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If you are trying to start a small business,my advice is go with the low-hanging fruit,which simply means pretend you are a monkey. Do you want to climb all the way to the top of the tree to find a banana? Maybe, but that’s only because some smarter monkey already grabbed the bananas on the lower part of the tree, barely had to even stretch their arms to get a great breakfast. Everybody has some low-hanging fruit and you would be crazy not to reach for it first.

This exercise is called “Who Do You Know?” and it works.

You aren’t seriously going to tell me you don’t know anyone who needs to buy a product you could supply are you? Basically, you review a guided list and discover how extensive your personal network really is. Do you know anyone who matches these relationships or occupations?

Family Members - These people are probably your closest connections,not only do these relationships and roles vreate product needs, these close contacts also have their own businesses and interests that quickly expand into a new web of potential connections

• Father
  Mother
  Grandmother
  Grandfather
  Brothers
  Sisters
  Aunts
  Uncles
  Cousins
  Girlfriend
  Boyfriend

Hobbies and Interests - This is a powerful motivating force forpurchases and specialty items, and even better almost everyone you know has a high level of expertise in some hobby or interest,unless they just watch TV all day. There are a lot more than this, but this is a great start.

1. Aerobics
2. Antiques
3. Art
4. BibleSchool
5. Bicycles
6. Books
7. Boys Club
8. Cameras
9. Camping
10. Fisherman
11. Girls Clubs
12. Girls Clubs
13. Golfing
14. Gymnastics
15. Handicapped
16. Hunting
17. Helath Club
18. Karate
19. Miniture Golf
20. Music
21. Painting
22. Pets
23. Photography
24. Religion
25. Scuba Diving
26. Sewing
27. Skiing
28. Soccer
29. Softball
30. Volunteers
31. Wine
32. Woodworking

Professions and Jobs - Most everybody has one unless they just sit around watching TV all day.

Accouting
Acting
Advertising
Air Force
Airline
Alarm Systems
Architect
Army
Auctoneer
Babysitter
Banking
Barber
Beauty Salon
Bookkeeping
Brooadcasting
Brokers
Builders
Buses
Cable TV
Credit Union
Day Care
Dentists
Dermatologists
Designers
Detectives
Diet Industry
Direct Mail
Disc Jockey
Doctors
Dry Cleaners
Electrician
Engineering
Entertainment
Eye Care
Farming
Film & Video
Fireman
Florists
Food Service
Furniture
Gardens
Gift Shops
Government
Grocery Stores
Hair Care
Handyman
Helath Insurance
Hospitals
Hotel
Income Tax
Insurance
Investments
Janitor
Jewelry
Lawn care
Leasing
Libraries
Loans
Lumber
Management
Manufacturing
Mechanics
Mobile Homes
Mortgages
Motels
Movie Theaters
Museums
Navy
Newspapers
Nurses
Nutrition
Office Machines
Office Furniture
Optometrists
Orthodontists
Pediatricians
Pedicures
Perfume
Pest Cintrol
Pharmacies
Phones
Pizza
Plumbing
Police
Pools
Preschool
Printing
Property Management
Psychiatrists
Publishers
Radio
Railroads
Real Estate
Rehabilitation
Rental Agents
Reporters
Resorts
Restaurants
Roofing
Sales
Satellites
Secretaries
Security
Shoe repair
Signage
Social Services
Sporting Goods
Steam Cleaning
Surgeons
T-Shirts
Teachers
Telemarketing
Therapists
TitleCompanies
Towing
Training
Transmissions
Trucking
Unions
Universities
Vending
Weddings

Yep,these are long lists but this kind of data mining of yourown big juicy brain can really pay off. Find out who you know explore those connections and see if it doesn’t give you an idea you can use.

How much traffic can I get from a #1 ranking in Google?

A question that people always want to know is how much is a google #1 ranking worth. The answer is obviously going to be pretty different based on the keyword’s popularity among human beings who search for it. Obviously, you have some insight into this if you have a site ranking well already. But, suppose you don’t. People will give you BS advice like running test campaigns in adsense, which will tell you many things, but it won’t tell you how popular the top organic result is going to be. Let’s break it down to what we can know about Google results in a general fashion.

We can tell how popular each position on the front page of Google is going to be.

h/t to Marketing Hub

Now google mucks around with the page composition at the top of their SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) constantly. And this chart may predate OneBox

but, this is still prety much what most Google SERPs look like at my house. Note that among other things, it confirm the belief that #10 is worth more than #9 in terms of traffic. Anyway, now we know the percentage clickthrough share that a Google position has. But that means nothing unless we know something about traffic volume, which means we are flailing around helplessly like a bird wthout feathers. “Help, Uncle Joe!” We would need traffic data for a site that holds a position on the search term we are interested in - and we can’t get that. Should we use Alexa?

Luckily there is a site that ranks well on a bazillion search terms, and makes their traffic stats public.

It’s Wikipedia! Yes, Wikipedia, the vaguely accurate behemoth beloved by lazy high-school students and their mature form, the lazy blogger. Wikipedia makes their stats public! Here’s a handy little tool to query Wikipedia traffic stats

So if we have a term in wikipedia we can get a rough estimate of its traffic. Now, a lot of that traffic isn’t from Google, but I bet you a whole lot of it is. Estimates of Google’s market share in search are easy to come by but differ widely, between about 40% and 75%. I’m going to peg it at 50% because I think the lowest estimate takes an overly negative view of the effectiveness of individual google searches, and 10% roughly matches my statistics on how many Google referrals are repeats from the same user in a quick period of time.

Case Study For Estimating Traffic From a Google #1 - monkey

Let’s say you wanted to be #1 for monkey. Wikipedia received 130656 visits to that page in February 2008. I’m going to pretend that all of its traffic came from search, and I think an awful lot of it does come from search but certainly not all of it. Monkey happens to be #1 on Google, on Yahoo and on MSN, which means it should get optimal traffic from everyone, and then based on our earlier assumption, Google is going to get half of that or 65328 a month. #1 on the google serps page is going to get 56% of the available traffic or 36583. #2 is going to get about 8800 visits. That’s plenty to optimize for.

Anyway, this back of the napkin stuff is fun, and I think that if you worked hard on the fudge factors like what share of wkipedia traffic comes from Google, you have a method for doing this that is more accurate than using a PPC keyword service or Hitwise to estimate this.

The site with the wikipedia traffic stats also has a cool list of the top Wiki pages by traffic, which is a good read if you’re geeking out on SEO or you are developing your very own spam blog.

You can see the mood of the people on this. It’s seems to be fueled by the honest anger of small business executives.They are using tactics reminiscent of Ron Paul activists, and that’s a pretty good formula for success. Here’s another video

This post has all you need to know from the enormous Ebay boycott thread that is the source of the whole thing.

And that new video on the tube.. What an awesome experience!!

Have no more auctions on ebay as of this afternoon and am feeling relieved… now I can spend the evening at ola to start building my business, a much stronger one with support and people who like the “flea market feel”… Ahhhhhhh… To breath freely again… To actually see a little profit… What a blessing….

Stocks are down, Listings are down, and unless someone out there listens to the one’s who are left behind, I see only failure for this company…

BOYCOTT VICTORIOUSLY!! FEB 18 THRU 25

These people are Paultards on spring break. eBay had better look out.

It’s getting some news coverage in advance which is a big deal. h/t to this BMW forum

for a video:

But the Employee of the Month at JP Communications? They enjoy the health and recreational benefits of the Hawaii Chair

Try to top that, Other Wholesale Search Engines! I’m hula-ing my way to a slimmer, sexier me, as we speak. (eww)

Anyway, watching the video I take note that:

a) the guy at the beginning is gesturing and talking to “Tamara” who clearly is not there.

b) Then he sends it over to Erin Lee, who in both her shots on this clip, looks like she is barely able to stay on the thing. In her second scene, she looks like she’s trying to stay on a mechanical bull.

c) The guy who says “It feels great on my abs” : is either confused about anatomy or didn’t feel comfortable saying where the Hawaii Chair was really working.

I ran across this new article over at the News Room, it’s a great idea, its a product that can be sold at grocery stores, it’s goofy and it performs amazing feats. It’s the BAGGLER. Anyway no matter how awesome the Baggler is, the opportunity it presents is even better because here’s something wholesalers provide by the bucket load. Crazy, wild products that you haven’t seen in stores, because you don’t know the right stores.

Everyone loves a Blinky!

I often refer to this site as ‘The Greatest Site In the World” but that’s because I love blinkies and can stare at that page for several hours. I just think it’s funny to have a blinking martini attached to you, I’m thinking tie tack, or maybe on a knit cap - it would be a nice snowboarding accessory.

Not Sure What This is Used For

But, I like it! Please enjoy Nose With Hair!

“Tiny compressor inside helps him blow bubbles from his bottom.”

With a quote like that, I hardly need to write anything. HEY HOLD ON… From now on, this is a Wacky Products Blog…

I’m not sure who you would give a Bubble Geezer to as a gift. Maybe a retiring high school band teacher? I would avoid giving this at, a bridal shower or as a Xmas gift for your boss but I’m a careful cat.

I’m probably about to do about 90 wacky product posts in a row. Those of you interested in this blog’s survival and prospering please send me links - or post them as comments on the blog and I will check them out.

If you’re not too busy watching the Global FInancial Market crash, (if you are you might want to check out this blog from some n00b who just lost 31K in the futures market), then perhaps you have a second to discuss Quickbooks Online.

Quickbooks Online is the small business equivalent of Quicken. A web-based solution for an accounting package is highly desirable because it allows everyone who needs to look at the financials the ability to do so, without having to transmit a data file. Sending around a data file is not only terribly insecure but it also creates problems in terms of making sure all stakeholders have the most current update to the accounts.

We love them newfangled Web-based applications, because, he chants in a sing-song tone,

1. You don’t have to install them
2. They are platform independent
3. No viruses
4. Can use API’s

And then we have Quickbooks - which only works on Windows and even worse only works on IE!

We sent them a friendly note about this, asking how much longer they were going to keep us out.

We’ve heard from many people that they’d like to access QuickBooks Online Edition (QBOE) from other operating systems (like Macintosh) and other browsers (like Firefox). We don’t have a version of Online Edition designed to run on the Mac or in non Internet Explorer browsers. However, we have heard that some users use a PC emulator to run QBOE on their Macintosh systems. Some customers have reported that there can be performance issues when using an emulator, most notably speed problems, so we encourage you to do some research to determine if this is a reasonable solution for you.

OK, I’m used to emulators, after all I dont run windows or a mac. But, the idea that I would use an emulator to run a Web Browser. Even worse, run an emulator to run Internet Explorer? Ha, Ha. it is too laugh.

If an emulator is not an option, or you would just like to be notified when we add support for the Macintosh or Firefox, you can sign up here:

https://sc.accounting.quickbooks.com/interested/interested.cfm?case_channel_id=12&preselected=32

Quicken Online, the personal equivalent of QuickBooks Online Edition, runs on a Mac. QuickBooks is a BIT more complicated, but not really. Why would I want to sign up for a wating list, so you can tell me when your product finally does what I want. I’ll probably find an alternative first.

Here comes the good part,

If you’re interested in knowing why QBOE chose to only support Internet Explorer, our reasoning is as follows:

QuickBooks Online Edition is a web based Software Application, not just a Web Page that displays static information. While designing a Web Page to be available cross platform is very routine (though still presenting its challenges), creating a Software Application requires tremendous cost and effort to develop and maintain for any one single platform.

For example, AutoRecall is a feature that allows you to begin typing a name and QuickBooks Online Edition fills in likely selections. This requires a lot of interaction with the browser and is not standardized across platforms, browser versions, or browser brands. Writing a web application places far more requirements on a browser than even a highly-interactive web site. We’re not 100% satisfied with Internet Explorer on Windows, but it comes the closest.

So, given the challenges of application development, we made a very simple business decision to target the platform with 95% of the market, so that we are available to the widest range of Small Business Customers who need a web-based accounting application. At this time, the effort from both the engineering and testing perspectives is too large an undertaking given the market share of other platforms and browsers.

See, now you understand right. If they didn’t lock it down to Windows and IE, then it wouldn’t be able to try and tell you who you are about to write a check to. That’s their big argument. Sure you could do that in Firefox if the database was interoperable with javascript or lots of other things. Sure, the program isn’t really that good at guessing. Sure, YOU PROBABLY KNOW WHO YOU ARE GOING TO WRITE A CHECK TO ANYWAY.  Nonetheless, Quickbooks OE better stick to IE. Firefox is neck and neck with IE 6 for market share and well ahead of IE 7. If they would make it work with Firefox, then it would work with the Mac as well.

What’s the end result? Clerks have to work harder producing reports because Sausage-fingered bosses can’t access the interface. I find it hard to believe that Intuit really wants to tempt the wrath of bookkeeping clerks the world over.

I was fortunate enough to win an iPod in a giveaway from the goWholesale blog. The contest involved leaving a comment on their blog, and the randomly selected winner was me! The older I get, the more I win stuff. Of course, I’m like a blind salamander poking away at my laptop in my cave, so I see and know all.

The wife thinks the new iPod nano is the bee’s knees. Maybe you’ve seen this ad with Feist

. Its cool, its an impossibly small device for what it does, it’s lighter than my platinum necklace..

I have never been a big fan of this kind of contest, because while I contributed honestly, I entered simply to win the prize. goWholesale followed some good principles of doing a giveaway on a blog.

They asked for a real contribution, that is they asked for a substantive comment on an issue closely related to them. I think if there was a flaw it was that the question they asked was not one that gets people very fired up. Honestly, they might find that their readers more likely to connect with something like “give me your 10 word pitch for your product or service” or “tell us what’s the hottest product in your niche”

They offered a compelling reward - that iPod is pretty slick.

And they got people involved by offering the contest out to several other blogs (it was kind of funny to look and see who has readers and who doesn’t.

I think what you really have to do with a contest is push the marketing externally. You have to be prepared to do a full court press marketing the giveaway.

There are a ton of places to market