by Brian Solis

The Gloomers first webisode is live even though the new series and the corresponding online community is still locked behind closed doors. The team plans to invite the first round of people into a private beta next month.

In the meantime, join the The Gloomers group on Facebook to see the exclusive Valentine’s Day cartoon now.

The Gloomers are the perfect antidote for the doom-and-gloom of the current state of things, where no matter how bad things are for you, for the Gloomers, it’s always worse! Dreamed up by Dan Mechem and featuring the work of Flintstones animator Mark West, this gloomy clan is sure to make you laugh and also touch your heart.

Last night in San Francisco, Dan Mechem and company hosted a special “preview” party for employees, partners, friends, and investors.

I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of story…

To see additional pictures from the Gloomers preview party, please visit my album on Flickr.

Tom Foremski and Dan Mechem

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by Brian Solis

One of the most inspiring aspects of the Social Economy is the widespread comradeship that is pervasive amongst thought leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, and service providers. Although we’re in the throes of a recession, the community is more vigilant than ever and ready to help and guide you to success.

My good friends at Dealmaker Media are certainly among the greatest connectors and resource providers and they’re hosting an incredible event just for you.

If you’re in the Los Angeles area on February 6th, you could only benefit from participating in Startonomics. Dealmaker Media has organized some of the most revered, networked and proven entrepreneurs and experts to share insight, strategies, successess, challenges, and mistakes to help you effectively navigate your startup through these opportune stages of economic possibilities.

Speakers include:

David Sacks, Yammer

Mike Jones, Tsavo Media

Mark Jeffrey, Mahalo

Jim Benedetto, MySpace

Jason Nazar, DocStoc

Sean Percival, Author of MySpace Marketing

Ted Rheingold, Dogster

Peter Pham, Billshrink

Frank Addante, Rubicon

Dan Gould, Fox Interactive

Richard Rosenblatt, Demand Media

Startonomics is a one-day workshop designed by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs on how to create simple, actionable metrics; and how to use them to make better product and marketing decisions for long-term growth and startup success.s

There’s also an after party hosted by Media Temple…

If you’d like to attend, please click here. This link will reduce the ticket price by $100. Get it before they’re gone!

One more thing. I’m taking up residence for the day and will officially host a series of PR for Startup discussions during “office hours.” Stand by for more details! In the meantime, read this post on TechCrunch, “PR Secrets for Startups.”

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By Larry Chiang

Congrats on getting to $900k in revenue, getting an angel round done and avoiding the 9 VCs you don’t wanna meet. Now you’re in the kill zone cuz you have a working shippable product but you hit a speed bump through no fault of your own: the rePression (recession + depression).

A symptom of your revenue and the speed bump (a.k.a. the financial crisis meltdown) is people paying slowly or not at all. A lesson not taught in business school is how to collect on accounts receivable.

Here is a crash course in collecting money…

-1- Team Effort.

By ‘team’ I mean get the effen CEO involved.

If you have a VP of Sales they should definitely be calling to collect. Compartmentalizing the collection by leaving it to a sole administrator is dooming your collection effort to fail.

If the CEO won’t call, email this article to the HBS/GSB graduate (Harvard Business School and Stanford Graduate School of Business). Lets get ‘em out of the ivory tower and on the front lines of collection.

-2- No Fake Bankruptcies.

Fake orgasms are to make your partner feel good about themselves. Fake bankruptcies are meant to make the collector feel a sense of hopelessness so that the collector will stop calling.

Do not fall for the faker.

-3- Sell to Collections Firm.

Before you give up completely, sell to a collections firm for 10 cents on the owed dollar. Me, I’m like a multiple personality CEO because I turn into a repo man and get 40 cents/dollar at the drop of a hat. A
repo man repossess cars for a living and is at the bottom of the collection food chain. The upside is they are at the top of the aggression ladder.

-4- Got Cash?! Borrow Against Accounts Receivable

Your accounts receivable (AR) is an asset you can borrow against. In good economic times you can borrow up to 110%. After the worse job report in 115 years relased Friday December 5th, 2008, you’ll be lucky
to get 15 cents per dollar on fresh, healthy AR.

No you cannot be unethical and unload your 120+ day paper on a rookie loan officer. Translation: it is not right to borrow against accounts receivable that are 120+ days late. It’s illegal to re-date and is blatent fraud.

-5- Pay As They Go.

Put them on a payment plan on money owed and / or curtail future services.

Have you heard of people that have a payment plan for their sofa?! The idea here is that lump sum payback is too far at the end of a rainbow.  Don’t believe the rosy forcasts and collect twice a month.

-6- Voicemail the Shitake Out of Them

Voicemail their cell, work and home phone. There is no such thing as over voicemail-ification during business hours when someone owes you money.

Collection calls need to happen 3-5x per week. I’ll ask start-up CEOs, how many times they’ve called and most people quizically look at me.

Call and voicemail them repeatedly to effen get your money.

-7- Time Machine to Go To the Present

There’s nothing that makes collection easier than getting the CEO to guarantee the purchase PERSONALLY.

Collecting on loans personally guaranteed is much, much more fun.

-8- Call High Up The Food Chain

The ceo of the company that owes should be called. The goal is to set up a payment schedule with small steps towards paying the debt down.

-9- Tell On Them

In the same way that TransUnion, Equifax and Experian compile negative information in a database, Dun & Bradstreet compiles negative information and payment histories.

D&B (as they’re called) usually doesn’t take infrequent submitters but they definitely gather information as it relates to court cases. A nice tip is to threaten reporting on a bad debt to D&B and threaten filing a
lawsuit. An advanced tip is to sprinkle in the fact that you’ll sell to a collections firm (tip #3) if they don’t make at least a nominal payment (tip #5).

-10- More Deal Flow.

Don’t get demoralized just because some bad apples aren’t paying. The key is to collect on a portion of money owed but still get more deals in the door.

This means get more sales. Studies have shown that companies with more sales tend to do better than companies with waning sales

Good luck collecting. If you have collection experiences to share, post them in the comments below

I founded http:/www.duck9.com, which educates college students on how to establish and maintain a FICO score over 750. I testified before Congress and World Bank in Beijing on credit.

My BusinessWeek blog

by Brian Solis

Credit: Sam_UL via Flickr

Over the weekend, my latest post ran over at TechCrunch to help entrepreneurs, startups and businesses in general, focus on generating revenue and growing their business during this tumultuous and uncertain economic climate. It was time for something constructive, as the doom and gloom crowd have enjoyed far too much airtime. Bottom line, fear is pervasive, and while some fear is generally good for us, widespread panic is the catalyst for poor decision-making. Whether this post is rudimentary or it instills hope and direction, the point is that the business world needs more “halftime” speeches right now.

“Don’t worry about getting ahead, instead, just survive…Cutting deeper and quicker is the formula to survive.” – Sequoia Capital

There’s a distinct difference between survival and real world business and without continuous expert advice specific to the landscape and climate of each business ecosystem, many companies may unwittingly lock themselves in an isolated panic room instead of taking strategic steps to evolving and growing the business opportunity that exists today.

General advice is just that, general. One prevailing set of strategies and recommendations doesn’t apply to all.

In a conversation with veteran CEO and financier Steve Larsen, currently co-founder of Krugle, Inc., he advised, “Of course, don’t be stupid. Have enough cash to run your business, but I think the doom and gloom crowd are getting too much airtime. Look for opportunities. Difficult times are when they’ll most likely occur. When we’re at ‘steady state’ and things are normal, good opportunities are much harder to find with GREAT opportunities nearly impossible. It is during periods of tumult and transition when you can spot things that lead to the greatest returns – if you are alert. So be alert.”

In every recession, abundant opportunities are inherently rife. To simply believe that this is a generic time to step off of the playing field to warm benches or take a seat in the spectator bleachers in the hopes of emerging once again to readily have a shot at winning the game is illogical. Business, and customers, do not stop making decisions – they’re just more discerning during volatile economic climates. But make no mistake, if you choose to stop vying for customer attention, the world will move ahead – without you.

Read:

The full post on TechCrunch.

The unedited version on PR 2.0 (with embedded, printable Word or PDF versions).

UPDATE: Fear Kills Businesses is a “rising blog post by attention” according to Technorati.

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