What Can I Do to Build Referrals?
Consulting is a referral-driven business. Here are four things you can do today to build referrals.
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Consulting Business
Forming an Advisory Board
Some tips on forming an advisory board that assume you are currently bootstrapping and will be soliciting advice and feedback from a variety of sources: friends, former co-workers, other entrepreneurs, customers, and partners.
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Using Web 2.0 Technology to Enable Strategic Selling: A Sales Executive Forum
I have had two interesting conversations with friends who are frustrated with some of the internal deficiencies within their companies. Both of my friends are accountants, but work for different firms and in different departments. However, they are both part of itinerant work forces and have the same problem. While out of the office, they
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3 Tips for Entrepreneurs Planning a Startup
How do you plan when you are in a small software startup? Big company methods are not a good fit. Here are three tips for planning a startup.
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Getting Feedback on your Work
Getting feedback after engaging with a client or even after an introductory meeting with a prospect is important. A couple of survey tools that we use are iContact and Survey Monkey. They are easy to use and low cost. Survey Monkey has some nice templates. The survey tools are useful when you want to ask
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Free Small Business eNewsletter From IRS
e-News for Small Businesses is a free electronic mail service designed to provide tax information for small business owners and self-employed individuals. Subscribers receive information about important upcoming tax dates for SB/SE customers, what’s new for small businesses on the IRS Web site, reminders and tips to assist small businesses and self-employed taxpayers with tax
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The Challenge of Advising Entrepreneurs
The key challenge in advising entrepreneurs is to help them walk around the options and explore the consequences of each decision.
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3 Tips for Choosing a Logo
Text Treatments: text logos are simple, the company name is always right there. Most high tech logos are text treatments, they are clear and simple. With text logos you have instant impact, customers don’t need to decipher anything. Another benefit of text treatments are logo aspect ratio comes naturally with words. They always seem to
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Getting More Customers Workshop Offered Sep-9-2007
We are offering our “Getting More Customers” workshop this fall in collaboration with the Professional and Technical Consultants Association (PATCA). The workshop covers ten proven marketing techniques for growing your business: attendees will select one or two that fit their style and develop a plan to implement them in their business in the next 90
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Understand, Believe, and Act
A useful basic sales model start with understanding the process that your prospects go through to make a purchase: understand believe act.
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Jerry Weissman On Persuasion: Getting From Point A to Point B In Your Presentation
Jerry Weissman’s model for a successful presentation takes the audience on a journey from Point A to Point B: from uninformed and skeptical to persuaded and ready to act.
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“Crucial Marketing Concepts for Consultants” @ PATCA May 10
I will be presenting a revised and improved version of the “12 Books for the Busy CEO” presentation on Thursday May 10 at 6pm at the PATCA monthly dinner at the Embassy Suites Santa Clara – Silicon Valley on 2885 Lakeside Drive in Santa Clara. I will cover a dozen books and offer a synthesis of the key marketing
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Selling Around IT in Larger Firms
Large firm IT departments are “gatekeepers”. Their job is to keep the enterprise network computing infrastructure safe and operational. New software from a new vendor is almost always viewed as a threat. Most of the time, they will say NO to any new software. Most of the time our clients have to sell around them. Here’s five
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Building Communities using Search Co-op
We have added Google’s Search Co-op to our Resources page. As an entrepreneur, you need to dabble in so many fields. Some areas of expertise an startup needs are legal, accounting, funding, marketing, sales, public relations, recruiting, hiring, partners, and advisers. We work with some great experts and partners and you can take advantage of
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What’s Your Passion?
Don’t forget the dream to change the world that got you started: your passion is an important element of craftsmanship and a commitment to excellence. What’s Your Passion? Recently, I chatted with a well-established consultant–she’s been working for more than a decade. She was having trouble developing a short elevator pitch to describe what she
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Evaluating Business Advice
Everyone has advice for you about how to run your company! Even if it’s in the form of question like “When are you going to Get a Job?” Friends and relatives who have only been employees may have your best interest at heart but not have the background or temperament to help you get your
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Thinking About Your Business Goals for 2007, Part 2
As a follow-up to yesterday’s post on thinking about your business goals for 2007, it’s also worthwhile to look at your own motivations and needs. In an extending interview in Fast Company “Are You Deciding On Purpose,” Richard Leider advises that you ask yourself two key questions: What do you want? How will you know
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3 Ways to Build Credibility with Prospects
Here are three ways for building credibility. Referrals A referral is an introduction to a prospect with an endorsement. A referral allows you to borrow credibility from a trusted third party. They spring from shared success with your customers or former co-workers, someone who knows your potential and can vouch for you or your team’s
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Power of Website Content
Here’s a good blog post on website content. How Can 10 Simple Articles Change Your Life? In his post Chris Pearson, recounts a story about a friend who creates a website (nothing fancy) but has wonderful content (10 articles). He kills his competition with his content. If you are selling your expertise, try promoting yourself
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Our 2007 New Year’s Resolutions
Here are our 2007 New Year’s resolutions. Theresa plans to improve her public speaking, Francis wants to develop a better understanding of theories of entrepreneurship, and Sean hopes to develop a more positive outlook.
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