Vision Of Success

What if you had a ton of expertise in online search engine tactics, and wanted to change the way search is currently being performed online? You’d start a new search engine of course.

Enter Cuil.

Cuil, an old Irish word for knowledge, has just entered cyberspace, and is ready to compete with the big sites. With a ton of experience between the founding members, and $30 million in start up funding, it’ll be interesting to see how big they truly get.

So of course I had to play. Yes, I’m number one under Lori Osterberg, and most of my other big sites are there too. But I did have to do some submitting for some of my smaller sites, and if you’re a current client, you’ve been submitted as well. 

So is it better than Google and Yahoo? Well considering it’s just days old, it’s still hard to say. Cover your bases, and stay tuned.

Even with many years of experience behind you, starting your own venture can be a little challenging.

Yet working with Howie with Quality 1st Plumbing Repair was easy - and a lot of fun. He knew what he wanted in a site, and coordinated it all with other forms of marketing already in production (like van wraps, etc).

Our goal was to develop a dynamic site that was clean, fun, and offers the team a variety of ways to market their business. We worked with colors, graphics and images to make the text stand out. And provided them with an easy way to convert customers from searchers on the web with a special coupon page prominently located within their navigation.

It’s not all about putting up a brochure - it’s about making your site workable for you and your clients.

Thanks Howie - we appreciate you - here’s to your success!

Looking for an interesting graphic to make your blog posts a little less white? Why not make a word cloud from Wordle.

Simply type in words that you want included. Or submit your URL from your blog or website. Wordle will take over and make an interesting word cloud for you.

From there you can turn your words horizontal, vertical, or mix it all up. Change the colors, and you’re ready to go. 

I was reading my June 2008 copy of Internet Retailer over the weekend. One of their articles was on reaching out and connecting with consumers in many different ways. The opportunities I’m sure will continue to grow. But even now, it’s time to think about who your customer is and how they prefer to reach out to you - not the other way around.

Their results showed that:

38 percent of businesses surveyed would be interested in using sites where consumers have the ability to tell manufacturers what they want

30 percent would be interested in having online shopping communities to combine buying power

22 percent are interested in having mobile phones to place orders and arrange deliveries

14 percent are interested in using social networks where shoppers share trends

The interesting thing that was also raised is while U.S. consumers show interest in these areas, China and Spain lead the way with wanting to use technology to its greatest advantage.

Many of the businesses profiled in this particular trade publication are multi-million dollar enterprises. They have a lot of resources to try many different things. Yet as a small business, you can follow in their footsteps.

What are you doing to reach out to your customers? If you only think of your clients on a local level, how can you start using different technologies to increase your market share?

Remember when you were a kid and had a ton of time to sit down and play a game of chess? As the years roll by, it’s hard to fit the time into your busy schedule. So even though you love it, you just never have the time to play.

That idea spawned a new business for Steve with Straight Up Chess. In January he hung his first prototype on the wall, and was playing 1 or 2 games per week with other co-workers. And the business was born.

StraightUpChess.com was designed to give chess players a new option for playing chess. Part artwork/part chess board, StraightUpChess.com allows people to view the detailed boards, learn more about this unique concept, and finalize their purchase in an integrated shopping cart. 

We had a lot of fun making Steve’s business idea become a reality, all in time for his first showing at the Denver 2008 Parade of Homes, which starts today.

Best of luck Steve! We’re honored to add you to our growing client list.

Have you ever spent a few minutes at your desk in thought, asking “I wonder…”. What if you could get instant answers?

I’ve found two great ways (there’s more, but I’ll stick to these two for now) that have brought me in a ton of answers.

I’m in the process of writing a book on social networking. So of course I’ve had a number of “I wonder…” questions come to mind lately. Because social networking is a changing and growing idea at the moment, I have a desire to get a lot of opinions from a lot of different people.

So I type into my Twitter account a question, and have immediate access to dozens of different thoughts.

Then I head over to my LinkedIn account and ask a question to the other Linked In members. In a few days time, I can wind up with dozens of answers - and a list of people interested in what I’m doing.

If you’ve never tried asking - or answering - questions, give it a try. It helps you build up your expertise, gives you exposure, and gets people connecting with you. 

What kinds of questions can you ask?

• Keep your questions broad enough to attract a varied audience, narrow enough to get great answers.
• Don’t ask questions that pertain directly to your products or services. “Who would be interested in using my virtual assistant services?” is not a good question. “What do you look for in a good virtual assistant?” would be a great question, and would lead people back into your profile.
• Make sure your questions are appropriate for your audience. The more relevant they are, the more answers you’ll receive.

A few weeks ago we attended a concert at our local botanic gardens for free. We went as a group, and enjoyed every minute of it. They handed out schedules, which I placed on our refrigerator door.

The last two Sunday’s we’ve been back - and spent well over $100 on concert tickets. It’s fun grabbing a picnic, sitting in the gardens and enjoying great music. [Even my 13 year old admitted to having fun!]

So was it worth it to offer one of their first concerts for free?

We’re also talking about becoming members, [we can get tickets at a lower cost] and we’ll definitely be doing this again next year.

What can you do to let your clients try out your services for free?

1. Start up an ezine. Let people know what you do by writing up great information.

2. Share your expertise on social sites. People do business with people that make a name for themselves. Places like LinkedIn and Facebook are great places to build up your name.

3. Create a blog. Blogs are made for you to share your thoughts and opinions. And they are  very easy to maintain.

4. Send out postcards for free services. Why not do a little traditional marketing as well. It’s best to use whatever source works for you.

 source of photo nazreth

It’s writing day for me today. As a part of writing day, I usually spend an hour or so surfing my favorite blogs and sites just to see what other people are saying.

I ran across a great blog post by The Wealthy Blogger that asked the question, “Paper or Electronic Planners?”

I’ve been using a Palm for years, and Andrew and I use it to sync our calendars together so one of us is always around for our daughter (to play chauffeur.) But this article opened up my eyes to realize how manual I still am.

On my desk I have a binder that’s filled with pages for me to track my daily and weekly tasks. I also have a section for long term goals and strategies, and have it all in order with dividers.

I also have a stack of sticky notes, and I use a ton of them each week. Some ideas are quick things I check into and toss. Others I stick to my planner pages, depending on their relevance.

I used to use the Franklin system, and loved having everything in one place. It was nice to carry around all of my information, and have it be in one place. I knew right where everything was, and was actually very to-the-point with the way I wrote.

Hmmm… this post made me think. Maybe I’ll have to reconsider the way I organize my information. As an Internet marketer people expect you to be on the top of technology. But isn’t the real purpose just to be on the top of organization?

photo source QualityC

We’re in a recession - there’s no way you grow your business by selling high end products to consumers, right?

Last night my daughter and I went to Michaels craft store. We always enjoy looking through the different departments and finding interesting crafts to do for a very low cost. But something was different this time.

Instead of their normal dollar bins in the front section, they were replacing them with shelves of Martha Stewart Crafts. If you’ve ever priced Martha Stewart Crafts, you know they are anything but inexpensive (relative to other craft supplies).

So in this time of cutting back, why is Michaels investing in such a high end craft product?

Even in times of cutting back, savings, or recession, people still like high quality products. And instead of investing in vacations or high priced ticket items, many are choosing to remain close to home, and having fun with things in their area.

So why not spend some money and create a high quality scrapbook of last years vacation?

Keep these 3 things in mind through the rest of 2008:

1. You don’t have to lower your prices to sell more. Sometimes you may even benefit from raising your prices - and finding the perfect niche to sell to.

2. How can you work with other complementary businesses to sell more products? Martha Stewart does this well, and is always connecting up with great companies to market her products through.

3. Don’t look at the market as a whole and concentrate on what your peers are saying. Focus on what you know best, and develop your own customer base that loves what you do. There’s always someone in every spectrum of the market - do what you do best and your target market will follow.

Have you ever gone into a bookstore, looking for a book that isn’t on their shelves? You inquire at the information desk, and they say they can order it for you.

At that point you have two choices: order from the bookstore and come back in a week to pick it up; or head home and order it online and wait for it to arrive in your mail.

What if you could have it on the spot? I found an article about a bookseller that’s doing just that. Blackwell’s is offering print-on-demand books while customers wait with their newest innovation - the Espresso Book Machine (EBM).

The machine currently prints 40 pages per minute, but this is expected to double  later this year. Which means you can have an average business title in under five minutes.

How cool is that?

This isn’t meant to take over what a bookstore is currently offering - it will merely complement it by offering more titles than a bookstore can offer.

I can’t wait until we see this technology here…