Tag Archives: Online

How Do You Expand Business Internationally? Five Suggestions

Situation: The President of a company wants to expand its business in Europe, but has limited resources, particularly in terms of personnel. What have others learned from their international business opportunities? What has worked and what hasn’t? How do you expand business internationally?
Advice from the CEOs:
• Hire a Business Development person to develop your European business. You want to find an individual who has experience working with international partners as well as their clients.
• Allocate budget not just for the individual hired, but also the travel budget to fund extended trips.
• Plan for time to train existing and interested international partners to sell or service your offering.
• Hire an individual who is at least minimally comfortable with the language or languages of your prospective European partners. While most European business people are fluent in English, they appreciate foreigners who at least make the effort to speak their language.
• Network with local and online resources to identify both potential customers and allies in Europe who can assist you. LinkedIn is international and a good way to search for both customer and partnership opportunities. Check your local Chamber of Commerce for others who are engaged in international business and network with them. Utilize networking organizations such as the Alliance for Corporate Growth which has chapters around the country and internationally. Connect with the International Trade Administration’s U.S. Commercial Service. They specialize in promoting export opportunities for American companies. Partner with a venture capitalist who has European contacts and who may be interested in supporting your efforts.

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How Do You Attract Investment to a Small Company? Four Perspectives

Situation: A small company seeks outside investment to support its growth. The company’s industry is dominated by large, well-recognized players. These companies have historically been the company’s customers; however, they have a quarterly mindset, and are increasingly looking to support their own development groups. How do you attract investment to a small company?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • What is the company’s ROI and risk profile?
    • Positive ROI, particularly taking advantage of new distribution channels.
    • ROI turnaround is typically 1-2 years.
    • There are about 50 similar companies in the market.
    • The company possesses intellectual property that makes it appealing.
    • Project maturity is generally considered a risk in the industry – it is not as experienced or mature as other industries.
    • An additional risk is that new developments in online distribution are continually changing the industry environment in unpredictable ways.
  • Investigate and approach companies in other industries with similar structures – dominated by large players but with a healthy presence of smaller companies. Examples include the movie industry and real estate pools.
    • Talk to investors who are familiar with these industries to see whether they would be interested in investing in the company’s projects.
  • There is a good deal of money out there looking to beat the current returns available through the stock market and paper investments. Look for an angel investor.
  • Given the Risk/Reward structure of the industry, approaching professional investors may be the best bet for the company.

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How Do You Increase Brand Awareness? Six Observations

Situation: A CEO wants to increase brand awareness for her company and its primary service. The objective is to increase the client base and drive revenue growth. They have identified their primary growth opportunity and differentiating advantage. What else should they do? How do you increase brand awareness?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • What is lacking is a clear vision, path, and marketing plan. These are prerequisites to deciding either the solution or hiring a high caliber individual to execute the plan.
  • What steps are involved?
    • Survey 20% of current clients. Ask “why did you choose us?”
    • Develop the tools to track and show clients service performance online.
    • Use these same tools to show company performance online.
    • Tune messaging to potential clients to highlight demonstrated service performance.
    • Play elite – as the company’s name and reputation grow, clients should aspire to being accepted as clients.
  • Think long-term.
    • What is unique about the company’s ability to manage and extend the longevity of clients’ key assets?
    • How well prepared are potential clients to manage this on their own?
    • How does the company help potential clients to manage and extend the life of those assets?
  • Once there is a clear plan, fine-tune the internal focus of the company to align with the plan.
  • Increase involvement in communities where potential clients are found.
    • Host seminars and webinars on relevant topics.
    • Evening seminars in locations that potential customers congregate – existing clients attend and bring a friend.
    • Focus on referrals from existing clients – with a reward – a free consultation.
    • Look for non-competing service providers who can be good referral sources.
  • Make it easy for potential clients to switch. Use mass-marketing to spread the word with a multi-tiered approach to different segments of the target market.

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Do You Promote an Employee with Limited English? Five Points

Situation: The CEO of a small but profitable company has a promising employee who she wants to promote to a supervisor role. The challenge is that this employee has limited English. Promoting this individual may upset the current supervisor. Do you promote an employee with limited English?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Before making any decisions consider taking the “lead” position in manufacturing short-term instead of promoting or hiring a supervisor.
    • This will allow you to fully understand the manufacturing operations, as well as any points of art in the operation that can serve as the company’s foundation IP.
  • To think about the role of supervisor or Plant Manager, visit a Starbuck’s for an hour and watch the Starbucks Manager. This individual will, over the course of the hour, perform all functions within the establishment. This is a good model for a hands-on supervisor for a small operation.
  • Given the small size of the current operation, look for a more modest role for the position. Instead of Operations Manager perhaps Plant Manager. This will allow the individual time to grow into a larger role as the company grows.
  • How should the message be delivered to the promising employee with limited English as well as to the current supervisor?
    • Tell the employee “We like you and think that you have real potential. Would you be interested in an English as a second language course to build your English skills? We’ll pay for the course.” It is important to be enthusiastic and positive with the individual as you have this conversation.
    • A supplemental alternative is to reimburse the individual’s use of one of the online programs like Babbel or Duolingo that enables learning or improvement of language skills using a mobile phone. These programs are inexpensive and highly effective with diligent practice.
    • Promoting this individual above the current supervisor may generate a problem. This doesn’t prevent the promotion. Just assure that it is done carefully and be prepared for the current supervisor’s reaction.
  • When it is timely, instead of promoting this individual immediately, consider offering a temporary lead role for key tasks of increasing levels of responsibility. This will allow time for the individual to prove their merit and capabilities to others over 2-3 months.

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How Do You Manage Employees Expenses? Three Thoughts

Situation: A company does not pay a lot of employees’ expenses but does pay mileage expenses for sales people and a car allowances to the sales manager. Sales people are paid 20% base and 80% commission. The CEO is interested in how other companies handle employee expenses. How do you manage employee expenses?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • If you pay mileage, require that employees receiving mileage allowances to keep a log of business mileage:
    • They should track where they went, with whom they met, what the mileage was, etc. To assist employee compliance while respecting employee time, make it simple using Excel spreadsheets or an online tracker.
    • Don’t pay any mileage expenses without submission of proper documentation.
  • Fire a thief. If you catch an employee cheating on their mileage expenses, let them go. This is an important example for others.
  • For car allowances – ask CEOs of other local companies in markets similar to yours what their policy is. If it turns out that your policy is overly generous, consider cutting or reducing your allowance.

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How Do You Keep Customers and Employees Updated? Five Points

Situation: A company wants to keep both customers and employees up to date on what is happening within the company. This includes announcements of new products, services and initiatives, changes in personnel policy and benefits, and other information important to both customers and employees. The CEO is considering a company newsletter. How do you keep customers and employees updated and what benefits do you accrue from the effort?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Customers and employees are two different audiences and require different communications. Externally focused company newsletters are a value-add from a marketing perspective and enhance the image of the company in the eyes of clients and prospects. Internal company newsletters are valuable to reinforce vision, understanding of company policy, and inter-departmental alignment.
  • Both efforts are justified from a time and expense standpoint, and perhaps deserve even more focus.
  • Within the companies represented around the table, frequency of both internal and external newsletters varies from semi-annual to monthly publications.
  • Both print and online newsletters have value. Employees respond positively to both. Print media make it easier for them to share important updates in benefits and excitement about company developments with their families. Online media can be updated more frequently and inexpensively, and the HR department can track the number of views to measure impact.
  • Emailed external newsletters are valuable because they enable you to measure ROI from the effort by building in tracking mechanisms and correlating web page hits to business development and revenue.

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How Do You Move a Live Online Data Center? Seven Suggestions

Situation: A company has run out of space and is planning a move to a new and larger facility. The biggest challenge is that they maintain a live online data center upon which their clients depend. How do you move a live online data center?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • This is not a rare event. Many companies with live online data centers have to upgrade their systems on a regular basis as equipment and software technologies evolve. Maintaining service during a move is not significantly different. Research what steps these companies have taken to minimize disruption during upgrades.
  • Don’t try to do it all by yourself. Seek outside expertise to help you plan the move, and to develop options that will minimize both downtime and service interruption.
  • Ask a trusted data center resource for a 3rd party audit of your move plan.
  • When one company moved, they overlapped their leases by one month, and their Internet connections by 2-3 months. This gave them breathing room as they completed the move and allowed them to stay live uninterrupted through the move.
  • Another company increased their back up servers and service. They also planned their move to occur during what they knew would be a low demand block of time. As a result, they were able to complete the move, plug in the servers and were only down for 30 minutes.
  • If it is feasible, consider leaving your old center in place as a back-up data center.
  • Conduct a number of practice shutdowns and restarts to test your systems.

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Why Do You Need Uberinfluencers? Four Factors

Interview with Skip Brand, CEO, Martini Media Network

Situation: Thanks to the rise of social media, the 10-20 million individuals who were the influencers with the most purchasing power have increased to 70 million. Within the influencer group, there is a sub group deemed “uberinfluencers” who have the most influence. How do marketers reach the uberinfluencers and why are they so important?

Advice from Skip Brand:

  • Uberinfluencers increasingly spend more time online, are twice as likely to make a purchase, and spend three times as much per acquisition when they do purchase. Also, they always share new product experiences with friends and family via different social media (Facebook, Twitter, Blog’s, etc). For the first time, consumers control a brand’s reputation and are able to set the brand’s tone and image. This is why marketers need to focus more dollars to get in front of this audience.
    • Uberinfluencers spend more time online than the general US population. They are brand savvy, digital savvy and socially networked.
    • They have diverse and specific interests and leverage the Internet extensively to connect with their passion areas. Niche sites appeal to this audience because of the specificity and existence of community. If you better understand where these people spend their time at work and play –you are better positioned to leverage their influence.
  • The company that wants to reach and leverage these uberinfluencers needs to be scalable, exciting and relevant.
    • For this audience, small is beautiful and also scalable. Let’s use the example of golf, a passion for many uberinfluencers. Your site should feature the highest quality courses and equipment if you want to reach 50% or more of this target audience. It must be easy to navigate, provide enough information to make them feel comfortable about product selection, and have a social component to help them broadcast your message.
    • Uberinfluencers spend time on sites that are exciting, engaging and which have a single share of voice. This means one focused ad per page instead of multiple ads.
    • Particularly in a recessionary market the site must work diligently to maintain relevance by continually enhancing site content to provide a fresh experience with every visit.
    • Marketers should put uberinfluencers at the center of their media buy and strategy.
  • To attract and leverage this audience you must maintain a maniacal focus. Reach out to them using social networking tools, which find uberinfluencers where they work and play on the web. Let’s illustrate this with an example.
    • Let’s say that your uberinfluencer is a digital media executive. You will find them on social networking sites because they are living what they are doing. Put the right message in front of them. If they buy they will spend more, but it’s even better if they tell 10 friends about you.
  • Once you start figuring out the keys that attract uberinfluencers, they will start telling each other about you and news of your product will spread across the web, in turn maximizing your revenue!

You can contact Skip Brand at [email protected]

Key Words: Strategy, Sales, Marketing, Uberinfluencer, Social, Network, Media, Purchase, Opinion, Influence, Online, Work, Play, Hobby, Niche, Scalable, Exciting, Relevant, Focus, Viral

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