Networking is a key business skill, a way that many of the top success stories of our time have played out and highlighted in the saying “its not what you know, its Who you know”. Now I put a fair amount of belief in that saying, primarily because it shows a clear definition between skills and people, that is you could know php in and out, maybe you even know a good place online to sell it, but sooner or later if you completely lack people skills your business will come a cropper.
As with all things it depends on your intention, but if you intend to succeed in business - then in 90% of cases you will need to master at least the basics of networking and people skills. From phoning up a sales lead or calling back an old customer the phone is part of the skill, politeness, charm and a positive distraction from the day are all skills of telephony that will allow you to lure people into maintaining a phone based business relationship. Furthermore public events, promotions, the hard sell are all good skills that you would expect a sales person to have done to the tee, but as an entrepreneur you have to act as a jack of all trades, learning enough of all areas of your business - in this case dealing with potential customers is key. Its worth noting that I have noticed that the people who are good with crowds, the loud ones begging for attention are not always the victors of the social war either. They may appear to be the life of the party, but resist joining in - be a clever people person - learn when to play and when to hold your hand!
Anyway people know about networking in real life - I find it fairly awkward and just have to throw myself in the deep end, and when I am there I am usually more than fine, but what about networking online? How do you develop friendships, business relations and find useful contacts online?
There are both good and bad ways to do it, as well as good and bad reasons for doing it. Finding helpful people sitting on the other end of a laptop or pc somewhere else in the world can be great for support work, online work etc. but the downside is you have to compete with spam and I find that the anonymity of net tends to mean that online workers can take longer to do things, drop projects more, scam you easier, be less answerable (e.g. if abroad.) With this in mind I would advise that if you need work done and you are going to look online for a solution, or if you want to find someone to mutually help you and themselves online then first know where too look:
Forums - A great source of information, connections, discussions, reviews, opinions. The great thing about forums for finding useful people is that good forums (e.g. digital point) have well established rep systems and its easy to find out if most people on there are trustworthy.
Advertise - Don’t forget sometimes the person you are looking for might find you - if you advertise on your site or on an appropriate niche website you will find your man. Key here is detail - lay down exactly what you are looking for - then you will either be able to choose from a list of lots or wont get the man you want because he doesn’t exist (or you are advertising in the wrong place!)
Blog Comments - Comment on peoples blogs you like - and don’t. Its often said this is a good idea - but the dislike is underplayed. Be honest, constructive criticism is 100% better than ass kissing, if the person is real then they will see your comment as what it is, if they just flame back they aren’t worth your time.
Manage your Time without mercy. Its always tempting to burn into the night commenting, posting, emailing - but the best way to build good relations is under reasonable sustainable situations.
What you think about that then? Tell me what you think or read something else from my Archives!
- 5 Startup Points - Don’t let your business be a failure from the start
- Subscribe the Masses - Great ways to get people subscribed to your blog
I thought I would throw down a ‘5 things’ relative to starting your first business. I speak from personal experience so they will vary - comments appreciated as ever 
- It will be difficult, stressful and lonely in 99% of cases (at least for the first bit) - be ready for a bit of a slog. If you are really lucky your business will fly quickly and this won’t last too long. But be prepared to give up to 6 months of hard work before giving up on an idea or seeing it really soar.
- You’ll may become addicted - When you first start a business it can be addictive to work - you can spend all day in the office/shop/boardroom then come home and chat about work then go to bed and lay there thinking about work. This is ok but bare in mind this is not sustainable forever so plan your exit!
- You should always have an exit strategy - Having a clear plan about how you will leave the business with profit will give you a good target to aim for and stop you wasting your life chasing dreams.
- Its All in the Planning - As well as an exit strategy, mission statements, month, quarter, year and 2 year plans are also worth doing - whether you manage to achieve or surpass them they will act as a framework freeing you up for day to day business decisions.
- Manage less, Lead More - In an ideal situation you will be able to start a company and employ a manager - but this is not likely when you start out. This means you will have to act as both the director/leader of your business and the general manager. This can be a messy conflicting pair of roles and confuse you and make you act as neither of the two. Define a clear plan as to how you will deal with the managerial roles and allot a time for leadership.
Like these 5? Why not check out some more of my start up business posts:
- Business Mission Statements - A requirement or a waste of time - depends on your market - perhaps?
- Early Starts Late Nights - A look on how we spend our time working on our business’s.
- Hyper Local - A great new way to target people by street - or over the top?
- Organise your online reading - how I get my sites in order - read only what is worth reading!
Some times being an entrepreneur can be a daunting pursuit. Hardwork, lonely and an uphill struggle it can take a lot of work to get an idea off the ground.
I’ve found myself spending little amounts of time on a vast amount of skillsets including video editing, php, graphic design, photography, selling, economics, journalistic writing, development plans, strategy, driving, drawing, seo, sem, printing, training - and that’s just off the top of my head.
This irritates me for two reasons: 1. I could be doing what I am good at, but perhaps doing the above is leadership? and 2. Someone who is more professional could be doing it and getting it a lot more precisely mastered. This however is a toss up. I would always lean towards the professional approach, because someone who has mastered an art is much better at it than an amateur, if even just because of practice.
But with start up companies this is not always possible. To start a small web based firm on a shoe string is possible - but not if you started with a professional marketing manager, accountant, web developer, strategist etc. So on a start up financial basis alone the entrepreneur is almost force to be a jack of all trades. But as the maxim goes - Jack of all trades, Master of none - so attention should be paid to how much of your time you devote to skilled work. After you start getting a little sales in or get some sort of funding - be able and prepared to give up certain control of the business. Be ready to employ a marketing professional - professional designer or what have you.
Half of the art of being an entrepreneur is people, learning when to employ who and for what job, term and intention. So perhaps entrepreneurship, if anything is mastering several skills, just on a different level. We just need to have exit strategy’s, plans for handing down control and progressing onwards. Because we have more important things than mastering video editing!!!
We all love statistics in business, economists, business owners, entrepreneurs like a good graph. With good reason too, without statistics, analysis and financial plotting we would all be up sh*t creek, because that would be like a blind man fighting on the front line.So which are the most important statistics to a business? well this can depend a great deal on the area of business being traded in. Selling Fish for example - statistics are less critical, but they definately still care whether over the last 5 years their haul has increased in tonnage of fish or not. Assuming your business is online - which if your reading this the chances are this applies, then statistical analysis divides the online-elite with the semi-profitable.
Competitiveness heightens the effectiveness of statistical analysis as a refinement process, not to mention the freely available tools and data to make the whole process quicker and easier.
As an e-commerce outfit you may focus on sales, best selling products, geography of orders, profit percentage etc. All are great to help you predict future trends, maximise on sales and cut overheads.
SEO, SEM and online marketeers alike tend to focus on unique visits per day, ROI (return on investment), effective cpm, CTR (Click through ratio), impressions and suchlike.
So if you are in a service providing position, whether you operate an seo company, hosting solutions, advertising management, account services and suchlike, Statistical reports and information can be a great add value tool. It is quick and easy to write a few php scripts that monitor referrers, page load times, click through ratios, advertisement impressions, geo positions etc. and then creating an easy to view ’statistical’ system for your end users/customers will only add value to your packages. Not to mention the positive of adding value, provided you offer relative statistics that are simple and offer HELPFUL numbers then the business’s and people you sell too will likely use them to refine their own actions, growing their business and their esteem for you providing them such a useful refinement system.
Creating tools that will allow your business customers to do better business will be positive exponentially and is well worth the programming time.
If you like this business point then may I recommend reading the following:
- Pagex - My simply built seo and statistical business cms - bolt on - 2 files that will change your developing!
- Opening a business bank account in the UK - Easy business
- Hyperlocal - How local should your internet business focus?
refine
The internet is huge and is absolutely easy to get lost in, you find yourself typing something into google like ‘used audi’ and leaving your desk 3 hours later after reading the history of audi rallying. More so with blogs and business reading, I could spend every waking moment of my life reading things written about business online, business blogs, economist reviews archive statistics, whatever. So to combat this I have developed a little system that works for me, and I thought I would share it with you..
I am using firefox and googlereader - two things I would suggest everyone uses.
Firstly I have a folder in my bookmarks toolbar (creating folders is a great way to organise links), and in this folder I have two other folders entitled ‘new‘ and ‘good‘ - these are fairly self explanatory.
Secondly I also have google reader set up and ready to add feeds to subscribe too.
I also then stick a google reader bookmark in the reading folder for quick access.
In essence as you browse the internet for whatever you usually read, if you bookmark pages you think may be good to read later - save the bookmark in this new ‘reading->new’ folder. Doing this rather than reading the page then when you should be doing something else will help you prioritise your time.
Then when you actually do have a spare moment to do some reading (or in the evenings) you can go to the new folder and do a bit of reading, saving the good sites into the good folder and adding their rss feeds to your google reader. Mercilessly delete bookmarks to sites that are not hard to find or don’t have something good and uniquely interesting to you on.
This system helps me to not spend my working time reading and to spend my time reading rather than surfing.
Hope it works for you!
Like this post? Maybe you would fancy reading one of my other posts on business time management and efficiency!:
- Blogging for business - how to blog more effectively for business
- Pagex - A great little bolt on seo cms that will save you loads of time running a website
- 10 Steps to submitting your site - Startup websites are easily launched by following these steps
What sort of schedule do you run? 8 hour days - 10 hour business days - 12 hour mixed days - 7 day weeks or 5 day weekends? Almost everyone differs but with an intention to make it big in business and entrepreneurship its a common case to work 7 day weeks. Personally I find about 70 hour weeks work best and I am a firm believer in early rising. Getting up at 5 am makes you feel like you have got a ton done before people are even driving to work.
My typical day runs from 5/6am to 5pm (12 hours working - usually stopping occasionally but not really for lunch), followed by a few hours of relaxation and dinner - followed by exercise and a bit of blogging/business in the evening.
And the general concensus when you read websites like forbes or books written by millionaire business men (by the way I don’t suggest it - if you do pick well - business men are business men - chances are someone else wrote it) is long hours definately help - most suggest starting between 4am and 6 and some finish at 12pm or even later.
The trick as ever IMO is objectivity. Long hours are great if they are leading to an eventual profit, goal or anywhere positive. But too many hours can exhaust you and lead your business to fizzle as you don’t instantly see progress for your ‘Insane’ hours, so if working more than 12 hours makes you need to have a week off every month don’t work 12 hours a day! If you think of your business as your corporate personality - the more stable you remain the more stable your business will be!
If you liked this business post then perhaps you would enjoy reading the following from my business and entrepreneurship categories:
- Opening a Business Bank Account in the UK
- Hyperlocal - an investigation into working locally on a international web platform
- Real World Optimising (RWO) - My theories on how SEO can translate into real world business
Someone the other day asked me how easy it is to set up a business legitimately in the UK, to which I responded easier than most things and it is. It’s incredibly easy to start - its the continued effort or the ‘fake it till you make it’ that people have problems with.
Anyway for anyone wondering how to go about starting a company in the UK one of the main things you will start with is opening a business bank account. This can be done simply and I would recommend doing it as soon as you start work on a new business because when you go to apply for credit card processing or similar (you will likely need if working online - cheaper than paypal) then the longer the account has been running for the more chance you will get credit card processing easily. If you run a business bank account well for 6 months then it will be easy to do so.
So to get a business bank account:
- Make some headed paper - You will need 1 sheet so you can literally print your own from an inkjet printer - unless you are sure enough to order a few thousand pages (but you don’t need to for this.) - Make sure the headed paper has your address, contact details and a logo as well as your Company Name. With company names if you are just starting a little company with intentions to trade a bit before investing then use your company name at the top, and at the bottom write: “yourname T/A COMPANY NAME” (T/A means Trading As - in the UK a person can trade as a company name until they earn a certain amount - this is legal.)
- Choose a bank - You might want to shop around, I would recommend HSBC and not Barclay’s - but that’s my choice - they are all fairly similar if they are on a highstreet. Things to consider are interest rates, services they offer, business bank managers etc.
- Get an appointment - Easy to do, either phone your local branch (if they allow you too) or go in and ask for an appointment to set up a business bank account - this is because you may need to speak to a business specific banker. You MIGHT be able to walk strait in without one if its a big branch…
- Walk in with headed paper and tell them - ..Your details - they will ask you whether you are seeking finance, business address, your name, what your trading in, as and expected sales cash, offer you all sorts of crap (if your small start up its probably not cost effective to take an expensive option)
- Walk out with a business bank account - Its that easy - you’ll get a business debit card in 5-7 days along with a cheque book and paying in book and probably online business banking info. Done.
It’s that easy - the key is doing it early to start building a record of your company up - don’t hesitate or it might slow things down later.
Interested in starting a business? check out a few of my other business posts:
- Ebusiness Hyperlocal - How local should you operate your business? National or Hyperlocal?
- Good Business Books - Books helping you to make it in the modern business world
- 3 Tips for blogging in business - 3 Tips to keep your business blogging top notch!
Depending on your niche market which is the best to target - the world, your country, your county(state) or your town? Is there much point in creating a website just for your town - or is that essentially just riding the long tail? I have read economic reports that hint at progression for the internet market down the long tail, further into the realms of mass customisation - but will it happen? to what extent - and should we be building noahs ark like boats capable of holding extreme niche’s two by two?
As I said the current buzz word around the business net (I refer to the 50 odd sources of reading I have across economist blogs, bloggers making money, business and ebusiness) was niche - it has been for the last half a year. The niche flame doesn’t seem to be fading and a few people have become fairly rich by sticking with their niche long tails. But how far can this go? Half the money that was once in HMV’s pocket now lies in independent resellers pockets (the rest is probably in apples pockets but that’s a different story) - and that’s not a bad thing. But if it continues further down the tail does that mean half of the independent retailers cash will be handed out to home sellers with just 5 tracks available?
How niche is niche? Its a tough one to know how far to go when planning your next business or venture. Hyperlocal is in my opinion going to be nearly as bigger phrase as niche has become - except perhaps will have less people saying it wrong! The idea being that you don’t get more niche than a website that isn’t designed to be international - not even national - hell it is quite often aimed soley at one town - but would you go down to street level? Could a website relevant to your street work?
I like the concept of hyperlocal, I like the idea that the internet has come full circle - originally allowing us to contact anyone , anywhere in the world at any time for next to nothing, and now it lets your kids spend all of the evening on there chatting to their friend from down the street. It was an open sea of choice, and still is - more than ever. But it would seem people like the odd bit of familiar land in their sea. Out of infinite choice the things that stick are those aimed most at the users personality.
Based on your personality largely consisting of randoms - 50% of your personality is looking in the sea - your hobbies could be anything from hunting to hairdressing. But the other 50%, the parts of you that are similar to 80% of western civilisation are the simple things - home (shelter), transport (cars, trucks, bikes), relationships (wife, lover, girlfriend, boyfriend, son, daughter, grandma, grandad) and food (dining, breakfast, coffee, tea etc.) These are habitual, repeated things that we all (broadly speaking) do on a day to day basis.
So perhaps in a vane to target the stable online these are the things I would bother hyperlocalising, because hobbies, I expect are already pretty niche - or the long tail already exists. This is what I believe the thinking behind the american newspapers progressing to hyperlocal situations online is about. Because whatever you do in any given town, you probably know the newspaper. So by starting a hyper local website - just for the town, county or area the paper is stably expanding into the niche of locality.
The ability to progress into hyperlocal aspirations comes from the ability to efficiently provide online services. As the internet has evolved, progressed and carried the business’s using it along with it, it has created an extremely easy, open and cheap platform. Anyone can get hosting and a domain name now - easily for less money than they spend on shoe polish. So by the tools of the internet trade becoming cheaper and easier (mysql and php are a prime coupled example) it means that effectively creating a hyperlocal online scenario is cost effective. Before if you wanted to run a website you would have needed to cover your costs and so aiming at such a long tail niche as hyperlocal situations would never have covered its outlay (e.g. not enough people to visit to pay the bills.) But using templates, freely available data, free databases and a little web knowledge your could simply provide a seriously targeted level of attention.
In this way Hyperlocal is Niche, its an extreme geographical niche, but the way things are going it might not even be the end of the long tail!
If you liked this - then maybe try some recent posts I have written on business, economics, long tails and hyperlocal:
- Business Books - I give a quick review on my four current favourite reads to help you progress in life and business
- Entrepreneurship is for life not just for christmas - I dealve into enthusiasm and keeping your business going!
- Real World Optimising - Apply SEO to real life business
I am not a huge one for reading real copy, I seem to tend to read from a screen - Blogs, Articles and techy stuff. Maybe a response to my personality or simply a movement of times. I do intend to read the big texts, the greek philosophies, the better deeper books but not yet. Priorities and speed of life currently lean me to read for the moment. Technology and business perhaps goes hand in hand with currentness of news and freshness.
Either way when I do get round to holding a real book here’s what I currently recommend:
- 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Steven Covey - A very good book - far from the realms of most self help books - more of a life help book. I would highly recommend this book for all business people, entrepreneurs and people that want to get somewhere in life.
- The Long Tail: How Endless Choice Is Creating Unlimited Demand - Chris Anderson - Written by Chris Anderson - an editor at wired.com this book is a bit over statistical for my appreciation - but it is written by an economist! Still if you are interested in internet economies, business and markets online well worth the read.
- The Google Story - David A.Vise - Not completely through this one but for sheer relevance it should be on most peoples bookshelf for that moment you require the bigger picture influence.
- Art of Contrary Thinking -Humphrey B.Neil - A great book if you are looking for a quick but worthwhile read. I really have a liking for short and concise books like this. Great points on interesting business situations going back over the last century. Stock exchange mishaps and how to think the exact opposite of the whole crowd. Excellent real world reading.
I will stick the links in to Amazon - if you think you would also like the books - please buy through these links and then recommend it to a friend!
Blog-4-business.co.uk is a new blog aimed at online entrepreneurs everywhere, designed to provide a collective home for all online money making and business, b4b (Blog-4-Business) will offer a rest-bite for entrepreneurs when they are out of the work groove.
Content will cover all manner of online opportunity from a practical how to level to a theoretical, economical, predictions and perceptions of business today level.
Business concepts, new technology and online selling - when it comes to making your fortune the internet can probably claim a large proportion of credit for a lot of the billionaires out-there, lets use blog-4-business to make a whole lot more.
Blog-4-Business are also looking to recruit 2 online business writers to write 2-5 posts a week relating to online business.