Inc. Magazine's Daily Top Stories

President Obama's big economic policy speech tomorrow should be interesting. The Journal is calling it "one of his most dramatic gestures to business."

[Obama] will propose that companies be allowed to more quickly write off 100% of their new investment in plants and equipment through 2011...Companies can now deduct new investment expenses, but over a longer period of timethree to 20 years. The proposed change, which would let companies keep more cash now, is meant to give companies who may be hesitant to invest an incentive to expand, acting as a spur to the overall economy.

Also planned is a $100 billion research and development tax credit. USAToday reports that the credit would rise from 14 percent to 17 percent and would become permanent.

The NFIB, which tends to oppose Democrats on pretty much everything, is already dismissing this as window dressing, but these policy announcements seem significant. Other business groups quoted in the Journal's story are giving the proposals faint praise. We should know more tomorrow.

Barack Obama - Research and development - President of the United States - Investment - Tax credit

Each day, Inc.'s reporters scour the Web for the most important and interesting news to entrepreneurs. Here's what we found today:

What to expect for an entrepreneur who's expecting. Writing in today's New York Times "You're the Boss" blog, CEO and expectant mother Jennifer Walzer discusses some of the challenges she expects to face caring for a newborn while also running her business. As she explains, "When you are a pregnant business owner, people want to know how exactly you're going to handle everything. Truthfully? I have no idea." While video conferencing will help keep her connected while she works from home, Walzer says her biggest fear is that her physical absence will lead to diminished morale amongst her employees. Another challenge she faces is simply letting go of her business concerns and preparing for her September 21 due date. "It seems that the drive that helped me start and build my company just doesn't want to quit."

Four reasons to be hopeful. Today's Fortune lists four good reasons to have faith in the economy--namely, farming, corporate buying, manufacturing and "Detroit. Yes, that Detroit." According to the story, the country's farmers are set to export $107.5 billion in products by the end of this fiscal year. That's the second highest rate of exports ever, and, Fortune reports, "the surge will likely continue to last for a while as foreign markets, especially China, continue to demand products." And it's no secret that mergers and acquisitions have been all the rage lately, as a whopping $286 billion worth of deals went down in August alone. While manufacturing growth may be less obvious, Fortune points out that The Institute for Supply Management's factory index was at a three-month high in August. Then there's Detroit, the city that Fortune contends is experiencing a "re-birth," and is better for it.

Who is Marc Andreessen? The man who developed the browser that launched Netscape and speeded the dot-com gold rush has been dubbed "The King of Silicon Valley." The San Jose Mercury News attempts to dig deeper into Andreessen's wide-ranging career and factors motivating his growing $650 million investment fund, Andreessen Horowitz. But without an interview with Andreessen himself, it is mostly a collection of gushing quotes from Valley figures. "He's phenomenal," said serial entrepreneur Mike McCue. "He's operating at a different level." And Jim Chark, a well known technologist who teamed up with Andreessen on Netscape, said, "I take no credit for where Marc is. He is a natural leader with penetrating insight. My main contribution was to recognize his brilliance and get in front of the parade with him."

Tech sector slowdown. For the past few years, tech start-ups have been hailed as one of the few bright spots in our sluggish economy. Yet this week the New York Times reports that job growth in once-booming fields like computer system design and Internet publishing has slowed in the last year, while it has fallen in areas like data processing and software publishing. Likely a result of widespread joblessness throughout the country, the gloomy numbers have still left hordes of highly skilled engineers and college graduates without work. It also leaves many wondering how our economy will recover when the tech sector, once a vanguard of innovation and job creation, is failing to keep up. One of the biggest reason for the lull includes companies that are able to outsource cutting-edge skills once delegated only to the most skilled on our home turf. Now it seems companies can export those skills abroad or use computers to produce the same result.

iPad to face some fierce competition. Think again if you thought Apple was going to retain its stranglehold on the touchscreen "tablet" market. While Apple's iPad has opened eyes as the forerunner in the industry, CNET reports it will be seeing some formidable competition in the coming months from companies like Microsoft, Samsung, and Toshiba. Rumors are also circulating about a device from Research in Motion (your trusted Blackberry manufacturer) called the "Blackpad." Tech blog Gizmodo has reviewed five of the best tablets that have been revealed so far, ranking Samsung's Galaxy Tab (officially unveiled this week) even higher than the already familiar iPad.

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Facebook - Microsoft - Marc Andreessen - Apple - Mike McCue

As a business owner looking for ways to stoke interest in your product or service, you might have overlooked an inexpensive yet effective differentiating tool: a warranty.

Many business owners might consider a warranty or a guarantee, two terms that are used interchangeably, as more of a matter left to their legal team. And to be sure, since a warranty is essentially a contractual agreement that the good or service you are selling will be of a particular quality and without defect, it behooves you to get some legal advice about it, says Enrico Shaefer, the founding attorney of Traverse Legal in Traverse City, Michigan.

The truth is that when you do sell something, you are actually already offering something called an "implied" warranty, which really means that there is some expectation about the quality of the product or service your customer is going to receive, Shaefer says, something that is detailed in Article Two of the Uniform Commercial Code, a set of laws enforceable in most states. For instance, when you buy an ink pen, you can expect that it will work when you try to write with it or, with a car, that it will start and drive when you turn the key.

But warranties and guarantees also should be looked at from a different perspective where it can become a competitive advantage. That's where the notion of offering an "express" or "explicit" warranty – where you specify exactly what you are guaranteeing your customer – comes in. An example of this is when an automobile manufacturer offers a 10-year or 100,000 mile guarantee. While there are certain standards for big consumer purchases like cars and appliances, you can sometimes use a variation – like a lifetime guarantee – as a way to set you apart from your competition. "A warranty can be incredibly valuable as a marketing tool," says Shaefer. "What you're really trying to do is lower the perceived risk that your customer feels in buying your product or service."

Sargam Patel, who heads up Los Angeles-based Agent18, which has been manufacturing and selling cases for iPods and iPhones since 2004, says that offering a warranty represents a critical point in a company's relationship with the customer. "It's the time when a person has purchased your product," he says. "That means you can look at it as a way to reinforce their decision to buy from you, or, if done poorly, you can lose a customer. The last thing you ever want to do is get in an argument with a customer."

1. Why offer a warranty?

Dr. James Talaga, a professor of marketing at La Salle University in Philadelphia, says there are several reasons why companies might want to offer such warranties:

1. A company may have a poor reputation and the explicit warranty may be used to give assurances to the customer about product quality (thereby reducing the perceived risk in buying it).

2. Competitors may offer similar explicit warranties and in order to be competitive, you may need to do so too (if all else is the same, and your competitors offer a better warranty, they have a competitive advantage).

3. If it is normal practice in the business to offer such warranties (e.g., the automobile industry), then you too need to offer such a warranty.

4. When offering a new product (particularly innovations) you may want to offer an explicit warranty also to reduce the perceived risk for the customer.

5. You may want to offer an explicit warranty to reduce your own risk exposure. If the product can be misused, requires maintenance and can be under-maintained or has shelf-life considerations, offering an explicit warranty can limit, to some, extent, your liability should the product fail.

6. If the product will be used in varied use conditions (e.g., extremes of climate), you may want to have an explicit warranty to protect yourself.

Dig Deeper: Just What Did You Promise?


2. What should be covered in a warranty?

If you decide that offering a warranty makes sense for you and your company, what should you think about covering? Shafer says that he counsels his clients to, "think like a customer and focus on the essential elements he or she might be looking for when it comes to buying your product or service." Again, the key is to think of ways that make your product or service sound less risky to the potential customer – such as the ability to get their money back, receive free repairs or even the ability to exchange an item for a free replacement.

Patel of Agent18 says that his warranty covers any manufacturer defects for two years. He also has added a half-price replacement program where customers can upgrade to a new case for half the price. "It's like an insurance policy for the customer where if the product does its job, we want you to come back," he says.

Dig Deeper: ...Or Your Money Back


3. What should NOT be covered?

It's just as important to specify what is not covered by your warranty, says Talaga. "If the product has parts that wear out and it is your intent to sell replacements to customers, as in, says, ink for laser printers, then you would limit the warranty," he says. "If you intend to sell the product with minimal markup in order to make money from service, then clearly service would not be covered in warranties."

Patel says that he has to spell out in his warranty that his product is not guaranteed for every problem, such as when someone drops their phone or engages in some form of negligent behavior. While the case is designed to protect the phone, he knows he can't control every situation where someone might drop it. While he is willing to replace the case for half-price, he wants to make it clear to his customers that he cannot guarantee the safety of the device within it. "It would be irresponsible to make a claim that you will protect someone's phone no matter what," he says. "Because you give yourself the liability of replacing not only the phone, but also the data on it. How can you put a price on someone's wedding photos?"

Dig Deeper: Smoking Hazadous to Your Apple Warranty


4. How long should it last?

In determining how long your warranty should last, you should get some sense of the normal operating life of the product as the guide to setting the warranty life, says Talaga. "In some cases, firms offer lifetime warranties such as Land's End lifetime warranty on their clothing," he says. "Such a warranty would of course require that the company have a high level of confidence in their product quality."

Dig Deeper: Warranty Bill of Sale

5. What happens if you sell another company's products: can you offer your own warranty on top of theirs?

Offering extended warranties on top of existing ones issues by a manufacturer can be another great way to differentiate yourself from the competition, especially in a sector like retail, says Talaga.

Mike Faith, the CEO of Headsets.com, says that he offers extended warranties to his customers on the headsets he resells from manufacturers. "Why not?" he asks. "Stand out. Manufacturers aren't marketers, they run scared while marketers set the pace." Faith says that he also will make good on any warranty claim, regardless of the timeline of when it is submitted. "Your warranty is a minimum obligation, not a policy with which to alienate your customers," he says.

Dig Deeper: Beware the Impossible Guarantee


6. Are warranties just for products or can you offer them for services as well?

Don't forget that even if you sell a service, you can still offer a warranty. Consider examples where hotel chains commonly offer satisfaction guaranteed offers; car mechanics may guarantee their work for 90 days or longer; or a company like H&R Block may offer a form of warranty in that they will support you should they make a mistake in your taxes.

The difficulty in offering warranties for services is that by their very nature, services involve a greater or lesser degree of custom production, says Talaga. "This lack of mass production means that there's a large number of variables that can influence a customers use of products and hence their level of satisfaction," he says.

Case in point: Dale Furtwengler, a consultant in High Ridge, Missouri, says that's he's often asked by his clients, "Do you guarantee the results?" "My answer is, 'No,'" he says, "Because I can't guarantee that a client is going to implement the solutions I suggest. I guarantee that I'll do everything I agreed to in the agreement and that it will work if you employ my advice, but I can't guarantee that you're going to take the necessary action to get the result."

Shaefer at Traverse Legal, on the other hand, says that he offers all his clients a money-back guarantee for any work he does as a way to win the confidence of his customers. At the same time, he's not worried about droves of them taking him up on the offer as his goal is to win repeat customers by offering the best possible service. If a client isn't a good fit, he's happy to give them their money back. "The truth is that most customers never take follow up on warranties," he says. "And in our case, we've had one person ask for a refund in six years and we were happy to give it to him. We just didn't have good chemistry."

Dig Deeper: What You Need to Know About Making a Personal Guarantee

Warranty - Business - Contract - auto - Vehicles

Gabor proposes a radical way to keep bookstores in business:

Get rid of the physical books and CDs. Only sell goods with 90% margins: Lattes and greeting cards. Rent smaller spaces but build them with beautiful architecture and interior design, comfortable couches, display advertising for the latest digital content, and beautiful, high-resolution e-readers that will let users browse any book in the world, and headphones to listen to any song on the planet. Invite local authors for frequent readings that will let them interact with the audience and the audience interact with them. Staff the store with fewer, but more knowledgeable staff who can recommend books and music, and help people use the fancy electronics.

It sounds good, but here's my question: Is he describing a bookstore or a really nice cyber-cafe? The problem that a typical bookstore solvesand that the Internet (or a cyber-cafe) does not solveis discovery. That is, how do you find a book that you don't know you want?

Google is very good for finding things you want, but it's quite bad at finding things you don't know about. Social media companies like Twitter and Facebook have made some headway here by taking the networks that naturally build among friend groups and putting them online. And Apple is trying to do something similar with its new social network, Ping.

But I think there's a lot of opportunity for other start-ups to help with the problem of discovery, and, until they do, there isn't going to be a good way to help consumers discover new books except by putting them in a room full of dead trees. By removing the books from the bookstore, you get rid of the bookstore's core competency. You've got a Starbucks, but with worse coffee.

That's the case today, but it probably won't be true in ten years. So I'd love to hear about some start-upsbesides the big ones mentioned abovethat are attempting to solve the discovery problem. What are some of your favorites?

(N.B. This month's Inc. has a Q&A I did with Twitter's Biz Stone that touches on this issue. And, for another story of Silicon Valley's attempts to save bookstores, check out Bo Burlingham's seriesonKepler's.)

Twitter - Facebook - Google - Silicon Valley - Biz Stone

An industrial engineer and former Starbucks executive (as a "director of profit improvement") Mike Caswell has long thought that there were things in the coffee industry that were just never offered to customers, namely freshness and choice. Historically, he says, companies marketed their coffee as fresh off the basis of when their coffee was brewed or how freshly ground it was. However, that's not really what makes the difference.

"For a long time, everybody was ignoring how long ago the beans were actually roasted," Caswell says. "Industry insiders will acknowledge how important that is to quality, much like the freshness of bread. But because there hasn't been an industry-wide adoption of how to best provide fresh coffee, people don't want to talk about it."

That's when Caswell's engineering background came into play. He began tinkering with disassembled vacuum cleaner parts in his basement in 2003, and with a lot of time and some help from some mechanical and electrical engineering friends, he created what has officially been patented worldwide as the Javabot. The Javabot combines every aspect of the coffee roasting experience, transporting beans through Caswell's store via a maze of clear tubes and pressure, sending raw green beans to a roaster, roasted beans to holding chambers, and small amounts of precisely measured roasted beans to Swiss-made brewers for grinding and eventually brewing.

When the Javabot was ready for public consumption in 2007, he opened his first store, aptly named Roasting Plant, in Manhattan's Greenwich Village. Many early investors asked Caswell why they should invest in his shop, which is located less than a block away from an existing Starbucks. What would keep customers coming back instead of walking right down the street to the familiar chain?

"My answer then was that you have to offer a differentiated and legitimate experience for the customer," Caswell says. "And I wouldn't answer differently today. I was convinced this business would work in New York because the city just has a really active coffee culture. At the time, Starbucks was just cranking along and opening stores every day. But I saw vulnerability because they weren't focusing on freshness or choice. Additionally, New Yorkers are one of the few populations on the planet that are always looking for something better, newer and more interesting, a higher contribution to a higher quality of life I guess you could say."

The entire experience at Roasting Plant is unique. When you enter, you'll be greeted by friendly baristas (Caswell says a non-intimidating employee defines his "legitimate experience"). Then it's time to make a choice—deciding from 11 different types of beans onsite—before watching your selection fly through the Javabot above your head and into the roaster. Depending on the roast, you'll have your drink within a few minutes. If hungry, you can opt for award-winning pastries from the locally revered Tom Cat Bakery or settle into one of their many modern seating areas, including long couches, high stools and individual tables, with plenty of outlets and free wi-fi for the computer-toting clientele.

Roasting Plant now has two locations in lower Manhattan, and many of the regular customers consider Roasting Plant's coffee the best they've ever had.

According to a recent Yelp review by Jeni Y., "dorky engineering + delicious coffee = love!! I gravitate towards Roasting Plant whenever I'm within a five block radius, pulled in by the wonderful, gadgety, and incredibly genius way that my coffee is prepared. I'm now spoiled rotten and demand that ALL coffee I drink in my future be first flown above my head."

Financially, Caswell is projecting growth of 51 percent, year-over-year, in 2010. From an on-the-ground retail perspective, the businesses are doing great, it's just a matter of growing to more locations.

On the other side of the equation, Starbucks has seen unprecedented competition in the market in recent years, with Dunkin' Donuts, McDonald's and other fast-food chains offering a similar grab-and-go product. According to a company spokesperson, Starbucks opened their 182nd franchise on Manhattan's Upper East Side this week, so clearly they are not going to cede their market share. They still drive the industry because of their reach and their take-home and brew business, but independent shops are in a completely different segment of the market.

"In the last few years there's been a leap forward here in America for an understanding of coffee, what makes good coffee and what the proper preparation techniques are," says Andrew Hetzel, an industry expert and founder of Cafemakers, a consulting business for the coffee industry. "As a result of the economic downturn, the overall number of coffee shops has probably declined as has the number of businesses starting. But that's not a bad thing, because the shops who are doing a good job have survived and are prospering."

In the ultra-competitive coffee market, low-cost operations and successful branding are important to maintain profitability, due to the obvious low margins in a single cup of coffee. But as Americans continue to learn more about java, about what they like and don't like, the smaller shops that focus on quality, freshness and customer experience are the ones that are continuing to succeed.

So while Starbucks and independent coffee shops exist in different segments of the market, much of the credit for wetting Americans' palettes (or perhaps it was a re-introduction) to stronger, bolder, European-style coffee goes to the Seattle-based behemoths. Unfortunately because of the limited supply of high-end beans in the market, Starbucks is unable to buy some of those batches. And that's where smaller shops hold the advantage. If you think about it like fine wine, there just are not enough aged bottles to be sold in bulk, which is what drives up the price but also the quality. Coffee is quite similar.

"Many independent coffee shops across America actively seek out those locations where Starbucks operates, as it will have already done the ground work of establishing a coffee shop culture in that area," Billy Hulkower, a spokesman for consumer intelligence insight at Mintel, said in 2005. "Starbucks' rampant expansion has created an ever increasing demand for premium coffee, while opening the market up for competitors as well."

For Caswell, he learned a lot of entrepreneurial lessons along the way that are not specific to the coffee industry, struggling to raise capital with potential investors early on by convincing them his business could succeed.

"As I reflect back now, the critical things I learned were to have passion, persistence and patience," he says. "You have to believe with all of your being that what you're trying to achieve and what you're pitching to people is legitimate and will succeed. That's something you need to do over and over again, and then to learn to deal with the many rejections that will come and not to take them personally. I kept my end goal square in sight and kept going, and I think regardless of the industry you're in, you need to commit yourself with unending effort and passion."

As premium coffee and a passion to attain it grows here in the U.S., independent shops like Caswell's will continue to succeed. And while his immediate goals remain on maintaining a high quality experience for his two stores in New York City, Caswell has fielded calls from every part of the world to both franchise his stores or to license out the Javabot. He admits that the company's next challenge is their growth and how to handle it, but as an entrepreneur, that's not a bad problem to deal with.

And to answer the question of how fresh your coffee should be is a matter of opinion and preference for each individual consumer, says Caswell.

"Somewhere between one day and seven days is optimal. Again, coffee is like a really good wine in that it improves a little bit with age. If we're talking about my personal preference, I lose interest once the coffee has been out of the roaster for seven days. After that, it just doesn't deliver the flavor any longer."

Starbucks - Business - Coffee - Dunkin' Donuts - Upper East Side

Who says money can't buy happiness?

Certainly not two Princeton University researchers -- including a Nobel laureate -- who suggest it comes with a $75,000 price tag.

Not having enough money causes emotional pain and unhappiness, the researchers found. But the happiness tipping point is about $75,000 – more money than that doesn't make a person cheerier, though it can help people view their lives as successful or better.

The study – published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences -- analyzed poll data from the Gallup Organization of more than 450,000 U.S. residents in 2008 and 2009.

The two researchers – Daniel Kahneman, the 2002 winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, and Angus Deaton, past president of the American Economic Association – broke the question of whether money can buy happiness in two, examining both how people evaluated their day-to-day happiness and their overall satisfaction with life.

With every doubling of income, people tended to say they were more and more satisfied with their lives on a 10-point scale – a pattern that continued for household incomes well above $120,000.

But when asked to assess the happy hours of the previous day – whether people had experienced a lot of enjoyment, laughter, smiling, anger, stress, worry – money mattered only up to about $75,000. After that, money didn't buy more (or less) happiness. (About one-third of U.S. households had incomes above $75,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey. The average household income was $71,500.)

Among life's misfortunes made worse by lack of money: disease (including ailments such as asthma), divorce and being alone.

"We conclude that lack of money brings both emotional misery and low life evaluation; similar results were found for anger," Kahneman and Deaton, both professors at Princeton University, wrote in the report. "Beyond $75,000 in the contemporary United States, however, higher income is neither the road to experience happiness nor the road to relief of unhappiness or stress, although higher income continues to improve individuals' life evaluations."

Why does money help brighten a person's picture of their life overall, but not the individual days?

"We suspect that this means, in part, that when people have a lot more money, they can buy a lot more pleasures, but there are some indications that when you have a lot of money, you will savor each pleasure less," said Kahneman, who, for the record, makes more than $75,000. "Perhaps $75,000 is a threshold beyond which further increases in income no longer improve individuals' ability to do what matters most to their emotional well-being, such as spending time with people they like, avoiding pain and disease, and enjoying leisure."

What's the take-home message? "If you want to enjoy life, focus on relationships and health once you make more than $70,000 a year," wrote Ed Diener, a University of Illinois psychology professor who studies well-being, in an e-mail to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Diener wasn't part of the study. "If you are poor, it makes a great deal of sense to be concerned about higher income."

And if you're thinking this means you don't need to pay anyone above $75,000, think again.

"Our data speak only to differences," the authors wrote. "They do not imply that people will not be happy with a raise from $100,000 to $150,000, or that they will be indifferent to an equivalent drop in income.... What the data suggest is that above a certain level of stable income, individuals' emotional well-being is constrained by other factors in their temperament and life circumstances."

Princeton University - United States - Daniel Kahneman - Gallup Organization - Happiness

Do you engage in procrastination or other self sabotaging behavior? I think we all do from time-to-time. What’s interesting is that this limiting behavior can be traced all the way back to the day we were born.

That’s right; did you know that we are born with millions of neurons that don’t know what to do? A neuron is a cell that, in combination with neurotransmitters, processes and transmits information to your body and mind. When we are born we have millions of these little guys just waiting for a job and our environment is responsible for assigning those jobs.

As we learn to respond to pleasant things, like music and touch, these neurons are “programmed”. The downside is that as we are exposed to negativity in our environment, neurons are programmed to send negative messages to the brain and body, and those messages create limiting beliefs that we often carry with us into adulthood.

You don’t have to come from an abusive childhood to experience this programming; innocuous comments from parents, teachers, playmates and others are often translated into negative beliefs and can hinder our ability to achieve (and enjoy) the things that are important to us. We hold tight to this programming and carry it into everything we do – including our business. For example, I hear brilliant business owners make comments like, “I’m not smart enough” or “I would have to work too hard to become successful.” I’ve even heard hard-working, intelligent, ethical individuals say that they don’t deserve success. All of these beliefs come from life experiences upon which we build a pyramid of negative and limiting beliefs.

This is where self-sabotage begins. If we believe at a conscious or subconscious level that we don’t deserve to succeed or we don’t have what it takes, the subconscious mind will do everything within its power to help support that limiting belief. Does that mean that we can’t eradicate this programming? Absolutely not. The first step is to recognize your self-sabotaging behavior; sometimes that’s enough to create change. But oftentimes our beliefs are engrained so deep that we need support in changing to healthy thought-patterns. I subscribe to the energy psychology approach to create significant change and positive thought patterns, specifically the Emotional Freedom Techniques. Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Hypnosis and EMDR are also among the most popular methods. But again, the first step is to explore your mind and discover your limiting belief systems.

Exploring Your Beliefs –Procrastination is a sure sign of self-sabotage brought on by limiting beliefs. Do you find yourself putting off activities that could contribute to the growth of your business? When you ask yourself that question you may immediately come to your own defense by saying something along the lines of, “but I don’t have time to make those sales calls, it’s just me!” I assure you, if you believe in yourself and you desire success at the subconscious level you would put your creative thinking to use and find a way to make the time.

During the exploration process, some other significant questions to ask yourself are:

What are the potentially NEGATIVE consequences of achieving success? Who would I have to please if I become successful?How would I change if I achieved success and wealth?What would I lose?What else would change? What are the things I would have to do to succeed and how do I feel about doing them?

In a recent article, we discussed the power of mind mapping for your business planning. Try putting the same process to use to explore your limiting beliefs and fears around growing your business. This can be a very powerful experience. And remember, everyone – absolutely everyone - experiences the pull of nagging, limiting thoughts. What sets people apart is the ability to transform those thoughts to beliefs that support them in their growth. We all have that ability, the first step is to recognize that you are holding yourself back and to decide that it’s time to change. You can do it!

How have you overcome your self-proclaimed limitations? What tools, methods and support systems work for you?

NOTE: Please know that I present this information as a life coach who has interest and experience in dealing with this topic, not as a mental health professional.

Health - Psychology - Mental health - Neuro-linguistic programming - Emotional Freedom Technique

Entrepreneurs wear many hats, and that of director of sales is very often one of them. In fact, if you're a CEO and your company's sole salesperson, then welcome to the club many small companies operate this way. But just beacuse a practice is commonplace does not mean it's easy. We put the word out that we were looking for advice on how to manage and balance the dual roles of CEO and salesperson and guess what? It took a whole train ride from New York City to Boston to wade through the responses. Here are the best of them:

1. Manage your time religiously. Jen Sterling, the CEO of the marketing company Red Thinking, has played the CEO/sole salesperson role in three companies and says she is now "much more militant about how I block time in my calendar. If I've scheduled a prospect meeting, I have already scheduled an hour to write their proposal." And she also blocks in fixed period of time to focus on CEO duties such as charting her South Riding, Virginia, firm's long-term strategy and marketing messages.

Dig Deeper: 15 Ways to Be More Productive

2. Sell your product or service, not your company. It's your company and you're proud of it, so of course you're inclined to tell your story to potential clients. But that's not always an efficient use of your time. "I slip into selling our business instead of our product all the time," says Keith Chung, the CEO of Amobius Group, a Toronto company that publishes Veribook, a web application for booking appointments. But the pitch you would make to potential partners or investors should not be the same as the pitch you make to potential customers. "Selling," Chung says he realized, "is about convincing people that they want to use your services, not that your services are cool, innovative, or otherwise interest-worthy. Prove that you provide a solution to a problem, and the users will come."

Dig Deeper: 5 Tips for Selling a Service

3. Don't neglect existing clients. Your current clients are your best source of additional revenue, so don't get so wrapped up in pursuing new leads that you neglect their needs. "I firmly believe that your current clients should come first," says Rebecca Andino, CEO of Highlight Technologies, an IT government contractor in Arlington, Virginia. "If I have a meeting conflict, I would re-schedule a business development meeting to make a client meeting."

Dig Deeper: How to Get More Sales from Existing Customers

4. Leverage a simplified feedback loop. One of the great advantages of CEO selling is consistent, direct contact with your customers, so don't squander the opportunity to get honest feedback on your product or service. "There are no bureaucratic layers in our organization and the customer's voice is never lost," says Marc Zawel, the CEO of EqualApp, a Research Triangle start-up that offers online college admissions resources. Customers can "tell me what they love about EqualApp, and what additional features they would like to see, and I'm in a position to take action." As CEO, you're not just selling a product; you're selling access to yourself.

Dig Deeper: How to Make the Most of Customer Feedback

5. Reduce your travel. Until cloning technology becomes more advanced, you can only be in one place at time, and traveling is a huge time suck. Some potential clients will always demand your presence for an initial pitch, but you'll find that many others will gladly settle for alternatives. "When I conduct an initial presentation with a new client, I set-up WebEx meetings," says Joe Sriver, the CEO of DoAPP, a mobile-technology developer in Minneapolis. "People are becoming accustomed to this type of computer-based, virtual communication. It helps me contact and present to more clients in a day."

Dig Deeper: The Best Low-Cost Videoconferencing Technology

6. Delegate, delegate, and then delegate more. If you're spending the bulk of your time selling, then other day-to-day responsibilities are very likely to fall by the wayside. Don't let that happen. Outsource administrative tasks to a virtual assistant, and take advantage of a huge pool of unemployed professionals for part time or temporarily help with marketing, PR, and bookkeeping. Hire interns for the grunt work and to help you with lead generation. You should also realize that you don't need to handle every aspect of sales on your own. "We spread responsibility for prospecting, scheduling, and demonstrations among the team, says T.A. McCann, the CEO of Gist, on Seattle-based Web start-up that manages e-mail and social networking contacts. "It's okay to let others help you qualify and manage accounts, but view yourself as an essential part of the closing process and hold yourself personally responsible for getting the order," he says.

Dig Deeper: Tips on How to Delegate

7. Find a mentor. Some CEOs are natural salespeople, and some are not. If you're not, then you need help. Judy Davids, the CEO of PostEgram knows that she is the best salesperson for her business because "nobody is more passionate or understands our product better." But she concedes that the pitfall is that "I have no idea what I am doing." Her Detroit company puts Facebook status updates and photos into full-color newsletters for older family members. She has a web design background and is passionate about public relations and marketing, so she relies heavily on a mentor to help coach her on sales. "It's something that I think I have learned to be good at," says Davids. "My mentor has been brutally honest with me."

Dig Deeper: Finding the Right Mentor for You

8. Hold yourself accountable. A salesperson would be accountable to you. So who you are you accountable to? When you're the sole salesperson, says Rebecca Andino of Highlight Technologies (see No. 3), "its easy to slip into an undisciplined, haphazard sales and marketing approach." You'd require a full time salesperson to create a strategic plan and to be diligent about using a CRM system to track leads and results. "As a business owner, I don't always have time to document all leads in our online system, and sometimes I get pulled into operations and human resources issues," says Andino. Nonetheless, you need to work extra-hard to document the sales process so that when and if you a hire a successor, you'll be able to pass that on.

Dig Deeper: How to Set Up a Sales Tracking Process

9. Create an "everyone sells" culture. "Make sure your entire team understands that everyone is really in sales, even if it's not on their business card," suggests Barbara O'Connell, CEO of WhereToFindCare.com, a company in Ypsilanti, Michigan, that helps consumers find health care providers. Your employees should be ambassadors for your company, talking up your product or service and on the look-out for potential leads wherever they go.

Dig Deeper: Turning Workers Into a Secret Sales Weapon

10. Make the tough choice. It's inevitable. You're going to have to hire a salesperson at some point, so sit down and figure out when that will be. Is there a magic revenue target that will, once hit, allow you to hire a top-notch salesperson? Or perhaps the benchmark is your number of customers, or your headcount of billable employees. Whatever it is, commit to it and start meeting in a casual way with qualified candidates.

Of course, there's another alternative. Jared Orkin, the 22-year old founder of CoupMe, a Groupon-like, deal-a-day website, was both CEO and sole salesperson at his Boston-area company, until he raised a round of seed capital and was persuaded by his new investors to replace himself as CEO. Orkin happily stepped down to focus on what he's best at and loves mostand that would be sales. Different strokes.

Dig Deeper: Getting Over Your Fear of Hiring a Salesperson

Business - Sales - Advertising and Marketing - New York City - Gist

Just a year ago, BlackBerry smartphones ruled the workplace. With their large QWERTY keypads, fast "push" e-mail, and robust security options, these sleek black handhelds were ubiquitous in business. We've all seen "crackberry" users typing furiously with their thumbs, wearing belt-clip pouches.

But no king can rule forever, as RIM — makers of BlackBerry handheld devices — is now finding out.

According to a recent Gartner report, the company's market share dropped to a 33 percent this year. Last year, they absolutely owned the smartphone market with a 52.5 percent market share in the U.S. That's a free-fall drop of nearly 20 percentage points. So what gives?

For the most part, some heavy competition — especially from Google — is the culprit. The Mountain View, California, search monolith quietly released the Android operating system in 2008. Now, two years later, Android models such as the Sprint Evo and Motorola Droid X command a 34 percent market share. (The iPhone dropped slightly to a 22 percent market share, which is a distant third place.)

Why the BlackBerry implosion?

According to Rob Enderle, a noted consumer analyst who advices tech companies on their products, the economic woes in the U.S. have changed how companies purchase smartphones.

In its heyday, RIM lined up perfectly with corporate buying habits: employees needed phones, so employers bought them a BlackBerry. Now, Enderle says employees are being asked to buy their own smartphones. And guess what? They buy what they want – the latest and greatest.

"RIM hasn't been as successful at attracting individual buyers as Apple and the Android-platform companies have. As a result, they are bleeding customers," says Enderle.

Customer Perception Problems

Recent news reports have not helped RIM. As the San Francisco Chronicle's website and Forbes.com have reported, RIM has struck deals with foreign governments to grant them access to instant messages and e-mail. These revelations hurt the perception that BlackBerry devices are highly secure. In business, that's a death knell because one e-mail slip can bring a legal discovery that closes your doors.

Enderle says BlackBerry's advertising campaign has also been poorly executed. In one ad, he says two gay men are using a BlackBerry to track their interior design business. In another, a Hispanic man tracks Internet RSS feeds for low-rider cars. The ads may have been genuinely intended to reach specific market segments; instead, they come off as trading on stereotypes. (Microsoft made similar mistakes with their infamous Kin ads, which apparently had nothing to do with smartphones and a lot to do with partying.)

Worse, Enderle says RIM has tried to position the new BlackBerry Torch as a competitor to the iPhone, when in reality it is more of a powerful messaging device and not really meant for rich multimedia experiences such as listening to music and watching movies. (See below for my review of this new do-or-die model and whether it can resist the competition.)

Changing Consumer Needs

It used to be enough to deliver messages. But, as BlackBerry's slow downward spiral indicates, consumers have moved on. Carolina Milanesi, a Gartner analyst, says the primary reason BlackBerry market share has fallen is that smartphone users are more excited about apps and touchscreens than messaging. Meanwhile, rivals like the iPhone can now connect easily to corporate e-mail servers.

Financial analysts have a mixed view of the market share decline. Matthew Thornton, a senior research analyst at Avian Securities in Boston, says RIM has healthy cash flows and a strong balance sheet, but its growth has slowed a bit. He says there are obvious technological gaps between RIM's high-end phones and competing handhelds, and that the loss of prestige could eventually lead to management turn-over, restructuring, or a buy-out. But, he cautions, those dire possibilities are at least a year away.

"We expect RIM to continue to show sequential and year on year growth for at least two to three more quarters," writes Thornton. "Their market share in global smartphones has dropped modestly in recent quarters. Their prospects for a sustainable (e.g., multi-quarter) rebound are not good based on their current product cycle relative to emerging competition from Android, iPhone, and even Windows Mobile 7, Symbian, and the MeeGo OS, all of which won't make a push until starting 4Q10."

Travis McCourt, a financial analyst with Morgan Keegan, is more bullish on RIM's outlook. He says he expects a growth rate of between 25 and 30 percent over the next two years. He points out that, while BlackBerry market share declined in the US, their international market share increased. (A New York Times feature on RIM argued that the company's global market share will eventually drop as well, since the U.S. market tends to drive trends and influence the foreign markets.)

Part of the drop, says McCourt, has to do with how major cell carriers, such as Verizon, tend to pick "hero" phones and push them strongly. Android is riding a wave of popularity, so a business owner sitting at home watching NFL pre-season thinks the Droid is the leading smartphone.

McCourt, who says RIM has a $25 billion enterprise value and strong support among shareholders, needs to focus their attention on marketing. Ads should focus on the BlackBerry business advantages. For example, he says, the company might position itself by noting that, on a BlackBerry, e-mail arrives faster, the battery lasts longer, the device can compress data on the fly, the keyboard lets you type faster, and encryption works better.

A Silver Lining?

Of course, even with the drop in market share, RIM is still in a solid second place. One reason has to do with strong customer loyalty. There are legions of BlackBerry diehards, such as Brenda L. Gleason, the president of M2 Health Care Consulting in Washington, D.C. She says her BlackBerry allows her to type faster, shows combined e-mail messages in one inbox, and offers stronger security.

Gleason also prefers "push" e-mail. Messages appear automatically on the phone without having to select a send/receive option, and she can copy and paste text between apps. (In truth, Apple introduced copy and paste in a previous iPhone version, and Android phones also support the feature.)

Similarly, Adam Kruse, a real-estate broker and business owner with Hermann London Group, says he will stick with BlackBerry devices even as they fall in and out of fashion. He sees his BlackBerry is a no-nonsense phone ideal for making basic calls and texting. His co-workers use competing phones, he says, but waste time on weather apps and social networking tools.

Not every BlackBerry user is sticking with the platform, though.

Rebecca Theim, a writer and public relations specialist with Tipitina Communications, switched to Android after seven years of using BlackBerry. She says she likes how Android offers better social networking feeds, the interface is more visually appealing, and it's easier to use.

The Torch Test

If RIM is going to rebound, the company will need to come up with a new smartphone darling. The Torch 9800, released this past week, is RIM's latest attempt to regain the hearts of the business and consumer crowd. On inspection, it suggests the company's engineers have more work to do.

The hefty 5.68-ounce device feels beefy, and not in a good way. The 3.2-inch touchscreen is much thicker than any Android phone, but there's a slide-out QWERTY keyboard so the phone stands almost six inches tall. Fortunately, RIM has solved the irritating problems with the Storm and Storm 2 models where every screen click and swipe became an awkward guessing game. Now, when you want to start your e-mail program or open a browser, the screen clicks register accurately.

On the plus side, the Torch browser — for which the phone actually gets its name — is extremely fast. In my tests, sites like ESPN.com and IGN.com pulled up in just a second or two over either Wi-Fi or 3G. The browser is also easy to use. You can quickly type up a URL, bookmark sites, and flick through open sites.

Unfortunately, while BlackBerry models are known for their spacious keypads, the Torch uses one that is just a hair too small – since the keyboard has to slide under the device.

I couldn't find any really compelling games (like Angry Birds on the iPhone) that would help make a long plane ride more bearable. I encountered some problems with the interface as well. In a few cases, I'd click an icon to move, and the phone would not let me. The touchscreen is much better than the Storm 2, but still lacks the fine sensitivity of the iPhone 4 or the Sprint HTC Evo. And, for music and movies, there is no obvious way to download either, although AT&T does provide a pay-as-you-go music streaming service.

In the end, there is something in the air when it comes to BlackBerry. It's not a black cloud, or even gray—it's a slight mist that tells me the days when the company dominated the world of business users are over. There are plenty of good business phones around, and plenty of options for business messaging. I think RIM will rebound from this latest drop in market share. But I doubt it will ever again dominate.

Apple - iPhone - BlackBerry - Microsoft - Google

Thomas Raymond & Co. was launched in 2009 in Tualatin, Ore. to fill a void in the marketplace for men's classic American footwear, which often focuses on athletic styles. Since the company is small and looking to take on larger, established footwear manufacturers and designers, company executives decided to start out with more sophisticated financial software that would manage all their processes in a single application, from purchase order through shipment and collection, CFO Jim Drozdowski tells IncTechnology.com.

Elizabeth Wasserman: What was the goal in starting Thomas Raymond last year?

Jim Drozdowski: Thomas Raymond is a holding company. It was named after the middle names of our two founders, Gregg Thomas Jackson and Chad Raymond Gombes. They are two guys who worked together at L.L. Bean and Phoenix Footwear. All of us at the company -- we now have six employees -- have a lot of experience in footwear. But Gregg and Chad got together and wanted to come up with brands to speak to 35 and older male consumer. This was someone we feel missed in the marketplace for footwear. There are plenty of athetic brands for younger kids. We first wanted to develop a casual brand and wanted to speak to the outdoors. This is for the gentleman who is an outdoor guy who can hunt bison and go fishing and then go boating and yachting in the spring. Gregg came up with the idea that Ernest Hemingway embodied this consumer. So our first collection of shoes is the Hemingway line of footwear. It's a collection of men's casual driving moccasins, loafers made of different leathers, and boat shoes.

Wasserman: What were you looking for in software when started the company?

Drozdowski: What we were looking for was something that would grow with us. We wanted to make sure it wasn't a big dollar outlay, but we were looking for something that could grow with us and was one solution -- meaning it would do purchasing all the way through collections for us. We decided on SAP Business One. We were looking for something very compatible with the big boys in marketplace. Adidas and Nike run on SAP and so do many of the large brands. Our feeling was if we were going to be acquired, let's makes sure our software makes us compatible with other brands so that there is no headache in the transition. I previously took over a company that ran on QuickBooks. A lot of things were not compatible. We feel pretty confident that if another company comes in, it will be an easier transition.

Wasserman: Were you starting an IT infrastructure from scratch?

Drozdowski: Yes, we were not using anything before. When I came in last August, my first call was to open a bank account and my second call was to get software. It was installed in August.

Wasserman: How has it enabled you to compete with bigger companies?

Drozdowski: It's given us a nice view of where we are inventory-wise, cost-wise, how much our products cost, and how we're doing on invoicing and collections. It helped us forecast sales and helped us forecast out to our sales team what is available to sell and what is not available to sell. That way, when they meet with their accounts, you know that we have this available to sell or that. It can be one pair up to a whole line. It helps us with online sales as well because it lets us interface between our Internet store and out band end and SAP system.

Wasserman: Was it difficult to get up and running?

Drozdowski: It was a pretty easy. We got support from a team in town that was wonderful. We were up and running immediately on the bookkeeping side of it, paying payroll and expenses as we went along.

Wasserman: How do you think it will help you grow?

Drozdowski: It's a very dynamic system. We're going to be able to use multiple factories and multiple customer ship-tos and multiple sales reps and multiple lines. As we grow our business it's not going to take a lot of extra work to use the additional dimensions in the system that we're not currently using.

Business - Ernest Hemingway - United States - QuickBooks - L.L.Bean

You hear from the news media how bad things are all the time. But is there any doubt that some folks will come out as winners when the economy gets back on track? Growing your business one customer at a time is a tried and true approach. Acquiring struggling competitors can be a "game-changer".Join us on Wednesday, Sept. 15 (Connecticut and New Jersey) and Thursday, Sept. 16 (New York City)as we discuss deal terms with a business acquisition expert and develop your acquisition strategy so that you are one of those winners when the dust settles.If you're deciding between an organic "one-customer-at-a-time" strategy or a "growth-through-acquisition" strategy, you'll want to hear what Sally Anne Hughes has to say. We look forward to seeing you soon.


New Jersey - New York City - Business - United States - Connecticut

By this point in the financial crisis, you've made countless cutbacks, and wrung as much productivity as you can from your organization. But how can you grow without adding large numbers of people? Scaling your business from here requires a significant change, and for many organizations, that means employing new technologies.

Technology can empower your organization, helping you improve efficiencies and even expand operations. But to use that technology well, you must balance your needs with the realities of how you do business. That means understanding not only which technology to invest in, but also how it will affect your operations and how to maximize your returns on that investment.

Ask the right questions

What does it really mean to scale your business? Today, it means much more than simply throughput. When considering a new technology, many organizations focus on the wrong questions. They want to know, "What can I do with this technology?" rather than "What can this technology really do for me?"

Today, businesses and consumers alike expect everything from new technology, namely speed, collaboration, consolidation, accuracy, and greater connections. But it's risky to think that simply plugging in a new box will do the trick. Using new technology to scale your business involves much more, primarily exploring how well it will integrate with your network, your IT components and your users.

Think automation

Whether the solution you are looking for relates to manufacturing or improving payroll efficiency, a new technology can scale your business through automation.

Consider the example of an auto manufacturing plant utilizing robots. Thanks to that technology, it no longer takes 17 people to build a car -- it may now take three. While people do monitor the technology, there is no one actually driving the screws. In this case, the technology platform improves efficiency and helps the organization meet new "green" business standards. Reducing the number of people makes for a smaller carbon footprint, with fewer resources required.

From a general business perspective, technologies can have a similar impact. Tools like enterprise resource management systems, financial systems, and customer service technologies all have a tendency to improve effectiveness and efficiency without always having to "brute force it" with more people.

Consider scaling your customer interactions, for instance. The Web has made it possible to sell without human interaction. Today, even a multi-million dollar at- home business requires no bricks and mortar. Everything can be automated, from the sales floor and collection of money, even through distribution.

You can even scale your human resource function by converting to a self-service model. Here's an example: A staffing company goes through a large HR payroll implementation, which needed to accommodate the 380 thousand people on payroll. Over a year, they undergo a major conversion that allows them to handle 800 thousand people without adding more than 1-2 percent to headcount.

Clearly, automating functions like employee background searches, enrollment in benefit plans, and payroll can allow you to scale dramatically without adding to your carbon footprint or adding headcount.

Get the most from your investment

A common mistake many organizations make is allowing the technology to choose them, rather than choosing technology to grow their business. Many select technology before they really build out their business case and consider the process re-engineering required to make the company better. Very often they buy software and then convert their processes to support the software, which can actually make things worse.

That is why before you invest in technology, build a thorough business case that looks at the total cost of ownership (including costs of hardware, software, and implementation and maintenance over time). When determining costs, remember that once you invest in a technology, it's fairly well set. Major changes or upgrades are usually not required for some time. But technology does require continual care and feeding.

After implementing the technology, you must then go back and verify that the business case met your company's internal rate of return. For example, if you projected a million dollars in savings, go back and review the business case, compare it to actual performance and show that you did as well as promised or worse. If you did worse, conduct a 360 degree review that explains what lessons were learned, and how you could do better. Such an exercise renders you more thorough, diligent and focused in terms of vetting the business case before proceeding with any kind of project.

When looking to scale your business, remember that scaling through technology means something different to every business and every network. But if you ask the right questions, budget and plan properly, your investment can pay for itself many times over. When you know your business, you'll know how it will respond to change. You'll also be better equipped to meet today's challenges and prepare for growth.

Mike Gorsage is a Partner and Technology Practice Leader for Tatum LLC. Tatum is the nation's largest executive services firm, providing financial and technology leadership nationwide.

Business - Human resources - Technology - Rate of return - Automation

Let's say your Google AdWords budget is $50,000 a year. You're competing against much larger companies with budgets several times larger. That means they can bid much more than you on the key words or phrases where you want your ads to appear. You're out of luck, right?

Not necessarily. Bidding for keywords on Google is not a straight auction. Instead, Google multiplies the top bid for each keyword or phrase by the advertiser's Quality Score, a number between 1 and 10 that reflects whether Google thinks its users will like your ad and the web page it links to. A higher Quality Score means you can outrank competitors with higher bids, and get much more for your advertising dollar. "Doubling your Quality Score means you only have to pay half as much per click," explains Frederick Vallaeys, AdWords evangelist at Google.

Oay, you're sold on the idea of raising your Quality Score. How do you do it? Here are tactics that can really help.

1. Don't run ads users won't click on. Let's just try this ad and see if anyone clicks on it. After all, since it's pay-per-click, if they don't click it costs us nothing. That may seem like good logic, but it's a big mistake. Click through rate (CTR) is one of the most important elements of Quality Score, so if an ad for your company runs and users don't click it, it can lower your Quality Score, thus costing you more to run the same ad or even other ads in future. (Google assigns Quality Scores to ad groups as well as advertising accounts, so a bad CTR can hurt you in many ways.) Constantly testing slightly different wording and picking the ads with better CTR will help you not only by bringing you more customers but also by lowering your cost per click.

2. Divide and conquer. "We used to get 2,000 keywords in one group of ads that sent everyone to the same page," says Howie Jacobson, author of Google AdWords for Dummies. "What we've learned is that it's better for both Google and for advertisers if we divide those into groups of a few words each that relate to a common desire and then send users to a dedicated landing page. For example, if I sell camera supplies, instead of grouping 'Nikon,' 'Canon,' 'point and shoot,' and 'SLR' into one ad group, I'd break it down. I'd have an ad group that related only to batteries for Canon PowerShot cameras, and someone who clicked on that ad would go to a landing page with links to those specific batteries."

"A small company can refine its budgeting and bid on very specific key phrases that a larger company might not," adds Peter Levin, manager of paid search at LSF Interactive, an online marketing company. "Small companies can use this to their advantage."

3. Get rid of keywords that aren't helping you. David Sarment, D.D.S. reports that new customers from Google increased dramatically with a few small changes to his AdWords strategy. One of these was changing the keywords his practice bid on. "I treat gum disease and I also do implant, bone grafts, and bone reconstruction surgery," he explains. "So I had two distinct campaigns, one around 'dental implants' and related terms, the other around 'periodontal' or 'gum disease.' Dental implants are a hot topic so the effect of that ad campaign was diluted. At some point, I decided to stop the dental implants campaign and focus on the gum disease side. It worked out well because there were a lot fewer ads popping up for patients interesting learning about gum disease."

For LoopFuse, a marketing automation company, better keyword performance meant avoiding keywords that fit its market, but were too general. "We have a lot of competitors in our space, but we specifically target small and mid-size businesses," says Sean Dwyer, CEO. "Bigger companies might outbid us on 'lead management' so we targeted 'lead management SMB' searches. Homing in on our market has been essential to our AdWord success."

4. Add content to your website and landing page. "Having useful content is one of the big things that will help your Quality Score," Vallaeys says. "We warn people not to repurpose content from other sites. We want unique content, a variety of content, and frequently updated content. We believe this leads to a better user experience."

To Jacobson, all this adds up to one piece of advice. "I tell all my clients to get a blog," he says. "There's no business that can't position itself as a source of credible information. It doesn't matter whether you're selling office supplies or microsurgery equipment. People use Google because they don't know what to get yet and are seeking information. So positioning yourself as expert is great for your Quality Score, and it's great for your customers who are usually looking for someone to trust."

5. Give users choices. You may want your landing page to urge users toward a strong call to action, such as "Click here to learn more about our product" or "Sign up for our free e-newsletter." But Google wants users to have a wide array of choices, and having a menu of navigation options on your landing page will improve your Quality Score.

"If users go to a landing page, they usually want more information," Vallaeys says. "They may want to explore the site, and if they can't they become frustrated. That will be reflected in a poorer landing page Quality Score."

6. Tell about yourself. Does your site have prominent links to an "about us" (or "company") section? And does it offer a privacy policy anyplace users are asked to enter information such as their e-mail addresses? If the answer to either question is no, your Quality Score will suffer. "We want our advertisers to offer transparency," Vallaeys explains. "And if users are going to give you their data, we prefer to see a good privacy policy and no-spam policy in place."

7. Make sure your pages load quickly. "If a page loads too slowly, that's not a great user experience," Vallaeys says. "That's one specific area we tell advertisers to look at, and if your landing page is loading slowly, put up a bigger server, change hosting companies, or change the graphics on the page."

"Site up time is critical," adds Kenneth Wisnefski, founder and CEO of online marketing firm WebiMax. "Even small down times that are otherwise unnoticeable are picked up by Google's automatic quality checks. Obviously, if Google checks a landing page and it's down, by definition it's not relevant and there's a high probability of a Quality Score penalty."

To keep this from happening to you, he advises, "Consider using a site monitoring service. And if necessary, changing to a different provider."

Quality Score - Google - Google AdWords - AdWords - Advertising

Don't blame me this time for blasting Apple. There's a long line of tech writers, bloggers and, most importantly, consumers themselves with nothing but scorched earth comments about Apple's new social networking service called "Ping".

What a long few days it has been since Steve Jobs took the stage in San Francisco showing us Ping for the first time with all of us breathlessly watching it streamed live.

But here we are less than a week later and while Apple puts out happy press releases announcing its first one million Ping users in less than 48 hours (you have to wonder if its the same one million that bought an iPhone 4 and a iPad in those first days after launch); the masses are clearly not happy.

Some of the big complaints:

1. Spam and phishing scams. Apparantly, Apple didn't launch with much in the way of security like, oh say, filtering messages with dubious links and malicious messages promising free iPhones. The result is a hot mess.

2. iTunes 10, itself: home of Ping. In a word: it sucks. By all accounts its just clunky, hard to navigate and boots up about as fast as Windows.

3. Ping is anti-social. It doesn't sync up with anything - Facebook, your contacts, your music library. Some "social" network, eh?

But don't take my word for it.

Here are some choice quotes from other writers, note user comments on the links as well:

"The network is just another way to follow Lady GaGa."- Pete Cashmore, special to CNN"Adding a social networking interface, on top of all of iTunes’ other functions, is like grafting another limb to the forehead of an octopus. It’s just too much."- Wade Roush, Xconomy, "The Leaning Tower of Ping: How iTunes could be Apple's Undoing""I would have expected more from Apple with this first attempt at building a community around iTunes. It's not all bad, but if Ping doesn't improve soon this music-oriented social network will bomb faster than an American Idol wannabe."- Ian Paul, PC World, "Ping on iTunes: Not So Hot"""A few days ago, Apple released a social network. Gee, how bloody creative of them and they used to be so cool. There are enough social networks, too many actually."- Swizec, "Apple's Ping is a Big Pile of Steaming Dung""Even Ping's ace in the hole, that it has access to all the information about music listening habits from every iTunes users, seems to have been botched. Instead of broadcasting to the world what music you, you know, actually like best and listen to, it only tells people what you bought or rated at the iTunes store."- David Adams, OSNews, "Ping: Why Bother?""Simply put; Ping lacks spam and URL filtering"- Larry Dignan, ZDNet, "Apple launches iTunes Ping: forgets the spam filtering"

As always, you are welcome to follow me on Twitter @oricchio (unless of course you want me to fill out a survey and promise me a free iPhone).

Apple - Steve Job - iTunes - Facebook - Twitter

To celebrate Labor Day, we compiled some of entrepreneur Norm Brodsky's advice on managing a harmonious workforce. Tip No. 1: Avoid hiring people who remind you of yourself. Entrepreneurs don't make good employees," he explains. "What's more, they are often crummy managers. Instead, look for steadier hands who have worked in organizations as large or larger than your own.

At a time when many employers are sending subtle (and not so subtle) signals to workers to cut back on customer service, you should rally your employees to go the extra mile. Not only will your customers love it, but you will also instill a sense of confidence and self esteem in your workforce.

Brodsky is a vocal critic of sales commissions because he believes that they create factions, by pitting the financial self interest of salespeople against the needs of operations and accounting. "Because of the role they play and the difficulty of the work they do, salespeople will always earn more than most other people," Brodsky says. "But I want all of my employees to be part of the same compensation system."

Sharing equity is supposed to be a great way to attract talent to your small company, but too often it leads to strife and legal wrangling. Brodsky says you should instead offer workers above-market salaries or generous health benefits. Anyone who hesitates to accept this probably isnt someone you want on your team anyway. Remember, Brodsky says, it's easy to give away part of your company but really hard to get it back.

Though layoffs are sometimes necessary, they should be looked at as a last resort. That's because job cuts can do serious long-term damage to a companys culture and can cause you to miss out on growth opportunities in the future. Think first about freezing salaries, eliminating perks, not replacing old equipment, and so on," Brodsky says. "Your employees will understand and support you if you're trying to save jobs."

Labor Day - Customer service - Employment - Business - No.1

Each day, Inc.'s reporters scour the Web for the most important and interesting news to entrepreneurs. Here's what we found today:

Getting serious about in-bar promotions. Lovely gals selling candy-colored shots to drunk guys – sounds easy as pie, right? Well, it turns out there's a little more to the formula than meets the eye. Today the Wall Street Journal profiles a service that outsources these so-called "shot girls" to trendy Manhattan bars and clubs. Founded by a pair of former J.P. Morgan and Bear Stearns analysts, Auld D'Leo Inc. trains its 25-person staff in the 10 best practices of the trade, which are distributed to each new waitress-slash-promotions specialist on her first day of work. Unsurprisingly, the list includes practices like being as friendly, personable, upbeat as possible, and not spending too much time with a single patron or group of patrons. Following the practices, these mostly college-educated women rake in between $300 and $600 a night. And if all else fails they can get a little, well, creative. One woman uses her large hands as a secret weapon, coaxing guys into wagering a round of drinks over whose hands are bigger. Typically the guys take the bet, and buy the shots.

Private sector jobs up, overall numbers down. In its August report on employment, the government announced that the private sector added 67,000 jobs last month, about 26,000 more than was forecasted, The New York Times reported. At the same time, the overall economy lost another 54,000 jobs, with the unemployment rate rising to 9.6 percent from 9.5 percent. The government attributed the job losses to terminated Census-related temporary positions and the paper said the results were still better than expected. But as former Inc. reporter, and current Huffington Post associate business editor Ryan McCarthy tweeted: "What % of Americans actually care whether the jobs numbers are 'better [or worse] than expected'"?

Forget cockroaches. Forget fruit flies. This isn't your typical office infestation, but it might just be the infestation of the future. Yes, Google has bedbugs. Infestation by the nocturnal, blood-sucking insects isn't as of late an uncommon problem for New York retail spaces - like Hollister, Abercrombie & Fitch, and BuyBaby. That doesn't mean it isn't gross. Meanwhile, the New York Observer is already trying to turn Google's bug problem into a whodunit. Start your bedbug conspiracy theory engines, because this problem for businesses isn't going away anytime soon.

How everyone benefits from more women in technology. Venturebeat has a piece weighing in on the question of why there aren't more women in tech that takes a refreshingly practical approach to the issue, giving advice to members of both genders on how to boost the gender diversity and why they should bother. The author, herself a woman and tech journalist, counsels men that female employees and co-founders are a competitive edge that concretely bups financial performance. For women, she suggests making the most of the fact that they aren't insiders. She cites Anita Roddick of The Body Shop as a favorite female entrepreneur for "pioneer[ing] notions like environmentalism and fair trade in business long before they were fashionable or profitable." Check out the top woman building successful companies in tech and other fields on the Inc. 500.

China gets the Google treatment. The former head of Google's Chinese outpost, Kai-Fu Lee, is investing in 12 growing businesses in China through an incubator he founded called Innovation Works. According to BusinessWeek, Lee's interest in Chinese innovation is part of a larger trend that sees more investors turning their attention East. One University of San Francisco entrepreneurship professor tells BusinessWeek, "While confidence in Silicon Valley has been declining among VCs, there's more money flowing to China venture funds." In Lee's opinion, because China's angel investor community is virtually "nonexistant," it's up to well-funded incubators like Innovation Works to encourage Chinese entrepreneurs to grow. For more information on doing business in China, check out our Beijing city page.

Nine tips to being a better boss. Sometimes the best thing a boss can do is to get out of the way and let their employees do what they do best. With that in mind, the American Express OPEN Forum has a list of nine things a boss can do to remove those stumbling blocks that keep employees from reaching their potential. Excerpted from the book Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best...and Learn from the Worst, the post extolls the virtues of simplification. Among the key suggestions is to, "List all the performance metrics you use. Pick the three most important. Do you really need the rest?" (As long as you are on a self-improvement kick, here's our list of 6 ways to be a better CEO.)

Tips for collecting on late payments. The first rule of making sure late payments don't spoil your cash flow is to act quickly, according to a post on BusinessWeek. The odds that the delinquents will cough up your cash drop drastically over time from an 81 percent payback rate at two months, to 52 percent at six months, and less than 25 percent after a year. So don't be shy about demanding what you're owed and doing it fast. For four more tips on coaxing money from laggard customers see the rest of the article.

Silicon Valley, vacation destination? Well, the New York Times seems to think so. The former agricultural cradle that swaddles Apple, Google, Intel, and countless start-ups is featured in this week's "36 Hours In..." feature. What's hip to do on a vacation to programmer paradise? Rub elbows with venture capitalists at Rosewood Sand Hill hotel in Menlo Park, stake out the Googleplex from Shoreline Boulevard, or take an Airship tour to spy on Larry Ellison's "23-acre Japanese-style compound." The piece also urges visitors to stop by the bar where an Apple software engineer lost an iPhone 4 prototype last April. And don't forget to stay in the Avatar Hotel and visit the Computer History Museum! Oh, man, where are those shot girls when you need them?

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Apple - Kai-Fu Lee - New York Times - IPhone - Abercrombie & Fitch

If theres such a thing as a socialite in the start-up community, Chris McCann, the co-founder of Startup Digest, would be it.

A little more than a year ago, he arrived in Silicon Valley, fresh out of college at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, where he graduated with an entrepreneurship degree (a degree, of course, that he helped develop). Knowing few people in the Bay Area, McCann started hitting the start-up event circuit and networking with Silicon Valleys finest. Some events were useful. Some, not so much. To keep track of each one, McCann logged his experiences in a journal of sorts, which he emailed to a group of 22 friends back in November.

Since then, what started as an informal email chain has grown into a weekly newsletter with more than 64,000 subscribers in 51 cities, from Houston to Tokyo. Startup Digest, as its now called, has representatives around the world, who seek out the most important events for entrepreneurs and recommend them to subscribers. Though McCanns a little too busy these days to attend every lecture and meetup in and around Palo Alto, where the companys based, he recently spoke with Inc. reporter Issie Lapowsky about Startup Digests growth and the crucial need it fills for entrepreneurs.

When did you realize you might be able to turn your networking skills into a service for other people?

I got to know my co-founder Brendan McManus about three years ago when he was working on a start-up called UpDown. I was one of the early users of it. We both independently moved up the Bay Area, and he randomly Facebook messaged me and was like, Im in Silicon Valley, do you know any place to stay? Coincidentally, I was being kicked out of the sublet I was in, so we came together to look for a house. What I loved about him was when we moved in together it was like 9 oclock at night and he was like, Well? What are we going to work on? I was like this is awesome. So we just tried a whole bunch of ideas out, and Startup Digest was one of those things.

Howd you get the word out about it?

The thing with the Digest is, I was actually going to the events I was featuring. At the event, Id always ask the organizers if theyd let me talk for a minute afterward to tell people about Startup Digest. So I remember the first time, I gave a little thing about it, and we originally didnt have a website. The only way you could sign up was you had to either email me or Twitter me, and that was the only way I could put you on the list. The first time I said it at an event, I had 20-30 people come up to me asking to be on the list. Silicon Valleys a very small place, so word spread quickly.

Now that you have newsletters going out all over the world, how do you maintain quality control?

We have curators in each city. Most of them are startup entrepreneurs themselves. Some of them are investors in startups, and some of them have cashed out of their startup, but they have to be somewhere along that chain. We pre-screen people, and then theyre the ones who pick the events in their city. And its not like we pick specific cities and try to find someone there. People come to us and say, 'Im a founder in Seattle, and I heard about you guys. I really want to do it here.' We have a little form where they can apply on the website, then we do a quick call with them to make sure theyre doing it for the right reasons and get to know them a little bit, and then we have an internal wiki to set them up.

Were you surprised by anyone who contacted you?

Actually, one of our fastest-growing cities was Capetown, South Africa. This guy has a company called Personera, which is really freaking cool. He heard about us because he had an investor in San Francisco, and he was like, 'Hey we need something like this in Capetown.' He just applied through the online form, just like anybody else, and he went from like 1 to 81 members in a week or two. Now, I think its at almost 1,000 people signed up.

What's the cost of running a newsletter on this scale?

The start-up costs were basically nothing. We started with Gmail to send the emails and Excell to manage the list. All we had was the website cost, which was, all in all, less than $100. Now the costs to operate are less than $1,000 a month. We're spending $500 a month on emails, then the rest on hosting, travel, events, etc. The biggest cost is Brendan and my living cost. We make the majority of our money through advertorial emails and sponsorship.

Which events get the most attention?

The ones that are always the most popular are private events, the ones you have to apply to get into. We usually feature the event and say, 'Heres how you can get in touch with the people.' Those do really well. Also, launch parties do really well. We feature events from huge conferences all the way down to really small meetups, and you find that the smaller meetups that are usually more technical and skill-focused, actually perform surprisingly well.

You guys host your own events, too, right?

We only do one event, and its more fun and silly for our subscribers. It's called Startup Waffles. Its free waffles, and whenever we travel, we do one for our subscribers, and we do it once a month in San Francisco.

Do you have anything new in the works?

At least for now, its all event listings. The Silicon Valley one is still the biggest of all the cities, and were transitioning that one slowly into more of a daily newsletter, sort of like Daily Candy, because people have been demanding more content from us.

Why do you think Startup Digest has become so popular so quickly?

As much as I use Facebook, Twitter and all that stuff thats out there, theres nothing thats going to replace person-to-person interaction. You go and meet an investor or customer face-to-face, and youre excited about it. You make a stronger connection really quickly. Then its a lot easier to follow up on these other channels, but that person-to-person feeling can never be replaced.

Silicon Valley - Startup Digest - Facebook - Twitter - San Francisco Bay Area

How much money are you planning to pull out of your company this year?

If you own your business outright, the decision is yours, but if you have one or more partners, things can get a little dicey, says Jordan Dolgin.

Dolgin is a Toronto-based lawyer who specializes in business law and has seen many business partners fall out. In one example he recounted to me, two partners had vastly different ideas about how much money they wanted to take out of their thriving business. One partner had a healthy appetite for the finer things in life and wanted to claw out most of the cash to fund his ever-growing lifestyle. The other wanted to leave most of the cash in the business to fund new projects and provide a safety net. Their difference of opinion escalated into an all-out war. They stopped talking and eventually couldn’t even be in the same room together.

Finally, the more conservative partner asked their banker to change their account so that both partners had to sign all company checks. This move caused the bank to lose confidence in the business, and their credit line was pulled until the partners could work out their differences.

Like with all marriages, it’s better to size up your partner before you commit. Here are three ways to evaluate your potential business partner:

1. Go to lunch

Watch how your potential partner treats your server, and you will have a good idea of how he or she will treat your employees.

2. Compare your numbers

Ask your potential partner trade-off questions to evaluate their need for financial reward with their lifestyle aspirations. Once the business gets going and the profits start rolling in, how much money do you need to be happy, and at what point is an extra week’s vacation more important than the next $10,000 in personal compensation?

3. Look in the parking lot

Compare your potential partner’s current spending habits to yours. In particular, get a look at the car he or she drives. A car is the ultimate expression of the image we want to display to the world. If your potential partner is driving a Porsche, and you’ve got a sensible sedan, consider this a reliable bellwether of problems to come.

John Warrillow is a writer, speaker and angel investor in a number of start-up companies. He writes a blog about building a sellable company at http://www.BuiltToSell.com/blog. You can also follow him on Twitter at @JohnWarrillow.

Business - Angel investor - Startup company - Twitter - Law