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10 Mistakes That Start-Up Entrepreneurs Make

September 6, 2010 @ 7:39 pm
posted Tim Antioch

When it comes to starting a successful business there’s no surefire playbook……..

that contains the winning game plan.  On the other hand, there are about as many mistakes to be made as there are entrepreneurs to make them.

Recently, after a work-out at the gym with my trainer—an attractive young woman who’s also a dancer/actor—she told me about a web series that she’s producing and starring in together with a few friends. While the series has gained a large following online, she and her friends have not yet incorporated their venture, drafted an operating agreement, trademarked the show’s name or done any of the other things that businesses typically do to protect their intellectual property and divvy up the owners’ share of the company. While none of this may be a problem now, I told her, just wait until the show hits it big and everybody hires a lawyer.

Here, in my experience, are the top 10 mistakes that entrepreneurs make when starting a company:

1. Going it alone. It’s difficult to build a scalable business if you’re the only person involved. True, a solo public relations, web design or consulting firm may require little capital to start, and the price of hiring even one administrative assistant, sales representative or entry-level employee can eat up a big chunk of your profits. The solution: Make sure there’s enough margin in your pricing to enable you to bring in other people. Clients generally don’t mind outsourcing as long as they can still get face time with you, the skilled professional who’s managing the project.  Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists often churn out how-to business books and fancy themselves as management gurus, but few see their methodologies adopted. Eric Ries is experiencing something different. He speaks with WSJ’s Pui-Wing Tam.

2. Asking too many people for advice. It’s always good to get input from experts, especially experienced entrepreneurs who’ve built and sold successful companies in your industry. But getting too many people’s opinions can delay your decision so long that your company never gets out of the starting gate. The answer: Assemble a solid advisory board that you can tap on a regular basis but run the day-to-day yourself. Says Elyissia Wassung, chief executive of 2 Chicks With Chocolate Inc., a Matawan, N.J., chocolate company, “Pull in your [advisory] team for bi-weekly or, at the very least, monthly conference calls. You’ll wish you did it sooner!”

3. Spending too much time on product development, not enough on sales. While it’s hard to build a great company without a great product, entrepreneurs who spend too much time tinkering may lose customers to a competitor with a stronger sales organization. “I call [this misstep] the ‘Field of Dreams’ of entrepreneurship. If you build it, they will buy it,” says Sanjyot Dunung, CEO of Atma Global, Inc., a New York software publisher, who has made this mistake in her own business. “If you don’t keep one eye firmly focused on sales, you’ll likely run out of money and energy before you can successfully get your product to market.”

4. Targeting too small a market. It’s tempting to try to corner a niche, but your company’s growth will quickly hit a wall if the market you’re targeting is too tiny. Think about all the high school basketball stars who dream of playing in the NBA. Because there are only 30 teams and each team employs only a handful of players, the chances that your son will become the next Michael Jordan are pretty slim. The solution: Pick a bigger market that gives you the chance to grab a slice of the pie even if your company remains a smaller player.

5. Entering a market with no distribution partner. It’s easier to break into a market if there’s already a network of agents, brokers, manufacturers’ reps and other third-party resellers ready, willing and able to sell your product into existing distribution channels. Fashion, food, media and other major industries work this way; others are not so lucky. That’s why service businesses like public relations firms, yoga studios and pet-grooming companies often struggle to survive, alternating between feast and famine. The solution: Make a list of potential referral sources before you start your business and ask them if they’d be willing to send business your way.

6. Overpaying for customers. Spending big on advertising may bring in lots of customers, but it’s a money-losing strategy if your company can’t turn those dollars into life-time customer value. A magazine or web site that spends $500 worth of advertising to acquire a customer who pays $20 a month and cancels his or her subscription at the end of the year is simply pouring money down the drain. The solution: Test, measure, then test again. Once you’ve done enough testing to figure out how to make more money selling products and services to your customers than you spend acquiring those customers in the first place, roll out a major marketing campaign. (See related article, “On a Tight Budget? How to Land a Client.”)

7. Raising too little capital. Many start-ups assume that all they need is enough money to rent space, buy equipment, stock inventory and drive customers through the door. What they often forget is that they also need capital to pay for salaries, utilities, insurance and other overhead expenses until their company starts turning a profit. Unless you’re running the kind of business where everybody’s working for sweat equity and deferring compensation, you’ll need to raise enough money to tide you over until your revenues can cover your expenses and generate positive cash flow. The solution: Calculate your start-up costs before you open your doors, not afterwards.

8. Raising too much capital. Believe it or not, raising too much money can be a problem, too. Over-funded companies tend to get big and bloated, hiring too many people too soon and wasting valuable resources on trade show booths, parties, image ads and other frills. When the money runs out and investors lose patience (which is what happened 10 years ago when the dot-com market melted down), start-ups that frittered away their cash will have to close their doors. No matter how much money you raise at the outset, remember to bank some for a rainy day.

9. Not having a business plan. While not every company needs a formal business plan, a start-up that requires significant capital to grow and more than a year to turn a profit should map out how much time and money it’s going to take to get to its destination. This means thinking through the key metrics that make your business tick and building a model to spin off three years of sales, profits and cash-flow projections. “I wasted 10 years [fooling around] thinking like an artist and not a business person,” says Louis Piscione, president of Avanti Media Group, a New Jersey company that produces videos for corporate and private events. “I learned that you have to put some of your creative genius toward a business plan that forecasts and sets goals for growth and success.” (See related article, “Are Business Plans a Waste of Time?”)

10. Over-thinking your business plan. While many entrepreneurs I’ve met engage in seat-of-the-pants decision-making and fail to do their homework, other entrepreneurs are afraid to pull the trigger until they’re 100% certain that their plan will succeed. One lawyer I worked with several years ago was so skittish about leaving his six-figure job to launch his business that he never met with a single bank or investor who might have funded his company. The truth is that a business plan is not a crystal ball that can predict the future. At a certain point, you have to close your eyes and take the leap of faith.

Despite the many books and articles that have been written about entrepreneurship, it’s just not possible to start a company without making a few mistakes along the way. Just try to avoid making any mistake so large that your company can’t get back on its feet to fight another day.

About the Author

Rosalind Resnick is the founder and CEO and Axxess Business Consulting Inc., a New York consulting firm that develops business plans and financial projections for start-ups and early-stage companies. She is also the author of “The Vest Pocket Consultant’s Secrets of Small Business Success.”

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Leadership, Thinking Ten Years Ahead

September 4, 2010 @ 4:57 am
posted Tim Antioch

How Leadership Might Look in the Future

by Bob Johansen  

(Editor’s note: This post is part of a six-week blog series on how leadership might look in the future. The conversations generated by these posts will help shape the agenda of a symposium on the topic in June 2010, hosted by HBS’s Nitin Nohria, Rakesh Khurana, and Scott Snook.)

I’m convinced that — with new skills tuned to external future forces — leaders can make better organizations, better communities, and a better world.

Self-interest and competition will not be enough. Business leaders will still need to drive revenue, increase efficiency, and resolve conflicts, but financial mandates (I win/you lose) won’t be enough. Leaders must expand their view of self and embrace the shared assets and opportunities around them — not just the individual takeaways that will reward them alone. Leaders must learn to give ideas away, trusting that they will get even more back in return.

Fortunately, new web-based tools and the emergence of cloud computing are making new leadership styles possible right at the time when they are becoming urgently necessary. The more connected we are, the safer, freer, and more powerful we are. But there are downsides: the more connected we are, the more dangerous it can become. Leaders will need to make the links and organize people for action — yet also protect against dangerous or dysfunctional connectivity. Based on my thirty five years as a ten-year forecaster, here’s how I expect the context for leaders in the future:

Volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity will get worse in the future (a model developed at the Army War College ). Solvable problems will still abound, but top leaders will more often have to make decisions and try to win when it comes to dilemmas with no solution. If you are not confused by current events, you are not paying attention.

The future can help leaders make sense of the present, but only if they learn to listen for the future. You cannot listen for the future if you are stuck in the present. I reminded myself of that when I was stuck in London under a cloud of volcanic dust. It is easier to write about the a volatile (and more) world than it is to experience it.

Leaders will face both opportunity and danger. Some of those in authority positions today have understandably turned cranky or nasty out of frustration, but leaders need not allow themselves to be overwhelmed, depressed, or immobilized. It is usually possible — even if very difficult — to be positive change agents in the midst of chaos. Some things can get better, even as other things get worse.

Leaders must learn new skills, in order to make the future. More specifically, I have suggested ten new leadership skills for the future, skills you can learn to become more ready for the future: the maker instinct, clarity, dilemma flipping, immersive learning ability, bio-empathy, constructive depolarization, quiet transparency, smart mob organizing, and commons creating. (Rate your own future leadership skills here.)

Leaders must strike a delicate balance — make decisions quickly, but not too quickly. They must embrace the space between judging too soon (the classic mistake of the problem-solver) and deciding too late (the classic space of the academic).

All these new skills will be amplified by connectivity and the cloud. I’m hoping that these new skills will contribute to a conversation about leadership in the future — for organizations and for leaders. What future leadership skills do you suggest?
Bob Johansen is Distinguished Fellow, Institute for the Future.

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What Makes (and Ruins) Great Company Stories

September 3, 2010 @ 3:45 am
posted Tim Antioch

Does your company convey a remarkable story about its products or services?

 

By Vistage speaker Jeff Ogden

Does your company convey a remarkable story about its products or services? To make your products competitive in a world filled with marketing chatter, you need a memorable story that people want to share with each other. When you use a great story to convey your brand, people start talking about your business.

Seth Godin, the best-selling author of marketing books, writes frequently about the need to develop remarkable content—content, he says, that “the reader finds so interesting, people remark to each other about it.”

Great story-telling engages people on an emotional level and makes them want more. Don Hewitt , the late creator of 60 Minutes, said the success of that show relied on telling great stories.

Story telling can come in many forms. Most companies tell their stories through a mix of media (video, print, web, and audio) across a mix of delivery mechanisms which might include online and print advertising, company Web site, social media, television, events, publicity, or other avenues.

So what are some rules of story-telling that marketers can follow? Let’s look at what makes (and ruins) a great company, brand and product story.

What ruins a great story?
The following elements tend to make a story unremarkable and totally forgettable:

  • Making claims that your company, service or products are “great” or “the best ever”
  • Using technical terms or industry jargon that customers don’t understand
  • Discussing your company history and awards

Check over your marketing collateral, your web site and your advertising. Are you allowing your brand to be totally forgettable?

What makes a great story?
The following elements help make a story remarkable, and so compelling to the reader that they may start telling the others about it. A great story:

  • Revolves around a single theme
  • Contains interesting characters
  • Builds on or is congruent with a back story
  • Uses engrossing plots with surprises, suspense or twists and turns
  • Employs vivid language or images that engage the mind
  • Leverages the voice of your customers
  • Uses “hooks” that transition from one “chapter” to another. (A hook is a tease of what’s to come, and it keeps the reader looking forward to what’s next.)
  • Speaks to a specific audience, with specific interests.

Here are two example of remarkable content:

The software company Kinaxis launched a video series entitled Suitemates that makes fun of big software firms.

The blender manufacturer BlendTec created a video series titled Will it Blend? in which the company’s president demonstrates the power of his products by blending everything from golf balls to iPhones. With the enormously popular videos, BlendTec has seen a five-fold increase in sales since launching the series.

So how do you tell a remarkable story? Start with deeply knowing the buyers of your products and services, what I term your customer personas. Once you have a deep understanding of what they care about, you can begin to think about how to create content that gets their attention. Use your imagination and brainstorm. Think of how to entertain and engage.

Vistage speaker Jeff Ogden, is President of Find New Customers, which helps business develop and implement programs to improve the way they find and acquire new customers—it’s “lead generation made simple .” He’s also the author of two highly acclaimed white papers, “How to Find New Customers” and the “Definitive Guide to Making Quota,” as well the eBook, “Prospect Driven Marketing.”

http://www.vistage.com/about-us.aspx

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Bing vs. Google: The Battle for Your Advertising Dollars

@ 1:18 am
posted Tim Antioch

By Richard Stokes of Entrepreneur.com

If pay-per-click advertising makes sense for your business (and it does for most), then you’re probably already using Google AdWords. But chances are you’ve only dabbled with Yahoo! and Bing advertising. If that’s the case, it may be time to take a closer look at your options. The partnership between Yahoo! and Bing — announced last July — is about to become a reality this fall in the form of a combined pay-per-click platform that will give small-business advertisers an alternative to Google.

Microsoft hopes the partnership will lead to increased search volume, which in turn will attract advertisers to its ad platform. “You need a lot of advertisers to provide the most relevant advertising experience. You don’t want to show an ad for ‘Tacoma plumber’ when a visitor is searching for a plumber in Seattle. The only way to create a market to attract more advertisers is to have a product with a high volume of searchers using it,” says Matt Lydon, general manager of Microsoft advertising.

Will Bing and Yahoo! succeed? That’s anyone’s guess. But in the meantime, here are seven compelling reasons to give advertising on Bing a shot:

  1. Bid prices are lower.
    Google has been around far longer and has a more robust advertising marketplace. The result is a saturated marketplace. For any given keyword, there can be dozens — sometimes even hundreds — of companies bidding for placement on the first page of search results. Currently, that line is shorter on Bing, and as a result advertisers can expect to pay less for placement on most keywords.
     
  2. Conversion rates are better (sometimes).
    Google and Bing reach different audiences. Google is the default search engine for most people, so your Google ads are going to appear to a wider demographic. While you can expect your Google campaigns to get plenty of traffic, it typically takes a lot of work to bring conversion rates up to an acceptable level. You won’t get nearly as much traffic from Bing, but you’ll get access to the MSN audience. This can translate into higher sales for certain types of businesses. Compared to Google users, MSN users are older (the bulk are in the 25-54 age range, as opposed to Google’s audience, which ranges from 13-34) and primarily female (57% vs. 50%).These are the customers of choice for most B2C marketers.In addition, you can use AdCenter to target specific MSN properties to reach specific markets. For instance, MSN’s celebrity gossip portal reaches affluent females between the ages 35-49 — customers of choice for many B2C businesses. (For a breakdown of MSN user demographics see the AdCenter Lab.)
  3. Better customer support for small accounts.
    Google advertisers who spend more than $500,000 per year have a dedicated account representative who can help with the various technical and billing problems that pop up from time to time. The rest of us have to settle for offshore support which can be, ahem, a less-than-satisfying experience.Bing is attempting to woo the little guy with a higher level of customer support for small advertisers. Aside from being able to talk to an account rep, small advertisers can take advantage of the Quick Launch program, a service that provides you with free advertising consulting. The only requirement is that you spend at least $500 per month — a figure most of us can easily meet.
  4. Search traffic is about to grow. According to Comscore, Google’s search share in May was around 64% compared with Bing’s paltry 12%. If you’ve advertised on Bing already, you’ve probably seen the effects of this when looking at your campaign reports.However, the new partnership will bring Yahoo!’s and Bing’s combined traffic to more than 30% — nearly half of AdWords. This kind of traffic can provide a serious bump to anyone’s PPC campaign.
  5. Advertisers who prepare their campaigns ahead of the partnership will have an advantage over those who wait.
    Both Google and Bing require advertisers to establish an account history before their ads will show to a wide audience. On Google, this process can take a few weeks to six months (or longer, depending on how established your competitors are). The same will ultimately be true on Bing.Right now, however, there are relatively few advertisers, so account history is easy to establish. Once the Yahoo! migration is complete (tentatively planned for this fall), it will be much more difficult. So get your campaigns ready now.
  6. You can import your Google campaigns directly into Bing.
    Google and Yahoo! have some annoying differences that make it impossible to simply copy-and-paste a campaign between the two. For instance, Yahoo! has a 40-character title limit while Google’s is 25. Yahoo!’s minimum bid is a penny, while Google’s is a nickel.Bing is eliminating these legacy features and standardizing based on Google’s ad formats, match types and minimum prices. This means you’ll be able to import your Google AdWords campaigns into Bing and Yahoo! almost verbatim.
  7. It’s just plain smart to diversify.
    If you’ve been advertising on AdWords for some time, you may have been hit with the dreaded “Google slap.” If Google determines that your website is of poor quality, that your ad is a bad match for a particular keyword, or even that your landing page loads too slowly, the company may make changes to your account or even shut it down entirely. Sometimes these slaps are subtle, and other times Google runs amok and shuts down thousands of advertisers at once. (The company banned more than 30,000 accounts during the December ’09 wave, and even more were affected by the July ’07 quality score update.)This unpredictability is, hands down, the single biggest complaint advertisers have with AdWords. More than a few companies have gone out of business because they relied solely on Google for web traffic. This is a critical mistake — one that is difficult to recover from once it happens. Adding a second PPC source to the mix diversifies your traffic and reduces the chance that you’ll wake up one day to find your website has become a ghost town.

Microsoft is betting big on its future in search advertising and investing heavily in a combined platform that is starting to look like a compelling choice over AdWords. If you’ve been sitting on the fence, now might the time to take a chance on something new . . . before your competitors do.

 

Richard Stokes is the CEO of AdGooroo , the world’s first Search Engine Intelligence company and the author of two books on search marketing, including the bestseller The Ultimate Guide to Pay-Per-Click Advertising: Join the Top 3% Capturing Sales from Search Advertising — and Outsmart 97% of the Competition (Entrepreneur Press, May 2010), available online at Amazon and Borders .

For bios of and stories by Entrepreneur.com columnists, please click here. For more information about Entrepreneur.com click here.

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Business On Google

September 1, 2010 @ 9:00 am
posted Tim Antioch

Increase Your Google Adsense Revenue?

Business On Google  by acano

Recently there has been a lot of discussion about people who earn over ,000 a month just from Adsense. Furthermore, there are rumors of a few individuals who earn over million a year just from using the power of Google advertisements.

So what is Google Adsense and how can you use this program to earn a six-figure income?

About two years ago, Google created this program to help websites to monetize their web-traffic.

Here’s how it works:

Webmasters obtain a special code from Google which then displays targeted ads on their website. Whenever a visitor clicks on one of these ads, the webmaster earns a commission. Unlike other online businesses, there is no selling involved. All you need to do is get people to click on the ads.

Although this is an excellent way to generate an income, many websites are not effectively maximizing their Adsense potential. As a result, they are leaving a lot of cash on the table.

The question is how can you increase your Adsense revenue without increasing the number of web visitors? The key to earning an income with Google Adsense is to have your ads match the rest of the site, making them look like part of your content. Your focus is to avoid having the Adsense blocks look like blatant advertisements.

The following are six ways that you can do this and increase your revenue at the same time:

1) Find the right place- Most website visitors read content that is in the middle of a webpage. As a result, the best place to put your Adsense block is in the top part of the page, at the beginning of your web content. You want to weave the Google Ads into your web content to give the appearance that they are extra links which expand on the information of the page.

2) Use the Large Rectangle–With Google Adsense, you have the option of picking different ad formats. Most of the time people opt to use the Leader board (728×90) or Wide Skyscraper (160×600) style ads. Unfortunately, this is the wrong choice, because both look like blatant advertisements. Instead smart webmasters have found that using the Large Rectangle (336×280) yields the best amount of click-thrust.

3) Ditch the border– Many people experience a sharp increase in Adsense revenue when they changing their border. What they change is very simple…they get rid of the border on their Adsense blocks. This is another way to make the advertisements look like useful web content.

4) Adapt the font- Whenever you write content, for more details visit to www.instant-adsense-dollars.com it should be the same font size and style as your Google Adsense block. This will help make it appear that the advertisements are a natural part of your website.

5) Match the colors– In addition to changing the fonts, you also should match the colors of your website. For instance, if your content is written in black, and your hyperlinks are blue, then the Adsense blocks should also be the same color. Again, this helps the advertisements appear to be normal web content.

6) Don’t have too many distractions- On a webpage, it is important to give web visitor a limited number of options. By having too many links and graphics, for more details visit to www.google-atm-machine.com the web visitor might go to a section that doesn’t help increase your profits. While it is important to inform and entertain your web visitor, it is also vital that you monetize your site. So if the main focus of your site is to earn an income through Google Adsense, then get rid of all non-essential links and graphics.

By taking the time to implement these six simple steps, you’ll see a dramatic increase in the click-thru ratio of your ads. If added to all of the content of your site, your Adsense income will skyrocket!

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How Does Social Media Relate to Business Strategy?

@ 3:36 am
posted Tim Antioch

“Own your own platform – don’t rely on Facebook being in business in a year.”

authorTags: , , , ,

I recently watched a webinar hosted by Maddock Douglas on social media strategy, and the above quote in the presentation made me think about the place that social media has within overall business strategy.  I’m relatively new to social media marketing myself, but the above quote reminds me of an article I read (Porter, Michael E., “Strategy and the Internet”, pp 62-78, March 2001, Harvard Business Review) about the role of the internet in business strategy in the mid to late 1990s.  I’ll spare you the experience of reading it by providing a very brief and general summary.  I hope you keep reading my short article; I’m interested in your thoughts.

The internet ushered in a new way of conducting business.  Relationships between buyers and suppliers (B2B) were solidified due to the proprietary nature of e-commerce platforms and database management systems.  They were solidified because of the high switching costs inherent in the technology.  As such it was often predicted at the time that the internet would contribute to sources of competitive advantage, the key component of business strategy.  This did not happen.  As internet applications evolved along with internet technology, and implementation as well as hardware costs dropped significantly, it was quickly seen that internet technology would greatly facilitate business processes and transactions, but not result in competitive advantage for any particular firm or sector, simply because everyone now has access to it, and acquisition and switching costs are often not significant.  In fact, the internet increased competition because it allowed buyers, whether business or consumer, to access information that was previously unavailable to them (competitors, 3rd party reviews, videos, and more), and quickly.  In short, the internet made buyers more savvy.

From a company’s perspective, having access to the internet, as well as a website is seen as a necessity in today’s business environment, as opposed to a competitive advantage, as some predicted a decade and a half ago.  This finally brings me back to social media’s place in business strategy.

Adoption of social media platforms is still not ubiquitous.  This is simply because the concept is still relatively new, and popular in only some industries.  In fact, social media use is also regionalized.  By that I mean that some countries have adopted it much more than others, even though they have considerable access to the internet (something to keep in mind when considering your target market while designing your social media strategy).  And for those reasons there are many companies specializing in social media-related services, and more are coming because it’s still a developing industry, just like the dot-coms were in the late 1990s.  The difference is that the internet was thought to revolutionize the way business is done in general, and many dot-com companies abandoned the fundamentals of business strategy.  Very simplistically, this is in part why the dot-com bubble burst early this decade.  Not that the circumstances will be repeated, but nevertheless a lesson that today’s social media marketers and service providers should keep in mind when strategically planning ahead.  But I’m going off topic.

As industries, companies, and countries adapt and embrace social media, it may also become a necessity, just like the internet did, and not a competitive advantage.  This is already happening.  I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard someone say that if you don’t use social media in your business you’ll be left behind.  So guess what I did.  I started using social media.  You’re looking at it right now.  Adoption of social media is becoming a necessity rather than a differentiating factor in an already competitive business environment.

Internet based technologies develop and evolve quickly.  Some become business critical, such as customer relationship management (CRM) systems (eg. Salesforce.com), and communication tools (email).  I believe that social media (marketing) is not far from becoming critical to business.  All these technologies have something in common: The rate at which they evolve from tools of differentiation to those of necessity in order to compete on level ground.  Business corporate strategy, on the other hand, does not change at this pace.  Much like other internet applications, social media is a tool and should be part of a business strategy, but alone it is insufficient to be the business strategy.  To be successful, a company’s social media strategy should reflect its foundation, which is the corporate or business strategy.

To me, the quote at the beginning mirrors the rapidly changing nature of technological tools, and the need to ground them in solid business strategy.

*********************************************************************************

Bart Zych is a Vancouver, BC (Canada) based business strategy consultant (www.thestrategydoctor.com) specializing in helping SMEs to survive,compete, and succeed by improving their position in their industry.    Bart has been a successful manager of small business, helping to define core strengths, focus, and as a result increase revenue and profitability. For over 10 years he has worked with various organizations and fortune 500 companies such as Canon Canada and Pitney Bowes, helping them grow revenues in their corporate sales divisions.

He earned his MBA from the Schulich School of Business with a focus on Competitive Strategy and Management Information Systems.   His passion is combining business and psychology to not only address corporate strategy, but also the various and complex human factors that play a significant role in developing and shaping it.

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Treat Them Like Employees

August 29, 2010 @ 8:40 pm
posted Tim Antioch

Contingent Workforce Strategies Summer 2010

 Author Jenny Sutton on managing consultants

  
Jokes about failed consultants have been around for about about as long as consultants themselves. But Gordon Perchthold and Jenny Sutton believe that the executives or managers who select and manage these consultants and their projects are at fault for allowing the consultants to fail.

Perchthold and Sutton think that consultants can benefit companies in many ways while saving them from having to pay massive fees. Their book, Extract Value from Consultants: How to Hire, Control and Fire, features relevant strategies and outlines how companies can get the most from consultants. It is based on their long experience in the consulting world; Perchthold and Sutton were initially employed by technology firms and then global consulting firms, working their way up the ranks of such brands as Accenture and Deloitte Consulting.

Over the years, they have written for various relevant publications and spoken at trade industry events. In 2006, they set up a niche management consulting firm, The RFP Co. in Hong Kong, and then tried their hand at writing a book. Contingent Workforce Strategies Managing Editor Subadhra R. Sriram caught up with Sutton and talked with her about the book, global consulting and what the future holds.

CWS: What made you decide to write this book?

Jenny Sutton: It began when we started the RFP Co. Its mission is to help companies make strategic choices. And for us, that means helping them make decisions at an operational and strategic level, which often results in them having to do a project of some scale.

The topic really interested us because we’d been consultants ourselves, and we’ve had the opportunity to see how our clients thought about using consultants. We were able to get into their heads a little bit. And we were also in a position to see how other consultants approach their marketing, sales and delivery relationship with their clients. We thought that there was a huge gap sometimes between the capability of the client who selects the consultants and the marketing sophistication of the consulting firm. So we decided to write the book.

Why did you decide to be a consultant as opposed to an employee?

Actually, I’ve done both. I was an employee in a company probably for the first 10 years of my career. Then I moved into consulting … and I found that I liked the variety and constantly being challenged and having to get up to speed on a topic or on a client very quickly.

And do you see any differences between the two? Does it really matter?

Any time you put a consultant and an employee side-by-side, there are going to be differences, but let’s compare an employee and consultant working on a project side by side, because that’s generally how consultants are used.

The employee probably is going to have some good access to information and he or she is going to know where to go to get information. He is going to understand the political landscape of the company, and bring some credibility to the project.
The consultant may have done the same project before at a different company, which the employee probably won’t have done. So the consultant is going to bring a lot of previous experience and know-how to the project. I think those are the major differences.

From our perspective — and that’s one of the key messages in our book — you need both types of resources on a project.

Does the employer have to be careful as to when they bring in an employee or a consultant?

I think with projects that are going to make some sort of dramatic changes in a company, it’s useful to have an external perspective — somebody, like a consultant, who’s been on the journey before. A person who can sympathize with people along the way, but who also knows that the end-goal is attainable.

And I think if there’s a lot of politics and perhaps different camps with different ideas about how to get things done, consultants can help cut through some of the politics. They can
be objective.

Your book talked about trying to manage internal stakeholders who try to sway decisions for their own reasons. Each camp wants their own trusted vendor or consultant. So how does a hiring manager deal with that?

That’s a challenge in every single project and has been on every single one that I’ve worked on. It’s really important right from the beginning to make sure that you’ve understood everyone’s perspectives and their objectives for the project and to try to get everybody in a room if necessary and resolve any issues and expectations or misaligned objectives.

One of the big problems we see is that companies skip the stage in a project of getting all their stakeholders aligned. They go off and employ a consultant and then the consultant is getting instructions from different people. The process could just end up being a waste of the company’s money.

It really requires a lot of changed management activity upfront to understand who all the stakeholders are, understand any preferences they might have and for what reason. And then to bring them along through the process, not surprise them with a long list or short list of consultants. Make sure they’re involved in the selection process.

What attributes would indicate the consultant’s capability to deliver?

It really depends on the project. So you’re obviously looking for this specific skill associated with the project that you’re doing, whether it’s in technology or whether it’s an area of business or if it’s a particular industry. Make sure the consultant has certain areas of expertise. Then look into how deep that expertise is, how many times he or she has done this kind of project before and how successful he or she has been in doing that?

Companies need to look at an individual level for each specific resource proposed on a project. Is this individual going to make a positive contribution to the project based on his or her previous experience? If a consulting firm was bringing in a number
of individuals, you would need to look at the firm as a whole.

Certain questions need to be answered, like whether there are additional resources that you could call in if the consultant resigns, becomes sick or just isn’t a good fit. The track record of the consulting firm and the depth of its expertise need to be examined. And all this scrutiny should extend beyond just the few people that might be assigned to your particular project.

What are some specific consultant capability assessment activities?

Regardless of the kind of project under way, there are some things that need to be done. One technique is interviewing prospective consultants as if you were interviewing them for a job. Further, if it’s a big project and it requires some creativity in execution or sequencing, then it’s useful to get the consultants into a workshop with you and make them demonstrate their capability to plan the project. This helps you gauge how you’re going to work with them on the project, and also their knowledge.

The book mentioned how managers can help legal counsel to ensure that the required business outcome is in a contract when it comes to consultants. What did you really mean by that? And how can a manager help the legal department?

When companies hire consulting firms, it’s different from hiring individual consultants. But when they’re hiring consulting firms they often accept the firm’s contract. And that really sets the client at a disadvantage right from the beginning because the desired terms that the consultants have are already embedded in their contract. So that’s the first issue.

The second issue is the contracts tend to be very focused on recourses if things go wrong, covering things like who can sue whom under what circumstances, which court would they use, and what is the limit of the liability. It’ll cover things like confidentiality and intellectual property, but the contract will seldom outline the project that’s being undertaken. Issues like what the business reasons are for getting the project done, what is the expected business outcome, what milestones need to be reached, what resources are to be supplied and so on are not touched upon.

We believe that the proposal of what the consultant is going to do should be in the contract supplemented by all the legal needs.

What advice would you give when it comes to using consultants globally?

That’s an excellent question. We have a whole chapter in our book dealing with hiring consultants in Asia because Asia in particular has some unique challenges. Our first piece of advice usually is don’t assume that you can hire one consulting firm on a global basis. A consulting firm that is capable in North America within the banking industry won’t necessarily have the same capability in every jurisdiction, every country in the world.

So you really have to almost conduct a selection process within each country and be prepared to use multiple consultants because you’ll find that in some countries there are consulting firms that have better strength than the one that has the strength in your home market. Especially when you get to Asia, you can’t rely on the global brand name and the big well-known consulting firms. You really have to look at each market separately.

You also talked about managing consultants as you would any direct report. What about co-employment?

I understand that distinction and I understand that many consultants do not want to jeopardize their status in terms of whether they’re an employee or a consultant. So we’re not talking about it from an HR or a legal perspective. We’re really talking about it from a communication-monitoring perspective. Just because “;consultant”; is on a person’s business card doesn’t mean that the manager should just leave him to his own devices and let him do what he wants or work for a long time without any sort of monitoring.

Many people come in and assume because they’ve hired a consultant that the consultant can work independently and doesn’t need a lot of guidance. It may be true, but the consultant could make some wrong assumptions with regard to the project’s direction and take a wrong turn without anybody realizing it. So in terms of operational management issues, managers should use the same approach with consultants as they would with their own employees.

 

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Leadership – Build or Buy?

August 26, 2010 @ 1:00 am
posted Tim Antioch

A company’s ability to build and thrive in the future rests on many factors.

One key factor is the ability to have the right leadership in place, at all levels, to be the guiding hands of success. The corollary to this is the ability to anticipate the need for new leadership roles and have a source of future leaders, i.e. companies either have to develop and promote leaders  internally (build) or hire leaders externally (buy).

Companies often favor one strategy (“build” or “buy”) over the other. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. There are also reasons why one strategy may be a better choice at any given time, depending upon the business circumstances. To fill leadership roles the most forward-thinking companies employ both strategies in the unique balance that their business necessitates. This permits them to capitalize on the most positive aspects each strategy affords. Understanding the reasons and situations where each strategy provides its advantages can help companies deploy them successfully.

“Build” – “Building” internal leadership for the future requires the development of a detailed plan for identifying future leaders, building and providing training programs, and tracking open positions for placement of rising leaders. It’s a longer term proposition that will not yield immediate results. However, I don’t believe you can ever go wrong developing employee  capabilities, and the benefits accrue not only to the employee but to the company as well. Developing employees to eventually be placed in future leader roles is most effective when companies:

  • - Take a long-term view of corporate planning
  • - Are in an industry where external leadership resources are limited (e.g. aerospace)
  • - Are in an industry that is growing rapidly and available resources with industry experience have been outstripped by demand (think health care)
  • - Promote the development programs available to their employees and encourage participation. 

Developing leadership internally benefits companies by reducing recruitment costs to fill leadership roles and providing continuity of corporate knowledge enabling the new leadership placement  to become productive sooner. Building internal leadership, however, takes time and it may require two or more years to develop employees to the point where they can be promoted to a leadership role. A long-term resource planning view needs to be taken with external hiring until internal capability exists. A company’s commitment to training and promoting internal candidates through leadership development programs can enhance its ability to attract potential employees as these candidates see the possibilities of career advancement. This is a great reputation for any company to cultivate. 

“Buy” – “Buying” leadership, through external recruiting of people to fill leadership roles, is an effective method of adding leadership quickly or bringing on leadership with specialty skills not found within your company.  Companies tend to utilize the “buy” method of leadership acquisition if they:

  • - Are growing fast (again, think health care)
  • - Have not yet established leadership development programs
  • - Recognize that the need for new leaders outstrips available internal candidates
  • - Are moving in a new strategic direction and are seeking a new top executive to drive the change
  • - Have made a strategic decision to not provide leadership development programs or promote leadership from within. 

Recruiting external leadership can be an expensive proposition with costs increasing appreciably as the level of leadership sought rises (Director and Executive levels). Externally recruited leadership will also require some period of indoctrination to the company, perhaps up to six months, before they reach full productivity even if they have industry experience. Not having an internal leadership development program may also harm the company’s ability to attract candidates, both leaders and non-leaders. Companies that become known for not providing advancement opportunities or developing employees for leadership roles may find their pool of candidates for open job postings becomes shallow – word gets out. 

Companies should not expect that their leadership requirements will be satisfied by a single leadership acquisition strategy. Each strategy – build and buy – has a role to play in filling leadership needs at all levels. The real skill is in defining the balance between the two and determining which roles and under what circumstances each strategy will be utilized as the method of filling the leadership ranks.

About Metricsboard: We are an online benchmark company that provides free business performance benchmark assessments. The benchmarks are automated and take less than 10 minutes online to complete.  In return, you receive a full results report with comparison data on best practices, a maturity rating against your competitors (peer group) and strategic recommendations. There is a complimentary benchmark you can take for Web 2.0 Marketing, B2B Sales, IT Infrastructure, Human Resources, Procurement and Corporate Communications. Your privacy is protected and you will not receive any sales follow-up calls.

Find out how you compare against your competitors? Learn the latest best practices and performance tips.  Visit our benchmark services page  Sign up for our RSS feed or newsletter to get regular updates on trend data covering Marketing, Sales, HR, IT and other operational areas.  Please share this blog.

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Small business survival tips (quick lesson)

@ 12:14 am
posted Tim Antioch

 

Small business survival tips (quick lesson) Whether you are just getting your business off the ground or want to give your existing business a tune up to stay afloat in these challenging times, read on. This lesson provides tips that you can use to trim costs off of some of the most common expenses, from energy bills to printing and marketing. As this is an on-demand class, all lessons are available when the class enrolls.
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Keeping your business afloat in a recession
You’re probably tired of hearing right now about how tough times are for small businesses. After all, you’re living with that reality every day. What you need is some concrete advice for how to save money, reduce costs and improve your efficiency while still delivering the excellent customer service that’s the backbone of your business.

No doubt you’ve been trimming costs wherever you can find them (a great practice for both businesses and families!), but there may be a whole landscape you haven’t explored for savings yet: your computer and printing, or IT (information technology), infrastructure. Most small business owners see their IT landscape as another cost center, and are just thankful when everything’s working the way it’s supposed to work.

But did you know that the laptops, desktop PCs, printers and other equipment you take for granted every day can actually be a source of significant cost savings? What’s more, the rise of web-based services to compete with more expensive face-to-face services make it easier than ever to get the solutions you need (think graphic design, for example) for a lot less than you’re used to paying.

It’s also important to remember that down times don’t last forever—the recession will end, and when it does, you want to be positioned strongly by making solid small business development plans. Taking time now to examine your IT landscape (your printers, scanners, laptops, desktops and even servers) and maximize its effectiveness will put you first out of the gate when times are better. A lean and nimble infrastructure gives you an advantage when it comes to offering cutting-edge products and services at a competitive price point.

We’ve compiled nine tips designed to help you mine your business for opportunities to save money while building a strong foundation for future growth. Let’s get started!

Tip 1: Print your marketing materials in-house

You may think that there’s no way you have the time, expertise or equipment to produce professional-quality materials in-house. Think again! There are high quality free templates available online for just about any kind of material you print regularly—flyers, brochures, product data sheets, menus and more. You can use downloaded templates right in Microsoft® Word to lay in your text, and there’s plenty of information online to help you get started. For a broad selection of free and paid templates, as well as other services, you may want to check out the HP Creative Studio for Business.

Interested in creating your own marketing materials? Check out this article for more tips and tricks.

After analyzing your current printing costs, you might find it’s still cost-effective to print bulk materials that aren’t subject to frequent change at a local print shop. If you’re settled into your location, by all means take advantage of bulk discounts at your print shop for business cards and letterhead.

If you need a new logo before you order cards and stationery, you might want to check out services like Logoworks that offer online design and printing services for a fraction of the cost of brick and mortar shops. The process is largely the same—you get a dedicated team of designers, several mockup choices and a stationery package.

However, you might well find that for materials with smaller print runs, or materials like flyers that are subject to change, you come out ahead printing in-house. All you need to print quality materials in-house is a good (but not print shop professional) color inkjet or laser printer and the right templates.

One resource for templates and advice is the HP In-House Marketing Resource Center. Here you’ll find advice on which printers make good choices for printing in-house, free business templates and business identity kits, HP Marketing Resources software downloads, paper selection guidance and more. You can even take courses to brush up on your techniques!

Tip 2: To buy or not to buy?

New technology, that is. This might seem obvious—you buy a new piece of equipment when the other one stops working. While this may seem like the way to get the best value out of your devices, you might want to consider looking at replacing technology in a new way.

Large corporations use a cycle they call the technology refresh cycle to keep their IT equipment as lean and updated and efficient as possible. It offers many economies you can bring to bear in your own small business.

It’s tempting to hold onto a desktop, printer, server or notebook until the bitter end to get your money’s worth out of it. However, older, obsolete technology can actually cost you more in the long run than buying new devices on a regular, planned schedule:

  • When an out-of-warranty device malfunctions, repairs are often far more expensive and time-consuming.
  • Older devices have a higher rate of malfunction as fragile parts not designed for indefinite use wear out. Of course, malfunctions tend to happen when you need the device the most, like on the eve of a big presentation.
  • Previous generations of products may have compatibility issues with more recent hardware of software.
  • Previous generations of products are not as energy efficient as newer ones, resulting in higher electric bills.

Look at the way you use your equipment, and consider whether implementing, say, a three-year refresh cycle makes sense. Replace equipment on a rolling basis three years from purchase, or five years, even. The idea is to make it your choice when to give up a device, not fate’s. Put control back into your hands and enjoy predictable levels of service with all your devices under a warranty in case of disaster.

Looking for some help managing your computer and printer equipment? HP Total Care can help take the uncertainty out of upgrading.

Tip 3: Reduce energy costs

Here’s where we step outside the realm of technology (mostly) to talk about ways you can revamp your office environment to save money on your electric bills.

  • Use natural light. If you can find a way to install skylights cheaply to provide natural light to your office space, do it. Nothing eats up energy like constant operation of traditional office lighting. Plus, natural light has health and wellness benefits for your employees—and yourself!
  • Do an air conditioning checkup. Even if you rent space from a landlord and have no direct control over the heating and cooling, you can get a primer from the management or maintenance staff in how to keep your costs down. Experiment with the thermostat until you find a level that most of your employees find comfortable.
  • Upgrade to ENERGY STAR 5.0 qualified systems. ENERGY STAR 5.0 standards mandate more efficient power converters and place strict energy consumption limits on PCs in sleep or hibernation mode, helping you reduce energy use and save on your utility bills.
  • Find out about local rebate programs. Many cities and towns have rebates or other incentives available to help businesses and individuals make their space more energy efficient. Your locale might reimburse the cost of solar screens on your windows, subsidize solar cells or any of a number of other cost saving measures.
  • Upgrade your light bulbs. You’re probably sick of hearing about compact fluorescents by now, but you can use them in the office as well as at home to save money! How much money? A typical ENERGY STAR qualified compact fluorescent bulb will save about $30 over its lifetime and pay for itself in about 6 months! You can calculate how much you’ll stand to save using ENERGY STAR’s Energy Savings Calculator. LED (light emitting diodes) lights are becoming increasingly available as well.
  • Turn off every device at the end of every day. Unplug every computer, monitor, printer or what have you from the wall, or power down your surge protectors. Even devices in standby consume some electricity. By unplugging your devices or shutting off the surge protectors, you can cut down on this “vampire power” and reduce energy consumption. The exception to this rule is your servers—don’t power them down or you could lose data!

Tip 4: Automate your paper processes

Does your business push a lot of paper? Are forms, order documents, customer communications and regulatory papers constantly moving from place to place, copied, filed and filled out? It’s time to think about automating those processes.

Instead of filing endless reams of forms, why not use a scanner with a large sheet feed attachment to turn them into electronic documents you can email, fax and—most importantly—protect with regular backups? You only need to scan a form once, and many electronic forms now allow you to fill out fields on your computer instead of with pen and paper.

Check out this article to see how you can use a scanner to improve your productivity.

You’ll save on paper costs and build an efficient workflow for your employees and yourself. It’s easy to lose one piece of paper, but if you’re well organized in how you store files online, it’s hard to lose that important data.

Want to save even more on paper? Consider a printer that supports automatic double-sided (duplex) printing. Check out this article to read more about duplex printing and other paper-saving tips.

Tip 5: Extend service contracts

If a technology refresh is just not in the cards for you, consider extending your current service and warranty contracts. Many businesses opt not to renew service contracts, feeling that the annual cost is not worth it compared to simply replacing a device or finding a local repair shop to fix it.

The truth is that there are many affordable options available for extending service contracts. You can often find contracts that are configurable—you pay for the level of service you want. Maybe you can live without same-day onsite repair and the premium price that goes with it. If you’re okay with mailing in a system for repair or waiting for parts and labor, then you can save substantially versus using local repair shops or buying new.

If you have HP equipment, HP Total Care offers a wide range of affordable services designed around your business needs. You can also find great tools like the color printing calculator, Windows 7 Onsite Upgrade Service and more.

Tip 6: Embrace Social Networks

Today’s social networking sites offer a cost-effective way to extend your marketing mix and interact with customers and prospects. Harnessed properly, social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn can serve your business well, giving you direct access to current and potential customers, colleagues, and thought leaders in your industry.

If you decide to take your business social, be sure to keep a few guidelines in mind:

  • Always conduct yourself professionally. You are, after all, representing your business!
  • Social networking does not equal advertising. Think of it more as a conversation. Talk with your followers, not at them.
  • Refrain from talking only about yourself. Engage with others, pass along relevant news and observations.
  • Maintain a consistent presence. Post too often and people may tune you out (or unfollow you), but post too infrequently and people may forget you are there.

If your business has a consumer-facing location (a coffee shop, for example), you may want to consider embracing location-based services such as Foursquare and Gowalla, which let people “check in” at various places and then broadcast their activities to their network of friends. Offering discounts or other perks to such users can help build word of mouth and, ultimately, traffic.

As you get your social presence off the ground, you may find it helpful to check out how various competitors and colleagues in your industry are harnessing social media.

Tip 7: Recycle using reward programs

This is the ultimate in win-win scenarios. You do the right thing by recycling your used printer cartridges, and get points toward rewards on new cartridges. What could be easier?

The most famous and successful such program is HP Planet Partners, in conjunction with HP PurchasEdge. Planet Partners makes it easy to recycle by providing free shipping inside every box of HP toner and ink cartridges. Just drop them in the mail and know they’re off to greener pastures—quite literally!

How does this program save you money? If you’re a member of HP’s PurchasEdge program, then you get rewards for every purchase of Original HP Supplies. If your company works out of the United States or Canada and spends more than $500 per year on printing supplies, then you’re eligible. Sign up at the PurchasEdge site and you earn one point for every $4 USD you spend on more than 1300 qualifying HP supplies. You get 150 points free for signing up, and it only takes 200 points to start claiming your reward—free HP products.

If you’re recycling with HP Planet Partners, then just log into your PurchasEdge account and report how many of what kind of cartridge you recycle, and you get between 2 and 10 points. Learn more about doing good for the planet while reaping money-saving rewards here (PDF).

Tip 8: Think twice before booking that plane ticket

Who likes business travel? No one! Not you, not your employees. It takes valuable time away from day-to-day business and family obligations; it’s expensive and increasingly inconvenient and unreliable.

A few years ago, video and even telephone conferencing was still exotic, more like something out of science fiction. But these days, you can use these technologies easily and inexpensively, without needed an IT worker or a lot of fancy equipment.

Communicating virtually has some real-world benefits:

  • Obviously, you save money on plane tickets, taxis, car rental, meals, mobile data charges, hotel and so on. Over the course of a year, even for a small business, that can amount to thousands of dollars.
  • When you can hop on a video or teleconference anytime, you’re encouraging closer collaboration between remote colleagues and clients. That means fewer miscommunications, and fewer missed business opportunities.
  • Video conferencing is a quick and easy way to close a sale. Meeting face to face without the hassle on both sides can smooth out an often bumpy process.

HP Virtual Rooms, for example, allows you to share a wide variety of documents in an interactive, expandable meeting space. You can get all the benefits of meeting in person without the expense of travel.

Tip 9: Evaluate copier contracts

Most businesses have a photocopier, but few buy these expensive devices outright. Often you’ll get a photocopier and a service agreement through a local dealer for a company like Minolta or Konica. These contracts are expensive in and of themselves, and often are not sensitive to your actual usage rates. You pay for 20,000 pages a year, for instance, even if you only end up using 10,000.

Interestingly, there’s a strong trend in the business world toward printing and away from copying. Modern MFPs (multifunction printers) that copy, print and scan can frequently be more economical than a traditional copier with a contract.

What’s the tipping point where an MFP is cheaper than a copier? Check out HP’s page cost calculator. This interactive tool allows you to pick an MFP, a copier that’s like yours, the length of your contract and your monthly page volumes, and then it shows you exactly where your cost per page printed becomes cheaper with an MFP.

To make sure you’re getting the best deal on printing and copying, you need to be aware of your monthly page volumes, the exact terms of your copier contract, and make absolutely sure that you’re getting your money’s worth out of that contract. If the numbers don’t add up, consider an MFP as a replacement for both your printer and copier.

Moving on

We hope you’ve taken away at least a few ways to discover savings in your current IT landscape. Never forget that the first place to look for cost savings is literally at your fingertips!

http://h30187.www3.hp.com/articles

Buy online or Call 800-BUY-MYHP

 
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10 Things You Can Do in the Next 60 Days to Market Your Business and Close More Sales

August 22, 2010 @ 3:49 am
posted Tim Antioch

Every small business marketer wants to be intentional about their marketing — ideally, marketers should have a marketing calendar.  Truth is, many organizations do not.

It’s 60 days before the end of the year.  There’s still time to take steps to close out the year strong. The following ideas work around any time of year, but help when they are tied to significant dates or celebrations.  Your results may vary, but most of these are fairly easy to do.  If you pick 1 or 2 of these, and do them well, it could change how your business finishes the year.

Take sales action and measure success

  1. Plan a year-end webinar series. Record the webinar, and sell both the live event and the replays.  Or consider using it as a lead capture tool to bring people into your marketing funnel in exchange for free access to the webinar replay.
  2. Gather and share a compelling customer case study. This can be shared with new prospects, or those who just haven’t made a decision yet.  Be aware of updated FTC guidelines especially as it relates to testimonials, endorsements, and disclosing any compensation.  (I am not lawyer, and this is not legal advice.  It is something to consider before investing in a case study.)
  3. Issue a press release highlighting the case study.  Or issue a press release on anything that would be classified as newsworthy of your company for your market.  There are both paid and free online press release services.  Consider PRWeb.com or OpenPR.com.
  4. Set a goal to contact your top 25 customers over the next 30 days. Show your appreciation.  Ask them what they’d like to see from your company in the coming year — and see if there are any needs you can meet in their business by end of year.  Take this opportunity to also connect with them on any social networks they may be on (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.).  Lastly, ask for a referral.
  5. Prepare a Thanksgiving email message, expressing what it is you are grateful for.  Include your customers and why.  And make a special offer to them.
  6. Celebrate “Black Friday” with a “Black Friday” themed campaign of your own.  Since “Black Friday” is for retail businesses who are becoming profitable for the first time in the calendar year (going from red ink into the ‘black’), talk about how your product has helped customers be profitable from day one, or within NN days of purchase.  Build a story around the success customers have had with the product.  Refer to a case study (#2 above).
  7. Consider a marketing campaign themed off of the 12 Days of Christmas. Perhaps build a tip list of the 12 essential tools necessary to get the job done.  Some of these tools can be ones you sell, but don’t make it all about buying from you (yet).  Offer value.
  8. Cap off the 12 days campaign with a special 3 day sale of your tools. Done right, the campaign should help them understand how your product or service would benefit them, and an enticing offer to cap it off will help them make a decision (to buy).
  9. Tell your marketplace of your most successful product, or business activity so far this year.  Then offer a special sale to commemorate the accomplishment.  Use email marketing or social media — or both — to communicate this event.
  10. CRITICAL: Set goals and objectives for whatever marketing activities you engage in for the next 60 days.  This not only helps understand the results, but often yields better results (see Hawthorne Effect).  It will also serve as a guide to future marketing activities, as you learn what your market responds to.

Bonus Tip: When these customers purchase from you, be sure to ask them “why” they did.  This can be done in a simple email.  When they reply with their answer, respond by asking them if you can have permission to quote them.  If they agree, use their quotes in your New Year’s kickoff campaign and marketing literature.  This can give you great feedback, while building a bank of quotes for future marketing initiatives.

Other Ideas/Feedback? This conversation is incomplete without you    Let’s talk!  Chime in with your questions, insights, and ideas below.

* * * * *

About the Author: Travis Campbell is a professional online marketer who teaches people how to make the most of their online marketing without all the hype.  The Marketers FAQ report is a compilation of his lessons learned marketing online and is available to those who join the site Marketing Professor.

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