Admin on January 20th, 2010

Posted by Tom Kulzer (AWeber CEO)

In 1936, long before the rise of the personal computer, Hormel Foods created SPAM. In 2002, the company will produce it’s six billionth can of the processed food product. But that mark was passed long ago in the world of Internet spam.

* Who Cooked This!? (How did it all start?)
* Why Does Bad Spam Happen to Good People?
* Stop The Flood to Your Inbox
* Stay Off Spammed Lists in the Future
* Think You’re Not a Spammer? Be Sure.
* The Final Blow

Who Cooked This!? (How did it all start?)

The modern meaning of the word “spam” has nothing to do with spiced ham. In the early 1990’s, a skit by British comedy group Monty Python led to the word’s common usage. “The SPAM Skit” follows a couple struggling to order dinner from a menu consisting entirely of Hormel’s canned ham.

Repetition is key to the skit’s hilarity. The actors cram the word “SPAM” into the 2.5 minute skit more than 104 times! This flood prompted Usenet readers to call unwanted newsgroup postings “spam.” The name stuck.

Spammers soon focused on e-mail, and the terminology moved with them. Today, the word has come out of technical obscurity. Now, “spam” is the common term for “Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail”, or “UCE.”

Why Does Bad Spam Happen to Good People?

Chances are, you’ve been spammed before. Somehow, your e-mail address has found it’s way into the hands of a spammer, and your inbox is suffering the consequences. How does this happen? There are several possibilities.
Read the rest of this entry »

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , ,

Paula P on January 17th, 2010

Attention Business Owners – Vitamins and Minerals are Available for Your Business Health.

Just like supplementing your body for maximum health, your business also needs supplements for its optimum health. There are a set of vitamins and minerals that if taken on a regular schedule will get your business internally healthy and keep it that way.

‘Now you’re being silly’, you say. ‘Taking vitamins and minerals – what a bunch of malarky. This is a gimmick, right?’

‘Sorta kinda not really’, is my reply. The analogy is very apt. Taking the time to address the various components of your business as a daily or weekly requirement, on a set schedule of dosages, will ensure that you have your fingers on the health pulse of your business.

So many times, we as small business owners are so caught up in the emergency of the day, implementing a new strategy, filling rush orders, etc. that we leave the other parts of business to run on their own, hoping for the best. What happens? We end up moving from one crisis or deadline to the next. The business ends up controlling us and the joy we had in having our business is gone.
Read the rest of this entry »

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , ,

Paula P on January 10th, 2010

Welcome to the new home of Discover Living Well, a support site helping people achieve their dream of running their own successful business from home.

Discover Living Well is not about health or wealth, well, not totally. Living Well is about having control over your time, over your life, to do what you need to do for yourself and for family & friends. All while knowing that your business supplies you with the financial support you need to make this dream happen.

Can it be done? Absolutely! Is it quick? No. Is it easy? Not really but it’s not impossibly hard either. It takes some time and effort to build your business plan but it can be done by anyone who really knows what they want.

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , ,

Paula P on December 12th, 2009

Who am I and why am I here? Well everyone has a story, and here’s mine. It’s not particularly unusual, but perhaps there are things here that you will relate to, help move you forward in getting to where you want to be.

I am a long time entrepreneur, mainly because I’m a terrible employee. I don’t like being told when to work, when I can take holidays, when I can take breaks, when I can’t stay home with a sick child. It stifles and frustrates me. Besides I’ve got strong opinions on what works and what doesn’t, and not all employers appreciate that kind of feedback.

Over the years I’ve gone through the duds (sunk with flames streaming from the wreakage) and successes that go along with it. I’ve been close to bankruptcy, living on cabbage and potatoe soup (anyone need the receipe?) and cleaning apartments in exchange for rent. I’ve built and sold businesses along the way and have ridden the wave, to where I am now.
Read the rest of this entry »

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , ,

Paula P on November 24th, 2009

Freely available to any entrepreneur or business owner are a selection of power tools that will enable to you build a business to any level of success. I’m not talking about the electrical kinds of tools, cool as some of them may be. I’m talking about the business power tools called Plans & Goals.

Business plans, strategic plans, marketing plans, operations plans, import/export plans. Every business owner who is successful will have some or all of these tools built and sitting in their office. Perhaps under a pile of other binders, buried in a corner of chaos as in my case, but they’re there. The power inherent in these tools is in the building of them. Once written, they are good to review & update periodically, but their ultimate power lies in the writing of them.
Read the rest of this entry »

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , ,

Paula P on November 19th, 2009

Your 5 Step Plan to an Effective, Affordable Online Marketing Campaign

Are you planning for explosive sales this year through an effective, organized marketing campaign or are you maintaining your status quo and hoping for the best? If you’re serious about your business, then sales growth is always dominant in your mind.

A planned, organized campaign with rotation through a variety of targeted sites, directories and venues is not hard to coordinate, does not need to cost a great deal of money and can generate traffic and sales faster than search engine submissions alone. It takes a bit of research and a solid knowledge base of your target customer, however, you can plan and implement a simple campaign in the space of a dedicated day.

This 5 Step Plan has been created by in-the-trenches experience of online marketing for small business. By doing each of the Steps, you will quickly and effectively create a plan that can be implemented immediately and begin reaping your sales successes.
Read the rest of this entry »

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , ,