Now is the Time for Winning Strategies

Marketing & Public Relations Programs in a Challenging Economy

It may be a big surprise to many corporate decision makers, but when the business climate presents its inevitable challenges – financial setbacks, a severe downturn in the economy, a marked increase in competition – this is the BEST time to consider establishing or ramping up your marketing and public relations efforts.

Whether you are starting a new business, or trying to maintain the presence you’ve worked so hard to achieve, you want to position your firm as a strong survivor pushing forward with the marketing elements of your business plan.  While the others in your industry might withdraw or even disappear, you have an amazing opportunity to forge ahead in an ever increasingly competitive environment.

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2008 Great Depression

A lot has been happening lately, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been snapped up. AIG has been snapped up. Bank of America has taken over Merrill Lynch. And, most recently a new bill is proposing a massive, nearly 1 trillion dollar ($700 Billion Dollar) bailout for the economy en masse.

Regardless of your opinion on what is happening, or how to eliminate the downward spiral I found this video this afternoon courtesy of Digg.com. The video features Peter Schiff, former Ron Paul adviser, discussing the economy and the proposed government intervention. It is a very interesting watch:

Regardless of what happens - the bill passes and the current crisis is delayed for a few years or a few dozen, or it doesn’t and a terrible crash and rebuilding ensues, one thing seems to hold true, things will get worse before they truly get better. I also noticed at the very end of the video the video’s author on YouTube added his website and information as a quick marketing tool.

We’ve noticed locally, businesses closing, and everyone in general seems to be effected by the slowing economy, higher prices, job losses, a general slowing. But, it is those who stay creative and nimble, that can weather this storm, no matter how long it lasts.

Management Styles - Employee Performance

The task of planning and executing how employees will be compensated at any company is usually faulty at best. To add to the complication, different types of employees have different compensations, and different goals so measuring performance and rewarding based on excellence or progress is sometimes convoluted.

But, don’t make the mistake of implementing “bonuses.”

If bonuses are distributed when, “things go well” at your company, or for holidays, this will quickly turn into entitlements.  And, unfortunately many bosses or managers have a nasty habit of discussing them as such (have it as part of the compensation package when employees discuss raises or new hires discuss wages). So bonuses lose what their very name implies. They are no longer additions, to be paid out when performance is exceptional (more on this in just a second), but simply a nice chunk of salary to be distributed at a certain point in time.

So, what is the problem? When these types of tools are used without mention to meeting or exceeding expectations and goals, they are nothing to work towards and quickly become the “norm.” Additionally, if the inverse happens (for some reason the bonus is not paid), for example if business declines or expectations are not met, this lack of “deserved compensation” can have a huge effect on productivity and general attitude.

So, as soon as possible, across all facets of your business you should set up a system of performance compensation, where by employees performance is directly linked to compensation. Here are some general reules for success:

• Set specific standards for the job that are measurable
• Make routine payments (not one lump sum)
• If it makes sense for your situation, choose increases in performance compensation as opposed to pay increases or general raises

Utilizing this kind environment, particularly setting measurable goals with your employees and watching their progress (and allowing them to watch their own progress) will help lead to a more successful working environment.

Business Reconnaissance

Information about businesses in Southwest Florida or the business climate can be a bit hard to find. Sure there are some pretty decent offerings, Gulfshore Business is chocked full of business goodness with timely information and tips for business owners, as is their daily newsletter. The News-Press has a small business section with a least a page and a half about local business. Bonita Business was started in direct response to the lack of hearty information provided to residents in Lee and Collier Counties.

But, besides a few local publications what can you use when doing research or how can you stay abreast of the latest developments in your field? It’s simple:

Google Alerts

Google Alerts are simple, but incredibly powerful. This technology has implications for your business across many different facets - really any in which timely information is key. Before going into the benefits and how you can use it let me explain what it is:

Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.

In a nutshell, you give Google alerts a series of words (keyterms) and then as things develop or happen on the web regarding those things, you are instantly notified, via an email. So, for example lets say you are curious how your company “Bob’s Example Company XYZ” is being talked about on the web. You setup an alert and the minute your name “Bob’s Example Company XYZ” is mentioned THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE WEB you will be notified.

So beside’s vanity searches, what else is this tool good for?

• Finding the latest news & info on your industry - to report on if you have a blog or website (great source of inspiration and ideas)
• Research on your own company and brand
• Business Reconnaissance on your competition
• Local business climate information

Outside of a business setting it also has many applications. One that comes to mind is instantly knowing all of the information on a given stock or company as it happens if you are an avid investor.

Google Alerts, although simple in nature is an incredibly powerful tool that any business owner or soon-to-be business owner should incorporate into their array of tools.

Write It and They Will Come

Less than a week after authoring a post about what are essentially contract and legal document templates I was referred the following website from a colleague of mine:

http://www.biztree.com

As I stated before, technology and the Internet is lowering all barriers, shattering conventionals costs of entry to starting and operating a business. In my previous post I mentioned another piece of software that provided legal documents and contract management for the tech and IT industries, but BizTree provides documents for ANY business.

The list of available documents is very long, but they include legal resources within the following categories:

• Planning & Management
• Legal
• HR
• Finance/Accounting
• Sales & Marketing
• Internet/Web Design
• … and much more

I highly recommend checking out this software and making an investmnet in your new, or yet-to-be created business through the use of these kinds of tested legal documents. But, remember the overarching idea here, that the internet and various pieces of software available for free or for a free reduced fee, can help supply and make your business more efficient in every facet. So get out there do some searches, and see what you can discover.

Kona Grill Closing, Naples FL

Just read some terrible news. Kona Grill in Naples (at the Coastland Mall) has closed its doors. According to the article I found about the Kona closing on Naples Daily News:

NAPLES — Kona Grill, an American grill and sushi bar, announced that it has closed its restaurant in Naples, a press release on the company’s Web site reports.

The company is expected to take an impairment charge during the third quarter of 2008, although the specific amount has yet to be determined.

“Although we are disappointed to have closed our Naples restaurant, we believe it was the prudent choice for our business as we seek to navigate through some very challenging times in our industry,” said Marcus E. Jundt, Chief Executive Officer of Kona Grill.

This seems to be another eery underscore of both the local and national dwindling economies. Locally, the real estate market has been rocked by falling values and too much inventory, particularly in Lee County. Nationally, big business and banks are being threatened every day.

It seems just yesterday Kona was opening its doors. In fact, the restaurant wasn’t even open for 2 years:

Kona Grill, an American cuisine and sushi bar coming to Coastland Center mall in Naples, will be able to serve liquor, despite a city ordinance barring restaurants from selling wine or beer within 500 feet of each other.

But the late hours that are the upscale restaurant’s trademark were shot down Wednesday by the Naples City Council in the name of fairness.

Perhaps if the City of Naples had decided to allow the late nights, for which many places in Naples are able to stay afloat, things would have been different.

But, what can we learn from this debacle?

First, even the big guys, who - at first plan - are able to lease very valuable real estate and target a sophisticated market, make mistakes. And those mistakes are just as easily made, or avoided, by small businesses, so do your homework and plan for the future.

Second, with things slowing down you don’t HAVE to hold on. Cut your losses, if something just isn’t working out from a financial or resource point of view, concentrate your efforts and energy in a portion of your business that is showing returns.

Crime Doesn’t Pay, or Does it?

What can creative criminal catching provided by Collier County’s online approach, teach you about business? Well, other than sweet, sweet, aliteration, this is a prime example of the Internet’s sweeping penetration across households, businesses, everything and how it can be employed to “catch” your target market.

I have setup Google Alerts (more info here…) to alert me of any local business happenings and this morning… this came up:

Help Us Solve This Case
By colliersheriff.org(colliersheriff.org)
Deputies are reaching out to the community for tips in a robbery at a North Naples business in 2007. On June 2, 2007, three men robbed the Money Corner at 9853 US 41 N. around 9:20 pm One of the robbers hit a store employee in the head …
Behind The Star - http://ccsoblog.blogspot.com/

After clicking and reading the story I was intrigued:

One of the robbers hit a store employee in the head with a gun. The robbers made off with an undisclosed amount of cash.

Investigators believe the robbers drove away in a vehicle that was waiting nearby, possibly a sporty red car.

I was intrigued for what is, probably the wrong reason. Like any business the Collier County Sheriff’s office realizes it has a market, in this particular case, anyone who might know about a robbery that occurred. And, instead of printing fliers, making phone calls or possibly to supplement these existing methods of solicitation, they are reaching out to people via the web - a web blog (more to come in subsequent posts).Their audience will do a search AND FIND THEM!

The web is penetrating so deeply across every demographic that it is foolish not to seek your audience there (or here, you’re reading this on the web right?) or, more appropriately, set yourself up so YOUR AUDIENCE SEEKS YOU!

The blog in this case was setup for free through one of the most popular online blogging platforms out there, Blogger. Sheriff office’s blog, and this post in particular, will appear for any related searches - searches done by those that might have knowledge of the robbery - and perhaps the perpetrators will be caught. So, “catch” the eyes of your customers, put yourself out there, and continue writing on the web.

Anyone with information should call the Collier County Sheriff’s Office at 239-793-9300 or if you wish to remain anonymous call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-780-TIPS (8477).

Search Engine Optimization pt.1 - Why Search Engines

This is part 1 of a 6 part series.

Visit Part: 1, 2

Perhaps more than any other topic I am asked about Search Engine Optimization.

What is Search Engine Optimization?

To understand what search engine optimization is, you must first understand what a search is. You do know what a search is don’t you? As a user of the Internet you are probably familiar with a search engine. Maybe you’re doing research for your local business competition, maybe you’re looking for the best price on a pair of crocs. Whatever the case may be you have probably used a search engine to find what you are looking for. The major search engines are (in this order):

• Google
• Yahoo
• MSN Live

You visit these sites and are greeted with a long rectangular box, prompting you to type something in, hit “search” and suddenly, magically, results appear. Sometimes they are exactly what you need, sometimes you have to refine the words or order of words you typed in. This list of results, particularly along the left hand side are websites and pages that the search engines think you are looking for. You search for “Dry Cleaners Estero” and bam, a list of results pops up, sites or pages that the search engines think match your desire of “Dry Cleaners Estero.” Without going into any technical detail of how this happens, or how Google, Yahoo, MSN Live, and the other guys find, store, and sort all of this data…

Search Engine Optimization is the manipulation of these results.

For example, you provide custom stair construction to clients throughout southwest florida. So, knowing that a lot of people no longer use the yellow pages, and are now turning to search engines to find the local businesses and services they need, you try to do everything you can to appear at the top of the list for relevant terms: “fort myers custom stair cases,” “naples stair installation,” etc.

And that’s it for now. Search engine optimization is simply involves planning, crafting, and developing your site over time in order for your site to appear when your target market is searching for exactly what you have to offer. It is an incredibly effective form of marketing (cost effective, leading to phenomenal results), but it comes at a VERY high cost - albeit not always a monetary cost.

In subsequent posts I will reveal more technical details on Search Engine Optimization as well as how any small business owner can use this to bring in mountains of traffic to their website, get contacts, get leads, close sales,  or sell products.

In the meantime if you just can’t wait I highly recommend checking out the information available on this search engine optimization blog and book. As always, if you have any questions or comments, just scroll down and post to the comments section. We’ll respond immediatley!

Continue Reading: Part 2

Airtight Contracts

Thought I would write another post that plugs great products! As time progresses and I’ve been faced with different situations regarding development and deployment of websites, hosting, and other technological services I am more and more thankful for teaming up with a mentors that steered us in the direction of proper planning, from every direction, most important of which (for the purposes of this article), legal planning.

One such implementation we made early on was the actual creation and signing of real contracts. Although I had worked at various law firms and with legal advertisers and marketers, and was familiar with certain facets of the law, the actual creation and implementation of contracts was - at first - scary. Fortunately, there are some tools available to help you. Like many other things basic contracts are commodities and as such have been refined over time and can be replicated, manipulated easily to take care of every situation.

The software we first used to both create, as well as manage contracts is Contract Edge. According to their website:

You get what you pay for. High-quality legal forms and contracts are critical to your business. Our IT contract forms will help you protect your interests. Whether you need an independent contractor agreement, a non-compete, confidentiality or other contact to protect your business, ContractEdge is for you.

Contracts are a vital part of business, and if you hesitate about implementing them, remember they not only protect you, but also your client. Although Contract Edge deals with the IT industry in particular there are a number of other services out their that provide contract management and contract templates for every situation. As time progresses, especially as your business grows and processes start to change, have a solid contract in place will be vital to your protection and success.

Southwest Florida Small Business Technology

So, we’ve recruited a fantastic company to provide business technology related articles pertaining to our local Southwest Florida (Bonita Springs, Fort Myers, Naples, Estero) audience, but until the articles start coming in I thought I would throw my 2 cents in regarding technology.

First of all as a business owner, or someone thinking about running a business, keep an open mind when it comes to technology. Like an article I recently read on business week, technologies, particularly the Internet, are lowering the barriers to business, reducing costs, increasing efficiency (and subsequently customer satisfaction). Technology is not electronics, technology is not wires, technology is not something for only geeks who play dungeons and dragons (which, by the way is the single biggest group on MeetUp.com for the Southwest Florida area).

No, technology need not be complicated, and if you keep an open mind or perspective, you can really use it to your benefit.

Let me rephrase that, although the implementation, customization, or actual grunt portion of technology may be involved, complicated, specialized, the end results, and uses should be what you are primarily concerned with. What immediately comes to mind when I think of technology is the uproar of jobs being outsourced to India. This has been a hot debate for quite sometime. For a period many jobs were being shipped or outsourced overseas, and for good reason. Inexpensive labor, and quality work made it attractive. Unfortunately, as has been evidenced by some call centers switching back to the US, communication is also an important part, perhaps the most important part, of an operation, and was just too costly a sacrifice to make. Our own endeavors overseas failed because of some language and communication disconnects.

Anyway, why I am talking about all of this? Technology is the ultimate outsourced labor. With computers, great software, and a team of trained professionals offices can accomplish with 5 people what it used to take dozens. To me, this is nearly equal, perhaps even a step above outsourcing to other countries, but it rarely gets addressed. Ethics aside, the technology in your office works to literally replace, and speed up your existing staff as well as, in some cases, eliminate the need for extra space. A law office, for example, with a centralized server, and special software can now eliminate the need for a “file room” and all but eliminate the process of “filing” by implementing a process through their computer system that automatically “files” documents to perspective client areas.

• Hundreds of square feet saved = $10’s of thousands of dollars saved
• Single job completely eliminated = $10’s of thousands of dollars saved
• Being able to instantly bring up any client file while your on the phone with them, making them think they’re the only client you have… priceless

The technology in your business should, at every level work to achieve these goals, faster, easier, more automated. And, other than an occasional downed hard drive or power failure technology is always-on, always accessible, and accessible from anywhere.

Technology Revolution

With this in mind, Southwest Florida businesses should take note that there is a revolution going on in the technology industry. Businesses are moving away from the central server approach, where an office has one or more physical computers in the office that route traffic, and store files and being replaced by what are called “managed services.” In the not-too-distant future all computing, especially centralized computing - whereby your business and employees access valuable resources (customer data, accounting information, etc) will be hosted offsite, on a number of servers, providing greater flexibility (access from anywhere), speed, uptime, and reduced costs.

There are already a number of services out there like this, one of the big ones right now is “managed exchange.” Various companies basically take the need to purchase, install, and maintain a single server in house for your companies email and you simply pay a monthly fee per mailbox instead. Everything else is built in. And since these companies can specialize, and throw hundreds or thousands of emails on one or a few machines, the cost is reduced tremendously. What used to cost $1000/machine, $1000 for software, $1000/year for maintance, now only costs a few dollars per month to achieve. And, since it is a recurring monthly cost, it greatly minimizes start-up costs and can expand with your business.

But, this is not the only service available. For example our office uses Skype to manage calls. We have no centralized call area, physically set up in the office. Instead an always-on application routes calls, forwards calls, and collects voicemail, everywhere and anywhere.

Go do a search on Google for whatever part of your business or process you think could benefit from technology or these kinds of managed services and you’ll be surprised at what you might find.

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