Canadian. Entrepreneur. Consultant.
Kevin Rose interviews Jack Dorsey, the creator, co-founder and chairman of Twitter and the CEO of Square. The conversation talks of entrepreneurship, decision making, trial and error, and the path Jack took that lead to the creation of Twitter and Square.
I came across this quote from Steve Jobs recently and it couldn't have come at a better time. This just insight from one the worlds greatest innovators could be beneficial as many of kick of the new year with high hopes for 2011. Hope it is of some assistance to you.
“ In certain cases my weaknesses are that I’m too idealistic. Realize that sometimes best is the enemy of better. Sometimes I go for “best” when I should go for “better,” and end up going nowhere or backwards. I’m not always wise enough to know when to go for the best and when to just go for better. Sometimes I’m blinded by “what could be” versus “what is possible,” doing things incrementally versus doing them in one fell swoop. Balancing the ideal and the practical is something I still must pay attention to.
Steve Jobs
A few weeks ago President Obama
visited Palo Alto to raise money the good ol' fashioned way: a $30,400-per-plate fundraising dinner. This tried and true fundraising technique is a great way to raise money if you can get the President of the United States to show up to dinner. But how can you raise money if no one has heard of you and all you have is a website? Back in 2007, when Obama was running for the nomination and trailing by double digits in the polls, that's pretty much all we had.
The Experiment
As Director of Analytics for the Obama campaign, my job was to use data to help the campaign make better decisions. We started with just one simple experiment back in December of 2007. This experiment taught us that every visitor to our website was an opportunity and that taking advantage of that opportunity through website optimization and A/B testing could help us raise tens of millions of dollars.
This experiment tested two parts of our splash page: the "Media" section at the top and the call-to-action "Button"
We tried four buttons and six different media (three images and three videos). We used Google Website Optimizer
Before you scroll down and see the results, which Button and Media do you think had the highest sign-up rate?
Button Variations
Media Variations
Results
The metric we used to measure success was sign-up rate: the number of people who signed up divided by the number of people who saw that particular variation. Since there were a total of 310,382 visitors to the splash page during the experiment that meant each variation was seen by roughly 13,000 people.
Here are the different sign-up rates we observed for each section:
Here are the sign-up rates for the combinations of the different sections:
The Winner
The best-performing combination of button and media was "Combination 11" which was the "Learn More" button and the "Family" image:
Before we ran the experiment, the campaign staff heavily favored "Sam's Video" (the last one in the slideshow shown above). Had we not run this experiment, we would have very likely used that video on the splash page. That would have been a huge mistake since it turns out that all of the videos did worse than all of the images.
The winning variation had a sign-up rate of 11.6%. The original page had a sign-up rate of 8.26%. That's an improvement of 40.6% in sign-up rate. What does an improvement of 40.6% translate into?
Well, if you assume this improvement stayed roughly consistent through the rest of the campaign, then we can look at the total numbers at the end of the campaign and determine the difference this one experiment had. Roughly 10 million people signed up on the splash page during the campaign. If we hadn't run this experiment and just stuck with the original page that number would be closer to 7,120,000 signups. That's a difference of 2,880,000 email addresses.
Sending email to people who signed up on our splash page and asking them to volunteer typically converted 10% of them into volunteers. That means an additional 2,880,000 email addresses translated into 288,000 more volunteers.
Each email address that was submitted through our splash page ended up donating an average of $21 during the length of the campaign. The additional 2,880,000 email addresses on our email list translated into an additional $60 million in donations.
Lessons Learned
- Every visitor to your website is an opportunity. Take advantage of that opportunity through website optimization and A/B testing.
- Question assumptions. Everyone on the campaign loved the videos. All the videos ended up doing worse than all the images. We would have never known had we not questioned our assumptions.
- Experiment early and often. We ran this experiment in December of 2007 and reaped the benefits for the rest of the campaign. Because this first experiment proved to be so effective we continued to run dozens of experiments across the entire website throughout the campaign.
Why Optimizely?
We created Optimizely
This year, fewer than 40% of voting age Americans will actually vote.
A serious glitch in self-marketing, I think.
If you don't vote because you're trying to teach politicians a lesson, you're tragically misguided in your strategy. The very politicians you're trying to send a message to don't want you to vote. Since 1960, voting turnouts in mid-term elections are down significantly, and there's one reason: because of TV advertising.
Political TV advertising is designed to do only one thing: suppress the turnout of the opponent's supporters. If the TV ads can turn you off enough not to vote ("they're all bums") then their strategy has succeeded.
The astonishing thing is that voters haven't figured this out. As the scumminess and nastiness of campaigning and governing has escalated and the flakiness of candidates appears to have escalated as well, we've largely abdicated the high ground and permitted selfish partisans on both sides to hijack the system.
Voting is free. It's fairly fast. It doesn't make you responsible for the outcome, but it sure has an impact on what we have to live with going forward. The only thing that would make it better is free snacks.
Even if you're disgusted, vote. Vote for your least unfavorite choice. But go vote.
Couldn't agree with Seth More on this one.
Great way to show appreciation for the men and women who risk their lives working on the mines. Good on them for doing this.
Whether you’re in sales, own a start up, seasoned business owner, or a personal consultant of some kind, you’ve spent some time networking with people to grow your contact list and ultimately your business.
You store this list on your blackberry, iPhone, or some type of desktop software and guard it with your life as it’s valuable and you would be lost without it.
For as long as I can remember I’ve been told, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” So like many, I jumped on that train to develop that golden contact list only to learn a truly valuable lesson that I can share with you today.
“It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you that matters.”
Let’s take a look at who knows you.
Take 5 minutes and write down the top 20 people on your list, your power 20 as some would call it. People who can make things happen for you.
DON’T READ BELOW UNTIL YOU HAVE COMPLETED THE LIST!
Is it a powerful list? I’m not talking about how powerful the people are in that list, either. By this I mean, who on your list can you call at 2:00 a.m.?
What? Why would I want to call them at 2:00 a.m.?
The thing you need to ask yourself, is who can you count on? Who’s counting on you?
These are questions I ask my coaching clients, and more often than not they are stumped. Why? Because they’ve engaged themselves into networking programs that are based on quantity as opposed to quality.
“Your list is only as powerful as the number of friends you have on that list.”
When it comes down to it in business, people want to do business with their friends.
Friends are people who know your spouse, your kids, have been to your house for dinner, or are people you can count on. They can also count on you, yes by that I mean a phone call at 2:00 a.m.
If you develop these types of friendships with the top 20 people on your list you're well on your way to success.
Great points… I’m going to go out there and build my list and my business is going to be booming in no time!
Not so fast!!! Don’t go out there and network today to get results tomorrow. You won’t truly benefit from this for weeks, months or even years to come.
But if you take the time to truly work on it, you will be positioned for success with a powerful contact list.
One last note, ensure you're genuine in developing relationships with people. If they sniff you out as the king of business card bingo from that last business event, you will destroy any chances of building a truly solid relationship with them.
Now go make some friends!
Chad Blenkin is a Management Consultant with Qmodo, a firm that specializes in strategic marketing & coaching programs that help bring clarity to their clients business. Chad is currently available for one or two projects, please contact him directly for more information.
Trying to apply traditional manufacturing mentality in creative environments never works.
Creative environments aren't simply those who work in advertising, marketing, etc. These environments are found within many different organizations across different industries such as Finance, Health, Education, etc.
It's amazing what your people can accomplish when you allow them to use their creativity. Not only that this installs a sense of pride and a sense of accomplishment.
__________________________
Update: Here is an animated version of the above talk
In a recent Harvard Business Review blog post, leadership expert Dr. Cleve Stevens contrasts traditional leaders with transformational leaders - leaders for whom the employee-boss relationship is more than a money-for-labor transaction.
Transformational leaders know and recognize that a great company satisfies far more than the monetary needs of its employees. And so it is exactly with Relationship Masters, who find inventive means to connect and build relationships.
Here are the four things Relationship Masters use to build the most powerful and lucrative networks, according to Dr. Stevens’ piece:
1. Love. Sound touchy-feely? But love simply means focused concern that is exclusively for that person's good. Show your contacts you care about them and their futures. Emails that begin, "I was just thinking about you. . ." and "I'd like to introduce you to someone I think could be a big help with. . ." should be mainstays of your pinging strategy.
2. Growth. No one wants to be exactly where they are forever. Provide the enthusiasm, resources, and contacts that allow your contacts to grow and expand.
3. Contribution. To feel fulfilled, people need to know they are contributing to something larger than themselves. Sometimes all it takes is to show or remind someone the ways that their work matters to the world. Other times you can present direct opportunities for volunteering or charity.
4. Meaning. We are meaning-seeking creatures. Share a vision that demonstrates that what you do and what you want to accomplish serve a larger purpose, and find creative ways for your network to engage in that purpose.
Feel free to email me at cblenkin@me.com. Emails are free :) I also offer training programs, marketing services and support.
Good Luck and stay connected!
My Website:
http://www.chadblenkin.com/
-------------------------------------------
My name is, Chad Blenkin and I'm a business consultant who specializes in Social Media, Marketing, Communications and Strategic Planning. I've spent the last 12 years working with executives and companies in the Insurance, Real Estate, Communications, Retail, Oil & Gas, Financial Services, Non-Profit and Sports Industries. I've developed an excellent reputation in providing efficient and effective marketing solutions.
