NWEN is thrilled to welcome the Seattle Startup Digest—it’s another terrific resource for entrepreneurs, and one that can help startups make the best use of their limited resources by recommending compelling, relevant and fun events. Seattle [Startup Digest] is a weekly email digest of the best entrepreneur, tech and social media events in the greater Seattle area. Each email also offers resources and information for startup founders and helps to strengthen the local entrepreneurial community. around town.

• View their mission statement.
• Sign up to receive Seattle [Startup Digest].

In partnership with the Startup Digest, we wanna make you famous. Blog much? Like to write hard-hitting, pithy prose about entrepreneurship? Want to share new marketing techniques, funding adventures, technology platforms, trials, tribulations and tips with adoring fans? We want YOU (well, your posts) to be a bi-monthly guest-star on the NWEN blog.

How to play: Tweet a link to your blog, using hashtag #SDNWEN.

• Jaremy Rich (SD) and Rebecca Lovell (NWEN) will select the top 6 submissions, and each of those will get free entrance to our Cinco de Mayo “Pub Night” at Ventana (that means May 5), or our May 14 Breakfast Buzz (your choice). And NWEN will syndicate your blog content up to twice a month** Get your tweet in by end of day 4/16.
• NWEN and SD subscribers (over 7000 in aggregate) will then weigh in on their favorite, and the winner will not only receive the celebrity guest posting gig, but free NWEN membership for a year. The community will have two weeks to vote….polls close 4/30.
• We’ll announce the winner Monday, 5/3 and hope to celebrate with everyone at Pub Night! http://bit.ly/NWENidol

*Finalists in the NWEN/Startup Digest entrepreneur blog contest have an opportunity to have any of their blog posts sundicated up two twice a month on the NWEN blog. We will not synicate your posts without your epxress consent or prior permission. Have more questions about the contest? Please contact Jaremy Rich (jaremy@thestartupdigest.com) or Rebecca Lovell (rlovell@nwen.org).

About a year ago, I didn’t care or desire to be on facebook and until recently not many of my peers were on facebook. Now, it seems everyone is on it. If you are looking for a friend on facebook, just friend me. It is pretty impressive to see a company grow from 0 to 175M registered users in a matter of 5 years and these users are spending an incredible amount of time on the site every month. This leads to a tremendous opportunity for advertisers and entrepreneurs. I admit I haven’t figured facebook advertising out yet, but given the sheer numbers on facebook, it’s only a matter of time before facebook starts becoming extremely profitable. So, for us entrepreneurs, it’s time to start playing the game early before the all the other advertisers arrive.

One of my good pals, DK has a great post on facebook advertising. If you’ve done some facebook advertising with success, please share in the comments below about how you’re thinking about advertising on facebook and what’s worked well. I’m going to share some of the things we’re going to consider trying on facebook. I’m very excited to try this out.

1. Test slowly on a small targeted group. I’m most likely going to target the younger demographic 15-34 since we’re running an entertainment site. Find your group, target age, gender, and location if you need to. Start a campaign on that small group.

2. Measure and Optimize. Watch your results closely and see if you’re driving good, converting traffic. If not, focus on ad copy and your site to make sure it’s converting. CPC’s on facebook are generally cheaper than Google, so you may find some great opportunities to pick up traffic.

3. Consider using CPC as a branding exercise. If you are paying for CPC and you’re getting 0.5% clickthrough, wouldn’t it be great that you would be also getting brand exposure on the other 99.5% of people who don’t clickthrough? Make sure your brand is front and center and that you are doing things that are relevant for the end user.

4. Consider the social impact/virality of ads. If you create a successful campaign, it will get pushed through facebook very quickly with people sharing and talking about your company/product. Find ways to provide value to the end-user and make it easy for them to share your story.

There’s a ton of opportunity right now especially with advertisers staying on the sidelines to be able to purchase advertising much cheaper than in the future which means you can build a business a lot faster now. Facebook is just one of many channels that are going to be huge for driving unique, valuable customers to us. If you figure it out soon, you’ll have a definitive advantage over those who arrive to the party late.

Good luck!

This post was written by Andy Liu, a serial entrepreneur and angel investor. Andy currently runs BuddyTV, sits on several boards, and blogs at InspiredStartup about staring and growing successful businesses.

If you’re like me, you have a burning desire to be awesome at Photoshop. It seems so easy, so within reach. Maybe you’ve learned a few tricks like making gradient backgrounds for website titles. Ooooh, it looks 3D! Look out Pixar!

But then you come to some bitter realizations:

• I’m spending way too much time on this.
• None of this is making my website truly awesome.
• Design doesn’t come from Photoshop filters; there’s color palette, page layout, consistency, compatibility with messaging, not to mention fonts other than Myriad Pro.

Making your website or blog or software gorgeous means finding a great designer. And since you probably don’t have enough work to hire an in-house designer, you need to find a freelancer.

Well, you’re in luck. Here’s how to get freelance design work and how to make sure you don’t spend more money than necessary.

1.  Bid out small jobs on-line

The first rule of hiring a consultant is: Maybe you don’t need to hire one!

If you’re in the market for small jobs, your best bet is a marketing auction site like 99designs or CrowdSpring, or a professional database like GraphicRiver, or a site with both like DesignBay.

To describe how it works, let’s assume you want a logo.  You start by describing the project: “Design a logo for Xyz.”  (That was easy.)

Next you give parameters and conditions.  Specify your company’s color scheme (two or three colors; if you suck at colors just steal borrow a nice set from Adobe’s on-line archive.  Logos need to look good both large (for T-shirts, posters, and tradeshow banners) and small (for business cards and corners of websites), even if that means having different but very similar logos for different sizes.  It’s often a good idea to require that the logo makes sense in black-and-white, or that it’s still legible even if the viewer is red-green color blind.

Finally you specify the amount of money you’re willing to spend. Often $150 for a logo is enough.  Why so low? Because a lot of designers are just getting started and need to win jobs to build a portfolio. Also because designers do this on the side for a little extra income, or are willing to take cheap jobs to get through the recession. Or because the designer lives in a country with a lower cost of living.

I know several people who have had great logos designed in three days for under $150. If you’re looking to develop your personal or corporate image, surely that investment of time and money is worth it!

But many jobs are too complex or too important for a one-off cheapo solution. Besides, there’s a good argument to be made that these design-on-spec sites are morally gray.

In that case you need to hire an expert.

2.  How to look for freelance designer

You couldn’t have picked a better time to hire a freelancer! The recession has created a buyer’s market for any sort of consultant. Take advantage of this time to find a terrific person at a bargain.

Start with your network (friends, Facebook, LinkedIn); recommendations are almost always better than nothing.

Be careful though — if the recommendation is for “a friend” or anyone with a familial relationship (”Oh yeah, my brother-in-law is looking for work), be very very cautious! First, this implies the recommendation is a favor rather than a vote of confidence for the work. Second, and more importantly, it will be hard to have a professional relationship. If you have to put your foot down or even fire them, suddenly it’s personal. Not worth it!

Your alternatives include Craig’s List, general Internet searches in your area, or web sites like Elance that connect you with freelancers; all these methods can create an avalanche of candidates you’ll have to sift through. That means you’ll have to be rigorous with your vetting process, described next.

3.  How to choose which designer to hire

So now you’ve amassed a few candidates.  (Yes “a few,” you’re not going to consider just one!)  How do you choose?

The most important qualification is whether you like their prior work. I cannot stress this enough: Designers don’t morph their style to match yours; they don’t deviate from their own style.

If they make slick, glossy, mocha-latte-modern-glassy stuff, you’d better like that. If they make crunchy, green, friendly, round-rectangle stuff, you’d better like that. Scan their portfolio and make sure you like what you see, as-is. If you run across something and think, “Ooh, this would be perrrrfect if they just copied this exactly for me,” that’s a great sign. If you go through fifteen pages of their portfolio and nothing makes your heart leap, it’s a “pass.”

I know, many designers will tell you otherwise, and I’m sure there’ll be thirty comments calmly and artfully ripping me a new one over this. (And please do! Our dear readers need to hear the other side of the story.) But in my experience a style mismatch is a non-starter.

The next thing you do is call their references. But don’t get excited when their references are positive. Of course they are — otherwise they wouldn’t be listed as references!

Instead, you’re looking for glowing, over-the-top recommendations. You’re looking for things like “Yeah we hired her once and we’ve been coming back for years.” Or “I actually hate to tell you how awesome she is because it might mean we get less time.”

A key question you should ask is: “Did the designer deliver on time and on budget?” These constraints are important and separates the artists from the artists-who-treat-this-as-a-business. You need the latter.  (Thanks to Kathy from Virtual Impax for this suggestion!)

A trick is to request a reference for a particular portfolio piece that you like. Don’t ask for the references they want to give — surprise them.  Expect that they need to ask permission before giving out contact information.

4.  What to ask for in the contract

You have to get a few things in writing so there’s no mistake when it comes time to trade final product for a check.

• You are the sole owner of all works made for hire. The consultant retains no copyright. You need this to ensure uniqueness — that the designer cannot just duplicate work done for you and use it elsewhere. You also need it for control; when I sold my company we had to get special releases from all our freelance designers explicitly stating that we owned the intellectual property.

  It is appropriate (and recommended) to allow the designer to use all materials in their own portfolio; just make it clear that this isn’t joint copyright, but rather a free license you grant them for the purpose of promoting themselves.

• You get the electronic source files of all works, both finals and drafts. This is essential so that you can make small changes yourself or switch to a different designer.
• Expenses besides the hourly rate must be approved first. I’ve been bitten by designers who run off and order products we don’t need or make expensive color glossy print-outs of things we’d rather see on a computer screen.

A final note on contracts, though — don’t sweat all the little details. Contracts only matter if there’s a dispute so severe and irresolvable that it comes down to lawyers. In that case it will be far cheaper to just walk away from the situation, even if that means paying the full amount.

5.  How to approach and structure the new relationship

So you’ve selected a designer and you’re ready to start. You don’t know each other yet, so neither one of you knows how to work together.

You’re going to want things like estimates and clear statements of work but the designer doesn’t know how many times you’re going to change your mind, how many iterations it will take, or whether you’re going to blow up her cell-phone at 9pm on a Saturday night.

The designer will want things like a clear direction and approvals for color palettes and design concepts, but you’ll be unsure of yourself, unsure how much to trust the designer’s instinct when it conflicts with your own, and unable to find the words to express your muddy vision.

Addressing these unknowns is easy — just be honest about them from the start and make it clear that you appreciate the designer’s dilemma as well. Talk! Notice when you’re hitting a barrier that might be your own fault.

Take a “baby-steps” approach to the design work. Instead of making a grand plan for redesigning everything, start with the basics. For example, try just the color scheme and logo as described above. This gives both of you a chance to learn how to work together.

Besides, getting the basics totally finished and approved makes it much easier to see how the rest falls into place. Once your colors, attitude, and style are embodied in something as iconic as a logo, the path to websites, white papers, blogs, and tradeshow banners becomes an extension of an idea rather than a new project.

Finally, “baby-steps” means you can spend just as much as you want. If you end up not liking each other or it’s too expensive, you can stop and still have something to show for it. And since you have originals, maybe you can take a crack at the rest yourself.

6.  It’s worth it

Yes, it really is worth all the effort. Your image matters. First impressions matter. Colors and layout and fonts set the tone before a person reads a single word.

In this ever more cluttered Internet, it’s even more important to stand out.

Plus, looking good just feels good. Now I know how Brad Pitt feels. (Yeah right!)

Jason Cohen wrote this post and allowed us to syndicate it. He is the founder of Smart Bear Software, maker of Code Collaborator, the world’s most popular tool for peer code review and recent winner of the Jolt Award.

You already know the elevator pitch is critical to your business, not just for pitching but to crystallize the goals of the company in your own mind.

You might also have developed a one-line positioning statement — a single sentence that defines the company in a simple, clear, sentence.  Not one you’d use on customers, but rather something to tack on your wall, something that all marketing and communication should be working towards.

The Venture Hacks blog teaches us about something even smaller and tighter — the high-concept pitch. The idea is to boil your message down to a short phrase that references existing, successful products. Examples:

• “YouTube is Flickr for video.”
• “LinkedIn is Facebook for business.”
• “Twitter is Blogger for Attention Deficit Disorder.”

I like brevity, but I don’t like the high-concept pitch. It leaves out so much it becomes ambiguous, possibly with unintended consequences.

Let’s make this concrete. Say I’ve invented a new compact, portable projector:

This projector weighs less than a pound and it’s the size of a cell phone. It uses bright LEDs so you never blow out a $100 bulb. Your sales guys don’t have to haul equipment or plug into projectors missing “yellow” that can’t run at their laptop’s resolution. This projector works 100% of the time and is small enough to get through airport security in your jacket pocket.

That’s my product pitch — contains all the details and reasons to buy it. Now for the positioning statement:

A compact, portable, rugged projector that eliminates surprise problems on the road.

Short and sweet, still including the primary features and benefits.

Now it’s time for the high-concept pitch. Here’s an idea, copied almost exactly from the Venture Hacks article:

iPhone for projectors

This sounds good at first blush. iPhones are known for being easy to use, pretty, coveted, and commercially successful. Also the analogy extends to size and portability. Good!

But these aren’t the only attributes of the iPhone. iPhones have a reputation of not working well with Microsoft Office, something particularly troubling for the travelling salesman. Readers of this blog are likely to use GMail and Open Office, but your typical salesman is on a strict diet of PowerPoint and Outlook. Just yesterday I spoke with a business traveler who has avoided the iPhone specifically because of its lack of integration with Exchange (now fixed).

iPhones are notoriously inflexible and not customizable. They bucket you in a culture. With the v2.0 software debacle, I could even include “buggy.”

When you use only three words and when you invoke something well-known and complicated, it’s not clear what message will be received. I’m brevity’s biggest fan, but there’s such a thing as “too brief.”

No, I’ll stick with Eric Sink’s definition of positioning statement as the fundamental particle in my marketing universe.

P.S. Another weird quote from that article is that “for investors, the product is nothing.” I get the point — that product != strategy, and product strategy is more interesting to investors than feature bullets. But still… “is nothing?” Perhaps intentionally exaggerated to make a point, but if you find an investor for whom this is literally true (and I have!), steer clear. Strategy with zero product understanding isn’t strategy.

P.P.S. Healthy disagreements notwithstanding, Venture Hacks is a must-read if you’re interested in funding or selling a company.

P.P.P.S. Someone should make that projector!

Jason Cohen wrote this post and allowed us to syndicate it. He is the founder of Smart Bear Software, maker of Code Collaborator, the world’s most popular tool for peer code review and recent winner of the Jolt Award.

What if tomorrow I forced you to double your price?

If you sell software, your prices just doubled. If you’re an hourly consultant, your rate just doubled. If you’re a salaried employee, you’re now demanding double your salary.

Ignoring the (understandable) backlash from your existing customers/employer, what would you have to do to justify the new price tag?

• If you’re selling software, would it be best to add new features, or would people perceive more value if it were beautifully designed? Does it need more functionality or fewer bugs? If a customer emails tech support, what response would impress the customer? If a customer comes to you with twenty feature requests, do they get lost in the shuffle or do you proactively contact them quarterly with updates?
• If you’re a consultant, could you command a higher rate if you got certified in some technology, or would you earn more authority writing a quality blog? Should you charge for every email or provide some advice gratis? Should you charge a low rate but milk projects for extra hours or should you be expensive but brutally honest with your time reporting? To maintain contact with your past customers, is it enough to send automated holiday e-cards or should you write a quarterly newsletter with useful tips and ideas?
• If you’re an employee, how could you make yourself indispensable? Is there a project lying around that no one else is taking the initiative on? Is there a way to save money? Is there something you could do above and beyond your job description that would undeniably improve the company?
• If you’re looking for work, should your résumé list as many technologies as possible or should you boast about your deep expertise in one area? Should you dwell on formatting or on making an impression? Should you copy the ten recommendations you have on LinkedIn or is it best to attach one passionate, glowing recommendation? Is it more impressive to list your club memberships or your Stackoverflow reputation?

Assuming this thought experiment has provoked some ideas for how you’d change your approach to business or your professional behavior…

What would happen if you acted like that without raising your price?

You’d crush your competition.  Maybe it’s the edge you need to make sales during a recession.  Or maybe you could justify raising your price!

Hold on though, isn’t it more difficult, expensive, and time-consuming to behave as if your time is twice as valuable?

Yes.

But then, behaving that way does make you twice as valuable!

Jason Cohen wrote this post and allowed us to syndicate it. He is the founder of Smart Bear Software, maker of Code Collaborator, the world’s most popular tool for peer code review and recent winner of the Jolt Award.

Tiny startups will always have shortcomings compared to the big boys.

Three people can’t run 24/7 tech support. A single consultant cannot always answer the phone. Software might have more bugs and fewer features than the competition.

Your customers know it, and you get to hear about it.

“I’m not comfortable buying from a small company; what if six months from now you go out of business?”

“What if I have a problem on Saturday?”

“I tried calling you but got an answering machine — on a Thursday!”

Do you try to hide these shortcomings, or do you turn it into an advantage?

In my experience you can’t hide. Oh you can try, and boy have I gone down that road, carefully selecting my words so that I’m not lying per se but still hiding the fact that I was a one-man software shop.

“We have hundreds of users.”  Well, hundreds of human users, but not hundreds of customers. And who is this “we?”

“I’m going to personally handle this issue.”  Well yeah, I don’t see anyone else here.

“Yup, I always answer the phone.”  Does voicemail count as an employee?

The fact is, after a few interactions — whether by phone or email — they realize it’s just you. I know you think your website looks impressively big-company considering you designed it yourself, but they’re rarely fooled. I know you’re proud of v1.0 of your software — and congrats on that by the way — but your customers are still putting up with all sorts of issues.

What I discovered at Smart Bear is that shortcomings can be converted into competitive advantages.

Here’s some examples:

Problem:  You’re a one-woman consulting company. What happens if you’re not available? A big firm has extra people in case of emergency.

Advantage:  With my company, you always get me; at a big firm, you get whomever isn’t busy, and the good people are always busy. If you wanted someone like me at a big firm, you’d pay double (firm overhead!) and you still wouldn’t get my undivided attention.

Problem:  You don’t have 24/7 tech support.

Advantage:  Because we’re small, “tech support” means “talking directly to the developers who make the software.” No “level 1″ layer whose true purpose is to block you. You get deep answers from the creators. Bug reports and even your feature requests go straight to the ears of those who can do something about it. Now that’s customer service!

Problem:  This software is obviously new. It has bugs and it doesn’t have all the features we want.

Advantage:  All software has bugs, but we’re small enough that bug fixes are often turned around in under 24 hours. Also we can afford to implement little pet features you have — in fact you can even help us design the next version. Good luck getting this kind of responsiveness with a six-year-old product at a big company. (And don’t tell me those other products have no bugs!)

Problem:  You’re just a small company. How do I know you’re going to be here in 12 months?

Advantage:  How do you know big companies will be supporting their products in 12 months? Big companies are cutting products all the time. They have to, if the product line isn’t profitable. With us, all we do is work on this product. It’s our life. Every waking hour is spent improving it and making you happy. Which of these strategies sounds more likely to survive?

The trick in each case is two-fold:

1. Dispel the notion that “big companies” don’t have similar problems.
2. Trump up the advantages you have because you’re a small business.

Sometimes you can’t win on #1. For example, if they have 24/7 tech support while you have 8/5, you’re not going to win on hours alone. But for every disadvantage there’s a counterpart advantage; here you would point out that talking to the company’s CEO on Monday is far more valuable than getting canned responses from “level-1 support” on Sunday.

Part #2 is easy. Embrace what you have rather than compete with the big guys on their own turf. Small businesses always have advantages over big companies — passion, responsiveness, expertise, transparency, inclusiveness, and personality.

One final note, though: These explanations have to be honest. If you don’t have 24/7 tech support, your 8/5 support must be stellar.

It’s not “spin” if it’s the truth.

Jason Cohen wrote this post and allowed us to syndicate it. He is the founder of Smart Bear Software, maker of Code Collaborator, the world’s most popular tool for peer code review and recent winner of the Jolt Award.

This is the 2nd post in series written by Jason Cohen on the topic: Joy of Honesty in Business.

Dishonesty is so rampant we can hardly be bothered to take offense.

A previously recorded message insists that our call is important, but apparently not important enough to answer.

A letter arrives marked “Important! Open Immediately” — a sure sign of unwanted solicitation.

A privacy policy surreptitiously allows a company to sell our email address; we’ve given up the fight; say a prayer to the patron saint of spam filters.

A vendor sends you a mail-merged thank-you note; your last name is misspelled and in all-caps.

A corporate mission statement places customer satisfaction first, then throws up layers of bureaucracy to distance customers from those with the knowledge and ability to solve problems.

Almost all our business interactions are tainted with these half-truths, actions incongruous with words, all smoke-and-mirrors. Half the time it feels like companies are doing just enough to not outright lie… but only just.

Do you want to be different from 99% of other companies? Be honest. Be genuine.

I’m not the first to recommend this, but how do you go about “being genuine?”

• Admit when you’re wrong, quickly and genuinely.
• As soon as something isn’t going to live up to your customer’s expectation — or even your own internal expectations — tell them. Explain why there’s a problem and what you’re doing about it.
• Send hand-written letters. Second-best send typed but personalized letters.
• Newsletters and blogs should contain useful, interesting articles, not just plugs for your product.
• Instead of pretending your new software has no bugs and every feature you could possibly want, actively engage customers in new feature discussions and turn around bug fixes in under 24 hours.
• A human being answers the phone, as fast as possible.
• Emails are answered in under 15 minutes by a human, not an automated reply. If it’s going to take a long time to answer, a short response buys you as much time as you need.
• Send emails from real people, not from info@company.com.
• Send personal emails.

It’s true that most of these ideas take time and effort; that’s exactly why they work! That’s why your competitors don’t do it, but that excuse isn’t good enough for you. You know that thrilling your customers is how you keep customers, how you earn their business even in recession, and how you get people to fight on your behalf when the budgets get cut.

People do business with people they like. Communicate quickly, as yourself, and be willing to admit shortcomings.

In other words, be a real person.

Jason Cohen wrote this post and allowed us to syndicate it. He is the founder of Smart Bear Software, maker of Code Collaborator, the world’s most popular tool for peer code review and recent winner of the Jolt Award.

Common marketing wisdom is: Benefits sell, features don’t.

Benefits are what the customer wants; features are merely the means to the end. Customers are interested in “saving money” or “saving time” or being “easier to use;” features aren’t interesting until the customer understands and wants the benefits. Everyone says so.

My instinct is opposite. But, not wanting to second-guess tradition, I’ve dutifully fought my instincts at the behest of marketing and sales gurus. Since the first advertisements at Smart Bear I’ve had conversations like this:

Guru: Why is this here: “Integrates with version control systems.”

Me: That’s one of our features.

Guru: Say I’m a customer. Why do I care that you integrate with those things?

Me: Well normally you have to collect files for review by hand, but with this integration we can collect the files for you. So a mundane, 5-minute task reduces to a few seconds.

Guru: So it’s going to save me time?

Me: Yes, and doing it by hand is error-prone and it’s boring and …

Guru: OK, OK, but mainly it saves time.

Me: Yes, it saves time.

Guru: Fine, than that’s the benefit. “Saves time.” I don’t care yet how it works, just tell me how it will help me.

Me: So that’s it? Just write “Saves time?”

Guru: How about “Cuts 80% of the time out of starting a review.” That will grab my attention.

We’d do this with each of my feature points in the ad. So what started out as:

• Integrates with version control systems
• Threaded chat in context with code
• Automated metrics and reports

Turned into:

• Saves time
• Easier to manage than email
• Eliminates manual tasks

Looking back now over the last five years and considering what worked best for us, this technique still doesn’t seem right to me because these benefit statements eliminate the interesting, unique properties of our product. Claims like “Saves time,” “Easier to use,” “Automates tasks,” these are things that almost all software promises to do. Although these might indeed be the ultimate benefits, it’s the same message as everyone else. I suppose I could claim “Saves more time than competitor X,” but is that really the strongest message I have?

I agree that customers are interested in end results. Furthermore they need to picture themselves using the product and achieving those results. TV advertisers have long recognized the power of visualization; nearly every TV ad shows someone using and enjoying the results of the product.

But statements like “easy to use” are completely unhelpful in visualization. Even if you trump it up as “Cut code review time in half,” I still cannot picture how that’s going to happen. If I’m already a skeptical person — quite likely with our target audience — I might not wait around for you to explain it.

If your potential customers are experiencing pain, they’ll automatically see how the feature achieves the benefit. Our customers already know code review incurs busywork and can be a huge waste of time. If I say “Writes reports for you” or “Collects metrics automatically” or “Packages and delivers code with one click,” it’s clear that the benefit is to save time and help with chores, but now you can visualize exactly how.

Jason Cohen wrote this post and allowed us to syndicate it. He is the founder of Smart Bear Software, maker of Code Collaborator, the world’s most popular tool for peer code review and recent winner of the Jolt Award.

However you feel about Snoop Dogg, you have to admit he’s good at producing hit records.

Mr. Snoop is inundated by new artists vying for his attention. A nod from the great Dee-Oh-Dubba-Gee can launch a career. On MTV Cribs, the Doggfather showed us how he vets sample tracks. It’s not what you think — a sound-proof room with a dizzying array of equalizer knobs and $50,000 speakers. No, he takes these tracks and plays them on a little cassette player on the floor.

A cassette player. On the floor. Turned up a little too high so it crackles and distorts during the loud parts.

Why? Because songs have to sound good even on a cheap car stereo with distractions and tiny speakers and an obnoxious guy in the back spilling you-don’t-want-to-know-what on your velour seat covers.

So how do you get a song to sound good in the real world? Music producers suggest that you should use crappy speakers when mixing tracks. If it sounds good on crap, it will sound good anywhere.

This principle applies in an odd way to your company’s pitch. As much as you’d like to believe otherwise, your prospective customers have as many distractions as a group of teenagers listening to the car stereo.

This is true regardless of the medium. Your web page competes with announcements of “You’ve got mail,” instant messages about funny YouTube videos, and the ultimate escape of the “back” button. Your magazine ad competes with a ringing phone and the pull of a more interesting picture on the next page. Your 10-second pitch at parties and tradeshows is dulled by cocktails, the din of the room, and the more interesting story in the adjoining conversation.

These aren’t even “competitors” in the “products, features, services, benefits” sense. It’s competition for attention.

So what can you do about it? A few quick ideas:

• Record your pitch in a noisy environment (a bar, a playground). Play it back; does it still make sense when you can only make out sixty percent of the syllables? Ask victimsfriends to point out what’s engaging and what’s not.
• Lay your printed material on a table and cover up different parts of it with a magazine. Your entire message doesn’t need to shine through, but is it eye-catching enough for someone to notice the fragments, to become interested?
• Use marketing techniques that repeat a message. Distractions and other priorities will come between you and your target most of the time. Repeating often enough (using newsletters, blog, Twitter, Facebook) can push some of your communications through the chaos.

It’s not enough to be compelling when you have 60 uninterrupted, full-attention seconds.  Your pitch has to work in the noise.

Jason Cohen wrote this post and allowed us to syndicate it. He is the founder of Smart Bear Software, maker of Code Collaborator, the world’s most popular tool for peer code review and recent winner of the Jolt Award.