Did you really think I was going to quietly sit in the corner?

[TimPiazza]

Nope, not when I have a keyboard in front of me. :)

I was a Sysop on GEnie in the 1980's. I remember GEM. I remember how bad Windows 2.0 was. But I also jacked a Posterous account into Tumblr so I could auto-post to my Wordpress blog from email three years before Tumblr was cool. I guess that makes me sort of a life-long computer nerd.

Anyway, I got "downsized" sort of, about a year ago. Ever since then I have been trying to decide what I want to do with my life. I'd rather work with small businesses rather than corporate accounts. I don't ever want to wear a necktie again.

The biggest struggle this past year has been realizing how much time it takes when you are doing virtually everything yourself. An idea I had last September has taken until this week to bring to life. Granted, I had a false start in there, but I learn quickly.

So, here I am. I'm a small business owner, and I am confronting all of my short-comings while I leverage my strengths as much as I can.

My question to you: How do you stop doubting your vision, your hope? How do you overcome that voice that says "it looks great, but it won't work"? That's the part I struggle with every night when I'm trying to fall asleep.

Tim

[fowler]

Nope, not when I have a keyboard in front of me. :)

I was a Sysop on GEnie in the 1980's. I remember GEM. I remember how bad Windows 2.0 was. But I also jacked a Posterous account into Tumblr so I could auto-post to my Wordpress blog from email three years before Tumblr was cool. I guess that makes me sort of a life-long computer nerd.

Anyway, I got "downsized" sort of, about a year ago. Ever since then I have been trying to decide what I want to do with my life. I'd rather work with small businesses rather than corporate accounts. I don't ever want to wear a necktie again.

The biggest struggle this past year has been realizing how much time it takes when you are doing virtually everything yourself. An idea I had last September has taken until this week to bring to life. Granted, I had a false start in there, but I learn quickly.

So, here I am. I'm a small business owner, and I am confronting all of my short-comings while I leverage my strengths as much as I can.

My question to you: How do you stop doubting your vision, your hope? How do you overcome that voice that says "it looks great, but it won't work"? That's the part I struggle with every night when I'm trying to fall asleep.

Tim

Hey Tim! Great introduction! Found it so intimate and honest. Well, as for your question: I think the key is to quarantee your business ideas as much as you can and make sure that they are not only hopes, but 'potential realities'. I mean we all have hopes, we wish to achieve things, but there are always some external factors that we cannot control. But what you can do is, you can be aware of these external determinants and arrange your business according to that. That's what I learned, at least. All the best!

[vangogh]

Welcome to the forum Tim. Thanks for not remaining quiet. You go back a ways in tech as do I and as do many here. It's fun sometimes to read about all these things that happened many years ago and have memories of them happening.


How do you stop doubting your vision, your hope? How do you overcome that voice that says "it looks great, but it won't work"?

I'm not sure there's an easy answer to your question. At some level you just have to believe in your vision. You aren't going to know if your vision is right until after you've committed to making it work. To get past that voice you have to learn to ignore it.

At the same time you can probably do things in a way to test your vision earlier rather than later to hopefully minimize the expense in case your vision turns out not to be as great as you hope. Even more is the idea that failure can ultimately be a good thing. Failure makes you question assumptions and rethink ideas. Most successful people failed a number of times on the way to success.

You put something out there and do your best. If it doesn't work you try to understand why and learn from it so the next time you can do better. If you continue to learn and try again you'll eventually get there.

Hoep that helps and thanks for joining the community.

[TimPiazza]

Thanks, Fowler. The thing I am grappling most with today is pushing myself to get out there and start selling. I always find something else that needs to be tweaked and perfected or added on. Yikes! If anyone would like to provide feedback on my business, it would be welcome. I didn't look to see if there was a place to do that on this forum and I don't want to spam the group.

Tim

[TimPiazza]

Van, Thank you for the welcome. I lived in Boulder and Denver in the mid-90's, lived on the corner of 8th and Cascade. I'll bet you know my friend Jay Nelson.

I have definitely learned a lot this year. I licensed a couple of software platforms that I really haven't put to work yet, and I'm on my 3rd execution of an idea that I started with a year ago. My biggest challenge has been learning that I hate selling. Absolutely hate it. I am told that I am good at it, but that doesn't matter because I avoid the things I hate. And invoicing, I hate that, too.

My solution was to build a business around the idea that it can sell itself by offering a much needed service at a great price, with online payment. My thought is that I can build relationships and then possibly offer additional services on an on-going basis. I guess I'll find out how it works once I start promoting. :-)

Tim

[KristineS]

Hi Tim, Welcome to the forum. If you do want to ask questions about you business or run an idea by the group, feel free to do so. We also review websites in the Internet Marketing forum and more traditional marketing pieces in that forum. Lots of us are looking for ideas or information so don't hesitate to ask for input.

[billbenson]

Hi Tim. From your other posts it seems like you have a lot to offer and will fit right in.

As far as hating selling, maybe your selling the wrong stuff.I flew places and wined and dined people for 22 years of my sales career. Best sales job I ever had. Sales encompasses everything from cold calling to building web sites that sell. From selling John Deere tractors to golf balls.

Remember, every time you go on a date, you are selling yourself.

Oh I hate tie's as well. I've worn one in the last decade and that was to a funeral.

[Spider]

...My question to you: How do you stop doubting your vision, your hope? How do you overcome that voice that says "it looks great, but it won't work"? That's the part I struggle with every night when I'm trying to fall asleep.Welcome aboard, Tim.

You stop doubting your vision by solidify your vision and turning it into a concrete step-by-step plan. With a concrete step-by-step plan you have no need for hope.

You overcome the voice that says, "it looks great, but it won't work," by creating a concrete step-by-step plan that WILL work.

I hope that answers your question.

[greenoak]

welcome....i would give it a big try and if it doesnt work , well try something else....
or if possible try 2 or 3 things at once and take a hard look at the response....

[TimPiazza]

welcome....i would give it a big try and if it doesnt work , well try something else....
or if possible try 2 or 3 things at once and take a hard look at the response....

Ann, I did that, and while it seemed like a big mis-step... or several mis-steps, I realize right now that it was an important part of my education. I learned to really narrow my offerings to just a few things I can handle easily while growing the business, and giving myself the flexibility of either spreading my base, or up-selling my customers with more services. Front-end is solving small problems (how do I manage social media, or get more local traffic from the web), back-end is solving persistent problems (how do I increase sales?). Once I get this going, I will write a book about my experiences. :-)

[TimPiazza]

Welcome aboard, Tim.

You stop doubting your vision by solidify your vision and turning it into a concrete step-by-step plan. With a concrete step-by-step plan you have no need for hope.

You overcome the voice that says, "it looks great, but it won't work," by creating a concrete step-by-step plan that WILL work.

I hope that answers your question.

The only problem with that advice, Spider, is that insanity runs in my family. :-) I'll admit, that sometimes I am afraid of my own success. I am at 99% ready to pull the trigger and here I am on this forum instead of fixing the last 1%. !!!!

[TimPiazza]

Hi Tim. From your other posts it seems like you have a lot to offer and will fit right in.

As far as hating selling, maybe your selling the wrong stuff.I flew places and wined and dined people for 22 years of my sales career. Best sales job I ever had. Sales encompasses everything from cold calling to building web sites that sell. From selling John Deere tractors to golf balls.

Remember, every time you go on a date, you are selling yourself.

Oh I hate tie's as well. I've worn one in the last decade and that was to a funeral.

Thanks, Bill.

I believe there is a skill to selling, just as there is to most things. I would just rather find the one bug in a thousand lines of code than go to a business networking meeting.

My employer for 12 of the past 14 years was an amazing salesman. When you walked into a room, he made you feel like you were the most important person there. He worked is way up from the mail room into sales, and then to become owner of a company with 750 employees. Remarkable man.

[greenoak]

i would love to find a salesman like that....i have one great one, shes just a natural.....
tim, what always helps me is looking hard at someone working in my idea who is MAKING MONEY..... what are they doing, who are their customers, etc etc etc....
cant wait till you reveal your actual plot!!!

[Spider]

The only problem with that advice, Spider, is that insanity runs in my family. :-) I'll admit, that sometimes I am afraid of my own success. I am at 99% ready to pull the trigger and here I am on this forum instead of fixing the last 1%. !!!!Tim, EVERYONE is afraid of their own success. Oh, they will tell you that's not true, but I can assure you it is. It is part of human psychology. The people who succeed are those who overcome their fears the most. Because life is made up of many parts and most people succeed at some parts by overcoming those fears, and fail at other parts by succumbing to those fears.

You are not going to overcome all your fears - there's not enough time - so just pick the fears you will overcome and work on them. The best quote for this is the one from Richard Branson - "Screw it! - Let's do it anyway!" And he is one of the most failed businessmen that ever existed - Virgin Coke, Virgin Pizza, and others. Still he has something like 400 successes to offset that.

So, forget the 1% of your work that has not yet been done. - Screw it! Let's do it, anyway!

[cbscreative]

Welcome, Tim. I'm sure you've probably already gleaned a lot of valuable insight from this place, and there's plenty more as you spend time here. Not too much time though, you have to get work done too. We're glad you didn't just sit in the corner. That's one way to start moving toward success.

[TimPiazza]

cant wait till you reveal your actual plot!!!

I'll reveal it now. It was actually in front of you the entire time, in my signature file. I would appreciate any honest feedback that any of you would like to offer.

The business model works like this: Attract small businesses with inexpensive social media and mobile marketing services with a website that inspires quality and expertise. I offer just a few turn-key services, including basic mobile site creation, email marketing list creation, and Facebook page management. Then we can follow up periodically with additional marketing opportunities, such as mobile coupons and email newsletters, once we have established a relationship.

I live in a community of less than 100k, so I designed this to work both as a local business and a national business. There are several cities of one million plus people within a few hours drive of here.

My ultimate goal is to have a business that I can operate from anywhere. My tentative plan is to do a soft launch in a few markets, (probably here in Evansville, and in Nashville, TN) to test the waters, then I may start targeting market segments like the Automotive sector with a press release on my social media report that I generated.

My pricing is very low right now, and I expect they will rise when I start feeling a bit overwhelmed. Some of the services I don't expect to sell, but I'm throwing them out there just to see what happens. I am targeting small businesses who rely on local customers. Since I hate selling so much, I designed the website to sell for me, and I'll get the word out using a combination of emails based on publicly available business information and press releases that target specific industry segments.
The piece I am still working on is the iPhone emulator. It needs to be better integrated with my Wordpress template, and I just realized this very moment while describing the problem to you, how I'm going to be able to fix it! Ah ha!!! (off to work)

Tim

[TimPiazza]

Tim, EVERYONE is afraid of their own success. Oh, they will tell you that's not true, but I can assure you it is. It is part of human psychology. The people who succeed are those who overcome their fears the most. Because life is made up of many parts and most people succeed at some parts by overcoming those fears, and fail at other parts by succumbing to those fears.

You, my friend, are an inspiration!!!!! :)

[TimPiazza]

Thank you, Steve. I feel welcome here. :-)

[WCrown]

Tim....one thing I'd urge you to explore is Google Adwords because it can give you decent exposure to someone looking to expand their own business (A/C, plumber, electrician, etc.) and they may well be searching the net for someone in your town that can help their marketing efforts. We're located in the Dallas TX area but have attracted new accounts around the country and overseas by developing a strategy utilizing Adwords to publicize our strengths. No joke....for every $ I've spent on Adwords I've rec'd (est.) $ 20-30 in return on new sales....been phenomenal for us.

[TimPiazza]

I really hadn't considered running an Adword campaign yet, though that is a good suggestion. I will have to run a test on or two of my products or services, and see what it does for me.

Tim

[TimPiazza]

Hi fellow forum members,

More than 6 months flew by quickly while I told myself that I needed to focus on work, not hanging around on forums like this. But I have thought about all of you often, especially each time I looked at my Google analytics and noticed small-business-forum.net among the referral links. :-)

It was interesting to read how I described my business earlier in this thread. It's nice to see that it still stands. I still struggle with sales and have been looking for a partner who is strong on business development and compliments my ability to develop marketing products. I haven't yet fully realized my business plan, much of my time has gone into consulting projects to pay the bills while developing additional solutions for small business marketing.

My current focus is promoting a mobile website solution for small businesses. I think it's pretty slick, and very affordable. :-)

I also developed a 1 year social/local/mobile marketing solution for fitness clubs that is almost ready to hit the market. I have a list of 10,000 fitness clubs to call or contact.

In addition, I put together a nice reputation management solution for small businesses that notifies the owner vis sms message when there's a customer complaint before it hits the social review and rating sites. It includes a chain of incentives for happy customers to increase loyalty and social media buzz.

And I came up with a neat way for to give home shoppers an easy way to view a mobile virtual tour of a home, while providing the realtor with the phone number of the home shopper and property they are interested in--instantly.

Any one of these could be a thriving business on its own. :-) I would love to get each of these into the hands of someone who can really sell. Ultimately, my focus needs to be on creating innovative marketing solutions, not selling them. :-)

[KristineS]

Glad to see you back Tim. Sounds like you have a lot of things going!

[Harold Mansfield]

Hi Tim. Looks like you have your hands full.
One suggestion you may want to think about is white labeling your products.

Allowing others to sell them as their own, for a licensing fee or cut of the action. If you support it well for your white label customers, it could be the way to go to generate money from them, without having to sell to the general public.

Just a thought.

[TimPiazza]

Glad to see you back Tim. Sounds like you have a lot of things going!

Thanks, Kristine! I cannot say that I will post frequently, I still struggle with time management, but I enjoy the camaraderie of an active forum. :-)

[TimPiazza]

Hi Tim. Looks like you have your hands full.
One suggestion you may want to think about is white labeling your products.

Allowing others to sell them as their own, for a licensing fee or cut of the action. If you support it well for your white label customers, it could be the way to go to generate money from them, without having to sell to the general public.

Harold, that is an interesting suggestion. I considered the possibility of selling the reputation management solution to agencies.

Which of the solutions do you think would be most successful as "white label" products?

[vangogh]

Welcome back Tim. Nice to know you were thinking about us even if you didn't have the time to join in on the conversation. It does sound like you've been very productive in your absence. Good for you.

Picking up on what Harold suggested, I think any of your solutions could have a white label component. As long as they could be sold in a way that doesn't require you to set things up why not. I'm not sure how you built the systems, but say one is online, all you'd really need to do is allow someone to substitute their branding for yours. Another option is to sell things with a developer license. You could sell your solution with a single license and a developer license that allows reuse. It depends on the systems themselves and they've been developed and how they get used.

[TimPiazza]

Thanks, Van. Is there a forum feature that sends an email when someone replies to a thread? I know that one feature would "up" my engagement quite a bit.

With a white label where I hand over the keys, I see issues. The solutions I come up with are elegant, but setting-up and using the tools can be fairly complicated. I would want to continue hosting the solution to simplify support issues. I think some sort of service model is more appropriate.

[Harold Mansfield]

Harold, that is an interesting suggestion. I considered the possibility of selling the reputation management solution to agencies.

Which of the solutions do you think would be most successful as "white label" products?

The premise is much like a franchise or reseller hosting. Your target market would be, say, people like me. And I sell services using your software for a small fee. You provide support to me. That may or may not include hosting the product and I just have my own account and dashboard to manage my client accounts.

As far as which of your products that would work best with? I don't know. I'd need to know more about the products. But consider who is more likely to use them. For instance, your reputation management software. That's basically going to be limited to IT and web departments, and if a company is that big, do they have a team on staff for that already? Do they just let legal handle it?

But smaller businesses tend to outsource. That's how I eat. They probably aren't going to buy it as a one off product unless they are really web saavy. And most are not. But they are more likely to be interested if I offer the service because I'm already providing web services. See what I mean? It's easier to speakers and receivers together, than a la carte.

[TimPiazza]

Harold, I wouldn't have a problem white labeling the reputation management solution, but I would have to host it, and rebranding isn't an issue, but each end customer requires a separate install. This is because they have the ability to track feedback in the backend, seeing which employees get the most positive or negative ratings over time.

I'm not quite ready to retail on this one. I need to build out the marketing (website, videos, pricing) but you can explore what I've got right now by following the links on Coming Soon… (http://revuzi.com) and perhaps you can let me know what you think.

I have to caution you, though. You won't get the business owner's experience unless we did a live demo and I set up your cellular phone and email account to receive the notifications. The twist on this system is that when a customer provides feedback to the business, a text message is immediately sent to the business owner or general manager.

The value to the business who provides this service is that this program offers any number of up-sells, supporting loyalty programs, Facebook "Like" offers, suggesting they leave a review on Google or TripAdvisor, and so on.

[Harold Mansfield]

Harold, I wouldn't have a problem white labeling the reputation management solution, but I would have to host it, and rebranding isn't an issue, but each end customer requires a separate install. This is because they have the ability to track feedback in the backend, seeing which employees get the most positive or negative ratings over time.

I'm not quite ready to retail on this one. I need to build out the marketing (website, videos, pricing) but you can explore what I've got right now by following the links on Coming Soon… (http://revuzi.com) and perhaps you can let me know what you think.

I have to caution you, though. You won't get the business owner's experience unless we did a live demo and I set up your cellular phone and email account to receive the notifications. The twist on this system is that when a customer provides feedback to the business, a text message is immediately sent to the business owner or general manager.

The value to the business who provides this service is that this program offers any number of up-sells, supporting loyalty programs, Facebook "Like" offers, suggesting they leave a review on Google or TripAdvisor, and so on.

I like what it says. Those are things that resonate with clients. Love the Facebook integration to send coupons and special offers. Looks pretty nice.
I have been looking for something to white label as my own service and something like this compliments perfectly what I already do.

I'd be really interested to see what the admin panel looks like if I were a customer using this on my website.

[vangogh]

Is there a forum feature that sends an email when someone replies to a thread?

There is. You can subscribe to threads with several options to be emailed about replies. You can set it up on a per thread basis or for every thread you create or reply in.

1. To subscribe to a single thread look for the drop down menu for Thread tools right above the first post on any page. From the drop down select Subscribe to this thread and you'll be taken to another page where you can select Notification Type. The first option for control panel will show the thread in your control panel when there's been a reply. The other options are all email options. Think twice about selecting the instant email option. A popular thread might sends lots of email your way.

2. To subscribe to all threads you participate in look for the Settings link at the top right of every page. That takes you to your control panel. Look down the left for the General Settings link. On that page under Messages and Notifications is the same options for subscribing through control panel or the different email options. The difference is you'll be subscribing to every thread you comment in instead of just one.

You might want to select control panel in your Settings and then have some threads email you using Thread Tools for the particular thread.

[TimPiazza]

Thanks, Van. It looks like the default setting is the opposite of what I would have expected. I'm changing it now.

[TimPiazza]

I'd be really interested to see what the admin panel looks like if I were a customer using this on my website.

I can probably set up demo access for the test site. Is there a way to share with you via email? What the customer gets is extremely simple, just employees and reviews. Everything else is configured by me on a campaign-by-campaign basis. There's a bit of coding involved in implementing each campaign workflow, and there is the setting up of a text message account for the business.

[vangogh]

It looks like the default setting is the opposite of what I would have expected.

It's set the way it is so that members aren't overwhelmed with email. The more you post the more emails you get. If I were to have it set to send me emails immediately on some days I could be getting about 50 emails one right after the other.