Measuring 2008 Goals
It’s time for measuring our 2008 goals against our accomplishments to prepare our plans for 2009. and what do we want to get done next year.
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Consulting Business
Plan For Customer Reference as Much as Payment
Worry about a good customer reference more than getting paid. A reference will lead to payment, but just because they pay does not mean they’re a reference. Plan for gaining customer references by starting with a request for feedback don the quality of your services and the business results you enabled.
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Scott Sambucci on “An Entrepreneur’s Lessons Learned”
I met Scott Sambucci when I spoke at TVC in July of 2007 in Menlo Park as a part of their “Entering the Entrepreneurial World” seminar. He was kind enough to blog about his takeaway from the talk in “Definition: Entrepreneurship” where he concluded that even though it was a noun it should be defined
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Using the Downturn to Launch Your Consulting Career
The last six weeks or so I have encountered a number of folks who have decided to use the downturn to launch their consulting career. Typically they have been encouraged in this by their former employer who has given them a large check a lot of free time. But some have chafed at cubicle life
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How To Measure Your Lead Generation Effectiveness
Many start-up founders believe that the sales process should be this straightforward: Get the phone to ring (or e-mail inbox or skype or web contact form) Tell your prospect about your offering Take the order Alas it is normally not this simple, especially if you are selling to businesses. We do encounter some startups that
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Entrepreneurial Focus: Right Layer, Right Problem, Right Time
Entrepreneurial focus means answering three related questions: what are we good at, how can we tell and how do we measure it, who wants it and how do they value it?
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Customer Development for a Consulting Practice in a Downturn
What follows are some real questions I have answered either face to face or in e-mail over the last 90 days in response to the current downturn in Silicon Valley. Customer Development for a Consultants in a Downturn Q: I just completed my first two years of consulting–which were spectacular–after 20+ years of full time
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Two Professional Groups for Consultants
Two professional groups for consultants are the Professional and Technical Consultants Association (PATCA) and Women in Consulting (WIC).
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Strategic Planning for Non-Profits
Recap of a working session for PATCA and some lessons for strategic planning for non-profits.
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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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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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