Now I’ve added website development to my list of services. You can get the details of this added service on The Word ‘Mage website for now. I have a site that is being built for this new service. I’ve put off the site for a bit while I work out a few logistics.

5 Benefits of adding this Service

1. Lets people know the service is available now
2. Generates activity and interest in advance of the new website
3. It’s a great off-shoot for writing ad and website copy
4. Could attract the person in need of both a website and content
5. Might force me to stop dragging my feet on building the design site

Starting Small

The website for this service was started at the end of last year. However, it needs something more. But, since I’ve been researching e-commerce site development for a friend, I’ve been focusing on that and not my other site. And, really, I let other things get in the way too. So, since I really want to work for people who need a website, I decided to park the service here for a short time.

Starting this way gives me time to work up a great pitch to my target audience while building websites. I know there are many people offering the service of website development. That’s why I am working to distinguish myself in that arena. Not with the flash and the flips and whistles.  But I will work it out.

More’s to come. This is one of my first major tasks on my 2011 list. Might be the second on the list. Anyway, it’s high up there and I’m feeling pretty good that I got it done…and it’s only FEBRUARY.

Ultimately, I’m doing all this for 2 simple reasons: because I love it and because I can.

Visit my page if you get time, (linked below). And be sure to drop me a note with any tips you may wish to impart. I have a file.

Visit the Page:

• Website Development on The Word ‘Mage website

Customers want to Take it Easy Online

I read a comment from a would-be customer who said that it was too difficult to buy the items she was interested in. The first thing you always want to do is make it easy for the customer to pay. So, I needed to find out what ways are inexpensive and fast for startup businesses. That was part of the reason for last months post on making it easy for people to pay you.

In this post I want to share more about the early stages for selling online, as I learn them. If you’re just starting to sell, like me, or if you have a larger inventory of several different items, you need to make it easy for customers to make purchase from you, certainly easier than getting people email you to request a product.

Take Advantage of the Technology Available

Long ago when I first thought about selling, it would have been a process where people would download and complete my order form, then mail it to me with a check for payment. I really didn’t like the hassle that it presented for customers and me. It would have been clunky but I could have done it that way. However, there were things going on at that time that  had to come before my selling venture.

Enter online payment companies. Now with online payment companies, I have the opportunity to not only buy easily but to sell too.

A few weeks ago, I was trying to think of where I could go to sell the last of my inventory. Looking into it for a friend, made me think of the selling idea again. So, I decided to try it for myself. And what better test than to sell my book, right?

What I have On Hand

Since Paypal is already in place for me, I investigated what it can do without me having a shopping cart. It has the full complement of services needed for selling one item. I can offer multiples of the one item. There is a module to generate a shipping label and I can be done in one shot.

I can update the order form to reflect different versions. For example, if I had on hand the dust jacket version of the book, I could set it up to offer either hardcover or paperback editions.

Other offerings are subscription setups for recurring payments and installments setup. Although I have no need for these, it’s good to know they’re available to grow with my business when I’m ready.

What’s Next

I’m going to check out shopping carts. The site I’m reviewing needs a shopping cart, something I’m not familiar with yet. If you have any ideas for me, please do share them.

Paypal was the obvious payment option to consider because I already had the account. I knew how easy it was to pay for my purchases online. When I looked at it as a tool to receive money, I learned that part is easy too. Since there’s minimal work involved in sending an invoice and taking the occasional fee, I decided to try it out. It’s a faster process to set up than navigating the red tape of using a bank.

I’ll tell you why I like Paypal.

Speed and Efficiency: The Order of the Day

Think about it, twenty years ago, this would not have been possible. Paypal is a nice alternative to traditional methods of accepting credit cards. Let’s face it, many people today pay online and credit and debit card payments are a fast alternative to checks.

Paypal makes it easy for your customers to pay you. And, you get immediate access to the funds, in most cases. There are alternatives to Paypal when it comes to accepting funds. There are bank and credit card services you can review to see if they might be a better fit for you. Although for individuals in business, you might be hard pressed to find something that is more cost effective.

Recently, I came across a list of online payment services from About.com, 5 Online Payment Services to Help Small Businesses get Paid, by guide, Alyssa Gregory. In it, she’s included five services that can help clients to easily pay “…on time and in full.” I haven’t tried any of them except Paypal. I believe it’s a good idea to know what resources are available to you. So, I’ll likely check them out at some point, and compare what they they offer in comparison with what I already use. Makes sense, right?

Extolling the Virtues of Paypal

Paypal makes it easy to shop and pay online, for business or personal use. Without gushing, let me share eight aspects that I appreciate.

1. It’s free and easy to set up.
2. The transaction fee to receive money is minimal.
3. No fee to receive money from a Paypal account.
4. It’s fast. Funds are available for use as soon as the invoice is paid.
5. No hassles with checks from out of state or out of the country.
6. Making purchases online is easy, as many sites accept Paypal.
7. Via the Internet, I can access my Paypal account any time.
8. Paypal sends mail notifications when payments are made to my account.

A Caveat

You likely already know this, but I have to say it anyway: Nothing is perfect, including Paypal. However, you’re not looking for perfect, so much as the perfect fit for your needs.

There are scary stories related to Paypal. But I wasn’t there, and I’m skeptical enough to know that the person relating their bad experiences is possibly not telling the whole story. It’s human nature to be biased in your own favor, after all.

My whole point is that Paypal is working for me. I’ve had no trouble with them to date. Still, if you want to know bad things, the down side of Paypal, you can find it on the Internet. You have to do your research anyway to learn how the company works, if it will work for you. So, you may as well look at the bad stories too. Do your research and measure all the information against what you need.

I hope my experience gives you some useful insight. If you have an alternative to Paypal that you consider better or comparable, please share your suggestion.

Before I continue, I have to say that I am not in any way claiming to be the ultimate judge of what is good taste. I am however quite knowledgeable on what moves me. For example, one of my all-time favorite movies is The Mirror has Two Faces, starring Barbara Streisand, (who also directed the movie), Lauren Becall, Jeff Bridges, Brenda Vaccaro, and many other greats.

I have the same sticky response to businesses and blogs I enjoy and find useful. Consider that your audience is picky and they picked you. Do business, run your blogs from that position, and many things will fall into place.

A Life Long Dream

The New Orleans Saints winning Super Bowl XLIV was 43 years in the making. In my home, even during the Brown Bag seasons, my dad answered the phone “Saints Headquarters” and close with something like what can I do for you or how can I help you. Because of our parents, grooming, our fan status was fated to be 1. for the Saints before any other teams, and 2. never reduced to fair-weather brand.

Two ingredients in having a strong fan base.

1. Presenting something that people will want, find useful or gain some sort of benefit from.
2. You have to have the right audience, people who are receptive to the benefit you offer.

It’s a tall order to have fans when you offer a really sucky item. So when you offer crap and you have an unswerving fan base, then you really have a gift. It’s a good idea to work on giving something back.

In work, you probably don’t have the 43 years the New Orleans had to improve your offerings. So, you have to do some fast grooming, endearing yourself to your visitors early and consistently so they become part of your community. Be vigilant and be good at what you offer. You don’t have to be the best, but you do have to be willing to learn and to improve your offerings, to stay competitive.

Our Big Game Plan

Recently I took off to celebrate the Saints in the Super Bowl. And I had a great time in New Orleans for the Super Bowl. My mom rode with me. And we stayed in a hotel, even though New Orleans is home and we have friends and family there. It was very convenient to stay downtown and it paid off, since everywhere I needed to go was within walking distance.

The plan was to be home for the New Orleans Saints’ first trip to the Super Bowl. It was the best plan of action. I stood for the first half of the game, in Masquerade, an area of Harrah’s Casino. My family was spread out, and I was with strangers. Several people mentioned where they traveled from. One man stated that he was from New Jersey and didn’t want to be anywhere but home for this event. You see, he was born and raised in New Orleans.

One young man proclaimed to me that he was “…so happy to be home with New Orleans Saints fans for this game. I was born and raised here, but we live in Oakland. I didn’t want to be in Miami for this game. I wanted to be home. I’m so happy to be here!” I shared with him that we’d driven in from Houston for the game. Two of New Orleans most prominent Jazz musicians Terrance Blanchard and Branford Marsallis made the local news with a similar proclamation, as did other famous people. We were in this together.

The Personal Business

This is the fan base you want. Nothing fanatical, just the tried and true, through thick and thin audience. Create in your audience, friends who visit to see what’s going on with your work, your writing, with you. Even business blogs are somewhat personal. This is the place people visit to connect with a person of the company. Your voice matters and your life matters.

Comments

When people take the time to share their thoughts, especially when you have low comment numbers, be sure to take a moment to answer. Acknowledge that you appreciate their comment and their time.

The Good and the Bad

Recently, on another blog, I received a comment about my blog setup. It was the complaints of a person who decided that it was important to tell me of her sheer frustration about an admin choice I made. I deleted the comment because it offered nothing of value to my readers.

In another comment she left, she started with an offensive (though not profane) exclamation, and another reference to the setup of my blog. While I didn’t want to edit her comment fully, I didn’t want to have that exclamation on my post. I deleted “Well, crap” leaving the rest of the comment in tact. Then I replied to the rest of her comment.

It’s all in it. You’re not going to be loved by everyone, and a bad comment doesn’t mean that you’re not appreciated. Take it, learn from it, and grow in your ability to respond professionally.

A Caveat: Consider Email

For the Reader: While it is important to be honest about your experience on a blog, if you’re going to take the time to write something, try to be positive. Be useful. And if you simply must send a negative rant, especially if you think it will be helpful, look on the blog for an email address.

For the Writer: On my contact pages, I put email addresses for just such occasions. Make sure when you update your contact pages, you keep an email address posted. I noticed that mine was left off this last version, so I’m definitely adding it back. It lets people know that you’re interested in what they have to say, without forcing them to leave a comment when they’d prefer to send a more private email.

So, what do you think? How do you create a strong fan base? Do you provide your community an email address to reach you?

by David Risley

Yesterday, I downloaded the PDF from pro blogger, David Risley. In his publication, he details how he got to being a six figure blogger. The premise is that others may benefit from his blueprint for success. That’s my hope.

What I Found So Far

Risley gives honest reactions to some of the crappy shortcuts people take. The fact that he calls out the bad practices is refreshing. That’s a big help for people who may get confused about which tactics are considered to be less than above board. The book is a detailed how-to. And just a quick perusal has shown why he’s getting such good reviews already. I see already that I’ll be printing it out to write my notes in the margins (a useful habit for historical review as well as learning and developing a plan).

I haven’t read the whole book yet. But I read through enough so that it sparked a sense of urgency and possibility. And, I didn’t want to wait to do a full review before I passed on this big news. You know, beating on the iron while it’s hot and all. This is a good process to look into any time, but this early in the year is great. You can still work it into the plans you’re already making. That’s what I’ll be doing.

If you’re working on a way to tie parts of your business together with your blog, or missing some steps, this may be the plan of action that helps you bring it all together and maybe get to six figures as a result. And so I’m wondering, can I do that? Maybe not, but it won’t be for lack of doing.

So, how do you pull together the parts of your ideas? Do you already have a detailed blueprint for growing your business blog?

If you’re anything like me and my friends, you get a ton of ideas at once in a massive new year deluge. The time of year when you’re awash with inspiration, creativity, desire, hope. Really you want to go for everything, I know. And you can go for more than one, in fact as many as you’re physically and financially able to pursue. But, usually you can’t pursue all your ideas at once.

It’s Important to Capture Ideas When you get Them

Even if you can’t pursue them all at once, you need to capture your ideas for future access and development. You should record as much detail as you can, too. There are two main reasons you should record your thoughts when you get them.

1. If for any reason you can’t immediately start in on your project, you need to keep the idea for later use, when time, funds, materials and skills permit.
2. Your ideas are freshest when the inspiration hits you. It’s the ideal time to capture the idea and hopefully the nuances that make the idea so appealing to you.

Later on, when the stars are aligned, funding and everything, you’ll want to evaluate it again to be sure it’s still a viable idea. Having good notes will make it easier for you to do review the plan before you get started.

Five Great Ways to Creatively Capture Ideas

Your ideas are great, innovative, and life-changing. Capturing them is important, and your means of capturing them can be equally as inspired. Taking action to remember ideas is better than trying to rely on memory alone. The following activities can help to hard-wire your ideas, making it easier to recall. I’ve used a few of these, and they do help to make them sticky.

1. Tell it to yourself. Use your recorder to tell yourself the story of what inspired your idea. Make it as detailed as time will allow. Use colors and scents that come to you when you ruminate on developing your idea. If you only have a short time, get all you can. You can return to it later to add details and other information.
2. Build a model. When you feel strongly about an idea build what you want it to look like. Use wire, paper, plastic, plaster, whatever you are comfortable with. You may come up with more insights when you’re working it out, that will show you obstacles as you think it through. You could use index cards
3. Draw a picture. If you can see it in your head, making a graphical representation is another way to make your notes. It could be a flowchart design to show parts and relationships in your process. It might be that you draw stick characters to populate your image. Use colors and words to annotate your image. It just needs to be something that will depict your idea in a way that keeps it alive for you.
4. Write it up on your whiteboard and take a picture. Ideas that are easy to list or draw on your whiteboard, to keep it for later, instead of vowing never to touch your whiteboard, photograph it. Then print it and put it where it needs to be–filed away or posted on your office wall.
5. Put it in your idea journal. If you don’t have one, get a book for your ideas. I suggest a 3-ring binder because that makes it easy to add to a particular subject.

BONUS: Don’t dismiss the Paper Scraps Method

I didn’t list the more traditional methods for taking notes. Not because they aren’t important, they really are. They’re the things that we do most of the time, often almost reflexively. These methods include writing your important notes on napkins, paper scraps, corners of junk mail, and collected for later. These are the tools we use when we have no time for anything more.

Think about this: J. K. Rowling, famed author of the Harry Potter series, wrote her first Harry Potter book, The Sorcerer’s Stone, on scraps of paper and napkins to sort through later. Look how far she got with that method!

A Caveat: If you do write on scraps of paper, napkins and such, let me suggest that you keep them in envelopes, files with pockets, boxes or other containers they can’t easily slip out of. After all, since it’s important enough to record it, you definitely don’t want to lose the papers.

How do you record your ideas so they stick with you? Or, do you believe that if you don’t remember it, it’s not a very good idea?

This is very hard for a new person on the grid, but it’s a great way to jump in, I think. I look for the leads that give information about the job and contact and tell you what they want concisely. I’d like to get more specific here but I think that would be best served in a full post on the subject. Right now, I’m still learning the things that appeal to me, and how my choices measure up in secured assignments.

I look for full details because I know me. If I have any doubts I may chicken out altogether. It’s important to me to have all the information I need to make a good impression. Sometimes I’m willing to take certain things for granted, things that fall under accepted rules of engagement. And that helps to make more leads acceptable to me.

I try to pick leads that look like they will come to an assignment. However, I don’t bank on it because I do understand that some companies are shopping for writers for future projects. While we tried to keep it to a minimum, that’s how it worked for a past employer of mine.

We used a group of ghostwriters, and would search for them in advance of the project we needed. We always told the writers the truth about the work they could expect and when it would be offered. Basically I treated them the way I would want to be treated.

When you think about human resources, you generally think Human Resources, or HR, right? That’s the department you go to when you have questions about your benefits, wages, work problems, or to seek another position.

Networking

Similar situations occur when you work for yourself. Whether you’re in an office or a room at your home, situations arise when you need others. Either you need them for yourself or for a client. Knowing who your resources are saves a lot of time, especially when you’re in the middle of an important project. No point wasting time if you can help it.

On our own as freelancers, we refer to these individuals or groups as people in our network.

Social Media

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn can all play important rolls in getting connected with resources. I find Twitter most useful for finding people I need to connect with. With Twitter, you can do searches for what you need and connect with people behind the services. It’s much easier than having to scour major websites for direct connections.

On Twitter, I have met several people who are excellent resources. From my office work experience, I have great connections that I maintain. If someone needs technical assistance, I can refer them to Adria Richards. And I know that if someone needs a website, I can confidently refer them to JB Webdev. I know an amazing graphic artist that I can connect them with. When I have questions, I have people that I can turn to for answers, support and services outside my skill set.

Family and Friends

Don’t forget your family and friends. My family has skilled workers in it. I have IT and legal resources in my family. And, in return, I share my skills with them. Like the blog I set up for my brother, and other advice and information that I could share from my writing, blogging and social media experiences.

I have many more human resources in my cellphone, email, social media connections, blog rolls. Do you know who you can turn to when you need something.?

• Determine what writing genre interests you, what subjects, and what is the niche you want to fill in that area.
• Research topics in your area of interest. Read through the popular keywords to know what has people’s attention. Review the information to determine if there’s an audience.
• Describe your target audience: individual, company, family or business, end-user or publication.
• Keeping on top of trends is a matter of reading, reviewing and searching topics. Follow tangents to know what is related and may potentially become a focal point.

Marketing Matters

• 30 Day Marketing Bootcamp – Introductory Post
• Market Your Freelance Writing in 31 Days – Announces the course in ebook format

Marketing resources:

• 30 Day Marketing Bootcamp, from Jennifer Mattern
• Wrap Up – Market Your Writing in 31 Days, from Thursday Bram

You don’t Need Kudos—Do You?

Placing your Request for Testimonials

• Emailing clients is how much business is conducted. When you send your work in, invite your clients to send testimonials regarding their satisfaction. If you feel your clients are amenable, and your business is conducted over the phone mostly, you can still invite them to email you a testimonial.
• Your website offers the perfect place to request testimonials. But don’t fade to dark the minute someone lands on your page. You ever visit sites and before you can look around, it goes dark and a box appears for you to sign up for their newsletter? I don’t like them because they don’t give you a chance to look around. You don’t have to be so bullying. Just place the offer prominently in your sidebar. Or, put it on your contact page, or on your services page. Offer it more than one place but not all over the place.
• Your blog is optimized for 2-way communication. Take advantage of that. When you receive a useful comment, ask for use as a testimonial.
• Twitter is a great place to get short text that gets right to the point. When you invite people to give you testimonials, be sure to let them know they’re welcome to send it to you via Twitter. Even if you don’t follow each other, you can receive direct @messages.

I Learned a Few Things

1. Keep up Your Skills

2. Keep up With Technological Advances

3. Do What You Do

4. Always, Be Polite

5. Do Your Best Work

• to be taken seriously
• to steer clear of office politics
• to execute your work in a timely manner
• to be considered for more work

Plans for Getting Paid

Know Your Rates

State How You Expect to be Paid

When You Know You’re not being Paid

Collection Plans

1. Reminder
2. Second reminder, firmer text
3. Give notice of taking further action
4. Take further action