How I Enabled an Important Business
Online marketing consultants deal with computers, web sites and technology and the work can sometimes be frustrating, but we get to make a positive impact on our clients’ business and life and sometimes, they even take the time to write about it.
When I read the message below, I had to hold back tears, both from the sense of frustration in my client’s journey before she started to work with me and from happiness at having made such a difference. I’m very proud to post it here for everyone to see.
The message is from Michelle Kenway, who dedicates her life to helping women (and men) strengthen their pelvic floor muscles. Her clients have an embarrassing problem, which she solves through physical therapy, e-books and DVDs sold on her site, Pelvic Exercises.
New Amazon Fire Mobile Phone: Game Changer?
Amazon announced this week a new mobile phone with a solid design and many features, called Amazon Fire. Will it be a game changer and give Amazon a big advantage in the marketplace? And what does it mean for small business owners?
Amazon Fire comes with 4 cameras, positioned in the corners of the device, as well as infrared sensors, so it “knows” where its user is located and where he or she is looking. The phone uses this information to rotate the display in “3D” and allow the user to peek into the display, as well as scroll and navigate with one hand.
To make life even easier, this phone can recognise many things in real life (using a technology called Firefly) and use them to offer relevant actions. Here is a quick summary:
How to Keep Your Online Business Alive
Building a website and starting an online business seems to many small business owners like a big step. This often makes them feel exhausted after it’s done and they do their best to pretend that it’s all they’ll ever need.
So much so that when someone tells them that their site’s software needs updating or that the content needs to be refreshed and extended, they almost hate that person. “What?” they say, “Is it not enough I’ve spent all that money getting this responsive, singing and dancing WordPress site with mobile bells and whistles, now you tell me I need to spend more money?”
Sadly, it’s not.
Yesterday, a friend rang me and casually mentioned that his online business website had been hacked. He was miserable, because he didn’t know how to recover it and had no way of getting his site back, because he had not kept any backups of the files or the database.
Everyone can do it (with expert help)
The first thing you learn about starting a business on the Internet is that everyone can do it. I remember the first seminar I attended. You may have had the same experience yourself. It is a free event that makes hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales in one day. The food, the venue and the free gifts are nothing compared to how many suckers come to those events for the promise of sitting on the beach in a swimsuit with a laptop, sipping cool drinks and watching the dollars appearing on the screen every day and every hour.
Gal and I went to our first event as life coaches. It was an awesome weekend. It was a great seminar and I learned a lot. For 2 days, they promised the world “Be your own boss! Work 3 hours a day! Money will be coming out of your ears!” and … “Everyone can do it!”
I have to say I almost believed them. I wanted to believe them with all my heart, but because our life coaching course had promised exactly the same thing, I had the suspicion there was a pattern there. Luckily for us, it was not a test of our trust. We just did not have $10,000 to buy the product on offer. We were shocked that our fellow coaches spent so much money just weeks after they had spent thousands of dollars on the life coaching course.
If you have ever heard these slogans about trying to build a business on the Internet, be warned, someone is convinced you are a sucker and might be taking you for a ride.
You don’t know what you know
For the past few months, I’ve been facilitating a Small Business Online workshop. Small Business Online is an Australian government initiative to help small business owners create web presence for their business and get business online.
What you don’t know, doesn’t hurt
You may have heard this saying from people already “What you don’t know, doesn’t hurt you”. Well, I’m here to tell you this saying is really wrong when it comes to getting business online.
On the Internet, what you don’t know can hurt you. A lot!
How to Get Business Online (part 1)
If you’re reading this, you are most likely a business owner looking to market your products or services on the Internet. So what should you do first? What should you do next? Where can you find more information?
The answer is: right here, of course. Let’s start at the beginning, then, shall we?
Who Needs Online Marketing (part 3)?
By now, you know that the Internet is great for information products, as well as for offline products with a global appeal. So far, so good. But not every business sells standard products. Some businesses make their products to suit their clients’ needs. What about them?
Who Needs Online Marketing (part 2)?
So the Internet is great for information products. Got that. But what if my product cannot be digitized and sold electronically?
