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August 4, 2005

In this issue:
* New Zero Cost Class: How To Have An eBay Business Instead Of An eBay Hobby
* Selling Physical Products Seminar In November
* Feature Article: Frank Review Of Article Announcer
* What To Do If Someone Rips Off Your Pictures
* Recent Blog Entries

New Zero Cost Class: How To Have An eBay Business Instead Of An eBay Hobby

Where has the summer gone? The teachers are back in school where I live and the kids begin next Monday. The old way of starting after Labor Day doesn't hold true in metro Atlanta. What about where you live?

Regardless, the heat will be only a distant memory one of these days (can't be too soon for me :-) and around here we're raring to go. In honor of cool-weather-to-come, we're starting another Auction Genius Course, beginning on September 10.

When we started the Auction Genius Course more than three years ago, we naturally had no idea how many lives we would affect and how satisfying it would be. And the content has naturally evolved, along with changes in the auction world.

For instance, we spend a lot more time on how to qualify products. With a thorough understanding of supply and demand, our chances of success are slim and none. This is made more difficult by the fact that it's not cut & dried. For instance, take a look at this email:

- - -

“Dear Sydney, I have a problem and I don't know what to do. I want to sell a (particular kind of model airplane) on eBay. The trouble is that there are several hundred of them for sale right now and I guess that only about 10-20% of them have any bids. What do you think I ought to do?”

- - -

What do you think the writer ought to do? The prudent thing, which I would advise almost every time, is to move along and forget this particular widget. But of course a really skilled marketer, or someone who was an expert in this field, might be able to bring some ideas and insights to this biz that would make it a gold mine. The point is there is no fill-in-the-blanks answer that is right for everyone. That's why a skilled seller really needs to understand what (s)he's doing. It ain't easy, folks.

We bought some expensive new recording equipment this summer, and if you'd like to listen to our newly-recorded class, you can find it here:

http://www.auction-genius-course.com/cd/freeclass/index.html

Selling Physical Products Seminar In November

Last issue I announced that I was hosting an Internet seminar in Atlanta, along with my friends Brad Fallon, Andy Jenkins and Todd Taylor, my star student to date. We have had a steady stream of phone calls and emails and I'm happy to say I have lots more details now.

Where: Atlanta, GA

When: November 11-13

What: Selling physical products on the Internet

New contributor: We are thrilled to announce that Chris Malta & Rob Cowie of Worldwide Brands have agreed to participate in this seminar. This is a first for Worldwide Brands - they are extremely careful about how they use their name and who they ally themselves with, so we are honored by their confidence. They've never participated in a seminar like before, and perhaps they never will again. They are THE product sourcing experts in the US - as proven by their new radio show sponsored by Entrepreneur magazine and focused exclusively on product sourcing.

The seminar will begin on Friday night with a 'Get-Acquainted' session to meet the participants and speakers.

Friday and Saturday will be long days, filled with top quality teaching. We're not pitching products - we're revealing how we conduct business and what we do to get our results. Come prepared to take humongous amounts of notes and have your brain exhausted by Sunday evening! :-)

If you're curious about seminars, and whether you should go to one, what to look for to find quality seminars, etc., you might want to listen to a radio show from this past Monday. Chris Malta, Rob Cowie, Andy Jenkins and I spent an hour on the Entrepreneur Radio Show discussing "Internet Seminars: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly".

You can listen to it here:

http://auction-genius-course.com/radio.shtml

More details to follow ...

Feature Article: A Frank Review Of Article Announcer

A month ago, Jason Potash announced the launch of a product called Article Announcer. The purpose of Article Announcer is to teach marketers how to write articles and to get them published all over the Internet, resulting in links, higher search engine position and targeted traffic to their stores and sites.

Unfortunately, Jason Potash's new product launch wasn't as smooth as he undoubtedly wanted it to be. He originally had 500 copies but more than that were ordered (nice problem to have!) causing a wait while more kits were produced.

Then the site went offline, causing much buyer panic.

To compound the disaster, his fulfillment house went out of business before all product was shipped. This certainly wasn't Jason's fault, but contributed to the hysteria in the forums.

My take on Article Announcer:

After a considerable time, I received Article Announcer. I was unhappy with the delay, but after using Announcer for several days I am pleased to announce that it is an incredibly valuable tool and well worth waiting for. It will save me awesome amounts of time. Notice that I said "will" save - future tense - because there is a definite learning curve. The actual mechanics of using the Article Announcer software are simple, but there is a lot of involvement required.

There are three specific groups that Article Announcer contacts ...

Article directories: Jason has included a nice list of directories. The way the software works is that we fill in certain information fields, and then the Article Announcer software auto-fills the directory forms. Jason warns that with a few directories this isn't possible, and he is correct. Further, a few directories want articles emailed, and Article Announcer isn't useful for those.

There have been some forum comments that Article Announcer is a "spam" tool. Nothing could be further from the truth!

First, each directory entry must be entered individually. For some directories, it's an instant click of a button to submit an article. Some of them require minimal editing. Regardless, you can't "click a button and mail to thousands of sites".

Secondly, there is no virtue whatsoever in hand-submitting each article. The value is in the content, not in the submission process and such criticisms are utterly ridiculous. Why is an article more valuable if it's submitted by hand or via software? The time we save can be spent creating more quality content.

Its possible to enter new directories that aren't included in the original software. I entered five and only one of those will auto-fill the form. I don't know if this is the fault of the software or the way the directory has set up its requirements.

One thing I'm not sure of yet is efficiency. For instance, I was submitting four articles. Is it more efficient to stop on one directory and submit all four articles? or to go through the entire directory list with one article and repeat with the next directory? Don't know yet.

Announcement lists: there are a small number of general announcement lists already in the software. Jason recommends finding more specific ones and teaches us how. I have to say, though, that I haven't been able to find any good ones yet. Perhaps I haven't looked long enough.

Ezine publishers: this was the weakest section, in my view. A huge percentage of the emails I sent came back as bad email addresses and several ezine publishers asked to be removed instantly. Supposedly this list was screened, but of course we know how quickly emails address can go out of date. It's very possible that these publishers received so many submissions from Article Announcer users that they changed their contact information quickly.

There are a couple of features that I would like added and hopefully they will be included in future updates.

First, when adding new articles it gets tedious to keep entering the same information again and again. I would really like either a "clone" feature or a dropdown menu so that I can fill in the form more efficiently and quickly.

The second issue is major: Article Announcer really, REALLY needs a way to back my data. I've spent a lot of time editing entries, including articles, purging some sources and adding others. I would really hate to lose all information and have to start over.

One suggestion: get a separate email address. I actually bought a domain name. Unfortunately, I bought a ".info" simply because it was cheap and I'm not using it for anything else. I say that's unfortunate because some of the article directories insist that it isn't a valid email address. It is, of course, but apparently they only accept older names like .com and possibly .net.

There is other material that comes in the Article Announcer box, including a long conversation with John Reese on the subject of article writing. This is old hat to me, but newer article writers may find it quite useful.

Support hasn't been all that terrific because I've sent several emails that were ignored.

Overall, this review might sound negative, and there have been some definite problems with this new product. However, from everything I've heard Jason Potash is an upright sort of guy and is doing everything he can to smooth this out and make his customers happy. So, for the really important question ...

Would I buy Article Announcer again? You bet! In spite of the problems, I see it as one of my most important tools in promoting my websites and stores. Now that I have spent hours working with it, making it suit my needs, I can see the awesome power of the software. It's a definite thumbs up for my business.

http://www.auctionknowhow.com/cgi-bin/links.cgi?l=6

An update to the original article above: the AA staff has now replied to all of my emails and concerns. I am very pleased to report this - obviously, they're getting their customer service issues ironed out.

What To Do If Someone Rips Off Your Pictures

Some sellers pictures get ripped off. If this is you, what can you do about it?

1. Report this to eBay. They take a dim view of picture theft:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/confidence/vero-image-text-theft.html

2. If you really want to go the extra step, you can put your company name across a picture which will effectively stop anyone from helping themselves.

If you put your company name strategically across the picture, it will be almost impossible for anyone to steal your picture - unless they want to promote your company, which ought to be great with you. :-)

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If you want a one-way link to your website or store, post a helpful comment on my blog. Our blog has some good search engine positions, and I'll approve your comment ASAP.

http://auction-genius-course.com/blog