Archive for the ‘KikScore & KikReport’ Category

Show Shoppers Your Online Business Can Be Trusted: KikScore Your Trust Solution

PROBLEM: Online Small Businesses lose billions in dollars a year in sales because shoppers do not know if they can trust those small businesses.

SOLUTION: Trust Seals – But which one?

It is established that small businesses, especially ones just starting out, can have a difficult time conveying to the public that they are trustworthy and reliable.  As a result, small businesses often lose significant sales because of this concern that the public has.  One of the primary ways that small businesses address these concerns is putting a “trust seal” on their website.  The trust seal is supposed to denote that a third party validation has occurred in some way and that third party therefore “vouches” for that small business so shoppers can then trust that business.  There are many trust seals out in the market that do different things and some of the providers of those seals include Verisign, TRUSTe, BuySafe, Trust Guard and the Better Business Bureau.

So we at KikScore often get the question: Why should a small business use KikScore and how is KikScore different than the other trust seals?

This post is not going to bash other seals, but there are critical differences between the KikScore seal and other seals that are on the market.  This post points out those differences and is meant to educate the community about why these differences are important.

1) Empowering Small Businesses To Show Their Track Record – A fundamental concern that shoppers have is can they trust a business?  Many businesses and business owner have an actual track record of reliability in paying their bills, having a strong financial history, reliably delivering products and services and historically being responsive to customers. Typically that has been built up over years of being responsible, reliable and trustworthy in the market.  So isn’t that track record work something? We say YES!  KikScore allows small businesses to take their own great track record and communicate it to the world and visitors to their website.  No one else allows a small business to take their business history and communicate that to the world so shoppers can get more comfortable with that business.

2) Promote Your Own Brand Not Another Company’s – A lot of other trust and verification seals do much more to promote their brand name on your website than actually assist in promoting a small business.  This is especially the case with some seals with lots of money behind their brand name that are widely recognized. Again these may be good trust seals that have a limited purpose, but they each miss out on a critical element to the trust equation.  They essentially are saying their brand name is more important to have on your website that your own brand name. At KikScore we do not believe that is the case. In fact, our seal is structured to take extensive amounts of information about the small business itself such as the management team’s names, their financial reliability, business policies, locations and website information and promote that information rather than our own brand name. We do this because we feel that information is more important to a website visitor or shopper in their determination of trustworthiness of a website.

3) KikScore is a Multi-Dimensional Trust Seal – Some trust seals try to do and message different things to the public. For example, some seals check for certain types of malware, some collect comments, some convey that an secure connection (SSL) is on the website, etc.  KikScore deliberately leaves those tasks to other folks because again in some instances those functions serve a purpose.  Those seals/services are, however, typically a one-dimensional service that only communicate that a small business website site gets a periodic and limited security scan.  You should note that based on our extensive information and first hand experience those scans can be helpful, but by no means are comprehensive and historically have not caught major pieces of malware that have resulted in some recent data breaches. KikScore’s seal actually incorporates all of these seals in our Certifications tab in our merchant report card, called a KikReport, in addition to providing the other wealth of information about a small business, its management and website history. Taken together this creates a multi-dimensional seal unlike others in the market.  This multi-dimensional seal allows small businesses to have one comprehensive seal that addresses the trust and reliability equation from a variety of angles.

4) Give Shoppers Dynamic and Continually Updated Information About Your Business – As small businesses know, their historical track record for reliability and trustworthiness always is being updated with new data and information as more transactions occur and a business grows.  Kikscore’s seal addresses this by being dynamic and continually updating a small business and their merchant report card (KikReport). The KikScore seal is set up to continually be updated and our own databases and data providers are scanned constantly for new information about a small business site.  So for example, when a small business website’s traffic increases meaning that business may be growing, that is reflected in the KikScore seal and the KikReport.  Also as a small business becomes more financially viable, that also gets reflected in the KikScore seal too and again helps demonstrate trustworthiness and reliability to shoppers. We do this, others do not.  Most other trust seals are static meaning they do not update information presented on a seal besides perhaps a change in the date of a scan that is performed – otherwise other trust seals just present static information.  That static information really does not do a lot to help address the issue of building trust for small businesses.

5) You Get a Unique Trust Score for Your Small Business –  Unlike anyone in the market, KikScore takes information, data and merchant provided information, analyzes that information and presents to the public a completely unique and dynamic trust and reliability score.  This trust and reliability score takes into account literally hundreds of data points and indications of trustworthiness in order to compute the trust score.  The trust score which in some ways is akin to a credit score except that the KikScore trust score is made available to the public so a small business can communicate to customers that they have a high trust score and therefore can be trusted.  Even better is that the trust score is based on data and information that is verified by KikScore through our systems and automated processes.

6) KikScore Helps Small Businesses Giving Wary Shoppers Transparency Into Your Business – KikScore attacks the heart of the trust issue for small businesses by giving small businesses a way to make themselves, their business and their management more transparent to shoppers.  We have seen that when shoppers are provided more information about an online business their level of comfort and likelihood of buying from that website increases.  Without this important transparency, sales are lost and shopping carts are abandoned.  Instead of empowering small businesses to provide this transparency, other trust seals merely provide a very small, isolated and static piece of information about a small business (a malware scan, etc). Those seals are just not comprehensive enough to fully address the trust issue.

7) Encourages Interaction with Your Customers – KikScore’s seal incorporates an interactive feedback platform within the seal.  This permits small businesses to interact in real time with their customers.  This also allows these small businesses to have other shoppers review the comments that are posted inside the KikScore seal about the shopping experience with that customer.  KikScore even incorporates these comments into the trust score for the small business.  One additional benefit of the interactive feedback platform is that it helps bring customers to the small business website to post comments instead of having those customers post comments on various unrelated sites around the internet like Yelp.  Now granted their are a few other seals that include comments sorting and response functionality, none of them have the comprehensive trust building solution that KikScore includes with the items listed in 1-6 before.

So I will leave everyone with the following:  We rarely and I mean rarely overtly talk about the KikScore product on our blog.  Instead, we use this blog to communicate with the community and provide valuable small business tips.  That being said, we thought that this would be a good time to take the opportunity to educate small businesses on the critical differences between KikScore and the many other seals that claim to address the trust concern that shoppers continually say are a barrier to buying more online.

We would love to know your thoughts on the differences we have identified.

Tweet This Post

Archive for the ‘KikScore & KikReport’ Category

7 Questions A Small Business or Startup Should Ask Themselves Every Day

I like to talk.  I like to talk alot, especially when I have had a few really good margaritas.  And my wife, my family and friends can all attest to that fact.  That is all except for where I may have had too much to drink and then I have an uncanny tendency to just fall asleep in mid-sentence sometimes even at a restaurant booth (reference multiple experiences in Columbus, Ohio eating a Barnyard Buster and in Washington DC eating a jumbo slice at Pizza Mart).

Anyway so what is my point?  Talking is not as good as everyone makes it seem for business.  Instead asking questions is much more important.  It really did not dawn on me, however, until I was reflecting back on conversations with mentors, business partners, and our own team that you really should be asking critical questions about your business almost on a daily basis.  Those questions can help uncover critical gaps in strategy, planning and execution for your startup or small business.  If you ask these questions, then you can increase your chances of addressing these gaps.

So here are a few questions that may help you with your business:

1. Distractions. Are you focusing your efforts on the right tasks for your business and avoiding distractions that take you away from meeting your overall goals?

We all know how bad distractions can be in business.  Distractions can be one of the biggest impediments to building momentum for your business. The trick here is to make sure your business and your team is focused on what will move the business forward by continually weeding out distractions.

2. Customer Satisfaction. Are you doing everything to make your customers’ lives easier in some way through either using your product/service or helping educate them?

If your customers are not happy, then it will be nearly impossible to grow your business.  So in everything you do you need to make sure the goal of the task is that you are helping your customers in some way.  If not, then you should seriously consider abandoning those tasks that do not relate to helping current or potential customers.

3. Customer Value. How can you give your customers more reasons to keep buying from your business and not your competition?

Your customers are likely being bombarded by your competitors with tempting offers and reasons to buy from them instead of you.  So you have to be relentless in making sure you give your customers reasons to remain loyal to you.  Without investing the time to create that customer loyalty, your business will always be at risk of churning valuable customers to your competitors.

4. Facilitating Word of Mouth Marketing. How can you get more customers to refer their friends and contacts to use your product/service?

Word of Mouth Marketing is free.  So all it costs you is the time and effort to give the customer a great experience, but also the means for that customer to spread the word about your business and the product/service that they love.  So always be thinking about how can you arm your customers with information about your business value that you can provide the market.  The best way to do that (and least selfish) is making sure the customer knows the value you have created for them.  They can then go and spread the word for you!

5. Building Trust. Are you doing everything possible to ensure that your customers have confidence in your business, product or service and believe that you are reliable.

Customers know small businesses and startups come and go.  There is a reason why buyers tend to prefer larger and more established brands.  So one way to distinguish yourself is to make sure that everything that you do for your customers and for the public is viewed through the lens that you are trustworthy, reliable and your business delivers on its promises.  That track record of delivering will help generate trust in your business.  Heck, after all that is what KikScore was based on – allowing small businesses to show the world their track record of reliability and trustworthiness!

6. Your Team. Do you have the right team to succeed and grow your business and if not, should you bring in a new employee or a freelancer?

Businesses and startups can be just like my beloved Cleveland Browns.  The Browns team has been terrible since 1999.  Bad teams means lots of losses.  So learn from the Browns and be like this year’s Packers (Collins will like this reference). The Packers built a great team, loaded it up with depth and even got people off the streets in some instances to fill in when key players were injured.  The New Orleans Saints did the same last year on their way to winning a Super Bowl.  As you evaluate your team, make sure you have depth, solid performers and cut the freeloaders as they are a drag on morale and overall team dynamics.  Once you eliminate the underperformers then decide if you need a new employee or perhaps a freelancers that can step in and augment your existing team.

7. Your Money. What are areas of your business that you can manage your costs better?

Always be reviewing where your money is going.  Even though it is sometimes easy to just say well those costs are ones that I can’t really control and I just have to suck it up and pay for them. NO!  Call up that vendor and see what discounts that they can give you.  Threaten to leave and go to their competitor. Also there may be particular functions at your small business or startup that you can get experts to help with instead of you having to spend extensive time on your own.  Time is money so the value of your time may very well be better spent on your core business of serving your customers then performing back office functions or doing things like managing a marketing campaign.

These are just some of the questions that each small business or startup should be asking themselves.  But just like too much talking, too many questions can send you down a spiral of too much analysis and confusion.  Keep your daily self-analysis of your business to certain key questions that are fundamental to your business and watch and see if your perspective and approach changes.

What questions would you ask?

Photo from Flickr user Marco Bellucci, CC 2.0.

Tweet This Post

Archive for the ‘KikScore & KikReport’ Category

5 Reasons to Go to Friday’s Small Business Happy Hour in DC

Our good friend of KikScore, the Swami Shashi B is organizing a fun night this Friday for small businesses in the DC metro area.  It will be a night of networking, learning, probably one or two tweets, maybe even some tweets while folks are networking and learning.  The networking happy hour is for small businesses in the area and it is at the fabulous Indique Heights in Chevy Chase, Maryland.   Indique Heights is also metro accessible and is located on the Red Line.

So for those who need some convincing here are 5 reasons to attend the small business meetup/happy hour.

1. You get your chance to have a drink with THE Swami.

2. It is a long three day weekend for many so you have an extra day to shrug off that hangover from too many Taj Mahal beers.

3. You get to celebrate an assortment of birthdays from Paris Hilton, Dave Klingler, Denise Richards, Michael Jordan, Lou Diamond Phillips, Cleveland Brown legend Jim Brown. – Ha I fooled you, all of these people were born on Thursday the 17th, but lets celebrate them on Friday!

4. Its Pluto-palooza meets Motley Crue – We can all celebrate the anniversary of astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovering the planet Pluto in 1933 or better yet the anniversary of Pamela Anderson & Motley Crue’s drummer Tommy Lee getting married in 1995.  Fun fact by the way about myself. In 1992, as a part of my final exam in Aerobics 101 at Miami University, I had to lead an aerobics class to the classic Motley Crue song Kickstart My Heart!  Yes, the beats per minute for that song are insane and I nearly had a heart attack after the first 45 seconds!

5. Drinking red wine can cut rates of heart disease so do your part to help your heart!

So if you have a small business, startup or an aspiring entrepreneur or just want to join a good group of people for some drinks, we hope to see you there on Friday! Here is more information about Friday’s happy hour.

Tweet This Post

Archive for the ‘KikScore & KikReport’ Category

Super Bowl Ads – 6 Steps for Small Businesses and Startups to Get In the Game?

The Super Bowl was Sunday night and thank goodness the Steelers lost.  Didn’t you just get the feeling when they had the ball at the end of the game that they would yet again pull out another victory.  Good job Packers to play strong defense at the right time to cut that off.  I hope someone from my beloved Browns takes a few lessons from them for next season and maybe we can win a few more games!

Well this post is not about the game, but those commercials.  You have heard about the hype.  There is the yearly run up to each Super Bowl where huge brands (and late stage startups with lots of VC money to blow like Groupon) go “all in” usually to the tune of $3 million bucks for a 30 second ad.  Is it worth it?  Really?  Thinking back over the last decade I was trying to remember what were the best and most memorable commercials that still leave a mark on me.  I could only remember two.  Somewhat surprisingly each commercial was from the career placement and job advertising industry.   They were from CareerBuilder and Monster.com and I included them at the top of the post and below.

So what do these two ads have in common.  Dead simple delivery and execution and story that everyone can relate to.  It helps that they use two main ingredients that are so often successful to any campaign: little children and animals (especially cute ones!).

The point of this story is really not so much about these commercials, but that these days any of us can now try to compete at the level of these large brands in order to spread the word about your product and business.  Here are some steps that can help:

Story Counts Advertising is viral now so take the time necessary to create a good story that is engaging and means something not just to you, but to your audience that you are going after.  Make sure that story is simple in your ad and that people can relate to that story in a real world practical way. Tara Jacobsen from the Marketing Artfully blog has some good tips about making your story funny for your video ad.

Your Own Video Camera Now take that story and it is as simple as getting a decent video camera from Best Buy to film your own commercial. Even better is that most computers now come with video editing software that is easy to use or if yours does not there are a number of vendors online that provide editing software for low prices.

Crowdsource Actors/Actresses Try to look somewhat professional when you are filming. But that does not mean you have to pay big bucks for known actors and actresses. This only means put some real thought into props, actors, actresses that can include employees, friends or even your own pets.  Your costumes for the commercial are as close as your own closet or even the nearby Salvation Army store.

YouTube Once you complete your video ad, upload it to YouTube.  That is your first step and then make sure you title the clip in a way that grabs your audience’s attention.  Also remember to use keyword tags that are relative to the content, your product and company so that the video ad will appear in relevant search results.  This is a key component that will help drive traffic and page views so take the time to think about how people will search to get to see your video ad.  Here is an excellent article from Mashable on Top 10 YouTube Tips for Small Business.

Distribute Your Video Ad After the video is uploaded, create a blog post around the video and give that clip a story and some context in your blog post.  Also post the video on your blog, your website and even try to submit it to other video distribution sites through Tube Mogul.  This helps get your video in as many places as possible. Remember the more places the higher the chance more people will see your video ad.

Social Media Channels Do not stop at your website, make sure you use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other bookmarking sites to get the ad out. That way your followers, customers and friends can help you distribute that ad!  If you video is funny or has a viral element to it, that will give the community even more reason to pass it along to others.

So using the above 6 steps is your first step to advertising with the big brands.  All you need is a video camera, a little creativity and some of your own co-workers, friends, family and pets.  Any startup, small business or even non-profit can use these tips to get the word out about your product, company or cause.  Now I am not promising you huge overnight success with these steps, but what you will get is the beginning of the process for pushing your brand out there.  And isnt Super Bowl advertising all about just that.  So on a slightly smaller level you can do what the big brands do all by yourself.  Who knows, if you are creative enough you may just land yourself a hit on YouTube!

Let us know which Super Bowl ads were your favorite and what video ad you would put together.

Tweet This Post

Archive for the ‘KikScore & KikReport’ Category

Try Shopkick on Your Smartphone, Almost 1 Million Others Have!

I have been using the Shopkick application on my smartphone for the past few months and then I saw this article in the Wall Street Journal the other day and realized that 750,000 people have also downloaded and used the application since it was released in August.

Basically, the idea behind the Shopkick application is that users can login and see which local retailers are closest to their current location.  Users then also have the option on clicking on each of the retailers near them to see what specials the merchant is currently offering to Shopkick customers.  It seems like some of the larger retailers that have close relationships with Shopkick include Best Buy, Macy’s, and Sports Authority.

The other idea behind the Shopkick application that is used to encourage users to access the application daily is driven by rewarding users with Shopkick points just for viewing the retailer’s specials by using the Shopkick application on their smartphone.  Users can obtain additional points by physically visiting the retailers and checking in and also by scanning the barcodes of various products in the stores that the retailers are advertising.  Shopkick users can then redeem these Shopkick points for products and gifts cards from the various retailers.

I found the Shopkick application to be interesting and useful but after attempting unsuccessfully to scan the bar codes of a few advertised products at a local Best Buy I was a little frustrated by the application as well.  I can definitely see a lot of good uses for the Shopkick application and I hope that they expand the functionality included in it to possibly included automatic price comparisons and possibly an easier way to scan the barcodes of advertised products.

Have you ever used the Shopkick application in a store or any other smartphone application while shopping?

Tweet This Post

Archive for the ‘KikScore & KikReport’ Category

Thanks New York Times for Covering the KikScore Blog!

I can not tell you how valuable Google Alerts are for your business or startup.  I was getting ready to go back to work after New Years and I received my regular email for my Google Alerts for “KikScore.” Now I get a lot of emails for the various mentions of “KikScore” across the internet, but I had to do a double take when I saw that we were referenced wholly unsolicited in the New York Times’ You’re the Boss, The Art of Running a Small Business blog.  If you have not read this small business focused blog, its a must read.  The blog offers a very unique insiders view of being a small business owner and includes excellent guidance. One of its contributors is Gene Marks who writes Dashboard and is a nationally recognized small business expert, speaker and small business owner (check out his Quicker, Better, Wiser service).  We owe Gene a special thanks for covering us in his This Week in Business post.  Now if only my hometown once a week delivered newspaper, the Stow Sentry would just cover KikScore!

The lesson learned for us from this coverage are at least three-fold:

1) Focus on Good Content – Keep trying to push out good, valuable content on a topic (for us its small business, startups, entrepreneurship all mixed with pop culture and humor) through various channels including your blog, Twitter, Facebook and sites like BizSugar and you will get noticed by being helpful to the community;

2) Value of Google Alerts – If you have not already done so, every small business and startup should set up Google Alerts for at least your company name, your management team members, your product names and industry relevant terms.  You may even want to set up alerts for your competitors too just so you can keep a watch on them.

3) Say Thanks – It is a small gesture, but once you get covered take a moment to say thank you and acknowledge the writer that covered your business.  This is our thank you to the New York Times and Gene Marks!

Let us know your thoughts on what you have done, when your business was covered by a major media outlet.

Photo Attribution: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid at laughingsquid.com.

Tweet This Post

Archive for the ‘KikScore & KikReport’ Category

DC Area Friends, SmallBiz & Startups – Come to the 28Corridor Tweetup This Thurs #28ctweetup

I talk to the Swami on my way home nearly every night from Herndon.  No I do not talk to myself or my imaginary friend in the passenger seat (though if I had one, I would imagine I was sitting with Mike Holmgren and ask him when will the Browns return to relevance in the NFL?).  The person that I talk to is the Social Media Swami, Shashi B.  That call often begins on Route 28, right off the Dulles Toll Road and next to beautiful Dulles Airport.  We typically chat about our day, what is going on with KikScore, how Shashi’s daughter (and Kikscore intern) Mitali is enjoying college as well as a host of other things.  It allows us to catch up with each other during the nearly 40 minute drive home to our respective homes in the District and in Maryland.

So it is only fitting that Thursday, Shashi is organizing the first ever 28 Corridor Tweetup.  That would be the same 28 that we drive on every day.  For those not familiar with Route 28 in Northern Virginia, here are some “beautiful” aerial pics!  The “excuse” (as if we need one!) for the tweetup is to get together to welcome the wonderful Lisa Byrne, @dceventjunkie, to Network Solutions  (our co-sponsor from last year’s fantastic Social Commerce Camp). Lisa just started working on Shashi’s fantastic team last week.

As more folks started to tweet about the tweetup, it dawned on us that lets try to get area small businesses, startups, bloggers, nearby airport baggage handlers (bet they have some great stories!) and anyone else together to join us at Ned Devine’s in Herndon, VA for the tweetup.  So please come on out on Thursday.  We would love to see you there.  Spread the word and tell your friends.

By the way here is some extra incentive, if we get more than 30 attendees, the Swami will sing the Lady Gaga song of the crowd’s choice (I hear there are a lot of people voting for Poker Face!”).

Click here for the details on the 28 Corridor Tweetup. The hashtag by the way for Thursday’s event is #28ctweetup.

Tweet This Post

Archive for the ‘KikScore & KikReport’ Category

7 Posts from 2010 That Will Help Your Business Now – 2010 KikScore Blog Greatest Hits

As 2010 winds down, we wanted to share with you a few posts that if you only have a few minutes on the KikScore blog we want you to read.  As many of you know, we pride ourselves on publishing good content that covers small businesses, startups, entrepreneurship, while telling the first hand accounts of small business that sell online and trying at the same time to be a little humorous and even including some references to sports and pop culture.

So here are our greatest hits that we hope you check out:

1. Should Start up Companies and Small Business Release Their New Software Early or Wait Until Its Perfected? – This is our post that discusses the age old dilemma for startups on when is the right time to launch your product.  We had some very personal experience on this issue.  I am sure there are many startups that are facing this very issue right now so that is why it made our list.

2. Issues Escalation and Support Guidelines in a Startup Environment – This is a very detailed and thoughtful post about the process needed to approach the inevitable support issues that get escalated to your service department by your customers.  The post frankly applies to many different types of businesses, from small, medium to large but is especially fitting for startups.  It is a must read especially for software startups.

3. Lessons Learned for Small Business from Sandra Bullock’s Heartbreak – Everyone probably remembers the shocking news that came out this spring about Sandra Bullock’s husband Jesse James and his infidelity.  This post is especially helpful to small businesses and startups that are looking to partner with other companies or use new vendors and contractors for key business operations.  It gives key information and tips to help with conducting diligence before you make these important decisions.  And we do this by tying it all back to Sandra Bullock and Jesse James marriage!

4. Our two posts on reviewing your business on Memorial Day (Check that BBQ and Your Business’ 2010 Goals) and Labor Day  (5 Steps to Help Close 2010 Strong) – Every business should take the time to periodically conduct self-assessments to measure progress.  These posts give detailed tips on conducting the self-assessment for your business at key times of the year and the Labor Day post also outlines concrete steps for taking the learnings from your analysis and acting on those learnings.

5. Building a Startup Company and Having a Family at the Same Time – Ever wonder how entrepreneurs, small businesses, startups balance work, life, family and crazy schedules.  We all face this issue frankly and in this post we discuss tips on helping to find that work/family balance.  To be honest, this is a post worth re-reading throughout the year to keep yourself grounded.

6. Manly Cupcakes and Tips on Finding, Understanding and Appealing to Your Target Market –  This is a straighforward post that appeals to all businesses and startups.  The reason why it is one of my favorite posts of the year is that every company should ask these key marketing and customer demographics questions  about your product, customers and market.  These questions and your answers to them will keep your business and startup more sharply focused and successful.

7. How Do You Judge a Website? –  This post is important for every business because it frames the way potential customers, leads, partners and even investors get their first online impression of your business.  It is a valuable post that businesses can come back to in order to remind them that no matter what you do, these key features of your website will drive the way key influencers view you, your business, your website and your product.

We hope you enjoyed all of our posts this year and we look forward to a great year of content in 2011.

We would love to hear your favorite posts as well as any feedback on our content.  Also let us know if you want us to cover any particular topic and we would be happy to consider writing on a certain subject, especially if it helps the small business, startup and entrepreneur community.

Tweet This Post

Archive for the ‘KikScore & KikReport’ Category

End of the Year Thank You to Friends of KikScore for a Great 2010

As 2010 rolls toward a quick end, we at KikScore wanted to take this time to do something that so many people sometime neglect to do.  That is to say some important thank yous.  2010 has been a year of huge successes and new beginnings for us at KikScore. That success is attributable to many factors, but much of our achievements are a result of a core set of folks including our customers, friends, colleagues, partners and advisors.

KikScore’s 2010

First a little about our 2010. We launched our core product, KikScore, to help small businesses use their trackrecord of success and reliability to show that trackrecord to shoppers that they should be trusted.  Then quickly thereafter and based on feedback we received from the community, we launched another new product for small business that do not sell online, but market their services such as consultants, contractors, servicers.  That new product allows these servicers to take their prior trackrecord and their strong history of dependability and show potential clients and leads that they are trustworthy. Yes, that was two new products in less than a year!

Beyond the new products, KikScore gained quick and significant customer acceptance with a surge in signups in 2010 by small businesses all over the world.  That acceptance was driven by a host of factors, just one being the number of key partnerships we launched throughout 2010.  We were busy launching partnerships and jointly sponsored events throughout the year that focused on our small business customer needs.  It was a blast to connect with so many small businesses, bloggers and members of the media throughout the year….the coverage was flattering too!  We even spoke at some great small business focused webinars and conferences.  Thanks Anita Campbell for your recommendation and introductions for us to speak about security and small business!

A Special Thank You

So we get to the main point of the post after some “horn blowing” by me.  Ok, I was just setting some context for visitors that are new to the site!!! We want to take this opportunity to say thank you to all of our friends and supporters that helped us out this year.  There are too many to name each one here individually by name, but a few we really do need to have to thank including the one and only Swami Shashi B, Jill Foster, Shonali Burke, Eric A, Jason K, Harry L, Roy D, Rick Juneja, Neel K, Joe K, Steven Fisher, and so many, many more.  These are just a few great folks that helped us out.  On top of them, we have to thank our many partners, but most importantly our friends in Calgary at Shopster.

A special, special thank you goes out to all of our customers.  We really appreciate each and every one of you.  Even the customers that did not stay with us, we learned from you.  But more importantly a thank you to all of the customers that took precious time out of their busy days to send us comments, feedback or your appreciative notes about our service and what we are doing for small businesses.  Also thanks to all of those customers that gave us some great small business interviews on this blog.

Ok, not really last but thanks to each of our families, the new additions to our families and loved ones that supported us throughout this year!  Your patience during our late nights and long weekends of work on KikScore is truly appreciated.  We could not do any of this without you!

Tweet This Post

Archive for the ‘KikScore & KikReport’ Category

5 Steps to Nail Next Year for Your Business By Learning from This Year

It is mid-December and the year is almost over.  And what a year it has been.  Tough economic times has made it hard for many businesses to grow and build momentum.  So as we round the end of the calendar year and are only days away from January we can do two things for our business planning for next year: You can blindly go into January and beyond trying to create a brand new strategic and marketing plan or you can take a look back at the wealth of information and data from your business this past year and try to plan your strategy for next year based on the lessons learned from this year.

Our recommendation, based on what we are doing ourselves, is look closely at your strategy, tactics, execution and plans for this year as you plan for next year.  That will help put you in a better position for success next year by avoiding the tactics that did not work and instead building on what did work.  Here is how we suggest you do it:

1. Take a complete inventory of what worked and what did not over the last 12 months

This one may take some time, but it will be time well spent.  As you make your plans for next year, take a morning (or even longer) to conduct a detailed analysis of what worked for your business or startup this year and what did not.  Your analysis should not stop there.  Take the additional steps to think about did the items that failed fail because of bad execution or they just were not really good tactics in the first place.  If it was bad execution, you should think about whether those tactics that failed could be better executed and then become successful.  Also for the items that did work, consider whether if you put more energy and focus on those items, could you build on them next year?

Bottom line: Make sure next year’s plans eliminate tactics and strategies that failed this year and instead focus next year on building on specifically what did work.

2. What are 3 Trends in your business that you saw this year?

Look back on the year.  What are 3 trends that you saw in your business?  They could be marketing trends, operating trends or even product trends.  I like the number 3 because it is simple and not too overwhelming of a number for people to focus on.  So when you are planning for next year, take the time to make sure that whatever those trends may be in your business that you have them woven into your strategic, marketing and operating plans.  That will help ensure that you do not get left behind.

Bottom line: All businesses should take the time to step back from their company and track and plan for the trends that are impacting their business and industry.

3. What 3 major areas of  feedback/comments did you receive from your customers over the year?

Businesses get a lot of feedback from customers over the course of a year.  The key to any business is making sure that they are keeping their customers happy and serving their needs.  Accordingly, any business needs to pay attention to the major customer issues and feedback that are repeatedly being seen.  But paying attention to these areas is only half the battle.  Your business should track these 3 major areas and ensure that your plans and strategies incorporate addressing and acting on customer feedback.  Here is an excellent article from our one of our favorite entrepreneur magazines, Inc., on using customer feedback for your strategic plans.

Bottom line: Any planning for next year should take into account your customer’s feedback and comments that you have received this year.  That way you will know that your customers’ concerns are being addressed.

4. What is one area of you business you devoted more time to that could have yielded larger growth?

Every business faces this concern, but the trick is to acknowledge the issue.  We all think about areas of our business that we wish we could spend more time on, but we just cannot.  Take the time to really identify these areas and make of list of them.  Then determine if you can outsource any of these areas to freelancers, interns or other professional service providers. Here is a great post from Startup Nation on small business outsourcing.

Bottom line: For these areas of the business where you wish you had more horsepower, next year outsource those areas and see if you can build off the work from experts that will help you focus more attention on your core business.

5. What is two items that you absolutely need to get accomplished by both July 31 and Dec 31 of next year

This is a business planning tip for next year.  Frankly, it may be something we should all do yearly in our business.  When we set out our annual goals we should take the time to go one step further.  That step is to identify two “must dos” for the coming year.  That is a must have accomplishment for the middle of the year (July 31) and then a must have accomplishment by the end of the year (Dec 31).  This will help you focus on two core items for your business that you tie to two time deadlines.  That way at the end of each year you should be able to look back and know that two main areas of your business have seen key goals being met.

Bottom line: Creating a list of goals and targets for your business each year is necessary to track progress.  But having two must have goals set out at the middle and end of the year will help you focus even more to move your business forward.

So in the remaining part of this month, use these steps as you build, develop and fine tune your strategic and marketing plans for next year.  Building these plans on your lessons learned from this year should help you set your business or startup for more success in the coming year.

Let us know how you are approaching strategy and business planning for next year.

Tweet This Post