A One Page Business Plan is more useful than you’d think. I was a bit skeptical about writing a one page business plan until my client twisted my arm to write it. I’d wanted to write a more in- depth document or use Business Plan software to scope out the requirements. As an experiment we tried it. Here’s what I learned.

One Page Business Plan: Where’s the real benefit?

Writing a one-page business plan helps the small business owner focus on the main components that make up the company.

Difference Between One Page Business Plan and Traditional Business Plans

The difference between a one page business plan and traditional business plans (e.g. MS Word templates) is that:

• A one one-page business plan is not a replacement for your strategic planning documents.
• A one one-page business plan is not meant to provide in-depth analysis of your business model. How could it?
• A one one-page business plan is not used to seek finance, for example, from your local bank manager or investors. But, there may be exceptions…

• A one one-page business plan gives you a snapshot of the key points in your business
• A one one-page business plan is a framework upon which you can start to build a more comprehensive document outlining your Strategic Plan, Marketing Plan, Technology roadmap, and Training & Development needs, Costs, and Personnel
• A one one-page business plan provides direction for the future growth of your business. It’s a finger pointing in the right direction and

[Video] One Page Business Plan: Example of How It Works

In this video, we look at some of the differences between one-page business plans and the larger documents, for example, Business Plans in Microsoft Word format that you can format to suit your needs.

One Page Business Plan: Who Uses It

What I learned from this exercise is that – if you approach it with the right attitude – you can use this as a stepping stone for more in-depth analysis. The upside is that you get a ‘business plan document’ written in less than a day, while the downside it that it’s a snapshot and needs to be fleshed out if you decide to push ahead with the project.

So, who can benefit from this?

I can see the following benefiting from this:

• Business Units
• Cost Centers
• Cross-functional teams
• Departments
• Divisions
• Government Agencies
• Not-for-profits
• Profit Centers
• Programs
• Projects
• Startup Companies
• Subsidiaries

There are others but you get the idea.

One Page Business Plan: Why It’s Not a Plan

It’s a way to get your business planning up and running quickly and start to explore market strategies quickly.

But, it’s not a plan in the traditional sense. You can’t use this to develop a framework for your marketing plans or use it to seek funding.

There is an upside though. It does allow you to get a quick snapshot of how the business model may work and use this to refine gaps in the process or identify areas where the business plan needs more attention.

Why You Should Write a One Page Business Plan

A one one-page business plan grows with the business. As you change, so to does the business plan.

One final thing. The name of the document is irrelevant. You can call it what you want.

The real purpose of the one-page business plan is to help you navigate the choppy waters of running your business. Keep it simple. Make it useful. Keep it up to date!

What do you think?

This article shows you can increase your Google AdSense earnings by at least 12%. I’ve started to use video-based ads in Adsense (not the text ads) and the results have been impressive.  Split testing showed us that websites with video ads 1) keep viewers onsite longer, 2) increase repeat visits and 3) generate significantly higher AdSense payments than standard plain text ads. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to setup AdSense video, look at different sizes and formats, test the ads, examine the risks and benefits, and also show you how it increased our earnings.

Why Use Google AdSense Videos Format

The first benefit that videos offer is that they increase Google Adsense payments. In our tests, it increased earnings by more than 12%.  When you’re designing your site layout, consider dropping the text ads and insert one large video ad instead. Do some split testing and check the results. Video ads, or video units as Google likes to call them, lets you enrich your site with relevant video content, which can be embedded in a customizable player.

What is Google AdSense Video?

Google AdSense videos are user initiated ads that run on sites that are part of the Google content network. These ad formats provide users with a rich and engaging advertising experience.

How to get Adsense Videos

Sign in to your AdSense account and open the AdSense Setup tab. Click the video units link and setup up your video unit. Add it to you site and see if it compliments your content.

Risks of Using Video Ad Formats

• Risk #1 – the ads may not compliment your product offerings
• Risk #2 – the ads may be too slow when downloading (not everyone has broadband), which will leave the reader with nothing to see but a blank space, i.e. where the ad should be
• Risk #3 – your AdSense earnings will drop. In our tests, they don’t but your experience may be different.
• Risk #4 – while using video ads should lead to increased sales, especially in the short term, web users may try the video ads and then reject the regular text ads resulting in lower sales.
• Risk #5 – video ads may have a negative impact on your Adsense earnings if do not match your sites look and feel, i.e. the overall color scheme. You can’t control the appearance of video ads as you can with text ads.

Which Video Ad Formats are available?

Video ads are currently available in several ad formats:

• 336 x 280 (Large Rectangle)
• 300 x 250 (Medium Rectangle)
• 250 x 250 (Square)
• 200 x 200 (Small Square)
• 728 x 90 (Leaderboard)
• 120 x 600 (Skyscraper)
• 160 x 600 (Wide Skyscraper)

How to Get Started

To display video ads on your site, make sure you are using one of these supported formats and that you are opted in to image ads for that ad unit. If not, the video option will not be displayed.

How to Enable Image Ads

There are two ways to enable image ads. You can:

1. Enable image and text advertising for all of your pages or
2. Enable image ads for individual pages

Warning - Enabling image ads for individual pages overrides account-wide level selections.

To enable image ads across your account:

1. Sign in to your account at https://www.google.com/adsense
2. Click the My Account tab
3. Click the edit links next to the Ad Type Preference header
4. Select Display text and image ads in all ad units

If you’ve already generated the code, you can change the ad type of your AdSense unit using the ad management feature:

1. Log in to your account at https://www.google.com/adsense
2. Click the AdSense Setup tab.
3. Select the Manage Ads sub-tab.
4. Click Edit settings for the ad unit you’d like to update.
5. Under Format pick your desired ad type.
6. Click Save settings.

Adding YouTube Ads – How it works

If you’ve embedded video from YouTube into your site before, you’ll know what to do. Once you’ve configured the options in Adsense, embed the code as per usual, which display the relevant YouTube content to your site. When selecting content, you can:

1. Choose video categories to target to your site or blog
2. Select content from individual YouTube partners
3. Get video targeted to your site content

Configuration options allow you to blend the YouTube player into your site, customize the color scheme and layout, and choose different player sizes.

How to Test Video Ads on Your Blog

You can test the ad from inside AdSense as follows:

• Enter the URL of a page where this ad unit currently appears to see what the ad unit that you have designed will look like.
• Click Preview on this page
• The test add appears and you can see what it looks like. Pretty impressive!

Tip: If you enter a URL that does not display the code for this ad unit, you will not see any ads in the preview.

Why Can’t I See Video Ads on my Site?

You might not see video ads for a number of reasons.

1. Are you using one of the ad formats that support video ads?
2. Have you opted in to image ads for that ad format - otherwise, your ad unit will not display video ads.
3. Even if you are using supported ad formats, and you are opted in to image ads, video ads may not be targeted to your content for the time being.

Make sure that you are opted in to both text and image ads for these ad units to maximize competition for your ad space.

Split Testing & How Video Increases Your AdSense Earnings

This table shows the AdSense earnings before I added the videos units. Note that 210 clicks generated $77. This is an average for the site performance in March 2010.

Page Impressions – 99,219
Clicks Page 210
CTR – 0.23%
Page eCPM – €0.77
Estimated earnings – €77.14

This is $77 per day across all of March, which is approx $2,310 for the month.

Google AdSense – Search Earnings Without Video ads

This shows the AdSense Search results before I added the videos. Search always pay better. We had 80 clicks which generated $20. Again, this is the average return for the site in March 2010. The eCPM is $26.

Queries – 830
Clicks – 80
CTR – 9.64%
eCPM – €26.51
Estimated earnings – €20.20

This is $20 per day for each day in March, which is approx $600 for the month. Google AdSense earnings for both Page Impressions and Search was $2,900 approx. We also had some small payments from the RSS feeds, but not much.

Google AdSense – Page Impressions Earnings With Video ads

We added the video ads formats across three sites in April. So, these figures are for the first 15 days of the month. Earnings increased by 12%.

Page Impressions (15 days)- 46,986
Clicks Page 118
CTR – 0.24%
Page eCPM – €0.79
Estimated earnings – €43.01

Google AdSense – Search Earnings With Video ads

This shows the AdSense Search results after I added the videos. Its earnings increased by approx 10%.

Queries – 410
Clicks – 39
CTR – 9.84%
eCPM – €27.15
Estimated earnings – €11.88

Conclusions

There are a few things to note. Adding the video formats to Google AdSense made no difference to traffic or at least not yet. We didn’t expect it would. It did increase the earnings though, but about 12%.

1. Page Impression earnings increased by 15%~.
2. Two ads formats performed very well. The first was the Skyscraper video down the right side of the page. However, we also placed Google Ads (with video) embedded inside the article near the top-left. Looking at the heatmaps, it’s clear that visitors ‘enjoyed’ these ads as they clicked on more of them as the month progressed. More testing over the next 6 weeks should give us better feedback.
3. Search earnings increased by 7-10%~. This increase may be related to the close proximity of the video ads to the search box.
4. The Search box is placed in two places on the site. At the top right of the page and also in the Footer. Tests have shown that many users scroll to the end of the page (seeking more information, perhaps) and use this Search box to look for the information rather than scroll back up to the top or hit the Back button.
5. Total earnings for both page impressions and Search increased by 12% approx. Is this good enough? Well, our tests were for a 15-days period in April. As we use video more, our earnings should improve
6. 12% over twelve months should generate an extra $4,000 revenue, which isn’t a bad return for 30 minutes work!

Over to you.

Have you tried the AdSense video formats? If so, what results did you see? If you didn’t, what was the obstacle or issue that stopped you for using video? Let us know below.

PS – Remember to sign up for our free newsletter and give us a Tweet!

Making money from niche blogs in an inexact science. What works in one blogs, fails on another. I’ve launched over 200 websites since 1998 (mostly ecommerce) and about 30 blogs (technical). If your blog has a technical slant, for example, its target audience is technical writers, analysts, architects, or others micro-niche areas, then use some of these search engine techniques will increase your traffic.

29 Ways to Increase Traffic to a Micro Niche Blog

1. Monthly Interview – do a profile every month or a day in the life of your target audience. Rule #1, people like to read about people.
2. Company Profile – same as above but focus on how the company developed, what it’s doing right AND mistakes it made. Rule #2, people like to read how others solved problems.
3. Product review – don’t do a short review. Aim for 1000 words. Look at this review of Camtasia Studio. This will live long in the Google index and generate more backlinks. Short reviews melt like dew in the morning sun.
4. Guest articles – do them and take them. I take guest articles all the time (send me text files, please not Word). Make sure these people have a brain, i.e. that they remember to share the buzz on their site, their twitter, their Facebook page, and maybe on other Social Media networks. I’m still amazed at people who take the effort to submit, write and publish an article but forget to promote it.
5. Be the Hub – make your site the hub for your niche. This means others in the field will flock here to see what’s happening, who’s been hired, rates, buzz, gossip – whatever rocks their boat. And it’s ok to throw in the odd joke to lighten things up. Don’t take yourself too serious.
6. Deep Link – instead of linking to the main page, link to a page within a site. This increases the number of trackbacks. You can also do a Google search for sites that offer back-links and add these to your ping requests.
7. BusinessWeek – has a professional network that that accepts links, i.e. yours!, which get indexed v quickly by Google. You can also connect your account here with LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/in/ivanwalsh)
8. LinkedIn – you use this, right? If not, sign up and join groups that match your target audience. Get involved. Be active. Ask and answer questions. Check in once a week. Link your RSS/blog to your profile. More back-links for little effort.
9. Connect with Startup blogs – while everyone wants to get on C Brogan, you’ll get further if you connect with people starting out. They appreciate the value and will share the link love. If they don’t, well… PS: here’s the right way to add a comment to chris brogan’s blog.
10. Google Adsense – not very fashionable these days but it still pulls in $750 per month, which pays for the Frappuccino, Cable, and Brazilian waxes. Ok, one of those isn’t true. It’s cable, isn’t it?
11. Calendar – use Google Docs to get it up. Simple way to create high-traffic pages.
12. Add Photos – don’t be shy. Show us your mug! Take photos whenever you go to an event, conference or client. Let others into your world. Remember rule #1.
13. Use Creative Commons – share. Make it easy for others to get your message out there. Why don’t you share?
14. Setup a Newsletter – use Aweber, not Feedburner, if you are serious about making money & getting the news out. The money is in the list. Share useful information. No one cares about your cat’s dysentery.
15. Reach out to Other Bloggers – mention other bloggers, writers etc in your articles. Why? They might pop over and leave a comment or respond in their blog. Don’t write in a vacuum.
16. Add Short Video – use YouTube to increase traffic, cross-links, and to establish yourself as an authority.
17. Offer Incredible PDFs – create PDFs of your best work, upload it to Slideshare and index it in your Sitemap. Why? Google indexes PDFs. Include links back to your site + you’ll see the page rank increase.
18. Create Unique Twitter Lists – create unique and interesting twitter lists. As Twitter has become a wall of noise, people use lists to share, aggregate, and curate information. Make your list as specialized as possible. Then link to the list, not your twitter page. See the difference? Twitter followers will go thru the roof!
19. Twollow – use this to follow others by keyword, e.g. follow those interested in video marketing. AND use it to un-follow deadbeats that don’t follow back.
20. Ejunkie – use this to sell digital goods, information products, online training, or ebooks. 100 times better than Clickbank. $5 per month. How can you go wrong?
21. Optimize Money Pages – log into Google Analytics. Find your top 10 posts. Go into each of these pages and fine-tune them over more. Add 1 product to each page. These are your MONEY pages. Start making money here.
22. Google Analytics – learn how Google Analytics works. ‘I know how it works’. No, you don’t, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this article! Spend 5 hours here. Do split testing, setup reports, check entrance paths, bounce rates and duplicate headers. All the heavy-weights do this.
23. Posterous – use this to publish your blog posts across all your Blogger, WordPress, Typepad, Flickr, YouTube with one click. Now you can add tags and use Google Analytics as well.
24. Contact Journalists – identify 5 journalists in your industry. Tell them what you write about and why they should read your blog, i.e. to give them material for their articles. See your PageRank shoot up if you connect with one high-profile journalist.
25. Create 2 Sitemaps – add an XML site for Google to read and a HTML one for the humanoids. Check this with Google Webmaster Tools.
26. Title tags – don’t do all the hard work and forget to add the correct title tags to each post. It takes 5 min to get this right but it’s worth the effort. Use SEO in a Box plugin to do this.
27. Google Webmaster Tools – like Google Analytics, spend 30 min in here every week and see how Google in indexing your blog. Look for duplicate headers (i.e. pages with the same title tags) as these lower your PageRank. Also check for crawl errors and others horrors.
28. Leverage Facebook – forget pigville and join groups, fan pages that compliment your business. Add useful comments, not just high fives. Say something that others have overlooked. Add videos, photos and RSS feeds to your pages.
29. Create a Publishing Process – saving the last til best. Develop a workflow for publishing your material. Don’t just write and hit publish. Stand back and see how you can gather information, identify your audience, focus on pain points (i.e. their problems), develop content that will be evergreen, source photos, respond to comments, and get busy promoting. No one knows about your site.

Now, get out there and tell them.

Ok, that’s how I do it. What did I miss?

Photo: invisiblekid

To quote Van Halen, ‘everybody wants some.’ And what you want is traffic. Why write a blog if no-one visits, right? I have 17 technical writers’ blogs in my Google Reader & RSS feeds. Most are fine but… if they used some of the following tactics, they’d get more traffic, comments, money and Nobel prizes. Well, three out of four, anyway.

How To Get More Traffic To Your Technical Writing Blog

Apply five of these tactics and your traffic will double. No kidding, it will!

How To Get More Traffic #1: Add Your Photos

Look at your favorite technical writing blogs. How many faces do you see? Why are they all hiding? I dunno. Stick your mugshot on the page so we can see what you look like! Go on! None of us are Brad Pitt or Paris Hilton (OMG! Paris Hilton rebuilds career as technical writer shock!), so add a pic. Don’t be shy. People like to read about people they know. If they can’t see you…

How To Get More Traffic #2: Video

I’m no spring chicken, so if I can do it, you can. All of these video were taken on a Canon powershot.

Videos let people hear you, see your expression, feel what you’re trying to say in ways that words cannot. Making videos is easier that you think. I use Camtasia 6 for all its sins. (read my frustrated Camtasia 6 review here.)

How To Get More Traffic #3: Social Media Outposts

Use Social Media for maximum impact. With web content publishing tools like Posterous you can get the message out to all these channels with almost no effort. Posterous lets you post once, publish everywhere. Try it.

• Ivan: http://www.ivanwalsh.com
• Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ivanwalsh
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ivanwalsh
• Business Week http://bx.businessweek.com/profile/ivan-walsh/iwalsh905/
• And also on Disqus, Flickr, LinkedIn, Delicious and Google Reader

How To Get More Traffic #4: Quizzes

We all get tired of checking for split infinitives and looking for typos, so lighten things up. Add quizzes to get people involved… and try to be a little different.

• Did you ever download software illegally?
• What’s your manager’s most annoying habit?
• Would you let your boss friend you on Facebook?
• Do you know any technical writing who can reverse park? (I was going to say Women but then turned on my brain! That was so close!)
• Do you know any men who ask for directions when lost? One for the girls, no doubt.

How To Get More Traffic #5: Comics

May not work for all sites but comics are a nice break from technical documents and other heavy reading. Why do you think they are so popular? Every serious newspaper has them, why not you?

How To Get More Traffic #6: Reviews

If they come to your site, it’s your opinion they are after. So, why don’t you give it?

#1 cardinal sin of most blogs is that they have no opinion!

Don’t be scared! I’m with you! Give your honest opinion (try not to rant or swear) and you’ll see people will respond very quickly.

#2 cardinal sin of most blogs… bland!

If your blog echoes the rest of the crowd, well, why should I come back? Stick your neck out, even a little. Some people were upset that I dissed Camtasia but y’know I’d be lying if I said it worked!

How To Get More Traffic #7: Trends

Pssst! Did you know that… everyone wants to be in the know. Keep your readers up to date. Use graphs, charts and diagrams. See Brain Solis and Information in Beautiful for inspiration.

How To Get More Traffic #8: Lists

It doesn’t have to stop at 10. Here are a few list of get started:

• 21 Left Handed Technical Writers
• 7 Reasons Why Adobe FrameMaker Sucks But You Still Need to Buy It
• 12 Honest Ways to Get a Pay Rise
• 5 Ways To Give An Honest Appraisal
• 28 Ways to Proofred a Technical Documant
• 1 Good Reason to Join the STC
• 18 Mistakes Technical Writers Make Before Breakfast
• 9 Ways to Evaluate a Help Authoring Tool

How To Get More Traffic #9: How-to guides

Ok, the technical stuff comes last. If you’re going to offer technical advice (and you should!) identify the problem, explain how to fix it, and then ask for questions or comments.

#3 cardinal sin of blogging is… blogger doesn’t interact with readers. Ask for comments. If you have a Facebook page, give them the link and connect there. Use Twitter? Create lists for technical writers and add them. Like these lists I created for technical writers and creativity.

• Adobe FrameMaker list http://twitter.com/ihearttechdocs/adobeframemaker
• Creativity list http://twitter.com/ihearttechdocs/creativity
• Technical writing software http://twitter.com/ihearttechdocs/technicalwritingsoftware

Share, share, share!

What ya think! Fire away below.

Friday is my busiest day. Most folks power down and go into weekend mode. Not here! Ask yourself, ‘why do I go down a gear on Friday?’, ‘How does this benefit my career?’ Ok, let’s be honest. We do this because others do it. Right? This is a high-risk way to manage your career. You’re letting others determine how you behave. And it damages your career in many, many ways. Here’s an alternative approach.

How to make Friday your busiest day and reap the rewards

7 Mistakes to avoid:

1. Don’t fill your day with low-impact tasks.
2. Don’t get pulled into fluffy things that you don’t really want to.
3. Don’t do project meetings when you know it will kill your whole morning.
4. Don’t go to long lunches.
5. Don’t leave early.
6. Don’t waste time studying analytics, trends, click-thrus etc… you know what they’ll say, don’t you?
7. Not Saying NO enough.

Do this instead.

You’ll get more success if you:

1. Plan with intention - Use Friday to plan the entire week ahead. Spend at least 2 hours on this. Planning is decision making. When you plan, you make decisions.
2. Get Ready for Monday – planning on Friday lets you hit the ground running on Monday. See the difference? You’re already a step ahead of everyone else.
3. Do Strategic Meetings Only – Book meetings with key contacts on Friday. Most will say Yes. They’re in down mode, so they’re easy to arrange.
4. Find Like-minded people – Connect with people that have the same values as you. Look around the office and ask, ‘who’s killing time v who’s using it’. Link up with those doing it right.
5. Do high impact tasks – disconnect from activities that suck the life out of you, your projects and your enjoyment in life.
6. Share useful information – everyone wants ‘relevant’ information. Select the 5 pieces of useful information you’ve read during the week and circulate these.
7. Authority – Establish yourself as someone who provides ‘useful’ and high value information not just cats doing ninja tricks.
8. Stay late – when everyone is gone, you can get focused and do more work. Global clients will still be up. Call them. Chase them up. Your colleagues won’t. They’re gone, so now is your chance.

What’s going on here?

It’s about behavior.

• It’s how others impact the way you behave and respond.
• To succeed, in the way you want to succeed, you need to observe how others make you behave the way you do.
• Admit it.
• Put a plan in place to create your own blueprint for success.
• Find ways to do this every day.
• See where you fall down, where you can improve and what you’re doing right.
• Keep at it.

Success is like developing a muscle. You have to train it, assess it, and increase it. Luckily, there are no short-cuts. If you persist, you’ll succeed. You have to!

What do you think?

Do you plan to make Friday’s the busiest day? What would change if you did?

Photo Credit puliarfanita

Once the initial wave of enthusiasm wears off, where do you find the motivation to give yourself a kick start? What do you do to make your next video or blog post? Here’s what I do to get myself working again.

Video Blogging – How To Stay Motivated & Find Your Mojo

Making videos is not hard. But, the editing, testing, fine-tuning and uploading takes time. And once it becomes a grind, we tend to lose interest. That’s not just you – that’s all of us.

1. Be realistic — if you can’t make a video every day, try for every week.
2. Baby Steps — Don’t defeat yourself. Start small, work up.
3. Batch Shoot — Don’t do one. Stop. Start. Do another. Stop. Start. Work in batches.
4. Be Consistent — Shoot five videos at the same time and then edit in one go.
5. Batch Edit — Edit in batches. Once you get into a groove, it’s easier to run thru the videos.
6. Storyboard — Bullet point or diagram what you’re going to shot. Don’t wing it. You’ll lose time.
7. Shoot everywhere – Places you find boring, others will find fascinating. Instead of shooting in your office, go outside and shoot it on the street corner. These small details give your video (and you!) a more interesting edge.
8. Get creative – Is there anything more boring that a guy talking into his laptop, sitting at home? You can do better – give it a shot.
9. Rewards – once you’ve completed a nice piece of work, treat yourself to a book you wouldn’t usually buy, maybe too expensive, or some equipment that you’ve always wanted. I want a Canon Monopod 100 for SLR Cameras.
   

How about you?

How do you avoid defeating yourself? What do you do get back in the saddle when you’re going thru a down-phase?

You can create more content for your blog – and generate more business – if you work in batches. Instead of creating videos, or writing blog posts, one by one, do them in batches. Organize your workspace so that you can process several videos/posts at the same time. Videos and blog posts don’t have to be long – but they have to be useful to the reader or viewer.

How To Create More Content & Be More Productive

Seven ways to be more useful to your readers:

1. Current – Talk about a current issue that the reader can relate to – and that you helped solve. Keep it simple. Don’t crow. Don’t take all the credit.
2. Problem – Discuss some common problem/business situation that arises every day and show how it can be fixed, reduced or mitigated against.
3. Angle – Provide an observation that encourages the reader to make a comment. “Ever been to London, here’s something I didn’t know about using mobile phones here…”
4. Ask for help. Ask the reader what they think about a business or technical problem you’re having. 
5. Challenge the reader. Ask them if they agree with you?
6. Provide useful information. Does it really help? No-one wants to hear you ramble. Share something that helps that other person with their business.
7. Focus in one area. Keep your blog under control. Keep drilling-down into these areas. Go narrow, not wide.

What do you think?

I know I’ve missed something here. What is it?

What do you want people to do after they’ve watched your video? Most beginners forget to ‘close the sale’. Their efforts go into making the video, getting it up on YouTube, but forget its original purpose. It’s easy to do when you’re in a hurry or engrossed in the technology. But you want people to do something, right? Otherwise, the point of the exercise is lost.

Video Blogging – Creating a Call to Action

Here’s how to create a Call to Action with your videos. Use your video blogs to encourage viewers to take some action. One of the mistakes new video bloggers make is that they overlook this step and assume that viewers will take the next step. They won’t!

Remind your viewers to take the next step.

1. Encourage them to sign up to your newsletter
2. Subscribe to your YouTube channel or
3. Leave comments

Also, remind them who you are: ‘’Hi, I’m Ivan Walsh from IvanWalsh.com, visit my website”.

Keep it short, less than three minutes and ALWAYS encourage the viewer to add a comment. That’s the easiest thing for them to do. Don’t make it difficult for them to interact – just remind them.

What did you think of this video, by the way?

Getting started with Clickbank is easier than you’d think. In this video, we look at how to get started, setup your account and start selling your first information product.

Video on How to Sign Up & Start Selling Information Products with Clickbank

This instructional video helps you get started with ClickBank. It walks you through the process of signing up for a ClickBank account.

Problems Getting Started with Clickbank?

What problems have you had getting started with Clickbank?

It is:

• How to set a price for your information products
• How to setup the account information
• Adding images for your products or
• Creating more affiliates?
• Selling digital goods outside the USA

For me, it was knowing how to price the product I was selling.

What’s the main problem you’ve had with Clickbank?

What’s the most common mistake people make when shooting their first video? Christopher Ming Ryan points out that most video-makers don’t get in close enough to the person talking. This lessens the impact of the message. Zoom in. Frame the face. Here’s some tips from Ivan.

#1 Mistake When Making Your First YouTube Video

I took this video in Beijing. Twice. In the second take, I’m closer to you and the impact is better. The first take was scrapped. Pointless.

But I still made mistakes:

• The sun is in my eyes, which is why I’m squinting
• The noise was louder that you’d think, making it harder to concentrate
• The camera was not stabilized, i.e. free-hand. Try to use a tripod if possible.

How to Make a Near Perfect YouTube Video

Ok, it’s not on YT, but you get the point. Seth Godin is the guy talking.

Try and beat this!

‘curiosity’ from Nic Askew on Vimeo.

What Other Mistakes Did You See?

This video is far from perfect. I know that. What else did I do wrong?

Fire away below!

Last week we looked at how much time you spend working every week. We looked at how Christine managed her time and tried to find ways to improve her productivity. The key here is to step back, see where you’re spending/wasting time and then find practical ways to address this. What works for Christine may not work for you – but making a start will make a difference. 

7 Ways to Save Time At Work

Here are some ways she created more time during the week.

• Attended team meetings but left after giving her presentation – unless it was critical to stay for the next presentation. Usually not.
• Stopped attending meetings where her input was not required, e.g. general FYIs and progress reports. She asked for the Status Reports from the PMs, accepted/rejected her tasks, and got back to work. See Project Management by video here.
• Worked from home every Tuesday (and later every Wed). This let her work – without interruption – for 10 hours.
• Booked conf rooms – just for herself – locked herself in and worked away in peace. When she worked at the desk, people kept interrupting.
• Ignored emails – except high priorities – for 24 hours. Why? Many small things resolved themselves. People found the document they were after. People didn’t need something anymore.
• Ignored low priorities emails for 72 hours. Why? Many emails were just total time-wasters. Spending time on this robbed her of time in other areas.
• Turned off her Blackberry, IM and email when working. She checked these on the dot at 11 am and 3pm.  Between then, she was ‘working’.

What Christine did was prioritize her work.

Providing she met her deliverables – or exceeded them as was now the case – her managers were fine. Co-workers had to change their expectations, i.e. she was not available for idle chatter, “How do I move a pig in Farmville?”, or activities that removed her from her goal.

See How to Get Your Email Answered.

What makes here different is that she has a definite goal. Her aim was to be more productive and get the recognition. Many people do the donkey work but don’t get the credit for it.

By using her time well, she showed senior mgt that she was a cut above the rest. When I left the project, she became the Team Lead.

See 4 Hour Week Cheat Sheet.

How about you?

How much time do you spend actually doing what you want to do? How do you stop others from wasting your time and pulling you away from your goals?

I’ve started to use video to sell (and upsell!) my digital downloads and information products. Like most beginners, I’m making mistakes at every step. But I’ve learnt a few tricks this week,  mostly thanks for Christopher Ming Ryan. Here’s what I learnt.

Video Blogging: Mistakes to Avoid

There are three steps involved in making videos:

1. Planning
2. Recording and
3. Editing

Most of us are good at one, but not so hot at the others. For me, it’s editing. No patience. Want to start the next. But I need to slow down. Here’s why:

• Great videos will significantly increase sales on your site, sales pages, squeeze pages – call them what you will but
• Lousy videos will drive potential customers away, screaming, ‘did you see how bad that was – my god!’

Christopher makes these suggestions:

• Start to like editing. It’s part of the process.
• Play with Camtasia or Premiere. Really take it apart and see what it can do.
• Don’t think of yourself as an Editor;  you’re a Director. See the difference?
• Study the best. Watch Rachel here.
• Invest in high-quality transitions. Watch the TV transitions on Rachel’s vids. Cool or what?
• #1 Mistake to avoid: the most interesting thing in the video is the face. Focus on it.

Watch Seth here. Compelling isn’t it?

‘curiosity’ from Nic Askew on Vimeo.

and watch Rachel. Look at how the transitions work.

Ok, that’s me.

What tips do you have for making better videos?

What’s the one thing you enjoyed most in Avatar? For my Project Management friend it was the video logging. Did you notice that the team kept their reports not in Microsoft Word (i.e. on paper) but as video logs.

When trying it out, the protagonist in the movie couldn’t get a handle on it. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll soon get used to it’, was the reply.  Well, it worked for them, could it work for you? Here are some of the reasons you might want to consider using video for project management activities.

What Avatar Can Teach You About Project Management

Advantages of video logging

• Capture Emotions— Capture human elements missing from electronic reports, such as emotions or subtle suggestions made in the video logs that would not otherwise be noticed.
• Speed — Videos are faster to make. You just open your mouth and talk! Consider the effort in using Microsoft Word, applying styles, finding the right template, typing, fixing grammar horrors etc.
• Convenience — you can record videos almost anywhere. The recording device is smaller and easier to transport.
• Faster — For me, using a flip camera is now as easy as a telephone – just start talking! Consider this against the effort in using Microsoft Word, applying styles, finding the right template, typing in, fixing grammar horrors etc.

Disadvantages of video logging

• Structure — you need to train people how to deliver video reports, otherwise they’ll ramble defeating the purpose.
• Search — while you can search Word files on the network by keyword (i.e. metadata), how would you do this with video? Is it possible to tag/keyword videos as we do with Word docs and online reports?
• Edits — while videos are faster to make, if they need to be edited, then you lose the upside.
• Convenience — while you can record videos almost anywhere, this can be abused as employees file in reports pretending to be onsite with the client.
• Compliance – the number of laptops stolen each year (holding confidential data) continues to rise. This raises issues with unauthorized user video apps to submit, retrieve, share confidential data. Of course, this also applies to PC, iPhones etc.
• Storage — maybe this is no longer as problem as the cost of server space continues to fall and compression technologies improve. But would terabytes of data get expensive in the end? Not sure.

Should Project Manager use video for status reports?

It’s early days yet but I can see the attraction of using video to file in reports.  The difficulty may be in getting people to make the change. As it often the case, the problem is not in the processes or technological benefits, but the human issues that underpin these decisions.

What do you think?

Could it work? What do you think is the main barrier to using video more frequently in the work place?

What do you want to see in Microsoft Office 2010? Arpan Shan, who has access to the beta versions at Microsoft, shares his favorite 10 Office 2010 features.

Some of these you may already know, but he highlights some nice ideas that seem to be coming through. In Word 2010, for example, you will have an in-built screen capture tool that takes screenshots of whatever apps you have open. Interesting to see how Techsmith, the makers of Snagit, will respond to this.

Also, Scott Stiles, the head of the Program Management team for Word, describes the aims and objectives that Microsoft has for this new release.

1. Office Web Applications

He says that “the other advantage of Office Web Applications over a service like Google Docs/Spreadsheets is that not only will consumers be able to use this on Windows Live, but Enterprises can deploy Office Web Applications on their own SharePoint servers”.

Nice for corp users but doesn’t really help the little people.

2. Screen clippings

Here you can insert screenshots of applications that you open right from within Office. This saves you having to use Snagit or other screenshot applications. Not sure if you can crop or edit the screenshot. But if you just want a basic screenshot app, this will be useful.

3. Image Background Removal

He adds that previously he had to use other applications to make the background transparent but can now do this within applications like PowerPoint 2010.

4. Outlook User Experience

There are many UX enhancements in Outlook 2010. For example, when you receive meeting requests, you can see your other scheduled appointments inline.

You also have tips throughout Outlook 2010 that tell you if you’re above your quota, you’re going to send an email outside your organization, etc.

5. Video editing

In PowerPoint 2010, you can now insert and edit video. Not only can videos be inserted, but they can be modified. You can trim the video, set the image cover for the video, add borders, add other effects like reflection as well as other special effects.

PPTX files will increase in size (dramatically, I assume) when you add images and videos.

After trimming the video correctly in PowerPoint 2010, you can compress the media size to improve performance and reduce the size of the file.

6. PowerPoint Broadcasting

PowerPoint 2010 has a new broadcasting feature that lets you share PPT presentation.

You can either use a public “PowerPoint Broadcast Service” (you need a Live ID and it’s free) or an internal SharePoint server.

This lets you email a URL to a group of people and they can watch you deliver your PPTX from their browser.

7. PowerPoint Transitions

Some stylish new transitions are on the way. Let’s wait and see.

8. Copy/Paste

In current versions of Microsoft Office, you often end up using paste, look, undo, paste special, etc.

In Office 2010, there’s copy and paste live preview.

This lets you preview how different paste options will look without having to undo, paste, undo paste.

9. SharePoint Workspace

SharePoint Workspace (formerly Groove) lets you work with SharePoint content.

You can take SharePoint lists & libraries offline, provide a rich client UX and background syncing with SharePoint which helps with performance especially in low latency situations.

10. Sparklines

Excel 2010 introduces Sparklines.

This lets you show data trends in a one data cell.

It’s very useful when you’re analyzing numbers over time across a number of time periods. There are many forms sparklines can take from lines to columns to more yes/no type options for win/loss data.

Screenshots and more examples on MSDN

Of all the features here, the two that interests me the most are the screenshots and the copy/paste options.

Why?

Well, because these are two activities that I do all day. Some of the others, like video editing in PowerPoint don’t interest me – I‘ll use Camtasia instead anyway.

But, improved screenshot capabilities would make a huge difference, especially if I can work on the screenshots, maybe add arrows and explanatory text.

How about you? What do you REALLY want to see in Microsoft Office 2010!

I’m thinking of updating the site and creating printer friendly pages. This seems like a good idea as we have lots of tutorials and such that people (like you!) might want to print out. So, how do you create printer friendly pages?

[ad#adc-2]

‘Providing separate stylesheets for printing a web page was good idea in theory, but in practice it all falls down.’

The idea here is to involve server-side script (PHP and ASP based systems) which will reload the target page and replace regular CSS file with stylesheet especially suitable for printing an article, entry, post or whatever.

To make stylesheet for printing, decide what parts of your layout are not likely to be printed (like various banners, navigation etc.). The simplest way to hide them is to define them as display: none;. If you are not familiar with stylesheets for print read more about it. Anyway, keep it simple—black text on the white background, with a font-size: 12pt; is a good start. When you’re done with it, continue reading.

Maratz.com seems to have the best solution. Here’s how it works:

Setting up the Query

Now that we have all client-side ingredients in place, we can put it all together. First, we have to add a link somewhere around the article, for example:

<h1>Title of the article</h1>

<p>Lorem ipsum…</p>

<a href=”?q=printme”>printer friendly version</a>

It literally means we are requesting this same page, but with a query q=printme. To make our page recognizes what we are asking it, we have to add somewhere in the <head> section some logic, something like:

“If i’m asked to ‘printme’—i’ll load my printing stylesheet, and if i’m not asked anything—i’ll load my default CSS file.”

Depending of your preferences there are two scripts—PHP and ASP. Backup your HTML file and replace the part where you called your CSS file with one of the following examples.

PHP print script

<?php if ($_GET['q'] == “printme”) { ?>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”print.css” />

<?php } else { ?>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”default.css” />

<?php } ?>

ASP print script

<% If Request.QueryString(“q”) = “printme” Then %>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”print.css” />

<% Else %>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”default.css” />

<% End if %>

You can read the full article over here:

http://www.maratz.com/blog/archives/2004/09/21/10-minutes-to-printer-friendly-page/

PS – If you’ve found this article useful, please consider giving us a Digg or StumbleUpon.

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter: @ivanwalsh

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ivanwalsh

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanwalsh

Templates: http://www.klariti.com

Tips:  http://www.ivanwalsh.com

I’m thinking of updating the site and creating printer friendly pages. This seems like a good idea as we have lots of tutorials and such that people (like you!) might want to print out. So, how do you create printer friendly pages?

[ad#adc-2]

‘Providing separate stylesheets for printing a web page was good idea in theory, but in practice it all falls down.’

The idea here is to involve server-side script (PHP and ASP based systems) which will reload the target page and replace regular CSS file with stylesheet especially suitable for printing an article, entry, post or whatever.

To make stylesheet for printing, decide what parts of your layout are not likely to be printed (like various banners, navigation etc.). The simplest way to hide them is to define them as display: none;. If you are not familiar with stylesheets for print read more about it. Anyway, keep it simple—black text on the white background, with a font-size: 12pt; is a good start. When you’re done with it, continue reading.

Maratz.com seems to have the best solution. Here’s how it works:

Setting up the Query

Now that we have all client-side ingredients in place, we can put it all together. First, we have to add a link somewhere around the article, for example:

<h1>Title of the article</h1>

<p>Lorem ipsum…</p>

<a href=”?q=printme”>printer friendly version</a>

It literally means we are requesting this same page, but with a query q=printme. To make our page recognizes what we are asking it, we have to add somewhere in the <head> section some logic, something like:

“If i’m asked to ‘printme’—i’ll load my printing stylesheet, and if i’m not asked anything—i’ll load my default CSS file.”

Depending of your preferences there are two scripts—PHP and ASP. Backup your HTML file and replace the part where you called your CSS file with one of the following examples.

PHP print script

<?php if ($_GET['q'] == “printme”) { ?>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”print.css” />

<?php } else { ?>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”default.css” />

<?php } ?>

ASP print script

<% If Request.QueryString(“q”) = “printme” Then %>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”print.css” />

<% Else %>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”default.css” />

<% End if %>

You can read the full article over here:

http://www.maratz.com/blog/archives/2004/09/21/10-minutes-to-printer-friendly-page/

PS – If you’ve found this article useful, please consider giving us a Digg or StumbleUpon.

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter: @ivanwalsh

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ivanwalsh

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanwalsh

Templates: http://www.klariti.com

Tips:  http://www.ivanwalsh.com

Charlene Li and her colleagues at Forrester Research report that companies often approach Social Computing as a list of technologies to be deployed as needed — ie a random assortment of blogs, communities etc— to achieve a marketing goal. Ms Li argues that “a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for.”

You can use the tool here to get started. www.forrester.com/Groundswell

Features of this profile:

• For an explanation of these groups (Creators, Critics, etc.), see a presentation (8 slides)

• Bars indicate the percentage of the selected demographic that are in each Social Technographics group.

• The white marks indicate the same percentages for the whole population of the country selected.

• The index indicates how the demographic compares to the population — a score of 100 means the demographic is the same as the population average.

• The message “No data available” appears when you request a profile for which our survey samples are not large enough to provide a reliable answer. This occurs for age groups in Japan, Metro China, and South Korea. To see profiles in these countries, set the Age to “Not specified”.

Some really terrific material over here including free case studies, PDF downloads and extracts from the book.

If you’ve read it, please let me know what you think.

Regards,

Ivan

and you can Twitter me @ivanwalsh

Note: Any use of data and charts generated from this site must include the following citation: Data from Forrester Research Technographics® surveys, 2008. For further details on the Social Technographics profile, see groundswell.forrester.com.

Charlene Li and her colleagues at Forrester Research report that companies often approach Social Computing as a list of technologies to be deployed as needed — ie a random assortment of blogs, communities etc— to achieve a marketing goal. Ms Li argues that “a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for.”

You can use the tool here to get started. www.forrester.com/Groundswell

Features of this profile:

• For an explanation of these groups (Creators, Critics, etc.), see a presentation (8 slides)

• Bars indicate the percentage of the selected demographic that are in each Social Technographics group.

• The white marks indicate the same percentages for the whole population of the country selected.

• The index indicates how the demographic compares to the population — a score of 100 means the demographic is the same as the population average.

• The message “No data available” appears when you request a profile for which our survey samples are not large enough to provide a reliable answer. This occurs for age groups in Japan, Metro China, and South Korea. To see profiles in these countries, set the Age to “Not specified”.

Some really terrific material over here including free case studies, PDF downloads and extracts from the book.

If you’ve read it, please let me know what you think.

Regards,

Ivan

and you can Twitter me @ivanwalsh

Note: Any use of data and charts generated from this site must include the following citation: Data from Forrester Research Technographics® surveys, 2008. For further details on the Social Technographics profile, see groundswell.forrester.com.

I’ve been reading this book most of the weekend. It’s a terrific exploration of social media and how social media technologies are effecting corporations and companies from a business perspective. I thought you might want look at these links as these are the footnotes to the book and provide some very interesting material. Worth a look if you’re trying to get a handle on how twitter, facebook and the rest will impact your profit margin.

This morning I’ve been putting the finishing touches on some Process Design Template. The final step is the packaging, including the product shots and other marketing materials. Something I thought I’d share with you is how I take screenshots and especially tricks I use to add some nice effects.
The first image is the standard screenshot.

In the next I used Techsmith’s Snagit to modify the image so that it has this nice effect.

And then I flip it around in the other direction.

Let me know how you take screenshots and what tricks you’ve found to be most effective.

Regards,
Ivan
Twitter @ivanwalsh