Blog

Have You Had an “Ah-Ha!” Moment with Your Business Lately?

July 30, 2010 by Frank Goley, Business Consultant

I just did yesterday, and it came just in time too! Business slowed down a bit for us this month after we have steadily increased sales and profits over the last several months. We were gaining great momentum. And then, bam, it slowed down, and I knew in my gut I had to re-think things.

I Went Back to Business Basics

I went back to doing some market research, and seeing what other similar businesses were experiencing and what they were doing. I ended up tweaking my PPC campaigns; adjusting and reapplying my SEO; adjusting my website and blog design and flow; adjusting my sales process; adjusting how people “landed” in my business; adjusting my social network approach; and understanding more about what my best type of customer were experiencing in this recession and where they need help.

The “Ah-Ha!” Moment

What a makeover, huh? The good news, after three weeks of research and changing strategies, I implemented it last night and bam, quality business is already flowing today. Ah-Ha! I realized I need to do this more often to make sure things stay on track, and I adjust with the market. Practice what you preach, Frank, I hear my self saying!

Have You Had an “Ah-Ha!” Moment This Month?

If you haven’t you probably need to get back to basics like I did.

§  Reacquaint yourself with your customers and markets. Have their needs changed? What direction is your market moving?

§  Are there new markets arising you can tap into?

§  Look into your sales and marketing process. Is it still working for today’s business climate?

§  What’s the ROI for your current advertising campaigns?

§  Get in touch with your business mentors and fellow business owners. Ask them how business is going for them. You will be surprised by the quality of solutions you can find when conversing and brainstorming with a fellow business person (and it helps them too).

§  Go online and see how other competitors and related businesses are approaching the business climate and markets. You’ll pick up some great insights. Read their blogs and subscribe to their newsletters.

§  Do you need objective advice? Do you need an objective assessment of your business? You may want to consider hiring a Business Consultant to help.

§  Determine where your business is going. Do you like the direction? Do you need to make changes to your Strategic Plan?

To Be Successful You Need At Least One Big “Ah-Ha!” Moment a Month

Don’t get too busy working “in” your business. Remember to apply yourself and your team monthly toward working “on” your business. The distinction is huge. Stay connected with your customers, prospects and markets. They will tell you where you need to go Strategically. Then just figure out how to do it and adjust. Do it monthly!

Today’s Video is on Decision Making, Strategic Planning and Opportunities

Posted in Business Strategic Planning. Comment

Employees Are The Best Investment for Your Business

July 29, 2010 by Frank Goley, Business Consultant

As a Business Consultant I encounter many business owners who concentrate investments into their business mostly toward marketing, advertising and product development. This concentration is premised on the thinking that these areas will contribute to the company’s bottom line. While this is partially true and businesses need this sort of re-investment to be successful, I find that most overlook the most important business investment available. By overlooking this vital investment, the pay off for the investment into marketing, advertising and product development is significantly reduced. The absolutely best investment a company can make is in its employees.

Without Good Employees, a Company is Just Throwing Its Money Away

You can pour dollars into Marketing, advertising and product development, but with out good employees to implement these vital evolutions, you are just throwing away your money. It is the employee who will bring more business in the door. The higher the quality of the employee, the improved skill set of the employee, and the happiness of the employee all add up to success for a business, making its investments into growing the company much more successful and profitable.

Concentrate First on Getting Good Employees

Before pouring your business investment cash into a robust Marketing and Advertising Campaign, or an aggressive Product Development initiative, make sure you have the right employees on board to successfully design and implement these programs. Bringing talent in house or training potential in house is a business investment that will pay ten fold when it is time to grow your business. A talented and skilled employee will obtain a far greater Return on Equity (ROE) with a mediocre product or service than an average employee with a stellar product or service.

Train Your Employees Well

I see a lot of companies who have great talent in house or acquired great talent, but their training was so mediocre that the personnel investment was simply being wasted. Well trained employees will find ways to innovate, cut costs and improve profits and profitability. Give your employees the opportunity to be a great investment for you and a bigger payoff for your ROE. You will gain the best potential out of all your employees by providing ample opportunities to receive training.

Support Education for Your Employees

Acquiring new employees can be expensive. Improve your skill and talent base by supporting education of your employees, helping them to reach higher potential, and in return, help you achieve a better return on equity. Marketing and Advertising are very expensive. Supporting the education of your employees in those areas will help you minimize those costs and get a much better ROI for those dollars spent, whether you decide to bring some of that function in house or more effectively deal with outsourced marketing and advertising groups.  You can foster better innovation and product development by giving your employees incentives to go after more education. This will spawn their creativity, while making them more productive.  

Treat Your Employees Well

Spend time on your Compensation and Benefits Packages. Normally if designed well, compensation and benefits packages will more than pay for themselves with the return on productivity. Also a good employee package can attract higher talent for less dollars spent. For many talented employees, it isn’t just about salary. It is about growth, stimulation, incentives, and most importantly, happiness. Think of ways to foster a great environment in your company for employees, and the payoff in company profits will be significant. Happy, well trained and skilled employees will help you attract more talented people in the future for much less investment. The company environment is what will attract them primarily with salary and compensation coming in second. Happy Employees = Productive Employees = Company Profits

When You Have Good and Happy Employees

Now is the time to make your move. Your investment into your company to grow and sustain it will be much more profitable. Innovation will soar. Creativity will spawn great product development. Enthused employees will become your best marketing and advertising channels. Your ROI and ROE will be much better allocated, giving you the opportunity to sustain growth in your business. Also, you will retain your best talent and significantly reduce your turnover rate, which can be the biggest reason why companies lose profits and fail.

So before you spend a bunch of hard earned dollars into growing your business, think about whether you have the right employees and company culture in place to make it happen for you. Also review your Executive and Management levels to ensure they will help foster employee growth and happiness. If not, make those changes first on the upper levels. This needs to be a top-down thing to be successful.

Video Resource: Finding and Retaining Good Employees

Posted in Business Management. Comment

SEO Can Be More Effective and Profitable Than Pay Per Click

July 28, 2010 by Frank Goley, Business Consultant

I use both Cost per Click (CPC), or commonly refered to as Pay Per Click (PPC), and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to be found by clients on the internet. With out a doubt, SEO is the preferred way for a multitude of reasons I will discuss in this post. I actually use Cost Per Click to help my SEO efforts and use CPC in keyword areas I am not naturally ranking well yet.

Reasons Why SEO is Superior to CPC

ü  You don’t have to pay CPC fees every time someone clicks on your link, whether they are a hot buyer or someone just surfing for info.

ü  Top five positioning in the General Search Results shows credibility and relevancy, which turns into high click thru rates and conversion rates. CPC ads don’t necessarily have either.

ü  SEO can be as targeted as CPC so you can zoom in on the right type of customer.

ü  The general search results normally grab the initial attention of an internet searcher and then CPC. Don’t you want to have first dibs?

ü  A general search result displays a page title and detailed description of the page, which is much more comprehensive than a CPC ad’s title and description. This gives you a much better chance of being clicked on.

SEO is Hard Work

While there are a lot of reasons why SEO is superior to CPC, it takes a lot of work. You need to have solid, relevant content and lots of back links from other sites validating your website to get in the top 5 general search results. With out top 5 placement in the general search results, you won’t receive quality traffic. SEO takes time and consistency, while CPC can be implemented in a day and be on page one of the search engines.

SEO can Help Your CPC Ads

Good SEO can also help you rank better in the CPC sponsored ad area for a lower cost per click. Optimized web pages and relevancy work in favor of your CPC ads.

Use CPC to Help Your SEO

Determining where to spend your energies in SEO is very important. Identifying what keywords will be most profitable for you is absolutely key in SEO, so you know what keyword areas to optimize for the type of business and customer you need to be successful. CPC campaigns can quickly determine what keywords and pricing levels work the best. Then take that research and optimize your website for it.

Use CPC with SEO

Since SEO takes time to work, especially if you are going for top 5 placement, using CPC where you aren’t ranking well is effective until you are well positioned and/or are receiving enough organic business from a particular keyword. Also sometimes you will rank higher on one search engine verses the other so CPC can help you on the search engines where you need better exposure.

For more help on SEO Strategies, please see my Search Engine Optimization Article.

Video Resource: PPC vs SEO

Posted in Business Internet Strategies. Comment

Consider an Enterprise Lab as a Way to Successfully Start Up

July 27, 2010 by Frank Goley, Business Consultant

There are a multitude of ways to obtain the funds, networking and mentorship start ups need to really get their business off the ground. There are Enterprise Labs which will not just incubate but really have the tools, relationships, mentors, experts and funding to help you successfully model, fund and start up your business.

An example of one of these Enterprise Labs is the Kauffman Labs, which picks up to 20 founding groups per sector to go through their 6 month program to successfully start up. They provide the necessary education, tools, experts, mentorship, relationships, business modeling and the such for founding members of a start up to successfully obtain venture capital and come to market. And you don’t have to have a pedigree education to apply!

The competition is stiff but the process of competing is a great exercise for any start up, whether or not you are selected for the program. You gain so much experience and knowledge in the process of applying and competing, that it is highly advantageous. It gives you a great idea where you stand as a viable start up looking for VC.

Kauffman provides a plethora of resources for entrepreneurs, including Entrepreneurship.org, Kauffman FastTrac and the Urban Entrepreneur Partnership. Take advantage of these programs and resources from Kauffman and other foundations!

Video Resource: Kauffman Labs

Posted in Business Finance. Comment

Four Keys to Obtaining Business Funding in a Recession

July 26, 2010 by Frank Goley, Business Consultant

If you are seeking funding in this recessionary market, then there are 4 Key Areas to pay attention to:

#1 – Business Track Record

Showing how you have run a successful business in the past or had an influential hand in running a successful business is critically important.

#2 – Experience

Detail how you have specific experience for the type of business, customer and market.

#3 – Niche Market Identification

Funders want to know you have narrowed down your customers into a profitable Market Niche which you serve well.

# 4 – Cash Flow

A Cash Flowing business is a much easier sell to a funder.

The KISS acronym applies. Keep it Simple. Apply these four key areas to your business and your funding search will certainly improve. Make sure you have a solid Loan Package and Business Plan to present to funders. Good luck!

For more information, please see my articles on Business Finance.

Video Resource:  The Importance of Cash Flow for Bank Finance

Posted in Business Finance. Comment

Use Crowd Funding to Raise Funds for your Start Up or Company Project

July 23, 2010 by Frank Goley, Business Consultant

Ever heard of Crowd Funding? Want to raise capital for your business with out paying an interest rate or giving up equity? Crowd funding provides donations to your business for a reward and can be a viable capital raising strategy that has a strong social media influence.

Its Origins

Crowd Funding grew out of the internet phenomenon of raising donations for charities, political candidates, etc.  It was then used and now used pretty heavily to raise funds for musicians, artists and independent film makers. It has now evolved into a viable strategy for companies to raise funds.

How it Works

You register your business proposal on a Crowd Funding website like RocketHub or KickStarter. You provide different rewards for different levels of donations. Donation levels range from $5 to $1,000, and the larger the donation, the better the reward. Rewards aren’t an interest rate or equity stake, instead it is a thank you letter, a gift, a mention on a website, name of the donor put somewhere prominent, discounts, free products and so forth. Up to $250,000 has been raised using this method and many use it to raise $5,000 – $15,000. The Crowd Funding service takes a percentage of the total amount raised.  

Social Network Element

The success of Crowd Funding depends on its donors and those seeking the funding to spread the news among their social networks, particularly through FaceBook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube and the like. It is important you have a planned fund raising strategy going in because these Crowd Funding services require you to raise the entire amount you are seeking in a certain time period, otherwise you don’t get any funding. Many who do this strategy correctly will raise more than they need.  

Use Crowd Funding to Get Closer to Your Customers

This is a real viable platform for you to really engage customers in your business, both existing ones and prospects. It gives them a real involvement in the success of your business and cements that necessary bond you need to really have “sticky” customers. Can you think of all the possibilities?

How to Do It

I recommend you go to the different Crowd Funding websites and see how it is done. You will see projects that successfully raised money and those who didn’t. Normally those who didn’t had a “wish” or “dream” rather than a viable plan. You can also gain some invaluable tips on what works for soliciting donors to your project by studying successful ones. Looking at the different projects also gives you good ideas on the different rewards you can offer and which ones worked. You will also see the dollar ranges that where most successful, i.e. $35 donation level with the right reward seems to be a hot level.

Be careful to see what type of projects and businesses are promoted on the Crowd Funding service and if it meets what you are trying to do. Also, some are really venture raising sites, which require an equity stake or other type of pay back. The two websites I mentioned seem to be good ones for most businesses and are true Crowd Funding platforms, but do your homework and you can find others too.

Video Resources

What is Crowd Funding and How it Works

Different Crowd Funding Services and Platforms

Posted in Business Finance. Comment

Get Business Mentors and Advisors to Help You Start and Grow a Successful Company

July 22, 2010 by Frank Goley, Business Consultant

Starting and growing a successful company is hard. Business knowledge and experience significantly reduce the learning curve and help put a company on a path toward success. There are many organizations out there that can help you, such as SCORE, SBA, SBDC and so forth. But dedicated volunteer advisors and mentors can be a real plus for a company needing expert help and direction.

So the where can you find these people to volunteer their time to help you succeed?

There are often local entrepreneurial and venture groups who have experienced advisors and mentors ready and willing to help you. Or you can do your own research for the right candidates and approach them.

Better yet, there is a new organization called the Founder Space that links company founders with different types of mentors and advisors for close personal help and assistance. The website also provides answers to any questions business founders may have. Furthermore, it links angel investors with founder members. All of this for free. Can’t beat that!

As a Business Consultant, I always encourage companies to have mentors and advisors who can provide non-paid, experienced and objective advice as a company forms and implements its Business Plan. Find yours today!

Video Resource: How to Find a Good Business Mentor

Posted in Business Consultants. Comment

Use Press Releases to Generate Interest and Business

July 21, 2010 by Frank Goley, Business Consultant

Press Releases are really an overlooked avenue for businesses to generate interest in their products and services, and ultimately to generate more business. Here are some quick tips to get you along the way toward becoming a Press Release expert.

Start With Your Local and Regional News Agencies

Starting out with the smaller edition news mediums will help you get your feet wet, and they are often quite open to local entrepreneurs. Once you have met with success on the local level, you can use that knowledge to approach wider circulation news outfits.

Do Some Research

Research the kinds of papers and reporters that cover your type of story and target only those. Refrain from a general mail or email blast to all types of papers and reporters- you will be met with poor results.

Be Personal

Personalize each contact with the press so that they feel you care about them and really want to be shown in their paper or magazine. Follow the reporters so they see you have an interest in their articles and papers.  

Make it Timely News

Tie the story to a new release, new product, an event, a company milestone, etc. Make it juicy and newsworthy. Have an angle!

Be Unique

Find ways where you can stand out against all the other press releases coming in. Send the product in the mail to the reporter for evaluation (also ask permission before sending so it is expected and so doesn’t violate reporter rules). Follow up politely, and if you are unique enough, the reporter should actually remember you! 

Have Great Copy

Write out your Press Release yourself and refine it a bunch of times and then send it over to a copywriter to make it sing. It is worth the extra bucks. Know what a PR format is, and how to lay it out properly.

Invite the Reporter to Your Business

If you find the reporter has interest in your Press Release, ask him or her to visit your business for a tour. You may end up as an article instead, verses a standard press release.

Use Online PR Sites

Supplement your print PR with online PR. There are a ton of reasonable PR sites and services. Do this after you finish your print PR campaign so they don’t see the duplication. This also has great SEO results for your website.

Get Blogged About

Target bloggers in your niche with your PR. Great blogging about your product or service spreads fast. Amplify this several fold by using the social networks as well.

Use Video to Promote Yourself

YouTube it! Having a professional video about what you are promoting is a great medium to send to reporters, especially if you are looking to get covered on TV or be a radio guest host. This also has great SEO and traffic benefits for your website.

Offer Snippets and Reprints of Your PR on Your Website and Brochures

“As seen in…” has a powerful effect on your website, flyers, brochures, videos and more! It lends instant credibility with a cold prospect. Get your PR jump started today! It won’t cost much and the return can be incredible if done right.

Video Resource: How To Write a Press Release

Posted in Business Marketing Strategies. Comment

A Unique Equity Funding Strategy – Exchanging Equity for Services

July 20, 2010 by Frank Goley, Business Consultant

Nowadays companies have to look at unique funding arrangements as business finance is tight and markets fickle. Have you thought about bringing on an equity partner not for the cash they can provide but the expertise and services they can provide? Sometimes a company needs a certain service more than it needs cash, particularly if it is from a company that is highly sought after for their area of expertise. When things are tight and options limited, you may want to expand your funding search for service providers who could be integral to your company success and present them with an equity position verses paying cash for their services.

In some sense this appears as barter, but it is really an equity deal as the service provider receives an equity position for the service they provide. For this to work, there needs to be incentives built in so the service provider has a real stake in the success of their services, and the receiving company can rest assured they will be a priority to the service company. What a better way for a start up to secure high end services with out having to outlay precious and limited cash.

Valuations can be tricky in determining the equity trade for services but it is doable. Understanding the value of the company from a comparable sale and operational revenue, along with what the services will cost from the service provider, can get you in the ballpark.

Marketing and Advertising can be the mainstay of a company’s success so trading equity for these type of expert providers can be very worthwhile. Make sure you have incentives built into the equity share agreement so the service provider / equity partner has plenty of reason to work hard on your account. For instance, if they meet certain level of sales or increase in sales due to their services, then the equity stake can grow to a predetermined cap. It can be a real win-win for both companies in this uncertain economic time. Consider a relook at your Business Plan to see if trading equity for valuable services makes sense for your business.  

Video Resource: The Angel Funding Market

See this video on Vator.tv »

Posted in Business Finance. Comment

Tools and Venues to Develop Your Venture Idea and Pitch Your Opportunity

July 19, 2010 by Frank Goley, Business Consultant

Being around experienced entrepreneurs, inventors, angel investors and venture capitalists is key toward developing your Venture Concept. The feedback and experience you can gain is invaluable while providing great networking and pitching opportunities for your venture. Here are some venues and tools to try.

Funding Post

A City by City Venture Capital and Angel Investor Education and Pitch Event. Great for networking, perfecting your pitch and generating interest and referrals.

Vator TV

Puts together a host of competitions for Start Ups to compete for great prizes and receive awesome exposure to VCs and Angel Investors. Opportunities to pitch your opportunity on video and connect online with VC. Lots of discounted and useful services offered.

Ignite

A local forum to pitch your opportunity and network. They video the presentations and put them on their website.

TED X

A spin off of the TED event for local communities. It is a great event to share ideas, network and learn from the best.

Get Exposure and Perfect Your Pitch and Opportunity

Practicing your pitch and receiving feedback on your opportunity is invaluable. Also the exposure you get through these venues and tools is tremendous. Start getting your ideas out there today by looking into these and other idea development and pitching forums.

Video Resource: The Vator Splash Event

See this video on Vator.tv »

Posted in Business Finance. Comment