For those who weren’t there and not following in real time on Twitter, here are some of the top tweets that came out of last week’s KDMC News Entrepreneur Boot Camp here at USC. They include some great nuggets of advice for anyone starting, running or looking to expand a news website publishing business.

The tweets are drawn from coverage of five discussion sessions at the camp, one by me, two by Tom O’Malia of the USC Marshall School of Business, and two led by guest faculty at the camp: Mark Potts and Rusty Coats. You can find links to many of the presentations at the camp on the KDMC website.

Robert Niles on The News Publisher as Community Organizer:

“When the music stops, always have a chair” – @robertniles at #kdmccamp
@michelemclellan

#kdmccamp “I am an entrepreneur today because I am the only person who would hire me”–@robertniles
@susanmernit

#kdmccamp wise words from @robertniles on moving from reporter to publisher as journos develop web media projects
@susanmernit

#kdmccamp Great discussion on how to identify community needs and opportunities in local communities @robertniles
@susanmernit

“As an entrepreneur, the status quo is your enemy” — You need community to turn to you and dump the status quo — @RobertNiles #kdmccamp
@ojr

“Model the behavior you want from your community” emphasizes @RobertNiles #KDMCcamp
@kdmc

#kdmccamp @robertniles recommends every online publication have a #facebook page cc#mybxb
@michelemclellan

#KDMCcamp QA: What is the most important analytic? asks @robertniles. A: MONEY!! #mybxb
@susanmernit

Mark Potts on Show Me the Money:

Execution [is] more important [than] a good idea, talent attracts capital – Mark Potts #kdmccamp
@michelemclellan

What’s your value proposition: What problem do u solve? You’d better be able to answer that – @pottsmark at #KDMCcamp.
@ojr

Non-profit is a tax status, not a business model, says @pottsmark. Thank god someone said it. #kdmccamp
@kimbui

Non-profit is not a magic bullet. You still need to go out and raise money. – @pottsmark #KDMCcamp
@ojr

Adapt, iterate your biz model until it works. You learn something from every pitch. Refine, try, refine, try…#KDMCcamp
@kdmc

Potts: Problem w/ newspapers wasn’t giving content for free, it was giving away advertising for free. #kdmccamp
@PattersonFdnNMJ

Don’t feel nervous about pricing your ads. You can negotiate down, but not up. Ask 4 what u can with a straight face. @pottsmark #KDMCcamp
@ojr

Campers urged by @pottsmark not to overlook advertiser services (data, social media help), mobile services, events, classes. #KDMCcamp
@ojr

Look for incubator opportunities, also local govt aid/loan programs for small biz. @pottsmark #KDMCcamp
@ojr

Rusty Coats on Non-Profit $$$exy :

Nonprofit doesn’t mean non-revenue. You’re still a small business. You still need sustainability @rcoats #kdmccamp
@ojr

Hearing about the underpants gnomes business model from @rcoats #KDMCcamp. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBiSI6OdqvA
@ojr

If you are 70-80-90% grant-funded, you’re sitting on a one-legged stool. @rcoats #KDMCcamp
@ojr

Non-profits can take advertising through underwriting messages, but there are rules about what those ads can say. @rcoats #KDMCcamp
@ojr

Underwriting ads must stay away from calls to action, pricing and comparisons. @rcoats #KDMCcamp
@ojr

Underwriting is capped at 30% of revenue for non-profits. @rcoats #KDMCcamp
@ojr

If you want to take advertising in addition to underwriting, the non-profit publisher has to pay taxes on that ad income. @rcoats #KDMCcamp
@ojr

@Rcoats: Sustainability is the new hotness within the foundation world. #kdmccamp
@PattersonFdnNMJ

Advice for non-profits and for-profit start-ups: Get an advisory board to help you. #KDMCcamp
@ojr

If you don’t take revenue seriously, kittens die – @rcoats final thought at #KDMCcamp
@ojr

Tom O’Malia on Sales, Part One:

Repeat after me. Customers are people who are willing to pay you – stresses Tom O’Malia #kdmccamp #mybxb
@michelemclellan

Tom O’Malia #kdmccamp laying out the importance of QUALIFYING customers as first step in effective sales. AMEN!
@susanmernit

Brilliant lesson from Tom O’Malia on how talking to customers to find their pain can help provide you leads to grow your business. #KDMCcamp
@robertniles

Tom O’Malia – Elements of a business are Customer, Benefit, Money (and customer is not the reader) #kdmccamp
@michelemclellan

Tom O’Malia says news entrepreneurs are scared to “think customer” #kdmccamp #mybxb
@michelemclellan

Until you determine $X for each transaction you do, you’ll never know how much you can spend. – Tom O’Malia #KDMCcamp
@robertniles

Commandment of entrepreneurship: ‘Thou shalt not BS thyself’ – Tom O’Malia #KDMCcamp
@robertniles

Great source of start-up funding: Secure a first customer before launch. – Tom O’Malia at #KDMCcamp.
@robertniles

Tom O’Malia on Sales, Part Two:

God made everyone great salespeople, because we have two ears and one mouth. Listen 2X as you talk when selling – Tom O’Malia #KDMCcamp
@robertniles

Step 1 in selling: Set up meeting in advance Tom O’Malia at #KDMCcamp
@robertniles

Step 2 – Qualification. Find who in customer organization has the power to make a decision. – Tom O’Malia #KDMCcamp
@robertniles

Step 3 didn’t come through – Determine their need. Find what they need that you can deliver. Tom O’Malia #KDMCcamp
@robertniles

Step 4 – Sell your company. Tell abt success. Tom O’Malia #KDMCcamp
@robertniles

Step 5 – Tell about ability to fulfill their need. Are you right for them? – Tom O’Malia #KDMCcamp
@robertniles

Step 6 – What do you need to do to get the order? (i.e. ‘If we can do it, can you buy?’) Tom O’Malia #KDMCcamp
@robertniles

Look for hidden objections: ‘Can you think of any reason that would stop you from buying our solution?’ – Tom O’Malia #KDMCcamp
@robertniles

Final message in sales call: “I’m excited, and when would you like me to be back here?” Get the commitment – Tom O’Malia #KDMCcamp
@robertniles

All this week I will be teaching at the 2011 KDMC News Entrepreneur Boot Camp, being held at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business. This is the third year for the camp, and we have an exciting crew of 16 journalist-entrepreneurs in attendance. I won’t introduce you to them just yet – we’ll wait until they are ready for their debuts, then Michele McLellan over at KDMC’s Leadership Blog will have the privilege of helping you to follow their emerging careers.

Because these campers are in the process of developing their entrepreneurial ideas, we are not webcasting the proceedings. But there is one way to follow along, and share in some of the learning that’s happening at the camp. Just follow the #KDMCcamp hashtag on Twitter. That’s the tag we’ll be using during the camp to tweet out interesting nuggets, lessons and wisdom that camp faculty and participants think will be of most use to the journalism community.

Here are a few of the lessons offered, from the first day of the camp:

– Advertising isn’t simply a source of revenue to you, the publisher; it should provide a benefit to the advertiser.

– If you can’t define the benefit to the advertiser – your customer – then you’ll never make a sale.

– Non-profits must be able to define deliverables to a sponsor or supporter, just as for-profit news sites define deliverables to their advertisers.

– Selling isn’t the act of presenting something, it’s the act of qualification.

– You’re not pushing something unneeded onto an advertiser when you sell, you are finding the advertisers who need the benefit you provide.

– You should listen two times as much as you talk to find out what someone’s willing to pay.

– “Tell me one thing to do that would make your life better.” Make that a required line in any pitch to an potential advertiser or supporter.

– If you meet customer needs, the money will find you.

If these are the sort of items of advice you’d like to hear more of, then, please, do follow the #KDMCcamp all this week. We’ve got a great line-up of faculty and alumni panel speakers coming – including Susan Mernit, Mark Potts and Rusty Coats. We’re having some great conversations at the samp, and we’d love to welcome you into them via Twitter.

[Update: We’ve extended the deadline for applying to the2011 KDMC News Entrepreneur Boot Camp to Monday, January 17 at midnight, Pacific Time.]

Any journalist ought to know that your stories are only as good as your sources. Start with bad information, and you’ll deliver bad information to your readers.

Running a news publication is like that, too.

If you don’t go into publishing with good information – about your market, your environment, your legal and tax requirements – you’ll soon find yourself wasting an enormous amount of time learning what you should have known from the start. And that’s time that you could have spent building your business.

A news website is a business – even if you’re running it as an official non-profit or an unofficial haven’t-made-a-profit. At the very least, you’ve invested your time in whatever you publish (or hope to publish) online. That time deserves the respect of a decent return on that investment, whether it be financial or something else.

Simple business education can help you get the most from your investment of time and money in online news publishing. You don’t need to go to graduate school for two years to earn an MBA. But you do need to talk to some folks who know what they’re doing in this space.

Like you did when you were only a reporter, as a publisher, you need some sources.

“Entrepreneurship is network dependent,” teaches Tom O’Malia, the USC Marshall School of Business professor who’s helped us develop the KDMC News Entrepreneur Boot Camp. “Without a good network, an entrepreneur cannot succeed.”

That means that you need to talk with other folks who are running news websites – whether they be small, one-person blogs or major-metro newspaper dot-coms. You know journalism. But do you know how to find a foundation to fund your start-up? Do you know how to select the most lucrative ad network? Do you know how to ask for – and close – an advertising deal for your website?

Do you know how to make a budget for your news website? How to promote your site and increase the audience and page views that you’ll need to make it attractive to either advertisers or non-profit funders?

What do you know about the business of making a living when someone else isn’t writing you a weekly paycheck?

This is what your network can teach you. And with that knowledge, you’ll have the freedom to create and publish a news website that fulfills your vision for what your journalism career ought to be.

Too often, journalists get into website publishing naively, thinking that long hours and hard work will help them get ahead. Don’t get me wrong – long hours and hard work are requirements in news publishing. But those alone won’t get you anything but frustrated and deeper in debt.

You need to plan and spend time developing and cultivating your personal network of teachers, advisers and confidants in order to have any real chance of success as a news publisher.

That’s why I’m urging you to block out some time tonight and on Friday to complete your application for the 2011 KDMC News Entrepreneur Boot Camp. Go to website. Read what this program offers. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to instantly build a network that can help you learn what you need to know to make a start-up news publication financially and socially successful.

You want to have an impact in your community. You wouldn’t have gotten into journalism if you didn’t. And you want to make enough money in this business to keep food on the table and a roof over your head. You don’t need to have an employer to do that, though. Invest in building a network of colleagues who know the way, and you can become a successful news publisher, too.

The deadline to apply for the 2011 KDMC News Entrepreneur Boot Camp is Friday, January 14 Saturday, January 17, 2011.