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.
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.
This post may seem a bit counter-intuitive, since we’ve been evangelizing about the need to promote your business on social media. We’ve talked about how this blog, and our tweets, and facebook have led to good things for KikScore. But there are times when you should stop sharing.
Keeping Your Competitive Advantage: No matter what business you have, there are certain things that you do, or mistakes that you have learned from, that your competitors would love to know. When we thought up the KikScore service, we took the time, prior to launching, to file a couple of patents. But patents don’t completely protect your business. To file a patent, you must disclose exactly what your competitive advantage is — prior to knowing if you’ll get the patent granted. That’s why Coke has never filed a patent on its secret formula…because they’d have to disclose the exact formula. Same thing goes for your business. If you do something better than your competitors, it’s a valuable trade secret. And it’s not just your competitors you have to worry about…you also have to worry about people interested in investing in your business. This article describes a recent example of a potential investor that, after learning about a business, deciding to forego the investment and just start a similar business.
Going From Enthusiasm to Annoyance: We’re all excited about our businesses. And we love to talk about to our family, friends, followers on Twitter, the guy at the bus-stop, and the deranged homeless man asking for money. Generally, our enthusiasm is viewed in a positive light. But what is the fine line between our enthusiasm and becoming a spammer? The other night, I was having dinner with friends and letting them know how easy it is to automate updates on my facebook page. My good friend than said “If you go overboard, I’ll do what I’ve done with my other friends and just turn off your updates.” I realized that I’ve got to make sure not to abuse my friends and over-promote our business, as it will hurt my brand and I will start losing friends.
Feel free to share other instances when you shouldn’t over-share about your business.
Should your business have a personality on Twitter and other social media channels? Businesses are asking that question. Heck, we at KikScore are asking that question. By way of example, I was tweeting on our KikScore Twitter account this weekend, and I got caught up in the excitement of the Ohio State victory over our arch rival University of Michigan and I retweeted:
“makes me happy thinking of all the 6 year-olds in Ohio that are undefeated in LIFE against Michigan =D (via @Sweet_UpAndDown) great thought!”
After I tweeted this from our KikScore account I had a thought that passed through my head that said, “Should I have just done that? Is that really appropriate for Twitter and our company brand?” Now there are lots of sites out there that have Twitter Rules including a good one from Chris Brogan. Not many give guidance on whether your Twitter business account should convey a personality and talk about non-company related topics like football etc.
Our Guidance – Personality Wanted
Here is where we at KikScore come down on this questions. You can always just tweet about your company, your industry, your products etc. That generally is the traditional approach to business on Twitter.
We say, be different. Have a personality on Twitter. Actually have a remarkable personality on Twitter and that can even help your brand and sales. Yes, you should try to follow as many Twitter rules as possible – don’t be annoying by being spammy, don’t tweet about the bagel you are eating after your conversation with Joe from Marketing etc but be unique. Being remarkable and unique with your tweets will help you stand out from all of the other businesses on Twitter.
The best example that I think small businesses should try to use is Zappos. Employees at Zappos help bring the personality of the company to life on Twitter and that is just one way Zappos has such a unique brand and they are recognized for that by many.
So here are some tips to bring out the personality of your business on Twitter:
1. Tweet about items that employees are passionate about – charities, sports, events, accomplishments etc.
2. Tweet about positive customer experiences or if employees are doing something special like having a volunteer day.
3. Even if someone is criticizing your company on Twitter, you can always respond and tell them that you are sorry that they feel that way. That allows even the angry tweeps out there to know that you are listening.
4. Share funny stories or funny occurrences that happen in your business. If you come across a funny pet tricks video, share it. Now do not be that person that solely tweets out forwarded messages. That could be annoying.
5. Be sensitive and remember generally do not tweet on controversial subjects from your business Twitter accounts. These subjects can include politics, religion, gender etc. Your rule should be do not tweet about something that you would not want your mom/dad to see that you wrote and was then was posted on the cover of a major national newspaper.
We think having a personality on Twitter and other social media sites can be fun, rewarding and also help you interact with your community of followers at a deeper level. That interaction can then turn into a more committed and loyal community for your business which is a good thing!
So when you are hanging out on Twitter this holiday season trying to get sales using the tips we covered previously, show the world that you are a little different. Let us know how you are remarkably unique on Twitter.
We here at KikScore are pleased to announce our new seasonal feature — Panda Watch! No, actually, it’s going to be Shopping Watch! We’re going to poll our customers, readers as well as gather our own anecdotal information (at the mall, online stats) to measure how this holiday season is going for everyone. We’re assembling our crack Channel 4 News Team to gather data. But just in case Papa Burgundy (that would be Raj) can’t gather all the relevant info, please send us your view of how this holiday shopping season is going. Also send us your favorite AnchorMan scene. Here’s a best of clip:best of anchorman.
This is Part 2 in our series of KikScore’s go to small business blogs. Part 1 is here
There are blogs now for nearly everything under the sun. That translates to a lot of noise out there. So how do small businesses try to figure out which resources they should use online to stay up to date on trends and to get rock solid guidance from experts? The best way is through word of mouth and also getting recommendations from other small businesses. So here is our Part 2 of our list of some really good blogs that we at KikScore read:
1. Duct Tape Marketing– John Jantsch who runs this blog is a master of small business marketing, social media and strategy. His guidance is practical, to the point and is recognized by the small business community as one of the go to resources for small business success.
2. Fresh Inc. – Inc. Magazine is by far my favorite magazine to read. If you are an entrepreneur or a small business enthusiast, Inc. is a must for a number of reasons including its rich stories, wonderfully written profiles of small and medium businesses and its relentless focus on telling the small business story. Fresh Inc. is the blog of the writers of Inc. and it is a fantastic extension of the magazine.
3. CopyBlogger -Brian Clark is the founder of CopyBlogger. We like Brian for a number of reasons including because he calls himself a “recovering lawyer.” We have three of those on the KikScore team. But the interesting thing is he uses that legal background to give great guidance on all types of issues including writing copy for websites, making great sales pitches that stick and delivering killer content. Entrepreneur and Technorati are just some of the folks that have recognized Brian and the CopyBlogger.
4. Small Biz Survival – Becky McCray writes from a unique small business approach. She writes from a small town perspective as she owns a liquor store and cattle ranch in Oklahoma. She might write from a small town perspective, but she knows the ins and outs of small business issues big city, small city, global or local.
5. The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur – Mike Michalowicz runs this fabulously named blog! Mike’s approach to his blog and small business success is to stay away from the media’s over glossy approach to entrepreneurship and instead focus on the incredible hard work that makes entrepreneurship success possible. He does a great job of equating in a very good (and clean!) way entrepreneurship with the bathroom experience.
Check these blogs out, when you get a moment. You will not regret it!
Do you have a go to blog? Let us know which one it is.
Though the Internet seems to be overflowing with blog posts, tweets, and Facebook updates, there are a good number of businesses that don’t use social media in any manner. Initially, I wasn’t the biggest evangelist for social media. In all fairness, others on the Team are much more sophisticated about how to properly use blogs and Twitter. My initial feeling on social media was “Why the hell would I want to read the thoughts of a complete stranger?” The past 6 weeks, however, we’ve gone live with our site/service and my attitude has completely changed. Initially, we did very informative, yet sterile, blog postings…ones that no one actually read. My prejudice seemed to be confirmed. We then became more candid and casual in our postings, linked them up to Twitter and Facebook and all sorts of good things started to happen:
1. Our traffic and overall visibility to the site is growing exponentially
2. We have come across several companies that are reaching out to similar small business owners. Two such partners are Shustir and MyBusinessAssistant — services that are helping small business grow faster and with less headaches.
3. We are getting direct feedback from the marketplace.
4. Our customers have a good understand with whom they are doing business with — not just a slick website (though our site is pretty slick).
5. I’ve been able to share my drinking stories and show pictures of my dog online under the guise of being helpful for small business.
We’re not just the only ones seeing the positive impact of opening up to social media. One of our customers, www.17thandRiggs.com has a great blog and is active on Twitter https://twitter.com/RebeccaSM). In under a year, Rebecca has transformed her site from a passionate hobby to a destination site for interior designers and those who want to keep up with the latest design trends (as well as a full-time business). If you don’t like my anecdotal examples, do you prefer the Wall Street Journal’s anecdotal examples? In a recent WSJ article, a featured small business discussed how her wedding planning business was significantly buoyed by using social media.
Feel free to share your favorite social media success stories…or tips on using social media.
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.
All dog owners think they have the greatest dog — but until today, I was convinced that mine was truly “the one”. At home, Bo (our 5 year old Golden Retriever) is well behaved. He’s never on the furniture, doesn’t beg from strangers and overall is low-maintenance. I take Bo to doggy day care (check out www.citybark.com— greatest dog day care ever). He’s been going there since he was 3 months old. Recently, City Bark designated certain “dog awards” for the regular attendees. Needless to say, I thought we had “Best Dog” locked up (due to his general disposition and my lobbying of the title). Well, the votes came in and Bo was given the title “Best Coat”. What?! Is that even a category? It feels like someone in the Miss America competition winning “Best Smile”. It’s a made up award and really is saying, “your dog is terrible, but we want you to keep bringing your dog here.” That’s when it hit me. My experience with Bo is vastly different than City Bark’s.
Providing a consistent customer experience has to be the number one priority for all businesses, but particularly small businesses that are establishing a brand and customer following. While a consistent marketing message is important, according a to a recent Business Week article, more importantly is to meet your customers expectations(not necessarily exceeding expectations). Small businesses that consistently meet customer expectations don’t stay small for long. Think about Starbucks. It’s guaranteed that Starbucks doesn’t have the best coffee in every city in which it operates. But when you’re not a local (or you don’t want to risk it on the local shop), more often than not, you’ll go to Starbucks because they are excellent in meeting a customers expectations on a soy latte. I’m not suggesting that the goal of every small business is to become a multi-national corporation, but there is a reason why these established brands are successful. They stress consistency because that is often deemed more important than creativity or a superior product/service.
Please feel to share what your business does to maintain consistency…or if you disagree with the need to emphasize consistency. Or, if you think “Best in Coat” is a legitimate prize that I can take pride in.
If you’re doing a start-up with other people, I guess it’s unavoidable to have disagreements with your team. If you’re lucky, the biggest disagreements center around where to go for happy hour. Personally, I like Chili’s. I know it’s not necessarily cool, but the chips and salsa is really good (very salty chips) and the margaritas are big (and unlike I’ve mentioned in previous postings, the glasses are very easy to hold onto). It’s also very unlikely that you’ll run into your competitors at Chili’s — as these weak-kneed companies can’t buck peer pressure and social convention and won’t be caught dead there.
Recently, our team has been caught up in a larger kerfuffle. It centers around how we promote and/or explain the shopper experience that can be expected on our customer sites — via a numeric score. Some of the customer feedback is the concern that shoppers may equate an 820 (which is a really high score) with a “low B” rating (which would get you valedictorian status at my high school).
A contingent of our team believes that, because we already spell out the guidance of the numerical rating (“great experience”, “good experience” and “poor experience” expected), to remove customer confusion, we could eliminate the actual score. Other team members argue that the numeric rating shows the precision and sophistication of our scoring model (see posting on our algorithm), and it is something that our customers need to accept. Take a look at one of our customer’s sites, at www.17thandriggs.com to see the current version of the user experience.
We’re working through how to please all the team members, but this disagreement doesn’t seem to have a clear mid-point. I guess that’s the point of working with the right team. If everyone has an opportunity to express their views, whether the decision goes the way a particular team member wants really isn’t important. It’s that there’s an underlying level belief that ultimately, with enough deliberation, the group can reach the best decision for the business and the customer.
On the other hand, instead of thoughtful deliberation, we’re also thinking of implementing Mixed Martial Arts in our team meetings. I may have a bit of a paunch, but I have a pretty good reach.
Feel free to give us your opinion in the comments below on your feedback on this issue.
This post may seem a bit counter-intuitive, since we’ve been evangelizing about the need to promote your business on social media. We’ve talked about how this blog, and our tweets, and facebook have led to good things for KikScore. But there are times when you should stop sharing.
