Up and Running Blog

March 2010

Where is your website?

by Jay Snider on March 31, 2010

If you’re reading this blog, it’s safe to assume you’re somewhat Web-savvy, right? You’re operating a computer, you have access to the Internet. You found a blog you were interested in reading…

So, do you have a website? If you operate a small business, how do your customers find you?

As a software company employee, I probably spend more time online than the average person. I acknowledge that. But I don’t think I’m too terribly out of the ordinary in my personal (as opposed to professional) reliance on the Internet as a source of information.

Here’s what I know. If I search for a company and can’t find them online, I make certain assumptions. Either they’re a small-time operation, they’re brand new, or they don’t want to be found.

Now, the last possibility — not wanting to be found — is the only acceptable reason to not have any Web presence. And by acceptable, I mean it’s a questionable business decision, but an acceptable rationale for not having a website. If your business plan is to NOT attract new customers or make yourself available to your existing ones, then you’re doing great by not having that website.

invisible

photo by flickr user tonythemisfit

Let’s assume that invisibility is not your goal, though. Maybe you’re a mom and pop operation. You don’t take online orders and you don’t care if your company’s name gets in front of anyone in any other part of the country or world.

You still have customers or clients. And you want them to be able to find you. Maybe all they need to know are your hours of operation, or your phone number, or your street address. Maybe they want to look at your breakfast menu, or whether you service their make/model of car. And maybe it’s midnight… There are too many ‘maybes’ to list. The point is, when even your grandfather has a phone capable of browsing the Internet, it’s more important than ever to make sure that people can find you.

An ad in the yellow pages doesn’t cut it anymore. According to MarketingCharts.com, a 2009 study showed that 63 percent of consumers and small business owners use the Internet as their first source of information. So if you’re not making yourself available to them by having a website (and according to the study, a shocking 56% of small businesses aren’t), you’re basically hiding. At best, you’re making your customers take extra steps. At worst, you’re inviting your customers and potential customers to go to your competition.

You don’t have to be a computer programmer to make a website. In fact, website design is pretty easy, with templates and step-by-step wizards available to guide you through the creation process. You don’t need to know code or be a designer to create something that will look nice and be useful. Companies like our partners at Network Solutions offer great deals on packages that include domain names and hosting, site building tool, and even personalized email addresses.

It’s 2010. Any business, of any size, without a website is simply waiting to be passed by.

-Jay Snider
Palo Alto Software

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Home is Where Business is Good–or Vice Versa?

by Tim Berry on March 31, 2010

About 19 years ago my wife said:

“Tim, we put up with all the downside of owning our own business. Why don’t we get some upside, and move to where we want to live?”

boxesSo we did. We moved from Palo Alto, Calif., to Eugene, Ore. And we’re glad we did.

A friend asked me recently:

What to do when you live in a “startup” dead zone like Orlando? Or other areas of the U.S.?

And I think these thoughts are exact opposites. We voted with our feet, moving from the world’s startup capital to a comfortable university town (the University of Oregon is here) in Oregon.

My friend, on the other hand, would move from where he wants to live (I think–although maybe that’s just where he is) to where business is better.

I have another friend who moved from Italy to the San Francisco Bay area to be where business is better. That’s startling, but I like him, I like his business plan; I think it may work out. And I bet he likes being in the so-called Silicon Valley better than in Italy.

On the other hand, I knew of somebody who moved a high-tech company from California to somewhere in Eastern Europe because costs were so much lower. That didn’t work out.

I heard a serious investor once object to investing in the San Francisco East Bay instead of the Peninsula because “it’s another bridge to cross.”

And my angel investment group has an open bias toward local companies. But there’s a lot less angel investment in Oregon than in California.

What do you think? Is Orlando that much of a disadvantage? Should you move before you start a business, to get a better business climate? And what makes a good business climate? Is it low costs, availability of investment, a lot of potential customers or what?

Or maybe everything is case-by-case. I don’t think there’s a right answer. Some factors:

  • Where do you want to live? What do you like? Do you have a family? I know people who love New York, people who love rural Oregon and lots of places in between.
  • Is there an investment element? I think it’s easier to get high-end venture capital in some places than in others. I think angel investors are spread around the country. And I think relatively few startups need investment.
  • Is there a market or revenue factor? More buyers, better sales in one place, compared with some other?
  • Is there a cost factor? Some larger companies move operations to find lower costs. Do you move your startup before you start?

And for sure, there are a lot of other factors, too. You have to decide for yourself.

(Image: RTImages/Shutterstock)

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disneylandlogo

Disneyland Isn’t Participating in the Recession, Are You?

by Carolyn Higgins on March 30, 2010

When I ask small business owners what their number one challenge in marketing is, I get a range of different answers. Lately I’ve been hearing “the economy,” “the housing market,” “high taxes,” or some other force that is beyond our control.

So where does that leave us? If our biggest marketing challenges are these insurmountable forces that are beyond our control, then how are we to ever succeed?  Doesn’t this seem defeatist to you? Wouldn’t you rather think of marketing challenges in terms of things you can control? Yeah, the economy sucks, but does that mean we should give up? Does that mean we have to sit back and fail?  Absolutely not!  What it means is that we, as small business owners, have an opportunity to re-think our marketing strategies, get creative and boldly claim our piece of the pie (yes, it is a smaller piece. But it’s still pie!).

A marketing challenge is a problem your small business is having that you CAN control. Like: not getting enough leads; not converting enough leads; diminishing customer loyalty; decreasing spend by existing customers, etc.  You’re probably scratching your head, “But all of these things have to do with a bad economy…”   Yes, people are spending less and are more mindful of the purchases they make, but guess what – they are still spending! Are you getting a piece of that, or are you sitting back with a defeatist attitude and not doing anything to capture what market share there is?

disneylandlogoThe economy is bad, there is no denying that. But has everyone stopped buying? No, they haven’t. A friend of mine just went to Disneyland on New Years and it was sold out. He asked, “Where’s this recession I keep hearing about?” Is Disneyland using the recession as an excuse to stop marketing?  Quite the opposite, they are out there more than ever, offering really great deals to those who are sick and tired of eating in every night, watching every penny and skipping more expensive vacations. Disney understands that the economy is not their number one marketing challenge –  reaching their target market with compelling messaging and offers is their challenge.

If you are one of those small business owners who think your biggest marketing challenge is some reality that is out of your control, I want to challenge your thinking: Economies are always going to boom and bust, housing markets will rise and fall, competitors will always come out with a great sale that will attract your market or even make some of your customers think — or worse yet shop. These are not marketing challenges. These are reality.

So, I’ll ask again: What is your number one marketing challenge? And what are you doing to overcome it?


ducttapemarketingbadge Carolyn Higgins is the President and founder of Fortune Marketing Company. Her personal mission is to help small businesses stop wasting money on advertising and promotions that don’t deliver and help you implement an effective marketing system that will bring you more customers – consistently.

For more information about Carolyn Higgins and Fortune Marketing Company please visit FortuneMarketingCompany.com.

Email chiggins@fortunemarketingcompany.com or call us at 707.631.6340.

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Read Ann Handley on Twitter vs. J-school

by Tim Berry on March 25, 2010

I’ve been meaning to post about this for months now: Ann Handley’s Everything I Need to Know About Twitter I Learned in J School. If you’re using Twitter, you should read it.

Ann doesn’t just give us a great list. She also gives us great examples.

And if you’re not using Twitter, it’s still kind of fun. For example, here’s a portion, showing the examples illustrating her first point, “make every word count”:

Post on Twitter

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How to Judge Investors

by Tim Berry on March 25, 2010

I love the title of this post by Matt Mireles: “How I Judge Investors” on his The Metamorphosis blog. The title alone makes a very important point: Investment is like a marriage. Both sides win, or neither side wins.

It is really painful is to see a potentially good business go down the drain because the investors and the founders weren’t compatible. And it happens a lot.

I’ve been on both sides of this table. Yes, you should be judging your investors. It works best as a long-term partnership, and that works best if it makes both sides better.

Early on, Mireles makes this very important point:

“Do I want this guy on my board?” This, above all else, is the question.

It stays good as he says he looks for intelligence in an investor, emphasizing that with a great quote from Steve Young, Hall of Fame quarterback, attorney and private investor. Mirales quotes Young as saying he aims to be “the dumbest guy in the room.”

Matt adds:

The beauty of hanging around and dealing with really smart people is that they have a rub-off effect. Really smart people challenge you and force you to think bigger, harder and, at the risk of sounding completely vague, better. They pick apart your bad ideas quicker…

That’s great stuff. So far.

However, I don’t buy his entire list. Matt wants an investor to be a bit like your favorite character in the movies, secure and self confident, humble, self-aware, and, yes, even happy. Gulp. But I’m really glad he’s making such a list, and writing about it.

I do like the idea that investors should “teach him stuff.” Damn straight.

Some of my favorite investors are those who, regardless of whether they’ve said yes or no, teach me something about my industry, product, market, team, etc. Even if they say no, they’re the ones I’m gonna go back to down the road and try to lure them into the yes column.

I don’t like his idea that he doesn’t want investors who want him to lie. Specifically, his example.

This typically manifests itself in the form of long-term financial projections. “What will your sales be five years from now?”

I don’t buy that. It doesn’t take a great deal of sophistication to understand the difference between lies and projections. I’m sorry, but I want to see some projections and I want them to have the granularity and logic it takes to make them believable. Don’t promise that the seas are going to part; but do come up with some numbers. “How should I know?” doesn’t cut it. The investors are fully aware of uncertainty.

Thanks, by the way, to Nelly Yusupova, @digitalwoman on Twitter, who called this post to my attention. That’s an example of why I like Twitter: I would never have seen the post otherwise. And good luck to Matt Mireles and his venture SpeakerText. In fairness to him, since I’ve been critical in parts of this post, I want to finish quoting his paragraph on his background, with a really strong argument for following his lead in judging people:

In my previous life, I worked for many years as a paramedic in Harlem and the South Bronx. Before that, I fought forest fires on a hotshot crew for the U.S. Forest Service. I have seen what stress does to men (and women). I have seen people die. Lots of ‘em. Babies, too. I have seen how people react, flip out and lose their shit entirely. And I’ve seen people fail, then recover with grace despite mortal danger. And in all this, I learned a little bit about judging the character of men. Quickly. For this, I make no apologies.

Hard to argue with that.

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The 5 Steps To Planning Your Successful Product Launch

by Matt Murren on March 24, 2010

Are you launching a new product or service?

Often when I hear “how do I market my product?”  the first thing I ask about is the business owner’s pre-launch planning process.

Quick warning. There is quite a bit of work involved in a successful product launch. Be prepared to roll up the sleeves a bit. As an entrepreneur, that shouldn’t stop you.

Let’s dive in…

Here are the 5 secrets to planning your product launch:

1)    Define Your Launch Objectives – Is this an internal launch or an external launch? Are you going to launch to your existing customers first? If you have an internal list, this is usually a great way to start and test your launch before investing in a full-blown launch to a wider audience of prospects. Get clear on the type of launch, and then get clear on your objectives. Are you trying to sell a product, or are you trying to build your list. These are really two totally different approaches. Without a solid and measurable objective, your efforts won’t be directed.

2)    Take Inventory – After you are clear on what you want to accomplish in your launch, it is time to take inventory of your launch assets. Your launch assets include your mailing lists, email lists, joint venture partner lists, video, audio, and any other assets you have at your disposal for your launch. If you are launching your product online, you may need to include assets like your website, Web copy, etc.

3)    Craft The Killer Offer – Now that you have taken inventory, it is time to create the offer.  If you haven’t done this yet, now is the time to dig deep and outline the features and benefits for your prospect. Why should they buy your product or service? What guarantee are you going to offer? How are they going to pay for the product or service? How is it delivered? You need to really identify the core drivers for your prospect to move to action and purchase your product. Think about the problem your product solves and make sure your offer speaks to the solution.

a-team4)    Your “A” Team – You are going to need a team to help you with your product launch. Even if it is a small team, you are going to need help from your Web developer, copywriter, Web host, graphics designer, and fulfillment staff. Depending on the size of your launch, you might be wearing all the hats here. My advice is to identify where your strengths are, then outsource and assemble a team to help you be successful.

5)    The Launch Plan – Your launch plan is your blueprint to your entire product launch. It combines the tasks involved and, more importantly, the sequence of events in your product launch. Your launch plans should include email and print copy creation, video creation, landing page creation, and day-by-day plans for the release of content during your launch. One productive way to create the plan is to get your team together for a couple of hours to make sure you have a comprehensive plan covering all areas of your product launch.

When you fail to plan, you plan to fail. I’m sure you’ve heard this before. There are so many details in a good product launch that you need a script to follow. This starts with the pre-launch tasks and goes all the way through fulfilling the orders. Don’t forget to leave some time in there to test prior to firing your first offer out. There is nothing worse than having a great offer only to find out your shopping cart doesn’t work, and prospects can’t place an order.

Product launches are a lot of fun. Don’t get stressed out, just make sure you follow these five steps and you will find it easier to get your product to market.

The good news is that after you create your first product launch, you can recycle many of the assets and planning efforts for your next successful launch.

Go Target, Attack, and Profit with your launch!

ducttapemarketingbadgeMatt Murren is the founder of MarkeFin. MarketFin is an Authorized Duct Tape Marketing Coach and Product Launch Specialist.
Matt specializes in helping business owners manage their product launches online. Follow Matt on Twitter @marketfin!

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How Do You Increase Entrepreneurship Locally?

by Tim Berry on March 24, 2010

If you don’t read Becky McCray’s Small Biz Survival blog, this is a good chance to remind you that you should. It’s been on my blogroll here on this blog for a long time now. And what reminds me is her “Can you teach entrepreneurship” post on that blog a couple of days ago.

Teaching entrepreneurship is a real issue. I’ve had my say on it often enough (try the entrepreneurship education category here). My favorites on the topic on this blog are “Do You Really Want That MBA Degree?” and  “What Degree Does an Entrepreneur Get?” And my all-time favorite, on my main blog, is “5 Entrepreneurship Basics Business Schools Don’t Teach.”

Becky’s post summarizes what must have been a fascinating session at last week’s SXSW conference in Austin. To my mind, the most important point in the post, ironically, is right in the last sentence:

If your city or region is founding angel groups and venture capital funds, they can improve their chance of success by providing more training and information to those investors first.

That’s really important. I’ve been watching how this works as part of the local angel investment group I’m in, the Willamette Angel Conference, which has made training beginning angel investors an important, even fundamental, part of what it’s doing.


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Funny Results from YouTube Auto Caption

by sara on March 23, 2010

For those of us who deal with words and publishing, it’s always exciting to see a new technology come on the scene offering to make our jobs a little easier or more efficient. But caveat emptor. (Or is it caveat receptor when it’s free?)

As some of you know, our in-house business planning expert, Tim Berry, is a rather prolific video speaker, with recorded seminars, webinars, and commentary all available online. In an effort to make Tim’s advice more accessible, over the past year we’ve been adding closed captioning to many of his videos. We tried Captiontube, Overstream, and even (the easiest of all) simply transcribing them as .txt files and letting YouTube figure out the timing. It actually did quite a good job.

So you can imagine how pleased we were to hear that YouTube was releasing the ‘Auto caption’ feature to the public, which would use Google’s speech recognition software to automatically transcribe uploaded videos. It sounded too good to be true…


and it was.

A reminder that while new technological advances can be great, if they say it’s beta… well, it’s probably beta.
—————————————————————–
Just for fun, here’s what else YouTube thought Tim had to say:

“This particular sample fails forecast…”
(we usually call it a sales forecast, but this may be more accurate)

“I’ve got the NBA”
(That would certainly help your investors’ NPV)

“helped to keep your wrinkles strategy”
(ah, yes, it’s all about saving face)

and the first one that had us literally laughing out loud, as Tim tried to advise on metrics that are actually measurable:

“make it all miserable”

Sara Prentice Manela
Editor
Palo Alto Software, Inc.

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A Good Book for Integrating Business with Life

by Tim Berry on March 23, 2010

The only thing that bothers me about this book at all is that it shouldn’t be so unusual that a book combines business with life, suggesting that we ought not to pull those two forces apart.

Amazon.com: Life Entrepreneurs

ISBN: 0787988626
ISBN-13: 9780787988623

One of the co-authors, Christopher Gergen, gave me this book after I visited his class at Duke in January. I read it on the plane back home, still in January, and I’ve been meaning to post about it ever since.

It’s full of real stories about real people who developed businesses around who they were as people. Seems obvious to me, and we take it for granted; but it rarely happens. We develop the business idea, then the business plan, then, if things go well, the business. It starts like this:

Under the hot Virginia sun, we discussed how our penchant for creating new ventures might fit into the context of our lives. Would we apply the entrepreneurial mind-set of opportunity recognition, vision creation, innovation and initiative to create a better life? Could we creatively design a life aligned with our values? Could we lead our lives in such a way that our work, life and purpose would be not only balanced but integrated?

So they talked to people they knew. People who had done things they admired. People who had managed to do things that seemed like the integration they were talking about. And from that, they pulled together their stories and, from there, looked for how those stories might relate to the rest of us. As lessons and frameworks.

As the book develops, the authors end up with what feels like a series of related steps to recommend. It’s interesting, to me at least, how these sound predictable when we read them one by one in a simple list (discover core identity, awaken to opportunity, envision your future and so on) but in context, as the the authors pull them out of and put them back into real stories of real people, the book works very well.

It’s an easy read, not because the subject matter is easy, but because stories, and lessons from stories, work very well.

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Get a Gofer -littleangels

Positive Thinking + Business Plan Pro = Success,

by Jay Snider on March 22, 2010

Camille Rose believes in the power of positive thinking. After starting and running several successful businesses, she says she’s learned how to reframe the thinking that dooms many would-be entrepreneurs. “When you start down the path of striking out on your own, [you need to] realize that you’re your own worst enemy. Your fear will feed your negative thoughts. You must stop those thoughts in their tracks and replace them with positive thoughts of success,” the Lafayette, California entrepreneur says. As she launches her newest venture, Get a Gofer, this month, it’s clear she’s taking her own advice.

Get a Gofer -littleangelsThe business plan for Get a Gofer was not her first, says Camille, who estimates she’s written around 20 of them, both for herself and for other people. “I have an idea and I immediately want to start writing a business plan. Not all the businesses I’ve written plans for have come to fruition obviously,” she notes. Get a Gofer, with it’s catchy slogan “Spend more time with your little angels,” she says, clearly wasn’t one of those “no-goes.”

“Errand services nowadays are mostly provided by work-at-home individuals or large companies who market their services to other large companies. We are filling an enormous gap in the market by creating an easy-to-use, affordable service for busy, elderly, and disabled individuals.”

Rose has successfully launched several other businesses, including a wine exporting business and a kebab lounge. And for each of them, she used Business Plan Pro to put together the plan. In fact, she’s raised more than $1 million — both from investors and from SBA loans –  for her ventures, thanks in no small part, she says, to the business plans she wrote.

According to Camille, the organization Business Plan Pro provides makes the process of writing the business plan easier. “My challenge is always keeping my business ideas documented. When I’m in the start-up phase, I do a ton of research.  I use Business Plan Pro’s tasks to capture my research in any given area.  I write my initial thoughts, paste URLs to blogs, statistics, links to articles and more, under the various tasks in the software (e.g., Market Analysis, Sales Strategy, etc.)  Then when I’m ready to start writing I have my initial thoughts and all my research already organized for me under each task, so the writing process is so much easier.”

Writing a business plan is a real learning experience, according to Camille. She says she always discovers something about her business through writing the plan, “which is why I didn’t launch some of the businesses I wrote plans for.” Seeing the cash or work-flow pitfalls before investing time and energy into a bad business idea is one advantage of good business planning.

In addition to Get a Gofer, Rose also owns and runs Pink Purse Ventures, which has been providing consulting services to women-owned businesses for more three years. She’s now putting all that she’s learned about business planning to work, and growing Pink Purse Ventures at the same time. Starting in May, she’ll be holding business-planning seminars for women, where she’ll encourage them to push past their fears to make their business dreams reality. And she’ll be using Business Plan Pro to lead them through the planning process.

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