I deleted the post!  As is usually the case, as soon as I had deleted it, I wanted it back!  There is probably some kind of zen thing there, or at the very least one of those Chinese proverbs; you know the ones, “man goes to bed in evening with coat-hanger in mouth, wake up in morning with smile on face”.  What does that mean exactly.  I can think of quite a lot of things that would make me wake up with a smile on my face (well okay, one thing and I can’t write it here!) but going to bed with a coat-hanger in my mouth would just hurt, really, really badly!  So did someone actually do that then, I mean, go to bed with a coat-hanger in their mouth.  If they didn’t, then how do they know that you wake up with a smile on your face?  Anyways, I digress a little!!

I was fed up and took it out on a poor defenceless blog post.  Instead of trying to rationalise the situation, or at least sleep on it, I kneejerked!  I reacted to the situation and instead of taking a step back and having a thunk, I ploughed right with nil, no, Nada, zip, bugger all consideration for the consequences of my action.  Still, at the end of the day, it was only a blog post!

Back to this post then (collective sigh of relief!).  What does the title mean and why write now (at stupid o-clock in the morning!)?.  Well it means that I have decided to change direction in my erstwhile but realistically fruitless attempts at earning a living online!  I have been trying to do everything; create a product, create a membership, create a shop, maintain a blog, post videos, spin articles, drum up traffic, build a list, create another membership and to what end.  Lots of frustration and nil achievement!  Stuff that then!  And by the way, I’m writing this because a very good friend reminded me in the usual totally unsubtle way that I needed to write a post.  Of course, if said friend had bothered to visit the blog last night, they would have seen the original (now extinct) post and not had to resort to blatant mockery in order to get me to post….thanks though!!

I signed up to the John Thornhill Marketing Masterclass last year and I’ve got about 11 weeks to go until I complete the course.  John is ace and is even acer (!) as of the other day when he sent all members an email stating we had free membership to this years course.  So this is what I have decided to do.  Bin the membership site, blog shop etc and concentrate on two things.

I am going to keep ResellRightsShop going, even though I am extremely disillusioned (more on that in next post).  It would be easy to give on the shop.  It’s a lot of work.  It would be easy if I could do what people on info product sites such as trade-bit do; blatantly ignore the terms of the license, price everything at under a dollar despite the obvious value and earning opportunity if done correctly.  That said, I have put a lot of personal time into ResellRightsShop and don’t want to have wasted that time.  I will therefore keep uploading a product on a daily basis until it is one of the largest (non auction) information product shops in the world, nay the universe!

The second project I am going to keep going is this blog.  I will use it as a sort of buffer for the John Thornhill Marketing Masterclass.  I will start the new course whilst finishing the old course and post regular updates to tell the world what topics we are studying and how they will benefit my marketing campaigns.  As part of the course I will write my first information product and will make it available as a download to my subscribers.  Of course that means you will need something to subscribe to before you can be a subscriber (err, chicken, egg, anyone?!).  Not sure what the product will be yet but probably something on the social networking side of Internet marketing.  There are a hell of a lot of resources out there that will aid any Internet marketer in establishing a secondary “social” list to market to.  There are also a lot of sites out there with resources pretending to help that will actually harm your campaigns.  I have learnt this through often painful experience!  In the meantime, I will maintain the thread of compliant sites, looking at what policies you really need to ensure you don’t have the contents of your bank account taken from you!

So there ya go.  Hope you are still awake and looking forward to the next cunningly constructed (try saying that after a few sherbets!) post.  At the end of the day, there is always someone a little worse off than you are, in my case its the cat and I will have to go and remove my Homer Simpson slipper from it’s backside pretty soon I think!!

That’s all Folks;

John.

PS – I’ve just spellchecked this post and Teco’s aren’t in the dictionary. Ha, sherbet is so that puts Tesco’s lower than a children’s confectionery (even if it is a damn good confectionery and even if Tesco’s sell them, which they probably do as they seem to sell everything else!).

PPS – I managed to change my jeans in the end.  I found the ticket thingy in the pocket!  Which just goes to show………………something!

The theme of today’s post is the the distinct lack of Customer service I see in the UK as compared to other countries I have visited, particularly the US.  I have come to the conclusion that it is our own fault.  We don’t complain enough and that has allowed a “Customer is never right” attitude to creep into virtually every shopping outlet I visit.  I am not for one moment advocating that the “Customer is always right” but surely there is a middle ground that UK retail outlets seem to have missed entirely!  I’ll be discussing these points further in a future post but I want to explore the similarities between offline and online Customer services even though the similarities may not be obviously apparent at first glance.

Good Customer service begins the second someone walks into the retail outlet.  Do they see interested, interactive staff, or do they see bored, cheerless sales assistants?  Does a staff member immediately appear next to you and ask you if you require assistance or are you studiously ignored?  On selecting your purchase and proceeding to the checkout, are you greeted with a cheery “and how will sir/madam (delete as applicable) be paying for your goods?”, or is your debit card snatched unceremoniously from your hand and shoved into a chip n pin reader?  Once purchased, is there any kind of follow up service to ensure you have had a satisfactory experience?

Clearly the online web sales process is slightly different but comparisons can be drawn…..

How does your website look?  Is it clear, easy to understand and thus helpful to a Customer, particularly a first time Customer?  Do you offer more than one method of payment?  Do you have a help-desk attached that provides a Customer with the “looked after” feeling.  On completion of the sale do you provide any kind of helpful  follow up service (and I don’t think affiliate bombardment is helpful!).

Developing, implementing and maintaining excellent Customer relationships will ensure your online and offline business is sustainable with consistent repeat business.  At the end of the day, the Customer may not always be right but the Customer definitely pays the wages!!

ResellRightsShop will hopefully be live in time for Chrimbo!  I am working on the theme and coding as I speak.  Okay, okay, when I say I, I am of course speaking of the Royal I!  Mark from ShopperPress is helping me to “solutioneer” the download side of life.  I did the theme though!

I am hopeful that this platform will allow you (the customer) to shop and download with ease whilst allowing me (the vendor) as much automation as possible so that I can spend more time at Butlins!

Actually, I am really looking forward to this weekend.  My parents are meeting us there which is great because the kids don’t get to see them as often as everyone would like as they live in Wales (approx 5-7 hours away!).  Zack (my youngest) is really looking forward to the pantomime, whilst Aaron, my eldest, is looking forward to a little bit of independence (being 11 years old he now thinks he can crack on for the weekend without much parental guidance, oh how wrong he is!!!) and lots of sport.  My wife is just looking forward to the break and I am looking forward to lots of cafe latte watching the kids try and break every bone in their bodies on bungee rides and climbing walls.

I’ll let you know how we get on…….

Cheers

John

Okay, so whats next?!  Good question!  I have been trying to establish myself as a website designer and secured a comission with a local company to “makeover” their website and to create a blog.  I’m extremely pleased with the results.  It’s taken a while as the project grew as the site developed.  We are almost finished with the main design implementation and I can now concentrate on the social networking aspects.  POV Production Company Limited have been a great company to work with and I am really pleased to be associated with them.

Hopefully this will be a “foot in the door” for me and I can continue to explore the web design niche.  Its a constantly changing landscape with innovative, cutting edge software appearing all the time.  The available resources are tremendous and I am really looking forward to imlementing new designs and techniques.  My learning curve has gone vertical!

Phew!  Quite a long post but I needed to get a lot off my chest.

Enjoy the Blog.

All the best

John