Category: Strategic Planning

Wrangling Fear

12/5/2021

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
---Franklin D. Roosevelt (March 4, 1933)

I grew up in a blue-collar town and my dad was a vile and abusive man. He abused both my mother and me, and she turned to alcohol as a coping mechanism. Fear and uncertainty were staples during my formative years because life at home was a nightmare.

One of my greatest fears happened to be financial insecurity. I never knew where my next meal was coming from; and I imagined I might end up homeless. I’ll share about that in this article.

WRANGLING MY OWN FEARS
My dad’s job required him to travel three weeks out of every month for eight months of the year. Every time he took to the road my mom would pick up a liquor bottle as soon as he was out the door. Many a day, she would pass out drunk sometime during the afternoon, which left me to fend for myself. Consequently, I spent a lot of time on the streets as a youngster; and I devised schemes to keep my pockets full so I wouldn’t go hungry.

I was blessed with an above average intellect, and I viewed my education as a way out of my awful situation. As a result, I buckled down in school. I also competed athletically to improve my chances at earning a scholarship. Through the grace of God, scouts took notice and I made my way into Princeton. Once there, I thought I’d never look back.

After graduation, I made a decent living. I built a nest egg and planned for my retirement. That said, the feelings of fear and uncertainty relating to money followed me for years. They clouded my vision and impaired my judgment. So much so, that I was oblivious to very real dangers my business interests had surfaced.

I ran afoul of some very wealthy and powerful men, and they contracted killers to terminate my existence. In June of 2013, I was attacked by two men on an elevated bus platform at Denver International Airport while traveling on an assignment. They threw me off the four-story platform, and it nearly cost me my life.

The attack put me into a coma, and I spent over five months in the hospital. My insurance eventually ran out and the bills started to come due. Before the accident, I had begun a new business venture and my savings were already stretched. I was unable to work, and I had little money coming in.

After I was discharged from the hospital, I had a year and a half of physical rehabilitation ahead of me. At one point during that period, I thought my situation was hopeless. Things became so bad that I imagined I’d never be able to work again and might even wind up living on the streets. Many a night, I cried myself to sleep and called out to God in despair.

In that period of darkness, Jesus took the reins. My expenses were miraculously covered; and shortly afterward he opened the door to a couple of new consulting engagements.

Our firm was reborn, and my career headed in a completely new direction. In addition to branding, business analytics and strategic planning engagements, we started assisting entrepreneurs in their efforts to secure venture capital. This has become our core practice area in recent years, and we find these assignments to be our most fulfilling engagements.

As odd as this may seem, the attempt on my life happens to be the greatest blessing of my life. My reliance on Our lord and savior has grown by leaps and bounds since that day. I’ve been set free of the fears of becoming homeless and going hungry; and I have a much truer sense of purpose.

The adversity I’ve faced has now become somewhat of an asset much like Proverbs 17:17 describes. I now realize that all I am afforded has been conferred upon me through God’s grace, and I’ve earned a degree of humility. For Christ alone grants us pardon so we may carry out His will.

Meditation and prayer have become staples in my life in the years since the attack. I turn my care and will over to Our lord and savior Jesus Christ every morning and ask for his guidance and direction as I plan out the day ahead.

During these quiet times together, the Holy Spirit has revealed much to me about myself. I’ve channeled back to lessons in life that I had shelved in the back of my mind; and I have recalled the tutelage of mentors and instructors who honed my skills and helped forge my character.

One of the greatest lessons I have recalled is that you can train yourself to recognize fear. Both within yourself and within others. When you're under fear, your survival instincts begin to kick in, and your body gives off telltale signs when they do.

That said, there are two distinctly different types of fear. Some fears are sheep, and others happen to be wolves. The keys are first knowing which you’re dealing with, and then roping those fears into submission.

When I start to feel fear, my mind begins to race; and my pulse begins to quicken if I don’t nip the racing thoughts in the bud. Before I know it, I’m fidgeting in my seat and the world around me becomes cloudy. At that point, fear has the advantage. And like wagon train settlers on the American frontier, I become easy prey for outlaws, marauders and desperados whenever that happens.

When fear takes hold of me, I must remind myself that I've been afforded a sheriff's badge, and that’s it’s my duty to confront the perpetrator. That means tapping into the fear and shining light upon the source with the truth.

Wrangling fear entrepreneur sheriff sheep roping in venture capital

This isn’t as easy as it sounds because fear happens to be a shape shifter. It takes many forms, and most of them are slippery suckers.

Sometimes my fears appear as a strongman outlaw with the gift of gab. If I happen to be hungry, angry, lonely or tired when the strongman disturbs my peace, I’m in for a fight. If I manage to wrestle it down, it starts to plea bargain with me. It reminds me that it’s a long ride back to the jail and offers me a bribe to dismiss the criminal offense.

If I take that bribe, I’m in for a world of hurt. Because that strongman outlaw usually doesn’t travel alone. It’s generally tied in with a gang of marauding fears hiding all along the trail. The strongman has a horse that’s lot faster than mine, and it knows where its compadres are positioned. Before I know it, they’ve got me encircled; and they begin to pick me apart in short order.

They go after my scars. Wounds from the past that haven’t quite healed. They’re armed with sharp tongues and they’re deadly accurate with their aim. If my anger flairs, they smack me upside my head with resentments and leave me to rot on the trail. A tasty morsel for roving desperados that often follow in their wake.

When that strongman starts to offer the bribe, I’m learning to simply go about my business. I do my best to keep my mouth shut and not say a word. Instead, I hog-tie the strongman with my rope, blindfold it, stuff a bandana in its mouth, and drag it straight back to the jail behind my horse.

It isn’t my job to dispense justice. Rather, it’s my duty to keep the peace. I say a prayer for the outlaw and hand him over to Christ for redemption. I try not to look back once I have. Instead, I return the trail and go about my business. I know the verdict will be swift and that’s sufficient. The truth always prevails. Light always vanquishes the darkness.

CONFRONT YOUR FEARS EARLY ON
Confronting fear is an imperative, especially for entrepreneurs. Business is oftentimes warfare, and it’s necessary to keep a clear head in order to remain true to your mission. If you avoid your persistent fears, they tend to surface at the least opportune times. Our unholy enemy senses fear and uses it to his advantage.

You jeopardize everything you’ve worked for unless you rope your own fears and hand them over to God. For example, employees can sense doubt and uncertainty. It often breeds worry and concern. When patterns of the two begin to emerge, your top performers are likely to jump ship. Oftentimes, to your competitors.

Similarly, investors can sense desperation. Most won’t touch you when you smell of it. You’re simply a bad gamble and the risks to their portfolio are too great. And those who will entertain your ideas when you smell of desperation are oftentimes wolves. Some will listen to your pitch just to pick your brain. They’ll steal your ideas in order to sell them off, or even start a business of their own that mirrors yours.

Other wolves will intentionally wrangle you into a deal that becomes a no-win situation for you. They’ll deliberately structure the terms of the contract so that it’s nearly impossible to diversify or retool. Perhaps worse, they may plot to dilute your holdings over time; to a point where you have no say in the company.

Last but certainly not least: you’re likely to make unwise decisions if you’re not cognizant of your own fears. The Enemy is cunning, baffling and powerful. Before you know it, you’re responding to his minions rather than the voice of reason. If that happens, there's a good chance you'll wind up getting cocky, going bent, turning flaccid or becoming greedy. You may even compromise your company’s mission without even realizing it.

ENTREPRENEURS: FOR YOUR JOURNEY AHEAD

I waited patiently for the LORD;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.
He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.
He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
and put their trust in the LORD.
---Psalms 40:1-3

Wrangling fear entrepreneur kneeling at a cross on the American frontier

May you find clarity of vision and purity of thought as you move toward your purpose. Confront your fears, rope them down, and turn them over to Jesus Christ. Like the mustard seed, your vision will take root.

Author: Erik Gagnon - Managing Partner, Chi Rho Consulting

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Counting Sheep

10/14/2021

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Why You Should Add Prayer and Meditation to Your Arsenal of Weapons

“The temptation to take the easy road is always there. It is as easy as staying in bed in the morning and sleeping in. But discipline is paramount to ultimate success and victory for any leader and any team.”
---Jocko Willink (Author & former U.S. Navy Seal)

Over the course of my career, prayer and meditation have become great assets. The blessings He has bestowed are beyond measure. Jesus Christ is the foundation of our firm. We owe everything to Him. Truly.

In 2013, I was intentionally thrown off an elevated bus terminal at Denver International Airport. I broke numerous bones including my skull; and severely damaged my internal organs. Miraculously however, despite falling from over 40 feet, my spine and my neck received no damage.

That’s because angels sent from heaven guided my descent into darkness. In fact, they protected me from further harm before the paramedics arrived.

The emergency care team rushed me to Denver Health Medical Center in an ambulance in the dead of the night, where the trauma care team decided to induce a coma. I was in the coma for nearly two and a half weeks, and it was a hellish ordeal.

I do not recall going to the hospital in an ambulance in the dead of night. My body may have taken that journey, but my soul went elsewhere.

They flew me to a serene looking treatment facility by helicopter on a bright sunny day. They’d strapped me to a gurney much like a wounded Vietnam combat soldier being evacuated off the front lines. The door was open, and I looked out as we descended.

The facility itself was far from serene. The sins of my life had caught up with me, and they were taking me to what Italian author Dante described in The Divine Comedy as Purgatory. Quite literally, they were delivering me to the very Gates of Hell.

I was isolated and tortured for those two and a half weeks. The pain was excruciating, and the mental anguish almost unbearable. During my last hours there, the devil’s minions tormented me as they prepared to open the Gates and send me into the depths of Hell.

As I lay there cowering in fear, a human figure approached my bed. At first, I thought He was death personified: a sinewy muscular figure most awesomely terrifying. So much so, that I turned away from Him and curled up in a fetal position.

Some time passed without incident. So, I glanced back at Him not knowing what to expect. There and then, I found Him sitting on the floor near my bed, and my fears subsided.

After that, I woke up in Denver Health’s ICU unit. I spent the next five months at that hospital, and another year and a half in outpatient rehabilitation.

This tragedy turned out to be one of the greatest blessings of my life. Jesus Christ had delivered me from Satan himself; and my relationship with Our lord and savior has grown closer since.

In this time of healing, I have begun to realize how impactful our thoughts truly are. Every thought we spawn goes out into the universe to some effect. Meaning that every idea we have produces energy through the Holy Spirit.

Consequently, meditation and prayer have become invaluable tools in my daily regimen. Through meditation, I’ve begun to distinguish my wild thoughts and my crazy thoughts from my sane thoughts. And through prayer, I give thanks for the blessings in my life and ask God the Father for clarity of vision, purity of thought and a true sense of purpose.

When meditating, I begin with a prayer and then clear my mind of all thought for as long as possible. As my thoughts manifest, I start to picture a narrow mountain top pathway. To my left is a cliff, and to my right is a thicket. Upon that pathway, I imagine my thoughts as sheep.

My goal during these sessions is to guide every sheep gently down that narrow pathway into the loving arms of the Shepherd who awaits His flock. From there, He’ll tend to them and take them to market.

That said, it’s a difficult exercise to master. All sorts of temptations creep in, and I eventually wind up breaking my concentration. That’s when wild and crazy thoughts occur.

Every wild thought I have fattens my sheep. The longer I hold on to them, the fatter they become. Eventually, they waddle off the cliff, blurting out a hopeless last “Baaaa!” before falling into the vast unknown below.

As harrowing as that sounds, the fate of my crazy thoughts is often worse. Those thoughts send my sheep running into the thicket. If I become panicked and set off after that sheep without stopping to ask God for guidance, my lamb will become tangled up in the underbrush.

More and more, I am learning to rely upon Jesus to guide my sheep safely down the path toward their happy destiny. He alone ensures that my flock doesn’t wander off the cliff or end up prey for wolves in the thicket. And when my efforts are fruitful, he expands my resources to grow more sheep.

Whether you are an entrepreneur or an investor, the same should be true for you. Abandon your ambitions and channel your hopes, dreams and goals toward Our Father. Set your sights on Godly pursuits and follow the path Jesus walks. He’ll guide us well beyond what our limited imaginations ever thought possible.

“And He said to them, Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.”
---Matthew 17:20

Author: Erik Gagnon - Managing Partner, Chi Rho Consulting

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Pirates With a Periscope: Big Tech & The FUTURE OF THE FREE PRESS

8/26/2021

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“Journalism is dead in America…”
---Sean Hannity 2009

Journalism may not be completely dead yet. However, the industry in aggregate seems to be dying. Newspapers are in steep decline; and the cornerstones of the craft (magazines & periodicals) are locked in a death spiral. Similarly, local television news programs have experienced dramatic declines in viewership for more than a decade; and revenues for radio stations with all-news formats have flatlined.

The explosion of social media in recent years has undoubtedly disrupted the news and publishing industries. These days, online news sources are a staple for a vast majority of adults in the United States. In fact, 43% of U.S. adults turned to social media, news websites and news apps for political news this past election cycle. In parallel, online media subscriptions grew at an astonishing 300% rate last year.

So why are so many industry bellwethers floundering in an era where content is supposedly “King”? The sad truth is that publishers in aggregate have largely abandoned their tradecraft. Most bought in to the assertion that “the broad opportunities…involve supplying information or entertainment“ while largely neglecting the other two pillars of their art: educating & enlightening their audiences. Additionally, many unwittingly bought into the assertion that their audiences “must be rewarded with deep and extremely up-to-date information that they can explore at will.” Quantity over quality seems to be the manta; and publishers are paying a hefty price for their shoddy craftsmanship.

Make no mistake, the digital publishing realm is a world within itself. Cyberspace happens to be real estate; and publishers failed to fortify their kingdoms when they colonized their online territories. Metaphorically speaking, they entrusted pirates to patrol their waters at the outset. Gradually, the pirates established strongholds within the publishing castles and extorted their naivety. Today, these pirates hold the publishing world hostage; charging those they deem fit a king’s ransom to publicize and distribute their wares to the public at large.

By pirates, we are referring to search engines, social media companies and content aggregators (specifically: the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Google and YouTube). Perniciously, they have a stranglehold on the distribution and circulation of Web content. In parallel, these same companies also control a lion’s share of the advertising market within the online publishing world. Like robber barons of the 19th Century, the tech giants have created monopolistic empires of their own, decimating the publishing industry and leaving behind a wake of public discord in the process.

We will examine the genesis of the present situation in this article. We will also explain why the status quo has become a threat to democracies around the world as well as our own Constitutional Republic here at home. Lastly, we will offer our thoughts on how to best balance the playing field and hopefully restore public trust in our media institutions.

Just the Facts, Ma’am
A free fall within the publishing industry has been evident for years. In 2013, U.S. newspaper circulation fell below the lowest level in recorded history as digital consumption became more mainstream. According to PEW Research, the shrinkage has continued at an astounding rate since then. In 2018 for example, the combined circulation for print & digital daily newspapers in the U.S. fell 8% for weekdays and 9% for Sundays. Sadly, the future looks even bleaker for publishers if present trends continue.

Revenue for magazine and periodical publishers was expected to decline 13.8% in 2020 according to IBISWorld. As revenues from print advertising dry up, digital revenue streams simply are not accounting for the difference. This isn’t surprising given that the bulk of revenues generated through digital advertising (52%) now go to Facebook and Google rather than to the publishers themselves.

But why? Prior to the digital revolution, publishing houses typically had in-house sales teams that aggressively pursued advertisers themselves. It was as much an art as it was a science; and it served both the publisher and the advertiser quite well.

For instance, publishers could command premiums for the most visible advertising spaces; and repeat advertisers could (and would) often tell stories to their audiences within their real estate from issue to issue. Absolut Vodka’s advertising campaign of the 80’s & 90’s is one of the best examples.

As a whole, publishers and the media failed to fully assess the governing dynamics of the World Wide Web when they launched their digital ventures. They did not have to make each & every article, story, news piece, opinion column and publication under their license visible for the entire world to see. However, for some inexplicable reason, this is precisely what most publishers and news organizations chose to do. Instead of protecting and nurturing their intellectual properties as treasured assets, both industries effectively treated their intellectual property like trash and dumped them onto the World Wide Web.

Picture cyberspace as a solar system and the World Wide Web as a planet within that system. Now imagine you were a publishing mogul looking to set up shop on that planet. You probably would not dump your wares onto the surface of that planet without understanding and testing the terrain first. Yet, this is essentially what a vast majority of publishers and news outlets did when they launched their online publishing ventures.

The surface of the Web itself happens to be fluid and transparent. Adroit travelers within cyberspace are able to see everything on the surface web at quick glance; meaning that it’s ripe for piracy and theft. Much like the surface of the Earth; most of the solid ground on the Web lies well below the planetary surface.

In aggregate, the Web’s subterranean layers are known the deep web which is often ignorantly conflated with the dark web - the Web’s murky undersurface that is permeated with illegal content. That said, the deep Web is where the bedrock lies. In fact, around 90% of the world’s websites exist within the deep web rather than the surface web. Sites within the deep web are not indexed by the search engines and oftentimes aren’t made visible to the public in general. Additionally, websites within the deep web are frequently encrypted to ward off pirating operations as well as hackers.

When publishers first launched into cyberspace and claimed their domains on the Web, hackers were a clear predatory threat. Consequently, protocols were quickly established within the surface web to deter hackers. Savvy tech pirates on the other hand, were lying in wait. Many of them appeared innocuous on the surface. They had a native understanding of the Web’s subterrain and were often collegial toward publishers. However, business ventures are a combination of war and sport and pirate captains soon prepared their vessels to perform stealth forms of grand larceny within the publishing world.

Houston, We Have a Problem
The original champions of the World Wide Web were long on dreams and big on aspirations. In a 1994 speech to the International Telecommunications Union, then Vice-President Al Gore remarked:

“In this decade, at this conference, we now have at hand the technological breakthroughs and economic means to bring all the communities of the world together. We now can at last create a planetary information network that transmits messages and images with the speed of light from the largest city to the smallest village on every continent.”

He went on to say that “to accomplish this purpose, legislators, regulators, and business people must do this: build and operate a Global Information Infrastructure. This GII will circle the globe with information superhighways on which all people can travel.”

That said, he emphasized that the National Information Infrastructure as he called it, would be “built and maintained” by the private sector. He envisioned an architecture consisting of hundreds of different networks, varying technologies and run by a multitude of companies.

Apollo 13 movie line Houston, we have a problem

Like many tech visionaries of the period, Mr. Gore envisioned a utopian “marketplace of ideas, experiences, and products” available to everyone within free society. Effectively, they equated the distribution of data and access to information with knowledge transference. In general, he and many others tended to view the emerging cyber world with rose colored glasses. They seemingly imagined that collaboration and friendly competition would prevail in perpetuity for the greater good.

Time has proven these visionaries shortsighted and unpragmatic. They either ignored, were oblivious to, or had forgotten that immense political and social upheavals inevitably followed every major technological advancement throughout all prior human history. In his 1996 essay Content Is King, Bill Gates alluded to what was to come:

“I expect societies will see intense competition-and ample failure as well as success-in all categories of popular content-not just software and news, but also games, entertainment, sports programming, directories, classified advertising, and on-line communities devoted to major interests.”

Mr. Gates fully recognized the viability of the emerging markets as well as their enormous potential for scale. He also implied that social upheaval of some sort would be inevitable as macroeconomic principles played out over time. In those days, cyberspace was much like the North American continent during the 17th century. In effect, the World Wide Web would be an ethereal fountain for new raw materials with computer code comprising the basic elements.

Navigational maps would be required to conquer the terrain. They would be required to link people and institutions together; and to effectively promote trade. Also, library systems would have to be built to warehouse the perpetually renewing supply of maps. Inevitably, something along the lines of the Great Library of Alexandria would need to be built for the public at large to catch on and colonize the Web.

Intuitively, one would think that visionaries and architects devising the National Information Infrastructure would have realized this at the outset and built one into their rollout plan. Yet, it was left entirely up to the private sector to develop, build, and maintain them instead. Consequently, rudimentary libraries sprouted up throughout the 1990s. They are of course known as search engines today.

The first of these search engines was named Archie. Archie made its debut in 1990. That said, it was more of a simple card catalog than an exploratory tool for Web. Archie was followed by W3Catalog and JumpStation in 1993. Jumpstation was the first search engine to combine crawling, indexing and searching all into one package; features which are now industry standards. This innovation was followed in 1994 by Webcrawler; the first tool that enabled visitors to search for any word on any webpage, which is also of course an industry standard today.

During the latter part of the decade, competition within this category heated up as Web usage became more mainstream. Several search engines debuted during this period vying for popularity. Among the better known: Magellan, Excite, Infoseek, Inktomi, Northern Light, and AltaVista.

Then in 2000, Google gained traction. The brainchild of entrepreneurs Sergey Brin and Larry Page quickly rose to the forefront of the market largely due to their sophisticated PageRank system as well as their novel paid-search capabilities. Both were game-changing features as far as e-commerce was concerned, especially for publishers, entertainment companies and media outlets. For that matter, an argument can be made for the whole of Western civilization as well.

The Booty Call
Mr. Brin & Mr. Page met as undergrads at Stanford University. Mathematical geniuses armed with computer science backgrounds; they set out to change our world by organizing and cataloging the World Wide Web in an effective and easy to reach manner. A sophisticated mathematical gear system was at the heart of their solution, better known today as algorithms. The machinery they developed was groundbreaking to say the least.

From the outset, Google’s product had an intuitive end-user interface and an engaging demeanor. It was also fast and efficient. Beyond that, Brin & Page’s search engine was generations ahead of their competition mechanically. Both factors were enormous competitive advantages and they quickly leaped to the top of the market. The company has remained there ever since; driving most of their competitors into the graveyard.

Being one of the greatest free-market success stories of all-time, tales of Google’s origin, founding and history are widely known. Most suggest an earnest desire to change the world for the better during the company's nascency. Journalist Steven Levy provides such an example in his book: In the Plex, recounting the origin of the Google’s infamous slogan ‘Don’t Be Evil’:

Paul Buchheit was thinking, This is lame. Jawboning about citizenship and values seemed like the kind of thing you do at a big company. He’d seen enough of that at his previous job at Intel. At one point the chipmaker had given employees little cards with a list of values you could attach to your badge. If something objectionable came up you were to look at your little corporate values card and say, “This violates value number ﬁve.” Lame. “That whole thing rubbed me the wrong way,” Buchheit later recalled. “So I suggested something that would make people feel uncomfortable but also be interesting. It popped into my mind that ‘Don’t be evil’ would be a catchy and interesting statement. And people laughed. But l said, ‘No, reaIIy.”’

The slogan made Stacy Sullivan uncomfortable. It was so negative. “Can’t we phrase it as ‘Do the right thing’ or something more positive?” she asked. Marissa and Salar agreed with her. But the geeks—Buchheit and Patel—wouldn’t budge. “Don’t be evil” pretty much said it all, as far as they were concerned. They fought off every attempt to drop it from the list.

“They liked it the way it was,” Sullivan would later say with a sigh. “It was very important to engineering that they were not going to be like Microsoft, they were not going to be an evil company.”

Today, the Google brand is synonymous with Web search in much the same way that the term Mafia is synonymous with organized crime. An accurarate analogy because, Google’s business model had dubious underpinnings from the outset no matter how noble their founding origins may have been.

Monopoly board game Rich Uncle Pennybags

For starters, Google’s PageRank methodology was rife for corruption. Instead of assessing the overall value of a particular website on a given topic or Search term, their Web Crawler scours every visible published page to monetize the value. Like a submarine with a periscope, Google’s algorithmic machinery then targets and prioritizes pages based on their potential yield – for their preferred partners as well as for themselves instead of for their patrons.

And while Google’s founders insist that they were not moved by money, they were entrepreneurs at heart and ingrained their passion for success within the corporate culture. Regardless of their profit motives, competing to win has always been a strategic imperative for the company. As Mr. Brin once remarked: “We want Google to be the third half of your brain.”

The company understood from the outset that the World Wide Web happens to be a world of real estate. A world comprised of the elements visible to the naked eye and measured by occupancy. Over time, the search industry’s 800-pound gorilla has effectively built locks on both.

Google’s domain is arguably the most valuable piece of cyber real estate ever created as far as occupancy is concerned. More people visit Google every single day than other site on the Web. They also spend a great deal of time there. An average of 16 minutes per day; taking in over 17 page views during their stays.

Early in the game, publishers and the media seemingly thought allowing Search Engines like Google to freely crawl, catalog, and index everything they created was a wise and business savvy idea. Time has proven them wrong. At least for the ones that consistently fail to appear above the fold on Google’s first page of search results that is. Google has controlled over 86% of the global Search market for well over a decade. On top of that, they presently have a stranglehold on the industry’s advertising market – estimated at over 80% for 2019. In short, the conglomerate has effectively monopolized both industries.

Make no mistake, free press in America is no longer free. In effect, the media and the press have acquiesced to a sophisticated band of pirates who pilfer their profits and arbitrarily doll out their creative assets to the public. Online publicity has essentially become a pay-for-play racket over the years. Arguably, designed along the same lines as the Payola schemes that have scandalized the music industry off and on again since the 1950s. Like a mafioso godfather, Google demands tribute. And the publishing world willingly lines up to kiss their ring day in and day out.

Mr. Brin & Mr. Page no doubt had a sense of humor about them when they christened their pirate vessel. They originally dubbed Google’s new technology BackRub – a tongue-in-cheek phrase used within underworld establishments that are known to supply Happy Endings to their clientele. God knows if they had this in mind when they set out to conquer the Internet. That said, the monopoly they spawned within their dorm rooms has since grown to become the most powerful member of an oligarchical information technology syndicate. A syndicate that has grown so powerful that it now threatens the very fabric of free society.

What We’ve Got Here Is Failure to Communicate
It is little wonder that Western civilization began to fragment almost in parallel with Mr. Gore’s 1994 speech. Competition within the news and entertainment industries went into hyperdrive with the advent of the Web. With the internet, fringe publications were no longer hidden behind the counter of a local newsstand. Instead, they were right out in the open for all the world to see. Everything from hardcore pornography and violent videotaped crimes; to exploitative human tragedy exposes and even the narcissistic rantings of deranged sycophants. The public gobbled this garbage up like kids in a candy store and they continue to do so today

Quickly, mainstream media outlets began to lose a substantial share of their market to boundary-pushing upstarts. The explosion of online social media in the mid-2000’s furthered the exodus. In the United Kingdom for example, broadcast television experienced a 25% decline in viewership during the 2010’s. Similarly, U.S. television viewership has dropped an astounding 36% over the last eight years as more and more Americans continue to turn to online sources for their news & entertainment.

Cool Hand Luke movie line What we've got here is failure to communicate

Consider these figures and their implications:

33% of American adults have no trust at all in mass media according to a recent Gallup poll.
An additional 27% of those surveyed reported having very little trust.
Only 9% of those surveyed have full confidence in America’s media establishments.

Last year, American media’s trust factor sank to the second-lowest level in half a century per Gallup. Even more alarming, the 33% of Americans who indicate that they completely distrust the media is an all-time high in the 48 years history of Gallup's poll.

And why wouldn’t the general public distrust the so-called 'mainstream media'? The marketplace for news and information is hypercompetitive today. An oligopoly controls a bulk of the produce; and they have nearly eliminated scale. Media monkeys frantically compete with one another to get their share of bananas for their organ grinders - quality be damned. This analogy aptly applies to media executives that bow before Big Tech’s moguls as if they were an Emperor; as well as the frontline reporters tasked with spewing out garbage 24/7.

Another Fine Mess
Because an overwhelming majority of American adults (82%) now obtain all or some of their news online, Google and their brethren within the Social Networking industry wield ungodly power. Power to shape and form public opinion well-beyond any other media conglomerate that has ever existed.

Laurel and Hardy Movie Poster Another Fine Mess

Far more threatening, they also have power to bend and manipulate political decisions around the world in a direction of their choosing. Case in point, the 2020 U.S. election campaigns.

From an unbiased standpoint, it is nearly impossible to argue that Big Tech did not lean heavily in favor one political party over another in 2020. The rampant reports of online censorship and corporate collusion are damning because the facts ring true. Nowhere was this more evident than in the 2020 Presidential election campaigns. Time Magazine’s National Political Correspondent Molly Ball even boasted about it in an article shortly after the election. She writes in The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election that:

Quinn’s research gave ammunition to advocates pushing social media platforms to take a harder line. In November 2019, Mark Zuckerberg invited nine civil rights leaders to dinner at his home, where they warned him about the danger of the election-related falsehoods that were already spreading unchecked. “It took pushing, urging, conversations, brainstorming, all of that to get to a place where we ended up with more rigorous rules and enforcement,” says Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, who attended the dinner and also met with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and others. (Gupta has been nominated for Associate Attorney General by President Biden.) “It was a struggle, but we got to the point where they understood the problem. Was it enough? Probably not. Was it later than we wanted? Yes. But it was really important, given the level of official disinformation, that they had those rules in place and were tagging things and taking them down.”

In other words, Big Tech assumed the role of moral arbiters on behalf of the Democrat Party and their organized affiliates. If you happen to be a student of early 20th century history, this should send shivers up your spine. This is exactly what fascist and communist regimes of that period did with big industry. They seized control of mass communications deemed, distorted and twisted the truth, and stymied dissent in order to extinguish any and all opposition to their will. The atrocities committed by autocrats in within both systems speak to the consequences.

We are seeing more of the same today out of big tech. Like greedy European industrial profiteers the did with the Nazi and Soviet regimes, Silicon Valley's pirate captains are presently settling into an unholy alliance with China’s fascist regime. America's tech giants deliberately tilted their algorithms toward one side of the political equation in advance of the 2020 elections in order to to serve their overseas corporate interests; Our nation is now sliding toward tyranny. Our Bill of Rights and the free market be damned for all eternity if this trend continues.

All that Glitters Isn’t Gold
Vice President Gore delivered a second speech on the UCLA campus in 1994 where he remarked that: “the future of language is in our hands. Or put more broadly, the future of communications.” He went on to share a parable by author Toni Morrison:

“It was about a blind old woman renowned for her wisdom, and a boy who decided to try to play a trick on her. He captured a small bird, cupped it in his hands, and said to her, "Old woman, is this bird alive or dead?"

If she said "Dead," he planned to set it free and prove her wrong. If she said "Alive," he planned to quickly crush its life away and prove her wrong.

She thought a moment and said, "The answer is in your hands."”

Ironically, mass communications have not been nurtured. The buckshot approach taken by the Clinton Administration to catalog and index the Internet backfired on the public. Foolishly, politicians allowed carnivores into Publisher’s hen houses. Obliviously or corruptly, they have taken handouts from Big Tech fat cats and overlooked the best interests of their constituency. Our inalienable rights are now being crushed or smothered by capitalist wolves in the hands of greedy communist pigs largely in consequence.

Marie-Antoinette was infamously quoted for saying: Let them eat cake. That’s effectively what the unholy alliance between Big Tech and our mainstream media establishments have been feeding news consumers for years: sugar mixed with poison. And the public has developed a large addiction problem.

All That Glitters Isn't Gold Big Tech Oligarchy

According to PEW research, there were 37 digital-native news outlets as of 2018 that averaged 22.4 million unique viewers each month. The typical viewer only consumed two minutes-worth of news each jaunt. Imagine you only had two-minutes to prepare your meal each morning. That leaves little time to discern what is good for you let alone digest a meal.

In closing, the Big Tech consortium has produced little in return for the good faith entrusted upon them by our government officials. For instance, the American literacy rate has not improved over the past 25 year. Furthermore, despite near-universal access more reading material than the world has ever known through the internet and our mobile devices, The Read Center reports that 1 in 6 adults cannot read above a 4th grade level today. More remarkable, The World Literacy Foundation recently estimated that 2/3 of Americans could not pass a basic financial literacy test covering credit, interest, investing diversification and inflation.

In other words, Leonard Cohen’s song Everybody Knows seems prophetic: “the poor stay poor and the rich get rich”. If the pendulum doesn’t adjust soon, a day of reckoning will no doubt soon occur. As former President Ronald Reagan once remarked: "Freedom is never more than one generation from extinction.” The Time of Choosing he eloquently in his speech outlined is well at hand.

Time to Rise Up
The time has come to break up the Big Tech’s four horsemen for the good of the nation and all of humanity. Congress must recognize Amazon, Facebook, Google & Twitter's key commodity happens to be information capital. Everything you do or say online can be monetized; meaning that an individual's right to privacy effectively no longer exists. Worse still, beyond the inherent threat to our personal liberties and guaranteed freedoms; there is perhaps an even greater threat to our national security interests if the Big Tech oligarchs continue to remain unchecked.

With the exception of Amazon, Big Tech’s other three horsemen effectively serve as public utilities in the digital age. Collectively, the top brass within these companies effectively dictate and control the flow of information from town to town and city to city across the country. Facebook being akin to Bell Telephone and National Public Radio; and Twitter being world's “town square” so to speak. Similarly as we've mentioned, Google effectively serves as a global public library; and an argument could be made that their conglomerate also serves as a sort of mass transit system within the cyber world as far as business and commerce are concerned.

Beyond the breakup, re-formulating America's communications infrastructure will require an innovative approach. Re-tooling our National Library system seems a natural place to start. The information superhighway requires a Grand Central Station; and the National Library has the potential to serve as such if were retooled and properly scaled.

Therefore let us stop passing judgement on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way. As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating or drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Sprit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.

Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, But it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble.
ROMANS 14:9-21

Rise Up (Lazarus) - Cain and Zach Williams Christian Music LP

Author: Erik Gagnon - Managing Partner, Chi Rho Consulting

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Follow These 12 Simple Rules To Design A Website That Grows Brand Value and Builds Brand Equity

12/14/2018

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Good Design is Powerful. Great Design is Invisible. - Chi Rho Consulting - Strategic Consultancy for Entrepreneurs and Startups

“Good design accelerates the adoption of new ideas.”
---Yves Behar (Swiss designer, entrepreneur and an educator)

Over the years, we’ve helped a good number of startup companies and non-profit organizations develop and implement long-term growth strategies. Without question, one of biggest challenges we typically face when working with their leadership teams is convincing them to invest aggressively in their brands.

We’ve found that entrepreneurs and non-profit executives often place branding on the lower end of the priority scale because it's difficult for them to see the tangible benefits. Oftentimes, they assume that money spent on branding diminishes their operational capacity. Such thinking tends to be a penny-wise but pound-foolish approach.

This is particularly true when it comes to web design. In today’s world, your website is typically one of the first points of contact between your organization and your target audience. Strong web design often propels your organization to success. Conversely, poor web design can completely subvert your mission.

First impressions matter. Make a bad impression, and you’ll likely lose potential conversions. Make a good one, and you’ll typically gain new customers. More importantly, you’ll potentially earn a customer for life if you make a great impression.

In other words, quality web design is crucial to your mission. A high-quality website greatly increases the value of your brand in the minds of your target audience. Furthermore, wise investments in your digital assets ultimately build brand equity for your organization. With this in mind, here are the twelve design rules we suggest you follow in order to squeeze the most out of your website.

RULE #1 – Visual Design Matters
Visual branding transcends every aspect of a company's presence in the marketplace. Consequently, effective graphic design is crucial if you wish to generate interest and attention from your target audience. The look and feel of your website often determines whether customers will interact or do business with you in just a few short seconds.

Effective design takes time, effort and a modicum of skill. That said, the effectiveness of your design will be evaluated instantly by your visitors. Their first impressions will likely determine if, when and how they decide to interact with your site, brand or business. A visually pleasing design scheme will create a favorable first impression and increase visitor engagement.

Here are the design elements that attract your visitor’s attention first and foremost:

Your images and graphics (particularly if they're large or over-sized)
Your logo and your branded elements
Your font and color schemes
Your main navigation menu
Your text headlines
Your website footer and contact information

Tip: Effective visuals and a crisp, clean design add credibility and legitimacy to your website. Effective design also helps establish trust in your brand. This is especially important if you're trying to convert a sale or sway opinions. A visitor will associate the experience they have on your website with the experience they are likely to have with you in real life.

RULE #2 – Get to Know SEO
To make the most of your Internet real estate, you need to design and build a website that can be found on the major search engines (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc.).

The art and science of ranking in search is commonly known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO). An effective content strategy accounts for the search terms your target audience uses on a day-to-day basis. An effective strategy also incorporates customized content (e.g. videos, blog articles, podcasts, e-books, etc.) based on your audience's demands and preferences.

Successful SEO requires patience and attention to detail. An extensive knowledge of how search engines work is helpful, and it generally takes time and practice to achieve sustainable success. That said, you’ll be off to a good start and probably gain an advantage over your competition once you get the basics down. After mastering the basics, you can always move on to advanced levels of SEO down the road.

Tip: If you’re just starting out with SEO, it’s a good idea to begin simple. For example, concentrate on improving your site in each of the following five areas:

The quantity and quality of inbound links to your website
Fresh and regular keyword-rich content updates
Optimized meta descriptions and title tags
Creating an efficient and effective User Experience (UX)
Mobile friendliness / mobile optimization

RULE #3 – Responsive Websites Rank Better
Mobile search now accounts for over 60% of total search volume; and that figure is only expected to increase over the next few years.

Indeed, 80% of internet users own a smartphone, and Google indicates that “61% of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site they had trouble accessing and 40% visit a competitor’s site instead.” Therefore, the look, feel, form and function of your website on mobile devices is crucial to your long-term success.

Today, every website should be responsive. If you don’t have the time or budget develop a mobile application, then responsive web design is the preferred solution.

Responsive Website Example - Chi Rho Consulting - Strategic Consultancy for Entrepreneurs and Startups

With responsive web design, a designer creates a site that “responds to” or automatically resizes based on the dimensions of the viewing device. For example, the look and feel of a site viewed on an over-sized desktop computer monitor, a laptop, or devices with small screens such as smartphones and tablets, is generally consistent across all devices.

Tip: Most of the major drag-and-drop website builders (e.g. Weebly, Wix, Squarespace, etc.) now include responsive design templates as part of their standard product offerings.

RULE #4 – Your Navigation Menu Matters
Navigation is a crucial component of effective website design. Your navigation menu is basically a map that displays the key places you want your visitors to explore. If your website’s navigation menu isn’t effective, visitors will overlook important content. Worse still, they may become frustrated and abandon your site altogether.

When examining the effectiveness of your website's navigation menu, it's important to ensure that it’s clear, concise and relatively simple. Common characteristics of an effective navigation menu include:

It’s easy to find – either across the top horizontally or on the left as a vertical sidebar
It’s consistent – visitors will find your navigation menu in the same location on every page
It’s specific – avoid overly generic phrases and buzzwords (use descriptive names instead)
It’s minimal – streamline the number of navigation links (seven main menu items is now considered a best-practice maximum)
It’s a location marker – it's best to provide visitors clues as to where they are once they navigate away from your home page (use a consistent highlight appearance throughout your site)

Tip: The bottom of your page isn’t necessarily the end of your site and the space for your copyright notice. An effective footer also allows visitors dig deeper into your site. Meaning, you shouldn't forget to include a secondary navigation menu in your website footer. As an added benefit, the additional internal links positively influence your page search rankings.
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RULE #5 – Take Time When Crafting Your Content Headers
If you effectively utilize and optimize your h1, h2 and h3 header tags, you can greatly improve your website’s search rankings and thereby increase organic traffic. That said, designers all too often miss the mark when creating the header tags for their web pages.

Header tags are a critical on-page SEO factor because search engines use them to categorize your site’s content. Search engines prioritize the copy in your header tags above your text paragraph sections. The hierarchy begins with your h1 tag and moves down in importance to the h2, h3, etc. In other words, your header tags supplement the mission or purpose of your web pages.

It’s important to structure your header tags appropriately. To truly be effective, it’s important to include short-tail and long-tail keywords in your header tag content. When the search engines crawl your site, they read your header tags and recognize the keywords you’ve incorporated. They’re factored in to the algorithms the search engines use to prioritize and rank your pages in their search results.

Tip: Your h1 tag should contain keywords targeted toward your audience. Your keywords should relate directly to your page title as well as your body content. As a general rule, you should only use one h1 tag on each page.

Your h2 tags are subheadings. They should contain keywords related to your h1 tag. Subsequently, your h3 tags are subheadings for your h2 tags, etc. In short, order your header tags in a hierarchy based on importance.

Also, ensure that your header tags are grammatically correct and coherent. Packing your header tags with keywords may in-fact hurt your search rankings. Google and Bing’s algorithms are sophisticated – attempts to manipulate search rankings generally do more harm than good.

RULE #6 –Forget the Fold
The term “above the fold” refers to the portion of a web page that’s visible in a browser window when the page first loads. The remaining portion of the page that requires scrolling in order to view content is called the "below the fold" section.

Above the Fold Website Example - Chi Rho Consulting - Strategic Consultancy for Entrepreneurs and Startups

Old design standards emphasized keeping as much relevant content above the fold as the space allowed for. That said, above the fold rules are mostly old news today. Most visitors are comfortable scrolling a web page these days. Consequently, design emphasis has shifted toward optimizing aesthetics and form styling in recent years. A longer home page is now acceptable and offers some strategic advantages as well. Including 3-5 sections on your home page helps point visitors to key areas of your site. It also creates a more seamless user experience for your visitors.

Tip: Here’s a list of the key elements you should consider including in the sections of your home page:

An elevator pitch (brief about us)
A compelling value proposition
An introductory video
An overview of your products and/or services
A list of features and benefits
Testimonials or press mentions
Case studies/success stories

RULE #7 – Make Effective Use of White Space
Believe it or not, white space is a critical design element. The term refers to the areas around your page elements that are empty and lack content or visual items.

White space improves readability and helps you compartmentalize your content. It also tends to decrease the apprehension level of new visitors. A page stuffed full of text and/or graphics with minimal white space generally appears busy or cluttered. This diminishes your user experience (UX) and typically leads to a high bounce rate.

Incredibly, nearly 90% of all purchase decisions are made subconsciously. This means that your customers are driven by emotional processes, rather than intellectual ones.

Website Whitespace Example - White Space - Chi Rho Consulting - Strategic Consultancy for Entrepreneurs and Startups

In other words, comforting aesthetics, high-quality visual branding and positive user experiences tend to trigger calls to action.

Tip: If your web page lacks white space, review the page and strip elements or content that aren't necessary to the purpose of the page. After that, make sure this content is properly grouped so users are able to distinguish correlations on the page.

RULE #8 – Invest Time In Social Media
Effective use of social media really drives website traffic. In fact, over 26% of all traffic now comes from social media sites vs. 35% from search. Given that 62% of people list social media as a primary news source, your organization can’t afford to be silent on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other social media networks if you wish to stay relevant.
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Besides being a valuable traffic and lead source, social media offers a unique opportunity to strengthen your brand’s awareness and reach. While organic search and paid advertisements generate attention, social media tends to spark interest. For example, people can begin following you with a simple click of a button on most social media sites. This provides an opportunity to engage with an interested audience on a regular basis and likely generate additional revenues long-term.

If all this sounds new to you, then we suggest you begin by setting up branded social media accounts and then embed social sharing buttons on the key pages of your website. Social sharing buttons contain icons from your preferred social sites and allow your visitors to share your content directly on their social media feeds. In other words, engaged visitors amplify your brand within their social circles and ultimately drive new traffic to your website.

Tip: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn are social media juggernauts. However, they aren't the only players in the game. Indeed, the social media landscape has changed considerably in recent years and the industry is becoming more and more competitive. A plethora of new “free speech” social media startups offer unique opportunities to quickly make a name for yourself. We suggest you check out up-and-coming players like Gab, InfinitySN, Minds and Free Talk which currently seem to be operating under the radar of most major brands.

RULE #9 – Leverage and Grow Your Brand Assets
Your website is your public persona. It creates a lasting image of who you are. Therefore, carefully consider what you want your local, domestic and international communities to know about you, your product or your services. Once you've identified your desired game plan, meticulously craft your image and effectively manage your message.

An effective website engages your audience but still conveys critical information in an obvious way. It also allows you tell your brand story in a memorable fashion.

Consequently, your website should contain content and images that affirm your vision, mission and values with your target audience. In other words, images and text should come together seamlessly and reflect the attitude and tone of your organization.

Therefore, consider the following as you define or re-evaluate your brand:

Put your customer first. What’s the primary purpose of your website? Typically, it’s to drive sales or generally influence behavior. Therefore, ensure that all of your content elements are crafted with your target audience in mind.
Develop a “voice" for your organization that reflects your persona. Ideally, your brand voice should be adopted into all your marketing communications materials. It should be applied to all of your visual elements as well. Is your persona informal? Then, be conversational and fun. Is it upscale? Then be more formal.
Create a logo. Consistently use your logo in all your digital communications materials so your target market begins to associate the image with your mission, vision and values.
Develop a tagline. Write a clear and concise statement that captures the essence of your brand and seeds your vision in the minds of your target audience.
Develop consistency. Ensure that you’re using the same color scheme, logo placement, look and feel throughout all your marketing communications materials.
Be true to your brand persona. It’s all for naught if you don't deliver on your brand promises.

Tip: Start by defining your ideal target market before you do anything else. Identify common attribute characteristics like:

Age
Marital status
Education level
Political values
Ethnicity
Location
Hobbies and interests
Household income

Once you’ve profiled your ideal customers, create content tailored to the audience. Use language and imagery relevant to your target audience and relate on their terms.

RULE #10 – Font and Color Palettes Really Matter
One of the keys to effective web design is to remember that digital marketing is principally text communication. According to Ryan Shafer (Lead Digital Designer at MTV & VH1), “I encourage all budding web designers to embrace that the web is fundamentally about typography design.”

The fundamental truths of type design have been proven out over the centuries. Consequently, there are some basic rules that all web designers should adhere to:

For Headlines

Make your titles bold and easy to scan.
San serif typefaces are ideal for headlines because of their starkness. Also, they are easy to read at larger font sizes.

For Body Text

Solve for maximum legibility.
Larger font sizes work better. A 16px font should be the minimum you consider.
Limit your line sizes. A good rule of thumb is to avoid lines of text greater than 80 characters long.

Color Theory Infographic - Website Design - Chi Rho Consulting - Strategic Consultancy for Entrepreneurs and Startups

As far as your color palette is concerned, the key is to pick a single palette and strictly adhere to it. ALL of your marketing communications materials should maintain the same color palette. Consistency is extremely important when it comes to creating a cohesive color palette for your website and your other mar-comm materials.

A three-color palette is a good rule of thumb. That said, adhere to basic best practices in color theory no matter what color scheme you choose for your brand.

Tip: If you’re a design novice, a number of free online tools and resources are available to point you in the right direction. For color palettes, we recommend Adobe Creative Cloud’s Color Wheel and Paletton. For font type selection, check out: Adobe Fonts, Wordmark and Type Scale.

RULE #11 – Maintain Fresh Content
The expression, “content is king” is widely-used these days in digital marketing circles. So, what exactly does it mean?

For starters, it refers to the fact that the search engines place a premium on new content. Indeed, the quality and relevancy of your content is essential in determining your page's position in search query results.

Simply updating or refreshing your pages on a regular basis doesn’t make your site “fresh” and more likely to rank effectively within the search engines. Similarly, adding new pages just for the sake of increasing the size of your digital footprint won’t necessarily boost your site on the freshness meter.

Google employs a tool referred to as "Query Deserves Freshness" (QDF) to rank and prioritize new content. This tool monitors search query activities and identifies trending topics that stand out from normal activity. When QDF is triggered, Google looks to see if there’s any fresh content on the topic and then gives that content a boost in their search results.

In other words, if you have fresh content on a trending topic, you’ll likely enjoy a ride at the top of the search results for a period of time. Once the QDF boost wears off, your page generally shuffles back to its original position in the search results.

If you’re a savvy and nimble organization, the QDF algorithm provides opportunities to generate a significant competitive advantage. For example, if you create relevant and robust content in pulse with the hottest trends in your market, you can quickly establish yourself as a thought leader within your industry.

Tip: Follow these five simple guidelines if you struggle to create fresh content:

Get involved In the conversation - Social media platforms and discussion groups are great for keeping a pulse on trending topics in your industry.
Monitor your competition – Get an idea of what, when and how your competition communicates. Build off their model and take the things that seem to work for them one step further. In other words, beat them at their own game.
Archive inspirational ideas – Broaden your interests beyond your industry category. Identify best practices from other industries and adopt them into your business model. If you’re running dry on fresh ideas, refer to your archive for inspiration.
Leverage existing web resources – There are several online tools designed to kick-start the creative process. For example, BuzzSumo allows you to analyze content trends in a variety of industries and identify what works well for various market segments.
Employ a copywriter – Copywriters often offer a fresh perspective. A good copywriter will identify fresh content opportunities from your target audience's perspective and keep your organization on the cutting edge of your industry.

RULE #12 –Utilize High-Quality Images and Graphics
Eye-catching visual elements that complement your branding have a tremendous impact when used properly. Here are a few factors to consider when selecting graphics and images for your website:

Thematic images that represent your products or services
Photos that create emotional effects relating to the value of your brand
Proprietary photos (i.e. high-quality images of your location, your team members, your products, etc.)
Images and graphics that complement your brand standards (color palette consistency, theme, etc.)
Maintain a consistent look and feel to the elements throughout your site

No matter what, you’ll want to ensure that the graphics and images you select are high-quality files. Otherwise, your audience may walk away with a negative perception of your organization

Quality Value Quadrant Chart - Chi Rho Consulting - Strategic Consultancy for Entrepreneurs and Startups

(e.g. a belief that you products and/or services are low-quality or that you're unlikely to deliver on your brand promises).

Ideally, your organization should use proprietary photos from a professional photographer and customized graphics from a professional designer. That said, there are plenty of affordable stock image sites to choose from if you happen to have tight resource constraints (e.g. iStock, Adobe Stock, Wikimedia Commons, etc.)

If you do decide to use stock images instead of proprietary artwork, be careful to ensure that every image you select matches your brand persona and correlates with your written content. Also, you want to establish a unique brand identity and protect your site from having a generic look and feel, so be sure to avoid popular images if you can.

Tip: Remember that page load time factors in to your site’s search rankings. This is especially true for mobile. Therefore, you’ll want to pay close attention to the size of your image files. Familiarize yourself with Google’s “Image Optimization” guidelines if you want to completely optimize your images.

CONCLUSIONS
As we stated earlier, your website is often your organization’s primary public persona. It holds enormous influence over your target market’s perception of your products and/or services. More often than not, healthy and flourishing organizations tend to have effective websites; while struggling organizations often have ineffective websites.

Investing in the quality of your website tends to pay substantial dividends over the long run. It’s a direct investment in your brand; and there are countless case studies available online which attest to the bottom-line results that successful branding efforts often achieve.

Subjectively, prudent investments in your brand assets often create a variety of strategic advantages. For example:

Effective branding improves recognition - Brand recognition is a driving factor for any company or organization that wishes to grow. It generates traffic and fuels conversions.)
Effective websites establish trust - People tend to purchase or frequent businesses that appear polished and legitimate. They’re also much more likely to refer them to their friends.)

78% of Buying Decisions are Based on Others Perceptions of a Company and the Experience it Delivers Infographic - Chi Rho Consulting - Strategic Consultancy for Entrepreneurs and Startups

Well-branded websites increase advertising effectiveness – Again, branding influences your conversion rate. By investing in your quality of your digital assets, you can lower your marketing spend over the long run.
Effective branding builds financial value – If your organization requires loans, investments or an IPO to meet your future growth targets, your brand’s perceived value will play a significant role during negotiations. The greater your devotion to growing your brand's value and building brand equity, the better your negotiating leverage will be.
A cohesive brand inspires employees and attracts top-tier talent – If employees are inspired by your public persona they tend to perform better. Similarly, a cohesive brand identity helps you recruit qualified talent to your organization. Having a strong brand turns your logo into a rally flag and your tagline into a source of pride.
Effective branding often generates a competitive advantage – Highly profitable companies tend to have one thing in common. They establish themselves as leaders in their particular industry by building a strong brand and consistently living up to their brand’s promises.

Author: Erik Gagnon - Managing Partner, Chi Rho Consulting

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How to Build an Effective Demand Generation Program in 2018

1/2/2018

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Many C-Level executives associate Demand Generation with technology solutions and/or digital content programs. While both are crucial components, it's important to remember that effective Demand Generation is a complete organizational discipline. It's been our experience that organizations that avoid or ignore one or more of Demand Generation's strategic pillars often doom their programs to failure.

Our 2018 white paper The 4 Strategic Pillars of Effective Demand Generation examines the discipline from a strategic standpoint. We look at the key factors which typically separate effective Demand Generation programs from their ineffective counterparts. We also address the foundations of an effective Demand Generation strategy and offer some tactical recommendations within each of the four strategic pillars:

Process
People
Content
Analytics

Over the years, we've helped a number of startups and expansion stage companies establish successful Demand Generation programs based upon the tenants we outline in this white paper. We've also helped a handful of established companies retool their marketing and sales operations, integrate predictive analytics into their programs and refine their touch point communications strategies based on these principles we highlight.

The white paper includes an Executive Summary with key findings as well as our conclusions for companies looking to adopt Demand Generation strategies or optimize their current Demand Gen activities. Click on the picture below to download the white paper now:

The 4 Pillars of Effective Demand Generation 2018 Whitepaper Cover Photo

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If you're seeking to establish a Demand Generation program for your company in 2018, or if your organization didn't produce the results you projected for your Demand Gen campaigns last year, Chi Rho Consulting can help! There's no cost for an initial consultation and we typically structure performance-based fee arrangements with our clients.

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