Guy Kawasaki's New Book - 'Reality Check'

Hello Readers,

I just purchased Guy Kawasaki's latest book, Reality Check.

Guy has one of the best techniques for writing books about business! He not only makes them readable, he makes reading them fun and informative at the same time. This is something many business book authors fail to accomplish. Many authors are writing to an audience of other authors, and miss the point of the effort.

Unless your audience is made up exclusively of authors, you had better find another calling, because your book will not be read by anyone. Guy captures and narrates succinctly the start-up issues facing new companies. He provides a clear road-map to writing the 'business-plan', obtaining angel or venture capital financing, and most importantly exposes the things that will prevent you from succeeding at any of the above tasks.

He uses real-life examples of business foolishness, that really drives home his points completely. His writing style is brief, focused, and lively. Humor is a major component part of the book, and the 'dual-introductions' are hilarious, one 'final one' from "the fake Steve Jobs".

I met Guy Kawasaki at BlogWorld Expo 2008, after his lunchtime keynote with Steve Rubel. I mentioned that I had a copy of his earlier work, "The Macintosh Way". He paused and said, "oh, that's going back a few years!". Guy was so kind to hang out and answer questions after the keynote. He is accessible and puts his audience at ease. His knowledge of Silicon Valley is key to the depth and expanse of the information found in 'Reality Check'.

When I recently started following Guy's exploit's on www.Twitter.com and at www.alltop.com, I realized how multi-faceted he truly has become. He has a loyal following of former Apple Computer fans, who are now iPhone and Macbook users. Guy has stayed very current with Web 2.0 issues, and still pokes fun at the establishment, exhibiting an altruistic, helpful approach.

A recent photograph of Guy and Sir Richard Branson had Richard polishing Guy's shoes with his coat-jacket! Now that is truly customer service, and explains Richard Bransons considerable success with the Virgin Brand.

Please do go and find this book, buy it, read it and implement the steps Guy has defined. One day American business can return to the ethics, prosperity, and accomplishments that made it great.

I'm going to go and finish reading this book, and will post Part Two of my mini-review, in a few days. I purchased the book at a local Borders in California, and with my Borders discount the book was $25.00 + tax.

I would have been willing to pay twice that amount for the book, and plan on picking up a few more copies to send to ahem, companies that still don't 'get it'.

Please leave me a comment below, let's start a conversation and over on Twitter.com/nachase

Do You Ever Feel Like Quitting?

Hello Readers,

It has been a while since I last posted. Locked in a research phase to determine the direction of my on-line businesses in 2009.

The on-line business world is challenging, competitive, confusing, ever-changing and frustrating. On-line companies are experiencing this phenomenon today.

News of lay-offs, credit markets tightening, government at a loss to cure the short-term effects of this waterfall downward. In a recent post I asked the question, "How will you innovate?"

So how do you react to this negative information? Is everyone losing their job around you? Are you depressed, angry, confused, bitter, feeling alone and not sure how to proceed? Join the club! Many on-line marketers have enough experience to see these changes as an opportunity, not as a liability.

Practicing the 'long view', will help them survive a brief change in their on-line income and prepare for the certain 'economic turn-around' when it arrives. Housing prices are down for one good reason, the 'American Dream' caused many first time homeowners to get in over their heads. Being unsophisticated in financial matters, they trusted their 'professional' mortgage lenders to handle the why and hows.

"Just get me in that house" was all they could say. Now that the adjustable interest rates built into their loans increased, in many cases their monthly payments have 'doubled' without a supporting income to match the new payments.

USA's foreclosures are at a record high level. The resulting 'bad loans' have caused AIG Insurance and Lehman Brothers Stock Brokerages to fail, as they cannot borrow cash to run their companies day-to-day expenses. Further abuses have been reported as lavish business trips to exotic locales has undermined the company's reputations. Huge cash bonuses paid to departing executives, while the rank and file worker is 'left holding the bag' are inexcusable.

The recent arrivals of Automobile executives by private corporate jets to the automakers bailout hearings in Washington, DC demonstrate a poor choice on their part to the consumer.

So, what do you do? You get busy! You read every blog post that has anything to do with on-line marketing, selecting those experts who have a trusted history of profitability and many comments on their blogs. Some recommended authors are below.

I have met all listed below in person, except Seth Godin, but he is always traveling and speaking at Google and other companies, advising them on various marketing issues they are experiencing. I hope to cross paths with Seth one day, 'he gets it'.

Read the blogs, both current and past by thought-leaders like: John Chow, Shoemoney, Chris Brogan, Seth Godin, Zac Johnson, Jonathan Volk, and other thought-leaders in their class. Comment on their blogs each time they post a new blog. Subscribe to their RSS feed to get updates when a new post has been created. Google their names to see all of the trade shows and seminars they attend. Go there and meet them, and ask them for help.

Join Twitter.com, not just a 'texting service' for adults, but a solid way to connect with people like Sir Richard Branson and Shaquille O'Neal. In this way, by conversations with the experts, and reading their post's, you will gain nuggets of information that will help you craft your on-line focus.

Feedback from those that have 'been there, done that' will also save you valuable time and money. So get out there and read and comment. Put a link to your blog in your comments. These blogs are read by thousands of people, and may just increase visitors to your blog.

If you liked this post, please leave me a comment below.

Respectfully, Nicholas

How Will You Innovate?

Hello Readers.

I just Tweeted a challenge to leave a comment on my blog regarding how you will 'innovate' your way through this current economic downturn. Is your current 'day-job' at risk of ending? Have you thought of how long it may take you to obtain your next job?

Innovation is something our country has done from it's very beginning in 1776. The people who came here did not have satellite dishes or computers. They did not have banks, stock markets or financial advisors.

They came on ships, with a few belongings and started their lives in the wilderness with virtually nothing.

Contrast with today, we have incredible technologies, robotic surgeons and Blackberry's that connect us to everything, even Twitter.com/nachase. If we can continue to innovate we can survive this downturn and 'LEARN' from it's lessons.

Money is something people perceive as having value, but it's just paper and ink! Your brick and mortar company is of some value, if you have profit to pay the maintenance, salaries, insurance, heating and cooling, and electric bills, along with all of the other expenses, like crushing taxes!

Innovation needs to infect our marketplaces. If a few bad apples, greedy mortgage lenders and stock brokers can initiate a landslide down the hill to failure and bring this great country to it's knees, and spread this blight all the way to China, something fundamental is wrong with our 'perceived value system'.

I do not have any insurance from AIG, yet they have affected me. I had no stock at Lehman Brothers, yet their poor decisions have affected me. My government officials truly do not know what they are voting on, but the senators and congress merely meet in small groups and say "How are you going to vote on this 100 page bailout package?"

Without even truly knowing what's contained in the text, without a clue on it's impact to you and me, they rush something, anything to a vote and say they are 'working hard' for the folks back home. This is a practice that must stop.

Let's simplify the equation. If you are in need of financial assistance to buy a home, let's oversee this process with a simple form:

What are your expenses and income? _________________.

Is there room for a mortgage payment?_______________.

If not, you do not get the loan. Sorry, end of story.

My parents paid their bills and lived within their means. This generation has been so heavily marketed to the point of financial ruin. Personal debt is something that everyone accepted, mailing out credit cards by the bushel-full to eager shoppers, who now face a very different, less happy future.

Do you really need a $400.00 device to innovate? Perhaps....

Do you really need a $45,000.00 car with shiny wheels and a 2,000 watt stereo pushing the window glass away from it's mountings, to be happy?

What say you? Will you innovate or perish? Are you facing a bleak financial future? What suggestions do you have for your representatives in Washington that they will hear and act on now?

We are all in the same boat, and I am bailing out the water in mine like an Olympic athlete, trying to make a dent in this on-line marketing challenge.

What are you going to do? Leave me a comment below, and Twitter.com/nachase.

Lets Innovate!

Respectfully, Nicholas

An Informative 'Guest Post' from Adam Carn

Please read and engage with Adam Carn, who is launching an exciting turn-key program to quickly get a money-producing website up and running. Enjoy!

GUEST POST
Climbing To The Top: Newbie’s Guide To Making Money Online.
By Adam Carn

If you're a newbie to making money online, you're either confused as hell or have information overload and don’t know where to start. I actually don’t blame you cos I was once a newbie too. Although it was a long time ago I do understand how it feels. I have come a long way and now and make a good living purely from the internet. You’re a newbie, I once was a newbie, we’re the same, I’m not some type of super human, I‘m not any better than you. If I could do it, then you definitely can too.

What I want to do is to clear your mind, I want to detangle your thoughts and put you on a straight path. I’m going to tell it how it is. REMEMBER, I’m just going to direct you, I’m not going to walk you through the tiniest step otherwise we’d be here all day!

1) Pick Your Passion.

Pick something you’re either good at or something you’re passionate about. Really think about this one. Don’t pick something like “weight loss diet” just because some expert said it’s a good money maker unless you really are passionate about the topic.

If you absolutely love Formula One Racing, pick that. If you’re good at hair dressing, pick that.

2) Your Online Presence:

How do you do that? Simple. You need a website or a blog.

Don’t panic. It’s not that difficult. If you’re a total newbie then I recommend setting up a http://wordpress.org blog because you can easily update that with new content whenever you want. To do this you will need a domain name and hosting.

You can get a domain name from http://godaddy.com
And for hosting I recommend: http://ezhost123.com

Pick a domain name related to your chosen topic. Pick either a .com .net .org or .co.uk domain name. Try keeping it quite short if you can. Pick a catchy domain name. Make it either professional or fun. Some will tell you that you need a keyword rich domain name, ignore all that, because you need to brand yourself! (more on this later).

You then setup your Wordpress blog onto your new domain name.

3) Two Words… BRAND YOURSELF!

I don’t care if you’re a newbie or a guru. You need to brand yourself. Brand your name, if you don’t want to use your real name use a pen name. Also name your blog. Don’t just name it, BRAND IT! Give it some POW!

Branding yourself or your blog/website is probably THE most important thing you can do. Why? Because this will be your online identity for everyone to see. Branding will give you recognition, with recognition you will gain trust, with trust you will gain power and with power… You will make money!

Here are some examples:

John’s Java Joint - johnsjavajoint.com - Coffee related niche

Kool Kuala Klub - koolkualaklub.com - Kuala related or could be a cool name for any niche you choose!

Passion For Fashion - passionforfashion.com - Fashion related niche

These are just examples (good ones though!).

TIP: When you pick a name for your brand make sure a domain name is also available for it. Your brand name and your domain name must match.

Branding doesn’t end when you have picked a name. Nope, you need a logo baby! A good one too! Not only that, your blog needs have a sharp, clean design.

Don’t know anything about design? Relax I got you covered.

You can design your own logo quickly and easily with this free logo designer: http://www.logoease.com

For your Wordpress Blog, there are hundreds of stunning free themes to choose from. They’re easy to install too. You won’t have any trouble looking good!

Wordpress blog is easy to install onto your domain name, for more info just search on Google.

Looking good is EXTREMELY important. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a novice or an expert. You need to have a strong presence on the net. Because like in the real world, first impressions count on the internet too. You wouldn’t go to a six figure job interview wearing jeans and t-shirt would you? You wouldn’t stand a chance.

4) Let The World Know Your Opinion:

You have an opinion right? Good, now express it. Don’t be afraid, go nuts. If you’re passionate about something it’s easy to express your opinion. Turn your views into writing and post it on your blog. Simple. Passion is magnetic, it’s not something we see much on the net really so use it to your advantage. People love reading passionate stuff. If you’re good at something people will want to learn from you.

You should develop a style, it can be wacky, it can be aggressive, it can even be slightly rude but you need to develop a style and it should show in the content create. This is all part of branding yourself. You don’t want to sound like the rest, you want to be unique because you are.

5) Getting Recognised:

Ok you got your blog, you branded yourself, you posted your first article on your blog now how do you get people to notice it?

Well first you need people to notice YOU before they notice your blog!

Here are my recommended methods.

-- Sign up for http://twitter.com (free). Twitter is a fast moving social networking platform where you update your friends on what you’re doing throughout the day and they update you as well. The beauty of Twitter is that it becomes so fast moving that you can literally chat with your followers. You can follow your friends friends, they can follow you, you can join in their conversations and build relationships with them, it can get really fun. It’s a fun and easy way to get recognised. Once you get some recognition you can show them your blog, they’d be happy to look at it and tell their friends about it. It’s all very powerful stuff. It’s like a viral effect.

Whenever you make a new post on you blog you can tell everyone on Twitter.

-- Use http://socialmarker.com to bookmark your blog on social bookmarking sites like Digg, Stumble Upon, Propeller, Delicious, Furl, Technorati and Reddit.

-- If appropriate, submit your post as an article to article directories such as: http://goarticles.com , http://articledashboard.com and http://articlecity.com .

These methods will get you a lot of traffic to your blog.

6) But How Do You Make Money?
Ok the easiest way to make money from your blog is by being an affiliate. An affiliate is someone who sells something on someone elses behalf and is paid commission for it. The best affiliate programs by far are from http://clickbank.com . Sign up with them, it’s free. Browse their marketplace for products related to your blog. Get your affiliate (hoplink) link. And put it at the end of your posts on your blog. Add a little description for it. With Clickbank you get huge commission like up to 75% and $70 per sale!

Other affiliate programs worth considering are http://google.com/adsense and https://affiliate-program.amazon.com

These don’t pay as much as Clickbank but I recommend them very much.

There you have it. If you get stuck on anything, a simple search on Google should be all that’s required. I have given you the plan, it’s time for you to take action.

If you follow these steps it won’t be long before you see money rolling in. And like a snowball effect it will keep growing, so will your reputation, so will your brand and so will you. Your recognition grows, your brand grows, your money grows, you grow and so on. You can really FEEL the snowball effect here can’t you?

Once your established in this, you’ll become a pro. You’ll be recognised as an expert. You will have power.

I hope you enjoyed this post.

Adam Carn
http://syteblack.com

---------------------------------------------

You can follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/adamcarn

SyteBlack.com your super sleek money making website. Totally newbie friendly.

Sir Richard Branson - Genius Marketing 101

Richard Branson, yes 'that' Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Books, Virgin Atlantic et al, has launched a unique method for advertising and promoting his latest book, 'Business Stripped Bare'. A link to the video can be found, at the end of this post.

The Strategy
OK, picture this, a group of men and women dressed as businessmen and women, except without pants, just undergarments and knee-socks, strolling the streets of London during commute hour to promote Richard's latest book, 'Business Stripped Bare'.

They were offering the first downloadable chapter of Richard's book using a business card handout scheme, and getting the attention of all! How easy this was to implement, no huge marketing campaign, no public relations and product launch headaches, just people to people, a proven technique for generating sales for hundreds of years!

How I Found Out About This...
Mr. Branson recently started 'following me' on Twitter (www.twitter.com) a free, live messaging / contact service that has received the attention of some major United States corporations. I have of course begun following him.

I read his previous 'tweets' by looking at his 'Profile' page. There was a tweet and the URL within to watch the hilarious video, but also hugely successful marketing efforts.

About Twitter
Twitter limits your messages to 140 characters, and URL's are shortened to permit fitting them into the space allotted. Twitter permits the ability to read other users 'tweets', their individual outbound messages to add to the publicly-viewable stream of messages, or with the option to privately 'direct-message' those you are 'following'.

Start Using Twitter Today!
If you are not using Twitter, I highly recommend you begin at once! I have made some very important contacts, and received inumerable value from using the service.

In a previous post, a contact made on Twitter led to my attending BlogWorld Expo 2008 and meeting Shoemoney, John Chow, Jim Kukral, Robert Scoble, Doc Searles, Laura Fitton and Zac Johnson, the current 'thought-leadership' in Affiliate Marketing.

Here is the link to Mr. Branson's video:
http://entrepreneur.virgin.com/2008/11/12/nearly-naked-business-people-take-over-london-2/

Please leave me a comment if you liked this post, and buy Mr. Branson's book here in America please, we need the economy to turn around quickly! Respectfully, Nicholas

Jim Kukral Launches The Biz Web Coach Today

Hello Readers!

I've been in a deep SEO-study for a bit, trying to see if this will enhance my on-line marketing efforts, or at least get slapped by Google?

Anyway, exciting news today! Jim Kukral @ www.jimkukral.com is launching his re-branded site today here:

http://www.jimkukral.com/

Jim is a very helpful, knowlegable internet marketing consultant and coach.

I met Jim at BlogWorld Expo 2008, where I videotaped approximately 20 sessions in two and one-half days of the Expo.

Jim was the moderator for many of the sessions, and he kept the sessions lively and informative.

Hoping that Jim has massive success with his re-branding launch today!

Respectfully, Nicholas Chase

Off the Radar Screen - Hunkered Down - Success Around The Corner?

Hello Reader! You have probably wondered if I 'fell off the earth', as I have not been posting for a while. Truth is I've been hunkered down in my modest bungalow, trying to figure out my next on-line marketing move. With the current economic turmoil out there you would think I would just give up my dream of a home-based, on-line marketing empire?

The news media would have you believe that the sky is falling. This is mis-information. A few 'criminally-greedy' wall street players, have brought this upon themselves and the world market.

The government, in trying to clean up the mess made by others, is only exacerbating the issues.

Emotions run the stock market. Bad news causes stock to rise, a perverse reaction for sure! Bad news should not cause investors to profit, but it has been this way since the beginning of the stock market. The wealthy people are only going to get richer because of the government 'bail-out'. Are you going to see any of this bail-out money? Not unless you are a large bank like B of A.

The BlogWorld Expo 2008 experience in Las Vegas, really opened my eyes to what is possible in on-line marketing. The presentations I saw there like Gary Vaynerchuk's, www.winelibrarytv.com really drove home the point that hard work, long hours, and dedication to your dream, no matter what or who may try to talk you out of it, is the only strategy that will bring you success.

If you truly have done your homework, are or becoming a recognized authority in your chosen market niche, and have a passion for your chosen products or services offered on your website or landing pages, and you post every day, you will eventually find that web traffic will find you!

Gary stated that he responded to every email or comment made on his website for an entire year. He engaged the customer for his wine products in a meaningful conversation, and others discovered his knowledge and dedication were the real deal. He spent years studying wines and food, so that he was able to answer every question posed to the satisfaction of the requester. He also visited other authorities in the wine business, left comments on their blogs or websites, and started a conversation that helped him to grow his business to a current value of over $60-million dollars!

If you are genuine, people will sense your expertise and want to do business with you. If you treat people poorly, your reputation will be ruined, as news travels faster on the web than any other medium today. Newspapers are printing hours-old news. The tv news is at least 2 hours behind real time to assemble the stories and air them in edited-down video formats.

The web is instantaneous, Twitter, My Space, Facebook and other sites are read by millions of people per day, and this is the new paradigm for Web 3.0. People want the truth, a space that the traditional news media cannot compete with, nor do they have the time or money to fully analyze the data, and provide a resultant meaningful story.

Currently, they report something very irresponsibly, like "extremely high fire danger today!" And the insane person with the highway flares goes out to wreak havoc on an innocent society by startng fires on the day with guess what? "The Highest Fire Danger". How stupid can they be? Why not announce that the fire department will be attending training today, "Gee, I hope there won't be any fires today"? (I got off-subject here, but that 'high-fire-danger news-reporting' issue makes me mad!).

The relevance of the web is so pervasive, that people like Matt Drudge are now followed by Presidential Candidates! Matt has become a hit because he publishes timely stories, that are controversial to traditional news-gathering techniques and institutions, and he is quicker to publish before the mainstream media even can discern that the story is developing. Matt has become an authority in his space.

How will you become an authority in your market niche, and how do you convince your customers that you are the real deal? Most important technique taken from BlogWorld Expo 2008. BE YOURSELF! BE HONEST! Be the kind of marketer people like to talk about in positive terms. Become the best at what you do. Outshine the competition by being as authentic as you possibly can be!

Truly successful marketers put their customers first. Need to exchange a bad product? Fed-Ex it overnight and eat the cost. You will have gained the trust of a customer who was unhappy, and now is very happy with the way you have treated and valued their business. Go out of your way to be helpful and you will beat your competitor's who do not do this or do not even care!

This customer will talk positively about you, and cause others to want the experience of the same level of service 'that they are not receiving elsewhere'.

How many of you are tired of voice-menus? Companies used to answer their telephones. Now it's all buried in voice-menus, hoping you will quit before successfully obtaining the ear of an actual human being! Make sure you place your telephone number on your contact information page, answer you telephone on the third ring maximum, and if necessary call your customers back promptly.

They will be totally shocked and surprised at the level of care this demonstrates to them, and you can usually resolve the issue during this brief telephone exchange. Use this time to ask your customer if the experience could be improved, or if they could pass along their positive experience in a forum comment?

Customer Service has been pushed to the bottom of the priorities of most of the companies I deal with. And yet they tell you in their advertising, how much they value their customers! If you only do this simple act consistently, you will see a tremendous boost to your traffic numbers, serving the people who are making your company grow! Imagine a reader seeing all of the positive feedback from previous customers! Goodwill will be established, and you will be successful.

Social Networking is the current buzzword. I know of one software architect that is releasing his product using Social Media, and 'viral-marketing' as his main marketing focus. In this way he tightly targets his potential customers, who are already savvy web users or successful Pay-per-click, Affiliate Marketers, and his software tool will be much easier to market to this selected group! By the way, the product is called iSpionage at www.ispionage.com

Please leave me a comment below, I will respond! Respectfully, Nicholas