Friday, February 02, 2007
Time Crunch
The good news is that Get Response http://www.getresponse.com is a wonderful service. It has been around for a long time.
They have dealt with issues I have never dreamed about.
After there service is set up properly it will run automatically.
They can handle huge volumes of emails.
Yet each person gets almost personalized follow up.
That all depends upon setting up all the options properly.
I have already invested many hours learning how their system works.
I made many mistakes at first.
I have gotten up the learning curve and make fewer errors.
The time crunch is due to the clash of this against another matter.
I set an artificial deadline of segmenting the list before February first.
I will use Get Response to do this but that is not ready yet.
I could spend many more hours to get that properly organized.
Meanwhile I have a very real deadline coming soon.
I have a free trail version of Camtasia http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp
That will expire in two days.
I will quickly shift gears to get the most use of that program.
Today and tomorrow I will make lots of short videos.
These will easily be published online.
They will demonstrate the key part of teaching earning passive income online.
Those units are examples of things to come.
That will more easily lead to the money to buy that program and fund related tools.
So the bottom line is that the distribution list will not be segmented immediately.
After that trial version has expired I will go back to that project.
Please pray for productivity this evening and on Saturday.
Then early next week, Lord willing, I will offer ways to choose email options.
John 2:16 PM
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Progress is Happening
Shebaa
After seven months on the waiting list Shebaa was accepted in the aquatics exercise program at a hospital near where she lives. There are three classes a week and it runs for two months. This will greatly help to strengthen her back. The class does gentle exercises in a swimming pool with warm water that is chest high. This takes the weight off the back and joints.
Car
When the bolt was going to be replaced last week it was discovered that the threads had stripped. The tool that will remake those threads will come available today. SO Lord willing the car could be running this evening.
Crown
I had planned to start the Crown Financial classes last Wednesday night at my home church. But then I discovered that the class was full. I was put on a waiting list and was quickly put into a new group. It will meet in a home for 11 weeks starting Thursday February 1st. I hope my car is running by then or I will get a ride.
Mural
Last week I had expected to have the initial version of the Big Picture mural online by Saturday night. But the more I researched the more complex it became. The job is about five times as big as I had estimated. It is not wonder no body has done this before. Yet in about a moth when this is done it will be unlike anything on the web.
Let me give you an idea of the nature of this challenge. Imagine that I had set out to write a book about World War II. I have access to newspaper and magazine archives, government documents and personal letters. Imagine that there was no other book that gave an overview of how the war began, progressed and ended. I needed to figure it all out like a giant jig saw puzzle.
Machine
The mural is five times larger than I estimated. So it may be a very long time before there is one grand mural. Meanwhile I can share some of the parts. These will go online as videos and as poster size mind maps for donors. Those are on-going projects for many weeks to come. Pray for a few key parts to be completed each week.
The mural is a wonderful communication tool. But that is only part of the overall solution. Imagine a simple machine like a go cart. There is an engine, steering, brakes, frame and seat. All need to be present and functional. Likewise besides the mural I need other elements. One of the main parts are email newsletters to keep in contact with prayer supporters as well as customers. My attention has shifted to that until that part is working.
Compatibility
During the Christmas break I invested dozens of hours in learning a new web editing program. Then after several days I was ready to publish the new website. But I discovered that it was not compatible with my web host. That was a hard lesson. So I have become very careful about compatibility matters.
Compatibility relates to the choices I made in the last few days. I set a goal to segment the email list by February first. I now need to offer a few options to those on the current list so that they are getting what they want and not too much. Also in the coming months I will be heavily promoting various offers and each one needs a tailored follow through.
This is where serendipity played a big role in the combination of choices. It was an unexpected path to a solution that will solve my short term and long term needs.
I was listening to a podcast and Alex Mandossian mentioned a new web service in a conversation. Note I have heard dozens of hours of him online. And like Christian radio he does a lot of teaching but stops at intervals to pitch a product. This was just one mention one time in passing. So I made a note and looked it up on the web. It turns out that the new site was less than 2 weeks old and in major beta testing.
Marketing Makeover Generator http://marketingmakeovergenerator.com/ has solved many complicated compatibility challenges. Audio, video, email and database management are integrated. This will greatly help me build my business and lead others to do the same. I listened to the initial tutorial and was amazed. Then I signed up and took the larger tutorial. That is when I recognized both the strengths and weaknesses of this service. Alex said that this is great for the critical part of converting those who visit a website into initial customers.
But at this stage it is weak on follow through. However they offered ways to export the new contact information to three vendors. I explored all these. I liked the range of services and interface of Get Response http://www.getresponse.com Then during their tutorial the quickly and only one time mentioned that they have a sister company Website Wizard http://www.websitewizard.com I have only begun to use this and I like it. The compatibility with the sister company is a big plus. I realize that most people I will be leading into earning passive income online will never have made a website before. This one is very user friendly for beginners.
Sequence
My attention today and tomorrow is on segmenting the email list using Get Response http://www.getresponse.com I hope to offer you and those I contact in the future a few options as to how they what to be contacted about prayer support.
Then I will develop a front end to those options using Marketing Makeover Generator http://marketingmakeovergenerator.com/ This will give me an easy and attractive way to enroll prayer supporters in the future.
Then a few of the parts of the mural will become online videos as soon as this weekend. Those will become poster size mind maps for donors next week.
These action steps will lead to the much needed traction between the ideal and the real.
By the grace of God by this time next month the many hours I invest each week into this project will quickly become valuable services for a growing group of customers. That will lead to income. The income will increase as each part of the mural and machine are added.
Missions
I could not pour my whole soul into earning a passive income online and teaching others to the same unless there was a strong missions element. This summer and future summers I plan to go serve those impacted by hurricanes. There is an average of three major hurricanes a year. That means that the lives of tens of thousand of people along the Gulf Coast will become thrust into chaos.
I desire to be there to serve them with an abundance of useful information and education. Those online materials and quarterly CDs will meet a wide range of needs for the many months needed to recover. A part of rebuilding their life in the new location or old location might include earning a passive income online. So the systems that are being designed and built this spring need to be ready to accommodate many thousands of people suddenly. They need to be as automated as possible.
While meeting the practical needs I intend to gain an on-going relationship. For that I can gradually introduce what the Bible teaches about salvation and living in obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. In the coming years my hope is that there will be an abundance of materials to meet temporal as well as eternal needs. The scope of this vision is vast and in order to accomplish it the design calls for the active participation of the members to create parts for fellows members.
At one level I am very sorry that this message is this long. I wish it was much shorter. Hopefully in the coming months after I have segmented the list and developed other ways to communicate with prayer supporters there will be shorter units sent out more often. These could be archived on a blog for others to read later. Please pray for this to unfold easily.
THANKS for all you prayers. I cannot underestimate how important they are. I have often witnessed a direct relationship between the prayer requests made and the rate of progress.
John 3:01 PM
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