I am a 90 year old one man band because I am also underfunded but resolute!

Posted on June 16, 2014 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

After being surprised by the stat that “the highest rate of entrepreneurial activity is in the 55-64-year-old group” in a recent article by Jim Dougherty, I was posting my own blog about single operator businesses and was surprised yet again to get this comment back:

“I am a 90 yr. old one man band because I am also underfunded but resolute! There are services that one can sign up for that begin in a free stage and I definitely use them, have to. But this digital business needs advertising money, lots of it. One SBA volunteer told me since I didn’t have money I’m dead in the water. But I got an order the other day.” David Lambert

Amazing: especially after you read his bio of life experiences, I could not help but try to encourage a few followers, likes, views for him. Because you can do digital business at no or low cost and not all entrepreneurs are young, Jim rightly says. And maybe he’ll get the odd order or two; I know I became his second order from #socialmedia.

All this links social links are from his webpage, so anyone feeling socially generous, please give David’s Delicious Chocolates a like, follow or even an order (via PayPal, here’s on that too)!

I live in Australia and David is in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I have never met David until he reached Melbourne via LinkedIn and now I’m ordering chocolate from some guy called David in Pennsylvania!

http://davidsdeliciouschocolates.com

Optometrists, war, hot cross buns and death

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

Business owners often ask me about how to create content that is interesting and relevant for social media and blogging: “but I don’t have anything to write about” they say.

Firstly, we have all probably have heard a hundred times that it is about creating valuable “content” and “story telling.” Social media (which includes blogs like this one you are reading now), can just talk about what you care about or what you are doing as a business or passion. No-one has your life, it’s unique and your business is also unique.

Here are some tips to draw out some relevant:

Have an annual calendar of events is a great starter – plan in advance

How does your business relate to the local, state or national event?

Link social media to real life. Easter? Maybe have hot cross buns for customers over lunch. (e.g.Photograph the buns in advance and let people know its coming);

Use social media to share the event when it is happening (e.g. photo and text of staff and customer eating piping hot cross buns right now, hurry in);

Send out a thanks for coming post. A picture tells a thousand words so: I am alway big on using images.

Last week was ANZAC Day in Australia and New Zealand and I have been helping a local optometrist network in content creation and story telling. For those unaware, ANZAC Day is national day of military remembrance held on the 25th of April each year.

So what can an optometrist do for a day like remembrance day, apart from being shut? Well, like any profession, retail or trade, Australian and New Zealand optometrists made a huge contribution during First World War and other conflicts. With a few hours research we had a relevant and respectful ‘social media campaign’ ready to go.

Advertising was minimised during the period;

We shared photos and stories of opticians, optometrists and optical dispenser to high the service of the profession;

While some stories were amazing (a single optometrist at an Army Hospital able to examine, cut and fit lenses in 16 minutes during #WW2), some were heartbreaking & heroic.

I have summarised the story of four #WW1 opticians we found and reposted here. On ANZAC Day, we will, and did, remember them.

Lest we forget:

museumandhistory.com

AWMP08299.007 An outdoor portrait of the 9th Training Battalion at Perham Downs, Wiltshire. Victorian optician Gordon Heathcote from Kew is seated on the far left, sporting his new Corporal stripes he earned in England.

Cpl Gordon Roy Heathcote, 24th Company Australian Machine Gun Corps.

Cpl Gordon Roy Heathcote was an optician of Kew in Victoria. Single, twenty-three years old and living with his parents comfortably in Melbourne’s inner eastern suburbs, he enlisted in August and set sail from Melbourne on 20 October 1916. Seated on the left above, the machine gun is not just a prop for the photo – this optician had landed as a non-commissioned officer in an Australian Army Machine Gun Corps. Single, living with his parents comfortably in Melbourne’s suburbs. he enlisted in August and left Melbourne on 20 October 1916. In was promoted to Corporal while in England and completed his physical and bayonet training courses there before landing…

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Survey: what technologies or APPs help your single operator small business the most?

Posted on April 4, 2014 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

Most entrepreneurs face the issue, home based, single operator or small businesses face the issue. How can one person do it all?

What technologies or APPs do you use to improve the efficiency of a signal person operation? What are your top 5 tools or tips for running a lean and efficient single operator business?

#socialmedia: the new word of mouth

Posted on March 22, 2014 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

Wow, I can’t believe it is two years since I took the entrepreneurial leap and founded Optimize Business. An exciting time for any small business, it is enjoyable, exhilarating and I love meeting new people everyday: exploring their ideas, developing their ideas into strategy, strategy into a plan and plans into action.

Expanding from business coaching and strategy services, my clients value my financial background and being a CPA gives an added credibility and weight to suggestions about running their organisations. What I enjoy most and now do most is help business with their social media. I diversified my skills with photography, documentary video and writing for the web.

Most of my clients now come from the “new” word of mouth – #socialmedia. I just signed a contract with a North Eastern US company to provide regular social media content… they contacted me from Connecticut, I do not market to the US but social media is global, so be ready! Most people find me through LinkedIn or as a result of my social media engagements.

So give it a go. Try flying solo. Ensure you have enough cash-flow up-front, a good strategy, a good plan, and go for it…. oh, and a good business coach or mentor to guide you along the way 🙂

Social media for pharmacies: let Optimize Business guide you

Posted on December 15, 2013 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

Optimize Business understands pharmacy
As your business pushes through the scripts, orders the retail and behind the counter stock, balances the cash, pays the bills, drops off the banking and tries to spend time with talking with every customer…. should you be embarking on a new marketing strategy to embrace social media in your pharmacy?

Social media for pharmacies
Social media can be overwhelming at times: content (photographs, images and text), online communities, tone of voice, moderation, legal considerations, time management, public verses personal posts, timely responses to customers… Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter… a blog? Where should you start? Do you even need to start using social media?

We understand social media
Pharmacy is a unique business and every pharmacy is unique. Don’t jump into social media with out carefully selecting what best suits your needs. Nothing is worse than a business that started Facebook or Tweeting but has not done an update in the last year or two. It is part of a pharmacy’s public face, just like a shop window, it is either neat and tidy, or run-down and tired. Even worse perhaps, there is no shop window for your Pharmacy! We have great experience with social media, let us help you!

Let us guide you through the process
Pharmacists are called on to do a lot of things. Let Optimize Business help you assess your business needs for social media. We’ll sit down with you to understand your customers, your opportunities for social and then we either train up you and/or your staff or you can hand it all over to Optimize Business for a complete outsourced solution.

Our approach
We are flexible and will work to meet your individual needs. We will also tell you straight out if we think social media is not right for you. We will also talk to you about social media advertising, it is constantly changing but provides direct access to local customers you choose to communicate with.

Needs analysis
Strategy development
Initial account configuration
Content creation
Outsource 100% or in-house training
Build & engage your community
Social advertising
Grow your business!

To take advantage of current promotional offers, enter your details below and we will contact you:

Minor CBA system upgrade leads to bank meltdown and social media backlash

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

The Commonwealth Bank (CBA) has taken a beating overnight on social media platforms Twitter and Facebook. What started as a ‘minor upgrade’ to NetBank ended in a social media and literal spat for cash. By 3am the issue had not been resolved, with CBA customers at the end of their tether.

Read the posts on Storify.

It all started with a small Facebook post on the CBA page on Sunday 27, 2013. It was not dissimilar to the outage notice of the night before (1am – 7am), about a minor upgrades, except this notice was of an earlier start to a 6 hour upgrade may impact some accounts from 6pm-12midnight on Sunday evening:

“We’re upgrading NetBank tonight, making several minor enhancements to Australia’s #1 online bank. NetBank, mobile, tablet and CommBank Kaching apps will be online, however some accounts and features will be unavailable 6pm-12midnight (AEDT) on Sunday 27 October. You can stay up-to-date commbank.com.au/update“

The post from the Saturday outage from 1am caused no ripples, with 56 people liking that update and about 25 comments. Sunday’s post, however, turned into something of a social media storm with 85 likes and nearly 500 Facebook comments on the post and over 100 comments directly on the Commonwealth Bank’s Facebook Page. The @NetBank Twitter account also did a short innocuous tweet about the same time, then seemed to go to sleep for two hours before it responded to the tweets for updates, cash and help. Initially mild queries and complaints came in of inconvenience came in:

small business owners lamented the timing for their Australian Taxation Office Business Activity Statement due on Monday;
some asked “is netbank not working at the moment?”

Then some more desperation started to appear in the posts, like from Angela on Facebook over a 2 hour period:

What is going on?? I tried to make a purchase from a store and my card was declined…I went to an ATM and i kept getting error messages…I have tried calling …no response…..NOT HAPPY
I’m pissed off…i’ve been a customer since forever..paid THOUSANDS in interest and this is the service I get????
And what is wrong with the call centre…why cant I get through to anybody ..it even hangs up on me!! Very frustrsting. Feel sorry for the person at my local branch in the morning

After several hours, the impact of the “minor up-grade” became more apparent, with CBA customers almost crying out for help:

unable to pay for dinner or takeaway
spending hours shopping then being unable to pay
“humiliation” and “embarrassment” at having their cards declined
people trapped at petrol stations with a full tank but unable to pay
others frantic to transfer money, pay rent or withdraw cash
customers unable to pay for flights and facing the possibility of losing flights
employers unable to pay their staff

And so the list of individual dramas, tension and frustration continued. Several CBA employees jumped in to defend the corporate giant and leading to with a tongue in cheek poke at impatient customers, led to them being identified as employees and images of their full name, work role and other details being taken as screen shots and posted online. CommBank posted a warning directed at several individuals, deleted several customer posts that identified an employee and reminded the customers of the Facebook Community Guidelines.

At 2:15 am CBA updated their web page with “We’ve had an unexpected issue that we’re working hard to resolve. We still have more investigation and testing to do before we bring our systems back up.”

At 2:30am the CBA posted on Facebook “Hi everyone, we apologies that NetBank still isn’t available right now. We’ve had an unexpected issue that we’re working hard to resolve. We still have more investigation and testing to do before we bring our systems back up. This is all the information we have at present, our next update will be later this morning. Again, we apologise for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.”

And that brings us to 3am when this writer will cease monitoring the situation. I became involved while trying to phone the CBA tonight to advise of overseas transactions on my account, only to eventually get the message “we have encountered a technical problem” and the call was terminated by the CBA.

LinkedIn Company Pages 101

Posted on October 3, 2013 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

It is not often you get things for free, but Company Pages from LinkedIn give small business owners, managers, NFP and NGOs a chance to showcase their organisation for no cost (at the time of this blog!). Linked in Company Pages currently have four sections:

Home page
Products and services
Careers
Insights (including views)

Will creating a company page on LinkedIn really make any difference? Well, have you noticed how when you are searching for a local business or person on Google, LinkedIn profiles typically rank very high in the ‘natural search’ results.

Natural search is what Google finds based on its proprietary search algorithms and ranks the results for you to review.
Paid search are results that appear (usually at the top or side of your search engine results page) that are only there based on advertisers paying for you to seem them based on your key words and phrases used in your search.

Adding a company page to LinkedIn strengthens the natural search result rankings of your business. You can create a Home page and Product / Service descriptions with links to your other websites and social media accounts. While not only providing a free way to showcase your business, it also provides a structured way to think through your products and service offerings.

You can link individual LinkedIn profiles of your management team and key staff to each product or service. You also have the option to ‘pay’ for your job listings in the “Careers” section of your Company Pages. This paid service targets your job vacancies to those meeting your requirements and will cost about $200 AUD for a 30 day local posting in Melbourne (Australia).

Check out the attached guide for more information on LinkedIn Company Pages above. You can create a Company Page from the links here at LinkedIn FAQ.

LinkedIn Company Pages: a great way to showcase your organisation, for free!

Posted on February 3, 2013 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

Free Guide: LinkedIn Company Pages

Home page
Products and services
Careers
Insights (including views)

Natural search is what Google finds based on its proprietary search algorithms and ranks the results for you to review.
Paid search are results that appear (usually at the top or side of your search engine results page) that are only there based on advertisers paying for you to seem them based on your key words and phrases used in your search.

Check out the attached guide for more information on LinkedIn Company Pages above. You can create a Company Page from the links here at LinkedIn FAQ.

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