E*Trade Social Media Proposal...
- I wasn't connected to the right person
- My ideas were lame or poorly communicated and didn't communicate my value-add
- E*Trade doesn't "get it"
I wouldn't want to disparage a potential client, so I'll say it was either #1 (in which case I need to work on my selling/networking skills) or #2 (here's where you come in and potentially, I need to re-examine my choice of career!).
Below is the "meat" of the proposal I sent to E*Trade. Thoughts or suggestions on what is missing? How can it be improved (assuming #2 above)?
E*Trade Proposal
Investing and finances are inherently a “social” activity.
It’s a common point of conversation within many different groups. People share stock tips, retirement strategies, and money-saving ideas all of the time. Nothing new there…
A few months ago, I joined www.covestor.com which allowed me to pull my portfolio data out of E*Trade (and a few other places..what can I do, my 401k has to go to Fidelity!) and share it with my network (which I blogged about here).
ou’ll see that on that post, a conversation ensued which helped me refine my portfolio and enlightened at least 2 of my readers (you know the 1 percent rule for blog participation, I am sure).
I also had a number of offline and non-blog related conversations about that as well (since I often blog about money, my investment strategy, as well as numerous posts extolling E*Trade!). I had to stop using Covestor once I moved to the RSA token (which is fine), but it seems to me that this opens up a GREAT short/long-term opportunity for E*Trade (particularly since most of your customers haven’t heard about Covestor-or any of its competitors).
Now that I can’t share my data outside of E*Trade (and sharing it on Covestor is not reason enough for me to move ALL of my accounts, that’s for sure) you have a great opportunity to leverage my (and other customers’) willingness to share financial/investment information as a social platform.
Granted, most people wouldn’t be doing it anyway…yet, but it’s no secret that a “social media” strategy is critical, right? You know that when it comes to investing, people trust their friends as much as they trust a mutual fund company (maybe more), so wouldn’t it be great if:
You are looking at two possible benefits
- I could share out my current portfolio (by percentage, not $) so that other E*Trade investors/friends could see it?
- I could create a “mutual fund” to which others could ‘subscribe’ and then, whenever I made a change in the fund, their portfolios would automatically readjust as well?
- I could provide financial commentary around my investment decisions to help educate my friends and family about my thinking? And get feedback as well?
- New customer acquisition: If my friends who trust my recommendations re: investments are able to see/watch/adjust their holdings inline (or contrary!) to mine only by being E*Trade customers, it’s certainly a differentiation strategy and perhaps a more cost-effective acquisition strategy
- In the “mutual fund” scenario, if I make 3 trades and, say 5 other people subscribe to my fund, then you’ve automatically generated 15 trades.
I am SURE there are hundreds of liability, risk, legal, and other concerns that could be obstacles to the examples I’ve described above, but there’s got to be a way to leverage the social aspect of the technology, the nature of financial decisions, and people’s desire to discuss finances/investing w/their friends. After all, I have a network of over 2000 people between Outlook/LinkedIn/Facebook, etc. and I have NO idea which, if any of them, are E*Trade customers…I would like to know.
I similarly have NO idea what Covestor’s long term plans are, (I heard about them via Fred Wilson’s blog (the one below) 6 months or so ago and saw this update the other day), but I wouldn’t be surprised if they are trying to obtain some sort of critical mass in terms of users and then moving into a trading platform.
It’d be an appealing option for the early-adopter, techno-savvy crowd for starters. It seems E*Trade, given its history of trying to stay cutting edge in tools/offerings is positioned to leverage its user base into a sharing community, that in turn fuels revenue. There’s no doubt that you have some bright minds at E*Trade which have already reached these conclusions.
I then went on to propose a process for teasing out some ideas and testing them, etc.
So, the question is: does this work? Is it an exciting story? If not, what's wrong with it?
What'll be interesting to see is if E*Trade is "listening" to mentions about themselves in cyberspace. My hunch is no, b/c I've blogged on E*Trade a few times on them w/no comments, compared to say, Metamucil, NetBank and LinkedIn (read comments).
Comments
Bob London said on 4.30.2008 at 5:14 PM
Great "open kimono" post. Are all of your posts this candid? If so I'll have to subscribe. Happy to relate my experiences that might be relevant to your E*Trade proposal. Unsolicited ones can be tough as you have to guess how they view the world (without them telling you) before you can solve the problems they might have (but don't know it yet).
And that is the beauty of the winning proposal: the upfront section reads as though it was the prospect's summary of challenges and goals in his or her own words. Happy to discuss further and good luck with the new biz.
Adam said on 4.30.2008 at 5:35 PM
Jeremy:
It feels to me like this starts "small". You get to talking about yourself very quickly which personalizes it, but you are an n of 1. And you get to specific ideas rather quickly.
I wonder if there could be more setup. How big is this WOM thing? Define big any way you like: number of people who use it, number of people touched by it, number of blog posts per day... Then talk a bit about what a WOM strategy might look like and how it plugs into a larger marketing strategy. Then you can get to specific tactical ideas.
Adam
Tom said on 4.30.2008 at 5:45 PM
I think the Adam said it well and politely but I'll be less polite. Assume I am ETrade - "Why do I care?" It's in there but I have to work to get that. So as Adam pointed out - if you are 1 of n then I don't feel like working that hard to put it all together.
Put it together for me - from my point of view.
jer979 said on 4.30.2008 at 6:03 PM
Bob-I don't know if ALL of my posts are this candid, but I figure that the web 2.0 mantra is transparency and authenticity, which is the motivation behind the post. Either way, you should subscribe!
What's more, another hallmark might be "wisdom of the crowds"/wikinomics so I figure, let me throw these out there and have the community help me refine this.
What I do know is this (trying to be humble here) is that compared to most people I "get" the WOM/social media movement and what it means.
What I also know is that I have a LOT of ideas, but they are raw and need to be refined. Not afraid to admit that. I need to work on the "story" (see earlier post on this) to get it right.
I figured I wouldn't get feedback from E*trade about why it didn't work, so instead of sitting back and just guessing, let the "experts" in my community help me figure it out.
My brand (Jer979) or what have you is based on this transparency and a willingness to admit that I am in "perpetual beta," and I figure I have more to gain by sharing these ideas than by portraying myself as only someone who always gets it right.
Of course, can't only say "I'm a failure, help me," (so stay tuned for some winning announcements!).
Adam/Tom--appreciate the feedback very much. Could be the "curse of knowledge" as outlined in "Made to Stick." It's my bad, assuming that WOM is a given. It's not and very good learning for next time.
Keep the comments coming!
Gadi said on 5.01.2008 at 11:24 AM
IMHO, I think your proposal looks more like a blog post than a proposal. Since you do not really know who is getting the proposal, you need to bring it down to the least common denominator. You have too many links, too many parentheticals not enough data / charts supporting your points.
You are proposing that they need a whole social networking product but you have no real data supporting that idea. In addition, I think this proposal looks a little more like a wish list than a proposal for Website changes. I would like this. This is how I am affected by social networking and here is proof. As opposed to bringing information on how everybody is affected by it, especially as it relates to finances. i.e. googleblog.blogspot.com/.../flow-of-informa
Now, on the technical side, consider this. When you have a site with the magnitude of an ETrade, changes to the site generally fall under 'If it aint broke dont fix it'. The changes you propose could cost in the range of of $3 Million and perhaps more. Now, for a company has been teetering on bankruptcy, you need to show some really good data, and ROIs to squeeze that kind of money out.
Lastly, I think that if you are coming in with a proposal to consult for a company, I don't think that you want to create more questions. You want to show that you have the answers. To me
"I am SURE there are hundreds of liability, risk, legal, and other concerns that could be obstacles to the examples I’ve described above, but there’s got to be a way to leverage the social aspect of the technology"
looks like you are creating more questions than answers for them, questions that you don't have the answers to.
“After all, I have a network of over 2000 people between Outlook/LinkedIn/Facebook, etc. and I have NO idea which, if any of them, are E*Trade customers…I would like to know.”
Truth is it’s none of your business. I think you are a bit too bold here. Those that are not as open as you would be turned off. Especially those in legal. I think you should take more of this approach. I have no idea which, if any of them, are Etrade customers who would like to share or would like help with their ideas for investing or financial planning. Or something to that affect.
Just my humble thoughts. I have never put together proposals so I have no idea if I am on the right track at all.
jer979 said on 5.01.2008 at 4:10 PM
Gadi-great comments all and justification for WHY I wanted to put this out there. I love the 'tough love' approach you took, but knowing you, that's how you roll.
At the end of the day, the only way I am going to get better at this is to take the hard feedback and integrate it. Thank you for the investment of time!