Online Business Archive

If you’ve been at all curious about signing up for Teaching Sells now is the time. Brian Clark and Tony Clark are closing the doors to new members at the end of July, a little more than a week from now.

You can still join Teaching Sells and start building a real online business… but only until midnight July 31, 2008. Then the doors close to new members, no exceptions.

By acting now, you can also join at the current price of $97 a month. When Teaching Sells re-opens (we’re not sure at this point when that will be… we’ve got a lot of work to do) the price will be no less than $997 for a six-month training program. And we might not have a monthly or payment plan option at all.

My first year in business was probably similar to many others. I slowly built a list of clients and while I’d hardly call that first year the world’s greatest success story, I did make enough money to support myself, saw the potential for growth, and looked forward to year two.

Year two wasn’t what I imagined. Maybe it was simply a sophomore jinx, but my business took a step backward. I survived the year, but there were a few months I wasn’t sure I would. I had a hard time picking up new clients and my clients from year one weren’t sending me as much work as I thought they would.

When Teaching Sells opened it’s doors I wasn’t sure I could really afford the course. I’ve come to trust Brian after reading CopyBlogger all these years and took a chance. I’ve learned more about running a profitable business than I ever could have imagined.

While the main aim of the course is to teach you how to build membership sites, it’s really much more. I’ve learned:

• How to create more effective content
• What makes for a profitable business model
• How to effectively market ideas
• How to persuade instead of sell
• How to be an “entreproducer”

One other thing I’ve learned and continue to learn isn’t necessarily part of the course, but it’s perhaps one of the more valuable aspects of joining. Brian and Tony are sharing how they do business, how they market their ideas, and how they make money.

I’ve been able to watch things happen on CopyBlogger with a better understanding of how a given post fits within a larger marketing strategy. That’s really opened my eyes to a lot. It’s like watching a live case study unfold before you and as you see what works for someone else you can apply the same to your own business.

I wasn’t looking to create membership sites when I first signed up for the course and I don’t have any planned for the immediate future, but I have been applying much of the related material to my business over the last 9 months.

To me it’s no coincidence that year three has already brought in more money than either year one or year two and I’m on pace to make more money this year than both of the previous two years combined.

Teaching Sells was the missing piece for me. I can’t promise it will be for you, but I can promise that what’s inside is worth the price of admission. However, that price is going to go up very soon so if you’ve been thinking at all about joining now would be a good time.

Read Brian’s article explaining why Teaching Sells is closing it’s doors and to better understand what’s inside.

Popularity: 3%

A few Decembers ago I was feeling the holiday spirit and decided to wish all my clients a happy holiday season. One day after Christmas and before New Year’s I sent each a short, personal email offering some season greetings. It was my first year in business so my client list wasn’t exactly huge and in less than an hour I had sent out some holiday cheer.

A funny thing happened.
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Popularity: 13%

Baseball is an allegorical play about America, a poetic, complex, and subtle play of courage, fear, good luck, mistakes, patience about fate, and sober self-esteem.
—Saul Steinberg

Watching Major League Baseball’s All Star game last night I couldn’t help but think about all the lessons baseball teaches us that can be applied to blogging, marketing, business, and life in general. No other game (at least none I’m aware of) truly translates its teachings beyond the game.
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Popularity: 15%

Legally, the registrant of a domain owns it. If you’re listed as your domain’s registrant you do own your domain. However for all practical purposes it’s the person listed as the domain’s admin who has all the control. A quick story will illustrate the point and show the danger of not being listed as your domain’s administrative contact.
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Popularity: 39%

• Anything worth remarking upon.
• Remarkable is better, different, unique, opposed, original - to the nth degree.
• The further away you get from the standard, from the accepted, from the norm, from the status quo, from the ordinary, the more remarkable you are.
• You can be remarkably good and you can be remarkably bad.
• Remarkable doesn’t mean success. Success doesn’t require remarkable. But both often come hand in hand.
• Remarkable is not easy. Remarkable is not safe.
• Remarkable gathers attention to itself.
• Remarkable stands out, stands in front of, and stands apart from.
• If no one is talking about it, it isn’t remarkable.
• Remarkable is only remarkable in comparison to that which is not remarkable.
• A black and white cow is not remarkable. A purple cow is remarkable. A purple cow in a field of purple cows is not remarkable. A black and white cow in a field of purple cows is remarkable.

Are you remarkable? Is your blog remarkable? Can you become remarkable? What do you find remarkable? What does remarkable mean to you?

Popularity: 32%

Last October I signed up as one of the initial members or Teaching Sells. The course has been a valuable and eye opening experience for me and I’ve learned a lot during the past few months. For awhile now Teaching Sells has been offering a one week trial for $1, which is a great bargain given the usual $97 for three months of access. However, the trial offer is coming to an end tomorrow (April 17th, 2008 at noon eastern time) so if you’ve been wondering what’s inside and thinking about joining there’s no better time than now.
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Popularity: 28%

About 12 years ago I worked in a one of the large chain bookstores. Part of the job entailed working at the information desk, answering questions and directing people to where they might find a book. On one particular day shortly before Christmas a customer came in and when I looked up the book she wanted it was out of print. The customer might have gone home disappointed, however, as luck would have it that day there was a win-win-win situation that resulted in the customer, the bookstore, and myself all coming out ahead.
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Popularity: 10%

Let the past and its bad habits be done with.
–Unknown

We are all creatures of habit. Most of us get up at the same time every day and go to sleep at the same time every night. We tend to do the same things the same way we did them before. As a business owner you’ve developed processes to deal with situations that occur frequently. How do you know when the processes in place aren’t working or could be improved? Do you have a process in place to reassess the way you do things?
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Popularity: 9%

On thing that happens when you’re forced out of your routine is to realize some of the things you tend to take for granted. As many of you know I’m saddled with a bit of computer problems this week and am working from an old, though workable laptop. A good part of yesterday was spent getting this old system up to be speed, though as much as I’d like it to be otherwise, I’ll have to do without a few things for the next few days. Now that I’m without them I realize how I took for granted that some things would always be there and I thought it would be interesting to ask each of you what things related to your business might you be taking for granted.
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Popularity: 8%

ask not what your country customers can do for you — ask what can you do for your country customers

What are you doing to provide a more positive buying experience for your customers? How are you practicing customer service?
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Popularity: 8%