• The Cheerleader
  When the going gets tough, this is the person to say "You’re doing great!" and "You’re almost there!" Starting a business is long and hard work where it is easy to get down on yourself, so it’s important to have someone to help you see the good in yourself and your efforts.
• The Pro
  Starting a business is like a crash course in everything—the amount of information you learn in the first year is just astounding. This is why you need an experienced business mentor who can talk you through the rough parts and offer advice that worked for him/her in that situation.
• The Realist
  When you start thinking that fleece sweaters for cats are a great addition to your summer lineup in your Scottsdale, AZ clothing store, you need someone to give you an honest opinion of just how badly you’re screwing up. Entrepreneurship should not happen in a bubble—consider that "tell it like it is" friend to be your first stop in market research for ideas that belong on the cutting room for. Business isn’t supposed to be nice!
• The Networker
  Who do you know that seems to know everyone? That’s the person who will find you help when you need it and introduce you to all the key people you need to know.
• The Geek
  Even a geek like me can use a bigger geek on her side. The geek is someone to call when you have a technical question or you’re learning something that is a little over your head—someone to explain complicated technology in terms you can understand or to give you the lowdown on what’s the next big thing that can help your business.

Anyone you’d like to add to this list, or any thanks you’d like to give to your own entrepreneurial team? Post them in the comments below!

Share the Love

Everyone loves a compliment. Everyone in business loves a glowing and public compliment! This is your chance to spread some love around this Friday and take some time to write all your friends and contacts a review on LinkedIn. This is a good idea because:

• It makes people feel good.
• It makes you feel good.
• It expands your network by putting your name on other people’s lists.
• It makes you the person that people want to work with, because they want glowing reviews too!
• It is good business karma—it will come back to you someday.
• It gets a conversation started between you and people that you, perhaps, haven’t seen in a while.

Procedure

What are you waiting for? It’s simple. You just:

• Log in to LinkedIn.
• Click on the top tab that says "My Contacts".
• Scan your list and find the people that you are qualified to give reviews of.
• Click on each one, and then click on the top right link that says "Recommend this person" to give them a review.

Guidelines

I do want to offer some guidelines about writing a good review on someone’s profile so that you can use this time wisely. First of all, don’t write anything negative. This is bad karma! If you have a problem with someone, speak to them directly. Secondly, keep it professional. This guy was the best kegstander of the class of 97! is not a good review. Thirdly, be specific. You should be only reviewing people that you know well enough to properly recommend, so be specific in your review. Was the person always on time? Does she have good communication skills? Is he a very talented artist? Those are all perfect things to mention.

Additional Resources

For more things to do with LinkedIn, see Guy Kawasaki’s post, Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn.

Reader Questions

Do you have a profile on LinkedIn? How are you using LinkedIn for your business? Did you try today’s activity?

Part 1 in this series discussed using forums and online communities to give yourself a traffic boost. In this installment, I will give you some ideas on how to use your e-mail and personal network to get your PageRank off the ground when you launch a new website.

Your Personal Network

Everyone has a network – it’s that circle of family, friends, colleagues, business contacts, alumni, and former employers that you have met along the way during your life. While I don’t like the idea of hitting up your friends for money, I do like the idea of using your friends to spread the word about your business. After all, who would be more enthusiastic about your current pursuit than those who love you the most?

The difference between spam and a good viral marketing email is your call to action. Calls to action are for direct marketing campaigns, so leave it out here. All you really want to do is announce your new business venture and spread your ideas so they can roam around e-mail servers everywhere. Keep it simple, keep it positive, and don’t forget to put your contact information and URL at the bottom of your email. I also add a line that says something like “Please feel free to forward this to a friend!” on the bottom.

After sending this to people in your address book, consider which mailing lists you could try sending your announcement out through. I belong to several mailing lists that I could make an announcement to, including my alumni group and several networking groups.

E-mail Signatures

A colleague of mine was selling some tickets to a sporting event on a local classifieds web site. When a purchaser contacted her, she replied back with her full business signature at the end. He bought the tickets – and went to look at her site, later contacting her about some work he needed done. The moral of this story is that you never know what might be a potential networking opportunity, so include your signature on all your correspondence.

Typically, an email signature consists of a short bit of data that is placed at the end of your outgoing emails. This usually includes your name and/or company name, and contact information such as your website, phone number and email address. In addition, you can put a short marketing blip such as a tagline, a link to a recent project, or perhaps something you currently have on sale.

E-mail Etiquette

The last thing you want to do when you are starting out is offend someone or chase people away, so follow these guidelines to prevent problems:

• Only send the email once.
  In your email, give people a way to sign up for future updates, but don’t automatically send monthly emails to people who didn’t ask for it.
• Limit the announcements to mailing lists.
  Most networking lists ask that you only make business announcements once a month or a certain number of times per calendar year.
• Remember the rules of copywriting.
  Don’t take up too much of other people’s time with wordy emails that they won’t want to read.
• Make your message clear, but not spammy.
  Avoid saying “buy now!” and having a call to action that asks for a purchase. Think of it more as an announcement or press release, and less of a sales pitch.
• Be polite.
  Remember that when you use your e-mail signature for all correspondence, you are attaching your business name to everything you send out. E-mail is not confidential! Your message could be forwarded all over the entire country within days, so think before you hit send. (You can’t take it back later!)

Hopefully this article has given you some good ideas on how to use e-mail to launch your business and build traffic. Stay tuned for our next installment, in which we will discuss press releases.

The Art of Schmoozing by Guy Kawasaki

Somewhere halfway down the page is #6 on his list: Follow up. And he is right, hardly anyone ever follows up. I have been to a few of these types of events now, and even though I hand out many business cards, I rarely get a call from someone to talk further. But what does happen is that I follow up with them, and in return I get a warm response thanking me for my note and asking me for coffee. I may not get the sale every time, but what I do get is contact: leads, energy, referrals, ideas, avenues, whatever the case may be. I take the relationship further than just a one-time shot.

So how do I follow up? I send a personal, hand-written note. I have experimented with all sorts of notes – nice blank cards from a stationary store, a piece of paper with my letterhead, something funny if I made a real connection with the person. Right now I’m sending out handwritten notes on these cards, which we made in-house:

Now you don’t need something fancy, but if you have it, it’s a nice branding tool. What you need is something personal. Like Guy Kawasaki, you don’t want the recipient to think you are sending them some kind of canned mass-mailing message. When you meet the person, jot down a note about them on the back of their card so that when you follow up, you can mention something personal about them. It makes the recipient feel special and remembered. I am pretty good with names and faces, so this comes easy to me – if you are not, perhaps you should have a small notepad with you to take notes while you are at an event.

The follow-up is also not the time to sell your services, unless the person you talked with asked you to send them more information. It is the time to say how great it was to meet them, what interests you about their business, how you might help them, perhaps an action item like "Let’s meet for coffee!", and whether or not you will be at the next meeting.

Every time I go to an event or meet with someone, I set aside time in my calendar to follow-up with the people I meet. I have gone in many great directions thanks to follow-ups. If you are spending your time and money to meet new people, you must also spend the time to follow up. Otherwise, you are just wasting your time and money in the first place. As the saying goes, "Your Fortune is in the Follow Up!"