MaineBusiness.com

I know this is an old episode, but I was re-watching the koi pond episode of The Office last night.

In one scene, Michael and Jim were getting ready to go on a sales call. Michael was "micro-co-managing" by prepping Jim. Here's the exchange that I want to highlight:

Michael: "Remember, we're selling success."

Jim: "No, we sell paper."

Michael: "That's secondary."

And there folks is proof that The Office writers read this blog. I would have told Jim the same thing.

Clients don't want paper. They want to succeed. The paper lets them communicate internally and with customers. Without that paper, they wouldn't be able to run their businesses. And they need it to cost a reasonable amount that doesn't eat up their margins.

If anyone reading this is looking for ideas for another business-based television show, have your people call my people.

SWITCH

Seth Godin has a good, short post on getting customers to switch to your services or products.

His argument is presented in the last two paragraphs:

"The chances that you can top a trusted provider on the very thing the provider is trusted for are slim indeed.

Instead, you gain converts by winning at something the existing provider didn't think was so important"

That is the best way to compete with anyone. Find a hole in their service and make it your niche.


GOT A PLAN?

I am convinced that if you're going to start a business, you need to create a business plan of some sort. Something needs to be written. But who has the time?

Now just about anyone. SCORE has an business plan generator. This will help you outline a final plan and get started on financial projections.

The end result is not a full-blown business plan. But it will:

"Once you are done, you'll have a better idea of whether you want to proceed with or delay your idea. If you decide you need a more comprehensive business plan, then you can download the business plan template, which covers a range of business issues in more depth."

You also can download several templates to help you do some more work on the business plan.

I COME NOT TO BURY RSS...

There's a lot of buzz about the impending demise of RSS feeds. Even Rich Brooks talks about it.

Of course the suspect in this slaying is Twitter. People say they find relevant blogs to read by following interesting people. You might say I'm contributing to the problem my putting links to useful blogs in my @MaineBusiness tweets. Ironic thing is that I get those links from a monster collection of RSS feeds.

Google Reader is my filter on the world. It brings me all kinds of content. I even follow some Twitter feeds through RSS feeds. And somehow, I'm always finding new feeds to add. But I'm unique. I know not everyone consumes the Internet like I do.

If RSS dies, I don't think it will have far to fall. I really don't think that many people are using it. It's not as sexy and intuitive as Twitter. It would go quietly into the night.

But I don't think so. It's a flexible, reliable technology. People will think it's dead but some savvy developers will build cool apps on top of it. You won't even know you're using it.

I wouldn't argue with me on this one. I would like to point out something Guy Kawasaki said awhile back about Alltop.com. It's a very comprehensive directory of blogs. It reminds me of a very slick version of an early Yahoo.com. Anyway, Kawasaki said Alltop was built to kill the RSS reader. Which was ironic because those directories were basically web-based RSS readers. Without RSS, they wouldn't have been able to make it happen.

Recently, Alltop enabled RSS feeds for all its directories. So you can subscribe to a monster RSS feed that combines a lot of RSS feeds.

I'm just sayin'.

BRILLIANT!

I just read a great post from Erica Douglass about mining the news for business ideas. She walks you through her thought process as she reads a story and spots the opportunity.

TWINKEDIN

Our social media circles are merging. This week LinkedIn and Twitter announced that updates can now cross into each other's networks. That's been greeted with a lot of cheers in the Twitterverse. Personally, I'm a bit worried. It offers a little too much exposure.

Not that I have anything to worry about in any of my accounts but I try to keep my LinkedIn account uber-professional. Not that I'm profane and crass in Facebook or Twitter. And just about everyone who follows me or links to me or friends me are the same people.... Nevermind. They're all the same. About the only difference is that if one network goes down, we can all shift to one of the others.

Enjoy the cross posting and read up on how to make the most of LinkedIn:






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