Six failed businesses on, Dropmyemail’s John Fearon says, “I’m amazing” “I’m a good boss, I really am,” John Fearon, founder and CEO of DropMySite, tells me, in full earshot of his employee at their office in Block 71, Ayer Rajar Crescent, considered the nexus of Singapore’s technology startup scene. He was making a point about how he’d be a bad subordinate but a good leader who is comfortable with starting things. “I’m one of those that can go into the room and self-combust.” With all his self-confidence (whenever he speaks at conferences, he start with,”Hi, I’m amazing”), it’s easy to assume that John, who comes from South Africa, has a string of successful businesses to stand on. I prod him about the number of failed businesses he had. (Photo: John being featured in an Amazon Web Services video) John struggles to find his words, which is a rarity. His first business collapsed after six months, burning through the $3,000 that his parents gave him as initial capital. His second business was launched while he was holding a full-time job, and that failed too.
Suddenly You're the Boss From | Stay-at-Home Mom To | Moving-Company Owner On a steamy morning in June 2005, Cindy Myer wandered around the warehouse of Ridgewood Moving Services, the New Jersey–based company owned by her husband, Rob. Over the next few months, Myer learned the business from scratch. “Are you doing a job today?” “No. “Because we’re driving in Pennsylvania, and we just saw a Ridgewood Moving truck in front of someone’s house.” Myer immediately drove to the warehouse, saw that one of the trucks was missing and spotted one of her workers’ cars. “Where do you think I am?” Myer stood in the hot parking lot, sweat rolling down her back, feeling very alone. Other labor problems surfaced, and the business was losing money.
60 Small Ways to Improve Your Life in the Next 100 Days Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to make drastic changes in order to notice an improvement in the quality of your life. At the same time, you don’t need to wait a long time in order to see the measurable results that come from taking positive action. All you have to do is take small steps, and take them consistently, for a period of 100 days. Below you’ll find 60 small ways to improve all areas of your life in the next 100 days. Home 1. Day 1: Declutter MagazinesDay 2: Declutter DVD’sDay 3: Declutter booksDay 4: Declutter kitchen appliances 2. If you take it out, put it back.If you open it, close it.If you throw it down, pick it up.If you take it off, hang it up. 3. A burnt light bulb that needs to be changed.A button that’s missing on your favorite shirt.The fact that every time you open your top kitchen cabinet all of the plastic food containers fall out. Happiness 4. 5. 6. How many times do you beat yourself up during the day? 7. Learning/Personal Development 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.
How Do You Write an Ebook? [Marketing Cast] Long-form content is a core element of building valuable marketing offers . That is why ebooks present a terrific opportunity for generating buzz online and drawing leads. In this episode of the Weekly Marketing Cast, David Meerman Scott talks about how marketers should go about writing an ebook. Don’t Write about Your Product The most important thing about writing an ebook , David notes, is that you should focus on the people you want to reach, not your product or what you have to offer. Try to understand what challenges your audience is facing and figure out a way to address these problems. Create a Topic that Solves a Problem In finding a topic to tackle, focus on a question that your target audience is often asking or a challenge that they often encounter. Leave Your Comfort Zone “Before you even begin to write it, get out of your office, get up from your really comfortable chair,” says David. What is the most successful ebook you have launched and how did you go about writing it?
People Ignore Generic Photos Online, Study Shows Screenshots via Jakob NielsenPeople look at pictures of real people online but skip over generic photos. Even the most ardent Internet supporters will acknowledge that most Web sites are a hodgepodge of poor design and cluttered content. And so Jakob Nielsen, a Web site consultant and author of a number of books about design and user interface, has made it his personal mission to try to bring order to the tangled design of most sites. Mr. Nielsen’s weapons in the fight to clean up this mess include some eye-tracking software and research he chronicles on his blog. For his latest cleaning project, Mr. In the past he has argued that large images annoy users because of the long load times, even with a high-speed Internet connection. His latest eye-tracking survey found that “big feel-good images that are purely decorative” are mostly ignored online, while stock photos or generic people are also intentionally disregarded. Mr.
Still broken Here's the screen from the Prius. In this case, 70% of the screen is wasted again, but in new and different ways. For example, what's the point of numbering the presets 1,2,3,4,5 and 6? Why repeat "ch" in front of each channel? And why number the channels? The right side of the screen is black, plenty of room to list the entire name of the program, but nope, it's cut off after 16 characters. In summary: someone hurried their way through this design, the committee dumbed it down without testing it, and since it's a car, no one is ever going to change it, so I'm going to be irked every single time I turn on the car!
SEO – Keyword Research Top Tips Everyone is always looking to acquire more traffic – and rightfully so. But how do you obtain large expanses of traffic? Research shows that the majority of all traffic originates from search engines. And how do you show up in search engines? top keyword research tips 1. To even begin developing a keyword list you need to know and understand how potential customers are going to search for your product or services. 2. It is always a good idea to know who you are competing against. 3. It is not uncommon for people misspell words and phrases in their searches. Examples: Calendar > Calender Your > You’re Here > Hear 4. Acronyms and abbreviations make up a large amount of search traffic, thus making it important for you to make sure that your not missing any keywords. Examples: 9/11 > September 11th SEO > Search Engine Optimization PPC > Pay Per Click 5. Examples: try to play trying to play try playing trying playing 6. Examples: mountain bike mountains bike mountain bikes mountains bikes 7. 8.
Eight Ways to Create Enough Video Content to Last 18 Months If you're a B2B marketer, churning out awesome content in the form of whitepapers, articles, case studies, and the like is good—but you're going to need more if you want people to keep paying attention. Today's audiences love watching online video. Studies show that online video improves email click-through rates, sales conversions, and search engine rankings; it's no wonder marketers are funneling more budget dollars into this tantalizing medium. So what's a B2B marketer to do to capitalize on all the video love? Start producing more video content. 1. Online video has just begun to boom, which means you have a golden opportunity to take content you've already created, update it, and release it in video format. For example, take the key points from a whitepaper you wrote four months ago, add some new insights and create a few five-minute-long educational videos. Innovating with video gives you a second chance to showcase content that few may have ever seen. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
Does China Have an Executive-Compensation Problem? Since China opened up to the world with its sweeping economic reforms in the late 1970s, and especially in the past decade as private-sector enterprises have mushroomed, the model of executive compensation in the country has increasingly mirrored ones in the U.S. and Europe. How is it, then, that Chinese executives are paid only a fraction of the compensation earned by their American counterparts in companies of equal size in the same industries? Or are they? In China, executive compensation above tens of millions of yuan (1 yuan equals 16¢) would be seen as astronomical and would cause an uproar. A public outcry occurred in 2008 when it was disclosed that the annual salary of Ma Mingzhe, chairman and CEO of Ping An Insurance Group, an insurance and financial-services company, was 66 million yuan ($10.5 million). On the other hand, executive compensation in China has always been shrouded in mystery. Are the figures disclosed in the annual reports of public companies in China accurate?
Importance of Hiring Freelancers Today So you have an idea for a good business, but you don’t have an immense budget to employ a number of people around the clock to solve your problem. You prefer flat fees, you say? A freelancer might be the answer to your dilemma. Today, a higher amount of people are freelancing than ever before and they’re all jumping up and down for a job. It’s a common misconception to believe that freelancers can only provide you with web programming and content. Matt Barrie, the CEO of Freelancer.Com – a highly successful platform that helps businesses reach freelancers around the world – tells us that “going online is indeed the way to succeed for small businesses in America and around the world. Aside from Freelancer.Com, there are other great sites where you can find freelancing professionals, even with centralized work room access! As with any hiring you do, you want to make sure that you check on a freelancers skills and abilities before hiring, as all are not created equal.