2009 November — Allison Reynolds

November 29, 2009 By Allison Leave a Comment

How To Be A Hero In A Short Amount Of Time

1. Have a team. Or a network. Or your bestest customers. Make sure they are all “in” on what you are about to do.

2. Find a ready made crowd. Maybe an online social network. A forum, discussion board, community area

3. Have the team point out something that they can see, or have seen. About you, or your product. Something helpful. Or funny. Or sad.

4. Get the crowd involved too by casual conversation

5. Watch it all snowball…or not. It does take a certain chemistry to get to flash point.

Try it….

Filed Under: Me-anderings Tagged With: crowds, human behavior, where's rob

November 14, 2009 By Allison 11 Comments

Tools To Make The Four Hour Work Week Work

If you have read Tim Ferriss’ book The Four Hour Work Week you will know that getting other people to do the work you don’t enjoy, or have time for, is a large part of the process. I have two services I want to mention that are helping me get to 4HWW in leaps and bounds.

We Make Videos For You

We Make Videos For You is a service that creates professionally voiced over videos at a ridiculously low price. Lisa Hartwell (my business partner over at SWBN) creates and voices over videos of your sales letters, blog posts, marketing or advertising efforts.

If you do not have the time, or expertise, or just don’t enjoy creating videos then get We Make Videos For You to do it for you. A must visit service every time you need this kind of work. The best bit is the price is right for small business, sole traders and the bootstrapping startup.

Replace Myself

Replace Myself is an outtasking – outsourcing service that gives you the tools and access to people to do all of the work for you. This service is a must-do for anyone who wants to get the 4HWW really happening. There is NO way to make it happen just by yourself.

I have spoken of them before and continue to be impressed by the people I am hiring and the quality of the work. Currently I have a staff of three who are creating niche blogs by the bucket-load. They also manage my stable of existing blogs and domains, leaving me to focus on the blogs that I do for fun and the face-to-face work I do with my clients.

Filed Under: Tools Tagged With: lisa hartwell, outsourcing, outtasking, replacemyself, we make videos for you

November 12, 2009 By Allison 2 Comments

Business Model version 4.55 Beta

What about this idea. As you may know I am in the midst of setting up my local web/social media business (yes I will post an update soon, been flat on my back with medication side effects for three weeks). I was wondering what to do in the “quiet times” if/when there is not enough sales to local businesses to keep me going. Sure I could create blogs that will sell affiliate products, or create my own products to sell on those blogs, but I have discovered that i like sitting down with real people and discovering how I can help their business. It fits me better to give real and direct help, rather than indirect help via a product.

Tonight I decided to bite the bullet and take a gamble on a niche that I think is going to take off in the next 12 months and start setting up a blog for it in preparation for the explosion that is to come and while researching using my all time favourite keyword tool Market Samurai , and I came across a term that was somewhat related, but not directly. This term would be directly related to a small business, local or otherwise, yet would not be something anyone would have affiliate products in.

Example - Life Drawing Classes

Sure there will be online courses, but nothing beats being there in person. People using that search term are looking for the real deal where they can sit down in front of a nude person and do some sketching (or whatever it is you do at life drawing classes). So what’s stopping anyone creating a life drawing classes blog using the 30DC method with all the things you should look for in life drawing classes, life drawing classes etiquette, equipment to bring to your first life drawing class etc etc. Keeping it generic but to the point. Get in the top 10 in Google, then opening the Yellow Pages and start talking to local life drawing classes about how you have a top 10 Google blog you want to sell. I am sure you could get more than trying to sell it to an investor on Flippa.

Anyway just a thought.

Filed Under: Projects Tagged With: business model, life drawing classes, niche market

November 11, 2009 By Allison 1 Comment

4 Hour Work Week Free Audiobook

Always wondered about the Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss but haven’t had time to read the book? Try downloading the free Audible audiobook version from this link.

Requires Audible player, download at same time.

Enjoy!

Filed Under: Products Tagged With: audible, four hour work week, free audiobook, tim ferriss

November 10, 2009 By Allison 4 Comments

I Would LOVE To Publish Your Comments

Yes this is a DOFOLLOW blog and a tasty PR3 one at that (not that that really means anything nowadays) and I would love to make sure your links appear here. But I am picky. It’s only fair, I am offering you an opportunity to benefit from my blog, but I am not going to reward any old junk, and alas, many of the “comments” offered are just that – junk.

Please read the post right the way through so you understand what you are about to comment on.
Leave more than one line comments. I automatically will assume you are a spam bot if you comment “Great post, added you to my RSS” or similar
Feel free to disagree with me, or other commenters. Conflict breeds creative thinking. We aren’t all sheep
Feel free to suggest sites other than your own as something to read on the subject. At least try to pretend you are here for something other than a link

If you have commented recently and you comment has not appeared that will be the reason why (unless you are my pet troll of course).

I don’t think it is too much to expect to get some decent comments every now and then, and you can see that I don’t do it just for the numbers next to the blog post heading, so put a little effort in and we all will benefit!

Filed Under: Me-anderings Tagged With: comments, dofollow, spam

November 8, 2009 By Allison 6 Comments

Imperfectly Perfect

One of the stumbling blocks I have had with personal branding is worrying about the little bits about me that are not perfect (and that I would like to change but probably can’t). Thing is, if you give enough value and are genuine enough your tribe/followers/gang will forgive you those foibles anyway.

In fact I am starting to suspect that some of these foibles are left by these people because it is PART of their brand, not a detriment to it.

There are some classic examples in the circles I follow

Ed Dale of the Thirty Day Challenge is spelling challenged. There was a brief shining moment (after the release of 30DC+) when his spelling improved and I instantly thought that he was having someone else write his stuff *narrows eyes*.

Dan Raine of the excellent Immediate Edge can’t help himself but announce things that are delayed. If Dan ever announces something and it happens on time there will be a collective gasp of amazement from people that follow him.

Frank Kern is known to lose interest in his projects. Stephen Fry gets depressed at times. I am pretty sure you could name the imperfections of people you admire as well.

I once asked someone I admire why they didn’t follow me back on Twitter and they said that there was too much “cock talk” and their followers followed who they followed and they didn’t want them affected by my adult vocabulary. I could have taken that and gone “OMG they hate me!” but instead I thought about what they said, weighed up whether to change, and realised that would be changing a part of me that is ME. I am very adult-swim and that isn’t going to change.

While I would rather be known for the good work I do, maybe it’s not so bad to be recognised for an imperfection, than not being recognised at all.

Filed Under: Me-anderings Tagged With: imperfect, personal brand