Fly on the E-Commerce Cyberwall

Hot Offers for October 26, 2007
I promised to mix in some hot offers that I'd come across and here they are. And they're some pretty good ones:

• A chance to check out an exclusive SEO resource for 30 days and boost your rankings with it
• A deep discount on the tool I recommend most highly for building your site
• A 15% discount on the original--and still one of the best--keyword research tools

Click on the links to go to my Hot Offers page and find out more.

30 days access to Search Marketing Lab
Think you need to be a technical wizard to score a top 3 ranking for your website in Google, Yahoo, and MSN?

Wrong!

You can discover how to boost your search engine rankings and get tons of free traffic...

Find out more on the Hot Offers page
or
Go sign up for your 30-day trial and see for yourself


SiteBuildIt! Halloween Special
Ken Evoy's SiteBuildIt! is running a Halloween special. If you've been reading me for any length of time, you've heard me describe SiteBuildIt! as the MOST COMPLETE tool for getting started in building a profitable business online.

It gives you extensive training every step of the way to go along with all the tools you need to build your website and make it successful. It simply ROCKS! (And that was a stodgy 53-year-old saying that).

Find out more on the Hot Offers page
or
Go right to the offer and check it out for yourself


Discount on Wordtracker Keyword Research
If you want to what your customers are looking for, there's no better way of making sure that they find you than by knowing what keywords they're typing into the search engines.

Wordtracker was a pioneer in helping marketers find out those keywords and it's still one of the best.

Find out more on the Hot Offers page and pick up the discount code you need for this offer.


Those are my picks for this week.

Incidentally, you can still check out some ongoing bargains that give you great value for free or for next to nothing.

Enjoy!
Jeff

Labels: hot offers

A Business Lesson From a Fast-Food Joint
I probably could go on for weeks with business thoughts that occurred to me while I was attending my daughter's recent wedding, but I'll limit myself to just one more.


On the way down, we stopped at a fast-food restaurant for dinner. Before McDonald's or Burger King, or any of the other fast-food giants were on the public radar, there was A&W.


I grew up with A&W. I remember going there frequently as a kid. And what sticks with me about A&W was that it was built around its "family" of burgers.


There was the Papa Burger, the Mama Burger, the Teen Burger, and the Baby Burger. Each one was a different size and and a different combination of toppings.


You can't order any of them but the Papa Burger anymore. The rest have all been discontinued.


In a way, it's too bad. I always liked the whole "family of burgers for everyone in the family" concept. It was cute. It was clever. It had a feel of completeness to it.

But now that "family of burgers" thing is gone and all that's left of it is Papa.

I could analyze why I think the other three burgers failed, but the key point that struck me is that A&W didn't hang on to the other three once they realized that they simply weren't selling well.

This is huge. I've seen people cripple their business by stubbornly hanging on to products or concepts just because they were so fond of them--even though those products or concepts never produced.

A&W once based its whole identity on the "family of burgers" concept. Yet they dumped it and replaced the slow selling products with better selling ones. This is something you HAVE to be willing to do if you want to build a successful business.

When your customers tell you what they want (or what they don't want) you have to listen to them.

It's why A&W is still in the restaurant business. It can be the difference between you staying in business or folding your tent and staying stuck in your day job.
Jeff

Labels: successful business

Business Insights From a Wedding -- The Groom
I've been talking the past few days about business insights that occurred to me as I attended my daughter's wedding recently. I mentioned yesterday that my new son-in-law was instrumental in my daughter's business' success.

Here's why.

Joe is brilliant with money. In everything he does, he has a plan. In talking about some of their business plans, everything has a purpose. He always knows how much each dollar he spends will bring back. Unlike so many new business owners, he doesn't just spend and hope that money will flow in on its own because, because--well, isn't money just supposed to flow in on its own when you have a business?

Like a chess master, he plans multiple moves ahead. Buying the church as headquarters for Rachel's nonprofit business makes her business a more viable nonprofit, which brings it sponsorship deals, which enables the business to pay off the cost of the church, which leaves him with the property mortgage-free, which makes the rent the business pays on it pure profit for him, while the business is able to set up a trust that provides operating funds that makes the income that the business makes from its regular operations a fund that helps the business grow instead of merely survive.

Now all this may sound like high finance that has nothing to do with your business, but it has a lot to do with it. Why does Joe make money? Because he know what he's putting in and he knows what he's getting back.

There's no luck to it. There's no chance to it. It works because he knows what he has to do to make it work.

Have you ever spent a bundle on something for your business that seemed like it couldn't miss? When you did it, did you figure out how much it would earn and what you would have to do to make it work? Or did you get caught up in the "this will earn you millions!" hype of the sales page, or your desperation for something--anything--to make your business work?

Yeah, I've done that, too. And going into something like that with a wish and a hope instead of a tangible plan has never been profitable for me.

It all comes down to having a plan, being realistic, and executing that plan. THAT'S what gets you ahead.

That's where Joe excels. And that's where you and I can learn from him.
Jeff

Labels: goals, successful business

Business Insights From a Wedding -- The Bride (Part II)
Yesterday I talked about how my daughter Rachel's determination led to success for her business. But there's more to it than determination.

Her idea of taking action was not just to dream up elaborate plans. Her idea of taking action was not just to read about business strategies and store them up in her head.

She got out there and did things. She got out there and met people.

Notice some of the things I said about her yesterday:

• She became right-hand assistant to the chairwoman of her college's theatre department
• She got involved with a children's theatre at her college
• When her suggestions about how to improve the children's theatre program were rebuffed, she recruited friends to help her start her own
• She sought out acting opportunities across the state and took her theatre program wherever she went

And there's more action that she took:

• She sought out and met with any organization that was the least bit interested in having her do her program there or rent her space
• She met with parents' organizations to promote the benefits of enrolling their children in her program
• She made connections with other children's theatre programs
• She learned (by doing it) what worked and what didn't for advertising

She made connections. She didn't wait for the world to come to her. She hunted it down and forced it to see what she had to offer.

And in the course of all that, another important thing happened. She met her husband, Joe.

Besides being a loving husband, Joe is also a successful lawyer and a brilliant money man.

It was Joe's willingness to invest in her business that made it possible for them to buy the church she uses as her theatre. It was Joe's legal experience that made it possible for her to win nonprofit status that has opened the door to grants and donations. And it was Joe who knew the best ways to structure things to make the money that came in work for them.

Joe filled out the knowledge that Rachel needed to take her theatre program from something that barely kept itself in existance into a theatre program that rivals theatre companies in the area that have been going for decades.

Finding Joe was certainly a great thing for her personally, but it was also a great break for her business as well.

And it all came from her taking action -- getting out with people, making connections, finding out what they needed, and then providing it.

You can make breaks for yourself like that, too.

What have you done lately to get to know your customers?

What have you done to get your name out?

What new things have you tried to build your business?

Taking action -- and making connections -- is an essential part of business success.
Jeff

Labels: successful business

Business Insights From a Wedding -- The Bride (Part I)
My daughter, Rachel, got married last week. So, of course, what came to mind as we went through all the excitement of my first child to get married? Starting a business.

Well, I wasn't thinking only about starting a business. As a matter of fact, starting a business was only a momentary blip in thoughts that were filled with many years of watching that delightful little girl grow into a confident and successful young lady.

But starting a business did provide a blip in those thoughts.

It couldn't help but blip its way in because the whole wedding, dinner, and reception took place in her very own church.

She and her husband bought the church a year ago to use as headquarters for her Dare to Dream theatre program. She teaches acting to children and directs them in plays. She started this program in college and has built it in a little over five years into a theatre program that is on the verge of becoming a major player in northeastern Wisconsin.

One thing that came to mind as I saw her getting married in the church she and her husband converted into a theatre was a conversation I had with her as she was choosing a college.

She had already chosen a college where she hoped to become a high school theatre teacher and director of high school plays. She had scheduled a college visit to another college, though, where her older brother was studying art and theatre.

She went there more to visit her brother than to seriously consider the school. But she came home with a new direction to her life.

"I want to teach, but that's not all I want to do," she told me upon her return. "I want to act, too. And if I'm a high school drama teacher, I won't have time for that."

Her newfound career choice troubled me. I had taken a whirl at professional theatre, too, in my younger days, and I knew how tough it is to make a living at it.

I told her horror stories of how many of my friends had tried to make their living in theatre and ended up in mundane jobs that had no glamor or drama to them.

She was unfazed. Finally, I did something I hated to do, but felt I had to do for her own good.

She was a bright and lively high school senior, full of enthusiasm, but not one to push herself ahead of others.

I told her, "Rachel, I just can't see you succeeding in theatre. The only people I've seen succeed are those who push and promote themselves and stop at nothing to get noticed. I just haven't seen that in you. I always see you defer to others and let them get what you want. You can't make a living in theatre if you're not willing to fight for it."

"If I have to fight, I'll fight," she replied, with a fire in her eyes that I had never seen before. "I want this so bad!"

We talked a lot more over the months before she started her new career track. She went to her brother's college and became right-hand assistant to the chairwoman of the department. She acted in the plays and she worked with a children's theatre program at her college.

She came to see ways that the children's theatre program could be done better, but she was in no position to make changes to a long-running program. So she recruited several friends and started her own program. She ran it at first in local churches and theatres and eventually the college found a place for it in their summer program.

When she graduated, she found acting opportunities in plays and commercials throughout eastern Wisconsin. She took her theatre program wherever she went, wherever she could find places to host it. It grew.

And when she and her fiance found a lovely, old church for sale, the time was right to settle the program (and the two of them) in one place.

They bought the church and started converting it into a theatre. Rachel has put on two plays in it so far with a full schedule of classes and of ever more challenging plays in the works.

So as I gave my daughter's hand in marriage to a kind and devoted man in the church that the two of them owned, the thought passed my mind of how far that shy little girl had come since she decided, "If I have to fight, I'll fight!"

The key to her success, though, is not in making that bold-sounding declaration. It is in the fact that she DID fight. She took action. She progressed from sitting back and wishing to making things happen.

She took her dream, and acted on it. She didn't wait for everything to come to her. She started with small steps and built on each one until they blossomed into the life she dreamed of.

But then again, that's what it takes to start any business of your own.
Jeff

Labels: start business

I'm Back
I don't know if anyone is still here, but I'm back. I've stayed away for the last few months, but it's time I got back to business.

I simply couldn't post anymore and I feel you should know the reason why. I didn't feel right about it. I had strayed so far from my original intent in starting this blog.

Originally in 2005, I had promised a blog that offered my insights as I started my first purely Internet business. I promised to reveal my successes as well as my failures.

But somewhere along the way, I got caught up in the whole guru thing. I got away from the success and failure thing and started acting like I knew it all.

It's not that I'm a total newbie to Internet marketing. I've made my living in it since 2002. I've had success for clients, increasing traffic, increasing sales, and providing hundreds of top ten search engine rankings.

But I have yet to transition from marketing consultant (trading hours for money) to full-time entrepreneur (running a business that pays me even as I sleep). After two years, the bulk of my earnings still come from my consulting; my revenues from my own sites still are not enough to be my family's sole means of support. Hey, did I ever say that starting a successful online business was quick and effortless?

So I'm here to set the record straight and get back to posting. Eventually, I'd like to bring back the regular features I've had, along with more personal anecdotes and insights (which readers have told me they enjoy the most).

To be honest, I don't know that much will change from what I've done before. Maybe this thing about overstating my success has just been in my head. Reading back on my old posts, I don't see much I would want to change. But I want to connect again with whoever's still checking this blog for signs of my pulse.

I'll start this week with some marketing insights that came from my daughter's recent wedding, mixed in with some other posts on some worthwhile deals that I've come across recently.

I hope you enjoy them. And if I start veering off again into talking like some multi-millionaire guru, give me a good, sound slap upside the head in the comments, OK?
Jeff

Labels: successful business