FM Walsh & Associates Inc.

As an entrepreneur I have come to recognize how insidious fear can be at times. It approaches you quietly, subtly and faintly whispers in your ear – and you find yourself holding back without even realizing it.

I experienced this myself last week. I was having lunch with a business associate in LA and she mentioned the fear she had experienced prior to doing a pitch for a big project and how she allowed it to let her believe her competition were a better fit for the account that her. (The client didn’t agree – they hired her.) We laughed about it and toasted her success.

A few hours later I was thinking about a big project that I have in front of me which I have been wrestling with. I had put my foot-dragging down to having too much other work and other priorities that came first. But in a moment of clarity, I realized it was fear that was holding me back from jumping on this. Once I realized this, I wrote out a quick plan of action for the project, did those action items immediately and got the contract!

That’s the funny thing about fear – once you acknowledge that it is there and take action anyway – it loses its power to affect you. My challenge to you today: look at what you are procrastinating on in your life and take one action step to get it going. That is the best way to get fear out of your life.

I have a wonderful young woman in business working with me this summer, Katrina Thompson, and I have asked her to contribute to the blog from the perspective of a young woman in business. She will be appearing in this space every Wednesday.

As a summer student and new entrepreneur, I have learned that the business of the real world is very different from business in the classroom.

One of the most important factors that helps me keep focus is having a mentor and a tight support group. A mentor should be someone who has gone before you and been successful in their own ways. Ask your mentor as many questions as you can!

Being an entrepreneur forces you to create your own boundaries. Boundaries are so important in an entrepreneur’s world because your clients will take advantage of you if you do not clearly establish your terms at the beginning of the contract.

Business resources are everywhere. There are numerous websites that provide free information for starting a business. The Small Business BC website offers market research, helpful guides, and a research library. The Small Business Publications website provides information and statistics related to business in BC, including how to prepare a business plan. Knowing what you want to do in business, having a market and being able to access that market are three keys to success. Working with a mentor can smooth out the transitions and help you avoid the rabbit trails to success.

I saw a couple of clients last week whose businesses have literally exploded over the past few months. This got me thinking about the difference between those business owners who grow a business and those who limp along. And I realized it is all due to attitude.

Those who grow have a clear vision and goals and just roll up their sleeves and get the work done. They know where they need to make improvements and they take steps to get stuff happening. They’re the clients who have all their coaching homework done by week 2 in the month and come back looking for more!

The ones who are struggling get themselves bogged down by worrying about how to do something perfectly, about what will happen if it doesn’t work, or they go into a state of paralysis, hoping that things will improve on their own.

Success in business is not about being perfect or correct all the time. It is about taking action and learning from your mistakes, and most importantly, always believing that you will achieve success, especially when the going gets tough.

I always get a ton of questions from business owners on how to get good PR for their company so I have asked PR expert Theresa Coles to share her insights on how to build effective publicity for your business. She will be guest blogging in this Friday spot for the next few weeks. Feel free to email any questions you have on PR to info@fmwalsh.com and Theresa will be happy to answer them.

One question I’m often asked by new clients is how good my relationships with the media are. Earlier in my career that question used to elicit the fairly typical “Of course they’re very good!” response. Over the years, however, I have learnt to answer the question more accurately: my relationships with the media are good, mainly because I’m very careful about not bothering them with anything less than a good story!

In my view, good media relations is primarily about the story you have to offer.

That’s not to say that good relationships aren’t important, and that building relationships isn’t an important part of any media relations program. However, no matter how good your relationship with the journalist, without a good story, you’re not going to get exposure. It’s amazing how good your relationship with the media can become if you have a few really good stories to offer them.

What the media needs is extremely changeable, and it’s really up to the editor or producer to decide what is newsworthy on any particular day. Ultimately this is decided by the public.

So the question is: “What’s the news value in a company’s activities, products or services?” Once you’ve given this some thought, it’s amazing to see how many possibilities exist to offer the media something they can use, and get the kind of exposure your client wants.

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Theresa E Coles
Principal: Syllable Words and Ideas
is a former journalist who “crossed over” to public relations some 15 years ago. She provides public relations services, with an emphasis on media relations, media relations training, issues management and crisis communication. You can contact her at 604-960-0515.

Finding a name for your new business is frustrating and time consuming for most entrepreneurs. You can come up with endless lists and then everyone around you gives you a different opinion on which ones are good. It is enough to make your tear your hair out!

The Wall Street Journal recently wrote an article on a 12-point test for naming your company, designed by Eat My Words - a San Francisco naming boutique, a San Francisco naming boutique, known for playful names including a chain of frozen yogurt stores named Spoon Me, and a home-cleaning robot named Neato. They call it the Smile and Scratch test.
A good company name should have the following qualities:
Simple - one easy to understand concept
Meaningful - customer instantly “gets it”
Imagery - creates a mental picture
Legs - carries the brand; lends itself to wordplay
Emotional - empowers, entertains, engages, enlightens

Scratch the name if it has any of these:
Spelling-challenged - you have to tell people how to spell it
Copycat - similar to your competition
Random - disconnected from your brand
Annoying - hidden meaning, forced or cutesy
Tame - flat, boring, uninspiring
Curse of Knowledge - only insiders get it
Hard to Pronounce

Do not set the price for your product or service based on what you can afford. I see so many women entrepreneurs make that mistake and it only ends up costing them revenue.

This week I met with a woman (let’s call her Anne) who delivers a very high-quality, specialized service for clients. She mentioned that she has one current client who is using a lot of her time right now and she was thinking of reducing her hourly rate because of how big the invoice was going to be at the end of the month. As she said to me, “I couldn’t afford to pay this invoice.” This client is a multi-million dollar company.

Now I am not suggesting you gouge your large clients. What I am saying is that the price you charge is based on the value to the client, not on whether or not you can afford to pay the invoice. By the end of the coaching session Anne admitted that she was operating from scarcity mode which was driving her to feel she needed to reduce her price. When we took a look at her service from the client’s perspective, she was delivering a service they desperately needed to launch their new division and her price was no higher than what the competition was charging. The client was extremely happy with her and had no complaints about her price. Lesson learned - Anne did not reduce her hourly rate and the client paid the invoice without a comment.

My latest column in Make It Business is out. I went “shopping” on the internet, looking for new products that would help business owners improve their profitability and turned up two interesting products - Billing Boss by Sage Software and SalesConx - a marketplace for business introductions and leads. Read the whole article here.