Social Networking - above and beyond
I just finished reading this month's edition of
Fortune magazine.
The article on the MySpace cowboys was very interesting. Imagine taking a company from 0 - $580 million in just a couple of years. And they sold the company without making a dime of profit. They were sold simply because of the traffic and following they have for their business.
I know many entrepreneurs building companies with that thought in mind - build a huge traffic source, and sell to a large company willing to buy you out for the traffic. While this happens occasiionally (the main companies make the covers of Fortune, Business 2.0, Entrepreneur, etc), this isn't the approach I recommend to any business owner.
Instead, build a company that you are passionate about. Something that makes you get up in the morning with a smile on your face. If you love what you do, it doesn't matter who makes what type of offer.
Come to think of it, that $100 million offer would put a smile on my face... :)
Lori
Web design doesn't have to be difficult
I've been working with a lot of business owners over the past few weeks, and I'm seeing a common thread. People want a design that will allow them to market their business online - and they aren't getting an effective design from a lot of web designers in business today.
We started our business because we understood online marketing. We accomplished a lot on our own, and went looking for a company that could do some of the work for us. After trying out several bad companies, we decided to start Vision.
I want to make web design and marketing affordable for everyone. So my latest packages allow business owners to have several tools that will get them started fast.
http://www.visionofsuccess.com/product_website_package.phphttp://www.visionofsuccess.com/product_website_package_photographer.phpLori
Backup your data
We've all heard the horror stories.
My computer crashed, and I hadn't backed up any data for months.
My 10 year old downloaded something, and all my files were gone.Yet when was the last time you did a back up? Is it regularly scheduled?
I found a new site that looks promosing, and it comes with a great recommendation from a friend.
https://mozy.com/ Mozy offers you a great deal. Try it for free, up to 2 GB, get up to 30GB for under $5. What could be better than that?
If you've ever started over from scratch, spending weeks trying to recreate your work, you know $5 is a small price to pay for the security of having a reliable backup.
Lori
The Future is Blogging
Everone's been talking about blogging. I've been blogging for over a year. But lately I've seen changes that blogging might be even more of a mainstay than ezines and other types of communication.
I've been working with several new clients this past week; all of them have a blog or want access to a blog.
And today as I was flipping through a magazine, House & Garden, they have a whole page dedicated to advertising their new blogs with the editors. Seven editors from different departments within the magazine will be writing their own blogs, and will provide you with information that can't be found in the magazine.
http://www.houseandgarden.com/blissI'm also wondering if blogging will eventually become a way of adding revenue to your company. 10 years ago, people said you could never charge for information. Yet everyone has proved that concept wrong: membership sites, magazines and newpapers charging for internal viewing, and information products making their owners instant millionaires.
Will we be charging (and paying for) blogs in the not so distant future? Only time will tell.
Lori
Marketing small businesses online
I'm back from vacation. No matter how far you travel, it's always refreshing to spend a few days in a new environment, take your mind off of everything, and just have a good time.
This year the family headed up to Black Hills in South Dakota. Even in these small towns, I planned and booked my entire vacation online, and chose everything based on the information I found by looking at websites. If a business wasn't online - I never would have found them.
To start, I ended up booking my vacation through a site
www.blackhillsvacations.com While this site provided me with a variety of choices, it also gave links to other sites where I could decide exactly which attractions we would visit.
We ended up staying at The Rocket Motel,
www.rocketmotel.com We didn't know what to expect, but were pleasantly surprised. Thanks for the great time.
And of course, we did many of the normal tourist sites you would expect to do in the Black Hills - Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Custer State Park, Badlands - and we even made a trip to Wall Drug.
Each of these places have a variety of information online, and provided me with the opportunity to learn about them before I ever left home.
Isn't the Internet grand?
Lori
