building your platform

You need a platform that makes it easy to turn your insight into a movement. ~ Seth Godin from the book Linchpin

There’s a new world of work that exists in today’s marketplace. I call it the New Work Revolution. This new world of work starts with understanding and building a platform for yourself that you can work from to create maximum value in the marketplace. What is a platform and is your career built on one that is solid enough?

The reason having a platform is becoming so important is that the work environment is changing. The way we create products in the United States has changed as I am sure it has in other nations with similar economies. Unemployment hovers around 9-10% and the jobs that are being created by the government are not the kinds of jobs that the average American is looking to fill.

With a changing work environment how can we change the way that people see us and the way that we create value for others. It starts with building the right platform for yourself. It doesn’t matter if you work for someone else or if you are a business owner, you need a platform either way.

A work platform consists of your passions, purpose, core values, mission, etc. The main message of your platform is who are you and how do you create value in the marketplace.

Your platform drives everything you do and guides your decision making. The individuals who are creating massive value in the world have established their platforms before they have started spreading their message.  This is a must if you are going to stand firm in your convictions as having a platform means a lot of times that you are taking a stand.  Taking a stand means that many people will not agree with your opinion on the matter.  Standing strong, in this case, means having the ability to understand fully what you are doing and why.

Work has changed.  In his book Linchpin, Seth Godin also says that the days of getting paid well to be told what to do at work are ending.  Positioning yourself with a platform to create value will allow you to navigate this landscape confidently and effectively.

What’s your platform?

PS… If you are looking to build a platform for yourself, we have created our coaching club specifically for those individuals who want to change the way that they create value in the market.  Check out our coaching club to get started in the discussion and to access our platform building tools.

If you tell certain people that they can do what they love to do and still get paid doing it, those people would tell you that you are crazy or dumb or both.  I have personally received my share of raised eyebrows and chuckles at the notion.  In fact, you might be doing that right now!

We discount our passions because it is not seen as work.  Work is hard.  Work sucks.  Work shouldn’t be fun and if it is you’re doing it wrong.  These are some of the conversations that have been created around work.  The ironic thing is that the most successful people in this world are passionate about what they do.  They live and breath their work.

One way to help us embrace our passion is to uncover our purpose.  God put you here for a reason.  What is it?  How were you meant to create value in this world?  There are some great tools that you can utilize that are cost effective and can tell you a lot about yourself.  Check out my simple tools for identifying talent here.

When you know your purpose you are able to more confidently identify what areas you are passionate in and be confident that what you are doing is the right thing for you and for others.

Another tool to help you develop your passion and purpose is a system that I use called a power hour.   There is a lot to be said for spending some time alone and reflecting on what you truly bring to the table.  Utilizing a power hour allows you that time in the morning before you do anything else to focus on you.  When was the last time you did that?  My guess is that it’s been too long.

There’s no reason that your life and particularly your work life can’t be filled and driven with passion.   Finding and channeling this passion will allow you to do the greatest good for others.   Don’t discount your ability to do that.

From a mindset standpoint there are three main culprits that inhibit our success.  Those inhibitors are fear, stories and complexity.

Fear is the most recognizable for us because it is immediate and more tangible than other mindset issues.  We fear failure and in a peculiar way we fear success as well.  The dichotomy between the two fears is mystifying and in some parts cruel.  On the one hand we don’t want to be rejected so we fear putting ourselves out there.  On the other hand what if we are accepted?  Then what happens.  Now I am scared because I am out in the open and exposed to criticism and scrutiny.

This reminds me of the high school guy who wants to ask a girl out but worries that she will say no.  Then when he gets the nerve to ask and she says yes, it doesn’t get rid of the fear it just shifts to a set of new concerns.  What if I am not interesting?  What if she thinks I am a bad kisser?  What if she laughs at my car?

Deeper than fear lies a much harder obstacle to spot and overcome.  That obstacle is the stories that we create for our lives that if you were to really examine them just aren’t true.  These stories are created by negative experiences that happen in our past that we then take on and use it to define us.

If you were an unpopular nerd in high school, you may still be holding onto some of the conversations around that experience and they may still be holding you back.  You may think that people generally don’t like you.  You may think that you aren’t suited to stand out or that you are not special.  The reality is that when we step back and take a look at these stories, we realize that they aren’t true for us today and we need to release their hold on us.

Another issue that keeps us from taking action is the complexity that we create in our minds about a certain project.  This happens to me when it comes to fixing things around my house.  Recently I had a situation where my kitchen sink was leaking.  It leaked for a few months and my solutions was to put a flower vase underneath the leak and empty it once a week.  (This was not a favored move by my better half.)

The reason why I didn’t fix it is that I had told myself that I don’t know anything about plumbing and therefore would be unable to fix this problem.  The reality was that when I finally dove in and looked at the problem, it was not nearly as hard as I made it out to be and was able to fix the problem in about 20 minutes time.  I let the complexity get in the way of my taking action and in retrospect this was foolish.  I wasted tons of time and worry with my band aid solution of the flower vase.

These are the mind set issues that keep us from doing the things we know we should be doing to achieve greater success.  Take a look at these issues and ask yourself which of these applies to you.  It really comes down to how bad you want it?  Most of us wait until something bad happens before we make a positive change.  Is that going to be your story too?

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a shame when long time local businesses fail.  You feel like a piece of your town/city dies with it.  As tragic as this is, businesses need to adapt themselves to a changing business landscape.  It’s not enough to just put up a storefront and run a few ads in the paper and on local TV and think that people will flock to your store.

Today, consumers can buy from retailers all over the country.  Geography isn’t nearly as important as it used to be.  So how do business owners take advantage of this?  One of the first things to do if your business is struggling in tough times is take a step back and look at your business from a 30,000 ft.  viewpoint.  Where is there waste?  Are there product lines that you have been thinking about adding but haven’t?  Are there dead product lines that you just need to kill?  Are there employees that need to be fired?

You get the point, leave no stone left unturned.

Another consistent factor with small businesses that have failed in the past couple of years is their stubborn refusal to get active on the web.  With customers moving more and more towards making purchases on the web and engaging with each other and the places that they do business with, if you don’t have a website for your business, you have no chance to make those sales or get people engaged in your business.  Social media is another avenue to explore although not critical but what about creating online content about your particular niche?  Most small businesses that fail don’t engage in online content creation and their business ultimately suffers for it.

We are a social society today.  We want to engage with the businesses that we patronize.  We get excited when a business engages us online through Twitter or a blog post.  Old school businesses like Jolley’s have a hard time with this concept.  They see conversing with people online as a waste of time.  Seth Godin refers to emotional capital in his most recent book Linchpin and how emotional capital is the way that we separate ourselves from other businesses and people.  The key is finding your voice and your platform for delivering your message in a manner that works for you.

In times when your business is struggling it’s time to take hard look at where your business is at currently and how well it is positioned to do business in the current  landscape.  Don’t hold onto antiquated business practices and keep an open mind about what the future holds.  Business is constantly changing and evolving.  A Taoist principle that comes to mind when I think about this topic is that of keeping yourself formless like water so that you can overcome the different obstacles that arise because you haven’t attached yourself to any particular way.  The government isn’t going to help you do that.  Smart, flexible business owners do that for themselves.

The fact is that BP Oil had a breakdown in their process and equipment which led to the current situation that we are currently in. If you want more on the spill details go  here.

Companies are run by people and people make mistakes.  It’s how you deal with the mistake that matters.  Two big problems are evident in the aftermath with regards to BP’s reaction to the spill.

Problem #1- Lack of Preparedness

All businesses need to have contingency plans in place for when the unexpected happens.  BP Oil seemed to have no idea what they were going to do in the event that something like this happened.  In fact they have gone so far as to ask the public for ideas and suggestions.  I don’t necessarily have a problem with admitting that you don’t have an answer.  I do have a problem with you not having any answer at all.

Pride is a huge factor in this.  There has been  heated discussion betweens oil and environmental regarding the true safety of offshore drilling.  This seems to have clouded the vision of oil in that they seemed to be so focused on showing that offshore drilling could work that no one stopped and asked, “What if it goes wrong?”

You have to prepare your business for problems that can arise through technology, people etc.  This is especially true when you are dealing with something as fragile as our ecosystem.  Let’s face it, most of us don’t have to worry about these types of explosive issues in our business but we still need to be prepared.

Problem #2- Treating Your Customers/Public Like They Are Idiots

There has been a lot of double talk and finger pointing in this situation about whose fault the spill is.  BP Oil, if you are listening, I have news for you.  We don’t give a shit whose fault it is.   Crisis situations demand leadership.  Leaders don’t pass the buck they own the situation and fix it.  So what if the equipment was not specifically yours.   You don’t send an e-mail to your customers telling them they are idiots and then blame it on HP because they are the ones that made the computer that the e-mail was sent from.

My favorite part of this whole fiasco is BP reaction to their plummeting stock price.  BP says: They are “Not aware of any reason for share price movement.”  Thanks to The Daily Show for hipping me to that ridiculous press release.  BP must think that their investors are complete morons.

I worked in corporate life for almost a decade and this is one of the biggest problems with the corporate structure.  Typically the leadership is severely disconnected to the public.  It shows in the way they communicate with us in such a “cover my ass”, political manner.

If you are running a business, what can you learn from this?  First, be prepared for things that go wrong in your business and own your mistakes.  The second is to treat your clients and the public like they are humans and speak to them in a manner that is authentic.  No one is insulated from the public anymore.

A great example of how to respond to a mistake, granted on a much smaller scale, was given by baseball umpire Jim Joyce who made the wrong call that cost a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers a perfect game.  See how he owned his mistake here.  Jim owned the call as soon as he knew he got it wrong and make no mistake about it, he was sincere in his apology.  It’s time for BP to take note and stop giving business a bad name.

Used Courtesy of Morganz http://www.sxc.hu/profile/marganz

Everyone has a different style when it comes to generating ideas and creating.  Developing new ideas and creating new possibilities is a driving force behind today’s economy.   Knowing that creating and leveraging ideas is important, what keeps us from doing it?

The biggest obstacle for creating starts with our mindset.  How often do you hear; “I’m not good at that.” or “I never have any good ideas.”  The truth is that we have lots of good ideas, we just don’t have a process for filtering those ideas.

This brings me to what process we should use for innovating and creating in the marketplace.  There’s a lot of conflicting information out there about what works best.  For every article you hear on the power of brainstorming, you see another article on why brainstorming doesn’t work.

An important aspect of creation is obviously people.  We know that we, as individuals, need to be involved in the process of creating/innovating but when do we get other people involved in our creation process?

Creating in solitude definitely has it’s value.  Zen Habits recently called solitude the #1 habit of highly creative people.   I talk a lot in this blog about having a morning ritual that focuses in mind, body and spirit.  This is a great time for quiet and to create.

Working in a communal setting was listed by Zen Habits as the #2 habit of highly creative people.  Working in a group is where I think you take an idea that you have put together and bounce it off the right people to really refine the idea.  I know I have had many instances where I have come together with my team and we end of with something even more incredible than when it was first conceived.

Use both a solo and team approach to creation and innovating.  A challenge that we face is creating the time and space in our lives for solitude.  This is why I suggest doing this type of an activity first thing in the morning to limit the distractions. Then use your work from your solo time and bring your best ideas to a group or to people that you enjoy collaborating with.

There are going to be some disciplines where it makes more sense to work solo vs. working in a group.  Other times the opposite is true.

Innovating and creating is about people and the best innovators make time to create in their own space and also know when to get together and refine their ideas with people they trust.

What’s your creation process?

Ever had that happen to you in business?  Not the sex but the doubt if you were really as good as you thought you were.

This is where testimonials/client feedback can be useful.  In many cases, we are scared to ask for feedback on how we are doing as we are afraid of the answer.  As if the client not telling us personally somehow means that it’s not real.

Client feedback/testimonials are great for a couple of reasons.

The first is obviously that you gain insight into how you are doing from a service standpoint.  Do you suck at getting back to people?  You’re clients will tell you?  Do your clients feel like you don’t listen to them?  They will tell you that to.  (This time you need to make sure you listen.)

The second reason is that getting client feedback gives you the opportunity to see why your clients chose your product/service.  The best part about this is that a lot of times it’s not for the reasons that you think it is.  As a creator of products/services, it’s virtually impossible to look at your work from the end user perspective.  I don’t care how intuitive you are. Client feedback/testimonials allow you to see from the client’s perspective which in turn allows you to speak their language when communicating with them.

At the end of American Pie 2, Jim realizes that through feedback from past relationships (the girl from band camp), what he actually wants wasn’t the foreign exchange student after all.  He wouldn’t have seen that had he not asked for the feedback and for better or for worse, there would have been no American Wedding.

What next steps are you missing from your business because you aren’t talking with your clients?  What breakthroughs have you had as a result of talking with your clients?

We are all too content with the generic phrases such as; “This product/service was great, really informative!”

What does that really tell a customer about your product/service?  You guessed it, nothing.

When we look at testimonials, we want to see authenticity.  We want to feel like the person talking about a product/service is a human being.  That sounds pretty straight forward right?  What can we do as business owners to make our testimonials more authentic?

A technique that I recently learned about and have employed with success was from Sean D’Souza.  Sean has a book called The Brain Audit that talks about how to create compelling messages as a writer and takes you through a specific process.  In that book, Sean touched on testimonials and how to avoid making crappy testimonials.  I am not going to get into his entire testimonial process.  You can visit his site for more info on that.  The testimonial process has one specific step that really brings the humanity back into your testimonial.

This specific step is actually the first step in the testimonial process.  The step deals with asking your client right off the bat, what specific concerns or issues did they have with getting engaged in your product/service.  In other words, were they worried about spending the money?  Do they a really busy schedule and didn’t feel they had time?  Had they used similar services in the past with less than stellar results?

As business owners, we focus a lot on the potential outcomes from using our product/service but not enough on the psychology behind why they would or would not buy.

We decided to employ this specific step into our own testimonial process for an event that we do.  People fly in from all over the country to participate so we knew there were sacrifices involved, we were just ignorant as to what those sacrifices were specifically.  In that event, we learned that some of our clients are worried about leaving their kids.  One of our clients is currently taking care of their elderly parents and really had a hard time breaking free from that for a couple of day.  Another client was worried about a trip that was taking them out of the country and some deadlines coming up in their business.

On the surface we have some really authentic testimonials for our workshop which is cool.  The real benefits, however, go much deeper than that.  We connected with our clients through that process on a much deeper level.  We see them with different eyes, that are more compassionate and more understanding.  That’s really cool.

If you have a testimonial process, ask yourself one question.  Does it bring out the human side of your product/service?  Do your testimonials feel like they were written by human beings?  If not, how can you change that?  If you aren’t getting testimonials, implement a system to start getting them.  Your business and, more importantly, your clients will be better for it.

Frequently when someones puts together content, they put it together in a manner in which they like to process content without regard to the end user.

This bring me to the topic of psychographics.

Early in my writing and marketing career, I gave very little thought to how an end user would like to process information.  I thought there was a one size fits all technique that worked.

That changed for me when I attended a course titled Book Publishing 2.0 about a year and a half ago where I was first introduced to the topic of psychographics.  At the time I went to the course, I knew I wanted to get more serious about my writing  but wasn’t sure the best way to get started.  I learned a lot in the course but the most important information for me was in learning about the Myers Briggs Typology test and how understanding that test could make me a more engaging writer.

If you aren’t familiar with The Myers Briggs test, it basically breaks us down into 16 different personality types that describe how we use perception and judgment in our decision making. You can read more about the test here.

The class that I took broke these types up into 4 personas which are competitive, spontaneous, methodical and humanistic.

Yesterday I talked about how your content is presented and how it looks is very important to readers.

This is especially true with regards to personas.  Some people want bullet points.  Some people don’t mind paragraphs of information.  Some people want pictures and visuals.  Some people prefer text.

So what does this have to do with creating great content?

When it comes to creating your information, it’s important to consider all of the personas.

Take headlines as an example.  The reason that people use the word simple in their headlines is because there is a certain group of people (spontaneous) that gravitate towards that word.  If you used the words, step-by-step or how-to, that may appeal more towards another group (methodicals).

The body of your content is just as important.  I mentioned the use of bullet points before because this is a great way to present material to a spontaneous or competitive person who doesn’t want to be bombarded with tons of details.  A methodical likes to see things presented in a step by step manner.  For humanists?  You need to make sure that you tell a story or use some kind of emotional connection with your reader.

We spend a lot if time talking about presenting good content and not enough about how to present that good content effectively.

You will not cater to each persona in one article but you can create different articles on the same subject that is presented in a different manner or pick certain days to write to a  different persona for your business.

Writing to personas takes some getting used to at first but once you get the hang of doing it you will find that more people gravitate towards your content.

So how do we create content that readers/clients want?

Today we are going to start with how your material is presented from a look and feel standpoint.

I ran across on article from the Search Engine Blog that got me thinking about this.  The article is titled, SEO 101 – part 12: Everything You Need To Know About Page Content.

We often get so caught up into the different tricks that we can employ to get people to our site that we often forget about the most important aspect, which is having content that readers want and presenting it to them in a way that engages them.

The point of the Search Engine Guide article that I want to most talk about is just in the simple layout of your blog.  If you do nothing else, start there.

How much thought are you putting into your headlines?

Headlines are a good place to start because it’s typically the first thing that someone sees.  Headline should be something compelling that draws people in.   Without a compelling headline, many readers may not take the time to even look at your article.  There are several different approaches to writing a headline that you can use.  Copyblogger gives you some examples of different headlines that you can read about on their blog.

Beyond the headline, take a look at how your material is presented.  Is it presented in a clean, easy to process manner?  There is not one way to present your content that will please every reader (we will talk more about this in a couple of days).  You can start with utilizing pictures to enhance the readability of blogs.  The use of white space is also very important.  There are a lot of articles out there that seem to just steam roll the reader with their content and for most it’s too overwhelming and they don’t read it.

Relevant links in your article are also important in your posts.  You should try and link back to past relevant content as much as possible.  Linking to other people’s content is a great way to enhance the readability of your content as well.

Take a look at your content and ask in what ways can your content be enhanced to increase your readability.  Pay attention to what other sites are doing that you like to read as well.  Looking at your content layout is a simple place to start.

As a business owner, there is nothing wrong with making your life easier.  God knows we all need as much simplicity as possible.  In the world of SEO, doing it right isn’t always simple and easy.  There’s a lot involved in the process.  There’s research, copy writing, linking, ad campaigns, blogging, articles, relationship building and so on.

This process tends to get in a lot of business owners way and they end up cutting corners in the process by hiring someone who promises quick and easy results.  In other cases I see business owners trying to do SEO themselves and they end  up only doing the process half way.

This scenario reminds me of one of Chris Rock’s HBO comedy specials where he talks about men and how men have a hard time committing.  He spotlights the illusion that men have with something new, that looks good and illustrates a significant difference between what a new woman (I am rephrasing this because this is a family blog!) brings to the table vs. a man’s current woman.  He talks about how your new woman can’t cook or even read but your current woman takes care of you when you are sick, cooks and basically is everything that you really need but you just can’t get past the myth of something new, exciting and fast.

SEO reminds me of that Chris Rock special.  It’s not easy for a small business to get their SEO campaign off the ground.  There’s work and planning involved in your SEO strategy up front and that’s the easy part.  From there, your SEO strategy takes long term commitment to do it right.

SEO done right for most small businesses isn’t sexy.  You have to commit to it if it’s really going to work.  Commitment means creating copy on an ongoing basis, linking to your keywords, building online relationships, using social media and analyzing your efforts and making adjustments.  None of this is typically attractive for a small business owner.

Plain and simple, SEO takes work.  I wouldn’t trust anyone who tells you otherwise.  The great news is that the pay off for your business can be significant in terms of revenue and exposure.  Don’t be the business owner that Chris Rock says can’t commit.  Put together a SEO plan that not only looks good but can cook too.

The reason for this comes in different forms:

• I don’t have any money
• I hate technology
• I don’t have time

And so on and so forth.

By not having a website established for your business, you are  missing out on some valuable resources for your business.  This post was inspired by a great post by Lisa Barone titled Why Your Small Business Needs a Website in 2010.

So here are a few of the things that you are missing out on by not having a website:

1.  Differentiation-  This is such an important part of building a business platform.  Take the branding and marketing disciplines for instance.  There are tons of people who have blogs and are experts in this field.  The difference is that each expert has differentiated themselves with how they are communicating with people.  They do this through content, personality, how content is presented and also by their niche.

2. Credibility-  I have had clients say to me that they don’t trust working a particular firm or individual because they couldn’t find them when they Googled them.  I have said in the past that your web presence is today’s store front.   Most people use the internet for verification.  If you don’t have a web presence, it’s seen as  a lack of professionalism.

3. Platform for your content-  When you have a site you can host your audios, videos and written content.  This content can be free podcasts, blog posts, articles, white papers, user guides, video blogs etc.  Your content can and should also include the content you are selling.

4. Being social-  In case you missed it (and if you don’t have a website, this is a legit statement) there is a whole social world that exists online.  This comes in the form of social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter etc.) and blogging.  You can also start building a following through the building of lists as well as give yourself the ability to create your own social network if you so desire.  Regular and meaningful communication with your following is essential to building a great relationship through online channels.

5. Save money-  You want to qualify clients and reduce the amount of wasted time on people who don’t want or can’t afford what you have? A website is a great way to qualify your potential clients.  Are you tired of trading time for dollars in your business? Automate some of your revenue streams with online outlets.

These are 5 pretty darn good reasons to have a website.  Also, if you have a website and you are not doing one of these 5 things as effective as you could be, start putting a plan in place to correct this.

Websites are cheaper and easier than ever before to set up and maintain.  The only thing standing in your way is most likely you.

Communication is the key.  Are you sharing?  Is your content good?  Do you consistently update? Do you respond in a timely manner?  Do you actively engage your community and build new relationships?  Are you looking for ways to build great relationships with your clients?

These are all good questions to ask yourself to assess where you are at with regards to your online relationship building.  Building relationships in person is a much easier task than building them in a virtual setting.  Virtual relationships take extra work and extra thought.  For a business owner it come down to one thing, helping people win.

Search Engine Guide has a post that I think is great in breaking down the philosophy of successful online relationship building.  The post shares the following quote from Pete Vossler:

People are insecure; give them confidence.
People want to feel special; compliment them.
People desire a better tomorrow; show them hope.
People need to be understood; listen to them.
People are selfish; speak to their needs first.
People are emotionally low; encourage them.
People want to be associated with success; help them win.

I think that all of these points are important but the last point about helping people win really stuck out to me.  In reality, building relationships is about getting creating value for others.  I doesn’t have to come in the form of money.  It can come in the form of feelings for instance.

When you create an online presence for your business, you are creating a platform to help a wider range of people be successful than you could be having just a local presence.  There is a lot of power in that but we tend to take it for granted in today’s day and age.

We take it for granted by not having an online presence at all by thinking that the web is over-saturated and that we can’t provide anything new to the space.  We take it for granted by not creating content on a regular basis or by failing to create new content at all.

There are several great examples of businesses interacting with their community and creating some positive results:

• Dogfish Head Brewery Craft Ales-  (I always like to spot light a beer company doing it right.)  They have built their business on giving their customers what they want.  Sam Calagione, president and founder says this about using social media with his business: “Social media has leveled the playing field…We can have intimate conversations with customers.”
• Mashable had a recent article that talks about businesses using social media right.  They give several examples of what companies are doing to engage their people.
• Houlihan’s restaurant was recently featured in a recent edition of Fast Company for their efforts in using social media to increase profitability.  The restaurant change went ahead and built their own social media outlet to communicate with their clients.

You don’t have to do something exactly like the examples above but at the very least, they should give you some great ideas.

To be a good neighbor on the web, we have to be willing to create good content at a consistent level and not take our relationships for granted.  It’s also about going out and actively looking to create new relationships as well. We have to keep in mind that the reason our businesses have an online presence is to create value in the marketplace and help people win.

Is your online presence doing that?

Courtesy of Thadz http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=profile&l=thadz

One of the reasons for business failure, particularly for retail outlets, is having their business in a poor location.  This same principle is true for your online business presence as well.

There are several things that you can do to make sure that your business shows up in the good neighborhood.  (By the good neighborhood, I mean that it is highly visible on the web.)

Before you do anything else, with regards to your web presence for your small business, get clear on what it is that you want and need from a web strategy.  This is the area where success or failure is determined.  If you know what you want, you are looking good.  If you don’t, you’re in trouble.

When it comes to making your website visible, SEO is a great place to start.  In fact, doesn’t it seem like everyone is a so-called “SEO expert” these days?  If you want some solid SEO advice here’s Evan Carmichael’s 2009 list of top SEO blogs.  That’s my advice on getting started in this arena, get educated.

Another complimentary tool for your website is having a blog.  The particular type of blog I am talking about is not the typical business owner blog.  You know, the one where you get really excited for a couple of months and blog every day, burn out and never post to it again.  I am talking about the kind of blog where you post to it on a consistent basis with compelling and relevant content.

Speaking of content, that is really a huge key with building your website in a good neighborhood.  The better your content.  The more visitors you will have to your site and the more visible your site will be in search engines.

Getting your site in a good neighborhood doesn’t happen overnight.  It takes diligence on the part of the site owner as well as planning.  Be consistent with your content, strive to create great and relevant content and get your site out to as many channels as possible.

Growing our businesses is hard enough without having to worry about the more seemingly inconsequential aspects of our business.

Take for example the process for hiring people for your business that I talked about a couple of weeks ago. When your business starts out, you wish you needed to worry about hiring more people. You are mainly satisfied when you can pay your own bills let alone helping someone else pay for theirs.

When you look at hiring a little deeper, you realize that the time for hiring more people in your business is the time where your business is stretched with operating at its current level. You need to alleviate that pressure by hiring some help to take over some of the responsibilities that you or someone else is handling.

It seems to make sense to wait to worry about this until you are faced with a hiring decision amid times of growth.  However, if your business is outgrowing your current operation and you have never dealt with this before, it can be an extremely stressful time. In this case, are you really going to be able to pull together an effective hiring process?

The answer is that you can but how effective and well thought out will it be? Hiring the right staff is important do you really want to throw that together in the spur of the moment? The answer there is no.

Hiring aside, this is the case for many of the different operational aspects of our businesses. We always wait until we need something to begin looking for them but by that time it’s too late and you run the risk of not making as good of a decision.

If there are areas of your business that is not in place, take some time to develop a framework for how you want them to look when they are fully developed. You will thank yourself for it later.

This is the point where business owners get curious about sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.  What are the best social media outlets for your business.  That’s really up to you and your clients to decide.  You can look for networks that are favored by your industry, you can look at what your clients are using, you can look at what networks may be the most appropriate for your business.

Here’s a breakdown of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn:

Twitter:  I have said this before but when I first signed up for Twitter, it seemed ridiculous to me.  I just didn’t get it.  I really think that Twitter doesn’t make sense until you start expanding your network with people who are really using it. The main complaint that I get from small business owners about Twitter revolves around this same lack of understanding that  I had.

What’s great about Twitter is that it gives you access to a whole group of people that you would typically not have access to.  It’s a great opportunity to meet new people, run across great ideas and share your own great ideas.

I will avoid getting on a soap box about how to best use Twitter or any other social networking platform for that matter.  I am certainly not a social media expert but I do use it on a daily basis.  What I will do is share how I use Twitter so that it works for me.

The first thing I do with Twitter is use it to update my followers on information that is relevant to small business owners.  Typically I do this by sharing other people’s content that I run across on a daily basis.  The second thing I do is use to expand the reach of my own information that I create.  Beyond content, I use Twitter as a connection tool.  I am not so much of a conversationalist on Twitter itself but I do try to set up 1-2 calls/meetings a week with people that I connect with on Twitter.

The connection aspect has been a great way to find mentors as well as create synergies with people to move my business forward.  One word of caution about Twitter, be careful what you say, you don’t want to have this happen to you.

Facebook:  For me Facebook is more of a friendship site.  I don’t link my Twitter account to it and I don’t really pursue a lot of business there.  However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t or shouldn’t use Facebook for business.

I have made great professional connections through Facebook.  I have also seen business owners really use the fan page function of Facebook to get communicate and share with their clientele on a regular basis.

Alex Mandossian has done a great job with this through his Productivity Strategies platform.  They post content regularly and seem to have created an active and engaged following through their fan page.  You can certainly pick up some tips for how Alex has structured his page to get ideas for your own business.

LinkedIn:  LinkedIn is the more buttoned up and professional of the major social networking sites.  LinkedIn provides a lot of unique features for its users.

One of my favorite features is the ability to recommend people in your network.  This is a great way to share with others the great things that people in your network are doing.  I also enjoy the question and answer feature that allows you to weigh in on questions that other LinkedIn users have about various topics.  You can also integrate Slide Share into your profile which is a great tool for my graphic and web design business.   As a business owner there is plenty to like about LinkedIn.

Those are the 3 main sites that I use regularly.  It’s up to you determine what networks are best for you and how much time and effort you want to put into using them.  To get past the social media is dumb and a waste of time issue that a lot if us business owners have, it takes jumping in and giving them a try so that we can see how to make these networks work effectively for our business.

This may come as a surprise to some.  I know it surprises me at times.  It feels like Facebook and Twitter are littered with entrepreneurs, MLM participants and work from home experts.  While there may be a high percentage of people using social media whose business is primarily online, there are many brick and mortar type businesses that still don’t want to consider utilizing social media.

When you dig a little deeper, you come to realize that it’s not shocking that small business owners feel like social media is dumb and a waste of time.  The most telling sign is the fact that roughly half of small business owners don’t have a website for their business.  If they don’t have a website, why would they blog, set up an account on Twitter or do anything else online?

Because I didn’t quickly embrace social media myself, I would like to offer my tips on how to maximize social media for the small business owners who feel like social media is dumb and also a waste of time.

What You Should Do: Set up a website.

Setting up a nice website can be very inexpensive and if you wanted to take a little time to learn, you could set up the site yourself. A feature of your site should be a blog.  Once you have your blog in place, you should set a schedule with regards to how often you will post and what content you will write about.  Don’t worry if you are not a writer, I wasn’t either (and depending on who you talk to, I am still not).

Why you should do it:  Build credibility for yourself and your business.

If you want to know what I think about small business, you don’t have to ask me, you can just read my blog.  The same goes for any small business owner.  Do you want to assert yourself as an expert?  Share your knowledge of your field.  Do you want people to be able to find you on the web?  Create content that can be found?  Do you want to drive traffic to your site?  Give people a reason to come to your site and keep coming.  Do you want to have a more intimate relationship with your clients?  Communicate with them on a regular basis.  Share your thoughts, your fears, your vision.

Today’s client looks to the web to determine how credible you are in the marketplace today.  If they can’t find you then they may worry and decide not to do business with you.  Having a web presence not only solves that issue for you but opens up a whole new set of doors for your business as well.

Don’t get caught up into the time issue or the fact that you may not have a lot of writing experience.  I feel like when it comes to sharing your thoughts, the main thing is to be authentic and as long as you do that, readers will resonate with what you are saying.  If you don’t have a web presence and a blog, ask yourself why you don’t ( beyond because you think that it is dumb and a waste of time) and then ask yourself what you need to do to get a web presence in place.   In part 2 of this post I will talk more about other social media platforms and what you can do to maximize your experience with them.

Guideline #1: Be Consistent

Let me say first that I love entrepreneurs and their spirit for jumping into things and running with them.  Let me also say that entrepreneurs have a hard time following through sometimes and it kills their credibility.  Social media is one of those areas where I see small business owners half ass it all the time.

When I work with a new client, I will typically start the relationship by looking at their online presence and what current channels they are using to promote their business. One of the first things I will at is their website.  Once I am at their website, I will poke around a little bit to get a feel for what they are about.  When I look at the blog section of their site a common scenario is to see a couple of weeks of heavy posting and then no further posts for seven months.

This is the same scenario you will see for other social media vehicles like Facebook, Twitter etc.  A small business owner will create an account and maybe have a short burst of activity but then you see the tell tale signs of an inactive user.  Those signs include a vacant avatar for their profile.  They don’t respond to any form of communication through those tools.  Last, you will also see the account virtually dormant for a long period of time.

The one piece of advice for consistency is this.  Figure out what best works for you and follow a schedule.  If it’s blogging once a week, then blog once a week.

Guideline #2: Be Careful What You Say

For all intents and purposes, we will call this the Larry Johnson rule going forward.  Larry Johnson is a NFL running back who got himself fired from the Kansas City Chiefs this past fall for using Twitter to call out his coach and topped that off by using a gay slur to a Twitter heckler.  See more about the meltdown here.  Reportedly, the meltdown cost him $213,000.  His actions also hurt  his reputation and possibly hastened the end of his NFL career.

The rule of thumb here is that once you put it out there, it’s out there and you can’t take it back.  Econsultancy posted some great guidelines that include some ways to avoid saying or doing something you will regret on social media.

Guideline #3:  Don’t try to do it all.

There are hundreds of social media outlets that you can utilize to communicate with a group of like minded people.  There are also several different ways that you can communicate with these groups (in writing, podcasting, video etc.)  One of the mistakes that small business owners make with social media is trying to do it all.  Let’s face it.  There are probably several different outlets that make sense for you to get your message out but you can only do what you can handle effectively.

If you can, hire someone to help you with social media.  If you are the one in charge, then it’s time to handle social media wisely.  Find out what your customer would most value and where they spend their time and then figure out which of those outlets you can commit your time to.  It’s all OK to consider your strengths as the business owner to determine which outlets you would be best at using.

As small business owner you are busy.  You have to be intentional with everything that you do especially if you don’t have a huge team to help you run things.  Social media is a great way to communicate to the public and bring your current clients and potential clients closer to you.  It takes some focused direction on the part of the small business owner to ensure that their social media efforts provide value to the public as well as to the business.

What are your guideline for effective use of social media?

Image used courtesy of GlennPeb at http://www.sxc.hu

For all my talk previously about systems and processes, they are worthless if you don’t have the right people to run them.  Personnel is a tough area for small business owners due to a lack of experience in the personnel development process.  There are 5 mistakes that small business owners make with regards to personnel.

Mistake #1: Not defining roles for the partners in the business.

This applies even to the individual business owner.  It’s important to decide what roles that you will play in your organization both short term and long term.  It’s especially important with regards to partnerships.  I have personally seen the damage that is done in business when roles aren’t clearly defined for all of the players.  The Coaching Millions blog recently went over some solid guidelines for effective partnerships.  If you are in a partnership currently or are thinking about, define the roles of the partnerships as soon as possible.

Mistake #2:  Poor or nonexistent hiring practices.

When you are building systems and processes for your business don’t overlook the personnel aspect of the business.  Once you define what personnel you will need, it’s time to figure out how you will do it.  This includes having sound interviewing practices, doing background checks, reference checks, how to turn down candidates, where you go to find talent, job descriptions, offer letters etc.  A lot of small businesses try and wing this and look to hire people when a pressing need arises without little thought of the long term needs of the business.  Having the right practices will help to ensure that you get the right people and that you follow the correct labor practices when doing so.

Mistake #3:  Not knowing what you want or what you need.

As your business grows, you will need new people to keep your business  moving in the right direction.  One of the first mistakes that is made is not having a game plan for what position you want to hire for first once your business starts growing.  Beyond that, once the position is decided upon, chances are you haven’t really thought about what characteristics and attributes you want a successful hire to have in the position so you word your job description with generic and overused terminology that suggests that you aren’t sure what you want.

I’ll give you an example of this from Craig’s List:

I am a busy executive looking to hire, train and mentor an individual to learn my business. The person will be:
-Professional in appearance and demeanor
-A Highly motivated, teachable self-starter
-Be overly ambitious
-Possess the highest level of moral integrity
-Be looking for a long-term career,
-Have a highly flexible schedule
I am a demanding, aggressive senior executive who pushes people to their limits, but with that comes great
rewards. I will only personally train one person, so I am highly selective. I will teach you how to grow a successful
business with a high value residual income.

This above job description doesn’t even say what the job is. You can’t be this careless with your job description and expect to get the right people for your job in an efficient manner.  Someone whose worth hiring would look at the above job description and pass immediately.  It’s important to make sure that you figure out who you need first and what an ideal candidate will look like.

Mistake #4: Using faulty logic when hiring or promoting in your business.

In college I was involved in a fraternity. My favorite reasoning in the fraternity came when it was time to elect new officers to positions for the next year. For instance, we elected a guy for activities chair even though he never came to any activities. The logic? If we put him in charge of activities, he will come to them. The result? Not only did our activities suck but he never came to them either.

Another example is for our historian who takes pictures etc. We had a guy in our group who wanted the position and was an avid photographer. Who did we elect? A guy who didn’t even own a camera. The logic? We wanted to get him more involved. The result? That year may as well have never happened because there is no record of it anywhere.

I thought that my fraternity was uniquely stupid in this area until I got into the workforce and saw that places of business hired sometimes for terrible reasons as well. With small businesses it’s usually happens when they hire family members because of family pressure. The logic? Your brother just hasn’t done anything because he hasn’t been given the chance. The result? You find out right away why he hasn’t been given a chance because he is an idiot.

Sometimes we put good performers in other positions to make them more “well rounded” and then watch as we kill their career by putting them in a position that doesn’t match their skills. Kolbe has a C index that they use to match what you want from a position to what the skills of the candidate are. It’s a great tool to see how someone’s skills really match with what they are going to be required to do.   In your different roles you want to put them in a position to do what they do best and grow, you don’t want to stifle them by trying to help them be more well rounded.

Mistake #5:  No training program.

Small business owners seem to really learn this the hard way.  Initially a business owner is doing the majority if not all of the tasks in his business.  This is a great time to start putting best practices down on paper so that you can more easily train your replacement in this area.  Not giving an outline to an employee isn’t necessarily the key to them performing but it’s good to let employees know that you support them.  Having a training program is a good way to help them feel supported.  At the very least, it tells the employee you have thought through their development in the position.

Those are my top 5 personnel mistakes.  The great thing  is that these can all be easily fixed within your organization.  Some areas such as interviewing may take some time to get properly educated but shouldn’t be anything too extensive.  If the hiring process in your organization has holes, now is a great time to start patching them.

What personnel mistakes make your top 5?

I hate to use the analogy of a house because it is overused but I can’t think of a better one so I am apologizing in advance.  When you are building a house, you don’t decide to make the foundation for the home out of wood with the intent of  going back later and making the foundation out of concrete when you feel it is necessary.  This is the same issue that business owners have with their business.  They want to build a foundation for their business after the rest of the business is already built.  The problem is that there is already a house built on the loose foundation that you have and going back to fortify it will be tricky.

To explain some of the hows and whys of putting together systems and processes for your small business I turn to the Process Ninja who was recently on BNET talking about why processes are important and a few things to consider when creating them.

The reality is that all small businesses need systems and processes and The Process Ninja, Craig Reid gives 3 important things to consider when you are putting them in place for your business.

1. Keep the customer experience in mind.  This is obviously an important point but when you are creating systems and processes for your business, it’s easy to forget about the customer and to place your focus squarely on you and your business.  So as you are creating your business structure make sure that all roads lead to creating the very best customer experience possible.
2. Think about the break points.  All systems and processes have areas where human interaction is required to help the process along.  Make sure that you consider all of the areas where the system can break down and try to automate as much of this process as you can.  If you can’t eliminate them, at least make sure that you are managing these areas.
3. The business rules.  This is any part of the business process where decisions are made.  It’s important to make sure that business doesn’t slow down during these decision processes.

Another important point to consider with systems is to make sure that your systems and processes happen sooner than later and that they reflect your business with regards to how it will look in the future.   The other thing about systems and processes is that you can be creative with some of the tools that you use to get your team engaged.   In Chip and Dan Heath’s column in Fast Company (December ’09) they talk about how BearingPoint improved their ethics and compliance training through a little creativity.  This new process set the stage for employees to be more engaged in the compliance process and were more apt to discuss gray areas of the business.

When it comes to systems and processes, the key is to start working on them now don’t wait until your company is established to do this.  It’s hard to break habits and put constraints on areas of your business that were previously unconstrained.  Systems and processes also allow you to create a better experience for your clients as well as for the team who work for your company.

What are your thoughts on systems and processes?  Why do you think that small businesses don’t engage in putting them together?

How often do we hear the story of the rugged individualist business owner who defies all odds and works 20 hour days just to realize his/her dream of small business success.  We have heard these stories a lot and the one thing we don’t hear about is how these same business owners are still putting in 20 hour days five years later.  In the end their businesses shut down because the owners can’t sustain that level of work indefinitely and they burn out.

What can we do to make sure that this doesn’t happen to our business?  The first thing that the E-Myth suggests is to look at the franchise model for doing business.  The “poster child” for franchises that was named in the book was McDonald’s.  The funny thing about McDonald’s is that for all the criticism about the fast food industry, you don’t hear enough about what McDonald’s does right when it comes to delivering a consistent customer experience that is second to none in their particular industry.  At McDonald’s nothing is left to chance, everything is done the McDonald’s way.

For your business, it’s about creating the systems and processes that allow you to own a business rather than behaving like the business owner who works 20 hours a day and in reality just owns a job.  The first thing that will be helpful in creating your systems is to do some research on the franchise concept and the different models that exist for franchising.  All Business has a franchise blog that you can look at to get started.  This doesn’t mean that you have to franchise your business but this kind of information is helpful to show how the best franchises create uniformity in operations all over the country and in some cases the world.  Anyone who has worked for a small firm can attest to the fact that getting people to act uniform in one office of 10-15 people is hard enough, let alone getting several offices in different parts of a country to do it.

The second thing that you can do right now to get your systems and processes in place for your small business is to go back and look at the vision that you have for your small business.  How big do you want to be?  What markets do you want to serve?  How many employees etc? What roles do these employees fill?  Take a look at your vision and then look at how you can build your business today so that it looks like your vision for your company 20 years from now.

Building your vision today is important.  One of the common mistakes that small business owners make when they do create systems and processes is that they create the systems and processes around their business as it exists today rather than how they want it to look in the future.  The problem with this is that as soon as they start growing, they need new systems and processes.  When that happens, typically the systems and processes don’t get created because the small business is growing and the business owner can’t find the time to get it done.  The fact that the business owner had systems and processes done once was pretty amazing.  Asking them to do it again is darn near impossible.  Ultimately, growth for the business without the systems to sustain the growth, causes the business to fail.

If you haven’t read the book E-Myth, make sure you take some time to read it.  It will give you some good insight on why systems and processes are important and how to go about putting them together.  For now, think about your business and think about how you can automate more of the work that you do and look at where systems and processes would be an improvement to your life as well as your client experience.

What has been your experience with systems and processes for your business?  Any suggestions for readers on good sources of franchise advice?

This is something that should take you maybe an hour to complete and once it’s done, will help you in your goal setting and planning for next year.  The first step is to look at what tasks that you could engage in that would ensure personal success.  This could be in any area of your life: financially, family, career, business, you name it.  Whatever your top 5 core values are, game plan around them.  This is important as we often know what tasks are important but we don’t commit them in writing and put a plan together for how we are going to achieve them.  We just assume that because they are in our mind, that’s good enough.

When you have your important tasks laid out for yourself, then take out a piece pf paper and write down every activity/person that exists in your life that is a time waster or that you have identified as tasks you don’t want to do.  If you aren’t sure if a task falls in this category then write it down anyway because it probably does belong.

Go through each activity and ask the following questions:

• Is it a task that you can eliminate entirely?  If not, how can you reduce the amount of time spent on the activity?
• Do you need to hire someone to take care of the tasks that you can’t get to or don’t do well?
• Are there people you need to cut out of your life that are dragging you down?
• Is there a system that may exist that would allow you to handle the task more efficiently?
• Is there automation that exists in the form of technology that would allow tasks to be handled in a more time efficient manner?

This simple inventory can make a big difference for you next year.  We have all fallen victim to time wasters (Social media, e-mail, talking at the water cooler etc.) that we can manage better.  We all get stuck trying to handle the many tasks that we are responsible for when we should get help to manage them.

Take some time in the next couple of weeks to do this and get your upcoming year started in a more productive and efficient manner and prosper in ways that you didn’t know were possible.

The only way that you can improve your current productivity is to make some changes in your approach.  Maybe I have been watching too much Wayne Dyer on PBS  but the process of being intentional is definitely a learned practice and something that I have been working on over the years.   Intention is the key to being more productive.  If you want to get more out of your day and your life, you must make specific and, in most cases, uncomfortable changes.

Putting a system in place for productivity is one such change that can really make us feel uncomfortable and you can get more intentional by adopting a whole new system with which to run your day.

The system you choose is totally up to you.  There are plenty great systems for you to use.  A few months ago, I outlined 3 systems to maximize your productivity.   The system is  just the first step.  How we use the system is what’s important.  If you don’t like one particular system, use a hybrid of a couple of different systems if that’s what works best for you.

I considered myself a fairly organized person but one mistake I always seemed to make was forgetting things that people said to me in passing.  I would talk with my wife on the phone or have an employee make a request and if I didn’t handle the request right away, I would completely forget it.  The worst thing I could do, however, is handle every request right that instant as they came at me.  There is no way I would get anything meaningful done if I did that.

Forgetting things started getting me into trouble at home with my wife as I would forget to drop by the store etc and hurt my credibility at work as I forgot to do important tasks that were requested of me by employees.  The other things that was killing me was interruptions and how I would allow them to happen frequently.

I decided to attend a  3 day productivity course that helped me solve both issues.  I now carry around a small notebook virtually everywhere I go so that I can write down every request that comes my way.  The other thing that I learned was to close my e-mail out and only check it at specific times during the day.  I also stopped taking phone calls whenever my phone rang and  stopped allowing people to walk into my office whenever they wanted to.  My productivity, as a result, greatly improved.

You may have completely different productivity issues than I have but regardless, systematizing how you handle your day will allow you to cut out the waste and get more done.  Putting a system in place is also a great way to measure how you are doing and allows you to better assess what really works.

What issues are hurting your productivity?  What are you going to do in 2010 to overcome these issues?  What systems have you learned to help you with your productivity?

The web has given everyone the ability to offer free value because of the fact that it is cheaper for people to do business via the web than ever before.  Chris Anderson from Wired magazine even wrote a book this year on the subject suggesting that free is the new economic model for today.  Whether you agree with that or not, you can’t argue with the fact that a growing tactic that virtually all marketers use today is the giveaway or the free offer.

These offers aren’t completely free as there are times where you need to give your name and e-mail address to receive the bonus offer so you are giving something to them in exchange for their product.  The reason why businesses do this is simple, they are so convinced that you will enjoy their product or service that they are willing to let you test it out as they are confident that you will enjoy it.  Some people worry about giving away their content for fear that people wont buy but typically if people love what you are doing and it creates value for them, they will pay you.

I had this experience awhile back with Market Samurai which is a SEO keyword research tool.  I was looking for a good keyword research tool and someone suggested that I check it out.  To try it for a period of time, all I had to do was give them my name and e-mail.  After I signed up, they made it really easy to use their tools by sending a series of videos that explained why their tool was different and how to maximize my efforts.  Their training efforts got me up to speed much quicker and allowed me to really appreciate the tool for what it could do.  In the end, I liked the product so much that I bought it when my trial was over.  This is in large part due to the fact that they created so much value for me during the free trial process.

The great part about this technique is that you can use it online or offline and achieve similar results.  I have worked with several businesses who have given their consulting away free to a limited amount of people to get them talking about the experience and the value that was created for them.  This can be a great way to show people what you can do and build the trust for your business that you are looking  for.

Some words of caution about giving away free services.  Just because you are giving them away doesn’t mean that you can diminish the level of service that you are giving that person.  Have you ever had a coach tell you that you play how you practice?  I was a ballroom dancer in college and would sometimes fall victim to the myth that I could always mark the routines in practice and then somehow magically turn it on when it was time for a  performance. The reality was that my performance always suffered when I fell victim to this line of thinking.

You must treat every client as if they were a paying client regardless if they are paying or not.

If you don’t do this, you run the risk of ruining the very reputation that you are trying to build.  I have seen way too many businesses fall victim to the mentality that if a client is not a paying client then they don’t care as much as a paying client does.  This is simply not true.

Free value is a great way to show people what you can do.  If you are having trouble getting people to trust that you can deliver in your area of expertise, stop telling them that you can do it, offer to show them.  In the end, if you are as good as you say you are then you will be well on your way to improving your reputation in your field and who knows you may even get some paying clients out of it.

Because we don’t have a boss to get on us and keep us on track, it’s critical that you stay engaged in your business goals and keep your self upbeat.  Here are a few things that I do to help keep me on track.

1. Talking with other business owners-  What keeps me pumped up is sharing ideas with like minded people.  This is why I try and make it a point to meet with business  partners and owners as frequently as possible.  I especially like to be involved with mastermind groups where I am meeting new people.

2. Read great books and blogs-  I keep on eye on certain blogs and books that are really good.  Check out my recommended reading section for books that I like.  As for blogs there are tons of great business blogs out there.

Some of my favorite blogs in no particular order:

• Brand Strategy Insider-  This blog is dedicated to branding and marketing from a more scientific approach
• Zen Habits- Tips to simplify your life.
• BNet-  Great resource to a lot of different business aspects from sales and marketing to management and business technology.
• Small Business Trends-  Great business advice.  They always have articles that get me excited about business.
• TED-  All around great information about a variety of topics.  I love their videos on cutting edge information.

There are also great business magazines such as FastCompany, Inc. and Entrepreneur.

3. Networking on social media sites-  If you are having trouble with getting motivated then go out and make a great connection on Twitter with someone that you never would have met otherwise.  Making new connections makes me feel like I have deepened my network and my reach.

4. Get a mentor-  A great mentor can help you recognize what you are not seeing because they use a 30,000 ft view of the situation vs your ground level viewpoint.  A mentor or coach doesn’t just teach you new things but sometimes helps you uncover what is already there.

5. Spiritual exercise- No matter how you choose to do this, making sure that you are consistent with this area is critical for me.  This could be through meditation, prayer, reading, etc.  Making sure that I stay humble and grateful for the things that I do have and not worry about the things that I lack.

There’s my list of top resources for entrepreneurial inspiration.

What’s on your list?

The reason that this post resonated with me right now is that I feel that I have personally been in violation of the one goal rule.  I took a step back and looked at some of the different ventures that I am involved in and wondered to myself how I had gotten in the position that I currently stood.  I realized that if you aren’t careful, it’s really easy to overload yourself with projects and ventures as an entrepreneur.

This brings me to the topic of one goal.  Success stories begin with this concept.  You hear of people and organizations who are successful because they have that laser focus on one goal that they want to achieve.  You don’t hear of people like Bill Gates or Lance Armstrong being successful at multiple things at the same time.  They may have success in one arena and then once they have gotten as far as they can (or want to) with that arena, they move onto something else.

Entrepreneurs have a hard time with staying focused on one goal typically because of money.  We figure sometimes that the more things that we are involved with, the more of a chance we will have at stumbling upon success.  The problem with the many irons in the fire mentality is that it never works out to the kind of financial and business success that we are looking for in the first place.  In the end we master nothing and then end up starting over.

There is a lot of power in one goal for the simple fact that it’s simple.  One goal allows us to avoid over-complicating our lives and gives us the space to focus on that one goal that we feel is most important.  The power ultimately lies in our ability to master that goal that we have and when we master something, we are able to create the highest potential value in the marketplace for our clients.

What’s your one goal?

The foundation for your marketing plan consists of a couple of items: your mission, vision and values and your overall business plan.  Without this basic foundational knowledge of how you want your small business to operate and where it is going,  your marketing plan will not serve your small business’ sales needs.

I know that talking about planning and vision aren’t sexy things to talk about and that some of these terms have turned into an evil business cliche but when they are done right, you are able to more powerfully articulate your business.   When you can articulate clearly where you want to go with your business and who your business serves, you are far beyond other business owners who are struggling to figure this out or find the time to make it happen.

There are several business experts who will caution you against analysis paralysis when it comes to getting your product/service to market and I will agree with them.  However, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do any analysis or planning.  Basic discovery and planning will allow you to choose the right marketing vehicles (blogging, social media, SEO, PPC, Adwords, print, radio etc.)  for your business to utilize and who to target with the marketing that you are doing.  Another piece of information that you will be able to uncover with your business plan is your budget that you have available for marketing.

The great news about your mission, vision and values as well as your business plan is that these are inexpensive things to start putting together.  If you need funding, you may want to get a professional team involved but other than that you should be able to put this information together on your own.  Small business owners will cite a lack of time as another reason why this doesn’t get done but it really shouldn’t take that long.  Once you have this information in place, you can use it as a guide to your marketing plan.  Without the first step of clarity and planning, your marketing plan can’t be effective.

Assess Your Business

The first thing that you need to do to put together your marketing plan is take a look at where your business is.  If you have a business plan put together then most of your questions have been answered. Some questions you ask in this phase and information you have put together are:

• Market research-  how much do you know about the market for your business.
• You customer- What do they value? How do they want to be communicated to? Who is your customer?
• Mission, vision and values- You have to know where your business is going and why.
• Target market- what niche can you excel in?  The more specific, the better.
• USP- What makes our business different
• Who do I know?
• Budget-  what can you set aside for marketing

Framework

In the framework, this where you set your parameters.  What are your goals with your marketing, short term and long? How long do you work with a client?  How long does it take to get a new client?  What’s my budget?  What channels will I use to market (social media, blogging, SEO, PPC etc)

Plan

In this phase you start outlining specifics.  What segments do you have in your client base?  How will you bring each one along in the buying process?  Will you do a free newsletter and then offer a $39 product?

What channels are you going to use to get them?  What ones are you passionate about?  Don’t use a marketing channel that you hate and if you hate all online marketing channels, hire someone who loves them.

Put testing into your plan.  What prices work best?  What channels are working and what aren’t?

Evaluate

We just talked about testing and that is important in this phase.  It’s important that you have a way to track how each channel, that you are marketing from, is performing.  Make sure that you have a set time that is frequent where you can evaluate your marketing efforts.

Putting together a marketing plan is a great way to really discover some great things about your business. You will find out who your customer really is, what your offering really is and what channels work best to distribute your message.  Get your plan in place today with these 4 components in mind.

Because of the marketing needs to that small business owners have, my business partners and I have come up with a blog contest that we started last Wednesday to address the marketing needs of small business.

You can view the contest details at: http://businessblueprintconsulting.com/blog/?p=80.

In the spirit of small business marketing, today I wanted to post my top 5 posts on marketing.

1. So You’re Launching a Product? Now What? Part 2

2. More Media Tools To Build Your Business Platform for the Bootstrapper

3. The Best Business Marketers Are Online Experts

4. Easy, Affordable Online Marketing

5. When Asking Isn’t Enough… Observe Customer Behavior

There are some great marketing tips in the above posts that I have been fortunate to learn from people over the years so enjoy and if you want free marketing help for your business, check out the above link and get your name in for the contest.

This question of free market effectiveness has come up from time-to-time since the economy started experiencing serious difficulty.  Many blame the market for the problems that the current economy is having.  For some people it seems outrageous to have the same vehicle (our current free market) get us out of the trouble that many feel that it caused.  So, can the market provide solutions for small business?

My answer is yes.  My experience with entrepreneurs and in looking at what is good about capitalism leads me to believe that there are more people out there looking for real solutions to real problems  than there are people looking to create problems for the marketplace.

So what does this have to do with small business?

One of the issues in today’s marketplace for small business remains access to capital, more specifically, small businesses lack of access.  There have been a few ideas thrown out by the government on how they can fix this problem.  The issue with these ideas is that it costs the tax payers the money and doesn’t mean we are going to solve small business issues just by giving them cash.  Because of fear, we turn to the government and demand that they solve the issues in our lives.  Many people blame the government for creating this fear but I feel that we, the people, create the demand for government spending.

If the issue of small business credit grows large enough, I believe that someone in marketplace will feel compelled to step in and take charge to find a private solution to a wide spread issue.  The story that gives me that hope is that of Muhammad Yunus.  Muhammad is a Nobel Peace prize winner and creator of the concept of microcredit which gives  banking and lending aid to the poorest people in the world through his Grameen Foundation and Bank.

These loans have mixed results in some cases but have been able to help individuals in third world countries start a businesses and be more productive.  The reason why I feel that this is such a great example is that by and large people in America know that there is severe poverty in other countries but it has little to no impact in our day-to-day lives.

If an issue such as funding for the poor can find a viable solution in the third world, I am confident that we can do the same in America with regards to small business financing.

One of the coolest thing about this country is how willing we are to solve big problems that exist in the world.  To me creating value and solving problems are the essence of capitalism done right.  With regards to the issue of small businesses getting access to credit, call me naive, but I think someone in the marketplace is working on the problem right now.

What do you think? Can the market solve problems for small business?

The first point that Michael makes in the video is that your small business should be focused on growth.  He states that if your business is not concerned with growing, then you should shut it down.  In the talk, he also gives 2 essential ingredients for your business: Is it scalable? and Is it transformational?

One way to kill a good product is to have a poorly thought out delivery method for that product.  I have experienced this personally.  When you have a time intensive delivery process, hiring more people as you get bigger doesn’t solve the scalability issue.  It’s important to think about your delivery method at the beginning of your business.  The more automatic that you can make yoru business in the beginning the better.

Transformational business really comes down to creating value in the marketplace.  How are you changing lives with your product or service?  Or are you just selling stuff (Michael uses a different word in the video) just to sell stuff and make money.  Business can be tough and many business owners reach a point of rock bottom where they feel like their world is caving in on them.  The one thing that pulls business owners out of this is the belief in what they are doing and the passion behind it.  You can only have that if you are looking to transform the market with your idea.

These are things that we all know to some extent but don’t always follow but if we are going to thrive in an uncertain economies the above mentioned ingredients of Michael Gerber will keep our businesses moving forward and more importantly make our business relevant as well.

What are your essential ingredients?

In reality we have all struggled or will struggle at some point in time in our lives for various reason.  How we deal with the struggles will define how are lives turn out.  When your business is struggling, it’s time to evaluate what you can do to get back on track.  The following questions are questions I have had to ask myself to overcome obstacles in business and in some cases life.

Question #1:  What skills do I need?

New ideas, technologies and processes change quickly in today’s landscape.  It’s easy to get left behind when you are working in a particular niche.  When your business is struggling, it’s time to find out what you don’t know that you need to know and where you can learn it.  This happened to me about 3 years ago with technology.  I had been in a field that was not tech based and the skills weren’t necessary but when I went into business for myself, I struggled with emergent online resources and technologies.  I had to get up to speed quick.  If you find yourself in a position where you may need to learn something new, assess where you might find the information.  It could be going back to college, attending a seminar or something as simple as reading a book.

Question #2 What exists in the marketplace that I am not using?

A great example of this question in action is the businesses that still operate without a website.  There is no need to go without having a website that not only exists but looks professional.  Social media is another area where people are hesitant.  The great thing about online resources and tools is that a lot of them are free.  Getting the word out about our business is easier than ever.  It took years for e-mail to get a foothold.  Look around your industry at what tools the leaders are using and ask yourself what would work for your business.

Question #3 How is my team doing?

This is an important question as it allows you to start recognizing the changes that may need to be made within your organization.   I will caution that when I talk about the team, I am talking about you to.  Make sure that you evaluate your performance and how you can be better.  As the business owner, you should take a lot of the responsibility for your organization’s shortcomings.  As well, don’t hesitate to rid yourself of the dead weight within your organization.  If you have people under performing, find out why and then make the necessary corrections.

The answers to your businesses success and failure lie within your organization.  It’s important for you to keep a clear head so that you can recognize the solutions that exist.

What questions would you add to this list?

To start, I consider myself to have fairly reasonable views politically. (Don’t we all?)  With that being said, I may not agree with everything that President Obama does but I don’t think he is knowingly trying to create the 2nd coming of the Third Reich. In fact if any of us ever completely agreed with a president I don’t know what we would do.  In the case of his plans to infuse capital into small businesses, I appreciate the spirit of the message but not the tactics used to employ them.

The issue I have with this is two fold.  The first issue is that the current administration apparently forgot about what just happened to the housing market.   This is with regards to the proposal to funnel money at a reduced cost to community banks and credit unions.  Sounds great right?  Except that cheap cost of funds was the same thing that helped kill the mortgage industry as banks lost their minds.  The real issue with the plan is that not only are banks getting money at a reduced rate, they are also required to lend that money specifically to small businesses.

If I am a bank president, I am positive that I don’t like being told how to lend my money for my bank but in this case what does the bank have to lose?  They have no skin in the game on this deal.  They borrow the money for cheap and then if the loans don’t work out, which a lot of them wont, they will just say that the government made them lend the money.   What were they to do?  This is the same thing that we did with mortgages.

Cheap money+regulation that encouraged more people to be home owners=epic fail

A message to the small business owner:

If you are looking for a bail out or are angry because corporations are getting all of the bail out money, get over it.  This is no different than any other time.  An 80% failure rate in the first 5 years historically for small business tells me that times have always been tough for small business owners.  This just didn’t develop over the past couple of years.

Looking for a bail out, to me, shows a lack of leadership.  You’re telling your organization that you can’t solve the problems within your organization.  Waiting and thinking about a bail out just keeps you  farther from finding the solution.  Leadership means facing tough times and asking what your organization can do to overcome.

Ultimately, there are root causes to a businesses problems that more often than not don’t include a lack of capital.  Infusing money into your business without understanding what the real reasons are that your business lacks capital is essentially throwing good money after bad.  The proposition is risky at best.

I firmly believe that the problems that exist within small business today can be solved without the governments help.  Somewhere within your organization lies the answers to the questions that you seek.  Now it’s time to get dig deep and start looking for the solutions to make your business a winner.

What do you think small businesses can do to help themselves?

People complain about bad customer service all the time. Walmart is a company that I commonly hear complaints about but people still shop there even though the best way to protest poor customer service is to stop shopping at the place that sucks at service. I actually think that sometimes the person at Walmart who is “helping” me actually hates me but Walmart can get away with this because of their size and market share. You, my small business friend, can’t afford to give your clients the “Walmart” service.

One particular experience I had with great customer service took me by surprise because it was in the fast food industry. I used to commute from Denver to Colorado Springs and would take the E470 toll road to and from my house in Thornton. I would stop by a Chick-Fil-A right off of Parker road in Denver to get my breakfast chicken sandwich fix at 6:00am. The first time I stopped there the kid that was helping me was so friendly that I thought he was mocking me. I considered getting out of the car and asking him what his problem was.

How sad is that the fast food industry has come to that? After stopping at the Chick-Fil-A a few more times, I realized that that was how they rolled. They gave fast, friendly service every day and I was impressed.

That’s what your business needs. Fast, effective service every day. For the businesses just starting out here’s a great guide to customer service. #1 on the list of rules for great customer service is answering your phone.  #2 is also a big one, don’t make promises unless you plan on keeping them.  If you could just be great at these two points your business would be way ahead of others in the customer service game.

Treating your customers great is a big source for generating more customers for your business.  It allows you to get testimonials for your marketing as well as referrals.  Any client who has a great experience can’t wait to share that with someone else, it’s up to you to give them the opportunity to share their great experience about your business.  It’s important to tap into this and provide the structure for how your business can make your client experience great.

How have you been able to give yoru clients great service?  What other tips would you give?

I just read a great Q&A on the subject of inexpensive marketing this morning.  In the interview, Sylvia Browder, Project Director, Business Coach, and Consultant with the Women’s Business Center, she talks about 6 methods that business owners can use to market their business.  Among the online tools she recommended were: press release as well as various online platforms such as blogging, social media, newsletters, search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising and e-mail marketing.  These are all easy and inexpensive tools that your business can use right away that are all available online.

Sylvia also mentions managing your marketing progress effectively through the putting together of a business plan.  This will ensure that your marketing efforts are more focused and specific.

The above are strategies that you can utilize.  Small Biz Bee has come up with some specific tools to help you implement some of these strategies.  These tools range from tools that I discussed yesterday, like WordPress, to tools for tracking traffic to your sites, staying up on what people are saying about you and the competition as well as tools for managing some of your social media platforms more effectively.   If you are looking for a better way to manage your client information and manage your business, there are tools for that too.  The best thing, the tools are all easy to set up and don’t cost a lot of money (if any) to implement.

Small business owner’s number one complaint is that they don’t have time for certain online strategies or they can’t afford them.  The above mentioned tools and strategies help you to overcome those issues in your business and market your business like a pro…with a small budget.

What other tools do you think are great for small business marketing?  Drop your knowledge on us.

Don’t worry, I am not asking you to be a total online expert in every area but you should have a basic working knowledge of the different outlets that you have at your disposal.  When you have this knowledge, you can make more informed decisions on what to employ for your business.

One of the areas that a business owner must have knowledge in is setting up and maintaining a blog.  If you are serious about your business.  Understanding how to set up a site through a service like WordPress just makes sense.  A blog is a great way to build a platform initially but it’s also a great way to develop a book as well as other material for your business.  Beside the benefit of content creation, you also start learning the basics of putting together a site which can be a huge asset when it comes to developing websites for your business in the future.  I know I have personally benefited from having the knowledge by being able to build landing pages for different projects that I have worked on and I did not start out as a tech guy.

There are others areas to understand as well.  Areas such as podcasting, newsletters, videos, PR etc.  The more you know about what the different services are and how they work, the more effective your business will be at implementing these different services.  This is what the best marketers are doing, they are utilizing several different online tools to promote their products and services.

Becoming an online expert, to me, means that you have a knowledge about all the different online mediums and how they work.  You also know where to find the best services available for each medium.  Business is moving in this direction and you don’t want to be the business owner that gets left behind because you don’t participate in online media.  If you aren’t online savvy, it’s time to figure out how you can overcome this today.

Do you agree with this?  What has been your experience with online media?

You may be thinking that trust has always been important and I think to a certain extent that it has.  In today’s information society with tons of information at people’s fingertips in a matter of seconds, your reputation needs to be solid.   In the past it was much easier to fake certain things and not worry about every little customer issue that you had because chances are, very few people would hear about it.

Beyond your reputation, the other reason I feel that trust is so important is due to the change of society from an idealist perspective to a civic perspective.  Look at the following points made by Roy Williams from Wizard Academy and see if you recognize this happening.

• Authenticity is essential:  People today want authenticity in the interactions that they encounter that means being “real” about your product.  Roy states; When selling, remember: If you don’t admit the downside, they won’t believe the upside.
• A Horizontal Connectedness- Look for people to belong to something versus standing on their own.  You will see a rise in many civic organizations.
• Word-of-Mouth is the new Mass Media: For reasons stated above this is important.  People have access to each other more than ever.  If you aren’t bringing your best foot forward, people will hear about it.

The above list all point to trust.  If you aren’t authentic, people will be able to read it and therefore will not do business with you.  The more you establish yourself as unreliable and untrustworthy the more people will avoid working with you and the more you will receive negative reactions from the public about what your product/service can offer to the marketplace.  So what can we do to keep this from happening?

Stephen M.R. Covey recently wrote a great book on the topic of trust titled, The Speed of Trust.  In an interview, Stephen talks about what organizations can do to establish trust.  Some of his tips are to share information openly, tolerate mistakes and turn them into learning experiences, people talk straight and confront real issues and transparency is a practiced value.  Do you see a trend here?

The only way  your organization will be able to create value in the marketplace is through the building of trust, inside your organization as well as outside to the public.  In order to do that, trust must be placed at a premium and your processes should be geared toward building that trust for your business to have true and lasting value.

What experiences have you had good or bad with regards to trust in your organization?  Do you agree with the new civic landscape?  I would love to hear about your examples in the real world.

One thing that I feel is overlooked about branding is the fact that a solid brand starts from inside the organization and then spreads out to the public by way of the organization’s actions towards the public. In a lot of instances the small business owner is the only one responsible for setting the tone of their brand. Pluggd.in defines a brand simply as: the perception an individual / community carries about the product/service/company.

The above definition is a simple portrayal of branding and the question becomes, when should you care about the perception that people have of your company?  The answer to me is simple, you should care right away.  This means overcoming some of the most common problems that small business owners face starting out.  Problems such as: lack of vision, lack of planning, poor time management, incomplete follow through and inadequate back end controls that affect their customer service.

Performing poorly in the above mentioned areas starts to form a negative perception of you and your business which is essentially your brand.  So what areas do you need to think about with regards to your brand without spending a ton of money on a brand management firm?  Pluggd.in gives some great suggestions on some questions that you can ask to manage your brand.

The first question starts with who judges your brand.  There are several different groups that judge your products and service.  The customer is the first group but there are other groups that we don’t think of.  Groups like distributors, suppliers, the media etc.  Sometimes we forget that vendors that supply us with goods and services can be a great source of positive feedback for our organization.  That is, if you are treating them well by being a good communicator, paying your bills on time and look for ways to make the partnership and win/win.

The second piece to managing your brand are your internal actions.  Start asking questions on why you are different and in what ways can you differentiate your business.  Some of the questions that Pluggd.in suggested are: Can your e-mails differentiate you as a company? Can your financial policies send a message to suppliers that you care about their working capital problems? Can you use glass cups for coffee instead of paper to convey to employees that you care about the environment?  These are great examples of questions that we don’t ask at the start of our organization but maybe should ask.  The best part is that coming up with answers to these questions cost nothing and acting on them is usually just as cheap.

In the end, actions are what define your business.  Not catchy slogans and cute logos.  While I don’t suggest that you go out and spend thousands on branding your start up.  You can answer some simple questions that help your business start out with the right public perception.  You ultimately can’t control your brand image in the public but you can certainly put your business in a position to make sure the message is a positive one.

Despite all the benefits of self hosting your blog, people are still reluctant to do it.  I think the main reason is that even though technology advances, our mind sets are stuck in the past.   This has historically been true.  Today’s issue is the state of print newspapers (RIP).  In the past it was records over tapes or digital music over CDs.  We have a hard time advancing technologically and the same is true with setting up a web site.  It’s just not as difficult as it used to be, yet we assume that it is.

Sites like wordpress.org and others have made it so easy to do it but it’s just like everything else.  To learn it, you need to jump in and do it.  No one is naturally inclined to work with technology.  These habits are learned and in the end it is true that some end up enjoying working with technology more than others but that doesn’t mean that you can’t do it.

So why go through the trouble of self hosting your blog.  Here are my top 5:

1. Control:

Janet Jackson is all over this one.  Control is a huge reason particularly for business owners.  You don’t want to create content that you can’t control.  When you use a free hosting service, you are giving up control.  Why are you giving up control?

The first reason is that if you want to move your blog to a different service or URL, you can’t take the content with you.  The content stays there.  I suppose you could try and copy and past every post that you have created onto your new site but if you have been blogging for an extended period of time, that exercise would take forever.  You are basically starting all over again which kills months and years of hard work.

The second issue of concern is that if a free site doesn’t approve of your content, you will get shut down.  Do a search and you will find stories of individuals who have visited their blog only to find a message like this waiting for them.  Also, another question to ask is, what if your blog service shuts down?  What will you do then?

2. Customization and Functionality

With a self hosted blog, you have much more flexibility with your blog.  You have more theme options, with a service like wordpress.org, you have access to plug ins that enhance your site.  You can add buttons, capture pages etc to your site.  The more you can customize your site, the more likely you are to create a better user experience for your readers.

3.  Branding

Despite what you read in some circles, branding is still important.  A self hosted blog means a customized domain name as well as the ability to create a look and feel for your blog that is consistent with other material you use for your business.

4. Advertising

Of course your blog is to provide great content from your readers.  If they want to work with you or purchase from you, it’s also nice to be able to present your products and services as well.  Most free hosted blogs are shut down due to spam violations.  When you run your blog, you don’t have to worry about that.

You are also able to run any affiliate campaigns or adwords campaigns freely as well.  From as SEO standpoint, you are able to modify your blog to optimize it for search.  These are all essential pieces if you want your blog to assist your business in generating revenue.

5. Knowledge

This is an often overlooked component that I will be talking about more in the coming weeks but I ran across a great piece that included this aspect as a benefit here.  Setting up your own site and learning how to maintain will give you a tremendous amount of confidence in working with technology going forward.  The more you understand the architecture of a site, the more you can see how it can be used as a tool to benefit your business as well as your clients.

There’s my top 5.  What else would you add to this list as reasons to self host your blog?  What are the reason that you don’t currently self host?  Would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

It seems like I have been getting tons of questions about blogging lately and a lot of it is coming from inside my own house.  My wife has a business and she started blogging a while back on free hosting blog service.  She hadn’t really added content consistently but she wanted to start doing it more and asked me what I thought she should do.  I told her she should redo her blog and self host her blog if she was really going to get serious about it and use it as a business tool.  My wife was very hesitant to do this.

It wasn’t because she couldn’t do it.  It really boils down to wanting to do it.  When you don’t enjoy something, in this case technology, it’s extremely painful to do it.  Unfortunately as a business owner there are things that we have to do that we don’t like.  To make a long story short, I helped my wife set up her blog and got it up and running.  The funniest part of the process was looking at the glazed over look in her eyes as I walked her through the process.  In the end she is appreciative of the customization that is available to her on her new site.

We often try and cut corners on things especially when we don’t like doing them.  Sometimes cutting a corner makes sense but it’s important to think your decision through and assess the long term consequences of today’s actions.  Blogging is no exception.  It has become an important tool for small business owners to build their platform on and should not be taken lightly.

For most entrepreneurs, the thing that they love most is starting a new venture.  It seems like most of the entrepreneurs that I have worked with have one eye on their current business and the other eye on their next project.  This is a tremendous strength but when not managed can be a huge liability as well.  Some business owners just don’t seem to have the staying power to see things through due to boredom, short attention span, being overwhelmed by the complexity of their business long term etc.

Some of the by- products of not focusing on your business are lack of planning, incomplete vision of the company and failure to develop your team and business processes.  This causes your business to run into problems when your business starts to experience some growth.

The way to overcome this is to decide to master one thing in your business before you move on to another product or service.  This problem doesn’t just exist for small businesses either.  Even large, well established firms run into this problem.  The auto industry as well as the financial services industry would have done well to heed this advice.  Both industries stretched themselves way too thin with product lines and offerings and are now suffering for it.

Having a singular focus on mastering what you initiate allows you to learn how to take a product from start to finish and what it takes along the way to do it successfully.  Once you have that mastery, you can feel more confident in branching out because you now have a road map of what is needed for you to be successful.  This is essential for team building and filling in the gaps of your personal deficiencies.

Have you been able to master a certain endeavor?  Is your business trying to do too many things at once?  How have you been able to overcome a lack of focus in your business?

This particular topic has been on my mind recently due to the fact that I have been reading Geoff Colvin’s excellent book, Talent is Overrated.  In it, the author talks about what really separates high achievers from average performers.  One thing that I found particularly interesting is in the mindset that average achievers have around how success is achieved.  Average achievers tend to think that success happens because someone is incredibly gifted, has a flash of brilliance or finds lightning in a bottle.

The reality is that high achievers can point to having a plan, working diligently on that plan and then realizing success after years of deliberate practice in their chosen domain of expertise.

What it really comes down to is planning and execution.  You set the path that you feel inspired to travel and then you figure out what disciplines you need to walk the path and practice those disciplines daily.

The self help industry has made millions on the premise that you can be successful through some easy, step by step method to living the life of your dreams.  Just because someone else was successful utilizing a system in no way actually means that you are going to realize the same success.  The gurus success typically has more to do with who they are than the system that they used.

The great news and maybe the bad news is that your success also depends on you.  No one else is going to be successful for you.  It takes diligently planning and diligent execution on an individual level to make that high level of success possible.

What are you keys to success?  What do you do to maintain success?

The first thing that entrepreneurs should measure is their time.  Where you are spending your time and how you are spending can give you some important feedback on what structural needs and time management needs that you may have.  Entrepreneurs can be notorious for spending time on things that don’t really matter to the long term success of their business so get a handle on this early will not only save you money but may save your business as well.

Another thing that you can start to test and measure right away are your assumptions that you had about your business going into it.  You can start to examine things like: how long it takes you to close a lead, how long it take clients t0 go through your process, how many clients you close vs how many you meet with etc.  Think about the things that you believe to be true and measure that with what the reality is.   This is easy to do with regards to online business since you can use tools like Google Analytics to help test how your web page is doing.

Looking at standards for your industry can help guide you on what’s possible.  A mentor who works in the same field as you can give you a lot of insight into how the business functions and what results are important to measure.

It’s important to look at your measurement functions from the start so that you can establish an understanding for what results are necessary to measure and what are not.  Understanding the key measurements that help keep your finger on the pulse of how your company is truly doing can take timeso it’s important to start as soon as possible.

I will just get the first reason out of the way and move on.  That reason is laziness or put another way, lack of attention toward doing it.  It’s hard work starting a business (although it’s been suggested that I am an entrepreneur because I don’t like to work, that’s funny) and there are a lot of things that we have to do that are outside our skill set as well as our passions.  As a small business owner, we have to just deal with it.  Many times business owners know what must be done but they just don’t do it.  There are many entrepreneurs that just neglect this piece of their business.

The second reason is fear.  For some reason, we human beings are scared to death of failure.  Writing our goals down and measuring results is way too much commitment to achievement for us.  So what do we do?  Ignore it.  Understand that failure just gets us that much closer to what we are truly after.  We know that failure is a key component to success, we just can’t quite accept it in our hearts.

The last reason is that some entrepreneurs have the fortune (or sometimes misfortune) of seeing their business take off right away without ever putting results and measurements for their business in place.  In the end, these business owners realize this when business slows down and they don’t know why because they haven’t been measuring it.  This ends up killing their business if they don’t turn it around.

What are your challenges with measuring results for your business (or life)?  How have you been successful with defining and measuring results?

I have already talked about why mission, vision and values are important to your business.  They really are the foundation for everything that you do and your results are no different.

Many small business owners wander ahead with their business without understanding the fundamental questions about their business.  Questions such as: Why do I exist?  Where do I want to go?  What’s most important to my business?  Knowing these questions will then allow you to create the results that will make the answers to the aforementioned questions a reality for your business.

To be sure, your business can have success without having solid clarity behind it…in the short term.  Businesses who have success without defining mission, vision and values do one of two things.  They either realize that to sustain the success, they are going to need to understand their business better because they aren’t sure why they were successful or they end up failing because they can’t duplicate the success in the long term.

Business can even have success without defining results…also in the short term.  The reason businesses don’t define results is due to the lack of clarity or for other reasons that I will discuss later this week. Having success without defined results or an understanding of why results happened is the most dangerous kind of success because at that point you have grown your business which means more liabilities and more customers to answer to.  Not having a plan in place to manage your results then becomes suicide for your organization.

What’s the first step?  Get results defined for yoru business but before you do that make sure that you understand why your business exists in the first place and where you want it to go.  The long term success of your business is counting on it.

I have seen/experienced companies doing this in a number of different ways.  I have seen companies meet in the mornings for a period of time until the plan is complete.  I have been a part of retreats in remote locations or spend 2-3 days going over our plan in a conference room.

I am gearing this to small companies with 15-20 employees or less.  With that being said, it’s important to get as many people involved in this process as possible.  The more people who feel ownership in the plan the better.  When it comes to writing the final plan on paper, make sure that one person writes it so it feels and sounds cohesive.  (Tip from Guy Kawasaki)

While this process can be a great source for team building, the easiest way to kill your team’s vibrant momentum is to not follow through on the plan.  As the leader of the organization, you are responsible for making sure that what is decided on gets implemented into the business.  I have seen too many leaders of organizations ignore this and create a cultural of cynicism that feedback doesn’t matter and neither does planning because the boss is just going to do what he/she wants anyway.  Don’t be that leader that doesn’t follow through.  It will destroy your credibility.

This is just another reason to have a business plan and a great way to engage your team in the process.  When you have everyone on your team working towards the same result, special things can happen.

According to Guy Kawasaki, your business plan should contain the following:

1. The problem that exists
2.Your solution to the problem
3.Business model; i.e. a brief description of the type of firm you will operate
4.Underlying magic/technology; this is crucial. Basically, it explains how you will solve the problem. It illustrates your competitive advantage.
5.Marketing and sales; how you will make people aware of your product/service, and sell it.
6.Competition; anyone who claims that there is no competition for a business idea has not done their homework.
7.Team; who—if anyone—will be working with you.
8.Projections and milestones; what are the key goals that you plan on hitting.
9.Status and time line; where you currently are with your venture, and how long until you start hitting those goals.
10.Summary and call to action; if this is a presentation to investors, here’s where you tell them how much you need.

If you have thought about your business at all, most of these answers should be really easy to answer.  For those  points that require more detailed research, don’t be afraid to enlist some help in getting this done.  The business planning process is much easier than we make it out to be.  The real key is to sit down and start working on it.  Your business will realize success sooner as a result.

All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.

Sun Tzu

Once you have clearly articulated your mission, vision and values, the next piece to your business should be putting together a plan.  There are varying opinions on whether or not you should spend the time putting together a business plan.  There are several reasons that a business plan can help you and your business get started on the right track.

The first reason is to have a road map for your business to guide you in where you are going and how you are getting these.  Spending the time to put this down on paper will help put it firmly in your mind.  Not only will you know it well but I believe having a plan gives you more confidence when you are networking, looking for vendors for your business, hiring etc.

With a business plan you are able to better measure results because you actually know what they are.  You can also make and recognize adjustments that need to be made more quickly when you know what you are looking for and why.  Measurement of results is where a lot of business owners fall short because they don’t take the time to figure out what numbers are important to their business.

If you are starting your business with employees, you can build a sense of teamwork by working on this plan together.  Everyone will be on the same page and will understand what is going on in the company.  When you bring on new team members, your business plan can get them up to speed much more quickly by showing them the plan and talking it over with them.

The last reason is one that most people talk about when the subject of business planning comes up.  That reason is to get funding for your business.  A plan alone does not get your business funding, it’s more like your ticket to the game.  The businesses that get funding without a plan are few and far between.  You are kidding yourself if you think you will be that special business.

Like I said at the beginning there are some who would suggest that you don’t need a business plan.   They would suggest that you can get by with something written down that’s much more simple because people don’t look at their business plan after it is written.  My argument is that if you wont take the time to look at your business plan, you probably wont take the time to look at anything else.  This is more of a discipline issue more than anything else.  Business owners need to have discipline or they will fail.

Even if you did not ever look at your plan again after it is written, I believe the journey is just as important.  Putting together a business plan requires you to take a serious look at your business and spend some time thinking about how your business is going to work, what you need and what obstacles exist for you currently.  You will have gained some important knowledge up front even if you fail to review later.

How have you been able to use a business plan for success?  What are some other reasons for and against putting together a plan?

PS Listen below to this week’s podcast where I talk more about business planning.

I don’t make the friends and family point in a MLM sort of way where you list them out and then try and get them in your down line.  I am talking about have meaningful conversations with people that you care about so that you are aware of what it is they do professional and what types of projects they have been working on.  Another thing about this, I only want you to do it because you truly care, not just to further your own professional life.

When we spend a lot of time with people, we take then for granted sometimes.  Have you ever learned about a personal crisis that a friend went through that you were never aware of?  Has a friend ever had a serious accomplishment that you ended up hearing about in the paper?  These things have happened to me and I don’t consider myself to be too crappy of a friend.  (My friends may feel otherwise.)

My point is that your friends, family, past co-workers etc could very well be up to some amazing things that you don’t know about.  Beyond that, they may be up to some amazing things that fit nicely into what you are doing in your business.  This is a great way to get a mentor or have a relationship that can enhance your current business offering.

Next time you are hanging out, make it a point to ask your friends, family etc what they are up to.  A simple,  how’s work going will suffice.  If you don’t know what they do for a profession, find out.  If you know where they work but not what they do, ask.  Asking some questions shows that you care about that person and are interested in their lives.  As an added bonus, it can also be a great way to enhance your business as well.  It’s easy to forget to cultivate our relationships and take things for granted but can pay dividends in multiple ways when we do it right.