What Separates Good Teams from Bad Teams?

Every once in a while, I have a conversation that forces me to distill an idea to a sound bite – those frequently become blog posts.  Many happen with members of my team at Return Path, or my friend Matt on our Saturday morning runs, or my Dad or Mom, or Mariquita.  This one happened at dinner the other night with Mariquita and my in-laws Rick and Carmen.

The subject came up about managing a senior team, and different iterations of teams I’ve managed over the years.  And the specific question we posed was “What are the most significant characteristics that separate good teams from bad teams?”  Here’s where the conversation went…“I believe that 100% of the members of good teams can, 100% of the time”

1. Get outside of themselves.  They have no personal agenda, only the best interests of the company, in mind.  They make every effort to see issues on which they disagree from the opposing point of view
2. Understand the difference between fact and opinion.  As my friend Brad says, “The plural of anecdotes is not data.”  And as Winston Churchill said, “Facts are stubborn things.”  If everyone on a team not only understands what is a fact and what is not a fact, AND all team members are naturally curious to understand and root out all the relevant facts of an issue, that’s when the magic happens

Of course there are many other characteristics or checklists of characteristics that separate good teams from bad teams.  But these feel to me like pretty solid ones – at least a good starting point for a conversation around the conference room table.

I’m thrilled to announce The Daily Bolster — a quick-hitting podcast for startup leaders scaling their businesses. It’s the actionable insight you need to scale—in about 5 minutes. The first episode drops this coming Monday.

Our team created The Daily Bolster for folks in the startup world who — like me — want to hear from industry experts of all backgrounds, but don’t always have the time to listen to full length interviews, even at 2x speed (which usually ends up sounding like Alvin & The Chipmunks, anyway).

Instead, we’re getting straight to the point. GTTFP, as Brad says.

Starting next week, I will be joined every day by experienced operators and industry experts who share their real-world experiences and practical advice. Each day of the week, we’ll cover a different topic or theme:

• Monday: CEO Tips & Tricks
• Tuesday: Scaling Yourself & Your Team
• Wednesday: The View from the Board Room
• Thursday: Ask Bolster (this one will be more like 20-30 minutes to go deeper with someone)

The schedule is jam-packed with dynamic guests and punchy interviews. Whether you tune in every day, when you see a guest you’re especially interested in, or only on Tuesdays, we’re so excited to share these conversations with you.

In Week 1, I welcome Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta, board member extraordinaire and marketplace guru Cristina Miller, Union Square Ventures partner Fred Wilson, Helpscout CEO Nick Francis, and Bessemer Operating Partner and veteran CFO Jeff Epstein. They’ll share their practical advice and real-world experiences around professional development, company culture, startup strategy, and tips and tricks for executive growth.

Check out the season preview to learn more. You can also sign up for email notifications, to make sure you never miss an episode. The daily email will also include a pull quote and clips in case even the 5-minute version is too long for you.

You can subscribe to The Daily Bolster on these platforms: Bolster, YouTube, Apple, Google, Spotify, Amazon, Stitcher, Pandora, and Castbox, plus we’ll put each episode up on LinkedIn and Twitter. You should either follow me (T, LI) or Bolster (T, LI) on those to see the content.

It’s a Sad Day When the Lawyers Take Over

With all due respect to lawyers, of course, Google’s recent decision to start making a legal fuss when people in the media use the word “Google” as a verb is NUTS.  Someone, get Marketing on Line 1 — and make it snappy.  Steve Rubel wrote about it, as did Jeff Jarvis, and the source material is here.

For the record, anyone who wants to use any of the following words or phrases as a verb, noun, or any other part of speech, may do so at any time:  Return Path, Sender Score, Authentic Response, Postmaster Direct.  Oh, and then there’s ECOA, the service we pioneered in 2000 that *is* occasionally (in some very small circles) used as a verb!

We’re Right Up (Down?) There With Lawyers Now

I remember reading somewhere a while ago that the least respected professions in America were used car salesmen, politicians, and lawyers.  Well, step aside everyone — according to a J. Walter Thompson study reported in DMNews, only 14% of Americans have respect for people in the advertising business.  I’m going to include that anyone who works in marketing services, by extension.

Don’t get me wrong – I wouldn’t have expected people in the advertising profession to join the upper echelons of the study with military personnel, doctors, and teachers.  But 14% is a pretty low number.  Beneath that single number, though, lie some conflicting data.  For example,

· 72 percent agree, “I get tired of people trying to grab my attention and sell me stuff,” and

· 52 percent agree, “There’s too much advertising — I would support stricter limits.”

And yet

· 82 percent indicate a positive engagement with media overall, and

· Two-thirds claimed, “Advertising is an important part of the American culture.”

My bottom line from these data is simple.  You know something is wrong with your industry when 52% of the general population wants to regulate it.  But with the dual movements towards more free content and more restrictions on data that could be used to target advertising…I’m afraid our profession will continue to do the things that consumers don’t like for years to come.

Why Email Stamps Are a Bad Idea

(also posted on the Return Path blog)

Rich Gingras, CEO of Goodmail is an incredibly smart and stand-up professional.  I’ve always liked him personally and had a tremendous amount of respect for him.  However, the introduction of the email stamp model by Goodmail is a radical departure from the current email ecosystem, and while I’m all for change and believe the spam problem is still real, I don’t think stamps are the answer.  Rich has laid out some of his arguments here in the DMNews blog, so I’ll respond to those arguments as well as add some others in this posting.  I will also comment on the DMNews blog site itself, but this posting will be more comprehensive and will include everything that’s in the other posting.

It seems that Goodmail’s main argument in favor of stamps is that whitelists don’t work.  While he clearly does understand ISPs (he used to work at one), he doesn’t seem to understand the world of publishers and marketers.  His solution is fundamentally hostile to the way they do business.  I’m happy to have a constructive debate with him about the relative merits of different approaches to solving the false positive problem for mailers and then let the market be the ultimate judge, as it should be.

First, whitelists are in fact working.  I know — Return Path runs one called Bonded Sender.  We have documented several places that Bonded Senders have a 21% lift on their inbox delivery rates over non-Bonded Senders.  It’s hard to see how that translates into “bad for senders” as Rich asserts.  When the average inbox deliverability rate is in the 70s, and a whitelist — or, by the way, organic improvements to reputation — can move the needle up to the 90s, isn’t that good?

Second, why, as Goodmail asserts, should marketers pay ISPs for spam-fighting costs?  Consumers pay for the email boxes with dollars (at AOL) or with ads (at Google/Yahoo/Hotmail).  Good marketers have permission to mail their customers.  Why should they have to pay the freight to keep the bad guys away?  And for that matter, why is the cost “necessary?”  What about those who can’t afford it?  We’ve always allowed non-profits and educational institutions to use Bonded Sender at no cost.  But beyond that, one thing that’s really problematic for mailers about the Goodmail stamp model is that different for-profit mailers have radically different costs and values per email they send.

For example, maybe a retailer generates an average of $0.10 per email based on sales and proit.  So the economics of a $0.003 Goodmail stamp would work.  However, they’re only paying $0.001 to deliver that email, and now Goodmail is asserting that they “only” need to pay $0.003 for the stamp.  But what about publishers who only generate a token amount per individual email to someone who receives a daily newsletter based on serving a single ad banner?  What’s their value per email?  Probably closer to $0.005 at most.  Stamps sound like they’re going to cost $0.003.  It’s hard to see how that model will work for content delivery — and content delivery is one of the best and highest uses of permission-based email.

Next, Rich’s assertion that IP-based whitelists are bad for ISPs and consumers because IP-based solutions have inherent technology flaws that allow senders to behave badly doesn’t make sense.  A cryptographically based solution is certainly more sophisticated technology — I’ve never doubted that.

In terms of the practical application, though, I’m not sure there’s a huge difference.  Either type of system (IP or crypto) can be breached, either one is trackable, and either one can shut a mailer out of the system immediately — the only difference is that one form of breach would be trackable at the individual email level and the other would only be trackable in terms of the pipeline or IP.  I’m not sure either one is more likely to be breached than the other — a malicious or errant spammy email can either be digitally signed or not, and an IP address can’t be hijacked or spoofed much like a digital signature can’t be spoofed.

It’s a little bit like saying your house in the suburbs is more secure with a moat and barbed wire fence around it than with locks on the doors and an alarm system.  It’s an accurate statement, but who cares?

I’m not saying that Return Path will never consider cryptographic-based solutions.  We absolutely will consider them, and there are some things around Domain Keys (DKIM) that are particularly appealing as a broad-based standard.  But the notion that ONLY a cryptographic solution works is silly, and the development of a proprietary technology for authentication and crypotgraphy when the rest of the world is trying desparately to standardize around open source solutions like DKIM is an understandable business strategy, but disappointing to everyone else who is trying to cooperate on standards for the good of the industry.  I won’t even get into the costs and time and difficulty that mailers and ISPs alike will have to incur to implement the Goodmail stamp system, which are real.  Now mailers are being told they need to implement Sender ID or SPF as an IP-based authentication protocol — and DKIM as a crypto-based protocol — and also Goodmail as a different, competing crypto-based protocol.  Oy vey!

Email stamps also do feel like they put the world on a slippery slope towards paid spam — towards saying that money matters more than reputation.  I’m very pleased to hear Goodmail clarify in the last couple of days that they are now considering implementing reputation standards around who qualifies for certified mail as well, since that wasn’t their original model.  That bodes well for their program and certainly removes the appearance of being a paid spam model.  However, I have heard some of the proposed standards that Goodmail is planning on using in industry groups, and the standards seem to be much looser than AOL’s current standards, which, if true, is incredibly disappointing to say the least.

Jupiter analyst David Daniels also makes a good point, which is that stamps do cost money, and money on the line will force mailers to be more cautious about “overmailing” their consumers.  But that brings me to my final point about organic deliverability.  The mailers who have the best reputations get delivered through most filtering systems.  Reputations are based largely on consumer complaints and unknown user rates.  So the mailers who do the best job of keeping their lists clean (not overmailing) and only sending out relevant, requested mail (not overmailing) are the ones that will naturally rise to the top in the world of organic deliverability.  The stamp model can claim one more forcing function here, but it’s only an incremental step beyond the forcing function of “fear of being filtered” and not worth the difficulty of adopting it, or the costs, or the risks associated with it.

Rich, I hope to continue to dialog with you, and as noted in my prior posting, I think separating the issues here is healthy.

Why CEOs Shouldn’t Mess with Engineers

I went to the Vasa Royal Warship Museum in Stockholm the other day, which was amazing – it had a breathtakingly massive 17^th century wooden warship, which had been submerged for over 300 years, nearly intact as its centerpiece.  It’s worth a visit if you’re ever there.

The sad story of its sinking seems to have several potential causes, but one is noteworthy both in terms of engineering and leadership.  The ship set sail in 1628 as the pride of the Swedish navy during a war with Poland.  It was the pride of King Gustavus Adolphus II, who took a keen personal interest in it.  But the ship sank literally minutes after setting sail.

How could that be?  While the king was quick to blame the architect and shipbuilder, later forensics proved both to be mostly blameless.

Likely cause #1:  after the ship was designed and construction was under way, the King overruled the engineers and added much heavier cannons on the upper armament deck.  The ship became top-heavy and much less stable as a result, and while the engineers tried to compensate with more ballast below, it wasn’t enough.

Likely cause #2:  the King cut short the captain’s usual stability testing routines because he wanted to get the ship sailing towards the enemy sooner.

Let’s translate these two causes of failure into Internet-speak.  #1:  In the middle of product development, CEO rewrites the specs (no doubt verbally), overruling the product managers and the engineers, and forces mid-stream changes in code architecture.  #2:  In order to get to market sooner, the CEO orders short-cuts on QA.  I’m sure you’ll agree the results here aren’t likely to be pretty.

So product-oriented leaders everywhere…remember the tale of Gustavus Adolphus and the Vasa Royal Warship and mind the meddling with the engineers!

The Rumors of Email’s Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated, Part V

Thank goodness I can finally write a positive piece under this headline, and not a rebuttal like I did here, here, here, and here.

It seems like there are signs of an email marketing renaissance left, right, and center these days.  First, the industry has enjoyed significant growth this year.  Every vendor I speak with in the space except for one or two is posting record numbers — whether they sell data, technology, or services.  And lots of vendors have been swallowed up by larger multi-channel CRM or DM companies for nice prices.  Every marketer or publisher I speak with is investing more money into their email programs, and they are seeing stellar returns.  In fact, their most persistent complaint is that they can’t get enough good names on their lists fast enough.

But beyond those signs, the much-maligned email channel has finally garnered some positive press of late.  First, as, Ellen Byron wrote on November 23 in her Wall Street Journal article entitled “Email Ads Grow Up – Department Stores Discover Devoted Fashion Fans Read Messages in Their Inboxes,” consumers are beginning to much more easily separate spam from commercial email they want, one consumer even going so far as to call emails she receives from retailers “like a quick shopping trip…a guilty pleasure.”

Byron also went on to quantify what some mailers are doing to tilt the balance of their marketing spend ever so slightly in the direction of email.  For example, The Gap is diverting over $26mm that they spent last holiday season on TV towards online and magazine.  And analysts point out that no matter how much marketers spend on their email programs, it’s still a small fraction of what it costs to create and insert a big print or broadcast spot.  I couldn’t even find the full article to link to, but it wouldn’t matter, as you have to be a Journal subscriber to read it (annoying).

And today, email industry guru Bill McCloskey wrote an admittedly self/industry-serving piece about how he is seeing the signs of this email renaissance moving into 2006 as well, starting with the fact that trade associations like the ESPC and the DMA are doing more to step up to the plate in terms of defending and promoting the email channel with the press and consumers.  He also cites the fact that consumers are getting more used to spam and mentally separating out good email from bad email as a reason for the comeback.  Bill even goes so far as to say that “email will surpass search in the battle for marketers’ hearts and minds.”  The full article is here, but warning again, you have to be a Mediapost subscriber to read it (free but still annoying).

It’s nice to see the media tide turning here towards a more rational, balanced position on email.  It’s not just about spam and scams — it’s about the power, customization, and intimacy of the channel!

A Viral Marketing Program That Needs to See a Doctor

I hate sites that make you register in order to read things sent by friends.  What a crappy consumer experience.  If you’re going to make people register to use the site, fine.  But at least allow a small crack in the walled garden for friends to read articles and try your site out.

Today, my friend Len Ellis sent me what looked like a really interesting article in Ad Age via the “send to a friend function.”  When I clicked through the link in the email, it first made me complete a lengthy registration process, including various special offer checkboxes and subscription offers for the magazine and its newsletters.

I went ahead and did this because I was interested in the article.  Then I had to wait for a confirmation email, click on it, and then finally got to see the article.  Except it turns out that what I got to see was the headline and first sentence.  Then Ad Age tole me that in order to read the whole article, I either have to subscribe to the print edition and fill out more forms or pay.  Forget it.  I’ll ask Len to copy the text of the article and send it to me directly.

Why even bother having a “send to a friend” function?

Unknown Unknowns

Keeping It All In Sync?

I just read a great quote in a non-business book, Richard Dawkins’ River out of Eden, Dawkins himself quoting Darwinian psychologist Nicholas Humphrey’s revolting of a likely apocryphal story about Henry Ford.  The full “double” quote is:

It is said that Ford, the patron saint of manufacturing efficiency, once

commissioned a survey of the car scrapyards in America to find out if there were parts of the Model T Fird which never failed. His inspectors came back with reports of almost every kind of breakdown:  axles, brakes, pistons — all were liable to go wrong. But they drew attention to one notable exception, the kingpins of the scrapped cars invariably had years of life left in them. With ruthless logic, Ford concluded that the kingpins on the Model T were too good for their job and ordered that in the future they should be made to an inferior specification.

You may, like me, be a little vague about what kingpins are, but it doesn’t matter. They are something that a motor far needs, and Ford’s alleged ruthlessness was, indeed, entirely logical. The alternative would have been to improve all the other bits of the car to bring them up to the standard of the kingpins. But then it wouldn’t have been a Model T he was manufacturing but a Rolls Royce, and that wasn’t the object of the exercise. A Rolls Royce is a respectable car to manufacture and so is a Model T, but for a different price. The trick is to make sure that either the whole car is built to Rolls Royce specifications or the whole car is built to Model T specifications.

Kind of makes sense, right?  This is interesting to think about in the context of running a SaaS business or any internet or service business.  I’d argue that Ford’s system does not apply or applies less.  It’s very easy to have different pieces of a business like ours be at completely different levels of depth or quality.  This makes intuitive sense for a service business, but even within a software application (SaaS or installed), some features may work a lot better than others.  And I’m not sure it matters.

What matters is having the most important pieces — the ones that drive the lion’s share of customer value — at a level of quality that supports your value proposition and price point.  For example, in a B2B internet/service business, you can have a weak user interface to your application but have excellent 24×7 alerting and on-call support — maybe that imbalance works well for your customers.  Or let’s say you’re running a consumer webmail business.  You have good foldering and filtering, but your contacts and calendaring are weak.

I’m not sure either example indicates that the more premium of the business elements should be downgraded.  Maybe those are the ones that drive usage.  In the manufacturing analogy, think about it this way and turn the quote on its head.  Does the Rolls Royce need to have every single part fail at the same time, but a longer horizon than the Model T?  Of course not.  The Rolls Royce just needs to be a “better enough” car than the Model T to be differentiated in terms of brand perception and ultimately pricing in the market.

The real conclusion here is that all the pieces of your business need to be in sync — but not with each other as much as with customers’ needs and levels of pain.

Why is Seth Godin so Grumpy?

Permission marketing guru Seth Godin says we should all Beware the CEO blog. His logic? Blogs should have six characteristics: Candor, Urgency, Timeliness, Pithiness, Controversy, and maybe Utility — and apparently in his book, CEOs don’t possess those characteristics.

Certainly, CEOs who view blogs as a promotional tool are wasting their time, or are at least missing a fundamental understanding about the power of blogs and interactivity.

But many of the ones I read (and the one I write) do their best to be anything but promotional. One of my colleagues here describes my blog as “a peek inside the CEO’s head,” which is a great way of putting it. And I still stand by my earlier posting about the value of the blog to me and to the company — hardly “annual report fluff.”

How’s that for honest, timely, controversial, and pithy, Seth?