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6 Branding Approaches They Forgot to Teach You in Business School

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:00:00 GMT

Do you have all the basics of branding in place, but you are still struggling to create even a dent in your competitor’s market share?

Most companies don’t get branding… and for the ones that do, it’s often not enough. But if you don’t figure out how to climb out of the clutter and ahead of your competition, your company will fail.

So what can you do? Study the following six companies and the branding lessons they learned as they overcame the obstacles in their markets.

Lesson #1: Start with why

Too often companies start their branding journey by building a product they hope will change people’s lives. They’ve spent thousands of hours in research and development on an idea, but when they ship, the product flops.

Let’s look at Apple to learn why that is. Instead of the typical what-how-why advertising message, Apple has always promoted the why first. They’ve promoted the reason behind why they exist. You can imagine them saying this: “Apple exists to challenge the status quo. We emphasize beautiful design. And we make computer devices.”

That’s totally different than if they said, “Apple makes computer devices. They are beautifully designed. We exist to challenge the status quo.”

One starts with the why…the other one ends with the why. This is one of the reasons that Apple is innovative year-after-year and is one of the biggest companies in the world.

In fact, they’ve been trading places as “world’s biggest company” with Exxon for the last several months.

Apple established a movement based on their why and created a following. They enhance the deal by creating beautiful and useful products… so sales rush in year after year.

The lesson is that when everyone involved… from the founder all the way down to the customer… knows exactly why your company exists, then you create a meaningful way for people to see your brand, instead of just another company wanting to make millions.

So, what is your company’s why?

Lesson #2: Never forget the past

In today’s startup economy, most companies don’t have a lot of history since they are younger than four years or so. But if you’re company is only ten years old, it’s dangerous to forget your past when you are planning for the future.

Let me show you what I mean.

The company Blinds.com tries to stay rooted to their history in a number of ways:

They hung streets signs from the ceiling with the names of the city/street of all their offices. This even includes the addresses of companies they’ve bought.
They named one of their meeting rooms “Laura” since the business started as a brick-and-mortar business called “Laura’s.”
They named another meeting room after their first website they started back in 1996: NoBrainerBlinds.com.
They named yet another meeting room after their first real location. That meeting room is called “The Alley.”
They displayed all of the articles written about the company during it’s 16 years of being in business.

If you are part of a company with history it’s important you understand that history and communicate it to all of your employees.

And don’t forget, that foundation includes the why behind your history—it reflects who you are. Neglect to communicate your history and you threaten to weaken a powerful tool to strengthen your brand.

Lesson #3: Create your own market

Jumping into an existing market can be near-impossible. If it’s a competitive or shrinking market you may never succeed. If you truly want to succeed, you need to create your own market.

Way back when e-readers were nothing but a fuzzy concept, Amazon jumped into the market giving early adopters something to play with:

A lot of people felt like they were stupid for taking such a risky move, but they aren’t saying that now with the rise of the e-reader.

And even though the Kindle Fire didn’t turn out to be as great as people hoped and publishers and libraries continue to give Amazon trouble about their privacy and pricing policies, there is no doubt that Amazon… because they created their own market… will dominate it.

What’s the lesson for you? Look for markets like you were a value investor… find markets that are under-valued but have promising growth.

Lesson #4: Rebrand to avoid confusion

When some companies branch out into two or more business lines instead of one, they often run into problems. The problem arises when their name doesn’t fit the new line of business.

This is kind of what happened to Formspring, a company that launched a popular social media product that attracted a different user base than its form-building product that is more geared to businesses.

It was easy to cause confusion between the two products so the company decided to re-brand itself. That’s not an easy task since the former name was pretty popular among the costumers.

What the company decided to do was create an infographics that taught users how to create the perfect landing page with their new brand.

The key to success was that they made something that educated their customer. In the end, more than 100,000 people shared the infographics through StumbleUpon in the last year.

What can you learn from this lesson? Try to make your products as distinct from each other as possible. And if you do end up with brand confusion, don’t be afraid to re-brand.

Lesson #5: Create an awesome user experience

Most products will be so similar to each other that you need to figure out a way to make them very different. And one of the easiest and less-expensive ways to do that is by creating an awesome user experience. It doesn’t matter if you are selling mopeds or haircuts, you need to make your customers feel like every interaction with you is what makes you different.

Look at the iPhone and how it entered into a crowded market. Cell phones were all basically the same before Apple entered the market. Because Apple’s why is built around “challenging the status quo” they created a user experience that absolutely blew away the competition.

This all started with the iPod. Apple floated a minimum viable product out into the market to see how it would be responded to. People went crazy over the iPod so Apple figured that the iPhone, which would cost more to create, wouldn’t be such a gamble. They were right.

How can you create an awesome user experience? Start by looking at the customers of your competitor and see what they is missing from their experience. And the nice thing about user experience is you can go after big competitors without having their deep pockets.

Lesson #6: Stay edgy

You would never think that a 216-year old whiskey company would try to go after the women’s market, but that’s exactly what Jim Beam did.

The company wants to get more nimble and act like a start-up rather than a huge company. The key to making that change was looking into a market that most of their competitors were neglecting.

What was that market? It was women. Most of the big spirits companies didn’t give any attention to women, even with products like vodka where women made up half of the market. The thinking was to advertise to the men and the women will follow. In order to stay edgy, Jim Beam decided to treat them as a profitable market.

What the company ended up doing was adding more brands to their product lines, including a margarita variety called Bethenny Frankel’s Skinnygirl Cocktails that’s a number one selling brand.

That isn’t exactly what you would think a company with a brand like Jim Beam would do, is it? But it’s helping them to stay edgy, and more importantly, very profitable.

The lesson is that Beam discovered what the customer wanted and gave it to them. In this case, it was flavor and lower-alcohol content.

Conclusion

Sometimes just knowing the basics of branding isn’t enough to build a powerhouse brand… you need to look outside the box, take some risks and try something new like companies such as Jim Beam and Amazon did.

Other times it’s re-inventing yourself like Formspring or using your history to motivate you to greater heights as it did for Blinds.com.

Can you share any branding approaches that are unconventional but have proven to be very successful?

20-Jan-12 3:00 PM

6 Business Lessons You Can Learn from the Rise of Dropbox

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 07:15:00 GMT

6 Business Lessons You Can Learn from the Rise of Dropbox

by Neil Patel

You can’t go very far without running into Drew Houston’s company Dropbox. It considered one of the hottest tech companies and its rise since 2006 can teach you a lot about marketing and business.

Let’s take a look at six lessons you can learn from the rise of Dropbox.

Lesson #1: Create a profitable model

This seems obvious, but in a world where people are used to getting most things free…running a profitable business isn’t always easy. Just ask Twitter who is still trying to figure out how to make money. Google figured it out, Facebook is on their way and Dropbox nailed it.

Dropbox gives away 2 gigs of storage space. However, enough people are blowing through that storage amount and signing up for monthly subscriptions. For 50 gigs of storage space you can pay $10 a month. If you want 100 gigs of space, then it’s $20 a month.

Dropbox has over 50 million users and a new user is being added every second…but only 4% of those users pay. Yet, because the number of people exceeding their 2 gigs is always growing, Dropbox could go through 2012 without adding a new user and still be profitable.

Takeaway: The earlier you can figure out how you are going to make money the better. Is it through advertising? Subscription model? Product sales? Service fees?

Lesson #2: Being smart isn’t enough to run a big company

Before Dropbox, Drew Houston liked his lifestyle of just “him and the code.” But during his years at college Daniel Goleman’s book Emotional Intelligence convinced him that you need more than intelligence and a degree to run a big company.

Drew then started to spend his time reading business books, learning how to be a CEO. He then volunteered to lead two organizations at college that amounted to a crash course in project management and getting people to do stuff.

Takeaway: Learn how to be a leader by reading books on business leadership, salesmanship and management. Seek out mentors who ran or are running successful businesses. Ask them to help you grow as a leader. Take some classes or seminars on management and leadership at a local college. And then hustle harder than everyone else.

Lesson #3: Answer a frustrating problem

The reason that Dropbox has experienced such explosive growth is that it’s solved the problem of data being spread across multiple devices like phones, tablets and computers. And that problem happens to affect a lot of people.

Here’s how they fixed it.

Download the Dropbox app, store your files in it and you can access all of your files no matter what device you are using. And if you make a change to a file in one location, that file is updated across all devices. You can even invite others to view these files, making the sharing of huge files easy.

The value is so obvious and simple it’s genius.

Takeaway: Dropbox’s explosive growth is due to their fixing a problem that a giant audience is experiencing. The larger the audience, the easier it will be to grow. Look for opportunities that impact a massive consumer group and present a meaningful solution.

Lesson #4: Make people aware of the problem they don’t know they have

The problem that Dropbox solves, however, isn’t exactly intuitive. In other words, people don’t know that they need a central location to store all their files so they can access them from any device.

This means people aren’t exactly searching for a solution. So Drew and his team had to figure out a way to increase adoption of the product.

One way they tried to advertise was Houston’s co-founder, Ferdowsi, insisted that the home page be nothing but a video telling a simple story of a stick figure losing his stuff and travelling to Africa. People understood the solution Dropbox offered immediately.

The other thing they did was turn their customer base into a sales force. Dropbox told customers that they would give them 250 MB of storage for every referral. The company still gets about 25% of its customers this way.

Takeaway: Use social media, storytelling and your customer base to get the word out about your product. Just because you built it does not mean that the people will come. You have to let them know in a clear, concise and compelling way the problem your customer has and how you are fixing it.

Lesson #5: Stay lean

In the early stages of the company both Houston and Ferdowsi were the sole employees. They did nothing but code day and night, working with contractors on design and development, but never hiring any full-time employees until they got their first injection of VC money of $1.2 million dollars.

In 2008, only after 2 years of starting the company, Dropbox had only 9 employees and 200,000 customers. But this lean mentality allowed them to sail through the economic collapse. By 2010, the number of users jumped tenfold while they only added 2 more employees. Today they have about 70 employees and over 50 million users.

Takeaway: Resist growing too big too fast. Keep salaries low, expenses at a minimum and hire temporary workers to help you stock away cash back into the company. This way you can invest in a solid foundation that can sustain a market meltdown.

Lesson #6: Spend more money staying front and center

The competition surrounding Dropbox is stiff. Not only are big players like Google, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft interested in the cloud storage market, but smaller players are popping up all the time.

Their biggest threat is Apple’s iCloud with its network of millions of people who own iPhones, Macs and iPads. Google is threatening, too, with a rumored product that could be very effective with the 185 million plus Android phones out there.

How is Dropbox going to handle this competition?

They have to spend an enormous amount of money remaining in the public’s eye. Houston is also spending his time inking deals with phone companies to make Dropbox exclusive cloud storage provider. He is also working with PC and television makers to get exclusive deals with them, too.

Takeaway: Work to keep your company in the public’s eye. Use social media, publicity stunts, marketing dollars, partnerships with big brands and good-old advertising.

Conclusion

Odds are you are not likely to be the next Dropbox. But that doesn’t mean you can’t imitate the things the company has done to achieve the sort of success they know today. Because if you do so, it will increase your odds of succeeding.

So what other business lessons can you learn from the rise of Dropbox?

12-Jan-12 1:15 AM

11 Business Lessons Steve Jobs Taught Me

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 20:00:00 GMT

by Neil Patel on October 6, 2011

As you’ve probably already heard, Steve Jobs passed away yesterday. He will be remembered as one of the greatest visionaries ever. What he did for the technological as well as entrepreneurial world, will never be forgotten.

Although I’m young and haven’t been following Steve Jobs’ career as intently as others, he has taught me a lot about business in the last 5 years. Here are 11 things I’ll never forget that Steve Jobs taught me:

People Matter, Not Features

Everything Jobs built made life easier for you. It was rare to ever hear him babbling about features he created, instead he focused on how these products made life easier for others.

For example, the iPhone enabled you to talk on your phone, watch movies, record movies, and listen to music. As simple as that may sound, without an iPhone you may have to had to carry around a cell phone, mp3 player, and a video recorder. Because of him your pockets are much lighter.

He taught myself, along with many others to not focus on just adding features or creating products. First and foremost, you need to focus on solving problems that people are experiencing. If you can do that, you’ll stay ahead of the curve.

There’s Nothing Wrong With Pre-Selling

Most companies launch products and then sell them. Jobs didn’t do that with Apple. He let the public know what he was going to sell them, how it solved their problems, and that they could pre-order the product online.

You can do the same thing. Don’t wait for your product or service to be released. Start selling it now! The money you earn today will help cover your costs and it will help solve any cash flow issues you may encounter during distribution.

Keep it Simple, Silly

I switched from a PC to a Mac because Macs are much easier to use. Or at least they are for my dad and 1-year-old nephew. Every Apple product I bought during Steve’s tenure was simple to use.

He also created cool looking devices, but above all else his products were simple to use. For example, the iPad was the first device I was ever able to give my dad that required little to no instruction. There are no shut down or start options, you just click on applications and start using them.

If you want more applications, you just go to the App Store and download them.

Don’t try to make your solutions complicated. Keep it simple… even if that means you have to strip off the bells and whistles. If you aren’t creating usable solutions, it will be harder to gain traction.

Think BIG!

If you are in business, you are there to make money. If not, you shouldn’t be an entrepreneur. If you are going to create a business, create one that changes the world.

Apple isn’t just a technology company, Steve Jobs changed the world! His products are used all around the world and by everyone. This is why Apple is the largest company in the world.

You won’t be able to create a big company unless you solve big problems. Although you can make a nice living off of conquering a small niche, you wont make billions doing it.

Focus, Focus and Focus Some Morre

When you look at Apple’s website, it seems like they have a lot of products, right? Well, for being a hundred billion dollar company, they actually don’t.

Jobs was smart, he always focused his energy on a few big products instead of trying to create thousands of small ones. In other words, he went for big wins instead of looking to hit singles and doubles.

With your business you shouldn’t try to do multiple things. Just focus your time and energy on one product or service. As long as your core business continues to grow, you shouldn’t do anything else. The moment your growth slows down and flattens, that’s when you should expand.

Create an Ecosystem

I never really understood the power of creating a platform until the iPhone was released. When the phenomenon hit the market and companies started to create applications, Apple grew to have a huge ecosystem.

Not only were they selling their products, other companies started to build products on the Apple platform and their customers were encouraged to buy and use Apple products.

By this point Apple didn’t have to sell their products, other companies were doing it for them.

Steve Jobs created an ecosystem and he was able to do it around Apple products. If you want to grow a brilliant idea, you have to create an ecosystem for that idea to flourish.

There’s Always Room for Innovation

The iPod wasn’t the first mp3 player. There were 100s of others that were already out before Apple released the iPod. That didn’t discourage Jobs from entering the space…he just one upped everyone by creating a better product.

These days if you are looking to buy a music player, the first thing comes to your mind is the iPod, right? And what’s the second brand that comes to your mind?

Ummmmm…

That’s right, they demolished all of their competitors. The only other device that I can think of is the Zune, which kind of sucks.

Don’t be afraid to enter a saturated market… you just have to be willing to stir things up. If you can innovate, you will win. If you decide to create another me too company, expect to be crushed.

Be Passionate

Did you know that Steve Jobs had a salary of $1 a year? That’s right, he didn’t care for money and he stated it publicly. He cared about the company, their products, and changing peoples’ lives.

If you love what you are doing, you are going to work harder and be more likely to succeed. Heck, Jobs even worked hard when he was sick… that’s how much he loved what he was doing.

Don’t just do things for the money, do things because you love what you are doing. You aren’t going to live forever, so enjoy your life while you can.

Never Lose Your Investors Money

Although Steve Jobs wasn’t the CEO throughout all of Apple’s history, he always took care of the company. He came back, and turned the company around. In other words, he grew shareholder money and took care of his investors.

As I stated earlier, Apple is the biggest company in the world! It’s very difficult to create a decent size company without taking money from investors… so make sure you take care of them. And if you do so, they’ll always take care of you.

Another great leader who also has a very similar rule is Warren Buffett. If you can take care of the people who are feeding you, they’ll constantly be willing to reciprocate.

You’re Nothing Without Your Team

Apple has a ton of benefits: from on-site fitness centers to tuition assistance, they even have cafeterias with organic food. Why did they do all of this? To take care of their employees.

A big part of being a good leader is realizing that you have to have a good team. It’s impossible to do everything yourself. If you don’t take care of your employees and show your appreciation, you’ll quickly lose them.

If you take care of your employees they’ll put their blood, sweat and tears into your company.

Don’t Forget About Your Friends and Family

As an entrepreneur when you work so hard for so many years, you tend to forget about your friends and family. All you do is live, sleep and breathe business.

At the end of the day, there is nothing wrong with that, but you also have to spend time with your friends and family. Money will always be there, but your friends and family won’t.

When Steve Jobs got sick, he left Apple to spend his final moments with his friends and family. He knew what was important to him. You too need to figure out what’s important to you no matter how much time your business or job takes from your life, don’t forget about what’s important.

Conclusion

It’s tragic that Steve Jobs passed away during his prime. He was a great entrepreneur and leader. We’ll never forget what he did for this world.

My condolences go out to his family and friends and may he rest in peace.

6-Oct-11 3:00 PM

Earthwormjobs.com Announces the Promotion of Sonya Smeal Hunt and Danielle Bauer

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 20:00:00 GMT

Lincoln, Nebraska, September 4, 2011 – Earthwormjobs.com is proud to name Sonya Smeal Hunt as the President/Executive Director and Danielle Bauer as the Chief Officer of Operations/Treasurer of Earthwormjobs.com. Sonya Smeal Hunt and Danielle Bauer have both been working for/with Earthwormjobs.com since its inception 4 years ago and have been a key part in its success. We feel they are well equipped to handle their new positions.

Founder Jeremy Hunt will continue to be a big part of Earthwormjobs.com as the vice president; however Sonya Smeal Hunt and Danielle Bauer will be taking care of the day- to-day operations.

Earthwormjobs.com specializes in Education and Job Facilitation for the Green Industry. For more information contact Sonya at Sonya@earthwormjobs.comor Danielle at Danielle@earthwormjobs.com

We congratulate Sonya Smeal Hunt and Danielle Bauer and look forward to the prosperous future of Earthwormjobs.com under their guidance.

4-Oct-11 3:00 PM

8 Marketing Ideas to Grow Your Start Up to Mythic Proportions

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:00:00 GMT

by Neil Patel on October 3, 2011

Ever wonder what companies like Apple or Nike did to become world-wide icons? Or how they created devoted followers? Their success almost seems like a miracle…

But trust me, it’s not. They’re success can be copied!

Here are 8 ideas that can inspire you to create marketing campaigns that generate tremendous buzz, resonate with people and eventually become a part of your customers’ life.

Idea #1: Place your product in an unexpected marketing channel

Did you know that M&M’s was originally offered the opportunity to appear in the movie E.T.? Yet, for whatever reason, they turned it down. Spielberg then approached Reese’s Pieces who jumped on the chance and their product then became a legend.

If you’re start up has a physical product start thinking about unexpected places you could promote it.

Maybe you know a rock band that’s pretty successful on a regional level and they create popular music videos. Why not ask them if you can get your product into one of their videos?

Another example I saw recently is when the video chat room Chill teamed up with Snoop Dogg to allow people to hang out with the rapper while he shared videos. This was a great way to introduce a different audience to their product.

Idea #2: Use humor

Some of the weirdest commercials out there are the ones by Old Spice. But I also think they’re the funniest. So do tens of millions of people!

Whether it’s the sea captain with a wife who wants to kiss his lips more than normal or Isaiah Mustafa telling ladies that their man could smell like him, these videos on YouTube are a sensation.

How could you come up with ideas for your start-up? A good place to start is by watching a show like “The Funniest Commercials of the Year”.

You could also watch stand-up comics on Netflix or spend some time on a site like Funny or Die. The trick is to pay attention to what is popular.

The nice thing about a site like YouTube is that it makes it cheap to produce a viral commercial because all you have to do is have a video recorder, simple editing software and you are in business.

By the way, you don’t always have to come up with an original idea. Sometimes you can modify a current idea to your product or service like First Round Capital did with the Old Spice ad, which got them press in Mashable and TechCrunch.

Idea #3: Create an unforgettable promotional gimmick

When Lance Armstrong got cancer back in the 1990s, he started the Livestrong Foundation to help raise money for a cancer cure. To help support this foundation he started selling the yellow bands you now see everywhere.

So why did this idea work so well?

The reason this idea took off is because the bands supported a great cause, were fairly inexpensive and simple for people to wear.

The bands also tapped into the deep human emotion of wanting to belong. People who wore the bands and saw other people wearing the bands felt proud of the cause they were supporting together.

Clothing items are probably one of the most popular ways to create a viral promotional gimmick for your start up.

The reason this is true is that people like to express themselves and stand out, so if you have a unique t-shirt with a unique saying on it, people will scramble to get one. And once people start wearing your t-shirt or hat, they then become a walking advertisement for you!

For example, walk around San Francisco long enough and you’re bound to see someone wearing a t-shirt from the online company Zaarly.

Idea #4: Communicate to your customers in unexpected ways

The Goodyear Blimp is a great example of a company who has become so much a part of our lives because of the clever way they advertise. You get excited when you see the blimp and want to tell your friends or children right away.

If you want to create a clever and unexpected way to communicate with your costumers, try thinking about things that stand out and fascinate people.

One way the Yellow Cab Pizza Co. grew its business was buy delivering pizzas on mopeds painted yellow and black like a cab. If you’ve ever seen one, you know how much they stand out.

Maybe you can’t afford a fleet of yellow and black mopeds. Then try blogging in a unique way. That’s what two amateur chefs did when they opened their Manhattan store The Brooklyn Kitchen.

The pair focuses their blog on providing useful and targeted information to their readers, which include videos on how to saber a champagne bottle or shuck an oyster.

Idea #5: Keep it simple

Sometimes the best ideas are so simple, like the Nike swoosh. That little curled check mark was designed in 1971 and to this day people all across the world recognize it.

Google’s search engine interface is another example of simplicity becoming legendary.

When Page and Brin started the company one of their ideas was to keep the home page free of just about anything except the search box. This immediately stood out to people because other search engine homes pages were cluttered.

In fact, in the early days there was a Google user who kept a daily count of the character count on the home page and would email the company to complain if it got to high.

It doesn’t matter if your product is complex or you provide a complicated service. You can still keep your logo or message simple, like the social media productivity tool TaskRabbit did.

Idea #6: Go to the media your audiences is using

A partnership with MySpace helped the movie High School Musical get the attention and buzz it needed to make it big. This made sense because a lot of high schoolers were spending time on MySpace.

Do you know where your customers are spending most of their time? Is it on Facebook? Or at the movies?

Don’t know where your customer is spending his or her time? Here’s a few simple ways to find out:

Ask your target customer – pick up the phone and call a few friends or family who you think might be interested in your product.
Create a survey – this is really easy to do online with tools like SurveyMonkey or KISSinsights.
Research – Companies like eMarketer, Forresters and Neilson provide excellent research data on people’s media habits.

Idea #7: Look for slogans that will last

You probably have heard of the catchphrase “Where’s the Beef?” Did you know that it started as an advertising slogan in 1984 for a Wendy’s commercial with a little grandmother demanding a big burger?

It even got so popular that 1984 presidential candidates Gary Hart and Walter Mondale used it against each other during their debates.

So what makes a good slogan? A good slogan isn’t just a neat saying, motto, elevator pitch or your mission statement summarized in four or five words.

Instead, a good slogan shows your customers how you are positioned against your competitors. Your slogan is communicating your value to the world, and you have to say it quickly.

To give you another idea of how this works, here’s Blendtec’s slogan, “The world’s most powerful blenders make the best smoothies!”

But the slogan alone won’t get the job of getting attention done. You have to be creative with how you deliver your value proposition.

Idea #8: Use tools creatively to spread the word

Let’s look at Blendtec again. When company founder Tom Dickinson dropped an iPhone into one of his blenders and put it online, the video became famous on YouTube.

That single video started an entire series of now famous episodes of Tom dropping all sorts of items into his blenders.

What this taught his customers was how much more powerful his blender was than his competitors. And he did it in a simple way that didn’t cost a lot of money.

What can you do to teach your customers how you are different than your competitors? The company Common Craft did it by explaining difficult or strange concepts with white boards, cut outs and video.

The photo app Instagram did it by allowing users to share their photos on just about every social media tool. Each time you share a photo it’s an advertisement for Instagram.

Conclusion

It’s usually not just one single factor that will create a devoted following for a product or make a company a world-wide phenomenon. Most often it’s a combination of all of the above.

4-Oct-11 1:00 PM

7 Sneaky Ways to Turn Your Startup Into a Real Business

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:00:00 GMT

by Neil Patel on September 29, 2011

Isn’t running a startup fun? Well it is for a while, but unless you can figure out a way to make money you wont last very long.

Whether you are venture funded or you’ve bootstrapped your company, you have to figure out how to turn your startup into a real business. Although it my seem inconceivable, it’s not impossible.

Here are 7 tactics that will help turn your startup into a real company:

Never climb the corporate ladder

If you are trying to turn your startup into a real business, you need to increase your revenue. The best way to get money into your startup is to convince large companies to pay you as they are typically sitting on piles of cash.

Whether you know someone at these Fortune 500 companies or not, you can get in the door and make a sale. Here’s what you need to do.

Go through this list and see which companies you can sell your product or service to.
Once you have determined who would be a good fit, look up who the CEO of that company is and Google their name with the word “email” in it so you can find their email address.
After you have their email and name, shoot them an email that goes something like this: “Hey John, I know you are busy, but if you could forward this email to your VP of marketing that would be great. I have a few ideas on how you could be making a lot more money.” The goal of this email is to get in touch with the decision maker of the department you are trying to reach.

Although you’ll rarely get a reply from the CEO of these large companies, I found that well over 20% of the time they’ll forward your email to the person you are trying to reach. And when doing so, you’ll get a call or an email from that person who will hear what you have to say because when the CEO forwards him your email, he will assume that you know the CEO.

If he or she assumes that you know the CEO, there is a much higher chance that you’ll close a deal. The funny thing about this is that the person you are talking to will rarely ever ask you if you actually know the CEO.

Make competitors fight for you

When you are pitching a deal to a company it’s hard to close it because you want their money more than they want to pay you. So you have to figure out a way to turn the table.

The best way to do this is to pitch to that company’s competition at the same time. This way they’ll have to fight for you and you can give them a spiel about how you are only going to work with one company in that industry.

For example, if you were pitching both Sam’s Club and Costco you could tell each company that their competition is interested in working with you. This will cause both companies to get defensive and actually spend the time to look at what you are offering. Plus it will make them move a lot faster.

For this to work all you have to do is shoot an email over to someone who works for the competition and pitch them on what you have to offer. The person you talk to doesn’t have to be a decision maker; you just have to find someone to talk to. You don’t want to lie when you tell a company that “you are talking to their competition” so make sure you actually talk to someone at the other company.

Create a sense of urgency

As I have mentioned in previous blog posts you have to convince companies to move quick. Whether it is a business development deal, sales deal, or just getting a publisher to write on you, you have to get everyone to move faster.

The easiest way to get someone to move quick is to give them a solid deadline. For example if you are trying to create a business partnership with another company, let them know that you need an answer by X date. Of if you are trying to get press from an online magazine, let them know that they have to publish information about your company by X date as that is when you are launching Y feature.

When you feel no sense of urgency, what do you? You take your time, right? Well that’s what happens when you approach other people. Especially if they are busy, they definitely will move slowly. So to solve this you need to create a sense of urgency.

Convince bloggers to blog

Convincing bloggers to blog isn’t hard, but convincing them to blog about your company is. The more of them you can convince the more links you’ll get. And as you already know those links will drive referring traffic as well as help boost your search engine rankings.

The best way to convince a blogger to blog about your company is to build a relationship with them. You can do this through an email conversation. You first email should look something like this:

Hey Neil,

I have to say, I’m a huge fun. I love Quick Sprout and how you write great information on business and marketing.

I know you are a busy guy, so I’ll make it short. I just recommend that you write a blog post on “advanced SEO tactics” as I feel it will benefit your readers.

Have a great day!

After you send you first email, wait for a response back. If you don’t get one within a few days, move on and email the next blogger. If you do get a response, build up the relationship by commenting on their blog and even shooting them an email with some more ideas on how they can improve their content, blog design, or anything else that you can think of.

Finally after a few back and forth emails, you should shoot them an email like this:

Hey Neil,

When you get a quick moment I would love to get your feedback on my website, kissmetrics.com, as it would really mean a lot to me. And if you like it, feel free and share it with your blog readers.

By the way, if there is anything I can do for you, don’t hesitate to ask.

Hope the weather’s nice in sunny Orange County, it’s raining here in Seattle.

Sincerely,
Bob

Don’t list prices on your website

Who says you have to have standardized pricing? Don’t get me wrong having pricing on your website makes things simple, but if you are selling big ticket stuff with high margins, it’s typically best if you don’t mention prices.

I’ve found that the best price to pitch a customer on is the highest one they can afford. You usually can find this out by asking them “what’s your budget”. Sometimes they won’t have one, but if you ask them for a budget range they should have something.

Once you figure it out you can come up with a price that you want to pitch them on. Just make sure that you can offer them a low cost solution or product if you get some push back on the price. This way you won’t lose the deal if they decide they are looking to spend less.

Follow your competitor’s followers

The chances are, your competition is on Twitter. Whether it’s the people that work at that company or the company itself, someone within the organization uses Twitter.

One way to reach more potential customers is to see who is following your competition and follow them. Because if they are following your competition, they would probably also be interested in what you have to offer.

Once you start following them you’ll notice that 20 to 30% should start following you back, assuming that you are tweeting good content. After you have some relevant followers every once in a while you can tweet about your company and what you have to offer. This will increase you’re chances of taking customers away from your competition.

And if you are too lazy to do this manually, you can always use one of these tools to help speed up the process.

The best recommendations are 3rd party recommendations

If you want to move up stream and land larger deals, have your customers get them for you. One thing that I always offer my current customers, which I find very effective, is a promise that if they help me land a much larger deal… I’ll give them my product or services for free.

For example if someone pays you $5,000 a month you won’t make that much off the deal compared to a deal worth $100,000 a month for the same product or service. Believe me, people will pay a lot more money for the same thing if they are a big company.

So if your $5000 customer tells their friend who works at a big company how you are great and how they have to hire your company, there is a good chance you’ll get the deal. The reason being: you aren’t pitching, you now have a 3rd party screaming at the top of their lungs about how great you are.

Keep on moving up stream and have your customers pitch your products and services for you. It is a good way to grow. This is especially effective if your current customers have graduated from a top MBA school like Harvard. They’ll typically be connected with other powerful executives.

Conclusion

Who says you have to be a startup forever? Isn’t your goal to make more money and create a “real business”? Well if you use the sneaky tactics I mentioned above, you’ll start seeing your revenue go up and you’ll be on your way to creating a legitimate business.

4-Oct-11 1:00 PM

6 Reasons You Won’t Succeed

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 21:00:00 GMT

by Neil Patel on June 20, 2011

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Every week I constantly come across people who want to follow my entrepreneurial footsteps. Although I don’t think I have accomplished much for my age, I am always open to helping other people out.

But one thing that I have been realizing is that most of you won’t succeed because you just don’t have your head screwed on tight enough.

Here is why I think you won’t succeed:

Reality Check #1: Learn how to manage money

I recently hung out with a few young adults who are looking to grow their career. They are sharp, smart, and hard working. The problem is they don’t know how to manage their money. They’ve maxed out their credit cards and don’t have much money in their bank accounts, yet they’ll spend $150 on luxuries services.

If luxury services make you happy, by all means get them. But you shouldn’t be spending money on things like that when you have large amounts of debt. I personally didn’t indulge in luxury items until I was making over 6 figures in income.

Now I am not trying to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do with your money because at the end of the day it is your life and you should do whatever will make you happy. But if you want to succeed in business you need to learn how to manage money. If you can’t pay your bills on time, pay employees or learn how to collect checks you’ll run into a lot of cash issues. Without money you won’t be in business for long.

Reality Check #2: Don’t take opportunities for granted

Just last month I got a hair cut from a great hair stylist who seems to have more clients than she can deal with it. She wanted to expand her business and open up a decent size salon. So I offered to meet up with her and potentially invest in her idea if she could come up with a plan that made sense.

To make a long story short, I met up with her and she came unprepared. In addition to that I offered her a second chance by telling her to get back to me with a plan, but I still haven’t heard anything from her…

If she didn’t take the opportunity for granted she probably would have had the money she wanted to create the salon of her dreams. I already knew she was a good hair stylist from my friends and I knew that she would have clients as she already has more than she can deal with.

No matter whom you meet or what people offer you, don’t ever take things for granted. You never know who can help you out and what they can do for you.

Reality Check #3: Ideas are a dime a dozen

Every week I literally get a handful of people who want feedback on their business idea. These are ideas that people are passionate about, but they never execute.

For example, 6 months ago I had a gentlemen come to me who wanted to create a cloud based storage service for people who watch pornographic content. Think of it as a Dropbox, but for porn.

Although the idea sounded great, he never did anything with it. If you want to succeed, you have to execute. Things like ideas don’t matter, execution does. This is the reason why companies like Facebook, Twitter and Groupon are doing so well because they are able to execute.

Don’t waste your time telling hundreds of people your business ideas, just get out there and do it.

Reality Check #4: Communicate, communicate, and communicate some more

My generation loves to text message and use Facebook. But what they suck at compared to the other generations is responding to emails and answering phone calls.

In my experience the number one reason people miss out on an opportunity is because they are horrible at communicating. And more importantly they are horrible at communicating through the normal channels most business folks are used to… email and phone.

Make sure you are on top of things and you respond to people in a timely fashion. It will make you look great and it will help you keep your clients happy.

Reality Check #5: Emotions and business don’t mix

If you know me, you know that I am not an emotional person. Most things are either black or white to me and I always do what is best for my business even if it hurts “feelings.”

For the past few months I have been hanging out with people who are my age. I’ve realize they have a lot of unchecked emotions and drama in their lives. This in turn has made me more emotional which has started to effect my business decisions. I have started to slowly cut these emotion filled people out of my life.

If you want to succeed in the business world you have to learn how to make decisions based off of logic and not emotion. It’s not always going to be easy, but it’s what you have to do to make wise decisions. If for some reason you aren’t able to think straight: don’t make any decisions. Sleep on your emotions until you have a logical answer or get some guidance from a peer.

Reality Check #6: F may come before W, but Work comes before Fun

Who doesn’t want to have fun? right? I know I do, but you need to learn to only have fun after all of your work is done. For example I haven’t taken a vacation in 10 years because I need to continually work on my start-up.

Don’t get me wrong, I have fun, but I always put work ahead of having fun. It sounds easy when you are making a decent chunk of change, but at the beginning it ends up being a bit difficult because you won’t be making heaps of cash.

If you can learn to put work ahead of having fun, you’ll do well in life… especially if you are a hard worker. You just have to be patient as you won’t see the benefits of this in the short run.

Conclusion

Just because I’ve stated why you won’t succeed it doesn’t mean you can’t change. Everyone, including me, has flaws. Don’t get depressed or feel hopeless, do something about it!

If you are wiling to change you can succeed. You just have to learn how to spot the roadblocks in your life and solve them. And if for some reasonyou aren’t able to solve them, don’t be afraid to get help from others.

I hope you can prove me wrong! If you need help or guidance in business, don’t be afraid to leave a comment and ask for help. I promise that I’ll do my best to help you out.

21-Sep-11 4:00 PM

You’re the reason why you don’t have a job

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 21:00:00 GMT

by Neil Patel on January 12, 2011

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Over the past few months, I have had a lot of job openings. These positions have been for various jobs, all the way from personal assistants to inside sales representatives.

During my short experience hunting for qualified candidates, I have learned one really important thing about you… the only reason why you don’t have a job is because of you… so get out of your own way!

If your jaw didn’t drop, well maybe it will after you read this:

Create a good resume

When you’re submitting your resume, make sure it is short and to the point. You would be amazed at how many 5-page resumes I got when I posted an ad for a personal assistant on Monster.com.

Look, I understand that for some of you with a ton of work experience it’s hard to fit everything in 1 page, but ideally your goal should be to have no more than a maximum of 2. You see, when an employer has to read more than 2 pages, they think you’re trying too hard. Not only are you coming across as desperate, but it kind of brings the question as to why you’ve never been able to keep a stable job.

The other thing to keep in mind before submitting a resume is to check for grammar and spelling errors. Small mistakes like that show potential employers that you won’t be thorough with your work, which is a huge turn off.

Be personal

I hate it when someone submits a job application and all they say is:

To Whom It May Concern:
Attached is my resume. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
Jennifer

Do you think I am really going to respond back to Jennifer? No way. If she couldn’t spend 1 minute trying to personalize her resume for me, how can I trust her to deal with my customers. Show some enthusiasm, talk a bit about yourself and why you would be a good candidate for the job. A simple cover letter can go a long way.

You have to sell yourself, but don’t go over board. If you’ve been blessed with good looks, don’t include sexy pictures of yourself. And yes, this has happened to me numerous times. It’s simply degrading! I am not going to hire someone based on their looks, I am looking to hire people that can make me more money.

Do your homework

If you know that I am looking for a developer, make sure you do a bit of research on my company and the requirements for my job opening. Your resume should be tailored to my opening and not all of your skill sets.

Last week I got hit by someone who said they were an excellent developer and they wanted to work for KISSmetrics. I told them to email support@kissmetrics.com with their resume because we are always looking for talented developers to join our team.

But once the KISSmetrics team looked at the resume, we noticed that it was tailored more around how that person was a great marketer instead of a great developer.

So when you apply for jobs, make sure that you pitch yourself for the job opening and not stuff that the company is looking for. Typically, no one is looking for a jack-of-all-trades because we know it doesn’t exist.

Be on time

If you did everything else right and you get an in person interview, make sure you are on time. You would be surprised at the number of people who blew me off once they had already agreed to the time. They were either late or they just didn’t show up.

Time is money and a potential employer wont hire you if you can’t come on time.

If you happen to have an emergency and can’t make it, call and email the employer letting them know that you can’t make it and why. The chances of you not getting the job will probably increase, but at least you won’t look like a big flake.

Don’t lie

The biggest mistake you can make is to lie during an interview. You should assume that your future boss isn’t dumb because he or she must have done something right to get to that position. So if you lie, they will catch you.

Tell the truth, even if it can hurt you. It’s human nature to try and make yourself look the best you can, so when someone asks if you can do something, be honest. Worse case, just say you can’t, but you are willing to learn.

If you get caught in a lie I’ll guarantee that you won’t be hired. If you made it this far, don’t blow it by telling a small lie.

Follow up

I have had a good amount of candidates that are perfect for my job openings. They went through all of the steps correctly, but they forgot to do one really important thing… follow up.

If I tell you that you are hired, then make sure you get back to me. You’ll be amazed at how many people just left the face of the earth after I agreed to hire them. When I finally figure out why, it wasn’t because they didn’t like my company or found a better position, it’s because their personal life distracted them.

Get your priorities straight. If you can’t, the least you can do is to let the employer know that you can’t work for them, instead of leaving them hanging. It’s just common courtesy.

Conclusion

I know, the economy is bad and you can’t find a job, right? Stop blaming the economy because there are a ton of job openings, you just have to look for them. Most of the people I know who own companies, including me, are all hiring. The hardest thing that we are experiencing is that we can’t find people who are hungry, scrappy, and smart.

If you think you are a hungry, scrappy, and smart here is the best way you can get a job:

Leverage your network – companies are more likely to hire people that are referred to them. We hate wasting time on bad hires, so we rather reduce our risk and go with a recommendation.
Don’t wait for an opening – the biggest mistake you can make is to only apply to companies that have job openings. If you really feel you can help a company grow and you see how they are making mistakes, hit them up and tell them all the things they need to fix. You will be surprised at how many companies will hire you when you do that. You will probably even get paid more.
Don’t be shy – what’s best for the company is typically what’s best for you. Don’t beat around the bush when you are in an interview, you’re more likely to get a job if you are upfront and you just tell things how they are. Don’t make that mistake by telling me what I want to hear instead of what’s best for my business.

21-Sep-11 4:00 PM

6 Ways to Supercharge Your Business

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 20:00:00 GMT

by Neil Patel on August 10, 2011

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Over the past 10 years I’ve created many businesses; some have lost a lot of money, others made a lot of money, and a few have made TONS of money. Do you know the number 1 reason why some of my businesses did well while others didn’t? It wasn’t luck… it was experience.

If you looked at my entrepreneurial life on a timeline you would see that my first few businesses did really poorly, however, as the years went on I slowly made more money. The reason is because I’ve learned what mistakes to avoid and how to supercharge my business so that I can make money faster.

Here are the 6 tactics that will supercharge your business and take it to the next level.

Tactic #1: Hold weekly team meetings

Do you hate how unproductive team meetings are? Don’t worry, I’ve figured out how to make them productive. Every Monday morning I have a meeting with my team to figure out one thing we could do to increase our revenue. Then we determine that within 24 hours it has to be implemented. And every Friday we have another meeting to discuss the results.

Here is what you should be doing during your Monday meeting:

Come up with a problem with your team that is causing your revenue or profit to not be as high as it could be.
Come up with all the possible solutions that can be implemented within a day or two.
Pick the most popular solution and one that the team is confident on.
Assign team members to implement the solution so that it gets up within a day.

Here is what you should discuss during your Friday meeting:

Did your solution cause the outcome that the team was expecting?
If it did, start thinking about what you want to discuss during the Monday meeting.
If it didn’t, go through why the results weren’t favorable and what everyone learned.

The goal of your weekly meetings is to get your team on board to making the business more money in a way that allows everyone to see results.

Tactic #2: Make everyone accountable

You shouldn’t be a fan of micromanaging. You should be hiring people who are smarter than you are. This way you don’t have to track silly things like when team members arrive and leave the office.

But the one thing everyone should track is progress. In my company we have a system called “KISSfocus” where everyone lists out what they currently are working on. This way everyone is familiar with what others are working on… including their boss.

If someone isn’t working the other team members can easily track inefficiency. This works out really well because it causes everyone to be more efficient… especially executives.

Tactic #3: Connect with your customers

One of the best ways to make your customers loyal is to create a bond with them. Whether it’s being transparent, telling your story, or just simply caring for your customers you need to connect with them.

Here are a few ways I have connected with you:

On Quick Sprout I told you my life story and I respond to every comment you leave.
On Twitter I respond to the almost every question someone asks me.
On KISSmetrics we go above and beyond to make each potential customer happy by doing things like helping them implement our software for free when we typically charge a setup fee.
On Crazy Egg we always do what’s best for you even if it doesn’t make sense. For example we have given people refunds for 6 months worth of services when they weren’t happy even though they got benefit from it.

There are a lot of ways you can connect with customers or potential customers. The key to this is to not just care about your business, but more importantly care for the people using your products or services. This is the number 1 reason why I am able to go back to the same companies I worked with 10 years ago and pitch them on services offered by my new company.

Tactic #4: Don’t chase your customers, let them come to you

I’ve never been a fan of cold calling or using other similar tactics to increase sales. I am a big believer that if someone wants my product or service they’ll come to me.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect to make millions of dollars by just having a good product or service. However, I believe that if I educate the market, people will buy my products.

The best way to educate the market is through blogging. Every company blog that I have created has been able to hit at least 100,000 visitors a month within a few months after inception.

Here is how I get customers to come to me:

Setup a company blog – the blog needs to have a simple design and it can’t just promote your products or services. The design should focus on making the content easily accessible and readable.
Write great content – you probably don’t have the time to blog, but if you post an ad on the Problogger Job Board you should be able to find a few bloggers who will write great content for you for only $30 a blog post. The key to creating good blog posts is to have your writers write on information that will benefit your potential customers. Don’t just blog on your company and the products or services you offer.
Leverage social media – build up your Twitter and Facebook accounts. These are the two easiest social media channels you can use to promote your blog. In addition to this your writers should be promoting the content they are writing. And if you are looking to get even more social media traffic, you can always pay a marketing firm to generate traffic.
Respond to comments – no one likes being ignored, so make sure you talk to every potential customer. Whether it is a comment on your blog or tweet to you, make sure you are responding. It’s a great way to get people to come back and want to check out what your company has to offer without you telling them to do so.

It shouldn’t take more than 3 to 6 months to create a somewhat popular blog if you do it right. And the best benefit from doing so is that you will have thousands of extra people coming to your website each month who will check out your products and services. Plus in the long run it’s much cheaper to do this than it is to pay an army of cold callers.

Tactic #5: Turn your weaknesses into strengths

Every business has weaknesses. I don’t care if you are Apple, Google, Microsoft, or even much smaller company like mine. Instead of worrying about your weaknesses and trying to hide them, focus on turning them into strengths.

For example, my first successful company provided Internet marketing services to small and large companies. We ran into a couple of problems. At the time we didn’t have a long track record like most of the firms because we were new and we were a lot smaller so big companies were afraid that we didn’t have the bandwidth to take them on.

Instead of trying to hide these weaknesses, I turned them into strengths. When companies said we were too small, I said we were actually the perfect size. Small enough where we didn’t have large overhead like bigger firms so we could offer the same services for much less

And when they asked why they should choose us instead of the larger Internet marketing companies with a great track record, the first thing I did was go to Monster.com and Craigslist to show them the job openings these big companies listed. When they saw how a recent college graduate who was getting paid very little a year was going to manage their multimillion dollar campaign instead of an experienced marketer like me, they shied away from the big companies.

It will take you some time to figure out how to turn your weaknesses into strengths, but it’s possible. You just have to be creative. And every time you find that you aren’t able to convince a customer to go with you ask them what you could have done to win their business.

Tactic #6: Keep it simple stupid

My current company is named “KISSmetrics” for a reason. I quickly learned that simple companies with easy products and services tend to win. Hulu beat Joost because they created a much better user experience. People don’t want to upgrade to the latest Skype client because the old one is just easier to use.

You have to keep things simple. Life is already complicated, so why make it more difficult? Don’t try to make your company look cool by using the geekiest terminology out there, dumb things down and make sure a 5 year old can understand what you are doing.

The best way you can figure out how to make things simpler for your customers is to survey them and run A/B tests to see which versions of your website or product are simpler for your customer.

And like I said earlier, the key to this is to dumb things down. People don’t need bells and whistles, they need simple products or services that solve problems.

Conclusion

Just because you aren’t an experienced entrepreneur, doesn’t mean you can’t create a big business. With the 6 tactics I mentioned above you should be able to supercharge your business.

Try them out and let me know what you think. Even as a experienced entrepreneur, I myself am learning new things everyday and can still learn from others like you.

21-Sep-11 3:00 PM

21 Big Marketing Ideas for Small Marketing Budgets

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 20:00:00 GMT

by Neil Patel on September 8, 2011

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Are you trying to market your company online? Well, who isn’t? But do you know how to market your company online without spending too much money?

If you don’t have a lot of cash and you are trying to market your company online, don’t worry, as companies have been able to succeed without spending much money on marketing. To prove it, not only will I share 21 big marketing ideas that don’t cost too much money, but also I’ll also give you examples of companies who have succeeded using each tactic.

Big marketing idea #1: Comment on blogs

A great way to get your website popular is to comment on other blogs. For this to work you have to leave comments on blogs that are related to your website and the comments you leave have to be insightful.

If people feel that your comments are detailed and insightful not only will they keep on reading your comments, typically they’ll also head over to your website (when you leave a comment on a blog, they typically ask for your website URL).

Although this tactic seems simple, it is very effective. Just look at Mashable, Pete Cashmore made that blog popular by commenting on competing blogs like TechCrunch when he first launched it. He literally left hundreds of comments and now he has one of the most popular websites on the Internet.

Big marketing idea #2: Leverage message boards

Message boards may sound boring and dull because they’ve been around for years, but they are still effective. There are millions of message boards on the Internet and there is one for almost every topic.

If you can leave messages on popular boards like Yahoo Message Boards and give people good advice, it can drive a lot of traffic to your website.

Timothy Sykes is notoriously known for this and that’s how he made his website popular. Through message boards he is able to drive over 5000 visitors to his site each month and this has lead him to create an online business that generates over $150,000 a month in revenue.

Big marketing idea #3: Optimize your website for search engines

Google is the most popular website on the Internet, so why wouldn’t you leverage it? Through search engine optimization you can rank higher on Google so you can get more visitors to your website.

One way of doing this is to pay a marketing firm, but as you know that can be costly. Another way of doing SEO is to learn it yourself. By reading the Beginner’s Guide to SEO and by following these link building tactics you should be able to rank higher on the search engines.

A few companies that have leveraged SEO fairly well are About.com, Wikipedia, Craigslist, Amazon, and Zappos. And an example of a smaller company that has done this is Bargaineering, which was acquired by Bankrate for 2.8 million.

Big marketing idea #4: Start a blog

It doesn’t matter what kind of business you are running, you can still have a blog. With my startup KISSmetrics, our blog accounts for over 70% of our monthly traffic. That traffic is then converting into leads for our sales department to follow up on and then close into customers.

If you are going to create a blog for your company, you should do the following:

Host the blog on your domain name (blog.domain.com or domain.com/blog)
Write good content, and don’t constantly pitch your company in your posts.
Create a community by responding to each blog comment.

Big marketing idea #5: Google local

Search is becoming more and more personalized. When you perform a search on Google, you’ll start noticing that the results are becoming tailored to your location. Because of this I decided to claim the Hyatt Hotel in Seattle (I live there) as my business location.

So when you search for the Hyatt Hotel in Seattle, my business comes up. And although this may sound foolish, it’s actually lead to one enterprise customer for my company. $120,000 isn’t too shabby for claiming a location.

Now by no means am I saying that you should claim random locations on localized search, but you should claim at least your office or wherever you operate your business from.

Big mig marketing idea #6: Leverage Social Networks

From Facebook, to Twitter, to Google Plus, they are all popular sites that you should be leveraging. Create profiles on each of those sites as they are a good source of traffic and they’ll create new opportunities for you to find customers.

We’ve built up our profiles on all of the major social sites for KISSmetrics and now social sites account for over 30% of our monthly traffic. The best part about this is that it didn’t cost us a dime… other than the time we’ve spent.

By sharing good content that you find while surfing the web and participating on the social web, you’ll quickly be able to build up your profiles. The key is to be patient as it can take 6 months to a year before your social profiles really become popular.

Big marketing idea #7: Become a guest author

An easy way to get your company out there is to write guest blog posts on other blogs. From TechCrunch to Huffington Post, there are thousands of popular blogs on the Internet. And the one thing all of these blogs want is more content.

If you write guest blog posts on other blogs not only will you get traffic and more branding, but you’ll also get links which will help your SEO efforts.

If you are looking to find places to guest blog you can check out My Blog Guest or you can manually hit up popular blogs in your field.

One company that leverages this tactic is GRP, which is a venture capital firm out of LA. Mark Suster, one of the partners at the firm, is known for guest blogging on sites like TechCrunch on a regular basis. By doing this GRP is getting their name out there and it is helping them get more deal flow.

Big marketing idea #8: Case Studies

If you already have happy customers, why not get a case study from them? Get them to talk about your product or service, how they used it, and the results they got.

Case studies can help build credibility for your company, and get you new customers. One company that is notoriously known for creating case studies is Conversion Rate Experts, and through them they have been able to lock in a handful of customers.

Off the top of my head I can list a handful of companies that have signed up with them because of their case studies. And these companies are spending a high 5 figures, if not 6 figures a year with Conversion Rate Experts.

Big marketing idea #9: Write Beginner’s Guides

Do you remember when companies used to write White Papers? Although they are still effective, the new version of them are “beginner’s guides”. These guides vary in length, but the one thing they have in common is that they are thorough.

By writing good content and giving it away for free, not only will you get a ton of traffic, but you’ll also get a lot of links.

A good example of this is SEOmoz. They wrote the Beginner’s Guide to SEO, which has lead to a lot of business for them. That guide ranks high for “search engine optimization” on Google and then from their they upsell visitors into their software service which starts at $99 a month.

Big marketing idea #10: Speak at conferences

With my first company, ACS, we got over 80% of our new customers from conferences. We constantly spoke at Internet marketing events and convinced companies to pay us thousands of dollars per year.

I spoke at so many conferences in a given year that during my peak, the company spent $108,402 in one year on flights and hotels for me because of all the conferences I was attending. And although that may sound like a lot of money, some of the companies I was able to bring in from these speaking engagements were paying us up to 1.2 million dollars a year.

Now granted, you don’t have to spend much money to speak because there should be enough events to speak at in your local region. All you have to do is find these events and apply to speak.

Big marketing idea #11: Start an affiliate program

If you don’t have the money to spend on marketing, you can always get people to market for you for free. The only thing you have to do is pay people for each sale they bring to you. Think of it as performance based marketing.

Through companies like Hasoffers, you can easily setup affiliate programs and start getting people to market your products or services without spending much money.

Remember how Timothy Sykes leverages messages boards? Well he also leverages affiliate programs. He’s let marketers create mini websites that both praise and bash him, which leads to around $13,000 worth of monthly sales for him.

Big marketing idea #12: Answer questions

From forums to question and answer sites, people need help. If you can answer questions related to the products and services your company provides, you can get new customers. You can find these potential customers on forums on question and answer sites like Yahoo Answers.

One company that uses this tactic on a daily basis is Single Grain. Every day they go through marketing forums and help out 10 companies with free marketing advice. What they’ve found out is that 3% of the companies they help for free offer them money for consulting services.

Big marketing idea #13: Go to networking events

If you can’t be a speaker at a conference, it doesn’t you shouldn’t attend them. Everyday there is a new event going on, you just have to find relevant ones to attend. Sooner or later you’ll realize that people go to these events to meet other people.

Some of the people you will meet will be useless, but a small percentage of the people you meet will turn into business relationships and friendships.

A few years ago I was attending a BarCamp in Santa Monica and I met a guy by the name of Francisco Dao. After a few encountering’s with him we both thought it would be a good idea if he ran a conference series that I co-own. If you fast-forward to today, he has now made me hundreds of thousands of dollars and he is doing so well that he now owns his own conference company.

You’ll be shocked on what you can get out of an event, so make sure you start networking on a regular basis.

Big marketing idea #14: Talk shit

The good part about having a blog is that it gives you an audience that you can communicate with. And when you tell them something, it will start spreading virally on the web.

With my first company ACS, we provided marketing services. And when I saw companies that could use our help, I wouldn’t just reach out to them, but I would write a blog post on how they are messing up.

In 2006, I wrote a blog post on Like.com and how they were messing up with their marketing efforts. Quickly after writing the blog post I got a call from the CEO who then hired me for a consulting engagement. After I realized how effective this strategy was, I also did it with Yahoo and a few other big companies.

Every time I did it, I’ve had over a 50% close ratio.

Big marketing idea #15: Give away the farm

Talking shit about a company on a blog is one way to get new customers, but another way is to give away the farm. Similar to the strategy above, I used to also email companies and tell them in a step by step format of everything they need to change on their website to get more traffic.

Many of the companies I emailed didn’t respond back or hire me, but none-the-less the strategy was effective. Through it I was able to lock in companies like TechCrunch and do all of their online marketing.

And by helping popular brands like TechCrunch, I was able to leverage their name to get more customers.

Don’t be afraid to email companies and potential customers that you think you can help. What’s the worst thing that they can do… ignore your email?

Big marketing idea #16: Ask for referrals

Do you already have customers? If so, have you asked them for referrals? It’s a pretty effective approach as long as your current customers are happy with you.

Look up your current customers on social sites like LinkedIn and see who they’re connected with. If you think someone they know can benefit from your product or service, ask for an introduction.

You’ll be shocked, only a very small percentage of your customers will not be willing to make an introduction. If a large portion tell you no, it means that you could be doing a better job making them happy.

One company that has gotten 5 or 6 referrals from me is Digital Telepathy. They provided one of my companies, Crazy Egg, with a new design. After they did a good job they asked if I knew of any other companies that would be interested in their web design services and I was gladly willing to make introductions for them.

Big marketing idea #17: Leverage Youtube

Not only do videos now appear in search results, but you also can use them to show how good your products actually are. Blendtec has done this for years and it’s been effective. They don’t just claim that their blenders are powerful, but they also show you by blending things like bricks, iphones, and other cool devices.

Some of their videos have gotten over 3 million views and more importantly they have been able to sell thousands of blenders because of these videos.

If you can come up with something creative like blending iPhones, you can create viral videos. Good content spreads like a wildfire over the web, and even on television. The Blendtec guys have been on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Big marketing idea #18: Offer steep discounts

Groupon and Living Social are able to drive thousands of sales for any product or service… assuming you give a really good deal.

Earlier this year, a buddy of mine launched a concept called Tomato Battle, in which thousands of people get together and throw tomatoes at each other. When he launched the event he was charging 59 dollars for a ticket and his goal was to get a bit more than 2000 attendees.

In order to fill up the event, he reached out to Groupon and Living Social and they promoted the event to their email lists at a price point that was around 50% off. Within days he sold over 1000 tickets on these group buying sites and after the deal closed the people who bought tickets told their friends and those friends went directly to the Tomato Battle site and bought more tickets at the regular price.

If you can come up with a price point that benefits you as well as the group buying companies, you can make a lot of money and gain access to a whole new set of customers.

Big marketing idea #19: Have exceptionally great customer service

One of the easiest ways to increase the lifetime value of your customers is to offer exceptionally great customer service. For example, Zappos will automatically upgrade your shipping to next day air every once in a while. And they also offer a 1 year return policy with little to no questions asked.

By providing exceptionally great customer service, customers will not only be happy with you, but they’ll continue to come back. In the short run this may end up costing your company a bit more money, but in the long run you’ll see the benefit because each customer will not only spend more money with you, but they’ll tell their friends about the great experience they had with your company.

Big marketing idea #20: Get press

The more people that talk about your company in a positive way, the more people will come to your website and check out what you are offering. The hard part about press is that it’s not easy to get the attention of the major news outlets.

But it is easy to get the attention of blogs. One way that I like to get press is to email bloggers asking if they would like to interview me. Although that sounds silly, a small percentage of the bloggers you email will say yes.

For example, Search Engine Journal interviewed me, and they did so because I emailed them asking if they would be interested. They said yes, they sent over some questions, I answered them, and emailed them back. Within days the interview was published and it drove a handful of customers to KISSmetrics.

Don’t be shy; ask bloggers if they would be interested in interviewing you. What’s the worse thing that can happen… they’ll say no?

Big marketing idea #21: Pay with a tweet

If you want more customers, then entice people to promote your company. Simply Measured does a great job of this by letting you signup for free if you tweet about their product. And as more people tweet, more people come to their website and signup. And once you are in their system, they get you hooked onto their software and they upsell you into paid plans.

Start thinking outside of the box. Free users can market your company for you with a tweet, a plug on Facebook or any other social site. You just have to be willing to ask them for a plug on these social sites or else you won’t receive them.

My business partner and I did something similar on Crazy Egg recently and it worked out well. Instead of asking people to pay with a tweet, we asked customers to tweet right after they signed up.

Conclusion

Marketing doesn’t have to cost money… it just requires creativity. If thousands of companies as well as I were able to succeed without having the budget to spend money on marketing, you can too.

You just have to be willing to put in the time and energy. Because if you aren’t willing to spend big bucks, you’re going to have to be the one who puts in the time.

21-Sep-11 3:00 PM

DOL expands ‘parent’ definition under FMLA

Sun, 12 Sep 2010 01:00:00 GMT

As the dynamics of family structure in today’s culture change, so does the interpretation of the definition of "in loco parentis" to a "son or daughter" under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). On June 22, 2010, the United States Department of Labor (DOL) issued a clarification to its FMLA regulations such that a legal or biological relationship to a child is unnecessary for an individual to be eligible for FMLA as a "parent" under the statute.

The FMLA entitles employees leave in order to care for a "family member (child, spouse, or parent) with a serious health condition." The regulations define a parent as "a biological, adoptive, step or foster father or mother, or any other individual who stood in loco parentis." The regulations also define a son or daughter as "a biological, adopted or foster child, a stepchild, a legal ward or a child of a person standing in loco parentis."

According to the June 22 interpretation letter, "either day-to-day care or financial support may establish an in loco parentis relationship where the employee intends to assume the responsibilities of a parent with regard to a child." The fact that a child has a biological parent in the home, or has both a mother and a father, does not prevent a finding that the child is the "son or daughter" of an employee who lacks a biological or legal relationship with the child for purposes of taking FMLA leave. Neither the statute nor the regulations restrict the number of parents a child may have under the FMLA." Under the FMLA, a child may have several parents.

This interpretation means that the day-to-day care or financial support of a child is not limited to an individual’s legal or biological status as a parent. Thus, it may include another family relative who assumes a role of caring for a child, such as a grandparent, aunt or uncle, or a family friend. It may also include an individual caring for a domestic partner’s child.

DOL stated that its action "is a victory for many nontraditional families" and addresses "various parenting relationships that exist in today’s world." This interpretation also means that an employee whose "parent" meets DOL’s interpretation would qualify for FMLA leave to care for that "parent."

Note that this interpretation addresses the issue of a parent or child under the FMLA. DOL did not extend the FMLA for one domestic partner to care for another, unless the relationship is legally recognized, whether by marriage, a civil union, or as a common-law marriage.

11-Sep-10 8:00 PM

Avoiding underground utility strikes

Sun, 12 Sep 2010 01:00:00 GMT

Key Points

Last year, 115,232 underground utility strikes were reported to the Common Ground Alliance (CGA), an association of contractors, utility companies, and government agencies that collects and analyzes underground utility damage information and promotes best practices for preventing such damage. This number is down 15 percent from 2008, likely because of less construction activity.

Unintended contact with underground fiber-optic, water, telephone, or cable-TV lines can be costly for a landscaping company, and damage to fuel or electric lines can be catastrophic, from both safety and business standpoints.

Employees in the landscape industry are more likely to die from electrocutions (9.8 percent of job-related fatalities from 2003 to 2006, the most recent period for which data is available) than those in the U.S. workforce overall (4.4 percent) according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The Electrical Safety Foundation International cautions that electrical hazards, while responsible for just a fraction of the total number of workplace injuries, are more likely to result in death than injuries from other causes. Damage to fuel lines can be deadly as well since large explosions sometimes result.

"Excavation Practices Not Sufficient" and utility/one-call "Notification Not Made" were the leading root causes of underground utility damage in 2009, according to the CGA’s 2010 DIRT Report. "Locating Practices Not Sufficient" was the third most prevalent root cause. Backhoes or trenchers were involved in the majority of events.

Checklist for employers and supervisors

 Ensure your company calls 811 (the national call-before-digging number) or your local one-call center and all utility companies have marked their lines before employees dig. In most states, the 811 call must be made at least 72 hours prior to digging. The Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires you to contact utility companies/owners and determine "the estimated location of utility installations, such as sewer, telephone, fuel, electric, and water lines or any other underground installations that reasonably may be expected to be encountered during excavation."

 Don’t forget about private lines such as those between propane tanks and structures, and electric lines powering landscape lighting and water features or running to sidewalk lamps and sheds. Utility companies don’t mark them, and, often, they aren’t installed to code.

 Be aware that each state has its own regulations regarding digging and some are stricter than others. For more information on your state’s underground utility notification requirements, visit call811.com/state-specific.aspx.

 Since locating marks often aren’t precise, make sure workers use their hands to expose utilities or expose them using vacuum-excavation methods, before they dig within 40 inches of marks.

 Instruct employees to notify a supervisor immediately, even if they only think they might have contacted a utility line with a tool or equipment. A tug to a fuel line can be more dangerous than a break since it can loosen a connection to the gas main at the residence or building, causing a leak that slowly fills the structure. A spark from an appliance or light switch could ignite the gas. In contrast, many systems automatically seal when a gas line breaks.

 Encourage employees to report near-miss incidents, and don’t punish them when they do so. Examine what happened with an eye toward preventing future mistakes.

 For additional guidance on excavating near buried utilities, see the best-practices report at commongroundalliance.com.

Employee dos and don’ts

Do:

Be aware utility lines aren’t likely to be exactly where locator marks indicate. (Note: "Locating Practices Not Sufficient" was the third leading root cause of underground utility strikes last year.) If you will be disturbing the ground within 40 inches of markings, use your hands to expose the utility first.

Observe whether landscape lighting, water features, sprinkler systems, and outbuildings are present. These are clues that underground lines are present. Check with a supervisor to ensure such lines have been located.

If you damage a fuel line, notify a supervisor, clear everyone from the vicinity, and shut off or extinguish sources of ignition such as equipment and vehicles, communication devices including cell phones, and cigarettes.

Call 911and the utility company after damaging a fuel or electric line.

Don’t:

Dig anywhere until you have verified that all underground utilities are marked.

Dismount a machine, such as a backhoe that has struck an electric line, before you clear it from the line. If you must leave the machine because of fire or another hazard, jump off instead of stepping. If you simultaneously touch the ground and equipment, your body could become a conduit for the electric current.

Keep quiet about contacting — but not breaking — an underground utility line. You might have caused damage you can’t see. For example, a gas line tugged out of position could loosen a connection at the gas main, causing a subsequent leak and explosion.

Fail to notify a supervisor of a near-miss incident. Information about such events is vital to preventing accidents.

11-Sep-10 8:00 PM

Eleven things good managers believe

Sun, 12 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Good managers believe that every employee is important and that they must see to the needs of each employee. However, good managers, even more so, need to understand and believe that they are paid to run the company. According to Steve Tobak, writer of the BNET’s The Corner Office blog, "They’re key components in an organization that exists to serve its customers and shareholders." If you were the owner of a company, you would expect your managers to see to it that employees are engaged and provided with the necessary guidance, acknowledgment, and empowerment. But most importantly, you would want them to fully believe that their focus must be on the customers and the company. This is what Tobak thinks, so recently he asked his readers what they think good managers believe. He received the following interesting responses on the subject:

1. My overriding priority is to help my company achieve its strategic goals by facilitating the efficient flow of business and decision-making.

2. It’s my job to behave like a mature adult by being genuine and empathetic with my own and other’s issues, especially when everyone else is acting out like spoiled children.

3. If I don’t work my tail off and be hands-on when necessary, I can’t expect anybody else to do it either.

4. It’s challenging but nevertheless critical to provide genuine feedback, both positive and negative, to my employees, peers, and management and request the same from them.

5. Compromising my ethical principles in the name of "the ends justify the means," or for any other reason, is unacceptable.

6. It’s my job to promote my team’s accomplishments and to take the heat for their failures.

7. I need to provide my employees with the tools, training, and support they need to be effective, instead of setting unachievable goals and setting them up for failure.

8. I shouldn’t just "promote" a can-do, customer service attitude, but actually "walk the talk" when it comes to supporting customers and stakeholders.

9. It’s important to entrust my employees with as much responsibility as their capabilities will allow, and to hold them accountable for the same.

10. I need to strike a balance between shielding my folks from the ripples of dysfunctional management and openly communicating events that may affect them.

To this list, I’d add one more:

11. I need to attend the PLANET Green Industry Conference in Louisville next month to advance my company, career, and the value of my employees.

Okay, that last one was a ringer. But it is my sound belief that you could come back from Louisville a better business and people manager. I will be there leading two workshops: Interviewing Candidates for Employment and Creating Your Company’s Employee Handbook. I hope to see you there.

11-Sep-10 7:00 PM

New study provides fuel for both sides of artificial turf fight

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

SANTA CRUZ -- Residents for and against fake grass playing fields should find ammunition in a recently released report from UC Berkeley, which concludes that player injuries drop on artificial turf but significant greenhouse gases are released in its creation.

The report crunched data from 111 scientific studies on the controversial topic, which has become a hot topic in the county after the Board of Supervisors last year gave preliminary approval to install artificial turf at Anna Jean Cummings Park in Soquel.

Berkeley researchers reviewed more than 12 years of research as the debate over artificial turf plays out in communities nationwide.

The report was compiled "to make sure that the resources that were referred to were reasonable," said David Dornfeld, a Berkeley professor and director of the school's Laboratory for Manufacturing and Sustainability, which conducted the study.

Among the report's conclusions:

Artificial turf provides equal or better "playability" than natural turf;

Artificial turf can become hot and uncomfortable to play on in warmer months;

Artificial turf provides between 2,000 and 3,000 hours of playing time annually. Natural turf fields offer between 300 and 816 hours of playing time each year;

The cost to own and maintain artificial turf fields over a decade is 10 to 20 percent less than the cost of natural grass fields;

While artificial turf contains elements that could be toxic to humans, ordinary use does not expose players to levels considered dangerous;

Natural grass requires fertilizer, which could contaminate water supplies, and regular mowing, the emissions of which contribute to greenhouse gases. It also requires watering, which could tax a limited supply;

Artificial turf releases more greenhouse gases in its the production, transportation and processing than the maintenance of natural turf ever would.

The study, Review of the Impacts of Crumb Rubber in Artificial Turf Applications, was commissioned by The Corporation for Manufacturing Excellence, an industry consulting firm. That company has, in the past, worked with California Integrated Waste Management Board to find ways to best recycle old tires. Those tire pieces often turn into the newest artificial playing fields.

The study was finished in February and released to the public last week. It arrives after the debate over artificial turf reached a head in Soquel in March. Dozens of neighbors there spoke out against the plans to install fake grass at Anna Jean Cummings Park, citing environmental concerns, traffic issues and noise complaints, among others. Soccer players, coaches and parents asked the county to press forward, pointing to a shortage of fields in the county and natural grass left unplayable by this year's rains.

Artificial turf also has been discussed for Aptos Polo Grounds County Park and Pinto Lake Park outside Watsonville.

Dornfeld said Manex did not pressure his department to report findings one way or the other.

"We were not put on any constraints to push, twist, color, distort or otherwise obfuscate results of the study. I believe it's quite objective," Dornfeld said.

County leaders have put their plans for artificial turf on hold and canceled the existing contract until a county committee can examine residents' concerns. Members of that group should be named in June.

"A study like this is good to have in the mix for this community," said Supervisor John Leopold, who proposed the committee following the uproar in Soquel, which is in his district.

Steve Volk, owner of The Ugly Mug in Soquel, said he previously was opposed to artificial turf, but as he learns more about the issue, now is not so sure.

"I don't have any answers anymore. It was easy when I didn't know anything," Volk joked. "I'm to the point where it's gray."

23-Aug-10 7:00 PM

The Business E-Mail Etiquette Basics You Need to Know

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Below are the key Business Email Etiquette issues that need to be considered with every commercial e-mail sent. These are the issues business owners, their employees and Netrepreneurs need to be aware of in their day-to-day online communications to ensure the best possible results.

Professional Behavior on the Job: Know that how you use your e-mail, company e-mail address and employer’s technology is a serious issue! Sending non-business related e-mails, jokes, forwards or chain letters on company time to friends or coworkers reflects on your lack of professionalism. Visiting Web sites that are questionable or not necessary to your job responsibilities will reflect poorly on your ability to be trusted. Never assume that these activities are not being monitored. While on company time do not assume you have any privacy when using company resources and equipment.
SUBJECT: Field: The SUBJECT: field is the window into your e-mail and can many times determine even if your e-mail will be opened. If this is an initial contact with a customer based on their request through your site or otherwise, be sure to have a short SUBJECT: that indicates clearly what the topic of the email is. Typos, all caps or all small case can lend to the impression you may be spammer.
Level of Formality: Try to avoid the prevailing assumption that e-mail by it’s very nature allows you to be informal in your business e-mail. Only time and relationship building efforts can guide when you can formalize your business relationships and therefore your e-mail’s tone. One should communicate as if your e-mail is on your company letterhead at all times. This is your business’s image you are branding!
Addressing: How do you address your new contacts? I would suggest initially that you assume the highest level of courtesy: Hello, Mr. Anderson, Dear Ms. Jones, Dr. Osborne, etc. Until your new contact states, “call me Andy” or “you can call me Diane”. You will also be able pick up clues on when you can address have a more relaxed tone by how contacts approach you as well as how they sign off. Most business people do not mind being called by their first name, however, in a global economy that can be perceived as taking premature liberties in the relationship if used too soon.
TO:, From:, BCc, Cc fields can make or break you:…In the TO: field make sure you have your contact’s name formally typed. John B. Doe – not john b doe or JOHN B DOE…In the FROM: field make sure you have your full name formally typed. Example: Jane A. Jones. Not: jane a jones or JANE A JONES. The later two give the perception of lack of education or limited experience with technology. By only including your first name or e-mail address you are giving the perception you may have something to hide or do not know the basics of configuring your e-mail program.
…BCc: use this field when e-mailing a group of contacts who do not personally know each other. By listing an arm’s length list of e-mail addresses in the Cc or TO fields of contacts who do not know each other or who have never met is conducive to publishing their e-mail address to strangers. This is a privacy issue! With those you are forging partnerships with, visibly listing their e-mail address in with a group of strangers will make one wonder what other privacy issues you may not respect or understand.

…Cc: Use this field when there are a handful of associates involved in a discussion that requires all be on the same page. These business people know each other or have been introduced and have no problem having their e-mail address exposed to the parties involved. If you are not sure if a business associate would mind their address being made public, ask!
Reply to All: Use this button with discretion! You need to carefully think about whether “all” really need to be aware of your reply to conduct business. Never use this button to CYA or eTattle on a coworker or colleague — doing so will just make you look petty while increasing others e-mail volume unnecessarily.
Formatting: Refrain from using any formatting in your day-to-day business e-mail communications. Unless you would type something in bold crimson letters on business letterhead, don’t do it when e-mailing for commercial gain. With all the spam filtering going on today; the more formatting or embedded images that higher the chance that your e-mail could be blocked as spammy.
Even something as simple as using a different font makes your e-mail’s display contingent upon the recipient having that specific font on their system or it defaults to their designated default font. Keep in mind the recipient may not have their e-mail program configured in such a way as to display your formatting the way it appears on your system – if at all.
Attachments: How do you think your relationship with a potential new customer/contact is enhanced when you send them that 10M Power Point presentation they didn’t request and you fill up their inbox causing subsequent business correspondence to bounce as undeliverable? And, if they do not have Power Point, they wouldn’t be able open the file anyway! Never assume your potential customers have the software you do to open any file you may arbitrarily send.
If you need to send a file (or combination of files) over 500,000 in size, business courtesy dictates you ask the recipient first if it is O.K. to send a large file. Next, confirm they have the same software and version you do and what is the best time of day to sent it to them to ensure they are available to download the large file and keep their e-mail flowing. Never send large attachments without warning, on weekends or after business hours when the recipient may not be there to keep their inbox clear.
Using Previous E-mail for New Correspondence: If you want to give the perception of lazy, find a previous e-mail from the party you want to communicate with, hit reply and start typing about something completely irrelevant to the old e-mail’s subject. Always start a new e-mail and add your contacts to your address book so you can add them to a new e-mail with one click.
Down Edit Your Replies: Do not just hit reply and start typing — that’s called top posting. Editing is a skill those you communicate with will appreciate as it lends to reflecting a respect for their time and clarity in your communications. Removing parts of the previous e-mail that no longer apply to your response including e-mail headers and signature files removes the clutter. By making the effort to reply point by point keeps the conversation on track with fewer misunderstandings.
Common Courtesy: Hello, Hi, Good Day, Thank You, Sincerely, Best Regards. All those intros and sign offs that are a staple of professional business communications should also be used in your business e-mail communications. Always have a salutation and sign off that includes your name with every e-mail. Here again – think business letterhead.
Courtesy also includes that you make the effort to communicate as an educated adult. Type in full sentences with proper sentence structure. Not all caps; not all small case. Proper capitalization and punctuation are a must! You are an educated professional and need to communicate as such. All caps or all small case smacks of either lack of education, tech/business savvy — or laziness. None of which is positive for instilling confidence or encouraging others to want to do business with you.
Signature files: Keep your signature files to no more than 5-6 lines to avoid being viewed as egocentric. Limit your signature to your name, Web site link, company name, and slogan/offer or phone number. Include a link to your Web site where the recipient can get all your contact information from A-Z – that is what your site is for. Do not forget to include the “http://” when including your Web site address within e-mails and your signature file to ensure the URL is recognized as a clickable URL regardless of the user’s software or platform.
Respond Promptly: You should do your best to respond to your business communications as quickly as possible. This is a customer service issue that should not be underestimated. By not responding promptly you appear unorganized, uncaring or worse yet, risk being outperformed by your competitors who understand the importance of appearing efficient and on the ball.

There you have it! These very important issues will certainly allow your business communications to rise above the majority who do not take the time to understand and master these issues.

When forging new business relationships and solidifying established partnerships, the level of professionalism and courtesy you relay in your business e-mail communications will always gain clients over the competition that may be anemic, uninformed or just plain lazy in this area.

When it comes to business, regardless of mode of communication used, professionalism and courtesy never go out of style!

23-Aug-10 7:00 PM

Interpreting Turfgrass Irrigation Water Test Results

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Sports fields all across the country can be affected by soluble salts in irrigation water. Therefore, water analysis and periodic monitoring have become key components of sound irrigation management. Click here to learn about the importance of testing your irrigation water and how to interpret the results to maximize the health of your field.

23-Aug-10 7:00 PM

Safety - Safely Installing/Maintaining Green Roofs

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 19:00:00 GMT

KEY POINTS:

The market for green rooftops in cities across North America has grown exponentially during the past decade, largely because of the exploding popularity of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-certified buildings and increasing environmental awareness. Some markets, such as New York and Chicago, are "mature," while those in other cities are just getting started. No matter the stage of the market, the trend toward green rooftops offers opportunities for landscaping firms and their clients (through tax credits and increased energy efficiency). However, it also presents safety hazards that can spell disaster for unprepared workers and companies.

Rooftop work creates some new challenges for landscape industry workers. While many of the topics employers should be covering under their standard safety program come into play — ladder safety, fall protection, avoiding slip-and-trip hazards, and weather-related illness — workers need to be aware of other challenges, such as working with cranes and hoisted materials, and securing loads and properly distributing them on rooftops.

Employees of landscape companies involved in or considering rooftop work should take safety courses (that meet OSHA requirements) in rooftop fall protection, cranes, rigging, scaffolding, ladder safety, and other general Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) guidelines that apply to rooftop work. Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, a North American industry association that promotes green roof infrastructure, also offers training courses. While the classes don’t address particular OSHA requirements, safety is discussed as part of the overall focus on best practices. The group’s Green Roof Design & Installation 201 class includes the most safety content. Learn more at greenroofs.org/index.php/eduprogram.

Checklist for Employers and Supervisors:

 Make sure your insurance policy covers rooftop work and you have liability insurance of $3 million to $5 million.

 Don’t sign a contract for an installation job without seeing an engineer’s signature on a document, certifying the roof will bear the loads you plan to place on it.

 Ensure employees have received training that satisfies all OSHA requirements for the rooftop work they will be performing.

 At the beginning of each installation job, hold a safety meeting before allowing employees on the roof. Show them a diagram of the job site that illustrates the locations of exits, restrooms, hoisting areas, danger zones, walkways, and tool and material storage areas. Give every crew member a job for the first phase of work, usually hoisting materials, and tell each person what area to be in. (Do the same for subsequent work phases.) Each member of the team, not just the crew leader, needs to understand what’s going on. As with any pre-work meeting, point out hazards particular to the job site and types of work being done and ways you will mitigate danger.

 Hold additional safety meetings daily or weekly and on an as-needed basis. Discuss violations of safety policies and reinforce correct work practices.

 Designate a supervisor or crew leader to oversee safety on the job site. Safety should be this person’s focus; he/she should not be working hard at other tasks, which could cause him/her to lose sight of the big picture.

 Teach workers to keep the rooftop job site organized (with tools and materials in appropriate areas) and free of trip hazards, and strictly enforce your policy.

 If the building doesn’t have a parapet wall or fence around the rooftop (regulations in some cities require these), then install orange plastic fencing or some another type of high-visibility barrier that will remind workers where the edge is.

 If possible, don’t bring all materials to the rooftop at the beginning of the job. The more crowded the limited workspace is and the more employees have to move things, the greater the potential for accidents. If you do bring everything onto the roof at once, store it the way you would pack a moving truck, with the materials you’ll need first being most accessible.

 Pay attention to load distribution. Placing lots of heavy loads in the roof’s center, which is typically a weak spot, is a common, dangerous mistake. An engineer can help you determine what parts of the roof have maximum weight-bearing capacity. Usually these points are where crossbeams tie into walls. If you aren’t sure where they are, placing loads around the perimeter of the roof is safer than putting them in the middle.

 Be aware of the increased risk temperature extremes pose and take steps to protect workers. Temperatures can be higher on rooftops than on the ground, and usually there’s no shade, increasing risk for heat-related illness in warm months. At a green roof job site in Long Island City, New York, for example, temperatures averaged between 120 and 130 degrees. Provide employees with ice water and allow them to take 15-minute breaks in a shaded area every two hours. Consider purchasing outdoor canopies, sold at most sporting-goods stores. Employees can move the canopies, usually about 10 feet by 10 feet in size, to different locations on the roof and work under them. The shade they provide lowers the temperature significantly and reduces the risk of sunburn and skin cancer. Schedule work during cooler parts of the day or use lights and work at night.

 In winter, exposure to wind on rooftops can make employees more susceptible to cold-related illness. Encourage them to drink warm, non-caffeinated beverages, ensure they dress appropriately, and allow them to take 15-minute breaks in a warm area every two hours. (For more information about protecting workers from heat- and cold-related illnesses, see the May 2009 and November 2009 Safety $ense newsletters, respectively.)

Employee Dos and Don’ts

Do:

Wear a hard hat at all times. Hoisted material is an overhead hazard, and, if you are working on a lower-level roof, crews working above you could drop tools and materials. Objects might be dropped from windows as well.

Recognize the increased risk of heat-related illness. Take 15-minute breaks (in shade if possible) every two hours, and drink at least one cup of ice water every 15 minutes to stay hydrated. (For more information about avoiding heat-related illness, see the May 2009 Safety $ense.)

Guard against cold-related illness. Drink warm, non-caffeinated fluids, and take 15-minute breaks in a warm area every two hours. (For more on cold-weather precautions, see the November 2009 Safety $ense.)

Wear necessary PPE. In addition to a hard hat, this can include fall protection, goggles, gloves, hearing protection, and steel-toed boots.

Have an understanding of the roof’s layout (including where exits and restrooms are and where you can go to warm up or cool down during extreme weather) and proper load distribution for it (see above).

Don’t:

Hang over building edges or parapet walls/fences along a roof perimeter. Workers sometimes do this in order to reach materials being hoisted onto the roof.

Stand under hoisted material. Objects might fall out and the securements could break or come loose.

Forget ladder safety. For a refresher, see the American Ladder Institute’s Web site, laddersafety.org.

Let the job site become messy. Store tools and materials in designated areas, keep the roof organized and free of trip hazards, and ensure walkways are clear.

Be careless. If you aren’t alert while handling large, heavy loads on rooftops and ramps, accidents are likely.

Richard Heller, owner of Greener By Design in Pelham, New York, contributed information for this newsletter. Heller’s company specializes in green roofs and has won several PLANET Safety Recognition Awards.

20-Aug-10 2:00 PM

Safety - Nontraditional labor sources

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 19:00:00 GMT

Key Points

• With the economy picking up and the busy summer season here, labor needs are likely topping many green

industry companies’ priority lists. But given the still-shaky economic situation and the seasonal nature of

landscaping work, your firm might be reluctant to hire permanent, full-time employees. Part-time and seasonal

workers, including teenagers, Hispanics, and workers 55 and older, are plentiful and could be the perfect

solution to a temporary labor crunch. However, these groups present safety challenges that require awareness

and vigilance on the parts of employers and employees.

• In 2008, approximately 2.3 million teenagers ages 15–17 worked in the United States and, according to the

National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, about 146,000 of them incurred work-related injuries and

illnesses. Because of biologic, social, and economic attributes, these workers face unique and substantial risks

for such injuries and illnesses, NIOSH cautions.

• Employment of workers 65 and older jumped 101 percent between 1997 and 2007, compared to a 59 percent

increase in overall employment, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. Worker age groups 65–74, and 75

and older are expected to continue growing faster than any other according to a 2009 white paper by the PMA

Cos. People older than 55 have fewer workplace accidents, but when they are injured, injuries typically are more

severe and recovery takes two to three times longer than with younger workers.

• The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the Hispanic population will more than double between 2008 and 2050, from

44.3 million to 102.6 million. The Hispanic workforce is growing four times faster than the non-Hispanic

workforce, and Hispanics already make up more than one-fifth of the landscaping workforce, according to the

American Immigration Law Foundation. Effectively communicating safety messages to Hispanic employees who

speak limited or no English is one of our industry’s biggest challenges.

Checklist for employers and supervisors

Teen workers

Train young employees in hazard recognition and safe work practices.

Remember, operating a motor vehicle at work is prohibited for 16-year-olds and allowed only under limited

circumstances for 17-year-olds. Child labor laws also ban those under age 18 from operating many types of

mobile machinery. Still, 45 percent of fatal injuries to minor workers between 1992 and 2000 resulted from

“transportation incidents,” which included accidents involving off-road, industrial machinery.

Supervise teens, verifying that they use safe work practices and can identify hazards. Ensure supervisors

and adult coworkers know what tasks young workers can’t undertake. Label equipment minors cannot use

and/or color code uniforms so others know they shouldn’t perform certain jobs.

Know the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938. This is the primary federal law regarding employment of

workers under 18. The FLSA applies to your entire business if you have annual gross revenues of $500,000

or more, and some states extend the law to all businesses. Even if your business isn’t covered, the FLSA

applies to individuals engaged in producing, transporting, loading, or receiving goods for interstate

commerce. This includes workers who handle documents related to interstate commerce, including credit

card transactions. Learn more at http://www.dol.gov/whd/childlabor.htm . Two other groups of regulations

outline work prohibited for young workers because the U.S. secretary of labor has declared the tasks too

hazardous for minors. One defines agricultural work those under 16 cannot perform, and the other identifies

nonagricultural jobs prohibited for workers under 18. See details at

http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/docs/haznonag.asp and
http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/docs/hazag.asp .
Check your state laws concerning teenage workers. Many have child labor laws that are stricter than federal
laws.
Keep in mind that young workers might not have the training or experience to perform incidental tasks older
workers can do safely and could take it upon themselves to execute these duties. They might also lack the
experience and maturity to recognize and deal with hazardous situations and to be able to handle
emergencies or injuries.
Hispanic workers
Remember OSHA requires you to ensure employees understand training in safe work practices and hazard.
This could mean providing training in the employees’ native languages. If you employ or expect to employ a
significant number of Hispanic workers, consider creating a management-level “Hispanic employee liaison”
position to better communicate safety and other messages.
Don’t use slang or jargon. Non-native speakers are not likely to understand it. When conducting safety
training that’s being translated into Spanish, speak slowly, in simple sentences, and use different words to
present the same message at least twice.
Don’t assume employees can read and write in their native language. Include photos, drawings, graphics,
and demonstrations with all safety messages.
Use Spanish safety training videos (such as those available from PLANET), but don’t have them take the
place of a safety trainer.
Partner with local community organizations, literacy councils, and/or community colleges to provide Englishlanguage
training to your Spanish-speaking employees. Take time to learn — and use — some Spanish
phrases yourself.
Be aware that questioning people in authority and direct eye contact with them demonstrates a lack of
respect in most Hispanic cultures. If a Hispanic worker isn’t looking directly at you during safety training, this
doesn’t mean he/she isn’t paying attention.
Appoint a bilingual employee who has been with your company for a significant time to mentor new Hispanic
workers. They will likely feel more comfortable asking this person safety-related questions.
Older workers
Be on the lookout for slip-and-trip hazards and eliminate them quickly. Falls account for more than a third of
injuries sustained by workers 65 and older.
Since shoulders, wrists, and the back are body parts most vulnerable to injury in older employees, minimize
heavy lifting, trunk rotation, excessive forward bending, and repetitive work performed in non-neutral
positions.
Encourage workers to use material-handling devices and equipment to reduce strain, and to take frequent
breaks, particularly after performing physically demanding tasks.
Rotate employees among tasks that affect different parts of the body and require varying degrees of
physical strength.
Train workers in proper lifting techniques (see March 2009 Safety $ense).
Perform ergonomic evaluations of jobs typically performed by older workers, identifying causes of fatigue
and strain.
Emphasize safe driving. Work-related roadway accidents increase steadily after employees reach 55.
Drivers 55 and older are more likely than others to have a crash at an intersection or when merging or
changing lanes.
Allow adequate healing time and implement responsive return-to-work efforts for injured employees.
Keep in mind these workers might be “set in their ways” regarding how to perform tasks. When asking them
to make a change, emphasize that doing so is in their best interests and will create a safer work
environment.

Employee dos and don’ts

Teenage workers

Do:

• Know and follow safe work practices. You can request this information from employers, school counselors,

your parents, the U.S. Department of Labor, and your state labor department. Do your own Internet

research as well. Four good sites to visit are http://www.youthrules.dol.gov,

http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/teenworkers/index.html (general guidelines for young workers),

http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/teenworkers/landscaping/index.html (covers hazards associated with heat,

ultraviolet radiation, pesticides, electricity, noise, and eye injuries) and

http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/health/can-u-digit.pdf (discusses heat stress, pesticides, lifting, and use of

motor vehicles, trimmers, and mowers).

• Understand you have the right to refuse unsafe work conditions and tasks.

• Participate in training your employer offers or request training.

Don’t:

• Be afraid to ask questions if you are unsure how to perform a task safely and correctly.

• Perform tasks or operate equipment prohibited for someone your age.

• Perform any task without first considering the potential danger involved.

Hispanic workers

Do:

• Realize your employer must provide safety training in a language you fully understand. You can read more

about employer and employee responsibilities (in Spanish) at http://osha.gov/as/opa/spanish/index.html.

You also can reach a Spanish-speaking representative of the federal Occupational Health and Safety

Administration at (800) 321-OSHA [(800) 321- 6742].

• Know you have the right to refuse unsafe work conditions and tasks.

• Ask your supervisor to provide Spanish safety videos and publications, and, if you don’t completely

understand safety training in English, an interpreter.

Don’t:

• Think that asking questions is wrong. If you are unsure how to perform a task safely or correctly, ask a

supervisor.

• Take on a job or operate machinery before you have been trained to do so safely and have no doubts about

how to proceed.

• Be afraid to make eye contact with supervisors and others in authority. In the United States, failing to make

eye contact with someone speaking to you is a sign of inattention and/or boredom.

Older workers

Do:

• Realize that activities, including lifting, pushing, pulling, reaching, standing for long periods, and performing

repetitive tasks, become more difficult for all people as they age.

• Allow your body to recuperate by taking more breaks. If you don’t, fatigue could cause inattention,

decreased coordination, and shortcuts that increase your risk for accidents.

• Pay particular attention to slip-and-trip hazards. Remove them or notify a supervisor immediately.

• Use wheelbarrows and other equipment to move heavy materials when appropriate.

Don’t:

• Resist changes that improve safety. Performing a task a certain way for years without incident doesn’t prove

the method’s safety; you could just be lucky.

• “Work through the pain.” This could lead to complications far worse than the original injury and prevent you

from working much longer. Report all injuries and work-related pains to your supervisor.

20-Aug-10 2:00 PM

Safety - Working Near Water

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 18:00:00 GMT

Key Points

• Landscaping crew members spend a significant amount of time working near water — be it in the

form of a pool, spa, pond, lake, stream, or river. Compared to workers in most other industries,

they face an increased risk of drowning, the third leading cause of death in the United States.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 3,579 fatal drownings occurred in the

United States in 2006, averaging 10 deaths per day.

• Waterscape work and other landscaping jobs performed near water often involve cumbersome-tomaneuver

equipment, unstable ledges, and electrical wiring and pumps. To prevent accidents,

workers and supervisors must be alert and aware of potential dangers.

Checklist for employers and supervisors

Where the danger of drowning exists, provide U.S. Coast Guard-approved life jackets or buoyant

work vests to all employees working over or near water. This is required under federal OSHA

regulation 1926.106. Prior to and after each use, inspect work vests and life preservers for defects

that could affect strength or buoyancy. Do not allow employees to use defective units.

Make sure at least one person in each crew is trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation, first aid,

and basic emergency-response skills. A number of possible scenarios at landscape job sites make

this necessary, and the potential for drowning is one of them. If employees are working more than

five minutes’ response time from emergency medical services, crew members’ reactions to a

water-related emergency could make the difference between life and death. The American Red

Cross offers a workplace first aid/CPR training course (in English and Spanish) that meets OSHA

guidelines. To learn more, select the Workplace & Employees option under the Preparing and

Getting Trained tab at redcross.org Web site. Similar courses might be offered at local hospitals

and community centers.

Encourage employees to learn to swim, emphasizing job site water hazards and the increased

risks they face without this skill.

Provide basic water safety training to all employees. Local American Red Cross chapters,

community centers, and pool/spa associations that your company might be a member of offer such

courses.

Ensure a phone is available at every job site.

As always, evaluate every job site for hazards and potential hazards before work begins. When

employees are working near water, pay special attention to slip-and-trip hazards and the types of

tools and equipment they will be using at the water’s edge. A landscape worker drowned in 2003

after the wheelbarrow he was using on a steep slope overturned and he fell into a pond while trying

to avoid having spilled rocks tumble down the embankment. The National Institute for Occupational

Injury and Health (NIOSH) determined alternative equipment, such as a four-wheeled cart, could

have provided better stability and prevented the accident.

Before work begins, hold brief safety meetings in which you or a crew leader points out potential

water-related hazards, required safety gear, such as life preservers, and grab ropes and

emergency plans.

Find out which employees cannot swim and pair them with strong swimmers when they work near

water.

Employee dos and don’ts

Do:

• If you can’t swim, tell your supervisor and coworkers before working near water. Ask to work

closely with someone who swims well.

• If you can’t swim, wear a life preserver when working near any body of water, be it a pool, pond,

lake, or river.

• Position grab lines, poles, life preservers or rings where they can be accessed immediately if you

or a coworker falls into water and needs help.

• Eliminate slip-and-trip hazards near water immediately. If removing the hazard is not within your

power, notify a supervisor.

Don’t:

• Be nonchalant about an inability to swim. Because your job likely requires you to work near pools

and other deep water, you should attempt to learn to swim. If that fails, at least learn basic water

safety skills. Local American Red Cross chapters offer water safety courses. To find one near you,

go to redcross.org and enter your ZIP code on the right.

• Be overconfident because you know how to swim. Many people who could swim have drowned by

falling into water after hitting their heads.

• Dismiss shallow water as nonthreatening. It also could prove deadly if you are unconscious.

• Use a defective life jacket or vest. Inspect life preservers for defects before each use.

20-Aug-10 1:00 PM

Safety Sense - Line Trimmers

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 17:00:00 GMT

Key Points

• Line trimmers generally aren’t thought of as dangerous pieces of equipment, and this attitude is at

least partly to blame for many of the injuries associated with them.

• Line trimmers can pick up rocks, sticks, mulch, grass particles, and pieces of glass (sometimes

found along walkway edges and roadsides) and launch them long distances with great force.

These objects can lodge deep in a person’s skin or do extensive damage if they hit someone in the

eye.

• The most common safety-related mistakes landscape crew members make regarding line trimmers

are removing the cutter guard and failing to wear appropriate personal protective gear.

Checklist for employers and supervisors

Instruct employees never to operate a line trimmer without the cutter guard in place, and explain

the dangers — greatly increased risk of flying debris striking them or others in the work area.

If you discover an employee has removed a cutter guard, ask him or her why. A common reason

workers give for removing the guard is that the increased line length improves productivity. But it

also stresses the engine, causing it to burn more fuel, and can shorten the trimmer’s life. Tell the

employee productivity gains are not worth the safety risks and equipment damage caused by

removing the guard. Another excuse crew members often give is that the guard prevents them

from seeing the cutting head. Most line trimmers currently on the market are designed so the

operator can see around the guard. If your employees are having this problem, buying new

trimmers could be the solution.

Ensure employees wear the right clothing and personal protective gear; this includes pants, long

sleeves, steel-toed footwear, gloves, and hearing and eye protection (face shields are even better).

Eye protection is particularly important when crew members are using line trimmers. You must

provide eye protection that meets ANSI Z-87.1 standards, a designation usually marked on the

right earpiece. If employees repeatedly fail to wear eye protection, find out why. If they say the

glasses or goggles are uncomfortable, fog up, or get scratched and dirty easily, making seeing

through them difficult, consider shopping for new ones — and involve your employees in making

the selection. They’re more likely to wear a product they chose. Glasses with anti-fog coatings are

available now as well as styles that allow air to circulate, preventing fogging. Certain lens cleaners

also keep fog from forming. Inexpensive, yet stylish and lightweight glasses are available from

multiple safety supply companies. Check out these Web sites: sentrysafetysupply.com/safetyglasses.

html, safetyglassesusa.com, and crewsinc.com.

If the trimmers your company uses don’t have anti-vibration systems, supply employees with

gloves that contain vibration-reducing padding.

Equip or buy line trimmers with shoulder harnesses or straps, and make sure employees use them.

They are extremely effective at preventing pulled and strained muscles and muscle fatigue.

Employee dos and don’ts

Do:

• Scout the work area before using a line trimmer, picking up sticks, rocks, and other loose debris.

• Position yourself and the trimmer so debris is projected toward an area without people or property.

This depends on the rotational direction of the cutting head.

• Use the line trimmer’s shoulder harness or strap. It will take pressure off backs and arms,

preventing pulled muscles and muscle fatigue. Workers who begin using these devices are often

amazed at how much better they feel.

Don’t:

• Remove the cutter guard from a line trimmer. The guard’s primary function is to shield you and

others from flying debris.

• Operate the trimmer within 50 feet of another person.

• Wear shorts. You should have on long pants, long sleeves, gloves, steel-toed footwear, and

hearing and eye protection when using line trimmers — or performing most any landscaping task.

Donning the necessary protective gear will significantly reduce your injury risk when operating a

line trimmer. It protects you not only from flying debris, but also from contact with the line itself.

• Work with the exhaust side of the line trimmer close to your body. This can cause burns.

20-Aug-10 12:00 PM