Editor – Page 24 – My Name Is Cori

Guest Post: Bootstrapping on Steroids- Build an Internet, Technology or Software Company for Zero Dollars Part 2

By Editor / January 6, 2010

This is the Part 2 of a 3 part series, courtesy of Alex Genadinik. Part 1 can be found here.

Introducing: Guest blogger and fellow Tweep Alex. Alex has a background in software engineering and is currently focused on building semantic systems for the business world. He is the founder of Semantic Valley, a web 3.0 start-up specializing in creating taxonomy and ontology based products. Their alpha-stage demo of a semantic search of shoes can be seen at MilderWilder.com. Say hello on Twitter too! @genadinik

Why Everyone Should Have Partners to Round Out the Team

Sometimes engineers who have become confident in the business world can pull off a start-up by themselves, but most people need partners. Business people always need engineers for the obvious reason that someone has to actually build the product. Engineers need business people and additional engineers because it is just too difficult for one person to write code, go to business meetings, network, deal with legal issues, do marketing, branding, social media, a slew of other tasks, while keeping a clear mind to maintain focus on their entrepreneurial vision.

The Perfect Skill Set of the Founding Team

Traditionally it has been thought that a perfect founding team consists of 2-4 people. The ideal mix should consist of one person who covers all things having to do with the business side, and the rest of the team members who have strong backgrounds in creating technology.

The engineers should ideally have different backgrounds within tech. One may be more of a back-end server engineer who would be in charge of architecture, while another could write business logic and focus more on the user-facing part of the application. As for the business person, she has to stand on her head doing all the non-tech tasks (legal issues, business docs, business networking, lead generation, light accounting, etc.) possible to allow the engineers to focus on building the core product.

Hunt for the Right Partners

Find A-players who buy into your idea and are willing to work crazy hours, side by side with you to grow the idea into a company. But how do you know whether people will deliver? People often say they will or can do various things, but often cannot or just do not. They may have the best intentions in mind, but few people can work in a highly-demanding and unstructured environment for a long time; especially without a regular salary.

My view is that everyone should be given a chance, and put into a position to succeed, even if it is a long shot. At the same time, to ensure you do not waste your time, let them prove themselves by assigning immediate tasks and see for yourself how they will perform. This will help you weed out bad partners.

Here are some specifics to look for:

*
o Responsiveness
o Professionalism
o Honesty
o Accountability
o Sharing of vision
o You respect them as people and professionals

If any of these qualities are not there, see it as a big red flag.

Appreciating Your Partners

Once you do find good partners, recognize that working for equity is much more difficult than for a regular salary, and appreciate their work. At the same time make sure they always have momentum-building, challenging but not overwhelming tasks.

Copy and Messaging

Universal Laws of Good Copywriting Part 3

By Editor / January 5, 2010

If you’ve been following along, you will see that we’re now on Part 3 in this “Copywriting Rules” series of articles.

Throughout these articles, we’ve gone through several important copywriting rules. To reiterate, these rules were:

* Set out writing to one person.
* Use your prospect’s language.
* Use emotion.
* Time’s ticking, make sure you keep their attention.
* Make the copy visually compelling.

Now we’re going to go through even more rules you should know about in making the best possible piece of sales copy.

Rule #6: Make it easy for people to buy.

Don’t give your readers a reason to say no. Remove as much risk as you possibly can. You can do this in a few ways, with the most obvious being a secure guarantee.

Many copywriters find that the more outrageous and secure the guarantee, the better the conversions. The ironic part, though, is that the longer the guarantee period, the less refunds a company usually gets.

This could be because most people put off putting things back until “later”, whereas they have a sense of urgency with a shorter guarantee period.

Whatever the reason, a strong guarantee makes it hard for your prospect to say no. If you tell them that if they don’t like your product they can get their money back, they have no reason to object. They have absolutely nothing to lose by trying your product out.

On the other hand, if they have to take on a lot of risk, they’re going to be more apprehensive about buying. In this Internet age, a lot of people are nervous about being scammed. If you haven’t yet done business with a prospect, they’re going to be wary – and rightfully so.

Don’t give them any reason to turn you away.

Rule #7: Use scarcity.

Like we mentioned earlier, people are quick to put things off until the elusive “later”. By using scarcity, you will force people into moving NOW.

You probably see this in action all the time. Department stores use sales to get people to buy by a certain time. Infomercials will give you an extra widget if you order “in the next 5 minutes!”. High-end automobile manufacturers only have “x” amount of limited editions for certain cars.

There are several ways in which you can implement scarcity. You can:

* Limit your product or service to “x” amount of people

* Only give special pricing to “x” amount of people

* Have a special deal/coupon for people who order by “x” date

All of these things are designed to make people move quickly, thinking that they’ll “lose out” if they don’t.

It’s important to remember that whatever scarcity tactic you choose to employ, that you make sure to honor and uphold that. Lying one time may get you sales the first time, but it can severely damage your ability to make more sales down the road.

Biz and Marketing

Guest Post: Bootstrapping on Steroids- Build an Internet, Technology or Software Company for Zero Dollars Part 1

By Editor / January 5, 2010

This is the beginning of a 3 part series, courtesy of Alex Genadinik.

There is a glut of overly optimistic blogs and articles giving advice and encouragement on entrepreneurship, innovation and fearlessness in the face of risk.

This can be quite misleading due to its authors’ success bias because they are the tiny percentage of people who have succeeded and are given a voice; among the infinitely many more people who have failed and whose stories are not widely read.

Unfortunately, chances are against most of us who try. The goal of this article is to offer suggestions on how to build a company and give it a chance to stand on its feet, while spending nothing more than the legal fee to register as a company. Hopefully it will afford you more time to try to build your company well.

What You Can Expect

During the bootstrapping stage the following milestones have to be accomplished in order to ensure the company is able to survive moving forward:

Copy and Messaging

Universal Laws of Good Copywriting Part 2

By Editor / January 4, 2010

In Part 1 of this series, we went over some important copywriting “rules” to follow in order to have the best possible copywriting material.

To refresh your memory, these rules were:

* Set out writing to one person.
* Use your prospect’s language.
* Use emotion.

In this article, I’m going to go through and give you even more tips you can use to make the most compelling sales material possible.

So, let’s get going.

Rule #4: Time’s ticking, make sure you keep their attention.

Your sales letter should be captivating from the beginning to the end. A lot of people liken a sales letter to a “slippery slope”, saying that the letter should be consistent and easy to read the entire time through.

Imagine falling down a slippery slope. The ride is easy from top to bottom, and you go down one clear path. A sales letter should be exactly like this.

If you have ANY disconnects, it will be very easy for a reader to lose interest and stop reading right away.

Think about it like this: people stay on websites for an average of 30 or so seconds. This is ESPECIALLY true if they think they’re being sold something. As you know, 30 seconds isn’t a lot of time. If you give your readers any reason to leave whatsoever, they WILL take it. Make sure that every point you write about makes complete sense. Don’t get too off topic.

It’s also important to have a compelling headline that will make your readers’ eyes bulge. Get them emotionally invested in reading on. Don’t over-hype or make promises you can’t keep, but really reel them in with the “wow” factor of your product or service in your headlines.

Don’t use wordy, verbose language that bores your reader. World class copywriter John Carlton actually says to write as if you’re writing to a third grader.

Copy and Messaging

Psychology of a Sales Letter

By Editor / January 3, 2010

If you catch the attention of the reader in the first paragraph of your sales letter, your reader will most likely read through to the second paragraph. And if you have convinced him to read on by your first paragraph, the more your second paragraph will be convincing because by now your reader will believe he has a need for your product or service because you’ve suggested that the product that you offer will satisfy a need. Make sense?

The content of your copy must briefly sum up three important aspects: attraction, necessity and urge.

The second paragraph can be called the “psychological paragraph” because it creates a psychological impact on the reader making him;

Copy and Messaging

Universal Laws of Good Copywriting Part 1

By Editor / January 2, 2010

Learning how to write a sales letter can be extremely difficult. It seems as if everyone has an opinion on how to write copy, and many of those opinions contradict each other – even amongst top copywriters.

That being said, there are some universal copywriting “laws” that will be the same for everyone. We’re going to go over a few of those fundamentals, as well as how you can use them to your advantage, in Part 1 of this series.

With that said, let’s get started!

Rule #1: Set out writing to one person.

Writing a letter or piece of copywriting material can be quite overwhelming if you’re constantly thinking about all the different people that are going to look at your material.

When you’re writing something, write to one specific person. Write to the ideal customer of your product.

Many top copywriters come up with a complete avatar of their ideal customer. They know the age, marital status, sex, and general demographics of their customer. They also know deeper things, such as the fears and frustrations of their clients, the conversations going on in their clients heads, and what the clients want above all else.

When you write to the one specific person you’ve uncovered in your research, the letter writing becomes a lot less overwhelming, and a lot more fun.

Copy and Messaging

Elicit Emotions: Using Writing as a Marketing Tool

By Editor / December 29, 2009

If you want to be able to earn a lot of money with your marketing, writing (in the majority of cases) is going to be very essential to you.

You are going to have to learn how to appeal to prospect’s emotions (remember – most people buy due to emotion, not logic) so that you can really prove your point as to why your product or service is so beneficial.

You may be wondering, what kinds of emotions cause customers to get itchy hands and pull out their wallets? That’s the real question for people who want to take advantage of this technique.

Copy and Messaging

Helpful Copywriting Tips: World-Class Copywriter Responsibilites

By Editor / December 29, 2009

The term “copywriter” is a pretty broad one, and covers a lot of different areas. One copywriter can solely write direct mail, while another can do online sales letters, press releases, auto-responder copy, or a combination of all 3.

Even if you know the type of sales material you want your copywriter to come up with, the lines can even be fuzzy from there.

In this article, we’re going to discuss some things you should expect any time you hire a copywriter. If your writer isn’t doing these things, there is a problem.

Copy and Messaging

Hiring a Freelance Writer- Where to Look

By Editor / December 28, 2009

Can a great writer be an asset to any business? Of course he or she can! Good writers can be great helpers, especially to small businesses that equate time and money to the survival of their business.

There are a number of situations in which you might need a writer. Some of these would include if you are not a good writer, if you need a technical writer to do a specific job, or if you are too busy to write. If any of these circumstances apply to you, then these guidelines will help you find a qualified writer.

Mindset and Inspiration

What are Your Promises to Yourself in 2010?

By Editor / December 24, 2009

It’s almost time for Santa! And the New Year is quickly approaching. So I’m curious as to your plans on making 2010 your best year ever. Have you thought about it?

Typically, the New Year is a time for resolutions and promises to yourself to make more money, lose more weight, or spend more time on yourself, etc. Resolutions are great! Unfortunately they usually don’t last very long.

So my homework for you this New Year is to not make wild resolutions you likely will not keep. My homework is for you to sit down during a few quiet moments and really think about your goals for 2010. Get specific, and keep them doable, but just lofty enough to inspire you.