Seed for Success | Empowering Women Entreprenuers

When we started working with Abby and Red Koala Canvas Company, we knew that she had some great things planned for her online business and that Yahoo! Merchant Solutions would be a versatile platform on which to build her a site that could grow as her company would. We planned to deliver her a new look as well as programming in a canvas designer application that she was having customized for her store’s needs.

Great design takes time and constructing an online store that is well-thought out is not an easy task.  Many times, revisions, adjustments and tweaks can eat away at a quick launch date.  Knowing the constraints of the contest and wanting to get Abby better visibility online, we decided to approach Red Koala in two phases: a “light” site build and launch for phase one that allowed Abby to flip over to the Yahoo! platform and start selling and then the full launch in phase two that would have a fully functional canvas designer application and all the features that Abby desired.  Although t-shirts were not part of her original plans, it gave her a product to sell fairly quickly that did not need configuration (since the tool was not quite finished for creating a customized canvas piece) and also time to start building traction.

Phase I implementation has been a success and Phase II is just about completed.  The canvas creator application has proved to be a little more intensive than originally thought and other details into developing these extremely unique products have proven somewhat a challenge.  However, redkoala.com looks incredible already and with the full implementation just a short time away, Abby should be equipped to fully market her business and grow it into something amazing!

Jennifer Boos
Project Facilitator,FastPivot

This week we are very pleased to welcome mentor Carol Frohlinger, Esq., co-author of Her Place at the Table: A Woman’s Guide to Negotiating Five Key Challenges to Leadership Success and co-Founder of Negotiating Women, Inc. Here is what Carol had to say about our finalists’ progress:

I recently had the pleasure to speak with each of the Seeds For Success finalists. Our topic was negotiation.

Each of the entrepreneurs was very clear about the myriad of opportunities to negotiate ─ with suppliers, service providers, independent contractors and, of course, customers and prospective customers.

For these three businesses as well as every other start-up I know though, when it comes to negotiation, it can seem as though it’s a clear case of David v. Goliath. So the question is:

How do you negotiate effectively when the other party has more leverage?

Planning is critical. Some important things to consider:

1. The first thing is that you need to figure out is what you need to get in order to make a “good deal”.

Examples:

When dealing with customers: What is the lowest price you can charge and still make a decent margin? How does that stack up against your competition, assuming you have competition? What differentiates your product if you are not the lowest cost provider? What value does that differentiation provide to your customers?

When dealing with service providers: What defines a good working relationship from your perspective? What kind of turn-around timeframe do you need?

What dealing with independent contractors: What is fair compensation? What rights should you retain?

If you don’t know what you need to negotiate for, it’s impossible to be successful. The secret here is to do your homework ahead of time.

2. Consider your BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement). What will you do if you are unable to reach agreement with this particular party? What alternatives do you have? How good are your alternatives? How can you improve them?

Examples:
If this potential customer won’t pay the price you need, where else can you sell? Perhaps you’d really like to have this customer but, trust me, your business won’t shut down if you can’t agree on terms that make sense. And, if you sell your product for less than it takes to make it, you can be absolutely sure you won’t make it up on volume!

When dealing with a potential supplier: Can you source what you need to produce your product someplace else? What would be the cost difference? The delivery difference?

Always have at least a Plan B, you can’t walk away from a bad deal if you don’t have alternatives. And, think about a Plan C too.

3. Build your confidence but realizing you probably have more leverage than you may think.

Examples:

When dealing with customers Your product may be unique, you may have had the idea first and can bring it to market more quickly than anyone else.

When dealing with service providers: You may have an “in” with someone who has influence over the individual with whom you are dealing. You may not want to use this leverage, at least not right at the beginning but it helps to know that you have some clout too.

Fear is easy to spot and some have no qualms about exploiting yours; confidence counts!

As their businesses grow, the opportunities these women have to negotiate will also expand, for example, as they hire people, they’ll be negotiating with them too, not only about compensation but about performance standards. I’m confident that their negotiation skills will too because they’ve each made a commitment to building them.

© 2008 Negotiating Women, Inc.
www.negotiatingwomen.com

Hi, Everybody!

While they’re busy assembling all of their products, the ladies of Head 2 Toe asked us to create a temporary landing page that will communicate all the core information about their new business and provide a general sneak-peak. You can see it at www.head2toepub.com

With only a single page to play with, we have to make every inch count. We finally settled on three elements:

1.) Graphic Branding

2.) Information about the owners

3.) Clear contact method

Stripped of anything remotely product related, this was a visual reminder to me about what many COMPLETE stores consistently fail to promote to their customers. Many store-owners assume that the customers only care about the product they want to buy. As my dad would say, “The only thing wrong with that is that it’s wrong.”

This error has resulted in more losses in conversion than I want to even think about. While there are plenty of other core elements a site must have to be successful, let’s talk about the three mentioned above:

1.) Graphic Branding

Branding isn’t a “thing.” It’s EVERYTHING. Branding is everything about your business that makes you different from the other folks. My secretary knows that even the way she answers the phone contributes to the EYStudios brand. In terms of graphic branding, every color, every line, and every typeface matters. As a store owner, the site design you approve will absolutely reflect some aspect of your personality. Reader, you are absolutely one-of-a-kind. Your store should be as well. What can you do that promotes you as being DIFFERENT? Forget what the other store is doing… if you mimic them, you’ll never be better than them.

Head2Toe got this without me even having to say anything. They didn’t just want generic cartoon characters… they wanted a little boy that looked like Karla’s nephew and a little girl that looked like Amy’s daughter! Talk about being unique. They didn’t want a manufactured “clip art” feel. It’s their store and darn it, if there’s going to be cartoon kids, it better be their kids.

Because people make graphic decisions, graphics are a lot like people: You can tell when they’re genuine and when they’re fake. What do you want your graphics to say about you and your company?

2.) Information about the owners

If you don’t have a big “ABOUT US” link on your site, you should consider getting one. The About Us link on our site is the most visited page in our entire website. Why? People want to know who they’re doing business with. Don’t pretend to be a business you’re not (are you beginning to see a theme here?). Use the fact that you’re a small-business to your advantage. One of our current clients posted a video on their About Us page of him introducing himself and then taking the viewer on a guided tour of their offices. This resulted in a 40% sales boost. Even big companies like ScottTrade and Sprint are trotting out their less-than-glamorous head honchos out to humanize their brands, so don’t worry about what you look like.

In my hometown, the most successful real estate agent in the area plasters pictures of her holding her giant grey cat on billboards, grocery carts, and even movie screens. People want to buy houses from her because they feel like they know her from her ads… and they feel let down if they can’t meet her giant grey cat.

3.) Clear contact method

Forget how great your products are… forget how fantastic your site design looks. If people can’t contact you, you’ve got a big problem.

Many clients are terrified about putting a toll-free number in their header, because they don’t think they can handle the call volume. The fact is, many customers won’t even call the toll-free number, but it still reassures them that someone is there if they need them. I can’t emphasize this enough—you have to make yourself available to your customers, even if they don’t need you!

At the very least, you should have a very prominent “Contact Us” tab in your header. Put every contact method you can think of in there. On my site, people can even find my instant messenger ID. I can’t tell you how many sales I’ve made just from people feeling free to IM me when they see me online.

What’s the big take-away from the above points? It’s the fact that people matter. Your customers matter, of course, but don’t YOU matter more than you realize. The more you invest of yourself in your business, from what it visually and verbally says about you to the way people can contact you, makes a huge difference. You want to be able to say “This is MY company,” and mean it.

See you next time,

Eric

-Eric
ERIC YONGE President | Creative Director

www.eystudios.com

Rosemary Coates of the AKA Group, our Manufacturing and Supply Chain expert, recently held a mentorship meeting with finalist Dana Rubinstein and her partner, Tamar Rosenthal of Dapple. Here is Rosemary’s report:

The Supply Chain Maturity Curve