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October 11, 2011#

The power of do.

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Quick show of hands: anyone here write for a living? Design? Do something creative?

How often do you have to deal with "writer's block" or "creative's block"? Yeah, me too.

In fact, this syndrome isn't exclusive to the creative field, either. Plenty of people in business or at home simply procrastinate doing something because their "get-up-'n-go got up and went". There's always something else to do, some bill to pay, someone that needs your attention and some lead you need to follow up on. The problem? Getting started.

In the movie Finding Forrester, Rob Brown's character Jamal Wallace sits down with his mentor, played by Sean Connery and struggles to begin writing his story on a old-school typewriter. After several seconds of deafening silence, Connery shouts, "For God's sake, just tap the keys!" (emphasis mine). And right there, Jamal learns the best tip he'll ever get about overcoming writer's block and writing a good story: just tap the keys.

When you look at the list of stuff you have to do, it can get overwhelming. When you think about what you forgot, it can guilt you into a depression. Rather than try and point out some new piece of software or give you some step-by-step formula to getting your to-do list to-done, let me just offer you this advice; write it down if you need to or want to and then just do it. Just start on the first thing. Make a goal. Need to write that paper tomorrow? Crank out three paragraphs or a page of ideas tonight before bed. Trying to dredge up the inspiration for a new logo design? Just put a pencil to paper and draw for awhile.

There is amazing power in just doing something. Inevitably it leads to a) doing the thing you meant to do and b) getting something done. And let's face it, when you get something done, you feel good about yourself, even if only for a little while.

So what are you still reading for? I know you've stuff that needs doing. Get out there and do!
October 11, 2011#

Goodbye, Steve.

Rip-steve-jobs

Okay, let me just start off by saying that I wasn't sure about writing a post like this until this morning. So many people have flooded the internet with great stories about Steve Jobs and his passing that I almost didn't write this for fear of it being seen as nothing more than a "me too" marketing ploy to play off the death of one of the world's greatest innovators.

Lord, please let it be more than that. 

The honest truth is that the passing of Steve Jobs has shaken me more than I thought it would. Maybe it's because it was so sudden (though some claim they saw it coming when he formally resigned in August), or maybe I'm being influenced by the outpouring of love and gratitude for the man who changed the world. But in any case, it turned out to be more of an ordeal now that I've been forced to process it.

I'm a devoted Apple fan, for sure, have been for a number of years now. But that's not why I'm shaken. I really don't know for sure if Apple will lose product sales because the next one won't be officially debuted by Jobs (though the most recent one wasn't either, and it's already topped 1 million in pre-sales). Apparently, Steve has organized his company in such a way that they will be taken care of for a long time.

I'm more shaken by the fact that the world has lost one of her most special people. I can think of nobody else who has influenced my own generation across so many different levels (other than Jesus). Love him or hate him, you can't deny the fact that Steve Jobs was an extremely gifted and talented individual that did things in his life that many of us only dream about. He inspired us to think about things we hadn't thought about before and to put importance on things that others weren't.

He was probably a tough boss. I'm not sure I could've worked for him. He had immense persuasion not only over his own team, but his "enemies". He jump-started motivation and innovation in even his competitors. How many people can really say that?

The world has lost a visionary like no other. We will go on, but we can't forget the mark that this very special man left on this world.
October 5, 2011#

What’s The Big Deal? Developing a strategy for communicating your company’s core values.

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Whether you want it or not, your company is a big deal. It has some defining characteristic that will be automatically associated with it once people have experienced your brand. The trick is, getting that characteristic to be a positive one.

Keeping your roster filled

I recently sat down with a good friend and business mentor and told him about one of my most irritating problems of late: people. Not clients, my own people on my team. The problem? I couldn't seem to keep them.

Rocket No. 9 is a virtual company by choice. It helps keep overhead down and allows us to explore the opportunities (and the setbacks) of operating in this sort of environment. We have no physical location, and 100% of her employees (aside from the managing members) are freelancers.

Like most companies that work with freelancers on a regular basis, we like to keep using the same ones over and again. It helps establish good relationships that can often pay off in the long run. As a freelancer myself, I feel connected to and respect these folks. I'm always looking at new talent, but as far as establishing relationships, I don't try to jump from one guy to the next willy-nilly.

The problem has been finding folks who are serious about working with us on an ongoing basis. We've had more than one person who turned out to be pretty flaky and it's a bad deal all around: for us, them and the client. When we have to fire someone, I usually take it pretty tough because my dream is to create company that people love to work at and with – when I see that someone is not enjoying our relationship or taking it seriously, it's very hard for me not to take it personally, though I know I shouldn't.

So the question I asked when I sat down with my friend was this: "How can I attract solid, dependable folks to come work for Rocket No. 9" – His answer was another question: "What are your core values?"

Defining your values

Honestly, the question kind of blind-sided me. Beyond what my partner and I had determined the company values should be when we first launched this thing, I hadn't given it much thought. I knew where to start, though. "I want to be a company that's recognized for it's integrity and dependability," I told him.

"Okay," he said. "Then you need to establish those expectations from the moment you begin to interview someone." He went to explain how I should put these core values front and center for the company and all who do business with us, and to lead with those values when talking with potential freelancers. Rather than ask them to whip out their portfolio, ask them where they stand on these values. How would they handle certain situations that don't necessarily include Photoshop and HTML?

Asking the right questions

If I ask you to tell me what you know about Enron, you likely won't mention first that they traded energy. You'll tell me what they've become known for: scandal and greed. Inasmuch, establishing the core values for your business will help you set guidelines for how your run your business and thus help you control how the public perceives you. A counselor once told me: "You can teach what you know, but you'll ultimately reproduce what you are." Meaning, the values you hold yourself to will be what ultimately shines through in the midst of company turmoil or professional conflict. Understanding these values though, sometimes means asking some tough questions:

  • What would you do if an employee was found to be embezzling money?
  • How would you handle a long-term client that suddenly demanded more than you could handle or afford?
  • What if your company hit rock-bottom and had to sell or go out of business – how would you handle the customers you have?
  • What do you want in a successor to your position?

Defining company values is something that should be required right out of the gate, but unfortunately, too many businesses (like mine, admittedly) try to make something up as we go along, hoping we'll fall into it one day. Well, it's true: you can either define your perception now or someone else will define it for you.
image source: tshirtguru.com
September 13, 2011#

Blogging: You’re doing it wrong?

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Most of my time with Rocket No. 9 is spent looking at small businesses and how they’re using their online identity to well – identify with their target audience. When it comes to blogging, so many of them are doing it wrong.

I think there’s the idea that because a blog is a quick-and-easy posting tool (or it should be) that it’s the best way to update your readers or subscribers with news about your organization. I believe that if you have a product or sell a service, then news about said product or service needs to be an extremely small part of your blog. Relegate it to a category, not a major portion of the content.

A blog is not primarily a news tool. To be effective, a blog needs to be primarily an engagement tool. People don’t subscribe to your blog because they want to see the latest changes and updates to your product or service (unless you have a blog specifically dedicated to that). By and large, people subscribe to your blog for your experience and wisdom. Really. If you’ve been doing what you do for awhile and others want to learn more about it, it’s a great chance to share your wisdom with your readers. If you just solved a unique problem for a customer of yours, it’s a terrific way to share your experience so that they can learn from it. Or maybe they found a different way to solve that problem and want to comment on it.

Think about it – what good does it do to shovel out useless information to a captive audience? Truth is, if you’re not engaging them, they won’t be captivated for long.

Take some time this week to think about your blog (if you have one) and what you can do to turn it into more of an engagement tool that drives your readers to do more with your business – and I don’t just mean buy more stuff.
August 13, 2011#

Groupon: How and When to do it.

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In the last article about mega-popular Daily Deal site Groupon, I told you about the scenarios that could happen as a result. The news was by and large, not good. It may have left a few of you feeling as though the whole thing was a sham and not worth even being considered. The truth is, Groupon has worked really well for a particular type of business, and again, there’s the stat that “95% of Groupon merchants would use them again.” So it can’t be horrible (at least not at first). In this article, I’ll discuss the type of business you need to be if you want to do a Groupon deal successfully, and ways to make your Groupon feature most effective.

First of all, not every business is suited to be featured on Groupon. As mentioned last time, “seasoned businesses with a steady stream of customers” should probably not use Groupon in the first place, because they don’t need to. Since opening, getting featured on Groupon has migrated from being a marketing opportunity to being “the thing to do”, as made plain by it’s sheer numbers: Some business, somewhere within a city block of you has likely been featured on Groupon. I believe this has resulted in businesses unwittingly getting themselves into trouble because they were simply trying to be cool.

Even businesses that have been around for a good long while are now finding themselves in trouble because, through Groupon, they made a promise they couldn’t keep to their customers. Or if they were able to keep it, it was probably so strained that they lost money on products, produce or staff. Some of them may have even quit.

Case Study: Posies Cafe and Bakery

One of the most well-known cases like this was for a small bakery and cafe in the Portland area called Posies.

The deal went down like this: Jessie, owner and operator of Posies since it opened, was approached and convinced by Groupon to take a 50% hit on her sales for a chance to grow her business. Actually, that’s not entirely correct. She discounted the price of her product by 50% (because Grouponers really respond to big savings, the salesman said) and then gave half of the remainder to Groupon. So she was actually knocking her price down by %75 in order to (possibly) gain more business in the future.

Now think for a second – if you go into a clothing store, where is the stuff that’s marked down by 75%? On the clearance rack. This is the product that they’ve got too much of and need to get rid of it before they throw it away. It is usually not a considerable part of their marketing campaigns because it doesn’t make them much money.

In the mind of her customers, Jessie has told them she’s got so much product, she can almost give it away, and she almost did. By the time her deal was over, she had angered many of her loyal customers (not just Groupon members) and she had to put in over $8,000 of her own money in order to cover the bills she couldn’t pay because she’d cheapened her product so much. She said what I’ve heard a number of times already:

“I’ll never use Groupon again. Worst decision I’ve ever made.”

What to remember about running a Groupon Deal

Now, to her own credit, Jessie had a few bad ideas about her Groupon. I haven’t spoken with her, so I don’t know if these ideas were sold to her or she was simply ignorant of the terms of her sale. There is, in fact, a way to use Groupon that won’t guarantee increase, but will make your chances much better and will at least allow you to pay your own bills. Folks who use Groupon should remember the following:

You get to set the limits. The Groupon rep on the phone is not a marketing expert – they are a salesman. Their job is make sure that the deal swings in favor of Groupon, not the small business owner. If you allow them, you’ll end up just like Jessie – not even able to pay your own bills because you took such a hit in your product pricing. Don’t listen to their baloney story about “you’ll never have to advertise again after using Groupon.” That’s bull. Smart business owners know that they’ll never stop marketing their business. Understand that you have a lot more say than they may let on and be clear about what your goals are. You can control a lot of the aspects of the deal. Don’t want them to take 50%? Tell them. Don’t want to sell your product for half of the normal cost? Let them know. You can even set the expiration date yourself, or put a cap on how many of your Groupons can be sold. If they truth is that 95% of Groupon Merchants would use them again, then they need your business as much you think you need their marketing deal. Feel free to take advantage of that in regards to keeping your lifeboat from sinking.

One of our clients – a local blogging mom named Jenny who calls herself The Peaceful Housewife sells budget-friendly and energy-friendly products. She did plenty of her own research and took in some Rocket No. 9 consulting before deciding to launch her own Groupon deal with some heavily modified restrictions. Here’s what she had to say:

The Groupon deal went well. I sold 41 vouchers. I’ve already had contact with several of the customers and have gotten several orders from the deal. So far, everything is great. I had my check in the mail 4 days after the deal ended, which I thought was spectacular. So far I’m happy with it. As for whether or not I’d do it again, tough call. I’ll have to wait and see if I get any repeat orders or new non-Groupon customers from the deal.

Jenny made it a point to dip her toe in the water of Groupon, not dive in head-first. As a result, she’s not feeling the stress that’s left so many other small businesses in a bind over a single deal. She also is being persistent about seeing the true value of the marketing campaign – to create repeat customers, not just one-time Grouponers. Time will tell if this proves to be fruitful.

What kind of business should run a Groupon deal?

As stated before, a seasoned business with a steady stream of clients does not need to run a Groupon deal, if only to seem hip to “what all the others are doing these days”. There is a special niche of folks that I believe can actually benefit from a Groupon deal, because of what it’s made to do: drive a load of traffic to your door on a short-term basis.

Here are some of the folks who could benefit from Groupon:

  • A small retail or restaurant business that has just opened up shop and is looking to make a splash, and has money to spend.
  • A business sponsoring or endorsing some sort of event, where foot-traffic is more important than revenue.
  • Someone needing to create awareness of an event, promotion or particular product in a short amount of time. And is willing to pay for it.

Knowledge is Power

I don’t believe that Groupon deliberately sets out to kill the businesses they’re involved with – it’s ultimately the fault of the businesses for biting off more than they can chew. If you’re considering going Groupon in the near future, I hope this short series has enlightened you to the advantages and possible harmful effects of using this or any other Daily Deal sites. With the knowledge of how to harness the terms of your deal, you can make it work out best for you.

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