Ok, here’s the thing, I am a stickler for keeping organized. I possibly have OCD tendencies but that is a discussion for another day. As our business has grown and as we have added staff, it has been a plan of mine to get some sort of task management and CRM system. I’ve looked at probably six or seven different software that clam to be able to do what I need. Oh and without spending and arm and a leg. I’m willing to to the the wrist and the ankles but that is it.

After my thorough research I came to the conclusion that nothing existed that I liked that would fir my specific needs. Years ago when I worked for other companies, we used a specific product that was my favorite. In fact, I even had companies start using it that didn’t have a system in place. It’s SalesForce.com. I am a huge fan. There were only little quirks here and there that would irritate me but they were worth putting up with for all of the other features that SalesForce has.

After being discouraged on everything else I checked out, I decided to see what their pricing was for a small business. Much to my surprise and delight, they have a package that is only $5 per user per month. Not everyone in our company will need to use this so I only ordered five user licenses. You pay upfront for a year but honestly, for $300 and change, I am thrilled. This is going to make all of us so much more productive.

Another benefit is that it integrates with Outlook. If you use Outlook for your email and have tons of email from clients that you want to save, this is a perfect solution. You can do so much with SalesForce. I really invite you to check it out if you are looking to increase productivity and stay on task.

So here is an interesting challenge. I live in a community that is torn up by construction. I cannot begin to tell you how much this bothers me to the deepest level of my core. I would be writing all day. The thing is, if I look at just my neighborhood- which has been in the throes of construction for two years (not exaggerating), they actually put an island at the entrance to my street in the subdivision. Now I get that there are two entrances but my side is the one that has the name of the subdivision. It irks me that I can no longer turn left at my street or turn onto my street from the main street leading in. If I were to give someone my address and the Google’d it, the map would come up saying to turn there but now you cannot turn on my street if you are headed west. It is frustrating but I’m sure most people would figure out how t get here from the other entrance a few hundred feet away.

Now then, let’s travel about 2 miles east. We had this quirky L shape that separated a main street. Not sure how to explain what that is called. basically, you drive then you have to turn left then right to get on the same street. It was a pain. Well they sort of improved that. Now you go straight. However, there were apartments on that old piece that you can’t get to the same way. As I was driving down that new street this weekend, I was wondering how that affected their business. Not good I’m sure. The I wondered, what are they calling that street now? There can’t be both pieces with the same name.  Then I saw it “Old Magee”. I started to wonder how this is affecting their map marker in Google. I doubt that Google keeps up with all the construction issues.

I’ve checked the map and see that the satellite images and street view are correct. It’s been a while since that street was created so I’m not sure how long it was before their map marker was updated.

The moral of the story is that if your business is effected by construction, be sure to remember your map makers in the search engines and get them adjusted so you don’t cause frustration to your customers.

When you first started your business you may not have given a thought to what you would do with it when you were ready to move on.Maybe you did. Maybe you were building your business to give to your children. Maybe you dreamt of selling it to someone for millions of dollars. Most people don’t work at their business for years just to sell the assets and shut the doors. Who wouldn’t want their business to pay off more than that after working more hours than they cared to year after year?

My questions to you is “What’s your Exit Strategy“? How are you going to be sure that your business is worth something when you step out off the picture. Are your customers only doing business with you or are they doing business with your business? The reason I am challenging you to think about this now is in the event you haven’t thought about it before you still have time to make adjustments.

Let’s say you are a one man show. You may think that it just your good name that brings you customers and you could be right. Now think a step ahead. How are you getting those customers? Is it just word of mouth or do you have a presence on the Internet that is bringing you leads?

You can be an individual or a small business or even trying to run with the big boys. The truth is the more exposure your brand has and the more inbound leads you are getting, the more your business is worth.

Take a look at it from another angle. Say I’m in the market to start a business. First I have to consider do I want to start from scratch or buy a franchise or an existing business. I will weigh out all of my options and come to a decision. If I choose to buy an existing business. I want to know how much it is worth. If your business has a strong Internet presence such as a decent social media following and a page one presence of the search engines, an email or text message list to market to, you are going to look more attractive to me. Ok, perhaps not you personally since we’ve never met but I digress.

Are you seeing things in a different light now? If you are thinking about your exit strategy whether a few months or a few years from now, don’t forget to include a digital media presence. You may want to check with a local business broker and see if they can give you any feedback on the direct impact of having little or no digital presence to a decent or strong presence and start making adjustments.

If you are looking to grow your patient base, our friends over at Cumulus Radio had a great opportunity from you Ann Bolchalk recently shared with me a campaign that they are launching that can help those in the medical industry increase their exposure and practice. Here are a few details:

This guide will be available at several locations around Tucson such as:

• Behavioral Health Sciences Catalina Senior Center
• Clinica Del Alma
• East Side Health Center
• Ellie Towne Health Center
• Flowing Wells Family Health Center
• Freedom Park Health Center
• Highlands at Dove Mountain
• Keeling Health Center
• Marana Chamber of Commerce
• Marana Health Center Main Clinic
• MHC Obstetrics & Women’s Health
• MHC Primary Health Center
• Northwest Hospital
• NW YMCA
• Oro Valley Hospital
• Ortiz Community Health Center
• Pima Community College NW, West & East
• Pima County Health Dept.
• Pima Heart-possible multiple locations
• Santa Catalina Health Center
• Tucson Chamber of Commerce
• Tucson Medical
• VA Hospital
• West Side Health Center
• WIC location (17)
• Wilmot Family Health Center

You can download the guide here for more details.

Call Ann Bolchalk  at (520) 696.2713 if you are interested in getting exposure that will help your practice thrive.

There have a been a few times where I have come across folks whose websites have appeared to have something go awry and yet they don’t know what happened. Or links that don’t work and missing images. Here is something to consider.

First, back up your site weekly. Hosting companies generally do this as well but they may back up the bad version of your site over a good file back up and then what are you going to do?  Next, be sure you are a user in your WordPress site. You should always have access to your own site.

The next thing, and this is very important, when you delete a user from your site, you want to attribute what they have done to you so you don’t lose that work. Here is a video that explains how to do this.

If you still aren’t sure what happened, try to get your site restored through your hosting company.

One of the things that we always do for any clients who sell to a local community is add them to local business listing sites and directory sites. There is a difference in the two and will discuss that in another post. There are many benefits to adding your business on these sites. Here are the main ones:

• Backlinks – I know you aren’t surprised to see this right? After all we do provide SEO services and the main part of offsite SEO is backlinks. The thing is, many of these directory sites are considered authoritative in Google’s eyes so the backlink is powerful.
• Citations – No, I’m not referral to the bad type that ruins your day because you got pulled over. These citations are all online. It is your name, address and phone number. When it comes to local businesses, having your citation exactly the same across many directory sites is very powerful. It gives you credibility in the search engine’s eyes and your target market.
• Search Results – Have you ever done a search and the results that you get are mixed with sites like Yelp, Angie’s List, and the like? Well if those sites are on page one and you are not listed in those sites…enough said.
• Reviews – Many of the directory sites also serve as review sites. Dealing with reviews is a whole other blog post but they are important. Do you think people are reading reviews on these sites? Consider this, how many review sites are there? Not sure? Well how about this then – Google allows you to write a review on a business’s Google+ Local page. Google is not a non-profit organization. If they are doing it, you should probably take notice.You do want reviews there as well but for the sake of this post, we are talking about the other review sites. If there are so many of them, clearly it is because they make money. One way they make money is through advertising. If no one saw their ads, they would not be around for long. So the reasoning stand that there are people on their sites. And you know you need to be everywhere your target market is online.

The downfall with these directory sites is – well one of y clients said it best. “They are vultures”. once you get your listing in there, you will be bombarded with emails and phone calls to be up sold. I don’t typically recommend that as I have yet to hear of anyone doing well with the paid placements in directories. If you do want to consider it, then ask these questions:

• How many visitors a month from my city are looking for my product or service?
• How many of my competitors are also advertising there?
• Do my competitors have more reviews or a higher rating? If my target market sees both of us side by side at a glance – who looks better?
• Is there a contract?
• Do they have references from someone in my industry but in another city or someone in my city in another industry?
• How long do people usually advertise with them? If there is a three month commitment and folks typically stay for three months then they probably aren’t getting anything out of it.

These are just a few things to consider.

The take away tip from today though is that you need to be in these directories. Look to see who comes up on page one and page two and be certain you are in those. If you need help getting your directories set up, we’d be happy to help. Just give us a call at 520-572-2390.

I meet a lot of business due to the nature of my industry. It’s always great getting to know other business owners and finding out more about the goals and dreams. Recently I joined a networking group in Marana and have had an opportunity to meet some really great people. I’ll be featuring a different business each week or so that can assist other businesses owners, and consumers.

The first “Featured Business” is my local UPS Store. While UPS is a large corporation, the local UPS stores are franchises and it’s always great when we can support local businesses in our community. My particular closest store is at Thornydale and Cortaro. I just ordered a set of business cads for myself and my business partner and the owner, Shawn Cochran was so great to deal with. I couldn’t decide exactly what I wanted and changed my mind after I sent him the first set of files and Shawn never made me feel like I was a problem child (thank you Shawn).

If you are looking for personal service, please check out the UPS store in the Basha’s plaza. It’s also great to support these businesses while there is so much construction going on it that area. They also offer a great targeted mailing service. If you are looking to reach households within a certain zip code, they can do a mailing for you to reach those areas.

To get more information on the services Shawn and the UPS store offers, please visit their website or give them a call.

UPS Northwest Tucson

I’ve joined a group that many of you may have already heard of, The Tucson Business Club. What you may not know is that Bill Nordbrock and Jennifer Philips have launched a Marana group. For those of us that live on the NW side of town or in Marana, this is very exciting. I admit I was slow to check out the Tucson Business Club, with business and so many other commitments, I just never found the time. However, I finally became intentional about checking out one of their meetings and I am so happy I did.

A new friend of mine, has a great saying about “Fishing in the right pond” and I’ve really taken her words to heart. I am so careful about where I spend my time these days. Not only has my business grown because of it but I have forged some great relationships and met some outstanding people. I was really impressed with the TCB and if you are looking for a great place to network, make connections and help others grow their business, I highly recommend you check out the new Marana Chapter of the TCB. They are off to a great start. Here is a list of business categories that are open in the group. If you are in this industry, visit the site and connect with Bill or Jennifer and get your questions answered.

Business Categories/Strategic Partners

Our friend Christy Giroux with Compound Profit is participating in an upcoming SCORE lunch workshop on Thursday, 3/29/12, from 11:30 am – 1:30 pm on funding options for businesses.

Get those pesky credit issues resolved and learn about viable alternative financing options over lunch on Thursday, March 29 with the credit experts!

Credit Profile Components
Loan Options and Packaging
Banks, Credit Unions and Uncle Louie

The presenters are Krystal Adams, Business Loan Manager at Tucson Federal Credit Union and Christy Giroux, President/Regional Director for Compound Profit of Arizona.

Here’s the registration link:  http://southernarizona.score.org/localworkshops/score-get-funded-luncheon

Thanks!

Towards the end of last year I was having coffee with someone at a local spot and a woman was sitting next to us who approached us and asked if I was a videographer. Well, long story short, we ended up meeting and I was so impressed with her and how she does business. It was fascinating to learn more about her and what she does and her approach to how she networks was particularly interesting.  Her name is Genine Cogan and she is offering a discount to an organization that needs training if they will allow us to film. It doesn’t have to be the entire training a we realize there may be proprietary information or other sensitive content. Basically an intro and some footage of her delivery training.

If you have been considering training but cost has prevented you from moving forward, this may be a good solution. I believe she only needs one company to take her up on this offer so don’t delay in contacting her if you are interested. Here is more info on Genine. Please note that her website is currently under development so call her for details.

 TrainingSimplified.com 

   “Meaningful Dialogue Begins Here”

      TrainingSimplified.com provides active learning courses for companies who want to learn how to have engaging and meaningful conversations with their customers.  Every 10 minutes people mentally check out of conversations and presentations delivered by people without the right skills. Great presenters and speakers use the specific skills we teach to create engagement, promote learning, and have meaningful dialogue.  We help people connect and create engaging conversations with their customers, patients, or sales prospects.  We create meaningful dialogue.

Genine Cogan, founder and creator of TrainingSimplified.com

A professional facilitator and training and development consultant.  Customized courses in four primary areas:

•      Facilitation skills:  facilitating a meeting or a lesson
•      The Art of Story Telling:  How to develop and convey a powerful story.
•      Recognizing and Accommodating Learning Styles in Meetings:  The 6 dimensions of learning styles.
•      Charisma:  Shifting from Communicating to Connecting

Over 15 years corporate training and facilitation, curriculum development, and on-boarding experience for aerospace, manufacturing, telecommunications, financial services, real estate and retail based organizations.

Training and facilitation experience:  strategic planning, human resources/ on-boarding, quality control tools, MBTI, Zenger-Miller, Kepner-Tregoe, Project Management, Conflict Resolution-Mediation, Covey Leadership, John Maxwell Leadership, Situational Leadership, Systems Thinking, Sales, Soft Skills and Customer Service.

Certifications:

The Center for Effective Performance, Inc:
Mastering the Art of Instructor Led Training

John Maxwell Leadership:

• Everyone Communicates, Few Connect
• Becoming a Person of Influence
• How to be a REAL Success
• Leadership Gold
• Put your Dreams to the Test

Education and Affiliations:

•       Master’s Degree in Organization Management
•       A Veteran of the United States Air Force

•        Founding Partner of the John Maxwell Team

Contact info:

Genine Cogan
520-869-4079

genine.biz AT gmail.com (please use appropriate email format – this is to prevent spam and nasty email robot harvesters)