Archive for February, 2008

StomperNet SMARTS Update 1

Friday, February 29th, 2008

I bought into the StomperNet SMARTS program after Rich Schefren had really focused my find on the Web 2.0 social media phenomenon and I realised that I knew very little about how to use these new technologies for marketing purposes.

I was also very impressed with Andy Jenkins series of get natural videos, both in terms of content and delivery and if you haven’t yet watched them then I do recommend that you do because unless you are a world class website expert I believe you will learn from the experience.

We should be in Week 6 but really we are in week 5 of the SMARTS coaching course.

Boy is it tough.

Don Crowther, the SMARTS leader is an excellent teacher but there is just so much to do both in terms of watching the training videos and then putting what we have learnt into practice.

I can’t say too much about the program. Remember I have splashed out my hard earned cash for this course and so have the other 2,000 plus members of the program and you haven’t and StomperNet are very keen to keep certain things in house.

Now here is the dilemma.

As I do things and create more attention and my attention to my two blogs (the other one is my blog on business coaching ) you will see what I am up to and indeed to promote some of the things I am doing so that my regular readers get value, I have to tell you about them.

A bit of a catch 22 there then.

So here goes.

First of all Facebook.

Are you on there and if so, would you like to be my friend? You can find my profile here.

There is a lot that can be done with Facebook. The traffic it gets every day is awesome and it has much more momentum than MySpace so if you only have time for one, I recommend that you choose Facebook.

OK I am biased against MySpace. I have tried at least three times to register and failed each time because of some technical glitch. It’;s as if they have programmed into the code “Paul Simister! We don’t want him.” so I can take a hint.

The next revelation is that I have fallen in love with a website called Squidoo.

This was created by Seth Godin (famous author on marketing) and it is such an easy way to create great pages (or as they call it lenses) which promote your business while educating the readers.

What I like in particular is you can build in reader interaction through votes, comments and changing the order of lists and adding extra points.

But this is just the start because I have a host of other lens in the pre-publication stage.

I love Squidoo. Easy and fun to do, you get good search engine rankings and extra traffic.

What is there not to like?

Sadly the SMARTS program is closed and may never re-open so if you want the inside track on Squidoo, take a look at Social Networking on Squidoo. I have bought it to make sure that I don’t miss a trick because Squidoo is becoming the third major leg of my Internet presence after my two blogs and my main website.

Tags: ,
Posted in StomperNet | No Comments »

Nitro Blueprint System Review Step 2

Sunday, February 17th, 2008

 Planning Your Business Strategy and

Creating Your Offers

This is step 2 in the Nitro Blueprint System for developing a successful online business and I continue to be very impressed with the Nitro system.

Business Plans Don’t Have To Be Long and Boring

Read any book or guide to starting a business and you will be told that you need to write a business plan.

I completely agree but often people fail to distinguish between two totally different plans:

  1. A business plan to act as a guide to the entrepreneur/business owner as the business develops and to capture the current thoughts about the business and its future.
     
  2. A business plan to take to a bank or other someone else to help you to raise finance.

These are totally different purposes.

If you don’t need to raise cash then the plan is for you and has to capture the logic of:

  1. What you will sell to whom
       
  2. Why they should buy
     
  3. How they will find out about your products or service
     
  4. How you are going to supply your product
       
  5. How you are going to make sure that you make a profit and a reasonable estimate of your expected results over the first 12 months.

No over-complicated numbers, no summary of the management but a simple document that records your current ideas and logic.

Just writing down the plan will force you to think and the value is in your thinking and considering different alternatives and not in a fancy 50 page plan which changes within days of being completed.

Nitro Agree

I was pleased to see that in Step 2 Planning Your Business and Creating Your Offers Nitro agree.

In fact they don’t call it a business plan but a business map which is intended to be a fun way to capture the big picture of your business idea with 5 key parts including a few key numbers.

If you are scared of numbers and accounts then don’t be.

Just get a pen and paper or create a simple spreadsheet and start “playing with numbers”. I recommend that you wear different hats to do different forecasts:

  1. An optimistic one which can be used to show how much your business could make if things go well (and if this doesn’t excite you then you have probably picked the wrong niche),
     
  2. A realistic one of what you think may happen based on your research and
     
  3. A pessimistic version where things take longer than expected, initial take up is less than you hoped and your prices are less.

Just focus on the major drivers of your business so it may be:

  1. Number of leads
  2. Percentage of leads converted into orders possibly with a time lag
  3. Number of orders - this is 1 x 2
  4. Average profit per order
  5. Your contribution or gross profit = 3 x 4
  6. Your overhead costs
  7. Your net profit = 5-6

That doesn’t look too scary does it?

If you have a continuity program (recurring income) you would then have a separate section between 5 & 6 to capture the profit from the ongoing income which should build up nicely.

Creating Your Offers

The Nitro Blueprint System is keen to make sure that you have set a direction and also in Step 2, you are asked to start thinking about how your are going to pitch your product to prospective customers. It is revised and polished later but in this section, you are just asked to start formulating your ideas.

Conclusion

I remain very positive about the Nitro Blueprint System but I think I have said before, it is not a quick and easy solution as it requires focus and regular investments of time.

If you are thinking of buying, you can see the sales letter or the Nitro videos or wait as I continue my slower than expected walk-through of the process and my review of the Nitro Blueprint System.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Nitro Blueprint System | No Comments »

Rich Schefren Business Acceleration Program Review 1

Thursday, February 7th, 2008

Just before Christmas in December 2007, Rich Schefren and his company Strategic Profits launched the Business Acceleration Program to a hungry crowd of Internet marketing entrepreneurs.

It was a terrific example of building up awareness and creating attention by providing thought provoking information and items from the Strategic Profit blog were regularly featured here. As always I believe there is a lot to learn from seeing how the top professionals market themselves.

In particular the free report, The Attention Age Doctrine Part 2 was a major success as it focused on the problems of creating attention in today’s busy, busy world where we are overwhelmed with information and sales messages.

The Business Acceleration Program is big and it will take me a long time to go through and properly review but you can see my thoughts on the first 8 CDs of the Main Event conference in July 2007 on the Business Coaching Blog.

It was a very good collection of different speakers and I was particularly impressed with Janet Switzer and her knowledge of how to market information products.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Rich Schefren Business Acceleration Program | No Comments »

Market Research - Nitro Blueprint System Step 1

Monday, February 4th, 2008

Sorry about the delay in taking you through the Nitro Blueprint System Step 1 - Market Research: Discovering and Choosing Your Million Dollar Market. The StomperNet SMARTS coaching course is keeping me busy.

The Nitro Master Manual explains how you can find ideas to discover your market.

This is an essential step and people can make costly mistakes in this area very easily.

If you are setting up a new business, it is tempting to think that you want a market which is empty. A market where there are no competitors so all the customers will see you as the obvious and only choose.

There is one fundamental problem. No competitors indicates no customers. 

If you can’t find the “expert guide to choosing the best Bolivian blue goats milk cheeses” or equivalent available from anyone else, it indicates that demand is low and it will be difficult to make money.

This is not the time to aim for new unexplored territory. You can do then when you are established.

The Nitro Blueprint System is targeted towards helping people create an Internet business selling information products and there are plenty of ways for you to search to see what is available.

You then need to match the market opportunities to your strengths and interests. You don’t want to create a business that means little to you. It is too important.

The Nitro Master Manual takes you nicely through the process and then teaches you how to do keyword research for tools, demonstration video and practical help available through the members resources.

I can’t emphasise how important keyword research is. I was amazed when I first did my research and found out the difference in the number of searches between business planning and business plan. One is so much more popular than the other and in my ignorance I optimised around the wrong phrase.

It is not required but I do recommend the keyword research tools from Nichebot. It does cost you a small fee (how much depends on which option you choose) and it takes some time to learn how to use it. However effective keyword research can be the difference between success and failure for your Internet business and many people can’t be bothered. Don’t make that mistake.

The Nitro system then takes you through a process to find out how competitive those keywords are for pay per click adverts - good evidence that the keyword phrase is a money term and not kids researching school projects.

There is great advice in Step 1- do not ignore the keyword stage and think that you know best. You would be turning your back on one of the best features of the Internet in that you can find out exactly how people search for your product or service. If you don’t do it effectively, you can be sure that your competitors will.

Creating Momentum

Step 1B is a bonus issue called the 99% solution.

It takes you through the process of buying your web domain and web hosting. So my domain name here is www.businessdevelopmentadvice.com. The Nitro Master Manual gives you tips on how to choose the right domain name. I used to think who in terms of the name of the business. I now think what, in terms of the service provided.

So if you are looking for a business coach, the best domain would be businesscoach.com as people will find it easy to remember while paulsimistercoaching.com isn’t.

Thanks to the Nitro manual and videos registering the domain is easy once you have reached your decision and buying the hosting is simple. When you buy the name, you just get the name and you then need to pay someone else to host the domain on their computer and give you the space to create your web-pages.

You will feel very techie doing this and I thought something had gone wrong but I hadn’t read all the section in the manual including the “it takes 12 to 24 hours for the change to take place.” I am impatient.

The Nitro Blueprint System then encourages you to install a Wordpress blog in your domain to start creating content and training the search engines. It then teaches you how to start promoting the blog.

Good solid advice with the strong recommendation to develop certain regular good habits.

Conclusion

After Step 1, my faith in the Nitro Blueprint System remains very high. This is truly a step by step development system where they hold your hand through each stage.

I should make it clear that it is not a quick fix system. The Nitro Blueprint System builds up your business from the basics but don’t buy it if you think you are going to have a money making website after 3 or 4 hours of work.

You can learn more about the Nitro Blueprint System by reading the sales letter or through their videos.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Nitro Blueprint System | No Comments »