One of the Hallmarks of being a college student, and especially being one who is driving as many dollars into their start-up as possible is that sometimes we have to make the hard choice of where that last $5 of ours is going to go.. shampoo or deodorant (btw, pick the deodorant, we will all thank you later). But what about filling your tank so that you can still focus in class during the day and put in the hustle for your business at night? Top Ramen can only go so far, and at roughly $1 per package it is a pretty tempting offer. However, it really doesn’t take that long to get sick of all the salt (5000% daily sodium anyone?) and want something with a little better substance to it to keep you going.

I rarely take any sponsored opportunities, but when Tony’s pizza offered for me to try some of their new crisp crust pizzas which retail for UNDER $2 I knew that you guys would want to know about it. Seriously, when you get to the end of the month with your pockets feeling a little thin but you are still craving some cheese smothered goodness, what is a good college student to do? Luckily Tony’s now has you covered with something that doesn’t taste like cheap cardboard as many other budget frozen pizzas do.

For a little variety, check out their 3 flavors:

• Pepperoni
• Cheese
• Supreme

My personal favorite was the supreme (because I dig all the goodies… and it is the same price). So check em out and tell me what you think, worth the few bucks? And if you really are a broke college student (hey.. we have all been there. No shame in it at all). Then make sure to follow me on Twitter where I will be sending one lucky follower a few coupons to try them out for free!

Tony’s Pizza

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Think about the last time you purchased something based on a recommendation. Who suggested that you buy it? Was it a friend, a co-worker, an online persona? How did they solve your problem and what made you respect what they had to say to the point that you actually made your final decisions? These are all things that you probably don’t think about while you are in pursuit of a purchase (or often times, you weren’t actively looking to start with) but ultimately separate you from your dollars in exchange for a product or service.

Before we go any deeper, lets take a look at what the word “arbitrage” means. Arbitrage is simply the difference between two markets, or the under/over valuation that someone has over resources that are currently at a different value somewhere else. The most simplistic form of arbitrage is often found on auction sites like eBay where we see the effects of supply and demand between markets. Remember the red hot items like when the PS3 first came out? It was selling for 2-3x the retail price that customers were paying in stores.

Online Marketing

No one understands the value of arbitrage more than online marketers (such as Jeremy Schoemaker or John Chow), and because of that they were quick to realize the power of building trust with their readers and what financial value that represents. The personality that is involved with marketing products online is really in the business of building relationships with an audience so that you will trust them and act upon their ’suggestions’ so they then don’t have to take in the advertising costs of reaching you on a transactional basis, or suffer the accompanying dismal conversion rates associated with what I refer to as ‘first encounter’ sales (where the consumer has no awareness of you prior to the landing page).

Your Business

So how does this apply to your startup, or even fortune 500 companies? As you start to understand the value of your relationship with customers and the trust that they subsequently have with your brand; it is only then that you can put a value on what people are willing to pay (and therefore help you profit) simply because they TRUST who you are and what you are doing. You then only need to keep a channel of communication open between you and your customers (typically one way, but listening is a separate but important aspect of success) through e-mail lists, social media and websites. Thankfully technology has opened up all of these avenues to facilitate this relationship.

The Impact

So how is this going to change the landscape of how business is done? It is widely accepted that an online presence is a necessity for any business in operation within the United States today, so how is the process of acquiring users going to change with our new found knowledge? As Gary Vaynerchuk has clearly pointed out, the future will require us to build brands not only around businesses but around ourselves. Society can no longer hide things from each other (at least for very long) so it is very important that we establish ourselves based on tangible qualities that resonate with our audience.

Only after you have developed a relationship centered around trust can you then start to ’suggest’ relevant products and services to your audience that will expand your verticals while continuing to offer value. This is very do-able for anyone with an online presence, and if you take the approach of building relationships you will see your conversion rates, prosperity and acceptance go through the roof.

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Those fundamentals are well understood by Jessica Kim who is the magician behind the curtain for BabbaCo baby products. You may be wondering why a typically technolog oriented blog is talking about baby products, and the answer is simple 1. The market in which you want to develop yourself has absolutely no bearing, the fundamentals are the same, and 2. Jessica Kim is an incredibly bright, outgoing individual who had her first taste of tangible success while in college.

Jessicas Wonders

As mentioned above, Jessica had already been able to check a genuine success off her list of to do’s by the time she generated market interest, investment and revenues around her first company called ‘Jessicas Wonders‘. This baked goods company had been her project from a dorm room her Sophomore year (at Brown no less) and generated a respectable $1 million by her senior year in seed capital. She was ultimately able to grow the business to $3 million, but the important part of Jessicas Wonders was that she finally understood not only what it took to create success but more importantly understood what it took to be happy with what she does on a day to day basis. This excitement and energy for life (which even over the phone is contagious) wouldn’t be contained for long and so began her new venture.. BabbaCo.

BabbaCo

As Jessica progressed with her life and with her family, the entrepreneur in her DNA started to itch with all the new opportunities and challenges that are associated with being a new parent. As she started to look at available solutions, it was obvious that there were practical needs for new products but the type of customer who buys the products also looks for a particular type of style that fits into their lifestyle and identity. So she started to create products that, much like their website, utilize crisp design and functionality to deliver product value few vendors are able to do in her space.

The creativity that is represented in her products, is only matched by the outgoing nature of her personality. If you don’t believe that after looking at her website, consider that she is now working with Gary Vaynerchuk the author of “Crush It!” because she was able to captivate his passion for personal brands and is now taking on clients through Vayner Media and I think that partnership is going to build Babba Co into a near unstoppable force in their market. In the next few years you can count on Jessica Kim to be the authority for baby products not only through her own company… but for the entire industry.

What it takes

So Jessica made it in baked goods, and now has a strong partnership in the baby product industry.. but how can I apply this to what I am doing, how can I expect to have the opportunity to sit down with Gary Vaynerchuk and be outgoing enough to get his attention and make him interested in what I am doing? The reality is that no matter what industry you are in, or who you think will help you facilitate what you are doing you need to remember a few key points:

• Be genuine. We live in an age that doing something negative or shady will always come back to bite you. Own who you are and what you are trying to accomplish and your audience will start to assemble itself.
• Have a vision. If you simply want to copy and clone people who have reached success in everything they have done, it may produce short term returns. However, only those who can think creatively see real success.
• Work your ass off. Nothing in life is free, but this actually a good thing for those willing to put in the effort. As Seth Godin describes in his book ‘The Dip”, those barriers to entry are your friend because it is what separates the leaders from the consumers. Put in the effort, stick to your passion, innovate and successful will soon follow.

What is your passion, what are you doing to make the big picture come together and what roadblocks are you running into? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter! Today is day 1 of your new success story.

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That may seem like an odd title, why would people hate success? Especially when you take into account that we often, as a society, don’t want to cap salaries and other forms of compensation for the ‘Elite earners’ within America because of our own dream of achieving such levels of success; if we capped them, what would happen if we ever made it to that position? The dream is what allows a capitalistic society to keep chugging, and I would argue that this is inherently a good thing.

However, even with everyone chasing the dream of a particular lifestyle there is a large majority that has tried and run into frustration along the way… clearly they don’t understand the theory of ‘the dip‘. These particular individuals unfortunately would rather spend their time and energy trying to take down those who are visibly successful in their own right which is driven out of pure emotion and no logic at all. What these individuals don’t realize though is that instead of furthering their own position they are actually just creating a negative ecosystem and completely burning any personal brand they might have had for often times a quick buck.

What is an example of this type of behavior? Imagine all the ‘authority’ figures within your industry, now think of all the times you have seen someone else posting about how their business model is a ’scam’, ‘rip-off’ or just plain wrong. These sometimes have validity but more often than not they are only ways to get a small spike in traffic from people who are most likely going to flame you in the comments and disagree with everything you say.

So what does someone get for trying to talk down towards authority figures, as well as up and comers? Maybe a few thousand hits on their website and a ruined persona within the digital space. Translations? They crumple any respect their audience/sphere of influence might have had for them for $10-$20. Congratulations! Not only have you lost the respect of many people who would have given you the benefit of the doubt and listened at least once, but now you have butted heads with someone who could have likely really helped you in your market sector for the amount of taking someone out to a modest lunch.

Are you working your own startup, or considered an authority within your industry (a real one, not just one of the millions of self proclaimed gurus on Twitter who don’t actually know anything beyond theories)? If you fall into either of these categories, you are going to run into these types of people without fail. Don’t fret though, not everybody has to like you. In fact, a lot of times those who are trying to destroy your image or validity are just attempting to get 5 seconds of attention, a quick buck and/or get you to ‘recognize’ them as a real competitor.

Who do you deal with this?

Since anything worth doing, is worth doing right; and given the fact that you will absolutely have people challenge who you are, what you are doing as well as your past you need to be ready to do one of two things.

1. Completely ignore these attention whores and stick to your guns. If you have chosen to do something, you should follow through with it and focus on your core customers and how to improve their experience without regard to the squeaky wheels on the bus. If you are producing quality content, services etc. your audience isn’t going to stop listening to you or coming to your products, sites etc. just because someone they don’t know is complaining.

In most cases this is the most preferred method of dealing with these types of people. Stick to what works and let the fly-by-night complainers come and go. If you focus on your customers and the process then you will always be fine.

2. Generate a response, but in the response make sure you address the negative press with key facts that are organized logically as to reaffirm your position and build your brand & credibility in a way that is only reinforced by any additional negative feedback. The key to success with this one is making sure to keep emotionally heated responses out of the mix because that is exactly what the attention hungry anti-successful live off of, let them starve.

Hopefully you are able to apply this to your unique situation when you come across it, because it is impossible with the connectivity in which the Internet affords today to NOT come across these types of people. Just make sure that whatever you are doing is calculated, measurable and presented logically. If you do this you will not only reinforce your existing audience, but you will likely pick up any stragglers who are sitting in your competitions camp

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How does a company who runs in a highly competitive field continue to acquire users? With the rising cost of Google AdWords for affiliate companies, they are running out of cost effective options to reach new publishers as well as advertisers but still need to get their name out there in order to even maintain their current volume.

So what are some of the options? You can obviously target ‘authority’ publishers within your space which most of the top affiliate networks already do (read: Shoemoney, John Chow) in order to raise brand awareness, even if the CPM rate doesn’t make since from a pure ad performance standpoint, they are able to make it back in the perceived valued of their brand.

So how is Affiliate.com trying to utilize their resources in order to build awareness, backlinks and a little bit of grass roots press? They are sending bloggers a pretty sweet T-Shirt in exchange for a blog entry. Their incentive is not only the shirt, but additionally they are going to award a $1,000 donation to the American Red Cross Haiti relief fund (which fits in nicely with my beliefs that investing in people is simply good business), but they are also offering the winning blogger a $1,000 bounty. So what would I do with this bonus cash if I am to be selected as the winning post? That money will be directly invested into my philanthropic web startup http://www.mybiggive.com.

This tee made for a good party shirt last weekend during some card games, fun socialization and an overall good time. Rocking the King of diamonds may just be my new good luck charm, and I am sure this network won’t complain about me wearing this shirt in a social setting since it has it’s URL plastered across the back

Affiliate.com has made a good move here by offloading the shirts they had originally produced for Affiliate Summit West by getting a little extra press, some back link love in addition to some good will from bloggers and users! So if you are looking for a good group to be working with make sure you check out Affiliate.com as either a publisher or an advertiser.

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So you have worked so hard in order to get users to your website, now what? What is it specifically that you want those users to do once they get to your site? Getting users to  operating specific goals is referred to as your “Marketing Funnel” because, much like a regular funnel you have every web page hit at the top, and only a certain percentage of users ultimately end up completing the action(s) you want them to.

An important aspect to remember when deciding how your users will interact with your goal is that each layer, or step that you add for the visitor to do, the greater the probability there is that they will “abandon” your funnel for either more content or worst case scenario even leave your website entirely.

Goals

Before you get rolling, you need to decide what exactly you want your users to be doing on your website. More complex sites can have multiple channels for their users to start down individual funnels, but for this example let’s assume you only have one primary objective to achieve with your users; what is it?

Tracking

Once you have decided what needs to be happening to create value from your users on the site, trace the path that a user would need to take from landing on your home page to completing the intended action. Each click or decision should count as a “checkpoint” for this funnel in order to track where you need to improve the process.

Action

What action is worth value to you as a site owner/operator? If you are an ecommerce site you would be wanting customers to purchase a product. What about content sites? Maybe your funnel includes getting that user to sign up for a newsletter, or other action that makes them more ’sticky’ to your site to ultimately improve pageview counts, conversions into affiliate programs etc.

One you have nailed down this action, along with critical checkpoints along the way you will be able to start testing conversion rates and generate a value that each customer is worth. Start with trying to improve abandonment rates (i.e. reduce the number of users ditching your funnel at each step). A great tool for this is Google website optimizer, however it does have a bit of a delay on the data that will force you to take a little time in order to make the right decision.

Lead Value vs. Lead Cost

This is one of the last, but probably the most critical portion of your business that you need to understand. How much money is each lead worth to you after they have been pushed through the funnel at your best possible conversion rate? It is actually pretty simple to figure this out by taking the total amount of revenue calculated against your conversion rate.

For example:

If I had a funnel that starts with 100,000 leads that initiate the funnel with a 6% conversion ratio (to funnel completion) and that generates a total profit of $20,000; this would mean that as long as I spend less than 20 cents per lead I should be making money.

Now you may be thinking, “But I can easily just calculate what I am making per lead without knowing the conversion rate, why do I care?”. This is a valid point, but it is key to understand your conversion rate because this will be the most cost effective item to change in order to boost your profitability per lead and be more capable to scale your business. With a 6% conversion rate and $20,000 in profit as stated in the above example this would mean that for each per who converted was worth $3.33 cents in profit. Imagine if you could boost your conversion rate to 12%? Then you would be able to spend 40 cents in order to obtain a lead and still be profitable which puts you above the average costs for highly targeted PPC advertising and thus allows you scale more feasibly.

So now that you know the basics of a funnel, how to optimize them and what numbers should be driving your business building decisions, start figuring out how you can implement these steps as soon as possible so you are more effectively managing your business and producing results.

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It always amazes me how the simplest things can mean the difference between running a successful business, or running one into the ground. You would think that it is a common understanding for people to follow through with their promises in order to keep their customers happy. Aside from huge firms that can “afford” to lose the business of some clients, a startup or otherwise entrepreneur needs to make it their job to stick with the follow through.

Why is this such a crucial skill to have when building your business/brand? During the initial stages of your business, your clients will pick you almost entirely based on their relationship with you; this means that any misstep reflects poorly on your organization even if it appears to only be something small. Forget to call that customer back on time? Did that extra quote or minor tweak slip your mind? That may effect your ability to reinvest in your company so that you could grow and get the extra help that you need.

So we all forget things, and we have all procrastinated at some point. How do you get around this and make sure that clients you have worked to get in the frist place, remain loyal and build a lasting relationship with you?

Engagement

This could easily be a fulltime job depending on how much effort you wanted to put into it, and how lengthy each response would be. However, this is always the most rewarding experience for potential and current customers when establishing yourself/your new business; especially with your online presence.

By taking the time to respond to questions on Twitter, company forums, e-mails and comments on company blogs you will be establishing the perception of attention to detail. These factors are sometimes hard to quantify for clients but will make them more at ease with choosing you for their business. Your level of engagement also can sometimes offset a price war between you and the competition. The same old business rules apply, you build your business on relationships plain and simple.

Objectives

When bidding on a project, or working with clients on new projects make sure that you help define clear objectives and timelines for completion. Don’t be shy to ask your client for some effort in accomplishing the task because they have a sincere interest in seeing the project come to fruition as much as you do. Your motivation is getting paid, and theirs is to build something useful for their business (equity, software, utilities… anything). Establishing these objectives not only helps keep the economic structure of the project in check but will allow for your relationship to shift if any previous unknown variables arise.

Calendars

If you don’t use a digital calendar then you are doing something terribly wrong. This is true because you either a) are not busy enough to need one {unrealistic if you are going to stay in business} or b) you ARE busy, but are just missing things that don’t seem important but are ultimately damaging your relationships with clients. I am sure you already have a gmail account, and if you don’t… go get one RIGHT NOW. The calendar is free, easy to use and has alarms with to-do’s to keep you on track!

Attitude

In the Tech industry, it is common place to say “what did you do to break it?” when a customer has a machine that isn’t not operating correctly. While it is true that often times it is a PEBKAC or (problem exists between keyboard and chair), it is important to realize that these customers are the very reason you have a job. Instead of patronizing them for whatever they may have done, you need to take a genuine service approach, “feel” for their problem and offer a satisfied resolution for their needs. This is what will keep them coming back, paying more and referring you to their friends.

Follow Up

Haven’t heard from a customer in a while? How about trying to re-engage them to make sure they are still satisfied with the service you last provided. This will not only keep you in their top of the mind awareness but it will help resolve any potential issues that the customer may have felt were bad enough to move along to a new provider/product but not quite bad enough to come and complain about it. Encourage feedback from these users to better your business, keep them as a customer and make sure you giving the highest possible product/service.

This customer centric philosophy is exactly why Amazon paid so much money for Zappos.com not too long ago. It wasn’t necessarily that the company was absolutely crushing their market segment, but rather that they understood their customers came first and the rest would fall into place.

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Think big businesses are the only ones able to make serious money in America? Do you think the Fortune 500 companies are too big to fail? Nothing has proven those theories more wrong than the past two years in American business. Big businesses are slow to innovate, have extreme overhead costs as well as a high cost of maintaining their brand image within the marketplace. Not to mention that such a complex organization has so many chances for things to go horribly wrong (from a public relations standpoint), that small business in many cases actually have the upper hand.

While it is true that 50% of small businesses fail within the first year of starting up, your business does not have to just be another statistic. In fact, 2010 may prove to be your best year yet and lead you into prosperous growth and sustainability. So what is going to make this year so much better than the last? There are four main principles, that if followed will make it all come together.

1. Innovation

Easily the biggest advantage that small businesses have over their larger counterparts is the ability to innovate at an incredible speed. When small firms see an opportunity or are able to find something that works they can capitalize on such events much quicker than the larger organizations can due to policies, chain of command etc. If you are a small business who can compound this effect over a period of time, your products and/or services will be so much more advanced than your competitors that a customer would have no logical choice than to choose you.

2. Relationships

Small business lives and dies off of its tightly knit customer base. Customers know this and appreciate it when firms/startups are able to provide stellar customer services that the big guys just don’t care about. Are you an unhappy customer who pays (i.e) Verizon thousands of dollars per year? It is doubtful that such an organization would be able to make any substantial leeway to earn your business. However, take that same amount of revenue in contrast with a small firm and your patronage makes up a much larger percentage of their income… you can bet they will listen.

3. Social Media

Want to get a quick answer to your question about how to get in touch with a representative at a company? Have you tried their Twitter account? Chances are that if you hit up Dell’s Twitter account you will get limited to no responses… Have you tried your local startup? I bet they reply right from their smartphone. Small firms are more connected and foster the warm feelings in which customers need to stay loyal to your business. When customers feel like they are a part of the conversation or movement, they then create an emotional investment within your firm that is not easily transferred.

4. Under Dog

Who do you root for in the SuperBowl? You may put your money on the team who is supposed to win, but most people want to see the under dog win the game. It is a more rewarding experience to see those who fight for something win it big time. This feeling is further compounded if it has the added benefit of allowing a customer to say “I used (product name here) before Oprah did”. Granted this can’t help you forever (or if it does you have bigger problems), but it should however help catapult your business into much more sustainable revenue levels.

So what is the moral of the story? This is the year to connect with your customers, make serious innovations and let your customers conversation drive your business. To all the startups out there.. 2010 is our year.

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It is the goal of every investor… to find the next big thing and invest appropriately with the hope of large returns in the near to distant future. It is then appropriate to ask oneself, “What is the next big thing, and what do I need to know in order to capitalize on it?” Whether it was the ‘.com.’ boom in the early 1990’s, the belief in 401k’s and corporate pension plans for retirement, or the growing real estate bubble it is easy to see that popular market trends will eventually collapse.

As people lose their jobs and retirement capital from irresponsible stock brokers, and lose their confidence in the current establishment it can be a wise choice to go against the grain. What I mean by that is a new era in business investment which does not fit the status quo of decades past. The world has entered into a state of “Network Marketing” on a much larger scale than in previous years.

When people hear these words however many run for the hills and blacklist the ones who try to pitch their Network Marketing product. It has become second nature for many of us, but it is foolish to believe that the entire market is plagued with poor products, especially ones with lucrative compensation plans for those who want to build a business. In fact, with many of the financial conventions we have grown up we find that many have failed us, or we were too foolish to see reality and as a result many of us lost our shirts.. Now is the time to try something new, especially if you are trying to establish an effective cash-flow business. So where should you be looking? Try Mona Vie!

After reviewing the top earning companies among Fortune 500 companies ‘Mona Vie’ earned #3 in total revenue according to the ‘Inc. 500′ report for 2009. On January 1, 2010 they hit their 5th year anniversary and the success they have had is absolutely incredible. It is so incredible that Mona Vie reached over $1 Billion in sales faster than Microsoft and Starbucks during their infancy. In comparison to other Multi-Level Marketing Companies (MLM’s) Mona Vie is rocketing to the top with sustained growth leaving the rest in a cloud of dust. The ‘Inc. 500′ has even recognized them as #1 in the Food and Beverage category placing them at the forefront of the now emerging ‘Health and Wellness’ phase of worldwide business.

Many financial experts such as Robert Kiyosaki, the author of “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” and top economist Paul Zane Pilzer have urged people to put Network Marketing into their portfolio’s, especially in the Health and Wellness industry. Why?…because this is the next big wave to hit the public and those who jump on it now will have a better chance at finding success.

When it comes to Mona Vie’s corporate team they have been lucky at putting the right people in the right places such as Randy Schroeder and Henry Marsh. The founder and CEO Dallin Larsen was awarded the Ernst and Young Award in the emerging companies of 2009 category which is another incredible achievement for Mona Vie since no other MLM has ever been nominated. Along with a solid product and a great compensation plan the corporate social responsibility that Mona Vie has to the world is substantial to many other companies. Their dedication to the people of Brazil goes much further than just building the economy there. Mona Vie’s “M.O.R.E.” project has helped hundreds of children get off the streets in order to receive not only food and shelter, but an education that will help them for life.

With this is can be expected that Mona Vie will continue to grow for many years to come. At the moment it is spreading like wild fire throughout many parts of the world as they expand. Japan, Israel, Poland, Australia, Great Britain, and a number of other countries have now been added allowing for exponential growth to occur in the next few years. Our advice… to make sure you research the importance of not only Mona Vie, but the emergence of Network Marketing as a whole for years to come.

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Apple is notorious for discrete and sexy packaging that has drawn in buyers and changed our perception of the actual products inside. Apple does arguably make a quality product, but even if you disagree based on use of their devices your first impression is nearly almost always met with a “wow.. that looks cool”. It has even brought about videos of their product that are centered solely on the unboxing experience, which has since bled into other products but none garnish the number of views that Apple products do.

The sad part about the video above? It’s not even the fact that the guy opening the box is so taken back by the packaging, but the fact that this unboxing of a mouse has nearly 30k views! So what is the added value for Apple by putting more time and effort into a nifty package for this mouse? Think of all the people who sought out this video and then made a purchase (drives sales), talked about the mouse and it’s packaging (this blog post, discussions with friends) and even more importantly the customers perception of quality before ever actually using the device.

The consumer perception is everything when it comes to turning prospective customers into buyers and often times makes the difference between a products mediocre success and becoming an absolute start in the firms line up. So next time when you are putting together a physical product to add to your line, or creating a web service you need to remember that the presentation of the device is what does the selling. The quality of the product just continues your success… if no one ever buys it to start with it is hard for them to understand the quality.

This same principle is obviously applied to web development, if your website looks like crap but is rock solid; people are going to remember how it looked and be turned off without even realizing it. Having a clean web services that delivers on only a few key fundamentals is how you win the mind of consumers before they even consciously realize it. (Read more about the reptilian brain to find out about buying behaviors here and expect a follow up post this week)

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