Lessons in Innovation

Guy Kawasaki’s Lessons on Innovation

Written by: Leezia Dhalla at Rackspace

Fostering innovation is hard. It’s a lesson Guy Kawasaki, tech evangelist, author and chief evangelist of Canva, learned in the mid-1980s while working alongside Steve Jobs as Apple’s former chief evangelist. On Monday morning, Guy, a self-proclaimed “very happy Rackspace customer,” kicked off the third Rackspace::Solve summit, held at The Peninsula in downtown Chicago. Here are Guy’s top 10 strategies for fostering innovation:
1. Make Meaning
Great innovation starts with people who want to make meaning—not money. Most great innovators don’t have a grand vision for the future. Instead, they have a desire to change the world, one step at a time. Apple brought computers to people who had never had access to them before. Google made it easy for people to access information quickly. eBay made it possible for people, not just corporations, to sell products online. The desire to change the world can be lucrative — but if you dive into innovation with the goal of making money, you will likely fail.
2. Make Mantra
Great innovation starts with a powerful mantra — a common piece of language that outlines purpose and the reason for existence. The most effective mantras are three simple words. Nike believes in authentic, athletic performance. FedEx exists to deliver peace of mind. At the end of the day, personalized mantras are better than generic mission statements.
3. Jump To The Next Curve
Great innovation happens when you jump to the next curve, not when you duke it out to the same curve. That’s where the real action happens. In the printing industry, great innovation started with the daisy wheel printer and evolved to the laser printer and 3D printer. Those inventors knew that innovation didn’t just mean creating Helvetica font in 24 point. Great innovation means jumping to the next curve. Don’t die on the curve you started on.
4. Role The DICEE
Great innovation means creating DICEE products or services that are Deep, Intelligent, Complete,Empowering and Elegant.

• Great products are deep because they have lots of features and functionality, like dual-purpose sandals designed with a bottle cap opener underneath the sole.
• Great products are intelligent and help the user feel luxurious, like a remote control operated car.
• Great products are complete. Imagine the totality of Google, which is not just a search engine; it’s also analytical and offers Gmail, Google+, Google apps and a host of other offerings. Totality makes it great.
• Great products are empowering. They make it possible for the user to take the wheel.
• Great products are elegant. They show that someone took great care to consider the user and the design.

5. Don’t Worry — Be Crappy
If you wait for the perfect time or for the perfect product, you will never ship and life will pass you buy. There’s a difference between shipping something crappy and shipping something that has elements of crap to it. Look at Apple in 1984. Apple revolutionized an industry by unveiling a product with 108K of RAM. If they had waited for chips to be fast enough or cheap enough, they never would have shipped. You should ship something that’s DICEE and something that has jumped the curve—even if it has elements of crap to it.
6. “Let One Hundred Flowers Blossom.”
Take your best shot at gravity and market your position. Who is your customer? How is your customer using your product? You should put your product out there and see what happens because many times, people use products and services in unintended ways. Identify how people are using your product, and capitalize on it.
7. Polarize People
Great innovation polarizes people. Advertisers and Fortune 500 brands aren’t the biggest fans of TiVo because it enables people to bypass television commercials, which can be a huge source of revenue. TiVo is polarizing, but it’s also a revolutionary product. At the end of the day, great stuff polarizes people.
8. Churn, Baby, Churn
The hardest part of innovation is churn. A great deal of time, you have to refuse to listen to other people because there are people who are going to tell you they want better “sameness.” What this means is that they want a slightly different version of a product that already exists. True innovation means jumping to the next curve. Evolve your product, but listen to the consumers once you ship. User feedback will help you move from version one to version two—but this is often the hardest part of innovation.
9. Niche Thyself
Positioning yourself to target a niche market, like Fandango, is critical for great innovation. The most effective innovators are both unique and valuable. A parent’s worst nightmare is showing up at a movie theatre with several tiny humans in tow, only to learn that the long-anticipated film is sold out. Fandango is unique because it’s the only service that allows people to buy movie tickets in advance, which adds value by saving time for busy parents who don’t want to spend a half hour waiting in line at the box office.
10. Perfect Your Pitch
Great revolutionaries can pitch. Create an enchanting elevator pitch and customize your introduction so you can build a connection with your audience. You want your listener to feel that you are well informed, and that you know exactly whom you’re talking to.

Trigger Emails

6 Clever Triggered Emails to Inspire Your Marketing Automation

by Sam Kusinitz

July 10, 2014 at 6:00 AM

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Triggered emails can be a great way to deliver the right content at the right time to the right people. A sincere thank you, a courteous confirmation, or a concerned abandoned cart message that automatically follows a specific behavior someone took on your website can be the difference between a very happy customer and losing a contact altogether.
As long as the automated email is relevant, timely, and provides value to the recipient, triggered emails can be used to save marketers a tremendous amount of time and, more importantly, better engage your contact database.
Take a look at the examples below for some ideas of triggered emails you can incorporate into your own email marketing campaigns.

1) Uber: The Welcome Email

Uber sends an automated welcome email to anyone who registers for their services. The welcome email is simple and straightforward, welcoming new users and thanking them for signing up for Uber. To assist the new users and to encourage them to actually start using the car service, the welcome email also explains how Uber works in three simple steps, followed by a few tips on getting started with Uber. We love how Uber capitalizes on this opportunity to further educate their users.

2) Dropbox: The Re-engagement Email

Dropbox uses a triggered email to re-engage people who signed up for Dropbox, but have not actually installed the software on their computers yet.
The first great thing about this email is it uses personalization tokes to address the recipient directly, using his first name. The body of the email is very brief, which is nice. The text identifies a few specific ways Dropbox can assist you in organizing your files and a large blue CTA is noticably positioned directly in the middle of the email. It's short, sweet, yet still informative -- exactly what people in a re-engagement campaign need.

3) ModCloth: The Date/Time Tigger Email

ModCloth sends this email to people who have been subscribed to ModCloth’s email list for six months to celebrate their “anniversary” together. Of course, the true purpose of this email is to drive contacts back to their website -- and maybe make a purchase. To encourage recipients to visit ModCloth’s site and make a purchase, the anniversary email offers a coupon code for $5 off the contact’s next purchase. It's a small thing for ModCloth to give up in exchange for repeat business.

Source: Pure360

4) Amazon: The Thank-You Email

Amazon uses this triggered thank-you email to drive customers back to their site and gain information about the consumer that can be used to suggest additional products in the future.
In addition to thanking the customer for their recent purchase and personalizing the message using the consumer's full name, the email also asks the recipient to review their new product. And chances are, people are only going to review products they feel strongly about. Based on the products they review and how they review the product, Amazon can show them products they may like in the future. Plus, if the person ends up leaving a review, it could convince someone else to buy that product, too.

5) Zappos: The Confirmation Email

No one likes waiting day after day for a package arrive, wondering whether or not the item was ever actually shipped. To quell unnecessary anxiety, Zappos sends an automated email to customers as soon as their package is shipped. The email is personalized as it provides a picture of the specific item(s) the consumer purchased as well as the shipping address, a link to the order information, and the anticipated delivery date.
As the bottom of the email states, one of the core values at Zappos is to “create fun and a little weirdness." The email clearly adheres to this value addressing the recipient as “Zappos Zealot” and closing the intro to the email with “XOXO, Zappos.com."

6) Urban Outfitters: The Unsubscribe Email

Urban Outfitters automatically sends this email to people when they request to unsubscribe from the clothing store’s emails. The purpose of this automated email is a last-ditch effort to convince recipients not to unsubscribe. To appeal to their young adult target audience, this email creatively plays on the idea of a salvaging a relationship.
Rather than simply providing a checkbox to either confirm the unsubscribe request or remain on UO’s email list, this email features an amusing image of a text messaging conversation that expresses Urban Outfitter’s desire to avoid “breaking up” with the recipient who is shown as contact “BFF” on the mobile phone. We love how this email is something that their buyer persona can definitely relate to.

Blogging

How to Hire a World-Class Blogger for Your Company

by Neil Patel on June 25, 2014

You know the benefits of blogging, but you don’t have the time to blog yourself. What should you do? Hire a blogger, right?
You should. But do you know how to find a great blogger?
Luckily for you, I’ve had a lot of experience in hiring bloggers for both KISSmetrics and Crazy Egg. Some of these bloggers worked out great, while others did not. Through the whole process, I’ve learned where to find great bloggers and what to look for when hiring them.

How to hire an exceptional blogger

Unlike for most jobs, you don’t find world-class bloggers through job postings. It’s not because a lot of great bloggers are already busy. In reality, a lot of them are not. Not only that, most of them don’t even get paid well.
The simplest way to find a great blogger is to scour marketing blogs. Although your business may not be about marketing, it doesn’t matter in this particular case. A great blogger can write on any topic due to the fact that anything can be researched on the web.
The first thing you want to do is make a list of all the popular marketing blogs such as Copyblogger, Problogger, KISSmetrics, and Moz. Each of those blogs accepts guest posters, which is what you want to look for.
Typically, if a blogger was able to get his or her content published on one of those blogs, this person is a good enough blogger as each of those blogs has strict editorial guidelines.

What a world-class blogger looks like

Now that you have a list of potential bloggers to hire, you need to look for the following qualities:

1. Traffic generation abilities – if the posts they are writing receive more social shares than other posts published on that same blog, it doesn’t necessarily mean that their content is better. It usually means they know how to generate traffic. Two of my blogs are run with content published by guest bloggers, and I’ve learned that some of these bloggers are great at promoting content, while others are only good at the writing part. You want to hire the ones that are good at both writing and promotion. Typically, if their content has more social shares, they understand content promotion.
2. Conversational writing style – no one wants to read an essay. Blog posts are supposed to be conversational and fun to read. Look for writers that use the words “you” and “I” a lot within their blog posts. This is important because I’ve found that bloggers who don’t write in a conversational tone receive 31% fewer comments per post. You want more comments because that means more engagement, and engaged readers are more likely to convert into customers.
3. Storytelling – you only have 8 seconds to grab the attention of your readers. That’s short! So short that it’s actually a second shorter than the attention span of a gold fish. One of the best ways to hook a reader is by telling a story. If the blogger can incorporate stories within each blog post, these posts will be more likely to be read.
4. Analytical abilities – how do you prove a point? By using facts and data, right? You don’t want to hire a blogger who can’t prove a point. Why? Because I’ve found that blog posts that contain data and stats, assuming they are accurate, generate 28% more social shares. That means more traffic to your blog.

Conclusion

When it comes to evaluating bloggers’ abilities, you don’t have to look further than the points above. Sure, there are other important qualities a blogger should have. The advantage of finding these bloggers on other popular blogs is that those other qualities have already been pre-vetted for you.
Once you find a few bloggers that meet the requirements above, you’ll want to shoot them an email asking if they are interested in contractual gigs. Contract means you just pay them for every blog post they write.
What you’ll find is that most of these bloggers will want $100 to $200 for a blog post between 1,000 and 2,000 words. Paying more than $200 usually isn’t worth it unless your ROI warrants it. And paying less than $100 isn’t very realistic as most good bloggers spend four to five hours writing a great post. That means you would be paying them less than $20 an hour.
It’s as simple as that. There isn’t much more to finding a world-class blogger.

1000 True Fans-

1,000 True Fans

The long tail is famously good news for two classes of people; a few lucky aggregators, such as Amazon and Netflix, and 6 billion consumers. Of those two, I think consumers earn the greater reward from the wealth hidden in infinite niches.

But the long tail is a decidedly mixed blessing for creators. Individual artists, producers, inventors and makers are overlooked in the equation. The long tail does not raise the sales of creators much, but it does add massive competition and endless downward pressure on prices. Unless artists become a large aggregator of other artist's works, the long tail offers no path out of the quiet doldrums of minuscule sales.

Other than aim for a blockbuster hit, what can an artist do to escape the long tail?
One solution is to find 1,000 True Fans. While some artists have discovered this path without calling it that, I think it is worth trying to formalize. The gist of 1,000 True Fans can be stated simply:

A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author - in other words, anyone producing works of art - needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.

A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can't wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans.

To raise your sales out of the flatline of the long tail you need to connect with your True Fans directly.  Another way to state this is, you need to convert a thousand Lesser Fans into a thousand True Fans.

Assume conservatively that your True Fans will each spend one day's wages per year in support of what you do. That "one-day-wage" is an average, because of course your truest fans will spend a lot more than that.  Let's peg that per diem each True Fan spends at $100 per year. If you have 1,000 fans that sums up to $100,000 per year, which minus some modest expenses, is a living for most folks.

One thousand is a feasible number. You could count to 1,000. If you added one fan a day, it would take only three years. True Fanship is doable. Pleasing a True Fan is pleasurable, and invigorating. It rewards the artist to remain true, to focus on the unique aspects of their work, the qualities that True Fans appreciate.

The key challenge is that you have to maintain direct contact with your 1,000 True Fans. They are giving you their support directly. Maybe they come to your house concerts, or they are buying your DVDs from your website, or they order your prints from Pictopia. As much as possible you retain the full amount of their support. You also benefit from the direct feedback and love.
The technologies of connection and small-time manufacturing make this circle possible. Blogs and RSS feeds trickle out news, and upcoming appearances or new works. Web sites host galleries of your past work, archives of biographical information, and catalogs of paraphernalia. Diskmakers, Blurb, rapid prototyping shops, Myspace, Facebook, and the entire digital domain all conspire to make duplication and dissemination in small quantities fast, cheap and easy. You don't need a million fans to justify producing something new. A mere one thousand is sufficient.

This small circle of diehard fans, which can provide you with a living, is surrounded by concentric circles of Lesser Fans. These folks will not purchase everything you do, and may not seek out direct contact, but they will buy much of what you produce. The processes you develop to feed your True Fans will also nurture Lesser Fans. As you acquire new True Fans, you can also add many more Lesser Fans. If you keep going, you may indeed end up with millions of fans and reach a hit. I don't know of any creator who is not interested in having a million fans.
But the point of this strategy is to say that you don't need a hit to survive.  You don't need to aim for the short head of best-sellerdom to escape the long tail. There is a place in the middle, that is not very far away from the tail, where you can at least make a living. That mid-way haven is called 1,000 True Fans. It is an alternate destination for an artist to aim for.

Young artists starting out in this digitally mediated world have another path other than stardom, a path made possible by the very technology that creates the long tail. Instead of trying to reach the narrow and unlikely peaks of platinum hits, bestseller blockbusters, and celebrity status, they can aim for direct connection with 1,000 True Fans. It's a much saner destination to hope for. You make a living instead of a fortune. You are surrounded not by fad and fashionable infatuation, but by True Fans. And you are much more likely to actually arrive there.

A few caveats. This formula - one thousand direct True Fans --  is crafted for one person, the solo artist. What happens in a duet, or quartet, or movie crew? Obviously, you'll need more fans. But the additional fans you'll need are in direct geometric proportion to the increase of your creative group. In other words, if you increase your group size by 33%, you need add only 33% more fans. This linear growth is in contrast to the exponential growth by which many things in the digital domain inflate. I would not be surprised to find that the value of your True Fans network follows the standard network effects rule, and increases as the square of the number of Fans. As your True Fans connect with each other, they will more readily increase their average spending on your works. So while increasing the numbers of artists involved in creation increases the number of True Fans needed, the increase does not explode, but rises gently and in proportion.

A more important caution: Not every artist is cut out, or willing, to be a nurturer of fans. Many musicians just want to play music, or photographers just want to shoot, or painters paint, and they temperamentally don't want to deal with fans, especially True Fans. For these creatives, they need a mediator, a manager, a handler, an agent, a galleryist -- someone to manage their fans.  Nonetheless, they can still aim for the same middle destination of 1,000 True Fans. They are just working in a duet.

Third distinction. Direct fans are best. The number of True Fans needed to make a living indirectly inflates fast, but not infinitely. Take blogging as an example. Because fan support for a blogger routes through advertising clicks (except in the occasional tip-jar), more fans are needed for a blogger to make a living. But while this moves the destination towards the left on the long tail curve, it is still far short of blockbuster territory. Same is true in book publishing. When you have corporations involved in taking the majority of the revenue for your work, then it takes many times more True Fans to support you. To the degree an author cultivates direct contact with his/her fans, the smaller the number needed.

Lastly, the actual number may vary depending on the media. Maybe it is 500 True Fans for a painter and 5,000 True Fans for a videomaker. The numbers must surely vary around the world. But in fact the actual number is not critical, because it cannot be determined except by attempting it. Once you are in that mode, the actual number will become evident. That will be the True Fan number that works for you. My formula may be off by an order of magnitude, but even so, its far less than a million.

I've been scouring the literature for any references to the True Fan number. Suck.com co-founder Carl Steadman had theory about microcelebrities. By his count, a microcelebrity was someone famous to 1,500 people. So those fifteen hundred would rave about you. As quoted by Danny O'Brien, "One person in every town in Britain likes your dumb online comic. That's enough to keep you in beers (or T-shirt sales) all year."

Others call this microcelebrity support micro-patronage, or distributed patronage.
In 1999 John Kelsey and Bruce Schneier published a model for this in First Monday, an online journal. They called it the Street Performer Protocol.

Using the logic of a street performer, the author goes directly to the readers before the book is published; perhaps even before the book is written. The author bypasses the publisher and makes a public statement on the order of: "When I get $100,000 in donations, I will release the next novel in this series."

Readers can go to the author's Web site, see how much money has already been donated, and donate money to the cause of getting his novel out. Note that the author doesn't care who pays to get the next chapter out; nor does he care how many people read the book that didn't pay for it. He just cares that his $100,000 pot gets filled. When it does, he publishes the next book. In this case "publish" simply means "make available," not "bind and distribute through bookstores." The book is made available, free of charge, to everyone: those who paid for it and those who did not.

In 2004 author Lawrence Watt-Evans used this model to publish his newest novel. He asked his True Fans to collectively pay $100 per month. When he got $100 he posted the next chapter of the novel. The entire book was published online for his True Fans, and then later in paper for all his fans. He is now writing a second novel this way. He gets by on an estimated 200 True Fans because he also publishes in the traditional manner -- with advances from a publisher supported by thousands of Lesser Fans.  Other authors who use fans to directly support their work are Diane Duane, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, and Don Sakers. Game designer Greg Stolze employed a similar True Fan model to launch two pre-financed games. Fifty of his True Fans contributed seed money for his development costs.

The genius of the True Fan model is that the fans are able to move an artist away from the edges of the long tail to a degree larger than their numbers indicate. They can do this in three ways: by purchasing more per person, by spending directly so the creator keeps more per sale, and by enabling new models of support.

New models of support include micro-patronage. Another model is pre-financing the startup costs. Digital technology enables this fan support to take many shapes. Fundable is a web-based enterprise which allows anyone to raise a fixed amount of money for a project, while reassuring the backers the project will happen. Fundable withholds the money until the full amount is collected. They return the money if the minimum is not reached.

Here's an example from Fundable's site;

Amelia, a twenty-year-old classical soprano singer, pre-sold her first CD before entering a recording studio. "If I get $400 in pre-orders, I will be able to afford the rest [of the studio costs]," she told potential contributors. Fundable's all-or-nothing model ensured that none of her customers would lose money if she fell short of her goal. Amelia sold over $940 in albums.

A thousand dollars won't keep even a starving artist alive long, but with serious attention, a dedicated artist can do better with their True Fans. Jill Sobule, a musician who has nurtured a sizable following over many years of touring and recording, is doing well relying on her True Fans. Recently she decided to go to her fans to finance the $75,000 professional recording fees she needed for her next album. She has raised close to $50,000 so far. By directly supporting her via their patronage, the fans gain intimacy with their artist. According to the Associated Press:

Contributors can choose a level of pledges ranging from the $10 "unpolished rock," which earns them a free digital download of her disc when it's made, to the $10,000 "weapons-grade plutonium level," where she promises "you get to come and sing on my CD. Don't worry if you can't sing - we can fix that on our end." For a $5,000 contribution, Sobule said she'll perform a concert in the donor's house. The lower levels are more popular, where donors can earn things like an advanced copy of the CD, a mention in the liner notes and a T-shirt identifying them as a "junior executive producer" of the CD.

The usual alternative to making a living based on True Fans is poverty.  A study as recently as 1995 showed that the accepted price of being an artist was large. Sociologist Ruth Towse surveyed artists in Britian and determined that on average they earned below poverty subsistence levels.

I am suggesting there is a home for creatives in between poverty and stardom. Somewhere lower than stratospheric bestsellerdom, but higher than the obscurity of the long tail. I don't know the actual true number, but I think a dedicated artist could cultivate 1,000 True Fans, and by their direct support using new technology, make an honest living.  I'd love to hear from anyone who might have settled on such a path.

Improving productivity

Get it Done: 35 Habits of the Most Productive People (Infographic)

BY Catherine Clifford | December 13, 2013|

65 Comments |

Image credit: ryantron on Flickr

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You know those people who get so much done it seems like they have 30 hours in every day while the rest of us mere mortals have a measly 24? You know, the ones who seem to get more accomplished before breakfast than you do all day?
You can actually become one of them. For starters, spend one minute replying to each email – max -- and don’t feel compelled to respond to everything. Also, take a play from Steve Jobs, Hillary Clinton, President Obama and Mark Zuckerberg and wear the same thing every day. It saves time that you spend trying on different outfits every day, says Anna Vital, the co-founder of the San Francisco-based startup organization Funders and Founders who compiled the tips and made the infographic below.
Take a break from your procrastinating and check out the infographic below.

Click to Enlarge+

Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230392#ixzz2oUe5Ql7Q

Alternatives to Business Coaching

(Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

By Laura Roeder, social media marketing expert.

As a business owner, what do you do when you’re seriously stuck but have no boss or partner to go to for advice?

Soak up the wisdom online or at the library for free.

This may sound like overly basic advice, but I can’t emphasize enough how much I’ve learned about running a business just by spending some time reading. I’ve applied systems, practices and tools to my own startup with visibly great results. Here are my go-to business books (some of them travel with me everywhere I go):

1. “Mastering the Rockefeller Habits: What You Must Do to Increase the Value of Your Growing Firm”: This book has helped me and my team focus on serious growth. Establishing a business that works is great, but the playing field does change when you’re trying to go from 100 customers to 10,000. I recommend it for anyone ready to take their success to a whole new level.
2. “Double Double: How to Double Your Revenue and Profit in 3 Years or Less”: Cameron Herold’s book is also focused on growing your business. What really opened my eyes about this book though, are the parts about building a team that will facilitate growth, and how to lead that team. This is one of those books I read over and over, and I would highly recommend it — especially if you’re looking to stop doing everything yourself and bring on one (or many) team members.
3. “Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle”: This was the book I used as my guide when I was first starting out as a freelance web designer. When you’re a freelancer, finding the clients is just as important — if not more important than — actually executing work for them. One of the major things I got from this book is about going after what he calls the “red velvet rope clients.” In other words, these are your 100 percent ideal customers. It can be really hard to say no when someone comes to you saying “I want to work with you AND give you money!” But Michael Port breaks it down clearly and explains why being choosy is the absolute best thing you can do as a freelancer.
4. “Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us”: Tribes is essentially our marketing bible here at Roeder Studios. It teaches you that building a fanatical community (your “tribe”) is far more important than the specs of your next product. Unless you run a collections agency, this book is for you.

I love books. But chances are you aren’t going to get through multiple books in one day. So when I can get an almost-daily dose of advice from the blogs of business-owners who are doing things right, I happily consume it as fast as a pint of ice cream. Below are my favorite read-first business blogs:

1. Seth Godin: Seth has been writing about marketing and growing your business for so many years that you could basically devote your time to reading through the archives and you’d pretty much know everything there is to know. Lots of his articles are super-short and easy to consume while on the go.
2. Derek Sivers: Derek, a friend of mine, writes this amazing blog on all aspects of life, camouflaged as a business blog. What I love about Derek’s writing is that it always makes you stop and think deeper, regardless of the particular topic of any given post.
3. Neil Patel: Neil shells out the most practical advice about everything that’s currently happening in the world of marketing in Quick Sprout. His posts are extremely detailed and he’s constantly giving away the step-by-step systems that brought him such enormous success at a young age.

Finally, the only thing better than books and blogs for getting really tangible advice is in-person events and conferences. I try to never miss:

1. Microconf: Microconf is a conference dedicated to bootstrapped startups. These are a collection of businesses who have unique struggles from the both the startup and small business worlds, and have some really amazing solutions to share with you.
2. World Domination Summit: The absolute best conference for anyone thinking about making their mark in the world is World Domination Summit. I’ve met some of my closest friends at this inspiring event. Tickets sell out in about 30 seconds every year — it’s that good. (Here’s why I loved it this year.)
3. Summit Series: This is a series of conferences that collect some of the brightest minds, thought leaders and entrepreneurs from around the world. Get ready to get blown away by what these people are up to.

There you have it: 10 sources to turn to for advice as a solo business owner. I’m not against paying for an experienced business coach to help you go after that big growth. In fact, I’ve been coached at different points in my business. But there’s nothing quite like having a free (or inexpensive) resource that you can turn to again and again. So fire up that library card. Your credit card bill — and your business — will thank you.

Courtesy of YEC

Laura Roeder is a social media marketing expert who teaches small businesses how to become known as #1 in their field and claim their brand online. She is the creator of Creating Fame and Your Backstage Pass to Twitter.

Growing Business not Spinning Wheels

Posted by Susan Brown on September 10, 2013

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Thinking about building a business from scratch or have a business that desperately needs attention, but having a hard time getting started? Getting your act together does not have to be this big, overwhelming process. Taking the tiniest, most simple-looking steps could be just what you need to get into gear and jump start your business.
The following are ten practical steps to building a business or starting a new project that anyone can do. With a little willpower you’ll be able to achieve goals you may have never thought possible.
Skeptical?
Go through the steps below, and give it a try. You may be surprised by the difference a systematic approach can make.
Recognize what you are ultimately trying to accomplish and why. The very first step is clearly mapping out your goals. Merely having a rough idea of where you are heading is not enough. Write down exactly what you want to accomplish, and more importantly, why you want to accomplish it. I personally am a very visual person, and I’ve found that mind mapping is really helpful in this process. I use FreeMind, which you can download for free here.
Make sure your business goals are manageable. If your goals are too broad or the bar is being set too high, then you will be much more likely to get overwhelmed or burnt out. The trick is knowing how to break down your goals into manageable steps or focus areas. For example, if one of your goals is to learn how to successfully promote your business via social media, you’ll need to break this down into small steps such as:

• Step 1: Getting a basic understanding what each of the major social networking platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Pinterest) will allow you to do.
• Step 2: Determining which platforms attract your target audience
• Step 3: Picking ONE social network platform and then….
• Step 4: Learning about how your target audience uses the network
• Step 5: Learning how to optimize your profile
• Step 6: Learning how to optimize posts for targeted reach and exposure

…You get the point? Each step becomes a goal in and of itself that requires sufficient mastery.
Pick a starting point… and start immediately. Let me begin by saying that the actual starting point in and of itself is NOT so important. I know that may seem counter-intuitive, but in practice it’s not. It is much more important to just commit yourself to one area and get going since the biggest hump for most people is taking those first steps. Even if these steps are small and far from perfect, you’ve already put yourself on the road to growth and development merely by starting, and that is no small thing. You also want that start to happen right away, as in TODAY! Pick a very small thing that you can do right now, and just do it.

I couldn’t resist

Keeping yourself accountable. Defining your goals and finding a starting point may not be enough to keep you motivated over the long run. For this reason, you should create additional, “outside” motivators. Depending on your personality, there are several things that you could do. You could make a monetary investment into the business (for example, registering a domain or buying a piece of equipment that you know you’re going to need). You could also get others involved: you could join a support group, find a mentor, or even call on a friend or family member to help keep you accountable to your goals.
Don’t consult too many resources. Another reason why people tend to put off building a business or taking their current business to the next level is that they are overwhelmed by the shear amount of information available, and depending on the topic, a lot of it may be contradictory or unclear. There is just way too much noise: too many “experts,” too many resources, and too much data for a person to possibly go through. You’ll have much to gain by just picking one or two sources to follow and consult. Look to learn from those who have mastered their skills enough that they can teach it to you in a way that you can receive it.
Make sure you have what you need. Before you get started you need to be certain that all the resources you need to accomplish your goals are in place. This includes things like equipment, materials, supplies, and even qualified workers.
Make a commitment to your goals. This may sound simple, but it’s one of the most common pitfalls people have when trying to build their businesses. It’s not just that you need clear goals and the resources to fulfill them, but you have to actively commit yourself to using these resources for the process. This means setting aside the necessary time, attention, and money and doing so consistently.
Don’t move on till you’ve achieved sufficient mastery. Following on the heels of the point above, don’t run after content for content’s sake. Seek to master the gaps in what you already know in a given area. Once you’ve reached a sufficient level of mastery, you can then move on to something else. Again, this is about focus. If you are constantly scattering your attention and resources, you simply won’t get so far.
Work with your natural rhythm and learning style. When are you most productive? What is your ideal learning style? How long can you focus on the given task? Knowing this information and acting on it can make the whole process go much quicker. It will help you to maximize your efforts. To help you find out this information about yourself, you could take a look at the site Qualified Mind. It allows you to conduct experiments on yourself to determine your peak mental performance. To find out your learning style, there are many free online tests you can take. Here is a sampling of some good ones:

• http://homeworktips.about.com/od/homeworkhelp/a/lstyleqz.htm
• http://www.learning-styles-online.com/inventory/
• http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-learning-styles-quiz
• http://www.acceleratedlearning.com/method/test_flash.html
• http://sunburst.usd.edu/~bwjames/tut/learning-style/stylest.html
• http://www.vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=questionnaire

Record your progress, test, and get feedback. Building a business from scratch is not a static process. If you really want results, then you need to be testing, reporting, and generating feedback along the way. Obviously, the kinds of reporting and testing will vary depending on what you are trying to accomplish, but it may include things like: A/B testing, looking at site analytics, and other performance tests and reports- all in the name of keeping tabs on your progress. This will help you to stay on course so that you can pursue the activities and strategies that are really working and be alerted to the things that aren’t.
In closing, building a business is a process like anything else. If you know how to approach this process properly, you can avoid a whole lot of wasted time and other resources and end up accomplishing much more than you may have thought possible.

Optimize Your Website Content with Calls to Action: Tips for Small Businesses

By Mike Murray published September 1, 2013

Many small businesses have a long way to go when it comes to providing the calls to action that are essential for driving conversions from their content marketing efforts.
For example, I regularly find websites that lack easy-to-find phone numbers; or they fail to display offers targeted at engaging prospects who may leave after a few seconds without picking up the phone or sharing their names and email addresses.
To document the issues I’ve come across, I randomly selected 200 U.S.-based small businesses from the ReferenceUSA database (including companies with fewer than 100 employees in such industries as construction, manufacturing, and professional services), and compiled my findings into the Small Business B2B Call to Action Study.
The study, presented by Small Business Trends, also includes a small business B2B call-to-action checklist, which details more than 30 conversion topics that small businesses should review and implement when optimizing their website content.
Here are some of the key observations on how small businesses are failing to benefit from calls to action:

• 96 percent don’t feature any industry how-to guide or white papers on their home pages.
• 70 percent don’t reference any notable calls to action on their home pages (other than a phone number and a “contact us” option in the navigation).
• 72 percent don’t have any calls to action on their interior pages.
• 82 percent don’t reference their social media profiles (text or images).
• 27 percent don’t include a phone number on their home pages.
• 70 percent of websites with a phone number don’t display it in a prominent place.
• 68 percent don’t include an email address on their home pages.
• 38 percent of websites with an email address bury it on the home page (often in the footer).

These findings are somewhat surprising, given that commercial websites have been around for
about 20 years — ample time to have begun to put best practices in place.
You can get excellent tips by reading Mark Sherbin’s CMI post, Are Your Calls to Action Missing These Proven Formulas? Among other ideas, he offers three steps based on conversion experts’ experience:

Step 1: Write copy that gets specific, touts benefits, and uses keywords

Actionable, specific language is the most important part of writing your call-to-action copy. For example, a specific call to action might mention the number of pages in an eBook or the length of a webinar.

Step 2: Design contrasting buttons and shallow navigation

Call to action buttons and banners should stand out through contrasting colors — but which colors you use may be less important than you think.
“Someone once told me, ‘I’ve never not clicked a call to action because it was deep purple instead of bright blue,’” Katherine Griwert of Brafton explains in the article. “Content marketers should consider other design priorities, like using brand-appropriate colors or creating a recognizable custom icon to pair with your CTAs.”

Step 3: Weigh your call to actions and prioritize them

Assuming your “Buy Now” command is your most important isn’t always correct. Your highest priority call to action should be paired with the content, depending on where your prospect is in the sales process.
For example, if your visitor reads an introductory blog post, chances are they are unfamiliar with your brand and not quite ready to buy. The call to action should point them toward more advanced content — instead of the contact page or shopping cart.
You can also get great pointers from Brian Massey in his article, Landing Page Basics: Making Your Content Marketing Convert.
In my small business call to action study, I found that typically nothing stands out on the websites. Even the “Contact Us” statement is often just another navigation option among many page elements (a different color or larger font would help call attention).

Idea Triggers

Idea Triggers

When you are out of ideas, try one of the following idea triggers to stimulate your imagination.

What technique will the leader in your field be using 20 years from now?

Explain your problem to someone who doesn’t know any of the technical jargon. Ask how he/she would solve the problem.

What is impossible to do in your industry, but if it were, would change the nature of your industry forever?

How would you pursue the goals if you had unlimited resources: people and money?

Spend a couple of hours in the library leafing through journals that are distinctly peripheral to your project.

If there were a crisis and you had to complete your project within a week, what would you do?

Can you break down your major technical barrier into subsets? Which one now is the greatest barrier?

See how well you can describe the barriers to your challenges. Then get your team, first individually and then as a group, to prepare possible solutions.

Our brains need to be fed quality questions that challenge our neural network to really think. Try opening your next meeting with 5 – 10 minutes of question-storming. You can think of questions related to a specific topic, or simply reflect on all the things you would like to know about the universe.

Think of 10 ridiculous ways to solve the problem.

Are you managing your staff to take advantage of accidental events?

Wouldn’t it be useful if you provoked a bit more laughter in your group?

What question would you ask God if God were in the same room with you?

Go out of your way to find someone who isn’t an expert, but who would enjoy learning about your project. The burden will be on you to explain it in an easily understandable manner.

How about spending an entire week not thinking about the problem?

Try thinking about the problem during times when you normally aren’t thinking about work.

Any good analogies to help you see the problem in a different way?

Ever consider thinking about your project in a different language?

Is it really necessary to see that your experiments are “correctly performed?”

Get someone else to look over your notebooks; perhaps a clue you’ve missed lies waiting.

Perhaps the idea that, at the time seemed silly, now has some value.

Anything useful in project disclosures of a decade ago?

Go out of your way to discuss the problem with someone who isn’t personally involved with its outcome.

Might an extension of the project deadline significantly increase the chance for success?

Are the ideas limited because you, or someone in your group, is “wedded” to a particular piece of equipment?

How about getting one more opinion on that strategy?

Is there someone in your group who may have a good idea, but isn’t offering it because he or she is concerned that it won’t be accepted.

Set up a meeting specifically to challenge the assumptions you consider basic to the problem.

What can you do to present your ideas more effectively?

Do you really listen to old ideas?

Concentrate on the problem just before you go to bed.

After a major decision is made, let it sit for a few days before you act on it– allowing people to mull it over and provide new input.

Are you willing to take the battering that frequently comes when you offer a great idea?

Write the problem down with the fewest number of words.

Play with turning the problem inside out.

When the problem seems complex, take a walk, relax and observe. Then outline the problem out loud, just before you go to bed.

- See more at: http://creativethinking.net/articles/2013/08/19/455/?goback=%2Egde_2433065_member_267223559#%21

Negotiating

3 Golden Rules of Negotiating BY Grant Cardone | January 20, 2013| The art of negotiating escapes most of us, even good salespeople, because few take the time to correctly understand the word and follow the golden rules of negotiating. The first and biggest error is a misunderstanding of the word. When I ask people at my Closers workshop what the word "negotiating" means, I get answers like, "how good a deal can I get" and "how cheap can I buy." For many people, it's a process of painful tactics of stall and overcome or a give and take mostly involving the surrender of price and terms. "Negotiate" comes from the Latin negotiatus, which is the past participle of negotiari, and means to carry on business. This original meaning is critical to understand because the goal of negotiating is to continue doing business by conferring with another to arrive at an agreement. Related: Grant Cardone on Debunking the Price Myth So, scrap the notion that negotiating means lowering the price to reach an agreement. A lower price does not make for a better deal; it only makes for less margin for you and your company. Your goal is to come to an agreement about a proposal, and the way to do this is to build value in your offer. The solution your product or service offers is the focal point of negotiations, not the price. Here are three of my 12 golden rules, which I won't allow myself to violate in any negotiation, whether simple or complex: 1. Always Start the Negotiations. You must initiate the process because whoever controls the start of the negotiations tends to control where they end. If you let the other party start negotiations, you will be constantly giving up control, often without even realizing it. For instance, when you ask someone what his project budget is, you are allowing him to start the negotiations. You will then spend your time chasing his number rather than finding the best solution. When I sit down to work out an agreement on the numbers involved in the decision, I will even interrupt to prevent the other side from controlling the starting point. Sounds bizarre, but that is how important starting the transaction is. I once had a client who wanted to offer his terms upfront. I politely said, "Excuse me, I appreciate your willingness to tell me what you can do and would like just a moment to share with you what I have put together for you. If it doesn't work, then please tell me." This allowed me to control the starting point. Related: 9 Proven Sales Tips for Introverts 2. Always Negotiate in Writing. I see so many professional salespeople make the mistake of discussing and working on the terms of an agreement without ever committing their ideas to a written agreement. But the purpose of negotiations is to arrive at a formal written agreement, not tell a story or spend time talking. From the first moment I make a proposal, I refer to a document that is being created in front of the client. It includes all the points of agreement and becomes real to the prospective customer. Negotiating first and then having to create a document adds unnecessary time to a transaction. But if you build your written agreement as you negotiate, you are prepared to ask for a signature the moment the decision to buy is made. Related: 5 Ways to Succeed in Any Economy 3. Always Stay Cool. The negotiation table can be loaded with agendas, egos and emotions. Great negotiators know how to stay cool, providing leadership and solutions, while the rest of the room becomes insanely invested in personal agendas and useless emotions. Crying, getting angry, name calling and blowing off steam may make you feel good, but such behavior will not benefit you while negotiating. When the rest of the room gets emotional, stay cool like Spock and use logic to negotiate and close. Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/225537#ixzz2c2QxnE3a

Working the Numbers to Understand the business

Knowing your business numbers

As business owners it is very important to know what is needed to drive your business to be successful. Let’s take a moment to examine your business. Are you aware of your next product launch? What about the date you will begin offering that new service? I’m sure you are able to answer the previous questions but can you answer the most important questions below?
Do you know your last month’s gross profit or your largest expense amount? What about your Projected Sales target for the year and how close are you to reaching that target?
Most business owners are unable to answer these questions and because of that they are cutting their chance of reaching maximum success. To ensure that you reach maximum success in your business you must have a reliable record keeping system in place.
Having a reliable record keeping system is about knowing, controlling and monitoring your financial numbers consistently. Quick detection of money issues in your business places you in a positive position to correct them early which can prevent business failure.
Follow the simple steps below to implement a reliable record keeping system.

1. At the end of each business week create an excel spreadsheet to list your sales and expenses.
2. At the end of each month total your sales and expenses for the month.
3. Subtract your sales total from your expenses total to determine your profit or loss for that month.
4. Compare side by side the current month numbers against the previous months.
5. Now use those numbers to determine the next best steps to reaching your Projected Yearly Sales.

By comparing the months to each other you are able to clearly understand the flow of you business. For example you can determine when your high revenue months are against your slow revenue months. You can then determine what marketing strategies or economy changes occurred during your high revenue months and other important information regarding you business.
The benefit of knowing your numbers will enable you to make wise business decisions and if used correctly it can propel you a step ahead of the competition. Your numbers helps you to understand the health of your business and understanding the true health of your business will lead to maximum success.
Leave a comment below and let us know what are some other benefits that come with knowing and understanding your business number.
For more information on how to keep better books for your business click here.

7 Low-Cost Benefits That Employees Love

When you first start your company, employee benefits are probably the last thing on your mind. (Figuring out how to make or raise money so you can bring on said employees? A bit more important.)
But as you grow your business, you face a dilemma: You want to attract the best and brightest workers, but you can’t afford the high-dollar salary and awesome benefits handed out by Fortune 500 companies (or even more established small businesses). How do you build a workplace so compelling that people will eagerly come work for you?
The good news is that some of today’s most beloved and sought-after employee benefits don’t cost a fortune. In fact, they’re fairly affordable. And in the long run, providing even a few low-cost benefits can help you attract loyal employees and compete for talent in today’s strengthening job market.
Here are seven perks to consider at your start-up.

1. Unlimited Vacation Time

Letting employees decide how much vacation time they take may seem like a slippery slope. But it can actually help motivate them to work harder. You trust them to do their jobs, and, in exchange, they’re free to take time off as they need. Many of today’s fast-growing companies including Netflix, HubSpot, and my company, ZenPayroll, have adopted unlimited PTO policies. We provide guidelines and references (for example, what other employees have done in the past) but fundamentally, we trust employees to think about what’s best for the company, their work, and themselves. And that’s a really empowering perk.

2. Sabbaticals

Of course, at many workplaces, it’s logistically impossible for employees to take off more than a couple weeks at a time. But offering a lengthier break after, say, five years of employment can differentiate your company from competitors and let your employees recharge. Only 4% of companies offer sabbaticals, according to a 2011 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management. But those that do say they boost retention, while providing valuable personal and professional development opportunities.
Sabbaticals can be designed in various ways, though most are tied to years of service. For example, Red Frog Events, a Chicago events planning firm, gives employees a one-month vacation sabbatical every five years of employment. When I worked at Intel, employees were rewarded with a two-month sabbatical every seven years.

3. Flex Time

Most start-up employees find themselves working around the clock, whether they’re checking email in the morning or wrapping up a project before bedtime. So, a nice way to compensate for that “always on” work mentality is by giving them a little flexibility in their work hours.
You can set this up in various ways: Some companies require their employees to work certain core hours, but let them create their own work schedule around that time frame. Others allow them to work whenever they choose, as long as they produce quality work and finish it on time.

4. Fitness Stipends

Healthy employees are good for your business, as they can lower your insurance costs while also preventing sick days. And while you may not be able to install an on-site gym, you can give employees a monthly stipend to pay for gym memberships, yoga sessions, or other fitness classes. We do this at ZenPayroll, and we’ve found that it not only promotes healthy lifestyles, it’s also something our employees really value.

5. Commuter Benefits

Getting to work may cost your staffers $100 or more each month. That may not seem like much, but it’s certainly a tangible cost to them. Consider helping them pay for these expenses, whether by providing a monthly stipend or giving them access to a commuter flexible-spending account (FSA) that provides a tax deduction for contributions. These types of commuter incentive programs are in place around the country, and the tax benefit can be significant.

6. Free Food

Everyone needs to eat, and so food is a universally consumed (and universally loved) benefit. You might stock a refrigerator with yummy snacks or even treat your employees to occasional catered breakfast or lunch meetings. At ZenPayroll, we’ve found eating outside the office as a group at least once a week is a great opportunity to change our environment and bond as a team. It’s a relatively small cost that can pay back in dividends by strengthening your workplace culture.

7. Vendor Discounts

As your employee base grows, you may be able to arrange employee discounts at various companies in your area—think health clubs, dry-cleaning services, or restaurants. AnyPerk is a great low-cost service that makes it easy to give employees access to discounts in your area. These discounts may not cost your business much (or anything), but they’re really fun perks that people love.

As you work to build your start-up’s benefits package, don’t forget about your freelancers, independent contractors, and part-timers as well. These workers can be just as vital to your business. Giving them access to some of your offerings can make a difference in their lives and make them much happier members of the team.
Ultimately, every workplace is different, and the most valuable benefits will depend on your employees and their personal needs. If you’re not sure what benefits they value, just ask! Often times, it’s not the most expensive perk that makes the difference.