Posts Tagged ‘Small Business Tips’

KikScore Interviews Zadyball Creator Alayna Slinker

While recently shopping for a unique baby gift for a friend’s newest arrival, I stumbled upon Zadyball – a unique toy that combines the things babies love best: putting soft stuff in their mouth and having a snuggle buddy.  If only I’d found this when my daughter was that small!  Zadyball is a small company that is doing wonders for moms and babies around the globe!  We are very thankful that Alayna took the time to  share the exciting Zadyball journey with KikScore.

1. Tell us about Zadyball and who you focus on serving?

A Zadyball is a handcrafted toy designed with babies in mind. They are soft to hold and cuddle, and have lots of knotted fabric strings to grab and rub. Zadyball is easy for young babies to hold on to, and it quickly becomes a favorite!

I made the first Zadyball in 2004 when my son was about 6 months old. He had a stuffed animal with a knotted string for a tail. He loved playing with the string, and would rub it to help him fall asleep. Since the string was his favorite part of the toy, I decided to make a toy for him with lots of strings for him to play with.

He loved that ball SO much and took it with him everywhere we went, and refused to sleep without it.

We got comments on it all the time, usually to the effect of “what is that thing?” And, after I explained it, many people said “hey, my kid would like that too!” So, I decided to start making them for my friends and giving them as gifts at baby showers. Other shower guests started offering to buy them from me, and I eventually started selling them online and in small stores all over the world.

Our focus is to bring a little bit of happiness to the lives of babies and their families.

2. Where will Zadyball focus most of its energy in 2010?

This year, I’ve been focusing on giving the website a bit of a “facelift”. I’ve been working on improving the product images as well as optimizing the website for search engines.

3. If you had 2 lessons learned from your business that you could pass on to others about having an online business, what are those?

One thing that I’ve learned is that quality pictures are CRUCIAL to online sales. In a “real” store, people can use all five senses to view a product. They can pick it up, shake it, feel it, throw it, even smell and taste it if they really want to. But, the only sense that is available when buying online is SIGHT. So, what they are seeing had better look good!

The second thing I’ve learned is how important it is to be unique. When shopping online, buyers can view products from all over the world side-by-side. You have to be one of a kind in order to stand out.

4. If your business/store could be any movie or movie character, what movie/movie character would it be and why?

Well, I think that to run my business, I’d like to be like Elasta-Girl from The Incredibles. I have to be flexible in order to make everything work. And I couldn’t do it without my family by my side – with all their super strengths!

5. If Zadyball could have a dream spokesperson for your company who would it be and why?

A fabulously stylish mom who wants to have fantastic toys for her children.  Someone who people can relate to.

6. How do the folks at Zadyball let loose after a busy day working?

In addition to running my business, I am a full-time mother of three, so I don’t have a lot of down-time.  Most often, my work is done while they are sleeping. But, my best times are spent just hanging out with my favorite people – my little munchkins, and my wonderful husband.

7. Do you have any parting thoughts for our readers and the small business community?

Never become complaisant. Always be on the lookout for ways to improve your business and your product. And listen to your customers – they are the best source for great ideas!

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Posts Tagged ‘Small Business Tips’

Shashi B, the Social Media Swami Talks & Small Businesses Should Listen

The Social Media Swami, Shashi Bellamkonda from Network Solutions, joined the Small Business Hour Talk Show to discuss  how small businesses can best use social media to help their businesses. During the interview he also discussed the trust level small businesses hold with the public, whether performance reviews are useful, and much more.  If you have never heard Shashi Bellamkonda, you really should listen.  He is one of the most genuine, thoughtful and practical speakers that is out there on small business, social media and marketing.  You may recall, Shashi was the one of the main speakers at our Social Commerce Camp DC back in February this year.  Look out because the next Social Commerce Camp is coming to the Denver/Boulder area later this year!

Click HERE to listen to the interview of Shashi. There is 20 minute intro discussion at the beginning of the recording and Shashi’s highly useful interview is after that.

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Posts Tagged ‘Small Business Tips’

The Awe Inspiring Essence of Creativity

I stumbled upon an interesting and motivating quote a couple weeks ago:
Life isn’t about finding yourself, life is about creating yourself — George Bernard Shaw

This got me thinking about how creativity comes into play in defining not only who we are, but how the world sees us.  My daughter, who turned 2 in December, has started mastering marker to paper, and paint brush to easel.  My husband and I praise her creative wonders and display many of her designs about our home.

As I hung two of her recent ‘dinosaur’ masterpieces on my office wall today (one scanned above), I am overwhelmed with not only a sense of pride but an inspiration to be more creative myself.   To force more creativity in my daily doings and namely in my business activities (both day job and KikScore).  To remind myself that a little bit of color and imagination can be awe inspiring.

In order to maintain a competitive edge in business, you must have innovation that not only keeps your customers interested and coming back, but ensures they are shouting out accolades about your business with their friends and beyond.  Since teamwork is a key element to business success, you need to keep your team motivated and the creative juices flowing.

We continuously encourage creativity and individuality in our children… and we need to carry that forth and foster it in the work place environment as well.

Whether you have a start-up or a mature business, how do you encourage creativity?  Get out those markers and a blank palette… what can you create?

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Posts Tagged ‘Small Business Tips’

Contemporary Furniture Expert, SmallBiz Owner & Blogger, Rebecca Malik, Talks to KikScore

Today’s small business interview is with the President of DC-based, 17thandRiggs.com’s Rebecca Malik.  Rebecca holds a dear place in KikScore’s hearts for a number of reasons besides the fact that she is just a very cool person, but she is also one of KikScore’s very first customers late last year when we launched.  Lucky for us she is very happy with KikScore.  Well, enough about us…..Rebecca comes from a family of a long line of entrepreneurs.  She has recently been tapping into that entrepreneurial lineage by working on a line of shoes, getting 17thandRiggs.com designed, developed and launched and blogging for two woman’s based small business and lifestyle community websites.  From these experiences and especially from her work that she has put in at building an ecommerce site from the ground up, she has some excellent guidance for our small business readers.

1. Tell us about 17thandRiggs.com and who you focus on serving?

17thandRiggs.com features contemporary furniture, lighting and home décor.  We focus on carrying pieces that have sleek, simple lines and evoke a sense of space.  The pieces are also chosen because they work well in many types of décor – they are not hyper-modern or too formal.  I feel that our customers are people who love a sophisticated, modern look, and focus on the overall picture.  They realize that an accent piece is as important as a focal point.  Also, I may be biased, but I think our careful selection of furnishings ensures that prestigious interior designers turn to us for their furniture and lighting needs.

2. How did you get your started selling online?

I’ve shopped online almost exclusively for years and know how hard I would look for items that fit my aesthetic and that I knew were of high quality at a good price.  This site is truly a way for me to pick and choose items that I love and make them accessible to others.  Beyond that, my father actually started selling handmade fireplace mantels online years ago.  His ability to reach customers across the country from his small shop in Florida was eye-opening.  After I left my last job at an interior design firm, I decided to take my interest and passion for design, contemporary furniture, lighting and decor and launch an online store.  That is the way 17thandRiggs.com was born.

3. Where will 17thandRiggs focus most of its energy in 2010?

We will be honing our product lines to ensure we carry our favorite designs.  These are furniture and décor pieces that are high-quality, beautiful and a great value.  We will also be steering our efforts to create an even more specialized lighting category.  Our lamps and pendants are consistently some of our biggest sellers and with their broad spectrum of designs they are always such fun items to handle.

I will also be continually reviewing my business and my marketing plan.  I feel like that is something that every business needs to do on a regular basis.  Otherwise you run the risk of not being focused and not having an underlying theme to everything that you are doing as a business.

4. If you had 2 lessons learned from your business that you could pass on to others about selling online, what are those?

I would say to start out simply – don’t try to offer everything but pick items that make the most sense from an inventory/availability perspective and that are cohesive with your vision for your site.  That and SEO is key.  Integrate your keywords as you go along.  Small businesses like mine can spend forever trying to keep the product information on your site up to date let alone trying to update SEO information so my suggestion would be to do it well the first time around. Here is a post I wrote on the subject titled: How To: An Entrepreneur Improves SEO For Her Ecommerce Site.

5.  What are 2 new trends in your business this year?

Of course, anything eco-friendly is as popular as ever.  As far as new trends, I see people getting more and more adventurous with their lighting choices.  Fun pendants and table lamps are great ways to push the envelope in your décor without making a huge purchase.

For an overall business trend, I would say that outsourcing from a small business perspective.  But it would not be outsourcing as the “four letter” word we know it as.  This would be focusing your small business on your core skills.  Then getting experts, freelancers, consultants, and virtual assistants to fill out the rest of your business and support you as you grow your business.  I now source resources and support for website design, virtual assistants and marketing support from places like Craigslist and Elance.  But you have to be careful and rigorously interview these folks before they are hiredbecause they will never care about your business and your customers like you do.

6. How have you used social media tools like Twitter, Facebook and your blog to help 17thandRiggs?

For me, Twitter has been a great way to learn about other organizations and companies out there with similar or complementary businesses.  It has also been a great place to get leads and also converse with other small businesses. My blog  (https://blog.17thandRiggs.com) has been a unique way for me to process things and continually think big picture regarding my business and the 17thandRiggs.com brand.  Sometimes having to hone into choosing a topic for an article forces you to think about the direction you are heading in and evaluating whether it fits your overall vision of my website, the business and my brand.  That can be very beneficial, especially when your business is at a crossroads.

I have also had the honor of being a guest contributor at the woman’s entrepreneur, startup and small business community site called  Women Grow Business that has been run by the super awesome Jill Foster and Shonali Burke (though I have been on a short hiatus lately since my lovely daughter, Asha, was born at the end of December!)  I recently started contributing to LVC Mag, a woman’s lifestyle community. Guest blogging has been a great experience for me and a nice way to connect and network with other entrepreneurs.  I recommend it for small businesses, especially those that are just starting out.

7. Do you have any parting thoughts?

As this is an interview for KikScore, it makes sense to touch upon my thoughts on the KikScore seal here.  I appreciate that it is a centralized way for customers to share thoughts about my business.  I also think the information they compile provides a fair and verified representation of my business to visitors of 17thandRiggs.com.  As a regular online shopper, I feel that combining financial and management information, website history and polices coupled with interactive customers’ reviews is a genius way to prove that you are a reputable company to deal with and give shoppers a good idea of what they can expect from the experience.  I also think the level of transparency it provides is invaluable in instilling confidence in visitors to our site and helping us convert them into customers.



We want to thank Rebecca for this interview. If you have any specific questions for Rebecca, please leave a comment and we will make sure we get them answered.  Also just for full disclosure, Rebecca somehow married one of my partner’s in KikScore, Raj.  My wife and I wonder every time we see Raj & Rebecca, what was Rebecca thinking!!!

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Posts Tagged ‘Small Business Tips’

Small Business Marketing 101 Video: "I Hate Saying No to Customers"

This is an excellent 12 minute video that was put together by the Small Business Administration that covers small business marketing. If you do not know, the SBA has a ton of great resources for startups, entrepreneurs and small businesses that every business should take advantage of and use.  In addition to the SBA,  SCORE is another fabulous resource for small businesses as they are literally “Counselors to America’s Small Business.”  SCORE provides free counseling, mentoring and guidance to small businesses around the country.  SCORE and the SBA often partner up on small business initiatives.  If you have not checked out either of these great resources, KikScore highly recommends both.

The Small Business Marketing 101 video is full of practical tips and features successful entrepreneurs offering techniques for marketing your small business.  The short video also includes an interview with Warren Brown, host of Food Network’s Sugar Rush, and owner of Cake Love bakery in Washington, DC.  We like Warren even more because, like a couple of us at KikScore, he is a recovering lawyer who is an entrepreneur.  He is also the one in the video that says: “I hate saying no to customers.”  Warren has some great guidance on how to overcome saying “No!”

Check out the video and let us know your thoughts in the comments.

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Posts Tagged ‘Small Business Tips’

Why you need to Build the Right Team for small business success

On Sundays, my husband and I usually try to plan out our week… which in turn yields discussions of when I have KikScore conference calls to when he can go have some beers with his buds, while juggling our 2-year old daughter’s bedtime schedule.   The KikScore conference calls change in frequency week to week, depending on the next big item we are working to push through or brainstorm on.  And I realized that having a key team and truly enjoying the people you do business with is crucial to not only its success, but your own sanity.  I was reading in Business Week about Hunch, and Caterina Fake brings up a very critical component of small business success — Building the Right Team.

Anyone can come up with a business idea, but taking that idea and making it a viable venture that can grow and prosper requires more brain power than one can share.  Creating a team of that nature isn’t easy by any means.  When I explain the KikScore story (at least since my involvement) to family and friends… it’s best summarized as: KikScore is the side-business I’ve been working on with a group of talented friends – ranging from development, project management, business development and lawyers… a few from previous jobs/lives and combination thereof.  The thing is, I wasn’t the one with the big idea, but when the core founders Mike, Raj and Joel approached me to jump in and help streamline the KikScore scoring algorithm,  I was honored and ecstatic to be part of an entrepreneurial journey.

The team continued to build from there as we quickly found that off-shoring all of our development was not only costly and time-consuming, but left us with little control over the integrity of the code.  So we searched (again from previous jobs/lives) to find an in-house development resource that could oversee the coding efforts and allow us to piecemeal items off-shore as needed, but not as a 100% solution.

Since we are still a night/weekend business, we have many conference calls and e-mails flying about daily.  Another key component to a strong team is keeping the communication open and being able to speak your mind — we argue, which in turn generates new ideas and challenges each of us to listen with respect.  This re-iterates the need for a strong team focus.  Each member has their primary role (albeit marketing, development, design, etc) but we all wear multiple hats when it comes to driving the KikScore business forward and setting priorities. In a start-up environment, flexibility is vital – what was a hot priority last week, can take a complete 180 turn the following week based upon customer feedback or some unforeseen influence.  The team needs to be able to react, respond and regroup —  effectively.

If you are working on a new business idea, who will you pull into your inner circle to make it happen?  Be selective… you’ll be spending way more time (on late night conference calls, etc.) with them, than with your family.

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Posts Tagged ‘Small Business Tips’

Collaboration Tools for Small Businesses to Consider When Offshoring Their Software Development Work

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Posts Tagged ‘Small Business Tips’

Should Start-Up Companies and Small Businesses Release Their New Software Early or Wait Until it is Perfected?

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Posts Tagged ‘Small Business Tips’

Small Business Interview with Trackpack Coolers' Andrew Shelton

 I connected with Andrew Shelton from Trackpack Coolers through LinkedIn a few weeks ago when I first approached him about this interview.  In the interview below Andrew shares with us his unique insight and advice on everything from NASCAR to the best type of shopping cart to put on your small business website!

Tell us about Trackpack Coolers and who you focus on serving?

TrackPack Coolers LLC manufactures a unique backpack style beverage cooler that is capable of chilling and dispensing 20 “beverages” of your choice! Each TrackPack® Cooler includes three reusable freezer gel-packs, our proprietary dispensing frame, and a waterproof liner insert – so the frame can be removed and the cooler can be filled with just about anything, including ice. Our customers include tailgaters, race fans, music festival attendees, and many more…

How did you get started selling online?

The company was founded in 2006 and began retailing in early 2007; in the very beginning, our website retail channel was our ONLY point of sale. It was through our website that we were able to introduce our product to the consumer AND retail markets. We now have 5 different sales channels including retail, promotional, direct to customer, website drop-ship, and our own web retail site.

Where will Trackpack Coolers focus most of its energy in 2010?

2010 is going to be a significant growth year for our company. We are currently focused on a few key additions to our core product line, and we are also looking forward to announcing some important marketing and distribution partnerships.

If you had 2 lessons learned from your business that you could pass on to others about selling online, what are those?

Consider your customers at all times. We are constantly running tests on which landing pages, ad-words, or page layouts yield the best conversion ratings. We have found (through trial and error) that:

1. Retail sites should be as dynamic and tactical as possible – Less copy, more images and bullets.

2. Make checkout processes as convenient and easy as possible. The more pages someone has to click through, the greater the chances that you’ll end up with an abandoned cart!

As 2009 closes, what do you see as 2 new trends in your business this year?

1. There has been a considerable tightening in the competitiveness in the retail market model.

2. We quickly rebounded against traditional retail market constraints through more effective use of internet marketing– which has proven effective as we have seen a significant growth in our web-related sales model.

If your business/store could be any movie or movie character, what movie/movie character would it be and why?

Bob Mapplethorpe from Bottle Rocket (1996).

Dignan: Bob Mapplethorpe, potential get-away driver: go!
Bob: Well, I think there’s a real air of mystery about me.
Dignan: Don’t complicate it. Your number one strength is you have a car you can provide. Sell yourself! Start over. Ready, go!
Bob: Okay, alright. I’m a risk taker! I’m growin’ an entire crop of marijuana plants in my parents back yard! I think that shows…
Dignan: Wait, you’re growing an entire crop of marijuana in your back yard?
Bob: Dignan, look. I’m just not very good at this selling-yourself stuff, okay? So, I’m just gonna tell you the truth. I really wanna be a part of this team. And I’m the only one with a car.
Dignan: That’s good. That’s good. ‘Cause that hits me right here.

If Trackpack Coolers could have a dream spokesperson for your company who would it be and why?

That’s a tough question. We’ve put in a lot of time into marketing within the racing community (NASCAR) because many of the venues allow our coolers to be taken into the events. Additionally, the NASCAR fan base is consistently noted as one of the most brand-loyal followings in all of sporting events. Also, a race car driver is relatable to the function and uses of our product… cold beverages at a NASCAR race that can be accessed quickly.  So really, we’d have to say any of the major drivers… 

How do the folks at TrackPack Coolers let loose after a busy day working?

Let’s get serious; we make a cooler that dispenses 20 drinks… what’s a workday?

Do you have any parting thoughts for our readers and the small business community?

Ultimately, initiative is what distinguishes a successful business from someone with a great idea. The initiative to implement your idea comes from creativity, determination, and incremental goal setting. Ideas come to fruition through a series of small steps—it doesn’t all happen in a day. You just chip away, each daya little  at a time, while keeping the overall objective in mind. To keep the long-term goal in perspective, you can’t ride roller coasters…there are ups and downs, but consistency and tenacity is ultimately what gets you through. Most importantly: Don’t let anyone tell you no. You are your own best advocate and no one is going to do the work for you. Don’t let obstacles prevent your idea from ever being tested – you have to go out and do it.

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