Quick Thoughtpad: Starting an SEO / Keyword Research / PLR Side Hustle Business

TLDR: there are plenty of tools to help businesses shortcut otherwise laborious SEO tasks, but they are worthless for organisations who don't understand how they work. To add value, you need to work from the ground up, which means you can start a highly profitable business for no money down using a topic discovery service such as KeywordTool.io, Google Trends, and graduate to automated tools once you understand the value you're delivering to your customers.

Sounds like a business you could get off the ground? Then read on...

Retail Startup Advice: Keyword Research for Clicks and Bricks Businesses

The recent global health crisis has seen sea changes across the board, but arguably one of the hardest-hit sectors has been high street retail. Not only did stores have to close at short notice, and for a relatively extended period, but once it became clear that this wasn't just a short, sharp shock, many faced the prospect of pivoting or closing for good.

Each niche within retail had its own set of options, explored in the article "Innovations for retailers to launch in lockdown" on the Business Rescue Expert blog, including click and collect, home delivery services, and even subscription services.

However, this also had a knock-on effect on the existing services: it's easy to see that if a restaurant opens a take-away service next to an existing takeaway, then a certain amount of cannibalization is going to take place.

Similarly, if a retailer starts to offer online shopping and overlaps with existing - sometimes even established - online retailers, then the clicks and mortar store will potentially have to share a certain number of their customers.

Of course, they'll also bring some new ones. Those customers, for example, who don't shop online normally, but who are now being told that for certain items, they can only buy them online, will now have a choice between the bricks and mortar shop they are familiar with, and many others that they are not, and who, perhaps, offer the same, or a similar service.

Enter Google; those of us watching UK television will have seen various celebrities appearing to extol the virtues of Google Local. Besides imploring us to shop locally to help save local businesses, the advert is also aimed at local businesses themselves with the message that by engaging with Google, they can help boost their bottom line.

Google Local Alone Can't Save You

Having a Google Local presence (and keeping it up to date) is only part of the pivot solution.

This will undoubtedly bring you in physical and virtual traffic, but it's not enough for your Facebook Page, web site or LinkedIn Business Profile to score highly in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). Since most people go to a search engine - Google still has the lion's share - as a first stop, it makes sense to have a proper traffic acquisition strategy in place once you've decided to take the plunge.

The Traffic Acquisition blog is an excellent place to start, specifically their How to Get More Traffic 101 post, which is a lengthy read (so grab a beverage and settle in) and literally packed with tips.

The blog deals with three types of traffic:

• organic - typical search engine traffic;
• paid - online adverts and Pay Per Click;
• social - everything via social media, such as Twitter and Facebook.

There's also a separate section on email traffic, which is very useful if you have been gathering people's email addresses (along with their permission to be contacted, with a proper GDPR policy in place) and want to engage with them as part of your retail pivot strategy.

Failing that, your first port of call will be to learn all about SEO and Keyword Research.

Keyword Research and SEO for Online Retail

Competition is pretty fierce in online retail. However, clicks and bricks businesses concentrating on local customers bring something unique to the table: they can serve a local market with the local touch.

Finding out how to tap into that market is made easier by leveraging decent keyword research techniques, but is only valuable if it translates into proper Search Engine Optimisation and engagement. 

For some general guidance on SEO for novices, The Keyword Coach offers some great insights and a few cheap, but thorough introductory texts available as ebooks.

The general idea is easy to grasp: since Google sees a lot of the world's internet search traffic, and Alphabet's other money-spinner, AdWords sees much of the online advertising, it is worth their while to deliver tools that help connect people and businesses.

The medium of exchange is the keyword phrase.

Each keyword phrase used by a visitor to Google has a value to someone. That value can be represented as the amount of money that an advertiser is prepared to pay for their advert to be associated with the search term (Sponsored Results), which also reflects the amount of money available in the market.

Combinations of so-called root phrases with long-tail qualifiers are extremely useful in gauging where the market's attention is focused. The excellent KeywordTool.io is a great, free, online utility to expose some of these search terms which can then be analysed using the AdWords Keyword Planner to reveal approximate search volumes and advertising values.

The process is easy enough - type your root phrase into KeywordTool.io, copy the resulting list of long-tail keyword phrases to the clipboard, and then use them in the AdWords Keyword Planner's "Get search volumes and forecasts" tool (via Tools->Keyword Planner in AdWords).

Just make sure that you limit the scope of your research to your precise geographic location, or you'll be looking at data that refers to worldwide customers; desirable, but not usually part of a clicks and mortar pivot strategy!

For a fascinating discussion of the rise of long-tail keywords and online retail choice, I recommend Chris Anderson's "The Longer Long Tail" (disclosure: the link goes to Amazon, where I will earn a small commission should you choose to purchase the book.)

Staying on top of Trends

Another great free service that can be very useful for local keyword research is Google Trends. One of my favourite examples of its use to highlight opportunities for businesses is the "near me" search. For example, here are the trending "near me" searches for the UK, in September 2020:

On the left are the Topics - Plan nursery and Post box - and on the right the actual queries. There are 25 queries, and they can be downloaded by clicking the downwards arrow button, for use in a tool such as the AdWords Keyword Planner to either find related keywords or test the volumes and values for a more precise geographic area.

Notice that I have selected "Rising" in both cases. If you want a less tactical, more strategic view, select "Top" instead:

It's important to remember that these are just starting points and if you really want to take advantage of this technique, you need to dig a little deeper below the surface to get hold of the really useful keywords that will help uncover opportunities are drive traffic.

The Keyword Research Strategy blog offers some great advice on how to use a variety of free services such as Quora, Amazon Alerts and the AdWords Keyword Planner to help react to, and even predict trends.

I'll leave the final word to Sun Tzu. Two quotes come to mind:

• "In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity."
• "Opportunities multiply as they are seized."

Adding some form of online aspect to an existing bricks and mortar business, and becoming part of the clicks and bricks brigade, is an opportunity to build long-term resilience into your business strategy. It's an opportunity that stems from the chaos brought by the health crisis, and those who seize it with both hands will find that their business will be open to more and more down the line.

Keyword research will be one of the keys to unlocking those opportunities. Whether it's finding out what your visitors are looking for by examining Search Console logs, tracking their journey through your site using a tool like StatCounter, or using KeywordTool and Google Trends together to spot new skews or content ideas, keywords are a vital marketing tool that you can't ignore.

To take advantage of Guy's 20 year plus business career, and get valuable advice from a Master of Strategic Management, drop him a line - guy.leckythompson (at) gmail (dot) com - with Keyword Strategy Advice in the subject.

Do Traffic Exchanges Work for Start-Up Businesses?

What Are Traffic Exchange Sites?

The term 'Traffic Exchange' loosely covers a wide variety of sites, all geared to getting the business owner traffic in return for:

• opening emails (email exchange);
• viewing other business' sites (traffic exchange);
• clicking adverts or displaying banners (banner exchange);
• etc.

Often, these activities are twofold: traffic and building an email list or downline. For a start-up, traffic exchanges can be useful for a number of reasons:

• they provide a way to get some free traffic flowing;
• it's an opportunity to test an offer;
• validation of an idea;
• and so on...

A more obscure reason to use them is in testing various tracking mechanisms, rotators, or other installed services and features that rely on visitors to drive them (whether they carry out an action or not).

For a more comprehensive answer, see the "Traffic Exchanges and Downline Builders" article; the remainder of this discussion assumes that you are willing to look at adverts for people's sites in return for displaying your own on the traffic exchange network.

An Experiment with TS25

In order to try and figure out what kinds of business actually advertise on a typical high-quality traffic exchange site, I clicked through about 100 pages and noted down what the primary driver for each advertiser was according to their business model.

The one I chose for the experiment is called TrafficSyndicate25 and if you sign up using one of the links on this page, I will get some credit for having brought you and TS25 together.

The pie chart shows that the lion's share of the adverts are quasi-cannibalising; they are invitations to sign up to one traffic exchange programme or another. 

The next tranche (33%) relates to so-called Business Opportunities, including SFI* and ClixSense. 

This could be you, but I suspect that most readers are in the 11% percent of genuine adverts for products or services.

What's a little worrying is that this category is outweighed by the "Wasted" slots: those that no longer exist, or redirect for some reason, as well as the 2% of the total that are represented by viruses or other threats.

So, are traffic exchanges a waste of time for a start-up entrepreneur?

If you are promoting a traffic exchange, or related service, then clearly you'll be in good company. Whether or not your offering will be more persuasive than the competition is an open question.

One solution is to pick an exchange that has an exclusion policy for rival traffic exchanges but be aware you may miss out on some of the adverts for genuinely useful TX sites.

For example, of the BizOp category, 11% were for SFI* and 6% for ClixSense, leaving around 16% spread between other business opportunity sites, including affiliate schemes. If you're in this sector, then it could be a good fit.

In the genuine adverts for products and services, the offerings were split between hosting deals, a religious site, and personal blogs, including a couple of adverts for apps.

A final note: I am fully aware that without a comparative study, this research needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. If enough people are interested -- please comment below if you are -- then I will conduct research across all the traffic exchanges I'm currently using.

In addition, for those who want the full TS25 report as a one-pager, reach out to me in the comments section and I'll make it available.

(*You can see my analysis of SFI in the article about the SFI affiliate scheme.)

Traffic Exchanges and Downline Builders: Getting Started with Free Traffic

"Free traffic" are the two most seductive words to newbie online marketers.
In the olden days (like in the early-to-mid-1990s) banner exchanges were all the rage: for every time someone saw a banner on your site, you got to show your own banner on someone else's web site. These morphed into services like StumbleUpon, which allowed better control of the targeting, as well as feedback on the quality of the sites being promoted.
Banner exchanges were, however, passive. Stumble Upon was the first example of a more active approach, and this turned quickly into a system of trading surfing for page views. Surfers could now earn credits by visiting sites, and use those credits to have their site suggested to fellow surfers.
However, this gave rise to some level of abuse as people turned to bots.

The Rise of the Traffic Exchange Bot

Clicking is tedious, and so some clever programmer created the traffic exchange bot to do all the work for them.
Of course, this devalued the whole concept: rather than earning credits by actually looking at the content, bots were just clicking 'Next' every time.
These were just an extension of the old 'banner bots' that would click banners to earn impressions, but applied to the new paradigm of traffic exchanges.
To get around this, two things happened:

• Clever developers created a timed-click based on matching shapes or pictures to fox the bots;
• Networks grew up around similar offerings, and the ecosystem became one of sharing sites amongst entrepreneurs.

Making it harder for bots to automate clicking, and making it self-defeating by establishing a network of users was a smart move, but had some obvious drawbacks.

Traffic Exchange Networks

The problem with many traffic exchange networks is that since traffic exchange scripts are easy to create and sell, so many have sprung up that they just cannibalise each other.
In other words, most of the networks tend to have roughly the same membership profiles. In fact, a lot of them have the same participants.
Like banks just exist to swap money, traffic exchange networks just exist to trade clicks. Like banks, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but one has to realise that this is what they are for.
The thing is, all participants are at the same level, and all are looking for the same thing: business opportunities.
It works, but it tends to build temporary relationships. Only the owner of the exchange has immediate access to all the participants -- and can charge a premium to advertisers -- and so beyond the "opportunity swapping" that goes on the value stays at the top.
What was needed was a mix of an affiliate network and traffic exchange platform: the downline builder.

The Advent of the Downline Builder System

This is something I came across whilst looking at the SFI business model.

In essence, it's something like a traffic exchange network in that the 'heads' of each downline participate in an exchange where they cross promote with the express intention to build each other's downlines.

New sign-ups go either under the person who referred them, or, when the places that they are allowed to allot are filled up, the next person in the network.

Those that participate fully get more slots allocated, and therefore can build a deeper network, faster. The more they refer, the more spaces they get.

At the same time, those that put in just a small amountof effort will get some return: a smaller downline, but a downline nonetheless.

Where this differs from a classic traffic exchange is that the downline is available to the referrer, who has unique access rights to promote to her own downline.

Each member of the downline also has the ability to build their own downline, resulting in something called a 'matrix'.

However, a person can only participate in a singe downline 'downstream', so the network cannot cannibalise itself.

To entice fresh participants, and grow the network, as well as offer new opportunities to the downline, some form of automated advertising support is needed - an "ad rotator".

Yet Another Splashscreen Rotator

Ad rotators have been around for a while, but the rise of traffic exchange programmes and downline builders means that a new tool is needed. Known as the splashscreen rotator, it is a simple piece of software that displays a random splash screen each time it is requested to.
The benefit of this is that you can spread your traffic exchange credits across multiple projects, with a single URL. Most rotators are pretty basic, but YASR is different:

• Full click-through stats;
• Organise adverts into groups;
• Automatic balancing & split-testing (coming soon);
• ...FREE!

Check it out, and sign up here: YetAnotherSplashscreenRotator.

SFI Affiliate Scheme: Business Opportunity, Network Marketing, or Just Cheap Goods?

The AFI Affiliate Scheme has been around for almost as long as I can remember being interested in online business.

I seem to link it in my mind to a programme called Six Figure Income, something that I dismissed in the early 2000s as being plainly impossible to achieve. SFI, I reasoned, would be gone in a few short years, probably a victim of its own over-promising rhetoric.

I'm pleased to say, that, 17 years later, I was wrong. SFI seems as strong as it promised it would be. If I'd have stuck with it, who knows where I'd be today?

However, I'm back with SFI, as I see there's still room for expansion. For a start, there's a whole load of people in Europe who've never even heard of SFI...

How SFI Works

The guiding principle behind SFI, as I remember it from the past, has always been about two things:

• Transfer purchasing of everyday goods (& online services);
• Building a team.

The two are, and always have been, linked.

The idea behind Transfer Buying is that you buy everyday items from SFI's store (called TripleClicks) which are available at a discount simply because of the number of people buying them. It works really well in the US, but has yet to catch on in Europe. One reason might be because there aren't that many sellers, and paying the shipping makes them as expensive as locally bought products!

Before you write it off as a bad deal, remember two things: as there are more sign-ups, there will be more opportunity to buy locally, through TC. And, not everything that is worth buying from TC needs to be physically shipped.

eBooks, for example. Valuable eBooks about business, the internet, and internet business abound on TC, and many are keenly priced (think $2.99 to 9.99) and reviewed by an honest bunch of like-minded individuals. I won't say it's better than a certain big online retailer, but I've found it to be higher value!

So, where's the business building income opportunity? In helping to spread the word, of course, and help to bring in new suppliers (called ECAs) of goods for your local market. Think Global, act Local!

What Does SFI Sell?

The TripleClicks store sells new and used goods. SFI members can sell the contents of their garage online, and they can buy everything from Toilet Bowl Cleaner to eBooks about SEO.

There are sellers from all over the world and a powerful search system that helps match buyers with local sellers. It also lets you filter by price, too, as well as bestselling and most popular. All that you'd expect from an online store.

The heart of many online stores is, of course, the affiliate scheme. SFI is essentially TripleClicks' own team-oriented affiliate scheme. Team members are encouraged to transfer purchasing of items for the home and office into TripleClicks, and if they promote TripleClicks items themselves, they also earn a commission.

Does SFI Work?

As a business platform, SFI undoubtedly works.

Of course, you should expect to put in some effort; any affiliate knows that the only way to make commissions is to find the best products, and then promote them.

The added bonus that SFI comes with, however, is a plan, a framework, and a lot of resources that will help you to build a healthy team dynamic that centres around helping others rather than hard selling.

Your SFI business can have many different facets: building a solid team of recruiters, helping friends and family save money, becoming an info-product seller on TripleClicks, or helping local suppliers leverage the marketplace, plus any mix of the above. You get the tools, support, and leverage you need to succeed!

(Plus, don't tell anyone, but the skills you'll learn are transferable, so you've really got nothing to lose!)

Just click the banner below to find out all about SFI, and join my team!

Don't Ignore What Everyone Else Tells You To Do!

I'm reading a book at the moment that has the potential to change my life. I'm also participating in a Mastermind Group for pro-bloggers and entrepreneurs. At the same time, I'm following a course on ways to make money from a blog business (or should that be "business blog"?)

They're all telling me the same thing; but being a stubborn, creative person, I've been ignoring them and doing my own thing, revelling a bit in the failure and passing it off as a "learning experience".

It turns out there's only so much "learning" I'm willing to put up with, and today the penny dropped.

Stop Procrastinating Now!

Here's an odd statement - all my failures to date have been a result of procrastination. In thinking that I've been incredibly productive and pro-active, all I've been doing is setting balls in motion with no follow-up when they fail to produce immediate results.

What I should have done is thought them through, properly, and only executed the ones with a decent chance of success. But, I've been putting that off in favour of direct action, rather than doing what David Risley (of the Blog Marketing Academy) and the Mastermind Group were saying was the best way forward - planning.

So, action is good, but make it the correct kind of action, and start with your business model.

Find Your Business Model

Some of the questions that you should ask yourself involve imagining that this will be the only thing you'll be doing fro around 20 hours per week, solidly.

You need to find a business model that matches your skills - if you can write, then produce written digital products, if you're skilled at doing deals, then make the emphasis on JVs - and that can pay you enough to make it worthwhile.

Should the business model be a membership site? One on one consultancy? An eBook? Some form of Software as a Service (SaaS) offering a clear solution to an existing problem?

It's up to you. But to get the juices flowing...

Kickstart the Creative Process

I recommend reading the book. Heartily. I'm planning to go through it once at speed, and then again, picking out the stuff I can use immediately. At the same time, the author has put together some truly outstanding resources for anyone to deploy.

Fair warning - to get the most out of them, you do need to buy the book. Fair disclosure : the link is an affiliate link, and I'll earn some pennies towards the next book on my entrepreneurial book wishlist which looks like being the highly acclaimed Re:Work.

But, the templates alone will get you thinking, and launching your $100 start-up business.

In case you hadn't guessed, the book is The $100 Start-Up by Chris Guillemeau. The resources I mentioned can be found on the 100startup.com companion site.

Go get 'em. Both.

Standing on the Shoulders of the Four Hour Work Week

Image courtesy of jesadaphorn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

There seems to be a trend in entrepreneurial books to reduce the working week to ever smaller figures, but are these sound-bites or realistic strategies? If they're realistic, how do we go about earning a seven figure sum from a single figure visit to the coal-face?

Let's start by re-visiting the key popular literature on the topic of doing more with less.

At one end of the scale, there is "The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich", by Tim Ferris. In a nutshell, Tim built a business around health supplements that enabled him to abandon a traditional 9-5, 5 day working week in favour of working whenever, and wherever he chooses, with enough income to do pretty much whatever he chooses.

Some people seem to think he's just a glorified self-publicist, using his story to sell books, while others have successfully replicated his strategies and now lead lifestyles that most would be envious of. Whether you buy into the whole kitsch or not, there are some useful nuggets in the book and it's worth reading, or skimming the sample pages available on Amazon, including the Table of Contents.

Of note as far as the lean start-up is concerned:

- delegate out as far as possible;
- remove yourself from the machine as early as possible;
- validate ideas as cheaply as possible.

At the other end of the scale, there's "The 3 Day Entrepreneur: How to Build a 6 or 7 Figure Business Working Less Than 3 Days a Week", by William U. Pena, MBA. The tag-line, helpfully, is "Build a Business, Not a Job", which immediately sets the scene in our favour.

After all, we don't want a job, we just want to have a business that earns money. It turns out that the book is a lifestyle guide, as well as a lean management bible. In fact, like the 4HWW, if you already have a job, you'll be able to use the techniques to streamline that, leaving you time to build a separate business.


Again, the key points are as follows:

- use leverage to reduce resource requirements;
- automate wherever possible (just another kind of leverage);
- create systems, and be prepared to optimize everything by testing;
- schedule tasks according to their value, importance, and contribution to the business.

Oh, and we're not just concerned with time, we also want to be able to do it with less money, as well. Enter "The $100 Startup: Fire Your Boss, Do What You Love and Work Better to Live More" by Chris Guillebeau; on the face of it a way to turn a measly amount of cash into a business empire that's fun to run, but in reality more like a cottage industry start-up manual than anything else.

Modern management writers are at it too, by the way. This isn't the place for a full-on review of modern management texts, but a quick Amazon search for lean strategic management yields a good list of starting points. The gist is that using lean techniques, with some of the 4HWW and Three Day Entrepreneur style time and resource management thrown in, even top companies can benefit from this idea that we can achieve our goals by putting in ever decreasing measures of actual effort.

So, where does that leave the start-up entrepreneur?

The opening paragraph posed two questions - is there any substance to the idea that we can do more with less, and if so, how? - and the answers are, yes, and by not actually doing anything yourself that can be done by someone else.

For example, both Ferris and Pena advocate removing yourself from the actual mechanics of the business. Ferris suggests that you do this by hiring a PA from India to cover your tasks (but then, of course, you have to have the $400 or so per month required to pay them) and Pena has a novel idea that you can just choose a day when you do no work at all, and see how the business gets on without you.

Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

In the real world, this translates into something akin to putting together a kind of jigsaw puzzle. Only when all the pieces fit together will the business function as a whole; if one thing breaks then the whole house of cards (to swap metaphors for a moment) comes crashing down.

That's the downside of using leverage; if you farm out responsibility and the mechanics of the business, you'd better prepare for what happens when it falls apart behind your back. Luckily, if you follow Ferris', Guillemeau's or Pena's advice, the effects will be minimal.

Not every business model works with these strategies either, of course. Typically, those that work well provide recurring income (like subscription services such as Unexpected Teas or Sumo Jerky) or those that have fully outsourced production of products to be sold through an online retailer like Amazon.

The various jigsaw pieces might include:

- a payment gateway (PayPal, or similar)
- an outsourced manufacturer or content producer
- a PA to manage QA
- someone to oversee issues (usually yourself)
- an online manager (web design, software updates, etc.)
- various bloggers, researchers, paid Twitterers, etc.

While you can make it work whilst doing much of the grind yourself, that pretty much predicates quitting any day job you might have had, and part of the beauty of the three day (or even the four hour) week is that you can start your business at the same time as having the security of being a cubicle worker.

Based on what I've read, it's certainly possible to match your current income, as long as you're not already raking in millions, whilst only 'working' for a few days per week. The trouble is, it's addictive, and before long you might well find that you've swapped one kind of lucrative prison for another as you thrill in the start-up cycle for the third or fourth time.

Whether that works for you or not is another question, and one that only you can answer.

The Day the (SEO) Content Penny Dropped

The Day The (SEO) Content Penny Dropped!

Psst. Want to hear something funny? I don't care if anyone ever reads this. Because today, the SEO penny dropped.

I was reading a post on SearchEngineWatch's blog called 'Building a CRAP SEO Content Strategy' and was just thinking how on-message it was for 21st century SEO, when it happened.

There's little point diluting their message, but CRAP is an acronym that pulls together a lot of different, but great, ideas, about SEO and content.

If you're at all interested, I suggest you read it yourself when you've finished here.

Nobody Cares About Your Logo

The last time I set up a blog (TheKeywordCracker.com) I held off launching because I didn't have a logo I was happy with.

Then I hated the layout, so didn't launch.

Then it was the lack of paid member content.

But then it occurred to me that nobody cares about the logo. Visitors don't click through to the site because of the logo. Except under rare circumstances, they'll not see it until they visit the site.

When they get there, they're not going to leave because I don't have a logo. They won't stay because the logo looks pretty.

They're too busy reading the content and deciding if it's crap or CRAP.

So Why Don't I Care?

Okay, I was exaggerating for effect. Of course I care. 

However, if nobody ever reads this, it's because they're not interested enough in the content. Or that I haven't provided enough content, or that it doesn't engage them. If they don't share it, it's because it is without value.

Search engines can't really rate value. They can infer from Tweets, re-Tweets, social bookmarking and sharing that visitors value it enough to share it, but they can only guess at why.

For those who think that they can tell an image from a textual message; think of an info-graphic. They often have more information than a 600 word blog, so are probably as valuable, if not more. But if search engines apply a strict image/text rule, they'll be classified as 'less' valuable than the text.

Even if they're not.

Is a post with a mix of images and text more 'valuable'? Maybe. Maybe not. Only a human can really answer that question.

How Does This Rant Relate to Start-Up?

I'm glad you asked.

When you start up a business, be it a blog or a lemonade stand, if your product is good, it will succeed despite not having a logo.

Don't let the unimportant details slow you down. Learn what is important, and concentrate on that, and get to launch as fast as is reasonable.

Create value, and you'll be successful. Create a pretty logo, and all you've got is a pretty logo.

The Three Best Ways to Stay in Business - For the Long Term!

According to statistics* 71% of all start-ups fail in the first 10 years.

That's not the scary number.

The scary number is that 25% of them already taste failure in the first year. Another one is that less than half make it to year 4.

And there are more, but this was supposed to be a helpful post, so let's see what a start up business can do to avoid becoming just another number.

The Danger of Product Multitasking for Start-Up Businesses

Putting aside for a moment basic incompetence, and lack of preparation, knowledge and so on, 30% of start up businesses fail due to over-expansion.

Sure, you have big ideas, or you wouldn't be an entrepreneur. But, especially in the beginning, try to concentrate on getting the process to produce a single, good, revenue generating product or service worked out, before you try releasing anything else.

As Barbara Cochran once said on Shark Tank - "You're moving too fast with too many things, and that's usually a formula for disaster in any young business."

She ended up investing, but only after making sure that the company understood that they had to concentrate on one product at a time.To pick another example - Levi Roots, the UK entrepreneur launched a single sauce "Reggae Reggae Sauce" on Dragon's Den.One awesome product.

So - product multitasking reduces overall quality, so make one awesome thing at a time.

3 Top Tips to Keep Afloat in Year 1, 2, 3...

Here are my own Top 3 Tips for staying in business long-term:

• Tip 1 : Pick the right business, and the right business for you. 

There are certain businesses with a high failure rate - think plumbers and restaurants - and others with a very low one : like religious organisations.

Now, I'm not suggesting you go off and found a religion, but I am suggesting that if you choose to open a restaurant your heart had better be in it, and you'd better have the skills. Top aggregate reason for going out of business? Lack of knowledge, and wrong reason for going into business in the first place.

• Tip 2 : Keep it Simple. Do one thing well. Not a hundred things averagely. 

I'm not the first to point this out, I'm actually paraphrasing from Sam Carpenter's excellent "Work The System". You should check it out if you're starting a business, or trying to live life to the full.

• Tip 3 : Cut Out The Emotion. 

Okay, that's a tough one, because if you've picked a business that's right for you, as I pointed out in Tip 1, you're probably also going to have an emotional investment in it.

However, if you can make decisions based on numbers (and that's the purpose of having a system, as I pointed out in my last blog post) or other objective information, and remove the emotion from the equation as far as possible, those decisions will likely be better than if you are guided completely by your passion.

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*Source : http://www.statisticbrain.com/startup-failure-by-industry/

Building a Solid Business Around a Solid System

Recently I was listening to an audio freebie that came with a Dan Kennedy book (No BS Marketing to the Affluent, link pops out, I recommend it, this'll still be here when you get back!) and he said something that struck a chord.

Now, I'm paraphrasing because I want to get this down and don't want to dig out the CD right now, but the general theme was around creating advantage in your business offering - commercial advantage, financial advantage, market advantage, and so on.

Some of these I'd expect most people to think of: You want to be the best in your market, or at least define a niche for yourself that has no competition; you want to be able to outlast the others in your market, even if that means waiting a long time to get your money back, or you want to be justifiably the most expensive in your market.

But then he said something that had echoes of a bunch of other bits and pieces of wisdom I've absorbed recently - systemic advantage.

The advantage of having a system.

As I was walking along, Dan continued his train of thought, but mine had spun off to other avenues (sorry, Mr. Kennedy!)

Here are some others who extol the virtues of a system - Dane Maxwell, creator of the 6-figure Recruiting Ninja business, and currently head honcho at The Foundation (TheFoundation.com) has a unique system that he teaches and which takes a market, creates a product based on feedback from that market, and then sells it before it's even available!

The system has been used by, among others, one Sam Ovens. Look him up, it's a worthwhile story.

Sean Ogle, the Location Rebel, has a collection of frameworks and systems. Dave Risely (of Blog Marketing Academy fame) has a system (which he calls the Blueprint) that can help you build a business from nothing.

The fast food industry is home to one of the most successful systems of all - McDonald's.

I could go on - Michael Senoff (HardToFindSeminars.com) has a system for marketing consulting, Dan Kennedy teaches a system for creating sales letters, and works a system for selling his stuff, etc. - but you get the point.

The one thing your business needs to have, if it is to be successful, is a solid foundation, built on a system that can be deployed, used to measure results, tweaked to get better results, and followed when times are tough and you lose direction.

That's the advantage of having a system.

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"Don't run away from price." - Dan Kennedy

If you're not familiar with Dan Kennedy, I advise you to do a search on the internet, your favorite MP3 search engine, or a well-known video sharing site, and prepare yourself for a lot of research.

The man is a genius, and even if he admits to borrowing a lot of his wisdom from the observation of the way that markets work, and the marketing that professionals in those markets do, it take a special kind of intelligence to join up all the dots.

That's how he can charge upwards of $1,800 per day. Per day. Upwards of.

One of my favorite quotes from Dan Kennedy is "Don't run away from price." Even in a recession, you should never try to be the cheapest, because there'll always be someone cheaper. The reason why is very interesting.

Why People Get Hung Up On Price

One reason is simple enough - to appeal to as many people as possible. Your potential market may well feel bigger if you're cheaper, as more people ought to be able to afford your goods or services.

That's only true if everyone in that market is shopping on price, which isn't true. Very few people in that target market shop on price, and those people will be the ones that cause the most problems.

There's a saying - if you pay peanuts you get monkeys. You can flip that around and say - if you charge peanuts, you'll get monkeys.

Two Ways To Charge More

That's the first way to charge more. Just do it. You'll become attractive to a market that expects to pay a high price, simply because they have the money to spend. They're also the clients who are less likely to cause problems, as long as you deliver to the value of what you are charging.

That deals with the willingness to spend money. But you still have to make the product or service attractive.

Doing that requires that you are different from the other offerings on the market - usually at all levels. In other words, you need to differentiate from the cheaper products as well as the same-priced or more expensive products.

This means having a good USP (unique selling point) or EVP (extra value proposition.)

That USP needs to fulfill a need or (better) solve a problem, offer a guarantee, with a specific limit (time, cost, etc.) This was made famous by Domino's Pizza, who nailed it with their slogan offering freshly cooked pizza, delivered, inside 30 minutes, backed up with the guarantee that if they failed, you got to eat it for free.

Any mention of price? No. They don't need to, because their USP is so strong and specific that they can charge pretty much whatever they want, within reason, and will only attract the least painful customers.

So, work on these three principles - not getting hung up on price, raising prices, and developing a great USP - and you'll build a better business.

What's So Smart About the Breathometer?

On a recent episode of Shark Tank, a neat little gadget called Breathometer received a lot of interest and investment. Daymond John (owner of FUBU, and notable Shark - and I mean that in a good way!) made a very shrewd statement:

"You're very smart. I like to surround myself with people smarter than me..." (check it out here)

Now, that's good advice. In fact, it's great advice. But what's so smart about Breathometer? After all, there are many breathalyzers on the market.

The technology isn't that new, but typical breathalyzers tend to be bulky.

What was so smart about the Breathometer is that its inventor, Charles Michael Yim, combined three very important pieces of the party-goers jigsaw:

• breath analysis in a small packet, plugged into a smart phone;
• an indication of the time it will take to sober up;
• a link to call a taxi, right in the app!

The unique combination of a small adapter, plugged into a smart phone, capable of linking the reality of being over the limit with a need to get home (or at least know how long it might take to get under the limit again!) was the genius of the product.

That's what you need to be able to do with each end every product - find a targeted market with a problem, solve their problem, and give them an alternative - do that, and your products will be irresistible.

But, there's a problem.

Just because you have found a market, and a way to reduce its pain, that doesn't mean you can turn your vision into reality. We've got the answer - Total Outsourcing. Join the Business Start-Up Advice Inner Circle, and we'll help you outsource whatever you want!

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Not only will you get the free guide, but also hints, tips, and advice you can use right now to boost your business prospects simply, cheaply, and above all, easily!

Give Your Business a Purpose with Event Based Marketing

Event based marketing usually comes in the form of a promise. That promise, in the guise of a specific business event, is designed to drive both potential customers to become paying clients, as well as to drive you, the entrepreneur to turn your idea into a product.

The purpose of the event is to give both sides a deadline.

Photo via SXC.hu

On the one hand it lets customers know when they might expect the product to be available, and on the other it gives the entrepreneur a watershed.

If they're late delivering on their promised event, they going to have to back down. It's no biggie - but usually the customers will expect (and deserve) some kind of discount, or benefit from your failure to deliver on time.

Why the freebie?

The answer is simple : event based marketing works best when the customer has already paid to be a part of your empire. They've given you money; money that you needed to get the solution built, but money that they were hoping to save by using it.

If they can't use it, they deserve compensation. After all, they've been tempted on board with the promise of availability, and if you don't meet up with their expectations, they will be very disappointed.

So, plan your event so that there's a reasonable expectation on both sides that you'll make it, but be prepared to give generously if you experience a delay.

In the long run, your customers will be happier that way.

How to Start a Business with No Skills Down (Except One!)

I've been absorbing a lot of wisdom of late. If I had to name drop, and let's face it, in this day and age it's the only way to prove your paying attention, here are a few voices that have been filling me with inspiration of late - Dane Maxwell, Sean Ogle, Tim Ferris, David Risley, Sam Ovens, Rosalind Gardner...

I could go on.

What's become apparent is that there are two approaches to building (starting) a business : stick to what you know and follow your passion/hobby, and forget what your passions are and find a market with problems to service.

Pro-bloggers, for example, tend to fall into the former camp. Dane Maxwell and The Foundation fall clearly into the latter, and then take it one step further by pointing out that the real money is in just finding people to consume services (i.e. lead generation.)

I'm sitting on the fence, and boy is it uncomfortable.

I understand that people want to follow their passion, but I also understand from watching Shark Tank, Dragon's Den, and The Apprentice, as well as listening to the wisdom of those who have gone before me, that not everyone will share that passion. It's also possible (even likely) that not enough people share your passion to make a business out of it.

So, what do you do when you find that the market wants something that falls outside your skill set?

Easy - outsource! Tim Ferris started me off thinking about this, and Dane Maxwell backed up my initial hunch that the most successful businesses are going to be those where the entrepreneur isn't doing everything themselves, and uses skills of others to help them achieve true greatness.

Plus, by outsourcing everything, you remove yourself from the business, meaning that it will happily run along without you, needing only a firm hand on the tiller from time to time.

For most of us, this is great, because we have the attention span of butterflies, and often find it tough to concentrate on the same thing for any length of time. If all we have to do is manage a bunch of outsourced processes, we're happy as can be.

The main message this - don't worry about not knowing (for example) how to write good copy, or how to create an app, or produce a membership based web site and software as a service (SaaS) offering. There are people who can do all of these things.

All you have to worry about is finding the right partners, at the right price, and then managing them. As an entrepreneur you've likely got the skills to be able to do these things, all you need to do is unlock them!

Twitter, PayPal, IPOs, Dragon's Den and Shark Tank - How to Form an Exit Strategy

One of the questions asked on Dragon's Den (and the US variant Shark Tank) is often the deceptively simple "what are your plans for the future", or the slightly more unnerving "what are your goals for the business."

Photo via SXC.hu

I don't think I've heard anyone on BBC's Dragon's Den come out and ask "what is your exit strategy?", but I've heard those words uttered on Shark Tank, and seeing some of the deals that they do there, I'm certain that it's often at the forefront of many of the entrepreneur's minds.

Put simply, and exit strategy is often about maximizing the value that a company owner can take out of a company, whilst ultimately losing both control and overall responsibility for it going forward.

In many cases, an IPO is an example of an exit strategy.

Think about it - the entrepreneur builds something up, and then exchanges a large amount of their shareholding (if not almost all of it) in return for a proportion of cash.

It's like going on Shark Tank, and doing a licensing deal with Mr. Wonderful.Sure, you'll get your dollar per sale, but you'll lose any right you had to dictate where the sales are made, and to whom.

That just fits in with some people's idea of an exit strategy.

Value Based on Potential

Kevin O'Leary, if you asked him, would, I strongly suspect, say that he was offering a deal that is based on the potential of the product, and that his offer reflects that perceived value. And, like him or not, he's often one of the clearest-headed and fairest of the Sharks.

What was not fair, on the general techie population, was the valuation of PayPal at the time of their IPO.

Photo via SXC.hu

It set a precedent.According to C|Net, the share price made a 54 percent gain overnight following the IPO. They went on to say the following:

"Although PayPal is popular, it isn't yet profitable. In the quarter ended Dec. 31, PayPal lost $18.54 million on sales of $40.4 million, compared with year-ago losses of $41.9 million on revenue of $8.8 million."

This is a classic case of a value of a company being decided upon its potential to make money. One might be tempted to call is "style over substance" were it not for the fact that PayPal's been pretty successful over the years.

(They were eventually acquired by eBay, whose share price now trades in the 50 dollar per share range.)

Value Based on Performance

The other way to value is based on performance. This is what many Dragons and Sharks (and probably regular, non-TV investors) look for. They look at the current ROI (Return on Investment) based on some piercing questions about the balance sheet and profit and loss account, and decide what to offer in terms of equity.

Some fast reverse mathematics enables the viewers to work out what they're thinking.

Most of the time, the entrepreneurs have fallen into the trap of (a) inflating their company value by the value of the investment, and (b) using a multiplier that boosts the ROI to a point that their equity stake offering is way too low.

The point is that most IPOs are based on some proportion of Potential vs. Performance. In the build-up to the Twitter IPO, it's worth bearing that in mind : it's no PayPal, it's not a Facebook, but there is value hidden in there, and with current revenues in the 100 million dollar range, it looks like a good time to float.

How to Formulate Your Exit Strategy

So, even if your exit strategy isn't quite in the IPO league, you still need to decide how to dispose of the business you've worked so hard to build up. You still need to get the timing right.

For example - suppose you have a  business that can be run as a going concern and has a stable customer base that implies that it will run on for at least 5 years. The right value for such a company might be 5 times profits.

However, if the company has potential for growth, untapped customers, or the possibility to be geographically scalable, 5 times profits might begin to look a bit on the lean side.

On the other hand, a fading company in a declining market might be only barely worth the value of it's assets plus current profit, depreciated over 5 years. In such a case, it might have been wiser to sell up earlier, with the customer base still on the up, and realize a higher value albeit based on risk, than the market might otherwise expect.

This last is closely associated with risk. As always, it's a case of buyer beware - it's someone else's risk once you've sold the company - and picking the right moment when the ratio of profit to potential makes it look as attractive as possible.

Amazing Travel Hack and All-Round Cool Car Rental Service

Here's one for all you fans of travel hacks and ways to decrease business expenses in general. The FlightCar service rents out cars left by people when they're off traveling the world, to those landing at the airport and needing a car.

That's a great service, but they've gone one better with their FlightCar Monthly service, which offers people a flat fee in return for the use of their car for a month. If you need your car back within that time, you get 4 free days with your car, or one very like it.

This is great if you don't use your car that much, but need it for things like family vacations - or if you don't need it for a month because you're off on a long vacation yourself.

All in all - works well for everyone!

Lessons from Sean Ogle (Location Rebel) On Fast Learning

Sean Ogle has just released a video (looks like it's filmed in Central Park - correct me if I'm wrong!) that talks about the concept of rapid learning and how it relates to Location Rebel.I recommend that you watch it - it's just 2 minutes long - just to understand his mindset. The video can be found here.

Before you rush off and watch it, though, here's a bit of preparatory work : the key takeaway is in knowing what you don't know, and knowing what you need to know to fill that gap. Read that through again, watch the video, and read the comments that follow it.

Then come back here, because I have something else to share...

Being successful in business is often about learning. For example, to do business in China, it's going to help you to learn Chinese. But that's hard, right? Yes, of course it is. It's useful, so it will be hard.

Tim Ferris (author of the 4 Hour Work Week, The Four Hour Body and The Four Hour Chef) spoke at the Entertainment Gathering about his experience learning Japanese, which is comparably hard. The video is here.


It's okay, you can watch it later - the key part of the message for me was that he, too, concentrated on what he didn't know. Ferris calls it Material vs. Method, and it comes up in his Four Hour Chef book, in the section entitled Meta Learning.

Even if you don't want to learn how to cook - and who doesn't? - the sheer discipline that Ferris applies is worth the cover price.

Come to that, it's worth heading over to Sean Ogle's web site, too, even if you don't plan on becoming a "Location Rebel" yourself, as there are many valuable business lessons to be learned just from reading through the blog posts.

My bottom line advice is to learn as much from these two as possible, as they've both had a dream, followed it, and had a great time along the way. They might not be billionaires, but they're leading the life that they always wanted, and you can't say fairer than that!

Think About Your Exit Strategy

I know that it feels a bit odd to think about your business as something with an end before you even get it off the ground, but the exit strategy is one of the more frequently overlooked parts of a fledgling business plan.

It's important in that investors who want to see a return, will want you to think about where that money is going to come from. Not to put too fine a point on it - it's unlikely that it will come from direct profits in the timescale or quantity that will satisfy all but the most 'angel' of investors.

In fact, many investors will force your hand, and sell out (or go public) at the drop of a hat, if the going looks good, just to turn around their initial capital investment.

You can preempt all of this by taking a few hours to consider, if you had to, how you would get out. Here are some options:

• Retire - in other words, you leave the business when you've had enough, and either keep an interest so that the income can support you, or just never look back;
• Sell Out Early - find someone willing to take on the company as a going concern, or sell to a competitor;
• Float on the Stock Market (IPO) - this is interesting in that it can raise a lot of money an increase your personal wealth, but you may well find yourself deposed or sidelined as shareholder interest takes priority;
• Wind it up - just cease trading, sell the assets (if there are any), and do something else.

There are other options, but these are the most common. There are also businesses that are created purely with the end goal to sell out to a bigger company, and which don't make any money in the interim.

For these kinds of business, the Exit Strategy is the business plan, and it can be a hard trick to pull off!

By thinking about your exit strategy, you may even show investors that you are also emotionally disconnected from (but passionate about) the business, and are likely to make good decisions. You will also be prepared mentally for the end, and it will help you to formulate a worst-case scenario, if it all goes horribly wrong.

To end on a more positive note - a successful business that is sold to a competitor, or complementary business, will make you rich, and free you up so you can launch the next big thing!

4 Things to Help Keep Your Business Fit for Purpose

There are a number of things we can learn from observing the ways that VCs (Venture Capitalists) and angel investors manage the relationship with their protégés. Chris Hudson, writing in '4 Things to Put In Your Monthly Update to Investors' isolates a few gems from the world of venture capitalism.


The article itself is well worth a read, but it also offers some controls that any start-up would be advised to consider implementing.


Control #1 : Cash


Investors need to know if the fledgling business has enough cash. Not necessarily to give them more (after all, even Steve Jobs, after investing in NeXT, had to face the reality of cuts in expenses) but to find out how healthy the company is.


Cash is important - it lets you do business on a day-to-day basis, gives you a buffer for unexpected bills, and is the lifeblood of your company. Keeping a constant check on the cash position, and recognizing the danger signs of running dry will help you manage your business more effectively.


There are always options when the inevitable happens - cut costs, sell stock or other assets, ask the bank for an extension to any existing loans or overdrafts, go on a fundraising drive, offer the employees shares in return for an investment : the list is almost endless.


Of course, there may be an underlying reason for the diminishing cash position, and part of that may be that the product or service just isn't popular.


Control #2 : The Target Market


The initial strategy may no longer be appropriate to the target market. The target market may not even exist any more. It's important to always adjust and refine the strategy and approach to the target market depending on how that market evolves.


PayPal, for example, started out as a device to device payment method, but evolved into a person to person web based payments provider over time. The target market wasn't big enough to support the investment, but the new market was crying out for their services, and the technology was much the same.


Following the changes in the market will often lead to some critical decisions. Key among those its likely to be related to staffing or team membership.


Control #3 : Corporate Structure


People drive companies, and nowhere is this truer than in a start-up. Many, if not most, start-ups exist purely on the drive of the individuals to create something from nothing. Without that drive, the company ceases to perform.


That's part of the reason that Apple re-hired Steve Jobs, why Google remains at the forefront of the Internet, and, in my opinion, at least, why most companies fail. They lose the people who have the drive.


So, as much as the money and the market will affect the direction that the start-up takes, the people involved in it will also affect the products and services that are created for that market.


New people often bring new ideas. People who leave inevitably take their ideas with them. Both of these need to be monitored, and measured against the performance of the company.


Control #4 : Metrics


I don't like the term KPI (Key Performance Indicator) as it seems to indicate a lack of flexibility. My own take on KPIs is that everything must be measured, and the resulting metrics need to be analyzed in order to determine:

• exploitation of existing opportunities
• new and emerging opportunities
• decline of current opportunities

Measurement needs to be easy to do, and easy to analyze. If it's hard it won't be done well, or indeed at all, in a timely fashion. Sales, leads, profits per customer, repeat sales levels, and so on, are all easy metrics to measure, track and analyze.


They show the health of the company, and whether the core business is working. Each company will also find things to measure outside the health of the company, which covers the market - trends and competitors movements being some of the easiest to track - and helps to isolate new opportunities.


So, these four areas, derived from how Chris Hudson describes communication between investors and start-ups, ought to help you keep focus, and makr your business a success.

All Contact is Good Contact! Get the Marketing Message Out There!

I model railroads in my spare time. It's a fun way to relax, and I enjoy the attention to detail that it requires.


Recently, I had a small issue when building a particular model - I was missing a couple of small, but important, parts.


Now, usually, the pervading wisdom is that the contract is between the purchaser and the shop. However, you can't really ask a shop to take back a partially built model - normally they won't even take back a box that's been opened.


So, I emailed the manufacturer direct. To make a long story short, they agreed (actually, they offered) to send me the missing bits. Two, lightweight, bits of plastic was what I was expecting, and that's what I got.


Plus a catalog of new releases. And a newsletter (paper) which has introduced me to some interesting developments that I wasn't aware of. And a letter, visiting card, and associated advertising flyer.


In fact (and I've checked!) the paper weighed more than the plastic, and no doubt contributed to the postage cost which was around 1/3 of the price of the model in the first place...


On the other hand, I now want to do more business with them. Despite the fact that I was irritated when it went wrong (missing pieces) I want to do more business (buy more stuff) with them.


If I'd just received the plastic bits, I would have been happy. But, by putting some bits and pieces of information in the package, they've made me loyal. I feel loyalty to someone for making the effort to inform me.


That's a powerful lesson, but it could have been improved.


What They Did Right


They fixed the problem. They sent me a letter, and they put a good mix of valuable content and advertising in the package.


What to take away : whenever you have contact with a client, always use it as an opportunity to provide them with additional content of value, and remind them why they bought from you in the first place, and why they should do so again.


What They Did Wrong


The letter was in German, but all our communication up to then had been in English.


What to take away : make all follow-up communication relevant to the needs of the customer. They've very nearly alienated me by this oversight.


What The Could Have Done More (or Better)


There was no encouragement to buy more from them. I have reason to, thanks to the information, but I don't have the additional push that makes it worthwhile. Other retailers have included money-off offers, vouchers, and so forth.


What to take away : it's not enough to give a reason to buy from you; even prospective repeat customers need a push!


All of the above applies to online and offline businesses. Every email, every delivery, every apologetic letter after a complaint deserves to be treated as an opportunity to build trust and loyalty with your customer base.