Saw a great blog entry today that is SOOO applicable to running a home business and retaining the best parts of your life. Rather than reprint it here, please go to The Orlando Golf Blogger’s Blog.
By the way, his post has nothing to do with golf. It’s a quick read, and helps to give a little perspective to any solo business person. A one-minute lesson that will stick with you all day, and maybe help your biz just a little…
Tags: ball, balls, business, golf, home, lesson, life, person, perspective, solo
Seth Godin at Gel 2006 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.
Very funny presentation from Seth Godin (highlighted in his blog a couple of days ago), but it made me a little uncomfortable. Do I have any similar problems in my business? Could one of them be highlighted in his Seth’s next presentation? Or worse, will that problem languish in my business for years, turning away customers and ruining my image? Horrors…
Over the last year, we’ve seen a lot of emphasis on “change”, “new initiatives”, and “doing what is right”. Great words for politicians (not really). Wouldn’t it be nice to see some of the obviously broken things fixed first? And wouldn’t government be a logical place to start? Yes, quite a few businesses could use a little bit of that too… What would happen if, over the next month, we identified as many things as we could with our own businesses that need fixing. Then we could spend the summer fixing the things we identify, one by one. Yes, let’s work on the things we can personally fix, and forget all this pie-in-the-sky stuff…
Maybe we could complete everything on the list, maybe not. But wouldn’t our businesses be better off if we all fixed the stupidly obvious things as soon as possible?
Although I still write letters to my representatives in Congress, I’ve given up on the government fixing any of the problems they’ve created. It’s just too sexy to go after something new, unknown, and unproven. But I know that I can have an impact on my own little business.
So I’m devoting from now until Memorial Day to identifying problems and planning ways of overcoming them. And I’m going to spend the summer fixing the problems I find, so that on Labor Day, I can say (and feel) that things are looking a lot better. And if I haven’t completed everything by Labor Day, at least I’ll have a handy list of remaining items to complete.
That’s my plan for making 2009 a better year. It will be my contribution to improving my personal micro-economy, and, by extension, the national economy. Anyone care to join me?
Marketing takes all forms, from a business card, to a web site, to the manner an employee treats your clients. Was reading the blog at http://www.allthebestofthenet.com/ and saw this great example of employee marketing by a Southwest Airlines flight attendant:
Sean D’Souza (of Psychotactics.com) is an interesting guy who happens to hail from New Zealand. He’s always discovering alternate approaches to marketing. “Why Santa’s Marketing…” is one of his brainstorms in the guise of a short article, a three to five minute read. I recommend it, as well as many of the other free articles on his site. Not too many people manage to work Santa Claus and marketing into the same sentence…
Seth Godin recently published a new blog entry titled “License to Stall”. It’s a good read, and useful to anyone who is finding their marketing effort more difficult than necessary. Recommended. Here’s the link.
Although many people may have the same name as you do, only one of you will be able to own the .com version of that name. For many people with common names, it’s already too late - http://johnsmith.com is already taken, for example. But all is not lost if your name is already in use as a domain. Here are a few tips:
You get the idea. Experiment a little with your name, and you can usually find a domain name that will be recognizable by search engines. Once you have your domain name, point it to your bio page at your main web site, or develop a one-page personal web site, and feature a nice link to your main site (or the site you are currently promoting).
Your domain name will be worth thousands of dollars to you, over the years, just for the simple annual fee involved to register the name (less than $15.00). It’s the least expensive advertising you’ll every buy!
“Steve Pickering, here with a brief note. If you’re having trouble finding a good domain name for your business, or personally, I offer coaching to assist you in finding the best names to use. Please send me an email, and I’ll be happy to help. My fees are very reasonable.”
January is coming, and for many businesses, the traffic cycle changes. Retailers hate January because it’s so much slower than the previous two months. Some other businesses are back to normal because everyone is back to work, and serious (at least for a few days) about their New Year’s resolutions. Still others have a great January planned because their business cycle makes January a month of demand.
Whatever your business, consider having a “Sunset Sale” at the end of January. Why? It helps people to think of you. Promote your sale during the entire month of January. Talk about it. Write about it. Tell your local newspaper about. Send a press release to someone at the Wall Street Journal. Have a pre-sale for your best customers. Cross-promote with other businesses to generate extra traffic and to share expenses for advertising, supplies, prizes, etc. Run your sale all night, or 24/7 for the last week of January. Invite people into your establishment for tea and cookies, coffee and donuts, or hot dogs and sauerkraut. If you’re on the internet, offer a free e-guide, or 30 minutes free consulting, or a list of unique links. Build your e-mail and snail-mail lists.
The key thing is, do something different, and do it at a time when no one else is doing something. That way you’ll stand out. Make people feel a little bit better about themselves because they see you hustling and making things happen. Don’t wait to have a Valentine’s or President’s Day Sale because everyone is promoting then. If you do your “Sunset Sale” well, you’ll have so much business in February, you won’t need to compete for share of mind.
Who knows what will happen? Any action during a slow business period is noticeable to your employees, your customers, your prospects, the press, etc. Just do it. It works. Try it, you’ll see.
P.S. You don’t need to name it a “Sunset Sale.” Make something up that’s catchy, that will make people notice. It could just as easily be a “Sunrise Sale” or whatever you want. Be creative, be outrageous, maybe even a little crazy.
Sometimes we need to “Walk Softly” as we use the telephone. We have all been victims of Telemarketers who call at inconvenient times. You know the type - can’t pronounce your name, obviously reading from a script, mispronouncing words, talking forever, won’t take accept “NO” for an answer… The phone call from hell.
Many of us shy away from using the telephone in business just because we don’t want to be associated with telemarketing. There is a better way, however.
How many clients do you have in your computer who haven’t spoken with you for three or more months? Have you ever considered calling them just to see how they are doing? You could ask them how that widget machine is working, you know, the one they bought from you last year? Or you could wish them a Happy Birthday, or ask about her son’s graduation, or mention the article you saw about the in the paper… There are dozens of reasons you could call, just to show you care. You don’t need to talk about business. Just connect with them, find out how they are doing, perhaps discover a few things about them that you didn’t know.
If you think about it, how many times have people who have sold you things in the past bothered to call “just because”? Would it make you feel better if you heard from some of your vendors occasionally?
Take a soft walk around your client base from time to time… Don’t talk about business. Ask about something else. Engage them in conversation, be interested in THEM and the things that are important to THEM. Then send them a Thank You card… “Thanks for the conversation… It was great catching up with you… Hope your daughter’s wedding goes well.” Make a goal to just talk with one person in your database every day, and send them a card to thank them for the call. Let them know that you are glad to have them as an acquaintance and client. They’ll love you for it…
Elance.com recently posted the top ten skills requested on their site. Will you be surprised? Check the results on the Elance Blog - Top Ten Skills in Demand.
Alternative Places to Network - For some new ideas on places to network, check out Jessica Chen’s article in Entrepreneur.
Seth Godin’s blog rant on using the ‘net as a tool is spot on. I probably read Seth’s blog, articles, books, etc. more than any other author. I don’t always agree with him, but very often we find common ground. The reason I follow Seth’s thoughts is that they make me think and examine my business critically, with emphasis on improvement. Among his articles over the years, I would rate this one as five-star.
A link to an Entrepreneur magazine article by Dr. Ivan Misner, network authority and founder of Business Networking Internetional (BNI). Very thought-provoking. Read the article.
Marketing is marketing, right? Actually, no. Corporate marketing, the kind you learn in business school, is cash-intensive, math-based, and media-dependent. It is rooted in advertising, and lots of it - expensive network television spots, full-page ads in large newspapers and magazines, radio, skywriting, sponsorships, you-name-it. Home businesses don’t normally play in this arena because it is too expensive and not effective for small businesses. The purpose of most corporate marketing is to establish recognition of brands and products.
Small and medium-sized businesses have their own marketing tools - local newspapers and radio stations, flyers, little-league teams, school calendars, and so on. Although these seem closer to the home business model, businesses with physical locations market differently because their primary goal is to drive people to their locations. In some instances, local businesses market to cause someone to call them.
Home businesses, on the other hand, tend to have unique objectives when they market. In most cases, someone running a home business is NOT attempting to develop physical traffic to their home. That would be inconvenient and possibly dangerous. Telephone traffic is more desirable, as is electronic traffic via email, web sites, blogs, podcasts, instant messages, and so on. In most cases, home businesses need to market directly to their clients, without sales forces, stores, or distribution networks.
Operating a home business is most efficient when marketing time can be separated from operating time (doing whatever you do). You can’t get much work done when you are answering the telephone all day. Likewise, you can’t expand your business without a certain amount of effective marketing.
The ideal is to generate interest passively while you are working, then follow up on that interest using the telephone, or other electronic means, during a time period that is set aside strictly for marketing. This is a key difference between marketing for home businesses and marketing for businesses located in commercial locations. Of course, the internet, with its vast capabilities, fits the home-based business model like a glove.
At this site, I plan to discuss marketing as it applies to HOME businesses. The emphasis will be on free or inexpensive tactics for developing new business. Some will apply to your business, while others won’t. I hope you will use the tactics that work best for you, while wisely bypassing those that do not apply to your business.
