EBay Conference Call Class 5 More advanced EBay and EBay Stores

Setting up an eBay Store- Setting up a eBay store is one of the best things you can do if you plan on using eBay as a full time business. The eBay store is relatively easy to set up and has some great features to help you take you eBay business to the next level. The first thing you will need to do is go to www.ebay.com and click on the “stores” link in the upper left hand corner. Once you have clicked on that link you can then click on the link on the right that says, “Open a store”. Once you have selected on that it will give you some info on what options they have. EBay has 3 types of stores you can choose from. For most of you, you will want to select on the “basic” store. It is $15.95 per month. The others are more advance and therefore more expensive, so most of you will start with the basic store. It will allow you to list several items in a centralized location on eBay. You listing fees are substantial smaller using a store. Also when you have an eBay store it allows you to create an “about me” page. The about me page gives you several additional options from a marketing standpoint.

Store Referral Credit EBay’s store referral credit program is a new program eBay has put in place. The program basically will allow people to receive eBay store credit to there account every time a sell is made on his or her eBay store from a location outside of eBay. EBay will give you a 75% credit on your final Value Fees when your marketing efforts generate sales of your Stores Inventory format listings. This is a GREAT program you can take advantage of when you have an eBay store, especially for those of you that have a separate website. EBay does however have some requirements that have to be met.
• One of the requirements is the buyer must go to your store because of your promotion outside of eBay.

• Purchaser must buy off of the link to the promotion. Meaning, if someone clicks on your link and goes to your eBay store, but then closes the window, if they come back to buy something it bust be again off the link or eBay will not recognize that is came from a site out side of eBay.

• Item also must be sold in the Store inventory format. Sales of auction-style and regular Fixed Price format items will not earn Store Referral Credits, even though these items appear in your Store.
This can be a great program to further your online business using eBay’s promotion to eliminate some of the listing fee’s especially for those who have a separate website.

Pay Per Click Search Engines

What are pay per click search engines: The process of paid advertising. It’s the idea of paying for your listing or location on a search engine, rather than the search engine themselves deciding your location.

What are the benefits of PPC?s
• Immediate traffic
• Targeted traffic
• Ease of use

Pay Per click search engines. The top three are…
• Google
• Yahoo
• MSN

Other Pay Per click search engines you can use…
• Miva (formerly Findwhat)
• Kanoodle
• Enhance
• Lycos
Keyword Research
• Bidding on the right keyword phrases
• Word Tracker http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com
• Buyer search behavior
•
Organizing your PPC Campaigns
• Break them into ad groups.
Campaign 1 = Ad group 1 a. Keyword phrase 1
b. Keyword phrase 2
c. Keyword phrase 3

Campaign 2 = Ad group 2 a. Keyword phrase 1
b. Keyword phrase 2
c. Keyword phrase 3

Budgeting & Cost Per Click
• Setting a daily budget
• Setting a maximum Cost Per Click (CPC)
• View traffic estimator

This one isn’t on the original list, but I thought it appropriate to add it. Yes, you might be an entrepreneur if you have dreams in which you have dinner with the parents of your contractors. But that’s not even half the story.

Yesterday I was thinking about one of my contractors and thinking “You know, if this contractor would just…

@ChrisKnudsen tweeted this must read article from Entrepreneur magazine that has great advice like this. “Never assume all of the risk in exchange for half of the reward.” Or, another way of saying this: don’t do all the work for nothing…because if you work with types identified in this article you’re likely to have nothing to split.

Favorite quotes:
“Brilliant academics are not necessarily brilliant businessmen.”
“In lieu of a partnership, first consider licensing deals or strategic partnerships.” (I’m not sure what the difference is between strategic partnerships and partnerships.)

My advice… The quicker they are to offer ownership in exchange for payment, the more doubts I have. If you’re really going to make money you don’t want to bring on more partners to share the profits with. I’ve never seen this work.

The types mentioned in the article ring so true that it’s funny!

We also discussed business to business sales and how when working with potential clients avoid those who don’t return calls or emails. They aren’t ready or aren’t interested. That sounds obvious but it’s my first weeding out.

Example (for some reason I hear more examples of PR firms this year so I’m using them in this example but it applies to all kinds of partnerships):

PR firm: Let’s work together! Send us everything (many requests follow).

Me: Send something, get no response. Or get response months later at the last minute.
Message: We’re too busy to talk to you.
Me: Stop all work.

I’m often jealous of people who have good business partnerships because it’s something I haven’t been able to pull off. I always attract the same sort of person. Maybe it’s a reflection of my own weaknesses! But starting next week I’m going to work for my husband part time and it’s our first anniversary. The marriage partnership is going great - hopefully this new one will too!

Any advice to share from your partnerships?

To show clients that I “practice what I teach” in regards to blogging consistently, I’ve decided to post informative videos about online marketing, sales, and mindset from time to time that will help you learn more from the best of the best. Matt Cutts is definitely one of those when it comes to search engines.

In this video, Matt talks about getting certain URLs off Google’s search results.

Why wouldn’t you want URLs on Google?

If you’re a website that has private information like credit cards, social security numbers or the like, you probably don’t want people (or search engines) to discover these by accident.

Here are some of the tips Matt shares about removing certain URLS from Google’s search results:

• Don’t Link to the Page – “not a great approach…” This is a very weak strategy if you are trying to keep web pages off Google.
• htaccess – this lets you re-direct from one URL to another. You can password protect certain pages, which will help keep certain pages off Google. “This is very good…if you have a password on the directory, Google won’t crawl that page.” One of the high recommendations.
• robots.txt – this is an electronic “no trespassing” tool. This tool is provided on the Google Webmaster console. The best thing about this tool is that it’s testable before it goes live.
• no index meta tag – this will still be crawled but the page won’t be indexed. Yahoo and other search engines may still link to this page.
• no follow on individual links – this is a “weak approach”.
• URL Removal Tool – this tool is found in Google Webmaster Console. This tool is simple and easy to use. It removes the URL for 6 months. Make sure to prove that your site is YOURS. Another tools highly recommended.

If there are videos you find that give great tips, please email me today!

I just had a question about newsletters and thought I’d post my thoughts. I spoke to Joan Stewart of Publicity Hound last week. She asked me why I don’t collect email addresses. I didn’t have a good answer except that I haven’t. So I’m not an expert on email newsletters. I’ve read about them but haven’t done one consistently, but here are my thoughts.

Email Newsletter Tips

• Spend time looking at newsletters you like and borrow elements that you like.

• Consider running a design contest to come up with an effective design. This usually involves having a design made then someone to mark it up (coding). I like Digital Point Forums or 99 Designs. I’m horrible at design and picky (a terrible client) and this helps me get a broad range of designs to choose from. It’s also more fun. It’s also great when you’re on a budget.

• Reuse content as much as possible (from your blog, what people have said to you on twitter, customer comments and questions, etc). This blog post came from a question I answered by email and I just expanded it into a full post.
• Do you currently capture email addresses for newsletters on your blog and web site? Remember that your own list is more effective than one you buy. Also consider asking another company who has a complimentary but not competitive position in the market  if you can write something for their audience. In return put a link to sign up for your newsletter.
• Promote your social networking sites where people can interact with you (places to find products, featured product testimonials, video and photos). Link to your Facebook Page, your YouTube channel, your Twitter account, your blog, etc.

I like the idea of a giveaway for those who sign up for your newsletter and/or post to you on a social network with a story, a photo, video, etc relating to your company. I need to do this (give away copies of my book).

I also found this advice about newsletters:

Give readers actionable content - information they can use right away to solve a problem. You just need to know what your readers’ problems are.

How do you find out what’s on your readers’ minds? Survey them. You can ask, “What is the one problem that’s nagging you that you really want to solve?” If you ask that kind of question, then you’re going to get a variety of answers, and you’ll know what you should be writing about.

I’d probably go with Aweber for its solid reputation but I’m also an affiliate of Constant Contact makes it easy and affordable to build strong relationships with your customers. Try our FREE 60-Day Trial. ">Constant Contact (free 60 day trial) which is probably the easiest to figure out. Aweber though is known for being whitelisted (less email providers marking your newsletter as spam that goes straight to trash). Since you share the same server with groups then a spammer can get the entire group banned.

Since email newsletters are not my expertise I’d like to hear what you think. Comments?

In 1964, 38 people in Queens, New York, witnessed the murder of one of their neighbors, a young woman named Kitty Genovese. A serial killer attacked and stabbed Genovese late one night outside her apartment house, and these 38 neighbors later admitted to hearing her screams; at least three said they saw part of the attack take place. Yet no one intervened.

Social Psychologists call this phenomena the Bystander Problem or Bystander Dilemma or Bystander Effect. I believe the same effect happens in “Reply All” email communication.

Shortly after the incident, psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latané sought to understand this phenomena: How can a handful of people aware of a murder fail to do nothing — how can rational people choose to not help another human being?  In answering this thesis, they arrived at one of the most replicable social experiments even to this day.

Cubicle-Seizure Study

College students sat in a cubicle and were instructed to talk with fellow students through an intercom. They were told that they would be speaking with one, two, or six other students, and only one person could use the intercom at a time.  There was actually only one other person in the study — a confederate (someone working with the researchers).  Early in the study, the confederate mentioned that he sometimes suffered from seizures. The next time he spoke, he became increasingly loud and incoherent; he pretended to choke and gasp. Before falling silent, he  stammered:

If someone could help me out it would it would er er s-s-sure be sure be good… because er there er er a cause I er I uh I’ve got a a one of the er sei-er-er things coming on and and and I could really er use some help … I’m gonna die er er I’m gonna die er help er er seizure er ….

The results of the experiment:

• Of the 2 person room, 85% left their cubicles to help.
• Of the 3 person room, 62% left their cubicles to help.
• Of the 6 person room, 31% left their cubicles to help.

Diffusion and Confusion of Responsibility

Notice that the more humans there were, the likelihood of receiving help decreases — there appears to be an inverse relationship between the likelihood of receiving help and the presence of other humans.  John Darley and Bibb Latané believed that the root cause of this behavior is attributed to a Diffusion and Confusion of Responsibility.

Smoke Room Study

Another experiment:

They asked participants to fill out questionnaires in a laboratory room.  After the participants had gotten to work, smoke filtered into the room — a clear signal of danger.  How would the participants respond if they were alone versus if they were accompanied by other humans?

The results:

• When alone, 75% percent left the room and reported the smoke.
• With 3 people in the room, 38% percent left to report the smoke.
• With two confederates (working with psychologists) instructed not to show any concern, 10% reported the smoke.

In two seperate and distinct studies shown above, the results were similar.  John Darley and Bibb Latané conducted many more similar studies and other social psychologists have done a number of novel studies since, and the results are starkly similar and behavior is depressingly predictive: When others are involved, most of us are Bystanders.

Most of us are Bystanders

“Reply All”

In a business setting, the most egregious situation that invites Bystander behavior is the “Reply All” email.  When others are included in the “To” field, I submit most of us either glance the email or delete it wholesale.

Why?

John Darley and Bibb Latané would most likely attribute that response to a diffusion of responsibility — when many people are included in the email, we’re either confused of the request or believe that the request will be satisfied by one of the people for which that email was addressed — we believe that at least 1 of the 15 people will respond.

Unfortunately, this assumption is often wrong.

Indeed, when we engage in this type of email communication, we are creating an environment in which we invite others to be Bystanders.

We sometimes create an environment in which we invite others to be Bystanders – we are sometimes the root cause for others Bystanding

Anti-Bystander Behavior

Fortunately in the email communication space, the countermeasure to Bystander behavior is simple:

1. Address only the relevant people in an email – and not too many people
   
2. Address, by name, the person to whom you are requesting advice, help, or approval
3. Be clear, concise, and make your request explicit — do not leave the recipient guessing

In this setting, the countermeasure is simple, intuitive, effective — but it’s not simplistic.

Conclusion

Let us not create business environments that encourage bystander behavior — let us act for good, let us do good, and allow others to do the same.

EBay Conference Call Class 4 Making your auction standout.
Auction management services.

This course will review what eBay and PayPal are, and then teach how to create an eBay store, which is an eCommerce website that can be optimized for search engines. An eBay store can be created in just days, whereas a regular website may take weeks or months to build. Many students have made several hundred dollars a week within a month of starting their eBay store.

Professional looking pictures: Now that you have some experience listing items for sell on eBay. Let’s talk about ways you can improve those auction so they can stand out in the crowd. There are several things that you can do to help this and one of those is taking professional looking pictures. Spend some time taking a picture especially for a higher priced item. Remember when you buy online you are basically buying the picture and description of the item. So if you have to take 3 or 4 pictures to get a good, then go ahead and do that. Also when you sell and item that is slightly used or new you may try to find a manufactures picture to use instead of your own. You can also use programs such as www.photobucket.com to help you post pictures and make sure they look good. Also for more helpful tips use the community board on eBay. Go to www.ebay.com and click on community in the upper left hand corner. Then click on workshops/discussion forums There is always updated tutorial on different things you can do to help you auctions.

Using HTML to help your page stand out: For those of you that have HTML experience, this can really help you. There are many different things you can do to a page if you are familiar with HTML. If you aren’t familiar with HTML, there are several sites out there that have HTML cheat sheets that will help you get some of the basics down. One particular site you can use is http://www.webmonkey.com/reference/HTML_Cheatsheet this is a great resource to use to start learning some basic HTML. Also you can use the book titled HTML for dummies that is a great book that will help you start learning HTML. Another one you can use is www.htmlprimer.com this site is full of tutorials on how to use and implement HTML. You can also use predesigned templates to help your site as well. A good resource to find templates is www.desacs.com some templates are free and some have a small fee but you can use those for templates if you are interested in that. Templates still give you some customization to your eBay auction and store, without you having to know HTML.

Setting up your About Me page: Setting up an about me page on eBay can be very beneficial for you. The about me page on eBay gives you the seller an opportunity to introduce yourself to potential customers. It also gives you some other marketing opportunities. The about me page on eBay is the only place eBay will allow you to have a direct link to another website. So for those of you that have another website, outside of eBay, this gives you an opportunity to link to that site, without eBay stopping it. EBay gets a ton of traffic on a daily basis and this is one way you can use that eBay traffic to help promote your website. For those that have a website when you design your eBay stores try to use similar colors and layouts that coordinate with your website.

Ebay Services and Auction management programs: EBay has a great tool you can use that is called EBay’s Turbo Lister. You can download it at http://pages.ebay.com/TURBO_LISTER/ there are several advantages to using the turbo Lister but one of the major ones is the fact that you can list and item while you are offline. You can go to that link for a complete list of features.

EBay Conference Call Class 5 More advanced EBay and EBay Stores

Setting up an eBay Store- Setting up a eBay store is one of the best things you can do if you plan on using eBay as a full time business. The eBay store is relatively easy to set up and has some great features to help you take you eBay business to the next level. The first thing you will need to do is go to www.ebay.com and click on the “stores” link in the upper left hand corner. Once you have clicked on that link you can then click on the link on the right that says, “Open a store”. Once you have selected on that it will give you some info on what options they have. EBay has 3 types of stores you can choose from. For most of you, you will want to select on the “basic” store. It is $15.95 per month. The others are more advance and therefore more expensive, so most of you will start with the basic store. It will allow you to list several items in a centralized location on eBay. You listing fees are substantial smaller using a store. Also when you have an eBay store it allows you to create an “about me” page. The about me page gives you several additional options from a marketing standpoint.