I get asked to write for and help a number of large companies who are trying to position themselves to connect with entrepreneurs by creating community sites.

Most of them have no idea what they’re doing.

So I thought I’d create a series to look at what some of the companies are doing across various industries and also hopefully give you some new resources that you can use to grow your business.

Let’s start with the credit card industry. Here’s a quick summary with details below:

• American Express OPEN Forum: B+
• VISA Business Network: C-
• MasterCard Small Business: F

American Express OPEN Forum: B+

Separate Home: A+

American Express created a new website just for its entrepreneur readers at: http://www.openforum.com/

Clear Value Proposition: D

Their value proposition is “Powering small business success.” It’s too generic, does not make me want to stick around, and entrepreneurs don’t like to be called small. At least they tried though, many companies don’t put up anything.

Unique, Original Content: A+

AMEX gets that you need your own original content to get entrepreneurs to visit their site and stick around. All of the articles I read on the site were original and can’t be found elsewhere on the web. It makes a great case for me to want to return if I like the content.

Quality of Content: B+

The site is divided into 7 main categories: Innovation, Lifestyle, Managing, Marketing, Money, Techn0logy, and The World. Most of the articles are written in a how-to format and they’ve tapped credible experts like John Jantsch from Duct Tape Marketing. What they need more of is the motivational lessons learned content from entrepreneurs who have made it. Business owners love the how-to content but many learn better through success stories. There are a few stories on the site but you have to dig to find them.

Video Content: D

Each category has a series of videos which are kept up to date but the content isn’t original. They’re showing videos from Entrepreneur or from MSNBC. Guys, if I want to watch MSNBC, I’ll go to MSNBC. Give me something original!

Posting Schedule: A+

They have multiple articles coming out every day. You don’t have to worry about signing up and not getting enough content to stay interested!

Engagement with Audience: B

I took a look at a cross section of recent posts and they all have strong social media signals. Each article has Facebook Likes, Tweets, and +1′s. The one glaring component that’s missing is reader comments. Most articles have 0 or 1 comment – hardly a signal of an engaged audience. While their readers are helping to spread the message by social media, they don’t find the content interesting enough to want to share their thoughts by leaving a comment.

Ease of Sharing: A+

If you like an article you won’t have any difficulty finding out how to share it. At the top of every post they give you the option to Facebook Recommend, Tweet, Stumble, LinkedIn Share, +1, or email it. As a result almost every article has at least a 1 for every social media option.

Ability to Connect: A+

If you want to stay in touch or connect with the AMEX team they make it pretty easy. At the very top you have options to subscribe by email, connect on Facebook, follow on Twitter, subscribe via RSS or mobile.

Visible Community Leader: F

Ah, another faceless corporate website. Don’t you know that we buy from people we like and who are like us? Show me who is in charge of the entrepreneur community at AMEX. Make it easy to connect with them. Let me see what they look like so I can relate to your company better. Even their Twitter account doesn’t show who is behind it. It’s a pretty good site overall but this is one area where they fail miserably.

Overall Score: B+ – Pretty good but still have some work to do.

VISA Business Network: C-

Separate Home: A+

VISA also created a separate home just for its entrepreneur clients. You can check it out at: https://www.visabusinessnetwork.com/

Clear Value Proposition: C

Their value proposition is: “small business moving forward together.” The connectivity with other entrepreneurs that’s implied in the message is interesting. It makes me want to read a little more. But please stop calling entrepreneurs small!

Unique, Original Content: F

VISA is just pulling a syndicated content feed from Entrepreneur Magazine and various blogs. Sorry guys, if I want to read Entrepreneur Magazine, I’ll go to their website. Give me a reason to stay and come back to VISA!

Quality of Content: C

The content on this site is divided into 9 main sections: Entrepreneurship, Finance, Marketing, Networking, Online Business, Sales, Women-Owned Business, Work/Life Balance, and Goals. I don’t understand the Entrepreneurship category, personally. The entire site is about entrepreneurship! Is work/life balance and online business not entrepreneurship? They have more categorization issues. If you click on Goals one would expect to find content relating to setting goals and staying on track. Instead you find articles like: Our favorite tweets of the week Aug 1-Aug 7, 2011 and Weekend Reading: Daily Worth’s Money Rules. Just like AMEX, the content tends to be very how-to focused and it’s hard to find any success stories or motivational content to help entrepreneurs get through those tough times.

Video Content: D

There is some video content here but once again, it’s not original. It’s pulled from 3rd party websites and often promote other companies as sponsors at the beginning. Once again, if I wanted to watch LeapTv videos, I’d go to LeapTV. VISA isn’t giving me any reason to stick around.

Posting Schedule: A+

They do have regular content coming out every day so the site looks up to date. It’s just pulling in feeds from other websites but at least they’re keeping it regular.

Engagement with Audience: F

No big surprise here – if you don’t create your own compelling content, guess what? You don’t get any audience engagement. 0 comments across the board for all their articles because there’s 0 value for entrepreneurs here.

Ease of Sharing: C

If you actually wanted to share one of their articles then you can do it through the Share button that’s in super small font at the top of each article. Make it easy to share by giving us the social media buttons. Most people will never click through on a Share button and you’re making it more difficult for them to spread your content.

Ability to Connect: D

VISA has a decent following on Facebook so there’s an ability to connect there but otherwise we have no options to visit a Twitter account, get email updates, or subscribe by RSS or mobile.

Visible Community Leader: F

Who’s in charge of the VISA Business Network? Who knows? They need to stop talking one-way and give us someone entrepreneurs can connect with and relate to.

Overall Score: C- - Lots of work to do to revive this one but they have the architecture in place to do it.

MasterCard Small Business: F

Separate Home: F

MasterCard opted not to create a separate home for their entrepreneur content. Instead it’s buried on their main website – I doubt they get many visitors and it really makes me think that MasterCard isn’t interested in winning entrepreneurs over to their service.

Clear Value Proposition: D

Their value proposition is: “Solutions for Companies With Revenue Less Than $10 Million.” They’re only getting a D because they at least put something up. Segmenting your customer base by revenue might be a great internal measurement tool but it adds no value to your actual customers. All they’ve told me is that I’m “small” and they’re trying to offer “solutions” – it’s hard to get much worse than this.

Unique, Original Content: A+

The one thing MasterCard got right is they went to get their own original content. One problem I have with it is, apart from the author names, they don’t tell you anything about who wrote the articles or where I can learn more but the content is original to their site which is a great step in the right direction.

Quality of Content: D

The content is divided into 7 main sections: Finance & Accounting, Management, Sales & Marketing, Benefits & Compensation, Strategy& Planning, Women & Minority-Owned Businesses, and Technology. There’s very little in each section and the only photos are really cheesy stock photography pictures. The content is focused on how-to again and doesn’t have any success or motivational stories. We have no idea who the authors are so it’s hard to have any faith that the advice they give you will work.

Video Content: F

There is no video content – end of story.

Posting Schedule: F

There are no dates on the articles. They seem to be fixed posts that are never updated.

Engagement with Audience: F

They don’t even let you comment on articles. I guess they don’t want to Let Word-of-Mouth Marketing Make Their Business the Talk of the Town.

Ease of Sharing: F

There are no options to share.

Ability to Connect: F

No Twitter, Facebook, RSS, email subscriptions, etc. MasterCard doesn’t want to connect with you.

Visible Community Leader: F

We’ve seen enough F’s so it’s not surprising that there isn’t a community leader that entrepreneurs can connect with. You don’t need a community leader when there is no community.

Overall Score: F - Big time fail for MasterCard. If I’m considering which credit card company to go with and I visit these three pages I’m left thinking that MasterCard has no interest in my business so I’m taking it elsewhere.

For my Readers

Have you visited any of these community sites before? What is your impression of them? I’d love to hear your thoughts if you want to leave a comment below!

I’ve always been a big Guy Kawasaki fan.

He’s not only a thought-provoking businessman but he’s also an overall really nice guy.

When I was first starting out with EvanCarmichael.com I didn’t have any recognizable names and his involvement gave me some credibility.

After I got his support I was able to attract people like Donald Trump, Zig Ziglar, Michael Gerber, and the list goes on. We now have over 6,000 people who write for our site and Guy was instrumental helping that process get started.

Then when I was thinking about launching a line of famous entrepreneur trading cards the first person I connected with was Guy Kawasaki and he came back with his usual support of the idea and picked Steve Jobs as his favorite famous entrepreneur – our trading cards were born.

I was thrilled to learn that Guy is coming to Toronto next month as part of the Art of Marketing conference on March 7th. The conference itself has a cool lineup of speakings including Gary Vaynerchuk but I’m most excited about connecting with Guy who will be talking about how to create new products and services.

I’ll be covering the event live on March 7th and will report back what I learned from the event. If you’re planning on going, email me and we can connect between the sessions. I always love connecting with readers!

I’ll close with some memorable Guy Kawasaki quotes that I hope you enjoy. Stay tuned for more details in a couple of weeks!

Guy Kawasaki Quotes:

“Don’t worry, be crappy. Revolutionary means you ship and then test… Lots of things made the first Mac in 1984 a piece of crap – but it was a revolutionary piece of crap.”

“Patience is the art of concealing your impatience.”

“Simple and to the point is always the best way to get your point across.”

Do you offer flex-time to your employees?

According to a new survey conducted by Harris/Decima sponsored by Telus, 89% of employees think that offering a flexible work program makes a company more attractive. Survey results also revealed flexible work is considered the second most important factor, after money, when people are looking for a new job.

The Flexible Work survey also found that:

I had the opportunity to connect with Peter Day, founder of Endo Networks, one of Canada’s fastest growing companies, to discuss what he thinks about the emerging flex-time trend. Endo is a place-based relationship marketing company and has grown from $900k in revenues to almost $8 million in five years.

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Evan: What are the top 3 action items entrepreneurs should take as a result of the study?

1. Review the daily work habits of the various categories of your team, including yourself, to see where mobile working could bring a benefit.  Include your team in the discussion – sometimes its not just the productivity improvement, but the employee satisfaction that is the benefit.

2. Consider any data security / privacy / compliance issues that you may have to address as a result of the change to mobile working – if your mobile workers have access to any sensitive client data, you may have security issues to address.  Establish a security process – password protection, encryption and controls over what information can be accessed remotely, and if it is stored on the user’s computer or web-based.

3. Designate a champion(s) within your organization to pilot the mobile tools, and establish metrics with them to measure the success of the program as it relates back to your  expected benefits as listed in point 1.

3.5 Don’t make any big changes immediately, but give careful thought to the changes a mobile workforce will bring to your organization – travel policies, physical office layout and size, professionalism expectations, work hours expectations, etc.

Evan: Working remotely is a big theme in the study – what type of jobs lend themselves best to working remotely and what tools / best practices can business owners use to implement working remotely effectively?

1. I think its easier to define jobs that do not lend themselves to working remotely and those are:

a. Jobs which require the employee to physically interact with a system or process related to the business, i.e. manufacturing

b. Jobs which continually require the employee to be engaged with other people in the company

c. Jobs which require the employee to access business tools which are not accessible through mobile working, i.e. higher-power computers, specialized peripherals, secure data servers, etc

2. Additionally, some employee personalities are well suited to working remotely (self-motivated, disciplined, need for mobility i.e. travel for business, desire to work remotely) and some are not well suited – there are employees whose job description technically fits working remotely, but whose personality does not.

Evan: Another theme is flexibility – what features of a flexible work program do employees value the most?

This depends a lot on the employee, but I think the biggest benefit is freedom, enabled by mobile Internet keys first, and BlackBerries second – I say MIKs first because they enable a much greater level of functionality than does a BlackBerry.

Evan: Let’s talk about productivity – as a business owner, how do I ensure that my employees are working hard and being productive when they’re working remotely?

One of the things I really like about a mobile workforce is it forces business owners to manage to results, not presence.  Historically, business owners have measured productivity in many cases by whether or not the employee is present at his or her desk from 9 to 5, a practice which I believe is in many cases counter-productive to great results.  A mobile workforce cannot be overseen in the same way as desk-bound employees, so owners and managers are forced to find new ways to measure productivity.  At Endo we use a number of objective measurements of productivity combined with structured and regular client and consumer feedback surveys, as well as tight tracking to projected budgets, to measure our employee performance.  Interestingly, the requirements to change our measures of productivity dictated by a mobile workforce have spread across our non-mobile workforce too, creating a more objective and sound method of evaluating our team.

Evan: Finally let me ask you about culture – business owners strive to create an effective business culture. How can this be established / maintained if people aren’t in the office?

First, our mobile workers are in the office on a regular basis, networking with the rest of the team.  Second, our mobile working tools give us faster and more frequent communication than we had previously, which helps to maintain our culture.  And third, our culture is based strongly on results, and the changes to our measures of productivity have helped the team understand better what success looks like – further ingraining our culture in our team in a non-fluffy manner.

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Photo Credit: Somewhat Frank

Do you offer flex time to your staff? Do you work remotely or are you looking to hire people who can work remotely? I’ d love to hear your thoughts if you leave a comment below!

As of today I’m officially on vacation!

I’m heading to Europe for a family cruise with Disney and spending some extra time in London before the cruise and Madrid after the cruise.

I won’t be posting while I’m gone and will be back in action on August 17th.

While I’m away here are some recent Modeling the Masters posts that I wrote that should keep you busy and motivated until I get back.

Enjoy!

Photo credit: Matt Pasant

In April I posted about a contest I was running with LogoMyWay.com to create a new logo for my Top 50 Blog Lists. I’m pleased to report that after 108 entries we have a winner!

1st Place

2nd Place

3rd Place

The winning entry was created by Sa2010, a fellow Canadian and overall I was extremely pleased with the quality and diversity of the entries posted. Creating a contest with LogoMyWay.com costs $200 and you’re able to tap into a very talented pool of designers who compete for your business. You can see all of the entries for my contest here.

I’ve already put the badge up on my most recent Top 50 List, The Top 50 Human Resources Blogs To Watch in 2010 and I think it adds a nice touch to the list to allow bloggers to imbed the badge.

I would definitely consider LogoMyWay.com again and they’ve just recently put out a contest to redesign the BP logo after the oil spill. It’s received over 200,000 views and has received a lot of media attention. Check out the contest here.

What do you think are some other company logos that need to be redesigned? How did you go about choosing a logo for your business?

I’ve love to hear your thoughts if you leave a comment below!

Hiring, firing, and everything in between – that is what this Top 50 blog list is all about. Chances are we have all been on the good end and the bad end of a human resources decision at one time or another.

These bloggers are the best of the best in helping people make those tough decisions. So, whether you are looking to downsize, upsize, or create the most talented team you can, visit these blogs for advice.

Check out the list at: http://www.evancarmichael.com/Tools/Top-50-HR-Blogs-To-Watch-In-2010.htm

Running your own business is never easy, especially when you’re just getting started. How are you going to finance it? How will you reach your target market? Can you outsmart your competition? These are questions for which there are no easy answers. But there are others who have been there before, and who are eager to share their experiences.

This month, we’ve compiled a list of the 50 most popular blogs online that deal with providing news, advice, and trends to watch for when starting up your own business. Stay on top of the game and get your business off the ground running by following some of these top bloggers. Check out the list at: http://www.evancarmichael.com/Tools/Top-50-Startup-Blogs-To-Watch-In-2010.htm

Network Solutions, LLC and the University of Maryland recently came out with a “State of Small Business Report” to take the pulse of what small business owners thinking. They surveyed 1,000 entrepreneurs and over the coming weeks I’ll be sharing some of the results that came back.

You can view the complete series so far by clicking here.  This is the final week in the series and I want to focus on how entrepreneurs think globally.

Week 6: Global Players

A final note on the story of small businesses in America is the surprising degree to which they operate globally. While globalization among big business is often associated with sending jobs overseas, small businesses are more likely to export goods and services outside the country than to import them.

• 19 percent of small businesses sell goods or services to customers in other countries, and 9 percent consider the bulk of their business coming from outside the U.S.
• 11 percent procure goods or services directly from suppliers in other countries
• Only 2 percent have employees in other countries.

Are you selling to an international market?

I’ve love to hear your thoughts if you leave a comment below!

Network Solutions, LLC and the University of Maryland recently came out with a “State of Small Business Report” to take the pulse of what small business owners thinking. They surveyed 1,000 entrepreneurs and over the coming weeks I’ll be sharing some of the results that came back.

You can view the complete series so far by clicking here.  This week I want to focus on why people become entrepreneurs.

Week 5: Striving for a Dream

“Most small business owners started their business. The most common reason for doing so is to be one’s own boss (42 percent).”

A full 60 percent of small business owners are highly satisfied with their profession, rating satisfaction 8, 9 or 10 on a scale of 0 to 10. Satisfaction levels have trended downward, though not significantly, since June of this year. Small business owners are most successful in minimizing costs. They are not highly successful in growing their businesses or building wealth. Success in meeting goals has not changed much in the past year, and the prolonged recession is certainly not helping.

Most small business owners started their business. The most common reason for doing so is to be one’s own boss (42 percent). Other less common reasons include a desire to own a company (27 percent), capitalizing on a business idea (27 percent) and a desire to build wealth (25 percent). Only 6 percent started their company because they could not find employment.

Why did you start your own business and become an entrepreneur?

I’ve love to hear your thoughts if you leave a comment below!

Network Solutions, LLC and the University of Maryland recently came out with a “State of Small Business Report” to take the pulse of what small business owners thinking. They surveyed 1,000 entrepreneurs and over the coming weeks I’ll be sharing some of the results that came back.

You can view the complete series so far by clicking here.  This week I want to focus on how entrepreneurs are financing their businesses.

Week 4: Vanishing Finances

One of the major challenges for small businesses during the recession has been access to capital, which is the most important factor driving their success but the area with the worst performance (D+). The sources of funding relied on by small businesses has changed markedly in the past 6 months as cash reserves and traditional funding sources have disappeared. The following are steps taken in the past two years and how this has changed since the last survey wave in June:

“Almost half of small businesses (46 percent) have met their capital needs by cutting their own pay.”

• Almost half of small businesses (46 percent) have met their capital needs by cutting their own pay; just six months ago, only a third (33 percent) had resorted to this step
• 42 percent have had to take a loan from owner savings, compared with only 32 percent six months ago
• 39 percent have relied on credit cards (compared to 33 percent in June)
• 33 percent used a business line of credit (compared to 31 percent in June)
• 21 percent used a bank loan (20 percent in June)
• 14 percent took out a home equity loan (10 percent in June).

Few have relied on outside investors (5 percent) or SBA loans (4 percent), and only a fifth report having relied on no special funding sources in the past two years. Bank loans have become increasingly scarce. A fifth (18 percent) of all businesses indicate the source has gotten scarcer in the past year, compared with just 13 percent noting this in June; among those who took out bank loans, 43 percent believe the source is getting scarcer.

How have you financed your business? Are you finding it difficult to get access to money to grow?

I’ve love to hear your thoughts if you leave a comment below!