Coming Soon: My New Online Business

Over the next few months, I’m going to start a new business venture. At the same time, I’ll document it here in hopes that it will take a lot of the abstract concepts we talk about with online businesses and demonstrate them in a concrete way (I’m very concrete and always want to know how to apply concepts).

Why start yet another online business?

Aside from my interest in trying new things and keeping my options open, I have some pretty compelling time-based motivation: I recently got pregnant, and my husband and I agree that we want the baby to be my first priority—my job—once it is born.

With my current business model, that’s tricky. I’m mostly doing custom work for individual clients, which is interesting (I like the challenge of tackling new projects often) but necessarily very deadline-driven. It’s keeping me hopping 50 hours a week, and is not well-suited to the unpredictable schedule of a new baby.

The inspiration

I could simply cut back my hours, but I’ve found that’s easier said than done. Even when there are no new clients (I have experimented in the past with not accepting any new clients), the existing clients come up with new projects or need maintenance work done.

Because some of these requests are common, I’ve started creating new “standard” services to meet the clients’ needs while not overloading myself.

For instance, whenever WordPress comes out with a new version, I get requests to upgrade blogs, so I’ve launched a subscription-based upgrade service that meets this need while adding the predictability I need to schedule the work in. I’ve also intentionally turned it into a well-documented system so that my assistant can take care of the run-of-the-mill upgrades, making it much less dependent on my own availability.

Goals of the new business plan

Based on what’s worked for me in the past and the new constraints I’ll be working within, my ideal new venture…

• Serves many clients at once. I’ve typically worked with one client at a time, which is great for personalized service but just doesn’t scale well. When I build a system that many clients can use, it becomes easier to support (a manual is created that staff and clients can refer to; everyone benefits from upgrades; it’s easier to determine what requests are really important vs. one client’s whim).
• Can be developed once and then set free. This suits both my attention span and the time I’ll have available. Ongoing obligations make me crazy, and this model will let me try many different ideas, run with them until they’re stable, and then reduce marketing to a system my staff can do.
• Is subscription-based. This isn’t always a viable option, but when possible, I prefer to provide ongoing value in exchange for ongoing income. It means I can spend more time creating tools and information, and less time hunting down new customers.
• Provides an excellent ROI for the client. This is based both in ethics and good business. I won’t sell something I don’t believe is a good investment, and always providing a good value also makes it easier to sell and easier to retain good customers.

The next step

I’m going to choose just one idea (out of the many I’d love to try) and commit to it.

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Hiring priorities

Ankesh Kothari over at Marketing eYe is in the habit of telling stories and drawing excellent “action summaries” from them (I am a great fan of action steps). Here is a very important action step from one of his latest posts:

Hire employees who can make your clients feel comfortable… even if they aren’t that talented. You can teach your employees stuff like stock keeping, accounting etc. But its very hard to teach them “people skills.”

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Likeability

I’ve recently been enjoying the audiobook Love is the killer app by Tim Sanders. I recommend it highly! I wanted to learn more about Tim, so I searched for his site and found timsanders.com. At first I was disappointed that he doesn’t have a blog (because of course I need more things to read—ha!), but then I discovered some great resources on his site. I just spent the better part of an hour watching a “video preview” promoting his next book, The likeability factor (you can find the video at the bottom of the About Tim page). Basically, your “likeability factor” is made up of four components. In case you don’t have time to watch it (heck, I probably wouldn’t have started watching it if I’d realized right away how long it was, but it was worth it!), here are my notes:

1. Friendliness
Communicating “I like you,” “I want to help you,” and “You”re welcome.”
Action step: Smile! Be willing to help people!

2. Relevance
Mattering to the people around you, the people with whom you interact regularly. Connect with peoples’ wants and needs.
Action step: Write down your interests and hobbies. Then write down the interests or hobbies of the person you want to connect with. Look for intersections; these are areas where you can be sincerely relevant to the other person.

3. Empathy
Receive messages about feelings; experience and show an interest in the feelings of others.
Action step: Give the other person more time to talk that you do. Ask, don’t tell. Don’t try to solve anything, just listen. Ask about feelings. Help identify the unmet need.

4. Keeping it real
Remember who you are, where you came from, and don’t violate that. Your personal mission statement; why are you here?
Action steps: Write a manifesto. Identify your values. Identify 12 events since you were a child that have defined you. Don’t give insincere praise. Moments of truth: Admit your mistakes; be fully engaged when you’re with someone; be generous with yourself (show passions and emotions).

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Typoraphy and readership

I just stumbled upon a post from October that highlights some great information from Ogilvy on Advertising. I highly recommend you read this post from Marketing Tom. It’s got timeless information to help you improve your readership, regardless of the medium.

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Don’t waste your money

If you’re spending money on advertising, make sure your staff is up to the task of customer service. Here’s a story that illustrates this perfectly, from the weekly Small Business Brief newsletter:

I had an experience this past week that tied in to the “Ads Don’t Sell, People Do” article found below. A local store advertised three dollars off the Incredibles movie which came out last week. Well, I went into the store early one morning and walked all over the place looking for the dvd on sale (with the ad in my hands, I might add). The clerk and the manager saw me walking all over the place and didn’t bother to ask me if I needed help.

Finally, I went up to the co unter and asked the clerk if they had the dvd they had advertised. She said “I don’t know, let me ask the manager” who was yapping (it sounded like a friend he was talking to). She mentioned something to him real quick and he just kept talking and she walked away. I had the “hey dude, I know you are going to help me” look on my face when he glanced my way. I put my ad in front of him on the counter and walked out.

Spending money on adverting is wasting money if you are not going to follow it up with good customer service to secure the sale. Also, making sure your advertised items are out on display and easily accessible for your customers to retrieve is important. I went to another store (my kids would die if I didn’t get the movie) and paid full price but the customer service from the clerk in the store was excellent and I left a satisfied customer and I might add, a returning customer.

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A great marketing resource

Seth Godin, famous for his marketing books (particularly Purple Cow), has a new blog: Liar’s Blog. It’s promotional material for his new book based on his assertation that “all marketers are liars”, but don’t discount it for its propoganda potential; Seth has some great ideas and the blog highlights some fascinating case studies. If you have the time to keep up with his fairly prolific posting, you’ll be ahead of the game (if you don’t have time, don’t worry too much because I’ll keep an eye on his blog and bring particularly important posts to your attention here).

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