As I wake to the sounds of the FM dial my mind starts to focus on life’s great trials.

“Time to get up kids & brush your teeth and please for once don’t fall back to sleep.”

“Hurry now get out of the shower the bus has gone and it’s tardy hour.”

In a rush as we fly in our car but the road is slick and traffic is at war.

Now it’s up to the office where bosses await with sullen faces at my tardy state.

In these times and on this day it’s more work, less pay, and a vanishing 401K.

As I bring my work day to a close, the calendar tells me what it knows.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday have already past and online shipping is not that fast.

Now it’s off to shop and play ”bumper carts” at the twenty four hour big box mart.

Clean the house and keep the kids in line, the threat of Saint Nick will be gone in short time.

Like a tornado on this shopping spree, I lust after MP3s, DVDs, and HD-TVs.

Back at home my vision wont lie the whole family is coming and the house is a pigsty.

Now it’s mission impossible to wrap in a bow, while sneaking presents past those who can’t know.

The day is over and as I drift to sleep I think of bounced checks instead of counting sheep.

Now as I wake on this eve of the big day, the sounds of Christmas music began to play.

I hear the house groan from the bitter cold night, but my heart is warmed by glowing lights.

Feeling relaxed now, my head is clear, I start to remember why I love this time of year.

The TV takes us to another time where Ralphie has only one thing on his mind.

Fun games, good company and holiday cheer, fill my heart and mind as night draws near.

Warm up the car and empty your glass, dress the kids in their best for Midnight Mass.

On this night nothing feels quite as right as singing Silent Night by candle light.

Happy Holidays!
Donovan Wadholm

The typical way most entrepreneurs start a business is the following:

1. Choose a product to sell or service to offer (based on the industry or hobby they know best)
2. Choose a name for the company and create a logo
3. File  Incorporation or a LLC paperwork
4. Write a business plan
5. Get funding
6. Build a website, business cards, find office space, etc.
7. Launch the company – i.e. flip on the open sign.
8. Wait for the money to roll in… in other words hope for the best

And, this is the way Smart Start-ups do it:

1. Find a hungry market
2. Figure out why they are hungry and what kind of food they’re looking for
3. Study the players in the market (to copy the good things and avoid the bad things they’re doing)
4. Test the waters. This is the most visible difference between smart and dumb start-ups. Smart marketers know that it’s all about testing the market fast and invest as little as possible.
5. If the offering doesn’t convert sales, the Smart Start-up gos on to test the next market. The second most important difference between them, the Smart ones find the audience first and then they create the product they want.
6. If the offer converts, this is when the Smart Start-up starts thinking of it as a business. And that is because he has a real business, he knows it’s time to improve the product offering or processes. 
7. Finally, this is when the Smart Marketer get his fancy website and business cards. Because he knows he’s investing in a business, not in an idea.

Biggest Takeaways

Don’t fall in love with a product or service. You want to become a successful business owner; the product that gets you there is irrelevant (that is, unless you’re very passionate about something and don’t care about money as much as you care about doing something you love [which I completely believe in, BTW]).
 
* Find the market first and develop a product or service for them. Listen to them and give them what they want.
 
* Fail fast, fail cheep.  Test the market as fast as you can with as little money as possible. Don’t create what you think is a perfect company and then launch it; launch it first and if it works, perfect it.

Zeke Camusio
http://www.TheOutsourcingCompany.com/blog

Yesterday, I “attended” an online conference call given by Kellie D’Andrea for a free series she calls Marketing Mondays Minute.  It’s actually about 30 minutes but I was surprised to find out that it wasn’t just one big infomercial.  In fact the only pitching she did was in the first five minutes and I considered that the price of admission.

Anyway, the session was about creating a perfect elevator pitch and the framework for the session was imagining you are at a business function and someone asks you: “So what is it you do?”

The statistic given is that 98% of people give their job title (plumber, marketing consultant, banker, etc).  Which means that only 2% give a unique or different answer that stands out.  So the goal is to create an answer that captures their attention and makes the other person want to ask for more information.

To this Kellie offered a tried and true formula:  A – Audience B- Benefit C- Creative Offering

Audience – Your audience is your target market or niche you serve.  From your business planning you should have a solid idea of your target market and what they value.

Benefits- The benefits you provide have to be overt (obvious) and relate to a pain or pleasure of your target audience.  Maybe you solve one of their biggest problem areas or you could provide a product or serivce that will make them more profitable. 

Creative Offering – In other words what makes you unique or different.  Why should the customer buy from you vs. any of your competitors.

Essentially, an elevator pitch is like wrapping a USP into a benefit statement regarding your target market. 

Some important things to remember though:

• After giving your elevator pitch don’t immediately dive into a 10 minute sales session.  You have to let them lead the discussion by asking for more information.  If you have a good pitch and they fit the target market it should naturally lead into further discussion.  If they don’t ask, let it go, ask them about their own business…people love talking about themselves and love people who will listen.
   
• You probably only have about 10 seconds to give the pitch.  The elevators are much faster these days and people will not sit and listen to a 30 second or 60 second pitch anymore.
   
• Wear your name tag on the right side of your coat.  Most people are naturally right handed so the name tag usually winds up on the left lapel, which is furthest away from people when you shake hands.  Placing it on your right puts it front and center so they can easily see your name.
   
•  Don’t transact business at these events, make sure you hand out a business card and if the discussion goes from a cold lead to a warm one ask for permission to follow up at a later date. 

I was pleasantly surprised to find this free conference call.  If you have time next Monday there is another topic and you can register at Kellie D’Andreas blog.

Donovan Wadholm

It’s currently 7:01 AM the day after Thanksgiving.  My six year old super star hockey player is crawling on my back while across the room my daughter is transfixed by Dora The Explorer and her buddy boots.  My wife, on the other hand, is at least two hours into a shopping bonanza.

I imagine her pushing her red Target shopping cart with a wobbly wheel, bumping plastic and steel around each corner trying to get her hands on the “door buster” deal of the day.  I also wonder if she has given any thought to sleeping in until, oh…say 9:00, having a cup of coffee with me, maybe reading half of the daily disappointment newspaper and then heading out to the local shops to see what’s on sale.

So in light of that thought I decided to try a poll…

I hope you all enjoyed your Turkey Day!

On the heals of a string of bad press coming out against Goldman Sachs regarding payment of bonuses in excess of $20 billion the company has announced a $500,000,0000 small business initiative in partnership with Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. ,and the United States second richest man. 

The “10,000 Small Businesses Initiative” will be guided by an advisory council co-chaired by Loyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, Buffett and Harvard Business School’s Michael Porter. The council will include George Boggs, president and CEO of the American Association of Community Colleges, and Dan Danner, president and CEO of the National Federation of Independent Business.

The program will contribute $200 million to community colleges, universities and other institutions to provide small- business owners with practical business education. Goldman Sachs will invest $300 million through a combination of lending and philanthropic support to community development financial institutions.

The fund was formed with a $50 million contribution from Goldman Sachs and $80 million from partners at the firm, each of whom has an account and can guide how the money is spent.

In March 2008, the company said it planned to contribute $100 million over five years to provide business education to women in developing nations and elsewhere through an initiative called 10,000 Women. The program was established in 18 countries and has more than 60 partners.

Find out more about the initiative at the Goldman Sachs website.