Category Archives: Biz Dev

Feb27

Creating Change

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Creating Change

Ann Adams and Liz Brensinger of Green Heron Tools wanted to find and sell gardening tools for women – and not just ones that had been given a touch of pink to feminize the look of them.

Just one problem… they couldn’t find any tools specifically made for women.

So they set about to study what would be needed, got a research grant, and designed a hybrid shovel-spade that took into account the differences in how women use the tools, their strengths and weaknesses, and -presto- a new line of tools for women was created.

Creating change is often driven by a need.  Remember that the mother of invention, is necessity.

Embracing change can also be driven by need.  For example, I will gratefully embrace a shovel that enables me to work the way my body is designed to work and save my shoulders and lower back from the excruciating results of my gardening efforts.

Figuring out what need is being addressed by a change is part of learning to absorb that change and move on, in life as well as in business.

Creating change is the entrepreneur’s (and artist’s) greatest tool… find a need and fill it, or find a new way of looking at something – both work to build a stronger, better business and grow the potential client base.

Go out and make some changes!

Feb21

Welcome to OZ

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Welcome to OZ

OZ – the Outer Zone.

Welcome to OZ.

If you are an artist, craftsperson, small business person, consultant – you have broken the barrier of the Comfort Zone and moved into the Outer Zone.

Or have you?

One of the problems with the Comfort Zone is that we tend to rebuild it wherever we land, after breaking through the membrane of complacency.

As business people, we rely on our strengths to carry us through.  And every so often something new occurs, and requires an adjustment to the Zone.

Change.

It is inevitable, and like death and taxes, it requires an enormous will power and several experts to thwart, and usually – you only windup forestalling the inevitable.

How do you learn to embrace change?

That will be the subject of the next post… in the meantime, enjoy OZ and remember to “Follow the Yellow Brick Road”.

 

Feb17

The cost of doing biz

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The cost of doing biz

There are a lot of folks out there struggling.  The cost of doing business is so very expensive that it makes it seem like a Herculean task to try to navigate through all the different tools and decide what to use for what – and get the most bang for your buck (a very important consideration).

So I am here to tell you about two services that are FREE, that can help most consultants, small business owners and even the occasional artist.

The first is FreeConference.com – it enables you to have a conference call, for free.  Hence the name.  LOL.  Seriously – if you do phone training, need to have a meeting with people across town or across the states – this is a great tool.   You can tie it to your Evernote.com application for reminders, if you like.  You get up to 4 hours of free conference time for up to 150 participants.  For additional costs, you can record the conference call – which works great if you plan to put a copy of  the call on your website.  It is easy to set up, and you can send emails to your participants with the phone number and pass code to use for the call.

What would you use it for?  Team meetings, collaborations, fundraising, study groups – the possibilities, as they say, are endless.

The second tool, enabling you to do webinars – is Anymeeting.com .  It enables you to have a webinar (voice and web-based presentation which allows you to share desktops) .  As with the first tool, there are some cool free features and the best feature (in my humble opinion) is that there are no downloads needed.

How would you use it?  Presentations that rely on slides or pictures (which you can show on your desktop), training, collaborations, study groups, orientation meetings,  weekly status meetings, interviews – you can do a lot.  You can even charge for your webinar using this tool.  And they have training tools available so you can easily learn how to use this tool.

TGIF – ponder how you can use these tools to improve your business or just have a great weekend (or both).

Feb13

Fact or Fiction

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Fact or Fiction

All too often in life, our gullibility is played on.  We know better but we want to believe.

In business, this can happen in a deal that is taking too long to finalize or in an email asking you to forward it so someone or something can be helped.

In both cases, your gut tells you one thing…but you want to believe that the deal will happen, and that Microsoft can really mysteriously track your email and send a dollar to help the someone or something (they can’t by the way).

First, always trust your gut.  If it seems too good to be true, then it probably isn’t true.

Second, follow NCIS Jethro Gibbs Rule #3: Don’t believe what you’re told. Double check.

The business you are trying to close a deal with – how is their Dunn and Bradstreet ?  What do their clients say about them?  Did you talk with their accounting people?  Are you sure you are dealing with a decision maker? Did you get clear expectations set of the time frame for a decision up front?

In the case of emails asking for help or declaring some, until now, obscure “fact” about something you care about – double check on Snopes.

What is Snopes?  According to wikipedia :

Snopes.com – officially the Urban Legends Reference Pages, is a web site
discussing urban legends, Internet rumors, e-mail forwards, and other
stories of uncertain or questionable origin. It is a well known resource
for validating and debunking such stories in American popular culture,
receiving 300,000 visits a day.

I go to www.snopes.com immediately when I get an email or a Facebook posting asking for support, forwarding, sharing or which states something so unbelievable, that I doubt.

Whether I am trying to determine the probability of business, or the veracity of a potential urban legend, I trust my gut.

Make it a great week!

Feb2

5 Fun Tips for Facebooking More Effectively

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5 Fun Tips for Facebooking More Effectively

It is a living language, after all, and we have a verb “to google” and now one “to facebook “.

If you are like me, you are trying to juggle many things in life – home, work, family, friends… and while you have heard how powerful Facebook can be you are still not clear on how your page can help you in business.

I am still learning and exploring Facebook, and I thought it might be a good way to end this week with my 5 fun tips for Facebooking more effectively.

1. You can create your business profile page easily by logging in as yourself, and doing a search in the search bar at the top pf the page for “Create a Page“ – it will lead you through your choices and it is pretty easy to set up.  If you are a serial entrepreneur with multiple businesses, you will be happy to know that you can have multiple pages all tied to your personal account (and you can keep that tidbit private on those pages, if you don’t want the world – or your boss – to know that the XYZ Candle Maker is you).

2. Once you have created your page, and have “liked” other businesses or people’s pages that are pertinent to your page, you can choose up to 5 of those to be anchored in your page’s list of likes – rather than letting Facebook randomly rotate them.  This is good if you have a reciprocal business agreement with a complimentary entity as you and they can cross promote this way.

Or if you have multiple pages, you may wish to “like” and anchor them to each other.  For example, if you are a writer and have set up a page per book, as well as an Author’s page – you can “like”and Anchor the pages to each other.

3.  If you use an opt-in email tool, such as iContact, Constant Contact or MailChimp (there are many others but these three are the ones that come to mind) – don’t forget to generate a “Join My Mailing List” link and add it to your fan page in the Info Tab or create a new Tab for it.

4. Looking for leads?  Using quotes at the start and finish of key words in the Search Box at the top will get you half way there, once you have the results – look at the left side menu options and click on public posts – you’ll get people who have used your key words in their posts whether you are connected to them or not.

You can comment back to them with advice or a link back to your website.  So if you are making XYZ candles and do a search on “i love candles” – be careful to read the context and then craft a nice intro comment to let them know about your candles.  Remember to do the searches while you are using the Facebook page that you want to represent so your comments will be from the page you want them to see!  If you forget and notice while you are crafting the best ever response – just add a tag to your Facebook Page in the body of your comment.

5. Did you know that you can drive traffic to your Facebook page by advertising that people “like”your page by texting to Facebook?  On your marketing materials suggest that cell phone users “fan”your Facebook page by texting “Fan -insert name of your page” to 32665.

Example:  Text “Fan myEZWebpro “to 32665.

If you are a speaker or presenter – this would make a great final slide.  If you are a band or theatrical group, add it to your posters and other promo material.  Put it on the back of your business cards.

If you have questions about these tips or if you have tips to share, please add as a comment to the blog, and I’ll get back to you – or share your tip in a future post.

Have a great weekend!

Feb1

Up at the Crack of Dawn Today

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Up at the Crack of Dawn Today

I rose early this morning – 4:30-ish – to trek across the city of Dallas and meet with a fellow writer who wanted some advice on kick-starting her writing business. We’re also involved in a mystery-writing critique group, so the foggy mist that obscured the White Rock Lake area along Northwest Highway seemed the perfect setting for our get-together. It was literally so foggy that I held the wheel with both hands and peered over it into a pea-soup cloud. The good news – all the traffic was headed west, and I was going east, so I didn’t have to worry about cars right around me as I strained my eyes to see the lane markings.  Meeting at 6:30 a.m. is a rare event for me.  But J. is a rare friend, and I didn’t mind giving up a little sleep to meet with her.

Today my friend wanted to talk more about business-oriented writing services rather than our usual creative novel-writing pursuits. Like many experienced writers she is learning to transition from traditional marketing to the new age of social media, with all its complexities.  We had a great brain-storming session and she left with some good ideas about how to promote her work.  She wants a website, so my suggestion was to use WordPress as her starting point, because it is intuitive, easy to use, and free or low-cost, depending upon the options chosen.  I encouraged her to set up a LinkedIn profile, but I’m not sure she is ready to do so.  I also showed her a blog post by Carol Tice, whose blog and website I’ve found both practical and thought-provoking.  Carol is a successful free-lance writer and award-winning blogger who recently wrote about where her writing business came from in 2011.

There are other options, of course.  Using the telephone to contact her targeted customers is one possibility, with a follow-up letter and/or email.  She might consider doing a newsletters using an online tool like ConstantContact, iContact, or AWeber, but a traditional printed newsletter might be an option for her, also.  She can do it on her computer and have it printed at an office supply store like Office Depot.  We also discussed magazines that use free-lance writers and would be interested in her travel-writing skills.   Please note that the advice I gave her was geared to someone who is not yet comfortable with social media.  It’s about dangling one’s legs in the water and adjusting at a slower pace rather than diving in headfirst.

I’m eager to see where my friend goes from here.  J. has many years of experience in writing, ghost-writing, travel writing, resume writing and editing books and marketing materials for all kinds of businesses, so I know she’ll do well with her writing endeavors.  I’m also hoping to see her pursue her dream of self-publishing the mystery novels she has written, since she’s one of the best writers I’ve ever read – honestly – and her work should be out there for readers to find.  She’s a published writer already, but she doesn’t currently have an agent or publisher.  That shouldn’t hold her back.  Lots of writers are finding success by self-publishing.  It’s a brave new world, and everyone – writers, publishers, agents, and even readers – is learning to swim in unfamiliar waters without any floaties.

I’ll keep you posted once she gets her online presence in place.  And I guarantee you, her books will not begin with “It was a dark and stormy night….” and they will keep you perched on the edge of your easy chair, reading long past your bedtime.

Jan27

Sometimes you just need a little push…

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Sometimes you just need a little push…

Earlier in the week I shared squareup.com    with you – which enables you to accept major credit cards for a small percentage and processes it very quickly.

But sometimes we need a little push… a budget for a special project.  That is where Kickstarter comes in.

First let me tell you what it is NOT – it is NOT a fundraising site –  it is NOT for people trying to fund their business start-up and it is NOT a donate for someone’s lifestyle concept.

So what is it?

Kickstarter.com is a site where you can propose your project and the amount of money it will take to do your project – and people who are interested in your project can pledge an amount towards the budget you proposed.  If the amount needed is not reached – for example you may say you need $2,000 to print and publish your original graphic novel – and you only get $1900 in pledges before the time is up on the proposal – then you do not get the money and no one gets charged for their participation.

What’s in it for the investors?

You determine what kind of perks you are going to give in return for the range of dollars an individual donates.   It might be a permanent ” Thank You” on your website – or a copy of the graphic novel, or an autographed copy or several copies.  If it is your project, then you figure out what you would give to sweeten the pot.

What kinds of businesses or areas can I submit a project for?

The categories include:  Art, Comics, Dance, Design, Fashion, Film and Video, Food, Games, Music, Photography, Publishing, Technology, and Theater.

Recently I participated in support of a gardening book to be published.  I have seen tech inventions, theatrical productions and art installations proposed on the site.

How can I submit a project?

Go to the Kickstarter Guidelines page on their site, all the information is there.

Or peruse the projects and see what interests you as an investment – you can invest as little as $1 or perhaps the whole shebang if the project really rings your bell!

The thing is – this is a wonderful way of getting your project launched and getting exposure to a wider audience (since most artistic projects are financed locally – this expands your reach).

Hope this is helpful – let me know!

Jan23

I may be Square but…

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I may be Square but…

For all of you small business folks, crafts people, artists, consultants, tradesmen, I have found a sweet sweet way to make your lives easier.

If you have always wanted to be able to take credit cards or you have a merchant account and it is so expensive that you hesitate to do business with credit cards – take a look at Squareup.com .  This is a small device that is used with your Android or iPhone with a free application that you can download to those phones.  It enables you to swipe a credit card and process it, for a flat rate, using a little white square that plugs into the earphone jack of the phone.

The process is painless:

1. Go to the website.

2. Sign up for free.  They will send you a verifying email and also verify the bank account that you want to have your money delivered into.

3. Within a week, the little device shows up in your mail.

4. You go to the App Store for your phone and download the free application and log in to your account.

5. You are ready to go.

There is no minimum usage.

There is a flat rate for the four major cards: Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover.

Your money gets into your bank account the next business day.  Your login (from when you signed up) allows you to monitor what you have processed and see when it was transferred to your account.

One of the best deals EVER for sole owners, small business, and anyone who needs to be able to take credit cards (think how handy this would be at the next fundraiser for your church or school).

And to you who are celebrating the Year of the Water Dragon – Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Jan17

Mini Marketing Plan

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Mini Marketing Plan

Whether you are new to small business, or have an existing business – or if you are newly in the job market or have been looking for awhile – sometimes a mini-marketing plan is just the ticket to open new doors or stimulate your creative juices.

This article at INC give more details.  Click Here.

If you are a member of Linkedin, you can initiate a group.  Or even on Facebook.   Or find a forum in your field (either of business or profession) and start a conversation there.  Do something small and new and kick-start your job search, or search for new business leads.

Another mini-marketing strategy is to ask for advice – often it will lead to referrals or new ideas that will help you.

Let me know what specific strategies work for you and I will share them here! Thanks and make it a great day.