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Powerfull Living » Putting the Lift Back in Your Elevator Speech

September 8, 2008 by Doug Mcisaac

Good post about preparing your elevator pitch. Too often we entrepreneurs get too close to our new business and believe that everyone will be excited for the same reasons that we are excited about the opportunity.

We need to take a step back and think about how it would look to someone who wasn’t as close. I’ve always enjoyed explaining my new business ideas to family and friends and if they got it, then I knew I was on the right path.

I especially like this:

“You can get into trouble with the elevator speech right out of the gate when you forget about the difference between the Language of Information and the Language of Connection. Yes, it’s important to include clear, practical information like who you work with, and what kind of challenges your work addresses, but remember that it’s not the facts and data you share that will move people to work with you.”

Powerfull Living » Putting the Lift Back in Your Elevator Speech

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Tags: elevatorpitch, business startup

An amazing video about living life

July 25, 2008 by Doug Mcisaac

Randy Pausch is dying and in this video he reprises his final lecture.
It’s a truly inspiring video.

StumbleVideo – Randy Pausch reprising his &Last Lecture&

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Billings, Mt on Inc.com list

July 17, 2008 by Doug Mcisaac

My little city is on the list. Billings has been growing like crazy the last couple of years and I’ve felt like some great things were happening. But it’s always nice to have someone else tell you that some things are going well.

– Billings is ranked No. 31 in Inc.com’s Best U.S. Cities for Doing Business.
http://www.matr.net/article-29822.html

The original article is here

http://www.inc.com/articles/2008/07/where-are-the-best-cities-to-do-business.html

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Tags: billings, mt, marketing

Dangerous Breeds of Web Designers

July 11, 2008 by Doug Mcisaac

1. The Human Flash – This individual believes that every website should be flash. They will tell you that NOBODY uses html anymore. They will justify the website costing 5-10 times as much to do everything in flash by saying that it will look a LOT cooler.

2. The Dark Horse – Will only do black backgrounds and white text. Doesn’t really care that your target audience isn’t 18-25 year old Goths or gamers. Designs the site the way they like it.

3. The Microsoft Manipulator – Yep I’m picking on everybody – The Microsoft Manipulator will always go for Microsoft based tools without reviewing the actual customer requirements. He’ll also refuse to make sure that his web site works on Firefox or a Mac stating they SHOULD be using Internet Explorer.

4. Egomaniacial Coder – This individual feels that they need to write everything from scratch and charge you for it. – warning sign – he tells you that the e-mail programs out there are all designed wrong and that he is going to write a new one for you

5. The Widget Warrior – this individual will fill your page up with so many widgets and spinning objects that it will take a week to download on the average home PC – Famous phrase – it works fine on my machine

6. The Mac Maniac – This individual believe that Microsoft is the enemy and will tell you that at every turn. They are welcome to their opinion. But since most of the world uses Internet Explorer it REALLY IS important that it displays correctly on IE. Phrase to watch out for, Well everyone should be using a Mac…it’s better

7. The Linux Lackey – This individual is the geekier, less hip version of the Mac Monster. He also believes that Microsoft is the enemy, everything should be open source and everyone should be using Opera or Firefox for their browser.

8. The Bored B.A. — they’ve found that the only way that they can make a living with their Art degree is to do websites. Warning signs – they tell you that they have a wonderful inspiration for your web design as they pull out the watercolors or pencils….

9. Jeremy — The neighbor kid, friends’ kid etc – He’s usually named Jeremy. He had a class in html in high school and has built a one page website. The biggest issue with these kids is that they are usually a combination of several of the above without and real knowledge or direction.

10. The Cranky Copywriter – “Images are a waste of space — copy is what sells”

11. The Lazy Layout artist – Every one of their websites looks exactly alike

12. Last but not least … The Perky Perfectionist – They are ALWAYS “almost” done…kind of like this list of the top 7, I mean 10, I mean 13 Scariest Web Designers!

Do you know other dangerous breeds of web designers? Let me know in the comments section and I’ll add them to my next list.

Building a Small Business Website

April 30, 2008 by Doug Mcisaac

Once again, FSB, delivers a nice concise article answering th question that many small business owners are asking themselves. “Should I have a website and how do I get started?”
There answers are high level, but it certainly gives you a starting point.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/28/smbusiness/take_business_online.fsb/?postversion=2008042912

clipped from money.cnn.com

Building your first business Web site

There are several factors to consider when establishing a Web presence, including the type of business, what you want to do online, and your level of technical savvy, says Robert Monroe, who co-coordinates the business and technology program at Carnegie Mellon‘s Tepper business school. He suggests first asking yourself these basic questions:

“Your Web site is going to be a key marketing component of your business,” Farris says.

“Don’t forget to save some money for ongoing site traffic improvements,” Cutting says. He employs a search optimization company to make Dakin Farm easier to find. ?

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