Hey Gio

Flew back from L.A. a few hours ago and with all the stuff I learned over the last couple of week, I don’t know where and how to start implementing the new found knowledge. First I want to thank John Kirker, everyone at Elite Retreat and Future Now for giving me the opportunity to attend the recent events.

Call to Action

What I loved about the Call to Action event is the in-your-face, here’s what worked for our clients presentation. Basically, most of us see websites as just that…websites. After the event, you will appreciate the fact that functional, persuasive and highly profitable websites are acually a series of planned processes. It blew me away and I will never see a website in the same manner again. Also, there is NO short-cut to higher conversions. I love this because fewer people will abuse and try to replicate it. Hard work, planning and testing is what the conversion game is all about.

Elite Retreat

I covered this cool event held in San Francisco with better details on this Seo Book blog post. I will be more involved with their Seo Training program in the future as well. It’s just that I have SO MUCH on my plate right now so my involvement there will increase slowly but gradually.

Jay Abraham Reunion

It was cool enough to see Jay in person. I spent thousands of dollars reading his stuff when I was in my early 20s. I even bought the Mastermind Tape series which I never got to listen to because I don’t have a tape player. My favorite speakers were Joel Epstein, Rieva Lesonsky, Chet Holmes, Andy Miller, Stephen M.R. Covey and Don Moine. The rest were teleconferences and I couldn’t feel the connection with the speakers through that arrangement. We totally missed the third day because Aaron had to catch up with work but we made up for it by having lunch with John and Damian Raffele at Zucca.

I also learned more about Aaron in this trip. He’s very much into search and other forms of online marketing where I am very interested and want to learn about other businesses/industries and study different business models. True the days were long. The conference started at 8:30 am and the real “networking” started at 8:30 pm. I am HUGE on networking/connection building. I don’t care what industry or business or product or service others are offering. I am INTERESTED in learning WHAT they do and HOW they do it. I also have fun meeting new people (especially business owners) whereas Aaron likes to stick to his circles. It’s funny how you learn more about your spouse through how you interact in business. There’s no right or wrong way to approach networking. I think it’s a matter of preference but unfortunately for me, we didn’t attend the late networking event. I guess it was fair to Aaron becuase he got exhausted before dinner started.

I came across this BusinessWeek article on the “missteps” of facebook and how they got a bit too ahead of themselves. I’ve been waiting for a long time for such article to be published. The article was so-so but I enjoyed the reader’s comments. Zuck’s arrogance and aloofness doesn’t bother me (what can you expect from a 23 year old paper billionaire) but the cockiness and intent of revolutionizing the advertising world with their Beacon project was a bit far off. AND, I quote from the article “The Harvard dropout has created one of the fastest-growing and arguably most innovative Internet companies since Google.”

WHAT???

How can an over-hyped, viral marketed, annoying social Rolodex be innovative and revolutionary? That statement puts Facebook behind Wordpress and the wonderful world of blogging, RSS, Wikipedia, Digg, Flickr and Youtube - Sites that actually bring value to the web!

The developer’s platform was a neat idea, I’ll give them that. But how can the small guy compete against VC backed companies like RockYou ($10M investment) and Slide? Do these 3rd party companies even have a business model?

Back to facebook - I guess people enjoy getting “poked”, graffiti on their walls and re-connecting with long lost friends they weren’t even that close with. Heck, even I have an account I visit once a month. I wish for the hype to deflate and have them focus on building a real business. Best of luck to them.

A friend asked for my advice on this matter not long ago. Well, this isn’t new to me as it happened twice already in the last year. With the popularity of RSS, blogs and growing number of plagiarists, it is almost expected to happen. The good news is that there are many ways to handle this matter.

1. Look up their whois data and send them an email requesting they remove your content. Be nice but remind them that if they don’t remove your content within 48hours you will report them to their ISP.
2. If their phone number is included in the whois data, give them a ring. This is what I usually do.
3. If you get no response, simply email the Google and report the duplicate content. There’s nothing worse than getting removed from the index.

Here’s the link - http://www.google.com/dmca.html

The business climate on the Internet is TOUGH!!!

Books that were published a couple years ago on traffic, conversion and SEO are now mostly outdated. In 2004/2005, you can rank really well just on reciprocal links. If you wanted one-way incoming links, all you had to do was submit your article to submission services. There were thousands of directories you can submit to for one-way links. Content was king back in the day and if your site had unique content, links were almost guaranteed. Just as recent as 2007, you can easily find and buy quality links from sitepoint, digitalpoint and even ebay.

What Happened?

1. Google - Search giant cleaned and tweaked their ever changing algos. A lion’s share of the directories lost their Page Rank, reciprocal links carried almost no significance and article submission services suffered from duplicate content. They also created FEAR amongst link buyers and sellers with the punishment of banishing from their index.
2. Webmaster Greed and Fear - SEO used to be a niche, almost secretive and the majority of website owners knew little about it. In 2008, ALL of my friends who own websites, even the non-commercial ones knew basic SEO principles. Graphic and website designers who at one point despised SEOs are now offering SEO services. Everyone knows that you rank based on your links and anchor text. Of course, this got Google worried and thus executed the actions above. This also led to one of man’s greatest flaw, greed. People are getting stingy with links. It’s getting so much harder for webmasters to link to sites. Maybe it’s because they are afraid of Google’s penalties or they know that sites rank based on links so they decide on preserving their link juice. Two years ago, I got highly authoritative links, one .edu, just by ASKING. These days, it’s not going to happen…even if you paid for it!!!
3. Pollution, Spam and Content Authenticity - I’m very skeptic (optimistic pessimist) yet sometimes I am easily fooled by spammy, fake content. Everyone is jumping the work-at-home, make money now, get rich quick on the Internet band wagon while providing no to very little value to the web. I’m sure you’ve come across the long, colorful, bulleted, numbered and oh so hype-up sales letter written in a Meth lab.

Strategies You Can Apply

• SEO is getting tougher by the second. If you are launching a new site, it helps to invest in pay per click advertising. Prior to doing so, make sure your website is conversion oriented, useful and has a nice custom design.
• Write killer content that will blow your target audience away. By audience, I am referring to websites that will link to you. Seduce their interests with your writing.
• Learn the basics of PR and “tie” your website to controversial topics so people in the know will recognize you. This is lesser spammy form of link bait.
• I was going to write submit your story to Digg, but last week, they changed their algos so it will be a lot harder to get traffic there.

I’m rich and you’re a loser. If you want to get laid by the prettiest girls, then save the weekly allowance you get from your grandmother and buy my products - you rotting pool of pus.

Sound Familiar?

I get irked when marketers lobby their products and claim that their strategies are the only valid methods on profiting online. The Internet is so vast and diverse that it is unwise to think and limit yourself to just one single strategy. In fact, you are better off testing various methods which will then return figures you can analyze.

Some marketers use the “I’m rich, you’re not” ultra-demeaning approach to sell their wares. What fascinates me is that there is actually a market that responds and pays to be insulted.

Despite my meager income, I love what I do and feel there is tremendous room for growth as long as I remain in a supportive and creative environment.

That was my favorite word to yell out when I was cheering for the team. I played and watched a lot of basketball back in school and for some reason, I would get more excited when shots were blocked than shots made. I would scream…R-E-E-E-J-E-C-T-E-D with so much glee and enthusiasm. I was a point guard so I didn’t really block shots. I just made very bad ones

Ouch, That Stings

Outside basketball and the joy of youth/adolescence, rejection hurts. It dawned on me in my mid 20’s that adults go through a lot of mental/emotional pain, disappointment and stress. Recently, I had my eye set on this job opening. The company pre-screens applications and I made it to the prep stage. Unfortunately, there were others vying for the position. I dedicated 2 1/2 weeks of my time for this prep phase. I didn’t engage in any of the activities I love doing. It was work with no pay and no guarantee of employment. I cared less for the money, instead, I wanted to do something that will truly benefit the employer and their readers. That will not happen because I got word this morning that the job went to someone else. Upon reading that message, I didn’t know whether or not I should throw a tantrum, weep or respond with a hate letter. My energy was low due to poor sleeping habits and decided to reflect and analyze my mistakes instead.

It is Foolish to Not Learn from Mistakes

To cut your loses, it really does pay to learn from mistakes because it builds your experience and hopefully prevents you from making the same ones.

Lessons:

• Inexperience, despite manpower will always fall behind wisdom and time tested experience.
• Adhering to the principle of finishing what was started isn’t enough. Full effort must always be exerted.
• Work in a quiet place and avoid distraction.
• Respect the mind and body by getting ample sleep.
• Manage time wisely and avoid rushing.
• Employees do not share the same vision as owners. This explains why large, intelligent companies regard talented and driven employees as their best assets.

How to Cope from Rejection

Time heals, it really does. Also, a realization that there are plenty of opportunities available and rejection makes you stronger will significantly reduce your burden. In fact I feel that I am back to normal after writing this post. Don’t forget to laugh and find humor in many things (this works wonders). Oh and it’s good to remember that…It was their loss.

When I started working after college in my early 20’s, I was very proud of the United States’ progress and the strength of its currency. I have traveled to pre-Euro Europe, Canada and Mexico. The U.S. Dollar went a long way back then and everything seemed “cheaper”.

What happened?

Aside from the devaluation of the U.S. Dollar against foreign currencies, the buying power has dropped inland as well. $1,000,000 in 1999 is only worth $734,000 today after adjusting to inflation. How should we invest? Even more discouraging, what will happen to the retirement funds of the aging baby boomers? Not only is Social Security in crisis but the value of the funds boomers have saved up lost significant value.

Time for Recess

This is not going to be pretty and a global recession is imminent. It’s a question of how we are going to cope with it.

In the U.S., I think the two major contributors of the destruction of its currency are unscrupulous financial practices led by the mortgage lending industry and the war in Iraq.

The United States is known for its generosity to help out other nations but lately it’s been having hidden agendas. The priority of the newly elected leaders should focus on the U.S. economy while significantly reducing foreign aid and war budgets.

After all, a broke America is a weak America. What was the current administration thinking?

We’ve all been burnt out at sometime. If you’re self employed, I think it’s healthy to have days where you do no work at all. Don’t get me wrong, I love and enjoy the challenge of my job but we all need time out. Feeding ducks at the park, visiting friends and family or just spending half a day watching cartoons then beating everyone at Tetris, Street Fighter and Wii Tennis are great escapes from the everyday work load. Having time off is a way to recover and invigorate. I experience sudden bursts of productivity after days off.

I can get extremely productive sometimes but I hardly use organizers or calendars to plan my day or agendas. It depends on personalities I guess but there’s no right or wrong way to get the job done.

Anyway, I think it’s cool to take breaks because it balances your life and will make you a bit happier too

We tried it and left a terrible taste in our mouth. Our idea was simple yet out of the box. It could solve the problems of savvy online marketers and it gave large corporations opportunities to enter new markets.

It was a project that will take time, effort and capital to build. Although we had the money to build this idea, we lacked manpower.

How it all began

One of our contacts pitched his service as a “broker” of outsourcing development projects to India. We gave them a clear and concise set of instructions. They claimed to be competent and familiar doing such projects so we hired them. The contract stated that the project will be completed in 3 months with 3-4 employees on board. When the due date neared, technical problems occurred. A month later, we were assured that the project will be complete in a few more months.

Recently, we sent our contact an email to find the current status of the project since they were already 3 months over due. To our shock, the broker fired the programmers that worked on our project due to their incompetence - That was it!!!

If we didn’t request a status update, we never would have known that our project was abandoned. After wasting 6 months of our time and quite a bit of capital, we received nothing. If we were to hire another team of programmers, they would probably want to start from scratch and not continue on what little the outsourcing company provided.

Aside from this loss, we’ve also had unsatisfactory results from outsourcing to individuals from a foreign country.

If you want to consider outsourcing your projects, learn from our mistakes and do the following:

1. Conduct intensive research on the outsourcing company. Ask them a lot of questions and also contact a few of their past clients to know more about their performance and habits.

2. Deal with companies directly and not through a commission based broker. Should you consider working with a broker, make sure they have been in the field for a number of years. Don’t work with people who are new at brokering outsourcing projects because their lack of experience will be at your expense.

3. Have an iron clad contract

4. Be careful when hiring individuals. Make sure you’re confident with their competency and communication before assigning them work. It also helps to start out with smaller projects.

5. Only hire programmers full time after they have performed well doing contract work first.

On a positive note, projects we have outsourced on American shores outperformed offshore outsourcing