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10 Steps to a New Business

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Train Tracks

Have you dreamed of owning your own business, but don’t know where to start? Have you started planning for your new business, but keep wondering if you’ve forgotten anything important? Check out the basic steps below to be sure you’re on the right track.

Evaluate and Develop Your Business Concept

1. Do you feel passionate about this idea? Will it be something you can do every day –- and night?

2. Jot out a quick break-even analysis. Can you make money at what you’re planning to do?

3. Figure out how you can pay for it, until it pays for itself and then makes money. Determine best and worst case scenarios.

Structure Your Business

4. What type of business will you form?

  • Sole proprietorship
  • Partnership
  • LLC
  • C Corporation
  • S Corporation

5. Who will be your key employees, partners and vendors? What value do they add that you don’t have?

Brand It

6. Determine the name of your business. Start with a brainstorm session, then research your top 5-10 names for trademark and online domain availability.

7. Register your name and trademarks.

8. Determine your brand identity. If your brand were a person, who would it be? What does it stand for? How does it speak? Your brand is more than your logo and name, by answering these questions, and more, you will begin to identify your brand and its persona.

Set Up Your Business Systems

9. Obtain Insurance. Determine what liabilities are most relevant and insure for them.

10. Set Up Your Books. Find an accountant or bookkeeper that can periodically check your business situation, methods and prepare your taxes.

There’s more, but these are the top ten things that need to happen, to give your business a sound start.  This is a basic list, but you would be surprised at how many people, and companies, skip some or all of these steps.

If you find yourself overwhelmed, give me a call. Many of these steps can be readily achieved and will build the foundation for a strong business. Your strong business.


YouTube Rewind 2010 – The Top 10 List in Links

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Here’s the top watched YouTube video mashup from this year. There is no doubt about the power of video in social media… and it’s fun, too.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFnXm6cjGwU&w=640&h=390]

Could your video go viral?

Viral videos are what many business people dream of when beginning their Inbound Marketing strategy, sometimes with unrealistic expectations. Ensuring that a video of yours goes viral is impossible, but understanding their makeup, allows you to set it up for the possibility. By their nature, viral videos follow the pattern of a rapid increase of views, a couple of days with a very high number of views, and then a gentle decrease that can generate many daily views for a long period of time. Not surprisingly, the comments on these videos run pretty much the same pattern, engaging people at very high levels.

In case, you missed any of these during the year, pick a link to follow the full version now. My favorite is “This Too Shall Pass OK Go”. I love Rube Goldberg machines even more than the Old Spice guy.

Top 10  (in order, by most watched)

#1: Bed Intruder Song – http://bit.ly/hM9GKI
#2: Tik Tok Kesha Parody – http://bit.ly/gGkGDE
#3: Greyson Chance ‘Paparazzi’ – http://bit.ly/gDDvut
#4: Annoying Orange Wazzup – http://bit.ly/hBT1cm
#5: The Man Your Man Could Smell Like (Old Spice)- http://bit.ly/dDXy35
#6: Giant Double Rainbow – http://bit.ly/hpKOQo
#7: This Too Shall Pass OK Go – http://bit.ly/gdMRgr
#8: The Twilight Saga Eclipse Trailer – http://bit.ly/fEq0iG
#9: Jimmy Surprises Bieber Fan – http://bit.ly/i4QqGH
#10: Gymkhana Three, Part 2 – http://bit.ly/gnBZws

Top 10  (in order, by appearance in the mashup)

• The Man Your Man Could Smell Like (Old Spice)- http://bit.ly/dDXy35
• Giant Double Rainbow – http://bit.ly/hpKOQ
• The Twilight Saga Eclipse Trailer – http://bit.ly/fEq0iG
• Jimmy Surprises Bieber Fan – http://bit.ly/i4QqGH
• Gymkhana Three, Part 2 – http://bit.ly/gnBZws
• Annoying Orange Wazzup – http://bit.ly/hBT1cm
• Bed Intruder Song – http://bit.ly/hM9GKI
• Tik Tok Kesha Parody – http://bit.ly/gGkGDE
• Greyson Chance ‘Paparazzi’ – http://bit.ly/gDDvut
• This Too Shall Pass OK Go – http://bit.ly/gdMRgr

Do videos fit into your marketing mix? Give me a call to find out if they could.

First Steps to Successful Marketing on Facebook

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Today, there are more than 500 million active users, 50% of these users log in daily. Every average user has 130 friends. People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook.

With those kinds of statistics Facebook is a natural for B2C businesses trying to build a loyal following: businesses like restaurants, hotels, sporting establishments, services and so forth.Social Media

Best of all: It’s free and easy.

Start your Facebook Personal Page

First step: you will need to establish your own personal page. The personal info you provide for this page is also your registration with Facebook for your business page, so you will only need to enter it one time. Often this is where someone worries about their privacy; don’t worry, you will (and should) adjust your privacy settings under your personal profile and restrict it so you limit who can view your personal page.  After that, you’re clear to create a business page.

Start a Facebook Business Page

Check out my free e-Book for step-by-step tips on starting your Facebook Business Page including screen examples of the Facebook personal page, business page and group page steps.

Start a Facebook Group

There is little to adjust for privacy on the business page; it’s open to all (except for age restrictions) and allows minimal control over how people interact with your page. If that lack of control bothers you, then maybe a facebook group is for you. It allows complete control of content, but is more effort for you to maintain.

Promote, promote promote!

All set up? Now, focus on promoting your business. Make frequent posts that are brief, upbeat and entice people to visit your business; or at least think about it more favorably. Understand your audience by developing your Online Persona. This helps you write posts that get attention and appeal to your fans.

Learn the power of reposting. This is one simple technique that is often overlooked. Ask a few of your most loyal customers (or friends and family) to repost your page or group on their walls by clicking the share feature. This starts a fan wave that exposes people to your business to whom  you do not have access.

Finally, use the new ‘Tell Your Fans’ feature that allows you to upload your contacts from your email or CRM program. This will allow the exposure of your site to grow.

Next issue? What would you like to hear more about?

Scrooge Strikes e-Commerce Small Business

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Is Network TV the Scrooge?
This Christmas season, it seems like every network TV news personality is reporting that online sales are booming. On Cyber-Monday, Becky Worley of Good Morning America said that online sales are up significantly this year. Technically, that’s true. That is, if you are Amazon, Walmart or Best Buy.

e-Commerce: Not for the Little GuyChristmas Cancelled for Small Business
Unfortunately, small to mid-size e-tailers have actually lost ground according to ComScore’s latest Cyber Monday report. Although, they reported a 12% overall increase in total consumer online spending, when you break it down the big box stores increased their sales 20%, while small-medium businesses experienced a 4% loss compared to 2009 spending.

Why do the Big Boys get the Attention?
Two reasons. One, the big boys can afford to lure shoppers with deep discounts and attention-grabbing promotions. In doing so, they grab market share from the online ‘mom & pops’, who thought the internet provided a new path to successful marketing. Two, network TV news keeps its focus on its customers: those big box stores who are their biggest advertisers this time of year.  ABC’s Becky Worley delivered her “news” report live from the floor of Amazon.com’s Phoenix distribution and shipping center.  Her story focused on Amazon’s deal of the day and other online retailers like Home Depot. If economic growth comes from small to medium-sized businesses, isn’t it time journalists paid more attention to them?

As Tiny Tim waits to see what’s in store for him this Christmas, remember small and medium-sized businesses are the ones that bring handcrafted, quality craftsmanship, made in America items to market. These are often gifts that last a lifetime.

Buy from someone ‘small’ today. There’s still time to shop!

Where are you going? …with your Inbound Marketing efforts

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attracting customersInbound Marketing refers to attracting customers to your lodging property through a variety of social media and content distribution and interacting with readers, rather than the older means of buying attention through disruptive advertising and other devices. Simply put, Inbound Marketing employs a ‘pull’ strategy, rather than the ‘push’ strategy employed by traditional marketing techniques. With the sophistication of the Internet, the opportunity for distributing content and building communities make Inbound Marketing the best chance for small businesses to get noticed in this overly messaged world. Engagement and differentiation is where small businesses have the advantage. So where are you taking your business?

What are you doing now to get found?

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blog and your website are all set up. You have them cross-referenced to interact with each other. They all hold a consistent brand message. You have clients that are interacting with you online. Life is good, right? Everyone should beat a path to your door, right?

Well, not exactly.

Where the problem lies for many businesses is in getting ENOUGH people to VISIT and then TAKE ACTION. That’s where you’ll need a good plan (and maybe some help). One that includes developing a content strategy, sound social media execution and personalized, genuine follow-up. How many visitors will you need each day to convert ENOUGH people into TAKING ACTION?

Feeling overwhelmed? Make no mistake there is a huge amount of effort that goes into leveraging SEO, blogging and social media to increase website traffic. Face it, now may be the time to invest some time and money into this endeavor. A certified and experienced Inbound Marketing professional can help you with a detailed analysis of your business and the competitive landscape. And help you set and achieve your online marketing goals. To get started on your detailed plan, determine your goals, and get people to TAKE ACTION, give us a call. Don’t worry, the first visit is always free.

“Goals without plans are meaningless. Plans without deadlines and measurements are wishes.” –Unknown

Note- First published Nov 2010 and republished Dec 2014