This week was supposed to be my first full week of work at the Atomic Tangerine studios.. Monday was a holiday, Tuesday was a sick day and week was more than half over by the time I finished hanging the whiteboard in the studio. And as I stood there, in front of my crooked whiteboard, doodling the week objectives that I could get done in two days, I started reminiscing about the very reason I moved downtown, to improve the interaction I have with my customers. In order for that to become reality I either need to clone myself or optimize the hell out of my daily tasks. I am not sure if I’m the only CEO that thinks about this and I’m sure I don’t have enough brilliant ideas to get this done, so I’m going to let you into my head and you let me know if you’re on the same page.

How do you improve interaction with your clients in a material way? I have two types of clients, technical and business driven. My technical customers include CIO’s, CTO’s, office IT administrators and network operators, they want documentation, howto’s, solution overviews. My business driven customers include IT Solution Providers, consultants and CEO’s who may have a problem in hand and want a blueprint of how to get it done the best way. When I start talking costs and productivity with the technical crowd the eyes start rolling, when I talk tech to the business crowd I see the bobblehead effect.

Point is, neither side wants to hear what the other side is concerned about.

But as this company grows beyond the infrastructure, development and services and now heading into hardware, the pressure I face to stay relevant to both crowds is rising.

It’s not an easy gig either. When these folks interact with me they expect professional delivery, courtesy, compassion… which in no small part makes Vladville an outlet for my alter ego and the reason its so god awful filthy and direct.

So.. over the past almost 5–6 months I’ve taken what I’ve learned on the road over the past two years from some of the very best people in the business and I’m slowly starting to implement it all. The “needs” analysis has been overwhelming to say the least but the challenge of remaining direct without adding in intermediaries (sales staff, partner managers, customer service reps and other relationship-inhibiting roles) is not an easy task.

I have two pieces of advice to offer based on my personal experience:

People want to hear from you. Not from your CTO, not from “The Genius Employee”, not from the bobblehead sales guy. They want to have some level of comfort in knowing that this company they trusted with a critical piece of their solution actually works on providing that solution.

Get a camera. I have a Microsoft face-tracking one that I record my blog posts (not Vladville) and PR pieces on and I do two exercises: ass-check and blabber-check. Ass-check is the feeling of sincerity I need from what I’m saying – if it looks canned or arrogant it gets chopped. The blabber-check is the scanning for answers to questions nobody asked – there is no need to ramble on about unrelated details when people just want an overview. Camera will unveil these personality (professional?) flaws immediately. You can flow face-to-face if you have any personality, you can’t judge body language, intimidation, concern or humor through the written word – you always come off like an ass, guaranteed.

The final bit of this puzzle is relevance. Who gives a s… what I think? If you asked ten of my clients if they cared, all 10 would say “none at all” because I am not addressing their complete and immediate concerns. This is one question that none of my peers could ever help with, so I looked at how one of the most irrelevant companies gets this done – Apple Computer. Apple has been irrelevant (market share) or on the verge of extinction for at least two decades yet they manage to get people to stop and pay attention to them whether they are launching a crippled iPhone or a more glossy laptop case. I’ve studied Apple very closely and seen just what makes Steve so powerful – They are about one thing and one thing only. All seemingly done by one guy. Seriously, Apple Computer is a one man show that at any time talks about only one product. Go to their web site – easy, they released an OS. Now, go to Microsoft’s – holy clustercfuck, mobile phones, office, Live Search, articles, screen savers, livecare, Silverlight? What is this page designed for, a cow inflicted by ADD? Now, guess which company is more successful..

Point is, Apple makes the audience care about what they are talking about, whereas I am about whatever you want me to be right now. While the hooker approach works in person, indirectly via the web (newsletter, video, podcast) you pick a story and beat the crap out of it. I chose to copy Apple. I feel it is the only way for people to stop and hear you out, because anyone will spend 10 seconds to get your take from your area of expertise – but they won’t spend 30 seconds to hear the top 10 list.

How do you stay relevant in your customers face? Food for thought…

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