From the Kauffman Foundation’s Sketchbook – Three Things!

This week we are celebrating the 3rd annual Global Entrepreneurship Week, started by our hometown Kauffman Foundation.  With all the focus on generating great ideas and starting up businesses, I wanted to pass along some great advice from business owners and entrepreneurs who made their jump in the last few years.

Making that jump to start your own business takes a lot of guts and the more you can learn from those who have done it, the better off you’ll be. To that end, I did an informal interview with a few of my Peer Group Advisory Boards and asked them simply:

“What’s the best advice you would give someone who’s planning to start a business now?”

Here’s the summary of their responses in no particular order.

1. Enjoy the upside to owning your own business – you’re in charge and you get the freedom and control to do what you want to do. Additionally you have the opportunity to build something that’s all yours.
2. Building a business is complex and you aren’t going to be an expert in everything – don’t be afraid to ask for help along the way.
3. Find a mentor. Someone you can bounce ideas off of, who can help you get perspective and hold you accountable.
4. You’ve got to be flexible…the market will change and your understanding of the market and your business will change as well. Be prepared to adjust your course.
5. Do what you can to find multiple revenue streams, more ways to generate money. If you only have one product or service, it’s likely you’ll get stuck and it’s good to have something to fall back on.
6. Even though you’re in a hurry to get started, take the time up front to really plan things out. Your upfront costs and decisions can make or break you.  Take the time to make sure it’s money well spent.
7. Understand your financials and get accounting and payroll help as soon as you can afford it.
8. Have patience, things will take longer and cost more than you think
9. Make sure you have enough financial runway so you’re not panicked or have to shut down if things take longer than you expect to get off the ground.
10. Whatever business you’re in, you’re in the business of marketing first – if you can’t position and market your product / service effectively not much else matters.
11. Make it your focus to add value with every contact you have (clients, networking contacts, pretty much everyone).
12. Be clear on what you’re getting into when you start a business:  Long hours, challenges outside of your comfort zone and a lonely path. It’s a tough challenge (but worth it when you succeed).
13. Get comfortable with risk and uncertainty.  It will be a while before you can count on a regular paycheck (like possibly 12 to 18 months).
14. Make sure you’ve got family support and they’re excited about what you’re doing.
15. Build connections (real relationships) – networking and building the right win-win relationships is crucial to long term success.
16. Give yourself a clear go / no-go date to help you manage the bumps in the road. If you have a bad month early on, you still have time to recover because you haven’t hit your date yet.
17. Be clear on why you want to create your business…if you’re not excited about what you’re doing, no one else will be either.
18. Make sure you create and work off of a written business plan (can be as simple as a couple of pages, but a plan that covers where the money comes from and where it’s going).
19. Starting something isn’t easy and it isn’t quick – it takes hard work to succeed.
20. Have faith in yourself, when things get tough you have to push through.
21. Your business has a gestational age…despite your full commitment few will take you seriously until you’ve been around at least 9 months…sometimes much longer.
22. Read the E-Myth and be aware of your mix between Entrepreneur, Manager and Technician (and understand what that means).
23. Setup an advisory board for your business – people you trust who will tell you hard truths and encourage you.
24. Figure out if you have the disposition to be an entrepreneur. Look for clues in your past – if you’ve never taken ownership and pushed to make money independently it will be tough to succeed in your own business.
25. Passion trumps perfection, you can’t wait for it to be just right  you have to get out there and start making things happen.

There’s nothing as challenging or as rewarding as creating your own business. And a big part of that challenge is getting your new business off the ground. It’s not for the faint of heart, but the above advice can help you succeed in the critical first year.

What advice above resonates with you?  What’s the best advice you’ve heard for entrepreneurs?  (Or business owners in general?)  Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

There’s no doubt that growing your business is an uphill battle.  It’s a challenging economy and the rules have changed for marketing and sales.  Gone are the days when you could just run an ad somewhere and expect your phone to ring. 

Effective marketing (and sales) today is a much different game than it was even 5 to 10 years ago.  Interruption tactics (like cold calling, direct mail or blasting advertisements) can still work but they are less effective every day.  Instead you have to find ways to attract your prospective clients – get them to hold up their hand and show they are interested in learning more.  Bottom line?  You have to think through your marketing and approach it strategically if you want to generate leads.  There’s no room for mistakes if you want successful marketing.

That said – here are 5 things that small business owners are doing to sabotage their marketing success in today’s environment.  Do any of these apply to you?

5 Marketing Killers

Not following up or following through

This one is a cardinal sin and it’s so stupid…but you see it happen over and over again.  A potential client expresses interest or a need in your products or services…and they don’t get any follow up or response.  It may not be a guaranteed sale, but interest is interest!

Personal example:  I recently needed to hire a caterer for an event.  A friend of mine recommended a local caterer and introduced her to me.  I expressed interest in learning more and received a quick (but friendly) response a few days later suggesting a call for more details. 

I gave her several times I was available for a call.  I received no response. 

A week later, I tried one more time to engage (running out of time for my event) and the only response I got was a phone call on a Saturday several days later during a soccer game.  Not being able to hear while at the game, I recommended a call on the following Monday…and received no response after that! 

Obviously I went with another provider – maybe my business didn’t matter, but Kansas City can seem like a small town and this particular caterer now has a bad reputation for professionalism with me (and others who I might talk to).  If you’re too busy to follow up, then you need to rework your business approach and try something different.

Recommendation – Are you following up (in a timely manner) on all of your potential leads and introductions?  If not – make that your top priority.  Not only are you potentially missing out on business, but you’re burning a referral source as well.

No consistency on marketing activities

Arguably the most important thing you can do for your marketing is to be consistent.  A great marketing message will fail if it’s not in front of people in a consistent way.  An excellent marketing tactic that’s not executed consistently is a waste of time.

How many business owners do you know who have a blog or a newsletter but rarely if ever actually update it or send it out?  Life and your business is crazy with lots of ups and downs, but if you don’t figure out how to consistently apply your marketing, you will never get out of that roller coaster world.

Recommendation – Identify at least a few tactics that you can reasonably achieve and make a black and white commitment to do those activities every week or every month.  Build on that once you’ve got the basics down.

Marketing to Everyone!

“So who do you work best with?”  If your answer is some variation on anyone who breathes, then you have already failed at your marketing and your wasting a lot of time and money.  By marketing to everyone…you are marketing to no one!

We are all getting inundated with literally thousands of marketing messages every single day.  A generic message that could apply to anyone is never going to break through that noise…and is never going to be heard.

Recommendation – Who are your BEST clients?  Carve out a subset of them and get really specific about who they are and what they’re looking for?  Try crafting a message just for that niche and see if you don’t get a much better response.

Not using Content /Educational approach for your marketing

Buyers are looking for solutions to their problems and most of the time they have several choices when it comes to providers.  Who are they more likely to choose – Company A who clearly understands the problem and provides lots of educational materials and helpful ideas or Company B who only has feature descriptions on how cool they are?  Who would you buy from?

Content and educational marketing makes you relevant to the large majority of potential clients who aren’t ready to buy yet.  If you can educate, inform and maybe even entertain someone who isn’t ready to buy yet, you stay in the running and likely top of mind for when they are ready to buy.

Recommendation – Start thinking like a consultant.  What’s the last thing you did to help educate your target market?  What could you create that would add value and establish you as an expert?

Not being found online

Quick – do a Google search on your company’s name.  Is your website on the first page of results?  If not…or if you don’t show up at all, then you don’t have any marketing.  The vast majority of buyers use online search as a key step in their decision process.  If they see your company in an advertisement but can’t easily find you online then you don’t exist and you wasted that ad!

Also do a search on the problem you solve. Does your company come up on the first page in that case? It’s more likely people are searching on problems or outcomes (keywords) than for your business name.  This is a bit harder to solve, but carries a lot more weight.

Recommendation – Quick fix…make sure you and your business have a presence on LinkedIn and Facebook – both are good sources for Google.  Longer term fix – leverage content and education based marketing (blog or articles, whitepapers other content) to address your keywords and the problems your prospects are searching for.

It’s Not Rocket Surgery!

None of the above ideas are rocket surgery…or even brain science!    However most small business owners are failing at least one of the above five ideas and many are missing on 2 or more of them.

How about you?  Are you onboard and in good shape with all 5 of the ideas above?  Anything else I’m missing that’s a critical marketing step?  I’d love to hear your thoughts – leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

Shawn Kinkade   Kansas City Business Coach

Photo by Alex E. Proimos

I was one of those weird people who actually enjoyed physics in college and in fact it still influences how I think.  Here’s an example…Newton’s First Law of Motion states that:

 ‘A body at rest tends to stay at rest and a body in motion tends to stay in motion – unless acted on by an external force.’

The application to business? If your business is stagnant, if you’re feeling stuck…if you’re not seeing growth or momentum, then you have to make a meaningful change (create a new force) to get a new outcome.  Momentum starts with making something happen!

Have you fallen into a rut with your business?  If things are going fairly well, it’s easy to let up and just kind of coast…and if things are challenging, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and just do what you have to to get by.  Either way, now is the time for you to apply an external force and make a change.  Invest quality time and think about how you’re going to get ahead…what can you do today to create momentum?

Hopefully the list below can help you brainstorm an idea that will work for you:

6 Ways to create momentum

Every business is different and unfortunately there’s not a one size fits all solution when it comes to growing your business, but it’s a safe bet that at least one of the ideas fits your situation and could direct you towards next steps.  Pick the one that resonates the most and take action!

Addition By Subtraction

It’s the biggest mistake a business owner can make – many businesses have at least one and maybe several employees that just don’t pull their weight.  In some cases they’re really nice people but they don’t perform.  Or (and this is even worse) they’re very good at the work but they’re poisonous to be around and no one wants to work with them.  Whatever it is, if you have an employee who’s a bad fit, if you don’t have the right people on the bus, you can build up serious momentum just by getting rid of them.

It’s always difficult to let somebody go but there’s no better time than the present to take some action and get that drag off of your business.

Question – Do you have an employee that’s holding you back?  What would it take to act on it?

Straight to the Bottom Line

Most business owners are under-charging for their services.  Even if you think you’re priced right, it’s worthwhile to at least consider raising your prices.  It’s unlikely you’ll lose business (especially if you haven’t raised prices in the last year or two) and it could have a profound affect.  Raising prices is the only thing you can do that will immediately go straight to the bottom line.  Yes there’s a risk of losing customers, but even if you lost some volume, you’re still likely better off from a profit perspective – check out this table to see the impacts (second page).

Question – How would your business be impacted if you raised your prices by 10%?  20%? 

Revisit Your Marketing

If you’re like most business owners, historically you’ve done some marketing and then you get busy and lose focus.  But you’ve got to have consistency if you want to win at Marketing!  What if you made marketing your strategic priority for the next 90 days and really invested time, effort (and money) into developing the right message and tactics?  Created a calendar to help keep everything on track?  Is it time to finally redo your website and establish some repeatable tactics that will consistently drive opportunities?

Question – Are you effectively communicating the benefits and the outcomes you deliver?  What would it take to amp up your marketing in the next 90 days?

Find a Referral Partner or two…

Everyone wants to get great referrals and one of the best ways to do that is to find a great referral partner.  Find a complementary business that sells to the same clients that you want to work with, someone who sees the world in a similar way to you.  Add in a little creativity around packaging new discounts or find a way to co-marketing and you’ve got a fantastic new sales channel that will help drive new business to you and your new partner.

Question – Who’s out there as a potential partner?  What product / service complements what you do? What would it take to set up a meeting?  Can you get the ball rolling this week?

Finally Get that Big Project Done!

Almost every business owner I know has at least one and usually several big projects that they’ve been ‘working on’ for an unknown period of time. It’s generally a wide range of stuff: 

• Marketing stuff like redoing a website, developing great content marketing or creating a great newsletter.
• Getting structured…hiring administrative help to free up time, delegating more, finding a difference maker sales person or employee.
• New Stuff like rolling out a new set of products / services or revamping the ones you have.

Whatever it is, what would happen if you really narrowed your focus and committed to getting that one big thing done in the next 90 days? You know it’s a great idea, you’ve been thinking about it forever…now is the time to commit to doing it.

Question – What project has consistently been on your to do list for a long time?  What’s been holding you back?  How would you get really get started on it?

Get some Help

Building momentum is all about taking consistent focused action on great ideas -  you’re capable of doing that on your own, but it’s a lot more likely to happen if you get some help.  Find someone who can help you frame things up, get clear on what your constraints are and help push you to make things happen.  Of course you could always look into a Licensed Professional Business Coach or maybe a  Peer Group Advisory Board, but there are lots of ways to find help – the key is to get someone who will push you and support you.

Question – Do you have resources or people you know who might be able to help you make something happen?  What’s the next step to getting them on board and helping you?

This list doesn’t even scratch the surface of stuff you could do and you likely have different opportunities, but the one thing that’s true in every case is you have to take action if you want something to happen. 

You want to grow your business – what are  you going to do to get the ball rolling?

What ideas do you have for sparking growth?  I’d love to hear them or any feedback you have on my ideas above.  Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Shawn Kinkade   Kansas City Business Coach

The world is moving faster every single day.  In fact if you want to keep up with it, you need to start developing some super powers…super productivity skills just to keep up!  Everybody faces different arch enemies – for some it’s the dreaded interruptions, for others it’s that evil villain technology…for most it’s dealing with a lack of discipline or organization!.

Whatever’s holding you back, there’s no time like the present to start fighting back – you can develop productivity skills and habits and you can get better at efficiency and effectiveness.

Check out the 15 ideas below, put on your tights and pick at least one or two ideas to try out this week!

Read More…

Apparently a lot of small business owners are not familiar with ‘The Cloud’ – at least when it comes to Cloud Computing as a technology solution for their business.  According to a recent survey (May of 2011) done by the Small Business Authority, only 29% of small business owners are familiar with the term Cloud Computing.

Only 29%!  There’s a huge opportunity right now, both for qualified vendors who can supply great cloud based solutions, but more importantly for small business owners who can leverage Cloud based technology to cut costs and do more with less!

What is Cloud Computing?  In a nutshell, it’s the ability to interact with data or applications that are centrally hosted on the internet (or in ‘the cloud’).  The reality is that you’re likely dealing with a lot of cloud based stuff today and you didn’t know it – when you get a movie from Netflix Instant Streaming, you’re pulling down data / content from the cloud.  It’s available in a lot of different ways (your computer, an iPad, your TV etc.) but it’s all tied back to your account.

Read More…