What is the Buz to Buzz Ratio say you? It’s the ratio that measures the correlation between company buzz and the value of a business. It’s the fact that actual companies understand that time, money, and resources are precious, and any resources dedicated to things other than designing, building, selling, and supporting the best damn product possible is wasted energy. The Biz to Buzz ratio is the metric that separates a great company like RavenTek….. who? You say? That is exactly my point!… The Biz to Buzz ratio separates the RavenTeks from the ashes on top of a pyle of dried up turds, like Trustify.
Real Journalists aren’t lazy. They dig up stories. They find great companies and don’t wait for Bullshiocrats to whisper in their ears. Real journalists, either those that work for real news organizations like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post or industry-specific journals like Women’s Wear Daily for the apparel industry, or Billboard for the music industry, or CIO for the B2B IT industry. Don’t wait for the self-promoting, Glitter Traction addicts to scream in their ear… “Hey, Look At Me. I’m Shiney!”
Here’s the deal folks… serious entrepreneurs don’t scream, “Hey! Look at me! I’m Awesome!”
I have pitched Thomas Heath, a former business reporter at the Washington Post, so many stories that he took out a restraining order on me. I wasn’t allowed to email anyone within 500 yards of him. That’s because Tom did his own research. He found his own stories. He was always on the lookout for Bullshit. (I hope mentioning you in a blog post doesn’t violate my probation, Tom, and oh, by the way, I’m making the restraining order stuff up… right, Tom?). When you read one of Tom’s articles, the underlying headline is not typically:
Narcissistic Wantrepreneur Needs Attention and this Faux “Journalist” Needs Link Bait.
When you read about a company in the typical tech rag, buying into the buzz and not the biz (see this article about Trustify, a company where the CEO is currently serving an eight-year prison term for defrauding investors) you’re reading company spewed Buzz and not critical business reporting. There is very little, if any, real analysis or tough questions. You rarely see these “journalists” digging deep to get a story from a stealth-mode, authentic entrepreneur. If Trustify dedicated its time and resources to pivoting to a business model that wasn’t ridiculous and then getting customers instead of making the company and founders media stars, maybe it would still be in business. Maybe one of them wouldn’t be in prison and the other on her third marriage.
In 1998, my company quietly built a carrier-grade unified messaging system. Our sales went from zero to $18 million in just a few years before Call Technologies was purchased by 3Com for $92 million in cash in 2001. Our investors included NEA, Columbia Capital, and FBR. John Sidgmore, the then CEO of UUnet and eventually MCI, was on our board, and so were Art Marks, Phil Herget, and Gene Riechers. No one in DC knew who the hell we were. Yet we had million-dollar contracts with 75% of the US phone companies, including many of the companies swallowed up by Verizon (C&P, NYNEX, New England Tel, Ameritech, US West) and a bunch of European Carriers.
We had a DC-based direct competitor at that time. I’m not going to name names, but the CEO knows who he is, and he’s not a bad guy. This guy was the darling of the local press, the local tech press. He was and still is a master pitchman. While everyone was toasting him for all the buzz he generated, we were quietly building and exiting a business. His company folded. We got out before the dot-bomb bust with $92 million cash.
Our company, with a Buzz to Biz ratio of 1:9, lost the Buzz Battle to his Buzz to Biz ratio of 10:0 company. But we won the $92 million Biz war.
I have several Buzz-shy clients who allow me to look under the hoods of their businesses, and they are incredible businesses. I’m talking rocketship traction, fabulous strategic relationships, and highly engaged competent teams. Yet few people who can’t influence or buy their products know who they are. In fact, they don’t want me to write about them. They don’t want me to violate my restraining order with Heath and get Tom to write about them in the Post. They want to work. They can’t afford to be the shiny object that attracts commercial real estate brokers, investment bankers, lawyers, insurance guys, and so on to prey on them. They don’t want to be famous. They don’t want the distraction. They want to change the world and earn a living.
There are certain times when it’s appropriate to be part of the local tech buzz scene. If you’re an Enterpise62 and your customers are Tech Companies in the DC Metro region, then write press releases and hand them to the “journalists” at a cheap Tech Rag so they can do their “journalistic” version of due diligence. This means reading the press release and changing enough words so that when a “journalist” reprints a Press Release and calls it an article, it doesn’t look like press-release reprint versions.
Some people argue that you need local Buzz to attract the best employees. The great CEOs I know:
- Don’t have problems attracting great employees and
- I wouldn’t hire someone who read the fake news Tech Press Trash and couldn’t discern the difference between Buzz and Biz.
If you’re competing for best office pet, or office envy, or spending energy soliciting votes for some silly tech rag PR stunt instead of sticking to your knitting, if you’re spending all your time whispering to someone at tech rag’s ear instead of a customer’s ear… your Biz focused competitor is going to deservedly open up a can of whoop-ass on you.
Want to talk Buzz to Biz? Or really, do you want to talk Biz Biz Biz? Schedule a complimentary, no-obligation (except showing up) one-on-one meeting, and we’ll talk. Press the red button.
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