General
How Your Life Relates to Golf Balls
Saw a great blog entry today that is SOOO applicable to running a home business and retaining the best parts of your life. Rather than reprint it here, please go to The Orlando Golf Blogger’s Blog.
By the way, his post has nothing to do with golf. It’s a quick read, and helps to give a little perspective to any solo business person. A one-minute lesson that will stick with you all day, and maybe help your biz just a little…
Fix The Obvious
Seth Godin at Gel 2006 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.
Very funny presentation from Seth Godin (highlighted in his blog a couple of days ago), but it made me a little uncomfortable. Do I have any similar problems in my business? Could one of them be highlighted in Seth’s next presentation? Or worse, will that problem languish in my business for years, turning away customers and ruining my image? Horrors…
Over the last year, we’ve seen a lot of emphasis on “change”, “new initiatives”, and “doing what is right”. Great words for politicians (not really). Wouldn’t it be nice to see some of the obviously broken things fixed first? And wouldn’t government be a logical place to start? Yes, quite a few businesses could use a little bit of that too… What would happen if, over the next month, we identified as many things as we could with our own businesses that need fixing. Then we could spend the summer fixing the things we identify, one by one. Yes, let’s work on the things we can personally fix, and forget all this pie-in-the-sky stuff…
Maybe we could complete everything on the list, maybe not. But wouldn’t our businesses be better off if we all fixed the stupidly obvious things as soon as possible?
Although I still write letters to my representatives in Congress, I’ve given up on the government fixing any of the problems they’ve created. It’s just too sexy to go after something new, unknown, and unproven. But I know that I can have an impact on my own little business.
So I’m devoting from now until Memorial Day to identifying problems and planning ways of overcoming them. And I’m going to spend the summer fixing the problems I find, so that on Labor Day, I can say (and feel) that things are looking a lot better. And if I haven’t completed everything by Labor Day, at least I’ll have a handy list of remaining items to complete.
That’s my plan for making 2009 a better year. It will be my contribution to improving my personal micro-economy, and, by extension, the national economy. Anyone care to join me?
Why Santa’s Marketing Works Better Than Yours
Sean D’Souza (of Psychotactics.com) is an interesting guy who happens to hail from New Zealand. He’s always discovering alternate approaches to marketing. “Why Santa’s Marketing…” is one of his brainstorms in the guise of a short article, a three to five minute read. I recommend it, as well as many of the other free articles on his site. Not too many people manage to work Santa Claus and marketing into the same sentence…
Getting Stalled too Often?
Seth Godin recently published a new blog entry titled “License to Stall”. It’s a good read, and useful to anyone who is finding their marketing effort more difficult than necessary. Recommended. Here’s the link.
Losing Money Because You Don’t Own Your Name?
Although many people may have the same name as you do, only one of you will be able to own the .com version of that name. For many people with common names, it’s already too late – http://johnsmith.com is already taken, for example. But all is not lost if your name is already in use as a domain. Here are a few tips:
- Use a name with a different suffix (the technical term is tld). For example, if the .com name is take, try using .net, .us, .org, .info, .ws, .me, .tv, or one of the many tld’s available today. Although not everyone will remember your web name as easily as the universal .com, the search engines will recognize and index domain names with any tld.
- Try using a hyphen in your domain name (john-smith.com). It is rumored that search engines slightly favor hyphenated names, so you may find this to be a small benefit.
- Use a nickname if people tend to know you that way. JackSmith.com or JackieSmith.com may be available. You also may find your initials will allow you to find an acceptable domain name, especially if you are known by those initials.
- Usually even the most common names can be combined with another word to make a domain name. For example, at the time of this writing, JohnSmithBlog.com was still available. Good words to use – blog, home, site, team, co (or company) are all recognizable and memorable.
- When publishing your domain name in print or on the web, use JohnSmith.com instead of johnsmith.com. This helps people to see the natural break in the words. It’s amazing how many web sites fail to capitalize on longer web names by forgetting to use capital letters to break up the words in their domain name. Domain names work equally well, whether or not they are capitalized.
You get the idea. Experiment a little with your name, and you can usually find a domain name that will be recognizable by search engines. Once you have your domain name, point it to your bio page at your main web site, or develop a one-page personal web site, and feature a nice link to your main site (or the site you are currently promoting).
Your domain name will be worth thousands of dollars to you, over the years, just for the simple annual fee involved to register the name (less than $15.00). It’s the least expensive advertising you’ll every buy!
“Steve Pickering, here with a brief note. If you’re having trouble finding a good domain name for your business, or personally, I offer coaching to assist you in finding the best names to use. Please send me an email, and I’ll be happy to help. My fees are very reasonable.”
