Q & A: Uncovering the hidden agenda
According to Kevin Allen, we pitch business ideas every day. But how do we ensure our pitches will be successful? Allen’s forthcoming book, The Hidden Agenda, teaches readers how to connect to their audience on an emotional level in order to win pitches. Entrepreneurial spoke with Allen about how to find and connect to what he calls the hidden agenda.
You write in your book that each of us makes a pitch every day. What do you mean by that?
Whether you’re trying to get a group of people to follow you for the first time who you’ve hired or you’re running a small company, at the end of the day there’s an organization you’re trying to reach and connect with. In business (that’s) an audience that you’re trying to get to do what you want them to do and to buy your product. So the notion of pitching, that is reaching someone and connecting with them so they will follow you is a universal thing in business we do each and every day.
What do you mean by the title of your book, Hidden Agenda?
Over the years of pitching, I realized that behind every decision is an emotional desire. People don’t buy with their heads, they buy with their hearts.
While everyone was listening for the functional stuff (in meetings), my antenna would go up and I would say I think this person is nervous or this person has an ambition. If I could connect with that in the form of what makes me special or what I believe or maybe establishing a shared ambition, I’ll connect with them and they’ll believe in my business. Once I started to codify this and use this as a process, we won much of the time.
First, it’s putting yourself in a relationship of empathy with your prospect to understand what keeps them up at night, what they aspire to, what they believe in. But that’s only half the job. The other half is reaching inside yourself, your core, to see what makes me special? Or what is it I believe or what ambition do I have? Often connecting to that hidden agenda is the magic.
Obama’s vision splits small businesses
Last night’s State of the Union address from President Barack Obama left small business owners divided over his plans for economic recovery which included eliminating tax perks for companies that offshore jobs and beefing up training stimulus for technology jobs. Here is a roundup of what stakeholders are saying around the blogosphere:
Atlanta small business leaders were skeptical and angry about some of the proposals put forth by Obama and scoffing at what they perceive as a growing regulatory environment while cringing at the thought of a minimum tax on the wealthy, reports WSB Radio.com.
The American Small Business League declares Obama ignored the needs of small businesses; a major contributer to the economy as they create 90 percent of new jobs. The group that represents 98 percent of U.S. companies (those with fewer than 100 employees) takes particular issue with contract abuse which sees federal small business contracts beign awarded to large businesses. This year that figure is over $6.6 billion.
VentureBeat says Obama recognized startups and entrepreneurs for creating new jobs, and called for reforms that would support everyone who “aspires to become the next Steve Jobs”. Specifically, an end to regulations that prevent entrepreneurs from getting financing, tax breaks for small businesses creating jobs, immigration reform, and more training for technology jobs.
Huffington Post reported that economists and business leaders said the speech offered little that would move the needle in the jobs market. “The best retraining program is called a job,” Kevin L. Kearns, president of the Business and Industry Council, is quoted as saying.
The Washington Post reported small businesses were looking for a remedy for uncertainty. “Especially for small businesses, the threat of new taxes and changing regulations goes right to their bottom line,” Dan Danner, president of the National Federation of Independent Business is reported as saying ahead of the SOTU address.
from MediaFile:
Why are cheap startups so expensive?
Starting up a Web company is never easy, but at least it's not as expensive as it used to be. Instead of buying and maintaining an IT infrastructure, as they had to do in the dotcom boom, startups now turn to cloud server services like Amazon's. Instead of costly proprietary software, OpenOffice and Google offer cheaper (or free) options. Instead of paying office rent, employees can work from home. And the viral power of social media can bring new customers with little marketing. Open-source projects and the durability of Moore's Law promise to lower costs even further.
But if it's cheaper than ever to fund a startup's growth, why are some Web companies receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in financing? And why are valuations rising quarter after quarter, to the point where some venture capitalists are complaining that certain startups have simply gotten too expensive to invest in? How is it that Web companies are becoming both cheaper and more expensive? Are VCs valuing companies on fundamentals, or following the market's momentum?
Such questions might seem academic, except that the gap between startup costs and valuations keeps widening. The last six months alone have seen a surprising number of nine-digit venture rounds. In July, Airbnb, a home-sharing startup that had 130 employees, raised $112 million in a round that valued the company at $1.3 billion. A week later, Twitter, which had 600 employees, raised $800 million (half going to cash out early investors), valuing it at $8.4 billion. In October, online-storage company Dropbox, another small company of 70 employees, said it raised $250 million in a round valuing the company at $4 billion. And just last month, group-buying company LivingSocial closed a $176 million round, vowing to raise an even larger amount in the coming months.
There are two key reasons for such outsize venture investments – one strategic and one emotional. The strategic is that startups that have built a loyal customer base and strong word of mouth often solicit big investments to scale up in a nascent or highly competitive market. So, for example, Airbnb is building on its early success to expand internationally and bring in more users. And LivingSocial is looking for a bigger share of a group-buying market that once belonged to Groupon.
“There's not a lot of value in second place,” Ryan Moore, a partner at Atlas Venture in Cambridge, Massachusetts, told Reuters. “If you have an interesting model, you spend aggressively and build aggressively to win in your category. There are a lot of situations out there where people are betting big.” In accepting a large investment round, a small startup may be banking on ambitious growth, or even preparing against the risk that the capital markets may slow down.
The second, more emotional reason is that these companies are raising all that money simply because people are willing to give it to them. This is especially common in early rounds, where valuing a startup relies less on metrics. As a result, the correlation between what it costs a company to grow successfully and what investors decide it's worth has become looser, especially in Internet startups.
“You have companies raising far more money than they know what to do with, simply because valuations are high,” says Josh Goldman, a partner at Norwest Venture Partners. “They can raise money now – and put it away for a war chest or for future needs that they can't even anticipate now – because investors are tripping over themselves to give it to them.”
How to sell anything using social media
This article by John Jantsch first appeared on Duct Tape Marketing. Any opinions expressed are his own.
One of my predictions for 2012 is that more people will come to understand that you can indeed do business using social networks and, frankly, I’m already seeing it.
First off, people are getting more comfortable with social media and social behavior. The idea is fading that social media is a pure engagement temple mentality.
More importantly, however, is that smart marketers are testing, tweaking and trying lots of things and figuring out how to build know, like and trust – the path to selling anything, anywhere – on social networks.
In my own experimenting I can tell you that generating and converting leads using social media takes a more patient approach, but once you find the right path, it’s actually a better way to sell in any environment.
The reason I see many people’s social media marketing efforts fail is that they are still simply broadcasting sales messages. This approach still works to some degree in an advertising setting because people often stumble upon your ads with a buying intent. It still works to some degree in email marketing efforts because people have asked to get your messages and you can easily earn the right to sell in that relationship.
However, most people don’t participate in social networks to shop so any sales message can feel sort of harsh and in the snack sized, feverish world of tweets, shares and likes any and all messages are very easy to ignore.
2012: The year of the artist-entrepreneur
(This article by Michael Wolf originally appeared in GigaOm.)
(GigaOm) – While 2011 was a big year for political unrest, another uprising was afoot in the world of content creators and artists. Everywhere you look, artists are taking more control over their own economic well being, in large part because the Internet has enabled them to do so. You see it in all forms of content, from books, to video to music.
A few examples from this year:
e-books: Probably the most active area in large part because there is huge shifts taking place in digital publishing. From former mid-list writers like Barry Eisler to superstars like JK Rowling, writers are increasingly making waves in digital publishing.
Video: The story of the year for artists-as-entrepreneur came at the tail-end, with Louis CK saying no thank you to corporate middlemen and putting his new concert video online for $5 a pop.
Radio/Music: All sorts of independent entrepreneurs are putting audio entertainment online, from the rise of podcast kings like Leo Laporte to a huge number of independents like Adam Carolla and Marc Maron. Music artists are being given freedom too, through new platforms to create and share their music like Soundcloud.
I hope you become a pioneer entrepreneur in time of crisis as to day,to be able to create employment opportunities in your country at least.
Small business defense against cybercrime
Small businesses can innocently expose themselves to cybercrime when an employee opens an email that appears to be from the CEO, not updating the anti-virus program or having a laptop lost or stolen.
Eduard Goodman, Chief Privacy Officer for Identity Theft 911 has seen an increase in small businesses being targeted for cybercrime within the last five to seven years. Highly desirable data include customer information lists and personally identifiable information such as social security numbers, dates of birth and account numbers.
A recent survey by Symantec and the National Cyber Security Alliance shows 85 percent of small business owners believe their company is safe from hackers, viruses, malware or a cyber-security breach. Sixty-nine percent rely on Internet security for their business’s success.
Yet, the same survey shows 77 percent don’t have a formal Internet security policy for employees and 49 percent don’t even have an informal policy.
So how can small businesses protect themselves?
Ensuring your business has the latest anti-virus, spyware and firewall programs is one method of protection, according to Goodman. Training on how to recognize phishing emails is essential as fraudsters will send emails from someone like the CEO of a company so employees think they have to open the email.
“Question what you’re clicking on, question where it’s coming from,” says Goodman. Have an awareness to take that extra 10 seconds to ask ‘Hey did you send me something? Is it legit?’”
It is not just small businesses, but also small charities, churches and non-profit organisations, as they tend to be more open to communications (including emails) from others.
Bob
Administrator
Tekgia
Tekgia.com
Building a bridge to the life you want
The average worker spends about 100,000 hours of his/her life working. In Rich Horwath’s experience most people work at jobs they don’t like. Making a plan though can help one have the “greatest days of their lives” according to Horwath, a business strategist.
In his book Strategy for You: Building a bridge to the life you want (to be published in January 2012) Horwath outlines a five-step plan for building a bridge to the life you want. Entrepreneurial spoke with Horwath about how one can create a successful life for themselves.
What does the bridge symbolize in your book?
The bridge symbolizes how you get from where you are today to the goals and objectives that one sets for themselves. In the real world a bridge spans obstacles or barriers. Strategy helps you span or overcome the obstacles you might face.
Step one: Discover
Uncover your process through insight. How is our career? How are our finances, relationships? How is our health? It demands understanding where we are today, where we want to go and then building a bridge to get there.
Step two: Differentiation
A new lifeline for inner city businesses
Reuters spoke to Mary Kay Leonard, CEO of the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, a Boston-based national non-profit that educates investment-ready inner-city businesses about growth capital. The group last week held its seventh annual Inner City Capital Connections Program to match companies with capital providers in conjunction with Bank of America and Fortune magazine.
Q: What is ICIC?
A: ICIC is a national non-profit based in Boston. We’re basically a research and strategy firm focused on growing jobs in the most economically distressed areas in our cities. One of the issues we know that businesses in the inner cities face, especially smaller businesses, is the ability to access capital.
Q: Describe the Inner City Capital Connections Program.
A: We’ve tweaked it over the years, but essentially it finds strong and growing inner-city businesses that could grow more, but for capital. We bring them together for a full day of executive education that helps them understand what their capital needs are, and what’s the best source of capital. We do some coaching for them around how do you pitch for capital, because debt is very different from equity.
Q: What sources of capital are represented?
How small businesses can hire the right people
Doug and Polly White have seen small businesses use all kinds of questionable hiring practices. There was the entrepreneur who hired anyone looking for work. Then there was the woman who hired and fired her sister twice. The list goes on.
In their book, Let Go to GROW: why some businesses thrive and others fail to reach their potential , the Whites found from their business consulting that entrepreneurs often don’t know how to hire employees.
“No one is born knowing how to hire and manage people,” said Polly. “You come into this with no clue how to hire and manage people. So entrepreneurs often end up hiring friends and family. While your friends and family may be right for a job in your organization it’s not always the right way to go.”
Entrepreneurial interviewed the Whites about the five steps businesses can follow in order to hire the right people.
1. Know what you need
Hire someone based on their behaviors and cognitive capabilities.
I think these are very good suggestions. However, good communication skills can be taught and there are extremely cost effective resources that can teach the entire staff to communicate more effectively.
Often, people with high levels of communication skills will not be priced for the small business person to hire. They will be picked up by larger companies with more attractive offers.
So, it is important for the small business owner to understand where cost effective resources are.
Yes, you can screen for skils and attitudes. But probably more important is for the small business owner to decide the type of culture they are operating from and the values and behaviors that support this.
The small business owner, for example, that is very command and control oriented when the rubber meets the road will be out of step with the idea of building cooperation, for example. And, again, these skills can also be taught when the small business ower is self reflective and willing to grow, too.
Dianne Crampton
corevalues.com
from MediaFile:
So you want to be a space entrepreneur…
What's cooler than being an Internet entrepreneur? Making a living as a space entrepreneur.
A handful of space-age capitalists convened at the Techonomy conference in Tucson, Arizona this week to discuss the opportunities and challenges of the burgeoning field of intergalactic commerce.
Among the promising business opportunities waiting in the heavens: new and plentiful sources of energy, resource extraction, zero-gravity manufacturing, real estate and tourism.
“Going after an asteroid that’s the size of this room, that literally is a 30-meter long asteroid that has $15 billion worth of platinum rare metals, that’s going to happen someday,” said one of the panelists.
Within five years, predicted another, tourists will be able to take a voyage all the way around the moon.
The space entrepreneurs, from companies including Virgin Galactic, Arkyd Astronautics and Planetary Power, grumbled about many of the same types of day-to-day problems that bedevil their terrestrial counterparts, from access to funding to the pace of technological innovation. Regulations in space are murky and another potential trouble spot.
“There’s things like if I was going to go to a defunct satellite and claim it’s mine. Well I can’t, because whoever put it up there in the first place… But then there’s, 'Who’s to say that I can’t go the moon and start my own country'? Who has the jurisdiction over that?” asked another panelist. “It’s kind of what you can get away with.”.
