First off, the semi urgent part. I’m contractually obligated to tell you that the Self Promotion for Nice People and Wimps and Whatever starts on Wednesday. If you’re planning to get in on it, you might want to get on with it.

We all have conflicting needs. Maybe you want a stable marriage but you also want to run away with your Spanish teacher. Maybe you like your children but you think you might be happier if you just took them to the pawn shop and traded them for Mario Kart on the Wii. Maybe your coke habit conflicts with your mortgage payments.

My conflict is this: I like to be right and I like to be honest.

I can’t tell you how much of a pain in the ass this is for me. And right now, while I would like to say nothing, I’ve tried to make a habit of being as embarrassingly honest as possible on this blog. (You’ve seen me in thigh highs and topless, for God’s sake.) So I have to say something. Read More

I was going to title this post “Small Biz Marketing for People with No Budget.” Then I realized that there is a very big difference between zero and $100 for many people. (If you have NO budget, start commenting on blogs like a crazy person and get active on Twitter and Facebook. Or sell your Xbox and follow the rules below.)

I get a lot of questions about low budget marketing ideas. People are like, “I have $100 a month. How the hell can I get people to my site?” (It’s always $100 for some reason.) Here’s my answer: Read More

I had an awesome post written to run today about whether or not pricing and charging and value and all that shit but then Kelly had to start running her mouth off about $100 hamburgers and I realized I had a lot more to say. I would’ve gotten my shit together to say it if Havi hadn’t bullied me into going to the Home Office Day Spa with her because she’s bossy like that.

“Home office day spa?” says your favorite filthy marketing whore, incredulously.

“[random woowoo gobbledygook]!” says your favorite duck-wielding habits educator.

So I go, thinking she’s a total nutjob but she’s my friend so, whatever. (It’s kind of like going to the bar with your single friends so they can pick up.) Read More

I warn you, this is going to sound like self-indulgent drivel, but there’s a really, really good lesson at the end. Just sayin’.

Over the last few days, Havi and I have been getting letters from people saying that the price of the VIP package for the course we’re offering is too cheap. People have been pointing out that we’re charging only $80 an hour for personal coaching. Since we normally charge about double that, you’d think that wouldn’t be very VIP, would it? And isn’t a VIP package supposed to be a big fat coup full of exclusivity and scarcity and all that filthy marketing whore stuff?

Good point, and I’ll address it here.

To the outside observer, cutting our rates for this sounds kind of dumb. Where is the exclusivity in a VIP package if we’re slashing our rates? But there’s method in the madness. Read More