The Blog - Where Business Collides with Human Nature

Start a Business Online Howto 1 – Aim, Fire, Ready – Use Your Brain

Where Are You?

You are; 

...working very hard to make money with an online business and swinging the proverbial bat but missing the ball continuously.  You try wearing your hat on backwards, a different bat, different shoes, read another book, and the list goes on.  You are trying to follow the mantra:  "if at first you don't succeed, try... try again".

You are;

...looking for a job and not interested in an online business but are peeking here to consider options for income.

You are;

...sick, sick, sick... and tired of reading emails, blogs, online eBooks, articles and find that none of them have the answer... and yet each of them seem to know a piece of the puzzle.  You have heard an Internet marketer once say: "email them until they buy or they die" and the actions of many seem to confirm this.

You are:

...just starting.  Fresh, new... positive attitude with an open mind to the possibilities.

There are many more questions to consider in determining who you are and they are very important.

Topics: Free Software Planning Business Success Tips Personal Development

Need More Time? Increase Productivity with IFTTT and Zapier

Almost every everyone carries a cell phone in his/her pocket. When one speaks of cellphones, the conversation turns immediately to mobile applications. Amongst the clutter of many apps, products, and services, it is often difficult to keep on top of things. The more options there are to choose, the harder it is to manage.

What if your email client could organize your emails in folders without having to do it manually? What if you could get a notification every time your competitor made a change on their website? What if you could track all hashtags related to your business? Thanks to automation services like IFTTT and Zapier, you can do all this.

Topics: Free Software apps Productivity

ThrowAwayEmail for “Fake” Disposable Email Addresses - It’s a Scary World

ThrowAwayMail.com

is a disposable email address service. When you visit ThrowAwayMail.com a new email address is generated for you. The generated email address can immediately receive email. Any email that is received will show up on the main page. No one other than you will see the emails that are received.

It is important to note that an email address expires after 48 hours. When an email address has expired, the email address and any received emails will be gone. A new email address will be generated upon visiting this website.

There are many reasons for using a disposable email. You may want to give someone an email address without revealing your identity. Or you may want to sign up for a website or web service but you are concerned that the website will send you spam in the future. Completing surveys, completing forms on a site you are unsure of, to put off an annoying sales person, or when a company email address won’t do… these are but a few examples.

Topics: Security Free Software Email Marketing Facebook

Take Action on Your Innovative Ideas with Infographic Software Tools

The next big idea will happen at the most inopportune moment and the idea you share will no doubt get immediate resistance. This leads to arguments and potentially the need for pursuasion and selling. (which is time you could be using to take action on your idea).

The most creative ideas can quickly die a quiet death when  "I have a million dollar idea!" turns into squiggles, chicken scratches and unintelligible dribble that only the author can understand.

PowerPoint and other powerful tools can become an arsenal to confuse instead of creating clarity.

With a primary goal of "speed to market and personalization", learning sophisticated software does not always empower an innovator to start NOW.  

If you have a plan to make an  impact, conquer the world or change the community, you will recruit others to join you in your mission:  investors, staff, peers, advocates, potential customers, cheer squads, advisory board members, and more.  They will appreciate your enthusiasm but will need more than a lame squiggle to get it done.

With PowerPoint experience and 200+ tools in my toolchest, it is more difficult to get my attention with new free or low-cost software.  If you can show me a way to help people make more impact by taking action on their ideas without a steep learning curve, you get my attention.

Topics: Presentation Tools Business Software Free Software Graphics. Design

The Best Free SEO Tools for your Business Success

The Best Free SEO Tools for your business success:

With HubSpot's all-in-one-marketing system, there are many SEO tools built-in and already available. As a result, I have not found it as necessary to use as many SEO tools.

Even so, here are many SEO software tools that will compliment any marketing system, including those using HubSpot.

Topics: SEO Free Software

I'm too busy - RescueTime saves the day (and hours)

Where does the time go?  Time management is much more complicated than during the pre-Internet era.  Slipping from the Internet to the brick and mortar and back again in a flash can make even the most organized and disciplined person become distracted and unproductive.

The very software that was meant to save time soon becomes an obsession to conquer and the media hype is saying: "Do more social media" or "Get another badge".  

You can track time the old fashioned way.  Grab a yellow pad, record activities every 15 minutes and over the course of one week a pattern emerges.

Instead of doing it the hard way, use a tool like RescueTime.com.

Topics: Time Management Free Software

Don’t Leave The Airport Without These iOS Apps

Anyone who has ever traveled on business knows that unique brand of anxiety that comes from being away from the office for extended periods of time. Sure you can call the office to check and make sure the place hasn’t burned down or you can send an email just to check in, but there is still a disconnect. Thankfully there are plenty of iPad and iPhone apps that allow travelers to stay connected to their office, even from across the globe. Here are a few of the best:

Topics: Business Software Free Software apps Business Travel

List of 11 Webinar Software Options for Online Web Meetings and Conferences

Here are eleven great webinar software options for your online meetings, conferences and webinars.  The good news:  Several are free to use.  The list of online webinar software is in no particular order.  Of course these tools are perfect for your inbound marketing plan and will no doubt inspire many new guerrilla marketing ideas.  (The list has grown beyond eleven and yes, I saved the best for last in the list below).

Topics: Presentation Tools Software Video Marketing Free Software Inbound Marketing Webinars

A Great List of 13 Online Scheduling Software Programs

Scheduling meetings shouldn't require multiple emails. Give prospects and customers appointment scheduling power with a meeting scheduler.

A meeting scheduler is software that facilitates a group of individuals scheduling a meeting easily and quickly.

Rather than having back-and-forth conversations finding a time that works, a meeting scheduler is a link that your team can send to one or more individuals allowing them to see available times for the person or group they are trying to book with.

Topics: Software Time Management Sales Free Software

Time Management, Productivity, Project Tracking Software | RescueTime

"On average RescueTime 3 hours and 54 minutes worth of productive time per week per person."  RescueTime is a tool that allows you to easily understand and optimize how you and your team spends their time and attention. RescueTime gets it done with NO DATA ENTRY. RescueTime is all automatic.  You install a small application on the computers of choice and the software and web sites which are actively being used is automatically tracked.

Topics: Time Management Free Software Productivity

The 6 Best Screen Capture Software Tools

Here is a short list of the best screen capture software tools for business owners.  There are other screen capture tools but these will provide great documentation and support along with a very short learning curve helping you avoid time consuming training.  I personally use either Snag-it or Jing most often, but as a fan of Faststone, it is tough to ignore their product, Capture. 

Topics: Business Software Free Software

Small Business Success Tip Includes TheBrain


The Five Essentials to Business Success can be found via Google with a few clicks. The essentials are simple and can be evaluated quickly. A visual mind map such as TheBrain empowers you to brainstorm visually on your computer. 

Once you have the explicit knowledge of the five essentials to business success and put them in the “important quadrant” as referred to in the book by Stephen Covey “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, remember these four words: “It is not enough”.

Topics: Business Success Tools Business Success Free Software