charvey in Vietnam

Jitterbug Stroll

It's a tradition for a different group at our company to to a "Team Show" at our monthly All Hands meeting.  This month Hang and I performed.  Hang and I are the only ones on the VietnamWorks Management Team.  All the rest of the people on my team have their own groups and their own teams to help them in their missions.  Hang, our Senior Business Analyst, is the only person whose sole responsibility is to help me with management and analysis.  She's awesome.   Together we're a team of two.  So for our show we decided to perform the Jitterbug Stroll, a super fun dance routine that I learned in Saigon Swing .  Enjoy.

Đại gia và Chân dài

A few weeks ago I traveled to Hanoi to join our Hanoi company party and chaperone the North sales team on their reward trip for kicking arse in 2009.  This pic was taken in a small village in the mountains about 5 hours from Hanoi at the minority tribe guest house where we stayed. 

The team joked that I was the "Đại gia" [pronounced "day za"] and they were the "Chân dài" [pronounced "chun zai"].  "Đại gia" translates loosely to the American slang "sugar daddy" while "Chân dài" literally means "long legs" or, more generally, pretty girls hanging around the Đại gia.  Needless to say I've gotten a lot of mileage out of this word because it's a joke that never gets old.  I think it's especially funny to hear a foreigner say "Đại gia" in my funny accent.

I had a ball during the weekend.  On display were many of the Vietnamese characteristics I admire and enjoy -- the closeness in a group, the joking and fun, the zeal and enthusiasm with which they engage in fun activities.  We climbed a few hundred meters up the side of a mountain to visit a big cave.  One girl insisted on doing it in her 7cm purple pumps.  I asked why.  She replied with a smile "Because I like them!  And it's a challenge!"  At one point they taught me a card game that's kinda like the American drinking game "President" but with some rule variations.  They ran rings around me.  The loser had to have a charcoal mark put on their face and they had a blast with me. 

One of those cultural differences you never expect emerged during the weekend too.  The first time our bus stopped for a toilet break, about 1/3 of the team got off the bus and promptly hurled their breakfasts on the pavement.  It turns out that car sickness is very common, especially in Hanoi.  Makes sense -- they didn't grow up riding in cars or buses. 

All in all, a great weekend.  I love spending time with the North team.  Their "mau lua" -- fire in the blood -- energizes and inspires me.

You can see the photos from the trip above.  The first half is our company party, the second half from the weekend trip [look closely for the purple pumps.]  The costumes you see are worn by our directors for our show.  We played characters from a Chinese TV serial that's very famous in Vietnam, "Journey to the West."  The team loved it!  I was the evil general and was vanquished by the good Monkey.  Each team put on a show, including a "Sexy Show" [yes Virginia, there's no such thing as political correctness in Vietnam].  Good times, good times....

VietnamWorks Marketing Campaign

Today we launched the online component of our current "Success" campaign.  The site encourages our users to send us photos of them showing the emotions of landing a new job.  We'll choose one finalist to become the new face on the VietnamWorks home page.  Check it out! [in Vietnamese only].

 The captions in the pictures say things like "Hey mom, I'm about to start a new job!" and "I got a new job, yeahh!"  The idea is to capture the emotion and excitement of finding a new job.  It's a great campaign!

Becoming a Guru

Tonight I began writing down some personal goals.  Besides becoming a US Ambassador one day (one of my >10 year goals) one of my goals is to become a business and leadership guru in Vietnam.  I think it would be fun.  I'm passionate about leadership and business and enjoy it.  Why not?  Even if I don't get there, the journey will be a kick. 

I decided to take some action towards this goal recently by agreeing to write a monthly column on strategy and leadership in a weekly business magazine called "Doanh Nhan."  Here's the first article, to be translated into Vietnamese.

Focus on Value for Growth, Not on Price

Business managers in Vietnam often focus on price as the key to success.  I believe that this nearly exclusive focus on price limits the growth and profitability of businesses.

I know you're thinking "This guy is crazy.  Of course businesses compete on price!"  And you're right -- price is an important factor when customers make purchasing decisions.  But consider what happens  when business managers focus only on price to compete.   They spend all their time and effort getting their costs down so they can lower their price to to the bare minimum.  And what do their competitors do?  They cut their price too.  Both businesses start hitting each other with lower prices in an effort to gain the upper hand.  And the result?  A never-ending price war that lowers revenue and profitability.  Both companies have to cut product quality and service to keep from going out of business.  That means poor or no service, low quality materials, no staff training -- in short, low value products or services and small companies. 

There is a better way to beat your competitors while growing revenue and large, sustainable profits.  I call it "focusing on value."

You can also think of "focus on value" as "focus on solving the customer's problem."  After all, why does any customer choose to buy your product?   It's because your product solves a problem for them and they are willing to pay you to solve that problem.  Focusing on solving the customer's problem leads to improvements in your product that will save the customer time and money.  When you save the customer time and money, you make your product more valuable.  If your product is more valuable, your price can be higher than your competitors' prices and customers still will choose to buy your product (but only if your sales people must know how to communicate the value of your product, but that is the topic of another article!)

Let me give you an example from our business, VietnamWorks.com.  We help to solve a problem common to every company in the world -- finding the people they need to staff and grow their businesses.  I'm sure you can agree that the right person in a position creates a lot of value for a company.  On the other hand, the wrong person in a position destroys value.

Our competitive strategy is very simple -- we focus on solving our customers' recruiting problems better than our competitors.  In our business, solving their problems better means delivering many high-quality candidates, fast.  When they receive more high-quality applications they have more choice and are more likely to find the perfect person for that new marketing, sales or IT position that is critical to expanding the business and raising profits.  When we deliver the candidates faster we can get that perfect person into the customer's company faster to begin adding value to the customer's business.  After all, time is money. 

To ensure we can deliver value than our competitors, we focus on marketing, staff training and product innovation.  Marketing brings job seekers to our website, staff training makes us more efficient and creative and product innovation makes our website easier and more productive for customers.  All this results in delivering more value to our customers in the form of many high-quality applications.

In short, solving our customers' problem better and faster than our competitors creates huge value for our customers.  And we capture some of that value through our pricing strategy.  We do not offer the lowest price.  On the other hand, nearly all of our competitors compete with us solely by offering a lower price.  Some even give away job-posting services for free.  But they have been unsuccessful at winning much market share because their products are less effective at delivering candidates to customers.  After all, you get what you pay for.

If you are looking for ways to grow revenue and profitability in your business, you might consider spending some time to understand your customers' problems better.  What do they value?  Faster delivery times?  More flexible service?  A specialized product or service no one else is delivering?  After you understand their needs better, you can change your product to increase the value you provide to them.  If your customers understand the higher value of your product they'll be willing to pay a higher price for it.  Imagine that -- increasing revenue and beating competitors by increasing your price!  It's more realistic than you think.

Chicken Dance Part Deux

As promised to you, AJ, I took another video of the VietnamWorks chicken dance today including footage of yours truly.  Enjoy.  For those of you who can't get enough chicken dance, check out Part One here.

VNW "Dreams" Campaign

On Monday we kicked off the "Dreams" campaign internally at VietnamWorks.  The objective of the campaign is to infuse a sense of mission among team members in the company.  We're not "just a business."  Our service really does help people achieve their dreams -- provide for their families, make their parents proud, take on new challenges, achieve greatness -- and I want people to understand that no matter what their work is, it brings dreams closer to the people we serve.  It's a great message that inspires me every day.

The Marketing team has been super creative in designing and executing the campaign.  I love their ideas!  They include a "Jumping Guy" contest [pics below, the Jumping Guy is part of our logo] and an audio contest to see who can make the most celebratory "Wowie I got a new job!!!!" sound. 

We began on Monday morning by having senior management line up at the front door and cheer wildly for team members as they entered the building. Then we thanked each one: "Thank you for helping people to achieve their dreams!"

Several people looked around them, trying to find who we were clapping for until they realized "Oh, it's me!!" and big smiles broke out on their faces.  Loc, from the Sales team, even began racing out the front door and offering his arm to women.  It was such a good idea I followed his lead.  Hilarious, and good fun!

Click here to see the Yahoo 360 blog that the Marketing team created.  It's mostly in Vietnamese but you'll get the idea.

The Marketing team did an outstanding job decorating the office.

Now for some Jumping Guy contest pics (there are many more on the VietnamWorks 360 blog).  We're having a contest and people can vote on the best ones.  Here's a great one -- I think Hong Phuong[?] -- it looks like she's taking off!


Thanh had another impressive jump.


I love Binh's beatific smile.

And yes, charvey.

A nice group shot of the Marketing Team.  More beaming faces.  Everyone had a blast!

VietnamWorks Chicken Dance

Every morning the VietnamWorks South sales team gathers for the "Chicken Dance".  It's a great and fun way to start the day -- everyone gets a kick out of it.  I like to show my solidarity with the sales team by dancing with them everyday, but the biggest reason I dance with them is that it's goofy and I just plain enjoy it.

Last week I shot a video of the dance.  It's pretty much like this every morning.  I love it.  One of my big objectives is to foster a working environment that is enjoyable and fun, where people can feel free to express their personalities.  Kudos to anh Trọng for having the idea and implementing it with the team.

At the end you can hear the dance leader ask "Các bạn khỏe không?" ["How is everyone?] and everyone shout in unison "Khỏe, rất khỏe, rất rất khỏe, oh yeah!!!" [Good, really good, really really good, oh yeah!!!] 

VietnamWorks TV Ad

After many months, countless meetings, religious wars over the "meaning" of a green bus or white shirt, we finally reached a milestone for VietnamWorks.com -- our very first television commercial.  It was fascinating participate in a process leading from an initial idea to a finished product.  I went on the shoot a month ago, from 7am until 11pm at night.  What you see here is just a tiny fraction of the footage we shot.  And I learned that any film is made or broken in post production -- editing, music, sound effects are so important.  Many thanks to My Linh of VNW Marketing, Saatchi & Saatchi (the ad agency), Star Films (the production house) and Pixel Garden (post-production house) for helping us to make a great ad.

I hope my Public likes it.  If you don't, I don't wanna know!  It goes on the air in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh next Satruday, October 6.

FYI, the first voice over says "Click on a mouse to get a better job fast."  The ending voiceover says "VietnamWorks.com - Seize opportunity!" Funny enough, both sound better in Vietnamese but can't be translated exactly into English.  A more accurate translation for the second voiceover would be "VietnamWorks - grab quickly fleeting opportunities before they pass you by."

Some shoot trivia: The two adorable twins watching our man chase the mouse weren't a planned part of the shoot at all.  They were bystanders.  The producer convinced their mother to let them appear in the shot.  Their expression is perfect.  The dog appearing with the cat also was unplanned.  The cat trainer placed the cat on the pavement, then the dog came along and we were all wondering what was gonna happen.  But the cat remained calm and it worked out great.  It actually was raining during that scene, but you can't tell due to the post-production magic.  The "old office" scene was shot at a real office -- it looked even lousier than what you see here, the shot doesn't do it justice.  The "new office" scene was shot at the VietnamWorks office.  All scenes were shot without sound.  The sound was added in post-production.  We cut a lot of scenes because we just couldn't fit them in. 

Karaoke with the Sales Peeps

Last month I challenged the sales team -- if they hit a new weekly revenue record in the next month I would take them all to Karaoke on my own dime.  Well, they showed me.  The next week they went out and crushed the old record by 33%.  So charvey had to cough up.  How do people here love Karaoke?  Let me count the ways.  Good times, good times....

With part of the gang.  Pictured from left to right are Slim Shady (yes, that's her real name), Lan Huong, Hung, charvey, Phuong1, Thanh Mai and Loan.

Thao and company even wrote new lyrics to an Abba song to commemorate the event.  "Remember time, we run the target/ Remember how manager push us/ Think of all the great things we all do" and "We are number one/ Never give up, we can do anything".  I love it.

Even charvey got in the act with one of my Karaoke faves, "New York, New York".  Ole Blue Eyes himself woulda had a tear in his eye.

Website Mới Của VietnamWorks

Chào các bạn.  Tuàn trước, công ty VietnamWorks dùng website mơí.  Tật cả mõi nhân viên ơ công ty rất vui.  Tôi muốn khách hàng của công ty cũng rất thích website mới.  Đây là cái này.  Chúng ta tìm dược việc lam nhiều quá ở đó. Đi đi đó bay gìơ rất nhanh!!

Hên gạp lại, Lâm.

New VietnamWorks Office

VietnamWorks kicked off the new year in style with our move-in and opening celebration for our brand new office building, located at 130 Suong Nguyet Anh in District 1.  We had Chinese lions, dragons, a drumming corps, confetti, cake, red champagne, the works. 

Two lions perform.  Each lion had two boys inside.  The kid up front got all the glamour and winked the lion's eyes at the girls.

The Saigon Boys Drum, Lion and Dragon Corps performs.  Actually I have no idea what their name was.  Their outfits were fantastic though.

Members of the Sales Team lining up to assist in the ribbon-cutting ceremony.  The guy in white second from right looks exactly like a Vietnamese version of Chris Klein of "American Pie" fame.  He's one of our designers and a nice kid.

It's raining men!  No, wait, that's just confetti.

"New office, new success!"  Yours truly and Jonah, the company's founder and CEO.  I wish I could take credit for our shiny and spacious new office building, but Jonah did all the work. 

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, or "Chuc Mung Nam Moi!"  The Vietnamese love a good party and have adopted the Western new year as their own.  Crowds were out in force last night and the streets decked out in holiday finery. 

I tried to capture a bit of the magic in this pic, taken on Le Loi Street at about 12:30am on January 1, 2007.   Those little white lights above the streets are snowflakes.

VietnamWorks is ushering in 2007 with a spanking new office to house our crack team of Tech,  MIS, Sales, Marketing, Customer Care and Product specialists.  Pic taken Friday, December 29.

A few of the advance guard waited impatiently for the movers to deliver the tools of the trade so they could get back to work crushing our competiton.

Fresh Faces in Can Tho

Last weekend I went to the city of Can Tho, a major provincial capital in the Mekong Delta.  Some local companies had organized a jobs seminar for students at the University of Can Tho.  VietnamWorks was invited to attend, say a few words and sit on a panel.  Needless to say, we ruthlessly exploited the event to deliver our message, but in a friendly and added-value way for the  students.  Seeing all those fresh-faced youngsters grappling with existential job angst reminded me of my own college days.  Nice kids. 

Charvey giving a brief speech which contained several shameless plugs for VietnamWorks.  On the right, her face partly obscured by flowers, is Chi from Customer Care.  She was my interpreter, and fortunately was able to cover my inarticulate ramblings with an elegant Vietnamese translation.

Students of Can Tho laughing as one of their own went to the stage to practice firm handshakes and good eye contact.  Read the newspaper story in Vietnamese here.

After the event I had lunch with bigwigs from the University and other sponsoring companies.  I felt like I was at a fraternity party.  One guy was a dead ringer for a Vietnamese Chevy Chase, I swear.  A couple guys kept toasting me and saying "50%!" or "100%!" which means chugging half or all of your drink, respectively.  I was advised not to go toe to toe with men from the Mekong since they are legendary drinkers.  Sound advice that I ignored anyway.

Mmmm, yummy giant snails just like mom used to make.  I was served several of these by the host.  Actually, they were kinda tasty.  But once I thought of the slimy snail foot in my mouth (that was the chewy, rubbery part) my I had to suppress the gag reflex.  It's all in the mind.

VietnamWorks Company Trip

Last weekend I went on the first annual VietnamWorks company trip to a town on the coast about 4 hours from Saigon.  It was a chance for all VietnamWorks team members to put their party hat on, and wowie what party hats there were! 

Some of the gang before loading up the bus on Friday.  Spirits are high.  With all the giggling and excitement going on, I felt like I was on a middle school class trip.  Everyone was very psyched about the weekend.

First night at the resort.  After dinner, people self-organized into a human tug-o-war.  I found it funny that women made up the chain, but men were officiating.  Game on, fellas!

Another view of the tug-o-war.  After a few seconds the human chain would snap like a rubber band and both sides would go flying back into the sand in a tangled, giggling heap.

The next day we played lots of team-building games.  The object of this game was to toss a water balloon over to the other side with a plastic sheet.  Two teams of two on the other side had to catch the water balloon without breaking it.  The first to miss or break the balloon would lose.  Lots of great drama and heroic saves.

Saturday night was skit night.  Several teams put on comedy, dance, acting and singing skits.  We had Tahiti dancers, story-telling dance, fabulous costumes, pathos, farming scenes, pom-pom girls and a made-up Karaoke song about our business in both Vietnamese and English.  All the skits were very clever.  Who knew such creative juices lurked below the surface?  Now if only I can figure out a way to harness them to advance our business!

New Gig

When I returned to Vietnam two weeks ago I started my new gig as General Director of VietnamWorks.  VietnamWorks is the number one online job finding site in Vietnam.  It's kinda like Monster.com in the USA.

This job is pretty much exactly what I had in mind as the next step in my career.  After seven years I was beginning to climb the walls in big-company corporate America, with its soul-crushing bureaucracy and political battles.  Although I could have found a small company in the States, I'm hitting two birds with one stone by joining a small consumer-focused Internet company in Vietnam.  What is the other bird, you may ask?  It's living in an extremely stimulating and rapidly changing environment with a sense of adventure.  It's also having the opportunity to make my mark.  Kinda reminds me of the old adage, "Go forth young man, and find your fortune!"

My experience at Yahoo and AOL is a terrific fit for many of the challenges faced by VietnamWorks.  For example, I drew on experience helping to design the new AOL home page to determine immediately that VietnamWorks needs some changes to its own homepage.  At Yahoo I gained a real appreciation for how online users think and behave.  I'd even go so far as to say I am the most qualified guy for the job in all of Vietnam.   ;-)

Another thing I love about the job is that it's my first true general management job.  In one day last week I dealt with sales compensation plans, personnel/personality issues, team planning, marketing strategy, product strategy and space planning.  Wow.  Talk about drinking from a firehose -- it's all here at VietnamWorks.

Morgan Stanley recently predicted that the Chinese online jobs market will grow at a compounded rate of 50% (that's fifty percent) a year for the next three years.  Although Vietnam is no China, that prediction is exciting because the Vietnamese and Chinese markets have many similarities.  In addition, Australian online jobs provider Seek paid $20 million for a 25% stake in Zhaopin, the #3 online jobs player in China.  Goldman Sachs estimates Zhaopin's revenue at $8 million, which implies a valuation multiple of 10x revenue.  I likes!  Read the story here.

 

No More Gravy Train

Well peeps, the gravy train had to end sometime.  Nearly two full months of being gainfully unemployed.  I got up when I felt like it, watched whatever I wanted on TV, drank coffee, read the paper, road tripped up the East Coast, stuffed myself with mama charvey's cooking in Vermont, chilled chez Vu and partied like a rock star in San Francisco (I felt so in the know when we went to that after hours warehouse club in soma), took side trips to Cambodia, Bangkok and into the Vietnamese countryside with the folks.  Glorious times, all.   But alas, it has ended.

It's all good though.  On Wednesday I started working on a consulting project for Vietnamworks.  It's an online job site, similar to Monster or Hotjobs.  Initially I'm doing a business overview of the entire site, with the intent of choosing a few areas (such as customer service and sales) to focus on and come up with concrete suggestions for improving traffic, sales and profitability.  Just in case I don't come up with anything good I have a really slick powerpoint template prepared.  Style triumphs over substance every time my friends.

I'm also going to do some consulting for another Internet-oriented company here called Vinagame.  They are what's known as an MMOG company -- Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming.  It seems that young Vietnamese are gaga over playing fantasy and action games online with their friends.  Go into any Internet cafe here and you'll see about 40% of the patrons playing an online game. 

A few weeks ago I went to a spectacular Vinagame media event announcing the launch of a new game.  It was more of a show than a media event -- there were dancers, bongo drum players, videos and a pounding soundtrack (the Vietnamese love everything at top volume, all the time).  The highlight though was about 30 models all dressed as a popular female character from the game mixing with the crowd.  It was like something out of a Hollywood gala.

Another business area I've become interested in is exporting furniture to the USA.  There are tons of furniture maufacturers here.  Not only is their quality high, but their prices are lower than other Asian competitors.  Lots of expats I've met here are into the furniture business and doing rather well.  So -- if any of you know furniture retailers or distributors in the USA who might be interested in finding a new, high quality source of furniture let me know.  You can view some samples of Vietnamese furniture at this website.

My Public may rest assured that there will be more boondoggles in the future.  On the short list are Phnom Penh, Hue, Dalat and Nha Trang.  The lowdown on each will be posted here, oh yes.  Also wanna visit Manila, Singapore, China and Japan.