More Than A Few Words

On Wednesday, August 10, we had a chance to talk to Will Hardison, founder of Mediaplug, an Indianapolis web design firm. On this episode of More Than a Few Words, Will shared some of the lessons he’s learned in the three years he’s owned his own business. He also gave business owners insights into how he utilizes Facebook ads for both Mediaplug and the company’s clients.

There is an huge  community of educated and influential women who have chosen to stay home with their young kids. Unlike previous generations, these women are not willing to disconnect from the business world.  They use social media and blogs to stay connected.

Are men and women really that different or do we just have a tendency to just focus our differences instead of our similarities? We enjoyed chatting with Hazel M. Walker, the “Referral Strategist” on More than a Few Words. We discussed Business Networking and Sex, the subject of Hazel’s new book, coming out in 2012.

In today’s competitive job marketing the internship experience is becoming a requirement for college students, and they’re also becoming increasingly harder to land. Once you have an internship, being successful at it is a whole new challenge. Roundpeg’s interns Melissa, Scott and Stephanie will discuss their internship experiences as well as tips for other students who are considering an internship.

Have you sold as much this year as you were hoping to?  There is still half a year left to meet your sales goals.  If you aren’t sure how to get your small business sales activities started, tune into our sales conversation with Matt Nettleton for tips on how to get your sales process moving. About Matt: A part of the team at Trustpoint, he is my sales trainer, and is responsible for some pretty big shifts at Roundpeg.  We are currently running 60% ahead of last year in revenue, and profits are up even more than that.  I have come to trust what Matt has to say about sales.  Just be warned, he is direct, says what he thinks, and isn’t afraid to call you out when he thinks you are blowing smoke.  

Research shows that YouTube is now the number two search engine after Google, particularly for the under thirty crowd who are in increasingly turning to YouTube over Google as their searching needs. But what do YouTube and marketing have to do with each other? This week we will be talking to special guest Rocky Walls of 12 star media about how small businesses can effectively leverage this resource to enhance their marketing and PR strategies.

There are many misconceptions when it comes to age and social media. Recent studies have found that people aged 65 and older are the fastest growing age group on Facebook and that 47% of people aged 50 to 64 use social media today, proving that social media has now become anyone’s game. But the bias against age groups persist. Young professionals often have trouble demonstrating they understand the business applications of the tool, while folks in the over fifty crowd may struggle to prove they can manage the technology.

Everyone knows that Linkedin is a great tool for job hunting and networking with large companies, but what about Linkedin and small business? We will be discussing how small businesses can effectively use Linkedin as a networking tool.

Wordpress Web Design: Last week Jay and I had a great discussion on More than a Few Words, ( our weekly podcast) about Wordpress plugins. We asked for suggestions from the community on twitter and facebook and built a great list to add to our favorites. We have been using Wordpress as the foundation of our web design business for several years and thought we had a pretty good list of standard plug ins.  But this program helped expand our list.  There were so many good suggestions, we had a hard time, narrowing down which ones we would talk about.  We might have to do another show on this topic later this year. Some of our favorites included: Social Metric.  I found this plugin in a blog post  by Adam Small, a writer for Marketing Tech blog. At a glance you can see how social your blog is; which posts are liked, tweeted, stumbled or mentioned on LinkedIn.It creates a great comprehensive list of statistics and you have the ability to post to any of the major networks right from your dashboard, giving a little e

I had a chance to catch up with Ann Fisher of HR Alternative Consulting, Inc and talk about some of the challenges small business owners face with regard to HR compliance.She believes PEOPLE are your most valuable asset. And she provides resources to increase productivity, retention and avoid costly legal issues.

No one sets out to annoy their customers, but all too often business owners do just that. How? By creating websites which are not customer focused, have too much flash, too much or too little information, hard to follow navigation or slow loading pictures. This was the topic of a recent episode of More than a Few Words when I sat down to chat with Jay Mattingly about how small business owners can avoid these mistakes

If your small business offers a consumer product Facebook is an easy tool to use.  But what if you are a B2B company?  Is there a way for you to use Facebook?  We think there is, and that is going to be the topic of today’s podcast.  Allison and I discussed some of the strategies B2B companies can apply to connect with customers on Facebook.  Facebook isn't just for consumer products.  Every company can use this tool to crate a more "human" image.

Our topic for this week: Blogging for business. You can see some of the questions and discussion on our blog http://www.roundpeg.biz

Jay Mattingly of Roundpeg sat down with Andre Gribson of Sycamore Commercial Lending to talk about the challenges of church lending.

I sat down recently withL. Andre Gibson, MBA, Chief Executive Officer of Sycamore Commercial Lending. He shared with me how his frustrations as a banker led to the formation of Sycamore.

I sat down recently and talked with Marcus Colson, Chief Operating Officer of Sycamore Lending to talk about their Accounts Receivable lending products.

Jay sat down with Alex Baker, Chief Executive at Infinistorm. Alex has a passion for technology and every time I speak with him I learn about new ways businesses can leverage technological advances. As I caught up with Alex in a very noisy coffee shop, he was very excited to talk about "virtualization". While large corporations have taken advantage virtualization for several years, it is now a viable alternative for smaller businesses, which make up the core of both Alex's (and our) clientele.

In a recent conversation at Roundpeg, Taylor talks about the difference between school and the real world, as well as some tips for small business owners when they work with graphic designers.

I caught up with Tony Scelzo in a noisy coffee shop recently, and we talked aobut some of the changes at Rainmakers.  An integral part of the Indy small business community, working with AddressTwo, they have automated the process of making strategic connections and managing contacts.  They are, as Tony says, the eHarmony of business.  To learn more, listen to our conversation  

Jay Mattingly finally upgraded to an iPhone, and with it comes the capability to record interviews with some of Indy's brightest, young professionals.  Up first, Will Hardison of Media Plug.