Month: February 2008

27
Feb
2008

Does Your Email Work?

I’ve just had someone write to me and ask for the password to my first protected post. I gave it to him because he’s been on my blog list for a long time, but that’s the last time I’ll do it.

I’ve no idea if he’ll receive my email. Probably not.

The reason he didn’t receive the first email is likely because his email provider filtered it out on the incoming network.

Look.

If you have (or have aspirations for) an internet business, then for goodness sake, treat it with respect. Treat it like a business.

If you have friends you want to send the latest chain mail, then by all means use Yahoo or your ISPs email account. It’s non-critical right?

It doesn’t matter if your friend doesn’t receive it. (He won’t because it’ll be filtered out on the network).

But if you’re doing business, then use a business email address off one of your own domains.

Have you ever seen an email from me that was sent from Yahoo? Or my ISP?

So why would you send me an email or sign up to my mailing list with a Yahoo account?

If you’re not serious about your business, then don’t expect business people to treat you seriously.

Having an email address with Comcast, Verizon, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, etc. is like having a phone that doesn’t always ring out. And that phone only sometimes works when you want to make a call.

Yes I know this has been a bit of a rant, but it’s fast becoming near impossible for me to reply to people. And you probably know if you’ve had any dealings with me that I try to get replies out to you as soon as I’m able.

As I said in an earlier post, the chances of you sending a business email from Yahoo to AOL (and vice-versa) and you ever getting a reply back you can count on, are next to zero.

Something in that business email will trigger a network filter.

So get yourself sorted out. It will take you 10-20 minutes to do and will stop any future problems you may have even before they happen.

-Frank Haywood

Posted by Frank Haywood in internet business
27
Feb
2008

Do Marketing Forums Tend To Polarise People?

I’m interested in what you think about this.

After a lot of thought, I realised the other day while talking to one of my coaching students that marketing forums tend to have two kinds of people in them.

Type 1 – People who offer dubious but convincing sounding advice, but have no real success online, and so aren’t really qualified to give the advice, they’re just regurgitating.

Type 2 – People who are successful online and who are giving usually good advice, but are primarily using the forum to market to everyone else in subtle ways.

I know this might upset or fire people up a bit, but I’m not just making this post to be contentious or controversial.

Somewhere in the middle there’s going to be good advice given with good intention, but I don’t believe I often see it.

Am I wrong about this?  Am I being too cynical?  Am I just having an off-week?  Am I even being a little bit hypocritical?

Sometimes I need a bit of help to make my mind up.

Yeah, I admit it.  I don’t know everything…  😉

-Frank Haywood.

Posted by Frank Haywood in internet business
26
Feb
2008

Help Desk Software For Less Than $2

Going on from my post this morning, one of the things I’ve been pursuing to stop the problem of my replies to customer support questions not being received is to install some help desk software.

Well, I’ve gone a step further than that. I’ve actually created my own help desk software.

I know this is me that’s saying this, but it really is very good.

Tip: If you want your software to be really good, use it yourself.

So, I’ve increased my range of business tools with my new support desk software. It goes into active use today, with support questions being looked after by Donna Maher (with a little help from me).

It’s very stable, very easy to use, and has been a long time in development, but I thought I’d give it a good testing out with my own business before unleashing it on the world.

So why have I gone down the support desk route rather then continue with email?

In a post I made the other day, I said that it was becoming increasingly difficult to use email for support. I thought it would be okay for a while when I started doing it, but when I look back at 2007, I must have spent hundreds of hours doing support by email

I could have cut that down dramatically if I’d started with a support desk from the beginning.

The annoying thing is, I was told this by one of my mentors and I ignored it.

*sigh*

But the primary reason I’m moving to a support desk is that email is becoming increasingly difficult to deliver.

As I said in my post this morning, I’m getting an increasing number of “second request:” emails from people. This is nearly always because they haven’t received my reply to their first email.

So with my new support desk software, that should knock that problem on the head.

So, once a ticket is raised, all a customer has to do is go check to see if it’s been answered.

The system sends out emails, but even if the customer doesn’t receive the emails and wonders what’s going on, the answer will still be there in the support thread.

So the line of communication between me and my customer (or you and your customer) isn’t cut off.

I say you and your customer, because I’ll shortly be putting my new help desk software up for sale.

As a subscriber to my blog, I’ll offer you the best deal I can come up with other than give it away.

What I’ve decided to do is price my support desk software starting at $1.07, and raise the price by 5 cents every time there’s a sale.

Yes, it’s a nickel sale…

I’ll run this for a short time before setting the final price, probably somewhere between $67 and $97. (When I do, I’ll be looking for affiliates, and I’ll be paying 50% of the sale price. Hint hint…)

The first person there gets it for a dollar and some change, in fact the first 18 people get it for under 2 dollars, but even if you’re the 400th person to get it, it’s still only going to be around $20 for software that will be at least 3 times as much when the sale is over.

Only those people on my blog notify list will get first warning of that nickel sale.

I think that’s good enough reason to be on the list, don’t you?

And that’s my way of saying “thank you” for being there.

Watch out for another post about this in a few days time, and when I’m ready, I’ll launch this sale with little or no notice.

I’ll put up a password protected post, and inside there will be the details.

If you’re reading this and you’re not on my blog notify list, then go to the home page, and look over on the top right. There you’ll see a box for your name and email address.

Fill it in, and click the button.

-Frank Haywood

Posted by Frank Haywood in internet business
26
Feb
2008

Want Your Internet Business To Be Taken Seriously?

Do you want to be taken seriously?

Then use a business email address. I sell business tools to business people. So why is it that so many of those business people use Yahoo or AOL or GMail for their email accounts?

I get more than I want proposals for joint ventures, and a decent proportion of those are from supposed business people who aren’t using email addresses off their business domain.

That one thing is so simple to do, and instantly enhances your credibility.

It also ensures that if a reply is made, then you’ll get it.

I’ve no idea of the number of bounces I’ve had replying to questions by my customers and potential customers. I also know there’s a high proportion of people who never get my first email, because I get plenty of “Second Request:” emails from people who didn’t get my initial reply.

Why didn’t they get it? Because they’re using either free or their ISP email addresses.

And the providers of those kinds of email addresses are notoriously bad at dealing with email.

Pretty much the only way you’re going to guarantee to receive an email is to use your own email address on your own domain.

Think…

How many emails have you sent out and never had a reply to?

All those emails missing, because they either didn’t make it outside of your mail providers network, or the reply didn’t make it back in.

And there’s no way of knowing whether you were snubbed or the email was just lost.

Now compound that problem by the fact that some of those emails were also sent to the same kinds of email addresses.

Yahoo to AOL?  – Almost no chance of you ever receiving a reply back you can count on, and vice versa.

You can stop this madness instantly by just using your web control panel to create a new email address for you, and then setting it up in your mail client.

Problem solved.

Go do it now.

Do it as part of taking action to improve your life and your internet business.

– Frank Haywood.

Posted by Frank Haywood in internet business