I’m currently at the InfusionCon marketing conference in Phoenix, Arizona.  I’m here as part of Anita Campbell’s Small Business Trends team and our objective is to promote BizSugar — the only bookmarking site dedicated specifically to small business. (more…)

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This week’s book review on Small Business Trends is on “Creating Competitive Advantage” by Jaynie L. Smith.   You can see a summary of the book review as a feature video as well.  It’s one thing to read the book, get the principles and think that it’s a great idea, it’s quite another to sit yourself down and start comping up with a real competitive advantage that you can use to actually increase your sales. (more…)

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One of the things you can expect from DIYMarketers are periodic reviews of tools and resources that you’ll find helpful in selling to small businesses.

We all have a long list of blogs and articles we read every day – but I have to strongly recommend “Selling to Small Business.”  If you’re already an avid reader of Small Business Trends, then you might know about this one.  Both are online publications by Small Business Expert, Anita Campbell.

Anita truly has her pulse on what’s happening in the small business world.  In light of full disclosure, Anita is a client and a friend — but BOTH of these roles actually came years after I started following her work, reading her blog and relying on her online publications for my industry and trend information — heavily, I might add.  I only have one criticism of how Anita’s publications — I wish they had a portal that was all Anita Campbell small business stuff – all the time.  My biggest issue is that I have to hop from URL to URL and that they aren’t just a portal all their own.  But that’s just me and it goes to show how much I rely on her unique way of pulling information together in digestible bites and using the most credible resources on the web.

I’ll be reviewing several of her sites in the coming months, but I really want to start with “Selling to Small Business” first.

Who Should Read Selling to Small Business and Why?

Like the name implies, if you intend on SELLING to SMALL BUSINESS – you should read this blog.  But don’t even think about using this as “Chamber event” where you constantly pitch the audience on whatever your wares are.  It doesn’t work like that. Selling to Small Business is a resource to those of us who serve this market.  It will educate BOTH the large multi-national company like a Microsoft of an Intel on what’s important to small business, as well as the smaller provider of products and services.

How to Get the Most Out of Selling to Small Business?

Regardless of how you organize your blog reading, I recommend that you put all of Anita’s blogs very close together, so that you can take a quick glance and what topics she’s covering.  So put it on your reader.

It runs on a standard blog format, so the most recent stories are on the top and you can scroll your way down.  But remember – this is not so much a time driven source of information, as it is valuable category information – so be sure to look to your right where you’ll see the categories and the number of articles in each category.

Currently the categories tell you something about what’s happening in small business.  For example, she’s got one on Baby Boomers.  I never would have thought that as a category – but read the stories that are tagged and you’ll see that she’s thought this through – the stories aren’t just ABOUT baby boomers, some of them are stories baby boomers who are responsible for selling to small business should pay attention to.  Love that.

The next tab is “About” and you can learn more about what Anita was thinking when she started Selling to Small Business.

MY FAVORITE TAB – Small Business Lists!

Look you DIY Marketers — it’s all about the LIST.  It is so about the list and the community that you should not every kid yourself about this.  Here Anita gives you a wonderful resource ; calendars of small business events that you might find interesting to attend.

The other “list” she gives is the link to her SMBTrendwire podcasts.  These are weekly interviews that Anita and Steve Rucinski do with a variety of small business experts and authors.  There is so much to learn from these – you’ll have to put yourself on a daily budget of what to listen to and how much.

The last list resource is a directory of small business blogs. Againk you’ll have to look through these and identify the ones that are most useful to you.

Finally there is the archives section – which is what you’d expect it to be – archives of articles by category and month.

I highly encourage you to not only check this blog out, but I encourage you to become a subscriber and regular reader.  When you’re in dire need of quick, high quality info and data — this is your place.

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I’ve never been one of these people who gets all passionate about causes.  Don’t get me wrong; I care about the environment, I care about animals and little children all over the world — I just don’t have that special tug at the heart and mind that inspires me to get on a soapbox about that and commit time and money to the project.

UNTIL NOW!  I’ve Found my Cause and….

IT’S YOU and YOUR Business Success in 2009!

It dawned on me when I was putting together the press release for the DIYMarketers and Toilet Paper Entrepreneur 3-Sheet Strategy Workshop (Which I’m sure you’ve registered for already — I mean at $49 for having your strategy DONE for 2009 — killer deal).

I didn’t want to promote this thing as “Register for MY workshop—”  Because — I realized it wasn’t really ABOUT ME and the success of the workshop — it was really about YOU!  I’m not just saying that either.  Of course I want to be successful in my business — so do you.  But NONE of us can succeed if we all lay down in this economy.  We can’t succeed if we’re still running the same marketing process and strategy — because the environment has changed.  LOTS of things have changed in the last year.  Government has turned over; what was important last year isn’t important this year.

YOU CAN’T BE RUNNING THE SAME STRATEGY – so don’t even think about it.  If that’s the case – then WHAT?

That brings me right back around to my cause – which I would appreciate if you’d spread around (only if you feel the same way).

I’m looking for anywhere from 50 to 100 businesses who want to be heroes in this economy.  If you’re saying that can’t be you – well then it won’t be and Mike Michalowicz (Donnie Deutsch’s small biz expert — yeah, you read that right)  and I will be featuring someone else.

Let me talk about how I envision this project:

1. Register for the site and download the 3-Sheet Strategy Worksheet.  This is freakin’ FREE – so download the sheet and give it a try.  If you’re like me and feel lonely through this process – well, then join us for the TPE 3-Sheet Strategy Sessions.
2. Small Businesses register for the 3-Sheet Strategy.  To have a crack at this, you have to register for this session.  It’s a 3-hour tele-seminar on Feb 6.  It costs $49 (and if you use “DIYM” in the promo code you’ll get another $5 off.  You’ll have a strategy and plan done in 3 hours.  But forget all that — you’ll be networked in with a community of people who will want to help you – we will work together we will help each other — straight from the heart.  A_holes need not apply – we don’t want you.  We want people who are committed to growing their business and sharing their ideas with others.
3. Join the 1 on 1 coaching sessions - that’s 30 days of 1 on 1 coaching with Mike, Ivana and anyone else we think you might need to talk to. (pssst – take a look at the right hand margin of this page – — see it?)  CLICK.  Once you have your plan – we will actually help you work it, hold you hand, kick your ass — whatever is required to make you successful.  As far as Mike and I are concerned failure is NOT an option.  Once you commit to this process – we are here for you.
4. Implement your marketing plan on DIYMarketers. The next step will be to implement your plan on DIYMarketers.  I have a forum all set up for the people who hear the same calling of success in 2009.  I’ve got vendors and resources (my special friends) that have a stake in your success as well.

Now comes the fun part of my vision…You guys know I’m a guest expert on Small Business Trends. I write book reviews, I pull together DIY Marketing articles for the Marketing Tips Section sponsored by HP and I’m also a guest expert via SmallBizTrends on the AMEX open Forum blog.  All of these blogs need CONTENT and stories about businesses that are doing it right.  Business owners all over the world want to know what works, what you’re doing, why and HOW.

Why shouldn’t those stories be about YOU?  I don’t know – but the only way they CAN be about YOU is if you let me know who you are!  So this is my call to action for those of you that want to OPT OUT of this economy -

Pass this post on – tell your business buddies – register, participate and play the most exciting game of all – the one where you, your business, your friends and family have a kick ass successful and fun 2009!

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