Category: Helpful Things to Know

Does Your Brand Need a Refresh?

Your business’ brand (or your personal brand) is the market’s perception, and the value that it/you have.

Sometimes, your company or product/service needs a refresh, or maybe a complete rebranding. Maybe your product sold well at first, but sales are tapering off. Maybe your industry or the demographic for your product has changed significantly. Or maybe you just feel it’s time for a fresh approach.

Joe Krueger, principal of Inspira Consultancy, joins The Savvy Entrepreneur Radio Show to talk all things branding. He shares the learnings of the Pony Tools brand refresh he oversaw while President of the company.

He shares some of the factors that may suggest it’s time for a brand refresh. We chat about the differences between rebranding and a brand refresh. He talks about the importance of market research and feedback, and some different ways you can go about getting that without spending a lot.

Finally, he shares some of the activities you can create to help build excitement and energy around your brand refresh. These can help build new awareness in the market. But if done well, they can also generate employee engagement and enthusiasm.

Listen as Joe shares the story of Pony Tools’ brand refresh, along with a process that you can use for your own brand refresh.

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Entrepreneurs: Say “No” to Silos!

Laura Gallagher, the founder & CEO of The Creative Company, talks with The Savvy Entrepreneur about some of the many challenges women entrepreneurs face.

Laura started The Creative Company, a full-service marketing firm, during her senior year in college. That was in 1989, the year after Wisconsin finally allowed women business owners to sign for a business loan in their own name.

Laura says there were so much she had to learn the hard way. But she realized just how much she still didn’t know, after attending Goldman Sachs-sponosored programs at Colombia University and Babson College. She saw the huge gap between what was readily available to women business owners and what they needed to know.

That led her to sponsor and organize the first two Wisconsin Women’s Entrepreneurship Day. Although well-attended and well-received, she took away some painful learnings from these events as well.

In the end, I sensed that Laura doesn’t feel these big 1-day splashy conferences are really the solution. She offers a number of thoughtful suggestions — listen in as she shares the learnings from her journey, and her thoughts on how women entrepreneurs can truly support each other (Hint: break down barriers and just say “No” to silos!)

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Building a Business with Your Kids

Building a business with your child can be extra-rewarding, but also riskier. Scott Nicholson has not only successfully done that, but has built businesses together with all three of his kids.

Scott built KO Business Solutions with his daughter Brianna. KO Business Solutions is a consulting and recruiting company. It helps organizations create hiring strategies, especially call and contact centers. It also helps them execute on those strategies.

Next, he and his son Jake decided to acquire the Chicago franchise of Jurassic Junk, a completely different kind of business. The company focused not only on helping residences and offices get rid of unwarranted items. But it also has revenue streams for scrap metal and resale. The goal, Scott says, is to minimize items going to the landfill.

Scott’s daughter Shannon worked in the KO Solutions business for a while, but it soon became apparent that she wanted to find something that allowed her to use her creative side. She established THR33 Marketing, and with Scott’s input, provides marketing services to KO, to Jurassic Junk, to Scott’s other businesses, as well as several other clients.

Scott shares how his father helped nurture his business sense and his entrepreneurial spirit, and how he’s tried to do the same with his kids.

He has plenty of advice to offer about involving children in your business, as well as other family members, or even friends.

If you’re thinking about building a business with your kids — or others close to you, this is a must-listen interview!

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Advantages of CEO Peer Group Mentoring

Being the founder/CEO of a startup or small business can often be lonely, confusing, discouraging, and downright overwhelming. Most of us start a business around an idea we’re passionate about, and it often revolves around something we’re good at or know well.

But building and running a business requires many skills, and few of us are good at all of them. We need to make good decisions, but we don’t always have the expertise or skill to make them.

That’s why there are many CEO peer mentoring groups, both formal and informal. There are Meetup Groups, and online groups. But there are also in-person, more structured groups. For these groups, a time commitment is required, and a membership fee assessed.

There are nationwide organizations that match and facilitate these groups. The best-known is probably Vistage, but YPO and LX Council, among others, are also well-established.

And if you poke around, you’ll also find lots of CEO peer mentoring groups that are locally organized. Some are industry-focused. Others focus on startups. Some are based on religious affiliation. There are even groups for entrepreneurs who are moms, juggling business and family. Some focus meetings driven mostly by current member challenges, and others have a fairly formal curriculum.

Lori Dann’s President’s Leadership Council is a Chicago-based CEO peer mentoring group facilitator. She puts togethers groups of CEOs of small but fairly well-established businesses in non-competing industries. Lori says their working sessions are focused on solving existing problems experienced by the group members.

She joins The Savvy Entrepreneur Radio Show to share a bit of her own journey and how she decided to create her business.

Lori also offers some helpful tips on how to find the right CEO peer mentoring group for you, if you’re a CEO and/or founder.

Click on the arrow to take a listen!

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Business Risks and Insurance

Are you insured for the risks your small business presents?

Anna Maria Viti-Welch, principal of the Viti Companies, joins The Savvy Entrepreneur Radio Show to talk about some of the many misconceptions people have about business risks and insurance coverage they may want or need.

For example, a common assumption is that, if you work on your business out of your home, that your homeowners insurance policy will cover you. Another is when you need business auto insurance. A third common mistake is not ensuring for data privacy breaches and other cyber risks. A fourth is risks to officers and your directors and even investors.

Anna Maria takes listeners step by step through the different types of business insurance and the kinds of business activities that might need to consider insurance.

Business insurance is not the sexiest of topics for entrepreneurs, but Anna Maria believes all small business owners need to be fully informed to adequately assess their the risks and knowledgeably address them. Only then will they be able to balance the cost of coverage with the downside risks of operating without insurance or being underinsured.

Click on the arrow to listen to a topic that most small businesses need to know more about!

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