10 things your small business can learn from cage fighting

Written on Monday, June 16th, 2008 | Small Business | 2 Comments

Bootstrapping involves a lot of thinking outside the box and this post is no different. Cage fighting has grown in popularity in the recent year or so and since I’ve been a fan for 6-7 years now, it was the perfect time to talk about how cage fighting (mixed martial arts, the UFC, WEC, ect) can relate to small business.

1. Creating Hype - When you see advertisements for a new cage fight PPV thats coming up in the next month or so, they don’t tend to just talk about the who/what/where/when/why, but they build hype around the fights. Maybe the two fighters hate each other, or maybe they’re considered the two BEST in the WORLD, so you HAVE to watch it. You should be doing the same with your business. Build the hype, create a buzz, and get your name/face out there for people to see.
2. Be well trained in multiple areas - In the beginning of your bootstrapped business you need to know a little bit of everything. Sales, Marketing, Product creation, ect. The same rules apply for cage fighters. They must know how to defend take downs, box, kick, submit their opponent, ect.
3. Put your strongest attribute forward - Yes, you might do a little bit of everything, but don’t be dumb. You are an all star at one thing, so why wouldn’t you put that forward? When a cagefighter knows he’s best at the stand up (punching on the feet), he does his best to keep it standing, and you should do the same.
4. Always aim to be the best - Who cares about second place? Fighters are always looking to get to the top and become a champion. You need to build your business to become the #1 business in your particular niche. If you don’t strive to be #1, what are you even in business for?
5. Keep a good team around you - Every good fighter has a good trainer. Every good trainer has a team of trainers that are all stars in different aspects of fighting. You should keep a good team around you at all times. People who are great at what they do, are honest and push you to be a better small business owner.
6. Never underestimate your opponent - You might have the confidence that you’re the best in your field, but thats when the little guy will slip right by you. You’re going to do it to the big businesses who underestimate the power of the bootstrapper, so why would you underestimate the other bootstrapper next to you? Don’t.
7. Never be a sore loser - So someone comes along and does better then you? So what? Congratulate them and move forward. Crying is not a good look for a business owner, so if you must whine, do it in your bathroom where noone else can see you. Take the opportunity to possibly form a friendship with the person who beat you and put your strengths together as a win/win benefit. You never know what type of business relationship could catapult your business to instant success.
8. Never stop training - So you made it; now what? Sit back, sip Margaritas on the beach and watch the sun set every night while you do nothing? I doubt it. Keeping a sharp mind and sharp business skills is whats going to put you ahead of your competition when they slack off. Fighters train even when they’re not training. Why shouldn’t you? it’s how champions are made.
9. Never cheat to win - Fighters get banned and fined for using steroids and other banned substances, and business owners get black balled and tarnished reputations if they cheat, lie or steal. Why would you want to win in this way? Karma always comes back around in the end anyways.
10. Never back down - In the end, a good old fashioned fight to the top is sometimes whats best for yourself and your business. You know your market isn’t going to be easy to take over, but you push forward anyways. Opposition comes your way and you tackle it. Never back down and never be scared to fight. After all, this is your business and your life; protect it.

 

If you liked this post you may wish to subscribe to our feed to ensure you don't miss anything.

Subscribe via Feed Reader | Subscribe via Email | What is RSS?

Can your small business run without you?

Written on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 | Small Business | 4 Comments

If you were on vacation, sick, too tired or just plain sick of working 16 hours a day, would your small business still function? What about if you’re a blogger; would your website still run properly or would it fall off the face of the earth?

I recently wanted to answer this question myself on this blog. If you haven’t noticed, I last posted 1 week ago. I wanted to see what a one week disappearing act would do to the blog and see if it could hold its own if I just wasn’t able to post. Yes, I had posts lined up and I have friends who I could have had guest post awesome bootstrapping articles for you to read, but with them posting, my tests wouldn’t have shown the same results. So for the past week, I’ve been sitting by tracking results on the blog and I have to say, I think the results are about what I thought they would be.

Feedburner Stats (Who’s subscribing to my feed)

Last thursday, I had 337 subscribers. I watched this past week as the number went up, went down and came back up again. Today, the number is 336. Fluctuations in feedburner stats are normal so seeing only a 1 subscriber drop after 1 week, I am not worried at all about it and see it as a positive result.

Newsletter subscriber stats (the top left of the sidebar)

These results were just about the same. I just launched the newsletter recently so the subscriber count was at 11 at the time of this test. In the week this past week, the number has doubled. A definite success and something I know will continue to slowly grow over time, weather I post all of the time or not.

Website traffic (checked with google analytics)

This part of the study came out about the same. Minus the stumbleupon and other social media traffic I got from a few posts, the traffic pretty much stayed the same. With only a 4-5% decrease in traffic from last Thursday to today, I see this as a pretty standard indicator that my bootstrapping blog traffic can remain about the same if I had to take a small break.

What does this mean (where does this leave me - the owner, and you - the reader)

Don’t worry; I am not taking these results as a free way out of writing on a normal basis. I want to provide the best bootstrapping and small business marketing information that I can, on a regular basis. I only did it as a test to see if for some reason I couldn’t be here, if the website would still run as normal.

How about you? Will your small business survive without you for a few days, a week or a month? Let me know if you’ve ever had something like this happen to your business. Were the results the same as mine?

 

If you liked this post you may wish to subscribe to our feed to ensure you don't miss anything.

Subscribe via Feed Reader | Subscribe via Email | What is RSS?

Small Business Blogging: 10 reasons why its essential to business growth

Written on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 | Small Business | 13 Comments

So you’re a freelancer, a copywriter or any type of small business owner for that matter, and you’re wondering why your growth isn’t as strong as you expected it to be? You’re stumped as to why your profits are barely reaching half of it’s potential when you know your product or service is top notch. You’ve got a website setup with all of the necessary information that any potential client would need to read in order to understand your product or service but yet you don’t get the flood of cash like you thought. Well, if that is you, you’re not alone.

Small business owners need to understand that blogging is not just for the teenagers or just another fad; it’s a powerful business tool that can help you gain exposure to an entirely new audience that you would have otherwise missed entirely. This holds true for any small business owner that is looking to expand and gain exposure, revenue and branding in their target markets. Below you will find ten reasons why I, and many other marketing authorities believe small business blogging is essential to your business’ growth. (please note they are in no particular order of importance).

1. Business to Business Networking - If you’re a blog design company, you can network with a website hosting company to get deals for your clients. If you’re a pet supply company, try networking with an animal shelter to showcase your products in their shelter for families who are taking animals home. Blogging is a great way to spark up that conversation and building your businesses network on a daily basis.
2. Holding Yourself Accountable - When you blog, it’s essentially you keeping track of your thoughts, things you learn and various other bits of information. Keeping a log in a spiral notebook can do the same thing, but at the same time, it’s not on the web Post an article about something you HAVE to do, and watch how knowing that others are reading it forces you to act on it and complete your goals.
3. Expanding Your Knowledge - Lets face it; writing 1-2 articles per day is hard for most people (unless you’re small business revolves around copywriting). You’ve got to study and learn in order to know what you’re talking about, so by blogging you are expanding your knowledge. I read blogs every day in order to get new ideas for blog posts or just to expand my small business and marketing knowledge.
4. Added Exposure - You might have a billboard in your city, but do 1,000 people subscribe to your blog and get updates every time you write a new article? Expose yourself to an entirely new world. I was recently talking to Derek from Click Consultants about how “internet life” and “real life” are two different things entirely. Make use of it and expose yourself to the “new world”.
5. One Step Ahead of Competition - I talked about this before but didn’t touch on small business blogging to stay one step ahead of your competition. How many pet supply companies blog? How many locksmiths blog? If you’re blogging and your competitors are not, you’re one step ahead, because lets be honest; blogging is the future.
6. Search Engines Love It - Why should a small business owner care about a search engine? Well, if you’re wanting the people who are searching there to find your website, you should care. If someone searches for your company name, or the topic of your company, wouldn’t you say it would be in your best interest to make sure you’re #1 for that search word? Exactly! Plus, if someone searches for “Knoxville Locksmith” you can make sure you’re #1 for that too. Search engines love blogs and will rank blogs higher then most websites. Our website is in the top 5 right now in google for “Bootstrapping” while others below us are full blown websites.
7. The Power of Social Media - Over at Duck Tape Marketing they have a podcast about a company who sells fishing supplies and uses blogging and social media to reach an entire new client base. With certain articles in Digg getting 10 thousand visitors or stumbleupon getting 2-3 thousand visitors, who wouldn’t want that for their small business right? If you’re looking to brush up on your social media skills, I’d suggest checking out DoshDosh.
8. Keeping Clients/Customers Informed - Some small businesses have used their blog to keep clients and customers informed about special deals, coupons and discounts they offer. The key here is to let them know that they can ONLY get the discounts by reading your websites blog, so you’ll constantly gain readers and repeat customers.
9. Becoming an Authority - If you know a lot about the product or service you offer, why not blog about it and let people recognize that you’re rich in knowledge about it? By doing this, the potential clients you’ve got lurking around will start to gain trust and you’ll build up their faith in you because you obviously know a LOT about it. All done with a simple blog
10. Showcasing Your Best Work - If you’re a small business owner, you can showcase your work like Jen does over at JK Photography on her blog. She is constantly posting pictures she shoots for people which in turns not only showcases her work but shows that she wants to show off her clients, who can in turn link their friends to the site to see their pictures. More visitors, more clients? You can do the same thing with new products you make or your recent blog design. No matter what your small business does, you can use your blog to showcase yourself and your business on a daily basis.

 

If you liked this post you may wish to subscribe to our feed to ensure you don't miss anything.

Subscribe via Feed Reader | Subscribe via Email | What is RSS?

Better your business with customer feedback

Written on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 | How-To, Small Business | 1 Comment

If you never knew you were doing something wrong, would you change? If you thought for your entire life that the way you conducted yourself and your small business was the proper way, would you consider that you might be wrong? Odds are you wouldn’t, but feel free to let me know in the comments section how you would handle yourself in that situation, I’d love to talk with you and see how we all would handle that situation.

Customer feedback is essential to your business; but why? If you’re customer feels great about your business and gives you a testimonial to showcase on your website, in your brochures and other print material, doesn’t that show you that you’re doing something right? Well, that is the perfect scenario but the majority of the time your customers won’t give honest feedback unless they’re asked for it; so ask.

Why asking the general public won’t work

There are many people out there that will tell you that you need to stick a ‘feedback form’ on your website and leave it at that. Or maybe they suggest that you send out a mass email to every client you’ve had or every email on your list. Doing the latter would result in 100+ emails being sent out all titled “Dear Valued Customer”. This is the absolute WORST way to attract attention to yourself and will undoubtedly result in 100+ emails being deleted. Generalizations just won’t work.

People want to feel like they’re part of a relationship with your business, like their opinion is truly valued and appreciated. In doing this, you’re catering to their ego’s and ensuring that they’ll give you a 100% honest review of your product or service. Without the personal attachment, they could care less and will throw your letter away or delete your email or totally disregard the big “GIVE ME FEEDBACK” button your website is now showing.

A simple solution to personalization

The easiest way to instill the personalized touch to your customers is with a hand written letter. Yes, you heard me right, hand written letters. I know you’re thinking it sounds crazy, but if a bootstrapper knows one thing, its how to maximize your productivity in a short amount of time to ensure you get the most out of your time. What does this mean for you? Simple; you’re going to see exactly how to streamline this method while keeping the personalized touch you need in order to get the customers attention long enough to get their honest opinion.

If you remember a while back in my The art of the email: Long emails are better for business article, I talked about a firefox plug-in named “Signature“. Well, we’re going to try something similar, but with handwriting. How you ask? Get a sheet of your stationary and get a pen; once you’ve got this far, you’re half way there. Now, write out a letter like you would to any client or customer you’ve just done business with except you need to leave out the introduction line and salutation.

So, you’ve got the entire body of the letter wrote out explaining how you valued their business and loved working with them on their project right? You’ve signed the bottom and you have everything setup except the welcome note at the top. Great! Now take this piece of paper and photo copy it 100+ times (1 sheet for every client you’re going to mail). On each sheet, now you only need to write out their name and a brief introduction paragraph to ensure that you’re giving that personalized touch that reaches their heart

The final step - lick the envelope

Well, not literally, but if you’re into that kind of thing, go for it. Personally, I use a sponge thats slightly damp to close my envelopes. The main thing to do during this process is to HAND WRITE the name and address of the person you’re contacting on the envelope. You might even want to write “Thank You” on it down towards the right or left of the envelope, just to give it that extra pop. Seeing a hand written letter gets a drastically higher open rate compared to a printed piece of envelope with a bright red “OPEN” sign on it so take advantage of this.

This post was inspired by an article I read at another website recently: How to seek feedback and I just wanted to expand on it. If you’re not a reader over at Trizle yet, I’d highly suggest checking the site out. Andrew is a great guy and someone who knows a LOT about business; and constantly is posting about it.

 

If you liked this post you may wish to subscribe to our feed to ensure you don't miss anything.

Subscribe via Feed Reader | Subscribe via Email | What is RSS?