Trent Miskin

While it doesn’t have everyone of interest (I couldn’t find Ebay, or Overstock), it did have PayPal and Amazon in the 7k.

Here’s a snippet from the PayPal history:

“In just eight months time, between January and August 2000, PayPal surged from 12,000 accounts to 2.7 million. The company’s transaction process helped tremendously to fuel the growth. Money could be transferred to anyone who had an email address, even those who did not have to have a PayPal account. However, recipients did have to open a PayPal account in order to claim their money. The system’s convenience and cost won over eBay shoppers. They no longer needed a credit card to buy online, and the service cost them nothing. It was cheaper even than a postal money order and stamp. Sellers were required to pay 1.9 percent of the sales price.”

While most of the companies in the database are not going to be relevant to you, it’s worth a bookmark or an occasional read - especially if you find your competitor.

How else would you find out that Jeff Bezos left his job as vice-president of the Wall Street firm D.E. Shaw where he was already on the fast track.

Kiva.org is a microloan site that lends money to third world entrepreneures to help their businesses and grow markets and economies. So…

I’ve decided to facilitate this process and hopefully my daughter and I will learn from and teach each other something along the way.

My daughter will be receiving a gift certificate for $100 to invest in entrepreneurs who need access to capital. My expectation is that these tiny loans will be repaid and that I’ll provide Maddy with $100 next year to ad to her Micro VC Maddy Fund. Then we’ll sit down and have a talk about expectations and responsibilities. I think of this as a kind of ‘Pass It On’ project’. Maddy will be posting about on her blog at Pony Tail Club.
During the week between Christmas and New Years Madison will be responsible for using the Kiva site to find 4 receipients to loan $25. She will have to report to me why she chose this individual over all the others.
One of the most important in my mind is that she understands this act.

Loaning money to one person means that you’re not loaning money to someone else. Maddys decisions will carry repercussions for individuals that she needs to consider and not take lightly. She’ll be put in the position of choosing one business / individual over another. I think she’ll learn something about herself from this. (But perhaps I’m overly optomistic.)
My goals in doing this are:

• I believe in the Kiva mission and want to support them.
• I believe in my daughter and her sense of justice.
• I want my daughter to realize exacltly how privledged she is and respect those who are less fortunate.
• I want my daughter to feel the joy of successfully helping someone.
• I want my daughter to learn something of decision making and repercussions.

I’d encourage anyone who thinks this is a good idea to comment, do it themselves, or blog about / link to Kiva.org.

She’s writing a blog of this effort at “The Hundred Dollars Business Blog“.

The $100 business is a consignment kiosk at a local mall here in Utah. She got the vendors to sponsor her rent and provide the inventory.

I stumbled on her blog because it’s become a kind of service project for all the local bloggers to spread the word.

Positive word of mouth will benefit you every time.

Carolynn’s also learned that:

1. Packaging blocks the client from interacting with the product. They need to pick it up, hold it, try it on, etc.

2. A gimmick will grab attention, but not necessarily close a deal. And if you’re obvious about it, it doesn’t even grab attention, it just bugs them.

3. Too little inventory has “ghetto” written all over your store. We only had one vendor’s supplies for a few days, and kept getting feedback that we needed more stock. Check!

4. If you approach the customer the second they walk over to the kiosk, it scares them away. (This usually doesn’t apply to our friends, though.) Give them a second to acclimate, and then be subtle in your approach.

5. Don’t first tell the customer about the products you like or that you would buy. First evaluate what they like, who they’re shopping for, what they like, etc. It’s like a conversation, except that what you have to say is extremely secondary.

6. Be quick about the check-out. Fumbling with credit cards and receipts doesn’t inspire them to come back.

It’s surprising what motivation can do. Then again, maybe it’s not.

Pony Tail Club

I have a number of businesses and consider blogging to be one of them. I don’t really use it to make money by itself, but to facilitate the operations of the real businesses.

But, I do make a little from my blogs.

My daughter Madison saw a check from Yahoo last week and the questions started.

So, I built a blog for my daughter to express her love of riding… and to teach a few life skills. I designed and built the site in an hour. My wife added some design touches, and we’re off and running.

I thought this was a good idea for a number of reasons. First, she loves horses and if I’m going to have to continue to pay for shoeing, vet bills, feed and training. (Of course, Dad doesn’t get it.) My wife certainly does.

Blogs are a way of harnessing technology to create a community and disseminate information. This site is an example. While there may be trouble lurking around the net for 13 year old girls, there is also opportunity.

Our goals with this new pony site are:

• Give Madison (our daughter) a place to express herself and gain positive feedback. Gramsie & Gramps, Yaya & Papu, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and fellow academy riders can all be counted on to provide this.
• Provide a method that by itself teaches consistency and self motivation.
• Provides and outlet where she can express her love for riding.
• Offers some experience in building something of value that people want.
• Lets her generate income that’s a direct result of her own efforts (with parental help and moderation).
• Provides a situation in which effort is greeted by rewards.

Pony Tail Club will be completely kid safe, friendly and positive. I expect it to be a great family project for the foreseeable future.

Interestingly, I just put the site up three days ago and there are already 65 RSS subscribers. That is extremely unusual. Perhaps we’ve hit an untapped market.

I expect that after we generate a few thousand unique visitors we’ll experiment with adding some PPC. Perhaps Maddy will be able to buy her next horse her self.

Using the links below you can get a combined total of $575 worth of free paid search ads.

MSN ($200), LookSmart ($300), and Ask.com ($50) and Enhance Interactive ($25 - nice landing page!).

Ask.com $50 credit: sign up at sponsoredlistings.ask.com, and enter promo code SESCHI06 during the check-out process.

LookSmart $300 credit expires on Christmas Day. Visit AdCenter.LookSmart.com, and use this coupon code at check-out: SESCHQ4

If you’re online, these are great deals.

Merry Christmas from Jeff.

City officials ordered CBS Outdoor, the company that holds the advertising contract for its bus shelters, to remove the adhesive strips Tuesday, just one day after they were put up as part of a “Got Milk?” campaign.

The Municipal Transportation Agency cancelled the plan after some residents raised objections. “We got complaints,” said MTA spokeswoman Maggie Lynch. “It is controversial.” (Watch how ads cause a stir in San Francisco )

Some critics expressed concern over potential allergic reactions. Others complained the ads could be offensive to the poor and homeless who can’t afford to buy sweet treats.

Are you kidding me? The ads must be pulled because the homeless will be offended by the smell of cookies and feel bad because they can’t afford to buy them?

Proof that a little power is a bad thing in the hands of idiots.

A small restaurant looking for some positive press sent an email to a local blogger at The Amateur Gourmet. To call it a success would be something of an understatement. The restaurant treated the blog to dinner. The blog treated the restaurant to a single post that’s garnered the restaurant better publicity than anything else they could have done.

The review was nominal. It was the post that captivated because it was so unexpected. Who in their right mind would go to this amount of trouble to post a simple restaurant review? Someone who understands that the post itself is designed to impress the audience. See the whole post here.

Seems to have worked out for the blog as well.

We love the unexpected; unexpected customer service, unexpected perks, unexpected humor. If you’re not doing the unexpected then, almost by definition, you’re doing the average. The mediocre.

Do something you don’t expect of yourself.

Doing the unexpected will get you noticed. That’s branding. Look at Threadbare. Here’s a bunch of buddies that are grossing $20 million but, surprise, won’t do the paperwork to get them increased sales channels.

Via Jason at 37 Signals:

“It’s about time the Chicago press noticed a few dropouts in their 20s selling nearly $20,000,000 worth of T-shirts on Ravenswood Avenue.”

“It certainly doesn’t hurt our PR when we go to speak and stuff like that to say, ‘Yeah, we turned down Target. We turned down Urban,’ ” Kalmikoff says. “But honestly, a little bit of it was laziness. We were like, ‘Well, who’s gonna fill out all this paperwork? I’m not doing it. Are you gonna do it?’ It just sat for like two weeks. Then we’re like, ‘Just tell ‘em no.’ We couldn’t take the time away from our client work for our side project to be filling out the paperwork to get into Target.”

Don’t think that they’re naive. They’re doing the unexpected and getting recognized. The fact that they turned down Target and Urban Outfitters just adds to their underground mystique.

Besides, you have to love a bunch of guys who are sticking it to the man just because they’re too lazy to sign the contract. That’s exactly the attitude they’re cultivating. That’s their brand.

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Here’s a sanitized link to Zag on Amazon.com.

pushing 300,000 - 600,000 units of product per day through a fulfillment center is no easy task. gratefully, amazon’s home-grown software and efficient processes help to deal with the immense volume. sometimes, if there are inventory gliches or poor product flow, an activity known in warehousing as “product chasing” occurs. “chasing” is when a product is ordered, but it is nowhere to be found in the (1MMft^2) facility. in reality, it is somewhere, but according to the inventory software the product is supposed to be in its assigned bin, but it has been moved somehow, drifted to another bin, or stolen. this defect is called Inventory Record Defect Rate and is one of the most important metrics at amazon, and is highly scrutinized and reviewed by Bezos and his senior team. why is it important? because when the front-end amazon store allows you to order something, the precondition is that the product and the quantity desired is currently in an amazon facility: the software follows a very complicated algorithm based on network optimization, shortest path techniques, and traveling salesman routing; a check is made against the inventory database — in real time — how many are available, which facility, and how many have been committed already. when the order drops into the assigned facility, the picker goes to the bin where the product is supposed to be, but because IRDR is poor, the item is not there. this situation leads to two following options: (1) go to a local store and buy the item and ship it to the customer or (2) do a “network flip”, where the assigned facility “flips” the order to another facility that has that product. option (2) is ideal, but during the holiday season, it is very difficult to do. during the holidays, option (1) is common.

doing option (1) is heroic and is a true example of customer obsession at work: it’s not about serving all customers as an aggregate, but it’s about serving one really well, several million times. at amazon, they really believe this and live this.

Jake’s plan for 2007 is to have 100 customers signed up for his monthly fertilizing and pesticide program. Here are his plans for signing that first 100:

My plan for signing up 100 new customers by the spring rush.

1. Send out a thank you email to all existing customers and alert them to my plans for next year.
2. Join as many local online groups as possible. Many allow new members to introduce themselves.
3. Call up landscapers who don’t have pesticide licenses and work out an affiliate deal with them to take care of their fertilizing and pesticide applications.
4. Start writing an email gardening newsletter and heavily focus on local needs and resources.
5. Offer free gardening classes just like a Tupperware party with someone hosting and bringing several friends over. Trust me, this beats giving free estimates.
6. Film educational gardening clips using local people and host them on youtube.com. Include links to the most recent one in every email signature.
7. Forget the website, almost no one visits the current one. Get listed in free local directories instead.
8. Say hi to every neighbor of existing and new clients. Pesticide laws require neighbor notification. Why not knock on their door and say hi?
9. Offer a travel savings discount to your customers if they help you get more work on their block.
10. Say something new and always include a call to action. Everyone already knows landscapers cut lawns, mulch, top soil, prune, snow removal, bored yet, insect control, fertilize, retaining walls, mickey mouse, landscape design, irrigation, ponds, pavers, oy this is too much and this is only half of it!

Jake will make his 100 new clients. How do I know? Look at the list. He’s actually ‘doing’ things to grow his business. He’s not just sitting by the phone.
More ideas soon. In the meantime, click on the “comments” link and leave your favorite way to advertise.

Well, it’s not really me that they know. They’ve seen my picture and read my bio, but they’ve also read what I’ve written about cosmetic medicine and it’s struck them that I might actually now what I’m talking about. They feel a simpatico, a sense that our thinking is similar and a feeling that I’m approachable and can help them. They feel that they ‘know’ me.

Having potential clients or consumers know you is branding. You know Apple is for cool, jeans wearing hipsters. You know that IBM is for big stodgy businesses. You know that Germans engineer better cars and that the Japanese make a science of efficiency. What you ‘know’ about a brand, is the brand.

You’re a brand too and people have to ‘buy into’ your personal brand to want to do business with you. Hopefully your personal brand is honest, intelligent and motivated. People do business with people they know and trust.

Small Business Branding (this blog) lets me write about something I’m familiar with. Those who agree or like what I say read more and either I’m discarded or I become known to that person. If that person has a need of my services, businesses or expertise, who else would they call.

If you own a small business you have a tremendous opportunity to grow your business by building your personal network. I make a habit of using my business, Surface Medical Spas, to grow my personal network. I keep a stack of gift certificates that I give out fairly liberally to people I meet. (I ran out of gas and a cop let me use his cell phone to call my wife. I gave him a gift certificate for his wife. Now he waves every time he sees me.) People feel great and the interaction lets them know who you are. I trade a little employee time for new client that is close to becoming a zelot.

I couldn’t find a networking event that wasn’t boring and over run with salesmen. So, I built my own networking event, Fight Club - the ceo entrepreneur network. I started with three simple premises: No sales guys, no students, no assholes. It’s by invitation only for actual business owners with real businesses. While this precipitates an occasional email along the lines of, ‘you’re an elitist snob’, the participants all love the system since there’s no sales and no pressure. You come if and when you want, you buy your own dinner, and you go. Huge success. (I should mention that anyone, including students and sales guys can come, they just have to be invited by a member.)

Everything’s an ‘ole boys network’, even if the old boys are 23 year old liberals.
To butcher a quote, “It’s not what you know or even who you know, it’s who knows you.”

LinkedIn is another networking tool. (my linked in profile). If you aren’t on linkedin, join. The memberships free.

Before I met Josh I already knew of him from his blog DON LOPER.

Josh is regularly listed among Utah’s upward bound entrepreneurs and has obviously met with some successes. But reading his list I was able to relate to almost every point. (In fact, I used it for the first post on my Nimble blog.) Josh is turning his list into a book by posting daily on each topic.

The 75 post series on What It Means To Be An Entrepreneur is about the best I’ve ever read on the headaches of bootstrapping a start up.

Here’s a few topics:

13. You’ve averaged 60-80 hours per week of work for the past five years.

14. You’re the lowest paid employee in your company.

15. You’ve had dreams about your employees’ wives yelling at you.

16. You have to begin interviews of potential employees by saying “I need you to understand that sometimes I won’t be able to pay you.”

I’m more than tempted to rip of Josh’s long list book idea and write a series for physicians running a medical spa over on my medical spas blog.

Josh has it right when he says:

Sometimes “wise” people are merely the product of circumstances beyond their control, and idiots likewise. In the end will I be wise for having put my savings into my business, or will I be an idiot? Luckily I do have a large measure of control in the situation, but only time will tell. Unless you think I’m an idiot for even taking the risk, in which case you’ve already got your answer.

Jeff Barson

Hirevue is run by an entrepreneur named Ryan Money (you can read his blog, Money Talks, here).

Ryan started Hirevue with an idea to use technology to eliminate the majority of useless interviews that a manager has to make before making a hiring decision.

Hirevue works like this. Hirevue sends out a small video camera to a potential hire, or an individual location can use a computer where people can take their first interview with a camera. (This cost’s about $20 per interview I think. Sending the camera costs more.) The company conducting the interview asks whatever questions that they would like, and the person taking the interview has roughly between 10 and 20 minutes to respond. You can ask a very technical question, very detailed questions, or basic questions to judge what the applicant’s response will be. The video is uploaded into a database that is entirely searchable and can be used by any number of people to screen the applicants.

It is not a way to hire people. It’s way to narrow down the field from say 10 applicants down to three that you’re actually going to really interview. As an example, Kennecott Copper uses this service. In the past, Kennecott was forced to fly-in from around the world engineers that were in high demand - they might fly in ten or twelve of them. Now, they send out Hirevue cameras for $120, and they end up only flying in three, which saves their cash.

Service Medical Spas, my company, is starting to use Hirevue on a location basis where we have an applicant come in for a video job interview, almost like keeping their resume. They come in and take a video interview that is then pre-screened by the office or location managers and then kicked upstairs for further assessment.

Hirevue.com saves a huge amount of time on the front end and allows our hiring practices to become much more collaborative. We also keep the interviews on file for potential hires that are not an immediate fit but might be later. Hirevue is a great service that works.

Jeff Barson

While I’m a fan of enthusiasm and feel-good, my perspective is one of execution by design. You won’t read me cheerleading and blowing smoke up your skirt by telling you any secrets. I don’t have any. What I will post will be my opinions and what small tidbits I think I’ve learned about building and growing businesses. No plastic. No buckles. No BS.

Here’s some info including my bio so you can judge me. (Forgive the third-person.)

Jeff Barson is a serial/parallel entrepreneur. He has founded an advertising agency, publishing company and several other Internet-related businesses in addition to Surface Medical Spas. He loves the world of innovation and ideas.

Current Businesses

• Managing Partner & CEO, Surface Medical Spas
• Founding Partner & CEO, Nimble nimbleit.com
  Founder & Publisher, MedicalSpasOnline.com
• Owner, Renaissance Man Publishing
• Founder, Fight Club CEO Network
• Partner, Wild Blue Creative Partners

Formerly:

Managing Director, Russian American Society for the Protection of Animals

Managing Partner & CEO, Surface Medical Spas: He formed Surface Medical Spas in 2000 and has grown Surface from one part-time clinic to 5 clinics in two states with revenue growth of 5000%. He councils physicians and businesses around the world on the emerging revolution in cosmetic medical businesses and delivery systems - Surface Medical Spas blog.

Founding Partner & CEO, Nimble nimbleit.com: Nimble is an online marketplace that allows local businesses to manage their capacity in real time. Read the Nimble Blog – the musings of a nimble partner here.

Founder & Publisher, MedicalSpasOnline.com: The premier resource for physicians and medspa professionals. Medical Spas Online is read by more than 3000 physicians each month. Medspa Tags on Del.ic.ious.

Owner, Renaissance Man Publishing: I’m an artist. Here’s a link to my prints at the Jeff Barson gallery at imagekind.com.

Founding Partner, Fight Club CEO Network: A network of entrepreneurs and business owners.

Owner, Wild Blue Creative Partners: Advertising & marketing agency. Clients include: Agilent, AlphaGraphics, Ask Jeeves, Bailey Tree Removal, Camp 5 Expeditions, Cidco, Clark Planetarium, Commerce One, DataPlay, Honeymoon.com, InFocus, Intel, Iomega, Just Between Us, Maxtor, Microsoft, North Face University, Placestostay.com, Snapdog, Special Olympics, Surface Medical Spas, Telocity, U.S. Ski Team, Utah Technology Alliance, Warner Brothers, Ziff Davis

Here is Jeff Barson’s Linked In profile.

Bio

Born Logan, Utah. Schooled in England. High school, back in Utah again. College USU. Majored in Art after pre-Med. Two years Boston. Nine years Manhattan. Now 8 years in Park City.

A few years ago I was an artist bachelor living in Manhattan and hawking my tawdry wares through my network of agents and publishers. I spent my time painting for clients that included New York City Opera, Ballentine, Coca-Cola, yada-yada-yada times 30. And since, through numerous misadventures, I garner myself at least a little of a reputation, I was commissioned to paint portraits of Princess Diana as well as Vivien Leigh for the 60th anniversary of the release of Gone With The Wind.

I’ve been fortunate to have a few hobbies. Managing Director of the Russian-American Society for the Protection of Animals (An international non-profit 501c charity) based in New York City that gave me the opportunity to help save some polar bears and arctic foxes. I scared a whole lot of university students as I bounced around teaching, lecturing and tearing up their work. And I got bounced around a fair amount myself as I was taught Shorinji Kempo (beware of being the only American in an all Japanese martial art). After retiring to Park City (a few East Coast summers of 98 degrees and 98% humidity will do that to you) I put my art career on hold and changed direction for a while.

Moving to Park City I caught something of an entrepreneurial bug. I started a publishing company, a funky furniture company, advertising agency, medical clinics. Internet marketplace and learned some valuable lessons. I’m married to my dazzling gorgeous and headstrong creative director Shelly, and have one daughter Madison. (Shelly was not put off when, before we were married, I made her attend an opening of mine in South Carolina that included mingling with 600 women dressed up as Scarlet O’Hara.)

Fortunately, I’m surrounded by and work with wonderful people who attempt to make my life somewhat easier.

I’m glad to be living in Park City, Utah with my lovely wife Shelly, daughter Madison, dog Jai, cockatoo Loki, and horses; Pharaoh, Maverick, Cakee, and Moon.