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The Solo, Micro & Small Business Manifesto

Creator

The Solo, Micro & Small Business Manifesto was created by Flying Solo – a solo, micro and small business community with headquarters in Sydney Australia.

Purpose

The Solo, Micro & Small Business Manifesto is a summary of “what we believe makes a successful and happy soloist.” A soloist is a person who runs a solo, micro or small business.

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The Solo, Micro & Small Business Manifesto

Why I have chosen soloism

Unlike employment, soloism allows me to feel liberated not obligated
In Soloville the playing fields are perfectly level.
Work assumes its proper place alongside the rest of my life.
I prefer working in the absence of a formal workplace structure.
Soloism allows me to create my own measures of success.
I have the freedom to be spontaneous.
Soloism enables me to make the most of being myself.
I get to keep my priorities at the top of my action list.

Why I am suited to flying solo

I maintain a healthy level of self-confidence.
I’m self-aware and naturally inquisitive.
I enjoy being mentally stimulated.
I strive for authenticity and integrity in all I do.
I’m proactive and enjoy fully participating.
I hold myself accountable and do not make excuses.
I am disciplined and responsible with money.

Why it’s so good for me

I have the freedom to fully express myself through my work.
What I do is totally congruent with who I am.
I feel an overriding sense of freedom each and every day.
I face my future head-on. There?s no hiding.
I do not have to unwind. The pace of my business is the pace of my life.
Soloism constantly stretches and challenges my boundaries and limitations.
Soloism gives me the confidence to hold my ground.

What I believe

I know that if others can do it, I can do it.
If this is a ‘job’, it’s a damn fine one!
I champion innovation and free thinking.
Live for the present and enjoy it to the full.
I respect the relationship between beliefs and outcomes and channel my thoughts accordingly.
If I?m not passionate about my work, I need to do something else.
With the right attitude I?ll be a magnet for inspirational ideas.
An inspiring vision must always be at the heart of my solo venture.
Being myself is not just good for my soul, it?s good for business.
By loving my work I attract opportunities and promote word-of-mouth referrals.
It’s better to be heard well by one person than forgotten by five hundred.
The secret to managing time is to first know what I?m trying to do with it.

The way I work

I run my solo business as I choose.
I set my own pace.
I engage and participate fully in all that I do.
I don’t need permission to take a break from anyone other than me.
I don’t need to follow the example of bigger businesses.
I focus on what I have, not on what I do not have.
I conduct my business from wherever I choose.
I freely share my knowledge and wisdom with others.
I listen deeply to my clients and prospects, developing genuine empathy with them.
I have balance within life and work, not between life and work.
I position myself firmly in the flow of ideas, influences and information.
I like to get the ear of influential people.
I take responsibility for my mistakes.
While I may do what others do, I strive to do it better and do it my way.
I acknowledge the role of research and development in the evolution of my business.
I consider my clients and customers to be my partners.
I attach great importance to the relationships around me.
I work to surround myself with supporters.
I do not binge; I’m consistent in my actions.
I know when and where to focus my energies.
I know the value of my work and charge accordingly.
I have determined my rates and do not work for less.
I do not carry junk and clutter in my work.
I have a clear means of reviewing my performance and do so regularly.
I protect my energy sources by taking breaks.
I put myself first.

Source

The Solo, Micro & Small Business Manifesto

Comment

The Solo, Micro & Small Business Manifesto fits beautifully with Principle #5 of the Manifesto Manifesto: ‘Manifestos define us’ in their use of the words ‘soloism’ and ‘soloist’. Whilst they’re not the most elegant words they do give the people who run a solo business a name and an identity. This

I think this manifesto needs an edit. There are some great themes and values here that I resonate with in my solo business. However, it feels like it was created by a committee that couldn’t make a decision. It’s trying to cover too much territory and loses it’s impact. It could be split into several related manifestos or simply edited.

Birdsong Gregory Manifesto

Creator: Birdsong Gregory delivers ‘integrated shopper marketing campaigns to help our clients grow’ and are based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Purpose: A statement of beliefs and views as to how to successfully enhance your marketing and branding in the digital age.

Branding Manifesto

We have killed the Golden Age of Advertising with our smart phones, TiVo, pop-up blockers, and a hundred other new disintermediary tools.

Long live the empowered consumer. Farewell to the quaint notion of a linear path to purchase. That path has become a raging river, and from the high ground, we witness the retail landscape taking new forms.

Moving people from indifference to action has never been easier. Moving people from indifference to action has never been harder.

Until now, marketing has been a department, ads an expensive, inefficient interruption, and brands have taken our loyalty and attention for granted. you have only two choices: evolve or become irrelevant.

Birdsong Gregory celebrates a new era of commerce: one where shoppers make decisions based on objective truth and authentic 1:1 engagement – not empty intrusive promises. Brand equity is built one positive online review at a time, and you will earn my purchase – not buy it.

We believe marketing actually needs to be useful, providing relevant information and meaningful inspiration. In the networked economy, consumers trust consumers more than they trust brands.

Thanks to the Digital Revolution, a brand can deliver a singular message to a specific person at precisely the right time. After all, the Web isn’t just one channel or device. It’s a medium that has inspired a thousand other media.

Another word for creativity? Courage.

We want to help you say and do things that matter. What’s the use of giving a skeptical audience more of the same? Let’s start by being honest and authentic. Let’s create memorable experiences and passionate conversations.

We believe in the limitless potential of the new shopper marketing paradigm. It is time to demolish the walls between what people want and what you have to give them. The essential elements of our work will be originality and excitement.

Source

Manifesto on BirdsonGregory.com

Mike Markkula: The Apple Marketing Philosophy

Creator: Mike Markkula was an investor and for a short time the third partner in Apple with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

Purpose: Markkula wrote this three point call to action as a basic philosophy for the fledgling Apple computer.

Manifesto

Point No. 1: Empathy

Apple should strive for an “intimate” connection with customers’ feelings. “We will truly understand their needs better than any other company,” Markkula wrote.

Point No. 2: Focus

To be successful, Apple should center its efforts on accomplishing its main goals, and eliminate all the “unimportant opportunities.”

Point No. 3: Impute

Apple should be constantly aware that companies and their products will be judged by the signals they convey. “People DO judge a book by its cover,” Markkula wrote. “We may have the best product, the highest quality, the most useful software etc.; if we present them in a slipshod manner, they will be perceived as slipshod; if we present them in a creative, professional manner, we will impute the desired qualities.”

Source

Found here: Blog Post by Jason Fell, technology editor of Entrepreneur.com

Original source: Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. Book cover used as image on this page.

Wikibon Community: Big Data Manifesto

Creator: “Wikibon is a professional community solving technology and business problems through an open source sharing of free advisory knowledge.” (from their website)

Purpose: Business Analytics drives business decisions and the better the date the better the analytical insight. Small data is centrally controlled data. Big data proposes a new way to structure and organisation data in response to the flood of data now coming from a wide variety of sources such as the internet, mobile devices and other networked devices.

Manifesto (Introduction only)

Big Data is the new definitive source of competitive advantage across all industries. Enterprises and technology vendors that dismiss Big Data as a passing fad do so at their peril and, in our opinion, will soon find themselves struggling to keep up with more foreword-thinking rivals. For those organizations that understand and embrace the new reality of Big Data, the possibilities for new innovation, improved agility, and increased profitability are nearly endless.

Source

Full Manifesto and image from Jeff Kelly on Wikibon.org

Peter Armstrong: The Lean Publishing Manifesto

Creator: Peter Armstrong is the Co-founder of Leanpub and Ruboss. He is also the author of several books including Lean Publishing.

Purpose: Books and writing are changing. And given most books are written in isolation or in stealth it is easy to write a book that nobody wants to buy/read. The Lean Publishing Manifesto suggests a way around this.

Manifesto (highlights)

Lean Publishing is the act of self-publishing a book while you are writing it, evolving the book with feedback from your readers and finishing a first draft before using the traditional publishing workflow, with or without a publisher.

In short: Lean Publishing is the act of self-publishing an in-progress book.

The Lean Publishing How-To Guide for Non-Fiction

Step 1: Blog and Tweet to Find Your Voice and Build An Audience

Step 2: Write the Minimum Viable Book

What’s a Minimum Viable Book? It’s the smallest in-progress subset of your book that you could sell and be able to claim with a straight face that it is worth the money right now.

Step 3: Start Marketing and Selling the In-Progress Minimum Viable Book

Step 4: Finish the First Draft with Constant Feedback from your Readers

Step 5: Polish, Market and Sell the Completed Book, Possibly with a Traditional Publisher

Source

Complete Article and Manifesto

Velocity Partners: B2B Marketing Manifesto

Creator: Velocity Partners is a consulting-led B2B marketing agency based in Richmond, Surrey (UK).

Purpose: “…the traditional rules of B2B Marketing have been erased and rewritten. Your potential buyers don’t buy the way they used to. Your sales people don’t (and can’t) sell the way they used to – and your competitors don’t compete the way they used to. That’s assuming, of course that you can recognise your competitors, because your prospects have never had more options.

B2B Marketing Manifesto

Velocity Partners identify 6 key staples of B2B Marketing – and make a compelling case for every one of them.

1. Content Marketing: converting your insight into campaigns that change people’s minds

2. Analytics: measuring everything that moves in your marketing (and the stuff that doesn’t)

3. A/B Testing: backing your hunches with real-life data – and responding accordingly

4. Lead Nurturing: cultivating your prospects until they are ready to take the next step in their buying journey with you

5. Search: getting found using the terms your prospects use when they go looking for answers

6. Community: hanging out (and contributing) in the places where your prospects go for trusted advice

Source

Complete Article by Bob Apollo on MyVenturePad.com – 20 September 2011

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Velocity Partners UK website

David G Cohen: The Mentor Manifesto

Creator: David Cohen is the founder and CEO of TechStars, a mentorship-driven seed stage investment program for Internet startups.

Purpose: What does it take to be a great mentor?

Manifesto

• Be socratic.

• Expect nothing in return (you’ll be delighted with what you do get back).

• Be authentic / practice what you preach.

• Be direct. Tell the truth, however hard.

• Listen too.

• The best mentor relationships eventually become two-way.

• Be responsive.

• Adopt at least one company every single year. Experience counts.

• Clearly separate opinion from fact.

• Hold information in confidence.

• Clearly commit to mentor or do not. Either is fine.

• Know what you don’t know. Say I don’t know when you don’t know. “I don’t know” is preferable to bravado.

• Guide, don’t control. Teams must make their own decisions. Guide but never tell them what to do. Understand that it’s their company, not yours.

• Accept and communicate with other mentors that get involved.

• Be optimistic.

• Provide specific actionable advice, don’t be vague.

• Be challenging/robust but never destructive.

• Have empathy. Remember that startups are hard.

Source

Blog post on DavidGCohen.com – 28 August 2011.

Mark Lieberman: TV’s No-Freeloader Manifesto

Creator: Mark Lieberman is co-founder, Chairman and CEO of TRA, Inc., a leading media analytics, software and research technology firm. Over the course of his career he has started several media/technology companies (Sarnoff Real Time, DIVA, Interactive Video Technologies) and served as Associate Deputy Secretary and Assistant Secretary for Technology (Acting) during the first Bush Administration (1989-1991), EVP of Reed Elsevier Business Information, and President of About.com Ventures.

Purpose: A call to media companies and advertisers to upgrade their thinking around their business models and the future of TV.

Manifesto

To all you advertisers, marketers and media buyers out there — Have you ever considered the fact that at least a portion of your audience hates you?

OK, maybe they don’t hate you. But you sure do annoy the heck out of them? At least the 75% that aren’t the right audience to begin with. After all, you interrupt their favorite programs with ads they don’t want to watch, for products they don’t intend to buy.

They’re not customers; they’re freeloaders.

They get their favorite shows for free, while you fund those shows for them with your ad dollars. And they’re ruining your advertising ROI. So why not get rid of the freeloaders and replace them with customers?

After all, whether your audience wants to admit it, you are paying good money to entertain them. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. ??Just like Google users put up with display ads, NPR listeners tolerate fundraising drives, and magazine readers deal with those annoying little postcards, television audiences have always had to suffer through commercial breaks or make quick pit stops at the fridge.

Since the beginning of television, this has been an unwritten understanding between programmers, advertisers, and viewers: One plays, one pays, one stays.

But these days, audiences no longer have to stay. They can skip commercials without even leaving the couch. They can watch online with lighter commercial loads, if any. They can even pay directly for content, cutting you out of the mix altogether. (Another Steve Jobs legacy: There are few if any freeloaders in Apple’s world; every customer gets what he/she pays for.)

Even so, television remains the most powerful marketing medium around. ??Data from eMarketer shows TV ad spending keeping pace with online. And even though TV is projected to stay flat over the next four years while Internet grows by 40% (as a percentage of overall marketing spend, that is), TV ad revenues will still be 50% greater than Internet ad revenues in 2015.

As Sam Gustin wrote in Wired a few months ago, “Advertisers know they can still reach millions of people…who flock to such programming as “Jersey Shore,” “Glee” and “Gossip Girl.”

A Microsoft/BBDO joint report cited by Bloomberg News chalked television’s unmatched marketing resonance up to the fact that “its audience is receptive and waiting to be entertained.”

But TV advertising — any advertising, in fact — only works when it reaches the right audiences.

And remember that demographics don’t buy products, consumers do.

So you need to make sure that the programming you pay for is going to entertain viewers who are interested in purchasing your product. And that means minimizing freeloaders. So don’t cut your ad budgets, cut the waste out of them.

Let’s face it: Freeloaders aren’t going away.

Not unless you change where you advertise by honing your media strategy. The data’s there — set-top-box data, household-purchase info, demographic data — but it’s up to you to use it. And you don’t have to necessarily buy the long tail in order to get the last 20 points of reach. Use the solution that gives you the reach you want — at the price you want — against your own current ROI-driving purchaser segments.

Replace the freeloaders in your audience with customers who are interested in your product, and who buy your product (or your competitor’s product, if you’re feeling feisty). It’s only sensible, and it’s only efficient. Your ROI will thank you.

Source

Post on MediaPost.com, 30 August 2011

Zappos: Core Values Frog!

Creator: Zappos sells clothing, shoes, bags, etc and is renowned for its customer service.

Purpose: To define the Zappos Family culture.

Manifesto : Core Values Frog!

The best thing about the Zappos Family is our unique culture. As we grew as a company, we didn’t want to lose that culture, and we wanted a way to share it with all employees and anyone else who touches Zappos.com.

We created these ten core values to more clearly define what exactly the Zappos Family culture is. They are reflected in everything we do and every interaction we have. Our core values are always the framework from which we make all of our decisions.

When searching for potential employees, we’re looking for people who both understand the need for these core values and are willing to embrace and embody them. To help us along, every day, in every situation we ask ourselves: What would Core Values Frog do…?

1. Deliver Wow Through Service

2. Embrace and Drive Change

3. Create Fun and a Little Weirdness

4. Be Adventurous, Creative and Open-Minded

5. Pursue Growth and Learning

6. Build Open and Honest Relationships with Communication

7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit

8. Do More with Less

9. Be Passionate and Determined

10. Be Humble

Source

Zappos Core Values on their Website

Sue Polinsky: 10 Rules For Your Small Business Home Page

Creator: Sue Polinsky, blogger for Download Squad.

Purpose: To avoid having a small business website that sucks.

Manifesto: 10 rules for your small business home page (edited)

1. WHO ARE YOU?

Contact information is critical to your site visitors and it shouldn’t be hidden on the “contact us” page.

2. WHAT DO YOU DO??

Is there a single statement that says what you do or sell smack in the middle of your homepage?

3. WHERE IS IT??

Does your site have a homepage search field?

4. OUCH! MY EYES!

Did you go through your font list for the weirdest fonts that exist, add neon color and then enlargify them?

5. BIGGER ISN’T BETTER

If you don’t know how to work with photos on the Web, hire someone who does.

6. LIGHTS! CAMERA! ACTION!?

Generally, if you’re selling anything online, lose the total-page Flash and make the site look sleek, professional and trustworthy.

7. TOO BIG, TOO SMALL, JUST RIGHT?

If you’re not sure how to make the page flexible, then make it wide enough for an average monitor (750 pixels, and if you don’t know what pixels are, please hire a Web person).

8. NEW FROM 2004!?

If your homepage has news or upcoming events and the latest one happened in 2004, get it off your homepage. In fact, get “news” off your homepage because no one updates their site often enough.

9. HELP! I’M LOST!?

Navigation (links) should be clear, logical and intuitive. If I can’t find what I want from your homepage, I’m leaving.

10. NOTHING TO SAY??

If you have nothing to say, delete that page from your site.

Source

For the complete article on Download Squad