Stephen Jagger at Third Tuesday

In his presentation, Jagger showed photos of the handful of employees meeting in coffee shops, public libraries, and the Vancouver Airport—all of them chosen for their free wireless internet.

Photo by Boris Mann.

It's been nearly a week since entrepreneur Stephen Jagger spoke at Third Tuesday but I wanted to post some of the highlights of his presentation, "Tools for Growth."

Now the title of the talk didn't quite describe the topic: Jagger's list of tools were more relevant to cutting costs and running virtual businesses. One of the businesses he's involved with runs a real estate website, Ubertor. Since it's founding eight years ago, the company made a transition from the typical office-based company to a virtual business where everybody worked from home.

Tools for Virtual Businesses

A virtual company has the advantage of lower costs but it also presents some unique challenges. Employees can no longer walk over to each other's cubicles or arrange a quick meeting in an empty conference room. Customers and clients also need to communicate with the business.

To deal with these challenges Jagger's companies use online tools, many of which are available for free.

• Gmail and Google talk. Jagger's a big fan of everything Google and uses their services whenever available. These communication services facilitate communication within the team.
• Yammer. This website is basically a closed-door version of Twitter—quick updates posted by employees can give a nice overview of what's going on in a virtual company.
• MailBoxes Etc.. This Canadian service allows you to have a mailing address that doesn't change and doesn't reveal to clients that you're working out of your mom's basement.
• Grand Central. Another Google service used for communication, but this time, with clients. Incoming calls can be filtered and diverted to different phone numbers or voicemail greetings. While I use Skype for my business, this sounds like a must-have for companies that handle a lot of calls.
• A wiki. When a business has more than a couple people or starts using a lot of consultants, a wiki is a great place to keep information about company procedures. That way employees can refer to it for answers before bugging somebody else.

Marketing

Jagger also gave some tips for marketing a business—something that I've been keeping an ear open for lately. Here are some of his ideas:

• Create videos. If you make videos about whatever you're passionate about, some of them will get around on the internet. Videos are also a little bit more trustworthy since it takes more effort to fake a video than a photograph or text.
• Send thank you cards. Apparently, people love thank you cards and this has made a huge difference for Jagger's company. Sending a card in the mail shows that little bit of extra effort and makes your business more human.
• Use Meetup. Attending events gives you the opportunity to network but it's even better to organize your own group in your line of work. This turns the tables around: you're no longer going to clients trying to get their business, they're coming to you as an educator. As a side note, Ross Ladell, a freelancer who runs the Vancouver Flash Platform Meetup, mentioned that he gets a lot of his work because of his involvement with the group.
• Find ways to get into the press. Being in a newspaper increases both visibility and credibility. Jagger suggests being active in the community and responding to articles in the paper.

Clients Thoughts on Virtual Companies

As some one who runs two virtual businesses, Jagger had my curiosity: I had to ask what his clients thought when they found out his company was virtual. As a freelance programmer, my clients are pretty used to the idea of us running the business from home but I thought he might have had a different experience in the real estate industry.

Not so.

Ubertor had trained its customers to interact with them ways that work with a virtual business. They've always given customer support via online chat as much as possible and they even discouraged visits to the office before they went virtual.

All in all the presentation was very informative and I'm already working on implementing some of his ideas. Looking forward to next month's event!