Archive for May, 2008

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Now THAT’s what I’M talking about!

I’m pretty proud of this gent, as a fellow entrepreneur. He has the courage to step out in a different direction and market his own thing. Switching his whole appraisal marketing footing over to a venture of selling information, training, and networking is not only the smartest move I’ve seen lately, but the most inspiring. […]

Not afraid of Willy Loman

You know what scared me off the path of sales long ago? It was Willy Loman. Now I look at Loman and realize I can never be him, not really. The ability to recognize market changes and adapt one’s sales approach, not just pretend the world is what I’d prefer and, above all, the capacity […]

How to Bend Time

You’ve heard it said there are only so many hours in the day. But you’ve also heard it said that time is relative. It’s true you can’t change the number of clock hours in a day (you can change the number of clock hours available to you and what each one of those hours means). […]

Free Web-Ex Alternatives

Looking for a free Web-Ex clone? Web-ex is great for conducting webinars (web seminars), but perhaps a little bloated and pricey. This is a brief survey of free alternatives I’ve tried, all of which had mixed results.

Zoho Office Meeting: Worked in IE, trouble in firefox. Slow but works.
SlideLive: Only for PowerPoint (not webinars). Worked perfectly […]

A Different Way to Read

One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever seen about reading books is “Create todo lists as you read, instead of notes.” [Lifehack]
In other words, read for you life, read to work. This differs fundamentally from reading for reading’s sake. It transforms reading to learn into reading to learn in order to do […]

Work and the Desert

Work is a fundamentally ascetic enterprise (an ascesis). You learn not to lie in bed awake. You stop luxuriating in long showers. You fast from excess food and sweets and drink - fast from excesses of all kinds. You may work with others, but the fundamental things are solitary. Restraint, self-control, moderation. You are what […]

Literary Widgets

If you have a theme and a plot, you have a product. It may not yet be the right product, but now you can make that decision.
Put another way:
The plot is simply your goal. That means that products come from within. They’re a function of your life. The theme is the goal’s meaning. That means […]

Exercise for the Work Fanatic

Four reasons I’m launching an exercise program:

Brainstorm time (and multi-tasking - doing only one thing is difficult for me). But like showering or driving, exercise is ideal for putting the body on autopilot and letting the brain run free, except with this I can use a treadmill filofax as well.
Health and energy = increased productivity […]

Cultivating Outrage as an Entrepreneurial Force

“In an article for The Financial Times last week, Dame Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, attacked business schools for their built-in conservatism and over-emphasis on accounting in place of entrepreneurial ability. She made the suggestion that the strongest drivers for overturning the status quo are discontent and outrage” - [Lifehack]
All my life one […]

Failures are Notches in the Belt

Count your failures, just as you would successes. Treat them as notches in your belt. Failure is freedom. Being proven wrong delights someone interested in truth; it frees the mind from error and grants it access to the possibility of truth. But we have a prejudice about failure. Failure is seen as the ultimate disgrace. […]

Better Entrepreneurship through Heresy

“Heresy is progress.” - Adrian Savage [Lifehack]
I’ve been a heretic of nearly every organization I didn’t personally found. And one overriding reward has come of it: I have been, in the great tradition of heretics, frequently indispensable. Another benefit is that, whenever an idea has been rejected by an organization for being heretical, I’ve patented […]

Authority vs. Effectiveness

The entrepreneur is never really concerned with authority; he’s concerned with success. When someone brings up “authority” (as in “so and so has a problem with authority”), they almost never really mean authority. Genuine authority is an expression of superior capability or competence, as in “Bob is an authority on grammar” (Power is likewise an […]

Well, that too.

I was just talking with one of the contract technical people from India and he asked me about my business. I told him I’m an Internet Marketing Consultant. He responded, “Oh, so you’re a bastard.” I thought that was the cleverest thing, and laughed, but it turned out he was saying “webmaster”. It was his […]

The Entrepeneur Ship

As an addendum to the ongoing/frequently-updated “Rules of Work“, I’m also thinking about entrepeneurship, and will probably make a subset of rules for that. So, rule #1:

Regulation, centralization, and obsolescence can impact any venture, abbreviating it’s viability, so the most important trait in entrepeneurship is the ability to continually invent and reinvent businesses on a […]

Swarm Feeling

Fear is never a good motivator. There are people who will tell you otherwise, who think fear is good, because it may drive you to work, to save, to avoid bad deals, to avoid entangling … anything.
To illustrate: imagine a man encountering a swarm of bees. His fear causes him to breathe more quickly, and […]

Mortgage or Financial Services Broker?

Experienced Internet Marketing Consultant would like to partner with Mortgage Broker or Financial Services Consultant. If that’s you, hit the contact button, and let’s talk.

But it -comes- in a bag.

I just bought a 3oz bag of potato chips (and nothing else). The cashiers asked, “Do you want a little bag?” I’m looking at the bag. I always say, “No thanks. It comes in a bag.” Some laugh, and some hrmph. I’m ok with either response.
But honestly, who is so dainty that they need […]

Rules of Sales

If you’re in business, you’re in sales, even if indirectly. That’s not a choice. The only choice is to feel guilt and shame or freedom and desire.

You’ll never win everybody, and you don’t have to. A salesman knows, crafts, and shapes his market. But whether he woos it like a siren or hunts it like […]

Hot Topics

“I never gave anybody Hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was Hell.” - Harry S. Truman

Do you need to breathe?

“Liberty is the soul’s right to breathe…” - Henry Ward Beecher

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