Managing the Edge Awarded Top 100 Small Business Technology Podcast
March 11, 2010 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
The very smart and savvy folks at Small Business Trends Radio put Managing the Edge into their “100 Best Small Business Podcasts” lists in the “Small Business Technology” category! If you’d like to subscribe you can do so here.
This is great recognition for Andy Brudtkuhl and I as we just reached our 30th episode on the show and we’re only picking up steam. The podcast as a vehicle to share knowledge, build value, develop a reputation, demonstrate skills, etc…is unparalleled.
We have great time doing the show too and putting what we preach into practice. We’re living what we provide our clients and that authenticity is driving business growth. Thanks Andy and SMB Trends, and to our amazing audience that keeps us inspired to share knowledge in our special way.
Become Findable on the Web Class Provides Amazing Reality Check
April 27, 2009 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
So we do the “go around the room and tell us who you are and why you’re here” routine at opening night of the 5th iteration of my class (formerly known as Blogging for Business)…and I’m absolutely blown away. Let me set the stage.
- Most in the class are 40+ with a good portion over 50 (sorry team I’ve got to make assumptions
- Most are in business or have been recently furloughed, fired, downsized or whatever the term is these days.
- Most know quite a bit about blogging, technology, and most importantly…”The reasons why becoming findable is so important.”
More and more, people are getting that becoming findable online is probably the most important thing they can do for their business. Additionally, they’re realizing that they must do this FIRST…and small businesses/startups can use rapidly deployed web findability sites to test their ideas and their business concepts.
I’m doing a webinar tonight with UNI on that exact topic in fact. Don’t discount the ability of the web to save yourself time and money by DISPROVING your concept!
Do what you’re good at and please leave the rest to us
January 6, 2009 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
We practice what we preach at create WOW media. “Do what you’re good at and use insourced (local Iowa or USA based) resources to do the other stuff.” This can be translated into many versions like:
- Focus on profitable tasks and don’t waste time on the chaff.
- Always consider the opportunity cost of “Doug doing coding” when it takes him 50x longer than having someone better/stronger/faster do it.
- To client: “It’s better for you to do X and Y with referral company Z, and we’ll leverage our expertise to bring X and Y together.
We send this clear message to our clients as well. “If you are into doing everything yourself…no matter the opportunity cost, then we’re probably not your huckleberry.”
create WOW offers clients the opportunity to focus on their core business, their strengths, their…mojo. While we fill in the wizardry part. Let me emphasize:
Possibly the number one reason why businesses fail is that the owners/management spend time doing that which does not positively effect the business.
There are many reasons for this:
- Owner gets pleasure from doing “comfort tasks” like coding.
- Top level managers don’t want to expose their weaknesses in certain functional areas so they ignore/put aside important issues to avoid confrontation.
The team here is frequently quoted as saying, “We don’t have ‘hosting’ which you can find for $4/month. We offer a full service concierge service that allows you to work ON your business instead of being immersed IN the tasks that don’t make you money (web technology, video, multimedia, etc.)
Sure for some who dabble with their own sites, we often fill in the blanks with video and audio specialization. We don’t make the decisions for you about what matters in your business…but we do try and preach the virtues of doing what matters FIRST.
We are a small business at createWOWmedia….yet we have a killer team assembled that lets us focus.
We use:
- The great accounting services of Ron Stallman at Short & Company
- The shining star Kelly Moore for Public Relations
- The legal and advisory services of super Attorney Rush Nigut
- The web wizardy and strategy work of 48Web and WebboyConsulting
- The non-linear connective thinking of Adam Steen at 25 Connections
Our team of experts that ensures we’re doing profitable tasks is larger than our firm. That’s leverage and doing what you’re good at while leaving the rest to the pros.
Doing less with more in 2009
December 17, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · 5 Comments
We talk quite a bit about doing more with less. Our clients and potential clients are seeking higher return on investment, measurability, and increased Internet Findability. Online marketing/blogging/video provides all of these in one nicely wrapped package.
B2B Magazine just had a feature outlining some goals/strategies/deliverables they believe will be key for companies in 2009. It’s a great read. We especially like 2nd and 7th topics on the list.
Leveraging social marketing
However you define social marketing, this piece is critical. Start with a blogging foundation and build your social marketing strategy around that. Maybe for you Twitter and Facebook are where you need to be. Focus your efforts and get to providing value to the market. Join the conversation.
Video explosion
We couldn’t agree more. As Google begins to integrate video results into “normal search results” you want to be there! When someone searches on “Plumber Des Moines” and there’s a nicely produced video showing what it’s really like to do business with you, your odds just went up.
Let the other guys spend their money being a bigger part of that monstrosity that killed a bunch of trees and gathers dust we used to call a phone book.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=7252f3c9-c62e-4c05-8e48-3a40cce124b3)
Maximizing email newsletter subscribers with aweber.com
December 16, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
So if you’ve visited us for the first time, you probably were confronted within 5 seconds with an “email subscribe” box and a grayed out site. This is a nifty feature in the email marketing system from aweber. (we are an affiliate and this is an affiliate link because we believe strongly in this product and recommend it heavily). Some people probably find this “insta-pop” annoying. We understand. We’re assuming that you have limited time so we’re giving you a quick out, in exchange for permission to market to you. Straight forward we think.
The proof is in the pudding. Email subscriptions up 500%. We hope you’ll subscribe too. There’s a box down by the comments of this post if you’d care to join our little small and medium sized business online branding revolution.
Leveraging an email marketing system is a MUST if you’re planning to amplify your brand. Aweber goes a long way to helping companies do this in a non-technical/non-threatening way.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=db4ca347-0a1e-4205-bd88-c8274aa97d2a)
15 tips on improving your Findability from Louis Gray
December 12, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
I discovered Louis Gray via shared items in google reader, shared by our good friends at 48Web. There’s a piece there written by Mike Fruchter of MichaelFruchter.com (Twitter/FriendFeed) called 15 Tips On Improving Your Search Engine Visibility. Michael admits freely (as we do) he’s not an “SEO guru”. We ALWAYS say upfront that we’re not the kind of firm that you can “Pay $1500 to get to the top of search results”. Michael’s list is great and our only modification is that we’d put #6 (start a blog) into the number one slot since our opinion is that a blog built on WordPress with some appropriate plugins can take care of many of the other points on the list.
Again, in the SMB context, we’d like to kill many findability birds with one online stone.
We prefer to take measured and practical steps toward long lived and powerful findability online. We call our approach generating “Organic PR”. Ultimately, these concepts are what formed the basis of our upcoming free report called, “Increasing Your Internet Findability Factor” (due out early January and feel free to subscribe to our email updates in the box at the bottom of this post to get your shiny new copy when it comes out).
Bottom line here is that as a small business who likely does NOT have a cadre of tech nerds at your disposal, you need to be choosey who you work with and what you figure out on your own (vs. what you pay for).
Some of our strategies are DIY and some are best worried about by others.
But we’re here inform, distill, and highlight for you so you can make the smart small business choices about the opportunity costs of tech tinkering!
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=fc861ee0-f2f6-41cf-a711-c3fe88941094)
Video SEO Presentation by ReelSEO
December 11, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
Again, unbelievably relevant information on Video SEO from Mark Robertson at ReelSEO.com. This slideshow will give you some great tips and strategies for making your video more findable on the web.
Small Business Tip: Some of the tips and information in this presentation will probably be more than you’d like to handle on your own and that’s fine. Maybe you haven’t filmed a single video yet. Just try to extract a few key tidbits that you CAN use and leave the rest for later, or ask someone you trust to help you out. Keep up the unbelievable work Mark/ReelSEO.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=7fcff32b-ba03-46c2-8626-5f3b75f1601f)
WordPress is a Red Pill for Small Business
December 8, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · 1 Comment
- Image via Wikipedia
Red Pill…or Blue Pill? The dialog between Morpheus and Neo in The Matrix is more than just a good movie quote…it’s a metaphor for awakening and confrontation of reality of small business versus staying in dreamland where ignorance is bliss.
Here’s the line:
Morpheus: This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.
So can you have a little bit of each pill? The Purple Pill Option?
WordPress is a red pill for small business.
WordPress is an unbelievably powerful website/blogsite building platform that turns even the most timid technophobe into “The One”. WordPress is…the Red Pill.
But after we start down the rabbit hole and find out how deep it really is, sometimes it’s best to get back some of the blue pill bliss.
Remember there’s ALWAYS an opportunity cost to your futzing around with plug-ins and extension and theme modifications, etc. unless THAT’s YOUR BUSINESS. Sometimes it’s best to just “Let Go Luke” and let the Jedi’s duke it out with dark side. –dm
Knowing when to take the purple pill…..priceless.
Maybe I feel a new tagline coming on: “create WOW media, a purple pill for SMB’s”. Gotta run, the caller ID says, “DEA Enforcement Hotline”.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=35860d1a-80cb-4dc9-88d0-712a1461d769)
Starting a business? Don’t focus on these things
December 5, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · 2 Comments
When you’re starting a business, especially a cool boostrapped biz that frees you from corporate America, it’s easy to get caught up thinking about some key things that are a waste of time in the long run.
- Your company structure, partnerships, percentages, etc. As my attorney and friend Rush Nigut says, “In the end, I promise you, all partnerships WILL come to and end.” Man I love realism. Just put your head down and WORK. Get contractor agreements in place that clearly define that YOU own the intellectual property that’s being developed before that first check comes. MONEY IN = IMMEDIATE change in attitude by participants. Promise. After 6 months it will become obvious who’s takin’ names and rockin’ and who’s already looking to make it big on your back. Buy/sell agreements, etc. are critical when you finally do need to form a corporation, etc.
- Designing “the perfect looking website”. Use a template. Use WordPress to be more findable. Blog more. Design less. Get the site up fast and invest in making IT more findable with the right plugins and writing. You’ll want to change in 3-6 months anyway.
- Advanced revenue models with a million co-dependent what ifs. Average things out. Simplify. Be basic. You won’t get this right anyway because things will change too rapidly. When you confront the reality of your project (if/when it becomes a business) that rev model will be way off. Let things evolve before u get crazy and use simple online accounting program like Less Accounting to track your progress.
What are your top 3 business start up pitfalls?
Related articles by Zemanta
- Creation Does Not Equal Ownership
- Guest Post – Starting a Business? Don’t Overlook a Partnership
- Co-branding for New Business
- Find a Friend for Starting Your Small Business by Todd S.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=a9093209-cd69-42ad-9948-2ff9dbdc8796)
Audio and Video of Doug Mitchell’s “Increasing Your Internet Findability Factor” Session
December 2, 2008 by Doug Mitchell · 2 Comments
I was honored to speak in front of the New Iowa Entrepreneurs Meetup group last Wednesday evening. The group had some great questions and was totally engaged. The small room format lent itself to an intimate setting where I could connect with everyone close up.
Below I’ve posted the audio file of the discussion (with most of the QA) and the video of the entire session. The video is broken into smaller chunks for easier digestion. Sorry for the “back to the camera” angle. I was in the center of the room managing my slides and was engrossed in the moment!
The headline of the seminar, “Help My Company Is Invisible!: Increasing Your Internet Findability Factor” really resonated and I’ve received 3 word of mouth referrals from this talk. Thank you all so much for honoring me with your evangelism. The create WOW media team is out there trying new things every day to help our findability online and those experiments are translating into results for client partners. Thanks again and please let us know if you have any questions.
