20 Signs That You’re a Success in Your Industry

20 Signs That You’re a Success in Your Industry
Amazon Acquires Goodreads: Impact and Alternatives
Review of “Roadmap to Profitable Growth”

Posted: 31 Mar 2013 01:00 PM PDT

industry success

Running a small business can be confusing and the path forward is often unclear. Many small business owners are hanging on the brink of being just successful enough to not go out of business. In otherwords, many are just getting by.

If that’s the case, should you keep the business open in hopes of future success or just close up shop? And on the flip side, what if your business is doing well and profiting? What is that moment of truth that tells you, as a small business owner, that your company is a success in your industry? Below are 20 signs that you’ve got something beyond mere survival.

20 Signs That You’re an Industry Success

1. Your Company Earns Money While You're on Vacation

Going on vacation and earning money at the same time means you have built a company, not just a job. This means that your business is at the level where, during your absence, it just doesn't survive, but thrives.

2. You Show Up on the First Page of Search Results

The new main streets for the digital age are search engines like Bing and Google. Some business owners feel that when they organically show up on the first page of their favorite search engine, they have made it. And there’s truth to that, because it means you have risen to the top when it comes to SEO (search engine optimization).

3. You Change a Customer’s Life

Many small business owners seek to make a difference in the world through their businesses. When a customer writes or visits the office to tell you the difference you have made in their life, it's one of those moments you know that you are unstoppable.

4. Clients Find You

When people you do not know and have never contacted start purchasing from your business, then you can be sure that you've developed your reach. In fact, your product may have become such that people cannot do without it, hence the avalanche of patronage.

5. You Know You’re Not Alone

A time will come when you finally realize that many other small business owners share the same problems as you. It is at this time, when you have become a success in your industry, where competitors start copying your strategies and principles. It's at this point that you're sure of progress.

6. Customers Refer You

The highest compliment is when one of your customers refers another person to your business. Customers will freely recommend your product when they know that you have what it takes to satisfy your customers. This could be a sign that your business is booming.

7. You Bounce Back

When you go through bad times and you are able to bounce back to success, this means you've attained a good level of resilience. Successful companies can recover despite economic recessions. This should be your goal.

8. News Media Take Notice

A news article publishes your brand and helps to get the word out, and it flushes out other "believers" besides you. This means that one advertisement can greatly increase your company’s visibility, enticing clients from all walks of life to buy into your brand, thus boosting business.

9. You Fire Customers

When your business is successful enough, it can let go of customers that are unprofitable. Your business can get to a stage where you cannot deal with all the customers you have. Therefore, focusing on customers that can contribute more to your income can make your business more profitable.

10. You Achieve Positive Cash Flow

This implies that the business has recorded success, whereby it can reinvest its profits for future growth. Here, your business has grown so much that you gain high paying clients. When this happens, reinvesting in your business becomes easy.

11. A Publisher Asks You to Write a Book

Even in the digital age, when you write a book you instantly add to your company's expertise. Publishers will want to woo you to write a book that has to do with your industry because you have become an expert. This increases your online reputation and what follows is nothing other than more clients.

12. Demand From Customers is in Abundance

The time has come when customers all over the globe are now demanding your product. When there is very a high rate of demand, this means that they are getting their money’s worth from your brand.

13. Partnership

You’ve arrived when you are able to sponsor grand projects in your community, state or country. You can now attract smaller brands that will come under the umbrella of your brand by partnering with you.

14.You Have an Exceptional Team

There is a point when you realize your employees are exceptional and that your partners are selling your products in abundance. This means that your hiring choices were on point, which is why your company is yielding great results.

15.Playing As a Team or Sharing and Collaborating With Other Lines of Business

You ensure that sales intelligence is available to other functions within the company, like marketing, customer service and operations. When all departments of a company are armed with the same information, it allows for a much more cohesive unit and a more highly functioning machine.

16. Accountability Via Goal Setting and Milestone Achievement

You never toy with accountability. Smart sales teams define sales milestones, including the use of available sales intelligence data. Good business intelligence has been proven to be valuable and effective, so you are taking full advantage of it.

17. Know Your Opponent or Keep Your Sales Intelligence Intelligent

You don't just do reconnaissance on future opponents at the beginning of the season. It's a constant process, with scouts posted all over the country, reporting back constantly, and the analysis never ends. If a team is working with outdated information, that's trouble.

18. You Keep Your Data Organized and in One Place

Your most effective sales teams capture sales intelligence on their prospects, customers and markets and organize all of the data in one place, like a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solution. This makes it accessible to everyone who needs it.

19. You Operate on an International Level

You do not operate on just a national level. This means that your business has transcended into a global one. Your branches are spread throughout the world. This shows that you have a universal vision for your business.

20. Your Team is Second to None

Your employees are unbeatable wherever they go, because you invest a whole lot in their personal development. Plus, you don't overlook their training on business development. This shows that providing customers with top notch service is your priority.

Now think about your company; does it have the characteristics of a winning team? If so, great, but there are probably areas where you think there can be improvement.

If not, there's no magic bullet that will make everything fall into place. But you can take steps to become a champion and a success in your industry.

Crystal Ball Photo via Shutterstock

The post 20 Signs That You’re a Success in Your Industry appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Amazon Acquires Goodreads: Impact and Alternatives

Posted: 31 Mar 2013 09:30 AM PDT

Bookselling giant Amazon announced late last week that it is acquiring Goodreads. The purchase price was not revealed. The transaction is expected to close later this year.

Book lovers know Goodreads as the large and increasingly popular book-review site with a strong social element. At Goodreads you can review books, discuss books, and connect with other readers based on mutual interests. Goodreads says on its website that it is “the world’s largest site for readers and book recommendations.” Based in San Francisco, Goodreads has 16 million members and 23 million book reviews.

One of the plans is to make Goodreads integrate with Kindle. Goodreads CEO Otis Chandler will report to Amazon's Vice President of Kindle content, Russ Grandinetti — a telling clue to where Goodreads fits in the overall Amazon strategy.

Goodreads Autonomy Not Assured

Goodreads will be run as a separate subsidiary of Amazon, much like Zappos. A concern among Goodreads users is whether the review site can maintain neutrality toward other retailers, once it is part of the Amazon family.

I logged on this morning to my Goodreads account and noticed that one of my 700+ friends there posted this message – she’s clearly not happy with the Amazon takeover:

Goodreads defector

While some will surely make similar gestures, the announcement is unlikely to cause a mass defection immediately. People don’t like to switch apps, and as I point out below, there aren’t many Goodreads alternatives that offer the same social community and ecommerce-platform independence. The real impact will depend on what Amazon does with Goodreads over the medium and long term.

Up to now Goodreads has been seen as independent of any particular retailer. In an interview on Paid Content, Goodreads CEO Otis Chandler reiterated his desire for that retailer-neutral element to remain.

However, that decision will not be up to Chandler alone. Autonomy has a way of going out the window after a while, in most acquisitions. Amazon has shown intolerance when it comes to using its data in sites that give visibility to competing retailers. Goodreads itself discovered that last year, causing it to stop using the Amazon API.

Chandler said that Goodreads would continue to offer its own API. The API gives third parties access to certain Goodreads data.

Goodreads for Business Books

Entrepreneur authors of business books have caught on to Goodreads as another place to develop an audience for their books. When I first joined the site two years ago, it had a decided focus on fiction books. But in the past year I’ve noticed business books being reviewed and discussed more frequently there — and more business authors joining.

Goodreads encourages authors to connect with fans and develop a following, through its Author Program. Authors can have blogs, and host giveaways and Q&As on the site. There is a self-serve advertising program — and thousands of book clubs on the site to tap into and connect with.

Goodreads Alternatives

For those concerned about Goodreads becoming part of Amazon, there are some alternatives.

Shelfari is not one of them. Amazon acquired Shelfari in 2008. Once promising, Shelfari seems to have been eclipsed by Goodreads. Of course, Shelfari never had as strong a social element as Goodreads.

LibraryThing is another reader site with an Amazon connection. Abebooks, which is owned by Amazon, has a 40% stake in LibraryThing. LibraryThing’s website says it has 1.6 million book lovers as members.

Google Books, through Google Play, offers a book app that combines the ability to purchase, store and review books. The Google Books app on my Nexus 10 tablet has a simple elegant interface. Goodreads reviews are incorporated into Google Books as one review source (along with some other sources). It’s not clear whether that will continue. But Google is ramping up its own social review capabilities. When you leave a review on Google Books it ties in with your Google+ account, so that your connections on Google’s social network can see what you think about a particular book, and vice versa, as the notice below indicates.

Goodgle Books reviews

Bookish, a joint venture of three publishers (Hachette, Penguin Books and Simon & Schuster) was launched just this year. It is an e-commerce site but also gives users their own book shelves. As you might imagine with a site owned by publishers, Bookish appears to be focused on presenting and selling books from a publisher’s perspective, and promoting their big-name authors. The community interaction element seems limited.

Book Crossing, Book Rabbit and Revish are three smaller book-lover community/bookshelf sites.

And then there are dozens of book apps – each seems to offer some different combination of features. Some are ebook readers tied to specific retailers (like iBooks, Nook and Kindle) that also allow you to keep track of your electronic books that you’ve purchased, but typically offer little in the way of social interaction and discussion around books.

Book Crawler and ReadMill are two iOS book apps independent of any retailer and popular with readers.

Kobo, headquartered in Japan, also has its own bookstore, tablet readers, and free reader apps.

If you know of others, please share in the comments below.

The post Amazon Acquires Goodreads: Impact and Alternatives appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Review of “Roadmap to Profitable Growth”

Posted: 31 Mar 2013 06:00 AM PDT

profitable growth Did I ever tell you about the time my husband and I nearly broke up over a map?

We had just started dating and decided to drive down to D.C. from Philadelphia, where we lived at the time. You know the kind of spontaneous road-trip I'm talking about? It's the one where you have this great idea and decide on the spur of the moment to throw a few things into a bag, jump in the car and head out for a romantic weekend.

It was glorious for about 90% of the trip, until I made a wrong turn into the worst part of D.C. It was getting dark, we were lost and Tony said, "Where's your map?" I just looked at him blankly and said, “Map? Uh, let me see if I have one."

Well, let me tell you that was a moment. I wasn't sure if our relationship would survive it at the time. But since then, I've learned how to read a map and both our travel and our relationship have been on relatively smooth sailing since.

Until that moment, I hadn't realized how powerful a map could be. But when you really need to get to a destination and you aren't quite sure where you're going, a map is your best bet.

The Roadmap to Profitable Growth has Business Wisdom at Every Turn

The reason I shared one of my personal map stories (yes, I have more) is that it's a lot like being in business. I guess John Mariotti, Author of Roadmap to Profitable Growth saw the same connection between maps and business. In the introduction to Roadmap to Profitable Growth, he explains:

Too many people get lost and wander aimlessly because they have no "roadmap" for where they wanted to go or if they did, they failed to use it.

While so many books today seek to intellectualize or romanticize the business-building and business-running experience, Mariotti does nothing more than speak from his experience of running several world-class organizations. He served as the CEO of Huffy (when Huffy was the darling of marketing case studies) and Rubbermaid Office Products.

What I'm trying to say is that this book is a pragmatic business owner's handbook. It's not grounded in any kind of lofty research nor does it contain dozens of case studies from big brands that you can't possibly relate your smaller business to. Instead, it's filled with practical lessons gained from real-world, on-the-job experiences Mariotti has learned from and now shares with you.

What Makes Mariotti An Expert Worth Listening To?

I first met John Mariotti almost 13 years ago through a mutual friend who invited me to be a part of John's Enterprise Group, a coalition of time-shared advisors™ which he founded 18 years ago after having been the President of two companies and then Chairman of World Kitchen.

John has written eight business books, a mini-book and even a prescient novel about cyber terrorism. In addition to all of his books, he's written hundreds (maybe even thousands) of articles which have been published on Forbes and here on Small Business Trends.

What makes him worth listening to is his experience of managing big businesses, small businesses and everything in between. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if he hasn't seen it all, he's seen at least the 80% that counts. And more than that, Mariotti isn't afraid of acting, failing, learning and trying again to gain better results.

What I respect most about Mariotti is his openness, honesty and pragmatic sensibility when it comes to running a business.

A Few Fun Tidbits From the Book

Like I said, I happen to have known John for quite a few years and was comforted to see so many of his favorite phrases and stories in this book mashed and combined with classic quotes from folks like Peter Drucker.

Here are just a few of the “Mariotti mantras” that any business owner can appreciate:

Planning and acting is better than waiting and acting.
Complexity is created with the best of intentions.
PP*2 Does not equal FF — (Preserving the Past) and (Perfecting the Present) does not equal (Finding the Future).
Nothing is more important in business – and in life – than people.

There are many more of these simple phrases and explanations of how to use them to successfully run your business and make good decisions inside this small book of 122 pages.

Read It and Reap

I would say that this book isn't just for business owners. In today's age where everyone is expected to be entrepreneurial – chances are, you'll want to have a copy of this book and read it often.

Roadmap to Profitable Growth is a book that you'll read once all the way through, dog ear some of the sections that are worth returning to and then go back again and again to simply make sure that you're still on the right path to profitability.

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