Make Me Your CEO

One unfortunate small business practice that I observe all too often is a sub par website thrown together and then quickly neglected after creation.  This is so unfortunate because the website is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to promote your business and develop new customers.  Websites are direct reflections of the businesses they represent and they are the last place that small companies should be looking to save money.  A great website will draw customers in and inspire confidence in your services, so here are a few tips to help your business create and maintain the most effective website possible.

Domain Name Search First

Before you name your new business do a domain name search first!  Domain names can be searched and purchased at GoDaddy.com for less than ten dollars, so it is an easy step even if you are not quite ready to start your business immediately.  Simplicity is key when choosing a domain name, if you can find an exact domain name match for your desired company name go with it.  However, for most people their first choice is probably already in use, in this case try simplifying the domain name rather than expanding it.  If you need to expand for the name to make sense, using a descriptive word is always better than using cryptic initials or numbers.  If you are not sure bounce your domain name idea off of other people, good friends will let you know if it is too complicated, confusing or misleading.  Find a good domain name and purchase it now you won’t regret it later, the perfect name may not be there tomorrow.  Definitely purchase the .com address, the .org might be nice to have as well but not essential, other options like .net and .mobi are most likely not necessary for your business.

Hire Professionals to Build and Promote Website

The next door neighbor’s whiz kid might have a really cool and impressive website, but keep in mind that this kid’s webpage goals and audience are probably much different than your that of your business.  You should really look to hire a professional who had demonstrated skills in developing professional websites as well as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques.  Before hiring someone to develop your businesses website request examples and references of their work, most will be happy to provide a couple examples of their work.

The first thing you will want to evaluate is the presentation of the provided examples.  Make a snap judgment of each website, studies have shown that when people are surfing the internet they decide to stay or leave a website in less than one second of viewing.  On that same note, make sure the websites load quickly.  This is less of a problem with high speed connections but developers can still get overenthusiastic with unnecessary bells and whistles.  The final litmus test in evaluating the presentation is to ask yourself if you could determine the business of each website without reading a single word.  Look for relevant high quality photos and graphics that highlight each company.

Next you need to evaluate the SEO skills of the website developers.  Go to Google and search for their company plus the references that they provided you.  Google will probably be your largest source of new people finding your site, you need someone developing your website that understands how to get listed on Google in a top spot.  If you use search for the business exact name, their websites should be on the front page of results.  Then try searching for the services that the examples provide, you may have to be specific in naming a location (e.g. to find a florest in Boston, search “Flowers in Boston”).  Make sure the webpages are showing up within the first couple pages of results on Google so that potential customers can find them without knowing the name first.

Keep the Website Current

Your website is not finished once it has been published and online, this is an ongoing project and the initial launch is just the start.  Stagnant websites do not receive much traffic, and Google will actually lower the rank in search results of websites that are not updated regularly.  The simple solution is to add a news section to your website.  This can be setup just like or even as a blog, where a simple interface can be used to allow even technology challenged owners or employees to provide updates on the business.  Here you can feature new products, company milestones, new partnerships, or any other news that is relevant to potential customers.

This should be updated at the very least once a month, a couple times a week would be excellent.  The most important thing this does is it informs previous and potential customers that you are still doing business.  It also gives people a better idea about the capabilities of your business.  This can be essential in technology driven fields where state of the art is constantly changing, a business can immediately demonstrate their experience in brand new technologies.  The other thing a news section will do is provide more content that will be cataloged in search engines providing more opportunities for new customers to find your business.

Remember to keep pride in your website and to keep it up to date with current information about your business.  Following those two simple rules will turn your website into one of the most powerful marketing tools for your business.

With Rick Wagoner stepping down as the CEO of General Motors this weekend and Fritz Henderson taking his place, I couldn’t help but think about what I would do if I were in Henderson’s place.  President Obama is looking for a restructuring plan that will assure the longevity of the company.  Here is a look at the approach that I would take to reinvent General Motors into true trend setting, profitable company.

Find Brightest Automotive Engineers in America

General Motors makes a big show about their work with green automotive technologies.  However, the results have not supported their hype, by many accounts they are a full generation behind Toyota.  The technology and engineering at General Motors is so far behind the industry standards they can no longer go the road alone.  My first order of business as CEO would be to correct this situation by pursuing a partnership with Tesla Motors.

Tesla Motors is making the auto giants look foolish with their all electric Tesla Roadster and plans for the Model S set to release in 2011.  The Roadster is not your typical weak electric car, but a powerful vehicle that also looks spectacular.  A partnership to produce and develop a joint line of cars would be extremely beneficial to both parties.  It would be a huge step in advancing the GM technology, and help Tesla increase production of cars that are already in high demand.

Major Restructuring of Production

Over the past couple of days there has been a lot of talk about General Motors slashing all lines that are not making the company any money.  Unfortunately there has been very little discussion about restructuring or replacing these lines with vehicles that are making money or have more potential to make money.  Every action to cease production should be accompanied with a plan to develop the infrastructure necessary to produce better vehicles in the future.

As an example, one of the very first lines that should be cut is most certainly the Hummer line.  It is the most controversial and unpopular vehicle in the entire GM portfolio.  Even Arnold Schwarzenegger, the first individual to purchase a Hummer has condemned the line.   This discontinuation should be directly linked to the start in production of a true green vehicle such as car that runs on hydrogen fuel.  The old Hummer factories should be equipped to build the hydrogen model.  The entire budget that was used for development, marketing, and production of Hummer should be reallocated directly to fund this new line.

Genuine Plan to Produce Revolutionary Vehicles

One of the things that has infuriated me about General Motors over the past couple of years, has been their green campaign highlighting all of the developments they are making in alternative and fuel efficient vehicles.  I first noticed that there is a huge gap between what GM claims for green vehicles and what is actually produced when they started advertising E85 ethanol fueled SUVs.  In New England (where I was watching the ads), it was nearly impossible to actually find these SUVs at dealerships.  Even if you managed to drive one up, there was only one gas station in New England that even sold E85 (maybe two if you count the half of Connecticut that roots for the Yankees).

Next year Chevy will roll out the Volt, which is being marketed as if it were an all electric vehicle.  It is in fact a hybrid, although it does rely more on the battery than most existing hybrids on the market today.  The part that really irks me is that they don’t plan to produce enough of these Volts to have a significant impact on the company’s overall fleet emissions average.  To top it off, they don’t ever foresee turning a profit with car!

This sends the message that work on fuel efficient vehicles has been done simply as a publicity stunt, and GM never intended them as the future of the company.  This attitude would not be tolerated under my command.  In depth planning to ensure that General Motors leads the auto industry in new innovative technology would be a priority.  This means working with companies outside of GM to pursue alternative fuel source technology.  Dealing with fuel distributors to setup infrastructure throughout the country to enable the sales of our vehicles.  Finally, equipping factories to produce the revolutionary vehicles that will lead the auto industry.

Fritz Henderson has two months to develop a restructuring plan for Barack Obama.  Hopefully he will address many of the issues that I have noticed as an outsider looking in, and bring real and specific solutions to the table.  The other hope is that Henderson finds a way to keep and create as many jobs as possible.  A little bit of optimism on an economic turnaround will go a long way in justifying the jobs of many Americans.

One of the things that has really helped the revitalization of my job search has been the incorporation of Twitter (@Ken_Conant).  To my surprise there are a lot of companies on Twitter looking for employees, and people willing to help others find their perfect job!  Even more exciting is the fact that there are already many examples of people leveraging Twitter to market their services and landing excellent jobs!

One such person who reached out to me is Jamie Varon (@jamievaron), the girl behind the internet sensation TwitterShouldHireMe.com.  Some of the inspiration for my own website was derived from what I saw happening with her campaign, thank you again Jamie.  If you missed it, Jamie blogged and tweeted her way to a meeting with Twitter to discuss possible employment opportunities.  Unfortunately, they were looking for someone with more experience.  Not all was lost, through her hard work, Jamie grabbed the attention of many people who wanted to help and eventually the attention of a company called techVenture.  She is now working at techVenture as a Community Manager and seems very excited about the job.

(@jamievaron also blogs at Shatterboxx and intersected)

Getting Started With Your Campaign

One of the first things that you will find is that the 140 characters that Twitter allows for each tweet is not a lot to work with.  A website or blog to host your résumé and information about you will really help to overcome this challenge.  Jamie and I both host our own websites with unique domain names, but simpler solutions could serve the same purpose.  Sites like Wordpress.com and Blogger.com are free and easy for anyone to use, there are also many other free hosting services that will do the job.

What Should You Tweet?

The first thing that I started doing was tweeting whenever I was going to spend some time searching for work.  I started out with messages that were too simple and not well thought out.  “I’m looking for work now” doesn’t give anyone information to find you by.  I stepped it up by adding a link to my résumé, but still this tells very little about what I am looking for.  The key was to add descriptions about what type of work I am looking for.

Use Strong Key Words

My tweets about looking for work really started to get noticed when I specified what type of jobs I would be applying for.  The phrase “Job Search” is a really great start, many job agents are scouring Twitter for this phrase.  Then use the type of job you are looking for, things like “web development”, “nursing”, “IT”, maybe “sales” or “marketing” will help potential employers find you.  My first tweet that really got noticed was the following:

Still there was room for improvement, but I had enough keywords and information for people on Twitter to fill in the blanks.  @rezlady retweeted the following improvements to all of her followers on Twitter:

The words that are preceded with # are search terms, they are specifically placed to help people locate interests on twitter.  Using the # in front of your keywords will help employers find your tweets.  They are also a great way for you to search for people who have jobs to offer.  Use # followed by your keyword in your search (no space) and Twitter will bring up every recent tweet labeled with the keyword.  Also if you are focused on a specific area or city include that as a search term, for example try searching for “#job #Boston” to find job listings in Boston.

What To Expect For Results

Using Twitter alone probably is not going to land you a job.  You are still going to need to apply to the position in a more traditional manner.  Soon after I sent the tweet looking for startup companies, people started sending me great sources listing jobs that I am really interested in.  People have also started sending me references to other companies that use twitter, and passed my tweets along to those companies.  This opens up a dialog that will help you stand out when you send a traditional cover letter and résumé.  For a look at a best case scenario scroll down to the second half of the press page at TwitterShouldHireMe.com.

You Don’t Have Many Followers?

Certainly having just over 400 followers has helped my cause.  Don’t fret you can still get noticed and develop a following even if you are starting from scratch.  Start using Twitter on a regular basis, and tweet about things that interest you.  Slowly people will start responding when you mention interests that you share.  Go ahead and follow them even if you don’t know them in the real world.  The most important part of Twitter is to interact with people, remember this is a community.  The more you interact, the more followers and influence you will gain.

Let’s Help Each Other

If you are also looking for work send @Ken_Conant [me] your résumé tweet and I would be more than happy to retweet it to all of my followers.  Make sure to use @Ken_Conant within the tweet so I don’t miss it.  Also feel free to leave a comment here with your Twitter name even if you are not looking for work.

If you found this helpful or just want to help me find a job please use the Share This link below to help get the word out about the website, thanks!

Jeffrey Immelt - CEO of GE

Certainly Barack Obama is the most powerful man in America, but right behind him is Jeffrey Immelt the CEO of General Electric (only Obama’s ability to push American Idol back a full 24 hours separate the two).  The face of the the General Electric conglomerate has power over major financial institutions, media outlets, cutting edge technology development, energy infrastructure, and even transportation.  Oh, did I mention he’s also one of Obama’s financial advisers?  Fortunately, I believe that the second most powerful man in the world is very bright, in touch with reality, and will play a huge role in pulling the United States out of the recession.

In 2006 when General Electric was the toast of Wall Street, Jeffrey Immelt spoke as the commencement speaker for my graduation from Northeastern University.  He was appointed the CEO of General Electric days before September 11th, 2001, and the company was immediately sent into crisis as the stock plummeted down 80%.  At the commencement, he spoke about the challenges of overcoming the crisis and how he built General Electric to become an even stronger company than when he started.  Many of the challenges that he faced then such as restoring faith in the company are the same challenges that we face with the economy today.

One of the things that struck me about Immelt was how in touch with reality he was, and rather than ducking problems he addressed them head on.  To start his commencement speech, Immelt addressed what everyone was thinking, the CEO of GE probably wasn’t our first choice.  He compared himself to other people speaking on that same day including John Stewart, and Hillary Clinton, and hoped that he was a higher choice on our list than Paris Hilton.  Then he pulled us on board when he told us that he had something to offer that none of the others could, he said “I can offer you a job.”  This approach to problems brought him out of the 9/11 crisis, and will help bring GE and the rest of the economy out of the current crisis.

Immelt continues this direct approach to problems to this day.  General Electric has not been immune to the recession, in fact the stock has dropped about 75% since their high point of 2007.  In a time where so many CEOs are quick to blame the economy, Immelt has claimed responsibility for this downturn of GE, stating that he failed to position assets in the proper places to prepare for hardships when times were good.  Despite the terrible year, GE offered Immelt a 20 million dollar bonus, which he wisely turned down citing his failure to protect the company from the recession.  Then to evoke confidence Immelt bought 50,000 shares of GE with his own money, showing that he had more at stake than just a job title.

As a CEO it will be important for me to emulate the problem solving approach that has made Immelt so successful in the past.  The other crucial part is learning from Immelt’s mistakes as to avoid repeating history.  Jeffrey Immelt is a CEO who I will continue to follow and hopefully be able to follow up on with a post describing how he was able to bring General Electric out of the recession to an even stronger position than their 2007 high.

I want to thank everyone who has been helping me by passing this website on to everyone they know.  Already a couple hundred people have viewed the site, and hopefully this will help with my job search.  Tomorrow the blog portion of the website will really kickoff with posts about current CEOs, business ideas, small business advice, and commentary on the economy.

Please continue passing the website around through social media and word of mouth, I really appreciate all the help that has been provided already and all the help that is sure to come.  Again thank you very much for helping me with my job search.  Hopefully I will have good news to report sooner rather than later!

With the stock market flirting with 12 year lows, companies around the world are searching for new Chief Executive Officers, and if they are not, perhaps they should be.  Too many “blue chip” businesses are stuck in their old ways and suffering the consequences.  What they need is new young blood to get things rolling again.  Slash and burn tactics are failing the economy, new and big ideas need to replace this backwards thinking.

I’m here to throw my hat into the ring to replace the tired old business executives that are too stubborn to change their ways and try new ideas.  That’s right, I want to be your CEO, whether your company is a brand new start up or an established worldwide conglomerate, I am up to the task.  I have the big ideas and motivation that will get your company on the right path through this recession and into new heights of prosperity.

Perhaps you are not in a position to appoint me CEO of your company, I still need your help!  Please share this page with your friends, I’ve provided a “Share This” link at the bottom of the post to make it easy to post this to Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, and many others.  Tweet it in Twitter, or e-mail it to your friends, together we can find the people that are in the position to  give me the opportunity of a lifetime.  I am actually really looking for work and am willing to work my way up the ladder, and I enter every job with the energy and ideas that I would bring as a true CEO.