Business Incubator Generates Success, Inspiration
December 21, 2009 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
From a rural New Mexico area to the cocoon of the Santa Fe Business Incubator…NearSea Naturals sang praises of support and told the story of her company’s growth as a result of working with the resources at the incubator.
One client touted his recent growth curve and was interrupted – literally – to take a venture capital call…
We couldn’t do it without the incubator…Bluenergy Solarwind voiced the general feeling of all incubator clients.
At this year’s annual client luncheon for The Santa Fe Business Incubator, Marie Longserre, CEO, fielded dozens of kudos from clients, government officials, peers and interested parties. Her uplifting comments included these facts about incubator businesses:
- Total: 73 businesses to-date
- More than 700 total jobs. (NOTE: Not all businesses get tracked after the fifth year, so the number is likely much higher.)
- Incubator businesses continue to network and spawn other businesses.
- Several examples exist of businesses meeting and forming another business in the incubator.
- Many entrepreneurs start a business and then start another and yet another. One example, Sanctions & Solutions, spawned three new, related companies so far. Then, there’s ApJet, Bluenergy Solar Wind, and more…
Ed Maglisceau, chairman of the Board of Directors for the Incubator, highlighted statistics from the Kauffman Foundation Research Series.
“…from 1980 until 2005, nearly all net job creation in the United States occurred in firms less than five years old. This data set also shows that without startups, net job creation for the American economy would be negative in all but a handful of years.”
Stephanie Spong, who heads the New Mexico office of EPIC Ventures, shared that New Mexico Venture Capital will fund more projects with slightly more money in 2009 than in 2008.
I found myself energized by the crowd, the comments and the possibilities. Twelve years of stories, people, success. Twelve years for the Santa Fe Business Incubator!
How do you get inspired?
What Matters Now E-book
December 15, 2009 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
“There’s nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos.”
Texan Jim Hightower made that comment. William C. Taylor, co-founder of Fast Company used it to illustrate the need to be the most of something in his essay.
Get the What Matters Now free ebook coordinated by Seth Godin and read more. Seventy writers. One-word titles for each essay. Prepare to change the way you look at 2010.
All profits from the Squidoo lens go to charity. 
Spread the word. Vote for your favorites.
Personally, I liked 1% and More and Excellence and Neoteny.
The Hightower quote caught my eye because a client talked about the middle of the road using a similar illustration from Karate Kid.
We waste so much energy and time thinking about what we “should” do. I’ve already emailed her the link.
Neoteny. What a great theme for 2010.
Define Marketing Deadlines
December 14, 2009 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
Your special event takes time to present. You and your staff spend hours on details
and coordinate with numerous vendors in the process. All is for naught if you get caught in the squeeze of unforeseen deadlines.
One client planned a formal open house to show new offices after a move earlier in the year. for a postcard invitation for its open house. Construction delays ran longer than expected and the Thanksgiving holiday added a time warp to the schedule. The beautiful postcard had to be tabled. An email invitation (adaptation from the postcard) gave participants less than a week’s notice about the event.
Another local organization announced an annual open house prominently on the cover of its printed newsletter. Problem: the newsletter landed in mailboxes two days AFTER the event.
Annual events sneak up on you. Avoid surprises with these tips:
- Plan your event - calendar it well in advance
- Use different channels for cross-promotion (newsletter, postcard, email, board of directors notice)
- Back-date event deadlines to include time for designing and printing
- Add time for approvals
- Plus - add an extra week or two for deadline safety
- Update mailing lists to include change-of-address notices
- Use zip-plus-four addresses for better efficiency/attention from the post office
No magic formula exists. If you want response, get the word out as many ways as possible, as far in advance as you can.
Plan. Timing issues affect the success or failure as well as the internal stress of your efforts. Eliminate as much drama as possible with well-in-advance planning.
Use Tags and Categories Effectively
December 9, 2009 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
The category “winter clothes” includes everything you need to brave freezing temperatures and wind chill: coat, hat, boots, gloves, scarf. Each of the items in a “winter clothes” category could be a tag.
Making information work for you can be as simple as finding the right analogy.
Tag characteristics:
- You write tags after you write a blog post or an article
- Tags can micro-group postings, helping eliminate clutter
- Tags help search engines catalog your site
- Tags organize related information – for you and for others
- Tags use known names, for the most part
- Short words make the best tags
- Tags are listed at the bottom of posts on a blog
- Tags can also show as browse-able tag clouds
- Tags categorize information
- Tags can be categories
Category characteristics:
- Categories organize related information on your website or blog into common labels
- Most blogs use 20 or fewer categories
- Categories can be unique names or long phrases chosen by you for your website
- Categories do not necessarily help SEO
- Categories generate a page of posts on a website
- Categories are NOT tags
Those of you who know me and read the ProfitMeister blog know I pride myself on walking my talk. In this case, I started assigning tags yesterday. Yes! Another small victory for the technically challenged. Onward.
Five Ways to Build Your List Off-Line
December 7, 2009 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
In the past month I’ve received dozens of new email newsletters.
I did NOT request information nor give these marketers permission to add me to their list. Yet, because I met them at a function, or worse, happened to be a friend of a friend, I’m now on “the list.”
My friend and marketing troubleshooter, Mary Schmidt, finally put a note on her email signature:
Email marketing tip: Access to addresses isn’t the same as permission to use it.
If you’re looking to build your email list, (and who isn’t?) here are five LEGAL ways to do that offline:
- Ask permission at the time of sale or phone contact. “Thank you for your business. We have a newsletter that highlights our weekly special. Would you like to receive it?”
- Run a contest to get sign-ups for your newsletter. Offer an incentive like an iPod. “Subscribe to our weekly (or monthly or daily) newsletter and get a chance to win… Drawing once monthly.”
- Put your newsletter offer on every piece of printed material: all collateral, including business cards, flyers, brochures and invoices. Mention the benefit of your newsletter. What’s in it for the subscriber?
- Team up with your vendors or request reciprocal promotion for your newsletter from non-competing sources. Put yourself out there. Mention your newsletter and its benefit in an author box at the end of your published articles.
- Invite people to sign up at your exhibit, seminar, workshop, etc. Use a clear, deliverate action permission statement to do this: “Add me to your email list.”
The key ingredient in each of these five elements is getting permission. Building your email list is a process. Even if you have thousands of customers, you must still get permission to email them. Why? It’s the law.
The Can-Spam Act of 2004 can be summarized this way: (Excerpt from Entrepreneur.com article by Gail F. Goodman, “E-Mail Marketing” coach at Entrepreneur.com and CEO of Constant Contact, a web-based e-mail marketing service for small businesses)
CAN-SPAM’s Four Rules
Collect e-mail addresses in a straightforward way, providing a clear notice that people are joining your list. If you’re collecting business cards at a trade show, make sure you’re clear that by giving you their card, that person is subscribing to your e-mail list. If customers buy from you online, ask after the purchase if they want to subscribe. Don’t assume they do. Use a good permission policy to build an opt-in e-mail list.Do not falsify who you are or what you’re sending. You must send your commercial messages with a “From” and “Reply” address that you own and monitor. Your subject line cannot be misleading, and you cannot alter or falsify your header (routing) information. An advertisement must be identified as an advertisement.
You must have a working unsubscribe mechanism in all your e-mail campaigns. Process opt-out requests promptly, and take them off your list within 10 days.
Include the physical address of your company in all emails.
Sales Projections Precede Sales Revenues: how does 2010 look for you? Up? Down? Level?
November 30, 2009 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
One successful coach said, “I can’t project. I never have.” “I just coach my regulars and conduct one major workshop quarterly.”
Even service providers can make viable sales projections. Here’s how:
- To do your annual projections, set up a spreadsheet.
- Track your business sales month by month for the previous 12 months.
- Then, pull your numbers for the past two years. Determine your business trend (up, down, or level).
Now that you’ve completed a historical perspective, project (according to your trend) for the next 12 months. If you have difficulties, ask questions like these:
- Am I continuing to get more clients?
- Is my business expanding or contracting at this time?
- Where are the spikes (sharp increases or decreases) in my business?
- What precipitated those changes?
- If the changes are good, how can I repeat the result?
- If there are dips, how can I avoid them?
- Tip: project clients by name and by average term of contract
The coach with whom I spoke also had a variety of products, including e-books, e-courses and workshops. She had never done a projection for her products. Once again, I began with questions:
- What is the sales cycle for each of your products?
- Can you forward-project that cycle for the coming year?
- Do you have new products to add?
- How do you expect them to sell? Are you doing something to introduce them or give those new products additional exposure?
- What is your backup plan in the event your new products are not well received?
- Is there something that you plan to do to change the outcome of your plan? (Remember, the definition of crazy is doing the same thing you’ve always done and expecting different results. Nowhere is that more true than in projections.)
- Now that you’ve answered these questions, go back to your spreadsheet. Project your sales by client.
- Add a single line for each product. For example, add a line for workshops and then for sales at the back of the room in each workshop; add a line for speaking engagements and so on.
- Do a best and worst-case scenario.
There’s definitely no guarantee. As consumers get more cautious with their money, service providers must continue to show additional value. Now is the time to shore up your value statement. Take the time to listen to customers, respond carefully and plan for the future.
A final thought: do your sales projections. Do it now to prepare for 2010.
Market through the Holidaze
November 23, 2009 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
Officially, the Holidaze arrive on Thursday, Thanksgiving Day.
How do you plan to spend the last six weeks of the year? Here are some of our options:
-
Social: you flit from luncheon events to open house get-togethers to all-out parties
- Pig-out: cram free sugar and alcohol into your mouth because ‘tis the season
- Future-based: Slave over a 2010 marketing plan to get a jump start on the New Year?
- Debriefing-type: Review 2009 to get the lessons and make a list of successes to-date so as to maximize 2010 efforts?
- All of the above?
The invites already clutter my inbox and litter the desk. The temptation to relax and blow off those remaining days is strong.
“There’s not much left of this year; I’ll hit the ground running in January.”
If that’s so close to home you shudder, consider hard-hitting intentions like one of these:
- Make an editorial calendar for 2010 and begin publishing one newsletter per quarter.
- Review my website copy and revise to reflect new keywords and an overall up-leveling of my business.
- Contact 15 “warm” prospects on/before the end of the year.
- Survey current and past clients to discover areas of growth and opportunity for 2010.
- Produce one new product to launch at/shortly after the first of the year.
- Send a Thanksgiving letter to every person who’s done business with me in the past year.
- Book three speaking engagements for first quarter.
- Complete two new business proposals and get the appointment to present.
Thanks to those who shared their goals with me. I appreciate the inspiration for the rest of us.
What can you do in the time allotted?
Five Ways to Torpedo Customer Relationships
November 18, 2009 by Mary Ellen · 1 Comment
“I’m not going to play with you!”
Easy as that the five year old lets you know it’s a no-go.
What if business communication happened just as transparently? Truth is: it does. We just fail to recognize and respond to the symptoms.
See if you recognize failed relationships in the following:
- No return call. You’re following up with a potential customer, partner, or volunteer and there’s no response. You place spaced, repeated messages (to various numbers) leaving your name, phone number and reason for calling and get no callback. Emails get no response. Get a clue: there is no relationship.
- Right commentary, no follow through. You’ve probably experienced this situation as a meeting in which commitments were made and then nothing happened. “I’ll get back to you,” means different things to some people. In fact, some people use the phrase as carelessly as “Have a nice day.” If this is your experience, assume the worst. There IS no relationship.
- Missing in action. A cursory glance at the two previous situations may lead you to believe they’re the same. Not so. In my experience, particularly with solopreneurs, even a “contract for services” does not dictate an appearance or a response. (If you work with a vendor missing in action, you know the frustration of continually attempting to close the connection.) Do I need to tell you there is no relationship?
- Answering a different question. It’s amazing that direct questions elicit unrelated answers. Once again, when you continually experience this error message and re-directing doesn’t work, the relationship will not move forward. No relationship exists.
- Intermittent activity. The holiday season brings intermittent activity to the forefront. Networking reaches a maniacal force with parties, luncheons and get-togethers meant to make up for a year of sporadic contact. Guilty parties say, “See you next week at the expo.” My response of “I’ll try to do that,” could simply be translated as “No, thank you.” A relationship valuable enough to warrant my time does not exist.
Santa Creates Customer Touch Event for B2B
November 2, 2009 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
You probably don’t readily associate Santa photos with an office furniture vendor. Neither did I until I got a well-done invitation encouraging me to bring children for a photo with (or without) Santa.
“Join us to kick off the holiday season with a thank you event for our wonderful clients!”
“Enjoy refreshments and crafts for the kids. Pets welcome.”
My customer loyalty antennae went up. This was a customer touch program, a proactive approach to get clients in the showroom.
Tasteful. Timely. Tempting.
When I called to RSVP I learned I’d get a disk with my picture. Cool. My 2009 Holiday cards are set. I look forward to the event.
So how can you make this kind of event work for your business? Incidentally, the sponsoring vendor absorbed the cost (photographer, disk) of this promotion.
Seminar Event Forces Attendees to Meet Vendors
October 29, 2009 by Mary Ellen · 2 Comments
Seminars and trade shows take an inordinate amount of time and energy, so gauging return on investment takes careful scrutiny from everyone involved.
The Foundation for Entrepreneurial Excellence, a not for profit founded by the Northern New Mexico chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) sponsored an event for existing business owners event last week.
Sponsor tables lined the room. Attendees were required to collect signatures from every vendor present to qualify for the grand prize, 10 hours of one-on-one consulting from the keynote presenter. (NOTE: In following up with vendors, I discovered most prefer this method as it helps get traffic to the booth.)
I observed:
Conversations were interrupted as people thrust their dance card and pen into our midst and requested the obligatory fulfillment.
Vendors launched into a spiel with no prompting or interest from participants. (Some just wanted a signature.) NOTE: One vendor explained: “We take two booth workers to every show; that way, if one is tied up the other can sign attendee cards.” She also noted this tactic of forced booth visits has been growing in use.
Brochures were thrust at me. Each was full color, representing expensive collateral. Because I hadn’t requested any of these materials, they found their way to the recycle pile immediately after the show. NOTE: When I did my follow up, one vendor said that she offers handouts by request or simply allows participants to pick them up from the table.
Follow up has been non-existent. To date, I’ve had only one email follow up from the booths I visited. (The vendor had promised a special report to those who submitted a business card; since that wasn’t my experience, I hit delete.)
Unusual? Not really. This experience is probably better than some. Every vendor I spoke with gave this event a thumbs up for the money involved. One even enthused: “This was exactly targeted to where my business is now.”
The question remains the same for every promoter and the sponsors they attract: how do you generate involvement? Some of my ideas include:
Survey this year’s attendees to discover what they would like to see/hear in 2010. (In my discussions, I discovered this was not an option as there was no list from last year. In a volunteer, not for profit organization, this happens.) Plan now in order to make next year stronger.
Survey this year’s attendees on a variety of items, including presenter names, presentation titles, and event timing. Specifically:
“Getting a Second Wind to Run Your Business…Adjusting to the Landscape” titled the afternoon’s program. Two presentations provided content:
- “The Economy Sucks, So What Now?” (This presentation discussed current economics from a historical perspective and provided perspective.)
- “What Now? A Program for Business Owners after They’ve Launched their Business” (This presentation addressed marketing in its broadest sense, offering stories about the overview of marketing tools and their implementation. Handouts were unrelated to materials discussed.)
For the second year, this afternoon offering was scheduled just ahead of the NAWBO meeting. A number of women expressed concern with the “long day” such back-to-back events entailed. Would more members attend if these opportunities were presented separately? Could the Foundation attract other, non-NAWBO members if they scheduled at a different time or in a different venue?
Finally, consider a few well-placed interviews of participants to yield information for use in years to come. The organization may have a formalized debriefing program. If so, additional interviews now would add to the impact of future programs. This is called “Getting a Second Wind to Run Your Seminar.”
Other ideas? Post your responses here and I’ll pass them along.
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