Sales from the EDGE
Back Issue #044
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Sales from the EDGE Issue #044
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sales from the EDGE
Breaking Through the "White Noise" Of Selling on the Net
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From time to time, the EDGE publishes important updates that
you need to SELL on the Net. Most "latest and greatest" Net
marketing & sales developments simply waste our time. Today's
"hot new technology" is tomorrow's "whatever happened to?"
Occasionally, though, something comes along that STICKS. It
might NOT even be NEW... but we need to be reminded. When
that happens, the EDGE cuts through all the "white noise" of
Web marketing. It explains the issue and outlines clearly
how YOU can best take advantage of it.
SALES FROM THE EDGE is sent ONLY to SiteSell product owners.
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December 8, 2003
Issue #044
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Free! If you have NOT yet submitted your site...
http://value-exchange.sitesell.com/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TABLE OF CONTENTS
o NEWS FROM THE SITESELL EDGE...
1) Local Radio Goes Global! "Ken Live!"
"The Radio Show Heard Round the World"
2) SBI! Resources HQ Adds E-COMMERCE RESOURCES Section
Yup... SBI! Is "Already" E-com Enabled -->
Announcing "Best of Net" E-com Plug-n-Play Products
3) SiteSell.com now in Top 300... IBM Now Trailing
4) A Most Interesting Article On Pricing Is Coming
o FEATURED ARTICLES...
1) A New Masters Course!
The Webmaster BUSINESS Masters Course Launches!
2) A Story from Kazakhstan
... So Many Lessons
============================================================
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~NEWS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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---1---
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Local Radio Goes Global! "Ken Live!"
"The Radio Show Heard Round the World"
I'm still on a high THE "radio show" heard round the world.
And it's been a month!
-----SIDEBAR-----
If you missed it, I'll tell you how you can
still catch it, in just a moment.
-----SIDEBAR-----
What feedback! What an amazing group of callers, from every
corner of the globe. That radio show was one of the most
exciting, gratifying moments of my life.
You see...
We live in a digital world. And SiteSell is a totally
digital business. We never actually SEE a customer. Yes,
we get wonderful e-mails. And of course, we do tons of
customer surveys, which are consistently earth-shakingly
positive. So...
"IN THEORY," we stay close to our customer.
"IN THEORY," we know that SBI! OVERdelivers on our promises
and we understand that SBI! users are one very happy group.
But, I can now tell you...
*****************************************************
IT AIN'T NOTHING like talking to a real, live human!
*****************************************************
I must admit I was a bit nervous about the radio show...
o It was live (so who knows WHO might call??)
o I was sick, loaded with Kleenex and meds and a tall
glass of ice water hoping not to have a coughing jag.
o And the interviewer, Peter Anthony Holder, is an
excellent, objective interviewer, known to be
unafraid to ask "the tough question."
But I simply loved the concept. Montreal's largest radio
station was streaming through the Internet. It could be a
fun, informative and original way to actually talk to a
sample of our customers and affiliates. But it was risky...
The old saying of "What if you gave a party and no one came"
kept going through my mind. Well...
All of my worries disappeared as soon as I arrived. The
lines were jammed before the show even started. Calls came
in from all over the world... Australia, England (where they
stayed up until 4:30 AM for the show), California -- we must
have circled the globe several times during the 90 minute
show. It was a global party.
To actually HEAR from REAL human beings... not e-mails,
not survey results... but from REAL human beings...
Happy customers from around the world completely overwhelmed
the local market's attempts at getting to the lines. And
their feedback was wonderful. To hear the sheer joy, the
impact, the difference that SBI! is making on people's
lives... I was on the verge of tears several times.
It was great to talk to some real live customers and
affiliates, and feel the impact of what we're doing. On a
gratification scale of 1 to 10, it was a 100 -- total
payback for the incredibly long hours that the entire team
has poured into this fast-growing company.
For those of you who missed the show, I can't urge you
strongly enough to listen to it now. We're streaming it at...
http://seminars.sitesell.com/
This was raw theatre at its best...
... and a 100% affirmation of what SBI! is doing.
Please do yourself and your small business a favor. Listen
to it at...
http://seminars.sitesell.com/
It was electric for me.
It will be electric, too, for your business.
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---2---
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SBI! Resources HQ Adds E-COMMERCE RESOURCES Section
Yup... SBI! Is "Already" E-com Enabled -->
Announcing "Best of Net" E-com Plug-n-Play Products
Two riddles for you...
Question: What's rarer than hen's teeth on the Net?
Answer: A small business site with significant traffic.
(Just check any domain at Alexa.com to see.)
--
Question: What's more common than ice in Canada in January?
Answer: Well... err, nothing, actually. ;-)
But the NEXT closet thing is the number of e-services that
help small businesses collect money online. There's zillions
of them. And they all seem to be chasing the same three
small businesses that generate any traffic. ;-)
-----
The development of SBI! E-commerce is progressing steadily.
We've prioritized other modules that all fit together that
empower SBIers to build serious theme-based content sites
that build SIGNIFICANT TRAFFIC, on a long-term ongoing
basis. Bottom line...
SBI! is the only product on the Net that gets "the hard
part" done... TRAFFIC.
It's so easy to plug-n-play the money-collecting part into
an SBI! site today.
-----SIDEBAR-----
Don't put the e-cart before the e-horse. You
need traffic before you can sell successfully
online. If you are not receiving at least
100-200 visitors daily, you skip this article.
You need traffic, not e-commerce capabilities.
No visitors = no income.
Solution = build more and MORE high-quality
and in-demand content.
PREsell with topical content.
Build traffic.
*THEN* sell.
You need SBI!.
-----SIDEBAR-----
Meanwhile, many SBIers have jumped ahead of us and plugged
all kinds of solutions into SBI!. So...
Based on our own research and experimentation, feedback from
SBI! Certified Webmasters and many SBIers who are already
selling, research at e-com forums and lists (LED, I-sales,
etc.), research at outstanding e-com sites such as Ralph
Wilson's wilsonweb.com, we've put together a new category in
the SBI! Resources HQ. We call it...
E-COMMERCE RESOURCES
These companies are all best of breed(s) in their category.
They all plug-n-play into SBI! real nice and easy. In most
cases, you can be registered with the service of your choice
and ready to start selling within 10 minutes. It's...
The "cream of the cream" of SBI! plug-n-play e-commerce
companies is now open for business. If you've been
considering SBI!, but waiting for the release of e=com,
don't wait any longer (especially with the upcoming price
increase). First, you need to build traffic, anyway.
Second...
SBI! is essentially already e-com enabled. Just plug-n-play
the "cream of the cream" from the new E-COMMERCE RESOURCES
in the SBI! Resources HQ.
-----SIDEBAR-----
I still find it so bizarre...
There are THOUSANDS of companies that will
help you collect money when you sell.
SBI! is literally still the ONLY product of
its kind... we're not really "Web hosting"
although we do that part as well as anyone.
SBI! is really the PROCESS and the SOFTWARE
that drives and PREsells the targeted traffic
that drives success.
It's the horse that pulls the (shopping) cart
of e-commerce, yet there is simply no other
company that has put it all together like SBI!.
Please... tell your friends. But don't tell
other Web hosting companies, OK? We kind of
like having the field to ourselves. :-)
-----SIDEBAR-----
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---3---
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SiteSell.com now in Top 300
It's been a busy year. An amazing one actually. Now that
Form Build It! is stable and roaring with business, the
launch of Value Exchange, Part II is next, and so is a
little surprise we've been working on...
The inclusion of Teoma/Jeeves in the "Submit-Spider-List
Report" and the "Keyword Ranking Report" of the SE HQ. This
unannounced "holiday bonus" will add what has slowly become
the third most important Primary Engine (after Google and
Inktomi). Yes... more important than other proprietary,
primary engines like AltaVista and FAST. So Teoma/Jeeves is
worth tracking. :-)
-----SIDEBAR-----
The only way to get into Teoma/Jeeves (beside paying for
it, of course) is through their spider following an incoming
link. So, if you have not yet done so, do register for the
free version of Value Exchange...
http://value-exchange.sitesell.com/
VE Part 2 is just around the corner. So you'll be set to
start setting up a small number of QUALITY links.
-----SIDEBAR-----
With all that's been done, there's not much on our "to do"
list for early 2004. So it will be FULL SPEED AHEAD on SBI!
E-com. But, as I said above, with our recent introduction of
E-COMMERCE RESOURCES in the SBI! Resources HQ, SBI! is
really already fully e-commerce enabled. Just
copy-and-paste, plug-n-play our top picks for a variety of
monetization models. But FIRST, remember...
The key is the TRAFFIC.
Only then can you "collect the money." :-)
Speaking of traffic and success...
What's the most sincere testimony that SBI! works?
It's spreading.
Like wildfire.
As of this writing, SiteSell has cracked into Alexa.com's
Top 300 sites on the Net...
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/?url=sitesell.com
See what kind of company that puts us in (a touch ahead of IBM)...
http://traffic.sitesell.com/
http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?ts_mode=global&lang=none&page=3
Top 50 Business company (#32, actually, as of this writing)...
http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?catid=3&ts_mode=subject&lang=none
Scary.
Not a penny of advertising.
Just a great product, and wonderful affiliates who believe
in it, and help spread the word.
A company does not grow into the Alexa 300 through
marketing, magic or myth. It EARNS its way there...
One customer at a time. Thank you for all your support.
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---4---
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A Most Interesting Article On Pricing Is Coming
The "vote with your wallet" price test is no longer entering
new candidates, although it is still tracking the cohort in
the study. And we are now doing an MYPS! (Make Your Price
Sell!) survey on a randomly selected group of certain
customers. The upcoming article on the two ways to do
price-testing, and what they reveal, will be fascinating.
But for now, here's the bottom line...
It's about 95% sure, pending final results, that the new
price for SBI! will be US$499... and it's 100% sure that the
price will go up Wednesday, 2AM of this week (i.e., Tuesday
night to Wednesday morning overnight).
As you will see, the "vote with your wallet" kind of
real-time, a-b-c-d, order- page testing (of 4 different
price points) is simply not realistic except for the
highest-traffic sites. But the MYPS! study can be done in a
fraction of the time, for a ridiculously low cost when you
consider the information obtained, and can be done by any
small business.
Watch for this upcoming article. As far as I know, it's the
first time such a "live, real-time" comparison has been done
anywhere. It's important, and fascinating, material.
************************************************************
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~FEATURED ARTICLES~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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---1---
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A New Masters Course!
The Webmaster BUSINESS Masters Course Launches!
-----SIDEBAR-----
If you are not a Webmaster, copy-and-paste
and e-mail this article to a friend (who is a
Webmaster), then skip THIS article and go
straight to "Kazakhstan," the next article.
This is an amazing story with profound lessons.
If you are a Webmaster, or considering such a
business (part- or full-time), read on...
-----SIDEBAR-----
Site Build It! is no longer "JUST for business folk and
newbies." It never was, of course. But...
Now that those "business folk and newbies" are beating the
pants off the "Net-savvy" and building profitable BUSINESSES
(instead of just "putting up sites") and now that SBI! is
fully compatible with Front Page and DreamWeaver, savvy
Webmasters are catching on to Site Build It!.
It is an easy, effective way to build sites that provide
clients with exactly what they want... warm, targeted,
willing-to-buy traffic. And not only is SBI! all about
greater RESULTS for a Webmaster's clients, those results are
achieved with less effort by the Webmaster.
In other words... PRODUCTIVITY.
We just received this wonderful note from Paul Colligan
(yes, the FrontPage guru himself)....
------------------------------------------
I've always been a huge fan of FrontPage
because it lets the computer do the "hard"
work. Sure, I could spend endless hours
pounding out the HTML, but why? I've got
better things to do with my time.
This is exactly the way I feel about Site
Build It. I could spend thousands of dollars
and hundreds of hours assembling a suite of
services that comes close to what SBI has put
together, but again, why?
Site Build It is the real deal. It is
everything it claims to be (in a single
package). It helps me do more business with
the Web content I've created. Now that I can
use my FrontPage-created Web content with
SBI, there is nothing stopping me.
I feel bad for those Webmasters who are
spending all of their time painstakingly
doing the work that FrontPage and Site Build
It do so much better. SBI! pushes the whole
concept of site-building-hosting-traffic to
the next level, in the same way that WYSIWYG
HTML Editors did (remember when we had to
hand-code HTML??).
Better results for our clients, less effort
by us. Need I say more?
Paul Colligan
President, FrontPageWorld
Microsoft FrontPage MVP
FrontPageWorld.com
Author, Special Edition
Using Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003
Publisher: Pearson Education
------------------------------------------
Better results. Less Effort. PRODUCTIVITY.
*THAT* is why more and more professional Webmasters are
using SBI! for their Small-Small Business ("SSB") clients.
-----SIDEBAR-----
SBI! is all things to all SSBs. Take a peek...
http://find.sitesell.com/
-----SIDEBAR-----
So, if YOU are a Webmaster, and have not yet considered
SBI! as a key part of your business, it's time...
http://webmaster.sitesell.com/
And NOW...
We've added a second tool for Webmasters. SBI! will provide
all you need, not only to "put up a site," but to deliver
what your customer is really LOOKING for... BUSINESS.
But what about YOUR business? How well are you attending to
the business side of your Webmastering biz?
Not so well? Announcing...
*********************************************************
**********The Webmaster BUSINESS Masters Course**********
*********************************************************
What are most Webmasters GOOD at? Putting up sites. Some
are even good at building traffic (the ones who use SBI!,
anyway!). But...
What are they often NOT-SO-GOOD at?
Business. Running their business. Building it. Finances.
Legals. Administration. Marketing the business.
Well... all that is about to change. The Webmaster BUSINESS
Masters Course shows Webmasters how to take care of the
BUSINESS end of Webmastering. Like the other Masters
Courses, the content is excellent.
-----SIDEBAR-----
Mark Frank, a "ground-level" "been there-done
that" Webmaster, is the author. And he's done
a MASTERful job of tackling what many designers
and geeks consider "distasteful"... but you
know what? It's the side of the business
that makes or breaks you, in the long run.
-----SIDEBAR-----
Pick up, free, at...
http://webmasterbusiness.sitesell.com/
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---2---
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A Story from Kazakhstan
... So Many Lessons
From the "radio show heard round the world" to today's
article on the "the fax from Kazakhstan," the word on SBI!
is not only unanimous, it's universal... global. Here's how
the story from Kazakhstan unfolded...
I received the most amazing fax the other day. The letter
brought tears to my eyes as I sat there, at that still-dark
early-morning Montreal hour, reading it. The reader had
summarized what SBI! was all about, with a clarity that I
had not yet seen anyone else capture. And whether *YOU* use
SBI! or not, that letter, and our subsequent e-mails
back-and-forth, contain some tremendous lessons for you.
Let's get started. Here's his original letter....
-----------------TEXT OF ORIGINAL FAX------------------->
Dear Mr. Evoy,
My name is Nadir Burnashev. I work for Kazkommerts
Securities, the oldest and well-known investment banking and
securities brokerage company in Kazakhstan. Kazkommerts
Securities is the largest brokerage in Central Asia actually,
and its main shareholder, Kazkommertsbank, is the largest
commercial bank in Central Asia (capital over 100MM, assets
over 1BN).
In November 2002 Kazkommerts Securities signed the contract
with one web design company for developing and maintaining
the corporate website. After six months passed and several
thousand dollars spent it became clear that we would not be
getting the website completed any time soon. And our staff
grew increasingly frustrated by long and unproductive
discussions with the people in that company.
Someday in May 2003, browsing Internet I came across
SiteSell.com. At first, I was not impressed. But the more
I read the more I liked it. The site structure was simple,
the layout was handy, and the content and the words just
nailed down almost 90 percent of my concerns. By the time I
finished reading I was ready to buy MYSS! But I hesitated.
I was afraid I wouldn't have time for another big book.
There is a lot of reading on my desk for everyday.
I bought the book. And read it. Three times, believe me or
not. First time, I read it for fun. Although it was
supposed to be a technical book, it was written so elegantly
and beautifully simple that reading it was rather fun than
work. Second time I read it for knowledge. When I finished
reading I realized that building and putting a website was
more simple in technical terms, and more challenging in
marketing terms. And the people we spoke to about our site
over the last months knew very little about Internet
marketing. They were mostly "techies". No wonder we could
not find common language. But the important thing I
realized was that we could build, maintain and power the
site by ourselves with little down. And, what was more
important, we would be in control at every stage and could
adjust the site quickly to our changing needs. This was not
the rocket science!
MYSS! is still on my table. I am reading and re-reading it.
Mr. Evoy, that's the Book! In my opinion, they should teach
it in the universities to the future marketers and
infopreneurs.
You could easily guess that the next product I bought was
SBI! Your SBI guide was excellent and put us at work. Your
SBI Manager did save us a lot of time and efforts. Our site
became operational on July 23. It was not the best site I
saw on the web, but it was loading fast, had a lot of useful
information in English, and was well optimized. And it was
done by two persons with little prior knowledge and
experience in the field.
The site worked well and drove the traffic despite the niche
itself wasn't very prolific. After it was indexed by Google,
and listed in Yahoo! and DMOZ, it acquired higher ratings
than many existing sites on Kazakhstan out there. By the
end of August (one month after the launch), its Alexa
ratings surpassed the ratings of our local competitors. And
by the end of October (three months after the launch), it
had higher ratings than the National Bank, and Ministry of
Finance of Kazakhstan, or even the state television agency,
Khabar.
Of course, all ratings are relative, and Alexa and Google
are not exclusion here, but for our site geared towards
international English-speaking audience they measure the
traffic accurately, and help establishing reciprocital
links.
Another big advantage is that SBI! saves not only time, but
money, too. When I showed to my colleges total expenses
associated with the development of our English-speaking
site, SBI! was nicknamed as an "Internet guerilla tool".
Having both MYSS and SBI behind our shoulders helped us
complete negotiations with the local web design company for
making the company Russian website at more favorable terms.
If your package could only support Cyrillic scripts there
would be far less web design and hosting companies in the
CIS countries and more good websites! :-)
Mr. Evoy, I am writing this letter to attest that your ideas
and your approach to Internet business work not only in the
Anglo-Saxon countries, but across the globe. As you can see
from our company's experience, SBI has no boundaries, as the
Internet itself, and it has the potential to win the new
markets, as the good and successful product. Your methods
are simple yet effective, your business philosophy is sound,
your thinking is original, and the logic behind your
business strategy is powerful. As a token of our
appreciation to you and your colleges at SiteSell we will
put the link on our website endorsing your products to our
clients. The more companies will be using SiteSell products
in their business, the more competitive and safer place
Internet will become in the future.
Let us wish you every success in your future endeavors.
Sincerely,
Nadir Burnashev
Chief Economist
Kazkommerts Securities
Email: nburnashev@kazks.kz
http://www.kazakhstaninvestment.com
PS. We continue developing our corporate site. The next
product purchased was MYWS, to improve and polish the site
content. I also bought another SBI! package, this time for
personal use. Thanks to you, building websites seems to
become my new hobby.
-------------END TEXT OF ORIGINAL FAX------------------->
Normally, I would vote someone with Mr. Burnashev's
background and "profile" as the least likely to "get it."
Everything points to someone who should be playing it safe
and doing what everyone else is doing... failing, but not
getting fired for it. This makes a re-read of his letter,
and his conclusions, all the more valuable.
The key points...
1) MYSS! 2002 empowers business people. Once you read it,
no techie or designer should ever tell YOU what to do. The
correct relationship is established because YOU now KNOW
what your site should do. If you don't want to actually
"do it yourself," you know how to direct others to do it. As
Mr. Burnashev says, e-commerce is indeed not "rocket
science." Business people just scare themselves about the
"mysteries of the Net" to such a point that they are ready
to delegate and walk away. Fatal. And needless.
--
2) Now, of course, the same is doubly true for SBI!. Take
control of your business, and your business success.
--
3) All he decided to do was follow the Guide. Within a
month, the traffic had started. And soon, he was outscoring
the National Bank, the Ministry of Finance, and even the
state television agency, Khabar.
--
4) SBI! ideas work "not only in the Anglo-Saxon countries,
but across the globe." And that's because the concepts are
classic, logical and evergreen. There's no panic in it. No
short-term foolishness. Just long-term success guaranteed.
As he says...
"The methods are simple yet effective, the business
philosophy is sound, the thinking is original, and the logic
behind your business strategy is powerful."
Honestly, using SBI! right now is like stealing candy from a
baby (your competitor).
--
5) He bought one for himself. That's one of the highest of
all praises. We see so many people buying a second and a
third, for themselves, a spouse, etc. There is no higher
or more sincere proof that your customer is now a raving fan.
--
6) It's a great example of how, even way over in Kazakhstan,
people waste time and money on developers when they can do
it themselves. We know that all too well over here, of
course. You have no idea how many times we hear this story...
"Started wrong, wasted money, found SBI!, it worked. THANK YOU."
So many businesses, from small to the largest, waste money
on expensive designers (who focus on making BEAUTIFUL
sites), geeks (who focus on the geeky stuff, often just for
the sake of it)... but who focuses on getting business done?
The problem in North America, if anything, is even worse
than it is in Kazakhstan -- I'm sure that billions are
wasted on the Net and the execs don't even have a clue.
--
The follow-up...
I thanked Mr. Burnashev not only for the kind comments, but
for taking the time to write such a rewarding letter (a
generous spirit, indeed). He had brought the motivation,
AND the knowledge of his business, to the SBI! table. And
THAT, as you know by now, is all that SBI! needs. :-)
Mr. Burnashev e-mailed back...
-------------REPLY E-MAIL----------------------------------
I think the morale of our story is that even (or
particularly) in the large corporations or companies in
dealing with websites and Internet people focus too much on
the technical side and far less on the marketing side. I
don't know about another countries in the region, but in
Kazakhstan websites are being built by the techies and for
the techies and the client's top management.
< Ken's comment -- truer even in North America! >
At the same time many local companies have excellent
marketing and sales divisions (of course they do, otherwise,
they would be out of business by now!) There is just a
plain disconnect between the sales and marketing department
and IT department. The people there speak different
language. This is why I really liked your book. Because it
offered the way to reconnect them, in a least disruptive
way. Since MYSS I read other books on the subject, too.
But yours is still the best, in my opinion. It's just like
the encyclopedia.
If not for SBI! you would be remembered for MWR concept. Do
you know when the discussions in our company about the
website became more business and less design ones? When I
introduced the MWR to the audience saying 'hey, folks,
forget about navigation, flashes, and fancy graphics
concentrate on the important thing: what do we want from our
visitors?" At the very moment they understood the MWR
concept they were firmly back in the familiar ground. And
our discussions have started yielding the first practical
results. But if we would be talking to the web designers we
would be still at the square one.
< Ken's comment -- BINGO! I labored over what to call that
key concept. "Most Wanted Response. (MWR)." It has become a
part of Net marketing lexicon. And he's right -- that
single concept puts control back into the hands of the
business person. It is so simple, so important, and so
ignored. I'm amazed that so many companies still don't get
it... at least not if you look at their Web sites. >
As you can see I've become a big fun of yours. But we are
both in business, and are good in what we do. I was thrown
into Internet marketing and web design in late April when
they asked me to pick up the almost dead project and revive
it. I was (and still am) company's chief economist and my
prime responsibilities are risk management, macroeconomic
research, and country promotion for outside investors.
< Ken's comment -- this blows my mind. When a company
"throws" responsibility for a Web site to its Chief
Economist, that is ONE DEAD PROJECT. It's to Mr.
Burnashev's credit that he took it seriously, took SiteSell
seriously, recognize the value, and implemented. This is
what SUCCESS is all about. More on his story... >
At the time I started working on our corporate design I knew
little about the topic. I went on Internet, saw the book,
bought it, printed it, studied it, and did everything by the
book. And it worked! All of a sudden, I learnt a completely
new topic, and did it in a very entertaining way (as a kid,
playing with your package and trying different things to see
what works and what doesn't).
In a more formal way, you leveled the playing field for me
and brought me to the market. And at the market dominated
by the "aliens" (read, techies) I have a competitive
advantage. I know how to sell and they don't! And if I
would be selling SBI! products here I would emphasize this
single point.
If only SBI could support Cyrillic languages your sales in
the those countries would go up. To pay less than one
thousand dollars to have a good website with top local
ratings, and to come on par with your competitors?
Phew! Very easy.
< Ken's comment -- hey, he's stealing my "phew" ;-) >
Don't get me wrong, though. I am a cold and rational
business person, but I am excited by the market
opportunities SBI can offer. Just one "very concrete"
example. The minimal price tag for having good corporate
website developed and powered in Almaty is about 4,000
dollars. You can get a cheaper one, but from a less
reputable and reliable company. We managed to bring the
initial price for our Russian site down to about 2,000
dollars, not least thanks to our English site developed with
the help of SBI and our negotiating skills. But we have to
write the lengthy TOR now and sign the contract, and only
then the actual work starts.
Now imagine that someone comes in and says "here's the
product you need for the price of (whatever the final price
will be after your price-testing) . Here is all the
information you need to make to the decision. And in case
you are hesitating here is the bullet proof guarantee from
Mr. Evoy himself. Fire your web designer immediately, buy
SBI instead and give it to the smartest person in your
company, and watch for the results to come. Or if the web
designer is crying under your door or has a large family to
support, give him the book ask him to learn the English and
make him use the SBI to its fullest potential.":)
< Ken's comment -- Mr. Burnashev not only "gets it," he's
funny, too. What an unusual economist. ;-) But he's
dead serious, too. He now runs the show and knows what to
do -- no tech or designer tells him what to do. >
And a final update: By the end of the fourth month our site
became operational our "amateurish" site (we know the
graphics need to look more professional) scored first in the
big Google.com for our most important keywords. These are
our target niches, and we are #1 on the most popular engine
in this part of the world.
Done by two non-English persons with little prior knowledge
of HTML, Dream Weaver, etc during regular work hours mostly
as residual activity to the usual workload at little budget,
and no outside gurus (except for you and your SBI
guide-man:) ). If we have done it here in Kazakhstan
everyone else can do it. Just stop fearing and
procrastinating, and start doing it, little by little, step
by step, stage by stage. AND you will succeed!
< Ken's comment -- yes! Just do it. >
Thank you for your time and energy to make and develop SBI!
It DOES work and we are out there telling you to keep on!
Thanks for your precious time. Mr. Evoy. Usually I don't
write such lengthy valedictory emails.:) As a matter of
fact, that's my first one.
-------------REPLY E-MAIL----------------------------------
Bottom line...
BYOB
Bring Your Own Brain. And by "brain" I mean motivation and
knowledge and motivation. Then simply drive SBI! to where
you want to go.
And I owe one big thank you to a very serious man from a
very large, serious business for taking the time to write
such thoughtful, incisive (and for me personally) rewarding
commentary. I hope this inspires others to...
Just do it.
It *IS out there, ready for you to make it happen. But you
have to resolve to make it happen...
Bring the motivation.
Know what you want to do.
Then just follow the Action Guide.
It's not so much that *SBI!* works -- it's more accurate to
say that if YOU do it, YOU will make it work.
And that, dear reader, thrills me to no end.
What an amazing world we live in. What an incredible time
in history. Take advantage now -- never has the "small
business person" been in such a powerful, positive position.
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Written by Ken Evoy, M.D.,
President, SiteSell.com
(c) copyright 2003 SiteSell.com
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