January 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Digital Akron now in person & online

I have two quick points I want to make here:

1. I’ve been working on my ability to do events simultaneously in person and online. I did a full day class that way yesterday. It worked great!

So we are going to run this week’s Digital Akron event the same way. The event is totally free and always geared around a particular topic. You can learn more here: http://digitalakron.eventbrite.com

2. It’s possible that I’ve never been busier at SageRock than I am right now. It is so tempting to put off writing this blog. But I attribute all my busy-ness to this blog. 3 posts a week. There is nothing more important to growing my business than making sure this blog gets written. This post comes to you from my phone in bed (in the dark) last night.

I tell you this for a couple reasons. First, I am living proof of the value of blogging. My marketing consists of three thing: Twitter, speaking and blogging. That’s it. Those are the only ways I promote my company. Second, you have time to blog. If I have time you have time.

You don’t have to write the great American novel as your blog post. No one expects you to. Just try to write something helpful.
 
 

Filed Under: Featured, SageRock, Small Business
January 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment

A Vision for 15 Broad St. – An Akron Digital Center

I try not to focus too much on one geographic audience. But this is something that I’ve been thinking about a lot and want to talk to with you on the subject.

First, if you don’t know, we bought our building going on two years ago. (We’ll be at 15 Broad St. for two years in March)

For most of that time we have shared the space with two other companies.

SKYTECH TRAINING – Public, Private and Virtual IT Training

Archer Retail Construction

The guys at Archer have recently renovated the back building of the property and have moved out of the main building.

This is the floor plan of the entire property:

So, we now have a few areas in the main building that are open.

This is what I’m thinking:

I’d like to setup a Digital Center in Akron.

I’m thinking it would be really cool if we could get several companies in the building that are related but non-competing.

Ideas include:

  • Design
  • Writers
  • General marketers
  • Social media experts
  • Videography
  • Photography (I have a room that has the potential for being a sweet studio for both video and photography.)
  • Public Relations
  • PHP coder
  • ASP.NET coder
  • Email
  • Print specialist

Those are the ones off the top of my head. But I’m open to others. I would love to have a place where like-minded people could come to work and collaborate.

Every time we have a person like one of the above people come in to our building magic starts happening. People start talking to each other about jobs they are working on. Then someone else says something like, “Wow. That’s really cool. Have you thought about doing this…”

There is something so powerful about getting a group of people together.

Here are my initial thoughts on logistics:

  • You could rent month-to-month desk space.
  • The rent would be by the desk ($125/month).
    • If you need full rooms we have that too.
  • Everything is included with that. 
    • Free Internet
    • Free heat
    • Free air conditioning
    • Free water and trash
    • Everything is included with that rate.
    • The only thing it doesn’t include is a phone line. But cell phones and Skype solve that problem these days. And if you are really in need of a wired phone line I’m sure we can figure something out.

We also have a large conference room and kitchen that is included too.

I have more pictures here.

I think this could be a really powerful collaboration center that would help us all make more money.

So, if you are working at home or would like a more flexible office space filled with similar companies that get what you are all about, please let me know. I’d love to talk with you and show you the space.

You can click here to fill out a form that will come to me.

Or call me at: 330-379-9000 ex 5010

I truly believe this could be a  great opportunity for everybody.

Filed Under: Featured, SageRock, Small Business
January 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

What does it all mean? My learnings from #CES

I’m trying to keep my mind open here at the Consumer Electronics Show. You are so inclined at something like this to make what you are seeing fit into your preconceived beliefs. You can see anything you want, if you look hard enough.

But so far I’m not sure I know exactly what the show is trying to tell me.

We have seen a lot of really thin things. Greg (@smomashup) got a forbidden picture of a new Samsung super thin TV. Pictures and videos were strictly forbidden.

And here is a video I shot of a presentation Intel did on the new super thin Ultrabooks. This particular video is of a prototype where the goal is to make notebooks you can interact with through touch, mouse and sensor.

While I’m as impressed by this stuff just as much as the next person, I’m not sure thin is changing our world. It’s just making it cooler.

I think maybe what is changing our world is Apps.

You can now download apps for your i-devices, Androids, Chrome browser and now the Windows smart-phone and you will be able to download apps for Windows 8.

This is signficant for a variety of reasons.

1. It continues the process of decentralizing the world. Many, many developers can fairly easily create an application and then sell it on the marketplace of the specific device. The marketplaces are key to this. Developers have always had to struggle to find an audience for their software. Now the center of buying these apps is in one location.

2. These apps scale from small smartphone size to large tablets and now, with Windows 8, full size monitors. This makes scaling designs much more challenging. If you are a designer and your sole focus is making sure your site looks pretty on a full sized monitor, you are out of touch with where the world is going. Web design needs to look good on all sizes and all environments. It’s much trickier than it used to be.

3. Most importantly, designing strictly for a keyboard and mouse environment is outdated methodology. The next generation of your site will need to be much more app oriented. Thinking about how a person could easily navigate through your site using their fingers will be critical.

4. Consumers are going to begin to seriously ask if they can do most of their computing on a tablet. While I don’t think we are going to see the demise of the PC anytime soon, there are more options than ever on how to interact with the Web and information.

5. The platform of the future is open game. I don’t feel totally confident that Microsoft will be able to pull this transition off. Android, Ubuntu, iOS, WebOS, Chrome OS. There are many people in the hunt to be the operating system of choice. They are also intensely aggressive. I don’t know that Microsoft has that same intensity. They are working hard. And I like what I see. But I feel like they might have missed the initiative here and it might be hard for them to make up lost ground.

What does this mean to you?

As a consumer it means nothing. Just have fun and do what you do.

As a business it’s a whole different story. You are living in a great, but uncertain time, in the history of computing. Things are changing and morphing in more extreme ways than ever before.

You are entering into a completely new era of cloud computing, new ways to buy and sell software, potentially thinking of your online presence more as an interactive app than a static Web site (no, having video and Flash does not make your site dynamic. It’s still static.) This is going to require flexibility, testing and optimism.

At his keynote, Steve Ballmer was asked what he thought the future of Microsoft was going to be for 2012. He emphatically shouted: “Windows, Windows, Windows, Metro, Metro, Metro.” Metro is Microsoft’s new people focused layout for Windows 8. One of those is the past. And one of those is the future. He was hedging his bets. That is potentially dangerous because so many other operating system companies are betting everything on their new OS. That makes them more intense, focused and aggressive.

You will need to experiment in these other areas and think about how your company potentially could fit in here. Ask yourself, “What if this was the leading operating system? How would we look in here?”

It’s exciting but also trecherous. This is a transformative era that will require us all to be agile and quick. Not doing so could leave us vulnerable to our competitors who get it better than we do.

Filed Under: Featured, Life, Small Business
December 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The Dip by Seth Godin – Blowin’ my mind up

I love short books.

I am not a person who feels like I need 300 pages to get my money’s worth.

I finally got to reading “The Dip” by Seth Godin this weekend. I was able to get through it in about an hour.

It was an hour well spent.

I always love a book that takes me to a whole new world of thought and perspective.

The Dip did that for me.

The concept is pretty straight forward, and actually makes sense once you think about it:

The harder the path is to success the less likely your competitors will be to follow you.

The trick is determining if the path is too hard for you as well.

If you can’t make it to the end of the journey you should never start it to begin with.

But if the journey is worth taking you have to push through.

As I was reading I pulled some quotes out of the book. Here are the points that really hit home for me:

  • “Quit the wrong stuff. Stick with the right stuff. Have the guts to do one or the other.” Seth Godin “The Dip.”
  • “It’s the choice to give it a shot and then quit that you must avoid if you want to succeed.” Seth Godin “The Dip”
  • “In a competitive world, adversity is your ally. The harder it gets, the better chance you have of insulating yourself.” Seth Godin “The Dip”
  • “Before you enter a new market, consider what would happen if you managed to get through the Dip & win this market.” Seth Godin ”The Dip”
  • “It’s human nature to quit when it hurts. But it’s that reflex that creates scarcity.” Seth Godin “The Dip”
  • “If you can’t make it through the Dip, don’t start.” Seth Godin “The Dip”
  • “If you want to be a superstar, then you need to find a field with a steep Dip… & get to the other side.” Seth Godin “The Dip”
  • “You need to quit before you get to the Dip. Don’t quit while you are in the Dip.” Seth Godin “The Dip”
  • I think I’m getting it: If you want to succeed you have to go where others won’t go… and get to the other side. Seth Godin “The Dip”
  • “People who make it through the Dip are scarce indeed, so they generate more value.” Seth Godin “The Dip”
  • “Countless entrepreneurs have perfected the starting part, but give up long before they finish paying their dues.” Seth Godin “The Dip”
  • “Don’t fall in love with a tactic. Instead, decide once and for all whether you’re in a market or not & get through that Dip.” Seth Godin ”The Dip”
  • “Someone with nothing to lose has quite a bit of power.” Seth Godin “The Dip”
  • “Never quit something with great long-term potential just because you can’t deal with the stress of the moment.” Seth Godin “The Dip”
  • “When the pressure is greatest to compromise, to drop out, or to settle, your desire to quit should be at its lowest.” Seth Godin “The Dip”

The key to all of this is knowing when to quit and when to stick. I feel like the book does a nice job helping you determine which is which.

I haven’t done a contest in a while. So in light of the Christmas season let’s do one right now.

In the comments below tell us a quick story of when you quit or when you stuck and how you felt the outcome was.

I’ll randomly pick a winner from the comments and send you this book – hardcover or Kindle, whichever you prefer.

I’ll pick a winner on Friday, December 16 by noon Eastern time.

I’ll go first (but since I already own it I probably won’t pick myself as a winner):

I got my Realtor real estate license once when I was young.
I tried everything to get new business. I held open houses for other agents. I cold called the phone book. I sent post cards to spouses of people who just died. I couldn’t sell a piece of real estate to save my life. I never sold anything. It was the first thing I couldn’t really do in my life. It was also the first big thing that I just quit. It shook me up for some time. But now I feel confident it was the right thing to do. I REALLY love working in Web marketing. I don’t think I ever really loved anything about real estate.  This journey also let me learn that it’s OK to fail. I’ve failed many times since. Failing at real estate made all the other failures less painful. Today I am completely cool with failing. In fact, I now believe failing is the key to getting to success. So the whole process was a big plus for me.

OK. Your turn. Tell me your Dip.

Filed Under: Featured, Small Business
December 5, 2011 By 4 Comments

Monday Inspiration – Just Try

I am an envious person.

In fact there are many emotions I have that I’m not proud about myself.

  • I’m jealous.
  • I covet things.
  • I’m competitive.

on and on.

I thought of these this morning because of a brief moment I had in the car this weekend with my mom, wife and kid.

We were driving back from the Christmas tree farm, after having found maybe the best tree we’ve gotten in many years. It seemed like a particularly good batch of trees this year.

We drove by two big, well kept buildings next to each other. They were companies I had never heard of. But based on the size of the buildings and how nice they looked, I would say that whatever they did, they did it well.

My mother said, “Wouldn’t you love to know what they do in those businesses?”

The first thing that came out of my mouth was: “I know what they do. They make more money than me.”

I meant to say it to get a little laugh. Which I did. But the best jokes always have an element of truth.

That’s how I always feel about people who are doing better than me in business.

I never think about where I’ve come. I only think about how far I have to go.

But here’s the thing… you never win the game of life.

  • Walt Disney never saw Disney World.
  • Martin Luther King Jr. never saw his dream come true.
  • Ghandi witnessed the partition of India.
  • Steve Jobs died during one of his least praised releases.

Indispensable men die every day.

We are not meant to win this life. But yet we all seem to set out like there is a finish line that has to be reached.

If you believe in God I think all he wants us to do is TRY.

“I’d like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to give his life serving others. I’d like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to love somebody.

One of the greatest men our country has ever known just hoped people would remember that he tried.

That’s all any of us can ask.

The issue, I think, is that we all fight a daily war between Quantity and Quality. And quite honestly, I think Quantity usually wins out. “How much can we pile into one day?”

I have at least a dozen emails in my inbox that need answered. And this is after my assistant has cleaned up the “unimportant” ones.

I have endless projects that need to be done.

  • Proposals need to get out.
  • Calls need to be made.
  • Meetings need to be setup and attended.
  • Clients need attended to.

These are all items that are on the Quantity battle line. The Quality military is always pushed back… especially on a Monday.

How is it that the weekend, a time we are all supposed to take some time to relax and be with our families, that we are so crunched on Monday morning? I think it’s because we’ve all been fortifying the Quantity army for the last two days.

  • “I need to do this.”
  • “I need to remind him to do that.”
  • “I’m going to call her to have that meeting.”

Quality is just continually pushed further and further down.

But take 5 minutes and think about what could strengthen Quality:

  • The book you want to write.
  • The new product you want to create.
  • The new invention you have in mind.
  • The book you want to read.
  • The class you want to take.
  • The conference you want to attend.
  • The coaching you want to do.
  • The exercise you want to do.
  • The family trip you want to take.

How much better of a business owner, employee, parent or spouse would you be if you could spend 8 hours a week on those things?

If you are like me, week after week goes by and you haven’t spent 1 hour on any of those.

It’s because Quantity is winning the war. We’ve been made to believe that Quantity is the hero in this story. But it’s not. Quality is the true protagonist.

I would like to suggest that while Quantity seems like it is the path to success, Quality is where true success lies.

You just have to steal a little bit of time from Quantity. And I’ll tell you a secret: You give so much to Quantity already, he’ll never miss it. He’s fat with your time.

This is where I don’t want you to steal it from:

  • Your minimum of 8 hours of sleep each night.
  • Time with your kids and spouse.
  • Your exercise.

Steal it from work.

You already take time from work. We all do.

Pick one thing:

  • The book.
  • The exercise.
  • The new product.

And just try.

  • Jot something down on a piece of paper.
  • Make a tiny outline of steps that need to be done.
  • Just take 5 minutes.

I believe this: The more Quality you bring into your life the more Quality you will get in return.

Do 5 minutes this morning. Do 5 minutes this afternoon. And do the same tomorrow, and the day after.

I believe there are people who spend more time on Quality than they do on Quantity. I actually believe there are people who have mastered this so much that every time they see the slightest bit of Quantity slip into their schedule they throw it out immediately. They have mastered the art of Quality.

I’m not there… by a long shot. But that’s my goal. I want to live a life of 100% Quality. I believe it is how I’m ultimately going to be most useful to the world.

But today I bet I have about 5% Quality and 95% Quantity.

I’ll get there. I just have to try.

What does this have to do with marketing? Everything.

The best marketing comes from a resource of immense Quality. It’s impossible to market well a pile of crap… no matter how big the pile is.

Good marketing starts with a good product. Quality. Not Quantity.

Filed Under: Featured, Small Business
September 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

University of Akron Google Analytics Class

Google Analytics Class at the University of Akron

Google Analytics Class at the University of Akron

Time and time again I see companies having Google Analytics running on their site but they have no idea what the data means or they are looking at the wrong data for their particular needs.

This fall I’m teaching a class at Akron U on Google Analytics to help out with this scenario and many others. I’ll teach you what you need to know from the ground up including:

  • Proper account and profile setup
  • Learn what all the metrics mean (and what they mean to you!)
  • How to use your Analytics to measure success
  • How to track effectiveness of your online presence
  • Filtering results for more effective statistics
  • Running the right reports for your situation

This will be a smaller, hands-on class, so we’ll be able to deal with your unique circumstances and help you on a highly personal level.

Avininash Google Analytics BookIn addition to your coursework, students partaking in this University of Akron class on Google Analytics will get a free autographed copy of Avinash Kaushik’s Web Analytics 2.0 book!

“Analytics is vitally important, and no one explains it more elegantly, more simply, or more powerfully than Avinash Kaushik. Consider buying up all the copies of this book before your competition gets a copy.”
—Seth Godin

 

 

Google Analytics Course Details

Instructor: Greg Habermann, COO/VP of SageRock, Inc.
Cost: $199.00
Location: Polsky M150

Number of classes: 5
2011 Class Dates (Thursday Evenings):

  • October 13
  • October 20
  • October 27
  • November 3
  • November 10

Class times: 6:15 PM – 8:15 PM

Enroll Nowor call 330-972-7577 (reference course #16310)

Filed Under: Featured, SageRock, SEO, Small Business
September 9, 2011 By 4 Comments

The Meek Will Inherit the Earth

I am a small business fan.

The reason I like small businesses so much is because it is so hard to do successfully. You are like a mouse running on the jungle floor. There are so many things that can eat you it is ridiculous.

 

“Cats, wild dogs, foxes, birds of prey, snakes and even certain kinds of arthropods have been known to prey heavily upon mice. “ 

But here’s the thing. Mice are one of the most successful mammals living on Earth. It’s because of their adaptability. They can move fast and change with the environment.

Small businesses are completely identical to mice. We are the mice of the business world.

It is very possible that there will be a day when all that is left are mice. The large mammals simply will eat themselves out of house and home and won’t be able to adapt fast enough. They very well could be their own worst enemy.

Just this weekend I scavenged through a Borders that is closing. “Everything must go!” The funny thing is the prices were still ridiculously high. They couldn’t even do a fire sale right.

This weekend I also went to Art in the Square:

This was an Art Festival in my neighborhood. They close the street, which is one of the busiest streets in Akron. They had some of the most interesting art exhibitors I’ve ever seen at one of these kinds of festivals.

I don’t think my fellow Highland Square neighbors would be offended if I said we are all a bunch of old hippies living in the west side of Akron. We are who we are and I suspect most people in Highland Square are cool with that.

Just because they are shaking tambourines, walking around in long flowing skirts, wearing Birkenstocks, doesn’t mean they aren’t savvy businesspeople.

I saw QR codes all over the place. Everybody had a website.

But what I wanted to show you was Davey’s hot dogs. Davey and his wife are serial entrepreneurs. I’m not sure I caught all the businesses but I think some of them included:

  • Computer repair
  • Accounting services
  • Insurance

I asked them what business was selling the best right now. Without a doubt, they said, hot dogs were the best. They are out in their stand most of the day. And then they also come out at midnight to serve hot dogs to people drinking in the local bars.

I got the “atomic dog”, chips and a soda for $3. The atomic dog had every topping you could imagine including jalapeños.

But they don’t stop just there. They also deliver. You can call to have your order ready for you when you get there. Or they will deliver it to you. Or you can also tweet them. You can at reply them at their Twitter account with your order.

The delivery person is their nephew. He delivers on his skateboard.

I instantly fell in love with them and their business. These are people that see no boundaries or walls. These are people that only see possibilities. These are people that will continue to push the boundaries of what business is.

Small businesses are like this. I’m not saying they don’t hurt and struggle. I know they do. What I am saying is they rarely give up. They are constantly innovating, testing and trying new things. And they’re doing it at the speed of mice.

I just read a review of Microsoft SharePoint in comparison to WordPress.

If you aren’t familiar with SharePoint it is this massive content management system used for large companies.

Read this paragraph from that article:

I could go on and on comparing SharePoint feature for feature to other products, but that’s really beside the point — which IS the point of this article. If I’m an enterprise IT manager, none of that matters, since SharePoint’s better for most of the things I’d care about: collaboration, ECM, search, portals…and even Web 2.0 for my internal enterprise audience! SharePoint doesn’t need to stack up, feature for feature, against blogs or wikis or other Web 2.0 application paltforms; the fact that it’s got baseline Web 2.0 features is generally good enough.

 

He finishes the article to say, “Even if somebody has a better blog or wiki platform than SharePoint, it will still dominate the enterprise space, and that’s a pretty big beechhead from which to attack Web 2.0.”

The value SharePoint has is that it’s made for big companies. It doesn’t have the features. But who cares. It’s for big companies. It is this insane circular logic that will kill big businesses.

“Yeah, we’re not as good. But we are big.”

That is not a survival strategy.

I will say that not all big businesses are like this. There is still definitely innovation that goes on in the big business world. And when you add the power of a big business with innovation you get something that is incredibly potent.

But the point I want make in this article is there are many big businesses that are slow to adapt and they are fine with that. They’re fine with that because they can be. They control so much of the market that people are often forced to buy from them whether they want to or not. And so they will not change.

Small-business is not like that at all. In fact it cannot be. Small businesses have no choice but to be fast and adapt. There is no incentive to buy from them in the 1st place. So they have to be the best.

This adaptation and fastness will prevail in the long term. The tools and global infrastructure that is being built today make small-business able to provide the most sophisticated services.

My wife bought some fabric gift bags at the Art Festival this weekend. She bought a set of them for $35. We didn’t have the cash. But we were able to use our mobile phone and send $35 to the vendor’s PayPal account. We used our cell phone to buy from a vendor on the street.

There is not a big box store in America that would allow me to do that.

Filed Under: Small Business
August 12, 2011 By 1 Comment

3 Things You Don’t Have To Worry About

As a small business owner there are endless things to worry about.

I don’t even need to attempt to make the list. I could spend all day coming up with things to worry about. (Hey! You are taking care of that CAT tax issue, right?) See.

So I thought it might be more interesting to talk about 3 things you should just get out of your pretty little head.

Thing 1.
A new look for your Website.
I’m pretty sure there are a dozen other things you should do before getting a spiffy new looking Website.

I’m quite sure it looks old and out-dated. But you are going to be chasing the latest trends in cool Website fashions for eternity. They are just like cloths.

Thing 2.
Rebuilding your ecommerce platform.
Now look, if you are not selling online and you think you should be, that’s a different story.

But I have seen too many people get new shopping carts for their Website when the one they have is just fine.

I’m going to tell you a secret about shopping carts. You ready?

THEY ALL SUCK!

Sorry shopping cart people. I wish that wasn’t the case. But it is. They are hard to use both as the site owner and site user.

Just stick with the devil you know. I have used and setup more shopping carts in the last 15 years than the average bear. And while I have never found one that I’m deeply in love with, I also have not come across a single one that I hate to the ends of the earth.

They all suck and they all are good enough.

If you really want to change your shopping cart you better have a damn good reason. Don’t do it just because you are annoyed with the one you have. Trust me. You’ll be annoyed with all of them.

Thing 3.
Don’t fire your Web developer.
I see people do this all the time. It is often done by middle management people to look like they are getting something done. And it’s done by small business owners because they are impulsive and looking for some sort of solution to their problems.

If they won’t call you back or they seem legitimately incompetent then fine. Do it.
But it will end up costing you way more time and money than if you just stuck with the developer you have.

Think of them as part of the family. Have interventions. Tell them you are not happy. Talk to them about what you are looking to achieve. And tell them they aren’t getting fired. You just want to keep moving forward, together.

They will love you and work for you as hard as any person ever will. That’s because they have never heard those words come out of a client’s mouth.

Web developers and designers are running scared. They get fired all the time. Have you ever had a dog that’s fear-based aggressive? You never know when they’ll bite you cause you scared the crap out of them. It’s the same thing.

Here are 3 things you should worry about instead:
1: Does your site convert visitors into actionable leads for you? Start by making your phone number (or contact us button) red and BIG!

2. Can you add content easily? I would rather you have the fugliest Website on the block than not be able to add content easily. This is a numero uno issue.

3. Do you have a tracking plan? Please take the time you would pine over a new look for your Website and spend it pining over your Google Analytics. Create actionable metrics you are using to determine next steps for your site.

Sorry I threw in a little worry at the end there. I didn’t want you to leave this article thinking you had nothing to do. You have plenty to do.

Photo from: Los lunes al sol…don’t worry!

Filed Under: Small Business
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