Craig Rentmeester's Blog

3SP Success Factors for Small Businesses

The most common success factors for a small business are:

• Speed
• Smart
• Service
• Promises

Speed - Act quickly. It's simple, but powerful. 

You can't win the resource game. But, you can win by making decisions faster, adapting to changing markets quicker, and deploying your resources faster.

Big companies have momentum -- brand, customer base, assets, etc. Use momentum against them as things change. 

Smart - Solve business problems with creative solutions.

A neat way to do this,  create diverse teams. Another way is to think about problem solving as a skill on its own rather than an added bonus.

If you're customers see you as providing smart solutions, they'll view you as a trusted advisor.

Service - If you're not getting thank you e-mails or fan mail you're not doing a good enough job at service to make it a competitive advantage.

Non-retail related tip: If your employees don't know the answer to a question, teach them to say "I'll look into it and will get back to you in 30 minutes."

Then, teach them to drop everything, and solve the problem.

Wait, what if we can't solve the problem in 30 minutes? No problem. Keep your promise. Get back to the customer with a more informed time frame, and let them know that you'll keep them updated as you know more information.

Promises - Make a promise to each and every customer, and keep it. Keeping promises builds trust. 

The idea of promises -- weather it be promotions, warranties or satisfaction guarantees, to name a few -- is powerful, and simple. Leverage it.

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Follow ProjectLOO, Craig Rentmeester's way of helping small businesses compete online.

Being Available is Half the Battle

37Signals, developers of popular SaaS tools for small businesses and project teams, like Basecamp and Highrise, makes its CEO available for calls with customers for 4 hours each week.

Play to your strengths, and do something your larger competitors "can't do".

SMBs should take note.

Announcing Project LOO for Locally Owned and Operated Businesses

I wanted to let everyone know that I have created Project LOO, in conjunction with the launch of  Relevante Marketing, my newly formed internet marketing agency for SMBs.

What is Project LOO?

The goal of Project LOO is pretty straightforward. Build out Web sites and creating internet marketing systems for locally owned and operated businesses throughout the United States to make them more competitive.

Side note: LOO stands for Locally Owned and Operated.

Why is this Important?

While the recession may be over from a technical standpoint, independent businesses are still feeling the effects of high unemployment, translating into less sales than in year's past. 

Local search presents a huge opportunity for small businesses to grow their customer bases profitably, and be able to compete with national chains and franchises that have millions of dollars to spend on these services. In addition, studies have shown the decline of print directories and local newspaper as business information starting points, and the continued increase in local search.

Project LOO combines these data points into a call to action for locally owned and operated businesses; Your customers are acting differently, and you need to adapt your marketing to compete.

Project LOO by the Numbers

I want to work with 40 locally owned and operated businesses in 2010, in 40 different cities, to build 40 custom internet marketing systems. I plan to spend up to 40 weeks on-site (1 week per client).

Helping out the Local Community

I am willing to sacrifice my free time by traveling on site to each business to get each system off the ground. As such, I'll be spending money at local restaurants, coffee shops, bars, hotels, gas stations, etc.

I will hire local web designers, as needed, in each city to help me with each project.

The Offer

By working with 40 different businesses, I will be able to keep the price affordable for small businesses.

The cost for a primarily non-e-commerce related Web site will cost $4,000. This package will fit services-based businesses looking to increase leads, and retailers and restaurants looking to increase in-person traffic. The fee includes everything, including my time, freelance designers pay, travel, living, technology, 1 year of hosting, and 1 year of Web site maintenance.

The cost for a relatively small (~ 75 products) e-commerce site is $8,000. The higher fee is in place because I will need to hire more developers, at a higher rate, and there will be more prep work involved.There will also be more maintenance involved.

In addition, all 40 businesses will be promoted on the Project LOO web site, in any press releases, and via Project LOO's twitter account -- @ProjectLOO. 

Kickoff Contest

To kickoff Project LOO, I am giving away one Internet Marketing Package. All applications received by December 15, 2009, will be eligible.

I Need Your Help

With any new project or business, it's tough to get the word out. I have never asked for anything in return from my readers, but now I am. 

Think of your favorite local restaurants, dry cleaners, mechanics, etc. Do them a favor, tell them about Project LOO.

Tell a Small Business Owner

If you know of a small business in your city that doesn't have a presence online, tell them about Project LOO. It's an affordable and easy way for them to become competitive online. 

Promote Project LOO on Your Blog, Tweet about Project LOO, Post a Link, etc.

Visit the Support Page at ProjectLOO.com to learn more about what you can do to help me out. 

Sponsorship Opportunities

If you know of someone in charge of sponsorships at an airline, hotel or rental car company that might like to sponsor Project LOO, I can lower the costs  for each local business by partnering with these types of companies. I'd be willing to promote them on the Project LOO Web site, via Twitter and via any press releases or interviews related to Project LOO.

Thanks for reading, and helping me out. I truly appreciate it.

Thanks,
Craig Rentmeester

How to Handle Adversity

The Story

"AirAsia said 31-year-old passenger Liew Siaw Hsia went into labour on Wednesday's flight from the northern island of Penang to Kuching on Borneo island.

The aircraft made an emergency diversion to the Malaysian capital but the baby arrived just before landing, delivered by a doctor who was on board and who was assisted by the airline's flight attendants."

Article Credit

The Outcome

The Mom and her newborn son received a lifetime of Free Flights from AirAsia.

What a great move!

It allowed AirAsia to gain positive press. The story was also picked up by the AP, which also mentioned the lifetime of free flights, albeit less prominently. 

The story also got the number one spot on the Yahoo! homepage, which according to this article by Data Center Knowledge can drive upwards of one million pageviews.

The Takeaway

Handle adversity well, and make it a word of mouth opportunity.

5 Business Titles for the Future

In today's world of time-strapped employees, it's important to keep the focus on customers -- not on internal rules, processes and bull shit that gets in the way of productive interactions.

CSO - Common Sense Officer - The go-to person to act rationally, solve problems and work without regard for company policy. Isn't assigned to one department and knows the business better than anyone.  She may be a semi-retired industry veteran with a hatred for corporate policy and love for the industry and efficiency.

ICA - Important Customer Advisor - The person assigned to your most influential accounts that advises them on which products to purchase, how to purchase (finance, lease, purchase) and how to implement the products? This person gets paid handsomely, not on commission, to make sure these customers keep doing business with you.

Director of Customer Experience - A person who proactively seeks out areas where customers get screwed -- hidden fees, fine print, non-transparency, poor design, etc. This person is judged by how many complaints vs. how many positive reviews the company receives. NetPromoter score also a key performance metric. Has a healthy budget and never-ending list of approvements.

VP of Next Generation Customers - The person responsible for person who has a ridiculous budget to gain favor for the company and its products amongst students and children. Donations, Volunteering, Partnerships, Workshops, Giveaways and Sponsorships are order of the day.

Frontline Reporter - The person responsible for collecting and relaying information about bad business practices to the CSO, CEO, COO and Director of Customer Experience. Similar to the CSO, but with less authority.


The next time you're frustrated about how things are handled at your company, just think if you could turn to someone in one these roles and trust that something would get done to fix it. Customers, employees and suppliers would be lined up around the corner to work with this company. 

Do you know anyone in these types of roles? Are they awesome to work with and turn to with issues?

You Get what you Support

Markets, and the businesses in those markets, are there for a reason.

As soon as customers stop coming to businesses, the businesses are forced to adapt.

Whether it's the way a business sells (direct, distributor, etc.), to where a business is located, your purchases today affect investments tomorrow.

It challenging markets, customers have the power to make, break and shape the way a business operates.

Choose wisely.

You may be stuck with less than preferable options at the end of this cycle, because of the purchasing decisions you're making today.

Hindsight

Today is the last day that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is publishing its print edition. It will reduce its staff of 140 down to 20-25 employees as it moves to an online only newspaper.

Three years ago I received the letter below from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. (click the image below to view the letter).

It notified me that I didn't get accepted to their internship program.

Around this time, I got the same types of letters from editors at Newsweek, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, and many other daily newspapers and magazines.

Hindsight has allowed me to realize that I applied to these types of internship programs for the wrong reasons.

1. I had no vision; I didn't know what I wanted to do or become.
2. I was denying the fact that newspapers were a dying industry, even though the writing was on the wall.
3. I was applying because it was safe. I had worked at magazine for 4-5 months and was a J-school student.

In retrospect, I was glad I caught on at a startup company called BuySelf Realty, and had the opportunity to change the way people sold their homes. This was in May 2006, around the time that flat-fee real estate services were becoming popular, and the housing bubble was in full swing. 

I learned more about business there than I would have doing fact-checking at the P-I. 

The takeaway

When you don't get what you were hoping for, try to remember why you wanted it in the first place.

Is it truly what you were looking for, or were  you trying to convince yourself it was what you wanted when it really wasn't.  

Hindsight brings clarity. Vision can do the same.

Examples of Well-crafted Headlines in a RSS-centric World

After seeing this headline, Obamas juggle inaugral balls, in my RSS tab for CNN.com, it made me think about headlines of articles I've read via via RSS recently that I can remember as having interesting titles.

Hats off to Fast Company. I remembered four FC articles with interesting titles in particular. Also, 37Signals got in on the action.

* = Interesting article
- = Headline was better than the article
& = Great advice on customer service
% = Mildly interesting

The five I recalled were articles I've read in the past day, all via RSS.

*  Paper House for Disaster Zone Makes Three Little Pigs Jealous - FC
*  Wireless Electricity is Here (Seriously) - FC
&  The Bullshit of Outage Language - 37Signals - Signal vs. Noise blog
% These Cars are so Green they should be recycled immediately - FC
-  A House Optimus Prime Would Love - FC

Pictures, Images and Graphics

I often get asked where to find images for presentations and marketing collateral.

There are a number of free and pay-per-image resources on the web.

A few that I use are:

• Stock Xchng - Free and Paid Options
• Stock Vault - Free and Paid Options
• Flickr -*Free
• Getty Images - Paid

To get free images on Flickr, with a creative commons license, do an advanced search.

Make sure that the image licenses allow for commercial purposes if you plan to use someone else's work on a web site or brochure.

Think of Marketing like you would a chain

Like a chain, your marketing is only as strong as your weakest link.

Here are some examples of things that are easily overlooked or  moved down the priority list, but can be corrected easily.

• Web site formatting/spacing issues.
• Cleanliness of lobby and offices that customers see.
• Cleanliness of delivery trucks.
• Bathroom cleanliness.
• Quality of your PowerPoint images.
• The slowest responding or least informed customer service rep, salesperson or receptionist.
• Your neglected storefront.
• Your misused logo.

We all overlook things that we see or interact with every day.

A can of paint, and a fresh set of eyes, can go a long way to making your company more customer friendly.

Surprising Search Results

Just now I wanted to find out what the most up-to-date odds were for Big Brown to win the Belmont Stakes.

So, I searched "Belmont Stakes Odds". The surprising thing is that no gambling sites have search campaigns including that search phrase. It's three hours before the race.

Seems like a missed opportunity.

Click the image on the right for larger screenshot.

By the way, he's a 2-to-5 favorite -- meaning you'd have to bet $500 to win $200.

Enjoy the race.

Business Profile: Lulu

Lulu is one of the neatest services I've seen in a long time, and I have been meaning to talk about it for a while.

What is Lulu?
Lulu provides short-run manufacturing of books for self publishers, among other things. It basically allows anyone to write and create a physical, paperback book. In addition, Lulu provides services for reviewing content, editing, formatting, and promoting your book.

The Pros

• The service is flexible. You can choose to print one copy, one hundred or one thousand. The quantity is up to you.

• The prices are  pretty affordable.
  • 35 copies of a 150-page book, black and white and bound = $243   ($6.92/copy)
  • 100 copies of a 85-page book in full color and bound - $1550   ($15.50/copy)

• Lulu offers a free online store front to help you sell your masterpiece without the upfront production cost commitments typically associated with printing.
• You can get your ISBN number
• A wide range of services for editing, formatting and promoting your work.

The Cons

• Lulu doesn't give cash advances to authors to allow them to quit your day job while you work on your masterpiece.
• Lulu doesn't provide data about the number of authors who sell fewer than 500 copies to strangers (most) or just how many books get published each year (thousands).

Feedback/Insight
Have you or someone you know used Lulu? If so, let me know. I have been thinking about writing a basic guide to marketing for a while and Lulu seems like the perfect route for it.

Any feedback you have would be much appreciated.

Thinker, Tinker or Tanker

Which one are you, a thinker, a tinker or a tanker?

A thinker develops theories, thinks about the "big picture" and strategy, but isn't a hands-on person. She doesn't like the trial and error method.

The tinker has many hobbies, likes trial and error, and she likes variety.

The tanker gets things done. The tanker takes out the garbage while cooking breakfast and gets the kids to school, in 45 minutes flat (33 minutes with no traffic). The tanker has processes they've built over time and they work, for her.

Does your view of yourself match up with your actions? Does your job match up with your style?

Happy Oscars

Tonight is Oscar night. It's party time for many.

I thought I'd pass along a link to an interesting Oscars article, title "Oscars by the Numbers".

Also, here's a link my post from the past about the PR value of winning an Oscar.

Happy New Year - What are your resolutions and goals?

Happy New Year.

Being that it's New Year's Eve, I am thinking about some things I want to accomplish in 2008.

I understand this is a selfish post, as it mostly pertains to my goals. However, I am interested to hear what goals other people have, so please share them in the comments. If there is  any information I can share related to yours I'll be sure to do so.

I think that writing goals down (and posting them online apparently) with steps on how to achieve them is a good way to stay on track.

So, allow me to share some personal and professional goals 2008.

Professional Goals
One of my (professional) goals in 2008 is to grow my network of interesting and talented professionals in the Twin Cities.

To do this, I am going to actively participate in trade organizations,  networking events and meeting new people on a day-to-day basis.

Another goal of mine is to take on freelance marketing projects in 2008. To do this, I am going to launch a personal Web site -- www.craigrentmeester.com -- complete with a portfolio of past work and information about my personal/professional background.

Hopefully, those two goals will complement one another.

Personal Goal
A personal goal I have is to do at least six days worth of big mountain skiing in 2008. To do this, I am going to take a trip in February to Colorado. Hopefully, I'll be able to take another long-weekend trip next Fall to either Montana, Utah or California.

Hopefully the weather cooperates :)

What are your goals for 2008? How will you reach them?