Business Blog

Miss Media had the chance to talk with Jack Mattera from TJM Consultants, LLC and boy, was it an eye opener! Jack and his fine company are experts in Digital Forensics, Security Planning and Disaster Recovery. What does that mean exactly?

According to Jack:
“Well, if you need to know what is on a computer hard drive, USB thumb drive, CD/DVD, USB External hard drive, cellular phone, smart phone or PDA, we can retrieve not only the files that currently exist but files that have been deleted.”

And it doesn’t stop there. They can also break a password code that’s protected or encrypted or find out where someone has been surfing on the Internet.

“The bottom line is if data was on a hard drive or other piece of computer media and it has not been overwritten, TJM Consultants will find the data for you.”

He had me thinking twice about the information I give out on the Internet, who’s getting it and what they can do with it!

So I asked Jack what we could do to make sure we don’t need his services.

He advised me of the following lessons:

Lesson #1: Be Proactive.
Don’t wait until it’s too late. Examine your system today. If you’re a small business, do you have a firewall in place? Antivirus software running? Do you update it often (the viruses are constantly morphing and changing. Your software needs to keep up!)

Jack also suggested the “poor man’s firewall” which is a router. While it’s not as comprehensive as an actual firewall system, it does give viruses and hackers another “hoop” to jump through, technically speaking.

Lesson #2: Become an Email Detective.
You may think you know spam. You may have great filters in place. But it slips through, in smarter and more cunning ways, every day.

Jack instructs you to not open any attachments. Opening an attachment can give a virtual thief just the information he or she needs about you) and to examine URL’s before you click on them (do they seem like a legitimate URL or a jumble of strange letters?)

Lesson 3:  Be Sign-off Savvy.
Be aware that the simple act of signing off of websites is a way of closing and locking a door. Many of us leave a slew of windows open throughout our workday and then carelessly put the computer to “sleep.” Take the extra 3 seconds to sign off of websites and programs. And turn your computer OFF sometimes!

Lesson 4: Know Thy Website!
Don’t give your power over to a web designer or developer. If they go, so can your website! As Jack puts it “Nobody should hold all of the keys.” This means you should also make sure the domain name and administrative contact should be you, you and you!

Working with your web designer or developer also helps to demystify and understand the website process a little better. Stay an active part of a new website design. Know what your web designer is doing at all stages.

See what you’ve learned today?

TJM Consultants, LLC
926 Haddonfield Road, Suite 338
Cherry Hill, NJ 08002
Phone: 856-488-6381
24-hour emergency center: 1-877-441-5606

The new buzzword flying around marketing circles is Search Engine Optimization (SEO), with everyone singing the praises of intelligent SEO. Many companies are now claiming they can deliver incredible SEO results to their clients, and tend to charge handsomely for their services. With more and more companies claiming to be SEO “experts”, it’s important you know what they can and cannot do, and why it is best to be a little skeptical of anyone or any company that promises spectacular results.

SEO in Simple Language

Search engines, like Google, Yahoo, and now Cuil (pronounced “cool”) search the Web when you enter a word or words into them, trying to find the best match for your search. If you enter something simple, like “What is SEO”, you’ll notice that these three search engines provide very different lists to that search query. Each one uses their own algorithm to figure out what website might have the most relevant data for your search. The result is that different search engines give different results, even if there is some overlap in their top 10.

Why Google Matters

Google dominates the search engine market, accounting for 61% of the search market (versus the #2 player, Yahoo, who comes in around 20%). It is because of Google’s dominance that most SEO tactics involve decrypting their algorithm to maximize the chances of getting good hits. Most good SEO tactics work on other search engines as well, but the focus is almost always on making sure that Google gets the most desired results. But figuring out how to manipulate the Google engine is not easy, and anyone who says they have Google figured out is probably kidding themselves, trying to kid you, or both.

The reason is that Google frequently changes how their engine searches, to keep clever companies from being able to manipulate ratings. In the past, the search “miserable failure” would bring up George W. Bush’s biography on the White House website, a trick accomplished by clever hackers manipulating the Google engine. But Google, who never stays still for long, soon changed how their searches were conducted, and most of these “Google Bombs”, as they came to be known, have vanished.

So What Does Google Actually Check?

As I said, Google uses a complicated algorithm that is difficult to decode, but we do know a few things. Google uses third party links (how many other websites link to, say, a Wikipedia article or an Amazon book) as one criteria. That is, obviously, very hard to control. They also look at what’s called MetaTags and MetaKeywords — descriptions embedded in the coding of the website itself. These are not as prominent as they used to be, for they became too easy for companies to manipulate. Google also looks at the actual content on the site itself, looking for matches within written words themselves. This is very important, because sites done entirely in Flash, as but one example, will not have any of their text registered by Google or any other search engine. MediaMark Spotlight uses a combination of technology and content to increase our clients’ visibility, and to improve their chances of getting great SEO results.

The Bottom Line on SEO

The bottom line is that you should be wary of anyone or any company that promises guaranteed results. The truth is that good SEO is as much of an art as a science, and that part of what allows a company to create the best SEO is to simply monitor how they are ranking in searches, and make corrections in the “real world” to track how well they translate into Google hits.

Staying on top of Google is a non-stop process, and we here at MediaMark Spotlight are always refining how we conduct our SEO for our clients, based on the latest data coming in to us.

By the time you start looking for more work, it is often too late. Here’s a solution to this challenge…

Feast or Famine: The Challenges of Keeping a Business Forward-Focused
Most businesses, especially ones that concentrate on Business-to-Business services, tend to operate in a feast-or-famine mindset.  This happens in good times and bad, although it can get worse in times such as these, when economic indicators are worsening on just about every front on which they can be measured.

As a long-time consultant for companies big and small, this feast-or-famine mindset is something I’ve noticed more and more.  The interesting thing is that companies actually operate more proactively in times of famine then in times of feast.  The problems can start when business is booming, not when business is bad.

It works like this: you get a landslide of business rolling in, which sets your whole company into motion.  From your administrators to your people in the field doing the work, your whole company is entirely focused on getting projects completed well and on time.  There may even be numerous new jobs lined up, enough to keep you and your staff working overtime for months to come.  The ability to grow and adapt to a swelling workload is, of course, the bedrock of any solid business.  Not losing your focus, your cool, or the quality of your deliverables keeps your clients happy and your bottom line strong.  I’ve seen this sort of adaptation in just about every kind of business, from construction companies to creative agencies to retail-oriented giants to pharmaceuticals.   But hidden in this kind of approach are the seeds of a potential problem, one large enough to cause some companies to crumble when the workload begins to dry up.  The result can be plunging morale, layoffs, pay cuts, or even bankruptcy.

The reality is that too often, when the workload begins to dry up and the owners and senior managers finally have some time to breathe, they realize there is little to no new work coming in.  Suddenly next quarter earnings are in serious doubt.  Another scramble must begin — contacts must be made, relationships developed, needs identified, but often the next few big projects can be far off in the future, leaving your company without active work for weeks or even months.  This has an obvious impact on your bottom line, but it also affects companies in other ways as well.  The sudden lack of work can be toxic to your staff, which can grow bored, develop poor work habits, or lose confidence in senior management.  Worries about job security can leak in, and create a rumor mill that might cause some of your best employees to look elsewhere for a more fertile — and stable — company.

There’s an old adage in business: if your business isn’t growing, it’s dying.  What I’ve found especially interesting is how truly successful companies take this adage to heart.  It is something that is at once obvious and intuitive, and at the same time far more difficult to pull off than most of us realize.

The Role of Business Development in Successful Businesses
The obvious question is how: how do you keep your business growing when you are so busy that you hope for only a 60 hour workweek?  One very effective solution is to have Business Development as an integral part of your business model.  In many small-to-medium sized companies, the owner/CEO is responsible for this task.  The only trouble is when that person gets too busy to focus on new business, and instead has to manage their current workload.

The solution is to hire someone whose only job is to do just that — find, create, and sustain new relationships that, when the time is right, the owner/CEO can help to mature.  The job of a Business Development Executive is to go out and make new contacts for the company, especially when times are incredibly busy and the staff overworked.

The Role of the Business Development Executive
Business Development Executives have a reputation as the men and women who “wine and dine” potential clients.  Hospitality is certainly part of what they do, but more than that a Business Development Executive needs to know your business inside and out.  Just as importantly, they need to be able to self-generate contacts and leads in your industry.  A good Business Development Executive will help to “sell” your company to more than clients who need your services in the short-term.  The idea is to build enough relationships that as your potential clients grow and come across their own problems, the first company they will contact for help is yours.

This forward-looking approach is the most sure-fire way to keep your business growing, especially when you are too busy to put much energy into it yourself.

Solutions for the Small Company
Fortune 50 companies usually have the bottom line luxury of hiring a six-figure Business Development Executive to help grow the business at all times and in all economic conditions.  But many small companies cannot afford that kind of salary output.  One possible solution I have seen successfully implemented is to outsource this role to a freelance professional who knows your industry.  This person can help you to continue to grow when times are good and your workload is too heavy to wine and dine every potential client yourself.  A base salary can be attached to bonuses for any future contracts, which can help to keep things both fair and honest.  A freelance Business Development Executive can help your company to continue to add clients even when you’re too busy to worry about it yourself.

“If your business isn’t growing, it’s dying.”  My experience says this is true, which is why I’ve always worked with a Business Development Executive.  Keep in mind that by the time it occurs to you to start looking for more work, it is often too late.  A healthy business stays healthy by always challenging itself to grow and take on new projects.  My last blog mentions some ways you can grow your business in busy times without having to hire new employees.

Big Agencies in the 21st Century
The state of creative agencies is an interesting one as we move further into the 21st Century. Certainly there are interesting examples along the lines of the juggernaut ad agencies , who have had some smashing successes, but also their share of colossal missteps . For the multinational company with hundreds of millions to spend on advertising, the Big Agencies of the world will likely always offer incredibly expensive advertising campaigns that will either make them hundreds of millions or cost them hundreds of millions. But is the very advertising corporate model itself something that is a relic of another era?

The dot.com Bust and Birth of the Boutique Agency
Consider what happened before the dot.com bust of 2001: hundreds of creative agencies were born, many offering little more than the most dazzling technology, cut off from sensible marketing or sensible expectations. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of them have vanished. In their dust many companies had far fewer choices hiring a creative agency until a few years ago, when the number of advertising and marketing agencies began to grow once again. The “Boutique Agency” is the newest phenomena, a supposedly small, super-versatile agency that can offer the best of the best without the red tape and astronomical price tags of the big agencies.

The Challenge with Boutique Agencies
Boutique agencies do indeed offer greatly reduced costs compared to large, traditional agencies, which tend to have huge overhead and huge billable hours. The boutique agency offers their clients many tempting things: greater attention, greater customization, more feedback in the creative process, less overall expense, and greater control over the final product. Many companies hire these smaller firms to tackle major branding or advertising needs, only to find that most of these boutique agencies come with a catch.

The challenge is that, more often than not, a boutique agency is simply one or two designers who understand how to design and create a brand, but have no idea how to market it or convert the brand into actual sales. They create sometimes very fine creative work, only to struggle to convert it into tangle, bottom-line results. In short, a boutique agency’s greatest asset is also its greatest weakness: the small size and limited experience of the staff means that solid marketing principles, such as tracking the results of a campaign to ensure a proper return on investment, are not properly understood.

Another challenge is that sometimes new technologies are embraced while ignoring powerful, traditional ones. This means that many of the companies that hire boutique agencies, while saving money in the short run, end up wasting it in the long run because their new websites and branding materials are not hooked into larger marketing goals, for a campaign that integrates the best of New Media with traditional advertising.

A New Agency, a New Model for the 21st Century
The solution isn’t to go back to the way things were, of course. The answer lays in a combination of these two models — the old, staff-heavy creative agency, and the new, highly flexibly, freelance-staffed boutique agency. The successful agency of the 21st Century needs to do some very important things, and to take the best of each model while losing the shortcomings:

• Be adaptable: As the economy cools and heats up, a fixed staff and expensive office can create the need for high billable hours, something that is seldom in the best interest of clients. Worse, firing staff to keep a company afloat often means severely comprising the integrity of the very agency itself, so it can no longer deliver the very things it is best at delivering. Having a minimal “root” staff in place means a company can grow and shrink with the times via freelancers, and offer solutions to their clients that are the best for the client.
• Be Forward-Looking but Responsible: technologies are always growing and changing, and any agency needs to be hiring young, creative professionals who have their finger on the pulse of the next upcoming thing. But as the dot.com bust proved, this isn’t enough: these technologies must still be folded into traditional advertising models proven to work, and one can never get away from keeping a hard eye on the bottom line.
• Have the Very Best Staff without the Overhead: traditional agencies hire seasoned professionals, but their salaries are the single greatest drag on their bottom line. Worse, these seasoned professionals may propose overly complicated solutions to marketing challenges to justify their very expertise. The successful 21st Century agency will have key executives to maintain quality and hold a proper large perspective, but will hire freelancers to execute labor-intensive work.
• Keep the Important Things Internal: It’s not a good idea to outsource your core strengths. What will set apart the successful 21st Century agency is having an incredible core team, one that knows how to convert creative work into bottom-line results, but one that is small enough to coast through leaner times. This means having the very best marketing minds, creative directors, senior-level creatives, and hiring — and successfully managing — any additional team members that may need to be hired to meet a project’s deliverables.
• Assemble Teams, Not Groups: hiring the right team for the right job is critical to a project’s success. The successful agency will match the right team with the right client to ensure there is creative, marketing, and overall goal symmetry. A highly creative designer, for instance, might not be necessary for a simply rebrand of a local state government site. Or hiring a Web writer to create offline content can create challenges in tone, voice, and length.
• Honor the Client, Always: Large agencies sometimes run roughshod over their clients, assuming they know better. And their red tape and bureaucracy can make getting answers an incredibly frustrating experience. The successful 21st Century agency knows two simple truths: the client knows their business better then we ever will, so we need to listen carefully. We know our business better than our clients, so it’s up to use to share our strengths and insights in a way they will understand.