Eric Olsen recently sold his Blogcritics.org to Technorati. Here’s a conversation I had with him about the sale. Eric is a dynamic individual who, by his own admission, failed “many times” with projects and businesses over his years on this planet.

Sounds like a serial entrepreneur, doesn’t it? This is a great reminder to all of us to keep trying and to get back up on the horse!

So now, here we find Eric with a sale of his “baby” to Technorati. We talk about the sale and about how he feels about it. Perhaps you’ve always wanted to do what Eric did? Listen to this podcast for some insight into how he did it and how you could do it too.

[display_podcast]

Update, the contest is over. Voting can continue, but I took a screen grab of the votes when it expired and will be posting it in another blog post soon. You can still vote if you wish, it just won’t count.

Ok, it’s time to vote. Watch the video and look at the entries, and vote in the poll below for your favorite picture. The winners, who will be the top 5 vote getters, will each get a $100 Zappos.com certificate to buy anything they want on Zappos, even more mandals!

Yes, you can vote for yourself and you can encourage your friends to vote for you. I would!

Remember to follow @zappos on Twitter and join the Zappos affiliate program.

Click To Play

Click Here for PollSurvey Software
| Polls
| Email Marketing

| Innovation Management
View MicroPoll

Do NOT miss this podcast. Andy Sernovitz (THE mast of word of mouth) from Gaspedal.com gives some unbelievable advice about how anyone can get started with word of mouth marketing.

Buy Andy’s Book at Amazon.

We talk about what WOM is and how anyone can do it, with examples of how real companies are doing it every day, and get this… with no real money spent! Andy gives two major things that you need to know about WOM. Huge tips that will make you start thinking right away.

Consider this: “Never let anyone walk out the door without something to share”. Think about that for a second. Are you letting the WOM get away from you?

Oh yeah, be on the watch here on this blog for some free copies of Andy’s book!

Here are the show notes:

What is word of mouth marketing?
How to get started?
Who’s gonna talk about my stuff? How do I make it easier for them to share it?
Identify the talkers.
Offline wom principles, never let anyone walk out the door without something to share.
(examples: bloomingdales big brown bag)
Send everyone back to office with 6 extra desserts, they’ll talk about it.
Email is a huge part of wom.
Emotional reasons wom works. Does it make me feel good? Does it make me look smart?
Makes me feel important (give away discount code).
Fun gets forwarded.
Potbelly restaurant sent coupon for 10 free sandwiches to old customer to giveaway.
Freshbook invoices, hosted dinners for travelers in every city.

[display_podcast]

I keep bringing expert self-publishing and book marketing people on because, well, it’s relevant to me and I like to educate people about how it can be done. So here’s another interview with a person who wants to help you promote your book. Penny from http://www.amarketingexpert.com/.

Penny gives some amazing information and tips about book marketing. We talk specifically about what authors can do to begin to promote their books. We also talk about the future importance of web video when trying to promote your book.

If you’re writing a book, self-published, or not, and even an ebook, you need to listen to this podcast.

Here are the show notes.

What are the most important things an author needs to do to promote their book?
Gotta start with a website at least. Talking about what the book can do for the reader, not about the book.
Start navigating social networking sites like Facebook and make a Squidoo profile.
You’ll be surprised at online networking opportunities.
It’s like moving into a new neighborhood. Find out who is there and where stuff is. Explore.
Never try to do it all at once. Start somewhere.
99% of media finds their experts online. Is your book online?
You can’t just build a website or social profile and forget about it. It’s work.
You should have a blog. It’s a great way to express thoughts about your book and let the community know about you. Also a great thing for the search engines.
It’s much easier to sell something to somebody who’s already interested. That’s what a blog and website can do for you.
One the secrets of getting your website better exposure is to have high-quality, high-traffic incoming links.
It’s a lot of work, but the payoff can be enormous.
Future books in your niche are easy to sell in your community.
Should authors experiment with web video? It has a huge stickiness factor.

[display_podcast]

Today I chatted with associate Marty Fahncke, who is a consultant and electronic marketing expert who I’ve known for a few years. We talk about the “web biz” and Marty provides some excellent tips and strategies he uses to be successful for himself and his clients.

One really neat thing is that Marty has been working with famous artist Thomas Kinkade to help him sell his works online.

Our discussion revolves around retail online sales and why people buy or don’t buy. We also talk about how to use social media channels to promote a brand for sales. Lastly, we discuss Twitter some more and how we both use it.

With over 18 years of experience in sales & marketing, Marty has been involved in campaigns responsible for nearly $1 BILLION in revenue. With experience in direct sales, sales management, marketing, product acquisition, infomercials, e-commerce, and international marketing, you are assured of receiving high quality, professional services that will grow your business.

[display_podcast]

A few weeks ago I got to spend a day and a night hanging out with Gary Vaynerchuk of Winelibrary.tv as he was in town for a book signing. The full video experience of my time spent with him will come later, but for now, I have a video about a person I met who was in Gary’s entourage… Marianne Frantz of the Cleveland Wine School.

The video below is an interview I did with Marianne about the Cleveland Wine School, with a funny impromptu appearance from Gary V in a few places. Pretty funny. The video was shot at lunch after a live taping of the Thunder show with Gary in Cleveland Browns Stadium (personal video on that to come later). Go watch, great episode.

Why am I posting this video about a regional company when my blog is read by thousands of people who don’t live in Cleveland? Well, it’s a perfect example of how anyone can make a video commercial for their company with a simple inexpensive camera. Something I encourage all businesses to do. Tell me this isn’t a video you’d like to show to your customers to educate them about your business?

The whole thing took me 10 minutes to edit, and by using the Flip camera, easy to record. Why aren’t you doing video yet? Give me a ring so I can help you get on it, or sign up for my free Online Video Toolkit for some free advice.

Here’s the video on Youtube if you wish to view it there.

Shmuly gets it. He’s taken a traditional piece of Jewish headdress called the Kippah and combined it with current trends, in this case the Presidential election here in the USA. Check out his product at VanityKippah.com. Pretty smart.

In this video I talk more about how smart marketers like Shmuly know to take their product or service and combine it with current events or trends to make more sales and get publicity. It works. You can do it too.

Take a moment and think about how your product or service relates to what’s hot right now. Sports (the Olympics?), entertainment, politics? You get the point. Now make the connection and do something creative. The press will eat it up.

Click To Play

Music on video from http://cantorgottesman.com/chazzan-first-cd.htm

Your brand sucks? Does it? Integrity and trust matters. So are you living your brand? I did this video a long time ago (see the fail beard), but it never made it up until now.

Your brand is the experience people/customers have with you/it. What do you want your brand to be? You have to decide and then live it. You can’t say one thing and do another or vice versa.

For some reason the video ends early, but you get the point?

Nina Frye had an idea one day to create an ecommerce store (LTDChix.com).

The problem was, she was a mom who had never done it before and had zero idea how to get it done. Fast forward now to years later and now Nina has a fully-functional, successful store. So, how did she get there? What lessons did she learn along the way?

If you’ve ever thought about starting up your own online store, you MUST listen to this podcast of me talking to LTDChix.com. Nina gives all of her lessons and advice on how she got started, as well as mistakes made and tips. She dishes it all. GREAT interview and you will learn a lot. Please leave feedback in the comments.

Here are the show notes:

The story of how we got started. Moms overwhelmed!
Target a niche!
How did you start the site? Steep learning curve.
Worked with Score. Did a test market first. Found local place to print, spent $2500. Took to a local fair and test marketed to moms. Sold out!
Sent out press release to local newspaper. Simple news release.
Signed up to mom blogs and pitched them. Giveaways work! 2 or 3 or month.
It’s expensive to run a website. Find a good local web guy/gal who you can trust.
Startupnation.com helped a lot. Gave me media lists, help me find a pr person. Got on MSN.com through contest.
Go to retail stores. Promote that on your site. Cold call them. Looked to see where your competitors are, and called the stores they are at one by one.
Setup a wholesale price. Setup a sales sheet, not your website, an order sheet they can fill out and send back.
Use coupon codes. Make shopping cart easy to buy. Use authorize.net for merchant account.
Google Adwords and converting at 60% sometimes.
Learned how to be an ecommerce expert by reading.
Cafepress.com is a great place to try out custom artwork sales.
Going to license artwork for overseas sales. Mom humor on all kinds of products.
We went to show in NYC and found licensing companies to approach. Pitched them. Got a lot of no’s.
What would you do differently now two years later? Spent too much doing website the wrong way first time.
We copyrighted the images using us trademark government.

[display_podcast]

Mike from 1115Media is pretty smart. At the Affiliate Summit he handed me my own little memory stick with my name written on it, and guess what, it has a special custom message for me in it. See the video below.

Guess what? He got my attention. I got so much stuff from the show and I don’t have time to go through it all. It’s things like this that stand out and get attention, and in today’s world, especially for guys like me, this is the way to go.

So nice job Mike! You got my attention. Couldn’t have been too expensive either?