Archive for Tips & Tools

Not Blogging Now - In Transition

// July 6th, 2010 // Comments // Tips & Tools

I’m not blogging right now due to my focused attention on building a company and trying to get through a few developmental phases.  When I do the course of this blog will change as to what I’m not sure yet.  I’ll post an update when there is one. :-)

What Not To Do As An Entrepreneur

// May 14th, 2010 // Comments // Tips & Tools

Are you a business owner?  How do you prioritize your time?  Do you have a system?

When do you innovate?  How do you expand your mind?  Do you have someone to keep you focused?

When do you do the accounting?  When do you market?  What tools do you use?

How do you identify your best customers?  Where do they come from?  How do you charge for your product/service?

Are you able to create positive cash flow?  Should or should you not seek to obtain capital?  Should focus on acquiring new customers?

How much focus should be on developing new customers?  What if your existing customers become more than you can handle?  And, new customers want to do business with you but you have no more time to serve them?

How do you scale your company?  When is the right time to hire?

What if ? ……

There are so many questions to answer and so many things to do as an entrepreneur but the best piece of advice I have ever heard from another entrepreneur is that you can answer every question with one answer, “Find A Way”.

How are you finding a way to solve your problems and those of your customers?  Focusing and prioritizing to solve one problem at a time may be your best bet as you build your business.  Just don’t stop trying to ‘find a way’ and seek help that can provide new light on a problem.

I’d love for your to share any advice you have for others that may read this post.

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2 Great Resources For Sales and Business Development Strategies

// April 8th, 2010 // Comments // Tips & Tools

Image of the human head with the brain. The ar...
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Since I’ve been busy recovering from a vacation and backlogged client work, I wanted at least to share a couple things I’ve read over the past couple of weeks that are great resources:

  1. Inc. Magazine’s print edition did a feature article on sales strategies, “Nothing Matters More Than Sales”.  It does a great job covering John Deal’s sales mindset, CEO of Hyperion; it covers G. Clotaire Rapaille psychology research on top performing salespeople; and covers sales tips from some of the world’s toughest customers.  You can read the John Deal article here.
  2. E-Myth is doing a great segment of podcasts and articles with serial entrepreneur and author of the book, “Built To Sell”, John Warrillow.  John lays out 8 key strategies for building a company for an exit or liquidity event :-)

Hope you enjoy the reading.  I did and learned some key things to consider.

Cheers,

Jason

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The State of Entrepreneuralism in America

// March 19th, 2010 // Comments // Tips & Tools

If you have not seen this and you are an entrepreneur or aspiring to be an entrepreneur watch this.

Your Strategic Sales Funnel Needs 360 Degree Visualization & Listen Tools

// March 17th, 2010 // Comments // Tips & Tools

Do you know how so many companies struggle to find their best customers?  Well, what if finding your best customers was as easy as plugging in your headphones and listening to music on your iPod?  It could be but, you have to know how to connect the headphones into the market where your customers are.

Think back to when you were a kid going down to the local pond and throwing rocks into the water to watch the effect of the ripple.  The bigger the rock, the bigger the ripple right?  Well, let’s assume for a minute that you had a couple of tools like the headphones and a big rock to create a ripple effect for increasing sales at your company.

Now, if you could just plug your headphones into the internet and find out where the music is playing that your particular customers like - they might be dancing to the music on a white sand beach.  What if you had the capability to offer them an opportunity to take your product, a sporty wave-runner, out for a spin in the ocean?  Lot’s a people might take you up on the offer, right?

After they have a blast speeding up and down the beach, others see them having so much fun and decide they want to join.  So, other customers start coming over asking if they can take the wave-runner out for a spin and the customer that just got back from her run tells them how much fun it was.  Then, the ripple happens, they go tell others and soon enough your wave-runner (the rock in the pond) is in demand.

All you had to do was listen closely and throw the right kind of rock in the pond.  This is essentially how you can take a 36o degree look at your market with socialized internet technology tools in order to create a strategic sales funnel for your business.  Ok, so how could you go about doing this?

Well, there are many tools that can provide this type of insight and below I’ve provided a video of such a company that could serve as your headphones but, they don’t provide rocks or wave-runners - you’ve got to bring that to the market.

Marcel LeBrun, CEO of Radian 6 - Discussing The Implications of Socialized Media On Business

The Top 5 Things Start-ups Should Focus On

// March 15th, 2010 // Comments // Tips & Tools

Top 5

As a battle-tested entrepreneur, I’ve come to realize the hard way that there are a few things that are most important when building a new company.  There are so many things to do that really are distractions until you stabilize the company and everything else can be shelved for later.

Here’s my Top 5:

  1. Figure Out Your OSS (Optimal Selling Strategy) - If you cannot generate sales you do not have a business.  To me this is THE MOST IMPORTANT thing for a new company to figure out and it does not always come easy.  You have to get very clear on what the true value is of your product or service and how it really benefits your prospective customer.  I recommend that you have some objective advisors that can help you get this right - it can mean all the difference in the world to growing and becoming a company.
  2. Focus On Solving The Problem - You must create an environment for yourself and others to enable the ability to really lock down and focus on solving the problems of your customers and getting things done that move you closer everyday to generating sales.
  3. Cash Flow - limit expenses, if what you are considering buying, signing up for, etc., does not lead to the end goal of generating revenue you don’t need.  Make it a policy that before anything is purchased that you must get a co-founders or someone else you trust to help you make an objective decision to buy or pass.
  4. Measure, Measure, Measure - track everything you do with some type of metric, goal and timebound date to achieving or evaluating the task.
  5. Balance Your Life - To many entrepreneurs get sucked into the business consuming their entire life.  In order to be effective and productive you must have a release.  Watch this great video on the importance of play “The Big Buddha Baba Rule”.

What do you think?

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Thinking About Building A Company?

// March 9th, 2010 // Comments // Tips & Tools

Get started on it today and seek out help.  It can be a long process and you need people around you to coach you, support you, provide you new insight and resources.  Stay determined but remember to play!

Watch this and chime in with comments if you have something you want to share, ask, give advice or just speak what’s on your mind. So, what’s on your mind?

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