The NYCBNG Better Business Blog

5 Traits of Highly Successful Salesmen http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/5-traits-of-highly-successful-salesmen.html

How're We Doing? No, Really

Entrepreneurship can be a lonely business, so it's important to get lots of feedback from customers and employees. But what kind of feedback do you really want, and how do you get it?

I was recently asked to help get effective, casual, and simply more feedback into the daily rhythm of a fast-growing technology company. This is a timely question: With the start of a new year, organizations are conducting annual reviews, which are generally the big kahuna of feedback. Too often, these reviews are the only substantive feedback most employees receive.

But no one gets it right the first time, all the time, which is why the process of giving and receiving feedback needs to be embedded in the practice of leadership—and to be more than a once-a-year event.  Unfortunately, giving and receiving feedback can be tough for many leaders. Some of the reasons for this include:

• Reluctance to criticize another person, or to be seen as doing so
• The emotional vulnerability that accompanies an openness to feedback
• The power dynamic of a boss evaluating a subordinate, or even of peers evaluating each other
• The politics of saying that one perspective is ‘right’ and another ‘wrong.’

In order to influence the process, and to make feedback a healthy part of a functioning organization, a leader must first ask a series of questions.

Read More: How're We Doing? No, Really

10 Ways To Avoid Fees & Get Free Money http://lifehacker.com/5880087/top-10-ways-to-avoid-fees-and-get-free-money

17 Tips to be a Charismatic Leader http://www.businessinsider.com/17-things-you-need-to-know-if-you-want-to-be-a-charismatic-leader-2012-1

5 Online CRM Platforms That Go Beyond Basics

CRM tools have been around forever. But the tools are evolving rapidly and in many ways redefining the boundaries of what CRM is. The latest market changes require a much broader community approach to building relationships with clients.

Today’s CRM tools are online and they include social data as standard aspects of every record. They also include a comprehensive view of the client relationship, including project management, collaboration and even billing.

My dad had a file box full of handwritten ledgers detailing everything he knew about his biggest customers, including when they ordered. That was his CRM tool, and it worked.

Read More:5 Online CRM Platforms That Go Beyond Basics

10 Tips for Building a Strong Online Community Around Your Startup

Building a community around your startup can be one of the cheapest ways to create momentum for your product. A community is much more than a one-time marketing campaign, and can help you throughout your company’s life cycle if you take the time to grow it right.

Here are 10 tips for getting started.

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1. Look Before You Leap

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First, take stock of who is already talking about your product or industry and where they’re doing it. Mike Handy, a community consultant, suggests you seek out “pockets of users who are excited about your product or service.” If users are already talking about your product on Twitter, for instance, that’s a good place to start building.

Sumaya Kazi, CEO of Sumazi, recommends “It’s best to focus on one to two communities to begin with, and really focus your efforts to grow a community one at a time.” Take stock of where your efforts will be most useful and narrow in on those areas.

Read More: 10 Tips for Building a Strong Online Community Around Your Startup

The Shady Practice Of Spinning Articles To Avoid Duplicate Content Penalties

If you've been walking on the sunny side of a clean street on your Search Marketing journey, hopefully you've skipped right past that dark and narrow alleyway in which lurks the spin monster. The practice of 'spinning' articles for directory submission isn't new, but it has come to my notice that marketing firms are currently utilizing this as a post-Panda effort for avoiding the dread Google duplicate content label, and I'm writing this article today to describe what the process is. If you're about to hire a marketer/SEO whose methods of promotion include submitting 'spun' articles to content sites, read this first before you sign that contract.

Read More: The Shady Practice Of Spinning Articles To Avoid Duplicate Content Penalties

Keep it fresh for success: Why updating your website is crucial

As January 2012 draws to a close, I recently concluded a highly non-scientific study of various product websites and a random sampling of “business” sites via StumbleUpon.

My mission? To see not only how often these sites are regularly updating their content, but also how many of them are paying attention to the details.

My point? When consumers want to know more about a product, service, i.e. your business, chances are they’ll ask a friend or family member first, but also jump on the Internet and happily Google away.

After speaking with a number of colleagues and friends, I found that the biggest turn off was seeing a bunch of static content whereby users had no idea if the business was still actually in existence, with common comments including, “But where’s the …? Am I missing the Facebook link? Where’s their Twitter feed? What’s their position on…?”

Read More: Keep it fresh for success: Why updating your website is crucial

How Cloud Redefines Our Most Important Business Technology Relationships

“May you live in interesting times.” For anyone involved in information technology development and delivery, these are very interesting times, says David Nichols, principal and CIO services leader for Ernst & Young IT Advisory Services. Cloud computing is reshaping the way businesses relate to technology, managers and professionals relate to each other.

In my previous post, based on my chat with Nichols, he outlined some compelling business cases for the cloud, and described the threshold many enterprises have yet to cross before they become cloud-intensive enterprises. But as they reach or surpass this threshold, what’s it doing to important relationships — between companies, IT managers, business managers, and even outsourcers?

 

Read More: How Cloud Redefines Our Most Important Business Technology Relationships

A Guide to Small Business Survival

Small business ownership can be a challenge, especially in the beginning. The rewards can be great but you may need a survival guide to get you through the tough parts or just to provide that simple advice that seems so elusive when the pressure is on. We hope the links below will help, and don’t forget to enjoy the journey.

Basic Resources

Small business blogger survival guide. A big part of surviving as a small business blogger involves being a social animal. Here David Leonhardt gives every small business blogger some great resources to keep you, your business, and your blog alive. ProBlogger

Tax tips for business. How you manage money once your business makes it can sometimes be as critical as your business model. Here are some basic deductions you must take to be sure you are saving all that you can. The One of a Kind Preneur

 

Read More: A Guide to Small Business Survival

How to Win Great Publicity - Without a PR Firm

How would you like to be featured on CNN, CBS News, the BBC, and VH1? If you’re San Francisco area artist Steven Backman, that’s just a few months’ coverage; over the years, he’s been profiled by scores of top-tier international outlets. But unlike many top professionals, he doesn’t use a high-end PR firm to shill for him. Instead, he’s become his own publicity machine – and his lessons on winning great press can benefit any executive or entrepreneur who seeks a higher profile.

1. Build a good media list. Backman – who makes elaborate and meticulous sculptures out of toothpicks – began by developing a target list of publications he’d like to be featured in. Next, he identified (through the masthead or looking online) the email addresses for key staffers. “I wouldn’t just email one person,” says Backman. “I’d email the whole staff, the art director, the managing editors.” Journalists might get angry if he did that all the time, but he ensured his messages were timely and interesting. His media list is now up to over 2000, and he says that he each press release he distributes results in at least 2-3 stories.

Read More: How to Win Great Publicity - Without a PR Firm

Which Way Is Best: Relationships First or Business First?

Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from Business Networking and Sex (Not What You Think) (Entrepreneur Press, 2012) by Ivan Misner, Hazel M. Walker and Frank J. De Raffele Jr. The book parses data from a survey of more than 12,000 businesspeople that focused on gender differences in networking to understand communication roadblocks between women and men and to provide breakthroughs that can help improve results.

Related: Networking With the Opposite Sex by Hazel M. Walker

It's no amazing revelation to say that the first priority for women is relationships, and for men, getting business. DNA evidence and the roles men still play in our society support that fact. Men have been the hunters, protectors and providers of our clans since the beginning of time. This is not to say female breadwinners are not increasing in number every day as the sole supporters of their families, because they are. But let's go back to who we are at a primal level.

As the provider, I feel it is my responsibility to bring home the bacon, steak, buffalo -- or squirrel, if it has been a very bad day. When I'm bringing that catch home, I'm not trying to build a forever relationship with that meal that I'm hunting. I need to catch it, prepare it for my family and get it home, just like the sales and deals I go after in today's world.

Read More: Which Way Is Best: Relationships First or Business First?

8 Easy Ways to Boost Your Website on a Budget http://www.openforum.com/articles/a-small-business-guide-8-easy-ways-to-boost-your-website-on-a-budget

Three Affordable Ways to Get Celebrities to Promote Your Brand

Hiring a celebrity spokesperson is a proven way to drive sales. It's also frightfully expensive and has the potential to backfire. Consider all of the brands that had Tiger Woods signed up as pitchman when his marital scandal hit and his golden career suddenly imploded.

A better way to go for many brands may be to get a celebrity to either use your product or even to just appear with your brand for a brief time. Here are three ways to involve celebrities in your business that are lower cost and have less downside risk if your chosen celeb has a breakdown:

Swag bags. Events that attract celebrities usually put together gift bags for attendees. The mother lode of all swag bags is coming up -- the Oscar show and attendant parties. This year's Oscar bag overflows with $75,000 in goodies, including a Kim Kardashian signature watch, beauty products, jewelry, and two different vacation trips. (The luxury swag is reportedly one reason nominees are always "just happy to be nominated.")

Read More: Three Affordable Ways to Get Celebrities to Promote Your Brand

Curation vs. Content Creation in 2012

It’s no longer enough just to blog. Collecting good posts, pictures and information creates value. Curation (a valuable collection of content) is the new content creation, and it will be on the rise in 2012.

Here's how to understand and manage this new wave.

1. Content is still king

Blog posts, articles, e-books, comments and what we see on Facebook and Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn, all of that stand-alone information, is content. A web search for the phrase “content is king” shows why content is still most important. Content is evidence of knowledge and experience. It’s useful and people like it.

Many experts prove themselves by offering content. One of the very best ways to validate who you are is by publishing what you know. And we do most of that for free.

Read More: Curation vs. Content Creation in 2012

The pricing formula (S&S)

Years ago, my bosses and I needed to finalize the pricing for a new line of software I was launching. In the room we had MBAs from Harvard (2), Stanford, Tuck and, I think, Wharton. We had three prices in mind, and the five of us couldn't agree. So we did the only scientific thing: we flipped a coin (two out of three, just to be sure).

Pricing your product is actually simple, as long as you consider it from the buyer's point of view. How much it costs you to make something is irrelevant. They don't care (of course, you can't price something at a loss and hope to stay in business for long). The two keys to the analysis:

Read More: The pricing formula (S&S)

7 lesser-known ways to make money from your content online

Do you remember ‘Charlie bit my finger’? Charlie’s family certainly does: they made £120,000 in YouTube earnings. Yet, this remains an exception; unless they go incredibly viral, YouTube videos aren’t a reliable source of income.

However, it doesn’t mean you can’t monetize your digital content online. Yet you may want to look elsewhere than Google and turn to smaller companies. Several of them are experimenting business models that go well beyond the traditional CPM approach for online ad impressions, resulting in interesting returns for authors and publishers.

To get you started, here’s a list of lesser-known platforms that let you distribute your own media content – and make money from it:

Read More: 7 lesser-known ways to make money from your content online

Six tips for better brainstorming

(CNN) -- It's a familiar scene: The boss calls for a brainstorming session and everyone obediently shuffles into the conference room to stare at a white board, trying to pull new ideas out of thin air.

The result? A handful of participants monopolize the conversation, a few others contribute occasionally, while the remainder sit waiting to get back to work.

"The typical session lacks structure and focus," says Shawn Coyne, co-author of "Brainsteering: A better approach to breakthrough ideas."

"Some ideas seem quite interesting, some of them ridiculous, some are great but will never see the light of day. In the end, people mostly leave feeling dissatisfied and frustrated," he adds.

For Brian Clegg, director of Creativity Unleashed -- a consultation firm that helps businesses apply creative thinking methods -- companies are harnessing only a fraction of the brainstorming session's potential.

Read More: Six tips for better brainstorming

A Guide for Using Mobile Devices When Traveling Abroad http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/222686

Entrepreneurs Who Changed Business as We Knew It

 

John Byrne

I recently spoke with John A. Byrne’s, who is the author of World Changers: 25 Entrepreneurs Who Changed Business as We Knew It. John is the founder and chief executive of C-Change Media, a digital media company creating niche business websites that combine original, high-quality content, with curation and community to gain distinction and competitive advantage of the Internet. He is the former executive editor of BusinessWeek, editor in chief of Fast Company, and associate editor at Forbes. He co-authored the New York Times bestseller “Straight from the Gut” with former GE Chairman, Jack Welch. In this interview, John talks about the biggest challenges leaders have when building companies, gives advice from successful entrepreneurs, and more.

Read More: Entrepreneurs Who Changed Business as We Knew It

Starbucks Is Into Them. But What Exactly Are CDFIs? Community Development Financial Institutions http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/222683

10 tips to get the most out of Pinterest for your business

Now that we’ve given you the ultimate guide on how to get started with Pinterest, it’s worth taking a look at how businesses can put the social networking world’s darling to work for them.

Before taking a look at how you can put Pinterest to work for you, it’s worth looking at why you shouldn’t be ignoring Pinterest. First and foremost, the numbers speak louder than anything else. In the past six months, visits to Pinterest grew by 4000%, receiving an amazing 11 million hits in just one week.

Pinterest has also proved to be a great way to drive traffic to your site, and in some cases, has out-performed Facebook. According to Adage, in December, Shannon King, the General Manager of Time Inc’s magazine Real Simple said, ”Pinterest is a huge source from a referral standpoint, even beating out referrals from Facebook in the month of October.”

Read More: 10 tips to get the most out of Pinterest for your business

Five Best Online Meeting Services

If you work at a company with employees in offices around the globe, or you work in a small company but want to collaborate with a contractor who works from home or vendor across the country, you need a service that will let you connect with your team, share documents, collaborate on them, and in some cases even share your screen or webcam with them. Here are five of the best services to conduct productive online meetings, based on your nominations.

Earlier in the week we asked you which services you used for online meetings. You responded with lots of great options that you use personally or your company provides for you. Here's a look at the top five.

Read More: Five Best Online Meeting Services

97 Ideas for Building a Valuable Platform http://www.chrisbrogan.com/97/

Don't Give Up If You Want To Build A Web Business But Don't Know How To Code

Ostriches can’t fly. To add insult to injury, they’re one of the largest bird species out there. They have to hobble around looking for something to do while their avian counterparts swoop into the air in boundless directions.

If you can’t code and aspire to start a web business, odds are you feel just like the ostrich. Despite spending years in school and hours at the workplace, you can’t create your vision. You're left with two options: learn to code (a worthy investment of your time if you can afford it: Codecademy) or find a programmer (which warrants an article in and of itself). Given the frustration, many would-be entrepreneurs give up on their vision without giving it a real chance. A real pity.

Based on my own experience, this article provides some tips to help you flap those stubby little wings and turn them into airlifting power.

Read More: Don't Give Up If You Want To Build A Web Business But Don't Know How To Code