Entries from May 2009 ↓

If you’re like me, you craft email messages just about every day.

I’m amazed at how many poorly-written emails I see on a regular basis (and some I don’t see clearly because they’re confusing).

Here are some basic rules I try to use for every message: (I’m using the example of a hypothetical partnership with Google as the topic at hand):

1) Clear Subject Line

The purpose of the subject line is to be clear about the subject (duh) and to get the recipient to open it (if relevant to them).

Examples (using the hypothetical Google partnership topic):

“Google Partnership” (Good)

“Google Partnership Closed: Next Steps” (Better)

“Google Partnership: Your Input Needed” (Best)

2) The “Door Opener”

The opening sentence or two of the actual message should be crystal clear about what you the you want from the recipent(s).

Examples:

“I would like your thoughts on section 5 of the attached contract for our Google Partnership.”

” We closed the Google partnership today — way to go, team!”

“I just got off the phone with Larry and Sergey about our deal; here are our next steps.”

3) The “Meat” of the Message

The next part of your message should include any important data or other information necessary for the recipient to be aware of.

Examples:

“Attached is the language in Section 5. Are you comfortable with payment terms described in it?”

“Now that the Google partnership is closed, would you please set up the kick-off call with Sergey and Larry to get things going!?”

4) The Closer

You should close with what action you’d like the recipient to take and any timing if applicable.

Examples:

“I’d appreciate your input by Friday as I have a Monday morning meeting with Google.”

“Thank you for your work on closing the Google Deal. Please put it in your calendar for July 15th to review its performance.”

“Please make sure to alert our Finance team to expect the Google wire transfer by Monday at 11am.”

If you follow these four steps for your email communication, you’ll speed things along and face fewer unpleasant surprises.

Here’s a valuable lesson I learned when I failed to communicate some bad news about a startup at which I was CEO.

I made a bad executive hire for a company I was leading and decided, after speaking with some advisors, to terminate the relationship with the executive.

source: Hine, Lewis Wickes, 1874-1940, photographer

While the decision was sound, I failed to communicate this news (which some might perceive as “bad news”) in a timely basis to one key person (an investor) who instead heard about it from one of my advisors within 24 hours.

That investor was so upset with me keeping this “bad news” from him that he called me into his office, threatened to take his investment money back and lectured me for two hours on how important it is to communicate bad news in the same way you communicate good news (quickly!).

Perception Outweighs Reality

The problem with what I had done: while my decision to dismiss the executive was sound, it was initially perceived as unsound by the investor due solely to the fact that I withheld the information from him.

Perception in this case outweighed reality.

The investor said something that afternoon: “Bad News is Good News” — it’s a weird phrase but it has stuck with me ever since.

A related excerpt from Jack Welch’s book called Winning.

Information you try to shut down will eventually get out and as it travels it will certainly morph, twist and darken. He compares it to a really bad version of the children’s game of “telephone.”

Bad news is good news (when communicated effectively)!

Choose your communication channel wisely.

Cerner Corp. CEO Neal Patterson probably wished he had when he fired off a message to senior managers at his medical software maker berating them for their work habits.

Cerner CEO Neal Patterson's Slip on Netiquette

Excerpts of the email include:

“The parking lot is sparsely used at 8 a.m.; likewise at 5 p.m….

…As managers — you either do not know what your EMPLOYEES are doing; or YOU do not CARE.”

“You have a problem and you will fix it or I will replace you…

…What you are doing, as managers, with this company makes me SICK.”

The e-mail promptly leaked out onto the Web. Two weeks after Mr. Patterson sent the message, Cerner stock lost more than a quarter of its value (tens of millions of dollars) after investors became concerned about the company’s prospects and employee morale.

That story reminded me that when you are communicating in business (or for any reason), that you should pick your communication medium based on the sensitivity of the topic. The higher the sensitivity, the higher the bandwidth of communication.

Here are four examples of channels of communication and their relative bandwidth

• In-Person (highest bandwidth)  — Use this for your most sensitive topics.
• Telephone (medium bandwidth) — Use this as a backup for sensitive topics in the event you can not meet in-person with your audience.
• Instant Message (lower bandwidth) — Use this for lower-sensitivty topics
• Email (lowest bandwidth) — Reserve this for your lowest-sensitivity topics (unless it’s accompanied by a higher bandwidth in-person meeting)

Amazingly, Mr. Patterson is still CEO of Cerner today (8 years after the slip-up) — my hat is off to him for surviving such a firestorm.

What a survivor! — And Cerner generated $188 million in pre-tax profit in its most recent year on sales of $1.67 billion so I imagine he is doing something right!

I first heard about the concept of being a “go-giver” from Bob Burg in a book he wrote called Winning Without Intimidation; he later made the phrase more popular by writing Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea.

I used the Go-Giver phrase, which is corny but good, in a speech I made to entrepreneurs a few years back.

source: Túrelio, Wikimedia Commons

From that speech, and others, here are seven tips to being a better networker or go-giver:

1) Giving is Attractive — “No matter what your profession, if you can give increase of life to others and make them sensible [i.e., “aware”] of this gift, they will be attracted to you, and you will get rich.” Wallace D. Wattles from The Science of Getting Rich

2) Be a Connector — If you connect someone, both parties will remember you as the connector (see The Connector Exercise article I wrote.

3) The Helpers Get Helped — “The core of being a really good networker, you need to want to help people, “says close friend Dave Bear of BBDO Atmoshphere. He had an interesting way to put it: “People want to help people who want to help people. That’s the multiplier.”

4) When Calling a Customer/Partner — “Never call a client without bringing a new idea or some value into it.” (Direct Marketer Les Wunderman).

5) The 80/20 Rule — “Spend 80% of your time asking about THEM, not talking about yourself and you’ll get a positive response. Most people love talking about themselves. I’m always thinking when I meet people about who they might be interested in meeting.” (a talented entrepreneur and friend Drew Kossoff).

6) The Value Proposition — Give someone more in value than what you take from the (Go-Giver book by Bob Burge (he also wrote Endelss Referalls).

7) Clip It – My dad always clipped out articles and mailed them to people…and we loved it! With the Web, this takes very little time to do and can be quite meaningful. If you send a print clipping through snail-mail, that is so unheard of these days that it all the more unique. When’s the last time you sent some quality content to someone!?

Remember, if you’re just asking for help and trying to “get” all the time, then you’re more of a “go-getter” than a go-giver.

I’m looking forward to more go-givers out there!

Sidenote: You’ve probably noticed that I’m beginning to link the people I mention in articles (such as this one) directly to their LinkedIn profile so that you can learn more about these resources. If you are not yet on LinkedIn, or want some LinkedIn tips want some LinkedIn tips, check out: You Must Be LinkedIn.

I recently finished reading Stealing MySpace, an interesting “inside-baseball” look at the building of MySpace and eventual sale to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. for $750MM.

While the MySpace story had a happy ending for most, it also reminded me of the surprisingly low e-CPM (effective CPM or cost per thousand) of many Web sites that either sell through third-parties or have ad inventory that’s difficult for advertisers to understand/value.

MySpace earned an e-CPM of about $.20 in its early days (November 2004).

To put an eCPM of $.20 into perspective, that means that MySpace had to generate 500,000 page views on its Web site to earn just $100 in advertising revenue…or 5 million page views to earn $1,000… or 50 million to earn $10,000.

Now, MySpace charged much higher CPMs (up to $2 or so) on many of its pages, but the average it received for all of its pages was closer to $.20, according to the book.

For those of you thinking of selling advertising on your Web sites, I thought I’d add a few other less-known e-CPMs or CPMs for you:

• Mojam (a music Web site I founded and sold) — Mojam had an e-CPM of $.91 while I was running it.
• PlentyOfFish (free matchmaking site) — This innovative online matchmaking site had an e-CPM of $.75, in my estimation, during 2006 when various articles about their results (fueled when POF Founder Marcus Frind showed pictures of his giant Google AdSense checks (the calculation I’m using is $375,000 in monthly revenue divided by about 500MM monthly impressions).
• StevePavlina.com — This useful personal development site had a Google AdSense CPM of around $2.80 in December 2005 when he shared some stats on his site (note: I used the term “Google AdSense CPM” for this one because Steve Pavlina generates income from other sponsorship/affiliate-related sources that he didn’t disclose) (interestingly, Steve Pavlina appears to have taken down all of his AdSense ads since then).
• A Colleague of Mine’s Tips Web Site — Someone I know has a site currently (as of this month) generating 250,000 page views per month and about $200 per month in ad revenue; so his e-CPM is $.89.

Now, interestingly, while all these e-CPMs and CPMs seem low, all of the companies mentioned were profitable. That’s because their cost of delivering 1,000 page views was very, very cheap.

Hosting CPM

MySpace, for example, spent only $.07 on what I call “Hosting CPM” (i.e. delivering each of its 1,000 page views) in its early days (November 2004); and since they had minimal other expenses at the time they were able to break even at that point.

My colleague’s Tips Web site (in the fourth bullet above) spends only 3.5 cents in Hosting CPM and minimal other costs, so he makes a profit.

To see the other costs in running a Web site check out my How Much to Pay for a Customer article.

Your e-CPM Scales as You Scale

The economies of scale work in your favor as you are able to command higher CPMs as your volume of page views (and brand value) increase.

For example, MySpace is now reportedly generating $75MM per month through about 40 billion page views for an e-CPM of about $1.88, according to this Silicon Alley Insider article.

So, they almost 10Xed their e-CPM from their early days!