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Bluelink Live

Rigged using industry standard shackles, such as the Crosby G2130, the Bluelink has been designed to minimise headroom; it measures only 6 inches or 156mm from eye to eye.

As Straightpoint’s (SP) latest innovation hits the market, Mr. Loadlink relives the Bluelink journey—and looks forward to going live.

I was sipping coffee with U.S.-based colleagues Wayne Wille and Aaron Orsak when Bluelink was first discussed. It must’ve been strong coffee; we spoke for a while. We didn’t know we were taking about it at the time though, nor was it clear if a product at all—new or old—could embody the matters we were chewing over.

Many new products start that way. In my experience, working in industrial markets in particular, it’s rarely a case of envisaging the shape, size, look, and feel of a product, and setting a course to it, but more identifying a gap, challenge, limitation, trend, or nuance and mapping a pathway from it.

How do you know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve come from?

Wayne, Aaron, and I weren’t talking about a load cell that introduces Bluetooth technology. We were wondering when existing and prospective customers still utilising outdated mechanical force measurement products might gravitate towards more high-tech solutions, if at all. The same scenario has played out among colleagues and business partners the world over; the individuals, the product, and the marketplace don’t really matter. The synergy is that there’s habitual behaviour to note that could possibly create a business opportunity.

But we were, and remain, an innovative pioneer in force measurement technology; we’re known for smashing through walls and delivering state-of-the-art solutions. One doesn’t have to be that way to be successful, but it’s how we roll. How then could we tap into a demographic that is gatekeeping tradition? Surely that’s for companies more aligned with their place on the curve. Bentley and Skoda both sell cars, but Bentley don’t covet Skoda’s mailing list.

There’s an app for that

Maybe the three of us gazed out the window at one point resigned to that fact. Still the accompanying biscuits stuck in the throat though. This isn’t the automotive business; we’re nowhere near its cycle of evolution. Think about it: 95% of lifts remain unmonitored. Our conversation arrived at a point, therefore, where it became clear to all of us that we needed to create a product with all the SP hallmarks, but that tapped into the curiosity of less progressive minds. Our target audience here wasn’t indomitable, we surmised. There are inherent advantages, after all, of reading data on a smartphone. More than 5% of people have smartphones and most of them love apps.

We are increasingly engaging with the world through apps, which is a culture that lends itself to Bluelink’s uptake

We’d come a long way over a couple of cups of coffee, yet we were 18 months away from launching the eventual single capacity Bluelink—a 6.5t (14,300 lb.) capacity load cell. As we brainstormed in the days and weeks that followed that landmark conversation, it became even clearer that we needed to stick to our principles but hone the product to a more conventional mindset. I’m sorry if that appears oxymoronic. It’s not, really. We’re wireless innovators and we wanted to roll another wireless innovation off the production line.

The next step was a big one and it’s a leap that some companies forget to take. Sure, Wayne, Aaron, and I know our way around the marketplace but we had to put the concept to distributors and end users to get a sense of its viability. Companies avoid this important phase, typically for two reasons. Firstly, they don’t trust the market’s opinion. In other words, they think they know better. It’s an arrogant stance to take and it’s seen some get caught out. Ok, Henry Ford said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses,” but generally a marketplace is a great sounding board. Knowledge is power when deciding on performance and price point.

Secondly, people don’t like to hear bad news. And, true enough, some products have fallen and died at the first hurdle. If someone is particularly proud or sentimentally attached to an idea they might be inclined to take it as far as they can without exposing it to criticism. They only see green lights. That’s tempting but naive. The earlier an idea is scrutinised, the sooner one can measure its viability. Often the negativity isn’t about the concept in its entirety but more elements or components within it, so it should be embraced. For example, “It’s a great idea, but could you extend it to this?”

Amber gambler

Did you know that, at least here in the UK, an amber light means vehicles should stop unless it is unsafe to do so? It’s widely misinterpreted, sometimes even as, “Quick, speed up, it’ll turn red in a second.” This is relevant to product development.

If in doubt, stop and check all bases are covered before moving on.

I like to maintain an amber light mentality as we advance through product development. We can still travel with intensity and vigour, yet we don’t move on until it is right to do so. One never wants to get too far too quickly. The mindset adopted during testing should be consistent throughout, as all departments become involved: battery, waterproofing, range, strength, and so on, all has to be recorded, documented, calculated, verified, and tested again.

Eventually, everyone who’s anyone at a company becomes involved, from operations to marketing. Where three of us once sat around a table drinking coffee, now 20 of us are in a boardroom, flanked by whiteboards, buried beneath prototypes, paperwork, and marketing concepts. To help keep a project of such magnitude on track, we use an online tool called Monday.com, which I would recommend. It is essentially a team management solution to connect people to workplace processes. It was founded on the belief that transparency and collaboration create a culture of ownership and empowerment. I buy into that concept.

When a purchaser is out looking for M4 screws, the sales team are in meetings with distributors, the engineers are waiting for feedback from a testing verification body, and marketing are finalising a launch campaign, it’s good to know who’s accountable for what and when delivery is due. Monday.com leaves nothing to interpretation. If Elsie is a day early on this, Abdul is a day late on that, or Gabriella needs more time on the other, everyone knows about it. It’s fun to have an end (launch) date in the system to aim for too.

The reaction to Bluelink’s launch proves the value in our methods. Wayne, Aaron, and I will raise a cup of coffee (or something stronger!) to its success one day soon.

LinkedIn live

Such launches will increasingly feature live video. Business networking platform, LinkedIn, recently confirmed that it is currently piloting live video streaming, as the feature continues to be popular on Instagram and Facebook, for example. It represents natural progression for some LinkedIn users, like me and other SP staff, who already record videos and post them to the site. Eventually, we’ll be able to go live as a trade show opens or to unveil a new innovation—like Bluelink.

LinkedIn is going liveand so should you.

It’ll take some strategising to get it right. It helps if an audience knows someone is going to be there. If a launch date on Monday.com says June 6, work backwards and plug in some social media content and other live videos teasing the launch, advising people to tune in at 3pm when they won’t want to miss the grand unveiling. Of course, it’s important not to give the game away and don’t overstate it. What could live up to expectations if a company has been talking about, “The game-changing, earth-shattering, product of a lifetime, that you won’t be able to live without”? Not even Bluelink! Instead, hint at the problems it solves or the applications where it might be applied.

It’s that time of year

I travel to the states soon where the Associated Wire Rope Fabricators (AWRF) Product & Information Exhibition (PIE) takes place on Monday 8 April. The expo is co-located with the association’s general meeting that runs 7-10 April at Hilton Cleveland Downtown. It’s always one of the most enjoyable and productive events in the calendar and there’ll be greater significance to our stand (booth) next to new owners, The Crosby Group, this year. Given timing and logistics etc., the first official SP-Crosby co-exhibit will also be seen that week, at the Bauma show in Munich, Germany (8-14 April), where David Mullard will represent us.

On the subject of Crosby, it was an honour to host their CEO, Bob Davies, here at SP HQ earlier this week. M&S (Marks and Spencer) sandwiches and Yorkshire Tea were consumed as we discussed many an interesting subject about business and the lifting industry.

I want to close by wishing SP’s Lauren Rose, who will be leaving us shortly for pastures new, all the very best for the future. It’s always a pleasure to be able to influence anyone’s personal or professional journey. She’ll always be part of the SP family and I look forward to hearing about her future successes.

Travel safely if you’re off to trade shows. Thank you for reading.

Mr. Loadlink

It was good to spend time with Bob Davies, CEO, The Crosby Group, at SP HQ this week.

April 2019 bluelink, dynamometer, loadcell, loadlink, straightpoint

Getting LinkedIn…

Click this logo to make contact with me!

Many people still don’t harness the power of social media platforms like LinkedIn, says Mr. Loadlink.

Ever woken up with a sinking feeling as the events of the previous night (some of them, at least) come flooding back? In truth, my partying days were over a long time ago and I’m grateful that my moral compass remained pointing north most of the time anyway. Further, in my heyday we didn’t have smart phones or social media tracking our every move, giving us opportunities to post our thoughts, and our friends or foes the ability to capture our shortcomings in photos or videos and upload them where the world (and our parents!) could see. Smart phones must bring a whole new dynamic to the heady years of young adulthood.

It’s certainly a changing world, one where we have to deal with trolls (a confrontational or quarrelsome internet user) and catfish (a person who pretends to be someone else online for ill-gotten gain). Our data is no longer kept safe at home or reserved for paper envelopes from the bank marked ‘private’. We’ve all read about Cambridge Analytica gaining access to information on up to 87 million Facebook users, while data leaks are commonplace where a password of no more than a few letters guards what was once kept in a safety deposit box in a safe, down a long staircase, behind a secret door.

A troll is a confrontational or quarrelsome internet user that negatively reacts to a person’s content or targets them with varying degrees of abuse

But—and it’s a big BUT—we too readily look at the negatives of social media. Come on, did you really used to board public transport and chat to the person next to you? No. We clambered onto the carriages with the same disregard for fellow passengers as we do today and then covered our faces with a broadsheet newspaper. We would tut if someone sneezed and roll our eyes when a dog owner asked for room for their twin Great Danes.

I don’t buy into the scathing criticism youngsters get for “always being on their phones”, nor do I give credence to the suggestion that the upcoming generation are unlucky that they’ll never get a chance to play outside with sticks and pushbikes.

Brand you

There is a lot more incredibly positive behaviour and interaction on social platforms than there is bad. And professionally we have opportunities to upscale our businesses and develop our careers that we’ve never had before. The biggest game-changer, and the crux of this blog, is the rise technology has given to the personal brand. People now have greater control of their image, reputation, and destiny than ever before. There are cynics, of course, who say there’s now more scope for embellishment, but not every curriculum vitae (CV) or résumé printed on paper was 100% accurate. Again I stress that we haven’t devolved; we’re not now a lying race of con artists.

Take professional networking site LinkedIn, for example. There, people can constantly update a profile and connect with whoever they want. Someone even in the early months of employment can showcase their assets, skills, interests, and ambitions, whilst making connections with peers, competitors, and prospective future employers. There’s no need to smuggle paper business cards out of the office to make a private contacts book, or secretly submit a CV to a recruitment agent. We’re now proud owners and ambassadors of our own brand; we control who is attracted to it and we can monetise our abilities more efficiently than ever before—if we get it right.

This is a culture everyone, including employers, should embrace, not fear. I’m passionate about my staff growing their personal brands, particularly on LinkedIn; so much so that I even offered them participation in a one-day course about the platform a week or so ago that I had experienced myself earlier in the year. Our digital profile pictures, bios, posts, likes, comments, and more say so much about us and can yield such results that I felt it was important to back up use of the site with as much intelligence as possible.

I won’t plagiarise specifics but I wanted to share some of the general points garnered in the hope it, first, encourages readers to get more actively involved in LinkedIn and, second, that they do so with the greatest possible impact.

We discussed the use of emojis during the course; I have no problem with adding relevant, fun graphics to my LinkedIn posts

Sell later

The biggest piece of advice I can give anyone looking to use the platform to grow their brand and / or generate revenue, is to engage, collaborate, and share long before they try to push themselves and / or their product onto a contact. The most powerful salesperson in an industry is he or she that is renowned as an expert in that sector. Thought leadership status isn’t gained overnight, however, and can never be acquired without authentically demonstrating a commitment to the positive change of a marketplace.

“Here I am. Buy this,” won’t work. Once a good reputation has been earned, then there’s no harm in presenting a solution to a problem. The recipient will recognise it as a sales pitch but will likely welcome it.

It’s a slow burner, but I’ll incentivise you: LinkedIn offers users access to 500 million people. Each user has an average of 400 connections so every connection one makes opens up ‘second’ connections to the tune of the same number. The most effective way of growing connections is to engage with a target audience. The site makes it easy to locate people by industry, while a deeper drill can identify professionals with a certain job title. Researching what they’re talking about or having sleepless nights over gives a potential contact a magic formula; they can become a problem solver. A request for connection with a polite note gets the ball rolling.

LinkedIn allows users to network with like-minded individuals across the world

The leaders of the course Straightpoint (SP) employees took charted the route from ‘known’ to ‘liked’ to ‘trusted’. One can’t leap from one to the other without taking time to post relevant content, interact with other people’s posts, and communicate as an individual. That last point is important because people, as we know, buy from people. LinkedIn is a place where professionals go to hang out with like-minded folks. It’s like the canteen in a workplace or the break room on a jobsite; one has to be friendly, likeable, and add value to the community to be accepted then welcomed back.

An expert once told me that just when a person thinks they’ve got their feet sufficiently under the table to start discussing a sale, that’s when they shouldn’t. “Give, give, give, give some more, then ask,” he said.

Face it

There are seven key elements to a LinkedIn profile: photograph, professional headline, summary, experience, recommendations, skills and endorsements, and contact information. I want to highlight two for further exploration: a person’s photograph and their summary. They were focal points of the aforementioned course content and I see glaring mistakes made in relation to both when I’m on the site—and I’m on there daily for varying periods of time so I feel equipped to judge.

In fact, I’m in the top 1% in both my industry and network social selling indexes (SSI). I tell you not to brag but to point out what can be achieved through a bona fide commitment to an industry and a dedicated, long-term strategy.

The simple criterion for a profile picture is a clear image of a person’s face, as they would look in a business situation. A sun lounger shot is a bad idea (unless one is in the sun-bed trade!) as is one of someone standing outside a tavern in a Hawaiian shirt. A clear, sensible head and shoulders photo is much more effective. It doesn’t have to be boring or neutral like a passport picture, but it must be akin to the professional as they would walk through a boardroom door or report for an interview. It’s a mistake to use a very dated or flattering image because people will be disappointed by the real-life version and, moreover, it might create doubt over an individual’s integrity.

What does your profile picture say about you

If they’ve been prepared to mislead on their photo, where else has the truth been given scope?

When writing a LinkedIn summary, stay away from jargon. Nobody really wants to meet a motivated, creative, enthusiastic, passionate, successful, driven, experienced man or woman. Assume visitors to a page or potential connections know that about a person already. Think about how you would speak to someone you met at a conference and write in the same tone. If you’re funny, crack a joke. Refer to yourself in the first person and be interesting. If you shake someone’s hand during lunch at a seminar, you’re unlikely to say, “This is Ivor Bighead and he is a motivated, talented, strategic, all-round good guy with a proven track record,” are you? “Hello, I’m Ivor, I’m hear to learn about ABC and I’m also looking forward to tonight’s networking party,” would work a great deal better. It’s the same on LinkedIn.

Like it

As with most social platforms, the fulcrum for most activity on LinkedIn is the ‘Like’ button. The easiest way to acknowledge a person’s post is to click it so they get a notification. The platform’s algorithms also detect the engagement and filter content accordingly. A dozen likes doesn’t mean 12 people have read something, however. The research that was alluded to in our session stated that users typically get one like for every approx. 140 post views. If a post gets 11 or more likes in the first hour, it will be categorised as ‘popular’ by the algorithms and be made visible to a lot more people, dramatically increasing the chances of it going viral. It’s another reason why it’s important to be relevant, interesting, and non-commercial. Can you see a post like, “Buy my amazing shackles,” going viral as people rush to interact and snap up the stock? No, thought not.

Post content your target audience will like

LinkedIn is just one social media platform. SP is active on many others, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. There isn’t time to detail our strategies for each in this blog but it’s important to note that tailored content for each vehicle is crucial. There are apps that allow users to post to multiple platforms at the same time but I don’t believe engagement levels are as high as when a Twitter post is targeted for a “look at that news” hungry audience or an Instagram post is photogenic and more laden with hashtags.

Search #loadcell for SP content.

Good social media posts include a call to action, as do most blogs. So call me! I’d be happy to discuss further the matters raised in this article and welcome all feedback.

Mr. Loadlink
dayling@straightpoint.com

April 2018 cell, cells, linkedin, loadcell, loadlink