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?

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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

Why Massive Action is Important

Here is the kicker; taking massive action to get something accomplished is the only difference between successes and failures. It is only in action that we are able to live the life of our dreams.

My Story

When I graduated from college, I barely achieved a 3.00 GPA. The quarter before graduation, I had a 2.97 GPA and earlier in my college career, I was heading towards a 2.00 GPA. From the look of my transcript, you would have thought that I wasn’t cut out for success in higher education.

Fast forward four years. After begging on hands and knees to get into graduate school, I graduated with a 3.93 GPA. If you would look at my transcript from graduate school, you would see that I had one B and the rest were A’s.

Was I A Bad Student?

If you had looked at my undergraduate grades, you might have thought that I didn’t spend much time on my studies. Here is the thing, I rarely missed classes or assignments. If you had seen me in class and working in front of the computer at the library, you would have thought I was a star student.

What was my problem?

The problem was that I wasn’t taking action.

Instead of actually taking the action to read what the professors wanted me to read; I was studying how to study, looking for simple explanations, or trying to find out how to better schedule my study time so that I could be a more effective student.

I was studying everything about studying, but not actually taking action on the materials I had in front of me.

Success Comes From Massive Action

I succeeded in Graduate School, because I spent hours in the library reading my textbooks, taking notes, summarizing notes, and working through my homework problems. I took the action required and worked my butt off in order to get the grades I wanted.

What do You Want?

Do you want to create and sell your own products online? Then stop spending $2000 on products that tell you how to create and sell products and start creating them.

Do you want to find a better job, lose weight, or fix your relationship? Spend 12 hours writing and revising your resume, exercise, or talk to your partner about the problems you are experiencing in your relationship.

Too often we know what we want and we don’t take the action required to get what we want. Instead we head to Google and start reading about how to find a better job, lose 10 pounds in a week, or what we need to say to our spouse to fix our relationship. Instead of spending 10 hours taking the action required to do something, we spend that time reading about how we should be taking action.

This post will not help you unless you are willing to help yourself.

If you want to do something, take action to do it. Don’t think about it, don’t study the problem, and don’t buy a product that gives you a formula for figuring it out. Just take action and do the work required to get it done.

Will you have to work at it? Yes.

Will it be hard? Yes.

Deal with it.

This Post Will Not Help You 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. Time is an Illusion
2. Why You Should Hate Your Parents
3. There Are No Magic Bullets

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?

It has nothing to do with their current financial situation, their upbringing, or their intelligence.

The reason that someone else is succeeding and you aren’t is that they are working their ass off while you are sitting at home watching Lost.

I didn’t have to work today. Actually, I wanted to sit at home and watch reruns of Lost, but I got up and went to the library at 7:00 AM, because I had a goal of getting a product created and available for sale by the end of the week. I am almost there, but it is because I did what many others don’t do . . . I got up and started working toward my goal.

What did I get done today that moved me forward?

Since 7:30 this morning, I have:

• Set up a personal VPN
• Wrote, edited, and posted this blog post
• Drafted three other blog posts
• Edited three additional blog posts I have been working on
• Edited a 39 page workbook
• Set up a new website
• Wrote the draft of my sales page
• Read 50 pages of Alan Weiss’ new book
• Sent a draft of my product to my accountability partner
• Had lunch with my girlfriend

I don’t say this to brag. I say this because I think it is important to demonstrate how much you personally can get done when you put your mind to it. The problem is the people that think that sitting around doing nothing is going to get them rich. They believe that they can think their way to riches or outsource their product creation to someone.

The Problem with the 4-Hour Work Week

I have nothing wrong with Tim Ferriss or the success he has had with the 4-Hour Work Week (Amazon Affiliate Link). I am actually a huge fan of what he has accomplished and what he strives to inspire others to do. What I have a problem with are the people that think that creating a product or service is about outsourcing everything on elance for as cheaply as possible then sitting around on a beach while the money rolls in.

What outsourcing knowledge and product creation does is create a large volume of cookie cutter products devoid of originality and value. If you sit down and read4-Hour Work Week (Amazon Affiliate Link) and other books that have copied Tim’s idea, you will see that working 4 hours a week is not done on the front end. It is done after you have built a portfolio of knowledge and products that can be developed into an automated system for delivering that knowledge and product to your customers.

Are you looking at the amount of work you are putting in?

So if you are wondering why your boat hasn’t arrived, maybe you need to look at the amount of work you are putting.

Are you actively learning and developing new products and services as much as possible every day?

If not, don’t you think it’s time to get off your butt and get to work?

Stay tuned and hold on tight, because I am gong to have some more on this topic and how you can get off your butt and create a product in the coming weeks.

The Reason for Success 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. 5 Reasons Smart People Fail at Creating On-line Businesses
3. How to Overcome Procrastination

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?

The CFO says, “We need to donate some money to a charity to lower our total tax rate.”

The VP of Marketing then chimes in with, “What charity would give us the most publicity for our donation?”

“I don’t know,” the CEO says, “but make sure that the burden on the cost comes from our customers and not out of the bottom line.”

“We need to make sure that we reduce the cost of our product in line with the portion that we are donating to charity, the cost to change the labeling, and any marketing that is associated with this campaign,” the COO reminds the stuffy old codgers around the table.

“Agreed,” the CFO retorts, “make sure the total donation doesn’t exceed $500,000 or it will kill our run rate savings for this fiscal year and has no additional tax benefit.”

The VP of marketing ponders aloud, “What charity are we supporting?”

“I don’t care,” the CEO says, “just make sure that it is one that makes me look good. Git ‘er done. Meeting adjourned, because I need to make my next tee time and the corporate jet (which costs more in a month to run then we are donating) is waiting.”

Is This How a Business Helps Their Community?

In my experience, most corporations donate to causes in order to reduce their tax exposure, gain reduced cost publicity, and make their CEO look like he supports the less fortunate. The donations either come from a tiny fraction of the sales or through the consumer buying a certain product during a limited time period. The worst are the campaigns where the consumer has to collect and mail box tops, UPCs, or lids in order for the company to make a donation to a cause. That puts the burden of responsibility on the customer and not the company that wants to look like it is trying to do well in the first place.

Most Corporate Giving Doesn’t Engage Your Customers

Campaigns like the one above do nothing to get your customer interested in a cause, motivate them to select your product, or make them feel like they are making a difference in the world. What truly motivates your customers is your ability to make them feel really good about buying your product. Your customers want to know that every purchase they make from you might change someone’s life.

The Tom’s Shoes Example

An example of this concept in action is Tom’s Shoes. The idea that Tom’s uses is simple; for every pair of shoes you buy, they donate a pair to a child in need. Doesn’t buying a product with the knowledge that someone in need gets one of the products make you feel better? Doesn’t it make you want to talk about and write blog posts about this idea?

What is Your Motivation?

When companies are donating to causes, are they doing it just to look good or are they doing it because they can, and it is the right thing to do? Companies that are passionate about helping people with every product they sell are doing the right thing. Companies that are trying to reduce their tax rate or get cheap publicity by limiting how much help they provide are not doing the right thing.

Yeah, but I don’t Sell Shoes

You don’t have to sell shoes to make a difference in the world. There are other ways that you can help the world with your product or service. For example:

1. A restaurant can feed two people at a homeless shelter for every meal sold.
2. Barbers and stylists can donate a haircut to someone that is unemployed for every haircut they sell.
3. A publisher can plant a tree for every book sold.
4. Chair manufacturers can donate a new desk to a school for every chair they sell.
5. Football teams can buy pads for at risk students for every season pass sold.
6. A bike manufacturer can give a bike to a needy child for every bike sold.

There are Many Ways to Help

There are an endless number of ways that businesses can help people and engage their customers in the process of helping. Don’t be like the business that does it for their benefit. Be the business that does it to help people, engage your customers in the process, and be a good thriving business. Are your customers going to have to pay more for your product? Hell yes! But they will pay for it because it is the right thing to do and not just a marketing and tax gimmick.

What ways can the companies you buy from truly help people with your purchase?

Is This How a Business Helps Their Community? 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. The Secret to Business Success: Don’t Be Original
3. You Will Fail if You Are Not Passionate About Your Business

If you don’t want to learn how to connect with A-listers that are playing a much bigger game than you, then don’t read and download Dave’s article and workbook on networking with A-listers.

If you don’t want to map out how to turn the value you offer the world into multiple streams of revenue, then definitely don’t read and download Dave’s article and workbook on creating new streams of income from what you already know.

What it comes down to is that if you are happy spending a majority of your life in a gray fabric cube working on someone else’s big idea, then close your browser and get back to working for someone else’s dream and not your own. If you want to learn how to step up your game, connect with people that will cheer you on, and figure out how to earn money  doing something you enjoy doing, then read on.

What the hell is Dave Navarro doing?

The Launch Coach Dave Navarro is launching his The More Buyers Mastermind (which I have signed up for already) in what I see as the current path for anyone that wants to sell products and services on-line. In the lead up to the launch, he is providing a series of awesome articles and workbooks (and giving away tons of free prizes to people that help spread the word about the articles) that provide the background work for the More Buyers Mastermind course. Reading the articles and workbooks, I am blown away by the tools and tactics that Dave has provided.

As his twitter nickname states, it will @RockYourDay.

This launch technique is powerful, because it teaches two things that anyone trying to sell something on-line should unabashedly copy:

1. It demonstrates that you know what you are talking about. There are thousands of marketers out there trying to schlep crap for $100 or more that is not half as powerful as the free workbooks and articles that Dave has posted this week.

2. Most importantly, when you launch a product like Dave’s, you want to make sure that you are attracting the “right people” that will continue to come to you for additional products and services. Providing free articles and workbooks gives your potential customers an idea of what you have to offer. It also shows that what you offer resonates with your customer. When your products connect with your “right people”, then they are more likely to keep clicking your buy now button.

How does this help you?

Dave is providing you with an amazingly valuable series of articles and workbooks that could nudge you from where you are to where you want to be. What I am also learning from Dave is that the best way to launch a new product is to give people information that you created (not crap you bought from someone else) that can help anyone that resonates with your message.

What will you do with this knowledge?

You can take this information and do nothing, or you can use it to kick your business into at least first gear. So what are you waiting for? Get over to Dave Navarro’s website and start moving forward.

Disclaimer : The links to Dave Navarro’s sites are affiliate links for The More Buyers Mastermind course. That means if you are like me and decide to sign up for The More Buyers Mastermind course, then I will get monetary compensation . . .THANKS! YOU ROCK!. If you want to learn more about how to get started with affiliate programs and other on-line businesses, then I recommend Naomi Dunford’s Online Business School (which is also an affiliate link).

P.S. I hope that you find Dave’s articles and workbooks useful. If you do, then that is awesome. If not, then that is cool. The past few days I have found the articles and workbooks very useful so I wanted to share them. If you think that this post is nothing more than a sales pitch, then move along and good luck with whatever you are doing. If you have gotten value from this post, then check out Dave’s first article. I think you might like it.

UPDATE: More Buyers Mastermind is live. Check it out with my dirty, dirty, affiliate link.

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

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.

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Are you one of those people on Twitter or in other blogging circles, that want to be the next Seth Godin, Chris Brogan, or Tim Ferriss. You have read all the books, taken the courses, and have attended the conferences. You are blogging, are going to launch a product, and are eagerly awaiting your invitation to speak at SXSW 2010.

So what happens if you actually become famous online? Imagine if your manifesto gets promoted by an A-list blogger, your book gets signed to a major label, and your blog gets sponsored by an online media empire.

What happens next?

1. People Google your name to find out the most embarrassing or damaging information they can about you. Because you are famous now, people will point out your flaws on Twitter, in blog comments, in YouTube videos, and on message boards.

2. Your e-mail inbox goes from 1 unread e-mail to 10,000. Don’t be surprised at the number of random people that want you to help them for free or will tell you how much they hate you.

3. People will try to find out where you live, how much money you make, and other sundry details that might make people who enjoy privacy a bit paranoid. They will then post the details of your life to their blog or on a social media website.

4. You will get sued. Someone will disagree with what you are saying, will misuse your advice, or they are just plain crazy. Because you are now visible online, you will be a target for their lawsuits.

5. People want you to promote their products and services. You will get packages of questionable material, e-mails, phone calls, and messages from people that want your name attached to their project.

Isn’t fame wonderful?

Putting yourself, your products, and services on the Internet is a daunting challenge for many people. Think about how you perceive your privacy at this time. Do you feel safe and secure putting everything online?

If so, then go for it.

If not, then consider what steps you can take to ensure privacy as you grow your business.

Do you want to be famous?

Are you ready to handle being famous?

You Don’t Want to Be Famous 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:

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3. What are Your Energizing Moments?