Blipfish - behind the coffee cup. The business of my business.

Working on: article about the challenges of working from home.

Drinking: Starbucks’ Sulawesi.

Listening to: This Week in Tech (TWiT #133 “Jonathon Coulton - Functional and Elegant”).

Music in lineup:
Slade “Rogues Gallery”
Asia “Astra”
Matchbox 20
Men at Work
Echo and the Bunnymen
House of Lords “Sahara”
Headpins
Quiet Riot “QRIII” - Rest in Peace, Kevin.

Okay, this is one of those posts that happens because I was having a conversation with someone that sparked a tangent discussion that reminded me of something that might be useful to share. Did you follow that?

Let me tell you a little story - a fable from a long time ago in another land - marketing land…

Okay, there once was a product available for sale. It was a nice product - I still personally purchase them for my own self years later. This was a squishy, lightweight, pillow-sized product for consumer home-use. We’ll call it “the product.”

The product was very well marketed and very well received by consumers. It fit a health-need. Health and fitness are great markets to get into. They can be quite competitive but they can also be filled with a lot of schlocky products. This, thankfully, was not a schlocky product.

So, this product was so great that it was decided to give it awesome packaging that would survive shipping as well as stack nicely on the shelves at department and megamart-type stores. This product was also blessed with an equally awesome guarantee - basically stating that if you didn’t like it for any reason just send it or take it back and you’ll get all your money back. The time limit was generous, the requirements were practically non-existent (meaning that if you even just hated the color and wanted to return it - that was fine), and it was a great guarantee told customers they clearly were going to like what they got.

The rub, though, was that, although returns were few (much less than projected and significantly less than industry standards for this type of product) it was still the goal to tackle the issue of returns with the goal of making them non-existent. Of course, there will always be returns of any product but the thinking was to do everything possible to make it so the customer would have no desire to return it without tampering with that excellent, consumer-favoring money back guarantee in any way, shape or form. That guarantee to the customer was written in stone and as good as gold. The customers had to love the product and be willing to keep it.

So, the subject of returns came up at a meeting (where Reuben sandwiches and ginger ale were served for lunch). “How do we reduce the already low-rate of returns but not mess with customer confidence or the guarantee?” This was a question asked by a man wearing a navy blue suit and obligatory red power-tie - the extra wide kind, not those sissified narrow ties. This was a man who was king of all the land and his word was law and his questions demanded answers - the good kind, not those pansy answers marketing folks usually give.

The subject of reducing returns was discussed around the great, round table in the room of conferences amidst the feast of Reuben sandwiches for nearly an hour. It was a discussion that ranged from the usual ideas for reducing returns (ideas which were discarded since it was determined not to tamper with the sacred guarantee), to the absurd to, eventually, one very clever idea.

“Change the packaging.”

Yes. Change the packaging.

“What do you mean - change the packaging?” was a question asked between sips of ginger ale.

Well, since it was established, through research, that customers were overwhelmingly satisfied with the product and it was only a tiny fraction that returned it due to it not solving their health problem - but were still satisfied with the product in general - why not simply make it a little harder to return it?

I know. It seems a little sneaky but believe me, far sneakier things go on in market caves every day all over this Country. This was actually a rather thoughtful solution to a problem: still allow the money-back guarantee to be as strong as ever but make so that only people who really were compelled to return the product would do so - make it not quite so convenient to return but not in an avaricious way.

The thing was - all existing returns were showing the product coming back in the original packaging - that sturdy, folded lid box. The box was so good, so easy to simply slide the product back in and put a label on it that it was a bit too easy to return.

The solution was to ship this product in a shrunk, compressed, plastic, heat-sealed sleeve that had to physically be torn apart to release the product.

As is often the case in sales - there’s money to be made from the sale of a product, cutting the costs to produce that product, reducing costs of shipping or deployment, but there’s also money to be gained by reducing returns.

The benefit to this solution was obvious - again, it kept the very important guarantee intact, it reduced weight in shipping (and the product survived shipping fine in the new packaging within larger palette boxes), and customer satisfaction surveys indicated the same, high level of overall satisfaction and recommendation.

It was a win/win situation and one that reminds me often to think outside the box, as it were, in finding solutions to problems.

By the way - I hate Reuben sandwiches. Sauerkraut is awful stuff - and that’s coming from someone with a German family. Who ever thought of putting that in a sandwich was nuts.

What’s the big deal about a tshirt?

Well, let me tell you a few things that my eyes were opened to when I began selling tees online and offline in what would eventually become a multi-faceted and lucrative business.

Whether it be historically important to point out that the humble tshirt may have begun as a tunic in ancient Rome or Egypt or that it really became modern during World War I as a government-issued garment. the tshirt, in some form or another, has been with us for a long time.

Although the military use of tshirts spread throughout other branches of the services in different countries, the cultural impact that I most appreciate is when it began to be seen as a style unto itself in the 1950’s cinema.

Marlon Brando wore a tshirt with authority as Stanley Kowalski in the 1951 film “A Streetcar Named Desire.” It was iconic. Later, in 1955 we saw the original rebel James Dean wear the classic white tee in “Rebel Without A Cause.”It didn’t take long for it to catch on. Even the great Elvis Presley was wearing this inner garment on the outside as he drove the ladies wild.

The humble, utilitarian tshirt was now a symbol with style.

In 1959 something important happened - the tshirt became a source of advertising. Actress Jane Seberg wore one in a film called “Breathless” in which the words “Herald Tribune” were seen. This popular English-language newspaper from Paris knew the power of such a marketing move in cinema. Now, in current times, product-placement is a huge industry in itself for advertisers.

It wasn’t long after this that company logos, whimsical slogans, pearls of wisdom, art, political statements, or just plain humor was right at home on the blank canvas which was the tshirt as much as it was in a newspaper or a billboard.

It’s also safe to say that tshirts can often be a barometer of culture and society as much as a statement from the individual wearing it. They’re great also for being the medium for people to express things that they may not otherwise say directly but are happy to have it seen on the shirt they wear in public.

The tshirt has, and continues to be, useful as well as fashionable for people of any age and any background, in some form or another. It’s impressive as to how much of even our own culture can trace back entertainment as well as industrial useage to include tshirts in some noticeable role.

In a commissioned study conducted by the Jerzees company (a major manufacturer of fashion tshirts and other apparel) it was noted that:

The greatest reason people wear a tshirt is for comfort. It’s often regarded as the most comfortable article of clothing we own.

Nearly 80% of tshirt owners are between the ages of 18-24 years old.

…publishing, that is.

Oooh, ahh… Meredith Publishing. Does this mean we’re going to see a new magazine called “Better Homes and Blipfishes?” Or, better yet, how about the surprise of “Blipfish’s Home Journal” premiering?

We’ll have to see. However, through the magic of WordPress’ ability to publish my blog posts via timer, it will give the illusion that I’m posting tomorrow, without interruption, even though I’m probably not anywhere near my blog. Wow, it’s just like voodoo and being in two places at once, isn’t it?

How does the blip do it?

Are you a graphic artist?
Pop on over to my girl Audrie’s site: PeonProductions.com. She and her husband are running an excellent “Logo Gone Wild” contest. It’s kinda’ wild because they’re both accomplished artists but, what makes this fun, is that they’re handing you their company logo and asking you to have at it - give it your own artistic treatment. The prizes are none-to-shabby, either!

Have you updated your Google Base feed?
Keep on it - believe me - it sucks out loud when your 30-day schedule is interrupted and you wonder why shopping traffic falls faster than Tara Reid on her fifth limoncello.

In case I don’t get back around for a proper post tomorrow - have an awesome and groovy weekend!

Listening to: Heart live concert (these girls rock - seriously).
Drinking: Boulevard Beer - Irish Ale.
Working on: Building Photoshop texture library (hey, you can never have too many lizard-skin textures!).

…Yup, this is how I spend my Saturday nights.

For Adam

Originally uploaded by blipfish.

Answer: As of today they’re frequently used search terms that probably don’t have a darn thing to do with your online business - so stop using them!

Okay, chances are you’re not really trying to gain un-targeted search engine traffic by using those words to bring people to your ebook or tshirt-selling site, but it’s important to also not to accidentally have valuable space taken up by words that lack relevancy, too, or not have the right words at all.

There are other things that help your site in Google besides hot keywords that may or may not be accurate.

Title Tags and Meta Descriptions are still important, folks. They’re not the end-all-be-all that they once were (or were professed to be) but they still have value. These are contained within the HTML of your page - so we’re not talking about stuffing the content of your blog or whatever with keywords - these are coded into the page itself.

A good title, which is descriptive to humans in describing your site accurately helps Google more effectively list your page within results. Google “learns” a little bit about you from this and human readers get a better idea of what you offer when they see your listing in their search results.

Meta descriptions tags are not that different. They are tags that are sometimes put to use as a “snippet” - a brief, but hopefully accurate description that shows up in the form of a couple lines of text under the title in search results. Again, this is sometimes provided as a greater description about the page in question.

Google usually attempts to provide a description based on search terms - obviously - but when the search fails to come up with it on its own it often relies on what you’ve provided in that description tag. So, it’s an important fallback element to have in place because Google, although good, doesn’t always figure out what the page is about and needs help.

Yes, I know I’m talking about Google like it’s some kind of artificial life form out for a walk.

At any rate, since this is just a drive-by post between my first cup of coffee and my morning walk (hey - it’s 4 degrees below zero outside. You BET I’m having coffee first)… I just wanted to give some quick pick-me-up reminders.

If you want to learn more about Google and the topic of Google and how it deals with your site - Google’s own Help Center has excellent reading.

Here’s my favorite picks on the subject:

“How can I create a Google-Friendly site?”

“Webmaster Guidelines”

Have a very happy ‘Single-Tasking Day’ and a wonderful ‘Martyrs Day’ …if that’s the correct greeting for Martyrs Day?

…Nancy - get me Bangladesh on the phone - I have a question about one of their holidays.

Google has begun to penalize sites (in terms of ranking and/or page results) that have a great many incoming links that use the exact, same text.

The most likely instances would be sites that promote link exchanges and, as a courtesy of convenience, suggest text or html code to copy/paste if another site wishes to link. Although it has been helpful to do this the problem is now that all that code or suggested text means all the sites linking to you are likely causing you to slide downhill in Google.

So, if you are promoting a link exchange and have suggested text or pre-made html code you encourage to be copy pasted - you may want to do away with it and instead suggest people write text and links in their own words if they wish to direct traffic your way.

The damage may already be done and might also be difficult to control because it can be tough to track down existing instances unless you have active relationships with site admins or owners. However, if you can - try to contact them to do the same: link and promote you in their own words.

I now return myself back to my hot cocoa because it’s freaking cold outside (-21F).

It seems like just yesterday when VHS and Beta were battling it out for dominance (there can be only one). It was 1975 so “yesterday” is relative. Of course, for the video tapes it was a different kind of victory: Beta was a superior (and larger) format but politics, marketing, and issues surrounding 2 hour limits (or eventually RCA’s 4 hour tape format) began to turn the tide. It wasn’t long before VHS got their feet under them, made some innovations, and we ended up waving bye-bye to Beta.

Today, we saw a war end but a little differently. Blu-Ray versus HD-DVD. Just when you thought that Disney choosing sides was a joke or were stunned to find that the porn industry picking a format actually had a lot of weight… it was more about technology and proprietary than anything… and investor confidence. However, when Walmart and Warner Brothers decided to support only Blu-Ray - the battle was over. Toshiba called it quits this morning and the HD-DVD is no longer. I mean, those expensive movies and players the early adopters purchased will still work but good luck finding even Season 1 of Walker Texas Ranger for sale on HD-DVD in a year. It’s gone. No more - Blu-Ray-only now.

…you can hear the sound of Panasonic machines being thrown across living rooms as I type.

For me? I don’t really care. I’m not an early adopter - don’t even have a single disc of either format and frankly, get 99% of my movie-watching done through Netflix. So, I can freely float whichever way the winds blow.

I’m just glad the war is over and it’s now time to start cranking out whichever machine in a consumer friendly and affordable manner.

Remember this day folks - you’ll tell your kids about it twenty years from now when neither DVD or CD are even formats in existence anymore and are, instead, silly novelties that were replaced with holographic memory a decade ago.

Note: This article first appeared on the front page of the May 4th, 2005 issue of The Wall Street Journal as well as the online edition. It represents well the growing successes of the online tshirt retail industry. As a person named in the article I’d also like to point out that the references to “TheTShirtZone” are that of the predecessor to the Torndao Republic. The company and name may have changed but the success and enjoyment of the online tshirt business goes on.

~Dan Mowry
Owner/operator of the former TheTShirtZone now the Tornado Republic and the blipfish himself.

By accident or design, selling T-shirts is big business on Web

Wednesday, May 04, 2005
By Pui-Wing Tam, The Wall Street Journal

Dan Mowry thought he knew just how to turn his family entertainment newsletter into a successful online business.

Two years ago, he designed an attractive site and loaded it up with features to entice readers and advertisers: electronic crossword puzzles, a history quiz and cartoons. Almost as an afterthought, he designed a T-shirt with his company’s logo, a circus ringmaster holding a megaphone.

Today the online and print newsletters have flopped. But the shirts are pulling in up to $3,000 per month, as Mr. Mowry joins the growing ranks of entrepreneurs profiting from an improbable but lucrative Web business model: selling T-shirts.

All over the Web, bloggers, artists and entrepreneurs are unexpectedly finding that T-shirts are more reliable moneymakers than the original ideas that brought them to the Internet.

CollegeHumor.com, a site offering jokes and pictures from college campuses nationwide, sells T-shirts that say “My other shirt has its collar up,” “What Would Ashton Do,” and dozens of others. Its parent company, Connected Ventures LLC, says it takes in roughly $200,000 in monthly revenue from the shirts, about half of its total income. “A year from now things could be very different, but for now, T-shirts are a great way to monetize the Internet,” says Josh Abramson, one of the site’s founders.

It turns out the T-shirt is a perfect fit for online commerce. It captures the Web’s renegade allure and allows surfers to show off their virtual journeys. Easy to make and deliver, T-shirts often cost $15 or less online.

More than 1,500 Web sites now sell T-shirts, says Rodney Blackwell, a Sacramento, Calif., entrepreneur who runs several Web sites. Mr. Blackwell, who began cataloguing the number of sites offering T-shirts in early 2004 for one of his Web properties, tracked just 500 such sites last year before the market exploded.

“So many people wanted their T-shirt sites listed on my page that I had to turn people away and institute a listing fee of $19.95,” says Mr. Blackwell. He says he now adds 60 sites every month to his list, which is displayed on T-shirtcountdown.com, where visitors can vote for the most popular shirt.

Recently, one of Mr. Blackwell’s own creations — a T-shirt declaring “Can’t sleep, clowns will eat me … ” — ranked No. 5 on that list. The shirt is available on Mr. Blackwell’s ihateclowns.com, an elaborate site whose name accurately describes its philosophy. The nine-year-old site covers its expenses by selling up to 90 T-shirts per month for $15 per shirt, Mr. Blackwell says.

John Wooden of Brooklyn, N.Y., runs a parody of the official White House site on whitehouse.org, and pays for it by selling anti-Bush T-shirts with messages like “Proud Blue Stater.” He says he covers all the costs of running the site by selling tees and lives off the rest of the earnings, which total several thousand dollars per month. “It’s not a bad living,” says Mr. Wooden, who declined to provide specific revenue figures.

It’s not hard to make money on T-shirts. Mr. Mowry, the accidental T-shirt merchant, often gets his shirts from CafePress.com, a San Leandro, Calif., company that prints designs on shirts and other products and even ships them directly to a Web site’s customers.

CafePress charges a vendor like Mr. Mowry a base price of $8.99 for a T-shirt with a customized logo printed on it. Mr. Mowry then charges $19 or more for the finished product. That leaves him $10 per shirt in pretax income. Using a local apparel printer, which charges him only $5 for a basic T-shirt with printing, Mr. Mowry’s profit margins can be as high as $14 a shirt.

Mr. Mowry’s best-selling T-shirts today include one with the message “Shiny Objects Distract Me,” written in colorful fonts on the front. Another is rubber-stamped with the words “Does Not Play Well With Others.” Mr. Mowry has since sold off his newsletter and last year he launched a site that sells T-shirts, dubbed thetshirtzone.com.

Mary Ogle, an Ojai, Calif., oil painter, created a site in 2001 to sell her art prints at $150 each. But she sold no more than two prints a month. Two years later, she added a line of T-shirts and various tchotchkes featuring blue bears, pink cranes, mother hens and other images from her artworks. Sales took off and today she says she sells several hundred tees per month, taking in up to $800 in revenue.

Nick Bayne, 25 years old, an entertainment producer in New York, began buying T-shirts on the Internet last year, after coming across the CollegeHumor site that sold tees with clever puns and cartoons. In the past six months, Mr. Bayne says, he has bought six shirts online, for $18 apiece, and plans to buy more to add to his collection of 100.

Among his favorites: A shirt featuring a lead character of the movie “Napoleon Dynamite” that he says he could only find on the Web. Another shirt shows a picture of Che Guevara and says: “I have no idea who this is.”

“It’s a guilty pleasure,” Mr. Bayne says. “There’s a point where my girlfriend will tell me I’ll have to grow up, but until then, one definitely can’t have too many funny T-shirts.”

CollegeHumor.com asks visitors of its site for T-shirt ideas and receives an average of two suggestions a day. “The majority of them are awful,” says Mr. Abramson, adding that many of the submissions are far too crass.

To generate T-shirts with smarter messages, Mr. Abramson and three business partners look for puns and draw inspiration from television shows. Recent results include one that declares “Your Retarded” and another with a picture of a man with bear’s arms and the message “Right to Bear Arms.”

Reprinted with permission.
Original Wall Street Journal article available online here.

You may have heard about it by different names, but it’s basically the same thing: Retail Promotions Calendar, Marketing Calendar, that matrix of squares on the bosses’ desk he dotes over like a mystic oracle… that thing.

What is it?

Basically, it’s not what it is that’s as important as why you need one (meaning you need one because there’s important stuff you ought to be doing!).

As you might have guessed, it has something to do with marketing you do throughout a year. However, we’re not talking about the plain, vanilla sale most retailers have a couple times a year (after Christmas or some other shopping spike) to sell-off leftover stuff - we’re talking about carefully calculated and planned marketing that can be predicted a year (or more) out.

This isn’t just about physical retail either - it applies to online merchants who may or may not even have inventory (applies to print-on-demand equally as much).

A sale is a sale. You don’t have to always have a reason but boring stores have boring sales and boring sales happen in boring stores. Boring results usually follow. It’s fine to put products on sale because it’s Spring, or in honor of your business’ five-year mark - that’s fine - go for it.

However, a promotional calendar is more than a list of upcoming sales - it’s a coordinated, planned series of steps that happen weeks or months prior to a date landing. You could be prepping for a calendar date for Summer while it’s snowing outside during Winter. It’s about planning and preparation - and all that goes into it.

Think about one item on a Calendar we can all relate to: The 4th Quarter Christmas shopping season (or, as my politically incorrect peers call it “Holiday Festivus Purchasing Period”). No matter what you call it - there is a holiday or two that bring out, what is likely to be, your largest spike in sales during that time that will rival any other time of year - and it’s worth getting ready for.

The “sale” approach (which we’re not talking about) would be to simply put a sign up on your window or website saying “Holiday Sale! Everything Reduced” and then lower your prices. That’s a sale.

What we’re talking about is something to think about months ahead of time and could include any or all of the following (or more!):

* Holiday graphic makeover for online store designed and uploaded on set date.
* Holiday or seasonal graphic banners need to be created.
* Price reductions calculated and planned for adjustment on a set date.
* Online (or physical) advertising purchased, bid on, again - all set to take place on a certain date.
* Online advertising keywords/ad words determined well in advance - don’t just throw the word “gift” into a search engine and call it marketing.
* Events related to the holiday - interviews, kiosks, seminars, parties, shows, exhibits, press releases, community-driven opportunities, etc. All these things have to be planned to hit in time to not only gain momentum and target the shopping audience but also so that they don’t conflict with one-another or better yet… build upon the momentum of the last event.
* Co-venture arrangements (deals you strike with another company or individual that are mutually beneficial)… gotta’ plan these things to work on schedule, too.

It does no good to wait until November to hire a graphic artist to redo your online storefront for that holiday-theme when the artist is probably booked solid until next year.

It does no good to bid on Google ad words too late to take advantage of a solid run for seasonal/holiday search terms.

It will also do no good to miss community sales, causes, or other events that might afford you the opportunity to sell a little (or at least drum up some publicity) if you didn’t get an entry form turned-in on time or don’t have enough inventory/stock to bring with you to sell because you did it at the last minute.

It’s all about the planning.

I have this giant dry-erase board in my office. I brainstorm calendar events 3-6 months out ahead of time (although I have major, yearly points worked out too - but those are always “must do” items… such as Christmas). I’ll look at my standard, retail calendar (I’ll post that below) and plot backward all the steps any given idea for a promotion would require and then draft a plan of real, individual steps to take toward getting there. I’ll scribble in dates, in reverse, for ad placement and how much time a newspaper or magazine needs and any deadlines involved. I’ll plot backward any timeline I need to create graphics or art for an ad or promotion. I’ll block out vacation time or family events and then backtrack accordingly the time I need to allot myself a realistic chance of getting things done for that date.

It’s not unusual for me, like I mentioned, to have snow on the ground outside but I’ll be planning a Spring or Summer sale complete with website redesign, promotional graphic banners, art, product designs, product assortment, you name it… all ready for warm, US weather before the flowers even begin to bloom.

When you’re in a global market you also need to factor in that cold and hot seasons are different around the globe. Do you want to promote year-round or not? Do you want to reflect local seasons but still leave global shopping available (eg. Keeping tank tops and swimsuits available even in December for our Australian shoppers?).

Either way, ads take time to create, purchase, place, and deadlines exist. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with you have multiple things going on such as a Spring sale promotion combined with a local Spring exhibition at the local event arena where you want to have a sales booth, and then a month later a Summertime fair kiosk where you’ll need local, Summer products to sell which need to be ordered and stocked well ahead of time. A marketing calendar is invaluable because it will have a few dates on it for the holiday/event… but it’ll have far more dates on it that reflect the planning and sequence of events you need to do to get there.

A good calendar can help you focus, plan, set goals, keep on task, stay on target and help avoid dropping the ball when you are juggling several at once.

Now that I’ve bean the concept into your head five ways from Sunday, here’s a good, starter list to help you forecast notable, retail points in a year:

January

* Super Bowl
* New Years Eve
* New Year (and any resolution excuse for a promo!)
* Martin Luther King
* Back to School
* Bank Holiday (UK)

February

* Ground Hog Day
* Mardi Gras
* President’s Day
* Valentine’s Day
* Daytona 500
* February Sweeps for Television
* Black History Month

March

* St. Patrick’s Day
* Passover
* Easter
* First Day of Spring
* March Madness
* Academy Awards

April

* Baseball Opening Day
* Good Friday
* April Fool’s Day
* Taxes (spend those returns!)
* Earth Day
* PGA Master’s Golf
* Prom

May

* Cinco de Mayo
* Mother’s Day
* Victoria Day (Canada)
* Memorial Day
* Spring Bank Holiday (UK)
* Kentucky Derby
* Season Finales for Television
* Teacher Appreciation Week

June

* Father’s Day
* Flag Day
* School Graduations / Summer Vacation
* First Day of Summer
* U.S. Golf Open
* Wimbledon

July

* Canada Day
* Independence Day
* Summer Fun

August

* Back to School
* Tax-Free Sales Events
* End of Summer

September

* Labor Day
* NFL Opens
* First Day of Fall

October

* Columbus Day
* World Series
* Thanksgiving Day (Canada)
* Red Ribbon Week
* National Boss Day
* National Book Month
* Halloween
* National Breast Cancer Awareness Month (US)

November

* Election Day
* Veteran’s Day
* Thanksgiving Day
* Black Friday (Busiest Shopping Day)
* November Sweeps for Television
* Winter Sports

December

* First Day of Winter
* Christmas
* Boxing Day
* New Year’s Eve

Lastly, never forget that your own business or community will likely have many, many great opportunities to mark a promotion on the calendar… grand opening, anniversary of opening, local parade or festival, musical group/band touring dates, weather-related, and so on. Sometimes, creating your own date of celebration can not only be fun and a great excuse for a promotion - it could take on a life of its own and become a yearly ritual and even recognized as something special online or offline.

No matter what though, you have to plan ahead to get all the pieces to fall into place when they need to be.

It’s cold here. Well, not here inside the blipfish offices but it’s cold outside - 16 degrees F wind chill, visibility a tenth of a mile, blizzard alert until midnight, 30-40 mph winds and maybe 6 inches of snow throughout the day. I love it. Well, I love it and hate it but that’s a common sentiment among those who live in the Midwest. At any rate, it’s an excellent excuse to stay inside with a hot cup of Sumatra coffee, put the phone on mute, and enjoy the seclusion while I write.

What to write about?

Well, I’ve got a random subject but it does have bearing on the recent topic of press releases and creative ways of taking one’s business to a new level. It’s also about branching out to new markets and creating buzz (and media exposure worth listing in your portfolio).

I had a conversation with a client last night regarding purchasing media (paid placement in tv, radio or print - ads). There’s always a concern about expense and even if you can overcome the costs involved to get a commercial launched one is always left wishing they had better rotation (when the ad runs during a given time frame). So, we ended up talking a little about a way I overcame a cost-issue a few years ago. Let me share my experience with you - you might be very surprised that it can apply to you even if you never thought about radio.

Alright, a few years ago I started an entrepreneurial venture which involved creating and distributing a G-rated, family-friendly entertainment newsletter. The gist of it was that this publication was filled with trivia, crossword puzzles, mazes, cartoons, word-searches - you name it! It was full of entertaining ways to kill time while you read it at a restaurant table, waited in line at a grocery store, sat in a hotel room looking for restaurants within walking distance, or anywhere else a person had time to kill and the business wanted to keep that person happy while they waited.

This publication was free and generated entirely by me, well, except I worked some deals with a couple awesome cartoonists to use their work in exchange for free promotion, but it was entirely a self-run operation. I did it all from home on my computer using available desktop publishing software and a few specialty applications that helped me make mazes and crossword puzzles. It was such a joy to produce each issue.

The upswing is that profit was generated by placing paid advertisements in pre-allocated squares within the publication. I would pound the pavement (every day at first) but eventually word got around and advertisers would contact me. They loved the idea of having their ad printed in an issue which circulated locally, was very family-oriented, and which I ensured that competitive ads were not placed within the same issue. The advertising revenue was the money maker for this freely distributed publication.

However, I eventually wanted to take this whole thing up a notch by reaching more potential advertisers as well as the spread the word to prospective readers and outlets (the businesses that agreed to let me place a stack of these free papers on their counters, tables, or desks). Afterall, the more people that read - the better the advertising would succeed - the more outlets that carried the paper - the further the advertising would reach.

One of my strengths, at the time, was I was a general trivia-geek. I loved trivia. I actually loved counter-trivia more than anything… the trivia behind incorrect trivia that people thought was true but really wasn’t. I was a Mythbuster before there were Mythbusters. So, I wanted to capitalize on the nature of the business (public entertainment with the backend of ad revenue), my enjoyment of trivia (and even a hint of my “stump me - I dare you” attitude), and general fun which the whole subject brings with it.

I also wanted to reach beyond the printed medium… ads and entertainment on paper and do something really entertaining that would give me exposure on all the fronts I mentioned earlier.

I decided to work up a plan for radio exposure - and not a paid radio spot but a reason to be part of the regular (or special) programming - something I wouldn’t pay for directly.

First ideas were pretty much on the money (so to speak). I came up with the idea of contacting a local, major radio station and working with them to set up a morning, extended, drive-time trivia challenge. It’d be a segment interspersed with the normal morning chit-chat between weather, road reports, and paid advertisements (suckers!) and such. The idea would be that the hosts would introduce me and what I do (very mild, unobtrusive plug for the business) and we’d chat about interesting trivia and world facts and that would segue into several call-in portions of the program where listeners would either have to stump me or answer challenging trivia questions (under a short time limit in an attempt to foil the “Googled answers”). If they stumped me or answered my troll-under-the-bridge trivia/riddle correctly they’d win a free lunch (that very day) delivered to their office or home, or lesser prizes would be two dozen donuts delivered to their workplace that Friday morning.

Obviously, it wasn’t much of a sales pitch to the restaurants or bakeries I had on my ad inventory because they loved the idea and knew full well that the constant, repeated mention of “Two dozen delicious donuts from Bob’s Bakery” as a prize was radio airtime gold they couldn’t pay for. They knew immediately that the context it’d be presented, the goodwill, the constant mention and excitement generated by this would be welcome exposure. The donuts were provided free and all I had to pay was the minimal delivery fee (as the donut folks used a third-party service which they couldn’t comp as they did their own products) and the Chinese food restaurant was thrilled to provide an awesome, giant lunch meal from their menu and leave a timeslot open for delivery on the prospective day - all comped and free of charge. (I was prepared to pay for the meal if I had to - a minor marketing expense for the greater cause).

So, we were set. Prizes were guaranteed, in writing, the idea had merit and great appeal to the radio station (fresh, new entertainment for listeners plus prizes), the merchants providing the prizes knew it’d be fantastic for them (plus residual advertising when the delivered the prizes and goodwill generated)… it was looking great!

It didn’t take much to work an arrangement with the station’s program director (who also happened to be the host of the morning program show). He loved it and agreed that, with my flexibility, we could slip it into all sorts of slots of the morning program between 7 and 9am. As a matter of fact, we agreed that it would be equally as simple for me to either come to the studio and sit around (my preferred choice because I love radio stations - used to be a DJ in my younger days) or be available via private phone line… which turned out to be the better choice due to the timing and the fact I operate out of a home-based office. No worries - just a quiet office, a good desk phone, and coffee made me ready to go. I prepped my trivia brain for the last half-hour lightning round when the prizes would be at stake… I wanted to put up a tough, but winnable battle. The first 3/4 of the program were dedicated to wowing and entertaining… the build-up toward the smackdown.

Now, just a reminder here… this is about what it is about: business. However, there’s something special when you run a business with your beliefs and values as a daily part of it. So, it was particularly gratifying to have a situation where I could, essentially, generate a huge amount of exposure over two hours on a major radio station (something you can’t pay for even if you wanted to) but also have good, old fashioned, community fun with.

Now, at the risk of building things up then flying through the subject, I will give the abbreviated version - but it’s not the 2 hour program that’s important here - it’s the lessons learned and ideas generated by my experience that count. The program went off without a hitch. I called-in before 7am, we locked in the private line, established when we’d definitely run my segments (plus the initial interview with announcements of the prizes-to-come), as well as the time slots I could feel free to walk away from the phone, stretch my legs, refill my coffee, etc.

We spent the next couple of hours with myself and the morning crew trading trivia, discussing the things that went off on a tangent (that’s half the fun!), took calls from listeners who wanted to share their trivia or just express their positive reaction to the segment. I even made sure to brush up on my local area trivia and facts because it means a lot to touch on topics near and dear to listener’s hearts - something this radio station really excelled at - local flavor. It was wonderful and the morning hosts were superb at giving sincerely flattering, periodic plugs for the companies that were to provide donuts and lunch - something I knew would bring me great returns and curry favor with them and other, potential advertisers. They knew I was helping them get something special too.

We got to the final slot where I’d listen to them finish up the weather, road reports, and other station-keeping duties and it was time for the lightning round - the call-ins that would qualify for prizes.

The phone lines were packed - every line was occupied and on-hold slots were all full. We knew it was a success!

To cut to the chase, we duked out a few tough trivia questions, got some wild as well as educated guesses, and eventually got some winners that seemed genuinely excited. The hosts were awesome because they even rallied the excitement up by throwing in station tshirts and mugs into the mix - I was thrilled. The listeners who finally won were sure to get to work and tell all their coworkers (and boss) what they did (and some of them were surely listening to the program at their desks, too). The winner of the donut run was also probably a very popular individual at work that Friday - so more goodwill on top of it all.

In the end it was a success and my little paper grew noticeably in distribution as well as advertising. As a matter of fact, it was shortly after that I got to a point where I no longer had to pound the pavement soliciting ad space… advertisers were contacting me or becoming regular, full-time customers and, I believe, the whole thing gained a new, local feel with renewed public perception and awareness - a very favorable one.

The cost to me was a couple hours of time on or near the phone, a little prep, and less than $5 for the delivery - the rest of the prizes were comped entirely and the reports were that the businesses found it positive enough they’d have done it again.

The goodwill, exposure, great excuse for a press release, another item for the media relations resume, and increase in overall business were far beyond the minimal cost and effort involved. Even the radio station agreed it was a great change of pace and received very well by listeners.

Talk about a win-win-win situation all around.

Today, I had the pleasure of speaking with a successful online merchant whom I respect. She approached me about taking her already profitable business “to the next level.” Her 2007 4th Quarter retail sales figures were, unsurprisingly, wonderfully out of whack compared to normal monthly figures (by a factor of almost 10x improved) - and this is in respect to already respectable monthly numbers year-round. No surprises here - most retailers enjoy holiday shopping sales far beyond normal profits. It’s our reward for sticking things out in February and March.

Here’s a glimpse of my side of the exchange we had (with her approval) - I hope you find it valuable.

Good Morning,

Well, it’s morning here in Tornado Alley. Thanks for contacting me with your questions, it’s good to hear from you.
First, congratulations on your success during the 4th Quarter - and generally consistent and respectable sales year-round! You must be very skilled, so I’ll glance over what you and I probably can agree are the basics - search engine optimization, dedicated domain, etc.

I would, however, be remiss if I didn’t preach my normal sermon about SEO being dynamic, evolving, and responsive. Search engine optimization can be something many of us are reluctant to “mess with” once we feel we’ve reached a good Google traffic level or page rank. I’d never suggest tampering with a proven formula but it is worth being aware that some subjects, themes, and keywords fall in and out of favor with Google just as subjects change in business, pop-culture, and so on. I’m not suggesting that a person replace all their keywords with “Britney Spears” or “Lindsay Lohan” because, although they are highly searched terms recently, they’re not likely targeted words appropriate for your business. Again, not to recommend anyone change a successful keyword lineup, it is important to *know* if keywords are working well or not - rather than just assuming they are. So, methodically changing a single word or two, periodically, might demonstrate if it is having a positive affect on bringing targeted traffic to your site or CP store. One doesn’t want to go crazy and change all keywords - a shakeup like that is often negatively drastic and has similarly negative results with any search engine - not just the almighty Google.

At any rate, I do think there is value in validating keywords and meta tags (even with their decreasing value) to ensure they really are the best ones you can be using at this time. Next year, who knows? It’s possible that buzzwords, even in the industry can change. I remember when “virtual” or “e-[something]” were the buzzwords plastered all over the place. Thank goodness they’ve since fallen out of favor and we no longer see them quite so prevalently - and at least more correctly used nowadays. On a sidenote - I actually remember a spam email that talked about “virtual water” and a “virtual toaster.” I think we’ve had enough off all that, thank you very much! So, pay attention to what current, popular, trendy word-usage is because it might mean the same thing but if the vocabulary has changed in your demographic audience - keywords likely need to be updated (eg. “Hip” is making a comeback but its data is still a little on the slow, upswing - it’ll be a while until “hip” is a high-commodity search term. “Urban” is on the way out but is still holding solid in smaller, niche circles for the hardcore crowd.).

Okay, enough with Reverend Blip’s soapbox about keeping keywords fresh, current, targeted and most importantly - validated to prove they are worth the valuable real estate they occupy in html code. Just make sure you never rest on your laurels and assume old, tired keywords that once were good-enough, are still sufficient. You may need to give them some attention from time to time.

Whenever I’m asked a question that, at its core, is about going beyond Google… getting past a plateau - I think about something most people have little experience in and even less interest in: Press Releases.

Now, I know the subject of advertising was perhaps the next thing on your mind (or maybe the first thing?). I guess I regard “marketing” as an umbrella which covers advertising and advertising covers paid and unpaid outlets. So, I’m not dodging the question of advertising as much as I find it valuable to look a little beyond the standard-issue responses. Afterall, there are plenty of obvious sources for advertising: link exchanges with their questionable inbound/outbound link value, AdSense/AdWords with their own voodoo which, when mastered, can bring a tidy sum, print media - which a lot of online retailers forget about, and so on. So, I sometimes take the liberty that, when I’m asked about advertising, I venture a tad further into one of the things I feel is huge bang for the buck, can yield targeted traffic, and draws upon the same skills we use in creating keywords and fresh content for our online presence already - the press release.

Yes, I think the standard-issue suggestions we read in the forums are correct, most of the time - those of firing up a blog, fine-tuning AdWords, banner exchanges, paid advertising in complimentary (but not competitive) online circles. They work okay for some, better for others, and sometimes not well for even more. So, since so many of those topics have how-to books, tutorials, and probably late-night infomercials dedicated to them - I’ll assume there’s no shortage of advice out there for the average person. Like you - I, too, only get so much mileage out of those things before it seems like the progress stops or even produces negative returns (spending more money on ad words than I make in sales).

The one thing that is under our command at any, given moment - something that is not likely to be duplicated too closely by even your nearest competitor, something that can bring attention and awareness to you and generate buzz better than anything is the press release.

I’m not talking about the plain-vanilla press release most tired, old marketing books teach, either. I’m talking about exciting, informative, calls-to-action that editors of newspapers, magazines, radio program directors, and so on get off their butt to respond to.

At the risk of going into a response to your question part-way and then bailing I will say that press releases can be as highly effective or totally worthless as a person makes them. The average press release is written with no particular reason other than to fulfill obligations to company investors and they read every bit as exciting (insert sarcasm here):

“The Blipfish corporation reports record earnings!”
“Today, El Blippo, CEO and head popcorn popper of Blip Enterprises held a press conference to congratulate employees and investors alike on another successful year…”

[Zzzzzzzzzzz.... someone wake me up when it's over].

The average book and tutorial on writing press releases, I swear, were written by the same person back in 1945 and are basically resurrected over and over again, year after year, with barely an alteration just so someone can make bucks off yet another publicity how-to book.

I’m not talking about press releases that only you and your mother could care about. I’m suggesting you seriously entertain creating a well-crafted press release that gets the attention of an editor or radio station program director (or whomever) and convinces them that their readers and listeners would seriously want to hear about you and whatever it is you do. Trust me, the world of selling tshirts online and making any tangible money from it is of great interest to readers or listeners! I have the constant traffic, questions, letters, clients, and customers that found me from a Wall Street Journal interview I did in 2005 to prove it! I might add - these things often start with a press release. Imagine the power of composing a powerful, interesting, and provocative two paragraphs and landing yourself front-page coverage on one of the US’s most respected business newspapers! An article - about you and your business! That is exposure you can’t pay for. Even if you could purchase a front page, 1,000 word ad it would cost you something in the ten-thousand dollar range and even then… it’s an arbitrary (if not insanely large) rate that is only for an ad… something the reader knows is a plug. Landing an article or interview gives credibility because it is assumed that 1) if the media person thinks you’re important enough to write about or interview you must therefor be important and 2) everything wonderful that is written or said about you is gospel and true and you can take it to the bank.

…try getting that level of credibility and exposure from a paid advertisement that people are instantly guarded about.

So, again, it’s not that I don’t value purchasing traditional advertising nor do I argue that it has its effective place in a business model. What I’m saying is that if you’ve reached a point where run-of-the-mill resources (search engines, advertising, link exchanges, banner programs, etc.) are reaching a plateau and you don’t want the expense of kicking them up to the next level (cost of more expensive ad words, expense of a printed ad in Rolling Stone Magazine, etc.) then consider the cost-to-benefit (free-to-immeasureable) of a press release. There’s no better way than to do something to get the media to talk to you rather than pay to speak through them at an audience.

I still get business and traffic from articles and interviews I gave in 2001! As a matter of fact, I often get hit up for more interviews because it always seems that no matter how many people read an article or how many newspapers carried the story… there’s always some newspaper somewhere that is just now stumbling across it and thinking they need to jump on the bandwagon. That’s a good thing - and if you can demonstrate you are a great interview and you are interesting, have something unique to say, and that the newspaper’s readers would genuinely find interesting… you’ll be well on your way to convincing that editor he should do a story on you. Once you get to that stage - it’s not difficult to arrange some kind of terms that make it clear that you are a benefit to him and deserve some kind of benefit for yourself so either a plug for a product, mention of a website, or general contact information is only fair (and you won’t do it unless you get some minor benefit from it since they don’t pay you).

What does it take to create a press release? Well, here’s where I bail a little on the topic. It’s not that I’m not willing to share - it’s just that it’s a subject that has more to it than I can write at the moment. However, have no fear - it’s actually *very much* at the top of my short list for articles to write about on my blipfish.com blog. I subscribe to a different method of crafting a press release than the average, boring Joe does. Format is important - but content is key - and I promise I’ll talk about that very soon - it’s probably my #2 priority for articles.

However, what you can consider, in the meantime is this: WHAT can you do to justify even sending a press release? The articles out there on the intertubes are everywhere for the mechanics of composing a properly formated press release (just join and read PRWeb.com - excellent service). The trick is to actually come up with a reason to say “Hey, look at me!” that doesn’t sound like a left-handed excuse to just draw attention to your business. Editors hate businesses that look obvious (or even not-so-obvious) that they are just trying to drum up business. Instead, the value to an editor is what is interesting and, like I already mentioned, the world of selling tshirts online is very interesting when you’re one of the success stories.

All a person needs, then, is some little (but genuine) excuse to send out a release. Maybe a local event you’re involved in, perhaps a social topic that is already hot in the media and you and your tshirts are making a statement about it - or better yet - your business itself is tackling the issue (like donating profits to a local shelter, creating awareness during breast cancer awareness month, and so on). If you can genuinely, honestly, and sincerely come up with a story that just happens to involve you and your business or product that is part of a bigger picture that an editor would be interested in… your foot is in the door for an interview.

Which would you rather have, as an editor? Another boring earnings report from a local company story? Or, a charity event being supported by some tshirt guro who’s making more money than the employee at the store who sells the shirt the editor himself is wearing?

Now, there’s even more distance and interest you can cover - and I promise I’ll create an article about it. Those are just the basic ideas to get the wheels turning in your head. There are other, more interesting angles I suggest people look for when justifying a press release going out. You don’t want to send garbage releases out - editors can not only smell them a mile away but you can also find yourself on the receiving end of the media equivalent of standing in the corner - your name can be ignored in the future. This is one little tidbit (and I’ll discuss others) that many editors don’t talk about but it definitely happens - getting blackballed because you’re trolling for cheap publicity with nothing to offer. So, I suggest just pondering this idea, doing a little research first, mull it over - and I’ll have more to offer on the topic soon to help get the ball rolling.

So, since you took the time to ask (and I appreciate that you did) I figured you deserve an answer from me that might be a bit beyond what the average person might give - afterall, you were wanting new ideas and suggestions to take your business to the next level and I believe that once advertising and keywords are doing what they should be.. press releases are definitely the next level. (Well, I lie, I feel they should be one of the first things an entrepreneur learns but that didn’t segue as well from my last sentence).

At any rate, I feel if a person asks me a question, it’s pointless (and a disservice) for me to give a vanilla-answer when I believe there is a much more flavorful answer to be found - particularly someone I think would put that answer to good use and not just devalue it and ignore it because it’s free advice. To that end, I hope I gave you the kind of answer you hoped instead of just giving you a link to Google’s ad rate page or some response about adjusting the colors on your website?

If so - I’m happy and hope we’ve either accomplished or started you on another path toward kicking up your sales to that next level.

[I end with a short personal chat with her at this point].

The next exchange had a few questions about the ins-and-outs of submitting press releases… is it better to file with only one type of agency or service, or several, etc. My response is as follows:

Well, I will admit that what I “recommend” in terms of where to send PR’s to is more a matter of habit and even a little “old school” upbringing (well, as old school as a 38 year old can be). I prefer this *general* approach to disseminating my press releases:

1. File with PRWeb or a similar, respected service - it’s a good, catch-all. It’s also easy and quick so there’s no excuse not to.
2. Send a good, old fashioned FAX to specific media sources you’d LIKE to have cover your story.
3. File with any online service that you feel worthwhile but does not require exclusivity, obviously.
4. Always file a copy on your own website - either your company site or the store/site in question, if you prefer. Either way - build a media/publicity site. Sometimes media outlets surf the web too and Google will pick it up as well.

The thing is, as odd as it sounds, some PR services have bizarre terms that request you use them exclusively and not file with another firm/service unless you use a somewhat different PR. I find that ludicrous. I craft my PR’s a great deal and, if I’ve done it right, my final PR is exactly what I need and should be totally acceptable to duplicate to the Seattle Times as it is to the Pleasantville Independent Press. I see no justification in making me reword/rewrite a PR just to make some service (usually online ones) feel special by exclusivity.

The point about targeting specific media outlets is because, with experience, you may see a trend that you want to capitalize on… younger readership, technology friendly, business oriented, “success story” friendly, or you may just want to try the local-town-gal-does-well angle and publish to your local paper. The point being, is that blanket bombing works - but there can be a benefit toward picking specific media outlets because you feel they are good leverage for your time (whatever time it takes to mail, fax, or email - your call on how valuable your time is). But, more importantly - if you get one to bite - the rest often follow.

Many people think that blanket-bombing hundreds of media outlets to get a nibble is what it’s about. I can’t say it doesn’t work sometimes - but if you craft a press release that, for example, expounds the virtues of home based, retail, fascinating world of tshirt sales, against-all-odds, type of content you’re probably better off submitting to media that eat that sort of story up. If they pick the story up - others often follow because that’s just how papers and radio work: they call you because they heard/read you somewhere else and figure that if so-and-so did a story on you they should too.

So, I’m not answering you quite directly because I don’t think it has to be one or the other, one only, or whatever. I think a little research into a prospective outlet can help you craft a PR that has, at least, a tiny flavor to it that specific outlets find more appealing than others. Just like we write keywords and descriptions for the benefit of Google (probably first and foremost) we also should consider a mild consideration of our PR toward specific outlets. Some might be ezines, sometimes general directories are equally valid due to the nature of your PR, other times (for example) you might want to really push the technology-geek angle and it’s clear that it will influence where you submit.

Does that answer, at least a little, what you were asking?

For what it’s worth, and this is getting less and less the case, I own a few editions of Bacon’s media databases. At the time, faxes were the technology of the day and email was only barely reliable. My databases contain all the newspapers, radio stations, etc. in the US - millions. If I wanted to get the name and number of a director named “Bob” for all 30,000 watt radio stations within a 300 mile squared area…this database would do it.

Nowadays, it’s a little easier with online services but it’s still important to sometimes send to particular outlets, a fax, just like the old days - email is so popular and editors so besieged that sometimes they hit the delete-button so quickly you’ll be glad their fax machine at least has a piece of paper they need to pick up. I’ve spoken with editors - they don’t like to admit this but sometimes they just toss things because they looked shabby, sounded “pitchy” from word-one, or didn’t get formatted professionally, or were repeat-repeat-repeat blanket bomb offenders whose names are on an editorial watch-list like known airline terrorists… throw-away-on-sight. So, don’t go down that road, either by spamming PR’s. No good will come from it.

The new American Dream?

By Scott Lund

We’ve all heard of it. We’ve all dreamed of it. A lot of us have tried it. Most of us have failed at it.

So how does Dan Mowry manage to pull off working from home in his underwear - and succeed - against the odds?

“Well, I should probably be clear on this. In spite of a lot of my own comments to that effect I don’t really work in my underwear… at least not on any regular basis. When I first started self-employment from home I made myself at least get dressed in my Friday casuals because I thought I needed to keep up the momentum ofdiscipline and a regimen. I actually kept normal business hours from 8-5 too.”

Why these things when you’re at home and nobody sees you and you don’t have any physical customer traffic?

“Because I’d heard a lot of horror stories as well as advice from those who seemed to know about these things - that it’s too easy to fall in love with the freedoms of working from home and before you know it you’re just sitting around watching television and not getting any work done. I didn’t know enough about myself in this area to know for sure if I’d risk my success before it started because I might become lazy and not treat my business like a business.”

What was it that you feared you’d do to get caught up in bad habits?

“Oh, the usual… getting up later and later in the morning, working when I felt like it (who ever really feels like working, right?) or taking too many breaks to do fun things and just never getting back to what needs to be done. I was fearful I’d be like I was during high school summer vacations or between semesters at college; waking up at 10am, taking two hours to finally get showered and dressed, then lounging around in front of the tv for a few hours and before you know it… it’s mid-afternoon and the bulk of the day is wasted.”

Let’s quickly discuss your first business that you put this to use in.

“My first attempt at working for myself was in creating a family-oriented, G-rated, entertainment newsletter that generated revenue from selling ad-space and the newsletter would be freely placed into cooperating restaurants, fast-food places, hotels, laundromats… any place that had customers or patrons needing to kill time while they waited and wanted to give them something to enjoy and keep them happy.”

What was this newsletter called and where was it located?

“It was called “Lotsa’ Stuff!” because I figured it contained just that… lots of stuff. It was based in Des Moines, Iowa, where I now live.”

How did you come up with the idea to go with this business?

“I think it was partially out of necessity and it fit a type of business that myself and my family members could get behind and feel good about. The necessity was because I’d just quit working for a major Japanese Anime import company and wasn’t sure what I was going to do next. My wife and I recently found out we were about to have our first child and were having serious discussions about daycare and how important we felt it was to try and minimize the day care and maximize how much one of us raised our child… we just wanted to take a really dominant role in our child’s daily life.”

So you decided working from home would be the way to do that?

“Yes. It was more circumstantial at that point as to why it was me that seemed the logical choice. We both were thrilled with the prospect of either one of us doing it but at that time my wife had (and still does) a great job with a major financial institution and I was the one in-between jobs. So, we thought that in the months ramping up to baby’s delivery I could use that time to prepare and develop some kind of home-based, self-run business and hopefully our income wouldn’t have to be reduced so drastically once baby arrived.”

What happened to that business? You seem to have another business entirely now from that?

“The business was a great model and had a lot of potential, however, it became clear that it would work great while I was free to run around town soliciting the advertisers and playing paperboy to deliver the hundreds of issues each week… that would all be problematic once baby arrived and that would defeat the purpose of being the stay-at-home parent.”

So what did you do when faced with this dilemna?

“The business was built and developed during the time period that I had and was eventually sold as a property which included the resources. Essentially, a gigantic library of original content such as mazes, word search puzzles, trivia, crossword, optical illusions… all of which were built as modules for placement into the layout of any issue. There was also an entire year’s-worth (52 multi-page issues) plus special holiday editions that were prepared ahead of time. It was sold as basically a “business in a box” and left for the buyer to develop from there on their own. It was extremely successful in that sense, but it was a fallback/recovery move nonetheless. Since there was no real upfront cost to get started that made the decision to try it even more appealing.”

Okay, fast forward, how did you get into the business of tshirts, which you are now in?

“Actually, it’s one of those happy stories of life’s twists and turns that came from that very Lotsa’ Stuff! business. I had been preparing promotional products to support the publication and its publishers so I hooked up with an online company that specialized in one-off, print-on-demand products to create mugs and tshirts for the Lotsa’ Stuff! business. I only ever intended to have these shirts and mugs as giveaway or internally-purchased items but once I had quit the primary business I originally planned I was able to take a bit of time and see how fascinating this sideline was. I had no idea there was so much creativity to be had with tshirts. I guess I always knew some company somewhere was cranking out all these shirts I saw around town but never put a lot of thought into it. It wasn’t until I dug a little deeper and started making contacts with the more successful people in this field did I realize there was a lot of potential for income, creativity, and running your own business.”

Is that what sold you on making and selling tshirts for a living?

“Basically, yes. I’m lucky in that I have a strong marketing background and I also began my research by meeting people that made up for a lot of success stories. I had enough personal knowledge to feel I could take a crack at it and I met enough people who were doing it well to know there was a good chance at success. I’ve since run across a lot of people who, for a variety of reasons, have tried the same thing and failed miserably. I’m glad I didn’t run into them first and hear their stories because I don’t know if I would have started off on the right foot. I’m lucky that I was exposed, early on, to people who knew what they were doing and had proven the viability of the business model. I guess that since I was leaving one type of business behind me and looking for a new opportunity this one looked appealing since I had already had a small sampling of it.”

Is there any special trick or secret you’ve found that helps make it successful?

“Well, first and formost - treat it like a business. For example, although I have different venues for selling my apparel lines (some online and some offline) there is always a way to run the business part time or full time. However, I think it’s important that you treat it like a full-fledged, full-time business. By that I mean that even if you’re only able to dedicate part-time hours to it and consequently only expect part-time money it’s important that you run it like a proper brick and mortar business… not a haphazard lemonade stand.”

What things do you mean by “treating it like a proper business?”

“I mean strive for quality designs, quality merchandise, have a strong online presence, prepare your site well for search engines, treat your current and potential customers with courtesy and professionalism, keep track of your expenses, do proper business accounting right from the get-go. Things like that. You may need to hire a web developer for a good website if your skills aren’t in that area - consider it a good investment and business expense, or maybe you need to watch your sales figures and spend a little on proper advertising.

Okay, so, what goes into a normal day for you in this business? How do you use proper business techniques to make your tshirt business a success?

“I think the first thing to remember is none of what I have now was an overnight success. I’ve had more failures than successes and I’ve had more things that changed than what went according to plan. But, I suspect that might be the first steps toward success: have a plan and stick to it but be adaptable and respond to changes and be willing to learn from your failures and mistakes. Too often people try something and when it fails they write it off as something that ‘doesn’t work’ when in reality they didn’t have the skills in the first place or they didn’t have the right perspective. I don’t know of any business that strictly requires you to just follow instructions and it’s guaranteed to work even though some people try to convince you of that. Any business venture that tries to portray it as a “just add water” effort is appealing to a crowd that probably doesn’t know any better. It might be a valid business, which explains their success, but portraying it like it’s something anybody can do is setting up the wrong perspective. Even valid businesses require a person to have some skills that can’t be defined in an instruction booklet.”

What skills do you use each day that fall into either category, clearly defined or skills you’ve learned over the years?

“My workday has relaxed somewhat. I no longer dress in Friday casuals and don’t always keep exactly business hours because I’ve learned now how much I can screw-off and how much I need to make myself get to work.

I wake up, go to the gym, get the kids started with their days, see my wife off to work, and basically take care of first things first. I find it extremely important to have regular exercise because that is one of the first things I learned (the hard way) would take a beating upon self, home-employment: an active lifestyle would be replaced by a sedentary lifestyle. I’d forgotten how much being on my feet all day or even just walking from the parking lot to work kept me mildly active. In a home office the most exercise I was getting was typing and clicking the mouse and chasing after two young kids is hard work - but it’s not exercise. So, I learned that I need to have a healthy body and a healthy mind if I’m going to have at this all by myself.

With cup of coffee in hand I hop onto the computer and make my morning rounds online. I check email immediately and any business-related forums that I’m involved in. It’s extremely important to keep communication as a top-priority when you’re self-employed like this. There’s nobody else a customer can talk to on your day off… there are no coworkers to field questions in your absence and it’s too easy to respond to emails in a timely manner if you just commit yourself to it. So, I make sure that checking my correspondence is the first thing I do and respond as soon as I can because it sets the tone for what the rest of my workday is going to involve.

I’ve also found that my brain works better on some things during certain parts of the day than others. Monotonous, assembly-line work (like some communication, followup correspondence, filing of projects, prioritizing workloads, etc.) are best done in the morning. However, later in the afternoon or evening (if I choose to work in the evening) I feel I’m at my most creative so that’s when I create art for my products, design web-based art for promotions, the stores themselves, or anything that requires my right-brain more than left-brain. I just had to learn how I work most efficiently and plan my day accordingly. That actually took several weeks of long hours and unproductive days before I figured out how and when I work best.

I’ve recently switched to posting my contact hours to be very clear… I only take phone calls between such-and-such a time on certain days and I never take calls or schedule work on Sundays with very few exceptions. My family comes first and is really the reason behind why I do what I do so I made a point of setting aside time where I didn’t need to try and get work done but was free for them. I mean, my kids still get my first attention during the week, of course, but I’m always in a cycle of attending to them first then trying to get back to work second.

When I first started selling any apparel or other products online I quickly found that part of my workload was occupied by education. I had to learn greater html editing skills, I had to learn new software, I had to learn how to use some of the services and systems I’d be implementing. It was hard being a “one man band” at times because some things were over my head. Even to this day, as much as I’m an accomplished artist and graphic designer I still leave the more sophisticated web design up to others. I’ve recently hired another company to design and build the back-end of my newest online store.”

What online store is this?

“It’s called the Tornado Republic (www.TornadoRepublic.com) and it’s centered around one-off, online, original tshirts with a little room for other products. It’s a bit built on the success of my first real online store TheTShirtZone which has recently undergone some big changes and is in the process of being sold off as a property. The Zone was designed to be a large-scale shopping mall type of tshirt gig. It was meant to be a little like a Wal*Mart where there was something for everyone and volume sales at low prices were the order of the day. However, the time involved in running something of that size was becoming problematic. The back-end systems (custom programming, third-party scripts and utilities, extensive advertising, huge costs for server loads, etc.) were making it a beast to handle. It didn’t take long before I realized that more of what I wanted, just like from my early beginnings, was to have a manageable business I could work on as time permitted, something that wasn’t a giant beast of a machine that took up all my time, and something that allowed me to use tightly focused marketing rather than broad, blanket-bombed, institutional marketing. So, in spite of TheTShirtZone having success it was becoming a large endeavor that I couldn’t keep up with without sacrificing time with family or running myself into the ground. I knew there was a way to still have the financial success and the higher income of that but with a different approach. So, a more streamlined, focused, highly targetted shop was needed… hence the Tornado Republic.

What makes this smaller type of business have the same earning potential as a larger business?

“Well, TheTShirtZone… down to the website itself, was designed to be high-volume with tons of stuff. It was also designed and marketed prior to my fulfillment company even having an affiliate program. This new gig puts its emphasis on fewer, but far more truly unique shirt designs that can’t be found elsewhere and takes a stronger position in the branding of the line itself. The emphasis on the Tornado Republic as a brand is the real push for the marketing. Plus, it’s designed, from the ground up, to be very affiliate-friendly and to promote and recruite those affiliates and referrals.”

What specifically makes this store affiliate-friendly that wasn’t for your other store?

“Probably the first, biggest thing is the designs on the shirts themselves are affiliate-friendly. You see, branding is important, putting the name of the website on a shirt is important. However, from a customer point of view you want it to be unobtrusive and not ruin the look of the shirt. Nobody really wants to feel like a walking billboard advertisement for your company. From an affiliate point of view it’s even more so. You don’t want any of the product previews to overly emphasize or reveal even the tiny website URL because an affiliate may understandably feel that subverts their position in the sale - by taking away their role and giving the customer a direct connection to the source (me). It’s not about price… so there’s no reason for a customer to purchase from one or the other because from the consumer side it’s all the same with the same price. But, from an affiliate marketer’s perspective I need to respect their needs and make certain I don’t inadvertently design products that, when viewed in their marketplace, reveal my URL source and effectively steal-away their sales. I’m grateful for my affiliate sellers and my relationship with them is so important that I felt I necessary to develop a business model and mechanism that gave them considerations such as this. TheTShirtZone, by contrast, was filled with product previews that, upon closer inspection, would reveal my URL and that could possibly cause the consumer to just leave the current seller’s website for my own. In the end, it would have involved overhauling all of the products, the website itself because it was not designed for a tightly focused shopping experience, and it was never designed to be a “leak proof” (affiliate term) presence. The Tornado Republic was built, first and foremost, with affiliates and customers in mind alike - each with specific needs.”

How much of your business centers around these affiliate sellers and what, exactly, do they do for you? What is an affiliate seller?

“An affiliate seller is simply someone else that sells my products in exchange for getting a cut of the profit. The benefit to them is they get to sell products of mine that are winners and perhaps have a creativity in design that that seller may not have. Often an affiliate seller is someone who is either highly skilled in business but not artistic design, or someone who already has an existing business with plenty of customers and they feel they’d benefit from adding more products to their inventory without the hassle of developing them on their own. The benefit to me is, even though I don’t make as much money off each affiliate sale as I would had I sold the product directly myself, I gain a huge new avenue of customers and sales I’d normally not get on my own. I’m make more and more smaller sales from someone else’s pre-existing customer base. It’s a wonderfully win-win situation. It’s worth doing… so much so that, as I’ve said, I’ve overhauled an entire business model and assets in favor of it so I could take better advantage of it all.”

So, it sounds like you’re creating a small army of salespeople to help you?

“Absolutely. However, it’s not just to my advantage only. The advantage to them, too, is that they get a lot of great products they never had to create and instantly gain new inventory that has strong appeal.”

It sounds like there’s a lot to this? On the surface it seems as if you’re just selling tshirts, which anybody can do, but I can see there’s more going on behind the scenes.

“True. I don’t want to give the impression it’s rocket science but I also don’t want to misrepresent that this is the business-side of it that a lot of people never had in place that caused them to fail. So, when I said that it has to be treated like a business I really meant it. I still perform market research. I conduct surveys, purchase exit-polling, demographics, receive general feedback, and I absolutely run my numbers continuously to get a better idea of who my customers are, where my sales come from, what my average cost per sale is, key and track my advertising, and so on. That’s what I mean by not running it like a lemonade stand and just assuming that cranking out a shirt or two and leaving it online somehow makes magic work… it doesn’t.”

A lot of people have tried this and we read about their failure. What do you say to them?

“Well, I can’t really speak to anyone specifically as I don’t know their situation. But, I have found, experiencially, that people buy into that “Just add water” representation and feel that the internet is nothing but a giant flow of people with their credit-cards hanging out. It’s not true at all. The internet is like anything else… just more of it. It’s possible to be online for a day and suddenly gain huge exposure. It’s also possible to be online for a year and never have a soul visit your website. It’s the marketing that makes the difference just as it would a physical business on downtown main street.

It’s not that it’s all the hard to do, I think a great many people could have some appreciable success at it. But, it requires that they recognize, at some point, they need to put their backs into it like they would a business. It may only be part-time effort but it needs to be a professional, part-time effort. I think we’d see a lot more entrepreneurial success stories if that one, simple thing happened with more people - as opposed to the dreams of getting wealthy overnight with no effort.

Yes, good attempts still fail. But, I think there’s more attempts that had shortcomings the person wasn’t aware of and the lack of positive results were bound to happen. Instead of objectively looking into what went wrong they simply write the entire experience off as a failure and that there’s no money in it. Well, it doesn’t take many of us who have succeeded and are prepared to say it clearly that we worked at it to dispel the nay-sayer’s version. They had the wrong premise to start with, quite often, and consequently have the wrong premise when they try to declare it a failure.”

You’ve said it clearly that the business side is the most important. What is the other side like - the creative or more fun side?

“I’m one of those kind of people that somewhat enjoy the hard-nosed business end of things. But, no doubt it’s fun to fire up Photoshop, grab the graphic tablet and just brainstorm artistic ideas to see what I come up with. I often joke that part of my job description is to just sit around thinking stuff up, and it’s true! Once I have the business operating properly and have it more, or less, running on maintenance levels my daily tasks are frequently the fun, artistic ones.”

What do those include, on a good day when things are running smoothly?

“Well, most days run smoothly, is the good news for anyone thinking of getting into this. I mean, remember - it’s a tshirt gig, so have fun with it! For me, since I’m not an affiliate seller as much as I’m at the source I spend a lot of time drawing or just coming up with fun or catchy text slogans. I have another online store that sells my fine art - art which can take dozens upon dozens of hours to create. It doesn’t sell nearly as frequently as funny tshirts with a slogan on them which are often created in under five minutes. And yes… some of my best brainstorms have happened while in the shower.

Other times I’m working on developing relationships with affiliates or to gain referrals as my fulfillment company offers an additional commission-incentive for people I refer to them. So, it’s worth recruiting not only people to sell for me but also to recruit those who want to start their own business just like this. It’s fun networking like that. Sometimes it’s just good to get out of my home-office mentality and get back into a bit of a social circle at work… or as near as one gets in this environment. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed water-cooler conversations at the office.”

You said you also wanted to work from home because if was a bit like “living the dream.” There must be something you do to take advantage of being your own boss?

“Absolutely! I believe in working hard and playing hard. It comes in different forms but I’ll often make sure that I’m a good boy and work diligently all morning and attend to all the priority things that need attention just so I can go play a round of golf in the afternoon without guilt. I will admit, though, that since I’m a bit of a geek and work is never far from my mind that I’ve been known to bring my PDA (small, handheld computer) on the green and I’ll find a nearby wireless internet connection to check my sales reports. But see? That’s part of maximizing my time. It’s good leverage for my energy because I go out and play but I stay on top of things and never have to feel like I’m neglecting things during business hours. Then, if it’s an evening when my wife and children are doing their own thing I don’t feel bad if the creative bug bites me after supper and I want to get some work done. I work and play on my own schedule but I’m good in that I do it responsibly.”

You take your computer on the golf course with you? Some might say that’s a little obsessive-compulsive or like a workaholic?

“I can see that. Ha ha. But, in a way, I prefer both my work and play to be casual like that. Sometimes when I’m in the office working dutifully I’ll get a call from one of my buddies who wants to play a little online golf or is in the neighborhood and just wants to stop by and chit-chat, or my children want to go to the zoo… I wanted my business to be able to let me respond to things like that. Of course there are times when I need to stay on schedule but many more times I’m free to take time off for the fun things. When I’m off enjoying myself I might take a quick glance at my PDA to check email or listen to any voice mail I might have. It just helps me keep an ear on the pulse of my business - it doesn’t have to be intrusive.”

Any other examples of this “casual work/play” style put to use?

“Ah, you’ve heard about my hot tub interviews, eh?”

I didn’t want to ask but I am curious. Are we talking about something naughty here?

“No, no, I’ve actually had small radio interviews or, like this one, combination email and telephone interviews for articles where there was no reason in the world I couldn’t talk on the phone while sitting in the hot tub. Right? I’ve given phone interviews for ten minutes while I was outside barbequing on the grill or sitting in the hot tub, I’ve even had one occaision where I forgot about a scheduled phone interview for an article while I was out driving around running errands. I had to pull over to a local park and just sat on a picnic table and did my thing.”

Where and what are you doing right now for this portion of the telephone interview?

“Heh, I’d love to tell you I was lying in a hammock on the beach drinking a beer but in reality I’m in my home office right now with my webcam on me broadcasting pictures of me on the phone to my website. It’s a bit chilly outside today and I’m better off indoors with my hot chocolate and comfy office chair.”

That’s a little disappointing. I had hoped you’d be “living the dream.”

“If it helps, I’ll promise to answer your followup email questions from the easy chair on my laptop while watching American Chopper tomorrow night? Would that be better?”

It might be as long as you don’t start yelling and talking about your size-12 boots and punching holes through doors like those guys do?

“It’s a deal.”

I’d like to thank you for your time and willingness to talk freely about different parts of your life and business. It sounds like you truly are living your version of The American Dream and loving it?

“I think I am. Thank you, I’ve enjoyed this, let’s do it again.”

Why don’t you give a plug for how people can contact you about any of the things we’ve talked about.

“Sure. Thanks. The current, best contact info can be found at my website for the Tornado Republic at www.TornadoRepublic.com. If a person is interested in simply seeing what we have for products that’s the place to go and I think they’ll find some wonderfully unique shirts and gifts there. If you’re someone who is interested in being an affiliate seller (which is free to do… no cost to begin) or if you’re a person considering starting your own home-based business and this sounds like something you might want to try… visit www.TornadoRepublic.com and follow the contact link. I’m always