Cori Padgett

Mindset and Inspiration

When You Need Some Inspiration

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Sometimes life is hard. Whether you’re an entrepreneur or work a J.O.B. life gets crazy. It’s hard and days are long and people can just suck. Business might be slow, money might be tight, friends might be distant. The thing to remember is that this is true for EVERYONE.

Not just you alone. You aren’t alone and your life isn’t the only hard life on the planet. You’re not the only one who has a bad day. And life WILL get better, it always does even if only for moments. But in case your having trouble remembering, I think this video is a great up-lifter. I welcome thoughts and comments below.

Off-Topic

Question Of The Day- Why?

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I’ve found that goal setting is so important to success in not just business but in all that you seek to do. Everyday you should be writing down or mentally setting new goals for yourself to better your life and your mind. Even if it is a small goal such as reading one new good book a week, or making one new healthy dinner a week, or writing just one new press release to promote your business each week.

But some people get bogged down with the question of WHY you should put forth so much effort, WHY you should do things like seek higher education, or start your own business… and the answer to that could be answered better than in the video below. It’s short, so just take two minutes and listen.

Biz and Marketing

Guest Post: Bootstrapping on Steroids- Build an Internet, Technology or Software Company for Zero Dollars Part 3

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This is the final piece in this 3 Part series, courtesy of Alex Genadinik. Here is Part 1 and Part 2 if you need to catch up.

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

Are Some Things Impossible to Do for Free?

Legal Documents

At some point, a company needs patents, trademarks, copyrights, operating agreements and equity-vesting schedule documents. There are at least two options on how to get these for free.

You can barter. Some lawyers will work for equity, but this is my least favorite method because the documents listed above require an intellectual property lawyer, a general business lawyer, and likely along the way, you will need a few other types of lawyers. Typically, the fewer equity holders you have the better.

My favorite approach is to D.I.Y (Do It Yourself). Make sure you only create the documents you really need. A lawyer might write up a 50-page partnership agreement that will take tens of hours and cost tens of thousands of dollars, but it is much easier to work with partners you can trust and be able to write a simple document that covers the basics and allows you to move on and focus on running the actual business.

Office Space

There is some debate in the bootstrapping world about whether to have an office or not. I would say it is much better to not have an office. Don’t make your partners waste time, money and stress tolerance on commuting. Why not use those to work on the actual company?! And when there have to be meetings, just get creative and find what works.

Holding Meetings

Get used to online meetings using Skype video chat, and other remote conferencing software. It will help you avoid trekking down to the local Starbucks and more importantly, open you up to working and collaborating with people anywhere in the world.

Registering Domain Names

This is one area where you have to pay a little. A domain name costs about $10/year. I realize nearly all the good domain names are taken. My advice is that instead of going out and buying a $1,000 domain name, hold out on buying a domain name for your company until you have at least a somewhat clear marketing and branding strategy. Once do you do decide to look for a domain name, here are some good qualities of a name you should look for:

Copy and Messaging

Universal Laws of Good Copywriting Part 4

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Congratulations – you’ve made it to the final article in this series of copywriting rules. Here is Part 3 in case you missed it. By the time you’re done here, you should have an excellent idea of how to craft the best possible sales letter, using the most triggers possible.

Here’s a quick refresher of what we’ve gone through so far:

* 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.
* Make it easy for people to buy.
* Use scarcity.

Let’s move on to the last 2 important rules.

Rule #8: Social proof can make or break you.

Use testimonials as often as you possibly can while creating sales material. If other people have used your product or service and liked it, ask them for a testimonial (just make sure the testimonial adheres to the new FTC guidelines).

Prospects feel a lot more trust when they know that other people have used the same product or service they’re thinking about buying. They believe that you (the seller) will obviously brag about yourself – but seeing neutral peoples’ opinions changes that.

If you don’t have testimonials, borrow as much social proof as you can. For example, if your product is about golf clubs, find a quote from Tiger Woods talking about how important the right golf club is. If you’re selling copywriting services, find a quote from a top marketer talking about the importance of the right kind of copy.

Rule #9: Have a clear call to action.

Biz and Marketing

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

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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

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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

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

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

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

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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

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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

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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.

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