•
I was recycling some old magazines today, and I accidentally dropped the May issue of Quality Digest on the floor. It fell open to a page I had put a hard crease in. I looked at the page again and it still makes me go “Wow!”
It’s just a single sentence from the Statistically Speaking section:
“There are between 15,000 and 17,000 components in the average automobile made in the United States. In North America alone, 70,000 cars are delivered every business day.”
For those of you without a calculator, that’s over 1 billion components. Every day. Just in cars. In North America alone.
When I think about how that scales to the entire global economy for all products and services, it’s like trying to picture infinity.
•
There’s a basic concept in Six Sigma called Voice of the Customer. When you’re defining a project, you need to identify the critical-to-quality (CTQ) elements in your process that matter to the customer. Too often though, the voice of the customer isn’t heard until _after_ they become a customer. What about potential customers?
Taking a step back for a second, here’s a worthwhile quote from Jack Welch…
“One thing we have discovered with certainty is that anything we do that makes the customer more successful inevitably results in a financial return for us.”
Products and services sell because they solve people’s problems. They make customers more successful. And the only way you can solve their problems in the first place is if they become aware of your product, understand your product, and see the benefits. So the voice of the customer needs to start with marketing.
In his recent post on MicroISV.com, Dave Collins touches on this. He makes the point that software vendors should sell the benefits, not the features:
“Customers get freaked out by features. We don’t like them, they sound intimidating, and they do nothing to make us smile. But we love benefits. Save time, save money, use more for less. Lovely. Music to our ears.”
Stepping back into the voice of the customer mode, want do customers really want to know when they visit a site? It’s simple really, they want to know:
- What the product is.
- How it will benefit them.
- How much it will cost.
- How credible the offer is.
Notice that I wrote “How it will benefit them”, not just “the benefits”. It’s a fine distinction, but an important one.
When you get into the business of running an online company, “sell the benefits” is one of the mantras that get chimed over and over again. Emotion sells more than logic is the copywriter’s motto. Dave’s a smart guy and runs a successful software marketing firm, so I’m sure he knows what he’s talking about. But the problem is it’s a concept that gets misconstrued and taken to the extreme.
I’ve seen too many software sites that get so focused on the benefits that it’s hard to tell what the product actually does. Microsoft’s Silverlight page is a perfect example of this. Most enterprise software websites are even worse.
In any product genre, you can find numerous product sites all claiming to “save time, save money, use more for less.” But that’s not enough. What you really need to do is connect the dots between the benefits and the features in order to be credible.
Do customers really get “freaked out by features”? Not me. In fact, they’re typically the first thing I look for. When I’m buying a product to solve a problem, I need to know whether the product has the capability to do so.
Sure, I’m an engineer, so that may seem like a quirk. But the majority of my support time is spent on pre-sales inquiries. Are these people emailing me about the benefits? No, they are asking if the software supports one feature or another. That’s real data that proves to me that customers don’t get freaked out by features.
So the next time you work on your company’s marketing, put on your Jack Welch hat and think about how your product will make your customers more successful. Drill it down to how each of the features in your product will benefit your customers. The end result should strike a nice balance between “sell the benefits” and “sell the features.”
•
If you use FireFox on a daily basis, no doubt you have your own list of favorite add-ons. But who has the time to constantly be on the lookout for new ones? So, this list was put together for anyone who does business online and needs tools to help you be more efficient.
The Top 10
1. InFormEnter
What it is: When you turn it on, it adds a little 
button next to all the form fields on a web page. Clicking the button pops up a list of all the phrases you’ve saved:
Why you’ll like it: It’s a great time saver for any web forms requiring name, address, email, product description – you name it.
Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/673
—-
2. ScrapBook
What it is: A tool that takes snapshots of the current web page. You can organize your scrapbook items in folders and access them through the menu or a sidebar:
Why you’ll like it: From a business perspective, it’s good for recording receipts of online purchases. Plus the edit page capability allows you to erase elements, making it easy to clean up a page for printout.
Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/427
—-
3. Firefox Extension Backup Extension (FEBE)
What it is: This extension allows you to save all your FireFox data, including passwords, bookmarks, themes, extensions, preferences, and more:
Why you’ll like it: If you do enough business on the internet, eventually your find that a lot of mission critical information is stored in your browser. Backing up this data becomes crucial.
Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2109
[Note, this extension has a companion extension – CLEO that will combine all your extensions into a single .xpi file for easy reinstall: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2942]
—-
4. ViewMyCurrency
What it is: A tool that will convert any amount on a page to your selected currencies. Click the status bar button 
and any currency values found on the page will be changed, as the following before and after pictures show:
Why you’ll like it: This is probably more useful for those outside the U.S., but it’s handy for anyone that wants to save themselves a trip to www.xe.com to get convert prices into your local currency.
Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1854
—-
5. WorldClocks
What it is: A tool that shows you the current day and time for selected cities around the globe. Clicking on the status bar display, it pops up a list of all the cities you’ve added. You can either use the built-in list of cities or set up your own.
Why you’ll like it: It’s great for figuring out when someone halfway around the world is likely to be at work.
Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3010
—-
6. Fetch Text URL
What it is: A tool that allows you to right-click on a non-linked, text URL and fetch it in a new tab.
Why you’ll like it: It saves you added typing.
Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/518
—-
7. SearchStatus
What it is: A SEO tool that sits in your status bar. You can see the Google Page Rank and Alexa rank, and you can access the robots.txt, archive.org (aka, Wayback Machine), and whois of the current site via the popup menu.
Why you’ll like it: Unlike other SEO toolbars, it’s unobtrusive and provides quick access to information.
Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/321
—-
8. RankQuest SEO Toolbar
What it is: A full featured SEO toolkit (accessible via toolbar or context menu) that provides a number of analysis tools for webmasters. Included are speed test, a lynx viewer (how does the Google bot see your page), meta tag analysis and generator, keyword density analysis, text ratio calculator, and many more tools.
Why you’ll like it: It packs a lot of tools into a single toolbar. But, toolbars take up page space so this one is better off hidden most of the time, and SearchStatus (above) is more convenient for day to day info.
Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1471
—-
9. Web Developer
What it is: A toolbar with a wide assortment of tools to provide you with info about the current page. It has too many features to cover here. The snapshot below left is the information panel shown when clicking on any page element. The snapshot below right is an example of the CSS editor (in this case, in the left sidebar).
Why you’ll like it: This list is for Internet Entrepreneurs, not web developers, but this is a handy tool for anyone who owns a web site. It’s helpful for debugging CSS layout problems. Added bonus, too many sites today think it’s cool to have low-contrast text. No problem. With the Web Developer toolbar you can simply identify the element containing the text and then edit the CSS in the side bar and have the page style updated instantly.
Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60
—-
10. PwdHash
What it is: An automatic password generator.
Why you’ll like it: Security, security, security. With this tool, there’s no excuse for using the same easy to remember password for forums as you would for your online banking account.
Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1033
[Note: The author of Allow Right-Click, listed below, also has an "Always Remember Password" add-on that lets FireFox save passwords for sites that normally don't allow it: http://roachfiend.com/archives/2005/03/03/always-remember-password/]
::::::::::::::::::::::::
5 Honorable Mentions
Yoono
What it is: A sidebar toolbar that shows related web sites for the one you’re currently on.
Why you’ll like it: This is incredibly handy for both topic research and seeking out sites for back links.
Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1833
—-
Allow Right-Click
What it is: Overrides any web scripting that disables right-clicking your mouse and getting the context menu.
Why you’ll like it: If deal with web pages (or control panels) that disable right-clicks, this add-on will let you context menu item.
Link: http://roachfiend.com/archives/2005/03/03/allow-right-click/
—-
Image Zoom
What it is: Right-click on any image and zoom in via the context menu.
Why you’ll like it: Bigger is sometimes better.
Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/139
—-
IE View
What it is: Opens the current page in Internet Explorer. (Note there is also IE Tab add-on, which runs IE in a FireFox tab. Both work equally well.)
Why you’ll like it: Some websites are still operating in IE only mode. This tool will make swear at the screen less.
Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/35
•
Everyone likes to write about web sites and blogs catering to small businesses. That’s fine. Many people like Escape from Cubicle Nation, Wall Street Journal’s Startup Journal, OnStartups, Creating Passionate Users, among others. They’re good sites and are worth a read. Even if you read them just for inspiration or entertainment, you can usually pick up a few nuggets along the way.
But life shouldn’t be spent in front of a PC. (It shouldn’t be spent in front of the TV or in a car either, but then we’d have a different blog post.) So here are three “old media” resources for entrepreneurs worth checking out.
- Your Business on MSNBC. Most “business” news programs cover Wall Street, big business news, or personal finance. You don’t get many that actually talk about running a business. That’s where Your Business differs from the pack. The 1/2-hour show is the Web 2.0 of business shows. It features real advice on starting and running a company. Recent topics included picking a domain name, getting funding, advice on setting up a partnership, viral marketing, and their regular elevator pitch segment (which I’m pretty sure they stole from StartupNation, below).
- Small Business School on PBS. This hour long Sunday morning show has been running for several years, and I catch it whenever I can. Each episode does an in depth feature on a small company, and focuses on what made them different and what challenges they faced. It can be a little preachy, but the central message for each show is worth paying attention to. One of their recent show titles captured it all, “There are 19 million sole proprietorships in the U.S. alone, and each one is different.”
- StartupNation Radio. This is a fun radio show that runs on Saturday afternoons. They’ve recently covered marketing strategies, e-commerce tips, eBay businesses, and building on-line communities. One of their best regular features is the Elevator Pitch Contest, which is not only entertaining, but it also reinforces how much you need to focus not only your message but your business plan too. The only downside is that many people listen to talk radio only when they’re in their cars, so it can be hard to remember to tune into this show.