Sometimes, it takes me 5 pages of documentation and a lengthy chat to decipher what it is a particular business actually does. I figure if I don’t get it, then chances are the viewers of the website I build for them wont get it either.

Sometimes I feel thick because I have to ask a potential customer so many questions, part of me just wants to nod along and pretend I know what they’re up to so they’ll feel comfortable spending money with me. But another part of me figures that if a business is making me feel dumb and intimidated because I don’t get what they do, surely they aren’t marketing themselves very well.

Publish a five word summary puts in very concise words one of the biggest things I think we offer our customers and WHY we think it’s so important.

I realised this very early on after starting a blog – the 5 word summary of what the blog was about appeared in every review and directory listing people gave us. They just copied and pasted it. We made it so easy for them to spread the word about us, they just did it (I just realised that we’ve somehow deleted that summary, I’ll put it back up tomorrow)

I also notice it when talking to people about what we do. If I give the 5-15 minute explanation, people often get a polite but entirely bored look on their face. Most people just don’t care about the inner workings, they just want the 5 word summary. If they get your business in 5 words – especially if they know nothing about the industry – they feel smart. They like you AND they can tell their friends about you.

So, what’s your five word summary?

I went to Victoria university. Their website was a well known example among students of a black hole of information – you knew it was all in there somewhere, it was just virtually impossible to get to it. It was begging for an update, so I was happy to discover that very recently it had undergone a re-design.

The new site looks nice, but I feel like the point of the redesign was missed a little. It’s not actually much easier to find stuff. I realised quickly that I had ‘learned’ the old site – I knew where that random link to the graduation information was off by heart so had taught myself how to get to it. The new site, I had no idea.

Looking quickly through the site to try to understand who and what they were catering for, I started jotting a quick list of what I think are the building blocks of a successful website. It is by no means complete, but based on the things I think the new VUW site does well and not so well.

• Use menus to break the areas of your website up into large chunks. People use navigation only when necessary so keep your main menu small (only a few links) and prominent. I can then quickly get to the broad area I need to.
• If you have a big site (with more than 2-3 layers of content), have a search box. I can avoid a long path to my goal page, if I can quickly search for it.
• Too much small text in small chunks is confusing, especially when it looks the same – I ignore it. Maybe I assume they are ads? Clearly separate different content and give it some space and size!
• I think 4 columns may be a bit much. It’s too busy and hard to separate the content out, so makes me head back to the menus. Keep it simple, 2-3 columns maximum and keep the main content area a lot larger than the ‘module’ bars so I know where I’m meant to be getting my information from.
• Completely understand the REASON why someone is there. What are the things most people are trying to get to? Make sure it is as easy as possible to people to achieve their most common tasks. All information was not created equal. Do visitor requirements change over time? (i.e with a graduation ceremony coming up, make graduation prominent, at other times, leave it more ‘hidden’

I have been a web designer long enough to know that behind even the ugliest of sites lies some very successful companies. A lot of people just don’t see the web as a marketing channel and have an ugly looking, amateur website as their only online representation. That’s like sending your five year old along to a sales meeting. Not only does it look unprofessional, it actively puts customers off!

I realised this fact with a bang when i was looking for a company to print tshirts for PlanHQ. I looked at quite a few websites and to be frank, they all looked like they were run out of some 12 year old’s garage and I had absolutely no faith that I would actually get anything for my money.

In the end, I actually went and visited the premises of a business BEFORE committing to purchase – this is someone who’s normally happy buying anything online. It struck me that t-shirt printing sites all had several things in common:

• They didn’t understand google. It is very hard to search for a t-shirt printing company, I had the nagging feeling there were a lot more out there but I would never be able to find them.
• T-shirt printing companies didn’t simplify their product. I just wanted a few t-shirts printed, I didn’t want it to feel like a very complicated, high risk task! I wanted an easy process (choose a t-shirt, submit your image in this format at this resolution, pay your money, wait 2 days, get your t-shirt couriered). That was, in the end how the process worked where I went, but honestly, you would never have guessed (the place I went to didn’t even have a website)
• T-shirt companies don’t understand the importance of beauty This is pretty frightening as I trust them to make my clothes look cool. Ugly sites put me off! Even though I know it’s psychological and a website is often no reflection on a company (!), I still was put off even calling most of the places I found.

T-shirt companies are not alone

A lot of other companies are in the same boat, but t-shirt companies are such an easy example of businesses that could totally take advantage of the web. If I was a t-shirt company that printed corporate tees, I’d ensure people could do it all online. Otherwise, every time someone wants a batch done it takes hours out of their day. They simply cannot afford to do it!

T-shirt companies could easily make my life easier by embracing the web. If I could find one half-decent site I would switch my business to them in a flash. Seriously.

I’ve recently subscribed to another email newsletter that I REALLY enjoy – gone are the days where these things are mainly spam, Get to The Point is ‘Small business secrets in 60 seconds’… One topic daily that gives you a little ‘ahh cool’ moment when you read it.

I have been buying a lot off stuff off Trademe recently. This uncovered an interesting phenomenon. Trademe works on a feedback system, when you make a trade, you offer feedback on the other party, the buyer or the seller. This raises or lowers their trust profile and affects future sales.

A fairer marketplace

The theory behind this is that it creates a far more honest marketplace… You have to be fair or else everyone knows about it. The thing is, now everyone is so worked up about their feedback, it’s actually created an environment of suspicion.

A weird side effect

I bought a phone for my flat, I sent an email to the seller requesting pick up details and got a reply. I then sent a further email requesting bank account details and trying to confirm a pick up time. They didn’t get it. The next thing I know, I’m being sent an email accusing me of being a ‘time waster’ and questioning if I ‘even want the phone’. Which I found fairly shocking. The issue was resolved with a fast phone call, but it seemed a weird reaction. When the truth was discovered, the opposite occurred and they obviously were a little afraid that I would turn on them!

My boyfriend had a similar issue when trying to buy glasses. After weeks of communication, the glasses never arrived. Eventually his money was returned and he wrote polite but firm piece of feedback which questioned if maybe the glasses were ever sent. The response was immediate and viscous. He is now the angry owner of feedback that claims he is a scammer.

Freakonomics

I’m quite new to buying on Trademe and I actually found myself AFRAID of not picking something up on time or not contacting the buyer immediately. It actually became surprising stressful.

I’m reading Freakonomics at the moment which is a book all about incentives, but also shows how everything has unintended side effects. This was one particular one I’d never considered arising from such a perfect sounding solution to trust int he marketplace.

I’ve been chatting to entrepreneur Patrick McPhee from Splurf about PlanHQ featuring in a startup TV series he’s getting going for New Zealand, due to start screening later this year.

The idea is to show everyone the reality of startups, and the startup culture here in New Zealand. Hopefully by opening our doors we’ll be assisting those in startups by showing our mistakes and successes and providing a little inspiration to those who aren’t in business for themselves to maybe get amongst. Patrick and crew have just released a 30 minute pilot video below, interested in any thoughts. (Note: The outcomes in the pilot are fictional and are for illustration only)

Startup TV Pilot

Online Videos by Veoh.com

The inspiration – Startup.com the Movie

In terms of the style of how the story is to be told, Patrick refers to Startup.com the Movie which follows an online startup govworks.com which goes from inception, to raising $US 60 milion and a couple of hundred staff to dead. Not an ideal outcome ofcourse, but failures are part of success, although in this case, and at this time of the web, was all too common.

Seeing your mistakes from others

I remember watching the movie startup.com in 2003 shortly after I’d helped raise $11 million for early stage energy management technology company Energy intellect. It was the first time I’d watched a movie that had things I could genuinely relate too, and it forced immediate learning. I saw the things that I/we had done wrong, watching someone else make mistakes and seeing them as mistakes certainly helps you.

I love being in a position where we find out information before anyone else :)

If you haven’t already heard (where HAVE you been HIDING???!?) Wellington is home to the first annual Cable Car Challenge Business Planning competition. With $50,000 up for grabs for the winner, including $30,000 seed money, compared to a $0 entrance fee, you’d be silly to miss out.

82 Signups and Counting…

This means 82 exciting, innovative and interesting business ideas from Wellingtonians, 82 more potential small businesses, 82 more potential millionaires, 82 more people who are wanting to stop working for someone else and turn their own ideas into real businesses…

Enter Now

I have already recommended this to everyone I know in Wellington who has ever had half an idea, and those who have some really awesome ones right now. I suspect the competition will be tough!

There is no excuse NOT to get involved, if only to practise pitching your own ideas and to see what other Wellingtonians are dreaming up as they wander the icy, dark winter streets… SO ENTER NOW and be the 83rd contestant!

CrazyEgg has been around a fair while, and like a lot of things, I looked at it and thought ‘wow, that would be cool to try… If only I could be bothered signing up for another Web 2.0 account’.

Well, I’m pleased to announce that yesterday I gave it a shot.

What is Crazyegg?

Crazyegg visually displays where your visitors click on your website, which helps you see the success of various buttons, menus and links (and find out what people think IS a link). You can look at four very nice graphics showing various views on the information, including the EXACT point where people click… And seriously it’s so amazing, you become obsessed with your website.

What’s I’ve learned in a day

People think PlanHQ is Powered by Silverstripe

While our website IS made using the Silverstripe CMS, PlanHQ itself is definitely built using Ruby on Rails. We suspected that some people wondered how we built an entire planning application on Silverstripe, and using Crazyegg, I saw that the link to Silverstripe was one of the most commonly clicked links… Which really supports our suspicion.

I have now updated the text.

People Think the images in our tour are links

That was a surprising but very interesting discovery. We’re still unsure of what to do :)

Why Crazyegg is so Awesome

Crazyegg pretty much makes every user of your website or application a tester. Every single user now provides you with valuable information about what they find confusing, easy and interesting… Without them having to do ANYTHING but use your site.
We’re hoping to embed Crazyegg in PlanHQ to see where people run into problems and what is most interesting to them. The information it provides is literally like sitting down with every single customer and finding out what they think.

That’s truly amazing.

And the smallest account is free.

What a bargain.

But I recommend (having experience with selling web products) signing up for a paid account. This tool is truly worth every penny you spend.

I’m a little late on this one, by now the furore over the 2012 (Terribly awful) Olympic games logo has died down… However, I’m far more interested in the backlash than the logo itself and what this means for branding, who ‘owns’ it and who controls it.

How did they get it so wrong?

Seriously. How could a branding company that charged over $NZ1 million for the logo be so far off? Any non-expert, average Joe outsider can look at the thing and IMMEDIATELY see that it in no way:

• Reflects London
• Reflects the Olympic games

The logo is virtually unreadable and looks like it belongs in the 80′s, The website looks like something a kid created. It’s like the branding company was so arrogant, they put five minutes into the job on the basis that their name alone would make anything fly. It appears these guys were relying on their ‘expert’ status to reenact the fairy story ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’. Clearly, they hoped people would believe their ears and not their eyes and change their perception of ‘Brand London’ to
their own half-hearted effort.

But they failed dismally

The Backlash Begins

This is an interesting case where taxpayer money went into the brand while taxpayers were also the main consumers of it – these people truly owned the brand in every way… And they were quick to make their unhappiness known with:

• Almost 50,000 signatures on a petition to change the London 2012 logo
• Heaps of Londoners submitting their own logos for consideration (some of which are actually quite good)
• The London Mayor saying he ‘wouldn’t pay them a penny’

What Does this Mean for Branding?

The big brands of the past (the Cokes, Nikes, Mc Donalds and co) who define a brand and then get consumers to ADOPT it are becoming a thing of the past. Consumers these days are so aware of branding that we have developed our own personal brands. Instead of adopting the persona of a company’s brand, we expect their brand to match our own, or else they don’t get our business.

Lessons from London 2012

• Don’t be a ‘branding expert’ – The days of justifying branding disasters by explaining the ‘creative process’ behind them are over. No one cares about the ‘creative process’ and when you have to fall back on it because the end result is so shoddy, consumers just think you’re a loser.
• Don’t charge an absolute fortune for a logo, simply because you can… Pricing should be based on he difficulty and accuracy of portraying the brand, not the size of the organization commissioning it.
• Don’t think your logo design will be any better than a monkey’s just because you have a branding company.
• Don’t force your consumers to adopt your brand. Instead, adopt theirs.

The biggest disaster in the London 2012 logo disaster was not that the logo was exceptionally ugly, or that it caused epileptic fits… It was that the branding company tried to tell London citizens who they were and what their city was instead of asking them.

We spend a lot of time at the office, so recently, I was given my FAVOURITE job ever of making the place look less like a teenage boy’s hangout and more like a comfortable lounge.

One of the things I picked up was a coffee table, which cost me $45 brand new. What sparked our interest even more was this this thing was handmade by a guy in Wellington, who turned out to be a 16 year old kid.

Even more interest sparking was caused by the fact he was selling these things on Trademe (NZ’s version of Ebay), which pointed to his own website. This guy, at age 16 has literally started his own production company out of his garage, and has successfully marketed his product over the internet…

What this means for entrepreneurship

Aside from making me feel geriatric at the ripe old age of 23, Ben (coffee table maker) proves that we are entering a new wave of entrepreneurship. 16 year olds these days have literally grown up with the internet and everything it brings:

• 16 year olds have grown up KNOWING that there is a cheap, easy way to independently make money Ben was struggling to find a part time job when he decided to start making coffee tables
• 16 year olds know how to use technology from some ridiculously young age Ben’s website, although basic, includes 3d style, computer generated images of his coffee tables in lounges.
• 16 year old these days have so many more tools available to teach themselves They don’t rely on learning in the classroom, they can discover what they are interested in and teach themselves it.

How the exceptional becomes the mundane

The funny thing was, Ben’s father put his son’s seemingly incredible achievements down to “That’s what 16 year old boys do…”. Tim and I nearly fell over in shock… Is it really?