1. Being unprepared: Too many times I have seen someone slap together a presentation the night before a meeting. They don’t do their homework with who they are meeting or how their prospect makes money. Going to linkedin and looking up the people you are meeting with goes a long way, especially when you realize that Sally has the same alma mater as you. I can’t imagine not going to the company’s website and learning about what kind of products they have, how they make money, and how my solution will fix their problems, but many people just show up and hope their charisma will get the deal done.
2. Ignoring personality styles: There are 4 types of personalities. In the upper left hand quadrant you have analytics, in the bottom left you have amiables. In the upper right hand quadrant you have drives and in the bottom right you have expressives. You need to be able to know which personality type you prospect is in. For instance if they are an amiable, you don’t jump into your sales pitch, you might ask them if that is a picture of their kids on the desk and have a conversation about what their hobbies are. If you are talking to an  analytic, you need to state only the facts and don’t get to excited about your vision. You may consider jumping to a slide in your presentation that shows the facts and figures about what your solution will solve. When talking to a driver they don’t want to chit chat, they want you to get right down to what you are there for, what you are looking for and how you can help them. Keep it quick and to the point. However if you are with an expressive (that’s me) it’s more of an emotional sale. Talk about your vision for the company and the industry, excite me with other things about your organization that makes you different or unique, it doesn’t have to be all about the product. People who fail to match personality styles will never click as quickly as they need to.
3. Ugly presentations: Analyticals aside, most people will care about the quality of your presentation. I might tell you the meeting is over if I see clip art from Microsoft word. The companies who spend time on all aspects of their companies brand are the ones who put more effort into their products. If you have recently read Steve Job’s autobiography you will know that Mark Markkula, the third co-founder of Apple told Steve early on that one of the most important principle’s to marketing was Impute. He goes on to say “People DO judge a book by its cover. We may have the best product, the highest quality, the most useful software etc.. ; if we present them in a slipshod manner, they will be perceived as slipshod; if we present them in a creative, professional manner, we will impute the desired qualities”. You only have a chance to make a first impression once, so your presentation should blow people’s mind.
4. Not inquisitive enough: Nothing is more annoying than when someone is pitching you, and it’s all about them, their products, and how they can help you. I always try to ask as many questions as possible. The customer will give you the key to how you can win the deal, you just need to ask enough questions and then shut up.
5. Stand the *%$# out: Everyone is going to walk thru that door and compete on three things, pricing, features and service. The prospect will hear the same pitch just said three different ways. You have this knowledge so why don’t you do something about it? Why don’t you spend time talking about what truly sets you apart from everyone? At mobileStorm we celebrate freedom. I founded the company because I wanted to be free to do what I wanted to do. I have spent a long time trying to figure out what that means internally to my employees as well as externally to our customers. Internally I let employees manage their own schedules, wear what they want to wear to work, and make major decisions usually reserved for executives. For customers we make products that are dead simple to use; and we hope the time they save using our products, is more time that they get to spend with their friends and family. We also don’t require long term contracts; we let them decide how good our service is. So imagine if you are up against a company like mobileStorm who is selling something more than just an inexpensive, product with a lot of features, you have your work cut out for you if you want to win the deal. 

I’m honored to be delivering a presentation tomorrow on “Making Money with Mobile Coupons” during a Power Breakfast for EO Los Angeles.

I’ve had the pleasure of watching countless clients earn incredible revenue using SMS and mobile coupons over the past decade and I always love the opportunity to share our secrets for success (some of them at least).  It certainly helps having case studies like this one and this one to prove just how powerful mobile coupons can be.

I think this is a pretty cool concept. I spent some time with Tony Conrad the founder at Summit Series, and he gave me some great advice on building a Board of Advisors. I need to get a cool picture like him where it takes over his whole page. Looks a lot nice than my sideways picture of me starring at dolphins (it was a nice day at the beach in the middle of winter though).

What I like about this site is just how simple it is to create a site that you can send someone to you that is a business card on steroids. You can link all all of your blogs, favorite links and social media presence for easy acces. Also the design is very pretty. They have this font I fell in love with (I know that sounds wrong, but a good font is hard to come by) called  ”Proxima Nova”. Its a bit like Helvetica.

Have I inspired you to create your own, or do you already have one? Please comment below.

I woke up today pleasantly surprised that mobileStorm was on Wikipedia. It feels good to be recognized for all our hard work; and what a long road its been. Here’s to many more successful years storm troopers!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MobileStorm

Small businesses now generate 64% of net new jobs, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. As the small business community surges into its economic reign, now, more than ever, investors are willing to shell out the dough for up-and-coming entrepreneurs. Even so, finding money for your business is sometimes easier said than done. Here, we’ve provided a list of 5 business solutions and fiscal resources for your business:

1. Venture Capital

Venture capital (or VC) is, in short, capital provided to a firm in exchange for equity, or an ownership share, of the firm. According to data from research firm CB Insights, “venture capital investments rose 19 percent, to $21.8 billion in 2010 — the first annual increase since the downturn.” With venture capital on the upswing, it is quickly becoming one of the most efficient ways to get large sums of money, usually from about $500,000 to $1 million. Usually these firms require a structured business plan. The obvious disadvantage with this funding option is that you have less ownership in and control over the company.

2. Angel Investing

Angel investing is notoriously less structured than venture capital and is usually sought out in the earlier stages of company development. Angels are typically single individuals who provide capital in exchange for convertible debt or equity (like VCs). Angel investing, like venture capital, has experienced an increase recently. The number of angel investors has surged 22 percent in the last year, according to the National Venture Capital association.

3. Debt Financing

Debt financing includes soliciting a bank for loans with a repayment schedule at a fixed interest rate. Banks often consider previous history with other financial institutions and entrepreneurial experience when dictating whether or not to issue a loan. The upside to debt financing is that you don’t have to give up equity and you can thereby stay in full control of your business.

4. Grants

While many people think it is nearly impossible to receive a grant for their small business, it is always worth a shot. This funding option will, like VCs, require a business plan. Usually these grants can be found at the state level, but government operations such as the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) also provide grants. It never hurts to check out these “free money” options.

5. Friends or Family

At the earliest stages of company development, it may be a good idea to approach the people you trust most, like your friends and family, for funding before asking the bigwigs. If you don’t need enormous amounts of cash, friends and family are always a viable option. It’s always a good idea to write an informal contract for these exchanges so you can avoid potential future conflicts.

So there you have it, the 5 most common ways to get cash. Remember: always analyze what stage of company development you’re in, how much money you need, and if you’re willing to give up equity before picking the funding option that best suits your small business.

James Kim is a writer for Choosewhat.com. ChooseWhat is a company that provides product reviews and test data for business services and products.  Their goal is to help small companies make informed buying decisions on business solutions that help their business.

Our trip began on Friday where a thousand of us boarded a Celebrity Cruise Lines ship. Brett Leve (the Summit Series Co-founder) pointed out that never before had Celebrity let a DJ pump music thru the customs hall, but you have to set the tone right? Summit staffers walked around handing out cookies and brownies, a cocktail would have been nice, but I am sure they were already pushing the limits with the music. Right when we boarded we ran into Gary Vaynerchuk who would later

turn out to give one of the most inspiring speeches of the trip (he had a standing ovation). Gary’s friendly attitude kicked things off right. Here is a best selling author and Internet celebrity, yet on board he was just “one of us”. That to me was the main theme that kept swirling around my head on the ship. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was super cool. There wasn’t a sign that said “check your egos at the door” (actually  it said “Make No Small Plans”) but their might as well have been.

Here is a ship that if it had sunk, global markets would have crashed yet the entire weekend I didn’t run into one asshole. Hard to believe I know.

If we were at SXSW, CES, TED or Davos there is always going to be this clear separation from the billionaire rock star celebrities and the hungry “up-and-coming CEOs” who just want to learn how to become billionaire rock star celebrities. However once you stepped foot on that ship, everyone was equal. There wasn’t a conversation I couldn’t step into and immediately get a warm welcome. I don’t care if it was Tony Hseih, Russell Simmons or Peter Theil, everyone was warm, generous and on the same page. What other conference has this class? Well if you know about one, please tell me because I haven’t experienced it until last weekend.

I attended Summit in D.C. last year and it was still a wonderful time, but there is just something about a captive audience. In D.C. there was other people staying at the hotel besides Summiters. Also you had a lot of people who lived in D.C. so I felt at times things were a bit cliqueish. However on the boat it was the ship’s crew and our crew. There was no outsiders to disrupt a conversation. Nobody to give you a weird stare if you were talking about a subject they didn’t care about.

Summit Series is invite only so as the old saying goes, “good people know good people”, and that’s what happened.

Balance in life is one of the most important things. Summit brought balance. It wasn’t heavily weighted towards Internet entrepreneurs. I must have met just as many people running socially responsible non-profits. One dude blew me away when he told me about these wood burning stoves they give out to the 200 million people world-wide who cook over an open fire each day, causing health problems and releasing tons of carbon in the air. They then sell the carbon offset rights to a broker who in turn would sell it to a company like Google. He explained to me that Google’s server farms release millions of tons of carbon so they buy these “offset rights” caused by the stoves they create and distribute. It’s a for profit non-profit. His company is helping people and the environment stay healthy, and then money doing it; are you kidding me?

It was moments like this when you are humbled. You start thinking about the next amazing product you are working on, and you realize in the long run it’s not the most important thing; I said to myself “Hey Jared  it’s time you visited Africa to give back”. I was inspired by non-profits like Falling Whistles and Invisible Children, check em out.

Summit is one of those conferences that as you are standing on the outside of a forrest looking at trees, along comes a Virgin Galactic shuttle, scooping you up and into the atmosphere, giving you a view of your shit that you have never seen before. The forrest you thought was so big for so many years, now just looks like some pick up sticks a 5 year old was playing with.

I listened to a speech by Shai Agassi, SAP’s previous president. He is now working to get the world off of petroleum. His company “Better Place Electric Vehicles” raised $700 million dollars. He has a deal with the Israeli & Danish governments. I think he said that everyone in the country could drive an electric vehicle if we didn’t use gas for one week. His idea is a simple but brilliant one. He realized that we are many years away from a battery that runs for days, so he thought about a cell phone and how you can simply swap out the battery for a newly charged one. This dude had me so convinced we could get off of petroleum I started dumping my oil futures when we disembarked. Ok I don’t hold any futures of any kind, but if I did, I wouldn’t anymore.

The panels were great, and I loved hearing Greg Gunn and Tony Conrad talk about how to have a successful exit (note to mobileStorm employees, I am not ready to sell anytime soon). However the most amazing things didn’t happen in the panels. Brett’s opening comments hit the nail on the head. He said something to the affect “go with the flow, it’s those unexpected moments that will lead to new relationships and experiences”. Brett if you are reading this, please correct me. But his words couldn’t have been more true. I ran into a buddy of mine, a student in upstate New York named Tyler, most people know him as Tyler Do-Good, he has an amazing story of he traveled the country, doing random acts of kindness. We sat down for a chat and before you know it our group grew like amoebas splitting. This type of situation happened daily on the ship. You would start talking with someone and before you know it a whole crew of people would be gathered around, talking about how to change the world, how to sell your company, set up an amazing culture, or help those in need.

Another major highlight for me was the music. The Roots was the house band, ya no big deal. I realized they are the Grateful Dead of hip hop. They would go into these 15 minute long jams that had you dancing your ass off. Everyone kept telling me, “don’t miss Pretty Lights”; I now know why! Before I talk about PT, let me say that Axwell, of the Swedish House Mafia fame, tore a hole in the boat (another tweet I read today). But I expected Axwell to turn entrepreneurs into fist pumping hooligans.

What I didn’t expect was this young kid named Derek aka Pretty Lights, to absolutely demolish my understanding of music. You have to understand, I am a music connoisseur, I write music, i’ve produced music, I live music. It’s not often a DJ comes along that I haven’t heard of before and shares a new sound. I say “DJ” very lightly because that’s what you think he is but then you realize he is playing all of his own music; and he gives it all away for free at prettylightsmusic.com. I asked him afterwords what BPM (beats per minute) he was playing at because I couldn’t believe how slow his set was, and how much of a frenzy he worked up, I told him “bro, you were crushing it”. He looked at me and said “90 all night. 90’s the new crushing it”. Just to put things in perspective in his genre (if you can put him in a category), most DJs play at 120 to 140. To have the crowd that worked up at 90 was a thing of beauty.

So as I sit here in Palm Springs for another insane weekend (Coachella baby) I reminisce about the life long friends I made at Summit Series 2011. The conference will be in my memory until the day I am lying on my death bed with my family surrounding me, only to be drowned out by the amazing things that happened at Summit Series 2012. Guys, can you please give us a hint of what’s to come? This whole captive audience thing really worked. Another tweet I saw said “Next Summit will be on the moon with Tupac & Biggie”. I wouldn’t put it past you guys.

If you want an invite to next years conference hit me up. I can’t make any promises, but I can promise to get you infront of the right people.

It has been said that the Howard Stern show was really the first reality show. They say this because on a reality show you get to experience each person’s flaws, successes, failures and triumphs. There is a ton of honesty on reality shows, most of the time there is too much, which leads to drama and people love to watch drama. On reality shows, you get to know all of the characters really well, as if you are right  there alongside of them. After a while you feel like you know everybody and you start relating to different people. The Howard Stern show is a success because of one major factor that most people probably don’t realize, and that is “complete transparency”. The show is brutally honest, often times getting so personal people lose it, cry or say things they probably regret. Howard really has a no holds barred style. If he is pissed at someone and wants to fire them, he talks about it on the show in front of the person he is thinking about firing. Imagine that happening in a normal work setting? Howard also is very critical of himself and is the first person to point out his flaws, making them publicly available for millions to hear, over and over again (they say Tivo is coming to satellite soon). Howard says what is on his mind, and doesn’t hold back no matter what type of trouble it could get him into.

I believe this transparency has been the key to his success. It takes a lot of courage to tell anyone who wants to listen, what fears you have, and to walk people thru your flaws in detail. Think about it, how many people you know talk openly about where they fall short? And if you do know someone, how does your relationship with them work? I can tell you that from my experience when someone is honest with me, I form a strong bond of trust. There is something very refreshing with someone willing to be so vulnerable. I personally don’t do a good job at this; I don’t I have the courage like Howard does. Of course to run a widely successful company I need to get much better at practicing complete transparency.

The word “transparency” is definitely a corporate buzz word these days. The Internet has been a platform that has really put a lot of companies in check. With social media, blogs, wikis, chat rooms, message boards, etc.. it is much harder to get away with poor customer service, product failures, and general dishonesty than it was even 10 years ago. I think most companies, however, still keep many things secret, and information is hoarded at the top, available only to a few pairs of eyes.

I will be the first to admit that mobileStorm is far from where it needs to be in sharing information across the organization. My dream company is one where there are absolutely no secrets and no matter what position someone is in, they always  know the score.

Two very important things happen with complete transparency:

1.       Deep Trust: Employees who have access to everything going on, have a deep trust in their organization. This trust leads to dedication, and amazing employee retention.

2.       Smarter and Dispersed Decisions: The ultimate goal for any entrepreneur is to have a company that runs on its own. If all of the information is guarded at the top, then only people at the top can make important decisions. This sets up a process whereby the owner must be involved in all decision making, and they find themselves only being able to grow fast as they can be involved in making decisions. If information is shared, then anyone in the organization can make a decision, and most of the time the person most qualified to make a decision is one closest to the issue or the one who will be affected by it the most (I got this concept in a book called “How to Turn your Employees into Mini CEO’s” by Aaron Ross).

If more businesses could be as transparent as Stern, then I believe they would become more successful. I am inspired to continue to let go of information that should flow to other people. It’s a struggle, it really needs to become a habit. We are launching our core values soon and “Practice Transparency” is one of our values to serve as a constant reminder.

I still turn Howard off from time to time when he is getting into that humor that I think is a bit lowbrow, but no matter how nasty he gets, I still have a lot of respect for the honest side of him. He is one of those rare breeds that are not afraid to let people see him for who he really is. None of us are  perfect, it can just be hard to admit that sometimes.

What will you start doing to take steps towards creating a organization that is open about flaws and freely shares information? I would love to hear your thoughts.

Let me share a quick story with you. Right now I am looking for a company to commission an assessment report. Company A, thinks that any day now I am going to sign with them. Meanwhile I have been evaluating Company B.

Company B has come out as a favorite, but by only a couple points. I was able to negotiate with Company B down to what Company A wanted to charge me. Because Company B costs the same and I believe they would do better (but only slightly), I am going to go with Company B.

Can anyone tell me what Company A is doing wrong? Don’t answer, it is a rhetorical question and if you answer you probably shouldn’t be in sales.

What Company A is doing wrong:

1.       Company A has not picked up the phone every single day to find out  where I am in the process

2.       Company A has not asked me if I was speaking to another company

3.       Company A has not asked me what the other company wanted to charge me and what I feel are the differences between the two

4.       Company A has not tried to make me an offer I cannot refuse

Please please please, do not act, think or be like Company A. The deal is worth $10,000.

Posted via email from Jared Reitzin

In recent years, Twitter has grown from a place for teenagers to share what they just ate for lunch to a serious platform for businesses to connect with their customers and for the media to break stories. In late January of 2010, even Bill Gates (@BillGates) started “Twittering”, and in less than two weeks has more than 400,000 followers. Here are a few other CEO’s that you might look or the next time you are on Twitter.

@guykawasaki - Guy Kawasaki was one of the Apple employees responsible for the original Macintosh in 1984. Now he is the Alltop CEO. He is extremely active on Twitter and primarily uses it as a broadcasting tool to announce new Alltop sites. He currently has 211,577 followers.

@mashable - Pete Cashmore is the CEO of Mashable. With 1,954,389 followers, Pete is one of the most popular Twitter users. Pete uses Twitter to offer other users Twitter tips, Twitter news, and Twitter help. He also shares social media stories from around the web. Pete Cashmore views Twitter as an excellent companion to his company’s blog.

@gcolony - George Colony is the CEO of Forrester Research. His company provides market research mostly in the area of technology. George likes Twitter because it allows him to understand what his clients are thinking about the world of technology and his company. He also regularly tweets about his ideas and thoughts about the technological world. He currently has 6,575 followers.

@demandrichard - Richard Rosenblatt is the CEO of Demand Media. His company provides web content and SEO services to a wide variety of clients. Demand Media also owns eNom, one of the biggest domain registration companies in the world. With 6,642 followers, Richard uses Twitter to communicate with investors, users, colleagues, and clients in a real-time manner. He likes that Twitter feels much fresher and not as cold as email.

@DrBobParsons - Bob Parsons is the CEO and Founder of Go Daddy Group. When he’s not dreaming up effective Super Bowl advertising campaigns, Parsons is excited to connect with his 21,559 followers on Twitter. He says he really likes the subscription model of Twitter in which people sign up to follow you. In this way, he can be sure that whenever he sends out a message there are a lot of interested people on the other end.

@timyoung - Timothy Young is the CEO of Socialcast. On his Twitter profile, he proclaims that “Email is Dead”. Rather than email, Tim likes to use Twitter to engage in discussions with his customers. He also likes using Twitter to tune in to other conversations that people are having about his company, the social media industry, and market trends. Timothy Young currently has 2,101 followers on Twitter.

@jasonalba - Jason Alba is the CEO of JibberJobber. A fairly new company, JibberJobber is a career management platform that helps both individuals find jobs and business recruit employees. Alba likes to use Twitter to raise awareness for what exactly JibberJobber can do for them. Jason considers himself the personality of JibberJobber, and he loves that Twitter provides a place where he can put his personality on display like nowhere else. Jason Alba currently has 11,922 followers on Twitter.

@jnovogratz - Jacqueline Novogratz is the CEO of Acumen Fund. Acumen Fund is a non-profit organization whose goal is nothing less than the eradication of global poverty. Novogratz is also the author of a book, The Blue Sweater. Novogratz likes Twitter because it helps her to connect with like-minded individuals. She never knows who she might talk to that could offer an innovative solution to solving the world’s poverty crisis. She also likes to engage with readers of her book. She must have a lot of them, because she’s got 316,189 followers.

@lebrun - Marcel LeBrun is the CEO of Radian6. LeBrun likes to listen to his 11,865 followers to understand their needs. He says that a brand is now the sum of conversations about it.

@jayadelson - Jay Adelson is the CEO of Digg. For him, Twitter is a natural extension of Digg, which is all about sharing. He likes how he can use Twitter to personally let his 7,445 followers know what he “Diggs”.

@mediatrustpete - Peter Bordes is the CEO of MediaTrust. Bordes likes using Twitter to engage in conversations with his business partners, employees, and the MediaTrust community. He has 6,911 followers.

@zappos - Tony Hsieh is the CEO of Zappos.com. With 1,686,481 followers, Hsieh is extremely popular on Twitter. Hsieh likes using Twitter to give customers an insight into his company’s personality and culture.

@timoreilly - Tim O’Reilly is the CEO of O’Reilly Media. Tim also has a massive following, with 1,434,381 followers. Tim thinks Twitter is a great way to keep his eye on the “alpha geeks” - those people who are on the cutting edge of technology. His company then tries to bring that technology to the masses.

@michaelhyatt - Michael Hyatt is the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers. Hyatt has 73,020 followers. Most of them are his employees, customers, and authors, whom he likes to keep in close contact with.

@openjonathan - Jonathan Schwartz is the CEO of Sun Microsystems. Schwartz thinks that it’s important to reach out to people in whatever format they choose. He has apparently decided that Twitter is one of those formats, and he is currently connected through Twitter with 6,344 people.

This will undoubtedly spur a number of other people to go out there and brand themselves with the company they are so passionate about. Well I hope its mostly about the passion and not just about the money, after all your branded for life.

I was surprised that someone did this so quickly and even more surprised that four others have told me they too will get it soon. I like to think this says a lot about the type of company we have built. It’s not a start up with an unsure future . We are a profitable growing company who has been around for more than eleven years. Sure people could use a thousand dollars but most people I know do not have tattoos and would never get one no matter how much you offered them. Trying to get inside the mind of an employee willing to do this, all I can think of is that they love being part of a team working for a company doing great things. My guess is that it’s about pride, dedication, and making a difference.

Tomorrow our editor is going to post a video and interview with Roxanne on mobileStorm’s Digital Marketing Blog. I guess I will find out then what really inspired her.

I wonder how much this stunt is gonna cost me?