Campaign Monitor decided to redesign their office and give each of their employees their own office and institute a “closed door” policy. Most companies have an “open door” policy. To me an open door policy is an “interrupt me whenever you want” policy. At Campaign Monitor they have a simple rule, “If my door is shut, don’t interrupt me.” They call this common sense, but actually saying it out loud has helped them focus and get work done. This rule essentially says, I’m getting stuff done right now and don’t want to be bothered. I particularly resonate with this is a common sense way to show respect.

A recent study by Microsoft Research found that on average, people working in a typical office were interrupted four times per hour, yeah 4 times per hour! Quoting the research report, “Here’s the kicker – 40% of the time, the person did not resume the task they were working on before the interruption. The more complex the task, the less likely the person was to resume working on it after an interruption.” Microsoft Research, A Diary Study of Task Switching and Interruptions (PDF)

I wonder if other companies will that this bold step toward being more efficient…

What do you think about this kind of workplace?

If my website gets 100 visitors today and I sell my product or service to 2 of them, then my conversion rate is 2.0%. Could I get this conversion rate up to 4.0% and sell twice as much stuff with the same amount of visits? In a word, yes. This can be accomplished by optimizing the conversion process on the website. The folks over at Conversion Rate Experts have a great “free” article that includes 108 things you can do to improve your conversion rate. All 108 are very insightful and worth the time to read.

Two key points for me from the list:

• Test everything: The beauty of internet marketing is that we can market 100% by the numbers and know definitively if a marketing campaign is working or not. Then we test something else and when good results are achieved, keep testing until you get amazing results. Rinse. Repeat.
• Usability testing: I wish, I wish, I wish that all websites and software applications would do extensive usability testing. Few things are as frustrating as a hard-to-use website or application. I recently read a book by Steve Krug about usability testing and how to execute your own test. I highly recommend the read.

Take the time to make your website more useful and in time you will see the results.

Being a loyal Allstate insured, I’ve noticed a pretty dramatic shift in Allstate’s focus to retention efforts instead of primarily on new business, over the past several years. This is a very wise step for any business to take. Current clients/customers are the most important aspect of our business, it is these customers that allow us to plan for the future and have some security in a troubled times.

Now I’m not saying that new business is bad, in fact the contrary is true. But in my opinion current customers are the most important aspect of any business.

Focus or Fail. You Decide.

Image Credit: www.lowhangfruit.com