The Women Entrepreneurs Blog @ Simon

Tip of the Week - "Build a Strong Culture"

Building a strong culture is important for any business, particularly companies experiencing growth or facing unique challenges.

Dixon Schwabl’s culture focuses on a commitment to the individual employee, by empowering them from “day one” of their career at the agency. Our 75 employees have access to unique benefits, including a “Make It Happen Day” to dedicate to the not-for-profit organization of their choice, Birthdays Off, a new health plan recommended by employees, and profit-sharing. 

The office environment  includes a slide from the second floor to the main lobby, a koi pond with a waterfall, and seasonal decorations—we celebrate everything!  Babies, marriages, promotions, new business—any occasion is a milestone. Our agency rock band “JobOrder” had its debut performance in the main lobby, and Dixon Schwabl’s “Green Team” helped eliminate the use of plastic water bottles and bottled water served at meetings—the team installed a water filter in kitchen, and water is now served in pitchers.

Consider your company culture when you begin to experience the growth that comes with working hard and facing those unique challenges that come with being an entrepreneur.

Kick Start your marketing plan with word-of-mouth marketing

We often look to our friends and/or family when seeking advice about products/services to purchase. We expect that they will give us the most reliable and unbiased information about what to choose. Yes, there is truly no weightier endorsement than word of mouth marketing and it’s known to be very kind to a business’ bottom line. Not only does it come with a sales boost but it’s also pretty cheap or even free!

For an entrepreneur seeking to launch a new product/service without the benefit of a truckload of cash, it is essential to come up with creative, cost effective marketing strategies. After all, you have to market your product to make those sales that keep your company alive. Here are four tips to get customers talking about your product:

• Use public relations. It is very cost effective.  It is you reaching out to the media and telling a story. That story becomes a third party endorsement so it’s not an ad stating that your product /service is wonderful, it is a reporter, a credible entity, talking about what it is you are doing. People read articles more than they do ads so the retention of the message will be much greater through public relations.

• Look within your current client base. The biggest mistake that CEOs make is that they never reach out and touch other CEOs that they do business with. They never say “You know what, I would like to increase my business by 30% this year, in your business dealings, in your world, in your sphere of influence, would you recommend anybody I could talk to?” Network with the people that already love you.

Ask the Entrepreneurs: Make Their 3 Worst Your 3 Best

[Note: Students in the Entrepreneurship program at Simon have submitted a number of questions and we encourage you to ask yours via the form on our Home/About page. We'll have one or more of our bloggers offer their takes — which should provide starting points for your thinking and more discussion.]

Question: Having successfully run a business for several years, what are one or two difficulties in starting a business that many budding entrepreneurs overlook or fail to consider?

One difficulty in starting a business that I believe entrepreneurs fail to truly consider is their “point of differentiation” and how to articulate it and market it. Many entrepreneurs jump in headfirst trying to do a million things without the clarity and focus that you need.

For example, one thing that helped me “create” my points of differentiation was that I did a mini focus group with clients. I interviewed 10 CEO’s from small-sized companies, 10 CEO’s from medium-sized companies and 10 CEO’s from large-sized companies.

I asked them for six items: What are the top 3 things you love and can’t live without from your current advertising agency relationship and what are the top 3 things that just make you crazy?

Whew … the CEO’s were hard pressed to tell me the things they loved!

But they were quick to respond to the 3 things that got under their skin. And, the most interesting thing was that those things were all the same … didn’t matter about the size of the company.

Those 3 things became our points of differentiation and 20 years later remain!

Ask the Entrepreneurs: Three Tips from My Father

[Note: Students in the Entrepreneurship program at Simon have submitted a number of questions and we encourage you to ask yours via the form on our Home/About page. We'll have one or more of our bloggers offer their takes — which should provide starting points for your thinking and more discussion.]

Question: What do you think are the 3 most critical skills a new business owner must have and why?

I will pass along the business advice that has served me well over the last 20 years. Now, understand that this advice came from my father who owned a trucking business for 40 years. He didn’t go to college … never took a business course, but Thomas Dixon was hugely successful in life in so many ways!

Here’s his advice:

Ask the Entrepreneurs: My Biggest Mistake? Hiring "Clones"

[Note: Students in the Entrepreneurship program at Simon have submitted a number of questions and we encourage you to ask yours via the form on our Home/About page. We'll have one or more of our bloggers offer their takes — which should provide starting points for your thinking and more discussion.]

Question: Describe to me a mistake you made while starting your business and what you learned from it.

The single mistake I made while starting my business what that I hired "like minded" people, "Lauren Dixon clones" — people who were in the office at 4:00am and worked crazy hours. Work was life. Life was work.