S3.amazonaws.com



Just a Noticeable Difference: The Key to Cutting Through the Competition ClutterIt's great to be here and I love talking to small businesses and I think you and SCORE for all the great work you do. You guys are amazing and help so many businesses succeed in these tough times today. Thank you for your sponsorship. Absolutely and thank you for being here as well. Let me just start out by saying, I know having started a number of businesses myself how hard it is to get a business off the ground and be successful and even though today we have a lot of wonderful resources that we didn't have even 10 or 15 years ago, it is still really tough . What I've noticed is, and I ask people sometimes, our small businesses going the way of the dinosaur? It is really scary, during the recession we saw so many things -- businesses go out of business. In fact, the research shows for a period of time there were more businesses that were failing than those that were starting up and they were creating fewer jobs. We saw brands that we loved. For example, one of my favorite stores was Linens & Things. All of these businesses that we thought were great businesses at the time suddenly disappeared. I also learned is that even as the firms are starting up today, they are creating fewer and fewer jobs. Why is that? There's a lot of uncertainty in the market. We seen -- we seen all of these closings. It's a scary thing when you are putting your time and talent at risk and also your financial resources. Of course you want to succeed, but when you see even big companies losing ground and going out of business it is scary as a smaller company. What can we do about that? The solution is what I call the One Percent Edge, or just that noticeable difference. Let me explain what I mean by that. What is the edge? We've all seen innovation and companies where it has been very disruptive. All you have to think about is Goober and what it did to the taxi industry. As a business owner, we really don't need to be doing the next crazy, unbelievable thing that is way out there. What we need to do is adjust the incremental improvements and creating that edge in our businesses. If you think about it, in this way it is a simple process. At 211 degrees water is very hot and at 212 degrees it is boiling. That one to Gary difference -- degree difference makes a world of difference. What I'm saying is you just need to turn up the burner a little bit, just that One Percent Edge , and constantly innovate to keep ahead of the competition. Leverage that success -- edge for your success. I created a thought about why is it that not every business is doing this? Why are we seeing these big brands going out? Let's take a look at Polaroid. They had a big step up. They had instant photography which is -- was a precursor to digital photography. What happened to them? They are trying to make a comeback but they are gone. Same thing happened to Kodak. They invented digital photography but they failed to see the opportunity. Why is that? It's not that their management leadership was dumb or the product didn't work, it is because they got married to their product or service and they were resting on their laurels. When they looked at what was going on in their business they rationalized -- that is human nature. We can say we had a little downturn, it's the economy, or the weather was really bad this winter and people just weren't getting out and spending money like they used to or companies are used to the economy so they are cutting back. People will always pay for what they value. There is always an opportunity to look at a void in the marketplace. What's missing and what can I deliver? If you think about this, a number of years ago there were a couple of guys who were really struggling in their business and trying to get their careers off the ground. They were in their 20s and they had been friends were really long time and they couldn't figure out what it was they wanted to do. They got together and said, we will just go into business together. After all, how hard can that be? I hope all of you are listening -- listening are laughing right now. They didn't even know what kind of business they wanted to go into but they knew they like to to eat and their favorite food was ice cream. They got correspondence and they learned how to make ice cream and they rented some space in Burlington, Vermont and in 1978 they opened their ice cream shop. By now I know you all know who I'm talking about and of course I am talking about Ben & Jerry's ice cream. It's a great entrepreneurial success story. The reason I'm bringing this up is not because they were big successes. It's because they could've gone into business and made ice cream pretty much the same way everybody else does it. They could've made a great butter pecan or pistachio and some strawberry and maybe they would've made a great following or opened up a few extra locations, but it wouldn't of been the great success story it is today if they had not a created that noticeable difference. People lined up in front of that little gas station in Burlington, Vermont to get their ice cream because the couldn't get it anywhere else. They threw in all of these funky flavors. The actual process of making the ice cream was probably no different than anybody else, but they mixed it up. They made it different. Instead of going to the Dairy Queen or Baskin-Robbins, people showed up at Ben & Jerry's. Because that was the only place you could get Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Those kind of funky flavors that we all know that we love. It is that noticeable difference. It's not that they invented ice cream, they created enough of an edge so that people could know that the only place they could get that kind of ice cream would be at Ben & Jerry's. And as they say, the rest is history. I'm sure all of those listening probably have your favorite flavor of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. I have to be very candid, mine happens to be Cherry Garcia. I can't keep it in my freezer. What is really ironic is it was named after Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead. Here is what I love. Jerry Garcia is noted to have said it's not enough to be perceived as the best at what you do, you have to be perceived as the only one who does what you do. The only one who does what you do. So if you are standing back and resting on your laurels or following a blueprint or doing a cookie-cutter business, you are not going to create that competitive edge and really cut through the competition because you will be a commodity. Why would they go to Alexei versus Susan if they can get the same thing virtually at the same place. As we go forward, what I would like to challenge you to do is think about how you position your business in the market. Think about your marketing materials and what you tell your customers or clients. And if you could take your competitors logo and paste it onto your material and vice versa and it was still pretty well work, you don't have to notice -- a noticeable difference. There's always an opportunity to find that unique little something in the marketplace that nobody else has. That's why I came up with a process called the One Percent Edge process. It is how you can build innovation into your company's DNA. The great thing about talking to all of you today is the fact that when we are running a smaller business or medium-size company, we are much more agile and flexible so we can make those tweaks in our business and we don't have to worry about running it through the bureaucracy or compliance or legal department. When we see an opportunity, we can seize it and go forward with it. It may not always work out but by golly we can be there and turn on a dime. It's the difference between if you are boat -- a boater turning a scarab or the Queen Mary. You have an opportunity to create that innovation. The first step in this process is to sit back, get away from your business and really think and reflect on it. If you have some key players on your team, they should be involved as well. This is where you start asking yourself the tough questions. You start off with if I were doing business this way today, what I continue doing it. If so, yes and why? If so no, why? Looking around you and saying, what do I see coming up on the horizon? What are the market trends? Do I really understand what my customers and clients are wanting? What is the competition looking like? Is there competition I think are not going to take it seriously but then suddenly they explode? I can't tell you how many large organizations have failed to see that competition coming along and what happens is once you lose your footing it's difficult to get it back and so you really have to pay attention to what is going on around you and who is doing what and why. You also need to find about -- find out about what's going on with technology. I spoke recently to the national court reporters Association and technology is changing that entire industry. Here are business owners all across the country trying to reinvent themselves in order to keep pace with this changing industry. What is the technology that can change our industry? And Justin -- as important what legislation out there may affect your business? What is going on that you maybe need to start positioning yourself for now before it's too late? The thing about this process is you have to park your ego at the door. There cannot be, as they say, any sacred cows. There should be no questions that you are afraid to ask, no dumb ideas. Everything is a possibility and by looking at all of these possibilities it gives you an opportunity to really begin to say this is how I'm going to stay a step ahead of everybody. If you have your nose buried in the business day today and you can't look up and see what's around you, guess what? There will be somebody coming around in the fast lane and blowing you away. I can't take credit for this line but I spoke at an event with the founder of Quicken loans and he talked about you have two choices, either you are a status quo person and company or status grow person or company. In today's marketplace where everything changes rapidly, you want to be the status grow company. You want to be out there making those improvements on a constant basis with innovation based in your DNA. With that in mind, after you have looked at all of these opportunities and you have looked at what's going on, you begin to set priorities for your business. What I've always recommended people do is say, what are the most important priorities we can do right now that would make an immediate difference? Pick the top five or maybe top 10 and draw a line. Put the rest of them down below. Don't abandon them, but the dose write them down also. Remember you have so much bandwidth and you can't do everything and you can't be everywhere. One of the mistakes I see small businesses make is a lot of major activities -- running around and we are going to do this and that -- and they don't get anything accomplished. I happen to be a dog lover and right now I have two puppies and they love to chase their tails around and around in circles and they fall over exhausted but they never accomplish anything. Activity for activities sake or change for change sake's -- sake isn't the answer. It's about looking at those priorities and saying these make sense right now for our business and write down why they make sense. What are your assumptions? Why do you think this will work? Don't just guess at it. Try to be as factual as you can. Look at what's happening in the marketplace. Put it on a piece of paper, listen to your employers and customer base. As you do that, and this is the hard part, you have to cut the deadweight. When I said some of these bigger companies got into trouble because they got so married to their product or service, they got so married to their way of doing business and married to their customers or the people on their staff that they couldn't see the forest for the trees. You as a business owner when you are asking those tough questions, you of course want to look at your product and services. What is our profitability right now? Is it shrinking? Is the demand for this market going down? Is it costing us too much money to deliver this? Are there services and products we can do to shore up our offering? Or do we need to get rid of that completely and focus on a different revenue stream that is more profitable for us at this time? That is a tough question to answer because it's always tough to let go of a core service. If it's not making you money, in fact if you are starting to lose money and the market is shrinking, you have to make those hard decisions for your business. You also have to look at your business operations. Are you using the right system and process? I've actually talked to business owners who use software packages that don't talk to each other. Before you know it things slip through the cracks or there is a redundancy and activity and so that lowers your profitability and productivity. Are we really using the right technologies, the right systems, the right process to push our business forward? And to deliver the best customer experience for our customers and clients? You also have to take a look at your people. I think probably out of all of this, this is the toughest decision for business owners because we are busy. Sometimes you think a warm body and a chair is better than nobody, but that's not the case. You need people who are creative and innovative and who feel empowered to share ideas with you to see your vision, who are ready and willing to go for what you see all rowing in the same direction and anxious to succeed and to help you build that vision. One of the biggest things costing companies a ton of money these days in the U.S. is disengagement. So many people show up for their job, they do what is expected of them, they take their check and they go home. They have no real passion or incentive or creativity to be involved in the business. That is not only costing all companies of all sizes but for smaller business those businesses that is hurting your bottom line. If you have a small team and you have someone with a lackluster approach or constantly says that's not my job, it is hurting your morale also. It's probably hurting the image your customers have of your company. You have to be willing to make those tough decisions and cut the deadweight. Once you have figure those things out, you want to draft a plan of action and execute it. When I said write down your assumptions, this is where it becomes important. As you execute you need to nail a measure whether or not your assumption was right, are you getting a return on investment? Is this going the way we thought? Are we going after the right customers? Are we hitting the right demographics? All of those questions need to be part of your plan so you can answer them as you are executing on it. The key is that the five-year strategic plan is dead. That's yesterday's news. Your plan needs to be executed in real time and it needs to be evaluated in real time. When you have those assumptions, you can evaluate it very quickly and you can decide whether you need to tweak it, go forward or abandon it completely. As I said, too many companies get fat, dumb and happy. You can't rest on your laurels. It's amazing to me -- I don't care how many great customers you think you have, how loyal you think they are, -- I can guarantee you over 80% of them -- if a better option came along they would leave you. That is why it is so critical for you to be constantly innovating and enhancing your operations -- product offerings. I love this quote from Sam Walton. Do it. Try it. Fix it. As I said earlier, if you try something and it doesn't work out it is not the end of the world. That is the way you learn. That is the way you grow. Smaller companies, we are agile and we can bounce back in a heartbeat. I love that Bill Gates always says failure is research. I don't think there is any wildly successful business owner out there that hasn't had some sort of failure along the way. Some of them have been more expensive than others and some have been rather small, but everybody does it. You have to have the right people and when I was growing my Internet company I needed someone who had some digital video experience. We were one of the first video sites on the Internet and it was hard to find back. I've had two candidates. One I felt could learn more about it and seemed to be a good fit for the organization about the all those other one already had a pretty good salt -- solid skill set. I hired the one with the skill set. One month later we were walking him out the door. He was such a bad fit and I learned from that. You go with your values, you go with where you think is the right way for the business and you want the right people for your team and you want to make sure you're not just out selling but you are solving your customers problems and you are listening and you are going to do it, try it and fix it and if it doesn't work out you will move forward. You will go down that list of priorities and pick up the other opportunities you saw and see which ones you will go for next. The sixth step in this process is to repeat from the beginning. Seriously. I don't know how many of you worked in corporate America but I have been in programs where you sit down and for days and days you come up with all of this process and you draw diagrams and everybody gets a big binder and you stick it in your drawer and that's it. Nobody touches it again. This process is about the constant evaluation. You should be reviewing every aspect of your business on a regular basis, at least once a month. Your team needs to be on board also. They need to know how they fit into the whole process and how they are just as important to listen to what they are saying and to focus on moving the business forward. That is why you keep repeating it. That is how you build the innovation into your company's DNA. I always say in order to do this you have to have a leader with what I call a leadership edge mindset. If you change your attitude, you change your results. I have a podcast called One Percent Edge and I was interviewing someone this past week and we were talking about transformational leadership. I think years ago -- I'm a baby boomer dose we had our hierarchy. When I worked in the corporate world setting once, you knew somebody's rank by the size of their office space, whether they had one or two chairs and so on and so forth. That is all yesterday's news. A lot of us who start businesses, that's our baby. We are proud of it. It's our idea. It's very hard to let go and grow and become this data Sgro. -- Status grow. We won't get the change results we want in today's fast-paced economy. It's critical for the leadership edge to be able to understand your strength and weaknesses and be willing to step back and bring people in who can augment your skill set so that you can move your business forward. After all, I know we all like to think we are pretty smart and we are. You guys are all smart but we can't know everything. Many of us start businesses because we are really good at what we do and yet we don't understand other important business fundamental aspects and that is where you start to bring the right people in to augment your skill set so that you can begin to see a change in your results. When I was talking about people, let's talk about that. I said the right people, the people who are innovative and creative and such. The mistake you don't want to make is hiring someone who looks just like you in the mirror, who thinks like you, who has the same background as you. Because you will all be what does marching down the same street together. A really innovative team is one that is diverse, comes from different backgrounds. I'm talking about educational background, geographic backgrounds, age groups, race, ethnicity does all of those things are important for capturing those ideas. You need people really who are entrepreneurial in their own way. If you look at what happened to Procter & Gamble, they were blindsided. That little company came and started packing away -- packing away at their heels. Procter & Gamble started hiring people with more entrepreneurial experience. They bring that innovative mindset to the people. With your people you want to make sure there is power to question you. One of the things I mentioned with being a baby boomer, if your boss said to those do this, you did it and you didn't question. Today's workplace is different. People want to understand the purpose. They want to understand the purpose of your organization, the why of what you are doing and from what I have found in research with millennial's, they are more apt to question why are we doing this? What is the purpose and what is the good outcome from this? You cannot be threatened by that because it may uncover something that you never thought of. You want them to feel like there is a safe harbor for them to talk about those things. As I said earlier, throw out all of those ideas. See what kinds of crazy things are out there. Throw that spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks. You never know. Encourage them to try new things. I know some people who actually have a failure of the month award. They want the employee has dose that has taken the most incentive and maybe it didn't work out to be recognized that at least we gave it the old college try and if nobody died, guess what? It's a good thing because we have learned that maybe it didn't work that way but maybe there is another idea there. We want them to feel empowered, safe, make sure they are stepping up and recognize in today's environment where it is 24 seven dose we all have our smart phones and tablets. We are connected to the office literally 24 hours a day. How many people grabbed their smart phone and look at their emails or text messages before their feet even at the ground after they wake up. It's a constant, nonstop thing. I think today we have to recognize that as people we all have holistic needs. We all need to be recognized as individuals and just because you have cheeks in chairs doesn't mean the work is getting done. Unless you have a situation where you have to have front-line people, give them that flexibility to work when and how they want to work as long as the goals are there it shouldn't matter. As long as your product is serviced, your customer service is consistent throughout, it really doesn't matter. You will find people will be more likely to be attracted and loyal to your business under those circumstances. It's not always money that motivates people. I know people who have worked at companies for years and probably could've gone to work for a much better paying job, but because of the way they were treated, because of the way they felt like they were respected, because they felt like they had input they would rather stay and work in that environment than chase the almighty dollar. A lot of small business owners say, I can't attract people because I can't pay them what the big companies pay them. What can you do? What can you offer them in order to make a culture that says this is the company where I want to work. This is an innovative company, this is a company that will respect me and I feel like I can achieve and accomplish something. One of the things I did it my business, everybody is different but we had a pet friendly environment when we had a brick-and-mortar office. People could bring their dogs to work. There's a lot of research that shows people love that. It reduces stress, it increases morale, increases productivity. It doesn't have to be that you have to create an environment like Google where you have foosball machines and tables and chairs and a gym. What can you do to make it a fun, comfortable place to work and give them flexibility so that you know -- they know you respect them as an individual. Finally, ask them what their aspirations are. I hear people that go to work for other people and they never get asked what are your talents? What do you like to do? Who are you as a person? One of the things I always ask people is, where do you see yourself in five years? And by the way you don't have to say working for me. What are your achievements and how can we help you get there? All of those things help businesses attract and retain the great talent you need to build the innovation into your company. The other thing I mentioned about products and not being a cookie-cutter product dose product and following the same old same old. I taught an MBA class once and it was on entrepreneurial strategy. I always said it's a great and to learn the formulas. It's a great thing to read the case studies but I can tell you right now if you are trying to follow a blueprint, if you are reading a book and a case study, following a formula -- you are already yesterday's news. If you are jumping on the bandwagon today, you are already too late because the bandwagon failed. I love this quote from John D Rockefeller. If you want to succeed you should strike out on a new path rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success. What can you bring to your business? It doesn't have to be disruptive. It just has to be that critical edge that 1% --, that 1% difference that everybody says while I can only get this at -- wow I can only get this at Susan's business. If you go to their website they have a graveyard of ice cream flavors that failed and look at this one, Schweddy Balls, who would think that would work? They gave it a try and it didn't work. They moved on. They laugh about it. They have their graveyard of failure. We have to have the confidence to say, if this didn't work out there is something else out there for me. Some other market niche I can identify and I will move on and learn from this. Speaking of marketing, years ago I had an advertising agency and back then we tossed our messages out there. You might remember some of these old ads . We only had a few ways to get our message out. You sent out a press release, hope you get a radio or TV interview, send something to a magazine, get a print ad, do direct-mail. We were speaking to the marketplace. You are hoping that they actually heard your message. Today we have to engage with the customer. We want to be a two-way street because even though we were -- are in a high-tech world, our customers want high touch. The big thing is you have to realize what you are really selling because you are not in a widget business anymore. You are not selling what you think you are. You have to understand what is it that your customer is buying from you? They are probably not buying research and assistance. They are actually wanting more traffic to their website. Pitching them on what you can do for SCO is not the first way to get their business. Helping them understand how you can help them achieve their traffic calls will motivate them. That will hit the sweet spot. I was walking on the beach here in Florida where I live the other day and there were a bunch of seagulls trying to get the fish on the beach and they were all doing the same thing. This one little seagull was walking along and bouncing up and down. He was keeping up with the others but bouncing up and down. I realized he only had one leg. He captured my attention. I watched him but more importantly he captured my heart. Engaging with customers today, as I said high-tech and high touch, you want to engage them and touch their heart and that means you have to know what you are selling. Many of you may be familiar with the Leber workshop. I happen to collect teddy bears. I can go online and buy one or I can go into target and buy a cheap one, I can go to Germany and by one but it's pretty much the same process. You pick it out, you buy it and there it is. With Build A Bear workshop you go in and build that bear. You create that bear. Maxine Clark who founded Build A Bear understood she wasn't just selling teddy bears, she was selling memories and experiences. This is where you take your kids, this is where you take your niece and nephew, your grandchildren or special little friends. This is where you build experiences. A couple years ago over the holidays she did a commercial and it just tugs at my heart strings. You have to look at this. Technology is great when it works [ laughter ]. You can see the mom and dad and little girl going and to build a reindeer. The little girl is looking up at her dad and she says, do you know why I like to come here each year? And he says no, is it because you get to build your little reindeer? She said no. Because you get to build -- by accessories? No. She said because I get to do this with you dad. I still get goosebumps. That is the experience she is selling. Think about Chick Fil A and their campaign. Do you think people -- do you know people dress up? They have their own Twitter account . This wasn't brain surgery. It was a very clobbering market way to engage with customers and with the right effort on your part to put the creative activity -- creativity goals you will reach them. Every problem in business is the result of a systems dysfunction, I love this quote. If you don't have the right process and systems in place, you can have the best product ever and you will have a hard time building your business because it's the process and system that enhance your customer service experience and the delivery of your product and service. Inc. about that as you are thinking about these questions we've talked about. I want to leave you with this because as I said about innovation , a lot of businesses say to me I don't know what else I can do. Walt Disney said Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world. Your business is never a final process. It is a constant effort to innovate, enhance, grow, build, succeed and it is constantly evolving. You cannot rest on your laurels. Park the egos at the door. No sacred cows. Deliver an unbelievable noticeable difference experience for your customers, employers -- employees and [ Indiscernible ]. Thank you, Susan. We will go ahead and begin the Q&A portion of our webinar. I will be reading the questions that have been submitted and are being submitted. Please continue submitting your questions and during this time period we will address just as many questions as we possibly can. With that let's go ahead and jump into these questions, Susan. The first question comes to us from Allie and she would like to know how to compete with competitors with deep pockets when you are a small and you have little funding and you want to disrupt the market with your innovative products? That is an interesting question and I will answer it in two ways. First of all, disruption is tough. I think being too disruptive initially is difficult for a small organization because you have such a learning curve within the marketplace. It's not impossible, but one thing I think we didn't get into today that gives small businesses a leg up is social media and social platforms. It used to be, as I was saying with my marketing business, we had one way to get messages out there. Today you can become your own publishing house using Twitter and following your competitors and listening to what people are saying about them and jumping in where you hear market voids that you can fill where your competitor can't. Using Facebook to engage with people and to get into conversations, LinkedIn to get into forums to let people know here is what you are doing. Not selling but building that network and report. I don't know what your product is but in any case Insta Graham is another, blog posting, podcast -- podcasts. It's getting to be a huge thing. A number of people -- it takes time and it can happen for you as well. Facebook Live, I know people who are going on Facebook live and the lady that babysits my dog when I'm out of time cells a product -- sells a product on Facebook live. People used to say I don't have the money to market my business. Now I get the pushback, I don't have the time to do all this. You can't afford not to make the time if we really want to grow your business. The key is, find out where your market is, what platforms they use, what do they respond to and be consistent. You really have to make a commitment to it so that people get familiar with you. When I was in advertising people used to say to me it takes a while for people to hear your message in the marketplace. The interesting thing is once you quit advertising there is a halo effect and people still think you are out there. It takes a little while so it is the same thing with social media. It takes a little while to build that kind of rapport and get the message out there. I will tell you I was in Washington D.C. a couple of years ago and Twitter was fairly new. A lady walked up to me that was -- I was getting ready to testify. She started asking me questions about my dog and my books. I said I'm sorry, this is my first cup of coffee and I just can't put a name with a face. I apologize to she said you don't know me, I just follow you on Twitter. That is the strength you can build with your market and big companies really can't do that all the time because they are big companies and big brands.. Our next question comes from Alana. She would like your advice on how much social media plays a part in your business growth? We've had a few other folks asked the same question. I think it depends on the nature of your business. I realize -- I have a lot of friends in financial services and it's hard for them to do social media because of compliance issues. On the other hand I know a gentleman who is on the East Coast who is in residential real estate which is extremely competitive and he has become the go to expert in that market because of a little blog talk radio show he does and people swarm to him now. It depends on your business, but I think it's never -- if you have a brand where it's important for people to see you as the face of the brand, it is an amazing way to build that trust. Remember, everybody likes to do business with people they know and trust. Social media is like the old-fashioned networking things where you would go to and stand around and trade cards. Now those networking events are all in cyberspace and your reach is so much broader. You can reach people all over the world. It gives you an amazing opportunity to access markets. Maybe not customers and clients, but access people you can collaborate with. Do a joint venture with, find resources and get advice from them. It is to me very important element in what I do. A lot of times I don't really market myself as a professional speaker. Business comes in the door to me now and I think it is a lot because of social media. The next question comes from [ name unknown ]. She would like to know how important is the name of the business? And does the name need to describe the business? I cannot believe you asked that question [ laughter ]. That was the headliner article in my newsletter today. Once again it depends. I think it's extremely critical because if you go out and say my company's name is Susan Solovic and Associates, nobody knows what that is. I could be a lawyer, CPA , consultant. So the normal dose more your business name projects and gives an image to what you do is critical. The caveat to that is, let's say you are in a business where your area is known for a specific thing. You have Seattle's best coffee, Seattle is known for its coffee. That works but on the flipside there was a company in St. Louis where I am from code St. Louis bread Company. When they started franchising -- called St. Louis bread Company. When they started franchising they had to change the name. They changed to Panera. Dunkin' Donuts decides they don't want to be known as just doughnuts so they changed their name to Duncan. Kentucky fried chicken is now KFC. You want to give people enough of a sense that they don't have to guess or you have to go into an explanation. You would like to -- them to see right away. Okay. Our next question comes to us from Lindsay. She says small businesses -- business is very cutthroat and smaller times so how would you recommend staying above any negativity without letting other businesses walk all over you? That's a shame. I'm sorry to hear that. I have been seeing quite the opposite. A lot of collaborative work with small businesses in smaller areas. In fact there's a website called Alignable and they promote businesses working with each other within local regions. I'm sorry to hear that. I think obviously the big thing is to stay out of the Meyer. It's sort of like a clique in high school and people start talking about other people so you just rise above it and you don't get into it. On the other hand you might try to turn the table and go to some of these noncompetitive businesses in the area and say how can I help you promote your business? They might be caught off guard and you might find out there is great crosspromotional efforts. The funniest one I ever did was it was a day spa next to a Midas muffler shop. People would come in and drop off their car and they would have to sit there and wait. So she did coupons for people waiting for their cars to come over and get a manicure. And if people wanted -- came into her shop they got a Midas coupon. It was too crazy companies that you wouldn't think would be able to work like that, but it was a successful campaign. Next question comes to us from Shea. She would like to know what are ways that they can find out who their market is or where the market is? I think you would want to start -- if you haven't already -- to go to SCORE or SBA and get some demographics. You need to get a feel yourself of who it will appeal to. MI appealing to millennial's? Is it -- am I appealing to a millennial? Should it be more in a middle income area? Do I shoot for medium-size businesses that have a larger budget or do I want to chase other companies. You need to do self-evaluation and I recommend you work with a mentor, a SCORE advisor answer -- or something like that. I'm sure all of them have had some experience with reaching that type of product or service into the market. That would be one of the first things. I would also -- as you can into social media you have probably heard about big data and most people I talked to think big data is expensive but it is really how you utilize the data you have at your fingertips. Using Google analytics to see who's coming to your website, what are they looking at, where are they coming from? Who is friending you on social media and you can start to get a feel and sense of what's happening in your marketplace so that you know a little more of where your sweet spot is. There is a little bit of experiment. Like I was saying, Sam Walton says to do it, try it, fix it. You may think this is my sweet spot and realize you missed it and you need to tweak it. There is some data out there to help you and some is experimentation. You might consider some informal focus groups. Bring people in that you respect and admire, not necessarily close friends and family but people that would be honest with you. Get a sense of what age group would buy this? How much would they pay? Where would I reach them? Buy them some pizza and pick their brains a little bit. Our next question comes from Alyssa. She would like to know what do you do if there is a shift in the need of the service your company provides without throwing out all of what you've been working for previously? There's always that tough thing because you don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. You want to focus on your core competencies without abandoning it completely. You saw that with RadioShack. I think what you do is before you get to that point you need to be seeing what's going on and looking to see what kinds of other enhancements can you do with this product or service? Maybe it is even collaborating with another business to create a bigger offering or service? I think -- I was consulting with a company that is a dog training facility and there have been some changes in that industry so now they are starting to say I don't think we can just do dog training anymore even though that is their core. They are starting to get extra space and going into doggie daycare and a few other services that are synergistic to what they were doing. I think that would be one of the first things you can look at. What is synergistic with what I'm doing and also I was working with a medicine dose medical supply company and they found they would go in and sell the product and send somebody in for a day or two to train but then the facility still needed more training so as they saturated their sales, they created another division that would go in and do ongoing training and development with the team to offset the drop in sales for the dose medical device itself. -- Medical device itself. The next question comes from William. He would like to know how important is it to write a guidebook on your subject matter to attract your target market? In today's marketplace if you have an e-book or something like that it is a great business card, it really is. People always love that and a lot of times people say, if I tell everybody how to do this they won't need to hire me. The problem is you can read all the guidebooks and how to's but if it is not your area of expertise, you might know enough to be dangerous or ask the right questions but you will hire the person that has the credibility to write that. Publishing an e-book online is a no-brainer. I had to get a real publisher for my's book and go through the contract and all of that. The world has changed so much and it really gives you a lot of credibility. I would say any kind of content you can develop and put out there gives you much more credibility and it will also attract the search engines to your site more the more relevant content you have and it will get clients back on a regular basis. On my website I post a blog every single day and we have guest bloggers that post every day. Once a week we have a new podcast that goes up. We are constantly bringing new content so our traffic keeps increasing as people find us more and more in the search engine, if you type in small business expert, I'm the first one that comes up after the paid search is. It makes a huge difference and I would highly recommend it. You can have a few printed if you want to hand out and have it available on your website. Ask people to register for it in order to download it so that you can build your database. It's a great idea. Susan, we have time for one last question and this comes from Jenny. She would like to know is it possible to run a successful business without the use of Facebook? Of course it is. Absolutely. For one thing if you happen to be in a highly B2B business, Facebook won't work for you. It's definitely possible to do. I wouldn't abandon some of the other ones. I think Twitter has certainly changed the whole conversation in this country and a lot of ways and I won't get into the politics of it that I think we are seeing so many people out there on Twitter having conversations . I think LinkedIn is a great resource for business because it is more -- it is more focused on professionalism but there are a lot of great groups you can join and you can establish yourself as an expert and gain the credibility that you need. It is certainly possible to go without Facebook. All right. Those are all the questions we have time to address today. If we did not have a chance to get your question during this Q&A segment, we encourage you to contact with a square mentor. Mentors can be found online or in a local chapter near you. I will post a link in the chat box in just a second that you can get further information on and also if you are interested in becoming a square mentor, you can get further information and apply online through these links that I just posted. As a reminder, a link to the recording of this session and the presentation slide deck will be sent in a postevent email. That will be sent in a little bit so be on the lookout for that. On behalf of SCORE I would like to thank you all so much for taking the time out of your day to attend this session and I would like to give a very big thank you to Susan Solovic for presenting today. Thank you so much, Susan, for being here. It was my pleasure and thanks to everyone for turning out. You guys have done a great job and I wish you all great success. Registration is open for small business week virtual conference which is being hosted by the SBA and SCORE . The conference is being held May 1 through May 3 and includes 12 educational webinars, mentor session, those sessions and much more. Here is a link you can go to register for the event. It's in the chat box. Thank you so much for everyone -- to everyone for being here. We hope you have a great rest of your day and take care. [ Event Concluded ] ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download