Online Business Archives - Page 3 of 4 - WeGrowMedia

Fear, Comfort, and the Future of Your Business

Do you need to change? Does your business need to change? Is success just slightly out of your reach because you are unwilling to question the basic assumptions of how you serve your market?

Often in business, we try to predict the future by looking at the past. And this is why established companies sometimes miss out on innovations. There was a great quote in this week’s episode of Mad Men:

“A new idea is something they [the customer] don’t know yet, so of course, it’s not going to come up as an option. You can’t tell how people are going to behave based on how they have behaved.”

For example, researchers studying the Class of 2014 say that students don’t use email because it is too slow. How could this present day behavior of these students change how we communicate in the future? Companies banking their future on email as the primary communication tool of their market may miss an opportunity because they didn’t even consider that email is “slow.”

Seth Godin talks about how we deal with fear by surrounding ourselves with what is already known:

“A lot of entrepreneurs get an MBA because they are afraid to go out into world without one. They are seeking the reassurance a credential will bring them, even though the cost is huge and there’s no data to indicate that they’ll be more successful as an entrepreneur as a result.”

How much does fear drive your career and business? How many decisions are based on an existing comfort level with the products or services, the sales process, the customer segment? Are new ideas rejected because they are bad ideas, or because they ask uncomfortable questions?

If you wait until you realize you need to change, it may be too late. The New York Times explored this with Netflix:

“Netflix tries to avoid creative destruction by experimenting with new models well before they need to, and well before the old model has lost steam.”

And Mike Masnick picked up on the theme:

“This is, of course, the typical Innovator’s Dilemma, but it helps explain why so few companies are able to survive the innovator’s dilemma. Even if they know about it, they think they can wait. They think that they shouldn’t invest heavily in those new technologies and new markets until there’s a clear path to profitability, or a clear plan for how it “replaces” what’s already there. The problem is that by the time they have the answers to those questions, it’s too late.”

As the media landscape continues to shift, each company, each employee will have to confront their own comfort level with new ideas, with whether the future will look anything like the past.

Let me know if you think I can help.

-Dan

How to Build Your Online Business – the Laura Roeder Interview

At 26 years old, Laura Roeder is making about $15,000 a month in consulting fees and has launched online coaching classes that bring in tens of thousands in revenue.

Laura Roeder Today I want to profile how she is building a successful online business
through information products and working with clients via the web. I am FASCINATED by how the web has removed barriers for businesses:

That we can learn from others without leaving our homes.
That we can grow businesses without leaving our homes.
That we can grow as individuals without leaving our homes.

So you can see, I have a real fascination with not leaving the house! But seriously – the opportunity that we each have to achieve our business and personal goals is so much closer than we think, and what people like Laura are doing is just incredible. I had a chance to speak with her, and below are key points from our chat.

In 2008 Laura transitioned her career from a web designer to focusing on online social media training and consulting. This change occurred because she kept listening to client’s needs and noticed a pattern, a common need that wasn’t being met:

“When I started my own business, I found I was always giving my clients advice about online marketing, social media, and how their website fits into their overall marketing plan. I thought is what a web designer should do, but I discovered that most web designers don’t do that. My clients told me that other designers never asked them those sorts of questions.”

“I had the realization in late 2008 that people would pay me just for the social media side, which just seemed outrageous to me. I think this is how a lot of people feel about whatever they’re good at – you take it for granted. Now I see what a big need there is.”

At this point Laura made a big decision, the type of decision that is life changing. Instead of slowly evolving, she jumped in with both feet:

“I fired all my web design clients because I knew that if I didn’t totally get rid of that, I would still be in that business model, which is not what I wanted to do. Then I had to make money with social media.”

Since she didn’t know how to break into working with big companies, and loved working with small businesses, she created her business to better cater to them. To get her initial clients, she started with what she had, and built from there:

“I moved to this online training program model that allows me to make money with lower priced programs that are appropriate for a small business. I loved it, but it was a struggle. I didn’t know any business owners. I found all my clients through networking events, which is a great way for any business to start a client base and to grow. A lot of people aren’t willing to do it. When people see you are a normal friendly human, being, they will hire you.”

Soon, Laura found she needed to make another evolution to her business, scaling her services:

“The thing about most service businesses is that you are always starting over. That’s what was so frustrating. I would get a client, and maybe spend a month or two chasing that client, trying to get the final contract signed getting ready to do that work. So you’ve got that long process, then you do the work for them, and then after that contract is over, it’s like you might as well not have done anything. You’re back at square one, and then you have to bring in a new contract. It’s a neverending cycle. I wanted to explore new models for new business, because I feel like I wasn’t getting anywhere.”

Through people such as Eban Pagan, she learned about online training programs as a business model, and made another big leap:

“I just gave it a shot. I see a lot of people who take courses like this and they pick and choose, or they aren’t willing to do it. I just took what I learned and tried it out. Some is exact, some is my own spin on these concepts.”

“I Learned the concepts of how do you craft programs that people really want to buy that have effective marketing baked in, how do you figure out what people want, how do you make the learning effective so people in the program actually take action.”

In March 2009, she created her first program: “Your Backstage Pass to Twitter.” She explains how she came to the decision to launch this product:

“I just gave it a shot. most people, as simple as it sounds, that’s the part that’s missing because they spend so much time analyzing or saying ‘this isn’t going to work for me,’ or ‘I have to get something established before I do that.’ I tell people this with social media all the time: you just have to jump in. The way to start using Twitter is to just create an account and start talking to people. You don’t have to have a perfect website first, you don’t have to have a Facebook fan page first, you don’t have to figure it all out before you create an account, you just have to jump in and give it a try. That is the only way you will make progress. I never really get how to do anything until I experience it for myself. You can read about it all day, but you don’t internally see how it works until you do it yourself.”

I asked her what she would do if no one signed up for her products, since I know that fear prevents many people from launching their own. She explained how even failure gives you great lessons:

“That’s the beauty about info products, nobody knows if no one is on your call! It’s a scalable business and a super low overhead business. That’s an excuse a lot of people use, being scared if no one signs up. But honestly, who cares if nobody signs up, you are going to learn a lot about the process by just doing it, and you’re going to learn a lot about what you can do better next time.”

Luckily, Laura did have people sign up. One of the most interesting points she made had to do with how she found her first customers:

“When I launched my first course, I had a list of people from my web design business, maybe 300 people, maybe even less, and they were all local in Chicago, and had all shown interest in me as a web designer. A lot of people overthink their own stuff, and would say these people were interested in me as a web designer, not social media stuff, and that’s what I thought at first, that I would have to start all over.

“But I realized, this is really not that much of a leap. These are small businesses interested in doing stuff online, and now I am targeting small businesses interested in doing stuff online, so let’s just send this out and see if they are interested. They can always unsubscribe. I also find a lot of people on Twitter, and I have a weekly newsletter that has gone out since the beginning of 2009, which has been a big way for me to grow my community. I always tell people, you have to start with what you’ve got, with where you are. I had a few hundred people, they were all in Chicago, and all sort of interested in a different business, but that’s what I had at the time, so that’s what I started with, and it grew from there.”

And grow it did. She was off to a great start:

“The first launch I made around $3,000, and the program cost $97. I thought that was astronomical. I used to spend so long trying to get one contract for $3,000. When I did websites, I would usually charge between $1,000-$2,500 for a site. And again, after that contract was over, I was back at zero. So to be able to make the money from one contract, and make it online with something I could sell over again, I was just thrilled. And, it worked. Anything that works, you can scale up. So once that happened, I knew I would forget about corporate consulting and make this my business model.”

Having good success so far, she moved forward with an even bigger launch, continually looking to scale her efforts:

“My next step was to keep growing my audience, so for me that was to keep doing my newsletter, to blog, and Twitter is the biggest one for me. 35% of all my traffic comes from Twitter, and that traffic does convert to buyers just as well as all the rest. Twitter has always been a big channel for me. I use Facebook differently, to connect with people who are already in my world.”

“What I did next was launch my next program called “Creating Fame” and that is one that will open again this Fall. It’s my really my big picture overview on how to create fame, which is to use social media to become the number 1 go-to person in your field. That came out of the work I did with a friend of mine who is an actress. Out of my work with her, I saw I could use those same strategies for myself for making myself “famous.” This was my first real launch.”

“Doing a launch is an enormous list builder and attention builder. If you Google my name, there’s so many blog posts that have been written about me from content from launches. A big reason why Creating Fame was so successful was not from my existing audience, but the new list I built just from the launch alone. Creating Fame was a $27,000 launch, which is insane, and way more than I expected. It’s such an intense process – just putting out my very best content and going full force for a month. I’m not going to say it’s as easy as just putting out great content, and you’ll sell stuff. I’ve learned a lot about selling from other people. It’s hard, but it definitely paid off.”

“I had about 40-50 people sign up. It was an 8 week online class with a live webinar each week. I like to do everything live and then record them to sell after the fact. I like the energy of doing things live. A year later, I still talk to a lot of the people who took that class. What’s really cool is that I see a lot of them talking to each other – they formed their own Facebook group and connected on Twitter. It’s a great value-add that people can connect with other like-minded businesses. A lot of people from Creating Fame still talk all the time.”

Over time, Laura has found that each of these launches have added up to a nice little product library:

“Along with Creating Fame, I created two programs that are my most popular: Zero to WordPress Blog and Zero to WordPress Website. I realized if people took the class, but didn’t know how to do there website, it would be useless. So I created these as bonuses that later became standalone courses to sell. Over time it create a good little product library to sell:

Creating Fame

Backstage Pass to Twitter

Zero to WordPress Blog

Zero to WordPress Website

Zero to SEO

For this Fall she is working on relaunching Creating Fame, and a new program partnering with Marie Forleo.

But that’s not all, in the Fall of 2009, Laura re-approached private consulting and coaching:

“The next big step for me was to get serious about doing private coaching and consulting. I now do 6 month contracts, I started with 3 month contracts, and it sold out in 48 hours. I had 15 spots for one-on-one coaching. Evidently, people had really been waiting for that. My consulting is less about social media – that’s only part of it. A lot of my clients are people who have businesses and are just looking to market them better online. I charged around $1,000 a month and they get regular calls with me and unlimited email with me. Honestly, I’m moving less and less towards that being a part of my business model – I really want to have more of my focus be on the online programs. It’s the whole thing about leveraging your time – getting more people in and doing Q&A’s with a larger group.”

Overall, it is fascinating to see how Laura has evolved her business, and how she has found personal value and business revenue by working with what she had, and having the confidence to simply move forward with an idea.

Laura leaves us with one final thought as to how businesses need to think about using social media:

“Just learning Twitter is not useful, you need to know how Twitter fits into your sales strategy and marketing strategy.”

You can connect with Laura on her website or Twitter.

How Experience Prevents You From Doing Great Things

Michael Arrington wrote a blog post over the weekend, explaining why experience can actually prevent someone from doing incredible things. That, because they have wisdom enough to know that an idea is a bit wild, a bit unlikely to succeed, that the experienced person or company avoids them, and looks skeptically on those who try new ideas.

He describes how inexperience and blind passion can lead to building something of value:

“Nearly everything that is really disruptive is created by someone too young to know that they never had a chance of winning. So they blindly charge ahead, and they win. Most startups look sort of dumb in the really early stages, mostly because if they were so obviously going to win then someone would have likely jumped in already.”

And how so many mature and established businesses and individuals continually pass on innovative ideas – on exciting ideas – on profitable ideas – because of their experience:

“The wisdom that comes with experience seems like such a valuable asset to have. You have advice that people should listen to, you think, as you smirk condescendingly at the kid with the big idea and no clue what terrible obstacles stand between her and success… I sometimes feel that skepticism creeping into my thinking when I look at a new idea being presented by an eager and innocent young entrepreneur… Who am I to tell someone that they can’t change the world?”

Michael frames this around age – that he’s noticed himself become more skeptical now that he is 40, having heard so many entrepreneurs pitch him ideas over the past five years. But I would add that this same thing happens at any age, for two other reasons that hold us back:

Fear of Failure:

We don’t want to fail. Even for someone who is young, many of us feel we have something to prove, or desperately want to find success after years of work. By the time you are 20 years old, you have been in school for most of your life, spending thousands of hours studying, learning, and trying. You’ve likely played hundreds of games or prepared for dozens of recitals or debates or what have you. Maybe you’ve loved and lost already.

So you don’t want to lose. You get on track and try to find a path that guarantees success. And things that aren’t well established, that aren’t yet proven, can be seen as risky, or outlandish because they are risky.

This is why many people pile in way too late for investment opportunities. They didn’t have the foresight or guts to take the risk when it was meaningful. Later on, when everyone around them feels it’s safe to invest in a particular business or industry, they do too. This goes beyond bubbles around things like housing, this is how most people invest in both good times and bad. The follow the pack.

Fear drives many of us to make the safest decision, the one with the best chance to succeed. And this is why so many people avoid trying wild new ideas… they are too afraid to fail.
Pride:
Basically, few of us want to look foolish. We don’t want to lose the respect of our family, colleagues and friends, by taking a risk, failing, and then being made fun of. So we hide behind our pride, not only not trying new ideas ourselves, but tearing down others who do try them.

Many people would LOVE to try new ideas, but feel boxed in by responsibility, so they can’t. How many people do you know that looked at a successful business – eBay, Craigslist, Facebook, Priceline – and said “I had that idea, I could have done that.” Or looked at a successful business, and were convinced that a current strategy was wrong, and that THEY knew the right move to make.

Clearly, they feel they have the experience and wisdom for great success, and yet, they don’t act.

The solution? Find small ways to test out ideas that you have. Instead of risking your entire family’s savings on a business venture, invest in small ways, either with your time, support or money. Encourage those around you who have ideas on how to build something new – something unproven – something risky.

We watch sports because there is a chance for glory, and a chance for failure. Take the chance in your own life to find the glory, regardless of the risk of failure.

Thanks!

-Dan

Ideas vs Execution (An Idea Alone is Not Enough)

This week, I watched a documentary about ordinary people who did an extraordinary thing. They didn’t have much money, they didn’t have great connections, they didn’t have a particular expertise above anyone else in their field, but they had passion. And with that, they amassed an important collection of modern art, and became celebrities in the art world.

“Anybody can have these ideas, but to actually do it is quite a miracle.”
– Dorothy Vogel

The documentary was “Herb & Dorothy,” and it told the story of Herb & Dorothy Vogel, who spent the past 50 years collecting artwork in New York City. The crux of the story is that they ended up with a multimillion dollar collection on the salary of a postal worker and librarian – that these two unassuming people infiltrated the art world. But there is so much more to it than that.

Herb and Dorothy lived in a small, 1-bedroom rent stabilized apartment, and for half a century, they devoted their lives to the art world. Not to gaming it, not to studying it, but to EXPERIENCING it. Primarily, they became friends with artists – they collected people as much as they collected artwork, evidently. They didn’t have children, they didn’t have much of anything, except for art.

But it wasn’t about just the work itself, they were participants in the art culture. They met everyone, saw everything, and tracked an artist’s work as it evolved. They became a part of the process. They never sold any of the nearly 5,000 pieces they collected, and eventually gave most of it away to museums. When the National Gallery of Art gave them a small stipend to live on – pay medical bills, the rent, etc – they instead used it to buy more art.

As I watched their story, I took away a few lessons that I thought were critical for building something of value:

Sometimes, doing something extraordinary is an act of simple dedication and stamina, not sweeping and dramatic moments.
There is opportunity outside of trends. Herb & Dorothy never participated in financial art booms, they focused on what they loved and took a long term view of it all.
Traditional limits (finance, connections) can be overcome in the most simple of ways. Herb & Dorothy negotiated their way to not just possess objects, but to create powerful connections and friendships, which somehow lead to the creation of their collection.
Many who learn of Herb & Dorothy’s story will think: “I can do that.” And yet, 99.9% of the world will never do anything remotely close to what they did. Herb & Dorothy are an incredible example of how you don’t always need a brilliant idea to succeed, just uncompromising execution.

Thanks!

-Dan

How to Turn Your Services into Products

Today I want to share the story of someone who is building a successful business online by turning her services into products. As writers, journalists & publishers move their business models online, I can’t help but feel there are important lessons here.

Sarah Bray started her website strategy & design business three years ago and now has more clients than she can handle. We were able to chat last week, and she had some compelling advice for those building their personal or professional brands online. Here are the main takeaways:

Turn your services into products.
Test ideas before you launch.
Listen to your existing customers to identify new product ideas.
Social media is a critical marketing channel.
Be yourself.

Okay, let’s dig in.

Turn Your Services into Products.

Sarah offers website strategy and design services that she has packaged into products for potential clients:

She also just completed a “Gold-Digging Excursion” – a month-long course for 50 people.

Sarah openly prints her prices on the website, so potential clients know exactly what they get for their money. Compare this to many consultants who list off the many things they do, then say “email me to discuss how we can help you.” That email address or phone number is a huge barrier. Sarah has removed it.

She explains the decision:

“[The packages] came early on, out of connecting the dots from what retail businesses do and what other types of businesses do. I thought: ‘Well, why don’t web designers do this?'”

“It’s really intimidating for a lot of people to go on a web designers site who is really good. They don’t want to get in touch with them because they aren’t really sure how much it’s going to cost or what it includes. Then I realized there are basic things that you do for everybody and just start your packages from that. At least it gives people an idea that ‘I can hire this person and it will cost me this much.’ People have a fear of getting into something, then having it add up. Or if people give you an hourly rate and an estimate of how long it will take, what if it doesn’t take that long. I was trying to solve some of those fears and get people talking about what they need, instead of looking around and wishing & wondering and being scared to open the door.”

Another challenge she had to get past was clients wanting just website design services, without the overall online strategy that goes behind building an online presence. She was concerned that delivering tactics without a strategy would leave clients disappointed:

“I started out offering a list of everything I do, because I really wanted people to ‘get’ the strategy. Then if you just want a website and none of the strategy that goes along with it, you can subtract this much.”

“Now, there is a base price, and if you want me to work on the strategy, it’s like a different product. I’m getting ready to launch a whole new set of packages that will solve the problem of some people not ordering the strategy part, which is what I’m best at. I don’t want to NOT do that for someone. Everyone has this idea of me, and if they don’t get that, they will leave disapointed. They will have a beautiful website, but not know what to do with it.”

Test Ideas Before You Launch Them

Last year, Sarah began developing an idea for an online class – a four week course for about 50 people. She called it an ‘Excursion.’ The actual class – the Gold-Digging Excursion – ran in April and was a big success. But she learned a lot during the early process of choosing the topic.

At first, she was going with a different topic entirely. After developing the idea, she began prepping for launch, only to be shocked at the lack of interest:

“I was going to do a whole ‘branding’ excursion about ‘how to get people to change their minds about you. ‘I starting writing a blog series about it, and it just completely flopped. I was getting no interaction.”

“So I abandoned ship right before I was getting ready to launch this thing and I totally recreated it based on what I knew people needed, rather than what I was interested in at the moment. Then I became interested and passionate about it when I came up with the ‘gold-digging’ analogy.”

“I think metaphors inspire me and a lot of people to connect the dots about what this is going to do for you. When they can relate it to something else, like the gold rush. It’s a very similar thing, the gold rush to the internet rush. People are running out here to try to stake their claim in it, and find ways to actually make it work.”

This reminds me of the teachings of Eric Ries with his Lean Startup theory, and Steve Blank with his Customer Development theory. Both center on working with customers to develop products, instead of developing products before you are sure there will be customers.

Need New Product Ideas? Listen to Your Existing Customers

I asked Sarah about the difference between what clients initially ask for (website design) and what they need (an overarching online business strategy.) She describes what she has learned from clients, and how it has shaped her product offering. Listening and observing their real needs – often hidden needs – is crucial here.

“The only real gauge I have is my own clients’ experience who come to me after years of trying and not being able to make anything out of [succeeding online.] I think the economy has spurred that – the realization that ‘my local stuff is not working anymore, how can I get in on this whole online thing. It seems to be the only thing left to try.'”

“Most people are looking for the design part of it initially, and they think that will solve all of their problems – just having a prettier web presence. I encourage them to get into my site before we think about working together. People then realize that it’s not the design itself, its the whole strategy that goes behind it – a strategy that is moving forward, not a “set it and forget it” type of thing. This has to become a different paradigm for you.”

“Maybe they’ve noticed what other people are doing, or have thrown up Twitter or Facebook buttons on their website, or put the blog on the homepage, and that’s not working. And they just though “Why?! I thought that was the magic bullet.”

This is why giving clients ONLY what they ask for can lead them and you to failure. So Sarah read between the lines to find the goals that her clients weren’t specifically asking for, and then worked to give them something that would produce real results.

Sarah recently discovered a potential new product offering during her Gold-Digging Excursion. She had a bonus section where she would evaluate her students’ websites, and it was very popular:

“The most popular part of it was the bonus points section, where I went and actually evualated websites for volunteers within the group publicly. So people could see exactly what I was talking about when I talked about content strategy or the mailing list thing, the web copy, or when I talked about packaging your services. They could actually see the real-life examples of what that looked like. That got a whole lot of excitement, and got me thinking, ‘Wow, this is really neat, I can spin off of that.'”

In fact, she created much of the course as it was in progress for similar reasons:

“I was creating content throughout this course, I didn’t just have this set content, and that is what was going to be taught. I decided to get feedback as we were going as to what people needed. When new things were posted, I would email the group.”

Social Media is a Critical Marketing Channel

When Sarah first launched her business, she spent time and money on traditional marketing channels that she thought she HAD to do:

“I think everybody does this when they start their business, they think: “I have to do postcards and mail marketing; I’ve got to maybe get on some forum and Craigslist.”

“All these things that do not work, but we do them. I tried everything. I thought I had to have the perfect business card – all that crap that does not work.”

So what worked for her?

“Then, I found Twitter. It’s not just Twitter as a tool, it was that I could find people to work with that really embrace my values, and not just working with people because they are local or they live near me. I can work with people because they have a similar thinking, and my services are the exact fit for what they want.”

“At that point, I was scrambling to de-search engine optimize my site for local search. I was like “I don’t want to work with local people anymore.” I went the complete 180 opposite direction. Now, I am trying to get back into the local scene because people are embracing social media more, it’s not so hard to connect with people on that level.”

Be Yourself.

Another thing Sarah learned when she launched is that you can just be yourself.

“At first, I was really afraid of being a freelancer, of being a one-person show, so I did what a lot of new entrepreneurs do, I pretended I was bigger than I actually was. Not by directly saying it, but giving the impression by saying things like “we do this for you” and “we do that for you.”

“Then the world just kind of opened up. I decided it was okay that I was doing this as one person. I can just be one person online, and it’s okay, and be celebrated actually. Then I realized nobody cared about my homepage where you say how awesome you are, they just go to the blog. So why don’t I center it all around the blog. It just spiraled from there.”

She has also been incredibly honest about the challenges of managing her own business, with a blog post like this one: “The Year of the Breakdowns,” where she writes:

“I think I’m going to call this the year of the breakdowns. I feel like this has been a recurring theme in my life and in my writing lately — breaking down. And it’s embarrassing, really. But I have to write about it. Because I can’t write “Top 10 Ways to Fix Your Blog Posts” when I’ve just gotten down off of a two-hour crying jag.”

From all indicators, this level of honesty has really brought her closer to her community and allowed people to relate to her more easily. I think when you are honest like that, people root for you, they join your team to help.

Overall, Sarah has an incredible energy to push things forward for her and her clients:

“I am always launching. I like to always do new things, and always be improving on everything. In the traditional business world, I was not able to do that as I would have liked.”

Thanks to Sarah for sharing her story and the lessons she has learned in growing her business.

Thanks.

-Dan