I’ve learned a great deal about running a business from my clients. These are sharp people who in many cases have already “been there” and “done that”. One of the most valuable concepts imparted upon me by our client, and my friend, Dave Larsen was “The Value of Distraction“.

Simply stated, what’s it worth to you to pursue a particular opportunity? What’s it worth to you to be distracted from your own goals to help others achieve theirs?

A short time ago, I ran into a situation where I learned exactly what it’s worth to us – and what it’s not.

Podomani was recently approached to help out on a very large marketing/design/development and Ecommerce project. I was pitched that it would mean lots of work to us, and lots and lots of money with a super-mega-potential client. They said we’d get big exposure, and even though their budget on this deal was limited, there was big potential  for more lucrative work down the road.

It took me all of 24 hours to dive into the details, think about it, weigh the potential outcomes, and then promptly turn it down.

What? Turn down a potential huge job? You bet. And we couldn’t be happier about it.

First of all, it was easy to see the client had unreasonable expectations. What they wanted was the internet equivalent of us buying and developing a square block of down town Manhattan – for the price of about four fully decked-out Hummers. They also demanded that a large part of the site be built to integrate with some third party software that was yet to be developed – at no additional cost. Frankly, the project looked to be a fantastic train wreck just waiting to happen.

But more distracting for us was this project was to utilize a whole slew of dead, or dying technologies. So for a year or more, we would be focusing our skills on tools we would never choose to use again. And no where in the project would we be helping a client “make the cultural shift to a world of instantaneous, on-demand information” which we’ve set out to do.

Even if we put an outrageously high bid on it and the accepted – the value of the distraction would have been too steep of a price to pay.

Then there is the matter of the 24 hours I spent on the project to turn it down. That’s three full business days I could have spent in many other ways… but I chose to pay the price of this distraction. While I mourn the loss of the time, I’m comfortable knowing it could have been much worse.

John G. Miller, has a new book hitting the store shelves this month! Outstanding! 47 Ways to Make Your Organization Exceptional. The book is inspirational as well as a guide-book that individuals and organizations can use to set your organization apart from the pack, making customers and stakeholders get more involved and wanting to “stick” with the organization.

From my last post, you may recognize John as the winner of Sarah Palin’s jacket she wore for the photo of her best-selling book “Going Rogue”. All the proceeds went to benefit two organizations that support our U.S. troops, and the jacket made it home to John’s house. John’s lovely and gracious wife Karen modeled it briefly.

We’re just impressed that John was this generous in helping the people that are out there laying their lives on the line for all of us.

We’ve also been fascinated by the level of angst or joy that the mere mention of Sarah Palin generates. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one person garner so much of a positive response – or raise the level of hatred towards an individual so high in the negative responses.

But whatever your take on Mrs. Palin is, it was nice of her to donate the jacket, and even cooler that they made sure the profits went to support two important groups like Wounded Warrior Project and the Fisher House.

Politics must end when we are talking about the care of wounded soldiers. And for that, John, Sarah and all those involved at the very least deserve a thank you.

One of our favorite clients just won an online auction for Sarah Palin’s jacket she wore for the cover over her best selling book “Going Rogue”. The winning bid was $57,000 and all the proceeds go to support the Wounded Warrior Project and the Fisher House. Both are organizations to help our veterans and their families.

The winner of the auction was John G. Miller, best selling author of the books QBQ! The Question Behind the Question, Flipping the Switch and the new OUTSTANDING! 47 Ways to Make Your Organization Exceptional!.

We here at Podomani are very proud to have been helping John with his websites (qbq.com and outstandingorganizations.com) for the last year.

John was only mildly interested in Sarah’s jacket, but he was very very interested in supporting the troops, since his family has personal experience with veterans issues. We just thought this was a great gesture on John’s part, as well as Sarah Palin’s and Laura Ingraham’s.

John’s donation should go a long way to making this Christmas season better for our vets and their familes!

We don’t have any sales people here. Zero, Zip, Nada. When you call or email, your connected to a person who can discuss what you need for your website. I know to many this may sound like a strange way to run a business, but it works.

For several years I worked in an business environment that believed it must grow a sales force in order to grow. This is common for a growing business. It’s the path the vast majority take and I’m sure it does work when selling commodity items.

With every sales person we hired, we ran into the same problem: Since they had never worked in design, development marketing or hosting of a website, they could not discuss anything with a client without saying a phrase I came to dread: “I’ll get back to you on that.”

Translation? “I have no clue. I will have to take the information you gave me, talk to someone smarter than me, then bring it back to you, and hopefully, I will not screw it up in between. Please be patient with me while I totally waste your valuable time.”

The result was often a phone call from a customer I had spent years developing a relationship with who would say “please don’t make me talk to that person again.”

So that former business environment just kept right on firing and hiring sales people, beating their heads against a wall, and hoping for a different outcome.

When I started Podomani, one of the ideas I wanted to try was not having any sales people. It’s working better than I could have ever imagined. We’ve cut tons of time off of lead times and sales processes, lowering costs. When you call Podomani, you get a live voice that can help you now. That has lead to better long term relationships with our clients, and faster turn-arounds on projects.

Do you know of other companies that practice the “no-saleperson” philosophy? If so, I would love to hear about it.

Yet another useless phone book left for me to throw out.

So I posted my thoughts last week on how useless phone books are, and wondering why any are still printed. That very afternoon, I came home to find some trash a new phone book laying in my yard.

Notice they just threw it in the grass as though they expect it to be thrown out.

Is there a law against throwing trash in some one else’s yard? Can I send the phone company a bill for a portion of my trash bill this month?

Ashley at the 2008 Comic Con Convention

We’ve brought Ashley Hay into the mix here at Podomani to help out with site design. Ashely is a graduate of the Minneapolis School of Art and Design, and an avid online gamer.

Recently Ashley made a big splash on the web as one of the  “Girls of Comic Con” with her punk rock Jedi Knight outfit she wore to the convention. One such list listed her as “Girl20″. I think the name might stick.

Ashley does blogging for the Girls Entertainment Network and also podcasts for Fancy Pants Gangsters.com.

Even though we really, really like the design work she’s been doing her and the fact that she’s fun to work with, we decided we really liked her on her first day when she brought in a box of massive cookies.

We should have Ashley’s first design up very soon.