101 Tips from Small Business Bloggers
Filed Under: Articles of Interest
Tags: Articles of Interest
American Express OPEN Forum has a fantastic list of tips they compiled from small business bloggers. Below is an excerpt, read the full post here.
On the Small Business Advantage
1. “Respond. This is the single biggest advantage you have over the big guys. Not only are you in charge, you also answer the phone and read your email and man the desk and set the prices. So, don’t pretend you have a policy. Just be human.”
— Seth Godin, Seth’s Blog
2. “As a small business owner, you have the advantages of speed and flexibility. Use them to your advantage. Like Wayne Gretzky, skate to where the puck is GOING to be, and chances are that you’ll get there faster than your larger, more bureaucratic competitors.”
— Chuck Frey, Innovation Tools
3. “Show your passion for helping your customers solve problems – and talk to them like you talk to your friends. A real, enthusiastic, human voice is every small business’s edge”
— Andy Wibbels, AndyWibbels.com
4. “One simple social business policy might be: Be invested. Be human. Be helpful as if the whole company depends on what you say and do, because customer service is the advantage of small business brands.”
— Liz Strauss, Successful Blog
5. “Smaller scale businesses should take advantage of how easy it can be to maintain closer, more intimate ties with their now very values-based end consumers (who have high expectations about brand interaction).”
— Andrea Learned, Learned on Women
On Motivation, Persistence, and Resiliency
6. “Outlast the competition. I was amazed at all the empty storefronts I saw in LA on my last visit. On one particular block, three or four of the ten lunch places were shut down. And the others? Doing great. That’s because the remaining office workers who used to eat lunch at the shuttered places had to eat somewhere, and so the survivors watched their business grow. A war of attrition is never pretty, but if you’re smart about overhead and scale, you’ll win it.”
— Seth Godin, Seth’s Blog
7. “Don’t give up. Most people who are self-employed went through a time when they had no money. And they worried they would lose everything they own, and their career. And they kept going. The people who succeed are people who refuse to quit. If you keep trying to make money from your business, you will eventually succeed so that you don’t starve. Really. Just don’t quit.”
— Penelope Trunk, Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist
8. “Count up your successes regularly. One person I know put a marble in a fishbowl each time she got a compliment or a bit of good press for her business or a nice note from a customer or a big order. Then every time she looked at the fishbowl she was reminded of all the good things in her business. Her employees could see it, too. This is invaluable on days when everything seems to go wrong. It keeps self-doubt from building up – and tearing you down. It also helps employees feel good.”
— Anita Campbell, Small Business Trends
9. “If you find yourself in a rut, try thinking back on the reasons you initially wanted to start your own business and don’t lose sight of them. If you need to, write them down.”
— Megan Dorn, The Startup Blog
10. “If you do not enjoy what you are doing, try something else.”
— Anthony Cerminaro, BizzBangBuzz
11. “Do not be afraid of hard work, learn to multi-task, be flexible and patient.”
— Harish Keshwani, BusinessWorks, Inc.
Back to School
Filed Under: Videos of Interest
Tags: Entrepreneurs, Innovation, Videos of Interest
I just found out about a video lecture series website called Academic Earth. Basically, a select number of universities are posting video lectures for everyone to enjoy. It’s like going to any ivy league school without the homework and certainly cheaper than getting an MBA! In this video Barry Nalebuff, author of Why Not? How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big and Small shares his lecture at Yale.
Secret Agent Fees
Filed Under: Registered Agent
Tags: Incorporating, Registered Agent
You may call me a bit old fashioned or somewhat idealistic; but I still believe that success can be achieved through honest business practices and by dedication to providing your clients with a good value at a fair price. On top of that, a friendly relationship with competent staff is essential to getting an A+ in my book. At Harvard, we strive to offer service which is best described as professionally personal.
I am very fortunate to represent a company that truly “gets it right”. Harvard Business Services, Inc. is a small enterprise that has flourished for more than a quarter of a century by offering a product and a level of service that exceeds the clients’ expectations and sets the standard in the industry, for others to follow. Our daily interaction with hundreds of clients by phone and email is inspiring to witness and to be a part of, especially when we know that our clients can order our service directly from the website without talking to a person. I have the enviable position of the front phone man in sales and I hear over and over how happy our clients are and how they feel each transaction is a pleasure.
So what’s the dark side? What about these “Secret Agent Fees”? Well, my friends, everyday we get angry feedback from clients who have had negative experiences with some of our competitors. My intention for this blog is not to badmouth our competitors, but rather to offer information and support to those who may be considering our services but are confused by the offers of our competitors, particularly regarding their registered agent fees. Confused? Or Misled? Registered Agent fees offer a tangible way to compare Harvard to the others.
The most common tactic applied by some of our competitors is to entice the prospective client with a price for company formation which appears almost too good to be true. One even claims to offer a “free” corporation, which, of course, isn’t FREE at all. That is the bait….here is the snafu: once they have hooked you in as a client, their Registered Agent fees are designed to milk your company for as much as possible. Some clients have reported that certain other agents have failed to disclose clearly that your initial Registered Agent fee will increase dramatically to as high as $340 per year in the near future.
At Harvard, we guarantee that your annual registered agent fee will remain FIXED at $50 per company per year so long as you pay promptly and keep your company in Good Standing.
So, for those of you who chose another registered agent and are now looking at an invoice for $169 or $250 or $340 to renew your company for the next year’s agent fee, what are your choices? Well, you may want to consider switching agents to Harvard. SWITCHING!!! Yes! For only $89 per company which INCLUDES the first year’s agent fee from Harvard Business Services, Inc. The BEST name in the business established in 1981, top in the field and Number One in SERVICE!
But don’t take my word for it…here are the facts: This data is based upon current advertised levels for a basic DE filing – LLC or INC. Legalzoom’s first year’s agent fee is $149.00 (a price that is offered as a FIRST YEAR SPECIAL) and then increases to $159.00 for the second year and every year after. The Company Corporation is a real value at $100.00 for your first six months and then it goes beyond the stratosphere to a level of $269.00 PER YEAR!!! My Corporation offers an annual rate of $169.00 per year….period. Good Luck finding these prices, they are well concealed. However, when a client visits www.delawareinc.com – the $50.00 Agent Fee Banner is bold, front and center.
The home pages for many of our competitors’ web sites neglect to mention the agent fee – let alone admit that it increases rapidly. If you stay in business for 3 years (and what business plans to fail?) you can expect to pay from $400 to 500 MORE for the same service we offer with excellence.
Perhaps, now the title of this blog has a little more meaning…however; less cloak and dagger – more bait, bamboozle and snafu. Hopefully, this information will help to expose such common but questionable marketing tactics and address the misconception that our costs for filing are higher than the other three registered agent’s prices listed here. Read the fine print, you can pay us a little now or you can pay them a lot later!!!
Below is a quick comparison of our costs vs. other agent costs.
1st year agent cost:
* Harvard Business Services: Free with formation package
* The Corporation Company: $100 FIRST SIX MONTHS
* Legalzoom: $149
* My Corporation: $169
2nd year agent cost:
* Harvard Business Services: $50
* The Company Corporation: $269
* Legalzoom: $159
* My Corporation: $169
3rd year agent cost:
* Harvard Business Services: $50
* The Company Corporation: $269
* Legalzoom: $159
* My Corporation: $169
Total cost after 3 years:
* Harvard Business Services: $100
* The Company Corporation: $638
* Legalzoom: $467
* My Corporation: $507
Noteworthy and Quoteworthy Quotes from the Business World
Here is a collection of noteworthy quotes from recent business stories. I’ve collected mostly good quotes along with a few examples of not-so-good quotes.
You would expect that media types to excel at soundbites and pull quotes, since it’s the grist for their daily mills. The Los Angeles Times ran a story on August 21 about Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp trying to take the lead in creating a revenue stream for mainstream media’s online efforts. In the story, Times reporter Dawn C. Chmielewski used some effective quotes from media executives:
William Dean Singleton, chairman of the AP and chief executive of MediaNews Group Inc. has been waging a campaign against the unauthorized use of AP content on the Internet by search engines and other news aggregators. Chmielewski quoted him as saying: “We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under misguided legal theories. We are mad as hell, and we are not going to take it anymore.” (A quote is an effective “grabber,” and this quote is particularly telling if you remember the source: it was the rant of the unhinged network anchorman, Howard Beale, in the 1976 movie “Network.”)
Chmielewski came up with a partial quote from Wall Street Journal Editor Robert Thomson who called internet news aggregators, “parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the Internet.” (Clearly he’s mad as hell, too, and came up with a terrific, vivid word picture in service of his rage.)
There appears a lot to be mad about. According the the Times story, newspaper advertising revenue fell 28 percent in 2008 and although online readership of papers has grown, internet advertising has not kept pace, accounting for only 12 percent of their revenue. So here’s a final quote from the article, by newspaper analyst John Morton: “The only positive thing to be said for online revenue for newspapers is it’s going down less rapidly.” Ouch!
Sticking with the online world, our other examples involve Yahoo’s decision to turn its internet searches over to Microsoft’s Bing.
From Darren Chervitz, who co-manages a fund which owns about 100,000 shares of Yahoo, came this very graphic word picture: “It feels kind of like a stab in the chest. It certainly feels like Yahoo is giving away their strong and hard-fought share of the search market for really a modest price.” (I teach the 30-10-3 rule: the ideal soundbite or pull quote should be no more than 30 words long, take no longer than 10 seconds to speak and be composed of no more than 3 sentences. Mr. Chervitz’ quote was only two sentences long and took me under ten seconds to speak aloud. Depending upon whether you count “hard-fought” as one or two words, it is either 32 or 33 words — certainly close enough for an A minus grade.)
The CEOs of Yahoo and Microsoft weighed in with these comments:
Carol Bartz, of Yahoo: “This deal allows Yahoo to invest in what we should be investing in for the future — audience properties, display advertising and the mobile Internet experience. Our vision is to be the center of people’s lives online.” Her last sentence — which would have been more effective had it been her first sentence — was the strong part. The rest was near-jargon (can anyone tell me in ten words or less what “audience properties” are and why mobile internet had to be followed by “experience?”)
Steven A. Ballmer, of Microsoft: “Look, she got 88 percent of the revenue and none of the cost. I got an opportunity to swing for the fences in search.” (Twenty-four words and a nice word picture at the end. Although it raises the question of just how comfortable a marriage this is going to be since you can just sense the resentment about the 88 percent/none of the cost part.)
And here’s a quote that didn’t work too well. It’s from Chris Lien, chief executive of a software company whose products help advertisers manage search budgets: “Right now it looks like a camel designed by committee, which is never pretty. I predict within a year or two they will restructure this to make it more streamlined.” If you’re going to reference a phrase everyone’s familiar with, get it right! The expression is, “A camel is a racehorse designed by committee.” Perhaps what Mr. Lien was driving at was that this was an even more egregious case of committee design. If so, it would have been more effective if he’d phrased it: “You know the expression, a camel is a racehorse designed by committee? Well this is even worse, it’s a CAMEL designed by committee.” (Two sentences, 23 words and — absent Paul Harvey-like pauses — easily spoken in seven to eight seconds.)
Your Story: Napster Inc. & Netcapital Inc.
Filed Under: Your Story
Tags: Craft Your Story, Entrepreneur
Your name: John Fanning
Name of your business: Napster Inc. , Netcapital Inc.
Your background: Founding Chairman and CEO of Napster
Your chief characteristic: Driven
Your regular reads: Slashdot: Science, Digg, TechCrunch, Valley Wag, Fortune
Clients, customers, and constituents: Everyone
How long have you been in business? 1979
Where do you do business? Earth. Based in Boston
Your concrete inspiration: Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Getty, JD Rockefeller, Henry Ford,W K Kellogg, William Hewlett, Gordon Moore, Bill Gates
Your big dreams: 100B.
Your first success: Over 1B in assets Jan 2000
The status of your current business: Private
The future of your business: Global
Your greatest challenge in business: Growth and Capital
Business pet peeve: Failure to follow up
Your favorite entrepreneurs, pioneers, mavericks, artists, and heros from real life and history: Ghandi, Michael Dell, Rupert Murdoch, Vinod Khosla, Yosi Amram
The greatest rewards of your entrepreneurship: Creating Value
Your idea of happiness in business: From idea to execution instantly
Your present state of mind: Frantic
Your business advice: NEVER GIVE UP
Your favorite motto: NEVER GIVE UP
Your favorite business book: Dale Carnegie books
Your one sentence business story: Powerful ideas with simple execution
