Just a quick update to let you know that we’re still alive and well despite the fact that there has not been a new episode of the podcast posted in months!  We apologize for the disruption, and really appreciate the emails and tweets asking if The Niche Show is still active.  The fact is, we do this in our spare time, and lately there has been precious little of that for either of us.  New babies and big projects have a way of commandeering one’s time!

We will get back at it soon enough, but in the meantime. if you have any ideas for the show or would like to be a guest, please let us know.  Thanks again for telling us that you’ve missed our show!

I recorded this episode while traveling on the highway.  I had some thoughts I wanted to share with you so please excuse the poor audio quality.  Oh, and the stuffed up sound of my voice? Well, I actually was stuffed up with a head cold and had no idea I sounded that bad!

There is actual science that proves that you function physically and mentally more proficiently when you are happy.  You can listen to the authority on the subject on CBC’s Quirks and Quarks science podcast.  This has implications for entrepreneurs, some obvious, some not so much.

John Jantsch had Steve Strauss from USA Today on his Duct Tape Marketing Podcast and he had some interesting things to say about people starting their own businesses and how good entrepreneurs minimize the risk they expose themselves to.  That got me thinking about how that translates to those of us who are so new to our entrepreneurial endeavors that risks can be hard to identify, while at the same time staring us down every time we look up.

What are your thoughts?

In case you haven’t heard of the sensation that is Rocketboom, please check it out.  It’s been running since 2004 (the dark ages, in Internet Video terms), and has been a highly acclaimed, heavily visited, and healthily growing website ever since.  In late 2008, Rocketboom signed a significant distribution and advertising deal with Sony Pictures Television that is breaking new ground for Internet Video, and allowing Andrew and his team to set their sights on even greater things.

Listen to the podcast, subscribe, leave a comment, watch some Rocketboom video.  There, you’ve got the next couple hours planned!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Will video help or hinder your website? Will your face be what you need to push customers to buy, or will it scare them right out of Internet Explorer?! There are some important factors to keep in mind when deciding to include video as part of your web presence, and I do my best to cover a few of them.

Please…enjoy me in all my stunning beauty…he laughs…

Check out Ron’s Glamour Apprentice site for his excellent blog, some slick photography, and a free mini-course! You can also visit another site of his referred to in this podcast, called Distinctions For Life for some nice personal development insight. Look for some more talk with Ron in a couple weeks.

As always, please don’t hesitate to speak your piece here if you have any thoughts on what you hear on the podcast. Thanks for listening!

Of course, Nick and Shaun didn’t actually record this podcast or even come up with the idea, but they are going to make hundreds of thousands of dollars from it, and only have to pay some poor guy in Mumbai 2 cents an hour as he does all the work…

We think the Onion News Network sums it up best here.

Check out his iPhone App Shop website for great apps that help you record your wine tastings, buy your next home, or budget for Christmas presents, to name a few!

This brings me to my point. People will see you how you present yourself. We all have to manage our online personae, and with so much of our activity now online, we are finding ourselves with multiples. This is not some new Internet schizophrenia because it is in our “real” life too. You are a slightly more polished version of yourself at work than at play, are you not?

As you seek to build or grow your online business, you will join different communities at different stages of your development, and how you position yourself is going to impact what you get out of them. With a few exceptions, unlike in the “offline” world, the people with whom you interact online are not privy to you as a whole. As such, they don’t get to see much of your development and growth and you may be viewed like the “newbie” you were the day you first awkwardly asked what AdWords was for a long time. Go into any discussion forum, the less professional the better, and look how the “noobs” are spoken to. Gaming forums are the best for a good laugh. The number of their post are listed right under their names, looking like some bizarre numeric measure of their value to the world.

I have always found this amusing. You could have a wonderfully successful attorney looking to try something new being called down by a 16 year old basement dweller for asking what they considered a stupid question. Somehow the culture surrounding these forums supports it, and even I find myself deferring humbly to someone who just happens to have the time to spend 12 hours a day posting and responding to forum topics regardless of her knowledge of the subject.

I will give you a personal example. I joined a few online communities over the past year or so. Being relatively new at much of the “techie” parts of Internet business I was careful and somewhat self-deprecating in my communications. The people I deal with are great and helpful, and I didn’t get any of the guff I mentioned earlier, but I have noticed that I did myself no favors by tripping over myself to be humble. To my frustration, that persona remains among those who I don not speak with regularly despite considerable development. You run an even more severe risk by doing the opposite of course. No one likes dealing with a blow-hard.

So my suggestions are these:

• Respect what you have accomplished so far. Despite how you might feel undertaking something you are not flush with experience in, you have a history that does uniquely qualify you.
• Don’t get intimidated by the people who appear to be experts just because they know much more about a certain subject than you. Sure Bob might know PHP inside out, but he’s not likely to be, say, a chartered accountant too, and you are. Keep that in mind.
• Sell yourself. Because online interactions are decidedly myopic, it can be quite difficult to show you know enough about something to be taken seriously, and even if you have a Maserati in your driveway that got there because of your expertise in the very subject you are discussing, nobody can see it my friend! Don’t be shy.
• Relating to the above point, try to be diplomatic. Bear in mind that many of these people are successful in their own right as well. I do not fully subscribe to the popular belief du jour that you do not need to actually be an expert to be as good as an expert online. I think that is a slippery slope. But in any event, communicating with other passionate people in these online business forums should be conducted professionally, and beating someone over the head with how much you know is a great way to not be listened to any more.

Keep these thoughts in mind as you navigate around the plethora of resources available to the new Internet business person. Hopefully it will save you some frustration and foster some excellent fruitful relationships.