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.

I was just having a conversation with an executive of a manufacturing company that’s been doing business offline for nearly a century. His company builds giant machines with 40,000+ parts — not the typical product people purchase on the web. But the parts that bring those machines to life, well, that’s a different story. So their question is, “How do we best sell our parts online?”

Initially, we’d ideally want to provide loyal customers the ability to buy replacement parts online directly through the corporate website. Those brand loyalists on average spend about 18 hours online each week, and traditionally NOT in social media spaces, so having an e-commerce capability on the corporate website will suit their needs. And, since this company knows which of their parts typically are ordered more often than other parts, they can even proactively contact customers and drive them to the corporate site to buy new parts. This also becomes a great opportunity to sell accessories to keep the machine well-maintained and operating efficiently.

A recent Forrester Research study describes how the healthiest manufacturing companies are making money right now by selling their products via *other* websites. Reaching the folks who aren’t necessarily brand loyalists–but still need replacement parts that they’ll buy through their existing favorite retail parts replacement shops–makes sense. (And, this route could be pursued regardless of whether the company wants to offer its own shopping experience online as described above).

Finally, with technologies like Alvenda’s product (a fully functional storefront in an embeddable widget), distributing that reach into existing social networks (and beyond) is getting easier than ever. Now, affiliate websites can host the storefront widget, earn a small referral fee while the company reaches more consumers, and everyone increases revenue.

I’m personally looking forward to the day I can visit my feed reader and, in addition to getting all the great content I consumer each day, be able to peruse all of my favorite shopping outlets (now including Alice–which you should check out if you haven’t yet–to save big bucks on my toiletries) in one place. And that day is not too far off!

Paul Boag of Boagworld authored “10 Harsh Truths About Corporate Blogging.” In it, he knocks common corporate pitfalls like using a blog to publish press releases or treating it like a straight marketing tool (rather than as a means to form relationships with individuals).

Blogs aren’t intended to be packed with marketing jargon or attempts to up-sell. Readers confronting such commercial-style content likely will be dismayed because they didn’t find genuine personality in that brand’s informal communication vehicle. Those readers might even cry. (But probably not.)

So when clients tell us, “I’m told I need a blog,” we always ask, “Why?”

If they want to “get more sales,” then we might explore additional methods for attracting leads — and leverage a blog secondarily to add more context for helping users make decisions. If the client wants to “connect with audiences” through accessible, two-way communication, then a blog might just be the perfect solution.

Either way, clients who are willing to put forth the time and effort it takes to produce valuable blog content that’s useful, interesting, or capable of building communities will best position themselves to land a loyal readership that helps them learn and grow overall.

When Dave created the new Digital Strategies division and asked me to lead it, I jumped at the chance for a couple main reasons: primarily, I love meeting with new people and talking about the web. It holds endless possibilities, and we help people capitalize on those possibilities. Secondarily, Dave had established Tellenger as a firm that truly builds long-term relationships with clients. It’s a model I find unique in a landscape of web shops that promote their particular preferences or technology solutions (which may not be what a client actually NEEDS).

To that end, we’ve got six core values that we infuse into our client relationships and business processes.

1. Exacting Technology – We’re a technology-agnostic firm, which means we’ll recommend and implement or integrate solutions specific to a client’s particular needs (rather than our personal language or platform preferences).
2. No-Bull Estimates – Our cost estimates are organized by individual line items – sort of like a menu of solutions catered to individuals’ unique needs.
3. Purpose-Driven Deliverables – We only spend clients’ time on deliverables that inform, demonstrate, and/or provide actionable direction. (If they don’t truly demand attention, why bother?)
4. Open Collaboration – We use Basecamp to collaborate on everything from timelines to documents and centrally store assets like logos, images or files.
5. User-Based Design – We substantiate our beautiful, accessible designs with user-experience research that considers industry Best Practices.
6. Analysis & Evolution – We analyze results against identified benchmarks and recommend adjustments for improvement. (Really, being attentive and proactive allows us to innovate.)

I’m so proud to be helping clients capitalize in the digital space while also being a part of Tellenger’s own dynamic growth.

After two years, we’ve re-launched Tellenger.com to better highlight the results of our work and the services we provide. Like many businesses, we started heading in one direction, though our successes, clients, and the market have encouraged us to adapt in order to better meet a unique set of needs.

Some of the changes that more accurately describe Tellenger include:

1. No longer focused exclusively on Government clients – We’ve found that our work with the Marine Corps, for example, has led to private sector businesses wanting our advanced coding skills. And our Government clients want to benefit from our leading edge work in the private sector.
2. Increased focus on Business Strategy – While strategy has always been an important part of our process, we were surprised to discover how many competitors fail to put the business strategy of an organization at the forefront of technology consulting. We let the business objectives of our clients drive our exceptional technology engineering and visual design … not the other way around. As a result, we’ve proven exceptionally skilled at building web-based businesses and driving organizational value through technology.
3. Not just complex coding anymore – Tellenger got its start building complex, mission-driven software applications delivered through the web so people could access their apps anywhere, anytime. However, we were missing an important market segment of organizations that needed less complex, though equally important, websites and digital technology solutions. Interestingly, the shift to building web-based businesses and ecommerce sites has actually enhanced our software apps.

While some website re-launches are simply refreshes or updates, Tellenger’s signifies our successes and our growth. We are doing outstanding work for our clients, which is leading to new clients, new requests, and repeat business. The new Tellenger.com site is a marker of the achievements our clients have experienced as a result of our work together.

I’m proud to welcome the new Tellenger.com.