Fight Club is back.

What's Fight Club?

Fight Club is a networking event (usually dinner) for entrepreneurs and startup CEOs who are interested in building their network. Yeah, there are a number of other events around but Fight club is for startups to network with each other.

Why Fight Club?

Geek Dinners already taken. Besides, it's cooler to tell your wife/staff/buddies that you're going to Fight Club than have to ask strangers directions to the Geek Dinner. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

Fight Club is about connecting, not selling.

Fight Club Members are entrepreneurs and business owners who understand that people are not the sum of what they can do for you. We're organized to build introductions and relationships between entrepreneurs outside the regular business environment and without the need to immediately sell to everyone.

Read this post on Horizontal Networking for Entrepreneurs.

If you're smart, and Fight Club Members are, you build relationships that give you access to another network and have other members actively looking out for you.

How you fit in.

Fight Club is small on purpose. We want to offer an environment where people can get to know the 'person' they're talking to, before the business. Anyone can come, you just have to attend with and be invited by an existing Fight Club Member the first time.

Fight Club is not an Old Boys Network.

We're just a bunch of similarly situated guys who value semi-inteligent conversation and understand that expanding your network and being of service is also good business.

Fight Club is also about deal flow.

From time to time I expect Angels from the local community to be involved. Certainly I've found it beneficial.

Sendside gives the CW Network a staggering 14,500% ROI within 60 days.

As our client list continues to grow, so do the number of success stories we hear around Sendside's sales acceleration, sales automation, strategic marketing, and customer retention capabilities. Here's a case study detailing how the CW Networks local SL affiliate KUCW, used Sendside to close deals that they'd been unsuccessfully working on for the last five years.

The CW Network is America's fifth broadcast network and a joint venture between Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corporation. The SLC affiliate KUCW came to Sendside looking to provide media-rich sales materials and access instant read notifications so that their sales force could follow up immediately. Within the first 60 days of using Sendside KUCW closed deals that they'd been unsuccessfully working on for the last 5 years.

Design. Usability. Experience.

I've been harping on design, usability and experience for longer than I care to admit. Here's some info from a CNN story on the divide between users of social networks extends through income;

A recent study found that people in more affluent demographics are 25 percent more likely to be found friending on Facebook, while the less affluent are 37 percent more likely to connect on MySpace. The wealthiest users, however, are on LinkedIn

Users with household income above $75,000
Facebook -- 41.74 percent
MySpace -- 32.38 percent
LinkedIn -- 58.35 percent
Twitter -- 43.34 percent

MySpace, on the other hand, had a "come one, come all" policy and made a mad dash towards monetization, Ostrow said. "They used a lot of banner ads without regard to the quality, and it really diminished the value [of the site] for the more tech-savvy demographic."

So which social networks provide the most value and have the highest potential for revenue? It's never going to be MySpace, that boat has sailed.

LinkedIn and Twitter are delivering on their promise to the greatest extent... largely because they're both constrained in what they are designed to do. Twitter as a 'what's happening right now' and LinkedIn as a business network.

Facebook has a harder time of it. Fbook's huge user base is such a conglomeration that it's difficult to find a real niche that Facebook can attack other than 'everyone's connected to everyone else'.

Here's my ratings for Design, Usability, and User Experience for the big four:

Design: 

Facebook -- B- Decent, but the addition of so many applications on user pages makes for a cluttered experience.
MySpace -- D Terrible UI and even worse design. The only reason I can't actually fail MySpace is that they acually have millions of users.
LinkedIn -- B Again, like Facebook, a decent UI. It's always difficult to keep large data-sets distinct while maintaining usability.
Twitter -- A- Simple and clean.

Usability: 

Facebook -- C The default page is clean but that falls apart on individual pages.
MySpace -- C Myspace gets a C since it's proven that even MySpace users can eventually navigate the site.
LinkedIn -- B Better get in before they really start with the monitization.
Twitter -- B+ Leading the pack since there are so few options. Simple = usibility.

User Experience: 

Facebook -- B This is where there's a split. Facebook's need for content generation starts to saturate it's usefullness as any real communication tool.
MySpace -- C Last place again. Seems like a state fair game.
LinkedIn -- B+ Tied for first. LinkedIn doesn't get heavy until you're an experienced user.
Twitter -- B+ Tied for first. Simple means that Twitter is easy. (Unless you're following a crowd.)

Most effective lead generation

From Ken Krogue's Blog comes this, '17 Most Effective Lead Generation Methods' which is great.

I believe that the best methods are those that are most Effective, but least Popular.  So look for a low number on Effective, and a high number on Variance:

Lead Generation Method	Effective	Popular	Variance
Executive Seminars	1	8	7
Inside Sales	2	9	7
Search Marketing	3	6	3
Webinars	4	10	6
Tradeshows	5	3	-2
TV Advertising	6	17	11
Email	7	1	-6
Radio	8	15	7
PR	9	2	-7
Online video / podcasts/ rich media	10	12	2
Direct Mail	11	4	-7
Blogs	12	13	1
Sponsorships	13	7	-6
Online Ads	14	11	-3
Other Web 2.0	15	14	-1
Outdoor	16	16	0
Print	17	5	-12

Popular isn’t necessarily good, it just means everyone else is doing it (email for example is ranked 1st as most popular, but ranked 7th in actual effectiveness.)  Take especial note of the degree of variance and whether it is positive or negative.  High positive variance shows extreme effectiveness that is relatively unused or unknown by your competition.

Jazz Bet on Sendside Sales Acceleration

The Utah Jazz is the first NBA team to begin using Sendside for sales acceleration. Of course, they're not the only ones. We have a growing number of clients who are using Sendside of sales automation, strategic marketing and customer retention.

In addition to being an NBA franchise, the Jazz sales team have a lot of sales to make... an NBA team, a stadium, a race track, movie theaters, concerts and events... that's a lot of inventory to move and speeding up the sales cycle is the way to do it.

Sendside gives the sales reps, sales management and marketing, the ability to craft their messages and be notified when they're opened. For high-value sales prospects that gives you an amazing ability to follow up while your content is fresh in a prospects mind and they're thinking about you.

For my part I love having the Jazz on Sendside. In fact, I have a personal side bet with the Jazz management. If the Jazz sales team is able to meet a revenue goal that's directly attributable to Sendside (completely at the discretion of the Jazz managment), we'll get four corporate season tickets.

We're pretty sure that using Sendside the Jazz can beat that goal pretty easily so I'm looking forward to watching a lot of Jazz games from court-side next season.

Chinese Proverb

"Do not remove a fly from your friend's forehead with a hatchet."

HireVue: Video interviewing SaaS that rocks!

HireVue's been on a roll lately. Every time I have dinner with Mark it seems that HireVue's rolling in additional customers, and it's no wonder. HireVue's offering real value to HR departments looking for efficiencies in their hiring process.

It's great to see another technology startup here in UT making the grade and building value.

I've used HireVue to interview. HireVue made the preliminary interviewing incredibly easy, and I was able to review and share the interviews I liked best. I ended up with a perfect fit for the position which would have been very hard to do just over the phone.

If you're looking to hire anyone, HireVue's the place to do it.

And, of course, HireVue uses Sendside.

HireVue is the worlds leading video interviewing service doing business in more than 70 countries. HireVue came to Sendside looking for way to accelerate their sales cycles and provide mind-blowing relationship marketing to their existing clients that include Google, Oracle, and Africa World Bank. Within months, Sendside increased helped increase their sales by more than 35% while cutting their sales cycle in half.
Read the HireVue success story

Sendside: Sales Acceleration Experience

Sendside's customer and member base is growing steadily, which makes us all happy around the campfire. And the largest increas in new clients is coming in from orgaizations looking to use Sendsides SaaS in four areas: sales acceleration, sales automation, strategic marketing and customer retention.

Since one of my primary responsibililties is creating and improving Sendside's user experiece, I'm constantly rethinking our members experience with the product. With so many sales forcees coming onboard, it put me in mind of something that Seth Godin posted about Google and their push to make the user experience better. 

From Seth Godin:

Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google,

"We knew that Google was going to get better every single day as we worked on it, and we knew that sooner or later, everyone was going to try it. So our feeling was that the later you tried it, the better it was for us because we'd made a better impression with better technology. So we were never in a big hurry to get you to use it today. Tomorrow would be better."

...As a result of Google's decision, they made counter-intuitive decisions. No ads, for example. No clutter. No popups, no tricky interpretations of privacy policies. Instead, every decision was, "If this is going to be the one and only choice, the best search engine in the world, what should we do?" The feeling was, if they built that, the money would take care of itself. And the investors who bought in were in on the game from the start.

That quote is definately tracking with how we perceive Sendside. Everyone will try it at some point because it acutally works in exactly the ways that businesses need it to work.

Take a look at some of our customer's sales, marketing, and retention success stories. You'll notice that the vertical markets are all different. In fact, drastically so, but the enthusiasm for what Sendside is providing is remarkably consistant. Sendside is solving real business needs around sales and customer relationships.

As part of the user experience that sales teams are having with our sales acceleration and sales force automation we've added two new features that are about to be released; Salesforce.com integration and Sendside Mobile.

Both of these features utilize our API set and were derived from listening to how our customers are using Sendside. I have to say that both are really cool. Sendside Mobile allows you to send Packages, Secure Messages or eSignatues from your smart phone. The Salesforce.com integration allows you to send from inside Salesforce.com and use Senside's instant reporting and analytics to see when your information is opended, and what the recipient's looking at.

From the sender's side the experience is clean and easy. Just what you want when you're accelerating sales.

Medical Spa Training Manuals & eBooks

Medical Spa MD is now publishing training manuals and books for laser clinics, plastic surgery centers and dermatology clinics.

These medspa eBooks are designed specifically for medical estheticians, cosmetic laser and IPL technicians and front desk staff, to provide a consistant environment for new hires and keep the staff informed the latest cosmetic treatments.

It's part of an evolving plan to be able to monitize the huge community of plastic surgeons, dermatologists, laser clinics and medical spas that are part of the community at Medical Spa MD. There are more than 4,000 members and around a million and a half targeted page views, most of which are from physicians (although non-physician numbers are growing).

Medical Spa MD is a community I started a few years ago and I think it demonstrates how effective you can be if you have information that is not generally available, and know how to build and motivate an online community. Medical Spa MD will never make me rich, but it's an asset that accrues increasing value over time and more than pays for itself with new opportunities.

Medical Spa RX is the sister site to Medical Spa MD and allows these same dermatologists, plastic surgeons and laser clinics to buy wholesale Botox, Juvederm, Restylane and Dysport from Canada and distribute it world wide.

But perhaps the greatest value of Medical Spa MD is simply the trust and goodwill we've grown among physicians. Medical Spa MD's influence and reach is very long, as attested to the numerous leagal threats, phone calls from lawyers, and cease and desist letters we've received.

Sendside Customer Success Stories.

We've been heads-down at Sendside building. We're sure we're building value and there are a number of our customers who would agree. I've copied a couple of quotes from our site below but we're always looking for more.

From organizations as diverse as financial services, technology, sales and marketing, media and entertainment, advertising agencies, medical, higher education and non-profit charities, Sendside provides integrated solutions you just can't get anywhere else; sales acceleration, sales automation, strategic marketing, and customer retention.

Here are some of the nice things our customers are saying about us.

HireVue is the worlds leading video interviewing service doing business in more than 70 countries. HireVue came to Sendside looking for way to accelerate their sales cycles and provide mind-blowing relationship marketing to their existing clients that include Google, Oracle, and Africa World Bank. Within months, Sendside increased helped increase their sales by more than 35% while cutting their sales cycle in half.
Read the HireVue success story

Contango and Western National Trust Company constitute the wealth management division of Zions Bancorporation, a public bank holding company with more than $40 billion in assets. Contango came to Sendside to provide secure, high-touch client communications and reporting to their clients. We'd like to let you know what happened but since Contango is a financial service company and can't make any claims of increased business, we can't.
Read the Contango Capital Advisors success story

Rain Nutrition uses a distributed sales network for anti-oxidents and nutrition supplements. Rain came to Sendside looking for a solution that would set them apart from a host of me-too competitors. Sendside provided.
Read the Rain Nutrition success story

 

First Western Advisors is registered Broker-Dealer (B/D) and Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) firm handling financial services from wealth management and strategic alliances. First Western came to Sendside to find a way to communicate with clients that conformed to all of their regulation and compliance needs. What they found was a comprehensive easy-to-use solution that exceeded their needs in every aspect.
Read the First Western Advisors success story

The CW Network is America's fifth broadcast network and a joint venture between Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corporation. The SLC affiliate KUCW came to Sendside looking to provide media-rich sales materials and access instant alerts so that their sales force could follow up immediately. Within the first 60 days of using Sendside they closed deals that they had been unsuccessfully working on for the last 5 years.
Read the KUCW success story

Connie Borup

Sales Acceleration Presentation

The presentation from Sendside above references new studies from MIT Sloan School of Management and Kellogg School of Management as well as information from InsideSales.com and Sirius Decisions. (This Package has these new studies available as downloads.)

The takeaways around the critical importance that follow up timing has on your sales opportunities and sales acceleration are astounding. Here's one. If you're not the first response to a lead you loose 50% of your sales opportunities right there.

Self Awareness

Entourage ~ Vincent Chase

"Everyone wants to kill the king.
But the prince, he just sails along
telling all the ladies, 'One day
I'm gonna be king.'"

Shrinking Venture Capital

Article on the state of VC's in the TImes:

Many in the industry predict that a third to a half of the 882 active venture capital firms could disappear, if only because poor returns will force underperforming firms to shut down. It is already happening: Investment in venture capital funds shrank to $4.3 billion in the first quarter, from $7.1 billion in the same quarter a year ago.

There will be “a ton of venture capitalists who disappear over the next 18 to 20 months, and it’s going to be painful for a while,” said Bryan Roberts, a partner at Venrock. “But the best thing that could have happened to V.C. is this economic crisis, because it’s lowering the flow of capital into these funds.”

The source of concern is lower returns brought on in part by a dearth of public stock offerings. Five-year returns in the venture capital industry, which reached 48 percent in 2000 at the height of the dot-com bubble, were just 6 percent through 2008, according to the National Venture Capital Association.