Small Business Blog

The Internet has made the world a much smaller place, but it can still seem overwhelming to monitor what is being said about you and your business. No matter what industry you are in, you will eventually have a disgruntled customer. Many will also have to contend with competitors who try to boost their own reputations by attacking others.

To monitor your name, I recommend Googling yourself. This will remind you of what people see when they look for you. If you have pictures of a racy Cancun vacation on your MySpace page, this might be the time to set that to private if you are developing an online business reputation. Then when you make a great contact you can be confident they will find the professional image you are cultivating when they Google you to find out more information (because they will!).

If you have a somewhat common name, odds are that people will have to determine which information belongs to you. There are a couple of strategies around this:

• Use your picture in profiles, articles and websites to clarify your identity
• Buy your name domain (www.betsytalbot.com) even if you do not choose to do anything with it now. For a mere $10/year you can make sure that a porn star or sleazy politician with the same name as you doesn’t steal your online thunder, or even insure that a competitor can’t buy your name and redirect it to their site.

Setting Up Alerts

Often when something is said about you it may not end up on page 1, which means you won’t see it until it has gained enough traction to make it to page 1. If you have a lot of time and a great memory you could Google your name and keywords every single day and scroll through all the pages (I hope your name isn’t Jane Smith!), but I am sure this is not the best use of your time. Whether you are monitoring who is talking about you or want to know how many times your product or service is mentioned online, Google Alerts is the easiest, cheapest solution for you.

How do you set up a Google alert?

• Go to www.google.com and sign in (if you don’t have an account, set one up take advantage of all of Google’s services - it is free!)
• Click “More” at the top left side of the screen and then “even More” from the dropdown list.
• Click on “Alerts”
• Type in the word or phrase you want to search for
  Use quotes around phrases to be more specific (i.e., “betsy talbot” instead of betsy talbot - without quotes always returns results on any mention of “betsy” or “talbot” on the internet - too many alerts!)
• Select Comprehensive as the type and choose how often you want the report
• Confirm the email address.

It is really that simple! On the time schedule you choose, you will receive an alert every time your word or phrase is used. You can use this to monitor your name, company name, suite of products or services, or even to keep up with the news on industry terms important to you. You can even follow news on your favorite author or business guru.

Monitoring your online reputation is a wise business move, and one that takes little effort and zero dollars.

Do you wish you had a virtual business card? One that had your picture or logo? If you work virtually, or if you network a lot like I do, having an online business card with a picture is a great idea. It reinforces who you are to your contact and helps personalize electronic communication.

Hyplet is a free service that allows you to build virtual business cards and banner advertising for your email signature, blog, or website. It is really easy to use - just click “create” to get started.

Below is my latest creation, which is basic and used as my email signature.  I started with a blank template, but there are many designs to choose from.  Make a banner advertisement for your services, a contact form for your website, or use it as an email signature like I have.

Set up your own Hyplet and “hype” yourself in the comments section!

As an entrepreneur, you have big plans for the future. You realize that you are a small business owner today, but your future dreams may include expansion, franchising, national speaking engagements, best-selling books, or even world domination. You can take steps now to help you maximize those plans in the future, and perhaps the easiest thing you can do is buy your official domain name - www.YOU.com.

What is a domain name and why do I need to own my own?

• You domain name is like real estate on the Internet, and a hosting account provides a road for people to get there.
• Owning your own domain name allows people to easily find you without having to remember your business name(s).
• This can be your “brochure site” - no matter how many business ventures or interests you have, this spot can showcase them all or just the ones you choose.

Currently I own www.betsytalbot.com and have it pointing to this blog. When I finish my book I will put up a website to advertise it, but until then it can just sit. It is a small investment in my future - less than $10 per year.

If you have a common name like Jane Smith you may not be able to buy your own domain name. Other options include:

• www.theoriginaljanesmith.com
• www.thejanesmith.com
• www.officialjanesmith.com

Are any of you using your own name? Saving it for the future? Let us know in the comments. In the meantime, search for your domain names here.

Last weekend I attended the Crave Seattle show. It was basically a lot of vendor booths separated by category (shopping, pampering, cooking) focusing on attracting women clients. One of the booths was for Holiday Golightly, a company specializing in group travel planning for girlfriends. This is a fun group of people, and they carry that message from the witty name of the company all the way down to the disclaimer on their email marketing messages.

You know the ones: “This email was sent to you because you requested information from us. Please click here to unsubscribe at any time.”

The Holiday Golightly team took it a step further and made that message fit in with their overall brand:

(If you’d prefer to be removed from our mailing list, we’ll cry about it for a few hours, wondering “Why? Why? Why? What did we do wrong? Were we too needy? Too distant?”, and then beg and plead – but just inside our heads – and then we’ll tearfully remove you from the list, all the while listening to sad Barry Manilow songs that will forever remind us of the brief time we had together. And it may sound pathetic, but you can come back to us any time if you change your minds! Don’t tell Dr. Phil we said that! Call us!)

To unsubscribe, email info@HolidayGolightly.com and callously write “unsubscribe” in the Subject Line. Go ahead. Break our hearts.

These people sound like a lot of fun, even when you are breaking up with them. Actually, with a message like that, they probably don’t have many breakups. It reminds me of the Southwest flight attendants who make the safety instruction interesting enough to actually pay attention.

Are you putting your personality or message on every face of your business? Even the boring ones?

If you are the creative type, you have probably developed customized systems and even products for your business. A way to protect those inventions is through the patent process, but long before you reach the application process you need to properly document your idea in an Inventor’s Notebook.

An inventor’s notebook helps to establish your “first to invent” claim. Of course, it can work against you if you have not been diligent in your record-keeping, have not made efforts to bring your product to the market, or if another claim has an earlier date, but without any documentation you really have no argument.

How is an Inventor’s Notebook different from a regular notebook?

• It must be permanently bound (no loose leaf, spiral-bound, or sticky notes)
• The pages must be consecutively numbered (you can do this yourself)
• Do not leave blank spaces in your book or erase anything. Draw a line through mistakes.
• Sign and date the bottom of every page before moving on to the next page.
• Periodically have a non-inventor colleague sign and date your work in a “Disclosed and Understood by”entry.

Many inventors keep more than one notebook: one for ideas, and one for each idea that becomes a project. The important thing to remember is to follow the guidelines appropriate to the patent process. You can consult your patent attorney for specifics.

You can buy inventor’s notebooks already formatted from several stores or online by entering “inventor’s notebook” in your favorite search engine.

If you even think you may want to apply for a patent someday, prepare yourself now by keeping properly documented notes.

Your reputation is key to your success, so make sure you know what is being said about you and your brand.Most of you have googled someone before, be it a blind date, a contractor, or a competitor. Google does not necessarily show you the facts; it shows you what is out there on that person, which may not necessarily be true. And therein lies the problem.

The Washington Post recently ran an article about online identity management companies. These are the people to call when you find someone out there slinging virtual mud at your good name, or if you want to downplay an event in your past with more current information. The first profile was about a woman who had an unhappy client who went so far as to write false blogs about her and slander her name, and she wasn’t aware of this until her friends and potential clients brought it to her attention. Think of all the business she might have lost from this.

“The clients the firms accept are varied: a real estate mogul wanting to move past a decade-old transgression, a prominent academic falsely accused of murder, a hedge fund manager who doesn’t like seeing his old New York Times wedding announcement on Google years after he divorced and remarried, a college student who regretted once dressing up as a prostitute at a Halloween party.”

These companies work by setting up sites and profiles on social networking sites like MySpace with current, positive information about the client. There really is no way to “erase” the negative entries, but if they are on page 6 instead of page 1, most prospective clients won’t see them. The goal of companies like ReputationDefender is to increase your exposure on the internet overall to downplay negative material already out there.

“Google does not object in principle to people adding positive content to outrank the negative. But a spokeswoman said in an e-mail, “if you use spammy and manipulative techniques to get this positive content to rank highly, we may take action on it.”

Soon after I started blogging I read a post by Kristal Kraft on monitoring your name online. As a matter of fact, Kristal will probably find this article on her daily report from Google regarding the usage of her name on the Internet. You can do this as well, and it is a good way to find out what is being said about you, whether true or false, so you can act accordingly. Kristal has great, easy-to-follow instructions on setting up your own searches, and by staying on top of this you can avoid problems faced by the people in the Washington Post article. No one wants an unhappy customer, but in all likelihood, you will have a few in your career, sometimes due to situations beyond your control.

Go ahead, google yourself and see what’s out there. Then set up your name searches to keep track of what is being said about you in cyberspace. After all, your reputation is key to your business success, so why shouldn’t you monitor it?