Just a quick holiday note to wish our customers, partners and supporters a Merry Christmas. As Raj mentioned in his post earlier this week, we’ve had a great year — growing our business and launching two new products. All of it couldn’t be done without your support.
Wishing you and your family a fun and safe Christmas!
Mike
With only 1 shopping day left before Christmas, I hope you have all of your shopping done with by now but if you haven’t you should really go to the stores with your smartphone and a few trusty applications loaded so that you can make the most informed decision possible.
As the Wall Street Journal indicated in this article, only 5.6% of all shoppers on Black Friday used a smartphone to compare prices while in the store but this number represents a 50 fold increase from a year ago. I have actually used a couple different applications while in stores to compare prices and on more than one occasion have actually left the store to purchase the product online because it was considerably cheaper.
Some of the most popular smartphone applications that will allow Shoppers to scan barcodes in the store and instantly show them the cheapest price available online or in a bricks and mortar location are theFind and Google Shopper. Consumers can download these applications for free and within seconds can search for lowest price for any given product.
Stores are quickly becoming aware that shoppers have this new found ability to instantly compare prices and are trying to adapt in order to take advantage of or at least cope with the results but I don’t think that they are changing quickly enough in my opinion. I am still waiting for the day when I can show the Best Buy store manager a price I found online on my smartphone and have him or her match that price in their store. Today they will not even consider doing that unless the store I am comparing their price to also has a bricks and mortar location. I find this policy to be outdated and ridiculous and hopefully the coming widespread use of comparison shopping using smartphone applications will open these company’s eyes and make them change these archaic policies.
Have you ever tried to get a bricks and mortar store to match a price you found online for the same product? What were your results?
Well not really, but the recent hacking of Gwaker and Silverpop Systems Inc sure reminds me of moose battling for leader of the herd. Apparently two different groups of hackers hacked both companies. According to this, the attention given to the attention to the hacking of Wkileaks has started a competition to see who’s the best hacker. The hackers who hacked Silverpop, stole email addresses and may start spamming the inboxes of the stolen addresses. Apparently one of Silverpop’s clients was DeviantArt. That’s not good. I post my artwork on that site! According to DeviantArt’s statement(here), they have stopped hosting information on Silverpop servers. Funny, I don’t remember them sending me an email about this….But, that’s not really worrisome. What’s worrisome is that the hackers may have gotten McDonalds customer’s postal addresses and their telephone numbers. Wallgreens customers also had their email addresses stolen. Those customers may get emails asking for sensitive information from people claiming to be from another company or Wallgreens itself. Luckily no personal or medical information was stolen. So who’s the top hacker? The article didn’t say, but I think it wasn’t any of these folks would be the top hacker. Although it does make me wonder about the companies security….
Who do you think should be the top hacker and what can we do to stop them?
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!
This is an excellent short 4 minute video on the top web design mistakes that small businesses make from Entrepreneur Magazine. It covers the problems with:
1) Flash websites;
2) Poor design backgrounds;
3) Not having good About Us and Management Pages; and
4) Not having contact information, especially for your customer service operations.
What other mistakes do you see small businesses and startups make with their websites?
I broke down several months ago and purchased an iPad. I read a decent amount and my wife doesn’t like the light on when I read. So I needed to drop $800 on an iPad. At least that was the excuse. I didn’t think that I would use the iPad for any other reason than entertainment.
But I’m finding that I’m using the iPad for more business than fun and games. In fact, I’m writing is entire post on my iPad. I was about to get up to get my computer and I thought “wow, the computer is across the living room and the iPad is right next to me”. So laziness prevails. And im finding that it’s pretty easy to type on. The keyboard is bigger and on a glass screen – it makes me feel like I’m typing in the future.
I talked my wife into getting one and she is so addicted to it she is using the iPad to answer emails while she uses the treadmill. Crazy. I mean who uses a treadmill?
Not that this breaking news, but once storage of documents is easier (or is easily done on the cloud) I can’t see needing a laptop. Shoppinq, entertainment and work all in one device. Pretty great.
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.
I was watching ABC News the other night when I saw this report that suggests that the Better Business Bureau is essentially selling good business ratings. In this report, Brian Ross makes some fairly shocking realizations while interviewing a small business owner that had received a ‘C’ grade for her business and the day after paying the $400 membership fee to the BBB her rating immediately shot up to an ‘A’. The small business owner indicated that she did not do anything else that would have resulted in her increase in grading.
The report goes on to detail how some “pranksters” made up a business called “Hamas” which is a well known terrorist organization and paid the same $400 membership fee to the Better Business Bureau and, sure enough, this made up business received a grade of A!
The ABC report also includes an interview with Wolfgang Puck, who has an ‘F’ rating by the way, and says that he thinks paying for a grade is wrong. Other business owners interviewed in the piece say that they think the BBB is running a scam by trying to strong arm these small businesses into paying for their BBB membership in order to get a good rating through their system.
The end of the report seemed to indicate that the Connecticut District Attorney was in the process of requesting that the BBB stop rating businesses using this rating system as it seemed to be fraudulent. If these allegations are true, this no doubt will have huge impacts to the small business community as a large number of them have purchased trust and rating seals from the Better Business Bureau and they would now most likely be requesting refunds for these products if the rating system is, in fact, fraudulent.
Have you ever purchased any of these products for your business from the BBB and had similar issues in getting a good rating?
Exam week is coming up and instead of preparing, I’m procrastinating. 🙂 I only have two major ones anyway. If I wasn’t procrastinating, I wouldn’t have come across a certain article from TechCrunch.
You all remember Facebook’s privacy issues right? The one’s that have been so numerous that there were tons of articles about them. Facebook has had so many issues that Wikipedia has a whole article about it. Don’t get me wrong, I think Facebook’s a good idea but it has problems.
The top articles for this search
Anyway, when I was browsing TechCrunch, I came across a headline that said “Facebook Sued For Having Privacy Controls In Place. Yes, Seriously.” Wait…..what? Did I read that right? Who would sue Facebook for having privacy controls? This is ridiculous. So, I click on the link. Turns out it’s a patent lawsuit. What? Apparently Walker Digital, an invention company, patented the process of how users control and manage the release of information. Someone patented this? You can do that? Apparently, you can. The company claims that Facebook violated it’s patent by allowing people to have some control over their privacy. You have got to be kidding me…..I think this is real because Facebook said that they would fight it…..I’m hoping that it’s a joke though. I would still be wary of putting anything that you consider personal/valuable on Facebook though.
As long as we’re on the subject of Facebook, does the interface look cluttered to you all? (On a side note, Twitter looks cluttered to me too.) Look at it, really look at it. Doesn’t it look kinda dull? The Washington Post agrees with me on this. This is the only reason I like Twitter marginally better than Facebook.(I don’t like either of them that much) Twitter lets its users control how their page looks. With Facebook if you don’t like it, you can’t change it. I am a (somewhat) visual person. I don’t like white all that much and I don’t like seeing too much stuff on a page either. What I would like in a social networking site, is for it to be customizable. I want to be able to change the background, limit the number of things on a page and be able to organize it all. The two major ones don’t really let you do that.
So what do you all think about the aesthetics of Facebook?
I have to admit when I was growing up back in Ohio I idolized Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yes, I used to get Muscle & Fitness magazine and I watched every Arnold movie from Conan the Barbarian, Commando, Predator, and of course through all of the Terminator classics. At that time I looked up to Arnold mainly because I was (ok now dont laugh) big into weightlifting and well the movies were just the movies – pretty cool for any teenage kid.
It is funny that nearly 20 years later my wife sent me the video below which is a recent interview of Arnold where he discussed his approach to the success he has had a different phases in his life. It wasn’t until I watched the short 10 minute video that I realized that Arnold reinvented himself three separate times and was wildly successful in each instance. First, as the bodybuilder and multiple Mr. Olympia, then as a huge action movie star and finally as Governor of California.
The punchline for the video and largely this post is that Arnold said the difference between himself and others in each of the three major roles in his life was the mental game. As an example, he said there were plenty of weightlifters when he was competing to win bodybuilding competitions that were just as big as him, trained just as hard as he did, but the difference between Arnold and these other folks was their approach to mentally winning. Arnold always envisioned success and winning as well as achieving his goals. His goal was not just to be a good bodybuilder, but it was to win Mr. Olympia repeatedly. And so as opposed to other bodybuilders who were just good at training, Arnold continually envisioned mentally winning Mr. Olympia. And he won it not just once, but six consecutive times! In the video he says the difference between himself and others was not being physically bigger or having more defined muscles, it was instead the mental aspect of training, focusing and envisioning success at all times.
This was Arnold’s approach to the mental game:
a) constantly envisioned success and accomplishing the near and short term goals he laid out for himself;
b) was always mentally focused on that success and accomplishing those goals;
c) carried that focus into everything he did and his approach to training and executing his plans; and
d) was relentless in his pursuit for the success that he set out to achieve.
For startups and small businesses there are strong parallels and lessons learned from Arnold’s approach that he has taken in his life to succeeding not once, but in three completely separate areas as diverse as bodybuilding, acting and being elected as to the highest office in the largest state in the United States.
Watch, listen, take notes and start acting on the Arnold’s guidance! You will not regret it.
© 2010 Interactive Security Group
