As many of you might already be aware, I have recently become an E-Bay addict.
I love selling stuff on this site. I'm not making a lot of money, but it's still great.
So when I came across this blog entry over at bligit. I just had to share it.
People will try anything to sell stuff at ebay.
If you want to give it a try youurself please sign up at bwebcentral.com/ebay.
Family Note: If you are listening to this weeks audio podlet, please note that I recorded it back in February. Since then I have taken a second trip home, and we followed this same plan as explained in this trip, except there was no snow at the end !
In this weeks podet, I talk about my vacation and my sucess with my first ebay sale. In both cases I offer a few tips about travelling with kids and selling things on ebay, yes it's an odd combination, but that's just me I guess !
I'm getting more and more addicated to ebay, and have made myself a little "Ebay sellers kit" that includes things like wrapping paper, a digital scale, packing tape, measuring tape, etc etc. I like to pack everything up shortly after listing it, measure the dimentions for shipping and weight and I write it in pencil on the parcel itself
Show Notes:
Shipping and Handling: The great conspiracy
EBay Digital Scales
Limited Time Offer: Get $5 toward your first bid
1) Go to bwebcentral.com/ebay and sign up (click the banner to sign-up !)
2) Sign-up for your PayPal account at bwebcentral.com/paypal (Click the banner to sign-up !)
3) Make your first bid on any item you like on Ebay
4) Send an email to ebay@BWebcentral.com, be sure to include the following
a) The link to the item you have bid on
b) Your Ebay user id created in step 1
c) Your PayPal user id created in Step 2
5) Once this information is confirmed, I will send you through PayPal a maximum of $5 for your first bid That's all there is too it. Give it a try, what do you have to loose?
Note: This offer may expire at any time without notice, so sign up soon !
I was listening to the Dave Ramsey Podcast Episode (2008-09-03) when I learned some interesting information about the state of the economy which I never knew about before.
There are of course mulitple problems with the American economy, and a lot of it has to do with the media (see here for an explanation)
What I found interesting about this podcast was about a relativly recent change
called "sarbains oxley" (SOX). If you are a public company you may have already heard about it. SOX was basically put in place after the "Enron" Fiasco.
Essentially SOX puts in place several new 'rules' for public companies in at attempt to stop the type of 'fraud/theft' that occured with Enron.
One of these new rules is called "mark to market". This rule requires publically traded companies to restate the value of their assets each and every day.
The reason for this is to prevent businesses from having "loaded balance sheets". By not restating the assets frequently enough it may give a false impression of a companies worth and cause a higher 'expectation' of a company to investors then might otherwise exist in reality.
Makes sense right?
Here's the problem. Let's say a mortage/banking buisness decides to sell sub prime loans for houses. (These are "higher risk" loans that are sold to people with already bad credit who cannot get traditional type of mortages). So let's suppose a company, hmm let's calll them Merrill Lynch sells 30billion in these types of loans.
So essentially the start of the asset would be 30 billion. But there is little (or no market) for other companies to buy this type of loan (probably because it is unlikely the money will get paid back, compounded with how hard it is to sell houses in America these days). So they do as they are told and the "Restate" the value of the asset based on the market. Which ends up happening to be about 6 billion dollars.
Remember, this is not because the houses are suddenly worth less. House values don't suddenly reduce. It's because the type of loan is hard to sell, and is therefore worthless, so the 'value of the asset'. (The asset being the loan and loans are assets to loan companies) is reduced.
If on the other hand, this rule did not exist. The value of the asset could remain higher because it could be related closer to the value of the houses rather then the loan itself)
Confused Yet?
In short, mortage companies make money selling loans. Loans are assets to banks. SOX requiers the value of the asset to be restated each day. The value of the asset of a loan is not based on the item that was purchased with the money, it is based on the ability to "re-sell" the loan in the market to a different company.
You may find Dave Ramsey explains it better then I can, you can view more, with suggestions on what to do (if you're an American) here
http://www.daveramsey.com/tdrs/index.cfm/2008/9/23/Fix-the-bailout-with-mark-to-market?ictid=sptlt
Tony Wright gives some tips and suggestions on ideas for startups and working part time in addition to your full time job. Finding the extra time to start your own business can be a daunting task. Will it be sucessful? How much are you willing to risk? When it comes to starting your own business. Careful time management can allow you to have your cake and eat it oo.
If you're like me.. [besides being a bit crazy]..you would be growing more and more annoyed at the advertisements being played in movie theatres !! Haven't seen them yet? If not please let me know, where you live, so I can start going to your movie theatre :-) After paying $10.00 for the movie, plus $15.00 for concessions, then sitting through 30 minutes of adveritsing, finally I get to watch my movie. What's up with that?
Shhh ! I have a secret for you. Do you own your own company, and have recently launched your own website? Many years ago the company I used to work for launched their website. It took us a long time to build a steady stream of quality traffic to our site. We did search engine optimization (SEO) had the address on all our business cards, and conducted webinars. We watched our traffic like crazy, an increase in traffic meant an increase in profits (in theory). But always there was this question hanging over us. What can we do to get more visitors, more traffic?
I was the system admin, and part time web developer. I had some ideas and helped out a little to build traffic, but I figured the real magic was up to the marketing gurus. If only I knew then what I know now.
Today everyone has a blog, and wants to be a reporter. Many of these blogs are very popular and receive lots of raffic. So if you have a new website and want to get the word and generate a buzz - this is an excellent opportunity. Today we have sites which combine bloggers and business together, and the best way to maximize this opportunity is to join as early as possible to these programs and get in on the ground iHype.com Launches such a service.
So what does all this mean for you? Simple! Invest your marketing budget into iHype and let bloggers generate buzz for your business automatically. Before the popularity of blogging, there were really only 2 options - a) Emailing webmasters related to your product/service and asking for links and b) Web advertising which can be expensive. Now it just a few clicks, you can have a large network of bloggers review your products and services and post them to be read by their readers.
There are of course, other similar programs, however, as these sites get popular, they can also get more expensive. Therefore, the best time to get in the begging so here's your opportunity. I'm sure once you've tried it you'll see how much easier than traditional website marketing tactics.
I'm no economics expert, and I admit it, but here is an interest article I wrote about my understand of our economy and the interesting forces at play that make us spend and save. The real question is - is the the so-called financial experts that forecast our economy, or is it more likey their forcasts that create self-fullfilling prophocies. Check out my thoughts, and maybe you will think differently, the next time you hear the word recession !
GTD or Getting Things Done is a set of strategies designed to help improve your daily Productivity.
In this article by the MacIntosh weblog, we see a nice summary of ideas as presented from David Allen's book "Getting Things Done"
A very interesting set of ideas indeed.
So I was browsing some videos, and I came across this one called "Covert Hypnosis". Now, I know a little bit about hypnosis and one of the "cardinal rules" is that you can't be hypnotized unless you want to. So I blew this off almost as fast as I read it. Especially when I went to the website and it was one of those "submit your email here" to learn more type of things *Then I watched the video* and my opinion changed almost immediatly. Did the hypnosis work on me? Hmm.. I felt quite enlightened after watching this video, though I'm not sure I would call it hypnosis, as much as manipulation. I know it has happened to me. I would get all frustrated about something (or someone) and walk in to talk to him/her about it. Within 20 minutes I would start feeling re-assured and better so I would walk back to my desk. Then 20 minutes after that I would think, wait a minute - what just happened here? Not only did I not get my problem resolved, I was actually "made" to feel better about the bad situation I was in. Has this ever happened to you? Maybe it's just natural charm, or maybe it's something else - I'm not sure. Some people definitly have an uncanny ability to convince others of total hogwash. After watching this video I can see more clearly now how it is they do it. Perhaps it is not intentional, perhaps they can't explain how they do it, but they do. It does seem we can be influenced (unconsiously?) I suppose if you are unaware you are doing this - it is somewhat acceptable as natural charisma, but if you know you are doing this to someone, actively manipulating them to get what you want is it really ethical? and is there anyway to defend against it. I suppose, when I think about it, this type of thing is everywhere, mostly in advertising and is similar to propaganda. In the end You'll have to decide for yourself.
Harvard Business Review put together this nice little faq type system. You select your topic and questions about business management, and it easily finds for your related articles on this subject. A handy reference for anyone interested in this sort of thing
I'm not one to typically post news stories, but the other evening, I happened to notice a TV advert from the President of Maple Leaf foods, apologizing for allowing bacteria to go undetected in some of the meat products, and although they ordered a complete recal when the problem was detected, it was too late, many people have gotten sick and even died.
It is not often that I hear the president of a company admitting to a mistake and apologizing for such a problem.
It is very sad day for those that have purchased this products and have (or will) become ill or have died.
For the complete story..
Here is A nice article about business, collaboration and hiring.
I especially like the part about the "red flag" words.
I don't know if I agree with all of them, but they are an interesting read none-the-less.
On Sept 30, 2008, The government of Canada releases the National Do Not Call List.
This purpose of the list is to prevent telemarketers from contacting you to sell their wares in an unsolicited matter.
It follows a model similar to the one intruduced in the United States back in 2003.
Here are the FAQ's:
Can I register for the list now?
No, the scheduled date for launch is Sept 30, 2008 and you will not be able to have your name added to the list until this date. However, Here is a handy reminder/calendar item [dncl.ics] that you can add to remind you to add your name/number on Sept 30.
Will the list work immediatly once I've signed up?
No, once you've added your name to the list their is a 31 day grace period given to the telemarketers in which they can still contact you. If you are contacted after the 31 day grace period you can register a complaint with the 3rd party responsible for investigation. If found in violation the telemarketers will be fined for each offense committed.
Does it keep all the telemarketers away?
No, you may still recieve phone calls from charities, policatical parties, polling companies, and newspapers. As well you will still recieve calls from organizations with an "existing relationship"
What are the benefits?
If registered, after the 31 day grace period, you should no longer recieve unsolicited calls from organizations trying to sell you products. Basically a company will not just be able to look your number up in the phone book and cold call you to try and sell you a product.
If you have a home based business, or are a buisness, this may be beneficial since companies are routinely called.
For the average person? Think about how many calls you get on a daily basis from companies trying to sell you products, then think about how these people have contacted you. Are they mostly charities, are they from other companies performing 'courtesy calls' from your bank or credit card? or are the cold calls from parties you have no relationship with.
If you are getting a lot of these 'cold calls' you will likely notice a big difference. However, if most of your calls are from charities, political parties, surveys, or existing companies you do buisiness with, I doubt you will notice much change.
What are the critisms?
1) You can sign up online. Critics say that this could be abused by white "hackers" to submit all phone numbers to the list automatically.
2) May hurt the call center business. Many people I know work at call centers, if they can no longer reach the same amount of people, these business may suffer and ultimatily people may loose their jobs
3) Won't have much effect -> 90% of the people that call me fall into except categories
a) They are charties - They can still call you and are except from the law (in which case, I would suggest checking out the online donation database on dealing with charaties)
b) They are suveys - These follow under the classification of "polling" and would also be except
c) They are from an 'existing relationship'. Many of the telemarkter calls I recieve start with "As a valued [company name] customer, we would like to offer you ..." [insurance, line of credit, credit cards, etc]. Mostly this is because I belong to bank, and they sell my information to call centers to sell me their products.
In the end, I suspect that I will see little change, but I will keep you informed as I will be signing up and noting any differences.
Again: You can get a reminder to signup here -> DNCL Reminder
..To others!
We all get spam, and it drives us all crazy - right?
Have you ever wondered why there is so much spam out there?
The answer is simply really - spam makes people money
If there was no money in it, there would be a lot less money.
How it works
There are basically 3 ways to get rich from spamming others as follows:
1) Send a bunch of emails to your "pontential customers" telling them about your great product and why they should by it.
This is actually the least effective way of making money. Often the company seems to
foget your are a potential customer and rather then giving your something, they are trying to get you to "buy" something. Not only does this just piss people off, but it quickly ends up just going into the spam/junk mail folder, never to be looked at again
2) Create an ad-campain for your PPA (Pay Per action) advertising and affilate programs and suggest the product to others. (In this case you not selling your own products, but trying to sell others products. Often companies pay you just for getting others to fill in their email address and subscribing. Send out $1000 and get 50 people to signup, you may make $50.00
Still not a "great" idea. At first it might work, but quickly you will fall into the same category as #1, you get viewed as a "spammer" and sucked into others junk folders
3) Enter "fake/other peoples" information into affiliate pay per action (email address) programs including name/address information if asked and collect the money for these sign-ups
This is the one that screws over everyone, and is the main reason you get all the spam you get!
The "spammers" (or SCUM if you prefer). Submit your name and email addresses to services that pay for this information. You can sign up for several services that will give you about $1 or sojust for signing up. Just google "cost per lead affiliate marketing" to learn more.
From the spammers point of view it's a beautiful setup. They go through their own SPAM folder, and look for spam they've been sent, nothing the From: and To: fields for email addresses to capture.
Then they go to their own affiliate links created previously and sign-up various offers using those email addresses.
However to be safe, they first hide their IP Address using a proxy server (eg: TOR), and where possible they use fake "from" addresses as well.
So the sign-up is untracable, and they get $ for doing it for each email address they find. So your email address is resold and signed-up for items over and over again, without your knowledge or persmission, each time making the scumbag a few cents each time.
BTW: This is fraud and is illegal, so if you try it, watch out. You can go to jail for it if you get caught!
