Creative Entrepreneurs are open to new ideas, new thoughts, and new ways to grow their business. Welcome to our blog and we hope you find it interesting and worthwhile. Please join in and contribute to the discussions. There are two ways to participate:
So you’ve heard that Twittering is the way to grow your business and you’ve decided to give it a try. But you don’t know how to use it effectively. Here are some tips to get you started:
Start with a Plan
Twitter can be very time consuming if you are not careful. There are folks on there tweeting away about what they had for dinner, what their precocious kid just did, and even where they went that day. Who cares?
Have a purpose before you log into twitter. Obviously, you don’t want to just promote your products with every tweet or people will consider you a spammer. So you need to have a plan before you log in. Let’s say you want to promote a new gift basket that you just added to your website. If you are following someone whose tweets you value, take a few moments to respond to some of those tweets. Perhaps do a search using Twitter’s search function about something you are interested in or your particular market and answer some of those questions or respond to a few comments. Then post something about the product you want to promote. And leave.
Go Slowly
The more followers you have, the wider your reach. But you can’t go too fast. Don’t start by promoting your products or your website. Also, don’t try to obtain a huge following without doing some tweeting yourself first. This is a case of “if you build it, they will come”. As you post more and more tweets that are of interest to others, they will start following you without your having to do anything. I guess you could say that you need to tweet, tweet, tweet before gathering your flock of tweeters.
Don’t know what to say in your tweets? Talk about someone else’s tweet that you found interesting . Reply to what someone else has said. Share what you are doing in your business now. Offer a suggestion as to something that has worked for you or helped you grow your business.
Don’t just tweet one promotion after another
When others look at your tweets and your timeline, they’ll see that you’re tweeting just to get business. People want to know what is in it for them. If you’re just talkiing about yourself and what they can buy from you, why should they follow you?
Engage in Conversations
Most of the tweets are updates to the entire group of people who are following you. But you can find individual Twitter users by using the @ symbol followed by their username. This way you can tweet a post directed to an individual. This makes others realize that you are a real participating tweeter and not just some piece of software that automatically makes posts for you.
It also helps build realtionships with others — and, as we all know, building relationships is what growing your business is all about. So give words of encouragement, respond to a blog post that impressed you, and answer questions. And if someone responds to one of your tweets, it’s common courtesy to answer back.
Post Often
If you’ve made the decision to try twitter, don’t be shy. Jump right in. Start making those posts that will increase your followers. And, once you’ve started, be prepared to post regularly. Remember this is a social networking tool. And just like attending those networking functions in your hometown, you have to be visible. You can’t be a wallflower and expect them to work for you.
And if you want to follow me on twitter, my twitter username is creativegifts.
Looking for an easy, fast way to be listed on the first page of Google? Here’s the secret!
The answer is Google Local Business Listings. If you have a storefront, a homebased business, or even an internet business that has people searching for gift baskets to be delivered in your town, you’re missing a big opportunity if you’re not listed in Google Local.
Not only is your listing shown on the first page of Google but it is usually shown before the organic listings that you’ve worked so hard to get. For example, if someone searches for gift baskets + Flagstaff, AZ, my website is listed as #1 on page one. But above that are the “paid ads” (which most savvy web shoppers people don’t bother to click on because they are ads) followed by a list of local businesses that Google finds most revelant.
In many ways, these listings are even better than regular listings because users get more than just a link to your website. They also get your phone number, a map of your location and an additional link to find out more about your business. You can even include photos of your gift baskets (although they are hard to size properly) and videos.
To get your business listed, simply go to www.google.com/local/add and get started. Most of the other search engines including the new one “Bing” has local listings as well.
A very effective way of producing an online catalog that your customers can print out is to add it to your website as a pdf file. Search engines read and catalog a pdf file just like they do web pages. I discussed an easy and free way to create a pdf file in a previous post. But once you have created it, do you know how to optimize it so that the search engines can find it?
If not, here are some tips:
“There’s just not enough time!” is a statement that we hear daily. As we take on more and more activities and work longer hours to grow our business, we feel frustrated and overwhelmed. Most of the time, it comes down to making choices between doing several things.
Do we always make the right choices? No. We tend to follow the path of least resistence. That’s human nature. But here are some tips to help push us more towards making the choices that can truly make a difference in our lives and business.
I’m going to make two statements that seemingly contradict each other:
Both are true. And my perspective is a result of attending a number of networking events through the years. When I attended my first Chamber of Commerce Networking Event (and this was true of a local networking Club that I belong to), I tell you I was shocked to see that most people’s idea of networking was all about “Me, Me, Me!” People were so impersonal and took the event as their opportunity to pass out THEIR business card and tell you about THEIR business and what THEY could do for me. The goal of most people at these events was to either get someone to sign up for their business opportunity or to find a new customer. I was amazed at this short-sighted and short-term networking idea. To me, networking is about building relationships—finding others that you can create a MUTUALLY beneficial relationship with.
The most effective result of networking is finding someone who reaches a similar market as mine and then trying to build a partnership. If you have similar, but non-competing products…you can work together. My most loyal customers are those with whom I’ve become friends and shared either information or something else that was of value to them–and that doesn’t mean trying to sell them one of my products.
Let me tell you a story. Way back in the late 70’s, I started and published a statewide Singles newspaper. In each month’s issue, I ran a photo of myself and a “Notes from the Editor” column.” My readers got to know me from the tidbits of personal information that I included in that column and from the help that I provided when they called me. Many were lonely and just needed someone to talk to. I didn’t care if they were running their “profile” in my paper or not. I was there if they needed me. As a result, singles in other communities throughout the state organized parties or dinners for singles in their area and invited me and my husband to attend. We always did–and got to know our readers and potential readers on a more personal level. We weren’t selling them anything. We were building relationships.
Fast forward 25 or so years. Today, we still are friends with many of those singles today. I’m in a totally different industry today — but those lessons learned from Arizona Singles are still an important part of my business philosophy today.
Offer friendship with no strings attached and you will build relationships that can last a lifetime.
On a couple of the gift basket forums, there have been several discussions about not only surviving, but thriving in today’s economy. Once Father’s Day is behind us, there aren’t a whole lot of “holidays” to market gift baskets for. As a result, unless you have steady, loyal corporate customers buying gifts for their business, gift basket sales usually are slower during the summer months. So the question has been asked: “What do you sell besides gift baskets?”
Several of the forum members have generously shared ways that they have diversified in order to survive. Through the years, this question has been asked and answered many times on the various gift basket forums. Sharing experiences is a valuable way for businesses in different parts of the country to get ideas and rejuveniate their business.
But…there is also a downside to this. What works in one part of the country or even in the town down the road may not work for you or for me. Diversification is important in any business. Each of us, however, must do our own research and find our own niche. A niche that is popular on the internet for sales may not work at all in your local neighborhood market and vice versa.
In my local newspaper “The Arizona Daily Sun” today, this same question was asked of some neighborhood convenience stores and produced some surprising answers. And it demonstrates what I am trying to say very well.
Most convenience stores depend on the sale of gasoline, liquor, and late-night snacks in order to survive. But about half a mile from me is Sunnyside Market. Through the years that I have lived here, I’ve always thought of it as a gas station with a small attached market. I’ve bought gas there occasionally but never spent any money in the market. As a matter of fact, I’ve wondered how the business survived as there were cheaper gas stations not too far away.
This business was sold a few months ago and the new owners knew a secret that we all need to learn. Find out what your customers want and need and provide it to them.
Even though gas costs us drivers a lot of money, between the taxes, transportation, and the middle men, the station owners have to sell a lot of it to keep much of that money. One of the first things the new owners of this business did was to cap off the gas tanks for a trial period to see if it would have any effect on the grocery sales. He reported “When we stopped it for a month, it had no increase or decrease in our store’s business.” He also eliminated the sale of alcohol and closed the store by 10 p.m. each night.
Instead this tiny market is focusing on selling what the local neighborhood residents want: juicy, crunchy pickles. “People come in for the pickles,” he reports. “Hundred and hundreds of pickles are sold here every week.” Sodas are the other big seller, rivaling the sales of other larger corporate supermarkets.
What did he add to the inventory that failed to sell? Surprisingly, it was Hot dogs.
This little neighborhood market isn’t trying to compete with the big Safeway Grocery down the street or the large gas station with a corporate name a few blocks away. Instead he determined what his customers wanted and needed and are surviving by supplying it. Sure the investment in the hot dog warming machine didn’t pay off but the pickles and sodas make up for it.
I’m telling you this story because this is what we have to do to survive. Don’t depend on what others sell. The convenience market, on a main street a few streets over, sells lots of gas and hot dogs. Do your own research. Ask your customers what they want. Invest in a small amount of inventory and try it. Isn’t that what being a Creative Entrepreneur is all about?
Ken Blanchard, author of “The One Minute Manager and other business books” , told the story about the little boy who really wanted to beat his grandmother at Monopoly. He studied. He practiced. He learned. Until one day, he beat her at the game and told her, “Finally! I beat you.”
She smiled as she picked up the pieces and put them back into the monopoly box. She then told the child, “Yes, you did. But let me tell you another lesson that I’ve learned about playing the game of life. You can work hard, study, practice and become whatever kind of person you want to me. But when the game of life is over, it all goes back into the box. The only thing that’s left behind is what you’ve created or done for others.”
I’ve heard the phrase, “You have to give to get” and have also heard results of how people have been blessed as a direct result of what they have given to others. But I have a different philosophy. I don’t think you have to give to get. I think you give, not because of what you will receive in return, but because your giving is from the heart.
There’s a country-western song that tells the tale about a young man who stopped to help an elderly lady stopped on the highway with a problem with her car. The young man was broke but instead of taking payment for his help, he told the lady to “Pass it On!” The song goes on to tell of a waitress, who was pregnant, tired, and discouraged. An elderly lady left a $100 tip. That night the waitress laid in bed beside the young man who had helped the elderly woman with her car and told him about the woman who had left the $100 tip. And the song ends with the magical words of “Just Pass It On.”
I am a business coach for a County Business Empowerment Class in my community. Last week, a local entrepreneur, who has become very successful, spoke about how he started his business hoping to make lots of money. He said that he was in the business for the money–not just because it enables him to live well and do things he’s always wanted to do–but because he can use that money to help others as well. I remember the author of “Everything I needed to Know About Life I learned in Kindergarden” say basically the same thing.
Successful entrepreneurs have to be interested in money if they hope to be successful. You can’t just forget the financial parts of a business and operate it any way you feel like. How you treat your customers, your investors, and even your vendors go a long way towards determining how financially successful you will be.
There are, of course, those like Ken Lay of Enron fame and Mr Matoff of Ponzi scheme fame, who cheat others to make their millions and then use it to live like kings. Then there are those entrepreneurs who achieve their business goals while practicing the principal of “Pass It On!” When the game of life is all over, and it all goes back into the box, the Ken Lays and Matoffs of the world will leave behind people who have been hurt or destroyed. The “Pass It On” entrepreneurs will leave a legacy that may not even be known by most but will be appreciated and remembered by those they helped.
We are in the midst of changes in the world. Changes bring opportunities. What will you do with them? Share your comments!
A lot of you probably say that you don’t have time to start a blog because you don’t have the time or creativity to write long posts on the blog. My answer to that is: Blog posts don’t have to be long to be valuable. Some of the most read posts on this blog were fairly short.
So just how long does a blog post need to be?
And the answer is: As long as necessary to get your point across without boring your reader. Some tips to consider:
Very few people read word for word. Most scan for content. Keep that in mind when writing your posts (or even your website pages) and make them easily scannable. This is easy to do if you incorporate a few things such as:
For those of you who have watched the economic series on the CBS Evening News and are in the Gift Basket Industry, don’t be discouraged by it. Unfortunately, the news media always plays up the negative and the gloom and doom and not the positive. Viewers aren’t interested in what is good in our world. It’s the bad that makes the news.
As far as the gift basket industry is concerned, of course there are many suppliers, vendors, as well as gift basket companies having problems in today’s economy. But the ones that were interviewed for last night’s program (Imperial Foods, Tortuga Rum Cake, Chicago Coffee, Facet Foods) have been around long enough that they have been through this before and survived. As long as their business practices are sound, they will continue to do so. It’s too bad that the news didn’t talk about that.
And it’s unfortunate that the newscast interviewer didn’t choose one of the stronger gift basket companies to interview instead of one that is having problems. There are many of those out there but they don’t make the evening news.
This kind of publicity doesn’t do our industry any good. Like any other industry, there are companies that have built their businesses slowly, diversified, planned for the bad times as well as the good ones, and have in place effective business plans and business practices. They were not blinded by the boom times — just as there are those who didn’t rush out and buy mansions they couldn’t afford with loans they couldn’t pay.
These are the businesses that will survive. And not only will they survive but they will be stronger as a result of it. The economy will weed out those that jumped in without doing their research, didn’t plan for the bad times, or believed all those articles and books that tell you how to get rich quick with a gift basket business. One of the members of an online gift basket board referred to it as being like a Forest Fire weeding out the weak trees and the undergrowth while leaving the stronger trees to survive. They may be charred a bit as the fire sweeps through but they will be stronger as a result of that survival.
So Katy Couric, CBS Evening News, and all the other reporters of gloom and doom, look further the next time you present a story. All is not as dire as you’ve made it seem. But then that kind of story wouldn’t sell.
They laughed when I started my gift business.
That's right. They laughed. They said I didn't know anything about business. Wouldn't last through the year. But when I made a profit the first year I was in business, they stopped laughing. Instead they said it was just a fluke. Wouldn't happen again.
That was 19 years ago. And they don't laugh anymore.
That's because... [Read More …]
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