Tag: small business

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Podcasts for Small Business Success

Cookie Text loves Freakonomics Radio

Listen and Learn

I’ve wondered from time to time how our small business has been able to find success when so many other’s fail. A recent session in my headphones taught me about what I’ve decided to call the CookieText advantage.

I just discovered Podcasts. For those that don’t know, they are essentially radio shows that you can listen to whenever you want. I suspect most of you know what they are and I’m the one that is late to the game. A good indicator of this is the vast amount of Podcasts that are available. Whatever your interest, there’s one for you, I’m sure.

Though I thoroughly enjoyed the delve into true crime that was the first season of Serial, I’m trying to utilize Podcasts more for business and personal growth. I’ll plug in my headphones while I’m working alone or on a solo run and listen to the wisdom of those who have far more experience than I do. I’ve learned some fascinating things in a very short time. They often serve to make me re-examine my approach to a problem or to dream a little bigger. My favorite Podcast offered me an explanation.

Freakonomics Radio

As you may know, most new businesses don’t succeed. Freakonomics Radio, a hugely popular podcast, explained why mine has so far. It was an episode called Think Like a Child. In it Steven Levitt (one of the founders of Freakonomics and an esteemed economist) spelled out exactly why Cookie Text has an exponential advantage over other small businesses and why I am in exactly the right business for me.

Freakonomics Radio Steve Levitt Says

“Enjoying what you do, loving what you do is such a completely unfair advantage to anyone you are competing with who does it for a job. People who love it they go to bed at night thinking about the solutions. They wake up in the middle of the night, and they jot down ideas, they work weekends. It turns out that effort is a huge component of success in almost everything. We know that from practice and whatnot. And people who love things work and work and work at it. Because it’s not work — its fun. And so my strongest advice to young people trying to figure out what they want to do, is I always tell them: try to figure out what you love…”

I love what I do. I think about it constantly. It doesn’t get old. I’ve built my own sandbox that I get to play in everyday.

When I have “me time” I usually spend it working on building Cookie Text: reading a book about business, playing with new recipes, experimenting with new products… There are so many moments I am in the cookie kitchen and think to myself, “this is just so fun.” When we introduce a new product, get new shipment of logo pens, someone new discovers our business and becomes a fan, all that stuff excites me.

Still.
Every time.

Cookie Text’s Advantage

I love my job! Cookie Text has an advantage over any business that isn’t founded and run by someone who absolutely LOVES THEIR WORK. Because I do. I get to watch a tiny bit of a dream come true every day. And that’s so cool. Here’s hoping your work is fun, too.

You can check out Freakonomics Radio at www.freakonomics.com/radio/ or you can listen to the whole Think Like a Child podcast here.

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Facebook or Forcebook?

A small business perspective.

About 8 years ago I caught my UVA niece checking her Facebook page. “What’s Facebook?” I asked.

“It’s kind of like MySpace, but geared toward College. It helps you connect with people,” she said (in my loose memory of the conversation).

Shortly thereafter, I started an account. I remember it was laborious for me to figure out how to add a profile picture. And later when I figured out I should have my maiden name on my profile so people who knew me then could find me. I remember countless times it connected me to people I thought were lost forever to me.

Years later I can name only a very small handful of people I know that do not have a Facebook account. My husband, one of my best friends, and a friend who had a page then and realized it wasn’t for her.

A new way to “catch up.”

Ahhh, Facebook. In this very busy life, it fills in the gaps. When I see my friend that served on the PTA committee with me 3 years ago at the grocery, we don’t have to ‘catch up.’ We hit the ground running. I know her oldest won an ROTC award. She knows I just got back from a week at the beach and that my son is homesick at camp. It keeps us informed in an era that is so busy it’s tough to pick up the phone or meet to catch up.

Technology. The blessing and the curse.

Things got so uncomfortable between a relative and me a few months ago that I looked into closing my Facebook account…and that was even after she’d ‘unfriended’ me. Well, I can’t have a business page without a personal page–if I suspend one, the other has to go as well.

In my experience, and I think the vast majority will agree, Facebook is a critical resource to the small business owner. Shutting down the “Cookie Text…an edible tweet” page would kink the lifeline to my customers.

I care about my customers. I like them.

Quite a bit, honestly. The go-to way for them to be engaged with Cookie Text (and me) is via Facebook. When someone posts a picture of their loved-one with their CookieText® or I post the picture I took before a cookie cake went out and they comment that it was a hit…well that’s priceless to me. I love people. I love back stories. Then when someone posts that their son demanded a CookieText® for his party it fuels me to keep on keeping on.

I thrive on feedback, and that comes from people, not the bank account…we can all google the same statistics that tell us it sure isn’t money that will keep the small business owner going the first few years. Feedback from the customer is priceless, and Facebook is the hotline to that.

Facebook…

  • the cord to my customers, yet it chains me to difficult relationships.
  • the most valuable time I spend growing my business, yet the biggest time waster as I get distracted and watch countless inane links to videos of cute kids and puppies, or ‘just glance at the home page for a second.”
  • the social media that my generation is fully engaged in, yet my children have already abandoned.
  • the very reliable bond to many friends that I truly love and care about, yet…sometimes overwhelming.

Facebook. You are the best of times, you are the worst of times. In the ways when you are good, you are very good. In the ways when you are bad…you are quicksand.