SiteSell Blog

What's Your Country of Choice?

Ken's Blog

I'm making a presentation of an idea I had to the Anguillian government. I've been showing it to various friends whose opinion I respect and it's interesting to watch how "an idea" spreads around, til finally other friends hear about it and ask me what I think.

Here's the question...

Do you feel bound to your home country? Let's assume that you are making, say, over $100,000 through your own efforts on the computer (consulting, website, part-or-full time remote employment that required no physical presence, etc.), would you stay in your country?

I read a book a few years ago...

Momentum Builds

Ken's Blog

In the SBI! forums, SBIer DaNae (www.smoothie-handbook.com) proudly announced her "1000 unique visitor" day...

"It is amazing to think that I can reach more people in less than a month than the amount in my whole town of 16,000. Thanks to the wisdom of the Action Guide and the friendly SBI forums."

Her quote points out, in a real-life example, one of the massive advantages of starting an online vs offline business. The size of an individual's potential reach is massive (while risk is low).

To this day, I am amazed at how many people we reach from all over the world. For those of us from the pre-Net generation, I doubt that sense of wonder will ever go away.

And this part of DaNae's forum post encapsulates the power of an evergreen Theme-Based Content Site...

One Winning Idea Is All It Takes

Ken's Blog

I love reading the inspirational success stories in the SBI! Forums, especially those stories where persistence is being rewarded! The lesson gained from previous failures with SBI! is an important one for all SBIers.

I often think of people as various types of animals...

• Many are like sheep -- they follow what everyone else is doing. Well, where there are large numbers of people, there is usually not the level of success you seek, not in the business-building or investing worlds, anyway.
• Some are like wolves -- there are a lot of them out there, just waiting for an opportunity to gobble you and your pocket book up.
• Some are like scared rabbits -- they run from one thing to another to another, constantly in a panic trying to find something that works.

What does that have to do with SBI!?...

Facebook Like Button

Ken's Blog

Mark Twain is credited with the quote...

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."

This was wonderfully shown today with BizReport story that the Facebook "Like button boosts blog traffic 200%."

I highly doubted that, so I dug a bit more. Well, the article actually says, 3 paragraphs after that sensational headline, that referrals from Facebook increased by 200%.

They were quoting TypePad's blog as saying...

"As you can tell, there's no denying that readership on Facebook can have a powerful impact on a blog's traffic with the right tools," reads TypePad's blog.

So over to that post we go. Typepad was Facebook's "launch partner" for this. And now they're making it sound like your traffic will go up 200%, but actually it's just referrals from Facebook ("FB").  But...

When They Are Ready

Ken's Blog

I tweeted a few days ago about how one will never "get" SBI! until one is ready for its message. I learned that from my own sister and brother-in-law, in vivid technicolor, the day before.

My sister is a brilliant woman, a sensational under-achiever by my standards, but by her and her husband's standards very happy living a simpler life. They both work in Customer Support for a major airline. Her husband has this amazing hobby and knowledge that would absolutely, I am 100% sure, be making them at least $100K per year within 2-3 years (depending on how much time they devote to it).

Every year for the past 10 years, I have told them about SBI!. Every year, it was like talking to a wall with glazed eyes...

SiteSell Twitter Is Live!

Ken's Blog

"Part I" of a massive social media marketing ("SMM") undertaking rolls out with the launch of SiteSell Twitter...

http://www.twitter.com/sitesell

We're taking an approach to Twitter that's different. The whole company is twittering. It's like 130 Twitterers in one, each identified, and each can even be tracked by their own individual RSS feeds!

SiteSell Twitter delivers an ongoing feed of news, updates and info, straight from the mouths of SiteSellers, the actual people who do the programming, deliver Support, teach the SiteSell Education or SBI! E-Learning courses, work on website optimization, write the help documentation (text and video), coach SBIers, moderate the forums, and so on. These are the folks who deliver SBI! each and every day.

I'm very excited about SiteSell Twitter. If you remember from earlier blog posts, I was quite skeptical of Twitter at first. But the only way to be sure is to try it. So I did...

Why Start With 3 Niche Ideas?

Ken's Blog

Why does the SBI! Action Guide suggest that you start with 3 potential niche ideas? I'll tell you a short story to explain why...

When I was a professional toy inventor, just about every major toy company in the U.S. sent Canadian inventors over to me. (They don't see amateurs for several reasons.)

My #1 job, I realized, after agreeing to see these folks, was to keep them from mortgaging their homes.  They were so convinced that their idea was THE next big thing, the greatest thing since Monopoly. And, of course, they all knew the stories of how Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit (and other famous ones) had all be turned down by the big companies.

Their ideas were all uniformly terrible... not original, or boring, or, or, or...