bizthreads.net: Business Information for Entrepreneurs by an Entrepreneur

Just before Christmas I was working with a friend who had an idea. It was a good idea to help market his current successful business so I suggested he run with it.

He came back to me a day or two later and told me about another idea he had. It was similar, but slightly adjusted. Again, I suggested he run with it.

The very next day he called me and told me about a third idea.

Had he followed through on any of them? No, he was getting caught up in “analysis paralysis” and spending more time analyzing and less time selling.

Carl Sewell (I reviewed his book in a previous post) and Perry Marshall (an Internet marketing guru) both suggest the same thing: try something and test it then adjust it slightly and do it again. Don't spend your entire day thinking about it.

To borrow from Nike, “Just do it.” The Internet is always changing and you can make adjustments to your site or your advertising in moments. So, even if you try something and it only meets with partial success, as least you have tried something and have a starting place to build from.

My friend with the great marketing idea? He's still thinking about it.

Periodically you'll see our “must-have” series contains software and equipment. But this time I'm recommending that you bookmark this site:

http://textalyser.net/

I've mentioned it before in a scathing criticism of SEO writing. Have I changed my view? Not at all. I still feel that SEO writing — defined as writing content that contains between 4% and 5% keywords — is ineffective. The end result may be read and ranked by Google but is rarely read properly by the people with money: your customers. There are many other SEO skills that I think are more effective.

So why am I recommending this site anyway?

Not everyone is a writer or communicator. There are many reasons why you're in business. Making money is probably one key reason. Writing clever prose is not. Textalyser analyzes your text for you (you can cut and paste the text or you can type in your URL) and it will tell you different things about your content including:

How many words and sentences there are and how often the same words are used The average age and reading level and complexity of your writing The frequency that certain phrases appear … and much more information

Why do you want this? Because there are a lot of poorly written websites out there and if you want to rise above the rest and earn an income as an online business owner you need to turn prospects into customers. And that happens with a well written site.

Some books I have reviewed in the past are ones that someone has lent to me. It's only the rare gems that I add to my growing library of business books. When a book is good — really good — so good that I'll read it again and again and again — will I add it to my personal collection.

Customers for Life is a book I've had for a while. And although I've read it through several times, I plan to read it again. Each year.

Sewell was an automobile dealer. That doesn't sound like a big deal to many people but he became the top luxury automobile dealership in the U.S. based on his commitment to customers. He believed that you don't just sell a car to someone once, you re-sell that customer numerous cars over that customer's lifetime. And it was service that brought the customer back again and again.

Sewell's book is easy to read and full of wisdom in a way that rivals Harvey Mackay. Sewell understands that customer service is not about one aspect of the business (like saying yes to any request) but in every aspect of the business. So in his book he talks about the qualities you want in an employee, he talks about dress code, he talks about offering jaw-dropping service, even in teaching your customers about what good service from you looks like and how to deal with customers who are wrong.

It's a fault of mine, but I was skeptical when I picked up the book for the very first time. After all, as a successful online business-owner, what can Cadillac dealer teach me that is relevant to my business?

The answer is: quite a lot.

Everyone sells: If you work, you sell yourself on getting out of bed to go to work and you sell your boss every day on why they should keep you employed. If you're a member of the clergy, you sell people on why they should attend your church. If you're a parent, you sell your children on why they should wash up before a meal. If you're in business, of course, you sell your prospects on why they should buy from you.

Jeffrey Gitomer knows sales. What I like about the approach he takes in this easy-to-read book, The Sales Bible, is that sales and customer service are intricately linked. What's more, he tries to show how sales/customer service is fun with his lighthearted, easy-to-read content. He also encourages people to be very creative in how they sell and how they give good customer service in order to separate themselves from the competition. He covers every aspect of sales from “Why do salespeople fail?” through every step of the sales process (Introduction, Presentation, Handling Objections, Asking for the Order), to how to deal with the competition, how to succeed at trade shows, how to network, and how to build up your pipeline. You will not finish this book and think, “I didn't learn a thing!” Gitomer is fresh, succinct, and brutally honest at the same time. That's the kind of book that any entrepreneur needs to read!

The only thing I didn't like about the book was the way he writes lists (and he writes a lot of them). Rather than creating a 10 point list, he creates 9.5 point lists. It's a bizarre and distracting thing to do. But honestly, that's my only issue with the book. It's a great read and one you'll read again and again.

I don't subscribe often to e-zines but after I read his book I became a believer and I subscribed to his regular e-zine.

I was talking to a business owner the other day. We were talking about payment solutions for him. He had heard about someone else's negative experience with Paypal so he was reluctant to use them in his own site. I don't put a lot of faith in hearsay, but he and I ended up talking at length about other options.

Frankly, there aren't many. I'm happy with Paypal so I use their services but I don't know what I'd do if I didn't want to. I'm sure it's the same way with many businesses that can't get a merchant account from their bank because they're a small operation.

As we spoke, I searched the Internet for online payments and was surprised to see other providers I'd never heard of. Notably, www.greenzap.com looks like they have a good system with some promise, as well as a potential marketing position to help.

In the future, especially with the rise in counterfeit currency, I see money being entirely online or perhaps a government issued legal tender as well as Internet-based money that can more easily move across borders.

What would it look like? I think others have tried, with ideas like e-gold (www.e-gold.com), an electronic currency backed by gold bullion… but it's not there yet. If you're an entrepreneur… do you have the answer?

A consultant friend of mine was talking with me about a challenge he was facing: He has so many research files on his computer, he can't find anything.

We talked for a minute about what he needed to do with the files and I asked him if he ever used the search line on his computer. He blinked at me like I was speaking another language. I had to point out where the search function was: Most people will usually find it on their start menu. XP users, for example, will find it under “Help and Support” and above “Run.” If you can't find it there, you'll find it in any windows file folder… right on the task bar. He admitted that he knew it was there but only ever used it when he accidentally downloaded something from the Internet but couldn't find the file he saved it to. The search line can search files and in files! It can search within parameters you set.

Problem is, it's one of those things that we develop familiarity blindness with: we become so used to seeing it that we forget it's there.

Problem solved. Buzz to the rescue.

Computer juggernaut Microsoft has made the news twice recently: Once for a project called “Origami” and once for MS Live.

MS Origami is the project name for Microsoft's Ultra-Mobile PC. Their teaser site is http://www.origamiproject.com/3/ but you can find more details about it here:http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/umpc/default.mspx. It's a new product being unveiled right now. It's a 5 — 7 inch touch screen computer with an onscreen keyboard. It's not getting a lot of good press. I'm going to be interested in seeing how it sells because it doesn't seem to serve a niche: it's too big for a PDA, so you're not going to get the business crowd carrying it around and it's too small for a tablet PC (plus no standard keyboard) so you're not going to get the mobile computer crowd… and yet, that seems to be the crowds it's aiming to serve.

I may be skeptical about MS Origami/Ultra-Mobile PC, but I am very hopeful about MS Live. MS Live is Microsoft's search engine. Still in Beta mode, it looks (as of now) to have the power and simplicity of Google with a few other features (like scrollable frames and a control that lets you choose how much information you get from each website on the search screen). At this point, I don't suspect it to outpace Google, because I think Google is fighting back with more and more services, but it could quite possibly unsettle them in the future. After all, my nose is to the ground and I hear discontented rumblings that the omnipotent Google is not loved by all. Admittedly, neither is Microsoft, but eventually people might be looking for someone to unseat the Google giant.

When my computer starts to run a little more slowly and a little more loudly than I'd prefer, I know it's time to get a new computer. As I look around at what's out there right now, I'm really drawn to the Tablet PC.

A Tablet PC is like a laptop, except you have a few more options with the screen: you can turn it around for presentations or you can fold it flat and write directly on the screen with a stylus. It has the functionality and portability of a laptop, but the swiveling screen gives it greater functionality.

This has all kinds of great business applications, from visiting clients to doing presentations. Because they're easier to carry and use than laptops, I've seen insurance appraisers using them as they walk around cars they're appraising for claims.

Check out the tablet PCs at www.dell.com and www.gateway.com or Google “Tablet PC” and see what you get. Sometimes I do that just for fun.

I hope my computer starts to run a little more loudly soon! Maybe I'll help it along.

I get a lot of people asking me for advice about what kind of business to start. On www.morebusiness.com we periodically review some of the top businesses based on trends or personality.

One piece of advice I give a lot of people is this: Find a product no one else has and bring it to market.

Think of the great products that have earned millions of dollars for people: Pet Rocks, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Hula Hoops. These three spring to mind. Someone made them, someone brought them to market and made a lot of money. And it doesn’t always happen in your neighborhood. In some cases, you have to go beyond your borders to find products that aren’t in the market.

Find good leads on this kind of stuff at www.alibaba.com and www.fita.org. Don’t get bogged down with red tape (which happens when you bring stuff in from other countries). If you believe in it and think you’ve got what it takes to make it big, get it to market!

There’s good stuff out there … not all of it is in the US. But maybe it needs to be. Thanks to the Internet, it’s a smaller world out there. You may bring to market the next big fad!

For right-brained business owners, Mind Manager by www.mindjet.com is one of the most user-friendly mindmapping software products around. (Mindmapping is a visual representation of whatever’s in your head! It starts with a central thought and several sub-topic spokes jut out from which to build off of).

It’s useful for all kinds of business and personal purposes, from creating to-do lists and managing your contacts to brainstorming and developing the future direction of your business.

It’s intuitive, it looks great, and it’s easy to use. When I’m putting together a project, I find that I can write it in half the time on Mind Manager, then export it into a Word document and it’s just about ready to go!

Other times, when I’m researching a business I plan to start, I create a mindmap about the opportunity: One spoke is about the industry, one spoke is an analysis of the client-base, one spoke is a financial analysis. I pull in links and personal comments and soon have a fairly comprehensive report. If I’m looking for investors, I can download it into several Word documents or Excel spreadsheets or a Powerpoint presentation.

If you’re starting a business and don’t want to spend too much, just get the basic model. (It’s all I use, I don’t need anything more)… but I know others who use the Pro edition and love it. Try a free download and see if it works for you.