You’re not alone.

I’m typing this in bed, on the new laptop my IttyBiz readers bought me. (By the way? Thanks for that.) To my right, on the floor, on Jamie’s side of the bed, sit two Macintosh computers. They belong to my mother. For those of you who are new, I’ll take this opportunity to mention that my mother moved to Europe in 2005. I have yet to get off my ass to put them in storage. To my left is a floor full of books. They used to live in my busted chipboard bookshelf, but Jack likes to play with them, taking them down and putting them back in an order he feels is more appropriate. The last time he played this game was about 10 days ago. The books are still on the floor. Neither of us can get into bed from the sides, so we come up from the foot.

By Naomi Dunford - Jan 31, 2008 in Home Business Psychology - 87 Comments
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Did you like that title? Isn’t it search engine optimized? (It’s definitely optimized, but I’m not sure for what.) That is because I am an excellent and well-respected marketing professional. In other news, thank you for all of your emails asking if I’m dead. I’m not.

If you have a home business marketing consultant, they will often advise or supervise a split campaign — often called an A/B split.

This sounds scary. It’s not.

When I first heard this, I freely admit I freaked out. I will always associate A and B with algebra (X and Y I associate with chromosomes) and I don’t dig algebra. I am not saying this for comedic effect — I was borderline hysterical. Granted, I become borderline hysterical when I can’t calculate the tip at my friendly local tavern, but this was worse than usual. Anyway, moving on.

By Naomi Dunford - Jan 30, 2008 in Marketing School - 16 Comments
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Before we get into today’s lesson, I present you with Spam Of The Day:

Subject: Reach out and BONE someone

According to Wikipedia — which, as we are all aware, knows everything — spam as we know it today comes from the Monty Python sketch of the same name.

For your interest, Wikipedia also defines spam as:

A song by “Weird Al” Yankovic. It is a parody of R.E.M.’s song Stand. It is mostly an ode to the canned lunch meat SPAM.

The abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages.

For the sake of argument, we’ll go with the latter.

There are two types of spam in the world. Spammy spam and not-so-spammy spam.

Spammy spam is, as the definition suggests, indiscriminate, unsolicited, and sent in bulk.

Not-so-spammy spam is more discriminate but less bulk. It is also mostly unsolicited.

By Naomi Dunford - Jan 24, 2008 in Marketing School - 20 Comments
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You know when people say “Stop the world, I want to get off”?

Note to self: Take own advice.

* My grandfather used to read this section of the Bible — Matthew 13:42 — look up very seriously, and add “…and for those who have no teeth, teeth shall be provided.” And they ask me why I turned out the way I did.

***

Think you need a micro-business marketing coach? Click here to get started.

By Naomi Dunford - Jan 22, 2008 in Home Based Business - 25 Comments
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[This is a guest post by James Chartrand of JCME. You too can tramp yourself out on my site by contacting me. Send the whole post -- if you're the next Dan Brown, I want to know immediately without having to mess around with email for weeks.]

Would you love to never worry about losing your job?

I thought of that freedom last night while standing on my porch, taking a break to freeze my ass off and look up at the stars. (Actually, I was racking my brains for a topic for a blog post, but hey. I like the stars concept better.)

Where I live, the economy is poor. Jobs are rare, and they don’t pay well. The area depends on the tourist industry. Winters can be cold, long, hard, and cold… and they feel even harder when a summer job gets cut short by frigid snow.

By Naomi Dunford - Jan 21, 2008 in Guest Post - 37 Comments
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Hello, my favorite person in the world. (That’s you, by the way.)

First, the RT Cunningham thing turned out amazingly well. Richard received over $3000 in donations over a 24-hour period and has shut down donations because he has all he needs. The coolness of this is overwhelming. Thank you, IttyBiz readers. You rock.

Next up, thanks to everyone who entered to win the Zen To Done ebook which was subsequently made free. (EDITED TO ADD: Leo stopped by to remind me that it’s not actually free. It’s just no longer under copyright. Subtle but VERY important difference. Thanks, Leo! Note to self: Sometimes the joke falls flat. Accept. Move on.) It is my honor to announce the winner of the ebook is Tzaddi Gordon of Zodomatica. She wins based on my very objective ruling of “Best Use Of The Words ‘Drat’ and ‘Potty’ In A Blog Post.”

By Naomi Dunford - Jan 18, 2008 in Personal - 15 Comments
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Over the last week, three people have called the IttyBiz helpline — well, they emailed, but that doesn’t sound nearly as cool — asking how to increase the comments on their home business blogs. Since I have been blessed with the loudest and most prolific readers on the internet, I thought I’d take a stab at it.

***

Before you can get more commentors, you need to understand why people comment. Commentors can be split into three groups. Each of these groups has two subsets. Hence the title. Get it?

The Emoter:

The Emoter comments because you provoked an emotional reaction in him, and he wants to share it. You made him spit his gin out laughing or you made his eyes get misty. You shocked him. You scared him. You surprised him. Maybe he thought, “Holy shit, that’s GENIUS!” Basically you got him out of his drone-like existence for long enough to feel genuine human emotion and he feels the need to say something about it.

By Naomi Dunford - Jan 16, 2008 in Ask IttyBiz - 101 Comments
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Tomorrow we’re going to talk about how pissed I am at James for guest posting on Copyblogger without even telling me and then writing the guest post on THE SAME DAMN TOPIC as I was going to write about today. But that’s tomorrow.

Today, we’re going to talk about RT Cunningham, a blogger who’s in a tough spot. Dude’s wife is in seriously rough shape — I don’t know the details because I was busy trying to get his post up — and he’s basically fucked if people don’t help him out. He needs to fly to another country and bail on blogging and his wife’s scared out of her head and it’s generally a big mess. Whatever, I’m not saying it right.

By Naomi Dunford - Jan 16, 2008 in Home Business Blogging - 15 Comments
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As you probably already know, I’m a pretty big fan of Zen Habits. I’ve made no bones about my outright and flagrant attempts to score a guest post there. Today, Daniel Scocco, Editor of Daily Blog Tips — which I also read — wrote a guest post for Zen Habits.

Normally I’m all for snarkiness, but I don’t even know what to say right now. Here’s the full text of the post so it does not look like I’m taking things out of context.

***

“Today I was having an argument with my girlfriend about her watching Big Brother. Basically I was trying to discourage her from watching it. I gave her many reasons not to. It is a waste of time, it is petty, it promotes vanity. In other words, it is the panis et circenses [link mine for those of you who aren't "pure" enough to know] of our days. I don’t think there is a coincidence in the fact that most people that watch Big Brother don’t know the works of George Orwell in the first place…

By Naomi Dunford - Jan 14, 2008 in Home Based Business - 54 Comments
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[rant] So I’m reading Steven Snell’s archives tonight (because that’s what the cool kids do on Saturday nights) and I come across a post discussing the benefits of guest blogging.

Guest blogging rocks, without question. You get to see your name “in print” in something you didn’t “print” yourself. You get new readers. You get new subscribers. You expand your brand. It’s pretty cool. Some might call it, uh, marketing.

Phil, one of the commentors, left this little ditty.

“The involvement level might be a little more than the average internet blogger might be willing to endure.”

Phil is totally right, and that totally pisses me off. (Not that he’s right. I’m sure he’s a really nice guy. It’s not his fault he’s right.)

By Naomi Dunford - Jan 13, 2008 in Small Business Marketing - 32 Comments
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