2 The Next Level

Archive for June, 2008

Visa is giving the first 20,000 U.S. based small businesses that sign up a $100 Facebook ad credit. As soon as you join the Network, you will get an email back with a coupon code you can claim, to run ads on Facebook.

I saw this awesome offer on Anita Campbell’s Blog “Small Business Trends” and had to share it. I immediately logged onto my Facebook account and did a search for Visa and found the Visa Business Network. After filling out a short business profile form and adding the Visa Business Network to one of my Facebook Pages I got an email from Facebook with my 100.00 Facebook advertising credit.

One hundred dollars is not much but it is a great way to test an ad out on the Facebook community with no cost to your business. If all goes well I will hope to parlay this gift from Visa into more revenue for my business.

Thanks again Anita

JB

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Robert Scoble the author of the Blog “Scobleizer” does and in depth interview with Sridhar Vembu the CEO and Raju Vegesna the Evangelist of Zoho. Zoho is number 1 on my list of Top 10 Web 2.0 Sites for Solopreneurs. I use the Zoho Suite almost every day to help run my business.

Solopreneurs and small businesses really need to take a good look at utilizing a service like Zoho in order to keep your business productive and more cost efficient.

Zoho is giving companies like Google, Salesforce and even Microsoft a run for their money. Where else can you get to use an office suite similar to Microsoft Office, Google Apps and Salesforce CRM all for FREE.

Take a look at this interview and let me know your thoughts.

All the best

JB

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I just listened to a great interview on one of my favorite Internet radio shows. Brent Leary the host for the podcast “Business For Technology Sake” interviewed David Meerman Scott author of the book The New Rules in PR and Marketing.

If you have not heard one of Brent Leary’s interviews you are in for a treat. If you are a child of the 80′s like me and loved the music that crossed the air waves back then you will enjoy Brent’s intro song selection. Brent has a different track for almost all of his podcast.

I won’t give it away but you have got to hear David Meerman Scott describe one of his New Rules that he says was worth over a Million dollars to him. I am also looking forward to reading his FREE e-book which assisted him in getting his book deal.

So take a listen to Brent’s Podcast with David Meerman Scott and let me know what you think. You can also feel free to download Mr. Meerman’s E-book from the link below.

All the best

JB

The New Rules of PR (1068) - 377.38 KB

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If you are a solopreneur or small business owner that is on the go and has more than one phone number you will definatley appreciate this post. What if you can could be contacted using one phone number on any of your main phone devices. Most of use have at least 3 different phone numbers. Home, work and cell and if you miss a call on any one of these numbers you have to get the message from 3 different voice mail boxes.

Enter GrandCentral one number for life. As a fellow Solopreneur I need to make sure I don’t miss a call. But if I do miss a call I don’t want to have to check three different voice mail services. Right now you can get a GrandCentral phone number for Free while it is still in Bata. When someone calls that number it calls me on any of the phones I choose and if I miss the call I can check the messages via my phone or better yet I get an email message and I can check the voice mail via the web.

My favorite feature has to be the ability to screen any of your incoming calls. We all remember the best thing about having our old answering machines was being able to listen to the person who called and decide if we wanted to talk to them. Well you you can do the same thing with your GrandCentral number. When someone calls you and you are unsure you want to talk to them just hit the 3 button on your phone and you get to screen the callers message.

If I decide after listening in on the callers message I want to talk to them all I have to do is hit the Star Key (*) on my phone keypad and I can join the call. What’s great is just like an answering machine the caller can’t hear you or know that you are listening and if you decide you don’t want to talk to them they just leave their message on the voice mail.

I now have one number 404-287-0848 and one number only. Numbers on GrandCentral are going fast so I suggest you get one ASAP.

All The Best

JB

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I have owned well over 100 domain names over the many years I have been on the Internet. For some of you who don’t remember when the world wide web first starting out domain names were actually FREE. Yes, I said FREE. Since then domain names have taken a roller coaster ride. Today you can register a domain name for as little as 6.95 per year and in some cases depending on who is doing the promotion Free domain name registrations are still available.

The number of dotcom domain names has soared more than 130 percent to 66 million. Every two seconds, another joins the list.

So what is in a domain name that can be worth millions? Well according to Business 2.0 Magazine Kevin Ham’s domain names have made him 300 million dollars richer. Kevin Ham owns domain names like Weddingcatering.com and Greeting.com which he paid $350.000 for when it went up for bid 2 years ago. Mr. Ham owns about 300,000 domain names, and No that was not a typo. He owns roughly 300,000 plus domain names that bring in about 70 million a year in revenue.

Mr. Ham’s biggest claim to fame though is the Cameroon typo mistake in which he has made a killing.

What say you is the Cameroon typo mistake? Well all of us have done this at least once or twice or more when we type in a .com domain name as .cm instead. Go ahead and try it on almost any popular domain name that you can come up with. Try it and see what happens.

If Mr. Ham is still taking advantage of the Cameroon .cm typo then you will see a website with all kinds of related information to your typed in domain name. Lets just use one of my favorite baseball teams the New York Yankees and type in www.yankees.com The page that comes up has many related content links for the New York Yankees. The only thing is you will also see that Agoga.com brand at the bottom of the page which lets you know that site is owned by Mr. Kevin Ham.

Mr. Ham, a self made solopreneur millionaire, made a deal with the country of Cameroon who owns the domain name extension .cm to redirect almost every domain name that is miss typed .cm to one of his Agoga.com websites. These website have both Google and Yahoo pay-per-click ads on them. Mr. Ham then gets the revenue made when you go to one of these sites and click on one of the related links. He then splits some of the revenue with the country of Cameroon.

So what is in a domain name for you. Well I don’t expect you to acquire as many domain name as Mr. Ham or even me for that matter. What I do expect is that take advantage of all the great things that can become of your business with spending as little as $6.95 on a domain name. If you don’t have your own domain name for your business I suggest you go to a website like www.proemailaddress.com and register your company domain name for $6.95.

The possibilities are endless once you have your own registered piece of the world wide web.

All The Best

JB

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