Lead Optimization Analysis

The analysis generally requires that you pull reports for a reasonable period of time, which depends on your product.  The appropriate length of time will depend on several things:

• Lead volume: Period of time to have a big enough sample of leads across your vendors to make real decisions
• Time to conversion: Time it takes for the lead to convert to a sale.  Used to calculate lead conversion
• Customer lifetime value: Time to determine the overall value of that new customer to your business.  Used to calculate revenue/ household

The results of this analysis are usually helpful in determining which lead sources are the most profitable for you…which generally helps you to rank your lead sources or change the types of leads purchased from them.  This also can quickly to help you stop the losses from the worst sources right away, which can immediately improve the bottom line!

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Need to turn Word or Powerpoint documents into PDF?

Just came across a nifty tool that does this for free…wish I would have known prior to wasting time and dealing with compatibility issues in installing 2 or 3 of the different freeware/ upgradeware software programs to create PDFs.

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The Gantt chart is a staple of project management today.  It allows for the easy-to-communicate view of major workstreams and the interconnections of key milestones across workstreams.  When paired with a weekly project status update, the Gantt chart is a key tool to keeping projects on track.

Beware, however, with Gantt charts that you keep the functional requirements in mind– I’ve seen too many projects where project managers deliver on time with something that doesn’t meet the needed objectives.  A dead-on-arrival deliverable isn’t helpful to anyone.

How it works:

The Gantt chart is used to show timelines against major workstreams and deliverables.

• Workstreams: Workstreams are the major, bolded segments in the left column.  Each workstream will have associated deliverables and milestones
• Deliverables: These are the concrete tasks and building blocks that need to be delivered.
• Timelines: These are the times you expect the tasks to be in progress, with a marker for key milestones.  A solid line generally means a major focus, with dotted lines sometimes indicating followon work or potential for some secondary deliverables.
• Lead/ Resources: Highlights who is accountable for delivering the work.  This is most helpful when tied to a functional budget, which lays out resources involved, key people/ assets engaged, and budget allocated

The Gantt chart gets its name from Henry Gantt, who popularized its use in the 1910-1915 period, where it was seen as a major breakthrough.

Today, the Gantt chart competes with other means of tracking projects, including software like Microsoft Project, online tools like Basecamp, and alternate forms of project management including Agile development.

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Portfolio of Initiatives

A portfolio of initiatives, as discussed by McKinsey’s Lowell Bryan (I worked with Lowell in the New York Office) helps you balance near-term incremental efforts with the game-changing investments (in both new capabilities as well as understanding of new trends). Too much focus on incremental efforts, and you’ll find yourself unprepared as markets and technology evolve. Too much focus on disruptive efforts, and you’ll find your team too distracted to convert near-term wins. Therefore, it’s important to appropriately balance efforts across your portfolio of initiatives.

A CEO can think about corporate strategy not as a “portfolio of businesses” but as a “portfolio of initiatives” aimed at achieving favorable outcomes for the entire enterprise. Usually, these initiatives will be organized around themes—”convoys” if you please—focused on achieving particular aspirations, such as increasing the global reach of the enterprise, entering a new but related industry, or achieving the industry’s lowest marginal cost of production. Portfolio effects increase the likelihood that some of these aspirations will be achieved even if many others fail.

The chart is a 3×3 graph with axes of Risk and Time to Maturity.  The time to maturity bucket is fairly straightforward to most.  The definition of Risk is more interesting– it’s divided into 3 categories:

• Familiar
• Unfamiliar
• Uncertain

This approach reflects the thinking that if you aren’t failing, you aren’t trying very hard.  If you’re really investing in new territory, the goal is toimprove uncertainty and familiarity with experience in the space– that experience is captured via successful initiatives and the learnings from unsuccessful initiatives.  Hence, even if initial experiments fail, the portfolio benefits from the experience.

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A marketing funnel is used to determine where your customers are to date and where efforts should be targeted.  Let’s go through the example above.

Customers have 5 stages of familiarity with your product or service:

• Unaware: Potential customers who do not know that your product exists
• Awareness: Potential customers who are aware that your product exists
• Consideration: Potential customers who are considering purchasing/ using your product
• Purchase: Customers who have purchased your product
• Repeat/ Recommend: Repeat customers who have re-purchased your product and/or recommend your product to their friends

As you examine the impact of marketing efforts, consider what types of needs your customers have at each of these transition points:

• Unaware → aware: Are customers aware that your service exists?  Find ways to make them aware that a solution to their problems exists by finding ways to come across their path.
• Aware → considering: Customers know that you exist, but may be need help determining which product they want or whether you are worth the effort.  This is where you can differentiate your product (price, features, recommendations, ROI).  Any required customization or negotiation would occur at this step.
• Considering → purchase: Customers have decided to buy, so make sure you close the transaction.  Ensure a smooth buying process and appropriate followup if the process stalls.  Poor experiences can kill a deal that a customer wants to happen, so ensure this is easy and a positive experience.  Also, appropriate expectation setting can keep a customer from backing away as unexpected issues arise.
• Purchase → repeat/ recommend: Your existing customers are your best marketing tool.  Happy customers want to come back and continue to use your product/ service.  Give them the tools to tell relevant friends about you.  This may include highlighting situations where you create value, packaging your value proposition in an easy-to-remember way, or making word-of-mouth easy.

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Outsourcing powerpoint production is simpler than it sounds, once you’ve set up an account.  Let’s take 3 scenarios:

I have to make lots of edits to an existing deck/ presentation

1. Take the printed version of the powerpoint deck and write in your changes
2. Fax or email a scanned copy of the printed version with the changes.  Label where new sources of information will be inserted (e.g., data for a chart or a graphic/ text attached on a subsequent page)
3. Send the original electronic version via email.  Share the deadline and any context required
4. Get back the new version the next day (or alternate deadline)

I need to make a new deck

1. Prepare the content for the deck on paper (e.g., hand-drawn pages, graphics/ edits desired, page structure)
2. Fax or email a scanned copy of the deck
3. Send a deck with the desired template and required deadline and context
4. Get back the new deck the next day (or alternate deadline)

I need to record all of these notes from a brainstorming meeting

1. Pull together paper notes and take high-resolution pictures of whiteboard/ easel-drawn exhibits
2. Fax/ email the notes and photos
3. Share desired template for notes/ brainstorming exhibits.  Highlight required deadlines (please do share if its not required overnight)
4. Receive electronic searchable versions of the meeting in Word or PPT.
5. Use the electronic files for report-outs or as a start for the final required reports

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Overnight powerpoint production while you sleep

Do you spend a lot of time creating powerpoint and organizing information for your company or clients?

Powerpoint can be a great tool to do so…and outsourcing production of powerpoint makes it even better!

So here’s 5 reasons why you might want to outsource Powerpoint production:

1. Save time on low-value tasks: Do you want to focus on telling the story and getting the facts you need or keying them into your computer and making the formatting and other elements right?  Outsourcing Powerpoint allows me to maximize my time by generating insights and getting organizations aligned…I get back all those hours where I’m moving lines around, keying in my notes, getting formats right, and resizing text to fit in boxes.  This allows me to get more done in the time saved, or get out of the office.
2. Expand the work-day: If you’re in the Western hemisphere, outsourcing overnight powerpoint production allows you to drop-off work at the end of the day and pick it up the next morning.  Hours of graphics support, powerpoint creation, edits to charts, re-creating slides on new templates…all can be done while you sleep to give you a great head-start on the next day’s tasks
3. Improve your presentation quality: A good graphic designer familiar with consulting formats can allow you to express your ideas in a format that enhances the way your ideas come across
4. Save money: People’s time is expensive– whether its yours, the people working with you, or the people who bill you on an hourly rate (e.g., consultants).  Why not use a service that will be more productive and charge a lower rate?
5. Capture better notes: Have a number of notes that get lost in your notebook or folder?  Have a great brainstorming session that will get erased off of a flip-chart or whiteboard?  Why not take a picture/ copy the elements and then send them over to get those notes/ pictures into your records?

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