The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, A Review

"Disarmingly funny, The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur tells it like it is and yet never gives up on the little guy. After reading this book you'll feel like you can actually pull it off - because you can." --Donny Deutsch, Host of CNBC's The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch and Chairman, Deutsch Inc.

Mike Michalowicz is hands down, the real deal. Get this book. I recently bought and studied a copy of the wildly popular book, “The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur” and was floored by the way Mike communicated his message. It like he's talking with you one-on-one. How he presents the information is incredibly funny, which makes it a fun read (especially since most of us don't have much time to read).

I fell in love with Toilet Paper Entrepreneur in the introduction where Mike shows a brilliant comparison between the "Media Darling" entrepreneur and his "Three Sheet Path." In Mike's example of the media darling, at 18-years-old the future entrepreneur is recruited to an Ivy League school only to quit and launch a wildly successful VC. Meanwhile, Mike is picking colleges based on the guy-to-girl ratios, hahaha! Needless to say many of us can relate.

He explains why a business plan is a complete waste of time and instead offers the alternate, “Three Sheet Path”, a simple, practical guide for measuring where your company is going and what the immediate health of your business is. If you're like me any way to simplify the process of starting and running a business is welcomed with open arms :)

Some Background

Mike started his first business when he was an inexperienced 24 years old, moving his young family to the only place he could afford, a retirement village. With almost no resources and certainly no experience, he systematically bootstrapped a multi-million dollar technology business, sleeping in conference rooms to avoid hotel costs. After selling his first company for way too much money, Mike launched a new business the very next day, and in less than three years, sold it to a Fortune 500 company. With his newest multi-million dollar venture, Obsidian Launch, he fosters start-up businesses with his “get rich right” approach.

In a recent article Mike explains what he feels are entrepreneurs top ten mistakes and here's number one:

Trying To Do It All

The greatest mistake entrepreneurs make is to believe they can do it all by themselves. While an entrepreneur can do most things, they do most things poorly. Just like any other person, an entrepreneur has one or two God given talents. As an entrepreneur it is your job to identify what you are great and do those few things to your fullest. Surround yourself with people who are strong where you are not. Great companies are built on the foundation of exploiting a few strengths, not on trying to be masters of everything.

If you do a Google search for content by Mike Michalowicz you are going to find a ton of video blog entries, articles and photos that can be so edgy sometimes that they are offensive to some. But in every article he writes or video he posts you are certain to find it packed with a purpose driven message.

It's so simple that it's complex. Business is not easy but it should at least be fun and Mike definitely makes it fun in The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. Make no mistake, I strongly recommend picking up The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. It will inspire you and motivate you to keep pushing toward your entrepreneurial dreams.

Recommended Article: Make Money Offline with Internet Marketing

Customer Service and the Online World

One of the most often neglected, but nonetheless most important factors in a successful online business is good customer service.

Why is it so often overlooked? Well, there are a lot of reasons. Many online business owners own multiple businesses, or have a job in the offline world in addition to their online business, and so are unable to keep up with a large volume of calls or e-mails from customers.

It is often also because of the idea of "online business" that online business owners sometimes fail to provide high quality customer service. Owners who view it is a type of "part-time" business simply don't include customer service in their plans.

But how important is it, really?

I can answer that with three words. Very, very important.

Want a longer answer? No problem. Here are a few major factors:

• Better customer care increases the likelihood that you will get testimonials directly from clients, which means a more effective sales page.
• Better customer care increases the likelihood that you will get good word of mouth for your website.
• Better customer care increases the likelihood that you will get repeat customers.
• Better customer care increases the likelihood that you will get links from other websites (the blogs or sites of your customers). That means a better search engine ranking.
• Better customer care increases the likelihood that you will close sales.

So, let's look at what I just said in brief:

• More traffic, more sales, and more profit.

If those things aren't important to you, then go dig a hole or something, because online business isn't for you. These are the most valuable things to online commerce.

So, here are a few quick tips to giving good customer service:

• Display your contact e-mail address in a prominent location.
• Respond to customer inquiries or complaints within 24 hours of receiving their e-mails.
• Set up a phone to accept business calls. Either put a new message on one of your existing lines, or use a service like "Skype" to set up a new number.
• Answer voice-mails within 2 hours whenever possible.
• Make refunds easily for your customers. This does not mean paying for everything for them -- it means not trying to force them to not return the item, and trying to resolve their concerns as thoroughly as possible.
• The line "the customer is always right" is both cliche and untrue. Anyone who has worked in customer service will tell you that the customer is usually wrong. But you should always approach calls and e-mails with the attitude that they are right.

Let me give a brief example of that last part. On my website, a customer tried to buy an item for about $130 with four different credit cards. They were all declined. She e-mailed me, furious that she had not received a confirmation that her order had been placed. I responded by phone, calmly explaining the situation to her, and saying that I'd be glad to take her payment over the phone, or that she could simply process the order again with a card that had at least $130 left on it.

Rather than doing this, she sent me an e-mail with her credit card information. More than that, it was one of the cards that she had already tried, and had been declined. I tried the card again for her, and called her again, to notify her that I simply could not process that card. I apologized, and asked if there were any other cards she wanted to try, or if she wanted to try a different method of payment. She said that if I couldn't accept her credit card, that she would just buy from someone else. Of course, I was tempted to tell her just how silly she was being, and that no one would accept these cards. Instead, though, I told her that I understood her concerns, but that it was not me but my bank that wouldn't accept those cards. I let her know that if she changed her mind, I would be glad to process the transaction for her.

A week later she contacted me with a new card to process the transaction. She sent a testimonial afterward as well, telling me that she'd been having a rough day, and appreciated my patience.

I spent less than twenty minutes overall in addressing her concerns, and the transaction landed me about $40 in profit. For those of you counting at home, that's about $120 per hour, if we were to calculate my "wages."

Again, let me repeat. Customer service is important to online business. How important? Very, very important.

For more on how an online coaching company can help your business thrive, simply visit www.thriveli.com.

Writing Articles: Why and how?

Website articles are a powerful tool to help promote your website. Whether it's an online store or an affiliate website, articles can help bring increased traffic.

Why is this? Well, to break it down into the simplest possible terms, when you post an article you will be talking about something related to the products on your site. When Google notices that a link to your website appears on a lot of sites that have relevant content, it decides that your website is more relevant to that subject.

As an example, if you were selling painting supplies, and your link appeared on an article where you talked about the different types of paints and how the different amounts of thickness effects the end result, Google would say "Oh! That website must really be about the subject of paint."

Most of us, however, do not have a college degree in the subject that our websites are talking about (and it is, in fact, hard to get a degree in things like paintball or medieval reenactment accessories). So how do you decide what to talk about in your web articles?

Here is a step-by-step of how I usually decide what to write articles for my website on:

1. Do some research.
   
   I know, it's not the funnest thing in the world, but you have to have information before you write your article. More than that, it will help you decide what you will want to write about. Simply looking at a wikipedia article on your topic may give you an idea. Maybe researching golf will give information on upcoming tournaments, world records, or obscure facts. These things are great starting points for your article!
   
   Obviously, in most cases you won't stop at Wikipedia. By finding the names of players, tournaments, or whatever else you've found, you will be able to do simple Google searches to find out more.
   
   I really want to emphasize -- don't ever steal the work of others. Never copy their text, and never steal their pictures. This will not do well for you business -- the last thing you need is a lawsuit.
   
   
2. Collect your information.
   
   Once you've visited several websites, write down the key points of what you learned. Let's continue with the hypothetical golf scenario. If we were looking at the world records for the number of yards before a hole in one, we would write down the information, who originally set the record, who beat that record, what the course was, what the weather conditions were, any quotes or statements from the players -- and anything else that applies! There is usually plenty of information.
   
   
3. Write what's interesting to you.
   
   If you find yourself yawning as you read about the subject of your article, you may well find others do as well. This isn't good! Write about things that keep you interested in your own articles. If you can do that, you should be able to snag the attention of others.
   
   
4. Use your keywords!
   
   It's possible to talk about golfing clubs in your article, but only mention the actual term "golfing clubs" once. By constantly referring to the term "golfing clubs" as "it," "they," or simply by not mentioning golf clubs, you're cheating yourself out of some good article keywords.
   
   A good guideline is to use at least one major keyword or keyword phrase per article, and to repeat that keyword or keyword phrase 12 to 18 times (assuming it's the standard 500 word article).

These are just basic guidelines, but it should give you a place to start when you write your online articles. For more information on how a quality coaching company can help your online business succeed, simply visit www.thriveli.com.

Resolution

After our blog "Above the Fold," we received some very intelligent questions.

"Wouldn't 'the fold' be different depending on what type of computer you're using? Can't it be different for different people?"

The answer? Yes, absolutely it can. But it's not based on your type of computer. It's based on your resolution settings. Resolution is a little bit tricky to explain without starting to speak "tech talk," but we'll give it a shot nonetheless.

Every picture, program, website, etc., that you have on your computer, has a size. Now, while in real life we measure size in inches (or centimeters, for you crazy metric addicts out there), on the internet, and with computers in general, we measure things in "pixels."

So, let's say we have an image. Let's say, in fact, that we have this image:



This specific image is 600 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall. Now, don't go trying to measure this in inches, because pixels and inches aren't really mutually compatible.

The reason for this is your resolution settings. When you choose your screen resolution, you're choosing how many pixels to show on your screen. This setting might be anywhere from 640 x 480 up to 1680 x 1050, or even more. If you change your resolution, images will seem to be different sizes. In reality, they're the exact same size as they were (in pixels), but since you're showing more pixels at once, they're comparitively smaller.

The higher your resolution (meaning the bigger the numbers -- like the 1680 x 1050 number), the higher the quality and smaller t he size of items on your screen (whether that's websites, images, or whatever else).

So, hopefully that give you a general idea of what resolution is, and what resolution means. But what does resolution mean for your website? How will it impact your online business?

Well, with different people viewing your site at different sizes, it's going to look different to people who are using different resolutions. People with higher resolution are going to see more of your site. Your "fold" will change depending on your customer's resolution.

So when you're trying to decide where to put things on your website, what resolution should you be using? What should you be basing these decisions on.

Here's a basic chart that gives an idea of the most common resolutions:

Date	Higher	1024x768	800x600	640x480	Unknown
January 2008	38%	48%	8%	0%	6%

In brief, 1024 wide by 768 high is what you should be judging on. Many of the "higher resolution" settings are actually 1280 wide by 768 high. Since the "fold" is determined by the height of the website, you should make sure your resolution is set to 768 high when you make decisions about placement. This is what we can call the most common "fold" for your website.

I know, I know! It's incredibly technical sounding, and a little difficult to explain. But here are a couple general hints about how the different resolution settings should affect your work.

• Never make your banner (the top section of your website, which contains your logo, etc.) more than 800 pixels wide. If you do, 8%-14% of your visitors will have to scroll left and right to be able to see your entire website, which we want to avoid.
• When making decisions on placement, make sure you're using either a 1024 x 768 or a 1280 x 768 resolution.
• Don't freak out about exactly how your text looks on your site. Some people spend a lot of time changing their wording, just so certain words stay on the same line together. This isn't going to be very effective, though, since the different resolutions are going to make the text look different anyway.

And the end point, of course, is that understanding this will help you make smart decisions about where to place content. Smarter placement means more sales. More sales means having a successful online business.

To learn more about how a quality coaching company can help you in gaining the knowledge you need to run an online business, simply visit www.thriveli.com.

Business Blogs

Since you're here, on our blog, I think I can assume that you know something about what a blog is. However, for those who just happen to have stumbled across this Blog, allow me to go back to basics.

The word "blog" is a shortening of "Web Log," and thanks to Blogger, terms like "blogging" and "bloggers" have become more a part of our cultural phenomena over the last few years. This is because it's now very easy to set up a blog.

And "blogging?" Well, blogging can be anything. If I tell the world my grandma is sick on a blog, that's blogging. If I talk about my new girlfriend, that's blogging. If I talk about my political beliefs, that's blogging. If I talk about religion, that's blogging. If I talk about how vanilla is the best ice cream, that's blogging.

And most importantly, if I talk about my company, my products, and my company's quality, that's most definitely blogging! This is where blogs come in as a part of your business. Is it mandatory to have a blog for your online business? No, not mandatory. But it does help you with the search engines.

The more people link to your website, the more popular that site will become. The more relevant the pages that links are on happen to be, the more powerful that link will be. So by creating a blog, you can link to your website through a highly, highly relevant website. In short, you will start to get a better page rank, your search engine ranking and SEO will improve, and you may generate some independent leads through your blog.

So what should you include in the blog to make it most effective? Should you have just one, or multiple? How much does it really impact your ranking? How can you make sure your blog is visible?

Even after explaining a lot of the details, there are always going to be more questions. To find out more about how a coaching company can help answer your questions, and introduce you to many more ways to market your website, simply visit www.thriveli.com.

The Power of a Logo

One thing that commonly comes up during the creation of a business is building a Logo. Many people feel that having a company logo is unimportant, or at least not something that should be a preliminary concern for their business. Others (often those trying to sell you the logo) argue that a logo is the single most important thing you can do to help your business. As usual, the truth lies somewhere in-between the two extremes.

So, what is a logo? What is the real power of a logo? What does it do for you? Why is it important? What's a good amount to pay for one? What should you keep in mind in designing your logo? These are just a few of the common questions regarding logo design, and I'll go into each of them briefly.

What is a logo?
A logo is an image or stylized text (or a combination of the two) which identifies your business. It is not a photograph, it is not a picture of your product, and it is not a description of your business.

This logo should definitely be located on your website. It should also be located on all printed marketing materials, banner ads, business cards, etc. People should come to associate your logo with your company, so using it repeatedly will help ingrain the image into the minds of your clients.

Here are a few famous logos to help give you the idea of what a logo is:




What is the real power of a logo?

There are two major points to mention with a logo. The first major power of a logo is professionalism. Having your own logo gives a clear sense that your company has invested into itself. This makes your company feel more legitimate to your buyers. This is the primary way a logo will pay for itself. People are far more likely to buy from an online business that looks and feels professional.

The second major power of a logo is memorability. It is easier to remember your company when you are using a logo. You may know McDonalds without its logo, but when you see the golden arches, you instantly recognize "This is McDonalds." And what does this mean for you and your business? First, it makes marketing more effective by making your website and company more memorable. Second, it makes your website itself more memorable. Customer loyalty is one of the major keys to success, and having a solid logo can strongly help with this.

These are, of course, the reasons why a logo is important as well. No, a logo will not double your sales! No, it will not make your business miraculously appear on the first page of the google search engines. But it will increase your conversion rate, and it will increase your return customers.

What's a good amount to pay for a logo?

This is a difficult question to answer, but mostly because there are a lot of details that go into a logo. How complex is the logo? Is it just stylized text, or does it include a custom image or graphic? How many versions of the logo will you receive? How many revisions are you allowed to make?

A good price may be anywhere from about $99 to $999 for a solid logo for a start-up company. What we recommend is that you find a company that will give you at least 1 set of revisions (in other words, doesn't hand you a logo and refuse to do extra work on it), and preferably will give you two sets of revisions or more. We also recommend that you either find a logo creation company that will give you multiple logo concepts up front, or will give additional logo concepts if you are not satisfied with the first version. We also recommend that you find a company that will provide more than simply stylized text.

A good cost to pay for this type of logo is between $300 and $400. As an example of a good company, Clover Logos is the primary logo design company we recommend at Thrive. They have assisted dozens of our clients in creating an excellent, professional logo to help their business succeed.

What should I keep in mind when designing my logo?

You should keep in mind about 80 different things while designing your logo. However, there are a couple of basic principles to follow.

First -- make sure it reflects the tone of your business. Don't have a black and gray corporate logo for your children's toys business, and don't have a pink, yellow, green and orange bubble text logo for your office supplies business.

Second -- keep it simple. You should be able to shrink or expand this logo to the size of a business card or the size of a billboard, and it should still be recognizable.


In short summary, a logo is important for every business that wants to come across as authentic and legitimate. It is important to increase return customers. Don't kill yourself over the cost, but put it pretty high on your priority list (probably just below setting up your legal entity, website, and getting your products or dropshipper).

For more information on how a coaching company can help you with the creation and branding of your business, simply visit www.thriveli.com.

The "Buying Mood"

Though many people searching the web are interested in buying a product immediately, certainly not all people are. They may be looking to see how much a product costs, they may be comparing online products, or they may simply be daydreaming. "Wouldn't it be nice if I could buy this."

So, what can you do to turn these browsers and daydreamers into buyers on your online business? Well, there are dozens of tactics, but pretty much all of them full under the category of "setting the buying mood." Creating an atmosphere that encourages buying your product, providing incentives, and more, can help set this buying mood.

Here are just a couple of quick tips to help you in creating that atmosphere for your clients:

• Use emotion evoking images. If you're selling baby products, then you should definitely have some happy, laughing, smiling babies. If you're selling television sets, you should have a family or couple gathered around the TV, perfectly happy and content. Most people want to purchase these items because they have a specific fantasy of what the product is going to do for them. Help build that fantasy through emotion evoking images.
  
  
• Provide clearly visible incentives. And make sure you're providing something! Even if you have the same products at the same final prices, your competitor who has a visible "20% Off!" sale is going to close more than you do. Sales are a great way to do this. With many products, free shipping is another excellent way. Free gifts, buy one get one half off, and many other possible incentives will serve to increase your overall profit.
  
  
• Make sure navigation is clear and simple. Nothing discourages customers more than not being able to find the product they want on your site. If you have images of a product on your home page, make sure that image links directly to that specific product. Make sure all your categories are clearly visible on your site, immediately. People should never struggle to find what they're looking for, because if they do, they're likely to move on to the next website.
  

These are just a few of the things you can do to to increase your number of buyers by turning the casual browsers into your clients. When it comes to e-commerce, your conversion rate (the percentage of people that come to your website who actually purchase your product) can vastly alter your profit. Remember, the difference between a 2% and a 3% conversion rate could mean the difference between $50,000 and $75,000 a year.

To learn more about how a coaching company can help you build your website in a way that increases your conversion rate, and helps set that buying mood, simply visit www.thriveli.com.

"Above the Fold"

One of the fun things about "high technology" industries nowadays (like e-commerce, online marketing, website design, etc.) is that we develop our own languages.

When I say "Placing products and incentives above the fold can help increase your conversion rate," it may well sound like gibberish to many of you. So let me go into this specific piece of advise, and let you know exactly what it means.

Let's make this as simple as possible. Ignore everything else you know about what each part of the website is. When I say "above the fold" I mean "everything that is immediately visible to the naked eye on your website without scrolling down or clicking on any links." To complicate this just a little, I also mean "visible to the naked eye when your search engine browser (Firefox, IE, Safari, etc.) is maximized, and you're running in a normal screen resolution."
For visual learners, here's an image of the thriveli.com site that may help.



Everything you see on the image above is "above the fold." Now, if you've been to the Thrive Website (you can click on the image above to go there now), then you know that this isn't everything on the Thrive LI home page. There's plenty more information when you scroll down. So what you see above is "above the fold." Anything else is "below the fold."

So, why is this important? Well, there have been a lot of major studies researching how long people stay on any given website when they're trying to find something. The results have all been pretty similar -- your potential buyers will stay on your website between 4 and 8 seconds. If they haven't found something that interests them by then, they're leaving for the next Google result.

4 to 8 seconds! That's all your e-commerce website has to catch someone's attention. They're probably not going to scroll down and see what else you're saying before deciding whether to stay or not. So everything that is going to grab the attention of your potential buyers should be above the fold. If what you have above the fold doesn't win the customer, chances are they will never even scroll down to see the rest of your website.

So, let's look at the phrase I said above. "Placing products and incentives above the fold can help increase your conversion rate." So place your products and sales, discounts, offers for free shipping, gorgeous images, etc., in a place where they are immediately visible when visitors come to the website. Doing so can increase the percentage of people who decide to stay on your website.

Conversion rate is incredibly important to any website. The difference between 2% and a 3% conversion rate can mean the difference between $70,000 and $100,000 per year. In addition, a lower conversion rate means you're wasting your online marketing investments and losing potential return customers.

When it comes right down to it, there are literally hundreds of things to keep in mind in order to keep your conversion rate up. For more information on how a quality coaching company can help you achieve better results for your online business, or how we can help you start a successful online business, simply visit www.thriveli.com.