Why Your Web Site Sucks
January 13th, 2011
Ship Wreck, Fraser Island by NeilsPhotography
A web site without a goal is like a rudderless ship. You have no idea how to improve the site, you have no clear vision of the site’s purpose and you wind up throwing money into a hole that adds no value to your business. Your small business website needs a goal – preferably one in line with your company’s goal. And, what is your company’s goal? I’ll go out on a limb and guess “to make money.”
Most small business websites don’t achieve this goal. In the rush to get a site live, make it attractive and fit the needs and desires of the business owner, the whole purpose of the site can get lost. When planning your small business website – whether you’re launching it for the first time or working through a redesign – you need to start with this goal, figure out how to measure it and plan all improvements and tweaks to your site with the purpose of achieving this goal. Being able to measure how well your site is achieving its goal is the most important indicator of the success of your site.
This measurement is called the “conversion rate”. You can calculate the conversion rate by dividing the number of people who have converted into customers because of your site by it’s total unique visitors.
But how can you tell if someone has converted?
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The Purpose Driven Website
January 11th, 2011
the blank canvas by xinem
Starting from zero with a website can be intimidating. Certainly, you can look at similar sites and competitors and get ideas for design, purpose, etc. Without experience, though, design seems so subjective.
What makes a web site’s design successful? For small business web sites, good design is never subjective. If the site achieves its goals, it’s a successful site. And a site can always be more successful in achieving its goals.
The fatal flaw in web site design is that too many sites are not designed with these goals in mind. In fact, you can break down most web site designs into three categories:
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Does Your Website Listen To Your Customers?
January 6th, 2011
"Listen to ME!" by Jonathan Powell
The best marketing asset I have is myself. Whenever I go to trade shows, I bring a fat stack of business cards (complete with my phone number, email address, website and – yes! – my Twitter account name) and freely hand them out. I engage directly with everyone I meet at the trade show booths, during sessions and at all of the mixers. I’m there to get more business, true, but I don’t thrust my hand at someone and immediately begin my pitch. The first words out of my mouth after an introduction are usually, “What do you do?”
Listening to someone talk about their job, their company, what they value and what their goals are is the best way to win them as a customer. You should be listening for their pain points and immediately develop strategies to fix them, preferably with the services or products you sell. The best sales people aren’t the ones who convince someone to buy a product, they’re the ones who actually solve a customer’s problem. If you gain a reputation as a problem solver, customers will not only keep coming back, they’ll send their friends and colleagues your way as well.
Why Web Developers Flake
December 30th, 2010
"Flaking Paint" by Bart Everson
Whenever I speak to small business people, I always hear the same story – they found a web developer or web designer, contracted with them to develop their business site, then quickly became disenchanted with the results. Either the site took too long to build and wound up nothing like they had imagined, or the web developer simply up and flaked on them, never to be found again. This tale is almost always followed up by a request to take on whatever work the previous developer left behind. Never one to turn down money, I almost always used to accept.
I soon understood that I could take on this work full time and start my own business. In the Fall of 2006, I quit my full time job to start TechKnowMe: designing, developing, marketing and maintaining web sites for small businesses. Getting work was easy – I simply hit all of the local Chamber of Commerce mixers, introduced myself as a web developer and waited for the inevitable stories to be told. I marketed TechKnowMe as the company that would stick around. I was dedicated to building web sites for small businesses – nothing else. It wasn’t something I did in my free time; it was my job.
I soon found myself with far more work than I could handle on my own, so I sought the help of other local developers and designers to ease the load. For a while, things looked fantastic, and business was booming. But soon, due to a number of personal and economic factors – along with a rash of first timer mistakes I made – things began to fall apart. Before I knew it, the freelancers I worked with were no longer available, and I found myself stuck with half a dozen unfinished projects and practically zero cash-flow. With a new baby in our house, I had to improve our financial situation fast. I finally had to face the fact that I would need to take a full time job outside of TechKnowMe in order for my small family to survive. I explained this to my remaining clients and, though extremely frustrated, most understood and agreed to allow me to finish the outstanding work in whatever free time I had.
It’s been a year since all this happened and I’ve either completed most of that outstanding work or simply had to let it go. For some of my clients, I became just another guy who flaked on them.
Equity Capital Update: BP
October 14th, 2010
Copyright © 2010 Integrated Profitability TM
(This article is published concurrently at the “Integrated Profitability” blog. Please visit for the full series of articles.)
The final article on capital and equity was posted at the end of July: Equity Capital: In Conclusion. Since then, one of the most written-up examples of the need for equity capital to cover adverse conditions has published 2Q10 financial results: British Petroleum.
The explosion on the Deep Water Horizon, killing 11 people; its subsequent sinking; the ruptured oil well; and wide-spread environmental damage has added huge expenses related to fixing and cleaning up the problem. It is for exactly these types of disasters that capital and equity are needed.
A quick review of BP’s 2Q10 results highlights the following:
Income Statement
● Production and manufacturing expenses*:
Increased to $38.0 billion (from a ~$6.0 billion quarterly run-rate)
● Taxation:
Received offsetting credit of ($7.2 billion) (from a ~$2.5 billion quarterly tax run-rate)
● Profit (loss) for the period:
Became a ($17.0) billion loss (from a ~~$6.0 billion quarterly run-rate)
*: Footnote to Production and manufacturing expenses:
“Second quarter and first half 2010 include a charge of $32,192 million in production and manufacturing expenses, and a credit of $10,003 million in taxation in relation to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.”
Source: Excel download from investor relations portion of BP’s website; “Copy of FOI_quarterly_ifrs_full_book”
Balance Sheet
● Trade and other payables
Increased to $45.5 billion (from $38.1 billion at the end of 1Q10)
● Provisions
Increased to $13.4 billion (from $1.6 billion at the end of 1Q10)
● Other payables
Increased to $16.3 billion (from $3.2 billion at the end of 1Q10)
● Deferred tax liabilities
Increased to $11.0 billion (from $20.2 billion at the end of 1Q10)
● Total liabilities (includes the above items)
Increased to $162.3 billion (from $135.7 billion at the end of 1Q10)
● BP shareholders’ equity
Decreased to $85.5 billion (from $104.1 billion at the end of 1Q10)
Notice the Income Statement’s 2Q loss ($17.0 billion) and the Balance Sheet’s decrease in Shareholder equity from 1Q to 2Q: $18.6 billion.
Which re-emphasizes the desirability of having adequate equity-capital.
Bill
William A. Stong
Email: william.a.stong@gmail.com
SBF&P # 84
Telephone: 925-202-6244
Copyright © 2010 Integrated Profitability TM
Trends: Why important?
October 7th, 2010
Copyright © 2010 Integrated Profitability TM
(This article is published concurrently at the “Integrated Profitability” blog. Please visit for the full series of articles.)
Trend reporting is important because it provides a dynamic component to the static “point in time” reports of the Balance Sheet (e.g., end-of-month/quarter/year) and “period in time” reports of the Income Statement (e.g., the month of July; the 3 Qtr; full year). Trends indicate how the financial numbers are moving over time.
Assuming comparable data, the longer the time period, the more insight that can be garnered.
In a very simple example, let’s say you have $10,000 to invest in the stock market. Which is more revealing:
● A single intra-day stock quote
● Three months’ worth of daily end-of-day closing prices
● Five years’ worth of daily end-of-day closing prices
● Five years’ worth of daily opening, intra-day, closing prices
These include peaks and troughs during each day
● Five years’ worth of daily opening, intra-day, closing prices; adjusted for actions affecting the stock such as splits
The more trend data you have, the more you will know about how the stock price behaves, when it goes up/down, and by how much. A graph of the data will indicate certain cycles, and will give hints as to which way the price may be heading. Of course, anyone in the market knows that:
1. “past performance is no guarantee” of future performance and
2. it is incredibly difficult to forecast tomorrow’s price
The point is that with a sufficient amount of history and comparability, you are in a much better position to have an informed opinion about where the price may be heading. Without the information, it’s like flying a plane from a cockpit that has no windows and no instruments. You can do it for a while but the likelihood of a crash goes up astronomically.
Bill
William A. Stong
Email: william.a.stong@gmail.com
SBF&P # 83
Telephone: 925-202-6244
Copyright © 2010 Integrated Profitability TM
Finance: Measuring their performance
September 30th, 2010
Copyright © 2010 Integrated Profitability TM
(This article is published concurrently at the “Integrated Profitability” blog. Please visit for the full series of articles.)
Given what Finance people do, their accountability, and the information they use while doing their jobs, what are some of the ways to measure how well they are performing?
Given that Finance accountabilities cover significant internal and external ground, measuring their performance needs to include both. Here are a few common approaches, by the three major functions:
● Accounting
- Accuracy of booking entries
- Findings from internal and external auditors; regulators
- Promptness of the monthly close
- Timeliness of submitting regulatory and investor reporting
● Finance
- Accuracy of the financial plans
- Accuracy and business-relevance of variance/performance explanations
- Accuracy of the forecasts
- Timeliness of financial reports after accounting close
- Use of reports and analyses by business partners
● Market-related
- Net-profit from proprietary trading
- Amount of idle funds
- Adequacy of liquidity
- Net value of hedging activities
Bill
William A. Stong
Email: william.a.stong@gmail.com
SBF&P # 82
Telephone: 925-202-6244
Copyright © 2010 Integrated Profitability TM
Product Management: Measuring their performance
September 23rd, 2010
Copyright © 2010 Integrated Profitability TM
(This article is published concurrently at the “Integrated Profitability” blog. Please visit for the full series of articles.)
Given what Product Managers do, their accountability, and the information they use in performing their jobs, what are some of the ways to measure how well they are performing?
Given that Product Management accountabilities cover significant internal and external ground, measuring their performance needs to include both, irrespective of how much weight is given to the various components. Indeed, this weighting will depend upon each organization’s current situation, which will dictate what the most critical deliverables, and hence performance, will be (e.g., the weight given, at any particular time, to external benchmarks versus internal project milestones, cost control, risk mitigation).
Here are a few common approaches:
● Project deliverables
- On time
- On budget
- With the features & functionalities originally included in the project
● Availability
e.g., on a 24-hour clock, how much time is the product available to customers?
● Operational Service Level Agreements (SLA’s)
e.g., are specified times, timing, amounts fully met?
● Customer satisfaction
● Market share
● Profitability
Product Management may also share a few performance measurements with Sales, such as:
● Penetration
e.g., the degree to which a customer’s known business needs are being met by your company’s products and services
For example, a bank may be a counterparty with a corporation’s foreign exchange (FX) trading activity. Penetration is increased if the bank becomes the settlement bank for that corporation’s FX transactions.
● Share of wallet
e.g., the amount of a customer’s known spend-for-products/services is being met by your company’s sales to them
For example, a corporation might buy all of a particular raw material from one supplier; or a bank might handle all letters of credit for a corporation.
Bill
William A. Stong
Email: william.a.stong@gmail.com
SBF&P # 81
Telephone: 925-202-6244
Copyright © 2010 Integrated Profitability TM
Sales: Measuring their performance
September 16th, 2010
Copyright © 2010 Integrated Profitability TM
(This article is published concurrently at the “Integrated Profitability” blog. Please visit for the full series of articles.)
Given what Sales people do, their accountability, and the information they use in performing their jobs, what are some of the ways to measure how well they are performing?
The task of measuring sales performance and the subsequent rewarding of that performance is a deep, board, and constantly changing topic. Sales people are exquisitely tuned to the structure of sales incentives and are very quick to adapt to the way any incentive program is structured to maximize their personal reward. Thus, the construction of sales incentive plans must anticipate the ways that the plan will cause sales people to react in terms of what, how, when, and to whom they make sales.
Here are a few common approaches:
● Amount of Sales revenue, based on signed contracts ($)
● Revenue growth ($ and/or %)
e.g., change in actual revenue booked from customers in the Sales person’s portfolio
● Closed deals
● Implemented deals
● Retention rates (# of customers; $ of revenue)
● New customers/relationships
● Lost business
● Penetration
e.g., the degree to which a customer’s known business needs are being met by your company’s products and services
For example, a bank may be a counterparty with a corporation’s foreign exchange (FX) trading activity. Penetration is increased if the bank becomes the settlement bank for that corporation’s FX transactions.
● Share of wallet
e.g., the amount of a customer’s known spend-for-products/services is being met by your company’s sales to them
For example, a corporation might buy all of a particular raw material from one supplier; or a bank might handle all letters of credit for a corporation
Finally, and of critical interest to the Sales people, there is the data that feeds directly into formal Sales Incentive programs to calculate performance according to the predetermined structure of the plan, and the calculation of the reward amount.
Bill
William A. Stong
Email: william.a.stong@gmail.com
SBF&P # 80
Telephone: 925-202-6244
Copyright © 2010 Integrated Profitability TM
Outsourcing certain business functions
September 9th, 2010
Copyright © 2010 Integrated Profitability TM
The way in which companies staff themselves has changed dramatically in the past couple of decades. Many of the changes have been made possible by the advent of the internet and by huge advances in technology. At one point, seems like ages ago, companies internally staffed most functions needed to produce and deliver their products and services. For example, Ford owned Philco for more than a decade to supply radios for their automobiles.
As mentioned in “What to Do, Delegate, Outsource,” companies can take advantage of other companies whose business models focus on providing core services, especially in support and administrative areas, e.g.,:
● Payroll
● Financial bookkeeping
Outsourcing has expanded into infrastructure and operational areas:
● Customer Service
And there are what I would call hybrid-outsourcing arrangements:
● Commission-only sales
● Business process applications
e.g., car financing software packages or senior management MIS dashboards
Several areas are beyond the scope of this short article:
● The rapidly expanding SaaS (Software as a Service) market
● Equally rapidly expanding “cloud computing” applications
● A complete answer to the question: just because you can, should you?
The last question is essentially how to decide whether a company should outsource a particular function. That decision, which is not a trivial one, needs to consider two primary facets:
1. Cost/Benefit
should include both a financial quantification as well as a qualified review of impacts on your brand, quality, customer satisfaction, and long-term strategy
2. Risk
e.g., once outsourced, what could go wrong? What mitigation steps are necessary?
As with most business decisions, an “All-in” analysis, encompassing every aspect of your business that may be affected, provides the best answer.
Bill
William A. Stong
Email: william.a.stong@gmail.com
SBF&P # 79
Telephone: 925-202-6244
Copyright © 2010 Integrated Profitability TM
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