bizthreads.net: Business Information for Entrepreneurs by an Entrepreneur

Yesterday I talked about the closing of Audioblogger (http://www.audioblogger.com/). It really shouldn't come as a surprise to us that a company offering a popular, valuable, program-intensive and storage-intensive service for free is no longer going to do it. (The company itself, Odeo, is not going out of business, just focusing on other things).

I'm surprised that we haven't heard more about these free services shutting down. I think we will see more by 2008. Companies use the free services sometimes as a loss leader or sometimes as a way to generate a lot of users quickly so they can resell the company to a new owner. Those ideas make sense but if the loss leader is more popular than the purchasable product or if no new owner comes along, then there could be financial trouble. That's not to say that's what happened at Odeo, but rather just an observation about many of the free services available online. (If you want some examples, just scroll though back issues of this blog because I try to report some of them to you from time to time).

I think we'll see this happening in waves in the future: free services for some time that build on the latest trends (blogging, email, and other collaborative or communication-centered programs, for example)… then those free services moving toward paid models… then new trends creating free program opportunities.

As you know (by reading this blog) a blog is an ongoing online diary-style site typically posted with the most recent entry at the top. Audio blogging is where you simply create an MP3 file (which is a sound file that computers can read) and place it on your blog for others to hear. (Video blogs — also known as vidblogs or vlogs — are very similar but use video instead of audio).

Audioblogger (http://www.audioblogger.com/) allowed users to create and post MP3 file without any technical knowledge by offering a phone number that users could call where they could simply talk. That call was recorded and transferred into an MP3 format and posted on the user's blog.

Okay, that was a long description just to tell you this…

Audioblogger.com is closing its doors as of November 1st.

Blogging is a great way to connect with your customers and audioblogging is quick and convenient, especially for those who don't like to type. If you have a blog and want to try audioblogging, don't despair, audioblogger.com isn't the only company. Try http://www.hipcast.com/.

Tomorrow I'm going to talk more about this closure and put it into the perspective of the web itself.

How did Q3 go for you?

What were your goals?
Did you meet your goals?
If so, what were the strengths that allowed you to do that effectively? If not, what are some of the reasons? Now, for each reason you've just listed, create a solution that allows you to proactively keep that from happening again.
What were the highlights of the quarter?
What were some of the things you wish you could redo?
How did your competition do this past quarter? (Don't know? Find out!)

As we begin Q4, here are some more questions for you:

What are you goals for this quarter?
What is the economic outlook for your niche clients? (Are they generally better off or worse off at this time of year?)
Do you expect this to be a slow quarter or a brisk quarter?
If you expect it to be a slow quarter, what other opportunities can you look at to take advantage of the extra time you have? Are there proactive steps to take to make Q1-2007 even brighter?

Lenore writes, “Buzz we have some concerns in our medium-sized business over how to deal with harassment (i.e., sexual harassment or racial discrimination, etc.). Thankfully, we haven't seen any cases but we want to be best prepared for the possibility. How can we do that?”

Dear Lenore,

“Thanks for the question, Lenore. Next week I'll be writing about this in greater detail on morebusiness.com but I have two pieces of advice right now for you:

1. Create a written policy today! Having a policy in place won't prevent harassment from happening but it will ensure that you handle each case properly and efficiently.
2. In your size of business, there aren't a lot of options to turn to if someone does feel harassed. A panel, rather than a single human resources person, is a good choice to make sure that there are several people to turn to.”

From time to time I lead local roundtable discussions between entrepreneurs who want to grow stronger by learning from other entrepreneurs. I love the fresh, frank, and spirited discussion that results from those roundtables.

DiscussThis email list management, a site to create and manage email discussion groups, comes as close as you can to that fresh and spirited discussion without being face-to-face.

Collaboration between employees and between business owners will make every business stronger. DiscussThis creates the means by which that can happen effectively.

· Create a list and share an ongoing business-building discussion.
· Keep customers in the loop to changes you see taking place in the industry that will affect them.
· Help employees interact more effectively.

Working together will make your businesses stronger!

Internet entrepreneur Mark Cuban had some critical words about YouTube.com. In a variety of stories (of which this is a typical one). Cuban gives his opinion that YouTube is a lawsuit waiting to happen. (YouTube.com is a site where people upload and share videos).

Between the pirated use of movies for “mash-ups” (combining images and voices from different movies for a humorous effect) or copyrighted music layed in the background of a video diary, copyright laws are being challenged every day. In fact, a video diary of a teenage girl was recently revealed to be a hoax and one of the clues was the use of non-copyrighted music played in the background! (You can read more about that story here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonelygirl15).

I urge all of my readers to honor other people's copyrights just as you'd expect your own copyrights to be honored.

 I found this site recently and thought I'd share it today: http://www.nbbc.com/. Started by NBC, it takes user-created video and matches those videos with advertisers to create a revenue stream for the video's creator.

In a way, it's like AdWords (Google's text-based pay-per-click ads) for video. This makes sense as a next step in the marketing world, since video is the hot commodity this year and it was only a matter of time before someone found a way to leverage revenue from this medium.

Is it appropriate for you? Sites like YouTube.com and Google Video (and many other similar sites out there) collect massive amounts of user-downloaded video each day. Could these become ad-based as well? Some videos may lack production quality - or even a point - but remain highly viral.

One of the biggest obstacles I think NBC's nbbc.com faces is dealing with the copyright problems that video are creating. Will someone upload someone else's video and gain revenue from it? It's possible that could happen. Learn more about the issue of video copyright tomorrow.

The other day I went to rent a car. The person asked me, “Do you want LDW, PAI, and SLP?” It sounded like I was attacked by the alphabet. I've rented cars before and I've never heard of those things so I asked what they were.

The person behind the counter blinked for a minute then had to dissect in his mind what each one stood for. He did eventually tell me. One was loss damage waiver, I don't remember what the other ones were (and it doesn't matter)… basically the insurances on the car.

Unfortunately, because I didn't understand what LDW/PAI/SLP were, I had to cut him off in the middle of his sales pitch to find out. (After all, I didn't want to buy them without knowing what they were). My cutting him off in the middle of his pitch threw him off his stride. He did try to regain it but couldn't get back into the swing.

Listen carefully to your pitch and to your employees' pitches. Make sure they aren't peppered with industry jargon no one understands. Identify the areas where they are and find ways to rephrase them. This rental counter agent could have kept in stride by just referring to it as “insurance.”

Often, I'm asked by business owners about management resources to help them. Many entrepreneurs didn't make it to the C-level executive position before becoming entrepreneurs so they lack some of the managerial experience gleaned along the way.

This is a really impressive site, full of incredibly powerful information. Although it may be designed for corporate managers, its information is no less pertinent to the entrepreneur who needs to quickly learn how to develop their management skills.
http://www.managementhelp.org/

The man who operates a nearby convenience store has taught me so much about dedication. It doesn't matter if I go there at 6 am or 10 pm, he is always there. He's polite, tireless, and always good natured.

I've asked him about the hours he works and he told me that he has a family to feed, a daughter and a son to send to college, and parents he wants to bring to America.

So much of my work and advice is online; it’s easy to forget about the offline world like my convenience store owner friend. The online world is rapidly changing and people could theoretically start a new website for a new business just about every single day (even though that's probably not a good business decisions… still, it's possible). Offline, my convenience store friend smiles and serves customers and sticks to the one thing he does really, really well: providing polite, quick, convenient service. While that's a lesson in itself, I have to admit that the thing I’ve learned from him best is perseverance. He's owned the convenience store for as long as I can remember and by the sound of his plans for his family, he'll need to own it for years to come.