Simon Thomas Blog - Simon Says, "Read How to Live the Internet Lifestyle"

Meditating in LA

2008-03-03T16:50:00.001-05:00

chiconsulLA4
Originally uploaded by g_yulong1

Jeff and I (on left) meditating in LA. Peace!

Clear® : FastPass for Airport Security

2008-03-03T13:14:00.005-05:00

When I was at Orlando recently for one of my client's Internet marketing conferences, we spent the day at Universal Studios, and of course got a Fast Pass to zip through the hundreds of people waiting in line. Some of the best money ever spent.

Arriving in the lines at the Orlando airport, I wished that there was a Fast Pass for Airline security. There I noticed info about Clear®, but didn't have a chance to investigate further. I've now signed up: it turns out that it lets you skip the security lines, by using a verified ID system (biometrics). I filled out the form online (only costs $128 a year) and had my fingerprints scanned at White Plains airport (they have it running at Orlando, White Plains, and dozens of others). A gentleman skipping the airline security via Clear® told me it was definatlely worth the money. Meanwhile, I had to wait in the regular line. I'm looking forward to receiving my card soon so I can Fast Pass the lanes.

In the meantime, I talked with Cindy Rosenthal, Public Relations for Clear®. She explained that the CEO, Steven Brill, had the idea for the system while writing his book on post 9/11 security. He wrote a Newsweek article about it; and then decided to just do it himself.

A serial entrepreneur, he already founded Court TV and a number of magazines, so had the funds and wherewithal to make it work. Cindy explained that it's also funded by Lockheed Martin, and GE Security. She said she didn't know about any IPO plans.

Here's some upcoming developments: keep your shoes on and their working on keeping laptops in their bags. Their also sponsoring a $500,000 contest for any new invention

Details available on the Clear website

Free Blogging Course

2008-01-14T22:30:00.000-05:00

I'm evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they're letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

The best blogging techniques.
How to get traffic to your blog.
How to turn your blog into money.

I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it's still free.

Project Management Software and Goal Achievement Software I use

2007-11-10T20:12:00.000-05:00

So, I'm a technology geek and I've tried almost every kind of project management and goal achievement software on the planet from Basecamp, to MS Project, to Groove, to the GTD outlook add-in, to Gyronix ResultsManger, to FranklinCovey, to one's who've probably never heard of like Intervals and LifeBalance.

The one that actually works for me is none of those, but a simple free tool called the Simpleology Webcockpit: http://www.simpleology.com/p/s101/secretoffer/blog

It's the only tool I've found that actually helps me get closer to my goals by using it. It involves a fifteen daily practice where you go systematically go where you figure out out of all the tons of things you could possibly do, which are the few critical things that will bring you closer to your goals, and then who's the best person to do them.

The only problem with the software is that I can't re-delegate tasks, but they say they are working on that.

Otherwise, it's the single most valuable piece of software I've found to get my out of a fog and get me hitting my targets.

(Of course, it's great that it's FREE.)

If you'd like to reach your goals quicker, give it a try.

How to outsource your life for cheap

2007-10-27T14:23:00.000-04:00

Ask Sunday is a new service that offers virtual personal assistance. Sunday offers a revolutionary time-saving service providing enhanced mobility for its members.

If you'd like to live the life of your dreams, then you'll learn how to outsource your life, so that others can do the busy work, and you can do what you love.

Here's Just Some of the Ways Sunday Can Work for You!

* Set appointments
* Make restaurant reservations
* Order dinner for delivery
* Dispute charges/file complaints
* Change address for subscriptions
* Find doctors in your health plan
* Schedule doctor appointments
* Event/sports ticket purchases
* Online and catalogue purchases
* Online product recommendations/pricing
* Set golf tee times
* Schedule wake-up calls
* Birthday greetings calls
* Make PDF files
* Make international calls on your behalf
* Book travel (air, hotel, car)
* Real-time flight status updates
* Frequent flier account updates
* News article searches
* Dictation for emails/messages
* Track down lost property
* Zipcar reservations
* Driving/walking directions
* 411 – phone number/address info
* Find items in a specific location
* Find a mover, maid or handyman
* Find locksmith for lockouts
* Arrange car service
* Search online personals
* Messenger/errand service in NYC

They even wrote this blog post while i was dictating it to Bruce Wayne. They assisted me in selling my car, move my stuff to California, buy groceries, provide wake up calls and others that i cant remember at the moment. I found no better service than Sunday in terms of price.

P.S: Even Steve, Co-Founder of Sunday helped me to find a moving company to shift my stuff to California.

Try it out, go to this website!
Ask Sunday
During Sign up process update the referral field as Simon Thomas.

Infusion CRM Review

2007-10-01T17:23:00.000-04:00

I just got off of a webinar of Infusion CRM.

The presenter described how Infusion CRM can automate multi-step follow-up campaigns. It can run series of e-mails, voice broadcast, fax broadcasts, and mailings.

Infusion CRM also keeps all communication from newsletters sent, to prospecting calls, to fax broadcasts, to purchases, all in one place.

For certain small businesses, it may be the ideal solution.

It does have certain downsides though, like not currently being available offline (at the end of this year they plan to release Outlook integration) and if you run multiple websites with completely different product lines, they're shopping cart isn't going to work without some custom integration.

Beyond these few issues and a couple of minor other one's I think its a good solution.

In fact, I think that if you're an information marketer Infusion CRM may be the ideal Small Business CRM.

CRM Software Recommendation

2007-10-01T12:23:00.000-04:00

Need a CRM software recommendation?

According to Google, I am the number one source for CRM software recommendation.

Check it out, Google says that among 2,080,000, my site CRM Software Secrets is #1: CRM software recommendation Google search.

Word of Mouth vs. Incentivized Viral Marketing

2007-09-20T15:43:00.000-04:00

Mark Joyner makes a powerful distinction between inspired Word of Mouth marketing and incentivized Word of Mouth marketing. He says that the viral marketing tools don't really work as evidenced by the their lack of continued viral traffic, which can be verified on Alexa. He said what you'll see is an initial surge, because of product launch and then a huge drop. I tested his argument and found it to be true on Mike Filsaime's Viral Friend Generator. Here's Viral Friend Generator's embarrassing Alexa graph.

BlogRush - Blog Syndication Network - Get more free traffic

2007-09-15T03:54:00.000-04:00

I've added a free widget to my blog on the right with five widgets. It comes from BlogRush, which is a revolutionary free blog syndication network created by internet marketing legend John Reese and his new company income.com. What it does is serve up relevant content from other blogs in the content network.

So it will send people to your blog that are already interested in the type of information in your blog.

So how does it bring you more traffic? Each time your page loads, the widget also loads, which earns you a syndication credit. If your blog gets 100 page views a day then you get 100 syndication credits.

The powerful viral twist (and what makes it different from anything else, say BlogBurst) is that when other people join BlogRush (via the tab on the bottom of the widget) and add the widget to their blog, then you will get page views of your content proportional to the page views of their blog.

If Fred signs up and puts the widget on his blog then each time that his blog shows the widget, one of your posts will show somewhere on the network. It gets even better, because if Sally joins from Fred's blog, you'll also get a syndication credit for every time that that the widget is displayed on Sally's blog. This scenario keeps going for 10 referrals deep.

If it takes off, then those who put it on their blogs early stand to get a lot of traffic. That's why I recommend that you get BlogRush right away and add it to your blog. Watch the free video that explains BlogRush.

My Outsourcing Secret Weapon

2007-09-10T23:27:00.000-04:00

If you've ever outsourced or wanted to outsourced then listen closely, because I'm going to tell you the best place for outsourcing on the entire planet (and no its not elance or guru). But before I do, let me tell you what I think makes a good outsourcing scenario -- where it's easy to set up a task to be done, where its inexpensive, you only pay if the work meets your standard, its scalable, and the work gets done quickly, oh, and there would be an API so that tasks could be sent automatically. Sounds like a dream, right? And if you have tried to outsource, you know the headaches involved if the scenario isn't that - work doesn't get done, or not well enough, someone gets sick, it costs too much, etc.

Well, there is only once place that meets my criteria and its called Amazon Mechanical Turk . Basically, you can assign anything in the world to be done and someone will take the task and do it. Only if you are satisfied do you have to pay -- and yes, there's even an API.

The Real Secret to Naming and What the Naming Books and Naming Consultancies Don't Tell You (Because They Don't Know?)

2007-09-09T12:32:00.000-04:00

OK, after reading through all these naming books, and plowing into the linguistics of explosive stops and fricatives, I've concluded that either these books and the authors either aren't giving you the full story about naming (in order to sell their expensive service) or either they don't know the true secret to naming things. Now, that may sound like a bold statement, and don't get me wrong, I would still hire a naming company to help with coming up with a name as they are experts in what they do - but I wouldn't rely on them to make a final decision and neither should you.

Here's why:

The secret to naming is very simple actually. The name of product, service or company, should be an extremely condensed version of your offer. The name should stand on its own and make an irresistible offer to the potential customer just by hearing your name without out them having any prior knowledge of your company.

Think about it, Mark Joyner's great book, The Irresistible Offer, subtitle is how to sell your product or service in 3 seconds or less. Though he doesn't discuss the name of the product, service, or company to my recollection (and not sure why), the only real way to do that is to have a name that conveys that offer.

The benefit alone isn't enough. DieHard is often cited as example of a great name, because the name is a benefit of the product. But out of context I would have no idea that the product is a battery (or a movie). The great names tell me the whole story.

I referenced Eben Pagan's company, Double Your Dating. That's a great name on many levels, the most important being that it's clear what the offer is -- double as many dates. If you're single looking for dates, then what he's offering sounds fantastic. What's going through people's head is, "If he really could help me double my dates, or even give me a 1/3 more dates, then I'd be overjoyed." At that point, the trust building comes in and it's hard to convey that in the name, unless you have a name like Guaranteed X, e.g., Guaranteed Dates, Guranteed A's, or Guaranteed Jobs.

Think about some of the other recent great business successes like YouTube or Myspace. It's almost instantly clear in the name, more so with myspace, than YouTube, what they are offering. Interestingly, there was another social networking site, spaces.com that didn't take off, and I'd wager that part of the reason is that Myspace in its name makes a much better offer than spaces: the offer of having my space on net vs. a place where there are spaces. Or think about YouTube vs. Google Video. The offer of a place to create my own TV channel with YouTube vs. a place where are videos with Google Video.

I invite you to start creating names for your companies, products, and services that contain your offer presented in an irresistible way.

You can try split testing those names and see what works better using avenues like Google Adwords. Timothy Ferriss who wrote the great best-seller "4 Hour Work Week" did that I hear. And what a great name. When people hear the name, their thought is "That'd be nice." If you get that kind of reaction from your name then you know you've created a fantastic name. So get names and let me know if you agree or disagree and what your results are.

The Future of The Internet: Esteem needs and then Self-actualization

2007-09-08T04:33:00.000-04:00

Any predications are always unreliable and so is psychology, but after reviewing chapter 11 of The Making of A Name and its discussion of Abraham's hierarchy of needs, I had a glimpse into the state of the internet. Rivkin and Sutherland write, "The need to belong is next on the ladder, and thus humans join communities".

Myspace and YouTube as we know are just online communities, so they help people fulfill that need to belong. The next stage in the Maslow's hieararchy is Esteem needs (achievement, status, responsibility, reputation). We are beginning to see this form in these communities such as YouTube allowing to self-select as a "Guru" or sites like FreeIQ devoted to promoting experts.

But I think the idea of "responsibility" online is even more so taking off, where people have taken on the responsibility (as a community as with wikipedia or as individuals as with squidoo) to provide correct information. But even so we haven't gotten to the point of a universal expert ranking or search, so that if I want to go to find the expert on any topic I can easily find that person (though spock.com seems to be heading in that direction).

According to Maslow, if people's Esteem needs are fulfilled, then people will look for "self-actualization." My prediction is that very soon, we'll see people using the internet primarily for personal growth. I don't just mean the "personal growth" market but I mean that next YouTubes will be sites that help people self-actualize. Right now, there are very few sites that are focused on that area. At different levels of the pyramid, those would be sites like Success University (personal achievement), Simpleology (goal attainment), and Falun Dafa (higher purpose). But even with those sites, how many are acutally leveraging the internet to its fullest to help people grow. I'd say that simpleology as a web app is doing the best job.

The Making of A Name

2007-09-08T03:23:00.000-04:00

I've just finished my second book in a few days on naming: The Making of A Name by Steve Rivkin and Fraser Sutherland (Steve Rivkin is the proprietor of the U.S. naming consultancy Rivkin and Associates). According to Marketing Guru Jack Trout, "by the end of The Making of a Name, you'll know everything you need to know about names and naming." (It better be because there are only about 4 more books on Amazon on the topic) In comparison, to the journalistic Wordcraft, I feel like a just went through advanced intensive seminar on naming after finishing this book.

In the forward, Jack Trout quotes from his book, A Genie's Wisdom, where a genie coaches a CEO on marketing. In this passage its on naming:
The genie continued, "Since brands are created in the mind, the single most important marketing decision you can make is what to name the product"
The single most. Yet, for entrepreneurs, its often the most neglected. We often to pick descriptive names with laudatory attributes like "Best Cleaners." As Trout writes in the foreword, the biggest mistake we make is that we pick names that are initials, e.g., USG, MSN (or appear to be such as OQO) or made up words, e.g., Google. Might we do better if we spent more time thinking, researching, and deciding on our name, before we put thousands, millions, and eventually billions of dollars into it. I learned that the hard way.

When I first started online, I liked the name uDwell - because it conveyed the sense of an online home. So when I first incorporated, I incorporated under that name. But the name has a number of problems. The first is that people mispronounce it, saying U-D-Well instead of You-Dwell. I'm beginning to have that company go under YouDwell instead of uDwell, but then it seems like a knockoff of YouTube even though I had the name "You Dwell" before YouTube. But also the Dwell has other connotations such as thinking about something too much. And the word "Dwell" is so slow.

Better if I had read, The Making of A Name, and a few other books on naming before incorporating or registering my domain(s).

So what to do. Trout recommends linking the name to directly to a product benefit such as DieHard, a long-lasting battery; or Windex, a window cleaning liquid."

Rivkin and Sutherland write that "a good name essentially answers a resounding "Yes!" the following questions about new products:
Is a specific need fulfilled?
Is it really an improvement over what already exists?
Is it easier to use than what already exists?
Is there a competitive point of difference?...
A good name delivers an idea, concept, or beneift."

What do I recommend? Instead of trying to slog through, The Making of A Name, like I did, read Trout's forward, chapter's 6 on giving a good name, 11 on symbolism, and 13. Then if you have any capitol budgeted for marketing, read 13 on the naming procession, and hire a naming firm like Rivkin's. If you don't have the capitol, follow the directions in Chapter 5 and utilize the resources in the back of the book.

The Naming of BlackBerry

2007-09-04T17:34:00.000-04:00

BlackBerry. Something about that word. Why has it caught on? Why do people say, "You can reach me on my BlackBerry." Believe or not, there was a very in depth process involved in created that word.

It all started at a company called Lexicon - a naming firm in the bay area, when the VP of marketing brought their PalmLink for help with coming up with a name. The wanted a name that wasn't descriptive like PalmLink was (or Palm or Pocket PC was) in order to stand out in the marketplace. The blow by blow account can be found in chapter 5 of book Wordcraft by Alex Frankel.
On page 65, he talks discusses the sound symbolism such as the obstruents being more masculine. Also in Canada were RIM is located there is no such fruit as the blackberry (not as important in the U.S.). The name is symmetrical (5 letters each). Frankel quotes Will Leben, a Stanford Linguistics professor, who explained that the b's and 'k' make it fast (opposed to strawberry). Plus, the name conveyed the a network growing on a vine. Here's another interesting take on the name from Eben Pagan of Get Altitude. He focuses on alliteration in this video:

How to Name Things

Mark Joyner's Simpleology Book Review

2007-05-03T21:07:00.000-04:00

I just finished reading Mark Joyner's new and most ambitious book: Simpleology If you've been to his website, simpleology.com, you'll find a practical to approach to personal achievement.

In contrast, the book is long on theory and short on practical application, in my opinion. The basic idea of the book is that we are trapped in an Aslyum with Invisible Walls created by linguistic conventions and logical fallacies. The first step is deprogramming the buggy operating system and the second step is taking on a more utilitarian operating system. While Mr. Joyner may like to compare the book to a Socratic method for the 21st century, to me, the book seems to fall in the current of Deconstructionism with heavy emphasis on how we are trapped by language games. Most of the book is spent on these different linguistic issues (Book II on Invisible Walls is 123 pages). In contrast, Book IV on simpleology, and the name of the book, is a scant 26 pages.

If you are expecting a more in depth treatment of simpleology than you'll find in the online course, like I was, then you'll be disappointed. But if you've never been exposed to Mr. Joyner's course or deconstructionism, then maybe you'll find the book appealing. Personally, as a religion major and philosophy minor in college, I found the book to be more of a good summary of post modernism. I'm a big fan of Mark Joyner, but I wasn't that impressed with this book. Yes, it was very well researched and it was entertaining. Maybe it was because I was expecting something else - another systematic methodology, opposed to a survey. Or maybe in a couple of days I will think differently. But I wonder if Mr. Joyner was a little too ambitous in this book, and that is why it petered out in the end. He may argue that Simpleology itself is contained in the online course, or that just like with Socrates the most important thing was helping people out of their false thinking. So take a read for yourself, with no expectations, and let me know what you think.

Adsense Wealth Empire Manifesto Part 1 Review

2007-04-30T13:26:00.000-04:00

I just bought a publication on Google Adsense that was launched today called the Adsense Wealth Empire Manifeso. It by Roy Oron & Maayan Marzan, a couple of guys in Europe.

I wanted to know what they had to say about about Adsense, particularly because I had interviewed recently with Google and wanted to get a sense of if this information jived with the insider info I found out (Sorry, I can't reveal anything I learned inside the GooglePlex, as I had to sign a Non-Disclsoure Agreement.)

At the same time, I wasn't sure if I was going to buy the manifesto, as I had recently bought a course on Google Adwords that was just garbage and the headline on the sales letter for the Adsense Manifesto was a little over the top. But I remembered that the full course was $2000 when it had launched a few months ago with all the software tools and extra video tutorials. The reviews were good, and it looked like the guys were doing all legitimate white hat things.

So I gave it a shot. I've finished the Adsense Manifesto, and I think it is pretty good. The section alone is 117 pages. The problem is that about 30 of those pages go over how to use their software tools. So just like the Butterfly Marketing manifesto, it is a hidden pitch for their software. They do give free and paid software alternatives first. It's systematic info on SEO in general.

It starts by dispelling some common rumours like that Adsense is dead. Then they talk about the overall concepts about Big Numbers (Go Big!) and 3 Circles Structure (similar to Jeff Johnson's recommended linking structure). In Chapter 3, they discuss the Importance of Links in a comprehensive way that was new to me. In Chapter 4, they go into Linking Strategies, and distinguish between Artificial, Twilight, and Legitimate linking. There was one subsection on how to get linked from authority sites like Government and Education that I'd never heard of before (here's a tip - don't put adsense on all your sites). Chapter 5 goes into Linking Tips including a idea of a linking mixture that reminds me of how investment advisors tell you to diversify your investments. In Chapter 7, they go into finding Finding Niches. Chapter 8, on managing keywords lists is their weakest chapter (just a couple of pages); you'll find better info on that topic through the guys who made Keyword Companion. But the last chapter on generating content, more than makes up for it. They've discovered a way of legitimate generating high quality content I've never heard of before, or at least explained in that way, but again it requires their software tool. Basically, it is an advanced form of syndication, where instead of RSS feeds, they are able to pull the entire content of pages, not just a paragraph summary. That's it for part 1 - oddly enough they don't even talk about adsense the entire time.

I would recommend it if you want an overview of white hate site building and SEO, but be prepared to skip through the section on their software Anyway if you decide to buy the Adsense Wealth Manifesto. Then I'll send you a software for free for generating tons of high-quality content for your website. It's the developers version of Jeff Alderson's Article Equalizer which sells for $97. Just email contact [at] simonbthomas.com with your clickbank receipt and email address you used and I'll send you the software.

Even if you don't buy it, I recommend you check out what they have to say about Adsense

Jeff Johnson - Confessions Of An Underground Internet Marketing Insider

2007-04-25T00:55:00.000-04:00

Jeff Johnson is the creator of Traffic King Pro. He is one of the people I most respect when it comes to marketing automation, SEO, affiliate marketing. This video below is from a presentation that won him "Underground Marketer of the Year." It has never been released publicly on the interenet before. Enjoy:

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

FreeIQ (Free IQ) - YouTube for Business?

2007-04-17T00:53:00.000-04:00

I haven't been mentioning what I've been up to lately, but now can reveal some of it. Recently, I did some CRM work for a company with a site called FreeIQ

FreeIQ dubs itself as the marketplace for ideas. Essentially it is site where people can share, sell, and buy expert content, especially in video format.

Free IQ leverages three emerging trends (1) online video (2) information publishing (3) affiliate marketing

(1) While YouTube may be great for funny videos or even short entertaining movies, it isn't a good stop for how to manage your time or invest in real estate. That's where FreeIQ comes in. On FreeIQ experts can provide free videos on such topics and then sell products to those who find the free content interesting or generate leads. Consultants can also sell their time.

(2) Beyond the delivery medium, Free IQ fills the product gap that eBay leaves - while you can find physical products on eBay its hard to find information products. So that is all that Free IQ sells.

(3) Finally, the big e-commerce companies generate an enormous amount of money from affiliates. But while Amazon.com may have helped bring affiliate marketing into the public consciousness, it only paid abot 4%, leaving open major opportunity open for someone to all affiliates to make a lot more promoting other products. As an affiliate for Free IQ, you can make 25% to 50% and you get paid comissions on not just the initial purchase, but all purchases for a year by the person you referred.

Free IQ, by identifying the trends, and going where the white space is, may have found a "Blue Ocean"

The Internet Monoply Game

2007-03-01T11:14:00.000-05:00

In the Monoply game, the strategy was to get a group of properties and then develop houses and then hotels on them as quickly as possible so that when the other players got to those properties they would spend all their money to stay there and you would win. The more expensive properties they were, say say Parkplace and Boardwalk, the more success you would have. The Internet Monoply game works the same way. You buy web properties in a market and then develop those properties with lots of content so that when any other companies want to get your visitors they have to pay you a hefty fee to advertise. You will get more success if you can own the expensive markets such as investing, weight loss, careers, and gadgets. Having a group of related sites in market is analagous to having all the properties in a color group in monoply. For example, if you were in the career market, you would have a job matching site (e.g., monster.com or the more cutting-edge market10.com), a career information site (e.g., wetfeet.com), a payrate site (e.g., payscale.com), and a job community (e.g., jobs.myspace.com) . In doing so, you would have a monoply of the online career market. Now, unless you had millions of dollars to invest, it had been close to impossible to develop such a web of properties. But just recently version 2.0 of a software called Traffic King Pro developed by the award winning SEO expert Jeff Johnson. This software can actually automate the process of creating these web properties. Of course, it can't replace full blown sites like those mentioned above, but it can create content sites on any topic and community sites. Using content libraries and RSS feeds, you can put together sites that are just as powerful as multi-million web properties like dogster.com . So how do you get your hands on such a software? The only way is to go grab it here.

Rich Schefren's Live Streaming Video from his Business Growth System Seminar

2007-02-10T15:22:00.000-05:00

I just watched Rich Schefren's live video stream from his Business Growth System seminar. The presentation was entitled "From Startup to Freedom". Rich runs Strategic Profits a business coaching company for small businesses, particulary internet businesses. I'm a client of Rich's and each time I see or hear his core presentation I realize how I fall short of building a long-term business. He went over some core concepts. I took some notes. Here's a few that are significant to me, and I'm going to working on more after I finish this post.

First is your magic number. Your magic number is how much your time is worth an hour based up on how much you are making now, your annual goal, and your productive hours. Once you figure out that number then you should be outsourcing things that cost you less than the magic number (as long as that number is reasonable - if your making $1000 a month and want to make $1 bil then your magic number isn't reasonable)

Second is process mapping. Process mapping is putting the different systems in your business into diagrams so that others can easily perform the processes. After watching this section, I realized that a lot of my outsourcing problems were due to not having created these maps for my outsourcers.

Third, is out-tasking vs. out-sourcing vs. out-teaming. Outtasking is where you assign one task and then next time you have a task you have to go find another person for the task, or each time you need something done you need to explain it to your outsourced person. Outsourcing is where you work with a person over a long period of time so they understand your process; you make that work through the process maps. Out-teaming is where the whole team communicates with each other instead of you being the cog. I haven't made it to out-teaming yet so everything goes through me. I'm going to create my process maps and systems so that the whole team can communicate.

Fourth, he talked about metrics. He said their are tactical metrics, management metrics, and strategic metrics. Tactical metrics are like opt-in rate, conversion rate. Management metrics are like employee productivity. Strategic metrics are the ones against your vision of your company like business growth. He said that the two most important metrics are Cost Per Acquisition and Lifetime Customer Value. Cost Per Acquisition is how much it costs to acquire a customer. Lifetime Customer Value is how much a customer is worth to your company over the time that they do business with you.

He also explains these concepts in his Internet Business Manifesto.

Mark Joyner's Simpleology has new productivity software

2007-01-22T15:50:00.000-05:00

Simpleology, Mark Joyner's program, just came out with a new course
- 103 on Energy, but in doing so they added a ton of new features
to the existing Simpleology program, like the webcockpit, which is
a kind of software to help you apply the principles of simpleology.
Simpleology is dubbed the "Simple Science of getting what you want"

It is like a goal-setting and attaining system with
time/action/energy management. Forget outlook, basecamp, scraps of
paper -- this software is very powerful. It gets my highest
recommendation. They lso have a version for your desktop. I've
already started using the software and noticed a big boost in focus.
- but not in typos ;)

One of the cool parts is that it has a daily praxis where you do a
brain dump of things to do, and go through what has increased your
energy or decreased it - and then you identify actions to help
bring more energy or actions that help you put barriers around that
energy. I've tried about every time management system on the
planet, and this is only the that works for me.

The coolest part is that it's free. Yeah, Mark, the founder of
Simpleology has some advanced paid courses (the 102 on money and
103 on energy), but personally I'm still on 101 right now (I have
no financial incentive to recommend any of the courses, I just
they'll help you. I'd higly you suggest you right away sign
up for an account at simpleology.com or if you already have an
account that you check out the new features. Then post on my blog
here about what you think.

To your success,
Simon

P.S. Anyway, go to http://www.simpleology.com right away.

Own your own country

2007-01-09T16:23:00.000-05:00

Sealand - the micronation off the coast of the UK is now for sale. It has its own passports, currency, etc. It is the world's smallest country composed of a small facility run atop two concrete columns. It's going for $750 mil. There is quite a bit of debate about its status as a country. More interestingly is the economic ideas people have for the country. The last idea was HavenCo which was to be the world's most secure and private data colocation provider. Wired did a fascinating article a few years back about HavenCo's plans. The exiled people of Tibet were planning on using HavenCo to escape the censorship of the Chinese government. There might be other uses too...

CRM Software Secrets is Live

2006-12-29T14:27:00.000-05:00

I'm proud to unveil CRM Software Secrets. Here you can get your questions answered by me about CRM software and most importantly get a personal recommendation on what CRM software is best for you. We're still in Beta right now. So please let me know what you think of the site:

crmsoftwaresecrets.com

Best,
Simon

Getting Everything You Can Out of All You've Got

2006-12-29T13:51:00.000-05:00

I was reading Jay Abraham's book today "Getting Everything You Can Out of All You've Got" when a young man approached me and asked me about the book "How is it?".
I told him it teaches you the fundamentals of marketing. Really, this is book is one of the two or three more lucid books I've ever read on marketing. It is also completely different from 99% of most marketing books and courses. Most marketing teaches you how to take advantage of your customer, Abraham teaches you how to put your client first.

Fundamental to Abraham's approach is the Philosophy of Preeminence. While at first blush it may seem to be about positioning yourself as the preeminent in your field, on a larger level is about positioning yourself so that you can serve your client as much as possible and be the only logical choice for your client.

You can read the first chapter as a PDF for free on his site. Or you can pick up the book on Amazon

Marketing Hucksters

2006-12-09T16:44:00.000-05:00

Visit Mark Joyner for more of his

personal development brain puzzle cartoons.