Matte vs. Glossy and Other NDDs (Notebook Display Dilemmas)

by Barbra Sundquist

I’m shopping for a new notebook computer and one thing I know for sure: I don’t want a glossy screen. I do a lot of work in my sunroom, and the glossy screen is too reflective in brightly lit environments. It’s like looking into a mirror.

It’s hard to find matte (non-glossy) screens these days. Most consumer notebooks have the glossy screens. Apparently the reason for this is because glossy screens look better in the showroom, and also look more vibrant when playing video games or watching movies.

If you’re looking for a notebook with a matte screen, your best bet is to look at the business line of notebooks instead of the consumer or “home” line. Some options include:

  • Toshiba Tecra
  • Toshiba Satellite Pro
  • Lenovo ThinkPad
  • Dell Vostro
  • Dell Latitude

One thing to be careful of is that in some of the above-mentioned, there may be a model or two within the line that has a glossy screen. Watch out for words such as XBrite, CrystalView, Ultrabright and the like.  Even if it says “anti-glare” it may not necessarily be a matte screen.

The following excerpt is from the guide to notebook display monitors by Dustin Sklavos:

Notebook screens! Notebooks…have screens. And we usually don’t give them too much of a passing thought when we go buying; by and large when I went notebook shopping I just assumed “well, it has one, and it sure looks pretty” and was pretty much done with that.

The problem is that as consumers we like and want to be informed, and we shouldn’t have to default to “oh, well, okay.” But the terminology used to describe notebooks is always a bunch of complex crap that, quite frankly, doesn’t mean anything to most consumers. I’ve been working on computers for years and years and “WSXGA+” and “WUXGA” and all that don’t make any sense at all. Why can’t they just state the actual screen resolution?

The reality of it is that there are all kinds of minutiae about notebook screens that should be understood, as well as a couple of major things, like dead pixels.


Update: March 2011

I ended up buying a Dell Vostro and I’m very happy with it. The screen is matte, the battery life is good and the computer runs fast.

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37 Online Shopping Carts

by Barbra Sundquist

  1. PayPal
  2. Google CheckOut
  3. ClickBank
  4. Authorize.net
  5. MagentoCommerce
  6. EventBrite
  7. PrestaShop
  8. Yahoo Shopping Cart
  9. OsCommerce
  10. 2checkout.com
  11. Zen-cart
  12. e-Junkie.com
  13. Volusion
  14. Virtuemart.net
  15. Opencart
  16. PayDotCom
  17. 1ShoppingCart
  18. Bigcommerce
  19. Shopify
  20. Interspire ShoppingCart
  21. X-Cart
  22. UberCart
  23. DigitalAccessPass.com
  24. 3dcart.com
  25. Cubecart
  26. mivamerchant.com
  27. DL Guard
  28. WorldPay.com
  29. Foxycart
  30. Shopsite.com
  31. PinnacleCart
  32. Kagi
  33. Avactis
  34. MerchantOS
  35. RegSoft.com
  36. Premium Web Cart
  37. Fantasos

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3 Online Business Tools I Like Very Much

by Barbra Sundquist

1. NeedAnArticle.com (freelance writers)

This service is my secret weapon. You can get well-written original 500 word articles for about $10 each.  I used to use elance.com and freelance.com, but both those sites require sifting through proposals to find a good writer. Almost all  NeedAnArticle writers are reasonably good writers, and some are very good. It costs $11.95 a month to be a member, and then you pay for each article you order. I also find that the helpdesk support is fast and courteous.

Why I like NeedAnArticle (NAA)
  • Access to a pool of writers
  • Low cost
  • Fast (update 11/17/11: NAA used to have a two day turnaround.Lately it has not been as fast. Even if the writer finishes the article within two days, it can sit in “verifying” for an addition three or four days)
  • No real duds so far (update: recently I’ve had a couple writers who did not meet my quality expectations)
  • You can request your favorite writer
  • Fast, efficient email support – if you have a problem or need a faster turnaround, it will be solved within a few hours

2. MailChimp (newsletter and autoresponder service)

For years I’ve recommended Aweber as my email newsletter and autoresponder service of choice. I still like Aweber for its great service and reliability, but now I’m also recommending an alternative service called MailChimp.

(UPDATE: This has changed. MailChimp no longer provides autoresponders in their free plan. You need to upgrade to a paid plan to get autoresponders.)

MailChimp is the new kid on the autoresponder block. From what I can see, it provides everything Aweber does ((UPDATE: this has changed. See note above), but with one critical difference: it’s free for the first 2000 addresses (with a limit of 12,000 total emails a month). That’s a pretty generous plan and will meet the needs of most small businesses for several years, if not forever.

If you compare the cost of MailChimp to Aweber, it’s a savings of $20 a month or $240 a year. That’s a significant savings for any business. As we all know, money is tight when starting a small business so every penny saved counts.

One possible hitch of MailChimp’s free option is that there is no guarantee that MailChimp will be free forever. You want to think carefully about what service you initially choose for your email list, because it’s cumbersome to switch to another service. Having said that, I’m still confident recommending MailChimp to small businesses on a tight budget (as long as you only want to do newsletter broadcasts; if you want an autoresponder then you will either need a paid MailChimp plan or go with Aweber ).

Why I like MailChimp

  • it’s free :)
  • It has everything you need to set up a professional email newsletter and autoresponder.

3.  Traffic Geyser (video creation, distribution and backlink creation)

Traffic Geyser is an online tool that submits your videos  as many video sites, social media sites, social bookmarking sites social networking sites, podcasting sites and podcasting directories as possible. This creates valuable backlinks that improve your search engine rankings. If done properly you dominate search engine listings when people search for your keywords products and service. Although it is not free, it only costs $1 to try it for a month.

Why I like Traffic Geyser

  • It’s an easy way to create valuable backlinks
  • It does a bunch of other things that makes online marketing easier

I hope these three recommended services help you become more efficient in your online business!

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How to Separate Facebook Business Page From Personal Page

by Barbra Sundquist

I’m trying to set up a Facebook business page (also know as a company page), and it’s important that I have a stand-alone page dedicated to acquiring fans on my business page that does not crossover to my personal page. I don’t want to bore personal friends and family with my business updates, and vice versa.

I know all about privacy settings and grouping contacts into lists, and I’ve done most of the privacy settings recommended in this article.

But my problem is this: it seems that everything I post to my business page also shows up on my Facebook personal page. I don’t want this.

The solution

It took a couple of hours of research, but finally I found out that all posts and comments made on my business page will only go to my personal page if I “Liked” my business page while logged in to Facebook. And even then, the posts and comments only go to my News Feed (won’t appear on my wall).

So the bottom line is that it will only be a problem if you “like” your own business page. Avoid doing that (or “unLike” if you’ve already “Liked”) and you won’t have an issue.

Why not just create a new account with a different login for the business?

Facebook’s terms of service say that you are only allowed to have one profile. I don’t know how strictly that rule is followed, but I’d recommend playing by the rules.

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New Business Ideas Often Come Directly From Customers

by Barbra Sundquist

yes-its-free-signPhil from Calgary is on the phone, asking which bio template he should purchase for his new business start-up. On the order page he sees templates for Entrepreneur, Executive, CEO, Chief Operations Officer and others that sort of work, but not exactly.

He says they’d like to save money by purchasing just one template that will work for everybody. The problem is, there are several partners in the venture, and they all do a little bit of this and that. They need bios for the company website, but which template will work best?

I recommend the “Executive” template, as it will be the most versatile for his team. And I tell him I’d be happy to send a couple of other related templates at no extra charge, so his team can pick and choose.

Phil was thrilled, and I made a new happy customer.

But equally exciting is the fact that the conversation with Phil gave me an idea: why not bundle my bio templates into packages of related templates?

Recently I’ve been wanting to add more value to my customer experience. Prices for information products have been declining on the Internet, and my price of $49 for a single template is starting to seem expensive. To address that, I could either lower the price or add more value for the same price.

Adding more value for the same price is obviously better from a revenue point of view (presuming the same number of sales). And since it doesn’t cost me any more to give customers multiple templates instead of just one, it seems like a good idea.

My only reluctance is that providing multiple templates goes against my original idea of simplicity. One thing that customers like about my site is that they get exactly what they need, and no more. In other words, they don’t get a pile of unrelated information that they have to sift through to find what’s relevant for them.

I’m concerned that providing multiple templates for the same price might result in information overload for customers. But then again, maybe they will be thrilled, as Phil was.

The only way to find out is to test it. So that’s what I’ll do next. I’ll set up an A/B test using Google Webmaster Tools, and see which offer is preferred by my customers.

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How to Set Professional Fees for Consultants, Coaches and Therapists

by Barbra Sundquist

how to set fees dollar sign

Setting appropriate fees helps your business grow

Setting fees is one of the hardest things to do for independent professionals such as consultants, coaches and therapists.

People think consultants (and other self-employed professionals) make exorbitant hourly rates, when in fact they are often just making the equivalent on an hourly basis as any typical employed professional.

As someone who has been an independent coach and consultant for the past 20 years, I get tired of envious people making little digs about my rates. These people don’t have a clue about what’s involved in setting fees, and why consulting fees are necessarily higher than employee hourly rates.

So how do you set professional fees?

A good way to start is to multiply by 2.5 the hourly rate that you would earn at a job doing similar work. So if you are a human resources consultant and you know that similar work pays $40 an hour plus benefits (benefits are usually at least 20% on top of an hourly wage) then your calculation would be:

If an employee costs:

$40 + 20% for benefits = $48 an hour

Then the consultant should charge:

$48 x 2.5 = $120 an hour

This calculation is just a rough starting point. You would also take into consideration factors such as competition, reputation, specialized skills, supply, demand, and the economy.

Why do you multiply by 2.5?

In consulting the rule of thumb is that you will spend about 40% of your time in  unbillable activities such as writing proposals, marketing, administration, travel, and office administration. You also need to budget in about 20% of your fee for overhead costs associated with rent, equipment, insurance, professional development, sick days and holidays.

That leaves the remaining 40% for billable activities, which are activities that you can actually charge the client for. This formula is sometimes referred to as the 60/40 rule.

In a 40 hour work week, a consultant will typically bill about 16 hours (40% of 40 hours) to clients. That’s why consultants, coaches and therapists  need to build in overhead to the hourly charge-out rate.

Let’s look at an example

A consultant — let’s call her Elizabeth — charges $150 an hour.  Presuming she works a standard 40 hour work week, the 60/40 rule tells us that she charges clients for 16 hours and makes $2400 (even though she worked 40 hours overall in her business). Do the math and we find that she is actually earning $60 an hour.

Elizabeth’s husband — let’s call him Ray — is employed at a university doing work very similar to what Elizabeth does in her private consulting business. Ray makes $50 an hour, which on the surface seems a lot less than Elizabeth’s hourly rate of $150.  But keep in mind that Ray gets paid for every hour he works, so $50 x 40 hours a week = $2000. This is less than Elizabeth’s $2400 a week, but add Ray’s medical benefits and paid holidays and it comes out about even.

Tired of the comments?

The next time someone ribs you about making the “big bucks”, tell them about the 60/40 rule. Or do as I do.  Smile and say, “You could do it too! All you have to do is give up your benefits, paid holidays and regular pay cheque – and take the leap.”  That usually makes the point.

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How to File a Trademark

by Barbra Sundquist

If you are new to trademark filing, the USPTO Trademarks homepage is a great place to start learning the process, as it provides useful information for all of your trademark needs.For more information on filing a trademark overseas, the International Trademark Association is a helpful not-for-profit membership association, representing members from more than 190 countries worldwide.This state-by-state guide to trademark filing may be helpful for small businesses who want to keep it local.

via How to File a Trademark.

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Claiming Local Business Listing Is Only The Beginning | Search Engine Journal

by Barbra Sundquist

Many businesses have gone down the path of claiming their local business listing, but we have seen two distinct problems. The first is that while the local business listings have been claimed, they are only claimed at Google. That doesn’t necessarily benefit the overall marketing process on the web, which we will discuss further. The other is that the local business listing has been claimed only at Google and nothing further has been done. No coupons updated, no customer reviews disputed, no events, no videos, and no photos. Essentially the local business listing has been claimed, but they are not being used for marketing purposes or to avoid public relation problems.

via Claiming Local Business Listing Is Only The Beginning | Search Engine Journal.

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4 Key Tips to Monetize Twitter and Facebook

by Barbra Sundquist

1. We’re in a unique early phase of social media marketing history, ripe with opportunity. And it’s cheaper now than it will be later on.

2. Audience building comes before monetization.

3. How you will monetize the audience becomes clear during the audience building phase – not before audience building. You have to build the relationship and find out what they respond to before you can monetize.

4. Don’t just build audience. Build relationships while building audience size.

via How To Monetize The Twitter/Facebook Bubble Before It Bursts | Search Engine Journal.

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5 Tips for Writing SEO-Friendly, Keyword Optimized Articles

by Barbra Sundquist

If you are writing articles for your web site or blog with the intention of getting rankings in the search engines, you’ll need to write keyword optimized content.  Writing articles is not enough when you are aiming at higher rankings in Google: You must also know how to write in an SEO-friendly way.

Here are five sure-fire tips for writing SEO-friendly, keyword optimized articles:

  1. Use the exact keyword phrase (KWP) at the beginning of article title: e.g. if Keyword phrase is “Marriage Infidelity” then it would be better to title the article “Marriage Infidelity: Tips to Help You Cope”  vs. Tips to Help You Cope with Marriage Infidelity.
  2. Use the exact KWP near the beginning of the first sentence.
  3. Use the exact KWP in the final sentence.
  4. Sprinkle KWP and its variants throughout the article in a natural manner.
  5. When webmaster names the page, use the exact KWP in the page title and url e.g. www.yourwebsite.com/articles/marriage-infidelity

Follow these five tips for writing keyword optimized articles and you’ll have good results.

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