James D. Brausch, Glyphius and Shilling
How NOT to do social media marketing
Ever heard of James D. Brausch? He's not a household name, but if you've been around the internet marketing scene at all, you may have heard of him, either by name, or for his Glyphius copywriting software, which claims to "improve profitability using statistical analysis to mathematically study profitable ads." He's a self-styled internet marketing guru who makes a living telling other people how to make money online.
I've taken a look over James' blog (JamesBrausch.org), and it's fairly innocuous -- standard internet marketing fare. And I don't know much about Glyphius except that it's received a couple of decent reviews by copywriters I know and respect (Copyblogger and The Conversion Doctor). However, Brausch himself has a pretty spotty reputation (read the comments). But like I said, I have no first-hand experience with his products (and doubt I ever will).
What I do have first-hand experience with, though, is a rash (actually two rashes) of people shilling for James Brausch and, more recently, Glyphius. And the most insidious thing about his shilling technique is that it's designed to not be obvious spam.
Read more...Starbucks Offers Free Wi-Fi... Sort Of
Starbucks seems to be many home-based entrepreneurs' favorite "home away from home", as well as a popular place for meeting clients. They're ubiquitous, familiar, and a venti latte is slightly cheaper than a whole meal. But one drawback has always been that they charge for their wireless internet access. Until now.
Starbucks recently announced that they will offer free wi-fi, but there are a few catches:
- You have to purchase a prepaid Starbucks Card.
- You have to register your card online in advance.
- You're limited to 2 hours daily.
I suppose it's better than charging for it. But is this really customer-friendly? Will customers jump through their hoops? Or just go down to their local independent coffee shop that offers free unlimited wi-fi?
If you're already hooked on Starbucks, this may be good news to you, but as a general marketing lesson, matching competitors' offers with one of your own that is obviously less customer-friendly won't get you anywhere competitively.
On another note, what do you think about meeting clients at Starbucks or other coffee houses? We had a pretty lively conversation a while back about five places you should never meet clients. What do you think? Coffee houses -- yea or nay?
Selling at C-Level
Just because you're a small business doesn't mean you can't do business with big business. In fact, there are some advantages to having the Fortune 500 as your target prospects. For one thing, you've only got 500 prospects, give or take, not 500,000 or 500 million. For another, while they rarely pay quickly, they also rarely pay slowly, and any entrepreneur who's been in business a while knows what a pain collecting from small businesses or individual consumers can be.
Some buying decisions are made by middle management, but company-wide purchases are usually made at the "C" level -- CEO, CFO, CTO, etc. And C-level executives are notoriously difficult to reach and get their undivided attention.
Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies (Compare Prices), has some excellent advice for entrepreneurs on accessing C-level decision-makers:
- Target 5-10 companies that fit your ideal customer profile.
- Do your homework on each company.
- Determine the value proposition your company can bring to the prospect.
- Prepare a loose script for making an executive-level call.
- Enlist the executive's assistant's help in setting a meeting.
- Be prepared to make the right pitch.
For more good ideas on how to reach those executives, check out Geoffrey James' recent blog entry, Four Ways to Sell to a CEO.
Escape 9 to 5 - Free Teleseminar Series Starts June 5
I love free teleseminars and webinars. I've been on both ends, and they're a win-win (usually). The attendees get free educational content that's far more in-depth than an article or two pulled from the web (assuming the presentations aren't just thinly-veiled one-hour sales pitches).
As a presenter, they're great way to engage your audience at a deeper level. And when you participate in a series with other speakers, it's a way to expand your audience.
So I was delighted when my friend Melissa Gerdes invited me to participate in her Escape 9 to 5 Teleseminar Series. As she says on the registration page:
Why are we doing this? It's simple. We love our lives and we love helping other people experience the realities of entrepreneurship. So we want to see the wonderful life you create for yourself. (Mostly, we do it because it's fun.)
It's completely free, and I promise no hour-long sales pitches -- just a chance to hear some great advice to help you grow your business.
The teleseminars will be held on various weekday evenings in the coming weeks, and the first one is this Thursday, June 5. I'll be doing mine on "Winning on the Social Web" next week. So go ahead and register now so you don't miss anything.
How Much Money Are Professional Bloggers Really Making?
More and more people are trying to earn money blogging these days. That's certainly understandable -- it's a lot of fun, very flexible and inexpensive to get started.
Back in April, I took a look at how much money you can make blogging. Now, some of the top "make money online" bloggers have shared their stats, and Income Diary has ranked the top bloggers by monthly income.
It's great to have this reference so you can kind of see just what it takes and how much potential there is. There are a couple of caveats though:
- This is by no means a complete list -- it's just those that have chosen to participate and share their earnings. Some top earners like Darren Rowse of Problogger (and others), Maki from Dosh Dosh, Shai Coggins, the Performancing crew, Carl Ocab, et al., are notably absent. There are definitely more people making a full-time living at it than this list would indicate. For a more comprehensive list, ranked based on a combination of other statistics (not income), see the 45n5 Top 100.
- It's only "make money online" type bloggers. There are plenty of other bloggers who blog about other topics and quietly make money at it. If you look at Technorati's Top 100 Blogs, you have to get to #18 (Dosh Dosh) before you get to any "make money online" bloggers, and all the way down to #43 (ShoeMoney) before you get to one on the Income Diary list.
- In case you're wondering about the people reporting only a few hundred dollars a month income and wondering how they're living on that, remember that this is only their blogging income we're looking at here -- not other business activities like consulting or a day job.
If you'd like more details about how top earner John Chow makes all that money, he provides more details in his monthly Blog Income Reports.
Related on About.com:
The Single Most Important Thing in Any Business
Friday was a tough day for me. A friend of mine - an entrepreneur - hit rock bottom, and did so very publicly. After three years of trying to build his dream business, he still isn't even managing a survival-level livelihood. The thing is, he's had income opportunities, but turned them down, ostensibly because they didn't fit with his vision for his business.
I believe that entrepreneurs should pursue their passion and be true to their vision of their business. But the idea of "do what you love and the money will follow" can be extremely dangerous. There's more to it than that. You also have to offer a product or service that people are willing to buy at a price that can provide you an acceptable profit margin. And you have to sufficiently promote it to attract enough paying customers to make you a living.
But most importantly, you have to survive. You have to be able to cover not only basic living expenses, but basic business expenses, e.g., office supplies, maintaining your computer and other office equipment, phone and internet access, etc.
The single most important thing in any business is cash flow.
Read more...Reader Mail - How Safe Is Open Innovation?
In response to my latest blog post, a reader asks:
What are the risks do you think of submitting your idea and having it stolen or copied? Since you cannot copyright ideas, is there a way to protect oneself?
Thanks,
Sonya B.
This is a great question, and the most common concern about open innovation. The fact of the matter is that there are very few truly original, radically innovative ideas. Most successful businesses are based on "pretty good" ideas, executed well and marketed effectively to a receptive market. A business will not survive long on the merits of the idea alone.
Since most business ideas aren't so unique as to be patentable, and since product development can now happen so quickly, even if you get the idea to market first, if it's a good idea, someone else can imitate it and get to market pretty quickly.
Furthermore, why would someone steal your idea? There's no shortage of "pretty good" ideas. And in these open innovation communities, most of the participants are already working on developing their own ideas. The odds that your idea is so much better than theirs that they would drop theirs, which they have already invested time and money in, in order to steal and pursue yours are slim to none.
A good idea is just a head start. Good execution and marketing are what make or break the business. And you're going to execute and market more effectively with the input of open innovation. And it's generally free -- even better!
Bottom line: sure, there's some slight risk, but there's always a risk as soon as you announce your idea to the world, and the benefits of open innovation outweigh the risks except in a few very special cases, i.e., a patentable idea.
Related on About.com:
Elsewhere on the Web
Ideablob Awards $10,000 Monthly for Great Business Ideas
I've written before about the growing open innovation trend being pioneered by sites like Fellowforce and Spigit. Ideablob is another site supporting the open development of business ideas. And they're putting some money behind it too -- each month, the idea voted best by other Ideablob members wins $10,000 to pursue its development.
Past winners include:
- Penn State student & inventor Matt Allison for creating a portable touch screen device that syncs with a fitness-based social networking website. (more)
- No Sweat Apparel CFO John Studer for the company to continue producing their newest line of organic cotton knit t-shirts at a Palestinian-owned factory on Virgin Mary Street in Bethlehem. (more)
- Penn State student Aaron Fleishman won for Mashavu, a student project providing networked health solutions for children in third world countries. (more)
You can join for free and review and vote on the ideas, offer advice and build your reputation and submit your own idea for a shot at the $10,000 monthly prize.
New Guide to Franchises - Don Daszkowski
Ever thought about buying a franchise as a way to own your own business? Franchises generally offer a proven business model, a reliable supply chain, brand recognition and national marketing support. Of course, all that comes at a price, but the success rate with established franchises is significantly higher than among entrepreneurs generally.
If you'd like to explore franchise ownership, you'll want to get to know Don Daszkowski, our new Franchising Guide. Don is President and CEO of Business Mart and the Franchise Buyers Network. He has owned and operated several businesses for the last 14 years.
Don's site is your source for everything you ever wanted to know about franchising, including:
- Franchise Basics
- Choosing a Franchise
- Buying a Franchise
- Franchise Reviews
- Popular Franchises
- Legal Issues
- Franchise Business Plans
- Financing
If franchising is new to you, or if you're just starting to explore it as an option, you may want to start with:
Don't franchising blog is also a great source of current news and issues in franchising, such as:
- Is McDonald's Recession Proof?
- Subway Franchise is Going Green
- The Franchisor Must Tell All (an analysis of the new Franchise Disclosure Document)
- Dunkin' Donuts Expansion Plan Will Hurt Some Existing Franchisees
Elsewhere on the Web:
Managing Unprofitable Customers
Following up on my last post, 7 Signs It's Time to Drop a Client, the latest issue of Harvard Business Review has an in-depth report on the practice of "customer divestment", entitled The Right Way to Manage Unprofitable Customers. The full article requires an HBR subscription, but there's a summary at BNET.
While the authors recognize that there may be situations in which customer divestment is the best course of action, they see it as a last resort, and recommend a five-step process to try to salvage the relationship first, and to gracefully exist if it can't be saved:
- Reassess the relationship. Why has the customer become a problem? And is there other value in the relationship besides just immediate profitability?
- Educate customers. Can you retrain your customers to use lower-cost support options? Or perhaps they're unaware of your additional offerings that they might consider purchasing.
- Renegotiate your value proposition. Can you create a pricing and service strategy that meets the client's needs while maintaining profitability? They may be willing to pay for that extra service they're demanding.
- Migrate customers. Can you switch the client to a different distribution or support channel? A partner company? Perhaps a new payment plan?
- Divest as a last resort. But do so in ways that minimize potential negative fallout. For example:
- With B2B clients, communicate your decision to divest months before a contract-renewal date comes up. Explain your reasoning in person, and help clients recognize that termination may be mutually beneficial.
- With B2C customers, provide advance notice in person or by a human voice rather than by an after-the-fact email message or letter. Also, focus your explanation on external factors (such as mounting competitive pressure to change your strategy) rather than simply a desire to increase profits.