"Touching" the Customer

Incubator,entrepreneur

How many times do you "touch" or inteact with your customers? Your customer loyalty is correllated with how often you interact with them. Think of each 'touch' as a discrete interaction. So for example, at a gas station - the customer visits (1), comes inside (2), purchases gas and a soda (3) and leaves (4). Each time, you have a chance to make it a good experience. For example, if the station is spotless, the workers greet you as you enter - but the actual transaction is terrible - the customer won't remember the rest.

If you increase the number of touches, whether by a newsletter, or a call or even visiting the customer site, you can increase the possiblity of creating a loyal customer.

Of course the opposite holds as well - each touch is a chance to screw up. People often say they don't penalize a waitress's tip if the food tastes bad - but I'd like to hear from waitresses on whether that is true or not!

As a entrepreneur, you can have all the enthusiasm in the world for what you do, but you can't control every touch point. You can increase the number - but be sure you watch the quality. Nothing comes off more fake as the hold message that says "we are sorry for the inconvenience, thank you for waiting" (why not solve your concern for me by having more staff available?).

Finally, by breaking down the touch points between you and your customer, it allows you to better manage and track how well you are doing.

"Startups we don't Need"?

Incubator,entrepreneur

In a recent article entitled "The Startups we don't Need" Shane argues intriguingly that policies that assist the formation of small businesses are generally misguided.

He writes, "The typical start-up is a company capitalized with about $25,000 of the founder’s savings that operates in retail or personal services. Odds are pretty good that it is a home-based business, and the founder aspires to generate around $100,000 in revenue in five years."

His argument is that this type of business is not one that is going to add sufficiently to the community to offset the costs of the programs. Instead he argues that we need to "think like venture capitalists and concentrate time and money on extraordinary entrepreneurs, and to worry less about the typical ones."

It is an intriguing argument - are we making a bad policy decision when we try to help small businesses? Here at the Center for Business Development, we take a two pronged approach. For those businesses which show high growth potential, we offer space and services as resident tenants. For businesses that are smaller and or in retail or personal services, we offer our virtual tenancy, which allows them to meet with us and discuss their business and develop a good plan of action.

Read the article, then come back and comment: "What do you think?"

Changes at the CBD

Incubator,director,entrepreneur,Brazil

I wanted to annouce that we have a new Director here at the Center for Business Development, Ron Duggins. Ron comes from the business incubator from Enid, Oklahoma, and will take over starting February.

Here is his bio sketch -

Dr. Ron Duggins is putting his background and experiences to work for local entrepreneurs. Just as many entrepreneurs have diverse work backgrounds, Dr. Duggins professional background includes entrepreneurship development and research, economic development work, export assistance, vocational training in developing countries, pest control, and publishing.

Prior to employment at Meridian, Dr. Duggins was the initial Coordinator for the James W. Strate Center for Business Development at Autry Technology Center in Enid, Oklahoma. During his time in Enid, Dr. Duggins was involved in the planning and construction of a new 18,000 sq. foot incubator facility and was responsible for managing a total of nearly 28,000 sq. feet of incubator space. Dr. Duggins had also previously worked in Stillwater at the Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education in multiple roles included activity in the Business and Industry Services Division as well as the Curriculum and Instructional Materials Center (CIMC).

His wife, Jane, is a native of Brazil and they have a 3 year old daughter named Lilian. Dr. Duggins volunteers his time working with Christian based non-profits that seek to provide technical and logistical assistance to organizations and individuals seeking self-sufficiency through spiritual, education, agriculture, and entrepreneurship programs.

Dr. Duggins holds an English degree and an MBA Oklahoma Baptist University, a Master’s degree in Education from the University of Central Oklahoma and a Doctorate in Occupational and Adult Education as well as a Graduate Certificate in International Studies from Oklahoma State University.

Ron strengthens our offerings in a number of areas, including international trade, particularly in Brazil. As one of the key "BRIC" member states [Brazil, Russia, India, China] this is a huge market that could be opened to your products. (We will have to ask him about the 'pest control' part!)

New Year's Resolutions

Incubator,Entrepreneurship

You may have some personal new year's resolutions; do you have any resolutions for your business?

One item I'd wish every business owner would resolve is to take a bit of time each month and work out some basic statistics for the business: cost of goods, monthly gross sales, gross margin. These are the fundementals you have to know as long as you run your business. Thinking of taking on a new account? How will it affect your stats? (it could cost you more to obtain and service a large, low margin account than you can make on it...but how would you know if you don't track those types of numbers?)

When you resolve to do something, don't just say it: have a plan to achieve it. And by plan I don't mean like the business plan you worked up when you opened the business (and then stuck in a drawer the day you received a loan)...

If you want to track monthly sales, I would hope that is at hand. But since it is so easy to work day-to-day, you might not look at them. Worse, you might be asking yourself "How did I sell $X and still have no money in my pocket?" If you are not watching those numbers, no one else will also.

Internet Marketing book recommendations

incubator; entrepreneur; IT compliance

A good friend of mine, and IT compliance consultant, John Avellanet is managing director for Cerulean, LLC. John has been working on improvements to how he connects with his customers via his website.

He sent me a couple reviews of books on website marketing, and his comments were so clear - and trenchant - that I asked him to allow me to print them here for our readers. With his permission...

" Okay, from what I’ve seen so far here are the best two out there:

Susan Daffon and James Byrd’s "Web Business Success: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Web Sites that Work"

What I like:  Excellent “base” resource with clear diagrams, very succinct and blunt advice on when to look for a web designer and when not to (plus what to look for and what the red flags are to make you run the other way), straightforward explanations of why to do one thing (e.g., use a white background for your site) and why not to – ALL explained in terms of presenting a professional image, making it easy on visitors and encouraging them to be comfortable with you…and thus buying your services or product.  Also, very focused on service / knowledge-based companies (not on small businesses selling widgets on-line).  Well worth at least 2-3 times its price.

What gave me pause:  There are about 3 areas where they slyly draw the reference to their own business – but frankly, if I weren’t actively hunting for that, I’m not sure I would’ve even noticed.  Also, they seem to have some slight biases toward different technologies and vendors NOT to use, but don’t really go into why.  However, not really a big deal and in comparison to other books that are just shameless self-promos, this book couldn’t rate any higher than a 1 on a 10-point self-promo scale (and is probably about a 0.5).

Tom Antion’s "The Ultimate Guide to Electronic Marketing for Small Business"

What I like:  This book is so full of good ideas and tips that – only halfway through the book – I can already tell you it will take me a good six months to put all the ones that I like (not all of them) into play.  Unbelievable resource, full of examples – both figures in the book and websites to go check out that exemplify what he’s discussing (good and bad).  Also a lot of comments throughout reminding the small business owner to not waste time thinking his/her site will be like the sites of the big boys – so here’s where you’ll get your biggest ROI instead.  I hate putting this book down knowing there are still more good ideas in it; and I hate picking it up knowing that my brain is already about to explode from the ideas I’ve read so far….  Probably worth at least 3-5 times its price.

What gave me pause:  Okay, some of the points he makes are seriously cheesy and I would never adopt, but that’s a personal thing.  Also, because it was written 3 ½ years ago, bits and pieces of it are out of date (frankly, if he wrote a 2nd edition, I’d pay $100 for it).  Just like the book above, some bits of self-promotion are in it, and definitely a bit higher on the self-promo scale (maybe a 1.5 or 2 out of 10) – but part of that is he only has so many clear examples to illustrate what he’s discussing that he has no choice but to point you to his sites or sites of his clients or his colleagues."

-----Thanks John for the great comments!--------

About Cerulean: "Cerulean specializes in helping executives simplify and streamline quality systems and regulatory compliance, minimize their risks and liability, lower costs and put in place intellectual property and trade secret theft protection.

We have particular expertise in GLP, GMP, ICH and GHTF biotech, pharmaceutical and medical device product development, laboratory compliance, startups, FDA Quality by Design, records management and IT compliance (including FDA Part 11, EU Annex 11 and HIPAA)."

Christmas time of year

incubator,Christmas

It is the Christmas season, and this is the time to be extra vigilant you do not fall into one of two traps for entrepreneurs:

1. Business is great: holiday shopping or end-of-year orders, either way, you are busy as can be. That means your regular customers and customer service might slip...if you are spending most of your time filling orders, who is paying attention to whether all these customers (new or existing) are getting the right level of service? This is a great time to impress them! Get a college student or temp to help fill orders - you watch the service and maybe deliver some product to a customer directly.

2. Business is lousy: whether because of the economy, or because your product or service is not in demand during the holidays. This means you might decide to enjoy the slow time with family, or check the internet - or read blogs! :) Even if this is off-season for your business, it is a great time to get organized. Clear out some clutter, or update some marketing to better position yourself as we go into the new year. And if it is slow, and you are scrambling, it is going to be harder to get into accounts, since they will be readying for the holidays as well.

Season's Greetings to you. Keep at it!

Great Software Blogs

incubator,software

One of the best ways to stay on top of hints, information and insight into running your own business is to track blogs in whatever industry you are in. With a RSS feed, you don't even need to actually check each site, you can just peruse the new links as they come in.

Since I come from a software background, here are some great blogs that I follow regularly:

Ack/Nak: when he writes on product management, his insights are very good, and he often has advice on what to do about it. His posts on design are very interesting as well, though lately he has not been writing much on the blog.

Paul Graham: Software entrepreneur, founder of Y Combinator. Each month he bosts a couple essays on topics ranging across the board. Usually very insightful on starting a business and a great writer, even if you disagree with whatever he is writing on.

Business of Software Network: The Business of Software conference spawned this network site. Contains all sorts of goodies for small software (particularly SAAS software). Also networking opportunities.

Joel on Software: If you work in software, you know Joel's site. Another great writer, and much like Paul Graham, even if you disagree, he gives good ideas and advice.

Rands in Repose: Great from the engineer/developer manager point of view. Really understands what is going on in your coder's head. If you are going to manage creative technical people, he is a great resource.

Cranky Product Manager: Humorous, but insightful postings on product management.

Over the next few weeks I will bring in some other sites, links or blogs I find useful.