I recently had the privilege of working with Backbone, Inc. on a joint project that included service descriptions, press releases, and website development.  Never before have I seen a team of people take a few bullet points of limited information and transform it into pages of high quality content that resonates with the target audience.  Good writers that can capture key messages are rare.  Writers that can then add depth to those key messages are even rarer.  Charles Epstein and his team at Backbone are that exceptional find.  They possess a unique writing capability that every firm should use for their marketing materials.

The New Year is off to an amazing start. In the first week of 2010 alone we kicked-off an exciting new government software application project, signed a contract to do web development for a large non-profit, and finalized a contract to evaluate how a satellite company can leverage social media to improve sales and marketing. On top of that a talented new Executive Tech Lead started with us and we were handed a $250,000 contract based on strong work we did for the same client in the past. I wish every week was like this!

And we’re coming off a strong 2009! This past year we doubled our revenue yet again and we doubled our full-time employees. The year was important for Tellenger because we reached a number of important business milestones which seem to have opened the flood gates for growth. The combination of crossing the two years in business mark in July, deepening the complexity of our projects, and increasing the number and kinds of projects we’ve completed successfully has resonated with prospects. I remember the struggles of trying to sell services when I was the only person in the company. Although sales to new prospects are always hard-won, they are a bit easier now with our record of performance.

I’m pleased to report the outlook for 2010 is even better than 2009. We have a remarkable team of highly talented people for project management, strategy, creative design, and technology execution. They’re the lifeblood of Tellenger and make projects a success by innovating unique solutions to client problems and challenges. This has led to the fact that based on bookings alone, we’ll more than double revenue for the third consecutive year. I’m honored and humbled to work with so many intelligent individuals who take pride in their work. They are the reason for Tellenger’s achievements.

Start thinking of your brand more broadly! When most people think of their organization’s brand, the logo, style guides, and corporate colors are what come to mind. Many don’t realize that everything is their brand. Stephanie blogged about customer service and the way you treat people as extensions of your brand. Every action and inaction defines your brand. This is your true brand.

Recently, I was speaking with the COO of a large company who said many years ago the company ran into reputation problems because they took on more work than they could deliver. Even though they had a great logo and tagline, it was their reputation for not delivering on-time that became their greatest brand attribute. It took a major shift in project management and years for this company to get the brand image back where they wanted it (needed it) to be.

Over lunch with a partner at a prestigious lobbying firm, we started talking about pricing strategies (yes, we have an odd sense of enjoyable conversation). One of the ways this firm signals that it is better than all the rest is to charge higher retainers than competitors. Not only are their people worth the price premium, but the higher price makes their prospective clients feel like they’re getting the best representation for their money. And the firm delivers on this expectation. I pointed out that the high price being charged simply creates brand consistency: everything at the firm is high end — the people, the access, the results, and…their prices. To lower prices is to lower the brand value. The classic example that illustrates this point is the company that figured out how to produce a great-smelling perfume for a fraction of competitors’ costs. When they went to market, the product didn’t sell even though testing showed a clear preference for their fragrance over the competition. One savvy executive had the counterintuitive idea of raising the price on the poorly selling product…sales soared. The fact is people don’t want to buy cheap perfume. And the price of the perfume created a brand image of “cheap” that overpowered all other branding elements.

Your website, content, technology (or lack thereof), client interaction, responsiveness, collateral, prices, and deliverables/products all come together to reflect on your company. This is your true brand. What does your true brand tell your prospects and clients?

Lately, we’ve been asking ourselves what can we do to help budget conscious firms rise to new levels. (What can we say? We love helping new businesses to take-off and established businesses to expand.)

The answer is to give them high-end, feature rich, and easy-to-update websites at a low-cost. These websites take the form of bundled packages that take the pressure off small business owners – they sign up to have a digital partner in us, and we help them get up and running with a more sophisticated website to suit their needs.

What makes our pre-packaged websites for new and growing businesses unique is that the same people who are building sophisticated technology for Federal agencies and successful businesses will be applying their expertise to small businesses. Even with a modest budget, small business owners can now benefit from the positive transformative effects smart websites can have on their bottom lines.

Plus, we benefit by continually innovating ways to work more efficiently and to deliver greater value at a given cost. We can then carry this knowledge back to our government and large enterprise clients, giving them leading edge work more effectively than our competitors. And the best part…we do it all without outsourcing outside the U.S. We keep the jobs here.

I’m really excited about this new offering. I got my start in business doing grunt work for start-ups …writing business plans, creating revenue models, researching target audiences, customizing technology, etc. Once you get the bug, it’s hard to get rid of it. Our services for new and growing businesses keeps us agile for our big clients while keeping us in touch with our roots—the small businesses that are the cornerstone and driver of our economy.

Where I see the most opportunity for capitalizing on web and mobile technology is for traditional, old-line businesses and organizations, not just high-tech firms.  These are the firms that can use the technology to create even greater value. Manufacturing, retail shops, even agriculture can realize efficiencies and create new opportunities using these technologies.  Government is the perfect example.  In the government, things have been done largely the same way since the advent of the “modern bureaucracy” during China’s Qin Dynasty well over 2000 years ago.  Slowly people in bureaucracies are looking at their processes and procedures, then asking, “How can technology improve the way we work?”  For example, the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves used paper-based processes to schedule training and administer attendance and performance.  Since pay is linked to these records, errors made on paper created problems with issuing accurate checks in a timely manner.  Automating the system not only made it easier to manage drills, it reduced the lag in pay from months in some cases to the standard of two weeks.

It is the intersection of web and mobile technologies with traditional ways of doing things that is the most exciting because it can yield the greatest results.  The firm Legal River created a platform to link small businesses with a legal problem to quality lawyers able to solve the problem.  They used technology to address the issue of “how do I find a good attorney.”  Manufacturing plants are using mobile phone applications to monitor assembly line metrics, which are automatically input into a web technology that generates performance reports broken down by machine, worker, and hour.  Small mom and pop retail shops can use the web to not only sell products across the world, but to reach highly defined niche target markets of people most likely to buy their products.

Using technology to make traditional businesses and everyday processes better is where the real innovation exists.  And this is what makes our jobs so rewarding.

I received a call today from an entrepreneur with a new start-up idea. He was concerned because he doesn’t understand the nuts-and-bolts of the technology that will be required to launch his business, so he asked me where to start. In his situation, the technology for implementing the idea was not proprietary or even critical to the execution. These days technology is often a commodity used to execute a business concept. For example, if your business model involves an eCommerce or social media site there are so many “out of the box” technologies that can be uniquely customized to execute the business idea it simply isn’t necessary for the entrepreneur to dig deeply into the technology, a basic understanding is sufficient.

The entrepreneur who called me would get more value and productivity out of hiring experts to build the back-end and front-end of his idea rather than trying to figure out how to manage doing it himself. The highest and best use of his limited time and energy is to fully flesh out the idea, develop prototypes, create the brand, refine the user experience, and, of course, figure out how his idea will attract users and generate revenue. Even though he’s starting an online business, the technology driving that business will not be what makes or breaks the new company. It is the viability of the business model.

After more than two years working to help clients leverage web technologies, we finally obligated time to rebuild our website. On the front-end there is a new visual design providing a fresher look that aligns with our brand identity. We used jquery to present more information without having to load new pages (and to make the site more dynamic), improved the Information Architecture (IA) and User Experience (UX) to make it easier for visitors to find information and for Tellenger to communicate our core messages. And, of course, we’ve increased our use of social media and real-time technologies.

On the back-end, we’ve utilized WordPress as a content management system as well as a blog. We have super clean code for greater efficiency and employ an uber-reliable host. Of course, Google Analytics keeps us informed of key site data and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) make us easy to find online.

The site is a reflection of what we preach: Technology driven by business objectives. Our objectives were to (1) clarify our brand, (2) clearly communicate our capabilities and experience, (3) leverage social media to increase site traffic, (4) make our website faster and easier to manage, and (5) use Tellenger.com to increase sales and brand awareness. Early data shows we’re off to a great start.

When hiring, it can be tempting to choose the slightly less expert job candidate to save on compensation costs. But the higher expertise, and thus more expensive, employees actually reduce costs and increase profit. Top employees get the job done at a higher quality, more efficiently, and on-time and on-budget. Plus, they add value in innumerable other ways by identifying risks to a project that may have been missed by someone not as proficient, see new opportunities, and generally bring performance of the entire team to a higher level. Top employees also make more interesting colleagues, which then attracts more high quality employees. A-level employees, create an A-level company, that produces A-level products and services, which leads to greater demand, higher revenue, and better profit margins.

Although it’s easy to take the short-term view, over the long-term the extra cost of better employees is a worthwhile investment in a company’s success.

Many people new to social media view it as a stand-alone campaign. They come up with a list of things they want to do on Twitter or Facebook, then start implementing.

The problem with such an approach is that it doesn’t leverage existing momentum in other parts of the business, and social media is most effective when used in coordination with larger organizational strategies that are cohesive in nature.

Most of the time, social media is one of multiple pieces of a larger sales or marketing campaign that might span print, television, and the web. Those efforts will incorporate an integrated look, feel, and messaging, which should transition to any new social media activities. Ensuring that all channels are unified and synergistic reinforces a consistent brand identity and call-to-action to target audiences.

For example, let’s say we make chocolate mint flavored toothpaste, and it’s the greatest tasting toothpaste on the planet. But it’s got major value adds to our audiences in that it prevents cavities and whitens teeth while tasting so utterly delicious. But, for the sake of having a cohesive message across all our campaigns, we have to decide: what’s our core message?

Aha! But let’s say we don’t decide on a core message (a problem that afflicts so many great products and services). Instead, we use TV to promote the whitening capabilities, print to promote the cavity-fighting properties, and social media to promote its choco-minty flavoring. Such an approach would create confusion about the key product benefit, and would fail to capitalize on building momentum across marketing channels.

So, when clients come to us asking for a social media campaign, we first identify the core messaging, then allow social media to boost those existing efforts in new, dynamic ways.

Such an approach will surely make you and your customers smile. (Yes, pun intended).

It may sound silly, but given the deluge of negative commentary on our economy, I was momentarily taken aback recently by a repeat client of ours who requested more work from us *before* we officially completed a current project for them. Their request reminded me that tough people (and companies) succeed in tough times because they’re committed to investing in quality work — and delivering quality work, too. The fact is that smart companies invest in infrastructure, advertising, and marketing during a recession to rocket past competitors who are simply riding out the storm. Business history shows that companies that hide out during downtimes often do long-term harm to their business. It seems we’re working with some strong companies. Definitely fun.