Doing an office pool

It is kind of freaky. We seems to have problem signing up salespeople. Now, I am not seeing a "problem" in the sense that we are on the verge of splattering onto the ground in a speculator fireball. If anything, our quarter to quarter performance is nothing but up - doubling or more revenue and customer base, albeit from a smallish base. And, since I am generating loads of leads that our able sales people have not enough time to digest, I do not see any immediate downside to coming on-board.

Okay, just to show that I am not talking right after drinking the company Kool-Aid, I would readily admit that being a small startup, there are certain standard concerns that people ought to know and think about.

Anyway, long story short, we are having a darnest time adding a third California based sales person. Then, I was told that somebody signed up last week. Being the cynic that I am, I thought to myself that I won't believe it until I see it. The funny thing is that I have not seen the new employee in physical form. From what I can gather, he is a bit under the weather and I certainly sympathize. But, this kind of got me thinking, maybe I should start an office pool...

**
Google is a funny business. I signed up with the Google Groups to get daily updates a while back because I want to be in the loop in terms of the latest and best practices. Then, a while back, I posted a note saying that I am terminating a particular type of campaign because the performance has been very unsatisfactory. Then, I think the follow day, I no longer get the daily update.

At first I was not terribly concerned. IT disruption happens. But, it dragged on and I started to wondering for the worst. Maybe the Google gods take wrath with my ungrateful comments and how one of their products sucked? Anyway, I still have no idea what happened. But I got the first batch of daily update today in a while and, with a bit of luck, things will be back to normal.

Just to show that I am not easily reformed, I doubt if I will ever refrain from being a demanding customer/user. But, I have a few side stratagem to keep the information flowing. We'll see if my primary bitching account is being blocked. (Don't you just love a good conspiracy theory!)

Oh, I also started a new Google campaign based on the library of case studies and whitepapers I have. It is a tricky business because the keyword selection is not obvious - too broad, the ad's gets lost and the budget wasted, too narrow, the ad does not get seen and there is no return on the investment. I do wondering if there is anyone crazy like me who have tried to serve whitepapers and case studies on Google AdWords.

Speaking of pay-per-click programs, I finally got all the new landing pages ready to go for the FindWP program. Loaded them yesterday so today is the first day of the new landing pages for FindWP. More importantly, these new landing pages allows me to know exactly where it came from. So far, the result has not been encouraging. The overall rate of case study and whitepaper requests have been dropping. And, the only one that I can confirm come from the FindWP program was a junk lead. This is all a bit discouraging. My theory for why this is happening goes something like this: 1. the spike of enquiries from last two weeks came mostly from a recent article in a major IT publication. Then, since the same FindWP program has been running for a while, the novelty is gone and anyone who might be interested in the program has indicated as much. Maybe I will try a new set of whitepapers and case studies to see if there is more uptick. Wouldn't hurt.

Speaking of FindWP. Another vendor with whom I worked with on a similar campaign early in the year came knocking. He asserted that FindWP sucks and he can do better. Is it just me or he (the vendor) is a bit too transparent? Anyway, I told him to back off because FindWP is a cheaper way to run experiments. After all, if FindWP does not cut it at the end of the day, I am sure this vendor would be glad to take my marketing money.

PR schedule is a delicate art. There are just so many different variables outside of my control. On top of it, the competing strategies and direction of a startup forces one to be super flexible and willing to put aside works that do not meet the immediate needs. My weekly session with the PR firm is like a weekly negotiation. Whoever thinks Marketing is all fluff has never done it.

Going off on a complete tangent. I have been the CPO, chief production officer, lately. As we sign up vendors and partners, there are official propaganda to be shared. And, since it costs more than $1,000 to get 50 sets of 10 double side color prints from Kinko, this task has firmly remained in-house. And, this also means that I have to nurse the color printer. This part really sucks. I do not mind the work because it provides a disruption of everyday. On the other hand, since the color printer seems to break down more often than it use to, it seems like I am spending more time staring at it these day than what is healthy. Anyway, I will try to get a hourly help to do this work. It is not hard, but time consuming.

Oh, I am penning the new newsletter. The originally plan is to do it monthly and it got started in August. However, since I was busy spending money in Spain in September, this will be the second one for the newsletter. It is not too bad. I enjoy writing short spurs of thoughts. I even made reference to a popular film in the 80's. I figure that it is a pretty well known reference and surely my readers will appreciate it. We'll see!

Right. So, how much do you think the office pool should start with. $5 per block? More importantly, just so that you know, the bookie, yours truly, gets to keep 3% pf the pot for all the trouble.

chiefchickenheadless (at) gmail (dot) com sign out
Legend: (at) = "@" (dot) = "."