What Jamie Can Do For You
So this is the part of the site where I walk through all the ways I can help you build your business (or rebuild it as the case maybe). That’s what it’s all about, right? What I can do for you…
If you visited my LinkedIn profile, you probably noticed the following headlines:
- Great People Build Great Websites
- Why Great Websites Need Fun
- Being Yourself Is Great Fun and Highly Productive
Believe it or not, I really do try to live by the principles. I find it’s so much easier to build a great team when you’re having fun and having fun is first and foremost about being yourself. Let’s spend our time doing incredible work together. Isn’t life too short for anything less?
How I Can Help You Find Time To Read To Your Kids
Tell me, does this sound familiar?
“Hi, I’m so and so from such and such. I just wanted to reach out to you today and find out more about your initiatives for the new year. Will you be available for a call on Tuesday with my associate?”
If you had that sort of time, you’d be out making money instead of talking to consultants. Or better yet, you might use that time to read to your kids at night. I know what this feels like because I’ve been there.
What many eCommerce executives need is someone who can parachute in and help. Someone they can trust. And this happens to be precisely what I’m offering.
I’ve made a career of fixing problems in eCommerce shops. Technical problems, analytical issues, business strategy, and even the nuts and bolts of managing the flow of work.
eCommerce is a Team Sport
There are people you can hire to come in and take apart small pieces of the business, examine them under the microscope, then give you back a narrow plan of action. An approach like that can keep you busy for a long time, but does it make you successful? Does it enable you to build a well-functioning team who understands where the business is headed and can act when you’re not around?
Not really. It leads to confusion. It leads to chasing your tail and never knowing what the next project happens to be or how people contribute to the whole. This is not where you want to be if you want to be successful.
Let’s get the foundation together first. Let’s get the big picture on paper and then work through the details. Let’s have a comprehensive eCommerce program and strategy first and then go into tweaking the finer points.
What Am I Selling?
Don’t you hate it when a consultant tells you it’s difficult to gauge what an engagement might look like without first learning more about your business? So do I. Really, who has time for that kind of back and forth?
So let’s just sketch it out right here…
First I’ll tell you what I do and how I do it, then I’ll tell you how we might work together, and then I’ll tell you what it costs. Is this the end all be all? No. We can do this any way you like. You can pick the pieces you want or we can come up with some completely different, unique project. I’m open. This is just a framework for discussion, something with a little meat to it instead of the ubiquitous partner slide and a two-hour lunch.
What I Do And How I Do It
My technique is straightforward:
- I become your customer – I review the business from the outside. I see what your customers see. I document the experience, not just using the site but participating in all aspects of your eCommerce program: email, search, social if you’ve got it, customer service, and so on.
- I become your competitor – I review the business as if I wanted to eat your lunch. I look at your traffic and figure out where you’re invested. I review your strategies and write a plan to attack them.
- I become your site – I look at logs, analytical data, back-end databases, code. I look at all the systems, the flow of data, how transactions work. I write up a plan explaining what works and what doesn’t, where you’re likely to find yourself in trouble, and where you’ve really done the right thing and ought to congratulate yourself.
- I become your staff – I learn what they do and how they do it. I map the flow between functional areas. I hear what’s really going on day to day… And then I tell you how you ought to structure things based on the way work needs to be done and who you have on deck.
- Together, we feed all of this into your strategy – Up to this point, it’s all about the how of your eCommerce program. Now it’s time to delve into the why. This is where we map out the way things are, the way you want them to be, and the the way they should be.
I know that sounds like a lot, and I suppose it is, but this is what I do and it’s worth it.
By tearing down the entire structure and rebuilding it (if only by sketching it on the whiteboard of the mind), we’ll be able to develop an end-to-end plan for success. This means having a plan for technology and infrastructure. This means knowing how channels interact. This means making sure the work gets done in the most efficient manner possible. It also means freeing your team to grow and take on new responsibilities.
It means freeing you to focus on What’s Next.
How We Might Work Together
This is an overview of how the engagement might go. Each step outlined below takes about a month. It isn’t that it takes me 30 days of non-stop work to do this. Rather, it’s been my experience that pulling all the pieces together usually ends up taking 30 days when working at a reasonable pace, and a reasonable pace is important because it provides time for reflection and time for getting all the other day-to-day work done.
Customer and Competitor – I do the first two steps above and report back on the findings.
At this point, you haven’t shared your deepest secrets with me. This is me doing my homework. This allows you to gauge my depth of understanding. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked to consultants only to learn they didn’t do their homework and wasted my time. I don’t want to waste your time.
If you like what I’ve done, we move on to the next step. If not, we part friends and you have a very nice customer experience and competitive analysis study.
Website and Staff – Next up is getting a look at your marketing programs and your infrastructure. This means digging into the data and talking to staff.
When we’re done with this, you’ll get a document detailing everything you already know. 
If you like what I’ve done, we move on to the next step (see the pattern). If not, we part friends and you have a very nice overview of your business with a laundry list of changes and recommendations. Some of the changes will be quick fixes, others will require some planning, but the list will be prioritized because there’s nothing worse than folding a mixed basket of whites and darks and towels. Where do you start? I’m going to tell you where and how.
Strategy – Now we’re ready for the final phase. Here is where we spend some time talking about your vision. Where do you want the business to go? Then, based on where you are today, how do you get there?
We blue sky a bit. We get into the trenches. We talk about what will work and what won’t. We spend a lot of time with the budget and your forecasts. When we’re done, we wrap it all up into a serious business plan you can take to the board.
What It Costs
The whole package costs $30,000.
To keep it modular, we break it into $10K increments, half due at the beginning of each phase with the balance due upon receipt of the deliverables. In other words, to start phase 1 (Customer and Competitors) it’s $5K to begin and $5K when I deliver the documents and share my findings. By doing it this way, you have an opt-out at each stage of the process.
To some, this might sound like a lot. To others, this is going to look like a bargain.
You get what you pay for, and in this case you’re getting a seasoned eCommerce executive and tech guru to review your entire program from top to bottom and give you a frank assessment and a plan for moving forward.
That’s It
Don’t expect a hard sell. That isn’t what I do.
I’m not a big consulting group with tons of overhead. I’m one guy (albeit one guy with a wide range of skills, a ton of experience, and a track record of success). My goal here is to deliver good value and actionable results while hooking up with interesting companies.
The next step is simple. You send me an email or pitch me on Twitter.
After that, we’ll talk. We’ll go on long walks together in the sunshine. Strike that… save the long walks in the sunshine for your kids. If what I do sounds good, we’ll get to work.
So, when do we get started? Story-time starts at 8, right?
