A few weeks back, Ray Schavone, owner of Deja Brew, sent me a great guest post "how to" article about starting a brew it yourself business. It was a great post with a lot of lessons for any business.

I love "how-to" articles, but I like stories even more. If there's one thing a blog lends itself well to - it is storytelling. And people tend to relate to them. Maybe it stems from when our parents read us stories. I know that my son loves it when we read to him. 

So, here's Ray's story. It's certainly entertaining and it reveals some great lessons too: 

So you want to start your own business? Why? It's a lot more work than you might suspect. You'll have a jerk for a boss, and get to deal with everything, EVERYTHING, related to your business. You won't be able to call in sick, or take time off because the day is nice. And nobody, nobody, will sweep the floor as well as you will. Everyone else in your company will be an employee, and you know how much you care as an employee.

Yeah, I was told all this and more, but went ahead and did it anyway. In some ways, I was lucky in my choice of business (beer, who doesn't like beer?). So how did it all start?

Back in the middle ages, 1996 to be exact, I was down sized, right sized, laid off, use whatever term works for you, from the company I had worked for, for over 23 years. The company had been down sizing since 1987, and it became a rather depressing environment. I had been traveling to Canada on company business and had walked past a brew-on-premises operation one evening. It was intriguing to me as a home brewer, so I stopped in. Everyone was talking, smiling, having a beer or beers, good music in the background, and I fell in love. What a different environment from what I had been experiencing. So, a little bit of research, I found that there were some of these businesses operating in the U.S., and decided to check them out. I found one relatively close by, and spent a bit of time brewing there to get the feel for it. Same feeling to what I had experienced in Canada. It was a lot of fun...

But, that day in 1996 came, and it was time to find something new. So, with my wife's blessing, I embarked on the road to open my own business, a brew-on-premise. I contacted several of the BOPs operating in the U.S. and just started asking the questions I needed to ask, what equipment they were using, how they were doing, what they would do differently. I bought a software package to write a business plan, followed the directions, and Voila!, a business plan.

And so, shiny faced, full of enthusiasm and optimism, my newly printed business plan in hand, I gave a copy to a banker friend of the family, and anxiously awaited my funds. Well, the short story is he didn't approve my request or give me the funds. But he did give me some good advice; he told me that I needed an SBA loan.

So I called the SBA. They told me I needed to go to one of their regional Small Business Development Centers, and have them help me with my business plan (but I have one! And I paid damn good money for that s/w package too). Ok, so I called the SBDC at Clark University in Worcester. I met with a wonderful and enthusiastic lady there (unfortunately, I don't remember her name, it was 11 years and many beers ago), who said she'd help me.

BTW, if you are considering starting a business, I highly recommend contacting the SBDC at your nearest business school. What an incredible service they provide. FREE!!!

Away we go, this wonderful lady became my drill sergeant. Questioned me on everything I wrote in the plan. Ugh.. But, she did put me in touch with an excellent business tax accountant who spent hours with me developing the financials of my plan... FREE! America, what a country!

After a couple of months, my drill sergeant declared my plan to be ready. And off to the banks they sent me. They gave me a list of banks, with contacts, and I started calling. My first rejections were disappointments, but I was not fazed. By the 20th rejection, I was beginning to wonder. And then I read a story about Walt Disney being rejected by banks over 200 times for his Disney Land theme park. Onward I cried!

Eventually, I found a bank that was interested. About 6 months after I started with my first plan, I had a funding commitment. Before the bank would give me the commitment, I had to find a location, and have a lease in place.

And so the build out of the space began. It was undeveloped warehouse space. The building owner decided to pay for the build out. Sweet! The owner was building the space out for a couple of retail operations, and mine was to be the first.

I contact the local Board of Health to review my floor lay out. They are very confused. (What are you trying to do?) I provide them with contact names for the BOH where similar businesses are located. At our meeting I laid out my floor plans, build out plans and the sanitizing chemicals I'd be using. They look at me and say, you know if everyone who needed BOH approval for a business in town came to us first, like you did, our job would be soooo much easier, and their approvals would go much faster. We love what you're doing, and we think you need to put a mop sink in here. Meeting over, approved.

Find out I need a zoning variance for the business. Ugh.. Petition for the variance, go to the town meeting with the landlord, and my hot BOH approval. Variance granted. Yesss!

We started by measuring, and drawing chalk lines on the floor to separate the spaces. We took several half walls down, put metal studding up for the walls, and then one day... Bang! The brick façade came down, and windows and door went in. Hey, this is starting to look real!

Rough plumbing goes in. Hey! Why's the plumbing for the toilets next to the door, and the sink is on the far wall? Answer: We didn't want to jack hammer through 8 inches of re-enforced concrete to put the toilets on the back wall. BTW, did I mention the landlord was doing the build out? You get what you pay for.

The brewing equipment starts to arrive. Yeehaw! Time to get my contractors in and get everything connected. My brother in law is a plumber and he's doing the job. Free! Cost of materials only. Great stuff! And what a maze of plumbing is needed. Carpenter arrives, and my specific build out starts. Oh, I'm getting excited now...

Plumbing is complete. Get the plumbing inspector out.. Who did the plumbing? I tell him. He says, "Boy, those are great guys aren't they?" Confused look on my face. Yeah they sure are... Ok, so what does this do, what does that do type questions. I go through the entire water flow with him. Jeez, they do great work, he says.. Plumbing approval in hand.. I'm getting more excited every day.

My build out is finished, sign is up. It's spring time in New England, and I'm feeling good... I'm outside sitting on the tail gate of my pick up truck, eating a sub, and a man walked over to me and says "hey, you know what's going on here?" Sure do, and I proceed to explain it to him. He hands me his card. He's an advertising exec from a regional newspaper. We talk a bit, and off he goes. Now that the sign is up, this becomes a daily occurrence. Some one stops in, asks what's going on, and proceeds to tell me I *need* to advertise with them, it'll be great for my business. Oh boy, this is getting old fast.

So, I call the first advertising guy that stopped by, and talk to him for a bit. (BTW, if you haven't figured this out, this is a very unique business. I'm the only one in Mass doing this, and one of 50 in the U.S.) So, I play the news worthiness of my venture to him. He let's me know editorial and advertising departments are somewhat separate, but he'll talk to one of his friends who's a reporter for the town I'm in. He drops by, and writes an article on us. A very nice article too. About a half page in the paper. The phone starts ringing. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy... So, I call the advertising exec up, and let him know what happened, and that clearly, advertising in his paper would do me good. We set up a year long advertising campaign.

And so, I start this approach with everyone else that tells me I *need* to advertise with them. I'm very unique, do a story on me first. If I get a response, then you're a good advertising vehicle for me. Some are willing to do this, some are not. It's ok with me, if they want my money, they play by my rules. Hey, I'm really starting to like this owner position.

Last item is the fire inspection before we can open. They want additional sprinklers installed. Landlord calls the plumber to install them. Plumber cuts the water main to install the sprinklers, stops in the store and says, Sorry Ray, but we're not installing anything until we get paid for the rough work we did... OMG... We have no water, period. No flushing, no washing of hands, and certainly no brewing. Issue resolved, 2 days later the new sprinklers are in, and the fire department completes their inspection.

We are good to go!

We have a soft opening, testing the systems, brewing some beer to sample at our Grand Opening.

Grand opening arrives, it's a pretty nice turnout, and about 200 people come through the door to see what we're about and sample the wares.

Day 1.. Do I hear crickets chirping? That's ok, we've just opened.

Day 2.. Damn those crickets are loud. Hey, it's just day 2.

Day 3.. Turn up the music, and can't hear the crickets. But, I'm thinking, what have I done? I've got a loan payment due the end of the month

Day 4.. Hey, let's play some cards, the music sounds good, and we've got some beer & wine.

Day 5... The phone rings! Our first appointment!! Another appointment and another!

Day 6.. More appointments.. This is starting to feel better..

10 years and 10 months later.. We're still here. We still have local towns people stop in and ask us how long we've been opened. Really? I've never noticed you before!

And oh, the stories we could tell over those 10 years. I do want to say, that the local town officials were incredibly supportive of us during our start up, and continue to be so. And we've got a great landlord, very responsive if there's a problem. We got to profitability pretty quickly, and remain so. One of the best things about our business is the people we get to meet. Our customers are with us for 2 hours during the brewing cycle, and two weeks later, are in for another two hours to bottle. We've made some wonderful friends over the years. Thank you all for all your support!

I'm officially sucked in to Twitter. I resisted it for so long. Then, I thought I'd just dip my toes in. I'm totally knee deep now.

I wrote a post today on the HubSpot blog listing "Internet Marketing Blogs You Should Be Reading".

I shot a quick email including a link to the post to the bloggers that I listed. (See Blog Sales Tip #6 & #10.)

Almost all of them responded with a quick thank you. David Meerman Scott, author of "The New Rules of PR & Marketing" was one of them. His signature linked to his Twitter page. I subscribed.

He subscribed back and is now reading my Twitter feed.

I didn't expect him to subscribe back. He's following 121 people and he has 275 followers.

I wouldn't call David Meerman Scott "internet famous" in marketing circles. He's not as well known as Jeffrey Gitomer or Seth Godin. But, he's kind of a big deal. He is very well known and is a very successful author, speaker, blogger, consultant, etc.

He only follows <1 in 2 people who follow him. So, I'm atleast 2x more followable than his average followee. That's the economics.

This interests me because it becomes infinitely more difficult for people like David to "be responsive" to individuals as more and more individuals require his attention.

In August 2004, I wrote a post called "What Does A Connection Mean in a Social Network". I argued that a connection on MySpace and LinkedIn, etc didn't really mean much because it "felt" obligatory to connect with people who requested it. Relationships were automatically forced to be "bidirectional" in nature. Whereas real world relationships are unidirectional. Examples: I am a fan of Jeff Gitomer's. He doesn't really know me although he did autograph a book for me. I am a fan of Jason Calacanis's. I think he dislikes me. I am a fan of Seth Godin's. If he remembers me at all, it's because I've bashed him a few times on my blog. You get the idea.

The question I have is "Where does this breakdown?" We're already seeing "uni-directional" social networks like Twitter supercede (or atleast compete with) "bi-directional" ones like LinkedIn. LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook were never suitable for someone like Seth Godin to use it as a communications platform. With Twitter, he can use it because he doesn't have to respond. He doesn't even have to pay attention to you. In fact, if you look at Seth's Twitter profile, he doesn't pay attention to anyone.

I'm sure there's a breakdown point where someone like David Meerman Scott cannott pay attention to one more person. How close is David Meerman Scott to that number?

At what point in the accumulation of social capital, does it become impossible for someone to reply with a "thank you". Seth? It seems like you know the answer.

Update: I realized after rereading it, that it looks like I was calling Seth out for not thanking me. That's not what I meant at all. It doesn't matter whether someone thanked me for linking to them. I linked to him because he deserved the link, not because I was looking for a thank you. Plus, If I were as successful as Seth, I wouldn't respond to me either.  

I think that the basics of search engine optimization should be a prerequisite for graduating high school. It should be a course offered to marketing majors in college. If you're in a marketing profession and/or responsible for generating leads online for your business, you should strive to be an expert at SEO.

I think I linked to this before, but my sales cycle would be so much quicker if more prospects understood the ABC's of SEO before they talked to me. So, here's a quick overview of the basics of SEO created by Noah Brier:

Watching that will take you 7 minutes. And at the end, you'll know more about SEO than 70% of the people I speak with. That'll make you 70% more likely to be equipped to attract more traffic to your site. I sound like an infomercial here, but if growing your business is important to you, and your website is an important part of growing your business, you should spend the time.

Awhile ago, HubSpot published a bit more detailed search engine optimization tutorial.

In case you missed it a few weeks ago, here's SEO mistakes I see every day when I look at prospect clients' websites.

More advanced stuff coming soon.

Previously, my trade show expert buddies, Jason Kallio and Frank Damelio posted a guest blog post about what not to do when exhibiting at a trade show. Here's their insights about what TO DO:

Now we want to show you how to handle the traffic so you maximize leads. To do this you have to HUG All Prospects Masterfully.

H - Handshake: With a smile and extended hand you can increase your leads by up to 50%. Your hand will be left hanging in the air on occasion, but it's not personal.
U - Use their name like you know them: This is the easiest way to stop someone dead in their tracks. Name badges are your best friend at a show.
G - Give a gift: Make sure to hand them a gift not let them grab it from a pile. The value of the gift is that they now feel they owe you a little bit of their time.
A - Ask qualifying questions: Avoid benefit dumping. Have rehearsed questions designed to quickly find their pain.
P - Plan of action: It is critical to post-show follow up that you agree to the next step with qualified attendees before they leave your booth.
M - Move them along: A trade show is a perishable investment. This is not the time to build the entire relationship. Spending too much time with one visitor costs you multiple leads.

Between part 1 and part 2, we have given you 10 tips that do not cost a penny. Using these is the cheapest fastest way for you to get more leads.

Jason and Frank are experts at trade shows. They plan to write another guest post that talks about the systems they use at trade shows.

Do you have a system for qualifying, collecting, following up and tracking sales from your trade show leads? That's what they'll be blogging about next.

The second thought was actually evidenced last night at the Worcester Chamber after hours at the Hanover Theater. I had no less than 6 conversations with people about my blog and they were telling other non-readers about it. Whether your prospect's primary business [comes from] PPC, telephone, face to face, retail or something else....the genre are intertwined. Face to face sales ARE influenced by the web and web-based business ARE influenced by word of mouth. If a business isn't using it all and using it all in the right way, it's missing some [new business that they could have gotten].

Here are recent blog posts from PC4Media members. A bunch more members are working on launching their blogs. I'm not sure I'll do this every week. Probably once/month or every other week.

Sales and Marketing

B2B Direct Mail Strategies

Are your salespeople memorable?

Best Sales Advice in a Single Sentence

Establish Expertise through Speaking Engagements

Social Media Marketing

Why 50 Cent is Smarter Than Most Fortune 500 CEOs

Positivity = Productivity

Everything Flows From the Message

Humorous History of Direct Marketing (Part II)

Who's the Real Beneficiary of a Good Referral?

Arbor Day Joins Facebook 

Health, Wellness, Medicine, Safety

Asian Nose Aesthetic Surgery

Quick, Comfortable, Pain Free Removal of Hemerrhoids

Soy Protein Powders

Why are AED Programs So Important?

In Case of Emergency (I.C.E.) Stickers And Their Importance

Eliminating Pet Obesity

Construction, Real Estate

3 Quote Experiment

Why You Need a HomeStead Act to Protect Your Home

HomeOwner Supplied Products Installed By The Contractor

Travel, Entertainment, Sports

Things to Do in Franklin, NC

Ellsbury on the Bench 

Finance

Retail Stock in After Hours Trading

Solar Stocks

I tried to categorize members into well, categories. Some are a little bit of a stretch. The sales and marketing category is obviously the strongest. There'll be one new entrant into the sale category soon, one more in the construction and one more in the travel. And my wife will be joining the health and wellness group. There's a few more that will be in different categories.

I'd like to find more blog buddies for my members. So, if you know of someone that does "similar" stuff as the businesses above, please send them a link to this post. They should start here.

I wrote a post over at the HubSpot blog with tips on how to use your blog as a sales tool. Leave a comment over there if you have thoughts to share.

Here's the Summary: 

1. Subscribers Sell Themselve
2. Answering Questions with Blog Posts.
3. Invite Prospects to Write Guest Blog Posts.
4. Highlight Your Client's Success. They'll Send It To Their Mom (and Everyone Else).
5. Ask Your Prospects for Feedback in the Comments.
6. Link to Your Prospect's Blog. Send Them Some Readers.
7. Build a Community of Clients, Prospects and Partners On Your Blog.
8. Track What Prospects Read, What Comments They Leave, How Often They Visit.
9. Be a Resource. Link to Other Relevant Articles.
10. Promote Your Blog Via Email.
11. Promote Your Blog Via Social Media and Social Networking Sites.
12. Blogging Supports Search Engine Optimization.
13. Blogging Creates a Discussion and You're the Host