Founder & CMO @ Farley's Market, Digital Marketing subject matter expert, Business Management Analyst, Golf junkie, former Computer Associates lackey, Entrepreneur all the way, Dad the high life
Shepherded 10 online transaction processing engines from conception to market producing over 10 million in sales
I really like designing unique out of the box themes. I create web experiences trying it to keep it real. I provide solid support and working relationship with my clients. Our team is small, flexible , and skilled. This is Bearpaw Partners. I have one simple goal- drive sales by engaging new and current customers
Leadership experience at C level for more than 10 years. Ran domestic and international sales teams with P+L level responsibility. Entrepreneurial spirit and fiscally conservative finance methodology.
The hardest thing in business is hiring the right the people. You need to attract talent that can knock down walls for you. What type of equity are you willing to give up to get those people? It sounds like you have created a bottle neck where by every important decision is ultimately going through your office. Sometimes letting people fail a little bit will motivate them to do better. You have to make it okay for them to fail in order to grow. Making the same mistake over and over is grounds for termination however if they fail and learn they will feel empowered. Read the book Good to Great, it has exactly the type of insight you need.
If the goal of getting your products in the hands of celebrities or on TV shows is to generate awareness of those products there may be other much more cost effective marketing approaches to reach your audience. If its your dream to work with Hollywood types then you need to be prepared to try several different approaches. We have had the most success in this arena by finding a surrogate to the personality. Their trainer, their PA, their chef, their driver etc. Get them excited about your product and they will tell their Hollywood connections. Our experience is that it can be a long, expensive and demoralizing road before one hits. Good luck. We can help you identify the right folks to target should you want some help.
301 redirect is the obvious answer and making sure everything matches is essential. There is a good chance you will take a hit on SEO for a short period of time. Dont panic. If you did the job correctly it should come back rather quickly and actually rank higher if you know what you are doing. You need to create a target rank and figure out how to beat out those ranking higher than your site.
Was the survey sent to the old email list? If so I would use that list to drive new engagement for the new business. Create a great looking bounce page or landing page driving those respondents to a call to action. Perhaps provide an incentive for signing up for the coffee subscription? In terms of the Pay Pal list you have to be really careful not to abuse the trusted relationship you had with them regarding the footwear. I would parse that list into segments, do some psycho-demographic analysis on the list and again drive them to a bounce page via a short and sweet email thanking them for their previous business. Again, because they are a previous customer of yours offer them an incentive to try out your new venture. I would do A/B testing on the landing pages to see what works well.Good Luck. I love coffee.
It should be obvious based on the vertical market you are entering. A wise man once told me (when people were getting crazy about throwing money at Internet start ups back in 2000) "there is no new business. Its all been done before it just takes on new and different forms." Unless you are a true transformation change agent and have some ultra unique idea that has never been done before look at what the other competitors are doing in your space, pick the most successful one and model your business to a large degree off of that.
With that number of attendees its tough. Work hard to get over 100 attending each month as a first step. Once you break that barrier you might get a small related sponsor. Use them to also promote the event. Perhaps a matching marketing spend...good for you and them. Where are you holding the meetup? You could try shopping it around to different locations (bars and restaurants) and seeing if you can negotiate a cut of the spend the group makes. If you want to charge those attending you have to give them value. $20 gets you...XYZ. and negotiate a % of sales. Good luck.
We would probably need more information to really answer this fully however in general I would say to make sure that all 50 citation page entries are entered exactly the same and complete. If you don't know where to find those drop me a note and I will share the information.
We use leadsquare, call rail, gather content and several other lead generation tools. Designing bounce pages or landing pages is our specialty. We live and breath A/B testing as a true measure of what works. We often start with 20 ads and narrow them down to 5. Its never the ones we all think will kill it. Its usually the ones we think will just do okay that perform the best. We can show you scores of examples and a very good track record of success should you want to engage.
Google claims they view these structures nearly the same way however In my opinion I see better authority given to the first example you cited and this is the structure we regularly use.
At Bearpaw Partners we get asked the question about content related posts all the time. As we all know Google loves fresh, compelling content. It sounds like you have plenty of content, just make sure its extremely relevant to the topic you are posting about. How often are you planning on blogging? Once a week, once a month? We would advise you to keep some of your powder dry and not fire off all the best content right away. Pending events may happen that you can capitalize on by posting some great content and piggy back on the "event". You also need to play around with the schedule to see when you get the most hits to the blog...day of week, time of day, season etc. There are other variables you should consider as well to really nail down your question. Feel free to ask away. Hope that helps.
You only need to ask him one question related to the deals you want him to invest in. " Could you ever see yourself investing in one of these deals.....ever?" If he says No then do not ask him again, enjoy your dinner and move onto the next guy. If he says maybe one day....then ask him how long could it take? 1 year, 2 years? What ever his answer is, it is. Bring a 5x7 index card and a pencil. Write down his name and the date and ask him "can we start counting tonight?" Each time you see him make sure you bring the index card and the pencil. Never ask him to invest but make sure he see's you bring out the card and write down the date. If the card gets beat up and crumpled the better it is. After two or three "casual dinners" he will be laughing his head off and telling his friends about your little index card. My predication is that you get an investment out of him within 6 months.
