Dylan Boyd, our VP of Sales & Strategy, Maureen Pimley, our VP of Client Services & Operations, Sam White, our Creative Director, Chris Masagatani, our AE and soon to be eROI New York office Director, and I just returned back to P’town from an amazing 4 day trip to New York City. It solidified our decision to open an office there after meeting with strategic partners like KickApps, HBO, Ogilvy, Return Path, MediaPost, RidgewoodTV, and the Mixx Agency. We checked out several shared office places and are most likely going to settle into an office in Union Square in Manhattan.
We also attended and spoke at the MediaPost OMMA East show which had an unbelievable number of online marketing stars from Google, NBC, and others in the social networking space where the highlighted hot topics revolved around “widgets” and professionally-produced video content mashup up with user-generated video content to form very real and believable, engaging content driving media sites.
As an entrepreneur, I couldn’t be more excited about the opportunity to grow our relationships and connections in NYC, but I also have to admit that it’s a little nerve-wracking with how expensive it will likely be. It’s clearly a risk worth taking and I have the utmost confidence in my team (and especially Chris who is going to be starting up the office there) making this a huge success. Our partners and clients in New York have already extended unbelievable generosity and hospitality. Thank you to all of you who have opened your doors to us (literally and figuratively). Thx!
This blog post isn’t an effort to toot our own horn, although I’m definitely proud of my team for this accomplishment. This entry is about sharing the feedback from the evening and showing my appreciation for organizations like OEN (Oregon Entrepreneurs Network) who provide the foundation for entrepreneurial learning, networking, and mentoring in this great, underappreciated (from a business standpoint) state.
eROI was chosen as 1 of 3 finalists for the OEN Company of the Year Award in the Working Capital category. This event celebrates Oregon entrepreneurs and businesses as if we were in Hollywood (which is a welcome change from the other 364 days of the year when we are in the trenches with very little recognition or pause for celebration). I was getting a little bit nervous as the time approached to lead up to the 3 finalists (eROI, AuctionPay, and Cayuse). On 3 huge video screens, videos of each of the 3 finalist CEOs played. The videos were shot 2 months prior and I was self-conscious watching the video from the audience (of 900 people), but fortunately the video editor chose the best of my rambling answers and focused on my primary point of truly listening one-on-one to my employees and transforming the process and the culture based on their input.
Many of the eROI employees at the table appreciated that I didn’t focus on sales or marketing success, but very candidly exposed a problem that became a strength. Here’s what a fellow business owner emailed me the following day:
“Hi Ryan,
Just a note to congratulate eROI on making the finalists for the OEN Awards! I enjoyed watching your interview video for the OEN Awards last week at the awards dinner… especially the part about asking each and every employee for direct feedback on how they were feeling. Very brave ;-)”
We didn’t win (AuctionPay was the deserving winner as they’ve built an amazingly scalable company), but eROI is doing a few things right to even be in the running.
This is a relevant study just released yesterday from Shop.org and Forrester on how super effective email marketing is for retaining customers and a top priority for many marketers. I’ve got to admit that some of these numbers are hard to believe as conventional wisdom is strongly rooted in Search being a far better customer acquisition tool than email (while email marketing has always been known to perform best in customer retention). Apparently, email is strong for both retention and acquisition.
Some key highlights:
E-mail marketing to house files is delivering higher response rates and lower costs per order than other channels
E-mail is delivering sales at an average cost per order of less than $7, according to two surveys conducted by Forrester Research on Shop.org’s behalf to create the State of Retailing Online 2007 report. This is compared to $71.89 for banner ads, $26.75 for paid search and $17.47 for affiliate programs.
91% percent of those surveyed said they use e-mail to a house list as a marketing tactic while 88% of them said it has increased as a priority in 2007
Average click-through and order-conversion rates of e-mail are an astounding 11% and 6%
Most popular and effective e-mails are those that tout online-only promotions, with 71% of those surveyed saying they use the tactic and 66% rating it as “very effective.”
One of the lowest-rated types of e-mails were those following shopping cart abandonment, with 17% saying they use it and 13% rating it very effective.
I got an email from Thinkpad with Lenovo sub-branding. I haven’t owned a Thinkpad in 6 years (and eROI has started to standardize on Sony Vaio laptops), so I decided to unsubscribe. I was taken to a Lenovo page which was branded differently than the email (and didn’t have any Thinkpad mention on it) - see below.
Now, I’m 3 clicks into trying to unsubscribe and getting really frustrated (1. click from email; 2. click on email subscription center; 3. click from second email triple-confirming I want to unsubscribe). There were so many verification steps that I gave up from clicking a fourth time. From a major brand like Lenovo (formerly IBM Thinkpad and Desktop PCs), I’m pretty surprised.
A co-worker emailed me a blog link with all the inventions from Dadpreneurs (Dad entrepreneurs). One of those inventors sites really struck my funny bone - the Diaper Vest from DadGear.com. Check out the video demos on the site. Very cool. However, on second thought, what do you do with a really dirty diaper? Do you put it in your vest right under your nose? Do these vests start looking like life preservers after a while - super bulky, Marshmellow vests? As a Dad, function reigns supreme (who cares what you look like or smell like), so I think I’ll get one of these things for my next gift and test it out around the neighborhood.
Here’s another competitor’s vest from TacticalDaddy.com. It was the only video on “Diaper Vests” that I could find on YouTube:
I’ve always thought AMEX had amazing customer service, but now I’m a customer evangelist. Susan, President of American Express OPEN (Small Business division), made an empassioned speech at the Inc. 500 Conference in Chicago and had all of the Inc. 500 CEOs reach under their chairs and get the iPhone holder for all of us to claim our free iPhones at the AMEX booth after her speech.
Several other entrepreneurs and I were trying to guess who foot the bill for 500 iPhones (retail value of $400 each x 500 = $200,000). AMEX, Apple, and AT&T were the 3 partners on it with AMEX being the clear leader in sponsoring the Inc. 500 Conference. Regardless, the gift was pure business / marketing genius. I’ve told dozens of business leaders back in Portland that this gift was one of the highlights of the event, and then I’ve shown off how amazing the iPhone truly is.
Until I had a chance to play around with an iPhone, I thought it was just a glorified Blackberry. But, now I realize how wrong my perceptions were. The iPhone is truly innovative and intuitive in how interactive and high-quality the photo albums are, movies are beautiful on it, and of course music is amazing on it. I probably won’t use it as a phone until someone cracks the code for using it with Verizon service, but I love my iPhone and I love American Express.
I fly over 2,000 miles to Chicago for the Inc. 500 Conference, and I run into two guys from my town, Portland Oregon, who I knew all about for the past 5 years, but never met. Eric and Jack (pictured with me above) originally started a company called Handyman Online in ‘97 which grew quickly, but got derailed from a $24 million VC investment that ballooned its headcount and expenses before flaming out. Eric and Jack pulled that business model (of selling valuable leads to contractors) out of the ashes, and have built an incredibly successful, high-growth, non-funded company called ReliableRemodeler.com. Looking forward to continuing the relationship in Portland, now that finally met each other in Chicago.
I just returned from the Inc. 500 Conference, and I must admit that I am a complete evangelist of Inc. Magazine, Inc. 500, and especially the Inc. 500 Conference. As an entrepreneur and leader of a scalable, high-growth company (eROI), there is nothing better than being around other entrepreneurs who are dynamic, innovative, and going through the same fight in the trenches as I’m in. President Clinton was the keynote and clearly impressed the audience by driving home the value of entrepreneurial mentoring, empowering entrepreneurs from a micro-lending perspective in the global marketplace, innovation in the areas of cleaner, greener, independent energy sources, health and wellness reform from a cultural perspective. I can’t tell you how refreshing it was to hear a U.S. President that could actually speak intelligently about issues that matter (to me).
While Clinton was the initial draw, there were 3 big reasons why this conference was better than any I’ve ever attended in my life:
1. Getting recognized in business happens rarely, and the whole conference made all 1,000 of us (Inc. 5000 was included in the conference which was a huge success) feel like Hollywood stars.
2. I connected almost instantly with 6 other entrepreneurs from all over the country who had so much to offer on a personal and business level, that we ended up talking and socializing until 4am a couple nights in a row.
3. The speakers were THAT GOOD. One highlight was a guy named Tom Szaky who dropped out of Princeton after visiting buddies from his hometown in Canada who were successfully growing very healthy marijuana plants using a liquified form of worm poop (yes, worm poop)! Tom created a conveyor belt system to take a huge amount of food waste and have worms eat it and poop it out into containers. His company, TerraCycle, makes all of its products and its packaging out of waste. It’s 100%, completely eco-friendly. Tom delighted the crowd with a charismatic presentation.
During a Labor Day weekend trip with the family to Manzanita, Oregon, I spotted the eROI crown lazily wandering down the main strip. Ok, the logo itself wasn’t walking, but it was being carried on the back of an apparent fan. I made a quick pass to see if it was on the back of a co-worker, and saw that it wasn’t as it slid into the San Dune Pub.
“A reason to go to the bar!”, I thought as I raced to meet our hosts at the beach house. A quick hello, and thanks for having us was in order, followed by a story about how we were famished from the drive and needed to head back to town.
By the time we got back and parked the car, the crown had just left the bar and was heading toward the beach.
“Get the camera! GET THE CAMERA!” I yelled, as Catherine searched the glove box.
The logo was almost out of sight when she snapped a photo, but she was able to get enough of a picture to make it a real mystery.
It’s fascinating to me that growth stages happen as step functions, instead of nice and gradual. But, this blog post isn’t about a systematic analysis of our growth and how we’ve gotten here. This is an emotional response filled with excitement and fear.
Excitement:
The talent, knowledge, and dynamic personalities of these 8 programmers, designers, and account executives is mind-blowing.
Finally, we have more bandwidth to tackle some huge product development initiatives.
Cross-polination and cross-training. These experienced new employees can add a lot of value from their diverse perspectives and will certainly learn a lot from the eROI team on the online marketing front.
Fear:
We are get our act together to create a formalized process for New Employee orientation and a Peer Mentor program. A training program and ad-hoc training all need to happen starting this Tuesday!
Culture. Culture. Culture. We’ve got to work hard to make sure everyone gets integrated on a personal level, not just the professional ones. I guess I need to line up some Happy Hours / Cranker Nights and maybe some more communal digging in the dirt like at Zenger Farm.
Lastly, it’s a wee-bit expensive to add so many great new employees at the same time, but fortunately our sales growth can support it.
Life would be boring if you just stayed the course and slowly plodded along. Dare to dream - that’s what all of us are doing at eROI - let us know if you want to dream with us.
I’ve really been impressed by the meticulous process, screening, surveying, and especially the writing of Inc Magazine and its journalists during this month’s issue of the Inc. 500. This is the first time I’ve been through this process as the leader of a high-growth company, but I’ve been in other award ceremonies, and I’m blown away by the Inc. 500 thoroughness.
Let’s break it down for all of the email and phone contact for information (and I’m missing at least 1/2 the steps and contact points below):
1. eROI submits 2003 and 2006 accrual revenue figures on the Inc. 500 website in April’07.
2. A few weeks later, we get confirmation that eROI could be considered for being an Inc. 500 honoree.
3. Sarah, an Inc. 500 journalists, emails and calls me to interview me and get the entrepreneurial backstory.
4. Sara, an Inc. 500 fact-checker, makes sure that my accountant and tax files and loads of other company and personal information is correct and complete.
5. I get Sarah and Sara mixed up in my head and continue to follow up on this “eROI: Startup Grows Up” potential story (that hasn’t come to fruition yet) with the wrong Sarah. Finally, Sarah and I chat and there is potential to run the story after the Inc. 500 magazine issue.
6. I’m strongly encouraged (multiple times) to take an in-depth CEO survey of my personal, business, and even political preferences, which proves to be one of the most interesting pieces in the Inc. 500 September ‘07 issue.
7. Final fact-checking via phone done.
8. June 26th - I received official notification (via physical mail) that eROI will be in the Inc. 500. Elegant presentation of materials and an invite to the Inc. 500 Conference that happens in Chicago next week (9/6 - 9/9). I will be there.
9. More e-invites follow (almost on a daily basis) to the Inc. 500 conference.
10. I just received another survey request last night.
Next week will likely increase in messaging as a huge lead-up to the big event. I’ll keep you posted on what the conference is like. I’d imagine it’s going to be a memorable conference with keynotes like President Bill Clinton. Tune in to the blog for more coming soon…
The Brits Don’t Like Social Media in Email?November 20, 2008, 11:02 am - It was interesting to read this from the UK. Really you don’t like video in email? It does not make you click? I would totally be up
