This post is part of the How to 100 article series; 100 word snippets of advice on how to grow your small business. Receive email updates the second new advice is published by clicking here What’s the purpose of your business? Think long and hard, down to your core: what higher calling, or purpose, does your business serve? What earth-shaking, mountain-moving problems do you try and defeat on a daily basis? What is the purpose of your businesses existence? Great examples include Google’s Glass’s ‘We want a heads up world’ and Oracle’s ‘The Internet of Everything’. The next 100 words will teach you how to differentiate yourself & discover the true purpose of your business. Step 1: What product/service do you provide? Grab a piece of paper and write down all the products/services that you provide. Don’t be shy; write ’em all down! Step 2: What problem do you solve? How do you improve the world? Think BIG PICTURE here; you aren’t an advertising strategist for a non-profit. You generate awareness (ad strategy) about ways to get clean water in third-world countries (non-profit’s mission). Step 3: How does your solution differ from competitors? Think long and hard; how are you different than competitors? Again, look at the BIG PICTURE and get a real, purpose-driven answer written down for this one. Why is the world a better place with your company in it? Props to Jeff Nedler of Polaris Brand Strategy for a thought-provoking conversation that lead to this post.   Enjoying this advice? Click here to receive email updates the nano-second new advice is published on the How to 100 blog. Mike Krass | CEO MKG Media Group 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+ //...

  What is this ‘How to 100’ thing and where did I come up with it? Well, let me explain … Lately, I’ve really been itching to give back Maybe it’s the holiday season. Maybe I need something productive to do on Saturdays besides watch football. Whatever the case may be, I’ve decided to channel my energy into something productive: Sharing small business advice. Why small business advice? Just the other day I was giving a friend some advice on how to develop profiles of his most profitable types of clients so he could sort through his new client referrals with more confidence. When I got off the phone with him, I thought to myself: I give a lot of advice to other entrepreneurs & small business owners … Why don’t I ever write these things down? For every conversation I do have where I share some helpful advice on growing your business, there are a few requests to chat every week that I’m simply not able to help with because I don’t have enough time. Writing down all the tips I’ve learned about building a sustainable, profitable small business over the past 30 months would allow me to help more people. Why should you pay attention to my advice? I know I know; you’re probably wondering why to trust me in the first place. Well, you should also have some faith in my advice because … My company has worked with more than 20 clients ranging from Microsoft to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation We have increased revenue by 50x at the end of year 1 and generated 98% revenue growth again at the end of year 2 We’ve never received a single dime of funding and are continuing to focus on building a profitable, sustainable business without having to seek outside investment So what am I going to write about? I’m dubbing this series the ‘How to 100’ and will focus the majority of the content around easy how-to tips and tricks to grow your business faster. A few great examples include: How to fire all your bad clients How to increase revenue from existing clients Where to turn for help when your company is growing too fast (or not fast enough!) The real kicker: All the content I do produce will also be less than 100 words in length. Why am I providing small business advice in 100 word increments? Because I want to make it easy and effortless for you, my fellow entrepreneurs & small business owners, to learn from my mistakes and failures! My favorite business book mentions that most people write too much! Instead of getting to the point, they hammer home their points over and over and over and … well, you get the point. My goal is to get to the point, share helpful advice to grow your business and engage with other small business owners online through this series of articles. What am I personally looking to get out of this? My goals are simple: Article Comments: I’m looking to get all the feedback I possibly can on each piece of advice in the comments section of the article Comments to Shape Future Content: Not only do I want to have conversations with my readers, but I want to use suggestions in the comments section to guide the type of content I write in the future What can you do to help? I’m glad you asked! You can sign up by clicking on the link below and share each article using the social share buttons on the left hand side of the...

Do You Have Any Idea How to Project Revenue Streams for Your Company? A few years ago, I started a digital marketing agency . The managing director at my previous employer asked me the following question: Who is your ideal customer and what product or service do you sell to them? At the time, my answer to him was: I HAVE NO IDEA! Over the past two years, our agency has been able to create an answer to that question based upon what I am calling the Fishbone Revenue Stream Theory (brought to life by the crude drawing above), which simply states: Your ideal customer, product & service is based upon what you get somebody to pay you hard cash to do. When people begin acknowledging your skills and paying you money in exchange for products or services, you have identified: a) what your company is good at b) more importantly, what people will pay you to do. Using the idea of a fishbone, you can begin to split products/services off of your main base (the spine of the fish) that are profitable for your business. In the young life of a new company, nothing matters more than identifying the who you sell a particular product or service to. Questions? Comments? Mike Krass | CEO MKG Media Group 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 I had the opportunity to guest lecture at my alma mater, Washington State University. I learned that … Lecturing sucks. Conversations are better. My guest lecture focused on how to read & analyze marketing data. These students had seen data before in the form of qualitative market research and statistics throughout their coursework, but most had never seen a data platform such as Google Analytics at work.  To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure how they would react, especially as I presented this information via Google Hangouts and couldn’t physically be in the classroom. And guess what? They ate it up! I held the lecture in a more casual, conversational manner to encourage each student to speak up, ask questions and challenge my authority. And they did just that throughout the course of the lecture and the ensuing in-class data analysis activity. With that in mind, I wanted to share some of their astute questions they asked and insights they delivered, which included: Which media channel is driving the most revenue? Why? Why is [campaign x] producing revenue while the similar one next to it is not? How come [campaign z] had the most site visits but didn’t generate any revenue? Additionally, one of the students inadvertently brought up the value of brand advertising and how it influences other channels within the overall marketing funnel, a question I could never even conceive during my time in college! So what did I personally walk away with after my first instructor experience? Off the top of my head, I learned: Chose an Anchor: One student in the front of the room became my anchor, meaning anytime I heard crickets or needed to spur the class into discussion I prodded him to get the conversation rolling. Become a Student of Life: I never went to after-class events during college; never thought I had the time. But seeing these students reminded me that even though I’m not 19 years old anymore, it’s never too late to keep learning. Make time to continue the pursuit of education. Practice Makes Perfect: I’m a big fan of ‘winging it’ through presentations, but boy am I glad that I at least practiced this lecture once (should have done so 4 or 5 times). No matter how ‘spontaneously awesome’ you think you are, practice will make you a better communicator. What is your lecturing experience? Any tips I missed...