Starting and running your own business can be a daunting task. You have to be CEO, VP of Sales, VP of Marketing, CIO, administrator assistant AND actually get some work done. Visa recently created a network and website, The Visa Business Network, to help small business owners get the answers they need so they can get back to work. I was asked to take a look at the network and give some feedback (I have not received any compensation or guidelines/requirements for this feedback). The Visa Business Network does have some valuable information, and can be a valuable resource, provided it’s just one in a larger toolkit:
A Mashup of Features
The Visa Business Network (VBN) is really a mashup of features provided by other sites like American Express OPEN Forum and LinkedIn. VBN has a lot of great articles and content provided by “experts” similar to the OPEN Forum, but all of it’s features are open to everyone, whereas you have to be a card member to access parts of the OPEN Forum. Similar to LinkedIn, VBN has an answers section where anyone can ask a question and anyone can answer it. Answers can also be “graded” by the community. Also similar to LinkedIn, your own questions and answers show up on your profile.
Goals vs. Tactics
A feature that’s different than other sites is Goals, which encourages you to choose a goal to work on. These goals are divided into two sections: Growth and Manage, and provide goals like: “Promote my Business on Facebook” or “Get Paid with Credit Cards”. Each goal is monitored by an “Expert”, which is nice because you have someone who is monitoring the discussion and can answer questions. Each goal has step by step instructions that can help a business owner figure out what needs to be done.
I think the Goals idea is a good one. Far too few small businesses actually do much planning or goal setting. However, I don’t think these are really goals. They’re all tactics. A Facebook page for your business is useful because you want to increase awareness in order to increase sales. These tactics should be tied to actual business goals because without the business goals the tactics will get lost in the clutter of everything else a business owner has to do. In some of the marketing these are called Business Goal Tool-kits which I think makes more sense than just Goals.
Anyone is an Expert
Providing experts who monitor Goals and provide mentorship is really helpful. However, the credentials of the experts who have been chosen isn’t really clear. On LinkedIn you can see a full resume of any expert (or anyone) and on OPEN Forum, experts are tied to fairly well known companies. This isn’t necessarily a disadvantage because experts on VBN are probably small business owners too who know more about running a small business. I just think it needs to be more clear why these people are experts. It’s also nice that anyone can apply to be an expert. I think a lot of great knowledge gets missed just because someone might not be popular. Some of the marketing around experts as mentors makes it seem like you get a personal mentor, and I’m not really sure that’s the case.
Questions Answered
Similar to LinkedIn Answers, anyone can ask or answer a question and these show up on your own profile. There aren’t a lot of questions and answers yet, but the site is fairly new. However, just about every question has a bunch of different answers to choose from. It would be nice if answers could be given (or comments) to other answers. Sometimes someone makes a point that would be useful to dispute.
Content Curation
Also like LinkedIn, members of the community can submit links to outside content. Unlike LinkedIn, the content isn’t just stuck on your profile, it shows up in a “Library” where it’s available to everyone. I think this is a great way to find other experts in the network and also showcase your own knowledge. Any links can be voted on so that you can also see what’s most popular with the community.
Summary
I like the feature set that VBN has put together. It looks like it may be a useful place for small business owners to get information and connect with each other. They’ve done a nice job of letting community members have input and showcase their own stuff. Unlike the American Express OPEN Forum, you can get access to all of VBN without being a card member (at least currently). There is some marketing for Visa in a section called Visa Resources, but it’s clearly labeled and the marketing throughout the rest of the site is minimal. I think the VBN has the potential to become a very valuable small business community if it continues growing by engaging small business owners.
What do you think? Have you tried The Visa Business Network?