Some basic facts to get us started.

• Apple’s sales per sq. foot are now $4,406. This is higher than Tiffany’s and Co.
• Employees are supposed help customers, not to sell products. A quote from the training manual:“Your job is to understand all of your customers’ needs—some of which they may not even realize they have.”
• Apple employees are instructed to talk to customers in a very supportive way:“Listen and limit your responses to simple reassurances that you are doing so. ‘Uh-huh’ ‘I understand,’ etc.”
• Genius Bar employees are trained to say, “as it turns out” instead of “unfortunately,” to place a  more positive spin on their bad news.
• If a customer mispronounces a product name or something else, employees are forbidden from correcting the customer. (hint hint, to all Fry’s, Best Buy’s and other places that have ego’s running rampant)
• Employees who are six minutes late three times in six months can be fired.
• While Apple employees do not have sales quotas, they are strongly encouraged to sell Apple Care and support.

I recently took an iPhone into Apple the other day and they set and ‘appointment’ for me one-half hour later. The phone stopped working (my 2 year old decided to use it as either a hammer, or a nail..or both) so I figured that I’d take it into the store to see if they could do anything. There’s no happy ending for this phone, but after reading the Wall Street Journal Article, it is true, the guy behind the genius bar somehow spun it in a positive way that I’d be better off buying a new iPhone than go through the process of fixing the phone. It was probably the nicest rejection I’ve had since my 6 year old said that she likes hugging my wife more than me because her skin is softer and she doesn’t have a beard.

Scanned photo via Wall Street Journal

As it turns out, there is an Acronmym for A.P.P.L.E that store employees are required to learn. Something that we all could learn a little from

(A) Approach customers with a personalized warm welcome.
(P) Probe politely to understand customers needs.
(P) Present a solution for the customer to take home today.
(L) Listen for and resolve any issues or concerns.
(E) End with a fond farewell and an invitation to return.

Simply put, Apple just does things right. And while I’ve come to expect no less of them, it is also a fact that Apple products are not cheap. In order to maintain the mania of Apple Nation they need to continue to Pimp their products like no other.  I can’t help but wonder if Microsoft will take the same approach with their new stores?

(read complimentary article on the Wall Street Journal – Technology)

• First, if your site sucks and this is evident in the preview – you won’t be able to hide it.
• Design and Layout become even more important (First impression).
• Simple, clean layouts may be rewarded with this feature.
• A Landing Page will, in many cases, have an advantage over sending a user to a home page.
• Showing up #1 for your PPC ad may not mean as many clicks as before.
• Increases relevance of  PPC Advertising

On its Inside AdWords blog, Google says: “By allowing potential customers to preview your site before they arrive, Instant Previews helps you get even more highly qualified traffic to your site,”

Me wonders if this PPC Preview will remain FREE??

Both Ken and Barbie are very similar in nature. Each possesses a natural propensity to succeed, have a strong work ethic and want to grow their businesses. In the past, both have worked with and had less than desirable experiences with web designers and developers, so as they look to enter the online environment with their new projects, they are trying to be more efficient.

In any case, they both need:

1. A solid Internet marketing strategy
2. A website that is built around their online strategy
3. to Drive traffic
4. to generate online sales

There is one major difference between Ken & Barbie’s mindsets. Ken thinks that he needs to exercise greater control over his next project because of his experience with less than stellar web designers and developers in the past. With this control, he’ll ensure that the website is built, designed and laid out exactly as he wants it. He understands that conversions and sales will translate to online success – especially if he is intimately involved with each phase.

Ken knows that he can build his new vision on the cheap and is reaching out to ‘find a coder’ type websites and understands that he can easily get in touch with an offshore team via Craigslist to keep his costs way down. After all, his niece is 14 years old and had designed her own website so why not keep costs to the bare minimum?

Barbie on the other hand, believes that she can become successful online but only if she has all the right people in place. She knows that she’ll need a designer and developer to build her website, but that she also needs a team that really understands the online space to make her idea work.

Here’s why Barbie stands a much higher chance of succeeding than Ken though they both possess the same skills sets.

• Barbie is more likely start her questions with, ‘What is the most effective way to…” versus “Here’s what we’re going to do…”
• Barbie doesn’t care if she doesn’t understand terminology or all the latest trends, but she’s determined to learn as much as she can whilst forming a relationship with a good Internet marketing team. (Ken won’t ask questions about what he doesn’t understand. Ken’s the man with the plan, so why would he need outside consulting?)
• Barbie wants to bring in someone who has a thorough understanding of the online space, is willing to take the time to understand her business vision in order to reach deeper into the US market.
• Barbie believes that in order for her online business to succeed she needs an effective blend of creative design, web development, online marketing and analytics. Most importantly, she understands that all must be given equal weight.

1 Year Later

Ken has actually been faster to launch his program. He hired a team in India for $12/hr and got his new site up fairly quickly. He’s already started some pay-per-click efforts and driving some traffic to his new site.

Barbie launches her site a few months later and feels comfortable with the Internet agency she hired. Her site has little traffic but she’s already generating consistent online sales and is about to start her traffic driving campaign once her team shores up various bug fixes and improvements.

18 Months

Ken has double the traffic than Barbie’s site but is getting nervous because he has few online sales. India can’t keep up with Ken’s requests so he fires them and switches back to a local web designer and developer in the U.S. Ken is now re-thinking the entire site and isn’t very happy that he may have to re-do his entire website, content management system and online strategy.

Barbie at 18 months is starting to see significant results. Her team had challenges of their own but were able to come up with solutions on the fly given the increasing number of online sales. Not only is she happy with her web team, she’s turned over much of the consulting and management of the website to them, given their familiarity with her business goals. She’s adding more players to the mix and ramping up additional online marketing spend.

Paying close attention to analytics and cost of conversion, she is able to make accurate spending decisions. Additionally she’s making enough money and realizes that she won’t need a second round of investment. Her customers are starting to spread the word about her products via Social Media and her online business is taking off.

Two Years Later

Ken ends up firing his web team in the U.S. (again) – much to their relief. He spends the next six months trying to assemble another team to manage his current site but no one is willing to do it for the price he wants to pay. Ken is a trooper though and despite difficult lessons learned he realizes that he needs to do more homework and really immerse himself in the online industry.

Ken pushes on but it is becoming evident to him that he’s spent triple the amount he thought he would and that he could have hired a seasoned US team from the start, and for less than he’s already spent.

On a whim, Ken attends and Internet Marketing Conference – where Barbie Roberts is the featured guest speaker. Ken has heard of her online boutique figures it wouldn’t hurt to hear a little more about Barbie’s success story. (not to mention he thinks she is hot after seeing a picture of her in a popular magazine recently)

Meanwhile, Barbie has a full ‘online staff’ and is still using the original team that built her site and constructed their online marketing plan. The business has gained enough traction and is confident with her team so that she’s able to have more time to herself. She dreams of meeting the right guy and settling down one day…

We all know what happens next. Ken and Barbie meet at her web conference and fall madly in love. Barbie gives Ken the contact information for the agency that helped that get her company off the ground. The rest is history. Ken gets the girl, Barbie is no longer lonely and the agency gets a new client.

The moral of the story you ask?

“Just do the damn thing right from the start.”

You’ll save time, resources, money and have a better product.

So often, we tend to focus on the end results before we even start; be it a website, campaign, online marketing…etc. Clients tend to pay less attention to the process and the many small variables that a good designer, consultant or developer brings to the table. But this is a very difficult concept to get across to the a prospective client. You’re essentially trying to sell them on your experience and it ends up sounding like something that Chris Farley might have said in the movie Tommy Boy.

This came to light recently when a client insisted that a Facebook Ad look a certain way. They insisted that the itty bitty ad that they wanted have writing on it, i.e. name of company, website..etc. I tried to tell them that this wouldn’t be readable for the user and they’d be much better off with something simpler and that they should rely on the text below the add for any details. I mean, what would we know – we’ve only been doing this forever.

So, the we placed their ad up. But the story doesn’t end there.

To prove a point, we kept the other ad to and served it as well without the client knowing (and we paid out of pocket to see how our ad would perform). Lo and behold, our Ad returned 700 percent higher click-through rate than theirs. We mentioned this to the client and they said something to the effect of oh, yea..we wanted ‘our’ designer to do the work because they ‘understand’ our style and brand. Huh?

Every time I think about this my heart starts beating just a tad bit faster until I calm the mind with some ‘Buddy The Elf’ truisms that I keep handy. All kidding aside though, I come across countless small experiences where experience can help a client, increase campaign performance, drive online sales, increase leads for websites but most of them tend to fall into the ‘intangible’ category – things that aren’t easily tracked and things that are done without the client even knowing.

This concept of  ‘many small things’ become evident when working with a good developer who understand usability. A good developer will create small elements, enforce logic and simplify based on experience that eventually enhances the user experience (and eventual success of a website). Nearly all of these things will go unnoticed by clients.

So how do we compare how a site is built, versus how a site would have been built if the client moved in  a different direction?

I guess it really boils down to good communication with the client and in making sure that we focus on analytics. In the end, success online comes from the proper execution of many small elements. If we can show companies results at the end of the day maybe the details should remain the intangible things that make up a good marketing team, dev or design team?

In mid 2009 I turned my attention to Goodbarry.  Not sure how I found the site, but when I got there, the site was not only well designed (old site no longer available after Adobe’s purchase) but it was very intriguing.  Goodbarry was the retail brand for the core system called Business Catalyst.

First, for over 10 years companies have tried to make a product that makes it ‘easy’ to create and build a website. Pretty much all of them have failed. Why? Every developer  knows that there is really no such thing as ‘out of the box’ solution (yet) that makes it easy to build a website, integrate an e-commerce platform or CMS. In the end, someone has to learn it, implement it, tweak it, modify it for the client’s needs while navigating the learning curve.

Anyway, it was obvious from the start that Goodbarry knew what it was doing simply by how they attracted both business owners and developers – and embraced them both.

Additionally, they catered to both ‘mom and pop’ but also made it a point to let developers know that they could create custom layouts, coding and still use the Business Catalyst system.

But, could they really succeed where so many others have failed?

Marketing agencies, web shops and production houses have been looking for easier ways to plug websites into CMS’s. Many of these needs have been fulfilled with Drupal, Joomla, Modx and WordPress.  Yet, even though these are open-source systems they still require a significant amount of work (or expertise) to make them work with each new product.  Sure, there are shortcuts, reusable code, plug-ins, and various other community oriented tools that spring forth, but in order to get different functionality that sites need (e-commerce, analytics, email marketing..etc) the development team now has to work with different third-party tools and then try to integrate those into this open source environment.  Easy right?

So why would a company create a closed system amidst an open-source boom and try to do what so many others have failed to do?  They weren’t just after mom & pop.  If they were, no one would care.  Neither were they focused on hard corps developers.  So what’s the catch?

If I’m right, this company scared the crap out of Adobe for the following reasons:

1. In the history of building websites, this was the first company that could render a lot of Adobe products ‘less needed’ to get a really good site up and running.

2. If it were to gain momentum and a developer following  independent of Adobe – it could easily become a direct competitor for ‘building sites’ in the web space.

3. It had the potential to corner the market in the CMS space – something that Adobe wants to be a part of.

4. Multiple software features under one roof – the combination of e-commerce, email marketing, contact management and analytics as a single package sent shockwaves through the R&D department of Adobe.

This is a good move for Adobe. This company had waaaay too much promise. My initial thought is that they would squash the project and sweep it under the rug.  The more I think about it though – I think they are going to build some kind of Business Suite around this product – and someone cater to both Developers and Clients directly.

Will be watching this one closely.

Produced by Scofield Editorial, Inc.

Casting Agency: Artistic Enterprises
Casting Director: Michelle Moore

• 3ds Max 2009
• Mudbox 2010
• Photoshop CS3
• Pepakura

I think the impressive thing here is the amount of time this would take. Creating separate small pieces of the head and then piecing them together?!  Are you kidding me? I see this all working fairly well in theory UNTIL one actually tried to put it together. I see this as being extremely difficult to execute.  In any case, very impressive.

Sick 3D Paper Head - Built by Eric Testroete