This is called “stock” photography and he currently has 1300 images available in his Shutterstock.com library.  Each photo is licensed for a lean amount of money – and his commission is even smaller – but the numbers add up to provide a consistent flow of passive income sufficient to live like a king while he travels Asia. Even when he doesn’t work for weeks at a time.

The income produced with a library of 1300 images, while respectable, is not massive.  That said, Ben loves travelling and there are certainly places in this world where our dollar goes a long way.  The photo to the left is of Ben’s room when he stayed in Cambodia in November of 2007.  It cost the equivalent of US$6/night – including unlimited snacks and coffee!

For the most part Ben leads a life of leisure.  While others slave away at 9-5 jobs you’ll usually find him either travelling or on his couch reading a book.  Once or twice a fortnight he’ll take some photos, too.  Right now he’s preparing for another jaunt around Asia and intends to study the martial art of Ninjitsu full-time during his next stay in Thailand.

If you think you might have a flare for photography, and would like to make money online, Ben has written a series of three short articles to give you a little guidance:

So you wanna earn money from your photos? So you wanna earn money from your photos? (Part II) So you wanna earn money from your photos? (Part III)

I encourage you to also have a browse around his blog to view the awe-inspiring photos he has shot during recent travels in Cambodia, Thailand and New Zealand.  If you’re at work, just be aware that some of his artistic nude photography is also featured at times.

Whether you sell jeans, make jewellery, design offices or coach executives, your website is your virtual shop front. Just like a real shop front or office it must be properly managed, maintained and regularly evaluated.

Here are ten questions about your website (and email marketing) that are critical to your online success:

1. How many people visit your website every month/week/day?
2. How do they find your website? (if they came from a search engine, what keywords did they search for?)
3. Why are they visiting?
4. Which visitors are converting the best (and/or staying the longest) and why?
5. When was the last time you updated the website?
6. If your web designer disappears tomorrow (it happens!) do you have up-to-date Control Panel, FTP, Domain Name Management and Content Management System access details so that you can hand it over to a new web designer?
7. How many people downloaded your ebook and/or signed up to your newsletter/articles last week?
8. When you send out an email campaign, what is your average open rate? Which topics and subject lines produce the best open rates?
9. For what keywords has your website been optimised? (Are you using these when writing new content?)
10. How does your website compare against your competitors’? What are they doing that you can learn from?

Most business owners and managers with whom I talk can answer, at best, three of the above.  Bail up your web designer or website manager and ensure that you have access to the necessary statistics.  If in doubt, take me up on my free consultation offer.

Christmas is getting close!  What is Santa bringing you?

He discussed with us his experience of coming up with an innovative idea, prototyping it, and seeing it through to the thriving, global business that it is now.  A business generating, last year, a profit of $34.5 Million (source).

Below is a summary of the questions that he believes must be answered in creating a successful business and some tid bits of wisdom that ressonated with me.  If you’re serious about starting or developing a business – online or offline – you might find yourself having a few “ah-ha” moments if you get out pen and paper and start answering the questions.  I did.

Who are you?

Can you describe yourself in very simple terms? What is your personality? What are your principles?

Why this is important:  If you don’t know, everything is flexible

At Wotif, their mission is to add value to both the customer and supplier and to keep it simple (no distracting ads on their website, simple navigation and collecting from the users only the data absolutely necessary).

What are your skills?

Strengths? Weaknesses?  Do a full inventory on yourself so that you know where you need to fill the blanks (e.g. by up-skilling or by finding the right people to work with)

Who is your customer?

Can you really define how your customer is going to benefit?…. and in a REALLY compelling way?

Who else is doing the same thing and how will you offer a different experience that is of value?

How are you going to make money?

How will you ensure your cashflow?

Don’t be afraid to take on big business

Funding/Business Plan

“The worst thing you can do with a good idea is nothing.”

Prototype it and test it in your garage.

Raising capital is not always necessary.  Try to do it for nothing!

Building a Team

What sort of people do you want?

It’s important that your techie’s understand the business side

Experiment

Make little changes/tweaks and test things as you go.  Avoid massive overhauls.

Be prepared to fail.

Keep it Simple

Ask a simple question until you get a simple answer.

As you can see, these are not complex questions or ideas.  I think the main message I took away from Graeme’s talk is that there is nothing complicated about business – just get the fundamentals sorted.  I would add to this that online business is no different to offline business.  It just uses different technology.

I caught the manager’s eye as I took a seat at a table next to an open window that let in a refreshing breeze.

The manager waited on me at once.  I could see in his face the love for his job as he expertly made me feel at home.

My medium-rare ribeye came out soon after my perfectly suited Shiraz Cabernet and I devoured my meal.  Every once in a while the manager or another staff member would check in to see if I was happy with everything.  I was.

My table was cleared as soon as I’d finished my meal and the bill was delivered to my table upon my request.  The price was by no means outrageous and I was happy to even leave a tip.

So what did they do wrong?

I would understand, at this point, if you were wondering exactly what gripe I could possibly have with this restaurant.  Was this not, afterall, the perfect dining experience?

It was.

And then… they let me walk out the door without:

• asking me for a testimonial to put on their website;
• giving me a business card or flyer (including their website address, of course, so that I could tell YOU what it was); or
• providing any incentive whatsoever to hand over my email address so that they could keep in contact me with promotions (as a very happy customer I would be more than happy for them to do this!)

Would doing the above significantly impact the business in a positive way?

Definitely!

Is this easy to implement?

Absolutely.

What’s one way that you can think of to elicit a testimonial from a happy customer?

Ask!  In this case they could have provided a DL-sized feedback form with the bill.  I would have filled it out.

Could they have included their business card or a flyer in the bill folder?

Absotively!  Had they, I would now remember the name of the restaurant and their website address and I might be able to give them some good promotion right here and now.

Ah, and here’s the tricky one.  How could they have prompted me to hand over my email address?  Well, if it was requested on the feedback form I might have writen it down.

Better yet, they could have provided some tangible incentive.  A complimentary after-dinner mint would have been enough bribe to get me to write down my email address.

Also, had I’d been there with one or more friends I might have really appreciated a complimentary digital photo (emailed to me!) to remember the event.  (oooo, ahhh!)

Are you and I missing similar opportunities?

Probably   I gradually and continually uncover my own business dumbness – and you might be able to relate to that at some level.  Take a moment to think about what ONLINE BUSINESS opportunities you’re overlooking right now.

One of the challenges involved in email marketing, however, is getting people to open the email. We average a respectable 45% open rate for our mailouts but every now and then dip down into the 30′s or shoot above 50%. I find it interesting to analyse the statistics that our software gives us to identify what subject lines produce spikes in our open rate and which ones result in slumps.

While you may think that any mention of ‘sex’ would result in spam filters going out of their way to block an email, our August email ‘Who is the Sexiest Web Designer?’ resulted in 54% of our list opening the email – our highest ever.

The suggestive ‘”We shouldn’t be this excited about a website! Its wrong isn’t it?….”‘ the week prior managed 52% and the drama-filled ‘How I saved my reputation with one click (a useful tip for the future)’ was opened by 53%.

Conversely, the mention of email spam in the subject ‘Wasting time sorting through email spam? We’ve got the solution’ resulted in our second biggest slump at 35% and the ernest, but long, subject line ‘An outrageously simple way to track the success of your advertising (9 out of 10 advertisers don’t do it!)’ has been awarded, so far, only 33% (tragically, I consider this one of the most important and useful free bits of advice I’ve sent out).

So what works? Subject lines with a bit of fun, sass, sex-appeal or drama seem to work best. Topics that seem too boring, too serious or sales-oriented seem to get trashed. Don’t expect anyone to open an email entitled, simply, ‘Newsletter’!

I was flipping through one of Brisbane’s free publications, MAP Magazine, and noticed with some surprise that only one of the 67 paid ads was definitely using a basic, accurate and potentially cost-free method of tracking its success.

I don’t know about you, but if I were to spend money on advertising (or any promotional campaign – including flyer distribution and radio spots) I’d want to know if it’s working or not.  Not only that but I’d want some definite numbers so that I can compare various different marketing efforts to determine which are working better than others.

To my eye, in this particular issue of MAP Magazine, there were:

• 17 paid ads with no website link at all
• 50 paid ads with a website link
• over 81 editorial links
• 2 Bigpond email addresses (instead of professional looking myname@companyname.com addresses)
• 1 paid ad with a website link with “Coming soon” written next to it
• 1 paid ad with a link to a MySpace profile (*rolls eyes*)
• 1 paid ad that clearly had a method for tracking the ad’s success
• 2 paid ads that might have been trackable

Imagine that you manage a shop in the Valley that sells sunglasses and you run, within the space of a few months, an advertisement in five different publications and you do flyer distribution in three different localities.

You include your phone number and physical address in the ads and flyers.  You also have the presence of mind to instruct your shop staff to [casually] survey callers and visitors as to how they came by your shop (and have some incentive to ensure they don’t forget!).

You’ve also included your website address on all five advertisements and flyers.  Let’s say it’s www.mysunglassesshop.com.

During those months you see an improvement in traffic coming to your site but you have no idea which ads or flyers are bringing you the traffic.  What a bummer!

This is what you can do next time:

Each time you run an advertisement or promotion, change the link a little.  If you were promoting a 10% discount in MAP Magazine, for example, you might publish your website address as: www.mysunglassesshop.com/mapoffer.  At the same time you could do a flyer distribution in West End and promote the link www.mysunglassesshop.com/westendoffer.

Each of those links would take the prospective customer to a highly targetted webpage specifically tailored for MAP readers and West End residents, respectively.  This not only allows you to track web traffic from each of your marketing efforts but it ALSO makes for a more compelling sales experience.

By the way, you can also do this with domain names – for example, www.SunGlassesForMapReaders.com

Incidentally, all Webnerd clients for whom we’ve implemented a content management system and web statistics already have all the tools they need to run trackable offline promotions without spending another cent on web development or maintenance.

Wishing you happiness and success in your online and offline endeavours!

My personal trainers at Best Practice, Anthony and Jeames, are both as passionate about e-commerce (or “online business”) as I am so we have a lot to talk about once they’ve put me through my paces on a Tuesday and Friday morning.

Anthony and I have been talking, for a while, about how to answer the question, “What do you do?”  Up until recently my uninspiring answer has been, “I make websites.”

While it is a concise description of the end-product of a typical project here at Webnerd, it does nothing to explain how we differ from every other Joe who makes websites, nor does it inspire any further discussion on the topic.

So Anthony and I have given it some thought and come up with the following response:

“I help businesses to understand and then implement the power of the Internet to increase their profits.”

You then, almost breathlessly, ask, “How do you do this, James?”

And from there a conversation may bloom.

Well, hopefully!  I’ll give it a go and make tweaks as necessary.

How do you reply when someone asks you, “What do you do?”  Is it compelling and does it inspire conversation?

Let me ask you something else:  is the answer to this question conveyed in a concise and compelling way on the front page of your website?

Go ahead and check right now

Wishing you happiness and success in your online and offline endeavours

The following is a list of ten of the coolest E-Commerce sites that I’ve seen, some have been introduced to me just this year by some of my students. In sharing these with you I imagine that perhaps you will discover something new that is useful to you and/or something that will spark some thinking about what you could do to leverage the Web to streamline your business processes and/or to make more money!

Animoto (animoto.com)

Upload photos, select one of the songs from the library (or upload your own) and hit the button. It will do the rest. Using some clever analysis and randomising algorithms it will create a video clip using your photos and the music selected.

How they make money: You can play with Animoto for free and produce 15 second video clips. To get full-length video clips you have to pay a small annual membership fee. DVD quality costs a little more again. Commercial usage requires purchasing a commercial license.

Basecamp (basecamphq.com)

Basecamp is an online project management and collaboration tool. The company that created it, 37 Signals, has a philosophy of keeping software and interfaces as simple as possible.

How they make money: There is a free 30-day trial that will allow you a taste of the service. After that you can choose from three different monthly plans.

Blurb (blurb.com)

Download Blurb’s book-designing software and you’ll be designing your first photography/keep-sake book in minutes

How they make money: Once you’ve designed your book you can submit it to them, select your book finishing options, and they’ll create and ship the book to you.

Click Business Cards (clickbusinesscards.com.au)

A fully Do-It-Yourself online business card design and ordering system. Use one of their templates or upload your own design. Choose the finishing and quantity and you’re done. The results are high-quality and the pricing is extremely competitive.

How they make money: They print and ship your business cards to you after you’ve ordered and paid online.

Etsy (etsy.com)

Etsy is a massive collaborative shopping community where users can buy and sell all things handmade.

How they make money: Etsy allows anyone to set up a shop for free. The shop owner will then pay $0.20 to list an item and 3.5% of the sale price once it has sold.

Facebook (facebook.com)

Well over 100 million users actively use Facebook with half visiting on a daily basis and spending, on average, 20 minutes catching up with friends, updating their profile and sharing media. Facebook overtook Myspace in popularity in April of this year (see Alexa graph) as the most trafficked social media site in the world.

How they make money: Facebook makes its money from on-site advertising. Leveraging all the information Facebook has about its 6 million+ users, advertisers can target very specific groups.

Freshbooks (freshbooks.com)

“FreshBooks is an online invoicing and time tracking service that saves you time and makes you look professional!”

How they make money: Freshbook is an online service that has a number of different monthly membership levels depending upon your needs. There is a free membership level.

iStockPhoto (istockphoto.com)

“iStockphoto is the internet’s original member-generated image and design community. Find your inspiration on the world’s leading royalty-free stock destination. Search for over 3 million photographs, vector illustrations, video footage and Flash files. Buy stock or sell stock — or both.”

How they make money: In return for helping photographers, illustrators, Flash designers and videographers sell their stock media, iStockPhoto takes a commission of every sale. iStockPhoto is one of the Internet’s first successful example of a micro payment site – wherein users purchase credit and use it to buy items that are priced quite low.

Pistol Clothing (pistolclothing.com.au)

Pistol Clothing provides a means for users to design their own personalised t-shirts, hoodies and singlets via its online, easy-to-use clothing designer. All garments are printed on high-quality clothing.

How they make money: Just like Blurb and Click Business Cards, above, Pistol Clothing print and ship what you order.

WhereIs (whereis.com.au)

Just in case anyone hasn’t discovered this yet, WhereIs is a fantastic online map service that allows you to look up street addresses and view them on a map that can be zoomed and panned. The most useful feature of this site, however, is the ability to get directions between two or more locations. I must use this service every week.

How they make money: Banner advertising on the side of the screen and advertising on the map itself.

Wishing you happiness and success in all your offline and online endeavours.

“Spam was driving me crazy.  My previous web host was unable to offer any explanation or solution to the copious amounts of spam I was receiving.  Meanwhile, my busy consulting business was suffering as it was taking anywhere up to half an hour at times to download hundreds of spam email every day.  Not to mention, I was sick of how obscene most of the spam was.  I contacted James at WebNerd and he was able to offer an analysis of how much spam I was receiving and an immediate solution, whereby spam was stopped at the server, rather than being downloaded into my Outlook inbox.  It was simple and straightforward and has been an enormous relief.” — Andra Bite, Andra Bite Consulting

Have you ever thought to yourself, “If everyone in Australia gave me a paltry $1, I’d be a multi-millionaire”?

It might have then occurred to you that you don’t really need $20 million dollars.  So you fantasise: “If even only 52,000 gave me a paltry $1 per year I’d have $1000/week to easily pay the bills… and then some.”

The logistics of collecting $1 from 52,000 people might be a little daunting at this point but you might starting thinking that this is starting to enter the realms of possibility with a little extra thought.

So then you think: “Okay, I might be able to convince the average person or business to part with $30/month (or $1/day) for something they’re interested in or need.  If I had 150 customers I’d generate $54,000 per year!”

Then the complexities of income verses profit come into it and you might decide that you actually need $30/month in profit.  No problem, really.  Just something to factor in.

Do you think that you could find 150 customers to pay you a little over $30/month for something they want or need? Perhaps an online service with no physical component? It could be an online course, membership site or some other Internet-based service like online survey hosting. Or maybe an online shop selling physical products (with a $30 profit margin) on a subscription model.

We’re talking pretty small numbers here (150 and $30) but, through the magic of primary school level multiplication, it adds up very quickly.  (And, consider that the number of customers required plummets to 50 if you generate $90/month profit per client.)

Come on, stop imagining that this is too hard and give it a bit of thought.  What do you know that you could teach via an online course?  What online service could you set up (or resell)?  What are you passionate about?  Could you make a membership-based website on that subject?  (Have you been dreaming about it for years and not done anything about it?? You know who you are!)

Feel free to send me an email and bounce ideas off me. I’ll share with you what I’m doing. I’ve already started: 148 customers to go!