Hello, 2010!

It's traditional at this time every year to look back on the previous year, celebrate our successes and try to learn from our mistakes, and then set new goals for the upcoming year. Like many of you, this was our first year in business, and we spent much of it learning...which is code for making mistakes. If you aren't making any mistakes, you probably aren't taking any chances, right? Big victories and big mistakes start with the same four words, "Hey, what if we...?"

What Went Right

The website. It looks good. It works. You seem to be able to find the information you need and you haven't hesitated to let us know when it didn't work as expected.

The workshops. Every time we've held a live workshop or seminar, the room has been filled with lively conversation and enthusiastic participants who are as eager to share their own experiences as they are to learn from us.

The training kits. Man, they're just awesome. Bragging isn't socially acceptable, we know, but it's hard to be humble...do you remember that song? So many people were involved in the design, development and testing of the kits that it doesn't feel like we're blowing our own horn when we say they're great.

What Went Wrong

The community. Or rather, to be very precise, how we managed the community. We have a group of highly-skilled, amazingly talented consultants who have joined the web community or registered for this newsletter, but the conversations are mostly one-sided (with us talking) or offline (via email). Most of you open and read the newsletter, which is very satisfying, but we're going to work harder to generate online conversations in the Forum area in 2010.

The web classes. We created web classes by simply moving our classroom materials and presentations into a webinar/web conference format. Without the normal classroom interruptions, the presentations tend to be a little bit dull and occasionally lifeless. You might as well be reading a white paper or watching a YouTube video.

Online Office Hours. This seemed like a great idea, but it wasn't. Why would you go to an online chat room to ask us questions when you can get the same personal attention with an email? As long as you guys are all talking to us instead of to each other, there's no good reason for online office hours.

What Now?

In 2010, we're going to keep listening to you and responding to your emails, and we're going to keep trying to make Consulting Stance into the best online support community for consultants that it can be. Specifically, we're going to fix the mistakes we've identified.

All of the web classes will be changed into either white papers or recorded presentations that you can download whenever you want. Why should you wait till Tuesday at 9pm CST to start working on your marketing plan? If you have questions, you'll still be able to email us or join a conversation via web conference, but the calls will be ALL Q&A instead of 90% presentation with questions at the end. Oh, and they'll be free for subscribing members.

Membership is more expensive in 2010, but with everything else (except products) being free, we calculate that this will result in a significant savings and more value being delivered to both current and new members. We also hope it will mean that everyone can take advantage of everything when they need it instead of when it makes sense financially.

The last change is one you've already seen. We switched our newsletter service to MailChimp and the format is more like a letter than a webpage. This is intentional. We like MailChimp because they are 100% opt-in and we don't have to worry about being mistaken for spammers. We don't want the newsletter to look and feel like a billboard, we want to sound like a phone call or letter that you might respond to, if you had something to say.

To that end, we are also going to ask more questions. We hope you'll respond by posting your answers in the Forum and starting conversations of your own.

What About You?

Here's the first one: What did you do right in 2009? What are you going to do differently in 2010? Click here to go to the Forum and tell us.

Thank you for your participation and generous support for Consulting Stance in 2009.

Happy New Year and good luck in 2010!