Leighton Ventures

My definition of LinkedIn.com – A wasteland of aimless connections.

Let’s face it, LinkedIn is just not that exciting; nor is it meaningful. I have always said that it’s more effective to just pick up the phone. Also, think about when you are really in a pinch for help… are you going to send a impersonal email through LinkedIn? Or, are you going to “Pick Up The F%&$ing Phone” (PUTFP).

An example of a misleading management tool is the ordinary monthly sales chart.

People think up is good and down is bad, but what if the chart goes up less than the same month last year? What if that continues for 12 months? When will you finally notice that your growth has slowed to a crawl? Too late is the answer. A simple tool called the trailing 12 months chart (T12M) will forever solve this problem. Where ordinary charts regularly lie to you, the T12M always tells you the truth.

Well, I have found this T12M chart to be very insightful for forecasting and understanding my business and my client’s businesses. In fact, utilizing Excel is nice. But, there is a better, more interactive way of looking and documenting your sales.

Why not make notes on why sales went up, and went down? Below is a link to an easy way capturing this data to help CEOs track their company’s monthly sales, per Kraig Kramer’s T12M.

Creating your T12M Spreadsheet in Google Docs.

Google Spreadsheet

Adding an Interactive Time Series Chart

Interactive Time Series Chart

Check out the tutorial on creating an Interactive Time Series Chart.

Now you can use the power of Google Finance for your company’s monthly sales and trailing 12 months sales numbers. Simply rollover the line graph and the top right of the gadget displays the value.

You can also make notes to document the reason why sales increased or decreased so you can track all the necessary variables. For example, in October 2008 this company obtained 4 new clients and bumped the sales to $16,000.

Let us know if you need Leighton Ventures to customize your company’s T12M chart.

I not only use Google Apps to host all of my company’s email, I continually advise other small businesses to do the same. Why would you want to be tied down to a desktop application for your email, when you can use the power of Gmail for your own hosted domain email?

Also, recently the Google Labs feature was enabled on my Google Apps. See below.

Google Labs enabled on my Google Apps Account, Finally!

With the Google Labs feature I now have the ability to add my signature without distorting the string of emails. A major frustration shared by many.

What is Google Apps? Software-as-a-service for business email, information sharing and security.

How can a small Diego-based nonprofit organization get more media coverage, PR, and generate more donations (your revenue) in six months than your small business in a full year?

Passion, persistence, and a little marketing.

I would like to now introduce you to Buddy Bowl, Inc. a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising money for military, law enforcement, and children’s related charities through an annual flag football tournament.

How they do the raise enough money to help so many injured military personnel and their families?

Buddy Bowl staff knock on doors, send letters, send emails, maintain a robust CRM system on Salesforce, send press releases, contact media, and simply crank the marketing engine. All for a great cause! Below is a quick clip of some of the media coverage Buddy Bowl received. This shows how a little marketing can lead to some big success.

This past Thanksgiving weekend (as highlighted on the media clip) was the highlight of the year for Buddy Bowl. The organization raised more than $65,000 to donate to specific charities in to help military and law enforcement.

Wouldn’t your company benefit from this type of media coverage? Well, what’s the secret? You need to get involved with a cause, partner up with an organization, develop a compelling reason why your company is news worthy.

Think about the state of the economy and the lack of donations to nonprofits. Why not do something special for a local nonprofit and get some publicity for your small business.

Let me know how you are getting involved and some creative marketing ideas your company is deploying.

Welcome to the new Leighton Ventures website.

We’re going to start blogging about marketing, web design and development, startup companies, raising capital, and applications. We will be providing more ideas, resources, and information on these core topics.

You can also bet that we’ll add some insight on other topics as well.