San Diego is on fire, there are eight wild fires that have been burning with zero percent containment for more than twelve hours. I am writing this on my laptop with a Bluetooth connection to the internet from a downtown evacuation site. This was a mandatory evacuation that covered our office and my house.
There are dozens of people around me who packed their cars earlier this morning with their most prized personal items, documents, family and pets. It seems that most people have been able to get out. I am very thankful that the City of San Diego responded as quickly as it did.
While I am sitting here, I am getting calls from clients who are panicked about their servers, data and corporate information. Most of them are out of the direct path of the fires but the concern is universal when it comes to disaster planning.
The disaster recovery plan for our office kicked into effect at about 6:30 this morning. We went through this about three years ago so we were up to date and current on our plan. Our employees knew what to do. But don’t assume that everyone in your office knows what to do in a disaster. For our office we had a conference call at 7 a.m, and we contacted each employee by 7:30 to confirm their status. Our critical business records are in secure fireproof storage and our servers are backed up remotely, so we are 100% covered off site for any system disasters.
We use BackupRight.com Our servers are backed up each night and we could be up in about four hours even if the office burned to the ground.
Okay – So you didn’t have time to follow the guidelines that I have been sending to you all year and now here you are in Q4 of 2007 and you need some MAJOR web traffic. Sales are a little lower than you expected, or you have a new product that everyone should know about; But the lead generation from your website is not converting well and you need more business FAST.
Pay Today – Get Visitors Today
I am not planning on teaching you how to run a Pay-Per-Click campaign, so freshen up on some of the topics that I have already written about at Google pay per action and web analytics to make sure that you understand what you are doing and how to measure it. Google has a great PPC guide that will help you with getting started.
Drive them to your message
I am however planning on teaching you about a Search Engine Optimization technique called landing pages or in marketing lingo lead capture pages. This is the page that appears when your potential customer clicks on your advertisement or PPC result link. These optimized pages are specifically designed for a call to action, information and converting lookers into buyers. Wikipedia states that there are two types of landing pages “Reference and Transactional.” A reference landing page presents information that would be relevant to the visitor. This could be informational or instructional, but it does not convert visitors.
Focus on the goal
Right now, this is not our goal; our goal is to persuade a visitor to complete a transaction, such as filling out a form or buying the product. This is the stated goal of the transactional landing page. The purpose of the page is conversions and actions. To get people excited about the message and to generate actions and sales. The quality of the page is determined by the conversion ratios of how many people see your page vs. how many visitors complete the desired action.
You may be asking why send visitors to a landing page vs. to my home page? The quick answer is when tied to a keyword appropriate pay-per-click campaign you will be delivering exactly what your prospect is looking for without them having to search your site. You would be amazed at how effective a smart landing page can be in converting even first time views of your site.
What makes a great landing page?
An effective landing page will have a call to action, a description about your product or service and a specific desired result for the page. Remember completing an action is the goal here! So make sure that there is a form to get more information, a link to the e-commerce shopping cart or a “call us right now” action on the page. Without this you are losing the traction of your marketing dollars.
Lead the eyes of the viewers with color, bold fonts and graphics – keep them interested in your message.
Above the Fold – Keep all critical details and call to actions above the fold. The imaginary line on your screen before scrolling down.
Keep Focused – Landing pages are about ONE thing. One product, One Service and One Call to action.
No Clicks – Remove the navigation bar so that they either have to complete the action or go to another page. Don’t let them click navigation and leave your landing page. Once their gone… their gone.
I know of a number of companies that have landing pages within their site structure – www.companyABC.com/special_offer.html and I also know of successful companies that have set up alternate domains to specifically sell their products with landing pages. This would look like www.companyABCpromotion.com , whichever way to do it, remember that landing pages provide the details that you promised in your PPC advertising, and an action. Read the Google Landing Page Guidelines for more information about landing pages.
Let me know if you need any help with landing page creation or some information about PPC management. I know a number of great designers who have been able to create some amazingly high converting pages.
Brad Slavin
Reputation Management
Before you start reading this weeks edition try something, head to google.com and put your name in the search query and then search your company name. Make sure that you read all the way to page 4 and check the results. Go ahead, I have time?
Did you notice something unflattering being said about you, perhaps an upset customer or a BBB report? Oh, and did you do a google.com image search? I bet you never even knew about these less than flattering comments, but I can assure you that your prospective employers or customers are finding this information when they are researching your once good name.
After Shock
The initial shock of finding your good name sullied all over the Internet like a picture of Brittany in the tabloids can be a little unnerving. Most companies that search their name will find a posting or two from a supposed disgruntled customer. These post go on to tell a story about the incident, their inability to get resolution and their desire to “let everyone know” or to “save them the headache of dealing with you”.
Legitimacy
Its unfortunate but the Internet does not care about legitimacy or getting the story right. It is a scribe that simple records the annals of web history, scooping up both fact and fiction and presenting it unfiltered for all those who choose to see. Not fair but that’s the way it works. Google does not try to figure out if the posting was legitimate or if it is a competitor posting to taint your good name?
Everyone in the business world has at one time had a bad experience with a customer or a vendor. There has been that employee or co-worker gossiped around the water cooler, but the thing is that this type of negative publicity could haunt the next few years of your professional life.
What to do
If these complaints are legitimate, deal with them at the source; A negative customer experience left unchecked can mushroom into a much larger issue. Try to deal with the problem before it gets posted to the Internet. And deal with them just like any other PR issue. Post your customer care phone number on the web, setup a specific email address that gets checked every day to deal with customer complaints or support issues. Make sure that everyone in your organization is dedicated to fixing your issues so that they are not made public. Try to contact the customer, if you are able to track them down, resolve the issue and perhaps they will remove or update the negative comments. Or add a page to your website that tells your side of the story, but just make sure that you respond in public in an attempt to resolve the issue. Do not antagonize the situation, or you might get yourself involved in a flamewar
I am still a huge fan of lifelock. A 90 Day discount coupon with code. IDPROTECTED
But?
If it’s not true and you should politely request the forum, blog or news site owner to remove the content. Post your own response in the comment section of the original article or ask them to consider posting your response as a separate post. Consult a lawyer for advice or find a reputation management / PR firm to help you deal with the statements. I will caution you on dealing with a lawyer, sometimes this works great; other times it backfires beyond the scope of the original complaint. You don’t want to get seen as the corporation that is trying to screw the little guy.
Keep up to date
You should be tracking everything about your company, your name, key employees, your products and their variations. Check search engines like google or yahoo for up to date information or just have them send it to you google and yahoo alerts The engines will send you an email notification whenever you are mentioned in their index. If you name is John Smith, try setting your alerts to your geographic region like “John Smith San Diego” to get better results.
Check the blog search engines like technorati.com, feedster.com . The blog world is a constant buzz with all the hot information; make sure that you don’t get caught in the whirlwind. Create a customer RSS search feed based on your keyword searches. Use monitorthis to track a single keyword in dozens of separate search engine feeds.
If all else fails?
If you need some help with reputation repair, let me know there are a few companies that I have worked with in the past that may be able to figure out your particular situation. Catch them fast, tread carefully while you work on resolving the issue.
Let me know how I can help.
Brad Slavin
Lifelock Promo Codes
I scoured google to find a list of Lifelock Discount Codes with their corresponding values.
Here is a short list for the Lifelock Coupon Codes:
A few months back I wrote about Blogging for your business, what is known as CEO blogging. This is where the internal voice of the company, the day to day successes and the behind the scenes talk happen in an interactive forum. The blog is usually connected to the main website at an address like http://www.companyname.com/blog or even http://blog.companyname.com. It is connected so that the views know that there is some real authority to the conversation and that the viewer has access to a person that can really hear what they have to say. I don’t believe that the CEO should be the one to blog unless you have a media department to support them. Just because they are the head of the organization, does not make them the best person on the team to blog. Publishing a blog may be may be foreign and untested technology; Once you press publish, it’s out there for the world to see.
But I am a huge proponent for each company having a public web persona and a blog personality that gets regular updates from within the organization. It humanizes you.
And gives you virtually unrestricted access to your audience. Take a look at the Whole Foods Blog, in which the CEO discusses how some regulatory issues about their business have required him to keep quite for now. Go back a few months to see how prolific he was in communicating with the public.
Some quick business blogging tips: Provide content – Don’t simply repost what other are saying, be the site that provides real content and real unique information. This information may be on your business, your industry or some other area in which you are specifically qualified to write about. Keep it simple – Keep the blog site simple, there is no need to experiment with the latest and greatest in blogging software. Do your readers really have to see what the weather is in their home town? They can look outside for this, what they came here for is some insight that they cant get anywhere else.
Define what your prospective readers are looking for and stay on topic. Remember the goal is to educate and inform not necessarily to sell products. Web users are savvy, don’t try to trick them. Integration – As mentioned before, keep the blog tied to your primary business site. It add creditability and makes it a whole lot easier for people to create a brand loyalty to you and your company.
Post 2-3 times a week on industry specific topics or issues related to your business. You need to build some initial momentum, once your traffic and feedback increase you will figure out just how often you need to blog in order to stay relevant to your customers. Promote Promote Promote – The power of blogging is the active feedback from your customers. Put your blog and your website out there, blogging is not just a lead generation tool but it is really the way to build brand awareness and customer loyalty.
Don’t worry about the traffic to your site. It will be very low for a while, but by staying relevant to your customers and on topic the people who are interested will find you.
By enabling the comments on your blog you are creating an open forum for people to discuss, praise or criticize your company. Make sure that you require an email address for people that post, but you will take some bruises along the way. Its not all glamorous.
What does it take to start?
Also blogging should be FREE, there may be a few dollars spent on a template or some intital setup with your ISP but the barrier to entry is minimal. I would say that your budget to blogging should be less than $250 and it should take no more than a week to go from the “I’m going to do this stage” all the way through to the email to your customer telling them to “see my new blog”.
I challenge each and every one of you to have a personal or business blog set up by the end of the year. It’s not that tough! Let me know if you need any help.
Brad Slavin
Citywide WiFi Reality Sets In – The Economics Suck
In an article at http://www.physorg.com they were talking about the “ambitious plans for big Wi-Fi networks to provide free or low-cost wireless Internet access are being abandoned or scaled back by US cities as the economics of the deals turn out to be more challenging than expected.”
From my perspective this was really bound to happen. There was just no way that providing free or low-cost broadband speed, reliable Internet access and allow of competitive access to the network while making money.
The technology is changing at such a rapid pace and “too many municipalities continue to focus on large, ambitious public wireless projects that have no clear path to profitability.”
WiFi for these large deployments is dead, the technology requires a density of hardware deployment that is not only unmanageable but also very difficult to scale. The promise of WiMAX or other widely deployed technology will probably usurp any citywide WiFi, the business models are just not complimentary to universal coverage.
Brad Slavin
Don’t Tase Me, Bro!
Let me start by saying that I am by no means an active political or social advocate but this is just unreasonable. I am breaking the TechTalk tradition for this week and I am going to share with you one of the most disturbing events of the past few days. It is actually the most horrific commentary about our society that has been recorded since the Rodney King riot videos and the truck driver who was dragged from his vehicle.
For those of you who don’t know what I am talking about it is the arrest and tasering of Andrew Meyer, a University of Florida student. Meyer was verbally harranging Massachusetts senator John Kerry during a campus talk; he was at the microphone and would not listen to the forum moderators. He refused to back down from his critical questioning of Kerry and after a few moments the police hauled him off. They forced him to the ground, and tasered him.
Based on the numerous video accounts, he was complying with the request and even offered to leave and walk out on his own. The officers forced him to the ground and into handcuffs. Since when we became a society that responds to long winded questions at town hall meeting even if they are long winded or inappropriate with a taser? Where would our country be without the ability to protest? The most disturbing thing for me honestly was not the tasing itself but the fact that crowd just sat there. These are college aged kids, they are our canaries in the coal mine; If college aged people just sit back and allow this to happen, where do we go from here?
The technology slant on this email is, whether the user of this technology is actually justified? A few years ago, he would have simply been subdued, restrained, cuffed and removed from the property by a well trained police officer. The warring aspect here is just how trigger happy we have actually become. Has technology become a substitute for good judgment? I can appreciate that a calculator or a computer takes some of the burden off of us when working on complex issues, but to rely on technology as our sole remediation seems a little ridiculous. We can all do simple math in our head and the authorities should be able to handle a simple disturbance without resorting to an immobilizing technology.
What is it that we as a society find to be acceptable? What are out limits? Are we at the beginings of a cultural revolution? There are even T-Shirts that have been printed about this, with the slogan Dont Tase Me Bro
Amnesty International has been documenting the misuse of tasers for some time; you can find more information.
Everyone either owns one, has played with one or wants one, the Apple iPhone is the biggest consumer product on the shelves today. The blend of technology and art that delivers one of the most perfect portable computers ever released. Both Apple and ATT have benefited from its strong sales and passionate adoption but there is another side to this story.
Like all strong consumer products there will be copies and look a-likes but as most of us in the iPod generation know, any MP3 player is not an iPod. The iPhone copies will have the same fate. The market anticipates competition and this is why Apple partnered with ATT to distribute the phone in its retail stores and this is why they gave ATT the exclusive USA network rights to the phone.
Apple creates the phone, ATT provides the service with a minimum of a two year commitment at about $45 per month. With ATT as the exclusive network provider Apple is able to take a piece of the monthly service as part of the deal. For every phone sold, ATT bills about $1200 for the service and Apple sells a phone for about $500. Seems like a both win deal. The market place has passionate consumers, and passionate consumers like to consume. But if it were that simple I would not be writing about it!
iPhone Unlocking
There is an underground movement that has gained critical velocity in the last few weeks, this is the drive to “unlock” the iPhone from its service provider and allow it to be used on ANY network. Yep, you heard me. Hack the phone to run on any providers GSM based network, this means that Sprint, Vodaphone, T-Mobile and prepaid users on other networks can all have the sexy iPhone without the two year contract with ATT. They can use their existing cell phone service with a brand new phone.
If you want to understand a little more about iPhone unlocking you can check these movies:
Or this one from one of the largest and most popular technology blog sites out there
Why should I care?
What difference does it make to me if ATT looses their exclusivity on the phone and the iPhone can work anywhere? Honestly there is no reason for you to care. I don’t really care about this little hack but the reason that you should care is because of how vendor relationships can fail.
Follow me on this, who stands to benefit from this? Apple or ATT. Initially this partnership was balanced, it was a good marriage with both sides supplying an exclusive piece. A real both win deal. Now Apple stands to make the greatest gains from this little software hack. Sure they will fix it with a code update, but the cat and mouse game has begun and the vendor / supplier relationship is forever tarnished. In the future another Telecom provider will be less eager to enter into an exclusivity deal with a vendor for a hot product. But remember Apple still wins by selling more phones.
Still, how does this apply to ME?
Most of you on this list are business owners or in upper management. Consider this: What perceived exclusivity do you have in your vendor relationships?
What rules are currently being respected that if broken could really damage your relationship with your customers or even your entire business process. Let me explain by example.
Crossing the line
This is where this all started from, I have a client that is in the “drop shipping and fulfillment” of Internet orders business. The specifics are not important but needless to say he has invested hundreds of thousands in his company and he makes a handsome living. His website displays products, his customers purchase the products and he blind drop ships from his vendor to the direct end user. Business was great until he received a catalog in the mail and email to his inbox from a new widget selling company that was selling the same products directly to consumers.
Farming the customer database
He discovered that the distributor was going retail. They had decided to deal directly with the end user and they had a database of thousands of customers that they were reaching out to, customers that they had shipped to on behalf of their clients. This
situation is still working itself out, but you can see just how quickly a partnership can turn sour.
In hindsight he could have saved himself the nightmare of having his customer database stolen if he had used a fulfillment house to mail the packages to his customers (Yes, he could have also used an honest distributor).
Look at your relationships
Are there vendor relationships that you have right now that could jeopardize your business if they fail? Now what can you do if anything to mitigate these risks? Where can you change the balance of your relationships? Sometimes just exposing a blind spot is enough to change the balance. Don’t find yourself in a one sided relationship with your suppliers or customers, when there is a shift in control, its time to look at your options.
Brad Slavin
Calea Interview for Itmanagement.com
I was interviewed this week for an article in ITManagement.com about CALEA compliance.
Way back in 1994, agents at the FBI were getting nervous. They saw emerging digital and wireless communications technologies as one more reason to worry — and one more way for hardcore criminals to evade capture. That year, Congress passed CALEA (Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act) to ensure that the FBI and other law- enforcement agencies would be able to conduct electronic surveillance — essentially, legal wiretapping — on devices beyond landline telephones. From fax machines, pagers and mobile phones, CALEA now extends also to broadband Internet communications and VoIP services.
Last year, the U.S. government required that all “telecommunications carriers??? — which the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) defines as common carriers, facilities-based broadband Internet-access providers and interconnected VoIP service providers — be compliant with CALEA by May 14, 2007. That means that a carrier’s equipment, facilities and services must be capable of allowing law enforcement to perform electronic surveillance, which is also referred to as lawful intercept. Simply put: You get a subpoena, and you must be able to immediately execute a tap on the network and transmit the data to the law-enforcement agency that served the warrant. The tricky part is this: The government has put the onus on the telecommunications industry to determine CALEA standards and solutions.
“For a long time, CALEA seemed catered to VoIP and VoIP networks. It didn’t seem to apply to us, a broadband provider,” explained Brad Slavin, vice president of engineering at Skyriver Communications Inc., an ISP near San Diego with 3,500 business subscribers. “There’s no governing body — you may not even know that this is a prerequisite.” The ISP received clarifications on the mandate in February, and Slavin spent the 90 days before the deadline pushing to become compliant.
Last week I wrote about a scam that could sucker you out of 50 bucks but this week I am going to talk about the greatest possible scam out there, Identity Theft. 457-55-5462 You may recognize this number as the Social security number of the Lifelock CEO Todd Davis. They are the innovative identity theft protection site that is ROCKING THE INDUSTRY. Their shtick is that they are so confident in their service that they are willing to publish the CEO’s SSN.
What’s the process? This is how it works, Lifelock ask the credit bureaus to set fraud alerts on your behalf. This is done through their automated systems and the alerts are set within an hour. These fraud alerts last for about 90 days, and then they proactively go in and update the system at about the 80th day and reset the process again.
I have been using the Equifax protection service for years and once I knew that there was an alternative out here that is not just a reporting engine but is actually proactive about my identity protection I just had to give it a try. Let me give you an example, if someone is down at Sears and is applying for credit with your social security number, one will block prior to approval and the other would notify you that a new account has been established.
They also order your credit reports from all three major agencies mailed directly to you once a year. If you are interested in a 30 Day trial and a whopping $21 discount, enter in promo code AMI when you enroll. I have been using the service for about 90 days and I have received my Fraud Alter paperwork from Trans Union and Equifax, so I know that they have done what they have promised. I anticipate getting another set of letters within the next 60 days to confirm that my fraud alert has been renewed. I LOVE THIS SERVICE. Yes, I know that I could do it myself but for less than $10 a month, I would prefer to have someone follow up on this for me so that I can focus on writing interesting newsletters and not writing to get my identity back!
FAST FACTS:
Identity Theft is the fastest growing crime in America
More than 27 million identities have been stolen
More than 15 million identities will be stolen this year
You are 25 times more likely to have your identity stolen than to have your car broken into.
You are 40 times more like to have your identity stolen than your home broken into.
It takes consumers an average of 177 hours and two years to restore their identities after it has been stolen.
One of my favorite features of the services is the removal from pre-approved credit card and junk mail lists and they keep updating these requests as they expire. Discarded mail or stolen mail is one of the most common ways that thieves hijack identities.
The Guarantee If your Identity is misused while you are our client, we’ll spend up to $1,000,000 to make it right. I have been a client for a while, and I have yet to receive that dredged phone call that someone is trying to open up an account with my name, but I have done my due diligence and I feel comfortable that I am really protected.
If you don’t think this is a problem, take a look at these news articles just from August.
Consider signing your parents up for this service even if you don’t need it. This article written today states that 20% of Identity Theft happens to Senior citizens.
Stay informed, because once you are it is easy to get protected.
Brad Slavin
Doman Registration Scams
I have been connected to the Internet for a very long time and I am always the super skeptic about any online offer and I always have my guard up for Internet scams but this one nearly got me. I was perhaps 10 seconds away from clicking submit before I chose to do some checking. It would have cost me about fifty dollars in actual damages but it a lesson that needs to be shared.
Here is the content of the email:
It is time to renew your domain name www.topsiterank.com
You may renew your domain automatically with Domain Renewal. Click on the link in this e-mail to renew the domain for another year. You should renew your domain as soon as possible in order for it to continue to be registered in your name.
As soon as we have received your payment, you will receive a confirmation that your domain has been renewed.
It was a clean, simple email with an easy to follow link. The landing page looked great, it had the domain name and the renewal cost right up front I can see how people fall for this.
What is the implication?
Honestly this scam just costs you money and there is a slim possibility that they steal your credit card information and use it to buy a 60 inch plasma. If they do what they promise, this is pretty much a victimless crime. You just overpay for a service. They don’t modify your information with your registrar; they just pay your bill.
Say what?
For those of you who have not had to deal with paying for your .com name or renewing it once it has expired. You typically get a notification from your Registrar or your ISP to tell you that your domain is about to expire. You go online in the same way that I did and you pay for it…Pretty easy. The problem is that you don’t need the account number or verification to pay for a domain. So if you use this service, they charge you the $79.00 and pay out the $12-20 to renew your domain. They take a healthy markup for sending spam. No harm no foul, you get your registration paid and they act like the middleman handling the transaction.
So what was made me stop?
In this case it was experience, everything looked right but something did not feel right. I did not remember seeing this screen in years past and it was a little “too” easy. So I went online to the “whois” database to check who I registered the domain with.
You can see the results here.
To check your own domain information go to http://www.who.is/. Make sure that your information is up to date and accurate. Is the fax number right? Is it pointing to your new physical address and is the name of the person on the record still working for your company? Get this information up to date ASAP, if you need some free help taking care of this let me know, I would be glad to help. Rather be safe than sorry. I had a client that her IT person switched the domain registration out from under her and then just started his own separate business selling the same product using her good name. We were able to get the domain back in a few short days but not without the expense of having to get notarized letters and certified documents of Incorporate.
Wild Wild West
The Internet really is the wild west and there are robbers ready to take advantage of you at every corner. The lesson is that if you are in doubt or have been sent an unsolicited notification from a vendor that you don’t recognize – even if the service seems valid. Ask someone who can help you before you spend the money or even lose your domain name. Next week I am going to write about protecting yourself from identity theft.
Brad Slavin
4 Hour Work Week – 4HWW – San Diego
Hot on the heels of my last post I have just started a 4 Hour Work Week group at meetup.com. I know that some of you on my list are not in the San Diego area but if you in the area and you are interested in creating a life of possibility or looking to transform your business and life by utilizing the “secrets of the New Rich” take the first step and register for the meetup.
If you are not in San Diego, search meetup.com for a 4 Hour Work Week Group near you or start one of your very own!
There are already 4 members signed up, as of this morning and I only started the group at 11pm last night!
Getting connected and finding your passion and your muse is a step towards living a life you love. I hope to see you there.
Brad Slavin
4 Hour Work Week
What was it about the last email that got so many people’s attention? Was it the prospect that there is someone out there who is willing to do the dirty work or is it that they may just be able to do it more cost effectively than your own employees? I have never seen such divided responses to an article that I have written, there no less than sixteen comments in my inbox within the first week. One comment was “I cringe when I read posts like yours. While you have made some good suggestions, you also imply that Vas are not trustworthy and are fly-by-night operations.”No doubt about it, Virtual Assistants and Outsourcing is a passionate topic and the act of outsourcing means different things to different people.
Why Did I Write About Outsourcing?
Every article must have a motivation and mine was just to show that there are alternatives, out-of-the-box ways of thinking that may not be compatible with you. My belief is that there is more to life than an 8-5 job and doing work for works sake. If I can gain greater efficiency by working with offshore employees, and it brings me closer to my real goal, then I am going for it. In the last few weeks I found out what motivates me and where I am going to be channeling my creative and business energy. It’s all going into 4 Hour Work Week.
Not a Book Review
The book is an easy read and it is catching on like crazy; but I am not writing this as a book review, but rather as a testament to find the goal of what I love and to fullfill it with the power of technology and outsourcing! I have always been involved in Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) businesses, the type of business where you sell your product or service once and if you keep your customer satisfaction high! you can count on them being there next week, next month and next year. But the thing that I was missing was the goal of what do do with that type of freedom. The book helps to put it into perspective. If you choose to read one of the best reviews of this book, please check out David Seah’s review at http://davidseah.com/archives/2007/04/18/a-review-of-tim-ferriss-the-4-hour-work-week
Outsource Your Business Processes
If you are ready to outsource, try these easy ones; do you have a website for your product or service? Wish you could have it and staffed with 24/7 friendly helpful staff who are ready and willing to answer your customer questions? But, most people have the same set of questions – how much does it cost, what color does it come in, what is your return policy or just what does it do?
The answer is outsource it, you don’t have to worry about the potential language barrier, just think of it as online chat for business! Create some canned responses, and they can interact on your behalf to solve problems. Empower them to solve problems, not just delay resolution. We did it, and we have taken it a step further, we outsource phone calls to the Philippines 24 hours a day. Call 1-888-475-9822 and give it a try, let me know how long it takes to have the phone answered. I bet it doesn’t even take less than 45 seconds to get a live person, day or night.
Another easy one to outsource is the updating of your website or having your VA create a list of prospective customers on the Internet and prequalify them with an introductory email. It is a powerful way to start thinking about outsourcing your business processes.
For a place to start outsourcing try https://www.getfriday.com/. I have utilized the services of
http://www.ybrant.com for back office projects. They are amazing!, speak to Vijay at (650)-838-0245. For the contact details of extraordinary technical off-site call center, Email me and I will put you in touch with Tony.
The 4HWW Way
The impact that I have felt just in the last few weeks is that I am creating balance between the effort expended and the quality of life that I plan to lead, when you think about it, this is really the most critical part of being alive. Work for work’s sake is not the answer, but getting more done and more efficiently though outsourcing and automation is a big part of the puzzle.
The results by volume approach which requires you to be putting in more hours to get more done is totally unsustainable. You can’t keep doing more and more time in at the office and expecting that your life is going to get better. Focus only on those tasks which contribute directly to the bottom line or benefit or other measurable goal.
I don’t just want to work less than I work right now; I want to work smarter, in a way that my time at the office is just as valuable as my vacation time.
What Did I learn?
Automate your income and don’t defer your dreams. Have a goal in mind for what you want to do with your life.
I am starting the San Diego 4-Hour Work Week get together, there are already eight members signed up. One is a Real Estate Broker who has sent a huge number of tasks to a VA; another is an Insurance Agent who is looking for a product to sell online – he is thinking e-book on how to shop for the best rates.
What is your passion? What is your dream? Let me know if you would like more information on the 4HWW get together. We would be thrilled to have you there!
Brad Slavin
The Brave New World. Working with a Virtual Assistant
I am not going to tell you that “all the cool kids are doing it!” But some of the busy executives are. The trend for Virtual Assistants or VA’s as it is known is growing; this business innovation was made popular with the book “The World is Flat” by Thomas L. Friedman.
A virtual assistant is an independent contractor providing administrative, technical, or sometimes creative assistance to clients, usually to other independent entrepreneurs, solo and small business practices, such as that of a lawyer or realtor. VA’s work from their own office (hence “virtual”), thus making it a fairly popular (and growing) profession.
What Have You Done For Me Lately?
The role of a VA can vary depending upon your specific needs and their utility. And, can be varied as the work they perform. I have utilized the services of VA’s in Hungary and Spain. Alina was from Romania, Swapna and Kumar from India. Typically, the support is administrative, but I have had tasks as varied as complex Excel spreadsheets created, business plans researched, data entry for accounting completed, entire directories of professionals contacted for Online Surveys, Web Page Design, Logo Design and complicated Business Analysis performed on a business startup. Results vary in both quality and value, just like any other subcontractor relationship you need to define your parameters extremely clearly.
Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending is a part of the overall social computing activity that is driving the rise in power of consumers on the Internet. This is revealed by the sheer volume of information, opinion and services transmitted directly between ordinary consumers over the internet. For e.g., each day volunteers create close to 10,000 articles for the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.
The timing is right for sites like Zopa and Prosper, which are part of a broader wave of sites aimed at fostering online communities. These companies are challenging the status quo using an online loan marketplace with a social computing twist. These online lending communities can be considered as a combination of eBay and MySpace.com — a place where consumers come together to loan and borrow money from each other.
The principle behind Zopa and Prosper is very similar to local micro-finance companies that operate in Asia and Latin America. Families, neighbors or friends lend amongst themselves to the benefit of the community as the groups are closely knit and trust is not usually an issue. The growth of the Internet, the advancement in verification and credit scoring technology, and changing attitudes to corporate institutions have resulted in viability of this method of lending and borrowing for everyone. Additionally, an increase in individual debt, a low return on savings, and increasing asset prices are also changing consumers’ borrowing and lending behavior thereby creating a favorable environment for alternative investment platforms such as peer-to-peer online lending exchanges.
The success of these web based P2P lending communities can be gauged by the strong growth in their members and loan volume. Zopa has attracted 87,000 members and Prosper currently boast of approximately 100,000 members.
In addition, Zopa won “Internet Innovation of the Year” at the 2006 CNet Technology awards and was named by American magazine Business 2.0 as one of the eleven most disruptive companies in the world.
1. Never leave unanswered emails for more than 48 hours. Better to answer emails in 8 hours.
2. Let the customer see the shipping charge without registering! Preferably on the basket or an easy-to-find ‘shipping charges’ page.
3. Make sure your forms use common names for fields so that they’re recognized by toolbars that have an Auto-fill function.
4. Sites (mainly US!) that have address or phone fields that assume only a US citizen is going to purchase e.g. State fields that only allow a few characters entry. If you’re happy taking money from non-US purchasers, you must go to a tiny bit of effort to accept their address and telephone numbers painlessly. If you’ve got a country drop-down box, please list it in alphabetical order, and don’t put United States at the top.
5. Don’t use standard drop down country forms containing places like North Korea or Bouvet Island (an inhabited speck in the South Atlantic.) and also don’t list known scam destinations as a ship-to.
6. Don’t only accept payment through PayPal. Many people had bad experiences with PayPal and prefer to use alternative, use simpler payment methods.
7. If you only ship to USA or to a limited number of countries say that right off and several times.
8. Make your site incredibly easy to buy from – no registration if possible, live chat, toll free numbers and make it friendly and easy to buy from. One or two click checkout can increase sales conversions.
9. Provide a picture of your office and add it to contact page along with company FAX number on it. Make sure that it is really a picture of YOUR offices, Google maps make finding frauds very easy.
10. Try to put the contact number on every page, knowing how to get in contact with you will help to instill confidence.
When it comes to tracking the activity on your website there are a number of ways to gain insight into the behavior of your visitors. Long gone are the days when simply tracking how many hits you get had any validity. Traffic and hits are just a red herring, they distract you from your goal and the quest for traffic causes bad decisions. You stop focusing on the objective and start looking for hits.
In a previous TechTalk I asked about your web goals? Is it to sell something? To receive email? To start a revolution? Every website should have a defined goal. The goal of Bradslavin.com is to get more subscribers to the newsletter. If it is meaningful to you, probably it can be measured.
The definition of analytics in the business environment is the process of taking the aggregation of data, segregating into measurable sub components, the interpretation and timely reporting of these critical metrics. On the web this critical data includes:
I may be jumping ahead of myself, but this is a really important concept to understand before you invest in your online marketing or new web site. I should be introducing you to Search Engine Optimization before Conversion Ratios but I know that you have heard of SEO but you may not know about converting that traffic into new business. The stated goal of SEO is to drive more qualified traffic to your site. From the site owners perspective the expectation is "more traffic, more sales!" Seems logically right? What if I were to tell you that the volume of traffic is a contributor but is not the major factor when it comes to making sales online?
One of the best keep secrets of online marketing and web sales is that it is your Conversion Ratio is more important the the total number of “hits”. Your conversion ratio is the percentage of visitors who become customers, so if you sell one widget for every 120 visitors to your site. Your conversion ratio will be 100 divided by 120 or 0.83, which means that you are converting 0.83% of your visitors into customers. Unless you are making hundreds of dollars per sale it extremely difficult to make money at a 1% conversion ratio. The web average is about 1% or one sale per every one hundred visitors but if you could improve this to 5% then all of a sudden you are making real money with the same volume of traffic.
These averages are not very reassuring, but there are meaningful techniques to increase conversions. Most of them are focused around creating a compelling reason for someone to buy from you versus your competition. If you have a qualified buyer at your site (remember SEO is about qualified leads not volume of traffic) then you should be able to successfully convert this traffic
1. Have a trustworthy and credible website: People choose to buy from websites that they trust. Have your contact details displayed on your Contact Us pages.
2. Make sure that your visitor knows what your business does: The instant they land on your website. Create benefit rich headlines that start the sales process.
3. Don’t use copy of your offline promotions:Don’t use copy on your website that you have used in your offline promotions it does not work. Your sales literature will generally not have a call to action and compelling copy for the web.
4. You have 10 seconds to make an impression: Make sure that you have short paragraphs so that people can scan the content, grab their attention by stressing the benefits. What can your product or service do for me right now? Will it make me rich? Will it make me thin? Yes, it really needs to be this simple and quick.
5. Don’t mix technical jargon into your sales efforts: People buy with their hearts and afterwards justify their choice with specifications. Sell to emotions and then provide references to the technical information.
6. Use testimonials: To add credibility to your services. Try scanning the letters and posting links to the actual scans so people know that testimonials are valid.
7. Make it easy to pay: By offering your customers two or three payment options. The credit card is the standard but consider adding PayPal or wire-transfer for larger orders.
These are the basic steps to increase your chances of converting viewers into customers without increasing your traffic. More traffic is good; you just need to know what to do with it when it does arrive.
Next time I will discuss free web site statistics software that will let you track your visitors so that you can track your Current Conversion Ratio. If next week seems too far away, and you want more information let me know.
Brad Slavin
Skyriver’s Backhaul Upgrade
Working at one of the largest Broadband Wireless providers in California is exciting. What is even more exciting at times is seeing your hard work and efforts made public after years of execution.
We have just announced the completion of a huge, I mean really MASSIVE back haul upgrade to the network. I know that in a press release you can only say so much but this is a BIG deal, not just for a company of our size but for any of the competition. This is a leap-frog upgrade that takes Skyriver to the forefront in the space.
Here is the release:
Skyriver Communications Completes Major Upgrade of Backbone Network Infrastructure
SAN DIEGO, June 7 /PRNewswire/ — Skyriver Communications
(http://www.skyriver.net) has successfully completed its high capacity
backhaul upgrade in anticipation of its planned WiMAX rollout.
Through a strategic alliance with a world-class telecommunications
equipment manufacturer Skyriver has upgraded its backbone network utilizing
High Capacity licensed microwave backhaul. This upgrade will allow Skyriver’s
business customers to have on demand access to a High Capacity network with
greater than ever reliability and Quality of Service. President and CEO,
Saeed Khorami answers the question of what this means to Skyriver’s existing
and future customers, “Our customers have come to expect a certain level of
enterprise performance and this latest achievement ensures that we will
continue to deliver on our promise of reliable enterprise-grade service while
leading the way in WiMAX deployment.” Khorami also expresses his excitement
over this new technology as it “puts Skyriver in a great position to offer
fixed WiMAX across its expansive network footprint in California.”
I just finished reading an article that spoke about a Carnegie Mellon University study that showed that people are willing to pay more to buy from an online retailer who makes their privacy policy clear.
The results stated that “people were more likely to buy from online merchants with good privacy policies, as identified by Privacy Finder and were also willing to pay about 60 cents extra on a $15 purchase when buying from a site with a privacy policy they liked” So if you are an E-Tailor, spend a little time on your privacy policy, make it easy to find and you can charge a little more for your product.
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