EkaBlog - Site Blog for Ekaweeka the Small Business Community

We installed an error page re-direct today. It isn't totally functional yet, but it sends us an email every time an error is encountered. This was great in an ironic way because there is a silent bug in the mix right now. This one particular bug happens on nearly every page, although no one ever sees the consequence we get an email when each page is loaded. And well, we have been getting hundreds of emails.

This was quite a pleasant surprise. Needless to say we are trying to fix the dormant bug, but in the meantime we know we're getting plenty of hits. We could have seen this traffic in many other devices but for some reason the bug emails were charming.

Charming, and also indicative of the fact that people are exploring Ekaweeka yet not signing up. We are getting new accounts but not nearly as many as there are people jumping from page to page. This can be fixed in a few ways, unfortunately the most likely and obvious of ways would be a tactic which I personally consider very annoying. The tactic I am referring to is of course the function that allows site browsers to look at a certain number of pages which require the user to be logged in before requesting they log in. I have always hated this tool, it is obvious and seemling counter productive, but it may just be the only way to tell people to stay for a price or leave if they don't want to participate. Afterall they are enjoying the content provided by others who chose to contribute.

I've imagined Ekaweeka to be a place where anyone could come in and buy something without being a member, but this may just be a naive perspective. We shall see, we'll do our best, but if you people don't start giving us a reason not to, we may just have to follow the heard.

There is much going on here for Ekaweeka on many fronts. We've raised a nice amount of attention from around the world, our family of shops and services have grown with the addition of wood workers, soap makers, screenplay writers and more. We have snagged a couple folks from the UK and Australia which is so exciting.

Can I take a second to digress though? Cause we just got back to Hollywood on the 30th and compared to the chilly air and gray mornings in Nor Cal, I am loving LA!!! It is 70 degrees fahrenheit which feels like 85 in the direct sunlight. Lets see here.. its 52 in Palo Alto (Bay Area), 40 in Chicago, 45 in London, 46 in New York, and 42 in Moscow....hmmm why did I ever grow up with a such a bad idea of LA? The question boggles my mind.

Anyhow back to Eka news, how about this, we fixed the image deletion on the edit item page YAY!!!!!

Alright already there is work to be done!

This just in, Briana of Love Briana stopped by the Ekaweeka offices to say hello. She has had some time off from her day job recently and has been working on Love Briana exclusively.

So she pops in and the first words out of her mouth are "working on Love Briana fills my heart with joy!"

And thats just it folks, doing your own thing makes life better. So in a nutshell this is why we do it... you (the small business) have a dream, all you have to do is make your passion a working business which though not easy is entirely possible. We at Ekaweeka are trying to make an easy solution for getting your business up and running in no time with no web design knowledge. Then we market our wonderful family of shops and services to the world and boom!
You get customers, we get your love, and you get the joy of running your own business and being your own boss.

Also since making this great website is our dream, fullfilling your dreams fulfills ours! Sounds kind of like the birds that keep the bugs off the elephant's back, they get to eat the bugs, he has some great friends who literally cover his back. Symbiotic folks thats the word of the day. :-)

As the user database grows all the accessory behaviors of businesses looking for business are beginning to appear. Finding business is tricky and except for a small fraction of business owners, most of us have to put a great deal of effort into getting this half of the system going. The sucky part of marketing is so many get it wrong and when they get it wrong - it's sooooo wrong. Think of all the upper-case-super-punctuated posts on Craigslist that somehow beat the system and repost many times per day (bastards! - they ruined CL). Or better yet email spam. Well targeted marketing works but when it isn't well targeted it is not welcome and negative word of mouth is sure to ensue.

I pray we don't have to start working in spam and abuse filters before we get to 1,000 users but unfortunately we must assume it's a possibility for safety purposes. In the meantime - for all those reading this, take a moment to think about what you are doing to get attention and exposure. Doing it wrong can really make life difficult so start working on doing it right! In my own experiences there are two types of marketing I have gotten results from. (1) With Dog Walker NYC and the other (2) with Ekaweeka. Each was different and was a result of failing at other attempts.

I can already tell this is going to become a lengthy discussion so I'll break it up into a series of posts (which is also great cause I'll have something to write about for the next few days). So tomorrow I'll get into figuring out what kind of marketing will help you find your customers best, and eventually we'll get into what is acceptable and what is not. In the meantime take a moment to consider what you offer and who needs it (by need I mean literally cannot live without it). If no one needs your product as is the case for many of the members on Ekaweeka, just take some notes about who your customers have been. If you don't have any customers yet, think about businesses similar to yours and who their customers are. Knowing your customer is everything.

Check back tomorrow for more juicy posts on the amazing world of marketing. And if you're already going nuts wanting to hear more check out these books:

Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force (Hardcover)
by Ben McConnell, Jackie Huba, Guy Kawasaki

The Anatomy of Buzz: How to Create Word of Mouth Marketing (Paperback)
by Emanuel Rosen

They will rock your world and bring you much closer to having a successful marketing strategy that will in turn make your business more successful - and... well you get point.

In my last post I began a discussion on the means of a small business to market itself. To recap: the post was started to point out how some businesses choose to market themselves, what was working versus what wasn't and the results of each. At the end of that post I noted that all businesses should know who their customers are, this is where we will pick up. Continuing down this topic I'll discuss how Dog Walker NYC got its start with a simple and successful marketing campaign.

For Dog Walker NYC I started by thinking about what I would need to see if I was a pet owner seeking pet services. I personally would want to know how much the cost was, how and where my dog would be walked, and I would want to get a sense of professionalism and trustworthiness from the service provider. Next I asked myself where I would first think to find such a service. I knew people would go to their local community bulletin board (which was Craigslist in this case) to look for someone nearby they could trust.

To look trustworthy I created a nice professional looking website for Dog Walker NYC. Then I started posting on Craigslist (CL) in the household services section. I made a point to keep the posts short and concise. I noted our most inexpensive price (bait and switch unfortunately DOES work - I fall for it constantly), and I listed our website address where they could get more information. By appearing to meet their price target and NOT looking unprofessional I felt most people would see a business they would potentially use and so they would be willing to explore our website for more information. Once we got them on our website they were ours plain an simple. Because at that point we had steered them away from our competitors' listing's to our website which looked professional, had all sorts of attractive graphics, had useful information, and tons of ways for them to contact us from webpage forms to our email address or phone number. Once they were on the website they were able to make educated judgments about what the company was and whether or not we were right for them.

I knew they would want to know: (a) how much we charged, (b) if we walked 1 or many dogs at a time, (c) what our policies and measures for safety were, and (d) what neighborhoods we served. By separating all that info into separate pages, the site was kept tidy and I was filtering out dozens of unnecessary phone calls from customers that wouldn't be a good match for us. At this point my customer had found me willingly (important) seeking my business and all I had to do was not screw it up. Notice that last point - they came to us, not the other way around, being able to have them find you is enormous - that is permission based marketing which we'll continue to discuss as this series unrolls.

So without getting into what comes after your potential customer has contacted you (i.e. how to not screw it up), lets recap:

We got a suggestion from one of the gang yesterday. The user noted that many new members have been loading personal photos of themselves where a business photo would have been more appropriate. At first I defended the decision to use a personal photo for their profiles but the more I looked into it the more I agreed. Using a personal photo while not wrong gives potential customers and other peers the wrong idea about your business. Having a profile photo for your business (even if you consider yourself a person who runs a business) gives people an idea about what you do, what your style is. By loading a personal photo people see who is running the business but the relevance drops a little. Even if you don't have a logo for your business, displaying a photo that relates to your business such as dogs for a dog walker, or an art gallery for a painter - gives people a visual idea of what you do. Don't forget we're in a short attention span culture, some people may not even get around to reading your profile type. If they don't read what you do, they may just look at your picture and move on to the next.

We're taking a slight deviation from all our developments so we can quickly add some browsing for photos. The original Ekaweeka blueprint naturally included photos. Pictures were a simple way for users to show more about themselves visually.

Meanwhile our primary focus was on items. Since many of the small businesses had a product or service to share and sell with the community we put much emphasis on the item. But even with all the emphasis, the users used the photo functions to share many of their works, maybe cause they weren't sure if an item had to be for sale (they don't). Or maybe because they knew how the photo system worked while they hadn't learned the item creation process. Who knows...

At any rate it happened! So today we're creating photo browsing and a featured photos section. We'll keep the featured photo selection about each photo's content relation to Ekaweeka themes. Ábrase los ojos, it's coming!

We've got a surprise for someone today... Jeff, Tiffany and I have been looking for ways to jump start some business for our dear friends Briana and Emma. They both make loads of great crafts such as dresses, hand bags, blankets, pillows, greeting cards etc. but when it comes to getting their stuff in the shops things get a little complicated. E & B both have no problem making their precious crafts but they get a little stage fright with just the thought of asking someone to put it in their shop's display window.
I have to sympathize - sometimes making that last step after doing all the work can be the most difficult part. It reminds me of trying to talk to girls when I was in grade school. All the fear of rejection would start to well up inside my belly and I couldn't raise the courage to go and talk to one of them. The irony of it all is that the more rejections you get the easier it is to speak to people about these things. So in a way the very first time you ask a shop owner to consider selling something you made is the most difficult. Each time after becomes easier and easier until you're a pro.
In the past I've offered and nearly followed through in taking Bri's stuff to the local boutiques to see if they would sell them but other silly things got in the way. So after going over it with Jeff and Tiff on Saturday - we've decided it will be our little surprise for her birthday - hopefully by the time she gets home today her items will already be on display in some amazing boutiques in Santa Monica!
I'll make sure to follow up for all the small business readers in the Ekaweeka community. If we can get their stuff on these stores there is no reason why anybody else wouldn't be able to.

What a surprise! This morning I woke up and went about the usual Ekaweeka chores when I saw that last night we had acquired a new member all the way from China. Our community already spanned to Korea, Australia, England, and Ukraine - but this was really a treat especially because they listed some handmade crafts.

Kerry Miller - staff writer for Business Week, just wrote a great piece on the dos and don'ts of social conduct online. Her points outline the mistakes many people and businesses make when marketing with social networks. Online just like in the real world she says "is all about giving, not taking". Sometimes online users overlook that they are still interacting in a person to person format, I found a few points extremely relevent like these points below:
"Showing up in flip-flops at a white-tie event is no way to make a good impression."
"Collecting a thick stack of business cards may make you feel important, but it's not a very good way to glean useful contacts."
and "Establishing a new connection doesn't end when the party's over".

I'll disclose right now that it's an article about conduct on Myspace but I think it's fair to say these lessons apply elsewhere.

Thanks to Amber for inviting Jon San Nicolas. You guys make this the best job in the world with the pictures alone!

The Summer is here and the Art's and Craft Festivals are back! Just last weekend alone there was the: Union Street Festival (San Francisco), Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibit (New York City), Pike Place Market Street Fair (Seattle), AVA Arts Fest (Santa Clara, CA), and here in LA was the Los Feliz Village Street Fair to name just a few.

I spoke with some of the vendors at these events. I've always been curious if having a booth at one of these would help drum up some business. I discovered there a few things worth considering before choosing a festival to buy into. For example: know the demographic, the people at your festival should be the people who will be interested in what you have to sell. Also there are the expenses to consider, a booth at these events tends to run anywhere from $150 - $400 (generally $300), on top of that you'll want a way to charge credit cards, and you'll need a pop up tent if one is not provided (many fairs do provide the tent - but be sure if they do). So with all these costs to consider it might help to find another vendor that will share a booth with you.

No matter what - I learned it still clearly pays off to participate. Having a presence at an all day event opens up doors for meeting all sorts of potential customers, local buyers and distributors, and other vendors. Without making one sale these connections alone can do wonders for your business. That being said, if you have priced your items well and brought enough product for the right crowd you are bound to do sales. One vendor I spoke with at the Los Feliz Village Street Fair said he had done around $1000 each day of the two day fest, the booth cost him $300 - so even if he bought a pop up tent and rented the credit card machine he easily made a profit and probably made a new batch of devoted customers and buyers.

As for credit card sales: if you have a wireless aircard - just bring your laptop to the event and you can sell your items directly through Ekaweeka. We are also working on two other methods of credit card charging solutions like a virtual terminal where you could charge any credit card from your Ekaweeka account, and a phone number to call for charging a card over the phone with Ekaweeka.

Either way, like I said the summer is just getting started and, here's a list of festivals coming up in Los Angeles. Many festivals have openings up to the week before they happen and when you're that close to the line many of them will give you a discount since they need to sell as many spaces as possible so don't be afraid to ask for a deal - it never hurts and all that can happen is you might save some costs!

We'll keep you posted on all the events this summer, and don't forget to tell us about your experience. :-)

A couple weeks ago we wrote a post on how preventing people from taking pictures of your creations for copyright protection was potentially more harmful then good for business. Shortly after the post was published Laura Iverson of Zen Breeze Art wrote to us about her own experience with copyright theft. Laura had a really bad experience with some sweatshop art imitators who copied her art designs from the gallery images of her ebay shop and resold low resolution blow ups of them in their own shop. Here's Laura's account of the nightmare turned reality:

I wanted to share Laura's story to represent the devils advocate on this issue, clearly it isn't quite as simple as "the more pictures they take the more business we'll do!". It also doesn't appear to be as easy as preventing people from photographing your work.. if we tried to block those attempts no one would be posting pictures of their art on the web. This does serve as a warning to keep your eyes open for art imitators, sure imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, but in this case flattering may not fix the damage that can be done.

Protect yourselves folks, it could be as simple as grabbing an email address from the person taking pictures of your work - after-all they most likely do like your art and there should be nothing wrong with having a way to keep in touch.

If anyone else has a similar story or a testament to the kind of synchronicity that takes a random photo at an art fair and has it turn into a sale of your art down the road - share it with us.

Artists and designers say that they are inspired by everything around them-people, art, and nature. What could be more inspiring than working and living in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands?

After a move from South Africa, a career in fashion in Las Vegas, and finally relocating to the Caribbean, Ekaweeka member, Gina Nigrelli and her husband Brian Smith launched Jules Smith Designs, a luxe resort jewelry line.

Jules Smith Designs features precious metals such as sterling silver, rose gold, yellow gold, semi-precious and precious gemstones in the collection. Gina says that she is inspired by, “Friends, family and my environment. Whether I’m working in New York or in my office in the Caribbean, random bursts of creative energies come to me and I capitalize on those moments.” Of course, azure waters, white beaches and sunshine can probably be as much a distraction as an inspiration.

And while it may sound as if this is a big company with an even bigger budget for marketing and advertising, the entire Jules Smith Design team consists of three people: Brian Smith, Gina Nigrelli and Joni Madere, the line’s sole marketing department.