The lineup of speakers is a very impressive one. A few of my friends, including the incredible Greg Rollett, will be there to tell you how to leverage social media to your ultimate advantage and subsequent financial success.

Co-Founder of the event, Murray Newlands, has given me a few tickets and a discount code. I’m obviously not going to simply put the discount code out in public just yet. Instead, I would like for whomever is interested in attending this event to email me or tweet me. From there, I will narrow it down and figure out the best way to distribute all of these goodies.

The event is only a month away so if you are interested, you better get a hold of me immediately.

Trust me when I tell you that you don’t want to miss this event. It’s going to be a good one.

All of the information on the event can be found here.

On it, you won’t see personal writings like those that I publish on here. Instead, you’ll see news that I’m reading, videos that I’m watching, and things that I’m doing in general.

You can find my new Stalk Blog at: http://stalk.loganlenz.com

Please subscribe.

So You’re Passed the Start-up Phase! Now What!?

Starting a new business requires time and attention to details to get things set up to operate. You have to pretty much promise your life, soul and unborn child to your newly budding business. The initial phase of getting administrative operations in order can vary widely for each business, but once things are in place, the business is officially ready to open and begin making a profit.

You can (almost) breathe a sigh of relief at this point, but in order to ensure the business runs without incident, it’s good to have a few safeguard systems in place to keep things organized.

Sales and Marketing

A solid plan for sales and marketing is necessary because it can make or break any business- no matter how new or established you are. Implementing a good marketing system or CRM for the business helps ensure you make contacts and follow leads. You also need to make sure you’re adapting and changing as new technologies come out. Some companies have been denying themselves the social media boat and have been suffering miserably trying to get back on track because they don’t know how to utilize it or understand why they should monitor social metrics.

A sales and marketing team can consist of one person or twenty people. If there is a solid marketing and sales plan installed during or right after the startup phase, the business has a guideline to go by to ensure the staff follow the plan for success and not failure.

Guard Confidential Materials

During the start-up phase of a business, there are contracts and agreements to review and sign. These may contain confidential information about the company’s operations. Contracts and other sensitive information outline payment agreements, financial arrangements between parties, and other things that are relative to the business’ setup. Since initial business setups can change multiple times, you need to properly remove irrelevant material from the business’ files.

This information in the wrong hands can be detrimental; therefore, it’s important to safely discard anything you won’t use again. To do this, the business can use encrypted documents and file shredders to ensure confidentiality in the unlikely event that some shady person dips their hands in your security pot.

Secure Email Systems

Most companies use the Internet for at least a small portion of their businesses. If the right systems aren’t in place, it leaves room for hackers and other shady people to infiltrate and steal files and emails. Having a good email hosting system can help avoid this and ensure the software and updates are current. Email services vary in the benefits and features offered to customers. To ensure the business is getting exactly what it needs to operate, it needs to review what works best for the company and have the email hosting service implement the procedures that will directly benefit the company.

Efficient Human Resources

Having a knowledgeable and skilled staff is… well…. you can’t really have a business with them. You need to have each department of the business adequately staffed with people who can efficiently and effectively run each phase of business- from administration to sales.

Whether the staff is on-site or virtual, it’s important to have the right employees to make sure things operate smoothly. There will likely be employee carry-overs from the start-up phase, so adding to this core group of people will help to ensure a solid pool of qualified individuals that can handle whatever is thrown their way.

After you pass the start-up phase in a business, it’s time to implement the things that will help your company operate productively so you can (hopefully) focus on making it profitable. The above things will help to make sure success happens by helping you manage all areas of the business without wanting to throw yourself off a cliff.

Selena Narayanasamy loves everything technology, productivity, blogging, social media, caffeine and being sarcastic. You can find her blogging on her social/tech site, Esvienne, or listen to her musings on Twitter – @SelenaVidya.

While that’s obviously super impressive, it’s not as impressive as the way they carry out their business everyday.

One could argue that Freshbooks is a successful company because of the advanced software that they have developed, but I would argue that there is another reason for their success.

Freshbooks LOVES their customers more than anything.

Their customers are a part of their family; their best friends; their life lines.

I witnessed this firsthand this weekend after I received an email from a Freshbooks representative named Mitch.

Mitch personally sent me an email to invite me to dinner. ON HIM!

And this isn’t a McDonald’s or Subway dinner. He invited me to P.F. Chang’s! Fine Asian cuisine!

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to make it to the dinner, but the sheer fact that Mitch reached out to me purposely to tell me he was going to be in town is astounding.

I can’t imagine that they do this for ALL of the one hundred thousand customers that they currently have. Then again, this is a very impressive company.

This email (and their amazing invoicing software) has positioned Freshbooks as a company that I will never turn away from. I see myself and my companies using them forever.

I have pasted the email that Mitch sent me below.

Hey!

Mitch from FreshBooks here. I am going to be in Tampa attending the Front-End Design Conference and would love to have you join me for dinner (on me of course) at PF Chang’s. Dinner is on Thursday, July 22nd at 7:30 pm. Last year’s customer dinner was a blast as I got to meet with so many FreshBooks customers. What could be better – free food, fun and awesome people!

Here are the details:

Date: Thursday, July 22nd
Time: 7:30 pm
Place: PF Chang’s, 219 Westshore Plz , Tampa, FL 33609 (see map)

It is super important to RSVP so I know how many people to expect. Please RSVP HERE as soon as possible. That link also includes all the event details. Simply input the number of people attending then click on “Register Tickets” and you’re in!

Looking forward to it!

Cheers,

Mitch

The brilliant invoicing company that my companies have been using for a couple years now has done so.

Unfortunately, you probably won’t be able to do what they’ve done (at least in invoicing), but you could pay attention to the image and the email that I have embedded below.

Exhibit A is an infographic of the Freshbooks community.

Check out Freshbooks here.

I will have a second part of this post about Freshbooks tomorrow.

Last week, Mashable posted a video interview that the young Cashmore did on Bloomberg.

I have gone ahead and embedded part 1 below and will continue to parts 2, 3, and 4 on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of this week.

I hope you enjoy the videos.

I plan to make a stop at two of the meetups tonight. The first of which being Boca Raton, FL and then later I will be speaking at the Fort Lauderdale, FL meetup.

Again, to find a Social Media Day near you, check out the list here.

Happy Social Media Day! I can’t wait to see where this exciting new component of marketing brings us in the future.