p2w2 blog » Elements of success

A good podcast on Effective Teleconferencing

Iswarya — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:39:48 +0000

We recently listened to this really cool podcast on Manager Tools which is about holding an effective teleconference. Teleconferences have become increasingly common these days, and it is as important to follow a basic degree of etiquette in teleconferences, as much as it is in a real face-to-face meeting. The cast lists 20 important points to be kept in mind while you’re in a teleconference. Here’s a gist of the podcast:

1. Treat a teleconference as you would treat a real meeting

2. Be on time – this is especially important for the leader of the meeting

3. Switch off your mobiles/PDAs/emails/IM during the conference call

4. Do not put your phone on Speaker Mode. On a similar note, never use the Mute button.

5. Stick to the agenda

6. Introduce yourself the first time you speak

7. Use technologies(such as Web Huddle, for instance) for file sharing and related tasks

8. Interrupting once in a while is okay

9. Have someone take notes during the call

… And more. By the way, watch out for Point #20 – it is a surprise, and is revealed only at the end of Part 2 of the cast

Here are the links to the two parts of the podcast:

Effective Teleconferencing – Part 1

Effective Teleconferencing – Part2

Enjoy the casts and let us know your thoughts!

Just as an additional note, we at p2w2, have weekly tradition called the POP(Pizza Over Podcast) Show, where we listen to/watch a good podcast/video over lunch. We listened to this podcast last week, and found it pretty useful. Oh by the way, we got bored of having pizzas every time – so now though the food varies every week, the name POP Show still remains!!!

A Beginner’s Guide to Landing Page Optimization – on AMEX Open Forum

Iswarya — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:52:27 +0000

Chaitanya’s article, A Beginner’s Guide to Landing Page Optimization, recently got published in AMEX Open Forum, and we at p2w2 are pretty excited about it The aim of the article, as the title suggests, is to help the reader gain a better understanding of Landing Pages. Chaitanya has written this article, based on his own research, as well as the experience derived from creating p2w2′s landing pages.

As Chaitanya puts it in his article, a website’s home page is not necessarily your website’s landing page. So it is indeed necessary to devote some time and effort towards creating a winning landing page. Here’s a brief outline of what the article covers.

1. Effective usage of pictures on your landing page
2. Importance of having a Call-To-Action or Sign Up button
3. Relative importance of factors that drive customer conversion(based on a webcast from searchmarketingnow.com)
4. Significance of user surveys and testing

Do read the article, and let us know if it benefits you!

How to Write Copy for Short Attention Span

Chaitanya — Tue, 19 May 2009 11:53:55 +0000

Writing for web or for that matter any medium these days has to deal with the short attention span problem. As a business owner, if you can figure out how to write for short attention spans, you will have a BIG asset. Copyblogger has a good post about how to write for short attention spans.

No matter how gripping your sales copy is, it’s an unfortunate fact that the majority of people will only read the first few lines of it. Does that mean all the effort you poured into the perfect call to action is wasted? Not at all! But in today’s fast-paced world of communication, less really is more.

Google Ads: Why it Makes Perfect Sense for Small Businesses to Use it.

Chaitanya — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:27:39 +0000

It makes good sense for small businesses (we have to generate revenue every day!) to use Google Ads. I tried it out recently and fell in love with it. It’s fantastic. It gives you great Return on Investment (ROI) that no other form of ads match. Services-based businesses are especially suited because you can establish the relationship using it.

I did try out display ads at some point. I bought about a 1,000 impressions for $30 on a good website. But I did not get a single visit through that ad. When I visited the website when my ad was supposedly ‘on’, I couldn’t find it. It was like black magic! The money is gone!

To compare that with Google Ads, it displayed my ad 30,000 times but I have to pay only for clicks! (that’s the best part). Essentially, I paid only about $4. If I were to pay on display basis and at the same rate as the website, I will have to pay $900 (!) and I am not sure if we will get anything out of it.

The difference is huge. It’s like going on a date that costs you a bomb and you ending up hating the person. With Google ads, it’s like meeting the person at Starbucks and hitting it off!

No Floor Limit

There’s no floor amount on how much you can spend on Google Ads. That’s the best feature a small business can ask for. If you only have $10 in your ad budget, you can convert that into business.

This is great because we can’t tap into some forms of ads that have very high floors. E.g. Bill boards. Bill boards cost anywhere from $700 per month to even $25,000 per month. If you have a niche product, most of your ad spend has gone in vain because those who saw the ad may not need your product or service. Same goes with a magazine ad or a newspaper ad. The floor actually forces you to overspend. It’s like having to jump a wall to get into your home every day. Small businesses can’t afford that.

The Right Target Audience and the Right Time

Google Ads (and of course other search-based advertising) works for you just in time. How on earth do find out who is looking for your product or service now? Viola! Google Ads does that for you. It’s a fantastic way to target your customers.

Turn Off When You Don’t Need ‘em

You can use Google ads like a tap. Turn it on when you want it and turn it off when you don’t. Especially if you have lots of work on hand and can’t entertain new customers, you can easily turn the ads off so that you don’t burn money on expensive ads. It’s really magic!

I will be writing soon on how to make the best use of Google Ads and create great ROI. Keep watching this space!

About the author: Chaitanya Sagar is the Co-Founder and CEO of p2w2, which helps small businesses outsource services like writing, software, graphic design, virtual assistance, business consulting and research. He is fascinated by entrepreneurship and the difference technology can make in people’s lives. Chaitanya blogs at p2w2 blog (RSS) and tweets at www.twitter.com/Chaitanya.

If You Want to Make It, Look for a Mentor

Chaitanya — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 07:13:56 +0000

For me, thoughts about mentoring started from this article: “Everyone Who Makes It Has a Mentor.” (Collins & Scott. 1978, Harvard Business Review) Having a mentor is helpful because someone who has already been there and done that can shorten your learning curve saving you time, money and failure.

Because mentoring is a social relationship, a one-on-one bonding with a senior, who continues to believe in your abilities whatever the odds, you will discover that most successful people in this world have always had a mentor in their lives.

Who Is a Mentor?

Let’s not look for definitions. If you felt that you needed guidance from someone so you can avoid mistakes and get into a higher orbit, that someone is a mentor.

Any trusted advisor can be your mentor and serve as your sounding board. The litmus test for a good mentor is that instead of being overtly concerned with your short-term welfare, a mentor would always be more interested in your long-term, personal growth, even if it comes at a price. One mentor on that LinkedIn forum confesses, “I have to hold myself back from actually writing business cases or marketing materials and stick to the role of advisor/coach/friend/mentor.”

A Mentor Listens, Probes, Clarifies and Advises

“Mentors may be thought of as teachers. They may develop their protégé’s intellectual and career skills. They model, inform, confirm or disconfirm, prescribe, or question. Mentors may also act as sponsors, assisting protégés in developing and sharing their own network of personal contacts. They protect, promote and support. Mentors may act as counsellors, providing advice, guidance, and moral support and nurturing. They listen, probe, clarify and advise. The mentor may act simply as a host or guide, sharing an informal social network with the protégé. Mentors may serve as exemplars to their protégé. The mentor may provide a standard of excellence that the protégé will aspire to surpass.” (Source: Mentoring for the New Millennium)

A mentor is someone you can offload all your problems to — both personal and professional. A trouble-shooter, he or she is someone you can use for validating information picked from a variety of sources. You cannot check the veracity of each of these sources, but you can trust your mentor.

Mentoring Works

The benefit of having a mentor in your life is that you do not have to re-invent the wheel. He or she can pave the path for you. Above all, mmentoring is a continuous process of evaluation and guidance. Remember that a mentor will never thrust his own ideas on you. He will be more interested in polishing the diamond that’s inside you.

And age can be no barrier to find a mentor at any stage of your life. In fact you can find different mentors at different stages of your life. There’s a very tale of how a 50-year old Auckland-based businessman, Mr. Warwick Kendon, climbed the ladder of success at that age through a mentor. He said mentoring allowed him “to unlock the potential of his business and get into a much stronger position in the market.” Another example: Joyce King Thomas, the chief creative officer at McCann Erickson Worldwide’s flagship agency in New York cites mentoring benefits.

It’s a Two-Way Learning Process

A point to bear in mind is that the flow of learning in a mentor-protégé relationship is always two-way, the mentor benefits as much from the relationship as the protégé, otherwise it’s a static relationship. In my own experience (I have been more a mentor) sharing knowledge and helping others succeed gave me a lot of satisfaction.

Share Your Mentoring Experience

If you haven’t found such a mentor yet, I suggest that you begin your search as soon as possible. If you were involved in mentoring, please share your experiences.

Picture credits: Sridgway Army.mil Korean Resource Center