Blogging - The New Marketing Tool?

A recent article in the NYTimes Small Business Section (which I've been catching up on in between jet-lag naps) talked about how small business blogs could do wonders to help build that company's brand name. Essentially a low cost potentially high return marketing tool (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/27/business/smallbusiness/27sbiz.html?ref=smallbusiness)

So I've decided to give it a try with Business #1 and have created a blog for it (which I'm still actually getting linked into our company website). My thinking is that hopefully this new blog will help both consumers and retailers (since 90% of that business is wholesale) better identify with my company over other similar ones and, as such, that will help build brand trust, brand identity, and - hopefully - brand loyalty.

My fear is how to balance writing about that business in a way that is interesting and engaging for readers while not being too commercially oriented or give away too much to competitors. I'm thinking that between writing about the company in addition to writing about what's going on in the industry, cool "finds" that I've come upon, etc will help make it interesting.

As always, I'm not going to post the link to either Business #1's website or blog since I wouldn't want anyone to think I'm trying to turn this site into a commercial enterprise. But if you do want the link to either drop me an email (lewisjennif at hotmail dot com) and I'll send them along to you.

I'm back

I just got back from my honeymoon to New Zealand and Fiji and wanted to let you know that I haven't completely dropped off the face of the earth. While I was away there were a few business items that my parents took care of but nothing overwhelming which was great. I need another day or so to get my head back in this time zone but then I'll be back.

A funny story though - while on the trip I found a great product which I would love to bring back to the US and distribute here. I need to do a lot of research - first of which is to see if someone else has beaten me to the North America distribution agreement - but it's a really cool idea that I could see taking off here in the US.

So who knows, it's looking like 2008 will be the year I become a serial entrepreneur.

Shopping Carts

I met with my friend last night with whom I'm starting up Business #2 and showed her the product samples. We also spent some time figuring out the next steps - one of which includes getting a website and shopping cart up and running.

So I spent some time this morning researching various shopping cart options and it looks like PayPal is the best bet for small businesses. With a PayPal business account it looks like you can accept Visa, Mastercard, AMEX, Discover, and PayPal but don't have to pay monthly fees, gateway fees, setup fees, etc and simply pay a transaction fee just as you do with any credit card sales. PayPal even helps you set up the shopping cart which is hosted on their site so you never have to worry about misplacing any sensative financial information.

I need to look at it further as I may end up changing Business #1's shopping cart and payment to PayPal as well since I think it'll save me a good deal of money.

If you're interested in learning more about it check out their info here: https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_wp-standard-overview-outside

Just wanted to add that I am in no way paid by PayPal for this and I'll be more than happy to share later whether or not we used them and, if so, what we think about the functionality.

And as soon as we get things set up (hopefully in January) I'll post a link to Business #2. I think it will be fun and best of all 10% of proceeds goes to charity!

Sick Day

Blah - that's how I'm feeling. I can't put my finger on something exactly being wrong other than just general blahness.

In truth I think that this is my body decompressing after a very very busy season. This is the first day that I haven't had a ton of work to do. Since I'm leaving on Friday for a trip I dropped off my inventory and operations manual with my parents (yep - a small company so I have to rely on my folks to take care of stuff while I'm gone!) and now I'm back home trying to tie together a few business loose ends before taking off.

And I think that because I don't necessarily have a ton of stuff on my plate for the first time in literally months my body has decided to take a little time to catch up.

So yeah, I feel blah. But I do need to get a few more things done so hopefully I can get myself off the couch after this episode of the Hills is over (c'mon - what do you watch when you're home sick?).

He Does Hate Me!

(not my picture but the only picture of damaged mail I could quickly find on google images)

The Postman does hate me. How do I know? In the past few weeks I've shipped three packages to Florida (from where I am in the soggy Northwest) and all three times they've come back return to sender because the post office apparently can't find the address. This leads me to believe it's one of three things:

1. 1. People in Florida don't know their own mailing address (which seems unlikely as when I resend the package it gets there without a problem).
2. The Florida postoffice is exceptionally inept (a decent possibility)
3. My postman hates me (I think this is the most likely)

What's worse is that I swear it looks like the packages have been literally kicked the entire way to florida and back. This means that I have to not only call up the retailers to confirm their address (and yes, in all three cases the one on the box was the right address), but I have to repackage the entire order which takes a ton of time not to mention the fact that there are always a few packages I simply can't reuse. Then repackage in a mailing box (since the previous mailing box is a disaster - more money out of pocket) and lastly reship the entire thing at my cost.

Why my cost? Well I figure I can't hold the retailer accountable for the fact that my postman hates me so in the vein of providing good customer service I cover the cost of reshipping the packages. So there's a good $20 that cuts into my profits (we ship Priority Mail on everything).

So yes, I'm pretty sure my postman does actually hate me. Do you think leaving him a holiday tip will help ease his feelings of illwill?

Advice from the Experts

Advice from folks who have gone down the Entrepreneural road before and done a rather good job at it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/27/business/smallbusiness/27toolkit.html?ref=smallbusiness

We're ready for our closeup

We're going to be on TV! Well, in reality, one of our products is going to be on TV. And by TV I mean a local afternoon show so it's not like we'll be getting nationwide exposure. But still, it's our first TV appearance!

This all came about because I have a good relationship with a local magazine publisher. Every time they've asked for something I've made sure to come through (and to be fair - they've haven't asked for the moon) so when they had this opportunity on TV they thought of my company. Obviously I jumped at the opportunity - very excited!

Sadly I'm actually going to be out of town when the program airs and need to ask a friend to Tivo the program for me. I wonder if I can buy the TV clip and add it to the new and improved website?