Advice Network Founders Blog

I was listening to an old This American Life (TAL) episode last week, episode #84, originally broadcast over 10 years ago.

Breaking form for TAL, instead of picking a topic and playing a variety of stories on that theme, they have an hour long episode about Chicago’s first black mayor, Harold Washington.

It’s an interesting episode, it uses this one story to dig a little bit into American politics and race, and it makes a lot of good points that might make one really hopeful. They even make the connection between Chicago 20 years ago, and the candidacy of the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, Senator Obama.

But the one gem that I love most of all is a quote from Mayor Washington about fairness. It seems that in Chicago, (and everywhere else in the world) to the victor belongs the spoils. The group that puts a mayor into office gets a bigger slice of the pie. But that was not how Harold rolled. He insisted on being fair. Every program and initiative he pushed through benefited whites and blacks equally, much to the chagrin of some of his supporters. They expert a speech from the mayor, he says:

“No one, but no one in this city, no matter where they live, or how they live is free from the fairness of our administration. We’ll find you and be fair to you wherever you are. “

(Listen to the clip here) I recommend having a listen, he is a great orator, and the clip is only 1 minute 30 seconds.

That quote tickles me to pieces, but it occurs to me that the internet and Advice Network embody this idea as well. For the first time ever, we are all free to get our name, or ideas, and our advice into the world.

As of May, 2008, Advice Network does not have any employees (besides myself). But maybe you have some employees at your company.

I just read an amazing article by Bill Taylor. It turns out that Zappos offers employees $1,000 at the end of their first week to quit. I highly recommend clicking over and taking a look at what Bill has to say.

I have to say, I got it right away. Having someone who doesn’t like their job, but they are sticking around because they need the money, how could that do anything but drain the company and team spirit.

I hadn’t heard of Zappos before, but apparently they are obsessive about customer service. That is the kind of company I want Advice Network to be.

My philosophy, if you are not making your customers happy, what is the point?

Many of you know besides being the founder and CEO of Advice Network I am a professional photographer.

I started doing professional photography in 2000, and at the time I lived in the Bay Area. For the entire course of my business, online marketing has been one of my biggest drivers of business. I’ve had a website since day one. I’ve bought qualified leads online since my first year. Every year more an more of my business comes from client referrals, but still most of my business comes from people finding me online.

Well, for the past few years, I’ve been putting those things together by inviting my clients to write reviews for me online. All those nice things they say about me, they can write it once, post it a few places, and people can read the reviews for years to come.

If you run a business and you are not already doing this, I recommend it strongly. There is a growing number of people who really trust and look to online reviews.

So where does this “tinyURL” come in? I wanted to email a link to review me on Google Local, but the link looked like this:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=l&hl=en&geocode=&q=schoenfeldt+photography&near=94117&jsv=111&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=37.735377,69.257812&ie=UTF8&latlng=37775034,-122430085,13992495282375185261&ei=UOcpSLuqNYq6jgPc1qyWCQ&sig2=slt5vvWo5UNHlL6zTz5I7w&cd=1

Yikes! And you know what the email program would do. It would break the URL into multiple lines, so they would end up clicking:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=l&hl=en&geocode=&q=scho

and the rest would be below in a separate line (or 3) like this:

enfeldt+photography&near=94117&jsv=111&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&

sspn=37.735377,69.257812&ie=UTF8&latlng=37775034,-122430085,

13992495282375185261&ei=UOcpSLuqNYq6jgPc1qyWCQ&sig2=slt5vvWo5UNHlL6zTz5I7w&cd=1

And when they clicked, they would get a “file not found.” and the review would not get written, and I’d have missed a great opportunity.

But at “TinyURL” you enter in the big long monster link, and it gives you: http://tinyurl.com/5zle86. Simple, safe, and email friendly.

And best of all, TinyURL is free (they do have a “donate” button.)

So go ahead and ask the clients who love you to write a review.

Alex

“To be truly radical is to make hope possible, rather than despair convincing.”

- Raymond Williams

I’ve been listening to podcasts of Amory Lovins this week, and I must say, he is my new hero. Find them here. (I’m not sure if all of the talks are listed, but you can also look here.)

Lovins is the Cofounder, Chairman, and Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute. RMI is a think tank that focuses on energy efficiency and policy.

Their mission statement:

I was listening to a great podcast yesterday. A talk by Rasmus Lerdorf. If you are like me, you just said “who?” Well, Mr. Lerdorf is the person who invented PHP. Now, your saying “What?”

Don’t worry. I wouldn’t know what PHP was if I wasn’t running an internet startup, and truth be told, I really don’t know much about it. PHP is an open source language for building web pages.

So this guy, Mr. Lerdorf, was doing web programming, and he needed better tools, so he wrote a language called PHP. And instead of trying to make money off of it, he just gave it to the world, and let other people have it, use it change it, and improve it. Now, PHP runs some of the biggest sites on the internet, sites you use all the time like YouTube. Yet, it is still free.

It’s tools like PHP, and MySQL that allow sites like Advice Network to exist. Ten years ago, it would have cost 2 million to build Advice Network. Now, $100,000.

Mr. Lerdorf was talking about what it took to start a big open source project that people want to get involved in, and I felt really inspired.

You cannot run a decent open source project if you make it about you. It has to be about the people who contribute… You have to think about how do people feel about themselves when they are involved… We’re all in it together.

That is really how I feel about Advice Network, especially now that people are starting to write. It isn’t about me, it is about you, the writers and readers. And I truly hope that you get a lot out of being here. If you are writing, I hope you feel satisfied knowing that you made someones life easier while they tried to do something really hard. (buy a house, run a business, plan a wedding) AND I hope that it brings you more business.

If you are reading the advice, I hope we made your life easier, AND I hope you have a good experience with one of our vendors

Last week I was catching up on How To Change The World, one of my favorite blogs, by internet personality Guy Kawasaki.

This sentence stuck with me:

Click here to read the interview to learn about topics such as why the CEO of a publicly-traded company probably can’t write an interesting blog.

It really rings true. Advice Network is not even publicly traded yet I find myself forever compelled to maintain a “professional” voice. I fear the result has been a blog so dull that even I don’t read it. Really. The professional voice can’t say “I messed up.” or “Some jerk ripped me off.” or “I don’t know what I’m doing this week.” So it ends up saying “Blah Blah Blah…”

I hope Chad doesn’t read this post. Chad has been writing almost every post on this blog for months now, and he has been doing exactly as I have asked. By saying the blog has been boring, I simply say that I’ve given him a boring job. “Write articles that help people promote their business.” His articles have been good, and most of them would be great contributions to Advice Network, but that is not the same as an interesting blog.

An interesting blog has a point of view. It has a human voice. The Advice Network founders blog needs a human voice.

The gloves come off as of today. I am now going to begin writing a blog about starting an internet company that talks about my experience.

Starting an internet company is a hard and difficult thing that I do, and I am going to share my process with you unexpurgated. My trials, fears, triumphs, and setbacks.

I hope you enjoy reading about it.

Let me know in the comments if you think I’ve gone crazy.

Sometimes in business you can get so rattled with everything around you that you no longer have the usual enthusiasm for your job. You might get overwhelmed with the to-do lists and client issues that you are no longer fueled by the same passion that was there when you started.

In times like these you need to pretend to care.

I was reading Seth Godin’s blog yesterday and came across a very interesting thought. You probably recognize Seth as being the author of “Meatball Sundae”, “The Dip”, “Permission Marketing”, “Small is the New Big”, “Purple Cow”, “All Marketers are Liars”, and “Ideavirus”. Anyways, he also happens to put together a pretty incredible resource for marketers with articles added on a regular basis. Yesterday he told a story about some poorly trained city workers that simply did not do their job well because they didn’t care. He suggested, however, that if they at least pretended to care then they would eventually care for real.

“If people start out pretending to care, next thing you know, they actually do care. They like the positive feedback and they like the way being kind makes them feel. It spreads. It sticks.”

Have you stopped caring about something in your life? By paying careful attention to it and making it a priority, it will become more special to you and you will begin to genuinely care about it.

I challenge you to work on one thing this week that has become a drain in your life. What has been holding you back? Instead of viewing it as a chore, you should start viewing it as an opportunity. Think about what it was like when you first started that project and then recapture that passion.

The more time I spend with online businesses, the more I realize it truly isn’t a “get rich quick” scheme like so many people believe. If it was, wouldn’t everybody be rich by now?

Certainly some people have got rich online…very rich. But believe me, it usually wasn’t quick.

In fact, most successful internet business owners failed time and time again before they ever turned over a profit. Sure, they may have got rich quick with one business or another, but they had been studying, practicing, and working on that business plan for years before it ever came into fruition.

There are a few traits that an online entrepreneur should have to be successful - I italicized “should” because there are always exceptions to the rule. Here are the few that I consider most necessary:

Big Dreamer

If you want to achieve great things in life, you need to dream them up first. Without dreams you have no goals and without goals you can’t plan your future. By dreaming big and chasing your dreams, you’ll have a much greater chance at success than somebody who is blindly walking in an unknown direction.

Hard Worker

In order to chase your dreams, you have to work. Sure, it might not be the easiest part of business…but it’s absolutely necessary. I don’t know a single successful individual who hasn’t worked hard to get where they are today.

Innovator

You don’t need to create the next big thing to become a success story, but you should always be looking for ways to improve your products and services to continually offer the best in the industry. Find something that makes you different or find something your prospects or begging for…then come up with a solution.

Communicator

In the end, it doesn’t matter how great your product is or how amazing your services are…if you can’t communicate well with people then your business will die. Not only must you be likable to make a sale, but you also need to be able to describe everything you offer in a way that doesn’t intimidate prospects, but rather captivate them.

As with almost anything in life…communication is key.

Analyzer

This one barely made the list…because it is the easiest trait to outsource. Nonetheless, analyzing statistics and testing your success rates are a HUGE part of online business. So huge, in fact, that many companies are willing to pay millions to find out where they can improve their sales by a meager 1%. An analytical entrepreneur will not only be interested in tracking the numbers (conversion rates, revenues, traffic, etc), but also discover ways to improve them.

Any thoughts? Do you have another trait you think should be added to this list?

When you’re writing to your target market - whether it’s through sales material or online articles - you need to choose the right words.

Here are a few things things to consider when you need to reach the people that matter most:

Who Are They?

To talk to somebody effectively, you first need to understand who you’re talking to. You’d talk to a 60 year old in a different manner than you’d talk to a 12 year old and you’d speak to a professor in a different way than you’d speak to a student.

Words matter, but people matter more.

How Do They Speak?

What words are popular with your target market? How can you convey your knowledge of the subject matter in a way they’d understand? A car salesman will give a different spiel to an auto-mechanic than he would to a mother of four. Not only would the word choice be different - more technical to one and more benefit oriented to the other - but the focus points would also be different. The auto-mechanic would probably want to know more about the engines performance while the mother would likely care more about the safety features.

If you know what your prospects are looking for then you’ll know what to give them.

What Unique Questions Do They Have?

While the same old questions in your industry might be over answered and redundant, there are still hundreds of questions that are asked each and every day that aren’t answered effectively - leading to a broken sale.

Instead of answering the same old questions with your advertisements and articles, think of ways you can be different. What can you do that nobody else in the industry does? What solution can you solve better than your competition? What problem do your prospects have with their current product or service that you compete with?

How can you stand out from the crowd?

Have Confidence

Whenever you’re writing or advertising, be confident. Nobody likes cocky, but people need to see that you’re confident about what you do.

The best businesses are the best because they believe they’re the best. You can’t succeed in business unless you believe there’s an absolute need for your product or service. If you think your customers are just as well off by using another service provider or product producer, then you should stop what you’re doing - in fact, you might as well join the competition, because you’re probably selling as much for them as you are for yourself.

In a world filled with thousands of messages directed at your target market every day, you need to stand apart. By using words that matter, you’ll quickly understand how to make you matter.

Google has finally released Website Optimizer to the public. Until now, website optimizer has only been available to people with Adwords accounts, but it is now free so everybody - including yourself - can use it to improve their websites.

If you have an online business then Website Optimizer is a must have. It will…

• increase your conversion rates
• decrease your visitor bounce rates
• increase the amount of time visitors spend on your site
• increase viewer satisfaction

I’ve personally used this tool and seen incredible results. If you’re not testing elements of your copy and design, then you’re missing out on a world of opportunity.

I recommend this tool to anybody selling products or services online. Whether you run a small website or a large marketplace - this is for you!

What other tools do you use for your website? Let us know…