The Best Laid Plans, Part II Once you’ve finished the Input Phase (see last week’s post) of producing your strategic plan, you’re ready for the Analysis Phase, which goes something like this: Assemble the facts. Keep notes along the way on the input phase items, assemble them into a coherent document with key thoughts and common themes highlighted. Select/apply framework. Go back to the reading and come up with one or more strategic frameworks. Adapted them from the academic stuff to fit our situation. Academic frameworks don’t solve problems on their own, but they do force you to think through problems in a structured way. Step back. Leave everything alone for two weeks and try not to think about it. …
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Business
The Best Laid Plans, Part I
The Best Laid Plans, Part I One of my readers asked me if I have a formula that I use to develop strategic plans. While every year and every situation is different, I do have a general outline that I’ve followed that has been pretty successful over the years at Return Path. There are three phases — input, analysis, and output. I’ll break this up into three postings over the next three weeks. The Input Phase goes something like this: Conduct stakeholder interviews with a few top clients, resellers, suppliers; Board of directors; and junior staff roundtables. Formal interviews set up in advance, with questions given ahead. Goal for customers: find out their view of the business today, how we’re…
Taking Stock
Taking Stock Every year around this time, I take a few minutes to reflect on how the business is doing, on my goals and development plans, and on what I want to accomplish in the coming year. Although most of that work is focused on how to move the business forward, I also make sure to take stock of my own career trajectory. I always ask myself three questions when I do this: Am I having fun at work? Am I learning and growing as a professional? Is my work financially rewarding enough, either in the short term or in the long term? Of course, I always shoot for 3 YES responses. Then I know my career is on track. …
Return Path Core Values, Part II
Return Path Core Values, Part II As I said at the beginning of this series, I was excited to share the values that have made us successful with the world and to also articulate more for the company some of the thinking behind the statements. You can click on the tag for all the posts on the 13 Return Path’s core values, but the full list of the values is below, with links to each individual post, for reference: We believe that people come first We believe in doing the right thing We solve problems together and always present problems with potential solutions or paths to solutions We believe in keeping the commitments we make, and communicate obsessively when we…
Transparency Rules
Transparency Rules I think each and every one of our 13 core values at Return Path is important to our culture and to our success. And I generally don’t rank them. But if I did, People First is a leading contender to be at the top of the list. The other leading contender would be this last one in the series: We believe in being transparent and direct The big Inc. Magazine story about us last year talked a lot about our commitment to transparency and some of the challenges that come with being transparent and direct with people. I’d like to highlight here some of the benefits of being transparent, and the benefits of being direct (sometimes those two things…
Picking Professional Services Firms
Picking Professional Services Firms One of the most important things you can do as an entrepreneur is to surround yourself with a great lawyer (as I mentioned in my posting on negotiating term sheets) and a great accountant. Brad’s advice here is excellent: Choose professionals carefully: It may be tempting to use your wife’s brother’s friend’s neighbor as your lawyer, because he will give you a great rate and you see him at the neighborhood barbecue, but you get what you pay for. The same is true for accountants and other services that your business will use. Find professionals who know what they are doing and have experience with young companies. I echo that and would add to it a…
To Err is Human, To Admit it is Divine
To Err is Human, To Admit it is Divine Forget about forgiveness. Admitting mistakes is much harder. The second-to-last value that I’m writing up of our 13 core values at Return Path is We don’t want you to be embarrassed if you make a mistake; communicate about it and learn from it People don’t like to feel vulnerable. And there’s no more vulnerable feeling in business than publicly acknowledging that you goofed, whether to your peers, your boss, or your team (hard to say which is worse — eating crow never tastes good no matter who is serving it). But wow is it a valuable trait for an organization to have. Here are the benefits that come from being good…
The Ultimate Sales Job
The Ultimate Sales Job In a moment of productive tension a couple months back, one of my sales people said to me, “What do you know about selling? You’ve never carried a bag in your life!” Technically, the sales person was correct — I’ve never been a member of a sales department. But as a product manager, GM, and CEO over the last 17 years, I have actually spent a significant of time directly selling customers. But this comment got me thinking about the role of a CEO and just how much of a sales job it is. My conclusion: it’s not a just a sales job, it’s the ultimate sales job! Why? Assisting on sales calls is the most…
B+ for Effort?
B+ for Effort? Effort is important in life. If Woody Allen is right, and 80% of success in life is just showing up, then perhaps 89% is in showing up AND putting in good effort. But there is no A for Effort in a fast-paced work environment. The best you can get without demonstrating results is a B+. The converse is also true, that the best you can get with good results AND without good effort is a B+. Now, a B+ isn’t a bad grade either way. But it’s not the best grade. In continuing with this series of our 13 core values at Return Path, the next one I’ll cover is: We believe that results and effort are…
Protecting the Inbox
Protecting the Inbox We only have one out of our 13 core values at Return Path that’s closely related to the content of our business. But as with the other values, it says a lot about who we are and how we approach the work that we do. That value is: We believe inboxes should only contain messages that are relevant, trusted, and safe We occupy a pretty unique space in the email universe – we serve senders and receiving networks, but aren’t directly in the mail stream and therefore don’t directly touch end users. So much of our business, from our Certification or whitelisting business, to our new Domain Assurance anti-spoofing/anti-phishing business, revolves around building trust in our company…
Learning to Embrace Sizzle
Learning to Embrace Sizzle One phrase I’ve heard a lot over the years is about “Selling the sizzle, not the steak.” It suggests that in the world of marketing or product design, there is a divergence between elements of substance and what I call bright shiny objects, and that sometimes it’s the bright shiny objects that really move the needle on customer adoption. At Return Path, we have always been about the steak and NOT the sizzle. We’re incredibly fact-based and solution-oriented as a culture. In fact, I can think of a lot of examples where we have turned our nose up at the sizzle over the years because it doesn’t contribute to core product functionality or might be a…