It is here that I command my world from. Where a majority of my work is started or completed. I work from here much like many people work from an o-f-f-i-c-e.

It happens that I also live in a 24-hour town that is famous for its entertainment. This seems to draw a lot of people here. Many will reroute their travel plans to pass through this little Mecca of sin and debauchery.

Why am I saying all this? Because I thought we lived in the enlightened era of the modern society until the two paths collided today.

A family friend had said they were passing thought this week and wondered if we could get together? Not a problem. They changed their travel plans, but were unsure when exactly they would be in town. Monday, maybe Tuesday, or could be as late as Thursday.

Today they decided to show up. And wondered if we could get together? Today.

I explained that would be a tough thing to arrange but not impossible. Than they hit me with the guilt trip about how I am always saying I work from home and can set my own hours. So why can’t I just set my own hours and meet them on their schedule? After all I work from home, right?

I can and I do. In fact I had my day set yesterday when a client called with an emergency. The fact that I work for myself; I could rearranged my week to help him with that emergency. And that meant working today. That’s my job. I work for a living.

For whatever reason, I thought we were over trying to explain to people that there are people who really do w-o-r-k from home. Just like you work from an o-f-f-i-c-e. That working from home does not mean unemployed and watching Oprah, waiting for an invite to go hit the slots again this afternoon.

I know that if I worked in a regular job, in a regular office, he would understand and find something to do until 5pm. Then ask that I join him for whatever he wanted to do. But since I am home office’d, that my day is his day to mess with. It isn’t. I love my friends, but I also like that money people pay me to work.

So just because your friend or family member says they are working from home, don’t think it means playtime. Please think of it as their office or a place of business and respect their schedules, no matter how flaky their hours may be. We respect yours… Sort of.

Mark Anthony
Internet Marketing Coach

Or maybe I should have titled this “How Not To DO a Press Release.”

My favorite Vegas performer, Big Elvis (Pete Vallee) is being named by Time Magazine – as one of the top ten Elvis impersonators. Top Ten. Just a notch or two below Johnny Cash!! This is a big deal for a big guy. Well, not so big anymore… But I will get to that later. Anyway… His marketing people (friends and supporters) send out a press release announcing an event to celebrate this milestone.

Do you think, after sending out this press release, they might want to put something about it on HIS website?? Nope. Not a peep. Just a link (now a banner) taking you off his website and sending you over to Time Magazine’s website! Worse yet, the website headline announces a January 7th, Nightline appearance.

Ok, now I have been accused a time or two for being a little slow on the switch for updating a clients website. But if one of my clients were named “Top Ten (fill it it)” by a major media outlet, Their website would be blasting trumpets before the Press Release was even written. Especially for a nationally noted Vegas performer/fan site.

What went wrong and what to do next time….

1)Send out press release telling you to visit their website when said website is not updated.
This is the Internet. You send, I get it the same day. Often the same minute. So don’t tell your prospects to go to a website that is not ready.

2) Website immediately and intentionally sends you off to another unrelated website.
Putting a banner at the top of the website, telling you to go to another website. What were they thinking?? Unless its Affiliate Marketing, why would you want them to leave your website when they just got there?? To go to another website you don’t control?? Especially right after you arrive.

Give them some content about what they are there for. Remember the press release you just sent? Yea, that thing. Put it in your own words or his words on what this means. Make it personal. Tell us about the event and what he is named for. Let HIS website do the talking. Than send us to Time’s website.

3) Top page banners are ignored
We have been trained to ignore them as sales pitches for Viagra or other crap. So the offending banner was probably ignored by many people right off the start. Unless we went looking for the announcement.

4) Have something to announce? Announce it!
The Press Release (Yes, that awful thing again) told us to go to this website for more information about a February 26 event. When we got there, we were greeted with a post is about a January 7th Television appearance. To find more about the real event, we had to go looking, searching or just leave the website and move on with life.

Why?? You don’t want us at your website?? Want us to go away?? That’s the message your website is telling its visitors. Big Elvis deserves better. Just my opinion, they could have coordinated the press release better.

Big Elvis??
If you have never heard of Big Elvis, you are missing a treat. Big Elvis has been performing around Las Vegas for over a decade and is signed for another two years with Harrah’s Entertainment. Currently he plays to a full house at Bill’s Gaming Hall and Saloon Monday thru Friday 3-6 pm (The old Barbary Coast, next to the Flamingo).

He is THE best late year Elvis you will ever hear. The video above shows him a few years ago when he was proabably tipping the scales at about 900 pounds. He is now a slimmer 450 “ish” in the photo below and heading for the 300’s. All natural weight loss I might add.

Pete Vallee is a true Vegas entertainer. Come on out, see his show (it’s free, no drink minimum) and see why I got a little testy about the Press release. I have met him and interviewed him. Finding him to be a rare Vegas performer in the fact that is a gentleman in every sense of the word and a real class act that deserves all the press he can get.

Mark Anthony
Internet Marketing Coach

As much we love the ease and convenience of working online and shopping online, you can’t forget the little market down the street or the shop that always carries that hard to find product you just have to have NOW and the big guys won’t carry….

If we lose them, we lose a lot.  The term  “Them” may even mean you, the reader of this blog who happens to own a small brick and mortar business.  We need “You.”  In this context  “we” means we the people of the community you happen live in.  The people you meet on the street and the people you rely on to be there in the thick of things.

How often do you use the small, independent business?  I bet you never really thought about it.  But you really need to.  They are there for us and we need to be there for them.  Have you considered how many families depend on you stopping in and buying that one item or that bag of stuff??

Cinda Baxter came up with the slogan “Pick 3. Spend 50.  Save your local Economy” Simply put, pick three independent businesses in your community you would hate to lose.  Spend $50 amongst them each month and save the local economy.

Yes, your small $50 gesture can save an entire community when you multiply all the other people you know doing the same thing.   It may not seem like a lot, or enough to save a business.  But your patronage can be the one sale that makes or breaks their month or makes the descison between closing or keeping on the fight.   A little bit truly does go a long way.

For every $100 you spend in a local, independent business, $68 is returned to the local economy through payroll, taxes and other expenditures.  If you spend that same $100 at a national chain, only $43 comes pack to your town.

Checkout  The 3/50 Project website out for more information and go shop local and independent!  The business you save may be your own!

An autoresponder in its basic form is you putting your email address and maybe some other information into a form on my website, and you getting something automatically sent back to you afterward.  An ebook, a newsletter or most often it is the updates from that website.

If you don’t have one on your website, you are missing the boat as well as the bank.  A professional Autoresponder will make you more money than you ever realized.

The most popular autoresponder is Feedburner.  They take the RSS feed from a website and turns it into an email.  If you have surfed the blogging world and signed up for any email updates, chances are you have encountered Feedburner.

Feedburner is free and it does what it needs to do.  It sends out the updates.  But it ends there.  Your reader can’t get a free download with a subscription.  You can’t do follow up emails.  You can’t do “subscriber only” emails with Feedburner.

You are smarter than that.  You want to control the list and you want to do more with that list than just send out updates.  For that, I recommend and use Aweber

In this instance, I signed up for prograde supplements as an affiliate.  I love their product and so I joined to sell them.

Now every so often I get an email asking how it’s all going?  And have I tried this idea or that idea to help promote the product. Each email is sent in a specific order at a certain interval from the last one and has another marketing idea or product information for me to use.

It’s called “set it and forget it marketing.” Once you set up the emails with the postings and how often you want each one to be sent in what order, you’re done and can forget about it.

Now anytime someone buys a product or signs up for a program, the autoresponder kicks in and all the work is automatically done for you.  There is nothing else for you to do. In this case it’s the customer getting a new marketing idea free every other day.

But you could also use a autoresponder to sell a 30-day training program where after they pay, they get a new assignment every day or once a week or whatever the time line is you want.  The point is that once you set it up, its automatic after that.

An autoresponder set up can be like a moneymaker on autopilot. Set it and forget.  Now think of the many ways a website/business like yours  could use autoresponders.   Need some more ideas?  Look at the Aweber website for their huge collection of information and training articles.

Hope this helps

Mark Anthony

However, I do understand some people need a host service that offers a better starting point.  Something that offers less of a commitment as it does a service.  While staying away from the big, bad Daddy and all the problems that major pain in the ass host creates for their users.

So after some prodding from a friend, I checked into HostGator. And I mean really checked them out.  I looked at them a few times before, but never really in any depth.  So this time I got in there and dug around.  I questioned their customer service multiple times.  Even badgered them far beyond what I would tolerate from a customer.

Than looked at how the insides work. The back end, the engine of the hosting; the control panel;  They allow multiple domains in one account;  Easy to understand set up and service.    They even have a top rated reseller’s program if you want to start a business doing that.

After that, I went to the search engines to find all the dirt on them.  You always have dirt on a company like this one. And there was, but not anything compared to any other provider that offers this much service for such a little price.   Ok, there aren’t really many that can beat their price for the services offered.  In fact, I found several people who went BACK after they left HostGator.  Now That’s Impressive.

From there, I went back into Hostgator and played some more. Trying to screw up a WordPress installation. I succeeded several times. Each time their service people fixed the error right away and had me back into business in minutes.

I can tell you from experience, I have played with and experienced first hand the problems with some low rent host providers.  I have the battle scars and the wounds to prove it.  Even at their low prices, I don’t put HostGator in that class.  They are far and above most other web hosting providers I have researched.  Even the really expensive ones have more dirt on them than these guys.

One area I do fault them on is their price of domains.  Not too far out of line for an average person.  I just think if they were a dollar or to lower, it would give them a high score over all.

For a home based, or small business wanting an affordable, dependable, flexible web hosting provider; excellent for WordPress hosting, I would point you towards Hostgator.  With all of that plus an excellent affiliate program, Hostgator has become my Affiliate of Choice!

Hope This Helps,

Mark Anthony