Posts tagged point

Lessons Learned #9 – You’re Not Superman!

Oct16
2009 3 Comments

Written by Help Desk

Following on the last two lessons … there’s only so much work that one person can get done. After all, you got into this business to give yourself a little extra income or to be able to spend time with your family, not to spend 20 hours a day working.

At some point you need to decide what has to be done by you. And what you can give up and let someone else do.

Then you need to give the latter away. Let someone else do it. Yeah, it might cost you a few bucks but if you’re careful, it will cost you less than trying to do it all yourself.

Outsourcing is the micro-entrepreneur’s friend.

Lesson Learned #8:

You’re only one person! Get Help When You Need it.

Sometimes, there is too much work for one person. Sometimes, it’s work that you’re just not good at.

Learn to recognize when you’re not the best person to do the work. Then outsource it.

You’ll be happier and more efficient. The job will be done better. And your company will be stronger.

Posted in Building an eBiz - Tagged business, company, family, IM, income, job, Learn, Learned, Lesson, Lessons, lessons learned, outsource, Outsourcing, person, source, time, work

Lessons Learned #5 – A Second Point of View

Oct07
2009 7 Comments

Written by Help Desk

Due to reasons beyond our control, much of this conversion ended up on my shoulders.

Ignore the amount of work involved. Yes, it would have been nice and we would have been up sooner with less pain. But that’s not the big advantage of working with a partner.

The big advantage is having a second pair of eyes.

You’ll notice that I’ve said several times that there are a lot of very talented web designers out there. Yeah, well they’re all producing multiple great designs.

Quite frankly, there is an embarassment of riches out there for free or almost free! The problem is choosing which design(s) to use as the base – and how to tweak the design. That’s where a partner is most useful.

Start by creating a list of designs that you like. Let your partner go through the list and select out the designs that they like. Then repeat until you are down to one design. One trick is to drop 1/3 of the designs each time. So let’s say you start with 12 designs. Your partner would pick the 8 designs they like the best. Then you would pick the 6 designs you like best. And so on.

There are also a number of other decisions that are helped by a second point of view — from structure to widgets to other software. Having a partner to discuss problems, and arbitrary decisions is invaluable.

A business partner is best, but even if you don’t have a business partner, a spouse or trusted friend is better than trying to go it alone.

Lesson Learned #4:

Two Heads Are Better Than One

Don’t overestimate the value of a second point of view.

There will be many times that you will become overwhelmed with the number of choices available to you.

Some of those choices are mostly arbitrary or esthetic in nature.

And yet, you still need to make the best choice you can.

That’s when a partner is invaluable. Someone to argue with you over a solution. To make choices based on their esthetics. To just be someone other than yourself.

Posted in Building an eBiz - Tagged bit, business, designer, how to, IM, Learned, Lesson, Lessons, lessons learned, lot, Part, reason, software, solution, time, tweak, web, work

Lessons Learned #3 – Quality in WordPress Themes #2

Oct03
2009 5 Comments

Written by Help Desk

So I’ve gone looking through all these themes and what do I find?

Lots of really talented web designer/artist types. With zero ability to develop web programs.

I also found (almost) zero theme’s that matched my needs — artistically or functionally.

In fact, the only theme I found that I liked was so limited that I couldn’t use it and couldn’t adapt it – at least not without a major rewrite.

And while it’s nice … it ain’t got that special thang!

So I’m going to end up going through this process all over again. Fortunately, not as extensively.

So what’s the solution?

First break the problem into two parts. After all, it’s going to take two different specialists to solve the problem. The artist/designer to look after the overall graphics look. And the web developer who makes sure all the php and xhtml and other bits and pieces actually work. Especially the menus.

WordPress is very powerful. It’s very flexible. But it does do only one thing and does it in a particular way. There’s only so many choices that make sense. Unless of course you are really creative in your business. And the truth is there’s no point. This is a business tool not a personal toy.

That means that there are perhaps 1/2 dozen different variations on layouts for the WordPress theme. Plus a half dozen or so menu possibilities.

Spend some time, identify the ones you like and will use. For example, all the ones that have a left sidebar are out. Why? Because Google doesn’t like left sidebars. So there’s no point designing one. (Yes, there are exceptions — this is an example only).

You’ll end up with a selection of basic templates. You should also end up with a basic set of requirements/needs. Hire a web developer and have him/her develop a theme for each of those templates you may want to use. You may find that you end up with only one or two templates.

Then hire an artist/designer to design the overall graphical look. Have him design several screens. Don’t forget to include both static web and blog type pages. Once those designs are converted to CSS, you should be able to plug the design into the theme you’ve chosen.

Result. You’ve now got a quality theme with a look that shouts “BUY FROM ME!”

Lesson Learned #2:

If you’re going to do this regularly … spend some money and get some designs done in advance.

It’s a lot easier/faster to get a site up if you don’t have spend time figuring out which theme is best. And then have to test the theme to make sure it actually works.

So better to spend some money. Get a developer to put together a basic framework or three. Keep it flexible. Keep it simple. Make it easy to modify.

Then hire an artist to put together a number of pages for you (meaning colour schemes, background art, and banners. All the graphics you will need).

Then when you start a new business or change an existing one, just select the form, select the theme and put them together.

Nice, easy, simple. In the end cheaper too!

Posted in Building an eBiz - Tagged artist, bit, blog, business, Change, course, designer, developer, IM, Learned, Lessons, lot, Part, process, Quality, site, theme, Themes, time, tool, web, word, WordPress, work, Write

We’re BAAACKkkk …. Oh my head!

Sep29
2009 6 Comments

Written by Help Desk

Well, that was fun NOT!

So here’s what happened. We originally set up one site — TrainingNOW.ca. It was meant to be a simple brochure type site advertising our company, its services and our courses.

Unfortunately, things change … (bad word, bad, bad, word) … and we realized that a) we needed to sell our training over the web rather than live b) that we needed to sell other products and c) we were trying to sell too much through TrainingNOW.ca.

Cool. No big deal. Sometimes it takes a bit of convincing. A little learning. We’re not all born marketers, after all. ;>

So we set up a couple of new sites (learningcreators.ca, contentcreators.ca) to promote the extra services beyond the actual courses. No big right? Basic brochure sites. (Okay, so we started to …. it’s a work in progress. Work with me here).

Then we realized that LearningCreators should be doing more than just creating learning content or info products for other people. Better to teach people to fish than to do the fishing ourselves! So we set up LearningCreators.com.

That’s where the first of the problems came in. You see we started out by testing the waters using MyBestCopy.com. When it looked like the market was viable, we created the LearningCreators.com site. Including the blog.

The problem was that we went with the basic Doteasy package. Great package. Great price. No complaints at all. (In fact, if you are looking for a webhost go here . You won’t be disappointed).

But one of the things we learned was … in order to improve your SEO ratings you really, really need a blog.

No biggee. We created a blog on MyBestCopy.com. It worked. It drew viewers. Just copy it over and we’re set. Right! Nope.

Try as I might, I couldn’t convince any of the sites that www.LearningCreators.com and apps.LearningCreators.com were the same site (domain). So nothing I did on the blog helped the main opt-in & sales pages.

Meanwhile, we’ve been approached to host the training courses of another company. Great. That’s what TrainingNOW.ca is all about. Publishing training and training materials (e.g. books, DVDs etc.). But that meant we needed to upgrade from the basic Doteasy package to the fancy, dancy, super-special Unlimited plan.

Fine. Couple of headaches but no big woop! Cool so far….

But if we did that then there was no need to use the somewhat limited blog facilities provided by Doteasy for their basic customers. We’d be better off switching to WordPress like everyone told us to.

Silly sods … we believed them!

Sit back, grab a coffee. There’s enough material here to keep this blog alive for a week!

Posted in Building an eBiz - Tagged bit, blog, book, brochure, Change, company, course, Doteasy, IM, Learned, LearningCreators, MyBestCopy, package, Publishing, site, time, training, TrainingNOW, web, word, WordPress, work

Feedback

Sep16
2009 17 Comments

Written by Help Desk

This page is for you.

Yes for you to enter your comments, questions and topics that you would like to have us cover in the blog.

There’s no point in our writing this blog if we don’t have readers.

And there’s no point in your reading it if we don’t answer the questions you have.

Please feel free to use the comments area to add questions and topics you would like to have covered in the blog.

Tagged blog

2 Reasons To Write How To Books Part 1 – A Book As A Modern Business Card

Sep09
2009 3 Comments

Written by Help Desk

A little while back I posted a blog entry with a link to a free webinar on Expert Marketing. But I never really explained why it was important.

There are many reasons you might want to write how to books. But from a business viewpoint there are two key ones:

Making money by selling the book
Making money by giving away the book

We’ll deal with the first tomorrow. Today I want to talk about giving the book away.

One of the concepts that bricks and mortar businesses find hard to understand with internet business is the concept of freemiums.

There are three things that you can sell with any business. You can sell the product or service, you can sell your relationship with the customer or you can sell your expertise. (If you want more information check out this free webinar on Expert Marketing – not even an opt-in).
I’m not going to get into it but while the first two are possible on the internet only selling expertise really fits the media. After all people can’t see or touch the product over the internet. As for relationship — it’s hard to convince someone that you’re their local neighbourhood supplier from another continent!

But convincing potential customers that you really know what you’re doing is easy. All you have to do is give them a sample. A freemium! Think grocery store samples. But rather than selling the product you’re selling the ability to identify a solution — your expertise.

Books are perfect for this. They’re high perceived value, they explain points of view, and if done well can impress.

For a bricks & mortar business they can be a great introduction. But don’t just think business card. Think resume. Think salesman.

A free book costing less than $10 can easily generate thousands of dollars in business. How? By convincing your client that you are the one to call!

Posted in Building an eBiz, Creating Information Products, Write a "how to" book - Tagged blog, book, business, heck, how to, IM, LearningCreators, Part, reason, training, TrainingNOW, web, Write

Physically Writing Your eBook – Letting The Computer Do All The Work

Sep04
2009 20 Comments

Written by Help Desk

So for those of us writing a how to book without the advantage of royalty and money what are we going to do? You know those of us who stir our tea with stainless steel spoons and who don’t have secretarial staffs to write our latest romance for us!

Don’t worry we’ve got a secretary too! A cheap one (YAAAYYYY! I like cheap.) It’s called a computer.

I’m talking about voice recognition software. There’s a lot of it out there. Dragon Naturally Speaking comes to mind as the most well known. But there’s also e-Speaking and IBM’s ViaVoice and WhyType and julius and CMU Sphinx … you get the idea. Of course there are new ones appearing and disapearing on a regular basis (IBM ViaVoice for example).

This software translates the words you speak into a microphone into words that appear on the screen in a word processing program. In fact, some Word processors come equipped with built in speech recognition/voice recognition software.

The big advantage is that you are entering words at almost twice the speed of typing.

The disadvantages have to do with the need to train the software. And the need to correct the result. Training the software can take an extended amount of time and be very frustrating. The big frustration, however, is looking at your manuscript and finding all the mis-translations after all the effort in translating.

The second disappointment comes when you realize that you can only speak in bursts. While we speak faster than we type, we think even faster still. That difference is used by many writers to figure out what they are going to say next. A difference that reduces severely when speaking. As a result we tend to speak in bursts rather than at the full speed we have available.

Despite the sci-fi feel, speech recognition/voice recognition is a viable tool for writing and worh trying. Unless of course, you’re old fashioned like me!

Posted in Write a "how to" book - Tagged book, course, how to, IM, lot, process, secret, time, tool, training, word, work, Write

Picking up where we left off … A Fourth Information Product …

Jul27
2009 Leave a Comment

Written by Help Desk

Okay, so far you have a seminar or webinar that you’ve recorded. You’ve turned it into a DVD which you’re selling for $47-97. You’ve transcribed it as a report which you’re going to give away as a bonus. And you’ve converted the seminar to audo only and put it on to a CD or mp3 as a podcast. Now you’ve got your giveaway or a monthly bonus for your continuity program.

But I also mentioned (two weeks ago ( oh Great Bubblefuzz — I am so falling behind!) . that there was a fourth product you could create.

The fourth information product is an interview.

Listen to the presentation. Write down a series of questions whose answers are in the seminar. Then edit the mp3 (or audio) to make your seminar sound like you are answering the questions. Then get someone (a partner or JV or just about anyone reallly) to act as an interviewer.

All you need to do is record the two of you making the introductory chit-chat and concluding chit chat. You know the one that goes “Hello and Welcome to <your name>. Thank you for joining us today.” “My pleasure”. and so on. It will also help if you record some mid-interview joking around to break up the interview.

Then get your interviewer to ask the questions. Edit it all together and voila! You have an interview.

You may find you need to add some transitions to make your “PowerPoint Responses” sound like you’re answering a question but you’ll find that many of the questions can be answered directly from the recording.

Use it as your giveaway or as another benefit.

Have Fun! Keep Learning! And Get Earning!

Glen

But I also mentioned (two weeks ago ( oh Great Bubblefuzz — I am so falling behind!) . that there was a fourth product you could create.

The fourth information product is an interview.

Then get your interviewer to ask the questions. Edit it all together and voila! You have an interview.

Use it as your giveaway or as another benefit.

Have Fun! Keep Learning! And Get Earning!

Glen

Posted in Building an eBiz, Creating Information Products, Write a "how to" book - Tagged Part, web, Write

Creativity and Writing Ebooks Part 1

Jun25
2009 Leave a Comment

Written by Help Desk

It’s strange but writers of fiction seem to be of two schools … the sit down and write and what you get is wonderful (aka the HIGH ART school of writing), and the plan it out to the n’th degree school.

The first group think of writing as High Art … and high art shouldn’t be limited by craft. Like painting it is the creativity of the artist that matters. What they forget is that the great artists were craftsmen first … who often spent decades developing their craft … long before they were arttists.

On the other hand, there is a group of writers (mystery writers usually) who look at what they do as a craft. And their craft requires that they plan every step out before they start to write. In fact some of them create network diagrams (what is happening to who vs when) which rival some of the most complex projects I’ve worked on.

So where’s the truth?

With fiction it belongs between the two … there is something to be said for stream of consciousness writing and also there is a need for writing to a plan.

In non-fiction those rules don’t really belong.

In non-fiction there is only one valid answer. You are writing to your readers’ need for information. Creativity comes in determining how you identify that need, how you fulfill that need and how you fill in the holes (the English as it were). Between those points you need to be very clear and very organized … planned in detail. Why? Because unlike fiction where the journey and the words matter, in non-fiction it is the ideas and information that matter.

Remember the cod – fish!

Have Fun! Keep Learning! And Get Earning!

Glen

Posted in Write a "how to" book - Tagged artist, book, IM, Part, word, work, Write, Write a "how to" book

I blinked and a month went by

May18
2009 4 Comments

Written by Help Desk

You know this is getting scary. I’ve been killing myself trying to get my sites up. I managed to get the first video made. I managed to get the first chapter done on my ebook. And I’ve no idea what else I’ve done. But somehow, I’m behind by several weeks ….

Now part of the problem is that I’m still in the middle of rennovations, part of the problem is that my son is home sick and my schedule is messed, and part of my problem is that I”ve been “working” from home for too long and part of my problem is moving up in lodge and prat of my problem is paid work …. But none of that matters ’cause the bottom line is that I need to get workin’.

So lesson learned …. I need to set up a schedule and objectives per week & per day. Every day I need to allocate time to my blog, twitter, ebook, videos etc.

So my suggestion to anyone starting up is to make two lists … first one is tasks to be done every day/week/month. The second list is for projects… in my case, write ebooks, film videos, rewrite websites, etc. Then every Sunday (cause it’s a day of rest) OR first thing Monday morning (before doing anything else) make a list of tasks to be done each day of the coming week. List your scheduled interruptions first (doctors’ appointment etc.). Then do the day/week/month list next. Then review the projects and decide which tasks you can accomplish this week. Note that when making the list, assign by day (and hour if scheduled) and amount of time expected. Don’t forget to make the list realistic. There’s no point in scheduling 26 hours in a day. Also don’t forget to schedule down time (e.g. Masons in my case, time with family etc.) And add an allowance for interruptions. Then first thing very morning or the last thing at night review the list and assign a time.

Then work to your list at the assigned time. If you have an interruption something has to make up for the interruption (which is why you have an allowance).

Now, I know how to do it. Let’s see if I can actually put my money where my mouth is.