A thought for the holiday season...

According to the legend, a desert wanderer happened upon a spring of cool, crystal clear water. The water was so delightful; he decided to bring the king a sample of it. Barely quenching his own thirst, he filled his leather canteen and began his lengthy journey in the hot desert sun to the palace.

When he finally reached his destination, the water had become stale because of the old leather container in which it had been stored. The king graciously accepted the gift of his faithful subject. He tasted it with an expression of gratitude and delight, and the wanderer went his way with a joyful heart.

After he had gone, others in the king’s court tasted the putrid water and asked why the king has pretended to enjoy it. "Ah", responded the king, "it was not the water I tasted, but the spirit in which it was given.

Please remember during this particular time of the year, and in that spirit, help those who cannot help themselves. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

Follow-up, the sequence

After writing, my last article on follow up, I realized that I had failed to give the sequence and timeline, so here it is. However, before we start I just want to mention once again how important it is to dedicate one day a week to refill your list of leads. Rule number 1 is all about this; never come home without a sale. The reason I say that is, if you are going to go out, you may as well make it worth your time, and, get as many business cards, introductions, referrals as possible while you are out there. This will refill your bucket of leads. So here it is (you may change the days of the week, I just find these to work the best),

Monday

Make calls; call the prospects that you sent an email to the previous week. Call the leads that you spoke to before about booking an appointment. Call the prospects that you did not get to see. Call the ones that you picked up their cards without them being there.  Call the ones that were referred to you. Call everybody that you need to call, because, today, that is what you do.

The price of gas today is outrageous, the time that it takes to travel is consuming, and the telephone is your friend. Most places that you go to still pick up the phone while you are standing there even though you travelled to be there in person. So, do the same thing, get on the phone. You can reach a lot more people, efficiently, and more cost effective with the phone.

Tuesday

You should have at least one appointment to go see, and, no matter what, talk to the people around there. First scenario, the person whom you had an appointment with is not there. Talk to the people that work there, ask them about neighboring businesses, who they are, who the managers or owners are. Scenario two, the person you are waiting for still hasn’t arrived, and hasn’t called. Tell the people that you are going to introduce yourself to the businesses around and come back in an hour, and to please mention this to the boss. Scenario three, the person is there, you present, try to close, and ask for referrals. In all of these cases, you got something, either more leads, referrals, or a sale.

Wednesday

Email day, send emails to the people you just met, the ones from the week before and the ones you have in your groups. Let’s talk about your groups. One day you realized that you had accumulated hundreds of business cards from all the visits you made, and you wondered what to do with them all, well here, it is. Take the pile of cards and group them by category, i.e. service, products, or both. Next take a look at those piles and see if you can further group them, i.e. computer sales, electronics, gadgets and so on can be together, then plumbers, heating supply, cooling and so on. Once you have these sorted out, create the groups you need, I use Outlook and make groups that contain 20, I find that this number works best when sending out-group mail. If you have more than 20, make a second group, i.e. plumbers 2 and so on.

Now, during the course of your day, you will most likely come across some interesting articles. Always think about your groups and keep these articles for your bi-monthly emails. You found a great article on this new plumbing device that helps consumers unclog their drains. So, take the article, send it to the plumbing group, tell them you would like their opinion, mention your company blog, site, FB pages and whatever else you have in your signature block. And of course add a line like, I will give you a call next week to see if we can get together.

Thursday

Another appointment day, look at Tuesday and repeat.

Friday

Another appointment day, try and schedule something in the morning, most owners or managers go home early Friday afternoons, and they do not focus well on what you have to say.

Weekend

Read, clip, and prepare your group emails. If this is your own company, or a career, you should always be thinking about these things. It’s not a job when you like what you do.

Next week, making use of today's technology to be better prepared and productive...

Let's talk follow up!

Yesterday I was out with one of our salespeople and I was shocked at some of the comments that business owners shared with us regarding their salespeople and follow up.

I have personally experienced this with the folks that I lease my vehicle from, however I didn’t know that it extended this far. Countless sales must be lost each year because of this. What is so scary about following up? Years ago, I read a great book by Frank Bettger titled; how I raised myself from failure to success in selling. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to be successful in sales. Here are a few pointers to help you in the meantime:

1. Never, never go home without at least one sale
2. Never end your day without sending an email to the people who bought, those who you met, and those you did not meet but got their business cards
3. Always visit the businesses next door to the one you just sold, right after the sale
4. Do not count a re-visit sale for your sale of the day

Follow these simple yet disciplined rules and you will be guaranteed not only success, but prosperity.

 

News

Every morning, I go through the same routine. I check in with our CTO in Sao Paulo Brazil, I read my emails, respond to the ones I have to, and then I go to my Google News and see what's happening in the World and Canada. This morning's news titles looked a little like this:

• Charlie Hebdo row: Cartoons divide French press
• Recall of ground beef from XL Foods in Alberta expands
• Security forces ring rebel area in Damascus, arrest 100
• Viewpoints: Anti-Islam film and self-censorship
• India hit by national strike over economic reforms
• Israeli air strike kills two Palestinians in Gaza
• Majority of Canadians would pay cash to dodge tax: survey
• Paying more for less: Canada's shrinking living room Add to ...
• Study finds why antidepressants work better for some

As a matter of fact, I think this is the way it looks every morning, and I am starting to think that there is no "good news" anymore, unless of course you would consider this to be good news:

• iPhone 5 review
• Lindsay Lohan arrested in New York
• Air Canada to unveil low-cost carrier
• HTC, Microsoft unveil new Windows phones

However, at the end of the day it's all the same, with a different twist. So, in view of this, I decided to search Google for a site that actually printed good news, this is what I came up with:

• http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/
• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/good-news/
• http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/good-news/

So, there is some good news around the world, I guess it's just a little harder to find. For me, from now on, I would rather have a dose of good news in the morning to help me tackle my days, it makes me feel good, and tells me that "hope" is still the strongest motivator, have a great day!

The Cloud...

What is cloud computing? Many of us have heard about it, some of us use it (Icloud from Apple) however most of us are still in the dark as to what it is and how it can make our lives easier, yes. I said easier!

So what is cloud computing? Cloud computing is the use of computing resources (hardware and software) that are delivered as a service over a network (typically the Internet). The name comes from the use of a cloud-shaped symbol as an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it contains in system diagrams. Cloud computing entrusts remote services with a user's data, software and computation.

Now in layman terms. It's like a harddrive located on a network (just like your home network) on the Internet that you can use. Let's try this, if you have an IPhone, and an IPad, and you want to make sure that if you lose your data you can recover it, you can back-up your devices to ICloud. If you want to sync your IPad (make them the same, share pictures and other information) with your IPhone, use ICloud. So basically Apple provides you with the ability to store up to 5 Gb of information for free on their servers. If you don't have an IPad, IPhone or other Aplle device you have other options, like:
 These types of available storages offer a multitude of options. I personally use both of them, one for pleasure and one for business. Why? Let's say I wanted to share some pictures wtih someone, or let's just say I wanted access to some files no matter where I was. I would simply create an account with any of these companies, and start adding files, photos, books, musics or videos to the folders I created. And, if I wanted to share some of these items, I simply would create a shared folder and invite someone to share it with.

My daughter lives in Ireland, so, if I took a few pictures around the house with my IPhone, or camera and tried to send those via email...good luck! If you are talking pictures in hugh resolution most of them will be over 1Mb in size and therefore could be rejected by the ISP, or web mail like Yahoo. And, because of their size, you could only send one per email, what a task. So instead, I have SugarSync, and I asked my daughter to also get a SugarSync account, and I created a photo folder that we share. Now, since that folder resides on my desktop (or IPhone, IPad, Mac, or whatever you are using) I can upload pictures there pretty quickly and, SugarSync will upload those to my cloud storage, and, my daughter can then go to her desktop folder and see all the pictures. We can do the same with books, videos, music and more.

Imagine the possibilities! Now, let me also caution you, these new storage methods only work if the Internet works. So, for safety measures, if you have important documents, back them up locally on something that you can take with you. I use the 690 Gb transcend, tough as nails, portable, and army tested.

Have a great day in the cloud!

Are we heading in the right direction?

Let me ask you, what is the lifeblood of a strong country and a solid economy? If you said, big companies, big profits, solid banks, high profits on the stock market, and anything that resembles that, well in my opinion...you failed!

Small business is the lifeblood and the strength of any country, of any city, of any culture, period. So why are we not helping them? Take a look at the news, more precisely the business section, what do you see? RIM this, Apple that, Google, Microsoft, and so on. What about the small companies? Banks don't help them, the Government doesn't help them, the investment groups, very little, but yet all of us wonder how to kick-start the economy. All of us wonder, how can we create more jobs? Yet the answer is right there, staring us in the face, help your local small businesses, entrepreneurs and startups and see what happens.

There are so many things that as a country, a province and a city we can do, however the first thing we need to do is "stop kidding ourselves". I read the blogs, the comments, and absurdities that people are posting and writing, come on! Give your head a shake as my mother in law would say. Some of you are starting to sound like politicians, I see growth, BS, what you are seeing is an oasis. Take a close look, the light at the end of the tunnel is a train heading straight for you. DON'T think that I am being negative, that is the easy way of looking at it. I am one of the most positive people out there, however, I am also a realist, and the fact is that we are not helping our small businesses to grow, we are impeding their growth.

Don't be fooled by the Fed's and their funding proclamation! Don't be fooled by the provincial funding, these are political strategies geared at obtaining votes, not growth. We are presently dealing with much bigger problems then small business some would say. Things like "who is that person on our 100 dollar bill". Come on! Wake up Canada!

We have the ability to have the strongest country in the world, we have by far more natural resources than most countries, we have great people, strong ethics, and still we allow our Government to pretty well "dictate" how we will do things with our natural resources. The land, the resources use to belong to the people, now it belongs to the government. The government use to belong to the people, now apparently it belongs to people like Harper. And I continue to read things like, "I see vast improvements in many sectors", "I see the housing industry picking up"...really, really you see that?

I'm sorry for bursting you bubbles, but folks, wake up, take a look around, and if you want an economy that is strong, support your local businesses, your start-ups, your entrepreneurs, and your small businesses. It's a weird thing that happens when you do that...they start growing, they create jobs, money flows in the economy, people buy things and yes, we grow as a city, a province, and a country.

Should we have caps and limitations on companies that serve the public?

As an entrepreneur and self-employed person for many, many years, I have had some good times and bad times. Throughout those years, I have learned that no matter what times, you need to keep feeding your company if you want to be fed! When times are good, it is possible to get paid more, and save more, however, one needs to continue improving the materials and equipment’s that allows the company to grow and prosper.  So why does this not happen in publicly held companies?

A good example of this is the hydro companies both in Canada and the US. Just last week, tens of thousands of people in Washington and in Ontario where and some are still without electricity. Electricity when the temperature reaches over 90 degrees Fahrenheit is not a luxury it is a necessity!  Think of the food that will go bad, think of the elderly without air conditioning, think of the damages and lives this will cost. Who will be responsible? Will the CEO’s responsible for this show up in their Lear jet to request a bailout?

Last year in Ontario the CEO of Hydro 1 was in the highest-ranking echelon of pay, this year, the constant power outages are blamed on the old, inadequate, and outdated equipment. Does this make sense? Let’s see, death, discomfort, waste, versus, bonus, million dollar paycheck and penthouse office downtown Toronto. Something has to give!

To the Governments of Canada (yes I said Canadian Government not Harper Government) and the US, place caps, and limitations on every company that affects the public, now! Who cares what happens to Facebook, Google or Microsoft (yes, these companies employ thousands of people, but, how many will suffer without Google for a day, or Facebook for a week…try no water for 3 days, or hydro for 2 days, or even no natural gas for a week in the middle of the winter). Whatever affects the safety, comfort and needs of the public should come first, always.

Here’s what will happen this year, the CEO’s of hydro companies will start crying, the governments who are in no position to help will allow them a steep increase in rates, and the same people that had to suffer the consequences of power outages will foot the bill! Ironic, n’est ce pas? In addition, to top it off, those same CEO’s will get a hefty bonus for saving the day, what in the hell goes on in that “pea” brain of theirs?

Place limitations, regulations and caps on hydro, water, natural gas, fuel and all other companies that have a direct impact on the lives and safety of the people that actually foot the bill for the paychecks of millions of people that work for those companies. Do it now before it’s to late!

Why, What if…Whatever

Do words affect our behavior and our thoughts?

Interestingly enough, when we are of the speaking age we start with the word why. Everything (well if you’ve been a parent you know this) is why, why not, why can’t I, why, why, and why. As we grow up it becomes what if, what if I get caught, or what if I say this, or what if I did this. What if however, is the beginning of the negative and the positive outcomes. If I use what if I get caught, it relates to a negative outcome, if I use what If I win, positive. So we go from an inquisitive mind to a cautionary mind, which can go either way when it comes to the desired outcome. And recently, we’ve added a “whatever” word that really leaves us cold as to the outcome.

So, looking back at these three expressions, could one extrapolate the question, do words affect our lives? What do you think?

There is that old expression that goes; “you become what you think about most of the time”, but could we also say; “you live by the words you chose to use”? What is the difference between success and failure, could it be in our vocabulary? No, that would be too easy, and would make no sense at all. However, if you think about it, what is the difference between a successful business and one that is failing, both being in the same business. Could it be in the vocabulary that they use. The word whatever, is being used by many today, what if we become what we say? Would you allow your business, your life, your work, your love, your family be a "whatever"! Next time you’re out, look at the way people stand when they say why, what if and whatever, I can almost guaranty you that the posture of the whatever is indifferent and possibly slouched a little, now, tell me that words do not affect the way we live.

Are you in need of financing?

One of our most solid partners and M&A (mergers and acquisitions) experts, have been able to secure financing for corporate clients that have a balance sheet heavy in assets with moderate to significant working capital challenges. Capital is once again beginning to flow back into the North American economy. Many investors are concerned with the uncertainty of the real estate and the stock markets; they are seeking stable returns on secure collateral.

They have identified them and recently established several credit facilities for local companies in the form of
equipment financing, refinancing and other asset‐based lending instruments.. If your company meets these standards and requirements, please forward me an email with the particulars and I will put you in contact with them. They will charge a nominal fee of .5% up to 5% depending on the loan size and difficulty in obtaining it.

If you are interested, please email me and I will send you the requirements, my email is chris@cgallant.com, thanks.

What is your real hourly rate?

When was the last time you actually found out what your hourly rate was? Not the posted one, but the one you actually work for. Think they are the same, think again. The formula to figure this out is simple, but is it really the truth? Here’s what they say, revenue less COGS (Cost of Goods Sold: i.e. commission, time, direct marketing, etc.) gives you what you earn. How does this apply to your hourly rate?

Let me give you an example, you are a plumber, your hourly rate is $85 dollars, you get a call to go to Belle River from Windsor, approximate driving time there, 20 minutes. You spend 35 minutes at the customer’s house and fix the problem. Time to get to next appointment, 20 minutes. Now COGS would have you look at gas consumption, time, direct costs related to getting this customer, and so on, however let’s just keep it simple. 20 minutes to get there, 35 minutes at the clients house, equals 55 minutes, you get paid $85 dollars for 60 minutes, so your hourly rate was $92 dollars! Every minute is worth around $1.42 to you, so the five minutes gained was worth around $7 dollars. Not bad, but what happened on the next call?

Now let’s say you own a business and you pay them like a car dealership does, that is you’ve establish a time for each task, so as an example a lube, oil and filter change would be .3 or ½ an hour.  The mechanic however gets paid an hourly rate; say $30 dollars an hour. Now let’s say that your posted rate is $87 dollars. So, we know how much the mechanic makes an hour, we know your posted rate, and we know the time paid for each task, so let’s add one more task and time for it and build a day. For this example, we will add; tire rotation and balance and pay .6 or 1 hour for the job. Here we go….

John the mechanic did the following today

• 15 lube, oil and filter change (.3 times 15 = 7.5 hours)
• 5 tire rotation and balance (.6 times 5 = 5 hours)
• Total hours: 12.5 times $30 dollars per hour = $375

So John worked 8 hours but got paid for 12.5 hours or $375 dollars, pretty good day. Now, what happened to your dealership? Well your posted rate is $85 dollars per hour, and you charged for the 12.5 hours, however, a lube, oil and filter is $29.99, and a tire rotation is $49.99 and your mechanic did as per above; 15 oil change ($29.99 times 15 =  $449.85) and 5 tire rotations ($49.99 times 5 = $249.95) so a total dollar of; $699.80. Now, we take the mechanics pay away, so less $375 and we are left with $324.80 over 8 hours equals; $40.6 and that’s really a gross figure since we should really take out your parts cost for the above.

So the question is what is your real hourly rate?

How's your social media?

All we hear about today is social media, are you on Facebook, Twitter, Linked In? BBM me, or Skype me, can you text me? How did we survive before all of this? As a business owner what are you presently doing to attract new business, and how can all of this help you?

Benefit or not?
Question is, how can you benefit from Social Media, are you a local company or a national company. Are you online or not. No matter what the answer is, your business will gain from using some or all of the above. I have a UPS box, and every time I get a delivery, I get a text (SMS) from the owner. Yes, it probably took a little time to add me to her phone and create the generic message, however, I appreciate it. Let's say you operate a store that sells products, you could use Twitter to advise customers that a new product has arrived, or you could Tweet an update on a product. BBM, SMS and Twitter are great for short notices, updates, or confirmations. They all save you the time of creating and sending email's. All you have to do is ensure that your customers either follow you, or you have their number to text them.

Skype is a must if you are in business! It's free, use your computer to talk or message anyone in the world. More and more professionals are including their Skype address on their email signature block so that you can communicate with them in that matter. I have a team in the Ukraine, a CTO in Brazil, business associates in Montreal, and countless people in the US that I message with throughout the day on Skype. If you can type, get Skype, it works on your computer, PDA, Ipad, Iphone and most of everything else. Linked In is great if you are in the service industry, however, be careful who you accept as a connection. Some people are just there to see how many connections they can gather, and,. at the end of the day if you don't know these people or communicate with them, well it's just a waste of time. Linked In is great for jobs as well, you can connect with the HR people from most companies, get referred by someone you are connected with that knows them and you can really re-create yourself on a daily basis.

And that leaves us with Facebook (or Google+, or others). I have yet to learn to use the power of Facebook. I understand it on a personal note, however when it comes to business, I am not quite sure. Here are somethings that I can tell you; don't mix your personal stuff with business. HR people will look for you everywhere, seeing you inebriated, partying or whatever else on your Facebook page...not smart. Although they have to be invited to see your page, I am not so sure that you want to post everything until you get a good grasp of how it works. Here something that Facebook is excellent at, exponential growth! If you get someone to like your page, it goes to them, if someone on their page likes it, it goes to them and so on. So, if you have some interesting stuff to post, and you get others to like it...WOW! Imagine, you have 20 friends, and they like it, you just went from a single post to 20. Now let's say that these 20 also get 20 to like it, you just went from 1 to 20 and then 400, imagine if you had something interesting to say.

So, in the future when someone says are you on, or connected, or followed, make sure you are and get them to like, or link, or connect, or whatever, just make sure you take advantage of these FREE advertising and marketing tools.

The tech home

The other day I watched Microsoft demonstrate the home of the future, that is, 2015. Incredibly, the "host" (computer/software spirit) pretty well knew what you where doing, when and how. To me this was a little scary, the term, Big Brother is Watching all of a sudden took on a whole different meaning!

As we venture into the future of technology, what price are we paying? A few weeks ago, I gave my father in law one of my laptops since the one I had given him previously died. I noticed that he had used some black tape (electrical tape) to cover the built in video cam, so I asked why, he replied; "I read that they can see me from the video". Can you imagine? Is that possible? Well I didn't think so, however, after seeing the home of the future courtesy of Microsoft...I am not that sure anymore!

Technology is a great thing, think about all the things that we are able to do today that we weren't able to 10 years ago and it is mind boggling. However, we need to remain masters of the future and not become a slave to it. Movies like I Robot with Will Smith are starting to become far to realistic, and scary. The possibility of a chip that can learn, process and deduct logically based on its accumulated knowledge is but a few steps away. The day that we will a lesser intelligent form that our computer, is the day that we need to pull the plug! In the meantime, enjoy your tablet.

Grandpa, what was it like?

A couple of days ago someone asked me about buying a new computer. How big should it be, how much will it cost, and so on? I replied that it depended on the use of it. Will you use it to play games, surf the Internet, do complicated calculation, all of this has to be consider, not unlike buying a car, really! He told me that the one he had contracted a virus and that nothing worked anymore and it was old anyways. I pointed him in the direction of our local computer whiz shop and told him that I used my old computers on our LCD’s so that we can surf the net, watch movies, or play music from our main computer through the system. He asked if that worked on old television, now I knew what he meant when he said his computer was old!

Considering that the Apple computer (below) came out in 1995, and that the IPad is about 3 years old…how old can a computer really be? What did we do prior to 1995? How did we communicate? How did we find our way around on a trip? Thinking about it makes me realize how fast we are travelling, and how fast products are evolving, and where will it be in 5 years?

 Given the above, how does a small business compete? How do they get more clients? What does the future bring for them? Last week I saw a lady at the bank paying all of her monthly bills with the teller one by one! Can you imagine? I can’t even imagine the last time I wrote a check!

Here’s a few things that my Grandson will never see or know about, black and white TV’s, with NO remote control. A night without a PlayStation or other similar game, rabbit ears on the TV, or SOS pads for those antennas that never worked. A day without telephones, or cell phones, a facsimile machine, carbon paper, ink blotters, and Walkman’s, just to name a few. The sad part is, that all of these are not that old…to me!

Blackberry...my five cents worth

Dear Mr. Thorsten Heins, I know as the present CEO of R.I.M. life must be (well I don't have words for that one), and having advisers like John Albright still funding "titanics" of the 90' surely doesn't help (I once met John on a project I was looking to get financed in 2008, although I came from Windsor, John thought that playing racquetball was more important, and so I sat for 45 minutes waiting. After my presentation, he told me that I should really focus on building a "search engine" for that they would have some funds...Go John!). However, I am a fan, and I think many more are. Here are my five cents worth:

1. Focus on a niche market (teens, and youths are not BB's market!)
2. Make that market the best possible market it can be with BB.
3. Go after business people
4. Make your products work with other - BB is not Apple, but could be, this is how they started

Let's face it, business people don't want to play games, they need tools to help them in their day to day jobs. I have both an IPhone (Verizon) and a Blackberry (Rogers) and I use my IPhone for games, reading, reminders and other personal things, I use my Blackberry for business, meetings, calls, appointments and more. Well I would like it to do more. Let's start with a better sync with other O/S. Syncing with Microsoft needs to be improved, why do I have two entries for this birthday, why do I have 4 reminders on my calendar, and so on. Yes, there are methods to do all of that, however, my business is not to be in business to figure these things out. Make a button that does it! If BELL can use a CD to install a modem in your house (well they think they can) then you should be able to do the same for the businesses.

Simple, pure, and functional, Blackberry Business!

That's what I am talking about, but, what the hell I am sure you have better advisers than me! By the way, why don't you allow the Playbook to connect with Facetime...there's a thought. In all seriousness, BB started in the business sector, it deviated to try and keep up with Apple and now Android, and in all honesty, it should go back to the business market and make it the best it can be!

Good luck Thorsten.

The future of Apple

I am presently reading Steve Jobs by Isaacson, Walter, and wonder if Apple will continue having such high standards now that Steve is no longer with us. I have always been a Microsoft person, I don't mean a loyal rebel like Apple fans, just that cost wise and software availability wise, Microsoft was the way to go. That all changed two years ago when I bought my first IPad. Granted at first it was more of a toy then anything else. I use it to play cards, read and surf, a little. Lately though I acquired the IPhone 4S and now I see the real value in having more than one Apple product. I am not going to make this post about the fantastic way that Apple works via the cloud, and other features. However, when reading the book you learn about the Jobs vision, the aspect of bringing design, hardware and software inline together so that they work in perfect harmony. This is truly amazing, and, while reading this book, I am seriously contemplating buying my next laptop at Apple! The question is, will the vision, the meticulousness and the perfection still be there?
When you think "product design" the first thought that comes to mind is that a design team designs and the engineers comply. However, in today's world that is not the case. We basically are told by the programmers, the engineers and the technicians, what will work with what, and what the limitations are, how you need to construct things and so on. What if Jobs was right? What if we began with a beautiful design, and made everything else fit from that point on. Would the world be a better designed place? Think about it when you attack your next project, and in the meantime, whether you are an Apple fan or not, do yourself a favor, and read the book.

Angels or Venture Capital, you be the judge!

Canadian Angels, another oxymoron or not? Recently I came across the Essex Angel Group, and to my surprise (well not really) they had the following posted on their site:

 

We do not make seed investments in startups. We invest in ventures that have worked out their business model, understand where they’re headed and are ready to take that next, big step.  

 

Now, I asked myself, is this the mission of an Angel or a Capital Venture company? Just yesterday Facebook announced that it was buying Instagram for, wait for it...$1 Billion dollars. Now that in itself is no longer unusual for Internet sites, what is unusual however is that Instagram is a little over 2 years old and to date as yet to make any money! Last month it raised another 50 million dollars based on a valuation of $500 Million! Go figure!

So, how does a Canadian Angel Company like Essex Angels deal with that? Now, I am not picking on the Essex Angels in particular, however, if you are going to say something like "we do not invest in startups" well you are just asking for it, after all why be an Angel if you are going to act like the Devil? In fairness to Instagram, I must say that they have 30 million users, so perhaps, Angel groups like the Essex one should be careful about what they write. It seems that Canadian Angel companies see 20 deals, invest in one, and hope it was the right one. In the US, they look at 20, INVEST in 20 and hope one makes it. Different philosophy, I wonder who comes out ahead!

So you want to get bought out!

So you want to raise money or get bought out, let's talk valuation. What is valuation? Valuation is what your company is worth, or, better said what you and industry experts say it's worth. Why do I say that, well there is a BIG difference between what you think it's worth and what the experts say it's worth. Let's take the case of Instagram, who recently got bought out by Facebook for...$1 billion dollars. This company is a little over 2 years old and HAS never made a penny! Now here is the kicker, last month they raised an additional $50 million dollars based on a valuation of...wait for it...500 million dollars!

Now, don't go telling a Canadian Angel Group that story and say you want a similar valuation. For one, Canadian groups are much more conservative and like to set the valuation of a company based on  revenue, first and foremost, and, by amounts already invested if there is no revenue. So if you thought that your company was worth a lot of money, think again. Unless of course you are making money, but then...who needs Angels? As a side note, I must however state that Instagram although having no revenue had and still has 30 million users, so maybe a valuation can also be based on that!

So, if you are looking for money and need a higher valuation, get viewers/users to come to your site, and if you reach that many users, remember, you have to be worth at least $1 billion, so don't settle for less.

Using your social networks

So, you've got hundreds of friends on Facebook, LinkedIn, and followers on Twitter, what do you do now? Well if did all this on a personal note, then continue on, you are doing well, however if you thought about the possibility of increasing your site traffic, think again.

Take a look at each of these networks on their own and analyze the data, I mean, what are they talking about? Facebook is all about individuals interest, woke up this morning and wanted a Big Mac...great for McDonald's, not so great for you. LinkedIn is about business, again, more of a personal interest, something like, Google in the eye ware business...if your an optometrist, great, and finally Twitter, well, if your Kutcher!

So how do you use them?
On Facebook you need to create a page, that is a business page, and you have to get people to like it and invite others to do so. Depending on what you are trying to do, for example, drive traffic to your site, if that is the case you need to entice them. Prizes, draws, and giveaways are a great way to get started. If you are looking for opinions, get them to fill out a poll first, make it fun, people like fun, they hate boring! The idea is to get them to promote you, not you promoting yourself. Once you have people promoting you, more will come to your site. Again, the first thing you have to do is establish the goal, why or what, do you want the page to do for you. On LinkedIn it's all about business, so go ahead, promote your business, however you will find the same thing here when it comes to asking people to do something for you, if you have a prize, or giveaway, they will respond much quicker. In your own network you could do a poll, make it interesting, don't make it directly about your product, chose something similar, so that you can use it to measure your own products. Twitter is fun, if you make it fun. In my opinion there are two ways to get business from it, the first take longer, you have to become the Tweet of the day for a group of people, so I hope you are creative. Once you have a following, you can direct them. The second is to leave them hanging, wanting more, for example, what Bieber did recently, posted is phone number, told his fans to call him right away, but omitted the last number...bad Bieber, good technique!

Good luck.

TMT with Duncan Stewart

If you are in the technology sector, you owe it to yourself to visit Duncan Stewart's blog. The predictions in this presentation are truly a guide or an insight to what's going on in our tech world and who will come out ahead.

This is an important document if you are presently in the development stages of apps, software or hardware. Duncan can be found at the following locations:
Twitter is @dunstewart; facebook is www.facebook.com/dunstewart

How do you explain that?

So you have a website, and, you are not getting any leads from it. You picked the right name (well it is your company name, so people should know it!), you paid to have a nice website built (well they said it was Web 2.0 and stuff), and you put in those meta, or is it mena tags, and still, no leads. HOW do you explain that?

Well I hate to tell you, but the Internet is not what it use to be! There are billions of sites, many not even indexed by the biggest search engines, and each minute more are created. There are certainly ways to get your site picked up by search engines, but, it will demand work. Meta tags are important, however the big thing is SEO, search engine optimization. There are many companies out there that can do this for you, just be careful, look for references, ask around, read reviews. Another way of creating traffic is by doing what I am doing, create a blog (blogger is great it's owned by Google, that helps) and have people follow you, you can (really you should) also get a twitter account, and naturally a corporate Facebook page. Speaking of Twitter, most people don't know what to "tweet" about, here's a trick, tweet about new product release, new services, new launches, re-tweet (that is when you read a great tweet you can tweet it forward) about a hobby, be careful what you say, everyone finds out. You will need to spend a minimum of 4 to 5 hours a week on these things, but it will be worth it. As a closing thought, by other domain names and have them forwarded to your site, things like (if you have a consulting site for example) www.freeconsultations.ca (yes I use .ca because you will find that most .com are gone) or tipsandclues.ca or whatever suit your business, then simply have those forwarded. The trick is to get URL's that people search for, like the word free, or money, things like that, but please, don't buy things like gambling or gaming just because those are popular searches, if you use them, you get them, meaning, those are the people you are attracting. Happy SEO!