Crank Up My Business

We've been visiting with Nita & CJ O'Keefe for a couple weeks now in Texas while our camper is having some work done on it in Florida.  They're supposed to finish the work today but I'll call them to make sure it's done.  If it is done, then it's "Adiós Texas" for a while while we head for Lakeland FL to pick up the little camper and travel a little more.

This part of Texas is just across the water from Galveston island.  It's pretty here and warm enough that you can walk around most of the winter with just a long-sleeve shirt covering your body.  Of course some of the locals wear winter parkas but that's another story.

We always have such a great time with Nita and CJ but we also get a lot of work done. This trip we put our heads together and asked "What do our customers want next?" and I think we've come up with something just perfect.  We still have some ducks to put in order before we can do a "thumbs up" on the project so the announcements will have to wait another week or two while we finalize things, but it's always exciting to hang out with like-minded friends.

Speaking of new stuff...  there a couple new things in today's Bobbin-Buzz so I'll get right to it.  "Y'all have fun now and Adiós!"  -- Larry

One of the most popular features on ATW for years now has been our weekly newsletter "Bobbin-Buzz!" In fact, you're reading it right now! We're planning on expanding BBuzz in the next couple weeks to make it even better. As you can see by my photo below, I'm working hard on these changes right now. So watch for the upcoming changes. You will definitely notice them! -- Larry
Help!   I Think I Goofed Up Big Time! (From our "Computer Help" Forum) message Posted By Terrilmk OK sorry if this gets long. Over the weekend I back up all my designs,pictures, and artwork to CD. Today I copied everything again to my new ext HD. So far so good. Now to keep it up. Sooooo I get this idea. Dangerous I know. I deleted all the design files off of my laptop thinking everything is now backed up in 2 places. Sooooo If I download and unzip to the coreect file on my laptop, all I have to do is copy the file to the same place on Ext drive. By the end of the month all of my new designs and artwork is already backed up on the ext drive. I will then only have to backup the new files from the laptop onto cd's. My chance of losing everything is now nearly nil. Then I decided to defrag the laptop after deleteing all the design files. And that's when I noticed the problem. When the defrag screen popped up the first thing I saw was my C:drive is NTFS and the New book drive is Fat32. I almost had a stroke. I thought(I know thinking again in dangerous waters) the only real difference was amount of drive space used. This is a 320 gig drive. My little laptop drive was getting full which is why I went ahead and deleted everything after it was backed up twice. I opened Embird and imported a design from the F(external) drive. It opened ok. Soooo is it ok to leave things as they are with the notebook NTFS and ext drive Fat32, or do I need to reload everything back onto the laptop and format the ext drive to NTFS? Terri message Posted By larrypike Hi Terri - You're fine! But I bet there are people reading this and wondering what NTFS and FAT32 are all about. LOL! So I'll start with a little background info - here goes... ------------------------------------ NTFS stands for "New Technology File System" while FAT32 stands for "File Allocation Table / 32 bits". Both are systems used in laying out a grid or address map on a hard drive. FAT32 is an older system that gave each location a 32-bit address. NTFS is a newer system that gives each location a 64-bit address. The most practical difference in these two systems is that NTFS can have files as large as 16-gb all in one file but FAT32 can only have a miximum of a 4-gb file size. There are a a half-dozen more technical differences and you can read more about this here... http://searchwinit.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid1_gci212675,00.html ------------------------------------ The question is "Would it make a difference when doing a backup if one drive was running FAT32 and the other was running NTFS?" The answer is generally "No". The only exception would be if you were doing a special type of backup known as "Mirroring" or "Raid-5". In making a mirror backup the system copies the bit setting at each location ("0" or "1") and places that same setting on the same location on the other disk drive. In that case, all the locations must be mapped out the same way. But in other types of backups, the system is not doing this, rather it is copying a file from one drive and finding a place for it on the other drive. Now I can make this really easy to understand by using an analogy... Suppose you were moving from your present house to a new house and it's time to move everything from the kitchen. Normally, you would empty out the cupboards and haul the stuff to the new kitchen and find a place to put the stuff. It doesn't matter that in the old house the 2nd cabinet on the left had your spices but in the new house it was in the 1st cabinet on the right. You would adjust. However, if you were into this new craze called "blindfold cooking" you would still want the spices in the 2nd cabinet on the left. The only way that would be a problem is if your new kitchen doesn't have the exact same cabinet design. Then there would be things in the old cabinets that didn't have a corresponding new location to put them in. Since you're not trying to make an exact duplicate but rather just find a place to put all those files then it won't matter that the drives are different sizes or even different formats. It will still work just fine. One word of caution on your procedure. I cringed when you said something like "... so I deleted everything from my laptop". EEEEEEYYYYOOOOWWWWW! Before you ever delete a data file, you want to do a spot-check of files on the new drive to be sure they did get copied safely. I would also right-click on the folder and see how much drive space was in use for that folder, then right-click on the new drive folder and make sure the same number of gb were also being used there. Just as a double-check. Finally, with critical data (and what data isn't critical?) I back it up to two different places before deleting it from one place. If I didn't do that then after I delete it from my hard drivek, my backup becomes my sole copy of that data. I have no backup. Murphy's law says things happen if you don't have a backup. Bad things. So before you delete files from your laptop, make sure you have them backed up in two places. -- Larry Got Computer Questions? Click into our "Discussion Forum" link on the top panel. Once inside you'll see the menu (shown below) that takes you from forum to forum. The newest forum is on the top right side and it's called "Computer Help". Give it a try if you need help!
VIDEO: Computer Skills 4 Embroidery Many people have started into the machine embroidery hobby with "zero" or "very little" previous computer experience. While there are other tutorials on the market to teach computer skills, they are not geared toward the embroiderer. This video is! I started out to do this video over a year ago and kept running into one big problem... as soon as you make a video about computers, you realize that you forgot something! The solution finally dawned on me -- you make an ongoing series of videos. Cover as much as you can in each video and then pick up where you left off in the next one. Another challenge is that everyone is at a different point. Making a video that just covers "basics" won't be of a lot of use to the more advanced users. Making one for advanced users won't be of much use to the beginners. So each of our videos will cover something for everyone to use NOW and in the future. Something For Everyone If you're a biginner - we cover BASICS. If you need help with embroidery software - we have EMBSFT. If you have "problems" right now - we have the HELLLLLP section. If you want to know more about using the web - we have the SERVICES articles. If you need to buy on the cheap - we have the BUDGET sections. And if you're starting an online business - we have the PRO articles. The CS4E series has been created like a video-magazine. You can browse through sections at your leisure or as you need-to-know. Here's what's in this first issue... CS4E Volume-1 Topics... BASICS-1: Folders and Files on your computer BASICS-2: Clean Up That Messy Start Menu BASICS-3: Unlimited Storage Space for 15-cents per gb EMBSFT-1: Converting Formats Using BuzzXplore EMBSFT-2: Moving Designs from hard drive to CD/Mem-stick/etc. HELLLLLP: Let Google Troubleshoot Your Computer! SERVICES: Yahoo Email Just Got Better! BUDGET$$: screen-Capture For Under $10 EASY-PRO: Photo Slideshows You Can Make MORE-PRO: Sell Online Using Paypal Total time about 2 hours on one CD. They will be ready to ship next week on Thursday April 18th 2007. Order now at the PRE-RELEASE price of just $12.95 for non-members or $10.95 for members + shipping/handling fees. After the videos are in-house and ready to ship, they will go up to our INTRODUCTORY price of $14.95/$12.95 (non-member/member). When Volume-2 is released for sale, this issue will go to full price. Place Order For CS4E Video Here!
Indiana Embroidery Conference Hi Everybody! Nita and I will be attending the Indiana Embroidery Conference this year 2007. We will be setting up a table and be available to answer questions about embroidery, digitizing or anything we can help you with. We'll have news about Nita's new venture (which, by the way, you will LOVE!) and maybe some new design sets. July 30 - Aug 2, 2007 will be the 10th Anniversary of the Indiana Embroidery Conference. It is held in Columbus, Indiana. If you are interested in more information check out the yahoo group or their website. I hope to see alot of you there! We'll have lots of fun and learn a little too. 8-) --Holly Here's the Yahoo group... http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianaEmbroideryConference/ and the website... http://hometown.aol.com:80/bobrien90/indianaembroideryconference.html (Now I see why Nita emailed the web address to me! LOL!)
New Designs Released This Week At ArtisticThreadWorks... See ALL this week's new sets here! And this months Member Bonus Set... "Dream Catchers" Here's a picture of ONE of this weeks new sets... See ALL the new sets here!
Chat Room Secret Revealed One feature we've had for over a year is called the "Chat Room". It has been used for general talk about embroidery, teaching quilting, and general conversation. It recently dawned on me that it wasn't easy enough to FIND the Chat Room on our site! To make it easier to find the Chat Room, I placed a link to it inside every forum. When you are inside a forum here, you'll see a menu at the top (picture below) that takes you from one forum to another. The menu also has the "Chat Room" link on it. So now anytime you want to check out the Chat Room, just click into the forums and then click on "Chat Room". The chat room page shows who is currently in the forum. If there's nobody chatting, you'll see a "0" where the list of users would normall be showing... Here's the big secret: If you want to get a conversation started, be the first to login, then wait anywhere from 1 to 10 minutes. Someone will generally happen by and see you're name on the entry page and know that somebody is waiting to say "Hi" to them! See you in the Chat Room!
Weekly Prize Drawing Winner We are doing a weekly drawing for readers of Bobbin-Buzz. The prize is a 3 month membership to ArtisticThreaWorks. That's something anyone on our list can use! To be in the prize drawings - just be on our Bobbin-Buzz mailing list... If you're not on the list yet, you can sign up here! This week's winner drawn at random is... testerlady53@yahoo.com The winner has 5 days to contact me via email and claim the prize. Send the email to Webmaster@ArtisticThreadWorks.com. Congratulations and good luck to everyone else in next weeks drawing!
Without A Prescription A lady walks into the drugstore and asks the pharmacist for some arsenic. "Ma'am, what do you want with arsenic?" "To kill my husband." "I can't sell you arsenic to kill a person!" The lady lays down a photo of a man and a woman in a compromising position. The man is her husband and the woman is the pharmacist's wife. He takes the photo, and nods. "I didn't realize you had a prescription!" Members can download ALL the designs in our Design Library. Are you a member? If so - you're in the drawing for the "Wall-of-Thread" prize shown here... Prize = 452 Mini-King spools of thread + 3 Wall-Mount racks / Embroidery machine not included! Get Drawing Details Here Join ATW Here!
Bobbin-Buzz Designs Help yourself to this weeks free design set "Birds Houses". These are for everyone that is a subscriber to Bobbin-Buzz, our free weekly newsletter! Download Birds Houses Here! Have fun!
Pink Ribbon Cuties! Members - help yourself to this Surprise Set of designs in the Design Library. Just look under "This Week"

The 2% Rule

2% Of The Population Are Not Happy About ANYTHING!

If you ask 1,000 people to pick their favorite day of the week, 980 of them would chooose one of the 7 days on the list. But 20 of them would pick "none of the above". Interesting to note, about 2% of your customers will have a similar approach to anything you do.  On any given day, some of your customers will be unhappy with anything you do.

I can relate a few stories about this phenomenon, but for now, let's just assume that this is true. (I'll prove it in a minute for those of you skeptics) But for the moment, assume it's true.

How does this affect you as a web business owner? 

I open my emails every day and find someone that is unhappy about something.  The more customers you have, the more of these emails and phone calls you get. If you get a LOT of them on the same topic then you may want to look at your operations and do some improving, but if you are getting about 2 for every 100 customers, then the chances are you are just hearing from one of the "Two Percenters" in the crowd. 

The trick is to not get discouraged by these people. Here's how I keep it all in perspective. I look at the total sales income for the day and multiply that times 2%.  I mentally set aside that amount for today and then look at the contacts from unhappy customers. For example, if today's sales are $1,000 then I put aside $20 mentally and look at the emails.  Hmmmm... 4 of them. Each one takes about 3 minutes to handle.  So I'm trading 12 minutes for $20 income. 

Not bad!  That makes today a winner in my book! 

On the other hand, there are days when the numbers come out the other way. Oh well. Keep it all in perspective. You just can't make everyone happy all the time. Or as someone said in a song... "Some days your the windshield, some days your the bug!"

Proof about the 2% rule?  Check this out...

http://www.surveymonkey.com/Report.asp?U=283435666865

Search Engine Optimization Services

I get this phone call at least once a week... sometimes twice a week... and it annoys the HECK out of me every time!  The calls goes something like this...

"Hi - I'm ___ from the Internet-Marketing-Gurus Company!  We can make your website more profitable by Search-Engine-Optimizing it for you!  Blah-Blah-Blah-Blah..."

There are TWO THINGS that annoy me about this phone call... 

The first thing is that I picked up the phone to answer the call.   My most precious asset is TIME and this call just wasted 1 minute of that asset.  Usually they aren't as direct as the above so they waste 2, 3, or 4 minutes before I find out that this is why they called. 

Like the call this morning...  It was from "Discover", so I thought they were calling about our merchant account that allows us to take Discover cards.  Nope.  Discover apparently owns a search engine optimization service of their own, OR they sell their customers names and phone numbers to some SEO company that calls and claims to be affiliated with Discover.

By the time I have figured out who is really calling and why, their telemarketer is well into their pitch about how they can solve our problems.  Wow.  Pretty amazing.  How do they know I have a problem with search engine optimization?  Do they know how much traffic we get?  How many content pages we have?  How many number 1 spots we have in Google?   

No. 

But they know all about search engine optimization and they can solve our problem!

By now the telemarketer has said something stupid that reveals what they personally know about marketing on the web equals zero.  For instance, this morning's caller said "We want to burst the notion that keyword meta tags don't matter.  Only 2 of the search engines don't currently look at metatag keywords, over 700 others do!"

Okay - I should have just hung up the phone but I couldn't resist!  "Which two don't look at keyword metatags?"  I asked. (Already knowing the answer.) 

"Google and Yahoo" she says proudly!

"Great" I said... "Now tell me this - how much traffic do those other 700 search engines direct on the internet?"

Silence.

More silence.

"I'm sure I have that here..." she says, voice trailing off.

"The answer is 71% of all serches are done on Google and Yahoo as of April 2006 and the Google market share is growing by about 1% every 60 days"  I said. "So WHY would I want to optimize my website for the 29% of the engines that are losing market share every day rather than optimizing it for Google, the 800-pound gorilla?"

We finished our conversation in less than 5 minutes total time and I'm back to work on something important.

And that brings up the second thing that annoys me about these phone calls. I didn't even get into with the telemarketer.  But I will bring it up with you because you need to know this...

Search Engine Optimizing a website is not something you do AFTER you build the site!

Analogy: That's like building a house, then when it's finished, deciding you want to add electricity, plumbing, heating systems and a basement!  In order to do that, you have to rip out all the drywall, drill holes through lumber that's already nailed in place, crawl around in places you don't want to crawl through, jack up the framework, dig a hole under the house, fill it with concrete, ...  etc.  You get the idea.

It's easier and cheaper to bulldoze the house and start over again from scratch, this time planning for the plumbing, electricity, etc from the start.

It's the same way with a website! 

You don't want to build a site then once it's done start making it attractive to Google. It's too late!  You're better off scrapping that dog of a site and starting over again fresh.

Here's the bottom line in two points... 

1) If you're going to build a website, make sure you build it with search engine optimization built-in from the get-go!  Don't try to retrofit an existing site.

2) When the telemarketers call, let your answering system pick up the call.

(If you're building a website, start with a website building tool that builds search engine optimization into the process!  I know of two that do this for you... one of those programs is SBI! )

Graphics Made Easy?

It's pretty common to need a special graphic for your website. For example, today I wanted to add an arrow pointing to the right with the words "Prize Drawing" or something similar to one of my sites. You'll probably find you need special graphics too - so here's what I do to make them easily.

The program I use is called "Webstyle 4" and it's sold by Xara corp.  Here's the graphic I created this morning...

It only took about 5 minutes and ZERO drawing skills! That's the part I like best. I am not an artist but Webstyle makes it easy... just pick the graphic you want, change the lettering to suit your needs, and change the colors to suit your site.

Membership Website

I think everyone reading "Crank" knows that I am a membership website owner. We also own several other websites too where we sell products, information and offer affiliate links, along with other ways of making a living.

If you read yesterdays post, you may have noticed I was a bit cranky.

I wasn't going to say this, but just have to get it off my chest!  What I didn't say yesterday has been bothering me and I'm just going to lay it out here.

The couple I was working with yesterday "get it".  They understand that owning your own business requires you learn to wear a lot of different hats and that you work your "buts" off to make it succeed.  I'm not talking about the thing you sit on! I am talking about the "buts" that people bring into the conversation when talking about starting their own business.

"But I didn't know I'd have to learn all this stuff"

"But that's a LOT of work!"

"But I don't have that software - that'll cost a lot of money."

"But I don't have the time."

When someone has asked me for help, then bring their "but" into the conversation, I smile and say "Yeah, it's a lot of work" and I stop wasting my time on showing them how to build their own business.  People with big "buts" won't do anything! That's okay because it's their choice how they live their life, just don't try to waste my time!

It's about the bottom line. Or three bottom lines, and here they are...

Personal Freedom.  We can come and go as we choose.  We move south for the winter and come back to Illinois when the snow is gone. Not many employers will let their employees do that.

Financial Freedom.  We don't have a boss deciding how much money we can have this year. And by extension, the person that decides that also decides what town a person can live in, what house they can buy, what car they can drive, etc.

Time Freedom. There is no time-clock in my office. I work a lot of hours, but I can also decide to take some time off and do nothing any day I want to.  Where I used to work, they took a dim view of that sort of thing.

I know personally many, many membership website owners that are making 6 figure incomes! I know several personally that are making 7 figure incomes! I also know there are millions that make almost nothing. 

If you split these website owners into two groups... those with big buts and those that work their but off... then look at their bottom lines, it's no surprise that the big bucks go to those with small buts.

Those that choose to work their buts off can build a membership website with a huge income. Don't let your buts get in the way of having the personal freedom that drew you to this business to start with.

An Above Average Income

I've been helping a couple that are very good friends with building their own web business for the last few days. They are great people and very successful already in their own business, but want to add a complimentary web business to their income streams.

Meanwhile, I am keeping up with the day-to-day demands of our own websites as well as preparing for an engagement in West Palm Beach where I will be speaking on developing an internet business.

Believe it or not, all 3 activities tie in with each other!  I have been struggling with "What do I need to tell the folks at the Florida conference" to be sure I don't leave anything out.  Working with our friends every morning for several days has been a great help because they keep asking questions that I didn't think of telling the folks in Florida about until they asked.  Then while working on our own sites I keep coming across other things I need to add to both the one-on-one time and to the workshop.

The only drawback is the days aren't long enough sometimes.  Or more accurately, I run out of steam before I've finished everything I need to do. Well I guess we all run into that problem when we are doing more than the average Joe.  But this brings up the point of this post...

I am often asked to help someone get a web business going, and when I give them an overview of what it takes they tell me "That's a lot of work. I don't have enough time to make something like that happen." 

I smile and say "Tell me about it" and let the subject drop...  Along with any attempt to help them move along farther. 

What amazes me about this comment is the misconception in people's minds that building your own business is an 8-hour a day undertaking.  It's not.  If you think it is, then please go back to whatever you do as an employee and decide to be happy with that. 

Using Your List

If you read this previous post about building your list, then you're ready for this next bit of information. Once you start building your list, the next step is bringing customers to your website using that list.

Each time you add new content to your site, you should let your list members know about it. A short email that includes a link to the new article is the best way to do this. Don't copy the entire article and put it into the email going to your customers. There are two problems with emailing the whole thing to them...

One problem is the ISP-Filters.  Most ISP's today do at least rudimentary filtering of emails inbound toward their customer's email inbox. A long email from you stands a much higher chance of being deleted before it ever reaches your customers.

Another problem with emailing the entire article is that your website thrives on getting visitors to the site. Once they visit your site, the customers are exposed to your other articles and also to your advertisements.  Distributing the entire article in your email defeats the purpose of creating the website.

Making Your Own Blog

How Is This Blog Made?

Someone asked me today how this blog was made.

It's created using www.typepad.com software.  You can sign up for 3 different levels of usage...

1)  Basic - gives you 1 blog and 1 author can use it. $4.95 / mo

2) Plus - gives you up to 3 blogs and multiple authors can use them.  $8.95 / mo

3) Pro - gives you unlimited number of blogs and multiple authors can use them.  $14.95 / mo

I chose the Pro plan because we know we will be creating at least one more and possibly 3 more blogs in the coming weeks.  Right now I have only created this one so I can get used to how the tools work.

Adding posts is as easy as using a word processor.  You have several choices for layouts and color schemes and you can even edit the style sheet if you know how to use CSS. (If you don't then just leave it alone!)  This blog is straight "click-click-click-done" with nothing fancy about it at all. I still haven't added a list signup point yet but once I do, this could turn into a great little stream of income! 

By the way, if you haven't read Robert Allen's book Multiple Streams of Internet Income: How Ordinary People Make Extraordinary Money Online, 2nd Edition yet, do it now!  It's all about adding income streams!

There's Only One Way

There's only one way to change your results...

Change how you think!

There's only one way to change how you think...

The Purpose Of Your Business

The Purposed Of A Business Is To Get And Keep Customers!

Get that right and you will have a big business.  And your business will thrive. Get that wrong and you will soon be out of business.

I can hear it now... "But I thought the purpose of my business was to make money!?"

Nope. Making money is a side-effect of focusing on getting and keeping customers. It cannot be the focus of your business.

What IS a customer?  Well - isn't that a person that buys something from you?  And if you focus on finding people that will buy something from you and keeping them buying from you, then you have a sustainable business. And you make money.

On the other hand, if you focus on making money, you can lose customers. How?  Let me tell you what happened to me recently at a local business...

About a month ago there was an advertisement in my mail for a new local car service place called "Roy's Rapid Oil" for a $12.95 oil change.  I thought that was a great deal and since I needed to change the oil on my Jeep, I drove over there and told them I wanted an oil change.  The OWNER of the business asked what kind of oil I wanted.  I said "Penzoil".  He said okay and had his employee changing the oil for me in a few minutes.

I leafed through a magazine while I waited and about 20 minutes later the owner said my car was ready.  When I went to pay the bill, it was $24.95 for the oil change.  I asked what happened to the $12.95 price?  He said, that's only if you use Quaker State oil and pointed to a small sign over his right shoulder that spelled out the terms of the $12.95 offer.  It said in about a 14-pt font that the $12.95 offer is only valid when using Quaker State oil.

Of course I said "Why didn't you tell me that when you asked what kind of oil I wanted in the Jeep?" 

He said "I can't help it if you don't read the sign!" 

I asked him how many of those mailings he sent out. He said he paid $500 to print and mail out 1,000 of them. I smiled and paid him the $24.95 and walked out.  Could I have argued about this?  Sure. Could I have called the attorney general's office about this?  Sure.  I could have done a lot of things, but it was worth the extra $12.00 to me to have this experience to write about.

Naturally, I will never go back to his shop for any kind of service.  AND I have told this story to every neighbor I see because it's so stupid on his part.  One of my neighbors said "Thanks for telling me, I was going to take my car there next weekend for thier special but now I will go to my dealer instead."  I saw the neighbor again last night and he said he passed this story on to another neighbor who said exactly the same thing!

I went to my local car parts store for new wiper blades this morning. The subject of oil changes came up and I started to relay this story again.  The guy behind the counter said "So YOU"RE the guy!"   He had already heard my story from one of my neighbors!  Word is getting around pretty fast.  Amazing how far the story of cheapskate-Roy's $12 had traveled!

How long do you think this new oil change shop will stay in business?   The customer you make the most money on is your repeat customer because you had zero acquisition costs to get him in the door.  On the other hand, Roy paid $500 to acquire customers via his mailings to my neighborhood. A typical direct mail response rate is 2%, so his $500 should have bought him 20 new customers. His $12 extra income had just lost me and two other customers he would have picked up from his mailing.  Unless the NAPA store manager relates this story to other potential customers.

Even more fun is that this story will be read by over 100,000 people this year.  Some of them will live in the Elgin/Streamwood/Schaumburg area. Let's just say Roy's will reach a whole lot of people with his $12 extra income. :-)

How does YOUR business treat customers?  Are they just the pathway to your money, or are they the focal point of everything you do?  When your customers find a flaw in your strategy, do you sacrifice their future business so you can make an extra $12 today, or do you make them feel like you are the sort of place they want to come back to over and over again?

If you haven't read Customers For Life: How To Turn That One-Time Buyer Into a Lifetime Customer yet by Carl Sewel then you need to buy the book and read it.   You'll never see customers the same way again after reading how Carl turned his business from the worst to the best by simply focusing on building customer loyalty.