Natalee Roan

Apparently I'm a pornographer

Natalee — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:36:25 GMT

It seems Google has deemed that I’m a pornographer. I’m not, of course, but because they decided that I am, they won’t let Google ads appear on my new website. Here’s how I got to be a porn queen:

Female bosses - your opinion?

Natalee — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:31:02 GMT

Do you have a preference for male vs. female bosses? If so, why? I'd also be interested in your opinion of this new website dedicated to women business leaders - www.vjournal.comThanks for commenting, I appreciate your feedback. ...

Great update on Earth Class Mail

Natalee — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 10:46:15 GMT

For those of you who follow the TV series Start-up Junkies, the Seattle Times had this great update on Earth Class Mail.

The Ultimate Question to Predict your Growth

Natalee — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 10:40:09 GMT

I want to introduce you to a strong predictor of your company's growth: It's called the Net Promoter Score, or NPS. The reason it's so powerful is that it provides an objective measure of customer loyalty, and research has shown that companies with extremely loyal customers tend to grow faster and at a lower cost than competitors, because their customers continue to refer business. The part I love about the Net Promoter Score is that while it's so effective, its also incredibly simple and cheap to put into place - You just ask your customers to answer this question:

Start-up Junkies on Hulu.com

Natalee — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:30:29 GMT

Thanks to those that let me know that all of the Start-up Junkies episodes are available free on Hulu.com. Here is the link to the episodes. ...

The Definition of a Lead

Natalee — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 09:09:03 GMT

I admit I have a real issue about how people throw the term "lead" around, as many in sales and marketing use the term incorrectly. Using the right definition is critical because its the only way you can protect yourself from using faulty data in determining the quality of your sales and marketing programs. I have a very simple definition that has served me extremely well:

Managing Website Sales

Natalee — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:16:37 GMT

While working on my 500+ Sales and Marketing Questions document, a debate has occurred regarding roles, responsibilities and accountability for website sales. The debate was made even more interesting when the TV sitcom "The Office" showed the character Ryan, the boss at corporate, nudging the sales people in the field office to remember to enter their sales into the website. It is only on the season finale that we learn that Ryan has been intentionally double-counting sales because the website, which he heavily promoted internally, wasn't doing well versus the sales people, and we watch him being carted off to jail for fraud. OK, omitting the fraud plot twist, historically website sales have indeed caused friction

SweetieGate

Natalee — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:41:30 GMT

I'm really pleased that 70% of the readership of this blog is male - that I could earn such praise as a professional and as a woman is a huge achievement. I love working with men and have had GREAT colleagues and mentors of the male persuasion. That puts me in a unique position to comment on Obama's recent outrageous-unbelievable- slanderous comment -- He called a professional woman "sweetie". I'm kidding of course - it was certainly wrong, but the number of comments and blog posts on news sites on Sweetiegate (read ABC news post here) and especially the comments, make it clear that what happened is extremely misunderstood.

Startup Junkies Episode 4 - The pricing argument

Natalee — Thu, 29 May 2008 14:55:23 GMT

With Episode 4 airing on MOJO again I thought I'd address the pricing argument that occurs in that episode of the show. What was my beef?

The issue was around the number of people that would be needed to manage the Cheetah account and whether enough headcount and additional operational expenses were factored in before we gave Cheetah a pricing proposal. When I first got to the company, no account manager was in the headcount plan. Once Cheetah came on board, which has over 70 offices and 60,000+ employees, I was concerned we'd need not just 1 account manager but ...

The Real "Power Lunch"

Natalee — Fri, 30 May 2008 11:25:14 GMT

The best part of my day is when I have one-on-one lunches with members of front line of a company, and I try to do this multiple times a week. Each single hour provides me a reality check on what's really going on, makes the employee feel listened to, and helps me substantiate issues by noting which ones keep boiling to the top. To me, these are the ultimate power lunches! Whereas most execs spend their lunches either working, with their peers, or with their direct subordinates, my lunches give me an inside view to what is working and not working within a company - the unblemished view. When lunching with a front-line employee, it is difficult to get past the politeness to the real meat as their first instinct is

Startup Junkies Episodes now on iTunes

Natalee — Thu, 29 May 2008 14:55:42 GMT

FYI, the Startup Junkies episodes are now available on iTunes. The entire season can be downloaded for $10.99 for all 8 episodes, so for those of you who have written about missing episodes or wanting to show the season to your team or class you can now get ahold of them. (I don't receive any royalties, this is purely FYI.)
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500+ Critical Sales and Marketing Questions

Natalee — Fri, 30 May 2008 11:26:08 GMT

Many of you have written wondering what I'm up to since my extremely public car accident that forced me to resign from corporate life for awhile to heal up - I've been compiling a list of questions that every VP of Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service needs to get an answer to in order to propel better department and company performance - a complete sales, marketing and customer service "cheat sheet" audit. Each time I've started a new position or consulting engagement, I've added to a detailed checklist of questions to help me get smart about what's going on within a company quickly. It has ensured that I've risen up the learning curve of a company's sales, marketing and customer service operations in record time and has been the basis for my success, at companies like Nextel, Sprint Wireless, Entellium, and many other firms that were mere startups when I got there. The guide is well over 500 questions, all critical to

Website Considerations

Natalee — Fri, 30 May 2008 11:22:26 GMT

I recently had the following question emailed to me: Let’s say a new startup wants to have a web site. Should they a.) Hire a web developer and put him or her on staff; b.) Use a template and assign an employee to build and maintain the site; or c.) Outsource the building of the site (if so, should they stay local or look nationally—or internationally)? Answer: There are 3 major considerations in which way to go here: 1st is where the company is in its product life-cycle. 2nd is money. 3rd is how much design work you have. I've seen many start-ups get hung up on having the perfectly designed website before launching their product, so much so that the launch is stalled while they tinker with design elements. My read- just get on with it! As soon as you have a name and URL its best to launch something, say an "about us" page that has a few paragraphs about what you do, with the keywords you anticipate people will most likely use to find you - even if you aren't open for business yet. The idea here is to get

How we will know when glass ceiling is broken

Natalee — Fri, 30 May 2008 11:24:17 GMT

When a woman is self-absorbed, opinionated, loud, and aggressive as a leader, her staff will likely call her a b***h. Many women have complained that this is "sexism" so I want to set the record straight: Yes it is sexism - because if a man is argumentative, opinionated, loud, or aggressive as a leader, his staff will likely call him an a**hole. I suppose when bad female leaders are called as**holes instead of b***hes this will be a sign that glass ceiling has been deemed broken. Seriously, I started becoming a better leader when I finally understood the difference between

Twittering their productivity away?

Natalee — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 09:11:04 GMT

As more and more social networking, blogs, twitters and other ways to "connect" are pushed onto the market, I'm hearing many complaints from management teams about falling team productivity. Really, just how much "connection" can any one person have and still be productive? I've run into people subscribing to 50 or more blogs they follow in a daily feed, and trying to write every day to maintain several blogs of their own (while still holding a full-time job). There are those that have such need for connection to others that they follow the meanderings of multiple friends ...

You Blogged About That?!

Natalee — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 08:06:42 GMT

What's the first thing a potential investor does when trying to determine if you're worthy of managing their money? Or a reporter that's researching a story? Or a prospect that's considering doing business with you? These days they look to see if you have a blog. Sadly many executives use blogs the way teens use My*Space - they get too self-indulgent in what they write about with limited regard to what image they are portraying about their business or themselves as a leader. Here are a few items I came across in my recent perusal of ...

Raising Capital - a major criticism of venture capital firms

Natalee — Wed, 07 May 2008 16:03:30 GMT

Given the number of startups I've been a part of either as a consultant or executive, I'd have to say the number of presentations to venture capital and private equity firms now numbers in the hundreds. Part of my business is helping prepare mgt to present their businesses successfully - so I've seen many common mistakes. The first one is easy to catch - revenue models that can't be sustained. In this case I will help a company understand that fact, and many times we can come up with a solid alternative. But for those with ...

Google's slump - an advertiser's view

Natalee — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 15:06:46 GMT

Google stock has dropped to $450 based on a ComScore report that fewer people are clicking on Google ads -I've seen two lines of interpretation of the ComScore data: On one side is the argument that cash-strapped consumers are not in a buying mood, so they are not clicking on ads. This line of thought would mean Google's slump is only temporary and will recover as the economy recovers. But a closer look at the ComScore data suggests those clicks aren't coming back - that the reduction in clicks comes because the novelty of paid ads ...

Website Advice

Natalee — Thu, 29 May 2008 14:54:56 GMT

I've been getting a number of questions regarding what I look for in evaluating a website's strengths and weaknesses. There are many sites dedicated to tips on design with items like 1) Don't use pop-ups, 2) keep it short 3) go for quality, not quantity of pages 4) Meta tags don't mean anything 5) navigation is key. I'd like to comment on not the structure of a site, but giving thought to it's purpose. For startups, a website should accomplish two objectives: 1) Credibility; 2) Conversion. CredibilityIt surprises me how many sites I evaluate ...

You know you're a Startup Junkie when:

Natalee — Thu, 29 May 2008 14:56:22 GMT

You’ve never had a cubicle or office with matching furnitureYour office address changes as soon as you’ve gotten everyone to use itYou’ve had 4 sets of business cards with different logos in a yearThe only marketing budget item is for Google AdwordsA staff meeting on Saturday at 10PM is normalYou think office windows are really just more white board space When you talk about ...