The Diablog - it’s Diabloglical™
The first two decisions needed to start a website. (part 1 of 3)
– Robert Kruger20 April 2010
Choose your web development software and choose an agency.
When it’s time to build a new website, there are a lot of questions to be answered. You begin to question everything, from your logo to your understanding of your audience. This can be a great thing. Re-evaluation can uncover new potential in your business. But where do you start?
The first two questions to be answered are, “Who will create my new web site?” and “What system will it be build on?” You can answer either question first, depending on your technical capabilities, but answer these two questions before you start asking the rest.
Choose your agency before setting out on a journey of introspection. Success is tied to experience. I can’t say how many times I have heard, “This is my company. No one can know more about this company than me.” Of course that’s true for all company owners and leaders. But how many times have you analyzed a company with the goal of creating a clear, concise, and targeted message that will cut through the clutter on the internet and convert passers-by into paying customers? For most business owners, the answer is once or twice. Sometimes the answer is never.
Hire a professional to guide you. An experienced creative agency will have been through the process of converting company knowledge into compelling web content many times. That is the experience many business owners lack but fail to recognize its importance.
The other question you need to answer is: what tool will provide the foundation for your website? Choosing the right tool requires an awareness of current internet trends like social network marketing, an understanding of internet technology like search engine optimization (SEO) and content management systems (CMS), plus a forward-thinking plan for how you want to manage your web presence. If you have in-house technical people, get their opinion. If you don’t, consult with your newfound team of internet experts.
Here is the important point: choosing a creative agency and choosing your web development software are two separate decisions. The software needs to be chosen for what it can do and how it matches your goals. It shouldn’t get in the way of what your agency will do for you, but it should first serve your needs, not theirs.
Some agencies will only work in their own, private development software or content management system. If they wrote it themselves, they will be the only people who will be able to maintain your website in the future. If your relationship with the agency doesn’t work out, you will be forced into one of two bad options: keep working with an agency you aren’t satisfied with or build your website again, from the ground up, with a new agency.
The internet has become the single most important pipeline for business. Any business. Every business. Everywhere. Consumers form an opinion about a company based (at least in part) on their opinion of the company’s website. Build a website that taps into that resource, not one that shuts it out.
Our web development software, Dialogs, is commonly recommended by agencies to their website customers, but Dialogs is also chosen by site owners based on our features and reliability, and they request that their creative agencies use Dialogs. Let us show you how Dialogs can improve your business. Or let us show your agency. Either way, we’re confident that Dialogs is the best choice for business.
It’s OK if you don’t know what you're asking - you should still ask.
– Robert Kruger30 March 2010
We were recently invited to participate in a proposal for an interior designer. I am intentionally keeping this generic, so the names have been changed to protect the innocent. So … just the facts.
As an interior designer, this prospect wanted a visually rich experience. They didn’t just want visual emphasis; they literally wanted nothing but big beautiful photos. Here’s the challenge: they also wanted powerful SEO, so the site would rank high in Google.
Before you point and snicker at how ridiculous that sounds, we put forward a plan that will achieve both of the prospect’s goals, a website of big, beautiful photos, and a serious marketing tool that would find leads through organic search. Seriously. It CAN be done.
The lesson for us all is that the point-and-snicker-reflex needs to be quashed. Numerous adages apply here, and since I can’t stop myself from taking things apart, just to see what’s inside, I’m going to break down some of these adages and apply them to our business.
You know what you know (for pessimists, the adage reads: you don’t know what you don’t know).
Nobody knows everything. The reason the term know-it-all is negative is because knowing “all” is impossible. If it were possible, “know-it-all” would be a compliment.
If you act like you know everything, it will get you into trouble. I mean act. Talking like you know everything simply makes you socially challenging. If your know-it-all-ness drives your actions, you’re probably making quite a mess of things.
That’s the point to this adage: if you act on things without knowledge, you will make mistakes, and you won’t be aware of your mistakes. People inclined to settle will take this adage as justification for never trying anything new. Setters never venture into unknown territory. Successful people recognize that this adage is not a stop sign, it’s a caution sign.
For many businesses, the internet is unknown territory. Some businesses settle with a website that shows a photo of their front door and displays their phone number. Done. They have a website. They don’t need to think about it again. What they don’t know is killing their business. They don’t know that they have too little content for Google to find them. They don’t know that content that never changes gets moved down in Google’s rankings. They don’t know that a website can attract previously unknown prospects, which means they don’t know that their competitor’s website is reeling in those prospects. They are acting (building a website) without knowing, and it could bring down their business.
The more you know, the more you know you want to know.
This is what drives us to be the best at what we do, to be better than anyone else, to be better today than we were yesterday.
This is one of the most positive adages I have ever encountered. For curious people like me, it’s as close to the meaning of life as I have ever seen.
I know that it also sounds like the basis of the Faust legend, but I dismiss that comparison; I think 16th century Germany must have been a pretty depressing place to hang out.
The world is always changing. We get ahead by knowing all we can. In business today, nothing is changing faster than the internet. It impacts every aspect of your business. You make your first impressions with your website (branding). Your website communicates who you are, what you do, and how you do it (marketing communications). Your products or services can be easily purchased (sales). Your competitor’s websites compete with yours for market share (strategic marketing). Pursuing knowledge is a key to business success.
It doesn’t hurt to ask.
It couldn’t be any simpler. Just ask. If only it were that simple. Sometimes it does hurt. It hurts our ego to openly express our shortcomings. It hurts our status in career-ladder-climbing to reveal that someone else knows something we don’t. If we ask something stupid, someone may point and snicker. If you’re really neurotic, your list of potential hurts is long.
Well, get over it. You truly can’t increase your knowledge without asking questions, and you can’t succeed without knowledge.
The prospect I mentioned earlier didn’t know what they were asking for, but they still asked. They didn’t limit their request to what they already knew. There is a fearlessness to that request that we should all remember.
Dialogs Professional Services is a knowledgeable resource about the ways of the internet. Feel free to ask us how the internet can improve your business. We promise we won’t point and snicker.
Why do we hate meetings? Here’s one reason.
– Robert Kruger5 March 2010
Remember when Thumper said to Bambi, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”? Before you think I’ve gone all soft, there’s an aspect of this scene that people conveniently forget. Before delivering his most quotable quote, Thumper had just said something rude and got thumped by his mom.
We’re all a bunch of Thumpers, and we don’t always remember getting thumped by our moms. The business meeting can reveal our true nature. All too often, meetings turn into fermenting Petri dishes of bad attitude, and mom isn’t there to thump us.
Here’s a rule we should all try to follow: don’t bring problems to a meeting; bring solutions. I think I’ll write my Congressman to see if this can be made a law. Think about recent meetings that frustrated you. I would bet that useless whining contributed to your frustration. Ranting about problems brings progress to a standstill.
The real power of a face-to-face meeting is collaboration. Put a group of solution-based thinkers in a room together, and amazing things will happen. Add a few whiners, and everyone gets defensive. So how do you keep meetings productive?
1) If you have a problem, get to work on a solution on your own - even if you think it’s not your job. If it affects you, you can contribute to a solution.
2) Don’t dump your problem on the group. At least try to solve it before asking for help. If the problem is outside your expertise, the internet is a great resource for finding solutions if you take the initiative to try. If you can’t figure it out on your own, find an expert to help you look for options, and bring those options to the meeting.
3) Remove negativity from the mix. If you have a meeting spoiled by a whiner, don’t invite the whiner to the next meeting. If they confront you about the omission, tell them the truth. This strategy only works if the whiner is subordinate to others in the group.
4) If the negativity is coming from a superior, you can still find opportunities to collaborate without conspicuously omitting the whiner. Go to lunch with fellow positive-thinkers. Go have a drink or a cup of coffee after work. Bring the results of your casual collaboration to the next formal meeting.
5) Every meeting must have leadership. The person in charge of the meeting should vigilantly shut down whining as soon as possible. Tell the whiner that you understand the issue, but now you would like their solution. If they have one, great! Act on it. If they don’t, tell them to work on one and bring it to the next meeting.
Solution-based thinking is valuable. It adds value to an employee within a company, and it adds to the overall success of the company.
I am fortunate that my job allows me to see the value of solution-based thinking firsthand. Dialogs Professional Services provides solutions to the sales and marketing issues that challenge our customers, and with our solutions, our customers succeed.
