Embryonic Ideas

Marketing, demonstrating and selling a product that I believe in:

Helping disadvantaged children or young adults

Making Machines

Immature?

Reading this, you may guess that I am far younger than I actually am.  The fact is, it has taken me a long time to reach this stage of personal development.  I am well into middle age, with decades of wasted working years behind me.  Compared to many people of my age, with well-defined working lives and senior posts in conventional careers, I am somewhat of a maverick, and I suppose that some would describe me as immature, or more kindly as a “late developer”.  Why do I feel the need to say this?  Well, I am not immune from the temptation of comparing myself with others.  But I am writing this to underline the importance of putting that all aside and pursuing YOUR life goals, relentlessly, irrespective of how it “looks” to anyone else or how the little people of this world will judge you for earning less; having a smaller house, car, whatever.  Let them get on with their thing and make sure it does not deflect you for a second from getting on with your thing.

What the heck is Newology, I hear you ask.  Or maybe it’s just the voices again…

Well, Newology, since you or my inner voiced asked, is the science of the new.  More to the point, it’s the name of my brand new website, launched this very day, 1 August 2010!  Hip-hip horror! I have collected the services that I offer to industry under the umbrella of the new Newology brand.

The overall aim of the brand is to resolve a range of business problems, either in-house or by building a team of experts, project-managing the process so that it’s as easy and painless as possible for the customer.  I also intend to focus very sharply on making sure that there is a solid return on investment and that this can be illustrated easily to potential customers.

You can take a look at the first version of the site by clicking this link: Newology

Oh, and please leave comments and suggestions below because I am not too proud to learn from you!

Yesterday I had a major “wobble”.

I’m really moving out of my “comfort zone” and I can see that this is absolutely necessary so I can get nearer to the place I want to be in life.  The problem for us all, of course, is that moving out of our comfort zones is, well, uncomfortable!  Personally, I realised yesterday just how far out of my comfort zone I have to go when it comes to actually generating business out in the real world.

I have, during my entire life, never really faced these fears before even though I identified them many years ago – they have remained unresolved as I managed to “get by” and make a comfortable living as an employee in a field so narrow that I could avoid confronting these problem areas.  Being self-employed means we really do have to face a whole range of fears head-on – there is no “corporate shield” to hide behind now!  I know that only by practising those things I am afraid of will I lose the fear and “expand my comfort zone” – this much is accepted wisdom, but of course just knowing this does not make the process any less uncomfortable!

The thing is, when I face what I’m up against, it’s REALLY daunting – it seems that what I have to do to succeed in my new self-employed life is a bit like climbing a towering, vertical cliff without a rope!  Yesterday it was as if I approached that cliff, looked up at it and wondered how on earth I was ever going to climb it.  I made the mistake of looking at the whole daunting task instead of just working out where my next foothold is.

I think that’s something I need to remember.  Looking at the whole task – like looking up at that massive cliff – just caused me to freeze and think I would never be able to do it.  Finding the next foothold and planting my foot in it – almost a piece of cake!  So what I did yesterday was to really break down the big actions on my list into “footholds” – baby steps that will take me a little bit outside my comfort zone – things that I can JUST DO without thinking about the whole daunting task of “generating business”.  The key to these little steps, for me, is to define them clearly and in such as way that they are small enough for “doing” without any deep strategic thinking.

When I’ve taken one of these baby steps, I’m no longer stuck – I just made a little bit of PROGRESS and it feels nice.  I may have only done a little thing, but at least I did it, and it’s another little step up that cliff!

If you have your own tips that you found useful when “facing the fear” in self-employment, please leave a comment!

Sometimes I look up from my computer when I am working here at home and glance sideways, my attention diverted by a movement outside.  Often, it’s one of the workers in the office opposite, standing outside, talking on a mobile phone, having a cigarette break.

On a bad day, I find myself envying them for a moment – envying the camaraderie of the office; the steady salary; the pension.  Then I wake up to myself and realise that they are effectively in prison nine-to-five every day.  Or at least, that’s how an office career job seemed to me whenever I was stuck in one.  I was dead inside, marking time each month just paying my way, learning little in the way of new skills; getting little consolation during my weekends and evenings.  It was as if someone else ruled the very core of my existence.

So after a few moments of empty envy, when I see these furtively smoking employees I remember how much I am learning, how I am moving forward with my business, albeit hesitantly and slowly – and most of all I remind myself how I am right now taking charge of my life and living it true-to-character, instead of acting out some badly cast role as a servant to some undeserving god.

I’m writing this pretty much off the top of my head.  I’ve literally just got out of bed and switched on the laptop.

I awoke this morning having had a bad dream.  In it I dreamt that I was being bullied and ridiculed by a man who had hired me into a full-time sales job with slick words and promises of how great it would be to work for him, only to find myself on day two of my job in an office meeting, surrounded by about 30 men, many of them decades younger than I, jeering as my boss humiliated me in front of them all, saying that he always suspected I would never make the grade and my first day had proved him right.  He then suddenly grabbed me and said he would show me what he did to people like me, at which point he gave me a “dead leg” and caused me to fall to the ground as everyone laughed.

The reason for me writing this is firstly to break the dream and stop it clouding my day, but also to acknowledge that really this is an embodiment of one of my irrational fears, a fear that I need to overcome.  Since I did a telesales job about 20 years ago, I have a real “thing” about what I think of as “selling”.  Unconsciously I think of selling in terms of cold calling against a daily regime of targets and a threat of job loss if I fail – this describes that job from 20 years ago.  Really, I KNOW that sales need not be like that.  I know that every businessman has to sell to succeed, but my unconscious, narrow view of selling is preventing me from getting into the process and engaging with prospects on MY terms, in MY own inimitable way.

Recognising this problem is a great help, and my dream last night was another prod that reminds me I really need to get some positive sales experience and overcome this problem that really is hindering my business.  Sales for me is really about setting out my wares, showing people how they can benefit from them and bringing about a successful trade in an almost natural way, a win-win way in which both parties walk away happy.  This, I have absolutely no problem with and I know I would actually come to like it, because I genuinely love “trading”.  The pressured sell, when you make enough cold calls to get some of them to stick with some unfortunates whom you happen to catch at a weak moment, that completely turns me off.

So I need to work towards looking at the sales process as the thing I think of as “trading” and not the thing I think of as “selling”, because one conjures up horrors for me and the other I genuinely love.

I know I am not alone in having some sort of block about “selling”.  I would be interested to hear your comments – go on – write one below while you’re here..

It’s been a weird week.  It seems that one of Google’s near-daily algorithm changes has had quite an impact on the traffic I am getting to my websites.  Like many people in the UK, I have noticed a significant drop in traffic since early June.  And I mean 75%.  This seems to have happened in the U.S. earlier – in May, hence the “Mayday” name being given to this update.

Of course, nobody knows for sure what has happened, but there is a lot of anecdotal evidence.  I have read about a merchant who has reported affiliate sales down “across the board”, i.e. across many affiliate websites, and I also read about a man who usually earns $1000 per month from his websites; slashed to virtually nil during the past month.

Many more seasoned observers are saying it’s “just part of what affiliate marketing is all about”, changing what you do, putting up with whatever Google throws at you.  But I realised yesterday that, for me, it’s far too high a risk to have all my income coming from this source.  I am only getting just over £100 per month right now, ten months in (well – I was), but I would hate to spend another year getting that to £1000 a month only for it to revert to nil for months on end following a Google update.

So, I have decided forthwith to diversify, and that I can no longer afford the luxury of going after Google’s “free traffic”  full-time and using this free traffic to provide all of my income.  Instead, I will spend 50% of my time on that, and the other 50% on getting/doing freelance work or developing other projects or maybe even experimenting a little (very cautiously) with paid traffic.

This will slow the development of my empire of affiliate sites, but it still means I can spend a good 25 hours a week on them, on average, more than many people have the luxury to do.  It will also mean I will be working towards more diverse income from more than one source, which will be lower risk for my overall business.

Looking at my EzineArticles stats this morning, a flash of inspiration hit me.

I have submitted a lot of articles to EzineArticles now, but the success rate of people visiting them and clicking through to my sites varies a lot.  However, there is something of a pattern forming.

The first thing to say is that my rubbish articles do rubbish.  Few people read them, and virtually nobody clicks through to the underlying web site I am trying to draw attention to.  OK, fair enough.  I must not write rubbish.

It gets more interesting though..

The next class of articles are those that are what I would call self-contained, where you read it, and you have everything you came for.  A good example is the safety guide.  You know the thing “Steam Iron Dangers – Don’t Fall into These Traps”; or “Folding Snooker Table – Avoid These Hidden Hazards”.  The thing about these is that once a reader reaches the end, your invitation to “visit folding-snooker-table-today.com for more information and some amazing bargains” is pretty empty – because the reader found your article by searching for safety tips – probably.  He has all he needs thank you very much, and has no reason to visit your site.

This brings me to the third class of article.  This is the one I am aiming for from now on.  It’s the sort of article that’s a real “hook” or a “teaser”.  I have found that things like “Folding Snooker Table – A Beginner’s Guide” have worked well for me, assuming of course that the object in question is something that people are interested in.

The point is that this sort of article is giving people a start in the subject; giving them the information and confidence that they need before they can choose and buy a product that perhaps they have not bought before.  Having read such a “primer”, it’s a very natural step for the reader to capitalise on this new-found confidence and click on the link to see some examples of the product on your niche site.

In a nutshell, it’s about sowing seeds rather than giving a bouquet.  Seeds are a starting point; a bouquet is the end.

Oh dear.

Back in November I wrote a post entitled “I Really Don’t Know Life At All” – and since then I have received a lot of people here who are looking for the lyrics of this great song by Joni Mitchell, properly called “Both Sides, Now”.

So, if that’s what you’re here for – there’s a link to the lyrics below so you don’t feel cheated, but why not have a look around while you’re here?

I Really Don’t Know Life At All / Both Sides Now Lyrics

…to quote the Barbara Dickson song.

Well, to be honest, January was OK and February only brought a small dip in the TV sales, so can’t complain really. Total commission down to £68 from £73.

So, February was the first month of my self-imposed challenge to ramp up my Thirty Day Challenge-style web site production.  How did I do?  Well.  Pretty well, actually.  My target was 20 web sites in a month, and I did 19.  So that’s 19 on top of the, erm, one successful microniche site I had at the start of the month (we won’t mention the eight failed ones).  Of course, I also have the long-term project – the yet-to-rank-for-any-keyword, no-traffic travel niche site..

But I have more exciting things to report from February:

When I took my month-end look at sales and traffic, I found that of these 19 new sites, nine were already receiving some traffic.  More than this – of these nine, no fewer than FOUR sites had produced a sale – and this within a month of going live in each case.  On analysing the conversion ratios, all four sites have had around 50 unique visitors each, of which about 50% clicked on the affiliate link and one bought!  So that’s 1 in 50 visitors buying – and on each of four different sites.  I only hope that ratio continues!

So, I have to consider the first month of my “90 day project” as I’m calling it, pretty much a success.  I’ve made a slow start in March, with just one more site added so far and it’s already 3rd March, but I am committed to adding another 15 sites this month.

There are also other pressures coming into play now.  My other half has just come to the end of a temp job which was not even paying the bills as it was, but now there’s nothing coming in apart from the affiliate commission.  Let’s hope for more than February’s £68 in March then..

You may not know this, but 10 days ago there was an almighty gas explosion in the town where I live, Shrewsbury in the UK.  A building was destroyed in the town centre, and several people were injured.

http://ijumped.net poppy

At the time, I was at home a few hundred yards away, and to cut a long story short, I was on the scene just after the emergency services arrived, with my trusty camera in hand, and got a few shots.  I posted these on my website as fast as I could, and I was indeed the first person to get any photos of any quality on the internet.  More to the point, I used my Twitter and Digg accounts to call attention to the photos.  Within minutes, my page was indexed and getting hits.

What I didn’t think about was the bandwidth that these full-size photos from my five mega-pixel camera would consume.  Within an hour I was up to 1,350 unique visitors and 2Gb of bandwidth, at which point the site was closed down!  Fortunately, I use a reseller account with tentahost.co.uk, and set my own limits on individual domains, so it was only my own limit that was exceeded, not the overall account.  Tentahost were great in helping me to sort it out.

The point of this post is to say that never before have I managed to get any meaningful attention from social networking sites, yet with this hot story, I got attention, and lots of it, almost immediately – and it felt sort of special.  I was even contacted by BBC news.  For a while, my web page was at number one, with the Digg submision and the Tweet also in the top five on Google for “Shrewsbury gas explosion”.  (Later, the BBC and Sky took over at the top!)

Unfortunately, as many people have mentioned is often the case, the traffic I got was not interested in buying anything from me or looking at my website, apart from the explosion photos.  I really am starting to wonder what the business value of sites like Twitter is, for me anyway.  After all, nobody using Twitter is looking for my products or services, and nobody is interested enough in my web sites to follow me, and why would they?  What can I say in 160 characters that’s of any use to someone booking a holiday or buying a TV?  If anyone has any ideas, I would be interested to hear them.

I’m still not sure how my one Digg submission and one Tweet caused my web page to be indexed within minutes, when normally it can take as long as a few days.

Meanwhile, I moved the photos over to Flickr and the traffic on my site is back to normal.  My only reminder of this episode is the big bump in the middle of the Google Analytics graph, as big as the one in the share price graph during the dotcom boom and bust!