We have since expanded that basic idea to include portable solutions and backup services that can keep your business running in the event of a landline failure – but our commitment to delivering an exceptional user experience has not wavered.

As we looked for a way to get into this market, we considered our options. We talked to folks in the industry, looked at their offerings, and read the glossy brochures. We decided to become a reseller of Brand H.

The Brand H marketing department does a great job of describing the type of user experience that makes satellite a viable connectivity option. I see their commercials all the time, and they’re very well done. If you haven’t seen one yet, here’s a link. Take 60 seconds to watch it, then join me for “the rest of the story.”

Brand H

If you are in the market for “broadband anywhere,” this commercial certainly is appealing.  It makes a promise, a promise that broadband is better than residential service and has applicability across industries.  It promises a certain user experience –quick access, high speeds, compatibility.  Unfortunately, their product doesn’t live up to the promise.  It’s all legal, of course – their attorneys wrote a nice “fine print” disclaimer that says, essentially, “we guarantee nothing.” But what about that brand promise?  What about living up to the “Glossy Brochure?”

The fact is, their business model won’t let them live up to their brand promise.  It can’t.  (More about that later.)

When Skycasters was with Brand H, we were also unable to deliver their promise.  So we made a commitment to our customers, and we intended to keep it – even if that meant building the entire infrastructure ourselves.  So that’s exactly what we did.   We left Brand H and constructed our own Earth stations and state of the art data center.  We invested in satellite hubs and networking gear.  And we hired the engineers and operations team to make it all work. Years of effort, millions of dollars invested – all so that we could deliver on our promise.

But just building our own infrastructure was not enough to let us deliver the promise.  We had to make choices about that infrastructure and how to deploy it.  We made a conscious decision to engineer a solution that would deliver the promise.

Delivering broadband via satellite really is rocket science.  Much of our equipment looks like it came straight out of a science fiction novel.  And the reality is, it costs a lot of money to do it well.

At Brand H, the marketing department chose the product that they sell.  No disrespect intended — I’m a marketing guy myself — but understanding this is fundamental to understanding why their product can never live up to their brand promise.  In designing their product, their marketing department did a lot of research into “what people wanted to pay.”  Armed with this research, their staff built their product to meet this price point - cutting every corner necessary along the way.  Technology, equipment, performance and customer service – all cut to the bone - to hell with whether or not they deliver on their brand promise – so long as they get to market for $59/month.  That $59/month has to cover everything – infrastructure, space segment, engineers, management, support – everything.  WHAT?  It simply doesn’t add up – it can’t.

Let me give you an example – technical support.  You see, we did some market research as well.  We asked our customers what they wanted in terms of quality of service and support.  You told us you wanted an all US-based support team, technically competent, available 24/7, and actually willing to listen and take the time required to resolve your problem.  Even if that meant staying on the phone for an hour in the middle of the night – you wanted us to stay with you until the problem was resolved.  So that’s what we did.  At Skycasters, we spend an average of $58 per customer per month for technical support and customer care.  That’s right, we spend almost as much on the support as they do on their whole product.  For $59/month total, exactly how much do you think they allocate to support?  Where is their support staff based?  How much training do they have?  How much support do you really get?

Let’s continue this for another moment and talk about equipment and installation. Competent, qualified technicians are not free.  And specialty equipment, capable of receiving signals from outer space and beaming messages back into the heavens is pretty sophisticated stuff.  Yet Brand H resellers want you to buy into some ridiculous “$99 installed” claim.  Stop and think about that for a minute.  It just doesn’t add up – it can’t – and you know better. The old adage still applies – If it sounds too good to be true…

The reality is, we look prospects in the eye every day and explain to them that in order to get the performance they want, it’s going to cost a grand for the equipment.  It is what it is.  If you want it to work right, sometimes you have to spend some money.

Not that we don’t appreciate value.  We do.  As technology improves, we are always testing new products and new suppliers to improve our overall value and see if we can lower costs while maintaining quality. In fact, we have lowered our standard equipment price from $4,000 to $1,000 in only three years.  But we also understand that if we take out any more cost, we compromise quality – and that is something we simply won’t do.

Now I don’t want to leave you with the wrong impression. Brand H is not incompetent.  Far from it.  They employ some of the best and brightest, same as we do.  And they have smart, capable leaders, too. Heck, in some ways, they’re even more capable than we are.  They can even fly their own satellite, and it may be a few more years until we get there.

The fact is, Brand H could build a network as good as ours if they wanted to.  But they have chosen to deliver a price point - not a promise.

Please join us in our celebrating on this YouTube video at Skycasters’ YouTube site.

Boo!

The coasts consume the majority of the electricity, but some of the best locations for wind farms and solar farms is inland. Practical renewable energy solutions will remain tantalizingly just out of reach until high-capacity cross-country transmission is available. The best way to move high volumes of electricity is via 765 kV. The 765kV grid requires no new technologies, no scientific breakthroughs. We know how to do this today.

Go to the “Energy Map of America” and nav through the various maps. Notice that the Electrical map shows the country is most covered by 230 kilovolt (kV), some coverage of 345 kV, 500 kV lines on the coasts, just a few lines of 765 kV.

In 1830, the US had only 40 miles of railroad track. By 1870, there were 50,000 miles, and by 1890, 163,000 miles. By 1900, countrywide agriculture was in high gear.

In 1919 it took two weeks for a truck convoy led by a young lieutenant named Dwight Eisenhower to cross the US. In 1940, the PA turnpike opened, and in 1956, the national interstate highway system was signed into law by the then President Dwight Eisenhower.

Similar comparisons can be drawn with flight, telephone, and mail. It took the US working together to do what no one person was able to do alone. Move mountains to achieve progress.

We have a similar opportunity in front of us right now. By building the infrastructure, we enable economic growth. We have seen this before, and it will happen again.

There is little doubt remaining that the future power needs of this planet will have to be met through renewable energy. The wars, grief, and terrorism that are spawned from an oil-dependant global economy will continue to have an unacceptable impact on the international balance of power. The environmental impact of our dependence of fossil fuels is undeniable.

The United States must, once again, set the example for the world to follow. We must lead in the development of renewable energy. The solutions to the engineering problems of how to produce the power effectively – those solutions will come from entrepreneurs and the private sector. The grid, the infrastructure, the arteries that will allow capitalism to flow – that must be the responsibility of our government.

Like the great public works projects of the past, the 765 kV grid has the potential to define and reshape the economy of this nation for decades to come. We need only have the will to make it happen.

Every new business contact is made with an empty piggy bank. The new contact knows nothing about you. You have no goodwill, no account to draw upon.

So you walk in the door. You’re groomed and dressed impeccably. You have all the credentials. You have a product offering that matches the customer’s needs.

Goodwill in the bank.

You get the sale. You deliver the product. It’s what the customer was expecting, and it works from day one.

More goodwill. In the bank.

Every contact a positive one, every contact an opportunity to reinforce that the customer’s decision was the correct one. Review the web site. First contact. Sales call. Customer Care. Installation Team. Every step handled professionally. Every step of the way, making deposits in the goodwill bank, saving for a rainy day.

Of course, if there’s a problem, that may result in a withdrawal from the goodwill bank. Unmet expectations, that’s another withdrawal. But it’s not all bad news. If there’s a problem, and you handle it well, that may count as a deposit as well.

Here’s the upshot. If you have a positive balance in your goodwill account when a problem occurs, you will be given the benefit of the doubt, and an opportunity to make it right. If you don’t have any goodwill, the customer will leave.

Plain and simple, and true any business.

The kicker for us is the technological complexity of the service that we provide means that there are more potential pitfalls and ways it can breakdown. (“Yes, Virginia, this really is rocket science”). What that means for us is that we must be constantly mindful our goodwill account with each customer, and take every opportunity to top it off. Every interaction with our customers must delight them.

True for every business, but especially for ours…

My wife had no trouble tracing her inspiration to the book “Skinny Bitch” and its stories of animal cruelty. After fumbling through an answer, and including the obligatory “My wife’s a vegetarian, which pretty much makes me a vegetarian…”, I began to consider the whys of my (mostly) vegetarianism.

While we have a long way to go as a society regarding animal cruelty, humane farming methods, excluding hormones from our food supply, etc., these factors are not my primary motivation.

I realized that the heart of my conviction really comes down to ecology and sustainability. Given our world population, a diet consisting of such a high percentage of meat is not ecologically sustainable. Unfortunately, market and economic forces (supply and demand) cannot be trusted to keep this in balance.

Ideally, the true “cost” of the production of a good is reflected in the cost of that good to the consumer. As costs go up, demand falls, and equilibrium is achieved. However, in the production of meat, many of the costs of production are externalized, subsidized, and otherwise not reflected in the cost of meat in the grocery store. Examples of these “costs” include federal subsidy of diesel fuel, the environmental impact of fertilizer and manure runoffs, the carbon costs of clear cutting rainforests, etc. That’s not even considering the fuel it takes to transport meat and the energy to keep it fresh. Grains and dried legumes last for months (or years) at room temperature.

I guess Sir Paul really summed it up when he said, “If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is stop eating meat. That’s the single most important thing you could do. It’s staggering when you think about it. Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot: ecology, famine, cruelty. Let’s do it! Linda was right. Going veggie is the single best idea for the new century.”

Next up: The Omnivore’s Dilemma.

No matter your industry, no matter your plans, sometimes that Murphy guy gets the best of you. We’ve all been there. It’s just a matter of how you respond.

Goodwill gets a good workout when problems occur – it’s true in any business. We bend over backwards to make sure our goodwill accounts are in the black. Our satellite services are often, in a very real sense, the lifeblood of our customers – that’s why they chose Skycasters in the first place – because we can deliver solutions that are unmatched in the industry. We understand the critical nature of our customers’ needs – and the incredible trust that they place in us.

That’s why our 24/7 technical service department is not concerned with call counts, and we have no quotas. “Stay on the phone with the customer as long as it takes to resolve their problem.” It’s a simple statement, but it’s amazing in action. Take care of the customer, and the rest will take care of itself.

You can learn a few things about an organization when things are going well. You learn far more when they go poorly. I’m confident that when sh!t happens, you’ll be pleased with what you learn about Skycasters.

When a customer takes the time to complain, they are really giving you a gift – a gift of their time. Customers are not required to give you this gift. In fact it is a major imposition on them. Most people avoid uncomfortable situations when they can – it’s just human nature – and complaining is often very uncomfortable. That’s why so few customers take the time to complain. In fact, for every complaint you hear, there are nine more customers that have the same complaint, but do not choose to voice it.

On the rare opportunities when you hear a complaint, always remember, there are nine others who would be saying the same thing. So thank the customer. Thank them for their time. Thank them for giving us a chance.

Well, in most business, customer service is part of the product. “A Complaint is a Gift” underscores that if you aren’t listening to the customer, and then striving to set wrongs right, you may as well close up shop and go home.

Wow, I thought. That is so right. It’s the very reason our company exists: Five years ago we were so concerned with what our customers were saying that we ultimately severed ties with our largest supplier. They dictated that we deliver a lower quality, residential grade product, when what customers really wanted was superior product, business grade product. We listened and determined that (rather than sitting with our fingers in our ears and pretending there were no complaints) we would re-invent ourselves to become what our customers asked of us. We knew that delivering the right product would be harder, it also knew it would be, well, the right thing to do.

We obviously haven’t stopped hearing complaints – they are part of any business – but we’ve learned to say “Thank you” and recognize a complain for what it really is – an opportunity to improve. Like any organization, we solve some problems better than others, but we’re constantly striving to meet customer demands, and solve customer issues.

And we encourage customers to complain. Ms. Barlow writes that most complaining customers don’t complain to their vendor – they complain to each other, and largely feed each others’ frustration. See online forums. Once in a while you’ll see a knowledge leader step in and parse the misinformation, but often customers complaining to each other are acting on partial information.

I’ve given copies of “A Complaint is a Gift” to my customer care and account managers, and have put a few copies in the employee lounge lending library. I’m talking up customer engagement, staying on the phone until the issue is resolved, versus “three minutes per call,” and being available to talk 24/7/365. I’m the Chief Customer Officer here at Skycasters, and I take my responsibilities seriously.

So, please, if there’s something we’re not doing right, give us a call. We’ll be sure to say “Thank you.”

My wife and I were visiting Kelley’s Island, Ohio, a couple weeks ago (those glacial gouges are groovy!), and we saw this old C-Band dish mounted upside down on found wood as a sort of cabana. That got me to thinking of all the other dishes out there. There’s got to be a million used dishes floating around out there.

Aside from WoundedMooseTV’s valued documentaries on YouTube, the web has dozens of examples of backyard entrepreneurs stretching their imaginations over dishes of every size and shape (did you see the skateboard ramp?).

If you have any great pics of satellite dishes creatively reused, and the story behind it, we’ll post them here for everyone to enjoy.

The military removes the democratically-elected president, and hands the power to an official the military deems more capable. But there’s more to this story.

The world press has identified that the procedure was democratically surgical, with the military following directions from the country’s supreme court and congress, relieving the president of his office, and transitioning rule to another democratically elected official with a set term of seven months. The citizens of Honduras, with the help of their own military, did not destroy their government and their democracy – they saved it.

While certainly our democracy finds this process highly unusual, and our government’s indignation and demands for righting the “wrongs” will seem just, just possibly Honduran democracy has experienced a righting of wrongs in the offing.

As many as eight other democracies in the hemisphere have rulers who have autocratic power, and it was looking increasingly like the Honduran president was interested in creating another satellite of Caracas. Thankfully, the citizens of Honduras refused to give up their freedoms.

While I try to operate this business as an apolitical entity, as an American and as a capitalist, I favor governments that promote open markets and free speech. It’s good for the people, and it’s good for business.

May the Honduran motto: “Libre, Soberana e Independiente” serve as a beacon for us all.

I am not advocating communism or anything – far from it.  I love my country, warts and all, and I still believe that there is no better place to live on the entire planet.  But I’m not above taking my head out of the hole once in a while to see what other people are doing.

There’s an obvious difference in a one-party system – “elected” officials don’t worry about re-election.  That doesn’t help that country avoid corruption:  lifelong appointments can be nastier than term limits.  But, not having to worry about re-election does mean that China’s leaders are free to think and plan with long-term objectives in mind.

It seems that our politicians in the last few decades have become so focused on re-election that it clouds their judgment.  They seek “quick-fixes” that increase their approval ratings – much to the detriment of our success as a nation. 

It wasn’t always that way.  We used to plan.  Our elected officials used to believe that they had been entrusted with our future, and they acted accordingly.  As a nation, we aspired to sustainability, growth, long-term viability, providing a future for our children, the health of our people, and the world that we lived in.  We built the Hoover Dam, unlocked the atom and reached the moon – and along the way, made this Nation the most respected and admired country on the planet.

We’ve lost some of that.  We’ve forgotten how to plan greater achievements for the benefit of all mankind.  Perhaps these current economic challenges, the ones that are forcing us to question how we’ve run this nation for the past few decades, may cause us to reconsider the value of planning?

Interestingly, another parallel that may be inextricably linked to the philosophy of our elected officials over the last few decades – the motivations of publicly traded companies.  Public companies seem to share the same short-term orientation as our government – and the results are similarly dissatisfying.

The “market” demands publicly traded companies to look no further ahead than the next quarter’s numbers.  Of course the leaders aren’t to blame.  Their compensation and incentives are based on the short-term maximization of the price of the stock.  Therefore, that’s where they focus.  So they bring all of their talents, intelligence and leadership ability to bear on short-term achievements.

The real shell game, however, is that we kid ourselves into believing we are doing the right thing by wrapping ourselves in the mantle of “increasing shareholder value.”  Middle management and staff employees are duped into believing they are working for a greater good of “shareholder value,” when instead, they are actually sacrificing any potential for long term growth and value creation in favor of maximizing immediate returns.

The way we decouple big business from their fixation on short-term gains and instead convince them of the benefits of long-term, sustainable growth is by doing it ourselves.  Decoupling politicians may have to be done at the polls, but businesses can take the lead on long-term planning for competitiveness of the human resource.

At Skycasters, we have a long-term plan for maximizing customer value and enhancing our workforce.

How do you, as individuals or business owners, plan for the years to come?