Articles

It’s dangerous to depend on someone else’s platform to market and sell to your customers. We’ll start with a few stories. Facebook first. In his awesome talk on content marketing, Joe Pulizzi told a fascinating story about Starbucks and their Facebook following. They spent 10 years spending big money each year, I’m guessing 10s of millions […]

Show notes from podcast episode 36. I recently read The Dip by Seth Godin. A short book (about 75 pages) that took me just a few hours to read. I took some notes and did some thinking and writing. Let’s talk about how it relates to entrepreneurship. Everything in life has a dip. At first […]

Show notes from podcast episode 38. I talk a lot about doing the important but not urgent work it takes to be successful as a business owner. I believe it takes a certain mindset to know what the hardest work is or even exists and needs attention. That’s the type of work that separates the […]

Doing this while you have a full time job is the perfect way to start. More on that here. Step 1: Do a quick and dirty market study – start searching and calling competitors. Use trends.google.com to find out which company in your town is the largest (most search volume) and study them. Are they doing digital marketing? Are they putting […]

1. Add value first Gain trust by providing something of value first without expectation. This gets you very far with customers and personal relationships. Don’t squeeze your customers for every penny, especially early. Too many people are tight lipped with helpful advice. Share it. Gain trust and thus loyalty and profit later. 2. 80 percent of your […]

Wine sommeliers often can’t tell the difference between a $20 bottle and a $2,000 bottle in a double blind test. The food at the $20/person restaurant and the food at the $200/person restaurant. The beer at the top rated brewery or the guy brewing in his basement. In a double blind test – who has […]

Ego is good early on. The confidence. The drive for status and image. It gets us far. It gives us the courage to disregard the anxiety and fear of failure. The lizard brain that tells us to run for cover when things get scary. We all agree that you don’t need to be a superhuman […]

Back in 2012, when I was unsure of the success of my storage venture, I casted a few other nets. One of them was a Lawn Care google place and wordpress website with a few pages. As you know I had mowed a few lawns in high school so I got a few of those […]

Don’t forget to think LOCAL and don’t be afraid to start VERY SMALL. Even if you plan to start an internet company. Start LOCAL. Start a business where you can interact with your customers face to face. Even Zuck founded facebook only at Harvard. Roll out a city at a time. Sell something local at […]

On Friday after work instead of meeting friends for drinks go home and get to work. Buy a domain and get hosting. I love Bluehost for a cheap yet reliable option. Set up a website on WordPress. Pay someone on a freelancing site to create a simple logo for you and some marketing material. Decide […]