Where the hell are you?

Written on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 | Bootstrapping News | Be the first to comment

So, there’s no secret that lately we’ve been minimal with articles. There’s a perfectly good explination for that though; I’ve been too busy at my blog design site to take a breath, let alone write any articles. So, here’s a couple announcements to get the ball rolling again.

I’m looking for guest writers

If you’d like to write an article related to anything small business, freelancing, bootstrapping, guerrilla marketing and so on, please feel free to use the contact page and submit your idea and I’ll let you know if it’s approved to post. Also include a 2-3 sentence by-line including 2 links to your website and a bit about you. This can be a one time thing, or ongoing if you’d like.

I’m designing a new layout for this website

Blog Theme Machine is being redesigned and with that, my favorite site I run is also being redesigned; bootstrapping blog. The design will be a lot more user friendly, it will be the ever popular “magazine style” and will feature a lot more of the best content and showcase interviews, and new ideas I’ve got planned for the site. I’m wanting to keep it a “blog” but turn it more into a fully functional website. It will definitely be an improvement from this layout (which was thrown together pretty quick because the old layout it had when I bought the site was horrible in Internet Explorer).

I’m looking for your input

If you’ve got an idea for an article, or have questions you’d like answered, please leave a comment on this article or shoot me an email through the contact page and I’ll make sure to get an article up about it.

Thank you

I wanted to make sure I thank everyone who is a reader of this blog, subscribes to the feed and/or just scrolls by every now and then. Without you, this blog wouldn’t be where it is today. Again, thank you for being readers, thank you for commenting and thank you for being fellow bootstrappers and small business owners with a dream to succeed. I’m in the race with you and together, we can definitely make it.

 

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Bartering for a better bootstrapped business

Written on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 | Bootstrapping, Bootstrapping Tips | 5 Comments

Have you ever heard the phrase “Two heads are better then one”? I have and I assume 95% of you have as well. This is a definite statement that any business owner should believe, and is the key to bartering with great benefit. There is no doubt in my mind that bartering works. I’ve done it and have seen others do it with great success. Oftentimes though, bartering is overlooked because most small business owners do not see the value in it. They’re looking at it from a “Well, the big companies don’t do it, so why should I?”. When bartering is not fully understood, this is how it’s conceived, but for those of us who really understand the value of networking and business growth, bartering is a logical stepping stone to growing your small business.

Bartering your time and resources can be very beneficial to you, not only as a way to connect with businesses but as a way of free advertisements and word of mouth marketing. For instance, if you’re company deals directly with copywriting and you lack the design skills to really put forth the same professional look on your marketing materials (website, business cards, flyers, ect) as your writing does, you might want to barter some copywriting to a design company in exchange for some of their design skills. You could write up some great articles concerning the need for a great website/business card design, and in it, casually mention the design companies name and link and in exchange, they can design your website and business cards.

But what do I get out of it

Going into any bartering situation, you’ve got to weigh your options. Does what I am getting from the other company really benefit me? Is the time I spend working on something for them taking too much time away from my own business? Is it a good connection? These are some of the things you’ve got to ask yourself. In most cases, as long as you’re saving time by having them help you out, you’re able to give some of that time back. But why would you do that instead of just working out the problems for yourself if in the long run it doesn’t save time anyways?

Networking with other businesses

If you’re a small business owner, odds are that any helping hand you can get is much appreciated. The same goes for the other side. When you’re able to help another company out with an issue they’re having, they’re more then happy to help you. This can prove to be very rewarding because you never know who you’re going to make friends with that might end up bragging about your kindness (and in turn, your business) to another friend of theirs that ends up becoming a customer. This brings me to the next positive point in bartering your bootstrapped company.

Bartering is great marketing

If you’re bartering with a company, offer to exchange some promotional materials as well in the exchange. If you pass out monthly newsletters, offer them an advertising spot in the newsletter in exchange for some business cards on their cashier counter. After you’ve networked with the business owner across from you, and you’ve built a solid report with each other, now is the time to start milking it. No, I don’t mean to take advantage of the other person, but give each other equal benefits.

As you might have noticed, I have a newsletter sign up on the top left of the site here, and in the upcoming month, the first issue will be coming out. As of right now, I have 1 person I am exchanging some free advertising with in exchange for an article written by them in the newsletter. To explain it a bit better, I am publishing an article they wrote in my newsletter with their byline at the end of it with links to their website, ect. in exchange for some free advertising on their site for my blog design company. We’re both benefiting because I get the free advertising, and he gets the free exposure to people that his company and website targets.

Make your win/win situation today

Lets try a little exercise; take out a piece of paper (or open notepad, google docs, ect) and write down a list of any businesses that you purchase goods from, advertise with (or would advertise with) or are a direct side business to what yours is (for instance, website design and website hosting companies).

Once you’ve done this, think of 2-3 ways you could benefit each company, and 2-3 ways they could benefit you. If the time/money values are close in each, send them an email or call them and discuss how you can benefit their company in exchange for a little help from their end. You’ll be surprised at the response you get, and with a little bit of time and effort, bartering can help your bootstrapped business grow quicker then you could imagine.

 

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Building an effective Guerrilla Marketing Strategy

Written on Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 | Bootstrapping News, Guerrilla Marketing | 3 Comments

Guerrillas create a strategy in seven simple sentences. No more need for a comprehensive marketing plan that lists projected goals in great detail for the next five years and other nonsense. Today, the guerrillas and bootstrappers out there know what it takes to win with their marketing and win in a very high margin. These seven sentences can make or break your marketing strategy, so never leave home without them.

1. The purpose of the marketing - The physical action you want your prospect to take.
2. How you’ll achieve this purpose - your competitive advantage and benefits.
3. Your target market - who are you aiming to benefit?
4. The marketing weapon you’ll use - online, offline, magazine print, ect.
5. The niche and your position and what you stand for.
6. The identity of your business - Not who owns it, but what you stand for.
7. Your budget - This should be expressed as a percentage of your projected revenue.

I’m going to cover each of these seven sentences and give an example of my own personal blog design company marketing plan for each step and then show you how it comes together at the end.

The purpose of your marketing

This is the introduction sentence to your paragraph and should outline what you’re looking to gain from the marketing you’re putting into action. Is your marketings sole purpose to create awareness of global warming or is your marketings purpose to generate traffic to your business website in order to gain visitors and potential sales?

The purpose of Blog Theme Machine’s marketing is to generate sales for my blog design services.

How you’ll achieve this purpose

This is going to give a quick outline of the way you intend to achieve this purpose. How will you accomplish your targeted goals? What makes your product or service needed compared to others? In our previous article about People buying benefits not features, we talked about this a little bit. This sentence should explain what your product or service does that sets it apart from the others and makes it a benefit to your client/customer.

In order to achieve the purpose of my marketing I will position my blog designs as being a benefit to their branding as well as potential profit increases.

Your target market

This should be self explanatory but some people forget to think about this part of their marketing. A generalization isn’t going to get you the benefits that the pinpoint accuracy of your target market. Throwing a fishing rod into an ocean without any research on the area could get you a few bites, but knowing a specific area with fish that love the bait you’re using could get you hundreds of bites.

The target market that I am after is bloggers from around the world.

The marketing weapon you’ll use

This will be whatever marketing tools you’ll use. General ideas are good, but again, targeted ideas are great. If you’re an author of a book or blog on a specific subject, why not put a fish bowl at the library and give the winner a free copy of your book, or a free downloadable copy of your e-book? Remember that you’re always thinking about what can and will work the best for your business.

This will be accomplished by emailing 100 bloggers from 5 different niches along with purchasing advertisement space on high traffic blogs.

Your niche, your position and what you stand for

The niche is pretty close to your target market but slightly different. If you’re a plumber, your target market my be the elderly who are too weak to fix the problems themselves while your niche is the plumbing industry. The position you talk about is geared towards explaining why your product or service is needed and what your company stands for.

The niche that my blog design company inhabits is the blogging industry. My position is that of a high quality blog design that increases the clients profits and adds to their branding across the internet.

The identity of your business

What your company stands for could be many things, but remember that an identity and your image are two completely different things. The image of your company is a false impression that you give your clients; one of exceedingly high worth and expectations you normally cannot live up to. Your identity is what you’re known for and what you want people to remember about you.

Our identity will be that of quality, great customer service reliability and friendly conversations geared towards creating a high comfort level & one-on-one business arrangement.

Your budget

Your goal is to budget only a specific amount of money in the initial stages and then fund your marketing efforts off the profits that it brings in. Generally, most small businesses will allocate a specific percentage to their budget and will hold true to it. Your budget can be anywhere from 5% to 50% depending on how much money you want to put into it and how great your ROI (return of investment) is.

25% of sales will be allotted to my guerrilla marketing campaign.

Overview

So now you’ve seen what each sentence is used for and why they are important to your guerrilla marketing strategy, but what does it look like all put together? Below is my 7 sentence guerrilla marketing strategy I put together for the purpose of this article, and for future marketing. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to leave a comment or contact me.

The purpose of Blog Theme Machine’s marketing is to generate sales for my blog design services. In order to achieve the purpose of my marketing I will position my blog designs as being a benefit to their branding as well as potential profit increases. The target market that I am after is bloggers from around the world. This will be accomplished by emailing 100 bloggers from 5 different niches along with purchasing advertisement space on high traffic blogs. The niche that my blog design company inhabits is the blogging industry. My position is that of a high quality blog design that increases the clients profits and adds to their branding across the internet. Our identity will be that of quality, great customer service reliability and friendly conversations geared towards creating a high comfort level & one-on-one business arrangement. 25% of sales will be allotted to my guerrilla marketing campaign.

 

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Word of Mouth Marketing: Thank your referrers

Written on Monday, May 12th, 2008 | Bootstrapping Tips, Entrepreneurship | 3 Comments

Never bite the hand that feeds you. Thats what they say right? Well, they are right; especially in business. If you’re a small business owner and are looking for a quick way to kill any chance you have at growing, by all means, bite that hand. But I believe it’s safe to say that all of us here have a little more sense then that right?

Word of mouth advertising is the very best form of marketing your company can have. There’s nothing like a happy client who is ready to tell their friends and family about your services or products. If you’ve been hired for a job or you just shipped out $1,000 worth of product to a client and they’re so excited that they actually bring in business for you, how is that not a good thing? It costs you ZERO dollars, which is awesome for all of us who bootstrap on a daily basis, and it is achieved by doing the most simple task imaginable; PROVIDE TOP QUALITY SERVICE!

How to gain your word of mouth momentum

As stated above, top quality service is the best way to make sure your name is spoke in many conversations your current client or customer will have. This is the easiest thing to do, yet so many people overlook it. If you’ve got a client who you know has a lot of friends who are in a similar field and would make for great customers, why would it be so hard to answer emails quicker or make a couple extra phone calls giving progress reports on your project.

What about reminding him or her that you’re thankful for their business and hope that you’re living up to their expectations? This sentence has gained me many referrals due to the fact that people LOVE to be appreciated. And once again for all of us bootstrappers, it’s free! Never underestimate the power of going the extra mile for someone you know has connections or could possibly benefit you in the future. Some business relationships are meant to build upon farther then others, so make sure you can spot the positive ones and grow with it; your bank account will thank you

You’re getting referrals; now what?

So you’ve got some referrals coming in from past clients and you’re business is starting to do very well. What do you do now? Most people I’ve talked to seem to just sit back, enjoy the business and keep moving forward. I do NOT recommend doing this. You’re overlooking another GREAT avenue to keep the word of mouth going; thanking your referrers.

There’s many different options you can go with when you’re thanking your referrers; hand written thank you letters, percentage of the sale, gift basket, personal gifts, and so on. No matter what you do, your referrer will be happy and will end up telling everyone about the gift they’re getting as well. When this happens, the clients they’re referring might get excited and want to refer you more customers so they can also get the free perks. It’s a chain reaction at this point and from one referral could potentially spawn 100 referrals and a small army of energetic people who are passionate about your product and love the perks they receive when they’re referring you clients.

I want to thank my readers

I wanted to take the last bit of this article to thank all of you; not for referring me clients or anything like that, but just for reading this website and commenting on my articles. It lets me know that I’m doing something worth while and helping at least one person grow their business with just that much less stress. So, thank you

 

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Bootstrapping Blog owner overview and article overview

Written on Monday, May 12th, 2008 | Bootstrapping Extras, Bootstrapping News | 3 Comments

Hello everyone. I wanted to take a minute to re-introduce myself for those of you who are new to the blog or do not know much about the owner (me) of this website yet. I also would like to point out some of the greater articles I’ve written in the past that you might not be aware of unless you’ve looked through all of our websites pages or searched the archives.

My name is Mike Smith and I am a small business owner. I have owned and operated a couple very small (I mean so small you’d never even know they existed unless I told you) businesses in the past. After struggling for many years (about 4 to be exact) I started reading some great material and really focusing in on running a successful small business. I started my blog design company, Blog Theme Machine back in October 2007 and am looking forward to hitting my 1 year mark with it very soon! It has been very successful and has allowed me to live with it as my only source of income which is great.

I started this blog about the same time to share my ideas and tips on what I’ve learned over the past few years, from reading books like “Bootstrapping Your Business” and “Guerrilla Marketing” to reading blogs like Freelance Switch and Zen Habits. All I hope for is that someone reading this blog finds the proper tools to grow their small business into something they are proud of without having to go through the heartache that I have.

I am very easy to get in contact with and love hearing from my readers. It lets me know that I’ve done something right and that means a lot to me. I also love seeing comments (so comment! - really, I love it and I comment back) If you need to get in touch with me, the contact form on the bootstrapping blog contact page sends mail directly to me and I will write you back as soon as possible. If you’d like to chat via AIM or another form of Instant Messenger, just let me know in the email and I’ll send you my details.

So, enough about me

Below are some links to some of the earliest articles written on this blog that I think you will really enjoy. Definitely something to look over when you have some spare time. If you see something you like or have a question about, leave a comment and I’ll comment back (See, I told you I love comments) You can also request further discussion in new articles that grow on an old article if you’d like. I’m always open to suggestions.

• What is Bootstrapping?
• Legalizing Your New Company
• Enlisting Friends and Family
• How NOT To Run A Business
• Bootstrapping And Your Gut Feeling
• Ten Steps To Making That First Sale
• 30 Local Resources You Can’t Live Without
• How To Lose A Potential Customer In One Easy Step
• Building An Optimistic Business
• Enlisting Your Friends And Family

Thank you for taking the time to read this post and getting to know me, what I do and why I do it a little bit better. I hope the above articles bring some light into your days as a small business owner. Remember, bootstrapping isn’t for everyone but it sure is for YOU! Drive, Dedication and Determination can get you anything so please don’t ever forget that!

If you’re enjoying the content I’m providing, why not subscribe so you can get email updates or feed reader updates? It’s free and every time I post on this website, you’ll be notified (I only post once every other day so don’t worry about being flooded with emails/feed notifications).

 

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