Failure = Success

Cash Butler

Cash Butler is the founder and CEO of ClariLegal. He has over 20 years of management experience in the banking and legal vertical markets, including SaaS eDiscovery vendors, SteelPoint, Zantaz, Lextranet and Merrill Corporation. He holds an MBA in E-Commerce from Bentley and an undergraduate degree from Boston College.

Joe Nashif

Joe Nashif is the president of online retailer US-Mattress.com that he started in 2001. He worked at General Motors for 15 years with various management positions. For twelve years he was a president and founder of US-Appliance.com He holds an MBA in E-Commerce from Carnegie Mellon University and an undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of Michigan.

One of the main things that Cash and Joe talked about was how they started their business and why. Both of them have a passion for creating something new and helping people. But being an entrepreneur is not an easy road. Both of them are very successful, but that didn't come without failures. 

Cash: “You’ve got to figure things out as you go and keep punching until you get there. You learn a lot when you fail. It’s a hard and expensive lesson but it’s good learning experience.Everyone has a different tolerance for the entrepreneurial drive.”

Joe: “It’s a balance of sticking with something, but at the same time, not being married to something that doesn't have any hope. You have to be open minded and remember that most things you try, won't work. You’ve got to look at the day to day problems and frustrations, then take a step back and see if the trend line grows to see if your efforts are worth it.”


What I took away from these two successful entrepreneurs is: 

 Don't let the fair of failure stop you from doing great things. 

Engaging on Twitter

Let me ask you one simple question, when was the last time you engaged with someone on twitter? I don’t mean just posting something or retweeting something. But actually engaging and talking to people, asking them questions, commenting, and starting out a meaningful conversation? If the answer is never, then you might be using Twitter wrong. Of course, you might be a person who just goes on Twitter and reads it like a newspaper in the morning, then this will not be that helpful to you. BUT. If you are someone who wants to generate business leads, or network to find a job or an opportunity, then I’m going to share a couple of useful tips on how to use Twitter for your advantage and actually getting the results you need/want.

There is a couple of different thing you can do on Twitter, aside from posting links to your blog or promoting your product (that is just being lazy and boring). Here are some tips on what to post:

Question: Ask an engaging question to stir conversation

Fact: Share a fact.. then share an opinion about it.

Quote: Grab a quote from article & turn it into social message

Add Intrigue: Write a teaser message that grabs the attention (Maybe from your upcoming blog post)

Add Image: Post an engaging image to grab attention to the content

If you want to build a relationship with people…  the best way is to grab their attention and help them first:

·       Make them look good by congratulating them on their successes, sharing their “earned media”, referencing them as experts, and recommending them to others.

·       Get them more visibility by writing about your top influencers, quoting them in blog posts and bylines, and amplifying their social content on a regular basis.

·       Solve a problem for them by answering their questions, giving access to your products and services, and helping get the word out about their upcoming passion project, product, webinar, blog, etc.

Then they would want to help you in return.

You don’t want to be that person who just asks for help and uses people to gain attention or profit, you need to care. One of my favorite things to do is to follow up with people who follow me or people who I follow to gain their attention to me. You want to send them a message and include:

-Warming hello

-Comment about their recent post

-Invite to connect on LinkedIn

-Also a link to your blog or an interesting post that might be of value to them.

Connect With Me: LinkedIn

LinkedIn is one of the most important business social networks. It is a great way to meet and connect with people for business opportunities, as well as for career development. But a lot of people do not take full advantage of LinkedIn, especially when trying to connect with others. Recently I have been getting a lot of requests to connect but all of them said the same thing: 

“I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.”

It surprises me that everyone isn’t customizing their invitations —but in fact, very few people do. Those 300 characters that are given to you to customize your invitation can have a big impact. If you’re connecting with someone you know well, it’s a great opportunity to say something nice and strengthen the relationship. If you’re connecting with someone you don’t know well, it’s a great opportunity to remind him or her of how you met. If you’re connecting with someone you don't know at all, it’s your only opportunity to make an impression and to have them accept your invitation. But a lot of times, it is hard to find what to say to those you are trying to connect with, especially the ones you don't know. I created a list of thing you can say or mention:

• Remind them about when you first met them (if you did).

• Explain why you want to connect.

• Describe the mutually beneficial relationship that you can have by connecting.

• Compliment them on their achievements.

• Mention something that you have in common — did you go to the same university, do you share a hobby, etc.

• Mention if you have any mutual connections or if anyone have told you about them before. 

• Ask them something you would like to know about them.

• Ask them for an advice.

Keep the invitation to connect short and to the point. You are limited to just 300 characters, so make them count.

Social Media for Business

In our new generation of technology users, a lot of businesses have not been taking full advantage of branding their business through social media. Social Media is one of the best tools to use to connect and learn from consumers and industry leaders. A strong social media presence builds brand loyalty. Businesses who are active on social media platform and are engaged with the customers (or other businesses) have more loyalty. How so? Well when you engage with people they start to view you less than just a business, but more so as a group of people with shared vision. Plus you can't really beat the price for social media...it's free! If you can manage your own social media account, and run your own campaign, it is as cheap as it gets. But you can also hire social media management to do it for you (which can cost between $3,000-$6,000 per month) but if it is done right, you will see great return and results from it. 

This is not just an opinion of a one crazy person, all of this is backed up with tons of research and facts. Why do you think companies spend thousands of dollars monthly to have a social media presence? Not just for fun- even though it can be very fun. 

A study by The Social Habit shows that 53 percent of Americans who follow brands on social are more loyal to those brands.

In the State of Social Selling in 2015, nearly 75 percent of companies that engaged in selling on social media reported an increase in sales in 12 months.

A study by Aberdeen Group shows that companies engaging in social customer service see much bigger annual financial gains (7.5 percent YOY growth) vs. those without (2.9 percent).