As entrepreneurs, we get tons of advice about what to do to make our companies great—often from people who have never build a business themselves and who have read the same books we have (but little else).
So it’s always enlightening and valuable to get growth strategies from one of our own—a successful entrepreneur who has achieved great results.
That described Sol Orwell to a “T.” A serial entrepreneur, Orwell got started long ago selling virtual currency to online gamers and eventually made a fortune dealing in local search engine sites and Internet domain names—and “retired” (for a few years, anyway) at age 22!
More recently, he spearheaded Examine.com, which has become the largest provider of research on nutritional supplements. Here, he shares four of this best ideas for generating big-time growth, and enjoying the ride along the way.
1. Build your brand, not your name. If your name is your business, extricating yourself is a huge headache—especially if your politics are unpopular, or you’re ready to sell.
As Orwell notes, if you are synonymous with your company, buyers will always to some extent expect you to be part of every interaction and transaction. If you want to move on at some point—by selling or even transferring leadership roles—you could face backlash from customers who suddenly feel cheated that they’re no longer “getting you” and what you stand for. In Orwell’s case, he focused on building the Examine.com brand name. Later, when he brought in a top-notch guy to take over management of the firm, it was a smooth transition that didn’t impact revenues at all.
If your name equals your company, you can also run into trouble if your views are out of favor with a large swath of potential customers. Orwell points to the example of Papa John’s, which is built around the name recognition of its founder. When he voiced positive opinions about Donald Trump, he alienated American pizza buyers who didn’t like Trump. “Having that barrier between your business and yourself is really, really important, especially in today’s charge environment,” he says.
2. Focus on improving your existing client experience. To drive more traffic, businesses tend to focus entirely on creating new content and new reasons to visit. And certainly, fresh ideas and offers are important. But Orwell argues that it can be just as powerful—maybe more so—to continually improve upon your existing content. “We’re always looking at how we can make what we’ve already got better by expanding it or deepening our research,” he says.
3. Help the media help you. The press can be a huge ally in raising awareness of your company and driving business to you. But you’ve got to take a savvy approach with the press and think outside the box. Instead of the typical approach—calling the press and essentially begging them to write or say something great about your company—be a resource to the press.
Here’s how. Thanks to the Internet, the press these days needs to crank out stories fast, all day long. If you come to them as an expert in your particular area and offer to be a resource on stories about that topic—or better yet, offer to provide them with all the information they need to write their story—you’ll become an in-demand, go-to source. You’ll get plenty of free promotion that leads to greater customer traffic and interest.
Pro tip: Leverage the traditional media—newspapers and magazines—to build credibility so you can say, “Did you see my quote in Forbes last month?”. Separately, work with online new media that will provide links in their articles to your website to drive traffic to your website. “One is great for establishing your expertise with prospects, the other is great for actually sending business your way,” says Orwell.
4. Tap into your local community of entrepreneurs. As business owners, we’re different in many ways from other people. We are responsible for not just our companies and our lives, but also the lives of our employees and partners to a great extent, as they rely on us to keep our businesses healthy. That can make us isolated from other people, who might not immediately see the realities—positive and negative--of being an entrepreneur.
The solution: Create a local community of like-minded business owners, and connect with them regularly. By helping build the local community, you become a hub to everyone in the area. Orwell, a food lover, prefers to meet and discuss over great meals. But you can also form (or join) mastermind groups of business owners who are looking to accelerate their success. “By creating and nurturing a community of entrepreneurs, you build long-lasting relationships that can open doors, and you also can gain new ideas and new perspectives from people like you that can help you take your business to a higher level,” he says.
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