(Off topic: Have you read about the 12.5% solution yet? No? Get off your ass, honey. This shit is killer.)

This post is part of a series that will tell you how to create your USP by looking at other real, live ittybiz owners who have done it and kicked ass at it.

James Chartrand and the other fine gentlemen (and gentleladies) at Men with Pens are making quite a splash on the interwebs for pretty much being the go-to guys for design and copy, all in one place. That’s not an easy feat when everybody and their schnauzer thinks they can be a writer or web designer on the internet.

Today, we’re going to talk about the copy side of Men with Pens and what you can learn from that in your own ittybiz. Read More

(This is a guest post from the lovely Wendy Cholbi. Wendy is running a course on creating a website and the business to go with it starting TOMORROW, so if you’re at all interested, go right now. Yes, before you read the post. The post will still be here when you’re done.)

Why are you reading this?

No, seriously, I don’t mean to be flippant or anything here, but why are you reading this, really?

In fact, I’m going to take a step back and ask you why you’re in business to begin with (or why you want to start a business if you haven’t yet).

Most business and marketing advice starts with your products, your business plan, or your customers. Read More

Fucking conferences. You meet cool people with really cool thoughts and then you start thinking. I blame Chris Guillebeau. He is generally the one responsible for me deciding to do stupid shit like change my entire business model to live on a houseboat. God dammit. (DO NOT email me to ask if I am really going to live on a houseboat. As of now, no, but if I keep talking to Chris, it’s always a possibility.)

I was going to write a post today about Zappos and how much they suck. (Only on IttyBiz, people. We like to buck the trends.) But when I went into my admin panel to start typing, I saw… comments.

If you don’t have a blog, you probably don’t understand that this is VERY DISCONCERTING for someone who does not have comments enabled on their site. Comments came out of the ether. Read More

Every now and again, when I’m feeling too cocky about being The Greatest And Funniest Marketer In Christendom, I like to read some of my emails to make me realize exactly how badly I communicate with my blog readers. If you are an aspiring marketing consultant or world famous blogger, I recommend this on a regular basis.

Therefore, some questions from my inbox. I only include ones I’ve received more than once.

Havi has a duck. Why don’t you have a duck?

First of all, I have publicly stated that Havi’s duck is a whore. You can tell by the look on her face. I can’t speak for Havi, but I’m not the type of girl to have a whore for a sidekick. If anybody in this business is going to be a whore, it’s going to be me. Read More

I tried to make this a video post but I kept crying. We buy this totally sexy new video camera for the expressed purpose of shooting videos like the one you’re not currently watching and we can’t use the damn thing because I keep bursting into tears. Therefore, you just get a blog post and I can sob and sniffle as much as I want and you can’t even tell.

Na na na na na na.

In February of this year, my consulting and freelancing career was doing better than I’d ever hoped was possible. Four months earlier I was able to hire Jamie (if you’re new, that’s my husband) to come and work for IttyBiz. We were drowning in clients and earning about four times the average household income in this country. Things were going well. Read More