Big Red Tomato Company

Weekend Round up January 28

Matthew Needham — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 11:00:47 +0000

Welcome to Weekend Roundup. This is a collection of some great posts that I’ve come across over the previous week.

I don’t go into major depth on each one, but encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting:

Make sure your tweets are being seen with business owners trying to get their message out, how can you be sure they are being seen? Here’s some tips to make sure your tweets get read.

What’s in a business name? 20 considerations for getting it right When you start in business, you may have decided what you’re going to sell or what you’re going to offer, you may have even decided on a location. But have you thought about your business name?

9 steps to starting your freelance web design business Whether you’re a struggling web design business or just starting out, here’s some practical advice to keep you on the right track.

How to design your log for awesome SEO Neil Patel describes how having great design is just as important as the site’s architecture or having great content. Lessons you could apply to your own sites or your customers.

Book Recommendation of the week:

The Lean Start up by Eric Rsett explains how to start a business to ensure long term sustainability. The early days should be about learning not making money. He explains why you should create minimum viable products and explains the importane of testing and meauring through the use of innovation accounting. If you’re looking to start up a business or expanding your existinbusiness into new areas you should definitely consider The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses

How to read business books in less than 15 minutes

Matthew Needham — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 05:00:22 +0000

Business books are a cheap way of improving your business education without a large time commitment or financial outlay.

For many years I’ve been a big fan of buying business books. In fact I’ve got shelves stacked high with them in my office and even some boxes of them in my parents garage.

Some of them I’ve actually read.

Books are cheap, easily portable and potentially full of profitable ideas. But there lies several problems:

1. Overbuying because they are cheap
2. Books take time to read and discover the profitable ideas
3. You never have them to hand when you need them

Now some of these problems can be overcome by not going into bookshops and only buying the Kindle version, so you can always have the book with you whether that’s on your iPad, iPhone or Kindle itself.

But there’s one problem which can’t be totally overcome – the time it takes to read.

Discover how you can discover more profitable ideas in less time from books

Sure you can reduce the time it takes to read each book by taking speed reading course or by following these steps:

1) reduce your number of fixations per line
2) eliminate back skipping/tracking to re read a point
3) increasing your peripheral version

fortunately Tim Ferriss writing on the 4 hour work week blog describes this process perfectly and demonstrates how you can reduce the time taken to read a book or article by up to 1/3rd.

I’d strongly recommend that you read this article or at least look in to speed reading because it’s an important life skill which will have a long lasting return on investment and save you a lot of time.

Book summaries #1

One of the alternative approaches that I’ve used is buying book summaries and I currently subscribe to Soundview book summaries.These are professionally written book summaries produced by editors and therefore do a great job of reducing the time taken to read each book but still manage to convey the major points and ideas from the book in 4/5 pages. The book summaries are in multiple format for Kindle, iPhone or PDF and available to download so you can read them when you’re offline. With about 3-4 book summaries produced each month the cost per book equates to about $2 a month, which actually is a fraction of the cost of the books themselves, but as its paid as an annual subscription of $99 it might be a big slug all at once.

Audio books

Another approach that Ive also tried is listening to audio books through Audible.com. which as you might have guessed is a site full of audio books which you can download and listed to via iTunes. The choice of books is huge and they regularly add new editions. Audio books are really great when you have a long drive or are working out at the gym. You can Try Audible Now and Get A FREE Audiobook! [aff link] when you take out a 14 day trial (but the audio book is yours to keep whatever you decide)

Audible has several different pricing options ranging from pay as you go to a monthly subscription model allowing you so many credits per month. If you want to see if it’s for you, Try Audible Now and on a 14 Day Trial and choose from over 100,000 Titles.

The downside of Audible is not so much a problem of the Audible, or the format, but where you listen to the audio book. For example If you’re listening to the book in the car then you’ll appreciate it’s difficult to take notes. Another problem is that they take time to listen to. Walt Isaccson’s excellent biography of Steve Jobs takes way over 20hrs, which is a lot of listening time. I know some people listen to audio books speeded up, but I really can’t see it being an enjoyable listening experience. In my opinion an audio book is best for novels.

Book summaries #2

More recently I’ve come across an alternative approach which allows me to get the key points from the business book in less than 15 minutes a book. It’s actually around 12 minutes per book, which means that you can pick up the key points from a book very quickly. More importantly you can start putting what you’ve learned into action straightaway.

It’s called Readitfor.me and it’s a book summary put together using inspiring videos or colourful PDF’s. The added bonus is that it includes a workbook to ensure you get the most out of the book.

It basically takes the best ideas from business and personal development books and summarises them into a 12 minute video. Like this one for The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses.

Each week Readitforme summarise a new book and they suggest that you commit to a time and place as to when you will watch the videos. I personally watch one first thing on a Monday morning. Most people can spare 15 minutes at least once a week to “read a book” and the video format makes it extremely easy to learn in a very short period of time.

You can try Readitforme free for 7 days without any commitment or credit card details and watch as many videos or read as many summaries as you like.

As Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com says:

“We use Readitfor.me here at Zappos, and we love it. Pursuing growth and learning is one of our core values, and Readitfor.me lets us do that in a fun and engaging way”

This really is one of the best things I’ve come across in a while.

Weekend Round Up January 21

Matthew Needham — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 05:00:18 +0000

Welcome to Weekend Roundup. This is a collection of some great posts that I’ve come across over the previous week.

I don’t go into major depth on each one, but encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting:

Mark Cuban’s 12 Rules For Start Ups Article from Entrepreneur.com lists Mark Cuban’s 12 rules for starting a business together with some other links to some sage advice from the billionaire sports owner.

10 Books Every Entrepreneur should read from 2011 - pretty much what it says on the tin. 10 Books from 2011 you should make sure you read. Having read quite a few of them you should definitely check them out as they are full of some excellent advice and business insights from some leading business owners and entrepreneurs.

Twitter Ethos from the Cliff House Hotel – Interesting article about how a hotel general manager uses Twitter to promote the hotel and build a connection with his guests.

Tip for getting organised: don’t article from the Harvard Business Review explaining why you shouldn’t bother using email folders and having a zero email inbox.

How to be a success Adventurer and videographer Benjamin Jacks producer of the awesome video: Hitchhiking Stop Motion: 5000 miles, 930 people, 162 Secs which documents his 5000 mile hitchhike across the US, shares his secrets for creating a viral video like this one in a new video course. If creating a viral video is your thing, this could be well worth checking out.

Book Recommendation of the week:

If you’ve been to business school or studied psychology, you’ll be aware of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to describe what motivates us humans. Chip Conley takes the model and adapts it for business. He shows us how to use it to improve relationships with employees, customers and investors and describes the steps that need to be taken to move each of these groups to the next level of motivation/engagement. Well worth checking out.

What about you? What have you found this week?

Weekend roundup January 14

Matthew Needham — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 05:30:28 +0000

Welcome to Weekend Roundup. This is a collection of some great posts that I’ve come across over the previous week.

I don’t go into major depth on each one, but encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting

How to get 1 million visitors in ONE year - Steve Scott shares his one year goal to get one million visitors to his website in 2012 and explains how you can do it too.

How to conduct (and master) a webinar interview (Video/podcast) with Lewis Howes who shares his secrets in launching FB Influence mainly on the back of holding Webinars.

Marketing Grader by Hubspot Hubspot produces a number of great tools toevaluate the effectiveness of your website. Marketing Grader is no exception. It dives deep into your site and identifies what you need to do to make your site more effective.

Electronic and paper receipts! Stored and organised on the cloud Onereceipt.com Allows you to store and access your receipts In the cloud for you to access wherever you need them.

Book recommendation of the week:

The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself excellent book by John Jantsch from duttape marketing showing businesses practical low cost ideas on how to market their business’s through referrals and word of mouth marketing.

What about you? What have you found that has inspired you?

Weekend Round Up January 21

52 Business Books to Read in 2012

Matthew Needham — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 05:00:44 +0000

I could take the time to read a fiction book, but I don’t. I would rather read websites, newspapers, magazines, looking for ideas and concepts that I can use. I spend time in bookstores because one idea from a book or magazine can make me money. Mark Cuban How to Win at the Sport of Business: If I Can Do It, You Can Do It

Personally speaking, the best investment I have ever made has been in improving my own education. Consistently I’ve found this to be one of the best ways of making more money. The more I invest in myself the more money I make.

Over the years the best way I’ve found in educating myself , both in terms of money and time, is through reading books. Literally a single idea from reading a $/£10-£20 book can make £/$ ’000′s of difference to my income.

So I’ve issued myself a challenge and I urge you to do the same. Over the course of 2012 I’m going to read 52 books. Yes, 1 book every week, for the next 12 months. That’s at least 52 new ideas to implement in my business or my clients businesses.

As well as reading them I aim to review them too. Some of the reviews I’ll share here on the blog and some I’ll share with the readers on my mailing list. So, if you’re not on my mailing list get on it now…

52 Business Books to Read in 2012

Many of the books on the list have be suggested to me by the good folks at Readitfor.me and this is the order I’ll be reading them in.

1. Peak – Chip Conley
2. Steve Jobs – Walt Issacson
3. Great by Choice - Jim Collins
4. Lean Start Up – Eric Ries
5. How Companies Win – Rick Kash and David Calhoun
6. Blue Ocean Strategy – W. Chan Kim
7. Brain Rules – John Medina
8. Brains on Fire – Geno Church
9. Brandwashed – Sarah O’Leary
10. Little Bets – Peter Sims
11. Made to Stick – Chip and Dan Heath
12. Start with why – Simon Sinek
13. Linchpin – Seth Godin
14. Making Ideas Happen – Scott Belsky
15. Mindset – Carol Dweck
16. Moneyball – Michael Lewis
17. Moonwalking with Einstein – Joshua Foer
18. Multimedia Learning – Richard Mayer
19. Neuromarketing – Christopher Morin and Patrick Renvoise
20. Outliers – Malcolm Gladwell
21. Positioning – Al Ries and Jack Trout
22. Power Friending – Amber Mac
23. Practically Radical – Bill Taylor
24. Results Rule – Randy Pennington
25. Rework – Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
26. Six Pixels of Separation – Mitch Joel
27. Switch – Chip and Dan Heath
28. The 8th Habit – Steven Covey
29. The Art of Choosing – Sheena Iynengar
30. The Design of Business – Roger Martin
31. The Dip – Seth Godin
32. The Element – Sir Ken Robinson
33. The Leadership Challenge – Kouzes and Posner
34. The Long Tail – Chris Anderson
35. The New Community Rules – Tamer Weinberg
36. The New How – Nifoler Merchant
37. The Shift – Scott Davis
38. The Thank You Economy – Gary Vaynerchuk
39. The way we’re working isn’t working – Tony Schwartz
40. The Whuffie Factor – Tara Hunt
41. Think Better – Tim Hurson
42. Three laws of performance – Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan
43. Tribal Leadership – Dave Logan, John King, Halee Fischer-Wright
44. Unmarketing – Scott Stratten
45. Trust Agents – Chris Brogan and Julien Smith
46. We – Kevin Kruss
47. Business Stripped Bare – Sir Richard Branson
48. Change By Design – Tim Brown
49. Content Rules – C.C. Chapman
50. Delivering Happiness – Tony Hsieh
51. Different – Youngme Moon
52. Do the work – Steven Pressfield

So there you go: 52 books in 52 weeks. Why not join me in the challenge and read 52 books yourself? If you want to get updates sign up for the email list and about once a month I’ll send you my reviews.

If you’re planning on reading any books this year (or read some last year) share your experiences in the comments below. Let this be our year of growth!

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Ps. I want to thank my good friend Matthew Kimberley for the inspiration (and laying down the challenge) in writing this post.

One lesson you should learn from annual reviews

Matthew Needham — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 05:00:46 +0000

Over the next few weeks you will read blogs, newspaper articles and endure hours of TV coverage talking about the year that’s just about to end/gone and what the writer or presenter has learned over the previous 12 months.

Welcome to the season of the annual review.

If you want to save yourself a lot of time, I can reveal to you exactly what these annual reviews will have discovered – some things will have gone well and other things have not gone so well. There will be analysis of why things worked out the way they did and maybe the odd photograph from some far flung place to prove the story.

There you go, that paragraph alone will have saved you a huge amount of time. So instead of focusing on reading other peoples reviews, you can read this and make 2012 your most productive year yet.
Interest in annual reviews is in its own way a voyeuristic pleasure. Most people read or watch them with the dim hope that the stories that they write or talk about will be a tad less interesting than their own and that their own years were much more successful.

But that’s about it, because how do these reviews help you?

Generally, other people’s reviews don’t help you. Because whilst you may learn something interesting, or maybe you take some secret pleasure from other people’s failures, or harbour a pang of jealously over the success they’ve achieved, it’s unlikely that you will read or hear something which will specifically relate to your own situation.

And that’s a big problem.

Too much information out there is general in nature and that is of little use to you or at a time when you need it.

So here’s one lesson that you can learn from annual reviews which will work for you:

Don’t do them.

Although most people generally hold reviews annually, it’s too long between setting your goals and then tracking your progress towards achieving them.

Another issue is that people set themselves or their businesses goals over a 12 month period, which happens to be because it’s a convenient time measure, but for some goals it may be too long a time period and it assumes that businesses or your life fits into a neat 12 month time segment.

So, instead focus on weekly reviews.

Simply undertake the activity that you would normally do once a year, each week. Reviewing the activities that you have completed in the previous week and then determine how much closer they take you to your business goals.

Then identify the new tasks which need to be completed in the next 7 days which will take you a little nearer your goals. Then add these tasks onto your task list.

By completing reviews on a weekly basis, not only will you ensure that you stay focused on achieving your goals, you can also fine tune the tasks and activities you need to make to ensure your goals are delivered. Checking the weekly tasks off will give you a sense of achievement to the larger goal.

I personally set myself 2 hours each Friday afternoon to work through my progress in each of my projects, identifying what the next actions are I need to do to complete each of them. I break each of my goals down into a series of small projects to make it even easier to achieve my objectives. The tasks I complete on a daily basis come about from completing these weekly reviews.

If you want to acheive more success in your goals in 2012 forget about annual reviews focus on weekly reviews instead.

So what about you? What lessons have you learned from completing annual reviews?

What you can learn from chefs

How to create raving fans like Apple

Matthew Needham — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 05:00:32 +0000

Raving fans are customers that love your products or services so much they not only tell or their friends and family about your stuff, they show them how to use it and sell it for you.

Raving fans are the holy grail of customers for organisations.

Some say that it costs between 6 -10 times more to attract new customers than it does to retain existing ones. I don’t know what the true figure is, but the real answer is that it costs a lot more and takes more time than it does to retain existing ones. So, if you’re going to retain your customers you may as well try and turn them into raving fans; because raving fans are priceless.

I wonder, how many people were introduced or bought an Apple product thanks to a recommendation of a friend?

My own introduction to Apple was in 2005 when I visited the South Coast Plaza in Southern California whilst on a business trip and trying to combat jet lag with a colleague. In the Apple store he enthusiastically showed me the iMac and what I could do with it. Within a few minutes I was working out whether I could get one in to my hand luggage (after paying for it, obviously!).

Every day, Apple turns thousands of customers like me into legions of fans.

Just imagine what having fans who rave about your products or services could do for your business.

Before we look at strategies to make your customers raving fans lets consider what makes people spread your ideas in the first place. For this we’ll use Seth Godin’s concept of the Idea Virus which he describes in Unleashing the Ideavirus

Godin says that no one spreads an idea unless:

a. they understand it
b. they want it to spread
c. they believe that spreading it will enhance their power (reputation, income, friendships) or their peace of mind
d. the effort necessary to send the idea is less than the benefits

And no one “gets” an idea unless:

a. the first impression demands further investigation
b. they already understand the foundation ideas necessary to get the new idea
c. they trust or respect the sender enough to invest the time

You can imagine the first people who got their hands on an iPad. Sure, no one had seen one before but people quickly “got it”, in fact most people within 10 minutes of holding and using one people quickly get it and think of an excuse to buy one (regardless as to whether they actually need one) thanks to its ease of understanding, they quickly “get it” and want to share it with their friends
, sharing such a cool product reflects well on them and thanks to Twitter and Facebook, the effort required to share it is minimal.

So consequently, if you want to have fans raving about your product or service then you need to ensure that you have a simple idea that people can easily spread. For example most of my business comes from repeat customers telling their friends ands how they made more money working with me, the concept is easy enough to understand and the sharer’s reputation is enhanced by letting others know “the secret to success”. Again effort to share is minimal, usually via conversation.

So you get the idea. First make the idea shareable, then we’ll look at ways to make your fans share your ideas:

Then you should seek to create a CAREing strategy which you must apply across your business and ensure every member of your team knows what role they have to play in turning customers into raving fans.

C – continuously staying in touch with your customers throughout the year
A – appreciate your clients and their ongoing business
R – remind your customers of what you can do for them
E – educate them with ideas that will help them further

Here are some simple tips that you can implement today to help turn your customers into raving fans:

Send them thank you cards after theyve done business with you

Never over promise, under promise and over deliver

Call them up frequently and ask them how their business is going

Invite them to special events or sales, which aren’t available to the public

Find out what you can about your customers so that you can let them know when something comes into stock which they might be interested in.

Regularly as ask them for feedback and suggestions as to how you can provide better service to them.

Constantly follow up, then follow up again

None of this is difficult to implement but it does involve having systems and strategies in place to ensure that the creation of raving fans is a strategy. This is a rinse and repeat strategy meaning that you having to do these things constantly.

What are your experiences of creating raving fans? Please share your thoughts in the comments below

Where will you be 5 years from now?

Matthew Needham — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 05:00:54 +0000

Five years ago did you know where you would be today? Even if you had a vague idea of where you’d be, chances are reality is different to how you imagined it would turn out.

For me, my life changed when I read Rich Dad Poor Dad and Multiple Streams of Income. It wasn’t that I learned anything new from these two books, it was the joining up of a collection of disparate ideas into a single cohesive plan.

It was the realisation that financial freedom was down to me and not the responsibility of anyone else. Of course, deep down I knew this, but making a concious effort to do something about it is a big step forward.

So for the last 5 years I’ve been pursuing a number of objectives all aimed at securing the financial future for myself and my family.

The objectives themselves are not a destination but a series of markers of progress along the journey.

As an entrepreneur we are all on a journey. A journey which takes many twists and turns. In fact this journey reminds me of Donald Rumsfeld’s famous statement in a 2002 press briefing on the Iraq war:

	[T]here are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know.	”
—Former United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

Psychologists refer to this journey as the 4 stages of learning. As an entrepreneur we must progress through these 4 stages to achieve mastery of our chosen business. But how quickly you progress and how quickly the journey takes depends on you.

Here are the 4 stages:

1. You don’t know what you don’t know

Before I became an interim manager, I’d never even heard the term interim manager. I didn’t know that a market existed for them let alone how to become one. However, by interviewing experts and undertaking research, I gained sufficient knowledge to move forward. Until then I was living in blissful ignorance.

As an entrepreneur you must recognise that you have a lack of knowledge and then dedicate your time to learning how to overcome it.

The time spent at this stage is very much dependent on your willingness to learn and absorb new ideas and information.

2. You know you don’t know and it bothers you

When you first start out doing something your head is filled full of random thoughts about what can go wrong. Maybe your concerns lie with sales, maybe accounting. Many people will spend their time hiding from the concerns by burying their heads in the sand or leaving them in the “to do” pile. However, the more knowledge you acquire on the probelm you’re facing, then the sooner the fog will clear.

If your problem lies with sales, maybe you need to simplify your sales message so that you can more easily explain it to your customers and show them how what you do that helps them. The more times you do this on a consistent basis the more your confidence will grow and your business will thank you for it. Your business will start to grow customer by customer. Its these conversations which build businesses.

Finding yourself a business mentor will help keep you focused when your confidence is down and keep you on track.

These will be the little challenges along the way. They will be the hurdles that you must clear to prove to yourself how much you really want it.

3. You know what to do and it requires consistent effort

It’s a fact of life that the more times that you do something then the better you will get. If you have a product or service it’s not a question of how good that product or service is. The success will depend on how many presentations or interactions that you have with your customers. Success is dependent on how much activity you do. It’s no coincidence that sales managers measure success of their sales people by the number of customer visits they make each day or each week.

The more avitivy that you do the more success you will have.

4. You do it without thinking

Psychologists call this stage unconscious competence. This is where you have so much skill or practice that it becomes second nature to you and can perform the task easily. Sometimes even whilst performing other tasks or activities. You will have achieved mastery where you may be able to teach others. Entrepreneurs call this stage nirvana.

The move from step 2 to 3 will happen given time and of course practice. The move to stage 4 will of course take longer and require a lot of practice. How long all this will take will depend on you and how much you want success.

Where will you be in 5 years time?

Celebrating 41 years of the Moon Landings

Do you have “grit”?

Matthew Needham — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 07:00:42 +0000

This is a guest post from Yolanda Facio at Red Hot Momentum. When you’ve finished reading this post please tweet, “like” and share your thoughts in the comments below.

As a small business owner you need to have “grit”.

What is “grit”?

It’s that laid-back John Wayne “things will work out ‘cause I have a rifle” kind of attitude.

It is not the harried, hurry up and find the next great bullet kind of attitude.

Everything takes time and effort. More importantly, everything takes practice and repetition.

“Grit” is the kind of thing that comes from practice, repetition and patience. It comes from knowing that maybe this time will generate a small response but next time it’ll be a little bigger.

“Grit” is acquired. You aren’t born with it.

So how do you acquire the skills that keep you in the saddle long after everyone else has given up?

Repetition.

This is important.

If you do something once and give up you’ll be in a vicious cycle of doing a lot of things once and never mastering any of them. Doing the hard stuff is where we grow and get better. It’s where we begin to master the skills and tactics we’ll need to replicate generating the right responses.

For any A-list blogger or business superstar, what they do now is second nature. Seth Godin doesn’t have to worry much about putting out content every day, neither does Chris Brogan. It comes from having done it (practicing) day in and day out, slowly and methodically building their audiences and their mastery of creating content.

“Grit” is all about mastery because it is all about sticking it out day after day and keeping at it even when you think no one is listening.

So how do you keep at it when you feel alone?

Here are some simple strategies, the ones I use every day:

1. Be Grateful for One

I am grateful for the one comment, the one sale, the one email with feedback.

Sure I have more than one subscriber to my newsletter but it only takes one person to stop what they are doing during the day, read my newsletter and then send me an email telling me it was just what they needed to hear. That’s all it takes to get me primed to write it again the next week.

Sell one ebook this week or even this month. I love it. Just one sale tells me that I’m working in the right direction with my sales letter, my message. It primes me to tweak it a little bit more, get a little more traffic, to keep at it.

2. Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

I don’t stew on the one person who unsubscribes. It could be that they need to regroup because they have too much content coming at them, maybe they are no longer building a business, whatever the reason it’s okay; even if it’s my message they don’t like. I’m not interested in speaking to the wrong people.

If I launch and no one buys, no sweat. Review my sales page, make sure I’m being loud enough and try again.

If a customer is a jerk, no sweat, I ask them to move on and find another person to do business with.

Why worry and fret over that one person? It is not worth it, spend your sweat on the great prospects and customers who don’t give you grief and who want to hear what you have to say.

3. Regroup Often

At least once a week I stop and regroup. Sometimes it is a physical act like reorganizing my desk and sometimes it’s a cerebral one where I redo my marketing strategy, create a mind map for my business “why” and compare it to the last one, confirm I’m enjoying what I’m doing, check for holes is my processes, etc.

It is at these times where I can best confirm that I’m doing what I should be doing, that I can stop and be grateful for the small wins and that I can evaluate to make sure I’m working with the people I want to work with.

I can make adjustments that allow me to gauge their effectiveness, rather than dump an entire idea tried once for a new one.

There are bumps along the way, anyone who has ever sat on a saddle for the first time knows the soreness then comes after. That soreness is your body telling you it’s getting ready for the next time. The guy who decides from the soreness that sitting in the saddle is not for him will try something else. The problem is sitting on a bike saddle the first time hurts too, so does running, so does hiking, so does… well everything.

If you can’t handle the pain of the first round, you’ll never experience the lack of pain during the second.

Staying in the saddle, working through the pain, toughing it out… now that builds grit.

Yolanda A. Facio of Red.Hot.Momentum helps small businesses find clarity and the momentum to start, grow and manage their companies. Sign up for the free Red.Hot.Motivator e-Newsletter and get Red.Hot!

No related posts.

Is your business semi local?

Matthew Needham — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 05:00:52 +0000

If it is, then our friends over at FirepoleMarketing.com want to talk to you!

Semi local business are those that as well as trading in the local community also have an online element, which allows their business to grow faster than if it just served the local market.

Is that your business? Or are you a local business planning to have an online element?

If you are then can you spare 5 minutes and answer a few questions about your business. There’s nothing for sale here but your help will be invaluable by helping businesses like mine, help you better by providing more relevant content and support right where you need it.

Here’s the link to the survey, http://www.firepolemarketing.com/blog/2011/10/10/semi-local-business-survey/

Thanks for your support!

I caught up with Danny from Firepole Marketing and asked him a few questions about Firepole Marketing and survey, here are his answers!

Who is Danny Iny and why should people listen to you?

Great question! I’m an entrepreneur, writer, and blogger. I’ve been an entrepreneur for longer than my adult life; I quit school when I was 15 to start my first business, and I’ve been doing it ever since. I’ve had some big successes, and some big failures. Does that mean that people should listen to me? No, but it means that they should hear me out, and make their own judgments.

What is Firepole Marketing and how did it come about?

Most of the work that I do is as an independent consultant and strategist to small businesses in the 0-10 employee range, and my partner Peter is a coach working with the same sort of clients. We found that while there were more than enough companies in that group that were doing well and could afford our services, there were many that desperately needed help, and didn’t have any money. Firepole Marketing is a blog and marketing training program that is designed specifically for those people, to help them get more money into their businesses. The training program is currently closed to the public, but we do have a free video training program about how to get more cash out of any business, website, or blog, in under 30 days, without spending money, working more hours, or hiring staff.

What mistakes do you see entrepreneurs making and what should they do about them?

The most common mistake that I see entrepreneurs making (all the time, unfortunately) is focusing too much on themselves (their business, their product, their messaging), and not enough on their audience, prospects, and customers. Marketing isn’t about tactics like Twitter, Facebook, email blasts, cold calling, social media, or whatever – it’s about aligning the value that you’re offering with the needs of your target audience, and communicating that value to them as effectively as possible. Effective marketing can’t be one-size-fits-all, because every audience and every offering is different.

What is the single biggest opportunity open to entrepreneurs at the moment?

We live in a time when a lot of things are changing, and changing fast. This applies to technology (the internet, social media, etc.), it applies to economics (the financial downturn), and it applies to the landscape of opportunities that are available. Big companies just aren’t equipped to adapt very quickly to these changes, which means that the field is wide open for entrepreneurs and small businesses to create enormous amounts of value, both for themselves and for others. A big part of that is the Semi-Local movement, in which entrepreneurs and small businesses are diversifying their sources of income, so that they make some of their money locally, and some of their money remotely/online – this just wasn’t easy (or even possible) just a short while ago, but today it is smart business.

Why are you introducing a questionnaire?

We’re introducing the Semi-Local Business Survey because, even though we’ve all heard lots of anecdotes and case studies about people achieving Semi-Local success, there really isn’t a lot of hard data. This is dangerous, because the anecdotes and case studies are almost always a-typical, which means that if people take those examples as “how things work”, then they’re likely to make very bad decisions for their businesses and their lives.

What do you hope to learn from it?

From the survey, we want to better understand how many businesses are really becoming Semi-Local, how long it is taking them, how much it costs, how much energy they have to invest to get their, what were the biggest bumps along the way, how they overcame them, and what their results were when they finally made it. We also want to hear from people who are thinking about making the switch, to see what their expectations are about all of these things, so that we can see how well those expectations line up with reality.

How will you share this information with the community?

The information is going to be made freely available to the community. We’re going to blog about the results on Firepole Marketing, and we’ll share a report with the results with everyone who helped us to promote the survey, as well as with everyone who completed the survey themselves. This is really for the community, and we just need people to fill out the survey so that the results will be valuable and meaningful to us all.

Here’s the link to the survey again!

http://www.firepolemarketing.com/blog/2011/10/10/semi-local-business-survey/

No related posts.

7 Time Saving Tips for Entrepreneurs

Matthew Needham — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 05:00:39 +0000

This is a guest post by Timo Kiander from TimoKiander.com. Timo is a productivity guru and here he shares 7 Time Saving Tips For Entrepreneurs.

As an entrepreneur, your life is pretty hectic at times. Emails are coming in, people are trying to reach you and you have multiple projects going on.

You seem to focus so much on the busy work but what about your business development, when are you going to focus on that?

You may feel that you don’t have any extra time to do that, but think again! With these tips, you can improve your working habits and find more time for your business development efforts.

1. Focus on the hardest tasks first in the morning

One of the biggest reasons for procrastination is avoiding tasks you don’t want to confront. You may feel that the task is difficult to do, you have a challenging decision to make or you have to go outside your comfort zone too much.

Guess what? As long as you avoid facing the annoying task, the longer it is going to remind of itself. And since this is the case, why would you want to extend the annoyance any longer?

Try to tackle these tasks as soon as possible – preferably as a first thing in the morning. If it is a phone call to a client, try to make it as soon as you can. If it is taking care of a matter related to bookkeeping, handle it right away.

If you decide to do it in the afternoon, the bigger chances there are that you are procrastinating on the task. You start making excuses why you should postpone the task. However, when the task is out of your way, this doesn’t occur.

Just get it done in the morning and you don’t have to think about it anymore. Besides, it makes you feel so much better when you get the task off your work list.

2. Turn the e-mail client on later

A small change in your working habits can make a huge difference in your productivity. This small change is when you check your e-mail.

Instead of starting your day by checking e-mail, try to do some tasks you have to do first and then check your e-mail.

There is nothing new in this tip, but sometimes some reminder is in place. It is very easy to get sucked into the e-mail when you start your day. All of a sudden you realize that couple of hours has already passed and you haven’t got anything productive done.

Also, try to figure out the optimum times for managing your e-mail and then handle all your mail at once.

3. Disconnect while you work on your tasks

It is natural that there are distractions when you work. However, you can minimize and schedule the distraction by doing a little planning.

If you work a lot on your computer, then it is essential to turn off any e-mail notifications, close any instant messaging clients and even mute your mobile phone.

If you fail to do this, you may face a situation, that you get bombarded with requests all the time, which you feel obligated to respond – immediately.

Rarely this is the case and you can return the phone calls later, listen to voicemail messages or reply to e-mail messages at once.

If you work at home, it is important to communicate with your family about your working times too. This makes it easier for your family members to understand, that you don’t want to be interrupted (for example you have an online meeting going on or you have a call with a client).

4. Block and plan your time for the important tasks

Another way to get work done is to plan its execution beforehand. If you know that there is something important coming, (for example you are about to have a presentation of your services to a new prospective client), you want to dedicate a time block for preparing for that activity.

Decide the time and date when you want to have this session, mark it in your calendar and when the day and time comes, get to work. When you plan your tasks like this, you can be mentally prepared for them.

5. Powernaps

Powernaps are short naps – 20 minutes maximum – when you briefly go to sleep, but you wake up refreshed.

If you are tired and try to get some work done, many times the quality of the work may not be the best. You may even have to return to your task and fix parts of it because you weren’t able to concentrate enough. Also, since you are losing your focus, you are spending too much time on simple matters.

However, when you take a powernap, you basically “reset yourself”. Even if you just take a quick nap, you feel like a new person when you wake up.

I have been using this technique for years now and I have seen some unbelievable productivity enhancements after waking up.

Powernaps is a simple, yet an effective way of boosting your productivity and increasing your energy levels.

6. Don’t store everything in your head

One effective way to save time (even if it initially it requires some effort) is to use checklists.

If you are doing something on a recurring basis and you have to make sure that the task gets done the same way every time, checklists come in handy.

Whether it is packing for your next business trip, giving a powerful presentation to your client or creating an online sales letter for your next product, checklists are very powerful for making sure everything essential is included.

Checklists require some initial effort to be created. Sometimes you may find it tedious to write down each and every step that you are doing.

However, once you create one, you are happy that you did. You are not just relying on your memory to make sure that everything is done the right way – you have your checklist as your backup.

Checklists have another benefit: Once you create one, it forms basic steps for someone else to do that in the future (your assistant, virtual or non-virtual).

7. Regulate your training

Education plays a big part in any entrepreneur world. You have to sharpen your saw (improve your skills) all the time and one way to do it is to study and implement new topics and theories.

Although Internet has brought advantages for entrepreneurs, it can also cause overwhelm. Especially when the education part is concerned, there is an infinite amount of supply available.

It is very easy to get hooked to different training products at the same time, which promise huge opportunities and loads of financial success if you participate to it. You may be tempted to join them all.

If this is the situation, then stop for a minute and ask yourself: “Is this education necessary for my business success?” If you feel that you will be learning a new, valuable skill, then go for it. However, if you are not sure or can’t justify your purchase, then it is time to skip the training.

However, if you decide to buy that training, make sure to get the 100% out of it. Study it, test it and take action. That is the only way to master the skill.

Just make sure that you are going through one training at a time. Otherwise you are wasting your money, time and energy by trying to master too many things at once.

Timo Kiander is an online business productivity and time management enthusiast who blogs at http://www.timokiander.com. Visit his blog and grab the free e-book: “101 Tips For Becoming a Productivity Superstar”.

RARE Forum: Will you be there?

Matthew Needham — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 05:00:29 +0000

If you are not in the UK or won’t be in the UK on 3rd November 2011, you have permission to ignore this post.

This is a guest post by my good friend and BRT community member Adrian Swinscoe from AdrianSwinscoe.com. Adrian has a very special event to announce which I’ll leave Adrian to explain:

Today I want to share with you a new initiative that I have been developing over the last few months as it builds on the last post: 300 not out – Content isn’t king…..Conversation is king. Building on the the book that I wrote last year, RARE Business, and the conversations that flowed out of that, I decided to organise an event that built on and developed the themes in the book. More details are below. Do take a look and let me know what you think.

What I also wanted to do was to offer readers of the Big Red Tomato Company an opportunity to attend. So, if you have an established business, can make the date and would like to come along then the first FIVE people to email me at adrian@rarebusiness.co.uk can come along as my guests. Fair enough? So, continue reading for more details or visit www.rareforum.co.uk.

Imagine this:

An event where you get to the end of the day and your attendance has solved a number of your most pressing problems, you have heard some great people speak, you have met a number of great contacts and your head is full of ideas for the future of your business. So much so, that when we hold the next one that you’ll want to bring a number of business contacts along it was so good.

Does that sound good?

RARE Forum

‘Business is Personal’

Thursday 3rd November 2011

The Drill Hall, Central London

10.00am – 6.00pm

online event registration
by Regonline

Overview

We live in changing times. We live in times where the power of the consumer is rising and it is changing everything. We live in times where harnessing the power of relationships with our customers and our employees is becoming more and more key to our future growth and innovation.

Therefore, the onus on business leaders to learn, share ideas and network is rising as we think about how we grow our businesses.

There are many events in existence for businesses but these are:

Either for large or very small businesses;
Organised by professional or trade associations and vendors of some sorts;
Filled with talks/speakers that talk for around an hour that are ultimately trying to show you how smart they are or are trying to sell you something; and
Don’t offer enough time for attendees to network, talk about and debate the issues that are presented.

Therefore, we thought it’d be great to deliver an event for businesses that are in the 5 and 50 employees across sectors.

RARE Forum will be an event that is:

A place to share ideas, experiences and to discuss and debate the issues of the day;
Not focused on selling anything (although there will be a price to attend);
Filled with with a number of punchy 20min speaker slots (TED style) centred around a theme (This year it will be: ‘Business is Personal’);
Full of facilitated networking and debate;
Where the whole day will be recorded (video) and made available via a website to the attendees for them to watch again at a later date or share with their team and contacts; and
Where the output of discussions and answers to Qs posed by speakers will be collated and made available via an e-book.

online event registration
by Regonline

Talks

Subjects to include:

Business is personal and why it’s getting more so
Unearthing killer customer insights
The world is changing fast, how can we keep up and change with it
What does a happy company do?
Creating a customer centric business
Don’t forget your people/finding and developing the right talent
What does being a leader mean in this new world?
Generation Z and the future of the talent pool
What will our customers want in the future?

Audience

Anticipated attendance – 150-200 delegates.

Predominantly businesses from the greater London and surrounding areas with some businesses expected from further afield because of the unique nature of this project and strategic relationships that we have.

The audience will be made up from a range of professionals and businesses, with job titles including:

Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
Managing Director (MD)
Director
Marketing Managers
Human Resource Managers
Heads of Departments
etc

Attendees will come from a range of companies actively seeking to build their knowledge and network.

Location & Date

We’ve been working hard to secure a great venue to hold our event. We wanted something that was pretty special and something that was in line with our ‘forum’ approach.

Location: The Drill Hall, 16 Chenies Street, London WC1E 7EX

Date: Thursday 3rd November 2011

Timings: 10.00am to 6.00pm

Ticket prices:

£199.00 + VAT (full price)

£100.00 + VAT (Partner price – Ask me for details).

What do you get for that?

What do you get for attending:

A packed day of talks and discussion on topics to help you take your business to the next level
Opportunity to network with a whole host of like-minded individuals
Access to the videos of the event that you can watch again later and share with your peers and colleagues
A summary e-book of all of the forum discussions that were had over the course of the day (A bit like a set of Proceedings that came out of conferences of old).

online event registration
by Regonline

Sponsors

We’ve been lucky enough to be able to secure some great sponsors for our event. However, we are always on the look out for more. Therefore, if you are looking to gain exposure amongst a group of ambitious and growing businesses and entrepreneurs, why not consider sponsoring our event. Find out how you could do exactly that emailing adrian@rarebusiness.co.uk to find out more or by clicking here: RARE Forum. We have packages to suit all budgets.

Remember, if you have an established business, can make the date and would like to come along then the first FIVE people to email me at adrian@rarebusiness.co.uk OR to leave a comment can come along as my guests. Get emailing and commenting.

Are you trustworthy?

Matthew Needham — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 05:00:08 +0000

Buying is quite often an emotional decision. When a client is faced with a choice of two competing offers the chances are they will buy from the person that they trust the most.

At one time big business would equal trust worthy. But with a number of corporte scandals over recent years, big is often treated with distrust and small is seen as the new big.

We live in a topsy turvey world. So how can you build trust when you deal with clients?

A few years ago Small businesses were told to embrace their “smallness” by showing photographs of the owner on the about page. Now that’s changed to showing a video from the business owner, telling stories from your personal experiences.

People trust people. So the advice is always to show the personality behind the business, but not to bend to a style which you’re not comfortable with or doesn’t reflect your true personality.

This is all fine as it stands and helps to create trust between you and your potential customers. But understanding the process that buyers go through when making decisions to buy your professional services will help you close more sales and make more money.

Traditional Sales Model

The traditional sales model represents buying as some sort of rational decision making process. This model (as shown below) makes 3 major assumptions:

1) that the buyer follows some sort of rational decision making process

2) the selller aspires to sell better

3) that the buyer follows a rational process when it comes to buying.

The trouble with this approach is that professional services aren’t sold this way. Over time buyers come to acknowledge an issue. Whilst buyers may initially screen on the qualifications or experience of the consultant/designer/coach etc but they asses on trust based on how well the consultant/designer etc understands the particular issue facing the client.

Generally speaking most sellers of professional services aren’t sales people and therefore the biggest challenge that the sellers of professional services face is to incorporate sales into their view of professionalism.

Secondly as Charles Green notes in Selling Professional Services:

Smart clients don’t just compare and contrast. Smart clients know that they, and the firm they hire, will never have enough data, time or money–that they must deal with risk and uncertainty for high stakes. What they want, above all, is an advisor who can be trusted, in all respects, in the face of high levels of uncertainty.

Finally, if you’re selling widgets or physical goods rather than services, you’ve got to remember that the sales process is part of the buying process. Title passes to the buyer at the point of sale, after sales is handled by someone else. That doesn’t happen in professional services. The seller is usually the person who does the delivery.

So as sellers of professional services, we need to adopt a different approach.

Trust based selling

Trust needs to exist in all sales relationships, not just selling professional services. According to David Maister in The Trusted Advisor trust is made up of 4 components:

C = Credibility – buyers believe what you say

R = Reliability – buyers believe what you’ll do

I = Intimacy – buyers trust talking with you about X

S = Self orientation – buyers trust that you’re focused on them

Whilst the first two items are the basis of rational decision making, the other two are mainly not rational in their nature. These elements are assessed on the basis of interaction and ease of communication. They are based on shared understanding and shared perspectives.

Here’s how trust develops:

Engage

Engagement happens when you build a sufficient level of relationship with your prospect so that they recognise that you are the person to talk about their problem.

Listen

Listen happens at two levels. What is being said and what is not being said. What is not being said is often more important than what is being said. But you need to listen without interruption and complete concentration. Many people think they are good listeners. When you’re listening to someone speak do you think you know the answer before they’ve finished telling you what they have to tell you? At which point you stop listening. do not offer any input until the other person has finished speaking.

Frame

Framing is where you identify the exact root of the problem. Where you ask questions to clarify your understanding of the client’s problem, rather like a Doctor when they ask “when you do this, what happens to the pain?”. Each question seeks to understand further and at the same time getting from the client a “warm feeling” that you understand their issues.

Envision

Envison is where you jointly agree an alternative reality with your client. For example say you’re talking with someone about wanting to loose weight. How much weight, are you talking lifestyle choices such as stopping smoking or exercising or are you just talking about dieting? How much exercise can you commit to? All of these questions and responses help create a picture of what the future looks like and that the future is much better than the current situation.

Commitment

The final stage in the process is gaining commitment to action. Put simply it is the step by step actions that you and the client will need to take to move the project forward.

Trust based selling model will work for rational decision making but also for the irrational elemements. At the begining of the process establishing reliability and credibility will be key, but for not rational decision making it’s the middle 3 elements – Listen, Frame and Envison, which become critical.

Trust based selling will work for those professionals who are uncomfortable in “selling” but more importantly it reflects the process by which the buyers of professional services make a decision. Therefore, by establishing trust with your prospective client, you’ll form a much better relationship which should in turn secure more sales, but more importantly form a long term successful partnership.

What do you think? Could adopting Trust Based Selling help you sell more of your services? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

No related posts.

10 Days To Start Up: Day 10 – Trading

Matthew Needham — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 05:00:21 +0000

So you’ve come this far, you’ve done all the hard work, had the signs made and erected, unpacked the stock and placed it on the shelves, but now is not the time to take your foot off the peddle. The day the doors open and you start trading. Whether you’re a virtual business or a physical one you need to be prepared for the very first trading day.

This is the final part of the 10 days to starting a business series. In case you missed the earlier articles in the series you can catch up here.

Have a checklist

Start with having a checklist for all the tasks and operations which need to be carried out on your opening day.

Create a checklist for daily and weekly activity that you want to happen as part of the operations of your business. You may wish to break this down by area of activity, eg cleaning, cash operations (including banking), who is going to do each task and when is it due to be undertaken.

For example if you’re operating a food shop you aren’t going to be doing deep cleans during busy trading times.

Simply create a spreadsheet in Excel or Google Docs and list all of the activities that need to be undertaken over whatever time period the checklist relates. Ideally the list of tasks should be grouped in a logical order (which could be by area or it could be by type of activity), then in the column next to the task list, put the name of the person who is responsible for completing it.

At the top of the column put the days of the week, or if it’s a daily checklist put the hours or time that the task needs completing.

The checklist is a valuable tool to ensuring consistency in service delivery to your customers. If you’re using in manufacturing your products then it will ensure a high level of quality in your products.

Don’t overlook the power of the checklist.

Sales Script

Whilst you don’t want your sales staff to sound like robots, you will need to have prepared a “cheat sheet” listing all the features and benefits that the product or service provides. For example

Feature

The camera comes with telephoto lens

Benefit

Which means that you can take photos of objects a distance away.

You may also wish to draw attention to your service standards or unique selling points, for example a 60 day no quibble guarantee, free XYZ, gym membership for a year or whatever.

Make sure that your staff can tell your customers why they should be buying from you and not your competition.

Closing the sale

Closing the sale is often about overcoming peoples objections. But in order to overcome these objections you’ve got to understand what the underlying problem they have have and then frame your answers so they directly address your customers problems.

Problems should be seen as opportunities. If you can identify a problem then you can identify a solution which your product or services meets. If your product or services are seen as valuable to your customers and in solving their problems then you are seen to be valuable to your customers.

The best sales professionals invest substantial time and effort in positioning themselves as experts in your field.

So, that’s it. 10 lessons you can apply to starting your own business. What has been useful to you? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Is the customer always right?

Matthew Needham — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 06:12:31 +0000

This is a guest post by Yolanda Facio from Red Hot Momentum.

Yeah right.

Here’s the thing, it all started in the very, very early 1900’s like 1908-ish. Marshall Field’s department store in Chicago began to use the mantra “the customer is always right” as a marketing tactic. The idea was that at Marshall Field’s the customer was always right and, of course, the place you wanted to shop.

So how did a marketing slogan become a mantra for customer service? And more importantly, why?

I don’t have an answer. But I’m going to assume that over time stories change, meanings change and it simply stuck. Perhaps it’s the fact that customers outweigh shop owners in number and customers like the slogan because it takes their side.

Whatever the reason, it’s false thinking.

Sure, you might think it matters. You might think that if you don’t please every customer you can’t possibly be in business. You might even think that it is an undocumented customer service law that says you must make customers happy.

I’m here to tell you, stop now. Stop thinking that if you go above and beyond for every customer your business will stand out, be the best, etc.

Not true.

The more narrowly focused your business the more successful. Narrowly focused businesses don’t abide by the general rule ‘the customer is always right’. Instead they abide by a much more sophisticated rule: my ideal customer deserves a 110% everyone else can, well, leave.

There are lots of customers who make it their goal to get as much as they can for as little as they can. Want to be miserable? Then take on this customer, make them right, give them everything they think they deserve. I guarantee you’ll be miserable in no time.

Why not reduce the misery? Why not assume that the business owner is always right?

The business owner is always right when he/she determines who his ideal customer is and deals only with them. The business owner is always right when he/she demands that customers obey the rules of doing business with them.

Scary? Sure it is at first. But you can’t serve everyone, why would you want to. You can’t make everyone happy, why would you want to.

Look I’m not saying that if a real problem exists you shouldn’t do what is necessary to make a customer whole. What I am saying is that the customer isn’t always right for you and your business.

If you charge premium prices, a customer looking to score a deal isn’t for you. If they came to your business trying to negotiate pricing with you, would they be right? And, if they are, what message is that sending to every other customer who just paid full pop?

If you provide an upscale service will you do so at Walmart prices just because one person complains?

If you work on Bentleys, are you going to service a Chevy just because they showed up?

The reality is this: the customer isn’t always right… for you.

That’s right, it is ultimately about you. You are the core of your business. You are at the heart of your business.

My customers keep coming back because they know what to expect. They know that no matter what I will tell them exactly as it is, infused with as much humor as I can manage because nothing, no situation, is perfect. They expect to get the “character” that is Yolanda, along with great service and above and beyond care.

Yesterday, I went to pick up a customer’s Boxster at his office. His office manager said something that made me laugh out loud. He came out of his office laughing, “I knew you were here!” I said, “was it that no so subtle cackle of a laugh.” He laughed and said, “and that is why we love you!”

I’m not one to hold in my laughter… why? It’s me! It’s really healthy. And, more importantly, it indicates to people around me that I love what I’m doing and I’m having a great day.

Yes, that is why they love me.

And it is exactly how your customers should feel about you.

I the customer always right, maybe, but absolutely not every customer is right for you!

Weigh-in – Do you think the customer is always right? Please enter your thoughts and comments below.

Yolanda Facio will help you take charge of your business and life. If you are ready to Join the “take charge” Revolution then you need thE mEAniE mAnifEsto! Get your Free copy HERE!

10 Days to Start Up: Day 9 – Executing Your Plan

Matthew Needham — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 05:00:32 +0000

On Day 7 we talked about how to create a Marketing Plan. In today’s post we talk about how to execute it.

Contrary to popular opinion, marketing is an activity which starts before the business starts trading. The idea is to create excitement prior to your business launch, so that on launch day you start to get income as early as possible.

Which at the end of the day is what it’s all about. Making your start up profitable.

This is the eight day of the 10 days to starting a business series. In case you missed the earlier articles in the series you can catch up here.

Plan, Execute, Track and Measure

Plan, Execute, Track and Measure is the 4 steps you need to undertake to measure the success or otherwise of your marketing activity. So whilst producing your marketing plan is clearly the planning element of how you’re going to deliver the business plan, execution is doing the things, track and measure is what you need to set up prior to go live.

Plan

Marketing is all about creating awareness and generating leads for your products or services. It’s about executing a fine balance between increasing and developing your reputation and increasing your revenues.

Each marketing activity should address a particular objective. For example investment in PR should generate you increased press coverage. Whereas investment in Google Adwords should generate an increase in the number of leads.

Consequently you need to ensure that each element in your marketing plan has a measurable objective.

So if your goal is to capture leads or make sales from your website, measuring how many people meet the goal might be useful metric for you to measure. You can do this by creating a “goal” in Google Analytics learn how on the Google Analytics help page.

Track

Other things that you might want to track are the costs of:

Measure

Whilst measuring the success of each activity can only be done once go live has happened you need to ensure that you have adequate mechanisms for caputring the results.

For example if you’re advertising in newspapers then you might want to advertise a unique telephone number for each advert you place. Or you may ask the buyer to call a number and ask for a specific person. With the name of the person changing between each advert. So whichever name someone is asking for will indicate where the saw the advert. You could do this in different ways or using different telephone numbers or even asking for different departments. (It doesn’t matter whether these names are real or not)

Another way is to simply ask whoever is buying from you where they heard about you and capture that information. You might have seen in the shopping carts of some websites a drop down box for you to tell the website owner where you heard about them. This is capturing the information. If you’re using the telephone as your mechanism for collecting sales then you’ll need to record the value of the sale manually against each type of marketing activity.

This is all aimed at identifying how successful each marketing activity is for you.

So, against each marketing activity that you set up in the spreadsheet above, enter the value of sales that can be attributed against line item. If you’re business is the sort of business that typically receives enquiries before sales then you should add the number of leads that you’ve had in a separate column on the spreadsheet, so that you can measure those too. For example a trade show might not generate much in the way of sales directly but may generate a number of enquiries which later turn into sales.

At the end of the period that you’re measuring simply divide the costs of each marketing activity in to the sales that can be attributed to each marketing activity.

If one marketing activity is costing you more money than it’s bringing in in sales and another is costing very little but generating a large return, then you should cut the activity in the low performing area and concentrate it in the area that generates the biggest return.

15 ways to get more clients for your web design* business

Matthew Needham — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 05:00:06 +0000

*Or insert type of business here

As a coach working with entrepreneurs from the IT industry, one of the most common questions that I get asked is “how can I get more clients for my business?”

As the question keeps cropping up, I’m taking the opportunity in this post to share with you 15 ways to drive more enquiries to your business, which will not only get you more client enquiries, but make you more money too.

Get these ideas implemented before your competitors do.

Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments section below. Please share your ideas to get more clients, what’s worked and what didn’t work.

1. Produce better work

Seriously. Is every piece of work you produce for your clients the very best work you can possibly produce regardless of the amount of money the client is paying you?

If it’s not, then what’s special about you and your company?

If it’s not, then how are you going to be able to showcase your work to any potential prospects which shouts to them “they need to use XYZ web design”.

That’s not to say that the website or design that you produce for them should have features that the client didn’t want or specify, but it is about having a very deep understanding of your clients business and what they are trying to achieve from the website that they are asking you to design. Showing interest and showing you care gets you noticed.

Action: At the start of any client project ask the client to list out for you their goals for the particular project you are working on and get them to think about what the successful achievement of those goals looks like. Make sure the goals are measurable and understand what the current situation is. Make sure that your final product meets these goals.

2. Focus on a niche

If you look at past work that you’ve done for your clients are the clients from different industries or the same industries? Do the same types of business keep cropping up again and again?

If they are then this could be an area for you to focus on and target your marketing more effectively. You can then find more businesses in the same field and approach them about the services that you can offer them.

For example, say you were a web designer and you specialised in designing websites for restaurants. Don’t you think that you could offer a restaurateur more insight in what works for the their restaurant business than the general web site designer down the road?

Action: look at your client list and split them into types of business. Does one type of business stand out any more than another? If it doesn’t is there a type of business that you’re more interested in than another type of business? Similarly if you’re just starting out and have had no clients previously is there a type of business that you’re interested in?

3. Work with Local businesses

Instead of being a faceless service provider pitching your services over then internet, why not consider focusing providing your services to other local businesses? As a business you’re part of the community that the local business serves and therefore you have a vested interest in making the client’s business a success for the sake of the community. Almost as importantly, the fact that you’re local means that it’s much easier to meet potential prospects at local networking events.

As a starter make sure you visit Google Places and claim your local listing and improve your rankings in local search.

Action: What local networking events are happening in your town or city? Get yourself an invite and go and talk to business owners about their businesses and see if you can help.

4. Educate don’t sell

Instead of pitching your services offer the prospective client advice. If the client already has a website, explain about Search Engine Optimisation and explain why it’s important for them and how they can improve their search engine rankings. Explain the importance of capturing lead information from visitors to their website and that any sign up boxes should be in a prominent position to maximise sign ups.

The more knowledge you share with your client the more the value you provide increases in the clients eyes. Which in turn means the more they will be prepared to pay you to help them out.

For example I have a client who replaced a whole load of custom code that the previous web designer had put in (which meant that each time the site owner wanted to change the site they had to have an expensive maintenance call to the original designer to change it) with a set of customisable “widgets”. This allowed the site owner to make the changes themselves. Quickly and without any additional cost.

Action: Seek opportunities to educate your clients. Produce videos about how to use social media to drive traffic. Answer questions on forums or on Twitter and show them how to get things to work. Show you care about helping them fix their problem.

5. Pitch for work on job sites

With wage inflation increasing in low cost economies, the costs of having web design work undertaken overseas is not as cheap as it was. Plus a number of clients who’ve had bad experience of dealing (particularly when it comes to support) with work done in low cost countries are increasingly more likely to spend their money on home soil for their next project.

Freelance switch produced a Monster List of Freelance Job Sites which was massively popular. By popular demand they updated the post in 2009 with an even longer list of places that you can pitch your services.

Action: Check out The Monster List of Freelance Job Sites – 2009 Update and see if there’s work that you can pitch for.

6. Help other service providers

When you attend networking events look for service providers in related fields that offer complimentary services to the ones that you offer. For example, say that you met a copywriter at a networking event, this could be a really useful contact to refer your clients to when they need help wrting advertisements or sales pages. Don’t you think that when you start sending business there way they will start referring clients back to you in return?

Action: Attend networking events and look to connect other members of your network with the service providers that you trust or know to do a good job.

7. Ask for introductions, not business

Ask your clients or network if they can introduce you to other businesses or contacts in their network rather than asking them to refer you for business. Many clients are happy to make or facilitate introductions as this is much less onerous on them than referring you for new, as it implies an endorsement, which they may not be happy to give (especially in the early stages). However, if you’re looking for introductions be specific in the type of introduction that you want to be made, to make it even easier for them to connect you to the right person

For example saying to your client “could you introuduce me to a professional couple with children who may need insurance” is a lot easier for the client to introduce you to a suitable prospecs than “can you introduce me to someone who may need insurance”.

Action: be specific about the type of introduction that you want to make and ask your clients if they can introduce you to their contacts or network.

8. Love your existing clients and provide great service

I saw a TV programme the other day where the CEO of a UK based Truck company gave her customers her home phone number to call if they had a problem. I don’t know how many calls that she gets from her customers, but nothing signals “I want to help you” more than providing her home number.

What are you doing to show your customers that you care? It needn’t be giving your customers or clients your home phone number, but it could be sending them a card on their birthday or inviting them to an event that you’d know they’d love. (For example giving an opera lover tickets to the opera)

Action: Think about what you could do to show your customers you care. How well do you know your customers? Create a database and add to it with new information every time you make a connection with a client. Similarly before you meet or talk to a client review the database for your least interaction and see what you discussed with them.

9. Be an industry expert

Your clients use you because you have more expertise than they do. Which means that you’re an expert. Being seen as an industry expert will increase your credibility and prospects confidence in your services. You can be seen as an expert by speaking at networking events. You could provide industry updates or updates on the market or even providing advice on a particular subject, lets people see you as an expert. For example 10 things to consider when choosing a web designer or 7 things to think about when creating your business website.

Action: Find a subject that you have expertise in and offer your speaking services to your local networking event. If your networking event isn’t interested in having speakers, consider holding your own event.

10. Talk the same language as your client, avoid jargon

Every industry has jargon. That’s the language you as a professional use to communicate with you colleagues, your employees, your peers or your suppliers. But, the thing is that this jargon / industry terms mean nothing to your client. Using lots of buzz words like HTML 5.0, RSS or Camtasia may make you look clever but in reality it makes your client feel inadequate or stupid because they don’t know what you’re talking about. Don’t you think clients would much sooner work with someone they felt understood them and more importantly could understand you.

Action: Avoid the use of jargon in every presentation, speech or face to face meeting. Whilst sometimes it’s difficult to recognise that you’re using jargon, ask friends from outside your industry to review your materials and ask you to explain anything they don’t understand. If you are going to use jargon, make sure it’s the customers jargon.

11. Give something away for free

One of the most effective ways to generate interest for your business is to give something away for free. Everyone likes something for nothing. The objective here though is to give something of value to the prospect which enables you to start a conversation with them. If you’re a web designer, offering a free website review will promote interest.

However, you don’t have to give away something that costs you time. May be giving away a free report or guide might be valued by your potential clients.

Action: come up with a giveaway that you can give to your clients. Maybe it’s an ebook or a report. It might be a video tutorial or a webinar, but think about what you could do that the clients would find of use. Get it produced.

12. Work with local media

You may have seen it before, your local newspaper or radio station has a giveaway or holds an event and provides some sort of prize, opportunity or added value to it’s readers and listeners. Well, you could get in on the act and provide either sponsorship of the event or provide a prize which promotes your business or services.

For example you might decide to contact your local newspaper and say that you’ll provide a free web site design as a competition prize if they give you publicity in the competition. That publicity alone could be worth many times the cost of providing the “freebie”.

Action: Think of something you could offer youd local newspaper, radio or TV station and contact their PR department with your idea, to provide value to their readership and publicity to your business. Always think about the value that it will bring to them.

13.Promote yourself

Don’t miss an opportunity to promote yourself and your business. Come up with a tag line that clearly identifies who you help and what you do for them. Then get that printed on your business cards. Have the tag line in your email signature and on your website. Have it everywhere.

For example: Specialists in web design for bars and restaurants.

If you’re focusing on your local market then use the names of the areas which you serve in your site keyword meta tags to help let the search bots know who you’re serving.

Don’t miss an opportunity to promote yourself, but don’t be overbearing. When speaking to prospective clients at networking events ask about them and their business, don’t just talk about your own.

Side Note, at networking events always ask for the other person’s business card and jot down on the back of it what you talked about. That way you can follow up with them later. Hi I’m Matthew from XYZ Web design, we met at XXXX the other night and talked about your trip to London for the weekend. How did it go? etc.

Action: Is your marketing message or the market your serve clearly stated in all your marketing materials? Website, emails, leaflets and brochures? If it’s not change it. Make sure the message of who you serve is clearly stated.

14. Grab Attention

By now you should have a fair idea of the market you’re serving. In a spreadsheet or on a sheet of paper list out every business you can think of in your chosen market. Maybe you might need to do some more research to find who they are, but list them all down. Next find out what everything you can about that business, note down your impressions of their website, whether they have one or not. Who the directors are, when the business was founded. How many employees they have etc.

Then for each business on the list come up with a hook that will get you attention. Maybe the business is celebrating 25 years (or 10 years or 5 years for that matter) in business and you could send them a birthday cake to celebrate and take it personally to the offices or premises of the business and ask to speak to the owner/marketing manager or whoever will be responsible for web design and present it to them. Don’t you think that will get you noticed and at least 5 minutes of face time with a decision maker?

Action: Come up with a list of prospects in your chosen niche, then work out what you could do to get yourself noticed and grab attention of the decision makers. Then follow it through and go and meet them.

15. Ask for referrals

I know number 7 said ask for introductions and not referrals, but when you’ve been working with the client a while, it’s ok to ask for them . When you’ve completed a job for a client ask them if they are happy with it. (If they aren’t it at least gives you the opportunity to do something about it) – then ask them the follow up question of “would you recommend our services to a friend or colleague”. If the answer is yes, you can follow that up by saying “do you know anyone in the XYZ business who also might be interested in us creating a cool website for them”.

Ask for referrals but strike whilst the opportunity is hot and they are excited about what you’ve just done for them.

Action: Ask your clients for referrals when you complete each piece of work for them then follow up on those referrals. Even introduce yourself to the referral “Jim at ABC has just had his website made over and he thought that you might be interested in having yours done too, as he said it was something you’d talked about last week”.

Let us know how you get on in the comments section below:

If you’d like me to help you get more clients for your business and make you more money, enter your details below and let’s talk:

10 Days to Start Up: Day 8 – Creating an Advisory Board

Matthew Needham — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 05:00:30 +0000

This is the eighth part of the 10 Days to Start Up series. In case you missed the previous articles in the series you can catch up here.

In this post we are going to talk about creating an Advisory Board. Even if you’re a one person start up, you can’t do it all yourself and you won’t have all the answers. You’ll need a team of advisers to help you get your business off the ground and make your business a success.

Advisory Board

An Advisory Board is a collection of informal or formal advisers who have a special skill or insight which is helpful to your business. Your board may include individuals with business experiences, finance or marketing expertise. They may be in your industry or have broad skills in the areas that you are short of. Above all they aren’t living your day to day business like you are.

One way to look at it is the Advisory Board is your personal board of advisers. The members of the Advisory Board will have no legal say in the running of your business, so you aren’t answerable to them. However, they are independent and their advice and experience could be invaluable to you, your business and it’s success.

Although you aren’t answerable to the Advisory Board, one of the key benefits of having an Advisory Board is that you are holding yourself to account by sharing your ideas, your goals and your vision. Which in itself is to make these things that you want to achieve much more likely to happen.

In addition your team could potentially help you win larger projects or enable you to enhance the customer experience by partnering with your advisors.

Ideally the skills of your Advisory Board should complement or suplement the skills you are lacking, but the biggest single benefit that the Advisors bring to the table is that they are independent and they aren’t closely associated with your business on a day to day basis. Which is especially helpful becuase when you’re closely involved in something, it’s very difficult to to see the wood from the trees.

The boards could be virtaul or physical but you should meet with them several times a year.

How to Create An Advisory Board

To create your Advisory Board, follow these steps:

1. Brainstorm your target list

Think of all the people from your network who could potentially help you with your business and write their names down on a peice of paper.

2. What is in it for your prospects

Then, next to each person’s name think about what you could potentially offer that person to help them. Whilst some people might just be willing to help you for nothing, think about the relationship as two way and making it mutually beneficial. That way you minimise the amount of goodwill that you use up and that the other party will also be more willing to help if they think that they too will get something out of it. It might be as simple as money, but equally it could be the opportunity to network with like minded professionals or in exchange for some services from you, which you might be able to provide them instead of paying for their time. Eg. Webdesign, SEO, Copywriting etc.

3. Don’t waste their time

Always value your Advisory Board’s time which goes to say you don’t call them up about the slightest thing every 5 minutes, but wait until you’ve got something substantial to discuss with them. Agree with your board (whether you meet 1:1 or as a group) how often you will call them or how often you will meet and how regularly you will be in touch in between each “formal” meeting.

4. Keep up a dialogue

In between each “formal” meeting with your board you will want to update them on progress. Tell them about significant events etc, but don’t hound them, IM ‘ing them every hour or tweeting them 6 times a day. Once every couple of weeks by email telling them what’s going on is more than enough. A good rule of thumb is that the email should take no more than 2 minutes to read and you 10 minutes to create. Don’t swamp them with information and highlight the key points eg sales last month, this month +x%.

If you want something as a result of the email, make sure it’s clear about what you want.

5. Be Open

Be honest with your Advisory Board. Tell them why you want their help and don’t hide the problems that you’re facing. A problem shared is often a problem fixed as your board members maybe able to offer you insights that you would have never got on your own.

Virtual Boards

If you don’t have the time for creating a formal group of advisers, or you simply don’t have the network with suitable experience, one option that you can consider is a Virtual Board. New York Times Best Selling Author and Social Media “guru”, Chris Brogan, created Kitchen Table Companies for providing exactly that kind of service. (The Big Red Tomato Co is a member)

Kitchen Table Companies works like a message board. You simply post your question and other members of the community will respond and give you the benefit of their experience. Often times members will reach out and talk directly via Skype or on the phone, it’s $47 a month but the first 10 days is just $4.97 so well worth checking out and seeing if it’s for you.

Any thoughts? Please do post any questions in the comments section below.

10 Days to Start Up: Day 7- Marketing

Matthew Needham — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 05:00:16 +0000

This is the seventh part of the 10 days to starting a business series. In case you missed the earlier articles in the series you can catch up here.

Today we’re going to focus on Marketing, the essential ingredient to letting people know that you’re open and ready for business. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve got the best product or service in the world, if no one knows that you exist, then you aren’t going to do much business.

That’s where marketing comes in.

Please share with us in the comments at the end of the post your thoughts and experiences about Marketing.

What is Marketing?

The Chartered Institute of Marketing defines Marketing as:

The management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably

Basically Marketing is about understanding customers and providing them with products and services which meet their demands. Marketing should not be confused with selling.

Marketing Plan

When you’re starting out it’s important to show customers that you exist. From your Business Plan you will have already identified who your target market is, a Marketing Plan is about telling these potential customers that you exist.

A Marketing Plan is a list of all your intentions for getting clients and communicating with them it will normally be split in to separate but related activities which all have the common aim of promoting your business to your target market.

Many people think of a Marketing Plan as detailing all of your advertising plans. However, this is only one strand. Your Marketing plan should cover all aspects of your business. From your logo, to your website, to your packaging and your customer experience.

But it’s not just about pushing your products or services to customers and hoping that they will buy some product as essentially traditional advertising has become. You may also want to create a buzz around your products or services so that other people talk about your products or services using social media, like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

For example, UK based betting exchange, Betfair, has recently signed a deal with the British Beach Volley Ball Team to put Quick Response (QR) codes on the back of thier bikini bottoms. Typing “GB Beach Volley Ball Team rent out backsides” into Google, at the time of writing, pulls up over 383,000 search results and the deal was announced only 3 days ago. The value of this publicity to Betfair is worth many times the costs of the advertising deal.

What buzz can you create around your business?

Simply asking people in your network for referrals could help you generate business. But be specific. For example, instead of asking anyone if they know anyone who needs insurance, ask them “if they know anyone in a two person professional family with young children”. Being specific makes it easier for them to identify and refer people who might need your products or services.

Another way of getting referrals is to pay people a commission for refering someone to you. Rather like online businesses do with their affilate programmes. Paying someone a commission for every successful client they pass your way could be a great way to ensure you get targeted leads.

What do you know about your target market?

Your business plan will have identified your target market, for example hairdresses, IT Professionals, etc, but your Marketing Plan is all about connecting with the target market.

So make sure you know the answers to the questions such as:

Where does your target market hang out?
What are thier interests?
What do they read?

The more you know about your target market the more effectively you can communicate with them.

How to Create a Marketing Plan

Most Marketing Plans cover a period of a one year and are split between monthly activities, quarterly and annual activities. Although this is a living document and once created it should be reveiwed regularly.

Your Marketing Plan should include:

Thorough analysis of your market
The Marketing message you are trying to convey
How you’re going to get the message across
The promotion strategy
Cost estimates

The Marketing Plan should be closely linked to the aims and objectives of your business. You should seek to get everyone (or at least as many different areas) from your business involved as possible.

Once the plan is agreed, make sure that everyone knows what the plan is and what is involved, so that the marketing activities are understood and supported. For instance, if you were a food company, it would be pointless having a big pricing promotion just as the factory has closed down for it’s annual deep clean. So make sure that areas affected by activities within the plan agree to the implications and timings.

Marketing Plan v’s Business Plan

A business plan explains what the business does and how it does it. It explains what the business does and what it doesn’t do. To some extent it’s the constitution of your business. Therefore, a Marketing Plan needs to support the vision contained within the business plan. For example if your vision is to make high end luxury cars, the Marketing Plan shouldn’t focus on the pricing or discount, but on the luxury of the car itself.

A Marketing Plan needs to be consistent with a business plan.

What is your experience of creating a Marketing Plan? Lets hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Do you need a sharing strategy?

Matthew Needham — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 05:00:38 +0000

This is a guest post by Yolanda Facio from Red Hot Momentum.

Last week my very smart friend, Lisa Wood, wrote a very quick post on sharing. In its brevity was a very powerful message. I stopped and began to really think about it. Was I becoming lazy?

I started to review my sharing habits and the general process of how and why I share information.

With all the sharing buttons available to us it’s hard not to want to simply click them all!

But does that make sense?

And that question raised the next: do you need a sharing strategy?

The Why of Sharing

Before you start clicking away it’s valuable to stop and think about Why you are sharing in the first place. There are a lot of reasons to share: supporting friends, sharing good content, spreading the word, connecting, and educating to name a few.

When creating a structure around what you share, ask yourself why you share what you are sharing. It’s an important question with consequences, the primary consequence being the needs of your audience. If you are a blogging expert, why are you sharing information on say, the royal wedding? If there’s a blogging angle I can see doing so, but if not, then why?

Of course it can be fun to simply share stuff and if that’s your Why then it should be clear from the get go, but as someone interested in learning more about your blogging expertise… well I might just stop following you.

Strategy Step One: Make a list of all the reasons you share and the types of content you typically share.

The Where of the Share

Maybe you’ve got lots of interests and want to share interesting things you find as you travel the internet. That’s cool. But where should you be sharing that information? On your blog, at Twitter or Facebook?

Your share content list will allow you to see what you’re sharing and help you determine the best place to share it.

I foster a baby orphaned elephant and love to share video, news and information about it but my Red.Hot.Momentum business readers are likely not interested in baby elephants splashing in a pool. So how then do I share and with whom? I’ve determined that my personal Facebook page will be reserved for friends and family and will be dedicated to sharing fun and helpful information that doesn’t really have a business theme. By the same token I rarely share business stuff on my personal Facebook page. Instead, I’ve created a Facebook business page where I can share the business information I find useful.

Because of the audience on Twitter I might share some more personal items but primarily use it to support fellow business peeps and share my work.

Your list will help you group content and then determine where content gets shared.

Strategy Step Two: review your list and segment it, then determine where you’ll share the information you find.

Clickity Click

Sharing without reading is poor form, even if you don’t comment on something make sure you at least skim the information to confirm that it’s right for your audience.

No blind clicking. Why? It’s a good way to lose followers.

Blind clicking = noise. Noise means folks stop listening. If your primary purpose as a business is to gain interest, credibility and exposure then what and how you share matters.

Sure it’s important to support your friends and associates but at what cost?

With so many social media platforms available it is easy to create a new one for a specific sharing purpose. You may find it much easier to keep track of your sharing strategy when you have outlined which platform is used for what.

Strategy Step Three: determine a sharing platform for each of your interest segments.

Quiet Down

Seriously, if you don’t have a place to share the latest youTube video featuring the Muppets… then simply quiet down and enjoy it.

Not everything needs to be shared. When I really want someone to see something I’ve found because I know they will appreciate it, I send an email. Plain and simple. More importantly, targeted.

In this way I create very little noise and still get an opportunity to share.

Strategy Step Four: remember there’s still email.

Wrapping It Up

The key insight here is to determine why you share what you share and how you do it. From a marketing perspective the things that resonate with potential customers/clients and that fit within the confines of your brand and purpose should be shared. The things that do not need to be dropped.

Does that mean you should never share personal or fun stuff? Nope. It does mean that you should use care when doing so. Noise and irrelevance is a turn off.

Sure there’s always the delete button or we can simply scroll right past right? But the problem is that when I am interested in what someone has to say I want to listen. If I try to do that and end up watching Mento-exploding-soda-bottle-youTube-videos I will probably get fed up.

Remember your business is a business. Don’t make the mistake of thinking otherwise or your customers will do it for you.

What do you think? Tell us what you think by sharing your questions in the comments section below

Yolanda A. Facio of Red.Hot.Momentum helps small businesses find clarity and the momentum to grow and manage their companies. Sign up for the free Red.Hot.Motivator e-Newsletter and get Red.Hot!

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Why you’re killing your business – and what to do about it

Matthew Needham — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 05:00:03 +0000

You’re an entrepreneur. You work hard, you put your heart and soul into the business and yet you’re not getting the results that you’re after.

What do you do?

Most entrepreneurs work harder. They work more hours, they take less time off and they spend less time with their families.

The result?

The results are a bit better, but still not what you’re expecting.

Chances are you’re killing your business. This is how to do something about it.

Most entrepreneurs I meet are struggling with something. Maybe it’s getting more customers. Maybe it’s improving business processes, maybe it’s entering new markets or dealing with new suppliers. Whatever the problem is that they are facing, you can be sure of one thing.

Most entrepreneures don’t like to share what they are struggling with. So it’s very difficult for them to address the problems and deal with them.

I usually find that this is down to one of 3 reasons:

1. You don’t feel anyone close to you will understand the problem or can help

2. You don’t think talking about it will help

Finally (and this is usually the big one!)

3. you’re afraid to admit that you’re struggling

Sadly, none of these reasons (however valid) will help you become more successful in your business. In fact by struggling on with the problem you’re facing, you’re killing your business.

Now here’s the thing. Once you acknowledge you’ve got a problem you can start to do something about it.

So, make a commitment today to recognise whatever it is that you have a problem with and then you can start to do something about it.

If you don’t know how to fix the problem, think about what first step you would need to take to fix it. Then do that. Then think about the next step, and the next, and the next step and continue to figure out each step at a time until the problem is fixed.

A good first step is our Consulting and Services page!

What are you struggling with? Please share your struggles in the comments section below:

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10 Days to Start Up: Day 6 – Financing your startup

Matthew Needham — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 05:00:46 +0000

This is the sixth part of the 10 days to starting a business series. In case you missed the earlier articles in the series you can catch up here.

In today’s article we’re going to focus on financing your startup beyond the usual maxing out your credit cards, loans from friends and family or remortgaging the family home.

Debt v’s equity

Generally speaking there are two types of finance and it’s important to know the difference between them. Debt financing is a loan agreement. You borrow an amount for a fixed period of time with a fixed percentage of interest over the term of the loan. The total cost of the loan is known at the outset.

Equity on the other hand is where an investor becomes part owner of your business. This can appear to be a cheap source of funding, especially in the early years as an investor receives payments based on the profitability of the business, it can in fact be a very expensive source of funding. What’s more you’ll find yourself answerable to investors in the direction your business takes.

CD Baby Founder Derek Sivers discovered how expensive equity finance was to his cost when he “borrowed” $20,000 from his father’s business. What he actually thought was a loan to set up his music studio in 1994 he discovered when he came to repay the “loan” a few years later he discovered that his father’s business actually owned 90% of the business. So he couldn’t just repay the original funding he had to buy the 90% of shares he didn’t own back at market value. That $20,000 “loan” cost Derek $3.3m.

Banks

Given reports in the press about the difficulty in getting loans from banks it may not be the obvious starting point for raising funds. However, it’s worth a try. If you’re seeking funding for a straightforward loan, and you have an established track record or you’re starting something which has an existing trading format such as a franchise then you may find it easier to get a loan than if you don’t. For example if you’re an experienced plumber, getting a loan for a van or buying another plumber maybe a fairly straightforward process. However if you’re looking to start an online business selling gift-ware and you’re a plumber, then you may find it far more difficult to obtain financing.

Whether you have set yourself up as a limited liability corporation with little or no assets, or you’re a sole trader (ie an unincorporated business) the chances are you will have to provide a personal guarantee to the bank of the payments on the loan. Which may mean that you have to secure your loan against your home. Consequently if your business fails or you fail to make the payments on the loan, the bank will wants it’s money back and you may loose your house.

To obtain financing from a bank, you’re likely to need a business plan, which we covered off in Day 4. Top tip: if you’re going to be borrowing money from a bank ask their small business advisor for the bank’s template and use that as your guide. That way you’ll have ensured that you’ve answered all of your banks questions, even though it might not be that useful for you to use beyond the start up phase.

Loans and Grants

Depending on your type of business, your ownership status (e.g. female or ethnic group) or the area it’s located, you may be eligable for a grant to help you towards start up costs. If you’re in a particular depressed economic area you may find yourself eligable for funding which you don’t have to pay back. Given that these loans can change on a day to day and week to week basis and vary by area of the country, it’s worth checking out the Small Business Administration’s website (if you’re in the US) or Business Link in the UK to see grants or loans which might be available to you.

Crowdsourced Funding

Like most things these days, funding has moved online and there are an increasing number of websites which allow entrepreneurs to obtain funding from investors on either a “reward” basis (ie providing gifts, products, freebies) or return basis (ie investors get a % return on the money that they invest in your project). Websites such as Kickstarter are aimed at those entrepreneurs in the creative industries, ie publishing, music, art, technology etc requiring relatively small amounts of money, whereas sites like Cofundit are aimed at those requiring larger amounts of debt financing ranging from €0.1m to €2.om.

You can find a list here of crowdfunding sites.

Angel Investors and Venture Capital

Angel investors and venture capital funds will typically take a 25-40% stake in your business. These funders take such large stakes because they invest in typically high risk, big potential pay off projects. They look to the returns on the big pay off projects to fund all the other projects which don’t. This is a popular form of funding for technology businesses which require large amounts of “seed” investment, to develop the initial idea and get it to working prototype or market. The downside is that there is a loss of control and you may have relatively little say in the direction of your start up. However this is to balanced against the fact that you’ll own a smaller % of a much, much bigger business than would have been possible without the funding and expertise of the investors.

Remember, whatever your source of funding only take on what you can afford or are comfortable with. If you decide to take equity investment be prepared to lose some of the control and say in running your business.

How to Kill Ideas

Matthew Needham — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 05:00:01 +0000

It’s often said that there’s no such thing as a bad idea. Whilst that maybe true in brainstorming sessions, having too many ideas can be bad for business.

Knowing when to say no can help you ship on time and can help you develop a simple user friendly product or service. But start adding too many good ideas into the mix and before you know it, your offering goes from helping lots of people to frustrating them.

You might have seen this in your own business products or services. A good example is websites; the first iteration of the website is usually very focussed and has just what’s necessary, the second version has a few more bells and whistles and the third version is packed with every great idea the site owner has ever had. What’s more the site owner listened to customer feedback and adopted each and every idea that was suggested. But each idea helped take the website away from it’s original purpose.

Looking at the first, highly focused website and the last version it would be difficult to recognise that the sites were even related.

Sometimes you have to say no and kill good ideas for the sake of your business and your customer.

In this post we’re going to look at how to evaluate ideas and deciding which ideas to kill.

Quantity v Quality

The problem with too many ideas is that you’re left with a choice over which one to pursue. Choose the right idea and your business will grow and flourish chose the wrong idea and you business could be forever playing catch up with the competition or wither and die.

Many entrepreneurs make decisions about which ideas to follow based on “gut feel” in some cases that may be a good decision, but it might not always be the best decision. When you’ve got a team of people working with you, coming up with ideas you don’t want to run the risk of them feeling that they are being “railroaded” into a pursuing one particular idea. If you want to avoid that, then you need to take a more structured approach in your idea selection.

So, how do you evaluate between the good and the bad ideas? By setting yourself some selection criteria.

Selection Criteria

Before you start brainstorming ideas you should start off with setting the basis (or the criteria) of the idea selection. For example, the criteria might be:

1) Improving the customer experience

2) Allowing the business to enter new markets

3) Internal capability to pursue the idea

At the end of a brainstorming session each idea is then assessed against the selection criteria. An idea which satisfies one or all of the crieria then it is likely to be a very good idea and well worthy of further discussion or consideration. If you’re left with a number of ideas which have promise then the idea which satisfies the most criteria areas should be the one to pursue.

Another way of analysing ideas is by using the FAN method developed by Synetics. This is a general set of criteria which are based on whether you are a FAN of the idea:

Is it Feasible?
Is it Attractive?
Is it Novel?

UK based retailer Tesco uses a variation of this method based on:

Is it better (for the customer)
Is it cheaper (for Tesco)
Is it simpler (for staff)

Whichever method you choose will help you arrive at better selection of ideas and risk throwing out the good ideas with the bad.

Group Evaluation

If you’ve been running a brainstorming event involving a team and you’ve been through the selection criteria and you’re still left with a choice of promising ideas which you can’t pursue at the same time then you have a number of options open to you.

1. Secret Ballot – get each team member to vote for their favourite idea or the idea that they feel has the most promise, the idea with the highest number of votes wins.

2. Ranking – get each team member to rank the ideas in order of preference on a 1-5 scale (1 being best idea, 2 being next best etc)

3. Individual preference – ask each team member to state their preferred idea and why they prefer that particular idea. The only problem with using this approach though is where there is a mix in the status of individuals as sometimes more junior members of the team won’t always speak up or will go along with the idea promoted by the more senior members.

Finally, of course you can use a combination of these methods to come up with the best idea.

And Finally

Most entrepreneurs don’t fail because they don’t have enough ideas, they fail because they try to pursue too many ideas, or start a “better” idea before they’ve finished implementing the last great idea, constantly they “flit” from one thing to another, this is not good for growing a business!

Saying no is as important as saying yes. All too often good ideas come along but take time and money to implement, but lead to no increased return for the business, just increase cost of support and often frustrating customers in the process.

10 Days to Start Up: Day 5 – Understanding Your Costs

Matthew Needham — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 05:00:39 +0000

The other day I posted on Twitter: “What’s the biggest Problem facing Your business” and I got the following response from a follower – “Honestly? Cashflow!”.

Great timing. In this post we are going to look at costs and understanding how much cash you’ll need when starting your business.

This is day 5 of the 10 days to starting a business series. In case you missed the earlier articles in the series you can catch up here.

To get your business up and running you’re going to need enough money until your business brings in sufficient income to cover it’s costs (this is called break even).

Some experts recommend that you have at least 6 months cash set aside to cover your expenses, but in reality your business may need much more than this, so it’s important you work out exactly how much you’ll need and then add a contingency.

Even when you anticipate that income will come in quite quickly, you’ve got to remember that things don’t always work out like you plan and sometimes things go wrong. So you’ve got to prepare for the worst that can happen. If your business starts bringing in cash far earlier than expected and you don’t need your cash reserves, then so much the better.

Expense checklist

To workout how much cash you’ll need start by producing a list of everything that you plan to spend your money on in the first year. Where some costs are annual expenses, like insurance, divide the costs by 12 to get the monthly figure, similarly for expenses that are quarterly like rent or utility costs divide that by 3.

List the equipment, office furniture, and other one off purchases that you’ll need to get you started.

Work out what supplies you’ll need to operate your business

Calculate the rent, utility costs and property tax costs - If you’re going to be needing premises (read bootstrapping section first)

Work out what you’ll be able to do yourself and what help you’ll need to hire in - whether these are full time people, part time workers, temporary staff, consultants or virtual staff, look at the skills that you have and the skills that are needed to get your business going.

Your own income - work out what income you’ll need to pay yourself to cover your own mortgage, rent and living expenses

Itemise any stock, signage and marketing expenses - that you’ll need to buy to start trading

Costs of manufacture, shipping and storage – what are the costs of the materials, tooling and equipment required to manufacture your product. If you’re outsourcing the manufacture, how much will the supplier charge and what is the cost of shipping to get it to your warehouse? How much will it cost to store your products?

Costs of funding – if you’re borrowing money to fund the start up how much will interest / repayments be?

Costs of Insurance – if you’re offering a service to your customers then you need to make sure you have appropriate professional indemnity insurance in place. Similarly if you’re employing people you need to make sure that you’re covered for any mistakes that the employees may make or damage to a customer’s property/premises – get appropriate advice from an insurance broker and don’t just guess what the costs maybe. For some professions the costs of insurance can be significantly more expensive than for other businesses.

Bootstrapping – Re-use, make do, go without

In tough economic times it’s not always easy to access funding, especially for new businesses. Therefore it’s not uncommon for entrepreneurs to max out their credit cards and personal borrowings to raise cash. Whilst this is an expensive funding option long term, it could be a viable option to get you going. But the key is to only borrow what you need, which of course makes the repayments smaller and avoids the temptation to spend more money on things you don’t really need.

In my experience businesses which are short of cash are more focused on shipping the product quickly, cash collection and managing the cost base, than those with a lot of cash. Nothing focuses the mind like having to pay the rent in 90 days.

Consequently many new businesses bootstrap and you’ll often hear stories like in the early days at Google, programmers sat at desks made from old doors sitting on saw horses. When you haven’t got much money, you need to think creatively and look at other options. Many businesses start from the spare room. Many businesses have the car parked on the drive and the garage becomes a warehouse. What could you do to reduce your start up costs?

Look for ways that you can reduce your outgoings, things that you can make do with or reuse. Buy second hand – tough economic times throw up a lot of opportunities for buying desks, chairs and stock from businesses that have failed. You don’t necessarily need new.

Cashflow

Once you’ve got all your expenses mapped out you need to build a cashflow forecast, so you can see on a page, exactly what you’ve got coming in and what you’ve got going out.

You can download a free Excel Cashflow Forecast Template here to help you work out what you’re going to have coming in compared to what you’ve got going out.

Simply enter all of your expense headings on the left hand side and the monthly amount under the appropriate month column.

If you have a net outflow each month i.e. your outgoings exceed your incomings, then this is the amount of money that you’ll need to have set aside each month to fund your business. The total amount of cash that you’ll need is the total monthly amount of cash you’ll need until you break even (cummulative cashflow).

Most entrepreneurs by their very nature look for opportunities and therefore are typically optimistic about when and how much sales that they make. Often it takes longer to get the sales than first thought, especially if you’re selling products to larger businesses who may need to go through a whole set of internal processes before they commit to purchase, which you have no control over. So moving your expected income to the right by 3 months, helps you plan for any unforeseen problems. Don’t forget, the amount of income that goes in the cash flow statement is the amount of cash you receive, and not the sale. If you sell something in January you might not actually get the income until March if you’re giving your customer credit terms.

However, typically costs are higher than you expect and therefore a sensible approach is to have cash in hand of 1.5 – 2 times the amount that you think you’ll need to break even. That’s called a contingency. Hopefully you won’t need it, but if you do and you haven’t set aside a contingency then you’ve really got problems. New businesses eat cash for breakfast, so you better make sure you business doesn’t go hungry or it will wither and die.

What about you? Do you have any lessons to share about bootstrapping your start up?

How to start a business in 10 days

Matthew Needham — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 05:00:03 +0000

Many people think that starting a business in the midst of a recession is a crazy thing to do. But the truth of the matter is that if what your have to offer your potential target market is truly a need or at a lower price than the existing players in the market then your business will stand a much better chance of surviving the recession or downturn than the longer established businesses.

Businesses like Fedex, Microsoft, CNN, Burger King, HP and GE were all started in recessionary times.

If you still need convincing as to why now is the right time to start a business, think about this:

customers are looking to get better deals from their suppliers
costs of setting up are lower in a recession
workers, through no fault of their own, maybe forced into unemployment and available for work
government incentives and support are greater in recessions as they try to get the economy moving
if you’re unemployed, doing something has got to be better than doing nothing.

This series of 10 articles takes you step by step through what you need to get started in business. Setting a business up does not need to take years and generally speaking it’s not a difficult process unless you’re selling things that are covered by regulations or laws.

The series of articles is split into 10 days of activities to show you exactly what you need to do each day :

Day 1: Idea generation

Day 2: Market research

Day 3: Naming your business

Day 4: Creating a business plan

Day 5: Understanding your costs

Day 6: Financing your start-up

Day 7: Creating a marketing plan

Day 8: Creating an advisory board

Day 9: Executing your plan

Day 10: Starting to trade

10 Days to Start Up: Day 4 – Create a Business Plan

Matthew Needham — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 05:00:52 +0000

This weekend saw the final of the UK TV Show The Apprentice. This year, unlike previous years, the objective was not to land a job, but to get a business partnership with Lord Sugar and a £250k investment. So after the usual rounds of challenges the final round came down to not only a review of the CV but an in depth review of the business plan the candidates were asked to prepare. So it brings us neatly to the topic of business plans. One of the most common questions we get in our email is "do I need a business plan?" – short answer, unless you're borrowing money, no you don't but this post will explain why it's a good idea to have one. This is the fourth part of the 10 days to starting a business series. In case you missed the earlier articles in the series you can catch up here. Business plans are like creating your business on paper. If something doesn't work in on paper you can change it and start again. You can change your mind, you can change direction and you can think things through.

Getting a Loan

If you're writing a business plan for the sole purposes of getting finance from your bank, a good starting point is to visit your bank and ask them for the template they provide businesses or what they need to evaluate a business for loan purposes. This will save you a lot of time and minimise the chance of being rejected from the get go by missing some vital content that the bank will require of you.

Writing for you

If you're writing a business plan for you as a blue print to growing your business, then good for you. Just as you wouldn't start off on a hike without a route map you shouldn't get started in business without a business plan. Make no mistake, a business plan will not guarantee you success, but hopefully it will avoid any costly mistakes. Essentially there are 3 main elements which need to be in your business plan if you're writing one for yourself:

1. The Concept

This is where you describe what your business is going to do, the structure of the business and who is going to do what.

2. The Market

Here you'll describe the types of customers who are going to buy your product or service along with an analysis of the competition and an evaluation of why and how your products will sell against the competition. 3. The Financials Here you'll describe the costs associated with building, marketing and distribution of your product along with your projected sales revenues (be realistic!) For more details see the resources section at the end of this post.

Don't be an island

Share your plan with people you know who know you well (not the "yes" people) and get them to ask critical questions and challenge you on your answers. This will help you create clarity in your own mind about what needs to be done and make sure that "obvious" flaws don't go unchallenged. Sometimes when you've lived and breathed a business plan and you're caught up in the enthusiasm of it all then it's sometimes hard to see the wood from the trees. UK Apprentice contestent Susan Ma discovered to her cost that just because a business works as a part time activity selling goods on markets and manufacturing products in your kitchen, it doesn't mean that the business can scale. Too often people make the mistake of multiplying out what is sold in one outlet by 20 and not factoring in the additional costs of management and increased sales and distribution costs and the overhead that being bigger brings to the table. Reviewing your plan with others will help identify these problems before they occur.

No business plan

At the start of this post I wrote:

"do I need a business plan?" – short answer, unless you're borrowing money, no you don't but this post will explain why it's a good idea to have one.

It's true you don't need one. There's no law that says you've got to have one, and you won't get prosecuted if you don't have one. But if you're raising finance the chances of you getting funding without a plan are about the same as winning the lottery. A business plan will help you think things through and see things more clearly. It's not a panacea for overnight success nor will it necessarily make you a fortune, but it will provide a road map for all the things you need to do to get your business off the ground.

Fire and Forget

Or rather don't fire and forget. Once you've written your business plan and got your business off the ground. Regularly review your plan and update at least once a quarter to make sure you're on tract and you're doing the things you said you you would. If your business hits a flat spot you might have the answer in the plan which you had previously forgotten about.

Resources

We've written several articles on writing a business plan and have included a template for you to use in your own business: Business plan on a page Business plan template Business Plans Made Simple So what about you? If you've started a business did you use a plan? If you're already in business, are you updating your plan regularly?

10 Days to Start Up: Day 3 – Naming Your Business

Matthew Needham — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 05:00:08 +0000

When you’re starting out in business one of the most important decisions you’ll make is naming your business. Correctly chosen and your name will be talked about for miles around, chosen poorly and your business is doomed to obscurity and potential failure. This is the third part of the 10 days to starting a business series. In case you missed the earlier articles in the series you can catch up here. Some people believe a name should be informative so customers know immediately what your business does. ie Jones Plumbers. Other people believe that the name should be abstract so that customers can paint their own image of your brand ie. Apple. Some people think that made up names are more memorable, others think that these are forgettable. The truth is, that any name can be effective if backed up by the right marketing strategy. In this article we look at how to come up with an effective name for your business.

1. Start with brainstorming names for your business.

Get a blank sheet of paper and draw a circle with the words “business name” in the centre. Then think of as many ideas as you can and link them off the central idea. Then go through all the ideas that you’ve come up with and see if anything links to that idea or inspires another idea and link to the original idea. The important thing is don’t dismiss any idea until you’ve finished the process. The review the ideas and decide which ones you want to keep and which ones you want to reject. Something to think about is a how a name sounds as sometimes a name looks fine written down but when you tell it to someone else it’s difficult to interpret. A good example of this is any names which have numbers in the name for example if the business name was Three, people will always be wondering is it three or 3?

2. Check the Web domain

Once you’ve got your shortlist together, check that the domain name is available as nowadays it’s very rare that a business doesn’t have a web presence even just for marketing purposes.

3. Test it Out

Test the shortlisted names on your ideal target customers as well as friends and family. What names do they like/dislike and why? Eliminate the names that people don’t like or people are neutral towards. Then you should be left with a handful of choices or maybe it’s immediately obvious which your business name should be.

Are you Engaging?

Matthew Needham — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 08:00:11 +0000

No matter the type of business you have, local, internet, offline, online – your success or failure depends upon your ability to engage prospects.

There’s a fine line between engaging and simply being noisy.

So what is the difference and where is the line?

Of course when we think about engaging prospects and clients we immediately think of social media because we use the word engage so much when trying to teach people how to use it. But social media isn’t the only way to engage. We engage with every communication we have with our potential customers either offline or online. It can be a mailed newsletter or a digital one, a Tweet or a Facebook post, or sharing on Google+. It can be how the phone is answered or how a new connection is made.

Everything we do verbal or non-verbal is a form of engagement.

What does it mean then, to engage?

It means repetition but not so repetitive that you wear someone out.
It means sharing but not so much that you scare folks off.
It means responding but not pushing.
It means reciprocation but not without authenticity.
It means using different methods for different customers but not
cross-pollinating for ease.
It means conversation not speaking at or to the customer.
It means be helpful, answer questions but don’t require anything
in return.

Where’s the line?

When is sharing too much? When is responding pushy, etc.? The line falls before you hit the top of the bell curve; at the point where you
feel you might have done just a little bit too little. You know where the line is because we’ve all crossed it. Agreed someof us may not actually be aware that they’ve crossed the line and that’s a recipe for disaster.

But BRT readers understand the line.
I like to think of it as that point where you’ve still left a little mystery in the tank, where you’ve got people wanting more, waiting for the next installment. If they don’t feel that, you may have crossed the line.

The A-Lister

In the blogging world, the A-Lister is the guy who has a huge following, he’s a blogging celebrity, he has “fans”. The problem with “fans” is that they tend to never see your flaws. No matter how many times they blog in one day or tweet; no matter how many Google+ updates and Facebook updates they do the fans set out to share and share and share. So it must all be good then, right? The A-Lister must be doing something right then, right?

Nope. In fact some A-Listers have become so noisy that no matter how relevant what they have to say is, it’s too much, too constant, too engaging. The reality is we are still business owners who need to run businesses, not sit on social media reading everything. The same applies to your customer who still has a life and may not want it filled with just you all day long.

Noise

I remember following a popular social media guru on Facebook who updated so often I couldn’t ever see what my friends, family and
collegues were up to. So I dropped her. And that’s what happens when you begin to create too much noise. “Too much” depends upon knowing your audience, understanding where they are coming from and what they need. But here are some rules:

More than one mailed item a week might be too much.
More than 6 tweets an hour might be too much.
More than 2-3 emails a week might be too much.
More than 4 tweets covering the same information might be too much.
Sharing the same tweets and updates on all platforms… definitely
too much.

The Engagement Rules

The reality is… there are no hard and fast rules. How you engage, when you engage, the number of times you engage – it’s all up to your audience.
The important thing is to learn about what works for your audience, what doesn’t and to listen.

If all you are doing is speaking to or talking to your audience you won’t know when too much is, well, too much. Your customers/clients will tell you when you’ve become too noisy but by then it is usually too late resulting in lost clients. Pay attention, watch what others are doing, and evaluate to make sure it will work for you.

What are your best engagement tips? Please share them in the comments!

This is a guest post by Yolanda A. Facio of Red.Hot.Momentum. Yolanda helps small businesses find clarity and the momentum to start, grow and manage their companies. Sign up for the free Red.Hot.Motivator e-Newsletter and get Red.Hot!

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The Thank You Economy

Matthew Needham — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 05:00:41 +0000

About a year ago I read Crush It!: Why Now is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuk, which basically explains how you can turn your interests and hobbies into a business using the internet. Gary illustrates the advice in Crush It! with his own experiences running his also shares his parents wines and spirits business Wine Library and turning it into a multi million dollar enterprise.

If you’re thinking of starting a business, then Crush It! Should be on your reading list.

The Thank You Economy is Gary’s latest book and is a different book alltogether. It’s about building real relationships with your customers and your prospective customers whether that’s through technology (e.g. Social Media) or face to face relationships.

If you’re a business that worries about whether you have 1000 followers on Twitter or 10,000 “Fans” on Facebook then you need to start thinking about them differently. How many of these followers or fans are you really connected to?

It’s not the number of followers you have or “likes” you get, it’s the strength of your bond with your followers that indicates how much anyone cares about what you have to say. In this game, the one with the most real relationships wins.

I’ve been listening to The Thank You Economy on Audio Book from Audible which is great for two reasons. Firstly, it’s read by Gary Vee himself who is an extremely passionate speaker, in fact one blogger referred to him as a “rapper” because he talks so fast and secondly because Gary goes off script – a lot with side notes, observations or updates.

Gary is a great story teller and he fills the book with case study after case study about how different companies have used social media to build their brand and connect with customers. He dissects social media campaigns such as Procter and Gamble’s Old Spice TV adverts featuring Isaiah Mustafa and describes how Procter and Gamble missed an opportunity to connect with it’s audience to form a real relationship.

Incidentally Gary Vee dismisses the phrase social media campaign as being no such thing. It’s something you should be doing all the time not just as a “campaign”.

An interesting insight that he shares is about approaching building relationships as if you’re trying to woo someone who has just broken up with the love of their life. What a great idea. He contrasts this approach with the “Social Media Campaign” which he describes as being the equivalent of a one night stand. With his use of very visual language you quickly get the idea and grasp the points he’s making!

Gary’s examples don’t just cover big businesses. He cites my new friend Joe Sorge (who I’ve met through Kitchen Table Companies) and his Milwaukee based restaurant business AJ Bombers. He describes Joe’s use of Foursquare to attract a “flash mob” of 161 customers at the same time to his restaurant (even more impressive at the time there was only 300-400 Foursquare users in the area) and increasing his typical Sunday sales by 110%. You can read a case study of Joe’s use of Foursquare on Hubspot.

Over and over Gary cites examples of businesses using social media to actively engage with thier customers and build relationships. Even a dentist using social media to make the patient experience that much better. And you guessed it, getting an appointment with that dentist is difficult because they are booked solid.

Gary V also argues the case that no matter what size of business you need to be thinking of having a social media manager on your payroll, because you’ll need one eventually you might as well recruit one now and start leveraging those relationships. But he cautions:

Put the best people in charge of social media, not the people you don’t know what else to do with.

So, in summary, this is a really great book, it takes us back 100 years or so to a period when everyone traded with the local grocer and he knew your needs even getting the food ready before you turned up. Somehow with mass market and the big supermarkets this kind of service has disappeared. But service, like relationships should never have disappeared or been forgotten.

As Gary says:

It’s like when you’re nice to someone and then you ask the person a favor…that person is a lot more likely to do something for you if you’ve been a great friend and neighbor than if you’ve ignored him or her the whole time you’ve lived next door to each other.

If you’ve enjoyed The Thank You Economy, why not share your thoughts in the comments below?

The Thank You Economy available on Amazon UK/US [UK readers 49% off - only £8.33 with Free Delivery]:

Would you like a Free Copy of The Thank You Economy?

Would you like a Free copy of the Thank You Economy on Audio Book – or any other Audio Book for that matter?

In true thank you economy style… click the link to our Facebook page and find out how

10 Days to Start up: Day 2 – Market Research

Matthew Needham — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 05:00:39 +0000

Entrepreneurs by their very nature have lots of great ideas, but not every great idea makes a great business. Many businesses fail, not from the idea, but by the fact that there is no market for the product or service. Which is why you need to spend time evaluating your idea and conducting your market research.

This is the second part of the 10 day series to starting a business. In case you missed the earlier articles in the series you can catch up here.

No business, particularly a small one, can be all things to all people. The more narrowily you define your business and it’s target market, the better.

What is Market Research?

Market research is a means of evaluating your business or your products or services chance of success. By asking potential customers relevant questions such as their habits, interests and the understanding the problems they are facing, market research can build up an estimate of the likely demand, pricing and profit opportunity.

There are 5 basic questions that need to be answered before you can evaluate the size of your opportunity:

What problem does my product or service solve?
Who are the customers?
Why will they buy it?
Who are the competition?
How much are customers likely to pay?

The good news is, some of this information will already exist and can be discovered in a few clicks on Google. Other information you’ll have to go away and find.

For most businesses, this exploratory activity would be too expensive to get a third party market research specialist in to do the research for you, so chances are you’ll have to do it yourself.

How to conduct Market Research

Here’s 3 steps to conducting your own market research:

1. Set your objectives

Firstly work out exactly what you need to know. Are you trying to get feedback on existing services or are you trying to establish future buying intentions?

2. Survey Design

When designing your survey or questionnaire ask only the most relevant questions. Don’t overload the questionnaire with questions that make it difficult or time consuming for the person to answer. Make the questions easy to answer (whether the survey is completed individually or face to face or over the ‘phone) by using tick boxes or circling options. Make sure that when giving response choices go for an even number of choices to prevent people going with the middle response. Consider offering an incentive for people to respond to the survey but make sure that whatever you do, doesn’t influence the results of the questionnaire and make people put down what they think you want to hear.

3. Test, Test, Test

Ask the questions to a number of people to make sure that they understand the questions the way you intended them. If they don’t recraft, then test again. You can’t afford to make any assumptions that people will think the same way you do.

Survey Size

Whilst you could undertake a statistical analysis to determine the size of your survey and ensure that it represents the a statistically significant population size. In many cases this is just not necessary. As long as the survey represents a number of individuals from your target market, then you should be able to get the reuslts that you need. If you have a small customer base and are looking to sell a new product or service to your existing customers, then asking all the existing customers could be a good idea.

Alternatives to surveys

If you’ve read The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Richthen you’ll probably be familiar with Tim Ferriss’ idea of using Google Adwords as a means of testing whether there is a market for your product. If you’re not then the idea is this: simply create a web sales page for your product or service with space to collect name and email details include a ”Buy now” button which links to another page which says that the product is not available and that they will be notified when the product is available. Then advertise the product or service using Google Adwords with a link to the sales page. Measure how many people click on the advert and link to your sales page, but more importantly measure how many people actually click the “buy now” button as these are the people who would have become sales if your product or service was available.

What does it all mean?

When you get all your data back think about how you’re going to interpret it. You might be able analyse small surveys by hand, but bigger survey responses might need the use of a database or spreadsheet, so make sure you have the skills to be able to interpret and manipulate the data.

Once you’ve got all the results you need to understand what it all means and whether there is a viable product or business. If there isn’t, then sadly it’s back to Day 1 and coming up with a new idea. But at least you’ll have spent minimal cost avoided any costly mistakes.

If there is a market for your business, then fantastic. Now you need to work out what the implications are and what you need to do next.