Archive for November, 2010

Business plans for entrepreneurs: the three ‘Rs’ – Part I

Monday, November 8th, 2010

Some have argued that a business plan is not necessary when starting up your venture and that entrepreneurs can better spend their time on other things. I strongly disagree and argue that the very process of writing a business plan leads to a stronger, more sustainable business.

In the following short video (the first in a short series), I discuss why I believe this and lay out the three Rs: research, refinement, and (w)riting and how these can help entrepreneurs develop their idea and bring it to life.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

Twitter Link Roundup #59 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More

Thursday, November 4th, 2010

Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account, I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design, web design, startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!

The image above shows a poster (the full article is in the Random Fun section below) from verydemotivational.com

Biz ladies: how to brand your business on a budget – http://bit.ly/aVmiv2

Building A Brand People Love: Create Real Value – http://bit.ly/dlW0eD

Dramatic changes to google search as “Place Search” gets rolled out – http://selnd.com/9tw3fR

25 Super Common SEO Mistakes – http://selnd.com/aKQDdG

Landing Clients Is Hit or Miss – http://bit.ly/cBKv1p

How to identify the customers that matter – http://ow.ly/33P3Q

Go Ahead, Raise Your Business’s Prices – http://bit.ly/doBiaU

crowdSPRING’s Small Business Spotlight of the Week: Mobilotto – http://bit.ly/aDnkLn

Arming & Aiming: How to handle sales objections at a startup – http://bit.ly/aBacWI

The Importance of Customer Experience to your Startup – http://ow.ly/30gvQ

5 lessons on leadership from @RichardBransonhttp://bit.ly/bDv1It

Designing startup metrics to drive successful behavior – http://ow.ly/33OTQ

11 Ways Your Startup Can Deliver Support That Will Increase Sales – http://bit.ly/be0hE7

57 Things I’ve Learned Founding 3 Tech Companies – http://ow.ly/30Aa9

Arming & Aiming: How to handle sales objections at a startup – http://bit.ly/aBacWI

The 11 Harsh Realities Of Being An Entrepreneur – http://bit.ly/apCNjm

(more…)

Building A Brand People Love: Create Real Value

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010

Last week, I spoke at TechCocktail’s Mixology Conference in Chicago about Creativity & the Importance of Building a Brand People Love.  Before the audience Q&A, we discussed the top five things that a business should do to build its brand:

1. deliver value

2. know who you are

3. differentiate from your competition

4. have a voice and personality

5. build a strong identity

Over the next few weeks, I’ll write or video blog about each of these and share our experience at crowdSRING both in building our own brand – and in helping thousands of companies around the world build (or rebuild) their brands.

Today, in the first of this five part series … a few words about delivering value.

Young entrepreneurs often ask how they can improve the odds that their startup or small business will succeed. While there are many different things that they should do, one of the most important is to create real value.

Find a simple, elegant, and/or creative way to solve a common problem. I talk about creating value in the following short (2 minutes, 36 seconds) video.