13 Things to Demand When Building a Website |  |
- 13 Things to Demand When Building a Website
- Paul Greenberg, Founder of CRM Idol Contest: Become A CRM Superstar
- Read Between The Lines
- Small Business Product Launches and Shut Downs
| 13 Things to Demand When Building a Website Posted: 11 May 2012 11:30 AM PDT One amazing thing about today’s digital landscape is that just about anyone can start an online business. No matter what your idea is, you can turn that abstract idea into a concrete web property — with the help of a strong development and design team, of course.
However, not all web development deals are created equal, so entrepreneurs must protect themselves and their potential products when pairing up for the project at hand. Some business owners get lucky on their first try, while others find their pockets empty and their website full of compromises they never intended to make. 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 what they asked for — or forgot about — when building their own company websites:
Here's what YEC community members had to say: 1. My Content Management What? “In general, a website should be user-friendly for its owner(s). I meet a lot of entrepreneurs who overthink and overspend on their website when a common CMS (content management system) like WordPress or Drupal would’ve work just fine.” ~ Derek Shanahan, Foodtree 2. User-Friendly Interface “In their attempts to add on all the bells and whistles, business owners can lose site of a good user experience. Simple navigation, uncluttered design, and quick load time are key.” ~ Steph Auteri, Word Nerd Pro 3. Style Through Simplicity “Consumer ADD is only getting worse. Web development teams must not only know how to create through programming, but they must also be passionate about consumer behavior. More is not better. Developers should aim to marry style and simplicity to avoid stirring feelings of overwhelm or distraction.” ~ Kent Healy, The Uncommon Life 4. Where’s the Accountability? “Without tight accountability to deadlines and deliverables, the business owner may end up with a site and design that does not meet expectations. It’s best to document each deliverable, whether web page or graphics, with as much detail as possible so each side has a point of reference. Then the owner can hold their team accountable and avoid ‘he said, she said’ debates.” ~ Kelly Azevedo, She’s Got Systems 5. Mobile Compatibility “You need to ensure your website looks good on the iPhone, iPad, Android phones, etc. Mobile web usage is growing at a massive rate, and it’s important that your business website is accessible and easy-to-use on handheld devices.” ~ Matt Mickiewicz, 99designs 6. Follow the Blueprint “If the developers provide a comprehensive blueprint, it will help to keep them on track and will leave them accountable if tasks take significantly longer than estimated.” ~ Josh Weiss, Bluegala 7. Here’s an Example “New website builds go well when there’s smooth communication with technology and design teams. Often, the jargon, design or tech development can differ greatly from how a businessperson would describe something, so make sure there are no errors by reviewing examples. Adding a feature or design element? See how the feature or elements work on existing, comparable sites first.” ~ Doreen Bloch, Poshly Inc. 8. Critical Response “The team should have an understanding of how the site will achieve its most critical response. A good aesthetic is important, but it means nothing if it’s not directly tied to how a lead will be captured, what happens to that lead and, ultimately, how a sale is made (ideally automatically without direct team involvement). This allows you to scale your marketing and customer acquisition method.” ~ Yanik Silver, Maverick1000.com 9. Social Is Necessary “Every website these days should have a social aspect to it, whether it’s simply adding a Facebook Like Box or integrating a gameification platform. It’s important to stay up to date with the latest social plugins that can be added to your site.” ~ Ben Lang, EpicLaunch 10. Rapid Iteration “The design/development organization should be structured in a way that encourages rapid development and deploying of the site. Etsy is a great example of this culture. They make small, frequent changes to the live site on a daily basis and have open-sourced their methods for other developers to use.” ~ Jennifer Vargas, Accompl.sh 11. Ownership of All Assets “As you concern yourself with the look and feel of the website, you might overlook some of the legal aspects involved. For example, if you don’t specify outright that any logos or creative designs made are completely yours in an initial agreement, you could end up in a legal battle over which party actually owns the materials on your website.” ~ Logan Lenz, Endagon 12. Control Over Your Control Panel “If you are handing over the responsibility of finding a host and registering your domain to your development/design team, ask that you are the primary administrator over your control panel. This gives you the ability to remove the user if the relationship goes sour. In the same light, always make sure that whoever registers a domain for you is doing so under your name and contact information.” ~ Jennifer Donogh, Young Female Entrepreneurs 13. Get Ready for the Next Developer! “Your development team will change at some point, whether you simply expand your development team or even switch developers. As with all resources in a startup, development time and money should be treasured. Make sure that your development and design teams leave a very clean and annotated back-end system so that new folks can build upon the work!” ~ Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches
From Small Business Trends |
| Paul Greenberg, Founder of CRM Idol Contest: Become A CRM Superstar Posted: 11 May 2012 08:30 AM PDT Most, if not all, small business owners have a dream for their small business. Maybe that dream is to be acquired and win big. Or maybe that dream is to find an ideal investor to back you up and propel your business into fame and fortune. Paul Greenberg, Founder of the CRM Idol Contest, joins Brent Leary to share how small businesses can have a shot at taking a swing in the big game. * * * * *
Small Business Trends: Typically I ask people to give me a little bit of their background, I can almost do this for you but I am still going to let you tell it. Paul Greenberg: I came around to CRM in the mid 90's after a stint doing ERP at a consulting company. Then I wrote the first edition of CRM at the Speed Of Light in 2001 and it took off from there. As a result of that, I became pretty well known in the CRM world. Since that time, I've gone on to do a lot of consulting, a lot of speaking around the world, and of course I do as much pro bono stuff as I humanly can among things like CRM Idol. Small Business Trends: You just wrote something around the growth and the emergence of the CRM at the small business level. Can talk a little bit about that? Paul Greenberg: Well, I think for a lot of reasons, we have begun to see the emergence of it. First of all, I think part of it is the pricing is so good for small businesses. The Cloud has put subscription pricing in a place. Literally any small business can get something that is actually serviceable from free to 20 bucks a month per user. Additionally, small business customers are far more demanding and require more attention. At the same time, they require more active interaction from the company themselves. The new generation of CRM and software technology actually enables all of that so it becomes a good value proposition for small businesses. Small Business Trends: What exactly is CRM Idol? Paul Greenberg: This is a big market place – billions and billions of dollars overall. A lot of players in it are extremely large. But there are thousands of small companies who are, let's say, CRM-ish. They are not getting any visibility. Some of that is due to the glut of companies in the market, the dominance of the larger ones, and some is due to bad PR from people who stink at their jobs. So about a year ago we came up with the idea of giving these small emerging companies visibility, mentorship, and some prizes – lots of prizes. But the key is they have visibility. There is no way they could have gotten it any other way. They are in front of key influencers like you, me, Esteban Kolsky, Denis Pombriant, Jesus Hoyos, Mark Tamis, Silvana Buljan, and Laurence Buchanan. A whole area of people across the world who you cannot buy that kind of visibility from. They are taught, by an extended group of judges, how to do demos in front of the influencers. The people that are teaching them are the influencers themselves. They are guys who are the head of major CRM practices and vendors. They are key media; they are practitioners who run major CRM efforts at large firms. There are other influencers out there and they are teaching these guys how to essentially do their business better and how to get in front of people giving them mass mentorship. In the meantime, every single one of the actual contestants is given a review by the primary judges giving them some direction on where to go next and what to work on. Small Business Trends: Can you touch on some of the timelines for this year? Paul Greenberg: Now through May 25th, 6:00 pm PST, you can go to CRMIDOL. Fill out a very short registration form which will give you access to application. Fill out the application. There will be 40 candidates for the Americas, North and South America. Twenty candidates for EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) and then 20 candidates for Asia and Australia. We will announce them and then the thing really kicks into gear. There is no guaranty that you will be chosen but you are given a shot. We really want them to participate. The prizes alone and exposure alone are worth it. If you want to take a look at last year's site you can see all of the things that happened. Go to 2011 CRMIDOL and it is all there. Small Business Trends: Two of last year's finalists were acquired. Assistly was acquired by Salesforce.com and just recently, Crowd Factory was acquired by Marketo. Another company that did not even make the semi-finals, Connected, was acquired by Linkedin. You can see the previous winners, Get Satisfaction and BPM Online. You can see their stories and how this is impacted their business. Paul Greenberg: BPM Online was actually this year’s CRM Magazine's Rising Star Award winner. We are going to be announcing the semi-finalists on August 15th, 2012, at the CRM Evolution Conference in New York which is the primary CRM conference. Small Business Trends: What are some of the prerequisites that people should be aware of? Paul Greenberg: First thing is they must have a commercial. The second thing is they have to be under 7 years old. The third thing is you have to have revenues under 12 million dollars. Those are the three big ones. Go take a look at all the rules, it’s all there. But small companies, here is your shot. One of the prizes is a pitch meeting in front of a tier-one venture capitalist. You would not get that unless you had some amazing proposition. If you win CRM Idol you get that. It does not guarantee money but it will guarantee you an opportunity. Small Business Trends: I am really excited about CRM Idol 2012. Check out the write-ups from last years' briefings. A lot of time and effort was put into writing the reviews to provide the kind of information that everybody could draw from the experience of doing briefings in front of analysts. This interview is part of our One on One series of conversations with some of the most thought-provoking entrepreneurs, authors and experts in business today. This interview has been edited for publication. To hear audio of the full interview, click the right arrow on the gray player below. You can also see more interviews in our interview series.
From Small Business Trends This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Posted: 11 May 2012 05:30 AM PDT
As much as I’d like to think of myself as a young up and coming cartoonist, I’m coming to realize that I’m probably more established than upstart these days. I turned 40 last year, got my first pair of bifocals and that kid at the grocery store calls me “Sir.” Sigh… I’m getting old. So I guess it only figures that I’d begin to write cartoons about aging. Thankfully cartooning is one of those careers you can do for a good long time, but I’m not sure I’m ready to be called “Sir” just yet. From Small Business Trends |
| Small Business Product Launches and Shut Downs Posted: 11 May 2012 02:30 AM PDT A variety of small business tools are launching, and a few are shutting down or changing slightly. Which ones directly affect your company? We’ve collected some news about products available out there and some information that can help you decide which might benefit you. Marketing HelpYahoo’s marketing dashboard helps businesses market. The new feature boasts being able to find small businesses marketing opportunities they’ve been missing and manage their online reputation too. Fox Small Business Center SmartCalls offers mobile marketing made simple. Mobile marketing is still a new frontier. One service offers your small business the opportunity to employee Google AdWords to reach local mobile customers too. Small Business Trends PayrollSage One offers payroll in the cloud. This new service offers the ability to do payroll for small businesses of up to 15 employees using completely cloud based tools. There are a variety of calculation and security features too. Technorati Cloud-based OfficeWhen a door closes, a window opens. The shut down of Microsoft’s Office Live Small Business last month, as reported earlier here at Small Business Trends, affects a lot more than hosting. The service offered many other cloud-based small business services and tools. Fortunately, the software giant has provided an alternative. Information Management A look at Microsoft Office 365. Though not exactly new, Microsoft Office 365 may be getting a second look from plenty of small business owners now that Microsoft Office Live Small Business is officially shuttered. Here’s what the latest Microsoft small business cloud service has too offer. PC World Business Center Information ManagementA new service offers small business intelligence. In this interview with Brent Leary, Radius Intelligence founder Darian Shirazi explains how his new service offers access to a level of information never before available to small business. Small Business Trends Ongo shutdown raises questions about paid content. Though this shutdown doesn’t touch specifically on small business, it may provide some interesting commentary on content. Since all small businesses these days seem to be in the content business, what does this say about the market? AFP More ToolsSlideshare offers huge boosts to business. Again, this isn’t exactly a new tool, but the recent purchase by LinkedIn is sure to give it added visibility. Small businesses can use Slideshare in a wide variety of ways. If you would like to know more, read the full article above. Small Business Trends New service offers hosted small business call center. Toronto-based Primus Business Services says it will give small to medium sized businesses call center services for a monthly fee. The service is managed through a dashboard and accessed via the Web. ITBusiness.ca Facebook is offering SMB webinars. Many small business owners already use the social network, of course, but Facebook is holding a series of Webinars aimed at helping small businesses to use its products even more effectively. Small Business Trends From Small Business Trends |
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