Christian is a 16 year old boy who has created million dollar software and ad companies before the age of 16. The companies sell bundles of popular Mac software and now he has started a company selling ads on websites.  It is a great story that you have to read . . . once you are done reading this blog post of course.

What I found interesting about Christian’s story was some of the comments that people left on the blog where it was posted. While some were positive, many comments are mocking him for not having a life, employing his parents, and most egregious of all . . . being unoriginal.

Common Business Beliefs

What the comments illustrate is a common business belief. When most people start their businesses, they think that they have to be 100% original. They believe that they have to sell products on one else is selling, have a store that is totally original, or create new intellectual content from original research. They have it in their heads that they have to be unique to make it in this world.

Let me let you in on a little secret . . .

The most successful businesses in the world are not unique!

A quick disclaimer; I am not condoning the blatant copying of other people’s copyrighted and patented materials for personal gain. That is stealing. What I am talking about is copying ideas about what works and using those ideas in your business.

There are two ways to accomplish this in your business:

Number One: Improve Current Products

For example, think about a few of the most successful technology companies in the world: Apple, Google, and Microsoft. All of these companies were late to the game in their original markets but are now the leaders in mobile technology, search, and office software.

They accomplished this feat by taking something that was hard to use, expensive to operate, and ineffective. They made those products easy to use, cheap to operate, and more effective. In essence, these companies took complex products and services that were specialty products and made them into easy to use commodities.

In the story of Christian Owens, he found multiple mac programs that people wanted to use but couldn’t afford to purchase them all individually, worked with the software authors to bundle them together, and sold the bundle at a major discount. He also used contests, referral bonuses, and limited time offers to give people a sense of urgency to buy the bundle.

Everything Christian did has been done before, but he made it simpler, cheaper, and more useful to his customers.

Could you do that in your business?

Number Two: Completely Copy What Worked for Someone Else (With Their Permission!)

When you drive down any main street in the United States, what do you typically see? Do you see a McDonalds, a Subway, and an Applebees? More than likely you will find a chain rather than something unique.

Why would someone buy a franchise rather than start something unique?

People open franchises because they are proven businesses. Most people that have started a unique retail or restaurant business will tell you, that if they had to do it again they would buy a proven franchise. While it is great when a unique business succeeds, the failure rate is much higher than if you would have bought a franchise.

If you are desperate for a business of your own, a franchised business might be what works for you since you are copying what worked for someone else.

Can you be successful by being original?

It is possible, but with so many people being successful by being unoriginal, why risk it? Do what others are doing, but take it one step further. Make it easier, make it more accessible, and make it more desirable. If that doesn’t work, then consider what licensing and franchising a business could do for your freedom.

Whatever you do, remember to keep moving forward.

P.S. Here is the story on Christian Owens from Gizmodo.

P.P.S. If you are looking for a tool to get you started in creating a totally unoriginal Internet Marketing business, then make sure to pick up a copy of my step by step guide to Creating a Product this Weekend.

Got another minute?

Do you like what I have to say in my blog posts? If you do, then leave a comment and click on one of the share buttons below and let your friends on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn know about my blog. You can also Like me on Facebook by clicking on the like button to the left of this post.

Thank you so much for helping spread the word!

The Secret to Business Success: Don’t Be Original is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. Are You Trying to Trade A Monotonous Job for a Monotonous Business?
2. How to Overcome Procrastination
3. How Not to Do Free Content

The problem is that most of the articles about procrastination actually keep us from doing whatever we are putting off doing. The articles recommend “getting organized to do it”, “getting motivated”, or telling us any number of mental lies we can use to hide the fact that we are not doing what we tell ourselves we need to be doing. Instead we are procrastinating by reading about how to overcome procrastination.

For many people that want to create a business, you can spend more time studying how to create a business than actually doing something to make that business a reality.

In my case, I have been procrastinating the building of a speaking, coaching, and consulting business for three years. For three years I have been blogging, writing free articles, incorporating my business, and discovering new accounting tools that make my year-end tax preparation for $0 in income much easier. It wasn’t until a number of months ago that I realized I was having a problem.

On a Monday afternoon, when I was getting ready to leave a Toastmasters meeting, one of my friends made a comment to me, “You have all these ideas for product, programs, and speeches. When are you going to actually follow through and sell something?”

I was floored and for three months I didn’t have an answer.

It wasn’t until I was meeting with a friend a few weeks ago that I had an answer. During the meeting, I realized what separated me from people that were successful with their businesses was not knowledge. I have enough of that. What the true separator was that successful people had an idea then executed it. They didn’t let procrastination get in the way. They took an idea and they executed it until they had created a complete product, service, or business.

I didn’t do that. Instead I jumped from idea to idea without completing anything.

After my meeting, I had enough of my mental excuses of why I couldn’t create a product, so for 6 days I spent my free time doing what I had never done before. I sat down and executed my idea for a product.

The result was an eBook and website that shows that it is possible to overcome procrastinating and create a product in a weekend.

The goal of the eBook is to help you overcome what I have overcome, the inability to turn ideas into products. It does this by giving you a plan for a Friday night through Sunday evening self-directed boot camp. During your self-directed boot camp, you will formulate an idea, get your idea organized, turn it into a product,and  then get your product packaged and available for sale.

The product you create isn’t going to be a massive product that will change the world, but I hope that it will be the product that shows you it is not as hard as you think to create and sell your products and your ideas.

Does this sound like it could help?

Then check out the sales page or just click buy now:

The cost is $37

How to Overcome Procrastination is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. How Not to Do Free Content
2. Are You Trying to Trade A Monotonous Job for a Monotonous Business?
3. What if I Told You that Everything You Have Been Told About Finding a Niche is Wrong?

1. Create a niche blog.
2. Fill the niche blog with bought content.
3. Inflate your Google search rankings with backlinks.
4. Direct people that find the blog through Google to sign up for your newsletter.
5. After signing up for your newsletter, direct them to a sales page where you pitch them a $7 to $97 product.
6. Upsell buyers with private coaching or a membership site.
7. Never work another day in your life!

In my experience, most of the people that attempt to follow one of these formulas fail to create the financial freedom that they crave.

Why?

One word: Passion.

When you are starting your own business, you have to have a passion for what you are doing. When you are passionate about your business, you will find the energy to create a business that is uniquely you and that is what will sell your products or services.

Think about why you want to start a “freedom business” in the first place. Are you are in a dead in job that is draining you of energy? Why would you think that trading a monotonous job that sucks you of energy for a monotonous system of sourcing and posting crappy articles would be any better?

Successful “freedom businesses” are created with passion. They are successful because people can feel that passion in your writing, videos, and programs. Many of the people that follow your blog and business will pay you, because they see your passion for your business and know that you will provide them with a valuable product or service because of your commitment to your business.

If you are considering starting a business, then ask yourself, “Is this something I am passionate about doing?”

If you are, then go for it.

If not, then are you trading a monotonous job for a monotonous business?

Think about it then let me know if you agree or disagree with me in the comments.

I would love to hear from you.

Are You Trying to Trade A Monotonous Job for a Monotonous Business? is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. How to Overcome Procrastination
2. The Secret to Business Success: Don’t Be Original
3. How Not to Do Free Content

The Google Android Application Example

I love my Google Android phone. It is fast, lets me check e-mail on the go, and has a growing market of applications that I can download and use on my phone. I see a lot of potential for this device in the future, but it will have to overcome one major hurdle that all user developed application model platforms have to overcome . . . moving from free to paid applications.

The Problem with Many Free Applications

Here is the lifecycle for many applications on the Google Marketplace:

• A developer has an idea for a great application. The developer creates the application, tests it, and then posts it on the market for others to use for free.
• The application catches on and starts to get downloaded by thousands of users. A small number of those users provide feedback to the developer so that the application can be improved.
• The developer updates the application, posts the updates, and finds that even more people are using the application.
• The developer then has a dilemma. He or she has spent many hours creating this killer application, thousands are using it, but the developer has not gotten paid a dime for the application. They then have a brilliant idea.
• After spending a few days adding a feature or two, the developer re-releases the application as a paid application.  The old application is also updated to tell the users that it will no longer be updated and if they want updates, then they have to buy the paid version. Sometimes the developer will even make the free version ad supported.
• After a few months on the market, the developer realizes that a very small percentage of people are buying the updated version of the application compared to the numbers downloading the un-updated, old, but free version.

When Free Doesn’t Create Revenue

In the Google Application example, the developer is not converting many of the free users to the paid application because as long as the free version works, then the users have no financial motivation to move to the paid application. Even if the developer cripples the free version, the marketplace will create another free application that can do the same tasks but still be free. In this case, free is not going to put food on the developer’s table.

How Can Free Create Revenue

A free product can help create revenue when it is used as a corresponding component of a paid product or service. It can also be used to demonstrate your expert knowledge of the topic or ability to provide a great product or service. When you are adding non-essential components to a product or service to make it something you can charge money for, you will not convert as many buyers as a new corresponding product would.

How to Do it: Beginning with Your End Goal in Mind

In application development and your business, you have to begin with your end goal in mind and develop your product and services around that end goal. If you want to create the next killer application, then create a mini-application that demonstrates the final end goal of the application without giving away the entire application.

If you wanted to create an application that interfaces with a Customer Relationship Management system, then you could create an application that allows accessing just the contacts of the system for free and charge for the application that allows for managing contacts, creating leads, and assigning leads to team members. The free application demonstrates the greatness of your idea while the full paid application gives the killer functionally of the full application.

How You Can Make This Happen in Your Business

Other businesses can do this by creating a report, blog, or application that solves a small customer problem while allowing them to connect with you for solution to larger and more complex problems. Maybe you are a life coach, so you could create a free report that gives someone the ability to organize thirty minutes a day for exercise. This can then be part of a larger program that helps people with both physical and life goals were exercise is a component.

The key is that is that the free product is a small complement to the larger program. The free establishes you as a creditable source, makes you the expert, and demonstrates your wiliness to part with some knowledge now for the potential of stronger customer connections in the future. Don’t give the killer feature away, but give your customer proof that you have a killer feature by giving them some value out of your free content.

How Not to Do Free Content is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. Why You Shouldn't Download The Launch Coach Dave Navarro's Free Articles and Workbooks
2. How to Overcome Procrastination
3. Are You Trying to Trade A Monotonous Job for a Monotonous Business?

“Hello. This is Cindi from XYZ Corporation. I am calling to let you know that a major mistake on our part needs to be corrected by you, our customer. I know that you pay us quite a large sum of money to provide a service, but we just wanted to let you know how much we don’t care about you and want to make your life as difficult as possible.”

I am exaggerating the conversation a little, but on my end of the phone that is what the conversation felt like. Where in the customer service manual does it tell you to call your customer and tell them that they need to drop everything they are doing to fix a problem that you created?

Naomi Dunford of Ittybiz posted a blog post talking about a similar situation she encountered on the plane ride to Las Vegas. In both Naomi’s and my situations we encountered the same mistake that large companies make when trying to streamline a customer facing process; big companies love to make it more difficult for a customer to give them money. In Namoi’s case, the airline could have been out $10. In my case, the company I am dealing with is leaving about $80,000 of receivables in limbo. Multiply Naomi’s example by ten thousand customers or my by two or three, and we are talking real money.

In case you are wondering, yes, this does affect you. Big company or solo entrepreneur, anytime you are offering a product or service online, you have to consider the method that you will bill your customer. Do you only accept PayPal? What about checks? What if the person only has cash? The method of payment you choose might scare away some potential customers unless you can offer them all.

So maybe you are one of those companies that let people pay anyway they like. How do you get your customers to the point they have to pay? Do you hide your prices from your customer behind an icky sales letter? How about requiring your customer to beg for a quote? What other hoops do you have in place to make your customers jump though in order to give you money?

Here are some examples of ways you make it difficult for your customers to do business with you:

1. A Loyalty card that is required for special pricing (Grocery Stores)
2. Having a contact form to request a price quote (Web Designers)
3. Asking your customers for too much information before providing an estimate (Technology Service Companies)
4. Sending your customers information about pricing changes in legalize (Phone and Cable companies)
5. Developing pricing plans that mathematicians can’t figure out (Cell Phone companies)
6. Hiding product information behind sales letters (Marketers)
7. Waiting to inform customers of customization and delivery expenses (Car and Furniture companies)
8. Provide information to browse offerings (Real Estate companies)

I understand that you want to make your internal billing process easier, get leads, and lead people to make rash purchasing decisions. That is OK, but you do not have to do those things at the sake of the sanity of your customers.

Put yourself in the shoes of your customers. Are you someone that is easy to do business with? If not, how can you make it easier for someone to engage you? I know that this is an area I need to work on. What about you?

How to Lose Customers is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. How to make your speaking, e-mail marketing, and blogging more effective.
2. How Not to Do Free Content
3. Why IKEA Will Someday Rule the World

After months of hearing, “NICHE! NICHE! NICHE!”, from all the “gurus”, I thought that coaching young professionals was going to be that golden niche that took me to financial freedom in my business.  Being a young professional myself, I thought it was perfect. I am in many areas of my life, a very successful young man. Why would other people my age not want to learn about some of the tools and techniques I have learned?

Here is what I learned instead:

1. I have no clue what Young Professionals in my age group really want to learn about.
2. Driving young professionals to a video coaching site is hard . . . traditional tactics don’t work.
3. I suck in front of a video camera.

What went wrong?

I picked a niche and did all of the things that the “gurus” tell us to do to drive traffic to my niche coaching site. It was a beautiful thing. I had the website, the e-mail list, videos only viewable to list members, and even a facebook fan page. I promoted the crap out of the site on facebook, twitter, and a few other places but very few people signed up.

Then I realized something about the work I was doing. Even though I wasn’t getting much interest from young professionals. Mid to late career professionals saw what I was doing with my blogs and started asking me for advice on setting up their presence on the Internet. Many of them had static html webpages, but wanted to get into blogging and establish a presence on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. They were people that had a business, but wanted their current fans and hopefully new fans, to be able to better connect with them though their blog and social media.

Today I realized that when I started I had no clue what my niche really was. I thought that it was coaching young professionals, because that is what I thought I knew.  Instead of attracting the client I thought I should attract, I was getting mid-career professionals that found my blog and profiles. They wanted me to take what I had learned and teach them how to do what I am doing.

Why does that Mean that Everything You Have Been Told About Finding a Niche is Wrong?

Because finding a niche is not about keyword searches and setting up millions of niche sites. Finding your niche should be taking something you enjoy doing and putting it on-line for the world to check out. If that attracts fans to what you are doing, then you have to then find out what is missing in their lives that can get them to where you are. Insert a great product or service that helps them get to where you are or beyond, and you have found your niche.

Is that different then what you have been told?

Let me know what you think in the comments.

What if I Told You that Everything You Have Been Told About Finding a Niche is Wrong? is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. Are You Trying to Trade A Monotonous Job for a Monotonous Business?
2. How to make your speaking, e-mail marketing, and blogging more effective.
3. 5 Reasons Smart People Fail at Creating On-line Businesses

After I opened, read and responded to Ed’s e-mail, I still had a brain itch from Naomi’s e-mail that needed to be scratched. All of a sudden, I could hear Ed’s voice in my head saying, “Tell a story and make a point.”

What was so powerful about Naomi’s e-mail was that she shared a quick snippet of a story about working in customer service. She then made a point about customer service by being extremely generous in correcting a mistake. She told a story, and then made a point.

On their own, stories and points are not effective. Many technical speakers give presentations comprised of point after point. Information rich presentations of points provide large amounts of information, but they don’t give the audience real examples or time to absorb the information you are presenting.

There are also many bloggers who excel at telling stories, but they don’t make a point. The blogs go into endless detail about their children, families, or crazy life. However, there is no point at the end of the post. If you are only telling a story, then you don’t have a message to direct your audience to. Most people read your story, think it is nice, and don’t think about it again.

Want to know a secret?

Not combining stories and points makes you less effective in your communications.

This is one of those situations where you need to do as I say and don’t do as I do. As someone who speaks, blogs, and sends e-mail communications to potential customers; I know that I am guilty of not following my own advice. I have posted large numbers of blog posts that are information and technique rich, but have no story attached.

Thinking back, I now know why they didn’t get much feedback on those posts.

Do you think that reinforcing stories with points and not making a point without a story makes your communication more effective?

Let me know in the comments.

P.S. The comments are only open for 14 days. I have found that leaving them open any longer makes them a spam target. If you want to let me know what you thought of the article after 14 days, then contact me from my contact me page.

P.P.S The links to Ed and Naomi’s sites above are not affiliate links.  However, down here in the P.P.S. I will provide links to Ed Tate and Naomi Dunford with my affiliate ID if you want to buy products from them with my affiliate link.

How to make your speaking, e-mail marketing, and blogging more effective. is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. How to Lose Customers
2. How Not to Do Free Content
3. Why You Shouldn't Download The Launch Coach Dave Navarro's Free Articles and Workbooks

For many years, I was one of those “smart people” who thought that putting my business on-line was a load of crap. I thought that the only way to make a living was through building a brick and mortar company brick by painful brick. It turns out that I was wrong.

The problem I have learned, is that smart people have a number of hang ups about starting an on-line based business.

Here are the five that I though of:

5. Too Much Emphasis on Credentials

Many smart people are highly educated. With a high level of education comes a respect for people that have credentials, certifications, and citations of merit. When smart people start to put their business on-line, they think they need more credentials to demonstrate they know what they are talking about. What they don’t realize is that if you provide a valuable product or service, it doesn’t matter what your credentials are if people are enhanced by what you provide.

4. That Will Never Work

There is a lot of information, both free and paid, on strategies to be successful on-line Many of these strategies or blueprints give step by step instructions on how to set up a website, create products, and promote products. Following these blueprints works for many people and they are successfully moving more of their income on-line

The problem is that smart people don’t like to follow other people’s systems or blueprints. If those people don’t have the same credentials or higher, then they can’t know what they are talking about because they don’t have the years of experience and research to back up their ideas.

They are right; many of the people providing strategies and blueprints don’t have credentials or years of experience. What they do have is trial by fire on-line and the guts to try different strategies until they have worked. Knowing that they work, they then monetize their findings further by packaging their strategy up and selling it. Too many smart people discount the strategy before ever trying to execute it because they think that the person is not credentialed enough.

3. I Need More Data

If a smart person thinks something won’t work, they will hold out for more data, for the facts to become clear, or information that they requested but haven’t gotten yet. Guess what? If someone doesn’t want something to work, then all the additional data in the world won’t change that.

Smart people have been conditioned to believe that the path to earning a living is fraught with hard education, hard work, and a hardwood casket to bury you in when you collapse at your desk of exhaustion. Due to this conditioning, smart people can suffer from a cogitative dissonance effect and find reasons that creating an on-line business won’t work.

2. I Know More Than This Idiot

Have you ever looked at a product that might help you get started and thought to yourself, “I am smarter than this goof-ball…I am not going to spend money on this piece of junk.”

Many smart people have issues of getting information from someone they see as below them on the intellectual totem pole. I know, because I was one of those people. If someone didn’t have at least a college degree, I thought that their product was not going to help me. I have learned that there is a lot out there that a degree doesn’t teach you and many people create products that are easy to understand and put into action.

1. My Work Speaks For Itself

The number one reason why smart people fail at creating on-line businesses is that they think they don’t need to promote their work. They think that because of how smart they are, people will read their blog, follow them on twitter, or add them as a contact on linkedin. Smart people don’t realize that in order to build your business, you have to market your knowledge in such a way that people will be compelled to purchase your knowledge.

The point of these points is that in many cases smart people are just too smart for their own good when it comes to creating an on-line business. At some point you have to let go of needing credentials, more information, or a feeling that someone is an idiot and trust that if you create value that you can succeed on-line.

Let me know if you have any other ways smart people sabotage themselves by leaving a comment on ways you think smart people sabotage themselves.

5 Reasons Smart People Fail at Creating On-line Businesses is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. Are You Trying to Trade A Monotonous Job for a Monotonous Business?
2. How Not to Do Free Content
3. What if I Told You that Everything You Have Been Told About Finding a Niche is Wrong?

To demonstrate that their testimonials are not bogus, many reputable marketers now use audio or video testimonials from their customers to demonstrate that someone has actually used their product and taken the time to give them a testimonial. For someone with a large budget, it is not hard to hire someone to set up a recording, put it into the correct format, and post it to the web. For individual entrepreneurs, setting up a system for collecting audio or video can be costly, time consuming, or too technically challenging.

Enter Google Voice.

If you have a Google Voice account, then you can quickly and easily set up audio testimonials on your website. If you do not have a Google Voice account, then go get on the waiting list RIGHT NOW by CLICKING HERE! Then bookmark this page and come back to it when you have an account.

Once you have a Google Voice Account, you can set up a custom widget that you can put on your webpage that will allow your customers to leave voice testimonials about you or your products.

To do this in Google Voice , log on to Google Voice and click Settings in the top right hand corner of the Google Voice screen.

Click on Settings in Google Voice

When you are in the settings, click on Call Widgets then set the following fields:

Name: I used “Testimonials”

When receiving calls from this widget: I set it to “Send to Voicemail”

Then Select “New Custom Greeting” from the drop down and press “Add”. It will pop up a message to call you in order to add a new greeting.

Google Voice Widget Set Up

Once you have set up a call greeting, save the widget and copy the Embed code from the widget you want to use to a page on your website or a blog post.

Copy the Embed Code for the Widget and Paste on Your Site

When you have successfully added the code to your website, it will show the following call me button:

Now direct your customers to the page on your site that has the Call Me button and ask them to leave a testimonial.

When you receive testimonials, they will show up in Google Voice. To add them to your website, click on the more link in the testimonial you want to add and get the Embed code. Cut and paste that code to your website.

Embed a Testimonial from Google Voice on your Site

When you have done that, the testimonial will show up on your website like the testimonial I recorded for myself:

You now have audio testimonials on your site.

If you found this article useful, then why don’t you leave me a testimonial?

Add Voice Testimonials to Your Site with Google Voice is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. How to Overcome Procrastination
2. How Not to Do Free Content
3. How to Lose Customers

Scouring the menu, I attempt to find dumplings, exotic noodle soups, or even just a simple fish fillet with black bean sauce. Looking around, if I spot Chinese patrons, I will ask if I can have “the other menu” so that I can partake in one of the interesting dishes that the Chinese people around me are so happily spooning onto their plates. No “other menu?” Then I will not be returning.

Are you running your business like most Chinese restaurants?

Most Chinese restaurants keep the traditional Chinese dishes off the menu or on another menu that in many cases is not translated into English. The assumption is that Americans would not enjoy traditional Chinese fare and would be better served by another heaping plate of deep fried chicken chunks. The truth is that as more Americans travel to China for business or watch Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations marathon on the Travel Channel, we are becoming exposed to real Chinese food and want to try some of the dishes we have seen. We assume that they have the good stuff, but it is not accessible to us because we don’t know what to ask for.

When I ask if you are running your business like a Chinese restaurant, I am asking if you are hiding products and services from your customers because you assume that those products are not designed for them. Most of your customers are not going to ask if you have something else available, so they will spend their money at your competitors. Do you sell a marketing product on your website, but don’t tell people you offer coaching because you have not met them in person? Do you conduct workshops, but don’t tell people that bought e-books about your workshop because they are not on the workshop list? Are you only offering your handmade goods in local craft stores and not on your website where you are blogging about making the cozies?

If you are not making ALL of your products and services available to EVERYONE that visits your site, then you are running your business like most Chinese restaurants, which means you are potentially leaving a lot of money on the table. If you consult, then provide your customers with a tool that lets them contact you for a consultation. If you have an e-book, then give them the ability to buy the e-book from your blog. If you make tea cozies, then set up and link to your Etsy shop. Whatever your product or service offerings are, let people know what they are in a clear way that lets people know what products and services are right for them.

When you hide your products and services, you are potentially missing out on new customers, larger sales, and better leads to larger clients.

Now where can I get some chicken feet?

Why Your Business is Like Most Chinese Restaurants is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

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2. That is Not How This Business Works
3. How to Lose Customers