Irony: Fewer Words, Better Communication — Tim Berry shares some thoughts about the nature of communication and how sometimes less is actually more.
This Just In: Bacon and Email Are Basically Brothers — A lighthearted look at the unlikely similarities between the communication tool and the porky breakfast side dish.
The Real Secret to Becoming a Popular Blogger — There’s no point in writing a boring blog. Copyblogger writer Johnny Truant suggests how to be interesting.
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I just caught Ann Handley’s latest post on Marketing Profs Daily Fix, in which she gives us several good links and a short video interview on Twitter as “An Enormous Opportunity.” This is important.
Among other things, Stephen Berlin Johnson–who did last week’s Time Magazine cover story on Twitter, says:
“We’re getting to invent what this new platform can do.”
What’s happening with Twitter, including the easy-to-poke-fun-at aspect of Twitter as trivial boring updates–an idea we get when the late-night comics take it on–is that it’s caught on with the early adapters and opinion leaders, whom Seth Godin calls the sneezers, people who tend to be communicators.
Although it’s a lesser example, it does remind me of what I saw (and lived through) about 25 years ago with the personal computer revolution; and again, about 15 years ago, when the business world caught onto the web.
It’s not as big as either of those, because there’s no fundamental change in technology. But the phenomenon of bandwagon is there, and in that sense it’s similar.
Why do you care? It’s not that you have to be at the bleeding edge to be an entrepreneur; you don’t have to. But it helps.
And believe me, it’s not just what people had for breakfast: It’s what they’re reading, watching and thinking.
My suggestion, concretely, is that if you’re reading this blog and you aren’t already on Twitter, go to twitter.com and join. Follow me and everybody else on Anita Campbell’s The Ultimate Small Business Twitter List, and just see how the ideas flow.
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Okay, let’s assume you’re afraid of the business plan which people are telling you that you need. It seems to be too big a job. You don’t have time.
So don’t take so much time. Start anywhere, and get going. Here are some ways to break out of that inertia and get going.
Remember, form follows function. Don’t sweat the formats, or the writing, or the tools. Just get going. It’s planning that matters, not just the plan.
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If so, prove it. Get recognition for it. Publicity is good, right? Give it a try.
Go to visit Forbes.com’s America’s Most Promising Entrepreneurs. Take the survey. You may end up on the Forbes.com list, coming later, to be developed using the survey that you just took.
A survey which, by the way, was developed especially for this Forbes.com use by the Venture Alliance, whose CEO Jim Casparie has an excellent article on the same site about getting angel investment. Jim’s post there fits rather neatly with my post here on Up and Running, earlier this week, about questions to ask yourself before you start looking for angel investment.
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Email is one of those things that people talk A LOT about fixing. It makes a terrific virtual water cooler topic because it meets the following requirements:
1. It’s draining
2. It’s incessant
3. Almost everyone has a suggestion about how to manage it
I’m going to go out on a limb and postulate that you’ve faced a few email issues of your own. How do you manage it, both personally and professionally? How do you use it to provide the kind of customer service you’d like to be known for? How do you support your brand with email?
These are all big questions, some with intuitive answers and others that require a bit more thoughtful digging. If that’s not digging that you’re interested in doing, you’re in luck. We’re handling that for you at the Email Center Pro blog.
Of particular interest might be a recent series we completed, entitled “Stop the Madness: Manage Email to Grow Your Business”. The posts provide insight on things like brand identity and the value that you provide through email. If you’re trying to figure out how to make better use of the time you spend wrestling with this communication channel, the Email Center Pro blog is the place to do it.
If you just want some interesting insights and a bit of a light-hearted look at email, you’ll find that there, too. We’d like to think that we’re a full-service solution.
Jason Gallic,
Product Manager, Email Center Pro
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Do You Really Want to Find Investors? — Tim Berry looks at the pros and cons of seeking investors for your business.
7 Ideas Owners Must Consider About Succession Planning — The Marketing Masters, Ken Burgin and Elizabeth Walker, discuss marketing strategies to help ensure your company survives when you retire.
A Day in the Life of Email Center Pro, Part 1 — In the three-part series Email: This is How We Do It, a Palo Alto Software employee details how Email Center Pro gets him through his day.
9 Ways People Respond to Your Content Online — Interesting blog by Rajesh Setty discussing how readers may react to your content, and how to get the reaction you want.
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You’ve probably heard the phrase: “content is king.” This morning I read “The idea that ‘content is king’ in blogging is total bulls***” by Mack Collier on The Viral Garden. He’s got a stark reminder there–a picture of an empty theater–that content doesn’t mean diddly if nobody sees it.
Many bloggers view their blog as their stage. Nothing wrong with that. But it doesn’t make sense to walk behind a podium, start talking and expect the room to fill with an attentive audience. Chris Brogan had a great post on this today (and read @KathySierra’s comment), and the point he kept making is that the difference between an audience and a community is the direction that the chairs are facing. Many bloggers act as if they are addressing an audience, when they want an interactive and passionate community. This is a disconnect that the idea of “content being king” feeds into.
This is an excellent reminder for anybody looking to build a business around content. It takes a marketing strategy to make that work. Make sure you have a type of person or business you’re trying to reach, a message and a way to get that message to them.
Mack makes a different but very important point about the “social” in social media. In his world, it’s about commenting, interacting and developing community, which amounts to the same thing as marketing. Is marketing, in fact, in a lot of one-person content-driven business.
Thanks, Mack.
While I was at the Viral Garden, I browsed some of the posts. Then I added that blog to my blogroll here on Up and Running. Good stuff. And I was amused, while adding the link, to note that his URL there is “moblogsmoproblems.” Hmmm . . . somehow I find it easy to imagine the circumstances in which somebody would register that name. But that’s a different post.
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It happens to a lot of businesses that start out self-funded: since nobody is requiring a business plan from them, they don’t think they need one. It’s not long before they realize what they’re missing.
That’s what happened to Monique Riviere, of Springdale, Maryland, when she bought her V2K Window Décor & More franchise two and a half years ago. V2K is an independently owned franchise providing custom window coverings and installation services to residential and commercial clients.
“There didn’t seem to be a need for a formal business plan — I didn’t have a lender that I needed to present my case to. Midway into my first year, I realized I was being pulled in many different directions. I needed to get my goals down on paper so that I didn’t respond to every whim, which could waste both time and money,” Monique remembers.
Like many small-business owners, Monique wasn’t sure she could write a business plan herself, but found the cost of having a professional do it prohibitive. “I felt very intimidated by the process and didn’t know where to start. I got estimates from a few companies starting in the low $1,000s, which was out of my range.”
Before she knew it, she was in her second year of business and still didn’t have a plan. Small business counselors with whom she consulted wanted to see one but, she says, “I had nothing to show.” It was time to get serious about writing a business plan, so she set out to find a computer program to help. Her requirements for the software: user-friendly, low-cost, and updatable.
She discovered that Business Plan Pro met those criteria. “I was immediately comfortable with the step-by-step interview process and impressed by both the interface and the content. My most intimidating areas – financials and market research – were even made simple.”
Being at ease with her business plan allowed Monique to enjoy the aspect of owning a business that excites her most: the freedom. “Charting my own path and determining how successful I want to be. The rewarding feeling at the end of a long, hard project makes it all worth it.”
Besides recommending having a business plan, Monique has some advice to entrepreneurs starting down the same road she did: “If you can partner with someone you know, like, and trust, do it! If not, make sure you have the consistent support of family, friends, and colleagues. You’ll need it to get through the bad days.”
The take away from Monique’s experience? Don’t kid yourself — you do need a business plan.
Jay Snider
Palo Alto Software
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A Twitter friend (Matt Riopelle) asked me to help his friend (call him Ralph) find investors for his business.
Offhand, even without knowing either of them, I’m sympathetic. After all, if you keep up with this blog, you’ll know it’s a topic I care about. And I’ve posted here about my recent experience as an angel investor (and if you’re wondering, no, I’m all tapped out at the moment), so I’m not surprised by the question.
I looked at Ralph’s website. It’s an interesting business, local to me, with new technology for an otherwise traditional and low technology business. New materials, a new take on old products. And they’re making a product I use.
So I’m interested in the problem.
(And if you wonder why I’m not being more specific, I don’t have anybody’s permission to mention the business, and seeking investment can be sensitive. Besides which, it’s also possibly illegal (depending on interpretations) to mention a business that’s looking for investment on a blog like this; could be taken as soliciting investment improperly. That’s why I’m not giving details.)
But first, some questions:
1. Are you really sure you want to go that way?
Sometimes I think we all (we entrepreneurs, that is) move too quickly to the investment alternative. Having investors is like having a spouse. No, it’s like having a spouse who is also a boss. Your business is not going to be yours ever again.
Oh? What? You want minority investors who give you a lot of money without attaching any strings? Fat chance. You mean you want somebody who has a lot of money (they have to have a lot of money, to make the transaction legal) and is also relatively naive? And really generous? Good luck with that.
Take a good look at your prospects. Do a business plan, not for outsiders, not formal and hard to do, just a business plan with realistic forecasts for sales and expenses. Then ask yourself whether you can get by without the investment. Can you borrow enough to make it work? Can you live with the burden of debt? Have you considered SBA-backed loans (they are moving again), which lessen the debt burden?
Don’t go down the investment path just because everybody says you should. Think about the rewards of making it work without the outside investors, so you own it all yourself. Food for thought: this post on Planning Startups Stories.
2. Do you have a business plan?
The good news is that you don’t have to have a plan you can show to investors tomorrow. You do, however, need to have a plan for yourself, covering strategy, markets, sales, profits, cash flow, all the key points. These factors are all related to each other and you can’t just wing it. You need to have real numbers.
And it’s not about showing the investors your plan. That may or may not come later. It’s about knowing what you need, and why, and what that’s going to produce.
3. Do you need enough money to interest investors?
Angel investors don’t usually want to deal with less than $100,000, and venture capitalists don’t want to deal with less than a couple of million dollars. Sure, there are exceptions, but those are general rules.
And you can’t just say you want it; you have to be able to show you can use that money to grow the business. You have to have a real plan, what you’re going to spend the money on, how it will increase your business.
If all you need is tens of thousands of dollars, then bootstrap. Maybe you have to get friends and family involved, but really, for less than six figures, it’s not worth it to professional investors.
4. Can you grow your business a lot, in a few years?
Investors who put money into small businesses are taking big risks and they deserve big returns. They don’t have to invest in entrepreneurs, they can lose their money just as easily in the stock market, and they can get safe interest with no risk. So you have to give them the hope of a big payoff.
That means big growth. Can you convince them your business can sell five times what it’s now selling in two years? Or ten or 20 times in five years? That’s what they need to make money worth the risk.
5. Do you have a convincing team?
Investors are going to want track records, people on your team who can run the production, marketing, sales, and administration of your business. They want people who have done that kind of thing before, sucessfully. If you don’t have them on your team, then the investors won’t be interested.
If you can answer yes to all of those questions, then you’ll likely be able to get investment (although not from me, but I can point you in the right direction).
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