Are you looking to create a business plan?

These two “experts” in the field, Guy Kawasaki and Sean Christiansen, can help you understand a little more on how to do so.

Guy Kawasaki who is best know for leaving Apple Computer and co-founding Garage Technology Ventures as well as Alltop.com, an ”online magazine rack” of popular topics on the web. Garage provides matchmaking services for angle investors and entrepreneurs. Before leaving Apple he was the chief evangelist of Apple. Kawasaki has a B.A. from Stanford University, M.B.A from UCLA, and also holds an Honorary Doctorate from Babson College. He has authored such books as Enchantment, Reality Check, The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way.

I came across an article where Kawasaki spoke with Tim Berry on “How to write a Business Plan”, out of the questions asked “What are the most important qualities of a plan” stuck out to me the most. And Kawasaki said this in short.
     1) Strategy is what needs to be focused on, and the question you need to ask yourself is “what can you do better than anyone else? What are your core competence”
     2) Break down the specifics: What is going to happen, when, how much is it going to cost, and who is responsible for it.
     3) Cash flow: You want to have growth spurts in your company, which is another way of saying more sales and potentially more profits, however he also stressed that unplanned growth with out proper planning can be detrimental to your company.

Sean Christiansen is currently the Chief Technology Officer at the UCF Venture Lab where he provides coaching and mentoring to central Florida startup companies. With ten years of experience working in high technology industries as well as multiple degrees in engineering, Dr. Christiansen specializes in supporting early-stage high technology companies with particular emphasis supporting those seeking seed-stage financing. Dr. Christiansen graduated with honors from the University of Notre Dame and earned a Bachelor's of Science in Chemical Engineering in 1996. In 2001, Dr. Christiansen received a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara.

When it comes to early stage investing Christiansen is the man to go to. When asked about key components of a business plan he breaks it down into three: Barriers to entry, The market, and the Management team. Barriers to Entry, this explains a company’s product or service and also lets you r investors know how you plan to “prevent your competitors from taking away customers” Christensen explains that barriers to entry are equally as important as the core competencies of the company. This is a way to look at the “Strengths of the company and its expertise within its own market. The market is possibly the trickiest factor due to there not always being a market for your particular type of business. Markets are very hard for an investor to predict especially when it comes to the type of product being pitched. And lastly, remember to look at the management team. So many companies have failed even with the proper business plan because of the management team making mistakes. The past experience of the company’s members have to be reviewed to see if the had an previous failures, how aware they are of their mistakes, and to see if the company was given equity investments in the past and if sufficient exit opportunities for investors have been established.

Sources:

http://www.guykawasaki.com/about/

http://www.venturelab.ucf.edu/Team/team_SChristiansen.html

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/07/how-to-write-a-.html#axzz1Rmb29caR

http://bpexpertviews.blogspot.com/2011/03/bp-development-expert-views.html

Soulja Boy's Successful Utilization of Social Media

Who would have thought that social media would have been as influential on the entertainment industry as it has been? Well Soulja Boy learned how to utilize social media to his benefit when marketing his album “The DeAndre Way” that was released in mid-late November as well as promoting his single “Speakers Going Hammer”. Lee Hawkins of the Wall Street Journal sat down with Soulja Boy and discussed how he became a multiplatinum rapper solely based off of his social media presence and has been labeled the Music Industry’s “King of Social Media”.

Soulja Boy first starts off how he started rapping in 2005, he became familiar with the Internet, and then began to utilize MySpace & Youtube to get booked for shows. The stardom wasn’t immediately, he had to make fans aware of his music and did so via setting up a Soundclick account. Soundclick is known as “The Billboard charts for Underground Music” says Soulja Boy. Once he began reached the Top 10 on Soundclick his plays increased due to his popularity. He then linked his Soundclick account to his MySpace and Youtube pages. He also used his twitter and Facebook pages to be able to reach his fans. When he reached his 1st million on Youtube, he then placed a booking email up, which enabled those wanting him to perform to book him for shows. Once Soulja Boy reached 100K plays via Soundclick he was able to monetize that distributing his music via the website for $.99 a song. Soundclick entail splits the profit with the fan. Let me help you understand how this was beneficial for him financially, Soulja Boy was receiving at least 19K song downloads a day! That is approx. $9,400 a day just off of his social media marketing strategies. Keep in mind that he has not yet signed a deal w/a major label. He hen began to use a tool called Saynow.com, a website where you can get phone #'s and are able to talk to your fans. He acquired 4.9 subscribers. With Saynow.com he was able to leave a message and distribute it directly to his fans. In addition to these smart tactics he created multiple websites, approx. 20, to continue to create a buzz. His best tool would have had to been his Youtube channel. Where he could address his fans whether it be just putting out a new song or speaking to the youth about him being a positive role model to his fans. He used this outlet to connect with all of his fans. I would definitely have to say that he has learned how to capitalize off of the social media world. Based off of his different tactics Soulja Boy generated 12 MILLION DOLLARS off of his first single alone. No wonder they have crowned him “The King of Social Media” because he learned how to use it to benefit musical career.

Disography including "The DeAndre Way" is available via iTunes

Lee Hawkins of the Wall Street Journal's Soulja Boy interview Speaking With Soulja Boy, Rap's Social Media King

SPEAKERS GOING HAMMER has almost 13 million views

Source : Speaking With Soulja Boy, Rap's Social Media King

Entertainment Company CFOs capitalize on Digital Growth

Earnest and Young is one of the world's leading professional services organizations, helps companies across the globe to identify and capitalize on business opportunities. In 2008 they interviewed several media & entertainment CEOs and few very few of them had anticipated where the focus of the digital revolution was transforming. In 2010 they completed a study that focused on senior media and entertainment executives by asking the Chief Financial Officers of 75 leading global media and entertainment organizations for their insight into their approach for the future and the ever changing digital world.

The study touched on several key points however I am just going to share a few with you. First, Digital is now- they have noticed that new technology continues to have an extremely powerful influence on how individuals experience entertainment and information. There is a noticeable shift to digital and is challenging old entertainment business models and causing CFOs to make changes in their investment decisions. Secondly, CFOs are trying to juggle balancing between digital growths and declining traditional media revenue. The CFOs are beginning to see a significant growth in digital revenues, however with price deflation and product un-bundling, combined with the global economic downturn, CFOs are starting to recognize a the placement of increasing pressure on traditional media revenues. All that means is that the industry revenues and “per unit spend” on different media content is no longer increasing at a rapid speed. Lastly, Interactive media companies are best positioned to thrive in the next two to three years. The CFOs have stated that they will not lose sight of doing thing traditionally, but digital earnings are definitely on a rise. The earnings are rising at lower price points and have yet to become bigger than the traditional media revenue streams.

With the shifts in consumer demands, media multi-tasking has been taken to new levels. The consumer behavior has caused the consumption rates of pure-play Internet, video games, how consumers obtain their music and how they share to soar to new levels. Although radio, broadcast networks television, and print media are showing a decline, they are also seeing there consumption rates rise. The consumption is rising due to consumers using television as a multi-tasking medium. Consumers are tweeting and blogging while watching their favorite shows.

CFOs of major entertainment companies are noticing how digital landscaping is evolving and therefore determine where they need to make their investments accordingly in order to protect their market position and ensure that they remain prevalent in the entertainment business world.


Source:

Poised for digital growth: Preserving profitability in today’s digital world

Creating a Successful Social Media Strategy

While doing some research on creating my own business strategy I came across some interesting information on creating a social media strategy that I felt would be useful for my readers. Everyone wants to be an entrepreneur these days but many are not researching the proper way to do so. Instead, they are just jumping in and wondering why it may not be working as planned. Others also try and utilize social media and to no avail fail due to the lack of proper research. I am going to share with you “Nine Steps To Your Best Social Media Strategy” with the hopes that it will help you optimize your marketability. Everyone claims to be an expert however Jim Sterne has written six books on Internet advertising, marketing, and customer service. He has collared the multifaceted world of social media in his recent book titled “Social Media Metrics”. In this book he breaks down how to create a successful social media strategy into the following nine steps.


1. Get focused and identify goals. Social media is the realm of public opinion and customer conversations. If you don’t have a clear idea of why you are there, anything you measure will be useless. He suggests you begin with the “big three” business objectives of higher revenue, reduced costs, and improved customer satisfaction.

2. Get attention and reach your audience. Measuring message delivery in social media is a lot like measuring it in classic advertising, so classic metrics apply. With social media, it is also important to identify how many people see your message as remarkable. That leads to the extra reach of word-of-mouth, commenting, and telling their friends.

3. Measure respect and find influencers. Your task now includes reaching the people who are key influencers, and understanding their impact. Therein lies the multiplier effect. Your message multiplier velocity and reach are the signals that your offerings have the right scope, spread quickly, and resonate with your target audience.

4. Track the emotional sentiment. Counting is fine, but analyzing the outpouring of millions of souls can reveal attitudinal shifts. Tracking public sentiment over time provides invaluable insight and gives you the chance to stay right on top of changes in the marketplace and your organization’s brand equity.

5. Measure customer response and action. If they read it and like it, do they click through to your web site, or engage with your organization in new and different ways? Action is when people are drawn into a profitable and sustainable relationship with your company. That’s where the money is.

6. Get the message from your customer. With the customer in control, you need to make sure you are getting the right message from the right people at the right time. That’s real-time market research, and you need to measure how well you are hearing it and acting on it in your business strategy planning.

7. Drive business outcomes and get results. Now it’s time to cycle back around to measuring what sort of business impact your efforts are having. Measure to see if you have an increase in revenue, a lowering of costs, and improvement in customer satisfaction. Then it’s time to re-examine your goals to look beyond the “big three.”

8. Get buy-in from your colleagues. Some executives are slow to understand and embrace new communications methods. Use your results to convince them that social media is a vital part of your marketing mix, and deserves the resources necessary for proper implementation and measurement.

9. Project the future. Start now to look at where social media will be in two to ten years, and prepare for it. Don’t let the changes takes your organization by surprise, or allow your organization to be the last to implement and measure you in the new world.

All are great steps to follow individually, however just like any step-by-step process in order to achieve maximum optimization you must utilize these steps together. Also keep in mind that social media is an ever-changing medium but you can never lose if you keep to the basics while continuously enhancing and learning new avenues to go down. I hope that these steps are useful in creating your social media strategy.


Source: “Nine Steps to Your Best Social Media Strategy”

New Age Distribution

Distribution has definitely changed over the past 5-10 years, primarily due to the Internet craze. Social media has grown legs and not only begun to walk but has learned to run. Through the vast outlets that the Internet has created for distribution, the ways of pitching your project to a label or distribution company have evolved. These outlets are not just limited to music, but include all aspects of distribution such as gaming, literary works, film, and of course my love, music. After careful research, I have narrowed my distribution search to a few companies that cater to the indie artist also known as the “do it your self (DIY)” artist. I have found Tunecore the most useful because of its extensive outlets where it distributes your music. It distributes to AmazonMP3, thumbplay, the Nokia Music Store, Zune, iTunes and even Rock Band just to name a few. There are 3 (three) very simple steps to sell your music through Tunecore: Upload your music, Upload your art, and Pick your stores! That’s it you are done! Simple right? It is also free to set up an account, however you do pay a fee for distribution depending on what you desire to distribute. It is $9.99/year per single or ringtone and $49.99/year per album. The beauty is that you the artist maintain ALL OF YOUR RIGHTS, receive 100% of your royalties; access to free trending sales reports, streaming media players and an exclusive iTunes artist ping page. You are probably asking why you should even chose Tunecore to distribute your music despite everything I have just stated above, well they are the LARGEST and MOST TRUSTED music distributor in the world. They are a preferred partner of all of the top digital stores in addition to their artists receive better deal terms than anyone else. The company has even partnered with Universal Music group to help get music licensed for TV shows, movies, and video games. I could continue to list the many benefits of Tunecore but that would take the fun out of you surfing the website, RIGHT? So go create your FREE account today and explore the site to decide if it is best fit for where you want to distribute your music. I have a strong feeling you will not be too disappointed.


Source: Tunecore

One-on-One with Attorney Shannon Ligon

To all that know me, know that my ultimate passion is to become an Entertainment Lawyer. I have had the pleasure of building a professional relationship with Attorney Shannon Ligon of Ligon LawGroup. No one can tell me that Twitter IS NOT AN AWESOME NETWORKING TOOL, because this is how I came to know Attorney Ligon. Since establishing a relationship via Twitter, I was instrumental in bringing Attorney Ligon to Full Sail University to speak with our Black Student Union. She was awesome and very insightful. Attorney Ligon received her Bachelor of Science in Business Management from Florida State University while spending time abroad studying International Business at the Universidad de Valencia in Valencia, Spain. She is not a stranger to the Entertainment field. She also has her certification in Television & Radio Broadcasting from CSB School of Broadcasting in 2004. Attorney Ligon has worked in the entertainment and sports industry for the past 8 years. She has been involved in management (artist & sports), A & R, as well as has numerous trusted networking contacts over the past 9+ years.

In speaking with Attorney Ligon, I became to look up to her more and more. She expressed to me the many liabilities that she had encountered while being in the entertainment business from acquiring endorsements from artists as well as athletes, copyright infringement, to ensuring that you, as the attorney, are upholding the law and your duties to your client.

While working with Richard DeLuca (Integrated Sports Management Company) her eyes were opened to endorsements deals. Having to negotiate for her clients was based off their needs as well as the needs of the companies being endorsed. She stated that Copyright infringement, can be a very “slippery slope”. Take for example, a beat was mixed and used, however the beat is not making any money, you may send a cease & desist letter rather than suing the individual. One of the ways you can ensure there is no “bad blood” or “black balling” is to consider using that individuals beats in the future. Just because someone may possibly infringe on your intellectual property doesn’t mean that you will never want to work with that person again, you just want to be either recognized for his or her work and/or compensated. Always be careful who you decide to sue, you never want to rub the “right person” the wrong way. She also stated that there are plenty times that major artists may find a beat, want to use it and can not find who originally created the beat. The producer is then not found until they possibly hear their beats on an album.

As an attorney you have a duty to uphold the law at all times, this can pose a serious liability if you are possibly working with high risk clients and/or some one who’s has limited knowledge of the business but is adamant that they are correct in different matters. It is not that you want to go against your client at all, but you are unable to go against the law you promised to uphold. When getting into any type of business make sure that you research all of the liabilities and ways to limit those. In closing, Attorney Shannon Ligon gave the Full Sail Black Student some great advice when she came to speak and I now leave it with you. “Always be excellent with whatever you do and never be afraid to lose, but never give up.”


Thank you for taking the time for my interview Shannon.

http://ligonlawgroup.com/