When pizza on a mountainside can be just as good as dinner at the Ritz…

If I was to ask you to hazard a guess at what would be the perfect dining experience for
yours truly … I expect you might conjure up images of a Michelin starred
restaurant with an extensive menu, carefully matched wines for every course,
all cooked by some shouty chap you’d normally expect to see on television.

And that, certainly, was right up there … until about a week ago … But I
now have to declare that, whilst on a recent short break somewhere nice and
warm, I had one of the best – if not the best – dining experiences of my life
… eating a pizza halfway up a mountain…

We’d been invited by a friend to accompany him on a visit to a former colleague
of his, a restaurant owner who had now opted for a quieter life up in the hills
running his own small pizza delivery business … so we armed ourselves with a
few carefully selected bottles of red wine….and set out to sample this more
‘rustic’ fare.

Admittedly it wasn’t just pizza … there were mushrooms in a amazing cheese,
tomato and garlic sauce, the most perfect bruschetta with fresh tomatoes garlic
and chilli … and of course I ‘may’ have augmented my own pizza with just a
little extra cheese (well, there were too many different varieties to choose
from to pick just one or two) And this, eaten in the open air on a gorgeous
evening surrounded by good company … well, it really couldn’t have been any
better…;-)

Proof then, you’ll agree, that something doesn’t have to be all polished five
starred excellence, as long as it all fits together and each of the elements
involved compliments all the others perfectly…

We can, of course, implement this principle into our online endeavours,
something that may prove invaluable for those who are wondering how they could
ever possibly compete with others who might have ‘big shiny’ websites and ‘big
shiny’ products to offer.

Rustic and honest is just as good as
posh and shiny and way better than shiny and smarmy!!!!

A product made of quite simple, congruent parts that will work perfectly
together and give the user exactly (or even exceed) what they were expecting
will win you more long term customers than something that looks ‘the business’
but ultimately doesn’t deliver.

Even if you don’t have any products of your own, you can ensure whatever
processes you do have (whether it be adding people to your list or directing
them toward somebody else’s offer) flows congruently…

For instance, you could have the same header, fonts or imagery on your thank
you page as you do on your squeeze page … so that your visitor knows where
they are and what is going on right through the process.

The last thing you want is for your visitor’s confidence to be ‘jarred’ by
something inconsistent that makes them have second thoughts about joining your
list or taking up an offer, but instead try and make all parts of your buying
or ‘signing up’ process just like a ‘well greased chute’ delivering them either
to your list or making them a customer…

Until Next Time,

Tim Lowe

Publisher, Tim’s Business
Lowe Down

How to ‘tweak’ your way to better results at no extra cost…

Now, I know you can probably feel your eyelids getting
heavy at the mere mention of the word statistics, and I agree it wouldn’t be
top of my list of ‘fun’ things to do either … but if I told you that by
taking a passing interest in your stats you could increase the size of your
list (and consequently your sales) without any extra work generating traffic or
spending any more on advertising than you already do … I think you’d probably
agree that would be worth staying awake for…

Firstly of course, you need to know where you are starting from, and if you
don’t have access to any stats already, the easiest way is to get Google to do
it for you. Pay a visit to Google Analytics http://www.google.com/analytics/
and they will give you a bit of code to pop on your site to monitor the
visiting traffic. It’s free, and after a couple of days (or even better a week)
you should have something you can work from.

Before we go any further, please be aware you won’t be studying anything in the
minutest detail to start off with … the main things you need to know at this
stage are how many visitors your site is getting, and how many of them are
joining your list.

Of course Google Analytics will give you lots more information than this, but
there is absolutely no need to bother yourself with such things as ‘bounce
rates’ at this point. (And if I was to go into more detail about what that,
along with some of the more tedious aspects of on-site stats was all about, you
definitely would start nodding off…) ;-)

So, once you’ve got your starting point, you are then in a position to ‘tweak’
different things (only one at a time though) and monitor the results to see if
it increases the amount of people joining your list. The most obvious things to
dabble with initially are of course to try different variations of your
headline, or maybe adding (or even taking away) from your list of the benefits
offered by your free report (or lead magnet) … even things like changing the
background colour has been known to affect results.

And don’t think anything is too small to test and try … a year or so ago two
of my students changed the size of the image of the free report they were
giving away (making it look like it had fewer pages so it would not be
perceived as too much ‘hard work’ to read it) and changing just this one thing
increased their conversion rate from 25% to 33%…;-)

So rather than throwing more money at your Google ads campaign or spending
hours trying to increase the amount of visitors to your site using SEO
techniques (probably the only thing more tedious that looking at stats) you
could possibly look at getting the absolute most out of the traffic you are
already getting…

Until Next Time,

TimLoweBluePenSig.jpg

Tim Lowe

Publisher, Tim’s Business
Lowe Down

Why Is Right Now Is The Best Time To Do It….?

I am asked all the time how some people can start online and make thousands in their first month, and yet others have been plugging away for years but still seem to be approximately where there started … well, you’ll have to forgive my frankness, but I think the main reason some people never get anywhere is the fact they never really actually get going… This was brought into sharp focus in the wake of the recent invitations I sent out to work with me on my new project … and while I can understand how it (or anything else I mention in the Lowedown) wouldn’t be for absolutely everybody … I must admit some of the replies did leave me scratching my head… Of course, I had the usual emails from people explaining that they were either too old, young, fat, thin, short, or tall for it to be possible to succeed (before they even knew anything about it) or how having the wrong family, house, surname or accent would somehow exclude them from earning £12,000 to £57,000 each month… But what I found slightly flattering and mildly amusing (but at the same time a bit worrying) were the emails suggesting that this kind of thing (or in fact pretty much anything) ‘only’ works for me because I am in some way ‘special’… Well, this is something I can assure you ‘She Who Must…’ would find very amusing indeed … and would take great joy (and several hours) producing her huge portfolio of evidence to prove that the opposite was in fact true) ;-) Obviously I’m nothing special … I’m certainly not stupid, but I’m no rocket scientist either, I had no starting advantage in either wealth or family connections … in short, I started out pretty much where you are now … and, relatively speaking, had about the same amount of resources. That said however, what I did that so many others never do was … I actually took action and got started… Now although the economy was not quite as it now, when I got started a decade ago there was more than enough going on in the world for me to find a reason to put it off ‘until the time was right’ if I had wanted to, and the same would have been true every year since … and I easily could still be sitting there now, waiting for the perfect set of circumstances to occur… The fact of the matter is that ‘right now’ is the time to start whatever venture you happen to have in mind … and it’s also true to say that ‘right now’, (regardless of when you may be reading this) is, and has always been, the best time to start. So many people hang around waiting for the perfect conditions to get going, which of course will never come, and they just don’t ever start. It really doesn’t matter what is going on in the world, if you really want to succeed you will always find a way to overcome the circumstances. Of course, different situations can often call for the occasional bit of lateral thinking and ingenuity but I’ve found with a little effort you can turn almost any situation to your advantage. Every single year is the same in that there will inevitably be ups and downs and the ideal is to work through the ‘downs’ preparing and planning to take advantage of the ‘ups’. I used to quote a phrase to sum this all up which I will now ‘dust off’ for your consideration … If your sail is always up … then when the wind blows – your ship will sail! Until Next Time, Tim Lowe Publisher, Tim’s Business Lowe Down

Want To Do Some ‘Blue Sky’ Thinking…? Then Just Look Up…

A couple of days ago, the lady that books my flights,
makes sure my shoes get repaired and does a million other wonderful things,
wandered into my office, bearing my afternoon cuppa and a ‘purely medicinal’
Kit Kat … then suddenly thought she might have something of a crisis on her
hands…

You see, there I was, laying on my back on the floor of my office … staring
up and out of the skylight window mouthing words silently looking for all the
world like I had had some kind of ‘episode’ and was still tethered to my sanity
by only the most delicate of threads…

Rest assured, I was not suffering from any sudden affliction and had not taken
leave of my senses (well not any more than is considered usual) ;-) I was
merely in a creative mood, and for it to work best on this occasion I needed to
see blue skies, and this floor and skylight arrangement offered the best – if
not the most dignified – way of achieving this..

Lying on the floor staring out of the window for inspiration may seem odd to
many … and even a bit ‘divaesque’ to some, but I have found that often you
just have to do whatever
works
, regardless how strange it seems because sometimes you have
to look at things, quite literally, from another point of view…

Now I’m not suggesting you spend your days barefoot or dangling upside down
from the ceiling (unless you want to of course) but I am suggesting you give
yourself permission to go against the grain and start thinking about things in
a way you may not have done before…

You see, formerly the Internet Marketing world attracted mainly those who, to
use a cliché – ‘wanted a better life’ or wanted to escape a job they truly
hated, but over the last couple of years, and this year more than ever …
there is a dawning realisation that it is no longer enough to rely merely on a
job … either to still be there at all – or even keep up with the rising cost
of living.

So, what we have instead are those who have decided it can’t be up to the whim
of faceless shareholders or some corporate halfwit with a clipboard (often in
another country altogether) … to decide whether or not we can pay our
mortgage, if we have a holiday this year or what exactly our children will be
opening this Christmas … and that doing something additional to either
supplement or replace a job is no longer just an option but a necessity.

Luckily, this realisation can often become more of a release than a burden and
the prospect of taking your future in your own hands and doing something you
never thought possible … can be not so much frightening as exciting and truly
liberating.

The world at the moment is portrayed as one of hardship and austerity … and
for those that believe this is true – it will become the reality. But for those
willing to grab opportunity with both hands it can be a different story
altogether … more millionaires are created at times like this than at any
other – proof that anything is possible and the playing field is far leveller
than you would imagine… (even if you happen to be lying on your back looking
at the sky…) ;-)

Until Next Time,

TimLoweBluePenSig.jpg

Tim Lowe

Publisher, Tim’s Business
Lowe Down

Why The Secret Of Grandma’s Roasting Tin Could Hold The Key To Your Success

This week something occurred that reminded me of an old story which perfectly sums
up what can easily happen if we just keep doing things the way we’ve ‘always’
done them and is equally true for life in general as it is for any of your
online endeavours…

There are plenty of versions of this tale, but the one I prefer goes like
this…

A newly married man sees his wife trimming off the last few inches of a large
joint of meat before she puts it in a baking tray for their Sunday Roast.

Having never seen this before, he assumes that it is some sort of secret technique
for ensuring the meat is done to perfection, however after a few weeks,
curiosity gets the better of him and he asks his wife why she does this.

She explains that this is how her mother always roasted meat, hadn’t got a clue
why she did it but there ‘had’ to be a good reason for doing it…

A few weeks later the couple are having Sunday lunch with the wife’s parents
and he asks his mother-in-law why she always cut the end off of the meat before
putting it in the roasting tin. She tells him that she does it because she
remembers seeing her
mother do it, although she didn’t know why … but knew there ‘had’ to be a
reason for it.

It is not until the family meet up at Christmas that he finally gets the chance
to ask his wife’s Grandmother why she cut the end off of the joint, and why was
that the secret to making the perfect roast..?

His wife’s grandmother simply replied that, her husband always seemed to bring
home a piece of meat that was too big for her roasting dish so she always had
to cut the end off so it would fit in the oven…;-)

Urban myth or not, it brings home the fact that so often we do things just
because we have ‘always done it that way’ and there ‘had’ to be a good reason
for doing it … even if we can’t quite put our finger on what that is…

We often don’t stop to think about why we do things and ask ourselves if this
is the best way. Often we find it used
to be the best way … but things have moved on a bit and it has never occurred
to question what we are doing.

I constantly review and re-jig what goes on here (you’d certainly agree if I
was still using the same tools and methods I did when I started a decade ago
I’d be in what is referred to by some as ‘all sorts of bother’) and find,
almost without exception, that the ‘new’ way not only works better but more is
more adaptable and able to accommodate further change…

We should always regularly question everything that you do and ask if this is
the best way in the current circumstances and with the resources you have at
your disposal. If you are unsure which way to go experiment with different
ideas and see if what you are doing is still the best answer … and if it
isn’t – don’t be afraid to change it….

Until Next Time,

TimLoweBluePenSig.jpg

Tim Lowe

Publisher, Tim’s Business
Lowe Down

How to ‘swipe’ your way to writing the perfect email…

One of the things I seem to be asked more frequently
for these days (rather than just tips on how to get started) are various tips
on how to communicate with your new list of contacts … and how those first
attempts at building a relationship or making that first offer – can lead to a
severe case of writers block…

I can’t remember ever having this problem to any great extent myself … in
fact, the exact opposite seems to apply, as I’ve been conscious of the fact
that recent ‘Lowedowns’ seem to have been getting longer and longer… (so this
week I shall do my best to be brief…);-)

However, if you are finding the business of writing a little problematic,
please be assured you are not alone. In my years as a marketer I have seen
people who can communicate brilliantly on a face to face level, come across
magnificently on video but when faced with the prospect of putting it all into
words … they just seem to be at a complete loss…

The thing is, they know what they want to say … but when the medium changes
or the interaction is not there, they just don’t know how to say it … or at
least don’t know how to get started.

Now, you don’t stand a chance of building a relationship with people if you
can’t communicate with them … so a little technique I started using in the
early days to help with my own brief episodes of ‘writers block’ may well be of
use to you… (I actually started to use it when I first received flyers and
sales pages in the post, but quickly applied the same principle to emails as well)

Within your Outlook, Gmail, Hotmail or whatever it is you have for your emails,
you should make two new folders … one to keep all the communication that
makes you want to see more, know more or better still click on the ‘order now’
button – in short, anything that ‘hits the right buttons’ for you … and
you’ll also need anoither one to keep the emails that do the complete opposite.

By doing this you are creating what are known as ‘swipe files’ (the name should
be self explanatory…) So when the time comes to communicate with your
contacts, and are desperately short of inspiration for the right words to get
your message across … use the material in these ‘swipe files’ … one to
guide you toward the ‘right’ things to do, and the other to remind you what to
steer well clear of.

Remember, what you will gather together over time in these ‘swipe files’ will
be communication that has been sent by some of the most successful marketers on
the planet, (either written by them or by professional copywriters paid many
thousands of pounds) and it is all there at your disposal – for you to just go
along and cherry pick out the bits that ‘work’ for you – whenever you want…

Please don’t think for one minute that I am suggesting that you blatantly copy
other people’s work – it still has to be your message … but you may find a
flow, a structure or even isolated phrases themselves that match exactly what
you planned to say…

So next time you are staring blankly at an equally blank screen and the cursor
hasn’t moved in half an hour … please remember the cliché about not
re-inventing the wheel, and look to what you have on file for inspiration…

Until Next Time,

TimLoweBluePenSig.jpg

Tim Lowe

Publisher, Tim’s Business
Lowe Down

Whatever You Do … Don’t Do A ‘Barry’

The latest addition to my team here at HQ, a fine
bunch whom I fondly refer to (with, may I add, my tongue very firmly in
my cheek) as my ‘minions’ … is a chap who spent his formative years learning
his trade in a joiners’ workshop, and one of his more repeatable tales was
about his former bosses’ rather sudden fall from grace … as a result of doing
something that seems to happen a lot in business, but is very foolish and also
very harmful to your relationship with your customers…

Well, this chap in charge of the joiners’ workshop … we’ll call him …
‘Barry’ (don’t worry … I’ve changed the name to protect the half-witted…)
;-) , and, as well as being responsible for deliveries and collections he also
had the all-important task of liaising with the firm’s many clients (who would
typically be fitting out or re-fitting large well know supermarkets and high
street shops…)

Now, the incident occurred when one of these clients rang ‘Barry’ and asked if
the special bespoke large wooden ‘widget’ they had ordered was ready to be
delivered … and ‘Barry’, knowing that this ‘widget’ was supposed to have been
completed a week ago – but was actually still sat in pieces in the workshop …
decided to try and avoid the inevitable ‘ear bashing’ that would accompany him
delivering bad news … and instead tried to pull a ‘fast one’ by telling this
client that their widget was in fact ready, but unfortunately the delivery
truck was out on site and would be unavailable for a couple of days… (hoping
this ‘ruse’ would give Barry the extra couple of extra days he needed to
complete the job)

I suppose you could argue it ‘sort of’ sounded plausible … (you may have even
heard something similar yourself…) and some may ask what is wrong with a
slight bending of the truth…?

Well, in this case, quite a lot … you see, what never occurred to ‘Barry’ was
that his client would decide to send their own truck to collect the ‘widget’ -
after all … this client had men stood around doing nothing, and they
desperately needed to get the item fitted and finish the job off and in turn
keep their own client happy…

So when a truck unexpectedly pulled up outside the workshop, ready to collect
the widget,  ‘Barry’ had a lot of explaining to do… not only the client
he had lied to … but also his own boss  – the workshop owner – who now
had egg all over his face, having been made to look a complete fool in front of
a major client…

All of this … just because ‘Barry’ wanted to avoid the temporary discomfort
of a few minutes of awkward conversation with the client … but had he been
honest and truthful ‘up front’ he would have avoided what would amount to
considerable embarrassment and grief… not only for himself but for the
workshop owner, who as a result of this subterfuge relieved him of his position
of workshop manager and relegated him to ‘odd job man’…

As short as this tale is, the moral should be obvious … it is always best to
be open, up front and be honest with your customers … because regardless of
how well thought out your plan, how meticulous your preparation … things will
from time to time will go wrong, and it is at this point communication with
your client or customers will be both at its most difficult and its most
crucial…

It may involve an uncomfortable few minutes on the phone, (as well as a certain
amount of humble pie being eaten), but by simply being honest about the
situation you not only gain the respect of your customers (who are usually
perfectly willing to accept your explanation anyway) … you are also
demonstrating to your customer you are more than capable of identifying and
resolving any problems … and of course you will avoid any of the inevitable
unpleasantness and embarrassment that would almost certainly occur if you had
chosen to ‘do a Barry’…

Until Next Time,

TimLoweBluePenSig.jpg

Tim Lowe

Publisher, Tim’s Business
Lowe Down

Be Yourself … Everyone Else Is Taken

I don’t usually like using famous quotes in my posts;
especially as the title … however you will have to forgive this one
particular Oscar Wilde gem, given today’s subject matter…

You see, we now live in a world where various public figures are constantly
reminded by some clipboard waving flunkey to act a certain way or use certain
phases to appeal to a certain ‘target demographic’ … and whilst we in the
online world are arguably the polar opposite of public figures we still have to
be very conscious of never, ever trying to pass ourselves off as something
we’re not…

How would you feel if for instance, instead of your normal copy of the
Lowedown, an email from me arrived in your inbox with a title that read
something like … “OMG – We’re Crushing It … Epic Win!” … or
some such nonsense?

Well, for a start I expect you would have your doubts as to whether such an
email would have originated from Lowe Towers in the first place … (as you
would have correctly guessed I have absolutely no idea what ‘crushing it’ would
actually entail, and even less intention of finding out) … or otherwise just
assume it was some form of temporary madness on my part and would simply stop
reading until it had all passed and I’d decided to start being sensible again…

Either way, the email would evidently not be what you had come to expect from
me, and most likely not what you would want from me either, so it would
probably be in your ‘Trash’ or ‘Spam’ folder before you got to the end of the
second line…

The thing is, when you are based online you will have, at best, very little of
the face to face contact you would usually have to build a relationship with
your contacts and customers – so they are going to closely examine all the
communication you do have with them … and will be easily able to spot any
sort of ‘act’ a country mile away.

To build those all important long term relationships with your customers and
contacts, they have to believe you are not only knowledgeable, but credible and
trustworthy as well. Quite frankly the only way of doing this is to actually be
all of those things, and you can’t do that unless you are being yourself.

There would be no point, for example, if you lived in the leafier parts of the
home counties and had an accent that would put a 1950s BBC announcer to shame
… completely blowing any credibility you may have garnered in some misguided
clumsy attempt to ‘fake it’ like so many are doing at the moment … by trying
to come across on video and email like one of those ‘Rapper’ types who swear
like troopers and dress like Jimmy Saville…

If you want to succeed you really have no alternative but to be yourself … by
all means make an impression – but make it an honest one. If you choose instead
to put on some kind of act, and you were lucky enough not to be caught out, do
you think you would be able to keep the act up for the next six months? a year?
even ten years?

In short, it is better to be who you are right from the start … that way you can
dedicate all the time you spend on your online business … actually on your business and
not waste any of it trying to maintain a facade that your customers will almost
certainly see through in the end…

Until Next Time,

TimLoweBluePenSig.jpg

Tim Lowe

Publisher, Tim’s Business
Lowe Down

A Missed Opportunity Doesn’t Have To Be A Lost Opportunity…

Regardless of how ‘gung-ho’ you are about your online
endeavors, from time to time, you are likely to become distracted by one thing or
another. I may have ‘occasionally’ been guilty of becoming distracted … as
anyone who has witnessed one of my frequent ‘asides’ (often straying in to the
the topics of fine restaurants, even finer wine and fast cars) will certainly
testify ;-)

Of course, many distractions are not always quite as pleasant, but instead take
the shape of such things as full time jobs and the very important parts of our
individual ‘daily routine’ around which we all have to fit our online
endeavors…

It can so often be the case that, once you’ve ferried the kids around, had your
dinner, walked the dog and then done a million and one other jobs that seem to
appear out of nowhere on a daily basis … by the time you sit down to read
your emails it can be quite late, and your pillow and duvet are more at the
forefront of your mind rather than the prospect of online riches…

It’s only natural that we’re not always in the right frame of mind to take the
time to read the email fully – or instead we’ll earmark it ready to come back
to later for full investigation … and then various events conspire to ensure
we never do… (Don’t worry, I’ve done exactly the same thing … I left
something sitting idle for nearly two years before I started using it … and I
honestly believe that decision cost me over £2m in profits that I could have
made…) :-(

Anyway, the net result of all these ‘distractions’ is that every week I receive
requests for the link to a system I may have mentioned either two, six or even
twelve months previously from folks who may have decided that it wasn’t right
for them at the time – but is absolutely perfect for them now … and they
can’t locate the email … (and these requests are accompanied in some cases
with rather cryptic clues as to which one it was referring  … for
instance ‘that one that was something to do with forex and moving your rabbit
hutch’…);-)

So, I thought it was time I came up with a solution…

To that end, I’ve arranged to have a website set-up, completely separate to my
blog which will contain links back to a great many of the  projects,
sytems and other things designed to make you a profit that I’ve already
mentioned in the Lowedown this year, along with what I said about them at the
time… Obviously any that have long expired, are no longer relevent because
the internet has ‘moved on’, or were number restricted will not be included,
and I’ve detailed one of my chaps to regularly check all the offers are still
valid along with promises of extreme discomfort on their part should any
Lowedown reader ever encounter an expired link…

To see exactly what you might have missed that may be perfect way for you to
make money online visit my new website – click
here now

Another reason for this is that newer readers of the Lowedown may have missed
an email which held the perfect system for them … for instance, if you joined
the Lowedown in May but the tailor made system for you was featured back in
March … well, here’s your chance to catch the ‘one that got away’

The link will take you a section of the website called ‘honourable mentions’
where you’ll have the chance to go and have a rummage around in the treasure
trove of my previous offerings…

Do Take A Look…

Until Next Time,

TimLoweBluePenSig.jpg

Tim Lowe

Publisher, Tim’s Business
Lowe Down

P.S. Here’s your second chance to get hold of that programme or system that may
have been perfect for you but you missed it completely because of school
holidays, email failure, work pressures or even if the dog ate your computer!
… All joking aside, perhaps the tailor made solution for you was mentioned in
the Lowedown two weeks before you started reading it … all is not lost …
you can still access it when you click
here now

If for any reason, the above links are being problematic, simply copy and paste
the following into your browser to see what you may have missed … and catch
the ‘one that got away’…

http://www.timloweofficial.com/

Don’t Let Your Plans Get Eclipsed By The ‘Next Big Thing’

Whether it’s in the world of politics, entertainment
and especially in the online world, not a day seems to go past without
something or somebody being the ‘next big thing’ that will revolutionise this
or that, or change the face of whatever it is you happen to be doing …
‘forever’. Over the decade or so I’ve been in this business I’ve seen hundreds
of ‘next big things’ come and go (and only a few have become longer term
stayers that we all know and love…)  and I’d have to check, but go back
a few years and I think I might even have actually been the ‘next big thing’
myself once or twice…;-)

And you, just like me, have no doubt thought … they can’t all be the next big
thing (can they?)… and just in case one is (…because let’s face it big
things do
come along)… how do I tell..?

Whilst I have always tried to keep myself informed of new developments, I have
also chosen to keep a clear head, not get caught up in the hysteria and use my
experience (and on some occasions a large amount of prodding of my R&D
chaps) to see though the headlines to see if the ‘new big thing’ is, on a basic
level something brand new … or just a rehashed version of what we already
have in a prettier wrapper…?

For instance, it took a long period for me to change my initial stance on
Facebook and Twitter, (which could most politely be put as being solely for
people who can’t even keep quiet when they’re on their own) … and this is not because as ‘She
Who Must…’ may have rather cheekily suggested, that I lack the ability to say
anything in less than 140 or even the 480 characters required … but simply
because I need to see the real business value of something rather than merely
it’s novelty value before I invest time and funds into it…

Of course now I do lots of things both with, and on Facebook which are not the
things that made me despair of it when I first encountered it … (and for the
record I’ve never played ‘Farmville’, or felt the need to update people every
time I’m stuck in traffic!) . So I do use it – just not always in the way you
might think … So there’ll be no banal updates about every time I buy a
coffee… and instead I’ll only be letting you know things you will probably
find useful and profitable – sorry ;-)

(You can join me now on Facebook … click here
now
to go to my page and click ‘Like’ … I’ve also got a couple of extra
bits and pieces there for you that you may not have seen before…)

In the same way that you have to ensure anything you offer your customer is
congruent with their needs, you must look at whatever the ‘next big thing’
happens to be this week and do a quick ‘sanity check’ to see if it’s congruent
with your needs,
or whether it will only serve to be another distraction or wild goose chase…

Not everything that has been dubbed the next big thing actually goes on to be
anything at all, and I’m sure you’ll agree just because ‘everybody’ is talking
about it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s any good, or may be of any particular
use in helping you achieve what you want online, (take Google plus for example…)
… and if it isn’t you need only to be ‘aware’ of it until it possibly evolves
into something that can be put to good use…

Until Next Time,

TimLoweBluePenSig.jpg

Tim Lowe

Publisher, Tim’s Business
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