TeenBiz is the UK’s first business start up scheme aimed at teens 13-18. It will launch 1st November, to coincide with Global Entrepreneurship Month.

From the 1st January every month one student will receive up to £500 funding (they must match what we give them), a mentor and a start up pack. TeenBiz calls it’Business in a Box’ because it equips students with the items they need to do business for real; for example Companies House set up, business cards, a website, a stationary voucher, office space, USB sticks, logo design, legal advice and virtual PA service.

We interviewed Claire Young to find out why she started the program and how she plans to grow it over time.

Why did you found TeenBiz?

Since leaving the Apprentice 3 years ago I’ve worked across a number of enterprise initiatives which go into schools to encourage students into the world of business which are brilliant. However, the main feedback from teachers and students is that campaigns come and go; we are guilty of gearing up students to be enterprising and start their own business yet don’t provide them with a real way forward in doing this.

TeenBiz is a scheme where any teen 13-18 can apply for business support. It is the UK’s first business start up scheme for under 18s. Currently, you can be company director at 16 but cannot get funding or a business bank account until you are 18 – it’s crazy and doesn’t make sense!

Was there something you saw or experienced that made this the most natural programme to start?

I had a brilliant 14 year old work experience student in the office, Todd, and he is like the next Alan Sugar. A great business idea and he needed support to get his sandwich business off the ground. After 2 days of research trying to find funding, it was a big fat “No!” until he was 18 years old. I think that’s wrong. He’s capable now so why should he have to wait for 4 years?

A day doesn’t go by when you pick up a newspaper to read about youth unemployment and record numbers not wanting to go to college and university. We’ve reached crisis point and need to provide young people with alternative pathways – starting your own business and therefore TeenBiz is very much needed.

Is this a for profit business? A social enterprise? A charity? Do you accept donations?

TeenBiz is not for profit. It’s structurally set up limited by guarantee and clearly states in the company set up documents that it is not for profit. I hope people will donate as much as they can to the program. People, and businesses, can sponsor a student for just £500.

What’s the format of your support for teen-based businesses?

Over the next 3 years TeenBiz’s aim is to start 100 young entrepreneurs in business. Each winner will receive up to £500 funding, a business mentor and a ‘Business in a Box’ start up kit! There will be key events throughout the year from winners to attend. To celebrate the first year of the scheme there will be a private dinner held with Peter Jones for example.

How can schools, churches and other youth-targeted organizations work with you to bring your programme to their teens?

My aim is to let every teacher in the UK know about TeenBiz. They are essentially the sales force who will let students know about this great opportunity.

Do your classes cost anything to attend? Is there a suggested donation you ask from kids or their parents?

The scheme is not for profit, free to attend. We would never ask students to pay, but we gladly receive donations. In fact we depend on them.

How can people help you bring this program to more teens?

Please spread the word about TeenBiz, if you send people to teenbiz.org.uk, or pass details to teachers, teens and parents about the program, that would be really helpful. Education groups and corporates are essential contacts. One has the students we want to serve and the other has the CRP funding to help the students.

Do you need more business leaders as volunteers to speak, teach, mentor, etc?

Yes please! If you are interested in helping the scheme please email info@teenbiz.org.uk

Do you have any entrepreneurs you’d like to showcase?

Not yet but as from the 1st January we’ll be shouting from the rooftops about the TeenBiz young talent!

What is your business background?

Since graduating from university with a science degree I worked in the corporate world for 3 large blue chips across marketing, sales and retail before taking part in the BBC1 The Apprentice show 2008. Since then I’ve set up www.schoolspeakers.co.uk and www.girlsoutloud.org.uk & consult across a number of education groups re enterprise.

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3. Matt Black, Business Development Manager of Social Enterprise Magazine

Before the cell phone there was the land line, before the land line there was the telegraph, before the telegraph there were letters. If you develop a new brand of laundry detergent you are competing with every existing brand on the market, plus all the laundry services in the region, and to some degree every shop that sells new clothes.

Every business delivering any benefit to customers has competitors.

That means that in order for your business to stay in business, it must offer your customers some advantage over their current solution.

Sometimes Advantages Are Hard to Perceive

Sometimes the advantage one business has over another is very difficult to find. I remember going to Bali, walking through customs and seeing thirty money changing stalls, all apparently identical. I was stunned. How on earth could all these identical businesses survive? What could the advantage of the fourth stall on the third row be?

Then I saw a plane load of people land and watched its passengers disgorge into this collection of stalls.

Suddenly the advantage one stall had over another was clear. Each stall could handle only one customer at a time, so a stall that didn’t have a customer had every advantage over one that did.

Sometimes the Advantage You Think You Have is Merely a Distraction

I once ran a business that sought to connect startups to investors. My team created a database of more than 15,000 startups that we updated every 24 hours. While we were building this business we ran events where carefully selected startups were allowed to pitch their businesses to groups of investors in real time. I thought the events were a stop-gap measure until the database was online and investors could just search for the kind of opportunity they wanted. But, as it turned out, when I started talking to investors…the database mattered less to them than the events. That made no sense initially, and then upon further questioning, the investors revealed that they liked meeting with their peers.

You Must Determine Your Startup’s Advantage if You Want To Thrive

Finding out what advantage you offer customers, or potential customers, always requires talking to them. There is no other way to get the data you need. If you have a business, its easy to ask your best customers why they work with you. In some cases the answer may be quite upsetting. One company I mentored in the US thought they had an exceptionally good solution for customers, but talking to their customers revealed that their key advantage was they were listed almost first in a directory.

Initially they fought that finding, but finally embraced it and changed their business name so they were always listed first.

If you do not have customers who can tell you what advantage you offer them, then you must tell people about your business and ask them what advantages they perceive in what you describe.

You have to know what your advantage is, and in fact you almost always have to bundle many advantages together, in order to get your startup off to a good start.

Where Are Advantages Found?

Advantages may be found in your product design, your pricing model, how your product is delivered, the channels through which it is sold, the partners you work with to market it, and even the customers you elect to serve. For example, if you run a trendy night club, much of your value is derived from the customers you draw to the club.

Strong startups offer a bundle of advantages to customers. Although startups must strive to keep their offering simple, straight forward, tightly targeted and clearly defined…that offering may well deliver many advantages to their customers.

Twitter is a very simple product. It provides group-based opt-in text messaging delivered online and via cell phones. But using the tool delivers many advantages. People can add and subtract themselves from twitter feeds, they can reply and retweet messages, they can find new twitterers, and use the tool to network. A simple product product that delivers many advantages.

You can never tilt the playing field enough…

One of the best things you can do for your business, whether it is an enterprise you are just starting or one you have been running for years, is to determine what benefit customers perceive in your offering and what advantages you offer over the competition.

Acquiring this information will help you invest your time, money and resources efficiently. You will end up with lower costs, higher profits and happier customers.

Related posts:

1. Sell Your Products & Services with Advantages Not Features
2. How to Set the Price of a Product or Service
3. Naked Business: A Startup & A Small Business are Two Different Things

Entrepreneurs in the early, terrifying days, of starting a business often take out their credit card or open up their savings account to spend money on things that “might help” get their business off the ground.

Sometimes they spend money on office space, computers, software and advertising. Sometimes they hire programmers, graphic artists and sales professionals. Almost every first-time business owner believes they can buy a good business by buying what good businesses have.

Sometimes it’s a little bit true.

• Spending money on running some online ads that prove there’s a market for the product you plan to make is probably a good idea.
• Creating sales materials that you can take to your first potential customers and/or strategic partners can be a great move.

But spending money on anything that doesn’t literally turn into some kind of sale, purchase order or strategic relationship almost immediately is usually very unwise step for a startup.

This is particularly true if the “investment” being made is in a cost that recurs month after month after month. Fixed costs will bury a new business very quickly in debt they can never climb out from under.

As you begin your startup you have two jobs:

• Create a product or service people want.
• Find one or more customers who wants to buy that product or service.

Every other undertaking is a distraction.

Furthermore, your first product or service should be very, very, very simple. A single benefit that people really want delivered in the most efficient fashion possible.  Why is this a matter of survival?

• A startup has almost no marketing budget as a rule. If it takes more than a sentence to explain your chief benefit to your target customers, you have a product that is so complex you’ll have a hard time selling it at all.  Facebook was nothing more than a turnkey web page creator designed to meet the immediated needs of college students. Twitter made sending group text messages easy. Google delivered a searchable list of all the websites on the Internet.  Apple delivered a portable music player that could hold an entire music library. The initial value delivered by these giants was very easy to communicate and that was key to the success of their products and services.
• A startup has almost no development budget.  Most entrepreneurs can easily come up with one benefit they can deliver to customers quickly and cost effectively. When they rack their minds to come up with two, or three, or a full featured solution things get more complicated, more expensive, more difficult to talk about.

If you have a new startup, or your enterprise is struggling, take a moment to write down exactly what benefit your customers value (or should value) most about your business.

Make sure you have a website that effectively communicates that unique benefit, and that your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn messages convey that benefit as well.  Make sure you know exactly who your ideal customers are and where to find them.  Start approaching them and asking for their business as soon as possible. You’ll find that the quicker you get to market with a simple but great product, the better off you’ll be.

Now, before you move on with the rest of your day, take an hour or two and consider all last month’s expenditures. What costs can you eliminate? What money can you earn by just choosing not to spend it?  Your business can become much more profitable almost immediately if you can just eliminate unnecessary costs. Furthermore, you’ll find that when you stop investing money in an activities that aren’t paying off, you stop investing time in them as well.

Tip: One of the quickest ways for a business to reduce some of it’s largest costs is to visit MakeItCheaper.com.  They cut energy, phone and insurance costs for hundreds of businesses every day, sometimes saving their customers thousands of pounds a year. Check them out…

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First, look around and identify the largest group of people you can reach easily. If you are a member of the chandler’s union and you know how to reach several thousand candle makers free, they’d be a good group to start with.

Second, study those people and figure out what one thing they want most. For example, your candle makers may need more effective promotion, a cheaper source for wax or new wick materials that burn more slowly or more brightly.

Third, figure out how to give those people what they want. As you develop your solution, show it to people in this group and confirm that you are developing exactly what they need and what they are willing to pay for.

Fourth, begin producing and delivering the solution on a small scale. Let your profits drive growth for as long as possible, then work with outside funders to scale your business over time.

That is the easiest and fastest way to build a successful business quickly. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Find a group of people who want something and then give it to them.

Why Don’t People Build Companies This Way?

Most people start a business with a pretty firm idea of the solution they want to sell, the way they want to sell it and the people they want to sell it to.

Sadly, the products and services most of us want to sell represent our personal interests and passions far more than they represent the needs and interests of any large group of people around us.

The way we want to sell our products and services has more to do with what would be convenient to us, and the people we want to sell to are those we find interesting and they may or may not have the money to buy what we want them to buy..

In all sincerity, most of us start a business having made a huge number of decisions we are quite passionate about with little regard for any reality outside ourselves. Letting go of some offering the market just seems inclined to reject over and over again is the best way to get your business over a hurdle.

Do You Really Have to Give Everything Up?

The practical advice outlined above seems to indicate it’s necessary to give up everything you like most about your business in a search for revenue, but the truth is you can usually get by with giving up less.

If you are willing to change your product or service, you can usually keep the cool people you want to serve. If you want to keep your product or service, you may, over time, find a group of people that needs it.

Arbitrarily retaining one or more elements of a business that aren’t working won’t necessarily put you out of business, it will just slow your development and make the process of getting your enterprise off the ground slower and harder.

On the other hand, building a business based on a product or service you like, or for a target market you happen to like supporting, can make owning a business more enjoyable than running a business based on what elements come most easily to hand, even if the latter enterprise quickly becomes more profitable.

If Your Business is Struggling

Take a moment and think about your business. Consider its target market, what you are offering that group of people, and your current sales.

What are the arbitrary or “convenient” elements in your current business model. What important characteristic could you change about your product or service that would make it more valuable to those you serve? Who else can your solution work for? How would changing those elements impact sales? Answering these questions when your business is struggling will often help it struggle less.

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For artists who need to find a way to eat as well as do their best work, and for those who want to support artists by helping them sell what they create, this appetite for the novelty and originality represents a serious hurdle.

This is why those who market young artists frequently tell them to “pay attention to what the market wants” and to “look at what’s selling”.

The Worst Possible Advice?

Intuitively most artists understand trying to “follow the market” is terrible advice.

One of the few “rewards” an artist can guarantee himself is the freedom to do the work they enjoy doing. As long food, water and creative materials exist, the artist can work and enjoy a great deal of satisfaction in the freedom to express their vision and their emotions through their art.

What’s more, not being able to do work they care about has been known to drive artists insane. While some people feel only a limited need to express themselves through writing, drawing, painting, or one of a hundred other creative outlets, for others the pressure to reveal ideas and emotions through original work is overwhelming. It is simply not an option to forgo creating that work, and it is certainly not an option to “create the kind of art people want”.

“Paying attention to the market” in order to “create what sells” means creating derivative work There’s not much value in an artist who churns out variations on ubiquitous themes in a mass produced world. While such artists can often make a subsistence living, they will rarely if ever find great success.

Every work of art, or piece of content, an artists produces defines their brand to the world. If a modern Diego Rivera confines his work to the 24″x36″ paintings that can be hung on a wall because that’s what most people buy, how will anyone ever find out he can create those vast murals.

How can artists, and those who work to support them, find their market?

The first step is understanding that while an artist may experiment with the techniques and icons other artists have discovered, as Andy Warhol did with Campbell’s Soup Can’s and someone else’s photograph of Marilyn Monroe, the message in each piece must represent the artist’s own voice because bad copies of good art don’t sell well.

Lots of writers wrote books about witches and wizards but JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter and it wasn’t by copying someone else’s work. Instead she developed an entirely unique world and invited people into it. Michaelangelo didn’t copy the Pieta. Picasso had no interest in making pictures that looked like anyone else’s. Each of those artists found their “voice” and it is that voice that people came to know, love and value.

Second, an artist must understand each piece they do has to be their best work. People know the difference between good work and great work, can differentiate between well considered insightful work and things crafted quickly and badly. Each piece an artist makes goes out into the world as an advertisement for the artist. If an artist produces and distributes an ocean of great work a large audience may well find him. If he never fully develops some exceptional examples of his work for people to appreciate, how can he ever be discovered?

Finally, it is important to watch the market and see what the public is buying, but not because an artist needs to change their work to fit the market, but because they need to recognize related or similar work from others and see who buys those pieces.

Artists who watch the market should be looking at the people who buy their brand of art and the reasons they buy what they buy.

If a sculptor circulates through galleries and attends art fairs every weekend, they will begin to identify their customers through the purchases those customers make. They and their customers will tend to like the same things.

In time they may well find a gallery or an art show that caters to the kind of people the artist intuitively understands and wants to serve, whether it is the bohemian hipsters or the London Elite. Watching how other work is priced, packaged and sold will make it easier for an artist to understand how to sell their own work.

All this advice holds true for writers, directors and filmmakers as well as painters, sculptors, digital animators and architects. The media may change, but every professional artist has a voice and to be successful every artist must learn where to put their work so their audience can find it.

It’s All Easier Than it Sounds

Having the right perspective when it comes to marketing and sales makes becoming a successful creative professional much easier. You come to understand that your job is not to sell out but to search for and find the people who intuitively find what you have to say, and how you say it, interesting.

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This class is open to writers, fine artists, actors, filmmakers, musicians, architects, graphic designers, landscape designers and anyone who owns, or wants to own, a business based on their ability to work creatively.

Doug Richard, Founder of School for Creative Startups says “We provide accelerated business training that helps entrepreneurs launch more successful startups and run more successful businesses. Our face to face and online instruction covers topics like how to start a business, how to find investors, how to design great products and services, how to implement fast, cost-effective marketing strategies, how to build effective management teams and how to scale a business safely. Our business networking events connect small businesses to create supportive, self-sustaining communities. School for Creative Startups’ overarching mission is to create a vibrant, dynamic culture and economy in the UK that supports and promotes innovation and entrepreneurialism. Our aim is to increase the number of creative small businesses in the UK and provide them with access to world class business advice to help them succeed.”

Doug Richard will be teaching this one year course in concert with Medeia Cohan-Petrolino who joins School for Creative Startups following a 5.5 year stint as Head Curator at The University of the Arts London where she ran the University’s unique Emerging Artist Programme. Through this innovative scheme, Medeia programmed and curated an eclectic variety of exhibitions in the University’s Arts Gallery, managed the University’s 700 plus piece collection, advised some of the UK’s top collectors through the Artist and Collectors Exchange and ran the University’s annual best of the degree show exhibition, Future Map.

Medeia’s role at the University allowed her to keep her fingers on the pulse of the rising stars of the emerging art and design scene in London and allowed her to support over 200 alumni artists per year in a variety of ways. Prior to joining the University, Medeia worked for the Museum of Contemporary Art of Massachusetts, The Berkshire Museum, The South Bank Centre and several commercial galleries.

Those interested in enrolling in this unique one year program, which will be delivered in the UK should register by August 14. School for Creative Startups will not be able to accept all applicants. Early registration is encouraged.

Thanks to generous support from the City of Westminster and help from School for Creative Startups partners including PACT, UK Screen, The Bridge, BPI & The Hospital Club, the cost for this one-year program is just £500. A monthly payment scheme is available to make this cost affordable to all applicants.

If you have questions about the course, please email nancy@dougrichard.net.

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Well, this week…

Doug Richard has said a thing to me about thirty times in the last few months and it’s gone over my head every single time.

We’re all going to overlook the fact that I’m apparently a little stupid (our Naked Business column is where we here at S4S make these confessions) and we’re going to focus on the fact that what Doug keeps saying is both profound and revolutionary.

A Startup is Not a Small Business

Now, I know you are going to say…Yes it is.

After all, a startup might only have one or two people working for it at the beginning. A business doesn’t get much smaller.

But that misses the point.

Every successful business created by an entrepreneur (as opposed to franchised from a bigger company) begins life as a startup. It is a stage of development.

Some successful startups choose to turn into small businesses and some decide to become global enterprises like Google.

Startups have to do several things, and they have to do them without incurring so much debt, or so many bad alliances, that they end up going out of business from the burdensome weight of it all.

Businesses in the startup stage must decide:

• What they are selling
• Who they are selling it to
• How to find those people
• How to explain what they have to those people
• What price they will charge those folks
• Where people will buy what they sell
• How they will receive what they sell
• How to deal with the competition
• What strategic relationships to build
• How to get bootstrap capital if required

Can you see that a successful small business, like the corner car mechanic or the little bakery near the tube station, has already made those choices?

Why is this such earth shattering news?

Because I have a degree in economics, have started many successful small businesses over the last two decades, and have read a few thousand books on business modeling, business development and startups.

I’ve never heard anyone make that specific distinction before and I’ve never read a book that made it clear that there is this laundry list of things that every young business has to do in order to become successful.

Furthermore, I’ve never heard anyone say that the advice one gives a “small business” may be yield absolute disaster if followed by a startup.

A young business may well need a credit line to ride out a cash flow problem caused by a seasonal drop in custom. If the corner grocer has been in business for a few years, and they know the ebb and flow of their commerce, a credit line may be the ideal facility to smooth things out if their summers and springs are chock full of tourist business but their winters and falls run a little light. It may even make sense to borrow some money to finance some growth.

Almost nothing is more toxic to a startup than liberal credit.

Because what a startup needs to do is get a product or service to some customers.  It needs to get them the cleanest, simplest, easiest to explain product it can just as quickly as possible.

If a startup owner has no money, he’ll make the decision to do this sooner than if he has a few hundred thousand pounds of someone else’s money to spend.

The financial burden of past mistakes, carrying interest no less, kills most companies built on borrowed money. Taking money from investors too early can be just as disastrous. The vast majority of investors, as Doug has pointed out, know nothing at all about running your business but they will be quite forceful with their advice.

Startups need to get their money from customers and money from anywhere else can be very problematical.

Which brings us back to School for Startups…

We teach people how to start businesses. Our Build Your Business Now Toolkit, our events, our bootcamps and our 1-year courses are designed to help people get through the startup process so they can decide if they are having a successful small business or a successful large one.

I know there are going to be people who read this and think “Wow, I’ve always known the difference between a startup and a small business”.

I bet most of those people own successful enterprises…

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While high-tech startups are usually based on some kind of technological innovation, what strategic partners and investors find interesting is the market the innovation can capture. So a proof of concept that demonstrates that a given product, service or methodology has a market willing to pay for it will attract more attention and support as a rule.

One of the most unfortunate things an entrepreneur can say about an innovation is “It has practically unlimited applications”.  Even if this statement is true, potential financial partners will want to hear about a few specific applications, target market, paths to market and marketing strategies that will turn a great idea in to a profitable enterprise.

A good proof of concept doesn’t have to cost much, and if it proves a market and illustrates the potential of a protectible innovation to meet the needs of that market, it will frequently garner the support it needs.

One way to do a proof of concept for a market is to create a website that accurately reflects the product or service you plan to deliver. Using Google, search engine marketing, twitter, facebook and other marketing tools, you can drive traffic to this page and refine your pitch until you can demonstrate that you have defined a product that people will buy.

You then simply need to demonstrate you have an innovation that can be packaged to match the requirements defined on the site.  Note that proof of market, which can be very cheap, may come long before proof of technology.

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The Marketing Academy Scholarship Program

You have until 1st March 2011 to nominate your brightest stars for one of just 28 places on this ground breaking programme which is entering its second year. After being nominated the individuals will be invited to apply for a Scholarship and will need to complete a rigorous selection process before being accepted into the Academy for this part time, 12 month, free learning experience.

Over 80 industry leaders and 28 executive coaches have agreed to give their time for free, including CEO’s, CMO’s and MDs of both agency and client companies, trade organisation and academia. The 2011 mentor line up includes Mikah Martin-Cruz CMO of Microsoft, Charmaine Eggberry SVP Marketing at Nokia, Amanda McKenzie CMO of Aviva, Moray MacLennan Worldwide CEO at M&C Saatchi, Cilla Snowball Chairman & CEO of AMV and Yasmin Diamond Director of Communications at the Home Office.

The Marketing Academy Founder, Sherilyn Shackell said:

“I’m delighted to announce that we are accepting nominations for 2011 Marketing Academy Scholarships. It’s been an amazing year for our current Scholars and we are incredibly grateful for the support we’ve received from our mentors, coaches, judges and partners. We’re very excited about the 2011 Scholarship programme which will be sponsored by our partners O2, Microsoft, Cadbury, ITV and Marketing Week and can’t wait to welcome the new Scholars at the end of the selection process in May”.

Neil Costello, one of the Academy’s 2010 Scholars said of the Scholarship “It’s a truly remarkable, once in a lifetime opportunity to learn from the very best marketers and leaders in the UK. Each part of the Marketing Academy jigsaw influences and compliments the other so well – from the coaching and mentoring, to faculties and giving back through charitable support – every up and coming marketer worth their salt should be considering applying in 2011.”

For a guide to the 2011 Scholarship and how to nominate your high potential talent, go to www.themarketingacademy.org.uk and click ‘Nominate Now!” The Academy will be accepting nominations until 1st March 2011.

This is an unprecedented opportunity for someone you know.  Check it out.

Related posts:

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IMPORTANT: There are several reasons we mention Elance so frequently as a source for website development. It has thousands of writers, web developers and graphic artists to choose from. It has a great rating system that lets you review what other people who have hired those you might want to work with think about their work. Some of the skilled professionals working through Elance have made hundreds of thousands of dollars and have hundreds of ratings.

Elance offers a milestone based escrow service. This lets you specify specific contractual obligations and delivery dates that your consultants must meet in order to get paid. Elance provides arbitration and contract oversight to ensure that disputes can generally be resolved quickly. You can hire your website product team members from anywhere, but Elance is a good place to start your search.

No matter where you get your website development team members, here are some questions we suggest you ask.

Questions for Graphic Artists & Designers

• Have you previously designed artwork for other websites? May I see some of your designs? You are looking for websites that look somewhat similar to what you would like to create.
• Will I own the copyright to all the artwork you incorporate into my site design so I can use on other sites, in packaging, etc? The answer must be yes.
• How long will my site design take? Will you present me with a series of “treatments” to let determine one I like best?
• Can I provide a list page of types for you to create graphic art for? The answer must be yes.
• Will you provide me with the Photoshop files you create for my project at each milestone? The answer must be yes.

Questions for Your Web Developer/Web Programmer

• Can you set up hosting for my domain? This presupposes that you have purchased the domain you want to use which is the safest thing for you to do.
• Can you install Joomla or WordPress for my domain? We prefer WordPress. Will you provide me with all the passwords required to create and administrate my site?
• Will you back up my site weekly so it can be fully restored from back up within a few hours?
• What content management system do you use to build your websites? Joomla and WordPress are good answers to this question because sites built with these tools are easy for you to maintain and they can be supported by a wide variety of people online. You do not want your site created in flash or coded directly into HTML. Flash sites are all but invisible to Google, and sites created using hand-coded HTML require an HTML expert to update and maintain them. Sites created in WordPress and Joomla can be maintained by almost anyone. Our preference is for sites to be created in WordPress.
• Are you comfortable creating page templates and custom pages based upon Photoshop and/or .JPG files? Can you show me some examples of pages you’ve created? Most graphic artists and designers work in Photoshop. Your website administrators and programmers must feel comfortable cutting up graphic art to create user interfaces.
• Are you comfortable creating custom forms? You will need to be able to use your website to collect data, email it to you and/or republish it on your website.
• Will you provide me with all user id’s and passwords required to maintain the site? The answer must be yes.
• Will I retain ownership of the domain name and all content and code created? The answer must be yes.
• Will you provide me with an itemized quote? The answer must be yes.
• Are you willing to be paid based on contractual milestones? Generally speaking you will pay the developer to start work on the project, then pay them based on when specific milestones are achieved. Your contract should explicitly state that you own all content and code developed for each milestone, even if the contract is terminated prior to completion.
• How do you prefer to implement e-commerce solutions? How long does it take? Will I, or my writers, be able to add and edit products without your help once it is set up? You should be able to tell your programmer how many products and services you need to sell. Setting up an e-commerce solution to work within Joomla or WordPress that uses Paypal usually takes a matter of hours. If your company has dozens or hundreds of products, your developer may suggest Magento, which like Joomla and WordPress, is an “Open Source” easy to customise web application which many programmers, system administrators, content writers and graphic designers are comfortable working with.

Questions for Writers

• Can you show me other content you’ve created for other businesses in my industry?
• Are you familiar with search engine optimization and search engine marketing considerations in copy writing? Can you tell me about your methodology?
• How long does it take you to write a 500-1000 word blog based upon an outline? The answer should be under 1 day.
• Are you comfortable creating posts in WordPress or Joomla? The answer must be yes.
• Can you give me a price for creating the content outlined here? You should have a written specification for the content that you want your writer to create. You should be able to identify how many pages you want, covering what types of content, using what keywords for initial launch.

You should ask everyone working on your site to provide you with written proposals and references, and you should ensure that payments are only made when milestones are reached. You should be in a position to replace any member of your web development team if they fail to perform, which means that you must own all content and have copies of all source codes and documents. You must own your domain name, and have all user id’s and passwords required to create and maintain your site. It is very important to hire trustworthy people with good references to develop your site because it is the
heart of your corporate identity online.

Related posts:

1. An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Search Engine Marketing Site & Page Structure Matters
2. An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Search Engine Marketing & Your Company’s Name
3. An Entrepreneur’s Quick Guide to Closing Online Sales