WHEN THE GOING GET'S TOUGH, THE TOUGH ASK QUESTIONS

We are full steam ahead with Piccess.com. Since bringing on a VP of Marketing, we have brought up our Piccess Facebook page likes from 123 to 326. Our goal for "likes" in the month of August 2013 was 200. Well, we ended August with 301 likes thanks for the wonderful support of family, friends, and friends of friends all pitching in and contributing. Next goal is to get to 450 likes by the end of this month (Sept 2013). No question we'll get there.

Last month we began SEO work with the same company I am working with out of India. Can't say I am 100% sure of all the work they are doing but doing my best to understand it and learn as I go. The key is to not lay stagnant but instead keep plowing ahead, learning, acting, and asking questions as I go. We are now into our 2nd month with SEO work that will now consist of the India team plugging press releases that we are giving them, focusing on Google ranking, and assisting us with the next step we are about to take to market our site.....Facebook ads. Facebook is everything and everywhere these days and to not utilize that platform I believe would be a bad decision on our part. We will utilize SEO work from our team for 3 months. It's tough to decipher when looking at the Google Analytics if the traffic we are getting to our site is coming from the SEO work being done or from the grass roots approach KB and I are currently taking with increasing our Facebook page likes, posting fliers around town, and of course, word of mouth. Regardless of where the traffic is coming from, we will stay our course and finish our 3 months of SEO work as suggested.

We may not have all the answers or making all the right decisions but what we do know is that we must continue to press ahead, keep moving, planning, strategizing, draaming big, learning, pivoting, and asking questions as we go. Stay tuned for many more posts to come. Lots of new and exciting news coming....a move to Boston, which means opening up Piccess.com to the East, new funding, new functionality in 2014. All this and we're still having fun! Until next time......Cheers!

IT'S GO TIME!

OK, so I know it's been a very long time since I last posted and quite frankly there really hasn't been anything to report on since I haven't done much with Piccess for about a year. As much as I hate and am ashamed to admit it, it's the truth. I spend so much time and energy getting the site up and running that when it was finally completed and up, I let the sails down and had little to no energy left for stage two....advertising the site and getting it out there. I know, excuses excuses.

After months and months of trying to understand why I was taking a step back from taking the next step I just decided to stop figuring out why that was, pardon my French but get my head out of my ass and get back to it! With renewed vigor, feeling optimistic, more resources to contribute to Piccess, the time has come to take the next step. I have brought on KB to help with marketing the site, especially with the social media outlets  considering that seems to be her specialty. In addition, I have once again engaged the team from India I used to create the site the second time around (Chirag) and they will be doing the SEO work for the site the entire month of August. I am curious to see what kind of traction we will get with these efforts we are putting forth. Exciting times!

Right now we are uploading new posts everyday into Piccess so that when the SEO work begins, we will have a respectable inventory within Piccess so that all visitors get a feeling that the site is always up, running, and apartments to look at. I promise to report back in 45 days to report on the progress we have made, the next steps, and everything else that may help others looking to go down the same road we are....The Million Dollar Road! Until next time..... Cheers!

Mike

WE'RE GETTING THERE!

OK so it's been a while since my last blog. Good news is that there's been lots happening for the website during that time. The logo for the website was been finalized. After coming up with lots of different versions of what I was looking for, I reached out to an old client of mine I use to train who is a graphic designer. After a few emails about bartering services, she agreed and created for me a great logo which I am very happy with. Here is a screen shot of a mock up page from the website that shows what the logo looks like.

Once the logo was created and completed, we began to finalize what all functionality for the site will look like. I met with the Calacles Team which was Will, Adam, and Rich. They all seemed just as excited about the site as me which made me really happy to see. From the beginning I was hoping to work with a web design company that would get me idea, get excited about it as I do, and help me to create what I have envisioned. They are doing just that. We finalized all functionality and I gave them the OK to start programming and coding the site. At this time we are about 4 weeks from a full launch. In the meantime, we have created a splash page to use as marketing and advertisement to give people a look via a static screen shot of what the site will offer. It's common practice and a great way to advertise the "Coming Soon" message!

I have also ordered business cards with the Piccess logo and my contact info. I had a bit of a dilemma trying to decide what to give myself as a title since titles mean absolutely nothing to me. I came to the conclusion that although I may not care about what my title is, others may so I decided on the title, Founder & CEO. Should be receiving them in the next few days. Once I have them in hand and the splash page is up, I'm ready and armed to start making house calls to all San Diego small businesses. I will get into my approach on my next blog and no, it will not be in a month from now, sooner for sure!

Exciting times right now. I am ready to have this website launched and start the work to getting the name out there. Three areas that I must always keep in mind after the launch to achieve success are:

1. Give users what they want (gather info through feedback, survey's, face meetings)
2. Continue to innovate and get better
3. Keep costs down

Piccess will soon be a household name, no question. Small businesses are the back bone of the American economy and I want to do my part to get our economy back where it should be, needs to be, by promoting and helping the small businesses flourish and not just the big wigs on Wall Street. It's go time!

GREAT QUOTE

Even for the price they pay personally, every day [entrepreneurs] are doing something they always wanted to do. They control their destiny in a way that a lot of folks don't." --Raj Seshadri, head of small-business banking at Citibank, as quoted by Bloomberg Businessweek

LOOK & FEEL

As development of the website continues, I have now been asked to come up with a logo for the website. My contract with Calacles for web development did not include any kind of design or logo work so therefore I will channel my inner graphic designer and come up with one myself. I want the logo to be the actual name of the website sort of like Facebook or Twitter....but also with some cool font and color and maybe just a simple sign or symbol added to the actual name. I need to make sure it is visually appealing and fun to look at. There are some websites that come to mind that I like simply because of how cool and clean it looks including the websites name itself. There are some pretty amazing websites available that help you with logos and color selection and best of all they're free to use. Here are two that I used and highly recommend:

http://www.colorschemedesigner.com


http://www.vistaprint.com


Here are two potential logo designs for my website:

GO BIG OR GO HOME.....NOT NECESSARILY

I'm all for going all out and pouring my heart into whatever it is I believe in or am passionate about. If I'm going to do something, I'm going to give it my all. Go big or go home......unless of course you're talking about a marketing strategy where going big could mean going home much earlier than expected. I like the thought of my website being able to service everybody, in every market, in every city, in every country with various demographics. I believe it can and will get there jut not right out of the gate. Initially I won't be able to service everybody, everywhere nor do I want to. Instead of spreading myself thin, I will focus my efforts in San Diego. I will target local businesses, local news groups, publications and residents. My focus will be to both create awareness of my website that has been created to service just San Diego and to gather as much feedback as possible on what service providers, users, anyone that's willing to talk is saying about the site, what they like and don't like. I will cater to the San Diego community and make it about them and provide them will a service that they want and will make them successful and their lives easier. I will make it a point to go business to business and personally introduce myself to all small business owners and provide them with awareness of my website and how it can and will benefit them once they begin using it. I will make it a point to do all I can to see each of these businesses succeed. Small businesses in San Diego will flourish and increase their revenues because of my website and I will do all I can to make sure that happens. This is how I will begin to market my website. It will be personal, it will be real, and I will build my brand one person, one business at a time. Once I can prove the websites concept in San Diego I will then leverage that success to expand into other nearby cities such as Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and so on and keep moving across the country and inevitably across the world. My plan is to go big, just not yet.

Consider this, Craigslist started out as just a small website that was designed to service a handful of people in San Francisco. Craigslist services the world now. Facebook got its start by first servicing just the Harvard Student Community. I think you know the rest. Start small, think big!

"Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives."
                                                                                                      ~ William A. Foster

PLAN YOUR WORK, WORK YOUR PLAN

These words are those of Jack Rowland who use to be a client of mine back in my days of being a personal trainer at 24 Hours Fitness. I never did ask Jack what he did although I got the sense at one point or another in his life he was or still was a success business man. I've been planning my work now for the past several years. I made a go of it a few years back with little to no preparation. No market research, no business plan, no literature review, nothing. Just an idea with no plan and I went with it. Needless to say I didn't get too far. I spent about $800 to have my website idea created overseas and it was a total flop. What wasn't a total flop was the lessons I learned from that. The importance of preparation, having a plan, seeking advice and guidance from either other business colleagues or books on business, marketing, and starting a business. I have since then taken all of these steps mentioned and many more. I have and continue to create and plan my work and then go out and work my plan. A business plan is a must for any start up business. To begin with it doesn't have to be long, detailed, or rich with content or projections. It just needs to be your idea down on paper, what it is, what problem will it solve or who it will benefit and what you need to do to make it happen. A business plan is your road map to success.

I just met with the guys at Calacles who are creating my website on Friday, March 18th to further discuss the wireframing for the site. The meeting went extremely well and we covered lots of great material and details on how the site will function and look. There is so much to cover and so many questions that need to be asked. That is why a business plan is again, so important to have. It will continue to guide me down The Million Dollar Road. Not to say that there isn't room to consider other options and opportunities along the way associated with the website but for the most part, the plan has been worked and I am now working my plan.

"He who fails to plan, plans to fail." ~ Proverb Quotes

"A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow." ~ Proverb Quotes

There is actually a book as well on this same principle. Although I have never read it, it's called Plan Your Work/ Work Your Plan: Secrets for More Productive Planning by Jim Sherman.