Some people think this website is about small business.

Other people think this website is about marketing.

Still others — okay, most — think it is about me embarrassing myself publicly and profiting from it.

They’re not wrong, per se. They’re just not really right, either.

It’s actually a website about changing the world.

Let’s say you have a thing. Sometimes your thing is a small thing — you want to spend more time with your kids. Sometimes your thing is a big thing — you want to stop world hunger. But you have a thing because everybody has a thing.

I have a few things. I have the vegan thing. I have the unschooling thing. I have the Kiva thing.

And I have the change the fucking world thing. Read More

Hey y’all.

I would like you to envision, for a moment, the human brain. You can envision an actual lump of grey flesh if you like, or you can just pretend it’s the cute little animated thing that goes in the chick’s head on the cover of Pace and Kyeli’s book. Whatever — doesn’t matter.

So. Do you have your picture of the brain ready in your head? Excellent.

Now envision a syringe. A really fucking big one. Like, super big. Science fiction movie big. Got it?

OK, now fill that syringe up as full as it’ll go. You can fill it with whatever you like, but if you don’t particularly care, make it gin. That’s what I’m using.

Is it full? Good. Now take the syringe and shove it into the brain and swiftly inject all the stuff into the brain. Read More

No idea. But let me know if you come up with anything.

Moving on. Last night, I spilled a glass of mulled wine on my husband’s laptop, the only computer in this house. I was going to type up a great post today but I have lost most of the functionality of my keyboard. Therefore, here’s what I was going to post on Saturday. You get it today because it’s shorter and requires less typing.

Oh, THE HALF PRICE SALE ENDS TODAY, by the way. If you want cheap IttyBiz stuff, act now or forever hold your peace. Click here for details and ordering.

So. A long overdue list of things I think are awesome:

The No-Burnout Guide To Doubling Your Sales — Think you need more traffic? More buyers? Read this and find out just how wrong you are. Read More

This is the sequel to Credit Crunch Marketing, Part 1. Because we’re logical like that.

Graphic designers, web designers, copywriters, coaches and consultants, I’m talking to you.

The buying public is not buying what you’re selling. Well, maybe they’re buying a bit, but not enough to keep you in cookies. In an economy like this one, people still have money but they’re terrified of spending it on the wrong thing so they’re not spending it at all. Last time we talked about how you have to make what you sell important enough for them to get around the fear.

Here’s a little game plan to try for you to get people out of their petrified frugality rut.

1. Send an email to everyone you’ve ever worked for.

OK, maybe not the clients you hated. Offer them a VERY SPECIFIC service at a reduced rate. Tell them why they’re interested, and quietly emphasize the reduced rate. Read More

As I write this, I am getting my affairs in order. I am organizing my paperwork, my possessions. I am writing letters to my children, telling my husband I love him. It may be a while before I see them again. Hopefully they’ll let me blog from my cell. By the time you read this, they will have taken me away to Bad Marketer Prison. I’m about to say something really, really bad.

Permission marketing ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.

For the uninitiated, permission marketing is a term coined by Seth Godin. (For the really uninitiated, Seth Godin is The Marketing Guy.) The idea is that you will sell more shit if you sell it to people who have given you permission to sell to them. It is the opposite of interruption advertising — slapping an ad up on a bus somewhere or running something on TV and calling it a day. And it is essentially the entire premise upon which modern marketing — especially internet marketing — is based. Read More