In a world full of great entrepreneurial ideas, how do you get your idea to stand out from the others?

Today I served as a judge for the 2012 Medical Technology “Concept to Company” Competition. As judges, we were asked to select three winners from a group of eight different companies that presented to our panel. Each of these entrepreneurs brought their A-game and each of them had come up with impressive and innovative business ideas. The question for these aspiring business owners to have considered prior to today’s presentations is: When you are surrounded by tough competition, how do you make your business stand out to potential investors?

Each of the eight companies presented a good product or solution; each of them validated a need in the industry that their concept solved; each of them was catering to extremely large markets; and each of them had filed for patents to protect their idea. Therefore, it became necessary for me to look for other things that made one idea stand out from the next in order to determine which companies should receive my vote. While I am not allowed to share which companies I voted for yet, as the winners won’t be announced for a few weeks, hopefully the following four examples will help illustrate how entrepreneurs can help their companies stand out in the crowd when it is their time to shine.

Stand out by having a great story behind how you came up with your innovative product.

Reltus (www.reltus.com) The founder of this company was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 30. Through radiation treatments and chemotherapy, he was thankfully able to overcome the cancer, but he was left with an incessant ringing in his ears, a condition medically known as tinnitus. One evening while he was brushing his teeth with his sonic toothbrush, his young child came in the room wanting to be tucked into bed. As he went to answer his child, he inadvertently bit down on his vibrating toothbrush and noticed that for a glorious moment the ringing in his ears had stopped. After tucking his child in bed he returned to his sonic toothbrush and pulled off the brush head, wrapped the device, and held it against his ear. To his amazement he found that it gave him immediate relief from the ringing. He went on to experiment with several prototypes until he was able to create a solution he was happy with and thus, Reltus was born. Hearing the personal story behind any business idea really helps to draw an investor in emotionally, and it helps to illustrate the need your product can solve in a very personal way, thus making stand out from the others.

Stand out by introducing a disruptive, simple idea that will lead to a paradigm shift in the way things are done today.
iTest by 3PDx: This presentation was done by two young men, one being around 21 years old and the other being 25 years old. First I have to say that I love seeing talented young people put themselves out there in the business world, so that stands out all on its own. Young people bring such a great energy to the table, a fantastic ability to understand upcoming trends in the market, and they tend to have an eye for harnessing technology in new and innovative ways. These young men that presented were proof of this. Their idea was born from a group of smart people sitting around a room with a whiteboard, which in my opinion is how many a great idea is born, writing down whatever ideas came to mind. 

These students began strategizing on how to couple existing technologies in a new and disruptive way that could create a paradigm shift in the world of diagnostics. From their session, they realized that if they could find a way to leverage one of the most commonly used devices in the marketplace – a smartphone – and combine it with a widespread need for accessible, inexpensive, in-home diagnostic tests for sensitive testing such as HIV and HPV, that they could cause a paradigm shift that would decentralize central laboratory diagnostics and place personalized testing in the hands of the consumer. Their idea was simple yet elegant in that it leveraged two existing technologies, the smartphone and a home diagnostic test, and combined them in order to achieve this easy to use, simple to understand, private test for the consumer. I love that their idea would also have a huge social impact in that it would encourage more people to test for HIV in the privacy of their own home, leading to earlier detection, early treatment and hopefully better prevention of spreading the disease.

This next example was a double whammy: Stand out by being confident, not arrogant AND standout by having a business that can make money while changing the world for the better.
Signal Diagnostics (www.signaldiagnostics.com): The founder of this company really shone on his own because he had the perfect combination of confidence without being arrogant. That is a unique combination in an entrepreneur and one that always stands out to me as “one to watch” for greatness to be achieved. His technology delivers rapid and sensitive disease detection solutions to the masses, with results available in less than an hour.. Typically it takes days or even weeks to get critical lab test results back for a patient, but with his development of a battery operated handheld detection device that is readable by the naked human eye, he can reduce that turnaround to getting results in a fraction of the time for a fraction of the cost. He tested his unit recently in Kenya, Africa, in a remote village where power and clean water were not an option. Just think of the social impact his technology could have across the world toward improving healthcare. Coming up with a concept that will make money and change the world for the better is a true home run in my book.

Aside from these four examples, I want to add a fifth and final thought. Keep your presentation clean and simple! Slide one of any presentation should include the burning questions that every investor in the room is waiting patiently through your entire presentation to hear.

Market Size (ex. $x billion annually, hopefully)
Revenue model and margin (ex. each unit sells for $500 retail, my cost is $20)

Do you have a simple solution for big problem? (ex. Yes)
Is your idea protected? (ex. Patent granted or filed)

By placing these on a single beginning slide, you will allow the investor to get these answers immediately, which will allow them to sit back and genuinely enjoy the rest of your presentation.

There is very little in life as invigorating as watching great ideas be brought to life. There is an energy that exudes from entrepreneurs who are passionate about their idea that can light up an entire room. I only listed a few of the companies that stood out today, but the reality was that each of the eight presenters stood out in their own right. Hopefully these examples will help others stand out when it is their moment to shine.

Tags: HIV, Business, Diagnostic test, Diagnosis, Entrepreneur, Electric toothbrush, Business idea, ITest

We talk to people all the time who complain that their marketing isn’t working as well as they would like it to work. Every business–regardless of size, budget or industry–has likely felt this way before. Even very profitable businesses that succeed in most areas have failed at marketing before.


So here’s the question: why do we sometimes fail at marketing? What goes wrong?


Certainly, no two marketing campaigns are exactly the same. No two marketing strategies are exactly the same. There is no ‘silver bullet’ answer to the questions above. However, based on our discussions with many different companies, there are a few overarching reasons marketing strategies don’t work. Here they are:


1. Measurement #Fail

Most marketers simply don’t measure their marketing as carefully as they should. Perhaps they measure one area closely, like web traffic or conversion rates. However, they fail to effectively measure social media engagement or track phone calls. Without these metrics, marketers are flying blind. They can’t optimize. They can’t even make future decisions about that marketing channel.

Data is power. If you want to optimize your marketing you have to gather data. Most often the data that marketers ignore is related to phone calls. There is a huge amount of data available within phone calls. Are you taking advantage of that data to optimize your marketing?

2. Goal #Fail

When you launch a campaign, or redesign your website what is your goal? Do you want more visitors? Do you want more phone calls? Do you want people to download more content or follow you on Facebook? What are you trying to accomplish?

Sadly, very few marketers even bother to answer this question. Take, for example, redesigning a website. Most companies simply start the redesign process without actually considering what they want the redesign to actually accomplish. Marketers should really ask the following questions: How many more callers will this website generate? How many more clicks will it produce? How many more conversions and leadds will it generate each week?

Have a goal.

3. Lack of Marketing Diversity

Don’t just to do one thing. Do many things. Some companies get so married to a certain marketing strategy that it is almost creepy. They believe that only email marketing will work. They believe that only content marketing will work. They believe that only PPC ads or SEO will work. And when presented with data that contradicts their beliefs, they ignore the information. You should never have the answers before you ask the questions. Instead, try a bunch of different stuff and then use the data to tell you what works.

4. No Aggressiveness

Most organizations are, frankly, not very aggressive. They ignore leads unless they are a ‘perfect’ fit. Or, they simply throw leads into a nurture email campaign and forget about them altogether.

This is bad.

Be aggressive. Call leads. Rustle some leaves and ruffle some feathers. You won’t get very far–especially in the early stages of a company–without taking some initiative and calling leads.

Now, I am not suggesting that sales reps should call every marketing qualified lead. I’m not suggesting that at all. What I am suggesting is that many leads should be called. Depending on the size of your company this number could be in the 30% to 50% range. Certainly, if you are getting thousands of leads a month this isn’t possible. But if you are getting dozens or even hundreds, it is.

Our data shows us clearly that most companies are not nearly aggressive enough. If someone calls a business and asks about pricing, most sales reps simply provide pricing and hang up. What?!? That makes no sense. Someone called you to ask about pricing on a product you sell! Do not let them get off the phone until the deal is done!

Remember this: no one prices a product for fun. If they are pricing a product, they are looking to buy.

Conclusion

Again, not every marketing failure ever can be attributed to the 4 reasons listed above…but most can. Generally failures in marketing result from one of the 4 reasons listed above. Don’t believe me? I’ll make you a bet, if you can think of a failed marketing stategy or campaign that didn’t result from one of hte 4 reasons above, I’ll give you a free LogMyCalls account for a month!

Tags: Marketing

As quickly as economically possible, expand your staff. You can’t do it all by yourself. Make sure you hire the right number of people; too few is just as bad as too many. For example, if one employee is responsible for a big portion of your success, realize that if that person leaves, your company could be in jeopardy. You might consider breaking the critical parts of that single position into two separate positions, to minimize the risks of relying solely on one person. But whatever you do, don’t take on that extra responsibility yourself so that you’re doing the work. You’ll never expand your business that way.

Here are 4 Choices of Who to Hire:

Hire Someone who Complements You

Don’t hire someone who is exactly like you. You need to hire people who provide different levels of expertise than you do. And yet when hiring anyone, regardless of their expertise, you’ll find that it’s still important to make sure that they fit within the culture of your company. If they don’t, you won’t be happy, they won’t be happy and production will suffer.

Hire a Product Development Expert

Your employees must be committed to growing the revenue of your company. The first step to revenue growth is making sure you have a high quality product or hiring someone who has the expertise to improve your product. If your product isn’t of high quality, you’ll lose clients quickly and gain a poor reputation in the community and market place. Word spreads quickly!

Hire a Rainmaker

Thirdly, hire someone to help you sell. Especially if you don’t like to sell, this person will be extremely critical to getting your company off the ground quickly. In fact, I highly recommend that you hire someone who can service and sell — with an emphasis on sales. Many times it’s hard to find one person with both of these skills, but I’m telling you from experience, you don’t want someone who services and refuses to sell. In my opinion, even when you start to build out your firm and you have more service people, you’ll still want your service people to sell — this criterion is essential for the continued growth of your company. Your service people must also understand how to upsell products as much as possible.

Keep in mind that any employee you hire, especially in the beginning, must be able to bring in revenue to the company. Every employee needs to understand that the success of the company depends on earning more clients. Even the person in charge of product development is selling. Without that individual making your product better, you have nothing to sell.

Hire Administrative Help

The fourth person you should hire is an administrative person who can perform a multitude of tasks. He or she becomes your support. If this hire also happens to bring you someone with a talent or even a liking for sales, that would be great as well! You might find someone just starting out or just getting back into the workforce who would like to be in sales but doesn’t have the sales skills yet, and that’s fine. You or your salesperson can teach them the skills that will help grow your company.

Here are a few of them:

1. Amazon's one-click patent

When you shop online, you know how you can save your shipping address, credit card details etc so that you don't have to type it again for your next purchase? Your subsequent purchases can thus be done with a single click- and Amazon owns the patent for this. They even sued Barnes & Noble for having this feature in their site.

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-C...

2. Pull to refresh

Image via CrunchBase

The pull to refresh feature present in many apps is actually patented by Twitter, which was the first to come out with this feature.

Reference: http://dcurt.is/pull-to-refresh

3. Making links in email clickable

All links and phone numbers in emails can be made clickable, even when the original email sent by the user didn't make them clickable links. Sounds trivial right? But implementing this can get you sued by Apple (it has already sued HTC over this patent).



The patent details here: http://www.google.com/patents/ab...

4. Buying stuff inside an app

Yes. This is patented. Even if an app says "Click to here to buy the full version", they are "infringing a patent". Hell, Rovio(maker of Angry Birds) got sued over this by Lodsys which owns the patent.

Reference: http://venturebeat.com/2011/07/2...

This is a list of patent infringements that Apple is suing HTC  over. A few of them seem ridiculous, you be your own judge:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/...

Tags: Apple, Patent, Lodsys, Lawsuit, Twitter, HTC Corporation, Rovio, Patent troll

The economy hasn’t fully recovered, and consumers are careful and thoughtful about how they spend their money. There are a lot of great deals out there, but we know you don’t have the time to sift through deal sites and big box websites for on-sale items. Lucky for you, we’ve launched a Steals of the Week series, in which we’ll scour the web and present a few high-tech gadgets or products that give you bang for the buck. Because while some things are worth paying for, you don’t have to break the bank.

Check out the four products below, and come back next Monday to see the next slew of things to buy.

1. Jawbone JamBox

Price: $139.99 (regularly $199)

Where to get it: n1wireless.com

Why you should buy it: Jawbone’s portable wireless speaker lets you pump audio from your phone, tablet or other audio peripheral anywhere. The sound quality is great and the setup is extremely simple — just connect via Bluetooth. It’s a nice piece of hardware, and this deal saves you $60.

2. Mini-Projector for iPhone, iPod, iPad

Price: $91

Where to get it: dx.com

Why you should buy it: Share photos and videos — or just watch a movie on the wall — with a compact projector. We’ve reviewed a similar, yet far more expensive device before, but we find that this is a nice little accessory to have, especially in our sharing culture.

3. Mophie Juice Pack

Price: $45.69 (from $79.95)

Where to get it: Amazon

Why you should buy it: The best part of new iPhones is that the older models — which aren’t that old — get cheaper, and so do their accessories. The Mophie is a must if you’re checking email, uploading to Instagram, browsing Facebook and using maps all day. Your apps consume a lot of battery, and rather than traveling with a cord in your pocket, let your case double as an on-the-go charger.

4. Samsung ST76

Price: $89.99 (from $129.99)

Where to get it: Best Buy or Amazon

Why you should buy it: If you don’t have a smartphone to take photos, or if you’re looking to supplement your smartphone pics with an actual camera, this 16 megapixel is a good option. With a wide-angle lens, built-in image stabilization, panorama mode (with image-stitching). You can also shoot HD movie. For $90, there’s not much to complain about. Plus, its slim design makes it ultra-portable.

Tags: iPhone, Bluetooth, iPod, IPad, Loudspeaker, Big-box store, High tech, Apple

It is important to understand the value of automation within your email marketing strategy. Take Oovie for example, we wrote about their automation strategy this summer. Oovie experienced a 30% increase in sales using integrated and automated email marketing. Automation is extremely important to the health of any marketing strategy and it can be used to drive significant increases in revenue. 

Why is automation important? Routine and time-intensive tasks like data movement, segmentation, and messaging programs become easy with “set it and forget it” functionality. The right marketing automation tools make it possible for you to do more with less, freeing you up to focus on strategy and optimizing your interactive marketing programs, while keeping your revenue flowing.

Here are a few ways you can use automation to make your job easier:

1. Automate a welcome program. Welcome emails are highly anticipated, frequently opened, and (luckily for you) simple to automate! Use an automatic email marketing drip to increase conversions at a time when you already have the consumer’s attention by including products, services, or special offers. Tie together social media by adding Facebook and Twitter icons in your welcome emails to help subscribers connect with your brand across channels.
2. Capitalize on cross-sell and up-sell opportunities. If you send email receipts or online transaction confirmations, include offers on related products or services in those messages. Emails like this are easily automated and allow you to maximize your customer data to boost revenue opportunities.
3. Automate cart abandonment campaigns. Targeted emails using clickstream data can generate, on average, nine times more revenue. Integrate your web analytics and email marketing systems to run automated campaigns based on online behavior. Automatically include an image of the abandoned product, an incentive to purchase, or include related product recommendations.
4. Implement customer satisfaction programs. Customer feedback is vital to continued success—and yet, you may often be too busy to ask for input. If you’re a B2B business, try automating a customer satisfaction survey to send one to three days after a customer completes a transaction. If you’re a B2C company, automate an email to ask for product reviews two to three weeks after the customer completed the purchase.