General

Starting next month, Utah state employees will start working only four days a week to help reduce energy costs.

In a yearlong experiment, employees will work four 10 hour days with no cut in pay and Friday’s off.

Apparently most of the people affected sound excited about the idea.

Turning off the lights, the heat and the air conditioning on Fridays in 1,000 of 3,000 government buildings will save about $3 million a year out of a state budget of $11 billion, according to the governor’s spokeswoman, Lisa Roskelley. The state will also save on gasoline used by official vehicles, but authorities have not figured out how much.

I can imagine this experiment is going to be watched closely by many businesses and other state and governmental offices around the country.

It’s nice to see a company (or in this case the state government) trying something new to not only offer something new (four day weeks!) as well as something positive for the environment.

‘Chelle Parmele
Social Media Marketing Manager
Palo Alto Software

Posted on July 3rd, 2008 | No Comments »

So I am relieved to say that Amazon did the right thing and proved to me that they do care about customer service. I was so upset with them yesterday, and vowed I would no longer be a loyal customer. Today not only is my item being delivered, but I have 3 emails from their customer service:

1. One email crediting me my shipping

2. One email apologizing profusely and offering to give me 10% more off, and also automatically return the item if it got here after I left

3. Another email making sure that customer service resolved my issue

This is a company that understands that treating their customers well is part of their marketing. I will remain a loyal customer and I will tell other people. Not only did they keep me loyal - they got me to market their service. I will be telling other people what happened, and how Amazon dealt with it so well. See… word of mouth marketing is easy if you give customers something to talk about! It’s good to know Jeff Bezos is still running a tight ship!

Posted on July 2nd, 2008 | No Comments »

The continuing struggle over protecting copyright, preventing product and intellectual property piracy, and illegal sales on the Internet has intensified this week.

“A French court on Monday ordered online auctioneer eBay to pay nearly 40 million euros ($63 million) in damages to Louis Vuitton for selling fake luxury goods,…” reported AFP.

In addition, the court also barred eBay from selling certain products, issued a cease and desist order barring eBay from running ads for certain products, and imposed a daily fine for noncompliance.

Obviously this ruling, if upheld, will change the face of eBay and all online auction sites. It will force eBay to be more responsible in evaluating the sellers who use the online giant, and compel them to put in place safeguards to ensure the products sold are original and that the sellers have a legitimate right to sell those products.

Here at Palo Alto Software we are keenly aware of the problem of “stolen” goods being sold online. We regularly challenge eBay auction/seller pages which are selling pirated copies of our software products, and/or are selling the content from our products or from our website network.

Our customer care team gets calls all the time from people complaining that they just paid good money for a sample business plan which we provide free of charge on our business-planning resource site, Bplans.com, or as content within our Business Plan Pro software.

This means, because of the thieves, costs of goods will go up, costs for selling on eBay will go up as well, and the customer will, in the end, pay more as well.

As an entrepreneur, you won’t want your product ripped-off, so don’t you go buying the shady deal either. If the deal looks too good to be true, it probably is. If you want the real product, support your fellow businesses, and buy from a legitimate source.

Steve Lange
Senior Editor
Palo Alto Software

Posted on July 2nd, 2008 | 1 Comment »

I ordered an item June 30th. I paid for one day shipping (granted it was cheap shipping - but that’s not my fault). Amazon shipped the item on July 1st. But somehow mysteriously Amazon can ship out July 1st, promise one day shipping and deliver July 3rd. I am not a PHD in Math — but I am pretty sure that shipment on July 1st with one day shipping should get me delivery by the 2nd. Since when is 1+1=3? Why over promise and under deliver? Or if they need to why not charge me more for one day shipping? I chose to order from Amazon because they could deliver when I needed it. How difficult is it to deliver to a customer what you sold them? I was sold one day shipping. what I am getting is 2 day shipping. To me that is a big difference.

As much as you can as a business owner keep these things in mind. It is EASY to provide good service. Just treat a customer they way you would like to be treated. Under promise. Over deliver. There you see how easy that is?

Sabrina Parsons aka Mommy CEO
Palo Alto Software
www.emailcenterpro.com

Posted on July 1st, 2008 | No Comments »

Seth Godin writes a great post about Verizon and their lack of customer care. What I find fascinating is companies that have lots and lots of money to spend on marketing — and then totally blow it on the customer service side of things. What exactly is so difficult about putting a proper system in place to take care of customers. As Seth points out, it would probably save these large corporations money. When you call to deal with a phone company, or an airline or your cable provider, and you have to spend more than the 15 minutes it would actually take to solve your problem on the phone, these companies are losing money. When I wait on hold for 40 minutes, and then it takes 3 United agents to deal with my travel request, how much money has that just cost United? Wouldn’t it be better to allocate marketing dollars to “close the marketing loop?”

I just don’t understand it. It seems obvious to me that a company should track ROI on all customer facing interactions, and continue to see how they can improve that ROI. But its obvious that ROI does not get down to this detail. It may be cheaper in the short term to outsource everything to another company, perhaps in another country where labor is cheaper. But if every customer takes 30 minutes and 3 people to solve their issues, is it really cheaper?

At Palo Alto Software we have made the decision NOT to outsource our customer service. We are a small company and choose to spend the overhead on real live people who work in our headquarters. We train them, and train them and train them. We hire people who are smart, and can make good judgment decisions so that our customers always feel well taken care of. We invest in the right tools. All of our customer service team has wireless headsets. They can talk to a customer while waking to the fax machine to see if their fax came in. We built an entire email management system to help our customer team respond quickly and correctly to any customer inquiry. (We feel this solution is so good, and so necessary for small businesses we made it available to anyone for FREE!!! — Email Center Pro )

Regardless of your size, or the money you can spend on providing the right tools, all companies should build customer service into their marketing ROI. Why bother spending money to acquire a customer if you are then going to treat them badly once they are customers?

A true story to prove my point:

Yesterday I was at the Eugene, Oregon track and field Olympic trials. I was there with my kids and it was blazing hot. You are not allowed to bring water bottles into the area for security reasons. I saw a Bank Of America booth was giving out water bottles. I am a customer. I asked if I could have 2 for my 2 very hot, very young, very thirsty kids. The answer - NO. This is only for people who are not customers who want to talk to us about becoming customers. “But I am a customer!” Sorry these are not for you I am told. I am very annoyed and looking to switch banks. This is how I am treated once I am a customer??? I would be treated better if I didn’t already bank with BofA.

Sabrina Parsons
CEO
Palo Alto Software

Posted on July 1st, 2008 | 3 Comments »

Although the name Twitter doesn’t follow the Two-Part Rule from Evan Paull, it is most definitely a well-recognized and memorable name. And what about Kleenex or Xerox, which also don’t follow the two-part rule but have not only memorable names but branding all their own?

I think Evan Paull has a very good point about choosing a company (or product) name. However, it doesn’t always stand true, as evidenced by the three names above; but then again, nothing is really ever 100% certain. I can say from experience that we went through this dilemma when trying to come up with a name for our newest product, Email Center Pro. A group of us sat around brainstorming, shouted out names, and wrote them on the white board for further discussion. From Arbor Mail to PASemail to Mailskee to Group In Box, we ended up settling on Email Center Pro. It may not have the same ring as Mailskee or some of the others we came up with, but in the end, staying consistent with having “Pro” at the end of the product name seemed to make the most (business) sense.

Share your story of how you came up with your company or product name!

Kristen Langham
Marketing Manager
Palo Alto Software, Inc.

Posted on June 26th, 2008 | No Comments »

My dearest friend is a web designer. She’s a rather good one too. She works freelance for a company specializing in building websites for real estate companies.

Last night she asked me which site I preferred, Google maps or Yahoo! maps.

“Yahoo has maps??” I asked her in my Yahoo! Instant Messenger window.

“Yes? You didn’t know this?” She replied in kind.

“Evidently not.”

To me, this means a couple of things. One, I’m not as observant as I thought I was. Two, I’m obviously fond of the Google brand kool-aid. And three, Yahoo! has maps!

It’s evidently a very popular map service, too. She showed me a bunch of different ways people have created add-on’s for the Yahoo! map software to make interesting maps for websites. (An apartment building website has a map showing where all the best take-out restaurants in the neighborhood are! That’s brilliant! Sign me up.)

I guess I should have known they had maps, I mean, I am on the Yahoo! front page all the time, Now that I know it’s there I can pick MAPS out of the alphabetical list on the sidebar.

So why couldn’t I remember ever seeing they had maps offered on their website?

Usability on a website is key. Be careful you don’t go overboard. Don’t offer so many products and services that they start to get lost in the jumble. Flashing buttons, pointing arrows, vibrant colors. Sometimes they’re just distracting your customer from what’s important…buying your stuff.

So the fortune cookie for this lesson is this: Remember that often the forest is lost because of all those darn trees.

Simplify.

‘Chelle Parmele
Social Media Marketing Manager
Palo Alto Software

Posted on June 26th, 2008 | No Comments »

Last week saw the thrust and parry of dueling keyboards as [a mainstream media consortium] took umbrage with the blogosphere, and bloggers’ frequent quotations from the [mmc]’s posted stories. There were demands for the take-down of various blog pages, and attempts to collect fees-per-word of quotes, as well as rapier-like witty ripostes. You can read about this on the TechCrunch blog, Post 1, and and Post 2.

While this issue seems, on the surface, to be about copyright, fair use, and possibly expansion of new revenue streams, it also deals with attribution and citing of sources. This is not just for journalists. It is just as important to entrepreneurs.

When you write your business plan, especially if you are using the plan to secure funding, you must cite your sources. Your plan will have topics and statistics covering your target market, population demographics, spending habits, market trends, market growth, and the like. The banks or investors or VCs are savvy business people. They know how to double check your assumptions, and will have no qualms about calling your bluff…and quashing your funding if they don’t credit your stats.

If your business is going to provide day care services, you’d better be able to show an increase in young dual-income families in your area. Investors are unlikely to support the construction of high-end mansions in a community that has been losing all of its industry. If you forecast skyrocketing sales, you’d better be able to document how a similar product or service did the same, and why yours will follow suit, and not crash and burn in a saturated market niche.

In other words you can’t pull your projections out of your … that is, out of thin air! Do your research! Develop your forecasts using that information. Document your sources in your plan. Take a look at this blog post by Alan Gleeson, Managing Director of Palo Alto Software Ltd, in the UK. The post quotes several people, businesses and news sources, and includes links and footnotes. Your business plan should do the same, giving the proper attribution to your sources.

As a raconteur I can make it up as I go along. As a business owner you don’t have that luxury.

Steve Lange
Senior Editor
Palo Alto Software

Tags: attribution, business plan, citing sources, document forecasts, quotes, research
Posted on June 25th, 2008 | No Comments »

I just read a great article about a public high school in Boston that makes a class called “Ventures” a requirement for graduation. All their students must take a class the involves writing a business plan and pitching it to business people as well as pitching themselves to a local company for a 6 week internship.

It is refreshing to see a public school giving its students a real education. Not just teaching to the test as all schools seem to do this day. Not just making do with the curriculum provided by the state and teaching the minimum, which is why more than 80% of high school students can not locate France on a map, let alone Iraq.  This school is giving kids a taste of what it is like to be in the real working world. The kids must research their business in order to write the plan. They must talk to real live businesses and get information for the competitive research. They must think about real life things like cash flow and loans and legal implications.  They even have to show up to their presentations in business attire. The kids will get a little taste of what it takes to be taken seriously in the real world. They may also get a little taste of what it can take to actually start and run a business. They are getting information and experiences that even most college kids don’t get.

I applaud Fenway School in Boston. Hurray for teachers who actually want to equip our kids with tools for the real world. Hurray for teachers who actually want to teach important relevant stuff.  And hurray for the students that get this opportunity!

Sabrina Parsons aka Mommy CEO

www.paloalto.com

Posted on June 20th, 2008 | No Comments »

The people of Estonia decided they’d had enough of the garbage that littered their countryside and forests.

Instead of waiting for the government to take care of it, or turning a blind eye and hoping it would just go away, they did something about it.

50,000 people scoured fields, streets, forests and riverbanks across the country, picking up everything from tractor batteries to paint tins (see a BBC video here). Much of this junk was ferried to central dumps, often in the vehicles of volunteers.  ~Anthony D Williams

I am literally boggled by this. 50,000 people, in one day, all went out into the countryside and helped make a difference. Fantastic!

This initiative, Let’s Do It!, was organized by two entrepreneurs, Ahti Heinla from Skype and Rainer Nolvak from Delfi. The fact that this was organized by entrepreneurs doesn’t surprise me in the least. They used Google Maps to start the grassroots program to map and photograph the problem trash sites.

Neighboring Latvia, not to be outdone, decided to do a clean up as well.

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if this kind of thinking went viral?

Each country trying to out clean the other? Tens of thousands of people getting out of their houses, all to put their good intentions to work.

Imagine the next Earth Day where everyone, across the world pledged just an hour of their time that day to go out and clean up.

Now, imagine if we all actually did it.

Imagine how fantastic that would be.

‘Chelle Parmele
Palo Alto Software

Tags: entrepreneurship, green
Posted on June 19th, 2008 | No Comments »