Offline with DCIG

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

2013-05-16T13:45:00Z

I've been in sales for about 20 years now and like anyone in sales or leadership in a company, I've been told that the client/vendor relationship "is over." With that message, I have been given a myriad of reasons or excuses as to why the relationship was over with my company and my soon to be an ex-client ranging from understandable to totally unique, here are some of the better ones.

"Our budget has been slashed"
"A competitor is giving us better pricing"
"My wife's brother is now doing what you do, and well you know, I'm stuck"
"We've been purchased and the new parent company has a different vendor in place"

These reasons are always a huge let down, but you are able to somehow rationalize them, or at least wrap your head around the process that went into them for the most part. The tough ones are when the excuse makes no sense at all, or is so surprising that you really have no response such as:

"We've decided to go a different direction"
"We don't believe in customer education anymore"
"We think that marketing is not helping our market share grow"
"Your boss offended our CEO's wife when he thought she was his mother instead of his wife"

But recently, I got one that really tops them all. It so far surpasses the others that I have heard that it merits sharing. A recent DCIG customer that was using our new Lead Generation product, for less than a month, called to tell us the following; "We just finished closing the 3rd piece of business as a result of your Lead Gen program, but we are cancelling the engagement because we don't think that it works very well."

I had to check my calendar to make sure that it was not April 1st. I was dumbfounded, speechless. I just could not find words to describe what I had just been told. Our services had uncovered new leads for these folks, created new selling opportunities for them, and led to 3 new deals worth tens of thousands of dollars of sales, and they were telling us that they did not think it worked very well.

Our monthly program cost was a mere fraction of the cost of one sale, and yet this program apparently did not create any value in this client's eye. The more humorous thing was that they were using cooperative marketing dollars from a manufacturer to fund this, so in the end, it was not costing them a dime!

Now, if I had a sales person come to me and say "Boss, those leads you got me have led to 3 new sales!" I would expect the next words from their mouth to be "GET ME MORE" or "THIS IS FANTASTIC", or "PINCH ME PLEASE I'VE NEVER HAD IT THIS GOOD BEFORE!". But if they came to me telling me that as a result of less than a month of effort that they have closed 3 new pieces of business and that it was their austere professional opinion that this program sucked and they want to discontinue it, I would FIRE THEM RIGHT THERE!

I am just baffled by the rationale of this customer, because our service admittedly uncovered NEW leads, people that they had never spoken to, heard of, or were engaged in a sales process before we made the introduction through our Lead Gen service. On top of uncovering NEW leads, we gave them leads that were people looking to make a buying decision....right away! AND BOUGHT FROM OUR CUSTOMER!

Now if you are not in sales, you may not fully appreciate the enormity of this. Finding people who want to buy right away is like finding a herd of talking unicorns milling around your back yard, looking for the opportunity to join a traveling side show. It is rare, but....clearly the service is inadequate, and should be cancelled.

We at DCIG strive to create high quality content, and now we strive to also create high quality leads through utilizing our content as a service. We would love to talk to you about providing this same service to you and hopefully create the same level of new opportunity for your that we did for our soon to be ex-client.

The Difference between a DCIG Buyer's Guide and an Analyst Research Report

2013-05-13T13:00:00Z

A question that I often get asked is, "Why does DCIG use the phrase 'Buyer's Guide' instead of 'Analyst Research Report' when it produces its listing, ranking and scoring of products?" More than one individual has said these Guides are more valuable and serve as a better starting point when it comes to helping them making a storage buying decision than most of the analyst research reports available on the market. So why not position the DCIG Buyer's Guides as Analyst Research Reports?

The rationale as to why DCIG positions this collateral as "Guides" rather than as "Reports" is a subtle but important distinction. DCIG defines an "Analyst Research Report" as a written work that does a deep dive into a specific subject matter or topic that helps an individual understand how a product operates at a deep technical level.

The DCIG Buyer's Guides serve a different purpose and are written from a different viewpoint. They provide buyers of a specific technology with a side-by-side listing, scoring and ranking of products in a specific market while also providing sufficient detail to enable buyers to, at a glance, quickly assess which products are most alike.

If anything, DCIG Buyer's Guides should be used prior to reading any analyst research report. A DCIG Buyer's Guide does the heavy lifting in terms of helping a buyer create a short list of 2-4 products that meet the specific needs of his or her environment. Once the buyer has created that short list, the buyer can access and download the specific analyst research reports about that product that they need make their final buying decision.

Buyer's Guides and Analyst Research Reports both serve important purposes when it comes to making a complicated technology buying decision. However as you view DCIG Buyer's Guides and other analyst research reports, DCIG recommends that you turn to a DCIG Buyer's Guide first to quickly create a short list of products and then leverage other available research reports to justify your final buying decision.

A Practical Solution to Today's Problem of Connecting IT Buyers to the Right Vendors at the Right Time

2013-02-14T11:00:00Z

The world of IT has changed. IT staff no longer necessarily spend weeks, days or even hours configuring and managing computer technology. Rather they spend most of their time simply researching and just figuring out what computer gear they are going to buy next because they are, for the most part, buying technologies and solutions that may cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions.

Making the situation worse, when they are in this exploration and research stage, much of the information they need is difficult to access and discern. While it may be available on the "web," it is rarely in a format that is easy to digest. Consider:

Websites and blogs rarely contain the level of in-depth information they need to move from product evaluation to product testing and buying.
Vendor sites may contain this product information but, in registering to view that information, results in unwanted sales calls form the vendor since users are not looking to buy, just educate themselves.
Analyst firms make this information available but you have to pay to access it and too often the information is not that much better than what is available on vendor websites.

Maybe the worst part of the current IT evaluation and procurement process is that IT staff spends a great deal of time (up to 80%) researching products and solutions to solve a narrow scope of business problems. It would be much more helpful if they could spend more time studying and learning the business, understand its specific technology needs and then quickly research ad identify products that most closely align with them.

However users are not the only ones frustrated by this process. So are vendors. The last thing they want to do is call on someone who is either not an influencer, not capable of making a buying decision, or someone who is "just looking." The way they make money is by selling products and solutions to those businesses that are actively looking to buy.

This is the big problem that both buyers and sellers in the business-to-business (B2B) space face today:

There is no effective way for businesses to quickly and efficiently communicate where they are in the buying process and in what products they are interested. Neither is there any means for vendors to connect with these buyers at the right time with the right products that match their needs when they are in the buying cycle.

Businesses/end-users and vendors alike need a better way to connect with each other at the right time as everyone's time is too valuable to waste looking for information that should be available at their fingertips. Businesses ideally only want to talk to vendors when they are ready for more specific research and/or information in anticipation of testing a product or making a buying decision. Vendors ideally only want to talk to businesses when the business is near making such a decision.

This is the exact problems that Abstrakt's Lead Generation programs using DCIG Buyer's Guides are designed to solve. Through its daily outreach efforts, Abstrakt regularly contacts IT managers, IT decision makers and system and storage architects, administrators and engineers to understand where they are at in the buying process and determine what technologies they are ready to purchase and when.

It is only after Abstrack understands their specific needs that Abstrakt puts into the hands of these individuals the right DCIG Buyer's Guide(s) free of charge. In this way they have the exact information they need at their fingertips to quickly make a thorough and informed buying decision about the exact technologies they want and need.

In exchange for providing these Buyer's Guides free of charge, Abstrakt only asks the individual to provide some basic contact information. This information is then shared with vendors who represent one or more products included in the Buyer's Guide.

The value of this approach is that the buyer is only being contacted by vendors who represent products that they are actually interested in after it has been established they are actually buyers of these products. Vendors also derive value from this approach since they are no longer calling people out of the blue with no clue as to what products they are interested in.

In short, businesses get the information about the technology they want when they want and need it. Vendors connect with businesses at the exact time that businesses are researchers and looking to buy so when they reach out and contact the business about their product, the business is receptive to their call since it is relevant to their current business process.

The bottom line is that vendors no longer waste their time calling on businesses that have no interest in buying or are contacting buyers who have no interest in either the products or services of what they are selling. Businesses also only get calls from vendors about products/technologies that they are actively looking to acquire.

In this scenario, both buyers and sellers save time and money. Businesses streamline their technology acquisitions with better information using the DCIG Buyer's Guides to first acquaint themselves with the products and help justify their buying decisions. Sellers shorten the selling process and reduce the time calling on people who are not receptive to their calls

So if you are a buyer/business, go to DCIGBuyersGuides.com to download the free Technology Buyer's Guide that you need on the technology topic that you are researching. DCIG has Buyer's Guides on many topics to include backup appliances, backup software, midrange arrays, unified storage and tape libraries to just name a few.

Conversely if you are a seller of these products, feel free to reach out to Abstrakt Marketing Group at 314.577.0342 and ask for Jason or Cole or email Abstrakt at info@abstraktmg.com to discuss how you can very quickly get in touch with real IT professionals who are making real buying decisions today so you can start to be part of the solution to today's B2B IT buying and selling process, not part of the problem.

Sandwich Artists - Not Exactly; Analyst Artists - Absolutely!

2013-02-12T16:00:00Z

After a very long meeting the other day, my stomach was beginning to digest itself so I decided to stop for something to eat. I could only find a sandwich shop so in a move much like going to the grocery store hungry, I said, "That looks great!" and went in.

I went to order and was greeted by Stephanie, who told me that she would be my "sandwich artist" today. I thanked her, ordered, and then began to ponder the meaning of what I was just told. I have never considered bread, cheese, and mustard mediums for art, but then again, I live in flyover country so really, "What do I know anyway?"

Is there a museum full of sandwich art? Are there sandwich art collections? Are there schools of distinct sandwich art? Would I be getting a realist sandwich or perhaps something more from the impressionist school? I know that as Stephanie slid my sandwich down the production line, that I was walking out if cubism reared its ugly head.

I drove home full, but confused, and began wondering if there was artistry in all levels of work; and decided that there may well be, and that DCIG certainly should have a claim to stake in the collateral and analysis world, so I introduce you to the artists at DCIG.

Our team of content artists takes their work seriously; we want to make sure that our art is highly collectible by a broad audience. We strive to paint in a school of thought that we would describe as "practical realism."

We do not paint in broad brush strokes, nor are we really interested in pointillism, free form, or impressionistic approaches to content. At DCIG we understand that our clients are really looking for work that will take that practical realistic approach to Data Center management and help the end reader/exhibit attendee understand what the artist really means.

We write in such a way that the questions that we feel need answers are asked, and answered in easy terms. We also ask questions that many may not think to ask, and spur greater understanding of the subject matter. Because our analysts are former end users and data center mangers, they are "master painters" when it comes to our content.

Our clients tell us that our content like Buyer's Guides, Case Studies, Executive White Papers/Blog's bring a high level of quality at excellent prices. We are not selling our stuff at one of those hotel "Starving Artist sales" but we are not selling stuff in a gallery with armed guards and Thomas Crown like art thieves lurking about. Simply put, our content generates solid leads, high traffic, clarity on an issue, and all in an understandable and graphically appealing product for very reasonable prices.

We strive to provide customers an entrée into the "analysis art world" that gives them value, that they are happy to use and display, and are easy to understand by the most novice art collector. I encourage you to browse the DCIG gallery, and look at some of the web sites of our collector's out there in the market.

And That's No Bull

2012-12-31T16:00:00Z

As 2012 comes to a close I have been looking back at the year's events and reflecting on things that I have done. From a new experience standpoint, it was chocked full of interesting things, but I want to highlight one here and help you the reader draw some corollaries, to business.

In July I had a once in a lifetime chance to do something that I have only seen on YouTube highlight videos of brave/stupid people with a penchant for livestock. I got a call from my friend Tom who said that the rodeo was in the city I live in and that he and some friends were going to play "Cowboy Poker" and that the promoter of the rodeo had requested that I play as I serve as the Mayor of our city.

The promoter said that if I agreed, it would guarantee good attendance and that I would have a good time, and that given it was campaign season, I would have an audience that would see that I was willing to face off against any competitor. After a few moments of silence, I heard myself say yes despite my brain telling it to say NO!

Now if you are unaware of the details on the game of Cowboy Poker, here is a quick primer. A handful of people get into the middle of a rodeo ring with a table, chairs, a deck of cards, bravado, and a giant freaking bull. The bull is prodded by the rodeo clowns to charge the table of people, who being mostly sane, bail out and run away from the bull at the last minute before being tossed around like a rag doll. Whoever is the last player to have their hand on the table wins. Simple game you say, right? Read on.

The next night, we arrived in our cowboy hats, and boots, and were talking smack to each other as to who would be the first out of the game, and who would win. Then we saw a bull rider get the stuffing knocked out of him by the bull he was riding...that changed things as we were told that his bull was way smaller than the one we were supposed to get into the ring with. Great, I am now fodder for a bull's anger management program. We enter the ring, and the following ensues....enjoy.

Did you notice that the tall Norwegian guy won? Yep, that was me....what did I learn from this experience you ask? Well other than I am an easy mark for a cheap adrenaline fix, I learned the importance of having a "NO BULL" mentality. I did not want the bull to touch me, and ultimately, unlike my friend John, I was successful in my "NO BULL" quest.

At DCIG, we also have a "NO BULL" approach to content. We create a wide array of content for clients that is followed and consumed by thousands of readers every month. Those readers, most of them end users, are looking for the unvarnished truth on products, and turn to us to help them get answers that other analyst firms are afraid to give. In our ground breaking Buyer's Guides, we actually point out that products are better than others and have a leg up on competitors. We are unafraid to say what the market actually bears out, and we are really quite proud of that.

Our clients tell us that our content actually creates opportunity for discussions with clients that are meaningful. The reason our content is able to do that is the NO BULL approach, we don't write in broad generalities, layer in obscure waffle words, and are willing to really say it like it is. We find that it is a refreshing approach that is seen in the market as a breath of fresh air.

As you head into 2013, think of the different pieces of content that you are going to contract from analyst firms, and realize that readers in the market place are wise to the often fertilizer laden content that is out in the market, and really just want a frank piece of content articulating why a product is better than others being shown to them. DCIG is able to take the bull by the horns for you and point your prospects in the right direction on your offering.

And that's NO BULL.

DCIG Webinar - Deep Dive into VM Backup Software Features

2012-11-29T14:30:00Z

Today DCIG will be doing a live webinar today (Thursday, November 29) that analyzes key differences among leading virtual machine backup solutions. The webinar starts at 11 am ET and you may register for the webinar at this link. If you miss the webinar, I will update this blog entry and provide the link as to where you may watch it once the recorded webinar is available for viewing.

Here is an overview of what I will be covering in the webinar:

The Growing Similarities in VM Backup Software
VM Backup Software Differentiators

Deduplication
Hardware and Software Costs
Multi-hypervisor Support
Recovery and Replication
Virtual Backup Appliances (VBAs)

Recommendations
Final Thoughts

A Storage Buying Decision Brings Over 20,000 Factors into Play

2012-10-26T17:00:00Z

Recently DCIG did a webex of its Midrange Array module in its Interactive Buyer's Guide (IBG). During this webex, I showed how one could quickly sort through multiple products and features to create customized views of the data. Then once the desired view was created the user could generate an analyst-branded report in PDF format of this view.

But as we went through the demonstration, someone questioned the validity of one of the data points in the IBG. This individual was "positive" that a certain midrange array model did not support RAID 3. That assessment prompted them to question the accuracy of the IBG as a whole.

At that point, I took a few minutes to explain just how comprehensive just the Midrange Array module within the DCIG IBG is. That module alone has over 20,000 checkmarks and/or X's for the 50+ products and 400+ features evaluated on each product with vendors having been given the opportunity to review the accuracy of the data. That said, it was possible an error still crept in.

Yet that 20,000 number struck me. This is why storage buying decisions are so complicated, time-consuming and often stressful for organizations to make. Many want to be conscientious and thoroughly research the storage systems they are buying. However time constraints and the amount of the information they need to research and digest precludes them from ever doing so.

The DCIG IBG eliminates that time and effort as it shrinks the amount of time they need to do their initial information gathering from days, weeks or months to literally minutes. Using the IBG, storage research now becomes a point and click operation.

In regards to that alleged inaccuracy in the IBG, the individual spoke up about five minutes later and apologized. A quick search on Google revealed that the RAID 3 feature in question was indeed supported by the vendor. It was simply not a configuration that the vendor "recommended" using. This oversight highlighted why using third party, up-to-date research is a better method than relying on one's memory for specific product information but that is a subject for another day.

DCIG and IT Central Station Bridge the "Product Short List - User Opinion" Gulf

2012-09-20T19:00:00Z

A couple of months ago I got an alert that Russell Rothstein, the CEO of IT Central Station, had started to follow my personal Twitter feed. Not knowing either who he was or what IT Central Station represented, I checked out his profile and IT Central Station's website. Intrigued, I reached out to him personally. That series of events led DCIG and IT Central Station to form a collaborative working relationship so that we may collectively help users make more informed technology buying decisions.

Do any of these statements sound familiar?

All of the storage vendors sound the same.
Your competitor claims to offer all of the same features you just mentioned.
How do I know what you are selling is really special?

If you work for a storage vendor you hear these words every day from your prospects. If you are an IT professional researching storage solutions you have probably said them yourself. It's no surprise - the storage market is a highly competitive market with dozens of vendors offering multiple solutions.

This difficulty stems from the inability of people to differentiate among the plethora of storage vendors and products available. Further, when they try to do their own research, they cannot put 100% trust in the white papers, presentations, and case studies they read because they are often prepared or sponsored by the storage vendor as they only highlight the benefits their technology offers while failing to mention the new challenges they create.

Using these resources they cannot fully document the benefits and risks associated with the acquisition of a technology nor they determine which vendors are best suited to their particular needs and use cases. What IT buyers really want is:

An informed opinion from other real users (not just the "showcase customers")
Direct access to others who have already gone through the selection process
An easy way to create a vendor short list

To address these challenges that every organization faces, DCIG and IT Central Station have partnered to offer the resources that companies need to make better buying decisions. To help users connect and share information, opinions and thoughts, there is a new B2B social networking site for tech professionals called IT Central Station that enables them to research and share information about storage and other IT products and services. Then to help users identify what products are available and what features are supported on each one, DCIG offers both its static and Interactive Buyer's Guides (IBG) so organizations may quickly and objectively create a vendor short list.

The buying process for enterprise IT products has changed dramatically, with technology buyers doing much more research about products over the web, and creating a vendor short list, before they even start talking to vendors. According to Forrester Research tech buyers are using web and community resources to complete nearly 70% of their buying journey before they ever engage with a sales resource.

The most valuable online resource for technology buyers is to have access both to the experience and opinions of other real users in order and third party information to get relevant information about the products they need. Together this minimize the time they need to find the products they want and need and get access to other individuals who can help them make a better decisions on how best to proceed.

If you work for a storage vendor, you can either choose to be a part of this 70% of the buying journey, or risk getting left out of the party. Successful vendors recognize that user review sites can provide a trusted third-party source for customer testimonials and position themselves as top rated among their competition.

The easiest way to get more reviews is to invite happy customers to post their own anonymous reviews. This can be done by sending an email to your customers, including a link to the review site in your customer newsletter, or encouraging prospects to review your company and product as part of their evaluation process. Many of your customers will write reviews anyway, so you might as well invite them an increase your chances for a better review!

If you already a user of a storage solution, you can use a review site to speak out freely in a private and anonymous environment. You can evangelize products, provide suggestions for improvements, share war stories, or show your thought leadership, all while preserving your privacy since no personally identifiable information is made public.

If you work in IT and are evaluating storage solutions, the value of using DCIG's resources coupled with a site that contains storage reviews is obvious. Together they provide an easy way to create vendor short lists that are complemented by informed, insightful opinions from other real users, and direct access to others who have already gone through the selection process.

If you are not already subscribing to DCIG's IBG or a member of IT Central Station's user community, you may register to access the DCIG IBG for free for 30 days by following this link and going to IT Central Station's website to register to become a member.

IT Central Station's CEO Russell Rothstein of contributed to this blog entry.

DCIG 2012 Backup Appliance Buyer's Guide Press Release

2012-09-05T13:15:00Z

Growing Complexity of IT Infrastructures Highlight Value of Dedicated Backup Appliances to Handle Key Data Protection Functions

Note: This is the text of the press release as published on the morning of Sept. 5, 2012, announcing the availability of the DCIG 2012 Backup Appliance Buyer's Guide. To read the press release in its entirety, please follow this link.

As the move to consolidate and virtualize IT infrastructures continues, the anticipated benefit that "less" promises is not always the case. In fact, as DCIG research continues to uncover, the need for solutions like dedicated appliances to offload growing complexities is increasing. That is true, especially with dedicated appliances for critical data protection processes, and in particular, to help with backup. Backup appliances that combine server and storage hardware with backup software continue to appeal to organizations as cost-efficient, "set and forget" solutions.

As noted in DCIG's inaugural 2012 Backup Appliance Buyer's Guide, as organizations look to reap the benefits of consolidation and virtualization, data protection continues to be one of the most difficult aspects to manage. Fewer organizations rely solely on dedicated IT support for backup, and IT staff is being asked to add backup to the myriad of additional applications they currently handle.

"It really is a Catch-22. In order to recognize the benefits that key consolidation and virtualization hold, you don't want to increase costs in other areas to offset those benefits," said Jerome Wendt, Principal and Lead Analyst, DCIG, LLC. "The results in our latest Buyer's Guide really bear that out, and purpose built backup appliances have a lot to offer. As with all of our Buyer's Guides, we provide detailed and extensive objective analysis of commercially available solutions within a particular technology category. The research speaks for itself, and I know these results will help end users shortlist the right solution for their data protection and backup needs."

DCIG Buyer's Guides are designed to help in the identification of appropriate solutions and be used as an aid in coming up with a list of competitive products that have comparable features that may meet an end users' specific needs. DCIG firmly believes that end users supplement the selection of a Buyer's Guide product with in-house testing to ensure a solution best meets an IT organization's particular business processes.

For the DCIG 2012 Backup Appliance Buyer's Guide, DCIG looked at more than 80 key features of more than 60 Backup Software products from more than 13 of the leading Backup software products providers, and then created a survey, which was shared with each provider included in the Buyer's Guide. To ensure the information provided in the Buyer's Guide was accurate and up-to-date, DCIG provided each vendor with a copy of their respective data sheets without the scores or rankings to validate what features their backup solution supported.

After the surveys and data sheets were completed and returned, each vendor's responses and updates were checked against publicly available data. Features were then weighted, scored and ranked either "Enterprise," "Recommended," "Excellent," "Good," and "Basic." The features were then compiled into individual product data sheets that reflect how each product supports these features.

"What makes backup appliances so attractive is many utilize a number of key storage technologies, with a growing number of them natively supporting deduplication, server virtualization and cloud connectivity," added Wendt. "Additionally, the backup appliances that DCIG researched have little to no dependencies on any pre-existing backup and recovery processes. This makes them extremely attractive for IT staff as there is no need for any other backup software or hardware to make them work."

For inclusion in the DCIG 2012 Backup Appliance Buyer's Guide, each solution must have met the following criteria:

Be available as a physical appliance that includes backup software as a combined bundle under one SKU (Stock-keeping Unit)
Be able to store data on premise on Direct-attached Storage (DAS), Network-attached Storage (NAS) or Storage Area Network (SAN)-attached storage
Have sufficient information available to DCIG to make meaningful decisions
Be available and shipping as of July 1, 2012

The DCIG 2012 Backup Appliance ten products include (in alphabetical order): RackTop EBR-FE, Symantec NetBackup 5220 Backup Appliance, Symantec Backup Exec 3600 Appliance, STORServer Enterprise Backup Appliance 800, 1100, 2100 and 3100, and Unitrends Recovery-822, 823 and 833.

Of the evaluated Backup Appliance products, DCIG introduced a new ranking of "Enterprise" in addition to its usually high mark of "Recommended," to highlight how one product clearly stood out above and beyond other competitive offerings. STORServer EBA 3100 achieved the mark of Enterprise by distinguishing itself from other models. Products also noted as Recommended include: Symantec NetBackup 5220 Backup Appliance, STORServer EBA 2100, 1100 and 800. Highlights of the "Enterprise" ranking included:

Support for Active-Active controllers
Large amounts of storage capacity
Broadest choice of networking interfaces
Highest levels of redundancy

"To garner four of the top five positions in such a prestigious analysis of backup appliances on the market today stands as the highest compliment of our efforts in providing best-in-class appliances," said John Pearring, manager of sales and marketing for STORServer. "We are thrilled by the conclusions of DCIG's comprehensive study."

Disclosure and Methodology
DCIG identified 20 plus companies that provide Backup Appliance products. Each provider was given the opportunity to complete a survey that examined how its solution delivered on the inclusion criteria. In every case every vendor had the opportunity to review and respond to the survey and the information regarding their product displayed on the data sheets included in this Buyer's Guide.

DCIG also spoke to a number of end-users to get a sense of how they would weight their needs in various areas. DCIG then evaluated the vendors' capabilities by applying weighting indicated from our conversations with these end-users. No vendors, whether clients or not, were afforded preferential treatment in the Buyer's Guide. All research was based upon information provided directly by vendors, research and analysis by DCIG and other publicly available information.

Availability
The DCIG 2012 Backup Appliance Buyer's Guide is available immediately and may be downloaded for no charge with registration at the following link:
http://backupapplianceguide.com

Resources:

DCIG Blog: http://www.dcig.com

Life is Too Short

2012-06-18T19:00:00Z

I lost a friend to sudden death in the last number of weeks and it has caused me to be introspective about life, work, the future, and why we seem to do the things we do to make a living. Years ago, I made a decision that I want to share with you it's this; that if you hate what you are doing, or have a dream that you want to pursue but are afraid to do it, stop now and chase that dream because you are not getting any younger.

Now I'm not advocating that you walk away from a good job you actually enjoy in search of satisfaction by selling Pizza in a Cup, and I would generally discourage you from joining the circus, and I'm not pitching you on dropping it all to head to NFL tryouts in August. Because the truth be told, you were not THAT good of a player in High School, and there are not many chances for 40 something people to break into the pros.

What I do want you to think about is this, "Do you REALLY like what you are doing?" Do you wake up Monday morning knowing the frustrations of the week will be worth it? I do, and I want to share a little about why I do, and give you a glimpse into what we at DCIG think about jobs, work, and why we "do what we do."

To start off I will give you my story of the search for job satisfaction. I did the whole chase the paycheck game in sales before job hopping every few years growing my resume and trying to swell my checkbook.

I flew all over the country to meetings, corporate strategy summits, went on sales calls with my sales staff, took people out to Broadway Shows, baseball games, golfing, even a curling match once, and generally traveled anywhere required to close a deal. The following Monday, I got up grudgingly and did it all again not really sure if I was satisfied in doing that job but doing it because I thought it was what I was supposed to be doing.

I think that I just thought people expected it of me. Earn a ton of dough, and people will respect you. Wear expensive clothes, talk about how busy you are, and people will want to be like you. Know how to navigate every airport from memory, reach diamond status on an airline, and learn how to hail a cab in 20 languages and certainly you will be elevated to "Rock Star" status by your kids and neighbors.

Wrong! Nobody cares really. Your kids want you home. Your spouse would like to wake up next to you not an empty half of the bed. Your neighbors might actually like you if they get a chance to know you if you are home. I learned that lesson once I got some perspective on why we "do" for work what we "do".

I used to run sales divisions for some big companies, with big and lofty goals each year, and increasing pressure every month end, quarter end, and year end, and I have to say that honestly...it sucked! I don't mind pressure, in fact, I sort of like it, but the pressure they created was unhealthy and not worth the effort and not worth the" gigantic" paycheck really.

I realized one afternoon on a lake with one of my 6 kids that my job is to instill into them a sense of faith and values, a solid of work ethic, a drive to succeed, but never at the expense of the people who I am working to provide for. So, I took a step back, and made some changes.

Now I can tell you that I love what I do here at DCIG, I love talking to you about bringing value to your organization, helping position your company through our analysis into a more viable market leader, delivering fantastic products, all from my basement office.

I get to hear my kids upstairs during the day. I get to have lunch with them and see them when they deliver the mail. I get to wander upstairs and see my wife anytime I want, all while "working."

In taking a step back, I also found that I had time to pursue a lifelong dream of running for elected office, and now I am the Mayor of the city I live in after having also run for and winning a City Council race. I get to leave during the day to read to 3rd graders, go on field trips, attend meetings with citizens, cook dinner for my family, run an errand for my wife, fish on the spur of the moment, and I think that is just about the best thing a guy could ask for.

I may have missed all of this if I had continued to climb the ladder to the point where I was an old man who missed out on his life or worse yet, died suddenly like my friend. Because here is another piece of truth for you....we have no idea when our time is up. You could die tomorrow, or in 50 years you have no idea, so you may as well enjoy what you are doing while you are here.

All of us at DCIG do what we do having learned that the corporate world is great, and the "right place" for many, but I am happier here and wake up looking forward to being productive and valuable but without the drama.

I was talking to Jerome Wendt our President one day about this very thing, and he echoed the same thought, we enjoy what we do, work out tails off for our clients, and then go have fun with our families, friends, and get up the next day ready to do it again...with a smile on our faces.

I encourage you with the admonition to ask yourself are you doing what you really love. Will you wake up Monday looking forward to the day? Will you look back 20 years from now kicking yourself for not trying to start your own company, invent the next "great thing", run for office, or just chase a dream? Life is short, we are just a vapor here for a little while and then disappear quickly, make the most of your time.

Take a look at this short film, this guy went to school to be a writer, and wound up making high end knives....Joel Bukiewicz chased his dream, and became satisfied I think. I appreciated his story, and hope you do too. He enjoys what he does, works hard, but has found what he enjoys and that is a great message.

I spoke to my friend Chris just a day or so before he died, he was sort of a political mentor to me, and I was weighed down over a pending decision. He told me "Jim, you have to enjoy what you are doing or the machine will eat you up! Don't stress out, have fun!", he was so right. Thank you Chris!

DCIG Delivers Analyst Services that Beat the Competition

2012-05-02T17:00:00Z

In the last few weeks and months DCIG has been doing some introspection as it looks to quantify what it does well. As we have done so, we have talked internally as well as with folks external to DCIG who are sources we trust and who give us candid feedback about what we do and how we can do it better. During this period of time we have found room for improvement but we have also found that of the analyst services DCIG does deliver, it performs them in a manner than it most cases beats the competition.

DCIG's first distinctive offering was its outsourced blogging services introduced in 2007. While a few (very few) analyst firms offer outsourced blogging services, this is still in an area where people tell us that DCIG wins hands down over the competition for the four following reasons:

Quality of content. We maintain a very high quality of writing with almost every piece citing some third party reference and, many times, two or more external pieces of content. In addition, as DCIG does more Buyer's Guides, it has access to more original statistical research as to how different products stack up and which products lead in their respective categories.

Delivery of blogging content. DCIG is the only one that gives each subscribing member to have its own micro-site within DCIG's blogging site. Content is then prepared for that subscriber and posted to its micro-site. The value of this is three-fold.

First, all blog content from each DCIG member is aggregated and displayed on DCIG's frequently visited front page resulting in higher visibility for that content.

Second, each micro-site has its own RSS feed that people may subscribe to via blog readers or rapidly growing iPad apps such as Flipboard.

Third, DCIG's clients may stream content directly from their DCIG micro-site to their own website so they regularly and automatically have fresh content display on their own site.

Transparency. DCIG openly discloses which content it prepares for its clients and which it prepares on its accord to better help readers understand the perspective from which the blog entry was written

Multi-purpose. DCIG prepares every blog entry with the idea that the entry will be referenced frequently over time and may eventually be turned into an Executive White Papers (EWPs). This gives companies who subscribe to DCIG's blogging services the initial value and exposure that they derive from the blog entry. They then receive longer term value from the content in the blog entry by having it formally laid out and repurposed as an executive white paper that is laid out in PDF format and may be used for educational, sales and marketing support.

DCIG's other distinctive offering is its DCIG Buyer's Guide that was DCIG's second notable offering and most successful to date. Since the first DCIG 2010 Midrange Array Buyer's Guide was released, DCIG Buyer's Guides have literally become game-changers in how companies make technology buying decisions.

Three specific items make it unique:

First, no vendor pays to sponsor these Buyer's Guides or to be included in them. Instead all research is independently done by DCIG and only after DCIG completes the research is a Buyer's Guide licensed to an interested party.

Second, DCIG covers all vendors that offer a product in a particular space - sometimes even when they do not respond to the survey that DCIG sends out. However these vendors are only covered assuming DCIG can find sufficient information to reliably complete the survey on their behalf and, even then, DCIG gives them the opportunity to review DCIG's findings and respond to them.

Finally, DCIG ranks and scores the products in the Buyer's Guide using a proven statistical model. Using these scores and rankings users can more easily make apples-to-apples comparisons between similar products.

In looking at the more traditional analyst services that DCIG offers such as its white papers and case studies and comparing them to other analyst firms, we again find that our products are very competitive and arguably better than what others offer. The three most commonly cited reasons that we have heard as to why our clients prefer DCIG over the competition are:

Good value for the money. Our clients tell us that the quality of the content that DCIG delivers is excellent relative to what we charge for them and compares very favorably to what other analyst firms charge for similar services.

Professional layout. Our clients rave about how great DCIG's white papers, case studies and executive white papers look. While they love the content, the appearance of these papers just makes them "pop" making them an immediate hit with their current and prospective customers.

Done right the first time. As DCIG works with its clients to produce various works, they are always pleased that the quality of the work of the first draft at it is almost always right on the money. While there is usually always some editing that has to occur, complete re-writes are few and far between facilitating a faster time to market for each piece of collateral.

Finally, when we looked at where we are leading in the analyst space, DCIG's new Interactive Buyer's Guide (IBG) is setting DCIG apart in ways that other analyst firms will be hard-pressed to follow. This cloud-based research-as-a-service offering has people simply blown away by its power, simplicity and ease-of-use as it gives them point-and-click access to research that used to take them days, weeks or months to create on their own and which no other analyst firm has any type of competitive offering. Further, using the IBG, companies can in 5 minutes or less create a highly credible, citable and professional looking PDF that compares up to five (5) products under evaluation.

At this point, we have every reason to believe this product will be more than highly successful; it will be a game changer. What specifically makes it so notable is that the DCIG IBG transforms DCIG into a software company. Using the original research that DCIG did to prepare its static Buyer's Guides, this research is converted into information that is relevant and within a specific business context without overwhelming an individual with too much information or data.

A period of introspection is always helpful. While it is sometimes painful and a little disheartening to see some shortcomings, it can also be uplifting and encouraging to see where one is doing well. In DCIG's case, we found our list of positives far outweigh our negatives making us very pleased with what we have accomplished to date and even more excited about what the next few years promise to bring to those who take advantage of our services.

DCIG Slashes IT Product Selection Risks and Time First Interactive Buyer's Guide for Storage and eDiscovery Buyers

2012-04-02T12:00:00Z

Online Resource Provides On-Demand Competitive Comparisons Between Storage Products

AUSTIN, TX - April 2, 2012, DCIG, the first industry analyst firm to engage the world with transparency of business and social tools, today unveiled the Interactive Buyer's Guide (IBG) (http://www.dcig.com/ibg), providing the industry's first research-as-a-service for instant product insight. The on-demand service allows for line-by-line product breakdowns, enabling IT professionals to reduce the time spent identifying, collecting, sorting, filtering and rating business-to-business storage software and hardware products for consideration.

Tweet This: DCIG Launches First Interactive Buyer's Guide for Buyers and Providers of IT Storage Products - (http://www.dcig.com/ibg).

IT professionals today spend weeks or months collecting quantitative data about competitive products being considered to support IT requirements and solve business challenges. The volume of products and the process of review undertaken to analyze and determine the best selection limits an organization's ability to focus on important operational activities. Additionally, manual approaches to product analysis typically suffer because data becomes aged by several months before the actual selection process begins. With the introduction of the DCIG Interactive Buyer's Guide, the process of vetting and selecting the optimal solution can be completed in minutes, providing objective, normalized and visually impactful analysis.

The IBG research-as-a-service (http://www.dcig.com/raas) delivered by DCIG performs apples-to-apples comparisons of competitive products along with analyst rankings for an unbiased review of the best available products based on site requirements. The Interactive Buyer's Guide is updated regularly to provide timely purchasing, competitive and sales research presented in an easy-to-use impactful format. Additionally, an innovative social networking feature allows users within the same company to safely share comments about products they are evaluating, competing with or purchased within an interface that contains regularly updated comparisons.

Features of the DCIG Interactive Buyer's Guide include:

Buyer and Seller Assessment (http://ibg.dcig.com/assessment) - DCIG's unique data visualization interface allows anyone with basic computer skills to view, sort, filter, compare and print DCIG branded market data, returning weeks or months of staff time that would be spent researching new products.

Multi-tenant social networking (http://ibg.dcig.com/social) - The IBG features include a built-in commenting system so that users working at the same company can leave comments about the product for their colleagues.

Build-a-Brief™ (http://ibg.dcig.com/brief) - Printable branded product comparisons highlighting shortlisted product comparisons for use in procurement, competitive evaluation and sales engagements

Online Survey System (http://www.dcig.com/survey) - Web-based terminal designed to collect and present information in a normalized and visually usable format.

Authoritative Third-Party Validation - Objective ranking and analysis needed to support the vendor/product selection process.

Many challenges confront IT managers with respect to hardware and software selection. Chief among them is the time required to identify, sort and rank the best products for the intended IT environment. DCIG's Interactive Buyer's Guide greatly reduces the resources required to conduct a thorough product review. The apples-to-apples comparison of all surveyed products as well as an independent analyst rating of each product from an end user's view point is invaluable for buyers involved in product acquisitions, speeding time to deployment and limiting risk.

"People do not want information gatekeepers," said Robert Woolery, Vice President, Product Management and Marketing, Condusiv Technologies. "The DCIG Interactive Buyer's Guide removes the barriers to comparative product insight, providing a collaborative presentation that features an innovative social networking interface with very useful filtering and decision enhancing data. This is what the web and social media have been about and DCIG nails it with their interactive portal of comprehensive product analysis."

"Using the IBG, organizations for the first time have at their fingertips access to a compelling resource that delivers real world information in a format that is easily understood and actionable," said Jerome Wendt, Lead Analyst and Founder, DCIG. "Now available, the IBG levels the playing field with vendors by putting users in the driver's seat of research preparation using DCIG's view, filter and print research-as a-service model."

Pricing and Availability

The DCIG Interactive Buyer's Guide is available immediately, providing data on midrange arrays,
small enterprise storage arrays and early case assessment software. Upcoming Buyer's Guides include Purpose Built Backup Appliances, Enterprise Cloud Storage and eDiscovery Review Software. Pricing starts at only $5,000 per seat for end-users, IT resellers and technology vendors.

Resources:

Download the DCIG Interactive Buyer's Guide data sheet (http://ibg.dcig.com/datasheet)
View the DCIG corporate video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNNrQ50YydY)

About DCIG

DCIG analyzes software, hardware and services companies within the enterprise data storage and electronically stored information (ESI) industries and provides informed, insightful third party analysis and commentary. As industry experts, DCIG independently develops and licenses access to DCIG Buyer's Guides and the Interactive Buyer's Guide to C-level executives, IT managers, systems and storage engineers and architects, storage vendors and cloud service providers. DCIG Buyer's Guides provide comprehensive, in-depth analysis and recommendations of products available for purchase in the various enterprise data storage and ESI spaces. To learn more, contact DCIG at 402-884-9594, sales@dcig.com or visit www.dcig.com.

###

Contact:
Jim Nash
VP, Business Development
DCIG
(952) 807-6416
jim.nash@dcig.com

One Hit Wonders

2012-03-29T12:00:00Z

Recently, I joined the ranks of the iPad owners and have been discovering the myriad of apps available to me to use/goof off with/waste time with. What I have found has been pleasing for the most part, and while I am not likely to become a Ninja Fruits aficionado, or break onto the Angry Birds Pro Tour one of my favorite apps is Pandora Radio. I love music and have it on almost constantly.

I have it running on my iPad each day as I work and have a rather large and disparate selection of music. Anything from the 80's Alternative station, to Psychobilly hits, Classical, to Blues legends and more ephemeral oddities.

The other day while listening to a "quick mix" I was assaulted for some reason with a string of "one hit wonders". It was amazing to see what rolled across the screen to haunt me with their singularly odd hits.

I got, Gary Numan "Cars", Chumbawumba "Tubthumping", and one of my favorites (seriously) Wall of Voodoo "Mexican Radio". I was on a one hit wonder roll and like an accident on the side of the road; it was hard to turn away from it.

Gratefully, the phone rang, I muted the iPad...and moved on. But when I read an article recently on the fleeting nature of most blogging activities and how there are literally thousands of orphaned blogs out there it made me think that maybe the one hit wonder radio station was here to give me inspiration for my monthly blog.

The article pointed out that many people start blogging or writing with the best of intentions, and might even have a good flow of content for months. But inevitably, something intervenes and they get distracted, lose interest, get writers block, close their doors as a business, are re-tasked to a new project, or just give up. What they fail to realize is that they have likely gained followers, and have generated interest in their business out in the ether and now they are just walking away in a Garbo like silence.

The purpose of a business blog is to promote and educate the reader, to create some buzz and get people in your industry to talk about you and your products. If you are a "one hit wonder" and are gone from the blogosphere before you even garner a faithful following, you are doing yourself a disservice.

The one hit wonder ending to your blogging efforts sometimes signals to readers that your company is unstable, or not committed to the educational process. This is damaging to your public image and I strongly suggest that you come up with a better plan.

At DCIG, we blog for many of our clients, and become one of their most valuable assets in that we are dedicated to creating solid analysis and publish that analysis in the form of blogs, executive white papers, case studies, full length white papers, and Buyer's Guides. But we are not "one hit wonder" one and done type writers.

We are dedicated to this and encourage you to look at your own blogging activity....I have. And for some of you I would say that you are quickly relegating yourself to the status of Gary Numan...a vague memory of something that briefly caught someone's attention and then they left you behind.

If you are really looking for continuity, if you want to be a multi platinum hit producer of the blogging world, give me a call and I will help you get your company back on track.

Vital Support Systems Has a Gift Waiting for IT Server and Storage Administrators in the Midwest

2012-02-27T14:00:00Z

One of the toughest tasks facing server and storage administrators is making a storage buying decision. Not only are there multiple storage vendors in the market, each vendor offers two, three or even more storage arrays so it can seem like an overwhelming task to sort through these products and then make an informed buying decision. Today, Vital Support Systems is making a set of resources available for free download to help you in this task and, if they act quickly and qualify, you may receive a free gift as well.

Beginning today, Vital Support Systems is making a bundle of five (5) DCIG's Storage Buyer's Guides available for free download with registration to qualified users anywhere in the US.
This bundle of Buyer's Guides includes:

DCIG 2010 Midrange Array Buyer's Guide
DCIG 2011 Small Enterprise Storage Array Buyer's Guide
DCIG 2011 Midrange Array Snapshot Software Buyer's Guide
DCIG 2011 Enterprise Scale-out Storage Buyer's Guide
DCIG 2012 Midrange Array Buyer's Guide

However, IT server and storage administrators who live in the Midwest may qualify to receive a free journal book as well - shipped to you at no charge and with no further obligation.

Only the first 100 qualified users who reside in the following areas and provide all requested information are eligible for this free gift:

Iowa residents
Nebraska residents in Omaha & Lincoln
Kansas residents in Topeka, Manhattan, Wichita and Kansas City
Residents in Rockford IL
Missouri residents in the Kansas City metro area, St Louis metro areas and Columbia
Residents in Sioux Falls, SD
Residents in Madison, WI

Further, 1 in 10 qualified registrants will also receive a free $25 Starbuck gift card in addition to the free journal book so there is no time like the present to sign up!

Those of you who live near one of these states or regions in the Midwest and are unsure if you would qualify for the free journal book, I encourage you to go ahead and register anyway. Minimally you will receive one or more DCIG's Buyer's Guides with information that you need to do your job anyway. In a best case scenario, you may even receive a free journal book and a $25 Starbucks gift card.

Please note! This offer is currently only available to the first 100 qualified users who register. After that, it will be withdrawn. While we hope to offer it again in both in the Midwest and extend it to other areas of the United States, DCIG makes no guarantees this will be the case. So I encourage you to act now and register for these free Buyer's Guides that are being offered to you courtesy of Vital Support Systems and to take advantage of the extra gift that Vital is providing just for registering.

Download FREE DCIG Buyer's Guides and REGISTER for Free Gift

A Self-Inflicted Haircut

2012-02-24T17:45:00Z

America is a nation of Do it Yourselfers like no other that I can think of. All you need to prove that is to watch a few hours of television and you will see commercials for stores like Home Depot, Lowes, and Ace Hardware, who can outfit the household handy person with the right tools, knowledge, and bravery to tackle almost any project.

Do it Yourselfers (DIY'rs) are scampering around our neighborhoods undertaking household projects like:

Constructing decks
Kitchen additions
Bathroom remodels
Drawbridges
Painting
Carpeting
Tiling and so on.

Some of these projects will eventually get done on time, look right and last for longer than the dramatic unveiling to spouse and kids. But many of them will be delayed due to unforeseen problems, wrong materials, broken water lines, distractions, tirades laced with curse words, beer breaks, and the DIY'er defending themselves to spouses as being "able to do this stuff".

A good number of those people will call in a professional to get them the outcome they needed, at a higher quality level, and for likely less money in the long run.

A perfect non construction example of DIY gone awry is a CEO from a former place of employment who was so cheap that he refused to go to a proper barber or hair salon to get his hair cut.

He had been up late watching television one night and, you guessed it, he bought a Flowbee. He was so proud of his purchase and was convinced that he was going to save himself thousands of dollars over time and still look fantastic with his self inflicted hair cut as this was the idealistic picture he saw portrayed on the Flowbee website.

A week or so passes and I come into the office and attend the Monday morning Senior Staff meeting. I walk into the board room and there he sits in a suit, tie, and a baseball cap. Knowing that he did not like baseball I asked him about his hat and he told me to do things to myself that were physically impossible and that if I mentioned the word "Flowbee" I could just pack my box right then and there and get out.

I asked him "How bad could it really be?" He said "Bad...really, really bad Jim." Trying to be an encourager and living up to my optimist point of view, I convinced him that it certainly could not be that bad and that I would keep it a secret if he showed me and in return I would give him an objective assessment of his hair cut.

We were the only ones in the room at the time and we had 10 minutes or so before we were supposed to start so he slowly removed the hat from his head and looked at me; he was right, it was really bad, in fact it was beyond bad, so much so that he needed a hair intervention of the highest order (and this picture does not entirely do it justice.)

A fact that was confirmed when the President of the company walked in uncharacteristically early to the meeting and asked "WTF happened to you?" The moral of this story is this: The "Do it Yourself" approach does not always produce the desired outcome, in fact it can often be disastrous.

I say the same things to many of our prospects and clients who are convinced that they are able to do things like Case Studies, White Papers, and even blogging on their own. I will concede that clients certainly have some of the technical knowledge to include in things like White Papers, or that they have the ability to blog or write a case study that is adequate.

But here is the case that I always make that nobody has successfully refuted to date; "Are your clients likely going to be convinced with 'adequate information'?" or "Are they looking for something that has professionalism splattered all over it?"

I have NEVER signed a large contract with a vendor with a feeling that "these guys are adequate, so sure, let's spend thousands of dollars with the adequate company!" Beyond that obvious point I like to share with them the fact that I have seen many a well intended CEO, COO, CTO start projects like blogs, white papers, and case studies and either get distracted, have unforeseen problems (think grammar, and style), or simply run out of time in their day to complete a very important tactical task.

In doing so, they will accomplish the tactical task, but give up on the strategic value of creating good content and simply drag out writing projects until they slip off the radar screen of important things.

At DCIG we take our craft very seriously and deliver a high quality product to our clients that is well written, graphically appealing, written in a compelling manner, and completed in a short amount of time by one of our team of analysts that is an industry expert. Our writing staff has the additional benefit of industry perspective that we bring to bear when writing for clients.

We will and have frequently helped in reprioritizing clients' efforts to include things that they need to be competitive in the market, helped them see opportunities or markets that they were not competing in that they should be, or simply helping them put their best corporate foot forward with a well done piece of content.

Like the home project DIY'r looking at a pile of raw materials and tools that they just bought, many companies start off with the best of intentions on projects like Case Studies, Blogs, and White Papers only to find that they are not terribly handy with the written word, and can't create a compound sentence to save their life and as a result they give up.

Giving up on content creation is a guaranteed pathway to tick off the marketing group, and kill the customer education process, which is why engaging DCIG to create content for you is a lot like hiring a good home builder, or architect, or hair stylist...because the DIY approach is, slow, frustrating, and reveals many inadequacies of the person doing the work and what you really needed was a real professional so that your content is relevant and valuable.

The CEO meets Flowbee story I told you about is the image I want to leave you with, he was convinced that he was saving money by doing it himself and wound up looking horrible... if you want to portray a good image for your company, don't cheap out and wind up wearing a hat for a month, Hire a professional!

An Informative Blog is the First of Many Secrets to Making BUSINESS Blogging Work for You

2012-02-07T22:36:35Z

DCIG just celebrated its 4th anniversary of doing outsourced BUSINESS blogging for companies in the high tech space. But where many others have tried and failed at this initiative, DCIG has succeeded by, over the years, unlocking some of the secrets that make it a win-win scenario for both DCIG and its clients. Today I reveal the first of those secrets behind BUSINESS blogging.

When DCIG formally started offering outsourced blogging services in 2008, a number of other analysts and individuals were also doing the same thing. Now, nearly four years later, there is only one other individual/company that I aware of that is doing it at the same scope and level as DCIG. Even then, I do not think that company offers nearly as many options as to what they can do with its blogging services as what DCIG offers.

Regardless, what has occurred in the last four years with blogging itself has been nothing short of amazing. While blogging was certainly not "new" when DCIG started it in 2008, it certainly was neither "accepted" nor the "norm." It certainly was not where people tended to go to first look for information about new products or services.

Now in 2012, blogging is more mainstream and arguably more relevant than the news you get from most "traditional" websites. Frankly, when I now do searches for information, I am more likely to find the information on the sites of other bloggers than through traditional media outlets. In fact, sometimes when I am doing a search on Google for information, I find what I need on DCIG's own site as I or some other DCIG analyst covered the topic at some point in the past and I have already forgotten about it.

That leads me to the first secret in BUSINESS blogging that DCIG has uncovered over the years.

Secret #1 - Keep Your Blog "On Topic" and Informative

Granted, writing a good or even a great blog requires research and some thought behind it. But when you start a blog you need to keep your blog on topic and make it informative.

The analysts at DCIG cover a wide range of topics ranging from information security to eDiscovery to information governance to data protection and storage. But within the sphere of what DCIG covers, I primarily cover products in the data protection and data storage space.

It is not that I cannot write about those other topics and some who know me may even consider me an expert in those areas. But I personally am closest to the data protection and data storage spaces and can speak confidently about them. As such, that is where I focus most of my efforts. To stray afield and cover topics on which I am not an expert is a disservice to my readers as they expect me to have an informed opinion about the subject matter which I am covering.

Notice I use the word "informed" opinion here not objective. Over the years I have come to view the word "objective" in a negative light and personally I associate it with being "uninformed." This is a big reason why DCIG refers to its outsourced blogging service as "an informed inside view."

We try to avoid just spouting off in order to generate web traffic by being sensationalistic. While there are certainly individuals and businesses out there that subscribe to that method of bringing attention to themselves and their blogs, because of the space we cover and the soberness of the individuals in it, DCIG has found the best way to draw and keep an audience (and its clients) over time in this space is by being accurate and informed in its blog entries.

As it turns out in this day and age that is sensationalistic enough. What I too often found, and still do find, is that when I read the headlines the content is designed to generate headlines while woefully lacking in relevant actionable information.

These articles may be viewed as "objective" by some but the content is too often unusable to me and others who care about and want to reference what is written. In my case, all it really becomes good for me is to use it as an illustration of how NOT to blog.

While some people may doubt me on this, in the first month of January 2012 DCIG's readership crossed the 40,000 visitor threshold. That means monthly DCIG's website attracts roughly 1.5% of those individuals who care about and follow the topics we write about with our most popular content tending to be that which is referential and informative in nature.

So if doing BUSINESS blogging, stay focused on the topic in which you are an expert and strive to make every blog entry informative. That is what gives you and your blog credibility whether or not someone pays you to produce the content while it keeps readers coming back for more.

Stay tuned for my next blog entry in this series of secrets of how to best do BUSINESS blogging.

A Matter of Perspective

2012-01-31T18:00:00Z

I have lived in a city of 11,000 people in Minnesota for the last 10 years and always felt that I knew how it looked quite well. In my campaign for both City Council and Mayor I have walked every street and Cul-de-sac in our city, I know the names of each street and can tell you where I am exactly by just looking around. But even with my high level of intimacy of my city, I found out recently that I was missing out on another view of where I live.

I recently had the opportunity to gain a new perspective on the city that admittedly not many will ever have (at least legally) and I wanted to share that with you and help you gain some new perspective on your company and products.

The new perspective I gained on my city came after I got to climb to the top of several of our municipal water towers and taking in the view of the city, lake, and neighborhoods from my perch 160 feet in the air.

I could see developments in clusters, where from the ground they are too large to really appreciate as complete subdivisions. I saw parks, lakes, businesses, with a new appreciation for what and where they were.

I saw where the growth was heading and where growth was needed. I saw the projects that we were discussing in Council meetings that were always somewhat clinical in nature. I saw all these things in their greatness, but also was able to see the areas that we needed to work on with a different point of view.

There were some really great examples of areas in need of attention that I did not see easily as I was on the ground driving by them, the elevation gave me the view I needed in order to act and make my city better.

Looking down on the city from the water towers is a lot like engaging DCIG to look at your company's products, and services. You live inside your office walls day in and day out and are in extremely close proximity to the nitty gritty of product development, marketing, and sales but how often do you really take the time to get above the fray and look down and see what clients, prospects, or industry experts see? My guess is not very often.

DCIG customers range from the largest companies in the business to the next and hottest emerging startups. They tell us that we often see what they do not, and that by utilizing us as one of the analyst firms they engage that they get a decidedly different view on their products that only someone who has years of experience in looking at things from within their own walls.

We are different in this way than some of our analyst brethren who do not always provide a different viewpoint to their clients. We take great pride in speaking in an independent voice because we feel that in doing so we are providing real value to the client.

DCIG has one client that had such an experience with us that merits repeating. They are an emerging storage array manufacturer in the midrange space who were making sales and money but were missing out on market share because they had not really thought ahead to tackle their integration to VM.

After Jerome Wendt took some time to "climb the water tower" with them and provide a different perspective on their product and they took up the effort of VMware integration. That conversation took place in early 2011 and now, in early 2012, they have re-engineered their offering and are well on their way to a more robust offering that will in turn lead to increased sales that both current and prospective customers as well as even their pre-sales and support engineers are excited about.

They had previously not felt that VMware integration was something they needed to accomplish in the short term. But after we shared how the view looked like in the market, they took a different direction quickly and are poised to reap the benefits.

So just like I got a new appreciation for my city from my elevated view, I would encourage you to invite DCIG to provide a different point of view on your offerings, most likely we will share with you some areas that could benefit from some additional scrutiny and could indeed open your eyes to additional offerings for your products.

Numbers and Results - An Introduction to a Case Study on Nexsan's Use of the DCIG Midrange Array Buyer's Guide

2011-11-21T13:00:00Z

Have you ever noticed how important numbers are to us as a people? We are fixated with the numeric results of almost everything; football scores, G.P.A.'s, miles per gallon, cost per unit, throughput, capacity, and the number of minutes it takes the delivery guy to get my pizza to my door.

I find that I too am really wrapped up in numbers, because the numbers I fixate on every few years come as the result of years of work and months of daily effort culminated in a decision made in a day.

The longest day of my recent life was November 2nd 2010 "Super Tuesday." You see that day is when I found out whether or not I was to be the next Mayor of my city or whether the months of daily door knocking and campaign meetings had been for naught. Months of work, came down to a simple statistical outcome reported after polls closed and were delivered at about 9pm...Results!

At DCIG we are also very results oriented, and in 2010 Jerome Wendt and I had a conversation that we hoped would change the direction of our company. I was in my car driving to a meeting; he was in his office in Omaha taking a minute to run an idea by me.

DCIG Nexsan Case Study Shipping.pdf

He asked me if I was familiar with Consumer Report's year end Buyer's Guide. I told him that as a homeowner I was of course familiar with it and that we rarely made a major buying decision on appliances, or cars without consulting it to see what they said was the best product in the area we were going to make a purchase in. "EXACTLY!" he said and went on to describe to me a plan that would bring that similar concept to the storage industry.

He told me that he had been working on analyzing midrange arrays and that he thought it lent itself to having the offerings quantified based on their features and how well they would serve the midrange market. He had a methodology and experience in putting a report like this together and that he was going to work on it over the next few weekends and would get back to me.

What came out of his weekend work was amazing. He created a survey that was submitted to hardware vendors and he then mapped their answers to a matrix, and from the matrix came a score on how good that machine was at meeting the needs of an end user in the data center...Results!

We had it graphically laid out and looked at the stack of data sheets on each storage array by company. It was impressive to see what the culmination of months of work looked like and how amazing an education piece this guide could be.

It could shorten the decision making process for end users by weeks, and deliver to the industry one of the first analyst research projects that actually had the guts to take a definitive outlook on products and declare a "Winner."

We stared at it and thought about, How we would license it to the winner? and "Would they see the value of it? Would they have the same enthusiasm as the panel of end users we have shown the guide to? Would they have the ability to take the document and create measurable results out of using it? ... The answer was, it came down to Results!

The company that licensed the first guide was Nexsan and, in the early months of 2010, it agreed to license the guide and share it with the industry as a research tool that would equip end users to make buying decisions. Together we all agreed that buyers would want a Buyer's Guide.

What happened next is described in the case study that we are releasing today and I encourage you to read it as it truly is an amazing story as it was a huge success.
Never before in Nexsan's lead generation campaigns had numbers like this come in.

I knew that download notifications were being sent to mobile devices at Nexsan, and I can imagine that as their phones buzzed with notification they were levitating with the number of leads pouring in the from the guide....Results!

DCIG has gone on to release many other Buyer's Guides with results similar to those that you are going to read about in the case study you are about to look at with it being a win-win for both parties. End users were equipped with good data on the market, vendor's received new leads, and results are being measured and declared a resounding success.

It took a year in the making to find out the specifics about the Nexsan results, and I want to congratulate Nexsan on the excellent job that it did in promoting the DCIG 2010 Midrange Array Buyer's Guide in as many outlets as it could find. We think that the case study will be just one of many such results for our clients who utilize the Guides that DCIG produces because they produce ... Results!

Numbers like total leads, leads moved through the sales process, and opportunities created and closed are really important metrics and DCIG is pleased that Nexsan was able to find such overwhelming results from using its work.

It's easy to see why numbers do carry such weight. Super Bowls are decided by numbers, a higher G.P.A. gets your kid into a better college, miles per gallon can decide on whether you buy a car or not, 29 minutes and I pay for the pizza, 30 minutes and its free and, like me, you sometimes sit on pins and needles waiting for the election returns because elections are won or lost based on who gets the greatest number of votes. So enjoy reading the case study and thanks for reading my article.

Sincerely,
Mayor Jim Nash
Vice President of Business Development
DCIG

Why One Should Care About Branding

2011-11-11T13:30:00Z

I was talking to a prospect the other day and they told me that they were debating the value of marketing, channel education, and trying to create market awareness because they were not convinced that it was worth it. They have worked with several analysts, PR agencies, and marketing firms they said, but have not seen the results quickly enough to convince them that it was money well spent, and that they would rely on their sales team to do the educating.

I asked what must have been seen as a seriously goofy left field question of them in response; "Have you considered buying carpeting recently? And, if yes, do you know of any online vendors who could provide you with service?"

There was a pause followed by a cautious answer. "Yeah my wife just looked at that company with the jingle." "Exactly" I told them, "and how did you or your wife know to look at Empire Carpeting as a potential vendor?"

The prospect went on to tell me that it was because of continuous advertising, and creating what I call "Mindshare" or the command of your thoughts when you are in need of a product or service. Empire has a catchy jingle and commercials that drive that home.

I went on to point out that I believe the premise going on internally at their company to be fundamentally flawed. Like all DCIG customers, they are in the storage world, and have an inherently technical product that requires education of the buyer in order to create understanding of the product, and have to create a steady and sufficient stream of educational marketing (Blogs, Executive White Papers, Case Studies, and White Papers) to get noticed by people making a buying decision and to carve out mindshare for a potential upcoming purchase.

I told the prospect that in looking at their efforts historically that I saw small marketing and education blips on the radar that were short lived and as a result created market confusion as to their corporate viability, and commitment to the market.

I also told them that customers have an expectation when it comes to vendors. Customers expect that there will be relevant, timely, and current information available for them to read on their own. That information is expected to be available either from an online library, or from a channel partner. They don't want to have to dig for it; they want it to just be there for consumption.

I pointed out to the prospect that many of their competitors who were both larger and smaller were utilizing multiple analyst firms, a good PR agency, and had a steady stream of different types of content flowing out into the market.

The mix by competitors was well rounded and contained the types of products that I told him that they should be using; namely case studies, white papers, blogging, and executive white papers. To draw in non storage industry examples I pointed out to him that companies like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Budweiser, Doritos', Ford, Chevy, and others get their name out every day and they each have huge market shares each, and projected a really strong image having done so.

So we concluded our conversation with my suggesting the utilization of a few analyst firms, a good PR firm, and a commitment to a programmatic effort to get information out into the market so that customers and prospects know that the company is in the game for the long haul. At the end I asked him if he could sing the Empire Carpeting jingle for me, and he laughed when he knew that the point had been made.

iPAD, Flipboard and NOW Amazon kindle fire are Key Devices for DCIG.com readers

2011-11-02T10:00:00Z

Apple iPAD IOS 5 "reader" feature and Flipboard validate DCIG's engagement analysis publishing model. Our engagement analysis is designed for information technology and business leaders who need objective product information, without the hassle of signing up for it. Further, we designed our publishing interface to be readable and actionable. Many of our readers read DCIG content using our website, twice as many read with their iPAD, Flipboard and other mobile devices.

33% of DCIG readers read content via the website, while 66% are using other devices. Our research shows that many of you are using your iPAD, Flipboard, Blackberry, iPhone, etc. 66% of you lead DCIG to one conclusion - simplicity in content presentation is what you need to read.

iPAD's reader interface made possible by IOS 5 in Safari Web Browser is a clear example of DCIG's vision to deliver engagement analysis as readable and actionable. For example, Apple's before and after reader interface, as published on apple.com, compared to dcig.com before and after:

As you read content on DCIG.COM via your IOS 5 mobile device you can simply click "reader", or "zoom in" to get the same view "reader" delivers. Simplicity for reading is our calling at DCIG.

Simplifying our reader interface was a small step. Readers of product information are inundated by sales and marketing content. There is no time to browse through pages of content using a web browser, blog or PDF reader. DCIG readers require an actionable way to read their content, such as Flipboard.

At DCIG we combined engagement analysis with DCIG simple syndication services to enable products like Flipboard. Flipboard exchanges flat browser layouts into actionable analysis. There is no comparison of DCIG.com via a web browser versus DCIG.com in Flipboard. DCIG.com viewed with Flipboard delivers an enterprise data storage and electronically stored information (ESI) industry magazine:

Expanding on our goals of readable and actionable engagement analysis, DCIG is now available at the Amazon Kindle store. DCIG supports Amazon kindle, kindle touch, kindle dx, kindle keyboard and kindle fire. No matter how you consume content, stay productive with readable and actionable analysis from DCIG.com.

Using a Personal Touch to Convert Social Media into Crowded Lunch and Learn Events

2011-10-07T11:45:00Z

Whether it's online or onsite, marketing your solutions via event-driven programs continues to be one of the best investments of a company's time, talent and resources to grow its business. Further, in today's economy, it is imperative to capture your client's attention with a personal approach in order to gain market share. But when you think of using social media to do so, do you think of it in the context of "No ROI" with only empty conference rooms and no leads to show for your investment? Or do you envision a room one packed with individuals ready to engage and learn more about your company's technology?

When people think of social media and the impact it will have on getting new people interested in their offerings, this image is as often as not the first one that pops into their mind: an empty conference room.

So how do you turn social media into something tangible, meaningful and measurable? i.e. - a room full of people that looks like this and which I have done on numerous occasions!
Social media has enabled me to lead a number of successful events, both online and onsite, for the past 7 years. I started with a genuine desire to reach a new audience that I had neither discovered nor recruited for a new and innovative technology solution. After a number of successful client meetings via social media connects and follow ups, a data storage partner of mine inquired about utilizing my newly realized skill sets for an upcoming event.

What I didn't realize at the time was how this was going to change the game of attracting and retaining qualified audiences for ongoing engagements. So I continued to leverage my social media skills to select appropriate venues and attract a professional community, in some areas where I had no previous exposure. This led to me doing more engagement with their vendors and partners who were interested in this new media approach.

Many of my clients are impressed with this approach and how it integrates into their existing outbound marketing programs. Yet what is uniquely different here is the personal and memorable way in which I can help you engage new communities that are actively exchanging ideas and interests.

Each event activity requires, and still does today, a concerted effort from everyone involved in the program. I refer to it a "full-court press" which ensures existing company resources are leveraged at the same time social media channels are optimized.

Many professionals today still think that social media channels can operate effectively by themselves. When such thinking gets put into action, or in this case inaction, disappointment in the overall quality and quantity of event attendance is experienced.

Case in point; The Hartford treated its social media and cause marketing as long term assets. It avoided being caught up in the tactical questions of lead generation and attribution, and instead did what marketing does at its very best: it used its brand and its value to create a campaign that aggregated and moved an audience.

In one of my more recent engagements I was asked to select a venue for a multi-vendor lunch and learn presentation and to put "butts in the seat" that consisted of a prequalified community of like-minded professionals. While challenging I took it on and using relevant social media content accomplished this objective within eight (8) business days!

Event marketing continues to be an effective process to engage your audience in a way like you have never experienced before. And if you are prepared to do as I recently heard Geoffrey Moore state in his latest book Escape Velocity on the subject of Free Your Company's Future from the Pull of the Past: "You are not trying to maximize your power internally relative to each other. Instead this is all about maximizing your enterprise's ability to create unmatchable power in the world. You are not dividing up a check at a restaurant. You are setting up base camp to climb K2."

Using the content developed by DCIG in conjunction with my social media outreach abilities, DCIG can provide a comprehensive social media offering that does more than just generate content about your company's products, technology and services. It can help you use that content to help put real "butts in seats" at upcoming events so you can point to real leads that are resulting from your investment in social media . If interested in learning more about how DCIG can you accomplish this, reach out to Jim Nash at jim.nash@dcig.com.

A Fourth Quarter Comeback

2011-09-22T16:00:00Z

I am a football junkie and more specifically a Denver Bronco's football junkie. I live to watch the Bronco's during football season. In my opinion there is no better use of a Sunday afternoon than to watch my Bronco's on the field.

Football and specifically Bronco's football fans can tell you that any lead is suspect until the 4th quarter is officially over. I can recall time after time I have seen Bronco's teams who were hopelessly behind in the 3rd quarter come roaring back in the 4th quarter with determination, football brilliance, and inspired play and was always wrapped up in a jersey with the number 7 on it.

That's right; I am invoking the name of John Elway for a business blog! Why you ask? Isn't he old and retired? Can't we get past the specter of his buck toothed smile as he dashed the hopes of teams around the NFL (particularly you Cleveland and Green Bay fans), can't we just call it a career here and find something else to talk about?

Well, no not really and here is why. Just like Elway, the 4th quarter can still lead to victory for you in business even if you are behind if you have the right plays and inspiration in your play book. Having been in conversation with many of you as recently as VMWorld, I tell you honestly, your play book is thin, you have nothing new to introduce from a content standpoint, and you are setting yourself up for defeat.

For many of you, 2011 has been a battle business wise. We have briefed with many of you who say you are not losing ground, but not gaining it either. In an ever changing playing field like we are on, it is my honest assessment that if you have not grown in 2011, you are losing.
I have sat in on many briefings where we have been told that you have new and innovative updates to your products or indeed whole new product lines altogether. For some, I have come away with the thought that I just sat through a session on how to put lipstick on a pig.

There was no innovation. There were no new play book pages to add. There was merely a repackaging of existing and sometimes dated technology with fancy new names, and often the description of the new product as "Our Cloud solution!"

How can you expect to sell anything with nothing to help tell the story??? The people who need this information on your new product are Channel Partners, Resellers, or even field sales folks who are trying to sell new product with old content. Or are you committing an even more egregious sin of having NO content at all!?

For others though there is an equally serious problem in the play book. You have indeed innovated or created something special, but have forgotten that you need to get the message out to the masses in the form of a new play sheet for the play book.

At DCIG we create the "Playbook Pages" or content for our clients. Those clients put that material into the field; use it for lead generation, customer education, and thought leadership. We bring an unbiased 3rd party viewpoint to scrutinize your new products and will deliver back to you some quality new content that you can put into play.

Our clients depend on us to help them win, and we do just that. From case studies, white papers, blogs, and executive white papers all the way to our licensed product the DCIG Buyer's Guides, we are creating content that is read by the end user and respected for our voice far more than the home made internally written work you and your SE's create.

The content we create is honest, relevant, and not littered with Kool Aid stains that inevitably make their way onto content you write yourself. Our work is written by analysts who are previous end users, and have a wide market viewpoint that your own internal folks just can't achieve.

In 1986 football history was made when John Elway showed that 5:00 minutes on the game clock was enough time to score after a really long drive and dash the hopes of an opposing team. In those 5:00 minutes he rallied the Bronco's to play above themselves, reaching deep into the playbook and demonstrating what he did no less than 34 times; making a 4th quarter comeback for a win.

Are you equipped for a 4th quarter come from behind? Are you ready to make Q4 2011 something memorable or will you leave the field dejected after having another mediocre year in business? We at DCIG would love to help you come roaring out onto the field for an inspired come from behind victory.

Talking Backup at VMworld 2011

2011-08-30T11:45:00Z

Yesterday I had the opportunity to join Wikibon's Dave Vellante, VMware's Director of IT Technical Operations, Drew Kramer, and ICI's President Brad Maltz at VMworld 2011 as part of a four person panel discussing some of the challenges and trends associated with VMware backup.

Here's the video from that broadcast:
I'd also like to give a special call-out to EMC's Rob Emsley and Sean Lamb for thinking of me and asking me to participate in this panel. I appreciate the opportunity!

Optimizing Social Media Awareness Initiatives - DCIG Provides Its Clients a Road Map to Proven Success

2011-08-11T10:00:00Z

Since May of 2004 when I first jumped into the social media arena with a LinkedIn membership, there were a lot of questions as to its value. Even today I continue to hear these same issues and concerns:

How do I know this stuff will work for me and my business objectives?
How do I measure the efforts and most importantly what is the outcome of these efforts?

In order to accurately establish a starting point, let's look at why social media has become such a pervasive technology. The popular site Social Media Examiner released its 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report It surveyed more than 3,300 marketers and found the following:

The No.1 advantage of social media marketing is generating more business exposure, as indicated by 88% of marketers. Increased traffic (72%) and improved search rankings (62%) were also major advantages;
45% of people who've only invested 12 months or less in social media marketing reported they gained new partnerships;
"By spending as little six hours per week on social media efforts, 52% of marketers saw lead generation benefits." - The Right Way to Use Social Media by Dr. Woody

So to help its clients realize the benefits of social media using methods that are tangible and measurable, DCIG is now offering social media services to its subscribing clients to quickly reach this burgeoning and influential community of storage end-users and decision makers.

Here is an overview of the process DCIG uses to achieve the most favorable results for its clients:

1.      Do postings in Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.

In these forums DCIG comments on existing discussions occurring within these social media forums regarding data storage, data protection, etc. Absent the occurrence of any relevant conversations, DCIG will take the initiative to start new conversations using existing Client and/or DCIG created content as the source of the conversation. Sources of this content would include DCIG blog entries developed for your company, DCIG case studies, executive white papers, and even full length white papers where appropriate.

In addition to using DCIG produced content, DCIG also offers to its clients the option to use up to five pieces of client content per month. These sources of this client content may be blog entries, case studies, and white papers that they have developed internally and DCIG even helps to promote complementary content developed by other analyst firms. In those rare instances where no group exists, DCIG will even create new social groups if appropriate or where needed to facilitate discussions on specific topics

2.      Comment as appropriate on blog entries on other sites.

One of the keys to success in social media is to connect with people and groups on other blog sites. So to help create awareness for DCIG's clients, DCIG will where appropriate comment on these blog entries. To ensure our comments are posted, DCIG does so in a conversational as opposed to a promotional manner.

No one wants to read comments that are just shills for other company's products or services that provide no value to the reader. So in instances where DCIG opts to leave comments, we do so in such a way that they add value to the conversation occurring on that blog while ideally referencing the client's content.

3.      Provide reports back to the client to demonstrate social media involvement.

One of the primary criticisms of social media is the ability to measure it and show its value and while DCIG cannot draw a direct line from a comment on a blog entry or Facebook post to a sale, we can track when and where we post those comments so our clients can see where DCIG is actively participating. To do that, DCIG provides reports primarily in the form of emails that document Twitter activity (tweets, re-tweets, etc.), social media conversations (posts, comments, etc) and comments on other blog sites.

4.      Drive traffic as appropriate to register to download specific content from either the client's or DCIG's site.

The end game of all of the activity that DCIG does for its clients is to drive interested readers to content that they have available for download. So while DCIG makes no promises or guarantees as to how many registrations will occur on any particular piece of content, we do expect DCIG clients to get some registrations and tangible leads as a result of these social media outreach efforts.

Many companies have already staffed their business with people responsible for social media tasks. But even in these cases, I have worked with them in a supporting role to ensure anticipated results. So whether you're a startup with limited resources or an enterprise that needs some additional help, it's important to remember that with Social Media, the key is not just doing it, but doing it right. And the right way to do it changes in real-time because it's about engaging with people, conversing with them and building relationships.

MacGyver Doesn't Work Here

2011-08-08T17:00:00Z

If you are like me, you spent some of your youth watching MacGyver week after week as he saved the world from terrorists, despots, mercenaries, and guys with mullets by using a simple collection of toothpaste, duct tape, paper clips, Swiss Army Knife, and a can of spray cheese.

Each week he solved the problem D'jour by blasting his way out of a wooden crate or evil lair and making his way to safety with a token hottie in tow. It all seemed so easy to the teenage mind and gave me an overly simplistic view of problem solving sometimes. Grab some stuff you have laying around and blast your way out!

That works great if you are imprisoned in some banana republic that is housed on the back lot at ABC, but in the business world it comes up a little short. If you are trying to get prospects to the table and part with their cash, it is going to take more than some "content" that you bodged together the day before the meeting with stuff that had been sitting around for a year or so, or that was not specifically addressing the problem that you are trying to solve.

The sales process is really about creating product alignment with the prospect around a solution.&amp;amp;nbsp; If your solution depends on a tube of Crest, some copper wire, and a really sweet car battery that is in the corner you are in trouble.

You need to have anticipated what the prospect is going to need long before a face to face meeting and have gained their interest with a piece of content that shows them that you are able to address their problem. That piece of content could come in the form of an Executive White Paper and an accompanying blog. With this 1-2 punch you have gained their initial recognition of your solution.

The next step is to begin showing the prospect that your solution is capable of and has solved problems similar to theirs at other company's; that content comes in the form of a case study or two. The case study focuses your solution on their problem and points out the benefits of doing so, while also differentiating your solution from the myriad of others out there in the market.

he case study (ies) should be authoritative, well written, objective, informed, and not written by you or your staff. After all you are paid to drink your corporate Kool-aid and everyone out there knows that. Your case studies should be written by someone who is an independent 3rd party that is well recognized in the industry....like DCIG.

We are very "plugged" into the market and have a better broad view of the storage world than most on your staff do.The reason being is that your folks are only thinking of one thing, your product, and because of that paradigm they are not looking at the entire market in its totality and lose the context of the marketplace.

The next step in the sales process is not to make dynamite out of laundry soap, golf balls, an old T-shirt, in a coffee can MacGyver, it is to move the prospect along to a deeper understanding of the solution and provide them a white paper that fully encapsulates the tremendous detail behind your solution and answers questions from folks on the prospects team that are not at sales presentations, are on the evaluation team, or because they eat sales people and that might really dampen the relationship early in the process.

The white paper is more detailed, focused, and is designed to be the last piece of content that you deliver before your sales teams begins asking for the sale and working on pricing. Your white paper again needs to be written by a 3rd party like DCIG. We say this because we have written hundreds of them and have the process down pat. Your team should not write them because we have seen in the past that the amount of discord that this process takes internally is profound.

Indeed we have had to referee discussions with folks on the approach taken on our white papers as they fight back and forth, you can only imagine what a completely internal interdepartmental approach would look like.

Next, light the fuse....er wait no that's not it...Oh yeah, next your team closes deals after creating that customer alignment with your solution, negotiates price, makes everyone is happy and you work towards a kickoff meeting. You will have accomplished this by having had a content plan that is designed as a program, well laid out, orchestrated, ready to deploy before going in to the first meeting.

MacGyver always seemed to make it out alive with that hottie in tow, but here is the reality about business. You may not always come out smelling like a rose, you may get thrown out in the first wave of vendor thinning and my not even get invited to the first sit down sales meeting.

Why? Your content stunk or was so obviously crude in its approach that the toothpaste bomb would have been more impressive. Your success depends not just on having the best solution. It depends on having good sales people (that is another topic) AND it depends on having content that is meaningful and current.

DCIG sells programs that create content to solve problems just like that. We don't sell toothpaste bombs or make hang gliders out of a blue tarp and PVC tubing so you can escape from the evil madman's mountain hideout. We sell content that is informed and well respected, and would love to talk to you about how we can revamp your content to give you the appropriate tools to succeed. Give us a call and we would be happy to work with you.