StumbleUpon | worstellr's blog posts

http://worstellr.stumbleupon.com/review/25805910/

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 18:14:53 -0700

Oh, this wonderful world we live in. Spent the morning 1)moving 25 sacks of seed, 2) fixing a hole in a dirt berm where erosion had dug a deep opening, 3) finished disking a small field so I can plant wheat before it rains again.

This afternoon, spend all of it catching up on twitter feeds and my RSS reader, plus caught the tail end of 16 steps (only to find that Sam is probably not going to ever host another one, unless Jack changes his mind...). And in that webinar I talked to people in Germany, Texas, Australia and all over the globe from my farm here in rural Missouri - all due to the Internet.

Last night got onto a line of thought to figure out what marketing "Your Purpose-Driven Life" had going for it. (Turns out he wrote a great book which is designed to change people's lives - simple, eh?) Was able to get a copy through Scribd.com and do all these studies from my computer. Couldn't do that 10 years ago...

http://worstellr.stumbleupon.com/review/19875081/

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 18:11:38 -0700

Getting into a real marketing community - eBay.
This ebay stuff is fascinating. I posted a blog (somewhere, sometime) that "social marketing" was almost an oxymoron - you don't market (i.e. by definition, "creating a market") in or to or through social media. You are promoting and, at best, getting unqualified leads. You can't even effectively pre-sell, like articles do. Social media, by use, gets you tons of traffic and perhaps some comments. That's all nice, but unless they convert, they are more window-shopping than actually crossing that threshold.

eBay was built from the point of nearly a pure market - supplying at demand, not at pre-set prices. I mentioned in that blog that if you wanted to really market, you should get into a community that is full of buyers - like eBay.

So I had to follow my own wide open mouth and see why this light turned on in my head.� Some work on the Internet got me a company who sold me a training/hosting package. Now that price is really rediculously high - you get twelve coaching lessons at what works out to be about $500 each. Now, I know people pay a lot more for coaching and seminars (check out some of the Jay Abraham pricings). But what I've seen in the few days I've been with them, is a huge set of connections and data whch is behind their passworded resource center.

And their hosting includes "Deep Analysis", which on its own costs more per month than their lowest entry fee. So their hosting is a bonus - and if you've priced any sort of ecommerce hosting, you know it's pay through the nose or roll it yourself and hope you don't pound your bandwidth into the ground.

Now, the coaching itself finds common ground with Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich. One datum I've already taken away from this is the point of moving from employee to entrepreneur. Now this is right down the line of Hill's first datum, having a BURNING DESIRE (his caps). Then you build a plan and persist in that.

The interestinging thing with coaching in general (which is becoming a great resource for me) is that you then have some structure in learning a new area. I'm a great one for charging through the first hole in the maze I come to, but this hasn't really resulted in the burgeoning Internet sales I've been lead to believe are out there. You see, I've amassed tons of sheet music and recordings, but having someone tell you how to play those tunes and get expert results - now that is worth most any investment.

On top of that, they give you a money-back guarantee - essentially that they keep coaching you until you've made back the money through eBay that you paid them. And they expect you to do that in three or four months. They helped me get a low rate on my credit card and are paying the bank fee on top of that - basically paying my first month's credit card bill.

Now, that isn't the only expense I'll have, since to get into some of these best drop-shippers (where the least time is spent - more valuable than income, since you can make more sales if you aren't wrapping stuff and slogging to the Post Office with it) you have so pay some up-front fees. However, these are less than some of the profit margins you are going to have right off the bat.

That month-long learning curve is very real. There is tons to learn in this area. The great part is that it already tests all that I've been able to learn from Michael Campbell and others on SEO and online marketing in general. Factually, it's a 9th section to An Online Millionaire Plan, which didn't show up right off the bat. So I've lined up some editing to do after I finish off all this training.

I hope all your lives are as exciting. (Meanwhile, spring is in the air and I have spring planting to get underway, as well as some hay crops by the end of May... better get back to my studies.)

http://worstellr.stumbleupon.com/review/19130811/

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 20:57:09 -0700

Just about ready to start a new idea in social media.

Built on the idea that people love a good story - imagine that we create a story with 2 invented protagonists who each have an agenda. One is actively trying to sell his book. The other is actively working to de-list him from the various social media he is active on. Neither can actually achieve their goal - but they can try.

But the first one is wiley - he is creating a game as he goes, so people can guess what he is up to , assemble all the correct answers to his puzzles and then win a prize.

Plot, conflict, contests - looks like we might have some entertainment happening...

Let's call it Stumble-tagg. (Althought some other social media might be involved, Stumble-upon has probably the best interface for this type of thing.) A reader will have to follow this guy's stumbles to guess the clues he leaves in his reviews and the stumbles themselves. And the sequence will be part of it, as SU tends to keep only the most recent stumbles and blog-posts on top - that's another challenge.

Of course, these two protagonists are fictional. And the whole thing is a game to play.

Anyone have ideas? Comments? Send me a stumble...

http://worstellr.stumbleupon.com/review/19029430/

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 20:15:45 -0700

What I'm working on now: conversion and monetization.

I have one main and two minor product-lines, all of which are not all that well organized as to sales funnels or much else. But I do get a few subscribers every week.

My one main site I link to with every opportunity. For specific products, I link to the other two, but these give their pagerank and link reputation back to the main site.

Ideally, that main site index should be the best content page I have and also contain simply opt-ins for all my newsletters. Campbell recently noted that his squeeze pages didn't convert anywhere near his content-heavy main page. Worth a tryout.

(Which would you rather visit, a squeeze page, or a content-heavy page with an opt-in form on it? Solves that question.)

My other problem is getting very interested in sorting out my funnel, et al. Not that right-brained. Like my taxes that I've put off, but now am up against a looming deadline.

That's all the theory for tonight. Decided I'd try blogging here and see what happened - Blogger takes a long time to bring up, and I haven't set up an alternative yet...

http://worstellr.stumbleupon.com/review/18463583/

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:48:28 -0800

Just getting used to this Stumbleupon scene. I've not made the time to really get into it, much as the top stumblers have. It has opened my eyes to this social media scene.

My problem is that I need to market my stuff and don't wish to burden readers with a monomaniacal flow of self-created pages - though I am pretty prolific and find fast ways to get a lot of stuff out fast (mainly through re-purposing/re-mashing existing work, or re-publishing my own stuff through different venues.

I see that really, I need to leave a stumbleupon trail of everywhere I've been - particularly the places I frequent often. So this means a change of habits. Also, I have to be more social, meaning I going more groups and make more friends wherever I go.

Boils down to using stumbleupon A LOT - every site I go to. Nothing like being a greenhorn newbie all over again. I should be used to it by now.

Have fun checking out all the stuff I'm interested in. Feel free to drop me a line if you have the time.

http://worstellr.stumbleupon.com/review/18258960/

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 18:42:48 -0800

Hello and welcome to StumbleUpon - to all of us.

How I'm going to keep up this blog is anyone's guess - since I have about a dozen rolling along (maybe 5 really active). But to the rest of you, I encourage you to take up blogging. It's a great way to get things out of your system.

I'm so very glad to see how StumbleUpon has built and grown. We can now all have our own niches and Long Tails. Which is great for all of us.

If you like what I stumble, great for you. If you'd like to check out the books I've published - that would be great for all of us.

Thanks for all your contributions. I hope to meet you soon as our stumbles will cross...