Posted on January 7th, 2009

Reality Check -Guy Kawasaki interview

By leif

Posted Wednesday, January 7th, 2009

We had a nice turnout today for the interview with Guy Kawasaki -close to 300 people listened live, which is good numbers for live internet radio -and around a 100 joined us in the chat room asking some great questions.  This turnout is a clear example of the power of Twitter to garner attention in the moment (’nowsourcing’) as Guy tweeted about it right before the show.

 

Our interview was a bit longer than normal, but, like his book, was full of great tips and insights.  We talked about:

  • Top advice for entrepreneurs during these economic times (as usual)
  • Summary of his new book Reality Check
  • Why might Guy wear a Hooter’s costume?
  • His highlights at Macworld
  • Making use of the power of twitter
  • How to gain more visibility
  • His 3 word answer to “How to blog successfully”
  • How to use alltop.com to keep on top of your industry news
  • How might social networking sites make money?
  • His thoughts on internet radio
  • Many more great ideas…listen now
A transcipt of the show will be made available soon…
Enjoy the show!
 
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No Comments | Posted in Biznik Live

Posted on January 1st, 2009

Biznik Live interview with Norm Brodsky

By Dan McComb

Posted Thursday, January 1st, 2009

Listen to the show over the web:

 
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Here’s the transcript of Leif Hansen’s interview with Norm Brodsky on Biznik Live on Dec. 10, 2008.

 

 

Leif Hansen: Hello everybody and welcome back to Biznik Live, this is your host, Leif Hansen, broadcasting from Seattle, Washington on today, a fairly gray day but still beautiful and green. Biznik Live connects you with nationally recognized business authors whose powerful ideas will help you make successful choices for your business. 

In just a few moments, we will be talking with Norm Brodsky, author of “The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up”. But first a bit of background about Mr. Brodsky, for those of you who aren’t familiar with his excellent work. Norm Brodsky had already launched seven successful businesses, including a three-time Inc. 500 company, by the time he began writing the “Street Smarts” column in Inc. magazine with Bo Burlingham in 1995.

00:58 The column has proved to be enormously popular with readers of the magazine and was twice a finalist for a National Magazine Award. In 2008, it received a gold Azbee award from the American Society of Business Publication Editors. With the success of the column has come a flood of speaking invitations. And Brodsky now lectures widely and has become a frequent guest on MSNBC. And we are lucky to have him here on Biznik Live ourself. Norm, are you there with us? 

Norm Brodsky: I am, Leif. Thank you very much. I’m in New York and we have a gray day too, but not quite as green as in Seattle.

Leif Hansen: Yeah. You’ve got the gray of pavement down below also.

Norm Brodsky: We do, yes.

Leif Hansen: Have you been out to the northwest area much?

Norm Brodsky: I’ve been out to the northwest area but not as much as I’d like to be.

Leif Hansen: Great. Well if you come out here, we’ll set you up with a live meeting at Biznik, which is part of what we do, get people face to face for networking and learning about business.

Norm Brodsky: That’s a hard invitation to turn down.

01:57 Leif Hansen: Great! OK, we’ll book you for next week. [Laughter] First of all, I just want to say thank you for such a practical, just chock-full of information book. A lot of times these day you’ll get a book where there’s really just one point and an author will drum it. And by the end of the book you’re just saying, “Could you not just have sent this in a two-page eBook?” 

But this book is like sitting down with an experienced business coach who’s been doing this for years. And is trying to save you time, save you money, save you getting a lot of hard docks by giving you all the best secrets and just really, really have liked the book. I want to thank you for that.

Norm Brodsky: You know they say that a wise person learns from his or her own mistakes. And unfortunately through most of my business life I’ve been wise but smart people learn from the mistake of others. So the reason for this book is to try to make everybody wise instead of smart.

Leif Hansen: Very good! And those of us who are slow to learn from our own mistakes, or other mistakes, I guess we would be the stupid people.

02:59 Norm Brodsky: [Laughter] I don’t think so. As Sam Levenson once said, “You can’t live long enough to make all the mistakes yourself.” 

Leif Hansen: That’s true. That’s good. Well we’ve been starting off asking people to give a summary of their book but you know, your book has so many different points so I’m going to skip that and we’ll get into some more specific questions later on. But I would also like to ask you our traditional question we’ve been asking authors. And that is, with these current economic uncertain times, your audience right now are people who are a little nervous about having their own business. They’re either just getting started or they’re on their way but they’re wondering what they had. What are some of the top pieces of advice that you would suggest right now?

Norm Brodsky: Right now, everybody is very nervous and we are at a very critical stage of our economy but this time can be the best time particularly for start up entrepreneurs. Because when you start a new business, there are so many more opportunities now. You’re competing against people with fixed overheads and so you have a great advantage.

04:06 And for those of us who are already in business that have that fixed overheads, we have to look at things a little differently than ever before. And we have to, number one, ensure our employees that their jobs are secure if we can do that because you don’t want a nervous workforce. And when this ends, and it will end, you want to make sure you can keep your best people. 

And then there’s your customers. You got to think differently. And I’ll give you an example, about six months ago, not that long ago, the price of oil was $150 or $147 a barrel and gasoline was well into the $4 a gallon range. So most people, what they did, is they went out and they gave gasoline surcharges if they were in the delivery business or if some part of their thing had to do with trucking or things like that. What we did instead was sent a letter out to each of our clients saying, “During these tough economic times, we know it’s difficult for you. So we’re absorbing the increase in gasoline charges and you will not get a gasoline surcharge from us.”

05:11 Now that may cost us a few dollars but what we did, we then took that letter and went to all the prospects and all our competitors’ customers. And you know what, we got so much business, new business, that it more than paid for the surcharge that we might have charged in gasoline. So don’t follow the crowd. Think differently. 

Leif Hansen: Wow, that’s great! Any other specific advice that meets these times?

Norm Brodsky: Yes, absolutely! One of the things is that cash is king and it always is king. So you have to be very vigilant with your accounts receivable. Most people bill and they collect later. So when you make that sale it’s important that you identify the terms of payment. Most salespeople are really terrific. They make a sale and I usually ask them, “When are we getting paid?” And they say, “I didn’t ask.” You have to ask. What’s the company’s terms and what are their policies. So the receivable process starts at the beginning.

06:14 Now if you weren’t lucky enough or didn’t understand that, you have to now go to your customers and set policies on the receivables, because you’re like a bank to your customers. And a bank will not let you pass due without sending you notices or trying to collect. You must be the same way. 

Leif Hansen: Well that’s great. That reminds me of a question that we had emailed in but I’m going to get to that a little bit later. I’m curious, Norm, do you have any children?

Norm Brodsky: I do! I have two women — girls.

Leif Hansen: OK. And how old are they?

Norm Brodsky: They’re 33 and 22.

Leif Hansen: 33 and 22, OK. I want us to imagine that you’re sitting down and one of them is about to start off on a business venture. And you know that the majority — what is it statistically now? Something like 95% business, I don’t know, fail. How many fail within five years?

07:07 Norm Brodsky: That’s a really interesting thing, Leif. They say that four out of five businesses fail. And they say that they fail because of lack of capital and that’s really not true. They fail because they don’t use their capital properly. I was in business 20 years before I bought a new piece of furniture. I went to auction sales, I bought used furniture. I didn’t waste the money. 

There’s a story that I tell about how the software company were going into business. They were in California. They wanted to solicit me. They sent me beautiful stationary. And I called them up and I said, “This is beautiful stationary.” He said, “Oh, yeah!” He says, “We hired a consultant who matched our stationary with our office drapes and our carpeting. And we’re having this wonderful party.”

Now who’s going to go to a software party in California in the middle of the week from New York? And their customers, their prospects were all over the country. They wasted tens of thousands of dollars. And when they failed, they said, “We would have succeeded. We just didn’t have enough operating capital.” So one thing is watch your dollars.

08:13 The second thing that I would advise my daughters, because that’s the question. 

Leif Hansen: You knew where I was going.

Norm Brodsky: Yes. The second thing that I’d advise my daughters is don’t be overly optimistic when it comes to projecting sales. Because a lot of people they project a tremendous amount of sales and they don’t give themselves enough time to get to critical mass. And I define critical mass as living off your own cashflow where you don’t have to borrow money from banks, friends, relatives or wherever. And that’s the first important step in business, getting to the critical mass.

An example of that is, and it’s in the book, a couple came to me, Bobby and Helene Stone. And they wanted to start this business, a computer cleaning supply business. And I said, “You’ve got to come back with some projections for me.” And they did. And it showed their first month’s sales were $20,000. And I said to them, “How do you get sales?” They said, “We do telephone soliciting.” I said, “That’s fine. How many people do you sell out of every 10 people you call?” They said, “One.” I said, “How long does each phone call take and how much is each sale that you make the first sale you make?” And we figured out in order to get to $20,000 in the first month they had to work 32 hours a day, 7 days a week. So they were overly optimistic. So you can’t be overly optimistic.

09:38 And the final thing I would tell them is that they have to do a business plan and they have to hand write that business plan because a business plan really is for yourself. To make sure that you have enough capital to get to critical mass and you understand the numbers, how they interact. If you buy a canned program that does business plans, you’re just plugging in numbers. And let’s say you could raise $100,000 and your business plan says you need $250,000, well, people just change the numbers to fit the amount of money they get and that’s the wrong way of doing it. 

And when they do this business plan, it shows they need $100,000, I say to them, “For safety reasons, whatever you think you need, raise an additional 25% or start your business in a different way.” Because sometimes people can’t raise $125,000, maybe they can only raise $50,000 or $60,000. So maybe there’s another way to start their business. And that would be the opening advice that I’d give my daughters.

10:38 Leif Hansen: That’s great. Speaking of business plan, a question I had for you, you talked in the book about how important a life plan is and doing that before a business plan. Now that might seem obvious to some but to others maybe not. Can you talk a little bit about why you think that’s so important? 

Norm Brodsky: Yeah. I’ll give an example and part of it is in the book. A guy named Michael came to me and he was doing $1.2 million in business. And I said to him, “Why are you here, Michael?” — I do a lot of pro bono advising. And he said, “Because I want to take my business to $20 million in five years.”

And so the first question I ask is, “Why do you want to do that, Michael?” He says, “That’s really simple. The reason why I want to do it, there’s three reasons. One,” he says that, “I earn $60,000. I want to earn $120,000. Two, last year I only took three days off, I have three young kids, and I want to watch them grow up. And three, I want a house twice the size that I have it before.” And so I said, “Well that’s really interesting, Michael. Talk to your wife, see what she wants and come back in a week.”

11:42 And he did that. He spoke to his spouse and he says, “She wants the same thing only in a little different order. She says it’s really important that I shouldn’t miss my kids growing up. So one of the most important things to her is to spend more time with the kids, take more time off. It’d be really nice to have a bigger house and more money to spend but that’s what I want.” 

And I looked at Mike’s proposed business plan from going from $1.2 million to $20 million and his life plan of going from where he was to taking a few weeks off, to increasing the salary and building this house up. And I saw that they were destined to fail, both of them because if he took off another two weeks or three weeks, he wasn’t paying attention to the business. And so, the business plan and the life plan were going in two different directions.

So I decided that, “Michael, what’s the important thing to you? Is it your family?” And he said, “Yes.” I said, “So let’s head towards your life plan and see how you can get there and fit your business plan into that.” And when we took a look at it he wanted to take more time off. He wanted to double his salary. He wanted to have a bigger house. So we wanted to understand what he needed to accomplish there. And you know what he needed? He needed to take his business from $1.2 million to $3 million, that’s all.

13:00 So we built his business plan which is a lot different going from $1.2 million to $3 million, from $1.2 million to $20 million. And five years later, and I’m still in contact with Michael. As a matter of fact, he’s coming up here tomorrow afternoon. He was doing $3.4 million in sales; he had taken off three weeks a year. He shut his phone off after 6:00 and didn’t leave it on, on the weekends. He got himself a bigger house and of course he was earning more money and he was happy. 

So the life plan is so important and I, too, went through that. I built a business up from zero to $120 million in eight years. And of course I took that business from $120 million to zero in eight months. And I learned a lot of lessons from that. And the one thing I learned from that is I missed my first child growing up. You notice that my daughters are 11 years apart. And when I looked at what I did wrong, the first thing that came to mind is I missed the childhood of that one daughter. And I swore if I had another child I’d never do that again. So I had my life plan.

14:10 Leif Hansen: I’ve got a comment and a follow up question but before I say them I’d want our listeners know that you can ask questions on the chatroom. We’re going to take them after my next comment. You can also call the live number, (347) 884-8009 and ask Norm a question yourself. 

So my comment, just to bring home what you just said. On my iPhone is a picture of a drawing that my daughter made and she said — five years old. It’s in this broken handwriting. It’s says, “Jobs are not the only thing in your life.” Oh, man! Talk about a heartbreaker.

Norm Brodsky: What powerful words.

Leif Hansen: Yes and it really brought it home. Now there are authors and there’s a movement, I’m curious what you think about a book like Timothy Ferriss’ “4-Hour Workweek”. That takes this concept of life plan and really turning things inside out and not postponing your life until retirement to a pretty radical degree. Have you read that or what do you think about that?

15:10 Norm Brodsky: Here’s the deal, Leif. I don’t read business books and I’ll tell you why. We formulate all our thoughts and ideas from what we read. And so therefore, when I write I want my ideas to be my own as much as possible. So I don’t read that but I’ll tell you a little story. My wife wants to be when she’s 90 years old, she wants to be in a rocking chair on a porch somewhere. And instead of the person next to her saying, “I should have done this, I should have done that.” She wants him to say, “I did this, I did that.” And I think that’s our philosophy, so if that’s his philosophy that’s great. 

We do set up life plans and we’re a little older now so our life plans are only five years at a time, and we look at them every year. And one of our life plans was to take off 16 weeks a year. And this December, I will take off the last week of the year, which will be my 16th week. But we started this life plan, even tough it’s renewed every year for five years, we started it 12 years ago.

16:09 So it took us 12 years to get to that point. And in order for you to succeed and have your life plan, you have to plan for it. You can’t think about it in your head, you have to put it on paper and look at it all the time. You may not accomplish it. I do two life plans. I do one with my spouse for a longer-range period of time. Now it’s five years. If you’re younger, it could be 10 or 15 years. And then I do a yearly plan for myself. And I don’t succeed at everything that I put down. 

I’ll give you an example. Writing the book, I had that on my yearly plan for the last eight years and I finally succeeded this year in doing it. So I guess I can cross that off my list.

Leif Hansen: Congratulations.

Norm Brodsky: Thank you very much, but you know it takes planning to do that.

Leif Hansen: Yeah. That’s very true. Well I’m going to start asking some questions coming in here. From Life Remixed Radio, they ask you the question, “I own a speakers bureau and I’m struggling getting paying customers. Do you have any advice?”

17:14 Norm Brodsky: You’ve trouble getting paid or getting paying customers? 

Leif Hansen: Yes. Basically, from a speakers bureau perspective business, they’re struggling to get paying customers.

Norm Brodsky: To get paying customers. Well it’s hard to answer the question in a vacuum but what I would do, I’d be looking at what am I doing to get the customers themselves. And maybe one of the ways — most of the speakers bureaus have contacts with people. So if it was me, networking is a very, very powerful thing. I’m sure there are organizations throughout the country who has groups that meet together to hire speakers. I would go to one of those things because it’s nice to send emails, it’s nice to send mailers out, it’s nice to talk to people on the phone. But I find face to face meetings are so powerful. They see what you can do. You can look people in the eye. So get off your chair and go to some of these networking groups and meetings that do hire speakers. That’s what I would do.

18:20 Leif Hansen: Excellent. We have a question, was emailed in from Wendy, from San Diego. She says, “Norm, after reading the first chapter of your book I realized that I’m clueless about numbers and watching the metrics of my business. What is the quickest and most thorough way for me to learn without getting an MBA?” 

Norm Brodsky: You know that’s really an interesting question and that’s exactly why it’s the first chapter in the book. Most entrepreneurs don’t understand this but sales don’t run the business, employees don’t run the business, numbers run your business. And most people are afraid of them. I’d say 75% of everybody who starts a business usually comes from the sales side of things and that’s what I am. I’m a salesman.

And so we never — and remember what I told you about the first company went zero to $120 million to zero, right? And why did that happen? The first thing I did every morning is I asked one question. And you know what the question was, Leif?

19:22 Leif Hansen: No. 

Norm Brodsky: It was what did we do in sales yesterday? And so I was a top line guy and that was very important. It wasn’t after that business failed that I understood it wasn’t the top line, it was the gross margin line and the bottom line.

So learning certain numbers are not very difficult. And Wendy, you don’t need an MBA and you don’t need a college degree to do that and your accountant is helpless to help you do that. What you have to do is you have to find other people who run small businesses, not necessarily in your business, and you have to learn from them.

And it’s not a whole bunch of numbers that you have to follow. I get reports every Monday what I call “critical numbers” and they’re different in every business. And in my business, the archival/retrieval business, that number is sales, important; gross margins, important; and number of new boxes. And there’s a few two or three other numbers that I get. Real easy to get. Doesn’t take a CPA to get them for me, I can do it myself or have the people who are handling some of our accounting work do it themselves, but you must learn numbers.

20:36 There are a lot of good places around the country that do teach numbers. There’s one in Michigan, ARIS Business in Michigan — I’ll think of it in a second — has it. There’s a couple of good books out that can teach you basic numbers, but learn basic numbers because basic numbers run businesses. 

Leif Hansen: What’s your personal opinion of why people are so number phobic? What’s the deep thing going down?

Norm Brodsky: They’re frightened because they think there’s mystery in the numbers and they think they need accountants. Now, accountants are historians. Not that history doesn’t play an important part in your business but the time an accountant reports to you what you’re doing, it’s too late to see the changes that are coming.

In the book there too, you’ll see about Bobby and Helene Stone, one of the people that I work with pro bono, is that they track their numbers on a weekly basis. And what it showed them, it showed them a shift, a paradigm shift in their business because they saw the products they were selling and they saw the gross margins and they saw the shift coming. So they were able to take advantage of that.

21:45 And the same thing in most businesses, most small business owners if they track just a few of those numbers, it frightens them that they think that they have to, like Wendy, where she says, “Do I have to go back to school to do this?” You don’t have to do it. They’re frightened by it and do not be frightened by it. You don’t have to be an accountant to do those numbers. 

Leif Hansen: I wonder, Norm, I don’t mean to be pessimistic. But do you think it’s not just a fear of learning the numbers but is there something also in us that really is just starting a business because it’s a lot more fun and freer than working for someone? And is there something in us that resists the reality check that numbers give?

Norm Brodsky: That’s absolutely true. It’s easy to stick your head in the stand, especially on what you conceive as a weakness in yourself. And it’s true, you don’t want to know sometimes what’s going on but the only way to solve a problem — it’s too late when the problem explodes. You have to solve a problem as it’s happening. And if you don’t know it’s happening, you know what happens? You have choices as a problem’s happening. Once it’s done with and it explodes within your business, you have no choices. They’re made for you.

23:02 So a lot of people duck their head in the sand, wait until their problems explodes and the solution is already predestined because you don’t have any control over it. But if you pay attention and as this is happening, you can control it. You have choices in what to do. When you spent all your money and there’s no cash left in the bank, you have no choices. When you see that your cash is depleting and you have time to do something about it, you have an opportunity to do something so you have choices. And I believe that a lot of people, it is they don’t really want to see the reality of it. That’s true. 

Leif Hansen: Humbling but true. I’ve got a question for you about showing versus telling. There’s an excellent part in your book about that, that when it comes to selling it’s just a lot better to actually to show. Now that’s easier when you have a product. If you’re a service industry, say you run a retreat center, do you have any advice for us on how you do showing versus telling?

24:01 Norm Brodsky: Yes. Let’s say you have a retreat center for instance and you have a two and three-day seminars. And I’m not sure what specifically you’re saying but there’s a number of things you can do. One, you can invite them out to spend a part of a day at that seminar and you can show them what you can do. Two, you can take the referrals from the people that were there and show them that. 

So there’s a lot of things that you can do that are not that innovative. Most people who start businesses, entrepreneurs, they think differently than everybody else. So if you sit down and you think about ways of doing it, you can come up with something that you can do. I’m not a big believer in giving stuff away for nothing but I’m a big believer in being able to show what you can do. And you have an ability to do that even with a service.

Leif Hansen: So probably to the degree that it’s harder to communicate what you do. You would need to be a bit more compromising on the giveaway to be able to give someone an experience

25:06 Norm Brodsky: I don’t call it a giveaway because it isn’t. I’d call it a taste to do that. Listen, let’s take sleep away camps, right? Every year sleep away camps what they do is the younger siblings of the campers that are there, that are too young to come, they set up a week or three days for them to come and have the camping experience. And they do it at no cost or very low cost itself to show these young men and women, they ask their parents, “Geez, I loved that! Can I go back when I’m old enough next season?” So people do it now and there’s ways of doing it. 

Leif Hansen: That’s great. I’m going to ask you one last question, and remember we can take one more after that. Call in (347) 884-8009. I’m curious, Norm, what is it that surprises you time after time? I mean you get these questions emailed into you; you have people talking to you. What is it that just kind of almost drives crazy and surprises you time after time when you’re talking with businesses?

26:10 Norm Brodsky: I’ll tell you what it is. I call it the “Groundhog’s Day syndrome”. It’s that people tend to repeat the same mistake over and over and over again. I don’t know if you saw the movie “Groundhog’s Day” with Bill Murphy. 

Leif Hansen: I did, yes.

Norm Brodsky: But he had a chance the next day to make it better. And so, if you don’t sit down and take responsibility for the mistake you made, if you’re always blaming them on somebody else, you’re never going to change that method that you do. And you’re destined to repeat that over and over again. And I see this every day. People not taking responsibilities, blaming somebody else instead of, “Listen, I’m the person in charge and I made a mistake, what is it?” And if you search that out and take the responsibility, you say, “I get what we did wrong. We did wrong,” and change that, then you don’t fall into the Groundhog’s Day syndrome.

27:09 Leif Hansen: Have you heard the Einstein quote about the definition of insanity? 

Norm Brodsky: What’s that?

Leif Hansen: It’s exactly what he says, “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

Norm Brodsky: Different results, right. That’s what happens and that happens more times than you realize it.

Leif Hansen: Yeah. Well Norm, I want to thank you so much for giving us your time. This has been really good. I think what we all appreciate about you and your columns and just hearing you now and this book is that you’re just no nonsense, really straight, practical, in your face advice.

Norm Brodsky: I’d like to say one thing, Leif, if I can to sum up. We have a website. It’s called www.theknack.info. That’s theknack.info, not theknack.com. And we are running a contest where three winners will get three separate trips, all expense paid to New York to spend a day with me. Ask me any questions they like, help them with their business that’s ongoing or help them start a new business. So if they go to that website and take a small contest, then they can get to the next level.

28:13 Leif Hansen: That’s excellent! 

Norm Brodsky: Hopefully one of your listeners will be the winners.

Leif Hansen: Yeah! So I suggest you guys do that. That was theknack.info, so definitely show up there. Anything else that you would like to promote and how can we find out information about you? What’s the best way?

Norm Brodsky: If they go to theknack.info, which is the website, they can see upcoming events and what we’re doing. And if they haven’t read the book yet, it’s a must read for all people who are about to start their business or all people who are in small business for themselves. It’s chock-full of good tips and it shows you mistakes that I’ve made and other people have made and hopefully you won’t be the groundhog.

Leif Hansen: Thank you, Norm. We really appreciate you giving us our time and listeners, we appreciate you giving us your ear today. You can find out more about Norm at the website we just mentioned. You can find more about Biznik at biznik.com and hook up with other authors there. And just everybody else, have an excellent weekend. Thanks so much, Norm.

Norm Brodsky: Thank you!

Leif Hansen: Take care.

Norm Brodsky: Bye-bye.

Leif Hansen: Bye-bye.

No Comments | Posted in News

Posted on December 31st, 2008

Most prolific authors of 2008

By Dan McComb

Posted Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

These members published the most articles on Biznik in 2008:

Molly Gordon - 40 articles
Kare Anderson - 36 articles
Roy Primm - 22 articles
Howard Shore - 20 articles
Stephanie Ward - 20 articles
Kaya Singer - 19 articles
Stacy Karacostas - 18 articles
Gabriella Sannino - 16 articles
Zeke Camusion - 16 articles
Chris Haddad - 14 articles

No Comments | Posted in News

Posted on December 31st, 2008

Local Connectors: 2008 Biznik Ambassadors

By Dan McComb

Posted Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

At the close of 2008, Biznik has 9 Ambassadors - members who have committed to hosting local events, who build community and connections in their region. If you’re interested in becoming an Ambassador, the process is simple: host an event, and show us that you can get at least a handful of members to attend your events. Then drop me a message on Biznik, and let’s talk. 2009 is going to be a huge growth year, and we need connectors who want to be at the center of the Web 2.0 revolution in business community building. This is an exciting time to get involved.

Lori Richardson - 19 events
Tshombe Brown - 12 events
Maura Desimone - 9 events
Christa Patchen-Wagner 8 events
Aimee Gallo - 7 events
Katie DeBill - 5 events
Jim Carney - 3 events
Allan Smith - 2 events
Steve MacDonald - 2 events

2 Comments | Posted in News

Posted on December 31st, 2008

Most read articles of 2008

By Dan McComb

Posted Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

Maybe it was the provocative titles. Maybe it was the author’s name recognition. Maybe it was just really good stuff. Whatever it was, these articles were read more than any others published during 2008.

Why I Don’t Work Hourly And Neither Should You
by Chris Haddad | 3884 views

Freelancing Tips
by Lori Leach-Forster | 3843 views

5 Deadly Mistakes You Can’t Afford to Make While Social Networking
by Rick Itzkowich | 3602 views

How Not To Network
by Ilise Benun | 3591 views

Why Your Website *Sucks*
by Chris Haddad | 2988 views

Seattle Marketing Strategy: Six ways to persuade people and grow your business
by Joe Hage | 2759 views

10 Tips for Naming Your Company, Product, or Service
by Christopher Johnson | 2712 views

Seattle Marketing Strategy: Why real estate marketing is so hard
by Joe Hage | 2574 views

Financial Crisis 101: The Way it Works
by Kelleen Griffin | 2436 views

The Bermuda Triangle That Eats Your Referrals
by Mark Silver | 2359 views

Online Marketing: Everyone’s all a Twitter…
by Christian Messer | 2222 views

25 Creative Ways to gain NEW clients
by Megan Anderson | 2089 views

Social Networking for Non-geeks Who Want to Increase Their Business
by Rick Itzkowitch | 2033 views

Twitter for Beginners: The Basics
by Charlene Kingston | 2022 views

Seattle Marketing Strategy: The first three questions
by Joe Hage | 2006 views

When The Going Gets Tough…Small Businesses Fail: 10 Common Mistakes
by Jean-Pierre Ruiz | 1941 views

3 Comments | Posted in News

Posted on December 31st, 2008

Most discussed articles of 2008

By Dan McComb

Posted Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

These articles got members talking more than any others during 2008:

5 Deadly Mistakes You Can’t Afford to Make While Social Networking
by Rick Itzkowitch | 99 comments

Financial Crisis 101: The Way it Works
by Kelleen Griffin | 89 comments

16 Ways to Fill Your Events and Reduce Attrition Rate
by Karrie Kohlhaas | 69 comments

Online Marketing: Everyone’s all a Twitter…
by Christian Messer | 68 comments

Innerpreneurship and the Bigger Movement Afoot
by Tara Joyce | 54 comments

Seattle Marketing Strategy: Why real estate marketing is so hard
by Joe Hage | 53 comments

How to Blog without Having a Blog
by Elge Premeau | 53 comments

Twitter for Beginners: The Basics
by Cherlene Kingston | 52 comments

Why I Don’t Work Hourly And Neither Should You
by Chris Haddad | 52 comments

Why Your Website *Sucks*
by Chris Haddad | 52 comments

10 Tips to Writing Better Marketing Materials
by Lynn Baldwin-Rhoades | 49 comments

The 5 People You Meet on Biznik
by Kirk Davis | 49 comments

Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) – Bad News for Cheap SEO Copywriting
by Gabriella Sannino | 47 comments

Who’s in YOUR wallet? A Power Networking Strategy and Year End Inventory
by Zita Gustin | 46 comments

Business Networking: Joyful or dreadful - it’s all up to you!
by Zita Gustin | 45 comments

Taglines We Can Believe In
by Ed Sweet | 45 comments

No Comments | Posted in News

Posted on December 31st, 2008

The well respected and the highly connected: Biznik’s top connectors for 2008

By Dan McComb

Posted Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

On Biznik, we define a “connector” as someone who has not only used the invite tool (or personal invite link) to invite people to Biznik, but at least 10 of the people they’ve invited have followed that link and signed up. The fact that their invitees are actually signing up tells us that, more than the average member, these members are well respected and highly connected. We love connectors!

Here’s the top connectors for 2008 (the number listed to the right of their name is the number of members they’ve brought into Biznik over the past year - not including anyone who signed up without following their link, which is the only way we have to track this data). You want these people in your network!

Zita Gustin - 73
Howard Howell - 63
Molly Gordon - 61
Veronika Noize - 56
Katherine Wichmann Zacharias - 53
Lori Richardson - 44
Rick Itzkowitch - 33
Joe Hage - 33
Jeff Fisher - 30
Helen Martin - 29
Gary Pickering - 27
Megan Anderson - 24
Darnell Sue - 24
Jim Carney - 24
Elizabeth Lee - 23
Jeff Weir - 22
Hsuan-Hua Chang - 22
Leif Hansen - 22
Bill Doerr - 22
Dawn Thomas - 21
Steve Dalton - 21
Brian Crouch - 20
Andrey Rozmaity - 20
Jenny Dinh - 20
Karen Floyd - 20

No Comments | Posted in News

Posted on December 31st, 2008

Biznik gained 36 experts in 2008

By Dan McComb

Posted Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

We added articles in late 2007, and by January of 2008, the first member to earn Expert status was Chris Haddad. How do you become an expert? Simple: Write at least 4 articles which the community rates 8 or above. Of course, getting and maintaining that high of ratings is easier than it looks. That’s why, as the year winds down, just 36 members have earned the coveted expert badge. Here they are, listed in the order in which they earned the badge (newest expert at the bottom):

Chris Haddad
Pamela Ziemann
Zita Gustin
Rachel Whalley
Barry Hurd
Kare Anderson
David Losh
Mark Silver
Hsuan-Hua Chang, PCC, MS
Kaya Singer
Ilise Benun
Stacy Karacostas
Stephanie Ward
Joe Hage
Christian Piatt
Shannon Evans
Kelly Andrew Brown
Roy Primm
Molly Gordon
Evan Sohn
Wendy Weiss
Jack Fecker
Dan Sisson
Nancy Juetten
Jennifer Manlowe
Howard Shore
Jonathan Ng
Chuck Dennis
Gabriella Sannino
Rick Itzkowich
Ken Peters
Dennis Kelley
Conrad Vernon
Joy Gilfilen
Grant Robinson
Zeke Camusio

No Comments | Posted in News

Posted on December 31st, 2008

Top event hosts of ‘08

By Dan McComb

Posted Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

As the year winds down, I’d like to acknowledge the extraordinary contributions of some special Biznik members who have helped this community grow 341 percent over the past year. First up: event hosts. These are the members who, more than anyone else, do the heavy lifting of community building by bringing business people together face to face, where profitable connections really happen.

Here’s the top event hosts (members who hosted 10 or more events) with the number of events they hosted in 2008 (for purposes of this count, we counted only events which were attended by at least 1 person). Congratulations Howard - you are FAR and away the most prolific event host of 2008!

Howard Howell - 97
Tonya Kirkland - 40
Valerie Farris - 28
Lisa Bradley - 20
Lori Richardson - 19
Richard Whitaker - 19
Pamela Ziemann - 17
Hsuan-Hua Chang - 17
Bob Dunn - 16
Debbie Lacy - 15
Jack Fecker - 14
Dirk Farrell - 14
Tshombe Brown - 12
Kirk Spencer - 12
Sierra Faye Kennedy - 11
Joe Hage - 11
Brian Crouch - 10
Phil Greely - 10

No Comments | Posted in News

Posted on December 28th, 2008

Hold on!

By Lara Feltin

Posted Sunday, December 28th, 2008

Ah, metaphors for running your own business… Ever feel like you’re sledding face first down a snowy hill - completely blind to where you’re going as you pick up speed, while the six-year-old in you holds on tight and screams with pure exhilaration.

Uncle Dan with six-year-old niece, Christmas Day 2008.

“Uncle Dan” (Biznik Co-founder) with my six-year-old niece, Melia, on Christmas Day 2008.

4 Comments | Posted in News

Posted on December 13th, 2008

In-box improvement: Delete multiple messages

By Dan McComb

Posted Saturday, December 13th, 2008

On Friday evening we deployed a frequently requested improvement to Biznik’s messaging system: You can now delete multiple messages at once. Here’s how it works:

4 Comments | Posted in News

Posted on December 12th, 2008

Another queen of the ball

By Lara Feltin

Posted Friday, December 12th, 2008

Playing party hostess is one of my favorite things to do. For the upcoming Anti-Office Holiday Party next week, I get to be the queen of the ball decked out in my holiday finery. Today we’re excited to announce another queen of the ball, Brandi Pierce, aka the “color queen,” has come on board as a sponsor of the event.

With 7 years as an independent designer under her belt, Brandi knows the needs of the small independent business owner. This girl knows how to work social media, like Biznik, and how to create a strong online presence. Brandi and aShadow Design offer independent business people a full service design package. If you’re needing a new web site, she can start you off with helping you develop your brand. When you’re ready to start on the site, she can fold in the photography and graphic design pieces, and will design the web interface and back end. But she won’t stop there. All services include her personal commitment to educate her clients on how to make the most of their time online and market their new site once it’s launched.

As a sponsor of the Seattle Anti-Office Holiday Party, Brandi is offering two $100 gift certificates towards her services in a raffle. Participation in the raffle is free, you’ll simply need to put your business card in the vessel marked with her name, and be present for the drawing at 8pm. As a special bonus - anyone who clicks on her ad on the event page, will receive $50 off a design project. An offer fit for a queen.

1 Comment | Posted in News

Posted on December 11th, 2008

Walk softly and carry a big sign

By Dan McComb

Posted Thursday, December 11th, 2008

A big sign of a growing business is … a big sign! Biznik’s big new event sign was the result of a big collaborative effort. Designed by Biznik member Corbet Curfman, titled by member Tom McIntyre, and printed by member Rick Sader, it’s a perfect example of Biznik-style collaboration. And, it’s a sign that the Biznik IdeaExchange is working - Tom’s idea for titling the sign, “Give your business legs,” received the most votes from community members in the Biznik IdeaExchange.

You’ll get to see this sign in-person at the Biznik Anti-Office Holiday Party on Monday night. Which, by the way, currently has more than 130 RSVPs! And dozens of people have informed us they are bringing dates, so we know this is going to be a huge, memorable Biznik gathering at Havana Social Club on Monday evening. Can’t wait.

1 Comment | Posted in News

Posted on December 8th, 2008

Let’s eat cake AND help out the local food banks

By Lara Feltin

Posted Monday, December 8th, 2008

Ah, the keen dichotomy of the holiday season. On the one hand, it’s a time of indulgences. This December, I’ll take a string of days off work, and probably order one or two full-fat eggnog lattes simply because they’re on the menu. On the other hand, I’m reminded daily, that this year in particular many people don’t have work to take time off from, and are unable to put three sound meals on the table.

If you’d like to temper those indulgences, then organize a food drive for your local emergency shelter. You can put out a big box at a large event - Dan and I are collecting food at next week’s Biznik Anti-Office Holiday Party in Seattle. And you can collect a couple of cans at a small gathering too - my peer advisory group, a gaggle of 7 women I met on Biznik who meet monthly, are each bringing a donation to our December meeting, at our host’s suggestion.

The number of people using the food banks in Seattle has increased 17% since the crash in September. But to make matters worse, donations are down 40% from last year. Mayor Nickels issued a recent press release proposing a city budget increase to support emergency food banks. That will help. Together each one of us can help too.

If you’re coming to the Biznik holiday party next week, bring an item. If you’re hosting a Biznik event, ask the participants to bring an item. If you’re attending a gathering with a food drive, bring two items. Every little bit helps.

No Comments | Posted in News

Posted on December 7th, 2008

Biznik shop now open

By Dan McComb

Posted Sunday, December 7th, 2008

What’s the perfect gift for the Bizniker in your network? Hop over to http://shop.biznik.com, where you can purchase Biznik-branded tees, mugs, and more. And in case you’re wondering - this is NOT a cheap, print-on-demand kind of shop. The tees are 100 percent organic cotton, Alternative Apparel tees, which we had custom made via Biznik member Leslie Lippi’s B-Bam!

Biznik Shop

We’ve opened the shop with a handful of products that are all ready to ship immediately, and we’ll be adding more in the weeks and months ahead based on your feedback. So if you don’t see what you want, let us know.

1 Comment | Posted in News

Posted on December 3rd, 2008

Sit + Sip: when collaboration beats competition

By Lara Feltin

Posted Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

Sara Eizen has a company called Nest. Piper Lauri Salogga has a company called Natural Balance. Both do interior design and redesign, color consultation and organization. While I’ve known Sara to also do home staging and personal shopping, Piper applies Feng Shui to office spaces and calls it “Office Shui.” Upon meeting each of them you might feel they do variations of the exact same thing. Fold into the mix that they both live and work in central Seattle neighborhoods. They are both mothers of young children, appealing to new moms with a lot of clutter and not a lot of time. And they’re both on Biznik. Total competition right? Yes… but these two looked beyond the ways they compete and found a way to collaborate.

It started with Sara asking Piper to coffee. “Hey, it sounds like we do very similar things, and are both on Biznik. We have a lot in common, want to meet?” One coffee meeting led to regular walks around Greenlake, sometimes with strollers in hand. Six months later their relationship is going strong. What exactly do they have to offer one another? Don’t they worry about protecting their precious trade secrets?

Competition is real. But if you believe that there is enough work for everyone, you’re already one step ahead. Put your energy into developing a clear marketing message, establish a niche customer, demonstrate authenticity, integrity and professionalism in everything you do. Then reach out to your competition and look for ways you can support one another.

Sara and Piper have not become business partners and they don’t refer clients to one another. Each is capable and interested in presenting their own interpretation of the same service. Instead, they offer each other, camaraderie, support, inspiration and peer mentoring. Tonight, they’re co-hosting “Sit + Sip” - a free event “to bring people and ideas together, have fun and get inspired… to introduce you to some of the best green furnishings and practices in town.”

Sit + Sip Drink & Dream Green, at Camelion Design.
Wednesday, December 3rd
7-9pm
5300 Ballard Avenue NW
Seattle 98107
RSVP by emailing info@sitsip.com

Biznik is a community of forward thinking business people on similar paths as one another. Biznik’s mission is to connect great minds with interesting work. Sara and Piper connected on Biznik and two companies in competition with one another have benefited from the collaboration.

1 Comment | Posted in News

Posted on December 1st, 2008

Biznik seeks experienced team member; pants not required

By Dan McComb

Posted Monday, December 1st, 2008

If we had had to post a job listing to find our latest hire, that might have been it. Luckily for everyone concerned, we didn’t have to. Biznik’s newest team member, Christian Jacobsen, came to us the way a lot of good things come to us - via Biznik.

Some of you may already know Christian as Annie Jacobsen’s brother. Others as “that kilt guy.” We think of him as a business heavyweight with mad skills and a great smile who we’re thrilled to have playing on our team.

Christian most recently helped Seattle-based Utilikilts build an engaged customer community (knows how to use social media to promote unusual products - check). He’s also currently a Circus Contraption board member (if he can handle a circus, he can probably handle us - check). And he’s a veteran burner (can fashionably handle the heat - check). But that’s not all. From his profile:

Whether it was designing software applications for Apple or NASA, supporting people trying to get their head around the Java programming language, authoring and editing books, writing/editing weekly magazines, being a debt collector in Eastern Europe, enabling the spread of HIV/AIDS information throughout rural Africa, and even marketing Utilikilts to men worldwide, my roles have required clear communication across innumerable cultural and cognitive boundaries.

So if you run into a handlebar mustachioed guy at the anti-office holiday party this year, introduce yourself to Biznik’s newest team member and say, with us, “Welcome Christian! Where’s your pants?”

1 Comment | Posted in News

Posted on November 30th, 2008

Narrow your keywords and pinpoint your category to rank higher in search results

By Dan McComb

Posted Sunday, November 30th, 2008

I got an email today from Dug Lee, a Seattle psychotherapist, who asked me to review her Biznik profile and suggest ways that she could rank higher in search engine results. I’d like to share what I discovered in my investigation, because it’s a common mistake that I see happening on lots of otherwise great Biznik profiles. The good news is, with a little work, Dug can fix this, and so can you.

Dug’s profile looks pretty good on first glance - it’s immediately clear what she does. She’s got just one word, “Psychotherapist” in her profile’s “your job” field. I love the clarity of that. However, there are a lot of psychotherapists in Seattle.

Biznik provides you with two ways to approach the problem of standing out: the “your job” field, and categories. Here’s the rule of thumb: For terms that are highly competitive, you should make sure that you belong to a category that exactly matches that term. So in her case, she should belong to a category called “psychotherapist.” No one has created that category yet! To create a category, you have to be a supporting member - it’s one of the perks we provide top members. For example, if you Google “seattle speaker,” a very broad term that could include speaking on a huge variety of topics, you’ll find the Biznik speaker category comes up #1 on the first page of results. Not bad. If you’re a public speaker in Seattle, you’d likely want to be on that page.

Secondly, the “your job” field should contain a narrower definition of your keywords. Narrowing means adding another, qualifying term. For example, another Biznik member, Michelle Bales, has put “licensed psychotherapist” as her job title. If you google for “Seattle licensed psychotherapist” today, you’ll discover she comes up #3.

I think Dug can come up with a much better narrowing keyword than “licensed.” Think like someone looking for your services, and ask yourself: what term would they likely enter into a search engine to find me? In Dug’s case, I’d consider adding “family,” “individual,” “group” or “LGBT” to what you have now. Then sit back and watch yourself soar in the search results.

Final thought: On Biznik, participation = marketing. The more active you are, the more “food” the spiders have, and the higher you’ll appear.

1 Comment | Posted in News

Posted on November 29th, 2008

IdeaExchange winner Tom McIntire: Give your business legs

By Dan McComb

Posted Saturday, November 29th, 2008

Two months ago, Lara and I set out to create a new promotional postcard for Biznik. We tried a couple different approaches, but none really grabbed us. Then we hooked up with graphic designer Corbet Curfman, after he won the drawing to accompany Lara and I to the Seattle Business Monthly top 25 entrepreneurs awards night. We ended up hanging out with Corbet quite a bit that evening, and shortly afterward we hired him to take a stab at the project. We were thrilled with his design (see below). However, Corbet, Lara and I couldn’t agree on a catchy headline for the card.

During this time, I was reading Groundswell, a book about how social technology is transforming the future of business. Yes, business owner, you really should read it, too. One of the stories the authors (a pair of Forrester researchers) tell is about how salesforce.com created an IdeaExchange to engage their customers. In a nutshell, they built a Digg-like system that allowed their customers to submit and vote on ideas for improving their product. I read that and thought, hey, that’s a great idea, I’m going to do that.

A weekend later, the Biznik IdeaExchange was born. I used the open-source Pligg platform, which anyone can freely download, customize, and install. (The one drawback to installing a separate system such as this is that current Biznik members have to create a new, separate account to use it - something you’ve complained about loudly in the IdeaExchange. I hear you, and I agree - but we don’t currently have the programming staff at the moment to make it happen - insert we’re hiring here.)

In my email announcing the IdeaExchange, I shared my (lame) headline idea for the postcard, and asked members to propose better ones. And you did. Side note: we emailed invitations to only paying members of Biznik - first to Supporting members, then to Active members (although any members can join the IdeaExchange, we decided to specifically invite only paid members). In total, about 1,000 members received an invitation to participate in the IdeaExchange.

So far, 137 members have joined the IdeaExchange, who have submitted 72 ideas, made 143 comments and cast 289 votes. There are some great ideas in there. It’s clear to me that the IdeaExchange is going to become the preferred place for members to share their ideas with the community, and the place where the community can tell us which ones they really care about.

So. About that postcard. Did the IdeaExchange succeed in tapping the wisdom of the crowd to solve our creative dilemma?

Yes. There were a lot of, um, shall we say “cute” ideas like “Toad-ally awesome social networking” and “The best online networking by a tad, poll shows.” But only one of the ideas received enough votes to make it onto the home page: “Give your business legs.” That has a nice ring, doesn’t it?

growing a business?

It’s no surprise to me that Tom McIntire is the brains behind this idea. His Biznik “what I do best” profile reads: “Helping people figure out what they want to say with a site or video and making it happen.” Tom used to work at Adobe as a content manager and community builder. I had coffee with him a couple weeks ago (before I knew that he was the originator of this idea) and learned more about his mad skills.

“My experience ranges from content management to Web analytics to online community management to communications to writing to directing to video production and post-production,” he says. “I wear a lot of hats by choice and tend to focus on doing what needs doing. In addition to the day-to-day stuff, previous employers have sought out my advice on everything from creative direction to strategic planning.”

Thank you, Tom, for sharing your idea with us. And thank you to the entire community for voting it to the top. Everyone involved benefits in this kind of exchange, and that’s the way business should be.

Forward looking statement: I’ll be blogging soon about some of the other great ideas that are bubbling to the top in the Biznik IdeaExchange. So if you haven’t created an account there yet, do it now … and see if your idea has legs.

No Comments | Posted in News

Posted on November 28th, 2008

John Gerzema “The Brand Bubble” Biznik Live Interview

By leif

Posted Friday, November 28th, 2008

 

This interview wth John Gerzema, author of “The Brand Bubble: The Looming Crisis in Brand Value & How to Avoid It”, was another intriguing one.  John was an easy guest to converse with, and his advice on increasing the power of your brand through Vision, Invention & Dynamism was fascinating.

Personally, I made an internal shift starting with this interview.  It was a shift to try and pay more attention to my natural curiosity within the conversation, rather than the scripts and technology in front of me. In previous shows, a combination of trying to pay attention to my own notes, text questions coming in from the audience and watching the call queue, all made it hard for me stay genuine and engaged in the conversation. I really don’t like that. Needless to say, while there was still some distractions, I was able to ‘enjoy’ this conversation and remain engaged more than previous Biznik Live shows.

Listen to this show and you’ll find out:

  • Why there is a general societal trend to trust brands less and less.
  • Which companies are actually increasing recognition and trust in their brand, and why.
  • What you can do to help increase the power of your brand.

 
icon for podpress  Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Transcript of Interview with John Gerzema (after jump)

Read the rest of this entry »

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Biznik Live