Doug Richard's School for Startups » how to start a business

Woo Hoo! I Am The Mentoring Club Director! That is so cool…

Nancy Fulton Mazur — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 10:12:03 +0000

Have you ever wanted a job really bad? Not because of the money. Not because of the prestige. But just because you knew it would be so much fun?

I have… several times, and three times it has been working on insanely great projects for a very wry, very intelligent, very pragmatic, very hard working and just a little whimsical… Doug Richard.

I met Doug and his brother Ken because they were giving equipment to Amnesty International, and I was the Hollywood Amnesty International’s computer consultant. (That gig gave me two great tickets to their concert featuring Peter Gabriel, Sting and U2 )

I walked into ITAL’s lobby to pick up my missing power cables, saw the small office of a dozen people and the insane amount of computer equipment, and asked Doug’s brother Ken if they needed a trainer. He asked if I was “smart”. I said “Yes” and he handed me my first accounting package to learn.

Three months later, after consulting on multiple gigs and learning another half dozen software applications including AutoCAD, I walked into the office of a young Doug Richard and said . . . “So what does a girl have to do to get hired around here?” He signed me on for about $25K.

For over two and a half years I worked for ITAL, learning more than 70 applications and becoming a professional “demo jock”, a software and training documentation writer and a nascent marketing professional in the process.

I moved to the UK to work for DATECH, sole distributor for AutoCAD in the UK, only to come back a year later after a death in the family to consult for Doug’s new business… Visual Software. The following year I launched my first enterprise, a company called OpenCAD that consulted with Autodesk and published a subscription based training site, books and training CDs.

And then…

About a year ago I heard Doug had launched School for Startups. I went to the website, started reading articles and thought, “Look, he’s doing what I do!”

For 20+ years I’d been running my own businesses… Everything from computer consulting and technical writing under contract, to launching subscription based websites with thousands of customers, to making independent film. I’d taught for UCLA and the Art Institute, and written hundreds of articles for dozens of publications, and produced more than a dozen books for several publishers. My husband and business partner during this period participated in the launch of several Internet startups and now works for one of the hottest app developers on the iPhone, Gogii (producer of Text+ the group based messaging software) and is co-founder of ICS Mobile which owns FreeAppADay. They drive apps into the Top Ten Games on the Apple Appstore every week.

All along the way, I have been assaulting people with instructions on how they could start their own businesses… whether they knew they wanted them or not. I can actually provide references of people so instructed

I was overjoyed when Doug let me sign on as Editor for School for Startups. Since then I’ve been writing 2-5 articles a week, and supporting the marketing department with copy, working on curriculum development, and helping out the web team. Did I mention that Doug always hires the best people? I have learned crazy things…

I thought it could get no better.

And then Doug started talking about this Mentoring Club thing . . . and it was like watching Daddy build a bike for my brother.

I really like helping people start businesses. It is one of the best things in the world. Someone wants to write a book, make a movie, open a day care center, launch an Internet startup, build a profitable iphone application, I want to help.

I like telling people the easiest way to build a store, the fastest way to get national attention for a product launch, the best way to find great programmers who work at a reasonable price. I feel like every great business I help get going is a public service . . .

Small businesses and startups package innovation, create new efficiencies, support local economies and create jobs. They change the world.

So… I must confess I actually asked Doug if he had someone to run the Mentoring club picked out.

He said I could be it’s first Director.

I am stoked.

As first Director of the Mentoring Club (Yeah!) I’ll be able to help Doug build a remarkable business network that incorporates ongoing support and training for entrepreneurs working at every level.

This will be the hands-on business school for folks who really want a successful business.

We don’t care if you are starting an enterprise that will let you be home to take care of the kids after school or tomorrow’s new Google-style high-tech startup soon to be worth billions. We don’t care if your business is just starting out, struggling to survive, or ready to scale up. Want real world guidance in building products that sell themselves, running sales teams, building a brand or finding investors? We are here to help.

If you become a member you will:

Join us for two live online events every month where Doug and the occasional expert will answer your questions and lecture regarding topics of specific interest to members of the group.
Receive two video-casts where we take on topics and questions we didn’t cover live.
Be invited to a quarterly Members Only networking event where you’ll have a chance to meet group members and the experts we invite to lecture and mingle.
Get access to a private online forum where we will be around to provide quick ad hoc advice.
Get discounts on all our face to face events.

All that for £100/month.

If you can find a better, more cost effective, more responsive business development & networking program, I suggest you sign up immediately.

We plan to launch the Mentoring Club in October.

Initially we’ll accept no more than 100 members. If you aren’t on our Mentoring Club Contact list go sign up now. You’ll get a follow email from me within 24 hours.

Folks who are on the list should already have heard from us. We’ve been offering them discounts and special opportunities already, and we’ve been soliciting their input on how the program can best meet their needs.

Anyway, in this Naked Business, I just wanted to say, it just doesn’t get any better than this . . .

Thanks again, Doug

Never Let Someone Else Write Your Business Plan

Nancy Fulton Mazur — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 09:30:27 +0000

One of the benefits many angel networks tout is the ability to produce a business plan that investors will fund. This “service” preys upon the insecurity every entrepreneur feels when they seek funding the first time out. Costs range from a few hundred pounds to tens of thousands, and success is never guaranteed. If you go to someone for funding and they offer to rewrite your business plan for a fee, you should walk away.

Letting someone else write your business plan is almost always unnecessary and almost certainly unwise:

Generally speaking you really shouldn’t be out seeking investment until you have a solid business model, some customers or pre-orders, some products or detailed specifications and working prototypes. You should probably also have a good team working with you. If you have these things writing a business plan takes a few days or a couple of weeks. Without these things, you don’t know for sure that you have a working business and you will have a very hard time proving to investors that you do. This will delay funding for a long time. If you can’t even write a business plan, funding will be a real problem.
On the off chance you do convince an investor to put money into your business, he will tend to see your business plan as a kind of blueprint for how you’re going to run your business. If you see it as merely a convenient fiction to get his money, there’s likely to be some big trouble down the road. Since you probably don’t want a stranger creating a blueprint for your business you’ll have to abide by, you probably don’t want to have a stranger writing your business plan.
Good businesses are composed of teams. In every business there’s someone who sells, someone who counts, someone who produces. Usually one of those people writes as well. Why? Because every business needs someone to create pitches, draft letters, deal with company billing and legal matters. A writer is required. And almost no business that needs outside funding can survive without one. So, if you can’t write your business plan because you don’t have an effective writer in house, go find one to add to your team as a consultant or as an employee. They aren’t that expensive.
Writing a business plan isn’t that difficult. There are hundreds of templates around, and hundreds of others have been written that you can examine for reference. Once you’ve written it, you can hire an editor to help you clean it up so its easy to read and makes logical sense. The plan will be yours, the words will be yours, but you’ll simply have worked with an expert in grammar and formatting to put your best foot forward.

The key thing is that someone who is supposed to be helping you raise money should probably not charge you for giving you advice on your business plan.

They should either not work with you because your business isn’t ready for investment, or they should give you the advice free because they like your business so much that they are confident a slightly revised business plan is all they need to get the money your enterprise requires. A company that purports to raise money from investors, but charges to rewrite business plans and help you with creating pitches, is really making it’s money by providing services not by raising investment for people.

After you write your business plan yourself, you can find people to help you edit it at www.elance.com. There are many very cost effective professional writers and editors on the site for you to choose from. You’ll find you can have the services you need without getting scammed.

Entrepreneurs Teaching Entrepreneurship

Nancy Fulton Mazur — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 09:47:53 +0000

Doug’s habit of hiring entrepreneurs to teach entrepreneurship often to leads to a bit of extra-curricular excitement here at School for Startups.

A film I made last year was just made an official selection by the Action on Film festival happening in Pasadena California this month. Next week I find out if I made an award winning political film.
Triona is currently a finalist in ‘The Challenge 2010’, a competition run by Australian Business & Qantas. She’s a member of Team Two, competing against two other teams to produce the most outstanding networking event for young professionals here in London. It’s going to be a pretty spectacular event with food, drink and great company. If you happen to be in London, and you’re looking for a great event to hang out at, we obviously recommend this one thefutureleadersfete.wordpress.com. You can buy your ticket’s here http://www.australianbusiness.co.uk/eventdetail.aspx?eid=28.
Kaja is studying Economics and Business at University College London. This is her final year, and she just set up a sole trader business to provide some research services for an international media firm.
Mark Boyd, who has just this weekend graduated from Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, is receiving a first class honours degree in Marketing. While at university, Mark mastered affiliate marketing, search engine optimisation, pay per click marketing and social media optimisation and managed affiliate marketing campaigns for the likes of Sky, LoveFilm, Betfair, Amazon UK and Hotels.com. He was recently added to the affiliate marketing experts at AffiliateDoctors.com. Mark details some tips and tricks in digital marketing at his affiliate marketing blog.
Alex Webb, who has been coaching in the UK and internationally for more than a decade, is about to run a 1 week summer netball camp for 10 – 14 year olds in Bermuda in concert with two UK coaches and with the help of 5 Bermuda coaches. You can learn more about her on www.springcoaching.co.uk.
Vanessa Knight, until recently, worked as a sole proprietor building commercial websites for artists and designers, and also owned an incorporated company, called 100% Creative, which sold graduate art and design works online. She recently took part in the City’s Top Model Entrepreneur competition.

All that’s in addition to working full time for School for Startups. We routinely work 50 to 60 hours a week which is something we share with most of you.

In founding School for Startups, Doug has consciously chosen to hire effective entrepreneurs to support his entrepreneurs. I think this is due to his core belief that entrepreneurship is a skill that can be taught and must be learned. I’ve certainly heard him say that what is wrong with most government and academic programs that purport to teach entrepreneurship is that they are led by people who’ve never, ever, started and run a successful self-sustaining business.

I suppose it is obvious that you can’t teach what you don’t know.

In working with School for Startups, I see that each of us brings a great deal of first person experience to the table . . .

The wide range of businesses we’ve run
Our understanding of the challenges entrepreneurs face
All the solutions we’ve individually come up with to meet those challenges
The business relationships and networks we’ve created

. . . all feed into the work we do for Doug’s social enterprise each month.

It is why we have such a broad range of things ongoing at any given time.

Live events, like the upcoming MADE in 48 HOURS hands-on course in Sheffield,
Online training delivered all the time through S4Stv.
Articles and entrepreneurs guides released four to six times a week
Books to support our classes
Initiatives to expand our support like the upcoming Mentor group
New charity, social enterprise and competition activities we undertake to help the communities we work in

It is our wide range of skills and resources, and our desire to help new businesses get off the ground, that lets all those things happen each and every month. It’s why our events routinely receive at 95%+ satisfaction rating on every occasion. We know how to help the entrepreneurs we’ve chosen to serve . . .

Our diversity really is our strength.

Practical Q&A With Doug Richard: Mentoring, Recruiting & Seeing Opportunities

Nancy Fulton Mazur — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 08:51:59 +0000

At a recent Start Here: Starting & Growing a Successful Business event held in London, we received the following questions . . .

On your first business venture, what was the most challenging thing to deal with? – Shanta

Well, it is hard to pick a “most challenging thing”. Generally, it was a great experience in the sense that I learned an incredible amount and the little team I and my brother Ken assembled did some amazing things. At the time I would have said “cash flow” was our biggest hassle. Later, due to the pressures of running a very high speed, large number of large transactions tech business, I would have said our biggest challenge was interpersonal issues related to working with family and friends for a long period of time.
Now I’d say the true problem was there was no “mentor” we could turn to who could help us plan and transition from one business model to another correctly. That’s one of the reasons I’m starting the School for Startups Mentoring Club…

When you have a business that’s running very fast and with significant intensity, switching over to a business model that leverages all your existing assets but starts generating passive wealth is like trying to having a high speed train switch tracks. If its not a very carefully considered transition, it is going to be traumatic.

Q: When asking the question ‘are you on a mission?’, Doug mentioned that if you wanted to ‘save the world’ great, do so, but maybe it’s not a business. I would like to know what he considers a suitable definition of what a business is. And further, what a successful business was. – Tom

Don’t get me wrong, please feel free to save the world. Goodness knows there’s a lot to do. And, saving the world can be a business. Social enterprises are designed to make self sustaining solutions to some of the world’s big problems. But . . . a desire to save the world and filing the paperwork to start an enterprise does not a business make. An activity can only be called a business if it makes makes enough money to pay its bills. Really, if it is to be capable of growth, it has to turn a profit which can be used to fund that growth.

What is the best way to recruit new people? – Pietro

Recruit people to do what? Work for your business? Well, money can get you some great people . . . I suspect you are asking how do you recruit the right people for your startup when you don’t have lots of money. And the answer is to have a great business model that you can pitch very well, and a reasonably friendly, honest, straight-forward, practical and pragmatic personality so people want to work for you.

You touched on how gaps in the market are thrown at us every day, but we rarely are set up to spot them. Are you able to expand on this a little? How do we train ourselves or become more open to seeing sources for ideas? – Ross

What I love about entrepreneurs is they see problems as opportunities. So spotting the gaps is pretty easy really. Look for what’s wrong and start thinking of ways to fix it. If you never have food in the house because you never have time to go shopping, chances are you’d pay a bit of a premium for a business that would just deliver groceries the way other businesses deliver pizza. If you’re tired of having your family descend on your house every Christmas, so you get stuck doing all the cooking and cleaning, chances are you know what someone wants in a “Self-Catered Christmas Get Away” that you could tell your family to join you on instead. Every problem is a business waiting to happen . . . Deciding which business you care enough to design and build is always the tricky thing.

Practical Q&A With Doug Richard — Cambridge Starting & Growing a Successful Business Class

Doug Richard — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 16:19:12 +0000

At a recent Starting & Growing a Successful Business Event held in Cambridge, we received the following questions. We’ve taken a moment to respond to them. We thought others might find the answers interesting.

Are entrepreneurs born or made? — Bryan

Entrepreneurs are always made.

People don’t come out of the womb knowing how to pitch, to sell, to design. One may make the case that some folks seem to want to be entrepreneurs more than others. But that may be because they learn, sooner than others, what entrepreneurs do. In a larger sense . . . no one “is” any profession or skill. That’s a convenient fiction. No one is a writer or is a salesman. People write and sell. You can master entrepreneurship by caring enough to acquire and master the skills you need to build businesses. Get to work

How can you detach yourself from a venture? How to you evaluate a business that you’ve been emotionally attached to? — Keith

Actually, we have a great article about that. You can find it here. But the short answer is that lots of entrepreneurs start businesses because they have “missions” they are passionate about.

Perhaps they want to bring clean water to villages. Perhaps they want to open the world of computers to senior citizens. Maybe they want to teach people to dance.

Sometimes their vision of how to achieve that objective is so narrow and so flawed, they have a hard time of making a business of it. When this happens they start a business and it fails to thrive.

The Market is a great educator.

The visionary entrepreneur has to realize that businesses are ephemeral. They come and go. Your commitment to your mission can go on as long as you like.

Within that context, any business you create to support your mission is ephemeral. You can reformulate an existing business in a new way, or close an existing business in order to start a new one based on a different financial model. For those with very philanthropic objectives, you may even consider creating a social enterprise, cooperative or charity . . . .

Or perhaps you will find that the best way to achieve your mission is not starting an enterprise, but joining an existing one that is doing what you’d like to do.

I think you’ll find, given this perspective, it’s easy to let go of a business. It’s like letting go of business cards you don’t use anymore, or dropping that fax number you no longer need. If it’s the work you really care about . . . you probably don’t have to give that up just cause a given business proves unfeasible.

Is the reason for focusing on internet based businesses because that’s where the future is or because it’s the type of venture the Cambridge set are likely to be ‘into’ and as such is the best fit for the attendees. — Martin

Well, actually, neither of those reasons are why we focus on the Internet.

Basically, folks who have a business need customers. Very broadly speaking, there are two ways to get them.

You can call people and knock on their doors and try to tell them about your product.
You can put your product where people who are looking for it are likely to find it.

The second option, sometimes called “in-bound marketing” is very cheap and cost effective, and the Internet is the cheapest “in-bound” marketing solution around. If you do your job right, you can put your product where people who want to buy what you sell can find it.

So . . . we focus on how to put your products and services on the Internet. In most cases it is the cheapest and fastest way for many of our entrepreneurs to get access to hundreds, thousands or millions of customers. The Build Your Business Now toolkit that we built to support the course explains how ot create the simple site you need in just a few hours.

Market segment analysis. Instead of searching on Google, are there any specific places to retrieve this type of information? — Katherine

Well, we think you’ll be happier looking on Google (and perhaps other search engines) for information on market segments because getting the data there is fast and easy and you know it is timely.

For most businesses, the easiest to reach market of “ready to buy” customers are those who are looking for your service on Google because they are ready to buy. If someone goes to Google and types in “Dog Grooming”, chances are its not an academic search. They actually want a Dog Groomer. If some customers search for “Sidcup Dog Groomers” others search for “Chislehurst Dog Groomer” and still others search for “Organic Dog Groomers South East”, that’s a person who is almost certainly ready to buy.

You can also look at sites that you think offer competing services and see how Google sees them from a keyword standpoint. Go to http://www.google.com/sktool/ and http://www.google.com/trends to explore your market segments and related keywords.

Pricing: how much is it worth to them? … I recognize that the price of a product should be set to what a person will pay, not set to what they say they might be willing to pay. There could potentially be a large gap between how different entities value a product or service. Apart from asking prospects, apart from only looking at competitors’ pricing, what other tips would you suggest for setting price? (coming from the perspective of an internet based, B2B SaaS model with a product attempting to resegment an existing market with a niche strategy) – Steve

Pricing is always a matter of trial and error and you’ll almost always leave some money on the table. If you check out the Build Your Business Now Toolkit that was distributed after the class, you’ll see some practical advice and steps for figuring out price.

Basically you have to identify your target markets, see what they are paying for competing solutions, and price yourself in that zone. If there are no real competing solutions, you have to look at what NOT having your solution costs them. Using those two “ballparking” procedures will usually get you in your zone pricewise for each market segment . . . and then the issue is making sure each segment sees the right pricing.

The Pitch 2010 – A Very Important Event for UK Entrepreneurs

Nancy Fulton Mazur — Tue, 25 May 2010 05:15:34 +0000

If you are a UK entrepreneur, you have every reason to participate in the Pitch 2010. Not only is it a way to get exposure for your business, and get advice from experts and venture capitalists, it is a way to learn more about business professionals with whom you can network and build long term relationships. The competition begins with a series of regional events that serve not only as local business incubators and networking opportunities, but provide you with an opportunity to meet local government and community leaders who can help get your business off the ground.

If your business rises above the pack, you’ll be invited to the national competition where you’ll meet more people who can help you, encounter more business professionals who may be able to support you, and present your business to working angels, venture capitalists and investors. Experts advise you, and you hone your presentation until it just can’t get any better. If you win the competition, you get crowned ‘Britain’s Best New Business’ and win a prize package worth £50,000.

If you are thinking of starting a new business, we encourage you to have a look at the Competition Website to see where your regional competition will be held and to download an application form. Entries must be in before 15 June, with the first heat, the South West, taking place in Bristol on 21 June.

Remember that we have a great online and face to face Perfect your Pitch event coming up on June 21. Even if you aren’t going to participate in the competition, you should attend our event. Every business needs a perfect pitch. It is the single most important tool you have for acquiring customers, team members, strategic partners, investors and support for your business from the community.

An Entrepreneur’s Quick Guide to Closing Online Sales

Doug Richard — Mon, 17 May 2010 05:53:35 +0000

You have a great idea for a business. It involves selling products or services which may or may not be delivered online. To support your business you create a website, put the URL on your business cards, and buy ads on Google.

And nothing happens.

Except, perhaps, that your sales fall off a bit because you’ve spent so much time creating and marketing your website that you’ve neglected to make the contacts you usually use to generate business.

Take heart. Making your website do what it is supposed to do doesn’t cost much and doesn’t take long. You just need some practical advice on how to make it work right.

Start by Making it Easy to Place Orders

Having a website doesn’t mean you no longer have to market and sell your products. What it does mean is that you can have an order taker standing around 24/7 to take people’s money.

If your objective is actually to close sales online, the process of ordering your products and services online has to be effortless for your customers. If they go to your site knowing what they want, they should be able to find it in two clicks and they should be able to order it in one more.

If this is not how your website is working, then you have found a key reason why your sales are not what they should be.

Sometimes the problem is your page design. It spends more time talking about you and your team than getting people to the products and services they want to buy. Having articles and blogs online does help bring people to your site, and can keep them there until they decide to shop, but a sluggish or confusing ordering process “unsells” people. It is so easy to get online commerce right these days that most folks have no confidence in people who get it wrong.

How do you make placing orders though your site easy?

Paypal makes it easy to create “Buy Now” buttons for any product on any page on your site. People trust PayPal. The PayPal checkout process is quick, secure, and predictable. If you have under ten simple products to sell on your site, just stick Buy Now buttons on your pages and you should see sales go up. If your products require people to pick sizes, choose colors, select shipping options, or specify other parameters, Buy Now buttons probably aren’t the best choice.

Online ecommerce solutions like Yahoo Stores, Pro Stores or EventBrite, make creating full featured catalogs of products and services easy. You can be online in minutes with these online store solutions, even if you nothing about HTML or programming. These tools handle size, color, shipping and most other purchase options quite handily.

Open source catalog solutions like Magento work well for people who just believe, very strongly, that they have to host their catalog on their own servers. You can install them in a matter of hours, add your products and services to them, and start taking sales in under a couple of days. You can customize their look and feel completely.

It almost never makes sense for a small business to create a custom online sales solution when there are so many that can be had for next to nothing, that customers already trust, and which are so easy to customize. Your time will be better spent driving traffic to your fully functional site.

Marketing & Selling Products Online

Once you can take orders for your products and services on your site, you can begin pouring customers onto the site to take orders from.

If you have been taking orders for your products offline with some frequency, then you already know who your customers are, why they buy your products and where they can be found. You can tell your existing pool of customers your website address and you’ve effectively given them an order taker they can turn to at any time to get your products and services.

When you want to get new customers via the internet, your understanding of who your customers are and why they buy your products will remain, for the most part, unchanged. You will just need to determine where your customers lurk online.

If your products and services are delivered to local populations, then you may find tools like Google’s Local Business Center useful. It lets you geographically locate your business in Google Maps, so that when people in your geographical area search Google for “florist”, “plant nursery”, “child care center” or “computer repair” a link to your business pops up along with a pointer to your location on a map. This gets them to your page where they can place an order.

If your products and services are, by and large, location independent then you will use other mechanisms to drive traffic to your site. You may decide to:

Place ads on Google and other search engines that will display when potential customers are searching for the products and services you provide.
Use Search Engine Optimization techniques (SEO) to get more links to your business high in the normal listings for your target keywords.
Place advertisements on the websites that your customers go to for news or entertainment.
Advertise in print magazines or newspapers that your customer read.
Work to have articles and blogs written about your product or service by writers that your customers read.

If, after several weeks, you find that your website is not helping your company earn more, the cause is almost invariably one of the following:

Your site makes it hard to place an order.
Something about your site makes customers doubt that you can fulfill their order (inaccurate information, misspellings, unattractive layout or design, etc.)
Your site doesn’t provide the information customers need in order to decide to buy.
The wrong people are visiting your site because your marketing is funneling the wrong people there.
No one is visiting your site because your online marketing is ineffective or non-existent.

If your website is equipped with a page counter or Google analytics toolset that lets you track how many people are coming to your site, what pages they look at, when and if they click the order button then you should be able to discern which of these issues is effecting your online sales.

A methodical approach to resolving these problems will result in increased revenue for your site.

Closing Sales Online

In designing and developing a functional website to sell your products it pays to take a very analytical, very practical, very limited approach to deployment.

Start with ensuring that purchase of a product is a matter of a few clicks, that customer’s you’ve met in the real world feel comfortable buying through your online interface, then work on driving more traffic to your site so more customers can be closed. Make sure it is very easy for people to ask you questions about your products and services, and that you request feedback on the order process after every sale. Your online customers are the best people to provide you with advice and guidance on how to sell more online.

Naked Business: Building a Wall of Sound

Nancy Fulton Mazur — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 15:07:30 +0000

by Nancy Fulton, Editor School for Startups

I launched my first commercially profitable website in 1996 when the Internet first started to “go big”, so I find many of the things currently touted as “new” are really “new again”. In the 1990′s there was huge pressure to get your sites listed in the search engines, to have people link to your site from forums, and to create content that was “sticky”. Flash forward to today, the chatter is all about social media, search engine optimization, and viral marketing . . .

Don’t get me wrong. It is obvious that the Internet is evolving. But I am struck by what seems to be a universal constant when it comes to marketing a great business well.

Every single soul who works for an enterprise has to understand exactly what the business does. They have to be able to tell customers, industry partners, their community, and the media this information quickly, accurately and effectively in whatever media they are asked every single time. This creates a marketing message that can be heard over the roar of noise that defines the Internet. It becomes a wall of sound . . .

Marketing is never the job of a few in a business these days. It has to be everyone’s job. Why? Because every person that works for an enterprise talks to hundreds of people, if not thousands every year, in a variety of media. Without unity of vision and clarity of message, your company dissolves into a shapeless puddle of messages. By trying to be everything to everybody it becomes nothing special for anybody.

As we are getting our ducks in a row for the upcoming Start Here classes as well as several future courses and some really big plans for an exceptional summer, School for Startups has become a hive of communication activity.

Every single soul, and there are a lot of us now, is on the front lines interfacing directly with customers, sponsors, the media, event guests, featured entrepreneurs. There’s this complex “square dance” where three or four of us are working on an email blast, five or six of us are posting content on the site, some of us are sending big press releases out, some team members are working with Doug on television and radio events. We are all in constant communication with one another and the outside world . . . across media, day in and day out.

And recently it has hit me that we really must speak with One Voice.

Because efficient as we are, and as well known as we are getting in entrepreneurial communities across the UK, we are still a very small business. We don’t have the bandwidth or resources to send a flurry of imprecise marketing messages out. We have to be needle sharp in what we say about who we are so our message finds our customers.

We must make it clear that “We teach entrepreneurs how to start and grow stronger, more profitable businesses“. Every operation we undertake is to forward that goal. Every strategic relationship we start is toward that end.

Every communication we have with an outsider must communicate that vision. Every message we put out on Twitter, Facebook and Linked In say must say the same thing. That core value must be at the heart of every blog article, every course, every interview.

To steal a phrase from Doug . . . we must become a “wall of sound” when it comes to delivering that message.

We face real challenges as we work for unity of marketing communication:

Every new person who comes into the business has to go through the process of finding out that our company helps our entrepreneurs create better, more profitable businesses. They have to learn that we aren’t just another training business teaching whatever course pays best.
Specific language for our unified marketing message, and the “flavors” that support specific courses and initiatives have to be developed and communicated internally almost constantly to everyone.
Sometimes the apparent distance between a specific undertaking and our core business objective seems very wide. For example, why does Doug Richard, founder of School for Startups, assume an active “voice” in UK politics. Because one of the most important ways School for Startups can help our entrepreneurs found stronger, more profitable businesses is to help foster an economic environment that supports business rather than inhibits it.

Building a unified wall of sound that emanates from every person in a company is something I never hear people talk about, and yet that “unity of message” is something I’ve seen in every successful startup I’ve ever worked for or with.

It was certainly a key feature in Doug’s ITAL Business Computer Systems and Visual Software, and is true of School for Startups as well. Maybe the first people you really, truly have to sell on your business . . . is the people who work with you.

Social Enterprises Get Some Help Getting Started from UnLtd and School for Startups

Doug Richard — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 11:51:45 +0000

by Doug Richard

Anyone who has attended my events or read my articles knows my aversion to entrepreneurs seeking outside funding for a project before its generating revenue on its own. That even applies to social enterprises that have “good works” as well as good business in mind when they begin. A social enterprise is not a charity . . .

That said, I’m very cognizant that many new business owners can’t turn even to family and friends these days to help defray expenses like a computer, photocopying or basic travel expenses. I also understand how hard it is for new businesses to connect to the mentors and incubators that can help them launch correctly and well with support from peers.

That is why School for Startups has teamed up with UnLtd, the Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs, to make competitive Catalyst awards for up to £5,000 available to entrepreneurs pitching at School for Startups “Start Here! Starting & Growing a Successful Business” events across the UK. These awards to individuals are designed to help them grow an entrepreneurial idea into a self-sustaining enterprise that creates positive social change.

To see if you are eligible to apply for a Catalyst award, please click here.

To apply, please click here and complete the online application form. Please quote as a reference on the field ‘Project Name’ S4S/[ event you are attending] i.e. Leicester/London/Brighton/Cambridge along with the name of the project if you have one.

For more information about this program and others than can help out new entrepreneurs, check out our Funding for Startups page.

UnLtd and School for Startups financial awards come with additional support and mentoring designed to help social enterprises get off to the best possible start.

Practical help from experienced entrepreneurs delivered at exactly the right time can help a new social enterprise get off to the best possible start. Real help, rather than expensive loans or investment with long strings attached, is hard to find. School for Startups is glad to be part of a program that provides practical assistance to the nascent superheros we call social entrepreneurs.

I Have to Show You: Tubemogul Rapid Deployment of Video Across the Internet

Nancy Fulton Mazur — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 10:04:01 +0000

Online video can be a great way to tell customers about some products and services. Incorporating video presentations into your website gives every visitor a quick way to learn about your business and to get some understanding of what you sell. More in-depth videos can provide demonstrations, step by step instructions, and technical support that increase customer satisfaction.

Many websites, such as YouTube.com and Revver.com let you post videos that others can watch and rate. When videos are interesting, well made, correctly identified and accurately keyworded, they are usually highly rated which helps them get seen more frequently.

Tubemogul is a free web service that you can use to upload your web clips to twenty or more websites.

To use Tubemogul:

Create a video clip that is 720×480 or under. Make sure it is under 10 minutes long and under 100MB in size.
Create an account at www.tubemogul.com. Upload your video and provide a description of it.
Enter your userids and passwords for all 20+ sites. If you have not yet created these accounts, you must do so before you use Tubemogul.
Create and post additional clips as required.

Without Tubemogul, uploading a single video to more than twenty sites can take the better part of a day. You will find that Tubemogul makes the process take about half an hour.

Your videos will always receive a better response if the title, keyword and descriptions are accurate, and if the quality of the video is very good. Videos that are little more than thinly disguised product pitches fare badly. Interviews, how-to presentations, humorous incidents and quick tips work best. Make sure your web-address appears in every video you post.