Some App marketers geo-restrict distribution of their App due to legal or compliance issues or the desire to deliver different marketing messages, tools or services to different countries. Granted, this can be accomplished within a single App, however, some companies prefer to build an App that targets a single country or region so that they can increase relevancy and conversions rather than allowing anyone to download and comment on their offering. The issue arises when you live in one country where you would like to access local Apps with such geo-restrictions but you have an Apple iTunes account from another country.

To date, Apple accounts are directly related to your credit card’s billing address and for several years, users were not able to download the free Apps from the Apple iTunes App Stores in other countries. Now there is a way to do it and, apparently you no longer need a credit card to access free Apps. Apple started using standard double opt-in techniques via email verification for people who want an account but do not want to buy anything at this time.

Follow these instructions from the Apple Knowledge base to setup an iTunes App Store account from your Mac or mobile device without having to provide a credit card. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2534

The iTunes Store, App Store, iBookstore, and Mac App Store share the same Apple ID account. To create a new Apple ID for use on iTunes Store, App Store, iBookstore, and Mac App Store without a credit card, follow the steps below.

Now that 2011 is behind us, I can reveal some insight into performance results for tactics offered this past year by so called (and usually self proclaimed) online marketing gurus. Several marketers I’ve met this past year consider themselves to be entrepreneurs and with this role in mind, they paid for and followed the advice of a few amiable marketing gurus. I put a simple spreadsheet together last week to tally up the results and see if any guru advice added to their bottom line. To make this a measurable and manageable exercise, I focused on one single piece of advice and used the cost to acquire this advice in my calculations. The learning was interesting; here is my short summary:

If you are a bear, you are a bear. If you are a dog, you are a dog. If you are a marketer, you are NOT an entrepreneur.

OK… now the longer version.

Marketing is about numbers and can be highly opportunistic in that, if something doesn’t work after a reasonable amount of testing, try something else. The numbers dictate the next action and thus, marketing (especially online marketing) is a very tactically oriented approach to success. Also, wrt online marketing, a marketer can jump from one product to the next quickly and easily by creating new lists of Customers and even by cross pollinating these lists.

The entrepreneur, on the other hand, is out to change the world with his or her vision. The best definition I’ve ever read on what an entrepreneur is, was written in 1975 by a professor at Harvard named Howard Stevenson.

“Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.”

This is categorically different from what marketers are tasked with. Marketers need resources that they can control or at least manipulate in order to achieve their objective. Entrepreneurs are strategic thinkers whereas marketers are tactical opportunists. This may sound a bit harsh but, please bear with me because my marketing oriented colleagues who see themselves as entrepreneurs have just gone belly up.

I’d like to help you avoid making a similar mistake by drawing your attention to one of the not so obvious yet, really poor recommendation made by these guru screwballs in the hopes that you heed my words of caution and can improve your business results at the same time.

The gurus stated as recently as December 2011 that entrepreneurs should put Customers to work to help improve the product and thus increase sales. They pitched ‘Ask Customers what they want, build it, deliver it and become fantastically wealthy in the process’. Fellow entrepreneurs and dear friends, this sounds easy enough and basic enough but it is a sure way to entrepreneurial failure. It is however a wonderful marketing tactic when used properly.

After a few years of sitting on the wall watching people act on such advice, we have come to the conclusion that this is a recipe for entrepreneurial business failure. There is one exception and that is the case where you wash, lather, rinse and repeat this cycle in as many different niches as possible. By our definition, this is not an entrepreneurial business model but rather an opportunistic approach to making money with slick marketing tactics. As a marketer, you can change direction as many times each month as you desire and you can continue to use process to drive your opportunistic fishing expeditions. If you catch a few thousand fish, you win and if your bucket is empty, you move on to the next hole. THe thing is that you do not build a sustainable business with this approach. You do however, have the possibility of earning a boatload of cash for yourself and your buddies until that niche dries up and you need to start all over again.

If an entrepreneur were to follow the guru’s advice, that business would very likely fail. The reasons are simple – part of every entrepreneur’s job is to invent the future. If you have a vision of improving a business model through the introduction of a new product or service, it is likely based upon your unique experiences in that industry. Your Customers have a tough enough time doing their own jobs. They don’t spend time trying to reinvent industries or improving how jobs are performed. Sure, every now and then you come across an exception. But you can’t bet the company on finding such a person within your Customer base.

Even more important to remember is that Customers typically don’t see the value in or need for a new product or service until they can either compare it with something that they use and know (perhaps a competitive product) or until they see a new product in action.

That means that if your firm is dependent on Customer feedback for innovation, you will always be behind the curve because Customers are only aware of a small sampling of what exists today. Resources and brainpower that could be applied to “inventing the future” at your firm will instead be used to catch up with features that lock the company into the past.

Your Customers can tell you about things that are broken and how they want to be made happy. Listen to them. Make them happy. But don’t rely on them to create the future road map for your product or service. That’s the takeaway here.

Since entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled, get out there and do your homework, create that vision and then build a business that adds value to a specific niche of Customers that are willing to pay for that value.

Every time you want to make any important decision, there are two possible courses of action. You can look at the array of choices that present themselves, pick the best available option and try to make it fit. Or, you can do what the true entrepreneur does: Figure out the best conceivable option and then make it available. Don’t ever ask your Customers where you should be headed. Just get up and lead instead.

Siri is the voice assistant introduced with the iPhone 4S designed to make the user’s life easier. Through natural commands spoken into the phone, Siri jumps to provide assistance or information as required by the request. Siri isn’t able to do everything, nor to understand some requests, but the technology is imnpressive in how often it works as intended. I find myself using Siri more and more the longer I use the iPhone 4S, and have run across some useful things.

Reminders.
Siri works with the reminders in iOS5 to make sure you don’t forget to do something. These are the first thing that most iPhone 4S owners get familiar with, and the longer I use Siri the more use I get out of reminders. I use it all the time for simple things.

My wife asks me to repair an item before our guests arrive and I tell Siri to “remind me to repair the dishwasher in an hour”. Today I told Siri to “remind me to water the plants” She did, and the plants are grateful.

I am getting good at not just using Siri for timed actions like those above, but for lots of other functions. I often tell Siri to “remind me to note something I need to remember” for anything I would normally jot down on a post-it note. This is so easy to do I never forget simple things like this, now that I have a personal assistant.

Requests for Information.
Like most folks I have become dependent on web searches to get information I need. Siri has assumed a big role in my quest for information, both simple searches I used to manually type into Google and others that are less structured.

Sunday I wondered what Roger Federer’s schedule looked like for the rest of the year so I had said “Siri, show me Roger Federer’s schedule”. Siri delivered a Google serp that took me right to the schedule I needed. Lucky guess? Perhaps… Convenient? Hell yea!

These are very simple examples, but I am gradually coming to depend on Siri to get me more specific information through Apple’s integration with other services. Preceding a request with “wikipedia” instead of Siri tells Siri I want her to use that service to look for the information I am requesting. You can also preface a question with Bing or Yahoo, if you want those services to be used. Now, not a ingle day passes without at least 5 queries or Siri.

Sending text messages.
In the beginning I would tell Siri to “Send a text to person’s name” along with the line of text I wanted to send. As I used Siri, I realized she could learn how those who I text frequently are related to me. Now I simply tell Siri to “Text my wife I will be running late” and after once telling Siri which contact is my wife, Siri takes care of the rest. I’ve done the same thing with my assistant and a few of my best friends. Since getting the iPhone 4S I find I send more sms thn ever before often, due to how easy it is with Siri.

I also use Siri’s ability to send text messages to tweet occasionally. I set up Twitter to allow tweeting via SMS, and trained Siri what number that was. Now I tell Siri to “Send a text to Twitter” followed by a short tweet. Nice and simple and totally hands-free. You can also configure Google+ and Facebook to allow you to post updates using this method.

Making phone calls.
I use Siri more and more to initiate phone calls, especially in the car. It is so easy to tell Siri to “call my wife at home” and have the call initiated with no further action required from me.

The same method is good for getting contact information I need. Asking Siri “what is The address for Client X?” is a lot easier than manually finding it in the Address Book. I can even ask Siri what so-and-so’s birthday is and get the date. I’d be great if more apps like SalesForce.com were to support Siri, then such address queries would be much easier. Alas, SalesForce.com are not known for reacting quickly to such requests

Setting alarms.
I now use Siri to set alarms. This is as simple as “Wake me tomorrow at 5:30″ or “set an alarm for 6:30″. That gets the nagging iPhone alarm set to disturb me appropriately.

Scheduling.
Siri is especially good at scheduling meetings and events. “Meet with Peter today at 14:00 gets the appropriate event in my schedule. I really like the ability to ask Siri “What does my schedule look like on Friday?” and having it shown. This is where the natural language of Siri really shines.

Siri is far from perfect, but as I use it more and more I am getting better at figuring out what type of natural language commands work best. I can state confidently that I am using the iPhone 4S and Siri more than I have used any other smartphone, because I am finding more things Siri can do for me all the time. It’s also a lot of fun!

I don’t.

I don’t enjoy wasting my time with video based games that challenge players to overcome ridiculous obstacles and unfathomable odds just to get to the other side where they can then compare their scores with those of other suckers who paid for the privilege (or the armor, medical kit, healing herbs, weaponry, speed, abilities or accessories that you need to buy to get there). Though, I do appreciate the brilliant and highly manipulative upsell techniques used.

Hey, don’t get me wrong.. It’s not that I object to some R&R after achieving desired results but there are so many ways to spend your time these days that learning seems to always take a back seat to gaming. To me, that is simply not right.

Then, one of my graphic designers showed me an animation that combines both learning and gaming in one skit. The caveat is that in order to participate, you need at least 9 lives, a medicine pouch, jumping and acrobatic abilities plus speed and dexterity. All accounted for: $49.99. So, the game is free, but to get to the other side… it’ll cost you an arm and a leg!

If you are into marketing and still using the standard (and boring) business card that contains all your phone numbers, fax numbers, email addresses and mailing addresses and you hand them out willy nilly to anyone with fingers… you may want to do something a bit different next year.

For example, when we meet people that want to learn more about transforming a printed publication into an immersive mobile App, then it is really likely that they are marketers who know something about QR codes. If they don’t know what a QR code is or how to read one, then they probably shouldn’t be on our radar.

Hey, while you’ve got time, why not try on a QR code for size? Getting one is very easy, just go to this site or even this one and enter the requisite information and voila, you will be presented with a fully functional QR code that points smartphones to content that you would like them to view (or process).

I like to send my contacts to a page that is all about me since, IMHO.. that is the reason they requested the business card in the first place. I also enjoy making it more of a challenge for people to get in touch with me directly, since, let’s face it, not many of us can process more than 400 emails each day without having some sort of negative impact on our social lives (or sleep patterns).

One more thing, since QR codes can be URLs, text, phone numbers, google map location, an event announcement, a paypal buy now link or even SMS text messages… you might consider using multiple QR codes depending on your objective. Here are what a few of mine look like.

My mentor wanted to put a ding in the universe. Whether or not you think he succeeded, there is no doubt that he put one in the universal consciousness of consumers.

Below are some of my most memorable Steve Job’s quotes.

“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.”
~ Steve Jobs

“Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick, don’t lose faith.”
~ Steve Jobs

“stay hungry, stay foolish”
~ Steve Jobs

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose”
~ Steve Jobs

“Death Is The Destination We All Share”
~ Steve Jobs

Business executives and sales managers frequently complain about the classic 80/20 performance of their sales teams, where approximately 80 percent of sales are produced by approximately 20 percent of salespeople. Of course, the ratio is not always 80/20. Sometimes it is 75/25, 70/30, 60/40, or even 90/10. However, the situation the ratio describes is always the same: the vast majority of salespeople produce a fraction of what top performers on the very same sales teams produce.
What are the reasons behind these performance disparities? What is it about top sales performers that enables them to achieve superior results? Can anyone achieve top performance in sales?

Certainly there are some sales skills that anyone can learn. For example, it’s easy to teach how to ask reflective questions.

Reflective questions begin with who, what, when, where, why and how. If you ask reflective questions instead of questions that can be answered with yes or no, prospects usually share more information with you. This increases your chances of uncovering “pain points” that can eventually lead to sales.

“Pain-point” is widely used business jargon, and a word that many investors like to use. They may ask you “so what is the pain-point you are trying to solve with this idea?” If you can identify a pain-point which many people (globally even) can relate to, but no-one has resolved previously, you are probably on to something big. So, in other words, you can find opportunities in the market by solving, what a sizable group of people would describe as a “pain”. For example, since the battery in your laptop dies fast and people tend to find this a “pain”, many companies are currently working on alternative ways to charge PCs and keep batteries running longer. These companies are effectively trying to resolve a well-known pain-point.

You can learn how to ask reflective questions by participating in a simple role play. In this role play, you’ll play the salesperson and I’ll play the prospect. Every time you ask me a yes or no question, I’ll answer “no.” Getting stonewalled with a bunch of “no” answers will break you of the yes/no questioning habit pretty quickly!

Other sales skills are tougher to learn. A good example is teaching salespeople how to ask questions and follow the thread; in the answers. To explain this concept, let’s use another role play. In this role play you’ll ask me reflective questions. I’ll respond with answers that contain some “pain points”. If you recognize the pain points and drill down into them deeply enough (by asking additional questions), you’ll eventually be able to “sell” me.

Do you know what my experience has been with this role play? Some salespeople learn how to “follow the thread” easily. Others struggle, but they eventually learn how to do it. However, some just never get it, no matter how hard they try!

Why can some people learn this critical skill, but others can’t?

I struggled with this question for 14 years. I used to believe that anyone could succeed at anything if they wanted it badly enough and were willing to work hard enough. However, my experience with the “follow the thread” role play made me start to question that belief. As I continued reading and researching over the years, I eventually uncovered two pieces of information that really opened my eyes.

KEY DISCOVERY #1

In their book, “Now, Discover Your Strengths”, Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton report that great managers and average managers have different expectations for their employees. According to Buckingham and Clifton, average managers assume that “each person can learn to be competent in almost anything”, while great managers assume that “each person&’s talents are enduring and unique”.

Most sales books and training programs seem to take the average manager point of view. In other words, they seem to assume that anyone can learn how to sell. Their unspoken promise is that all you have to do is invest enough time, effort and money to learn the skills they teach. If you put in the time and effort, you will learn the skills and eventually succeed in sales.

Unfortunately, there are countless examples of sales books and training courses not producing the desired improvement in sales performance. Think about some salespeople you know personally. How many of them are struggling to make their quotas? Why are they struggling?

Is it the state of the economy? (If other salespeople are making their numbers, blaming the economy won’t earn them much sympathy.)
Is it because they don’t work hard enough?
Is it because they don’t have enough product knowledge?
Do they need to work harder on their selling skills?
Do they need more coaching from their manager?
What if the “great manager” point of view is correct? What if everyone cannot become proficient in sales? What if success in sales requires a unique set of talents?

KEY DISCOVERY #2
Herb Greenberg, Harold Weinstein and Patrick Sweeney report this very conclusion in their book, “How to Hire and Develop Your Next Top Performer”. After correlating hundreds of thousands of assessments that were performed over several decades with actual sales performance measurements, they reached these startling conclusions:

55% of the people earning their living in sales should be doing something else.
Another 20% to 25% have what it takes to sell, but they should be selling something else

Wow! Those are some sobering statistics! They indicate that more than half of all salespeople are never going to make it in sales. Another quarter have some chance of accomplishing sales success, but only if they find the right job selling the right kind of product or service.

How can you identify whether salespeople have the talents required to succeed in your company’s sales positions?

One reason why companies suffer from 80/20 performance is because their processes for hiring, training and managing salespeople rely almost entirely upon subjective information. After all, what are resumes? They are an individual’s subjective portrayal of their capabilities and experiences. What occurs during an interview? Interviewees attempt to package their responses to questions in a manner that will make the best impression. Meanwhile, interviewers are forming personal opinions about candidates’ qualifications for the position.

I’m not suggesting that subjective information is useless. Subjective information is a valid and valuable component of any “people decision”. However, if decisions based solely upon subjective information produce an undesirable result 80 percent of the time, doesn’t it make sense to consider making a change?

One way to introduce objective information into sales hiring and coaching processes is through use of specialized sales assessment tests. I’m not referring to personality or behavioral tests like Myers-Briggs or DISC. Those types of tools are useful for learning how to communicate more effectively with someone, and may provide some insights into an individual’s motivations. However, they are not effective for predicting whether or not someone will succeed in sales.

The specialized sales assessment tests that I’m referring to identify how quickly an individual learns and how good they are at “reasoning”.

Reasoning – especially verbal reasoning – is a critical component of the talent for asking questions and “following the thread” in the answers. Plus, the most useful sales assessment tests identify an individual’s strength or weakness in a variety of other important sales-related attributes. These include the following:

Sales Drive: Does the individual enjoy presenting, persuading, negotiating, and motivating others? How much do they enjoy these activities?
Emotional Toughness: How rapidly does the individual rebound from rejection? Do they learn from their experiences and move on quickly? Or, do they suffer a sustained reduction in productivity?
Reasoning Ability: Does the individual ask good questions? Can they dissect answers and pick out the pieces that will help advance the conversation toward a desired end result?
Service Drive: How friendly and agreeable is the individual? How interested are they in building relationships and helping others?
Assertiveness: How self-assured is the individual? How effective are they at convincing others to take action?
Attitude: How positive is the individual’s attitude? Do they perceive a glass to be half-empty or half-full?
Communication Skills: How precisely does the individual communicate, both verbally and in writing? Are their communications clear and effective?
Competitiveness: How competitive is the individual? How does their competitiveness manifest itself?
Energy: How energetic is the individual? Are they always “on the go”, or do they need to be prodded into action?
Independence: How readily does the individual accept direction from others?
Learning Rate: How rapidly does the individual learn new information? What styles of learning are most productive for them?
Tolerance for Administration: How willing is the individual to perform administrative activities? How much attention do they pay to details?

The assessment test scores for the preceding characteristics can also be used to predict how effectively a salesperson or sales candidate will perform the following critical job functions:
Are they a Hunter or a Farmer? Do they prefer to pursue new business, or do they prefer to manage existing customer relationships? Or, are they capable of performing both functions effectively?
Are they Internally or Externally motivated? Internally motivated salespeople are capable of directing their own activities. Externally motivated salespeople require frequent direction and support from their manager in order to be consistently effective.
How effectively will they Prospect? How aggressively (and consistently) will they pursue new opportunities?
How willing are they to comply with Administrative Requirements? This may include updating records in your company’s customer relationship management (CRM) system and providing timely and accurate forecasts and opportunity pipeline updates.
Will they be a good Team Member? Will they work cooperatively with their fellow sales team members, as well as other departments?
How can specialized sales assessment tests help existing salespeople who are struggling?

They can help in two specific ways. First, they can determine which salespeople should be in sales. If an individual doesn’t have the talents required for success in your company’s sales job, there may be other roles in your organization where their talents and interests can be applied to mutual benefit. If there aren’t any such positions available, the kindest thing you can do is to let them go.

How can firing someone be kind? Because it is NO fun to struggle in a job that is a poor fit. If you share the assessment test results with these individuals, they can gain insights into their strongest talents and interests. The sooner they can migrate into roles that are compatible with their talents and interests, the sooner they will reap the benefits of improved productivity, motivation, and job satisfaction.

The second way these assessment tests can help struggling salespeople is by identifying their unique training needs. If you identify each salesperson’s individual training needs, and you supply targeted training to address these needs, you can dramatically improve their performance. Here’s an example:

Two fictitious salespeople, Beth and Bill, work for the same company. Beth is weak in Sales Drive, which makes her reluctant to ask for orders. Bill is weak in Emotional Toughness, which makes him sensitive to rejection and limits his prospecting effectiveness. If Beth and Bill go through the same sales skills training course, how much improvement in sales performance should they expect to see?

The answer is little or none. Why? Because Beth and Bill have completely different training needs that will not be addressed by basic sales skills training.

Beth would benefit most from attending an assertiveness training class. She also needs coaching to help her recognize that failing to ask for orders denies her customers valuable solutions to costly business problems.

Bill needs to learn to not take rejection personally. He might also benefit from attending a class that teaches positive thinking and other motivational techniques.

Unfortunately, unless these two salespeople are made aware of their unique training needs, and provided with targeted training to address them, there isn’t much reason to expect their performance to improve.

Conclusion

Many companies struggle with “80/20″ performance disparities in their sales organizations. These disparities usually result from an over-reliance on subjective information when making salesperson hiring and coaching decisions. The proposed solution is to add objective information gathered via specialized sales assessment tests to the “people decision” process. This one change can help companies increase the proportion of top performers on their sales teams and improve the performance of existing sales team members.

We spent many years answering letters, faxes, phone calls and emails and developed a philosophy regarding Customer Support that I’d like to share and encourage you to adopt.  Here is our take on Customer Service from the viewpoint of a marketer.

The purpose of a HelpDesk for a company like ours is to:

• Listen to our Client’s issues and respond in a timely manner with answers designed to resolve their issues.
• Delight our Clients and Users to such a degree that they recommend our products and services to others.
• Increase our own cycles of learning to improve our products and services faster than our competition is able to.

When you implement this in your business, the most likely end result is positive word of mouth marketing which brings in many more leads and that is something we really appreciate.

Want an Android tablet this year? Head on into Switzerland or over to the Netherlands while supplies last. Apple has just scored a big victory in Europe thanks to a German court which granted a preliminary injunction against the distribution of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the EU. Oddly enough, The Netherlands still get to sell it and Switzerland too since it is not part of the EU.

Apple is suing Samsung on a worldwide scale over patent infringement related to the 10.1-inch tablet’s design. It is apparently too similar looking to the iPad.

Apparently Apple asked the Landesgericht in Düsseldorf, Germany, to order an injunction under which Samsung will be levied with fines of up to EUR 250,000 for each violation or imprisonment of Samsung’s management for up to 2 years in the event of continued infringement. Those are standard sanctions under German tort law for contempt of a preliminary injunction.

With Europe out of the game, at least for the foreseeable future, Samsung will have real difficulties making any kind of profit off this device. Add to that the Android patent infringements that were announced last week and it’s not likely that many developers will continue coding for the platform if they expect to earn money with their wares.

We are ready to build a few more Apps this week…
Have you got a publication that you’d like to see on the iPad? Do share your thoughts.