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Just take the black eye with a smile…

August 25th, 2009 :: Michael Dougherty

I just got out of a “social media” round table discussion with several individuals whose companies are still either new to or on the verge of starting with social media. What I found the most interesting was that they were still trying to fit the square peg of traditional marketing into the round hole of social media. Now don’t get me wrong, the two work hand in hand, but you can’t force one to be the other.

Where does getting a black eye come into all of this?

The biggest concern I heard was “If we open our organization up to these tools then we’ll see all the negative things people say about us.”

Well…duh.

I’ve also got some other really bad news for you if that’s your primary concern for not getting involved in social media…people are going to speak negatively about your
company/organization/product/service whether you like it/want them to or not. Social media doesn’t stop that, but gives the world a more transparent environment to air their grievances. I am strictly going to focus on the social media side of things, but I believe this can translate to the real world as well.

You’ll be surprised to know that most people I have talked to who complain on social media do so in hopes that the person/company/service they are complaining about will actually hear them. Imagine what you could do when the biggest advocate of an issue with your service, becomes your biggest advocate to your solution.

How you handle/react to those negative comments, both in the real world and in the realm of social media, will separate you from the others in your industry, and earn some valued respect and appreciation from clients.

Kermit Pattison, over at nytimes.com, put out an article called “Managing an Online Reputation“* in which he goes over some great advice, but I would like to offer a few of my own.

1) P.T Barnum is famously quoted as saying, “You can’t please all the people all the time.” Recognize that no matter what you do you’re going to get bad comments from someone. Probably for reasons well beyond your control, maybe for something you didn’t even realize would be a cause of pain for someone, but it will happen. I believe it is what you do with that information that will set you apart from your competition.

2) Know this isn’t your time to attack back, but your time to listen. If you can source those people/complaints out, source out the reason for their unhappiness, and do your best to resolve it…I believe you are more likely to see an unhappy client/vendor/etc. become someone who looks at your company/services/etc. with a bit more understanding. Just don’t go killing yourself trying to find them. Don’t become so obsessed on trying to find that black eye that you end up giving yourself one by neglecting other areas of your business.

3) Smile. Black eyes hurt, but they aren’t the end of the world. I look at them as learning experiences and sometimes even badges of honor. Don’t live in fear of when or where the black eye is going to come from, but be prepared, when it does, to take it like a champ. Don’t fall back and whine. Get out there and take the next one with an even bigger grin. You are here to server your customers good AND bad. One should not get attention over the other, but one should make you work harder to make sure you/your company/your services are doing everything you can to make sure that misstep won’t happen again.

4) Learn from it damn it! You got the black eye for one reason or another. The worst thing you can do is ignore the reason you got it and act just as surprised the second time around when you get one for the same reason. For Pete’s sake (who says that these days anyway…well…me), take away some knowledge from the experience.

In closing, dear reader, black eyes are going to happen. I’ve had my fair share and probably have more in store in the future. Some we deserve, some we’re unsure if we earned, and some we know should be someone else’s. In the end, black eyes fade and tomorrow is another day.

Until next time, as always, thank you for reading and stay wicked.

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Tags: Business Tips, entrepeneurship, entrepreneurship, Marketing, michael dougherty, millennials, small business, Small Business Success Index, Small Business Trends
Posted in Entrepreneurs, Marketing, small business, social media, Web Design | No Comments »

Are Your Marketing Pieces Collecting Dust Or Momentum?

August 20th, 2009 :: Michael Dougherty

I have to be honest; a pet peeve of mine is walking into someone’s marketing closet and seeing boxes of brochures, t-shirts, and various items of marketing intent collecting in boxes, months, if not years, after they were printed with the intention of promoting the company.

I have seen this scenario happen so often it’s become a mission of mine to be nosey and ask why. Here is just a few of the answers I’ve gotten:

“Well, it cost so much money we only give it out at special occasions. Then we forgot they were there.”

“We figured they’d end up in someone’s trash anyway.”

“What?! Those things? We over ordered.”

“We just made those to shut [insert department] up and they never used them.”

I am honestly floored each time. I want to grab these knuckleheads and ask how their owners of their company feel about them bludgeoning their marketing budget to death with stupidity. If they are the owner I want to smack them with their own ledger.

I am frustrated with the lack of use of these pieces. I am annoyed at the lack of hustle on the part of the company to get these pieces of hard earned marketing dollars in the hands of as many people as possible. I am upset for the loss of marketing dollars that could have gone into something they would have more heart to promote with greater gusto.

I want to rescue these pieces of marketing budget waste discarded to the island of forgotten marketing ideas. They could be in the hands of hopeful clients or advocates for your company instead of in boxes. They could be on display in their front lobby or part of every sales persons pitch. True these pieces could end up in the trashcan at someone else’s shop, but the money has been spent. I’d rather they be somewhere other than the closet of the company that ordered them.

Take stock of your marketing pieces around your office. Does the above describe the state of the marketing pieces in your closet? If so, dust them off, make sure they are relevant, and put them in as many hands as you can. Make it the Fire Sale of your marketing pieces. Everything Must Go.

If your marketing pieces are out of date, or no longer relevant, take them out and give them a proper burial in your trashcan. Always keep one piece for yourself as a reminder of things you’ve done, right and wrong, but it’s time to let those wasted marketing dollars go. It’s also time to look at what was the reason they were created in the fist place.

Before you create your next, what seems like, brilliant marketing piece I want you to think of these questions:

Do you honestly intend on putting every single piece of material in the hands of every prospect or client once they are created?
Do you know how you are going to make $1 back on ever dollar you spend on your marketing pieces?
Why are you creating these marketing pieces to begin with?
Do you have the money to waste if you never move a single item?

IF you can answer these questions honestly and with the intent of success then who am I to stop you. What I do want from you is that the minute you open that box of whatever marketing goodness you ordered and PAID FOR that you set the first aside for yourself and then get those pieces out as quickly as possible.

Put them out so many places, and in so many hands, people wonder what is motivating you. After all of your hard work of getting them out the first time you hear “Oh…I saw that [insert location]” I assure you that you will feel proud. Then I fully expect you to take that opportunity and get closer to the sale.

Don’t get me wrong, these pieces are just the gatekeepers for you. They are your little PR machines at work. It will be up to you to leverage their awareness into the next sale, but please, for the love of Pete don’t let these little gems of your marketing budget go to waste in a closet left to be forgotten.

So, dear reader, take stock of your marketing pieces and ask yourself this… are your marketing pieces collecting dust or momentum?

Until next time, as always, thank you for reading and stay wicked.

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Tags: brochure, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, Generational Marketing, Marketing, marketing pieces, michael dougherty, small business, Small Business Success Index, Small Business Trends
Posted in Entrepreneurs, Generational Marketing, Marketing, Resources, small business, Thought Leadership | 1 Comment »

SUCCESS STORY OF THE WEEK: Real Estate Consultant & Realtor Danilo Bogdanovic Relies on Social Media to Market His Business

August 18th, 2009 :: Rachel Claremon

This is the second in our series of small business Success Stories that we will be featuring weekly leading up to the inaugural GrowSmallBiz Conference on Tuesday, September 29, in Washington, D.C.

Danilo Bogdanovic has been a residential real estate consultant and realtor for over five years. His northern Virginia small business relied solely on word-of-mouth and personal referrals until three years ago, when he first diversified into the world of social media and quickly found cost-effective marketing success online.

According to recent Small Business Success Index findings, technology usage by small businesses is growing despite the recession, and particularly in the area of social media. Over just the past 6 months, the percentage of small businesses using social media has grown from 12% to 17%. Being a relatively early adopter of social media marketing practices has proved vital to Danilo’s real estate business. He estimates that 75% of his current business can be directly or indirectly attributed to his two blogs (LoudounScene.com and LoudounForeclosures.com) and other social media channels like Facebook and Twitter.

According to Danilo, “I started reading real estate blogs in summer of 2006. I realized that real estate marketing strategies and tactics were changing. Consumers want relevant and hyper-local information immediately and they want it easily accessible which to me meant online. Also, consumers wanted transparency and honesty from real estate agents. What better way to meet the demands of consumers than having an online destination where they could quickly and easily find relevant, honest, and easily digestible information about real estate. That’s how I decided to launch LoudounScene.com.”

“I’d already been using social media like Facebook for fun and personal reasons, but in talking with others in the real estate business and watching how businesses in other industries began to leverage these mediums to interact with customers, I knew I had to incorporate these channels into my marketing strategy. I’ve learned a lot…The social media community is very selfless and incredibly good at sharing information and tips with one another. The general mentality is ‘we’re all in this together’. ”

Today, Danilo’s blogs are his primary marketing channel, allowing him to build business relationships with people he would not have had any other opportunity to connect with, providing him with a digital equivalent of “word-of-mouth referrals.” The blogs provide readers with local real estate information and guidance on the purchase/sales process, allowing Danilo to establish and enhance his credibility as a local real estate expert.

In addition to his blogs, Danilo also uses Facebook and Twitter to communicate with fellow real estate professionals, other colleagues and clients, past and current. Twitter also allows him to provide instant updates on properties he is visiting and to highlight great real estate deals. Danilo says he spends a few hours per day on social media efforts, but because he generates so much business through these tools, he is able to cut back on time doing tasks that many other agents do, including broker office functions, Chamber of Commerce meetings, and preparing print ads.

Danilo’s final advice for small business owners who haven’t yet embraced social media: “If you’re nervous, just try it out you’ll be surprised at how others, even your customers will help you figure it out.”

Now tell us your story! As a small business owner, you put your heart and soul into your work, but that effort often goes largely unnoticed. This is your chance to tell everyone about your company and brag about what you have done to make it a success. We will be publishing one story each week leading up to the big event and giving the business owner a free ticket to the GrowSmartBiz Conference on Tuesday, September 29, in Washington, D.C. The next selection will take place on Monday, August 17.

Please submit all entries to growsmartbiz@networksolutions.com by Monday, September 21, 2009. All entries have a 500-word maximum and should include the challenges you have faced, especially given the recent economic downturn, and innovative ways you have overcome them. The earlier you submit an entry, the more opportunities you have to be chosen! All entrants not selected will receive a discounted admission to the GrowSmartBiz Conference.

Disclaimer: All winners will be informed by a Network Solutions representative prior to their story being published on the GrowSmartBiz Blog. Network Solutions is not responsible for the winners’ travel accommodations. If contest winners are unable to attend the GrowSmartBiz Conference for any reason, tickets are not redeemable for cash, merchandise, or any other item of value. In the event the winner cannot attend, ticket can be transferred to another party.

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Tags: entrepreneurship, GrowSmartBiz Conference, success story
Posted in Entrepreneurs, Events, Marketing, social media | 6 Comments »

Rules for Entrepreneurs #2: Pay Yourself First

June 9th, 2009 :: Steven Fisher

This article was originally posted on Solutions Are Power, but the series is now residing on Grow Smart Business.

I originally wrote this on VentureFiles which is now part of the Technosailor Galaxy of Blogs but as Aaron Brazell, Editor and fearless leader of Technosailor.com said, this post is more relevant than ever when you are trying to keep your business running and growing (even in this economy). I originally wrote the post about a year ago so below is the original post and after that is an update that tries to do a little reflection on doing this during the current state of the economy.

Original Post:

Over the last 9 years and two startups I have learned many things and screwed up royally in some cases. This series is about providing you best practices of lessons learned and avoiding the mistakes I have already made.

In the past, I have had good years and bad years. When you have employees, they expect to be paid and when you mess with payroll (and payroll taxes, but that is a post for another time) you create such a negative culture that nothing will get done.

With that said, when you are starting your business regardless if it is a service or product company, you will have startup costs and probably forgo paying yourself for 6-12 months to keep growing the business. That is fine and to be expected. What you should not do (and what I did) is keep adding staff and sacrifice your own salary in the name of growth. If you keep going like that and have a bad quarter you will have nothing saved for a rainy day and if the business fails you will probably be in immense debt and get nothing out of the business.

Granted, the balance between growth and cash flow is a tenuous one but it is one thing you should never defer to someone else in beginning. Plus, there is a difference between creating a lifestyle business and an enterprise. A lifestyle business is really making enough money for yourself and having some contractors or 1-2 people that gives you a good salary but is more about freedom. An enterprise is a business that scales and gets big over time but you will be working intense amounts in the beginning but will need to hire those smarter than you with the intention that you are looking for an exit and will have time for freedom when you cash out.

So when you are growing the business you should work the first 6-12 months paying off the initial capital expenses and getting about 6 months of cash flow for yourself before you hire anyone else. Once you have that done, start paying yourself something, even if it is small and will ramp up over six months, pay yourself first. This will get you in the habit of being committed to making the business pay for itself and you so you are not worrying about living month to month and lets you find some resources to help you deliver while you continue to sell and grow the business.

Once you are looking at hiring someone use these two rules as a starting basis:

- Have six months of payroll for that person in the bank on top of your salary

- Have 90 days of projects or sales committed for that person to deliver so they not only have something to do but are earning their keep.

You may have to be conservative at first in your growth but in the end you will scale better and create a business that is focused on delivery and customer service without putting you and your employees on a cash flow roller coaster.

Update, One Year Later:

When I read that post I reflect on the mistakes of past and having had a business through the dot com bust and subsequent recession. Granted, it was not as deep or as long as this one, but the word that comes to mind is, balance. And while it holds true that you need to pay yourself first before you keep growing, the original post was written with the tone of growth and not reduction which may be more likely these days.

When you are growing you are tempted to throw caution to the wind and sacrifice your pay in order to hire that extra person that keeps the idea factory turning out wonderful widgets. When times are good and the sales are going upward, your risk threshold increases. When times are tight, you might feel like you are holding on with your fingertips to a 5,000 overhang below you and no way to see up over the ledge. In these cases, it is natural for people have a tendency to pull WAY back into their shells and not hire when they know they need to or lay people off in order to stay cash positive. In this case, you might sacrifice your entire salary to keep people on board. While this might sound noble, I have done this and it usually ends badly.

This is where the word “balance” comes in.

You can only go so far to reduce staff and pile tasks up on people that are probably already overworked, but cutting down too much can keep you from potentially delivering to clients in the end making things worse. Look to reduce costs in other ways, like office services you may not critically need, or ask if people would volunteer (including you) to take a 5% pay cut so we can keep everyone and deliver at the level of quality clients have come to expect so we can keep our clients happy and ride out this recession together.

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Tags: Business Tips, Entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship, Rules for Entrepreneurs Series, small business, steven fisher
Posted in Entrepreneurs, Rules for Entrepreneurs Series, small business | No Comments »

Rules for Entrepreneurs #1: Make Sure Your Business Card Doesn't Get Thrown Out

June 2nd, 2009 :: Steven Fisher

This article was originally posted on Solutions Are Power, but the series is now residing on Grow Smart Business.

Last year when I wrote for my blog, Venture Files (now owned by Technosailor), I wrote a post about business cards called “Business Card FAIL“. It was a very popular topic and seemed to strike a cord with many people. As time has gone on and I have seen a ton more people out freelancing or starting their own business in the last few months, I thought it would be good to do an update.

Now, I am a sucker for great design and great branding. To me it sets you apart from the tiny businesses that don’t invest in a good branding package from the beginning. Granted, there are many companies that are totally word of mouth and don’t really need it in their particular business so a basic card will do just fine.

However, there are many professions where people will judge you, knowingly or unknowingly, by your presentation and your business card, along with your attire and attitude will convey this to potential clients. Some great business card designs and other inspirational designs, many of which don’t meet the test in the original Business Card FAIL post, are useful in the right situation.

So I have to take back adjust much of what I wrote in the “Business Card FAIL” post and approach this from a different angle.

So here is some updated advice to ensure your business card doesn’t get thrown out:

1.) Tell me what you do. Quickly.

I like this from the original post:

“Business cards are supposed to have the usual information – name, address, e-mail, title, phone, company name. To make some real impact, you should use the space on the front of the card to have a single statement below your company name that is your main marketing message. For example “Next Generation in Sales Software” let’s me know you are innovative, provide sales software and are a tech company. Simple.

You can also use the back of the card for this too but don’t jam it full of sentences or a big paragraph. 2-3 sentences at most and it should build on the marketing message you have on the front. You can also use the back for the marketing message itself to change it up a bit.”

I have a friend that uses the traditional back of his business card. He hands it to them with the back facing up. Very smart and very memorable.

2.) Don’t jam your web site onto your business card

Ever been on a date and the person tries to tell you their whole life story in between breadsticks and dessert? Same thing. This is in the same vein as number one but I had to say it again.

3.) You can be cool, but be relevant to your audience

In my original post I really bashed cards that went outside the box and I really should take that back. Nothing bores me more than getting a Times New Roman 12 point font business card and although they are probably very competent and very nice, they don’t stick in my mind when I might need them or want to recommend them.

What I really didn’t get into last time was the most important – Know your audience. People will expect a certain thing from you and if you push the envelope just a little bit it will work beautifully. If you go to far they will think you are trying to hard and throw your card out.

4.) If you use funky materials, have a purpose

I love great looking cards and there are some really creative ways to use a business card. My original post really judged a bad business card if I couldn’t write on it. Now some business cards are just really out there, but I have seen cards that fit the business and the approach really well. My dad, who has been in business for 32 years runs an engineering firm and their cards use the same materials (mylar) they use to create the master drawings for blueprints. Very cool and unique.

5.) Your LaserJet does not count as a professional printer

For those of us that remember dot-matrix printers and doing our term papers with them it really couldn’t compare to the LaserJet that your parents had at the office that was all sorts of sexy. If you were able to get them to print it out for you at work (if you didn’t wait until the night before) it looked awesome and might give you a couple of extra points for a good grade. Same thing here. Now everyone has color a LaserJet and thinks they are a print shop. Not so fast dude.

This is where professional printers are worth their weight in gold and will make your beautiful design look fantastic on the right card stock. Think about it. You spent a lot of money on a logo and an design and you print it yourself? I don’t think so.

6.) Make sure it works on a card scanner

If you get alot of business cards these days, you probably use a business card scanner or your assistant does. For many people, if it can’t scan they will toss it instead of typing everything in manually. This is the risk you will run using the more funky and edgy types of cards. Hence, you are warned.

7.) And for goodness sake, get a domain name and a PROPER email address

I like this too from the original post:

“Nothing says “amateur” than using a Yahoo/Hotmail/AOL/Gmail e-mail address as your main address. I mean come on, a domain name and hosted e-mail account is not expensive these days. The biggest perpetrators are usually those trying to be “consultants” but have a day job and this is their side thing or they are just starting out and haven’t talked to one person about marketing.”

With all the new laid off workers going freelance and doing the consulting thing, this an excellent way to show that you are in it to win and build a business. I do make an exception if it is your personal business card and your are using it to find a job. Still there, I would recommend that you get your own domain and put your CV up there and market yourself in the same way.

We want to hear about your bad business card experiences

Since there are so many bad business cards out there I couldn’t capture the sum of things that you my reader have probably seen. Please use the comments as your place to be funny, trash bad business cards and most of all call people out on their bad business card protocol.

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Tags: business cards, entrepreneurship, Steve Fisher
Posted in Rules for Entrepreneurs Series | 5 Comments »