It would appear that I am completely incapable of just staying away and keeping my mouth shut.

There was an excellent guest post on Copyblogger about social media skepticism by Bob Hoffman. As we are pretty big fans of skepticism here at IttyBiz HQ, I figured I’d come on out and open my pie hole.

The premise of the post is that from a marketing standpoint, social media and the internet in general are not as interactive and social as we’re making them out to be.

“But for the vast majority of internet users – the ones who don’t have blogs and don’t have their own websites – it is mostly another passive medium. And it’s getting passiver.” (Anybody who uses a word like “passiver” is welcome to stop by for a beer any time they like.)

By Naomi Dunford - May 30, 2008 in Small Business Marketing - 47 Comments
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Hello, y’all. I know I said I’d be taking the week off from blogging but I have something very important to say.

Over the next little while, your favorite home business website will be rolling out some affiliate links. (For those of you who aren’t hip to the internet marketing jive, affiliate is code for commission.)

I won’t be whoring out anything I don’t already own. Hell, I won’t be whoring out anything I couldn’t give you a tutorial on. But the kids need Shiraz just as much as we do, and they’re reaching an age where we can’t water down the booze anymore.

If you ever buy anything through an affiliate link here and it sucks, send me an email and I will strongly consider giving you your money back myself.

By Naomi Dunford - May 28, 2008 in Home Business Product Reviews - 28 Comments
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This is a guest post by the charming and handsome Nick Cernis. He forms the lesser-hinged half of Goburo. He writes at Put Things Off, the laid-back productivity blog.

“You’re fucking mental.”

I’ve just told my best friend that I’m quitting my cushy day job to start a home business, pimping me and my partner out as a graphic design and web development duo. My partner’s ditching her job too.

“You’re both fucking mental.”

I inhale the vapour from my bittersweet hot chocolate and seek solace in the silky oblivion where full-fat cream and rich, Venezuelan Cacao become one with the crushed chilli I’ve laced into the devilish mixture.

Two thoughts slap me harder than a fat balding man with a cold wet fish:

1) I dearly love my friend
2) She’s absolutely right

By Naomi Dunford - May 27, 2008 in Guest Post - 39 Comments
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Hi everybody! Just a quick update to let you know that as of June 1st, IttyBiz prices are going up.

The IttyBitty package — two hours of phone consultation in one big chunk or as many little chunks as you need to get your ass kicked into marketing high gear — will be $199.

The Retainer — the same two hours of phone consults plus email support and general badgering throughout the month — will be $300.

The Press Release — and holy moly, is it just me or does everybody and their beagle want a press release these days? — will be $199.

If you want to lock in the May prices ($129, $200, and $129, respectively) you’re not totally screwed. You can pay now (by Sunday) and we’ll hook you up with a later slot. We’re booked until most of the way through June at the moment but there are a few slots left if you’re not picky on time of day.

By Naomi Dunford - May 27, 2008 in Small Business Marketing - 11 Comments
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First, if you haven’t already read it, go read Is StomperNet a Scam? A Home Business Cautionary Tale. Second, I haven’t had any coffee yet. If I’m not lucid, you know why.

After taking a little more of a look around StomperNet last night — because why spend time with your family or read a good book when you can obsess about your home business? — I made an interesting discovery.

Turns out, there are actually 117 videos — really core and valuable concepts — that they mail you on DVD at the beginning. If you don’t want to wait for them, you can get them all online, now and forever, for free. These videos are pretty necessary before the premium content will even make sense.

By Naomi Dunford - May 23, 2008 in Small Business Marketing - 44 Comments
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Anybody who is anybody in internet marketing is talking about StomperNet today. Well, I joined this $800 a month internet marketing extravaganza, and I have a lot to say. Read on, folks.

First, some backstory…

Recently, a very good friend of mine and I decided to start a little home business venture. We figured that although we had a very high level of combined knowledge of many relevant facets of our business model, we should look into coaching or membership sites to make sure we were sharp as tacks when it came to our ittybiz.

In Came StomperNet

For those of you not in the know, StomperNet is the most hyped product launch I’ve ever seen. Remember here that hype is my bread and butter. Hype is going to put my kids through college, but this hype was unheard of. New Coke and the original 1984 Apple computer had nothing on this shit. We were bombarded, y’all.

By Naomi Dunford - May 22, 2008 in Small Business Marketing - 58 Comments
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(This is a guest post from the lovely David and of Postcard Perfect. One of his taglines is “Because frankly, ecards are kind of lame.” You can see why he fits in well with IttyBiz.)

Want me to swear under my breath? Ask me the following question:

“How’s PostcardPerfect coming along?”

I suppose I should explain. PostcardPerfect, my one year old home business start-up (unofficial slogan: “bringing sexy back, one postcard at a time”), went from an exciting initial launch to a flat-line of progress. Frankly, it’s embarrassing. For the last six months I’ve been answering said question with some variation of: “Umm..you know….it’s coming,” which, of course, is just code for: “Nothing’s changed, get off my back.”

The animosity, however, is not because the business is doomed. It’s not because people aren’t interested in the product. At the end of the day, it’s because I have done very little recently to move things forward.

By Naomi Dunford - May 21, 2008 in Guest Post - 27 Comments
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Somebody I know who has a highly cool blog and home business in-the-making emailed me with a totally heartbreaking question. They emailed in response to When Your Loved Ones Want You To Fail. I thought the question (and hopefully answer) would help you guys, and the sender graciously allowed me to use the question anonymously in Ask IttyBiz.

“In short: it’s not about my little blog, it’s about the home business. You wrote a post about it – how to deal with uncooperative “loved ones”. But it is SO hard. I need help from people, b/c it’s a new biz, but sometimes it feels like strangers are a lot more helpful than friends are. Some people, whom I considered as friends, tend to disappear as soon as I ask them for something, even though I would have helped them if they had asked me for help.

By Naomi Dunford - May 20, 2008 in Ask IttyBiz - 50 Comments
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Every now and again in the blogosphere, you see a post about the lessons learned from blogging so far. As in, “my blog is X number of months old and here’s what I’ve learned”. I planned to do one of these last month when IttyBiz turned 0.5 but I was, like, working and I didn’t feel like it. (Frankly, I still don’t feel like it, but I’m going to retain the option to do it later when I have nothing more entertaining to discuss.)

Anyway, I’ve been doing some fun things with SEO recently and I ended up going through every post on this blog. I ran across some fun stuff that a lot of you might not have read, so I figured I’d fire some home business and blogging posts your way. It’s Monday and you’re surfing the internet to avoid work anyway — you may as well do it here and up my page views as anybody else’s. (In my case it’s Monday and I’m avoiding work because it’s a holiday in Canada. I figured I’d go really crazy and spend some time with my family.)

By Naomi Dunford - May 19, 2008 in Home Based Business - 6 Comments
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Recently, my husband was emailing with a reader and he received a refreshingly honest email that included this line:

“She claims that she is an excellent copywriter, yet nothing on the IttyBiz site seems to showcase this talent.”

I give the writer of this email credit for his honesty. Once your blog reaches a certain point everybody just sucks up to you because they want you to whore them out. Good for this dude.

My mother always said to me that when it comes to big business, if one person writes to you with an opinion, ten thousand people share that opinion but say nothing. Same thing applies to home business, just on a smaller scale. I have a feeling there aren’t ten thousand of you out there thinking what this guy thinks, but I’ll venture to guess he’s not the only one. I’d like to address that.

By Naomi Dunford - May 16, 2008 in Marketing School - 36 Comments
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