I was invited recently by serial entrepreneur/business columnist John Warrillow to review a complimentary copy of his new book “Built To Sell: Turn Your Business Into One You Can Sell”. While I was intrigued to read his book because of its subject matter, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Warrillow chose to use a fictional story in which to outline the steps one needs to take to transform your business into a sellable one. It was also interesting to note how many of the ideas shared in this book can also be used to help business owners gain more freedom from some of the daily operations of running a company, even if they have no interest in selling their business.

“Built To Sell” tells the fictional story of Alex Stapleton, the owner of a small marketing agency. At the start of the book, we find Alex jumping through hoops to cater to the whims of his agency’s biggest client, getting news that his best designer is leaving the firm, and once again trying to figure out how he was going to pay for all his bills thanks to an unsteady cash flow from his customers. After putting eight years of his time and effort into his business, Alex finds that it hasn’t lived up to the vision he had for what he’d gain from being his own boss and so he decides to sell his business and move on.

Not knowing how exactly to go about doing this, Alex approaches his friend Ted Gordon, an entrepreneur who had successfully sold a number of his businesses, for advice on how to sell his agency. After listening to Alex describe both his business and asking him questions about his current operations, Click here to continue reading »”Looking To Sell Your Business? Read “Built To Sell” First”

The following is another guest post by my friend John Haydon.  As he works primarily with non-profits, I asked him if he could share his insights on how these organizations can approach marketing in social media outlets as I think it would be of use to both entrepreneurs and other for-profit businesses.

We all know that Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are free platforms that marketers can use. But what’s not free is the investment in strategy and the staff time using the tools. Also, social media is often an additional cost, and not meant as a replacement channel within the overall marketing mix. For example, I would never recommend that a nonprofit should replace their direct mail marketing with social media. So the net costs of social media generally increase the overall marketing spend.

However, there are at least five cost-saving benefits that social media can create:

1. Permanent Sales Pitch
Emails written to customers answering the most common questions could be repurposed into blog posts, or demonstrations of your product on YouTube (bonus points if you can make it fun and entertaining). This could lower customer service costs spent and demonstrate your expertise to potential clients.

2. Improve search
Using a blog to answer the most pressing questions about your service or industry helps to improve SEO. Especially if no one has answered that question. The cost savings is found when you can dial down paid online ads when your appearance in search engine result pages (SERPs) hits a certain point.

3. Word Of Mouth
Getting people to talk about your company to their friends has to do with your offering (which better kick ass, by the way). Facebook is now the sharing beast. The cost savings is found in warmer leads that cost less to convert.

4. Volunteer Sales People
Social media allows you to connect with your biggest fans on their terms. Whether it’s on Facebook or in a private online community, companies that treat their cultists like gold eventually see a percent of them blogging or tweeting about their products. The cost savings is found in zero payroll costs, and a higher conversion rate in trusted third-party endorsements.

5. Market Research
Listening to how your current customers are talking about you in forums, on blogs, on Twitter, can be valuable research. This can be used to improve the product and how you talk with your customers. The cost savings is found in dialing down traditional methods of market research, which can be expensive.

What do you think? What ways have you realized a cost savings with social media marketing?

John Haydon writes about social media marketing for nonprofits.