We're in the last weeks of 2007, and I wanted to remind people that we're raising most of our prices on 1 January 2008. If you want to contract any work with us, you'll want to do that during December, when you can still get this year's prices.
If you want to wait until early 2008 for us to start the project, that's fine. As long as you sign the contract and pay the 50% of your contract amount before or on 31 December 2007, we'll honour the prices in your contract.
So as you're starting to wrap up your holiday season eBay sales, and thinking about how you can improve, grow, be more profitable, and compete more strongly, think of us while you can still get 2007 prices!
http://www.aswas.com/pricing.shtml
If you want more help from more companies than just us, look at registering for our conference for eBay sellers. http://www.aswasconference.com
One of my fave places in town was sold. I didn't know. I found out by accident. By eating there.
Oh, the menus are different! Guess they reprinted them. But there is my favourite dish. I'll have that, please.
And it comes. And it's really mediocre. And the ingredients are all different. And it's just not that good.
And I'm apologising to the friend I brought to lunch because I had promised him that this was one of the best meals in our small town. He wasn't getting why I liiked it so much. I wasn't liking it so much.
So note to restaurant buyers. You're not fooling me. You can leave the last family's name on the awning, but if you're not using their recipes, I'm going to notice. And if your recipes aren't as good or better, I'm going to notice.
I'm not going back because it was that bad. Good luck to the new owners.
I just found this on the website of a supposedly respected eBay instructor and author.
Want to do nothing and Make Money? I want to do nothing and Make More Money!! Sign Me Up!!
Make More Money for doing nothing?
Have an additional stream of revenue coming in and not have to work?
No, I am not joking. All you have to do is join the wildly successful Make More Money affiliate program, follow the easy how-to steps to sell the best-selling eBay Success Books, and you get a chunk of money from us each month!
Use your About Me page to make money
Are you even using your valuable About Me page? If you utilize it correctly, it turns into a money-making tool for you. Simply use the easy instructions to put text on your About Me page that directs the reader to our site…when your customer buys, you get PAID. You do not have to do any of the work – we will process the orders and do the shipping.
DO NOTHING & GET MONEY
See…easy!
Not a lot of people understand how easy it is to make money with affiliate programs…and those of us who DO KNOW how easy it is, also know there are very few legitimate money making programs out there. This program is one of the good ones.
OK I think I'm done throwing up. This is so upsetting to me. I know NOBODY making a living from affiliate programmes. I know NOBODY who stopped working and found "financial freedom" from selling eBay success books or ebooks to anybody. And this is written like the reader is a child. I want to do nothing and make more money! Sign me up so I can do nothing and make more money. Did I mention doing nothing and making money?!
Valuable About Me page? Our latest research shows that About Me pages are being read LESS than ever. A few times a month, even for some of the big PowerSellers we work with. Even sellers trying to send people to the About Me page from their listings are seeing very few people hitting that page. We know this from our EverySeller Research tool. :)
The person who wrote this is trying to get you to sell HER products,
not those random products that seem to have no author in particular,
and just keep getting resold all over the internet. "Do nothing and make money" may be true, but the way this is written sounds like the desperate appealing to the desperate.
I read some of the blogs put out there by so-called eBay experts and eBay consultants. I mostly find these people to lack integrity, and often to lack any useful information.
I guess you do too since recently, at the end of a blog post, one such "expert" asked that you click on his link because he "has to pay the bills too." I guess it's hard out there for an affiliate programme pimp.
If you were that good a consultant, speaker, author, eBay seller, or whatever you claim to be doing, you wouldn't need to ASK your blog readers to click on your stuff so you can get a few dollars. Maybe a few cents. That just sounds desperate. And it makes me think that your consulting, speaking, authoring, eBay selling, and so on are all failing.
You don't see me asking people to please click on my affiliate links so I can pay my bills!
Well, somebody FINALLY put it up on YouTube. I've been looking for this for years.
I saw this as a toddler, I believe when I was 2 in 1974. It stuck in my mind. When I was forming my company when I was 19, my father asked what I was naming it. "As Was," I said, and I don't remember my thought process at all. He didn't care about my thought process, and told me I was a jerk. Until he saw me coming up high in all kinds of things that were alphabetised. :)
A few of my clients have recently been receiving emails and calls from some of the software providers in the eBay space. That may not sound out of the ordinary, but to me, it is.
How are these companies choosing my client? Are the looking for As Was clients specificially, or are they targeting eBay sellers in general?
Do they really think that eBay sellers right now, in the thick of their holiday selling, have time to evaluate and consider a whole new software application?
Do they really think that right now, eBay sellers have the time to change to a whole new system? New ways to list, sell? New marketplaces? New strategies? Right now?!??!
Do cold calls or cold emails really work? I find that when we used to contact people "coldly," they were bothered that someone was writing to them saying that they could help their sales or businesses. They seemed to take it emotionally as if I had emailed them that they were obese and needed a new haircut.
One of the software providers emailed one of my clients some of his recent sales figures, and that he should keep up the good work because _____ (software company unnamed) can help sellers selling over $50K/month. My client wanted to know how they got those figures. Also, that software company has signed eBay sellers who have never sold anything before... so why not tell them to switch NOW? Why tell them that someday, they'll live up to the software company's standards, and then they should switch?
These are the biggest companies in my industry. I've rarely said these names to a seller and had them say, "I've never heard of them." So this can't be for visibility. We all know who you are. So then what are you doing!!!!
I can't IMAGINE writing to or calling an eBay seller, especially who is not expecting to hear from me, trying to get them to make a huge business change in the middle of their busiest season, and then telling them that they don't quite meet my client standards, so hopefully we can work together when they've grown a bit more. What the HELL is that?
That's bad marketing. Let my clients and other eBay sellers get through their holiday seasons. If you're going to cold call/email these people, at least do it when they have time to pay attention to you.
One of the things this blog is about is my study of human behaviour, and how we present ourselves to each other. I overheard a conversation in my favourite sushi restaurant a couple of weeks ago.
A Dad, trying to be cool, had taken out his two daughters and one of their friends (from what I could tell). Maybe only one was his daughter. But it looked like three 12-yr-old girls and this Dad guy. He was trying to make conversation with them, which was cute.
Until I heard this exchange.
Dad: "(girl's name that I didn't catch), I heard you got a dog but had to give him away."
Girl: 'Yeah."
Daughter: "Dad, he was SOOOO cute."
Silence. More silence. I'm like OUUUUCH, that is NOT the question to ask a 12-yr-old girl. Please ask her ANYTHING but about a puppy she couldn't keep.
I think we have to get rid of the phrase, 'The customer is always right." When I think of some of my buying experiences lately, I was treated like I was not right. I was told that there is a better product choice for me, and I was shown that. I was sold! If you treated me like I'm always right, then you would have just sold me what I asked for, removing your professional opinion.
We have to put in our professional opinion all the time. That's consulting. :) We don't believe the customer is always right. If our clients knew everything, they wouldn't need us. We know that people need us, and we want to give the advice (and warnings) they need. So we have to treat people like they are wrong at times because they are.
The Marx Brothers had a bit on this topic. Chico is working in a men's suit department, and his main training was "The customer is always right." A man is trying on a suit or jacket of some sort, and whatever he says, Chico agrees with him... because the customer is always right. The man declares that he doesn't think he looks very good in that item, and Chico agrees that he looks terrible. Finally, the man tells Chico he's not a very good salesman. Chico says, "Datsa right. I'm rotten."
Let's not kiss butts. Let's give the customer the best we can, even if it means pointing out that in a small or big way, the customer is wrong.
Each month, I get a free magazine that's some sort of lifestyle magazine for my town. It's more than half advertising. In the October issue, an ad caught my eye.
It had a huge picture of an Asian man in a very bright red robe. In huge font, there is a quote from this guy, and it starts with:
"Feeling confident as possible is important to me whether in my work as a professional scientist or my performances as a magician."
Huh? A research scientist with a PhD and MBA, and he's also listed in the ad as the "Top Stage Magician of Arizona." Never heard of him, and he's the top.
What an odd combo of jobs, and this ad was for a dentist. Evidently, his teeth help him with his research science confidence.
So I've been playing with Salesforce and the applications that can be installed into Salesforce. I've been demo'ing and testing all kinds of apps. I ran into one that I wanted to try. I couldn't just try it. They asked me to fill out a form to get a demo license of some sort.
OK, I filled it out. A day or two went by. I got an email from a sales guy asking me a handful of questions (8 I think there were) about my company and needs. I answered immediately. I waited days.
By the time the guy left me a voice mail, I had already selected another product. How? Because that product let me install a trial version right into Salesforce, right away. So we started using it. When we had a problem, that company supported us immediately. We fell in love with the app, and now we're done.
The sales guy called again on Friday. I told him we chose another app, and I told him why. He was like, "Let me give you my phone number." I said no thanks. I won't choose their company for anything, ever, and why?
Because they treated their product like it was a freaking secret. I had tried 3 other companies' competing products in the time it took them to have a sales guy call me... which is not even what i wanted. I don't want a sales guy. I want a demo account. I jumped through two hoops to get there. Don't make me jump through another in talking to a sales guy. Just let me demo it for myself. It must be one shitty product if they want to make it that hard for you to see it.
So while the sales guy was thinking about me as a lead, planning to call me, and planning to waste my time by continuing to NOT give me the demo account, I tried 3 products. I uninstalled two of them. I'm keeping one of them. And that's how you didn't get my business. You wanted layers and layers of contact in a high-instant-gratification, online platform world.
How hard do you make it for your target audience, who wants your product, to get a taste? How long do you make them wait?
I was in Walgreens yesterday with something weird caught my eye. Cadbury Creme Eggs. They can be yummy, though I wasn't totally expecting them this time of year. They had a new one in a red wrapper, and it said:
Ornament Creme Egg
Now, I'm used to some of the variations. This Easter, I saw Peanut Butter Eggs, Snickers Eggs, Caramel Eggs... there are lots of variations.
But Ornament?
That's not a flavour. It's random. It didn't come on a string, so it's not meant to hang on a Xmas Tree.
So what is the flavour of an Ornament Creme Egg? Evidently it's the regular milk choco, regular inside. Just a new wrapper. If they wanted something Xmas-themed, couldn't they have come up with a better name... or even a new flavour? Minty Green?
Having done some flying lately and had good experiences while watching other people be pissed off, I wanted to give you my tips for the best possible air travel. Business or pleasure travel, these are my tips, in no particular order.
Bring your own food. You can't rely any more on getting a good meal. Or a meal. Even the "buy on board" programmes announce that they may run out of food by the time they get to your row. So don't take a change with mystery meat or some of the crappy (and unhealthy) things available in airports. The night before my trip, I go to my fave Chinese place, and get beef and broccoli with white rice. I dump the lovely food on the white rice, and I do this in a Rubbermaid collapsible bowl. These are great for travelling since as you eat or when you're done, you flatten it out so it takes up less room. A dish like beef and broccoli will travel well since it's cooked, has no dairy, and won't get soggy. Eat that when you're hungry. Like pretzels? Bring a huge bag.
Bring your own Camelback. These are great for hiking, biking, and outdoor sports. But I have a 1 litre one that I bring everywhere. It's just a little bladder with a tube and a mouthpiece, allowing you to bring your own beverages. You CAN bring them through security in an airport if they are empty. Just know that sometimes they may swab them to make sure the liquid that was last in them isn't anything explosive. But once you're through security, find a soda machine, and fill it with ice and water for free. :) Or buy bottled water, and dump it in. Always have water handy as you never know when you won't be served anything and you're thirsty. Flying can really dehydrate you, so keep drinking, even if that means lots of trips to tiny bathrooms.
Don't say "I hate New York," when they ask if you have anything to declare, even if you really do hate New York. Take it from me.
Please smell good. You may not like how early you had to get up to travel, but you're going to make the day really unpleasant for yourself and others if you're smelly. Shower. Use products that make you smell nice. Being in airports and on planes puts us all very close together. If you wouldn't want the guy next to you to smell like yesterday's 10-mile cycle, then please shower.
Check your bags. If you want to get off the plane faster once it lands, you may not want to have to retrieve 3 bags from all over the place. Bags are lost way less often than you think, and the wait for bags doesn't feel so long to me. Go through security faster and get on and off the plane faster if you'll just check all of that crap. You'll probably also enjoy NOT wheeling all that crap around the airport.
Weigh bags you plan to check before you get to the airport. Get a portable scale, and bring it with you so that you can weigh on the way back too. That way, you will be able to repack before you get there, and adjust things so that you're not charged for overweight bags.
These are my tips for flying. I have pretty much great experiences flying, and it's not because I bully airline agents or flight attendants into kissing my ass. It's because I come totally prepared. If we were all this prepared, lines would be shorter, lines would move faster, and you wouldn't care what's served on the plane. You'll save time, money, and frustration.
There are a lot of commercials on for products that will "get your digestive system on track." I guess the whole country is constipated. What the hell is going on?
Well, how about what we're eating. Evidently, we don't want to change. If messages of healthy eating were getting through, we wouldn't have the issues we're facing now with our population and especially the children. So knowing that people won't make a change, even when their health relies on the change, companies ones again come out with products that put a band aid on things.
So from all of our bad eating, we're evidently all constipated. We have yoghurts and now cheese (!) that will get you regular. Plus, you still have all the fibre supplements you could be taking and the concoctions for constipation. One thing that I know about fibre is that it often doesn't work really well unless you drink a lot of water with it. Constipation is an imbalance of water in the digestive system in the first place. If you drink more water, you might not be irregular ANYWAY.
Let's just eat more healthily. Let's have vegetables that aren't deep fried. Get away from wheat, even "whole wheat" and "whole grains." It's still wheat, and it's still super processed. Drink way more water. Soda and coffee don't count as they are not very hydrating. Drink water. You might find that eating more veg and drinking more water make you more regular anyway. You can then save money on supplements, yoghurts, and cheeses that want to give you a moving experience.
I'm a big fan of Colbert, and have been for a long time. 10 years I'd say. I loved him as Ace in The Ambiguously Gay Duo. LOVED him like mad in Strangers With Candy, a freaking hysterical show. Swooned over him on The Daily Show. I watch most of the Colbert Report reruns shown the day after they broadcast, just before I go to sleep. I might have even seen a few episodes of Exit 57 more than 10 years ago as I have memories of Colbert in a sketch comedy show that somehow my brain mis-filed as The State.
So when I heard he had a book coming out, I put myself on the library reserve list. I was 49th on the waiting list for the 31 copies the whole of the Tucson Library System had purchased. I have mine, and the waiting list is now 96. OK, Tucson is a small city in a red state (though we're voting blue more and more, may I say). :)
I'm about half way through Stephen Colbert's "I Am America (And So Can You!)" book, and I have to say I'm disappointed. I feel like the Stephen Colbert character that we get didn't write this book. I can't claim to know crap, but it seems very Paul Dinello to me. I think of SC's character as resolute in his ways and ideas, well informed even if he's misinterpretting things to go how he wants, and super Republican. He's like a fakey Fox News guy, with the egomania and everything. He presents logical-sounding arguments that are sometimes straightforward and sometimes hysterically labyrinthic.
To me, Paul Dinello characters tend to be more oblivious, bumbling, ill-informed, and illogical. Think Mr. Jellineck, who gets a mention in the "I Am America" book. Huh? Stephen Colbert's book references a character one of the authors played in a comedy series? My fave Mr. Jellineck line has to be when someone trying out for cheerleading does a great tumbling pass. Mr. Jellineck jumps up and yells, "I'm fantastic!" Dinello, who I loved as Mr. Jellineck, also plays Tad The Building Manager on The Colbert Report, a recurring character.
You'll have to read the book for yourself, but I feel like Dinello wrote most of "I Am America." I expected the book to be more of the Colbert we get on his show. I'm halfway through, and he's not really saying much about politics. He's written about getting married, having kids, dominating your pets, and religion, and it's all ridiculous. It's not logical, It's not Fox News Republican-esque, and the character is inconsistent. The character seems stupid... as an adult, looking back on the death of his 14-yr-old dog as it was euphemised by his parents at the time, saying his dog went to live on someone else's farm... and he supposedly still believes that his dog abandoned him... and that his current dog will live for decades. I just don't think of the Colbert character as being that dumb, illogical, and naive.
I love the childhood pics of Stephen. But so far, the funniest line was on page viii, a page so good I had to italicise it, "Baby carrots are trying to turn me gay." I haven't laughed since, and I'm on page 87 of 227. The stickers are funny. But I really expected this to be more about the political wackiness that we get from his show. I didn't expect to see "Colbert's" thoughts on making your dog truly subservient. Margin notes are in red and microscopic, and seem to be running
commentary on what is written in the main section. I find reading it a bit clumsy as I'm
follow two narratives... the book in regular type, and the commentary
in tiny red type in the side margins. There are also footnotes with commentary.
I didn't find reading Jon Stewart's book clumsy. I loved it and found it to be consistent with The Daily Show. I laughed plenty. It was clever. I will read this book through, but it's just not grabbing me. I miss page viii, though I've just flipped ahead, and it looks like I may be laughing again on page 108. No wait, I'm looking at page 108 now and not laughing.
I'm hand-picking the companies I'd like to invite to exhibit/sponsor our upcoming conference. They are companies I've seen at other eBay-related events, and have heard good things from our clients. But some are not going to get invited. Why?
I went to their website. I struggled to find a "contact us" page. I got there and was shown a form to fill out. A bunch of my information was mandatory. It didn't say the email address anywhere. If you're afraid of spam, show it as a graphic. But no email address. One one site, I went to fill out the biz dev/partner form, thinking that was right for my invite. The form was 3 screens long, and had dozens of required fields.
This tells me that they are afraid of people wasting their time. I guess they will only know I'm serious about partnering if I take the time to fill in ALL of those fields. It reminds me of a Monty Python sketch where an insurance company makes a guy fill a huge vat with his urine. The guy brings it in, and the insurance company tells him to throw it away. He complains that it took him months to fill it, and don't they test it or something? He's then told that they ask him to fill the vat with urine just to make sure he's serious about insurance.
So hey, companies out there who would want more visibility in the eBay space. If it's not easy for me to contact you, what will potential customers do? There's only so much people want to fill out in forms, so don't make the majority of fields required. I like to only require the things I need to get in touch with people: email address, name, and phone number. The rest is optional.
I recently got a demonstration of GetItNext, and I wanted to tell you guys about it. No, I'm not paid to do this. This is the fun part of my job. :)
Nowadays, I do more eBay shopping than selling, and finding what you're looking for is often the struggle. Sometimes, sellers make finding the right things harder by how they list things or what keywords they use. GetItNext doesn't read minds, but it makes finding things on eBay easy. Some might say easier than eBay's own search.
I love the idea of their FIND A DEAL search. What this shows you is stuff ending in the next 4 hours that has no bid (or is a fixed price with remaining quantity). Great for last minute deals, great for sellers hoping to make that last minute sale.
The BUY IT NOW search only shows Buy It Nows, Fixed Price, and Store items. So for those of you truly looking to BIN, but have had to search twice on eBay (once in the core and once in Stores), you can now see all instant gratification items at once. :)
BULK DEALS easily shows you everything that is listed as a lot, wholesale, or a multiple quantity. If you need a group or a set, this will be an easy way to find all such things (core OR Store) at once.
So I say check them out. If you like it, tell a friend. It's a good tool, and I'm going to give it a deeper spin next time I'm doing my eBay shopping.
I'm finally working with Salesforce.com, and I love it. I'm on day 9 of my trial, and I think it super kicks butt. So first, let me say that this software rules. I avoided it thinking it might be too complicated, too much for our needs, or too expensive, and it's NONE of those. It's just great.
In trying to figure the whole thing out and customise it like mad, I ran into some trouble. I posted to the discussion forums, but for the most part, nobody wrote back. My sales person told me to call support, and I didn't want to. I didn't want to be a non-paying customer bothering the tech support people. No, she told me to do it! Support is open to everybody, including those in the free trial. I still didn't want to bug them.
She evidently had a support guy call me. !!! I told him my 4 problems. Turns out I was doing 2 of them right already and things were working, and the other 2 couldn't be done. So I posted them to IdeaExchange, which is where Salesforce lets people suggest features and changes. Other users get to vote ideas up (not down), so they can then measure how many people want that. People are starting to vote my 2 up, so hopefully, these will be built in at some point. I'm going to post another idea too.
I was thinking about my call with support, and Salesforce is right to put their resources out there, even for trial users. Why? Marketing. I am being totally sucked in the system, and support was great. What if I were trying something, and nobody wanted to help me with stumbling blocks because support were only for paying users, which I see a lot? You could lose that person. He may not sign on. He may not become a happy, passionate user like I am now sure to be. What does it cost you to put your support team out there for people who aren't paying (yet)? It is probably worth it. If your support team is spending too much time with these people, then change your system to be easier and more obvious/intuitive.
So "good marketing" to Salesforce for being all-around awesome, and extending full support to trial users.
I was anti-Facebook. It seemed silly, and I didn't have the time. I never had a MySpace page. I found that WAY too silly, and the interface I found clunky and unattractive. I liked LinkedIn to connect me to business contacts, so I figured I had it all covered.
Well, I felt like the last person on the planet who hadn't joined Facebook, so I joined up. I'm glad I did as I've found some great college friends I haven't seen or heard from in at least 10 years. So I'm tickled to be reconnecting with those people, and as long as you don't go app crazy or say yes to every "do we have the same movie taste" invite you get, it doesn't have to consume your time.
Now, I'm getting requests to join people's Plaxo networks. Was LinkedIn not enough? These are people who are ALREADY in my Plaxo, syncing with my Outlook, so who cares if they're in my "network" or not. I can't see the helpful use here.
And another thing while I'm at it. If we are NOT friends, do not ask me to be friends in Facebook. I will ignore you. Facebook is for friends. MySpace is for racking up piles of people you don't know. Same for Plaxo and LinkedIn. I will ignore the request if I don't think we are real business colleagues, partners, etc...
I'm going to say bad marketing to Plaxo. You are DAMN late in the "networking" thing, and now I can't see a reason to get into the Plaxo network thing. I feel over-networked, plus you're so far connecting me with people I already knew and already had in my Plaxo.
eBay recently asked me what kind of growth our clients tend to see after working with us. The stat we give out is that our typical client increases their eBay sales 15% within a month of working with us. Most sellers are excited about that, and why the heck not.
In reality, many of our clients see a larger growth rate, especially over time. They might double their sales after four months. They might go from the 4th biggest seller of that product on eBay to the top seller. There are a lot of ways to measure growth. But I think it's better marketing to give a reasonable expectation. I'd rather say 15% and have you grow 16% than to promise something much larger and then have you grow 16%. In that case, 16% growth might feel disappointing because you were set up to expect more.
Another company out there has on their website a page showing a bar graph where people who work with them seem to immediately triple in sales. So if I hire these guys, I'm going to expect that. I'm going to expect that overnight, I am going to triple in sales, just like the bar graph showed. Is that properly managing expectations? We could show stats and graphs from our clients who grew 200%. 300%. 600%. And let's not forget our client who grew 6,200%. How about the client we took from zero sales to $1M per month on eBay alone? But would that give you reasonable expectations for what you might experience, no matter what you sell?
It's like the TV ads showing the biggest success stories (with the tiny disclaimer) rather than showing averages. I do not want to show you stats of people who grew 80-300% to reel you in unless I feel that I can promise that growth to you.
So I say that managing clients' expectations and showing them something they can reasonably expect for themselves is good marketing.
That's a link to a report on how eBay won a trademark dilution suit against a company/website calling itself PerfumeBay. I am ALWAYS advising our clients against getting eBay and Bay bits out of their names. You cannot create a unique brand when you are riding on the coattails of another brand.
People think that eBay is cool and casual, so you can do this. eBay is a corporation like any other, and it protects its marks, as it should. So when wondering if you can get away with it, replace the "eBay" part of your name with Microsoft or AT&T. Then, imagine if Microsoft or AT&T would be fine with what you did, or if you just might get a letter from a lawyer. Once you realise that what you've done is trademark dilution and you would be likely to get a letter from a lawyer, you can make sure you change your naming plans.
While I'm at it, I also advise that you not ride on eBay's logo design. When coming up with the branding and logo for your company, don't do the one letter each in those colour with the jumbled layout. This is also a trademark infringement or dilution, and again, if you want to have your own unique brand and company identity, you're not going to get it by riding on the coattails of another company.
Why is it wrong to dilute or infringe a trademark this way if eBay makes money when you make money? I hear questions like that a lot. The answer is because it works great for you since you get to associate yourself with a big and mostly liked company. eBay loses out because they're being associated with a company that they have nothing to do with other than you happen to sell on their website. They don't control you, they don't own you, they don't advise you, so nobody should think that your "eBay" sounding company is officially associated with or part of eBay.
Think about the scam artists out there... the people who are selling you e-books, selling systems, seminars, and other things that generally turn out to be crap. Many have eBay's name and/or logo on their website. That made you think that they were approved by eBay, right? I know it did because people call and email me all the time saying they went with that company because they figured they were approved by eBay. This is why eBay allows NOBODY to put the eBay logo anywhere. If you've put it anywhere, you're in the wrong. eBay has other logos it allows certain people and businesses to use, but NOBODY gets permission to just use the eBay logo (unless eBay is exhibiting at or sponsoring a conference... I mean eBay sellers and eBay-related products).
So clean up your identity because ripping off another company's trademarks, no matter who that company is, is bad marketing for you.
Add on for Firefox. SEOQuake. I really like it. It's mostly curiosity for me as I don't make my living with SEO services. But it's pretty cool and I imagine quite accurate.
It looks like one political tactic is to try to attack people for "flip-flopping" and being inconsistent. Politicians make it sound like we can't trust people who change their mind on things. Let's take a look at this.
We're all flip-flopped. We have all felt one way about something and then felt another way about the same thing. Maybe we broke up with someone we once loved. Maybe we loved dance class and eventually quit it. Maybe we liked sour candy and then our taste changed.
I once dated someone who told me that he thought I was lying when I changed my mind about something. He couldn't possibly imagine that I felt one way about something and then could quickly change my mind to feel another way about it. I told him that I allow new information in, and if that information makes me see things another way, I allow myself to change my mind or my stance. But to him, this was me lying. This was a trust problem. And it sounds like the politicians want the American people to see it the same way.
Which will better serve us? A President willing to change his or her mind as new information comes in? Or a President who stays a course no matter what information comes in because he's afraid of looking like someone who "flip flops"?
Why didn't we all go insane at the government flip-flopping on the food pyramid? We all grew up with a food pyramid that told us to eat certain amounts of certain things. A few years ago, the government said that pyramid was wrong, and here are the new guidelines for how to eat. Everybody fell into place. Food manufacturers started creating things that appealed to the new guidelines. How come nobody went INSANE at the flip-flopping of the food pyramid?
I believe in critical thinking. I believe that we need to let new information in constantly, and change our minds where we feel the new information leads us down another path.
15 Oct. Oprah's chef is on the Today Show. He tells Matt and Al that "Food is love, and it's a great way to love somebody."
Now I've been in some abusive relationships. They were not culinarily abusive. But I'd like to say that food isn't love, and I'm not sure it's healthy to make that association. The people I know who make that association have also admitted to eating disorders.
When I think about how I want to be loved, it's not through food.
Food is food. Love is love. Showing love is something else. Cooking together can be fun, but let's not confuse food and love.
One trait you'll often see in me is that I can't watch people, especially people I know or care about, struggle. If someone is in trouble, I'm usually going out of my way to be a friend at the very least or help with money if the situation warrants it and I have it to lend. Jeez, I even lent money to my ex-boyfriend while leaving him (a few years ago) when I wanted nothing to do with him. At least he's paying me back now, albeit court-ordered. But I am nearly incapable of watching people struggle, especially the people I know.
One thing I've noticed is that some people are comfortable watching the people they know struggle. When my sister and I were young adults, building our careers, we promised each other that if either of us ever had a lot of money and the other didn't, we'd take care of each other. We felt that we'd seen some imbalances in our family where one sibling was wealthy and the other struggled, and they didn't seem to be helping each other. We promised each other we'd help each other.
Well, long story short, and not to totally bitch in my blog, but she ended up in a situation where she has a lot of money. I'm not struggling, but my bank account is off a few decimal points from hers, and who wouldn't want to be in a stronger financial situation. :) I remember the promise we made each other, but I seem to be the only one. So it looks like the things we saw other family members doing (or not doing) is a cycle that continues again.
I was discussing this with my therapist, and she gave me an idea that was such a good idea that I wanted to share it. Evidently, my sister's husband is good at investing and growing money. My therapist's idea was what if they had taken a certain amount of their own money, invested it on my behalf, grew it to a certain amount say in a year, kept their original investment so that they lost no money, and then gave me the rest, saying that they invested it for me. Yes, I'd pay taxes on the dividend, but it would be found money that I can then treat wisely. I thought that was a really interesting idea as nobody seems to lose and everybody seems to gain.
I thought about it. I have knowledge and expertise too. I use it to help people grow their eBay businesses. I can't imagine my sister-in-law wanting to start an eBay business, and me giving no advice or help. Not only would I advise and help, but I'd probably insist on co-running it until she got up to speed. My point is that sometimes, you can give of your advice and expertise and time. You don't have to open your wallet because your advice, expertise, and time will translate to money for the recipient.
Nothing wrong with opening your wallet, especially if you will get that money back in some way. To me, that's some of the idea of the micro loans (see yesterday's post). You're not really in it for the interest you'll make on the loan. You're in it for being able to help people and not lose money in the process.
Find ways to help people. Don't just assume that someone else will do it or everything is fine. Everything can always be better. What a different world this would be if we all found ways to help people, those we know and those who are strangers.
What is charity. To me, charity is about helping people in need while giving them their dignity. It's about helping the causes and organisations who know how to grow that help, and make your dollar go farther.
https://www.microplace.com
Yes, eBay's behind it, but before you whine, look at www.omidyar.net. Pierre is behind so many wonderful ways to help people and communities as well as businesses. It all makes sense, so please don't bitch about this. Open your wallet and go help someone else. :)
Our news top story today is how last night for Halloween, our county sent out probation officers to check homes of sex offenders. They were looking to make sure they had no decorations up, no lights on in the house, and no candy out. They wanted nothing that would lure children.
Evidently, with 1500 registered sex offenders living in our county, the county knew they couldn't get to everybody. So the collected the 60 worst sex offenders, I guess those most likely to do it again, and brought them into one of the county buildings. I think they showed them some Hollywood movies to keep them occupied.
Evidently, our county wants to do everything they can to keep kids safe on what they felt was an evening with high risk of sex offences. I thought that was interesting.
I've never understood the appeal of horror movies. I'm usually the person out there protecting and helping people, so movies where somebody is helpless and ends up chopped up in slow motion is not going to appeal to me. When I was around 5, I walked through a room where my father was watching some sort of movie where a guy (not dead) was being lowered into a meat grinder. I didn't think that was cool, interesting, funny, or exciting.
I don't understand the entertainment in movies and TV shows portraying violence and torture. Ask someone who is the victim of violence. Ask someone who was the victim of torture. Do you think if you had to sit and look that person in the eye and hear about the reality of their situation that you would find it entertaining? If you do, do you know why you would? I don't think that humans are born enjoying violence and torture. I think we learn to be desensitised to these images, and then some people decide they're "cool."
All I can say for myself personally is that I could never marry someone who enjoyed horror movies. There's something about finding that entertaining and gravitating towards it that just doesn't work for my world.
I think we can do better for our kids. I think we can feed them better. I think we can keep them away from disturbing imagery, even if you think it "puts a smile on their faces." I think that we can not glorify violence and torture. Do we want our children learning that you can gain power in general and power over individual people by behaving like this? I don't think the problem is people copycatting. I think the problem is what it teaches people about suffering, violence, power, and the value of human life.
