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Yep – I’m a Joiner!
Thank you Kelly!
I’ve been doing a co-hosting stint on WAHM Talk Radio this month, and I had a conversation a couple of weeks ago during pre-production with Kelly McCausey (the host and co-founder of WAHM Talk Radio and HUGE advocate for work at home moms everywhere) and I told her I was terribly un-creative.
Today I received this in the mail:
The inside of the card reads:
I don’t know about you, but this not only made my face smile, it made my heart smile as well. The kindness it takes to send someone a card, in my mind, is astronomical.
Of course, maybe this was a devious plot to ensure I’m forever one of her biggest fans….
It worked.
Thank you Kelly! I *so* heart you!
VA Talk Show – New niche podcast for virtual assistants
In my ever increasing obsession with podcasting in all forms, I’ve come across a fantastic podcast specifically for the virtual assistant industry called VA Talk Show!
Okay, it’s not a podcast yet, but it will be very soon. With guest speakers lined up and a wonderful concept, Tawnya Sutherland is going to give the virtual assistance industry it’s own talk show! Not only that, many of the guest speakers will be virtual assistants!
Overuse of exclamation points aside, I really think this is something that needs to be done. We have Kelly’s WAHM Talk Radio for the work at home mom, but everyone wants to hear things that directly relate to their particular industry. That being said I think this is just what the VA ordered.
Tawnya is the founder of VANA, the Virtual Assistant Networking Association, a friendly community where the focus is on assistance and community. You won’t find backbiting and people telling you an opinion is wrong at the VA Networking forum. Being polite is a prerequisite of staying a member of the community.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about that fake namby-pamby politeness. You can be honest and disagree with people…you just can’t use your monitor as a shield for purposes of starting your very own flame war. There is so little decorum on the internet with people sheilded from their actions by DSL lines and modems. People think it’s okay to be mean, or even cruel, and rationalize it by saying "I’m just being honest!"
So make sure to check out the VA Talk Show website and subscribe to the RSS feed or add it to your Bloglines account (or whatever else you use to get that remote content.) Tawnya is a smart woman, and even better, she’s got a wicked sense of humor.
Oh, and you’ll hear me on the show sooner or later, even if it means I have to drive to Canada and have a sit-in in the middle of her living room until she relents *grin*
Where is the competition for 1 Shopping Cart?
Note: No names are used because it’s rude to point out specific employees, there are a couple I really like, and overall the systems are bad, not the frustrated (possibly overworked) staff.
I spent ten minutes on hold to be put on hold for ten more minutes so someone could avoid my call, say I was in the cue to be contacted and couldn’t tell me if they’d be able to get back to me THIS WEEK. Not yes, not no. Just…nothing.
Seriously. Bad customer service happens, I get that, but every time I work with or speak to anyone from 1 Shopping Cart it’s awful.
Even the time they took care of something a week after I asked, no one told me it was done and I found out randomly two weeks later they’d taken care of it and since they never spoke to me first – I now have a client with TWO 1 Shopping Cart accounts instead of one. These, obviously, need to be merged.
So now I have to talk to Abuse Guy at abuse@1shoppingcart.com and have him take the opt-in off of the second account, import all of the existing contacts from one account to the other and then I get to close the empty account. Of course, had anyone gotten in touch with me about what and when the other account would be deleted/transferred…this step would be entirely unnecessary. So it’s not like I’m being difficult or I jumped the gun or added extra steps. There was no communication whatsoever, adding more work for (wait for it) ME!
I’m on the phone with tech support (whom they TOLD me to contact to get through to Abuse Guy and who previously put me into Abuse Guy’s voicemail…without telling me he was on vacation first so I was told by the voicemail he wouldn’t be in for three more days at that time) and the techie I’m talking to says he cannot even get a hold of Abuse Guy because he’s in a different department and no way does he have a way to transfer me into the voicemail. Which is HILARIOUS later in the conversation when he tells me he’s talking via IM to Abuse Guy at that very moment (that and it’s also funny the same department can and then cannot transfer me to the same person. A riot.)
Techie guy has NO WAY to access Abuse Guy…other than instant messenger. Sorry I made you go through all those hoops techie guy.
Darn. I didn’t write techie guy’s name down. This is the first time I didn’t write down the name immediately (I thought he was just going to transfer me.) so I called back to ask.
Did you know that they don’t have a CRM that allows them to keep track of calls? Which is interesting because when I called last week someone told me that the account had been flaged and notes put in. Conflicting information, anyone? If you need some 1 Shopping Cart has it in spades!
But today I find out that they can’t put notes into a file or know what you called about, ever, or even find out who you spoke to less than a minute beforehand. Not overly shocking considering when I called back after the person told me the account was noted they told me they had no record and acted totally perplexed.
This has to be the worst instance of customer service and effective use of my time (and their time, and my client’s time) that I’ve ever experienced.
I think the best part was that when I was talking to techie person today and was completely deflated and had basically given up and my voice had quieted down to almost a whisper and I said "Guess all I can do is wait then" the techie guys response was a REALLY bright and cheerful "Have a GREAT day!"
My response, "Cute…very cute…" and I hung up.
With partners like this for your business, who needs competition? You can be brought down by friendly fire instead!
I’m perfectly happy using the cocktail of Aweber, e-Junkie, and even Intellicontact if you need specialty newsletters. But this particular client was determined to stay with the "all in one" solution. So I ask you, my respected readers, do you know of ANY OTHER "all in one" system that provides what 1 Shopping Cart does?
And tell me they have an affiliate program, because I’m going to have clients galore to give them.
More Love for Podcasting
My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-3832fe8b014023ee20a070e04c98e1c4}
[display_podcast]
Podcast Test (1 of a series of…many?)
This is a test.
I’m trying to make sure this is compatible with iTunes and Yahoo and Podcast Alley before going hog-wild and recording a bunch of them. I’m really excited about this…podcasting is something I’ve been doing on and off now for a while, and I even have a few interviews that I’ve been looking forward to getting up on the site.
Thank you PodPress. Thank you WordPress. Thank you brain!
Press Release 2.0?
I have a question specific to press releases, so I’m adding it here…hope that’s okay.
I was talking to a really nice representative from Buisness Wire and she used the term "Press Release 2.0" in a sentence! (Seriously, I’m not making this up. I have her contact info, she’s out of Chicago, and I’d never talked to her before in my life.) I called the company because a few of my clients use them and I was thinking about using them as well.
Now I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard the term "Web 2.0" about eight hundred more times than I probably wanted to. Everyone uses it, I’m not even sure if everyone who uses it knows what it is or how to get on that gravy train to take advantage of the shift.
A Press Release 2.0 release (say THAT five times fast!) is one where you are friendly and personable throughout. I mean, everyone knows you wrote that release, let some of YOU shine through! It makes a story more interesting…it makes the people who read the press release think either "Wow, I’d never want to work with that person." or "Wow, I’d like to get to know that person better!" This is great, because not everyone is going to like you and it’s better for you and your company if they find out if you’re "their kind of person" SOONER rather than later! This saves you from having to talk to more people than you might need to, because your press release does it FOR you.
If you have a hook, if it’s funny and interesting, it will get passed around – this increases your exposure.
In my opinion and experience, it’s far better to have a fun, personable press release that’s interesting and that the masses will want to read – because the masses include your potential clients and you could very well go from Google News to the email inbox of someone who owns a company.
A reporter from your local paper will already know what kind of interview they’ll have with you, and they’ll be more likely to call you than if it’s so professional and they don’t know if you’re boring as a board or if you’ll give good story.
It’s like pre-selling both the media and potential clients. You’ll be talking to someone that already has a good feeling about you.
What is everyone else’s opinion on this? I don’t mind disagreement or dissent, in fact, I welcome it, because I cannot figure out why people keep doing these dry, boring press releases and everyone follows up with how wonderful they are. I want someone to show me the error of my ways and tell me WHY those news-y info-packed yawn-fest press releases are the most effective way to write, and find success with, press releases.
Thanks in advance for your opinions…I appreciate having you guys to bounce the ideas off of!!!
Remember the death of AdSense report?
The report that followed?
Subsequent reports?
Copycat reports?
…and fourteen other people all jumping on the gravy train of Pay-Per-Action and running like wildfire from CPC.
As with most things, if you jump first and jump fast you will be able to set something up that will stand the test of time. You will at least have a chance to set up a long term business.
On ClickZNews, this article at first glance made me think I had just seen an advertisement. Proudly declaring:
I took a step back and thought, oh crap. Now, I think "oh, crap!" a lot so this isn’t an amazing revelation…but this one really made me take a step back and say "Wow…ModernClick knew what they were doing, huh?" As, yet again, Google legitimizes something that most of us thought was b.s. or hokey or just plain not worth it.
What was the name of the guy who released the Death of AdSense and basically is married to ModernClick and their PPA biz? Anyone? I cannot remember his name and as much as I want to give credit where credit is due…I need a cup of coffee and the carrot I use to make my cart move is that until I’ve finished this entry I cannot have my morning cup of coffee.
So you can remember his name if you know it, because I don’t, besides if we asked him I’m sure he’d rather I remember his product name than his name. Hell, I’m blogging about his product way past it’s expiration date. He won’t mind I forgot his name. He probably won’t even know. If he does…well…he can put his name in the comments section.
There. Now no one feels left out! Yea! (I’m really crabby before my coffee…)
Here’s how PPA works:
- You have an affiliate ad, or an ad on a website you own that says (e.g.) "You’ve won a free cell phone ring tone!"
- Someone ACTUALLY puts their cell phone number (or name and email, or name and address…) into the fields on that page.
- You get paid some inordinately large payment like $4 each time someone does that.
Depending on the service and the company’s cost per customer (that may be the wrong term, but I haven’t had my coffee yet today.) That number could be closer to $15 per signup. PPA is far more lucrative for the advertiser than AdSense and the magical .01 clickthrough. This is because these very, very large companies do oodles of research and know that of X number of customers X number will stay after they put in their information and of those X people we will make $X.XX amount of money. With that equation, you can effectively tell me how much it’s worth to you for each person (even those who NEVER buy anything) to put their information in the box.
One of the oldest numbers games in town. It’s having a large enough sample of customers that you’re not guessing or "paying what you can afford". You need to KNOW what your customers are worth in cold hard dollars to make this worth pursuing.
Of course, I know of at least three internet marketers off the top of my head that know exactly that. I don’t know how they do it, I suck at math like a leper sucks at body piercings (ewwwww…gross!) but it can be done, and with great result. Knowing how much a client is worth to you can drastically change how you look at your clients, customers, heck your entire business plan!
But back to the Google and the Ads and the Paying and the Stuff…
Best of all? You’ll find this in the AdSense system you’re already familiar with. So no new interface, no new option when you go into your list of, what are we up to now, eight hundred Google applications…you get to go into AdSense and figure it out from there. Best of luck on that, I think I’m going to pass.
Ok, really the best thing is that they’ve been testing this bad boy since June. Makes me wonder if that Death of AdSense guy knows someone at Google. The timing couldn’t be better.
That’s just speculation, but nevertheless, something new is happening in the world of Google and the world of Internet Marketing. Can Internet Marketers do it better than Google can or will this be the next big thing…to fizzle…
