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June 29, 2005

Peer-To-Peer File Sharing Legal Or Not?

Recently there's been much reference to copyright laws. Yesterday The US Supreme Court handed an important victory to entertainment companies fighting online piracy, while also giving technology companies a powerful tool to defend themselves against copyright laws.

Legal experts said it was the most important case on the Internet age. The court unanimously ruled that Internet file-sharing services can be held legally responsible if they distribute products that permit illegal downloads. But, the court added, they will be held liable only if their intent is to encourage breaking the law.

The court stressed that peer-to-peer file sharing, which permits people to exchange music, films and other forms of digital information, can be legal if the intent of the distributor is not to encourage illegality.

'If the object of distributing a device is to infringe copyright then this is illegal'.

The unanimous ruling of the US court means the closely watched case of MGM v Grokster is sent back to the lower court, which had ruled in favor of file-sharing services Grokster and StreamCast.

At issue in the Grokester case was whether the file-sharing services should be held liable even if they have no direct control over what millions of online users are doing with the software they provide for free.

This may not be the last word on Internet file-sharing; a key US Senate committee said yesterday that it would review the ruling for "its impact on copyright law and innovation."

FT
28.6.05

Posted by David at 1:54 PM | Comments (0)

June 22, 2005

Sales Training: How To Improve Your Sales by Asking for Referrals

We all know that if a client refers us to one of his associates or friends, we have a much higher probability of making a sale and doing business with that referral than if we had no introduction. In fact, it is up to 10 times easier to sell to a referral than to a cold call.

How do you get a large number of qualified referrals? Most people do not volunteer referrals, so the key is to ask for them correctly.

Here is a 3-step method that has worked well for me:

1. Thank the client for his time.

"Mr. Smith, thank you for your time today. I look forward to talking with you again soon."

Saying "thank you" is not only common courtesy, it makes people feel good.

2. Ask for his help

"Before I go, I wonder if you could help me?"

This is a very low key and friendly approach. Most of us don't mind doing small favours for people if they ask politely and it doesn't take a lot of our time.

3. Ask correctly.

There are effective and ineffective ways to ask for referrals. An ineffective way is to ask a yes/no question.

Example:

"Do you know anyone else who could be interested in this particular product or service?"

This question can be answered "yes" or "no" - and it's often easier for the person to pick "no."

Think of the number of times you have walked into a retail shop and have been asked, "Can I help you?" only to reply, "No thanks, just looking" without even thinking!

A much more effective way to ask for referrals is to start your question with the word "who."

Example:

"Who are two or three people you know who may be interested in this product or service?" Followed with "Who would you suggest I talk with?"

When you start a question with the word "who," it is very difficult to get a yes/no answer.

Another tip: Give the person you are talking to the choice of giving you two or three names - not one or two. When given a choice, it's surprising how often people will go with the lower number you give them.

Example:

I had an amusing experience when I was selling sales training programs a few years ago.

I used to make it a habit to ask for "one or two" referrals.

"Who are one or two sales managers you know who may be interested in looking at some ideas to increase sales? Who would you suggest I talk with?"

I measured the success of this referral system by asking 100 people I spoke with these questions. I found that some gave me one referral, some gave me two, and some gave me none. I ended up with approximately 100 referrals - an average of roughly one referral per person, the lower number of the two choices I gave them (one or two).

A few months later, I asked another 100 people basically the same questions. But instead of asking for one or two referrals, I asked for two or three.

"Who are two or three sales managers you know who may be interested in looking at some ideas to increase sales? Who would you suggest I talk with?"

This time, I got appropriately 200 referrals - an average of two referrals from each person I asked. Again, some gave me none or one - but some gave me two or three or more. Yet I still averaged out at two per person, or the lower number of the two choices I gave them (two or three).

I then did a small test. For one month, I asked everybody I spoke with the same referral questions - but changed the numbers to seven or eight.

"Who are seven or eight sales managers you know who may be interested in looking at some ideas to increase sales? Who would you suggest I talk with?"

That month, I received over 415 qualified referrals who I could talk to about sales training programs. I actually had more prospects than I could handle, and had to give quite a few of them to other salespeople on my team.

One more thing to keep in mind about asking for referrals: You do not know who the person you are talking to could potentially refer you to. Plus, you can often get referrals from people who never buy from you themselves.

Example:

When I sold sales training programs, I was in contact for several years with a very successful businessperson. This person never spent one dollar on my services, even though he could have benefited greatly if he had. However, during the time I stayed in touch with him, he gave me over 50 referrals to other business people who could use my sales training services. And many of those referrals became clients.

Referrals are a wonderful way to increase your sales. All you have to do is invest a small amount of your time and get good at asking for them.

David
Small Business Resource

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June 19, 2005

How Do You Define A Small Company In The USA?

As the US Government consider how to define what constitutes a small company one thing is apparent, the federal definition would have a knock on effect on companies having access to federal grants, loans and contracts.

The aim of changing what constitutes a small company is to prevent
non qualifying companies from accessing Small Business Administration (SBA) loans.

Last year a proposal to define a small campany based on the number of employees was dropped after a storm of criticism because of the fluctuation in payroll.

One participant, William C. Joern, vice president of the International Center for Language Studies Inc. said "my company doesn't favor defining size by number of employees because the payroll fluctuates with the needs of government clients such as the Pentagon, State Department and FBI."

Other speakers expressed that small comanies with revenue less than $500,000 were not able to apply for and secure government comtracts.

Gary M. Jackson, the SBA's assistant administrator for size standards, said based on comments from participants it was difficult to set the a boundary that defines small business that qualify for government contracts.

As the US Federal Government ponders on how to define a small company what are your views? Should a small company be defined based on the number of employees? amount of turnover? net assets? or a combination of these, as exists in the UK?

As the US ponders over an appropriate difinition of a small company Jonathan Cohen, president and chief executive of 20/20 GeneSystems Inc., said the SBA should not change the as small companies that are financed with majority venture-capital are prevented from applying for Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants.

"Changing the rules to let the venture capitalists in could do great harm to biotech industry as money would be diverted away smaller firms that don't have VC support.", Cohen said.

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June 16, 2005

Insiprational Story To Encourage small Business Owners: "Stay Hungry Stay Foolish"

Small business owners, do you know what was the greatest come back in the history of the computer business?

That would have to be the Steve Jobs story.

*** Jobs has led an 'interesting' life

Steve Jobs founded Apple Computers in 1977 and got the personal computer industry rolling.

Then in 1983 to help deal with his company's exponential growth, he recruited a slick corporate marketing guy from Pepsi named John Sculley to run the company.

Sculley immediately got to work...devising a plan to stab Jobs in the back and cut him out of Apple's management.

It worked.

Within two years, Sculley succeeded in having Jobs fired from his own company!

Sculley then proceeded to run Apple into the ground through a series of mind-bogglingly stupid marketing blunders.

A few years later, Apple's board sent Sculley packing, but the damage had been done.

It took over a decade, but Jobs regained control of Apple in the late 1990s and put Apple back on the right track much to the relief of its long suffering shareholders.

*** Triple threat

Besides his pioneering role in personal computing, Jobs has had a huge impact on two other major industries: movie making and the music business.

His Pixar studies is the most successful animation studio of the last 30 year, scoring one blockbuster hit after another.

His iPod has totally revolutionized the way music is sold and consumed.

Jobs also played an important role in the development of the web.

It's a little known fact, but Tim Berners-Lee used one of Job's NeXT computers to create the protocols for the web.

From being booted from your own company to taking it back, making a few billion dollars, and becoming a major player in the entertainment industry... Not a bad comeback, eh?

*** 'How'd he do that?'

How do you develop the kind of business resilience Steve Jobs has exhibited over the last 28 years?

How do you recover from incredible set backs, including from treachery and betrayal people you brought into your own business?

How do you manage - in a world of copycats and quick-buck scam artists - to be perpetually creative and on the cutting edge by bringing valuable, new things to market?

It's a darn good set of questions... and you can get the answer straight from the horse's mouth right here... Enjoy!

Steve just gave this talk four days ago at Stanford University. It is well worth reading: Read steve Jobs Story here

Posted by David at 5:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 15, 2005

Corey Rudl - Tribute to An Inspirational And savvy Internet Marketer

I wrote about my shock of hearing the death of Corey Rudl. He was instrumental in inspiring me to learn HTML, resulting in me building this web site (small business resource) by hand coding every page, apart from this bolg. Here's Yanik Silver's tribute in the form an an email. It's lengthy!

Hi David

This is probably one of the hardest emails I've ever had to write. Now after returning from Corey's funeral and with a deeply saddened heart I'm finally ready to send this out.

* *

My wife, Missy, woke me up Friday morning (June 4th) with an email from a subscriber giving his condolences to me about Corey.

What????!!...

I had been playing video games until 3 in the morning and I was planning on sleeping in - but I suddenly sprang out of bed. Surely, this must be some kind of weird mistake or something else....

I logged onto to a couple message boards since they are the central outlets for info and right there on Tony Blake's board was a memorial banner for Corey Rudl. It was surreal. Corey was the passenger in a Porsche Carrerra GT that lost control and crashed during a track event. (I've included the AP post on the accident at the bottom of this note).

Many of you reading this will know immediately who Corey is.

In Internet marketing circles Corey is a legend. Corey was one of the true pioneers. I believe he was the very first (even before Amazon) to build an affiliate program. He was one of the first to sell downloable ebooks with his 'Car Secrets' book. He was responsible directly and indirectly for thousands (probably tens of thousands) of significant successes online. His site says Corey has personally sold over $40M and I wouldn't be surprised if that figure expands by 100x when you count his students. That's just a small indication of the impact he's had.

Just reading the message boards and tribute sites you can see how deeply this has impacted people. Most people never knew Corey personally like I did and they still feel a tremendous loss. I hope seeing this outpouring from people all over the world will give Corey's wife, Tracy, and his family a small amount of comfort in these trying times.

Now I wouldn't say Corey and I were 'best buds' but in the last few years we had definitely developed a much closer, personal friendship. I have about 8-9 good friends from the Internet world and I would consider Corey in that group.

Corey and I really became much closer friends because we were both in Dan Kennedy's Platinum group so we met at least 4x/year. Kennedy would always give us grief about having the "Internet guys" in the Platinum group especially because many of the existing members wanted to pick our brains for online info. We couldn't present right after another - Kennedy wanted us spaced out to handle the Internet guys in small doses. It was certainly in good fun and the bond between us grew from there.

I was probably one of his closer "Internet" friends. Though it actually wasn't business - we never did promote anything together - it was more personal. (Though we did consider doing a joint seminar.)

We'd hang out after meetings sometimes and go to dinner or a bar together. One meeting was in Los Angeles - we all went out together on the town to a cool LA club staying out until 4 am.

Then January of last year for my "30th Birthday Bash" I managed to get Corey out of 'semi-retirement' from speaking. I'm not certain but I think my Bday bash was the first time he had spoken in a few years. I may be wrong. I was extremely thankful and he did me a personal favor. It was a pretty big coup and thanks to him and everyone else part of my incredible line-up we had over 520 people there.

I have no idea if he already decided he wanted to speak more but after that Corey began appearing again on stage. I was glad because he able to have an impact on even more people. I'd only seen Corey speak a couple of times and it was really him out there. It was exhausting to watch him because he spoke so fast but it wasn't just an act. That was him. He was full of enthusiasm and excitement about the Internet business and he wanted to help compel people that it really was possible.

Just a few months ago I stayed at his new home in La Jolla, CA with his wife Tracy and their cute chocolate lab, Wally. I was invited to their wedding but couldn't make it. So this was the first time I'd seen their place. Pretty amazing and very cool. I was impressed and made some mental notes for myself when I build a house.

I loved this 'moat-like' feature of stepping blocks surrounded by water leading up to the front door. Another standout for me was the "Infinity" pool that looked like it dropped off right into the Pacific. Their place was completely wired inside and out and definitely my style. But I think one of Corey's favorite feature was his garage. It was a 4/5 car garage with carpet. Nice. He had a Ferrari 360 Spyder in there and his brand new baby, a Lamborghini Murcielago.

One of the funniest things he'd seen in awhile was me trying to get into the Lamborghini. It was the scissor doors which are very cool but not exactly the easiest to jump in and out of. I landed very gracefully with a resounding plunk as we got into the car. ;)

The car was a rocket and boy did that thing get stares. When he dropped me off at the Airport - there were 2 people who actually came up and got pictures of him in his car. Pretty funny.

We shared a lot of similarities which makes this even harder to grapple with. We had the same sense of adventure and both were blessed with the opportunity to pursue it. We talked about going off to Russia to fly MIG jets together next summer and going backwoods skiing.

I actually came out to his place so we could go Baja racing in Mexico. It was one of my favorite trips. I've got a fun
slide show that shows Corey having a ball in Baja - www.surefiremarketing.com/baja (I put this together awhile ago so you can just disregard the last page about my copywriting course - I have no intention of making this email a commercial for anything.)

Funny side note - he was in DC at my Underground seminar just a month ago and he couldn't understand why people kept asking him if he was still sore (you'll get it if you watch the video). He never knew I put the photos up of him from the Baja racing trip we did together. He was a bit ticked off at me - but had a laugh about it. Unlike me, Corey didn't want all his "adventures" to be public.

Corey wasn't that close of friends with too many people in the Internet marketing circle. I actually felt privileged to be friends with him.

He didn't keep up on the gossip, the rumors, the "kindergarten' stuff. He simply worked hard building up his business. And he really built it and ran it like a "real business". I know some people have expressed their uncertainty about the Internet Marketing Center continuing without Corey but I have absolutely no doubt it will. Corey built a great team around him and they were running the place already without him for the most part.

As so many others have already said - Corey has left a lot of people better off. He's inspired and taught many.

A couple of the personal lessons (some small and some big ones) I learned from Corey:

1. Live life. Sounds cliche, doesn't it? But Corey really did. Corey died doing something he loved and I think it would be a big mistake to simply take away the lesson that you've got to play it safe after this. Yes, racing might be a bit dangerous but he really lived. And my philosophy is "You can't worry about you're going to die - you can only worry about how you're going to live."

2. Build up a team. In Baja Corey yelled at me for still having many of my emails routed to me. He really tried to hammer home to me that I needed a team and systems in place. I don't know if I ever want as many employees Corey had - but having a team in place is paramount if you want to grow beyond a certain point.

3. Pay for the best. One of my favorite sayings I heard comes from Tom Phillips of Phillips Publishing. He said, "Pay for the best and you'll only cry once". Corey would tell me about how much he paid for top accounting, legal and consulting. Trust me it was a lot but to him worth every penny because he was building a real organization.

I'm sure more will come to me as my mind clears up.

One of the things I remember being most grateful to Corey for was for increasing not just my expectations for my personal life but my business as well. He was inspiring to me with what he had accomplished and also how he coaxed me
a bit to step up my 'game'.

Of course, business will go on as usual. Orders haven't stopped coming in over here and I'm sure orders haven't stopped for Corey's products during this time (which is a great thing about an Internet business). Things go on however I know Corey's spirit and influence won't be forgotten in our Internet community and beyond.

Usually I sign off by saying "All the best" - but I think a better sign-off is "Be the best". Corey really was the best at what he did and if we strive to be the best - we might just wake up one day to find we are.

You'll be missed my friend.

Be the best.

Posted by David at 5:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 9, 2005

Small Business Internet marketing: 4 Quick Tips for Choosing the Right Domain Name for Your Website

I just finished talking to a customer who wanted advice on choosing the right domain name for his web site. He's new to Internet marketing and is confused about .com, .net, .co.uk, .org, .biz and all the other dots. This was my reply to him:

I have my favorite newspaper bookmarked. But when I'm in front of another person's computer, sometimes I type in the name and up pops ... a porn site. Darn, did it again! Forgot to type in "the" as part of the newspaper's name.

You certainly don't want your customers taking unplanned detours when trying to get to your website.

The Internet's answer to "location, location, location" is "domain name, domain name, domain name." So you need to choose a name that will lead customers to your site without confusion or delay. Here are some quick tips:

1. Describe your product in the domain name (e.g., "livelobsters.com") for those who don't know your company from a hole in the wall but know what product or service they're looking for.

2. Have a second domain name that uses your company name for customers who do know it.

3. Keep the spelling simple and obvious. One letter missed or mistyped can take a customer to a strange destination.

4. Stick with the .com extension, even if your top choices are already taken. Though you have a much better chance of getting your first-choice domain name if you go with a different extension, it'll be a guessing game for your customer when you don't finish it off with ". com."

NB: It's also good to get .net, .org and .biz extensions to prevent competitors trying to steal your business idea should you hit on a winning formula.

If you want to generate ideas for a unique domain name get domain name generator tool

David

Small Business Resource

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June 8, 2005

Small Business Advise From A successful Small Business Entrepreneur

This month my small business is 12 years old, after seven years full time on the Internet I have gained some perspective here is some advice I want to share with you.

Don't Start a business Like I Started

When I suffered a serious back injury in 1995 I wasn't able to continue working in my trade of 30+ years. I exhausted my disability benefits and was re-injured 2 days after I attempted to return to work.

I started my small Internet business in 1996 in desperation, when no one was selling anything on the Internet. I had no clue how difficult it would be. I worked day and night for months before I made single a sale. Sound familiar?

I had everything to lose and in the process, I lost almost everything.

It's SO much easier starting a small business today, at least from my point of view. There is a lot of great information that just wasn't available when I started. More importantly, now people are actually buying products and services on the Internet.

Keep Your Day Job

The nature of a job is to pay you less than you earn for the company. That's because they spent the time and effort to develop the job for you. A job provides cash flow, training, and security but most of us will never get rich working for someone else.

Having a regular job is a HUGE blessing when you want to start your own small business. Earning a living income will most likely require more time than you expect so keep your regular job until you replace most of the income it provides.

Desperately NEEDING quick income actually works against you. Quitting your job doesn't speed up the learning curve; in fact it gives you tunnel vision often distracting you from discovering real purpose of business.

"Satisfy an identified desire in a market you can reach."

Immigrant Mentality

Often when someone arrives in the US the first thing they do is obtain a job, any job just to get the money flow started.
Immigrants are often willing to work harder and longer than we are because they come here with faith in a vision the passion
to pursue it.

I once worked with a young man from Cambodia. Whenever anyone wanted to go home after eight hours he would offer to do whatever work needed to be done in order to help out. Most days he worked at least 16 hours and we all thought he was crazy.

Later I learned that after his family was killed in Cambodia he built a kiln to make charcoal at 12 years of age. He got up before dawn every day to gather enough wood to fire the kiln then he would walk over 6 miles to fish for ten hours or more. The fishing earned him enough to eat and selling the charcoal helped him earn enough to get to the US. It took him over 7 years just to get here.

A 16-hour day seemed like a short day from his point of view. This is working for a purpose, and this is often what's required when building a small business.

Now it's fifteen years later, he owns his own small business, a house that's paid for, provides high paying jobs for others and gives back to his community on a regular basis purely out of gratitude.

The Old Fashion Way

Real success rarely comes easily, We EARN success in the process of following our passion. No one is born knowing how to build a business.

In fact, most of us start out with a job mentality, expecting a day's pay right after a day's work. In order to develop a business most of the work and much of the money is required up front before we ever receive a dime. This requires a long view and a passion for the process itself.

Like launching a rocket into space, the idea is to develop success before running out of fuel. The higher you go the less fuel it takes but most people quit before getting off the ground.

Success in business isn't really about the money. The fastest path to success is rarely the most direct path. Often it's what's you have to give that gets you what you want.

Adapt A Franchise Mentality

Franchise businesses are expensive because someone else did much of the groundwork for you. If you can't afford a franchise you will need to do most of that groundwork yourself.

Invest in your success, if you don't put much into it you'll have little to lose if you quit. Because of the amount of investment required, franchise owners are more likely to put in the effort required to succeed.

Learn your business, invest in your success, if you don't quit you WILL be successful - eventually.

Tom Hua

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June 7, 2005

Death Of A Savvy Internet Marketer

It was late Friday evening when I opened my email to read that Cory Rudl had been killed in a racing car accident. I was momentarily stunned. I thought it was a joke! But who would play such a trick on me? I went downstairs and quietly told my wife that the Internet Marketer whom I've tried to model my business on was dead.

I've seen a picture of the car crashed and read the news but I still cannot believe that Cory Rudl is dead.

My heart and prayers go out to his wife and family. I pray that God will comfort them at this time and that out of this tragedy good will come. God is mysterious!

Cory's passion for racing cars was matched only by his passion for Internet marketing. He built a substantial Internet business with annual sales of over $6 million. Over the past ten years he's generated more than $40 million in sales. He was the "complete Internet Marketer"!

I met Corey Rudl four years ago in London, England at a conference. My first impression was that he's young and quick with his tongue. He spoke fast! I later discovered that this was in keeping with the natural pace of the Internet and his dedication to being on its cutting edge.

Cyberspace will zoom on but it won't be the same without Cory Rudl. It was only two days before his death that I received an email from him telling me how tired he was at just completing a project and that he needed some sleep. Even if he did not send the email personally, it had his signature all over it.

Many said he was the first to invent "Affiliate Program" and I have no doubt that he was.

I can see him now at the Hotel in London on that cold autumn's day describing how I can profit by becoming his affiliate and the special bonuses I would earn. I still have that power point presentation.

Wherever you are Cory Rudl I'm in no doubt that you'll be the fastest speaker. Cyberspace will not be the same without your passion and zeal. You got your wish even though you never intended it to be this way.

David

Small Business Resource

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