Take a look — here’s “Man”:

And here’s “Woman”:

While these pictures were intended to tickle the funny bone, there’s quite an element of truth to them, wouldn’t you agree?

So how can I possibly draw an analogy between these pictures and eCommerce software? Simple.

The “Man” is like a PayPal “Buy” button. If you want to quickly start selling something, all you have to do is slap the button HTML code onto your sales page. Or paste the email link into your email. Voila! With a single step your business is “ON”!

This simplicity comes at the price of flexibility . . . no possibility of “one click” upsells after the initial order, no affiliate program, no personalized “thank you” emails or web pages. But it’s fast and it works — and sometimes that’s all you need. (Fast and working is always better than “still tweaking the system”!)

Now, the “Woman” picture is like one of the “do everything” eCommerce solutions. InfusionSoft and FantaSos (a.k.a. Delavo with all the plugins) come to mind, and there are others as well. These solutions are indeed powerful but to some people they’re just “too much”.

I’ve had clients who used one of the “do everything” solutions who dropped them in favor of a simpler solution — they just couldn’t handle all of the perplexing options available to them in the other system.

I’ve also had clients report to me that their “do everything” solution had a lot of features, but some of the fundamentals were plagued with problems.

Obviously it doesn’t do you any good to have 100 features when the most critical features like affiliate tracking or order processing don’t work — so make sure the fundamentals are covered, THEN look at the additional features.

Usually there’s a solution that lies somewhere in the middle of these two extremes and fits “just right”.

I’ll be releasing a new version of my eCommerce and product launch software soon — I think it’s a nice “middle ground”. It may or may not be what you need — but watch for it and judge for yourself!

Best,

Paul

Test Results of Single- vs Confirmed-optin

Check out the video here:

http://alexavid.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html

I think these new features can be useful when doing research on your own sites or your competitors . . .

Have fun with it!

Paul

I even took notes, which I’d like to share with you here. There were a few items that didn’t really lend themselves to a brief note, so I have less than 50 to share. And I will also concede that it would be helpful if you had read the book first before reviewing this list. Or after.

However, I still think there’s a great deal of value in this summary . . . so without any further fuss, here’s what I got out of the book:

1. “If operators are busy, please call again” — using this line in a commercial increased the call volume. The phones being busy is “social proof” that the offer is worth pursuing. With eCommerce, you might instead say something like “please allow our support staff at least 2 days to reply to your post-order inquiries — they’re swamped!”. You can certainly come up with something better, but you get the idea . . .

2. Use testimonials from people who are identical to your targeted “ideal” prospect (so what they’re saying they will resonate with those prospects).

3. Focus prospects on social proof supporting the positive action I want them to take. Don’t give them social proof that others are doing the opposite. For instance, don’t say “Only 5% of you morons were smart enough to get in on this deal”, but rather, “the phones have been ringing off the hook! . . .”

4. People are attracted to the “average” behavior. When using social proof, praise those who exceeded the average. Otherwise, they’ll lower their actions to meet the average.

5. Too many choices reduce sales

6. When offering free bonuses, prove their value. Nobody wants free bonuses that are worth $0

7. Offering a more expensive, superior product will increase sales of the next lower option.

8. When stoking fear as a sales tool, be sure to include clear steps on how to overcome or avoid the undesired thing.

9. Reciprocity — give something before asking for something.

10. Personalize and show some extra effort.

11. Gifts should be significant, unexpected, personalized.

12. Incentives should be given with no strings attached.

13. Value of a favor you give will decrease in the eyes/memory of the recipient over time. Sometimes a tactful reminder can restore that value prior to you asking for a return favor.

14. Ask for small commitments first, larger ones later.

15. Apply a label and ask prospect to act in a way that is consistent with that role model.

16. Ask for commitment. For example, “Will you please call if you need to cancel?” vs. “Please call if you need to cancel” significantly decreased no-shows in a restaurant.

17. Get active written commitments

18. Free prospect from previous commitments from competitors

19. If we ask someone for a favor, they’ll be more likely to grant future requests. (Is this consistency at play?)

20. To secure approval/action, use sentences like, “Even a penny will help”, “Just an hour of your time will help”, “Even a brief note will help”, etc.

21. In auctions, always start with low price

22. Let others brag for you

23. Damaging admissions add credibility. But always show the “silver lining” (positive benefits) of the “flaw”.

24. Take responsibility for mistakes; don’t blame external factors

25. Bring up similarities with the prospect.

26. Mirror prospect’s behavior. Repeat their words.

27. Search others for their virtues

28. Use scarcity. If information is relatively unknown, point out how exclusive it is. This increases value to the prospect. People want what they can’t have.

29. People avoid loss. Use “Don’t Miss Out”, “Last Chance”, etc.

30. Give a reason why. “Because . . .”

31. Make names simple to read and pronounce. Handwritten notes should be simple to read. Make it easy for prospect to read your material.

32. Use rhymes. People consider fluent incoming information to be more accurate, and rhymes increase the fluency. (Along the same lines — use small words.)

33. Use law of contrast. For example, compare your product with something much more expensive. But only give a little information about the competing product, and a lot of information about yours.

34. When using loyalty programs, reward programs, and so on, give your customers a “head start”. That way their psychological need to “complete” things will practically force them to continue patronizing your business.

35. Use unexpected and ambiguous names for products. These are more desired by consumers

36. Product packaging should remind consumers of essential images, slogans, characters used in advertising

37. Mirrors, pictures of eyes, asking their name — these things encourage people to act in a more socially acceptable way. (Might help reduce returns . . .)

38. If you say something distracting (like stating the price in pennies), then immediately followup with a statement about your product, the prospect will generally accept the statement as truth (they’re too distracted to evaluate it). This is also true for sleep deprived people.

39. Getting/giving some personal information (getting to know each other) leads to a better end result in negotiating.

40. Speak their language.

41. Know their culture.

Well, I hope that gives you some good ideas. Think about how these things might be accomplished using the various marketing tools available on the internet — I’m certain the application of just a few of these ideas will have a significant effect on your bottom line!

By all means, tell me what you think of the above list and what ideas it generates!

Paul

And what caused this irritation? The promoter’s expectation that I would spend between $497 and $997 to get their supposedly “whiz-bang” software WITHOUT EVEN SEEING IT FIRST!

These guys go through their well-scripted pre-launch sequence, telling everyone how much money this software will make them, how much time it will save them, how all their buddies begged them not to release it, and on and on . . . never revealing the price of course (wouldn’t want to put a damper on people’s anticipation).

Then on the launch day, they repeat all of the above. They are sure to point out how this software should be selling for thousands of dollars, but for a limited number of lucky schmucks, they’ll release it for a bargain-basement price of only $497 (or $997, $1997, whatever, as long as it ends with a 7).

But they do NOT show us what the software looks like or how it operates!

No demo site to poke around in.

No videos showing how the software works.

Not even screenshots of the software in action.

Sometimes they don’t even tell you what kind of operating system is required to run the software.

It leaves me wondering, “What are they hiding?”

These guys have the “selling on emotion” concept down pat. They’re selling the dream of making lots of money quickly and with very little effort. But in my opinion they fail to give their prospective customers a way to “justify with logic”, which is also a key concept in direct marketing.

One such promotion is live as I write this, the “Niche Socializer” software. I normally don’t reveal guilty parties by name in my blog or emails, but I’ll make an exception here because despite their marketing sins, I think their product may still be worthy of attention (I just wish I could SEE the dang thing!) . . .

I emailed the support team for the Niche Socializer software and asked them whether it was a hosted service or software we install on our own server. I also wanted to know if the software could be used for multiple sites. It’s puzzling to me that they don’t answer these questions on their site!

They replied (quickly, I might add) that it’s software we install on our own server, and that it can be used for 3 social marketing sites. Additional licenses can be purchased at a discount if more sites are required.

Unfortunately, they didn’t tell me what web server platform is required — I’ve sent them a followup email and will update this post as I get new information.

It seems like a pretty good solution to me . . . BUT it’s not the “only” solution. Here are a few other links for you to check out if you want to start your own social network:

Ning.com

KickApps.com

SocialGo.com

Collectivex.com

Kootali Software

Snappville.com Software

Elgg Software (Open Source)

One of the advantages I see with the Niche Socializer software (and some of the software packages listed above) is that you can host it on your own server — I like having that kind of control. Imagine if you built up a social network and then had the underlying company go out of business — ouch!

On the other hand, it’s nice to let someone else worry about server scaling, bandwidth, network issues, etc. — as with most things, there are pros and cons either way.

Another thing I like about Niche Socializer is that it was created with monetization in mind — it includes an eCommerce module and allows you to have “paid” levels if you want. It also allows you to charge for classified ads. The other sites listed above didn’t have much to day about those kinds of things, so when choosing a solution be careful to make sure they have the functions you need/want.

That’s it for now, let me know what you think!

Best,

Paul

1. Thanks for your Generosity

First off, THANK YOU to everyone who contributed to help out the Gentemann family after their house fire. You contributed $1380 to help them out — WOW! I didn’t deliver the money personally, but I’m sure they’re very grateful for all the help they’ve received. (For those of you who didn’t hear about this, it was a request I sent out via email about 3 days before Christmas . . .) Thank you so much.

2. Do NOT get this software.

Lately there’s been some emails promoting the “Placement Locator” software. (placementlocator.com) As my readers, I want to let you know I think there’s something out there that’s more powerful and costs less — and it comes with a free trial version too!

The software is called “Site Sniper Pro“, and it was first made available about 18 months ago. It’s up to version 2.5 and I believe it’s much more comprehensive software than the “Placement Locator” software.

I don’t get any commission for recommending it — I just think it’s a better deal for you all around.

3. Meet me Underground?

When I was going to school in Provo, Utah, there was a restaurant called “The Underground”. It was a 1920’s mafia theme, and really was in a basement with exposed ventilation pipes and beams, etc. — and you could sit in 1920’s replica cars to eat . . . I really enjoyed that place! But I’m talking about a different kind of Underground here . . . Yanik Silver’s “Underground Seminar” in February.

If you have to pick ONE internet marketing seminar to attend, this is the one I recommend. I’m not going to try and sell you on it, just check out the web page for yourself.

Bob Parsons from GoDaddy is going to be the keynote speaker — I can’t wait to hear what he has to say! I’ve been a fan of his ever since I bought his “MoneyCounts” software for DOS some umpteen years ago (that was before GoDaddy — he had a software company called “Parson’s Technology” . . .)

And if you want to meet with me for lunch and pick my brain while we’re there, that would be fun too!

Yanik left the gate a bit late on this year’s promotion, but I’m sure he’ll still sell out the seminar – get in while you can!

I hope to see some of you there — definitely let me know if you’re going!

Best,

Paul

Basically it allows you to quickly create “redirect” folders on your site. For instance, say this was your affiliate link:

http://www.maverickbusinessinsider.com/go?p=10929&w=mbiweb

You don’t want to include a link like that in your email! If you have a website, you can create a simple redirect and then use a link like this instead:

http://www.biztoolsbrief.com/mbi/

That’s a lot nicer looking, don’t you agree?

(BTW, that’s a live link and goes to Yanik Silver’s latest venture, “Maverick Business Insider” — it looks like a heck of a deal and you ought to check it out.)

This redirect utility will allow you to create a redirect using HTML/Javascript or PHP. It will also allow you to “frame” the destination page rather than redirecting the visitor to it.

(To “frame” the page means the page shows up on the browser but it looks like it’s a part of your site, because your web site URL is still visible in the browser location window . . .)

Click here to download the script…

Using this script is pretty straightforward, as long as your web site is on a Unix or Linux server. Just unzip the file, upload the CreateRedirects.cgi script to your web folder, and change the permissions on the script to 755 . . . then point your browser to it whenever you need to create a redirect.

Let me know what you think!

Best,

Paul

P.S. My apologies if you use a windows web server. This script could probably work for you with slight modification — you could probably find someone on eLance to modify it pretty cheap . . .

So here goes . . . if you’ve been here before, you may have noticed today that I have a new banner graphic at the top of this blog. (Which is to say, I HAVE a banner graphic now — I didn’t before!)

I went to 99designs.com and started a “contest” — cost me $40 to do so. Then I had a bunch of graphic artists competing for the contest. You can see the 33 designs that were submitted here:

http://www.99designs.com/contests/12284

I picked the one I liked most and paid the designer $125. There were a couple of other designs which I liked enough that I offered the designers $75 each for them — both accepted.

Personally, I think it’s a great service . . . for me it’s difficult to come up with a graphic design concept, so it’s nice to see the various designs these professional designers come up with.

Those of you on my mail list should get an email alerting you to this post — I just setup the Aweber RSS Broadcast feature. Within an hour of my posting a new message here, Aweber will detect the new post and will send out an email alerting my subscribers. Pretty nifty.

Of course, anyone who subscribes will get additional resource information not posted here — so if you’re not a subscriber, fill out the box at the top-right of this page and become one!

Let me know what you think!

Paul

Time Wasting Customers

Here’s the thing. I really go out of my way to help my customers. I call almost all of my customers to make sure they got their downloads okay. I spend way more time than the business experts say I should.

(If Rich Schefren was my business coach, he’d have a fit about the time I spend on non-productive tasks like customer support.)

So anyway, yesterday I got an order for a $47 product. I also got an email from the customer asking me where they could download the product. Apparently the email from my automated system hadn’t got through.

No biggie — email’s like that. So I called her up and told her I would personally send her the download link from my desktop email. I told her if she didn’t get it to let me know and I’d try sending it directly to her or figure out another way.

(In retrospect, what i should have done was read the download link to her over the phone. Next time.)

Fast forward to today. I get an email from the customer and she says the following:

You and I spoke yesterday about emailing me The Internet Marketers Little Black Book that I purchased; today is the 25th almost 9pm and I have not received it in my email. Can you please just refund me the money, I don’t think this is going to work out.

Now, this is just plain irritating to me. Maybe I’m getting cranky in my middle age. Here’s what I wrote back:

Maude (not her real name!),

I have refunded your order as you requested, but I would like to comment somewhat on this.

My system sent you an email with the download link the day you ordered. For whatever reason, you didn’t get it.

Then I again sent the download link to you (manually this time, from my desktop email client), and again you didn’t get it.

I think you need to ask your internet service provider why LEGITIMATE emails are not getting through to you.

I told you on the phone that if you didn’t get it, I’d be happy to attach the file to an email and send it to you directly. Perhaps you would have got it, and perhaps not, but you apparently decided it wasn’t worth the effort. This is very frustrating to me as a merchant who goes out of his way to help my customers.

You stated you “don’t think this is going to work out” — the only reason it didn’t work out is because you weren’t willing to give it a chance. I would have even read the download link to you over the phone had you given me the opportunity.

Had you allowed me to find some other way to get you the eBook and then decided it “wasn’t for you”, I would have been fine with that. But to just give up in this situation like you have shows a lack of respect for me and the time I have spent (and was willing to spend) in your behalf.

You have wasted my time — please do not order anything else from me unless you are willing to work with me in getting around the limitations of your email system to get the product you ordered.

Regards,

Paul

Now I have to confess, there’s a part of me that feels bad for sending this “nasty-gram” but the bigger part of me feels justified in doing so (even though I realize it’s probably counter-productive). What do you think? Did I go too far? Am I just irritable?

So what’s the lesson here? For me there are a couple:

1. I should probably start placing a download link right on the “thank you” page after people order. I resisted this for awhile, because I figured if the download link is only in the email, I guarantee that nobody will get it without a valid email address. However, I believe we’ve reached the point where the inherent unreliability of email outweighs the security risks of providing the download link right on the thank-you page.
2. I should probably let someone else handle THIS kind of customer support for me. It’s one thing to answer technical questions, but this is very basic customer support (providing a download link) and something I obviously don’t have the required “patient and long-suffering” attitude to do myself.

If you’re in a similar situation, consider these services:

http://www.workaholics4hire.com/

http://shieffservices.com/

http://www.signatureworx.com/

And since we’re on the topic of customer support, let me say one more thing . . .

I’ve been “behind the scenes” on a LOT of launches — some of the biggest in the internet marketing circles. Quite frequently the people doing the launch are unprepared for the customer support. I want you to keep this in mind — if you’re going to do 2 years worth of business volume in 7 days, you should be prepared to provide 2 years worth of customer support in the same time frame.

This means you should hire extra help — lots of it — and have them trained before the launch begins. I have yet to witness a perfect launch. (On the last launch I was involved with, we had problems with the payment processor, the BACKUP payment processor, AND the email service. Yikes!)

There’s always something that goes wrong, so make sure you have people in place to handle the huge influx of customer support emails and calls.

That’s it for now!

Paul

I think it’s going to help me be more organized and productive, but if not, it’ll still be cool to show my brother when he’s visiting — that’s worth the price by itself.

Anyway, I had to share it with you! First, check out my little demo video showing how it works:

Then if you want to try it out for yourself they have a free trial), just click on this link . . .

In other news, I’ve decided to go ahead and try having a “chat night” on Wednesday at 9 PM central time. It’ll be text only (the voice broadcast system isn’t that great with the system I’m using), and the system only allows a maximum of 25 people. Let’s try it out and see how it works!

And finally, for a bit of inspiration, check out this video about “Team Hoyt”. I thought I was a good father, but I this guy taught me a few lessons . . .

That’s all for now my friends — I hope to see some of you on Wednesday’s chat!

Paul

P.S. Comments, I need comments!!