WeMoveSeniors.Com - Another Great Example Of A Niche Business

http://www.wemoveseniors.com/

Seniors are among those most likely to move, as they downsize or head off to sunny retirement digs. Yet moves can be especially hard on them, with heavy lifting and countless details to deal with, from emptying an attic to reconnecting an entertainment system. Adrienne Simpson, founder of Smooth Mooove, has staked her claim in what could become an attractive new industry.

Like so many entrepreneurs, she recognized a business opportunity after personally discovering a need. While moving her parents from Georgia to Michigan, she searched without success for a specialized company that would be able to help. Thanks to Simpson’s hard-knocks lessons, Smooth Mooove’s clients can now choose from a lengthy menu of services within three basic moving plans.

Services range from cleaning up vacated homes once all household items have been loaded on a truck, to hanging drapes and shopping for new items for a client’s new home. Although any move is costly, Simpson says Smooth Mooove can actually save time and money. Since family members often have to take time from work to help a parent move, the company isn’t just marketing its program to seniors, but also to corporate clients, as an employee benefit for children of aging boomers.

Smooth Mooove, based in Stone Mountain, Georgia, joins a growing list of concierge-like services focused on seniors, including other moving companies that are starting to serve this market. As populations age throughout the industrialized world, the need for similar services will expand, creating plenty of room for new competitors to differentiate themselves through innovative services or by segmenting the senior market in any number of ways.

Plush retirement communities, for example, might contract with a moving service as an added inducement to buyers. In the end, the success or failure of moving companies for seniors—as with any high-touch service enterprise—will hinge on how well they manage the details. And, equally important, on the respect, consideration and care given to their clients in the process.


The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works--and How It's Transforming the American Economy

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Free Scrabble Tournament

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Top 10 Wackiest Business Stories Of 2007

Low Cost Franchises

Studentbeans.Com Success Story

http://www.studentbeans.com/



I was recently at a school in North London delivering a young enterprise session to a group of 15-year-olds when I asked what they were going to do once they finished their GCSEs, on chorus they responded to get A2s, to go to university, to get a degree and then to get a job.

It was much to their surprise that I was standing in front of them at the age of 24 as a director and co-founder of my own business, www.studentbeans.com the leading student offers website. It was refreshing to see their reaction and inquisitiveness to what it meant and how it was possible!

While I was doing my degree in Birmingham, (something not typically associated with many entrepreneurs), with so much time on my hands I saw an opportunity to get involved and make the most of time outside of my studies.

Over the three years during my course I became involved in AIESEC, the world’s largest student run organisation that helps people realise their potential. Through the organisation I went to conferences with students from across the world and went on sponsored work placements to the Philippines and Colombia in the first and second summer respectively.

At the end of my first year I was on the summer ball committee responsible for securing sponsorship for the event and fundraising. Over months of hard work I ended up getting over 30 brands involved in the event ranging from STA Travel to Starbucks.

In my second year of university I was a brand manager for The Yell Group – responsible for promoting their 118 number. This gave me a fantastic insight to how large businesses work and the importance of a brand and its values.

When it came to graduating, while many people were showering me with advice to get some experience behind me, as my business was related to the student market I thought, what better time to start? My biggest fear was leaving university and becoming cocooned by the normalities of daily life and not being able to have an impact.

Work experience and working for other people all have their place but to really learn and understand what it means to run a business, no one can do it for you, it is up to you to set the ball in motion. Once you start it is addictive, I can’t imagine doing anything else.

What happens to so many people with ideas is that they never take that step, as they are afraid of failure. Some of my peer group are working in jobs they always thought they wanted but when reality hit, and they realised they’re just a cog in a wheel, it has been really disappointing for many of them. Remember, life isn’t a rehearsal, if not now then when? The most important question to ask yourself is what is the worst thing that can happen?

Richard Branson said: “Three months of running a business or trying to set up a business and you will learn, I suspect, as much as you can learn in three years at a business school."

While Branson didn’t go to a business school, I agree with him that you learn more by running a business in three months. University however was for me exploring what I was interested in, meeting some amazing people, discovering what I wanted to do and learning along the way.

James Eder is the director and co-founder of www.studentbeans.com


The Gossip Queen

One Mean Boat

$90 Game Sells For Over $9000 On EBay

Free Online Scrabble Tournament - $250,000 Grand Prize

Money In Domains

Looking for a cool domain name, but can’t think of one yourself? Think all the good domains are already taken? You’ll love PickyDomains.com

Here is how it works. You deposit $50 and give us your specifications. Our contributors start submitting their domain name suggestions. When you see that perfect domain, you just register it. If none of our suggestions worked for you – you just get your money back. See, there is no risk involved.

How good are we at picking cool domain names? We are awesome. Go ahead and Google ‘PickyDomains.com’. Read what major US newspapers like The San Francisco Chronicle have to say about us. Read testimonials. Talk to people who’ve used our services before. Our celebrity client list includes Aaron Wall of SEOBook, Wendy Piersall of eMomsAtHome and Yanik Silver.

If you are new to PickyDomains, here are detailed instructions. After you deposited $50, we need to know your answers to these questions:

1. What is your site going to be about.
2. Does the domain name has to be in .COM zone or other extensions are desirable.
3. What keywords are critical for your domain name.
4. Is there a limit as to how long your domain name has to be (in
characters.)
5. Dashes or no dashes.
6. Give us an example of existing websites in your niche that you really like.

Once we get answers to these questions, we’ll send you an e-mail with your login and password. You’ll start receiving your domain name suggestions within 24 hours (sometimes as fast as 10 minutes).

Your job is to check suggestions periodically and mark them as ‘Liked’ or ‘Disliked’ to help our contributors. We will soon add an option that allows you to comment each domain name suggestion, if you choose.

Once you see that perfect domain name suggestion, simply mark it as ‘Picked’. This will complete your order (we’ll forward $25 to a contributor who made the winning suggestion).

Rarely a client doesn’t get a name that he or she really likes. But this does happen from time to time. All you do in this instance is simply close the order and ask as for refund.

Like we promised, it’s risk-free, fast and it works!

So What's The Question?

Toronto's Smallest House Is Back On Sale

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One Post That Will Make You Smarter Than Most MBAs

Old Guys Rule. No Really, They Do And Have Millions To Prove It.

http://www.oldguysrule.com/

Vital Stats Thom Hill, 40, of Old Guys Rule in Ventura, California
Company Apparel featuring vintage-inspired graphics
Projected 2008 Sales $8 million

In 2003, professional surfer Don Craig was riding high, thanks largely to inspiration he drew from his father, legendary surfer Doug Craig. As a tribute to his dad, Don crafted some bumper stickers that said "Old Guys Rule." The saying struck a nerve with the general public--especially the 40- to 65-year-old set--so Don slapped the phrase on T-shirts and put them in several Southern California surf shops. They sold out immediately.

Seeing the potential but not wanting to helm a big business, Don enlisted Thom Hill, president of sports apparel company Coastal Classics, to take over. Meanwhile, Don promotes the brand as a national sales representative. Says Hill, "With the aging boomer population being as active as they are, we jumped on it and created a lifestyle brand for people who were still active and have discretionary time and money."

When gift-giving women unexpectedly emerged as the primary customers, Hill followed the current by educating retailers and choosing appropriate store placement. Still, inspiration for new designs and accessories is never far away. "Our lead designer, our sales manager, Don and I get together two or three times a year, rent a house somewhere in Mexico, go out in the water and come up with a bunch of ideas," says Hill. "It's all about having fun."

Today, the brand has come to symbolize a state of mind popular among surfers, golfers, bikers and boaters. While the company has vibed well with retailers in coastal communities, it will gain more momentum this year as Hill partners with specialty chains and lifestyle department stores nationwide.

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Walmart pulls ‘Superbad’ DVD in Hawaii for featuring fake Hawaii license.

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How To Win $250,000 Playing Free Games Online

Playing free games online can be a profession. A number of sites are giving out cash prizes and the size keeps growing. It first started with modest amounts, like $100, to attract gamers, but now payments balooned to $250,000.

Here is a list of free games you can play and win fat cash prizes:

Scrabble

Bejeweled 2

Family Feud

Luxor

Big Money

Solitaire

Have fun and good luck!

How To Make A Bag And $3 Million Along The Way.

http://www.chicobag.com/

"Those bags end up in a landfill," says Keller. "It's a waste of natural resources." As the founder and CEO of The ChicoBag Company, Keller, 34, has made it his mission to get others to follow his environmentally friendly example. "I want to help humanity kick the single-use bag habit," he says.

The concept for Keller's company is incredibly simple: He sells reusable shopping bags. But while he's the first to admit that this isn't a new idea, Keller says he has a twist on it that has helped his company take off: His bags are made of nylon and can be folded small enough to fit in a glove compartment, backpack or even a back pocket. "Reusable bags, like the typical canvas bag, haven't been convenient," explains Keller. "People are always forgetting them at home, so they're not around when [shoppers] need them."

Keller started the Chico, California-based business in 2005 after being laid off from his job in software sales. He had gone to a local landfill to dump some trash and was taken aback by how many plastic bags he saw in the heap. "I wanted to save some of the bags before the tractor went over them," he says. Instead, he bought a used sewing machine at a local thrift store and made a prototype for a reusable bag. Taking the sample to some local retailers, he listened to their feedback and created the ChicoBag.

The bags are now manufactured overseas and sold at stores across the country as well as through the company's website. Keller, who expects sales of $2 million to $3 million this year, says his sales have gotten a boost from recent efforts by San Francisco officials to ban plastic checkout bags at large supermarkets. "The plastic bag problem has been in the news a lot, and it's helping raise awareness," he says.

Keller is also doing what he can to educate people about the problem with using plastic bags. He has launched a program with schools to sell the bags as fundraisers. "Having the kids sell bags instead of candy bars not only helps the school meet financial goals," says Keller, "but we also provide them with lesson plans and information to educate the students on the environment."


They Are Crazy And They Are Paying For Your Christmas This Year

Man accidentally shoots self in buttocks

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Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA

How To Write A Profitable Blog Post

Get this – even if you don’t finish reading this post and don’t click a single link, I’ll still make 10 cents off you. That’s because the post has eCPM of a little over $100, meaning I get hundred bucks for every 1000 impressions (as long as most traffic comes from US). I’ve actually tested this post for two weeks on my other blog that deals with weird business ideas and eCPM there was in the $96-$112 range.

While “The $100 eCPM Blog Post” might have been more accurate, I’ve decided to name this post “World’s Most Profitable Blog Post” because I am a marketer and we marketers LOVE to tweak headlines (and yes, a great headline can generate a shitload of traffic just out of curiosity). However, I wouldn’t be at all surprised that this particular blog post really does have the highest eCPM in the world for blogs.

So how did I do it? Testing, testing and then some more testing. It all started when I read that if you make money with AdSense, you can make 10X as much, if you add affiliate links. This blog makes me $20-$30 in AdSense revenue every day, so 10X would be $200-$300 a day. That ain’t bad, considering that this is just a hobby blog and my other online businesses (PickyDomains.Com, SoftwareJudge.Com, Deprice.Com) are my primary income source.

So I started reading some books on affiliate marketing. I’ve read Online Marketing Success Stories: Insider Secrets, from the Experts Who Are Making Millions on the Internet Today, Street Smart Internet Marketing - Tips, Tools, Tactics & Techniques to Market Your Product, Service, Business or Ideas Online and Affiliate Millions: Make a Fortune using Search Marketing on Google and Beyond.

The good thing – these books are awesome. The bad thing – for some strange reason the act of reading a smart book about how people get rich online did make me all that smart or rich for that matter. More over, after some testing I found out that the traditional affiliate marketing model doesn’t work all that well. The traditional model says – here, sell this crappy e-book for 100 bucks and we’ll give you 50. The problem is that nobody buys all that crap. People are reluctant to buy even good things from trusted vendors. Fifty percent from nothing is still nothing.

So, if you want to make good money as affiliate marketer – don’t sell stuff. Confused? Great. Here, click this link called Shawn Casey's Business In A Box (if you live outside US, you’ll be rerouted, sorry about that – there is nothing I can do).

As you see, it’s a free e-mail course on marketing (pretty good one, too). While most people probably not very interested in internet marketing and don’t know who Shawn is (a marketing genius), my site is about internet marketing, so my opt-in rate is very high. One in very eight people who click the link do register and I get $1.30 for every registration.

So here is your first lesson – do find affiliate offers that don’t require selling but pay per lead (lead is usually free sign up or registration) that match the topic of your blog. Here are some other examples of what offers convert well on blogs similar to the one you are reading – how to turn $60 in $1000 flipping domain names and the list of low cost franchises (guess how much this one pays per registration – over six bucks, because it’s so specialized, and this one pays even more - $35). Another example of getting paid for not selling anything is this - I get $25 for every person who becomes publisher or adversiter.

How do you get access to those affiliate campaigns that pay for NOT selling stuff? I’m going to tell you shortly, but I first want to stress the difference between getting paid for lead and getting paid for sale.

Merchants who pay you a percentage of the sale are lazy. They don’t want to take any risks. Essentially, they are saying – if you bring me 10 bucks, I’ll let you keep 5. Let’s say a person is selling 20 dollar widget that costs $10 to produce. So his or her profit is $10, right? So your affiliate commission is likely to be $5 max. Otherwise, there isn’t much profit left. The risk is all yours. If you drive good traffic, but the offer is bad, you get nothing.

Lead based commission works differently. Let’s say a person is selling that very same $20 widget. Let’s say it’s some iPod accessory. Lead based marketer knows that a customer is his major asset. So he sells that accessory and puts the customer on his mailing list. He knows that, statistically speaking that customer is likely to keep buying for two years, make X transactions and generate Y dollars in profit (much more than $10 made in profit from the very first transactions).

So lead-based marketers make more money, they know what their customer is worth to them and they can pay you more. He knows that just a name on the list is worth $3 to him, so he'll pay you $2 per name and address of any person who owns a particular model of iPod. It’s a concept pioneered by Jay Abraham and described very well in Lead Generation for the Complex Sale, so my advice is to stick with campaigns that pay for lead, not sale (be careful, some merchants label their campaigns as pay-per-lead, when they really pay for sale). There are some exceptions to this rule, as you'll see in this post.

Ok, so where does one go for pay-per-lead campaigns? CPA networks. I’ve worked with a number of them and the two I am working with right now are Copeac and MaxBounty. Not all CPA networks are created equal. For example, Commission Junction hasn’t made me any money, while it’s probably one of the most famous and well respected CPA networks. Copeac made me over $10K right away. Why the difference? I have no clue. CJ just doesn’t convert. Amazon pays measly 6-8% (my monthly Amazon earnings are just a little over $150 a month, even though I do promote their books heavily, since I am an avid reader myself).

A rule of thumb is that you should be able to make money with CPA network within the first week, after trying 30-50 different campaigns. If you don’t – move onto a different network. I highly recommend that you only join CPA networks that have referral programs (also known as two-tier programs). Both Copeac and MaxBounty do, one 2%, another 5%.

Referral programs are very important. Currently, 50% of my affiliate income comes from actual leads I generate and 50% comes from referrals (it does take a long while go get to that point, it took me almost six month). The way I fight referrophobia (avoidance of clicking ref links) is that I help my affiliates. If they register with the links I gave, I’ll see their ID. So they can send me a question with their ID and I’ll give them the answer. The only change that I’ve made after getting several hundreds affiliates to register under me is that I require people to first do some testing on their own. I do, however provide a list of tested offers that convert for me.

Now, I’ve earlier given you examples of affiliate campaigns that make money on blogs that write about making money online. How about generic blogs? For generic blogs two types of affiliate campaigns work well – contests and free giveaways.

My two contest winners are getting paid for playing Scrabble online and $1000 prize for writing the best short poem.

As far as freebies go, my money makers are 250 free business cards, free $500 grocery card and free health product samples.

So, if anyone asks you if it's possilble to have $100 eCPM for a blog page - this blog is the living proof that it is. Sure, I had to cramp in a shitload of affiliate links and put in several weeks worth of testing which pay-per-lead offers work best. But honestly, I'm proud of myself.

What’s a big deal about $100 eCPM? There are people who sell Rolls Royce’s on the Internet and their eCPM must me astronomical. 100 arab sheiks visit the site, 2 of them spend half a million dollar each – boom goes eCPM into the stratosphere.

Here is the difference (you’ll appreciate it, if you do business online). If you are a Rolls Royce guy doing online advertising, you have to bid only on certain keywords that are directly related to Rolls Royce. There is just no way you can bid on ‘Britney Spears’ and make sales. Not gonna happen. But suppose you did? You’d be just burning your cash, essentially. Wasting money.

This isn’t the case with this very blog post that you are reading right now. I’m going to make 10 cents from every reader no matter what (statistically speaking), so as long as I buy traffic for less then 10 cents, I make profit.

This is a very important difference in two advertising models. The more money Rolls Royce guy spends on his ads, the less profit he makes. The more money I spend on ads the more money I make.

Let me give you a quick lecture on PPC ads. Just to be fair – all I know about making money from PPC ads I learned from Perry Marshall. There is a lot of free information on the subject on his website scattered around – or you can just buy his book on Amazon, it’s less then 17 bucks and has more information than $200 PPC training courses that some of you may have bought. The only thing that I did not learn from Perry is the three cent secret which is the PPC Coach thing (it’s a company that specializes in PPC ads for affiliates – essentially they show you how to stop losing money with PPC ads and start making money with PPC ads).

Essentially, there are two ways you can set up your PPC ads when it comes to affiliate marketing. Let’s say your niche is adult dating (my winner here). You bid on keywords like ‘adult dating’, ‘adult personals’ may be some brand names like, Ashley Madison. And your ad reads something like:

Adult Dating

World’s Biggest Adult Dating

Community. Join Now For Free!

Looks familiar, doesn’t it?

You make $2.50 per free registration, your conversion rate is 1 to 10, your keywords are really expensive, so pretty soon you start losing money. Why is that? Because your ad is keyword dependent. But after you get coached by PPC Coach you get smart. You write an ad that says

One Night Stand Only!

No Marriage, No Relationship, I Just Want

“It”. The More Kinky The Better.

Now you can run this ad on the content side of Google. You can bid on names of country music singers. Your ad will appear on sites where men are. Or you can bid on Nascar racing related terms. And your ad will appear on sites are. All of a sudden, you don’t want to be found on search engines, because your ads aren't very relevant to the keywords you are bidding on. Now you want your ad to be run on AdSense network. People will read it and the ad, not keywords will be the qualifier. If it resonates with them, they'll click. If it does not - they will not.

This is a rather critical distinction because now you understand that the ability to make money comes from your ad writing skills.

By the way, if you are totally new to ‘Google Cash’ way of making money (promoting affiliate offers via PPC), let me tell you what’s going to happen to you. First, you’ll read about it and you’ll be excited. Then you’ll try it. You’ll be writing dumb keyword-dependent ads and losing money. Most of you will give up here.

Some will get smart and learn to write keyword independent PPC ads and use Google’s contextual side (AdSense) to its full potential. All of a sudden, your ads will be breaking even and – get this – EVEN MAKING YOU A LITTLE BIT OF MONEY!

Then ‘It’ will happen. You’ve added 100 new PPC campaigns. 90 of them generate no traffic whatsoever. Two or three makes you a few bucks a day. Some lose you a little bit of money. And then one campaign starts making you over a hundred bucks a day (for me, it was this campaign from Omaha Steaks which now produces less then 5% of what it used to. It's one of the few pay per sale campaigns that worked great, probably because Omaha Steaks is such a great brand).

You start jumping. Holy shit! Google Cash does work! I’m going to get rich! I’m going to get rich. You can see yourself making six figure income online. Maybe even a million dollars. Or more. But then all of a sudden, you start getting less and less money and then it your winner campaign stops working at all.

Sorry, such is life. If you have a working ad, doesn’t mean that you have a working business. By no means do I mean to discourage you from using Google Cash method. I still use it. But it’s kind of like Forex. There are successful Forex traders. And they make money. George Soros made over a billion dollars with Forex in a few months, when he crashed British pound. But that was a one time event.

It’s the same thing with your ‘winner campaigns’. They’ll make you money (sometimes a lot of money). But when something changes or campaign is cancelled – that’s it, you are screwed.

Don’t sweat – there is a solution to this as well. Just like it’s possible to make your ad keyword independent, you can become independent or lesser dependent on particular affiliate campaign. This very post is an example how this is done.

There are some advantages to linking your PPC ad directly to affiliate campaign, skipping your own landing page. Conversions are usually better. However, you don’t have any control over other people's landing pages. Offer stops producing and you no longer make any money. The solution is to create your own landing page (like the one you are reading right now).

Listen carefully, guys. The only reason for creating your own landing page is TO MAKE MORE MONEY and become OFFER-INDEPENDENT. That’s it.

This page is 100% under my control. That page isn’t. Let’s say I run a PPC campaign with ‘make money online’ theme. Can I increase profits from this page? Sure I can. I can add more affiliate links. Or more AdSense blocks. Or a new service that I created. I could start selling links. I could start promoting some sort of guru consulting services, like Brian Tracy's. Sell real estate related products. And if one offer suddenly stops working, I could easily replace it.

Not so with that page. There is nothing I can do with it. It’s not under my control.

When you create your own landing page, you should be OBSESSED with the idea of making it more and more profitable. And it’s not because of greed. This page makes me 10 cents per visitor. So I can pay Google 5 cent per visitor and still profit handsomely. But if it made 15 cents per visitor (and believe me, I’ll tweak the hell out of it so it eventually does), I could pay Google 10 cents. That would mean a hell of a lot more traffic and a lot more profits.

 

That’s how the game works. After you learn how to make your ads keyword-independent, you start learning the art of creating profitable landing pages. Let me give you a few pointers just like I did with pay per click ads.

You’ve got to understand that NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO, 90% of folks who read your landing page will do NOTHING. It’s the same for this post as well. Heck, this far into the post, I’ve lost most readers. And it’s not my fault or anybody else, for that matter. It’s just the way it is. The profitability of your landing pages that you create in the hands on the 10%. Remember that.

So the first thing that you should do is duplicate your best converting links, like I did with Shawn Casey’s free internet marketing course. You might have noticed this on your own – sometimes, when you come across the link, you don’t click it. But if you see it again, you decide to click it for some reason. It’s weird, but it’s true. I told you that I have several online businesses. My first one was Deprice.Com – selling downloadable shareware online (I could tell you about that business as well if you’d like). You’ll see that I have two Download and Buy links for each product. Why? Because sales increase by 12% if I have two links.

The second important concept is pre-selling your links. Pre-selling is simply explaining your reader what’s going to happen when they click the link or what the offer is about. Let me give you an example.

There is a site called e-Poll Surveys. It’s rather old and well-known. What they do is they pay with Amazon coupons and free prizes for you to take surveys. You’ve really got to be bored out of your mind, because it takes several dozen completed surveys to get a free book or a free CD. But unlike other survey sites this one is real, legitimate, proven and has great reviews from Epinions.Com.

I’ve promoted e-Poll on MadConomist.Com with and without explanations (pre-selling). Difference in conversions – 400%. It does pay to explain.

(to be continued).

SkinnySongs Success Story

http://www.skinnysongs.com/

A chocolate chip cookie changed Heidi Roizen's life.

Roizen, 49, is one of Silicon Valley's best-known venture capitalists. She has been a pivotal player in the valley for years, and counts both Bill Gates and Warren Buffett among her friends. In the 1980s, Roizen co-founded a software company with her brother, and then came up with the idea of selling clip art--mini pictures in software. Clipart made money for her firm--and eventually became a staple of the Internet.

In the mid-1990s, Roizen joined Apple to try to rekindle enthusiasm among software developers for writing for the Mac platform. Roizen did it with flair, marching onto the stage at a developers' conference clutching a briefcase stuffed with cash to show how much Apple wanted to support developers. She helped orchestrate one of Microsoft's biggest acquisitions, the $1.1 billion purchase of Great Plains software.

But in May, Roizen scored a much more intimate big number. She climbed on the bathroom scale and watched as the numbers hit their highest value ever. Although she tried working out and dieting, the campaigns had fizzled. Worse, she was on her way to a board meeting at a startup company located next to a chocolate chip cookie factory. The meeting would feature delightful, fresh-baked cookies. It always did.

"Can't touch those cookies," she thought grimly, as she drove to the board meeting, flipping through the music choices in her car's system to find something to cheer her on. In past years, as she headed into difficult board meetings, she'd treat herself to a blast of defiant music, such as Pink's "18 Wheeler." But on this particular day, nothing suited her mood.

"I need that kind of music to lose weight," she thought. "I need chick empowerment music. I'm going to fit into my skinny jeans. And I wanted the music to be really cool!"

That's when the entrepreneur in Roizen kicked in. Another person might have just made due with, say, the theme song from the movie Flash Dance. But that wouldn't do for Roizen.

Over the next few months, Roizen, who majored in creative writing at Stanford University, scribbled lyrics for a handful of songs, naming the first "Skinny Jeans." Her words were laced with country music-style irony:

From the moment that I saw you, hangin' out at the mall
I had to own you, your rhinestones and all…
For years we were together, every Saturday night,
we'd go out dancin', you'd hold me in tight,
but you were unforgiving and you wouldn't let me grow
Now I can't put you on--but I can't let you go…."

Friends liked them, but electronic musician Thomas Dolby sat her down and asked her if she was just playing, or if she was serious. "He said: 'Is your goal 15 minutes of fame on YouTube?'" Roizen recalled.

Along with penning lyrics, Roizen started researching the business of weight loss. She encountered another set of big numbers: The Food and Drug Administration reports that about 50 million Americans typically say they're on a diet at any given time. About 76% of Americans say they'd like to lose weight.

Doctors told her the biggest challenge for dieters was finding a community that encourages and supports them. But music specially geared at helping people lose weight tended to be meditative or reflective--or worse, simply depressing about how rotten life is on a diet.

All this suggested to Roizen that her mission wasn't to get on the radio--but to develop a new market. "The niche is women who'd like to lose weight and who listen to music," she says. "It's a big, honking niche on the Venn diagram."

A recording goes "platinum" when it sells a million copies. But Roizen realized there are entire collections of recordings that churn out platinum-level sales without ever airing on the radio, namely boxed music sets for children. Roizen didn't want to be a pop star. She wanted to create a successful business. "I've done the math," she says. "I figured that if I was the publisher and lyricist and I owned the 'record label,' I can make the economics work."

Even so, Roizen recognized that the operation was a big gamble--and so decided to fund it entirely herself.

As soon as she realized she wanted to build a business, she started to hire professional help. With guidance from professional music producers, she zeroed in on well-known Nashville music producer and writer David Malloy. Malloy has had 40 songs picked as "No. 1" by various music tracking groups, like Billboard, including, "I Love A Rainy Night." He has worked with singers such as Tanya Tucker and Billy Gilman.

But write music for songs about losing weight? "At first, I thought it was crazy," Malloy admits.

Malloy's friend, recording industry veteran George Daly, "said a lady he had met approached him about some idea of writing song lyrics about losing weight and would I be interested in anything like that," Malloy recalls. "I said, 'I don't want to write songs about losing weight! That's not what I do!'"

Daly persuaded Malloy to give Roizen's lyrics a look.

Malloy read them and was charmed. "I thought the lyrics were really well-written. I could imagine putting some music behind them," he says.

Over the summer, Malloy and Roizen launched into a spirited collaboration: He wrote the music, she honed the verses. They had artistic tussles--she tried to slip the word "liposuction" into one song; Malloy refused.

"Some words just don't sing well," he points out. "'Liposuction! Liposuction!' Come on, I'm already tired of it."

Roizen nixed the liposuction.

Malloy put in "ear candy," including a background chorus singing something about: "I want to wear something sexy, something that barely fits me…."

Roizen objected. "I don't think my target demographic wants to wear something that 'barely fits me,'" she complained.

"Why is it always about your 'target demographic'?" Malloy shot back.

"Because that's what the album is about," Roizen retorted.

By autumn, Roizen and Malloy had put together a collection of 10 songs with musical styles that varied from country-western and pop to rap. Malloy signed up-and-coming musicians. At first, they hesitated about the idea of singing about weight loss, but the music and lyrics won them over.

"There were no strings attached to this project--no radio format. The only criteria I had was: Did the music make me feel good? Did I have fun with it? Was it the kind of music I wanted to play again?" Malloy says. It was, he says, the most artistic freedom he had had in years.

Roizen kept a tight hold on the business side. "There's a big piece of this that's exactly like any other business," she says, ticking off her to-do list: Get incorporated. Invent a catchy name. Hire the specialists. Work on the economics. Push the contributors to make their deadlines. Roizen created a Web site to sell the music (and in the future, possibly other merchandise, such as T-shirts). She got the music registered on iTunes.

By the end of the year, Roizen will have put "several hundred thousand dollars" into creating the Skinny Songs recording. She resigned from Mobius Venture Capital. Her husband even wound up writing this year's family holiday letter, because Roizen was too busy getting the CD ready to ship.

What remains to be seen is if her bet was a smart one--businesswise. Skinny Songs is just going on sale now, first on her website, then on iTunes. Roizen is also deep into plans for partnerships and promotions, particularly with health clubs.

Would she have funded someone else if they came to her, the venture capitalist, and pitched the idea of starting a music company that would produce music that inspired people to lose weight? "I don't know," Roizen concedes. "I see a lot of women my age, waking up and saying, 'I want to do something personally meaningful to me.' I say to them: 'Is this about personal gratification? Or is it a real business?"

Whatever the outcome of Skinny Songs, the entrepreneur in Roizen has no regrets. "I woke up and said, 'This is what I have to do--even if it fails.'" she says. "This idea is just too compelling for me to let it slip by."

And unlike the usual startup experience of late nights and pizza that pack on the pounds, this time, the entrepreneur lost weight. Roizen says she's down a full 30 pounds since that day in May.

Malloy admits he lost weight, too. "Don't you think I had to?" he asks. "You can't work on songs like this and not lose weight!"

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Making Cash With Napkin Ads

http://www.napads.com/

NapAd, which just launched this fall, uses what it calls high-definition napkins to bring marketers' messages directly into the hands of urban consumers when they're relaxed and uninterrupted by other media. The photorealistic, 5-by-5-inch cocktail napkins are distributed free to NapAd's network of bars, nightclubs and lounges; in exchange, the venues serve them with drinks to their patrons, who can then be exposed to the messages printed on them for hours at a time.

Targeting is customizable within NapAd's network, so that if an advertiser wants to reach males aged 18 to 34 in Garden City, Kansas, for example, NapAd might tap into a network of sports bars in the area. The company is currently focusing its program on Manhattan, but it's planning to add five more markets in 2008 and can serve areas requested by clients as well. A typical New York City campaign with 1 million NapAds starts at about USD 27,500.

NapAds is part of Maryland-based guerilla marketing firm JI Worldwide, which was founded by 28-year-old Jay Jaber, a finalist in the 2007 Wall Street Journal’s Creative Leaders Challenge. The company (which also sells its napkins under the name HDN—High Definition Napkin) is now seeking distribution partnerships with major airlines, cruise ships, bars and lounges, and is also interested in hearing about other collaborative opportunities, Jaber says. It's a big world out there—so many bars, so many patrons, so little time… ;-)

Check This Out - The Most Profitable Blog Post In The Entire Blogosphere

City Tours For People Interested In Art And Fashion

http://www.urbangentry.com/

You can't be all things to all people, as the saying goes, and guided tours are no exception. Now Urban Gentry is offering a set of customized, insiders' tours of London for those interested in art, fashion or other elements of style.

Featuring a team of guides that includes artists, designers, journalists and trend spotters, Urban Gentry serves up small, specialist tours that take participants well off the beaten path. The focus of each tour can be chosen by theme—"Creative London," for example, or "London Close Up"—or by interest, such as art, fashion, interiors or shopping. The Art Insider half-day tour, for example, starts in London's hip east end enclave of Shoreditch, "the epicentre of contemporary bohemia," and continues further east into Bethnal Green, winding its way through artists' works and exhibits. The 7-hour Home Style tour, on the other hand, takes participants through London's interiors and furnishings shops and studios, highlighting the eclectic choices on offer. Pricing is GBP 159 for half-day tours, GBP 269 for those lasting a whole day. Personalized tours are also available.

Urban Gentry just launched earlier this year. For style-minded consumers with the resources to afford them, its tours will offer a fresh, new way to learn about the parts of London that interest them most. This is customization at work once again, creating a new niche market for an old type of service. Who will take Antwerp, L.A., Sydney, Hong Kong...? The sky's the limit on the opportunities for this one. Just pick a city and a target audience.

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ePoll Success Story

The E-Poll Market Research Panel was founded in 1997, and has a primary focus on gathering research on consumer attitudes and behavior towards entertainment and media. Members are invited to take mostly entertainment and media related surveys, and membership to the panel is free. Members that complete these online surveys are rewarded with points that can be redeemed for gift certificates from online retailers like Amazon.com.

I know that I promised an update here and now I can add one, I redeemed my points 3 weeks ago for a Ben and Jerry's certificate for a free pint of ice cream and I have now gotten it in the mail. So it took me three weeks to get that from them and I don't consider that to be too bad of a wait. The redemption process was very simple, they verified I did own the account by asking my password and then I selected how many points I wanted to redeem and then selected my price and verified my address. So overall that was a simple process. They say that it could take up to 6 weeks for you to get your reward, which I'm sure they add in case it does take longer.

But overall I am pleased with the results.

This Blog Has Made Over 10K With Copeac (With Affiliate Links Like This One) . Do Ask Me For Tips, After You Register And Play Around With It A Bit (Include Your Copeac ID In Email So That I Know That You've Used My Ref Link).

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What Is Thummer Anyway?

http://thummer.com

In 2000, Jim Plamondon quit his job at Microsoft and embarked on an obsessive quest to invent a new musical instrument. His brainstorm: an odd keyboard variant with stubby joysticks and a honeycomb of buttons he dubs the Thummer.

Among the last new instruments to be widely adopted were the synthesizer and electric guitar more than a half century ago. But Mr. Plamondon believes his Thummer has a shot. One of the instrument's key features is a smarter keyboard that he says makes playing music more intuitive.

Mr. Plamondon is part of a subculture of musical inventors all vying to be the next Adolphe Sax (he invented the saxophone). They range from composers, such as an MIT professor who built a high-tech "hypercello" for Yo-Yo Ma, to basement tinkerers, including a piano player in Traverse City, Mich., whose "friction harp" resembles a TV aerial.

They demonstrate their instruments at conferences and niche music festivals. They upload videos to YouTube and sites like Oddmusic.com, which catalogs roughly 10 new instruments a month, including the "symphonic house," a home in Michigan outfitted with walls of resonating strings. Occasionally, their wares are adopted by big stars. Recent concerts by the singer Björk have featured a futuristic device called a "reactable," built by a team in Spain: Players issue eerie electronic tones and rhythms by moving glowing blocks across its table-top surface.

The bulk of new instruments rarely get played outside small circles of loyalists or early adopters. One big obstacle is the high cost of producing experimental instruments, which are usually built one at a time. Seasoned musicians who have spent years mastering an instrument also are reluctant to start over with a new one, while beginners gravitate to what they see on stage or in the orchestra pit. And most of the immense repertoire of Western music, from Bach to the Beatles, was composed for traditional instruments.

"The hardest thing to do is sell something to someone who doesn't perceive the need for it," says Roger Linn, who is credited with inventing the first digital drum machine in 1979. "I've seen the trail of bodies of inventors who have tried and died."

What sets the Thummer apart from other musical inventions, says Mr. Plamondon, isn't the way it sounds but the way it is played. It consists of two keyboards, each about the size of a paperback book. They can be played piano-style on a tabletop or sandwiched together and held aloft.

To play a three-note chord, for example, you press a cluster of three buttons. To play the next three-note chord, you keep your fingers in the same shape and move to a different group of buttons. Mr. Plamondon says this design makes the Thummer easier to learn than instruments like the piano, which require players to learn many more chord fingerings.

The Thummer doesn't make any noise on its own. It must be plugged into a computer or synthesizer, which uses software to mimic other instruments. To adjust volume and pitch, players thumb a pair of joysticks mounted on the side -- hence the instrument's name. Like the Nintendo Wii controller, it has an internal motion sensor, so players can also adjust the sound by moving the instrument around as they play it.

Marc Rossi, a synthesizer specialist and professor of piano and jazz composition at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, says the Thummer sounds like a good-quality synthesizer. He says the internal motion sensor is what's truly innovative: "That could be a whole new world."

While veteran players would have little use for a new keyboard configuration like the Thummer's, Mr. Rossi says, "it could be very useful for kids and for people learning music who want less technical demands than a keyboard."

Mr. Plamondon, 47 years old, hasn't played an instrument since quitting the tuba after high school. He studied geology and computer science in college and later sold storm windows over the phone. He spent most of his career in the computer industry, taking on a series of software-writing jobs before landing at Microsoft in 1992, just as the company's Windows operating system was becoming ubiquitous.

He spent eight years persuading third-party developers to create software for the Microsoft platform, then left the company to take some time off and later pursue his own projects. He says he exercised his Microsoft options and invested in a portfolio of stocks valued at $2 million. He bought a beachfront home on the southwest tip of Australia and moved there with his wife and two children.

Most people designing new instruments are musicians. For Mr. Plamondon, financial need was the mother of invention: Shortly after moving to Australia in 2000, almost half of his assets were wiped out in the dot-com crash. He saw the Thummer as a way to start making money again.

After years trying to get his project off the ground, his family is strapped for cash. The two kids have put their college plans on hold, hoping that in a couple of years their father will be able to help pay tuition. The family doesn't have health insurance.

Mr. Plamondon says he needs to raise up to $1 million to engineer a final prototype, finalize patents and manufacture a first run of instruments.

The idea for the Thummer began when his wife and daughter both quit piano lessons after only six months. His wife, Patti, complained that learning to play separate lines on each hand "was like reading Spanish with one eye and French with the other," she recalls.

He began reading up on music theory and researching why piano keys are arranged as they are. He wasn't the first to hunt for an alternative. In the 1880s, Hungarian Paul von Janko patented a configuration that made fingerings identical in any key. A similar idea was developed for the concertina with an 1896 patent by a Swiss inventor, Kaspar Wicki.

In the fall of 2003, as Mr. Plamondon was playing the videogame Halo, he says he realized he could use thumb sticks like those on his Xbox controller to shift sound effects. He created a company (Thumtronics), hired an engineer to build prototypes, leased an office above a music shop and brought in nearly $500,000 in a first round of fund raising. In 2005, after outside funding for the Thummer dried up, he mortgaged the family's home for about $1 million.

"Things got really tight," says Ms. Plamondon. For a time, she says the family relied partly on the paychecks her then-18-year-old son brought home from his computer-store job.

For many on the tech-savvy side of the music world, sweeping change seems overdue. One of the last breakthroughs to catch on in a major way was the saxophone -- invented in the 1840s. During the past century, most inventions have only gained cult followings. The Stick, for example, is a bodiless guitar with strings that players tap instead of strum. Inventor Emmett Chapman has sold about 6,000 of them since 1974.

Mr. Linn, the drum-machine designer, calls the Thummer "a very good idea," but stops short of predicting its commercial success. Instead, he groups it into a broader category he calls "new little organisms in the Darwinism of musical instruments."

The music-products industry faces a mixed outlook. Retail sales fell in 2006 to $7.5 billion, down 4.2% from a record high the year before, according to the International Music Products Association, a trade group. And while the category of computer music products fared best last year, growing by about 15%, sales of some more traditional instruments suffered, such as pianos, which dropped more than 18%.

The Plamondons live in Austin, Texas. They moved there in April from Australia, seeking affordable housing and a music- and tech-friendly city. They bought their home online for less than $200,000, using some cash from the sale of their Australian home as a down payment.

In Austin, Mr. Plamondon started over, working up the entrepreneurial food chain at conferences and coffees; networking with think tanks and professors; fishing for endorsement blurbs that he posts on Thummer.com, where he writes a blog to build online buzz. He co-authored a paper on the Thummer that was published in the peer-reviewed Computer Music Journal.

The funding hunt has been more of a challenge. He recently targeted a pair of Austin investors, Fito Kahn and David Peterman. On a Thursday afternoon in October, Mr. Plamondon walked into Mr. Peterman's office eager to make a deal. His geek tendencies were on display: He set the alarm on his wristwatch to beep, prompting him to announce when there were 10, five and two minutes remaining. As the three men sat down around a table in straight-backed chairs, Mr. Plamondon eyed the papers in Mr. Kahn's hand. "What's in the folder? Is that a checkbook?"

It was -- but it wasn't going to be used on that day. The two potential investors had questions about patents and the prospects of manufacturing the Thummer in China. Mr. Kahn said they also want a sleek new look for the Thummer, in part to make it appealing to a younger audience: "We imagine the Thummer as Guitar Hero, only you're learning an instrument as you play," referring to a popular videogame that uses a guitar-shaped controller to simulate the rock-star experience.

Mr. Plamondon left with assurances that a written offer would be ready for their next meeting. Waving as he headed toward the door, Mr. Plamondon said, "I look forward to getting a check from you next time."

Following their October meeting, Mr. Kahn emailed a proposal to Mr. Plamondon. Instead of the lump sum Mr. Plamondon sought, the investors offered him $2,000 a month for six months and a promise to cover expenses involved in securing manufacturing deals in China. In exchange, they asked him to set up an advisory board and submit more business plans and other "benchmarks."

Just after Thanksgiving, Mr. Plamondon turned them down in an email to Mr. Kahn: "I'm going to wait for a better offer," he wrote.

None are currently forthcoming. He recently hit a wall at a local venture-capital firm, Gefinor Ventures. Wes Cole, a principal in the firm, says he was impressed by a video of someone playing "Summertime" on the Thummer, but he has reservations. "This is a market where you've seen no successful investment ventures, that I'm aware of."

With a handful of working prototypes, Mr. Plamondon is continuing to search for investors and gain a consumer audience. Taking stock of his savings, he says he has about six months left before he'll have to find a full-time job. At that point the Thummer will be relegated to an evenings-and-weekends enterprise, he says, "and that's the death of a start-up."

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Panera Success Story

He started college thinking he would end up working in politics. But after he was falsely accused of shoplifting and then kicked out of a convenience store while still a student, Shaich launched a rival shop - and his business career. Twenty years later, Shaich made a name for himself as the owner of Au Bon Pain, an East Coast bakery chain he grew from three stores into a $200 million a year company.

Many thought Shaich was crazy when, in 1999, he sold Au Bon Pain to concentrate on developing Panera (, its small bakery division. But today Panera is the country's 17th-largest food-service company, boasting some 1,115 U.S. locations and annual revenue of $1.9 billion.

Shaich met with FSB at one of his bakery shops near the company's headquarters in Needham, Mass. After busing a few tables he talked about his journey from that first general store to the top of the food chain. This is his story:

My first interest in life after high school was politics. I worked on George McGovern's campaign in 1972 and majored in political science at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. Then during my sophomore year I was unjustly accused of shoplifting and got kicked out of a Worcester convenience store. To fight back, I opened a rival shop nearby on campus, and it became quite successful. Everyone said I should go to business school, so I went.

Two years after I earned my MBA, I took a job working for a chain in Boston called the Original Cookie Co. I wanted to open a store downtown, but the company preferred suburban mall locations.

One thing led to another, and I decided to quit and open my own cookie place, with a goal of creating the kind of company I had always wanted to work for.

I requested a third of my inheritance from my father. That way, if my idea didn't work, I'd still have two-thirds left over to try again. My father, who was a CPA, thought I was nuts but gave me $75,000. I combined his money with $25,000 in personal savings and opened the Cookie Jar in downtown Boston. I ended up subletting a store from a jewelry store owner who wanted to consolidate his two locations.

I'll never forget that first day: Our doors opened at noon, and I had two employees. I can't remember ever working that hard. I was the baker, mixer, chief salesman. I think we made $400. The first six months were stable, and I was making a nice living, but I wasn't satisfied. A business is like a sculpture: It's about creating something that's three-dimensional. And I wanted more dimensions.

At the time, Au Bon Pain was a Boston pastry chain that was having problems expanding and had taken on a lot of debt. The business was founded in 1976 by a French oven manufacturer and later sold to a venture group headed by a man named Louis Kane. After I realized that people don't buy cookies before noon, I decided to add French pastries to the Cookie Jar's menu to attract a morning crowd.

Louis always said he remembered me as a kid walking into his office with flour on my shoes. I told him I wanted to buy his business (at that moment I had no idea how troubled his company was). Louis was a real estate guy; he had no one running his place on a day-to-day basis. He saw me as a "concept guy" who could help turn the business around. So we merged Au Bon Pain's three locations with my cookie store.

Over the next three years I observed Au Bon Pain's shops and identified problem spots. Many had to do with employees who just didn't care. I remember walking into a store in Faneuil Hall and watching as a cashier put money from a sale into his pocket. I also fired about six bakers I caught doing cocaine in the middle of the night. After I let those guys go, they chased me in a car through the parking lot. It was a mess! It wasn't about building a company back then - it was about survival.

I also made efforts to retain the good employees. I wanted to take care of the folks who cared about my business. One night when I was on a date in that same Faneuil Hall location, I discovered the assistant manager's wife washing dishes because the store didn't have enough personnel to handle cleanup. So for about two hours my date and I helped clean dishes. The girl on the date is long forgotten, but that assistant manager is now a Panera executive.

We grew Au Bon Pain into a 250-store chain by paying close attention to our customers. One day in 1984, I was working behind the counter waiting on customers (which I still do today). A woman walked in and asked me to cut a baguette for a sandwich. Then she pulled out a bag of lunch meat from the grocery store and threw it on my bread. You didn't have to be a Harvard MBA to figure out that there was an opportunity in sandwiches. That same year, we expanded our menu and became one of the first companies to create an urban bakery, selling high-quality meat on fresh bread along with soup and salads.

Around that time Pepsi, Sara Lee, and several others all tried to acquire us. We resisted and took the company public in 1991. By this point Au Bon Pain's profits were growing about 30 percent annually. We had 250 stores and were opening about 50 new shops every 12 months.

Au Bon Pain worked best in really dense marketplaces like Boston, New York City, and Washington, but we felt that growth was limited in smaller cities such as Cleveland, Indianapolis, and St. Louis. We needed a concept that would work across America in a wide range of communities.

One day in 1993, an investment banker I knew asked me for some advice that he could relay to the owner of a Midwestern bakery chain called St. Louis Bread Co. I met the owner, Ken Rosenthal, and we developed a nice relationship. (Little did I know that this would be the beginning of Panera.)

Six months later I flew back to St. Louis and offered to buy his company for $23 million. Its success in smaller cities made it attractive as an additional vehicle for our company. Rosenthal had incredibly loyal customers, and we wanted to preserve what made the brand so special.

For two years we traveled the country, talking to customers and employees and observing buying patterns. We were trying to figure out how the world of fast food was changing. Rosenthal loved to say that even he didn't understand the St. Louis Bread Co. as well as we did! He must have trusted us, because he used his proceeds from the sale to buy our franchises in Cincinnati, Columbus, and Denver. Today Rosenthal's Panera franchise is four times bigger than the company he sold to us.

I concluded from our research that the St. Louis Bread Co.'s customers weren't looking for commodity food. They wanted to feel special in a world in which they were not. I grew up outside Newark in the 1950s, when folks frequented the neighborhood Italian bakery, the local beer brewery, the independent coffee roaster. Everything was local. What happened to all that? Post-World War II, the only bread option was three loaves for 99 cents at the A&P. Coffee came from a Folgers can. And fast-food chains became self-serve gasoline stations for the human body.

By the early 1990s, Americans wanted to feel good about what they ate. There was a big opportunity for businesses that could deliver that. In our eyes there was no more powerful platform than artisan bread. Other entrepreneurs had opened independent bread shops, such as Amy's Bread in New York City. We decided to build a company selling freshly made salads, sandwiches, and soups. In 1995 we sat down and wrote a vision for how we would compete.

During the first year, we opened a few new locations. Growth was very slow; we tried to make sure that the ground was solid. In 1996 we rolled out a breakfast menu built around bagels.

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Mixaloo.com - Music Business With A Profit-Sharing Twist

http://www.mixaloo.com/

Mixaloo is an online venture that lets music lovers create, distribute and sell custom mixes of the tracks they love and receive a share of the profits in return.

Mixaloo, which just opened its doors to the public a few weeks ago, allows music fans to choose from more than 3 million songs when they create their mix, including every major label and thousands of independent artists. Based on their searches, Mixaloo also suggests related artists to consider. Once users finalize their mix, they can distribute it with 30-second song samples inside a widget to any personal or social networking website, or email it directly to their friends.

Creating and distributing the mix is free, and users can personalize its appearance by uploading images, adding titles and selecting from different widget formats. Visitors and friends can then listen to the clips for free; if they like the mix, they can purchase and download it. Best of all, when someone makes a purchase, the original compiler of the mix receives half the profit from each sale--generally between 8 and 20 cents per track, Mixaloo says--along with points that can be redeemed for Mixaloo merchandise such as T-shirts and audio gear.

"Everyone's favourite songs are closely tied to the experiences and memories they represent, which makes creating and sharing mix tapes such an enjoyable way for people to express themselves," explains Mark Stutzman, Mixaloo's cofounder and CEO. "We created Mixaloo to merge that experience with the viral nature of blogs and social networking communities, giving users the added incentive of earning cash for popular mixes. This 'social record store' creates a vast network of personal recommendations to increase sales and visibility for artists of all sizes."

Poughkeepsie, N.Y.-based Mixaloo is open to advertising and partnerships, but it currently offers its service only to US users. As fans continue to play ever-larger roles in the music industry, however, it's a good bet this type of service will spread quickly. With one part crowdsourcing, one part viral marketing, one part profit-sharing and one part great music, sounds like this mix could be a hit...

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How To Start Your Own Record Label And Make It Profitable Right Away

http://www.thegridrecords.com/

Picture it now: driving down the highway in a sleek car with loads of cash in your pocket, hobnobbing with the rich and famous. Heck, as an entrepreneur with a glamorous business, you're rich and famous yourself. Whether your dream is to launch a killer clothing line, the next big thing in cosmetics or even the hottest restaurant and nightclub around, you can already feel the allure of that high-profile business drawing you in.

But before you go applying for that American Express Black Card, here's a reality check: Launching a glamorous business isn't always so glamorous from the business side. It's a thrill ride for sure, but one of the scariest ones of your life. Just ask Mark Schmitz, founder of The Grid Records, a hip-hop record label based in Phoenix. The Arizona State University graduate launched his business in 2005, the summer before his senior year, after interning at Atlantic Records. He was convinced that the world was missing out on Arizona's untapped hip-hop talent, so he decided to carve out a niche as its ambassador.

What he didn't know was that starting his own record label would take every bit of cash he had and all the willpower he could summon. During one especially tight week, he had his apartment's electricity turned off and put the money toward mixing a song instead of keeping the lights on. "It's a very risky, hit-or-miss industry," says Schmitz, 24. "Regardless of how talented you are or how great your product is, you need that element of [luck] to really break into the business."

Combine that with the typical stresses of starting a business while still in college, and you've got a serious challenge on your hands. Making your glamorous business work means getting into the down-and-dirty aspects of business ownership--back-office duties like financing and marketing--yet presenting only the pristine aspects to clients. The real crux of a high-profile business is making your customers feel glamorous. If you're an artist or designer looking to build a business, says Jeff Sandefer, master teacher at the Acton School of Business, you have to learn to specialize in a particular niche and scale it up to create a market. If you're doing this on a lark, forget about it. "If you're doing it because you're serious about making money and you're a true entrepreneur, then you're going to be hustling, innovating, trying new things, [going through] trial and error and not giving up," he says. "There's not much glamour involved."

Well, there is a bit of glamour--at least for Schmitz when he signs a talented new artist or works with the same Los Angeles producers who've jammed with hip-hop heavyweights like Jay-Z. He's promoting his artists everywhere, including on his website, thegridrecords.com, and projects 2008 sales to hit $150,000.

As hard as it may be to launch your so-called glamorous business, it'll definitely be a rush. Just know what you're getting into. "You'll have to observe the realities that are present in every single business," says Peter Burns, founder of the College of Entrepreneurship at Grand Canyon University. "But you may as well pick something that's fun because you're going to spend a lot of hours doing it."


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Gamer Graffix Success Story

http://gamergraffix.com

Gamer Graffix, a manufacturer of stick-on decals for videogame consoles, started out selling its own designs before landing licensing deals with Nintendo and Sony. With new "skins" based on game-giant characters such as Donkey Kong, the Providence-based company (gamergraffix.com) doubled revenues to $10 million in 2006.

Founder Chris White, now 41, was running a toy importer five years ago when an intern showed him how a decal had ruined the finish on his PlayStation. White spent eight months developing an adhesive that let stickers be removed and reapplied.

Niche stores such as EB Games began carrying White's skins in fall 2005. Sales took off in May 2006, when large retailers, including Circuit City and Staples, picked up Gamer's new labels. Gamer started applying its sticky technology to videogame accessories such as Sony's miniguitars and wall graffix, posters that peel easily from walls. Late last year Hasbro licensed the technology to create a line of Transformers wall coverings. Gamer projects sales of $25 million in 2007.

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http://www.thecollegefreeway.com/

Students at Cornell, USC, Princeton and a handful of other US universities now can pool their resources in a handy online forum at TheCollegeFreeWay—a network for sharing notes, outlines, essays, problem sets, study guides and more. Users can search by university, course or type of document needed. While anyone can view the materials, students must register to upload or download documents, rate them or make comments. Students can register directly through the site or can sign in via their Facebook accounts.

While the site might not be a huge hit with professors, the site was not designed with cheating in mind, but rather to streamline the process of combining notes and other resources—which college students have been doing for ages—in a more convenient and organized fashion. And as long as TheCollegeFreeWay sticks to student-generated materials, copyright infringement shouldn't be an issue with school faculty.

As the name suggests, the site is free to use and is financed through Google ads. As with any venture that relies on user-submitted content, getting off the ground can be tricky. But while the offerings are limited for now (the site currently lists ten schools, but only has documents available for half a dozen), once the buzz gets around campus, things could quickly take off. Now may be the time to start up duplicates for colleges or even high schools in other countries—or to consider how this type of sharing might make sense for professional networking in other industries.

How To Win $1000 By Writing A Short Poem

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Did Your Child Receive A Letter From Santa This Christmas?

Mail By Santa is not a unique business idea, but it just proves a point that you don't have to be a genius to make money online.

Children look for reasons to believe. This is what makes these letters from Santa Claus so magical. These letters remove any doubt if there really is a Santa Claus.

The MailBySanta Letters are both personalized and addressed to a child. Imagine the thrill as a child receives a letter from Santa Clause addressed to them.

Each letter is written to a child such as Dear Michael, mentions the achievements along with the names of their best friend, teachers and other information that comes from parents.

The letters are fairly inexpensive, only $12.99 and the shipping is free, so clearly the profit margin has to be fairly big. The only downside is that Christmans is only once a year.

And by the way, if you are into history of Santa Claus and Christmas, here are some books to read (keep 'em away from your children):

Inventing Christmas: How Our Holiday Came to Be

The True History of Santa Claus

Wii And Marketing

Howdy…

One of my favorite hobbies is to go into stores and be insulted by clueless sales staff.

It used to offend me… until I realized all the really good marketing lessons inherent in every face-to-face encounter with anyone selling anything. (One of the coolest taxi rides I ever took was in Vegas, many moons ago, when the driver spent twenty minutes trying to pimp out his personal line-up of hookers. He used every salesman’s trick possible — including take-aways, upsells, cross-sells, urgency, guarantees and special offers. I actually took notes.) (And no, I didn’t become a customer. Shame on you for thinking so ill of me.)

For online marketers, the offline sales encounter might not seem relevant, but it is.

Your ad is your salesman, and your ordering process is your checkout experience.

All the things that can go wrong in the store, can and do go wrong in the online virtual sale process.

Quick example: I’ve been hot to get a Nintendo Wii gaming console since, oh, about five minutes after the product was announced last year. (I’ve been a gamer longer than you, and I don’t care how old you are. Back in the seventies, I hung out with the guys who ran the Stanford University Artificial Intellegence lab, and dated a proto-geek lady who created gaming software for Atari… so I was bopping around the very first online games, and got to sample arcade prototypes you’ve never seen.) (Plus, I have friends who created some of the first interactive gaming experiences by networking multiple computers inside a single house from different rooms, using early Doom versions.) (So there.)

The Wii is definitely aimed at guys like me.

Decades of anti-ergonomic mousing and typing have ruined my wrists, and I have no interest whatsoever in learning the “language” of another multi-buttoned/toggle-switched controller.

Naw. Give me realistic action like the Wii. And, heck, I hear the bowling game just rocks. (Though you don’t get to shoot people.)

However, for some reason known only to them, Nintendo has never come close to producing enough Wii’s to fill demand. Here in Reno, Wii’s last approximately sixteen seconds after being uncrated… and even the largest retailers can’t tell you when another batch is due in.

The people I know who own one got them on eBay… at four times the list price.

I want one. But I’ll be damned if I’ll bid against extortionists, or get up at dawn to fight teenagers at the local Game Stop to get it.

Still, I persevere. It’s a hobby, and I’ll miss all the exploring and hunting when I finally score a unit.

In fact, I really enjoy going into various different gaming joints and seeing what happens when I ask about buying a Wii.

Most common response: A rude snort of laughter and a long look of pity.

I’m amazed at how similar the staffs at different stores react. They seem to enjoy crushing my spirit by explaining, ever so patiently (because I must be brain-damaged or something), that if I want a Wii, I’ve got to come to the store every day when it opens, and hope they got some in the night before.

And stop bothering them.

Seriously. That’s the line I’ve been given a dozen times in the past few months.

Even if the owner is in the store, it’s the same story. I’m barely worth dealing with, if I’m so friggin’ dumb to have to ask about the availability of a Wii, which EVERYONE knows is almost impossible to get.

Now, consider this: Often, while I’m hanging out enjoying their anti-sales pitch, they will interupt our interaction to deal with a younger (and obviously smarter and more hip) customer who is trading in a game, or who wants to talk about the intricacies of the latest release.

The store is paying all it’s primo attention to the demographic it THINKS is where the money is: Younger gamers.

And yet, there I stand, ignored, with a fat wad of moolah burning a hole in my pocket. I’m gonna buy a TON of new games with my Wii, and load that sucker up with every option available.

And dude — when I find a game store operator who appreciates what I bring to the table, I will be fiercely loyal, and spread the word. Cuz I know a LOT of other geezers who love games… who would dearly love to find a store that respects them.

On the other hand, I am never setting foot inside the joints that disrespect me ever again. Freaks.

Hey — I have all the sympathy in the world for the modern store owner. The workforce available out there is clueless about selling, and has an attitude problem that would give King Louis XIV a run for the Arrogant Prick Award.

But here’s the thing: You don’t have to become a grovelling, obsequious slave to be a good salesman.

Just understand the basics, and it will change your life: Figure out what the customers wants, and help him get it. (Advanced lesson: Give him what he wants first… you can then sell him what he needs, later — after you’ve gained his trust, and he is open to hearing about the options he hadn’t considered before. Allow his inner process of “self-selling” to unwind naturally, without you getting in his face like a know-it-all.)

You don’t even need to be polite. I’ve encountered some KILLER salesmen lately — of both sexes — who didn’t smile, interrupted me, and even turned and walked off suddenly. However, they walked off because they had a brainstorm about my problem, and they quickly returned with answers and/or product that clearly proved they had listened very carefully, and actually cared about finding the best solution (not just the most expensive one).

I don’t need you to have a great personality when I know what I want, but I’m having trouble finding it.

I just need you to do your friggin’ job.

Have you figured out what the lesson for online marketers is here, yet?

Think about the time, energy, money and will to live you put into finding a prospect on the Web. Think about how carefully you write the copy, how precise you are with the process of moving him through your sales funnel.

Are you SURE you’re not offending good prospects, even unintentionally?

Are you sending people off to your competition, because you put up too many obstacles to helping them get what they want?

Are you stinking up the sales process… because you don’t have exactly what they thought they would get from you… and you don’t offer them ANOTHER path to take, to stay in your world?

Imagine how easily any of those game store non-salesmen could have snagged my loyalty and money. “Those Wii’s are hard to find, aren’t they. We do get them, but the manufacturer is way behind on production, and we can’t tell you exactly when another shipment will come in. How about if I take down your name, and call you when I know a shipment will be coming in? In fact, if you like, I’ll set one aside for you. Because of demand, I can’t set it aside for very long, but I’ll keep it on my desk until you have a chance to get down here after work or on your break…”

Et cetera.

And then, before I leave, why not offer me a quick lesson on the Wii floor model… so I’ll have a head-start when I fire up my own unit at home. And then offer me a deal on after-market options or games. And then…

These are the basics, people.

Know your demographics. I’m not gonna get up at dawn and freeze outside a store waiting for the doors to open, so I might get the chance to beat down a twelve-year-old kid and grab one of the few Wii’s that came in.

I WILL, however, pay a premium for the dignity of getting a little special treatment.

Look — I’m all for democracy. But in sales, it’s always a good idea to create an option for people who want to give you more money. It’s called First Class Service, and while the concept may piss off socialists, it’s a great way to do business when you’re in it for the sake of creating wealth.

Many online marketers I consult with have never even considered a “platinum level” of service… or even thought about raising their prices to see what the market will bear. They are often astonished at how many people are willing to pay more for insider service and priviliges.

Wait. Make that “always astonished” at this. Because every single market out there has a certain number of people who put more value on thier time than on the money in their wallet.

I, for example, am extremely willing to pay extra to save time. That hour spent shuttling back and forth to the game store would cost me a small fortune in lost productive time. Even shelling out more for a Wii, if I can save time acquiring it, would be an overall bargain. (Not the four-times-cost demanded on eBay auctions, of course… but certainly much more than retail.)

And there are a lot of busy, successful people out there seeking the same deal.

(Want another example? Southwest Airlines — which has built its reputation on low fares — has just introduced a slightly higher ticket price for people who want to automatically be among the first to board. If money’s an issue, no one’s forcing you to pay this extra fee. But if you’re in a situation where getting a seat close to the front, or on an aisle, or being assured you’ll find space for your carry-on… and you can’t count on having the time or luxury of checking in early enough to get an “A” on your boarding pass (as most business travelers ride), then this small fee is a drop-dead bargain.

It’s made Southwest an option for hard-core biz travelers again.)

Think about how your online “salesman” comes across to prospects. They’re looking for help, for advice, for direction and also for bargains and insider deals. If you stop caring about anyone but immediate buyers, then you’re like the store operator who refuses to deal with anyone not willing to spend untold hours playing a stupid game of waiting and guessing and hoping in order to get what they want.

Buying something shouldn’t be a hostile act between pissed-off customer and aggressively-apathetic sales person.

It really can be a pleasant capitalistic experience of using money to acquire goods and services. With the opportunity to leverage your hard-earned money to save time and gain insider privileges.

I mean, geez Louise.

We’re all in this together, you know.

Stay frosty…

John Carlton
www.carltoncoaching.com

P.S. One more thing.

You know how experienced shopkeepers diffuse an angry customer or prospect?

They listen to the complaint.

That’s it. Listen, acknowledge the legitimacy of their right to complain, and decide rationally and fairly how to proceed.

People get angry when they feel they’ve been insulted, or that they aren’t being heard.

As the owner, you can still toss the real bums out on their ear. But only after you’ve made absolutely sure the anger isn’t coming from real abuse or a real problem.

I’m a calm, Zen kinda guy. I actually enjoy all kinds of experiences in the selling process, including bad ones (cuz I can write about them).

Still, occassionally even I get righteously outraged. You cannot assume anything about a sales encounter gone sour until you get all the facts straight.

Same online. If you’re not flipping a decent percentage, you need to find out why.

Too many sales people today think it’s all about them.

That’s just dumb, and wrong, and evil.

However, it’s also wonderful for all the marketers out there — both online and offline — who see the opportunity to fill the void with better salesmanship and smarter processes.

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