Minnesota is many things.  The birthplace of Bob Dylan, Prince, and Kevin McHale.  Home of the Vikings (and Brett Farve).  It is also my home state and I just returned from a 10 day visit home.  Why 10 days?  Because when you have one vacation each year you want it to last as long as possible.  And nothing seems longer than 10 days in Minnesota.

Now to my point.  When visiting the Land of 10,000 lakes, it’s striking at how accommodating and polite everyone is (whether they actually are sincere is another question and not something that really matters).  But tied into that is how trusting everyone is.  Repeatedly I noticed people leaving their computers at the Starbucks table and my parents don’t lock their doors when they are gone all day.  Trustworthiness (or at least the absence of mal-intent) seems to be part of their DNA.

This seems to extend to e-commerce.  I was quietly watching my mother shopping online.  She was looking for some odd knitting equipment (did I mention there is nothing to do in Northern Minnesota?) and she had no hesitation visiting unknown sites.  After I explained the dangers of blindly visiting sites without any security software (and this may be the reason why her computer runs slowly) she seemed shocked that anyone would be less than honest.

As with all things related to Minnesota, the awareness of online danger will spread – probably in about 3 more years.  To give you an idea of the information delay, Minnesota still seems to be getting over the grunge look (I had to tell a few folks that Soul Asylum wasn’t a “with it” band anymore).  So, unless your target market is selling deer tick spray online, promoting trust on your site should remain a top priority.

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I am still frankly in some ways recovering from what I knew was going to happen all along.  Lebron James was going to leave Cleveland. I actually predicted it in this post about lessons small businesses and startups can learn from Lebron James after his flame out in Game 5 of the Celtics/Cavs series earlier this year.

So his departure got me thinking about a few things.  As we all know, his departure was a complete PR spectacle.  But there are some serious lessons learned.  Even strangely  I see some commonalities between how we all viewed Lebron James (especially Cavs fans) and how we decide whether we should trust someone online.

1.   People Change – Cavs fans, and frankly many in the media, thought they knew Lebron. Heck there was probably good reason for the belief, they watched him grow up in my hometown of Akron, watched him get drafted and become a global icon in Cleveland.  Many people thought that they knew Lebron to be “one of us” because he was from Ohio and knew the long frustration of Cleveland sports fans.  Boy were they (we?) wrong. Many people say something changed with Lebron in the last few months, even reporters that have covered Lebron since he was 16 and back in high school. It started with the complete collapse in Game 5 against the Celtics where he looked clueless and uninterested in playing in front of 20,000 crazed fans in a series that they should have won. And it continued to this summer where Lebron blew off the owner of the Cavs not responding to one of the owner’s calls or voicemails.  Wow, did he indeed change and change at that very quickly!

Lesson Learned: You may think you know someone online (and maybe even offline), but you need to be prepared for the unexpected. The only thing you can do to protect yourself is a) get as much information as possible about a person and business and b) always be cautious for the unexpected to happen because it will.  Also the person or business you know one day may be very different a few months or years later.  So always keep your information gathering up to date before you decide to do business online.

2. Do Not Trust Labels, Trust Actions – Lebron repeatedly said so many times he puts a premium on loyalty.  He said he is a loyal guy and that he will always be that kid from Akron.  The fans, media and even his teammates bought into that card.  Heck, I even bought into it.  You have to kind of grow up in Akron to understand it but there generally is a common bond of many people from NE Ohio that ties us together for some of the events, sports nightmares and generally ribbing we have endured.  Again, we were so wrong. You can literally have the word “Loyalty” printed on your chest like Lebron does, but it means ZERO if you do not live up to your word.

Lesson Learned: When you are online, people and businesses will say all sorts of things to get your business. They will say that they guarantee certain things, that you can trust them, that their website is safe.  Make them prove it to you by having them show you their trackrecord of reliability, trustworthiness and success.  Heck, that is what the KikScore seal allows you to do as a small business.

3. Look for Hints of Information to be Wary:  So in some ways I can say myself and the rest of the city of Cleveland/Akron feel blindsided.  But that would be naive.  There were many hints of information and actions, though small and isolated instances, that should have made people wary of what Lebron was going to do.  There was the lack of commitment to the team last year when he had the opportunity to resign, there was his space cadet look and play in game 5 of the Celtics game, there was the lack of engagement with the team after the season and then maybe the most glaring one is when Lebron constantly referred to the fact that he needed to consult “his team” for the decision.  No that would not be his Cavs teammates, that was his marketing team and his bunch of his fellow St. Vincent, St. Mary high school friends and agents. I should have known, I went to Walsh Jesuit the arch rival of St. V’s. We could never trust those guys……but that goes back nearly 20 years now.

Lesson Learned: Transparency is key.  If a person or business is transparent and gives you information about themselves and their actions, first that is a good sign because they are comfortable enough to give you that information.  But more importantly, in order for you to make that online trust decision you need to analyze that information in way that allows you to feel comfortable.  To help, here are 7 items to look for from in stores that sell online to make sure they are legitimate,  5 safe online shopping tips and some help with finding contractors you can trust online.

There probably are many more.  Please let us know which ones you think there are.  I am sure you probably heard that the Cavs owner last night had a nuclear response to Lebron breaking his trust and the city of Cleveland’s trust.  We all should learn a few things from this free agency experience so that we do not end up having to send a letter like that to a person or company you do business with online because you did not take the steps to protect yourself.

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Every year corporate efficiency wonks (or as I like to call them, the Fun Police) estimate the many billions lost by employees following the NCAA basketball tourney.  People take off work to watch the games, they talk about upsets (likeNotre Dame’s stunning loss to Old Dominion), and I’ve heard that people even participate in office betting pools.  Those sound fun…I should that out some time.   

Admittedly, focusing on college basketball isn’t business focused, but I think March Madness is good for business for a few reasons:

1.  Office morale: Betting on basketball games is an office equalizer.  The CEO is no smarter than a sales rep on who is going to win the tourney — and taking money from the bosses, if you do win, is a sweet thing.

2.  Enhance your ability to make small talk:  often when talking with customers (or potential customers), you don’t have anything in terms of small talk.  For the next several weeks, you have endless amounts of small talk (how you’re doing in the office pool, your favorite team getting beat by Old Dominion etc…etc..).  It’s the same reason why I like People Magazine, it gives me material so I can talk with anyone.

3.  Improves your project management ability:  anyone who has ever run an office betting pool will tell you that it is a nightmare unless you’re organized.  What better way to break in your new project manager than by throwing him an illegal office pool.

What’s your thoughts on the NCAA tourney?

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As the t.v. ratings indicate, U.S. audiences are caught up in Olympic fever.  I’m not exactly sure why this Olympics is so different than the Torino games in 2006.  It may be due to the fact that these Olympics are in North America and we can, generally, watch the events as they happen (not on tape delay).  I really think it’s because the U.S. is actually winning.  If we had a guy who could ski and shoot well, I guarantee that the biathlon would be a national craze.  I’m not saying this because I’m any different…I’ve never cared so much about hockey until the U.S. was playing for gold (hockey to me really is soccer on ice, and soccer is boring on grass). 

But unlike hockey players (who are professionals and merely taking a two-week Olympic vacation), and Shaun White (who is a millionaire and video game inspiration), most of the Olympic athletes work a patch-work lower paying jobs that provide them flexibility so they can train during the 3 years and 50 weeks they aren’t competing for medals. Take a member of the U.S. Curling team as an example.  According to a recent CNN article, it costs $150,000/year just to train for qualifying events.  They must use all their vacation time (and additional non-paid time) to travel to events…and oh yes, they have to train 5 hours a day.  The only upside in being an Olympic Curler is that it appears to be an in-demand activity for Wall Street traders(so they may have a future career in providing outrageously expensive lessons to overpaid quants).

All of this comes down to a point…I swear.  For entrepreneurs and small business owners, the passion is creating and growing a business.  Overtime, the business grows or at the very least the owner gains valuable business experience for the next venture.  But an Olympic Curler, after 4 years and thousands of dollars is left with little media coverage, no endorsements, and, if it’s the US team, no real shot at a medal.  That’s commitment.

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“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers”.  It’s a oft-repeated phrase from Henry VI (and from many former clients).  Love them or not, at some point, every small business is going to have to work with (or against) a lawyer.  Some do it early, some later.  Think about just setting up a business.  Do you do operate as a sole enterprise, and LLC, a corporation or (if working with others) a partnership.  What are the implications of these decisions? 

You get past formation, now does your business have a special product or process that should be protected with a patent filing?  Is your business name something you want to protect (or at least prevent your competitors from using) — if so, looks like you’ll have to consider filing for a trademark. Your website is up and running…do you have a site agreement, terms of use, etc?  What about a privacy policy?  Where do you get a good and enforceable service agreement?  Now your business is growing and you must hire employees and contractors to help, what agreements do you need in place and are you aware of the relevant employment laws and regulations.

I’m not making this post an advertisement for the legal practice, but with all the potholes out there, it’s scary.  If your business is fairly straight-forward, you can take advantage of commercial forms (take a look at LegalZoom).  But that won’t get you all the way there.  For example, we here at KikScore have a couple of lawyers as part of the team (myself included).  You’d think we wouldn’t need to hire outside lawyers for our start-up.  Well, it may be because we don’t have the brightest lawyers on staff (myself included), but we have a patent lawyer and an outside corporate lawyer helping us out.  I’m not saying this is the way to go…I’m sure because of our backgrounds we over think a lot of the decisions.  In fact, my dad has operated relatively lawyer-free for the past 30 years and has handled most of his business disputes in small claims court.  But he’s also heavily armed, so it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison.

What’s your opinion on when to call in the unfrozen cave-man lawyer?

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In honor of the day, we are doing our KikScore Small Business Thankful List.  These companies, tools and sites have been helpful for us or other start-up businesses we work with.  Clearly this isn’t an exhaustive list (and feel free to add your own in the comments).  So, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, we here at KikScore are thankful for:

1.  MyBusinessAssistant.com – helping out small businesses manage their, well, their business — via their virtual assistant service

2.  Shustir.com – creating a unique online marketplace and community for new and small businesses.

3.  Design2Print — did a great job on our marketing gear.

4.  Freeconference.com — Free and Conference, need I say more.

5.  WordPress — allowing small business to create an inexpensive way to spread the word.

6.  Twitter/Facebook — I’ll start talking about it soon enough, but social media has been wonderful for KikScore and Small Business in general.

7.  YouTube — allowing Small Biz to create and distribute their own commercials without buying a slew of server space.

8.  Google — providing research resources that 20 years ago would have cost thousands of dollars.

9.  iPhone — providing Small Biz a reasonable excuse for dropping calls (and it’s a pretty handy tool).

10.  oDesk — providing some relief to our development team, with providing a marketplace for Tech contractors.

11.  Minnesota Vikings — because Small Businesses love a winner (okay, i’m throwing that in there to see if anyone is actually reading this).

12.  MicroSoft BizSpark — providing KikScore and a lot of startups, a lot of free software (we really like groove…check it out)

Here’s hoping you’re having a great holiday…we’re most thankful for our readers and customers.

Team KikScore

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