We’ve all spent a lot of time with our kids this summer.  Now, tell the truth, are you happy (relieved?) that your little ones are going back to school?

Today it is generally agreed that a business is not serious if it does not have a website. People look to websites to find out more about businesses, see how the company presents itself, and what are the services that company provides. People also want to be assured that the business has other, satisfied customers by viewing client lists and testimonials.

However, that type of web presence is quickly becoming outdated…it’s so 1999. The typical corporate website has become irrelevant, and today it’s all about creating a “web presence.” A web presence means that you have a home base, i.e. a website and/or blog, but your brand can also be found in other places on the web, like social networks.

People are spending so much time on social networks, that they expect to find you and your business there:

“a recent Universal McCann report stat[es] that content consumption outside of websites has increased 153% in the last 9 months. Overall, 53% of online users are consuming content outside of a publisher’s site - through the use of widgets, RSS readers, social networks and mobile devices.” (from ReadWriteWeb)

Four steps to a successful social media strategy

I often meet people who understand that they need to expand and diversify their web presence, but don’t know how. Some people feel lost, while others are sure that the way to being part of the social web is to…create a facebook group.

I created a facebook group. So why am I all alone?

Creating a facebook group, or even writing a blog or microblogging on twitter, are not strategies; they are tools for implementing strategeis. They may be the right tools for some businesses or organizations, but they also be the wrong place to invest time and energy for others. Choosing the tools or technologies that you will use to implement your social media strategy is actually the LAST step in the process.

Here’s an outline of the general steps needed to create a successful web presence:

1. Identify your goals: what do we want to achieve? Who are we trying to target?
   Part of this stage is benchmarking: analyzing current statistics; identifying what you hope will be different as a result of your social media efforts; defining parameters that you want to change most and least.
2. Next, work out the strategy: how are we going to achieve these goals? Where do we need to be to reach our target audience, i.e. based on their demographics, where are they hanging out on the web? What type of content will they like? What manpower considerations do we need to be aware of (i.e. the need to hire a Community Manager, etc.)? Do we have legal considerations?
3. Once all of that has been prepared, then and only then can you choose tools and technologies. A facebook group may not be the best strategy for your goals, or it may be appropriate, but maybe it won’t work on its own. Tools and technologies are just the medium, not the message (sorry McLuhan). For example, in the world of print marketing, you know a rollup is exactly what you need to get your message across at the upcoming trade show, but you’d look mighty strange schlepping it to pitch a new client at their office.
4. Implementation. Now you get to have fun with your shiny tools, because they’re the right ones.

I need to build a house. I hear these tools are good so I think I’ll use them.

Forrester has laid out a similar approach to creating an effective social media strategy by putting technology last, which they coined as POST: People, Objectives, Strategy, Technology. (Here’s a link to the original blog post, but it looks like Forrester is trying to wipe out any memory of Charlene Li since she left, so you can only access the cached version on Google.)

Like most things in life and business, you need to know what you want to achieve before you decide how you are going to achieve them. And that is why a facebook group is most definitely not a strategy.

Lonely girl image from willgame on flickr

Dane Carlson lists 20 Things Not to Do Before Starting A Business. While I agree with some of his points, I disagree with many others and think that if you follow them, they will either hinder the growth of your business, or get you into trouble. Dane’s point was to help entrepreneurs bootstrap, but it is important for business owners to walk the fine line between saving where possible, and spending where needed.

So let’s go through his list. I will discuss five points at a time, so let’s begin:

1. Don’t quit your day job: Disagree
   This is advice I see repeated for entrepreneurs, but it’s not necessarily good advice in all situations. If you really believe in your business and want it to grow, this is more than a full time job. Aside from the actual work ordered by clients, you have to spend a lot of time on marketing, networking, administration and more. If you don’t quit your day job, your business might not get anywhere since you won’t be able to give it the time it needs.
2. Don’t incorporate: Agree
   I think this is good advice in most situations. Unless you are involved in huge amounts of money or have an investor, incorporating is an unecessary cost and uses money which might be used better elsewhere. I recently met two young entrepreneurs who started a film-making company. They had one or two clients and had been working on very small projects. For some reason they had incorporated their business. By incorporating, they had increased their accounting fees and added many additional annual expenses to their budget, such as the need to open a business bank account (see point 3 below), and use the services of an attorney (see point 5 below).
3. Don’t get a bank account: Agree
   This is true especially in Israel. Israeli banks suck you dry, and every bank account means added fees for every little move you make. This is another reason not to incorporate (see point 2 above), since if you are incorporated you need to open a business account, and in these types of accounts the fees are even higher. In the MATI small business course, the teacher told us that we should open bank accounts for our businesses right from the beginning. I followed his advice, paid the fees for a while, and then decided to save myself some money and close the account.
4. Don’t rent an office: Agree
   If you can work from home and it doesn’t detract from your business in any way, then this is a great way to save yourself a huge expense.
5. Don’t hire an attorney: Agree
   You can generally get by with straightforward contracts with clients that you put together yourself or from templates. Unless you are involved in huge deals like mergers and acquisitions or real estate, attorneys are an unnecessary expense. This is yet another reason not to incorporate your business (see point 2 above), since to incorporate you need to hire an attorney.

Stay tuned for an analysis of Dane’s next five points: Don’t hire an accountant, Don’t get a loan, Don’t hire anyone, Don’t get a business license, and Don’t try to patent anything.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS), the world’s largest investment bank, recently announced a plan to spend $100-million (U.S.) on a program to teach 10,000 women about business and management around the world.

The program, titled “10,000 Women,” will primarily target women in the Middle East, Asia and Africa with the goal of increasing their standard of living and raising gross domestic product annually in hundreds of developing countries. The program hopes to open doors for thousands of women whose financial and practical circumstances prevent them from receiving a traditional business education.

In addition to funding tuition for business and management education, 10,000 Women will work with development organizations to better understand the local challenges girls and young women must overcome so more of them can realize economic opportunity and achieve their full potential. Many of these partnerships will seek to establish mentoring and networking channels for women and encourage career development opportunities.

Why women?

10,000 Women has been in development for more than a year and was inspired by economic research from Goldman Sachs that showed the powerful effects of greater labor force participation of women on economies and societies. The research, released in a report titled “Women Hold Up Half the Sky,” demonstrates that strengthening education for women is a critical and underutilized lever for economic growth in developing and emerging economies.

Here are some of the findings:

• The impact of female education is felt not only in women’s lifetimes, but also in the health,education and productivity of future generations as well. The economic growth that resultsfrom higher education feeds a virtuous cycle that supports continued improvements in education and health.
• Narrowing the existing gender gap in employment could increase income per capita by as much as 10%–14% above our baseline forecasts in the BRICs and other key emerging markets by 2020. Higher levels of female education could also have raised trend GDP growth rates in these countries by 0.2% over the past decade.

The program has already found its first beneficiary, a 27 year old Egyptian woman who designs and sells handmade furniture.

Learn more about 10,000 women here:

• 10000women.org
• 10,000 Women Fact Sheet [PDF, 216 KB]
• 10,000 Women Key Biographies [PDF, 51 KB]
• Global Economic Research: Women Hold up Half the Sky

Whether your grandma dropped a few hints or you overheard it at the office, we want to know what investing advice you’ve heard that you would pass on to other readers here at Bizzy Women. Looking forward to what you have to say..

When I started my home-based business, I was inspired by the many articles touting the benefits of self-employment for mothers. However, reality can be pretty different than ideals, so I would like to come right out and dispel some of the commonly-held falsehoods about self-employment:

The lie: You can save on childcare.

Yeah right. Try getting work done with a kid on your lap tapping happily away on your keyboard, or pulling the pots out of the kitchen cupboard. Even when they’re sleeping, you never know if they’ll wake up in five minutes or two hours. The result - pressure! This does not yield high-quality results.

The truth: Get a babysitter, or a nanny.

Or consider daycare. Better that they spend a few hours under someone else’s care and that you really get your work done, than that you spend all day trying to get your work done, but never really finish it and always feel unaccomplished and edgy.

The lie: A home-based business means you can work less and earn more.

I quickly realized that I was spending more time on my business than I did when I was a part-time employee. That is because when you run a business, you wear all the hats. You are responsible for accounting, marketing, client management, etc. And there are no paid vacation or sick days. You work - you get paid. You don’t - nada.

The truth: Be prepared to put a lot of time into your business

Particularly if your start-up resources are scarce. If you are a one man/woman show, your failures are your business’s failures.

The lie: Creating a cozy home office allows you to separate your work life and home life.

Maybe this is the case for people who live in sprawling homes with rolling green lawns. But for those who live in cities, or in Europe or the Middle East, housing standards are different. For example, families with many children often live in apartments with only a few rooms. And when I say rooms, I mean bedrooms and one multi-purpose kitchen/living room/dining room. No family room with crackling fireplace. No den. No basement. So where exactly are you going to put your cozy little office? In the bathroom?

The truth: Be prepared to work in your bathroom.

Or your bedroom. I know someone who changed one of their bathrooms into an office. I personally worked for two years in our bedroom perched on the corner of a tiny desk. The work/family separation thing? Really difficult to maintain when you’re working out of your bedroom. Or bathroom.

Don’t get me wrong - I’m a big believer in self-employment. I love running my business and watching it grow. I get a great feeling of accomplishment from it, and I do have greater flexibility and can rearrange my schedule as needed, i.e. by working in the evening when the kids are sleeping. But preparedness is a key factor in your success.

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