John Dilbeck Musings

First, if you’re not listing your business on MerchantCircle, why not?

Create a professional looking online listing for your business with our easy to use tools. Free! - MerchantCircle.com

Truly, even if you are not a highly skilled web designer or webmaster, you can use the tools provided by MerchantCircle to promote your business and the products and services you offer. It won’t take days, weeks, or months, either! You can get started in a few hours and can continue promoting your business as long as you want through posting to your blog, creating coupons, and publishing newsletters.

This is the kind of business promotion that every owner or manager of a small business should jump onto. It’s free, effective, and easy to use. What’s the downside?

Act on your dream!

JD

Chris Metcalf has a nice article, How-To: Dirt Cheap Wall-Sized Whiteboards, where he tells us how to create a large whiteboard for pennies on the dollar and a few hours of work.

Want to track that big project, brainstorm your latest idea, flowchart that important process, or just play? Look into this one.

As a Cognigen agent, I’m always looking for better ways to help my customers find the telecommunications services they need to build their businesses and reduce their costs. As more and more businesses turn to broadband Internet access, they enter areas in which they have no expertise and need to find people who can help them install networks, buy telecom equipment, find the best broadband access, and keep their communications systems operating optimally.

Many small businesses and entrepreneurs turn to local Value Added Resellers (VARs) who are dealers for different companies and also provide installation, configuration and troubleshooting services.

But, how do you find these people to help you with your telecom needs?

VAR Network is a new service for businesses to find the VARs in your area who can help you solve your communications problems and fill your telecom needs.

Being a new service, not all VARs know about it, yet. If you know of a VAR in your area who is not listed in the search results at VAR Network, won’t you take a moment and tell them about this post? They may want to become a part of the VAR Network, too. Here’s the information they need to know about.

Are you a Value Added Reseller?

Chances are you are much better at the telecommunications technical services you offer than you are at marketing your services to the businesses in your area.

You may be interested to know that VAR Partner can help you connect with businesses who need and want the services and products you sell.

Join VAR Network and we will help you market your business.

What is VAR Network and why should you care? Here’s how it works:

1. You register with VAR Network and complete your profile.

2. We send you leads based upon your VARSearch score.

3. If you close a sale, you send us a commission on the transaction. You can modify the commission you want to pay on future leads at any time.

4. You can improve your VARSearch score by receiving positive customer feedback scores, by offering more commission to our marketing agents, and/or by sending T1 business to ShopforT1.

5. Sit back and enjoy the ride!

It’s easy to register with VAR Partner. Once you register, our network of telecommunications agents will work to bring new business to you.

As a result of our marketing efforts we are creating a large database of businesses who have purchased commercial telecommunication services, many of whom need (or will need) telecom handsets, PBX’s, routers, switches, firewalls, telecom closets, etc.

These customers are also looking for Cisco, Avaya, Lucent, Mitel, Nortel, and Shoretel Dealers.

Likewise, we are gathering customers in need of equipment and sending them to you in hopes that you (1) can sell them your equipment and (2) can refer business back to us if they ever request T1 high-speed internet or voice services in the future. Our program is a classic case of “I scratch your back and you scratch mine!”

Go to VAR Partner to join our network of VARs. You can find more information about the benefits and VAR program comparisons on our site.

Do you want to see how a customer can find you once you are part of the network?

Go to VAR Network and enter a search for services and/or products you offer. If you are not a part of the network, you may find that we are already marketing the services of your competitors.

Or, perhaps you’ll find that nobody is being recommended in your area. This is your chance to have your services marketed to businesses who need you.

It only takes a couple of minutes to join our network of VARs.

Do it now, while you are thinking about it.

I have read reports that the majority of Americans dream of owning their own small business and many would like to run that business from the comfort of their homes.

As someone who has been doing this for three decades, I can vouch for the convenience of working at home and I enjoy being my own boss, for better or worse.

Most people who dream of owning their own small business do not have any experience in owning and managing such a business.

If you have a job, you are responsible for just a tiny part of what it takes to run a business and you have coworkers who do the other jobs. When you own your own business, you either take on all these roles, hire employees to do part of it, or contract out parts to professionals and assistants.

When starting a new business, there is more than enough work to go around and you will find your days filled with many, many tasks. Most of them need to be done right now or yesterday.

What you cannot forget is that you have to find customers and provide service that will keep them coming back to you and, hopefully, referring friends and associates to you, too.

At least half, and maybe as much as three-fourths, of your efforts while starting your small business should be devoted to marketing. If they can’t find you, they can’t buy from you, and if they don’t buy from you, your business will never get off the ground.

I think that is one of the primary reasons so many new businesses fail within the first year - they fail to reach their target market.

Without new customers, your business will survive only as long as you can afford to pay the bills through your investments and other financing arrangements. At some point, you have to reach a breakeven point and start earning profits in order to provide your own living and to repay the money you have invested or borrowed to start your new business.

While I can’t tell you how to do all the things you need to do to get started, I have found a resource that gives you examples of how people have marketed a variety of different small businesses.

If you have read my scribblings for any length of time, you know that I believe blogs and websites are your best marketing tools, if they are done right. However, not all blogs and websites are created equal.

I’ve spent years testing different ways of building websites and the one thing that remains constant is that the people who develop their sites with Site Build It! consistently do better than people who build their sites in other ways.

I know from my own work that it can be difficult to build websites and to promote them. I’ve hosted sites on a dozen or more webhosting services and I’ve suffered the bitter disappointments of fixing hacked sites or trying to get sites running when the host did something that caused many sites to stop functioning correctly.

I have yet to have a single problem with my own site hosted by Site Build It.

I have a lot of experience with programming, HTML, and all the other things that are necessary to know before you can build an effective site using traditional hosting.

What I wonder, is this: Are you willing to take your time and efforts away from marketing your new, or existing, small business to learn all that you have to learn to build your website on a free, cheap, or inexpensive Linux or Windows webhosting service?

Do you have the money to pay someone to build your site?

Do you know others who have done this only to decide that websites are a waste of time and money?

Who will you turn to when you reach a snag, and how much will they charge you to help solve each problem?

Would you like to learn a better way to approach this and learn from others who have succeeded in building their own successful websites that build their businesses for them, without having to master all the technical skills or pay so much money to get someone to do it for you?

One of the best things, in my opinion, of building a website using Site Build It, in addition to all the tools and resources SBI provides, is the free access to the members-only forum where people of all levels of experience help each other to find the success we all want in building our businesses. I would pay the $300 per year it costs to have a Site Build It site just to have access to the forum and brainstorming tools that are part of the Site Build It community.

I’ve long said that Site Build It is the perfect way for beginning online marketers to have the best chance of success. You don’t have to waste all your time and money just to build a site that nobody finds and visits.

But, of course, you are free to approach this however you want.

I have sites built using a variety of approaches. Some get a million or more page views per year, some don’t get a thousand. Some I work on full-time, others I barely touch.

I’ve read, and tried, many approaches recommended by people who say they know what they are doing, only to be disappointed most of the time due to the lack of success in following their methods.

The one constant that I’ve found, is that Ken Evoy knows what he’s talking about when it comes to promoting your business online and he has continued to build Site Build It into the premier system for regular folks to build an online presence that works.

Sure, some people fail with Site Build It, but most people who follow the tried-and-proven techniques and methods built into the Site Build It approach have a much better chance of succeeding than they would using any other method. I’ve watched it happen.

I’ve watched people who had no experience at all build a business that provides a nice income in a year or two.

Sure, it still takes work, but I don’t know of anything outside of winning the lottery that doesn’t require work. And building your online presence using Site Build It has much higher odds for success than “investing” in another lottery ticket.

In fact, if you were to purchase a lottery ticket every day for the next year, the odds are high that you would see little or no return for your efforts.

If you were to invest less than that amount in purchasing a Site Build It account and following the SBI approach to building your online business, I am almost positive that you would see a much better return. Even if your site earned no money during the first year, you would have developed new skills and knowledge that will serve you well as you continue to promote and build your small business.

But, if you follow the plan provided with your Site Build It account, I feel highly optimistic that you will be doing even better than that. A year from now, you may have a site that is bringing in new customers and more revenue.

Still, it’s up to you to decide how you want to build your business, and the success or failure of marketing the business depends greatly upon your knowledge of marketing, providing good service to your customers, and successfully getting the word out about what you have to offer and why you can do it better than anyone else.

Even if you have no intention of buying Site Build It, let me urge you to find YOUR small business and see how others have approached marketing the same type of business using Site Build It.

If nothing else, you will see how it can be done successfully and you may learn new ways to market your business that you never thought of.

On the other hand, perhaps you will find that you are on the right track with your approach and don’t need to make any substantial changes in your plan.

It costs nothing to find YOUR small business and see other approaches for marketing it to an ever-more-fragmented world.

It has been a lot of work running my businesses over the last three decades, but it has been one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever done.

If you truly want to break free and chart your own destiny, choose wisely how you will use your time, energy, and money. Make your plan and stick with it. The odds are against your success, especially if it is the first time you have started a business, but with each effort, you will learn things that will make your next effort more likely to succeed.

At the very least, give yourself the best chance to find success. Use the best tools available and don’t waste your time and efforts on things that just don’t work.

You deserve the best.

Act on your dream.

Ken Evoy, President of Sitesell, Inc., recently interviewed Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail, at Long Tail Marketing For Small Business.

Chris Anderson is the executive editor of WIRED magazine and has a good overview of technology and marketing, as evidenced by the buzz that is building surrounding his book.

In the industrial selling model, corporations decided what was going to be sold and there was a limited number of items offered for a limited time. All companies that are involved in mass production and mass distribution are working within this model.

In the developing digital selling model, products don’t go out of production and you don’t have to sell thousands or millions of items to generate a profit. You can sell fewer items over a longer time interval. This is a simplistic explanation, and Ken goes into more depth at Long Tail Marketing For Small Business.

Additionally, there is an audio interview that you should listen to if you have any interest in small businesses and marketing to niche audiences, and I think that pertains to almost all small businesses.

Listen to the interview. If what you hear excites you about the possibilities of selling into infinite niches, buy the book and read it.

Mike Arriola, the U. S. Small Business Administration’s Senior Area Manager for Western North Carolina, in cooperation with the Small Business Center at Tri-County Community College and SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives), will offer a free workshop on financing techniques for businesses and will provide attendees with an opportunity to ask questions about other SBA programs. SCORE and Small Business Center representatives will be available for expanded business counseling and mentoring.

The workshop will be held at Tri-County Community College on January 14, 2005. If it snows, the alternative date will be January 19, 2005.

You can learn more about the SBA and its programs by calling 1-800-827-5722 or by visiting their website at www.sba.gov.

For more information about the upcoming workshop, call Cecilia Crawford at the Small Business Center at 828-835-4297 or email her at CCrawford@tricountycc.edu

If you have corporate or small business skills, and a desire to help business owners succeed, SCORE would like to speak with you about volunteering at the Murphy branch office. Contact Jerry Chautin at PO Box 254, Murphy, NC 28906 or via email at JKChautin@aol.com .

Hendersonville-based SCORE Western North Carolina announced that Judy Grove has joined its new branch office in Murphy, North Carolina, as a volunteer business counselor.

SCORE is a not-for-profit all volunteer resource partner with the U.S. Small Business Administration. They offer free business advice, counseling and mentoring to entrepreneurs who want to start, expand, finance or buy a business.

Grove, a seasoned entrepreneur, is president and chief executive officer of Grove Enterprises, Inc. in Brasstown. She has many years of experience overcoming the challenges of starting and making small businesses profitable and will apply these skills when helping her SCORE clients.

Dick Adams is the chair of SCORE Western North Carolina and met with Grove in Murphy. He told her that Washington-based SCORE was started 40 years ago and has since grown to 10,500 volunteers, in 385 chapters nationwide. Adams said that new Cherokee County branch is an outreach of the Hendersonville-based, SCORE Western North Carolina with 27 volunteers and branches in Brevard and Rutherford. It will serve small businesspersons in Cherokee, Clay and Graham counties.

To learn more online, check out, www.scorewnc.org and www.score.org. Grove’s Web site is, www.grove-ent.com.

Domiciled at the Small Business Center of Tri-County Community College in Cherokee County, NC, the new SCORE office conducts private and confidential counseling and mentoring sessions with business owners.

SCORE’s local branch office is looking for a few more volunteers. This interesting opportunity is available to working and retired men and women who have small business or corporate skills. They must enjoy helping others succeed spend a few hours monthly on a flexible schedule. Resources and training are provided.

For further information on volunteering or to request an application, please e-mail: JKChautin@aol.com or call (828) 837-4598 in Murphy or (828) 693-8702 in Hendersonville.

Will Local Search Live Up to its Hype?

The potential exists for more geographic-specific search results and advertising, but meeting Web users’ needs and getting local businesses to advertise remain challenges, say executives of search and online directory companies.

“About 98 percent of the 22 million businesses in the United States are small or midsized, and they spend about $22 billion a year in local advertising, Greg Sterling, a program director at The Kelsey Group, said in an opening address. While these businesses are familiar with buying traditional ads, such as print yellow-page listings or newspaper ads, many remain unfamiliar with search-based ads that involve an auction method for bidding on top keywords in search queries to return a sponsored link.”

[eWEEK Technology News]