3 reasons to write a blog post stating the complete obvious with no new or interesting information in it whatsoever
1. it’s your job to write it because you’re a ‘social media manager’ which means you’re under 25 and this is your first job out of college.
2. you get higher click rates on articles with numbers in them (e.g. 6 ways to reduce your belly fat now!)
3. because the people reading it probably won’t realize they didn’t learn anything from reading your post, and the act of reading it will make them believe they now know something about new technology and social media.
Your true measure of success is your self esteem.
BARF.
YOUR TRUE MEASURE OF SUCCESS IS ACTUALLY SUCCEEDING, ASSHOLE.
this business book is for everyone
I REALLY hate it when business books (most of which totally suck already) start off with defining their audience, which they helpfully carve out as EFFING EVERYONE. It often goes something like this:
this book is for business owners, startup entrepreneurs, or even people just thinking about starting their own thing someday, or people in their jobs who want to start an internal project, middle managers at huge, bureaucratic corporations trying to mitigate their despair by reading this book and pretending it could apply to them, or consultants faking that they know stuff by making fancy Powerpoint presentations, or moms at home budgeting for their family, or the family dog deciding which bush to piss on, or blah blah blah.
ARGH! Write a book for business owners or a self-help book for everyone. I need to know the real shit about running a business - i don’t want it watered down for the dreamers who will never get off their ass and do anything anyway. I want to write a book titled “FOR REAL ENTREPRENEURS ONLY: do not buy this if you don’t actually own something that you are dedicating your life to make succeed.”
Paul Graham of Y Combinator is an amazing thinker and is more brutally blunt about being an entrepreneur than anyone else I’ve read. It’s not much of an exaggeration to say his essays kept me alive in the early days of my business. His context is tech startups, but I find his principles applicable to my brick-and-mortar business, especially since I set out to create a scalable asset through branding/marketing. And how can you not love a guy who says things like this?:
“Running a start-up is like being punched in the face repeatedly,” he says. “But working for a large company is like being waterboarded.”
Of note: Startups in 13 sentences and How not to die.
I appreciate what he did with video and social media for his Dad’s store but, dude, his tweets are totally overrated.
not all of them are that interesting or innovative. My favorite is Airbnb. Groupon is also included.
you can learn why you should make clothes for fat people or cater to young people’s obnoxious wedding whims to make a million dollars!
or you can write a book about supposed hot businesses and sell it at an exorbitant cost to people easily duped and make a lot of money for yourself.
Following up on the Groupon post earlier, this press release summarizes some interesting research from Rice University. I’m surprised by the number of businesses who said their deal was actually profitable. I’m also surprised that restaurants say they don’t fare as well. I would have thought people always spend more money than the voucher is worth, as opposed to businesses like mine where they come for the exact amount and leave.
The data summary is useful, but the recommendations are pretty silly:
- Use promotions for building relationships instead of creating one-time transactions. Instead of offering $60 worth of food for $30, parcel it out to offer $20 worth of food for $10 over the customer’s next three visits.
- Don’t offer discounts on a total bill; rather, offer a specified discount for various products or services.
- Choose items judiciously to sell unpopular items or use unutilized services through the promotion.
1. having people come back multiple times is a logistical nightmare, not “building a relationship”. the only good thing will be if they come once and forget they can still redeem something a few more times. the less redemptions, the better.
2. discount on the total bill actually enables you to have some cash when they walk in the door. when it’s a total service you get no money when they come in. that means 8 months from now people will be using your goods and services and you got 25% of the revenue for that 8 months ago. big bummer on your cash flow.
3. people will totally be able to tell you’re selling your crap stuff or ‘off-peak’ services and be pissed.
I don’t fault her trying to help, but she’s an academic.
In the ad for this show on Hulu one of the characters says “the business guys are failing, we’ve got to do something about this.” wtf does that mean? does he think mining gold isn’t a business? is going after a gold mine any more crazy, risky, or for that matter less risky than a business startup? then he says later “can’t a guy risk it all in America anymore?” i hate this ad.
First off, dude, I can’t tell what’s part of your content and what’s an ad because of the chaos of your site. Second, though the basic advice is actually quite good, it’s not from the perspective of someone who has done it, so I’m left without other important pieces of information.
I want to know how business owners do the accounting for Groupon sales - is it revenue up front? is it a gift certificate? is each redemption a marketing expense? (it’s best to talk to people in your industry about this since it varies widely. call people in other cities who’ve done it and see if they’ll tell you. i always help other biz owners who call me.) I want the innards of running a deal. this article is about preparation. what is it like to actually live through it?
From my experience, one of the most important things to know is that you should expect 20-30% redemptions in the first 30 days after your deal. then there will be a steep drop-off and a SPIKE right before it expires because Groupon will remind people they have purchased coupons that are about to expire. These are the logistics that really matter to a business owner. you’ll be losing money on something a year after getting the up-front money for it. that hurts, but you can be prepared for it.
Also, of course you have to provide great customer service to these people, but you should also expect them to be shittier customers. You will have a higher percentage of obnoxious, late, untipping, high maintenance coupon-clippers than in a normal client set. It’s just part of the deal with the devil you make in running a Groupon.
Finally, be prepared for a sales call from a Groupon knockoff every few days for the rest of your life. Your Groupon deal becomes their cold-call list. Get used to hearing “we’re CheapBastards.com and we want to feature you on our website.” tell them to send you info and when you want to do a deal again you’ll look into it. Or tell them to go to hell. Especially if they are “getting ready to launch” in your city. that means they have a 15,000 person email list and they’re hoping to stick around long enough to get bought by Groupon for their measly effort. eff that.
DO NOT think of your deal as a loss leader or way to get new customers. The vast majority of the purchasers are just cruising the deal, not looking to be a recurring patron. Use it to get foot traffic during an anticipated slow period or get broad exposure for an expansion. As much as possible orchestrate it so you can make money off of it at face value despite the 25% share you’ll be left with. It sucks, but it’s part of business life now. you WILL NOT recoup the costs from recurring business.
I applaud Groupon for coming up with a gajillion dollar website idea, but at the end of the day I have to care about making money for MY business, not theirs.
