So how did the seminar go?

I did my first ever in-person seminar the other day and it was killer. I won’t tell you what I talked about because then I can’t charge you to come to the Canadian version later, but I will say that the intrepid souls who braved the trip and the risk made me very happy indeed.

I met Mark Benjamin who is brave enough to be honest about not having been born passionate about selling widgets on the internet. He’s about to launch a new quit smoking mp3 download and is using the proceeds to travel the world. Pretty cool, huh?

I met Ali Hale, an amazing freelance blogger and funny, brainy and beautiful woman just finding out how much she can kick ass in all sorts of ways. After using her writing to make money for other people, she’s ready to start ruling the world by herself, thankyouverymuch.

I met Marta, a gorgeous web designer with shoes so beautiful they’d make you weep, getting ready to make the jump into more automatic income streams, all while courageously handling the crazy life of a freelancer with grace and aplomb.

I met Willie, a fantastic freelance illustrator and soon-to-be comic book magnate who just happens to be funny and insightful and patient and clever and wise while she’s at it. (She also taught me to say “manga” the right way without making me feel like an idiot.) Take that, Marvel.

I met Lucy, a successful freelance embroiderer from Scotland who is taking her super-sexy-gorgeous stuff from exclusively service based to big time retail products for her adoring masses. To anybody who says you can’t make money doing what you love/with crafty stuff/in a small town I present you Lucy and bask in the smugness of my righness.

I met Colin, a Maidenhead maths tutor, who has proven you can be a maths geek and seriously cool dude at the same time. Plus, he’s gonna be on TV and I’m gonna get up at 3 in the morning in Ontario to see him live if it kills me.

I met Adrienne, who makes stunning angel paintings and has taken it upon herself to bring her home country of Singapore out of the 20th century in regards to social media and internet marketing. She hung out with my mom for hours and made my mama’s month.

I met Amanda, a coach for professional mums, who is helping women who happen to be mothers and professionals not JUST be mothers and professionals. Thank you, Amanda, for blazing a trail and making life better for mamas everywhere.

I met Fiona who is about to take the textile art world by storm, stupid bullshit artists have to starve to stay pure myths be damned. She had crazy, fantastic insights that I know helped every person in attendance, including Terry the hotel manager.

With that assembly of awesome people in front of me, no wonder I was nervous. Jesus.

Which brings me to the topic of presents

So there I am, sitting at the end of a long table, trying to make sure to remember to say “fuck” often enough that people felt they got their hundred quid’s worth. And doesn’t a lovely woman come in bearing a pretty bag. Says she’s looking for me.

I think Jamie must have sent me a present. Maybe my inlaws? Probably not my mom, since she was sitting right there. I see something floral and a card. I open the card, because that’s what people with good breeding do. Says:

“Wish we were there with you…”

Hmm.

Who is this mysterious gift from? Shannon Wilkinson and Janine Adams from Declutter Happy Hour. And what is it? It’s a corsage.

A fucking corsage.

Now, you wouldn’t be crazy to wonder why Shannon and Janine sent me a corsage. It’s a little weird, don’t you think? Except, when you know the history, you’d know that it’s not weird at all. Because a while back, Shannon and I were emailing and at some point, we said our email was like a date. One silly inside joke led to another and I said, “I demand a corsage.”

So they sent one. And it was beautiful. And perfectly timed. And just right for my girly-ass self. And at that exact moment when I was feeling most self-conscious and in need of a little love.

I’ve received some pretty cool presents in my day. Jeff Sarris sent me this crazily fantastic piece of contemporary canvas art. God knows where he got that picture from… Jamie’s blog, maybe? But he did, and it’s one of my favorites and now I worship him.

Char Brooks, patient advocate and general cool chick sent me a beautiful little kit of love when I was feeling down, including an Elmo phone for Jack. Why an Elmo phone? Because once upon a time, the Hire IttyBiz page said, in fine print at the very end, “If you are Elmo and would like to sing at Jack’s birthday party, consulting is free.”

Fabeku, my token woo woo friend and sound healing superstar, sent me Buddhist prayer beads and a hand drawn birthday card with a picture of Dunford’s Gin. Why? Because one time, he read that I have Buddhist tendencies. (If you’re new here, you might like that post.)

I have wanted to write a post about presents for a while now but I didn’t want to seem like I was soliciting them. Now I’m sick and don’t care if it looks like I’m soliciting presents. (My birthday is the 8th of every month.) But seriously, there’s an art to good presents. And presents sure do get you noticed.

1. Don’t send presents you obviously can’t afford.

If you’re a client of mine, I know how much money you make. It’s the first question I ask you. That means I know if you can afford what you sent. And if you can’t afford it, I feel guilty. You never want your recipient to feel anything other than delight and gratitude.

2. Promotion is a balance.

If they would really, really like something you sell, by all means give them one for free. (Carrie didn’t turn away the Vivienne Westwood wedding gown in the Sex and the City movie just because it was promotional for Vivienne.) But there is a difference in the energy of a gift for gift’s sake versus a gift that also has self-promotion involved. Nothing wrong with either — I’m all for great swag — but important to know where you’re coming from.

3. A gift well-communicated and from the heart will never go wrong.

If you give your gift for the right reason, your recipient should love it. And if they don’t, they’re the asshole and you shouldn’t lose sleep over it.

That’s it for today. I’m going to go back to my busy schedule of drinking tea and asking Jamie why HE didn’t send me a damn corsage.

Meh. You might as well read this anyway, because otherwise you have to get back to work. Or maybe surf for porn. (If it’s the latter, go ahead. I’d make the same choice.)

So here’s what happened.

It started way, way back in the early days, in the year of Our Lord 2008. A young and in-love Rihanna made us dance with “Disturbia.” We learned that a panda can practice Kung Fu, and the big-eared guy running the USA was still Republican. It was a simpler, more idyllic time — a time when a guy from Ohio thought the best way to start his humor career would be to self-publish a tangible, on-paper book, called May Contain Nuts.

I had shopped my book around to traditional publishing agents for a while, and had unsuccessfully done the same for a novel I’d written years earlier. Unfortunately, these agents didn’t recognize true awesomeness when they saw it, so I decided to self-publish my collected works as a print-on-demand book.

After a fair amount of research, I decided to go through Lulu. Lulu had a much better profit structure than competiors like iUniverse, which charged large setup fees and kind of stuck a broomstick up your ass with regard to royalties. Lulu was solid because they didn’t require holding my hand and charging me for the privilege. I already know a lot about layout (I grew up in my mother’s graphic design firm), so I could do the grunt work myself, give Lulu a Microsoft Word file and a PDF of the cover, and they’d just print what I’d given them.

Now, if you’re thinking about publishing a book, you’ll want to run the numbers yourself, but I found that I could greatly increase my profit if I had the books shipped to me and then reshipped them to buyers. That’s not the way most people do it. Lulu will handle the fulfillment for you if you want — you can just put a link on your site and when someone orders, you’ll get a set royalty. Using that setup, I would have made around $4.50 per $9.95 book sold, and the customer would have paid $15.50 once shipping was factored in.

But I realized that if I had 30 of them shipped to me at once and then sold one at a time for the same total cost of $15.50, the shipping got a lot cheaper and I could make $7.50 per book. And as a bonus, this approach allowed me to sign the books, which caused many satisfied customers to proclaim, “Hey asshole, why did you write in my book?”

I have sold quite a few copies (though not nearly as many as I’d hoped), and it’s neat to be able to say that you have a book because it’s not obvious to most people that any idiot with a computer could publish anything they wanted. (Naomi’s note: For the love of God, click that link. Do it quickly and then X out of the browser while you still have some of your innocence. You KNOW you want to.) But if you’re in the brainstorming phase of your business and don’t yet know what you want to do, I’ll just mention that I didn’t dig the physical products biz as much as I dig the other OBS modules.

Here’s why I’m not as keen on selling a tangible thing:

1. You have to pay to get it, make it, and/or process it in the first place, so the profit is often less. In my case, I had to “pay” over half of the total plus-shipping cost of my book (the $15.50 paid by my customers) to Lulu, the post office, OfficeMax for mailing supplies, and so on. If you’re selling hairnets at a markup, you have to buy the hairnets. If you’re knitting hats, you have to buy the yarn. The costs associated with services, downloads, consulting, and so on are usually much, much less. (Sell a $15.50 e-book and guess how much of that you keep? No big bonus if you answer correctly.)

2. There’s usually more work involved. You have to write and format an e-book the same as you have to write a physical book. Similarly, you have to create systems to sell your own knitted hats the same as you’d need to create systems to sell someone else’s knitted hats as an affiliate. But you have to pack up your books and your hats. You have to fill out the mailing labels. You have to take them to the post office. You have to buy the yarn, order the books for printing, and of course do the knitting. Now, think about an e-book: You put it online, set up the purchase options, and then can pretty much forget about it.

3. This is totally my opinion and may be really wrong in many cases, but I felt like it was harder to sell physical products online. I think that in many ways, deep down, we as people like to touch the “touchable” things we buy. The internet has changed that, and people are getting pretty comfortable with buying without touching. But I think that buyers still wonder on some level, “What will that knitted hat look like on me?” “What will that book feel like in my hands when I’m at the beach, and does its paper and printing make it comfortable to read?” (Ever notice that the paper in most books is off-white instead of bright white? There’s a reason for that.) Amazon can sell based on “touchability trust” (I’m going to trademark that term), but can you?

4. The cycle time is usually longer. Physical shipping adds days to each end of the process, and it means a delay between the time a customer orders and the time she receives the product. Hats take time to knit and even print-on-demand books take time to print. e-Goods can be online fast and are delivered fast — and you can have satisified customers fast, perhaps telling you that what you do kicks Richard Nixon’s ass.

Of course, buyers have questions about intangiables as well: “Is this person a good coach?” “Will this e-book be any good?” But the internet doesn’t add as many barriers to these things. Yes, you can look a coach in the eye if you’re face-to-face, but you’ll wonder if she’s a good coach no matter how you found her.

Now: There are of course advantages to physical products. Tangible goods can be more unique (there are more “hand-crafted” opportunities in the physical world), and people often find more value in something they can touch and hold. Technophobes are more comfortable with physical products (but probably not with buying them online), and certain tangibles have huge profit potential.

But for me? Not so much. I know that physical products are the cornerstone of the world’s economy, and that many of you make or will make a great living by selling “real things.” I know there are dozens of advantages I haven’t mentioned. I know that to many people, a physical book (for instance) is way more satisfying than an e-book. Hell, I agree. I hate reading e-books.

But as a seller? Personally, I’m not a fan.

Trading physical goods is how things have been done for centuries. However, I kind of thing that it’s mainly because nobody could work out the logistics of how to download a goat during a barter.

(Naomi’s other note: He’s just bitter because his book sucked. OK, if I’m honest, it didn’t suck. But he started the book thing before he met my shining self and learned how to actually sell shit. If he were to do it again with yours truly, I think he’d like the whole thing a lot more. Just sayin’.)

—–

But wait, there’s more! I have two P.S’s. They’re both as fantastic as they are stylish and handsome.

P.S #1: If you get my upcoming product once it’s available, you’ll have so much sex that you won’t know what to do with it. It’ll become annoying and you’ll be like, “What the hell am I supposed to do with all of this sex?” So you’ll pack it in boxes and label it and put it up in the garage attic and then years from now your spouse or kids will be like, “Do we really need to keep all of this old sex?” And you’ll be like, “No, it’s all old and moldy. Throw it out or give it to the dog.”

P.S #2: I’m knocking $35 off of Blogger-to-Wordpress migrations until the end of the month. If you’re on Blogger and have finally realized how unprofessional it makes you look (it’s on par with using a Yahoo! email address for your business and wearing Hammer pants in meetings), now’s the time to move. Tell your Blogger friends, too. We’ll move over together, glory in our escape from a stupid medium, and then collectively laugh at Blogger and make fun of how small its dick is.

Because Jack has become three. He’s not actually three until September but in his head, he’s totally three. If you are a parent, you understand that THREE IS ALWAYS WORSE THAN TWO.

Why? Because nobody fucking WARNS you about three. Three is “why?” Three is “whasSAT for?” Three is “whassat MEAN?” Three is “what does G mean?” Three is “what time is it?” Three is “what time is it?” Three is “what does time mean?” Three is “what does nine cocks mean?”

Three is different from 28. Because 28 is, “If you ask me what time it is one more fucking time I swear on all that is good and holy I will beat you with your father’s Rolex. And NO COURT IN THE COUNTRY WILL CONVICT ME. Do you know why? Because a jury of my peers is made up of other people with three-year-olds. And I will be their idol.”

Anyway, because Jamie has taken that child away, I can write you a little blog post.

Introducing The IttyBiz Summer Collection

For reasons that will soon become clear, I am announcing the whole IttyBiz summer line-up right now. Because we’re going back to Canada. And because Jamie’s kind of getting deported. And we’re going to be bouncing from time zone to time zone and will be spending the next few weeks jetlagged and without child care. And because the haters are always telling me I never give y’all enough warning. So HA!

IttyBiz Live: For UK peeps

First up, IttyBiz Live. We’re doing a seminar in Berkhamsted on Tuesday. Like, THIS Tuesday. There are five slots left. If this sounds remotely cool to you, go here for details. (Also, if you live in Canada or the northeastern United States and you want to get yourself all excited about the one we’ll do in Canada, you can go read about it. It’s like business porn.)

32 Days Till IttyBiz Summer Camp!!!

My normally cool stance of cynical reserve has gone to the wayside for Summer Camp. It’s so exciting, I might pee my pants again. (Don’t ask about the first time. It’s still a little too fresh in my mind.) If you don’t have a business yet or are still in the start-up-dreaming-thinking-phases, THIS IS FOR YOU.

If you want to read the full gory story on why I’m going back to Canada, that’s the only place you’re going to get it, too. Read about Summer Camp and why it is awesome here. You’ll also learn about The Brad Rule of Marketing, one of the most valuable pieces of marketing advice there is. Made up by a real guy, named Brad.

(Also, if you were ever thinking of getting Online Business School but didn’t want to pay $400, you might want to head over there as well. It’ll make sense when you get there.)

2 for 1 Consulting, Get It While It’s Steamy

Because we’re going to be in a time zone conducive to talking to people in North America, we’ve opened up a new consulting thingamajig. What it boils down to is a 2 for 1 deal in a time slot that doesn’t have you waking up at four in the damn morning to talk to me. Check it out on the Hire IttyBiz page. There were 15 slots and 6 are taken, so if you want it, go get it. We even made, like, a package. You’d think I was a professional marketing consultant or something.

Other Generalized Coolness

We’re starting a new series called Diamond in the Rough on Tuesday. And Marketing School will finally be ready. And I’m hooking up for dirt cheap seminars with Michael Bungay Stanier in July and Chris Guillebeau in August.

If I have anything to do with it, y’all are gonna be rich as Midas before the back to school sales. So HA! (Again.)

He does, however, have one particularly unique skill.

He has freakishly good luck when he hunts. I don’t know a whole lot about hunting, but I know you don’t score a dead deer every time you take a walk. It’s an art and a science, and not every buffoon with a rifle gets to take home venison steaks.

So this guy decides to create a business as a hunting guide. He comes with you when you hunt. He finds them, you shoot them.

This dude is pretty bright, and he knows that it’s going to be hard to convince a bunch of people who have never paid for a service to fork over a bunch of cash. He knows that saying to himself, “You know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna be a hunting guide” and leaving it at that does not fill the college fund. So he makes himself a little plan and then… wait for it… executes it.

He made flyers. Great, vibrant flyers with a photo of him next to a dead deer and a huge smile on his face. (His face, not the deer’s.)

He knows that hunting in small town Ontario is an insular community and that people trust the opinions of those they know. So he courteously asked for testimonials and highlighted them every chance he got.

He put the flyers up where people can see them. Instead of thinking to himself, “where do people put flyers?” he thought “where can I find people who like to hunt?”

He realized that hunters are a grumpy, misanthropic bunch so he figured, “Maybe hunters don’t go out all that often. Maybe I should deliver some flyers door to door.”

He followed up. He sent more flyers. Why? “I figure people mighta been busy. Maybe they didn’t see the first set. Or maybe they did see them and they needed to know I was serious. Maybe they forgot.”

This guy did very well last hunting season and between repeat customers and incredible local word of mouth, this year’s going to be a banner year for him. If he has a free weekend during deer season, I’ll be surprised. He’s even a little concerned that he might not be able to keep up with the demand, because he’s pretty busy on the weekends.

Fourth graders get a lot of homework, you know.

It would appear that my 10-year-old has a better understanding of social proof, repetitive exposure and market analysis than we do.

What happened to us?

Why does he understand that nobody fucking promised him a perfect business? Why does he understand that he has to do the parts of his business that he doesn’t like (traipsing around looking for clients) in order to do the parts of his business that he does like (shooting things for money)? Why is he willing to man up and risk rejection instead of moping around on Twitter, wondering why he’s broke?

I seriously wonder when we got it into our collective adult heads that there’s an easy way. That there’s a way that doesn’t force us to do oneittybittyteensything that we don’t absolutely adore. That there’s a way to avoid anything that might be a little bit uncomfortable.

But sales makes us feel icky!

And promotion makes us feel gross!

And marketers are mean, mean poopyheads!

Enter the Fourth Grade Bullshit Detector Test

Every time you don’t want to do something, think you shouldn’t have too, or find yourself using words like “uncomfortable” or “nervous”, run your excuses through the Fourth Grade Bullshit Detector.

Would an entrepreneurial 10-year-old agree with your logic or would they hear, “But I don’t waaaaaaaaaaaaaaanna”?

Choose your next actions accordingly.

Wait.

Wait, before you start expecting me to write something all deep and shit.

Let me be honest. I’m sort of on vacation here. I hope you’re okay with this being a laid-back sort of post, with a laid-back sort of point to it. I’m going to tell a story, and it has a moral, but I’m going to kind of saunter up to it slowly while holding a beer. Hope you’re cool with that.

Let me explain.

My family has a cottage on a small island full of nothing in the middle of Lake Erie, on the Canadian side. It’s quite the place. Only like three roads are paved, the post office is behind the counter of the co-op, and the local handyman is known to everyone as “Uncle Kevin.” If you send a FedEx to the island, it will take two weeks to arrive, and even then, if the recipient doesn’t have a mailbox (they’re clustered at random points along dirt roads flanked by cornfields and vineyards), your FedEx goes into limbo and probably… I don’t know… gets burned or something. Imagine that TV show Green Acres, put it on an island, get everyone saying “eh?” at the end of their sentences, and you’ll have the right general idea.

Anyway, there’s only one ferry that runs there from the USA. It runs once a day and is pretty much the only way to get there unless you want to pay a king’s ransom to fly over in an airborne heart attack. On Friday, that boat leaves the dock at 8pm. There are no planes after that. If you miss the boat, you’re fucked.

Anyway, my son Austin and I were going up this weekend, and as we started out, my GPS said that we had left way in advance and were going to arrive really, really early. So, to kill time, we stopped at Starbucks. I got a latte, and Austin got a steamed milk with raspberry syrup in it. Then, in the car, he spilled it on his bear, so I stopped at Taco Bell and got wet napkins to clean that up. This errand was going to take about 20 seconds, so I left him in the car. When I came out, he had spilled it on himself again. Cleanup followed cleanup.

The GPS said we were now only somewhat early.

Then, unexpectedly, there were some traffic delays. Some construction. Slow drivers. At this point, we were only just “kind of early.” Then Austin needed to stop twice to use a bathroom. Then crazy traffic as we neared the general vicinity of the ferry dock . By now, we’re actually looking at the nervous end of “just sort of on time.”

I said to myself — and I quote — “Crap.”

As we approached the dock, we ran into this giant street fair, with detours and streets blocked off. The area was jammed with motorcycles and mullets. Every stop light grabbed us. I watched the arrival time tick later on my GPS, starting to get really nervous.

At this point, if we’re lucky, I’m figuring we can park the car and sprint to the boat. Then, after a few more detours, I figured we’d better buy the tickets first, so they at least knew we were there and wanted on. But as we got closer, I realized that the parking lot around the ferry was jammed. There were no parking spots there. There were no parking spots anywhere.

I put the car in Park in the middle of the lot and ran to the ticket booth. At this point, the ferry blew that big fog horn that says, “Hurry up, stupid ass.” They were taking off the dock lines. I’ve got like three minutes at this point.

“Where can I park?” I asked the girl in the ticket booth.

And she says, “Yeah, that’s a problem.”

I thought quickly. A one-way passenger ticket on the ferry costs $13.75. But… But! The ferry takes cars over, too. $30 one way. $60 total. $60 to park the car on the ferry, and take it over whether I need it or not.

By now, the ferry is honking repeatedly and shit and they’re raising planks and my car is running in the middle of the parking lot, not in a legal spot, with my kid inside with all of our luggage, and I know that if I don’t do something in like three seconds, I’m going to miss the ferry, miss my little vacation, endure a crying fit from my son, and face a very long hour drive home.

So I say, “Is there room for one more car on the ferry?”

Now, pay attention to what’s happened here. I have no need to have my car on the island. In fact, having my car on the island is like having it condemned. When you have a car on the island, thousands of spiders move into it and build nests. But there I was, facing the fact that whatever I did, I couldn’t leave my car in the middle of a parking lot, so even with a ticket, I was screwed.

“No room on the ferry,” she said.

“Oh come on, can’t you squeeze one more in?” I begged. “What if I pay more?”

So now this service I don’t want or need in any normal way? This mobile, spidery parking spot I’m trying to buy for $60? Now I’m begging for it.

Cue the sales lesson.

I was a desperate customer. In an urgent situation. With a big problem. I would have paid $200 and let them kick me in the nuts if they could have solved that problem.

Now, as it turned out, I just parked in an illegal spot and am currently praying that the ticket I’ll get won’t cost me too much. But yes. If they had doubled the car rate, I would have said, “Yes, please take all of my money and fill my car with spiders. While you’re at it, twist my nipples until they bleed. And thank you.”

Look, sales and its connection to problem-solving is nothing new. I mean, think of Desperate Buyers Only, the e-book based on the idea that if you can find people in dire straits — people like that guy trying to get on the ferry with his 4-year old who can’t figure out how to unload his car — they’ll pay whatever you want without hesitation if you can solve their problem. It’s nothing new, but it’s worth reminding ourselves about, as entrepreneurs.

I mean, are you selling solutions to problems? Or are you, like most people, just trying to sell your product?

This was a timely reminder for me.

I’m going to be launching a product soon. It’s going to be like an internet business in a box… a Johnny B. Truant style step-by-step info product designed to take you from absolutely no online presence to a functional internet business with all of the major bases covered — website, mailing list, e-commerce, affiliate setup, and so on. And I was thinking that I’d promote it as a way to assemble the technological components of an internet empire. But now I think that would be a mistake.

Instead, I thought: What problems will I be solving?

Problem: People are bound to their jobs, which they often hate.

Solution: If they build their own successful businesses, they’ll be free from their nine-to-fives. (This is also the foundation solution that drives Online Business School. Luckily, my product will complement — not overlap — OBS.)

Problem: Internet technology is daunting at best. Even if a person wants to build a blog, create a mailing list, create and sell products, and start an affiliate program, chances are he or she doesn’t know where to start. Every component of it can be incredibly confusing.

Solution: If I provide step-by-step instructions in the true Johnny B. Truant style of making things stupidly simple, they’ll know they can do it. Hell, my site is full of free tutorials in this vein, so they’ll know that if they understand that stuff, they’ll follow the stuff in my business-in-a-box product.

Problem: Even if they can find all of the moving parts, and even if they can figure it out and manage to set those parts up, they’ll never know if they got it all, if they’re doing something wrong, or if they could be doing things in an easier or better way.

Solution: I’ve been doing this for over a decade. I do it every day, for a lot of people. If you just follow my lead, you’ll know you’re setting things up “the right way.”

There’s a famous expression that says, “People don’t want to buy drill bits. They want to buy holes.” If you run a business, are you remembering to sell holes? Are you constantly thinking of what your customers need and want, rather than touting the features of this thing you have to sell? Those two things are not always the same, especially in the mind of the customer.

I don’t know if what’s above makes sense. Hey, I’m on a fucking ferry in the middle of Lake Erie. I’m on vacation. Cut me a break. Tomorrow, I’ll be sitting in the sun with a Mike’s Hard Lemonade. Because you know, I’ll be in Canada. The island couldn’t keep a grocery store in business, but the state liquor store has never faltered. Eh?

Cheers!

Things started out great. You had this creative thing that you loved to do. It was fun. And then you figured out that other people wanted your thing, too. YAY!! So you started selling your thing.

Then things went to shit.

In The E-Myth Revisited, Michael Gerber tries to address why things went to shit. (Naomi’s note: E-Myth is one of those books everybody tells you that you absolutely must read before you start a business or your wife will leave you and your dog will die.) He talks about Entrepreneurs, Managers, and Technicians; he discusses who should be doing what and when, all told using Sarah’s “All About Pies” as a case study. It’s a great read, but it leaves one not-too-small question unanswered:

What if you just want to make pies?

A traditional business coach would tell you that you never should have got in the business of selling pies if you just wanted to make pies. But, since you are selling pies, you’d best hire some folks to help you make the pies, then a manager to help you manage those workers, then hire some marketers, then…then…then…until you’ve got this huge group of folks around you selling your pies.

If you sold remarkable pies in a good location and had the rest of your business infrastructure in place, you’d probably make a lot of money selling pies. But you – as in the business owner you – still wouldn’t be making the pies.

Thanks for nothing, coach!

HaHa! That’s Why I Got Into Online Business…

Unfortunately, many online entrepreneurs find themselves in the same situation. An online business is still a business – meaning you have to sell stuff that people want to buy. It’s still something that takes time to build, as it takes a while to figure out what people want to buy, how to create that stuff, and then how to sell that stuff to them, although Naomi’s doing a great job making this a lot simpler for the rest of us.

For what we’re talking about here, there’s not much difference between brick and mortar businesses and online businesses; whether your pie is a physical pie or an informational pie, you’re still in the business of selling pies. But there’s a dark side to all this marketing and business-growing jazz that a lot of people don’t talk enough about: in the process of figuring out what people are wanting to buy and getting that stuff to them, it’s really easy to forget about the stuff you want to make.

You’d be surprised how many successful online entrepreneurs get to the point where they start asking themselves that same question: “What if I just want to make pies?”

If You Like Lemon Pie, Make Some Lemon Pie

Luckily, I’m not a traditional business coach and I’m not going to tell you that you never should’ve got in the business of selling pies. I’m also not going to tell you that you shouldn’t worry about the pies your customers want to buy. What I am going to tell you is that you have to make some pies for you.

I will warn you: the pies you make for yourself may not sell. That’s fine. No one else may want to try them. That’s fine, too. And it will seem like an incredible waste of time and energy that you could be spending on making pies that will sell. That’s not fine. (It is important to not beat yourself up for feeling that way, though.)

If you lose the pie-making passion you started with, it will start to creep into other facets of your business, in time.

Your correspondence won’t carry the energy it once did.

Networking will become a chore and not a chance to talk about pies.

Your mind will change about giving away free pies because each pie will have a price tag associated with it.

You won’t want to make the pies that you’ve scheduled yourself to make.

In short, you’ll go from making a living from making pies to selling pies as a job.

The only thing it costs you to do what you want to do is time. You’re in a type of business that’s particularly well-suited to changing things up when needed – it’s not like you have a storefront, physical inventory, a boatload of employees, and five-figure monthly overheads. Making some pies for you will cost you a few hours a week, but it’ll reward you with a renewed passion and energy in your work.

So yes, sell the pies that your customers want. Build a team around the process, if (and only if!) you need them to help you with other things so you can make your pies. But remember that the single most important asset of your business is you, and your wants and needs are more important than the wants and needs of your customers. You need to make the pies you want to make. You need to enjoy what you’re doing. You have to be your first customer in the morning and the last customer at the end of the day.

The condensed version: Remember that you got into business because you liked making pies. You will have to sell pies – some of which you don’t want to make – but you’re selling pies so that you can make the pies you want to make.

Charlie Gilkey is my creativity coach. He is also just about the coolest and smartest person I know. Read his blog to find some sense in the crazy fucked-up madness that is being a creative businessperson. Seriously, read it. The only one who loses if you don’t is you.

I would also like it noted that IttyBiz is pretty much the only place where you can hang out reading about dog-walkers with prostitute girlfriends and people in the esteemed profession of weasel whispering and call it “work”. Yes, we’re that cool.

This internet thing is pretty cool. You get some momentum in any of the traditional internet channels and soon there are all sorts of people finding you on Twitter and Facebook, offering you penis drugs regardless of whether you actually possess a penis. I NEVER AGAIN have to wonder where to find male enhancement devices, Ponzi schemes, or porn. This is why everyone should have a business online. You think you have porn inundating you now? Start building website traffic and just see the strange shit that finds you.

Then, once you’ve had your fill of 1-legged Asian polygenital betumored BDSM furry deceased inverted polyploid hookers and have watched Kermit the Frog’s “2 Girls 1 Cup” reaction to your heart’s content (look it up on YouTube… I won’t link to it because it’s NSFW (for language) but extraordinarily hilarious), then I hear it’s worthwhile to use your businesslike momentum to try to make some money.

So let’s move along to that.

In this little adventure through which Naomi has been guiding me, I’ve at least dipped my toes into most of the major OBS components. I’ve got a service business going (just added some new services too, like Blogger migration and Wordpress upgrades; check it out). I’ve tried out niche websites, but kind of fell on my face (which may be worth a post down the road). I have a free e-book, but haven’t actually offered one for sale (yet — I have one in mind). I’ve done the shit out of affiliate marketing, and I even offered a physical product for sale before this all began: my book, May Contain Nuts.

The only module of OBS that I hadn’t really attempted was coaching and consulting. So I decided to try that out.

My situation is probably pretty perfect for consulting. I’m in a very coachable industry (technology), have over a decade of experience, am a pretty good teacher, and have had people asking me in the past few weeks if I could coach them. Still, I’d never technically coached or consulted anyone before, so I re-listened to the appropriate OBS module a few times, made some notes, and debuted my coaching services last Friday.

Here are some key coaching “do’s” that stuck out for me, so hopefully I implemented them correctly. I imagine (I hope) that I’ll hear about it if I didn’t.

1. Differentiate yourself.
Anyone — and I do mean anyone — can decide to call themselves a consultant. The good news here is that you can pretty much toss up a website and consider your shingle to be duly hung out, and immediately start trying to get people to give you $500 per hour to tell them all about weasel flogging. The bad news is that it is similarly easy for your neighbor, and his neighbor, and that second neighbor’s dog-walker’s 1-legged Asian polygenital betumored BDSM hooker girlfriend to do exactly the same. The internet fills up with consultants, and consulting starts to look like a commodity. If a customer wants to pay someone to hear about weasel flogging, she’s going to have a thousand weasel-flogging consultants to choose from. If none of them stand out, she’s going to choose more or less randomly, probably based on whoever places best in Google.

To stand out, you need to be different in a way that adds perceived value to your services. Maybe you specialize in African weasels. Maybe you call yourself a “weasel whisperer.” You need to create your own little niche or sub-niche. Naomi gives the example of Dave Navarro, who took a topic (time management) that is highly consulted in the business world, but offered it to the underserved niche of regular, everyday individuals.

In starting my own practice, “technology consultant” was going to be way too broad. So I’m shooting for two angles to stand out:

* I make technology simple. Anyone can explain technology, but few can explain it in a way that the average Joe can understand. I maintain that you can set up and manage your mailing list even if you’ve never done it before. You can add new websites to your hosting package and install blogs on them, even if you’re not a techie. I can teach you to do it, step by step, in a way that you’ll actually be able to understand.

I figure that one’s pretty good. This second one may not count as a USP, but it’s kind of working for me so far, so I’m going to roll with it:

* I’m the funny, irreverent, personable guy. This is the whole “Brand You” concept. I wrote a guest post a while ago in which I talked about how infusing your personality into your product will make you stand out. In the comments, Michael Martine of Remarkablogger summed my point up nicely: “Out of all the people doing photoshop tutorials, the guy who does “you suck at photoshop” is one of the most well-known, because he’s hilarious. Not boring. He teaches the same crap as all the other photoshop tutorials everyone else does, but he stands out.”

2. Create social proof.
“Social proof” (a fancy way of saying that you’ve been “tried out” by society and have passed its tests) is why anyone who goes on Oprah’s show stands to make assloads of money — as in, they quite literally have huge quantities of money falling out of their rectums within fifteen minutes of leaving her studio. Social proof rides in the same car as “endorsement” and even “peer pressure.” Social proof is what says to your customer, “These people were pleased with this consultant’s work. Therefore, she’s good.”

We’re talking about testimonials. As in: Go get some.

A good way to do that is to consult for free, and ask for testimonials in lieu of payment. I took this approach when I offered free blog setups in April. People were jazzed that I was working gratis, so I asked them if they’d write a bit about how cool I was. This is a good way to get some social proof under your belt without spending anything more than your time.

3. Charge what you’re worth.
Most new consultants, used to a “working for da man” salary, can’t imagine being paid $100 or $200 or more for an hour of their time. They get tentative, maybe get a little embarrassed that they’re even considering such larcenous rates, and set their prices much lower than the competition. Instead of $125 per hour, which may be the going rate, they decide to try $50 per hour. Or maybe just $35 to start, to woo some clients. What the hell, they figure: better to have five clients at $35 per hour than to have none foolish enough to pay a newbie consultant $150 per hour.

And what happens? Forget about whether you could command $125. Cheaping out has virtually assured that you’ll get zero clients at $35 per hour. Why? Because despite your intentions, this big of a discount doesn’t look to potential clients like an incorrect price on a good service. Instead, it looks like a correct price on an incredibly shitty service.

Think about it from a client’s perspective. Let’s say you wanted a massage. Few masseuses charge under $50 per hour where I am. If you came across someone who charged $20, what would you think? The reality might be that the $20 person is just starting out and set rates low to create a rush of clients. But what’s the perception? If I went in there, I’d be expecting a jonesing crack whore doing massages of questionable legality, because good places charge $50 at the very least.

Or, what would you think if you saw a $2000 diamond ring on sale for $600? Would you think, “Spectacular deal”? Or would you think, “Must be fake,” “Must be flawed,” or “Must be stolen”? People really believe that there’s no free lunch, so when something seems too good to be true, they assume it is.

With this in mind, I’ve decided to charge $150 per hour for my consulting, with a discount if you buy multiple sessions. It wasn’t a terrible stretch because I already charge $100 per hour for custom web jobs, but it did give me pause considering that I’m still kind of new to teaching what I know. But shit, that’s what I’m worth. In fact, I’m worth more. If you’re a new consultant, just keep reminding yourself of that.

(Also, by request, I decided to offer group coaching for $50 per hour. You don’t get as much one-on-one attention, but it lets people with smaller budgets get on board. )

So that’s what I’ve learned, that’s what I’m doing, and that’s why Kermit is really pretty perverse. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going trolling for some hot furry action. Don’t judge me. I’m only human.

I haven’t thought too hard about the details, but here’s what I’ve got so far:

It will be in the next three weeks. (I leave circa June 28th.)

It will be at least half a day, but more likely a full day.

It will either be in London or in the Barn of Bliss in Cheddington. (40 minutes north of Euston on the London Midland line. Past Berkhamsted, before Milton Keynes.)

It will be really small. 6 people? 12 people?

It will be called Fuck Realistic. I don’t even really know what that means but my gut says that’s what I should be giving a seminar about, so that’s what I’m gonna do. Probably something to do with skyrocketing the living shit out of your ittybiz.

It will probably cost £100.

If you’re theoretically interested, shoot Jamie an email (jamie@ittybiz.com) and he’ll get back to you when we have details. (If you don’t hear back in a week, resend. He has a vicious spam filter, largely because I keep putting his email address on the internet for all the world to see.)

My guess is that if you are reading this fine blog you are in some way interested in either marketing, selling online or foul and abusive language. Or maybe you are heavily into foul and abusive language online about marketing and this place is your little corner of heaven.

On the other hand, you may have absolutely no interest in sales whatsoever and are contemplating heading off to YouTube to look for amusing videos of squirrels nibbling through power cables, dogs skateboarding and crop circles in the shape of the Virgin Mary’s underwear. Well before you do, humor me by answering the following questions:

Do you sell to other businesses?

Do you ever have to sell yourself over the phone?

Will you ever have to enlist the help of other people in a project?

Are you a writer that has a book to sell or has articles to get published?

If you answered yes to any of the above, then you will get something out of this post so resist the urge to hit that back button.

Let me kick off by making this rather contentious statement:

Most solopreneurs and bloggers are shit at selling. I don’t mean a bit shit either, I’m talking completely incompetent buffoons that wouldn’t know the difference between a sales cycle and a menstrual cycle.

I told you it was contentious.

In my less than humble opinion, there are two main reasons they’re no good… (as well as lots of little ones):

Firstly, they think they know what they’re doing because somebody once bought something off them.

This is akin to me thinking I am a top class soccer player because I once scored a goal when the ball bounced into the net off my arse as I was leaning over trying to get my breath back.

Many realtors made lots of money prior to the current economic situation. But it’s not difficult selling something if people are lining up to buy it. Watch the guy that sells the weed at a rock festival if you have any doubts. He probably isn’t utilizing any sales skills other than saying “No honest, buddy, it’s brilliant.”

Secondly, and probably more worryingly, they don’t see the importance of being able to sell.

After all, good products sell themselves. Everybody knows that, right? Well maybe not everybody, but what do Mercedes Benz, IBM, Boeing, Johnson & Johnson and Xerox and their huge sales organizations know about it anyway?

If I asked you what most sales people hate with a passion, and what a lot will admit is the weakest area of their sales game, what do you think it would be?

If you are in any doubt, I’ll also throw in that it is the most important part of new business sales, and the people that are very good at it get paid the most money.

Yep you’ve guessed it, it’s the dreaded cold calling.

The mere words send chills down sales peoples’ backs. If you’re a sales manager and you want an office tidied up, just announce a cold calling session because your salespeople will then do anything to avoid picking the phone up.

But it has to be done, and my guess is at some time in your life you’ll need to know how to generate a meeting or sale with somebody you don’t know. So you may as well know how.

Probably the biggest truism in cold calling is that it’s a numbers game. The more calls you make, the more success you’ll have. However, you also have to follow a plan rather than setting off like a headless chicken being chased by a very hungry blind fox. And I’m the man to give you that plan and right about now I wish my name were Stan or maybe even Dan, but it isn’t, so let’s get on with it nevertheless.

Belief:

The first thing you need to do when setting up a prospect session is have the right attitude. Believe you can do this because you can. You decide what is possible for you so think big and start off with the attitude that people who don’t want to speak to you are missing a treat.

I could bang on all day about the power of beliefs and often do, but there is only really one thing you need to know. Beliefs are not set in stone and you create your own, so make sure they’re good ones.

Many times I’ve seen seasoned salespeople start off hunched over their phone, believing they will be rejected and feeling miserable about life. Then, when the first couple of calls go badly they cheerfully announce that they were right after all and that this it is waste of time. Quite brilliant!

Material:

Do not sit down with a Yellow Pages in front of you, dialing number after number. Find as much information about your target company and the person you need to speak to beforehand. Calls that start, ‘Can I speak to the person that in charge of signing the checks?’ are doomed to failure. Whereas a call that starts ‘Can I speak to Bob in HR please? It’s Tim from A Daring Adventure’ is infinitely more likely to get past a gatekeeper.

If they ask you what it’s about, tell them it is of a personal nature. A fib? Well not really, it should be very personal when you’re talking about your business. (Editor’s Note: To the woowoos among us, chill the fuck out.)

A word of warning: This can backfire so be prepared to roll with the punches. I once called a company and asked to speak to Bob, the CFO. His secretary was absolutely appalled and screamed, “BOB!? BOB!? Do you mean Robert?” Needless to say, Bob and I didn’t have a good old chin wag that day, or any subsequent day for that matter.

Rejection:

The person that just yelled at you has probably had a bad day. Maybe Bob’s secretary’s cat had just been run over by the garbage truck, or she’d just discovered a nasty little rash after a dalliance with Dave in Accounting. I don’t know, and more importantly, neither do you. So thank them for their time and move on to that next juicy prospect that is just bound to say ‘yes please’.

Time:

Do not attempt to hit the phone for 5 hours non-stop fueled by 14 cups of coffee. Take breaks at least hourly. Have a walk around, get a drink, boil an egg, anything that breaks your state and allows you to disengage. Then, just before you sit back down, focus on how many calls you want to make in the next hour or however long and just do it.

Stats:

These can be important as you do more prospecting, as you’ll get an idea of how many calls you need to make to get an appointment. It can also encourage you to beat your own personal best each time if you’re the competitive type.

Comfort:

Some people prefer to make calls stood up or even walking around whereas other prefer the more traditional method of sitting at a desk. Whichever you’re most comfortable with is fine, as long as you come across as enthusiastic and awake. If you’re lying on the floor fiddling with your crotch, the other person will probably know something is amiss. (Editor’s note: I do this all the time and nobody ever thinks anything is amiss. The topless Skype call should probably be The People’s Exhibit A.)

Script:

Every successful sales person I know uses a script, be it written down or in their head. Know exactly what that first 20 or 30 second pitch is going to be, and make sure that speech is relevant and demonstrates the benefits of you or your service/product. Conversations that start off “ah” and “er” usually end up with a speedy good and bye.

Availability:

You may have been passed through inadvertently to somebody that is in the middle of drawing up plans to conquer the world by the end of the quarter. Simply ask ‘Are you free to speak for 2 minutes, Bob, about something that is going to help you and your business be more efficient and profitable?’ If Bob says no, he’s got this world-conquering thing to finish, ask for a time that would be more convenient.

Selling:

Unless you are in telesales or have no intention of meeting the person at a later date, do no try and sell. This is very important. Telephones are for making appointments and ordering pizza, not selling. Give the reasons why you should meet and then assume the meeting, offering them two or three alternative dates that you can make.

Enjoy:

Remember, this isn’t life or death It’s a few phone calls, a few opportunities to chat to interesting people and most importantly, a chance to make some friends, some lovely money and feel wanted again.

Sales and prospecting are skills. Skills need fine-tuning and practice so go easy on yourself. Naomi Dunford didn’t make a million in her first week — it probably took her at least 2 or 3 as she refined her methods and got important feedback on what was and wasn’t working for her. That same goes for you.

One final thing. If you wait until you need customers before you start to look for them you’re already in trouble. You should be filling your pipeline as a matter of course because this is a process that takes time and people can sniff a desperate sales person quicker than my dog can sniff my dirty boxer shorts kicked under the bed.

***

Tim Brownson is my long term life coach. Before that, he was a rich salesman. Despite his appalling spelling and grammar, he is one of the coolest people I know and one of the first I recommend to anyone who doesn’t wake up admiring the field of pretty buttercups and butterflies growing out of their ass. If your life is fucked up, you really should call him. He also has a really hot voice.

First, it should be noted that it would be unwise to accuse me of any level of objectivity in this post whatsoever. I love Stacy Brice of AssistU fame (and I do mean fame) like I love pink sparkly ponies on Christmas morning. I love her like I love Hermès scarves and English roses and the word “apothecary”. Basically, I like her a lot. Just be aware.

So, who the hell is Stacy, other than my girl crush? Stacy runs the highly acclaimed AssistU, a finishing school of sorts for virtual assistants. You wanna be a Big Girl VA? You go to AssistU. Every part of the Learning Not To Suck process is smooth and delightful under Stacy’s careful watch and tutelage.

Wanna be about as unique as it gets? Read and learn, darlings.

Every step, all in one place.

Stacy has created a learning environment that would make you swoon. She takes good applicants and moulds them into great VAs. She teaches about all of the business stuff, the marketing stuff, the invoicing stuff, and, you know, the VA-ing stuff. Spend a few grand with Stacy and you are quite literally set for life.

Compare that to the $2 an hour crap jobs you find on Elance. Bwah ha ha.

Get registered. (Wedding not required.)

Next up, in order to take care of her freshly minted VA Dreams-Come-True, she has a DIY registry service. You want a VA? You head on over to AssistU and go through a fairly comprehensive analysis process that figures out what you’re like, what you need, and what you’re looking for in an assistant. It’s free but it’s exhaustive – this is not a little multiple choice quiz that says, “Are you: a.) an asshole, b.) a commie, c.) a murderer, or d.) basically nice?” Grab yourself a drink and plan to spend some time.

Basically, this way you don’t have to Google “virtual assistant” and get the ones who know great SEO but swear at your clients.

Platinum service. Like a dating service, without the dating.

And then we have the spot where Stacy nails it beyond nailing it. This is where she really knocks it out of the park. Stacy offers a personal service where she will find your VA for you. Pay her $500 and you get yourself your own piece of administrative heaven.

If you’re new to the game, you think, “$500?! Are you off your nut?”

And that’s where you’re not thinking like a business owner, my dear.

Who needs a VA? Usually someone who’s drowning in work, yeah? And someone who has no qualms paying $30-$100 an hour for expert admin help? And someone with no time? And no human resources experience – as in, they’re getting a VA because they don’t have staff? Basically, that person is me, and when I heard about this, I just about wept with joy. Stacy is a damn genius and it is no wonder that she has been personally profiled in every major publication under the sun, as well as getting her own little piece in the Four Hour Workweek.

So what can you learn from Stacy?

Can you find an unexperted field and turn yourself into a leading expert?

Can you find ways to help not only your first tier clients, but their clients?

Can you add premium levels of service for people with time but no money?

Bonus: Can you start thinking outside the box about what your clients want, before they even know they want it?