Canadian Small Business Women

Connection, Synergy, Community

Can you grow your business on passion alone?

selfy photo

Not everyone is as lucky as Dries Buytaert.  Buytaert invented the open source content management platform called “Drupal”.  Lots of universities and government websites are built using Drupal; it’s a bit like WordPress only more complex and arguably, more powerful.

I’m not suggesting that Dries is lucky to be successful: he’s a brilliant computer scientist and an even better businessman, having leveraged his opensource platform into a multi million dollar business called Acquia.  This wasn’t the lucky part.  He is lucky because he stared out by simply doing what he loved, and what he was good at: writing computer code.  Dries Buytaert invented Drupal when he was a student, living in Antwerp in a dorm.  He wanted to build a message board to exchange messages and meetups with dorm mates, and he couldn’t find anything that met his needs, in 2000, when there really wasn’t such a thing as social media. This is eerily similar to the Facebook story: sometimes genius consists of building the thing you need, because no one has built it yet, and then it turns out that millions of others need it too.

Buytaert is lucky because he was able to follow a relatively simple path as an entrepreneur, the kind of “dream” path that any entrepreneur would strive to follow: he built something that he wanted, and it turned out to be something that lots of other people wanted.  He did what he loved, and it turned out that other people are willing to pay for it (or, in the case of open source, are willing to contribute to its success in a way that allows him to monetise it).

The perfect business formula

It’s not easy to find that perfect formula in business: we often go into business for ourselves because we just want to do what we love, until the reality of buying groceries hits home and, often at some point in the first year, we have to take a step back and ask ourselves some tough questions.  Questions like: who is my ideal client?  What is my niche?  How can I best make money and grow my business?

There was a saying that I heard often when I was promoted into management during my relatively short time working inside a medium-sized organisation and it is “what got you here won’t get you there”.  What that saying means is, everything that I might have done to rise through the ranks to a get a management position, wouldn’t be any of the things that would make me a good manager.

I have been reflecting a lot on this saying lately, as it has been slowly dawning on me that everything I knew about making money as a freelancer – what I have been for most of my career – is not much good to me as a small business owner.  For example, one thing we tend to do as freelancers is say yes every job that comes along.  And that is no way to run a business!

Identifying your niche as a business

The question we need to ask ourselves, especially if we are consultants, coaches, or running a small shop that provides a service of some kind is: what are the jobs we should be taking?  Because there is a tendency when you start a service-or-expertise based business to start quite broad.  But you learn over time that you need to go much more narrow, and in fact you need to have the courage to say no to some clients.

I was recently reminded of the book “Good to Great” by Jim Collins.  Collins talk a lot about change in the book, and what it takes for a company to grow from a good company into a great company.  He says there is no magic pill, but there is, in some sense, a magic formula, illustrated by one of the most useful Venn Diagrams I have ever seen, and here it is:

 GoodtoGreatVennDiagram

It shows so clearly where the magic formula lies: it shows what happens when, like Dries Buytaert, you can find that sweet spot where Passion (doing what you love) intersects with Ability (doing what you’re good at) and the Market (doing what people will pay for).  That middle part of the diagram is your niche as a business, where you uniquely can make a difference, and make money.

This is a great tool to map your business against, and it will become part of my annual ritual to make sure I list all of our passions as a business, all of our capabilities, and what I’m seeing the need for in the market, against this diagram to make sure that I’m narrowing down the field of the ideal job, and the ideal client, and having the courage to say no to the less than ideal clients.

And, of course, making sure that all of my marketing language reflects the needs of my ideal client: the more we think through this puzzle, the more targeted we can be in our language, blogs, and social media.  And this can only mean more of the right clients and less of the wrong.

For more resources and information on Content Strategy and to download a detailed description of what content strategy entails, go to analyticalengine.ca/resources or download a Content Strategy Info graphic at http://bit.ly/1qY9tYp.

Christine McGlade is a Business Analyst, Content Strategist, and Usability Consultant.  With over 25 years experience in the media business, Christine helps small business, social enterprise, and Not for Profits how to leverage the power of the Internet to grow their business.  Learn more about Christine at analyticalengine.ca

Where do content marketing ideas come from?

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Most business people feel like surfing the internet these days is like trying to sip water from a firehose. It is overwhelming, and with so many businesses out there, online, your business can seem like a grain of sand on an endless beach.  How can a grain of sand stand out?  The simple answer is, Content Marketing.  What content to create is a harder question to answer.

In the last five instalments of this six part series I have walked you through the content strategy process which answers the questions:

1) Why does my business need to produce and publish useful, relevant content? Have a look at post number one, a content strategy primer, and post number two, which is all about getting started and defining your brand values.

2) Who do I target with this content (and where do I find them)? Have a look at post number three, which is all about understanding your target customers as users, and post number four, your social strategy SOS.

3) Where should I focus my efforts to get found? Have a read of Post Number 5, Getting Found by Search Engines.

Content Marketing is about using content to drive sales.  And if you do it right, it’s your best opportunity to stand out and make more money.  It is unqieuly suited to small business because smaller businesses are closer to their customers, with a greater ability often to engage in dialogue with customers and stay aligned with customer needs.  That dialogue is where you find out what content you should be producing.

Getting content ideas from your sales funnel

I never realsied, before becoming a business owner, that I would also need to be a salesperson.  But this is job number one for every small business owner, and content marketing is a great way to warm up your leads: it can help you to generate those leads in the first place and then move those leads down the sales funnel closer to purchase in a gentle, helpful, and purposeful way.

Your sales funnel is also a great place to look for content ideas.

Sales-Activity-Funnel

Are there places in your sales funnel, or in the greater value chain that surrounds your business, that your customers are getting “stuck”?  Understanding where your customers are stalled in the funnel is a good way to figure out what kind of content you need to produce and where you need to produce it.

 

When in doubt, ask!

In the Getting Found post in this series, we talked about the questions cusrtomers ask you as a great place to get keywords.  This is also a great plce for content ideas.  What questions do your customer ask you?  When you’re at conferences or other events where your customers congregate, what questions do you hear people asking speakers or other vendors?  As a speaker, I always ask my workshop attendees to tell me their biggest challenges, so I have fodder for blog posts, webinars, and podcasts in the future.

Interview your customers.  If you’re not sure what to ask them have a look at your value proposition and circle your assumptions, then validate those assumptions with your cusomters.  Google survey is a really easy tool, as is mailchimp for keeping email lists.  Use these tools to ask your customers what they need help with!

 

Quality trumps Quantity

And don’t panic if you don’t have a huge base to work with.  The Lean business development model recommends talking to 50 potential customers to find out if your business idea is solid.  User experience designers often only interview 6-10 ysers to find out if their ideas address user needs.  The average number of supporters it takes to fund a successful kickstarter camapign?  Only 100!

You don’t need a huge customer base to do well, if your customers love you.  How will they love you?  Deliver content with TNT: that generates Trust, that targets their Niche concerns, and that Teaches them something, that helps them

The same principle applies to your content: if all you can reasonably manage is one blog post a month, then write one a month, but make sure it is of the higest possible quality, and filled with TNT (Trust, Niche, Teach).   Conisistency also trumps quanitity: a regular monthly podcast is a better idea than a podcast published sometimes weekly, sometimes biweekly, or sometimes not at all.

Consistency is important in the visual langauge you use as well: make sure you maintain a consistent use of your logo, the colours in your brand palette, and that the visual language in your photography and graphics aligns with your brand values and your user needs.

 

Build your editorial calendar

A mistake beginning publishers of content often make is basing their editorial calendar around generic, seasonal events.  Base your calendar on user needs, or events important in the lives of your customers.   In terms of frequency of different types of content, and keeping in mind the advice above (quality trumps quantity), an editorial publishing pattern that quickly build a great content library would be:

  • 1 blog post per week
  • 1 piece of feature content per month such as
    • ebook, whitepaper, or report
    • infographic
    • a webinar
    • a presentation, workshop, or speaking opportunity
  • 3-7 social posts per week

Your editorial calendar should capture the publishing pattern you choose and the topics you will focus on.

One advantage of building your library using the pattern above is that at the end of a year of publishing, you will have enough content to publish a book.   Self-publishing is a great way to get your content into the biggest search engine for experts in the world: Amazon.

Benefits, not features

Your content strategy is the backbone of your online communications whether you are able to content market or not.  If you don’t think your writing skills are up to par, hire a copywriter: your content strategy provides the guidelines they’ll need to review so they can write for your business.  And if in the end you decide that content marketing is not the most effective way for your business to get found, (see last month’s post for more details), sometimes being useful is all about using benefit-driven language in your communications rather than feature-driven language.   If you take nothing else away, remember “Benefits, not Features” as your guide when writing copy for your sales and product pages.

And, print out and post this handy infographic that sums up the content strategy process.

For more resources and information on Content Strategy and to download a detailed description of what content strategy entails, go to analyticalengine.ca/resources or download a Content Strategy Info graphic at http://bit.ly/1qY9tYp.

Christine McGlade is a Business Analyst, Content Strategist, and Usability Consultant.  With over 25 years experience in the media business, Christine helps small business, social enterprise, and Not for Profits how to leverage the power of the Internet to grow their business.  Learn more about Christine at analyticalengine.ca

Identifying your ideal customer

sandra

 

“What’s your niche?” It’s become one of the most common questions at networking events after “what do you do?” Some of us are clear on who it is we want to work with, others are still a bit foggy. When I first started out in my coaching practice, I thought I wanted to serve everyone who needed my help. The thought of narrowing it down gave me anxiety. I didn’t want to limit my base of potential clients!

The reality is that we can’t serve everyone. When we try to appeal to the masses, our message gets lost. Who are you targeting your products and/or services to? In a perfect world, who would you enjoy working with? These are the types of questions that can help you to narrow down your niche.

Why do we need a niche? Have you ever watched a commercial or seen an advertisement and felt that it was made for you? It’s probably because it was. Good marketing is about knowing who you want to attract and speaking their language in a way that allows them to identify with it and feel like it is the answer they’ve been looking for. Imagine being able to have people come to your website or hear your elevator pitch and immediately say I need to work with her/him!

While your niche is your area of focus, your avatar is the profile of your ideal client. The more detailed you are in your avatar, the better. Consider age, marital status, education, type of employment, salary, and what kinds of challenges they’re facing that your business can help them with. When you’re clear on these areas, it makes everything else that much easier. Your website design is done in a way that your target will find appealing, your blog posts will cover topics of interest to them, and your marketing for products and services will speak to them in a way that makes it a no-brainer for them to make the decision to buy.

Clarity on your niche and an avatar of your ideal client allow you to create marketing messages that speak to your audience. If you aren’t clear on who you want to work with, then your marketing message may be all over the place. To quote my business coach “a confused mind does not buy”. If you’re ideal client isn’t clear on what you can do for them or why they should work with you, you’re going to have a difficult time generating the kind of revenue that’s going to help you build a sustainable business!

It can be scary to feel like you’re narrowing your pool of potential customers, especially when you’re first starting out. No matter what kind of business you’re in, the competition out there for a client’s attention and their business is fierce. You need to stand out; you need to identify with your potential clients. It’s impossible to be everything to everyone, so think about who you really want to work with and start to develop an action plan to get their attention and help them realize that you’re the answer they’ve been looking for.

Sandra Dawes is a certified life coach specializing in helping women who feel unfulfilled with their 9-5 follow their dreams and pursue their passions. She holds an Honours BA, an MBA as well as a certificate in Dispute Resolution.She has completed her first book,Embrace Your Destiny: 12 Steps to Living the Life You Deserve!
Connect:
www.embraceyourdestiny.ca
www.facebook.com/embraceyourdestiny
www.facebook.com/embraceyourdestinythebook
www.twitter.com/sandradawes

What’s in a name?

Jennifer J

We spend countless hours trying to figure out the perfect name for our business. It is important. The right name can help you be the talk of the town. A bad name can fade away and lead to obscurity. So how do you pick the perfect name? Do you name the business after yourself? Do you pick a name that describes your service or product? Or, do you create catchy new words like ‘Google’ or ‘Zappos’?  Determining what to name your business comes down to three things:

–          The industry your business is in;

–          What is the vision you have for your business; and

–          Your long term plan for your business.

If you plan to be the main commodity of your business, e.g. an expert in a particular field, a coach or a speaker, than you should name the business after you. Should you go on to produce books, products and pod casts, the only thing that isn’t changing is you. Naming your business after yourself allows your customer and clients to identify your expertise. You also have the flexibility of creating different products whilst not having to be locked in to just one.

Should your long term plans include selling your business one day, you should consider a name that describes your product or service. However, this is not a hard and fast rule. There are many businesses where the owner became the brand and the business was subsequently sold.  However, remember that if you intend to sell your business, the name is likely trademarked which prevents you from using the name for future ventures. This includes your own name.

When considering the name of your business, it is important to determine what it is you are trying to communicate. This can be determined by using your mission statement as a guide. Once you have this clearly defined, it is important to consider the following when creating a name:

–          Pick something that appeals to your niche and that your niche will identify with;

–          Something that is not too long and confusing;

–          Don’t use plain language that won’t stand out in a crowd;

–          Avoid clichés;

–          Avoid unusual spelling; and

–          Try and adopt a name that gives some information about your business.

Once you have picked a few names make sure to check whether your names have already been trademarked or are in use. You want to ensure you are not infringing on anyone else’s rights.Failure to do this could lead to legal battles down the line and significant money spent when it could have been avoided.

You also want to check if the domain name you’d like to use is still available. There’s nothing worse than coming up with a brilliant name only to find someone else has already purchased the domain.

Happy naming!

Jennifer Jampala is a budding entrepreneur, traveller and yogi. She is passionate about building businesses, relationships and experiences. Follow Jennifer on Twitter @JenniferJampala