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online business

The life of an entrepreneur is like a rollercoaster.

At Leaders in Heels, the busiest period is the pre-Christmas season.
Being an expectant mother (after three years of trying to conceive) didn’t hold me back from running my business at full speed. It took me two years to design and manufacture our Phenomenal Woman planners, and I didn’t want to waste another year because you can’t miss the Christmas-New Year window.

I had lists and plans to ensure that my business (and I) would be prepared when my baby’s due date came around. I knew, on paper, what I had to do in the weeks leading up to his birth. And surely it wouldn’t take long to get back to my business once he was born. I mean, I was only a pregnant woman full of hormones, who’d never held a baby in my life. How hard could it be?!

And then my lovely baby boy Jordan decided to surprise me by coming into the world five weeks early. Five whole weeks. Before I’d had time to execute any of my preparations.

So, this is how my first months of maternity leave looked, both in the lead-up to, and during, the busy Christmas period. Thankfully, Jordan loved being carried around while sleeping!

It was difficult juggling both business and baby, especially as first-time mother. Try feeding a squirmy baby while answering emails!

This is exactly what we were doing when an email came from the lovely team at Yarra Trail, inviting me to be part of their ‘Trailblazer’ campaign—a celebration of inspirational Australian women and their stories.

Leaders in Heels started out as a blog that interviewed and celebrated amazing women, so how could I possibly say no?

Yarra Trail: Trailblazing Women

Yarra Trail is a great Australian fashion story in itself that started in Melbourne some twenty-two years ago. It’s grown into a brand that’s sold in David Jones, Myer and around 250 boutiques nationally, across New Zealand and South Africa.

Being able to achieve something like that is also a little dream of mine!

Yarra Trail is known for their effortlessly modern, relaxed look for everyday wear. The outfits are perfect for the weekend or even midweek – if you work for yourself or are lucky enough to be in a cool office with a relaxed dress code.

But beyond the fresh looks and independent vibe, the thing I love most about Yarra Trail is its celebration of women. Now in its fourth series, Trailblazing Women campaign highlights remarkable women across Australia who’ve blazed their own trail, inspiring scores of other women to consider their own future without any limits.

“But beyond the fresh looks and independent vibe, the thing I love most about Yarra Trail is its celebration of women.

I am humbled to be included as part of that group. I, like many others, rarely look at my own achievements, focusing instead on daily priorities and to-dos. It’s part of why I created in Leaders in Heels—to remind women that they are amazing and give them the confidence to create the life they want.

I was invited by Yarra Trail to be part of photoshoot in Melbourne. It was a super fun day of hair, make-up, fashion and thought-provoking interviews. As I sat down to talk about my story, it made me pause and look back at my journey – my inspiration, my childhood, my business, my family – everything that’s shaped me into who I am today.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing more of my story, along with some of my favourite outfits from Yarra Trail’s winter 2018 collection ‘Rich Tapestry’. Everything’s designed in Melbourne and inspired by the rich, warm tones of Australia’s seasonal landscape. I love it!

Here, I’m metaphorically and literally breaking through while wearing the Dove Blossom Print Jacket ($149), White Crew Neck Tee ($49.95), and Aster Coloured Jean ($99.95).

Leaders in Heels

If you’ve stumbled on this site for the first time, I’m the founder of Leaders in Heels. I design inspirational stationery to help women develop habits of successful leaders, and encourage them to go after their dreams and make their mark on the world.

“I design inspirational stationery to help women develop habits of successful leaders, and encourage them to go after their dreams and make their mark on the world.

I was born and raised in Poland, and moved to Australia in 2008. These days, I work from my home studio in Balmain in Sydney, together with my husband Nino and two other team members. We recently welcomed a new member to the team, my baby boy Jordan Valentine. And our cute corgi, Happy is our Head of Security!

We’re a small team, but we’ve sold over 30,000 books! I’ve shipped to countries all over the world, and also to employees from companies like Google, BHP, Coca-Cola, PWC and American Express.

Leaders in Heels has grown so much from the small blog I started six years ago, and it’s all thanks to the support of our amazing online community of women that we’re still here today.

My “I’m going places and I’m going in style!” pose wearing the Multi Spot Print Shirt ($99.95) & Aster Coloured Jean ($99.95).

Why Kasia Gospos?

If you pictured the kind of person who would start an online mag or create an inspirational stationery brand, I don’t think you’d imagine an accountant for whom English is a second language. But those are little things when it comes to passion and a burning desire to pursue it.

“An education is the most valuable possession – no one can ever take it away from you”

My desire to nurture, inspire and empower women comes from my mum, who strongly shaped my views on the power of women. The story starts well before I was born. When Poland was still a communist nation in the seventies, every citizen had a job guarantee and everyone was paid the same no matter their experience or commitment. So, when my mum decided to go to university instead of working to earn money, everyone laughed.

Fast-forward to the nineties when I was 13, my dad passed away. My mum suddenly became a single mum and a widow, and had to support both myself and my brother. Communism was a thing of the past and thanks to her foresight, my mum was well-educated and working in a senior position in a large company—most likely managing those who laughed at her before!

From her example, I learned that an education is the most valuable possession, as no one can ever take it away from you. I also learned how important it is to achieve independence, because no man or government is a reliable financial plan. These beliefs strongly shaped the decisions I made later in life that led me to where I am today.

“I learned how important it is to achieve independence, because no man or government is a reliable financial plan.”

Why Leaders in Heels?

Leaders in Heels started in 2011 a humble blog with one contributor—me! The idea for the blog came from women sharing their stories with me and various observations I made when working with and seeing other women in the workplace.

Growing up and having my first corporate job in Poland was where I learned the role of a woman in a society and workplace—in Polish society, to be exact. When I first came to Australia, I worked in the mining industry doing the exact same job (management accountant) but the culture was different. One of my female colleagues told me she was disappointed that she’d been overlooked for a vacant role. After talking to her, I discovered that she’d never told the boss she was interested in the role—she thought he would see her hard work and promote her. It surprised me that she never asked, as mum always told me to be nice and then ask for what I want.

“Mum always told me to be nice, and then ask for what I want.”

It is hard to say if the differences were cultural (different country, different religion) or behavioural, but I realised that some women didn’t like to put themselves forward while others did. It made me wonder why certain women were more successful than others, and what I could learn from them.

That’s where the idea of the blog came from. I wanted to learn from successful women and share their experiences with other women. I also had my own sneaky agenda to improve my English and ultimately build a network of opportunities to succeed in a corporate field in Australia.

Here I am doing my “I am woman. What’s your superpower?” pose wearing the Cinders Gradient Spot Tee ($69.95) & Ink Pull On Jean ($99.95).

Why stationery?

Leaders in Heels’ mission is, and always will be, to create more female leaders. To nurture, inspire and empower women.

With the internet, we’re faced with content overload. There’s so much out there about every topic you can think of! Creating more content felt like adding more sand to already full sandpit. It’s great, it’s useful, but it’s not making a huge difference. And I wanted to make a difference.

I wanted to find a way to influence women’s lives on a daily basis and help them become better leaders through creating new skills and new habits.

According to Phillippa Lally, a health psychology researcher at University College London, it takes more than two months before a new behaviour becomes automatic—66 days to be exact.

“It takes more than two months before a new behaviour becomes automatic—66 days to be exact.”

I realised that stationery is something women use on a daily basis, so why not make it a tool to help them develop the habits of successful leaders? I wanted the stationery to share inspirational quotes, challenge them, and become part of their daily routine.

I launched the first stationery line, Make Your Mark, through a crowdfunding campaign and based it around the Leaders in Heels manifesto. Our manifesto contains six key traits of successful leaders: passion, creativity, innovation, confidence, determination and kindness. I didn’t even know that the first product was a beginning to something bigger; that I was blazing my own trail.

“I didn’t even know that the first product was a beginning to something bigger; that I was blazing my own trail.”

It makes me so happy to see our products being used as self-development tools. They’re also purchased as gifts by managers, coaches, parents, schools and universities.

YOU GOT THIS! I am wearing the Multi Stripe Jumper ($89.95), Aster Pocket Detail Vest ($139.00) & Ink Pull On Jean ($99.95).

Further down the trail

I want to provide more tools and build an even bigger community where women can be inspired and empowered to take charge of their own lives, whether in the boardroom or outside of it. I’d love to see more women in leadership positions, and doing what they love. Leadership is not just about work. Being a leader means following your own trail and inspiring others, and therefore can mean anything from pursuing your passion, raising a child, or running a business. I hope that Leaders in Heels will be a positive platform for change.

My grand vision for Leaders in Heels is to grow it into an international stationery brand with brick-and-mortar stores all over the world so I can inspire even more girls and women!

To shop the look, head to yarratrail.com.au or in-store at Myer, David Jones and boutiques nationally. You can find your local stockists right here.

To read my full interview with Yarra Trail and see more videos visit Yarra Trail Traiblazers’ Campaign.

From a background in advertising and law, Jodie Fox now applies her communication savvy and sense of style to her true passion: outfitting women around the world in beautiful shoes via Shoes of Prey. In case you’ve not heard of Shoes of Prey, it’s a unique way of designing your perfect shoe – ideal for women who want to either add their own flair to their footwear, and also acts as a veritable lifesaver for women who can’t find the height they want in their shoes from traditional bricks-and-mortar retail outlets.

Jodie’s role in the business encompasses product development, public relations and being the global face of the brand. Her work on Shoes of Prey has been well recognised, including receiving the national Telstra Business Women’s Awards Winner (Australia), Hudson Private & Corporate Sector, 2014 Top 30 most influential women in Australian retail, 2014 Top 10 Australian female entrepreneurs and 2015’s top 8 entrepreneurs to watch. Jodie gives us the lowdown on what it took to make Shoes of Prey what it is today, and tips for budding fashionista entrepreneurs.

I turned my passion into my business

I’m a lawyer by trade and started out working at Blake Dawson (now Ashurst), where I worked with amazing people and teachers. But, I soon came to realise that my heart just wasn’t in it. The longer I was there, the sadder I became. It’s the first time that I realised how important it is to fill your life up with things you truly love.

When I fully came to terms with this, I made a list of things that would make me happy. Not in career, but in my whole life. Then I began to really grill everyone in my life about his or her industry. What did they do day-to-day? What did they love? What did they hate? What did they imagine happening in the future?

I took those answers and looked at them beside my list. The career that came out on top was advertising, so I went and learnt about building a brand, before deciding to build one of my own.

Coming up with a great business idea comes from solving a problem that you are experiencing. We knew we were on to something when we came up with Shoes of Prey, but we had to ask ourselves three key questions that every business should consider before starting out:

Is it something people would pay for?
Are there lots of people that would pay for it? More than once?
Is it possible to see a return on initial investment?

The inspiration …

I was solving a problem of my own. I didn’t love shoes until I could design them myself – and then I absolutely loved being able to pick and choose every aspect of my shoes. I loved deciding on the leather, the heel height, the shape. It was so much fun. And, when the shoes arrived, they were like nothing else available. It was awesome. My girlfriends asked where the shoes came from, and if I would commission their designs too, which I did.

… And the co-founders who believed in the idea

I wouldn’t have thought to turn it into a business had it not been for my two co-founders Mike Knapp and Michael Fox. They were both working at Google and were really excited about the potential of online retail. They just needed a great idea…. And designing your own shoes online was it. That is how Shoes of Prey was born.

Educating the public

In the beginning it was a huge battle to get other people to understand what it was we were doing – The education we had to give was huge. We also had to build our reputations from scratch – who were these three twenty somethings building a totally pie-in-the-sky idea?

We overcame this through perseverance. Shoes of Prey broke even after two months of business, so we were quickly able to prove the demand for the service we were providing.

The inevitable growth

I’ve loved seeing the growth of the company over the past eight years. We started out as a team of three, working from my one bedroom apartment in Sydney – since then we’ve become a team of 150 people with offices in Australia, Tokyo, Manila, LA, New York and China. I’m so proud of how far we’ve come and where we can go from here.

And the personal growth, too

The personal journey has surprised me the most about running my own business. I assume this is similar for all entrepreneurs simply because starting your own business demands everything from you. I could never have understood or expected the way it would shape me.

The best part of the job

I’m lucky because my job takes me around the world, where I meet different and inspiring people every day. While it’s sometimes difficult to travel as much as I do, I never take for granted that I’m getting to do a job that I am passionate about and love.

The perks of being a Shoe Queen

I’m lucky to work with shoes everyday, but it means that I do have a huge number of them! Because I generally wear monochrome colours, I like to try and add a pop of colour or texture with my shoes. I’d decide my style as classic with edge. At the moment I am loving pointy-flats. They are so comfortable and easy to wear, but stylish and go with everything.

If I had to pick one or two of my favourite heels, I do love a dark, textured heel, it adds a bit of personality to an otherwise serious look. Otherwise, I’ll go for something fun like our Carla shoe (which we created in collaboration with Australian fashion legend, Carla Zampatti) – a gorgeous pink silk heel that is perfect for a dinner date to a night out with the girls.

Favourite Aussie designer

I love Australian designers. My wardrobe is dominated by them, including Dion Lee, Bianca Spender, Ellery, We are Handsome and Carla Zampatti.

Advice for new entrepreneurs

As an entrepreneur, there aren’t courses or training that can provide the lessons you learn from just getting in and getting it done. Don’t wait until you are ready – do everything before you are ready. Don’t let your expertise – or lack thereof – get in the way of a really good idea.

Finally, my 3 key pieces of advice:

The words I live by are ‘do everything before you are ready’. Don’t wait or hesitate.
Have confidence in your business idea and yourself.
Do what you love.

Thanks Jodie for sharing your insights with us!

All images via Shoes of Prey

Search Engine Optimisation – or SEO – is always a hot topic because it is so important – it allows your business to be found online with ease. It’s also been a hot topic because in the past, it’s been shrouded in mystery. It’s an area of business people need to be made aware of – if you get it wrong and Google penalises you, the consequences are dire.

In the past, SEO was a challenging game to play; a big industry grew around it which continued to perpetuate the view that if you were going to make it to page one on the search engine results page, you needed an expert who knew how to manage the search engine in the way that no ordinary digital marketer could. This is not the case anymore. Google wants transparency and actively discourages any smoke and mirrors search engine optimisation tactics.

So what is Search Engine Optimisation today?

Here’s a definition – Search Engine Optimisation is a set of techniques applied to your website so that the search engine (usually Google in Australia) recognises your site as relevant to a search query entered by the user. The search results that come from a user entering a search query is called a search engine results page or SERP.

The aim of SEO is to have the links to your pages appear naturally or organically on page one of the SERP. Consumer behaviour has changed, and these days we don’t usually go beyond page one of the search engine’s results pages to find what we’re looking for. If we don’t find what we want on the first page, we simply refine our search query or keywords. The position of the links on the search engine results page is a result of SEO techniques.

Why is Search Engine Optimisation the business of everyone in the business?

SEO and content are today’s dancing partners – the ice cream and jelly of digital marketing. The SEO process starts with keywords, and it’s no longer just the job of the digital marketing team to think about these keywords. Defining keywords helps a business understand what it represents for its customers – what value or solution the business provides to its customers and what business it is really in.

What do I mean by this? Here’s an example. I recently ran through a keyword exercise with a doctor for her general practice. We started with the big headings; womens health; mens health, etc. Then I asked – what do you do in these areas? The answer I got was thorough and technical – a lot of terms that I could not understand. The next question – if your customers were looking for that service, what would they type into a search engine? That’s when we get to the real value, finding the words that your customers would use to find your product or service. Only then can we build out a strategy for SEO and establish a framework that informs website navigation and where the content will go. Would the doctor have thought she would be part of determining the SEO structure for the buinsess? No, she didn’t. Will the GP be doing the SEO? No, she wont be. But as you can see from the example, she is an essential part of its success.

Any content creator in the business also needs to know the keywords for the business and the SEO strategy. In the case of the doctor’s business, that is going to include the receptionists, the practice nurse and the other doctors in the practice, all of whom write some form of content that will most likely be published on the website (as well as used in other formats).

Link Building is a lot like Public Relations

SEO includes ‘on-page’ techniques, using your keywords in the URL, page title, headings, content and images; as well as ‘off-page’ techniques, which is essentially having other sites link to your site. Anchor text are the words or phrases on the site that links to yours containing the hyperlink to your site. These should be your keywords. You can understand that “click here” or “learn more” won’t do a lot for you. Links and anchor text should always make sense to the visitor. This is a way you can assess quality. If a link or anchor text looks weird or out of place, like it doesn’t belong, then it doesn’t.

If your customers were looking for that service, what would they type into a search engine? That’s when we get to the real value, finding the words that your customers would use to find your product or service

Good linking is helped by having active social media profiles and publishing a quality blog that others link to. But it’s also simply a matter of ensuring that businesses and organisations that you do business with have links to your site on theirs. Look to your partners, organisations that you sponsor, your community affiliations. Does that university business school that your CEO just made a speech to have a link along with the info and pic about the event? Does that sports team you support have a number of links to your site? What about the sponsorship you make to the local training awards program, is there a link from their site to yours? You check and if not, you make the phone call or send the email and ask that the link be made and then you check again. If every organisation you partner with in a variety of ways over time included links from their site to yours, your off-page SEO would be doing well.

What can you do about making SEO the business of everyone in the business?

It’s likely that most people in the business, outside of marketing, have little idea of what SEO is, and even if they do, they won’t think that they have anything to do with it.

Here are my top five tips for increasing the focus of everyone in the business on SEO.

It starts with education. How this happens in businesses varies greatly but even the very simple “paper bag lunch” training session will go a long way.
During your training, avoid technicalities and keep it simple. Playing a keyword game is a great place to start. Choose a topic and have everyone come up with three different words or phrases that they would type into a search engine if they were looking for that thing. Run some live tests and show the results.
Demonstrate how other businesses in your sector are using keywords by visiting a few sites. Show page titles and URLs, as well as content, headings and subheadings and images for sites that have good SEO structure and ones that don’t.
Inform everyone what the target keywords are and benchmark your performance for those. After some dedicated keyword -focused SEO work, celebrate your success as you move up the rankings in Google.
Set a quality ‘link’ challenge. How many links can your team generate over a month or two?

What are your tips to encourage your organisation to focus on SEO?

Beth Powell

Beth Powell is the founder of Digital Marketing Club, a coaching and support program for marketers and non-marketers that provides direct answers to your questions about your own digital marketing and gets your roadblocks unstuck. She has become known as the go-to person for clear explanations about how digital marketing works and how businesses can use the various solutions to improve their marketing and grow their business. Beth is a sought after conference speaker and author of the soon to be published book “Drive More Business: A 5 step Guide to Digital Marketing for Auto Dealers”. For more information, email info@digitalmarketingclub.com.au.

There are many things to consider when setting up an online retail business – the amount is mind-boggling! If products are being sourced overseas, decisions also need to be made early on around standards including ethical work practices and the fair treatment of employees in the factories supplying your goods.

Unlike other business decisions, there are no right or wrong answers in this area – ethical trade. For most business owners the choice is more a moral one, and distinct from financial realities.

Ethical Trade – what is it?

Simply put ethical trade is ‘supply chain with a heart’. The Ethical Trading Initiative offers a more thorough definition. Ethical trade means retailers, brands and their suppliers take responsibility for improving the working conditions of the people who make the products they sell.

Companies with a commitment to ethical trade adopt a code of labor practice that they expect all their suppliers to work towards. These codes address issues like:

Wages
Hours of work
Health and safety
Right to join free trade unions

While Fair Trade applies to products, and is focused on pricing and trading conditions for primary producers, ethical trade is concerned with the working conditions throughout the supply chain, and can relate to the manufacture, sourcing and supply of any product.

Be true to yourself

When I set up my fashion label James&Co, employing an ethical supply chain and producing goods that were cruelty free was of upmost importance. I am personally very passionate about these issues, and it meant that in any business venture I undertook, I had to remain true to my beliefs.

When I was setting up my business five years ago, the one bit of advice that stuck was to do something I was passionate about. I have always liked a good jacket. In my previous profession as a lawyer, I always wore jackets. I actually bought a leather jacket every year for many years. Then the fiasco that is live exports came to prominence, and I found myself thinking, “I just can’t do leather”.

Fundamentally this is what led me down the path of creating a business that employs an ethical supply chain.

Ethical trade means retailers, brands and their suppliers take responsibility for improving the working conditions of the people who make the products they sell

I chose to produce faux leather jackets produced via an ethical and cruelty free supply chain. I try to ensure human rights are also upheld at the factories I have used in Pakistan and India. This includes no exploitation of labor, no underpaying and no substandard conditions.

Be clear about your Code of Conduct

I am very transparent about the guiding principles at James&Co – they are on our website. At the moment I produce our jackets at one factory in Pakistan. I expect the company to adhere to our supplier code of conduct.

While government laws for labor and labor regulations are a strong starting point, you will always find businesses that flout the law. To lessen this risk, I am careful about the countries I manufacture in. For example, Bangladesh has a really bad reputation for exploiting its labor. Whilst I would love to support people earning a living there, I choose not to manufacture in these sorts of places because I can’t guarantee my Code of Conduct will be respected.

When I began manufacturing the jackets, I initially started in India as I had done a lot of work there in a previous career. While you have to rely on instinct and word of mouth, I also used an agent to give me confidence in my decisions.

The agent I used has a large export business, so her reputation would not be worth anything if she introduced me to the wrong kind of supplier. Social media is a really strong force for ensuring transparency and honesty in business dealings. You can have all the fair trading laws in the world, but the most powerful deterrent I find is the prospect that you could be named and shamed on any kind of social media website.

Press the flesh

Whilst you cannot be present at the factory 100 percent of the time, you have to be able to accept a fair bit of trust that your ideals will be upheld.

I satisfy myself by visiting my factory on a regular basis. When I was there a few weeks ago I was constantly at the factory. I met all the workers. I saw how they worked with the families. I felt satisfied within myself about the people I deal with.

Social media is a really strong force for ensuring transparency and honesty in business dealings

Information flow to consumers

From my client base, I am not seeing an active demand for supply side transparency, as yet. The majority of positive feedback I receive about my jackets is that they are cruelty free.

James&Co is also accredited by PETA, so a large proportion of our customers are vegan. They are very much driven by what they wear and what they eat. They don’t want to eat or wear parts of animals.

Profit vs. ethics

It’s probably fair to say that you could always source a product cheaper if an ethical supply chain was not important. You just have to go into the large shopping chains to see examples of this strategy.

My products at James&Co are not high end but we are focused on quality. If you compare the faux leather wallets and bags at large discount retailers, the quality there is nowhere near as good. We’re trying to price at a point where you can be ethical in your choices. You shouldn’t let budget be the controlling aspect of whether you can make an ethical choice or not.

Finding your own path

I have found on my journey with James&Co that I am growing more and more passionate about way I build ethical standards into the business. I did not start out with a goal for supply side transparency, but as I have matured my business and my understanding of the industry, I am seeing alternative ways of doing things.

You shouldn’t let budget be the controlling aspect of whether you can make an ethical choice or not.

You are never going to be all things to all people. For example, some people would say faux leather was not very ethical when you consider the chemicals used to produce it.

You need to find a way to remain true to your values whilst building a viable business.

To me, the Ethical Fashion Forum, the industry body for sustainable fashion, and representing over 6000 members in more than 100 countries, has been a very helpful organisation. They offer a sourcing and business database, online network, business intelligence platform, and global program of events. You can also access their sustainability tool kit for the fashion sector.

We are a members of the Source and have found it helpful in gaining access and locating suppliers who meet our standards.

Featured image via Pixabay under Creative Commons CC0

You may say that, when I first started my online retail business, I had my work cut out for me. I do not have a retail background, I am not a technologist and I had no experience in importing goods. But I have a passionate belief in the digital economy, and I believe that the future of the world is in the online and digital space.

My fundamental driver was, and still is, that being online is really important.

I knew I wanted a business in clothing, I wanted it to be niche and I wanted the products to be produced in a way that supported humanitarian, ethical and cruelty-free lifestyles.

Since I began my business three years ago, the learning curve has been massive. Despite my first foray into manufacturing my own goods having more than its fair share of challenges, I now own an online retail business that has traction in the UK and US.

What I have found over the last three years is, among my fellow e-retailers, there is a willingness to offer support. A quick Google search reveals loads of ‘how to’ guides on virtually everything and friendly words abound in forum chat rooms.

Below are my top five tips for burgeoning e-retailers, a way of extending my virtual helping hand to those launching their own online dream.

1. Sell something you are passionate about

Sounds logical, doesn’t it? For me, I love a really good jacket. Feedback at the time, which also aligned with my key business principle to be “niche”, was to look for an alternative to a leather jacket. I am a vegetarian, and so the idea of selling a product that was underpinned by humanitarian ideals and was cruelty free was very attractive.

Once you find something, road test and road test again with friends – really anybody – that is willing to be blunt and speak their mind. When you do decide on “the one”, the next step if you are importing the good, is make sure you have contractual arrangements with suppliers in place to ensure the quality of your order will be the same as the sample. Get their commitment in writing.

2. Know your limitations

I think if you don’t necessarily have a background that you can draw upon, you should get some advice. Not being a technology expert, I outsourced the development of my website. Networking is key to finding people you can trust. I use contacts that I am comfortable with as much as possible.

I belong to a number of different groups, like Women in Business and Woman in Global Business. I go to a lot of presentations and things like that, which also improves my networks.

Once you find something, road test and road test again with friends – really anybody – that is willing to be blunt and speak their mind

3. Educate yourself

I have a background as a lawyer, so I am pretty good at dissecting facts and looking for outcomes. However, I felt completely naked! I had to keep making ‘to do’ lists of what I didn’t know. As I mentioned, there is a wealth of information on the Internet; it is pretty easy to find a “how to” article on just about everything. Don’t go overboard though and sign up for every newsletter you find during your hunt – your inbox will start to groan! Often you don’t need to pay dollars for the knowledge, there is just so much free information out there on the web.

My overall objective from the outset was that I did not necessary want to remain hands on – forever. Even though I am not as familiar with things such as digital marketing concepts and apps, I need to learn the substantive part of it, so when I do engage people to do it, I know what I’m asking them to do. For example, as my products appeal to a large demographic – including those younger than me – I have contracted out the marketing and social media side of things. The messaging needs to be contemporary and I am happy to let people that know what they are doing handle this side of things.

4. Think big

When you start your business, you need to have vision. Not just how it is going to grow locally, but internationally as well. Legal issues around setting up a business should not be ignored. Apply for a business name, register the company, get corporate tax file number (ABN), find a good accountant and buy an accounting package.

But the big one that most people don’t think about is look after your intellectual property. Apply for a trademark over your logo.

Contracts are important. Don’t move a muscle until you have a contract with your supplier. I didn’t have a tight contract with my first supplier and as a consequence found the styling of my wallet was being replicated – and sold – with the supplier’s own fabric around it.

In my experience, it is also a mistake to underestimate the benefits of a physical outlet for your product – a bricks and mortar vehicle. Nothing beats the ability to touch and feel your product.

My overall objective from the outset was that I did not necessary want to remain hands on – forever

5. Respect social media

You hardly need a Trade Practices Act to keep retailers and manufacturers honest when you have social media. Be honest in how you describe your product, the quality and the images that portray it. If you get these two wrong, your business can be destroyed overnight by social media postings. Make sure everything you put out there is open to scrutiny and you are fully accountable because customers are going to call you on everything – so you have to be prepared!

Anne Hurley

Anne Hurley is the Founder and CEO of James&Co, an online boutique selling designer faux leather jackets and accessories. Anne established James&Co in 2012 with a strong humanitarian philosophy, supporting cruelty-free fashion and directing a percentage of profits to mental health initiatives for young people. James & Co’s products are made without leather, fur, wool or silk and are accredited by Peta to carry the ‘Peta-approved Vegan’ logo. Under Anne’s leadership, the business has expanded into international markets, and is now selling with great success into Australia, the US and the UK.

In the physical world of business everyone checks out what their competitors are doing, right? But what about getting a clear understanding about what they’re doing online? In my experience, many businesses either forget that part, or are so random about it, that there isn’t any strategic benefit from the exercise.

Dave Chaffey, the UK-based digital marketing expert and author of the excellent book “Emarketing Excellence: Planning and Optimizing your Digital Marketing” says, “The purpose (of analysing your competitors online) is to gain a level of insight that allows you to evolve your digital marketing strategy based on competitor insight. It’s not that you should be dictated by what you learn about competitors, since being very reactive to that can be worse than doing nothing. Yet common sense tells us that knowledge is power”.

Here is my 5 step method to knowing what your competitors are up to in Social and Digital

1. Start with a spreadsheet or whichever recording tool you prefer

Note the date of your analysis, the name of your company and the name of the person who is doing the analysis. The reason for this is that you are going to continue to do this over time, so you want a good record. Put column headings in your spreadsheet and include the following columns:

Competitor URL
Website observations/opportunities
Blog observations/opportunities
Positioning words
Email
Social (you can choose to have a column for each social channel: Facebook; Google+; You Tube; LinkedIn; Instagram; Twitter)

2. Choose four competitors to analyse

Two of those should be direct competitors, and two indirect competitors that are outside of your specific industry, but similar.

For example, for car dealerships it is appropriate to look at real estate sites and boat sale sites. In some industries, a few website supply companies or digital marketing companies serve most of the businesses and even when that is not case the digital marketing practice of particular industries can start to look very similar. This is the reason to look at sites outside your own industry.

3. Start with a manual process

Go to the competitor websites and look at the structure, design, content, positioning keywords and the way the website is generating leads. Do the same with the blog and ask the following:

Does the blog add value to the prospect/customer?
Is it customer focused or product focused?
What are the keywords?
What is the frequency of publishing?
What content opportunities are there for us?
What can we learn?
What are they doing that looks great that we are not?

Be critical and granular in your analysis. For email/newsletter analysis, simply sign up to any email program and, while you are signing up to things, “like” their Facebook page and follow their Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google +. Subscribe to their You Tube. Analyse these for the content topics and types, the level of engagement, and frequency of publishing.

4. Use some online tools for a different perspective

There are a number of free online tools that are useful

Rob Hammond’s SEO crawler (http://robhammond.co/tools/seo-crawler)is great for analysing your competitors’ pages, keywords and titles
spyfu.com will show you which keywords a site ranks for, if they are moving up or down in search, how many keywords are unique and how many are shared across competitor sites and the value of search engine optimisation to the site (expressed as a dollar amount). This tool will also tell you if your competitor is using Google Adwords, or paid search links in Google and for which keywords and what the bid is for that keyword (how much they are paying for a click through on that link). Note that www.spyfu.com data won’t be perfect but will offer some insights in a comparison, only if the website you are performing the check on has enough data for the tool’s analysis.
For an overview of your own site and competitor sites there is a handy free tool called similarweb.com It provides site ranking, traffic overview and traffic sources (both of which track volume) for your site and competitor sites. Yes, you can see how much traffic your competitor gets and where it is coming from! You can see how they are performing against you in search, if they are doing display, how they are tracking with referral sites. Very cool and useful! For very small sites, however, there may not be enough data to get the full analysis.

Go to competitor websites and look at the structure, design, content, positioning keywords and the way the website is generating leads

A useful site to evaluate digital marketing technology investment is www.builtwith.com. This site allows you to input any web address or URL and it provides information on the technology the site is using. You will be able to understand from here what advertising systems the competitor is using, what technology they are using for email distribution, for analytics, and for their website. At the very least you will learn how much investment your competitor is putting into digital marketing and over time you will be able to evaluate continuing investment.
For a catch-all, regardless of the size of the site, use Hubspot’s marketing.grader.com. Here you will get an overview of social, mobile, SEO, blog activity and a handy score. It’s really useful for a strengths and weaknesses analysis.
For Facebook, Meltwater has made a tool called likealyzer.com This tool analyses any Facebook URL and provides information on engagement, time and frequency of publishing and response, use of hashtags and an overall score.

A note on the site-focused competitive intelligence tools – these tools are sometimes not very accurate but as Avinash Kaushik, author of the Occam’s Razor blog and the book Web Analytics 2.0, says, “You are comparing ‘bruised apples’ with ‘bruised apples'” . There are many competitive intelligence tools available, so choose the one you like to use and stick to using that one for your analysis. That way you are always comparing the same bruised apples.

5. Draw some conclusions and apply the “So what?” test

Ask yourself: What did we learn? What actions can we take?

It’s useful to benchmark the data you gather about direct competitors against your own data. You can then take the data analysis an extra step. Ask yourself – “why does this matter?” and then ask the same question of the answer you get. This process will result in one of two responses, either: “okay, this is just an interesting observation” or “we can act on that and this is what we are going to do”. In analytics, the second response is the only correct one (more on that in another blog post) but in competitor analysis, so long as we observe and learn from the process, I think the first response is okay also. For indirect competitors ask yourself, what are they doing that seems to be working that we are not doing? How could we implement and test that to make sure it works for us?

How regularly you schedule time to revisit the five step process depends what industry you are in and how competitive it is. For some of my clients every 6 months is fine, for others monthly review is important. The main thing, though, is to decide your suitable time frame and schedule it. If you don’t it is unlikely to happen until the time comes for some massive review because you find you have a P76 (car metaphor there – tell me in the comments below who gets it?).

These are my methods to understanding what competitors are up to with their digital marketing. What methods do you use? We’d love to hear in the comments!

Beth Powell
Beth Powell is the founder of Digital Marketing Club, a coaching and support program that provides direct answers to your questions about your own digital marketing. She created the first social media and digital marketing training programs in Australia and has become known as the go-to person for clear explanations about how digital marketing can grow your business. Beth is a sought after conference speaker and author of the soon to be published book “Drive More Business: A 5 step Guide to Digital Marketing for Auto Dealers”. For more information, contact her at info@digitalmarketingclub.com.au