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Marc Scibelli

E-Mail: marc@scrappyupstarts.com

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AIM: virtualadagency

Jabber: virtualadagency@gmail.com

Web Page: http://www.virtualadagency.com

Registered Since: 2008-11-27 17:02:45

Profile: Marc is the Creative Director at a media company in New York and the founder of VirtualAdAgency.com a scrappy upstart dedicated to helping small businesses create big ad agency marketing.

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My Entrepreneurial Journey by Jeff Pedone

June 10th, 2009

The moment of greatest clarity for me that defined my place in the annals of entrepreneurship was when I was mixing a large batch of Good Dog Foods Home Mix, in the CAFT test kitchen of Rutgers University. The product line was all human-grade food (meat, vegetables, rice, nutritional powder) made in a USDA approved facility. You begin to think about the choice you made as an entrepreneur when you’re shoulder deep in cold mixed meat and vegetables. I don’t regret a minute of it.

Today’s Social Entrepreneurs

I began to think about that again recently when I started to see Tweet posts (@JeffPed) regarding social media experts and those launching businesses in today’s social media landscape. When I launched my marketing consulting and gourmet frozen dog food businesses in the 1990’s, there was a prescribed and albeit “traditional” way of launching and marketing your business. Today the landscape has changed dramatically and few of the new entrepreneurs are versed in sustaining a business utilizing social media.

Yes, you can jump in quickly and begin to promote your business almost instantly, however due to the amount of information that needs to be processed, networking and marketing that needs to be done, and lack of truly trustworthy advice that you will receive, most businesses will wallow in relative obscurity, be a flash in the pan, or rise and fall quickly and dramatically.

Take a Cue from The President

The reason The President surrounds himself with a Cabinet and trusted advisors is that for all his wisdom and experience, he still cannot concentrate adequately on all the multiple areas of running the country at once. You can’t do this either, there is not enough time in your day nor will you be an expert on every area you need to, to be successful.
When to Seek Help

Find the key drivers of your business and your specialties, your unique value proposition. You should be the “specialist” or “expert” in these. That does not mean you should not be continually learning from others and perfecting your craft, social media is great for this. But, if social media is too big a challenge for you, the new marketing vehicles are changing too rapidly, or every vendor you meet or person you speak to has a varied opinion on the same question you are trying to answer, do this:

How to Work with Trusted Advisor

Get referrals from people you trust in your network to others who can help you.
Check their credentials thoroughly by speaking to clients and those they have worked with.
Ask them to provide answers to a short test case you create of how they would tackle your challenge.
Work with them on a trial basis before signing on for an extended engagement.
Communicate with them continually on your needs and expectations.

Jeff leads Silver Lining Consulting, his blog can be found at: http://jeffpedone.com/

Marc Scibelli

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