Category: Business

Well, right now, I’m struggling a bit with keeping my high energy going after the big conference.  It’s now been over a week since I got back from Vegas.  The conference was great, we got a lot of solid leads…  but with so much work going into the conference, it can be hard not to slack off a bit.

So, leading up the conference, I was focused on getting the website converted to our new format (check out www.JaveLLinsolutions.com and let me if you have any feedback on the new site), and I was focused on a web dynpro version of Production Execution, and the IPad app for the Production supervisor, getting a new SAP system up and running to allow fast access of all our applications…  All of that effort, kinda left me a little burned out.  Then of course, I’m a bit of an introvert, so having to be on 100% of time during the show really takes a lot out of me.

So, what I’ve found is that it’s quite alright to take a week and ease back into things.  Go to bed at a reasonable hour every night, just work till you get tired, or take care of the high priority tasks, and let the secondary tasks slide for a week.  the important thing to remember is that you can’t let things slide forever…  so keep your to-do list up and running.  Focus on the high priority tasks, and when you feel a little more charged up, go back to your “normal” schedule.  For me, I’m hoping to ramp up this coming week and be rolling at 100%.  The conference gave me some big new things to start working on, but I need to start small.  I also just finished a great marketing book.  I’ll talk more about that soon…

Have no fear, more technical stuff is coming, it’s just been a long couple of months.  ha ha ha.

Thanks for reading,

Well, I just recently spent a few nights updating my existing auto-responder course for Service Management.  I thought it would be a quick win.  Afterall, I was trimming out most of the lessons that no one looked at anyway.  Well, it turns out, that I need to pay more attention to the auto-responder than I have in the past.  Let me walk you through what needed to happen.

First, I copied all the existing web pages to a word document, so it would be easier to edit offline.  Crazy, but this is a lot more effort than I originally expected.  I needed to do it anyway, so I could grab a lot of the content that will become a series of E-Books anyway, but sometimes just pulling images from the webpage is a major hassle.

Once I had everything in word, then it was proofreading, updating the content to sell better.  Namely, trying to pitch this more a higher level audience.  Like I mentioned in previous posts, most of my stuff was geared toward my peers.  Great to build my reputation, not so great to generate sales 🙂  So that meant I needed to rework much of my content, remove the low level configuration.

After finishing all that, I needed to update all my web pages (my auto-responders all link back to web pages in my site).  The reason I do this is to see how many people are interested enough to open the email, and then how many click to my site to read the whole deal.  It helps me gauge how good my copy is to entice people to read the whole thing.  Then, of course, I ran into a new obstacle.  Using Optimize press meant that I lost all the good looking formatting for my class.  So I needed to recreate each page, just to have a logo, title bar, etc…

When I finally finished all that fiasco, then I had to head back into Mailchimp and rework all that content.  Mostly easy, but then I realized that the extra content I had in my surrounding my teaser copy.  So I had to make sure that each of my pages was consistent and accurate.  Especially since we’ve rebranded some of our products.  Short story, just re-tooling my auto-responder burned a good 25 hours when everything was done.

So, with all of that, if you want to check out the finished product, I’d love to have you sign up 🙂

href=”http://eepurl.com/qlF91

Thanks for reading,

While initially, I was afraid this might be bad for me, it’s anything but.  The trend that SAP is working toward is all CRM Service Centric.  While this may be the latest and greatest, our target audience is still the small to midsized companies.  Many of them don’t have the resources to switch to CRM service.  This works perfect for me.  My self service portal can be a perfect compliment to the portal SAP has for CRM, and likewise, the Field Service application I’m currently building will do the same thing for SAP’s app that works off of the cloud/CRM.

I saw a presentation that went over the whole range of stuff that SAP is working on/just released in regards to mobile apps, web apps, and let me tell you, it got me excited.  Especially, if I can capitalize on this trend.  So, watch for more posts on the future Field Service application from JaveLLin, I’m already hyped up about it 🙂

thanks for reading,

Well, year 2 at the SAP Logistics/SCM/MFG conference was a dramatic improvement.  Some of the key things we found.

1. Swag – you have to do it.  Despite the ethics of “I only want people to talk to me if they are interested in my solutions”.  It turns out this approach is an epic fail.  By having slinkies and bags, we instantly had people stopping by, and would talk to us, sometimes finding they did have a need.  At a bare minimum, it gave us an opening to talk to people.

2. A real booth makes all the difference – Take a look at my last post to see the before and after.  Let’s just say, looking real gives people a lot more security in your solution.

3.  Having people.  Last year, Mike and I did it all ourselves.  This year, we brought 3 extra people, and let me tell you, it made all the difference in the world, especially during the busy times.

4.  Location, location, location – it’s just like real estate.  Mike ended up picking one of the best spots in in the tradeshow.  We ended up on a corner, facing a pair of rooms used by speakers and presentation…  so everytime people came out of the class, they walked past our booth.  Talk about a boost for a relatively unknown company.

5.  Running into old colleagues – while this isn’t something you can control, connecting with people is a whole lot easier when you have a history.  Especially, if you really did good things while you worked together.  I was able to reconnect with great contacts.

Now, we move onto the next phase…  utilizing all of the contacts we collected… more to come as I continue to decompress 🙂

Thanks for reading,

It’s amazing the difference that one year makes.  We attended the SAP MFG conference in Vegas last year and had less than stellar results.  To give you an idea of what happened, let me give you the before and after pictures..

So, this look and feel works for a small regional show.  In general, it gives a good folksy feel. Not what I wanted to project at the big show.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  Those of you that know that me know that I’m not the flashy type.  I’m very straightforward, down to earth, and certainly a bit on the geeky side (I love my woot shirts).  But I digress.  Now, lets fast forward one year….

Notice, the distinct upgrades of the booth itself.  We have a real backdrop, a little podium, and we weren’t hiding behind a table like someone taking orders, afraid to mingle with the crowd.  Now the other thing to really notice, we have people.  A special thanks to Bob Auman, Amy Opheim and Dave Delaney who came out and helped us man the booth.  With their help, we projected an air of legitamacy.   Last year, we were 2 guys sitting at a table, this year, we were 5 people floating around, meeting, greeting and having fun.

What a difference a year makes,

Thanks for reading,

Well, I recently found a new company, SBS, who specializes in using LinkedIn to better market myself and my business.  So far it’s been good .  Like everything, the true test is if we get any qualified leads of out it…  which hasn’t happened yet.  However, I have almost tripled the number of connections I have on linkedIn, and my number of views of my pages has gone up exponentially.  But the real question comes down to what does really get me.

Marketing is one of those areas that comes slowly to an engineer like myself.  While I see the value, the struggle comes with how much do I invest.  At the end of the day, it all about leads, which haven’t materialized yet.  My profile is light years ahead of where it was at, and I certainly have learned a few things about who to market myself to (I mentioned this in the past) and how to better market myself.  I’m contemplating moving up to the next level of getting a video presentation on my linkedIn profile.  My dilemma is the cost associated with this.

My question to all of you…  how much time do you spend on linkedIn?  do you ever look for software out there?  new technology?  or is it just a recruitment site?  I’d love to hear your opinions.  My marketing dollars are very valuable (because we have so few of them as a small business), and I’d love to get some feedback on your experiences.

As always, Thanks for reading,

Well, what can I say, except I hate the whole networking world lately.  Talk about a royal pain.  My new server was up and running like a dream for a while.  Then suddenly a couple weeks ago, my wireless card kept randomly disconnecting.  Of course, it happens when I go out of town.  Murphy’s law at it’s finest.  So I have my lovely wife try restarting the server.  Things seem fine, then I try to connect again an hour later, no connection.

So, I get home, spend a couple of long nights experimenting, playing, and just randomly beating my head against the wall.  I finally stumble along the issue.  Windows 8.1 doesn’t support my wireless network card yet.  Alright, so at least I have my culprit.  Not happy about it, but I have a place to start.

So I figure, I’ll just head over to Best Buy and buy myself a new card.  Not the end of the world.  I get it installed, things seem to be working alright.  I restart the system and head out to a hockey game.  I come back, the damn thing won’t work.  Now it’s a hardware issues since the light won’t even turn on in any of my systems.  Great…  so finally, go to my last resort of the Ethernet cable.  It’s the most stable, but of course, my office isn’t close to the Ethernet box.  So, now I have some extender coming (since my longest cable barely make it to the box, and it looks like I Have a tripwire in my office.  The good news, I finally have a working system that my colleagues, and most importantly, potential clients at the conference can connect to and try out our applications.  Who knew, something so simple could give me so many headaches 🙂

Thanks for reading,

This is been a while in the making, and I’m really excited about this.  I’ve spent a lot of the past 2 months working with my friend at Lithium Labs to design this app.  We took our ERP only application, Proximity: Production Supervisor and moved it outside the ERP system and onto the IPad.  We will be demo’ing this starting tomorrow at the SAP MFG conference in Vegas.

I really hope you’ll help us out and download the app.  Even if you don’t use it, it would mean a lot to me if you just downloaded it to help get some publicity.  Thanks again…

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/proximity-production-supervisor/id834697137?mt=8

Well, since I have the big conference coming up, I’m still in marketing mode. Lately, I’ve been finding firsthand the elegance of simplicity.  Let me explain what I mean.  Recently, my little guy, Alex, started at a Montessori School.  I’d always heard the term, but never really grasped what was so different.  Before Alex started, we the parents get to come in and check the place out, see what the kids will be doing, and in general get that good feeling that your getting your money’s worth out of the school.  I was already interested, because I’d heard good things about the Montessori concept, but I didn’t understand the details.

So I go in and get to observe the kids.  It’s just 2 teachers for almost 20 kids.  I’m expecting there will be mass chaos, yelling, running, wrestling, etc…  just like daycare.  Well, I walk in everyone is subdued, mellow, focused on their tasks, quietly asking questions if they need help.  Needless to say, I was amazed.  No one was fighting because the activity they wanted wasn’t available.

Now, the next I took away was how simple the activities were, and how easily they teach real skills.  Simple things like counting using sticks that are different lengths.  Allowing your whole brain to engage, sight, touch, even sound…  The obvious nature of everything there had me walking away shaking my head.  In a good way :).  It’s so simple, why didn’t i think of it???  why isn’t everyone doing it???  incredible.

Well, I’ve been reading more of my Perry Marshall course, and it really is eye opening.  In the same way, he’s an engineer turned marketing guru (exactly what I’m trying to do), and the things he teaches leave me shaking my head.  The latest one I’m about to do is to just sit down and write a day in the life of my customer.  Using it help understand their pain, what they want, what they need, and what it’s worth to them.  DUH!!!

Anyway, I am a bit slow at times, but I’m slowly getting there.  Anyway, just remember that success doesn’t have to be complicated…  it just needs to happen on purpose.

Thanks for reading,

I’d like to start by thanking all of you that read my stuff with any consistency.  I never expected to meet so many consultants that tell me they read my stuff before I ever met them.  It’s humbling and ego boosting all the same time 🙂  That being said, I was a Charlotte Checkers game, and they had a skate with the Checkers event after the game.  Well, it was hard fought game, the Monsters played rough, and the Checkers lost a close game by a late goal.  All and all, for the average person, it would have been disheartening, depressing, pick your own word for it.  Well, all the players game out with smiles on their faces, sharpies in hand and gladly signed jerseys of young and old fans alike.

It didn’t hit me until later that this is the ultimate in customer service.  These guys were tired, bruised and beaten, but they still came out and happily hung out with their fans.  Why?  you might say that they have to do it, it’s in their contract, or somehow else they were obligated.  You might be right, but I look at it the other way.  They are a minor league team in a southern state.  Hockey isn’t the biggest sport in the area…  it might not even be in the top 5, so they know the importance of taking care of their fans.  They realize that the loyal fans help keep them employed playing the game they love.

How is this any different from a small business?  It’s all about serving the customers you have, and then growing your business to new customers.  Why do I mention this?  because small business is tough and I’ve been reading it in more and more locations, the best place to find “new” customers is in your existing customer base.  Never, Never neglect them.  They bought from you when few others did, and they deserve your attention.  More importatnly, they may buy your next product if you serve them well enough.  So, take care of those customers and they will take care of you.

thanks for reading,