses, and more importantly, what does this mean for a small business without the money to sink into Google adwords and expensive online marketing campaigns? How can they be successful in this business climate? It means a successful business is able to tap into the conversations that are already happening online.
People constantly want information; therefore, if a business can join the conversation and respond to people with the specific information they want, that business is going to leave a positive impression. It’ll become a trusted brand. It’ll become the Wikipedia of a specific area of interest. It’ll be truly connected to its market and the needs of its customers. That’s the power of the Connected Market Space in the Age of Wikipedia.
Photo: Cartoonist Bill Amend's somewhat sarcastic take on the power of Wikipedia - from Ross Mayfield's Flickr (licensed under Creative Commons.)
Published in
Blog
I just received this email. Names withheld to protect the innocent…
-----Original Message-----
From: [redacted]
Sent: Monday, September 13, 2010 11:25 AM
To: Tim Vasko
Subject: Get Your Free Sales Assessment Today!
We’re revolutionizing how busy sales professionals find
and buy software with our FREE online assessment for sales team managers!
By completing the free, online Sales Software Needs Assessment we can connect you with prescreened, sales software companies that offer products matched to your needs!
The name of the game?
Spend more hours selling and less time doing every-thing else.
• Could your reps be squeezing more sales out of their territories?
• Are they scheduling as many calls as they could?
• Do they up-sell and cross-sell when they should?
• Do they call the right people at the right time?
• Do you sometimes think, “We could do better!”?
Get a 5-10 page customized report – free of charge!
We can match you with our Pre-Screened vendors no matter what you need:
-----
Looking at the content of this email - the list of questions being asked and the choice of solutions being offered… it suddenly becomes easy to answer the question of what the Connected Market Space is, and what 1to1Real is.
All of the questions in that email are just about sales. It conveniently forgets that running a business is about sales, managing people, creating a good marketing message to get the leads and buyers for your sales staff (if you have a sales staff - many of us wear that hat too) and keeping track of the bottom line.
In the world of this email, once you've answered the question of the day you get to sort through a host of solutions that promise to solve your problem of the day. But who has the time to evaluate dozens of software solutions and try to figure out what solution(s) might work for them? It's a never ending circle - what problem, what solution, how much should you spend - will it work? Getting tangled up using a different technology solution for every one of your business “problems” is no solution at all.
I was caught in the technology tangle years ago with my businesses. I thought to myself, "isn't technology supposed to help me? Why do I find myself doing more work at night trying to keep up with data entry, than I did before when all I had was paper?" I had found plenty of “tools” that needed me to do more data entry just to keep up. They didn't help me answer the questions (like those in the email) for my market, my prospects, or even my staff when I was busy wearing one of my many hats. They solved one problem and created others in their wake. Once I used a solution to improve my email marketing, I was left with too many contacts that I wasn’t responding to well enough to... So, I need another "tool" to fix that problem… I was caught in a trap – a never ending spiral – the technology tangle.
However, when I realized I was caught, I noticed that everyone else was too. So, I set out to do something about it. I imagined software – an actual solution - that would do some of the work for my business, instead of making more work for me. I wanted something that once I set it up and said "go" - it would take the load off of me and my business and my staff, something that would connect me to my market and my customers. I’ve worked with hundreds of companies and thousands of staff over the last 10 years, and they’ve all had the same problems:
1) Wearing multiple hats
2) Getting your story to the market in a crowded marketplace
3) Keeping the message going out
4) Keeping the leads and business coming in
5) Using technology to manage the process
1to1Real is the solution to all of these problems. It’s the Connected Market Technology I imagined. 1to1Real is a process engine; it’s a robot - a sales, management, and messaging engine – it’s an automated marketing machine. It’s THE solution that actually connects you to your market and your customers, actually saves you time and actually does the work for you.
So, here it is - the week I turned 50. I didn't think it would take a decade of my life to create! It’s been a huge investment to create 1to1Real and deliver the Connected Market Space to people. I can't say I've always loved the journey. However, I can say I've always been fascinated about the possibility of a solution.
Creating 1to1Real took the CMAEON team tens of thousands of hours of work, all while working with real companies who had tenacity and faith along the way to share the dream having of solutions that actually worked for them. These loyal customers helped us forge and invent and pushed us to think out of the box. They helped us create 1to1Real - the next generation’s model for creating market connections, managing business processes, messaging, marketing and measuring how current and potential customers work with organizations. I am grateful for every hour, all the input and even the toughest of challenges - I look forward to all the ways 1to1Real will help with the entrepreneurial success and struggle.
I had a great birthday party this weekend, with many generous and wonderful friends. Coming toward this day, my insightful wife asked me, "what are the top quotes that have shaped your life?" I thought about that question for just a moment. It was easy to answer because, every decade I had inspiration from a discovered and cherished statement that struck me and carried me along - like a blast of wind filling my sails to catch a flowing tide, a philosophy always seemed to arise at the perfect time in life to send me onward.
Therefore, this is a wonderful week for me to finally deliver a version of 1to1Real that has an automated sign up. Now any business owner, manager, entrepreneur, sole proprietor – anyone, can use 1to1Real connect their inspiration, their dreams, their vision, their products and their services to their market. No matter what is on your list of your questions for your company, I believe 1to1Real can help. I've seen it help so many, for so long so I couldn't be more excited to share this next journey with you, with 1to1Real and our related product categories for specific industries.
Enjoy, and try 1to1Real - tell us what you think! We are relying on you to tell us how you use it. Help us invent the next decade for small to medium sized businesses and entrepreneurs.
I think we can all agree the future is in the hands of those of us who venture to run our companies with our teams. The recent failures of big enterprise has shown us that the road ahead lies in the connections we forge at the real level of entrepreneurship - the businesses that employ, deliver and drive the Connected Market Place and the economics the big guys just can't seem to understand.
Thank you to all for all your lessons and support - I look forward to what the next decade will bring as I sail from 50 to new challenges on new, changing seas.
"Life is short,
decades come and go,
But lessons and love last for all eternity."
Tim
PS - If you care to have a copy, here are my Top 5 Lessons. You're free to enjoy.
Published in
Blog