Three Top Website Secrets
Apr 23rd, 2007 by Freddie
I looked out of my window this morning and… horror! Next door’s rabbit, dead in the middle of my lawn.
A fence panel had blown down in the recent high winds and Flopsy (for such was the ex-bunny’s epithet) must have hopped through on its search for an ever-juicier dandelion leaf.
It must have been then that it came nose to nose with… CRUNCHER, my pet Pit Bull Terrier. My neighbour’s kids would be very upset – they loved that rabbit.
Oh lack-a-day.
Then a sneaky, underhand thought occurred to me.
Bunnykins didn’t look too mauled. In fact there was hardly a mark on the poor little chap. The fence panel was down… the hutch was just a few steps away…
Could I?
Dare I?
Cradling the rather stiff, bereft of life, resting in peace (etc. etc.) bunny in my hands I crept through to next door, opened the cage, and artistically laid it out on the straw in a suitable “I’ve just passed away peacefully in my sleep” pose, before closing the cage and tip-toeing back.
Well… natural causes, right? I mean, maybe a spider scared it to death. Delicate things, rabbits.
Job done and I was off the hook.
The following day my neighbour knocked on the door. I could see he was nearly in tears.
“This world…” he said. Then paused for dramatic effect, clutching his fevered brow. “This world… is really… really… getting to me.”
“Steady on old chap. What’s the problem?”
“Our… our rabbit died.” He gulped.
I composed a suitably shocked and then funereal face. I restrained myself from slapping my forehead and
exclaiming: “Oh no! How can this be???”
“Yes…” Again he seemed close to tears and genuinely overwhelmed.
A bit O.T.T. I thought, but each to their own.
Then the bombshell struck…
“Yes… we buried it yesterday morning. Tell me Stuart….
Tell me. What sort of sick weirdo would dig up my children’s rabbit and put it back in its cage?”
What? You thought I would be such a sick little monkey and do such a thing? You thought I had neighbours??? You thought I OWNED A PIT BULL???
Sheesh. I can see I need to work on you some more.
The moral?
Well, it’s just a funny joke which I wanted to tell but since everything has a moral, here’s my take on this.
Never do anything sneaky or underhand because it will always come back and bite you on the bum.
Really, it will.
Maybe not directly (although it usually is direct and
swift) it may come back to you later. But come back it will. In your business dealings always treat people fairly and honestly. That’s trite, but it is so for a reason. It’s true. When you are honest it multiplies away quietly in the background – and that also comes back to you later in the form of huge dividends.
Worth thinking about.
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Quote of the Day
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“Choose a job that you love and you will never have to work another day in your life.” Confucious
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Three Top WebSite Secrets
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Who hasn’t got a website these days? The current number
of web pages is 14 billion and rising!
But what about sites which are intended to provoke a
reaction in the reader? This usually means getting them
to buy something, but it could also encompass other
actions.
These are a different story and you have to pay special
attention to how they are crafted.
Here are three tips to help you:
TIP #1
“What is the PURPOSE of your web site?”
You MUST answer this question if your site is to be
effective. There’s no right or wrong answer – it’s your
answer and your site.
But get clear. Is it selling stuff? If so, what? Is it a
meeting place for others? Is it giving out information?
Most sites are a total hotch-potch mess of different,
confusing things with no clear driving direction. Keep
yours clean and uncluttered and with an obvious purpose.
If you have more than one purpose, consider having
separate sites for each project.
TIP #2
People love free stuff. Contrary to popular belief, it’s
actually devilishly hard to sell things direct from a
web site. To do this you must first master off-line
marketing principles before trying to sell on-line. One
way to attract people to your site is to have free
downloads. These should have some good content but leave
people hungry enough to purchase the main feast.
TIP #3
Everybody’s favourite radio station is WIIFM – that’s
What’s In It For Me.
The moral here is that people don’t care a Dingo’s
kidney about you – they care about themselves. They are
100% selfish. Okay, maybe 99% on a really good day. So
don’t bang-on about yourself in the site (unless that’s
its purpose, of course, like a blog). Instead talk about
the customer and their problems. Then talk about the
benefits of your product or service and how it can solve
their problems.
Think ‘headache – aspirin.’
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Are You Wagging or Growling?
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Thanks to Bob Proctor for emailing this Japanese folk
story called ‘The House of 1000 Mirrors.’
Are you sitting comfortably?
Long ago in a small, far away village, there was a place
known as the House of 1000 Mirrors.
A small, happy little dog learned of this place and
decided to visit. When he arrived, he bounced joyfully
up the stairs to the doorway of the house.
He looked through the doorway with his ears lifted high
and his tail wagging as fast as it could. To his great
surprise, he found himself staring at 1000 other happy
little dogs with their tails wagging just as fast as
his.
He smiled a great smile, and was answered with 1000
great smiles just as warm and friendly. As he left the
house, he thought to himself, “This is a wonderful
place. I will come back and visit it often.”
In this same village, another little dog, who was not
quite as happy as the first one, decided to visit the
house.
He slowly climbed the stairs and hung his head low as he
looked into the door. When he saw the 1000 unfriendly
looking dogs staring back at him, he growled at them and
was horrified to see 1000 little dogs growling back at
him. As he left, he thought to himself, “That is a
horrible place, and I will never go back there again.”
All the faces in the world are mirrors.
What kind of reflections do you see in the faces of the
people you meet?
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Right, I’m off to visit a guy who reckons he makes £100k
a year from his PC at home by betting on Financial
Indices like the FTSE 100. And he only works an hour a
day!
He seems 100% certain it works as he’s been cleaning up
for the last five years, so I will try and report back
to you Thursday to see if this is something you could
do.
So, glasshoppah, you read, but do you act? If a fifty
pound note falls from a tree in a forest, but nobody
sees it, is it really there? What is sound of one hand
clapping? And so on.
I’ll catch you next time.
Stuart Goldsmith
The Money Tree
