Author page: Xienan Shaw

Most entrepreneurs start by basically trying to meet every
consumer’s needs. This is very useful, but as your business grows, you tend to
lose sight of why you even started the company in the first place; your
customers.

 

The best way to stay in
tune with your customers is to understand your customer; a way to do that is by
being your own customer. For example; if you have a storefront or an
over-the-counter business, have a friend visit and report back to you. This
way, you have an idea of how your business is being run; how your customers are
being taken care of, and you’ll probably identify more ways to improve
services. You might see these as more work, but your customers are a top
priority. Regardless of how busy you are, regularly check in with your customer
experience.

 

Most people would agree
that the main reason why startup businesses fail or can’t seem to start on the
product or service they are trying to build is the lack of understanding about
the actual customer they want to buy their product. It is a fundamental
necessity to understand the target customers; their needs and motivations.

 

Ways at
which being your own customer helps your business

 

1. You will save more on
research. 

A way to understand your customers is through a
series of interviews, questionnaires and surveys. All these can be very
important and valuable but very costly. However, it can’t beat knowing what
your customer needs because you are your own customer.

2.  You become a better salesperson. 

You need
excellent sales skills for your business to have any chance of success. Being
able to sell your ideas to investors, partners and customers give you that
confidence and genuineness about your product. Your founder story is more
genuine because it’s your story.

3.  You will need passion to go with that
confidence to sell your ideas to different people. 

But you will need resilience
to fuel your determination. In any startup business, you will encounter
challenges along the way – your resilience pushes through those challenges.

4.  You are more invested in your business’
future success. 

You need to put some money into your business, but then you
also need to put in time and effort.

An example of a
great business builder is Steve Jobs. He built the iPod and its digital music
store, iTunes, for himself. He relied on his own instincts which were built on
his own experiences. He was in many ways, his own customer.

Look at
businesses like solving a problem. Many times, the inspiration for your
products can be brought out of your personal experience with that product.
Sometimes the solution to that problem might be expensive or occasionally the
answers you think of might not work, but then as you think of solutions, you
are levelling up in the skill of problem-solving. Sometimes solving a problem
without having to worry about how you are going to advertise it to the public
can enable you to make something more significant than what you expected the
solution to be.

The purpose of going into business is to earn a profit- and make some
cool cash. But then, the irony remains that to get money; you need money. In
other words, in business, you spend money to make money.

However, for most people- especially small business owners, it is not an
easy task deciding whether or not to pump money into projects like expansion or
acquiring new employees. If you are part of these people, this article is for
you!

Luckily for you, I would be sharing tips on how to make significant financial
decisions at crucial times in your business.

 

Here are some fantastic tips:

1. Don’t depend on the unpaid cash 

As a new person in your industry, chances are you would have customers
who are getting your products/services on credit. But then, don’t forget you
have bills to settle. Depending on money that hasn’t been paid (as a source of
income) would be a massive mistake if you want to both take significant
financial steps and pay bills.

Managing your cash flow should be your first agenda while making big
financial decisions. If not, your business could have a record-breaking revenue
on paper, but then would go downhill if there is a lull between when the work
is done, and the cash received. Until these customers pay their invoices, don’t
think of the advances offered to customers as cash. In other words, don’t
consider it as cash until it gets to your hand.

2. Keep documentation

Don’t skip this. Don’t skip this! You’ve got to have a method of
approach- and you can only do this if you have a clear understanding of where
your money lies. Don’t try to keep all the info in your head- get a financial
assistant software. Perhaps, excel spreadsheet could do the job.

I want to reemphasize on not factoring in cash you don’t have at hand.
For instance, if you are going to get paid for a service rendered today in
three months, factor the forecast on your spreadsheet. Do not base your
assessment on cash, not in hand.

3. Do a review

Choose a date in the month where you would make a review of your
spreadsheet. This is important so you wouldn’t be caught unawares by the bank.
When making big financial decisions, you might incur some expenses you didn’t
budget for. Ensure you include these budgets in your review.

Go further by making a possible forecast of how much impact
these financial decisions might have on your finances- do not forget to put appropriate
measures to tackle these hits.

4. Model different scenarios

Things might not always go
as planned. Make adequate preparations for worst-case scenarios. Taking some
time out to ask the question, “what if?” would help you weigh the chances
accurately.

Nobody can act you more
than you! If you would be making huge financial decisions, you might have to
consider several factors- both personal and financial.

Remember, if your company
must grow, its financial health must come first in any decision you make.

 

To
most people, fall means the end of summer vacations, beginning of a new
school season or the return of all our favorite television series. Rather
than healing our collective sunburns and soothing our chafed skin, we admire
the changing colors of the leaves and finally dust off our sweaters and
winter jackets. Tech entrepreneurs, however, have a very different take. For
them, the start of fall signals not just the end of summer, but also the
commencement of tech-conference season. 

Slush, Digital Summit, IFA, MWC Americas, World Summit AI,
Consensus and more all either come back or start heavily promoting
their impending return in the fall. These events showcase the latest
technology and reveal trends that will guide us through the coming year,
charting rising stars as well as companies on the decline. 

Whether scheduling meetings with potential investors, checking out the
competition or putting out fires in the office back home, entrepreneurs
and business owners need to be able to stay on top of things even when they are
traveling between events. That’s no small feat when everyone’s in a
rush, asking for WiFi passwords, searching for hotspots or hunting
down free water and good snacks. In short, it’s chaos. Here are a few
helpful hacks for cutting through the clutter.

 

Upgrade
Your Business Cards

One of the hardest tasks associated with attending a tech
conference is getting noticed and remaining relevant. There are hundreds, if
not thousands, of business owners at these events trying to secure their next
round of funding or front-page feature. Reporters meet with new companies all
day, each showcasing the “next big thing” that will purportedly take the
technology world by storm.

Business cards that come with a twist are key for entrepreneurs
who want to be remembered when the dust settles. Unlike the traditional,
one-dimensional paper version that shares some personal information and
contact details, USB-enhanced business cards ensure that anyone you meet
has your company’s full pitch deck at their fingertips. Entrepreneurs can
preload USBs with press releases, custom graphics, marketing data and
more, and there are a variety of customizable USB business cards available via
retailers like DiscMakers and FlashBay. 

Solidify Your
WiFi

Next, it makes sense that one of the most important things
anyone will look for at a tech conference, an occasion inherently linked to
internet usage, is good and reliable WiFi. Success in this environment
depends on the ability to connect with the outside world. 

Unfortunately, there are too typically many people at these
conferences trying to connect at once, bumping up against lengthy and
unusal passwords or torturous“unable to connect” error messages. Skyroam,
which provides travelers with global WiFi solutions, can help remedy this via
their portable Skyroam Solis X product, which provides long-lasting
connectivity. The company’s virtual SIM enables unlimited WiFi in more 130
countries.

 

Keep
Your Eye on the Ball

It’s also essential to stay on top of your schedule.
Attending an event is never an excuse for missing an important deadline. While
these conferences are action-packed with interviews, announcements and
product launches happening left and right, entrepreneurs still need to make
sure their day-to-day businesses is running smoothly.

 

Streamline
Your Multitasking

Lastly, most entrepreneurs have mastered the ability to
multitask, but trying to type up lengthy emails, conduct investor research or
draft a proposal from a mobile device is still no fun. One solution is the
foldable keyboard by iClever, which connects to any smartphone or tablet and
has a battery life that won’t disappoint, as a single charge can last nearly 10
days, with eight hours of daily life. 

So as entrepreneurs from New York, San Francisco, London, Tel
Aviv and beyond descend on fall tech conferences to showcase their
ideas, consider the above gadgets, guidance and get-arounds to spring
ahead of the competition.

Personal branding
strategy is simply a fact of business life these days. In fact, as traditional
PR and advertising becomes less relevant (who is seeing these ads any more?), I
could argue that increasingly, the personal brand IS the company brand, especially
in smaller companies.

Branding strategy is
about creating an emotional connection to your product or service. It’s a lot
easier building a connection to a person compared to an ad or a piece of
company content.

Personal branding
will undeniably have a more important role in marketing strategy because it can
create a permanent and sustainable competitive advantage based on emotion.
There is only one you. That can be a legitimate point of business
differentiation!

For the love of Jeni

Here’s an example of
how a personal brand can become an integral component of a corporate branding
strategy.

Ice cream is
basically a commodity. You can tweak the ingredients and the flavors but there
are only so many ways to make and sell ice cream, right?

How is Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams breaking from the pack to
become one of the fastest-growing retailers in America? Because people love the
company’s founder, Jeni Britton Bauer.

They love her
never-say-die founder’s story, passion, commitment to the environment, and
honest business partnerships. The love of a real person like Jeni turns the act
of buying ice cream into an act of devotion.

Of course she
creates a delicious product. But lots of companies do that. Compare the growth
opportunity for Jeni’s stores with Baskin Robbins (also yummy and expensive by
the way) — the largest ice cream retailer on the planet. How do you grow Baskin
Robbins? More ads that nobody sees? More flavours? Lower your price? Tweak the
logo?

Jeni is growing her
company through love.
That can’t be copied by competitors. Who do you love at Baskin Robbins?

To a large extent, Jeni is the brand.

 

The time is now

This is a
historically important trend — and one that is overlooked by much of the
corporate world — because it could only be happening now.

I started out in
business more than 30 years ago, pre-internet days! Back then, how would I
become known? How would it even be possible for a nobody like me to build a
personal brand?

Back then, becoming
“known” was in the hands of a gatekeeper like a newspaper or trade journal
editor, or perhaps an executive in the publishing industry.

But today, the
opportunity to become known in your industry is up to you. Everybody has the
opportunity to publish content and be heard, to build an audience and establish
the presence, reputation, and authority to have a meaningful competitive
advantage.

The advantage goes
to those with the vision and tenacity to do build that personal brand.

Advantage: Small businesses

For the most part,
large companies can’t take advantage of this trend. I can only think of a
handful of examples where the emotional tie to a company is based primarily on
the devotion to an individual — Oprah, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson come to
mind.

However, it’s so
much easier for a small business to establish a meaningful emotional connection
based on a personal brand.

In a small business,
the owner has a relatable founder’s story. The owner of a small business can
still be out with customers and show their smile, their heart, their passion.
They can be out in the community showing they care. And most important, they can
be part of the content story — the blogs, videos, photos and podcasts — in a
personal and intimate way.

If you’re an
entrepreneur or small business owner, establishing a personal brand could be
your most important branding strategy.

Personal branding strategy requires a new mindset

A branding strategy
based on an individual can be uncomfortable. I’m speaking from experience!

When I started my
company, I did not want to be the focus of attention. I wanted the focus to be
on our work and the amazing results we were getting with our consulting
engagements.

However, my
consistent and helpful content — published through this blog, The Marketing Companion
podcast, and my marketing books —
helped create a worldwide audience of true fans.

I started my company
in 2008 and finally by 2016 I reluctantly admitted to myself that my company
brand was … me. It took me eight years to actually feature my face on the
landing page of my website!

I’m an introvert.
I’m uncomfortable with self-promotion and being the center of attention. But I
also realized that the only way to stand out is to have the courage to show
myself and tell my unique and honest stories to you.

I stand out in a
very crowded field of digital marketing because there is only one me. You can
stand out in your industry, too … because there is only one you, too!

The key is having
the plan, courage, and resilience to go for it.

Personal branding is a process

If you take one idea
from this article, I hope it is this: Creating a personal brand isn’t about
luck. It is a systematic process.

The biggest thing I
learned when researching my book KNOWN: The handbook for
building and unleashing your personal brand in the digital age is that nobody
becomes known in their industry through luck.

You can become famous through luck. But
becoming known and a trusted a
personal brand requires consistent work over many months, and perhaps even
years.

It is a process, and
it is within reach of anyone. In the process of writing the book, I interviewed
97 people who have become known in a wide variety of professions all over the
world And they all did the same four things to become known:

1.   
They identified a
rational idea they wanted to be known for (this may be different from your
“passion”)

2.   
They found a unique
way to tell their story

3.   
They produced
quality content consistently without fail

4.   
They actively
engaged with an audience to nurture an emotional connection

Today, every person
reading this blog post has the opportunity to build a personal brand that leads
to business benefits. In many cases, this can be more powerful and effective
than any ad you could ever devise.

By the way, over the
last eleven years, I have never taken out a paid ad to promote my business.

And here is a
stunning opportunity — chances are, your competitors have no idea this is even
a thing. This branding strategy is still under the radar.

Is it your time to
shine?