This is a presentation that is usually given in 30 minutes and I did it in about 10. It was rapid fire and from the Twitter stream and the high fives I got, it went over really well. For those of you that could not make it, I embedded the presentation that came on everyone’s thumb drive below and further down is the video presentation of the session. Leave a comment and tell me what you think.

Video Presentation of “10 Rules for Killer Business Cards”
SKIP TO 4:35 past the raffle to get to my smiling face and enjoy.

About Steve Fisher:

Steve currently is Managing Partner of AppSolve. In its 10th year, Appsolve specializes in user experience design, enterprise web development and online community management. Through AppSolve, he works with Network Solutions to manage its online small business community. Prior to that he was founder and CEO of Slipstream Air, a software provider to the private air travel industry. It was sold in 2008 to JIT Airline Resources, which rebranded as Slipstream Aviation Software. Steve has also held key leadership positions at Global Network Solutions, OnSite Technologies, IKON, USConnect, Ryland and Wells Fargo.

He has published several e-books on Small Business Management, User Experience, Online Marketing and Innovation. Currently, he is working on his first book, “101 Rules for Entrepreneurs” slated for a Spring 2010 release.

He holds a Bachelor of Science in Business from University of Baltimore and on a personal note he is a private pilot, musician and concert photographer. He cur¬rently resides in Columbia, MD, USA.

What is a Sitemap?

WebUpon describes it as “A Sitemap is a graphical representation of the architecture of a website. There are two kinds of site maps. The first is used to assist visitors to a site to navigate the site and the second is done in XML. XML Sitemaps, usually called Sitemap with a capital “S”, are used by Goggle to gather information about the site.”

Sitemap is especially important if your site:

Option #1 – Create it manually or use

Create a Web Page with the Text Link on the front page to “Site Map” and have that page detail out the site is the simplest way to do it but it doesn’t do things like exclude private pages or talk in the language search engine prefer. You can use Google’s Webmaster Tools to generate the sitemap in this format and create a file called “Sitemap.XML”.

The only caveat with this tool is that it is a static version of the sitemap so if your site is updated frequently with content (e.g. blog) you might want to look at option #2 and use a plug-in.

Option #2 – Use a plug-in on your Content Management System (CMS)

Many content management systems have this basic functionality built in or offer plug-ins to help you do this quickly. These usually are very flexible and their management screens allow you to specify which pages for Google or other search engines to index. To show you something like this works, here is a great video using the Wordpress CMS and Google Webmaster Tools:

Resources Mentioned in This Post:

Sitemap Generator Tools for Google and Many CMS Programs

Google Webmaster Guidelines

Google Sitemaps In-Depth

Why a Sitemap is Important

I am thrilled to give a talk at the Entrepreneurs and Consultants SIG (E&C SIG) meeting on September 19, 2009. This gives me a feeling of both honor and nostalgia . Honor because this is a body of peers and gurus who are meeting and helping entrepreneurs long before there were the social networks we know of today.

CPCUG’s nearly 30-year-old motto is “Users Helping Users.” Technology novices join to learn from techies, and to help each other as their knowledge grows.

Nostalgia because when I was contemplating changing careers this was a organization that was on the forefront  and presented me with an opportunity for both learning and networking.  I went to meetings at NIH where speakers educated you on a myriad of topics. Over the past ten years I have been a subscriber to the CPCUG mailing list and have gained by it. Also Barabara Conn has been helping me with her informational newsletters.   I was the speaker at the DC Web Women event a few months ago and Barbara asked me if I would speak at the Enterprise and Consultants SIG. That was a great moment for me..

I interviewed Barbara Conn who is a board member of CPCUG and also details of the event are below should you choose to attend.

Event Details:
Saturday, September 19, 2009, 12:45-3:15 pm
How To Get Business With Social Media
Check-In: 12:45 pm. Program: 1:00-3:15 pm

Cleveland Park Library, 1st Floor, Large Meeting Room
3310 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Wash., DC

Details : http://www.cpcug.org/user/entrepreneur/index.html#meetings

Barbara Conn founded and chairs the Entrepreneurs and Consultants Special Interest Group of the Capital PC User Group, planning monthly event programs and workshop “extras,” booking speakers, facilitating meetings,and creating and updating Web pages (http://entrepreneur.cpcug.org). She is also the volunteer Director of Communications for CPCUG, publicizing CPCUG events, training offerings, and community services via e-mail,Twitter (@cpcug), Web pages (http://calendar.cpcug.org), and flyers.

Increasing the impact of clients through writing, and related services, is Barbara’s goal as a communicator, and also the mission of her company,Beacon Writing Services Corporation. As a magazine editor, she has planned theme issues, assigned stories, reported news, reviewed and edited manuscripts, and managed design, illustration, typesetting, layout,proofreading, indexing, and printing. Barbara has received awards for editorial services from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Among her many eclectic interests, she enjoys watching a good movie and Washington Wizards basketball games, and reading about advances in science and technology.

In another lifetime, Barbara earned a B.S. in chemistry from Bucknell University. She started her career by applying for and receiving a National Science Foundation grant for work in the Chemistry Department laboratories at American University. Barbara may be reached at bconn@cpcug.org. Her Twitter.com username is b_conn. For more information, visit http://www.linkedin.com/in/bconn.

A) How was CPCUG founded?

Barbara : Early in 1982, at a Rockville, Maryland, computer store, a notice appeared on an actual, physical bulletin board about an upcoming evening gathering for personal computer buyers. Rich Schinnell, one of the original members of the Capital PC User Group, who later served several terms as president, reports that he attended and participated along with seven or eight others. Mike Todd was elected president of the new Capital PC User Group. Jimmie Faris became the treasurer, Ted Landberg became the newsletter editor, and Wes Merchant became the bulletin board system (BBS) director. This group of four was the original Executive Board. Several special interest groups (SIGs) were organized and met regularly: Software, Medical, Games, Micronetwork, and Group Purchase.

General meetings with speakers on a variety of computer hardware and software topics were held monthly in the auditorium of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) in Bethesda. CPCUG members were encouraged to share knowledge by writing for the Monitor, CPCUG’s monthly print newsletter. A software exchange was established for sharing public domain software programs among members before and after general meetings. Capital PC User Group, Inc., was incorporated in Maryland in 1982 as a nonprofit 501(c)(3) educational organization. Its purpose was and is to provide a forum for sharing information, experience, and resources among computer users, from novice to advanced. Although the group serves primarily the Washington, DC, metropolitan area, members are found around the world.

B) Would you consider this one of the earliest social networks?

Barbara : With its in-person general meetings, Q&A sessions, SIG gatherings, and bulletin board system (BBS), the 1982 CPCUG was a social network in both the modern and classic sense. The Source and CompuServe provided earlier options for computer-based social networking.

C) Are there any plans to expand CPCUG?

Barbara: CPCUG will be surveying current, former, and potential members as part of the process of evaluating our membership benefit package. We do this periodically to keep up with changing times, changing technology, and the changing needs of members and potential members. After the survey process is completed, and the results tabulated and reported, we’ll consider changes in our benefit package and possibilities for expansion.

D) What is the CPCUG Entrepreneurs and Consultants SIG?

Barbara : The CPCUG Entrepreneurs and Consultants SIG was founded in 1997 for a cross section of CPCUG members: computer consultants and entrepreneurs using computers. It welcomes those involved in small businesses either as owners or managers, independents, those just starting to think about venturing out on their own, and anyone interested in business, technology, and computer hardware and software selection, setup, installation, maintenance, and upgrade. Event attendees include new and seasoned business owners, new graduates starting their careers, those retiring from one career and considering a second career as a business owner, and others interested in the topic of the day.

Our monthly meetings are free and open to the public. Most take the form of a presentation or workshop with a guest speaker. We have occasional book talks by authors, or reviewers from our SIG. To encourage face-to-face networking, we have additional gatherings in a more social setting, such as a restaurant or pub. We also have occasional workshop “extras.” These are usually on niche topics or topics nominated for repeat presentations. These are open to nonmembers as well as members and usually have a small fee, from $15 to $30.

E) What kind of folks would you advise should join CPCUG?

Barbara : Anyone who uses technology, or who might want to use technology, can benefit from membership in CPCUG. CPCUG is no longer just about computers, it’s about all types of technology, including TV show production, student robotics competitions and science fair support, and mobile phone hardware, software, backup, and synchronization. As new leaders emerge, CPCUG transforms itself to meet the technology needs of new and potential members.

CPCUG’s nearly 30-year-old motto is “Users Helping Users.” Technology novices join to learn from techies, and to help each other as their knowledge grows. Techies join CPCUG to share information with and learn from other techies. A techie in securing computer hardware and software, for example, may be a novice needing help if called upon to produce a file requiring expertise in Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver, or another industry-specific advanced software application. In the process of helping others with technology, users enhance their teaching and mentoring skills and can benefit from valuable networking opportunities. CPCUG is also an excellent platform for developing resume-enhancing leadership skills and successes. CPCUG members who are the most active are likely to benefit the most.

Participation can take many forms, including asking and answering questions on e-mail lists and the helpline, attending face-to-face meetings and participating in Q&A sessions, networking and socializing after meetings, organizing meetings, taking a class, teaching a class, and repairing computers for Project Reboot, CPCUG’s community recycling project.

F) Is there any membership fee?

Barbara: The membership fee for CPCUG, which provides free consulting services as part of the membership package, is still a bargain at just $42 per year. For more information about benefits, visit http://members.cpcug.org/benefits.html.

Register for the Grow Smart Biz Conference and hear Chris Anderson Speak and get great tips on how to grows your business in this economy.On Tuesday, September 29, 2009, Network Solutions will host the first ever GrowSmartBiz Conference—a conference designed as a Premier Networking Event for SmallBiz Owners and Entrepreneurs— For a limited time, we are offering a special registration package – buy one, get one free! If an attendee registers on or before 9.9.09 (using promo code GSB999), he or she will only pay $99 to attend AND be able to bring a guest with them for FREE! register at http://www.tinyurl.com/gsbiz

Along with traditional entrepreneurs, in this economic climate there have been a bumper crop of unintentional entrepreneurs — people who, through circumstance, have found themselves on their own, and are using this as an opportunity to unleash their talents and create their own businesses. (I, myself, kind of fit into this category, although I don’t really think of myself as an entrepreneur — maybe it’s a mental block.)

The DC event (well, actually in Rockville, Maryland, at the Johns Hopkins University Montgomery County Campus, a site that’s hosted several social media-related events we’ve written up here) was the penultimate stop in the 5-city tour, so you can see a lot of material and coverage from the other cities at the Unintentional Entrepreneur site. Which is a good thing, because I got to the event kind of late (I blame traffic). Again, though, we can fall back on the crowdsourced note-taking via the Twitter hashtag #uedc.

I snuck into the room just as Shannon Nash was finishing up her talk on accounting, tax and legal advice for small businesses (including answering the ever-popular question, “What structure should I use: Sole proprietor, LLC, S-Corp, C-Corp, Hybrid, Partnership?”). The room was pretty full, and everyone was paying close attention:

(I took this photo, though you can see others at the Unintentional Entrepreneur Flickr set.)

Next, NetSol’s own Shashi talked about the benefits and how-to’s of establishing a presence for your business online. I have to admit I’ve heard Shashi give variations of this presentation a bunch of times, so I perhaps didn’t pay as close attention as I should have. Fortunately, the Twitter feed comes to the rescue: He covered the key points to picking a domain name for your business (keep it easy to remember and easy to spell), exhorted people to set up Facebook fan pages (if potato chips can have fan pages, you can too), and to explore other presences that could be useful (like Etsy.com for crafters and artisans.)

The last presenter was Bob London, on Marketing Your Small Business. He led off with a cloud of previously-submitted questions, and in rapid-fire fashion:

* Advocated using info from Dunn & Bradstreet to help vet potential clients.

* Said that social media was primarily a listening tool, not a revenue generator.

* Burst a few bubbles by saying that an 80:20 ratio of doing “actual work” vs. marketing and feeding the pipeline was way too high, and that the actual effort for marketing was 30-40%

* Advocated using GeniusRocket for creative

* Suggested that the pendulum may be swinging back on the effectiveness direct mail, since we get less of it now, and get more spam in e-mail.

For the rest of his presentation, he covered how for companies that aren’t Coca Cola, IBM, or GEICO (with huge marketing and advertising budgets), the best branding you can have is a solid product and customer service you can get behind. Also, instead of the elevator pitch, he advocated getting your prospective client’s “elevator rant” — their primary complaint and challenge (as they see it).

Also, he covered a few guerilla marketing techniques (like timing a newsletter to piggyback on bigger events); advocated “cloud marketing” (pushing your message out through multiple channels to create ubiquity); the value of opt-in newsletters to nurture and maintain relationships; and the best sales pitch is asking for reactions, ideas, and feedback, combined with doing your homework and getting the proper context.

In summary, the event (well, the parts I was able to catch) was well-received by an audience that ran the gamut from prospective startups to serial entrepreneurs, covering a variety of businesses. I know I’ll be delving into the hashtags and other resources to fill what I missed.

Were you at the workshop (or one of the previous ones)? Leave a comment and let us know what you thought.

However, if you’ve got a company blog, product support blog, or other topically-focused or single-issue blog, there’s always the question — how far off the main topic can you diverge before you start annoying readers?

A recent example I’m specifically thinking of is TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington ranting against handshakes, for reasons of public health and/or squeamishness.

Now, going to events and meeting entrepreneurs and such is part of TechCrunch’s raison d’etre. So complaining about poor event logistics, or even railing against paper business cards is par for the course. However, when you start pushing your personal agenda and get preachy about sanitary practices, you’ve lost me.

(Even a general interest blog can venture into this territory, like when someone beats a joke or theme to death, a la Boing Boing’s extended riffage on the “Long Horse.”)

Why Go Off-Topic in the First Place?
Now, off-topic posts are an integral part of most blogs’ editorial mixes. They help fill the gaps if there’s nothing immediately blogworthy to write about. Off-topic posts make it easier for bloggers to inject a little personality into the blog, which can otherwise be a challenge if you’re doing, say, a straight, “just the facts” product support blog. And after all, off-topic posts helps humanize the bloggers, and the organization they represent — which is one of the reasons you’re blogging in the first place, right?

The key, then is to know your audience’s tolerance for off-topicness. And there’s not going to be a one-size-fits-all ratio that you can apply: The line is going to vary for each blog, what you’re trying to do, how good your bloggers are able to communicate, and what your audience wants.

This means you should listen to your audience, checking both your active feedback (comments, e-mails) and passive metrics (pageviews, links, tweets, blog mentions etc.). Also, read your own blog (duh) and keep track of what you write about — you need to be able to keep a clear overview of the direction and tone of your blog’s content, so you can know if you’re ever approaching the edge.

Things You Shouldn’t Do
The don’ts when it comes to off-topic posts are a little easier:

* Abuse the bully pulpit: Especially for corporate and product blogs, you’ve got a built-in audience of customers and users. They’re self-selected, but not captive, so don’t take liberties with their attention, because the second you take them for granted, you’ll start losing them.

* Get more serious in your off-topic posts than your on-topic posts: Off-topic posts (I mean really off-topic posts, outside of even the realm of “day in the life of Company X” stuff) should be quick hits, not long, drawn out pieces. If you’re putting more effort into any of your off-topic posts than your on-topic posts, something is probably very wrong.

* Be too full of one’s “self-”: This is a blanket item for anything that’s too self-serving, self-indulgent, or self-important — basically, anywhere that you’re inflicting your personal beliefs on others. Personal blogs are nothing but “self.” Corporate and single-issue blogs are the antithesis of this — they’re not for you, they’re for “them.”

There’s a happy medium between dry, featureless corporate blog devoid of personality and self-indulgent personal playground, and it’s a wide and roomy one. Be respectful of your audience and their attention, and you should be able to keep them entertained while still keeping sight of your blog’s goals.

Ever have a run-in with an overly self-indulgent off-topic post on a corporate blog? Have you ever crossed the line yourself? Leave a comment below.

20 Wordpress Plugins to Get You Started Effectively – OneXtraPixel

AND

21 Great Plugins That I Personally Recommend – Just Creative Design

Each of these sites make good cases, describe the plugins well and even have pretty screen shots. So in order to add value and create a great post, I thought I would actually review both and see about giving you a best practices list. The descriptions are quoted from their respective web sites. Here we go in alphabetical particular order:

#1 - Akismet

Akismet is a popular spam-fighting service that is different from other spam filter. It checks the content of the comment anonymously with an online server, to determine whether it is spam or not and it pretty good at separating spam and reliable comments.

Recommended by: OneXtraPixel, Just Creative Design

#2 – All in One SEO

Out-of-the-box Search Engine Optimization for your Wordpress blog.

Recommended by: OneXtraPixel, Just Creative Design

#3 – Better Comments Manager

Better Comments manager allows you to view your comments post wise, it also allows you to reply to your comments from within the admin panel without you having to visit the site to respond to comments..

Recommended by: Just Creative Design

#4 – cForms II

cforms is a feature rich plugin for Wordpress, offering convenient deployment of multiple Ajax driven contact forms throughout your blog or even on the same page. It’s versatile and can be customized to your preferred design and feel.

Recommended by: OneXtraPixel, Just Creative Design

#5 – CommentLuv

cforms is a feature rich plugin for Wordpress, offering convenient deployment of multiple Ajax driven contact forms throughout your blog or even on the same page. It’s versatile and can be customized to your preferred design and feel.

Recommended by: Just Creative Design

#6 – Feedburner Feedsmith

This plugin detects all ways to access your original WordPress feeds and redirects them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber.

Recommended by: Just Creative Design

#7 – Google AJAX Search

Adds a Google AJAX Search box on your site. Options include searching your site through Google Blog Search and/or straight up Google, a second search option is available that is perfect for flickr.

Recommended by: Just Creative Design

#8 – Google Analytics

Enable Google Analytics on your blog. Has options to also track external links, mailto links and links to downloads on your own site.

Recommended by: OneXtraPixel, Just Creative Design

#9 – Google XML Site Map

This plugin will create a Google sitemaps compliant XML-Sitemap of your WordPress blog. It supports all of the WordPress generated pages as well as custom ones. Everytime you edit or create a post, your sitemap is updated and all major search engines that support the sitemap protocol, like ASK.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO, are notified about the update.

Recommended by: OneXtraPixel, Just Creative Design

#10 – Home Page Excepts

This plugin shows excerpts on the home page rather than full posts. You can customise how many you want to display as full posts.

Recommended by: Just Creative Design

#11 – My FTP

A WordPress FTP like plugin that can be used to manage folders and files via the WordPress admin pane

Recommended by: Just Creative Design

#12 – NextGEN Gallery

This is a great plugin that allows you to have a customizable photo gallery with cool effects.

Recommended by: Just Creative Design

#13 – Robots Meta

This plugin allows you to add all the appropriate robots meta tags to your pages and feeds, disable unused archives and nofollow unnecessary links.

Recommended by: Just Creative Design

#14 – RSS Feed Signature

Add a customized signature or tag-line to your RSS feed(s).

Recommended by: Just Creative Design

#15 – Search Unleashed

Search Unleashed will extend the standard search with a full text search across everything (posts, pages, comments, authors, meta-data), with the output from plugins included in the search. Search phrases are highlighted, as are incoming searches from Google, Yahoo, and most other search engines.

Recommended by: OneXtraPixel

#16 – Statpress Reloaded

This plugin shows you real time statistics about your blog. It collects information about visitors, spiders, search keywords, feeds, browsers, and their OS etc.

Recommended by: OneXtraPixel

#17 – Simple Tags

Simple Tags is the perfect tool to manage perfectly your Wordpress tags.

Recommended by: OneXtraPixel, Just Creative Design

#18 – Statpress Reloaded

This plugin shows you real time statistics about your blog. It collects information about visitors, spiders, search keywords, feeds, browsers, and their OS etc.

Recommended by: OneXtraPixel

#19 – Subscribe to Comments

Subscribe to Comments is a robust plugin that enables commenter to sign up for e-mail notification of subsequent entries. The plugin includes a full-featured subscription manager that your commenter can use to unsubscribe to certain posts, block all notifications, or even change their notification e-mail address.

Recommended by: OneXtraPixel, Just Creative Design

#20 – Tweet This

This plugin adds a “Tweet This Post” link to every post and page. Shortens URLs in advance through Th8.us, eating up only 19 of 140 characters. It also includes other social media tools like: Plurk, Yahoo Buzz, Delicious, Digg, Ping.fm, Reddit, and StumbleUpon.

Recommended by: OneXtraPixel

#21 – Twitter Updater

Updates Twitter when you create a new blog or publish one. You can also use TwitFeed.com for this as well if you don’t want the plugin.

Recommended by: Just Creative Design

#22 – Wordpress Database Backup

WP-DB-Backup allows you easily to backup your core WordPress database tables. You may also backup other tables in the same database.

Recommended by: OneXtraPixel, Just Creative Design

#23 – WP-Optimize

WP-Optimize is a database cleanup and optimization tool for Wordpress. It doesn’t require PhpMyAdmin to optimize your database tables. It allows you to remove post revisions, comments in the spam queue, un-approved comments within few clicks or rename any username.

Recommended by: OneXtraPixel

#24 – WP Cumulus

WP-Cumulus allows you to display your site’s tags, categories or both using a Flash movie that rotates them in 3D. It works just like a regular tags cloud, but is more visually exciting. Clicking the tags can be a little hard (depending on your speed setting) but does take you to the appropriate page.

Recommended by: OneXtraPixel

#25 – WP Email

WP Email allows people to recommend/send your WordPress blog’s post/page to a friend.

Recommended by: OneXtraPixel, Just Creative Design

#26 – WP Polls

WP-Polls is extremely customizable via templates and css styles and there are tons of options for you to choose to ensure that WP-Polls runs the way you wanted. It now also supports multiple selection of answers.

Recommended by: OneXtraPixel, Just Creative Design

#27 – WP-Print

Displays a printable version of your WordPress blog’s post/page.

Recommended by: Just Creative Design

#28 – WP Security Scan

This plugin effectively scans your Wordpress installation for security vulnerabilities and suggests corrective actions.

Recommended by: OneXtraPixel, Just Creative Design

#29 – WP Super Cache

This plugin generates static html files from your dynamic WordPress blog. After a html file is generated your webserver will serve that file instead of processing the comparatively heavier and more expensive WordPress PHP scripts.

Recommended by: OneXtraPixel, Just Creative Design

#30 – WP Widget Cache

Updates Twitter when you create a new blog or publish one. You can also use TwitFeed.com for this as well if you don’t want the plugin.

Recommended by: Just Creative Design

So there You Go….30 of the best Plugins for Wordpress as of this moment.

What are you waiting for? Give them a test and leave a comment.

“You can only choose one. Which one do you want,” she asked.

The boy chose the one that directly in front of him. The one he could easily reach out to and take without any fear. He was eager to tear open the pages of whatever adventure awaited beneath the cover.

“That one?  Are you sure?”

He nodded and they were off. I don’t know if he ever enjoyed the comic, but I saw, for that moment, he was completely confident and excited about his choice.

Right then and there, I had my topic.

The rush hour of small business marketing.
With so many people reaching out for your prospective clients’ attention, it’s getting harder and harder to see yourself as the clear choice.  It is easy to get overwhelmed with choosing where to advertise, how to cast the widest net, and what your message will be to get their attention.  It can be frustrating with every niche item salesman suggesting what bit of swag will be sure to lure in that potential client, the local print shop touting the latest sale on brochures and postcards, networking events crowded with the same people over and over again, and yet have you noticed what you want…seems to be right where you need it?

I’m not advocating you ditch any of the tools above, but simply recognize them for what they are. They are tools and avenues to get you to the next prospective client.  But if these avenues are backed up with rush hour like traffic fighting for attention, why would you take them? Because they are safe bets? Because everyone is doing it? Because you are a bit afraid to feel like you wasted your all ready limited resources on an unproven tactic?

But what if you take these choices and you end up with a closet full of key chains, boxes of never seen brochures, and networking events where you end up collecting the same business cards from the same people just on different days?  Isn’t THAT a waste of your valuable all ready limited resource?

Be where you’ll get the most eyes.
Instead of trying to create tactics and plans that brings them to you, try getting out and going to them.  Seriously, go where your future long term customers will be. It could feel awkward at first, but if you’re the first person to tap the well of uninterrupted visibility then you’ve got nothing to loose.

The best example I’ve seen of this was just yesterday at an office where I am doing some contracting.  In their kitchen, right on the refrigerator door, was an advertisement for a Babysitter.  The design was clean, clear, and simple.  There was a pocket, made of folded paper, stapled to it with business cards sticking out. The business cards were even clearer than the flyer. They simply read, in a welcoming font,

“Nicole.
Babysitter.”

And below that were her phone number and email.

This wasn’t done in an off the shelf font, but it was neatly presented and easy to read. No fluff designs or overly wordy content. The business card laden flyer was close to eye level with anyone going to get their lunch.

Nicole tapped a market of an office made up of probably 60% of her chosen clients. She went right to where she would get the most eyes on her services.

Needless to say, I’ve seen Nicole’s simple business card holder refilled at least twice since the advertisement went up.

Be brave with your limited resources.
Don’t be afraid to take chances once in a while. Get out there and go after your prospective clients with the same excitement you started your business.  After all, they are your clients after all, right?  Instead of the next tried and true moderately successful “everyone’s seen it, done it, and got the t-shirt from it” tactic, get a little creative with your limited resources.

If you’re an auto detailing company, offer to wash cars in the parking lot of your local office building for free in exchange for letting people know about your services.  If you’re a business coach, give away coupons for a free session at a networking event for small business owners.  If you’re an author with a new book to peddle, go to where your reader will be and give out free sample chapters of your book with info on where to get the rest of the great, amazing best seller to be. What ever it is that you do, be bold, be creative and be fearless in whatever your marketing endeavor will be.  Failures will happen, but successes will as well.  Be more focused on the later and conscious of what caused the former.

If you’re wondering, yes, I’ve seen the aforementioned suggestions done, but those business owners wanted the clients and weren’t afraid to take a calculated risk to reap a little long term reward.

But the real question is…are you?

As all ways…stay wicked.

Overnight something wholly amazing happened.
They opened their email box one morning a month into the passively pushed campaign and found they had, honest to Bob, over 7,000 submissions requesting to be a part of the campaign. Emails poured in from all over the nation taking part in the submission. We all clamored to the marketers’ desk to see this with our own eyes. An email box so overloaded with requests it called to mind the commercial of the new business that puts its store online and the orders just keep going up, and up, and up. Just like the emails that continued to pour in.

From joy to panic.
Some thought it was spam. Some were excited at the potential of something they did being that “viral”. Some freaked out at how they were going to service all of the requests with a limited supply.

With one of their web team helping, I started looking through some of the emails to see if we could detect signs of spamming. We couldn’t find any that were that obvious. The submission forms were filled out were each unique, accurate, and different, that the only thing that kept the curiosity of it being spam was the frequency of how these came in. It was roughly twenty emails a minute with each second a part from each other.

The Google Search is strong with this one.
So there we sat, debating on what to do, and I thought “Google will have the answer”. I threw the name of the campaign between some quotes in Google’s search box and hit send. My screen, and Google’s Search results, were maxed out with Freebie Sites, sites that do nothing but list where to find, and how to get, free stuff online, listing the “Free Gift” that came with campaign and how to get it.

I figured, “if it’s already this deep into Google…where else could it be”. I turned m search to the tools of Social Media. The links started popping up on Twitter with a link back to the directions on how to get the “Free Gift”. It was in different spots all throughout Social Media.

In a very short time, less then ten hours, the “Free Gift” had spread like wild fire. It was time for some damage control.

From excitement to frustration
From there, I created a timeline of when the first Freebie Site listed the campaign, which linked off of it, when other posts picked it up, and cross referenced it with when the emails came in and how often they spiked. Yeah, I know, I’m a geek. My wife reminds me constantly. Sure enough, the spike in email requests coincided with each time the campaign appeared on a Freebie Site.

This wasn’t spam after all, but an army of people who collectively thought the “Free Gift” was worth their time to blog about the “Free Gift” and share how sign up for it. They rallied their own troops, got the message out, and took action on it. This was truly an example of the kind of Viral Marketing companies’ dream of!

Yet notice nothing in that last paragraph talks about the connection with the campaign, the belief in the goal, sharing the message of the campaign over the free gift, or any positive remarks about the non-profit’s effort?

With learning that submissions were still flooding in, we closed down the submission request box. I sent emails to the Freebie Sites letting them know what the intention of the campaign was and how we hoped they update their info. Some did and thanked us. Some ignored us. I sent a few emails to those who submitted letting them know what happened. Some did and thanked us. Some got frustrated and said that they did what the website said and they wanted their “Free Gift” anyway. Some ignored us.

The moral of the story, kids.
This outcome was not what they expected, or intended, when they created their marketing campaign. They just wanted to add a little value for being a part of it. Those online saw the value not in supporting the campaign, but just filling out whatever they needed to get the free item they wanted.

Rather than give a long, lengthy explanation, here are the top five things the non-profit quickly learned:

1. Be proactive on learning the reason once you find a negative reaction to your campaign.a. You could have unintentionally created it. If you sit back and blame the people doing the very thing you asked them to, but for a different reason than you intended…you get nowhere.
2. Accept the mistake, learn from it, and work with it instead of running away from it.a. It’s safe to say, that on the next campaign this will be something that will be brought up and avoided.
3. Don’t give into our initial fear.a. Fear can cause you to assume your first reaction is the best one. Sometimes that’s not the case. Imagine what would happen if they thought they were spammed instead of doing the research?
4. Find out what worked, what didn’t, and, depending on your outcome, how you can either duplicate that later on or never let it happen again.Clearly the free gift had value to people. Is there something that they could leverage in this?
5. When people ask for your free gift that does not mean they are interested in you.a. Free gifts are great. They little items, that shouldn’t break the bank, that if well done should spark conversation or curiosity. They should not be a crutch to get people interested in you or your company.

I say, give “Free Gift” away, but don’t let the value of the gift be greater than the message. There are some really big marketing lessons in this that came to light. What, life lessons, have you learned from you marketing experiences?

Until next time, stay wicked.

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- One to maintain your site – typically a Content Management System web interface

- One to handle your email marketing campaigns & lead generation efforts

- An interface to manage online advertising for PPC keyword bids on Google, Yahoo & MSN

- Domain registration & management

- Any e-commerce websites to help facilitate purchases

- Social media brand monitoring

- Interface to communicate with other teams to help manage customer relations (e.g. CRM system)

All of these sites/software that a company uses is probably all well and good but is probably more in tune with medium to large businesses. Sure, small businesses can handle this – I’m not disputing this, but isn’t there more of a need to find some way to consolidate these efforts to make it simpler for members of your marketing/communication team to maintain the brand presence online? I’d say so.

An idea would be to find a company that can handle a majority of these responsibilities or at least offer services that you can use an all-or-nothing approach. Yes, there are some caveats to using this method, but the purpose of this post is to make you think about rather than going to multiple websites to manage 20 different things, perhaps you should invest in companies that already offer these services as a bundled package.

What do I mean? Well take for example how Network Solutions has its offerings. Sure, when you think about Network Solutions, you’re looking at them for domain services. You want a new web address, you come to Network Solutions. They also do hosting. That’s it. So you have your website and hosting and then what? Do you go out to find yourself an email marketing vendor? What about search? Do you immediately sign up for a Google AdWords account?You also need to worry about monitoring traffic to your sites? Where do you go to get that from?

All of these are valid questions and things to think about, but does it surprise you to know that Network Solutions offers a majority of these services as part of their package? It’s not just Network Solutions, but other domain registrations that offer hosting. It’s the smart thing to do, especially for small businesses to take advantage of. Many of your resources are already being spent on doing multiple things to help drive business to your company so instead of paying for things like complex technology, you might want to stick with using the services your provider offers. Not saying whether they’re good or bad, it’s still a great offer to take advantage of.

Keeping with Network Solutions as an example, by having your site hosted with them, your marketing team can have a one-stop shop to work on search engine marketing, localized targeting and even maximize your media dollars through email marketing efforts. Hosting providers may also be partnering with other vendors so that will help make things easier for you to work with. There’s no need for you to handle thousands of login credentials just to manage your marketing campaigns. Wait until your company grows to a larger one before you invest in more functional and complex technology. Hosting providers like to specialize in helping small businesses and offer many different resources to help guide you through this step-by-step process on creating & managing your online presence.

Sure, we’d all like for there to be a universal dashboard that can connect with every single vendor that we have a login for – such as email marketing vendors (Vertical Response, Blue Sky Factory, Constant Contact, etc.), social media efforts (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.), search marketing (Yahoo, Google, MSN), and countless others. But until that startup gets off the ground, perhaps it’s best to focus on what offerings hosting providers can give you. More and more companies are branching beyond the realm of hosting & domain registration because they see there’s a need to help businesses with managing their product online rather than just supplying them the venue for their site files.

You can check out what services Network Solutions can offer you by clicking here.

Chris and Violet "discussing" social media

Many of you out there are looking for ways to maximize your social media efforts to gain customers and I share your experiences of striving to correlate every investment to direct return that is more than what I put in. But when it comes to social media, it is not as straightforward as we wish it is compared to other forms of marketing.

Reading Chris Brogan’s article “Best Fits for Social Media in the Sales Cycle” a few things struck me. First he breaks the sales cycle into:

• Awareness
• Prospects
• Leads
• Customers
• Evangelism (Evangelists)

For most sales people, the middle three – prospects, leads, customers are the usual elements that comprise a “Sales Funnel”. Many think this wouldn’t be about social media since awareness and evangelism is where the real value of social media resides. However, we can use social media to continue our conversations and our outreach to those all throughout the sales cycle into the customer phase where outreach and community are critical. As Chris states “A paid-up customer is not the end of the sales cycle, any good salesperson knows. He or she is a trusted part of your next successful sales, or at least, a referral to other potential prospects.” So true but yet so easily forgotten.

He is very forthright that much in social media can not have direct correlation to sales unless their are promotions tied to the effort that could be tracked. However, other metrics using awareness monitoring tools like Radian6 is a start to optimize your social media efforts or at least see some impact.

Chris wraps up nicely something that I agree with and why I got into social media in such a big way:

“Building awareness, maintaining good business relationships, communicating thoroughly, listening, and encouraging evangelists are all ways your efforts in social media will pay off sooner rather than later.”

Couldn’t have said it any better myself. Check out his full write up here and I am curious to hear your thoughts on this and how you have applied social media to your sales efforts.

(Photo credit: Chris Brogan)