Over the last few months I have got to go to some really neat places across the country and conduct seminars at Gift Shows (trade shows for the gift, resort, and souvenir industries). I’ve had so much fun and am humbled and honored by the opportunity to be in front of so many people from my industry listening to what I have to say.  I am by no means a social media expert, but the independent retail industry is behind the 8-ball when it comes to using social media, so I have lent my experience and passion for teaching to help people get more competitive on and offline….and the pay doesn’t hurt either!

After technical and sound problems with the video recorded at the gift show seminars I have gone ahead and sat down at my computer and recorded the audio for the Intro to Social Media Seminar. Below are the slideshows from both of the seminars I have conducted. For the Intro seminar, if you click play, my voice will take you through the entire seminar.

There is currently no audio for the Advanced slideshow.

Please contact me with any questions or concerns. brian [at] sandshack.com

American business has been greenwashed. Every business that strives to reach the masses has come up with or attributed their brand to some form of environmental mission.  Many companies simply support environmental works because they believe they will be more appealing to their customers.  Although this could be viewed negatively, I think it is great.  Even if the management of the company doesn’t care, let them throw money at various conservation works…as long as something gets done.

But I believe the greenwashing of American business has inadvertently affected those businesses that truly strive to make a positive impact on the environment.  As a result of so many businesses making some form of environmental pledge, the consumer is less likely to praise any small environmental impact a company is making.  Unfortunately small businesses that are “just” environmentally friendly will no longer stand out in 2010 as they may have in years past.

So what can and should a small business that wants to have a positive impact on the environment and stand out from the crowd do?

I believe the answer is to become more specific with environmental missions. For instance, instead of having a blanket statement that a certain percentage is being donated towards saving the rainforests a company will need to donate money towards saving gorilla babies who have been orphaned due to poaching.  The reason for this is that people are more likely to take note of a business that is accomplishing a concrete goal than a company who has a vague and somewhat confusing, albeit good, environmental mission.

The concept of having a concrete and SPECIFIC mission can be applied to other forms of socially responsible businesses as well.

One company that does not necessarily have an environmental mission has been incredibly successful with a concrete socially responsible mission of donating one pair of shoes to a child in need for every one pair they sell.  As many of us know from a popular AT&T commercial last year, this company is TOMS Shoes.  TOMS has a nice product, but without their concrete and impressive mission, it is not anything very special.  Competing in the highly competitive footwear market and growing as fast as they have is a direct result of the press and publicity they have achieved from their mission, not their products.  If TOMS had a similar mission and took the same amount of money they put in to giving one pair of shoes away for every one they sell and gave it to children in need through lump sum monetary donations, their mission would not be nearly as visible or impressive sounding as it is.  In fact, they may spend far less on giving children shoes than another company that helps children in need…but they must not be very successful, as I haven’t heard of them.

The association between the sale of a product and accomplishing a concrete social or environmental action, rather than a vague monetary donation, is very influential to consumers deciding whether or not to buy a product.

Having a concrete environmental or social mission can be cheap, and a concrete mission will deliver a far greater return on investment than a non-concrete mission that costs the same amount of money.

What do you think? Do you agree with this?  Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments section.

I’m selling more flip-flops this fall than I did this summer.

This may seem strange, but it is simple.  I had a fairly large surplus of flip-flops in stock at the end of the summer selling season and had to face a difficult decision.  Either I hold onto my inventory of flip-flops and begin delivering them to stores next spring, or sell them at a steep discount now contingent upon a business taking delivery and paying for them right away.

I have decided to sell them now rather than hold onto them. Have I made the right decision? Lets explore both sides.

Yes – Sell the Inventory Now!
As far as cash flow goes, the answer is a no brainer.  It is better to sell them now at a steep discount (still making some money) than it is to hold onto them for 6 months and sell them at full price.  Inventory is death.  Holding onto any quantity of product for 6 months means that all the money invested in that product has no way of making me more money.  Money needs to be continuously moving in and out of a company in order to make money.  Without that money moving, I don’t make more money on that money for 6 months.  So, if I sell it now at a steep discount, I can use that money to make new money – and 6 months from now I will have probably made more money off of that money than if I had waited to sell the flip-flops at full price.

No – Don’t Sell Now!
Although selling inventory at discount has obvious cash flow benefits, it may not be the smartest decision for the health and longevity of the brand.  When I sell my products at a discount, the stores who buy it will sell it for a discount.  These discounted prices may be interpreted in a variety of different ways – and how people perceive your brand depends on where the discounted products are sold and how it is merchandised. Unloading excessive amounts of discounted merchandise may undermine your relationships with your customers who purchase your product at full price – meaning they won’t buy your product at full price, or at all, next year.  I have strategically unloaded my inventory in a manner I believe will not harm my brand. Furthermore, the products I am selling will not be available for purchase next spring, when the discounted products will be on sold.  But only time will tell if this was the right decision.

Recently, many brands have reluctantly discounted their merchandise.  Those that have not discounted their merchandise during the recession risk losing fans to brands that offer discounts – and when the economy improves, they may not be able to get their fans back.

What are your thoughts on discounted merchandise? Am I a making the right move?

After spending a few hours this weekend adding a header to Brianlinton.com I updated the about page with more personal information about my personal life and how I came to be who I am today.

It is a slightly long About Page now, but it will hopefully allow readers to approach my articles knowing more about me and my background.

If you have a few minutes, take a look!

In the past few weeks my company has taken two fairly large orders for our merchandise totally approximately $40,000. Although these orders are great for us, they have brought big headaches to Sand Shack.

After getting over my excitement of making some fantastic sales, I quickly realized the apparent difficulties with handling large orders for a small business.  One reason these orders have been troublesome is that these accounts don’t pay until 30 days after delivery (net30).  Large orders take a week to prepare and a few days to be delivered to the customer. Therefore, it may take up to 6 weeks from the time I take an order to the time I get paid.

Another reason that large orders deliver big headaches is that occasionally I have to invest a sizable amount of money in order to make the product that I sold.  For one of these orders I did not have the product on hand, and therefore, needed to make it. This required a sizable investment in product that I will have to wait 6 weeks to be paid for. Luckily, I had the needed inventory on hand for the other large order.

In essence, these large orders have drained me of cash.  I run a high expense business and having to wait so long for such large payments spells big trouble.  I personally have not paid myself for the past month, and some larger bill payments have also needed to be delayed.

These large orders would be ok if I had a line of credit or a lot of cash on hand, but this economy has allowed neither.  The good news is that these large orders will allow me to show a bank a solid source of revenue for my business and a decent profit for a turbulent 2009.  These two things will hopefully allow me to secure a sizable line of credit in 2010, which will help alleviate some of the problems that come with large orders in the future.

Photo by Kazeeee

I began personal blogging more than a year ago.  For the first 8 months I was religious about posting, pumping out quality articles three to four times a week. Now I’m lucky if I put out two a month.

Sandshack.org is a new website we just launched with three blogs focused on various ocean conservation issues - These blogs are where I will be spending more of my time in the upcoming months - The ROI potential is much greater than on my personal blog.

Before this summer, I was spending more than 15 hours per week writing articles and working on developing my personal brand online, which I soon realized was robbing my company of my time and making no money.

Throughout much of my blogging career I convinced myself that the more I blogged on my personal website, the more exposure and success my company would obtain.  And although this is true to an extent, I came to the following realization:

If you have a business and you want it to succeed, focusing on a personal blog is not the answer.  There are plenty of other activities that you should be doing to increase company revenue and grow your business.

However, while my personal blogging slowed down, my focus on business blogging and social media use has increased.

More importantly, I forgot about my personal blog.

As a result, my company is making more money.

But I am not completely denouncing blogging or social media – the shift in focus towards my business means I redirected the time and energy I spent on personal blogging to developing a social media presence for Sand Shack.

What are your thoughts on personal blogging? If you run a business (not through your blog), has personal blogging shown a sizable ROI?

Today I had the privilege of writing a guest post for Deep Sea News.  The authors of Deep Sea News are Craig McClain and Kevin Zelnio.  Craig and Kevin are active ocean conservationists and marine biologists and all around great guys. I reached out to them a few weeks ago to introduce myself and thank them for all the hard work they are doing to better understand our oceans so that we may protect them.

The guest post I wrote for them is about how I have been able to integrate business with ocean conservation.  It can be read here.

This past summer has been an exciting time for my company, Sand Shack, and me.  We have seen strong growth and our products are now found in nearly 200 stores around the United States.

Despite founding Sand Shack in 2006, I did not begin to use social media to market the company until recently.  This summer has been an amazing learning experience as to how to use social media for business growth.  Below are four things I’ve learned this past summer.

Blogging Is Not About Selling, It’s About Educating

Our blog has been a huge traffic generator for Sand Shack’s website.  When creating the blog, my desire was to integrate it into our site in such a way that visitors can easily access it as an online resource for ocean conservation news – with or without visiting our store or being a paying customer.  I believe in the power of creating a strong following of non-paying followers, because money will eventually be generated through these non-paying followers (and even if many don’t buy anything, our company mission is fulfilled through educating people about ocean conservation).  A very important aspect of our company blog is that the blog posts do not sell Sand Shack products.  The information relates to our brand through ocean conservation and the occasional mention as to how we are participating in the movement, but we are not trying to sell product through our blog.  This creates trust with our readers and many people come back frequently to read our blog’s content without being bombarded with sales pitches.  In the 4 months our company has been blogging we are now pulling in nearly 300 readers per day.

Networking Is About the Few Rather Than the Many

In my experience, it seems like far too many companies try to get their message out through social media channels through targeting as many people as possible; they try to communicate their message to the masses.  This has never been my understanding of proper use of social media, nor is it how I promote our company.  I would much rather network and become familiar with 5 influential people than 5,000 non-influential people.  Recently, I have used this mindset to network with top bloggers and figures in ocean conservation.  This is something I truly enjoy doing because I am sincerely honored to be able to speak to those who are doing work to save our oceans.  In addition to exchanging emails I usually give these people a free Sand Shack product of a hat or a flip-flop, further cementing our relationship.  Recently, this has generated a lot of good will and even led to articles written about Sand Shack.  As I continue to network with leaders in ocean conservation I even want to get in contact with celebrities who participate in this noble cause.

Facebook Page Creates Loyal Followers

I set up a Facebook page for Sand Shack more than a year ago but didn’t use it until this summer.  One of the reasons I ignored the use of our Facebook Page is that I was living in the prehistoric Facebook days of a “Group”.  I had over 300 members in the Sand Shack group and I didn’t see any need to build a fan base on a page.  Realizing the obvious benefits of a Page over a Group (I won’t go into them here), we began to focus on our page and have begun to build a nice Facebook fan base (currently 185 fans).  We have some exciting things in the pipeline to accelerate the growth of our page to over 1000 highly focused, active, fans by January 2010.

Twitter Use Becomes Repetitive

Unfortunately, Sand Shack has not embraced Twitter to the full extent as it has embraced other forms of social media.  One of the main reasons I haven’t used our Sand Shack Twitter account much is that I have always preferred to use my own personal twitter account for all my tweeting needs.  One thing that has made Twitter easier to use and update is integrating our status updates from our Facebook page to appear on our Twitter stream.  This may be repetitive and not add value to our message online, but it is sufficient for now and seems to be working – as seen through people beginning to retweet our tweets.

Although it is too early for me to see a strong correlation between social media success and increased revenue, as we approach the Christmas shopping season I think it will become more obvious as to how social media use has impacted Sand Shack.  As I go through these lessons, I will be sure to write more on this subject.

If you have a business, what have you learned recently about social media for business?

What's more important? Your personal brand or company brand? What happens when you put them together?

Since starting my company 3 and half years ago, I have learned many important lessons – few are more significant than the following:

I’ve learned that the entrepreneur’s personal brand is just as important, if not more important, than the brand of the company he or she is building.  In fact, they are inseparable, especially in early-stage startups.

You may be able to debate this statement and claim that a strong company brand should transcend any one person’s brand.  You could even point out that most can’t name the founders of many great companies.  Also, you may be able to say that if the entrepreneur’s personal brand is as strong as or stronger than the company brand, it will be difficult for the entrepreneur to one day separate themselves from the company through sale or retirement.  These are all valid points – but I am going to explain why, especially in early stage start-ups, that the entrepreneur’s personal brand is tremendously important for the success of the company and establishment and longevity of the company brand.

People Buy From a Person, Not a Company

As we go through the painstaking task of finding and hiring a solid group of sales reps for Sand Shack’s products, I have to constantly remind myself that no matter how good our products are, store owners buy from the salesperson, not the company – therefore, it is important to make sure that the people we hire are friendly and likable.  And although I love the products my company sells, I have been told multiple times by some of my larger accounts that they buy from me because they like me, and that if I get somebody to replace me as their sales rep they may not buy from Sand Shack anymore!  Because an entrepreneur is usually the company’s most prominent spokesperson or salesperson, it is important that the entrepreneur’s personal brand is likable – because a company’s early success is based largely on people buying into the entrepreneur, not the company (especially for companies with less than innovative products).

Your Personal Brand Attracts and Retains Talent

It may be difficult to attract and retain talent when you are a small company, and it is even harder if you have a crappy personal brand.  Luckily, if you have a solid personal brand you are much more likely to attract and retain top talent without having to offer them a high salary.  In fact, attracting and retaining top talent is one of the most important things your personal brand can accomplish.  I have been lucky enough to hire and work with a group of very talented people, and although they may read this I will still say that I believe one of the main reasons I have been able to attract them to Sand Shack and not have to pay them too much is that they respect and admire my personal brand (enough bragging already ☺).

The Company Brand and Culture Reflects Your Personal Brand

Just as your personal brand influences your employees, your personal brand is what shapes your company’s culture and brand.  Many times, an entrepreneur’s company has a mission, culture, and brand that is a replica of their own personality.  For instance, Sand Shack’s mission is to protect and conserve our world’s oceans – this is something I am very passionate about.  Growing up, I studied and raised countless species of fishes and at one point had over 30 fish tanks in my room.  Sand Shack has allowed me to leverage and express my love and desire to protect the oceans by organizing and hosting ocean conservation events in addition to donating 5% of our proceeds to the movement.  This mission is not only having a positive impact on our environment, it is shaping the Sand Shack brand – and increasing business due to the associated ‘goodness’ the mission entails.  But the Sand Shack brand would not be associated with this cause had it not been for my personal interests.

The Media Focuses on the Entrepreneur’s Story More Than the Company Story

Any press coverage Sand Shack has received has begun with my story.  My favorite story lead about Sand Shack goes, “He’s the Jacque Cousteau of the fashion world…” This illustrates the importance of my personal brand in relation to the company brand. The press has deemed my story a more appropriate focus for their articles than my company brand.  Reason being? People like to read about people – we would much rather read human-interest stories as apposed to faceless stories about a company.  The lesson I’ve learned from this that you are more likely to get press attention by pitching your personal brand and story than you would by pitching your company’s brand or story.

To wrap things up, I’d like to write a few sentences for those of you who may not know my company or me.

I started Sand Shack after my freshman year in college in 2006 and have since grown it into the most prominent ocean-friendly fashion company in the United States.  Sand Shack products are sold in nearly 200 stores across 25 states.  As for my personal brand, it is growing just as fast, if not faster than the Sand Shack brand.  Recently, I have been able to leverage my skill sets and position myself as a leader in the blue movement, gaining media attention and speaking gigs across the east coast.  As a result of the growth my personal brand has experienced, my company brand has experienced residual growth.  But the catch is that my personal brand relies on the success of my company brand and my company’s brand largely relies on the success of my personal brand.

If you’re an entrepreneur, what have you learned about personal branding through entrepreneurship?

Growing up as an American overseas, my natural inclination was to go directly to Asia to manufacture my products for Sand Shack.  I was comfortable dealing with Chinese and Filipino manufacturers and the language and cultural barriers did not worry me.  Since manufacturing my first product overseas in 2006 I have had no major issues with global outsourcing.  But because of my familiarity with Asia, I have to admit, I never looked locally for manufacturers of the products I was looking to make.

Did I miss out on anything?

YES

By going directly to Asia I missed out on the opportunity to begin manufacturing smaller quantities of product to test the market with.  By going overseas, I have had to manufacturer larger quantities of products, and some products that I made a large quantity of haven’t sold as well as I had hoped.  As it is now, I’m stuck with some products that I wouldn’t have been stuck with if I had made smaller quantities with a local manufacturer. Also, by going directly overseas I have had to face the unavoidable fact that as an environmentally friendly company (Sand Shack), manufacturing products overseas and shipping them to United States is not entirely environmentally friendly. Shipping any large quantity of goods across the world leaves a larger carbon footprint than I would like to make – this may not be the concern for many businesses, but it certainly is for mine.

NO

By going directly overseas to manufacture my products for Sand Shack I have been able to grow my company at a faster rate.  I am able to create a much more competitive and superior product and offer it for a competitive price.  I have also been able to create a very lucrative wholesale program.  If I were to manufacture my products locally I would probably not be able to grow my company as I have through wholesale avenues, instead I would have probably had to stick to a retail model or had significantly higher wholesale prices.  As it is now, my wholesale prices are competitive and still profitable.  Other than saving money, manufacturing my products overseas has allowed me to have sufficient inventory and meet all demands for my product.  However, as mentioned above, manufacturing these larger quantities is a bad thing if it doesn’t sell.

In examining my experiences with overseas manufacturing, I can conclude that starting off a company by outsourcing production overseas is not always the answer for everyone.  For me, it was the right choice, as I had the overseas experience and the vision for my company and knew that I could sell the products I was making.    So before outsourcing, analyze your situation and compile the pros and cons of manufacturing your products overseas.  And although I didn’t do this when I first started Sand Shack, consider looking for local manufacturers that may be able to handle your needs.

Photo courtesy of Travel Aficionada