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Priorities for Entrepreneurs #4

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I recently had the opportunity to review a book for entrepreneurs that had some great advice, a list of seven priorities for the critical first year of business. The more I thought about this list, the more important that it seemed to me. So I have decided to create a series of posts elaborating on this theme. While “Young Guns“, by Robert Tuchman, is targeted to a just-out-of-college-and-wondering-what-to-do market, I believe that these priorities apply to anyone starting a new venture.

Talk to absolutely everyone about what you do.

During the first year, you must be the mouthpiece for your business. Talking to people about your business at parties, at family gatherings, at outings like sporting events should become second nature. Consider every person who crosses your path a sales opportunity, even if he or she might not ever be the end customer. In addition to continual word-of-mouth marketing, pick up the phone and call reporters to let them know what you are doing.

This strategy of always talking about your business is essential. Blog about it. Tweet about it. Leave comments on other people’s blogs to show your knowledge and credibility.

I also like Tuchman’s advice about reaching out to reporters. In fact, Free Press Release.com has a service that allows you to publicize your business and Peter Shankman has a pretty cool service called Help a Reporter Out that allows you to answer questions or provide interviews to journalists looking for help with stories. [Ed. Note: I do this all the time, it is fantastic]

Do you have any other suggestions for getting the word out about your business? Share them in the comments.

Priorities for Entrepreneurs #3

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I recently had the opportunity to review a book for entrepreneurs that had some great advice, a list of seven priorities for the critical first year of business. The more I thought about this list, the more important that it seemed to me. So I have decided to create a series of posts elaborating on this theme. While “Young Guns“, by Robert Tuchman, is targeted to a just-out-of-college-and-wondering-what-to-do market, I believe that these priorities apply to anyone starting a new venture.

3. Get your website up and running

Your website has to say “This is who we are” to the world in a way that is compelling. A great web design doesn’t have to cost a fortune. If you don’t have the HTML skills or graphic talent in-house, look for a young and hungry web designer who’s looking for a shot, as you are.

Expect to update your website regularly and improve it constantly over time. Having a website with months-old or irrelevant content is a real deal-killer. It makes your company look stagnant, at best.

website-screencapAt the worst, it makes your company look unprofessional and incompetent. Your website is your online brochure, your 24-hour answering service, and your business resume, all rolled into one. There are also compeling reasons for your website to include a blog.When considering content for your business blog, you should consider calling one of your customers and asking them for an interview.

You can then ask some questions and post the Q & A right on your website, with a link to the customer’s site (sharing is good!). I recommend that these interview questions should be along the lines of:

  • How can our business help you succeed?
  • Why is our product/service important to you?
  • What is the impact of this decision upon your own business?
  • What happens if you don’t do something about this situation by using our product/service?
  • If you were to identify the business tactics most critical to your success, what would be number one?

When you understand your customer’s emotional connection with your product/service and how it influences their need to buy, you can position your product/service in the market for what it will do to address that emotion.

If you can help them address their “need-behind-the-need,” then a prospect becomes a probable purchaser and, ultimately, a customer. Your website is a very powerful tool for doing just that.

Skills for Journalists (and Others too)

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Katie Renn prepares for her class, History of Photography, in Ernie Pyle 210.
Katie Renn prepares for her class, "History of Photography," in Ernie Pyle 210.

Last week, Shel Holtz delivered a keynote talk to the faculty of a university Journalism department. He went out onto Twitter for some ideas and put together a really impressive list. I believe that these skills have a much broader application than simply for Journalists…

What should journalism schools be teaching their students?

Whatever those jobs are, journalism students will be better equipped to qualify for them if they have learned the following as part of their education:

* SEO—Most of what I remember about writing a basic news article is consistent with the principles of on-page optimization, but the importance of writing so people can find your articles shouldn’t be underestimated. It’s particularly important since students in journalism classes today don’t have a clue whether they’ll be working for a centralized news organization or some kind of distributed network. This synchs nicely with my next point:

* How to think like a freelancer—With nobody certain what economic model or (more likely) combination of models will pan out for professional news, journalism departments need to instill a mindset in students that will allow them to tap into whatever opportunities arise. That’s quite a shift from the view of professors when I was in journalism school: If it’s not a daily newspaper, major newsmagazine or network TV news channel, it’s not journalism.

* Flexibility—Print, broadcast, radio, online…journalists had better be prepared to report anywhere. When I worked in journalism, I was a print reporter with no interest in electronic journalism, which was a whole different ballgame. Those lines are gone and today’s students need to be prepared to do it all.

* A continuum of reporting—When I was a reporter, I filed a single story following on-site reporting of news or research for an investigative piece. Today, a single report is inadequate. Read more >>

What other applications could these skills have? Discuss in the comments.

(Image credit: Courtesy of Indiana University.)

First Year Priorities for Entrepreneurs #2

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I recently had the opportunity to review a book for entrepreneurs that had some great advice, a list of seven priorities for the critical first year of business. The more I thought about this list, the more important that it seemed to me. So I have decided to create a series of posts elaborating on this theme. While “Young Guns“, by Robert Tuchman, is targeted to a just-out-of-college-and-wondering-what-to-do market, I believe that these priorities apply to anyone starting a new venture.

2. Take daily action on your business plan

What separates successful entrepreneurs from floundering entrepreneurs? A daily commitment to fulfilling the benchmarks, both short- and long-term, you have set for your company. Every day, you have to be willing to put the time in and do what needs to be done to move your business forward, in a measurable way. For some people, this means making 10 sales calls a day, no matter what. For others, it means conducting a daily status meeting and troubleshooting with your team.

What, you don’t have a business plan? That is okay, get a piece of paper and write down the answers to these questions:

  1. How would you describe the people that your business will serve, either with a product or service?
  2. Where will your company be at this time next year? In five years?
  3. What is your primary goal for your business to accomplish in the next six months?
  4. List three smaller, more specific, goals that you need to accomplish in 30-, 60-, and 90 days to achieve the six-month goal.
  5. Do the same for your one-year goal.

There, now you have a business plan. This piece of paper should be handy at all times, and you should be referring to it frequently. I also recommend that you put reminders in your calendar for one week before the due dates of your “smaller, more specific” goals. Now, about that daily action. “I just created 6 short term goals, what is there to do every day?“, you might ask. Well, each of those 6 smaller goals should be a project in itself – a group of actions & tasks that make up the sequence of activities that accomplish the goal. A project called “Optimize Keywords for Website” is a good short term project, but “Review Analytics and Referral Logs” (for example) is not  very specific. A better set of actions and tasks would be something like this:

  • Review analytics – collect keywords from search results, measure frequency of keywords, look for unusual uses; Review referral logs for inbound links, visit those sites and leave comments/join in the discussion

You will find that by incorporating daily, tactical actions your strategic goals will start to move closer to actualization.

7 First Year Priorities for Entrepreneurs

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I recently had the opportunity to review a book for entrepreneurs that had some great advice, a list of seven priorities for the critical first year of business. The more I thought about this list, the more important that it seemed to me. So I have decided to create a series of posts elaborating on this theme. While “Young Guns” is targeted to a just-out-of-college-and-wondering-what-to-do market, I believe that these priorities apply to anyone starting a new venture.

In the book Robert Tuchman writes:

1. Build a culture of action and enthusiasm – During the first year, you will face a lot of questions about your experience.The best – and probably only – way to overcome them is to impress your clients with your vigor and dynamism. If you want to be perceived as youthful, forward-thinking, and results-oriented, be proactive! Reward your people for taking the initiative. You’ll have a huge competitive advantage over established companies. Many cliets will pay, and even take a bit of a risk, to get young, energetic minds on their side.

Indeed. In fact, you don’t have to be young, just have that “youthful” mind-set and a good grasp of the new tools and tactics of business and marketing. If you are here reading this you are probably involved with the “Social Media Scene” and, no matter what your age, you have something to teach older companies – by way of eating their lunch.

Action and Enthusiasm Can Be Contagious

action-260Cultivating and maintaining a pro-active and empowered team in your business have the potential to take your business over and above your competitors, especially those that have been around for a while and may have slipped into some bad habits. A personal example: When I used to work for a Marriott hotel we were encouraged to take care of our guests in every way. One of our guiding principles was (I am paraphrasing here), “If you encounter a guest with a problem you own that problem until the guest is satisfied.”

In theory, this meant that the employee who discovered/encountered the problem was in charge of solving it to the guest’s satisfaction. In practice this meant that our staff went out of their way to make sure that guests didn’t have problems, and if they did every employee knew how far they could go to fix it, and when they would need to reach out for help. In any case, I saw many front-line employees handling guest issues that may not have been entirely within their job description, either by themselves or with the help of the staff members who were responsible for that area of service. I believe that this policy was largely responsble for the high level of morale and pride that the staff had in their jobs and workplace – and the Triple A 4-diamond rating the hotel received.

What are you doing to cultivate a culture of action and enthusiasm in your business? Please share in the comments.
(You can read the review and enter a contest to win an autographed copy of the book at this link Book Review: Young Guns by Robert Tuchman.)

Using Sales Techniques in Relationship Management

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Long Term Customers With New Needs

Most sales people have experienced that moment when a customer says, “Oh, you have that? I just ordered one from someone else!” Often this happens because we have failed to continue to treat existing customers as prospects.

Even with a reliable customer, we may miss opportunities when our product line or their responsibilities change.

woman-phoneOn every call be sure to:

  • Find out what’s changed for them since you spoke last
  • Alert them to any changes in your product line or services
  • Make sure they have your latest catalog or product list
  • Go back and ask again, “I know you said you don’t need _____, has anything changed since we last spoke about that?”

Even our most loyal customers won’t buy from us unless they know we can fulfill a need when they need it fulfilled, and they don’t have our catalog memorized.