Gravity Free Radio

9/1/09 - Riding Resource + Interviews from the Pam Slim Event

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Today we had the pleasure of speaking with Erik Jacobs of Riding Resource who we met at the Pam Slim event a few weeks ago.  Riding Resource is a website that enables equestrians to search for all things riding related or as their website says,

“Riding Resource is the only fully-searchable online database of riding stables and tack stores that lets you find exactly what you’re looking for.  Founded in 2007 as a way to help riders connect with local facilities, Riding Resource is unique in that our visitors can fine-tune their searches with specific criteria in regards to location and services offered.”

Ainsley Hyman (who could not join us this time) and Erik built the site due not only to their love of riding but also because they saw that such a service was lacking within the riding community.  Many of the over 13,000 database entries were painstakingly researched and added by hand by Ainsley herself.  It is through their dedication and hard work that Riding Resource has become THE place for finding everything from stables, breeders, vets and beyond.

A big thanks to Erik for joining us and we’ll have him (and Ainsley!) back in a few months to check up on them and see how things are going.

For the second part of our show, we did a few interviews at the Pam Slim event. Again, that was a great event so definitely check out what people had to say if you weren’t able to attend. We hope Pam will make it back to Atlanta sometime soon!

Gravity Free Radio

8/25/09: Ivan Reyes shares about audio sharing and Marna Friedman discusses self-publishing

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We had a great show this Tuesday and we were happy to welcome our regular Stephanie (Frost) back this week. Another big thank you to our good friend Stephanie Lloyd for guest co-hosting with Erik last week.

First, joining us this morning was Ivan Reyes, CEO of Chirbit a free online tool for audio sharing. People can record, upload, and share smaller recordings, from about two minutes long to two hours. A few great practical business applications are to share small daily tips with clients or highlight smaller segments of larger shows. Launching his first startup, Ivan shares that the biggest hurdles to overcome are networking and getting the word out. But thankfully, Twitter and Tweet-ups have been doing a great deal to increase business networking.

Marna Friedman, self-publisher and small business consultant extraordinaire also joined us. She talked about how accessing information on the Internet can be difficult when you don’t know what you are looking for. Her book, “The Small Business That Could,” makes the search much easier by listing all of the sites that a small business might need. She also went on to publish a book specifically for women entrepreneurs, “The Small Business That Could For Women.” The books come with space to record your passwords and tips on how to make them both easy to remember and secure. Marna lets us in on some self-publishing insight, including some common stumbling blocks regarding ISBN numbers. She also created a chapter in her book with details on self-publishing and all of the different companies that offer self-publishing services.

Gravity Free Radio

8/18/09: Steve Tingiris of Enthusem.com talks about turning the sales funnel "upside-down" and Justin Daniels + Ted Schwartz give great tips for landing office space

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We had a great show this week! First though, we’d like to thank our good friend Stephanie Lloyd for stepping up and guest-co-hosting while our regular Stephanie (Frost) was off.

Our first guest of the morning was Steve Tingiris of an innovative startup enthusem.com which allows users to create, personalize and send customized printed greeting cards to their contacts. The enthusem.com tools even provide the means for users to provide an online attachment for each printed greeting card and track the number of times it’s accessed. But the most remarkable thing about what Enthusem does isn’t in the tools themselves, it’s in how they can be incoporated into an effective selling strategy.

Steve talked about how the traditional model of a “sales funnel”, where businesses market to a large market segment and then filter down to the prospects most interested, is an outdated approach to small business marketing. He instead recommends turning the funnel “upside-down” by focusing energy on a very few targeted outstanding prospects. We definitely recommend checking out enthusem.com and all you Twitter geeks out there should check out the innovative social media applications of their program.

We also spoke to our lawyer friend Justin Daniels and commercial realtor Ted Schwartz about how to negotiate your office lease. Ted quickly dispelled the myth, by the way, that bad market + real estate surplus = practically free office/retail space. He also gave us some great insight on what to look for in a landlord.

What may be most memorable from our discussion though was Justin’s analogy comparing a commercial lease to an octopus with it’s tentacles perpetually reaching for your wallet. There is obviously a lot of detail there that many business owners aren’t going to be able to easily navigate without an eye for fine print. So, until octopus-proof pants are readily available on the mass market, Justin recommends consulting with a lawyer before entering into a long-term lease with a landlord.

Feel free to email Justin or Ted with any questions!