Curiouser and Curiouser!

Curiouser and Curiouser! on selling http://matt.blogs.it/ RSS feed for topic selling Copyright 2006 Matt Mower Squib/0.1 self@mattmower.com self@mattmower.com en-gb Pass me a wrench.. Sat, 28 Sep 2002 21:57:01 +0100 Just listened to the Geoffrey Moore talk (thanks to <A href="http://www.rklau.com/tins/2002/09/25.html#a540">Rick Klau</A> for the link) about making quota in a down market He's an interesting guy to listen to and a good perspective on the challenge facing us over the next few years (Moore says decade but I've gotten used to things changing too quickly to believe that). Basically what it boils down to is pain.  That's all anyone can think about right now.  That and slashing costs.  So if you want to unlock the purse strings you have to be into pain management and pay for yourself in saving.  "Fixing the leaky pipe" as Moore puts it. But he goes further and basically says that typical mass-marketing lead generation won't work any more.  All enterprise deals will require referrals to get through the door. Now I'm not quite at the enterprise software level, but the same principles apply to a greater-or-lesser degree wherever you are.  Looks like klogging's going to have to get vertical and start attacking those leaky pipes if it's going to succeed any time soon. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000625.html Dynamic publishing, dynamic pricing Mon, 02 Dec 2002 09:40:15 +0000 <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0109827/2002/12/02.html#a1196">Ack foo</A>. <BLOCKQUOTE><A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0107808/2002/12/01.html#a599">Writing computer books not recommended...</A>. [Chomped the wonderfully depressing quote from <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0103807/">The FuzzyBlog!</A> ...] I know some people have tried selling e-books themselves via their own websites.  But has anyone made a serious attempt to get the likes of Amazon to distribute independent efforts? If that doesn't work is there a way to make money via a super-efficient publishing system.  Same as above, the publisher is soley responsible for taking the finished PDF, printing and distribution on a percentage basis.  Would anybody do it? I'm probably showing my naivety again...[<A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0107808/">Curiouser and curiouser!</A>] </BLOCKQUOTE> I honestly must admit I have entertained thoughts of being an author, but by the looks of it, maybe not. Which is a tad scary in it's own right, I grew up in this industry reading everything I could lay my hands on. I have thousands of books. If this is how badly the publishing industry treats authors, we are going to run out of computer books RSN. Well, the last six months of bookstore browsing has only tempted me to buy about three computer books, so maybe the drought is already upon us. Not happy, Jan. As to whether people can publish eBooks, as say PDFs, and get make a living out of it. I don't know. I hope it can be done, but I also know I am more likely to part with $90 for a book I can read on the train than $10 for a PDF that I have to print myself. Perverse, but true. [<A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0109827/">Brett Morgan's <STRIKE>Insanity Weblog</STRIKE> Zilla</A>]</BLOCKQUOTE> Me too.  My printer is an HP DeskJet 940c.  It's not slow and it's not terribly expensive to run.  I'm happy to print lots of 8-12 page articles in draft mode.  But the idea of printing a 400 page book, nah.  A book tends, if done right, to be just right in your hands.  200 pages of A4 inkjet paper doesn't have quite the same Wu. Which is why I think there is an opportunity for a new streamlined publishing company.  Well more of a loosely coupled distributor really. Here's how I think it should work. <UL> <LI>You order the book via Amazon.</LI> <LI>Amazon take their sales cut, then pass the order on to the distributor.</LI> <LI>Distributor "prints" the book & ships it.  Recharges Amazon for their cut.</LI> <LI>Whatever is left goes to the authors + editor on a monthly basis.</LI></UL> The distribution company needs to have the capability of printing in small quantities to begin with maybe <100 copies.  When they have some idea of how sales are going they can shift up production run size appropriately.  I think this would be best done by the distributor outsourcing printing to a number of different printing companies themselves.  The distributor then acts as a hub and amortizes it's own costs.  Obviously this means printing will start out very expensive and (hopefully) get cheaper as sales rise. This is why it is essential to use Amazon (or one of its contemporaries): Dynamic pricing. Just as outfits like <A href="http://www.letsbuyit.com/">LetsBuyIt</A> leverage more customers to lower the price, Amazon could use feedback to dynamically alter the book price & percentages based upon total sales.  This means that the book might start out at $60 with a %20 cut to the authors ($12), but when sales improve it could come down to $40 with a %50 ($20) cut to the authors.  If authors currently make $2-$3 a pop then this could work. I'll put my crack pipe away now and try to drift back to reality...   http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000943.html Hiring a KM system, the old fashioned way Thu, 02 Jan 2003 15:33:34 +0000 I read a lot about calculating ROI for Knowledge Management.  I also hear a fair amount about problems with doing so.  I think this is because: <UL> <LI>the value of knowledge is, in general, not well understood, e.g. how much is a new product worth? (it's particularly difficult when considering the risks involved with developing new knowledge and the opportunity cost in exploiting it) <LI>the relative value of different chunks of knowledge can be hard to estimate <LI>it's often hard to know what impact a KM system has had in capturing or leveraging knowledge, particularly before the fact <LI>knowledge is so tightly interwoven into the fabric of what we do that it can be hard to make sensible comparisons</LI></UL> In many ways I am inclined to think of ROI as a red-herring.  Here's my theory: At some point, somewhere, some accountant said: "Hey! We're spending all this money on IT equipment, but what does it ever do for us?" Then some clever person with a background in selling plant equipment or something said "let's use a funky calculation to make it seem like it saves lots of money."  And they did, and, fortunately, nobody ever went back to check the figures.  This quickly became the industry norm because the purchasing process was now so much easier "Look, the ROI numbers are great!"  Then came the great budget squeeze, the sky fell and everyone is wondering how to justify spending.  Suddenly we're stuck with ROI and we don't really know what it means. I'm not saying that ROI is specifically bad, just that it may not be applicable in all cases and that coming up with some arbitrary way of calculating things to satisfy the bean counters seems a poor justification for using, or not using, a knowledge management approach. But is there another way? I think so. I believe that knowledge is a fundamental aspect of our work.  If it wasn't then why would you bother with interviewing to fill new positions? With job specs?  With resumes?  If knowledge wasn't important then the first joe off the streets could fill any position (the goal of any turnkey business). So when you hire a new member of staff you are really buying packaged knowledge off the shelf.  Recruitment agents are really nothing more than knowledge shops! (And like all shops the service and quality of the product may vary). But when you hire new staff members do you ask "What's the ROI on this position?"  Well I guess you might, but I think it is more usual to work a different way around: <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> "We need to do X.  Hmm... we don't have anyone available.  Okay let's hire someone.  What's the market value of those skills?  We can't afford that!! Oh, alright then..."</BLOCKQUOTE> and so on.  A job description gets posted, resumes are sorted, interviews are held, someone is appointed.  Usually on a 3 or 6 month probation period.  At that point you decide whether to keep them (the need is being fulfilled) or let them go (their not right for the job, or the situation has changed). The key point for me is that the determination is not what is the ROI on this person but does the need get fulfilled at a price we can justify.  It's more about needs & their fulfillment than it is about costs & investment. And so, I think, it should be for knowledge management.  I believe companies would be more successful if they took the approach that buying a KM package was more like hiring a new employee or two (the capital costs are likely not dissimilar for SME's). Start with an understanding of what the needs are that must be fulfilled.  Ask how much it's worth to you to fulfill those needs.  Get the software on probation.  Run with it.  Then buy it, or go back to the market. I think you will find that, by the time you have a firm understanding of what your knowledge needs are, you will more than understand where the ROI comes from (even if your calculator displays it as "a suffusion of yellow!") Comments? http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001028.html