7 Disciplines of Successful Entrepreneurs in Advertising Specialty Products

 

http://60daymba.com/

Entrepreneurs commonly dismiss discipline as tool to success

Notice that the use of the word entrepreneur is carefully chose here.  Not business owner.  I see owners as divided into three distinct categories of business owners. 

1. Merchants - These are folks who have a gut for what the market wants, where to buy those things, and how to display them online, in catalogs, or in the shop.  For the promo products business, this person gravitates to the product side of the business, and just has a knack for seeing the best items to create great promotions
2. Managers - Often this type of owner is second generation or bought the business.  They may have started it, but this is not likely.  They know the numbers, how to hire and motivate, and always have plenty of money to get the job done as planned.  
3. Entrepreneurs - They started this business and probably several others.  They are flighty, energy machines, that can't sit still.  They have a million ideas worth $1, and one of them will be worth millions.  Even the million dollar idea will eventually bore them, and they will be starting something new.  

Merchants and managers usually exhibit discipline, although merchants may only have discipline in the area they love, product.  It is wise for these types to have a partner who can handle either money or people or both.  Managers are wise to have a partner with selling skills.

Entrepreneurs cannot be managed unless you like putting a leash on a cat.  So, if you are one of those, what types of disciplines might help you to actually get to something called success?

First - Define what success means to you.  It may be about money, but likely the money is only a marker.  You're too busy creating to have time to spend.  It is more likely something less tangible which makes it all the more critical to have a bit of self awareness and try to write it down.  Keep in mind that it is okay to change these evidences of success in the future.

Second - Line up your partners. Take the time to carefully select the talent you will need to fill in the places you'll never get to.  This includes a spouse who gets you, and will put up with a bankruptcy, and maybe a huge emotional crash or two.  For sure it includes a financial person who may also be a business manager.  They must be really tough with a thick skin.  Tell them in advance that you will likely run roughshod over their advice at times, but you still want that advice. 

Third - Stay with a new company, product, or division for at least a year after you are bored.  The new product can wait for a year.  Use this year to find a product champion who can take over and manage the future of your great idea. 

Fourth - Rest, recreate, and vacation.  Everyone knows you are capable of working 16 hour days and 31 day months.  But your ideas will stop when you do that.  When you aren't working, turn it off completely.  No phone calls, emails, texts, social media, etc. 

Fifth - Family must get time and attention. If your business is successful or if it fails, your family is going to be with whom you share the fruits or mourn the difficulties.  I have seen many divorces (and experienced one) among entrepreneurs.  They are the most devastated of any group.  On the other hand I know of many who have been disciplined enough to be home, both physically and emotionally, at night, on weekends, and for vacations.  These are the business owners who gain real success.

Sixth - Decide early what you need for income, and nest egg.  Give the rest away.  That's right.  Is $250,000 per year enough.  $500,000.  You pick the number.  Then don't get caught in the trap of more is better.  Find a comfortable standard of living that makes you and the family happy.  Then give the excess away. 

Seventh - Give back.  More than money, you have ideas, energy, experience, and enthusiasm to help civic and charitable organizations to thrive.  Be disciplined in sharing all of those with worthwhile efforts in the community. 

Do you have other items for this list?  Add them to the comments.  Do you see more than the three types of business owners in my introduction?  Give us your thoughts. 

What Social Media Is Best for Promo Products Distributors?

 

No Time to Stay Up with All Social Media? How to Set Priorities

How are you doing on the Vine?  How about Instagram?  The teens are all about SnapChat. Of course, you thought you were modern, because you have a Pinterest page.  Is Facebook old hat?  Left in the dust?  Where does all of this leave blogging, YouTube, Linkedin, Google+, and Twitter?

My position with Bike 'N Safety Promos is that of marketing consultant.  My daily job and that of my staff is to maximize the use of all marketing resources to optimize the spending of time and money for the largest possible ROI.  I don't just do this form Bike 'N Safety Promos, but for many other companies in various industries.

Our knowledge base is limited, like any person or company, but I will give you a snapshot of what we do know, and how I would prioritize my time investment (in order) were I advising you on social media:

YouTube - I would have a minimum of 50 YouTube videos, and I would be adding five per month.  These could demonstrations on specific products that you sell a lot of or want to sell a lot of.  They could be marketing advice that relates to the use of promotional products, specialties, etc.  They could be industry specific how to videos for events, awards, or promotional approaches. 

Time investment is about 10 hours to learn how to create, edit, and upload a video.  Then maybe 2 hours per video.  If you value your time at $30 an hour, that would mean new videos cost around $60.  One new client and you make it back in a huge way.  These videos will be producing results far into the future.

Blogging - Posting two to three times per week.  Add to the possible lists of subjects for videos, detailed graphs, charts, infograms; content from other blogs, news articles, industry information; posting of all the videos you create and others you find that would be valuable to your client, including product videos from manufacturers.

Time investment is about 10 - 20 hours to learn the ropes of blogging.  Average post should be 700 words, so figure about 1 - 2 hours per post.  Like videos, the content stays live on Google search for years into the future.  For many posts, you might just take a picture of the new product, write a brief description of the benefits (or copy from manufacturer's website), suggest a few uses, and you're done.

Linkedin - Of the supposedly interactive social media options available, I believe this is the best, short term and long term.  Corporate leadership is on Linkedin.  They get Linkedin.  And the basics are pretty straight forward.  The opportunities to connect are limitless and getting better all the time.  Any time you create a new video or blog post, you should do an update on Linkedin to inform your connections.

Time investment is about 15 - 20 hours to really get a great profile set up and take advantage of all the potential groups.  You also want others to give you testimonials, so you will need to write some for others.  Then another 40 hours to create 1000 connections.  These you can do while watching TV.  Once you have 1000 connections, your time commitment will be updating three or so times per week, and any involvement in groups.  You can use Linkedin for recruiting and prospecting.  This may be the most powerful aspect.  The time commitment here is unknown, but it is very likely the ROI will be more than you can imagine.

Facebook - We are not big fans of FB, and do not set up or manage FB for our clients.  The only positive use we can see for our clients who use FB is that they can create a community of "fans" who may be more likely to use you in the future.  Ads, prospecting, etc., we can't find a great ROI.

Twitter - As a way to actually connect and communicate, we definitely don't get it.  As a way to tease folks to your blog, YouTube videos, website or other media, it is invaluable.  We typically send out 48 such Tweets per day using HootSuite.  We have no interest in getting followers.  We are merely trying to reach those who use various Twitter search products.  This approach has led to tripling or more the number of visitors to our blogs.  Most of our clients now have 100-200 page views per day.

Time investment.  It will take you two hours to figure out Hootsuite.  Then it will take 2-3 hours to set up a spread sheet with 50 tweets to upload into the automator.  Then every few days you will need to refresh the system, which takes only 5 minutes or so.

Pinterest - We spent about two years trying to get Pinterest results.  Our conclusion is that it is necessary to run contests, promotions, and sales to actually get a return on the effort.  Pinterest can be a huge time suck without these additional efforts.  We continue to believe that Pinterest could be a good resource, maybe even a great one, but currently the time investment was too large and the ROI too tentative compared to other proven approaches.

Google+ - Currently it our thinking that you need to be on Google+, if only to broadcast to the Public that you have a new blog post, change in your website, event coming up, new Video, Vine, or other new content.  It is also fun to create Meme's with creative sayings or even sales content.  Investment might be 20 minutes a week.  No serious expectations for ROI right now.

SnapChat - We have clients who are successfully using Instagram.  Mostly to feed pictures to other media.  We are not using Vine, but do believe there is potential in using very short visual media for some opportunities in other media, like Google+ and Twitter.  We can't imagine any use for SnapChat, yet.

We would love to hear from you about your thoughts on all of these.  Have you had a major success that others could learn from?