Envision Plan Act Track Adapt

Here is a 5 step social media marketing plan presentation I put together for my local business community. Feel free to share it with others by posting it on Facebook and re-tweeting it, etc. I would love your feedback and comments below. Thanks!

Hware’s Top Picks: Some Old, Some New, Some May Surprise You.

As an online business training and coaching company, people often want to know where we go for our business resources and who we turn to for advice, tips, and strategies.  While we have been offering business and technology consulting services for over 25 years, we believe in the importance of being students of life. That means that we never stop learning. We have a huge library of online resources, personalities, brands, and strategic organizations that we tap into daily and weekly. It was hard to narrow it down, but we finally came up with the BEST websites to help you build your small business. So grab your favorite drink and check out the  top 15 websites that made the cut! Please leave your comments below and let us know what you think:

1. Altimeter group: A research-based advisory firm.  This is where I go to get a lot of data driven info on business strategies.
2. Chris Brogan: If I had to pick one industry expert on social media and business. It would be Chris Brogan. His book, Trust Agents is a must-read!
3. CopyBlogger: Copywriting tips for online marketing success.  This site has a ton of valuable FREE resources and tips on blog writing.
4. Gena Livings: For inspired living.  My dear friend, Gena Livings is changing the world with her lifestyle modification services. Be sure to download her free e-book. It’s inspiring!
5. Green Festivals: If you are a “Green” business who sells B2C, you cannot afford to not be an exhibitor at this event.  Co-founded by my good friend, Kevin Danaher, Green Festivals is on the leading-edge of bringing all things “Green” to the mainstream. Four events are held throughout the year in Washington DC, Chicago, Seattle, and San Francisco.  We have been attending since the first Green Festival and this event just keeps getting better every year, especially the after parties!
6. Mashable: The most popular Social Media News blogs on the internet.  Take your time absorbing the information, it can be overwhelming for newbies. You will want to bookmark a lot of the material and use it as a reference later.
7. Michael Franti & Spearhead: (Okay, this has very little to do with growing your biz online, but I could not resist plugging my fave band. I fire up this music to keep me motivated and inspired for my biz.)  As entrepreneurs, we all need music to keep us motivated, inspired, and happy! We LOVE to dance to Spearhead music! If you ever have the chance to see a live Michael Franti and Spearhead concert, you must GO! It’s life altering!  What’s your favorite music that keeps you going?
8. Mixergy: Andrew Warner interviews CEOs and Founders of successful companies . I love his in-depth questions of business leaders. He is young and bold and he asks really good questions.  I love to go hiking on my property while listening to Mixergy interviews on my iPhone.  I always learn something new from this twenty something year old.
9. Read Write Web: This is a technology analysis news blog.  I like referencing this site because while the focus is on technology, the writing is not filled with Geek and Coder jargon. It’s written for people like us ordinary folks.
10. Seth Godin: One of the top marketers in the world.  I have read many of his books and have had the opportunity to see him speak live. He has a way of making his point very succinctly.
11. Small Biz Survival:  A rural and small business resource blog. We live in a rural area in northern California, and while our business is internet and technology-based, we are nevertheless interested in what’s happening in small town businesses.
12. Small Business Trends: An online news blog with a focus on small businesses trends and over 122,000 subscribers.
13. Social Media Examiner: A guide to social media. This site has a lot of useful “How To” articles on social media, well written content and easy-to-understand.
14. Triple Pundit: As many of you know, our personal lifestyle is oriented towards most things “Green” and “Sustainable.”  We did build a straw bale home many years ago and enjoy living in it. Triple Pundit is a great online “Green” business news resource.
15. Work Awesome: A resource for the worker on productivity, time management and all kinds of other awesome stuff.  I recently found this site and I can’t say enough awesome things about it!

I hope you found great value in our top 15 BEST websites to help you grow your small business. We invite you to add some of your favorite small business websites too, even if it is your own and you feel it will help a small business owner.  Don’t be shy! Go ahead and post!

Small Business & Entrepreneur Seminar

It Takes Time To Build Trust

It was a full house at the Nevada County Small Business and Entrepreneur Seminar where I had the privilege to speak on one of my favorite business topics —- Social Media! Online relationships are a lot like offline relationships.  It takes time to build trust. People buy from people they know, like, and trust. The focus of my presentation was on social media and how to build online relationships. Here is a link to the short presentation.

Social Media Strategies For Beginners

I also gave this much longer presentation in a live webinar in September of 2009 where we had over 130 online attendees. While some of the material is outdated, most of the principals still apply.

Don't Underestimate the Power of Business Networking

Nevada County Small Business

About 10 years ago, my husband and I moved away from the big city lights (Bay Area) and settled in the Foothills of Northern California. Some  of our friends thought we were out of our minds.  They thought we’d be back after a few years of ‘nothing to do up there in those hills.’  All I can say is that we got LUCKY! Unbeknownst to us, we landed in a vibrant rural community filled with creative and diverse people. That is why I am excited to hang out with the local business community on Thursday June 24th at The Small Business Entrepreneur Seminar in Nevada County.

Increase Your Sales with Internet Marketing

I will have the privilege of presenting on the topic of  “How to Increase Your Sales with Internet Marketing” at the half-day business conference. The bulk of my business is conducted online, but having the opportunity to present in person is always a treat for me.  So for you locals, come out and join me and other business experts who will be teaching the latest strategies on growing your business online.  Feel free to send me your internet marketing questions in advance at Brendah@hware.com and I will do my best to answer them on June 24th. Be sure to bring lots of  business cards for some power networking too. Hope to see you there! Here are the details:

When: Thursday June 24th

Time: Registration 8:30 am. Seminar is from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm.

Where: Holiday Inn Grass Valley, CA

Cost: FREE

Sponsored by:

Nevada County New Business Network

Sierra Commons

Nevada County Economic Resource Council

Hware

The San Francisco Small Business Week conference was held last week and the City by the Bay did not disappoint!  As a resource and advocate for small businesses, I want to share with you some fun and fascinating highlights of the event.

The FREE workshops and networking events should become a model for small business conferences. Edith Yeung of BizTechDay gave a workshop on “How to Engage or Build a Community for Your Business.” No one knows better than Edith on how to bring small business owners together. She is the founder of the largest Small Business MeetUp group in San Francisco called SF Entrepreneur.  I spoke with Edith after her workshop and she invited me to attend the Women Innovators reception held later that evening at the Julia Morgan Ballroom where the First Lady of San Francisco, Jennifer Siebel Newsom was hosting a panel discussion on women leaders.  Jennifer is currently working on a film called MissRepresentation. The film explores the underrepresentation of women in positions of power and influence in America and how the media plays a role in perpetuating negative images of women.  The trailer for the film left me sitting on the edge of my seat. As a business woman myself and one who understands the value of having strong female role models in a girl’s life, I was most intrigued by this upcoming film and look forward to watching it upon its release.

The business after hours Grand Expo 2010 was held at the AT&T Park Club level and what a perfect venue to host a party!  The stunning views of the Bay set the tone for a fabulous festive evening of networking. While noshing our way through all the hors d’ oeuvres and  sipping on California wines, I came across BLineMarketing, an all inclusive marketing firm that offers internet marketing services. Brooke Spilberg, director of search marketing for BLineMarketing is a wealth of knowledge and expertise on growing your business online.

Later that evening, I made a short visit to Mashable’s MashMeet SF at the Roe Lounge where I met up with Pete Cashmore and friends.  The hip and trendy lounge was over flowing with tech-lovers of all sorts by the time I arrived. Of course, what’s an evening out in San Francisco without saying good-night to my long-time friends, world renown chef, Roland Passot and his sommelier brother, George Passot of La Folie French restaurant?

Check out more photos of The San Francisco Small Business Week Conference and Mashable’s MashMeetup SF party at Brenda Horton’s Flickr site.

SXSW Networking Rocks

As I mentioned in my last post, I am a self-described Technophobe-turned-Technolovah. It’s the social media stuff that I really love. My business partner is the real Techie, (not to take anything away from us power-users.) I am just coming off the high from all the incredible people I met at South by Southwest a few weeks ago!  I can’t remember the last time I got so jazzed about attending a business related conference. While the lectures and panels were organized and structured, it was the impromptu networking where I found the most value. It felt like all the top social media thought leaders, passionate technology lovers, and creative business minds came together to play and I was invited to play too.

The Movers and Shakers at SXSW

I got  to meet the ever polite Darren Rowes of ProBlogger, a great resource for blogging tips. I chatted with Lewis Howes, who has an e-book on advanced strategies on LinkedIn at LinkedIn Marketing. I bumped into David Meerman Scott in the blogger’s lounge, author of  The New Rules of Marketing & PR. I also connected with Brian Clark of CopyBlogger at a TweetUp. In addition, I met up with Becky McCray of Small Biz Survival and Erica Douglass of Erica.Biz. There were hundreds of movers and shakers at SXSW and most of them were incredibly accessible and genuinely engaging.

Vandalism Strikes during SXSW

I had the privilege of interviewing all these bright social media experts, which I had planned on posting the videos here on Hware’s blog site. Unfortunately, my FLIP video camera was stolen from our car while parked near Town Lake before I could transfer the interviews to my computer. I am currently working on rescheduling virtual interviews with all of them.

The Conversations at SXSW

I also met Guy Kawasaki  of  AllTop, Brian Solis, author of Engage, Erik Qualman, creator of the overwhelmingly popular YouTube video,  SocialNomics, Gary Vaynerchuck of WineLibraryTv.com and one of my all-time favorites, Jason Fried of  37 Signals, whose book, Rework, I just finished reading. I attended a “Women Who Love Tech” MeetUp in the Consciousness Lounge and hung out with other Geeky Gals. There were also some fascinating technology startups, whose founders were contagiously energetic and refreshing. I loved the vibe they brought to the conference. One startup that really caught my attention was Trenspot.com, a website that tracks trending topics on popular websites. What a wicked marketing tool, I thought. There were also some very cool social networking app companies like FourSquare, which many seemed to be using at SXSW. And, there was NutshellMail, and Foodspotting, which were finalists at the Microsoft Biz Spark Accelerator event.

More Photos of SXSW

I see why SXSW has been described as Burning Man with laptops and toilets. In spite of the misfortune of my FLIP being stolen, I had an incredibly positive experience at SXSW.  Whether it was the parties, MeetUps, TweetUps, hallways, blogger’s lounge, exhibitors show room, or restaurants, there was always someone interesting to meet. At SXSW, you never know when you are going to bump into the CEO of Twitter and strike up a conversation with him (you can read about it on my previous post.) Here are some photos I took from SXSW! I am already looking forward to returning again next year! How bout you? Are you coming? Let’s connect!

Twitter is the Reason I Fell In Love with Technology

I LOVE smart men! I married one 13 years ago. We’ve been together for almost 20 years now. While at the  South By Southwest Interactive Media conference in Austin Texas, I was surrounded by thousands of cool, smart and geeky men. By far they outnumbered the female attendees. And, being that my husband is also my business partner, I felt right at home networking with these hip, creative, and gadget-loving guys. So naturally, when I saw Ev Williams, CEO of Twitter walking by me on Congress Avenue, it felt effortless for me to introduce myself to him. After all, Twitter is the reason I fell in love with technology, the internet, social media, video blogging, and the online world of social networking.  Prior to Twitter, my usage of the internet involved buying airline tickets a few times a year and an occasional book purchase from Amazon. Okay, I used my computer a bit more than that. The point is that Twitter radically changed the way I interact with technology, my computer, and the internet. One October day in 2008 I attended BizTechDay, a conference in San Francisco and everyone was talking about Twitter, blogging, WordPress, and social media. These buzz words were practically in every conversation during the break-out sessions and lectures. When I heard people talk about how they were experimenting with Twitter to grow their business, I focused in more intently. The ease and simplicity of it immediately intrigued me. Online business networking was something I could definitely wrap my brain around and Twitter seemed to be the technology tool to help me get started.

Top 7 Reasons why I LOVE Twitter

Fast-forward eighteen months later and here I am, a social media power user, small business blogger, technophobe-turned-technolovah! It was great chatting with Ev. I thanked him for bringing Twitter to market. I use it everyday for business and cannot imagine working without it. Here our my TOP 7 reasons why I LOVE Twitter so much:

1. I can link my favorite blogger’s posts to Twitter and share it with my followers. I use a tool called Twitterfeed
2. Anyone can easily find me on Twitter and instantly get a sense if they want to follow me or not and vice-versa
3. Real time updates and trending topics (faster than Google)
4. Can tweet from my SmartPhone
5. Share photos
6. Brevity (only 140 characters)
7. Have access to brilliant people from all over the world

Twitter is a very powerful tool. It can be used as a marketing tool, a relationship builder, and connector tool. There were business tools before Twitter and there will be business tools after Twitter. Chuck, my biz partner likes to remind me that before Twitter, there were Bulletin Boards. Any Geeks out there remember the Bulletin Boards in the 80s? How about you? If you are a Twitter Lover, what are some of your favorite reasons for using Twitter? How are you using Twitter to grow your business? If you are not using Twitter for business, why not?  Please share your comments. In my next post, I will write about my full experience at South By Southwest.

Thanks to everyone who participated in our HP iPAQ Glisten SmartPhone Give-Away Contest! Congratulations to Michele Schiro for winning!

So here are my thoughts on the Glisten. My experience with technology comes from the end-user side. I am also an iPhone and Social Media Power User.

• Initially, it seems like the iPhone meets the Blackberry. It has a keyboard pad with a touch screen
• The speaker on the Glisten is much better than the iPhone
• The AT&T Navigator GPS features were great
• The quality of the screen was nice
• Synchronized well with my social networking sites
• Has a very nice feel in my hands when I am holding it
• Has Flash Player unlike iPhone, which is very important to me because I view a lot of business videos
• Can tether it for internet access from my computer unlike the iPhone (this is important if you are mobile)

I personally went straight from a standard cell phone user to an iPhone user. Having said that, I won’t be giving up my iPhone for the HP iPAQ Glisten SmartPhone anytime soon. However, for people who like the touch and feel of a keyboard or have been Blackberry users or Windows Mobile SmartPhone Users, this phone might be a great transitional choice.

SXSW is like Burning Man with Laptops and Bathrooms

I am attending SXSW for the first time this year. If you have never heard of SXSW, it is one of the largest film, music, and media conferences in the world. Held every year in March in Austin Texas, it’s been described as Burning Man with laptops and bathrooms. I am attending the interactive media segment, which lasts for five days. I am so excited to meet some of the business and social media bloggers, thought leaders, and best-selling technology authors I have been following for over eighteen months now. I am ecstatic to see and hear some of the key-note speakers like Ev Williams, CEO of Twitter. I feel like a kid riding my bike without my hands on the handle bar…HAPPY! For the last year and a half, I have immersed myself in social media, internet marketing, SEO, and learning online software tools, all for the purpose of growing my own company’s presence online. In my former life, I was an outside sales person. Today, I sit in front of a computer connecting with the online world. And, surprisingly I’ve realized that I have a knack for it. Perhaps that is why Hewlett Packard contacted me a few weeks ago and asked me to review their new HP iPAQ Glisten SmartPhone, which I am giving away on March 17th. Perhaps that is why  oftentimes, I have to peel myself away from my computer, even though I have been in front of it for 16 hours. I know it sounds obsessive and unhealthy. I am working on finding that balance. But, the point is that who would have thought a non-techy gal like me has found LOVE and PASSION for internet technology! I have transitioned from an off-line business model to an online business model and now I am going to meet the very people whose content and guidance I have used to help me make that transistion.

What is Your ROI Formula for Attending Conferences?

There are literally a gazillion conferences to choose from and obviously a small business owner cannot attend every single one. So, how does a small business owner choose the best conference for their specific needs? It starts with the ROI (Return on Investment). Simply put, the ROI is the amount of time, money, resources, opportunity costs, you put into attending the event (which is the investment). After you add up all those expenses, costs, etc., you then subtract it from your return or your gain.  Whatever amount is left is your ROI. Recently, I got into a fairly big discussion with my biz partner, Chuck on this very subject. He is the left-brain of our business and I am the right-brain. He wanted to tie the ROI of my time spent at SXSW to the sell of a product. I wanted to tie the ROI to the networking, relationship building, as well as the sell of a product. In other words, I should gain not only social equity from SXSW, but financial gain as well. In addition, that gain should be tied to a specific timeline. In a future post, I will give you specific examples of the ROI formula I used for attending SXSW.  In the meantime, here is my question for you. How do you measure your ROI when attending conferences?  I think it is hard to measure relationship building because you are not always sure how that relationship is going to evolve. The sell of a product or service is much easier to measure, but honestly, that’s never the main reason why I like to attend conferences. Everyone has their various reasons for attending a conference. Authors attend to promote their book. Speakers attend to gain more exposure. Companies attend to expand their brand.  Attendees attend to learn, network, and build prospective strategic alliances. What are your reasons and how do you justify your investment? Please leave your comments on my post! Thanks!

Crush It

I just finished reading two books and they are filled with powerful reminders that strong business relationships matter and harnessing the power of social media is critical to cultivating those relationships. The first one is called “Crush It” by Gary Vaynerchuck. For those of you who have not heard of Gary, he has internet rock star fame. He grew his family’s local wine shop into a national industry leader using the power of social media. I highly recommend it to every entrepreneur who wants to grow their online brand. It’s fresh, authentic and a very fun read. I believe we are seeing the emergence of a new kind of entrepreneur in America and Gary Vaynerchuck is our poster boy.

Trust Agents

The second book is “Trust Agents” by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. Chris was just recently named one of Forbes Web Celeb 25. Trust Agents offers incredible perspective on how to harness the power of social media by understanding that transparency and authenticity is powerful behavior in building your online presence. They write about being a “Human Artist” – someone who understands how to communicate with people in a real and thoughtful way.

Using the Power of the Internet

These two books, “Crush It” and “Trust Agents” should be the foundation to growing your business online. They are a must read for anyone who is serious about building your business by using the power of social media.

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