Demonstrate How You Pivot
Entrepreneurs like to move quickly, so offer examples that show your flexibility. You can’t be afraid to fail in a startup, so demonstrate how you’ve implemented, tested, failed, pivoted and improved in the past, and you’ll stand far above other candidates.

Kelly Azevedo, She’s Got Systems

Fill the Table With Ideas When hiring, we don’t just want someone who will be competent at the particular job we’re hiring for, but someone who is going to bring fresh, creative ideas to the role and think critically about our business. When interviewing, it’s important to come with ideas you have for how to improve the business so that they know that you’re an innovator. Stephanie Kaplan, Her Campus Media

Show Your Startup Passion Startups want to hire someone who loves the product and is a great fit for their team and culture. Do your homework on the startup and the founders before your interview, and discuss why you would be great fit and why you believe in their product. Most importantly, you’ll likely be working longer hours for a smaller salary, so be honest with yourself about whether that belief is genuine. Doug Bend, The Law Office of Doug Bend

Don’t BS It Most entrepreneurs have very defined BS detectors. If you’re asked a question and you don’t know the answer, say, “That’s a great question, I don’t know, but I’d be happy to research it and get you the answer.” Don’t make something up! It’s the fastest way to get passed over in my company. Nathan Lustig, Entrustet

Bring Strategic Questions A job seeker should do enough research on a startup to know that business and have great questions to ask about how that business operates. Ideally, the job seeker could even make suggestions about what the startup can be doing to succeed more. Whether those ideas are something the founders never thought of doesn’t matter, because it shows that person understands the business. Victor Wong, PaperG

Show Off Some Initiative Entrepreneurs and young startups hire for the “ability to get stuff done” — with a minimum of hand holding, supervision or instruction. Demonstrate this skill. Do lots of homework before your interview, and be willing to do a small project to show your abilities if you make the candidate shortlist. Matt Mickiewicz, 99designs

Polish Your Portfolio Portfolios aren’t just for creatives anymore. When I’m hiring someone, I want to see examples of their work in action. That could be a series of planning documents for projects, bullet points of savings you created for a past employer or something else entirely. Show me what you’ve accomplished in similar positions in the past. Thursday Bram, Hyper Modern Consulting

Make an Impression Beforehand Show the startup what you’ve got beforehand. A great way to make an impression before the interview is by tweeting the startup, writing on their Wall, etc. Make sure you stand out! Ben Lang, EpicLaunch

A Unique Personality Matters Show your personality. Obviously, entrepreneurs are looking for skills and qualifications, but startups are usually close-knit teams that need to work well together (for long hours), so knowing that the candidate will fit in is very important. Nicolas Gremion, Paradise Publishers

Available Upon Arrival A job seeker should have as many materials (resume, portfolio, etc.) as possible upon arrival to a phone, in-person, or virtual interview. Traditionally, resumes would include “Available Upon Request” for references, but have previous employers and teammates leave you a review on LinkedIn. Then, copy and paste these reviews and bring them to your interviews to give the interviewer insight. Nancy T. Nguyen, Sweet T

In It For The Long Haul Make sure you explain that you’re not in it for the immediate payoff. That will show dedication and an alignment of interests. Brent Beshore, AdVentures

Can You Solve the Problem? Startups are usually small teams faced with big problems. Demonstrate how you are a scrappy problem solver who can think of creative solutions to any problem thrown your way. Tim Jahn, Entrepreneurs Unpluggd

Be a Believer If you’re interviewing at a startup, you’re likely speaking to the person who has poured their entire life into the company. Show them that you believe in their vision and are equally committed to making it happen by doing your homework, asking them smart questions and congratulating them on whatever success they have achieved to date. Christopher Kelly, Sentry Centers

Learn Everything You Can Most startups today have a Twitter account, Facebook Page, website, YouTube account, etc., so use all of these resources to your advantage! Soak up as much information as you can prior to the interview to really “wow” them with your knowledge. It also helps in understanding your fit at the organization and determining if it’s the right next step for you. Heather Huhman, Come Recommended

Cut the Cliche Strong record, results-driven, fast learner? Please stop the buzz words. Instead, be unique — explain why you really like what the company is working on, and touch on how you could contribute to it. Christian Springub, Jimdo

It’s ironic that the more those salespeople hope to convert you into a paying customer, the farther away they drive you from the cash registers. As business owners, be sure you’re not doing the same. Instead, employ a new sales strategy that loosen the wallets of potential customers without leering over them like an off-putting hovercraft.

We asked members of the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invitation only nonprofit organization comprised of the country’s most promising young entrepreneurs, the following question to find out how they creatively convert a “looker” into a happy client:

“What’s your most creative tip for growing sales when customers are still leery of opening their wallets?”

Here’s what YEC community members had to say:

1. Capture the Leads

“Many shoppers often find it hard to immediately commit to something, and can use a bit of hand holding through their online shopping process. Instead of trying to sell them on the spot, capture their email, and get them to register for your site or to connect with you on social platforms. Then work to nurture them into a loving and paying customer.” ~ Danny Wong, Blank Label Group, Inc.

2. Go to Trial

“If prospects are not ready to make the leap into your pool, get them in better shape by at least allowing them to dip their toes in the water. Free trials can be extremely effective to whet a customer’s appetite for your product or service. Make the free trial long enough to show the benefits, but short enough to get them interested in buying more.” ~ Doreen Bloch, Poshly Inc.

3. Name Your Price!

“Taking the money off the table, would you use our service? Yes? So you clearly see its value. Now, we can’t give our product away for free, but you pay us what you think is fair for the first month — and we’ll go from there.” ~ Nathan Lustig, Entrustet

4. Build Long-Term Relationships

“You don’t need customers to buy the first time they encounter you if you’ve got relationship-building mechanisms (like a good mailing list) in place. You can’t entirely automate the relationship-building process, but you can keep it simple and still connect with customers who will buy bigger tickets items from you more than once after you’ve got the relationship in place.” ~ Thursday Bram, Hyper Modern Consulting

5. Ask Questions

“Whether a customer is still a prospect or a confirmed buyer, the best way to help make a buying decision is by asking questions. Find out what they’re looking to do with the product considered, and ask why they’re hesitating to try it. Then thoughtfully help them by analyzing the products you offer to match them with the right one. Sales requires strategizing, not just spending.” ~ Vanessa Nornberg, Metal Mafia

6. Pay-for-Performance

“Pay-for-Performance is a great way to grab attention and gain sales because it earns customers’ trust and loyalty over time. My company went to a pay-for-performance model, which resulted in a growth of sales. People feel more comfortable with spending money after they see results. If you actually provide your clients with value, then you shouldn’t be scared of implementing this model.” ~ John Hall, Digital Talent Agents

7. Try Tiered Pricing

“Irresistible tiered pricing draws customers in. Don’t simply offer one variation of your product/service, but instead offer several, including an irresistible “Best Value” offer. This allows prospects to have comparison points, which defines just how good your “Best Value” deal really is.” ~ Nicolas Gremion, Free-eBooks.net

8. Make an Event Out of It!

“Event-based marketing works. We’re all busy, and sometimes it’s not so much that people don’t want to spend money, but that they’ve not seriously considered your offerings. Give them a time-specific deadline to sign up and buy — with good reason, of course — and they’re more likely to make a decision. That might mean a “no” but you’ll also get some successful responses.” ~ Nathalie Lussier, Nathalie Lussier Media

9. The Ol’ Risk Reversal

“There are a few reasons people don’t buy: price, trust, or simply not being ready right now. It’s strong when you can reverse the risk and put it on you as the company to perform. Offer a trial program or beef up your guarantee so the buying decision has no risk for the customer. Eliminate the fear of purchase and you’ll be golden.” ~ Trevor Mauch, Automize, LLC

10. Demonstrate Your ROI and Value

“Customers are always going to be leery about opening their wallets. The key is to only sell to companies in industries that will legitimately benefit from using your services or buying your products. Nobody wants to throw money at something where they can’t see any value.” ~ John Berkowitz, Yodle

11. Create a Trust

“If you’re having trouble closing deals, try looking past the sale and focus solely on creating trust with your customers. They’ll be much more likely to open their wallets once you get your hand out of their pocket.” ~ Christopher Kelly, Sentry Centers

12. Give Them Free Value

“If you are selling something to someone else, you are assumed to be an expert on what you are selling. Take some of this expertise and give it away for free as a whitepaper, blog post or newsletter. Once your customers know how knowledgeable you are and how valuable your expertise is, they will be more likely to purchase it from you.” ~ Lucas Sommer, Audimated

After spending days putting together an email detailing our newest offer (Brand new product! Never seen before! Will solve all your life problems, from varicose veins to a bad golf game!), we send the email out and wait for the responses to roll in.

Rather than roll in, however, they trickle in so slowly that a midday email from Grandma makes us sit up and take notice. (That is, until we realize Granny isn’t interested in our product, either – she just wants to know if we’re coming to dinner Sunday night.)

This sense of disappointment doesn’t have to be par for the course when you’re running email marketing campaigns. Rather than resolving yourself to lagging responses and sub-par returns on your investment, make it your goal to revitalize your campaign.

What Successful E-Marketers Do

Email marketing can come across as spam. (Shocking, no?) Successful campaigns begin with trust. The recipients of email marketing must recognize and welcome messages from the sender. Because of this inherent need for trust, strong e-marketers don’t rent or buy email lists. Nothing turns people off faster except, perhaps, Grandma’s meatloaf.

If you’re sending email via a third party, make sure their list is responsive. Are they following the Marketing Golden Rule to give as much as you take? Like any relationship, email marketing requires a balance. If you’re constantly trying to sell people through your emails, they’ll quickly tire of receiving them. Good e-marketers try to provide value as often as they sell. They provide real benefits – not just discounts on their stuff. Subscribers look forward to receiving their mailings because they offer tips, access to information, and other exclusive content for free.

Successful marketers act as if their emails are going to be read by actual humans. This means that their text is written in plain, natural language. Writing emails as if they’d go to a friend or a family member works better than trying to over-market. People see through the awkward verbiage of someone desperately trying to sell a product. But someone who’s writing so that even Grandma understands why this new-fangled contraption is interesting will entice more readers.

When writing, these marketers also pay close attention to their subject lines.

Like article headings, subject lines must grab the attention of the recipient. It’s the surest way to keep them from automatically deleting your message. How do you know what gets them intrigued? Target and tailor your campaigns. You can only knock on someone’s door so many times; when you do, make sure it’s worthwhile for both of you. Determine your ideal audience or target demographic, and build your campaign around them.

For example, my clients are eBook enthusiasts; when sponsors send emails to our client base, we suggest that they offer an eBook or an e-Guide in their campaign because that’s what our audience wants. It’s a win-win for our clients and our sponsors.

What Lackluster Campaigns Do

The least successful email campaigns are created without spam triggers in mind.

Email providers, including Gmail and Yahoo!, review each email before they direct them appropriately. Emails riddled with spam triggers – spam keywords, excessive links, and a low ratio of text to images – get siphoned into junk mail, or aren’t delivered at all. (Are you seeing why these are the least successful campaigns?) It’s impossible to get feedback if your emails are never read, so familiarize yourself with the most important spam triggers so you can make it past first base.

Similarly, bad email marketing doesn’t comply with CAN-SPAM regulations. Companies who fail to properly identify themselves or provide unsubscribe methods are quickly blacklisted. These aren’t optional details – these regulations are law. The only way to make your bad campaign worse is to get fined $16,000 by law enforcement for each email sent. Talk about a nightmare!

Finally, weak campaigns are never split tested. Split testing allows you to see which elements of your campaigns are most successful – or most disliked. Split tests quickly show marketers what’s stale about their existing campaigns, whether it’s their design, their copy, or their offer.

Several variations of split testing exist, so there’s no good excuse for e-marketers to not do it. If, somehow, your business is against split testing, at the very least you should be tracking your open rates, your click-through rates, and which links are getting the most hits. You can’t replicate success if you don’t know what was successful in the first place, but you can certainly fail over and over again by doing the same things.

By carefully considering your text, your approach, and your customers’ needs, you’re more likely to strike gold with your next email marketing campaign.

Keep your recipients’ perceptions in mind as you develop your campaign, and success shouldn’t be far behind. (Heck, maybe even Grandma will want what you’re selling.)

If so, you likely weren’t sure what you were in for. They possibly lured you in with the promise of Laffy Taffy, or a few bucks, and now you’re trapped.

You sit down silently with a group of people and the moderator introduces you to Widget A. She want’s to gain insight on your perceptions, opinions, beliefs, and attitudes towards the widget.

Each of you in the room are silently, and mentally, willing each other to admit how awful Widget A actually is. Instead, the silence builds and you’re nonchalantly examining the exit signs in the room, wondering how you can make your escape.

Gather Evidence to Support Your Theories

Fortunately, not all focus group experiences have to be terrible. As a small business owner, gaining customer feedback is an essential component of validating your product or service. If you choose to use focus groups as a method to validation there’s a few things you can do to ensure it’s an effective, engaging and valuable process.

Here are six ways to improve your next focus group, and not a single one of them involves Laffy Taffy.

1. Select the Right People

The people who will provide you with the best feedback are those that are your target market and current customers. Clients who’ve purchased from you in the past, or have declared themselves social media fans, have a vested interest in your success. They’ve demonstrated their enthusiasm for your brand already, and if you continue to produce goods they want, they win.

To entice your biggest fans, consider using a pop-up on your site asking for their help. Pop-ups get a bad rap, but they’re the most blatant and effective way to get your message across. Prospects and customers will be on your site regardless, so take advantage of the opportunity.

2. Decide How to Incentivize  Participants

While offering gifts seems like a guaranteed way to motivate your test group, a lot of people may sign up only for the gift, and present nothing of value to the research.

Unless you think it’s ingenious that Paris Hilton shows up to premieres of movie’s she’s never been in, but still gets goody bags, don’t do this. Instead, look for other ways to add value.

3. Establish your Testing Method

You can conduct one of two types of tests: beta or split testing.

Beta testing is best for brand new products and services. Recruit a few people whose opinions you trust, and expand after you’ve incorporated their feedback. This wastes less of your testers’ time and keeps your reputation cleaner.

In comparison, with split testing (A/B testing) you can create a baseline sample to compare to a variety of single-variable test samples in order to improve response rates. You’ll want to ensure that the single test items are what’s actually producing different results. Small changes can make a big difference. So don’t try to radically change everything at once.

The idea of split testing is that people don’t even realize you’re testing. For that reason, you can and should do split testing regularly. For example, your website pages can always be improved, particularly the checkout and registration pages using tools such as Google Website Optimizer (free) or Optimizely (paid).

 4. Establish a Timeline

Ensure you’ve allotted sufficient time for testing. You don’t have to run it forever … people hate 20-week trials!  Instead make your sample size fairly large. Doing this will ensure your data is more accurate and ease the burden on your testers.

5. Structure Your Questionnaire Correctly

For the love of all that’s holy, don’t ask broad, open-ended questions of your testers. If you want specific information, you must ask specific questions.

Questions like, “How was your experience?” will yield lots of useless replies like, “Super awesome!” and “My favorite part was the free pizza!” These aren’t relevant to your testing.

Instead, ask specific questions. for example, “Did you notice that we’re certified by the Better Business Bureau?” This will easily target the information you’re looking for. If you have close-looped questions, offer very few answer choices. This ensures you’ll have responses that are quick to categorize and review.

And of course, your questions should be brief and simple to understand. If people have difficulty understanding what you’re asking, they’re likely to give incorrect answers. Bad data is worse than no data at all.

6. Push People Past Fear

Society has ingrained in people a fear of offending others. This means some testers will hold back, rather than give you the real dirt because they don’t want to hurt your feelings.

Avoid this by making it clear that constructive criticism is welcomed. Let your focus group know that you can’t improve if you don’t know what’s wrong.

While focus groups can seem uncertain and difficult to conduct, they don’t have to be. Selecting the right people, asking the right questions, and demonstrating openness to their feedback will improve testing results in the long run. Participants will be glad they can help and grateful that you won’t put them to sleep.

Whether it’s the guy who came in wearing spandex bike shorts, the woman who talked on her cell phone for 15 minutes without stopping, or the college grad who brought his mom in, awkwardness and bad fits abound in the interviewing process.

Imagine taking those bad in-person encounters and putting them on the phone.

How would you know who’s likely to wear neon yellow spandex to the office? How would you weed out the kids who are still using Mommy as their security blanket? It seems like it would be even harder to hire good staff remotely, but it’s entirely possible to find great hires from afar. You simply have to know what you’re doing.

Create the Right Interview Process for Your Company

If you run a company that has employees scattered across the country – or the globe – you’re going to have to do some remote hiring. As you develop a remote hiring system, keep an eye on what works best for your business in its day-to-day operations. What makes you most productive will also help you locate the right hires.

For example, my company has a large Facebook fan base. We’ve moved to posting positions on Facebook – because we have a large pool of people using our page, we’re not shorting ourselves on quantity or quality. (This also works if you have a solid client list or a professional association you work with.)

We know that these people are already passionate about our brand and the market space we occupy, which is tremendously important. Skills can always be developed, but initial interest is crucial. You don’t want people who hardly know what you do trying to explain it to other people – then you’ve created the awkward situation.

One good way to create a real-life interview experience is to do video interviews via Skype. This allows you to see the person you’re interacting with and get a feel for their communication style. (Non-verbal signals count just as much as speech. If you don’t believe that, imagine Bill Cosby without the exaggerated facial expressions. Jell-O seems a lot less appealing without them.)

The best way to pull people out during Skype interviews is to chat them up as if you were meeting at a social event. The benefit of a webcam is that you can pick up on people’s personalities more clearly. You want to know if they’d be a good fit for your company, even if they’ll be thousands of miles away. People can still be very annoying from distant zip codes.

Narrow the Field Selectively

The first thing you’re looking for in a potential employee is ability.

The most accurate view you’ll get of their skills is via their past work – always ask for samples. People who’ve struggled to produce good work in the area you’re hiring aren’t going to suddenly become talented overnight. If you don’t want to be the person to build them from scratch, carefully look over their old work.

Test projects also allow you to see people’s capabilities, particularly if they’ve completed work that’s so different from what you’re looking for that you’re having difficulty gauging their fit. Once you’ve eliminated the people who aren’t up to snuff, send the remainder a test project. This doesn’t have to be something you actually need, but it should be something that requires a 30-60-minute time investment on the candidate’s part.

If it’s a design position, you can have them create a small banner; if you’re hiring a writer, you can ask them to craft a short email. A lot of people will blow the assignment off, so that cuts out the tire kickers who are too lazy to go the extra mile. These tests also let you evaluate how the candidates respond to your needs. People who develop samples that reflect your way of thinking will immediately rise to the top, as will the people who improve upon what you yourself would have done.

Eliminate the Bad Fits

Once your field is down to just a couple of people, you need to check references.

A true former employer, supervisor, or co-worker counts as a qualified reference; the neighbor who paid the candidate to mow his lawn doesn’t. Contacting references is time-consuming, but these people will be able to give you a firsthand account of what it’s like to work with the fabulous-seeming people you’re considering.

But don’t just rely upon former employers’ impressions.

Think about how the candidate responded throughout the hiring process. Did she respond on time? Was she easy to communicate with? Did she fully answer all the questions you asked? Did she behave appropriately? It’s easy to overlook these things when someone’s work has blown you away, but fit is crucial. You’ll have to work closely with the person you hire, so finding out how they’ll act in the environment you’ve created is important. One ill-fitting hire can scare off the rest of your superstar squad.

It’s true that people can find ways to hide their true natures during the interview process, no matter the format. But following these steps will make it much harder for candidates to hide their rude phone manners – or the spandex bike short collection that would make Lance Armstrong jealous.

Take the extra time to vet your remote candidates, and you won’t spend the rest of their tenure avoiding them!

The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only nonprofit organization composed of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. Founded by Scott Gerber, the YEC promotes entrepreneurship as a solution to unemployment and underemployment and provides entrepreneurs with access to tools, mentorship and resources that support each stage of their business’s development and growth.

A: AddThis Equals Social Growth

AddThis makes it quick and easy to add share buttons to your site for all the common social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. In addition, they send weekly emails with tons of data, including which products were shared the most, which services were used the most, etc. We gain tons of valuable insights from these reports and get our products out through the shares.

Josh Weiss (twitter.com/bluegala), Bluegala (bluegala.com/)

A: Bitly for Links

We avoid using regular URLs when we post to social media channels. Using bitly or another trackable URL shortener tool can help you understand what your followers are interested in most, since bitly can show in-depth analytics about your links.

Doreen Bloch (twitter.com/DoreenBloch), Poshly Inc. (poshly.com)

A: Find Out More With Facebook Polls

The best way to straddle the line between creating content and conducting market research in today’s social world is by issuing poll questions to your fans on Facebook. Facebook has recently made this easier to do when posting an update to your page.

Logan Lenz (twitter.com/loganlenz), Endagon (endagon.com/)

A: Brag About It a Little!

Collecting demographic information and including it in your pitch decks tells your clients exactly who their hard-earned dollars will be targeting. Using Facebook Insights, Google Analytics and MailChimp’s Analytics360 WordPress plug-in, you can gain better insights on who your users are, and who your products and services are serving.

Matt Wilson (twitter.com/MattWilsontv), Under30CEO (under30ceo.com/)

A: Track Popular Topics on PostRank

I love PostRank — it’s easy to install, and it allows you to track which topics and blog posts are hitting the mark and which ones are falling flat. PostRank tracks social media engagement, comments and links. It then gives a score to each of your blog posts, giving you insights into what people love reading from your company.

Nathalie Lussier (twitter.com/nathlussier), Nathalie Lussier Media (nathalielussier.com)

A: Compete Through Conversation Trends

Gather social conversations related to your brand, competitors and industry, sort out topics by context and sentiment, and do a good old-fashioned SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis. Once you know how you’re perceived in the market in comparison to your competitors, you’ll have a better picture to move forward and position yourself according to your best strengths.

Allie Siarto (twitter.com/allieo), Loudpixel (loudpixel.com)

A: What Are Your Buzz Words?

I look at historical marketing data from social media to determine what phrases people are using when interacting with my service. Reading this data can unlock keywords you may never have considered or insights which might not be obvious. If you do it right, you can find out what words customers are looking for and what times and channels are best for publishing those words.

Lucas Sommer (twitter.com/audimated), Audimated (audimated.com/)

A: Learn How to Brainstorm

Surveys and polls are helpful to get a general feeling of customer sentiment, but they are limited. Napkin Labs is a startup out of Boulder, Colorado, that has created the Brainstorm app. This tool allows you to have discussions with customers — and facilitates fans talking to one another — to share ideas. So you don’t just get ideas, you get insights.

Aaron Schwartz (twitter.com/#!/ModifyWatches), Modify Watches (modifywatches.com)

A: Discover New Social Connections

The most prominent people are affiliated with multiple boards, associations and university alumni networks. By reviewing these contacts ahead of time, you can identify mutual friends as well as ideal introductions that they may be able to offer.

Garrett Neiman (twitter.com/#!/CollegeSpring), CollegeSpring (collegespring.org)

A: Link Up Directly

One of the great aspects of social media is that it allows you to connect directly with your audience. When we have questions or are seeking feedback, we’re not scared to ask people directly. It’s free and very accurate market research.

Nicolas Gremion, Paradise Publishers (paradisepublishers.com)

Traveling and immersing yourself in other cultures is key to making a great first impression in business. The younger you start learning about other places, the less likely your chances of speaking over the British national anthem while the Queen watches you (sorry, Barack Obama).

Here are a few ways travel can help entrepreneurs avoid public humiliation, and grow in the process:

1. Challenge and hone your problem solving skills.

Traveling allows you to broaden your horizons and discover new ideas and ways of doing things. And, let’s be honest, “stuff” happens and problems are magnified when you’re traveling. You can gain problem-solving skills anywhere, from the airport to your client’s desk. If your wallet gets stolen while you’re on the subway in a foreign country, your problem-solving skills will expand exponentially – you have to solve the problem, then and there. You’ll find resources you didn’t know existed, and remembering how calmly you reacted will make it easier to stay calm when your most annoying client emails you ten times a day.

2. Gain independence, but remember to mingle

Whether you’re told to step or think outside the box, people still want you outside said box. Traveling allows you to broaden your horizons. We all have a tendency, especially when we’re younger, to listen to others’ ideas before our own. Moving around gets you in touch with what you think, not what the dominant culture is constantly feeding you.
Beyond that, travel teaches you to manage on your own. This is important for would-be entrepreneurs. You’ll learn to find your own accommodations, make your own food, and navigate your way through different places. Nothing gives you confidence faster.

Don’t let this trick you into thinking that travel is a solo venture. On the contrary, visiting other places forces you to meet new people and engage others, which are essential in business. Interacting continuously is a great business experience that most executives earn as they move up the food chain. Get your experience now.

3. Develop real relationships

When you travel, who you meet impacts your business. You never know who you’re going to meet, and you never know how your experiences can help you make a connection. A few days ago, an author emailed me ranting about a decision from our editors. I noticed he teaches not far from where we lived in Vietnam. Because I could relate to where he lived, I was able to reconnect with this author and ease the situation by using our proximity to break the tension. Having something positive to talk about changes the tone of these conversations and allows us to develop a rapport with our clients. Proving you care about doing right by your business – and your clients – gives you a leg up on the competition.

4. Think proactively

It’s okay to travel for fun; everyone deserves a break. Strategically planning trips to understand cultures can give you a leg up, so don’t travel just for the enjoyment of it. You must define what it is you want to do with your business, and then decide if traveling is necessary and beneficial. Think long-term about where your company might go, both in a business sense and a physical one. Spending lots of money to go to Carnival in Brazil sounds fun, but it sounds less fun when you can’t finance your annual business trip to Iowa. (Brazil gives you beads, but Iowa gives you leads. Repeat that mantra as often as necessary!)

5. Give yourself an edge

Showing that you are dedicated enough to your profession to travel across the world is a statement in itself to your potential clients that you are serious about what you’re doing. Much of my work is with India, many of my teammates are Indian, and we outsource to India, so it made sense for me to travel to India. Think about it: you and I are both bidding for the same job, and if I travel to India and sit down with a potential client while you just talk on the phone, it gives me an advantage. Travel can help you land more clients and contacts.

Traveling and gathering knowledge beyond your own corner of the world is valuable in making you a smarter businessperson and a better decision-maker. Whether you realize it yet or not, the world is made up of people who have the same beliefs you do – and just as many people who don’t share any of your beliefs. By visiting other places, you’re more likely to make a good impression on your intercultural colleagues. If nothing else, it increases the chances that if you throw up in someone’s lap, it will be a friend’s.

Before we begin, let’s look at the history and  numbers of how big Pinterest truly is.  It was officially launched in 2010 and within the first few months it reached 10,000 users. By the end of 2011 it surpassed LinkedIn and Tagged as the 3rd largest social network. As of today, it drives more traffic to retailers than Google+, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Now why does this all matter again? Besides the almost 500% growth since inception, nearly 90% of all the users are women ages 35-44. Just ask your wife or your girlfriend and we’re pretty sure they’re a member.

Here are several companies and their tips for utilizing Pinterest for marketing.

1) Infographs are great, but Instructographs (an infograph that walks the reader through specific how-to steps to achieve a goal) are better. Pinterest is based on pinning images. The more useful and compelling you can make your image, the more likely it will be shared, repined, and clicked-through to your website. Think of a creative way to integrate your product or service into a useful Instructograph and you’re golden!

If you are selling a product, pin a great image of the product and if you write the cost of the item in the text box (i.e. Purple pumps $25 at Etsy) a banner will appear across the top of the image with the price automatically. Really useful for convincing people to click through to your site and buy. – Heather @ TheeDesign Studio

2) Aside from carefully reading Pinterest’s terms and conditions, which is a must, we suggest that businesses take time to consider how they can translate their product or service offering into a visually appealing Pin. Pinterest is all about the visual wow factor, and original content presented creatively gets more attention. For example, if you are a health food company consider adding an intriguing headline below your product picture such as, “Five brain foods you should be eating but aren’t”.

The goal of posting your Pins is to get users to both click on your product and Re-pin it so it spreads to other Pinterest users, and, to get users to click-through your Pin and visit your website directly. You may attach your website address to each Pin you create. Make a comment below your Pin to provide details. Don’t forget to include a hash tag before keywords in your comment so that more Pinterest users will find your products and enhance your brand awareness. For example, if you are promoting a protein powder, post a comment that includes #protein powder. – Clare @ Daisy Brains

3) Our company, which sells embroidered patches, is a little unique, allowing us to have an interesting Pinterest strategy. By pinning the images of these embroidered patches, we can generate massive amounts of interest. The key is that individuals don’t have to have an interest in embroidered patches, but rather, what is depicted on the patch. If we pin a patch that showcases a well-known phrase or quote, for instance, most people who see it that relate to it will re-pin it. If we make an entire board full of animal patches, animal loves will follow us—not because they love patches, but because they love animals. This expands our reach and increases the chances we’ll get seen by individuals who actually are interested in embroidered patches, thus driving more traffic to our site. So, both types of pinners are valuable. The pinners who are not interested in our products are valuable because they increase exposure to those who are. It’s not often that an uninterested person will click the link to our site, but those who want patches will; therefore most of the traffic is high-quality. – Marisa @ Stadri Emblems

4) To have a strong presence on any social media platform requires providing high quality, interesting content and responding to the wants and needs of the audience. Just yesterday I recommended that a client who makes fitness equipment should add Pinterest to their marketing mix. They already have a strong presence on Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest will allow them to extend their brand awareness and provide a new vehicle – *visual marketing*. I recommended that they connect with females in the target audience (female fitness fanatics) by cultivating a curated collection of health & fitness-related pins and boards. Rather than pinning just their products, I recommended pinning a mix of products, workouts, attire, etc. and be the go-to fitness brand to follow on Pinterest. Their boards would include: “Motivational Quotes,” “Workouts,” “Fitness Gear,” “My Gym Bag,” etc, that appeal to workout junkies. Women on pinterest love to follow and re-pin health and fitness photos, products and anything motivational, so the platform could help connect with brand ambassadors and spread brand awareness.

I think the fact that Pinterest has such a high female demographic definitely influences the strategy and makes the platform extremely strong in tandem with marketing campaigns that bring in mommy bloggers OR coupons/giveaways/contests/ daily deals, etc. – Martha @ The Social Lights

5) I would recommend a company starting out with Pinterest treat it less like a place for self-promotion and more like a platform to celebrate the culture of what your company does. In our non-profit’s case, we use Pinterest to celebrate socially-conscious documentaries, other nonprofits and resources that might help them. In addition to this, since the films we produce are focused around environmental, fair trade and Jewish issues, we have boards celebrating those areas as well. In the case of our corporate video production company, we have camera equipment reviews, photography tips as well as a board for the latest in video marketing and social video. It’s not about blasting your own content (although I’d recommend sprinkling a little of that in there), but about being a resource for any industry you might service and a place for your peers to engage with relevant and interesting content. - Lea @ Voices and Visions

6) What I’ve noticed the most about Pinterest is it’s easier for your content to get attention from users with 100+ followers than on Twitter or Google+. Since Pinterest is newer, there is obviously less “noise” – less spam, less irrelevant content, less people posting. If I had posted the same content on Twitter, it never would have gotten picked up by an account with that many followers who didn’t even follow us (and we did not follow them).

My best advice is pinning at least 2 things a day to steadily build up your boards and your followers – and get your pins recognized by larger, usually branded, accounts (All it takes is one good pin!). Make sure that your pin descriptions have keywords that people are likely to search and are on boards that are correctly categorized. The amount of times I’ve seen a great pin that is not getting the recognition it should because of a poor description is disheartening – for example, being the first to pin a picture of the new Google glasses with the description, “Wish I had these,” is getting your boards nowhere. – Yvonne @ Baroan Technologies

7) Set up a strong profile and make sure you include a link to your RSS feed. Create several great boards that relate to your business and industry. We’ve added in several general boards for the demographics that include cute things, food, actors saying / quotes. Be sure to add pins to your boards, a minimum of 5 pins to each board so that the thumbnail of the board will appear full. Adding 7 to 10 pins is much better. All social media channels have etiquette that needs to be understood and followed, you should read Pin Etiquette. You have to engage other users, start by following, re-pinning, liking, commenting on others pins and boards this will spread the word about your brand organically.

Be sure you add the Pin-It button to your website. At Free-eBooks.net we’ve added it all of our eBooks. As you’re browsing our ebrary and you find a title you want to pin, you can Pin-It. Using Pinterest in a contest is another excellent way to create awareness. We had a very successful contest in March using Pinterest. We asked our Facebook Fans to create a board and pin 10 of their favorite eBook titles to win a Kindle and other prizes. It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed a great deal of fan engagement from it and we are still getting some residual attention from it. – Nicolas @ Paradise Publishers

I am having great success with Pinterest. I set up my account as a personal account under my name instead of a business account under Glitzee Glee. I have many boards about my interests and one board about my business. I think people connect with me on a more personal level. They don’t skip over my boards because I have a variety of boards not just a board with the products I sell. It allows me to attract followers to pins that aren’t related to my business but the added bonus is that they see the board about my store when they check out my other pins. By expanding your pins you attract people that weren’t looking for what you sell but can become interested. – Jamie @ Glitzee Glee

9) First and foremost, when using Pinterest to promote your company or brand, make sure that you are using relevant imagery in relation to what your company is all about. This does not mean just posting image of your companies products, but images of topics that your potential customers will click on and then ultimately learn about your brand.

When you are ready to start Pinning, instead of “repinning” or uploading images from you computer, first create a blog post on your company blog first utilizing the image(s) you want to post onto Pinterest. After the blog post is created then simply use the Pinterest “Pin It” bookmarklet from your web browser bar and “Pin” the image from your blog. This will ensure that the image is linked back to your website, not Google or some other site. A link of your website will appear next to your “Pinned” image. In addition, copy the the link of your blog post and put it in the text section of your “Pin”. – Jib @ The Tailored Scholar

10) Use Pinterest to create a mood or vision for your products, with which your followers and fans can interact. Rather than simply posting all of your products and adding their prices, create mood boards, trend boards, just-for-fun boards, contest boards and other engaging content from which readers can draw inspiration and experience your products in concert with others. Whisk them away to another place; launch a product in Venice; take them to the beaches of LA; ask them to finish one of your boards. Your company does not exist in a vacuum and neither should your pins. Readers feel most engaged on Pinterest when visually perusing cohesive and intriguing content. And remember: when pulling together different boards do not forget to source accurately. – Aubrie @ Zoora Fashion

11) 80% of our employees are under the age of 35. Needless to say, we use social media, videos, pictures, and Pinterest to convey to our demographic what type of business we are. I call it building your “creative culture.” Our Creative Culture has helped us brand our company to becoming one of the leading icons in Dallas and Waco Texas. Pinterest has been a huge aid in this b/c we post interior design pictures, homes, recipes, books, etc. – things that are interesting inside the home. This subconsciously says to the viewer, “Can you see yourself in this home? We can help get you into your dream home.”

Our Facebook fan page jumped up several hundred followers when we leveraged our Pinterest account. And of course you have to have an eye for what to post. We even threaded local restaurants and retail stores through our Pinterest as “our clients favorite places to visit.” We would talk to the restaurants and retail stores about getting a 10% of code from them to give to our fans to try them out. We post images on Pinterest and an “OAK CODE” to our Facebook, allowing our followers to check out hot spots in Dallas and Waco (where our 2 offices are located). – Merrick @ Oak Mortgage Group

12) First of all, it has become an incredible venue for increased referral traffic for brand’s websites (currently beating Google+), as well as a way to visually share useful content with consumers. We currently use the creative platform to showcase interesting, helpful, and insightful boards like, “Social Media Infographics,” to less informal boards like, “We Heart Creativity.” It’s important to stress that Pinterest is not a place to pin your brand’s products and services, but to pin for the sake of your consumers genuine interest and needs. *

- Limit 5-6 pins at a time per each board to keep content varied and interesting for your audience
- Pinterest is new and exciting, but it’s not right for everyone. If you can’t devote the time to keep it up, stick to the Social Media platforms you’ve already established. An unkempt presence will only damage your brand image.
- Make sure you have a concrete strategy before you start pinning. Are you in this for more brand awareness? Do you want to build a following and get as many re-pins as possible? Establish a direction and keep yourself accountable for it.
- Be discriminating when creating new boards. Try to create boards that can be built upon easily. Lots of boards with a low amount of pins on them will make for a less an optimum presence.
- Apply Social Media listening and devote some time to analyzing what type of content is getting the most likes & repins.
- Use hashtags and keywords where its possible to make certain content easier for your audience to find. - Ashley @ /excelamktg

I was a lone ranger when I decided to launch my first eBook-based company. The concept of an eBook was still pretty foreign to most people when the venture was coming together. One guy told me he was going to line his birdcage with eBooks. (Like I said, the idea of an eBook wasn’t very clear to the general population yet, but touché, buddy.) Whenever an entrepreneur attempts to introduce something new, there will be people who are quick to point out the downsides. But these change-avoidant people can be overcome.

Overcoming Challenges

When my company launched, several people questioned our purpose. Who would want to read a book on a computer? Who would want to read something without a bookmark? Who would have ever finished War and Peace in eBook format, for Pete’s sake?! These people, of course, didn’t have the foresight to anticipate eReaders and tablets. Our job, as a company that could see the future, was to educate our audience.

Just like anyone else who’s introducing something new, we had to show prospective clients the benefits of our new product, particularly the advantages the new version had over old technology. It was easy to show how we beat paper books on most counts (although we couldn’t save your computer from a bad coffee spill, either). We then made a point to hear them out about their concerns, and we endeavored to alleviate their worries as much as possible. Whether this required an easier registration process or simply an explanation of how the downloads would work, we tried to answer each and every question. Simply demonstrating our ability to provide a good service and anticipate our clients’ needs increased the interest people had in our company.

Developing Your Business

Getting in on an industry early has its rewards, but it’s obviously risky as well. Launching early gives you a footing before others have caught on to how useful your product or service is – but the catch is that your product has to actually become popular. Once eBooks starting taking off, for example, we were one of the few resources people could easily find – and one of the few quality sites the media could point to. Entering the game at this stage has become incredibly difficult for new ventures, and we’ve received interest from quite a few people who want to acquire us. As Wayne Gretzky said, “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” Any entrepreneur can predict the future, but it takes diligence, perseverance, and luck.

Here are three ways mavericks can find success:

1. Split test everything. It’s simply not smart to take guesses with your strategy, unless the new thing you’re wanting to try out is failure. It’s also dangerous to put all your egg in one basket. To avoid either of these scenarios, split test everything. Decisions should be calculated, so make sure everything you invest in (design, copy, marketing) is tested to be optimized. Even established companies should do this – it’s not a sign of strategic weakness, but an indicator of good decision-making.
2. Establish yourself on search engines. Not only does search engine optimization take time, but with limited competition early, you can “mark your territory.” You should mark what you can before others, ahem, come sniffing around – SEO is your best friend in these situations.
3. Get people to subscribe. Although our company’s content was (and continues to be) free, we required people to register in order to use our site. This allowed us to build our list for email marketing and sponsorships. We also convinced people to spread the word by offering them freebies if they did so. Subscriptions instill loyalty and make your list more robust. (Just like those double-chili cheeseburgers were making your waistline more robust.)

The bottom line for anyone striking out on his own is to make sure there’s deep internal motivation. If the product or service itself doesn’t rev your engine, then you need another project, or this project needs another leader. Being an entrepreneur is hard enough. If you don’t have complete faith in yourself and your project, the uphill battle is a lot steeper.

Startup ventures are rollercoasters. Everyone goes through ups and downs, and those peaks and valleys will be even more extreme for people exploring new niches. There will be days when even the most maverick entrepreneur, who claims to not care about success or popularity, will want to throw in the towel. But if you do your research, consider the future, and listen to your gut more than you listen to anyone else, you’ll be fine. Change may not be well-liked by the general public, but that doesn’t mean your company won’t be. Remember: for every guy planning to line his birdcage with your product, there’s another guy willing to invest in it.

Nicolas Gremion is CEO of Free-eBooks.net, a source for free eBook downloads, eBook resources, and eBook authors, and Foboko.com, a social publishing network.

We’re taught from a young age to play it safe. In high school, our friends warned that asking the most popular girl to prom would only result in rejection and humiliation. In college, our parents pleaded with us to major in a “guaranteed” subject like engineering or finance, so we wouldn’t move back into their basements. At work, our former bosses convinced us that letting them take credit for our work was the surest way to a promotion.

We’ve been handed a raw deal. Let’s face it: Our friends were afraid their prom dates would be outshone, our parents wanted us to pay off our college debt ourselves, and our bosses were looking to get their work done without working 80-hour weeks. Where was the benefit for us?

My greatest initial business mistake wasn’t drilled into my head with bribes, but I absorbed the lesson anyway. I started out working for an entrepreneur who often changed course, diving into new fads at every turn. The results were often quite costly: Our resources were spread thin, we had little focus, and our team was constantly confused.

When I launched my own business, I vowed I wouldn’t make the same mistake. I went to the other extreme, developing a business model that was so tightly focused on my niche—eBooks—that little else could ever fight its way in. I didn’t want to adjust any of our core fundamentals, and I resisted adding new services or products, regardless of how closely they aligned with our mission.

I was a disaster waiting to happen because I was limiting myself to what seemed safe. Various members of my team sensed how crushing the limitations were becoming—for both me and my business—and they started nagging me to reconsider several of the endeavors they’d proposed. After enough of these reminders, I started researching the options and realized that it really does take money to make money. Some risks are appropriate to take.

The payoff was huge. I had been hesitant to offer a paid VIP membership to Free-eBooks.net for fear that people would reject anything from us that wasn’t free. We added a membership package that now accounts for half our revenue. I also stifled my concern about embracing new technologies: I green-lighted a mobile app, which has now been installed 230,000 times, and also launched a Facebook page that grows by 10,000 fans per month. I had, very clearly, been wrong.

A lot of the credit goes to my team for constantly looking for new possibilities and doggedly pursuing the ones they believed in. But my old tendencies have also served us well. Our forays into new venues have worked, in part, because of my cautious nature. I learned to evaluate opportunities properly, plan accordingly, and allocate the right amount of resources to each.

I haven’t reached the level of eagerness for new ventures that my former boss exhibited, but my newfound openness to change has made me a better businessman and a better manager. I’m more considerate of my team members’ suggestions, and I feel less caged in than before. I learned that while people may not be able to get a prom do-over, they can always start again where they are.