I’ve been spending a lot of my time lately thinking about how to help connect small businesses in a positive way. It just seems to me that there are a ton of smart and talented entrepreneurs around that could benefit from an organized “collaborative consulting” group. I’ve outlined the basic idea over here to get started.

From my experience as a small business owner/manager I’ve learned that professional help in some areas is needed and useful but can be out of reach financially. I was in a position to hire the people that I needed to some extent but I know many are not. I’m talking about accountants, marketing firms, HR professionals, insurance consultants, management consultants, etc. These are important parts of small business no doubt, but they can be too expensive for some to hire out. I also learned a ton and got a lot of support from fellow business owners.

What if you could get the benefit of having these pros on your team without paying for exclusive service. How about a regular meeting with experts and other small business owners that is organized and focused on finding solutions to YOUR current issues. All the while saving on the expense by splitting the cost with others.

I see a meeting of the minds. Small business owners collaborating and helping the other members with their issues. Every small business faces the same types of challenges on a regular basis- hiring, firing, insurance, tax prep, budgeting, marketing concepts, ad buys, delegating, efficient systems, the list goes on and on. Can’t these questions be solved with a universal solution that is tweaked to fit into the business? The underlying systems work for any business when applied correctly don’t they?

I was talking this idea over with a friend of mine that always plays the devil’s advocate, thankfully. He seems to think that business owners are too secretive with the inner workings of what they do to share much with others, especially the competition. One of his solutions was to allow only one business from each industry at a time.

Please do me a favor and answer a couple of questions when you have the time-

1. Are small business owners too proud/scared/secretive to share their business with others? Keep in mind that these other folks would be business owners themselves, maybe even competitors. Also, I’m not talking about specific financials or proprietary info, just solutions to common problems that have worked for them.
2. Can you see a benefit to meeting once a month with experts, guest speakers and fellow business owners as an alternative to hiring these pros separately but having them to yourself? Realize that the cost would be about 10% of hiring them individually, plus the benefit of networking with other entrepreneurs AND having all of the information available online via video, text and presentations.
3. Would you be interested in taking part in a test group? No charge to you except for your feedback, which will be structured and required.

I’m hoping for responses from small business owners and managers but of course everyone’s input is welcome and helpful. I plan to run a test group if I see the interest and the folks that respond here will be the first to be invited. Please share this with your friends and colleagues that would be interested. If you want to chat about it you can reach me at 772-8447 or any of the places on my network page. Thanks in advance for your insight!

I’ve become a fairly regular redbox user in the last couple of months. Many of my friends use netflix which I hear has great service and selection but I just don’t want to commit spending the money each month instead of having a little more control over it.
Anyway, I was thinking recently about how redbox could make the experience a little more social. Movies are a hot topic for discussion amongst friends and I think redbox could integrate some existing social tools to help start those conversations online.

• What if you allowed redbox to connect to your Twitter account? Basically every time you rent a movie it sends out a “I just picked up Caddyshack from redbox!” With twitters new metadata advertising additon they could possibly make a few bucks as well. Check out Robert Scoble’s post on Super Tweets for the idea.
• Let’s say you rent a movie one evening and write a review on flixster or another site. Maybe your redbox account could track the movie reviews that you write and send you suggestions.
• What if redbox had a facebook app that was alerted when you rented a movie and it shared it with your friends. Maybe you could suggest the movie to your facebook friends that you know would like it.
• Couldn’t redbox give you a free movie if you became the mayor of a machine on foursquare?
• If redbox changed the protocol for renting a movie and you signed in with your account first, they could deliver suggestions and options for sharing right there on the screen to make it super easy.
• At this point redbox could link their twitter account to the machine so you could tell them what you thought of a movie, or if you had issues with it. Easy customer service and feedback.
• Speaking of that, why don’t they have an easy way to get in touch with customer service on their machines?
• An onscreen link to IMDb would give you access to much better info than what redbox themselves offer for each movie.

Just some thoughts, wonder if anything will ever come of it?

Today I had a perfect real life example of the ideas that I shared in a previous post on human connections. I wanted to share the quick story and why it impressed me.

The Background

I have known Greg Jacobs through mutual friends for quite a few years now. We run into each other now and again at parties and gatherings but have never really gotten to know one another very well. A week or so ago he sent me a quick message on facebook offering to buy me a beer or lunch sometime.

What I thought would happen

Greg is in the insurance business and we have talked about that in the past. I am happy with where I am so he gave me some useful info and that was that. Part of me thought that maybe he was ready to chat about that again and win me over as a client.

I know that he knows that I closed my business last year so I thought that maybe he may have an idea or offer on that front. Maybe he wanted me to sell insurance? Maybe he wanted help with a new project that I didn’t know about?

Neither of these are negative scenarios at all. I was more than happy to sit down and chat with him about whatever he wanted. I have always figured that it is worth my time to chat with people that I know and/or respect if for no other reason than to learn a little bit about them or their business. We set up a time to meet for lunch today at Vivoli Cafe (My Yelp review).

How it turned out

We met up at the restaurant and sat down. I asked the server to send me whatever he suggested and was a little surprised that Greg did the same (More about that on my Yelp review, in case you missed the link above). We chatted about his upcoming vacation, his family, his business, my business, politics, and life in general over lunch. After the food was gone I realized that I couldn’t pinpoint the reason for us meeting up, so I asked. The answer sort of surprised me- “Just wanted to get to know you better”.

What I learned

Going back to the thoughts in my previous post, I realized that this was a perfect example of human connection at work. No premeditated pitch, no favors requested, nothing assumed other than a good talk. Not that I didn’t respect him in the past but our lunch today moved him way up that ladder. It was refreshing and showed me that there really are some smart business people in this world that realize it’s not always about the “sale”.

In closing- thanks Greg! Thanks for flattering me with the respect of getting to know me better, thanks for making me think and learn a little more (even if you didn’t intend it), and finally thanks for lunch!

If you are interested in talking insurance with Greg you can find them here- http://www.hendricks-inc.com/

In my most recent session of self discovery I have spent quite a bit of time reflecting on my past. More specifically, my past business relationships with people. I have come to realize the satisfaction I get from making connections between humans and observing the outcome. I am considering both personal and business goals (if there are any differences) as I study this.

Personal brand

(A little bit of a tangent here, but it will all come together) There is a lot of talk lately in blogs, twitter and the like about personal branding. The idea of branding yourself as your business being stronger than branding a business with no personality. I remember years ago when I first heard of this concept at a Catersource conference in Las Vegas. Mike Roman, the conference creator, said that in catering you need to sell yourself and your staff since no one else can ever compete on that level. When you take a normal business idea and re-work the concept to create your own “game” then you become the leader of that game and you leave everyone else striving to catch up to you.

This past weekend David Garland asked the question “If you could describe your personal brand in three words, what would they be?” via twitter. It got me thinking about boiling down my brand to the basics and I responded with “ethical, insightful and effective” which basically defines the way I look at life, business or personal. He followed up the question with a great interview with Dan Schawbel discussing personal branding.

Give more to get more

The ethical portion of my answer comes from the thought that you will always get more in return when you treat people right. Not only treat them right, but help them succeed as well. Think about the last time someone did something to help you get a little further ahead without asking for anything in return. I would say that you thought more of them as a person and had a desire to return the favor by helping them out in some way. That is the feeling that I strive for in dealing with people.

The insightful part of the brand means to me that you think about how you can best help people and take the time to think it through. Providing more valuable referrals, ideas and assistance means more to the relationship than those that are not well planned. Take some time to figure out what their problems are, and how you can help to solve them to get the most benefit for both parties. When it comes to solving problems it can be extra helpful to get an opinion from an outsider that can look at things in a different way- be that guy.

Effectiveness

Talking about ideas without executing them won’t get anyone anywhere. In fact, it usually ends in frustration and a weaker relationship. The key to giving more to get more is to help put those ideas into place, or at least sharing your thoughts on the execution.

My friend Paul Kempler of Kempler Design brought this up at lunch today in an effective and direct way. I asked him to meet me and another friend for lunch to get his advice on starting up a design business. Near the end of the conversation he simply asked what else he could do to help, and then asked if we thought it was an effective meeting. Nice and simple, got right to the point and showed that he was concerned with truly providing the help that we had asked of him. Don’t just talk about ideas, leave with a clear direction for the future of the relationship. As in many things it never hurts to ask, just make sure you listen to the answer.

Don’t expect anything in return, not right now at least

Take the time to help someone out without asking for anything in return. You’ll sound like you have other motives and if you are truly an asset to them they will already be thinking of ways to help you in the future.

Of course there is a time when you will want/need ideas from the other people in your “network”. When you do ask, make sure you line out specifically what it is that you need so that they are prepared to help in the best way possible. Helping others to help you goes a long way towards being effective as well, ensuring that you have a good fit in personalities and ideas beforehand.

Satisfaction

The satisfaction from introducing people and making those connections is represented over and over again in many ways. For me, I get a great personal satisfaction out of witnessing a successful outcome after I connect people. Whether it’s a business deal, a simple purchase or a lasting friendship I feel good knowing that I helped to foster the relationship.

Satisfaction on the business side comes in the form of good people telling other good people about you, in a nutshell- EFFECTIVE referrals. As you work to create great relationships with other people you will notice it returned to you tenfold in the future. And I’m not talking about people telling their friends “Go see Joe for your new tires, he’s a good guy”. I’m talking about people whom you’ve helped personally introducing new customers, clients and friends to you. They will bring them to you by the hand and tell them exactly why they NEED to do business with you.

Wrap up

Stop wasting time making meaningless connections. Try just a bit harder to make sure that those connections have meaning and a future. GIVE more to others and you will GET more in return, always.

How can I help you to help someone else?

In a world of constant communication, where everyone has a few phone numbers, fax number, multiple emails, twitter, etc. why is it so hard to get in touch with people? I have seen this go both ways for me in the last week or so.

I got a call from a friend letting me know that a mutual acquaintance had been trying to get in touch with me for a while. When I reached out to them they were overjoyed that they had finally found me. This puzzled me a bit and I thought about it for a few days. If I wanted to get in touch with someone and I didn’t have their info handy I would hop on google and type in their name- mine comes back with 42 of the first 50 results leading to some form of getting in touch with me. Luckily I have a unique name…..and I started planning this a few months back.

Going the other way, I have been trying to get in touch with someone for the past week. Phone calls, messages, emails and more go unanswered. Now it is quite possible that they just don’t want to talk to me but since they haven’t relayed that to me I will keep on being my persistent self. And someone else offered up something, something I would BUY from them, and they haven’t answered messages since…..

Is it that people are just drowning in all of the communication portals? Have people just become rude? Or does nobody like me?

I think maybe some people don’t understand my motives. I offer to help folks with whatever I can when the opportunity arises and I think that some may misunderstand my motives and think I want something back. Well I do- I want you to answer me, even if it’s a no…..

This post was unofficially sponsored by Chris Brogan’s recent post on communication.