This week’s Podcast Review is about the Podcast SmallBizSurvival

Description: This small series of Podcasts by Becky McCray may be just starting out but she is on the right track, the podcasts are focused on providing small business leadership and management advice. Becky’s podcast and her blog focus on small business in both rural and small town areas.

Comments: Each podcast is only 2-4 minutes long but each carries a great deal of content because they focus on the KEY issues a small business leader should be paying attention to.

No fancy production values (sound quality is excellent though), music inserts, commercials or radio bumpers in this podcast, just sound thinking for leaders.

Pluses: Great content as mentioned, Becky’s outstanding speaking voice and articulation on the podcast. If you are time pressed these 2-4 minute packed snippets will be worth your time. Excellent download time and good sound clarity. Each podcast page provides links to relevant articles related to that show topic a very nice touch. Ability to subscribe to the podcast RSS feed is available.

Minuses: The website structure could make it easier to find the podcasts. The links to all available shows are near the bottom of the right hand column on the webpage. If they could be moved to the top so site visitors could find them quicker and easier it would be great. Ultimately there needs to be a page with the listing and links for listeners to gain access to archived content. Make the RSS Feed button nearer the top as well.

We recommend that you check out the SmallBizSurvival podcast and subscribe!

Posted by Steve Rucinski | Comments (0) | Permalink

Your Business Blogger, as Alert Readers know, is a cheerleader for lifelong learning. If there is a seminar that can improve my skills, such as they are, I’m in.

So to improve and polish my communication, I though I’d sit at the feet of a wise instructor. And ask questions.

To pick an instructor who could help me in this continuous learning, I wondered, who would Rush Limbaugh work with?

That would be Stephen D. Clouse who teaches at the highest levels in entertainment and politics.

I joined Stephen as he taught at the Leadership Institute in Arlington, Virginia. The purpose and passion of Clouse’s work is to train leaders to communicate, to persuade.

To be effective, Clouse says, you must be likeable. Willie Loman, in Death of a Salesman, would step out into the world with “a shoeshine and smile.” And have a desparate need to be liked. Which is not unlike the first step in the sales process of establishing rapport.

But Clouse was talking about more than a need to be liked — he emphasized that to succeed at the highest levels and to persuade, you must truly like people.

Enjoy people? Like people?

I’m doomed.

But there might be help for you. Clouse gave a number of tips to improve your likeability — by improving your vocals.

1) Speak slowly. Clouse reminds us that the great communicators from Larry King to Bill Clinton to Ronald Reagan have a very slow speech delivery.

2) Enunciate each word completely. Many of us will trail off at the end of our sentences. Clouse says, “A microphone is cruel to those who do this because everything is captured and conveyed.”

3) Punch key words. Your listening audience wants to learn, and more important, to be entertained.

4) Extend vowels. Conveys warmth and emotion.

5) Natural voice in an ‘audio check.’ The sound tech will adjust levels to your voice. Be natural.

Which may require practice. The professionals make it look effortless.

And use professionals to coach. If you would like to reach Stephen D. Clouse, I’d be honored to make the introduction. This is an unpaid endorsement.

To communicate well will require practice. And practice. For your big show biz break read these 10 Tips. And remember,

Ronald Reagan had six years of voice lessons.

Posted by Jack Yoest | Comments (1) | Permalink

Steve Popovich — the man behind the success of many great musical artists like Bruce Springsteen, Boz Scaggs, Chicago, Earth Wind & Fire, Barbara Streisand, Chicago, Janis Joplin, Boston, Cheap Trick, Tom Jones, Johnny Cash, Ronnie Spector, Ted Nugent, Meat Loaf and more — tells the story of his decade long battle against Sony/BMG music.

From lessons learned growing up in the coal-mining area of Southwestern Pennsylvania, Steve has always brought integrity as a value to his business and personal affairs.

Learn more about how Steve has been and continues to fight for the right things for his business even when it means taking on a giant.

Packed with lessons for business owners as well as musicians, read more and listen to the story of One Man Against Sony Music.

Posted by Steve Rucinski | Comments (0) | Permalink

This week’s Podcast Review is about Like Nobody’s Business (LNB), hosted by Lalita Amos, owner of Total Team Solutions.

Description: Lalita challenges conventional thinking in an unconventional business world. She interviews key business professionals and serves up tips and ideas for business success.

Comments: These podcasts range in length from 8 to 35 minutes and consist mostly of Lalita speaking about recent business activities, sharing advice and insight from her journeys.

Topics range from culture, business, and sometimes eclectic topics like brain functions. She always does a nice job of linking the topic back to business.

The site is very nice and clicking on the play button launches a rapid ability to listen in seconds versus waiting for a download. She makes subscribing easy and lists several directories that the podcast is listed upon for the user to explore.

There is some music used in the podcast and Lalita has a great voice for audio.

Pluses: Rapid streaming of the audio from the website, information about length and size of the file is clearly displayed along with detailed show notes about the content of the audio. Good depth of coverage of many topics.

Minuses: Not much to say here — I would like her to stop and maybe summarize her points occasionally within the podcast so I can be sure to get the key takeaways.

We recommend that you add Like Nobody’s Business to your Podcast subscription list.

Posted by Steve Rucinski | Comments (0) | Permalink

We live in a sight and sound generation. The smart small business advertiser knows this. And will devote scarce advertising resources for the largest return on investment.

Reach, Frequency and Awareness drive the marketers’ attention on placing ad dollars. Among the choices today she will consider:

Audio

Visual

print-web-bytes

print-paper-atoms

So where is the future?

Not in newsprint. John S. Carroll, former editor of The Los Angeles Times recently said in a speech at Harvard that,

With the advent of the Web, our rotary presses, those massive machines that once conferred near monopolies on their owners, are looking more and more like the last steam engine.

Young readers are going online and not coming back. Circulation revenues are dwindling… Circulation itself is falling. Ad revenues are weak — not a good sign in a growing economy — and Web-based competitors are stealing our advertisers.

The dead-tree peddler/complainer is wrong: Web-based competitors are not stealing anything.

Readers have simply made a better decision on getting content. The reader decided. And it’s not a newspaper.

Why? Why are web-based competitors winning the readership, and for small businesses, the ad placements?

Glenn Reynolds writes in An Army of Davids that …power once concentrated in the hands of a professional few has been redistributed into those who (mostly) do it for fun. And that the reader of the web — blogs, like the outstanding site you are now on — controls her time and timing in choosing content.

The reader/listener will be at one of three places to download content:

1) Not at work. 2) On the way to work. Or 3) At work.

She can do a podcast or radio or web at each of the three locations. Workplace etiquette limits content consumption.

It is still considered bad form to read a newspaper at work. Worse yet to be watching TV at work. Although my wife, Charmaine, has a bank of three sets in her massive corner office, TV viewing would not be recommended if not directly part of your job description.

But everyone should be looking at a computer monitor while at work. And reading and studying intently. (The clever employee has a spread-sheet as a screen saver.)

The consumer not at work has other limitations. Your Business Blogger was advising a client on message mediums. The CEO was considering dropping his radio programming, to devote resources in other venues with possibly higher returns in the future. I advised his team to consider keeping the audio because it is not safe to watch a video monitor while driving a car. People listen to radio or a podcast in drive time.

What’s an advertiser to do? Consider a pod-cast or a blog to sponsor to get a precise targeted, motivated consumer. Because these content providers, as Glenn Reynolds says,

are …the people who are having fun...

Posted by Jack Yoest | Comments (0) | Permalink

Imagine you are competing for a large RFP at a significant prospect and you save your copies of the proposal drafts on a memory stick, you are traveling to deliver the proposal in the morning so you put the memory stick in your pocket to take home, then you meet your family for dinner. You expect to win the deal, life is good.

You wake up the next morning and discover you cannot find the memory stick, it must have fallen out at the restaurant. Now what do you do? Winning this client is critical.

This is just one small scenario of how a business asset can be put at risk and impact a business. I am sure each of us can think of situations we or others have had that are similar.

What can a small business do to identify and protect its assets and IP (Intellectual Property) effectively, how does one even assess the risks you might be under?

For the answer to these questions and more you need to listen to Part 4 of our series on ‘Productive Employees and Happy Bosses” with Michael Dees of esecurity-direct.com.

Start to protect YOUR assets by reading more and listening to Part 4 Protect Your Assets and IP

Be sure to also check out the first three parts in this great series:

Part 1: Hiring New Employees - The Technology They Need

Part 2: Employee Productivity through Technology

Part 3: Make Telecommuting Work

Posted by Steve Rucinski | Comments (0) | Permalink

This week’s Podcast Review is about Entrepreneur’s Journey by Yaro Starek a young entrepreneur from Australia who operates several Internet business.

Description: Like the companion blog and website the Entrepreneur’s Journey podcast is aimed at those interested in Internet business and entrepreneurship with 35 podcasts available covering topics from Enthusiasm for Business and Life to How to Launch a New Product.

Comments: With podcasts ranging from ‘how-to’ discussions on particular topics to interviews with prominent CEO’s and executives, Entrepreneur’s Journey brings a great deal of practical advice to the listener.

Each podcast has its own notes page providing some textual explanation to the content contained in the audio. Opportunities abound to help you subscribe to the podcast through your favorite RSS reader or by signing up for email notification.

The podcast are professionally produced, some use of music is applied and the quality of the audio is excellent. Shows are of various lengths, 20-40 minutes on average.

Pluses: I like Yaro’s style of communicating, personal, authentic, entertaining and very focused on providing the listener with valuable information. The site is first class and usually populated with listener comments so you can check them out for comments before committing to listening to any particular show.

Minuses: I could not find much room for improvement except my wish for more great podcasts.

We recommend that you add Entrepreneur’s Journey to your list of sources for small business information.

Posted by Steve Rucinski | Comments (3) | Permalink