by KevPartner on 21 March, 2010
If you’re a Gmail user you’ll be familiar with the “Sponsored Listings” on the right hand side of the page when you view an email. These are ads supplied by the Google Adwords system and displayed via the “Content Network”.
To have your ads appear here, you need to have a Google Adwords campaign running. If you’re showing ads on the Content Network, you need to select the Networks tab and then find Managed Placements and click Show Details.
Once you’ve done this, click Add Placements, select the Ad Group you want to have show up in Gmail and type mail.google.com into the Add Managed Placements field. That’s it, job done. I recommend isolating your Gmail targeted ads into a separate campaign as you may need to revise your bid price or ad text to suit.
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by KevPartner on 19 March, 2010
If, like me you get hundreds of emails a day (in my case from 5 main accounts) then you need a way to effectively handle them. Having spent years struggling with keeping most messages in my inbox (which ended up with thousands of entries) I tried “managing” my inbox down to zero in Thunderbird by either responding to emails instantly, deleting them or moving them into another folder.
It lasted a few days. However, on moving our email onto Google Apps Professional (essentially the Gmail client) it has become not only possible but actually easy. I am not an organised person by nature so the fact that I can achieve it means ANYONE can. [click to continue…]
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by KevPartner on 17 March, 2010
As a business owner, keeping organised is critical especially if, like me, you’re naturally disorganised!
I’ve been using Backpack by 37Signals for a number of years and all of my businesses have a separate Backpack account. It’s a very easy to use, fairly free-form organisational tool and I use it largely for keeping track of information. For example, I keep notes about any interactions with the tax man, record customer conversations, software licenses – in fact anything I may need to lay my hands on later. Each of these is recorded in a separate Backpack Page.
It includes a calendar which can be shared amongst multiple users and also a simple writeboard with version tracking. You can also set up reminders to be sent to your mobile and even keep a journal of your daily activities.
Pricing starts at $24 per month (£17) and it pays for itself time and time again in convenience and peace of mind.
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by KevPartner on 16 March, 2010
Be gentle with me guys: this is my first video blog entry: I will get better and there is some good stuff in this!
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by KevPartner on 15 March, 2010
Just a quick heads-up for an excellent new Twitter-related service. Sometimes I write tweets quite late at night and I certainly don’t want them being posted at that time. Cotweet was developed to allow multiple authors to create tweets on a single account but what I use it for is delayed tweeting. Although other services also offer this, Cotweet is the simplest to use: simply tell it when you want your tweet sent and it will do it! Tomorrow morning at 10am? No Problem. Cracking.
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by KevPartner on 15 March, 2010
…I wish I knew the answer to that. At the end of the day, the client is the one with the money and they therefore hold the ultimate whip hand. The bigger your reliance on an individual client or a small group, the greater their control over you and a few clients find themselves unable to resist exerting that control. It is only a few I hasten to add, but when it happens it can be devastating.
1: Many small clients > a few big clients
The first step is the business model you operate under. Given the choice I would always choose a business model that involves having lots of small clients over a few big clients. Let’s think about a modest microbusiness with a turnover of £50,000 per year. If that business has two major clients each of whom is therefore worth £25,000 to the bottom line: that’s a LOT of power. If the business has 1,000 clients each of whom brings in £50, then each client has much, much less power. That doesn’t mean that they should be treated with less respect but it does mean that if, for whatever reason, you decide to go your separate ways (or even refund them) it’s not going to bankrupt the company.
What if you’re in a business like the first example? If it were me, I’d move towards the second one bit by bit. [click to continue…]
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by KevPartner on 5 March, 2010
I’ve just been listening to a masterclass (
http://www.thesystemseminar.com/masterclass/dm.html) by internet marketers Ken McCarthy, Bob Bly and Drayton Bird ahead of the 2010 System Seminar. In the course of an hour long phone discussion they covered many important points about the art of Copywriting and Direct Marketing in general.
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by KevPartner on 23 February, 2010
Leo Babauta, creator of zenhabits, has written a fantastic book called The Power of Less which I highly recommend to anyone feeling overwhelmed in their working or home lives.
Central to the book is the idea that you reduce stress and increase productivity by consciously identifying and working on your truly essential projects and to discard everything else. We become stressed and overworked by taking on additional tasks without dropping or finishing other tasks to make space for them. [click to continue…]
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by KevPartner on 16 February, 2010
Putting a value on your time is essential if you’re to work effectively. Perry Marshall (Adwords Guru) talks about $1,000 per hour work, $100 per hour work and $10 per hour work. For example, pitching to a client, creating a product or making a sale might be worth $1,000 per hour. Ordering stock, checking your online marketing or emailing a client with a progress update might be worth $100 whereas emptying the bin, browsing your emails or investigating that new piece of software might be worth $10. And then, of course, there’s updating Facebook which is probably worth $0 (not that you shouldn’t do it, “all work and no play” and all that).
If you think of it like that, it becomes easy to work out what you should be prioritising. If you find yourself wondering whether you should be doing something, ask yourself how much that activity is actually worth to the business. Eliminate or outsource £0 and £10 jobs so you can concentrate on those that earn money. [click to continue…]
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by KevPartner on 6 February, 2010
There are, broadly speaking, two types of business: Sole Traders and Limited Companies.
Sole Traders
Essentially this means that you and the business are one. From the point of view of Revenue and Excise, it is you that owes tax on the income generated by the business – you complete a personal tax return at the end of the year.
You don’t pay yourself via the PAYE system as you would when in employed work. It’s up to you to put aside enough money so that you can pay your tax at the end of the year (beware – put more aside than you expect to need unless you are running a book-keeping system that keeps a running total).
Rather than paying Class 1 National Insurance contributions, you pay Class 2 at a set rate and Class 4 on your profits. If your profits are modest, this is likely to mean you’ll pay lower NI contributions than on the equivalent income in a paid job.
The biggest downside to sole trader status is that the business’s debts are your debts – if someone sues your business and wins, for example, you are personally liable for paying any compensation etc. This one reason is why I never use this company form. [click to continue…]
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