I saw a lemonade stand today, something I haven’t seen in a long time. Warm childhood memories came rushing back as I watched the two kids playfully wait for their next sale. Naturally I had to buy a glass, and it was delicious.

It dawned on me that these two kids were probably netting a larger profit than most of the local businesses in the area, and that made me laugh! Because of their youth, inexperience, lack of formal education and outside influences, these kids were doing something simple and pure. They were focusing on one thing and doing it well.

They were selling lemonade. One flavor, one size and one price. There were no up sells or discounts, no additional employees and no complicated point of sale systems. “This is a cash only establishment,” the young girl firmly told me.

As we grow older and “wiser,” we tend to complicate things, in life and business. More is better we’re taught. More features, more products and more options. It’s taken me twelve years to realize this uncomplicated fact: Simplicity is key. A three word phrase that holds more power than any business book or publication.

37signals.com, Google, Facebook, In-n-out, Ipods, Flip cameras, Wikipedia, Craigslist, Youtube, Twitter, Tumblr, Plentyoffish.com and Subway. What do these businesses have in common? They are simple and focused.

When developing your new business concept, never be afraid to embrace that lemonade stand simplicity. Focus on the key objective of your business. If you’re developing a website, watch out for feature creep. If you’re opening a restaurant, keep the menu simple and stress quality over quantity of items.

As a thought experiment, I imagined what would have happened if I took over that lemonade stand for a week and let my little entrepreneurial devil go unchecked. First I’d buy a cash register, there’s no way I can trust these little kids to handle the money properly. I’d implement credit cards using my trusty Iphone credit card swiper, which means I’d also have to open a bank and merchant account. One flavor is boring, we need at least three. And while we’re at it, we should offer small and large sizes. While word of mouth advertising is good, I think we should make some discount coupons and hand them out around the neighborhood. Did you apply for your resell number yet? We’re going to need that if we plan on expanding throughout the rest of the neighborhood. Did you do a cost analysis on the lemonade yet? What do you mean you’re only 9, that’s business 101 kid! Better add a little more water to that mix so we maximize profit. This isn’t fun anymore? Stop complaining. Who said business is supposed to fun!? Give me a few years and I’ll turn you into Gordon Gekko.

See what I mean. It’s easy to complicate things. But don’t! Simplicity is key. Repeat that out loud until you’re blue in the face, and then repeat it some more!

And now it’s time for me to go back and get another lemonade..

Rework by Jason Fried and David Hansson

In the words of Seth Godin, this book will make you very uncomfortable and that is a good thing.

I love this book!

It’s an out of the box view of how to start and run a modern business. With chapter titles such as Meetings are Toxic, Your Estimates Suck, Drug Dealers get it Right and Resumes are Ridiculous,  Jason and David have turned the business world on its head.

In the spirit of this book, I’m keeping this review short and simple. This book is easy to read, straight forward, honest and cutting edge. Buy it, borrow it, read it.

Rome was not built in a day. Yea I know…so cliché, but so true. No matter what kind of business you plan on starting, the beginning is not going to go smooth. It never does and it never will.

Whether it is a restaurant or a dotcom, things just pop up and cause headaches. The only thing one needs to remember when this occurs is to stay calm and find solutions.

We unveiled our new menu tonight at my restaurant and it was chaos! It reminded me of our grand opening two years ago. Food was flying in all directions in the kitchen, customer wait times were exceeding 40 mins (yikes!), employees were getting into fights with each other and numerous other problems occurred. But as a seasoned entrepreneur, all I did was observe and learn.

Don’t try to fix all the problems at once. You’ll have a heart attack or your head will explode (seriously). Begin fixing problems or as I like to call them “inefficiencies” one at a time.

A clipboard and a calm demeanor can do wonders when observing your business (that not so well oiled machine) in action. I’ve noticed time and time again that many business owners get caught up in quickly “band-aiding” the problem instead of trying to understand why the problem occurred in the first place. That’s a total rookie move, and it took me 10 years to figure that out.

So when the sh%# hits the fan, just step aside, plug your nose and endure. If you keep a cool head and fix the cause of  the problems, everything will be just fine.

There are no one way streets in a successful social marketing campaign. Remember that.

Lately, I’ve noticed a lot of businesses trying to harness the power of social media. They register their Twitter accounts, start fan pages on Facebook and maybe even create their very own blog. That’s definitely a step in the right direction. However, that’s only the beginning.

Many businesses think this is enough and simply start blasting away with ads and bulls%@$, as they did “back in the day” through more traditional channels. A TV commercial is a one way street, as are most radio ads or billboards. Marketing via social media is not.

All one has to do is look at the phrase “social media,” social being the keyword here. It’s all about interacting with your customers. Not by simply posting events, alerts and ads (dare I say spam) on social media sites, but by seeking out and responding to customer feedback. Empower the customer, give them a sense of belonging and they will love you.

If a user comments on your Facebook fan page, respond to it. If someone new begins following you on Twitter, acknowledge and thank them. It can be that simple.

For anyone that still can’t grasp the idea of social media marketing, here it is in a nutshell: Interaction with customers, or perhaps we should now call them fans or friends, on a two way street, where communication flows back and forth.

That’s it! Now go forth and start building a fan base.

-Mike Mulhall

People start blogs for a variety reasons. Some start a blog to generate an income, some do it out of passion and many businesses create blogs to engage their existing customers. Blogging, which is an integral part of  any social media marketing strategy, can do wonders for a business, whether it be brick and mortar or virtual. The first question a potential blogger should ask is what are their motivations and expectations. Determining this will make choosing the correct blogging platform much easier.

Do you plan on creating an income generating website, or do you simply want to share your life, talents, expertise and opinions with the world? If the latter sounds more to your liking, then I would suggest checking out Tumblr or Posterous (a great mobile blogging platform). Simply sign up for an account and you will be blogging in less than two minutes. Seriously! However, these types of platforms have their strengths and weaknesses. See below:

• Strengths: Simplicity, ease of use, ease of cross-platform integration (facebook, twitter, etc.) and a built in audience. These platforms are built more for “lifecasters,” which many predict to be the future of social networking.
• Weaknesses: A lack of flexibility, they are very difficult to monetize, they don’t optimize well with search engines, they don’t have very much design potential and they lack features and add-on applications. These platforms operate in giant, semi-closed networks of  fellow bloggers that interact with one another, but have minimal contact with “non-bloggers” that are just surfing the net.

Now for everyone else out there that wishes to venture into the wild (the wild web that is), I would suggest checking out Wordpress. Wordpress is a blogging platform that requires more work and effort, but offers a lot more flexibility and potential. Here’s a simple breakdown of what you need to do to create your own self hosted blog:

1. Choose a hosting service. I use Godaddy, but there are a lot of these types of services out there. I like Godaddy because they’re a one stop shop for everything, they offer Wordpress specific hosting plans and they have good customer service.
2. Choose a domain name. I think people over emphasize choosing a name for their website sometimes. Create good content and people will find it no matter what. Food for thought: Myspace was actually a furniture website before becoming a social network and Google was supposed to be spelled “Googol.” They messed up the spelling when registering the domain. Oops!
3. Install Wordpress. If you don’t use Godaddy, you’ll have to install Wordpress. Go here for simple installation instructions.
4. Choose a theme. This is the fun part. Wordpress is incredibly flexible. Check out Themeforest, Rockettheme or Wordpress Themes. You can choose any theme you want for your blog and it requires no programming and little design work on your part.
5. Get some plug-ins. Wordpress has thousands of free plug-ins / add-ons that range from creating a chatroom on your blog to adding a shopping cart to automatically optimizing your site’s SEO.
6. Start writing! - And that’s it. Check out Mary’s post, Blogging 101, for great tips on how to successfully engage your readers.

For a great comparison of different blogging platforms, check out this article as well. It’s clear and concise.

Now get out there and start sharing. And if you need any help, don’t forget I’m always just a click away.

(You can also find this article at MoreThanMary.com as well as more very helpful articles on life, fashion, fitness and travel.)

I’m developing a new website that I just decided to name Crowdkindle.com. It’s one of the more basic websites I have in development, but it has me excited! It’s very much me!

I plan on merging the match.com concept with my own ideas. I hope to turn Crowdkindle into a place where those garage tinkering dreamers can share their thoughts and connect with like minded individuals.

The concept is creativity and innovation, my hope is collaboration and my goal is to free everyone’s minds. I think it will be a lot of fun and this is only the beta version.

Follow me as I take you through the steps of creating your own fully functioning website! I’ll be posting articles as I develop the site and show you the little tricks I’ve learned.

What do you think of the logo?? I greatly appreciate any feedback and ideas for the site!

The saying a picture is worth a thousand words could not be truer in today’s market. And if a picture is worth a thousand, then a video (well put together) is worth a hundred thousand.  For bloggers, this means posting more photos in their articles and more videos of themselves. For companies, it may mean more videos of end-users interacting with their products or perhaps photos or videos of company events.

The costs of electronics has taken a nose dive the past few years. Good digital camerasand HD flipcamsare very affordable at around $150. Sites such as Youtube and Vimeo are free services that allow users to upload and broadcast their videos. Flickr is another free site that allows users to upload large amounts of photos for online use and sharing. Clearly, the costs of production and broadcasting are no longer to expensive for small businesses or individuals.

Examples: Check out MoreThanMary.com to see great examples of how a successful blogger does it. Mary has mastered the art of using visuals online and I myself have learned tons from her. Another great site to check out is ShopWatchBuy.com. I just recently discovered this and love its creativity. This site has taken the visual concept to the next level by allowing users to sell their products using their own videos.

So bloggers…stop being camera shy (I totally am, but that’s going to change). As for businesses, start getting creative with advertising via multimedia, and start engaging with your customers.

This is a whole new type of branding, where creativity is more important than the budget. No more giant billboards. No more million dollar Super Bowl commercials. They’re being replaced with amateur videos that cost squat and can reach the hearts of millions.

Anyone who doesn’t think we’re surrounded by opportunities should take a look at the link above. Looking at what seems like high school yearbook photos of just “normal” looking kids, I can’t help but feel encouraged and even excited.

Some of these guys and girls used creativity and innovation, some used passion and some just got lucky. Some may have had a little more start up capital than others, but look at #35. He started that site with nothing, got a little publicity and his concept exploded…it was F’in brilliant!

#18 started with a simple forum for webmasters. #6 is one of the simplest concepts I’ve ever seen. #2 blows my mind and makes me realize how much money is really in social gaming.

My point is, if they can do it…you can do it. We can do it.