Posts Tagged ‘Small Business’

Master Head Shaver & Founder of HeadBlade, Todd Greene, Give Us Small Business Pearls

Do you like a clean shave?  No, I am not talking about on your face or your legs.  How about your head? I came across HeadBlade on Twitter late last year.  For those of you who do not know who or what HeadBlade is it is only the global leader in head shaving razors and headcare products for head shavers. HeadBlade  offers its head razors and related headcare products on its website and in more than 25,000 retailers, including Walgreens and Rite Aid. Company President Todd Greene founded HeadBlade for head shavers who adopted the look as their chosen lifestyle. Some well-known Headbladers include Deal or No Deal host and former doctor from St. Elsewhere, Howie Mandel, American Idol star Chris Daughtry and 2009 British Open champion Stewart Cink.  Todd not only is the founder and President of Headblade but is also a blogger for The Huffington Post.  Swing by the HeadBlade website to see the Picture, User and Letter of the month from happy Headbladers.

Todd took some time out to answer questions and give us his take on HeadBlade and growing a business.

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

The original HeadBlade was designed in 1999 and was the first razor designed for the scalp.  Ten years later we’re still the only company that makes and sells razor and headcare items for people who shave their heads.

2. How did you get your started selling online?

I came up with the concept in 1997 and it wasn’t until 99 that I brought it to market.  Since I had little start-up funding (think family and friends) I had to do everything myself.  I didn’t have any experience with wholesale and since my first production run was 1,000 units, I was not producing on a large enough scale to consider major box retailers.  And the costs to go into them are very high when you consider the margin is fairly low, you have to pay for sales and rep group, you’re responsible for shipping/returns/damages, plus slotting fees.  Really the internet was my only option at the time.  Since I had worked as an artist for software companies in Seattle, and had experience working for both GeoCities and ESPN.com, I realized the value of creating and website and selling direct.

3. What inspires you to grow the HeadBlade business?

HeadBlade is a my passion.  Essentially I created the better mousetrap.  I had been shaving my head since 1992 and there was no company that spoke (or sold) to the demographic.  Eventually I designed and made prototypes.  Once I went through the patent process, and realized none of the large companies were interested in my idea, I decided to go it alone.

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

The first is that everything takes longer and costs more than you originally plan.  I’m not talking Murphy’s Law necessarily, but pad your calendar for unforeseen disruptions. The other is that the customer is always right.  If someone sends you an email complaining about shipping costs, or items out of stock, etc; take a deep breath and realize you can empower them and give them a very positive opinion of your company.  Word of mouth is huge, especially with all the networking sites, and nothing is better than great word of mouth.  Just ask anyone who has written or read a restaurant review on Yelp!

5. Where will HeadBlade focus most of its energy in 2010?

We are focusing on social networking sites, our affiliate system, and new product development.

6. As we start 2010 what do you see as 2 new trends in your business?

The large razor companies, Gillette and Schick, are rolling out new versions and the emphasis is now on a comfortable shave, not the number of blades.  This is huge for HeadBlade because we were never part of the razor wars; we’ve been making ergonomic shavers and headcare for guys that shave their heads.  Now that the cold war is over everyone can focus on what makes a great shave; and our design and headcare products are both performance and price competitive.

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

We have a great company and very cool culture, especially since we make head shaving products.  Think Die Hardmeets Office Space.

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

Michael Jordan.  He broke down so many barriers and even dropped an endorsement deal with a haircare company to shave.  I’d like to say Gandhi would have been great but not sure if he wanted to be so commercial.

9. What is the biggest challenge that HeadBlade faces as a small business and how do you work to overcome that challenge?

Our biggest challenge is getting to the Tipping Point as Malcom Gladwell would put it.  People still don’t know about us.

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

Read “Dream” by Paulo Coelho.  Then go for it.  Oh, yeah, everyone should shave their head at least once in their life.  Use HeadBlade when you do.

We at KikScore would like to thank Todd and HeadBlade for giving the community his thoughts on the small business experience.  If you have questions for Todd, please leave them in the comments below.

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Posts Tagged ‘Small Business’

How you respond to customer issues is important… anyone can be reading!

While researching a couple of issues from a recent KikScore customer signup,  the importance of a quick and informative response to current and would be customers became critically evident.  As a small business, you need to educate your customers so they have confidence in the product you are providing, and also share information in layman’s terms to alleviate confusion and not tech-speak your customers into oblivion.

I struggle with this balance while straddling the technical and marketing role at KikScore (and in my day job too).   Your customer base doesn’t share the in-depth knowledge that your team has on the inner-workings of your system, and thus you need to take a step back when responding to a customer inquiry/issue and put yourself in the customer’s shoes.   This entails not only empathizing with the issue at hand, but also providing deeper context surrounding the potential resolution/fix to the customer’s concern and conveying that back to them in a timely and informative manner.

In the world of social media today, any response you share with customers (and prospects) can (and most likely will) be posted or passed along the internet waves and will have an impact on not only the legitimacy of your business/product but also on its future branding potential.

SocialSmallBiz is doing a series on customer support and social media and the intertwining of each.  A fantastic quote to live by, for ANY small business owner “It Takes Months to Find a Customer… seconds to lose one”

How do you handle your customer inquiries and responses?  Please share your best practices and lessons learned with us.

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Posts Tagged ‘Small Business’

10 Leadership Traits and Skills Needed at a Startup & Small Business: Part 1

This is the first in a two part series on leadership traits and skills that can help increase the chances of startup and small business success.  There are literally thousands of books and probably many more blog posts on how to succeed in a start up or small business.  There are some great sites solely devoted to these topics like the Small Company Blog and StartupNation. Books on leadership in business are also everywhere including ones by like Jack Welch’s Straight from the Gut and Jim Collins who wrote Good to Great and Built to Last. This posts, however, actually tries to bridge these two areas and discuss leadership traits and skills that can help a startup or small business succeed.

In my time at Kikscore and also in conversations with friends, contacts and folks I have met at conferences like SXSW, there seems to be a consensus that the following traits really can help bolster your company:

1. Embrace Wearing Multiple Hats: Small businesses and startups have in their fabric that they are resource constrained. As a result startups and small businesses that often succeed are the ones where the owners are comfortable juggling multiple tasks that may straddle finance, marketing, technology, customer service, operations and business development. But even more importantly the owners need not just embrace the multiple hats, but also at the very same time constantly be thinking two to three steps ahead to determine when is the best time:  a) that you need to switch hats and put on another operational hat or b) when you need to put on a brand new hat in order to ensure success in a certain area of your business.  At early stages of startups and small businesses, the ability for owners to successfully wear these different hats can even determine whether a company survives or fails.  This trait also dovetails with the fourth trait below because it is also important to know when to put down the hat and instead hire an expert.

2. Take & Give Feedback: Owners and leaders in startups and small business need to embrace literally 360 degree feedback.  This is feedback from customers, from vendors, partners, investors, fellow employees, their management team and even their own families!  A continuous feedback loop from all of these parties ensures that you, your business, your product, your team and your partners are having an open and transparent conversation to put your business in the best position for success.  Instead of shying away from feedback, encourage and embrace it especially from your team and your customers.  At first it may be uncomfortable but in the end if you have some level of detachment and a lack of sensitivity/insecurity to others’ comments you can really grow yourself and become a better leader.  Continual feedback from your customers is also critical for building a great product that customers cant get enough of and keep buying!

3. Focus and Refocus: A startup and small business pulls owners and management in many directions.  As a result, it is very easy to lose the focus of your company and your plans for growth because you let other external factors drive your focus.  It is imperative to have a focused set of objectives/goals for the company.  But as a company you need to do more than just have these objectives/goals.  The best startups and small business keep these objectives/goals in the back of their mind in every action they take.  Even more importantly, they measure what they did yesterday, are doing today and will do tomorrow against these objectives/goals.  That is why it is critical that on a regular basis that startup and small business management track progress of the company and day to day tasks against these objectives/goals. Only by doing this will you be able to have a core focus and also continually make sure you refocus on the most important objectives for the business.  We outlined the importance of keeping your startup focused in a previous post here as well as methods to maintain that focus here.

4. Hire and manage outsourced resources: While your role in the startup or small business may be to wear many hats, a critical job is to know when its time to call in an expert in a certain operational area.  When it is clear that you need assistance for product development, marketing, strategy, customer service or even back office operations, its time to outsource.  Outsourcing can save you valuable time, money and help you focus on your core operations and goals of growing your business.  While you focus, your outsourced vendors can step in and help you. But too many outsourcing arrangements fail.  It is not enough just to hire a vendor to perform an operational function for you.  It is critical to the success of your business that you set expectations, train, and create defined deliverables that your outsourced vendor can understand and meet.  It is imperative to set clear expectations, actively manage the outsourced resources and continually measure the value the vendor brings to your company.  In the hiring and managing of these resources, you have to be comfortable with quickly and decisively terminating outsourced vendor relationships that are not working.  Here are a few tools you can use to help manage outsourced technology developers.

5. Be a Great Teammate: Startups and small businesses are only as good as their respective teams.  Therefore the team dynamic is instrumental in business success.  As a result for your company, it is imperative that you support your teammates and you continually deliver great results in your role on the team.  But that is not enough.  Great teammates are the ones that go far beyond what is expected and are relentless in their pursuit of a great product and phenomenal customer experience.  They step in and fill voids when they may exist but the void is actually not readily apparent.  These teammates think two, three and sometimes four steps ahead and take on the responsibility to address the issues that will come up down the road.  The best startups and small businesses are the ones where the teammates continually push each other so that they can each grow to make each other better.  That in turn makes the company and the product better.  Great teammates also mean your fans and customers are happy!  For tips on building the right team check out this excellent post on that topic.

Look out for Part 2 in this series that will be published next week.  Until then, please tell us what you think about the traits and skills you have seen in successful startups and small business.

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Posts Tagged ‘Small Business’

The New Health Care Plan: Does Anyone Know How This Really Impacts Small Business?

Whether you’re for it or against it, the new health care law that was just passed is a big deal.  What was a patch-work of state and federal laws focused on certain groups has been replaced with an entirely new system (unless you’re from Massachusetts, and then it’s pretty much the same as what you’ve been experiencing for the past several years). 

As any American does, regardless of my ideology, I started to wonder how does this new bill impact me (and KikScore).  Now KikScore is unique in that each team member is an owner (meaning we don’t have any actual employees), and most of us have day jobs that cover our health insurance.  But as we grow (in terms of hiring employees or having team members work full time on the company), that’s when this new law will be relevant.  In trying to understand the actual impact of the laws, I’m really left with two choices: (a) read the actual bill (which is unbelievably long); or (b) rely on a summary from a group or groups that have a vested interest in pushing me one way or an another in how to view the bill.  In other words, I haven’t a clue how this will actually impact small businesses.  According the White House, it will allow small businesses a $3500 tax credit for each employee.  According to those opposed to the law, it will act as a large drain and penalizes small business owners (who can’t afford to cover the employee insurance cost). 

I found a good articleon the new law in the USA Today…you’ll note that it’s a question/answer type of article and the small business owner starts off with “I think the new health care law stinks”.  Ok, so he’s definitely taken a position.  I won’t summarize the whole article, but it does point out: (a) health care for small businesses will become more affordable (as the new system creates bigger buyer pools for the insurance; and (b) the penalty for not buying insurance doesn’t affect those businesses with less than 50 employees. 

I’m still fuzzy on what this new law means to Small Business owners, but if you have any better understanding (or just plain feelings on the topic), please feel free to share.

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Posts Tagged ‘Small Business’

KikScore Interviews Name.com – Local Denver Domain Registration Company

I stumbled upon Name.com about a month ago while researching local small businesses.  They are a close knit team that is very active in the Denver community and show a strong passion for small business and teamwork.  Lesley Yarbrough, the Community Manager of Name.com shares with us their exciting story.

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

Name.com was founded in 2003 by Bill Mushkin, who previously founded Mushkin Enhanced. Our office is located in gorgeous Denver, CO in an old building that was part of Lowry Air Force Base.   Name.comis comprised of an awesome  and diverse group of people working hard to create innovative tools and provide our customers with the best service possible.

Really we focus on serving three different groups:

• Retail customers
• Small to medium sized business and startups
• Domain investors or “domainers”

2. There are a lot of domain sites out there.  How does Name.com differentiate from the competition?

We try to provide the best search tools we can to help our customers find the right name for their needs. For instance, our Domain Suggestion tool  is very unique in that it not only provides our keyword suggestions, but also Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) translations and Google Keyword suggestions. We also offer over 50 extensions for registration and awesome, personal support for all of our customers.

3. Where will Name.com focus most of its energy in 2010?

A lot of our energy in 2010 is going to be focused on reaching out to our community and establishing more of a local/regional presence here in Colorado. We’ve recently hired a Community Manager to help us with this effort. We also want to focus on improving our search capabilities and providing more value-added products to our customers.

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

Try new ideas and act on them quickly, because if you don’t someone will beat you to the punch. Also we’re working to create more strategic partnerships and “acting quickly” can be applied to that as well.

5. As 2010 begins, what do you see as 2 new trends in your business this year?

IDNs are pretty popular in the investor community and we see those becoming more mainstream this year. We think we’ll also start to see a higher adoption rate of alternative extensions (.TV, .MOBI, .IM, .TEL, etc.) as fewer .COM and .NET domains are available.

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

Honestly, the first thing that came to mind was The Big Lebowski .  We’re genuine, laid back, and we can get the job done. The Dude abides.

7. If Name.com could have a dream spokesperson for your company who would it be and why?

Why Gary Vaynerchuk of course! We’re huge fans of Gary in our office, we love his passion, his hard work, and his honesty.  We take what he has to say to heart and try to crush it every day. He actually did a personalized video for us recently when we ordered a bunch of his books for a promotion.

8. How do the folks at Name.com let loose after a busy day working?

We’re a diverse bunch, so we let loose a few different ways. Being located in Colorado we have access to great biking, hiking, skiing, and all that fun stuff. We have a ping pong table in our office and sometimes we’ll have tournaments, so there’s a bit of friendly competition going on. We also do a weekly web show called Beer Fridays.

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

Work hard, show your customers you care, and keep on rockin’!

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Posts Tagged ‘Small Business’

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’

Is March Madness Good for the Office?

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

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

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

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

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

What’s your thoughts on the NCAA tourney?

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Posts Tagged ‘Small Business’

Influences of the Entrepreneurial Spirit

As I prepare for a family visit this weekend to celebrate a milestone birthday (yes, mine), I reflect upon the choices I have made in life and the influences that got me to where I am today.  It also brings a bit of sadness in the fact that my father won’t be joining our celebration as we lost him to ALS in 2006… but when I think about influence, his strength and charisma still impact me today.

My father was a welding salesman, back in the 70’s-80’s when face-to-face sales were the only option.  He was an extremely successful business man within that format. Yet, my dad also always had something else ‘cooking’ on the side to fulfill his inventor spirit.  Most of his creations were related to the welding world, but he (and his partner) had one amazing idea way back when in inventing an above the ground swimming pool light – it installed in the side and lit up the inside of the pool, underwater, and was the first of its kind. Dad tested his invention on our pool and then worked to market it in local stores.  My sister and I were brought on board to silk-screen the product logos onto the lights in our garage.  It was exhilarating to be part of a new idea and see it grow, I was 9 years old…

While the underwater light venture didn’t expand, (there’s a long story of trusting the wrong manufacturing firm – another example of why choosing the right team is critical)  the perseverance my dad had in trying out his ideas and having that ‘side business’ was very inspirational.  Over the course of my life, my dad often encouraged me to make choices that may have seemed ‘out of my comfort zone’… which led me to a life of independence and a strong appreciation for the entrepreneurial spirit.

While my involvement in the KikScore venture started after my dad’s passing… I know he’s looking down proud as can be. What is your small business spiritual story? Share it with us!

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Posts Tagged ‘Small Business’

StartUp Tax Break: Let's Follow Wisconsin's Lead

Thanks to the fine folks at BusinessWeek, specifically Kay Koplovitz, I was introduced to a concept that should be embraced by Congress if we’re serious about jump-starting the economy — give angel investors a tax credit for investing in startup companies.  This concept just makes sense if you think about a few different points:

1.  Most people work for small businesses — to generate real job growth you’ve got to encourage small business growth.  Incentivizing investment in startups will pull up the slack created by massive job layoffs, and in turn will foster innovation.

2.  It levels the playing field with other investments — The government incentivizes other investments all the time.  If you want to buy a home or second home, you can write off interest expense.  If you invest in publicly traded stock (and lose money) you can take an offset on other gains or your income.  Why not also incentivize investments in the oft overlooked startups?

3.  It already works — as Ms. Koplovitz points out, this concept isn’t new.  In fact, thirty states already have similar programs in place (albeit on a smaller scale).  Seven years ago, Wisconsin started a program that provided angels a tax credit.  Investments in startups have since ballooned from $1.5M to over $15M.  Wisconsin working to expand the program (as it staves off pressures from unemployment and increases business tax revenues).

Thanks to BusinessWeek and Ms. Koplovitz for raising this idea.  Please send along any other small business tax ideas.

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Posts Tagged ‘Small Business’

Kikscore Interviews World of Toy Car's Mike Miller on Selling Online

I came across Mike Miller from the World of Toy Cars on Twitter a few months ago. The World of Toys Cars (WOTC) is an online store that focuses on diecast vehicles and vintage toys.  Its a car and toy collector’s paradise and Mike has some really amazing models including NASCAR, motorcycles,  Hot Wheels and aircraft just to name a few.  In this post,  KikScore sits down with Mike so that he can tell our community his small business story and more about his very cool website.

1. Tell us about WOTC and who you focuses on serving?

World of Toy Cars was created in such a fashion that collectors can easily find specific toy cars. Most collectors are always looking for specific models, either Volkswagons, Corvettes, trucks or maybe just Police Cars…but each collector is defined by something they like. There are always collectors that just collect Matchbox,..or just Hot Wheels,..but again, the ones they cant find in stores, they have to revert to the second market like eBay or sites such World of Toy Cars.

2. How did you get your started selling online?

I started selling online back in 1998, when eBay was just getting started. I was listing items with no pictures, and selling usually all the time. The client base was new and wanting items. I soon learned the art of pictures, uploading, taught myself HTLM, and created eye catching auctions which drastically improved my results.

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

WOTC will continue bringing new and exciting models to the online community. The task of documenting each item, photographing, and creating each listing individually is exhausting. Its also something that can only be done by myself, as condition of the card or package, the item itself, are there variations, year, where it was made, and the rarity (value) of the complete item is Critical.

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

Two very simple things that MUST be done if you want to sell online. You must spell correctly! And you must have perfect pictures. Both those things tell everything about a seller, and yet the buyer has hardly seen your stuff. Once a buyer detects bad spelling, or blurry pictures, they are GONE.

5. As 2010 starts, what do you see as 2 new trends in your business this year?

The ever changing search engine optimization. This is critical again in the online world, and Google who basically controls the strings here, is always updating…so you as a seller must update also. The second is not really a trend, but its opening up, is worldwide shipping. People must get onboard with shipping globally if they want to be successful. More and more information is available now about different countries and their guidelines. People must educate themselves and grab those open markets.

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

It would have to be someone with a sense of humor, people relate and remember when they are made to laugh!

7. How do the folks at WOTC let loose after a busy day working?

Usually a good meal, and then out to check stores to find new and fun toys!!

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

If you want to succeed on the WWW, you must learn to ship worldwide. You have the whole world at your doorstep, looking at your items, and your telling most of them to go away because you dont like where they live. Imagine if stores or restaurants did that!! I have been shipping all over the world for 12 years now, I communicate to everybody in their own language with Google translate, and international sales account fo over 50% of my business.

The other thing I have noticed is many sellers have tons of rules to deter business. I have had people refuse to sell to me simply because they dont want to go to the USPS, or the forms are too lengthy to fill out, so they cancel my purchase. Why are you even selling things? That baffles me…you want to sell…make it easy to buy…it happens, it works…so do it!

KikScore would like to thank Mike for this interview. If you have questions for Mike, leave them in the comments section below and we will make sure they get answered.

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