Gail Goodman shares her experience of being a CEO and her insights for entrepreneurial success!

Constant Contact® was launched in 1998 and is the leading email marketing service for small businesses, associations, and nonprofits. We help small businesses and organizations succeed in building lasting customer relationships through professional email communications, such as newsletters, announcements, and promotions.

Today we have over 90,000 customers! Our customer base varies greatly across different industries-from retail, restaurants, and spas to business services, consultants, nonprofits, and associations. Our customers are able to create powerful email communications, build and manage email lists, and track campaign results.

We are very pleased to have recently been named to the Inc. 500 list of the fastest-growing private companies in the United States -- achieving a three-year sales growth of 669.3% (we are ranked number 166). In 2006 we were also named the 6th fastest growing company in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 for New England (with a five-year growth of 3,552%).

I took the role of CEO in April 1999, when Constant Contact was at its earliest stage-with only seven employees - today we have over 200 employees.

I spend most of my time leading and guiding the company, as we emerge from corporate adolescence into a full-scale large company. Now, it's about making sure that we have the right resources working on the right projects and that everyone works together well. So I do a lot of internal communications and direction setting.

The other thing that my position entails is that I am both an internal and external spokesperson for Constant Contact, but even more importantly for small businesses and email marketing. I really enjoy this part of my role. I do a lot of public speaking-giving seminars, keynotes and workshops - and also write for Entrepreneur.com, our monthly Email Marketing Hints & Tips newsletter and other publications.

I get up, make coffee at home and do my first half an hour of email while I have my first cup. Then I head into work, usually getting in between 8:30 and 9:00.

My typical day, at this point, doesn't look at all like my typical day in the beginning of my time at Constant Contact. With over 200 employees today, I spend most of my time in meetings - talking to people, hearing about new initiatives, helping to set direction, planning, budgeting, and leading. I spend a fair amount of time with the leaders of the company, helping them think about what they are working on and where it goes. I have one-on-ones with every member of my management team, not every day, but every day I have at least one of them, as well as a regular weekly staff meeting.

I also get involved in key initiatives that I am really interested in. So, as we start into 2007, one key initiative that I am working on is vertical marketing - I am heavily involved in that.

I spend 5-10% of my time keeping the board up-to-date and managing them. We have a board that understands our business very well and has been involved in our business for a long time. I talk to one to two board members every week, for 10-15 minutes, but all total I spend less than an hour a week on board related activities.

And, I now spend a lot of time on recruiting. Everybody in the organization is recruiting and I am a key sales person in the recruiting process.

I've worked in a number of roles, many of which were at software companies. I've held senior management, marketing, product management, business development and management consulting positions at Open Market, Progress Software, Dun & Bradstreet Software and Bain & Co.

I received my BA from The University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth.

The biggest changes have been the clarity in the industry about the difference between good email marketing - email marketing with permission, email marketing that is targeted and relevant - and spam. When we first began, spam didn't exist. Now, it is hard to remember that time.

At the time, the permission bar was not as clear and high as it is today. Then spam hit and everyone became spam. Over the years, as the good email marketers were willing to be held accountable for what they mailed and have set their permission and quality bar nice and high, it has really distinguished the two. So it has gone from being very gray, about who is what, to really clear. And, you know it when you see it in your inbox. If you see spam, you know it is spam. When you see good email, you know it's good email - even if it is from a company that is hitting you too frequently - but you don't think its spam.

Our customers include retailers, restaurants, consultants as well as personal services businesses like spas and hair salons. Any type of small business you can think of, we have them as customers. Our typical customer is a small business owner, who employs one to 25 people, operates with limited time and money, and is seeking an affordable solution to send professional email communications.

Here are some tips that will help...

Make it Useful

Make it Interesting

Make it Simple

Make it Authentic

The most important best practice for anyone just getting started with email marketing is to build a great list by collecting email addresses with permission (that means you have established an agreement with the recipient that they want to receive emails from you or your company) at every point of contact with your customers.

Try to answer the following set of questions:

Who is my customer?

What value do I deliver to them?

Can I make money delivering that value?

Write down your answers and keep coming back to them. Keep testing it. I thought this was my customer, and here was the value, and here's how I thought I'd make money. You'll learn a lot of things along the way... the value of proposition really are better targeted to a different customer base.

Now you have to go back and check your third question, can that customer really afford my services and can I make money there? Those three things need to line up! And, the answers cannot be long for any one of those questions - simple works. Know right from the start, who is your customer, what value you deliver to them, and how you make money delivering that value. If you can answer those questions clearly, then you are on your way to entrepreneurial success.

Labels: Entrepreneur of the Month