VerticalResponse Email Marketing Blog for Small Business

Inc. 500 Conference Wrap Up

Inc. Magazine was kind enough to bring me to the Inc. 500 Conference this year and wanted me to blog about the sessions I attended.

First of all, I have to say that it was amazing and exciting fun. There were close to 1,700 attendees at this conference and at $995 a pop, that makes me think entrepreneurs are trying to thrive!

Things I heard at the show?

"Get around entrepreneurs and get your battery recharged at the Inc. Conference."
"I can't believe how many people are at this show! It's a great networking event."
"I went to this show last year thinking I might not get much out of it. What I got was an idea for an entire new business model."

Pretty cool in my opinion.

Being Strategic

I was fortunate enough to see Erika Andersen who is the CEO of Proteus International. Her company helps other companies think about ways to grow through being strategic. By the size of the room and the attendance of this session (130 people and full) it sure seems like entrepreneurs are craving information for how to grow in this economy. She was kind enough to hand out a template for thinking strategically and we all walked through it for our own businesses. What a great template that any business can put to work now. I've shared it here.

Small Beginnings, Big Dreams

Speaking of inspiration, I got to listen to Jill Blashack Strahan, CEO of Tastefully Simple, speak on the main stage at the Inc. 500 Conference. Today Tastefully Simple is a $140 million company that sells easy-to-prepare food for busy people.

Jill’s story is interesting and inspirational. It actually started with the death of her brother when she was just 26, which was a major wake up call and ultimately what motivated her to start her business. The saying “Life is Short” became very real to her and she decided that it was time to DO something. She has three major points she lives by: Just Start, Know Where You’re Going, Don’t Stop. Check out my Inc. post on this great session here.

Wow. Now I was full of inspiration and got to talk to a bunch of entrepreneurs between sessions. The energy in the place was exciting and it appeared that small business is where it's at.

Mutual Support for Mutual Success

I also listened to Keith Ferrazzi, CEO of Ferrazzi Greenlight, a research company that spends time understanding how building relationships can make companies grow. His interesting point was that relationships are critical to growth and success not only in life but in business. Every entrepreneur who thinks they aren't in sales is crazy. We're all in sales, selling our dream. And in sales discussions, there is a person at the other end of the relationship that needs to buy our message. 

He went on to say that employees who have friends at work have a 30% higher level of engagement, and 20% more productivity. Completely a surprise! They have even more productivity if the friend is a boss.  It’s not just a business relationship according to Keith, it's a personal relationship in business. Good point.

How to Get Your Message Right

Last week I was at the Inc. 500 Conference and caught a session with Michael Sheehan, CEO of Sheehan Associates. His company helps businesses, people, and government officials craft messaging. At this session he was discussing how hard it has become to get your message right and get it understood by your audience in a world where we all have information overload.

Michael stressed that your message isn’t your brand. I’ll admit, at first I was a bit confused by this. But he went on to give a couple of great examples, one of which was Nike. When Nike got bad press for working with overseas companies that employed young children that were barely paid, “Just Do It” was not their answer. With Coca Cola and the health debate, the “Coke Side of Life” isn’t their answer to childhood obesity. So he stresses that there is a concentration on branding but not necessarily messaging. Check out the rest of the story here.

Should You Stay Small or Go Big?

After that I was at Doug Tatum's session. He's the author of No Man’s Land, What to Do When Your Company is too Big to be Small but too Small to be Big. What a great session. He talked about the "chasm" that companies fall into when they're over 25 employees but trying to get to 100 employees. According to Doug there are 4 "M's" to watch out for, market, management, model and money. He outlines all of the things to watch out for in your business if you're trying to grow past the small giant phase. These things really hit home with me. I posted my notes here.

The Gala

Inc. puts on a great gala at the end of the conference. They go all out. We had great speeches from top entrepreneurs from the Inc. 500/5000 list. They were truly inspirational. There was not a dry eye in the house when Alison Schubak, CEO of Invisibib, was wheeled onto the stage in her wheelchair, and told her story about after becoming disabled from a car accident, she invented a transparent, washable bib for adults with disabilities and launched a company to sell it. She was named Entrepreneur of the Year by Inc. Magazine and deserves every bit of it.

We were lucky enough to sit next to #4 on Inc.'s list Alden Mills, CEO of Power Pushup who grew his company by leaps and bounds! What a great guy. And his in-laws were with him. Unlucky for his father-in-law, the Washington Huskies got stomped by Stanford and the team he hates, the Oregon Ducks stomped Cal that weekend. Bummer. But Alden (Ex Navy Seal) has something really going for his company. Congrats Alden!

The other company at our table happened to be a VerticalResponse customer...bonus! Doug Parker, CEO of RMCN Credit Services (Repair My Credit Now), out of McKinney TX, was a wonderful tablemate. These guys have it going on. I love what they do on their about us page, scanning in all of the great things that their customers say about them. Great job guys!

I have to say I didn't expect such a wonderful turn out to this show in this economy, but it was clear to me that small business and entrepreneurs are thriving and wanting to learn and network more than ever. As Doug Tatum put it, we're responsible for over 65% of the employment in the US. We're strong, we persevere, and we'll get us through these tough times.

Cool Tool RoundUp - Run Your Entire Business Online

From time to time I come across some really great tools I think small businesses can really benefit from. I've got a great tool for you to check out today, WorkingPoint, a free online tool that enables you to run your entire business online.

What I like about WorkingPoint is that it's free forever for one user. Free=affordable :-) It even includes the kitchen sink: online invoicing, bookkeeping, contact management, inventory tracking, expense tracking, financial reports, and much more. What's more is that you don't need to be a bookkeeper to get up and running. The folks over at WorkingPoint have made it very easy to understand your business finances. And it's great for any small business whether you're a freelancer, consultant, retailer, service provider or distributor, their flexible system will work for you.

Check out WorkingPoint today to run your business.

July '09 Inc.com Article - Breaking Up...With Your Customers

I've got a new article up on Inc.com for my column Girl Power: Female CEOs. It's entitled, Breaking Up...With Your Customers. It's never easy, but sometimes you just have to do it. Check it out!

FREE & Low Cost Tools We Found (And Use) To Help Your Business

I'm taking a break from writing about email marketing to tell you about some very cool online tools you might try to put to work for your business. We know that you like online tools that are easy to use and affordable, so we took that into account when we made these fantastic recommendations, plus we use a lot of these tools for our business.

Vontoo Express - Outbound Voice Messaging

You may have received a short voicemail from VerticalResponse when you signed up to use our service. We welcome you, we tell you how to get started and ask if you'd like to talk to someone immediately. That's what we use Vontoo for. 

How does it work? You basically upload the phone numbers of your customers that told you it was ok to call them, just like you upload your email addresses into VerticalResponse. You record your voicemail message and launch your campaign.

Vontoo express will give you stats back as to how many people picked up, how many transferred and how many messages were left. They also provide an "unsubscribe" feature for those who don't want to hear from you in this manner anymore.

Why do you think you'd need this for your business?

• Get people into your store or restaurant with a coupon code
• Give a discount on your services (limo service, rug cleaning, teeth whitening)
• Community sports teams and clubs
• Small to mid-size churches
• Event or webinar reminders the day before
• Appointment reminders

COST: $15 for 100 minutes...yep pay as you go! First 25 calls are FREE.

Email Center Pro - Get Control of Your Customer Service Emails

This service is a must-have for any small business communicating with their customers through email, and that's pretty much all of them.

Here is a simple example of why it's great.

Let's say you send out an email marketing campaign and you input the email address where people will reply to you as info@yourcompany.com. Then you get a flurry of customers responding asking questions or making comments. Do you forward that email to the people in your business responsible for answering it? Then what happened? You have no idea who answered these replies or more importantly "if" they were even answered. The folks at Palo Alto Software had the same problem so they developed Email Center Pro. This service rocks.

You log in to one simple-to-learn interface and you can access all of your company's mailboxes. You can assign emails to people and track if they're being answered and how effectively.  Email Center Pro helps you provide consistent and timely responses to customer emails. Check out the video.

COST: FREE for 2 users, $19/month for 5 users (VerticalResponse customers get an additional 10% discount!)

Shorten Your Long URLs with Tr.im, Bit.ly and TinyURL

Try out these free web services that provide short aliases for redirection of super long URLs. 

Why would you need this tool?

• If you are using a text-only email that has a very long URL, you'll want to avoid your link breaking when you have line breaks. You want your link to work!
• Twitter only allows for 140 character tweets, so you'd want to redirect a URL that pushes your tweet over the limit.

TinyURL doesn't provide tracking however Tr.im and Bit.ly provide tracking on number of times your link was clicked and offers a few other very cool reporting features.

COST: FREE

Pando - Transfer HUGE Files for Free

I had to send a large logo file to a friend of mine at Selling Power magazine and I had to do it fast. I was having lots of trouble because the file was so big he couldn't receive it. I think his email limit may have been set too low for this file. I needed to make a deadline that day so putting it on a DVD wasn't an option. So my friend Gerhardt told me about Pando, a free P2P software that makes downloading, streaming and sharing large media files fast & easy.

It worked and I'm hooked.

Cost: FREE for 1GB files or $24.95/year for 3GB files

There you have it. Our round up of services we use to make our lives easier here at VerticalResponse. Hope they make your life easier too.

A few months ago VerticalResponse partnered with Duct Tape Marketing to provide comprehensive marketing resources for small businesses. Now we're behind another great resource from our friends over at Duct Tape, their own stimulus package for small businesses.

Make a Referral Week, March 9-13 2009, is an entrepreneurial approach to stimulating the small business economy one referred business at a time. The goal for the week is to generate 1000 referred leads to 1000 deserving small businesses in an effort to highlight the impact of a simple action that could blossom into millions of dollars in new business. Small business is the lifeblood and job-creating engine of the economy and merits the positive attention so often saved for corporate bailout stories.

VerticalResponse is pledging to make a referral to a business we want to help! What a great way to grow your list and grow your business. Join us by making your pledge here.

We've partnered with a great company, StartupNation to launch the first annual "Leading Moms in Business" ranking, which highlights one of the fastest growing segments of entrepreneurship, Moms! 

According to the Center for Women’s Business Research, there are 10.6 million women-owned businesses in the United States generating $2.5 trillion in annual revenue. With women starting businesses at nearly twice the rate of men, many of these businesses are run by mothers.

Nominate Yourself, Tell a Mom to Nominate Herself

Contestants interested in making the list can submit their profile. The top 200 winners will be selected by popular vote, with results announced in advance of Mother’s Day. If you know a Mom who would be great for this, forward her the info!

Send an Email to Get Votes for Your Nomination

Use email marketing and send an email to your recipients with an exciting announcement that you’re a contestant. By encouraging them to vote for you and support your quest to be a winner, you provide them with an engaging and fun way to participate in your success. This can help you create deeper loyalty and affinity, which ultimately can lead to business opportunities and increased revenue.

Mom-run businesses are at the forefront of what’s happening more broadly in the business world, including trends like telecommuting, flexible work schedules and green workplaces. The Leading Moms in Business ranking will shine a spotlight on these exceptional businesses and the dynamic women behind them. Among other things, the ranking will focus on recession busting businesses, highlighting entrepreneurial moms that have implemented strategies to make their businesses thrive in spite of the economic downturn.

To enter, contestants must be a mother and a majority owner of a business. Contestants must also have a website for their business and be based in the U.S.

Occasionally I like to write about things other than email marketing ... shocker! This time I thought it would be great to talk about LinkedIn, and how small businesses can harness the power of this valuable business networking tool.

A lot of small business owners ask the same question: What is LinkedIn and how can I use it to help my business grow? Well, since LinkedIn's inception in 2003 there are over 80 million people using this business social networking site that allows for super easy business networking. That's a lot of people to get access to. So here are just a few ways you can utilize this great solution.

How Do You Start?

Create Your Profile - What’s important for using LinkedIn successfully depends on the amount of information you contribute to your profile. You’ll surely want to display where you work now and your past work experiences, as well as your interests and company website.  But after that it’s up to your comfort level for the type of information you want to include.

Make sure you define what you want to get out of LinkedIn. Most people use it as a business tool. If that’s how you want to use it then that’s what you should be thinking about when you accept “Invitations to Connect” from people that may or may not know you. Now that you've created your free account, the real stuff happens.

Personal Accounts are free with limitations, but you can upgrade to a Business Account for more functionality. Check out pricing and functionality here.

Human Resources

Reference Searches - If you want to get a snapshot of what a new prospective employee is like, check out their LinkedIn profile. See if what they have on their profile matches their resume. To take it one step further, if you upgrade to a Business Account, you can do a Reference Search to find out who they've worked with in the past. Then you might even see that you're connected with someone they know and you can then send that contact an "Inmail", an email that is generated through the LinkedIn network, with some questions you might have about your candidate.

Find New Employees – You can post a job description on LinkedIn then send it out to all of your connections or a subset of them. It's $195 for a 30-day listing. Here’s where it pays to have some great connections. If one of your contacts knows someone that might be perfect for the job, they’ll forward the job description to them. Then you’ll get your contacts referring people they know for the job.

Sales

Learn About Your Prospects -  If you've been talking to a prospective customer, it pays to know as much about them as possible. Check out their LinkedIn profile, you might even find you have a connection in common or are a few degrees away from it. This might even help you close the deal.

Find New Prospects - Investigate a company you want to do business with, it's simple with LinkedIn. You can even do an advanced search on the type of title you’ll need to be speaking to. For example, if you need someone on the marketing team you might type in “VP Marketing” or “Vice President Marketing”. Once you've found them you can send them an “Inmail”. Then it’s up to your prospect to decide if they want to communicate back with you. You’d be amazed at the response you’ll get if you articulate clearly why you want to talk to them. Note: If they don’t want to be contacted they’ll have already added that to their profile, and you won’t be able to contact them using Inmail but many people are on LinkedIn for the purpose of networking. You'll need to upgrade to a Business Account for Inmails, but IMO it's worth it.

Get Introduced – If you’re looking at someone you might want to do business with, you might find that you’re connected with someone who knows them. Then you can ask your connection for an introduction to them. Sometimes it’s easier to get in front of someone if they know someone you know.

Marketing

Get Advice – The “Questions & Answers” feature is a fantastic tool you can use to get your name out in your LinkedIn Network. If you have questions on anything about your business or industry you can simply ask your LinkedIn network.

Give Advice - The “Answers” feature enables you to establish yourself as an expert in your industry. I’ve had a few people forward me questions on direct marketing and email marketing because they thought I’d be a great resource to answer them. Then people rate your answer and you can have it display in your profile. One thing to note here, when you’re answering questions try not to be too self-serving and salesy. It’s ok to talk about your company just try not to be too pushy, it seems disingenuous.

Here's a funny story about LinkedIn. The building next to where I live was having their windows washed very early on a Saturday morning with a very loud machine. Now I don't know about you, but Saturday mornings for me need to be a bit quiet. Somewhat angry and pretty tired, I wanted to find the CEO of the company that was having the work done. I looked him up on LinkedIn, sent him an Inmail and that same day he emailed me back apologizing for how early they were starting and promised they’d never start work that early on a weekend again.

If you've got any great LinkedIn stories please share!

I'm in LA at the Governor's Conference on Small Businesses & Entrepreneurship. They're launching Global Entrepreneurship Week in conjunction with the Kauffman Foundation. It will be the third week in November. There are over 350 people attending, all amazing businesses and stories, ranging from small businesses to non-profits to policy makers from all over CA. We're convening at the Renaissance Hotel.

It's a pretty amazing cast of people here. From the Governor's office Marty Keller, Director, Office of Small Business Advocate is leading the show and doing a superb job. The conference is meant to put real policies forth to the Governor to get more small business growth in the California economy.

The show got off to an amazing start with Author of Jump Point, Tom Hayes, and Michael Malone, ABC News Journalist. They talked about the role that California's entrepreneurs will play in shaping the future of the new economy.

Lunch came and so did the Governator! Governor Schwarzenegger really inspired the crowd with his story on his life and how he came to America to live the American dream and be an entrepreneur. We also got a few muscle jokes out of him too! Watch the video.

After, there were sessions on different issues that small businesses need to deal with. The interesting thing was that in the breakout session you chose, you actually have a say in policies that will be presented to the Governor. The following were the issues facing California small businesses:

Issue: Clean Air
Issue: Access to Capital
Issue: Entrepreneur Encouragement Group - High Tech
Issue: Healthcare - Cost containment (this was a huge issue in a survey I recently did)
Issue: Innovation & technology - Support business who are seeking state dollars
Issue: Procurement Issues
Issue: Regulatory Reform Group
Issue: Transportation - Rising fuel costs
Issue: Taxation - Conformity state tax code, Consolidation of agencies, energy tax credits
Issue: Education - How can we restructure education so that kids want to work in small businesses.

I chose the Innovation & Technology group where we came up with some pretty good ideas. From this, the entire group of 350 will vote on what is the most important for CA small businesses.

After dinner we got to see 3 young entrepreneurs, from the Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour that were really inspiring to listen to.

Notable people I've met:

Kristin Johnson, Regional Director, Northern California SBDC, the SBDC has some really great programs to help businesses grow. I met Terry Hicks, GM, Small Business Group, QuickBooks, and Guy Philips, Head of US Small Business, VISA, (we chatted about the Facebook VISA Small Business Network, check it out) I also met Drew Boyles, Franchise Partner, owning seven 1-800-Got Junk franchises and Brook Taylor from the Governor's Office of Planning and Research, and beloved Oregon Duck fan. Brook had a big hand in putting together the conference. All were great conversations and I look forward to more in the future. 

Next up? I speak on a panel with David Fischer, VP of Online Sales, Google, moderated by Arel Moodie, America's Top Young Speaker about marketing tools that will take your business global.

I'll be back.

Since we've seen the stock market plunge in the past few weeks, there has never been a better time to take a closer look at how we can shave to save. So I put together a list of some things to look at, because every little bit helps.

Credit Card Processing Fees - Banks are hurting these days but it doesn't mean that you have to bear the brunt of it. Call your bank and see if there is any room to lower the percentages you have to pay when someone uses a credit card to buy your product. I found an article on Forbes about small businesses saving on these fees.

Paper Costs - It's becoming rare that you should actually have to print a document. You can read email, you can read a document attached to an email and it's even quicker than printing on paper. So here's an idea: every time you go to print something so you can snail mail it or read it on paper, ask yourself "Can I send this in an email?" or "Can I read this on my computer screen?" I bet you'll find out most of the time you can avoid the printer. 

Another idea for reducing paper usage is to keep your documents online. Google Docs are free and you can invite people to share your documents and make changes to them. I know an events manager at a local restaurant who was keeping event dates on a paper calendar until he was introduced to Google Calendar. Now he's keeping everything online. Even better? The owners can access the calendar without having to contact him.

Obviously I'm going to tell you to stop printing out and snail-mailing your newsletter. It's not environmentally friendly and it's probably about 10x the cost of sending an email newsletter. Now is the time to convert your list into getting your newsletter in digital format. Feel free to take a test drive of VerticalResponse to do it, if you don't already.

Last, but not least, stop faxing. Get rid of the fax machine, there are a ton of free services as well as services with low monthly fees.

Travel - If your business relies on a face to face meeting to close the sale, you probably can't cut down drastically. However there are many ways to have meetings on the phone especially if you need to present something. Check out InterCall and GoToMeeting for web conferencing, and Glance to share your desktop.

One more thing, have you looked at your frequent flier statement recently? Now's the time to cash in on some of those rewards for travel if it is an important part of how you do business.

Supplies - Take a look at the monthly supplies you buy for your location. Can you save money buying cheaper paper plates? Can you use real silverware in the lunch room instead of buying plastic utensils? Do you really need name-brand paper towels? Are there coupons you can use from the Sunday paper? It might not seem like a lot but it all adds up.

Phones - Do all of your employees need a phone? Of course you'll need them especially if your sales or marketing folks have to speak to your customers or order inventory. But if you've got a group of employees that don't need their own, try setting up a phone for them to share.

Also look at Voice over Internet Protocol. VoIP allows users to use regular telephone networks anywhere through any internet service provider, cuts down on long distance charges. For a listing of providers go here.

Shipping Costs - If you ship a lot of your products, why not put a call into your shipper to see how you can reduce some of those costs. I also found this blog post from the Shipping Coach with tons of advice on reducing shipping costs.

Little by little it all adds up so make sure you keep a close eye on everything you're spending money on!

Have you visited the VR Lounge yet to interact with over 1400 people interested in email marketing? If that hasn't been enough to get you there maybe this will; over 60 business forms for you to download absolutely free!

I would have loved to have these when I started the business. We've even put some of the ones we use today in there too. Here's a small sample of what you'll find:

• Accounting - Pro forma balance sheet, profit & loss statement, cash flow statements & more.
• Admin - Credit check, fax cover, wire transfer, purchase order, invoice template, expense report template & more.
• Finance - Lease or buy comparison, calculating present value & more.
• HR - Job description, application for employment, offer letter, employee termination report & more.
• Legal - Consulting agreement, confidentiality agreement & more.
• Marketing - Marketing plan, creative brief, press release template, marketing budget & more.
• Strategy - Strategic plan outline, SWOT analysis, executive summary & more.

So have fun with them but remember, the forms are to be used only as a starting point. VerticalResponse makes no claim that these forms are legally binding in your state, country or part of the world so first consult your attorney!

Stimulus Package for Small Businesses - Make Your Pledge Now

A few months ago VerticalResponse partnered with Duct Tape Marketing to provide comprehensive marketing resources for small businesses. Now we're behind another great resource from our friends over at Duct Tape, their own stimulus package for small businesses.

Make a Referral Week, March 9-13 2009, is an entrepreneurial approach to stimulating the small business economy one referred business at a time. The goal for the week is to generate 1000 referred leads to 1000 deserving small businesses in an effort to highlight the impact of a simple action that could blossom into millions of dollars in new business. Small business is the lifeblood and job-creating engine of the economy and merits the positive attention so often saved for corporate bailout stories.

VerticalResponse is pledging to make a referral to a business we want to help! What a great way to grow your list and grow your business. Join us by making your pledge here.

StartupNation and VerticalResponse Let You Pick Top Mom-Run Businesses

We've partnered with a great company, StartupNation to launch the first annual "Leading Moms in Business" ranking, which highlights one of the fastest growing segments of entrepreneurship, Moms! 

According to the Center for Women’s Business Research, there are 10.6 million women-owned businesses in the United States generating $2.5 trillion in annual revenue. With women starting businesses at nearly twice the rate of men, many of these businesses are run by mothers.

Nominate Yourself, Tell a Mom to Nominate Herself

Contestants interested in making the list can submit their profile. The top 200 winners will be selected by popular vote, with results announced in advance of Mother’s Day. If you know a Mom who would be great for this, forward her the info!

Send an Email to Get Votes for Your Nomination

Use email marketing and send an email to your recipients with an exciting announcement that you’re a contestant. By encouraging them to vote for you and support your quest to be a winner, you provide them with an engaging and fun way to participate in your success. This can help you create deeper loyalty and affinity, which ultimately can lead to business opportunities and increased revenue.

Mom-run businesses are at the forefront of what’s happening more broadly in the business world, including trends like telecommuting, flexible work schedules and green workplaces. The Leading Moms in Business ranking will shine a spotlight on these exceptional businesses and the dynamic women behind them. Among other things, the ranking will focus on recession busting businesses, highlighting entrepreneurial moms that have implemented strategies to make their businesses thrive in spite of the economic downturn.

To enter, contestants must be a mother and a majority owner of a business. Contestants must also have a website for their business and be based in the U.S.

How to Use LinkedIn for Your Business

Occasionally I like to write about things other than email marketing ... shocker! This time I thought it would be great to talk about LinkedIn, and how small businesses can harness the power of this valuable business networking tool.

A lot of small business owners ask the same question: What is LinkedIn and how can I use it to help my business grow? Well, since LinkedIn's inception in 2003 there are over 80 million people using this business social networking site that allows for super easy business networking. That's a lot of people to get access to. So here are just a few ways you can utilize this great solution.

How Do You Start?

Create Your Profile - What’s important for using LinkedIn successfully depends on the amount of information you contribute to your profile. You’ll surely want to display where you work now and your past work experiences, as well as your interests and company website.  But after that it’s up to your comfort level for the type of information you want to include.

Make sure you define what you want to get out of LinkedIn. Most people use it as a business tool. If that’s how you want to use it then that’s what you should be thinking about when you accept “Invitations to Connect” from people that may or may not know you. Now that you've created your free account, the real stuff happens.

Personal Accounts are free with limitations, but you can upgrade to a Business Account for more functionality. Check out pricing and functionality here.

Human Resources

Reference Searches - If you want to get a snapshot of what a new prospective employee is like, check out their LinkedIn profile. See if what they have on their profile matches their resume. To take it one step further, if you upgrade to a Business Account, you can do a Reference Search to find out who they've worked with in the past. Then you might even see that you're connected with someone they know and you can then send that contact an "Inmail", an email that is generated through the LinkedIn network, with some questions you might have about your candidate.

Find New Employees – You can post a job description on LinkedIn then send it out to all of your connections or a subset of them. It's $195 for a 30-day listing. Here’s where it pays to have some great connections. If one of your contacts knows someone that might be perfect for the job, they’ll forward the job description to them. Then you’ll get your contacts referring people they know for the job.

Sales

Learn About Your Prospects -  If you've been talking to a prospective customer, it pays to know as much about them as possible. Check out their LinkedIn profile, you might even find you have a connection in common or are a few degrees away from it. This might even help you close the deal.

Find New Prospects - Investigate a company you want to do business with, it's simple with LinkedIn. You can even do an advanced search on the type of title you’ll need to be speaking to. For example, if you need someone on the marketing team you might type in “VP Marketing” or “Vice President Marketing”. Once you've found them you can send them an “Inmail”. Then it’s up to your prospect to decide if they want to communicate back with you. You’d be amazed at the response you’ll get if you articulate clearly why you want to talk to them. Note: If they don’t want to be contacted they’ll have already added that to their profile, and you won’t be able to contact them using Inmail but many people are on LinkedIn for the purpose of networking. You'll need to upgrade to a Business Account for Inmails, but IMO it's worth it.

Get Introduced – If you’re looking at someone you might want to do business with, you might find that you’re connected with someone who knows them. Then you can ask your connection for an introduction to them. Sometimes it’s easier to get in front of someone if they know someone you know.

Marketing

Get Advice – The “Questions & Answers” feature is a fantastic tool you can use to get your name out in your LinkedIn Network. If you have questions on anything about your business or industry you can simply ask your LinkedIn network.

Give Advice - The “Answers” feature enables you to establish yourself as an expert in your industry. I’ve had a few people forward me questions on direct marketing and email marketing because they thought I’d be a great resource to answer them. Then people rate your answer and you can have it display in your profile. One thing to note here, when you’re answering questions try not to be too self-serving and salesy. It’s ok to talk about your company just try not to be too pushy, it seems disingenuous.

Here's a funny story about LinkedIn. The building next to where I live was having their windows washed very early on a Saturday morning with a very loud machine. Now I don't know about you, but Saturday mornings for me need to be a bit quiet. Somewhat angry and pretty tired, I wanted to find the CEO of the company that was having the work done. I looked him up on LinkedIn, sent him an Inmail and that same day he emailed me back apologizing for how early they were starting and promised they’d never start work that early on a weekend again.

If you've got any great LinkedIn stories please share!

Governor's Conference on Small Business & Entrepreneurship in California

I'm in LA at the Governor's Conference on Small Businesses & Entrepreneurship. They're launching Global Entrepreneurship Week in conjunction with the Kauffman Foundation. It will be the third week in November. There are over 350 people attending, all amazing businesses and stories, ranging from small businesses to non-profits to policy makers from all over CA. We're convening at the Renaissance Hotel.

It's a pretty amazing cast of people here. From the Governor's office Marty Keller, Director, Office of Small Business Advocate is leading the show and doing a superb job. The conference is meant to put real policies forth to the Governor to get more small business growth in the California economy.

The show got off to an amazing start with Author of Jump Point, Tom Hayes, and Michael Malone, ABC News Journalist. They talked about the role that California's entrepreneurs will play in shaping the future of the new economy.

Lunch came and so did the Governator! Governor Schwarzenegger really inspired the crowd with his story on his life and how he came to America to live the American dream and be an entrepreneur. We also got a few muscle jokes out of him too! Watch the video.

After, there were sessions on different issues that small businesses need to deal with. The interesting thing was that in the breakout session you chose, you actually have a say in policies that will be presented to the Governor. The following were the issues facing California small businesses:

Issue: Clean Air
Issue: Access to Capital
Issue: Entrepreneur Encouragement Group - High Tech
Issue: Healthcare - Cost containment (this was a huge issue in a survey I recently did)
Issue: Innovation & technology - Support business who are seeking state dollars
Issue: Procurement Issues
Issue: Regulatory Reform Group
Issue: Transportation - Rising fuel costs
Issue: Taxation - Conformity state tax code, Consolidation of agencies, energy tax credits
Issue: Education - How can we restructure education so that kids want to work in small businesses.

I chose the Innovation & Technology group where we came up with some pretty good ideas. From this, the entire group of 350 will vote on what is the most important for CA small businesses.

After dinner we got to see 3 young entrepreneurs, from the Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour that were really inspiring to listen to.

Notable people I've met:

Kristin Johnson, Regional Director, Northern California SBDC, the SBDC has some really great programs to help businesses grow. I met Terry Hicks, GM, Small Business Group, QuickBooks, and Guy Philips, Head of US Small Business, VISA, (we chatted about the Facebook VISA Small Business Network, check it out) I also met Drew Boyles, Franchise Partner, owning seven 1-800-Got Junk franchises and Brook Taylor from the Governor's Office of Planning and Research, and beloved Oregon Duck fan. Brook had a big hand in putting together the conference. All were great conversations and I look forward to more in the future. 

Next up? I speak on a panel with David Fischer, VP of Online Sales, Google, moderated by Arel Moodie, America's Top Young Speaker about marketing tools that will take your business global.

I'll be back.

6 Ways to Cut Costs for Your Small Business Now

Since we've seen the stock market plunge in the past few weeks, there has never been a better time to take a closer look at how we can shave to save. So I put together a list of some things to look at, because every little bit helps.

Credit Card Processing Fees - Banks are hurting these days but it doesn't mean that you have to bear the brunt of it. Call your bank and see if there is any room to lower the percentages you have to pay when someone uses a credit card to buy your product. I found an article on Forbes about small businesses saving on these fees.

Paper Costs - It's becoming rare that you should actually have to print a document. You can read email, you can read a document attached to an email and it's even quicker than printing on paper. So here's an idea: every time you go to print something so you can snail mail it or read it on paper, ask yourself "Can I send this in an email?" or "Can I read this on my computer screen?" I bet you'll find out most of the time you can avoid the printer. 

Another idea for reducing paper usage is to keep your documents online. Google Docs are free and you can invite people to share your documents and make changes to them. I know an events manager at a local restaurant who was keeping event dates on a paper calendar until he was introduced to Google Calendar. Now he's keeping everything online. Even better? The owners can access the calendar without having to contact him.

Obviously I'm going to tell you to stop printing out and snail-mailing your newsletter. It's not environmentally friendly and it's probably about 10x the cost of sending an email newsletter. Now is the time to convert your list into getting your newsletter in digital format. Feel free to take a test drive of VerticalResponse to do it, if you don't already.

Last, but not least, stop faxing. Get rid of the fax machine, there are a ton of free services as well as services with low monthly fees.

Travel - If your business relies on a face to face meeting to close the sale, you probably can't cut down drastically. However there are many ways to have meetings on the phone especially if you need to present something. Check out InterCall and GoToMeeting for web conferencing, and Glance to share your desktop.

One more thing, have you looked at your frequent flier statement recently? Now's the time to cash in on some of those rewards for travel if it is an important part of how you do business.

Supplies - Take a look at the monthly supplies you buy for your location. Can you save money buying cheaper paper plates? Can you use real silverware in the lunch room instead of buying plastic utensils? Do you really need name-brand paper towels? Are there coupons you can use from the Sunday paper? It might not seem like a lot but it all adds up.

Phones - Do all of your employees need a phone? Of course you'll need them especially if your sales or marketing folks have to speak to your customers or order inventory. But if you've got a group of employees that don't need their own, try setting up a phone for them to share.

Also look at Voice over Internet Protocol. VoIP allows users to use regular telephone networks anywhere through any internet service provider, cuts down on long distance charges. For a listing of providers go here.

Shipping Costs - If you ship a lot of your products, why not put a call into your shipper to see how you can reduce some of those costs. I also found this blog post from the Shipping Coach with tons of advice on reducing shipping costs.

Little by little it all adds up so make sure you keep a close eye on everything you're spending money on!

New Free Business Forms in the VR Lounge

Have you visited the VR Lounge yet to interact with over 1400 people interested in email marketing? If that hasn't been enough to get you there maybe this will; over 60 business forms for you to download absolutely free!

I would have loved to have these when I started the business. We've even put some of the ones we use today in there too. Here's a small sample of what you'll find:

• Accounting - Pro forma balance sheet, profit & loss statement, cash flow statements & more.
• Admin - Credit check, fax cover, wire transfer, purchase order, invoice template, expense report template & more.
• Finance - Lease or buy comparison, calculating present value & more.
• HR - Job description, application for employment, offer letter, employee termination report & more.
• Legal - Consulting agreement, confidentiality agreement & more.
• Marketing - Marketing plan, creative brief, press release template, marketing budget & more.
• Strategy - Strategic plan outline, SWOT analysis, executive summary & more.

So have fun with them but remember, the forms are to be used only as a starting point. VerticalResponse makes no claim that these forms are legally binding in your state, country or part of the world so first consult your attorney!