Happy New Year and Bon Voyage!

    A New Year, like many departing voyages, usually begins with high hopes and great expectations. Once the ship sets sail, however, the difference between “smooth-sailing” and “weathering the storm” is sometimes quickly evident.
Nowhere is this more true than in the planning and implementation of a marketing strategy, and even more-so in the media called “social”. The “catch of the day” can quickly turn into shark bait, in the rapidly flowing currents of information streaming through Social Media.


      The most adept sailors in the waters of Social Media often find themselves caught up in the winds of change which occur at the speed of thought and breaking news - finding themselves quickly having to learn a new swim-stroke or a better way to paddle the canoe.


     Even the most skilled and monied ad agencies and private businesses are not guaranteed calm seas. There are many examples of a well planned campaign being sunk by a blundering company spokesperson diving into the depths without knowing where the rocks are.


     In order to chart a safe and profitable voyage across the sea of Social Media, a business needs an experienced crew - ready to handle even the most ferocious storms which may suddenly whip up; familiar with the best ports of call. Putting the Office Intern at the helm is a recipe for disaster, but as was the case with the Titanic, the highest priced ticket isn't always a guarantee of a safe crossing either.


     When setting your course for marketing your product or service via Social Media in 2014, be certain that you take the time to chart out the waters before setting sail and be sure the price for your ticket is in line with the quality of the ship's crew. It is far easier to begin your voyage with a qualified crew than to find out halfway across the ocean that nobody knows how to swim. It's okay to think big, but make your objectives realistic and keep your plan simple and flexible. In keeping with the maritime theme of this blog spot : remember that Social Media marketing is not a speedboat race, it's an ocean voyage! With that in mind you will be able to let the currents carry you safely to an enjoyable and profitable cruise to your destination with a minimum of hard rowing, or worse - having to abandon ship!



      Contact us for a confidential consultation, no lifeboats required! : www.roambusiness.com

Your Customers Are Talking About You - Are You Part of the Conversation?

There is no question that Social Media has redefined the scope of customer service. Businesses using social media to its full extent are not only seeing the benefits in revenue from their efforts, they are also “being seen” to provide the kind of customer care people change brands for.


Take, for example, the recent campaign by WestJet Airlines they call “WestJet Christmas”. By carefully planning and executing a surprise “Oprah” style giveaway to two entire flights of passengers, with the help of no less than Santa himself dressed in WestJet Blue, they launched a YouTube video coupled with Twitter and Facebook feeds. Within 24 hours the video had over one million views and was being shared on every social platform. The gesture and timing were perfect and the video was reaching audiences well beyond Canada where WestJet is headquartered. The airline was “being seen” as Santa, making people's wishes come true! Who knows more about customer care than Santa?


“Caring” is a huge part of the WestJet brand and their use of social media to get the message across is inspired. While expensive giveaways may be beyond the budgets of most small and medium sized businesses, the use of social media to get across the idea that a company cares about its clients is not necessarily an expensive proposition. In the interactive realm of social media, caring about clients is largely listening to and addressing what they care about. How do your clients feel about your business and how do you respond to their feedback? If you aren't using social media to address these questions, you're missing out on a great opportunity.

Contact us for a confidential consultation. We can help you let your clients know you care! www.roambusiness.com  


RN

Your Ads on Social Media : “Trick or Treat”?

Offering treats to ward off evil spirits is an ancient pagan custom which we celebrate today as Halloween. Offering up your product or service on Social Media can be seen as being somewhat analogous.


When potential clients show up at your Social Media platform's door, are you offering them a trick or a treat? If you think that you can fool people by only spouting off about all the wonderful things your company has to offer without expecting any feedback - the trick may well be on you! Just like the graffiti “artists” who go around tagging everything they can find, you may be the target of some unwanted posts. Some large corporations have fallen victim to this, so it's not just a question of advertisers being naive enough to have a Pollyanna attitude. If people wanted to see a billboard, they wouldn't go online – they would go outside. Put up a billboard on a Social Media channel and you can expect the goblins to come out and haunt you. Ask a question begging a positive answer and the Frankenspammers will come out of the dungeon.

Targeted, well thought-out Advertising with a reward for loyal followers, even if the reward is simply important or useful information, is the “treat” for online consumers. Professionals in the field of interactive advertising are better equipped to handle your account than your cousin who calls himself a webmaster on weekends. But perhaps you feel you can safely remove your own appendix. We'll save that sort of gore for next year's Halloween blog! Meanwhile, Happy Halloween from Roam Business, give yourself a treat - click on this link and visit us on Facebook.

The Mobile Holiday Shopper – (This isn't about buying a smartphone!)

For many businesses the Holiday Season represents the biggest sales spike in the entire year. Some even separate the period from the rest of their fiscal year for purposes of analyzing financial data because it has such a huge effect that it skews monthly averages when factored into annual sales. But this isn't about accounting, it's about how consumers are using mobile devices to shop.


The reality of today's marketplace is that a growing number of consumers use mobile applications to find stores, compare prices on site, or simply purchase online without even seeing the product other than in a virtual image in cyber-space.
Gone are the days when a festive window display and a few ads in the local paper would draw consumers into a store for some Santa action. Today, Santa has a smartphone and he/she isn't just being guided by Rudolph's shiny nose!

The growth in mobile data usage is not a flash-in-the-pan. According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index, the number of mobile users and data transferred over the next few years will grow exponentially. To the business owner relying on retail sales, this reality means a whole new way of dealing with advertising and even in how the consumer is accommodated in-store. Customer service has been redefined with the demand for, and capability of, instantaneous response. Businesses that are prepared and properly using the power of online advertising and quick consumer response tools will not only see the immediate benefits, they will also generate the kind of buzz that can't be purchased in ad space.


If you are a small business, or speciality store owner and don't believe that this change will impact your bottom line – think again. An online presence, easily discovered by mobile applications will not only allow you to compete with the big stores, it will give your regular clients the signal that you are present and ready to serve them on any platform. Not to belabour an already over-worked truism, but when it comes to mobile visibility, you really “can't afford not to have it”.
Before Santa comes calling again this year, there's still time to fine-tune or even launch an online campaign. Contact us today for a free, confidential consultation – www.roambusiness.com

RKN

Six Reasons Why Buying Twitter is not “For the Birds!”

Whether or not you use Twitter or even understand the purpose of sending messages with 140 characters or less, the company's Initial Public Offering makes for what we believe to be a smart investment opportunity.


Twitter is tailor made for mobile devices. Created in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, it has grown to include around 218 million average monthly users sending over 400 million “tweets” per day. It has only scratched the surface of its potential advertising revenue which is expected to to hit $1 Billion next year.


But the six best reasons we can find for buying into an application that dominates mobile messaging is in the expected growth of mobile data and devices in the next five years. According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index – a global mobile data forecast – Mobile data traffic will reach the following milestones within the next five years.

1. Monthly global mobile data traffic will surpass 10 exabytes in 2017.
   
2. The number of mobile-connected devices will exceed the world's population in 2013.
   
3. The average mobile connection speed will surpass 1 Mbps in 2014.
   
4. Due to increased usage on smartphones, handsets will exceed 50 percent of mobile data traffic in 2013.
   
5. Monthly mobile traffic will surpass 1 exabyte per month in 2017.
   
6. Tablets will exceed 10 percent of global mobile data traffic in 2015.
   
   

In case you were wondering, an “exabyte” is one billion gigabytes, but what we find really amazing is the statistic about mobile devices exceeding the world's population.


Roam Business is not an Investment Firm and our opinion is not based on anything but speculation and our own analysis. We are, however, firmly convinced that you could do worse on the stock exchange than buying a Board Lot of “TWTR” when it becomes available if you can afford the risk.
www.roambusiness.com



RKN

Social Media Advertising - Are Your Ready to Attend the Party?

All dressed up and nowhere to go? That's a problem which some businesses encounter when launching a Social Media campaign. The website is fully functional, the Facebook page is set up and posting what seems like worthwhile information, and perhaps a Twitter or FourSquare account has been set up for the multitude of fans who will welcome your business with open arms. All the power of Social Media is at your disposal, right? Wrong!


Unless you have spent some time finding out where your existing clients are and where your target market is, you may just be wasting your budget on either the wrong clothes for the occasion or overpriced designer duds that won't attract anyone who would buy your product or service.


Knowing how your clients interact with digital media is not only important, it's essential to any strategy that hopes to yield a modicum of success. It's like being invited to a party and not knowing where it's being held or whether the occasion is formal or not. Sure, you can look good anywhere and people will admire you, but what you should aim to do, is look sharp and interact with your friends because they're the ones who buy your product! If you can effectively interact with the people who know you, they will no doubt say good things about you to their friends – hence the “social” in Social Media.


Before you RSVP on the invitation to attend the big event, get some advice from a company specializing in Social Media Marketing, and for Pete's sake, don't put the office intern in charge of handling the transportation!



To find out more about how your business can harness the power of Social Media contact us at wwwroambusiness.com

Not a Funeral, a Wedding!

One of the biggest misconceptions about Social Media is that it will somehow “kill” traditional media as a means of advertising and interacting with clients and potential clients. Television, radio, and print ads are not obsolete, nor are they useless in the modern age of social media marketing.

The reality is that all forms of the more conventional advertising channels have had to adapt to the “new kid on the block” - Digital Media. You would be hard pressed to find a television or print ad for any major product or service that doesn't contain an invitation to “visit us on Facebook” or provide a domain name for the company's website. Quick response codes, those squares with the leopard spots, that redirect mobile devices to a website, are all over ads in the subways, buses and common spaces in every city around the world. Ill-conceived “tweets” are often the substance of a television news story, giving an advertiser some unwanted notoriety while at the same time providing television with material for a story.

What has changed with the arrival of social media is the degree to which an advertiser can interact, in many cases instantaneously, to a consumer's question, compliment, or complaint. A company can no longer deliver a monologue on how their product or service is the best, fastest, or cheapest without being publicly called to task by the consumer. In fact, instant comparison shopping is available to anyone with a mobile device and the right software to scan a barcode. Traditional bricks and mortar stores now have to meet their competitor's prices on the spot - or be last in the race for the buyer's buck. Most larger companies have had to rethink their entire customer service strategy, since social media advertising demands constant monitoring and an ongoing dialogue with consumers.

With the billions of dollars being spent world-wide on marketing strategies and advertising, it's not likely that traditional media will die or simply pack it up and go away. What is taking place is actually an evolutionary process (some would call it a revolution) whereby a shotgun-wedding of traditional and digital advertising is taking place. The success of this marriage will be depend, as with any successful coupling, on how well the two components complement one another. Without fully accepting the partnership and cultivating the possibilities of harmonious co-existence, neither will reach its full potential.

To find out more about how your business can take full advantage of Social Media's broad reach contact us at www.roambusiness.com.

RKN

Phony Followers and Limp Likes

Imagine that you decide to have a party at your home and you invite 1000 people you have never met, who may or may not speak the same language as you do, and who will never have anything to do with you again once they have stopped by at your house. Oh yes, here's the kicker – you pay to have them come to your house.

Sounds crazy doesn't it? Why would anyone do such a thing unless all they wanted to say was, “I hosted a party and a thousand people showed up!”

Sadly, there are companies who take advantage of people's ignorance of how Social Media / Digital Advertising works, and sell them a bill of goods claiming to be optimizing their product or service for search engines by selling “likes” or “follows” on every Social Media Application imaginable. In fact, all they are selling is a set of “Emperor's Clothes” to businesses naive enough to buy into their illusion. What the algorithms that drive search engines get “tickled” by, more than a 1000 Facebook likes or Twitter followers, is the interaction or engagement of users with these sites.

Of course, if all you're setting out to do by having a Facebook page for your business is to appear to have thousands of people who “like” you, the illusion is right there for you to buy. But if that's how your business is going to use Social Media, you may as well get a guy to walk around with a sandwich board advertising your rates. You will likely get a better return on investment!

Phony “followers” and limp “likes” will not interact with your posts, tweets, photos, or blogs. They are robotic, one-time, clicks. Single, imaginary visitors to your feed, that will never come back again. The worst of it is, if you are actually analyzing the stats generated by tools like Facebook's great new page insights, or Google Analytics – the data generated by fake followers will be misleading and useless. “Garbage In – Garbage Out”.

There are much better ways to enhance your visibility on Social Media. If you really want to spend a few bucks, tools like Google +AdSense or Facebook's adverts for business pages, can make you much more findable to the people that really count – your prospective clients! If you want to enhance your website for search engines, get someone who knows what they're doing to imbed code and plan your strategy for back-links.

But if you're hell-bent on wasting your money, it's your party and you will eventually cry (even if you don't want to!) by paying for false friends and phony followers.

For a confidential consultation and to find out how your business can best harness the power of Social Media, contact us at www.roambusiness.com.

Labor Day for Social Media Marketers

This blog spot is written exclusively for those in the business of Social Media Marketing. Whether you call your self an Internet Advertising Specialist, Social Media Marketer, Interactive Media Professional, Digital Marketing Expert, or however you define yourself in the online world, as Bud says : “This one's for you!”

As you find yourself explaining landing pages, back-links, analytic software, or maybe just the difference between RAM and ROM to a prospective client, take a deep breath. On this Labor Day Weekend, it's a good time to reflect on what you may have recommended to some of your clients. UNPLUG the hardware and take a break!

Don't buy into the myth of being able to do it all. Software doesn't sleep, but you have to. Take some time to connect with friends, meditate, exercise, or whatever gets you away from the office (virtual or real) and cut yourself some slack.

Connecting with the real world gives us all a chance to re-evaluate what's really important in our lives. Real time, face-to-face human contact is essential to maintaining perspective. There's something exquisite to your “reach” being limited to only one, or a few real people in a room with you, and the idea that organic growth is only important to agriculture. It's nice to stop and realize that “going viral” is only critical to immunologists.

When you settle back into your workspace and hone your skills, who knows? Maybe you'll even have something to blog about! Happy Labor Day!

www.roambusiness.com

Social Media - Home on the Range!

The myriad channels of Social Media allow businesses the opportunity to make more consumers aware of Brand Identity than at any other time in history. Brand awareness is important but it is Brand Management, the art of creating and maintaining the Brand, that can make a Brand one of the most valuable advertising elements a business can own.

Unlike the Good 'Ol Boys putting their mark on the herd in the image to the left, the task of developing and maintaining the image of a product or service and associating it with the image or experience that makes it “special” or “unique” are not as simple as a quick round-up and a hot iron!

A business must decide on a target audience for the product or service it offers, understand the expectations of that audience though market intelligence and orient its image towards those qualities.

Social Media allows for constant feedback and ongoing improvement in reaction to the expectations of the marketplace. Using that intelligence to better maintain a Brand and improve its recognition can mean the success or failure of a product or service offered.

Many companies have an “advertising department” and implement a policy of brand orientation in their organizational image. Some even use the tools available to gather and analyze the vast amounts of data that can be collected from monitoring Social Media campaigns. For the small to medium-sized business, however, the cost and time involved in assembling the teams of personnel and software to carry out these tasks are too challenging and the result is a website with a half-baked presence on Facebook or Twitter in the hope that people may be able to “find” them.

Happily, there is a solution allowing small and medium sized business to take full advantage of Social Media's broad range of marketing and advertising opportunities. There are a number of reputable firms specializing in Digital Marketing and Online Advertising and that are experienced enough to use the tools of analysis to monitor and optimize your campaigns and exposure. Roam Business is one such firm. We can offer you the time and attention necessary to understand the image your business wants to convey. We can effectively reach your target market and provide the real-time interaction that Social Media necessitates. Visit our website at www.roambusiness.com and contact us for a confidential assessment of your Social Media Brand Management.    

R.N.

Web Analytics : Vulcan Right?

     Analytics are amazing. The results of people viewing one image can be broken down into a demographic, “click through” ratio that would knock the socks off Mr. Spock!

      That being said, a worthwhile Social Media campaign, as with any successful process, must begin with a plan. That plan must begin with certain objectives in mind: What is a business seeking to discover or achieve with a social media campaign. Looking for a wider audience for a product or service? Trying to improve or replace the current customer service system? Establish a new image (brand) with the next generation of consumers or reinforce an established image with clientele through new channels?

    

      It is only when a business has ascertained what it is seeking to gain from social media exposure, that the task of collating data to measure the success or failure of these goals can begin. Utilizing the fallout of information that returns from the explosion of Social Media exposure is a daunting task. The tools for measuring (and they are numerous and bewildering) are only as good as the people using them. As with surgeons' scalpels, they can be used to heal or misused to harm.

      

     I read a job posting for the position of “Social Media Manager” the other day. The alphabet soup of prerequisite diagnostic knowledge was enough to make anyone's head spin. What I didn't see in the job requirements was the ability to translate empirical data into what could be clearly understood by people who had a marketing plan in mind, but weren't interested in SEO, SEM, SERP, PPC, CPC or any of the other acronyms which seem to appear almost daily, and are only understood by Social Media Marketers and Vulcans!

      If you are interested in laying out a plan for using Social Media to enhance your marketing strategy, contact us at www.roambusiness.com We can meet to discuss how we can put your plan into action and measure the results in plain language.

R.N.

The Elusive ROI : The Answer is Blowin' in the Wind!

      When it comes to a business using Social Media to market products and services, the one, seemingly elusive, factor is ROI (Return On Investment). Sure, there are all kind of metrics and performance indicators. There are analytics tools that will measure buzz, virality, re-tweets, shares, comments, and all sorts of data that can be interpreted in any number of ways. But the bottom line, the real question at the end of fiscal period, is: “Does the time and money spent on Social Media ad campaigns increase net income?”

      Every good Social Media Marketer is really an old fashioned salesperson at heart, and every salesperson likes to have a presentation to make a point. Pie charts, power point presentations, and all sorts of trendy buzz-words can make an impression on the uninitiated, but serious business owners want to see the return in black ink, on an income statement.

     Fortunately, the answer to the question of ROI in terms of Social Media marketing is simple. A professionally managed campaign, taking into consideration the realistic expectations of the Business Owner will always show a positive return on investment. Think of it in terms of the wind. Wind is in a constant flux, it can be overpowering, it can be soothing, it can be freezing. Wind-power can be harnessed to power a machine. Nature uses it for seed dispersal, and that is how a well managed Social Media campaign can sow the seeds for ROI. As with Social Media campaigns, wind can also be measured in many different ways but the net effect of dispersing seeds and propagating growth can only been seen once the fruit is born.

     If you are interested in leaning what difference a professionally managed Social Media campaign can mean for your business, visit our website at www.roambusiness.com and contact us. We promise there will be no “long-winded” explanations, just results!

R.N.

Sunshine on a Cloudy Day

 It used to be that when someone said, “Get your head out of the clouds!” they were telling you to stop dreaming and be realistic. Today, forward thinking business owners are using the “cloud” to organize, share and generally manage links, files, folders, presentations, email alerts and any other data that was previously shared through an “in house” file transfer protocol. In an increasingly mobile business world with all sorts of competing technologies being used simultaneously, using a cloud based platform to exchange and manage information is not only sensible, it's the wave of things to come.

You may think, “This is fine for huge companies with employees scattered all over the map, but what does this mean for a small to medium sized business?” The truth is that every business reaches a point where larger storage devices must be purchased in order to store and keep track of information. More salespeople, more decision makers and more data means hiring more IT people just to keep the hardware working properly. The need for a system that allows an administered, secure, and versatile platform for information exchange within a company becomes obvious. Companies such as Box.com and Dropbox provide these cloud based services and more and more businesses are realizing the savings and accessibility advantage of online, cloud based information management.

If you are interested in learning more about how your business can “get into the cloud” and start saving time and money, visit our website at www.roambusiness.com and contact us.

R.N.

Super Bowls of Cookies!

A small business owner I met recently told me he didn't think he needed to use social media to attract new clients because he relied on "word of mouth" to let people know he did good work.  After stopping to grab my jaw before it hit the floor, I asked him if he knew what social media was.  "Yeah sure, Facebook, Twitter and that kind of thing,"  came the reply

I don't want to write a term paper about why some "small businesses" will always remain "small" but it should be clear to anyone following this blog that we believe any business that does not realize the potential of social media will never realize its potential business.  Social Media in 2013 is "word of mouth"!  The beauty of these media is that a business can now take part in the conversation and, through its interaction with existing clients, stimulate conversation with potential clients.

For my money, the biggest play in last weekend's Superbowl came when the lights went out.  While it's true that Oreo spent a lot of time leading up to the game developing a Twitter following, when the power failure caused a temporary partial-blackout in the stadium, seven little words, "You can still dunk in the dark", went viral and got Oreo the kind of attention that can't be purchased. That wasn't a stroke of pure luck.  Oreo had a professional ad agency handling the Twitter account.  That agency clearly demonstrated the two aspects of social media use that make it vital.  1) The message was immediately relevant. 2) It sparked the use of the brand name and lit a fire.

While your objective may not be to have your ad in the Superbowl, there is no reason why you can't use social media to make you the M.V.P. in your market. Visit our website at www.roambusiness.com and ask us how we can help get you there.

R.N.

The Egg Toss

     Did you ever play a game called egg-toss? Two people stand a few feet apart and toss a fresh egg back and forth, increasing the distance between them with each toss.  No matter how nimbly the players handle the egg, at one point the players get too far apart and the forces of velocity and gravity win the game, leaving one player with egg all over his/her hands!

    That game is very similar to managing social media marketing campaigns.  Unless a business can afford to designate a full-time employee as "Social Media Manager" or some such title, the tasks of optimizing and managing content and interaction on numerous networks such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. is sometimes tossed around between any number of people until such time as the tasks become so fragmented that the media used overtake the campaigns and everyone ends up with egg on their faces!

    The days when a business could run an ad in the local paper, radio or TV station and call that an ad campaign are over!  The age of digital marketing has arrived and businesses that are not prepared to meet its challenges and deal with them effectively will be left behind.  So what is a small or medium sized business supposed to do?  Creating new positions or hiring new "specialists" may seem ridiculous in a time when austerity and budget cuts are, more and more, becoming the prudent course for many of these businesses.

    Outsourcing the task of managing social media campaigns or "internet marketing" as it is sometimes called, would seem to be the only viable solution.  There are several problems inherent in outsourcing which are worth noting.  The first and probably most important consideration after the cost of outsourcing is : Will the content, the voice of your social media and  the interaction, be a true reflection of your business's "brand"?  How much attention will the marketing company give to what you want to say rather than what they think is the most slick and hip "market-speak"?  What kind of reporting will they provide?  While it's a fact that success with social media campaigns are not "instant solutions", will you be apprised of the kind of interaction taking place between your clients and the marketing firm you have hired?  It's fine and nice to be fed graphs, charts, numbers and all sorts of fancy analysis, but what do the numbers mean to your bottom line?

   When choosing  a firm to handle your social media campaigns and the ongoing task of maintaining them, you need a company you can trust and speak to on a personal level.  We at Roam Business have many answers and solutions, but we believe that we must listen first.  Representing a client means knowing the client, not just being a public relations front with no idea of the client's day-to-day operations.

Thomas Arken

(Tom Arken is a Roam Business Associate, specializing in content analysis and software integration. R.N.)

Websites and Buggy Whips

     I met with a new potential client recently and he said something I have heard all too often.  I asked what I thought was a pretty straight forward question, "How are you using social media to increase your revenues?"
     He flashed a self-satisfied look and replied, "Oh yeah, we have a website!"  It was almost as though we were speaking two different languages and conversing through an interpreter.
     What many people in the business of educating their potential clients on the facets of internet marketing often encounter, is the idea that a mere website presence constitutes, in the minds of many small business owners, the maximum use of social media marketing. 
     We sometimes take it for granted that everyone has heard of Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Tumlbr, Instagram, Youtube, and myriad other channels for promoting products and services.  The sad truth is, many small business owners are too immersed in the day-to-day operations of their businesses to have heard of any of those tools, unless they have teenage children!  And even in that case, they rarely see them as viable advertising channels or invaluable tools to use for interacting with new and existing clients.
     I learned many years ago the importance of a having a visual presentation on hand when meeting new clients in  the process of selling intangibles.  Today, my laptop has replaced the binder I carried years ago as Financial Advisor, selling mutual funds.  My  presentation though, follows the same basic principles that were used years ago.  1) Keep it simple.  2) Show real examples of what can be done.  3) Back it up with numbers.  4) Close with the client asking for more.
     No business owner (large or small) wants to be the last buggy whip manufacturer.  By the time our initial meeting ended, my new client was asking me if  I could suggest a way to get a lot of people to "like" the new Facebook page we had just created for his business!  I told him how we could let more people know about his page when we next met to set up his twitter account.


Roam Business is a Montréal based consulting firm, specializing in social media marketing, and accounting & office software optimization.  www.roambusiness.com
Roy K. Nelson is an owner and the Senior Executive Analyst in the firm