Pretty obvious.

But, let me tell you a quick story.

In the past 5 weeks me and my wife have been going to dinner weekly with an awesome younger couple we actually met while dining. We tend to eat out a lot, and during one evening experiencing a new Mediterranean restaurant in town, my wife struck up a conversation with the couple next to us. They already had their food, and we were interested in how it was. A conversation quickly started, and they stayed to talk while we eventually got our order, and finished supper.

Normally, this sort of thing would end with an exchange of information, and talk of getting together for dinner in the future.

If you’ve ever had anything remotely similar happen to you, you are well aware that there is virtually no chance of either party calling and setting up a future engagement. This applies to running into an old friend, a chance business meeting, etc..

So, instead of leaving it to chance, I pretty much “forced” the issue, by helping to arrange the next meeting then and there. We chose where and when to meet the following week on the spot, without putting it off. We’ve gone out every week using the same technique. Arranging our next meeting at the end of our current one.

It’s not rocket science. It’s really simple! But many businesses which *could* practice this, simply don’t. The consequences are that they throw money away on gaining that first customer, but not following up and asking for the NEXT sale immediately. Their new clients drift elsewhere, or otherwise forget about the positive experience they had with the business owner.

This can be applied to almost any service business, and is especially useful in personal services (physical and mental health, etc). It’s also practiced online with “One Time Offers”, and other tactics which basically do the same thing. Customers are immediately presented with another offer, while the positive effects of the first are still lingering.

Think about how you can create your follow up sale during the initial one. You may just strike gold for almost no extra work.

Oh, and it works for things other than sales, as described in my true story.

Let me, and others know how you might apply this to situations you face by commenting below!

Thanks,

Tim

Thinking you want your site to be found online, but not doing nearly enough to make sure it happens.

You figure…

• I’ll get to it…
• I’ll take care of it when I get my product or service ready…
• The traffic I get now is just fine…
• And the BIG LIE: If I build it, they will come!

I don’t believe any of that, but sometimes I just get a little lazy.  I don’t do everything I need to do when it comes to making sure people can find me when they are looking for what I have to offer.  Maybe you can relate…

Is you blog getting the traffic it deserves?

Does your product or service site get a constant stream of FREE prospects?

If not, you should probably be looking for some simple ways you can bring the site visitors you want.  Not that there’s a lack of such information out there.  You can find more than enough material to cover every conceivable traffic generation strategy out there

Some of these strategies use tools to fool search engines into bringing you visitors (hey, they may work for a month or so!), some promise listings in just hours…  And if you really care about the one person a year who searches for “internet guru wannabe”, they could probably do it!

But… When it comes to real life searches for phrases that people actually search for, you need to seek out those who have actually done what you are attempting, and find out what really works.  You don’t want theory, you want fact.

If you’ve been to my site in the past year, and actually explored the sites I recommend, and resources I promote, you’ll know that Fred Black’s blog has been on the list since the very beginning.   There’s a reason for that, which I’ll get to in a moment.

First, head over to this “sales page” for his latest product, and I’ll explain when you get back…

Fred Black’s Search Engine Optimization

Seriously, please check it out before coming back…

Free Search Engine Traffic Exposed

Ok…  Let me tell you WHY I have his site featured here on my “blogroll” to the right.  It’s because I found him by searching for “internet business” (quotes or no quotes, it doesn’t matter).  Why was I searching for that phrase?  Because a so-called “internet business expert” kept claiming that he knew the secrets to everything from search engine optimization to product creation.

The funny thing is that nothing he said ever panned out.  Yes, HE had/has a cult following under various real and pseudo names, but if they ever broke away from the mantra, and did even the slightest amount of research, they’d find no substance behind most of his products and services.  If you watched what he does, and what he says, they are miles apart.

But I digress.

What I found was that Fred’s blog was at the top for this search, and it made me wonder why, and how he could pull this off.  It’s not like he’s Apple Computer or something.  He’s an honest guy working online and off, by providing people what they are looking for.  In this case, Internet Business advise and tools.  Heck, his free courses are better than most of the paid ones I’ve seen.

Have you been to his site yet?

Anyway…  Someone who can get to the top of this phrase without mega bucks is someone who should be listened to.

I’ve already started putting his information into practice, and expect great results over time.

So, if you want to know what works in SEO, from someone who actually knows what he’s talking about, check out his SEO Brain Dump  for the real scoop.  He makes it easy to understand, and takes the fear out of generating free website traffic.

If you’ve had experience in SEO for your site, I’d love to hear about it.  Just post a comment below.  If your experience has been less than spetacular, check out Fred’s course.

My Great Idea was to use different email addresses for everything I sign up for, whether online or off.  Each domain can have a “catch-all” email address where all email which doesn’t have a corresponding email account can be sent to.  This way I can effectively “key” every email address I give out, and determine if it’s being spread to other sites without permission, etc..  It also allows for very easy sorting in my email software of choice (Thunderbird).

All was well until about 2 years ago when my host at the time disallowed this functionality for all accounts.  It seems that their servers were being overrun with spam, partly due to this setting.   No problem, I was about ready to explore new hosting anyway, so I moved someplace which still allowed my “great idea”.

Well..  Over the past year, I’ve seen first hand what what the prior host have been talking about with an overload of spam.   You see, these automated spam programs will often use a random domain as the “sender” for their email.  So, even though an email doesn’t originate from your account, it still has a return/sender’s address from your domain.  Worse yet, it makes up new email addresses when doing this.

Why does that matter?  Well, every time an email blast gets sent by one of these programs, I end up getting several hundred (or even thousand) bounce messages from the systems of email addresses which don’t exist anymore, etc..  Some months this happens several time, others not at all.

There’s more… but I’m really here to rant a bit about the process of cleaning this up.  Since I have literally hundreds of these made up email addresses, it’s an ongoing process of updating everything to use one of a small handful of descriptive, but managable addresses.  Should be relatively simple.  Every time I get an email, just go to the link at the bottom to change my address in their system (or just unsubscribe).

Yet, almost half the time I either have to jump through hoops to make the change, or am only presented with the option of unsubscribing.  That’s insane!  Imagine someone moving their Internet provider, and not being able to move their subscriptions over.  The result is lost business, and a very sour taste in their mouth.

The worst of these are certain sites “powered by Infusionsoft” which apparently doesn’t have a single link to unsubscribe OR change user options.  The business owner must setup two links in the email footer… One for unsubscribe requests, and another for option changes. That would be fine if these business owners would provide both links.  often only the unsubscribe option exists.   So that’s what I do.  If it’s somethng I really want to track, I’ll sometimes resubscribe, but not always.

Other programs will require me to “log in” or otherwise  waste a lot of time making the change.  I only do this for relatively important sites.  All of the rest will simply get bounce notices when I make the switch away from the “catch-all” email addresses.

Sometimes, they allow me to change my name,  but not my email address!  How whacked is that?  While my brother actually legally changed his name, and women often change their name after getting married, I suspect email address changes happen a heck of a lot more often.

The simplest?  Everyone who uses Aweber, GetResponseor or 1ShoppingCart. The process is one or two clicks, and entering the new address.  Just like it should be.

So before you get your whole autoresponder or broadcast email list going, be sure to consider this simple usability issue.   It will reduce frustration from your customers, and possibly keep them for unsubscribing or falling off when their email address changes.

False scarcity.. Limited quantities. “next” 100 to order. Price goes up soon. One time only offer. Coupon good only for this visit, etc.. Once you’ve been around for a while, you’ll notice that many of these claims are outright lies. There are a few ways to check this out for yourself:

• Visit the site in a different browser. You’ll probably get the same offer, even if it’s a one-time offer just for you.
• Clear your browser cookies, and visit the site again.
• Wait a few days or weeks, and see if the same b.s. shows up. I know of one site which apparently didn’t do so well, and still has the same discount, coupon, first 100 fast-mover bonus, etc… How long has it been? almost 3 months, and counting.
• Register for the site with a separate email address. You’ll likely get the same special offer, regardless of how many times you sign-up

“Weasel” guarantees… 30 days 100% money back–not enough time to implement, yet alone absorb 15 dvd’s of information… or… following our system, document the steps you take and and if you’re not making $xxxxx in the first 60 days, we’ll send your money back (never mind what we teach you will cost you many times what you spent on the course to “try” out–thus it makes no sense to “try” it).

Testimonials, and “case studies” which include already successful businesspeople and marketers

• I don’t know about you, but if I recognize someone whose put on a pedestal, as an example of what can happen to you, and they’ve been successful since way before the product materialized, I’m skeptical to the extreme. These people probably did things that had nothing to do with the course.
• Phony names, limited info.. First name and last initial… c’mon, use some real information and help promote them in the process.
• “private students” who are privy to much more information, and more importantly–support and promotion from sponsors– that is presented as “newbie makes a fortune without any skills”….

There are many more examples, and yes, I *could* name names.. The point is, there’s a lot of b.s. out there aimed directly are parting you with your money. It’s not always that the information is bad. In fact I’m sure a lot of it is useful, if you are at the business stage that calls for it.

The point of this rant is simple: Pay attention to what the people you are thinking of following are DOING, not the image (“character”) they present. If they can’t tell the truth *before* you purchase from them, how in the heck can you believe them after the sale is made? You can’t!

There are plenty of ethical people on the Internet, why not choose to support, and follow one of them?

You can find just a few of the best, on my blog roll to the right.

-Tim