UCLA Graduation 2010 History Department

Do You Have An Aptitude For Business?

I attended my nephew’s graduation ceremony from UCLA this past weekend and the businessman who gave the commencement address carried my memory back to when I was graduating from college.  He gave me much to ponder about my own personal journey towards becoming an entrepreneur. You see, my nephew has graduated with a Liberal Arts degree in History and the commencement speaker holds a degree from History too.  The point he was making is that just because you get a degree in a non-business school does not necessarily mean you won’t end up working for yourself someday. Nor will you keep the same job for long in today’s rapidly changing business environment.  I obviously did not know that I had an aptitude for business, networking, sales and marketing, customer service, self-motivation, strategy, and leadership the day I graduated from the College of Communications at the University of Texas in Austin.  I guess I should have known had I been paying closer attention to what interested me and what activities I was drawn to. The signs were there all along:

• Spear-headed the occasional summer sno-cone stand in my neighborhood (self-motivation and sales & marketing.)
• Thrived in sports competition since grade school (strategic.)
• Captain of the Varsity volleyball team in high school (leadership.)
• Could not wait to get my first real-paying job as soon as I was old enough to start working, which was the local grocery store (self-motivation.)
• Fired from the local grocery store in high school because I was spending too much time talking to the customers (networking.)
• Always had a dream of doing something on my own even though I had no idea what that would be (entrepreneurship.)
• Ignored people (teachers, bosses, aunts, uncles, neighbors, etc.) in positions of power whom I perceived to be incompetent (self-confidence.)
• Received numerous awards for outstanding customer service as a flight attendant for major airline company. (This was my first job right out of college.)

What Has Been Your Personal Journey Towards Entrepreneurship?

I believe there is not one RIGHT path to entrepreneurship.  I meet hundreds of small business owners every year and I am always intrigued and interested to learn how they decided to go work for themselves.  Personally, I can definitely say that I have grown into becoming a business woman over the years. Let me give you an example. Upon graduating from college, I had a yearning desire to travel the world. I wanted to experience other cultures, places, food, and people. So, I became a flight attendant for a few years. While flying the friendly skies, I had my first real business experience with cutting costs. The CEO of the airline decided to cut out the olives in the salads in First and Business Class travel. That seemed like a minor decision. However, that one decision saved the airline $40,000 a year! That was chump change to a very profitable airline, but it nevertheless was an expense that was removed, which meant every expense mattered.  Obviously, one could argue that the CEO should have renegotiated the olive contract with the supplier. Or, he should have found a cheaper olive vendor that wanted to expand market share. The story here is that I learned a lot about business from being a flight attendant. Not because it was the airline’s intention, but because by the time I graduated from college, I started to pay closer attention to everything around me. I was observant. I learned a lot about company culture, branding, customer and employee attitudes, diplomacy, top-down leadership, how upper-management was perceived by the laborers, procedures, etc. I also learned a lot about myself and one thing was clear. I was definitely not the corporate type. How about you? When did you decide to become an entrepreneur? When did you realize that you could no longer work for someone else? What was the turning point for you? Did you always know that you wanted to be an entrepreneur? I Would love to hear your story! Please post your comments below.

Getting Started with Social Media for Small Business

As a courtesy to Hware’s blog readers, we want to hip you to our popular online self-paced video training series called, Getting Started with Social Media for Small Business. Go ahead and try the Demo! It’s FREE!

Get Started Now with Free Demo!

No software to download. No Dvd to install.

5 Reasons You Should Check Out Hware’s FREE DEMO on Social Media:

1. You cannot afford to waste another moment while your competitors are using social media to grow their business.

2. You are frustrated and overwhelmed with understanding how to use social media to grow your business.

3. You want to learn specific key strategies and methods to using social media to sell more of your products and services online.

4. You want to harness the power of Twitter (fastest growing social networking site), Facebook (400 million users), and Blogging (powerful tool to communicate with your customers) to generate more sales and revenue.

5. Social media is the cheapest and fastest way to connect with your customers online and you want to learn the tools, tactics, and strategies to build a trusting long-term loyal customer base who refer more customers to you.

Are you already using social media to grow your online presence? Feel free to share with us how you are using it to grow your business online.

Not having a Social Media Plan is like going for a long Hike in the Mountains without any Food and Water.

The point is that you may survive, but it will be a very challenging and frustrating experience that could have otherwise been avoided. In my last post, I wrote about how planning starts with a VISION. In this post, I want to emphasize the importance of PLANNING. When most people think of planning, they yawn, BORING! Who wants to get boggled down with details?! “Let’s just go for it, make it happen and we will adjust along the way. Besides, it’s more fun and adventurous to have some spontaneity in our lives!” I swear, I used to say that and believe that with all my heart, and I still do in some areas of my life, but NOT when it comes to business. Unfortunately, I have had to learn through too many failures to understand why PLANNING is key to a successful business. So let’s dive into some key factors that are fundamental to having a solid social media plan. For the purpose of this blog post, I will be referring to small businesses:

• Know your target audience – Who are you selling to? Who’s attention do you want? Let’s narrow it down further. What  is your buyer persona?  That means, what are your buyers’ preferences, tastes, likes and dislikes. For example, my company, Hware sells software tools that help small businesses. Therefore, I look for entrepreneurs, and Work-at-Home folks to connect with online and try to make myself useful to them. I am laser-focused on the kind of person I want to interact with online. It’s  not that I don’t or won’t engage with anyone other than my ideal client, it’s just that I am very specific and clear about who I need to be talking to online for my business. More importantly, if your target audience is not online, then you are wasting your time being online. You need to be where they are. That’s where market research comes in.
• Spend some time doing some Market Research – It is crucial to find out where your customers hang out. Are they on Twitter or LinkedIn? Are most of them not using social networking sites and still prefer e-mail? The point is that you need to have a clear understanding of where they are so that you can communicate with them.  Occasionally, I enroll my online audience in surveys, which gives me insight into what they need. I then provide them with the results of the polls. By engaging my audience and asking for feedback, I gain tremendous knowledge on who they are, what their challenges are, and how I may better serve them. Here are a few online survey tools: Poll Daddy,  Survey Monkey and Twtpoll (for Twitter). The surveys need to be short, simple and convenient for the participant, otherwise, they will be reluctant fill it out.

• Know your online STAG: I call these your Strengths, Talents, Attributes, and Gifts. You must find and own your STAG and become like the beautiful statuesque male deer I live with here in the foothills of Northern California. They know their own power and beauty.  They grace the land with great ease and confidence. When you know your STAG, you will attract, engage, and be like a magnet to your online Fans, Friends, and Followers. When you are clear about your STAG, it will show in your energy, your presence. We all feed off of each other’s energy and your customers are no different. They will know if you are moving with ease and confidence and when you are putting their best interests first and foremost. (I will write more about STAG in future blog posts.) An example of using your STAG is let’s say that you are better at talking than writing; then perhaps you may want do more vlogging (video blogs) than blogging. The point is that you are playing to your strengths and when you work from a place of strengths, it always much easier.
• Remember that your Social Media Plan - should come under the umbrella of your marketing plan and your marketing plan falls under your business plan and your business plan should be part of your long-term strategic plan, (which I will write about in more detail another time.) So many people get overwhelmed with social media, but it is important to keep things in perspective. Social media is just one aspect of your overall business and as an entrepreneur/self-employed, you wear many different hats – social media is your marketing hat.

On my next blog post, I will delve into more detail about social media planning. I will be writing about some specific automation tools to help systematize and simplify your online presence.

Brenda Horton is Co-owner of Hware, a software company that designs business planning tools for small businesses. She will be hosting a FREE and LIVE Webinar on Social Media STRATEGIES for beginners on September 2nd.

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