Tag Archives: advice



Early Stage Marketing

April 16th, 2009

Some guidelines for internet entrepreneurs developing their early stage marketing strategy:

  • SEO is about branding, it takes time, it does pay off, but don’t expect overnight success.  Expect months of hard work to recreate the apparent look of overnight success.
  • PPC is great if you can sustain it.  Often you are developing or creating a segment of which it is hard to get a return on this initially.  If you are in the rare stance of breaking even or making a profit (whilst in startup mode) go horizontal, invest in MSN, in Yahoo.  Get their lower competition marketplaces to help you drive profit.
  • Viral tactics are just as the term describes, tactics.  They help provide a short term boost, or add the icing to the cake.  Realise this and use it to your advantage.  Solid business growth still comes from delivering insane value to your customers and looking after them.
  • Marketing results always take double the amount of time that you predicted, it takes time to refine your strategy, make the technological changes, talk to all developed parties.  However picking up the phone and calling your existing clients can be done today.
  • Focus on building brand name searches, measure the numbers of visit by your brand, focus on pushing that.  No one can compete when people are motivated to look for you.
  • Do not skimp on metrics, use Google Analytics, capture all that you can (helps for future analysis) but focus on the key metrics that drive your business today.  Match them to business objectives and real dollars in the hand. 
  • Blogging will be your #1 Marketing Tool if you use it wisely, so only blog if you’re going to do a good job of it.
  • Communities are fantastic but like blogging require a lot of work, if you are time poor this may not be your best approach.  It is better to not do it at all than do it miserably.
  • The best people you can hire (if you need hire at all) come from referrals, they don’t need splashy websites to sell themselves, their clients sell them.
  • Free is good, creating a product that people marvel you charge so low for it is better.  Case in point Basecamp.
  • Stick to your strategy, it will naturally evolve over time but if you quit because you don’t get instant results you are following the path to mediocrity.
  • ALWAYS (and I mean ALWAYS) question those that provide marketing advice, it helps you understand their thinking and helps them learn about you.
  • Once you have your strategy get onto it, there are a thousand ways to skin a cat, focus on yours.  Marketing fads come and go.

And finally….Stop procrastinating and start now!  Many entrepreneurs know what they need to do, they just don’t do it, like this blog I just do it, not spend all my time talking ….


The Art of the Zero Start

January 27th, 2009

The art of building a business from absolutely nothing with no money.

I have built four small businesses from a zero start. The first three I sold successfully the fourth failed to get off the ground.

So I thought hey why not share some of my experiences.

Firstly why would you take part in a zero start?

  • If you have no capital
  • Your idea is too risky to raise debt financing
  • It forces you from day one to be creative about achieving objectives
  • To prove an idea works with minimal capital
  • To give yourself a huge challenge

What are the personal pros/cons?

  • Forces time management
  • Stimulates fight or flight response, really need to drive the idea to fruition
  • Can develop workaholicism which impacts on the rest of your life
  • Doing things you never thought capable
  • Can be a time sink if you do not manage your time effectively
  • Can get stuck in the mud and forget the strategic macro level
  • Helps you realise what is truly important to you

Overall I think it has been a huge learning curve for me, forced me to grow up and provided challenges I wouldn’t have gained elsewhere. I would highly recommend everyone to give it a go.

I think that doing this can be a bit of trap for some people so I highly recommend some steps to take to avoid this.

Here are the Top 10 Must Do for Entrepreneurs starting a zero start:

1) Have a board of directors (whether they be friends or family) Report to them as you would a real board of directors. They will help you recognise (and admit) problems in a faster manner.

2) Take time out. Have your limits. Keep home time, family time, your own time. This is essential.

3) Eat healthy, exercise, keep up with your favourite recreational activities. When your sick and have a day off you lose earnings. So suddenly life / health balance is vital.

4) Review/Reflection. Force this every week, month and quarter to check your up to par.

5) Set Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and report to board of directors.

6) Watch your cash. Cash is king. This needs to be your top priority, a business without cash is nothing.

7) Quit and quit often. I fail at lots of projects a year, it helps to recognise something is failing and quit early.

8) Persevere, in contrast to 7, persevere with your business, its up to you to drive it to fruition.

9) Delegate, as soon as possible bring on others to delegate responsibilities to.

10) Read. Read as many reputable business books as you can. This will help you draw new perspectives and learn.
Costs

How can you be creative with money to get your business off the ground?

  • Minimise your fixed costs (till you get significant cashflow), ie trade work for office space, use a home office. Try and make all others variable costs.
  • Use free software and online tools.
  • Pay your suppliers on time, you will get more efficient pricing from them and give you leverage when you need it.
  • Bundle your technology costs, mobile, internet, phone. Save by bundling where possible.
  • Stretch every dollar, business meetings have tea instead of a coffee, use public transport, skype for meetings.
  • Give equity to key suppliers in exchange for services, not only builds better relationships but keeps them with a vested interest.
  • Share the love, if you can’t deliver what a customer wants, send them to someone who can, this may return.

That concludes Part 1 of of my Art of the Zero Start.

I suspect that you may have questions or more of your own to add, I welcome both just post in the comments.

Also note for my readers there is only 24 hours left to grab my Blogging Strategy at half price which you can find here.



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