There was web page builder.  If you didn’t like that, there was always web page builder. 

Now, there are options.   There are many little cottage businesses you can start.  Some require more experience than others.  But a little creativity can go a long way in creating a side business quick.

Photo by Steve Woods  

Seth Godin posted two simple web businesses the other day that are both great ideas:

The world needs fixed-price web podiatrists…  

So, a pretty smart web-savvy person could have a checklist of fifty items and work her way through a corporate website. She could come back with a simple, easy to execute list of things worth changing:
–put USA above Afghanistan on your country pull down list
–make it so clicking on your logo takes me back to your home page
–the font is too small on this page and it’s hard to read
etc….  

…Second gig: Web analytics pro. Someone who can, for a generous hourly fee, set up analytics for a website and do weekly reports (by email) that are actually useful and actionable.

I find myself in need of services all the time.  There’s just not enough time in the day to do it all.  So if you are wanting to dip your big toe into the water of entrepreneurship, here are 4 of my simple web business ideas you can start in an afternoon:

1.  Comment moderator - The bigger the blog or web forum is, the more comments.  With comments comes spam, off topic jeers and endless irritations for the blogger or webmaster.  You can relieve these woes by stepping in and firefighting all these comments.

2.  Virtual assistant - This one is great for the Jack or Jane of all trades.  Here you’ll handle day-to-day tasks for a business owner.  Making copies, writing emails and so forth.  Do the smaller tasks right and it will open doors to the bigger ones.

3.  Software/web support - Is there a software program or site you are head over heels in love with?  If so, you can be a support specialist for the product.  As long as there is software, there will be people who don’t know how to use it.  This is where you step in and save the day.

4.  e-book from Blog Creator - Prolific bloggers write a lot.  Much of their best stuff gets buried in their blog archives.  You can be the one to dig it out, format it nicely and convert it into e-Book format.  I think this one is my favorite because I need that right now ;)

Do you have any ideas for simple web businesses you can start quick?  If so, share in the comments!

To get more articles on improving your success and personal income, subscribe to the the Persistence Unlimited RSS.

There’s a formula that I use to bring clarity when I am not sure what to do next. It clears confusion.  The a+c+@ = S formula can lead to surprising insight and direction.

Big goals are a journey.  They are a series of smaller goals or steps.  Each step completed brings you closer to the destination.

One of my most oft asked questions is about where to start. Your important goals will have steps you don’t yet know.  You are treading on new ground.  It can be confusing.  Sometimes confounding.  That’s where the a+c+@ formula will help. 

A Powerful Question

Ask - The letter A in the formula stands for Ask.  Asking implies several things.  One, you need to know who to ask.  Two, you need to know the right question.

Who to ask -  Ideally, you will want to find an expert.  So many people waste time asking the wrong people questions.  If you want to achieve a certain goal.  Ask someone who has achieve said goal. 

Experts often charge money.  But it’s money well spent to get their ears and direction.  You can often barter for their services though.  Offer to trade them for their time.  Some experts will settle for a nice lunch at a decent restaurant. 

What to ask - Spend time developing the right question to ask.  Don’t waste an expert’s time beating around the bush or explaining vague circumstances. 

Experts can be like computers, garbage in, garbage out.  If you ask the wrong question, you’ll get the wrong answer.  Asking “why am I not more successful?”  Wastes everyone’s time.  Who knows, I’d just as likely say “Because you are what we call smelly,” as any other answer. 

And you have to focus.  No need to introduce your problem as if you are in a Kafka novel.  Experts value their time.  So get to the point.  I suggest crafting your question before you have opportunity to ask it.

Often, someone will contact me with a question about a goal they have.  If he wants to lose 15 pounds, I don’t need to know where he was born.  I don’t need to know where his kids go to school.  It makes it easier for everyone if you simply craft a question that cuts to the heart of your problem.

What one question, if you had the answer to it, would solve your problem? 

Taking Winning Notes

Capture - the letter C in the formula is for capture.  When you capture, you own the answer evermore.  If you don’t, it could be lost forever.

A capture device can be as simple as writing with lipstick on a paper napkin (ugh!).  It can be as complex as a camcorder. Personally, I like a combination of Evernote and Moleskine, when PC use isn’t convenient. 

Pick what you like.  But, make sure you have a way to keep the answers. 

Some tips for a good capture device.  Make sure you have one and it’s handy for times when ideas and answers are present.  Key:  You don’t want to scatter your answers.   No sense in recording answers on napkins if you are just going to lose them.  That’s as bad as not taking them at all. 

I’ll never forget one of the best brainstorming sessions I had while working on a client’s marketing.  We were driving and for some reason, the ideas were flowing like crazy.  Great ideas.  But we didn’t have a capture device. Like a tape recorder.  I commented how sad it was we didn’t capture all those ideas.  He said he’d remember them all.  But I’m not so sure. 

Lose the Laziness

@ = Action - The most important aspect of the formula is taking action on the answers you have captured. 

The topic of action implies that you will ask questions that result in an answer that involves action.  In other words, “Dear expert, what are the first steps I need to take to solve my problem.” is what you should aim for.

Taking action also proves to the expert that you value their expertise.  It sets you up for more success because you’ve asked, received and acted.  I don’t know how many times, somone asks me for help and then either argues with me about it or doesn’t do anything.  This shows me that they don’t really take their goals seriously.  So why should I? 

Therefore when you get the advice of an expert, by all means take action.

Today’s exercise

Today’s exercise will give you great returns for the effort you put in.    Get good at working the a+c+@ formula by picking your top goal.  Then, based on your most pressing problem or hurdle, develop a targeted “action oriented” question.  Think of it as an elevator speech 

Take your time.  Make it concise and focused - as the elvator speech, you might only have 90 seconds to ask the expert, so make it good.

P.S. I’ll be here to help.  So I encourage you to post your goal focused question(s) below.  If I can answer, I will.  (I don’t know it all.)  If not, I’ll help you hone it to laser-like perfection for when you do encounter your expert. 

You know who you are.  You try the next big thing trying to get sales or subscribers.  Little tricks and techniques to get you ahead of the game.

But many of these produce little or no results.  We’re still confused.  We’re still not getting what we want.

This isn’t an indictment of you or anyone else.  I jump on many of the “latest techniques” as quick as the next guy when I am searching for answers.  But more often the techniques end up as interesting diversions when all is said and done.

In the past two weeks I’ve had 2 companies contact me for help with their marketing.  One had read an online affiliate through Adwords e-Book.  The other was a stand alone business.

In both cases their questions went something like..

I am struggling with my business, how can I market it so that I am making money?  My web site is popular and gets decent traffic.  But few people buy.  Lately, however, I am making no sales at all. 

A quick visit to each of these sites revealed the main problem with both.

Both company sites were nice.  Created by professionals.  The designs were slick.  The graphics were eye-popping.

But they lacked one important feature.  The feature itself can be summed up in a question.

Before I tell you the missing piece of the puzzle, let me tell you about a recent chat session.  Rick contacted me about his goal to make more money.  He professed good computer skills equal to or greater than others in his industry.  But he was making less money than the others.

He wrote:

I keep contacting these companies to set up job interviews.  I go to the interview and think I make a good impression.  But they never call me.

Rick, like the companies above hasn’t asked himself the most important question anyone should ask before marketing anything…

BTW, marketing can be any promotion.  You promote yourself at work.  You can promote a book.  You can promote your church to other churchgoers.  It doesn’t matter, it’s still marketing.

By making that connection, you’ve won half the battle. 

A universal problem in all marketing

Which problem?  You are thinking.  Yes, there are many problems in marketing.   You can have bad breath one day.  You can say the wrong words the next.  But there’s something else that outweighs all the others. 

The problem all marketers face, be you a job hunter, shoe store owner or web affiliate is action. 

Action decides it all.  Someone takes action and you win.  Someone doesn’t take action and you lose.  Could it be any more simple?

Ahh.. but it’s not simple.  It’s a struggle.  Getting other people to take action is hard.  Heck, sometimes it feels I fight tooth and nail just to get people to sign up for my motivational articles via RSS which is only one button click away!

Or how about when I try to persuade dieters to take up walking and eating more veggies?  Some people will take action, others won’t.   But that’s ok.  I learned a long time ago persuading others to take action is tough.

The point being as a marketer you want someone to take action.  If they don’t, your message is flawed.

The #1 Question for Marketers

If your message is flawed, then what? 

You’ve been marketing up a storm, but the action response ain’t happening.

Do you quit trying to sell your products?  Do you stay working at a job you hate?  Do you deed a Kindle over to me?  By all means. On the last option anyway. ;)

Instead of quitting, consider the #1 question.

By answering this question, you will be far ahead of your competition.  After years of doing what I do, I’ve come to realize very few people ever ask this question.

When I tell you, you’ll probably see it as being obvious.  I did when I first learned it.  I took it for granted.  I didn’t apply myself.

Only when I realized how important it was did things start to turn around in my work advancement, my software sales and my subscriber numbers.

Since action is the main result you seek from any marketing, it begs the obvious question.

What 1 action do you want your potential client to take?

The Power of the #1 Question

Let me break down the #1 question and explain why it’s so powerful.

1 Action - I stress only 1 action because you’d be lucky to get someone to take 1/2 an action if it were possible.  See the examples above.  A positive action - however small, opens the doors. 

If you throw more than 1 action at someone, statistically, they will do nothing.  People get confused.  They get overwhelmed by alternatives.  Sure there are those enthusiasts who sign up for everything.  But the key to marketing success is in the one action realm. 

What action do you want them to take? - Wow, here’s where you get your say.  What do you want a visitor to your web site to do?  What do you want the interviewer for that hot IT job to do?  Choose the action carefully.  You’ll almost always get what you want.

Hopefully a light is going on about the power of this question.

You can see what a disadvantage someone is at who seeks a second job interview or a phone call.  Shouldn’t she put first and foremost in her mind that she wants the company to offer her a job? 

When I first started marketing my software, I wanted people to take the action of downloading it.  So people downloaded it.  But what is critical to a business?  You have to make sales.  Since I focused so hard on getting people to download, I let things slip on the sales side.  Often times the sales link was broken.  Other times, I’d get emails telling me the sales page was missing entirely! 

It was Michel Fortin who got me to take a hard look at how I was running things.  Although he didn’t start out with the #1 question, he pointed me to the answer anyway.  The answer being that my business (or any business) could not survive on downloads alone.  I needed sales in order to survive.

Asking will change you

The second you know what one action you want others to take, a light bulb should go on.  When you set your sites on the action, your message will more effectively persuade others to take that action. 

Contrasting examples from a job search:

• A job candidate who doesn’t know what action they want the company to take.  He asks if they need a copy of his resume.
• A job candidate who wants the company to take the action of hiring her. She asks for the job.

Contrasting examples from an small business selling an e-book:

• The business owner who doesn’t know the action she wants her customer to take asks visitors to bookmark the site.
• The business owner who knows the desired action, places a special 1-time offer on the book for an immediate sale.

Contrasting examples from the world of work:

• An employee who doesn’t know the action he wants his boss to take works hard, keeps his head down and waits for a raise.
• An employee who does know the action also works hard, but makes it clear to the boss that he is working to one day run the company.  Therefore, the hard work is always in the context of him one day taking over the operation.

I know this is a subtle difference.  But if applied, it will make enormous changes to your results. 

Exercise for today:  Write down your top goal.  What bothers you most about this goal?  And what 1 specific action (if you could get someone else to take it) would help you reach that goal?

P.S.  Again, I’ll stress how important it is for you to subscribe to my my motivational articles via RSS.  You don’t want to risk missing content like this in the future do you? ;)

Today is an opportunity for fun.  It’s a chance for family.

Have a cookout.  It’s not too late.  Make memories.

Fireworks aren’t my favorite.  But I still go.  My ears are sensitive to loud noises.  I go more for my kids and the ice cream.

But mostly, I remember…

Today represents freedom.  Most who live on this planet lack freedom. 

Not only Americans are free.  Most who read this enjoy freedom.

You have a choice.  You can work.  You can sleep.  You can brainstorm.  It’s up to you.

Freedom is a burden for the ignorant.  They are free to do nothing.  So they do nothing.  They never grow.

January 1st is the New Year.  July 4th is the refresher course. 

What great timing. 

We get a second chance half way through.

Enjoy the fireworks.  Let them remind you.  Freedom is powerful. 

If not used, it is wasted.

- Brad Isaac

June’s Best:

Freeware: Turn Off Windows Update Restart Nag

You’ll Pay to Quit This Job! One Company’s Nightmare Hiring Policy…

9 Important Reasons to Eliminate Personal Debt & Me Taking My Advice

But if I was a heavy sleeper who couldn’t wake up, I would consider the Tyrant Alarm Clock.  I’d shudder a little while placing the order though, because this really is a tyrant.  Every three minutes you don’t awake or turn it off, it dials one of your contacts on the phone.  Who knows what it says.  Who cares?   The embarrassment is enough.

It brings new meaning to the words “You’re gonna wake the whole neighborhood.”

What human emotion to we need to spur in order to alert ourselves that we must wake up? Anger could work, but also might result in one very broken alarm clock. The Tyrant Clock uses one of the most feared emotions, humiliation. Forget drunk dialing, this is sleep dialing.

Link: Coolest Gadgets via Engadget

Dustin Wax

Basically, he finds that even though he’s no Hendrix, he gets a lot of benefit from playing. 

Sort of like me and my Photoshop skills.  I have no eye for such things, but I can lose myself for hours tweaking images and experimenting withfilters.

I’m a crappy guitarist. In the 20 years that I’ve been playing, I can’t once remember playing scales, and I’ve never sat down to “practice”. I still have trouble with F-chords, I have awful right-hand technique, and my tempo has been known to swing from too fast to too slow without ever hitting “just right”.

…to this day my guitar is the one thing I own that I would consider going into a burning building for. Playing guitar has stopped being something I do for everyone else (even if they weren’t listening) and has become one of the few things I do simply for the sheer enjoyment of it.

8 Good Reasons to Be a Lousy Musician

So before you throw out that old guitar, tennis racket or yoga mat.  Remember, being the best isn’t everything.  If you like it, keep at it anyway.  There are fringe benefits to be had.

If that’s the case, you should check out my post The 26 Major Advantages to Reading More Books…

“Reading never did anything for me..” some say.   What a shame.  Because reading is still one of the best ways to learn new concepts and skills.  When you have a problem with your career, you don’t necessarily have to go back to college or take night classes.  A problem with your marriage, doesn’t necessarily mean having to go into years of therapy.  Reading can be an inexpensive and time saving alternative.

So the excuse of not having enough time to read is poor at best, delusional at worst.   

But there’s also a secret to reading when other people are wasting time.  In fact, I used it to gather 634 extra hours of educational reading in the past year - without cracking a book.  How did I do it?  Read on to find out.

Here’s what I did…

In the normal day to day reading of marketing, self-development, and copy writing blogs and web pages, I would highlight long articles and push them to Text-2-Go.  Same thing with some e-books - the ones that allow you to copy and paste text.

This saved time in reading web pages because I know that oftentimes the most valuable articles are the long ones.  I could effectively procrastinate on those articles by pushing them to my iPod.  What was left were the short 30-second read posts that I could read or skim right there.

Those familiar with David Allen’s Getting Things Done, know this form of active reading both meets the 2 minute rule and the use of buckets for information.  I immediately read the pertinent articles that take more or less 1 minute to read.  The others get put in the bucket for “ear reading” later while driving, walking or just lying back relaxing.

After about 1 year of using the software, I’ve chalked up an extra 634 hours!  Much of what I’ve gotten from that is motivation, writing skills and enhancements, hot marketing tips, copy writing strategies and organizing skills.

Then I’d go back to my favorite audio-book creation software Text-to-go and import the articles for reading back to me while I was driving.  I’ve also used it while walking, hiking, and jogging.  There’s nothing quite like idea generation while out on a walk.  

Here’s a small sampling of blogs that translate well into educational audio learning (there are many more, but these are a few that came to mind):

Zen Habits

Problogger

Dosh Dosh

Michel Fortin

Basically, Mark, the coder behind Text-to-go has thought through his software before he coded it.  We met through email and on top of his wise coding, he’s a nice Australian.  It’s tough for us to get in touch due to the time difference.  

It’s as simple as highlighting an article and clicking the text-to-go button.  Next thing you know, it’s sitting on your iPod - ready for your next trip.

The text-to-go method is so quick I’ve snagged some articles on my way out the door.  I’ve tried just about every text to speech app on the planet and Marc’s is by far the most efficient.

I found out yesterday he’s got a Beta in the works.  I knew he was tossing around some ideas for speech/word correction.  You see, one drawback of text to speech is the voices often can’t compensate for odd spellings, acronyms and abbreviations.  If you are listening in your car, the voice might read “Run ipconfig /all and check DNS settings” as “Run ipp-cinfing slash all and check Dinns settings“.  This is confusing to the listener.  

Well, in his latest beta, I knew he’d be working to make corrections like this easy.  Fortunately, I was not disappointed.  I don’t want to blow all the secrets of his next version, but I’ll say his correction utility is again, well thought out and shall I say ingenius?.  I corrected at least 15 mispronunciations this morning in just 5 minutes.  

There are also some other features to the new beta that are both fun and productivity increasing.  What that means is this year I might inadvertently squeeze in 2-300 more hours of this passive reading.  

If you like this post, please consider stumbling or submitting it to Digg.  Thanks!!!

Fatigue being one of the enemies of persistence, I’ve searched years for a solution. Last week, I found a blog post One Cure for Pollen Allergies where the author, who is it anyway? Said they cured their pollen allergy fatigue by taking supplements of zinc citrate 25mg per day or 50 every other day and a beta carotene supplement.

About a month before another allergy season set in, I started taking a supplement of zinc citrate to strengthen my immune system. Unexpectedly, I had no deep fatigue symptoms when the allergy started and not during the whole allergy season. To be sure, I took the allergy medication several different times and didn’t feel any better….

…Vitamin A is also a core nutrient of the immune system. Using zinc, the body (a.k.a. the cells of the body) turns beta carotene into vitamin A as needed. Taking beta carotene instead of vitamin A prevents you from taking too much vitamin A, which can cause a lot of problems, some of them permanent.

Well, you know me, I’ll try about anything… So I stopped by the health food store and instead of getting just zinc citrate and beta carotene tablets, I searched for a men’s multivitamin that would contain both. The closest I came was Men’s One Energy Multivitamin which contains 20 mg of zinc citrate per capsule. I figured if I got most of the zinc and beta carotene as suggested in the post, the other vitamins might offset the missing 5mg. ;)

Do you know of any secrets to beating allergy fatigue? If so, please share in the comments..

Update: I forgot to post that in the past few days that I’ve been taking the vitamin, that it hasn’t done much if anything for my sinus allergies, but I am more energetic than I was last week.  I don’t have the crushing fatigue that I normally have this time of year which is a relief in itself.  But I will follow up when I know something more definitive.

• MEASURING DETERGENT Fifty percent of the amount of detergent recommended by the manufacturer is plenty. Ditto toothpaste!
• DYSLEXIA AMONG THE POPULATION About 2 out of every 10 people have dyslexia.
• GETTING RID OF BACK PAIN If your back hurts more when you climb stairs, walk up a hill, or get out of a chair, you need to do extension exercises.
• TIMING YOUR GARAGE SALE Hold a garage sale the first weekend of the month because people who get paid monthly have more money to spend then.
• THROWING OUT CLOTHING - Sometimes when cleaning out your closet you’ll come across a garment that you don’t wear because nothing goes with it. If you aren’t ready to spend any money to make the item work for you, you probably are ready to give it to Goodwill.

I woke up, and had a Google alert reporting another blog linked to my essay Woody Allen’s Success Secret. I like to check these alerts to make sure it’s not spam. But I wasn’t quite prepared for what I found.

My jaw dropped when I saw who sent the link…

The Tom Peters.

I couldn’t believe my eyes.

You see, I’ve been a fan of Tom’s work since the 1980s when I was still in high school. His insights into work and human behavior are phenomenal. I remember driving my old and raggedy Datsun B210 (what a beauty!) to and from my job (washing dishes) with the audio cassette version of In Search of Excellence playing full blast. As I absorbed his wisdom, I’d think, “yes, life is going to be better one day.”

What I didn’t realize at the time was I was already applying his wisdom. Just a little bit at a time. I was understanding more about the way the people who succeeded behaved vs. the people who just got by. My actions were shaping me more into a successful person - one step at a time!

So you’ll see what an honor it to have him see my work and to find it valuable.

I’d like to welcome everyone from tompeters! I hope you’ll find your stay valuable.