Learning Leap

I have been thinking about this concept for quite a while now but the way to describe it came to me over coffee with an aspiring entrepreneur. Do you remember a problem from math class where a frog jumps half the distance to a point in the distance each time? How many jumps will it take the frog to reach the point? The answer is never.

The same principle can be applied to knowledge acquisition when starting a business. The first time you do something is probably the greatest increase in applied knowledge. From one to two, and two to three there is a significant increase knowledge acquisition. However, after roughly the third time there is something of a law of diminishing returns. You will learn more and quite possibly more profound knowledge, but the incremental increase in knowledge is much smaller.

Last point is no matter how many times you do it you will never reach that 100% there is always more to learn.

“The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know.” – Socrates

Ian Graham

Filed under: Commercialization, Entrepreneurship, Featured, Start-up by Ian
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REAL Inspiring email!

After yesterdays sarcastic post on inspired email I thought I would turn the tables with a more positive spin on emailing customers.

Earlier this summer Paul Jensen gave me a copy of Derek Sivers book “ANYTHING YOU WANT”. I took the train to start-up fest in Montreal the next day and read the book on the way there. Awesome read and I highly recommend the book. Please see below for a great example on how to write a customer support email that WILL inspire.

Customer name-

Thanks for your order with CD Baby!

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow. A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing. Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved “Bon Voyage!” to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, October 7, 2009.

We hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. In commemoration, we have placed your picture on our wall as “Customer of the Year.” We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Sigh… We miss you already. We’ll be right here at http://cdbaby.com/, patiently awaiting your return.
–
CD Baby
The little store with the best new independent music.
http://cdbaby.com cdbaby@cdbaby.com (503)595-3000

Nuff Said.

Ian Graham

Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Featured, Start-up by Ian
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Inspiring email

I had not planned to write a blog post today, however, I received an email this morning titled “Clicky Status” from Clicky a web analytics start-up. The email has some great lessons on how not to talk to potential customers. This is the kind of stuff you just cannot make up. Please check out the email below:

Hi Ian,

Tracking for www.thecodefactory.ca was recently disabled on Clicky because it did not qualify for our free service after your trial or premium subscription expired. However, we are still receiving traffic from this site, which indicates you still have our tracking code installed.

Please be courteous and remove the tracking code, or upgrade to our premium service at http://getclicky.com/user/upgrade

You will continue to receive this message until you do one of the above. We thank you in advance for your prompt attention to this matter!

– Your friends at Clicky :)
http://getclicky.com

Note: This is an automated message
I haven’t used Clicky in probably two years and had totally forgotten about it. Clicky has a decent offering but the value proposition isn’t compelling enough for me to switch to the premium paid version from Google Analytics which is free and continues to improve.

Here is my take; Clicky is making a feeble attempt to get me to switch to the paid version of their software but using a stick instead of a carrot. Sure negative selling works but it can also piss people off. Hey, I am taking the time to write about their poor customer service. I have neither the time nor inclination to uninstall their tracking code … surely than can just disable the information collection on their end.

“Please be courteous and remove the tracking code” … so they are implying that by not uninstalling the tracking code I am being discourteous … somewhat insulting. I tell you what is discourteous is getting an email like this telling me to remove code or switch to a premium paid version … #@$% off.

But wait it gets better … if I don’t remove the tracking code Clicky is threatening to keep spamming me with this message. EVEN BETTER thanking me in advance for my co-operation with an exclamation mark … hey not only is Clicky insulting me they are yelling at me too.

Kids don’t let this happen to you … so many lessons in how not to win and influence customers.

Ian Graham

Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Featured by Ian
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