The big one of these, of course, is the hot button topic for business: “process.”

Back in 2007 and 2008, you couldn’t go a single day without seeing, hearing, reading or discussing the importance of business “process” with someone. Everything was about process: building it, documenting it, automating it, measuring it, monitoring it, auditing it, and then when that was all done, starting over and starting again.

Of course, there are good reasons for that: inefficient processes can destroy an otherwise good business. The best example in my career came from the Valentine’s Day blizzard in New York City in 2007, while I was working at JetBlue Airways.

While the storm itself was on Valentine’s Day, the chaos in the airline lasted from then all the way through President’s Day Weekend. Why? Process. As an organization, many of our core operational processes were still manual, and the wide-spread impact of the storm itself (combined with an operational philosophy that made more sense for a small airline, but which we’d really outgrown by that point) created an domino effect throughout the entire business.

While our competitors were able to bounce back from the storm within a day and return to normal operations, it took us five days to untangle the mess and get things back to normal. And we infuriated more than a few customers over that highly traveled holiday weekend.

And once the dust settled, there were only two words on everyone’s lips: “process improvement.”

So, of course, process efficiency is important. But there is a downside to a single-minded process focus, and it’s one that I often see inadvertantly choking startups: too much process can quickly become a hinderance to innovation and execution.

The real danger, in this quagmire, though, is a matter of degrees. How far do you drive the development and improvement (and, where possible, the automation) of process, before you start resembling Mel Brooks’ satire “The Twelve Chairs“?

(And, in honor of “process running amok” a classic clip, courtesy of Mr. Charlie Chaplin.)

In the early days of my career, chaotic startup environments (pre-bubble burst) were notorious for being process black holes. It wasn’t uncommon to hear corporate types scoff in distain about the unsustainable immaturity of startups, because it was taken for granted that structured process was a prerequisite for success.

Naturally, there is some truth to that. Sound process is at the heart of critical success factors such as “scalability” and “reliability” — two words which, while not necessarily sexy, are vitally important, especially to your customers and invetors. (See JetBlue reference above.)

Our current recession, however, has shown me the other side of the coin: displaced career long corporate warriors — well steeped in the virtues of structure and process — taking the opportunity of being laid off to start a new venture. And I have watched more than a few of them struggle with how to be successful in a startup world, where decisions are often made in an instant and change can happen over a cup of coffee.

I once made the mistake of hiring a person to join my startup’s IT Operations team who came from a solidly enterprise-centric, big business background. She was obsessed with not working more than 8 hours per day. If circumstances required that she log any extra time, she would keep a tally of it to trade for a comp day once she’d hit 8 hours. Legalities of this aside (IANAL: “I am not a lawyer”), this was devestating to the morale of the team, because we were in a culture where — like it or not — no one else worked less than 55-75 hours per week.

For some people this transition is not a big deal: over time, our preferences change. What seemed like a great foundation of structural support at one time, can feel like crushing suffocation a few years later. Former career-long enterprise professionals who leave their cushy, well-paid gig at a Fortune 100 for a major pay-cut with insane hours to go to a startup often do it for this reason: a lack of predetermined process and structure leaves the door open for having a more significant impact.

Over time I’ve developed a heightened sensitivity to the maturation lifecycle of startups, and what I now understand is that the degree of process necessary in an organization is directly related to disposition of the clients, the demands of the market, the stability of the technology and the maturity of the organization itself.

There are points in time when a startup is better off with a wild-eyed gun-slinger mentality; and other times when discretion, caution and deliberate consideration make the difference between astronomical success and crushing defeat.

The key is walking the line, and over the years, I’ve found that the line is actually easier to find than most people think. Almost every employee engagement survey in modern times says the same thing: autonomy is one of the most coveted traints that a person looks for in a job. People who feel that sense of autonomy are more highly engaged, stay in their roles longer, and out-perform their peers.

So the question to ask yourself is this: how much process can I put in place to build stability, while leaving enough fluidity so that my team maintains their sense of autonomy?

The tricky part, of course, is that line is different for everyone. The solution isn’t tricky at all, though: talk to you people and ask them. If they really believe that you are looking to make sure that they are happy (and, truly, any boss who doesn’t actively try to find ways to keep their employees happy in their job is asking to lose their employees, no matter what condition the economy is in), most of them will tell you. Just be sure that when they do, you are listening.

As with most of Tim’s advice, he breaks down a meaningful topic into accessible pieces. He notes that values, empowerment, metrics, feedback and embracing mistakes as learning opportunities are all invaluable tools in building a successful team. And I would agree.

In fact, I’d even go so far as to say that the only times I’ve ever seen a team suddenly go from success to failure, it was always because a new influence (usually a new boss) entered the picture and eliminated at least one of these factors — and usually destroyed morale in the process.

The thing that Tim doesn’t address, though, is how you find the right people in the first place. Like my friend with the crazy — and often doomed — dating stories, you can only build quality relationships (a.k.a. teams) if you start out with the right quality of individuals. And, just like in dating, this is the first step that someone can easily get hung up on for years before ever being able to move on to Step #2.

When I look at the partnerships I see in the startup space — particularly among bootstrappers and eager enthusiasts trying to drive innovation — I see a lot of churn in the hunt to build the right team. But I also see some pretty clear milestones that, once hit, start making all the difference.

1. Find the Right Language
Often times, this is the hardest part. An entrepreneur (or a would-be entrepreneur) can have an amazing idea. But if they haven’t found the right language to share their idea with others, they can spin their wheels for years and not make any headway. If the idea is too big, too imprecise, too confusing or even just too radical, it’s hard for it to resonate with other people. And if it’s not resonating, then finding others to help you build it is not going to happen.

So practice. And if people aren’t responding, then change it. And then practice some more. Get feedback. Watch people’s reactions. Find ways to pre-empt the most common pushback you hear from people, and then practice some more. A funny thing will happen: the right combination of words will eventually start to fall into place. And when that happens, all of a sudden you’ll go from getting blank stares to true interest — and you may not even be entirely sure why the change occured. Just recognize that it did, and it’s often more about language than you imagined.

2. Don’t Make Assumptions About People
Another common mistake I see among entrepreneurs with ideas they find exciting is the mistaken assumption that the people they want to be onboard with them will also find their idea exciting. When someone is feeling unsure of themselves, it’s often easy to look to friends and family for validation and participation. This is sometimes a dangerous choice, because we tend to place a lot of stock in the opinions of those we care about. And if friends or family don’t like or understand the idea, it’s sometimes a devestating blow to an entrepreneur’s focus and motivation.

Depending on a person’s normal social circles, I often recommend starting with strangers, and waiting to circle back to friends and family. A stranger is often a blank slate: no assumptions, no speculation, no baked-in expectations about you, your background or your capabilities. The idea has the chance to sink or swim on it’s own — based on the words you use — when it comes to a stranger. Strangers are often nicely baggage-free, and a great place to start.

The flip-side to this is in being too focused on what types of people — either personality types or skillset types — that you need in order to make things work. People are an endless and amazing source of constant surprise. If you spend all of your time telling yourself, “I need a rock star biz dev guy!” and close yourself off to other possibilities, then you could miss the former network engineer turned project manager who is so passionate about your idea that he manages to morph into the best power networking evangelist you could possibly ask for.

Be flexible, and start with people who resonate with what you’re trying to do. You may not be able to use them all right away, but trying to wedge in the right role with only a half-hearted passion is not as effective as a passionate person who can figure out how to take on the most urgent needs of a new role.

3. Don’t Be So Protective of the Idea that You’re Unwilling to Discuss it
This is a hard one for some entrepreneurs. They are so concerned with their intellectual property or the fact that someone might “steal” their idea that they are afraid to say too much. But the fact is that, unless you can do everything yourself, you need to talk to people, tell them your idea and get their (verbal and non-verbal) feedback. That’s the only way you can hone your message and the only way you can flesh out your team.

Just remember: building a new business is an insane amount of work. Yes, it’s true, someone could steal your idea (or parts of it), but you are never going to make traction on it if you don’t talk about it. What good is it to protect something that you never end up using? Most of the people you meet aren’t going to be interested enough to bother (sorry, but it’s true). While they may find the idea interesting, it would really have to touch a nerve with them to bother trying to go for it themselves. Odds are better that they’d join you in your efforts, rather than trying to start out on their own from scratch.

4. Network Like a Maniac
Again, friends and family may be viable options for team members, but strangers have tons of value to an entrepreneur with a perkulating idea. And no matter how shy or introverted you may be, if you’re going to be an entrepreneur, you need to find ways to push through your shyness and talk to people. So pick half a dozen or so local social events in your space (or related spaces), and start attending. Make a goal before you walk into the room that you are going to spend at least X minutes having conversations with at least Y different people. And then stick to your goals. It really will get easier over time.

And, in the immediate term, this approach will help you test out your language, find the core ideas that are resonating with people, and start dialogs that can help you improve both your idea and your messaging about it — all while being on a tacit man-hunt for a prospective team. The great thing about networking events, is that as your language gets crisper and your passion for your idea becomes more recognizable to those you meet, it opens secondary sets of doors. The person you meet at the event may not be a great fit, but they could know someone who is. You’ll never know until you try talking to new people.

5. Devote Time to Following Up
The biggest mistake people make after attending a networking event is not immediately following up. This is especially true if the person said they knew someone else who they wanted to connect you to. You have a short window in which you are memorable enough to take advantage of that potential connection, so don’t let it pass. Reach out to follow-up within 24 hours. Don’t let it slip.

And then, once you have someone who is interested — whether directly or via a referal — arrange time for a face-to-face. Coffee, lunch, whatever, just get together in person. Something relaxed and non-threatening that gives you both the chance to talk is the best way to see what common ground you have, and whether or not it makes sense to keep talking.

All in all, building a team is quite a bit like dating. You can spend all your time looking in the places where you’re “supposed” to find someone compatible, and then get into a fender-bender on the freeway with the person who turns out to be the world’s most ideal fit. You can’t ever predict where they’ll come from. The only way you’re going to find them, is by opening up the possibilities, considering options you haven’t previously explored, and engaging with new crops of people on a regular basis.

People can be gloriously surprising when you give them the chance.  Don’t rule someone out just because you think you know what they can do and that it’s not what you need.  If in doubt, ask them what it is they’d like to do or how they’d ideally like to contribute.  You could find that the former sales guy wants to get back to his developer roots, and is just looking for the right opportunity.

Then, once you think you’ve found the right person (or people), re-read Tim’s post. His suggestions are good ones — once you find the right people to bring on the bus.

However, you better hold your horses a second, because the world of interns it’s not as simple as all that.

So, with that in mind, here are the four things to do to line up a summer intern for your business.

Paid Interns Instead of Unpaid

Of course, this is the one that no business owner wants to hear. After all, isn’t the whole point of hiring an intern so that you don’t have to pay? Nope. And you need to know this.

Due to the recession, more and more employers have taken the opportunity to use unpaid interns to get work done. Unfortunately, a healthy percentage of those have done so in violation of the rules of internship that govern where the line is between an actual intern and simple unpaid labor. It’s important to remember that the definition of an intern was never intended to be “free labor who can make your coffee and pick up your dry cleaning.”

The US Department of Labor has clarified the rules on interns, and any business owner who is considering bringing on an intern, would do well to read through them. Several states have begun cracking down on employers who are in violation of these rules, so make no mistake about it, not knowing how to navigate this space could absolutely cost you more than you are prepared to pay.

(One of the most important criteria to note is the nature of the work and the supervision they receive.  Even if you pay an intern, by having them do work that no one else in your business knows how to do, or for which they are not getting coaching and direct supervision from an employee, you are still in violation of the intern criteria.)

The simplest solution? Skip the formal “intern” bit – and definitely skip the “unpaid intern” bit – and just hire temporary summer help. If having to pay kills your ability to bring someone in, then see if you can arrange a per-project contract.

Seek Interns in Smaller Schools

In many places this isn’t an issue, but here in Austin this is a big, big point that can save a business owner’s time and sanity: go to the smaller schools to find interns (or just plain student employees).

Austin, Texas is home of the ever-famous University of Texas Longhorns. It’s a great school, and culturally, it dominates the city. However, it is not the only school in town. Quite the contrary. Not only do we have several other respectable local institutions - St. Edward’s University, Huston-Tillotson University, and Austin Community College – but we also have regional campuses for other schools, such as Texas State, University of Phoenix, Concordia University, Virginia College and more.  These are all amazing sources for eager students looking for internship opportunities.

And my own personal pet-plug: look at community and city colleges. More often than not, that’s where you’ll find the hungriest students, the most eager to find ways to differentiate themselves and build valuable long-term relationships. When it comes to hiring intern help, the biggest name schools are rarely the most valuable choices for small business owners, so always look to the less popular choices on your quest for great internship candidates.

Remember, the more competitive the college was to get into, the more options those students have, which means you will be competing with larger employers who can pay more. Go with smaller, slightly less competitive schools, and you’ve got prospective interns who are still trying to carve out their niche and leave their mark. That’s always a better prospect for an employer.

Use Distance as a Tool to Find Great Interns

While there are plenty of things that need to be done in a face-to-face setting, there are also plenty of things that can be done over distance. So what schools do you have at your disposal that are a bit farther away? An hour and a half commute may not be reasonable to do every day, but it’s still close enough to do once every other week, with virtual contact in between.

We live in a Web 2.0 world. Take advantage of it. Again, here in Austin, we have several large colleges 1-2 hours outside of town - Texas Status University in San Marcos to the South, Baylor University in Waco to the North, and several others in between.  These students live in smaller university towns where there are more students than there are valuable employment opportunities.  If you’ve struggled with finding qualified and motivated interns with your local big name school, I strongly suggest reaching out to one of the other institutions in the nearby region.

Broaden your thinking, and then reach out. Outlying areas can be a much better place to look, if you understand how to manage an intern remotely.

High School Interns

This is my favorite of all, but it’s the one that always gets the biggest knee-jerk reaction: hire a high school student instead of a college student. Did you know that high school unemployment has sky-rocketed to 26% during the recession? Even worse, they are having to compete with Baby Boomers whose retirement accounts have taken a beating. And who do you think usually gets hired when a high school student goes head-to-head with a Baby Boomer for a job stocking shelves at Walmart?

There are other really great reasons to consider high school interns, as well. For starters, a high performing high school student is still trying to differentiate themselves from their peers, because they know that is the key to getting into college. Where do you think all those big name college students came from? They were top performing high school students first. So grab them on the way up, when they still have a ton to prove.

Digital natives are often really great at things that us older folks struggle with. Whether it’s learning new software, creative problem solving, or doing research. Take advantage of the fact that they have no recollection of a time when “Google” wasn’t a verb, and don’t underestimate the difference that has on their view of both the world generally and work specifically.

Whatever you do about bringing in more help for your business, just remember, if you go with an unpaid internship, make sure you know the rules and are dotting your I’s and crossing your T’s. Otherwise, skip the “internship” piece and just hire a student for a summer or part-time job.

Students do have amazing value to contribute to businesses — so much so, in fact, that my husband’s startup is dedicated specifically to this entire premise. Business owners just need to stop fantasizing about a world in which that value doesn’t require any investment on our part.

In the end, though, I always end up advocating one thing: valuable content.   And while I often get a lot of ‘yes ma’am’ head nodding around that topic, there is a single critical reason that I continue to make that point: the world of search is on a roller coaster at the moment, and trying to play the SEO game with the current set of rules is only going to get you a short-term win (if that) without putting your focus on strong, valuable content. This is a great untapped opportunity for entrepreneurs, because they are better equipped to move faster than large businesses, full of teams of people whose job would be in danger if they were not longer perceived as critical.

People who are unfamiliar with the online search space often do not understand what I mean when I talk about the imminent changes to the the industry.  Today I’ll cover a few examples, thanks to some new releases that Google has just made. (Examples from Google’s official blog.)

• Personalized search
• Real time search

What is “personalized search“?

For example, since I always search for [recipes] and often click on results from epicurious.com, Google might rank epicurious.com higher on the results page the next time I look for recipes. Other times, when I’m looking for news about Cornell University’s sports teams, I search for [big red]. Because I frequently click on www.cornellbigred.com, Google might show me this result first, instead of the Big Red soda company or others.

What is “real time search“?

Now, immediately after conducting a search, you can see live updates from people on popular sites like Twitter and FriendFeed, as well as headlines from news and blog posts published just seconds before. When they are relevant, we’ll rank these latest results to show the freshest information right on the search results page.

These are two great examples, because they demonstrate why having relevant content on your website is important.  Focusing your SEO energy (and budget) on building link-backs and fine-tuning your keywords has limited value in the long-term, because search engines are going to increasingly focus on other things to establish relevancy.

Just these two changes alone mean that two different people can type in the same keywords but get different results, depending on their personal search history and when they look.  And, if you factor in the increasingly popular localized search, what city those users are in could also impact their results.

What excites me most about these changes is that it further helps in taking the focus off the means and onto the end: your web presence should be about engaging your customers in a meaningful way, finding new customers and enhancing your existing relationship.  Far too many people focus on jockeying for a good SEO position in spite of their content, instead of focusing on the content first and using it as a foundation for successful SEO.

The tidal wave of changes in the search space is going to make it increasingly hard to duck the real question for all businesses on the web: are you saying anything worth paying attention to?  If you are, then these updated techniques will only help you.  If you are not and have been playing SEO-peek-a-boo, then these changes are going to expose that.

I see far too many entrepreneurs who have been taken to the cleaners by unscrupulous “SEO consultants,” and one of my chief missions is to help prevent that wherever possible. So before you look to hire SEO help, ask yourself if you are prepared to actually create (or pay for) good content for your website.

In the modern web-based business world, there is an updated version to your grandmother’s old saying:  “If you don’t have anything relevant to say, don’t say anything at all.”  These new changes by Google will continue to make that point.

(This post is part of my Entrepreneur Evangelist series and was originally published on WorkingPoint‘s Small Business Blog.)

And though “marketing” is a broad discipline, one of the best places for many entrepreneurs to get started is their own website.  A website is to business today, what the phone book was in 1985.  And yet, despite all that, according to Carol Tice of Entrepreneur.com, a full 46% of small businesses still do not have a website.

Even more importantly, however, is that — if you chose carefully — your website can be an inexpensive place for you to test your message, develop your content and start reaching out to your customers without the extreme expense of traditional marketing and/or advertising campaigns.  And once you’ve had the chance to hone your material, then you can look at how else you can use it.

So, as promised last week, my focus for the final week of 2009 is going to be on the free tools that every business owner can use to help their business.  When it comes to my work with entrepreneurs, I usually start most clients off with one key recommendation: WordPress.

While most people know WordPress as a blogging application, the fact is that it is a fully matured content management system that makes managing your website far easier than attempting to deal with a custom coded site.  While some large-scale websites may need more advanced functionality, most entrepreneurs that I work with who are focused on getting their first site up and running find WordPress to meet their immediate needs.  Even better, your actual core WordPress functionality is free.

Here are a few quick steps to getting a business website up and running on WordPress in less than 2 hours:

Step 1: Select a hosting provider. (Low cost providers are fairly easy to come by.  My recommendation is to go with one that uses Simple Scripts.  It is a utility designed to help you manage installations of a host of applications on your domain.)

Step 2: Purchase your domain.  This can be done as part of your hosting provider purchasing process.  Many providers will even register a domain for you for free as part of your sign-up package.

Step 3: Once your purchase is complete, log into your administrative system and go into Simple Scripts.  Find WordPress.  Select the option for it to “install” in your root directory.

Step 4: After your installation set-up is complete, log into your WordPress admin and go to Settings –> Permalinks.  Under “Common Settings” select “Day and name.”  Hit save.

Step 5: Activate Akismet.  Akismet is a WordPress-built comment spam system.  Unless you want tons and tons of porn spam comments clogging up your website, make sure you turn on this Plugin.  In order to do that, you will need to go to WordPress.com and create an account (or login if you already have one).  Once in, select “My Account” from the main navigation, and then click on “Edit Profile.”  The alpha-numeric code you need (your API key) will be right at the top.  Copy it, and then paste it into your new WordPress install on your domain, in the Akismet settings page.

Step 6: Go to Appearance –> Plugins –> Add New.  This will give you a menu of different plugins that you can add to your installation of WordPress to help you customize it and get the functionality you need for your business website.  Some of the common plugins I recommend include the following:

1. All in One SEO Pack
2. Google Analytics for WordPress
3. XML Sitemaps

I recommend these as starting points for new site owners, because they are extremely important in both driving and understanding traffic.  Additional options that I personally use are plugins for social network activity and “related post” plugins that recommend other articles that are similar to the one the reading is currently viewing.

You’ll need to follow the instructions for each of the plugins to make sure they are properly configured once installed.  Good plugins will walk you through the process, so as long as you follow the instructions, you should be able to get things set up fairly quickly.  (And remember, in a worst case scenario, you can always delete the plugin and then reinstall it, if there is a problem.)

Step 7: Pick a “theme.”  In WordPress-speak, a “theme” is the design of your site.  There are, literally, thousands of themes to choose from, many of them are free.  And even “premium themes” are reasonably affordable, ranging anywhere from $20 up to $200.  I recommend starting with something free, and going from there.  The first place to start looking for themes is within the WordPress admin itself.  Under Appearance –> Add New Themes you will find a menu that allows you to browse different themes, see what you like, and install them to try them out.

If you want to use a theme from a different location (such a Woo Themes, which is a popular seller of business themes for WordPress), you will need an FTP utility that allows you to transfer files from your computer up to your hosting provider.  An application such as FileZilla is also free, and comes with easy instructions that can walk you through the process.  (And any theme you download from another website will also give you instructions on where to upload it once you need to move it into place.)

Now you’ve got a website.

Of course, while this first part is what intimidates many non-technical people, the fact is that installing the site is actually the easiest part.  The hard part is developing your content — what needs to be on your site, what makes sense for your customers, and how should it be organized to be both findable and valuable.  Later this week we’ll cover more tools to use to help you manage your website and develop its content.

A couple of last words of advice on setting up your site with WordPress:

• Use a secure password that you can remember.  Far, far too many people either leave a default password in place (which they can never remember) or use one that is too simple (which can easily be hacked).  Keep in mind that this is your business website, and treat your password appropriately.
• WordPress issues updates to the code fairly regularly.  It is important to try to stay current, because a great many of the updates are security related.  Once the basic WordPress installation has been upgraded, often the plugins will need to be next.  You will get messages whenever you log into the admin, so just follow their instructions and you should be fairly safe.
• WordPress is very easy to get comfortable with, even for the least technical people.  So play around in the admin (or, even better yet, set up a second install in another directory on your website, so that you can experiment without damaging your main website).  To learn more about WordPress, I recommend checking out Yoast.com. Yoast is a site all about WordPress and maximizing it’s value.  There are tutorials, information, recommendations and a great deal of content there for someone trying to get up to speed on how to get the most out of their WordPress install.

Finally, many people ask if they can use free WordPress hosting for their blog. For businesses I strongly discourage this for a couple of reasons:

• Free WordPress hosting does not get your site running on your own domain, which is vital for your search engine optimization (SEO).
• Free WordPress hosting has a very tight number of themes that you can chose from, and you cannot modify them without paying.
• Free WordPress hosting has storage space limitations that could limit some of your multimedia options for posting content.
• Free WordPress hosting does not allow you the opportunity to generate any revenue through advertising.

This article was originally posted on WorkingPoint’s Small Business Blog.

Today, the web is about marketing.  And one of the biggest influences in that shift has come from the world of search.  Findability is key, above all else.  And that means the topic of search engine optimization is one that every web professional has to be at least a little familiar with, even if it’s not your core business.

Every single week I have people coming to me to ask for help with their SEO, and the cold hard truth is that most of them have no idea what they really need, and are not prepared for what it’s going to cost (in either time or money) to get what they think they want.  As a result, these entrepreneurs are often tempted by unscrupuoulous parasites who troll the internet looking for hapless victims who can quickly and easily be separated from their money.

In his recent blog article, In SEO, There’s No Such Thing As A Guarantee, Brand5 CEO Mark Faggiano takes these spammers to task and issues a warning to those who might be tempted to bite.  Mark’s point is that, if you get an email from someone “guaranteeing” you top ranked SEO results, it’s junk and don’t buy into their promises.

For anyone (legitimate) who works in this field, this is often the very first conversation we have with prospective clients.  Why?  Because such “guarantees” are not possible.  There is too much outside of any one person’s control to be able to make promises like this.  Things change too rapidly and there is no way to ensure that what worked yesterday will work tomorrow.

Of course, this is also the reason that many people get sticker shock when they talk to a legitimate SEO about doing this type of work:  it’s time consuming, and so it is often very expensive.  Moreso than many entrepreneurs are ready, willing or able to pay.

So when I start working with a client, my first meeting with them is about understanding what truly makes sense, and figuring out a plan forward.  I start with a few basic questions when it comes to developing a plan.

What are your products or services?
Not all businesses need great SEO to get the effect that they need.  In fact, some will be better off putting those resources in other places entirely, because their customers are just not internet-centric.  Another thing to consider is that, the only way people can find you is if your product or service is something that your customers can describe/articulate themselves and would think to look online for a solution.

For some businesses that is obvious, but for innovative products or services, sometimes keyword-based solutions are the wrong way to go because your customers may not have any idea that you’ve even got a solution or what you’ve named it.

Do you have an automated sales process or a hands-on one?
If you have a product that people can find, signup and use without ever having to interact with a live person (such as WorkingPoint), then SEO has great value.  If you are someone who provides a customized service (such as a consultant), where you have to scope the job, do some research, have some meetings and evaluate your potential contribution before setting a price, then there are other areas where your efforts are going to garner better return — starting with some targeted social media.

Your prospective customers need to be able to research you online by name, but that’s probably not the way they are going to find you in the first place.  So, again, heavy investments in getting top tier SEO results are probably better allocated elsewhere.

Who are your customers and where do they spend their time?
This is the final lynchpin in developing a strategy, because you have to be where your customers are.  If your customers are corporate clients who have an internal purchasing department, then you need to spend time using their channels to get on their approved buyer list — their process usually preclude online research until it’s a last resort.

Not all customers are available via the same channels.  You need to know who your customers are to figure out how to find them.  And then figure out what internet marketing channels make the most sense.

What’s the state of your content?
As a content strategist, this is actually my last step once all of the above have been examined.  What kind of content you need on your site will depend on your product/service, your sales process and your customer base.  You can have the greatest product in the world, but if you can’t articulate it in a compelling way on your site, you will never see any conversion.

Conversely, you could have tons of great content, but if it is not organized in an intuitive and meaningful way for your customers, and if it’s not focused enough to have findable keyword value, then you could be wasting your time and effort generating content that is not serving your goal.

I start off most of my content workshops by telling attendees, “Don’t drink the SEO Kool-Aid!”  Too many people think it’s a silver bullet that is going to make or break their business.  And sure, it can be a big help, and when someone comes looking for you, you absolutely need to be findable.  Twenty years ago businesses did that buy being in the phone book.  Today we do it by being online.

But how much time and effort you should really be sinking into your SEO is a different question, and it does not have a straight forward answer.  So beyond Mark’s original warning against those who offer you guarentees, I’ll toss out a second warning: not everyone needs to be #1 on the search engines.  And the truth is, not everyone can be.  Developing an appropriate web presence is unique to every business.  Don’t let anyone sell you on the one-size-fits all fantasy.

(This post is part of my Entrepreneur Evangelist series and was originally published on WorkingPoint‘s Small Business Blog.)

Barn Builders matches unemployed professionals with start-ups and other small businesses in need of their talents.  Barn Builders focuses primarily on building social capital to rebuild the economy.  The hardcopy version of ABJ includes the article and picture on the cover.

As a boss, project manager and organizational leader, the problem is that this question is a bigger trick question than for the average person. I am someone who is expected to get things done. Now, the reality is, most of those things I do not do myself. I get them done by organizing and mobilizing a team of specialists to execute against a plan of action. So that means that my success is dependent on other people.

One of the first lessons I learned as a 24-year-old project manager was that it does not matter which I prefer. What truly matters is what my team needs. And the real danger to this question is that different people need different things.

I used to have a gentleman on my team who was notoriously prickley. Being friends was not part of his MO when it came to work. He had a job to do, he was there to do it. Fuzzy friendly stuff was of no use to him. What was important for me was to understand that. Who cares if what I want is to be liked? The fact is that trying to get that guy to like me was not what he needed from me. All he cared about was respect — whether he felt respected and whether he respected the people around him. “Like” was not part of his equation, and people who wasted time on it were not ones he respected.

Conversely, I had another person on my team who needed a ‘big sister.’ He needed a boss (to be sure), but he needed one with velvet gloves: someone who could be sensitive to his needs, who could guide and advise him, who could encourage and support him, who could help him make plans to meet goals, etc. Yes, he respected me. But that was only possible because he liked and trusted me first and foremost.

One of the biggest failures I see in leaders is assuming that one-size-fits-all leadership works. It doesn’t. People are not IT systems. You can’t configure them to your convenience, turn them on and then walk away.

If you have people on your staff, they are individuals working for an individual — and you failing to meet their need as a manager is the single biggest cause for their departure. So the best way not to fail, is not to assume that everyone responds to the same carrots the same way. Some really do prefer the stick.

So these days, my answer to the question of whether I think it is more important to be liked or respected is simple: “Who cares what is more important to me? The question that really matters is, ‘What’s more important to my team?’”

I still vividly remember client phone calls in which executives on the other end of the phone could barely contain their disdain, because — in their view — the web was a fad that would eventually fade away, and there was no reason for them to invest anything in it at all. Obviously, even the most die-hard ludites have eventually capitulated to the realities of an online world and succumbed to the importance of the web for the survival and growth of their business.

One of the most critical lessons we have learned over the years, though, is how to get better about separating out the technical parts of a solution, so that it no longer takes hand-coding HTML in order to update content. The advent of the straight-forward, open source CMS is one of the greatest things that could have ever happened to small business.

Of course, with power comes the power to make mistakes — and in a world where your customer’s first impression of you is often your website, that means that developing an appropriate and aesthetically pleasing website is vital to your online success, even if your core business is not web-based.

Indigo Heron is excited to announce the launch of a new set of products and services tailored to meet this need. In addition to our consulting services, designed to provide this capability for our clients, we are now also developing the training needed to help clients understand the basics, and learn to self-serve as much as they would like to tackle on their own. Training will be available in class settings, on-site private sessions for your team, or online.

Training services will focus on:

• Getting a straight-forward CMS implemented
• Configuring the most relevant widgets and add-ons appropriate for your site
• Organizing your content to support good Information Architecture practices
• Understanding SEO’s most vital Do’s and Don’t's
• Writing strong SEO-friendly site copy
• The basics of online marketing and advertising
• Social media tools, how to use them and when
• eCommerce best practices, technologies and solutions
• Website hosting needs, considerations and options

As always, Indigo Heron is available to provide any of these services (and more) to companies in need, but we also realize that for the best possible on-going care and management of your website, a basic understanding of how things work and why cannot be skipped or assumed.

If you are interested in joining an upcoming training session, or in having us come on-site to your business to provide training for you, your team, or your group, please contact us.

In the development of a new startup, a team of project management consultants was organized to develop an RFP to find qualified technical services providers who would be able to build the web site and application at the heart of the new venture.

During the course of the effort, however, something came up which surprised me a bit: a difference among the consulting team about what made good (and even appropriate) requirements documentation and what did not. This surprised me a bit because, after having been doing this for more than a decade and seeing how much the industry and discipline have both matured over time, I did not realize that there were still debates on this matter occurring out in the wild anywhere.

So what are good requirements?
In order to write good requirements, it is important to separate out the “what” question from the “how” question. Confused? Here’s an example:

• Bad requirement: Provide a drop-down list of choices.
• Good requirement: Provide the user the ability to select from pre-determined options.

Why not just go with the first choice? Because telling someone to just use “a drop-down” list is dictating both design and functionality. And if you are providing your functional requirements to a provider – who is presumably an expert – then part of what you are asking for is to create the best, and more technically appropriate solution possible.

Now, we could spend weeks going round and round on the different type of requirements: business requirements, functional requirements, non-functional requirements, user requirements, etc. There are plenty of good analysis breakdowns online for what constitutes which one, who uses which type and why. But the key thing for a good consultant to know is which type of requirements are appropriate for the type of project and the audience — because, I promise you, a non-technical business client isn’t going to know the answer to that themselves. Part of what they are paying you for is expertise on what they need to be providing. In this case, we are dealing with a non-technical client for the purposes of finding them a technical vendor to deliver a solution that will meet the needs of their new business. So, in effect — and my apologies to the purists out there — what we were looking for was a combination of business requirements and functional requirements.

In a world of increasingly vital cross-platform applications (iPhone apps, Blackberry apps, etc.) and new UI-driven technologies (Flex/AIR, Ruby on Rails, etc.) this distinction becomes increasingly vital, because different technologies handle these issues natively in different ways. And while a drop-down menu may just be a drop-down menu, there are other design elements that can inadvertently limit your technology if you aren’t clear on the line between the “what” and the “how.”

Another thing to keep in mind is that — again, in a world of prolific cross-platform application development — wherever possible, you’re going to want to get the most bang for your buck out of requirements documents. This means that, while today you may only be building a website, next month you could need to recycle that requirements documentation out to an iPhone developer to build you an app for that platform.

The design logistics of different platforms are inherently different. Unless you want to have to re-write everything to be platform-specific, cut out the “how” all together and keep the requirements platform agnostic so that you can send them to any vendor for any platform built on any technology.

As a project manager or business analyst the goal is to capture the business’ need in a way that gives a web team the ability to provide the critical functionality with the least amount of unnecessary restriction. The biggest danger in that role is to unintentionally impose potentially costly restrictions without realizing it. By including the “how” instead of just the “what” in your requirements, you are potentially limiting solution options — dictating that X needs to be placed over here, or that the page needs to be subdivided a certain way may not be the best or more logical way for a particular technology to work. As a result, you could be giving your potential solution providers a mixed message. Worse yet, it can be a mixed message that hurts the project.