Recently, I spoke with a new prospect, who decided not to participate in one of our webinars because he preferred doing business “face to face” and stated that if I wouldn’t travel to his office in Ohio, he didn’t want to continue in discussions. Understood – that is certainly his prerogative which I’m sure has served him well for many years.

It made me sit back however and consider objectively the pros and cons of online meetings. Online meetings are certainly both time and cost effective, and less intrusive but may lack traditional warm, personal contact. The challenge is to improve the ability to build a strong, personal relationship with customers through the technology.

I have been doing online webinars for almost five years and have used several tools during that time –like WebEx, Adobe and Gotomeeting and others. Regardless of the tool, what I found to be critical to a successful event is to maintain personal contact as much as possible. So here are some suggestions based on my experience.

At the start of the meeting, build a sense of community by introducing the participants to each other.  Let them each say hello to each other (assuming the group is small) just as you would if you were standing before them in a conference room. This is a polite courtesy you would do if you met in person, right? If the group is too large for personal hellos, address the group as you would in a larger auditorium with a nice welcoming statement that is as personable as possible. This will help everyone feel both included and valued. Let your personality shine through before getting into your formal product information.

Use of a webcam will let people see both you and your environment and is key to improving a sense of personal relationship. Set the stage! Show yourself as you would for a visit to the client’s facility. Let them know you are a real person and are professional in your appearance. Also, displaying a background that reflects some of your own personality helps.

Follow-up each online meeting with a phone call and a personally tailored e-mail. Each should serve to highlight any questions the individual raised.  Try to include something specific to their own situation.  Be sure that, although they were a part of a bigger discussion, their insights are relevant and you heard them.

Keep in mind that online meetings are not a replacement for face-to-face sessions, but often costs and logistics dictate that need. And if want to hang on to the traditional practice of bringing bagels to a customer’s site for a meeting – have some delivered!

In the words of Randy Jackson on American Idol:  “Just keep it real baby! “

I had a discouraging experience a moment ago… I was checking my LinkedIn profile where I have a feed from our company blog – Cazmunity. My discouragement came from the number of days since I last posted. Ouch! It has been way, way too long!

This past year has been a very busy year for us at Cazbah. We actually finished the year ahead of the previous year by about 20% which, in the most severe recession that anyone can remember, is a pretty good thing. We also had our best new customer sales year in our history. It’s clear that more and more specialty small businesses are realizing how important the Internet is to the success of their businesses.

Our customers have continued to reward us with their loyalty as well. The Cazbah business model is predicated on our client’s ultimate success and their willingness to make a voluntary renewal of their business relationship with Cazbah year after year. The exceptional renewal rate and feedback we receive is indicative of our clients’ trust.

The true value of the Cazbah experience is in the personal relationships that our dedicated account managers establish with their clients. As is always the case in a trust-based relationship, our clients confide in us and share their fears, concerns, hopes and dreams for their businesses.

Because we do listen and have their best interests at the heart of what we do, several of our clients have asked us to take on a bigger share, or all, of their marketing efforts. Since these requests are on the rise, we’ve recently introduced two additional lines of business based upon our clients’ needs: Community Management and Strategic Marketing Consulting.

Our Community Management offering takes a hard look at a small business’s position in their industry and establishes them as the center-of-influence in the communities that they serve. Hence the name Community Management. The dynamics of the Web for small business have been steadily changing as social media and networking have established themselves as vital (and viral) communications mediums. Every aspects of a company’s social media activities are taken into consideration, all of which are handled by dedicated Cazbah staff on their behalf, freeing our clients up to run their businesses.

Strategic Marketing Consulting is a very involved five-step process that looks at every part of a small business, leveraging the strong current knowledge that we have with our existing clients. This engagement seeks to create a fit between the company’s resources, capacity and changing market opportunities. Our aim is to shape and focus our client’s offerings so that they produce enhanced financial results.

We have several of these expanded business relationships underway and we are seeing some immediate and exciting result. Please stay tuned in as we’ll be sharing information on a much more frequent basis going forward.

For years now my customers have asked me about video on their websites and how that medium might be used to compliment their products and services sales. Until recently, I have always been a bit cautious because of the time and cost of producing videos versus the benefit received from such a marketing activity.

In the last year we’ve seen a number of tools introduced into the marketplace to increase value while decreasing the amount of time spent producing videos. Social media sites like YouTube and Facebook have made it very easy to upload videos and share them. Additionally, video camera and even cell phone technology have made it much easier to create videos and get them onto the internet for viewing.

Why
So why would you ever want to create a video for your ecommerce web site? You want sales. After all isn’t that why you have a commerce site? Video can give you a real competitive advantage by sharing your knowledge and advice on how to get the most out of the product or service you are selling. This will attract viewers who,if done correctly, can become customers.

How
I like to use a video camera called Flip Video. This inexpensive video recorder is small and easy to use. It creates quality video without a lot of complexity. Most importantly Flip Video has very easy to use software for editing and uploading your videos. Once you have shot your video you need to decide where to upload it. I use YouTube as the hub for my customer’s videos. YouTube allows you to store your videos for free and has a number of tools to allow you to promote them. Once I have uploaded the video to YouTube I can embed that video on my customer’s web site, blog, Facebook, etc.

Results
In the end the reason we do this is because we are creating value. We are showing the world what we know about our products and services so we can build trust and ultimately make more sales. This is precisely what a number of our clients have done. For instance take a look at my customer’s video listed on the Google search page for the term “saniguard spray”. My customer doesn’t just sell Saniguard spray, he creates value by showing how to use it properly. This video has done a lot to increase their sales of the Saniguard spray product line. Lastly I will leave you with a video that took me about an hour and a half to shoot, produce, and upload. I used a Flip Video, uploaded to YouTube and then embedded the video to my customer’s appropriate product web page. The “video value” my customer creates in this video will be sure to increase his sales. How can you increase your “video value”?

(The importance of your differences cannot be overstated.)

The short answer to this question is, you do! If you want to do more business, more effectively on the Internet, then you definitely need a Unique Value Proposition.

The term Unique Value Proposition can be best understood by breaking it down into its parts.

Unique refers to the characteristics of your product or service offering that distinguish you from as many of your competitors as possible. Think about it. What is it about what you do that sets you apart? Take the time to really understand how you are different from your competition. Then, write it down!

Value is the intrinsic worth of your offering to your customers. In other words, it defines what your customers get for their money. If you’re having difficulty with this one, ask your customers to describe how your service or product has helped them. Take this input and translate it into several concise statements.

Webster defines Proposition as; a statement containing only logical constants and having a fixed truth or value. That pretty much sums it up! It is your factual and truthful proposal to your customer. Being able to qualify and quantify your claims is very important and makes your Unique Value Proposition that much stronger!

The Internet is a tremendous resource for gaining a better understanding for the UVP concept. There are numerous examples that you can find online through a search using any search engine, on the terms ‘Unique Value Proposition.’ Using the results of your search as a model, construct your own Unique Value Proposition.

Documenting your Unique Value Proposition and making it easy to understand is very important. As with goals, the elements of your Unique Value Proposition are not real until you have written them down. Once you have done so, place them somewhere that you are sure to see them. Reading them on a regular basis is an excellent test of their accuracy. Ultimately, your customer will determine how well you have captured your Unique Value.

As an aid in this process, ask yourself this question: “What is it about what we do that makes us different (better)?” And, “Why should anybody care?” Combining your honest answer to these two question with some objectivity and customer input will get you far along the path to identifying and documenting your Unique Value Proposition.

Use mind mapping to capture your Unique Value Proposition. Write your product or service features in the center of separate pieces of paper. Once you have documented the features in this way, draw a circle around each one. Then, write the benefits that your customers receive from that feature in smaller circles, surrounding the center. Connect the circles with lines, like spokes in a wheel. When finished, evaluate them all to ensure that they accurately represent your offering. Compile each feature map page into one sentence. Then, combine the sentences into an itemized list or paragraph. Congratulations, you have just created your Unique Value Proposition.

As I mentioned before, your customer will be the ultimate judge of the accuracy of your UVP. Take the time to test your newfound focus by sending it to some of your better, longer term customers to gain their insights. Their input will provide you with the finer points that will allow you to refine and sharpen your Unique Value Proposition even further.

All The Business!

We’ve been at this specialty small business online marketing game for the better part of 10 years now, and we have hundreds of successful specialty small business customers, for whom we generate literally tens of millions of dollars in new revenue from the web…

So here’s what really chaps my set-upon; I would have to say that every customer (to a one) that we’ve gotten (and still have by the way) over the years, has had at least one (if not several) bad experience with another web development company or so-called guru or expert, before we’ve had the pleasure of their business.

In most cases this has cost them tens of thousands of dollars in fees for a mediocre website and whatnot, plus the loss of revenues, i.e., the money they should have made but didn’t. This can easily get into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Being completely objective, which is difficult for me to do in this particular case, this is a blessing and a curse:

The Blessing — There are an ever increasing number of hucksters out there putting out an incessant commentary on the virtues (not that they would know virtue if it bit them) of Internet Marketing, in all of its varied forms and functions.

That’s good, because whether they realize it or not, they are advancing the cause, so-to-speak, by raising the awareness of the relatively uninitiated small business owner or entrepreneur for all things Internet. If there is anything we can use more of it’s awareness.

The Curse — These maleficent marketers who shill, bait and switch, sell a pig in a poke, have no concern for the bad faith and jaundice they create in the industry as a whole. I can’t tell you the number of times we hear things like, “You guys are all the same.” Or, “I just talked to a group that does exactly what you do.” Or, “I spent 2o grand with the company who did my website and now they want even more money to fix it. Why should I trust you?”

Needless to say most small businesses are gun shy when it comes to Internet Marketing or the companies who profess expertise in this area. Can you blame them?

For this reason, I’ve come up with the following questions to help small businesses in their vetting process when determining an Internet Marketing company to work with.

How many customers do you have?

How many customers like me do you have?

What is your Federal Tax ID?

How long have you been in business?

Can y0u give me a list of a dozen customers, with their website addresses, that I can call and talk to personally?

Do you have employees (i.e., the kind you can touch), and if so how many?

Can you give me a demonstration of your work?

Who will I be working with if I choose to become a customer of yours?

Can you show me first hand examples of the results, SEO, Conversion, Sales that you have achieved?

Do you have your own technology? If not, who’s do you use?

Do you have any certifications, Google Analytics, Addwords, etc?

What are you going to do for me EXACTLY?

What is this going to cost, EXACTLY?

And of course; Does your mom still do your laundry?

For our part, I welcome all of these questions and any others that you can think up. We’ll continue to keep killin’ it for our specialty small business customers, under-promising and over-delivering every single time.

Not too long ago – perhaps 6-8 years ago (ages ago in Internet time) – having a website for a small business meant either hiring a web development company or, assigning the task to an individual in your organization to design and develop it. With that complete – you arrived on the information highway and were cruising along down the road.

Marketing your business remained very traditional – with one additional ‘cool’ feature – a web address, which you listed on every brochure, business card, and magazine advertisement you placed. And it was powerful. So much product information, industry knowledge and articulate value propositions could be displayed – graphically. Provisions for updates including internal procedures, job assignments, and sincere dedication to this new media assured its contribution to your small business success.

Celebrations were held all around and with baited breath – results were expected. Often, these results were good, sometime phenomenal, too often however – very much lacking. Even more review and internal discussions to change some of the content bore little fruit.

In the end, a decision – perhaps not a conscience one, but a decision all the same was made: ‘This site is not going to produce the results we expect. Let’s just leave it up there and get back to the business we know best. What the heck, maybe someone will find it and give us call.”

I find it curious that a small business that specializes in a particular market segment – and advocates to their customers all the good reasons for leveraging their unique abilities – doesn’t apply the same thinking to the growth of their own business.

Just having a site is not enough – certainly not today. It requires constant attention to understand the ever changing conditions in the Internet as-well-as the practices of those who use it to find relevant information, i.e., your target customer!

Are you an expert in your industry? I expect so. Are you an expert in Internet marketing? … Perhaps – but is that the business you are in? Probably not.

That statement may seem optimistic considering all the negativity in the traditional media right now. But, it is something I truly believe. First, access to top level employees is high and getting higher. Your business gets to be at the forefront of helping to solve the unemployment dilema.

Next, a lot of your competitors are sitting on their hands waiting for something to happen. If you are out there making something happen, you have a huge advantage. I think Winston Churchill’s statement during WWII sums up our current state pretty well, “This is no time for ease and comfort. It is the time to dare and endure.”

This leads us to the next advantage. Your business is part of the solution. Small business is the back bone of the American economy. Our own President acknowledges this. So, running a well oiled successful small business, in today’s turbulent economy, only sets you up for greater success as the economy moves forward into more rewarding times.

Now, do I think it is going to be easy? Absolutely not! It’s going to take creativity, thought, planning and implementation on a huge level. Your business is going to need to have a rock solid strategy from top to bottom. In today’s business environment, any hole in your business model will quickly lead to a sinking ship.

So what can you do as an entrepreneur to ensure success? First, get a strong business plan. Plans help you set a course for success. They show you were your strong points are and where your challenges are. Next, be willing to make adjustments based on the information you gather that will impact your business plan and create a strategy for implementing your plan. Finally, follow through with the plan. I have seen more small businesses than I care to remember set themselves up for failure based on their lack of follow through. They have a great plan, but never implement it and end up dying off or just winging it. In today’s economy this is truly a recipe for disaster.

Lastly, as Nike likes to say ‘JUST DO IT’. Whatever it takes, do it! Don’t be afraid to ask for help there are a lot of places out there to get help. You can go to the Small Business Administration, the Internet has a ton of information and advice, local business groups, or even other local business owners themselves. Business owners can be the greatest resource because in many cases, they have been there and done that.

President Obama has appointed Karen Gordon Mills to take the top spot at the Small Business Administration (SBA). I had never heard of Karen Mills and I think that I’m going to be hearing quite a bit more about her so, I did some research. I’m genuinely interested in ‘where’ people come from because I believe you can tell a lot about a person by looking at their history. I did a little digging. Here’s what I found.

Karen Dale Gordon was born in 1950 to Ellen R. and Melvin J. Gordon. She is married to Barry Gordon (an attorney), who graduated in ’72 from Bowdoin College in Biochemistry and Government, got his PhD in biology from Syracuse University (“Cuse – Go Orange”), and got his JD from Columbia Law School in ’79. He is currently the president of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. They have 3 sons, William, Henry and George. Karen did her undergraduate work at Harvard in Economics in 1975 and got her MBA from Harvard Business School in 1977.

Karen’s father Melvin J. Gordon (88) has been the Chairman of the Board of Tootsie Roll Industries Inc. since 1962 and serves as its Chief Executive officer. Mr. Gordon serves as the President of HDI Investment Corp., a (Gordon) family investment company. He has been a Director of Tootsie Roll Industries Inc. since 1952. He serves as a Director of HDI Investment Corp.

Karen’s mother Ellen R. Gordon (76) has been President of Tootsie Roll Industries Inc. since 1978 and serves as Chief Operating Officer. Her father William Rubin originally bought the company from its founder, Austrian immigrant Leo Hirschfeld, in 1935. Mrs. Gordon is also a Vice President and Director of HDI Investment Corp. Prior to her election as President, Mrs. Gordon served as Senior Vice President of Tootsie Roll. Mrs. Gordon has been a director of Tootsie Roll Industries Inc. since 1969 and is a Member of the Executive Committee. Mrs. Gordon has been a Director of Unilever – Bestfoods since 1991.

Tootsie Roll Industries is a top 1000 company and has been very good to the Gordons. Mr. & Mrs., have a reported and combined annual income + options of more than 8.4MM.

So, Karen comes from money (or candy), a lot of it. Is it any surprise then that she went into the Venture Capital industry? She has served as President of MMP Group, a private equity investor and advisor since 1993. From 1999 to 2007 she was a founding partner and a managing director of Solera Capital, a late-stage, ‘controlling interest’ VC firm with $250MM+ under management. “Our operating philosophy is to invest about $15-20 million in each deal and take a controlling interest,” noted Mills.” We like to be the capital that comes in to grow the business to the next level – build the next plant, make an acquisition, or expand the brand.” (…and then flip it and get our multiple.)

The media is reporting that Karen has taken a leadership role in the growth of more than 20 companies in the consumer products, food, distribution, textile and industrial component sectors since the mid 1980s. That’s less than 1 (one) deal per year. Not exactly aggressive lending by any stretch of the imagination. We’ll see how (if) that translates to her role with the SBA.

I am very hopeful that Karen can step up and reform a government agency that is in desperate need of leadership. That she can see her way clear to developing conscientious funding policy, developing flexible and easy to access funding for the majority of small businesses, not the sweetheart deals that she is used to working with in her current life.

At this point, the jury is still out on Karen Mills!

The E Myth — Revisited, by Michael E. Gerber — Why Most Small Businesses Fail and What to Do About It (The dog-eared book to the right is my own personal copy from 1995).

The subhead says it all! As you know if you’ve read my other posts, I’m all about overcoming the small business epidemic (a term that I coined several years ago), which gets right to the point that “most” small businesses don’t work, or fail.

Needless to say this book speaks to me. Actually, it’s been speaking to me for years and was instrumental in the development, structure and continuing success of my own business, Cazbah.

The term E Myth relates directly to the Myth that; I am an Entrepreneur, therefore I know how to start, run, manage and succeed at a small business. The data regarding small business failures in this country say otherwise. In fact, most small businesses are started by what Gerber refers to as “technicians,” people that make things or do things and start a business because they think they have a better way of making or doing things. I’ve always related the difference between leaders and managers to this point, namely – managers do things right, leaders do the right things. So simple, so relevant…

One of the characteristic pinch points for entrepreneurs is that they can never seem to get ahead. Gerber refers to this as working in the business, rather than working on the business. They are so busy making stuff that they never raise their eyes to the horizon to see what’s coming or where they are going. Like walking across a field looking at your feet. You may never get to the other side…

There are many, many small businesses (most actually) that I’ve interacted with over the years that are in a perpetual vicious cycle. They go out to their markets sell something, bring it back to the shop and build it, go out sell something, bring it back build it..(repeat). Their financial results porpoise as a result. Picture the fish (o.k., mammal), above the water – below the water – above the water – below the water, etc… It never ends and they never really grow or get ahead. They just exist like this, in some cases from one generation to the next.

Gerber offers some simple and actionable advice on how to correct the E Myth through the development of the Franchise Prototype. This is a business model that adopts the attributes of a franchise business. He goes to great lengths to give credit where it’s due (Ray Crock – McDonalds). Here’s a little tidbit to give this point some credence. “Regular” small businesses fail at a rate of 70% – 80%. Franchises succeed at a rate of 75%. Get the point? As an aside, for the entrepreneur considering a business venture, being a franchisee may represent your best choice!

Most small businesses lack structure and any repeatable process documentation, the attribute that truly defines the franchise business model. Gerber contends that the strategic systemization of your small business will reap huge returns and resolve the E Myth… and he’s right!

If you are 1) an Entrepreneur, 2) business owner or manager, 3) considering becoming an Entrepreneur, 4) may someday be in a position of business management, 5) are currently employed or, 6) are considering employment… (you get the point): You owe it to yourself to read this book!

Michael Gerber’s E Myth is what I consider to be one of the foundational texts that every small business should have on its book shelves and have in practice! Buy it and read it.

The best way to begin the discussion of Success on the Internet is with a brief historical review about what exactly the Internet is and why it came into being in the first place. This may seem like an exercise in futility to some but, I assure you knowing the origins of “the Web” will help in understanding the dynamics of all of the Social Media dialogue that’s flying at us these days.Often times the basic premises upon which the Internet was established are overlooked by companies and individuals seeking their fortunes online. This is unfortunate and often leads to disappointment with their less than stellar results. A brief review of e-History will serve you well as you approach the Internet as a means to your success.

Going Back to Where it All Began
In 1962 (That’s over 40 years ago. I know this because I was born in ’62.) Dr. J.C.R. Licklider, who at the time was working at MIT as a research scientist on a project funded and sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), came up with the concept, what he referred to as the Inter Galactic Network. You see, the defense research work of DARPA at that time involved several desperately and remotely located research facilities, located at several different major universities, MIT and Stanford being among them, as well as several military installations across the country.

Communication And Collaboration
Dr. Licklider (his friends called him “Lick” for short) realized that to effectively work together on co-development projects the research teams located in these various centers needed a way to effectively communicate with each other. Ultimately, they needed to develop a means by which they could collaborate on various aspects of their research activities. Is this starting to sound familiar based on where you see the web going these days?

Where the Internet Came From
Dr. Licklider is most often credited as the man with the original vision of the Internet. In two of his most influential papers, Man-Computer Symbiosis (PDF document), which he wrote in 1960, and The Computer as a Communications Device (PDF document), which was co-authored with Robert Taylor in 1968, he describes his vision of computing, which at the time of his writing was a mere concept, a good idea at best. He also goes into some detail about the purpose of the Internet, and why it was built.

Remarkably, “Lick” also predicted the future by stating that by the year 2000 millions of people would be online, connected by a global network. Isn’t it interesting that Dr. Licklider was absolutely correct?! He also set the table for the types of Social Media interaction that we as users of the “Inter Galactic Network” are having these days.

The Future – Now
As a futurist, he foretold of modern computing conveniences like the graphical point and click interface, digital libraries, ecommerce, online banking, and technology independent software that exists on a network (the web) and migrates to wherever it’s needed. He was also known as the “Johnny Appleseed” of computing. This is a well-deserved nickname for a man who planted the seeds of computing, and in many respects got the digital age started.

My point in this post is this, the Internet was, is and shall ever more be a communications medium designed to bring “people” together, regardless of whether we call it Social Media or Corn Flakes. No doubt about it, we have more ways to communicate with desperately located people than ever before. As I said earlier, that’s not anything new. Speaking personally, I’m having a direct (albeit cryptic = 140 characters at a time) conversation with any number of people from around the globe on Twitter as I write this. Now that is COOL!

I wish I could have met Dr. Licklider but, unfortunately he has since passed away. I consider myself a futurist too and would love to compare notes with him. There are many other contributors to the development of the web that deserve mention but, that’s for another day and another post.