Archive for 'Business Models'
By Rajesh Setty on Wed 02 Dec 2009, 11:15 PM - 3 Comments
That’s what Citibank says.
I have been a Citibank customer for years and in the last few months, they suddenly started sending spam mails – offers from other companies. Yes, I understand that it may get them some revenue by selling their LARGE customer base and allowing other companies to spam people but if someone does not want to receive spam mails, they should stop instantly.
A few weeks ago, I opted out… sorry let me correct this… I tried to opt-out of the program and I got a notice that said that it will take a few weeks for their email systems to be updated to reflect my new preferences. In other words, they were telling me that I have to bear with their spam for a few more weeks BECAUSE their systems are messed up.
Today, I tried to opt-out again and I get the same message. They are very consistent with the message. Our systems will take a few weeks to update my preferences.
I am just imagining that someone will print out my preference, print it and send it in a horse carriage to a remote location where someone will stamp an approval and then return that in the same horse carriage to be updated by someone else.
Hopefully they will come to the 21st Century sooner than later.
The lesson here is in setting the expectations right. Nobody will believe that it will take a few weeks to opt-out of spam. So why make up things and lose credibility?
Posted under Business Models.
By Rajesh Setty on Thu 22 Oct 2009, 10:36 PM - 9 Comments
Yesterday I was at the Hertz counter in Los Angeles and there were about half a dozen people in front of me in the line.
I was surprised (actually shocked) to see four of the six people in front of me choose the pre-paid gas option.
For those of you who don’t know what is pre-paid gas option, you pay for the entire tank of gas and you can return the car with an empty tank.
A quick side note: I know there are some nit-pickers who might be reading it. You can’t return a car with an EMPTY gas tank (you will need to get it towed, literally) so that is not the point of the blog post.
Now, the pre-paid option seems like a convenience option. But let us look at this in a bit more detail. You can drive about 300 miles with a full tank of gas. So if you want to make the most of the pre-paid option, you have to drive about that distance and return the car without filling the tank again. If you return the car with half a tank of gas, you literally paid twice the price per gallon on the gas. Pretty good for the car rental company.
After the first person chose the pre-paid option, I listened to the story with care. The story was well-crafted and staged:
There was a big board that showed two prices:
Average gas price in LA: $3.06 per gallon
Price with pre-paid gas option: $2.63 per gallon
There was another big board that said if you don’t take the pre-paid option, you would be paying a fee of $7.99 per gallon ( this included the re-fueling charge)
The agent would simply show the board and say that if the customer wanted to save money (?????) on gas, they might want to choose the pre-paid gas option.
It was simply brilliant piece of storytelling.
Really, there was no time to think. In a few seconds the customer has to decide whether he or she wants to take the pre-paid option and the entire story was staged in such a way that taking the pre-paid option made a lot of sense. The gas price was cheaper than the average gas price in LA.
The price shown was per gallon (around $2.63) but what was being charged was for a tank full of gas (around $45.00)
We can debate whether the car rental companies are using ethical practices in pitching the pre-paid gas option. Rather than worrying about them, it is best for us to be vigilant on the stories that we are being told to influence our decisions.
Photo Courtesy: Mr.Beaver on Flickr
Posted under Business Models.
By Rajesh Setty on Thu 08 Oct 2009, 11:27 AM - 2 Comments
A social media powered eBook project is simply a collaborative effort conceived and completed with the power of social media. The project is dynamic, participatory and even democratic in nature and takes on its own life as it evolves from an idea to a final product. ”Defiant: Practical Tips for thriving in Tough Times” (a 90-page eBook) is one such attempt on social media.
For those of you who are interested in the day-by-day account of how the book was created, you can read Appendix IV within the eBook or you can get a sneak preview here. More than 50 contributors graciously provided content for the eBook and I am totally thankful to all of them. Collaborating on social media was the fastest way to get the collective wisdom and insights on a topic that is on the mind of many people – how to survive and thrive in these tough times.
In this article, I want to cover two things:
1. 7 Steps to Create a Social Media Powered eBook
2. 9 Building Blocks for a Successful Social Media Powered eBook
7 Steps to Create a Social Media Powered eBook
Creating a social media powered eBook is fun especially because the book can evolve in ways that can (positively) surprise even the creator of the project. So, here are the 7 steps at a high-level:
1. Conceptualize: Way before the eBook becomes real, it is conceptualized in your head. Having a clear vision for the project will help you to speed up the next steps of the project.
2. Create Content Outline: Your contributors are providing the puzzle pieces but only you know how the completed puzzle will look like. You hold the master-key for the project and should have the content outline at your finger-tips. Just remember that you might have to change this outline (several times) as the contributions start coming in.
3. Identify Contributors: The quality of the project is greatly influenced by the quality of contributions to the project. So you need good contributors to participate in your project. Make a list of who will add the greatest value to the project among the people that you and your network have access to. You may want the “best” to contribute but what is realistic is to get the “best among those you and your network have access to” to contribute.
4. Crowdsource: Effectively use the social media outlets to request contributions. For this project, I used LinkedIn Answers, Facebook and Twitter, a few mailing lists I belong to, my blog and my mailing list to solicit contributions.
5. Curate: Not all contributions are created equal. You have to apply the “ultimate filter” to ensure that the highest quality contributions will make the cut.
6. Collate: The next step is to organize the curated content based on the content outline you created before. This is really where you put the puzzle pieces together.
7. Create a Compelling Design: You can’t judge book by the cover but if the cover is not good, one may not pick up the book. So, invest on the design and packaging of the book. It will be well worth it.
OK, that was about execution. Before you go ahead and start executing on your own social media powered eBook project, please take a moment to think about the following foundational elements that will provide you the power and influence to “execute” on such a project.
9 Building Blocks for a Successful Social Media Powered eBook
Here are the seven building blocks for making your social media powered eBook project successful.
1. Resources: First, you need to dedicate resources (time, energy and mindshare) for this project. Second, you need “good” help from your network (in terms of project management, follow through, editing, design and development) to make this a reality. If you underestimate the resources required, either you will fail in the project or create a product that is below par affecting your identity and subsequently your ability to launch such a project in the future.
2. Relevance: The topic you pick has to be highly relevant – not just for you but for the contributors and the audience.
3. Reach: The total reach you have through all of your networks will greatly influence how quickly you can complete the project.
4. Relationships: Long-term relationships provide a huge competitive advantage on this or any other big project. Your friends will be happy to participate in such a social media project because well… they are friends, right?
5. Reciprocation: Social media is two-way street. You give and you get (and the order is important) Giving does not entitle you for getting anything back but not giving is a sure way of ensuring that you don’t get back anything. Unleash the power of reciprocation by giving first.
6. Results: Your past results will influence the willingness of key contributors to contribute to your project. Everyone is busy and there are so many social media outlets to contribute so your past results (if they are good) will sway the people towards contributing.
7. Resonance: Resonance is a big test. You are passionate about the project for sure. But will this “resonate” with the contributors and the audience that you want this to reach?
8. Remarkable: Make it a remarkable project so that others will feel proud to participate in. Remember that most of the contributors will already have powerful personal brands and they want to
9. ROII: ROI is return on investment for an interaction. Contributions are investing their time and the audiences you are reaching out to are investing their time reading the output. It is reasonable for both of them to expect a good return on investment for their interaction (ROII) and it is your duty to provide them just that.
If it seems like a LOT of work, it is. But the effort is worth it because of the leverage it provides to everyone that participates to make it successful.
You can see the outcome of the project by downloading the eBook by clicking the button below (no registration required)
Posted under Business Models, Compelling Offers.
By Rajesh Setty on Wed 16 Sep 2009, 10:38 PM - 2 Comments
I was delighted to hear about Google’s acquisition of the innovative startup reCaptcha.
I wrote about the business model of reCaptcha in a previous blog post in August 2008. Here is the link. Please read the previous blog post to get the background story:
Aug 16, 2008 – Doing Good Via Spam Protection: The Art of Leverage
If reCaptcha is an example of ultimate leverage, Google’s acquisition of reCaptcha is a case of ultimate leverage squared.
The outcome of a reCaptcha exercise is digitized texts of old books and old newspapers – in other words – FRESH CONTENT.
From Google blog story on this acquisition:
In this way, reCAPTCHA’s unique technology improves the process that converts scanned images into plain text, known as Optical Character Recognition (OCR). This technology also powers large scale text scanning projects like Google Books and Google News Archive Search. Having the text version of documents is important because plain text can be searched, easily rendered on mobile devices and displayed to visually impaired users. So we’ll be applying the technology within Google not only to increase fraud and spam protection for Google products but also to improve our books and newspaper scanning process.
A few more projects like this (eg: Google Knol) and Google will not only have the most popular search engine but also a steadily growing user and machine submitted content base that it controls. Now imagine adding Adsense to all this content. It is just like implementing AdSense on any other publisher – but in this case Google is also the Publisher – meaning it does not have to share ad revenues with anyone else.
ReCaptcha: The Art of Leverage
Google + ReCaptcha: The Art of Leverage Squared!
Hats off to both companies.
Posted under Business Models.
By Rajesh Setty on Sun 30 Aug 2009, 10:30 PM - 6 Comments
Today we are announcing the launch of
defiant: Practical Tips for Thriving in Tough Times
This 90-page eBook that was made possible because of the power of social media. The entire project was conceived, created and implemented using the power of social media. The key tools used were LinkedIn Answers, blog, Facebook, Twitter and of course my mailing list.
Social Media and a few months of work, we have a 90 page eBook titled:
defiant!
Practical Tips for Thriving in Tough Times
It is a collection of more than 80 tips from 50+ smart people who were kind enough to contribute for this project.
More information about the book is given below. The page is not public yet but wanted to give you a sneak preview before we announce it on Monday.
ActiveGarage – defiant: A social media project
I am pleased with the outcome and I hope you will be pleased with it too. I request you to download the book (there is no registration and no strings attached as I want MORE people to benefit from the collective insights from more than 50 smart people) below:
ActiveGarage – defiant: A social media project
Now, this is for those who are curious about how and why this book was created. The following section also appears as Appendix IV in the book.
Story behind defiant!
The bulk of the social media engagement happened over 30 days and here is a day-by-day account of what happened.
Day 1: Over the last few weeks, I met a number of people who were laid off and numberof people who were in the fear of facing a layoff. While the people who were laid off were disappointed, I found that people who were facing a layoff were more disturbed because of the uncertainty. I decided to look back in the last four years and see whether I can create an eBook that will offer some specific help to people who are facing a layoff
Day 2 – Day 5: I wrote about 10,000 words based on my last four years of writing on my blog “Life Beyond Code”
Day 2: I sent an email request to about twenty people that I respect to ask them to share ONE tip that will help people who are facing a layoff. This is the text of that letter:
Dear <<Name>>,
Hope you are doing well.
Being in Silicon Valley, I see people getting laid off almost everyday. Actually, I see more people who are in the “fear of a layoff” everyday. Talking to them in the last couple of months, I think the “living in the fear of facing a layoff” is worse than being laid off. Why?
Because both the employee and the employer lose in that game.
So, I have embarked on a journey to write an eBook titled:
Facing A Layoff AND Doing It Anyway
I am almost complete with the first draft and want to include a few tips from people that I
respect.
Would you be willing to share just ONE tip for people who are facing a layoff.
You can, of course send me more than ONE tip but being respectful of your time, I am
requesting one tip.
Thanks in advance.
Best,
Raj
Over the next few days I received responses from a number of people who offered wonderful tips that are included in Appendix II
Day 3: I tweeted a request and requested a retweet to spread the message and ask for help from people on Twitter. Here are the two tweets:
1. Help me with my eBook:”Facing a Layoff AND Doing it Anyway” Share 1 tip to help people who are facing a layoff. Please Retweet
2 . Have a tip to help people facing a layoff? Please share and please retweet
The message was retweeted by a few friends and I got a few good responses that have been included in Appendix III.
Day 3: I have connected by Twitter account to my Facebook account and my tweets are updated as status messages. I have a few thoughtful friends on Twitter who responded with a few tips over the next two days. I have included those tips in Appendix III.
Day 4: Changed the name of the book to
defiant!
Practical Tips to Thrive in Tough Times
(Inspired by the movie “Defiance”)
Day 5: Posted a request on my blog Life Beyond Code
After the Twitter experiment, I wanted to get help from my readers at Life Beyond Code. I posted this request as a blog post on Day 5
Have a tip for someone facing a layoff?
Being in Silicon Valley, I see people getting laid off almost everyday. Actually, I see more people
who are in the “fear of a layoff” everyday. Talking to them in the last couple of months, I think
the “living in the fear of facing a layoff” is worse than being laid off.
Why?
Because both the employee and the employer lose in that game. The employee loses because
he is NOT giving his or her best. The employer loses actually for the same reason,
So, I embarked on a journey to write an eBook titled:
defiant!
Practical Tips to Thrive in Tough Times
(Yes, the title is inspired by the movie “Defiance”)
The book is now complete. This time around, I have added an Appendix where I will include specific tips contributed by thoughtful people. I have got thirty of them so far and am lookin for twenty more tips. Please make it original and something that others might have not thought about. Tips like “Update your LinkedIn profile,” “Update your resume” are important but
common. I am looking for something more innovative and your help is appreciated.
Do you have one SPECIFIC tip for people who are facing a layoff?
You can write a comment here or send me an email directly. My contact details are at http://
www.rajeshsetty.com/about/contact/
If I select the tip to include in the eBook, I will include a link to your website along with your tip. If someone else has already submitted the tip, I will let you know as well.
Thanks again in advance.
My hope was that I will get some gems in the comments or in my email.
Day 6 -9 : Nothing significant to report except continuing to write the book. I also used this time to respond to all the people who contributed with a tip and/or insight.
Day 10: Posted a question on LinkedIn Q&A requesting a tip or insight for people who are facing a layoff.
Day 11 – 16: Responses from several people from LinkedIn poured in. I was amazed by the quality of responses. I spent the next few days in email exchanges with clarifications on the responses. Finally I included most of the contributions from LinkedIn into this eBook
Day 17 and Beyond: The next few weeks was spent writing, editing (with the help of Bill Sherman) and designing (with the help of James Wondrack)
Today: The book is in your hands.
Posted under Announcement, Business Models.
By Rajesh Setty on Tue 28 Jul 2009, 12:16 AM - 3 Comments
Disclaimer: I don’t have anything against Vicente or Robert Scheinfeld. This email exchange is only to demonstrate a point. I have removed all references to Vicente’s identity. He belongs to an outsourcing company that helps in link building etc.
Shortcuts are never easy. They usually take longer, more painful and in the long run, they are just not worth it. Follow my email exchange with Vicente and you will notice the problem today. Vicente never answered my last email – neither did anyone from Robert Scheinfeld’s organization.
1. Vicente’s first email:
=============
On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 11:39 PM, Vicente <last name withheld> <email-address> wrote:
Hi Rajesh,
My name is Vicente and I work with Robert Scheinfeld, author of “Busting Loose From The Money Game.” In doing some online research for Robert, I noticed that you made a reference to him and the busting loose work through (www.rajeshsetty.com).
I would like you to know that Robert just released a new book, “Busting Loose From The Business Game” and offering his personal support in a variety of ways for people wanting to get copies and apply what he discusses in the new book.
Details about the book and the special launch offer for people who are familiar with Robert’s work are here:
<http://www.bustingloosefromthebusinessgame.com/p2-opportunity.html>
I’d like to invite you to click on the link above, check it out, and consider getting a copy for yourself and/or others you care about.
Also, if you’d be willing, please help spread the word about the new book through your sphere of influence (Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, email lists, etc.). You can send other people to this page (the page for people unfamiliar with Robert’s work):
<http://www.bustingloosefromthebusinessgame.com/opportunity.html>
I look forward to keeping in touch. If you have some thoughts or questions, please do not hesitate to contact our associate, Nancy <last name with-held) at (support@bustingloose.com).
Thanks in advance and I wish you and expansive and joyful day!
Vicente <last name withheld>
Assistant to Robert Scheinfeld
2. My response to Vicente
=======
On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 3:18 PM, Rajesh Setty <email-address> wrote:
Sorry I don’t remember to you have made any reference to Robert on www.rajeshsetty.com. Please send me the exact link on my site where I have made a reference.
Otherwise, I will assume that you are spamming.
Best,
Rajesh
========
3. Vincente’s immediate response:
==========
On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 12:23 AM, Vicente <last name withheld> <email-address> wrote:
Hi there,
Since you have in common with Robert Scheinfeld talking about “personal development and busting loose.”
I made some online research about these keywords and the search engine directed your website and felt moved to invite you. I’m not spamming you anyway. It’s just a sort of information and reading material for you.
Thank you.
Vicente
===========
4. My response back to Vicente
==========
Vicente,
Your earlier mail said:
In doing some online research for Robert, I noticed that you made a reference to him and the busting loose work through (www.rajeshsetty.com).
I am simply asking you to point to where you saw that I made a reference to his name and the bursting loose work.
If you are changing the story, that is fine. I just need to know.
Best,
Rajesh
============
Posted under Business Models.
By Rajesh Setty on Sun 05 Jul 2009, 5:46 PM - 6 Comments
First a quick note and some background information.
Note: I love RedBox and have nothing against them. I think they have a cool service. The example here is only to make a point. For those of you who don’t know about Redbox, you can rent the latest DVDs at the redbox terminal for $1 per night (here, free plug for them)
Personal Background: Before my entrepreneurial journey, I used to work for a CRM company where I implemented large customer support and self-service solutions in US and Europe. So I am very interested in how people handle customer service.
Background: A few weeks ago, I rented a movie from Redbox. That movie didn’t work and I called the customer service. The representative there (Eugene) was very nice and he promised to send a coupon code for a free rental. That was good. Last week when I tried to use it, the code didn’t work. That was bad. So I sent a reply to the customer service expressing my frustration. In a few minutes I got two replies from two different people
Reply #1 (from Diego) – Very Good
Thank you for your e-mail. We apologize for the inconvenience. To replace the invalid promo code, I have issued you a new promo code (below). . The code is good for a free one-night rental of any DVD of your choice. The code is valid for 45 days from today’s date. The code is:
XXXXXXX
Reply #2 (from No Name Customer Service Representative) – Bad
Thank you for your email. When did you try to use the code?
Why is the second reply bad?
There are several reasons:
1. You are trying to save a dollar and spending a few dollars in that process.
2. You are adding insult to injury to the customer. He is already frustrated that your systems are not working and by asking him to explain further you are escalating his frustration.
3. It shows that your systems are not strong enough to identity when this code was used.
4. It shows that the support responses are not coordinated as you are sending mixed messages to the customer.
5. By sending a no name reply, you are removing the human element. Am I talking to a person or a robot?
Every time someone tries to spend fifty bucks to save a dollar, it just baffles me 
Posted under Business Models.
By Rajesh Setty on Fri 27 Mar 2009, 8:53 AM - 4 Comments
People notice when you are desperate.
I received this email from a friend’s email address.
I know that she didn’t send it. All I have to do is to click the message and all my friends will get a similar message. The company can now claim that they are seeing a huge surge in the traffic 
It is sad that companies resort to these tactics rather than trying to build something remarkable (a.k.a Purple Cow) so that people will spread the message for them.
This is not marketing, it is a demonstration of desperation!!!
Posted under Business Models, Smile Please.
By Rajesh Setty on Thu 12 Mar 2009, 1:15 AM - 3 Comments
So many people send me new books and I am sure they hope that if I like the book, I will spread the message about the book. Sometimes I will write about it in my blog, send out a note to my newsletter subscribers, tweet about it. Sometimes I recommend this to companies that are looking for good books to buy as gifts to their employees, vendors or customers/prospects.
And sometimes I may not do anything. Not because I didn’t like the book but simply because I ran out of bandwidth or things simply fall through the cracks with all the things I am involved in.
But I try my best to do justice.
Having said that, these people took a chance and sent their books. If nothing happens, they lost their money. That’s why it’s called a chance.
There is another way of doing this. Many people send me a message asking if I would be willing to review a book. They would offer me to send a chapter and based on that I am supposed to review that book. Some are more sophisticated. They say that I can read the first three chapters and if I like the book, I can request for the book and they will send the book to me. Then I can read the book and write a review.
That’s a circuitous path to get what they want.
You can make it easy for yourself but not at the expense of the person from whom you are asking for help.
There are no guarantees in life, unfortunately!
Posted under Business Models.
By Rajesh Setty on Sun 08 Mar 2009, 10:09 AM - 8 Comments
Photo courtesy: Dan Eriksson at Flickr
I have used the same dry cleaner for my clothes for more than five years. During my last visit, the person asked me whether I received a coupon by email. I told him I did but I just ignored it. In fact I asked him – “You take care of me anyway. If there are discounts, you would give it to me. Why should I bring a coupon?”
The person was insisted – “That is true. Sometimes I might forget to apply some special discounts and I don’t want you to miss it. You are one of my long-term customers and I DO want to take care of you very well.”
I was not convinced and probably he could see that. When I was leaving, he said – “Also I want to make it easy for you to refer me some of your friends. Now you can just forward this coupon and it will be like a gift.”
I smiled and left.
I really admire the person for going out of the way to use technology to DO something about his business. His persistence gets extra points. More important his creativity of “trying to make me feel that the actions I take (forwarding a coupon) will take care of my concerns (giving a gift to a friend) more than his concerns (getting new customers.)”
Have a great week ahead.
Posted under Business Models.
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