E-Biz Booster Blog

One More Reason Your Prospects Don't Buy

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 15:49:00 -0700

Derek Sivers (↑) is best known as the founder of CD Baby (↑).

Do you remember the reasons why people do not buy from you?

Here are the main three reasons:

• They don’t want what you sell.
• They don’t have the money.
• They don’t trust you.

Let’s focus on the first reason for a minute or two.

They don’t want what you sell.

In many instances this can easily be translated into “They don’t understand what you sell.”

Direct response copywriters and advertising experts taught us the importance of “getting into the head of our customer”.

A piece of marketing which generates a lot of response is not a monologue, it’s a dialog between the copywriter and the reader—the prospect. A writer needs to join that conversation in the head of the reader. Therefore, the writer needs to understand the market and the prospects she is writing for very well.

Derek Sivers gave a short 6 minute talk at a
TED (↑) conference in India, in November last year. He reminds us of the many reasons why the person listening or reading might not understand what you are trying to communicate. His multicultural example makes it quite clear.

Derek Sivers: Weird, or just different?

Derek Sivers at TED Different Perspectives? (Pop Out)

That’s just the icing on the cake. Culture is not the only potential barrier that interferes with the meaning of your message and its perception.

“Despite the Internet being a global medium, your audience usually wears a very local head.”
~ John W. Furst

Enjoy the video and start becoming more aware of dangerous pitfalls in your communication and marketing.

Yours
John W. Furst

Copyright 2010 by John W. Furst. Some Rights Reserved. Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0. - If you find this content on a site that is violating our copyright, please, report its URL to us. Thanks for fighting copy scrapers.

What Drives Us? Bob Poole Asked Daniel Pink

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:37:59 -0700

Bob Poole (↑) lives his life following a path with heart. He writes about Sales, Marketing, Creativity and Leadership.

I just noticed my blogging colleague Bob Poole put the audio recording (mp3) of his interview with best-selling author Daniel Pink online.

“Interview With Dan Pink (↑).”

Bob has a sales background and, therefore, they also touch on the subject of motivating sales people quite a bit.

Check it out. The interview is about 16 minutes long. A transcript (↑) is already available on Bob's blog.

Enjoy.

By the way: I already put Dan's book on my Amazon wishlist.

“Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (↑).”

Learning about human psychology and applying this knowledge has been always helpful in sales and marketing. Remember the old saying?

“People buy what they WANT not what they NEED.”

Yours
John W. Furst

Email Marketing or Social Media in 2010?

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:18:54 -0700

Dr. Mani Sivasubramanian (↑),
Heart surgeon and social entrepreneur

I joined the discussion on Dr. Mani Sivasubramanian’s blog quite late, but since I gave it some thought, I decided to share my response with you.

In mid November last year Dr. Mani published a list with his predictions about what will be IN and what will be OUT in 2010 (↑).

The first item on his list

1.) Email Is OUT, Social Media Is IN

I am buying the second part of his statement immediately, but “Email OUT”?

I had to think about it a couple of seconds longer than usual, ’cause a couple of respectable experts like Chris Brogan (↑), Warren Whitlock (↑), and Willie Crawford (↑) already had left comments on Dr. Mani’s blog post.

Here is the re-print of my reply:

I don’t think email is OUT in 2010.

I rather would say, we have to use and nurture email marketing differently than in the past.

A strong email list is still an asset, like your website. I hope you have purchased your own domain.

Who owns—and most importantly who has jurisdiction so to speak over—your social media profile?

The inherent benefit of email is it’s independence from any given email marketing service provider on the sender side. Maybe the Google Wave protocol will push email type communication into this century and at a same time allow a merger with social media. I am looking forward to it. Maybe in 2011, 2012.

What’s the deal with email marketing in 2010?

You would be crazy to stop building an email list. But on the same token you would be insane not building your social media presence.

In case you are sitting on the fence and don’t know whether you should put the subject email marketing into the IN or the OUT bucket. Think about why businesses are complaining. You hear two main reasons:

Low open and response rates resulting in less sales.
Deliverability problems.

Now ask yourself or your team a couple of questions and revisit the response rate issue. For sure you will find a couple of areas where you can improve.

Is my aging email list outgrowing my content, my offers?
Do my offers mature in-sync with my subscribers?
Am I (trying to) milk my members or am I graduating them?
Does my offer evolve over time and stay fresh and state-of-the-art that it appeals to new subscribers as well.
And now probably the most important question: Am I sending brochures, pitches, or am I building a relationship with that person who reads my email message. (Hint: Even outside of internet marketing consumers already can smell automated follow-up messages.)

One kind of email marketing campaigns did especially well in 2009. It’s called customer reactivation. But that is just one tactic that worked.

Maybe your email marketing activities need that sort of a botox treatment. (LoL)

Lots to think about.

Don’t dump your e-mail opt-in box, yet.

Yours
John W. Furst

P.S.: [Admittedly I have procrastinated (check out the edutaining video) with this blog post for some time.]

Procrastination is a Marketers Worst Enemy [Video]

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:48:39 -0700

I thought you will like this little video. Before I have looked into that I wanted to write a post about email marketing instead, but I procrastinated.

Did it every happen to you? I am sure it did. If you are not quite convinced yet, watch the video, and I promise you will recognize certain patterns in your behavior as well.

The video explains in an entertaining way what procrastination is.

Procrastination (↑) from Johnny Kelly (↑) on Vimeo (↑).

If you think about it, watching this video might be procrastination.

What do you think?

Leave a comment and let me know.

Enjoy

Yours
John W. Furst

FREE Adwords Tele-Seminar With Perry Marshall Today

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:08:00 -0700

Perry Marshall - #1 Google Adwords Expert

I’ll keep this very short because time is running out. You have seen me writing about Perry Marshall before.

Thursday, February 11th, 2010 at 3pm EST / 2pm CST / 12pm PST / 20:00 GMT
The teleseminar is over. However, you still can sign-up and check-out Perry's special offer. It reads as, “Don't miss the $200 quick action discount (click here)”

Perry is the #1 Google AdWords expert in the World.

Most people are stuck in a Google Ad-Writing RUT.

Most markets have B-O-R-I-N-G, predictable ads. (And that’s the unseen opportunity)

Most people are frozen at 2.4% CTR. You know that a 5.5% or 9.5% CTR would push you straight to the top but you don’t know how to pull it off.

Turns out you don’t need “creativity”
… you just need a step by step simple method.

Free Teleseminar: Bionic Google Ads, Facebook PPC & the Content Network Gold Rush (↑)

Perry Marshall has developed a NEW method for generating Bionic Google ads with hi-power CTR’s. He calls it “The Swiss Army Knife.” It’s systematic, it’s scientific, and it’s endlessly creative.

Bionic Google ads are like tractor beams that drag peoples’ eyeballs away from the center of the page to YOUR ad. It pushes you up in the rankings so you get more traffic and cut your bids. You get new visitors who’d have never clicked before.

You get blade #1 of the Swiss Army Knife during this free teleclinic on Thursday:

Free Teleseminar: Bionic Google Ads, Facebook PPC & the Content Network Gold Rush (↑)

BTW - Go look at the digital download you get after you register… when you see it you know this one’s going to be GOOD.

Oh... and this call is NOT being replayed. So make sure you mark it on your calendar.

Sounds good (very good) to me. I will be on the call for sure.

In case you wonder why Perry gives this information away for free. It’s part of a promotion he is doing. However, I know from my own experience that Perry always lives up to his listeners expectation. You’ll get solid content in this call.

And even if the Maui CD’s are out of reach for you right now, Perry has a whole library of training products that get you up to speed with your marketing fast … from exactly where you are at right now.

Don’t miss it.

Yours
John W. Furst

P.S.: The difference between “making it” and “not making it” could as well be the stupid habit of trying to figure it out on your own. Learn Google AdWords from the expert. Cut the learning curve and get the financial rewards you and your family really deserve.

101 Reasons for Personal Change (More or Less)

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:00:00 -0700

Old Linchpin on a Shore

Once again Seth Godin has bet the farm and seems to have won, already. (Probably not the farm, but you get the point, don’t you.)

He decided to bypass the traditional act of sending out dozens of review copies of his latest book to journalists of main stream media. The book title — you might have heard about it already — is

Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

Instead he sent preview copies to people who care, members of his tribe.

As a result the Internet is already flooded — in a good way — with blog posts, tweets, videos, … all sorts of real world testimonials about how much they love the book.

Is there anything else that could help sell the book better?

I do not think so.

Are You Indispensable?

What type of people are indispensable in those difficult times, in which we are very close to the edge economically and environmentally.

I have assembled variations of short excerpts and thoughts from many conversations between Seth Godin and his readers who have received a preview hard-copy of Linchpin: Are You indispensable?.

101 Reasons For Personal Change

Now I have promised to give you 101 reason why you should change. Well, what about this,

“Imagine you could be one of the persons described here. Wouldn’t that be enough reason to change?

Here is the secret, You can!”

People who bring art to work, people who reach out, make a connection, cause change to happen.

People who refuse to become an interchangeable part, someone who merely follows the manual.

People who love their job.

People who can spread ideas, build a tribe. … if you can get your ideas to spread, you get to build what you want.

People who are brave enough to do marketing.

People who make decisions.

People who are motivated.

People who can steer, innovate, provoke, lead, connect and make things happen.

People who will do art, will be brave and are willing to fail (often).

People who solve a new problem in a new way. And all of us have done that at least once in our life. Even if it goes back to our kindergarten experience.

People are not the standard resume they give you. Standard resumes are out.

People who have projects, not resumes.

People who are the great engineers of our time, programmers, materials specialists, inventors.

Everyone is leadership material! The only question is whether they’ve practiced or not.

People who lead. Leading gives one charisma, not the other way around.

People who choose to do the work necessary to become indispensable at something. They will succeed.

People who start with making the choice.

People who create what matters.

Answer by Seth Godin: I think that industries that are based on commodities and on repeated life or death deliverables are probably not the best places for artists, for people making change or doing new work.

I’d stay away from Exxon or a pacemaker factory.

John: Can you imagine a story that if you hear it you would say about, “If only that had happened because of my book, it would have been enough reason to do all this work and write this book.” What would that story be?

Seth Godin: I’ve already discovered everything I was hoping for… people are telling me that the book has given them the last push they needed to do something important, something worthy of their effort. That’s the whole point!

Thanks, Seth.

Now check out the many interviews and reviews about Linchpin (↑) which have inspired me to this post.

Really, go and check it out.

I hope you are getting something out of this blog post. In case your mind just has gotten hungry for more… Here is my review of Linchpin.

I only have received Seth’s preview summary so far. That’s one disadvantage of living on an island in the Atlantic.

Now tell me how you want to change respectively what or who you would love to change.
Leave a comment below.
And share the post, please.

Thanks and
have a nice day.

Yours
John W. Furst.

________
Additional Image Credits: mumchancegaloot on Flickr.com (↑)
Some rights reserved — CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0

Change, Progress, Excel, Lead (2 inspirational videos)

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:04:00 -0700

Progress Makes You Happy

It seems that striving for further improving with personal development will be a key factor for being successful in 2010. When I say I will reach out more to other people in 2010, that is a statement for personal development, isn't it.

And Seth Godin also has devoted his latest book Linchpin to be a very personal one.

Two long videos about

Taking a Stand
Change
Law of Attraction
Challenges
Success
Leadership
Passion
Engagement

I just have put a couple of tidbits and gems in my personal vault.

Pick or watch all.
Enjoy; yes, the videos are long.

Timothy Ferriss: “… I have fear this is dangerous. There is a thin line between being brave and between being foolish.”

The First Time Online — Enjoy While You Can (↑)
Trial by Fire (~45 min)

Video by Kevin Rose starring Tim Ferriss

Tony Robbins: “Progress is what makes us happy”

New Year, New Life-Don’t be trapped by the calendar. Create the life you want right now. Here’s where to start. (↑)
(~20 min)

Video is embedded in Tony's blog post and will open in a new window.

What do you think?

Feedback welcome.

What were the one or two highlights, quotes for you?
Do you want to share them? Yes, you want.
Come on.

Brevity is king!

Yours
John W. Furst

P.S.: Thanks a lot for your feedback.

P.P.S.: I know it's a lot at once. Why not bookmark this page and come back in your leisure time.

P.P.P.S.: Share with your friends if you liked it, please.

Is Email Marketing OUT in 2010?

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 07:13:00 -0700

Dr. Mani Sivasubramanian,
Heart surgeon and social entrepreneur predicts,

“Email is OUT 2010”

I joined the discussion on Dr. Mani Sivasubramanian’s blog quite late, but since I gave it some thought, I decided to share my response with you.

In mid November last year Internet infopreneur, author and social entrepreneur Dr. Mani published a list with his predictions about what’s IN and what’s OUT in 2010 (↑).

The first item on his list:

Email Is OUT, Social Media Is IN

I am buying the second part of his statement immediately, but “Email OUT?”

I had to think about it a couple of seconds longer than usual, since a couple of respectable experts like Chris Brogan (↑), Warren Whitlock (↑), and Willie Crawford (↑) already had left comments on Dr. Mani’s blog post.

Here is what I have replied with.

I don’t think email is OUT in 2010.

I rather would say, we have to use and nurture email marketing differently than in the past.

A strong email list is still an asset, like your website. I hope you have purchased your own domain.

Who owns — and most importantly who has jurisdiction so to speak over — your social media profile?

The inherent benefit of email is it’s independence from any given email marketing service provider on the sender side. Maybe the Google Wave protocol will push email type communication into this century and at a same time allow a merger with social media. I am looking forward to it. Maybe in 2011, 2012.

You would be crazy to stop building an email list. But on the same token you would be crazy not building your social media presence.

In case you are sitting on the fence and don’t know whether you should throw the topic email marketing into the IN or the OUT bucket, let us revisit why businesses and marketers are complaining.

You hear two main reasons:

Low open and response rates resulting in less sales.
Email deliverability problems.

Now ask yourself or your team a couple of questions and reevaluate the response rate issue. For sure you will find a couple of areas where you can improve.

Is my aging email list outgrowing my content, my offers?
Do my offers mature in-sync with my subscribers?
Am I (trying to) milk my members or am I graduating them?
Does my offer evolve over time and stay fresh and state-of-the-art that it appeals to new subscribers as well.
And now probably the most important question:

Am I sending brochures, pitches,… or am I building a relationship with that person who reads my email message?

(Hint: Even outside of internet marketing consumers already can smell automated follow-up messages.)

One kind of email marketing campaigns did especially well in 2009. They are called customer reactivation campaigns.

Maybe your email marketing activities need that sort of a botox treatment. (LoL)

Another observation in 2009 was that “mailing dead trees” in the form of letters and postcards can outperform internet classics like PPC, email, or banners even in these days and age. I just mention that to counter the many experts who have proclaimed direct mail will be dead in a couple of years. That was,… well, a couple of years ago. (Another LoL)

Lots of issues to think about, aren’t they.

Don’t dump your opt-in box yet.
I hope you have any.

Any comments?
What do you think?

Yours
John W. Furst

How This Awareness Test Can Help Your Marketing

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 20:04:00 -0700

Attention, Please!

Just discovered this little test on Youtube and it made me think. It made me think about marketing, advertising, and copywriting.

Probably you should take the test first. It's easy, the instructions are in the video, and I promise you will learn something.

Take The Test

click here to watch it(You might need to enable Javascript in your browser.)

Okay, you might say, “I knew this of course.”

Then I will ask you, “Well, but are you using that knowledge to your advantage in business or not?”

This example demonstrates actually a lot…

It seems everybody know that, but so many vendors are not doing it or are doing it wrong.

What is the main point in the video?

What is it that you as marketer must do? Any clue, any ideas?

Let me know in the comments. I will reveal the solution on Monday or Tuesday. And I'll have a little surprise for the one who comes up with the best answer first. I will rather go with the better answer than the earlier one. Just to let you know.

Did I say, I will have a little surprise for you.

Here is the deal: It will be something that helps your business or helps you with your job. I have a lot of things in mind I could give you, but since I don't know you, yet…

This might be probably the weirdest contest ever.
Anyway.

Let's do it.

You don't have anything to loose.

By the way top copywriters do that all the time.

They apply proven principles and move your prospects closer to the desired action. A good copywriter knows that there are hundreds of distraction she needs to compete with. And those distractions are different from medium to medium and market to market.

Being successful with an email marketing campaign does require a bit of different writing style as a classic direct mail piece.

Do you want to be the moon walking bear or the guy whom they give their credit card number?

As I promised, this will be a short note.
Think about it.

And let me know what you think.
Comment below and participate in this weird
contest.

No, I have not spelled out the answer here, but you might find it on my blog. But c'mon, it's really easy.

Update Jan 17, 2010

Comment #3 is close enough to the answer I was looking for.

Broomy writes:

“[…] The goal is to always direct and focus the prospects attention in order to get them to take the desired action. […] ”

Well done.

The narrator in the video simply commands the viewer to perform a task. And boom, gets 100% attention.

I will send Broomy an email to find out what I can do for him. Did I say this is kind of a weird contest.

Yours
John W. Furst

P.S.: And why don't you just learn more about email marketing or get started?

Change Everything and Take Off - Looking at Linchpin by Seth Godin

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:00:00 -0700

Enjoying Seth’s “Linchpin” summary.

Seth Godin does not exactly have the reputation of writing How To books for dummies. And his latest book Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? (↑) — to be released on January 26, 2010 (audio book on February, 9) will not be an exception.

Let me talk a little bit about this amazing book. I also had the honor that Seth answered me a couple of questions about the book. All here in this blog post. Stay tuned.

Update January 12, 2010:
Review of the whole book by Becky Blanton
…and even more reviews by my friends from <Triiibes.com>.

Godin continues his successful tradition of being a reporter on one hand, visionary and agent of change on the other hand. While Seth’s previous bestselling book Tribes was a book about leadership, this one is about personal change. The author writes,

“Linchpin is the book for the individual, it’s a very personal book […] It’s about a choice and it’s about your life. This choice doesn’t require you to quit your job, though it challenges you to rethink how you do your job.”

I agree.

Seth is the master of pointing his finger at broken systems. In Linchpin he finally pleas to you to step out of this broken box. Actually he goes so far to suggest that’s almost a survival strategy to do so.

“ It’s time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map. […] The population has been seduced, scammed and brainwashed. […]”

Why do you need to read this book?

You are probably guessing how the economy will perform this year, how secure your job really is, or if your potential customers will have any money left to pay for your services, aren’t you.

The rug is pulled away under your feet, it’s time to take matters and responsibility back in your hands.

Seth Godin motivates you to become a linchpin in your organization..

In the old days a linchpin was essential to fasten and secure a wheel to the axle. In our days and age you only will be indispensable, if you have become a linchpin.

Doing your job—even if you do a great job—isn’t good enough anymore. Forget job security or the concept of a loyal customer.

The Concept of Emotional Labor

One key concept for becoming a linchpin is creating exceptional, outstanding value for your boss, share holders, customers, whoever, … by exerting emotional labor. (↑) This creative process and its output will become your differentiator.

This is the most difficult part. That’s where the value is, the source which will make you indispensable.

As the sociologist Arlie Hochschild has described forty years ago, emotional labor is done with your feelings, not with your body. It’s the part which cannot be substituted with the output of machines or cheap labor from the other side of the planet.

As I understand the author creativity and human interactions are the main ingredients for value creation. This makes it almost a form of Art. While the author speaks to our inner artist, he points out Art is not limited to visual Art, performing Art or music.

Why should creating a new business model or an efficient algorithm for software not be considered an art form?

Imagine …

Now imagine you make that decision to change everything and start living your life on your terms, how would that feel? It’s risky—a bit—but the rewards will be worth it.

You will never forget that moment when you got going your way. Seth Godin writes,

“You are a genius and we need your contribution.”

About Seth Godin

Seth Godin, is the author of Tribes, Purple Cow, Permission Marketing, and many other international bestsellers that have changed the way business people think and act. He’s the most influential business blogger (↑) in the world, and consistently one of the twenty-five most widely read bloggers in any category. He’s also the founder and CEO of Squidoo (a successful internet company) and a very popular lecturer.

Conclusion

So far I only have read a 62 page summary written by Seth Godin, sent to me by Seth Godin early this week.

His writing style is very enjoyable and resembles the beauty of elegant mathematical equations: You don’t get tired of playing with them and, yet, always find new applications and solutions.

I am certainly very curious about the rest of the book.

Seth does not want to write books for everyone—and he admits it—but once he has the reader on his hook … Game over. You’re a fan.

Maybe some notes of warning!

Don’t expect it to be easy to change. It’s not.
It might help to give copies of the book to your spouse, friends, your boss so that they better understand what you are trying to become and understand it’s also for their benefit. I learned this from Alex Mandossian. He always suggests to get at least 3 copies of any book he recommends.
Let’s do it.
Buy three and give away two (↑).

Being generous is another important trait of linchpins.

Speaking of generosity, Seth was so nice to answer two questions about the book. So we shot some emails on a trans-atlantic mission. Here we go.

Question by John Furst: While you assert the genius is in everyone, … Are there professions, industries that are especially rewarding for linchpins and others one should probably consider exiting. Or in other words, jobs in which that genius has no other potential than being wasted.

Answer by Seth Godin: I think that industries that are based on commodities and on repeated life or death deliverables are probably not the best places for artists, for people making change or doing new work.

I’d stay away from Exxon or a pacemaker factory.

Q: Can you imagine a story that if you hear it you would say about, “If only that had happened because of my book, it would have been enough reason to do all this work and write this book.” What would that story be?

A: I’ve already discovered everything I was hoping for… people are telling me that the book has given them the last push they needed to do something important, something worthy of their effort. That’s the whole point!

Thanks, Seth.

Update January 12, 2010: Review of the whole book

Becky Blanton,
A writer and photographer with passion.

One disadvantage of living on a remote island: shipping. I still only have the PDF summary, but my friend Becky Blanton (↑) wrote a really good review of the entire book. Go, check it out:

Linchpin – embrace the lizard brain (↑)

Even more reviews on my Squidoo lens. (↑)

Yours
John W. Furst

P.S.: I know the book will not be released before the 26th. Why not pre-order it from Amazon (↑) and also subscribe to Seth Godin's blog (↑).

P.P.S.: Always have fun.

Email Marketing And Troubles With Timezones

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 02:45:00 -0700

I have the feeling that I will write another post very soon. Therefore, I keep this one extra short.

How many emails do you receive each day?

Let’s cut out spam and probably transactional emails like New Subscriber, New Comment, …

I’ll usually get up to 100 a day. However, there are still individual emails that I am looking forward to with great anticipation.

Last Sunday was such a day.

I got up knowing I should receive an important email. But nothing. Not at 9am, not at 10am, 11am, … It simply didn’t find its way into my inbox or the spam folder. It actually has not been sent before Monday as I learned later.

As insignificant as this episode might be, it taught me and other marketers with whom I have discussed this an important lesson.

I really felt disappointed; Actually already had made plans to deal with the subject matter. (I know. It was Sunday. So what.)

As I see now, strangely enough, it did not come to my mind to simply grab the phone, or write an email to the source saying,

“What’s up? Weren’t you supposed to send me something?”

Sure that would have been a smart thing to do. Probably I am not that smart. But I bet your customers or members of your email list aren’t that smart either. Let me rephrase that: Just do not assume that they are that smart or even care.

Here Comes The Lesson

That’s actually a dream come true for anybody who is going through the effort of building a permission based email list when your members can’t wait to get your next message.

“Where the heck is that email? Did my spam filter eat it?”

Don’t ever disappoint them.
Sometimes it is easy to forget the always-on, somebody is always awake nature of the Internet.

When you promise an email in the future, be aware:

The more this date is in the future, the earlier during the day—actually in the morning—the recipient will expect it. (If she is one of those who do remember.)
The more likely they assume the timezone they are living in, not yours.

I mean, when you are instructed, “Check your email inbox very carefully in three weeks on the 3rd …,” come on. You know it is scheduled; it could be sent automatically Saturday night. Nobody has to get up, go into an office that weekend night and press a button. We just assume the email will be there.

In this case it was kind of a timezone, and “Oh, surprise, ‘the third is a Sunday.’ Let’s send it on Monday” issue.

By the way: Many programmers confess that they don’t really dig timezone calculations. You’ll actually find timezone related bugs in a lot of software.

Chinese authorities have solved the issue with timezones rather authoritatively on a national scale by declaring the entire country as being part of one single timezone. The largest country with one time zone by the way. Russia has 11 timezones in comparison.

Some additional peculiarities about timezones

Because the earliest and the latest timezones are 26 hours apart each given day exists for 50 hours on the planet.

Weird, isn’t it?

January 3 began at midnight in Kiribati in the Pacific when it was January 2, 5am in New York and January 3 ended on Baker Island also in the Pacific at midnight 50 hours later when it was January 4, 7am already.

Still weird?

That also means when you are living, for example, in New York, you can find a place on Earth where it is already tomorrow; at the same time you can find another place where it is still yesterday. This is true 7 days a week, but only between 5am and 7am.

Understood? So lets bring in day light savings time and the southern hemisphere, too …

Yours
John

P.S.: The email marketing service provider of my choice, AWeber, allows you to schedule your campaigns according to local timezones of your members. This is certainly very useful in some cases. If I am not mistaken, you can try out AWeber for just 1 dollar. Check out the details of the deal.

Two Power Tips For Better Marketing In 2010

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:35:10 -0700

“Happy 2010”

I have recorded a short video with two tips for improving your marketing in 2010.

Actually I have already recorded it on December 28, but so far only had uploaded it to a private membership. But why not share it with everybody?

Here it is.

click here to watch it(You might need to enable Javascript in your browser.)

John W. Furst for E-Biz Booster Blog
Music: “a tu lado” (↑) by slumberlords (CC BY 3.0)

This year I will focus on improving how I use words and further build relationships.

Download the full transcript

Two Tips For Marketing In 2010 (↑)
[PDF file, 130 kibytes]

Words (like in copywriting)

Think about it.
I am an Internet marketer, “What makes my stuff sell?”

Words on a sales page
Words spoken in a video
words in a podcast
words, …

No matter what it is, it's words that make people buy my services or the services that I recommend.

Relationships

The right relationships will get you further in life. Relationships enable you to leverage your skills and abilities.

You have to nurture, build relationships to the right people to be happy and to be successful to be more successful.

Going alone only brings you to a certain point. If you want to go beyond that point you need other people to help you. … you need relationships.

Long lasting relationships are built, are based on mutual benefit. So words and relationships that are the two most important things I will focus on next year.

I hope you do the same.

No matter what position you are in in, it could be a relationship that brings you to the next, better job. It could be a relationship that brings you in touch with a business partner whom you ever wanted to do business with.

And it could be the words in your cover letter that get you the next job No matter who you are, what you are doing I think words and relationships are the two most important things.

How To Win Friends And Influence People

Dale Carnegie (↑) wrote a classic book about connecting with people. You might have heard about it.

I have read this book ages ago. It was one of the first ones in the “self help” corner which I have read, now I will read it again.

I highly recommend it.

In case How To Win Friends and Influence People is missing on your bookshelf I suggest you get it.

Get the hardcover edition from Amazon.com

This grandfather of all people-skills books was first published in 1937. It was an overnight hit, eventually selling 15 million copies. How to Win Friends and Influence People is just as useful today as it was when it was first published, because Dale Carnegie had an understanding of human nature that will never be outdated.

Financial success, Carnegie believed, is due 15 percent to professional knowledge and 85 percent to “the ability to express ideas, to assume leadership, and to arouse enthusiasm among people.” He teaches these skills through underlying principles of dealing with people so that they feel important and appreciated. He also emphasizes fundamental techniques for handling people without making them feel manipulated.

Carnegie says you can make someone want to do what you want them to by seeing the situation from the other person's point of view and “arousing in the other person an eager want.” You learn how to make people like you, win people over to your way of thinking, and change people without causing offense or arousing resentment. For instance, “let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers,” and “talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.” Carnegie illustrates his points with anecdotes of historical figures, leaders of the business world, and everyday folks.
--Joan Price

Either way, one more time:
Happy New Year 2010

Yours
John W. Furst

P.S.: What are your tips for this year.

What Size UPS Do I Need For My Computer?

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 03:14:52 -0700

It's Dark All Of A Sudden. Did this ever happen to you?

Screen Dark, Data Lost?
Not For Me – Thanks to UPS

Did it ever happen to you? You are working on a complicated spreadsheet on your computer and all of a sudden… power is out. The screen gets dark, silence follows, and you might hear your neighbor through the wall shout out loud, “Oh, shit!”

I got used to those power outages lasting from 30 seconds to 1 hour. Like during the recent heavy rainfalls in early December. In 95% of all cases power comes back in less than 5 minutes.

Other people suffer data loss.
Some people even had their hard drives crash or other hardware damaged (Ouch!)

I am not one of them.

After moving to the Canaries I quickly realized that electric power is not as stable as in the big cities where I lived earlier.

Therefore, I got myself a UPS (uninterrupted power supply), a kind of a battery that keeps supplying your PC and monitor with juice even when power fails. Usually you can run up to 15 minutes on battery power with your normal PC or Mac setup.

The reason for writing this article is I want to share with you what I have learned about UPS during the last three years. I just replaced my UPS with a new one because the battery died.

Update: Just added a “How To Video” going through the process.

It's inside the blog post.

You should have one for each PC unless it is a battery powered notebook.
Only connect your computer equipment (PC, external drives, etc., LCD monitor, modem, …, printer if it is not a laser printer (those can draw way too much current.)
A more expensive UPS can signal your computer to shut down when the outage exceeds, for example 5 minutes.
A good UPS protects also against voltage spikes and surges, stabilizes the voltage and filters the current.
The batteries of a UPS are old fashioned—like car batteries—and should not be handled like modern rechargeable batteries for cell phones or notebooks. They wear out far more quickly.
Tip: Don't test excessively and too frequently how long your equipment stays on!

When you test do not just unplug the UPS from the socket, because you disconnect it from the ground that way which can be dangerous! Use the test button on the ground fault interrupter of your main circuit instead.
I made it a habit to start saving all open documents and shut down the computer if the power outage has reached 7 minutes. Just to be on the safe side. Consider the power situation in your location when making your plan. I know here, if it is not back within 5 minutes it will take much longer (happens a couple of times a year.)

Now, I hear you asking,

“What ‘size’ UPS should I get?”

Here is my rule of thumb:

(1) I list the power input ratings of all equipment I want to protect.

I do this separately for either Watts or Volt Ampere. Volt Ampere rating preferred if available.

If Volts and Ampere are stated individually, multiply them.

If the input voltage is variable use the smaller number. (low voltage means high current; high voltage means low current; the maximum current is stated, use the low voltage for your calculations.)

Always look at the input ratings of the equipment.

My “How To Video”: How To figure out the right rating for a UPS power supply?

click here to watch it(You might need to enable Javascript in your browser.)

John W. Furst for E-biz Booster Blog

The example from the video:

Computer:	700 VA
Monitor:	100-240 Volt, 0.5 A gives 100 x 0.5 = 50 VA
Modem:		25 W
Ink Jet Printer:	Power supply 100-240 V, 1500 mA (1000 mA = 1 A) gives 100 x 1.5 = 150 VA

Subtotal:	900 VA	25 W 25 W ~= 25/0.6 VA
Total:	900 + 42 = 942 VA

The subtotals are 900 VA plus 25 W.

(2) Divide subtotal for Watts by 0.6 and add it to the subtotal of the Volt Ampere.

Total is 900 VA + 25/0.6 VA = 942 VA

Hurray, let's go shopping for a 1,000 VA
(or above) rated UPS

Why not go to Amazon for a first overview?
There are some great product reviews from customers.

UPS Uninterrupted Power Supplies | Electronic (Amazon) (↑)

I deliberately did not repeat the more technical descriptions you find on sites like Wikipedia. You are smart enough to look it up there yourself. Some links below.

For geeks: The best approach is to measure the real and apparent power of all equipment involved. I used to do that originally but just realized that my power-meter is dead now, after not having been used for a couple of years. I know from experience that my rule of thumb puts me on the safe side.

The difference between VA and W ratings comes from capacitors, inductors, and rectifiers in electric circuits like power supplies. In layman terms: The average PC is hungry for extra current, therefore, the factor 0.6.

Power ratings on equipment are usually stated a maximum level. The actual consumption is usually less.

This approach should give you a protection of 15 minutes in the average scenario. You can dive into more technical documentation or simply read some of the customer product reviews on Amazon (link above.)

Further readings:

Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) FAQ (↑)
Wikipedia: Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) (↑)
Wikipedia: Power Factor (↑)

I bought my UPS in a local computer store last week by the way. And I already needed it once. That means it already paid off for me.

Do you have a UPS already?

If not, start shopping around!

While I did not really plan for it in 2009, I have increased data security in my business significantly last year.

Not only that I am handling my entire email storage at Gmail in the cloud for a couple of month now.

I finally keep records and procedures for handling of my various online accounts up-to-date.

Happy 2010.
Be safe and prosper.

Yours
John W. Furst

P.S.: No, I am not an electrical engineer. My father is. Myself? I was quite good in physics. However, no guarantees here.

Setup Tweetmeme Button On a Wordpress Blog

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:04:00 -0700

Recently I have described how I fixed a wrong setup of the tweetmeme button on my blog. I manually modified the blog template and I only mentioned briefly there is a Wordpress plugin for Tweetmeme.

Acknowledging Wordpress as the most popular blogging platform I need to follow up with a more detailed description of the Tweetmeme WP Plugin.

The installation and configuration is straightforward and shouldn't be a problem for anyone who has installed Wordpress on her hosting account successfully.

I provide some screenshots for your orientation.

Update Dec. 21, 2009: I made a screencam video of the procedure as well.

How To Setup A Tweetmeme Button On A Wordpress [HQ video] (↑)

Installation of the Wordpress Tweetmeme Plugin

You can download the plugin from Tweetmeme (↑) or directly install it with the Wordpress Admin Interface.

Add Plugin, Search for “tweetmeme”

Select the plugin from the list.

Review the description and install it.

After installing you need to activate and configure the plugin.

Activate the plugin

A new item — “Tweetememe” — appears in the left navigation bar at the bottom. Now it's time to configure it. (It's very easy.)

Settings for Tweetmeme

I used the default setting and only changed those below:

Source: johnfurst
URL shortener: bit.ly

Using almost all default settings

Tweetmeme Button Successfully Installed

How long did this take?
4 minutes or less?
We are almost done.

Let's move the button to the left side…

I just want the button move the botton from the other side. All I need to do is to modify the Style.

Style for right side (default): float: right; margin:left: 10px;
Style for left side: float: left; margin-right: 10px;

The result looks fine.

Voilà, my twitter user and a shorter text. Perfect.

The plugin uses — behind the scenes — the HTML meta element and inserts a “tweetmeme-title” into the head section of the page with the title of the post. It drops the title of the blog to keep the retweet text string short.

There are additionally configuration options. Just play with them a little.

Yours
John W. Furst

Improve Your Tweetmeme Setup For Better Results

nospam@example.com (John W. Furst) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:57:00 -0700

A couple of days ago I have removed my do-it-yourself Tweet-it button and put the button from Tweetmeme (↑) on this blog.

Dreaming of 44 retweets.

It's more encouraging for website visitors to retweet a story that already has been retweeted a lot. People follow the crowd.

Besides that the button looks pretty, too.

Update Dec. 12, 2009: I have added a blog post about the Tweetmeme Wordpress Plugin.

However, as simple as it is to put a button on a blog or website I still got it wrong.

Browsing the Web I can see that I am not alone.

Therefor I decided to write a short article about how to get Tweetmeme up right.

The problem on my site was as follows:

Blog visitor clicks the tweetmeme button
A new window opens
(If they have not done this previously, they need to authorize tweetmeme for their twitter account. Eventually they also need to login to Twitter.)
The following text is suggested for being retweeted:

Tweetmeme, with the wrong setup

Do you spot what's wrong?

At first, it should be my twitter username that's retweeted, shouldn't it be.

Secondly, the text is not really informative or encouraging a retweet, isn't it.

Thanks to Andy Beard (↑) for shooting a quick email to me and pointing this out. Andy is someone whose suggestions got picked up by the tweetmeme developer team (↑) after his blog post in May, 2009. Now Andy uses Tweetmeme on his blog.

Setting Up The Tweetmeme Button Correctly

Obviously I have screwed up this rather simple task. Shame on me.

As I really want to keep this post short I stick with the exact implementation on my blog. There are more than one ways of implementing the Tweetmeme functionality on a website. You can figure out the rest by consulting the Tweetmeme Help pages on their website.

I am using the Retweet Button (↑) based on JavaScript.

It only requires a simple cut and paste of code into your website template or static (X)HTML file (and obviously some thought.)

Users of Wordpress blog software have the convenience of managing this with a Wordpress plugin instead.

Here is the HTML code needed for Tweetmeme

I am using 3 JavaScript variables to configure Tweetmeme (and another trick which I will mention further down the line.)

tweetmeme_url = 'http://yoururl.com/your-page.html';

The button grabs the URL of the page. That means if you have more than one button on a single page—like on a blog index page—you need to specify the URL of the post. That's what this variable is here for.

The URL must not be a redirected URL, like from tinyurl.com but a regular webaddress returning a 200 OK HTTP status response code.

tweetmeme_source = 'yourtwitteruser';

The default user—and many webmasters leave it that way—is 'tweetmeme'. Change it to your user.

tweetmeme_service = 'bit.ly';

This is a list of the URL Shorteners that we are currently supporting:
bit.ly, awe.sm, cli.gs, digg.com, is.gd, TinyURL.com, tr.im, su.pr, ow.ly, twurl.nl

My choice is “bit.ly”.

There is an additional variable for a compact button, but I never have noticed anyone using it.

Now the button is configured correctly and suggests the following text for the retweet.

Tweetmeme, correct setup.

Done, almost.

Tweetmeme Title - Two More Issues

After fixing the configuration I noticed that the "headline" in the retweet-it-window did not change. I still got the title of my blog suggested rather than the title of my blog post.

That's because the "wrong title" was already indexed at Tweetmeme. An entry for this index is created at the first time a new URL shows up. Either on Twitter or vie a Tweetmeme button.

A quick test confirmed that theory, and later I found the corresponding section in the FAQ and the remedy of the problem.

Fix Broken Titles In The Tweetmeme Index

Other users have had that same problem before as I could see at the Tweetmeme Button FAQ (↑).

Why is TweetMeme not picking up the correct page title?

TweetMeme caches page information (including the title) to reduce load on the site that is using the button. If you have updated your page titles, you can force TweetMeme to update by using our ping service (↑).

This worked like a charm and I had updated the wrong post titles in the index within a couple of minutes.

Now that issue is fixed.

Tweetmeme Ping Service

I got the wrong post title in the tweetmeme index from my blog post drafts. My blog returns a “soft” error page on posts that are not published yet. The title of those is “E-Biz Booster Blog”. Now I have disabled the display of the tweetmeme button on drafts. That's what tweetmeme picks up.

Tip: Check the tweetmeme text after publishing a new page. If necessary, correct it, and do a ping.

Check your workflow. The button only should be displayed on finally published pages.

After changing the title of a page you need to ping tweetmeme.

But I am still not entirely satisfied.

The Retweets Could Be Simply Too Long

Tweetmeme will use all 140 characters Twitter allows if necessary.

Tweetmeme and long post titles

Personally I try to keep all my tweets at 120 characters maximum length. This makes it easier for my followers on Twitter to retweet it.

While a person can click through to the site and use the Tweetmeme (or any other) retweet button there, some prefer to acknowledge twitter users in the retweet chain—especially if some authority twitter user is involved. E.g.,

RT @big_shot_authority RT @unknown_dude: “Great Story Of A Nobody!” http://bit.ly/…

I don't think too much about it. I simply leave some extra space.

Changing The Headline For Tweetmeme

To avoid abuse tweetmeme is restrictive in what you can do. You can cut down your title. Nothing else. You cannot even exchange a single character or change the order of words.

You can use an HTML meta element to specify an alternative title. What I currently do is to drop the blog title.

For example:

Google Wave - Forget Plain Text Emails | E-Biz Booster Blog

becomes

Google Wave - Forget Plain Text Emails

You achieve this by adding a XHTML meta element into the head section of your website page.

<meta name="tweetmeme-title" content="Google Wave - Forget Plain Text Emails" />


<meta name="tweetmeme-title" content="<?php wp_title(''); ?>" />


<meta name="tweetmeme-title" content="{$head_title}" />

Details are described in Customising Button Title (↑).

Don't forget the new title must be an exact subset of the title in the HTML title element of the webpage.

An Even More Retweet Friendly Tweetmeme Tweak

Later today I will add a function in my blog template which cuts the that guarantees that truncates the title so that the entire tweet string won't exceed the 120 character limit I care about.

It's a bit unlikely that I will ever hit that limit, but who knows. Let's figure out how long the blog title can be.

“RT @johnfurst ”
(14 characters, including trailing space)

“ http://bit.ly/5L9KKX ”
(22 characters with the spaces)

120 - 14 - 22 = 84

I need to truncate the page title down to 84 characters. Here is what I do in Serendipity. Wordpress users are most likely using the plugin. No need to give them code.

<meta name="tweetmeme-title" content="{$head_title|truncate:84:""}" />

A tip for Serendipity users: The Smarty truncate function puts '...' (three periods) at the end of the truncated string (included in it's specified length). This would violate Tweetmeme's restrictions of not modifying the string. The second parameter "" (empty string) overwrites that behavior and leaves the string unmodified. The function cuts off at a word boundary.

Voilà, that's it.

Tweetmeme also offers a premium analytics package for Twitter (↑) but I do not currently intend to use it.

Yours
John W. Furst

E-Biz Booster Blog

One More Reason Your Prospects Don't Buy

Derek Sivers: Weird, or just different?

What Drives Us? Bob Poole Asked Daniel Pink

Email Marketing or Social Media in 2010?

Here is the re-print of my reply:

What’s the deal with email marketing in 2010?

Procrastination is a Marketers Worst Enemy [Video]

FREE Adwords Tele-Seminar With Perry Marshall Today

Perry is the #1 Google AdWords expert in the World.

Free Teleseminar: Bionic Google Ads, Facebook PPC & the Content Network Gold Rush (↑)

Free Teleseminar: Bionic Google Ads, Facebook PPC & the Content Network Gold Rush (↑)

101 Reasons for Personal Change (More or Less)

Are You Indispensable?

101 Reasons For Personal Change

Change, Progress, Excel, Lead (2 inspirational videos)

Is Email Marketing OUT in 2010?

Email Is OUT, Social Media Is IN

How This Awareness Test Can Help Your Marketing

Take The Test

What is the main point in the video?

Change Everything and Take Off - Looking at Linchpin by Seth Godin

Why do you need to read this book?

The Concept of Emotional Labor

Imagine …

About Seth Godin

Conclusion

Email Marketing And Troubles With Timezones

Here Comes The Lesson

Two Power Tips For Better Marketing In 2010

“Happy 2010”

Download the full transcript

Words (like in copywriting)

Relationships

How To Win Friends And Influence People

What Size UPS Do I Need For My Computer?

Screen Dark, Data Lost? Not For Me – Thanks to UPS

Update: Just added a “How To Video” going through the process.

“What ‘size’ UPS should I get?”

My “How To Video”: How To figure out the right rating for a UPS power supply?

Hurray, let's go shopping for a 1,000 VA (or above) rated UPS

Setup Tweetmeme Button On a Wordpress Blog

How To Setup A Tweetmeme Button On A Wordpress [HQ video] (↑)

Installation of the Wordpress Tweetmeme Plugin

Tweetmeme Button Successfully Installed

Improve Your Tweetmeme Setup For Better Results

Do you spot what's wrong?

Setting Up The Tweetmeme Button Correctly

Here is the HTML code needed for Tweetmeme

Tweetmeme Title - Two More Issues

Fix Broken Titles In The Tweetmeme Index

The Retweets Could Be Simply Too Long

Changing The Headline For Tweetmeme

An Even More Retweet Friendly Tweetmeme Tweak

Screen Dark, Data Lost?
Not For Me – Thanks to UPS

Hurray, let's go shopping for a 1,000 VA
(or above) rated UPS