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SCORE Association
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Some of the biggest issues that we find on the subject of Social Media is “What is it?”  “How important is it to me in my business?”

People today think of the term Social Media as the tools of Twitter and Facebook as differentiated from thinking of it in terms as a new way of communicating.  In essence, however, it really isn’t that different from what we did before, we are just using different tools and the method is faster and more personal.

All of this “new stuff” has been caused by the age of the computer and its new generation of offshoots – iPhones and BlackBerrys — which have arrived in our pockets and have permanently changed our world and the way we communicate.

Our customers and clients today – no matter our business – demand and expect a personal, instant response to requests, complaints, observations, returns and questions.  The younger the person – the less time they are willing to wait for a response.

So how important is this new personal way of communicating?  It is imperative that a business learn how to use the tools of social media and integrate them into their already existing systems.  Email, Twitter, your website – they must all work together – and function within your advertising, your print material and your radio or TV spots.  Hand in glove is the rule, and if it is not – then your business will not receive the benefit.

And what is the benefit?  Greater retention – a bigger customer base – greater cash flow – a bigger bottom line – steady growth – all of the foregoing can be achieved with a good, sound social media program that is placed within a company and integrated into its systems.

Maryanne Weiss, SCORE Guest Blogger
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The Mashable Blog just had a post about 10 Essential Entrepreneurs to Follow on Twitter.  Two women made the list. I’d like to introduce them to you and get your nominations for more women entrepreneurs with useful tweets on Twitter.

Leila Janah

Leila C. Janah on Twitter

Leila is founder of Samasource, which provides digital work for Kenyan refugees.

Caterina Fake on Twitter

Caterina is a female entrepreneur with a major success under her belt — co-founder of the photo-sharing website Flickr – and a new and exciting project — Hunch – underway.

Who else would you nominate?

Please leave me a comment, a one sentence bio, and their Twitter name.  The voting booth is open.

And come connect with me on Twitter:  @pcorwin

Peg Corwin, SCORE Chicago
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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce presents, “DREAM BIG Small Business of the Year Award” contest sponsored by Sam’s Club, now through December 18, 2009. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce wants to recognize America’s small businesses for being the backbone of America’s economy. Award nominations are due on December 18, 2009 and award applications are due on January 15, 2010.

Criteria & Eligibility
To qualify, each business must have fewer than 250 employees, have gross revenues less than $20 million in 2008 and be able to attend America’s Small Business Summit, May 17-19 in Washington, D.C.

Eligible applicants will be judged on financial performance and business history, staff training and motivation, community involvement, customer service and business plan or strategies and goals.

Find Out More
Visit the web site for more details. Get applications and nomination forms here. If you have additional questions, you can contact summit@uschamber.com directly.

Best of luck!

SCORE Association
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Passion: If you don’t love what you do then you need to seriously think about doing something else. Work never feels like work if you love your job.

People: Surround yourself with bright, energetic, optimistic people. Choose people who can get things done. Never work with anyone who causes you stress.

Planning: Always update your plan. Be aware of all aspects of your business and respond to the changes in your customer needs, the market and the finances.

Persistence: Continue to work your plan and never give up. Be open to change. If one thing doesn’t work try something else.

Personal well being: It is important to take a break, a day or two off and revitalize yourself so that you can mentally get back into the focus of the business.

Profits: You are in business to make a profit. Staying on top of the business and being aware of where the profits are. Know who your best customers are and nurture those relationships so that your company will continue to grow and be profitable.

Please share other success tips that have worked for you.

Julie Brander, New Haven SCORE
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I once heard someone say, The smaller the niche, the more you get rich”. Sounds weird, doesn’t it, but it proves to be true. The first thing I ask my SCORE marketing clients is, “who is your customer?” You’d be surprised by 80% of the clients who answer, ‘everyone’.

Everyone is not an ideal client. Everyone is not someone to which you can direct your marketing. Everyone doesn’t exist. When you take time to define who is your ideal client – age, lifestyle, buying habits, economic level, etc. – you can narrow down your marketing to where they live and work directing your time, talents and money only toward qualified prospects. This is especially true now when the the majority of successful marketing is done either online or in physical networking.

What blogs are your clients reading and are you considered an expert on those blogs? Knowing what web sites they use for reference tells you what sites are good links for you. If you know what networking groups they belong to, you can join those groups, also. By identifying your strategic partners you help your partners, yourself and your client.

Start with the biggest problem you can solve and then determine in great detail who has that problem. Of course, the chain doesn’t stop there as now that you know who they are you have make yourself known, build their trust and develop a strong relationship. Sounds like a lot of work, well, it is, but well worth it. If you are reading this you are probably already on your way to successfully knowing your client. Congratulations.

Tell me more – how did you figure out your client niche? Does this rule work for you? Did for me. Wish I had known it sooner.

Betty Otte, SCORE Orange County
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One of the best parts about becoming a business owner is the “freedom”. We take the leap of faith with dreams of flexible work schedules, executive decisions, self-dictated income and freedom from the shackles of reporting for duty at someone else’s beck and call. The only thing we think we’ll miss is the steady paycheck and the group health insurance. But what many will find after a period of time is that the days are typically longer, pay is lower, less steady and freedom has its price. This is normal when you’re a start-up.

What many of us don’t anticipate is how little we appreciated the interaction with peers – the sense of community that comes with being a member of something bigger with other people. Sole-ownership can lead to the sense of living on an island and as humans and specifically women, we are inherently social beings. Business ownership can be counter-intuitive to what makes us feel connected.

So where should you begin to find your tribe? As business owners, we’re chiefs of our own tribes, to find a group to belong to is the exact opposite of business ownership. But as members of a community, it’s critical that we play both leader in our own domains as well as team player in the big community sandbox. As a woman does it make more sense to join a local chamber of commerce or a women’s business organization? What about the multiple women’s networking or peer groups? The options for women are endless and every day there’s a new group of women, matrons, mavens, ladies, broads, you name it – they’re out there.

So how do you know where you belong? The good news is – everyone wants you. The bad news is, it’ll take a little test driving to figure out who’s the right fit for you.

As the CEO of the largest membership based women’s business trade organization in Los Angeles, I like to believe that we meet the most needs and offer the best value proposition. I suggest asking the following questions of you and of the potential tribe of choice:

1.  What stage am I in my business? This is where you determine the number of years in business, revenues/gross receipts, number of employees and where you hope to be.
2. What am I looking for in a tribe? This is an important question to figure out as a business owner and a tribal member. The offerings can range from social engagement to business development, educational offerings to procurement opportunities, peer learning to political advocacy. The thing to do is create a list of what is most important to you and find the organization that puts a strong emphasis on those top priorities.
3. What is my intended level of participation? Do you want to join a group to simply say you’re a member? Perhaps part of your long-terms strategy involves becoming a board member as a key action item towards growth. Maybe you’re only interested in marketing yourself to the community.
4. What’s my measure of success? Be clear on what you intend to do for the investment of your membership dues. Ask yourself, at the end of the first year, what will have happened that will make it worth it for me to renew? How well were my needs and wants met? Would I recommend this organization to another business owner?

Jane Pak, Guest Blogger
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Close your eyes and picture a risk. Is the picture in your mind’s eye a danger or an opportunity? Few of us realize that risk is not necessarily something bad, and in fact can lead to something wonderful. Another common misconception about risk is that it is all or nothing. Either you can control all of the outcomes of a decision or you can control none of them.

For budding entrepreneurs or early-stage enterprise leaders, this misconception can be paralyzing. Yet the most effective leaders are those that embrace risk and manage it towards the most positive outcome.

In truth, the knowledge and control you have over the factors included in risk are always on a spectrum. Especially in these times of economic upheaval, the degree to which you can know and control all that is knowable and controllable depends on the tools you have available at the time of decision making. And the knowledge you have will never be complete because no one, you included:

• Knows the future except in hindsight.
• Can ever know everything because everything and anything is subject to change without notice.
• Has enough time to identify and evaluate all options and choices.
  .

Once you recognize what is controllable and knowable and what is not, the most essential and least asked question is “what is the worst case scenario?” If you can live with your answer, then the risk is a likely path to opportunity.
Each one of us has a different tolerance of the unknown and even the “worst case scenario” varies based on the eye of the beholder. For this reason, truly knowing and understanding your own style and appetite for risk can be one of your most powerful assets. Picture a continuum, if you fall on one end you are a “Risk Worrier™;” on the other end, you would be a “Risk Warrior™.”

Risk Worriers are people whose motto is “better safe than sorry.” These are the leaders who over-rate uncertainties, are pessimistic about outcomes, and prefer security and status quo to reaching for potential opportunities. The term “analysis-paralysis” definitely applies to these risk-avoiding leaders.

Or are you a Risk Warrior? Someone who participates simply for the risks involved and might be seen as over-daring when it comes to risk? This end of the continuum brings a different set of problems that can occur when the risk taken is not well understood and the chances of failure are increased.

Or do you fall somewhere in between? Do you step back and assess the risk and its consequences to determine if the probability of potential success is greater than the probability of potential failure? Ask yourself when you hold yourself back from risk taking and identify the times when you were willing to take risks. Looking for a pattern will help you understand your style and assist you in assessing when to take risks and when to pass because, at base, if the ROI is not greater than the chance of failure, then passing on the risks increases your chances of success next time.

Elaine Eisenman, Guest Blogger 
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At SCORE I meet with many women who are thinking of going into business. I recently met with a woman who wanted to open a bakery because everyone loved her cookies. She was newly divorced, had a chunk of cash and dreamed of opening a bakery. “My friends and family all love my cookies and my recipes are special.” She had no business background and knew nothing about running a business. I asked if she had ever worked in a bakery. No,but she often went to a little French bakery near her home. Asking if she had researched the cost of opening a bakery (a sneaky way to start talking about the business plan) she said “no”, but she had a substantial chunk of cash. When I asked if she knew the hours involved in running a business her face lit up as she said she needs little sleep. This was a trick question on my part as I knew she had not experienced the hard labor involved in running a bakery.

Bottom line, I suggested she go to our SCORE all day workshop on how to start your own business and to spend 6 months working in a bakery learning the trade of running a bakery. With that she explained that she had come to be supported in her dream and that I didn’t understand her plan. Needless to say, she was not one of my repeat SCORE clients. Two parts to any business: the art or craft of the business (how to bake) and and the art of running a business (business experience or know how). Unfortunately, she had neither and was not willing to learn. Before you open a business take inventory of your skills and use SCORE to help with the art of running a business. What is your story about starting your business? You can learn the hard way, but why? Come see SCORE. That is why we are here.

Betty Otte, SCORE Orange County
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The business world can learn a lot from gardeners. Gardeners are masters at nurturing growth. They know when to plant a seed to ensure the external environment is ripe for new opportunity. They know how to care for the emerging organism so it begins to grow and withstand challenging conditions. They know when to prune, often cutting out the strongest branches to enable sunlight in to foster more growth that better fits the environment. And they know that they must step back at times, assess their progress, and identify things that inhibit the organism from reaching its full growth potential.

CEOs also need to periodically take stock of their employees to ensure that growth is possible. Times of turbulence offer companies the opportunity to look at their talent pool and identify what the company needs to achieve its future goals. If your future goal is to become the leading supplier of the latest technology widgit, for example, ask yourself if your current employees have the right technical skills to achieve new innovations in widgitry? Does your management team have the strategic vision to both identify and pursue new widget markets as well as to help expand the current ones?

If the answer is yes, then the question you now need to ask is what can I do to help my employees continue to be their best? The reason that continued investment in your people is so critical is that the talent wars continue to survive and thrive. If you don’t invest in keeping your human assets and building upon their strengths, you can be sure your competitors will invest in recruiting them.

If your answer is no–you don’t have the right employees to help you grow into the future. Now is the time for you to make adjustments to your bench.

Even the strongest performers can’t help you achieve your company’s goals if their strengths are not in the areas your future organization needs. Often, this is a very difficult decision for leaders. Most emerging organizations tend to hire for the skills needed at this very moment. And many founders develop strong loyalties to those who were there “from the beginning.” When the organization moves forward or in a different direction, leaders may fail to make the needed talent changes. This can be detrimental to your organization. And it may be a disservice to those valued employees whose skills were right at one point in time, but who may not reach their full potential because they’re no longer a fit at your company.

If your strong performers can help drive the company into the future, be sure to invest in them. If they cannot, or their expertise lies in an area your future organization doesn’t need, take a cue from the gardeners. Prune systematically and fully with a vision of the future. Help your root-bound talent replant in an environment that will nurture their growth. And provide the necessary nutrients to foster the growth in your own organization to achieve its full growth potential.

Elaine Eisenman, Guest Blogger 
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