North San Diego Business@Large

The other day I posted about "harvesting" e-mail addresses off forwarded e-mails. It’s hard to to resist taking the short cuts sometimes. So let’s talk about how to ethically market our business to prosper the bottom line.

Networking Ethics

I’ve belonged to a Leads Club for several years now. We invite visitors to attend two of our meetings before being asked to make a decision to join. Why do we do this? We want to make sure you’re a good fit for our membership. So my question to you is, are you serious about joining our chapter (good ethics), or are you visiting as many structured networking groups for the maximum amount of times just for the contacts (unethical behavior)?

Collecting Business Cards

At any given networking event there will be a networking table for attendees to place their business cards and brochures. Do you peruse the table looking for people you’d like to meet (ethical)? Or do you just grab all the cards possible to load into your database (questionable)?

If you collect all the cards and incorporate them into your database, you shouldn’t be at all surprised if one of the contacts busts you on who you are and why are you sending your e-mails to them. According to the CanSpam act, they should have a reasonable expectation that they’ll receive info from you if they’ve had a conversation with you. Collecting all the business cards just for the contact info is the same as collecting e-mails off the forwarded e-mail, unethical.

Asking For Help

I’m the techno geek at my networking events. I’m the one who talks about blogging, podcasting, Facebook, Twitter, Plurk, RSS, Syndicating Your Content, etc. I’ve been on the cutting edge for a couple of years now, blogging since 2005 and working hard to learn all I can about leveraging a business on the Internet. I can’t tell you how many times someone, out of the blue, comes to me to ask if they can buy me a cup of coffee and "pick my brains."

Do you have respect for your fellow business owners? Do you value their knowledge and what it’s taken them to gain the knowledge they have? And you want them to sit down with you and share it all?

Rather than ask to "pick my brain" (questionable ethics), why not ask me if I have info on my website that you could read and bone up on before asking me questions (ethical). That would show me that you were interested in furthering your knowledge by doing some of the leg work first, not just looking for the easy way to gain your info. I’d respect you more, if I were asked about a specific tool, task or strategy and not asked to share from A to Z.

Making An Introduction

Just last week I met a woman for the first time. It’s always been my practice to behave as a host. So I asked her who she was and what she did. She was happy to share everything about her business, including asking me if I could see how her business would benefit me. At the end of her conversation, she simply walked away, without asking me my name or what my business was. Do you think I’m interested in pursuing a business relationship with her? I’m betting she’s one of the "one hit wonders" that visits networking groups to the max before moving on to the next group.

Just How Long Can You Do That?

You may think your behavior goes unnoticed. I assure you, it doesn’t. Think about how you conduct yourself when you’re out in the business community. Do you really want to work at your networking relationships and building your business ethically, or are you out for the quick sale?

These are tough times. If you choose the short, unethical route it will only be a matter of time before you’ve destroyed any chance you have of prospering your business. I urge you to resist the shortcut, quick sale, and take the time to grow your business relationships. It’s more prosperous in the long run.

Blog Talk Radio is hosting a 12 hour talkathon.Blog Talk Radio’s Blog Action Day programming. You can follow the link and listen in right online while you work. Cool!!

So, how do you view ethics in the small business community? How has someone’s lack of, or example of ethical behavior affected you? Please feel free to share by commenting.

I’m not a happy camper these days. I like things to be fair and I think we are taking it in the rears right now. So it was suggested I write a rant once a week. Here’s the rant this week, Email Spamming Practices.

If you want to actually see the law, you can find a copy of the CanSpam Act at Magic In Words.

Our first dilema:

I’m at a networking event. I’ve picked up every single card I saw at the event. I may have had a conversation with the business owner. Can I go back and scan that card in, adding it to my database?

Ethically, I don’t think so, in my humble opinion. Legally, yes as long as you provide a way for the recipient of your marketing emails to unsubscribe to your list. This is what’s commonly referred to as the opt-out method. The people you add to your e-mail database should have an expectation that you’ll be reaching out to them.  It would help if you actually asked their permission. I’ve seen that done in a very creative way.

There was a small business owner who took a clip board to each event, asking people to sign up for the e-mails. This owner secured, in their handwriting, permission to reach out. Brilliant!!

Our second dilema:

I just received a forwarded e-mail from a friend. The e-mail has all the addresses of the other recipients. Can I take those names and add them to my database?

Ethically, no, I don’t think so.  Legally, again if you have a way for the recipient to unsubscribe to your list, you can probably get away with it, but is that in your best interest? Here’s an example of why this might not be in your business’ best interest.

A couple of years ago there was a new networking group in town. The regional coordinator arbitraily added people to the e-mail database without permission. There was an "unsubscribe", or "opt-out" on the e-mail. A business could opt out of this list, unfortunately, the regional didn’t control the list, so these businesses were arbitraily added back into the database after each networking event, without the business owner’s knowledge or permission.  This strategy leaves the recipient with no choice other than report the business to their internet service provider (ISP). You don’t want that to happen to you.

In these times, it behooves us to be respectful and operate with the utmost integrity, or the goodwill of our business may be irreparably damaged. Please read up on the CanSpam Act and work to keep your business in compliance.

Any comments?

Google has a feature that will let you list your local business on Google. it’s an easy, step through process that will list your site with a Google Map reference.

You should look into grabbing your listing at Google before it gets hijacked. Here is an article that explains the process of hijacking your Google listing.

Here is the link to the page where you can walk through Google’s process for listing your business.

Let me know how that works for you by commenting below.

I just finished my online radio show on syndicating your content.  Here is a list of the websites I refered to on the show.

• Article Marketing
  http://www.ezinearticles.com/

• Directory of Articles
  http://www.arcanaweb.com/resources/article-directories.html

• Ultimate Article Directory
  http://ultimatearticledirectory.com

•  Submit Your Articles
  http://www.submityourarticles.com

• Blogging – posting regularly – use your articles, or use your posts for articles
  Free at – blogger.com and wordpress.com
  even though Google owns Blogger, I haven’t found it to index any faster – free sites traffic belongs to them, can pull down your blog at a moments notice
   
• Guest Blogging
   
• FeedBurner
  www.feedburner.com – has a feature, Buzz Boost, that allows you to import your content into a website
   
• Social Networking – Facebook has notes that let you post to Facebook – other social sites have blogging features
   
• MyBlogLog – allows you to import your blog feed
   
• Blog Carnivals
  http://blogcarnival.com/bc/
   

Where do your tax dollars go?

San Diego County Treasurer-Tax Collector Dan McAllister will provide valuable insight on the county’s tax collection process, present 2007-08 collection statistics and answer questions regarding today’s economy at the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce First Friday breakfast Friday, October 3rd.

The office of the San Diego County Treasurer-Tax Collector will issue nearly one million tax bills for the 2008-09 tax year and is expected to generate in excess of $4 billion dollars. McAllister is responsible for the billing, collecting and investing of the county’s property taxes. He also is responsible for the investment and management of more than $6 billion dollars of public funds.

During the First Friday Breakfast, McAllister will discuss:

• Recent changes to the tax bill and the new tax bill guide, which was redesigned to help tax payers understand their annual property tax bill.
• The Local Banking Initiative, an effort to invest monies in local banks that promotes economic development and improves the quality of life for residents by supplying the banks with monies to fund mortgage, auto, small business and personal loans to San Diego County residents.

To register for the breakfast, visit The Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce.  Look for me, I’ll be the one in the hat!

Several months ago I was introduced to Ad Surf Daily (ASD). You sign up, paying a monthly fee of course (they call it an "ad investment"), and simply click on links to "earn" your advertising investment back, and….of course, more $$$$$.

Now, being online for as long as I have been, I knew this was a scam right away. Traffic Swarm does the same thing, for FREE.

It seems the Florida Attorney General and the US Attorney’s office From the District of Columbia have served search warrants on ASD, asserting that they are a "Ponzi scheme … disguised as an advertising company."

California Attorney General, Edmund G. Brown announced on August 5th that the state is filing a lawsuit against Your Travel Biz.com for operating as a "gigantic pyramid scheme" that recruited tens of thousands of members with deceptive claims they could earn huge sums of money through it’s online travel agencies.

Today I received yet another call about an internet "get rich quick" scheme where you have to pay to be an affiliate. Be careful these days. There are those who will try to take advantage of you because they are counting on you not being very internet savvy. In internet marketing, rarely do you pay to be an affiliate.

Here’s a great tip on researching these new offerings….Google the multi-level marketing company name and add "scam", or "sucks" afterwards, so your search term would be….."MLM name" + scam.  Read up about who is involved and what others have to say about the company before investing your hard earned money. I did and discovered that there is a long, questionable history with the people at the top of this "opportunity."

I was told this new product would drive traffic to my website.  Upon further investigation, that claim couldn’t be further from the truth. As much as I like the person trying to sell me this new service, I’m not gullible when it comes to the internet and I could hear this person being coached in the background. Again, be careful. Do your due diligence in checking these firms out and, ask the person trying to convince you that this is the next best "money maker" how many MLM firms they’ve touted in the past 5 years. If it’s more than one, why?

There are MLM firms that offer great products and they sell with high integrity. I’m just urging you to check them out before giving your bucks to them.

Let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

The Vista Chamber of Commerce is holding it’s regional expo on Wednesday, October 22nd from 3pm to 7pm. This is the Vista’s Fifth Annual Business and Technology Expo, and….a Taste of Vista!

Make sure to mark your calendars for the largest chamber expo in North San Diego’s Business community. Here are photos from last year’s expo. It was a great networking opportunity for north county businesses.

If you’re looking for networking opportunities the Vista Chamber of Commerce has ten reasons why you should look their way!

I have the expo on my calendar, so look for me.  As always, I’ll be wearing the hat.

As many of you know I help solopreneurs utilize the internet to market their business. One of the most useful tools I have in my online arsenal is Skype and a valuable extra to Skype, Mikogo.

I’ve set it up for a non-profit organization so they can hold their physical, or as I like to refer to it, terra firma meeting along side a virtual meeting for the attendees that can’t make the terra firma meeting.

Skype, in my humble opinion, is a fantastic tool.  You do need to let the other person finish speaking, but all in all, it’s a great tool. Mikogo only enhances Skpye and extends it one step further.

So, what can you do with Mikogo???

1. Share each others’ screens.
2. Switch presenter – let a meeting participant share their own screen. (awesome feature)
3. Access remote keyboard and mouse control – the current presenter may grant control of their screen to another user at any time.(great for tech support)
4. Transfer files – the organizer and guests can send files of up to 200MB to each other (whooo hoooo so easy)
5. Select applications - Got an open application which is not required for the meeting? Select to hide it.
6. Pause transmission – take a meeting break and suspend the transfer of screen data.

Now, Mikogo has gone one step further and created a fantastic tutorial to help you install and use Mikogo.

Once you have it installed, skype me at northsandiegobusiness so we can play!!

The Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce is hosting its 19th annual Business Expo at Westfield’s Plaza Camino Real shopping center located at Marron Rd. and El Camino Real.

You can find a list of the exhibitors on the Chamber’s website. This is a great event to attend as a North San Diego County business owner.  The expo starts at noon and culminates with the Sundowner at 5pm.

So grab your business cards and come to one of the largest networking events left this year. Meet the other business owners in North San Diego county and have a great time while you’re checking the exhibits and tasting the fine foods we offer in Carlsbad.

You can get free admission tickets by filling out a brief survey. You can also gain free admission by bring something to e-cycle, and old computer, monitor, etc.   I’ll be there, will you??

Lessons learned from the chocolate business.

1. Your vision needs to be in writing.
2. Write your business plan and work the plan.
3. Utilize your local SCORE team. They are a wealth of info.
4. Financing: Ask for 3 -4 times what you think you will need.
5. Business plans are ever evolving. Don’t resist the plan.
6. SBA does not stand for Should Be Afraid, rather SBA stands for Stellar Business Assistance.
7. Surround yourself with the best. You can’t do it all.
8. It’s all about your people. It’s not about you.
9. Inspect what you expect, success comes through delegration and follow through.
10. Be innovative inyour marketing techniques. That new niche can you identify?