When I met Neil Patel, founder of KISSmetrics, Crazy Egg & Quicksprout, I had already done quite a bit of homework on him and knew he was going to kick off our lunch meeting with one simple question: What Can I Do For You? It’s a gracious way to start a business meeting and — guess what? — it puts you in the drivers seat of the conversation. So next time you go out for a business lunch, before you launch into your sale-sy or shmoozy pitch, take a step back and ask the person you are meeting with one simple question: What Can I Do For You Today? — Aside from being the CEO at MKG Media Group, Mike is a dark beer aficionado with a healthy appetite for travel and pushing personal boundaries. A proud graduate of Washington State University, Mike currently calls San Francisco home. Twitter // Google+ //...

I’ve listened to quite a bit of advice over the past 24 months about how to start a business, some bits more entertaining than others … “Don’t run out of money. That’s a bad idea.” “You’ll only get audited if you try and expense things like private jets.” “People generally have the best intentions and will treat you as such.” After 24 months out on my own, I can definitely say: “No shit. Running out of money is very low on my to-do list this week.” “That’s not true. Federal, state & municipal governments can & will audit you and will gladly add penalties on top for the trouble it caused them.” “Yes, people have good intentions. Their bank accounts and ‘we’ll make sure to get you next time’ on the other hand, do not. As the great quote goes –‘In god we trust, all others must pay cash'” Which brings me to the purpose of this blog post … 8 Things to Know Before You Start a Business Right after we started our agency & prior to my leaving Seattle, I had the pleasure of sitting down with an esteemed colleague of mine who graced me with some words of wisdom as I set off into the wild blue yonder of start up agency founder & entrepreneur. The original notes from that conversation are posted in the photo above, but for those who have a hard time reading my chicken scratch, I went ahead and re-wrote them below. So, without further ado, 8 Things to Know Before You Start a Business: Understand the Future: Do a deep dive to understand the work your company will perform to generate revenue. How does that look today? What does it look like a year from now? 5? 10? Embrace Reality: The overall ‘vision’ for what your company will do and how that will be accomplished should have a solid foundation in reality Understand Burn Rate: Tim Ferris calls it ‘life burn rate’ while other start uppers simply shorten it to ‘burn rate’ … Whatever you call it, understand the dollar amount you personally need to earn to survive Revenue Requirements to Make Payroll: Additionally, understand how much money you need to generate each month and in what fashion that revenue needs to make it’s way into your bank account to pay your employees (prepayment? monthly payment? net 30 terms?) Insurance: You are operating a business — get some d@&% insurance! As we found out early, our first client (Box) refused to pay us until we could show proper proof of insurance Payment: We touched on this above, but it’s worth a second mention … understand how your revenue makes it’s way into your bank account! In total, you may pull in $50k in revenue per month and push out $50k in expenses (breaking even — that’s fine). But if you don’t receive your $50k until the very last day of each month and your expenses are due before that date, you will bounce a lot of checks and piss off literally everybody you do business with Avoid Assuming Liability: I can’t say it any better than my advisor in this conversation, so I’ll just quote him, “Avoid putting out a commitment before you assume liability”. In short — get paid or produce a written agreement for payment before performing work! Borrow for Growth, not Operations: Never borrow money to fund operations. This shows that you are running an unprofitable business. Instead, borrow money to fund growth. An example? Say you are a software company and if you had 10 more engineers on staff, you could produce 5x the work and generate 15x more revenue from your existing customers. Make sense? What Other Bits of Advice Do You Have? Drop me a line in the comments section with additional pieces of advice and I will add them in to this post!   — Aside from being the CEO at MKG Media Group, Mike is a dark beer aficionado with a healthy appetite for travel and pushing personal boundaries. A proud graduate of Washington State University, Mike currently calls San Francisco home. Twitter // Google+ //...

Earlier this month, our agency began floating a job description for a new business internship over the summer. We’re looking for a somewhat inexperienced, hungry college student to come in and help us clean up our new business systems / tools, create best practices & actually go out and assist me during the client prospecting process. It’s the first time I’ve ever interviewed a group of candidates, and it’s been a real learning experience for me to understand what it is like to be on the other side of the table, so to speak. During this process, I’ve developed a few pet-peeves that have completely turned me off to a few of our applicants. Learn How to Formulate Your Thoughts in an Easy-to-Read Fashion I can’t describe how difficult it is to read through paragraphs that contain 7 – 8 sentences a piece and cross multiple lines of thought. It’s tough! Take these two examples below: Example #1: My name is Mike. I’m really looking forward to being a part of your organization. I have so much to bring to the table — I can write well, have experience with the Microsoft suite of products and understand how to manage deal flows in Salesforce. Please let me know what I can do to make my point clear that you should hire me. Example #2: Hello, my name is Mike. I’m really looking forward to being a part of your organization and have so much to bring to the table: I can write well Experience with the Microsoft suite of product Understand how to manage deal flows in Salesforce Please let me know what I can do to make my point clear that you should hire me. Now, as an employer looking to make a hire and has to read through hundred’s of job applications, which example would you prefer to see? Which would stand out and show that you are truly a proficient communicator? Less is More To the point above, learn how to communicate the value you would bring to the table in a very sharp, concise fashion. Get hyper critical with your verbal and written communication! Here are a few tips to keep in mind: Focus on the quality of each word in your sentences — what value does that sentence provide? Could you make your point more concisely? Focus on the benefit companies will see from hiring you. How can you make their lives better? Measurement, Measurement, Measurement! Again, focus on the measurable benefits employers have seen from hiring you in the past. How can you put your value in terms of numbers? Great examples include: My company saw a X% increase in new business prospects Reduced employee turnover by Y% Show me tangible measures of success! Make your skills an easy sell for me to understand why I want to hire you. Tailor Skills to Job Description / Interview Questions I’m completely fine with the fact that no one person will be the perfect employee out of the gate — there is definitely a learning curve to go through, especially for younger employees who are new to the professional realm. But I really need you to show me something. I’m not asking for you to be a guru and have every single item on the job description checked off, but show me that you care enough and attempt to make a connection. Take these two examples below: Sample Question & Answer #1: Do you have any search engine marketing experience? No, I do not. Sample Question & Answer #2: Do you have any search engine marketing experience? I did notice that you asked for that on the job description, and while I do not have extensive experience with search engine marketing I have begun to read articles on Search Engine Land and have been chatting with my cousin / mother / professor / whoever, a person that is a search expert, about some of the in’s and out’s of search engine marketing. Again, see the difference? If it was listed as a line item on the job description, at least recognize that and show me some effort.     — Aside from being the CEO at MKG Media Group, Mike is a dark beer aficionado with a healthy appetite for travel and pushing personal boundaries. A proud graduate of Washington State University, Mike currently calls San Francisco home. Twitter // Google+ //...

The other day, my business partner & I were having a very interesting discussion that centered around one single question: What is the definition of a start up & how is it different than a small business? The term ‘start up’ is thrown around every single day and, in my opinion, there is no set definition for what the term describes. For example, I’ve heard the following ventures be defined as a ‘start up’: A 150 year old company began a new division of business. They defined this division as a ‘start up’ within their existing company. A blogger that created a media outlet centered around their online blogging defined themselves as a ‘start up’ My friends mobile app company, which is less than one year old and has raised $5 million in venture capital A great way to define the term ‘start up’ is to take a page from the book of one of the masters, Y Combinator founder Paul Graham: “A startup is a company designed to grow fast. Being newly founded does not in itself make a company a startup. Nor is it necessary for a startup to work on technology, or take venture funding, or have some sort of “exit.” The only essential thing is growth. Everything else we associate with startups follows from growth.” So, what’s the difference between a start up & small business? Or, put differently: Why wouldn’t a small business want to be designed to grow fast? Both a start up and a small business have a number of similar characteristics: Less than 10 employees, with usually no more than a couple out of the gate Volatile, if any, streams of revenue that fluctuate drastically month to month  AGAIN I ask you, what’s the difference between a start up and a small business? My brilliant business partner came up with a great way to make the distinction: A start up is a company that primarily relies on outside funding (angel investment, venture capital, etc) to fund operations & growth. A small business is a company that primarily relies on revenue (actual billable revenue to clients) to fund operations & growth. What do you think of the distinction outlined above?   — Aside from being the CEO at MKG Media Group, Mike is a dark beer aficionado with a healthy appetite for travel and pushing personal boundaries. A proud graduate of Washington State University, Mike currently calls San Francisco home. Twitter // Google+ //...

Accomplishing your goals in life is centered around one simple idea: make little bits of progress every single day. Take the advice of Tim Ferriss, the best-selling author of the 4 Hour Workweek, whose main piece of advice from that book was … At the beginning of every day, pick three things that you want to accomplish Don’t look up, don’t check email, stay off Facebook, ignore all phone calls and save no kittens from burning buildings until those three items are crossed off your to-do list The idea is that once you get in the habit of making progress, you’ll be better at blocking out distractions and get more done. Why would you want to do that? … because it feels good … because getting things done gets you amped … because it gives you the mentality to not settle until you’ve made tangible progress This feeling is … Addicting, contagious & will help grow your organization into a beast filled productivity machines. Refuse to take no for an answer: push until it hurts and then push a little bit more. Trust me — it’ll feel a heck of a lot better when you’re through 🙂 — Aside from being the CEO at MKG Media Group, Mike is a dark beer aficionado with a healthy appetite for travel and pushing personal boundaries. A proud graduate of Washington State University, Mike currently calls San Francisco home. Twitter // Google+ //...