How to make your business appear smaller

I was inspired by a recent article from the Australian Anthill about making our business appear bigger than we are. But in the age of authenticity, do we really want that? Sure, appearing big can be a good thing depending on our audience. Certainly, the key point in the article to me was ‘How to appear professional’. But why should professional be inextricably associated with big?  Maybe the strategy should be to appear as small as possible. The current market place is not short of large corporates who are starting to understand the importance of personal service again. An example that comes to mind is the Bank of Queensland moving to a franchised branch model – where local ownership is of strategic importance to customers. Especially in such a tarnished industry as banking.

So why would we want to appear smaller than we are? Here’s a couple of thought starters:

Service – it is implicit that service is better when dealing directly with a small group of people rather than a faceless corporation

Trust – Smaller companies are way more dependent on you as a customer. You matter more, so you can trust the fact that they will do all they can to keep you.

Underdog – People love to support the up and comer. The person having a real go. Being small should be embraced and leveraged. Often this might be the only reason people do business with you.

So in the spirit of small = good, here’s the startup blog top 10 list of how to act small. Regardless of our actual revenue:

  1. Have personal contact details of team members on your website. Email, Skype cell phone.
  2. Remove pointless gatekeepers from your office who insulate hierarchy members from real customers
  3. Use real language in all written forms of communication. Use a human voice not corporate PR brochure parlance.
  4. Be honest when you stuff up. Admit it openly and quickly. Don’t make decisions based on repercussions, but on what’s right.
  5. Write terms and conditions (if you must have them) in a language anyone could understand
  6. Never call your audience your target. Business is is not skeet shooting, it is about delighting. You are performing for an audience, who can get up and leave at any time…. or even throw rotten tomatoes.
  7. Give responsibility to individuals not committees. Give them decision authority. It’ll get done quicker and better.
  8. Don’t gag your people. Allow anyone to comment on the company and what’s happening. It’ll be the best research you can ever do to find out what’s really going on in your company. No ships will be sunk.
  9. Have a policy of common sense. Not written manuals no employee will ever read.
  10. Say, “Yes we are only a small company…. and here’s why we are better…”

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Q & A – New Media and Small Business

I was asked to answer a few questions at a talk I gave last week at the Nationwide Networking Event. It was aimed at Small businesses with the topic about new media and the advantages of being small. I thought it was a nice snippet of ideas worth sharing here.

Q: What type of changes can we expect from media in 2010 and how do we need to prepare for it as business professionals?

A: Media will fragment further, it’s increasingly like fashion with new ideas appearing daily. The art of value, like with fashion is by going with the classics and choosing the right style for the brand you want to build. Match your environment, by being involved in the right channels.

Q: Where do you see the role of the blog in the future?

A: Increasingly important. Blogs are a trusted source, because bloggers become, or are an expert on their topic of choice. This is because all good blogs are topic specific. And people want to deal with experts.

Q: What can we expect from the evolution of twitter and our capacity to use it as a marketing medium?

A: If we use it as a marketing medium we’ve already lost. It’s a conversation…. Conversation can turn into business, but it is primarily a conversation. First we need to be a resource. A resource to others, from which we can build trust and valued relationships. These may eventually lead a business relationship.

Q: What trends are coming from America that we need to be aware of?

A: Trends are global now. We don’t have to look overseas to see it. Things arrive simultaneously. It’s not like it was 20 years ago where our friends return from sojourns overseas to tell us all about the cool things they saw, and we have to wait for them to appear in our market a few years later. Now it’s on our desktop the day it happens. This is been further facilitated by web tools such as Springwise, Twitter and Youtube.

Q: How do we (small business people) benefit from the changes in the media landscape?

A: Barriers to entry have been removed so anyone can play. But it requires a long term consistent effort. New media requires a low financial investment, and large human capital input. Where as old media requires a large financial investment with little human effort. At least now we have to choice. In addition large companies have been (so far) pretty bad at using new media. It creates an advantage for us.

Q: How can we better utilize technology tor reduce our costs and increase our profits?

A: Shift from being doers, to becoming project managers. Outsource where ever possible. It’s easier now with all the tools we have at our disposal like elance and skype. Why do we even need an office? Is it because we need to, or because we don’t trust the people we work with?

Q: Your blog has 50,000 readers a month, how did you do that?

A: Two simple things. One blog entry every day. Staying on topic (entrepreneurship / startups). Then wordpress and Google did the rest. It’s not a trick, it just takes consistent effort.

Q: What is the meaning of micro brand building and how would it be relevant to soloprenuers?

A: Build your personal brand first. That’s the first part of micro branding, becoming known for something. Having a skill you can share with others. Then eventually cross fertilize to your business brand.

Q: What are the simplest things we can do to build a micro brand?

A: Have a tight focus area of interest. Share our lessons honestly and openly. Frequency of output.

Q: How do we protect our brands?

A: Not with IP and legal stuff…. Most of that is a simple waste of money.  We protect it with customers, innovation and reliability.

Q: What one piece of advice would you give to those of us that need clients and need them quickly?

A: Cold call. Not on the phone, but turn up and talk.

Q: What books have influenced  you?

The Cluetrain Manifesto

The Purple Cow

The art of the start

22 Laws of marketing

Q: What marketers / speakers have influenced you?

A: Steven Wright (comedian) he taught me how to flip my perspective for alternative solutions.

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Startup Survival

In nature, with every second something lives for, it’s probability of continued life increases exponentially.

The lessons for startups is simple, do the stuff that keeps you alive longest. And the most important thing we can do for our startup is keep our costs low. Low cost operations gives us the advantage of time. And time is the most important asset when it comes to working out our business model. Not capital, not technology, not employees, not research. Just time.

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How to make a sales call

Today I was out making sales calls in my local industrial area where there are a lot of different rental companies. Idea being to get these rental / hire companies using rentoid.com to generate extra business. The timing is good, because we have a zero cost entry platform and times are tough in the B to B arena.

But the thing that really matters is how I’ve been making the sales calls. Firstly, these guys are B to B, trades focused guys. renting mainly industrial equipment. The last thing they want to some tech / web geek give them bullshit about how the internet is going to save them…. So here’s what I’ve done instead:

  1. I haven’t shaved for 3 days – got a good beard growing. I’m wearing jeans and boots with a fairly standard zip up jumper. When I walk in I look like a customer, in fact I look like they do. I’m less threatening and this is obvious with the positive greetings I’m receiving.
  2. When I drop in (remember it’s a cold call) I say, ‘You know I live around the corner, I drive past here everyday and I’ve been meaning to drop in for ages. You know I’ve got web business which is all about rental companies…..” And I do live close enough to use this line. It is genuine.
  3. The F Bomb – Yep, I’m dropping this one big time – for one simple reason – they are. I’ll use whatever language they use. If they like swearing, so do I. I’m matching their culture in dress and language.
  4. I know their business. I don’t walk in and say ‘So tell me about your business’ – I do my homework before I turn up. Granted I know enough about the rental industry now to adapt to different segments pretty quick. I know what matters to them and get the conversation into that area quickly.
  5. I don’t try and sell anything on the first call. We do have a free entry to rentoid – but we also sell integrated web technologies. But I don’t try to sell anything.  Just get them to like me in fact, I’m selling me. People buy things from people they like. Then they find a logical or business reason to justify their decision after they’ve already made it.
  6. I follow up with whatever I promise. Information, phone calls, data whatever they need. I try to show I’ll be a valuable resource.
  7. I get rejected too. It’s a numbers game, and each rejection is a lesson for honing my skills for the next call.

I’m learning heaps and I’m loving it.

Start up blog says – get out there and start selling.

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Path to startup success

As published in Australian Anthill this week.

I was thinking about business and at what point it becomes possible to believe you have a good chance of winning. I came to the conclusion that four elements pave the way to start-up success.

The four elements are:

  1. Your concept has been validated in market.
  2. You know what to do.
  3. You know how to do it.
  4. You are actually doing it – right now.

If you work through these four elements, then success is inevitable. Of course, all of these elements need some explaining.

1. Your concept has been validated in market

Firstly, let’s look at the last two words in this sentence – in market. This means you have launched, you are live, and you have customers and revenue. We have gone beyond the idea (the easy part) and launched something, which makes the original business launch plan a historical and irrelevant document. Until this point, there is no proof that anyone actually cares about your idea; that anyone will buy your thing.

Concept validation – this occurs when people are buying what you sell, as well as any positive coverage you receive. Positive coverage includes people and media talking about what you are doing – not what technology you have used, or how you bootstrapped your business (which is not concept validation, but method validation), but talking about the benefits your business is providing customers and the problems you are solving. This coverage is about them, not you. At this point, you know the business has potential and isn’t a stupid whim.

2. You know what to do

You’ve been doing what you do – selling what you sell – long enough to know the crappy parts of your business. You know what you must improve to make your semi-broken yet still alive start-up better. You’ve worked out where the original model and plan was terribly wrong.  You’ve also been around long enough to gather feedback from the market, which gives you a good indication of how to improve your ‘thing’. Until this point, innovation, location, good people and lots of saying sorry has kept you alive. But time has nearly run out, and you’ve learned what must be done to grow and eventually thrive.

3. You know how to do it

Not only do you understand the above conceptually, but you actually know how to make this stuff happen. You’ve gone beyond ideas for improvement, such as make the website more usable, reduce the price of the widget, create national brand awareness or increase distribution. Now you actually have an executable plan in place.

So what is an executable plan? An executable plan is a set of projects that are achievable with the immediate resources you have at your disposal, in a reasonable timeframe. Financial resources, human resources, organisational infrastructure – an executable plan that you can deliver to the market, not a pipedream of appearing on Oprah or getting funding from Sequoia Capital. You have the team with the skills to bring the improved offer to market. It may not require huge financial resources, it may involve more creative solutions, but you know you can do it.

4. You are actually doing it – right now

The plans have been put down as discussed in parts two and three. In fact, you won’t even need to look at them again. They are now ‘historical documents’. Instead, your team is fully engaged in implementing what you have agreed is the correct strategy. The steps to completing the projects are known. They are live projects the team is actively engaged in on a daily basis, which will fundamentally change the marketing mix of your business. The projects have budgets and deadlines and you will not rest until they have been completed. Only then will you need to go back to part two again, and work out what to do. Then go through the process again. In fact, this process never ends. In continues in perpetuity. The important thing is that you implement strategies before re-viewing them. There is nothing more counterproductive than constantly re-assessing what to do. The only way to know what works is to experiment and do it.

When we do this – we are on the path to success. This should perhaps be defined as: “Success = the progressive realisation of a worthwhile ideal.”

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10 steps to web start up

It’s never been cheaper to start a business in the history of man. Especially on line. Startup guru Guy Kawasaki proved it with his $12,000 example for www.trumours.com – But startup blog says you can do it for pretty close to zero. In the spirit of sharing here’s the startup blog list of the 10 things you need to get started, and resources to help perform these necessary tasks.

  1. Idea generating – Ideas these days are free and omnipresent. Steal ideas from www.springwise.com or www.idea-a-day.com – Just take one that suits you and do it. Maybe bring their idea to your geography, or just copy something already successful and do it. There is no currency in ideas. They are free. Take them. Any successful entrepreneur will tell you that is the easiest part of any venture. And they are right.
  2. Name Generating – Actually your business name has nothing to do with success. There’s only two things to consider. Firstly that it’s available (.com?) and secondly that people can say it. Check out www.nameboy.com to help you generate some.
  3. Idea testing – I loved the idea from Timothy Ferriss who tested the idea for the best book name (4 hour work week won it) by using Google Adwords for the various options and seeing which one got the most clicks with certain key words. Inspired stuff. Steal his idea and use adwords to test your business proposition before investing heavily.
  4. Project Managment – Keep your project stuff all in one digital location. The crew over at 37 Signals provide some awesome tools for free in doing so. We’ve used it extensively for rentoid.com
  5. Communication – Get skype set up for all your international dealings phone calls and chats required in managing your project and team. I work with with people all over the world on rentoid and have never paid for a phone call yet. You can even get it on your iphone to make free calls from – Giddy up.
  6. Design – Don’t get stooged paying a zillion dollars for an agency to design your stuff. Leave the agency work for big companies with big budgets, you’re a bootstrapper and need to get it done cheap. But lucky for us these days cheap doesn’t have to mean crap. Check out 99 designs to get your site designed. If you need digital icons or related visuals check out istock photo for great up to date design. For pictures use Flickr creative commons.
  7. CSS (Cascading Style Cheets) – Check out slice and dice it to get your shiny new designs ready for coding.
  8. Coding / Programming – Yep, that tricky stuff which makes it all work under the website. Easy, go straight to Elance or ODesk to find coders for HTML, PHP, Rails, AJAX – anything. They’re all there waiting for your brief. (this should be the only biggish expense for your web startup – which means a few hundred dollars with a currency advantage)
  9. Payment gateway – Use paypal – free set up and the cheapest, most trusted way to accept credit cards and multiple payment forms on the internet.
  10. Promotion tools –  OK this is the stuff you’re all familiar with and using daily. So turn these fun parks into business tools by using them properly. But just choose a couple of them and use them well. My favourites are youtube, twitter, blogging (recommend wordpress).

So there you have it – web start up in 10 easy steps. Feel free to add any other cool tools and ideas in the comments.

What are you waiting for? Get started.

Steve.

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