Delano, Jack,, 1914-, photographer.  find it here

Retiring a locomotive driver wheel in the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railway locomotive shops, Shopton, near Fort Madison, Iowa. The tire is heated by means of gas until it can be slipped over the wheel. Contraction on cooling will hold it firmly in place. Santa Fe R.R.

1943 – March

If you’ve seen much of my blog, you might have noticed that I’m using pictures for most of my posts these days.  I’m a visual person and really drawn to photography – hopefully it’s something that other people enjoy.

What’s really cool is that I’ve found a couple of resources to use as a free and legal source for great images.

The first resource is a great article from Skelliewag (a blogger from Australia that does a great job on blogging in general).  Her article: Guide to finding and using incredible Flickr Images gives a step by step process on how to find Creative Commons (i.e. not copyrighted) photos that you can legally use by attributing the photographer.  Copyright infringement is a big deal and she gives a very clear explanation on how to avoid it.

The second resource I just discovered today on Wisebread in this article:  Help Yourself to Amazing Photos from the Library of Congress.  Earlier this month, the Library of Congress announced that they were working with Flickr to make thousands of their most popular photographs available to the public without any copyright restrictions!

Not only is that a great resource for blogging, publishing, etc, but the pictures themselves are fascinating.  I haven’t had a chance to go through in any detail yet but there are some really amazing historical images on there.  I have a feeling you’ll be seeing quite a few more of these in future posts.

You can find the primary page Here.  Enjoy and let me know what you think!

Shawn Kinkade   www.aspirekc.comSimilar Posts:

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The Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation is a state-owned corporation established to promote advanced technology economic development in Kansas. We strive to meet the technical needs of Kansas companies by providing access to individuals with expertise and state-of-the-art equipment and facilities. We even provide or help secure financing for research and development.

This is a really progressive program that most states don’t have, and it’s right here in our backyard!

One of the newer things that KTEC is doing has been the addition in the last 2 years of the KTEC Pipeline initiative – http://www.ktecpipeline.com/ .  The idea is to select up to 10 ‘innovators’ every year, specifically in the technology or bioscience fields and hook them up with resources (including a $35,000 grant), special training from top of the line entrepreneurial experts and access and introductions to partnerships and capital markets.

Getting selected for the Pipeline is extremely challenging and a very big deal.  This year there were over 400 applications and over 60 in-depth interviews to select the 9 winners.

The reason I’m familiar with all of this is because I’m thrilled to report that one of my clients was accepted into the Pipeline program last week.  (Not because of anything I did, but because he’s a brilliant guy with some really revolutionary ideas…!).

Dan Melton is the President of NonProfit Technologies, which is a “a socially conscious for-profit think-tank that develops web-driven products and solutions to improve the effectiveness, cost-savings or impact of public-sector organizations.”

Essentially what Dan and his team are doing is creating cutting edge Web 2.0 applications that are targeted towards the public sector.  Historically the public sector lags the for profit world when it comes to technology but there is a huge need and viable marketplace for the right ideas.

Luckily Dan is full of great ideas that are not only great business opportunities, but will also drive dramatic benefits to the public sector – a true win-win situation.

Congratulations to Dan and the team at NonProfit Technologies!

Stop by his site and check out some of the cool stuff he’s got going on.  NPT

Shawn Kinkade   www.aspirekc.comSimilar Posts:

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By now, as a small business owner, you’ve likely seen all sorts of articles and posts on why it’s important to have a blog to promote your business.

www.Entrepreneur.com  has a great article from almost a year ago Should You Start A Business Blog?  The answer is yes and their primary reason is as a marketing tool to help generate sales leads.  Here are some other key points from the article:

• A blog allows you to interact with your clients in a totally different way than any other marketing approach.  You can educate and get to know prospects without ‘selling’ to them.
• Because they are interactive, a blog can be used for real-time candid feedback and product development ideas.
• A blog gives your company a personal side and a personality (although this is less of an issue for small businesses, it’s still important).

These are all great points, but if those aren’t enough, here’s a great article from Inc. that’s almost a year and a half old.  Why you should blog for your business.  The main focus of the article is client interaction and driving traffic to your website – both excellent reasons for having a quality blog for your business.

In his series on How to Start a Business Blog, Michael Martine from Remarkablogger lists out the benefits of business blogging in part 1:  How to Start a Business Blog part 1.  He covers a lot of the benefits already mentioned above but also points out what a cost-effective method blogging can be for advertising and growing your business.

The Best Reason for blogging about your business

These are all great points and I agree with all of them.

However…for most small business owners (that aren’t primarily online businesses) the best reason for business blogging that rarely gets talked about is that by blogging for your customer base / target market you must periodically put yourself in their shoes.

This is a process that will require you to routinely (at least once or twice a week) stop fighting the daily fires, pull back to a more strategic level on your business and give some conscious thought to what your customers and potential customers would like to know about your industry, product or service.  In a perfect world, you should be doing this kind of thinking anyway – it’s a key attribute for successful sales and marketing.

Ideally you would get feedback and comments from your audience, but even if no one is reading your blog (they will over time) just going through the process and looking at things from your customer’s point of view is hugely valuable.

As an example, if you have a business focused on Math Enrichment for kids your blog should generally focus on things that parents of those kids are interested in, with significant bonus points for topics that overlap with your business.

The guys over at Gateway Blogging made a somewhat similar point with a recent post Understanding Your Market – that focuses on the extreme need for business owners to really understand what they’re customers want and think.  Hint:  Your customers are not the same as you are, don’t market based on what you like.

How to get started?

So what’s next?  Now that you have the most important reason for creating a business blog, there are tons of opportunities to learn about how to go about creating that blog and then fine-tuning it as you go (continuous learning is another benefit of blogging).  That’s fodder for a bunch of future posts.

In the meantime, consider checking out a seminar on business blogging from Tobin Truog of Brain-Bucket.  The next one is scheduled for next Tuesday morning (January 29th) but I have it on good authority that there will be more.  Here’s a link for details and sign-up:  Brain-Bucket blogging seminar

Share your thoughts on the benefits of blogging here.  What do you like about this blog?  What would you like to see that you’re not seeing so far?  I’d love to hear your comments.

Shawn Kinkade  www.aspirekc.comSimilar Posts:

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Photo by Flyfshrmn98 

One of the key things that can make the networking process much easier is developing and getting extremely comfortable with your elevator pitch.

An elevator pitch is a concise, focused and interesting description of who you are and what you do, imagine if you were riding on an elevator with your perfect business prospect and you had just a few seconds to get your most important points across.

The intention – just like a 30 second commercial on radio or TV is to pique interest, give them just enough to get a glimmer of something interesting…and nothing more. You want to engage your audience, give them an interesting overview of what you can do – and then promptly move on to talking about them.

You’re not trying to sell, you’re networking and the primary focus of networking is to establish a connection by focusing on the other person. However, even if you get the ball rolling by asking them questions, at some point they will ask you what you do. By having a response that you’re comfortable with and that is intriguing / not boring you can convey the important up front stuff, make an impression and go back to focusing on making a connection.

So how do you create a good 30 second commercial?

There are several ways to create a good commercial and you should definitely plan on refining it over time, but here are a couple of thoughts that should get you started:

1. Figure out what is unique about what you do: This gets to the idea of your unique service proposition – what makes your business different than others in the marketplace. “I develop websites for small businesses” isn’t nearly as effective as “I create an effective online marketing presence for small businesses that includes professional design without the high cost of custom web development”.

2. Get to the point: Start with something that grabs their attention, a hook, it could be your slogan or tagline if you have one. If you don’t have one, it might be worth the effort to develop one.

• Instead of “I’m an architect” it could be “I help people turn their dreams into reality”
• Instead of “I’m a financial planner” you could try “We help people create and manage wealth”
• Instead of “I’m a portrait photographer” you could try “I make people look good”

3. Keep it simple: In general use clear, simple, evocative language that quickly gets to the point. Briefly explain who you work with and how you solve your customer’s problems. Keep it to no more than 2 or 3 key ideas. You might actually be able to do everything under the sun, but if you want to be remembered you need to narrow it down.

4. Invoke your passion: You’re in business for a reason, and it isn’t just to pay the bills (or at least it shouldn’t be). What excites you about what you do? Tap into that passion and motivation when you’re describing your business.

5. Write down and air it out: The act of writing it down will force you to think it all the way through. Once you’re done writing, practice saying it out loud, rewrite as necessary. Once you think you’ve got a good starting point run it past some friends and get their feedback. Incorporate changes and repeat as necessary.

6. Memorize it but improvise: Finally once you’ve got something you’re happy with and excited about, practice it to the point that you can internalize it, so that it’s second nature to you. Depending on the situation you might be fairly formal and use your entire ‘pitch’ or if it’s a more conversational 1 on 1 discussion you might just use parts of it.

How about some examples?

There’s a fantastic article in INC. Magazine that does a great job of capturing the thought process of how you might condense your message.  Explain what your company does in 30 Seconds!

Steve Strauss is a columnist for USATODAY.com and the author of the “Small Business Bible”. He has a great example of how a good elevator pitch can make a big difference:

And then it happened. I met Teddy Roosevelt, and he changed my life.

You see, one day I was lamenting my lack of progress in my nascent speaking career to a fellow speaker. A rotund gentleman who would dress up as Roosevelt, our 26th president, and share T.R.’s ideals to business and civic groups, he had plenty of engagements. I asked him to tell me his secret.

“What is it you talk about Steve?” he asked.

“Oh, small business success, basically,” I replied.

Pregnant pause. “Hmmm,” he finally responded.

So I asked, “Well, what is it you talk about?”

“Me?” he answered excitedly, “I share with groups the values and ideals of Teddy Roosevelt and show them how they can use those values to make a difference in their world. By the time I’m done, they are so excited and so committed to the idea of making a difference at home and at work that I usually get a standing ovation.”

Now, if you were going to hire a speaker, and the choice was between animated Teddy and boring me, whom would you choose?

I would love to hear your elevator pitch – share it here for the world!

Shawn Kinkade   www.aspirekc.comSimilar Posts:

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photo by Amnemona

There are a lot of great ways to market your business, but a lot of really effective, inexpensive marketing ideas are related to networking.

In the book Endless Referrals by Bob Burg, Networking is defined as follows:

The cultivating of mutually beneficial, give and take, win-win relationships.

The first couple of steps is to establish a network of relationships that meet the definition above.  Although it’s not easy and it is an ongoing effort that takes time, there are a several good books on how to do that, including Endless Referrals and The Little Black Book of Connections by Jeffrey Gitomer.

But once you have a network in place, how can you fast track those relationships, in a win-win fashion to build your business?

Help me Help You!

One great way to leverage your network is to start doing some cross-promotions.

A cross promotion is when two or more businesses partner together and offer customers a value-added benefit from the partnering businesses.  The end result, if it’s well conceived, is an increase in business for everyone concerned.  A true win-win-win situation, because the customer ultimately benefits as well.

The Pizza and Movie example

Let’s take a look at a classic example of a cross-promotion:  Rental movies and pizza delivery.  The owner of the pizza shop knows that people renting movies, are going to be staying at home and are a perfect audience for pizza delivery.  So the pizza shop owner approaches the movie rental shop owner with a ‘special’ offer of $2.00 off a delivered pizza for movie rental customers only.

The movie rental shop gets to advertise and generate good will (at no cost) by offering a $2.00 value for a $7.00 movie rental.

The pizza shop gets a very targeted advertisement into the hands of an ideal customer, most likely when they’ll be thinking about food, at virtually no cost other than the discount itself.

The customer, who’s renting movies anyway, gets the opportunity for a cheaper pizza then they would have otherwise had.

Win-Win-WIn!!!

How do you get started?

The first step is to have a detailed picture of what your customers look like. 

A lot of times this is described as your target market.  The writers over at Gateway Blogging have written up an idea that takes this a 1/2 step further related to developing personas to describe your ideal customer.  It’s a great article – Greg does a nice job fleshing out the idea.

Either approach will work, but it’s important you know who you’re targeting and more importantly, beyond your product or service, what are other things they like?

The second step is to take a creative look at who you might be able to cross-promote with.

This is where your existing network comes into play.  Who do you know, like and trust that has a similar set of customers and a complimentary product to yours?

• If your clients are stay at home Soccer moms with teenage kids, perhaps you know the owner of a fitness center or a spa?
• If your clients are affluent parents of grade school kids, perhaps you know the owner of local ice cream / custard shop?
• If you clients are small business owners perhaps you know a business coach you could collaborate with.    Give me a call!

The real key here is the creativity.  If you don’t know the right partner, then this might be a great opportunity to meet someone new.  You’re approaching them with a win-win opportunity and a desire to help them grow their business, that’s pretty hard to turn down.

The third step is to come up with the promotion details and get it started!

A lot of times, once you’ve selected the partner, the actual promotion might be fairly straightforward, but this is another opportunity to be creative.

• You could do joint promotions of your products
• You could offer your customers discounts on someone else’s services
• You could create a valuable ‘giveaway’ that your partner gives to their customers.  An online example could be something like an e-book or white paper.

The biggest step for success is to take action!  Brainstorm with your network, identify others to collaborate with and get it out there.

I’d love to hear other examples of cross-promotions that you’ve heard of or that you’ve tried.  Share them here or contact me if you’ve got some ideas that you’d like to talk about with me.

Shawn Kinkade   www.aspirekc.comSimilar Posts:

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