9 Ways to Make a New Product |  |
- 9 Ways to Make a New Product
- Why You Need to Stop Writing So Many Sales Proposals
- Google Introduces the Webmaster Academy
- Cisco Axes Tablet Due to BYOD (Bring Your Own Device to Work) Trend
| Posted: 29 May 2012 11:00 AM PDT If you've ever had an invention idea, now is one of the best times to be alive. Devices and machines are readily available to help you turn your idea into reality. If you've heard of the maker movement, also known as the Do It Yourself (DIY) movement, then you'll know about some of these tools, technologies, and services. If you have not, you’ll want to read on because this isn’t Star Trek or Star Wars, but it sure can feel like it. The desktop manufacturing or personal factory is upon us.
Almost every major city in the world has some sort of space for making things – makerspaces, hackerspaces, innovation centers, sometimes even incubators or accelerators. You just might not know they exist. They are not secret, but they are not always easy to find. In the last ten years, some of these physical spaces have evolved from co-working, shared office spaces (as fellow contributor Steve King points out in some of his research work about coworking) into modern wood, metal and machine shops. The following machines and services are affordable for most small businesses that need rapid prototyping of tangible items: Epilog Laser is one of the leading providers of state of the art laser cutters. I have one of them, as a short term loaner unit, and I've been truly amazed at what's possible. From cutting or engraving wood, acrylic, and fabric to marking metals, this device helps maker companies get started. For example, if you wanted to put together a prototype for a new type of gadget and needed an acrylic case, a laser cutter could do the job. MakerBot is the poster child, in a positive way, for the DIY 3D printing trend. They are consistently in the news serving the 3d printer world (which is growing) and run a popular community known as Thingiverse, which serves mostly 3D printers, but also some laser cutting and other machines/devices, too. You can get a kit to build one yourself. Shapeways is a service bureau that can help you print in 3D. That might be an understatement because most people think of 3D printing as something printed in plastic. Shapeways will break you out of that box: They can print in silver, in ceramics, in glass, in steel, and yes, in different plastic types, including a new elasto plastic that resembles rubber. If you don’t want to buy a printer, but you have designs or ideas, then you’ll want to visit Shapeways and pay-as-you-go. MakerGear is one of my favorite 3D printer companies because the owner, Rick Pollack, is a guru in the space. He’s been in the business of 3d printers for a long time and has modified or fixed or upgraded many other DIY printers so that they work well for consumers and aficionados. They recently released their M2 printer, which is quite elegant. They sell kits and fully built models. You could be printing out a new product prototype from your desktop shortly. Ponoko is a maker platform that has laser cutting and 3D printing in its arsenal. The power behind Ponoko is its software called Personal Factory. They 3D print, laser cut and help you manage a project. They offer a community of designers (with free designs and ones you can purchase) that are a terrific resource. Rapman is based on the RepRap open source 3D printer (one of the pioneers upon which many others are built) and has a large printing bed. They target the classroom as customer, but it could easily work in commercial environments, of course. LaserSaur is an open source DIY laser cutter that is catching on in the market after launching on Kickstarter last year. This new entrant is shaking up the personal fabrication space. It is aptly named because its cutting/engraving bed is as enormous as a dinosaur. Great value for the money and the satisfaction of building one of the first readily available open source laser cutters. CutItForYou is a small CNC router shop in my local area, but the owner, Sean Aydlott does jobs around the USA. You have to be a thinker in order to manage all the variations that can come up with computer controlled devices; I call the owner when I want to solve a problem. TechShop is one of the most amazing commercial membership-based makerspaces in existence. I recently wrote about their partnership with Ford in Detroit on Forbes and am amazed at their growth plans. If you've seen the Square credit card reader, you've seen one of the products prototyped in a TechShop. Each facility boasts $2 million to $3 million in equipment. No matter where you live, you can probably find a makerspace nearby. If you don't have one nearby, it may be your calling to start one and provide a place where inventors, entrepreneurs, and future small company owners can gather and make, hack or invent the next great product. Of course, Ponoko, Shapeways, and CutItForYou can manage your ideas remotely and get them printed/cut/engraved for you. Have you used rapid prototyping tools to create or modify your invention or product? Share the details in the comments below, please. From Small Business Trends |
| Why You Need to Stop Writing So Many Sales Proposals Posted: 29 May 2012 08:00 AM PDT Sales professionals thrive on staying busy, but some sales proposal activity is just "busy work." Many sales executives think that getting to the proposal stage of a sale is a good thing, but if your sales team is constantly busy with writing sales proposals, you might be missing out on more lucrative opportunities. It's time to re-assess the sales proposal writing process. Stop writing so many sales proposals, and focus on other ways to close the sale.
What's wrong with writing sales proposals? The problem with writing sales proposals is that every one of your competitors also sees it as a "victory" to get to the proposal process – and so every sales proposal has to compete with several (dozen, hundred?) other written proposals. All this proposal writing can be counterproductive if too many of your proposals get caught up in "no man's land" between the prospect saying "no" and "yes." Instead of mindlessly churning out sales proposals, cultivate a larger sense of strategy and discipline in your B2B lead generation. Ocean Trawling vs. Spearfishing Too often, the act of writing sales proposals becomes an act of "mass production." Sales people crank out sales proposals without customizing the offer to the prospect's specific needs. Don't blindly pitch a pre-packaged system that might not be what the client wants or needs. And don't confuse the manic "energy" of proposal writing with actual "results." Your sales team might spend days writing sales proposals, leading to only a tiny percentage of deals. Proposal writing needs to hold up to the same measurement and scrutiny as any other sales activities. Think of this analogy from the fishing industry – an ocean trawler vs. a simple spearfisher. Instead of taking an indiscriminate "ocean trawler" approach – sending out sales proposals left and right and siphoning up as many leads as possible with no sense of strategic direction – you need to take a "spearfisher" approach by choosing a sales target, planning your effort and following up with patience and diligence. Smart sales lead management is an exercise in "Ready, Aim, Fire." Churning out sales proposals, too often, is an exercise in "Fire, Fire, Fire." As a sales person, it's natural to be impatient for action. We thrive on making the calls and getting in front of the customers, and doing what it takes to close the deal. But the problem is, too many sales people convey this sense of impatience in their sales proposal writing. If you're not careful in listening to the prospect's needs and aligning your offer with those needs, the sales proposal is going to need to be resubmitted again and again. (Even worse, the prospect might lose patience with you, and call off the conversation.) Spend less time writing and re-writing proposals, and spend more time asking the right questions to qualify the sales leads in the first place. Of course, asking questions and investing time in appointment setting, qualifying leads and building relationships takes hard work. It's far easier to just keep writing sales proposals and "look busy." Here's what happens with lazy proposal writing:
Another Problem with Proposals: No commitment Every sales process needs a series of clear commitments being requested from the prospect, starting with the earliest cold calls and appointment setting follow-up calls. "Will you agree to meet with me?" "Will you agree to receive a price quote?" "Will you agree to commit to a purchase?" The problem with many sales proposals is that they don't directly ask the buyer to take action. The proposals just arrive, and too often…sit there. When was the last time a client immediately called back and agreed to buy, based on a few words on paper? And no matter how persuasive your proposal, it can't answer any unanticipated follow-up questions. Without a sales person accompanying the sales proposal, nothing will happen. Instead of simply sending sales proposals, first do some appointment setting calls to arrange a time to discuss the details. Too often, decision makers overlook the most important details of the sales proposal. (Or worse – they only focus on the price and reject your offer without understanding the value proposition.) The sales person needs to be there to guide prospects through the offer, respond to questions, and ask other questions to delve deeper into the prospect's specific needs. Don't rely on a piece of paper or numbers on a screen to close the deal for you. Instead, look for opportunities to create selling moments based on real human interactions between the sales person and the prospect. Simply sending a sales proposal is too passive. Accompanying a sales proposal with a sales appointment is a dynamic process that engages the ideas of two people. Sending sales proposals invites rejection. It's all too easy for a prospect to say "No" to a simple sales proposal in their inbox. Instead of limiting yourself to "Yes or No" by sending sales proposals, use smart appointment setting and in-person follow-up to create more wide-ranging conversations of "What-if and why-not?"
From Small Business Trends |
| Google Introduces the Webmaster Academy Posted: 29 May 2012 05:00 AM PDT Google houses an incredible amount of information about how to get your site up, running and ranked in the dominate search engine. Between the Support pages, the information tucked away in Webmaster Central, the forums, and the content they share on blogs, any question a webmaster could have about their site has probably already been answered. However, because the content is spread out and so vast, it can be pretty hard to find the answer you're looking for, especially for SMBs who aren't as familiar with terminology or concepts as they'd like to be. Lucky for us, Google is helping to solve this problem with the help of the recently announced Google Webmaster Academy.
Garen Checkly from the Google Search Quality Team, has announced the creation of the new Webmaster Academy which Google says is "designed to walk business owners through the information they need to get their site up and running in easy to understand steps". Finally, the answers you were looking for, centralized so you can actually find them. As the name suggests, the content in Webmaster Academy will be laid out in a syllabus-style format where site owners will be able to navigate between 19 different subject lessons to improve their knowledge and increase their visibility in the Google search results. There's a little something for everyone here as topics range from:
Once you click into any of the subject areas, Google will provide a tutorial on that topic, defining key terms and processes, offering links to inking off to additional Google resources, and providing video instruction, where applicable. For Google, this is a great way to highlight all of the content they have in their arsenal and make it findable. As a business owner, this is a great way to benefit from all the free resources that Google has created for webmasters. I especially like that Google is providing links for SMBs to dig even deeper into topic areas. It turns the Academy into an even more valuable resource than it would be on its own. If you want to "graduate" from the Google Webmaster Academy, simply hit all 19 sessions and Google will acknowledge your effort.
However, the real payoff will come when you're able to implement all of this new knowledge on your Web site and see your site attract not only new rankings, but new visitors. And if you follow all of the advice Google so clearly lays out here, you should have no problem doing that. From Small Business Trends |
| Cisco Axes Tablet Due to BYOD (Bring Your Own Device to Work) Trend Posted: 29 May 2012 02:30 AM PDT Highlighting today’s news roundup is the announcement that Cisco plans to discontinue its Cius business tablet. Reason: employees are bringing more personal consumer electronics to work in place of devices provided by employers. The BYOD or bring-your-own-device movement, also called the bring-your-own-technology movement because it can include hardware and software used on personal devices, is seen as a blessing and a curse for employers. Personal technology may make employees more productive and save on business costs, but can lead to security issues. This news roundup looks at the trend, best practices for managing security, and some of the latest crop of electronics and software your employees are using. The TrendBYOD claims latest casualty. Discontinuation of Cisco’s Cius tablet, launched in 2010, is the latest example of a trend of enterprise devices getting edged out by more popular consumer devices. Cisco sited a study that showed that “95% of organizations surveyed allow employee-owned devices in some way, shape or form in the office, and 36% of surveyed enterprises provide full support for employee-owned devices.” Cisco Blog IBM already coping with employee devices. In 2010 IBM adopted a “bring your own device” policy, but its chief information office points out the security issues involved. It has banned apps such as Dropbox, fearing the loss of confidential company information, and has even gone as far as to disable Siri, the iPhone’s voice-activated assistant, as a security measure. Technology Review It’s really nothing new. Worriers in the business community may treat a desire by employees to use their own devices as a dangerous new threat to company security, but the movement is part of a long tradition, says blogger Paul Robichaux, that requires compromise on both sides. WindowsITPro The ConcernsA recent report details the risks. A 2012 State of Mobile Security report suggests some of the problems businesses may face with the growing trend toward employees using personal devices at work. The possibility of breaches in home and Wi-Fi networks is one concern for companies that wish to keep their data secure. Network Computing Companies see benefits outweighing problems. A recent survey found 95 percent of companies now allow personal devices, even when accessing a company network. The reasons seem simple. Allowing employees to use their own mobile devices at work improves morale and productivity by increasing their sense of freedom in the workplace. Betanews Best practices for managing employee technology. The benefits of the BYOD movement for most businesses are obvious: lower costs and increased productivity. Here are some best practices and a management guide for business environments where employee devices are the norm. Forbes What Tech Will They Bring?Tablets will remain the device of choice. A recent report indicates that tablets, more than smartphones or ultrathin notebooks, will likely be the choice of millions for mobile computing well into the future. No matter what the brand of choice or operating system, their long battery life, portability, and other features guarantee popularity. Forrester Research RIM reorganizes, prepares for BlackBerry 10. The company that first introduced the iconic Blackberry is reorganizing and shedding expense, while planning for the introduction of the BlackBerry 10 to challenge the Apple iPhone and Android devices. The Globe and Mail Facebook enters the smartphone fray…again. The online social networking giant is making its latest stab at creating a smartphone. The attempt would compete with the iPhone and with Android devices, would supply an additional revenue stream for Facebook, and add to the many consumer choices out there. Bits Microsoft products will remain. No matter how many different types of mobile apps or platforms are out there, it’s likely some version of Windows will remain the standard for most PCs. New York Times From Small Business Trends |
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