Introducing: Open office hours!

September 15, 2009 By

Do you have a question about something technological?

Maybe you’ve thought of leaving a comment or filling out my contact form, but haven’t gotten around to it? Or can’t find the right words when you try to write it down?

Would you like to talk to a human who gets it?

I’m trying out a little thing I like to call Open Office Hours. Which, if you abbreviate it to OOH, you are required to pronounce with a trill of delight, like someone who’s just been presented with a surprise chocolate cake. “OOH! For moi?” Eyelash-batting is optional, but adds immeasurably to the effect.

Here’s how it’s going to work:

Every Thursday, from 10am to 11am Pacific time, I’m going to answer my phone.

  • Here’s my number: 909-240-7647.
  • I’ll take calls first come, first served.
  • I’ll try to limit each call to 10 minutes.
  • If you call and don’t get an answer, I’m talking with someone else. Sorry, operators are not standing by. Try back in a few minutes.
  • You’re free to leave me a message, but I’m not going to call you back. This is a one-way deal.
  • To find out what time this is in your time zone, visit the World Clock.)

Why announce this like it’s something unusual? Shouldn’t I already be answering my phone?

That may be the way a Regular Business works. But I’m not a Regular Business. To put it bluntly, I do not like getting random calls from strangers who want something from me (especially telemarketers, who, bless them, are the reason I have Caller ID).

At the same time, I want to be available to My Right People.

So, although I’ve had my phone number posted on the Contact page for awhile, I’ve honestly had doubts about whether that was a good idea. I toyed with the idea of just taking it down, and directing people to email me. But if you are My Right People, there’s a pretty good chance I’ll actually enjoy talking to you.

What to do? I wanted to find a way to encourage people to give me a call, but also try out some healthy time boundaries.

Open Office Hours is my first experiment with taking control of my phone and my time. I’m going to see how it works for several weeks. Heck, if no one calls, I’ve got plenty of other work to do. On the other hand, if my phone rings off the hook, I’ll get a chance to try out new ways of serving more people. Either way, the experiment gives me valuable data.

Of course, all the other ways of contacting me are still available. Email, Twitter, leave a comment here, or fill out the contact form. And of course you’re free to use my phone number other times than Open Office Hours, but there’s a much lower chance that you’ll actually reach me.

Let the experiment begin!

That number again: 909-240-7647. 10am Pacific on Thursdays.

I’m looking forward to talking with you!

Until next week,
Wendy Cholbi, your friendly neighborhood swim-goggle-wearing technology-to-English translator

Did you like this post? You can subscribe to get blog updates in your inbox or RSS reader!

Filed Under: Heart-Centered Tech Tips Tagged With: ,

What’s an email list and do you need one?

August 25, 2009 By

Last week I talked about some uses of autoresponders in managing your email. This week I want to talk about the idea of an email list.

Email lists: The conventional wisdom

If you’ve read anything about Internet marketing, you’ve probably heard the prevailing view, which is that you must have an email list. Apparently, you’re supposed to start collecting names as soon and as aggressively as possible — before you even have a product, before you even have a website, before you even know where your business is going.

You’re supposed to “capture” (yep, that’s a technical term) as many email addresses as possible, as quickly as possible. Then you’ll have a group of people who have given you permission to send them email. So as soon as you have a product, you can serve up a tantalizing advertisement to your captive audience. A small percentage of them will click through, a smaller percentage will actually buy the thing you’re advertising, and you’re in business.

This is what’s called a sales funnel. You start with the wide end (everyone on the Internet), and narrow it down to smaller and smaller numbers, until the few who drip through the bottom are actually bringing you money.

Why the conventional wisdom is exactly backward

The sales funnel is old-school marketing. It worked in old-school circumstances. I believe it’s time to not only treat people differently, but act differently as businesses.

Seth Godin wrote a free ebook called Flipping the Funnel three years ago in which he talked about the power of the Web and social media in marketing. I agree with much of what he said then, but what follows is purely my own take on the whole sales funnel metaphor.

Here are three reasons the conventional “sales funnel” wisdom fails to understand the real world, including the transformational online businesses we’re trying to build:

  • It’s mechanical. Each prospect at a given level is treated as an interchangeable cog. The whole process is viewed as a machine, which will produce the proper amount of a desired output (money) if you feed it the right number of cog-prospects and program it correctly. But the people you want to work with are individuals, not cogs. And your business is alive and growing, not a piece of machinery.
  • It’s violent. You’re supposed to “capture” these email addresses, then “target” people with messages that will “convert” them into cash for you. Ouch, I say! Do you want your Right People to feel hounded and hunted, or do you want them to feel like they’re getting the greatest gift in the world just by working with you?
  • It’s scarcity-based. This zero-sum system treats money as a precious, limited resource, and assumes that all your sophisticated marketing machinery is just a way to extract it from your customers. No matter if they’re empty husks afterward — you’ve got their money, so you win. What if, instead, you treated money as a renewable resource (to borrow an environmental term) and cultivated your customers into a sustainable ecosystem instead of a one-way trip through a funnel?

So what’s this got to do with email lists?

OK, back to the email list question. I love and use email lists; they are essential to my businesses. I believe you can collect email addresses with integrity and that both parties can (and should) benefit.

If I didn’t believe this, I wouldn’t be OK with asking people to subscribe to the blog. And I wouldn’t happily recommend email list provider AWeber and offer AWeber consulting services.

But an email list is just one tool, just one small branch of my small-business tree. It only makes sense to have it (and cultivate it by sending regular messages) if I’ve got a trunk to support it, and roots to nourish it.

That’s why the advice to start gathering names first seems backward to me. I believe that building a list is an activity that grows naturally out of providing a valuable product or service (just as branches grow naturally from a tree trunk).

What are you saying? is a much more important question than how many people are on your list?

With the wide availability of RSS, and the proliferation of blogs, an email list is no longer a one-size-fits-all must-have marketing tool.

Instead, an email list is only a good idea if:

  1. You have something to say
  2. You have some idea of who your Right People are
  3. Email is the best way for your Right People to receive this information
  4. Email is the best way for you to provide the information to your Right People
  5. You’re ready and able to invest upwards of $120 per year to manage your list professionally (that is, protect yourself from being labeled a spammer)

What do you think? I’d love to read your reactions. I know this is a big topic (and apparently I’m totally incapable of being brief!), and worth discussing further. So leave a comment and let’s talk!

Until next week,
Wendy Cholbi, your friendly neighborhood swim-goggle-wearing technology-to-English translator

Did you like this post? You can subscribe to get blog updates in your inbox or RSS reader!

Filed Under: Heart-Centered Tech Tips Tagged With: , , , , ,

What exactly is an autoresponder, anyway?

August 18, 2009 By

An email autoresponder does just what the name suggests: It responds to incoming messages. Automatically.

Most email programs will let you set up simple email autoresponders. For instance, you may have seen (or used) “out of office” or “on vacation” messages. When one of these autoresponders is active, any incoming email will trigger an automatic and instant reply.

You set up the reply before you leave for your vacation, and anyone who emails you, whether they’re a spammer, your boss, or your grandma, gets the same form-letter response, usually within a few seconds of sending their email.

You don’t have to send the response. You don’t even have to see the incoming mail. Your email program will do it all for you.

More uses for simple autoresponders

If you use email filters (some programs call them “rules”), you can introduce a little more customization into your personal autoresponders. For instance, you could:

  • set up one vacation autoresponse to be sent to people in your address book, and a different one for people you don’t know
  • automatically send a copy of your latest prices to anyone who emails you with the subject line “price list” (even when you’re not on vacation)
  • instantly reply to anyone who sends you a forwarded email (the subject line has “Fwd:” in it) to tell them you never read forwards

What autoresponders are not

Notice that so far I haven’t said a word about marketing, about building an email list, or about sending a newsletter or communicating with subscribers. Those are all meaty topics that I won’t get into in this particular Heart-Centered Tech Tip (look for future installments, though!).

No, all I’m talking about today is one simple piece of technology: An email message that gets sent automatically under a certain circumstance.

This technology can be very useful. It can save you time. In certain specific cases (like the price list idea above) it can improve your customer service.

But autoresponder technology is not a substitute for human interaction. It can be (quite easily) misused (have you ever left your vacation message on by mistake? See what I mean?). And autoresponders alone certainly can’t handle the varied messages you need to send.

Not everyone needs autoresponders

If you are happy with your current email setup, and if the people you’re corresponding with are equally happy, then you don’t need to set up a bunch of autoresponders. And you certainly don’t need to go buy a paid solution!

One good rule of thumb is that if you frequently find yourself sending almost the same reply, consider whether you could use an autoresponder. If you’re answering the same questions over and over, it might be time to set one up (it might also be time to set up a Frequently Asked Questions page on your website, and simply start referring people there, but that’s another post).

The true power of autoresponses

Think of an autoresponder as one tool in your toolbox. It’s great at what it does. But it becomes much more useful when you combine it with other tools (like a blog, a sign-up form on your website, an email newsletter, and the ability to personalize the autoresponses).

And even a whole toolbox is useless if you don’t have any building material to work with. All the sophisticated email management tricks in the book won’t help you if you have nothing to say, or don’t know what you want to say.

So: What are you here to say? Let’s have a conversation! Leave a comment… or a question about autoresponders if you have one. I’ll be covering more uses for them, in combination with other web tools, in future newsletters. Thank you!

Until next week,
Wendy Cholbi, your friendly neighborhood swim-goggle-wearing technology-to-English translator

Did you like this post? You can subscribe to get blog updates in your inbox or RSS reader!

Filed Under: Heart-Centered Tech Tips Tagged With: , ,

When to delete vs. when to archive

August 11, 2009 By
Oh dear, I cant wait that long

Oh dear, I can't wait that long

So I’ve been on a bit of a purge lately. Clothes, possessions, responsibilities… all being pared down, streamlined, and simplified. Scary, but exhilarating.

And I thought I’d share some of my heart-centered tech tips on managing electronic storage, since I’m also reorganizing and purging my computers, files, and databases.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/malias/ / CC BY 2.0

Tip 1: Electronic clutter is just as real as physical clutter. Take it seriously.

It’s tempting to just gloss over the chaos in your computer, because it’s just bits and bytes. Also, you’re probably the only one who sees your computer’s directory structure, so you don’t get the same real-world visibility (and possibly even approval) from cleaning up your computer desktop that you’d get for cleaning your physical desktop.

If you’ve ever had to search for a file because you didn’t remember its name, or couldn’t figure out where your computer put it after you downloaded it, or you just know someone sent you an email but you can’t find it, you’ve already discovered how frustrating electronic clutter can be. And if you can save yourself all that time spent searching? You get the idea.

Tip 2: Take advantage of the differences between electronic and physical clutter.

This tip doesn’t contradict Tip #1. The clutter is just as real, but it’s different.

For instance: The fact that “it’s just bits and bytes” means it’s far easier to rename, move, and recategorize files than it would be to clean up the equivalent paper versions. You don’t have to shift an entire file drawer — just drag and drop. You don’t have to print out new color-coded labels for 43 folders — just click and rename.

You can play with what works for you. Which leads to…

Tip 3: Your filing system is yours, and it’s allowed to be unique.

You don’t have to call your folders “projects” or “clients” or “accounts receivable” if those names are meaningless to you (or, worse, skeeze you out). You don’t have to organize by date or color or letter of the alphabet if something else works for you.

Examples? Well, Havi organizes her files by chakras. Me? I experienced a noticeable boost in mood (and a greater willingness to dive into my computer folders) when I renamed my “Employment” folder “Professional Services” and my “Clients” folder “Partners.” Also, strangely enough, within days of that renaming experiment, I lost a client (with whom I wasn’t getting along anyway) and I got contacted by two people who were genuinely looking for partners. Coincidence? Maybe. But I still feel better looking at a folder called “Partners” than I ever did looking at a folder called “Clients.”

(Of course, this tip applies to your physical filing system too, but with the electronic version it’s easier to run experiments and see how they feel — maybe then you can apply your new insights to your physical file cabinet.)

Tip 4: Archiving is your friend. Know when to move things into “dead storage.”

This is probably the biggest difference between electronic and physical clutter. The electronic kind doesn’t take up physical space, so it’s deceptively easy to end up with far more of it. You can just create more folders, get bigger hard drives, ad infinitum.

I’m not going to advocate weeding out files that you don’t use, for precisely this reason. With storage “space” for these bits and bytes so cheap, there’s hardly ever a reason to actually throw stuff away. The process of making decisions about which things to keep and which things to toss is probably far more time-consuming than simply creating an archive folder and dumping stuff into it when your desktop gets too cluttered.

How do you know when to archive? I don’t have a hard-and-fast rule here. My method is to notice when I get annoyed. When I have to click past multiple levels of folders to get to one I use all the time, that could be a clue that I need to move it up a few levels or create a shortcut, but it could also be a clue that some of the top levels can be archived (because I never use them).

When I have to scroll through a long list of folders to find the one I want, I could choose to re-order or rename them, but I also could archive the ones I always scroll past (I try never to have more than one standard window’s worth of files in any one folder, just because of the irritation of scrolling. If I start having to scroll, I know I need to either archive or create subfolders).

Tip 5: Even when you archive, keep a backup!

Of course, no archive is complete unless it’s backed up. You are backing up your stuff, aren’t you? As I’ve previously mentioned, I use an online backup service called Mozy.com that automatically backs up my files every day. You can put your archives on CDs or an external hard drive if that works better. Or if you have a web-hosting plan, your host probably provides some amount of storage (if not automatic backup). My preferred web host, DreamHost, offers unlimited storage plus an add-on paid feature called Files Forever (yes, you can keep your access to Files Forever even if you cancel your hosting plan).

Tip 6: There are a few things you can safely trash.

Yes, I know I said there was hardly ever a reason to throw stuff away. And I meant it. If there’s even the slightest possibility you’ll need a file (or email or photo or whatever), if you have the slightest doubt, keep it. Just tuck it out of sight in an archive folder.

But when you absolutely, completely, totally know you don’t need something, trash away. Don’t think of your trash can (or recycle bin, if you’re using Windows) as a holding pen for maybe-could-be-deleted stuff. Know it’s the black hole of no return. And use it accordingly. Have your computer empty the trash automatically every time you shut down, for instance. It’s nice to see it empty when you start up!

Spam, of course, goes in this category. There’s no reason to keep this stuff (well, unless you’re going to write a blog post about interesting spam subject lines or something). Old versions of software, too (if your upgrade process doesn’t automatically overwrite them).

But those forty blurred photos of your cat you took trying to get one good one? The 23-second video you accidentally took with your camera when you thought you were just taking a snapshot of your family? The dozens of seemingly meaningless emails from your brother? I’m a sucker for this stuff — I almost never delete a photo, video, or non-spam email (email forwards are close to spam and I do often delete them, though). Someday that fuzzy close-up of my cat’s tongue will make me laugh as I’m scrolling through the old photos.

Have fun playing with your electronic filing systems! Have a question or idea you want to share? Leave a comment and let’s have a conversation!

Until next week,

Wendy Cholbi, your friendly neighborhood swim-goggle-wearing technology-to-English translator

Filed Under: Heart-Centered Tech Tips Tagged With: , ,
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »