Small Businesses and Online Presence

I’ve been going to the same barber for the past 14 yrs. in NYC.  We had a strong relationship and I never had to find a replacement for him.    For the past year though, my work has kept me in Central NJ, and as such I haven’t been able to visit my barber.  I did not have a recommendation from a trusted source to rely on, so all I was able to do was research the business online. I performed a quick Google search and although I was able to find a few listings of barbershops on Yelp and through Google plus, I was surprised to only find one barbershop with an online presence.

No matter how small the business and how far removed it may be from technology, an online presence is critical to the exposure and generation of new leads for that business.     I was able to build up a comfort level with this business because I was able to spend some time on their website, learning about their service offerings and their employees.   The convenience of this far outweighs the little amount of time I would’ve had with a person on the phone at any business I would call.   I am sure that the majority of people prefer this method of researching businesses as well, especially with the instance access an internet enabled mobile device gives them.

The cost of putting up a website is only a few hundred dollars, and you can have it up and running in a few hours.   Sites such as iPage, GoDaddy and Yahoo! Small Business make it very easy to setup and host a website.  WordPress offers many free and easy to use templates (and some premium ones for a nominal fee) to build your website.  You can get assistance  from 3rd party sources by visiting ELance or 99Designs.  A simple cost breakdown to set up a website is:

  • Website hosting and domain name registration – ~$50 to host a website and register a domain name*
  • WordPress theme – free for the basic template, $30-$100 for a premium theme.
  • Set up time – A couple of hours to customize the template to your liking and adding content about your organization to it
  • 3rd Party services for website build (optional) – Less than $500, depending on the vendor you choose.

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You can have a complete website built and hosted for less than $600, and within a few hours.  There’s really no excuse not to do this.   I’m positive that the investment would pay itself off in a few months, if not sooner.

While getting my haircut, the barber told me that they had only been in business for about seven months, and the majority of their new business is being driven via their online presence.   Their online presence got me in the door.  All in all, I was there for about 30 minutes, got top notch customer service and a great haircut.  Their website got me in their door, their service will make me a repeat customer.

The barbershop is called Razorsharp.  Check them out if you’re in the area.  I highly recommend them.

Key Takeaways:

  • Having an online presence, no matter how small the business, is critical to gain exposure in today’s age.
  • Setting up an online presence has never been cheaper/easier.
  • While an online presence will get customers through your doors, you still need to produce a great product to get them to come back.

 

* The $50 price tag is based on the latest offerings on iPage.com and may be different when you perform your research.

Simplegrid named to the MSPMentor 501

NYC IT Consulting

Our IT consultancy, Simplegrid Technology, Inc. was recently ranked as one of the top 501 firm IT Firms in the world by MSPMentor.   It’s quite an honor to be ranked within this exclusive list, and this the second time we’ve been included.

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Awards are nice, but your customers are what really matter

I was recently named to the MSPmentor top 250 Influencers list.   I am very humbled by this honor, and am truly appreciative to MSPMentor for recognizing me for this distinct honor.   This morning I started thinking about what this award means.   Like I mentioned before, it’s really nice to be recognized amongst your peers, and it definitely is another badge of honor that one can wear.  You can definitely use these awards to build credibility with new clients, and just as a general marketing campaign. But that’s really all it is.  What we truly aim for at Simplegrid is striving to be the best at what we do, to deliver the highest quality of service to our clients, to create a challenging yet welcoming atmosphere for our employees, where they can learn and grow, and continue to be thought leaders in the technology industry.   So, while an award can recognize those qualities, the true recognition comes when a client turns around and says “Thank you, you’re doing a great job for us.”

We got a call like that today.   And I wouldn’t trade that call for any award in the world.

Key Takeaways:

  • Aim to be the best at what you do, and the recognition will come
  • Awards are nice, but they are no more than a badge of honor that you can use to grow your brand.
  • Your customer is your highest priority, and having satisfied/grateful customers is the best reward of all.

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Firing employees is never easy, but at times necessary

Ultimately, as a CEO, your job is to find the best solution to problems that are not easily solvable.  If the problem was easy, it would’ve never made it to your desk.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned as CEO is the responsibility of managing employees cannot be taken lightly, and that responsibility has to be taken in context with the responsibility I have to all of our clients, employees and to the wellbeing of the organization.  Recently, we had to terminate a sales employee, who wasn’t performing up to our expectations.   We had recognized early on that he wasn’t going to work out.    He was, however, well liked within the company and gave the impression that he was putting in a lot of effort.   Unfortunately, the results weren’t reflective of his performance.   We were also aware of some difficulty he was having in his personal life.

I deliberated about this for quite some time.  It wasn’t a question of money for me, but more about the impact (both positive and negative) he was having in the organization.  I knew that he represented Simplegrid every time he visited a client, or spoke on the phone with someone, and he was not representing the company positively.   I knew this was having an affect on our reputation, and reputation in an IT consultancy is paramount to it’s success.  At the same time, I was worried about his personal life and how losing a job would further add to his woes.  Lastly, I was worried about how the rest of the team would react to his termination, as he had formed some strong relationships, and people in the company were aware of his predicament. 

Ultimately we decided to terminate the employee.   We considered investing more into him, training him more, or at least waiting until his personal issues subsided.  But none of those solutions were ideal.  We had already invested heavily in his training and were constantly doing whatever we can to help him succeed.  And we don’t know when (or if) his personal issues would subside.  With that said, we didn’t want to just let him go and fend for himself on top of everything that was going on in his life.  We  offered him a generous severance package, and assistance with finding another job. 

We also met with some of this employee’s closest colleagues in the organization to answer any questions they may have.  Surprisingly, most of them agreed with the termination as they also were aware of his poor performance.  Some consultants even were getting upset that this person was working for the firm, as they felt that they were working more effectively than this person and having him continue working for the firm would’ve affected their morale.   Lastly, many of the consultants were appreciative of the assistance we offered this employee after termination and increase their confidence in the management team that we would do the right thing.

 

Key Takeaways

  • Firing people is never fun, but at times necessary.
  • Firing employees is more than just about dollars and cents and being aware of that is notices by those around you.
  • As a CEO, you have responsibility to both your employees on an individual basis, but also to the employees as an organization, and must factor in both when making personnel decisions.
  • Your staff is very aware of the performance (or lack thereof) of their peers, and how those employees are treated affect the morale of your other employees.

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Lessons from my first failed startup

Before I started Simplegrid, I had actually started another IT consulting firm, which completely failed. This firm was started with 7 friends who were all interested in working together. We realized very quickly that this model wasn’t going to work. All of us had overlapping skills sets, and didn’t have the complimentary skillsets that are needed for a business to succeed. For example, we were all technologists, but no one had sales or administrative experience.

Beyond that, we were suffering from too many cooks in the kitchen syndrome, so all seven of us had to agree in order to make a decision to be finalized. It would take us weeks to come to a decision on something as simple as to where to open our bank account. Lastly, since we were all friends, no one wanted to step on each other’s toes, and no one wanted to do the more mundane work that is needed in the beginning stages of a business.

I was very serious about starting a IT consulting firm, and saw it as a big part of my career, so I had to make a tough decision and let my friends know that I wouldn’t be working with them, but rather starting my own firm.  It was a tough time as many feelings were hurt.  I learned a lot of lessons from this one failure, that I think can be applied to all businesses:

  • Never start a company with more than 2 or 3 (max) co-founders.   If you do have co-founders, make sure that each of you have complementary skill sets.  For example, if one of you is the technical one, the other should have a strong skill set in sales.
  • Try not to go into business with your friends.   Unless you can separate out the business aspect of your lives, from the pleasure aspect of your lives (and believe me, not many people can), you’re looking for trouble as issues in your business will spill over into your personal lives.  Do you really want to involve your other friends, or even your families in your business issues?  Do you want to go to a party and be upset because your partner isn’t pulling his weight, but you can’t tell him that cause he’s your friend?  It’s a really bad idea.
  • Fail fast.  You’ll know when the writing’s on the wall.  In my situation, it was obvious that this firm wasn’t going anywhere.  It’s always better to cut your losses and try again.

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