I’ve found consistently better conversions with a rather large green square that turns red on mouse over. It isn’t that pretty, but who really cares about pretty in the race to make a bit of cash? I noticed quite a few of the “big name gurus” using buttons like this and figured that they were doing their homework and testing, so I gave it a shot and – lo and behold – it works.

So, in the interest of making sure everyone has a good shot at increasing their sales a bit, I’ve put together a web form that lets you create your own buttons for testing really quickly. Here it is. Enjoy!

What many companies don’t realize is that the creation myth is equally important to the business world.  If you are an individual consultant, a professional services provider, or a Fortune 500, people still want to know where you came from, what you are doing here, and why.  If you don’t have the answers to this (and the right answers) you have nothing, so – unless you have your creation myth on paper, I suggest you start now.

Think about it.  There is the guy selling an herbal blood cleanser.  You don’t know who he is, and for that matter you don’t know what an herbal blood cleanser is and why you would need it.  If he just says “buy my herbs!” – do you?

But, if suddenly he is a man who was experiencing cronic fatigue, who just couldn’t keep his eyes open throughout the day, and in fact lost his job because of it..  And he know something was wrong.  He got plenty of sleep but couldn’t keep his energy levels up, and he was developing skin problems, achy joints, and all sorts of issues.  He tried everything – traditional Western doctors, accupuncture, he even went and saw a shaman in the rainforest of South America.  And it was there that he was given a special herb that has ancient properties of cleansing the blood.  Apparently his liver hadn’t been functioning at full tilt, but no one could figure it out until then, and this one miracle herb gave him new energy and a new lease on life.  With his new found passion he was not only able to get a new job back, he in fact had the spark to start his own company and bring this special herb to you… try it today risk free!

Get the idea?

When I was running a one man web design show a few years back, I wasn’t just another guy who had taught himself web design.  I was a young entrepeneur who had come upon some fantastic teachers who had given him the skills to never hold a real job in his entire adult life.  No, he had never reported to work, he had always run his own show and was doing quite well at it.  Not only that, but from his work with clients he had watched over 1,000 marketing tests in nearly 100 industries go to completion, and had unique knowledge about what made sales and what didn’t in the online world.  I wasn’t just another web designer, I was THE web designer that knew how to produce a site that would bring in the cash and help you move towards a free, wealthy lifestlyle of the self employed (my main target market was the self employed individual.)

You may be thinking – wait a minute, this sounds like a USP to me, but take a look.  There are significant differences, and important ones.  My USP would have been “Not Just Designed, Designed for Profit!”.  But my creation myth is much more complex than that – it gave my business a background, a personality, an ideology – even when I wasn’t the one doing the design any more.

So, go ahead – post your creation myths below – let’s see them!  If you don’t have one yet, don’t walk away from this blog post until you’ve at least sketched one out in the comments section…

If you are in business today, it has become almost imperative that you have a website. If you are in business and are planning to make a significant long term income off of your business, it is an absolute must. And, most businesses have jumped on the website bandwagon, filling the internet with millions and millions of websites.

On the other end is the user. One person, often looking for just one thing. With so many options to choose from, how do you get them to focus in on you, on your product, your service, or your store location?

One of the most recent answers to this question is Social Networking. With all of the buzz around Social Networking and Web 2.0 you’ve probably had at least minimal exposure. You might even have a Myspace.com account. But, how does this help your business?

There are actually hundreds of ways, but today I’m only going to focus on one with concrete steps for you to take so that by the end of the day you will have a whole new lead and customer generation stream.

Although Myspace isn’t necessarily the absolute best social networking site, it is the biggest, so that is where we are going to start.

1. If you don’t have a myspace account, go to http://myspace.com and sign up for one. Use a name that is as close as possible to your business name for your account name, as it will show up in your URL as Myspace.com/YourBizName

2. Once you have an account, take ten minutes to fill in a profile. Load in a picture. If you are a consultant or individual service provider, put a picture of yourself. If you are a retail location, put a picture of your store. If you manufacture a product, put a picture of the product you make. Then fill out profile questions that match your business. Keep it professional, and fill out the questions from the standpoint of your business, and don’t be afraid to do a bit of promotion. If you have your own website, it should definitely be included in your About Me section.

3. Once you have a profile, you need friends. If you have a business email list, that is by far the easiest way. Simply write to them, tell them about your new myspace account, and ask them to be your friend! This is perfect because it then locates you in a social circle that is already targeted to the types of people who are your customers. If you have a retail store, make up little cards with your site on it, and give them to customers inviting them to become your online ‘friends’.

4. Joint venture with other users. Find people in myspace who are in your market, and ask them if they will post a bulletin introducing your site to their friends.

Once you have built up a small friends list, you can then truly start some promotional magic. Myspace allows you to post blogs and bulletins. The blog is on your Myspace page, and the bulletin actually gets posted to all of your friends ‘Bulletin Board’ area.

As often as you can, you want to come up with a creative little promotion, and post it to your blog and send it as a bulletin. If you were a restaurant, maybe you would send out daily meals specials. If you were a software company, maybe you’d post articles about the different cool points of your software.

Bulletins move quickly, as if anyone else posts a bulletin to one of your friends after yours was posted, yours will get moved down the board, and will eventually disappear. This is why it is important that you post regularly, and if you are only posting once a day, try to make it at a time when you think that the demographic of people who are your friends will be online.

Keep this up, and you will see growth in your business. You will be exposed to new potential customers, and if you are lucky you might just get big enough to be featured, which can generate a huge buzz for your business.

Estimated time: 20 min. Set Up, 4 minutes daily posting a bulletin