Figuring out who you are is the easy part; being who you are is the challenge.

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So with this post, I’d like to briefly recap the survey results and share my observations of how I interpret them and how they may or may not have changed my thinking on my first entrepreneurial outing.

Demographics

Everyone taking the survey indicated they were a “business professional”.  This was more of a check question – I really didn’t anticipate any skateboarders or surfer dudes coming across the survey, but you never know.  As far as the age distribution it was a good sampling with the most popular age group responding being 41-50 at 38%.

Overall, I was very happy with the range of people responding.

Social Networks

As expected given who was taking the survey, the top social networks used were LinkedIn (43%), Facebook (27%) and twitter (20%). I did have 5 responses (4%) of “Other”.  Turns out there are some business professionals out there using Ning!

As to what everyone uses their social networks for, this was another verification of my assumptions in that status updates (33%), responding to friend’s posts (32%) and sharing information or links (28%) represented the majority of activity.

Platforms

As expected again, Blackberry (34%) was the second highest response on brand of smartphone.   Palm came in as 13% and iPhone at 14%.  Surprisingly, the highest response was “Other” at 36%!  What did I forget?  A couple windows mobile responses and a lot of Motorola Q responses.  Yes, I know – same thing.  So that’s a good chunk of responses for the Windows Mobile platform.

Value and Pricing

Here’s where it got really interesting.

First, an overwhelming 71% said they would see value in a smartphone app that would let them interact directly with their social networks.  Where it got interesting was on price.  Whereas 38% said they wouldn’t pay anything for the app, the next highest response was up to $10 with 25% of the responses.  It was then $3 with 14%, $5 with 12% and $1 with 9%.

So it appears for those willing to pay for the app, they see enough value that they are willing to pay what would be a huge price on the iPhone app store.  While this did catch me a bit by surprise, it nevertheless makes perfect sense in a way.   I have nothing to rely on here other than outright stereotypes, those of iPhone users versus other smartphone users.  I am NOT saying anyone that uses an iPhone is not a business person.  But I think Apple has done a good job of positioning the value of their product line in the hardware not the app.  So it’s been my observation that by and large, iPhone users generally expect an iPhone app to be free or minimally priced.

Other smartphone users, not use to buying apps and approaching the survey question from a cost/benefit analysis I believe, answered based on the value they perceived in the app.  Regardless of whether any of these blatantly over-generalized statements are true or not, what I take away from these responses is that if I can deliver a social network app with high perceived value, I have plenty of latitude on pricing and users who will be willing to pay it.

My Next Step

Whereas this survey has convinced me there is a market for my idea and I am committed to moving forward more than ever now, it also drove home that the app needs to have significant value to be adopted.  The non-iPhone community may be willing to pay more for an app, but expectations seems to be pretty high as well.  So as opposed to moving directly into development, I am reaching out to several casual and advanced social network users to get input on what they would like to see in such an app and change my initial design accordingly.  If you would like to contribute to that process, please feel free to contact me and we can arrange something.

Finally, I’d like to thank all the people who wished me luck via the free-form responses.  I have some great friends and business associates and I look forward to sending you all a free advance copy of the application when it’s available.

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Honesty

Whether it’s employee appraisals or what happened to the stock price, honesty seems to be missing from many of our leaders these days.  And I’m not talking about the “if I just don’t tell them is it really lying?” kind of honesty.  I’m talking about blunt, hard-edged, “give it to me straight since it’s the right thing to do” kind of honesty.

How many of you know someone that got a good if not great employee appraisal year after year then gets let go out of the blue?  No conversations with their manager, no agendas for improvement and no trips to HR?  Just… let go.  Certainly every business has a right to perform their HR function however they see fit within the boundaries of the law, but doesn’t it seem to make a lot more sense to try to heal the wound than simply cut off your hand?

I’ve had this conversation with many of my personal and professional contacts, and a fair number of us think one of the main reasons situations aren’t handled with more honesty is tied to the next quality on my short-list.

Comfort with Dis-Comfort

As much as we all say we’re committed to the “hard conversation”, the fact is that many of us, leaders included, don’t look forward to those conversations and come up with any number of rationalizations to avoid them.

I’ve found that leaders are generally pretty good with discomfort until it becomes personal.  While it may be uncomfortable, even gut-wrenching to direct HR to cut 10% of the workforce, often it’s harder to call a direct report into your office and tell them they aren’t performing and are getting let go for cause.

Selflessness

Last but not least on my short-list of missing positive leadership qualities is selflessness.  We only have to look as far as Enron and the recent financial collapse to find catastrophic examples of what happens when greed and self-interest take hold.  Too many bad things happen when we are insecure and selfish (and all those other bad habits).  Only when we lose ourselves and focus on something greater, and more positive, do we start truly leading.  I can’t offer any scientific arguments, only the wisdom of a recent thread of thinking amongst some friends on Facebook that went something like “you can only give to the world what you’ve taken care of inside yourself.”

For more eloquent thinking on this quality you might enjoy Leading Blog’s post on “The new golden rule“, or Next Level blog’s article on “Leadership advice from an investment analyst.”

How about you, readers?  What leadership qualities do you find missing these days?

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Personally, I use three primary platforms for networking and personal brand development: LinkedIn, Facebook and twitter.  LinkedIn is my primary business networking platform (sorry Plaxo – you just never captured my attention).  Twitter I use sparingly on more of a micro-relationship level, although I am convinced there is value to be had on twitter, even without a huge time investment, and will most likely slowly use it more and more.  Facebook is the platform I’ve ended up using more than any of the three, but it’s also the one that has posed the biggest challenge for me.

I started out on Facebook just to see what it was all about.  Facebook makes it very easy for people to find you and you to find people, so very quickly my friends list started to grow.  The problem is that is was a hodge-podge of business associates and personal friends from all phases and times of my life.  This is a story I’ve heard over and over from others: with such a diverse mix of “friends”, do I consider Facebook a public business platform or a private personal platform?

You have to decide this one for yourself, but I can tell you where I’ve ended up after giving this a lot of thought over the last couple of weeks.  What prompted the reflection is a friend request from a couple individuals I didn’t really care to connect to.  I know that sounds harsh, but it all goes back to having a basic strategy on what your social networking platforms mean to you.  On LinkedIn, I am already linked with these two individuals and it makes perfect sense as a reinforcement of our business relationship.  However, Facebook feels different to me, and I’ve struggled a bit to reconcile the diverse mix of connections I have there.  Getting friend requests from these two really forced the issue of figuring out some sort of approach.

Where I’ve ended up that makes sense to me, is back to Seth Godin’s concept of Tribes.  I’ll put some links at the bottom of this post if you’re unfamiliar with Seth’s concept of Tribes.  While Seth’s core message with Tribes is more about leadership, with respect to my Facebook account the aspect of Tribes that made sense to me was the bit about surrounding yourself with people where the connections are particularly useful, are long-term and can help guide you through your life and create happiness.  For me, that was a perfect way to think about “friends” on Facebook – I don’t care if you are a business or personal contact, if you’re someone I know from grade school, or someone I haven’t even met in real life yet, but you have to be like-minded and add to my journey, helping me to create personal happiness and “change the world” for the better.

So finally I have a philosophy for Facebook that I’m happy with.  I’m sure there are those of you out there that will say I over-thought this; it’s certainly a tendency I wouldn’t argue with you about.  In this case however, I think some reflection is warranted when using various social networks.  Because they are so pervasive, because there are so many ways to share your thoughts (professional and personal), I think it’s important to be clear with yourself how each network you use fits in with your personal and professional goals and values as a guide to what you share on them.

What about it readers – do you have a strategy for the social networks you use?  Are they all the same to you, or do you have different goals and usage for each?

Seth Godin / Tribes

There are lots of links I could give you as an overview of Seth Godin’s Tribes, but this informal interview of Seth I think not imparts the concept of Tribes, but also portrays Seth’s passion and insight on the topic.  I do think it’s misleading to use Apple and Google as examples of how Tribes make sense (so many more reasons to their success than simply getting a couple people passionate about their product), but a good interview nonetheless (12.23 minutes).

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What would you do if I gave you $1,440 every day?

Well my friends, you do get 1,440 every day – not in dollars but in minutes.  1,440 is the number of minutes in a day.  When you first hear the number it sounds a little low, doesn’t it?  A minute goes by so fast, it’s hard to believe there are only around 1,400 of them in a day.

Yesterday, as I sat talking with a coach of mine discussing some personal growth tactics, it dawned on me that the 60 minutes I spent in that discussion was the only “investment” of my 1,440 that day.  A mere 4.2% of my daily allowance.  Now, I expect a fairly significant payback on that on-going investment, but I got to thinking about all the daily activities and choices that offer virtually no chance of payback.

It’s a matter of focus.  Back in my martial arts days we had a saying: “Your energy flows where your thoughts go.“  If you want to invest your 1,440 into personal excellence then it has to be a focus in your life.  Obviously, it won’t be your sole focus, but it needs to be on that short list we all have of the 3 – 5 things that are most important to us and deserve daily attention and monitoring.

What are you doing with your 1,440 today?  Have you added personal excellence to your short list?

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So instead of stand around and say “twitter’s stupid”, I created an account a while back and gave it a spin.  I’m a pragmatist at heart, and in my mind there’s no better way to judge the value of something until you try it yourself.  Of course, there are limits to that philosophy (electric chair?), but the great thing about the state of technology these days is how easy it is to try things out.

I haven’t been a power-user of twitter, nor have I sat on the sidelines.  In this post, instead of talk about the value of the service, I thought I’d list four “truths” about twitter that I found to be misconceptions.

Misconception #1 – You have to post (yes, I know, “tweet”) a lot.

I didn’t find this to be the case.  I only log in to twitter two to three times a week, and I don’t leave a comment every time (but I may leave multiple comments).  Also, if I find something of particular interest I may log in very quickly just to leave that comment.  So on average, I’m putting up probably no more than four tweets a week.

I find this level of activity enough to get a general sense of how the service works so that I could make a determination of whether it’s a fit for my business and ways I might use it.

Misconception #2 – twitter is a huge time sink.

This is one that I always laugh at.  Neither twitter, nor facebook, nor LinkedIn are in charge of your time.  You are.  You can put as much or as little time into twitter as you’d like.  If you see/get value out of it, use it.  If you don’t, get off of it.  But it should only take as much time as you decide to put into it.

That said, there are a couple ways to use twitter without really even putting any time into it.  With the twitter search feature, you can set up a search for your company name, your brand, yourself, or whatever.  Once the search is setup the way you want, subscribe to it’s RSS feed and you can stay in the loop without ever logging in to twitter.  For example, here’s a search on my name which should show you some recent twitter mentions.

Of course, if you’re smart and you starting finding your company showing up in twitter, you’ll figure out a way to capitalize on that.  Especially if the mentions aren’t favorable…

Misconception #3 – You need a huge amount of followers to get any value.

Obviously, if your goal on twitter is to create a huge amount of traction for your website, company, events, etc. then the more followers you have the better.  However, don’t forget about the viral nature of the Internet.  Sometimes it’s the quality of your followers, not the quantity.  After a brief but valuable dinner meeting with an entrepreneur a few weeks ago, he started following me on twitter.  Turns out he’s fairly well-connected on twitter and I probably added ten new followers that saw that he had followed me.

Also, don’t forget about “re-tweeting”, where a twitter follower of yours re-posts your tweet, exposing it to their entire network.  You may have only thirty followers, but if one of them re-tweets to their one thousand followers it’s just the same as if you did it.

Misconception #4 – There is no business benefit to using twitter

We could debate this one all day long and many in the media and blogosphere have decided to do just that.

Here’s the thing – IT’S A TOOL!  No different than PCs, spreadsheets and bicycles.  If you can find a way to have it benefit your business, great.  If you think it’s stupid and the end of civilization as we know it, great.   Just decide if it works for you and get on with it.

Personally, I think there are some fantastic opportunities with twitter for companies both large and small.  Because of the intimacy of contact with your followers, and the fact that they choose to follow you – there are some very interesting approaches to using this tool.  Why not create a twitter search to find out when someone is bad-mouthing your product or service online, then have your customer service department resolve the issue online for everyone to see.  Why not offer specials of the week only made available to your online followers?   I follow @startupstudent on twitter who tweets an inspirational quote every single day.  What a great way to be memorable.

Bottom Line

I think the bottom line here is that you don’t have to be a big company to get value out of twitter, and you don’t necessarily have to put tons of time into the effort.  You do have to understand the tool and how it works, then figure out if it makes sense for your business.  Given the level of intimacy with your followers twitter offers to deliver, combined with exponential potential of your follower’s follower’s followers – I think any smart business owes twitter at least a look.

What about you?  Are you using twitter?  What businesses have you seen using twitter successfully and what have they done?

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Becoming an entrepreneur has many descriptors, but there certainly is an almost zen-like aspect to it.  It can be very hard to know when it’s the right time, what to do first, who to partner with, how to move ahead, etc. etc.  Then again, it really isn’t – when the passion is there, the stars align and many entrepreneurs say they “just knew” it was time.  Personally, I’m finding myself somewhere in the middle.

I’ve been seriously evaluating three entrepreneurial options for about six months now.  All of them have various plusses and minuses, and frankly I’m passionate about all of them.  For a variety of reasons, the stars seem to be aligning around one option in particular and who am I to argue with the universe?

I know one aspect of entrepreneurship is jumping in head first without knowing all the answers, but just like the coaching I would give to most entrepreneurs walking through my door, I want to gather some simple market feedback before getting started.  I’ve created a short survey whose answers I’m hoping will help me make that final decision of whether to move ahead or not, and I would really appreciate your feedback.  In particular, I’m looking for business professionals who:

• Use one or more social networks, once a week or more
• Own a smartphone
• Have two minutes of free time to answer a handful of questions

So, what do you say?  Help a fellow business professional / aspiring entrepreneur out and click over to my survey on Business Professionals & Social Networking.

Thank you in advance for your time and thoughts.  Please use the Share This link to send this post with colleagues you feel would participate.  I’d like to gather a good sample size of responses.

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Two separate conversations over the last week have convinced me.  That higher power is: Clarity.

Entrepreneur #1 is focused in the telecommunications market and has developed a product based on intimate knowledge of a particular platform.  Given the entrepreneur’s expertise with the platform, several proprietary elements of the product have given the product good initial adoption within the market, with several thousand users.  Based on that success the entrepreneur had hired a resource to port the product to a second platform.

I introduce the entrepreneur to another (non-competing) startup in the same space with broader market knowledge.  They love the first entrepreneur’s product and see several applications for it, perhaps a joint venture.  However, their feedback points out that the secondary market they are trying to enter, while currently much larger, has much more competition and existing solutions.

The entrepreneur achieves clarity:

• Discontinues work on the new platform development
• Begins work immediately on pricing strategies and product road map
• Embraces a strategy of owning one market versus merely having a competing product in multiple markets

Entrepreneur #2 recently received some seed funding to begin work on her startup.  The entrepreneur has fantastic business skills and is doing a good job of supplementing technical skills onto her team when needed.  From our conversations, this entrepreneur is doing all the right things and making good progress.

The entrepreneur attends an industry-focused conference in New York.  Not only does she make a couple important contacts, but the content of the conference proves to be critical in developing her understanding of the direction, impact and business models within the sector her startup is focused on.  The conference helped her clarity around not only how to develop her startup, but how to secure her next round of funding.

So clarity is the whetstone that hones your focus and hard work and potentially takes your startup to it’s next level.  No one can tell you how to acquire clarity or where to look for it, but make sure to make the continuing search for clarity a priority.

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Bonus #1 is Furqan offers a Google Bundle of the blogs so you can grab them all at once if you’d like.

Bonus #2 is at the start of the post, he also links to a huge list of VC blogs.

Go, grab and enjoy!

UPDATE 6/8/09 – altgate maps blogging entrepreneurs to twittering entreprenueurs, with follower counts.

UPDATE 6/12/09 – The ultimate twitter list for online marketers. 100 Tech twitter accounts you should be following.

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What the hell happened to Customer Service?

I trust I don’t need to make my point here.  Well before our “current economic conditions” it seemed like good quality customer service, where the individual involved truly cared about you and how they represented their brand (your company!), was on the decline.  Wait – we’ve gotten to know each other pretty well here so there’s no need for me to mince words.  I think good quality customer service has pretty much disappeared.

Which leads me to that thing that’s rattling around in my head.

I believe honest, caring, helpful, engaged customer service may well be the single biggest opportunity for your company right now.  Especially during these tough times.  It’s one thing to lower your prices; customers are expecting (demanding?) that.  But to deliver your products at a lower cost, while providing great customer service, now that’s a recipe for growth.

A while back I talked about something called the Net Promoter Score.  Now while I’m not advocating we all implement this in our organizations, what would your honest answer be to the following question:

On a scale of 1 – 10 (ten being superb), where do you think your customers would rate your service?

If we’re all being honest, I think the answer for many of us might be a sobering realization.  Given the fact that none of us are without competition, does providing customer service at a 6 or even 7 level really provide an exit barrier, especially in these days of cost-cutting and special promotions?

I, for one, don’t think so.

Still with me?  Take ten minutes for a quick exercise.  Pull out a piece of paper and write down every area or role within your company that interacts with your customers, keeping in mind there are probably many non-human interactions.  Based your your knowledge of your company, give each of them a quick rating of poor or below average, average, above average and excellent from your customer’s perspective. Don’t over-think this, there are no right answers and we’re not going to compare to industry benchmarks.

Now, answer me three simple questions:

1. Are you comfortable with your ratings?
2. Did you find any areas that are under-performing that represent critical customer interactions?
3. Now, for each of those critical under-performing interactions, put on your thinking cap and come up with some ideas on how you could raise their score with minimal capital expenditures?

I don’t have the answers, and I don’t know your company.  But I’d be willing to bet this little roadmap gave you some ideas.  You don’t always have to spend money to grow your business.

I’d love to hear your thoughts below, especially if you went through our little exercise.  Feel free to share anonymously, but please – share!  Also, please use the “Share This” link to send this to friends and colleagues you think have something to say on this topic.  My sense is there is a meaningful conversation to be had.

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I meet with lots of entrepreneurs.  Many of them fade away after that initial meeting.  A small percentage of them become coaching clients.  Some of those go on to actually found their business.  It was apparent from that first meeting that there was no doubt that Wendy would eventually found her company.

Wendy and I continued to meet off and on, and I introduced her to a couple of regional funding sources that were good fits for some initial seed money.  Meanwhile, she continued to work on her business plan, network, and refine her message.  When some funding finally came through earlier this year, Wendy quit her job and set up her home office for Green Kids Rock.  I had breakfast with Wendy a week or two ago and she couldn’t be happier.

So given Wendy’s passion, her commitment, and her infectious optimism I couldn’t think of a better entrepreneur for this inaugural “10 Questions With…”, a new, regular feature here at DCO.

Green Kids Rock is a subscription-based online game and website created to inspire kids to take action to restore our planet.  The game replicates real world ecological challenges, with players embarking on meaningful “virtual” missions via a created avatar. Green Kids Rock is intended to be experienced by kids and grown-ups alike, empowering them to go beyond conserving and recycling in their efforts to be green.  Green Kids Rock will donate proceeds to environmental non profits and will champion kids so they may be heard from our legislators.

So, on with the interview…

DCO: Tell us about your company. What was the genesis of your business?

I was watching my son play a popular online game. The format, entertainment and engagement qualities were superior, but I felt that the game promoted materialism, even if unintentionally. It was then I thought, wow, why couldn’t a similar format be used to champion the most important cause of our lives?

DCO: Describe the moment when you knew you were an entrepreneur? What defined that moment and how did it feel?

It was actually two moments in one day. I knew when I circled the day I was quitting my job on my calendar. Later that same day I bought Chinese for dinner and my fortune cookie read, “May your dreams be greater than your fears.” It was a good day, and I jumped. I used to always ask other entrepreneurs what compelled them to jump-now I know. It’s hard to define to others. It’s like explaining what it’s like to be a parent to someone who’s thinking about doing it. In both cases, it’s the best thing you’ll ever do, but you have to experience it for yourself.

DCO: What marketplace issue are you solving and for whom?

I have several customers and the issues vary. The primary customer is children 6-11 who need a vehicle to help them voice their concerns-it’s their planet once we’re gone and yet they have very little power to affect change. My other two customer groups are green enthusiasts and parents who seek out educational toys and entertainment for their kids.

DCO: How do you define success?

It’s waking up and being excited about starting work at 730am and going hard until 3pm when I pick my son up at school, and having the flexibility to start back up when he goes to bed. It’s about doing something that expresses my personality and my passion…and something I’m proud to share with my son. This is an example I never had with my parents. I’m sorry I waited this long. As far as the money goes, I’m not worried about it just now. I feel I can’t fail with the passion and focus I have for this project..

DCO: At what point do you consider yourself successful?

I do have a revenue number in mind, but it’s more than that. I will be successful when my business is self-sustaining, making a measurable impact on the world, and allowing me a lifestyle that puts my family first.

DCO: What does it take to be a successful entrepreneur?

…a little naiveté, a clear vision and a task-master work ethic.

DCO: What are three pieces of advice you would give to others considering becoming an entrepreneur?

Jump in with two feet, meaning, quit your day job. Do what’s necessary to prepare financially. It was really the turning point for me. I just couldn’t get off the ground living two lives, and not at the expense of my family. Maybe this is doable for single people. My decision to leave my corporate life has empowered me to accomplish a lot in very little time.

Networking is critical. Learn from the mistakes of others–great connections save money and a lot of heartache.  Be open to change. There are lots of brilliant, generous people willing to show you a better way to execute your plan. Don’t miss an opportunity.

DCO: What is your favorite aspect of being an entrepreneur?

In work and the corporate world, my superiors always said there was no such thing as a dumb question or a dumb idea, except they didn’t really mean it. And often times, they were wrong. I love being empowered to explore all my zany ideas and being the one to decide if they are in fact stupid.

DCO: If you were conducting this interview, what question would you ask?

What are some good strategies for collaborating and outsourcing work when you are a company of one?  (Thanks Wendy, I’ll add this to the list).

DCO: What’s the biggest mess you’ve dealt with this year?

A trademark opposition…I tried to do everything myself on the cheap and got in over my head. I’m working through it, but I’ve learned it pays to talk to several attorneys…several anybodies regardless of the service you require. I spoke to three attorneys and received three conflicting recommendations; I spoke to two more and finally got the advice that worked for my situation and budget. If your gut tells you someone isn’t a good fit, no amount of discounting will make that work. With a little persistence, you can likely locate the quality of work you need at a discount or with barter.

DCO: What stops you from giving up when you get frustrated?

My son’s tuition bill…and the realization that the alternative is to go back to a career that is no longer meaningful to me.

Thank you for taking the time to spend some time with us Wendy.  We’ll look forward to an update on Green Kids Rock progress in the future.

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Over the past month or so, I’ve had the opportunity to talk with a number of folks looking to get started in the blogging world and wanting to get some input on how to get started and what it’s all about.  Just last night, I helped my sister set up a blog to promote her private counseling practice.

In talking with such a wide range of individuals, and watching fellow bloggers over the years, there seems to be a handful of “surprises” when people first get into blogging.  Just like anything new, there’s no way to really know if it’s for you until you dive in.

So for those of you out there who may be contemplating starting a blog, here’s my list of “surprises” I’ve overcome along the way.

You need some basic technical acumen or a friend with some

Unless you let your blogging platform provider host your blog for you (e.g. wordpress.com), you will be “self-hosting” your own blog.   This means signing up with a hosting company.  It also means getting your fingers dirty from time to time updating software, uploading files, managing domains, etc.  While many hosters offer tools to help automate some of these activities, without a basic understanding of what you need to do you may find yourself a little nervous just clicking a button.

When it comes to your blog, I’ve found very few new bloggers who don’t eventually want to start tweaking the look, feel and functionality of their blog.  There are many tools, plugins and developers available online to help you.  With a basic understanding of some of the technology involved (or a friend that does), you can perform many of these tweaks yourself.

Your blog is a business…

…and for it to be successful, you need to treat it like one.  The number one critical success factor for a blog is consistent, meaningful content.  If there is one thing I typically see people underestimate when it comes to blogging, it’s the amount of time and effort that goes into publishing content.  Once you get past your first ten posts or so, do you still have something to say?  Will you take the time to publish something, anything, at least a couple times a week?  Are you a decent writer that possesses basic grammar skills?

When I’m consulting with a potential new blogger, I challenge them hard on their writing skills, their passion for the topic they intend to blog about, and their commitment to the blog.  If it still feels like a blog is a good fit for them, then I strongly suggest they formally create a “syndication schedule” for themselves.   Other folks call this an editorial calendar, so someone correct me if I’m using confusing language.  Such a schedule would involve how many times a week they will post on their blog, a balance of long and short content, and the spread of topic coverage.  For instance, your syndication schedule might be something like: two posts a week, with two featured posts per month and coverage of all my five basic categories at least once per month.  The key is aligning the schedule with the goals for your blog.  The second key is formalizing the schedule into your life schedule.  For example, if this is a work blog, then add a recurring appointment to your schedule for post writing.

It’s bigger than you think

I think the last big surprise for a lot of people is that it doesn’t stop with simply creating and posting to a blog.  If your goals revolve around anything that sounds like growing your business or attracting lots of traffic, then simply writing content, even if it’s great content, is not enough.  All the successful bloggers spend copious amounts of time commenting on other blogs, participating in discussion boards, etc. etc.

As a blogger, you are part of a larger community.  A large part of your online success will be tied to how effectively you engage that community.  Don’t underestimate either the time or difficulty in developing that engagement.  I think it’s also easy to think you don’t need the community either.  An in-depth look at this topic is beyond the scope of this short post, but suffice it to say becoming involved in the online community is just as critical to the success of your blog as regular content is, and could well take more time.

Okay fellow bloggers – your turn!

So I know there are some regular bloggers that stop by here.  What are your observations on blogging?  What “surprises” did you have when you first started up and what do you consider to be critical success factors for a thriving blog?

For those of you thinking of starting a blog, what’s holding you back?  What are you most afraid of or feel unprepared to handle?

UPDATE 6/14/09 – ProBlogger’s take on the topic.
UPDATE 7/2/09 – If you make the decision, here’s some thought-provokers on how to write a strategic blog.

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Of course, we all know that way it really works is if you have a good experience, you probably don’t tell anyone; and if you have a bad experience you tell anyone who will listen.

So it is with personal excellence and personal branding.   If you are truly committed to a very high standard of excellence, then you must stay constantly aware of how you are interacting with the world around you. I would go so far as to say that a critical component of personal excellence is hyper-vigilance of your words, your actions and your messages.

I re-learned that lesson last week in a brief Facebook comment exchange with Anita Campbell.

So who is Anita Campbell?

If you’re not familiar with Anita, she runs her own not-so-little online media empire which includes the highly successful SmallBizTrends blog (with over 100K subscribers), Small Business Trends Radio (which I had the pleasure to be featured on), and her newest addition BizSugar, a Digg-like business news site for small and medium businesses.

Anita is pretty active on Facebook, promoting her various outlets and constantly posting useful information, links and questions for small and medium-sized business owners.

As successful as she is, and as active as she keeps herself operating and growing her various businesses, she is also very approachable and has always responded in a timely manner to the few inquiries I’ve sent her way (I got to met Anita several years back when we were briefly on an Advisory Board together).  Over the last year I put together a panel discussion on Web 2.0 tools and Anita helped me fill 2 of the 3 slots on the panel.

What took me “back to school”?

Last week Anita posted a RT (re-tweet) on Facebook linking to an article with the title “Ten Tips for Finding Grants for Making Your Business Greener.”  This caught me at a good time since I have recently been getting a lot of requests from entreprenuers and small business owners on the very same topic.  Clicking through to the article, a community-recommended post on Bizugar, I was initially disappointed to find that most of the tips were fairly basic things like doing online research to find grants and learn how to write a relevant grant proposal. There were a couple good suggestions in the list, but overall I was disappointed in the article.

So, instead of just moving on, I commented on Anita’s Facebook post and broke two essential rules of personal excellence:

1. If you don’t have anything positive to say, don’t say anything.  The post didn’t have a lot of value for me, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t for lots of other people.  To simply comment to say “I didn’t get a lot of value out of this post” doesn’t add anything of value to the conversation and only reflects poorly on yourself.
2. If you’re going to point out an issue, offer a solution.  Anita handled the comment like a pro (because she is one) and then suggested that I post a “definitive article” on the topic.  Instead of taking her up on her offer and saving some face, I instead blew off the opening and said I had the same issue finding good information.

What Anita did right

This may seem like a trite example, but there are some lessons in here to be learned for those of us who are serious about pursuing personal excellence.

First, every single personal interaction you have, whether face to face or virtual, is an opportunity.  It’s an opportunity either to build and reinforce your “brand” of personal excellence or show a different face.  Just like that sign in the diner, another old cliche that comes to mind is “It can take forever to build a good reputation, but just one comment to destroy it”.  By responding positively to a somewhat negative comment, Anita reinforced her professional image.

Second, Anita opened the door for me to postively add to the conversation.  While I didn’t take her up on the offer (yet!), by opening that door she created a space for me to enhance my own professional image.  Creating opportunities for others in all situations I think is an important business skill, made even more crucial in today’s highly-networked, virtual world.

Parting thoughts

We are all online more and more these days.  Virtual communication is immediate and “the Internet never forgets”.   Smiley faces notwithstanding, it is very hard to convey emotion, sentiment and conversational nuances in virtual communications.  This becomes especially apparent as the communication becomes shorter and shorter – Facebook comments and Twitter tweets being great examples.  In a face to face conversation you have an opportunity to more fully explain your comment and your meaning.  Online, it is much harder.

I also think the online environment is less forgiving.  Since we are all getting smaller and smaller slices of everyone’s attention span, each communication, not matter how slight, becomes more and more important.  In some ways I think it is even harder to build a brand or image online, and even easier to negatively impact it.  The rise of social media channels has opened up tremendous opportunities for businesses and individuals alike to interact with ever-widening audiences, but their immediacy of contact should not be underestimated.

Finally, and I hope you are reading this Anita, I accept your challenge to come up with some resources for businesses wanting to “go green”.  I’ll post something very soon.

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Anyway, I took the time to read the E-Mail to see I had five pending connection requests.  So I clicked over to the site and all five requests were from people I:

• Didn’t know
• Didn’t take the time to introduce themselves, and
• Clearly just wanted to sell me something

I don’t want to beat up on Plaxo here, but I am wondering.  How many of you use Plaxo consistently?  How would you rate it versus LinkedIn?  Am I missing something by not using it actively?

For those of you who prefer contributing via radio buttons, here’s a nice little poll for you.

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Entrepreneurs, we need to talk.

Remember last week when I asked you if your great idea was a great business?  Remember how we talked about market research and market analysis?  Apparently, many of you didn’t realize I was serious about the “research” and “analysis” parts.

When it comes to market analysis, many of the business plans we read fall into what some of us  call the “Chinese glove” fallacy.  It goes something like this: “There are a billion people in China.  They all wear gloves.  We intend to sell gloves for $1.  If we only get 10% of the market, then we will make $100M.  And that’s just China.   We’re all going to be rich!”

What’s wrong here?  For starters, even though the statement is about the market, the entrepreneur forgot both the research and the analysis.

Here’s a couple more real-world examples, from business plans I’ve reviewed lately (paraphrased as bolded for anonymity).

Research Service reports that if only 10% of installed locations adopted our technology, the global  market for these types of systems alone could reach $50 billion by 2012.

And another:

The  market segments both benefit from our product and they, alone, provide our company with very strong
revenue and EBITDA projections, if only capturing a small fraction of the total opportunity.

Please stop.

Entrepreneurs, you absolutely need market information in your business plans, but you need to do your homework.  This is a critical section of your plan, one that many of the people reading your plan will turn to first or second, and if your information is self-serving or not adequately reasoned, you are going to greatly reduce the chances of your business being seriously considered.

All of us have our own opinions as to what needs to go in these sections.  With this post and talk about what I look for and some of the basics you absolutely have to do.

Start with Top Down

First thing to do is define your Total Addressable Market.

Ultimately, every product or service is purchased by a human.  There are roughly 6.8B people in the world. This does not mean your total addressable market is 6.8B people.  Absurd example, yes.  Disturbingly similar to language I read every week?  Also yes.

Your TAM is generally reflected as the total potential amount of yearly sales for your product or service.  It’s purpose is to show both the size of your market and your business’ potential upside.  However, it also has to be realistic or your numbers will be discounted.  Coming up with a realistic yet comprehensive representation of your TAM is not so much art form as good top down research.

Let’s say you’re that glove manufacturer and you want to represent your TAM.  I’ll leave it to you to fill in the numbers, but your market overview might go something like this:

We intend to focus on the North American market first to minimize distribution costs.  With our focus on industrial gloves, our research shows X sectors that heavily use industrial gloves.  Further, our research shows that X% of total workers use gloves with a replacement rate of Y% / year.

Now come Bottom Up

Once you have a reasonable total addressable market, now you need to figure out what portion of that market you can sell to.  Even with good top down market research, odds are you are not going to sign up the entire market as customers.  This also shows those that read your plan that you’ve put real thought into how big your realistic market is.  This makes us feel a lot better about your sales forecasts and by showing good analysis of your market, you may get a carryover halo effect to your sales forecasts.

So what might bottom up analysis look like for our glove manufacturer:

Taking those starting market segments, we are factoring out industrial locations with employment less that 100 factory floor workers.  Of the remaining locations, our focus group research shows us that our product offers unique benefits to oil refiners and chemical processors. That leaves us with a total addressable market of Z gloves / year, or $

Good market analysis is critical for your business.  Without solid, critical market analysis as the foundation for your business plan and sales forecasts, not only will you not get far with most investors reviewing your plan, more importantly you’re selling yourself and the potential success of your business short.

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