Todd Sattersten :: Astronaut Projects

Pepsi Promotion Flat?

Everyone is talking about how Apple didn't sell 100 millions songs like they said they would. Yesterday, it was reported that only 5 million of the potential 100 million songs have been redeemed in the Pepsi iTunes giveaway [via Dynamist].

Two thoughts:

1. 5 million downloads!!!! Getting the U.S. population to do five million of same thing is a big deal.


2. I am sure we have a marketeer in the blogsphere that can confirm for me a 5% conversion rate on a giveaway is nothing to complain about.

What is in a name?

I just wanted to give everyone another nudge to give us ideas.

We have a contest going on over at the 800-CEO-READ blog. We need a better name for our business book blog. Send us your ideas. The winner gets seven books of their choice.

Send your ideas to todd at 800ceoread dot com or leave them at the original entry.

The deadline is Monday.

Great Advice

I really like this advice from Entrepreneur Magazine.

[via bblog]

Byrne Interview

John Byrne, editor-in-chief of Fast Company, did an interview with Knowledge@Wharton. He talks about the direction the magazine has been and is going.

I have been critical of the magazine of late and how I haven't been thrilled with the direction. I like this interview because I know have a much better idea of where John is coming from. I am still not sure I agree, but I undersand.

[via FC Now]

Please stop the madness

I am in San Diego with the family visiting my wife's sister. We took America West on our flight out here. When it was time for the drink service, this is what we found:

Tonight, it was advertising throughout the menu during our visit to The Cheesecake Factory.

I wish I could be left alone and have some peace and quiet.

Attention decision makers - the additional revenue is not worth it. I am starting to choose products and services based on the fact that I only get the product or service.

Please leave me alone.

Thank you.

Sending out a long distance dedication

Happy Birthday, Aaron!

BBBT #3 - Yippie!

One week from today, we'll start the Business Blog Book Tour here with Seth Godin and Free Prize Inside.

Mark it on your calendar.

Blogging in Business Poll

There is a Business and Blogging Poll being held over at Fast Company. It is an even heat right now, so get your vote in.

Three pennies worth on linking

Check out the pennies post on Cutting Through.

My new project

I have been very busy lately.

I have partnered with Jack Covert and 800-CEO-READ to develop a blog dedicated to business books.

I hope you will go check it out.

Actually, we need your help. We need a name for the blog. The winning submission gets seven books of the winner's choice. The deadline for submissions is May 3rd.

The Page 23 Meme

I thought this was fun one to join in on.

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

The government, so overwhelmed by the scale of the movement, decided to let Christiania stand as a social experiement - Lonely Planet, Denmark

More on Christiania...

[via Crossroads Dispatches]

Selling Chopper Style

Last night, I was watching TLC's Faking It. Here is the show's premise from the website:

Ever wonder what it would be like to have another profession? Well, you're certainly not alone. Our Faking It participants, for one reason or another, have decided to turn their worlds upside down. With much guidance from professional mentors, our fakers attempt to prove that they're the real deal. Can they fool the real pros? Or will they be called out as imposters?

In this episode Clark, an associate Episcopal minister from Maine, is transported to Las Vegas and in four weeks, Clark is transformed from preacher man to car salesman. The senior minister at Clark's church wanted him to feel more comfortable talking to people and thought this would be a good way of doing it. His mentors are Chopper (owner of Towbin Dodge, the #1 used car dealership in Nevada) and Chilly Willy, the sales manager.

I thought it was a good lesson in selling. So let me present Chopper's Rules for Selling:

1. Excitement is infectious - Chopper is always creating an environment were people are having a good time. On the weekend, there are cookouts and clowns. Every person that buys a car gets to strike a gong and is cheered by the entire staff. Happy people are more willing to buy.


2. Know your stuff - You have to know what you are selling. Chopper was giving Clark binders of stuff to read about cars. What how much horsepower does this have? How big are the wheels on this? I think it is what Scoble was talking about this weekend. Being an authority helps you sell.


3. Provide incentives - Saturday is the big day the dealership. 60% of sales happen on Saturday. Chopper offers a diamond watch to the top salesman of the day. He has cash sitting on the table and tells everyone you will go home with cash in their pocket if they sell cars. He is providing rewards that people can associate directly with their actions. Chopper even goes to church with Clark after the minister wins a challenge of landing three test drives in a single day. That also shows the importance of knowing how to motivate different people.


4. Track progress - On a typical Saturday, 150 prospects will sit down to talk about buying a car. Each prospect is tracked by name, what they are buying and how they found out about the dealership. Each salesman (and they are all men) is tracked on his ability to close dealings. Their continued employment depends on it. The close rate is about 30%.


5. Final words - The night before the final challenge, Chopper invites Clark over to the house for dinner. Clark is very anxious about the next day and Chopper says "I just want you to remember these three things - Relax, listen, and be yourself."

There is a 25 minute video on Chopper's website that is taken from A&E "It's a Living". Chopper and the dealership were featured on an episode focused on selling.

P.S. Clark was able to fake out two of the three judges and the third couldn't believe he had only be selling cars for four weeks. I think he had good teachers.

I like the smell of this

Great post from EirePrenuer:

Aroma Tours, an Australian company, organises holidays to nice-smelling places.

My wife has an outstanding olfactory nerve. She would love this.

NYT covers BloggerCon II

Juile Faherty writes an article in today's New York Times about BloggerCon II. The article focuses on the business potential of blogs and advertising again rises to the number one position for revenue generation.

There is too much emphasis on advertising and blogs. I realize that Adwords and BlogAds have created the possibility of instant micropublishing. I realize that when mainstream media reports on our corner of the world that they are going to report from their perspective - newspapers and magazines create content and then sell advertising. I also realize that people are finding success and that makes a good story.

Let me offer another perspective.

• My blog gives me credibility. It has allowed me to pursue projects that would not have been possible without it.
• My project with KaosPilots has been moderately successful. We have sold a dozen $42 books in about the same number of days. Here we built off the PR from Fast Company, bought a couple of Adwords, and took advantage of the fact that Google likes weblogs.
• I have landed a gig where I am developing and providing content for a company's external weblog. I'll post more on that soon. Bottom line: I am getting paid to blog!

There are lots of way to make money blogging. I would not say any of my methods are particularly novel, but I just wanted to show some alternatives.

Another Voice

I have been enjoying Crossroads Dispatches blogged by Evelyn Rodriguez.

She is thoughtful and has great insights.
She took on Seth and his thoughts on GMail [here too].
She wrote about what "worthwhile" means to her.
She also wrote a great post about the challenge of keeping up with everything going on in blogland.

This is a great addition to any well balanced diet.

Carnival of the Consumers

Jeff Doolittle has put together the Carnival of the Consumers. In his own words:

The purpose of this new Carnival is to share your experiences with the products you interact with each day. Whether it is a car, computer, guitar, or cleaning product, this is your chance to tell the world what you love/hate about something you've purchased in the past 3 months. What did you pay for the item? Where did you purchase it? Would you recommend the product to others? How does it compare to competing products? Tell us all about it.

There are some further guidelines on the index page.

I think it is a cool idea. With the growing mistrust of online reviews at places like Amazon, blogs become a source of information from known identity. Companies would be smart to pull these reviews together on each of their own sites. I like this Carnival because you get a smorgasbord in each edition.

[via Branding Blog]

Examples of Business Blogs

Rick Bruner from Business Blog Consulting spoke at couple of times at the "Blogging in Business" session at BloggerCon.

He has been posting lots of examples of business blogs on his site.

Blogging in Business at BloggerCon

I just got done listening to the "Blogging in Business" session from BloggerCon, being held at Harvard this weekend.

You can see my notes under the extended entry. The notes are rough and I have bracketed a couple of things to represent my added thoughts.

Update: Here is the wiki Jeff Jarvis set-up as a starting point for the session.

Blogging About Your Company

I always get the most out of these type of blogs. Dan Lynn has a blog called Starting It. It is a little slow starting, but each entry touches on those tough questions entrepreneurs face.

No RSS feed , though.

[via Frank's Blog]

BlogRunner

I was following some links through the Amazon's new A9 search engine. I found some references on to a site called BlogRunner. I followed the link and found everything from my blog was basically available from their site. Check it out.

It looks like the site is tracking lots of blogs and trying to keep track of conversations going on.

Wayne, we need your insight.

Is anybody else familiar with this site and what they are trying to do?

Failure from KaosPilot A-Z

This passage from KaosPilot A-Z reinforces what I and others have said about entrepreneurship outside the US.

In the US it's no catastrophe if your company goes bust. On the contrary. If you have the right enterprising approach to life it's almost expected that you've been through a bankruptcy or two - if you really want to make something of yourself. In Scandinavia the exact opposite is true. If an entrepreneur's company goes bust the entrepreneur in question is branded as risky business by their bank, friends, partners and maybe even their family. And you need more than good persuasive talents if you want a second chance.

The entry goes on to talk about how the school is trying to create an environment where students can succeed and fail.

Soon-To-Be Famous Last Words

"We don't think everyone is going to want hi-fi, but we're going to offer it"

-Fred Dressler, Exec. VP of programming for Time Warner (Forbes 3/1/04)

This will end up with these other famous last words.

Essays from KaosPilot A-Z

Scattered among the pages are essays by various friends of the school. Some of the authors you will recognize, but what's better is that many of them you won't.

Here's a partial list of what you'll find:

• "Sharing Makes Us Bigger" - Ketan Lakahani, South Africa
• "F$@# Heirarchy, Give Me The Gestalt" - Richard Stanley, Finland
• "The Corporate Chaplain" - Steen Hindebrandt, Denmark
• "Willing To Be Disturbed" - Margaret Wheatley, USA
• "Time And Again I Asked" - Dee Hock, USA
• "The Grassroots Entreprenuer" - Anita Roddick, UK
• "Dr. Michael Copass and The Four Square Mode"l - Andy Stefanovich, USA
• "Black Box" - Wy Wong, Hong Kong

I wanted to quote this passage from Andy Stefanovich, founder and director of Richmond, VA- based Play. I think this captures one aspect of what making blogging so wonderful. He tell the story of Dr. Michael Copass and Medic One, the country's first medical emergency response system:

The Medic One story now serves as a point of inspiration for other people who may not have known about this development to create new ideas. The very fact that you have read this paragraph and have been affected by the story make you part of the collective consciousness. And the process will continue.

Food and Thought

We were out to dinner with friends last night. We ate at a local Asian chain called Chin's. They have a great menu that pulls from multiple regions. You order your food at the counter, it is cooked to order, and the staff deliver it to your table.

Their "Five Sustaining Truths" hang at the entrance:

1. Food energizes life.
2. Knowledge feeds the soul
3. True value lies in time well spent
4. Each generation creates opportunities
5. Passion - and a smile - transform the world

Thanks for Playing

Thanks to everyone who played and conversed during Brand Week.

People are still leaving comments so feel free to contribute to the entries below.

We'll do another topic week in June. I am open for suggestions on the next topic.

Attention All Bloggers

I only read blogs through RSS feeds now. I am sure there are many of you out there that do the same thing. I just takes too much time to individually check the 55 blogs I read.

I have two requests:

1. Offer a RSS based feed - forget about the RSS vs Atom debate and offer both. Feedster offers a easy way to set-up a RSS feed.


2. Offer a full formatted feed - show the whole entry with link and images. This may be a little harder, but I am sure you can find someone to help.

Maverick Blog and Engadget both updated their feeds in the last day or two. I am so happy.

I hope you'll do the same.

Brand Week - Question #4

This outstanding question comes from Michele at WonderBranding:

Question: Does a business brand differently for women than men? If yes, how?

How to destroy a new business

The WSJ reports today that record companies are discussing raising prices for song downloads. The article says pricing could go to $1.25 to $2.49 from the current 99 cents.

First, the music industry doesn't understand how online sales can enhance their distribution. The next natural step: when your new distribution channel starts to take hold, raise your prices.

I think 99 cents is too much for a single. I want to point you again to an outstanding essay by Bob Lefsetz. He thinks between 5 and 10 cents is more like it. Imagine how that would change consumption of music online.

Brand Week - Question #3

I find it interesting the things that company's will do in the name of their brand. I was particularly intrigued by the BMW Films. I absolutely loved the series and I will forever associate that experience with the carmaker. The trouble is I don't think it made it any more likely that I would buy one of their cars.

What brought this to mind was a visit to Daypop's Top 40 last week. At number #32 was "The Adventures of Seinfeld & Superman". Jerry and American Express have teamed up to create a couple of short films (4-5 min). The first film is up and it is great. It seems AE is taking the same route as BMW to create entertainment to enhance their brand.

So, here is the question - Do you agree with this method of brand building? Will BMW and American Express' brands benefit from producing entertainment? Why or Why Not?

Background on KaosPilots

I found this article in the June/July 1996 issue of Fast Company. This is a great background piece on the school.

Brand Week - Question #2

Today's we are going to talk about the birth of brands. Specifically, I want to discuss the decision for company to create a new brand.

Let me give you a few thoughts. The number of the major airlines have announced low-cost service under a new name (i.e. Song from Delta, Ted from United). Vollrath, a Wisconsin based cookware manufacturer, is entering the consumer market, after 130 years of success in commercial kitchens.

Today's question is: What factors do you consider when deciding to create a new brand within an existing business?

Power Brands

I opened up the April 19th issue of Forbes that someone passed along and found a foldout section on brands. I thought it would go along well with Brand Week.

The article talks about the value of brands and computes a financial value for them. Nothing particularly new, but it is interesting to look down the list. You will find all of the usual suspects from J&J to GE to UPS. P&G tops the list with an estimated corporate brand value of $107.4 billion.

Very Worthwhile

Seth pointed everybody to it this morning.

You need to go check out Worthwhile.

My first thought is "These guys going to take a run at Fast Company."

I hope so.

Brand Week - Question #1

I thought we would begin with something simple:

What is your definition of a brand? 25 words or less.

I thought we'd start with this question to see where everyone is as we begin the discussion.

Welcome to Brand Week

Inspired by a strange cross between Shark Week and Friday's Five, A Penny For... brings you Brand Week.

I thought it would be interesting to take a business topic and each day post a question probing into that subject.

Everyone is invited and encouraged to participate in the conversation. You can leave comments with the appropriate entry or do a trackback to the entry on your site.

Let's begin!

The A-Z in KaosPilot A-Z

The main prose in KaosPilot A-Z is organized alphabetically into sections. The first heading is Arrival and talks about the arrival of the first team of KaosPilots in 1991. The original marketing material described the school in this way:

...the KaosPilots is a project management education for you and your drive for culture, action and good ideas. Because the world needs pilots who can navigate the high voltage between education, work, and culture - and use it as a platform for new projects. Projects that can show new flight paths - alternatives to the ways we usually think about identity, quality of life and personal potential. Because the world needs skilled, visionary, enterprising project managers. Because the world needs inspiring model projects...

Each section ends with cross-references to other sections. At the end of Arrival, the recommended sections include Frontrunners, Facts, Aarhus, Cutting Edge, Hall of Respect, Logo, Name and DNA.

Under the letter A, you will find the aforementioned Arrival, along with Apple, The Arts (& Business), AIDS, Authenic, Aarhus, and AGF. The book ends with the a section titled Zen and the quote, "When the student is ready, the master appears".

I wanted to give you a feel for the fact that this book covers a lot of ground in a unique way.

One more reason...

After my post, Wayne wrote a more detailed entry about getting your blog into the Yahoo! Directory.

Since I got listed, that Yahoo! listing is #2 on my referrals list (after Google).

I need some help.

I need some help.

I want to make some changes to my MT template and the RSS feed. I can't seem to figure it out how to do that. For someone who knows what they are doing, it will probably take about an hour.

Email me if you have the expertise and the time. I will find some suitable way to compensate you. It may lead to some more formal work in the near future.

Gmail

I don't understand Google's decision to launch Gmail yesterday. Google has a history of participating in the first of April tradition. You might say that the amazing size of the 1GB account plays well with April's Fool Day.

My question is: Why would you ever want there to be a question if the new service that you are offering is really available or not?

Easy PR for your blog

I know Wayne at Blog Business World is normally the one talking about getting publicity for your blog.

I had to pass this one along. I found myself at the Yahoo! Directory a couple of days ago. This is part of Yahoo! that is staffed by people and still hand-select what gets listed. There is a directory location for business weblogs. You can find it at here.

What I found was that most of my fellow business bloggers are not listed. The Suggest a Site is located on the top right of the screen. All ya all need to get over there.

Kinja - RSS aggregator for the masses

Kinja is going to get a lot of attention. Just enter the addresses of your favorite sites and it automatically pulls the feeds and creates a digest.

Nick Denton talks about the project here.

It is meant to be an aggregator for the masses and bring in the other nine out of ten people who haven't read blogs.

I am trying it out. It's still in beta, so it is a little rough. It looks like a weblog which is cool. More later.

[via Scripting News and Nick Denton]

More Penny & Me News

Hanson's "Penny & Me" debuted at #2 on the Billboard Singles chart. Besides the Penny connection, I think it is very interesting that this album is an independent release and getting this much attention.

Hanson opted out of their contract with a major label and released it on their 3CG (three car garage) label. The distribution is being handled by Alternative Distribution Alliance. ADA does distribution for independent labels. I ran across a few names I recognized on their site including Comedy Central and Sub Pop Records.

Penny-Pinching or Nit-Picking

First, I want to introduce you to a new blog - An Entrepreneur's Life.

It only been up a couple of days, and it is putting up quality stuff. I had to link to this morning's penny post - "When Penny-Pinching Defeats Customer Appreciation - A Starbucks Tale of Marketing Woe".

I remember Jackie at the Church talking about buying her Mini Cooper and getting crystal candlestick holders as a thank you gift. I thought the dealership missed the mark on that one.

AEL is unhappy because the Free Prize Inside (more shameless promotion for the next BBBT) was a mere 12 oz. cup of joe. I don't think you can be too upset about not being able to choose the size of the prize. I won't disagree that Starbucks could have knocked it out of the park by saying, "Anything off the menu, our treat".

It is interesting though how expectations can change your perception of a situation. In this case, the customer thinks, "Wow, you guys really care about me." and then opens the envelope to find something that makes them think "You don't care as much as I thought."

Do you remember my challenge?

Instead of a resolution, I issued a New Year's challenge.

Change one thing in your life and put all your energy into that one thing.

I said we'd check back on April 1st.

For me, it was the decision to leave the family business and stay home with my son. It has been an adjustment, but I am very happy with decision.

My next 90 day project is going to be starting the process of learning French. I don't expect to be fluent, but I am looking for the "being able to get around" French. My next trip to France is in September.

Anyone else made a change?