In order to be a success in life, you must know thyself. In order to be a success in business, you must know thy company.

Does it all sound just a little too metaphysical and self help-y for you? Stick with me.

In order to have a successful business, you must understand your own strengths and weaknesses, as well as those of your staff. Even the best built team will have flaws: too many introverts, too little attention to detail, too big and unwieldy. By understanding these deficits, you can position your company in a way that can minimize their impact.

You must also know your audience. Remember, everyone is not your customer. Broadcasting your message too loudly or to the wrong prospects is a sure path to failure. Make sure you genuinely understand who you can best help with your services and your price point, and who it’s probably better to send elsewhere.

Know your limits. For instance, we’re a web design firm. Where does our service level stop–at launch? A month after? Does it extend indefinitely to every problem the client has with the site, whether or not it has anything to do with our design? For you, it might be establishing a returns policy or a lemon policy. But if you don’t know where you have to draw the line, you’ll find yourself running into significant problems.

Know who you are. So many times we sit down with a client and ask them who they really are, what’s most important to them, what they want their clients to know about them, and they’re dumbfounded. Without this information, we can’t help position you properly in the marketplace. We can’t craft the right messages and put them in the right places. We can, however, help you think deeply and come up with some pretty good answers about who you are what’s important.

As we start the new year, devote some time to understanding yourself and your business. You’ll come out ahead.

One of the most interesting and sometimes difficult question a business owners should answer as they write their first business plan is this:What are your company values?

This is different then your mission, which is why the business exists or your vision, which is a snapshot of where you will be in five years.Values are about the core or soul of your business.

When I started Roundpeg, I envisioned a team building and strategic planning company. The values were a direct extension of me:  Creativity, Collaboration and Positive Energy.    Those where my three words.  Ok, so positive energy is two words, but really one idea.

Each year, I rewrite my business plan. Each year I looked at those same three words as the core of Roundpeg. But in 2012, it is time for a change.  As part of a half day planning session with my sales coach, Matt Nettleton, the team discussed this idea of three words at length. We came up with a very different list.

We decided in our business creativity is a given, not a core value, because it is but fundamentally what we sell. Saying we were creative was like saying a shoe factory sold shoes. Of course we are creative, otherwise we would have no business at all.  Our core values are what separates us from our competitors, what defines  ”roundpeg”. We came up with three words:

Teamwork, Integrity & Passion

Teamwork:  It defines who we are, and how we work. Although we have specializations, we each jump in and help the other team members, taking care of clients and balancing the work load. And when we collaborate wonderful things result. The feeling of teamwork extends beyond just us, it includes our clients and strategic partners, they are all part of the Roundpeg Team.

Integrity: This is about doing what we say we will do, living up to agreements, promises and commitments to clients and to each other. It is about doing the right thing, even when business standards would allow you do to less.

Passion: Each of us loves what we do. It is not about going through the motions and collecting a paycheck. We could all probably make more money elsewhere.  It is about doing what we love, with people we love being around. People who say “ I wouldn’t mind doing that” in an interview don’t get hired at Roundpeg.

Those are our three words.  They reflect a very different company from the one I started ten years ago. There is still fun, creativity and positive energy, but there is more.  After ten years, there should be.

Oli Gardner wrote a blog post, which is actually a small novel, outlining a six month plan to improving your search position. In it he, outlined the elements which come together to create an effective web strategy. I found this graphic after I set up our First Quarter Seminar Series, but I wasn’t surprised to see how closely our course schedule lines up with these elements.

Start with Your Website - As you can see from his infographic below, the landing page is at the center of the process.   No matter how many of the pieces you put in place, if you don’t have a good website and a way to convert visitors, the rest of your efforts will be wasted. Join us on January 12 for 10 Tips for Better Websites  as we discuss the most common mistakes web designers and small business owners make.

Add Social Media – Expanding your brand beyond your website into the larger online world. The challenge for small business owners? There is always a new network, choose carefully. Not sure how to get started? Check out Social Media Stew on January 26 as we share ways to use social media to   keep customers and potential customers informed, engaged, and educated.

Content is King – Every marketing expert seems to agree that pretty graphics and a slick-looking site make a great first impression, but it is content that keeps visitors coming back. The easiest way to create relevant content is through your blog.  Join us on February 23 for Blogging Basics as we share a crash course on blogging strategies. We’ll talk about why you should blog, what you should blog about and how to get the most bang for your buck from the blogging process.

Email Is Not Dead – While the days of sending mass messages to everyone have come and gone, there is still a place for good email marketing. When used effectively with specific messages for a target population, it still drives results. On March 8 we wrap our marketing series with a look at how email marketing supports your other activities maximizing  social media, web design, and old fashioned face-to-face  to help Random Strangers Become Raving Fans. 

All of our one hour sessions start promptly at 8 a.m. Coffee and cats are on hand to make it interesting at the little white house at 1003 East 106th Street, Indianapolis, 46260. There is no charge to attend, but reservations are required.  Reserve your space today and we will help you put the pieces of your web strategy together.

Unbounce – The DIY Landing Page Platform

I love New Year’s Day. On this day almost anything seems possible. Closing the books on 2011, it is time to plan for the year ahead.  And just like every year for the last ten years, I am putting the finishing touches on my business plan. While not as formal as the plans I wrote in the early years of the business, I still spent time reviewing goals and tactics. I focused on mapping out some of the big changes we need to make in the months to come if we want to hit our year-end sales goals.

As I reviewed my plan I spent some time researching what other business consultants were suggesting.  Here are a few of the more interesting things I found:

• Crowdspring shared a new twist on the 3R’s.  The author shared his thoughts on research, refinement and writing (well, it is an R if you spell it phonetically).  He suggests that your plan is a living document you should return to over and over again throughout the year. The form itself is not so important, but the continuous process of refining your plan will help create a stronger, more sustainable business.
• Tim Berry suggests five questions you should ask in your business plan.  I liked his approach, again less formal, but certainly thought provoking:
• Is my price right?
• Can I afford to hire?
• Am I implementing my strategy?
• Can I afford to relocate?
• Am I stunting my growth?
• The Myth of the Business Plan – Kate Lister suggests that companies need to business plan (verb) but they don’t necessarily need a business plan ( noun).  Her emphasis, like many of the other authors I have been reading is focused on the act of planning, without worrying about the final format of the document.

In the early days of my business I used this small business plan outline.  It served me well, laying a foundation I could build on each year. But after 10 years, I am opting for a much more informal process. Just a handful of strategies and key metrics everyone on my team can see every day. There are few secrets at Roundpeg.  Maybe that is my biggest suggestion for the year to come. No matter what form your business plan takes, be sure to share your goals with the people who can help you achieve them and hold you accountable to stay on track.

Winter officially started this week…..and still it rains here in Indianapolis. Maybe Santa will show up this year in an ark instead of a sleigh? In case you’ve been busy with holiday preparations, here’s a recap of what was on our mind this week.

Happy Holidays from the crew at Roundpeg.

Saturday – Faces of Roundpeg: Can I Help You? Amy, Annalise & Erica
A few of the many young professionals who began their careers at Roundpeg and helped us grow into the company we are today.

Sunday – How to Make the Social Media Boom Last
In another guest post by Lindsey Paho, she asks what’s next for social media.

Monday – Clean Up on Aisle Purple
Peter explains why he contained the color purple in one of our newer web redesign projects.

Tuesday – Using Editorial Calendars for Social Media
Use your calendar as a cheat sheet to keep your social media efforts on track.

MTFW Email Marketing Starts with a Great List
Although our intention was to pass on this week’s broadcast (last minute shopping anyone?), Troy Hanna, the new kid at AddressTwo stopped by to chat.

Wednesday – Yellow Page Advertising? Seriously?
Yellow pages are rarely used in this digital age, here are some things to think about before commiting to dollars spent on yellow page ads.

One More Network, One More Measure
Lorraine explains the statistical measures provided by Google+ and how she uses them.

Thursday – Who Are You in 140 Characters or Less?
What should your twitter handle say and what does it say about you?

Friday – 2011 Greatest Hits
Our top ten most popular blog posts.

We write a lot of blog posts for Business Notes from Roundpeg. We average eight to ten posts a week, on topics we think small business owners will care about: marketing, social media, networking, web design, strategy and team building.  Some posts are serious and some are informative, some of the posts are sentimental and others are rants.

Each of the members of Roundpeg writes posts from time to time and we regularly invite guests to join us as well.   The blending of our different voices has created a blog which really represents who we are as a company.

We watch our statistics to see which posts get the most traffic and conversation.  There are always a few surprises, like the little posts we thought were “throw aways” that generate lots of interaction.  Here is a list of the most popular posts we have added to the blog this year.  Notice how many different authors have content in our top ten.

1. Keep Visitors Coming Back  Getting people to your website is only the first step. To be an effective part of your marketing strategy, your web design must look good,  engage visitors and give them reasons to keep them coming back again and again.
2. What Do You Say?  Make Podcasts Part of Your Web Design Inspired by  Bill Catsky, we began a weekly podcast.  This post is about how we did it and how it is working.
3. Hike Through a Work Flow – A guest post by Bill Lundy discussing  why every business should periodically review its key workflows looking for ways to improve quality, lower cost or save time.
4. Why I Am Mean to Interns - Allison explains her unique management style.
5. Blasts from the Past - Our intern Brittany Wright spent some time digging through the archives of our blog.  She wrote a post sharing what she learned about SEO from these old posts.
6.  Web Candy When you go to check out in the grocery store, do you ever grab a candy bar from those tempting shelves near the registers? What if your website could do the same thing?
7. Hardworking…Really? The process of interviewing and hiring interns can be tedious and tiring when they all say the same thing
8. Faces of Roundpeg, Kyle My Teacher  Part of a series of tributes to Roundpeg employees (past and present), customers, friends and others who have been an important part of our first ten years. This segment is about Kyle Lacy.
9. Twitter is Supposed to Be Easy  New kid on the block Peter shares some of his early Twitter lessons
10. Even Dead Fish Float  A guest post by my sales coach, Matt Nettleton.

On Business Notes from Roundpeg, we look at which posts are popular, what keywords drive traffic and where our traffic is coming from. I am continuously surprised that one post, Marketing Organization Chart, written three years ago this month, continues to drive traffic daily.  It was so popular, I built a series around the topic, but the nagging question remains: Why do we get so much traffic for this group of posts?

It seems search terms such as “marketing org chart,” “marketing organization chart” and “marketing organization charts” each generate thousands of searches each month.  These are competitive searches, with bidding for the key words averaging $4.00/click, and yet our blog posts are winning the organic searches for free, over and over again.

Is it our wonderful copy? While our the posts can often be found on page one or two of each search, it is the blog images that are really driving traffic.   Each post has an image that is appropriately named.  And Google returns images at the top of many searches.  Attractive, colorful and relevant, people select the image, and arrive at our blog.

We often think images are a nice extra feature in a blog post, giving visitors something to connect with as they scan the thumbnails of your blog.   What the marketing org chart taught us, is they are as important in the traffic equation as the key words in your meta tags.  If you are blogging to improve your SEO writing great content is only the first step.  Taking time to identify relevant keys words and tag your posts is the second piece.  The third is to include an image which will appeal to humans and search engines alike.

Lorraine is back from here vacation in Hawaii, and thing at the ‘Peg are returning to normal.  Or as normal as they ever get around here.  While she was gone, we launched a few websites, and wrote more than a few blog posts.  If you haven’t had a chance to stop by, here is a sample of what you missed.

Saturday – Faces of Roundpeg: Michelle & Harrison, I Love You, You’re Fired!
Ground rules are important if you hire your kids, Lorraine lays them out here.

Sunday – Mediocrity or Brilliance in the Execution
Why a mediocre strategy might out perform a brilliant one.

Monday – Small Screens Redesign the Intern
As the use of mobile devices explode, it’s important to design your website to be user friendly no matter where it is accessed from.

Tuesday – Exercising Good Design
How working on a new logo for Know Sweat Workouts surprised Jenna.

Wednesday – 3 Ways to Make the Most of Your Business Content This Holiday Season
In this guest post by Alan Grainger, we look at ways to create appropriate seasonal messages for B2B companies.

Thursday – Not Everything is a PR Crisis
This one video does not a PR crisis make, read Allison’s thoughts on the Super Bowl Shuffle.

Thursday – Marketing Intern

Are you passionate about marketing? Do you want to put your student skills to the test in the real world and achieve big goals? Then we want you. We’re looking for a marketing intern who is ready for the big time.

Starting a business is filled with challenges. Even once you have your business up and running, the challenges don’t stop. For example, finding a way to get out of your business when you are ready to retire. There are several choices: selling the business, transferring it to employee or children, or simply shutting it down.

This week we spoke with business transition expert Chris McEvoy about things you can do now to smooth they way for your exit down the road.

Surprisingly, many of Chris’ comments were about things companies should do in the very earliest stages of their development.  This program is relevant to all business owners.

About our guest:

Chris C. McEvoy is the president of Wingspan Thinking, LLC, focused on helping business owners and CEOs who are ready to grow their business. Their proprietary tool is Wingspan Innovation Architect™, a combination of automation, processes and intellectual property.

Years ago,  my boss Rick DeMarco argued there were times when a mediocre strategy would out perform a brilliant one. At first I thought he was crazy, until he explained what he meant.

Too often business owners have brilliant ideas but fail to think through all the steps necessary to turn their ideas into reality. The result… failure or mediocre performance, when there could have been extraordinary success if only they had paid attention to the details of execution.

Whether you are trying to launch a new product or company, or simply run a successful promotion or special event, a well thought out tactical plan gives you a great foundation! While the amount of detail required will vary, any tactical plan should include the following:

• Resources Required – What do you need purchase? And how much will it cost?
• Specific Roles – What specific activities must occur, and who will do them?
• Timeline – Working backward from the launch date, when do specific things have to happen in order to launch your idea on time?
• Measures for Success – When it is all done, how will you measure the success of the project?

Time and time again, I have seen proof that Rick was right, if you do these things well almost any strategy will deliver brilliant results!

Now is a great time to start mapping out that strategy for 2012.   Begin by subscribing to our free How to Write a Business Plan in Ten Weeks program.

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