The Silent Avatar Speaks

It was late last night before I got to bed, and my partner and I were cuddled up having a chat before we headed off to the land of nod when I suddenly (for no apparent reason) I remembered a small sandwich bar where I worked some 30 years ago.

There was nothing flashy about this place. In fact quite the opposite. The building was about as old as old could get without having to bulldoze it. Long, narrow with just enough room to stand 2 deep behind the counter, and a single pane of glass letting in the light. There was lots of “old worldliness” and it would have to have been built in my estimate somewhere around the 1930′s.

It was on a main street but it didn’t have any offices around it – just more small businesses, a busy bus stop about 6 shops away, a school around the corner, and the rest of the area was middle class residential.

Three old timers ran the business. Etty, Carol and Bill. Etty was I would say in her 60′s, Carol (the daughter) was in her 40′s, and Bill (Etty’s husband) close to Etty’s age. Together they all ran a sandwich bar.

At the time I worked 4 shops away, and one of my jobs was to get everyone lunch. There wasn’t much choice around – just a cake shop across the road with the obligatory pies, sausage rolls and pasties, the pub up the road (where you could mix with the locals and get a mean steak sandwich), or the sandwich bar.

Given the choice I would nearly always opt for the sandwich bar.

Stay with me as I share with you how the sandwich bar won my business.

As I laid back in bed I remembered…

They were made on the freshest of bread (white or wholemeal only), and no matter if Etty or Carol made the sandwich (Bill just took the  money and got drinks), they would always have the best ingredients, and would always churn out a quality sandwich.

Roast Beef and Salad sandwich? Fresh bread meticulously spread with just the right amount of butter. The roast beef sliced thin and then trimmed of all fat, then manipulated with the skill of a true artisan to completely cover the slice. Layers of crisp shredded lettuce, carrot, sliced beetroot,  onion (optional), and rich red tomato slices cut to order. All this was standard. Then you could add whatever else you wanted. Tasty cheese? Sliced pineapple? Remember this was 30 years ago. No sprouts, avocado, hummus, chickpeas, sugar snap peas. Nothing like the ingredients you can get today.

To watch them  “build” their sandwiches was a spectacle. Their sandwiches would grow and grow until you had a “mega” sandwich which,  (when they had deftly balanced everything and placed the other slice on top),  they cut through diagonally (perfect of course), displaying it’s ingredients in  stripes of vivid colour and texture.

They would then carefully wrap the sandwich in paper, pop it into a brown paper bag along with a wrapped mint and do it all without batting an eyelid quickly and efficiently.

It was 30 years ago and I have no idea how much it cost but I’m sure it wasn’t overly expensive (I was only very low wages as an apprentice), but as you can see I can remember everything else about the sandwich, right down to the feel of biting into the sandwich and feeling the crunch of the fresh ingredients married with the luxurious fresh bread.

So what’s this got to do with bulding a business?

Looking back these three got it right. Despite being in a location which was “average” to say the least, this business

[Read more →]

Tags: Business Tips by the silent avatar
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From Timothy Ferriss website The 4 Hour Work Week comes these startling stattistics.

• 66% of people read email seven days a week and expect to receive a response the same day [18].
• 61% continue to check email while on vacation [19].
• 56% have anxiety if they can’t access email [20].

“Crackberry” was the official winner of the 2006 Word-of-the-Year as selected by the editorial staff of Webster’s New World College Dictionary. Blackberry addiction has been labeled “similar to drugs” in a study performed by Rutgers University; millions of users are now able unable to go more than five minutes without checking e-mail.

According to online surveys of more than 4,000 people, conducted jointly by AOL and the Opinion Research Corporation and reported in 2005:

• 41% of Americans check e-mail first thing in the morning

• 18% check e-mail right after dinner

• 14% check e-mail right when they get home from work

• 14% check e-mail right before they go to bed

• 40% have checked their e-mail in the middle of the night

More than one in four (26%) say they can’t go more than two to three days without checking email, and they check it everywhere:

• In bed – 23%

• In class – 12%

• In business meetings – 8%

• At the beach or pool – 6%

• In the bathroom – 4%

• While driving – 4%

• In church – 1%

Being “e-mailed” (like blackmailed) worse than being stoned?

In 2005, a psychiatrist at King’s College in London administered IQ tests to three groups: the first did nothing but perform the IQ test, the second was distracted by e-mail and ringing phones, and the third was stoned on marijuana. Not surprisingly, the first group did better than the other two by an average of 10 points. The e-mailers, on the other hands, did worse than the stoners by an average of 6 points [21].

Reference: http://www.4hourworkweek.com/ferriss-resources-truthstats.htm#_email

Tags: General by the silent avatar
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Those readers who subscribe to my blog (and BIG thank you to you all) will know I have been reading The 4 Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris.

I wouldn’t say the book is full of “aha!” moments. In fact if you’re on the Internet Marketing road you will already have some parts of Timothy’s blueprint to being one of the NR (New Rich).

Today I would like to give you a snapshot on the mistakes the NR can make.

If you’ve been in the working world for any length of time, you are going to have to go against your (learnt) impulses to get out from where you are. It’s recognising these impulses, and where they fit into the scheme of the New Rich that will best serve you to keep yourself on track.

Here’s the impulses you will be working against to become one of the NR (New Rich). If you continue to do these you are doomed to fail in your quest for being one of the New Rich.

1. Getting bogged down in the day to day dealings of life you lose sight of your goal to become one of the NR and end up working for work’s sake.
2. You love to micromanage and just love your emails.  You like to keep control of situations, rarely delegate responsibility (after all – no one does the job as well as you do), and insist that all decisions are passed by you for your approval.
3. You tend to tackle things that others (who are more knowledgeable, and better equipped to handle) can do. You thrive on problem solving and get a “kick” from being the one that “handled the problem or task”.
4. On the rare occasions you do allow others to handle a task, you are constantly inputting your ideas or opinions on how the task should be handled.
5. You use your time on pursuing unqualified customers, or international prospects when you have enough cash flow to finance your non financial pursuits.
6. You answer emails that won’t result in a sale when a comprehensive FAQ or an auto-responder to do the job instead.
7. You work where you live. Work and home have become one – there is no escape.
8. You know the 80/20 rule but have forgotten to apply it to your business and personal life every two to four weeks.
9. Your a perfectionist. You fail to recognise this is another “work for works sake” excuse. You are never satisfied with good or good enough.
10. You are a drama queen. Small problems get blown out of proportion as an excuse to work.
11. You upscale non urgent issues to urgent in order to justify work.
12. You know that you are in a rut, know that what you are doing is not the be all and end all of your existence, but you just don’t know how to get out of it. You cannot find meaning to your life.
13. You have few friends, no hobbies, and rarely go out. You live for your work. Social life? What social life?

Do you have any of these impulses which are keeping you from being one of the New Rich(NR)?

Tags: Business Tips, Hot Off The Press by the silent avatar
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Do you really only need 4 things to make money on the Internet?

Dan B. Cauthron seems to think so. To find out if I agree keep reading.

Dan, a self confessed Internet Marketing expert who has been successfully earning a full time living from running his own Internet business since 2000  proposes that in order to make money on the Internet one only needs to 4 things to make money on the Internet.

And those 4 things?

• something to sell (products and/or services) that people want to buy
• a registered domain name and a small business hosting solution
• a website (your own customised Internet storefront) – not somebody’s clone
• methods to attract customers to your website (advertising and marketing)

Well Dan, whilst I do agree with the 4 things you have stated, it’s a far cry from what you really need to know in order to make money.

Let’s look at each point closer.

1. Something to sell – This is not as easy as it sounds. Firstly, in order to identify what people want to buy it requires research – and lots of it.  And if you think research is asking a focus group for the answers you would be mistaken. Online business research today means you will need to know about Keyword research, Alexa, Page Ranks, Traffic Stats, Ebay Pulse, in fact there is so much you need to wrap your head around just coming up with a viable product is hard work!  First port of call with your research is using WordTracker. I wont go into what Wordtracker does (because it does a lot), suffice to say it’s a tool to determine what people are looking for on the Internet. Click the Wordtracker link to find out more.

   Assuming you have done your Keyword research (and of course you would have to know how to measure your results to the information was meaningful), you would then have to check out comparable websites selling the same or similar product/s or service (more research). Then once you have found your competitor sites, you then have to dig a bit deeper into ascertaining how much business they get.

   Check out keywords used in potential competitors websites (just right click on the page, then View Source). You will see in their meta tags what keywords they have used – then input the first 5 keywords and see what results are returned.

   Here’s where more research comes in. Check their website ranking and their traffic stats through Alexa. Check out if they are buying Pay Per Click Ads. Check their Page Rank. Google the prospective competition names and see how many references their are to the business (make sure you put in the product or service as well to eliminate any businesses with the same name selling unrelated products.

2. A registered domain name and hosting. If you have found a product or service people are willing to buy, coming up with a good domain name can be just as time consuming and frustrating. Consider using your dominate keywords for what you are selling in the domain name. For example; let’s assume we are looking for a domain name to sell homemade, preservative free dog biscuits, vacuum packed, and shipped in a gift box. Which is the better domain name?  FussyMutts? UniquePetTreats?, SpoilYourPet? or maybe GourmetDinnersForDoggies? Which domain name would help rather than hinder anyone trying to find gifts for dogs? Pick a domain name and if possible go for one with the best keywords in the name relative to the search term you want to dominate.
3. A website with your own customized store front. Dan, Dan, Dan…. you make it sounds so easy peasy to make money on the Internet. Unless you have plenty of money to throw at an outsourcer to design your site and set the whole thing up (let’s not even think about trying to maintain it with zero skills), you are going to have to embark on a steep learning curve. Even if you use a CMS Joolma or Drupal site you are going to have to  master  administrating the site. [Read more →]

Tags: Business Tips, Internet Marketing, SEO by the silent avatar
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