HOW Mad Mimi: Small Business Tech & Alex Sirota from NewPath Consulting
Thanks everyone for joining us, and Alex Sirota from NewPath Consulting: newpathconsulting.com
If you had any trouble, or just want to watch it again, you can catch the recording anytime, right here: • HOW Mad Mimi: Small Business Tech & Alex S...
Alex is a veteran of the tech scene, having worked for Apple, various start-ups, and even Flow Network (one of the very first email marketing services available). Over the years he found that small businesses, specifically, were just not being served well by the tech and software solutions that were out there. Sure, they were well designed, but often too bloated or complicated for the average small business owner to get much use out of them.
He saw a lot of these solutions being built for the 'elite' -- folks who were very tech-savvy, or had the bandwidth and resources to learn what they needed. He saw these different trends in small businesses, however:
-they'll invest in technology, not knowing what they're getting into, and hope that it'll all work out
-they don't invest in any technology, and hope that it'll all work out
And those technology solutions that they were investing in, were not much more than the computer 'box' with a Microsoft suite on it. However, of late, there is a trend of a democratization of these solutions. And there is the ability to know 'custom create' a perfect fit solution, that really only serves the needs that you have, at the volume and size that you need. He started NewPath Consulting 4 years ago, as a response to this exact trend.
This included the shift to subscription models for software, as well as the move to "web apps" and cloud-based computing. We now have the internet access and speeds that make those things viable options for just about any small business, today.
Small businesses can now push out their risk, instead of taking it all up front and buying an all-or-nothing. They can try things out, and mitigate that risk, over time.
NewPath Consulting is a member of G2 Crowd: g2crowd.com which hosts over 5,000 of these sort of "modular" solution products. Alex says it sort of like the Yelp of these products. So, now the question becomes, "How do I choose?" -- as Alex puts it, the $64 million question is a compound one: "What should I do, when should I do it, and how does that affect my bottom line?"
All small business owners must wear many different hats, and what needs to be focused on is a matter of the goals you set for your business, and the stage of development that your business is in. This is all included in the work that Alex does with his clients, and that is crucial introspection for any small business owner.
You must know your website traffic, and have ways of gathering information about the activity that's happening on your site. You must have an email list -- which can start out as simple as the 10 customers you last interacted with. Call them and ask for their email address. And you must have an idea of what your specific growth goals are -- whether it's traffic, list, sales, views, likes, etc. A specific goal, and a benchmark for it, is key.
Alex mentioned that he's actually a pretty low-tech sort of guy, and runs his own business with spreadsheets, and the various solutions that he caters for his own clients. His criteria for choosing the products that he recommends is that it's easy to use, and their customer support is stellar. (So of course Mad Mimi made his list! ;) )
He makes sure that he can feel competent, comfortable, and effective on a program in 30-45 minutes, only. If it takes longer than that, he knows his clients do not have the time.
And the support for customers (and for Alex, when he's supporting his customers) is of the utmost importance to a viable solution for him to entertain.
Alex recommends Michael Gerber's book "The E-Myth": http://www.amazon.com/The-Myth-Most-B... because of the fact that just because you have a great idea, does not mean that you will be a successful business owner. If you think money, time, or an idea are more important than your customer -- you need to revisit that idea, and realize how existentially crucial the customer is to your success.
He also recommends Derek Sivers' equation for success which is idea x execution as a litmus for how you will succeed: http://sivers.org/multiply
And Alex briefly touched on the new cool stuff that GoDaddy is venturing into, to support small businesses -- more on that when we have him back on the show!
If you have any questions about anything we discussed, you can reach Alex at [email protected] and check out his site at newpathconsulting.com --and you can always reach us at [email protected] and [email protected]
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