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!

Rural Nevada County in Northern California

Unless They Are Integrated Into the Business Plan

A few days ago I attended a town hall meeting  in my rural community hosted by the local Chamber of Commerce. The purpose was to get feedback from local businesses so that the chamber can formulate a strategic plan. It was a ‘gather-the-information’ type of meeting.  I am not a member of the local chamber and I must confess that I am not involved with our local business community as much as I would like to. Mainly because my own business (Hware) has more of an e-commerce focus and I live/work about 30 minutes from the downtown business area.  However, I happened to be in town before the meeting and the topic was of particular interest to me, so I stopped by and joined the two hour session.  It was a room filled to capacity with many concerned small business owners.

Social Media is One Piece of a Marketing Model

Frankly, I don’t know much about the folks running the chamber or the board of directors, but I do know this. Business as we have come to know it has CHANGED! Technology has always led the way in changing the way we do business. The personal computer revolutionized our business world as did the internet. The current technology revolution is social media. Social media tools are mostly FREE today. There is however, speculation that FREE may no longer be. What is key to the success of the chamber, among many other things, is a social media plan that is cohesively tied to the chamber’s business plan and integrated into their strategic plan. Strategic planning is extremely useful for long-term goals, however the problem with most strategic plans is that once they are done, they tend to get shelved and rarely referenced. That is why it is critical to integrate a strategic plan into a business plan and then show details how the marketing model, revenue model, operations model, etc., supports those plans. Social media falls under the category of marketing. The chamber is the voice of the local business community. It is there to serve the local business community and it should do so with the use of the latest and most cost effective technology tools.

A Basic Social Media Plan For the Chamber Should Include the Following:

• A blog, which is the hub of an online presence
• Put out a blog post a minimum of once  a week
• Presence on major social networking platforms, i.e., Facebook, Twitter, YouTube
• Allow for members to comment and post on those platforms
• Create a membership site for forums and discussions
• Have an intermediate level of understanding of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for internet marketing
• Allow for members to post videos about their business on Chamber website and Chamber social networking platforms
• Weekly vlog (video blogging)
• Ongoing education and training for members on how to use the latest technology tools
• Annual Business Technology Conference for small business

Businesses and Organizations Are Much Like Technologies

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been in existence for almost 100 years. It’s hard to adapt when you are used to doing things a certain way for a long time. Change can be scary and yet it can be a good thing. Hosting a town hall meeting is a step in the right direction for the local chamber. Yesterday’s technologies were the PC and the internet. Today it is social media and internet marketing. Tomorrow will most likely be mobile and geo-location technologies. Businesses and organizations are much like technologies. They are dynamic and ever changing. They go through phases. Some survive, some thrive, while others are put to rest. They get birthed, mature, change, merge, or take on the appearance of a dinasour. What is most obvious in today’s economy is that many small business owners are hanging on like a cat on a tin roof. Many resources are needed. Here are a few online sources as well as Nevada County Business sources that I hope you find useful. Feel free to add additional resources in the comments section.

• Sierra Commons (Nevada County Business incubator and co-working community)
• Nevada County Economic Resource Council
• Intuit (The Small Business United Blog)
• Small Biz Survival (A business blog for rural communities)
• Social Media Examiner (A guide to Social Media)
• Hubspot (Free online training for internet marketing)
• Nevada County New Business Network (Facebook Group)
• The Exchange (Facebook Biz Group for Western Nevada County)

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.

As an online business training and software company, we often get a lot of  small business owners who come to us asking to help them grow their business online.

So I have put together 7 tips on creating an online presence for entrepreneurs:

1. Have a long term perspective about your brand. Word travels fast on the internet so be intentional about your activities online.

2. Do some market research. Find out where your customers are hanging out online and start contributing to the conversation using social media. If the majority of them are on Facebook, then start networking with them on Facebook. The point is to be highly targeted when connecting with your prospective customers online. Otherwise, you can easily waste a lot of time.

3. Put a simple marketing plan together. Putting your intentions to the written word is a powerful exercise that will help you achieve your goals. Be sure to include an action plan. Keep it simple by writing out who is responsible for what by when.

4. Play to your strengths. The point here is to keep it simple by doing what you are good at. Don’t make it so hard on yourself. If you are great at writing, then start a blog. If you are great at speaking, then start vlogging (video blog). Start with one thing that you are good at and then incorporate another thing once you’ve got the first one down.

5. Join industry groups online. There are a gazillion like-minded groups and industry associations on the internet. Check out what your industry is doing online and be sure to connect and network with your colleagues. You never know when a collaboration can turn into something that is mutually benefitting.

6. Track your results. By measuring the outcome of your actions you will see where you need to make improvements to get the results you are looking for. There are a ton of measurement tools on the internet to track your web traffic. Google analytics is a good place to start.

Hear the Answers in the Quietness

It seems that the world of Business Coaching is exploding just like Social Media Experts so I’ve put together 6 Key Questions to ask your Business Coach before you hire him/her:

1. How long have you been a coach/consultant full-time? You want to know how long this person has made a living for himself/herself as a business consultant or coach. While the old business paradigm is melting and new innovative ways of doing business online are emerging, the fundamentals of business, i.e., PROFIT are still relevant. Understanding how well someone has made a living for themselves as a coach will tell you volumes about how successful they have been in their profession. What industries have they coached in? What level? Executive/CEO or managerial? Small businesses, entrepreneurs, start-up and non-profits? What size of businesses have they coached? A $30,000 dollar a year company is a lot different than a 3 million dollar a year company.

2. Will you please provide me with your past and current references? I know this seems obvious, but you’d be surprise how many people don’t call on references. Testimonials are good, but you really should talk to someone who has been coached by this person bestowing their expertise. You also want to know how long the person being coached has been in business. In addition, you want to gauge how profitable they are. Now, this information will be a little hard to extract since most companies are private and won’t release that data. What they are more likely to tell you is how much revenue or sales they generated in one year. The problem with that is revenue only tells you one side of the story. An entrepreneur may have generated 2 million dollars in sales last year. However, if their expenses and overhead were 2.1 million, then they lost money. So, you need to do your due diligence and get creative in extracting that information. You may ask, “What’s your industry’s average profit margin and how profitable has your business been in relation to industry standards since you hired your Business Coach?”

3. How well do you understand technology and systems? There is no way getting around having a successful business today without the advice of an expert on key technologies and systems. Technology and systems are essential to business in today’s digital world. So, when hiring a business coach, make sure they know what they are talking about when it comes to advising you on what technologies and systems are best for your type of business. They don’t necessarily need to be the person implementing the systems and technologies, but they should at least be able to point you in the right direction to experts who can. Miss this question and you will certainly go down a deep rabbit hole of frustration and wasted time and money.

4. Will I be working with you or one of your “Trainers?” With the hyper-growth of the coaching business, many consultants are hiring trainers to help them with their clients. There is nothing wrong with that at all. You just need to be clear on who you will be working with. If it is one of their “trainers” then you will want to do your due diligence on that person as well. In addition, some coaching companies offer membership sites and group coaching. You will want to know how available and accessible the coach will be in those programs.

5. Are you in alignment with my values? Here is an example: Let’s say you are a “Green” business and you value the triple bottom line model, also known as the 3 P’s. Planet, People, Profit. So, would you hire a coach who has an over-excessive lavish lifestyle when you are clearly aware that mass consumption is bad for the environment?   Surround yourself with mentors, teachers, trainers, and coaches who are in alignment with your values.

6. Am I clear on the expectations between us? Having unclear and vague expectations is a recipe for the dreaded two D’s: DISASTER and DRAMA! Don’t ever assume anything. If you are not clear on the contractual agreement or offering, then be sure to ask before you buy. Please don’t buy into a coaching program only to find out that you can’t get out as smoothly as you got in.  Any business coach worth their salt will not make it difficult for you to leave the program. It should be an easy-in, easy-out model. You definitely will want to read the fine print. In addition, some coaching companies make an offer where you have access to a lot of coaching material for a nominal fee and 30 or so days later that fee increases substantially. It is a marketing tactic that is used to get you to try before you fully commit. They charge your credit card a low fee to get you started with the hope that you will find value and stick around. The fee then increases after 30 or so days and your credit card gets automatically charged every month. I am not knocking these campaigns, I just want you to understand the marketing strategy behind these tactics.

Here is a bonus tip on hiring a business coach/consultant. It is one that is unfortunately oftentimes overlooked: Listen to your intuition and instincts. Your inner voice is your guidance, your compass. It’s there for a reason, so get quiet and listen to it. If the coach resonates with you, then go for it!

This is not an exhaustive list of Questions and Tips, so if you have some insight on hiring a business coach/consultant, please feel free to add more on the comments below!

Brenda Tello-Horton is co-owner of Hware, an online business training and software company. She can be reached at info@hware.com

4 Tips to Getting Started with Social Media:

1. Understand your Target Audience – It’s not the entire 2 billion people on the internet. Get laser-focused on who they are and where they hang out online.

2. Know your Target Audience’s problems, challenges, and concerns. When you understand this, you will be in a much better position to help them.

3. Be a Solutionary! Yes, it’s a made-up word. Bring a solution to their problems in a revolutionary way. Today’s economic times requires that you address their issues with creativity and innovation. How does your product/service solve their problem?

4. Make it easy for them to find you online using social media, search engine optimization, blogging, etc.