Marketing was a Myth

When I look back to 2008 when I started Eligeo one thing that always perplexed me was marketing.  Marketing was this thing that everybody talked about but yet nobody really knew what they were talking about.  I had and still do have a problem properly executing a marketing plan yet I have learned a thing or two along the way.

The first thing I’ve learned through good friends of mine is that social media is the future.  Not necessarily the term but more so the thought that we will be relying more on the opinion of our peers rather than depending on that of the advertising companies.  Consumers whether residential or business customers are going to be relying on what their neighbour is saying more so than ever before.

Back in 2008 this is when things were starting to heat up with social media.  The economy was collapsing and opportunities were limited.  Those that were losing their jobs started hitting up things like Twitter and Facebook to voice their frustrations and that is when….

Everybody became a social media expert.

I have friends of mine that are probably laughing reading that last part.  It is true.  Everybody and their dog suddenly became experts in how to communicate to people on the Internet.  The problem was that these people were still not marketing experts.  Heck, at one point I started offering social media classes but to be fair I kept it low cost and I was up front that we were only doing grassroots initiatives like a simple YouTube video or establishing a twitter account.

What is a good marketer?  Well, I think it takes a good marketer to explain that.  Although I’m not the greatest I do know that the good marketers are those that excel in creativity and have a passion for delivering unique messages targeted at the audiences that they seek to convey.  You probably seem them often at dinner parties or meet up groups.  They are the people that you instantly trust and who are typically surrounded by many.  In these instances they are actually marketing themselves.  It is pretty powerful to observe and to learn from.

I know for me I am learning new things everyday that I am applying to my business and I think in 2012 there will be some unique things happening to my role.  I think this year I actually transition into a marketer myself instead of being just a consultant.  We’ll see.

Tags: marketing, social media

Don’t Re-invent the Wheel

Writing about your life from a few years ago I’ve found has been a bit of a challenge for me.  There are so many things that I learned and figured out in 2008 but it takes an odd reminder from a colleague to trigger things for me.  The latest reminder came from my accountant who is a very exceptional individual who has given me a lot of guidance with Eligeo.

We were talking the other day about businesses and creating new businesses.  He mentioned that too many people try to re-invent the wheel.  I did exactly this when I started out Eligeo and while a lot of the ideas worked, they were not going to make us money in the long run.

In 2008 we partnered with IBM to start selling their small business servers called Lotus Foundations which were fantastic server boxes.  They were originally designed by Nitix before IBM purchased the company and re-branded everything.  The problem I ran into was convincing businesses to take on this unique product which was “I.T. in a box” for all intents and purpose.

I spent so much time trying to convince people to make a switch that in the end I lost money from the sheer point of trying to sell a product that wasn’t easy to sell but was effective to use.  It took us about a year and a half to cave in and focus strictly on Microsoft products.

Why did we change our focus?  We spent so much time selling a product we made hardly any money off of while our competitors were selling Microsoft products left right and centre.  I know how good our people are in our business so I knew all it would take is for us to sell the same products and then we would shorten our sales cycle since our competitors were proposing the same solutions.

What was the lesson?  While it is great to deliver cool solutions to customers you need to maake sure that you make  money.  A lot of businesses get caught up in the excitement of delivering new and shiny products or services while they forget they need to make money.  I learned this and since we made that change our revenues have doubled each  year since and it is continuing that way.

Now as Eligeo gets bigger I am starting to introduce some of the cool features that I wanted to do in the past but when you start out don’t forget you need to build a base and get paid.

Tags: ibm, microsoft, start up business

Advertising is not for the faint of heart

Alright so my heading for this blog is a bit extreme but can be for thone starting out in the world of business.  I’m not going to lireally don’t struggle with advertising and in 2008 I learned a lot of lessabout who what not to do.

Lesson 1: Pick your medium correctly

My first real advertising placement was with a local coffee magazine you would find in a local coffee shop.   The person I was purchasing the advertising was just fairly new in the printing business but being a new business owner I thought I would help him out just as those had helped me.  Guess what?  Expensive mistake #2.   Now, I can’t really blame him so much as I should blame myself for going into it and not doing my fundamental marketing research.  His type of offering is a long term play where I was only interested in a 1 shot deal.  He was also really nice to me and his ad did get me 1 client.  As it turned out, it was his Dad he refered to me.

Remember this: business is business and don’t be a nice guy just because.  We both did that and in turn it created an awkward relationship that ultimately didn’t benefit anyone.

Make sure you pick your medium properly.  For some social media is the way to go, some it is TV, others it could be radio or some times it is just an old fashioned phone call from your desk.

Lesson 2: Choose your target market

One thing we stopped doing after a months at Eligeo was serving residential customers.  I felt it was near impossible for our business model to succeed in both business and residential.  Both areas have their pro’s and con’s.  When we deal with residential the expectations are much lower and they don’t want to pay high fees.  In business it is quite the opposite where businesses have high expectations and are more than willing to pay for good service.

The first ad that I spoke about above was targeted at residential customers.  But when we saw our website it was more about business.  As the consumer they were easily confused when they saw the message since it was the wrong marketing message.

Choose your target properly and reduce the scope right down to an industry if you have.  For instance if you sell boots, you might want to focus on the construction sector and make the best darn construction boots out there.  You get the idea.

Lesson 3: Hire an expert

I know it is hard when you start out to hire experts to serve your business as they can be pricey but I truly believe that what you invest will come back to you in a big way.  A smart marketing expert can drive a propre message and campaign for you and help you return results.  Find a good expert that has references that you can trust and to even see results of the work that has been accomplished.  It won’t be cheap as an expenditure but I’m sure your eyes will light up when you look at the revenue column.

Tags: advertising, experts, magazines, marketing

Being an entrepreneur isn’t your typical 9 to 5 job

I thought I’d touch a bit on the whole 9 – 5 aspect of everyday entrepreneurial life.  You know that dream many have when they are working their current day jobs and dreaming of entrepreneurship?  The dream that you’ll only work the hours that you want, when you want and how you want.  How about the take time to be with friends and family whenever you want?  Be your own boss.  Have nobody to report to..etc..etc.

I could go on for awhile but I thought I’d bring some learning lessons that I have found and talk a bit about them.  We’ll call them the entrepreneurial myths.

Myth #1: I get to set my own hours

Ah yes, set your own hours.  To be honest I actually really thought I would be different than every other mentor I had out there and I would actually set my own hours.  I was in I.T., I had computers and Internet; I could do it whenever I want!  Well, I quickly learned as my clientele list grew that setting your own hours just simply doesn’t exist.

Depending on what kind of business you get into, you’ll be working 9AM – 5PM, 1PM – 11:59PM, 2AM until 8AM…you’re getting the idea.  Well, I’ll give you the run down of how my life worked for awhile when I had no staff.

• Monday Morning from 8AM until about noon I’m usually dealing with the “emergency” issues that customers are having that morning after a weekend.  (Tuesdays after a long weekend are even nastier).
• From noon until about 3PM I’m catching up on bills, learning new tools and trying to find new opportunities.
• From 3PM until 5PM the phone’s keep ringing as more things to deal with pop up.
• The rest of the night I’m updating the Eligeo website, replying to emails and checking in other things that I need to do with the business side of things.

This kind of continues throughout the week.  It’s sporadic because you wear so many hats that you find yourself a bit all over the map.

Myth #2: I report to no one but myself

So, you finally quit your job.  Told your boss what you thought of him/her and you’re now your OWN boss.  You report to nobody but yourself.

That is until you get clients.  Your new bosses.

Yup, I said that plural because now you are responsible for the experience and happiness of each customer as they interact with your business.  It is imperative that you build systems and solutions to help your customers better utilize your services/products.

I used to joke that I’m now free from the politics of the corporate world but truthfully I hadn’t escaped that at all.  You never will and it isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  Being in business means you need to continue to interact with people and in this case with a lot more senior people.

I deal with executives and business owners day in and day out.  It is part of the job now since our company deals strictly with businesses.

Myth #3: I can do whatever I want

OK, this isn’t really a myth.  It really is true that I can do whatever I want.  I can’t say that everything I do or want to do is necessarily the best thing or has been the best thing but I have the ultimate power.  I did learn that with great power comes great responsibility.  If you don’t learn to use it properly, you’re going to go out of business fast.

I’ve watched a lot of competitors start up similar businesses and fail.  They failed because they didn’t take the time or effort to really understand their clients and most importantly listen.  I spend a lot of time hearing business owners tell me about their businesses everyday.  I can’t just go out there and throw out any offering or product but I need to offer solutions that I believe in and trust so that my customers will in turn trust the decisions I make for them.

I love what I do and I wouldn’t change a thing.  But remember, if you are thinking it is going to be a walk in the park you’ll be mistaken as it isn’t a 9-5 job and you’ll end up reporting to more people than you ever have before.  But that isn’t such a bad thing as you get to meet some incredible people and bring some very unique individuals into your life.

Tags: 9 to 5, myths

Remember to Celebrate

When I was in the corporate world I used to love the annual Christmas parties and the little co-worker get togethers.  When I worked at Telus we used to hang out downtown quite a bit after work going to places like James Joyce on Stephen Ave and the Bear & Kilt which was a bit of a bar in a dungeon.  I also got very good at practicing and showing off my karaoke skills at O’Sullivans down Macleod Tr from the Telus Tower.  I loved doing these things and if you know me, you know I like to have a good time.

So here I was in 2008.  It was just me.  No co-workers, or even suppliers/vendors here in Calgary that could be considered a remote possibility of being a co-worker.  But, in Derek fashion I took my then girlfriend out to dinner at a nice restaurant around Christmas to celebrate the first year.  It was a really good steak since it had been a long time since I treated myself like that and believe me I really enjoyed it.

I guess my point of this blog is to reenforce how important it is to celebrate every success.  We sometimes get too caught up in the day to day of our businesses (or starting them) that we forget to sit back and smell the coffee.  I look around our office at Eligeo and it is pretty amazing to think about it.  Because of me several people have a job that they love to do.  Because of me I have a cool sleek office in Crossroads Market full of potential and opportunity.  I’ve created new relationships with people that I would have never connected with.  I think of our shareholders, I think of the business partners I have across North America and all of the people I’ve met through vendors at a variety of conferences all over the world.

I love what I do.

When Arthur started with Eligeo back in January, 2012 I did something that surprised him a bit.  We had a really slow day and things were running fairly smooth that day.  So I looked at our team around 3PM and said, let’s go to a movie.  But don’t forget your cell phones just in case.  So here we went to a 4PM matinee to see Mission Impossible in the IMAX.  I won’t forget the look on Arthur’s face when he couldn’t believe we would just go do something like that.

We do all kinds of events these days.  We have the annual ball hockey tournament but we also do a lot of impromptu things like going out for lunch to a different type of restaurant.  We may do little excursions on the weekends or we even just give a guy a day off since he’s been working his/her butt off.

The annual Christmas party seems to get bigger every year but I’m the kind of person that likes to do creative things.  This past year I took everybody to Jubilations but I also took 2 tickets and raffled them off at the Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids Christmas party.  This party was full of volunteers and 2 people joined us who were super friendly and we were really glad to have them with us.

The year before that we all went out to Smuggler’s Inn for a fun evening out with our team.  This 2012 I have some ideas up my sleeve as we have a cool group of advisors and shareholders which we never had until the last 6 months.  I’m sure it will be a big bang.

So what do you do at your business?  How do you keep people excited about things?  Or surprise them?

Tags: celebrate, christmas, parties

A book that saved my butt: Duct Tape Marketing

Everybody wants a quick fix to their sales problems but I know one book that really saved me from a lot of mistakes and really helped me propel my business.  Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsch was the book that really gave me a lot of great ideas and focus on my marketing efforts.  In fact, it was how it focused on not using too much effort to create results.

Eligeo’s client acquisition numbers are interesting and very common for the I.T. industry.  We have received approximately 90% of our business through referrals in the last 4 years.  We’ve been working hard to change that number a bit but it was the principles that Duct Tape Marketing had on our business when it came to work of mouth, referral programs and other ways of using your network to generate business.

One of my favourite parts of the book had to do with web site design.  John talks about shooting your web designer if he/she says any of these three things: suggest flash intro pages, suggest frame pages and suggest templates.  I agree with the perspective that you really need to create your own identity and I only think that can be achieved by building from the ground up.

By why did it save my butt?  Well, I learned how to build relationships really well.  We have tried referral programs in the past but those were hard to implement in a business setting.  We did find really great ways to thank our customers through a variety of means including gift cards, referrals and in some cases just simply calling them up out of the blue and thanking them.

You need to ensure that you have a solid rapport with your clients in order to continue to grow your business within theirs.

I also really liked his emphasis on newsletters.  You really need to come up with a strong strategy to communicate with your customers on a regular basis.  We’re working on it at Eligeo as we still are not completely perfect in this regard but we’re looking into many ways to open up more dialogue through social media and emails.

So a couple of things I took away:

• If your business can handle it, come up with a smart referral program.  Some verticals are hard to implement but get creative.
• Start up a smart and timely newsletter.  Information is key and being fresh in the minds of customers is critical.

Tags: duct tape marketing, marketing, referral program

Watching out for Scam Artists

When I started out as an entrepreneur there was a lot I didn’t know about (then again, there still is a lot I don’t know about).  The one thing I kept running into were the so-called scam artists.  You hear about it a lot in anything but I was a bit oblivious at the start since I felt I needed to learn every piece of knowledge from anyone and sadly it came from the places and people that I really don’t want to do business with.

You know the guy.  He is a very good talker, has a lot of confidence in what he does and convinces you that you need his services.  Now there isn’t one single person that I dealt with that I am talking about as there were quite a few but they all can be lumped into one group.  I never liked the way they did business and they thrived on taking advantage of those that just didn’t seem to have the confidence in themselves or they were in desperate need of assistance to get their business going before everything went south.

One individual used to hold regular seminars and events throughout the city and it was always a different topic.  He loved to take others under his wing to milk them for all they were worth until they had no money left and no business.  I’ve seen computer companies partner with him to the point where they faced lawsuits because they got caught up in the behaviour all the way to turning good people into bad.  I never did get caught up with this person since my spidey sense kicked in and I avoided them at all cost.

But once I ridded myself of that person I quickly found myself caught up with another.  I look back now and boy did I feel like fresh prey to these guys.  They saw a young guy who was starting a business and they wanted to get in there as much as possible.  The second guy managed to get some stuff out of me since I felt there might have been long term benefits (it’s been over 4 years as I write this and believe me, no benefits).  But as I quickly realized how it wasn’t good for my business, I got out.

Most of these guys tour the business networking groups in Calgary and some start their own networking groups.  I’ve been in many networking groups and I’ve found some that work and others that simply don’t.  It all depends.

So now this all leads me to a dilemma I have during this present day.  I don’t trust anybody that’s a “consultant” as I think back to when I was burned over $9,000 or these guys that managed to be good talkers and pulled a fast one on me.  I have trust issues and I know it.  If you ever get into a job interview for my company I will flat out tell you that I don’t trust you and you need to earn it.  I’m currently exploring bringing on a business coach right now and there is a couple of individuals that I’ve met that have “systems” and they do scare me off.  I love systems, heck I run a computer / IT consulting firm, but it is just I didn’t like the first one and I find that some of it is quite expensive and useless.

But we will see.  I’m waiting to see who can gain my trust since the whole scam artist thing really through me for a loop back in 2008.  One thing you find out as an entrepreneur is that you will make mistakes, there’s no doubt about it.  What really matters is how you respond to those mistakes and learn from them.  My problem is learning to get past some of the mistakes.

Tags: consultants, networking groups, scams

I sold a website at the age of 13

I love to talk about the days when I was first getting started with the Internet.  My very first computer was a Tandy 286 which my parents had purchased from RadioShack in Coquitlam, BC (suburb of Vancouver).  I used to have games like Ghostbusters and Police Quest on this thing and it was pretty cool.  In fact, I have to give credit for my typing skills to the game Police Quest since every little action in the game required you to type in an action like “open door” or “holster gun”.  I loved that Tandy.

Everything really changed for me though when in 1996 my dad took me to Office Depot in Calgary to purchase our first full colour computer, the Compaq Presario.  Probably the most significant thing that I experienced with this computer was Compuserve and dial-up Internet.  This would forever change my life.

Oh and not to mention cost my father several hundred dollars.  For many of you folks who didn’t experience the dial-up world, then you didn’t have to go through the limits of how much time you could spend on the Internet.  Cadvision was the local ISP in Calgary and limited you to something like 5 – 10 hours of Internet time per month.  Well, apparently I went way over that number and cost my dad about $400 in extra charges.  As much as he hated paying the bill I think he did get the feeling that I was onto something at this point.

In 1997 I really started to get involved in HTML and web page design.  I was very curious and I would search out on how to make different web pages and such.  I spent more time in front of that computer trying to learn new things than I would with any homework or friendships.

After getting pretty good with a few programming languages (Perl/CGI) I started contacting people all over the world to do contract work for them.  What was nice about the Internet?  Well, nobody knew I was 13 years old.  I was as anonymous as you could possibly be and these guys were desperate for web solutions and they didn’t want to pay much for it.

I convinced a small computer store in Texas to pay ole’ little Canadian me $300 to create an online ordering form.  You would be able to login to their website and completely customize your computer.  I made it easy for them to add new products such as motherboards, network cards and other peripherals.  It would then automatically calculate the total cost of the purchase and then calculate shipping based on their zip code.

Yeah I even shake my head when I think about it.  Now, the look on my mom’s face when I showed her that cheque was priceless.  ”Where the heck did you get that from?” was her response.  I think from that day forward my mom and everyone in my family had a good idea that I wasn’t going to be your typical kid growing up nor adult.  I wasn’t afraid to ask and to go after things.  Those traits are the same things I carry to this day.

I always like to reminisce about my adolescent days since it reminds me a lot about who I was then and who I am now.  Although that small Texan computer store is no longer around I can say that I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity that they gave me.  I certainly delivered for them and it’s exciting to think back to that as one of my first paying jobs.

Tags: cadvision, compaq presario, dail-up, first job, kid entrepreneur, tandy

My first Employee

I can’t say that hiring an employee was the easiest and most thought out process during the first run.  It was actually a bit scary and I certainly knew I needed a bit of help.  In the fall of 2008 I brought on my first contractor who eventually became an employee of the company.

I have to admit I was extremely fortunate to bring on the person that I did.  He was by no means the most technical person when it came to managing computers but he was certainly a very creative person which showed in a lot of web work that we did.  I wasn’t really ready to have an employee in my world at that point but we ended up working together for a good 1 and a half years.  Many ups and downs, but also many successes.  It’s too bad we left on bad terms since I still have a lot of respect for him to this day.

Hiring your first employee should be a thought out process.  It took me almost 3 years to find the perfect person to come work for Eligeo, who has since become a business partner.  Back when I started the company everybody said to avoid hiring friends and family.  So I did exactly that and went through a lot of people I never knew until the hiring process.  I went through a lot of good people throughout but there was always issues that I ran into whether it was commitment, level of mentorship required or simply work ethic.

The first employee I hired was simply the wrong person.  I wasn’t entirely settled on the business model for the company but he was incredibly loyal to me as I was to him.  I worked hard to make sure he was always paid appropriately and did so at the expense of my own salary most times.  But the problem was I was building a tech consulting company, not a web design firm.  His expertise was web design.  I had him in the wrong job and not only that he was very young so he needed more mentorship than what I would be able to provide as a new business owner.  I felt that I failed him in his path to success.

When we finally parted ways it was during a period that became one of the most critical in the 5 years of running Eligeo.  We had experimented in building our own CRM product but ultimately abandoned it as it really wasn’t what I was trying to build in a business.  We went quickly to 5 employees and quickly down to only me in a matter of months.  I attribute this suddenly change in some bad business decisions and personel decisions.

From this point forward I got smarter.  I went back to the drawing board on the business and re-focused a lot of the business model.  This was all happening in 2010 when the re-structuring occurred.  I brought in some good friends to help out throughout the year and the business model was starting to take shape.  We were finally becoming a very solid I.T. business.

I learned that hiring friends wasn’t such a bad thing at all.  The employee I mentioned in the second paragraph is Karim who has since become a valued shareholder and partner in Eligeo.  He not only brought expertise and knowledge to the business but he finally set us on the path to building my vision that I had started working on earlier that year.

I also learned that the process to hiring people you don’t know changed as well.  I actively sought out a variety of resumes from different resources and I learned to evaluate people a lot differently and objectively than I had ever before.  We have now a real strong team of individuals that are helping make this company a real success into the future.

To close off, here are a few points:

• Hiring friends and family can be risky, but if you have trust issues like I do, sometimes it isn’t a bad thing.
• Learn to evaluate talent either through third party resources (recruiters) or by picking up a book to learn how to evaluate talent.

Tags: employees, hiring, recruitment

Choose your Allies Carefully

This is one blog post that I’m sure is a very touchy subject.  I’ve spoken to a lot of entrepreneurs who have all admitted being burned in the past which have usually occurred at the outset of their entrepreneurial life.  This is exactly what happened to me back in 2008.  When you start out in something new you tend to trust everyone around you and have a false sense of security by dealing with some people you’ve come to know on a very personal level.  I hate to say it but these kinds of people can be extremely deceiving and can potentially ruin your business.

I’ve met a lot of interesting people so far in my life when it comes to business.  Many of these people have the “answer” to everything.  They feel so confident in their products or services that they’ve even convinced themselves of many false things.  I hate to say it but just because you incorporate a business, create a logo and slap up a website doesn’t mean you’re an expert at anything.

I got taken for $9,000 in my first year of business because of the things I spoke about above.  There were a lot of ethical issues with the whole situation today that should have caught my attention but I never did catch on.  In 2008 it was an extremely tough year for me so I thought that there must be quick fixes to my problem.  Here I had thousands of dollars in the bank and I was ready to hire an expert.

This person came along with the golden marketing planet.  It was full proof.  It was going to generate more business for me than I could ever imagine.  What did $9,000 end up getting me?

• 2 big boxes of books
• Tons of templates
• Some audio CD’s from a guy I’ve never heard of before
• A crappy guarantee letter

I will start with the crappy guarantee letter.  The guarantee was that if I didn’t have results I would get my money back.  But the way the guarantee was laid out put all of the onus on ME rather than on the consultant.  In addition, you were set up to fail from the beginning.  The coaching sessions were more like berating sessions than actual progressive meetings.  It was a really bad situation.

The big boxes of books were full of templates.  It had sales letters, marketing materials and a lot of stuff that was to be used to be customized for my business.  The $9,000 basically gave me a ton of templates that I had to fill out.  As many of you starting out find out, you really don’t have time to do that stuff.  You need to hire people to help you out and I recommended finding an all-star marketing person who can do this for you rather than trying to be an expert at everything.

The audio CD’s were, well, they were garbage.  I love listening to audiobooks by Stephen Covey or other Dale Carnegie type audio’s but these were simply no good.  They were short and just missed the point.

Now, this person ended up referring clients to me in the end which probably paid for the $9,000.  The sad thing is that those same customers went through the same experience, and they are all customers of mine to this day, but we all feel the same in the let down.  I actually keep the 2 big boxes of books near my desk at my office as a stark reminder of that expensive lesson.  I know others do as well.

So basically, my point of choosing allies is be careful.  They may seem good on the outside and may be a nice person but at the end of the day business is business and you need RESULTS.  Experience is extremely important and having a strong ethic proposition is important too.

I’m the type of person that works incredibly well with a strong handshake.  I notice when people make commitments and don’t deliver when they say they will.  I also accept that I’m not perfect either.  But I am 100% ethical and respectful in my business dealings so I try to make an effort to treat people the way that I’d want to be treated.

But if I am betrayed once, I’m not usually a nice guy to deal with.  I’m extremely forgiving but when someone attempts or sometimes succeeds in cheating me it gets ugly.

But to recap:

• Avoid the “consultant” programs unless you’ve found a very very experienced individual with lots of references to back their work up.
• When you’re starting out, you might be anxious to find the quick fix like I tried but really, take a step back and see how you can deploy your resources more appropriately
• Finally, hire a good lawyer.  I did and haven’t looked back.

Tags: consulting, marketing programs, scams