Tim Berry’s new video talks about the basics for a good Elevator Pitch in this month’s video.
If you can’t view the video here, then check it out on our YouTube channel along with the rest of our business and marketing focused videos.
Are you a fan of the Business.gov website? You should be!
The website, Business.gov is the U.S. Government’s official website for small businesses. The website provides access to Federal, state and local information to help business owners with key information including staying compliant with state and federal laws and regulations.
They also offer search tools and articles to help you start, manage and grow your business.
There’s a lot to find on the Business.gov website, be sure to check out all the features and helpful tools.
You can also find them on twitter at twitter.com/BusinessDotGov
‘Chelle Parmele
Palo Alto Software
President and Founder of Palo Alto Software, Tim Berry has a weekly feature on www.bplans.com called “Ask Tim”. In these weekly videos, Tim answers often asked questions that have been emailed to us or asked at the number of different conferences and lectures we attend all through the year.
In this particular video, Tim talks about how to start a sales forecast.
For more of Tim’s videos check out our business planning videos page or subscribe to our Palo Alto Software YouTube channel.
If you have a question for Tim, leave it in a comment here or email us at hello @ paloalto.com
‘Chelle Parmele
Palo Alto Software is proud to welcome Erin Jacobs of VerticalResponse as a contributing author. As Director of Marketing at VerticalResponse since 2007, Erin is responsible for evangelizing the benefits of email marketing to emerging companies. With over 14 years experience managing global marketing campaigns for technology companies large and small, Erin now shares her Lead Generation and Email Marketing insights with the small business community, helping them increase sales and promote their business online as cost-effectively as possible.
The challenging economy has encouraged many small businesses to test out email marketing in 2009. It’s simple, affordable and trackable after all. Maybe you started out with a “thank you for your business” message or you enticed customers with offers for repeat business and referrals. But the idea of creating a consistent e-newsletter to issue on a monthly basis seems daunting.
Well fear not, you can put a surprisingly compelling newsletter together with a small amount of information. In a recent Extreme Email Makeover session that VerticalResponse hosted, we found that many customers are putting too many offers together in a single email and calling them newsletters. The result, nothing stands out, it isn’t clear to the customer what action they should take, and over time recipients stop opening the emails. A great e-newsletter can be created with very basic information that is readily available. The key is a balance of information and offers (remember the “what’s in it for me” factor). Start by testing a newsletter format with 3 content sections and then increase to 5 over a series of a few months. Let your audience decide the right about of content with open and click through rates.
Easy E-newsletter Content Topics:
1) A Message from the Expert- A short paragraph from you to your audience or an introduction that drives recipients to your blog for a feature length article. Consider offering 5 Ways to Improve X in 2009. Include the first 2 lines of copy in your newsletter as a teaser and link to the full story on your blog for the full list
2) Customer Testimonial- A simple quote from a happy customer about how your product or service helped them or fixed a problem, a measurable result achieved, or link to a video testimonial that you host on YouTube.
3) An Offer- Do you have a white paper, discount, or promotion currently running to announce?
4) Event Schedule- Link to the event page on your website or directly to an industry event you plan to attend.
5) Quick Fact- What’s the post popular selling product last month? What do your customers view as the greatest challenge for them next year? Gather important insights and facts with a simple online survey tool and share results in each issue.
The final challenge is committing to frequency so that your audience will come to expect your newsletters. Write your first 3 issues at the same time. Line up 3 customer quotes, 3 notable events worth covering, and 3 facts to share from a single survey. Remember, this month’s event can become next month’s main article. That’s a formula for successful newsletters in 2009.
Back to the Fundamentals
Want to learn more tips from the experts at VerticalResponse? Attend the webinar! March 11th at 10 a.m. Pacific Time
Palo Alto Software Ltd is delighted to announce that we will be running a number of business planning workshops in London, U.K., commencing on 27 January 2009. These business planning workshops will be run in conjunction with Company Partners, a Wokingham-England based business matching service, and will be held at the British Library in Central London. These workshops will be the perfect complement to our best selling Business Plan Pro product and will cover everything from pitching your business to understanding key elements of your business plan such as sales forecasting.
There are a small number of early bird tickets still available for this inaugural business planning workshop.
Alan Gleeson
Palo Alto Software U.K.
Business pitches are growing in popularity here in the UK as well as in the US. However, as this article, The Business Pitch by Alan Gleeson illustrates, business pitches are no substitute for the real thing – a thorough business plan!
This short article describes the concept of pitching in detail, and argues why pitches are not substitutes for business plans, before recommending some tips to ensure that your pitch hits all the right spots. Finally for some further information on what an elevator pitch is, visit Tim Berry’s article series on the Elevator Pitch at BPlans.com.
Alan Gleeson
The Rice Business Plan Competition is now accepting applications for the 2009 competition, to be held April 16 – 18 in Houston, TX. Only 36 teams will have the opportunity to compete in this prestigious competition, and one lucky team will walk away with more than $675,000 in cash and prizes.
All interested teams must submit an Intent to Compete no later than February 13, 2009 to be eligible for the competition. Palo Alto Software is proud to once again sponsor the competition and provide all teams who submit an Intent to Compete by the February 13th deadline with a free download of Business Plan Pro Premier Academic Edition software.
If you meet the eligibility requirements and are interested in the opportunity, I would highly encourage you to submit an Intent to Compete. I attended the competition in 2007 and can honestly say it was an experience I will never forget. It is by far one of the best business plan competitions out there today.
Kristen Langham
Manager of Business Development
Palo Alto Software, Inc.
The last few months have been particularly tough for businesses and the outlook is not exactly favourable. However, here at Palo Alto Software we remain committed to helping small-businesses succeed (regardless of the circumstances). We believe that entrepreneurs and small-business owners need to get back to fundamentals and to continue to create value for their customers rather than worrying about what is to come. The following short guide contains a list of some free online tools that can help you to manage your business successfully. Other articles related to this area include:
Bootstrapping your way to success.
Planning in times of uncertainty.
Alan Gleeson
Managing Director, Palo Alto Software (U.K.)
While some people associate business planning narrowly with sales forecasting, or as a means to obtaining investment, it can also be used by companies to assess the impact of changes to the environmental context. This analysis of the future can help inform strategies and tactics in the present, which help to minimise the likelihood of certain outcomes, particularly negative ones happening in the future.
I spotted an advert in a recent edition of Newsweek which resonated strongly with me. The advert was placed by a company that clearly had one eye on the future, had identified a significant threat to a key supplier and had begun to put in place a number of clever activities in an attempt to protect this key supplier.
Who was the key supplier?
It is the humble honey bee, and the company in question is Haagen-Dazs.
Recognising that the ingredients it uses in its ice cream rely heavily on pollination by honey bees, Haagen-Dazs has set up a website which strives to raise awareness of the alarming decline in honey bees. The advert in Newsweek went one step further, consisting of an advert alongside a printed recyclable sheet embedded with wild flower seeds. The instructions suggested you ‘save a bee‘ by planting the page and watering it.
Not only is this a clever campaign that both engages and drives action, but also one that essentially carries no cost for the consumer. In economic terms it is a great solution to a real growing strategic problem, and also a very effective marketing ploy. For ice cream lovers the world over, it is also a very worthy cause!
Alan Gleeson
Palo Alto Software Ltd (U.K.)
If you struggle with picking yourself up and moving forward after a bad event, the book Bounce by Barry Moltz might be just the book for you. Moltz states:
…this is a book about developing bounce, a kind of true business confidence that brings its own special brand of resiliency…a book about accepting failure as a normal part of the process…when we possess bounce, we are able to move forward from any event – good or bad – to the next place where a decision can be made…above all bounce gets us ready for adventure.
I was expecting a book focused primarily on how to bounce back when you have a business failure, but instead it offered a much more global view. I especially liked that I was able to relate not only on a business level but also on a personal level. Filled with mini stories and examples of how different people have handled adversity and come out stronger, Bounce is a great combination of a business book and a motivational book, but it isn’t traditionally dry or sappy. Moltz has a very relaxed writing style, and one that I think many people can relate to and enjoy while reading this book.
Kristen Langham
Marketing Manager
Palo Alto Software
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