A Primer On Google Primer

by Rhonda Adams, president and founder of PlanningShop and author of “Successful Business Plan: Secrets & Strategies“

Small business owners never seem to have enough hours in the day to complete all the tasks on our to-do lists — developing new products, searching for new customers, training employees, closing the sale. As busy as we are, we also need to keep up with small business and marketing trends — trends that change quickly.

Google Primer, a free app from Google, has developed a number of small business and marketing lessons — each of which you can complete in a manageable five minutes. Each interactive lesson breaks down a small business concept into bite-size pieces. Learn how to get found online, how to create effective email marketing campaigns, how to build an online presence, and much more.

My Google Primer lesson has just gone live: “Start Small and Grow on Your Own with Bootstrapping”.

“Bootstrapping” is the strategy of growing your business through income – sales – or other personal or short-term financing (like credit cards) rather than going out and looking for investors or taking on significant debt. So instead of relying on outsiders, you’re “pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps.”

When you have only your own resources, unfortunately that means you usually have less money, so you need to make sure every dollar counts.

One great way to do that is to “start small” – to get to market and start making sales with the leanest viable product or service you can get out the door. That’s what we call an “MVP” – or “minimal viable product.”

While you might not start out with as grand a project as what you might have initially imagined, focusing on getting a lean – but viable and workable – product or service launched and making sales is a great way to grow your business with the fewest outside dollars.

By “bootstrapping” and starting with an MVP, you’re not only reducing your need for outside investors or lenders, but by interacting with prospects and customers and making real sales, you gain insights about your product/service that you’d never know

You can learn more about bootstapping and MVP – minimal viable products – in my Google Primer lesson, that’s now live. To take my lesson now, click on this link from your smartphone or tablet: http://ift.tt/2qySFc6

But I’m not the only one creating Google Primer lessons. You’ll find a whole slew of small business lessons there, including a few from some other small business experts I respect, such as:

• John Jantsch: Foster Customer Relationships to Sell Your Product
• Anita Campbell: Small Business Budgeting: Track, Plan, Prepare
• Ramon Ray: Fight Fatigue and Stress While You Start a New Business

In small business, as in life, always be learning!

 

Author, entrepreneur, and nationally-syndicated columnist, Rhonda Abrams is widely recognized as one of the nation’s foremost experts on small business and entrepreneurship. Rhonda writes the nation’s most widely-distributed column on small business and entrepreneurship, appearing weekly in USA Today. She is the author of 19 books on business planning, small business and entrepreneurship, including the best-selling business plan guide “Successful Business Plan: Secrets & Strategies“.

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Start-Ups Of 2017 That Are Creating A New World Order

2017 started on a high note, with expectations from several industries that were buoyed by the technological inventions. It seems clearer every month of this year that anything is possible with enough resources and determination.

Tech lovers have started blogs and based them on cryptocurrency, Bitcoin leading in this area, but several other developments that may not have received such massive airtime. Still, they are likely to change the way we live so much that they will become the new world order.

These start-ups are using technology to deliver better services:

Graviky Labs.

This Indian company is taking something negative and turning it into an income-generating venture. Delhi has been voted for two years in a row as the most polluted city in the world, and so some smart-heads decided to do something about it. They are using the soot from engine exhaust and turning it into ink and paint. While this venture is still new, investors have funded it so that the company keeps cleaning up Delhi. The soot is collected from the exhaust without a possibility of damage to the engine.

Accompany.

This app is aimed at making the life of every executive so much easier. Proclaimed by its makers as your personal chief-of-staff, this app gets you all the information you will need to get through the day. It will recap conversations you had at a previous meeting with people you are about to meet and bring you up to speed with what you need to discuss in your meeting. It also gives you details of attendees’ lives. Amy Chang, the founder, has already raised $20 million, and so this project has taken shape. Meetings will never be the same again.

23andMe.

23andMe is a company that does tests and releases them to individuals so that they can get to know whether they are at risk of developing genetic diseases. FDA had previously prevented the company from releasing theses tests directly to people, but the ruling has been reversed. This test does not impede a genetic disorder, but they are more informed and able to make wiser decisions for the future regarding their condition. These diseases include Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s.

Pindrop Security.

Identity theft has been an issue for a long time in the US, and Pindrop has decided to do something about it. The company has raised up to $122milllion in funding to help expand its services. The company has a fraud-prevention service where they identify the location of the person calling so that you can determine their authenticity. Three out of the four top financial institutions have used the service. Identity theft has been rampant in the recent past, and it is perpetrated through phones, thus identifying the location of the caller helps keep your identity safe.

Starry.

Want to supercharge your internet? Starry will do just that with their portable device, Starry Point that will help you to download a 2-hour movie in 2 minutes. With dizzying speeds of up to 1 GB per second, virtual meetings are possible more than ever. Being small with a broad base, you can take it anywhere. The company that launched in 2016 has raised $30 million to expand its services.

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7 Key Risk Areas During Optimization Of ERP Implementation

Businesses that use Enterprise Resource Planning, or ERP, are usually in a better position to manage all their critical operations under one platform. Often, the businesses will require optimizing the ERP if they have to make an impact on the operations. However, this optimization effort may draw other risks which limit the productivity of the business. Business solution experts advise that it is prudent to understand the possible risks and how to avoid them (for more details on how to tackle these business challenges, visit https://twbs.com).

In this article, we will discuss the seven common possible risks which make almost 75 percent of businesses fail in their efforts to optimize their ERP implementation:

Project governance.

Companies which don’t pay close attention to all ERP implementation factors may end up getting less than what the contract says. Therefore, it is prudent to take charge of the project timeline and budget. They also need to get involved in all implementation activities. This avoids delays and over expenditures or getting fewer services than agreed upon.

Business requirements.

Understanding the business requirements regarding the optimized ERP can only be possible if the company drafts the business requirements and tests them using the new upgraded ERP. It is only at this stage that the business can prevent several risks that can result if not well tested.

Regulatory needs, controls, and security.

The Payment Card Industry, Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX), and any other applicable regulatory requirements play a great role in the implementation of ERP. Additionally, the data privacy guidelines are a mandatory consideration to be made. Security of data is probably the most crucial, since the ERP uses Internet platforms. Some of the concerns include the cyber security as well as privacy and integrity. The company must scope and plan well to meet any regulatory controls and security needs after the system is live.

The data.

Data-related concerns include planned classification, data cleansing, mapping and moving processes. There should be no risk which will affect productivity even after the upgrades. All data must be matched with the right department, owner, date, and any other crucial parameter.

Organizational change management.

Imagine staff and everyone waking up to a new or upgraded ERP system and no one spoke a word about it. Well, the company must make plans for critical communication before and after implementation to all concerned parties including the stakeholders. In fact, training the staff on how to use the new version of the ERP is not optional but a must. Failure to do so will only result in unnecessary anxiety, rumors and will cause conflict as staff try to figure out on how to go about using the new ERP.

Operations.

As soon as the ERP goes live, the company is bound to face various emerging issues. Also, the service and solution providers that installed the system will need to be reviewed for adequacy. Other emerging issues include backup strategy and owners who are assigned to use the system. Assessing the business priorities against the system’s functionality is also paramount. All these will ensure that the system addresses the operational needs properly.

The technology.

A good ERP is the one which is designed to meet all needs of the company at the moment, and can accommodate any future advancements in technology. This includes the infrastructure needs. Again, this can entail frequent updates on software upgrades and data recovery processes.

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How To Hire Great Employees

by Ross Kimbarovsky, founder of crowdSPRING

Building a great team is nearly always the difference between the success or failure of a business. But it’s not easy to build a great team that shares your vision.

What common habits do nearly all great employees have? Look for these habits when you interview and make hiring decisions.

Great employees have strong discipline.

The best employees have strong discipline. Talented people are effective when they’re in a good mood or excited about their work. But it’s rare that we can be in a good mood 100% of the time and the initial excitement about a project often dissipates as the project drags along. Even you won’t be 100% excited about your business at all times. That’s because a business is like a roller-coaster ride. There are many ups and downs – often in the same day. It’s important that employees stay disciplined during the ups and the downs.

Great employees welcome criticism.

We all make mistakes. The most effective employees seek constructive criticism rather than avoid it (especially when they’ve made a mistake). Winston Churchill famously said, “Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.”

Average employees typically become defensive and hostile when receiving constructive feedback. Highly effective employees know that without constructive feedback, it’s difficult to improve.

Think about your own employees or if you’re working for someone else, your colleagues. When you or another person provide constructive criticism, do your employees or colleagues listen and act on that criticism? Or do they instead choose to argue and quickly become defensive?

Great employees embrace opportunities.

The most effective employees look for weaknesses within an organization both to correct those weaknesses and to show skill and leadership. Highly effective employees don’t sit and wait for opportunities to come to them.

Great employees are persistent.

True innovation requires hard work and focus, not just great ideas. We tend to be excited about end goals, but not prepared for the hard work and persistence. Even with careful planning, some projects can take much longer to complete than expected.

Great employees are decisive.

Don’t hire people at any position if you don’t believe they can be decisive. To scale your business, you want people to take risks and not worry about making mistakes. Most employees, especially at bigger companies, hold themselves back because they fear failure.

It’s true that some ideas and initiatives will fail. Maybe even most will fail. Think of those ideas and initiatives as experiments and follow Thomas Edison’s perspective: “I haven’t failed, I’ve found 10,000 ways that don’t work.”

You’ll rarely have complete information when running a business or making decisions, but indecision is paralyzing, especially to startups and small businesses.

Great employees listen first.

Most people talk too much. The most effective employees (and leaders) are people who listen first and talk when they have something meaningful to add to the conversation. Such employees are effective because they don’t need to hear themselves talk. They consider the facts, ask questions, and then share an opinion. Silence is golden.

But that invites them to talk – not to listen, you say. True. Yet, by asking questions, you’re exploring whether they take cues from your answers to ask follow-up questions. If they simply walk in and ask three pre-written questions, it’s doubtful they care much about what you have to say – they’re simply asking questions because most job candidates are expected to ask questions during an interview.

Pay attention to HOW they’re asking the questions. Are they asking WHY questions or WHAT questions? A person who knows how to listen first generally asks WHY questions – why do you need something done, for example.

People who lack good listening skills generally ask WHAT questions – what do you need done. Even though the questions seem similar, they’re not. A person who understand the answer to the WHY question can be creative and might find a much better way to solve a problem. A person who asks WHAT questions will typically do what needs to be done, but since they won’t know why you need it done, they’ll have little room or reason to be creative.

Great employees know their limits.

The most effective employees are experts in their key areas, but recognize when a project is over their head, and bring in others to help. They generously share credit with others to make sure that in the future, others would continue to lend a helping hand. This conveys great judgment and leadership. You don’t want employees that take on projects they can’t complete, waste months on those projects, and then leave or come to tell you that they are in over their head. You also don’t want people to take 100% of the credit and dish out 100% of the blame.

Interview Tips.

When interviewing, ask about the candidate’s most favorite project and also about their least favorite project. Compare the passion with which they describe each project, the effort they brought to each project, and the results they achieved. Highly effective employees will, naturally, be more passionate about projects they loved, but they’ll demonstrate a good deal of self-discipline talking about projects they did not like – and what they did to achieve great results despite a lack of strong interest.

Ask about a time when the candidate made a mistake in their job and how they dealt with it. What did their boss do/say? Did the candidate agree with the feedback? How did they respond? Did they respond promptly?

Ask candidates about longer projects on which they worked. Talk about the details, how they maintained their motivation, focus and excitement over a long period of time. How did they deal with teammates who were not as motivated or focused?

Ask candidates about projects in their prior jobs where they took big risks. How did that project originate? Was it self-driven or assigned?

One good way to measure a person’s listening skills is to give them opportunities to ask questions.

Ask about especially difficult projects that required collaboration with others. Was the collaboration required or did the candidate bring in other people after the project started to fill in expertise gaps? How did the teams work together? How was credit (and blame) shared.

 

Ross Kimbarovsky is founder and CEO at crowdSPRING and Startup Foundry. In 2007, Ross left a successful 13-year career as a trial lawyer to pursue his dream of founding a technology company (in part so that he could wear shorts and sandals to work every day) by founding crowdSPRING – one of the world’s leading marketplaces for crowdsourced logo design, web design, graphic design, product design, and company naming services. You can learn more in his e-book.

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Working To Your Full Potential – How To Make It Happen

Work is something that takes up a considerable amount of time for most people. You may not always love the job that you do, but you can still make the most of it. If you want to make your job enjoyable, it’s a good idea to try and work to your full potential each day. This may not always be possible, we all have bad days; but if you can aim to make it happen on most days, you should find that the day goes quicker and that you get a sense of achievement.

There are other possible benefits to be had from working to your full potential, such as management recognition, bonuses and promotion. It’s certainly worth taking a look at how you can work to your full potential, on a regular basis.

Looking at your lifestyle.

The life that you live outside of work can have a direct effect on how you perform when you are working. Here are some lifestyle considerations that you may want to think about:

• Make sure that you get enough sleep.

If you are having trouble sleeping think about whether you need a new mattress to give you better support. Take a look at this Avocado mattress review to see if a new mattress could be of benefit. You should also have a look at this advice on how to get a good night’s sleep.

• Think about what you eat and drink.

If you want to be productive, it’s a good idea to adopt a healthy diet. Of course, you can still eat less healthy products in moderation. You should avoid eating too much sugar or drinking too many stimulants in drinks such as coffee. You should also moderate your alcohol intake.

• The positive effect of exercise.

You should aim to do at least half an hour of exercise, five times a week. That being said, any amount of exercise can do you good, especially if you currently do not do any. Exercise makes you feel good, and it helps to improve your health. Both of these factors are important if you want to perform well in work.

You can see how external factors can affect the way you work, but what can you do within the workplace, in order to work to your full potential.

Paying attention to time management.

One of the most important things you can do, to optimise your work performance, is make sure your time management skills are up to scratch. If you are able to successfully juggle a heavy workload, you should be well on the way to reaching your full potential. You need to learn how to use “to do” lists to your benefit and how to be realistic with deadlines. Time management skills take some time to acquire, but it’s worth the effort in the long term.

Working as part of a team.

It’s difficult to work to your full potential, without having the support of those around you. You should never think that you need to do everything on your own, in order to truly be reaching your full potential. Often, the best results in business come from the fact that people can work well as a team. Learning to work as part of a team is not something that comes easily to everyone, but it’s a skill that you should do your best to acquire.

You are capable of making sure that you work to your full potential. It takes effort on your part, but the results make it worthwhile.

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Should You Outsource Your Company’s Mobile App Development? Here’s Why You Should

Mobile applications are paramount for the success of marketing campaigns today. While the existence of a company app is not something that has gotten to the level of the website, where not having one is instant marketing doom, it’s not far from it. While not having an app is still something you can get away with as a company, it’s something that will keep you from gaining a considerable amount of extra profit. Mobile devices are one of the leading industries on the planet and through affiliation, mobile applications are one of the most popular means of deploying marketing efforts.

If you’re hindered in your attempt to create a mobile app for your business by the fact that you don’t have a mobile division, you should consider sourcing the project to an experience company that can do the job for you. There are quite a few benefits when it comes to outsourcing your app to another company. The way you do it is even easier, as you just need a sourcing company like https://www.icrfq.com/ for example, which can put you in relations with the company that will be developing the app.

Here are some of the benefits that come with taking this kind of decision for your business:

You gain the advantage of having skilled developers on your team (without them being on the team).

By hiring a company to develop your app, you are ensuring its quality through the skilled developers which are assigned to work on it. What this means is that you can expect a quality product which will each its goals and won’t get bogged down in technical difficulties or even design contradictions.

Maintenance.

Keeping track of all the problems that have been reported with the app since it was launched as well as finding new problems yourself will lead to a lot of headaches if you handle it yourself. If you also add that you aren’t nearly as well equipped to deal with the threat of losing users due to the app not being up to par, you’re looking at a pretty grim situation. Luckily, a sourced company is able to continue offering support for your app and intervene with technical support as well as regular updates that will keep your company app well oiled and up to date.

Exposure and marketing.

Just like any other product, the app must be marketed if you are to have any people know about its existence. A company that often does work with mobile apps is not just able to accurately pinpoint the best ways to go about promoting the app but also knows the right channels through which to do it. Their experience in the field has landed them quite some contacts that can now work in your favor thanks to outsourcing.

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Pitch 4 Success

by Edmund Buckley, co-founder & CEO of CampusSafe

Your pitch deck is the most important assets your business will have, arguably more than the business plan itself. After several years of creating my own pitch decks and helping teach other startups how to build their own, I’ve seen what works and gets results.

Based off the “Pitch then Plan” template originated by Silicon Valley venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki, I believe in creating a strong pitch first and then building a business plan based on it. Why? Because if you get the pitch right, you’ll get the plan right.

Think of your business as a house you’re building. To build a house, you need a blueprint. And although a blueprint is merely an outline of what the final product should be, what seems simple is truly imperative if you want to create a viable product from the start. It shows that you’ve thought it through and figured out how all the moving pieces will work together to make a successful project.

If you don’t have a sound blueprint for a house, chances are you won’t find a construction company who will help you build that house. Likewise with your business pitch, its will determine whether you will generate further interest from potential investors. If you can’t hook them with your pitch, then there’s no way they’re going to dive into the minutiae of your business plan.

Focusing on your pitch first also saves you time. While you may never get feedback on a business plan, you get immediate reactions to your pitch. Considering a pitch is a lot shorter and contains less text than a business plan, it will be a lot quicker to fix. From there, you will have a solid foundation for your business plan.

Here are 4 things you should do when creating your pitch deck:

1. Explain Yourself in the First Minute.

Make it clear what your organization does, what pain you’re solving, and why you’re the person to do it. Keep it short and to the point to engage your audience. You will not impress investors with a complicated deck; it should be something they can read through and understand in under 10 minutes.

2. Answer the Little Man.

Often, engineers will talk about technology and won’t explain in layman’s’ terms what that means to the average person. If you say, “We provide 128-bit encryption in a portable device,” the little man’s going to ask, “So what?” Always include the answer to that question in your pitch. While nobody might care about the 128-bit encryption, they will care when you tell them it means super secure phone calls for companies that deal with highly sensitive information.

3. Use a Bottom-Up Model.

A common mistake is using a top-down model to forecast financials. When you do that, you look at the overall market and use this information to define your target demographic and determine what percentage you think you can capture. This model tends to be way too optimistic, and ultimately unrealistic. Using the bottom-down model, you use your current situation and capabilities to see where you can reasonably go from there. With bottom-down forecasting, you predict what company activities will drive results, which leads to money in the bank.

4. Observe the 10/20/30 Rule.

The 10/20/30/ rule is to cover your pitch with 10 slides in 20 minutes and 30-point font text. But really, your pitch should be covered in 7 minutes, allowing 13 minutes for questions and discussion. By allowing it to be more of a conversation, you’re able to see what part of the pitch isn’t landing and explain any holes that might be discovered in your pitch.

As for the 10 slides of your business pitch, consider each slide as an element of your blueprint. Blueprints cover what aspects and expertise go into building a house: first the general structure and layout, then placing plumbing, appliances and fixtures, and electrical wiring. Some show as detailed as where pieces of furniture will go. With your pitch, start general and dig deeper into details with each slide. Here’s what I recommend:

• Introduction slide: Include Organization Name, Your Name, Title, and Contact Information. During this slide, introduce yourself and discuss quickly what traction your organization has gained. If you’re just starting out, talk about how you’ve established credibility (i.e., education, specialization, etc.)
• Slide 1: Describe the pain your organization is taking away. Try to personalize that pain.
• Slide 2: Explain how you take away this pain. This is your value proposition. If your product is physical, include an image of it on this slide.
• Slide 3: Introduce your business model. How you make money, who pays you, your channels of distribution, and your gross margins. This is what investors look for.
• Slide 4: Underlying magic. Describe the technology, secret sauce or magic behind your product. Specifically, how does it create value for the customer?
• Slide 5: Describe your position in the marketplace. What story will you tell that makes you more important?
• Slide 6: Marketing & Sales. Convince the audience that you have an effective go-to-market strategy that won’t break the bank.
• Slide 7: Competition. Address your competitors, and explain what differentiates you from them that helps you dominate in your market.
• Slide 8: Management Team. Describe the key players, board of directors, advisors and major investors. Discuss how they complete the management trinity: production, marketing, and financial expertise. If you have any holes in the team, explain how you plan to fill them.
• Slide 9: Financial Projections. Include projected prospect and customer numbers, revenue, costs, and profits for years 1-3. Most businesses should be able to show turning a profit by year 3.
• Slide 10: Milestones. Explain the current status of your product or service, what the near term future looks like, any accomplishments to date, and how you’ll use any money that you are trying to raise. Even if you’ve been in the business for 3-4 months, tell them what you’ve done so far and your trajectory. You want to show momentum to investors.

Before presenting a pitch deck to potential investors, be sure to run it through a few times with your mentors and colleagues. Fix what doesn’t land, and see if you can reduce the number of words on slides. If you need notes, consider using a program that allows you to have presenter notes. Once you’ve presented a deck to investors, you’ll be able to continue revising it, as well as get started on a solid business plan. A solid pitch deck can also be used to create variations for different target audiences, such as one as a more general introduction to your business, and even one that can later be used for training future employees.

 

Edmund Buckley, co-founder & CEO of CampusSafe™, is a 20+ year Austin veteran entrepreneur, having founded and built 2 successful startups. He is passionate about revolutionizing the way campuses think of safety. Before joining the CampusSafe™ team, he was the Co-Founder & CEO of 360 Mortgage Group, Co-Founder of TrieverMedia. He is an alum of Austin’s Tech Ranch Venture Forth Program. He continues to stay involved in their Venture Builder program as a volunteer leader, where he teaches start-ups to how to build pitch decks.

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