Kristie T’s Home Business Blog Fun, mom-geared work-at-home tips and advice on making money on the net.

Have you read John Reese released new white paper on the Rebirth of Internet Marketing? He talks about the way the Internet marketing industry is changing.

Here are some of the key points John Reese makes about trends in Internet Marketing:

1) Markets are fragmenting. Niches are breaking up into 1000’s of mini-niches. Internet businesses can adapt, big business will suffer.
2) Pay per click costs will skyrocket. Businesses that depend on this will suffer. Depending on pay per click to be your main source of traffic is asking for trouble.
3) Businesses that don’t know how to survive these changes will go broke and shut down
4) Having a higher visitor value gives you the biggest chance of winning in the Internet game (bigger product funnel)
5) Selling junk won’t cut it, you need to have quality information that truly serves your market
6) Content rules. Give away your best stuff. Having lots of content helps you get ahead with SEO and with building customer trust.
7) Reverse squeeze page - give great content and say “if you want more great content like this sign up here”
Hype is out, Education and Entertainment Rules (I have seen this true in the speaking industry as well!)
People are bombarded with ads. Marketing is less effective. If you can entertain them and make them smile you cut thru the clutter.
9) Long sales letters are out - Hybrid salesletters that are short and combined with video convert better
10) Video is absolutely critical in your online marketing - it converts way better than text or audio
11) Internet marketers who know how to leverage the power of relationships will win

http://www.income.com/images/reports/rebirth.pdf

4

Subscribe to RSS feed
Add to your favorite bookmark site

Buyers online are always weary of whether it’s safe to purchase from a web site or not. But a new kind of web safe mark will alert buyers whether a site is secure. The new EV (Extended Validation) SSL Certificate issued by the Certification Browser Authority Forum displays a green address bar to indicate that it’s “safe” for people who visit a web site. Microsoft plans to activate this green light feature in a future update of IE 7 expected in late January.

Those that fail the EV Certificate security test would case the address bar to remain green.

According to a recent Yahoo News story on this only large companies are affected now, “… the forum has figured out how to validate only larger companies, the ones incorporated by a government agency and thus listed in its databases. General partnerships, unincorporated associations, sole proprietorships and individuals are currently excluded. ”

The purpose of the mark is to stop scams and phishing schemes by sites that appear to be who they are not masquerading as popular web sites.

Learn more about the EV Certificates here:
- Web ’safe’ mark may elude new merchants
- Extended Validation SSL Certificates - A New, Higher Standard for Internet Security

4

Subscribe to RSS feed
Add to your favorite bookmark site

If any of you have a Dell Latitude, Inspirion, or Precision laptop, they are having a recall on the batteries.
Click here for information on Dell laptop batteries recall.

(Leave a Comment)

Subscribe to RSS feed
Add to your favorite bookmark site

Have you ever had a time when you really needed to make a tough client communication? Today I had one of those days. I had done some work on trade before with a friend. I put together a quick website for him, he in turn gave me some mentoring.

Well, recently, my friend/client asked for a huge chunk of work that I felt was above and beyond our trade agreement. I was in a panic. I knew I needed to communicate with him that I couldn’t do it for free and didn’t have the words to say it.

Here’s an outline of what a dear coaching friend of mine had to say. Keep this in mind next time you need to make a difficult client communication. My coaching friend said, make it like an Oreo cookie, say something nice (the chocolate), then in the middle, put the communication you need to say (the filling), and then on the outside close with a reassurement of the nice sentiment (the other chocolate).

Here’s the gist of what I said:

I really appreciate all have you done to help each other. And although when we started, I did your website for you basically on trade for , I think that current scope of work you need goes outside our trade.

I’m sure you can understand that it’s my responsibility to let you know if something you need is outside of the realms of our barter agreement.

I want to continue to support you. I hope you will consider a fee based arrangement for your current “chunk” of service needs.

After talking with you, I can give you a quote for the estimated amount of hours on the project at my current rate. And since you are a friend, I would be happy to discount that of $10 per hour off of that.

I really respect, like, and enjoy working with you and truly hope you will understand the nature of the situation.

I am happy to discuss this in person (or on the phone) if you would like.

In the future, if you have 5 minute quick updates of just pasting on something new or whatever, I am happy to help you with that. But I have the feeling this project will take several hours to complete. And I really do need to bill for a project of that size.

Or, if you have bigger jobs (more than 5 minutes) I will need to bill that work out.

Let me know how you’d like to proceed!

Kristie T

So, I hope that if you get in a pickle and need to say something difficult to a client, that the Oreo technique helps you to uphold your boundaries and needs while preserving the client relationship.

Have you ever had a tough client situation like that? Share your client story here.

(Leave a Comment)

Subscribe to RSS feed
Add to your favorite bookmark site

Are you addicted to learning? I know I am. And it’s easy to buy books, tapes, and attend seminars just to get the thrill of learning something new. But the truth is that knowledge does nothing without application.

Now, have you ever been to a seminar and listened to a really amazing speaker that had you sitting on the edge of your seat ready to pay an ungodly amount of money for their super duper package?

Well, that’s something I was recently wrestling with. I attended the Dan Kennedy Superconference and one of the big internet marketing gurus (whose name shall not be mentioned to protect the innocent) had a mega high priced mentoring package that had me drooling.

The lure was the list of specific action steps and individual mentoring to lead you to “explode your profits” in 60 days or get your money back in full. I really, really had a hard time resisting. Even though it was a boatload of money, I kept thinking about the potential if I just knew those secrets and applied them.

After sleeping on it, talking with my business coach, and getting advice of some good friends, I finally was able to resist the temptation to buy.

I really know 90% of what they were teaching. The rest I have sitting right on my book shelf - it’s just waiting for me to read, learn, and apply it. And as far as support, all I have to do is tell my coach my plan, create action steps, and hold me accountable.

Are you a learning addict? Are you experiencing information overload? Do you really need to buy that new book or tape? What things have you learned that you still have left to get off your butt and do! Share your information addict thoughts here!

5

Subscribe to RSS feed
Add to your favorite bookmark site

I am reading a great book now by Dan Kennedy, “No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs: The Ultimate No Holds Barred Kick Butt Take No Prisoners Guide to Time Productivity & Sanity”.

And one of the things he talks about is how to calculate your hourly rate as an entrepreneur. He explains how you really need to start with the end number you want to make for the year in mind and work your way backwards to calculate what your hourly rate should be.

Here’s the formula to calculating your base earnings target for the year according to Dan Kennedy.

Here’s an example for someone who wants to earn $50,000 this year

So, assuming that only 1/3 of your hours are billable hours of the hours you spend working a day, you need to bill $85.20 per hour to make $50,000 per year.

Knowing this number allows you to make better decisions about how you use your time. Would you spend half an hour or your own time going to the post office knowing that it costs you $42.50 to do it yourself? What if you could get a neighbor kid to do it once a day for $10, that would give you more billable time wouldn’t it?

Do the math and let me know what your billable hourly rate needs to be to hit your target. I did and I see that I am overdue for a raise! *grin*

Share your hourly rate that you need to charge to hit your target for the year here!

(Leave a Comment)

Subscribe to RSS feed
Add to your favorite bookmark site

You know, there is always a wise guy in the bunch. We were kicking off our “Doing Business in Your Bathrobe” holiday today. Just got the press release sent to 3300+ media outlets. I got several request for interviews and more information. And then there was this one that makes it seem demeaning to host a holiday celebrating mom entrepreneurs who are wearing their bathrobe for 1 day.

Sorry. It’s cute, but our subscribers don’t wear bathrobes to work, even when that’s in their own homes. They are dressed for action, wanting to make money, so they need to make tracks on a moment’s notice. … Perhaps you can change our point of view!

Sincerely,

Lady’s Name
Publisher and President
Website.com

What do you think? Is Doing Business in your Bathrobe Day a fun holiday to celebrate women entrepreneurs or is it completely unprofessional to joke about wearing your bathrobe even for 1 day while you are working to show your entrepreneurial pride?

Click to share your thoughts here.

13

Subscribe to RSS feed
Add to your favorite bookmark site

According to a recent press release by Dr. John Prendergast 96.5% of Internet business startups fail within two years. He cites the reasons as information overwhelm, a flood of changing technology, and industry jargon.

I can tell you from experience I know some authors and speakers who soon find themselves drowning in debt because they are overloaded with information and opportunities. They can’t focus. They do the wrong things that don’t get results. It’s a viscious cycle.

The wonderful challenge we are presented with as experts is finding what information really matters and staying focused on that. That’s why niches are so powerful. It’s too tough to stay abreast of what’s going on within an entire industry. But by becoming an expert on a niche, you can truly focus on mastering that smaller area of focus.

As a top expert in your field, you will be respected, revered, and highly sought after. You command premium prices for your services. You attract a higher class of clients who are happy to pay higher fees for your caliber of work. Your reputation precedes you. People look up to you. You enjoy rich relationships with clients who are happy to refer you.

The lesson? Don’t try to be all things to all people, it’s a losing game. Choose 1 thing and get really focused.

(Leave a Comment)

Subscribe to RSS feed
Add to your favorite bookmark site

So you are at someone’s site, you think it’s cool. You’d love to contact them about doing a joint venture, how to become and affiliate or whatever. So you look for their contact info and nada, nothing, zip. What’s up with that? Here’s a little secret that will sometimes provide you the contact information for really hard to reach people.

1) Write down their website address
2) Do a search on their domain name at GoDaddy’s Who is database here
https://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/whois.asp
4) If they didn’t pay the extra fee to get their domain privately listed, you can usually find their name, email, phone, address listed as the Administrative contact

And Ba-da-bing — that means you can just shoot them an email or pick up the phone to give them a jingle. Suddenly those oh, so private people are reachable!

I used this little tip to talk to Robert Allen’s top dog to ask if he would write a testimonial for my book I Love My Life: A Mom’s Guide to Working from Home. And he was soooo shocked when I called. He said, “I am curious, how did you get my contact information?” And then I told him.

(Leave a Comment)

Subscribe to RSS feed
Add to your favorite bookmark site

Got this snippet from SpeakerNetNews. Wanted to share.

Are your articles selling through Amazon.com? — Nancy Stern (nancy@nancystern.com)

The American Society of Journalists and Authors writes: “Amazon.com is selling copies of articles. But in some cases, articles are appearing even though the writers never assigned these additional rights to anyone. Chances are that Amazon made the deal with some consolidator, but that doesn’t help the writer who receives none of the revenue. ASJA and the Author’s Guild are looking into this situation. We’d ask that writers go to Amazon and search under their names. If you find that your work is up there and you know that you never licensed such uses, we’d ask you to send an email to amazonwatch@asja.org. We’re trying to get a scope of the problem to find an effective and equitable approach to resolving it. Please note if you actually registered the copyright on any of the pieces before February.”

(Leave a Comment)

Subscribe to RSS feed
Add to your favorite bookmark site