Thanks To The Castello Brothers For A Great Weekend in LA

I wanted to type a quick public thank you to David and Michael Castello who showed me a great weekend in LA this past weekend. Between great sushi at SushiRoku, cigars at the Buena Vista Cigar Club in Beverly Hills, or great wine and food at Si Laa Thai, they made sure that my time there was great.

For my readers that are from outside the domain industry you can see the successful online real estate properties that the brothers own at CCIN.com. Although the details will come in another post many of you have heard of the Grape.com project that has started with them.

But one thing great about visiting LA is I also got some great time with my good buds Jason Thompson and Morgan Linton, I have not been out that way in awhile so was very excited to get some time with them as well and also want to thank them for their hospitality, seems Morgan always ends up being my chauffeur when I am in town, sorry bud:)

Every time I get to spend time with the Castello Brothers I come away feeling energized, one thing about them is they see the big picture. They see more than a great domain name, that is a very important thing to get. Too many times I see domain investors talk development and think that ends with the website. The Castello Brothers have the same mindset that I like to think I have, seeing that the domain name is the foundation for a real business that just starts at the website but really takes off when you take advantage of the BRAND that is the great domain name. And that means more than just getting traffic from the memorable name, it means revenue from developing a real business by either getting out there and working the streets for ad sales or selling a product on a category killing product domain name.

Sometimes we get to busy and wrapped up in day to day work or business and can lose track of the bigger picture, this weekend with them helped re-energize and focus my efforts. Stepping back from day to day but still keeping focused on business can be one of the best refreshers you can get, sharing ideas, brainstorming, in a different and energetic environment helps the creativity flow.

Also, the domain industry should give a big thanks to David, watching him come into dinner Saturday night after doing several interviews live and recorded after being sick all week was interesting, he was a trooper and made it though, if you do not know what I am talking about take look at the Good Morning America video of David discussing the "Playboy Plague". If you could of heard the conversations he pushed at the stations in between interviews you would know why I say we owe him a big thank you, he could not help but to sell the value of domain names and why they are so important. And before you think that having a few conversations about domain names and what domaining is to producers, etc does not mean much, think about how most big ideas start and know that he did have emails coming in from one I know of for sure wanting a follow up on the industry. It is a start.

Thanks guys, appreciate all the hospitality!

A Couple New Domain Development Projects

As mentioned in a previous post about high dollar affiliate programs and possible lost revenue, I have been working on researching affiliate programs that generate higher dollar revenue than typical PPC or product affiliates on Amazon, etc.

As part of this I have also been making it a point to develop a smaller number of sites into larger sites. Although I am still not close to done on either of these development projects I thought I would talk about which sites I have started down full development process on.

Both of these sites are being developed using content mainly from TextBroker.com and using Wordpress themes from iThemes.com. (Neither of those are affiliate links, but are products that I use daily at this point.)

The first site, PrivateJetCost.com, is a project focused on private jets and either booking or fractional jet ownership, I mentioned this site in my TextBroker.com post comments. Although I currently have Adsense on the pages as the site progresses it will be focused almost exclusively on affiliate revenue.

Currently I have affiliate approval from the two programs I submitted to and am working on implementing the second one. The goal is to provide a content rich site and continue to add new content weekly. This is not a site that will sit dead, for a competitive industry such as this the "set it and forget it" mini-site model will not work. On a side note, thanks to Melly Walker for the work on the logo and header. She also did a few articles for the site and she provided great work on the logo for the next site as well.

The second site, which is a little behind PrivateJetCost.com, is RetirementSeminars.com. The content is just coming in for this site, the site will also have content added weekly and is starting with Adsense as I determine the revenue path for this domain name.

There are many options so it is not a matter of not having a good path, its a matter of finding the best path. Retirement seminars are big business, especially as the baby boomer generation marches towards retirement in this tough economy. Once again, this is a site that will not benefit from sitting still. There will be an event calendar and directory added after the initial site content is complete but for now its all about article content.

Although these sites will have hundreds of pages of content as they move forward these are really smaller projects compared to another project that will be announced in the very near future. There is some fun stuff going on that I cannot wait to talk about.

Do You Want A Job Or Not?

Although the majority of my blog posts are not focused on local Farmington, MO news or stories I could not help but to do a post about a local story that is frustrating beyond belief.

For a few of my thoughts on this topic that were discussed on my LocalTek Tech Tips radio show this morning you can read Local Tek Owner Supports Big River Telephone.

Recently the government awarded Big River Telephone a chunk of the rural broadband stimulus funds based on the ability of the company to rapidly deploy a stable and reliable wireless broadband network that will provide thousands of people throughout Southeast Missouri with the ability to connect to the internet in the same way most of us take for granted, at broadband speeds.

In todays world it is virtually a requirement to have access to high speed internet if a community wants to be able to compete in the business world today, or if a student wants to have access to the same information other students across the US and the world have.

Although I tend to lean to the conservative side when it comes to taxation and stimulus I can see the benefits and the value in programs such as this when done correctly. I accept that the money is going to be spent and it needs to be used on quality programs that create quality, lasting jobs, that provide other benefits for the long term, such as education and economic development. In this case the rural broadband stimulus does that.

Now, for the frustrating part. As part of the award of the funds to Big River Telephone it had been discussed they would locate Big River Broadband, the arm of the company deploying the network, in Farmington, MO which is a rural, but very progressive business community in Southeast Missouri.

In an area such as this it is difficult in many cases for individuals coming out of college to be able to stay local because there are not many professional level technology jobs in the community. This means that there is a drain on the community based on the educated and skilled labor leaving for large cities for higher paying, professional or technical jobs that do not exist locally.

I cannot go a month (or a week) without hearing people talk about the lack of the ability to find a good job or hearing people complain about jobs going overseas or to Mexico for manufacturing. With the economy being what it is small communities need to do everything they can to find high paying, quality jobs that are long lasting in their community.

With most jobs that locate to these regions being low paying jobs that can be moved overseas easily (i.e. call centers, manufacturing) shouldn't a community fight to get these jobs to their area at every chance they have?

Virtually every community in the area Big River Telephone will be serving has fought for these jobs to be located in their community.

The City of Farmington, once learning of the potential of Big River Broadband to locate in the area, offered incentives for the company to be able to relocate to an unused building in the downtown area.

The TIF amount are rumored to be in the $100,000 range.  That is a $100,000 incentive to create millions of dollars of economic development in direct money to be spent by new jobs in the company. That does not include the associated businesses and non-direct impact of long term value to a community having a solid tech company that is growing in the area.

Typically you bring one and more come, also what people sometimes overlook is that this will empower people that once never thought they would have an opportunity to create something to possibly have an idea sparked after being around the atmosphere that a company like this brings.

So, why then, would people complain?  Is it just to complain for the sake of being heard? In the community there have been a few folks that have caused a hold up and concern for the many people looking for these jobs because they are complaining about the incentive.

Keep in mind these people complaining are people who are in positions to not have to worry about such things but their lack of foresight and their lack of ability to  look at the bigger opportunity this creates has the potential to drive these jobs elsewhere. And they WILL GO ELSEWHERE, they will not disappear. Would this group prefer these jobs go to another community that WILL give something to get this.

Big River Telephone is not some huge corporate conglomerate so people cannot complain about big business getting all the breaks, I have known the team at Big River since they acquired a small phone company in Cape Girardeau and have worked day and night to create what the company has become today.

If the money is going to be spent to provide stimulus I have to look past my feelings on such things and realize the money is going somewhere, the stimulus money will be spent, I want it to better the community I am in and not go elsewhere because people are not thinking about the long term impact but just trying to make a stand for the sake of being heard.

The moral of the story here, no matter if you are in my local area or not, if someone is working hard to keep jobs local, keep your kids from moving away since they do not have the opportunity locally, and are trying to have a long term positive economic impact on your area support them. Do not EVER complain about jobs going overseas if you are not going to support keeping jobs in your community.

I never had the opportunity to stay in the community I live in based on the fact there was not a professional level job that offered the opportunity to do what I wanted to do or an income potential that went with it. I had to travel over 100 thousand miles a year on planes to have that opportunity. I have a son that will be in college in the short term future, he may want to move away but I also like the thought of supporting companies that want to create jobs that can create opportunity for him locally as well.

Thanks for letting me rant!

Can You Train Someone How To Close A Deal?

As we ramp up our sales staff one of the things we find quite often in the interview process are people with great marketing knowledge, personality, and even business knowledge but sometimes are missing something that can, at times, be hard to determine in the interview process. Something a bit more intangible. The ability to close the deal when the customer is ready to buy or more importantly at the deciding point.

Being around various sales teams for years I can typically tell within 5 to 10 minutes if a person has the ability to get the deal done, it seems to be a pure personality trait that you can pick up on. People do not like to make decisions based purely in intangibles like that but more and more I think that you can tell by personality if a person has that capability.

At that point it really comes down to if they have the knowledge of the industry or general marketing and business sense to match the product or industry they are going to be selling in.

So, before I even get the the question in the title of this post, let me say, I do not think you can train someone to close a deal, some people just do not have the personality to ask someone for money even if they are giving something of high value in return. After many years thinking people were trainable in this regard I just do not think so. I think people may have minor levels of success but the time to train could be better spent using their skills elsewhere where they are more apt to excel.

That said, I think there are many people that have the ability to sell and close a deal but they are not recognized as sales people because they are in the wrong group in a company. I think it is much easier to train someone who has the natural ability to ask and close a deal to sell than it is to train someone who may have all the business knowledge but just does not have the personality to get it done.

The techniques can be taught to those who have the natural ability to hone their skill even further, but when you are starting with someone who does not innately have the skills to close the deal you are fighting against everything their psyche is telling them.

Do you think people can be taught to close? Or do you think good sales people just have the natural talent?

Building A Website Is Not Building A Business

One of the frequent conversations I had at the domain conferences was about developing websites. Due to the Missouri.me launch and some of my other projects many people had questions about how to develop the sites, tools used, where we get content, etc. I am always happy to share as much as I can but there was something that I would preach to anyone who would listen and it seems to escape many.

There is a huge difference between building a website and building a business. In most cases people can have many great ideas about what they would like to do with their great domain name, they may even have all the technical abilities to create an amazing e-commerce site or content rich geo site but in so many cases there is no plan for what to do once the site is up.

If you put 50K into a wonderful website, do all the hard SEO work, if you do not have a plan on how to generate revenue after the site is up it is really just a website, not much different than a parked page, I can imagine if you spend 50K or even 10K on developing the perfect website you would want to have a plan for something more than Adsense for revenue.

So, when talking about domain development you need to think about taking it past the web development phase and how to get it into the business development phase.

To understand what I mean take a look at what the Castello Brothers have done, they understand business. With sites like Whisky.com and PalmSprings.com they have created businesses. I have really enjoyed my conversations with Michael and David and love the fact that they focus so much on the business rather than just the website. That is the difference between successful domain development compared to someone just building a website.

Now, everyone has different skills, I know many people much smarter than myself that can create amazing web sites but they lack the skills necessary on the sales and marketing side. This is where partnerships come in. If you have a great idea and have all the skills to implement the product and technical side then you may want to look for partners for the sales side. I know I could not of come close to creating everything my development team did on our state geo platform.

So, what is the point of this post?

Well I have heard so much talk of domain development, as we all have heard over the past year or so, I want to see people be successful. In most cases people will not be able to do it on their own, if you plan on building your domains into real businesses and not just websites you need to evaluate what you are good at and determine what pieces to build a business are missing from your skill set. Find people that you can team up with to fill those gaps. You may find that 1+1=3 when you do this.

Focus Focus Focus

Sometimes you just have to go heads down and focus on the task at hand.

The past couple weeks (really month) have been just that way. Blog posts have been few and far between which means my todo list of blog posts is now something like 32 items long.

All that brings me to something, as much as I have always been a bit high energy and enjoyed having 30 things going on at time, which is pretty much everyday after launching a new business (on that note have I mentioned we broke our one year mark...) , there are times that you must shut all other things out and focus on the task at hand.

This goes without saying I know, but sometimes people have a hard time recognizing when they are in the type of situation that require strict prioritization. It comes down to recognizing and then executing on the opportunity at hand.

People like to say they cannot pick which item they are working on is number one, they are all number one.  That is not always true, there are many (I would say most) times that if you really admit it there is a number one. Pick that opportunity and execute.

There are some great things going on lately with Localtek and that means that ancillary items like this blog, side projects, etc tend to take a back seat for a few weeks and the larger business takes the front seat. I have read blog posts by other domain bloggers in the past that blogging is not the most effective use of time, there are many times this is VERY true. Many times the time being spent putting out posts could be spent pushing the real business forward. That does not mean that you should not blog, but it does mean that if you are really focused on growing your business there are times it is no productive to be doing certain things (in other words, does 30 minutes working on the perfect marketing pitch for your new website provide more value to your business than a blog post).

The great thing is the hard work is already starting to pay off and I see light at the end of the tunnel. I cannot wait to blog about it when the time comes.

Thanks to Owen Frager for making me think about this a bit, yesterday when we were chatting he asked when I had time to blog, my answer was right now I don't. Well, ok maybe just this one post : )

Not sure when the last time I went this long without a post was, back to focus focus focus now though....

How To Create The Perfect Powerpoint Presentation

Most people that have ever sat through a long presentation or sales pitch have a love/hate relationship with Powerpoint. Many of the reasons for this can be tied to a few specific things that the presenter may of done wrong in the creation of the presentation. In most cases with a few tweaks the Powerpoint presentation could of been both informative and entertaining while getting the results that the presenter wanted instead of the crowd tuning out.

Over a good portion of my career I have spent quite a bit of time giving presentations, in many cases the marketing team at the company I worked for had created the slide deck, and in others I had to create the material from scratch. What I find is that in almost all cases if a marketing team created the slide deck I would need to modify the presentation quite a bit to make it fit my customers needs. The reason being is people want to try to get as much information as possible on every slide and try to have the presenter remember as little as possible.

That is a big mistake, the more information you put on the slide the less likely the crowd is to pay attention to the content.

More recently I have had to create several Powerpoint presentations from scratch, and in the past month and a half I have been working heads down on one that has really made me spend a lot of time thinking about the best way to create something that is both pointed but full of information at the same time.

So, all that said, here are several tips to help you create a presentation that will keep your crowd interested until the very last slide:

• No more than 5 bullet points per slide. Period....
• A related graphic per slide helps draw attention to the slide from the crowd, do not use clip-art.
• Do not clutter the slides with to many graphics, typically I only have one graphic strategically placed to draw attention to something.
• Numbers and percentages are great, but do not over do it.
• DO NOT EVER be the person turning around staring at the screen to read the slides, know your material, the slides are talking points only. The crowd can read the slides, you are there to tell the story.
• What ever template you use it should NOT look like it came from the mid-90's. Clean and not to flashy should be what you shoot for. Colors that do not over power the message are important.
• In most cases you should shoot for less than 20 slides (including summary and intro slide). At one point in my career I had set a rule for when ever I start my own company the sales deck could never be more than 15 slides, I have broke that slightly but in most cases I can keep it right around there.
• As little slide animation as possible, marketing folks like to go crazy with slide animations and build outs, when done right they can have a great impact, when over done it just shows that someone read the latest book on Powerpoint tweaks.

Now for the flow of the presentation, and this works for both sales decks and seminar slide decks:

• Intro slide - This is the front slide, simple, it should contain your company name, presenters name, and title of the presentation or company tag line, that is it.
• Company slide - No more than 5 points, should include things like company vision and history.
• If needed, and it is NOT always needed, a media and partner slide could be put after this. If you have had success winning awards that the audience may be familiar with it is ok to show that off. As far as partners, if it is an audience that will be familiar with the partners you have then this is a great place to outline who they are and what they bring to the table.
• Create a problem - By create a problem I do not mean make something up, I am saying show market data of what is happening that you will be providing a solution too. You are setting the table for a solution to the problem...
• It may be useful to show some independent market data after that slide showing trends, graphs, etc. Not to many numbers but a few that make the point.
• Now is the time to setup for showing the solution to the problem, 5 points, generic ideas on how to create a solution.
• Now you get to show your greatness, now that you have shown generic solutions to the problem, show what you have to hit EACH of the points that you laid out. It is important that if you laid out a problem you show a solution.
• Examples, this is where many people fall apart, they either have no real successes to show, OR, they try to show too many. Done right you should be able to get the customers heads nodding with only one, maybe two, examples. If I had to pick only two slides from my whole presentation it would be my example slides.
• Products - after you have shown your examples show what products relate to those examples.
• Time for the summary, your summary slide should be the WOW slide. Show no more than 5 points that bring it all home.

Now, the one thing that should go without saying, when I keep hitting on 5 points, DO NOT try to fit a paragraph into each one. My goal is typically they should never line wrap around to be two lines. Sometimes that is necessary. Remember, the presenter should tell the story, the presentation is simply talking points.

Also, only if it is absolutely necessary should you use a slide for each and everyone of your products (unless you only have one product).

OK, now none of the above matters if you come in with a dry, no personality, pitch. You have to get there attention. When you first stand up it is ok to make some lighthearted comment to get a laugh or really anything to catch their attention. It is very important to do this. If you do not get their attention in the first 30 seconds it is very likely you will not get it the rest of the presentation either.

Every 15 minutes break it up, do something interactive, ask a question, do something not related directly to the slide. People will drift, it is built into the human brain (read the book Brain Rules by John Medina...).

Anyway, I hope some of these tips help. I have been trying to live by these for years and sometimes some of the rules have to be broke, but I always try to use these as my guidelines.

Missouri.me and Localtek Keep On Rollin

I know the blog has been a bit quiet this week but sometimes the focus has to be on the real business and this past week was one of those. Between seminars, server growth, and customer meetings there was not much time to do much else which is just fine with me.

Although I always tell people not to confuse activity with productivity this was a week full of productive things. One of the more productive things was something I could not of imagined a week ago.

During one of our recent seminars one of our regional competitors was in the first row, now let me say that I knew of the company and had heard good things and everyone always had nice things to say about the owner of the company. The company provides various online services and technical services to small businesses throughout the area, helping them get online, promote themselves and also keep their technology running smoothly.

Well, when you have a competitor directly in front of you when you are giving your whole story that can be a bit interesting, you better have your game face on and feel confident that what you have to offer is unique and valuable. Our customers tell us that everyday so I felt real good....

During the presentation I even pointed to the individual and had direct conversation with him about their company probably witnessing some of the same things we do. It was really quite  fun and enlightening.

After the seminar I was headed to the back of the room (another story there, one of the best things ever happened, customer walks up and says ok I am ready, what do I do and how much? Keep in mind I never even talked about what our products are, now that is fun...).

The competitor stopped me after the first customer and said that he would like to look at partnering rather than competing, WOW, did not see that coming. We discussed a bit longer and decided that further meetings were in order rather quickly.

We sat down the next day and in short order were able to work out how we would do business together and I quickly learned this person had been looking for a partner he could pass over his online services business too. He had been looking for a company that understood more than just web development but had a full solution that could help these customers. Luckily my seminar came at just the right time, based on some research he had done on us before the seminar he felt comfortable.

What is great is that it turned into a very symbiotic relationship, we get a lot of requests for tech services since many times the customer see the technical side of what we do and ask if we can support their various needs, now we have someone in a region of the state that can take that on.

On a separate note we also had our first meetings with initial customers for a niche geo domain that covers a statewide industry, the site will be a business in and of itself but ties nicely into Missouri.me advertising packages as well. Keeping a common thread through product sets is always good, it benefits the customer and keeps you close to your core business, if you cannot find away that makes sense to tie two products together then it means you have moved away from your core too far. Re think if you want that business.

Anyway, just a few notes and info on why the blog may of been a bit quiet.

Sometimes It’s Just For Fun

I tend to try to spend most of my behind the keyboard time focused either on growing Localtek or my blog and most any other time is spent with the family, as anyone who has ever started a business can tell you, free time is not something you get much of. Even if you are a good time manager and are able to delegate there is always much to do. But at the same time anyone who starts a business is looking forward to that, if you ask me that is half the fun of it.

That all said, I think it is very important to not forget why you started the business in the first place (money aside on this one), in many cases, and mine I know for sure, much of it was for the love of what you knew you could accomplish by using the technology or marketing knowledge that you had wrapped up into a business model that scales and can be profitable (important to note those, write those down).

For the past couple months I had really gotten away from doing things online just for fun, whether it be interacting with people on Twitter, coming up with little web development ideas just to see what happens. In other words I was getting away from the purely fun and adventurous  side of what we all do online.

Well, what is important to note there, and I am sure it is the same with many of you, which is the whole reason this post is being put together is that in many cases it was the sense of adventure and fun that led to the main thrust of whatever business idea you are currently working on. This could of been playing around with domain name searches while wanting to start a business and realizing the good real estate is gone and then making domaining a business for you. Or in my case the love of geo names leading to the Missouri.me concept which led to the larger corporate goal of Localtek.

So, do not forget to have some fun, sometimes spending a bit of time on simply playing around can lead to your most creative ideas yet, and as you can see sometimes that leads to something even greater, all because it was fun.

I hope to within the next week do a post announcing what one of the this fun ideas turned into. You will get my point on why I think spending some creative fun time can be good.

The Best Thing An Online Marketing Company Can Hear

Today while in our sales meeting I heard on of the frequent comments I hear from people that have spoke to small businesses about online marketing, websites, etc. That comment is "I do not get any business from my website" or  "I do not remember ever getting a call from my website" or something similar.

To me this basically means I am walking out with an order or going to be getting one sometime soon. If you are someone that focuses on online advertising or web development or anything related to that field those words should be music to your ears. If you get worried when you hear that because now the customer has a negative perception about doing business on the web this is your time to turn it around and show them that you are the help they needed to make the web work for them.

Keep in mind when many small business buy or bought their websites it was done on a purely technical basis, no one actually explained to them that it was for gaining business or promoting their business online.

Their "web development partner" could of cared less in many cases if the customer ever received a visitor, they took their check and ran. Website was built, their work here was done.

Well, if these same small businesses who have the concern about business on the web based on their lack of success with it can be shown a plan to success suddenly it opens up a whole new world for them. Suddenly they can compete better with their competitors who may not have a presence online, or maybe grow their business through contacts online they did not even know had been looking for them (I have a great story about this if you want to contact me).

Either way, "I have never had any business from my website" should be music to any online advertising or marketing companies ears, listen for it and do not run away scared when you hear it, walk away with an order.

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