(Photo Credit: icon600) Almost from the first day in business I’ve had interns help me with my business. I’ve been fortunate that the interns I’ve had have worked hard, been great team players, and have helped take my business from an idea into a real company. I’ve gone on to hire some of my interns for positions in my business and the internship was a great way for us to learn about each other and help each other grow before making a bigger commitment.

I’m in the process of hiring a new marketing intern and thought I would share with you the process I’m going through to find the right person.

Step 1: Find A Source Of Interns

I’ve found three great sources of interns – two of them are free and the third is inexpensive.

Foreign Language Schools – There are a number of foreign language schools here in Toronto where university grads come from overseas to get work experience in an English-speaking country. We just finished an internship with an amazing young programmer from Switzerland who helped us solve a number of challenges that we were struggling to solve (Thank you Markus!). These grads usually bring some relevant work experience as well as a great wealth of knowledge. They are eager to work and prove themselves and want to get the most of their experience in the new country before they head back home to find a job / continue with their existing employer. Keep in mind though that these grads have English as a second language. I’ve usually used these interns for technical work and for some marketing tasks but nothing that requires too much direct communication with our customers because of the language barrier – especially when the communication is written. Cost to you: FREE (the grads actually have to pay the school to find them an internship placement!)

“Before posting I gave careful consideration as to what skills I was looking for but also the type of person that would fit well with my company.”

High School Co-Op Programs – I went to a small high school that didn’t offer co-op or intern opportunities but most of the high schools these days do. You can get an eager student looking to get work experience and can drive a lot of energy and enthusiasm into your business. They are native English speakers, although I would encourage you to make sure they know how to write effectively if you’re going to put them on any communications role with your clients. They are also motivated by the fact that they need to show up and do a good job in order to get a good mark in their co-op class which goes on their academic record. The feedback you give directly translates into a grade for them. The only downside is that they may not have any relevant work / life experience and they will need extra training to get the job done. Cost to you: FREE

University Grads – University students are also often looking at internship opportunities to gain experience and learn about the field that they are interested in. These are usually paid internships and you get native language speakers who have some knowledge and relevant work / life experience who are excited to get their careers started. The rest of this post will focus on this type of intern. If you’re interested in the other two, please comment below and I can discuss successful strategies for the first two as well. To find a university grad as an intern you can either connect with all your local colleges and universities or find an aggregator. For my hire, I’m working with an aggregator called Career Edge. They are a national not-for-profit, has worked with over 1,000 employers across Canada to provide meaningful work experiences through paid internships to over 9,200 talented interns since 1996.

Step 2: Post Your Job

Most of the universities or job aggregators will have a way for you to post your job online. Before posting I gave careful consideration as to what skills I was looking for but also the type of person that would fit well with my company. I created a core values document which I posted alongside the job and asked people to carefully read it before applying.

“If you’ve ever had a hard time hiring staff it’s probably because your core values did not match up with each other.”

The core values at my company are:

• Be Honest and Nice
• Work Hard and Do More With Less
• Be Proactive and Can Work Independently
• Deliver WOW through Service
• Be Passionate About Entrepreneurship and Be the Best at What You Do
• Be Positive and Optimistic
• Get Involved and Love Learning New Things
• Be Humble and Build a Positive Family Spirit

With each point I also explained what they meant to me and why they are important. It doesn’t matter what your core values are… as long as you have them! If you’ve ever had a hard time hiring staff it’s probably because your core values did not match up with each other. I came up with this list by thinking about all the people I’ve worked with who have done well with me and then by thinking of the ones who haven’t done well and why it didn’t work out.

Step 3: No Resumes – Fill Out Our Application

“If people aren’t exciting about joining your company and the opportunities then you don’t want them!”

The standard way that companies hire is to ask for a resume and cover letter. From the candidates that typically apply I find three different types of people:

1. People who really care and are interested in your company
2. People who care a little bit and will tweak their resume to fit the job description
3. People who are looking for any job and submit their resume regardless of if they are qualified

As a business owner you only want the candidates from Group 1. If people aren’t exciting about joining your company and the opportunities then you don’t want them!

The problem is that you have to sort through all these resumes to find out who the Group 1 candidates are. Instead what I do is ask them not to submit a resume but to fill out my application form. It is a five page document that asks them the typical resume questions like past jobs, references, relevant experiences, etc but also asks other questions that are relevant to what I’m looking for in an employee. Examples of these questions include:

• Give the best example of when you’ve made someone say “WOW” because of your service
• What do you love about marketing? What do you want to learn?
• What is the nicest thing you ever did for someone?

“Either way I just saved myself reading through 21 resumes of people who would be wasting my time!”

You can tailor the questions to fit your company culture but the point of the exercise is that they need to fill out five pages of questions just to apply! As a result you only get the people who are willing to put some time into the job interview process. If they aren’t willing to put time into it, why should you waste your time on them?

From the job I posted on Career Edge I received 38 interested candidates who submitted their resumes. Only 17 of them filled out my application – the others either didn’t want the job enough to fill it out or didn’t read that I needed them to fill it out. Either way I just saved myself reading through 21 resumes of people who would be wasting my time!

From the 17 who applied I quickly  looked through the applications and anybody who had numerous spelling and grammar issues was rejected. Part of the job I need them for is to communicate with my customers via email and if they can’t spell properly in a job application (where they should be at their best!) they are unlikely to do any better on regular customer emails. This helped me narrow the field down to 13 candidates.

Step 4: Job Interview

I just reread the applications from my top 13 this morning and am amazed at the skills they have! Most of them sound like they will be a good fit with my company culture but it’s easy to sound good on paper. The next step is to do a face to face interview tomorrow. I want to have everyone come in on the same day so I can judge them properly. I’ve also asked one of my staff members to join me for the day to get a second set of eyes as well and so the candidates can meet a future team member. We’re a small group so it’s important that everyone gets along.

I’m going to be in interviews from 9:15am to 6:30pm with two breaks. Because I wanted to fit everyone in on the same day my last timeslot is actually a group interview of three people. I had a deadline date for sending me the application and these three people sent it to me at the last minute – technically they got it in on time but the others who submitted sooner will get the individual interviews.

Step 5: Give A Sample Project

“It’s important to give a sample project that is relevant to the work that they will actually be doing if you hire them.”

People can have great applications and can do well in an interview but it’s hard to know if they will put the 110% effort into the job that you need. As such I’ve always had my staffers do a trial project with me first before hiring them. It lets me get a sense of how hard they work and if they can solve the challenge effectively. It’s important to give a sample project that is relevant to the work that they will actually be doing if you hire them.

I have a project in mind for all of them but can’t reveal what it is yet in case there are any keeners who have subscribed to my blog looking for some inside information. The top people from the interview will be asked to complete the project.

Step 6: Games Night

One of the traditions we have at EvanCarmichael.com is to take the last hour of Thursday off, shut down the office, and play some games. One of our favorites is Killer Bunnies (in case there are any keener applicants reading this blog post, tell me at the interview tomorrow what the money is called in the Killer Bunnies game for bonus points).

“None of my current team members had any problems coming out for three hours on a Sunday for a games afternoon to meet the candidates which is a good indication that I have the right people in place!”

The games night is a chance to wind down, bond, and have some fun after nearly a week of hard work. The next step in the interview process is the top three candidates will be asked to come to a games afternoon that we’re going to hold on a Sunday. This will help me assess a couple of things. The first is to see how quickly they pick up a challenge, the second is how they interact with my staff members who will be attending, and the third is to see if anybody has an objection to coming out on a Sunday. We don’t usually do too much on the weekends but it’s an early indicator of future problems if they’re not willing to come out after hours. As an aside, none of my current team members had any problems coming out for three hours on a Sunday for a games afternoon to meet the candidates which is a good indication that I have the right people in place!

I’m also looking forward to seeing what my entire team has to say about the new candidates. Getting their buy-in shows them that I appreciate their input and will help the new staffer transition smoothly into the office culture.

Step 7: Check References

“They slack off after the initial excitement wears off and don’t buy into the long term vision of the company.”

By the time a candidate has gone through this process I have a pretty good sense of who will be a good fit for my company. However, there are some people who love the excitement of a challenge and can perform very well in the short term but not do well over a longer period of time. They slack off after the initial excitement wears off and don’t buy into the long term vision of the company.

That’s why it’s important to check references. Sure people will only put down references of people who will say good things about them but you’ll often be surprised at the feedback you get from a simple call – and if the person isn’t extremely enthusiastic about the candidate you can bet that there is something they aren’t telling you.

Step 8: Hire!

Finally the new person is brought on board after being run through the gauntlet. You know you have a survivor who was willing to put an investment into your company to prove themselves, fit in well with your team, and accomplished your task with flying colors. Nothing is a “sure thing” but this is as close as you’re going to get to it.

It’s exciting going through the hiring process again. We’ll have someone new starting January 4th and I’m looking forward to introducing him / her to you!

What do you think of this hiring process? Do you have any other recommendations to add? Any favorite interview questions I can ask tomorrow?

I’ve love to hear your thoughts if you leave a comment below!

PS. On a completely different topic, in September I mentioned a new keyword tool called WordStream. They have since made a few updates and have a new version open for this week as a free trial. You can check it out here. Let me know what you think about it!

Me With John Carr

At my last SEO for Africa I introduced a new initiative called SEO Buffet. The concept is simple: I’ll give you free advice for your website and profile you on my blog if you bring me food from your cultural background!

The first person to respond was John Carr. John is a Toronto based real estate agent who is trying to get his website, PrimeTorontoNeighbourhoods.com increased visibility in the search engines. John brought up a delicious assortment of chicken, beef, cheese, and vegetable empanadas that were representative of his Chilean culture.

Here was my advice for John:

1) Pay Attention To Your Titles

You need content to rank in Google and John has created a blog which is updated regularly using WordPress (http://www.primetorontoneighbourhoods.com/blog/). When you’re using a blogging platform you want to carefully select the titles of your blog posts because whatever you choose will impact your title tag, URL, and header tag (three of the most important ranking factors).

Make sure you put your keywords in the proper order and as close to the start of the title as possible. For example, if John was trying to rank for “Lawrence Park Homes” he should write a post with a title like “Lawrence Park Homes – Recent Trends” instead of something like “Recent trends for people looking at buying a home in Lawrence Park.” In the second example, the keywords are split up (home in Lawrence Park) and are at the end of the post. Put them together and move them to the front of the title to get the best results.

Delicious Empanadas from Chile

2) Get Links

You can have the most optimized content in the world but if you don’t have external websites pointing to yours then you won’t rank very prominently in Google. I encouraged John to think about people who might be willing to link to him.

A quick example is the real estate company he’s affiliated with. He pays a regular fee for using their services and should insist that they also link to his website from theirs. Other opportunities are to think about everybody he does business with on a regular basis and moving the offline partnerships online. This blog post will get him an extra link but he needs to go out and get more links to overthrow his competition.

My two programmers enjoying lunch!

3) Build Resource Guides

This last point is more focused on conversion than on SEO. John has picked a number of niche neighborhoods to sell in and attracts a number of people to the site who come, never contact him, and leave. It’s important to build as much value up front as possible to build the relationship because the next real estate agent is just around the corner trying to get the same customers. I recommended he build a resource guide for each community he specializes in. Profile what the neighborhood is known for, what the entertainment is like, how good the schools are, where the parks are, etc… basically all the information someone who is interested in the neighborhood would want to know. John already has the information in his head from his years of experience, he just needs to put it into a document and make it free online as a PDF if prospects leave their name and email. Now he’s able to build the relationship by offering tremendous upfront value and become the agent of choice.

I also recommended that he allow people to sign up for updates about their neighborhoods of choice so they could get notices when new homes came on the market. It’s a service any agent will offer but if you allow people to sign up for it themselves online you make it easier for them to do business with you.

I hope you enjoyed the first post in this new series – stay tuned for more SEO Buffet posts in the future! And thanks John for the great food!

What do you think of John’s website? Would you give him any other recommendations?

I’ve love to hear your thoughts if you leave a comment below!

You might not know him by name, but this entrepreneur has started up almost 100 companies and, as Wales’ first billionaire, is richer than even Prince Charles. An engineer by training, Terry Matthews became Wales’ richest man by fixing and building things ever since he was young. What started as $4000 in capital and a “long, long holiday” has since become one of the greatest examples of successful serial entrepreneurship in the world.

A journalist once suggested to Mathews, “The standard wisdom is that Canadians are more risk-averse than Americans and therefore less aggressive.” Matthews’ response? “Okay, so I suggest you write some articles to stay that’s bullshit. Canadians need to just get on with it.”Get on with it is exactly what Matthews did, working to build almost 100 high tech communications companies in Canada and the United Kingdom, and finding success every time. How did he do it?

You can read the full Terry Matthews story here: http://www.evancarmichael.com/Famous-Entrepreneurs/4955/summary.php

What do you think of Terry Matthew’s story? Are there any other famous entrepreneurs you would like to see profiled?

I’ve love to hear your thoughts if you leave a comment below!

If you’re still on the fence as to if you should be using Twitter or are wondering if you’re getting the most you can from the service here are 5 practical ways that I’ve used Twitter to grow my business in the past week.

As I’ve mentioned before, Twitter is the #1 source of traffic to my site after the search engines and here are a few methods that I’m using:

1) Promote New Content On My Website

2) Connect With People I’m Doing Business With

3) Congratulate A Client Who Is Having A Birthday

4) Make New Connections With Potential Partners

5) Thank People Who Mention And Promote My Business

As you can see, it doesn’t take much to connect with people through Twitter and let them know that you’re paying attention and that you care. Twitter can be a great way to quickly build new connections and maintain the ones you currently have.

What are some of the ways that you’re using Twitter? Please give specific examples by commenting below – I would love to hear from you!

(Photo Credit: Rebecca Bollwitt)

It was great to see that my question was voted 3rd most popular.

Here’s the inside scoop for you direct from Google:

Question #1: “Ad erosion (aka ad blindness): As a way to fight the inevitable, could the publisher define a section of the page within which Google may embed in a random place the ads, with some features for the publisher to somehow control the decision?”

Google’s Answer: It’s a good idea. There is an entire engineering team dedicated to figuring out different ways in which we can increase partner revenue through UI optimizations, and you can bet that ad-blindness is on their radar. At the moment most partners want ads to appear in consistent places; also remember that you can write a simple script to test different ad codes in different places, which I would strongly recommend.

Question #2: “Does Google recognize semantic tags (microformats and RDFa) to better qualify ads served on the page, which would increase the conversion, hence revenue?”

Google’s Answer: I don’t think so.

Question #3 (mine): “Can you share with us website layouts that are getting > 10% click through rates or higher?”

Google’s Answer: Unfortunately we don’t share any publisher information publicly. Remember though a 10% CTR probably isn’t that desirable, since it may suggest users aren’t finding what they want on your site.

“The fact is that users tend to click on display images more than text images. Also, if you limit to just text than you are disallowing a lot of bidders from entering into the auction, thus driving down your potential eCPM.”

Question #4: “I’d like to see performance standards or ranges for different site categories. In other words, is my site underperforming or overperforming on CTR or CPM? And how do I figure this out? I can do it for traffic in Analyzer – but not in Adsense.”

Google’s Answer: I agree 100% with this, and it’s something we are thinking about. There are certain concerns that we first need to address: for example, we don’t want to disclose CPCs across verticals because that might drive down what advertisers are paying. We are definitely thinking about this though.

Question #5: “When is it best to use “text only” or “image only” ads?”

Google’s Answer: I would say it’s always advantageous to use both, although if you run tests and find one performs better than the other you can optimize accordingly. The fact is that users tend to click on display images more than text images. Also, if you limit to just text than you are disallowing a lot of bidders from entering into the auction, thus driving down your potential eCPM. That being said, if you find your users like text ads more than image ads, you may want to keep just text ads.

Question #6: “Does Google have plans of introducing an AdSense Optimizer? I would like you to figure out algorithmically: 1. what colors are best 2. what positions are best 3. what networks in your inventory pay the best. I define the ad blocks, you do the work!”

Google’s Answer: It’s a good question, but the main issue is that unlike adwords, where simply changes can be made to increase performance, AdSense performs differently on different pages depending on site design, layout, colours, etc. As such, it would be a very large engineering feat to created an automated system that could determine ideal performance simply by reading your code. Our objective is to give you as much advice and access to best practices so that you can figure out what works best for your site.

“Do Google Adsense ads have a positive, negative or neutral effect on a visitor’s perception of a website?”

Question #7: “I’d like info on the review my site makes from each region/country. For example, if I get a large % of my revenue from California or Australia, I could add more content specific to those areas.”

Google’s Answer: Use Analytics! Google Analytics gives you that information specifically.

Question #8: “How can you use Google Analytics data to help your website generate more income?”

Google’s Answer: We have some new videos coming out dealing with this question specifically. In the meantime, check out: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2009/04/analytics-integration-for-all.html

Question #9: “Do Google Adsense ads have a positive, negative or neutral effect on a visitor’s perception of a website?”

Google’s Answer: That’s a good question and I don’t have any metrics to prove my theory, but what I’d suggest is that, by showing relevant ads Google enhances the user experience by making it easy to users to find additional information regarding what they’re looking for. Also, Google has a well-respected brand which ads credibility to the ads, so overall I think it’s positive.

What do you think? Is there a question you would like to ask the AdSense team? Please comment below – I would love to hear from you!

(Photo Credit: Pierre Beteille) Mark Drager is a Toronto based entrepreneur who created a new business in 2006 called Phanta Media. He was a startup entrepreneur who was trying to stand out in a very competitive market.

Fast forward to today and Mark is doing business with clients like Royal Bank (the 55th largest company in the world!) and Audi.

I asked Mark how he was able to build up a company out of nothing and he said “It’s all about building trust” – in a sales cycle where you may not have much personal contact you need to build trust with your prospects to get them to believe what you’re saying and sign on to do business with you.

Mark decided to write a white paper on how you can quickly build trust with your prospects that I thought was worth sharing. You can view the white paper at Mark’s website.

Here is the executive summary:

“The truth about trust is nobody – but nobody just gives it away. Sure, trusting is an easy thing when you’re talking friends and family. You might even trust the electrician or mechanic that a neighbour recommends, but in the absence of face-to-face contact – out there in the ether – how easy is trust to come by? Let’s take a closer look at that moment when a customer or client enters into your sales cycle.”

Here are some of the key points:

• Attempts to break through the marketing-noise has taken a “tricky, even risky direction”
• Trustworthiness is built on operating principles that need to be demonstrated
• Focus on others (clients, consumers, co-workers, partners) for the other’s sake, not for economic benefits
• There’s something very appealing about working with a company that lays all its cards on the table and operates with full transparency
• Resist the urge to over-promise and stay true to your original, authentic values

The entire white paper is only four pages long but it’s worth a read – again, you can view the white paper at Mark’s website.

And as always, let me know what you think by commenting below!

Last week I got an amazing opportunity from Google – they invited me and some of the other top Canadian AdSense publishers to their Toronto head office to discuss AdSense tips and tricks as well as preview new changes that are coming to the AdSense program.

We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside their offices so above is a picture of me standing in their lobby! I really wanted to take a photo of the gourmet lunch they served us and the wall of free snacks, drinks and candies that they made available to their staff and guests (not to mention the Rock Band setup in one of the breakout rooms).

I’m bound by a non-disclosure agreement and am not able to share with you today some of the new AdSense features that are in development (which are very very cool!) but I can mention some of the strategies that the Google team suggested using to maximize the revenue entrepreneurs can make with AdSense. Many of the suggestions I’ve touched on already or will discuss in my From $0.30 to $300 / Day on Google AdSense series but it’s always good to hear it straight from Google.

Here are some of the tips:

Use AdSense for Search

AdSense for Search typically has much higher eCPMs than regular placements on your site so use search and make it visible! It will not only make for a better user experience for your visitors (they can find the content they are looking for), it can also make you more money!

Look At Your Ad Units

Not all ad units are created equal and the data shows that the #1 money producing ad unit is the 300 x 250 rectangle. #2 is the 728 x 90 leaderboard and #3 is the 160 x 600 skyscraper.

Focus On Ad Location

Put the horizontal ad units (like the 728 x 90 leaderboard) in the content itself and not at the top of the page. People expect to see ads at the top of the page so they won’t click on them if you put them there. If your ads are embedded within the content you’ll get a much higher click through rate. This goes for the other ad units as well – if you want a high number of clicks put them into the content itself and not outside the content.

Aim for 1-5% Click Through Rate (CTR)

According to Google’s data, a 1-5% click through rate is “healthy” – if you’re below that range you should be better optimizing your units to pull in more money.

Use Link Units

I haven’t been a big advocate of using link units because they don’t generate anywhere near the results of the regular ad units (from my experience) but the Google team pointed out that the people who click on link units have a different profile than those who click on the regular ad units. In other words you’re not losing money by people clicking on the link units which pay out less because they wouldn’t be clicking on your regular ad units anyway.

Use Google Blue Link

Google has invested “millions of dollars” into finding out which link color gets the most clicks. The specific blue that they chose leads to the greatest number of clicks and the further you deviate away from it the harder it is to make money. The best click through rate sites are the ones with white backgrounds and can use the blue links.

And what’s a Google event without some free giveaways? On top of the awesome information and the gourmet meal we also left with a Google mug and Google solar powered battery charger:

]]> http://www.evancarmichael.com/blog/2009/10/07/adsense-day-at-googles-headquarters/feed/ 4 http://www.evancarmichael.com/blog/2009/09/29/the-ty-warner-story-modeling-the-masters/ http://www.evancarmichael.com/blog/2009/09/29/the-ty-warner-story-modeling-the-masters/#comments Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:29:30 +0000 Evan Carmichael http://www.evancarmichael.com/blog/?p=388 I’m proud to announce our latest famous entrepreneur profile to EvanCarmichael.com: Ty Warner from Ty Inc. best known for his line of Beanie Babies products.

He dropped out of Kalamazoo College to sell stuffed toys. It might not have been the most promising of starts, but when the young Ty Warner decided to start his own line of stuffed animals, he wound up taking children across the country – and their allowances – by storm. Beanie Babies were affordably priced, and with their cute individual names, Warner found himself sitting on top of a gold mine.

“Some companies are in it for the quick buck,” Warner once said back in 1996. “I want longevity.” In 1998, Ty Inc. surpassed Mattel Inc. and Hasbro Inc. to become the largest toy company in the U.S. How did this college drop out earn himself a spot on Forbes’ World’s Richest List?

You can read the full Ty Warner story here:

The Toy Tycoon: The Early Years of Beanie Babies Founder Ty Warner – Click To Read Article
He dropped out of Kalamazoo College to sell stuffed toys. It might not have been the most promising of starts, but when the young Ty Warner decided to start his own line of stuffed animals, he wound up taking children across the country – and their allowances – by storm. Beanie Babies were affordably priced, and with their cute individual names, Warner found himself sitting on top of a gold mine.

Taking Beanie Babies to the Bank: Warner’s Company Takes Off – Click To Read Article
Back in the U.S., Warner was now in search of the funds he needed to start his new venture. He placed a mortgage on his small suburban home and also set aside the $50,000 inheritance he had received after his father’s death in 1983. That, in addition to his life savings from his six figure income at Dakin gave Warner enough to found Ty Incorporated in 1986.

Lesson #1: Tease Your Customers into Wanting More – Click To Read Article
Warner did not spend any money on advertising for any of his product lines, not even the ever popular Beanie Babies. He did not have to. Instead, he pursued a novel and cost-effective strategy of teasing and taunting his customers into wanting more.

Lesson #2: Use Secrecy to Seduce Your Customers – Click To Read Article
Throughout Warner’s entire career, he has granted just three interviews with the media, this despite being one of the wealthiest men in the world. Does he really value his privacy that much? Or rather is it yet another weapon in Warner’s chest of arms that works to further lure in the unsuspecting customer and make his products irresistible?

Lesson #3: Listen To Your Customers, Not Your Critics – Click To Read Article
By 1992, Warner’s sales catalog had become an increasingly important marketing tool for the growing company. It now featured several dozen plush animal toys, with retailers and collectors alike in a frenzied race to order the latest releases.

Lesson #4: Low Risk Means Low Rewards – Click To Read Article
When it came to taking the road less traveled, Warner was all about accepting risk. And not just a little bit of risk; Warner knew that the more risk he was willing to take, the greater the reward in the end would be.

Lesson #5: Use Strategic Partnerships to Promote Your Products – Click To Read Article
Throughout most of his career in the toy industry, Warner had made a name for himself by bucking the trends. When tradition stated he should sell in the biggest stores he could, Warner opted to distribute his toys via the smaller “ma and pop” shops. And, when his competitors were spending millions of dollars on advertising campaigns, Warner resisted, choosing instead to cover the company and its products with a veil of secrecy.

Success Never Looked So Cute: How Beanie Babies Took the World by Storm – Click To Read Article
“Some companies are in it for the quick buck,” Warner once said back in 1996. “I want longevity.” In 1998, Ty Inc. surpassed Mattel Inc. and Hasbro Inc. to become the largest toy company in the U.S. How did this college drop out earn himself a spot on Forbes’ World’s Richest List?

Ty Warner Quotes – Click To Read Article
Ty Warner Quotes

What do you think of Ty Warner’s story? Are there any other famous entrepreneurs you would like to see profiled?

I’ve love to hear your thoughts if you leave a comment below!

(Photo Credit: Jeff McNeill) This is a special edition of SEO University where I have a guest post by Elisa Gabbert. Elisa was introduced to me by Byron Gordon, a great guy who I’ve worked with for a couple of years at the Search Engine Strategies conferences here in Toronto. When Byron asks me to check something out, it’s usually good!

Byron said I should check out WordStream’s new keyword tool located at http://www.wordstream.com/keywords. For years I’ve been a fan of using Google’s free tools, namely the Google Keyword Tool and the Google Traffic Estimator Tool. They are both free, provide great data, and it comes directly from Google – what more could you ask for?

I posed the question to Byron and he put me on to Elisa who wrote this guest post. I look forward to your thoughts on WordStream vs. Google after you read the post.

“At WordStream, we recently launched a new free keyword tool. One of the questions we get asked frequently is how the tool compares to the Google keyword tool (in fact it gets asked so frequently we put it in the FAQ).

Let me try to run down the pros and cons of using each tool.

Where Google’s Tool Is Better

Google’s keyword tool is similar to many of their products in that it has two core strengths: it uses Google data, and they give it away for free. If you’re in a market (and there are many) where Google is the dominant player, having access to Google’s data can definitely be useful. And Google has a lot of data.

The tool also provides several columns of numerical stats including both local and global monthly search volume and search volume trends, as well as information like advertiser competition and estimated average CPC which can be useful for the PPC advertiser. Aside from keywords and related terms, WordStream’s tool currently only shows you an estimated relative volume.

Where WordStream’s Tool Is Better

Google’s keyword tool taps into the company’s huge data sources, but they’re not giving you full access to that data. For example, a search for “britney spears” returns 72 results. Performing the same search on our tool yields over 37,000 keywords. We only show you the top 100 within the tool itself, but you can enter your email (or sign up for a free account) and we’ll send you the full list, all 37,563 keyword phrases, free of cost. So we are giving you a lot more to work with, including many long-tail terms, and this is really valuable for large PPC accounts or affiliate marketers especially.

Another advantage to our keyword tool is a greater diversity of keyword sources. We aggregate search query data from Internet Service Providers, browser toolbars and search engines—amounting to more than a billion unique keywords and over a trillion search queries—and we carefully weight the data to avoid bias toward any particular source. So our data is more comprehensive.

The “related keywords” feature allows you to select related terms and synonyms and include them in the results with your original query. Again, this is important for keyword expansion and can tell you what other phrases your audience may be using to search for related topics.

There’s also a filter feature so you can weed out terms that aren’t relevant to your search.

Finally, WordStream’s keyword tool is faster than Google’s. You get results pretty much instantaneously.

In the end, the point of using any of these tools is to get keyword suggestions, and it’s important to remember that they are in fact just suggestions—many of them may be irrelevant to your website or business. The more data you start out with, the more usable, actionable keywords you’re going to end up with after you drill down and figure out which terms are going to be most relevant and valuable for you. Then you can get to work optimizing your web copy and PPC campaigns based on those keywords, which in turn gives you more data to analyze (like which keywords drive the most traffic and conversions, and which aren’t delivering any value). This creates a cycle of data-driven decision making.

Our view is that keywords in and of themselves aren’t worth anything. It’s what you do with your keyword list that matters. That’s why we developed the tool. We hope that dedicated search marketers will stick around to learn the benefits of keyword management—tools and strategies that help you group, organize and act on all that raw keyword data to get real results in return.”

Elisa Gabbert is the Content Development Manager at WordStream, a software manufacturer specializing in keyword discovery & management software for SEO and PPC. To get in touch with Elisa, you can send a note to egabbert at wordstream dot com, follow her on twitter, or check out the WordStream Internet Marketing Blog, where she’s a regular contributor.

What do you think about the WordStream Keyword Tool? Are you going to give it a try? I would love to hear your thoughts on the tool if you comment below!

Most businesses live off the 80-20 rule where 80% of their revenue come from 20% of their customers. If you can keep your customers happy and provide them with service that makes them say “wow” you’re going to keep them as paying clients for life.

I also believe that your customer service department can be your marketing department. If you’re like most entrepreneurs then you are the customer service department, marketing department as well as being the president, vice president of sales, and janitor!

“If you want to generate more referrals then you need to give people a reason to talk about you… the key is to deliver outstanding customer service.”

If you’re wearing all of these hats the question comes down to how do you best spend your time on all the various tasks that need to get done?Referral marketing has long been one of the most profitable ways to generate money for a business. Think about it – referred customers complain less, ask fewer questions, are more qualified, buy more, and are generally happier than people you find you and want to price out your services to compare you to your competition.

If you want to generate more referrals then you need to give people a reason to talk about you and while having a great product helps, the key is to deliver outstanding customer service.

People these days don’t expect good customer service so if you can provide it you’ll really stand out and get people talking – just like I did about the Piroshky Bakery.

Providing outstanding customer service not only leads to more profitable clients, it’s a lot more fun than cold calling for new business!

Referrals, Referrals, Referrals

To help give you ideas on how to improve your customer service I’ve created a new section in this blog that I’ll keep up to date as I discover new techniques.

Here’s my first tip: Check the out of office messages when you send an email to your clients.

“Instead of giving up and being frustrated that you’re not able to reach your client, see if you can use the out of office message as an opportunity to stand out and connect.”

How many times have you sent an email or a newsletter out only to have an email come back a few seconds later to tell you that your client isn’t in the office? Usually those messages are pretty generic – something like “I’ll be out of the office until Thursday. Please contact Amy at (555) 555-5555 if you have any urgent questions.”

Sound familiar?

Instead of giving up and being frustrated that you’re not able to reach your client, see if you can use the out of office message as an opportunity to stand out and connect.

It works best when they leave more personalized out of office messages.

Here’s an example from Zappos, a company making waves with it’s outstanding customer service:

Wendy’s Very Cool Outstanding Zappos Customer Experience Story

Wendy is a Zappos customer who set her out of office message to:

“Thanks for your e-mail. I am currently hitting the pavement in Denver, walking 60 miles in three days to put an end to breast cancer. I’ll respond to your e-mail when I’m back.”

“I mean seriously. I can’t get over it. I have friends, family and colleagues that didn’t even acknowledge my participation in the Breast Cancer 3-Day, and I get a card from Zappos.com”

Zappos.com had sent her an email and discovered the message. When Wendy returned home she received a simple card from Zappos which read:

Hello Wendy!

While working through emails from our amazing customers, I came across your auto reply. Normally we mark them as auto replies, but yours caught my eye. I just wanted to let you know what an admirable thing you are doing! We at Zappos are proud to have you as a customer, and as part of our family.

Thank you for being a wonderful person.

Ashlee – customer relations rep at Zappos

(With a big “THANK YOU” on the top)

Not only has Zappos won Wendy as a customer for life, Wendy went on to tell all her friends about it and even write a blog post on it where she commented:

“I mean seriously. I can’t get over it. I have friends, family and colleagues that didn’t even acknowledge my participation in the Breast Cancer 3-Day, and I get a card from Zappos.com.

Zappos – you SERIOUSLY rock. I am in marketing/customer service shock. And if any of you have heard my recent complaints about Master Tailor and Urban Active, you know I was starting to lose faith in customer service. I love that I can now gloat about a company that has gone above and beyond. I’ve made one purchase from Zappos.com. One. And this is what I get. Unfreaking believable. Now I don’t have to feel guilty buying shoes, ’cause I’m gonna go hog wild at Zappos.com.”

So the next time you get an out of office message from a client, see if there is a way you can use it to stand out and make yourself memorable. For under $5 you can send a card to a customer and in the process earn their business for life as well as a collection of new referrals!

Talk about return on investment!

Do you have any outstanding customer service experiences or tips to share? Please comment below – I would love to hear from you!