Posted on Mon, Aug 16, 2010
Is it just me or is everyone you bump into these days launching (usually bootstrapping) a new business?
Turns out 99% of all businesses in the US are small (500 employees or less), but they represent only slightly more than half of all private sector employees and pay only 44 percent of the total U.S. private payroll. Moreover, most of these businesses are short lived, with only about half surviving into their fifth year.
Makes you wonder what on earth people are thinking, doesn't it?
But, it wouldn't be a recession if we didn't see growth in this space, and in fact, looking at the numbers from another perspective, the story they tell is not all that abysmal. Most notably, small enterprise accounted for over 60% (more than 14.5 million) net new jobs between 1993 and 2008 and make up 97% of all identified exporters.
So, I think it is no stretch of the imagination to propose that economic recovery, at a global level, relies heavily on our friend, the small business owner.
And the mid- to large-size businesses of the world know this. Here's a quick and dirty list of some visible moves toward the small business customer:
* MSFT gearing its bread and butter products like Office toward the small enterprise
* HP targeting its online sales to the specific needs of the small business owner
* American Express focusing on customer service and making its offering flexible to better align with small business needs
* Some health insurers starting to target rather than avoid our smaller, entrepreneurial friends
* We at Lionbridge, long focusing primarily on the large enterprise, now also playing in this space with Translation Workspace
As a former start-up owner, I like to think I have strong entrepreneurial chops, but the fact is I'm into my second decade of working with large, enterprise customers. As my business shifts its focus to include the small and medium business sector, I'm realizing I've got some learning to do! In the coming weeks, I'll be documenting my learning process and mainly focusing on how this space is different, and how those of us looking to serve them need to adapt and accommodate for those differences.
What do you think makes the needs of a small business buyer unique?
Posted on Thu, Jul 08, 2010
In 2006, I had an opportunity to take a group to the Galapagos, where I spent some time many years ago, in college. It didn’t take long to see that even for a native Ecuadorian, a trip for 16 to the Galapagos can be tricky business. So, early in the process I was relieved to find an outfitter that coordinated most of the logistics on my behalf.
I look back at that experience and wonder what I would have done if the outfitter had told me they’d sell me the pass I needed to enter the islands, but beyond that, I was on my own. Meaning no help getting there, no arranging airline tickets once on the mainland, no lodging, no help in planning the itinerary, booking guides or even ensuring the return was organized. Just the pass to let us in, and that’s that. Ouch.
Ok, I’m done wondering. I probably would have ripped my hair out.
What’s more than a little frightening is that many companies are doing this precise thing; my team and I call it the “gate” model. Rather than providing a “ramp” to help our customers easily and comfortably get from point A to point B, we simply sell them the ticket to open the “gates,” essentially becoming little more than a toll booth operator. Think of the fee to take a college entrance exam (without much concern for helping students prepare to successfully take one), or the smog test required in most states in the US (without much impetus for truly helping reduce toxic emissions), or the fee for the inspector who will assess the value of your house before you sell it (now, don’t we just love those folks!?).
It’s an easy trap to fall into, especially as competition and tough economies drive prices down. We’re sometimes left feeling like we have no choice but to slim down and streamline our own services beyond recognition.
This has been a big theme for me lately, as my team and I have been working hard reinventing one of our businesses into what we are calling an Ecosystem Enablement Business (providing “ramps” instead of “gates”). I’m very pleased to announce we’ll be launching the business this coming week at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference, where Bill Clinton will be keynoting.
We’ve learned a great deal in the last few months, and the more we talk to our customers (and Microsoft’s), the more insight we gain into just how tricky their businesses can be too. Probably the biggest lesson here for me has been that the problem is everywhere. I increasingly see parallels to this “gates versus ramps” dilemma in the non-profit space, with small business, the public sector, and even in the arts.
So the realization I’ve come to as I’ve experienced this shift firsthand is, in this time of bootstrapping new businesses and budget cutting old ones, building a sustainable business requires resisting the temptation to become a toll booth. Instead, we must keep the focus on building ramps to propel people toward their goals.
I, for one, plan to ask Bill Clinton next week if he agrees with me. (Yay “ramps”!) I’ll let you know what he has to say.
Galapagos Islands, Ecuador (2006)
Posted on Tue, Jun 01, 2010
Many of you will not be shocked to hear that I've been waiting my whole career to write a blog post with this title! Before you think I've totally lost it in Memorial Day retail therapy, let me give you a sense of where I'm coming from. According to Johanna Blakley:
Gucci knows (and successfully targets) their audience and doesn't worry about copy cats.
- I love this, especially when I think of how much energy we all spend worrying about the competition when we could be innovating!
They get their inspiration from "the street."
- Who's proverbial "street" is getting enough love these days? I especially like the idea of turning the tables and getting inspiration from our consumers, rather than trying to guess at their likes and dislikes.
By aggressively putting themselves out in the public eye, they establish themselves as conceptual owner.
- I see this as the business equivalent of licking your food so no one else touches it. It works for Gucci, it worked for you in grade school, who knows, there might be something to this idea.
Gross sales of low IP industries (like Fashion) are HIGHER than high IP industries.
- I know you've seen this on my blog before, but I see this as yet another supporting point for the idea that we should be innovating, not litigating.
If copyright protection isn't possible with fashion because it's too utilitarian (everyone wears clothes), how long until bits and pieces of our increasingly ubiquitous high-tech world are perceived as equally utilitarian (and therefore unprotectable)?
- I am no legal expert, but who's with me on this one? Rather than banking on fending off competitors with lawyers, how about we focus on innovating first and wowing the socks off our customers so they don't even think of going elsewhere?
The Ted Talk by Johanna Blakley that inspired this post can be found here. Also anyone interested in funding my retail "research" is warmly encouraged to give me a shout!
Posted on Tue, May 04, 2010
The pendulum always swings, but is it inevitable?
At the risk of sounding like a jaded survivor of the globalization trenches, I find that I increasingly care less about the signs that we have historically found alarming in our industry. I'm referring to the seemingly nonsensical behavior we witness in our customers from time to time, the kinds of actions that for all intents and purposes seem to say "We don't care about our international businesses." A tough pill to swallow when your job is to take businesses global.
Here's a snapshot to illustrate this, from my last week:
Customer A:
Last week, I learned this customer has decided to stop having its international subsidiaries review content before publishing it to millions of online users in their respective markets. Subsidiaries have always reviewed this content and, so apart from alienating international colleagues, I have no doubt that the impact to quality and the hit to the perception of the brand in these international markets are going to be significant. Moreover, this customer has also decided not to have testing done by in-country resources before going live.
Customer B:
With executive encouragement from this customer, Lionbridge launched a program last weekend to help accelerate the time and reduce the effort involved in helping the company's strategic partners go global. The bottom line here is that our customer's products hold a very small percent of the market share, and the company sells more software licenses when people build globalized solutions that sit on its platform. Growth simply happens faster when you adapt existing products and sell them in other countries, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel and build entirely new products.
Here's my thought...Companies tend to pamper and provide their international business arms with all sorts of love when times get tough, and they realize they are critical to their existence (or survival). On the other hand, sometimes businesses with large international revenues and healthy, growing market share will, in time, take that success for granted and start to put in place measures that ultimately undermine their global businesses. The old "cut your nose off to spite your face" strategy. We've all seen it before, and I'm confident, we'll see it again.
Here's the catch. The two customers above work for the same company, two different divisions. The pendulum swings, often in different directions at the same time, if the company is big and complex enough. So I've learned, if I'm patient, there's little need to be alarmed as it will always come back in our direction. However, I submit to you that if you're really trying to add value and run a sustainable business, you'd do well to remind your customers/partners/employees that perhaps all this maddening and costly swinging about can be avoided by finding a nice happy place, somewhere in the middle!
Posted on Wed, Apr 14, 2010
I propose that ‘writer's block' (a subject I am becoming increasingly intimate with) and the ‘idea block' often faced in organizations are the same thing.
In my experience stagnation and a lack of ideas or follow through of those ideas, is almost always a matter of perspective. Specifically I find it's about focusing so much on being strategic/creative/insert-any-big-picture-word, that we choke on the basic tasks right in front of us. By allowing the bigger picture to overwhelm us, we sometimes fail to take those first basic steps, and we get stuck.
In respectful disagreement with Mr. Stephen Covey, who said, "Begin with the end in mind," I believe that sometimes you just have to take a careful, but blind leap forward in order to keep the creative juices flowing.
This December when faced with the rather mind-blowing task of reinventing my role at Lionbridge, I found myself totally blocked and overwhelmed in the face of a job responsible for "strategic development" for a business that I have helped grow and shape over the last 7+ years. I had spent the last few years so focused on keeping the day-to-day machine running, that when presented with an opportunity to think about how to stop and look at the long-term, big picture... I was petrified.
Trusting that what I needed was a change in perspective, I went to an unlikely source for help getting unstuck, my friend Awilda Verdejo. Awilda is a world-class Juliard-trained opera singer, she sang Aida with Placido Domingo at the The Sphinx of Giza. So, as my 18 year old nephew would say, "she's hard core!"
One evening after hearing me ruminate about all my big ideas and strategic plans, Awilda politely asked me to quit my machinations and recommended I do this simple exercise that I enthusiastically present to you:
Imagine what you'd like 2010 to look, feel, taste and smell like. Not in aggregate, but in detail, look at your daily routine. What would you like your mornings to look like, your weekends, your afternoons, your phone conversations?
For a brief moment Awilda's exercise gave me permission to take a break from the big-picture and focus on what was right in front of my nose; a shift in my perspective, a way to keep moving and quite simply, get unstuck. What resulted was astounding. Within a couple of days I had not only envisioned my new role, but I had nearly completed writing the job description and a first pass at the goals that I wanted to propose for this role.
So there you have it, lessons from an opera singer via a reinvented globalmisfit, wisdom from unexpected places that I hope will be as useful to you as they have been indispensable for me!
Posted on Tue, Mar 02, 2010
Nathalie, our favorite Global Misfit, shares her thoughts about the power of an engaging and interactive customer service attitude...
I think we're experiencing a massive shift: from push to pull.
In the last few months I have personally received:
- A gift certificate from Alaska Airlines, following my grumpy tweet describing a challenging transaction with their phone sales department.
- Two follow up calls from a local plumber, after a simple 2 hour plugged drain job, expressing genuine concern about...my plumbing? Hm, yes, but also, about what I'd be writing about him in Yelp.
Neither started off as especially positive experiences (anyone especially fond of plumbers, their rates, or their availability in a bind?). And yet the result was a distinct sense that I was working with two businesses who listened, and cared about what I had to say. No amount of traditional marketing will buy that kind of loyalty.
So, I propose to you, success today is increasingly about PULLING information and responding... and knowing how to pull from your audience is what it's all about. Ask my plumber!
Whether it's about building a strong reputation for your small, local business, designing big ideas, selling products, or creating community (which I believe is increasingly the best way to sell products)... gone are the days when you can cook something up on your own and simply "launch" it. Putting it simply, who cares if 5 PhD's in a room think a search engine's performance is swell, if 180 million users in Latin America don't agree? It's not about right or wrong anymore, it's about being relevant.
Luckily becoming relevant isn't rocket science... communities want you to pull from them. They want you to pull their ideas, input, complaints, trends and preferences... and DO SOMETHING with them. Most of us come from a paradigm where the tendency has been to PUSH our products and services on markets based on a need we've defined (and possibly researched, studied and tested in a think tank somewhere). Imagine a world where our customers are simply not interested in what 5 PhD's cooked up in a silo somewhere. Imagine a world where all the research and great business strategy in the world is there, ready for you to PULL, analyze and respond with something relevant.
Imagine an international business strategist taking diligent customer service notes from her local plumber.
Just like him, I admit I'm a little afraid of Yelp and Twitter (or at least what my customers are saying about me there)... and here's my thought: YOU SHOULD BE TOO.
Posted on Mon, Nov 16, 2009
More great musings from Nathalie today: it's all about sharing stories and inspiration. Join us...
This has been a month of a very specific brand of inspiration, the African and female kind, to be precise. So I've decided to share the wealth and start a conversation!
It started last month with a Ted Talk by Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie about the misconceptions and dangers that come from a want of diversity in stories. Shortly after this, I had an opportunity to meet the Pulitzer prize winning journalist, Nicholas Kristof at a World Affairs Council talk on women in developing nations, part of his and Sheryl Wudunn's "Half the Sky" movement. I attended the talk with another accomplished activist (and photographer), Phil Borges, who kindly agreed to speak at an event I am organizing this Thursday on the subject of Women Empowered.
At the same time that these events unfolded around me, back at the ranch (Lionbridge) I have had the serendipitous privilege of contributing as my team worked diligently on an initiative that will support Microsoft with its mission to bring the benefits of technology to people worldwide. Through the Unlimited Potential program, which is charged with cultivating their next billion customers, Microsoft is contributing to the preservation of local languages and cultures. Something this Global Misfit can enthusiastically connect with!
In a lovely confluence of themes and worthy causes, last Friday the two accomplished women on our team heading up the collaboration with Microsoft's Local Language Program (LLP) embarked on a long flight to represent us at the LLP Africa summit (press release). Inspiration is everywhere, including right under my nose!
I can't help but feel elated to be a part of the increasingly important process of creating the diverse stories of the African experience that are needed in order to contribute to the empowerment of its diverse peoples. Moreover, I am thrilled to be so close to the forefront of the much overdue influx of business capital and creative entrepreneurship that I wholeheartedly believe can (if managed ethically) ultimately make a substantive and sustainable difference where so many generations of global aid have failed. Here are a couple interesting talks by prominent African personalities on the subject:
In the spirit of Chimamanda Adichie's call for moving away from the single story, I invite you to share your African story. Whether you've lived there your whole life or only traveled to Africa as a tourist, I would love to get your insight! In return, I will do my best to represent those stories and hope that you will check back in the next week as I share the experiences of the Lionbridge team in South Africa upon their return.
In the meantime, I'll be here soaking it all up vicariously and dreaming of South Africa!
Here are a few more relevant links that I think are worth a look (and yes, I am an official Ted addict... please no interventions yet!):
Posted on Wed, Oct 21, 2009
Nathalie shares her thoughts on the business empathy in the midst of Localization World...
Tonight was a typical day in the life of a Global Misfit. I was at a fabulous event hosted by Lionbridge at Localization World (full disclosure, I am totally biased here, remember who I work for) . No matter how many years pass in this industry, I never cease to be amazed by the eccentric company I'm lucky enough to keep.
We celebrated in a great bowling alley space and the party was, at least on the surface, not unlike any other Silicon Valley conference... with one rather notable exception, in the form of an army of global citizens we had the privilege of hosting, such as:
- The Peruvian (photography hobbyist) from Adobe who moved here with every intention of going home after grad school and never left.
- The start-up CEO from New Zealand who speaks perfect Spanish (seriously, hardly any accent at all!) with a slightly South American flavor despite having lived in Guatemala.
- The Argentinian from Cisco who lived in Colombia, speaks Portuguese and likes to argue with his colleague from Cameroon about soccer and who beat who in the last world cup.
- The sales guy with a Southern drawl, who lived in Spain, sold industrial agricultural shipping containers in Guayaquil, Ecuador, now lives in DC and spends a week a month selling into Apple & Cisco.
As I walked around the room full of the wild cast of characters, I was reminded of an article I read yesterday on
Noreena Hertz. In it she says she believes "in a globalist agenda, but globalization isn't just allowing companies to trade freely all over the world. It's about what rights and responsibilities come with that."
And I couldn't help but wonder how one might go about bottling the collective wisdom in tonight's room full of multilingual, global misfits. If it's true that you have to walk in another person's shoes to truly have empathy, then no one understands better than this group, the rights and responsibilities that come with globalization. Most have lived it first hand, and live it every day.
And at the end of the day, reaching people in the global market is - at its very core - about connecting and understanding people's culture, language, and tastes... which is what empathy is all about, right?
All that to say, I realized tonight, I'm in the business of empathy! It's not about going global, it's about getting local... and empathy is the key to doing it, and doing it well.
Peace.
Posted on Wed, Oct 14, 2009
Today, Nathalie Molina talks about customer loyalty and a great Caribbean restaurant!
Here's another "are you kidding me!?" story from the consumer trenches.
I had a little gathering in my home a couple Sundays ago, and hired my favorite local Caribbean restaurant to cater the event. To give you some background, this is a small, but well-trafficked restaurant in a busy main-street of what is currently a trendy, up and coming neighborhood. They've been written up in all the local papers and websites, and even host a regular musical event twice a month.
While I can barely fathom how, Theo (the charming and cheerful owner) always recognizes me and comes over to check in on the latest happenings in the neighborhood. He spends as much time with me and my group when the place is bursting at the seams as on a quiet evening on a slow night. So I wasn't surprised that Theo decided to deliver the catered food to my house himself. I was surprised however, when he noticed that I was running around the house like a chicken with its head cut off, and promptly decided to take over manning the kitchen for me!
I was inordinately grateful just to have the owner of a popular local business deliver warm food! On time no less!
Instead Theo went to work putting together a gorgeous buffet spread that was presented so beautifully (with things he dug out from my cupboards that I didn't even remember I owned!) that I noticed my guests hesitated to eat it when the time came! He found some pans and warmed things that needed warming and even made sure that the various garnishes were presented just so.
Then when the first few guests started to trickle in, he snuck away and gave me a big hug on his way out the door!
Are you kidding me!?
Theo has owned multiple businesses and spent his early days learning customer service the Nordstrom way, so he knows customer service...but this time he really went off the deep end. Thankfully!
And the resulting goodness is hard to measure, but here is a quick run down of the things I saw come from this, (mainly for anyone who ever wonders if their good work ever goes unnoticed):
- The event was a book signing with Rosanne Olson, who apart from being well known in her own field (she was on the Today Show promoting her book last year), is very well connected locally and took Theo's business cards home with her that evening.
- Before Theo left I was able to introduce him to a number of other guests who all ended up gushing about his food and going home with his cards and plans to visit him soon.
- In chatting about his business while we prepared for the event, Theo told me about his plans to franchise, and I gave him a copy of my absolute favorite book on the subject, and offered to introduce him to a number of gurus in the field who I know will be great contacts for him.
- It's been two weeks and I still think of Theo daily (how many multi-million dollar marketing campaigns succeed at that?).
- I don't plan on catering with anyone else anytime in the near future (and I have about 5 large events I'm helping plan in the next couple months).
- I am extremely grateful for his help last month, and it's come up in MANY conversations (and I've given out at least 20 of his cards).
While it seemed like over the top customer service at the time, if you think about the results (customer loyalty, glowing references, word of mouth advertising...) and the fact that this all represented about an hour of Theo's time, it's really baffling why more of us aren't camping out in our customer's kitchens cooking them up something nice!
Posted on Mon, Oct 05, 2009
Today, Nathalie talks about pianos and people...
Doing research recently for piano purveyors, I found myself in a bit of a quandary.
I am a huge believer in the benefits of letting your personality shine (and I'm in good company). In fact I think that businesses that do well today are showing their human side and tapping into the idea that people buy from other people.
People! Not bots or telephone prompts. Real people, with personalities, quirks and little idiosyncrasies, that's what makes the process of interacting with a business, a true exchange between humans. While it's understandable that this becomes harder as growth happens, if the success of companies like Zappos teach us anything, it's that it is -in fact- possible.
So the decision to steer clear of the large piano franchise in the area (with the polished but largely uninspired website and a not-so friendly salesperson) and instead go with a local business (with a rudimentary but highly informative & charming website) was a very simple one. The website looked like something from 1997, but contained the entire life story of the owner as well as a lovely -if slightly verbose- chronicle of his passion for pianos. The owner's personality most certainly did shine through, and I was convinced this is where my business would land.
Fast forward to a few weeks later, and I am sad to report that I have compiled a litany of business basics that appear to have completely escaped my friend, the local piano guru. From returning my phone calls in a timely fashion, to reading emails or delivering when promised...the list is long, painful and unfortunate.
And here we come to my quandary...
- the big dogs without personality don't get my business
- the little mom and pops without business acumen don't keep my business
- will someone sell me a piano already!? sheesh!
Having existed as both a bootstrapped entrepreneur and a director in publicly traded industry leader, my take away is this:
The proverbial holy grail of success, in any venture, lies in the carefully choreographed dance between being good at what you do (expertise), while also being great at letting your personality shine and connecting with your audience through phenomenal customer service.
In my experience, few businesses do both of these things, and the ones that do, hold the cards for the future generation of businesses. And to the little ones who blame their size and limited resources for customer service failures, I would simply say...look over at the big dogs, blaming their size and scale for the distance and difficulty connecting to their audience.
Big, little, broad, or niche, no one has the edge here...let your personality shine. People -have always, and will continue- to buy from people!
Wish me luck on my search!