The Power of Business wire

As Featured On Ezine ArticlesBy Jay Maharjan on September 24, 2007

As an entrepreneur, publicity can be the key to taking your venture to the next level. I think there’s no such thing as bad publicity, especially if you are a budding start-up. In the digital age, when the buzz can spread like California wildfire, any sort of publicity can create much needed press, traffic to your website, or get the brand recognition.

Traditional PR campaigns still apply in principle, but the medium has changed drastically. Recently, my consulting firm prepared a press release for Montecito Fine Arts College of Design, a distinguished Design College in Los Angeles. Within a week, the story got picked by Forbes.com, Investor’s Business Daily, Yahoo.com among many other high traffic news portals. If your story appears on Forbes.com, by brand association alone, you will get huge return on your few hundred dollar investment.

What makes a good topic for Business Wire?

a. Launch of a company - along with the highlights of the services or/and the products that your company offer
b. News of key executives, directors, or advisors joining your company
c. News of special milestones - e.g. 10 year anniversary events, opening of new offices, acquiring a FORTUNE 500 client, merger & acquisition news
d. Special recognitions - e.g. start up company of the month, Innovation Awards.
e. News of strategic partnerships - Always exploit the opportunity to tie in with the partners with higher brand identity.
f. News of channel, sales partnerships, Value-added Resellers (VARs) - Always make channel partners, VARs feel important and part of your family

It is always good to send press releases as often as possible. The worst that can happen is that your story will not get picked. But, the upside is huge - can very well give your company that much needed boost!

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How to Keep your Rookie Startup Company from Riding the Bench

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

The formative years of a startup company are like an aspiring sports rookie about to go pro. All of their potential is still ahead of them, and they have the chance to be the greatest of all time.
Yet in a short period of time, they are either going to be known as “One of the Greats” or just another 3rd string bench warmer that never made a name for themselves.

So how do you keep your startup on an all-star track without veering into mediocrity?

You keep swinging for the fences.

The beauty of a startup is the amount of potential and energy that it launches with. Over time, that potential may either be realized or it slows down as the enthusiasm wanes. The challenge is to maintain that potential energy as you grow your company, and to not let go of the aggressive attitude that you had when you launched.

Maintain Trajectory

One of a startup’s strongest assets is its’ potential to do something great. When you read about popular companies like YouTube being sold for $1.6 billion in less than two years of operation, it’s not because they are making such huge financial returns (they weren’t even profitable). It’s because they have the potential to be so valuable in the marketplace.
Once that potential wears off, the startup loses its luster very quickly.

Your challenge is to maintain that trajectory of growth and potential opportunity. Whatever your key metrics, whether they are your sales numbers or visitors to your Web site, you cannot let their growth slip.

Every day, week, month, quarter and year needs to show exceptional growth in order to maintain that momentum. As soon as you get complacent about growth, you’ve already lost.
One way to help maintain consistent growth is to boil down your growth targets into much smaller increments. For example, instead of just concentrating on quarterly sales numbers, you could concentrate on surpassing daily or weekly sales targets, and attack them vigorously.
Obviously those little victories add up to the larger victory at the end of a month or quarter. More importantly, they allow you to keep a very real handle on your day-to-day trajectory, which makes them much easier to manage and adjust.

Keep it Fresh

Startups get the benefit of a fresh team to work with. Since the company has never existed before, everyone is there for the first time and they are filled with enthusiasm and promise.
Over time though, the long days and nights tend to drain people. When the team gets worn out, the whole company loses steam. It’s time to get some fresh legs in the game.
This doesn’t necessarily mean replacing the people within the team, it may simply mean reallocating them to new projects or letting them rest in some maintenance of existing projects.

There tends to be two camps of employees – those that like to create from chaos, and those that like the maintain order from chaos. Both are invaluable, and need to be allocated accordingly.

By putting your creators of chaos on new projects, you keep their minds fresh and the juices flowing. By putting your managers on existing projects, you keep them from getting burnt out on the chaos of the unknown. It keeps everyone fresh and in-turn keeps the startup growing.

Keep Lofty Goals

Over time your goals will likely change. Initially the goal may be simply to bring in enough cash so that you can pay yourself and the people around you. Over time, though, your goals should increase substantially.

Constantly chasing goals is what keeps a startup at the top of its game. Companies start to gather mold when they hit their initial goals or milestones and don’t get recharged for bigger goals. This often happens right after your first product launch or a big sale.

Everything leading up to that moment kept your team intensely focused and kept the drive alive. Once that moment happened though, people assumed that the job was pretty much done and they could focus on that achievement.

While it’s important to recognize your achievements, it’s even more important to immediately reset your goals for even bigger targets to maintain your momentum.

After that big sale or product launch, gather your team together and set much larger goals to rally around. Use the momentum of your achievements to get your team confident about achieving your next goal even faster.

Swing for the Fences

Maintaining a successful startup on a rocket ship growth plan isn’t a single sprint, it’s a marathon of well-calculated milestones.

As soon as you stop trying to make the big plays and push the company as far as you go, you lose the momentum you once had, and by way of that, you lose your potential.
If you’re not going to swing big, you’re not going to win big.

( excerpts from Wil Schroter’s blog - gobignetwork.com)

11 Principles of Entrepreneurial Leadership

By Raj Dash on September 17, 2007

With the number of tools available on the Internet, it’s quite possible that entrepreneurs can build a successful business online - even a media empire. However, if you expect to expand, you will need to delegate tasks at some point. You simply can’t do everything yourself and also expect to grow.

That means you need to hire people and inevitably deal with “normal” work situations. Forget about traditional leadership. I’ve only ever had a very few bosses who were good leaders, but they taught me something because they were forward-thinking. Here’s some of their wisdom, distilled by my perspectives and my experience in the workforce.

Never blame. At least, don’t blame an employee in front of another. If you have to reprimand, do it in private. This sets a bad tone, and you lose respect with all employees, as such things will get around like bad gossip.

Don’t create adversarial situations. Don’t pit employees against each other or ask them to snitch. Healthy competition is fine. Back-stabbing is like a smile, but only in that it carries a long way through the company morale, and not in a good way.

Understand the work. Be a constant learner. Have at least a fundamental understanding of the work you’re expecting your employees to do. It makes it easier on everyone when the try to tell you why something can’t be done, or that it will cost more.

Don’t put square pegs in round holes. Basically, assign the right work to the right people, to allow them to work optimally. Don’t be like those companies that shall remain nameless that give you a job you can’t do and beat down your spirit. You wouldn’t want that and neither would your employees.

Lead by example. If the company approaches a problem that covers new ground, don’t expect your employees to know how to solve it. If you know how, give them a crash course and let them take it from there. And by leading, I don’t mean leading employees like a puppy.

Brainstorm. If they still have trouble solving a new problem, brainstorm with them. Proper brainstorming requires that at least the moderator of the meeting does some legwork beforehand. Record all ideas without censorship, or you might miss the best solution, which might be unfamiliar and thus seem odd.

Ask, don’t tell. Communicate well and clearly. In a startup company with a positive environment and healthy competitive spirit, most people want to be asked, want to be challenged. Offer up the day’s or week’s “assignments” and let people pick. That is, if you’re not such a big company yet that you need to structure everyone’s roles. Don’t count anyone out. You might be suprised about who’s capable of what. Challenges also weed out the lazybones.

Be decisive. Have a strategy ready. If business problems crop up and employees are aware of them, they’ll be thinking abou their bills, their mortgages, etc., not yours. (Possibly unless you’re giving them incentives.) So be the decision-maker, indicate what needs to be done, then ask for volunteers or assign tasks if necessary.)

Consider profit-sharing. Bonuses go a long way towards employee loyalty, passion and creativity. Sure, there’ll still be stragglers, but a creative bonus “matrix” weeds them out. If your company is young, there’s only so far you can go with bonuses, so also consider profit-sharing/ private shares. Talk to a good accountant about the best way to implement these incentives.

Be sympathetic. Or at least courteous. It’s only human to not always be in top form, even with incentives. Talk to your employees, understand them and give them some leeway when possible. Have some redunancy in job descriptions, right from the beginning, to allow someone to temporarily take up the slack.

Be firm. Being sympathetic is all well and good, but you do have a business to run. Be firm when it’s necessary.

More useful articles on entrepreneurship:

Tips for budding entrepreneurs

Top 7 Hiring Mistakes for Startup Businesses

Top 10 Most Practical Blogs for Entrepreneurs

10 tips for entrepreneurs seeking angel capital

15 entrepreneur blogs worth reading

10 critical steps to writing a business plan

10 cool colleges for entrepreneurs

Selling a business: Top 10 tips for entrepreneurs

Top 10 reasons for buying a franchise

Business Plan Basics

By Jay Maharjan on September 16, 2007

Starting a business is a major commitment that will consume 24/7 of your life with no end in sight. It is always good to know what you are getting into before you take the plunge. From my experience writing business plans for large and small companies alike for the last 8 years, there are basically two reasons why you need a business plan - the first reason is to re-assure yourself that this wild dream that you have in your mind is actually attainable. And, the second reason is to convince a lender or a venture capitalist. More than likely, you are writing for the second reason. Whatever your reason may be, as the legendary management guru Peter Drucker would bluntly put - always ask yourself what your business is, who your customers are, and what the customer considers value.

In my opinion, here is a list of pointers that will save you headaches later.

a. Be clear about what you are selling.
b. Come up with Mission, Vision, and Objective statements for your venture.
c. Be honest with your Strengths and Weaknesses.
d. Conduct a thorough research on your vertical market.
e. Make sure there is a real opportunity.
f. Make sure your product or service addresses pain point (s).
g. Conduct a thorough research on your competitors.
h. Make sure your product or service addresses pain point (s) better than your competitors.
i. Be realistic with the revenue projections.
j. Surround yourself with people smarter than you. Do not be afraid to ask for help.
k.Seize the opportunity to scale up - quick.

More to follow on this topic. I can be reached at [email protected]

Small Business Podcasting Trends for 2007

Small Business Podcasting Trends for 2007

 

By Steve Rucinski on January 10, 2007

By Steve Rucinski

With forecasted sales of over 120 million MP3 players and 200 million MP3 enabled cell phones in 2007 the potential audience for podcasts continues to grow at a strong pace. A significant number of these devices will arrive into the hands of small business owners and employees which means if small businesses are a target market of yours you simply cannot ignore podcasts much longer. If you run a small business and are looking for a way to gain or present information in an efficient and cost effective manner you need to seriously explore podcasts as a tool. In the following paragraphs I will outline 10 small business podcast trends that you NEED to consider in 2007.

1) General podcast listenership will continue to grow

Feedburner tracks over 1.6 million podcast subscribers today and that figure has doubled over the past 6 months. Podcast Alley, a top podcast directory, lists over 26,000 podcasts comprising over 1 million episodes, compared to fewer than 1,000 in 2004. A November 2006 PEW Internet Project report says that 12% of internet users have downloaded a podcast compared to 7% a year earlier. With 147 million Internet users in the United States, 12% would equate to 17.6 million people downloading podcasts.

2) Small business podcasts will continue to grow in number and quality

The top three podcast directories list over 700 total podcasts whose focus is small business, including content from such mainstream media companies as The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, Time and Crains. The vast majority of the podcasts available are provided by small businesses themselves — authors, consultants, technology companies and others who all want to serve the small business audience. Tools and production values (good sound quality, prepared hosts, entertaining format) will continue to improve for those podcasters willing to invest to serve their audiences.

3) Podcast directories will continue to grow in number and improve in quality of their services

With so much content available, podcast directories are working hard to provide tools to make it easier for listeners to find the podcasts that will best serve their needs. Using the latest in recommendation tools, ratings and social networking technologies they are doing a better job delivering the content their visitors want. I predict that during 2007 a small-business focused podcast directory will emerge to serve the market.

4) Producing a podcast will continue to get easier for everyone

New tools and services like BlogTalkRadio and Podomatic will continue to grow to serve those who want to produce and distribute their own podcasts. These services make it as easy as a phone call to record your own podcast. They provide other distribution and promotional services that a potential podcaster might need. If you want to produce your own podcast there are several books and online sites dedicated to helping you get it done like Podcasting for Dummies or Podcast Solutions: The Complete Guide to Podcasting. You can even outfit your own studio for about US$500 with a podcast kit.

5) More large enterprises targeting small businesses will launch podcasts

Following the lead of the mainstream media, IBM, Cisco and others, more large companies that want to market more effectively to the small business market will launch podcasts, or partner with those that already do. Office supply firms, banks, technology companies, legal and financial firms will lead the way in using podcasts to talk directly to the small business market.

6) Small business focused Internet radio stations will emerge that will aggregate small business podcasts for their programming

With such a large potential audience, Internet based radio stations are emerging to serve the small business audience. WSRadio and Voice America are two such networks today. With new tools like those provided by Backbone Radio and World Vibrations the barriers to operating your very own Internet radio station are coming down rapidly. Many of these new Internet radio stations will provide content by aggregating multiple podcasts together to serve the small business audience.

7) Podcast enabled phones will emerge as a major device for podcast listening among small businesses

With over 200 million MP3 enabled phones expected to sell in 2007 it is only natural that these new all-in-one tools will be scooped up by small businesses and used as both a phone and an information and learning device. With a cell phone you can move to receiving podcasts through wireless. Tools like Melodeo make it easy to get podcast content on your cell phone.

8) Top podcasts will augment their offerings with complementary products and services

To better serve their audience, small business podcasters will offer additional ways to augment their content such as transcripts or bundled podcasts burned on a CD or even packaged on an iPod. This enables them to continue to serve the listeners and build loyalty for their programs.

9) Small business advertisers will discover the long-tail effect of podcasts

As advertisers begin to understand that podcasts are perfect vehicles to reach a niche audience their ad spending will rise. In addition, advertisers will begin to understand that podcasts have no expiration to their shelf-life. A podcast done two years ago may be listened to as often to as one last week if the content is relevant and access to it is provided to the listener. This means advertisers can get months and years of exposure by leveraging a podcast to reach their target markets.

10) We have not yet left the early adopter phase of podcasting

Forrester Research is projecting that the number of households using podcasts will grow from 700,000 to 12.3 million over the next four years in the United States alone. As we all adapt to the time-shifting technologies available to us, our lifestyles and work-styles will change in ways not yet discovered. Podcasts are another way to get just-in-time information when you choose to get it. Today finding and obtaining that information is still a little cumbersome but some of the tools and trends mentioned above will help make the ease-of-use and quality improvements happen.

* * * * *About the author: Steve Rucinski has been in the technology industry since 1976 with such paradigm changing firms as Digital Equipment and US Robotics. He writes for several small business blogs including Small Business CEO. He is also a partner and Executive Producer of the Internet radio program and podcast, Small Business Trends Radio.

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Stop Pretending you can Start a Company while Avoiding Sacrifice and Risk

Stop Pretending you can Start a Company while Avoiding Sacrifice and Risk

Thursday, August 23, 2007

We all know the perfect scenario for doing a startup looks like this:

1. I’ll keep my current job (income). Instead of sacrificing my lifestyle I’ll just stay fully employed and eliminate any cash concerns.

2. I’ll quite my job when the startup takes off. I’ll keep working at my startup until the income from that venture surpasses what I’m currently making.

3. I’ll work nights and weekends. I’ll find the time I need in my free evenings and weekends to make up for the time spent at work.

Yet this is the most unrealistic approach to starting a company. While it’s true, many companies are started by Founders that are working a regular job, this approach overlooks two critical components to a startup - “commitment” and “risk”.

Commitment = Sacrifice

Commitment isn’t just about putting in a few extra hours per week. Commitment is about sacrificing a lot of time. It’s about giving up things you like to do.

Commitment is missing dinner with your family.

Commitment is working on holidays.

Commitment is not seeing your friends again.

Commitment is letting your golf clubs rust.

(OK, so maybe letting your clubs rust is a bit harsh!)

My point is that you’re not going to be able to commit to a startup and avoid sacrifice altogether. Instead, you need to embrace sacrifice. You need to recognize that every moment you’re giving up is an investment in something you’re trying to build.

Startup companies require far more time than you could possibly invest, even if you never slept. To think you can create a competitive product in the market in your free time against people who do this 24/7 is just unrealistic. You gotta be fully committed to fully compete.

No Reward without Risk

The second problem is dealing with risk. You don’t want to risk your mortgage payment, or your cushy job, or your financial reserves by dropping everything and doing a startup.

Well guess what? You’re going to risk it all.

You’re going to risk your job.

You’re going to risk not making your mortgage payment.

You’re going to risk spending your kid’s college fund.

You’re going to risk blowing through your retirement account.

You’re going to risk all of this stuff because a startup requires every bit of capital you can possibly muster. The very nature of a new company is that it is all-consuming on capital, with no definitive end in sight.

The only way to feed that beast is to use your personal cash. That means draining your reserves and tightening your belt. It basically means you’re going to risk a whole hell of a lot of money.

Trying to avoid that is like trying to pretend a startup doesn’t need cash to grow. That’s like trying to Google “Chuck Norris getting his ass kicked.” You’ll get zero results, because it just doesn’t happen.

Instead of trying to avoid risk, try to embrace it. Embrace your risk by cutting all of your costs to the bear minimum, get used to the reality of exponential debt, and understand that your anxiety and stress is your payment for success.

Yes, the payment is high. But the reward is why you’re doing this in the first place, right?

( excerpts from Wil Schroter’s blog - gobignetwork.com)

10 Search Engines You Don’t Know About

Go beyond Google and get vertical. These specialized search sites will help you find the business information you need–fast.

By Laura Tiffany | September 07, 2007

We’ve got some big news for you. Brace yourself. There are search options beyond Google–and we’re not talking about Yahoo! and MSN. Vertical search is on the rise, and whether you’re looking for business products, services or information, or a new place to advertise, vertical search sites can benefit your company. Market research firm Outsell predicts that the vertical search market will reach $1 billion by 2009. While Google gets around 65 percent of search traffic today, it doesn’t mean it’s always the best place for your search.

“When we speak about an alternative search engine, we’re speaking about something that’s extremely industry-specific, very niche,” says Jason Prescott, the owner of vertical search engine TopTenWholesale.com. “It’s pin-pointing, accurate and only going to be for that topic you’re searching for, [rather than] having to scour through the billions of search results you’ll get on a mainstream, tier-one search engine.”

The same logic applies when determining where to spend your search engine marketing dollars. If you sell a general consumer product, Google may be your best bet. But if you’re looking for highly targeted business purchasers, it may be wise to go vertical. “[You get] a much more relevant user, a much higher conversion and a much better return on your investment,” says Prescott. “User traffic might be a little less, but the visitor is highly more qualified.”

Here are 10 vertical search engines we’ve identified as useful to any business owner. Be sure to research your own industry, however, for more specific verticals that can hone your searches or boost your advertising ROI for business customers.

TopTenWholesale.com: One of the biggest hurdles for new retailers is finding wholesale merchandise to sell. Prescott aims to place all those product sellers in one place so that when you search for shoes, you receive wholesale results, not Zappos.com. The site also offers news, a blog, directory listings, forums and classifieds, fulfilling Prescott’s goal to create not just a wholesale search site, but a wholesale portal.

ThomasNet.com: ThomasRegister has been a leader in the business information field for more than 100 years, and ThomasNet.com is the place to go if you’re in the market for industrial and manufacturing goods and services. This robust site allows you to search by product/service, company name, brand name, industrial websites or CAD models. You can narrow your search by U.S. state or Canadian province. Browse by category, download 2D and 3D CAD models of mechanical parts, and even download a search plug-in for your Firefox browser.

FindLaw.com: Both FindLaw.com and Lawyers.com serve the same primary functions: They allow users to search for attorneys by location and specialty. But FindLaw has an easier-to-use interface, making its extra information quicker to find, such as the free form examples, free full-text books and legal dictionary. Both have general search functionality, message boards and blogs, but again FindLaw.com wins us over with its small business section.

USA.gov: The government has a labyrinthine web of sites, and if you’re looking for information, it’s easy to get lost. This all-things-U.S.-government portal/search engine has a tab specifically for businesses and nonprofits, and you can browse by topic. By far, the most helpful area in the business tab is Get It Done Online, an area with links to business necessities that, yes, you can take care of online.

IT.com: Rather than offering a plain vanilla directory or just one basic search bar, IT.com provides several tech-oriented search options. This includes product and service categories (enterprise networking, open source, product development) or industry solutions (government, SMB, financial markets). The interface takes non-tech folks into consideration as well; each search choice has a roll-over with an explanation of the terminology. In the main search bar, you can choose to search for news, companies, white papers or webcasts.

Zibb.com: Reed Business is one of the leading vertical publishers with more than 200 business titles. Zibb.com is the company’s new online venture, a vertical search service for business that offers not only websites and blogs in the results, but also Reed Business content. This site has a strong UK bent to its information, but it’s one to keep an eye on because of its strong news element along with the typical search results and directory listings.

VerticalSearch.com: VerticalSearch gets super meta as a vertical search engine for vertical sites. The homepage offers pre-determined categories, but you also can choose your own keywords. Results pages offer feeds of headlines and research papers, and you can choose to pull an RSS feed from any search that you choose.

SearchFinance.com: This site bills itself as the “search engine for financial executives,” making it quite the portal for corporate finance. While search is front-and-center, there are a ton of browsing options: blogs, podcasts, events, webcasts, magazines and alerts. Search results are particularly impressive. Directory matches pop up first, but you can also scroll over the results sources for more information on a particular company and choose to remove any “commercial” sources from your results.

Yahoo! Local: This site is the most consumer-oriented of the bunch, but a recent redesign with a focus on vertical categories makes it worth a look. Yahoo! Local has broken out of the restaurants-and-nightclubs city guide mold to offer a number of business categories like health and beauty, automotive, and real estate–useful information whether you’re looking for professional service vendors in your neighborhood, a new bistro to take a client to, or a local advertising solution for your business.

Melissa Data: This is a slight fudge on our part as this site is more of a new customer enticement for data service provider Melissa Data than true vertical search, but there are so many free search options, it may become a favorite on your bookmarks. You can search for basic demographic and market data, maps and mailing information, statistics or specific data like SIC codes. There’s a daily limit to your number of “lookups,” so unless you subscribe, you’ll have to curb your information appetite.