This is an excellent four minute video that KikScore recommends for both the small business community and online shoppers on tips to stay safe online. The video features the author of Black Hat: Misfits, Criminals, and Scammers in the Internet Age, John Biggs. In the video, John covers steps for staying safe when sharing data and information about yourself online, interacting on social networking sites, buying online and accessing the internet outside of your home. He has a lot of good guidance in the video including his rule to live by that you should not say or share information online that you would not be comfortable sharing in a crowded room.
Take a look, it is a good video.
Please tell us what you think about the tips John Biggs provided in the video in the comments section below.
Late last week, PressTV asked to interview KikScore about some recent developments in cybersecurity and cybercrime. PressTV’s Rhonda Pence sat down with me to discuss a number of topics related to online fraud, safe online shopping, the security of our networks and the rise in power and damage that hackers inflict on the public. Her report also covered a recent study that found that 1 in 5 online shoppers have experienced a cybersecurity issue when they shop online. This echoes what we previously covered in an earlier post about a March 2010 government report that found a 22% increase in cybercrime complaints.
Take a look at the video report. It is short and about 2 minutes long.
After watching the video, you may want to take a look at our 5 Must Read Tips for Safe Online Shopping. It will help you increase your chances of staying safe. Also special thanks to Rhonda and Nick Ewing for helping me with getting a copy of the video interview. Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.
We met Sterling Ashby at the KikScore sponsored Social Commerce Camp DC and he has a very intriguing story that any small business would be interested in hearing. Sterling is a lawyer by trade (like a couple of us at KikScore), but his real passion is his business that sells children’s toys that are based on real-life American heroes. Using real heroes from history, Sterling has created a series of action figures for children that are fun, can be positive role models, and whose real-life stories awaken both a child’s imagination and appeal to the kid within us all. History in Action Toys was born from this. He now sells these highly popular action figures online at www.hiatoys.com. I can tell you when my two month old gets a little bigger, I am buying some action figures from Sterling’s site!
In this 5 minute small business video interview of Sterling, we cover a wide range of issues including:
1) the challenges of having a business online;
2) crowdsourcing marketing and ideas;
3) building buzz on Twitter, Facebook and other social media channels for your online store and business;
4) a few of the tips that Sterling learned from Social Commerce Camp; and
5) a few examples of real life heroes that Sterling now offers as action figures at HIA Toys that the community should check out.
Please tell us your thoughts on this interview in the comments section below.
If you run a small business, we all have the challenge of staying focused. We are pulled in a hundred different directions. You have customers calling you, that new product or service you want to launch, your accountant keeps calling you about this year’s taxes and oh yeah that employee you hired that is just driving you nuts because they are jamming to Lady Gaga’s Poker Face all day at work and not helping you at all.
This Saturday Night Live skit has a good lesson for all of us. Christopher Walken plays THE Bruce Dickinson during the taping of one of the 1970’s classic songs by Blue Oyster Cult, “Dont Fear The Reaper.” Walken playing Dickinson implores the band to focus on one critical element to make the song successful. You will have to watch the video to really see.
1. Every day make sure you are focusing on the central pillars of your business. If its marketing to a niche, make sure you are doing everything possible to support your efforts doing that. If it is creating a consistent and coherent brand and then building it. Make sure you have laser focus on this pillar.
2. Eliminate or reduce the distractions of other tasks throughout the day so you can focus on the tasks that grow your business. Here is a great post on how to eliminate distractions in your business.
3. Try, and try again. Even if you do get distracted. Stop just like Dickinson does when he interrupts the band’s jam sessions and he makes the band focus on what he sees as the critical element! If you get distracted, acknowledge it and get back to your core tasks. Yes, that means stay off TMZ and WaitingforNextYear (side note: great Cleveland blog – everyone growing up in CLE knows the refrain with our sports teams…”There is always next year.”)
4. In the video, learn from Will Ferrell, that even if focusing on a critical element makes you look odd in your business or you have to anger some people by telling them to take a back seat while you focus on More Cowbell go ahead and do it. That focus will only help you and your business to grow, even if it has lots of cowbells.
5. At the end of every rehearsal (i.e. after you end a business day) look back and do a post-mortum: did you focus on the areas of your business that were most important? If not, figure out what you will do to refocus tomorrow. If so, go celebrate and have a margarita – just dont spill it on your pants!
Did you learn anything from The Bruce Dickinson’s demand for “More Cowbell!” Please tell us in our comments section.
On a Friday before the long, Martin Luther King weekend, we thought we would change things up a bit here. We would hit you with a 2009 masterpiece from the startup master, Guy Kawasaki. If you do not already know, Guy is a venture capitalist who did a couple of early tours at Apple and is the author of a start-up must read, the Art of the Start. He is now the Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures, is running his latest company, Alltop, and continues to give speeches and talks across the country on startups, innovation, entrepreneurship, social media and small business success.
This video is a (well) sliced version of a presentation he gave last year where he discusses in about 8 minutes the 10 steps (plus a bonus one) for innovation and making your startup a great company. Since KikScore is a startup we pay particular attention to the guidance, like Guy’s presentation, that is given on startups. In fact, you can see that in our series where we narrate some of the issues we face building our startup into a viable business.
Please check out the video of Guy’s presentation below so you get context for these ten steps that he covers:
1. Make Meaning
2. Make Mantra
3. Jump to the Next Curve
4. Roll the Dice
5. Don’t Worry be Crappy (no that is not a typo)
6. Let 100 Flowers Bloom
7. Polarize People
8. Churn Baby Churn
9. Niche Yourself
10. Follow the 10/20/30 Rule
11. (Bonus) – Don’t Let Bozos Grind You Down
Please tell us what your thoughts are on the 10 steps.
We all use business cards. Can you tell me the last one that made an impact on you? Some people would say that cards are just supposed to convey basic contact information. But think about it. A business card is the first item that a business contact sees that conveys your personality and creativity after a conversation. So why not actually use your business card to make that impression?
As 2010 gets rolling, we at KikScore thought this would be a good 10 minute, highly enjoyable video of a presentation from the GrownSmartBiz Conference that Steve Fisher gave on business cards (the presentation starts a little after the 5 minute mark). Check it out and let us know if you are going to make a change to your business cards in 2010 so you can start making an impression.
We get the question a lot these days about whether small businesses and in particular online stores should have blogs? Often, the question is asked why should a store owner spend their precious time blogging. Here are some reasons that an online store should blog:
1. SEO Value: It is no secret that Google and other search engines really like and prefer fresh website content. A blog is a quick, easy way to continually provide new and fresh content related to your store and your website. The more posts that you create and publish and then syndicate to various blog search engines like Technorati, MyVenturePad and SocialMedian the better. Also when you incorporate relevant keywords into posts, that content is spidered by Google and other search engines, and that then helps your overall search results for those keywords. That is because you are creating more relevant content and website pages related to those keywords for your store.
2.Humanizing Your Store: Shoppers and people in general like to shop and interact with businesses that they can relate to and like. Use your blog to educate your customers, prospects, the community and the industry on who your business is, your business culture and ideals and the personality of your business. There are many ways to do that including using videos on your blog to introduce employees as we described previously. Giving shoppers and your customers a more in depth look at your brand and your business allows customers to create a bond with your business. This can help drive word of mouth marketing of your store by these customers and shoppers.
3. Another Channel to Feature Products: Online stores can use a blog to describe and introduce new products or product lines to your customers and the market. You can also have blog posts that describe a special discount on a product. Some stores even use their blog to outline special features of their products that may not be obvious. You can even use a blog to create your own Frequently Asked Questions for your products which can help reduce your customer service calls and call drivers.
4. Way to Engage Your Customers: Having a blog is a great way to interact with your customers. Your customers and the greater community can visit your blog, read the posts and then comment on those posts. When they do, it gives you and your store and opportunity to have a conversation with your customers. This also has the benefit of giving your customers a forum to discuss your products. That is a great alternative to your customers not having a forum and then posting negative feedback on a third party website that you do not control.
5. Linking And Traffic Benefits: If you have a blog, it gives you a great opportunity to link to third party websites. BUT, it also allows other websites to link to your posts and your store. If you can combine this, with an affirmative strategy on your own where you go out and post comments to other blogs, those bloggers will eventually return the favor and post comments on your store’s blog. For some more context, here is a good post from blogging experts on getting more blog comments. If you are active with other blogs, those bloggers will often also add links to your site and in some cases they will feature your products and store on their blog. All of this taken together can really help increase the visibility of your store and drive new traffic. It all begins with your blog!
Now let us note that, having a blog is just one step in your overall marketing, social media and branding strategy. Combine your blog use with a strategy that uses Twitter and Facebook like we outlined previously here and here and you can really begin to extend the reach of your store to new communities, customers and industry experts that your business never would have reached before.
Let us know if you have any tips for using a blog for your online store.
It really surprises me that small businesses do not more often use videos and online clips to help them with promoting their business. Before YouTube, online videos were relatively few and far between. But with YouTube’s popularity and the explosion of video clip sites, online videos are everywhere. Not only are they everywhere, today these video clips are even easier to upload and circulate. If you have not seen the wedding video from this summer that went seriously viral, this is one example of how easy it is to get a video uploaded and circulated (this video has had over 32 Million views. Yes, I said million).
So what how can your business start using videos.
1. Introduction Video – Start by have an introductory video on your website. The introductory video can help you introduce your company to shoppers. An introductory video can also personalize the experience that a website visitor has as they can virtually “meet” the management of your small business. An introductory video allows potential customers to see who they are about to do business with and can give you a boost of credibility.
2. Product Video - Sometimes it is difficult for website visitors to get a grasp of a product and its key features from a list on a website. Try a short product video that describes your company’s product. Use a video where a company representative or owner can narrate a description of a product and also personalize the product experience. Sometimes a product can be a lot more appealing if the customer hears a passionate voice that is describing the product in detail while that company spokesperson highlights the key product benefits. Check out KikScore’s product video at the bottom of this previous post.
3. Customer Testimonials - You can also use online videos for short customer testimonials about a product or an experience with your company. You can then post these testimonial videos in the “Testimonial” section of your company’s website. When do you get to shoot these customer videos? Use a customer meeting or your next industry conference to shoot a quick video of the customer. Also it never hurts to ask a customer too. If you will not be seeing a customer that you know is happy with your product, just ask them if they can record a short video with their video phone and have them send it to you. The quality may vary, but online video can now be cleaned up very quickly.
4. Educational Videos - These types of videos are underrated but can really be helpful for potential customers. Take the time to shoot short videos that can contain educational tips for your customers. You can even use this as an opportunity to have employees or product managers film these tips so they can get some “face time” with your customer community. Using employees is also a good way to convey your brand to the world by allowing the community to put an employee name to the face of your company.
5. Thought Leadership Videos – There has been a real rise in posting of videos that have been taken from conference speeches or panel sessions. Next time you are speaking at a conference or an event, make sure the video of your speech gets uploaded to YouTube (provided there are no copyright issues) and then gets posted on your website. As potential and actual customers start to see you as a thought leader in the industry, your business and management will get even more credibility.
So start using videos today to spread the word about your business. Tell us in the comments how your company plans to use video in the future.
While entrepreneurs may share various character and personality traits, there are may types of of entrepreneurs. Some exist under the radar while others get all of the hype. The one that probably gets the most news coverage and are therefore the most well known is the startup entrepreneur. The startup entrepreneur is the person that takes an idea, may get some angel or VC funding (or even self fund) and creates and launches a product. These types of entrepreneurs get a lot of coverage as they sometime have high profile exits where other companies buy their product for millions of dollars. The recent Mint.com story is an example of this.
Other Entrepreneur Types
Of course there are many other types. One that is getting a lot of recent attention is the home based business entrepreneur. Businessweek just had an article that covered some surprising stats for this group. There are also the small business entrepreneurs that have stores, shops, bars and restaurants that we all visit nearly everyday of our lives. Then there is the purely unintentional entrepreneur that due to job loss are forced into starting a business. There has been a lot of coverage of these unintentional entrepreneurs lately due to the huge amount of job losses during the economic downturn.
Enter the Night and Weekend Entrepreneur Warrior
The entrepreneur that floats under nearly every radar is the person who has a full-time day job, but still is an entrepreneur through a side business. As demonstrated from this clip from the cult classic Office Space, Milton Waddams exemplifies where some people get their motivation for their side business while they work their full time job:
While nights and weekend entrepreneurs have various motivations for starting their businesses, they all face very similar experiences:
1) Time Crunch – Even more than other entrepreneurs, because of their 9-6 day jobs, nights and weekend warriors can really only fully focus on their side businesses during limited time periods. That can be used as an advantage because since time is so precious, these types of entrepreneurs must be even more focused on time management and efficiency when they do work on their own business.
2) The Constant Pull Away From the Business- Each night and weekend these entrepreneurs face the temptation when they come home from work or on that weekend, to turn on the TV or to go into procrastination mode. It is even more tempting to the nights and weekend warriors because of the fatigue that sets in from the day job. Nevertheless, there are successful entrepreneurs that overcome this temptation and beat the fatigue and procrastination demon that is there every time you come home from the day job.
3) Beating the Not Doing Enough Syndrome – Because the nights and weekend warriors do not have a dedicated 40 hours of time for their business, they constantly are fighting the guilt that they are not moving fast enough or getting enough done. The way these warriors get through this syndrome is keeping that eternally optimistic side that is in the small business psyche and saying, I am moving forward and doing all I can. Otherwise, this guilt will overcome and doom you. Night and weekend entrepreneur warriors battle this syndrome every time they look at their “to do” list.
While these are common challenges, nights and weekend entrepreneurs also share the same hunger to create something that they can set the direction for and grow. We imagine that we will increasingly hear more about these entrepreneurs in the future.
Examples of Nights and Weekend Entrepreneurs
Here are just a few examples of Nights and Weekend Entrepreneurs we know about:
KikScore is a company that is made up of nights and weekend entrepreneurs and see here and here for some background on our experience.
Design 2 Print – which is KikScore’s hats and bumpersticker vendor. Rush at Design 2 Print offers a lot more promotional items such as apparel, glasses, mugs, badges, calendars and much much more. Their slogan is “Our Business is Promoting YOUR Business.”
Simply Astro – Shiv who owns this site and a host of others spends nights and weekends devoted to fine tuning his astrology, horoscope, match making and Feng Shui site.
Know of any more, please leave them in the comment section below.
We here at KikScore want to help small e-tailers and online merchants succeed by selling more. So we launched a new product late last month that allows small online businesses the ability to demonstrate to online shoppers that their business is trustworthy, reliable and has a trackrecord of success.
How does demonstrating trust help your store out? Shoppers often look for signs of trust before they buy from an online store. (We discussed this issue here and here previously) So why not give those shoppers information that directly relates to how trustworthy your business is.
The KikScore service allows you to take both publicly available information and verified information about your business and directly display it to online shoppers on your website. The information is displayed through a dynamic KikScore seal that is continually being updated. And even better, all of that information then gets scored and you can display your trust score to your shoppers. Its like presenting shoppers a continually updated report card about your business. Now, just like in the 6th grade, you can get cash from more customers, in return for your good report card!
Sign Up Information
Please try us out. The service is free for a limited time. Don’t worry, we will give you at least 60 days notice before we start to to charge for the product and you can cancel at any time. You can sign up your business here.
Its a no lose situation for you business. Try out our FREE service that allows your store to demonstrate trust so you can increase sales.
Examples of Some Merchants Using KikScore Seals
If you are wondering how the KikScore seal looks. Here are three sites that are using the seal:
Click here for a free sign ups for the KikScore service. And come back and tell us what you think in the comments. Also check out the new KikScore video!
Twitter
RSS 
Email 
Facebook 
Loading ...