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Hello Mixergy Friends/Fans/Community

October 14, 2011 in Business, E-Commerce, Entrepreneurship, Misc, Retention, The Speck with 2 Comments

Welcome to the Mixergy community!

I’m guessing you’ve ended up here today as a result of the Mixergy Master Class on improving Membership Site Retention I recently did with Andrew Warner.

If you enjoyed the class and want to learn more about creating online membership communities with rock-solid retention, then here are a few suggested next steps:

  • Check out my posts on The Speck - I truly believe that anyone can find, cultivate & retain a “speck.” An online community with bullet-proof member retention is one of the, if not the, best online business models in the world.

  • Subscribe to this blog via RSS, or drop your email in the box on the right below my photo.

  • Definitely check out MembershipBlackBox.com – This is a new membership training program I’m working on that should be ready within the month.

  • Visit this page if you already own or operate an online membership and are looking to decrease your attrition and increase your membership retention rates.

  • Join me in New York City on Sunday, October 23, 2011, where I’ll be speaking and taking part in this session on member retention with Stu McLaren of WishList Member.

  • Drop me an email regarding anything else, and let me know what you thought of the class.

Thanks for stopping by.

 

Noah

The Speck

September 28, 2010 in Business, Creativity, E-Commerce, Internet Marketing, Life, Success, The Speck with 17 Comments

The speck is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.

When I found myself stuck in a dead-end office job five years ago, I quickly realized that trying to come up with the next Google or Facebook, in my spare time, was probably not going to happen. It looked as if I would continue working in the dead-end office job.

That’s when the idea of the speck came to me.

The idea was simple.

With close to a billion people using the Internet, I only needed to find 300 people, who shared my interests, were interested in what I had to offer, that would be willing to pay me $30 bucks a month, and I could find myself an office with a window.

My own office.

Only 300 people out of a billion. A teeny-tiny, yet extremely powerful, particle of dust. This is what I call the speck.

With a simple concept, like the speck, and a concrete goal on paper (300 x $30), I was off to the races.

I hit that target within a couple of weeks and left my job less than six months later. I haven’t been back to the windowless office in over five years.

Seth Godin talks about Tribes and the importance of finding your tribe. When I heard Seth speaking live last week in Chicago, he spoke about musicians and their ability to harness the power of the Internet to find their tribe and build a successful career at the same time.

The old model worked something like this: Write the music, take a loan out and record your demo, hope to be discovered by a record label, and keep hoping.

We could dive deeper into this old broken model, but your chances of being discovered and actually making money were next to none.

The new model: As Seth suggested, find 3000 fans who dig your music from that ever-growing pool of over a billion people. But find the 3000 who’d be willing to buy your new music for $30 bucks a year, and you’ve made it.

You’re done! Keep producing your art. Keep doing what you love, and earn a solid living at the same time.

$90,000 bucks a year is nothing to scoff at.

Some might argue that as the overall size of the group grows, it becomes harder and more complicated to find your speck.

3000 out of a billion.

300 out of a billion.

100 out of a billion.

In Tribes, Seth stressed that in many cases, the tribes have already been formed and they’re simply looking for a leader. “We need you to lead us”, the book’s tagline read.

I see it like this. You can find your speck faster than ever before. Your speck might even find you. There’s a good chance people on line are looking for you, or someone just like you. They’re ready to cling to you like dust mites on your Grandmother’s dining room table.

Finding 3000 people who like your music out of a billion may be easier then you think.

Finding 300 people to pay you $30 bucks a month for a service or product that you’ve poured your heart and soul into, and created just for them, is easier than you think.

Who knows, maybe your speck is even smaller. Maybe you only need a hundred people, or you may need more.

It doesn’t really matter. The whole point is this - in the big scheme of things, all you probably need to achieve success, beyond your wildest dreams, is nothing more than a tiny speck of people.

Back in 2005, I found a speck, organized them, and signed them up within two weeks. Done.

Five years later, the two weeks it took me to connect a speck of people can potentially happen a heck of a lot faster today. Maybe even overnight. All it takes is one good sneeze.

The speck is a small but insanely powerful concept for mapping your plan for success. As the size of the number of connected Internet users grows, your chances of actually finding your speck increases tremendously.

It worked for me, it can work for you.

What Matters Now

December 18, 2009 in Books, Business, Career & Work, E-Commerce, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Social Media, Success, Technology with 4 Comments

Looking for some direction in 2010?whatmatter2

Seth Godin has compiled a free eBook titled “What Matters Now” with a collection of ideas from over 70 “big thinkers” about the world in 2010.

You can download the eBook free directly by clicking the button below. WhatMatters

Here are a few of my favourite ideas, thoughts or quotes from the book.

Seth Godin – This year, you’ll certainly find that the more you give the more you get.

Chris Meyer writes about the evolution of capitalism but does so by comparing business to Darwin’s finches of the Galapagos Islands. Darwin observed that the finch’s beaks would evolve and change shape to match the form of the flowers which provided their food.

Chris suggests that businesses will need to evolve as capitalism changes in our new economy. Chris suggests that the game is changing and businesses in  developed countries will need evolve their beaks and learn the new rules of the game.

Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell’s story on “Bacon Salt” and how it’s our job to find the “one percenters.” The 1% of people deep in the trenches of a niche who become the roots of word of mouth marketing.  Many are looking for the masses right out of the gate. Focus on finding the one percent first and allow them to get the roots buried deep into the soil.

William Taylor suggests that in the past businesses found a feeling of comfort by staying in the middle of the road and today the middle of the road is the most unsafe place to be. Where is your business?

John Wood – “The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.”

Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos.com) – Everything Tony learned about business he learned from Poker. Here’s an example: The guy who never loses a hand is not the guy who makes the most money in the long run.

Guy Kawasaki on Evangelism. Guy’s message is usually pretty consistent. He is constantly hammering home what it takes to be successful. You think he’s trying to tell us something?

Dave Balter on “Dumb”

For example,

  • Putting a college Yearbook online was considered dumb..
  • Limiting small micro updates on the web to 140 characters was considered dumb.

“Recognize that your dumb idea may be tomorrow’s huge breakthrough.”

I remember when the iPod was first announced. It was considered “dumb.” Why would anyone want to carry all their music on a digital pocket device?

Look at the hilarious comments (especially the last one) left on CNET”s very first article about the iPod being introduced

“Naw …. wont take off”
“This will be the last thing from Apple ever, they’ll never be successful with this.”
“apple is going to go bankrupt with this new mp3 player thing. mp3s are going to be obsolete within the next couple years anyway”
“This is crazy. Next thing we know Apple will move all the Macs to Intel processors”

WOW. In case you don’t get why the last one is the funniest it’s because just a few years later Apple did switch to using the PC’s Intel Processor.

Gary Vaynerchuk and the “Thank You Economy.”

Gary is  right on the money and I’ve seen it in action. Two years ago if you made a video, posted an online petition and tweeted about Frito Lays not delivering enough Fritos to your restaurant, nobody cared.

Today, Frito’s headquarters calls you up and takes care of the situation personally. It’s an amazing world and the tools are here. How are you using them?

My father-in-law over at Quoteflections has done three awesome posts of his favorite quotes from the book. Check them out as well. #1 , #2 , #3

~Noah

Outsourcing Saved Me $8040 In One Day

August 8, 2007 in Business, E-Commerce, Technology, Time & Money with 2 Comments

Part 2 – Outsourcing Saved Me $8040 In One Day

Yesterday I mentioned how I was beginning a small experiment on outsourcing. As I had said in my first post, I’ve been outsourcing a large majority of my work for years but I’ve been doing it privately through sites like Rentacoder.com and elance.com

After reading the 4-Hour Work Week, remember I mentioned I contacted the two companies that Timothy Ferriss mentions in his book, Brickwork and GetFriday.com
I still haven’t heard back from GetFriday in three days.

Continue Reading…

India Needs To Outsource To America

August 7, 2007 in E-Commerce, Time & Money with 4 Comments

Last week while on a vacation I got a chance to read “The 4 Hour Work Week.” I’d been hearing so much about this book that when I saw it in Bancroft, Ontario (of all places) I picked it up.

I got back to the cottage and dove right into it. I immediately became a big fan. It seemed to be a mirror image of my career minus all the crazy and far more exciting & eccentric things Timothy Ferriss is doing. The parts about Tim’s family or friends asking, “what do you do for a living?” or “where do you work?” really echoed to me.

Continue Reading…

Your Customers Are Human Not ATM Machines

July 17, 2007 in Business, E-Commerce, Entrepreneurship, Time & Money with 0 Comments

About a week ago, on a forum I regularly visit and participate at, one post last week really just rubbed me the wrong way. I won’t get back into who or what was said but it essentially made the point that what mattered was not, who was on the other end of the computer, but how many sales you could get out of them.
Continue Reading…

Dane Morgan Gives It Away

June 23, 2006 in Business, E-Commerce, Entrepreneurship with 0 Comments

Remember my post a few weeks back? This one here?

A good friend and member of mine, Dane Morgan, has given away a stellar idea. He says, “how about a community where people can engage and discuss lyrics to music.” You can see a blurb from his post below or visit his site using the link at the bottom.

I think it’s a fantastic idea! I really do, let’s face it! We’ve got eBible discussions, wine wikis, etc etc..Bands like discussion areas where fans can discuss their music.

Bring this to a central location, monetize the site and I think you’ve got a great little business idea. He’s right though, this would need to be done right. It would need to function better than MySpace and be clean, easy to navigate and search for your fav. bands. In turn, this would put you in touch with possibly millions of other fans.

“But if you are looking for an idea for a new site to start as a small home business, you might want to give this a shot.The idea is simple. It’s a community based site in the full flavor of Web 2.0. You would want a membership script and give each user a profile page and a publishing page. Then the idea is to encourage conversations between the users with a little twist. They are supposed to post their comments to one another in song lyrics. I call the site concept songversations (and at the time of this writing songversations.com is unregistered).”

DaneMorgan.com

A couple new things I’m into….

May 30, 2006 in Business, E-Commerce, Entrepreneurship, Misc, Projects, Technology, Time & Money with 0 Comments

I wanted to share a few new possible revenue streams I’ve created for myself. They may never bring any income, or they may turn out to be new sources of income! Either way, I’m doing them and excited about them. You may find these to be opportunities for yourself to explore and I recommend you do so!

First, I got an invite to be an Ether Beta Tester. Ether is pretty cool. It’s a pay-per-call phone service where you can pay to call and actually speak to people on various topics. My topics are Google Adsense, Adwords and E-Commerce. The way it works is people will pay to call me for a certain length of time. During that time, I’ll answer questions, talk to the person and hopefully give sound advice.

Ether then takes a cut of my “cost-per-call.” They ask you to set your own fees. I set my time at $49.95 for a 15-minute phone call. I chose this price point for 2 reasons. First, I think that’s a good amount of time to quickly go through Adsense placement or look at your website and give you some helpful tips on how to improve things. We don’t need an hour. Secondly, if I give you even 1, 2, or 3 tips that you take into consideration and it boosts your Adsense income from .10 a day to $1.00 a day! Then you’ve made a wise investment!

I may try different price points and times in the future but for now I thought this would be a decent starting point. I’ve found various “experts” charging much, much, more. I was able to find one guy charging a few hundred for an hour of time. I guess if you could get totally sound advice that actually paid off, it would be a wise investment!

Anyways, if you’re interested in calling me to discuss your Adsense sites or E-Commerce efforts, all you need to do is click the “call-me” link in the right hand menu.

The other opportunity I’m trying out is Lulu.com
I read about Lulu.com is the most recent copy of Business 2.0. The idea is cool. Essentially, if you’ve written a book, you can instantly publish a paperback, hardcopy or digital copy for no cost. Lulu.com will store your book and when it’s ordered, they will bind, create and ship your book. You are paid about 85% of the cost at which you set. The other costs are provided to Lulu for shipping and binding costs. Pretty cool right?

I think so! There are others doing similar things but I find Lulu.com is way ahead of the rest of them. Lulu.com is essentially a self-publishing warehouse. You can become a published author in about 5 minutes (after you’ve written the content) I like the way it works especially for Digital Products. If you create an e-book and need another avenue to get it out there then Lulu.com is the answer. I’m tempted to order my own bound copy of my own book just to see the finished product.

I’m also excited since I have so many books, documents and reports that I plan to get up on Lulu.com in the coming days. I’ll share the links with you. You may be interested in purchasing.

[tags] lulu, ether, adsense, adwords, internet marketing, revenue, income, e-business, ebiz [/tags]

Why you shouldn’t start your own business!

May 17, 2006 in Business, Career & Work, E-Commerce, Entrepreneurship, Misc, Success, Time & Money with 14 Comments

Why you shouldn’t start your own business!

After all, over 90% of businesses fail so chances are if you’re reading this and pondering with the thought of starting your own business the statistics are in your favor that you will fail.

As I researched today’s post, I started with the best search query my brain could conjure up. The search term I came up with was “90% of businesses fail” The reason I chose this search query was because I had heard it so many times. You hear it from your friends when you tell them your ideas, your family members, your co-workers and, your current employers. They all do there best to reiterate to you that the statistics say you’re destined for failure.

So I hit submit,  and the almighty google gave me 50,700,000 results for “90% of businesses fail” in an astonishing .85 seconds. I quickly glanced at my first result. Sure enough, we find our first result referring us to a study that concludes the reason 90% of businesses fail is because of lack of knowledge and the skills required to properly run a business.

I believe this is utter nonsense, look around and I’m sure we can find some extremely dumb and non-intelligent people running extremely successful businesses. I don’t claim to be a genius or expert in anything. I only try my best and do whatever I can to achieve success.

There are plenty of other reasons why you shouldn’t start a business. Let me give you a few to make this article even more dismal. Don’t worry, that’s my sarcasm coming through! You’ll have to learn how to read me properly.

The other reasons why you shouldn’t start a business are listed below. I’ll comment on them after writing this list.

  1. You have no money.
  2. You aren’t creative.
  3. You can’t think of a business to start.
  4. You’re scared of failing.
  5. You’re disorganized.
  6. You are in debt up to your knees. Related to post #1
  7. Spouse won’t let you.
  8. You’re too busy.

Having no money is a very common reason why many people shouldn’t start a business. After all, I’ll be the first to tell you that if you have thousands of dollars in credit card debt or other bad debs (mortgages are good debt) than these may actually truly be good reasons NOT to start a business at this moment. And if you aren’t creative, or you can’t even think of a business to start then really, what’s the point? Besides the mess in your office, the piled up credit card bills, your nagging wife,  your 9-5 job, and the mounting self doubt what else could possibly be a reason not to start a business?

Oh yeah! I almost forgot, remember what we started with? Over 90% of businesses fail! So the stats say you’re screwed. What’s the point?

Many other writers, friends, family, co-workers and current employers would end the article right here. Your chances of success are pretty much none, zip, nada, goodbye. So why continue with this post?

Well because, I have something to tell you…. They are all wrong.

IN FACT, Your odds of becoming successful on your own terms are actually much better than you think. I’m not kidding. Sure things may be tough, but it’s more than possible to be wildly successful. Let me try and show you how.

Right off the bat, forget the 90% of businesses failing statistic.

Its garbage, its a sham, its hogwash, its jealously, but mostly its fear!

The majority of the times you hear this statement from other writers, friends, family, co-workers and current employers what you’re actually hearing is the sound of fear. I’m not kidding!

As funny as it sounds, most people including other writers, friends, family, co-workers and current employers are scared or jealous that you might actually make it! They are afraid that while you go on with a much greater chance of creating and controlling your own destiny, their own destiny will be created by an employer. So next time you are told the awful statistic when you tell someone you’re going to start your own business, look them strait in the eye and conjure up the biggest, saddest puppy dog eyes you can make and say “well I guess thats the chance I’ll have to take.”

Don’t break eye contact, be strong, and with your nose sniff like a dog. Then you’ll know what fear smells like. It’s their fear.

What about the rest of the reasons why you shouldn’t start your own business?

Well, they are all plausible and valid reasons. You may just have to rethink your strategy because they can all be overcome.

For example, if you have no money and are in debt up to your ears then it may not be wise to invest in a heavy capital intensive business from the gecko.

For example, if you’re heavily in debt but have a dream to start your own magazine, it may be wise to start online before investing 100k in a printing press. If you’re looking for the greatest opportunity for the lowest bang for your buck then I suggest starting a web business. This could be as simple as selling junk on eBay. In fact, if you haven’t tried selling on eBay you really should!

Just grab some junk from the garage, snap a photo and put it on eBay. I bet you’ll sell it. I’ve watched my father sell pieces of scrap metal. Yes, scrap metal. It’s hilarious and millions of people are making it huge every day on eBay selling the most bizarre items.

Would if you aren’t creative and can’t think of a business to start? C’mon! This is just a lame excuse! Start anything then!

We ALL have something we like. Start a blog about Gardening if you love gardening, put some Google Adsense on there and just write! Don’t worry about Search Engine Optimization or traffic for a while! Just forget about it and write. I can almost guarantee you’ll start to see some clicks here and there.

Don’t get caught up in the hoopla of trying to make millions of your website the first week. Just write good content. If you build it, they will come. This has never been more true than on the web. Except you can’t just build a field, forget about it and expect them to come. You’ve got to make an extraordinary field! Surrond it with corn stalks, build stands, install a scoreboard, hire popcorn vendors, get the best dirt you can find, and make it  a little better every day.

If you’re totally disorganized, starting a business can be the perfect way to teach you organization skills. There are so many unique tools and websites out there these days to help with the basic functions of running a business! They can also help you stay very organized. Even if your desk is a mess, you’ll at least look organized to your customers.

If you run into the situation where your spouse won’t let you start a business, chances are your spouse feels that way for a reason. It’s not that he/she doesnt think you’re smart enough.

For example, you may be asking if you can quit your job and try and start a web business. This is the wrong approach. You need to start your  business in your spare time and spend some time nourishing it, learning and teaching your spouse about what you’re doing. Eventually, you’ll start to make money and soon that money will turn into more money and soon you’re spouse will see the advantages of you running your business full-time.

I never recommend leaving a job, (even though it sucks and you’re miserable) until you have a decent plan and have started your venture on your own time.
I hoped you enjoyed today’s article and it motivated you a bit and showed you all the reasons why you SHOULD start a business.

[tags] success, money, entrepreneur, motivation, blogs, business [/tags]

Welcome to NoahFleming.com Online

May 8, 2006 in Business, Career & Work, E-Commerce, Entrepreneurship, Misc, Success, Technology, Time & Money with 12 Comments

My name is Noah Fleming. I am happily married and live in “beautiful” Windsor, Ontario, Canada. I love my wife, family and extended family. My theory on life, although while nothing groundbreaking, many of us will never put this thinking into action. Life is short so make the best of it. I always look at my parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles and think to myself, we potentially have about 80 years with these people, anywhere from 10-30 years with grandparents. Much of this is assuming we live normal lives that don’t end abruptly for any number of reasons. That being said, I knew very early on in life that I couldn’t spend my days doing something I didn’t absolutely love 250%.

I have been considered an entrepreneur for many years now, I’ve launched various successful small businesses, created websites in a few hours and late sold them as solid profit-making machines for tens of thousands of dollars. I have a strategy of always looking to create various sources of income. I am quite young and for most of my working life, my own personal income has nearly doubled, tripled or quadrupled that in which I made working various jobs. The jobs that made me realize I was bound to be an entrepreneur included things like, paper boy, video store rental clerk, metal stamping  (HELL), brick cleaner (yes, I cleaned mortar off of used bricks), lawn cutter, snow shovel’er, waiter, innkeeper, university teaching assistant, research assistant, catering assistant, non-profit organization communications officer and I’m sure I’ll add to this list when I remember…

Now, I focus primarily on my own businesses and websites. I also place a very strong focus on helping others. I no longer work for anyone except my customers and myself. My goals are simple, to teach as many as I can how they too can make a substantial income online.

I do all this because I believe so strongly with what I said in the first paragraph. I used to work in an office and I lasted 8 months. I can’t imagine anyone has unhappily worked in a position for 10,20,30 years. I just can’t imagine it. Life is too short and these days, opportunities are abundant.

Finally, as my first post concludes which is also the “about me,” I will say this. I don’t ever profess to be a genius at anything or know some mysterious secret about building wealth online. I learned the way we all should, through hard work and many, many, many countless hours up until three or four in the morning striving just to make a dollar or two online. I do however know many things that I plan to share with members of this paid blog.

Anyways, this is NoahFleming.com I hope you like it.