What We're Saying

Guest post by Justin Gray, CEO of LeadMD

If I had just one prospect, I would give them a hell of a lot of attention. Every message would be spot on and tailored to their needs. If they downloaded a whitepaper on ROI, I would immediately send them a link to our ROI calculator and then track to see if they used it. Once they became a customer I would treat them like gold. They would hear from me once per week, maybe more, with helpful hints and tricks to be a better customer.  I would deliver extraordinary customer service and notify them of changes and issues IMMEDIATELY.

The problem is I would go out of business. I'm not Tom Hagan in The Godfather.  I can't afford to have one client and I certainly can't afford to focus on only one prospect.  So what does this mean?  It means I have to speak to every prospect like I personally wrote the communication.  How do I scale in order to do that?  Content.  I have to have a TON of content.

So the question then becomes, what content to choose?  Third party content is the best thing in the world.  Well, maybe a close 8th.  Third party adds credibility.  So why doesn't everyone do it?  Its expensive.  An average cost for an analyst whitepaper is 10-30k.  Licensing can be more, and that’s nuts. But how important is content? I started LeadMD with $100K and $100K of it went into content.  Most people would think THAT'S nuts.  But what I quickly learned was that third party articles and commentary performed just as well as expensive third party whitepapers and ebooks.  In fact, it established me as a thought leader and I get more frequency and more variance so I can use them for marketing.

So, how does PR play into this content game? Here are a few ways we work with Ubiquity to feed the marketing engine:

To write content
UPR allows me to pass content through someone who doesn't operate within my walls.  I think that’s the number one issue with marketers – they speak like they are talking to themselves.  They are cutoff from what resonates with actual buyers.  UPR helps me maintain that independence.

To push us
We love to write but I need someone keeping us on task. UPR establishes all of the media relationships and handles getting us great placement. They do this very well. Let's be honest, no editor one wants to hear me pitch them.  I love the service too much.  Everything comes off sales heavy. 

To distribute content
UPR socializes our content through their channels and get us more, and better thought leadership gigs.

And how do we use all of that great content that UPR is helping us generate?

For demand generation.  Articles are a great way to "hook" a prospect.  We want them to say, "Hey, these guys know what they are talking about!" and then subscribe to see more. The content generated by UPR and...

I was just searching for the first post I wrote for this blog to send to a client. It was this one about messaging being like chicken. As I was searching I came across another blog post from July 2009. It was a list just published by Guy Kawasaki, “A Dozen Don’ts for Entrepreneurs.”

I re-read the list and realized that I think about it often. None of these tips are dated, and they’re so true. So I thought I’d resurface it for the peanut gallery. Enjoy!

1. Don’t worry, be crappy. Perfectionism, first of all, is an illusion. Nothing is perfect. Even worse, perfection stands in the way of revenue and truly learning what customers think because nothing is in their hands yet. When your product is “good enough” (but not “perfect”), ship it, and see what happens. 
2. Don’t give out lofty titles. Just because a roommate was there during the drunken weekend when you came up with the idea for your company, doesn’t mean he should be CTO. Someday, you’ll need to hand out titles like director, vice-president, and chief whatever officer, so keep them in reserve. Until then refer to each other as “co-founders” and describe the area of responsibility: for example, “programming.” If your roommates aren’t cool with this, they’re doing you a favor by showing their colors now. 
3. Don’t hire your family. The probability that your spouse or relative is the best person you can get for a job is 0%. The probability that people will hate working at company with spouses and relatives is 100%. The probability that one of you will have to go someday is also 100%. Never hire out of expediency. Always hire the best person you can get. This usually means not hiring your family unless you’re Jack or Suzy Welch.By the way, if you both hire your family and give them a lofty title, you are truly a bozo. 
4. Don’t sweat valuation. This is easy for a venture capitalist to say, but your company is either going to die or make you more money than you imagined. Whether you have 10% or 15% and whether your pre-money valuation is $2 million or $3 million isn’t going to really matter. Do the math: 15% of $0 is $0, so stop negotiating, take the money, and build something that’s worth more than $0. Whatever valuation a venture capitalist offers you, increase it by 20% and counter her offer. This is just enough to show that you’re not a pushover, but not too much that it will prolong or blow up the negotiations. 
5. Don’t believe venture capitalists. Having said that you shouldn’t sweat valuation, you shouldn’t believe venture capitalists. It’s not that we’re all liars—we just don’t finish our sentences. Rule of thumb: add “as long as things are going well” to everything a venture capitalist tells you. For example, “I am investing in your team” or “I will be there for you.” 
6. Don’t create lofty forecasts that you call “conservative.” You...