Several months ago, I had a long conversation with Chuck, one of my trusted advisors where I walked him through the VisiOlo prototype and asked for his advice on some key issues.  He was helpful in many ways, but one of the most impactful suggestions was related to the blog and not the tool itself.

As he shared with me how he thought I ought to incorporate the blog, I realized that the advice he was giving me was the exact advice I have given to other people — it just took the ‘third party’ perspective for me to see how that advice could be applied to VisiOlo.  At that time, the blog was kind of a secondary element of the site, with the VisiOlo tool taking front and center.

From Chuck’s perspective, he loved reading the blog posts because 1) he learned something and 2) many of the posts made him think about his business in a different, and more productive way.  For him, it was the combination of helpful information related to a specific topic and the fact that VisiOlo is a tool that can only improve the implementation of the ideas that made the whole thing work.

So, from that turning point, the VisiOlo blog has now become a key element of the overall VisiOlo strategy and I’d like to share with you what you can expect, in terms of content, as a reader of this blog.

Focused on The ‘Serious’ Infopreneur

The content you will find on the VisiOlo blog is focused specifically on information that is relevant to a specific type of Entrepreneur — the online Infopreneur.  If you sell information products online, you will find lots of great content here.  Now, when I say ‘serious’ Infopreneur, I don not mean a humor-less chap who always wears a scowl — we have nothing against fun here! What I mean is someone who is serious about building a business selling info products.

An ‘Executive’ Perspective

One of the things I love about working with Infopreneurs is the diverse backgrounds and experiences that this segment of the Entrepreneur market has.  Infopreneurs come from all walks of life and all different experience levels.  One thing that is working against many Infopreneurs, though, is a lack of executive experience. If you haven’t had the experience of running a business, it’s helpful to have someone around who has.

I’ve had P&L responsibility for many different businesses and product lines ranging in size (in terms of annual sales) from $5 million to $100 million.  And through my consulting experience, I’ve learned how executives think.

Given my background and experience, I hope to be the guy who helps you think like an executive through my blog posts.

Lots of ‘What’ and ‘Why’

As I look at the information landscape for Infopreneurs, I see a lot of ‘how to’ advice, but very little of what to do or why to do it.  This tactical focus is the source of a lot of frustration for the market because even the best tactic, applied at the wrong time or for the wrong reason, is not going to bring results.  I hope that my experience and information can help fill the gap and answer the “what should I do?” and “why should I do it?” questions.  When it comes to specific, step-by-step how to, I’ll share some of that in the VisiOlo Member Content area, but for the most part, I’ll leave the ‘how’ to experts who know many of the tactics better than me.

A Big Dose of Strategy

One of my core strengths is strategy. It’s a big part of how I’ve made my living for the last 6 or so years in my consulting practice.  But one of the things I’ve found is that few people care about strategy, and fewer still are willing to pay for it.  However, those who spend their time and energy strategically have the strongest businesses — there’s no question about it.

Having the right strategy is a huge part of business success — especially when it comes to growing an existing business. Many start ups can be successful with a very tactical approach because the start up phase is (mostly) about action.  Established businesses are a different story. With an established business, action is still critical, but a great strategy is also required to focus the action in the right direction. And even businesses that are just getting started are much more likely to succeed if they have a strong, clear strategy.

With this blog, for the first time, I will have the right vehicle to share strategic insights with you. And don’t worry, you won’t even have to pay for them.  I have to admit though, I wonder how the strategic content will be received.  I’m geeky about this stuff, but that doesn’t mean you will find it interesting.  You’ll have to let me know.

Focused on Our ‘Best At’

One of the operational principles that we live by at VisiOlo is to focus on what we are ‘best at’ and what we are ‘best at’ is helping Infopreneurs measure and optimize the effectiveness of their online selling systems (to make more money with the same or less expense).  Given this focus, it won’t be a surprise to learn that much of the content for the VisiOlo blog will be related to online selling systems and improving their effectiveness.

Promotional Structure

Otherwise known as a Marketing Funnel, your promotional structure is all of the products, offers, sales systems, and underlying technology that allows you to sell your products online.  I started using the term “Promotional Structure” because I think the term “Marketing Funnel” has been used in so many different ways in this market that it is all but useless to describe what really drives the sales side of an Infopreneurial business.

Plus, it just has always seemed strange to think of prospects or customers as something that goes through a funnel — I just can’t complete that picture. I mean I use funnels for either liquid or powder, mostly liquid.  Are prospects liquid molecules?  LOL. I know it’s crazy, but the analogy just doesn’t work for me when I can see the the real process of developing customers into lifetime, repeat customers, is a lot more like an interconnected web of events than a funnel.

Marketing Foundation

In my view of marketing, your Marketing Foundation is made up of four blocks: Market, Product, Brand, and Channel.  It’s a different, but I think helpful, way to look at some of the key elements that make for strong marketing and I’m excited by the opportunity to share this conceptual view of marketing with you.

Traffic Generation

I am, in no way, a pro when it comes to driving tons of traffic, but I’ve learned a few things along the way and am happy to share them with you.  More importantly, I’m excited to share the things I have yet to learn, as I learn them.

Business Management, Product Reviews, Case Studies, and General ‘FYI’ …

Sheesh, I just went back and read this post and I realize I better stop there. I think that’s quite enough for now

How about you? What would you like to hear about? Anything on the list above really jump out at you?

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Graph Courtesy of TweetStats.com

About 7 months ago, several things came together that drove me to back off (way off as you can tell from the graph above) of my interaction on social sites.  Businesses go through phases and this particular phase was a very inwardly-focused phase for me and my business.  There are times when the focus of a business dictates the removal of extraneous activities, and this, for me was one of those times.

So what caused my retreat away from social media activities?

There are a lot of reasons, but the two most prominent ones are…

• About 7 months ago, we hit a big snag in the development of VisiOlo that required some significant re-tooling of the core functions of the software — this required a *lot* of my attention.
• About 7 months ago, I realized that, while the social web has the potential to have a huge impact on my business, the business itself was not set up in a way that worked well with the social web.  I was spending a lot of time on a low-return activity and resolved to re-structure my business in a way that sharing information on the social web would more rewarding (to me and my connections/followers).

In short, my focus needed to be elsewhere.  But I’m happy to say that I’m now in the position to participate more consistently and bring more value to my network. I’m looking forward to reconnecting with some friends I haven’t interacted with in a long time.

How about you?  Have you had periods, in this socially connected world, where you have either intentionally or by necessity pulled away from online social networks?  What was the impact on your business and connections (both positive and negative)?

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Recently, after several coughs and sputters, a pet project of mine made a quiet exit from this world. 

I’ll miss my friend of over five years, but alas, it is time to say goodbye.

Daily Marketing Ace was always that great idea that never really got it’s feet under it (and I held on way too long). 

At the core of Daily Marketing Ace was the concept of short tips delivered daily via email. Tips could be no longer than 500 characters (as short paragraph) and were always intended to be a way for experienced marketers to share their ‘condensed’ knowledge with other marketers.

Here’s an example of a ‘typical’ Daily Marketing Ace tip.

A surefire way to build a Profitable Email List – FAST!

I have personally used “mini” courses to build lists of several thousand subscribers in as little as a week.  A “mini” course is simply a series of emails where you teach people a specific skill, set of skills, or reveal other information they really want to know.  In the process of providing this focused, valuable information, you prove to your subscribers that you are THE expert in a particular area – and, you also encourage people to pay you to get even BETTER information from ebooks and information products you’ve either written or recommend.

Jim Edwards: From “5 Tips To Create A Kick-Butt Mini-Course That Pulls In Thousands of Rabid Subscribers!“

DMA started as a small business publication, then later was focused specifically on tips for Infopreneurs.

I worked hard on this project but ultimately realized that it was a cool idea, but at it’s core, a flawed one.

From time to time, I’ll probably share some of the things I learned from this project, but for now, I just want to say ‘thank you’ to Daily Marketing Ace subscribers, tip contributors and affiliates. 

I appreciate the attention and contribution you made to this project, and I hope you will join me as I move on to more focused and valuable content on this blog.  We’ll also be casting aside the concept of ‘multiple points of view’ that was at the core of Daily Marketing Ace — multiple points of view are highly overrated.  So, rather than a surface understanding of random tip contributors, on this blog you will get a deep dive into my personal point of view.

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“The Mirror Neuron was discovered in Parma Italy in 1989. It was originally called the “monkey see, monkey do” neuron. It is basically the reason why sometimes we can feel what other people feel — discomfort for instance. Let me ask you to do something, John, and your listeners as well. Just close your eyes and imagine that you are back in grade school and you are sitting in your desk looking at the large blackboard at the front of the room. Now imagine your teacher reaching up, and instead of writing on the board, she takes her long fingernails and scratches all four nails firmly against the board, slowly from top to bottom.

Now, did you feel uncomfortable?

What’s amazing about it is you didn’t even hear the sound but I was activating your Mirror Neurons, you still had that feeling. This is the concept of Mirror Neurons. Now, through research, this is being used in the world of marketing.”

From “Why We Really Buy” on the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Martin Lindstrom

I’m not sure the great direct response copywriters out there have any idea that there exists something called a “Mirror Neuron” but, once again, in application the direct marketers are way ahead of academics and the corporate world.  Any copywriter worth his salt knows that evoking a high emotional or physical response is good marketing.

I enjoyed this interview, but you can just sense the chasm between academics and the world of direct marketing when you listen to this one.  Still, I learned a lot about ‘Buyology.’

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Have you ever noticed how the last 10% of any project seems to take 90% of the effort? Anyone who has been through a product development and launch cycle will agree, I’m sure, that the final stages of a project leading up to launch are all consuming.

So, if you have been wondering where I’ve been the last few weeks, let me just chalk my absence up to the fact that I am in the final stages of preparing for phase I of the VisiOlo launch.

Not only that, but I still have one active consulting client and I’m managing two major product launches for them. So, I’m in launch-phase times three!

It’s exciting, though. I’ve been doing all three of these projects for over a year, and now I get to see them roll out to the market.

VisiOlo is really coming along. We’ve already wrapped up all of the features I had on my “must have before launch” list. Now we are working on upgrades and enhancements. Let me tell you, it’s a lot more fun to work on enhancements than it is to be down in the weeds working on basic functions.

Today, I’m updating the help and tutorial content, which involves both written content and video content.

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2 Million TV’s in Toilets?

Did you know there are over 240 million TVs in the US (2 million of them are in Toilets!).  Yet with that many TV’s, the major TV networks get a combined total of only about 10 million ‘unique visitors.’

I say ‘only’ because YouTube, MySpace and facebook get a combined total of 250 million unique visitors.

That means that, even if you had an unlimited supply of money, you could not reach as many people as you could reach with a hugely popular video on YouTube — no matter what you spend on Television!

For those of us who were raised on TV, videos like this help us remember that TV (and the ‘broadcast’ mindset) is a dinosaur.

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I’m thinking of changing the primary phone number for my business to a Google Voice account, but haven’t even started to research it. Coincidentally, Marketing Online Live did a recent show that was about the possibilities of Google Voice for marketing and customer service. More fuel for me to get off my butt and see if this service will work for me.

I like the basic idea behind Google voice — remove the link between the number and the service or platform. So instead of a “mobile” phone number, you have a number that can be routed to your mobile, home, work, assistant, etc. YOU decide where the call get’s routed to.

Google voice also, I understand, allows you to manage calls from specific incoming numbers in special ways. For instance, I can send all calls from my wife directly to my iPhone.

But, like I said, I have not researched it yet, so I’m wondering if any of my readers have any advice on how best to use Google Voice for an online info marketing business?

I happen to already have an account because I had a Grand Central account before Google bought them, but obviously I’ve never really used it.

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As we (the VisiOlo development team) lift our heads out of the weeds from the very structural work we have been doing so far this year, it’s time to make much more sense out of the ‘presentation layer.’  I’ve been a lot more concerned about ‘how it works’ than ‘how it looks’ and I’m sure that has been readily apparent to even the most casual observer.

But now.. NOW we get to start working on stuff that is a lot more fun.  If VisiOlo is going to be a best-in-class tool, it needs a best-in-class user interface.  This means everything (the Blog, the VisiOlo tracking and reporting tool, the Forum, special member content, and the sales pages) needs to come together in a unified and logical structure.  Most importantly, it needs to be simple, clean, and easy.

As a first step in this effort, the VisiOlo blog has received a new theme and WordPress has received a new role.  I’ve decided to use WordPress as my content and member management system — so instead of just running the blog, WordPress will run everything except the VisiOlo application itself.

For the new VisiOlo theme, I used  Thesis – a Premium WordPress Theme from DIYthemes.  Thesis keeps CSS and HTML code entirely separate and provides a lot of editable CSS settings through the WordPress dashboard interface.  You can also customize CSS by using a special (and separate) custom CSS file and you can customize functions through a special (and separate) custom PHP functions file.

This ‘modular’ approach means Thesis is more search engine friendly (because the HTML code is nice and clean), easy to style (you can use the custom CSS file to create an entirely new ’skin’ for Thesis). and flexible (with custom functions changing layout is fairly easy).

Although I did some minimal styling, what you see now is darn close to Thesis out of the box.   At some point, I’ll have someone more artistic than I create a sharper style for VisiOlo.com, but for now, I’m looking for clean, simple, clear, professional, and easy — slick and cool can wait a bit

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29594489@N08/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

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One of my primary marketing goals for 2009 is to create tighter networks of my JV partners and people who are interested in what I do.  I think I’ve just begun to tap the power of social networking and 2009 will be a year of taking it to the next level.

I have some interesting ideas about how VisiOlo can become a catalyst of a network of JV partners.  Being able to track conversions on both sides (product creator and JV promoter) could actually be a game changer in the way these relationships are developed.  This is especially true if the network effect can be tapped in to.  It’s there now, very informally in most cases, but it’s there.  I see my close contacts promoting the offers of other close contacts. But there are not a lot of very orgazed close JV networks.

I’m not talking about the bid JV sites that have thousands of members, I’m talking about small clusters of complimentary businesses that work together to meet the needs of the same market.

In any case, after reviewing my stats for last year, 90% of the traffic and sales that I did not personally generate came from a handful of close contacts. Anything I can do to increase those results will have a powerful impact on my business.

Start with what’s working and improve from there!

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OK. I’ve been tagged twice on this one.

First Dr. Mani sent me a direct message on Twitter asking if I’d like to join into the conversation.

Then, Case Stevens hit me, also on Twitter.

Do you remember your first website?

At first I thought “of course” but then I realized that the site I had in mind was no where near my first one. But after dusting off my synapses I was able to remember.  It was November of 1999.

Here’s a look at the website using the Wayback Machine.  At the time, I was in touch with so many freelancers and getting pretty good at managing virtual teams that I thought there was a market for delivering marketing services to small businesses and corporations using my virtual team concept.

It was generally a bad idea to sell the idea of *how* the project got done rather than selling the actual result. Clients didn’t care how I did the project, they just wanted a done project!

Where did I host it?

I honestly don’t remmber, but it was a standard paid hosting package

How did it look?

To look at it now, the site screams “I used a Front Page template.”  Not a very professional image to put forth.  Of course, my logo was a build-it-yourself job, which is also obvious. LOL

How did you feel about it?

I was quite proud of it   Even though I had a little experience with building websites from the ‘client’ side, those were the days of the $10,000 online brochure sites. I was amazed that I could create something myself and not have to pay an agency to do it for me.

Now… YOU.

Here’s what to do.

1. Post to your blog with your “first time” story.
2. Link to this post somewhere in yours.
3. Tag someone you know, invite them to write about their “first time”.
4. If you’re on Twitter, tweet a link to your blog post – and use #myfirstweb to make it easy to find and list all tweets on the topic

After a week or two, we’ll compile a list of all these posts – and it will be fun to see how we all evolved in our journey through the Web!

Looking forward to seeing your “first time” story soon.

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