The actual paragraph says, “People seldom read in a linear fashion, beginning to end.  They skip around, try to find meaning quickly, and usually don’t read closely unless they are interested.”

Why did I go directly to this one part of the list?  It was in the middle of the page, but it does not jump out any more than any of the others.  The others are not significantly more or less interesting or valuable.  I randomly stopped on this one, and it happened to describe exactly what I was doing.

So apparently randomly reading portions of papers and emails is closer to the norm than I thought.

The other stand is different. The lemonade is free, but there’s a big tip jar. When you pull up, the owner of the stand beams as only a proud eleven year old girl can beam. She takes her time and reaches into a pail filled with ice and lemons. She pulls out a lemon. Slices it. Then she squeezes it with a clever little hand juicer.

You will have to check out the article at Seth Godin’s blog, “The lesson from two lemonaid stands”

One stand focuses on a real quality product, while the other goes for a quantity.  Considering how much time I spent with my kool-aid stands when I was a kid, it’s interesting to think about what if this was the business model.  My friend and I were very good at driving quantity, but looking back on it we could have done more.

Even if we didn’t adopt the free/tipped model, there were certainly improvements that could have been made.  It is weird to think about just how many things were done wrong in our many campaigns.  For example, why were we advertising our low price and then lowering it?  Does anybody really care if your koolaid is twenty cents or ten cents?  If they are going to stop, then they will stop.

Oh well, it doesn’t do any good to point out flaws in a 9 year old’s business plan from years ago.  Kids are trying to make some money, not get a masters in marketing.  Something about the innocence of the whole thing really does help to sell a lot of that sugary water.

You can create a podcast about pretty much anything and get it listed through iTunes for free. Your users have a few other options for downloading as well. They could get the episodes automatically from a number of other programs or manually from your web site.

Choosing a niche topic could be a hurdle. If you are doing it for your business or website, you most likely already have a topic that could be expanded upon. If you want to do one for fun, make sure you choose something that will last. I can’t tell you how many times I have subscribed to a new podcast only to be waiting months for another episode before sadly giving up on what could have been a great series.

If you are not sure why you would want to have a podcast, let me tell you why you NEED a podcast.

Become a recognized expert in the topic

Anyone can start a website or a blog about a topic, but that doesn’t make them an expert. Anybody with enough money or credit can open up a business, regardless of if they actually care about what they are selling or doing. Adding a podcast screams passion for your business, your hobby, and your niche.

If you take the time to make a podcast, you develop a reputation and a voice for your industry. If you know what you are talking about and do a decent production job, then you could easily be THE voice of your industry. When somebody needs to know about buying purple elephant guns, who are they going to turn to: the person with a minuscule website that instructs users to stop into the store but hasn’t been updated since 2003, or the person who has a one hundred page site with 89 separate audio reviews about different purple elephant guns?

I’m going to give my business to the person who keeps their information current, demonstrating a passion for their industry. It doesn’t matter if you’re painting houses, cooking, or manufacturing rubber chickens – if you are passionate, it will show. Even if you don’t consider yourself an expert yet, pick something you love and go for it. You will gain more experience and knowledge the more you podcast, and eventually you will be guru of your topic.

Minimal costs to produce and deliver

Do you know how much it costs to make a podcast? The answer can vary, but you could have one up today basically for free. You can make a podcast with the cheap plastic microphone that comes with your computer. It will sound like a cheap plastic microphone that comes with your computer, but you can do it.

You can grab a microphone for around twenty five bucks that will sound okay, or you can go all out! The sky is the limit. However, studio grade equipment might be a waste for a podcast recorded in a high traffic area with inherent background noise. The most expensive equipment won’t always give you a better sound.

Bandwidth is cheap. Storage on the internet is cheap. Domain names are cheap. Recording software is cheap. A decent headset and microphone is cheap.

If you already have a website, it’s simply a matter of getting a microphone and installing some free software.

Humanize your image

Listening to a passionate voice filled with inflection and emotion is so much more persuasive than text alone. Knowing there is a real person involved creates a connection for your audience. Beyond simply sharing an interest in the topic, listeners will feel like they know you, even if you don’t ever get a chance to meet them. I have bought products created or written by people who I have this connection with. I trust the person, not their companies.

Steve Jobs is a human, and Steve Jobs is also Apple. Bill Gates is a human, but Bill Gates is certainly not Microsoft. He may have started Microsoft and perhaps was at one time the company’s face but who is the human image of Microsoft now? It’s John Hodgman, the “and I’m a PC” guy from Apple’s commercials. In Job’s somewhat healthier days, he would give the keynote addresses and introduce new products and services. Steve was the spokesperson for Apple, and made Apple more than another Silicon Valley technology company. Bill Gates would have to spend a lot more to get the same results.

Talk shows are nothing without the unique personalities providing a face for them. The jokes don’t tell themselves, and text transcripts of jokes are never as good as a solid delivery.

Expand your brand

The more ways people can consume your information, the more ways you can bring in interest. I have checked out many sites due to podcasts. I found them in iTunes and now swing by the sites from time to time.

Now I’ve got them on my radar. I will know about anything new that they do.

I wouldn’t have known that they even existed if they never produced that podcast.

From all of my projects, I have found that having other people watching and interested makes doing the work seem more like fun. It’s marketing but it is not quite the same as traditional marketing where you get out there and start beating on doors.

Very Targeted Consumers

While I haven’t checked out the scene for purple elephant guns lately, there are obscure and highly targeted niches that have more listeners than current podcasters are covering. If you start downloading podcasts, it is because you are interested in the topic. Beyond that you are interested enough to seek out, subscribe, download, and invest time listening to a very specific topic.

The only reason to go through the effort (it is a minimal effort, but it does take actions on the end users part) is because you care about a given topic.

If you produce a great podcast on a popular topic, you can gain quite a following. Even a mediocre podcast in a topic with less competition can gain quite a following. Not just a following, but people who actually care.

Start Today!

It is much cheaper to keep a current customer than it is to find a new one. This is one of the first things you learn in any business or marketing class. A podcast is a great feature to help you get a larger internet footprint.

Podcasting isn’t going away. People are out there downloading them every day. Every day new ones are being recorded. If you want to start, now is the best time to do so. Grab your mike, and get going! Those purple elephant guns aren’t going to talk about themselves.

Plenty of variety in the sodas.  Plenty of passion in the entrepreneur.

http://www.sodapopstop.com

Now that I am actively trying to restrict the number of projects I’m working on, I wanted to get these ideas out of my head.  They are not quite as powerful as they were when the ideas were born, but they might be of interest to someone out there.  If you decide you want to take on one of the projects, great!  Go for it.  I’ll even help you with getting hosting.

The three projects are right after the break.  They are ‘Hivemind Snapshot Project‘, ‘Articles of Organization and Operating Agreement Generator‘, and ‘Auto-task generation… thing‘

Hopefully you will find at least one of them useful!

Hivemind Snapshot Project - This project revolves around our beliefs and ideas.  Everyone has beliefs and they *KNOW* absolute truths.  Often times these truths are in opposition to those of other people.  Over time these ideas about the world and it’s workings change.  This project would take data and track it over time.
Just a little over five hundred years ago everyone knew the world was flat.  It was an absolute truth.  Although some explorers, astronomers, and philosophers the truth was different.  Perhaps they didn’t know exactly what was going on, but they knew it was different.

What if somebody came along with a website where people could log on and put in their truths, beliefs, and ideas?  You could have some sort of structure where users could write and publish an article.  Other users would be able to log on and mark which statements on which they agree and which they disagree.

One way to do it would be to ask a specific question every day/week where people answer in essay format.  They have a set amount of time to submit their answer.  After a bunch of essays are sent in you would drill down and pull out the specific simplified statements and do a poll on them. ie… “The Earth is the center of the universe.  True/False/Neither/don’t know”

You could group like minded individuals and identify thought leaders.  From there a user would be able to identify users with different belief structures and follow their activity.

One question I’ve gotten is what about the lack of general sciences available for the common person.  It is true that a lot of the scientific questions being asked right now are highly specialized with phd toting scientists working on them.  If they post something that is true, it doesn’t mean that it is the accepted truth.  Over the long run the experts answer on the topic would most likely become more widely accepted as people learn about it.  Adding qualifications to the users as well allows you to determine where their core expertise lies.

Until the empirical truth arrives you can’t be certain who is actually correct.  For some topics, the truth may never be actually known, but we can observe the changing of minds and take a snapshot of how people view the world.  Over a period of a number of years or some cases months you could see how our perceptions of the world are changing.

Sort of a rather longterm scope on this project, but it could be really interesting.

Articles of Organization and Operating Agreement Generator - This project would help people to construct the documentation for starting their own business.  The idea being that users would be able to cut the expensive costs of having a lawyer draft the documents without getting a pre-made cookie-cutter document that doesn’t apply to your business.

A user would start out by entering the basic information of your new company (Company name, Address, phone, industry, entity type).  This information will be used to create the simple Articles of Organization your business would need to file with the state.

Next the software would help out with your Operating Agreement.  Generally speaking they are used in LLCs and LLPs and sometimes partnerships as well.  This document states how the business will be run.  How are the different interests in the company split up?  What are the voting privileges?  How will profits and losses be divided up?  How is the thing going to be managed?  What happens if somebody wants to buy in?  What if somebody wants to sell their interest in the company?  What happens in the event of illness that prevents someone from working?

There are a lot of issues that need to be addressed for your company, and the Operating Agreement is exactly the place to do it.  This is an internal document for your members, so naturally they will naturally receive a copy.  When opening up a bank account, they will probably want a copy of your operating agreement.  Some businesses extending you credit might want to look at it or take a copy.

A user would be able to go through different sections and select exactly which items they want in their document.  If they chose to add membership information first, they would be taken to a page with 3-4 pre-written segments and a blank text-box.  Choosing one of the segments would bring it over to the text-box with the users company data inserted where relevant.  The user would then be allowed to customize the text further.  When complete just  save the section and move to the next.

After the user gets through the different issues that are commonly addressed, they would be given the option to add their own sections for any special needs they would have.  When everything is complete and the user is happy, the document is generated as a .pdf file and given to the customer.

I imagine you could charge somewhere between $25 and $50 for this service and do well.  Some of the very cookie cutter documents are in this range and offer no personalization.  Having a lawyer draft the documents for you would easily cost hundreds of dollars.

Companies such as LegalZoom have began simplifying the process online, although I am under the impression that the costs are still high.  So if you start, you will have some competition already!  With this you would most likely need to set up an affiliate program or pay for traffic to get customers.  If you are ambitious enough, then go for it!

Auto-task generation… thing - This project is all about getting things done.  The basic idea is a program that emails out automatically generated tasks and tracks if you do them or not.

I mostly want this one just so I can use it myself!  I have multiple websites that I own or help people with.  Each one needs many of the same things done to it.  It could be anything from coding and design to contacting advertisers, updating the content, and checking stats.  Just quick little tasks that will take between 30 seconds and 10 minutes.

The program would take two lists and randomly combine a piece from each one each day.  We would have a list of websites and a list of tasks, and every day an email would show up telling us the days project.  If an email read, ‘Set the peralinks for project quicksilver’ I would be off to do that.  The email could also give me a link for when the task was complete.  I would mark it as complete and leave a comment if needed.

The next day a new project would be automatically assigned and emailed out.  Or if I was feeling particularly productive I could go to the site and get a new task to work on right then.

The program would allow me to keep track of my projects and what needs to be done on them.  I’m sure someone else would find it useful as well!

There is quite a bit more that you could do with this project as well.  Scripts could be set up to determine if what it is emailing out is a valid task, or to verify that it was done.  You could track the response time between sending the email and having the task complete to determine which tasks take longer.  Perhaps multiple users per project so different tasks could be sent out, then you could really get things done.

Just writing about these different projects is getting me excited about them!  I think I’ll have to go back and read my post about not taking on to many projects.  You are welcome to take/borrow/steal these ideas if you want, and hopefuly make something out of them.  Let me know what you do with them.

They would have these ‘opportunities’ for us that could usually be described as ‘hemorrhaging money from the company.’  This is clearly not the best thing to do, unless you are trying to show a loss for they year.  Yet still we would have a couple of people per week who had no idea about the business come in with plans that offered little to no value.

To be fair, there were some legitimate ideas and a couple were even worth taking up.  For the most part they were a waste of time.

One particular company was basically putting together a local web directory.  To be in the directory you had to do a little interview so they could write a paragraph about your company.  Then they would let you be in the directory to try it out for 90 days.  After that time was over, you needed to shell out some money. $100 bucks per month.

While $100 a month isn’t a whole lot for online advertising, there are much better ways to spend it.  Especially due to the fact that our store’s web page had higher search engine rankings and we were able to track the minimal amounts of traffic that their site brought in.

There is some value in their business model; however it is not quite balanced.  The value that they provide is having another link to your website, presumably marketed to people living in or traveling to the area.  One of the bigger problems about this site was that it was to new.  It didn’t rank well in google for local terms and not a lot of people knew about it.

If they would have also had a deal along the lines of, “If you link to us as well, we’ll give you x% off each month.”  Then they could build up the amount of targeted local traffic to their site buy leaps and bounds.  The more people that link to them, the more valuable their links become.

Any business wants you to provide value to them.  If all you have is a team of salesmen then where does the value come from?

If you are going to pitch your product or service, make sure it benifits enough to justify your pricetag.

Building something amazing.

It is interesting that this company is selling phone services, but still they made a great video. So get out there. and get focused. Get determined. And when the economy is running full steam again, you will be ready.

Over the last couple of years I have had so many projects that I wanted to get done. And new projects and million dollar ideas were sprouting up all of the time. Some of them were online, some of them off.

These ideas were across a broad range, everything from building a chess board, building a giant ‘colony size’ ant farm, to creating a program that sent out lottery numbers after every draw (And most of them were just as dorky sounding!).

It’s time that I start retiring a couple of projects of mine. When I get ideas, I want them to happen, so I’ll begin. The problem is that new ideas come and I want them to happen, so I’ll begin. Of course there hasn’t been enough time to complete the original project before starting on the next. This basically means the old project is doomed.

Soon there is another great flash of inspiration and a new project emerges and another becomes doomed.

My final stance is I’m officially closing down some projects. A big problem is that juggling so many things, none of them ever got completed. It’s time to start filling that filing cabinet with those ‘million dollar ideas‘ and start focusing on fewer and fewer.

I’ll be posting quite a few ideas and one-day projects. By one-day projects, I mean “one day I’de like to…” Hopefully there is someone out there that can benefit from some them.

We are restoring backups; however, the layout of the site is being restored and might take a little while.  So please pardon the mess.

-Todd