More than 80 colleges and universities nationwide have supported a scholarship from Lendio, an online service helping companies secure business loans and other types of business financing.

The Lendio Brock Blake Student Entrepreneur of the Year scholarship was announced last November, and is looking to help young entrepreneurs.

“We created the scholarship to help student entrepreneurs have the resources they need to get an education while pursuing their entrepreneurial dreams,” said Brock Blake, Lendio CEO. “It’s exciting to have this many universities on board with a similar vision.”

Some of the colleges and universities helping to support the scholarship are Arizona State University, University of Kansas, University of Nebraska, and the University of Oregon. The scholarship will award one student entrepreneur $2,500.

“We’ve had more applications than we thought we’d have at this point,” Blake said. “The response has been great, and we’re very happy to get support from colleges all over the country.”

Blake started the program because he received a similar scholarship while attending Brigham Young University.

“It allowed me to focus on academics and our startup without the worry of a part-time, low-paying job,” Blake said. “At the end of the day, I hope this scholarship will give future entrepreneurs the edge they need to be successful.”

The scholarship is called the Lendio Brock Blake Student Entrepreneur of the Year, which will award $2,500 every year to a student who has demonstrated excellence in entrepreneurship. It’s open to any college or university student that has started a company or is desirous to start a company while attending school.

To apply, students need to submit a 500-1,000 word essay to scholarship(at)lendio(dot)com. The deadline is July 1, 2012. The essay should cover things like:

• The student’s passion and commitment to being an entrepreneur
• The challenge of juggling a startup with academics
• Why the student wants to be an entrepreneur
• Current business plans/ideas
• The motivation behind being a business owner
• High-level goals in the next 5-10 years
• What it means to be an entrepreneur

“We are looking for future entrepreneurs with a vision to change their lives, and in the process, change part of the world,” Blake said. “This economy needs more young entrepreneurs building new, innovative companies that have a positive impact on their communities.”

For more information about the scholarship, visit http://www.lendio.com/scholarship/

About Lendio
Lendio is a free service for business owners seeking capital. Lendio makes small business loans simple by matching qualified small business owners with active banks, credit unions, and other lending sources. Through a proprietary matching technology, Lendio helps business owners identify the type of business loan and specific lenders that offer the highest probability for that business owner to prepare for and secure a business loan approval.

Lendio is venture-backed by Highway 12 Ventures and Tribeca Venture Partners. For more information, contact Lendio at press(at)lendio(dot)com.

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Yes, this is actually the side of Patrick Wiscombe's head.

With 12 billion people searching online, and hundreds of millions on social media, there’s a tremendous opportunity for businesses to grow with the right online campaigns.

However, in the ever-changing digital world, that’s easier said than done. For many, it’s a frustrating maze that is constantly shifting.

In this episode, we chat with Lee Odden, author of the new book “Optimize: How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing,” about how to clear up that maze. Lee is one of the most sought after experts in search engine optimization, social media and content marketing. He outlines steps small businesses can make to increase online performance to reach your true audience and drive sales and customer engagement.

When you’re done listening, make sure to check out sample chapters of his book at optimizebook.com.

About the Guest

Lee Odden

A 15-year veteran internet marketer, he publishes one of the most popular marketing blogs on the web (TopRankBlog) and writes a monthly column for ClickZ called Social Media Smarts. Odden serves on the advisory board for Incisive Media’s SES conference and speaks internationally on the topics of integrated PR, Search, Social Media and Content Marketing.

Turn up your speakers or put on your headphones, and enjoy the conversation:

Click below to Play

Highlights

• Introducing the one and only ‘Lee Odden’
• Short history of search marketing
• Recipe for SEO
• There is no silver bullet
• Where can small businesses begin in online marketing
• Discovering target audience
• Delivering relevant content vs. direct selling
• Identifying customer personas
• Content that shortens sales cycles
• Identify your worst customers
• Ongoing research, testing and monitoring
• Tools for measurement
• Why Lee has never hired a salesperson in 11 years
• Content that solves your customers problems
• We’re #1 in the #2 business …
• Does it work for toilet paper?
• Charmin’s toilet finder app
• Finding toilets in Paris
• First steps for business owners to have success online
• 12 billion people searching on Google every day
• Basics of Google Adwords
• Basics of on-page keyword optimization
• Digging into customers first, then finding the right keywords
• Ranking #1 for ‘Brain’
• Top 5 things every business needs to consider in online marketing
• Content plan
• Optimize
• Socialize
• Monitoring and measurement
• Refining strategy
• What’s the first online marketing hire a small business should make?
• Lee’s favorite thing about working for himself

Click below to Play

Enjoy the stories below and please share something you’ve read this week.

The 46th edition of Links of the Week:

1. Bernanke says lending spigots are more open now — Boston Globe — “Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Thursday that many businesses and consumers are finding it easier to borrow as banks shore up their balance sheets.”

2. Romney: Obama worst for small business since Carter — CNNMoney — “Mitt Romney last week called President Obama ‘the most anti-small business’ president since Jimmy Carter.
The presumptive Republican nominee said the Obama administration has made it ‘harder and harder for small business to thrive.’”

3. The Shadow Over Community Banking — CFO.com — “Last week, a Treasury Department official made a long-overdue confession: of the 343 banks that received capital injections under the Troubled Asset Relief Program and are still partly owned by the U.S. government, a majority won’t be able to repay their debt to taxpayers in the ‘foreseeable future,’ if ever.”

4. 26 Tips for Success With Location-Based Marketing — Social Media Examiner — “Social, local, mobile are three words marketers are hearing more and more these days. And sometimes we may even hear them uttered together in one breath as SoLoMo.”

5. Psychology Of Fraud: Why Good People Do Bad Things — NPR — “Over the past decade or so, news stories about unethical behavior have been a regular feature on TV, a long, discouraging parade of misdeeds marching across our screens. And in the face of these scandals, psychologists and economists have been slowly reworking how they think about the cause of unethical behavior.”

6. Top 5 Reasons Why SMBs Should be Afraid of Social Media — Search Engine Watch — “Social media presents great risks as it does rewards for small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Among social media’s shortcomings: it doesn’t convert prospects to customers with the same ease that search does.”

7. Don’t Try to “Pull an Instagram.” Here’s Why — Both Sides of the Table — “What I want to talk about today is one of the insider baseball discussions of our industry this past week: The odd fact of the $500 million financing round completed just before the company sold for a B.”

Now it’s your turn. What did you see this week that is worthy of everyone’s eyeballs?

Image courtesy of http://epicurienne.co.uk/

How many of these six small businesses do you think answered the phone?

Three.

An one of them was so busy, he asked me to call back.

Fast forward, eight hours later, of the other three small businesses that I called and left a message how many have I heard from?

You guessed it, none!

There is a statistic that when a prospective client gets a voice mail, up to 70% of clients hang up without leaving a message. There is also a correlation with answering the phone and making money.

Just like meeting someone for the first time, a first impression goes a long way in determining your level of confidence, and sets up expectations for future engagements.

I (and I assume you’re in the same boat) am not interested in doing business with someone that cannot even return a simple message. When — or should I say “if” — I hear from these three small businesses, my mind has already been made up. I have already moved on and they have lost the opportunity.

When you don't answer your phone, this is what you're saying to your would-be customers

If they cannot call back in eight hours, I question what my buying experience would be with that company? If they cannot pick up the phone when I want to buy, why would they pick up the phone when I need service?

Certainly, there are reasons that they could not call back, but if you are so busy that you cannot respond to a phone call in a single business day — especially when you are advertising for new clients — something is wrong.

No More Excuses; Services That Answer the Phone For You

There are a variety of answering services and virtual assistants that can handle this job without very little set up and minimal costs like answeringservice.com, answerconnect.com, voicenation.com, and myanswering.com.

There are a host of executive offices in most major cities that answer the phone as part of the overall office and assistant package. As a small business owner the most valuable resource you have is your time.

I realize depending on your business you cannot individually answer the phone for each prospective client. However, you are smart enough to realize that if you don’t have someone answering the phone, you are losing money. If you need to make the change to make your organization more professional, I suggest you do it today. One single sale this week probably would pay the monthly fee associated with one of these services.

Your Turn

Have you had similar experiences? Do you have a hard time answering your business phone, or responding to customers when they want your business?

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Yes, this is actually the side of Patrick Wiscombe's head.

Failed conversations can take a heavy toll on our professional and personal lives. On the opposite end, in business, successful conversations can close sales, bring lucrative deals to the table, enhance the relationships with team members, and may be the single attribute that grows a business.

To nail down the right conversation skills, we talked with with Ben Benjamin, Ph.D., author of “Conversation Transformation” about how to fix some of the types of conversations mistakes that damage relationships, erode trust, and make it impossible to resolve conflicts, reach decisions, or achieve mutual understanding. After listening to this interview, if you think your team is not as efficient as it should be, go here to have Ben give your company an assessment.

About the Guest

Ben Benjamin, Ph., D.

Turn up your speakers or put on your headphones, and enjoy the conversation:

Click below to Play

Highlights

• Introducing Ben Benjamin, author of ‘Conversation Transformation’
• Instead of solving problems, we create new ones
• Why you have the same meetings or arguments again and again
• Most people think they’re great communicators
• It’s always the other guy’s problem
• Yes, Buts …
• Why nobody hears the other person
• Build on the yes
• Ask questions instead of making judgements
• Leading questions
• CEO disease
• Negative predictions
• Sit in the moment
• Noisy behavior
• That’s interesting …
• What complaining really means
• Awareness
• Strategy
• Practice
• We don’t teach people to communicate
• Attacks instead of questions and communication
• If Ben taught Congress
• Why Congress doesn’t communicate well
• How to create effective meetings
• The world is in conflict and they don’t know how to collaborate
• Why communication should come before every other part of business

Click below to Play

Enjoy the stories below and please share something you’ve read this week.

The 45th edition of Links of the Week:

1. Cameron Herald: Let’s raise kids to be entrepreneurs — TEDX — This video raises some great questions about our society’s focus on raising children to get jobs instead of fostering their strengths and creativity to be entrepreneurs.


2. Why Aren’t Banks Lending to Small Business? Ask Bernanke — The American — “On March 29, at a lecture at George Washington University, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke innocuously remarked that lately “small businesses have … found it difficult to get credit.” Too bad that none of the students at the lecture thought to ask him why. A case can be made that the Fed is partially responsible.”

3. Why Innovation Dies — Steve Blank – “Faced with disruptive innovation, you can be sure any possibility for innovation dies when a company forms a committee for an ‘overarching strategy.’”

4. Traditional Advertising is Truly Dead — Copyblogger — “If you’re addicted to spending ungodly amounts of money in an effort to interrupt enough people into becoming “aware” of your product, service, or idea … skip this. You ain’t gonna like it.”

5. Why Marketers Must Optimize Emails for HTML AND Plain Text [Infographic] — Hubspot — “When you send an email, a lot goes on behind the scenes. And as mere marketing mortals, most of us probably don’t understand the process fully, especially when we rely on software to take care of all that technical mumbo-jumbo for us.”

6. Moz’s $18 Million Venture Financing: Our Story, Metrics and Future — SEOmoz — It’s rare to see companies as transparent about landing a big funding round. There’s a lot to learn about getting VC money from Rand Fishkin in this post.

7. Slugging It Out Over Business Loans — Wall Street Journal — “Banks aren’t racing to loosen pricing or lending criteria for mortgages, as reported in today’s Heard on the Street column. But that isn’t the case when it comes to business lending.”

Now it’s your turn. What did you see this week that is worthy of everyone’s eyeballs?

When you’re seeking funding for your business, whether it’s via direct investment or securing a business loan, you’re going to run directly into one of the biggest problems in our economy today: the certainty challenge.

A lot of people were burned very badly in the events that contributed to the recession. Even now, through the first unsteady steps of recovery, we see significant hesitation in the markets.

It’s understandable, and even desirable, that we see more cautious thinking, but it can be difficult to secure funding in this environment.

What investors and lenders are looking for is certainty.

They want to know ahead of time — to be absolutely certain — that they’re making a smart move with their money. They’re going to turn to you for meaningful proof that you’ll be successful.

Related Audio Interview: How to Create Brand Lovers — Entrepreneur Addiction #34 with B.J. Bueno

Meet the Certainty Challenge: Put Customers First

Bankers and investors want the ability to predict, with a high degree of certainty, what is going to happen tomorrow.

As a business owner and entrepreneur, you’re in the same position. Being able to tell, ahead of time, what your customers want, when they’re going to want it, and how they want it delivered provides you with a significant competitive advantage.

Does this sound impossible?

It’s not, really. Dominant organizations, such as Apple, Nike, and Ikea, do it all the time.

In Customers First: Dominate Your Market By Winning Them Over Where It Counts The Most we break out how, via a process called Brand Modeling, it becomes possible to predict with an extremely high degree of confidence, how your customers are going to respond to everything you do as an organization.

This begins by putting your customers first.

Developing a deep, comprehensive understanding of who your best customers are, and what motivates them to act in the way they do, has many benefits.
It’s important to remember that 90% of all human behavior is unconscious. We’re all motivated by powerful cultural, social, and psychological factors that influence our choices, whether we know it or not.

Brand Modeling is the process of identifying and understanding those factors in order to create products, services, and messaging that your market will find highly personally relevant and desirable.

This has an obvious immediate positive impact on your company’s bottom line, and, if used strategically to build and strengthen consumer relationships, will deliver huge dividends in terms of brand loyalty.

Any organization can do this, and those businesses that wish to survive and thrive in this tough economic environment must do it. A high level of meaningful customer knowledge allows your organization to become more efficient and effective at reaching your customers.

This efficiency enhances your profitability, and makes you a more attractive prospect for investors and lenders alike. They benefit from the power of predictability, and so do you. That’s the value in putting customers first.

SALT LAKE CITY

“In 2012, we’ve seen almost a 500 percent increase in successfully matching small business owners with the right lender,” said Brock Blake, Lendio CEO. “Once you’re matched to a lender, it is significantly easier to land a business loan.”

After being matched to a lender through Lendio’s platform, there’s about a 70 percent chance of getting funding. One of those who recently had success through Lendio was Jake Fackrell, CEO of Humaneyezed.

“Within minutes of using Lendio I had offers already coming in to my email box,” Fackrell said. “I was pretty impressed. We had a number of fantastic options and we were able to pick what worked best for our company. Lendio provided legitimate solutions. Now we have the ability to make our vision a reality.”

“The national approval rate for business loans is about 10 percent,” said Levi King, President of Lendio. “Our success means business owners are beating the number and getting the capital they need.”

In the first quarter of 2012, Lendio has experienced:

• 475% increase small business owners getting connected to lending sources.
• 265% increase in number of small business owners using Lendio loan platform
• Record number of banks who have signed up for the Lendio platform.

“The process of vetting out the right lenders and finding the right loans can be daunting, and is one of the reasons small businesses have a hard time getting enough money to grow,” Blake said. “Lendio makes it simple to quickly shop and compare rates and terms for loans you could qualify for.”

In just a year since Lendio launched its online service, small businesses requested about $7 billion in business financing. Lendio has added more than 3,000 business loan options from traditional banks, credit unions and alternative lenders across the country.

“Ninety-one percent of the business owners (Lendio) delivered through their loan platform were qualified, this is a strong ratio of qualified clients,” said Tom Bonneau, Marketing Director of ForwardLine, a small business lender. “It’s an above-average percentage compared to other marketing channels.”

“We’re trying to help business owners live the American Dream by helping them get the capital they need to grow their business,” Blake said. “To do that, we’re helping lenders receive qualified borrowers, and matching business owners with the right type of funding.”

To create a free Lendio profile and to be matched to a business loan, go here: https://www.lendio.com/sign_up?mission=lending

About Lendio
Lendio makes business financing simple by matching qualified small business owners with active banks, credit unions and other lending sources. Through a proprietary matching technology, Lendio also instantly helps business owners shop, compare and contrast thousands of business loans in one spot. Lendio is a free service for business owners and is venture-backed by Highway 12 Ventures and Tribeca Venture Partners. For more information, contact Lendio at press (at) lendio (dot) com.

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Yes, this is actually the side of Patrick Wiscombe's head.

Successful brands understand their core audience, and they make them happy even if it makes everyone else hate them.

Erika Napoletano, author of “The Power of Un-Popular” and the blunt and irreverent blog Redhead Writing joins us for a discussion on how to make your brand sizzle by building an un-popular company. If you follow Erika on Redhead Writing and you expect to hear seedy language in this podcast, trust me, it was there. But, Patrick Wiscombe edited out a few 4-letter words to make it safe for the audiences picking up this podcast on some of the local media like ABC4.com and KNRS Radio.

About the Guest

Erika Napoletano

When she’s not traveling (and even when she is), she consults for some of the U.S.’s leading startups and brands you see in parking lots and on store shelves every day. From branding to building online communities, she helps companies talk to their audience, hold ongoing conversations, and convert those people into long-term advocates so that business owners can wake up every day and do what they love for whom they love doing it.

Turn up your speakers or put on your headphones, and enjoy the conversation:

Click below to Play

Highlights

• Hanging out with Redhead Writing
• Being popular sucks
• 17 W2s in one year
• Dirty, dirty, dirty writing
• Wallowing on the couch
• ‘The Power of UnPopular’
• Why are you building a business with a dream of universal popularity?
• Start biz conversation as an equal
• People are terrified to be wrong
• Have an opinion and stand for something
• Don’t be roadkill
• The Mennonite Entrepreneur
• Guy who makes rubber ducks look like celebrities
• Growth kills a lot of businesses
• Audience is a direct limiting factor on how you’ll scale your biz
• A recipe for building an Un-Popular brand
• Good brands make people ‘feel’ things
• Erika on a Vespa
• Personality, approachability, share-ability, scalability

Click below to Play

It’s a trend that’s also a big discussion as political campaigns are heating up. This week’s links follow many of those issues talked about this week surrounding business lending.

Enjoy the stories below and please share something you’ve read this week.

The 44th edition of Small Business Eyeball Worthy Links of the Week:

1. Congressional TARP Report Critical of Community Bank Business Lending — CreditUnionTimes — “Efforts to raise the credit union MBL cap just received a boost in the form of a scathing quarterly TARP report released to Congress.”

2. Franchise lending shortfall robbing the nation of jobs, economic output — The Washington Post — “Lenders continue to fall shy of the overall loan volume sought by franchise business owners, a shortfall that’s holding back the recovery by choking job creation and economic production.”

3. Small banks in bailout pool under pressure — Reuters — “More than 100 smaller banks were able to tap government programs to pay off bailout money they received during the financial crisis. But those still owing face a perilous future.”

4. Small-Business Lending Summit Features Obama Administration’s Top Appointees, Elected Politicians and Industry Leaders — Huffington Post — “How do you get three of the Obama administration’s top appointed officials to speak at a day-long seminar? The answer is to tell them it is about job creation, small business and unlocking the availability of credit for businesses to form and expand — all hot election year topics.”

5. Fixes Abound for SBA Loan Programs — Huffington Post — “In the past couple months, the U.S. Small Business Administration has come under fierce criticism from some members of Congress. These efforts have ranged from drastic budget-cut suggestions to outright abolition of the agency.”

6.Small Talk: Still no boom in lending to small biz — Boston Globe — “Dan Mitchell has borrowed $3 million in the last year and a half to buy real estate and equipment to expand his brewery, Ithaca Beer Co. It wasn’t easy …”

7. Business Loans and Hand-Holding, Beer Optional — BusinessWeek — When Jim Koch launched the Boston Beer Co. (SAM) in 1984, he learned that ventures like his shouldn’t waste time trying to get a bank loan. “What one of the bankers said to me was, ‘We’re not in the business of taking risks. We don’t get paid to take risks. Look at our margins.’”

Now it’s your turn. What did you see this week that is worthy of everyone’s eyeballs?