I thought I would break from the stale business stuff for a while today and share with you a recent angry mail I received. 

Dear Evil Genius,

I have been following your blog for a while, but I would like to let you know that I will not be coming back to your site, and will be telling everyone I know not to visit. I thought you would like to know why. 

I am deeply offended by your casual use of the word “retarded” in your postings, especially in your video segments.  As the mother of a mentally-challenged child, you have no idea how words of hate, even spoken in jest, can make someone feel.  My son has enough challenges facing him in his life.  He does not need bigoted people like you making fun of his disabilities. 

Susan (name changed) 

So to Susan, and all the other people I may have offended.  Eat me.  [Read the rest of this entry...]

Recently I needed to create a page in Wordpress that didn’t have the sidebar on it. Took me a while to find the solution, but the one I found works like a charm. Takes a bit of programming knowledge, but not too bad.

Here is a quick video on how to go about doing it and a custom.php to get you started.  Credit goes to Moses at wpthemesplugins.com for the solution.  His link is below.

Download this custom.php file and unzip to your desktop to get started

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We finally got a chance to sit with Jeff Sausaman, CEO of Action Real Estate. I really wanted to talk with Jeff to get his take on balancing family with the needs of a new business. Not only does he have a fantastic outlook on business in general (in my opinion) but if there ever was a boss with a 100% employee approval rating, it is him. This is just one of those guys that everybody loves.

Before we begin, I want to apologize for the video quality. The lighting where we filmed just sucked and I didn’t bring my big light rig…won’t make that mistake again.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

In the first part of this article, we discussed the different fundamentals you need to serve as the basis to your identity kit.  In this article, we will dive into some suggested elements of an identity kit and how to get started creating them.

Business cards  

The standard staple of old school business. While less important for a web based enterprises, business cards will still add an air of “realness” to you and your business.  When getting your cards printed, make sure to do it right.  Nothing says cheesy like a business card printed on your own ink-jet and showing perforated edges.

Things that matter:  Stock weight, color, double sided. 

When I get cards printed, I tend to use a double-sided full-color card on the heaviest stock I can get.  The reason for the double siding is to add more color, not more text on the card.   Having your business card stand out in a pile of 1000 other white cards is always important.  A slick card can help. 

I use Vista Print for my card printing. Their prices are much more reasonable than your local print shop and you have the option of creating the entire design of your card, rather than simply choosing a font and filling in a few lines of text. 

* Special note about Vista Print - ALWAYS look for coupons or special deals for Vista Print on the web.  Often you can save up to 50% of your entire order costs by just finding an online promo code. 

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Ok, I’m gonna apologize in advance. I’m about to whore out and pitch my own company, but I have a reason.

So Here goes:

Over the last few months, I have been spending a lot of time and a lot of my main company’s resources on building out Evil Genius TV. And to put it simply, my team over at Evil Genius Interactive is getting pissy. They are telling me that I am spending all my time markeitng the blog and not enough time marketing the business that actually makes us money….selfish bastards.

So, to make amends, I agreed to cut a video that they can use on our main site, and to also post it here to pitch to you guys. We are offering a 50% off promotion on EGI’s 4 most popular packages. Since many of you folks are new at the business game, you could probably use one of them.

If not, at least check it out to see how we go about marketing stuff ourselves. Maybe it will help you out in your own endevaors, even if you don’t spend a dime with us. (Take that Evil EGI team!)

To Learn More about this Special Fancy Limited Time Invitation Only Ultra Megacool Promotion, visit Evil Genius Interactive here.

Being a pretty new blogger myself, I am just learning how to leverage my blog as a marketing tool.  I’ve heard of pings and pingbacks myself, but never really knew what they were for.

If you already know why you are here, click below to download my updated ping list.

The Updated Wordpress Ping List  

So here’s the skinny….

When you post a new article to your blog, there is function (in Wordpress and I’m sure many others) where it automatically sends a message out to various blog directories letting them know of your new post.  That’s a Ping. I don’t need to tell you that this is great for traffic.

By default, there is exactly 1 pingback service that Wordpress includes in the default install.  There are however, many more places that you can notify.  I compiled my list from 2 places, and I take NO credit for discovering any of these pings location.

The first group came from Wordpress themselves. Their list is here.

The second group came from Mat7.com.  His list is here.  This is a great site with lots of useful resources for N00bs like me.  I actually came across his site from his youtube ping tutorial that you can find here.  Informative, AND he has a fancy British accent which means you HAVE to believe what he is saying.

So what I did was compiled a list of both, mushed em together, and made them available for you to download.  The video will show you exactly how to go about implementing the new pingbacks in Wordpress.

One of the most overlooked marketing tenants is consistency.  Both large and small companies alike are guilty of this cardinal sin of neglect.  Even for the smallest of businesses, having a business card, website, letterhead, email signatures, envelopes, and all promotional materials tied together is crucially important.  Think of it as business Garanimals. Only in this case, not only will you look snappy, but you will also create a synergy that will help customers remember you even in different context than they are used to seeing you in.

What your identity kit should look like. Mix and match any line from monkey, bear, or rhino, and you are good to go!

In this first part of the series we will discuss what you need before you even get started with your identity kit.  In the next article, we will discuss how these elements come into play in forming your identity kit, and what identity elements you need.
[Read the rest of this entry...]

In the Internet Marketing community, we are constantly exposed to strategies and tactics to market your product/service online and drive traffic to your web site. I don’t mean to dismiss the value of any of these methods.  In fact we use most of them ourselves.

But, it almost makes you wonder…

“How did people ever market before the Internet?” 

That question served as my jumping off point in developing this list. You see, it seems everybody is talking about how to increase your online marketing, but nobody ever talks about what you can do to increase your offline marketing with little or no funds.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

I have been getting a bunch of questions lately on what type of gear I use for the video blog and the live streaming segments. So… I decided to do a video showing you the different hardware and software we use to make it happen.

In case you are to lazy to watch the video, here is what I use:

Cams
Canon XL1
Canon Elura MC2

Mics
Audio Technical Pro88 wireless
Audio-Technica ATR-35S Lavalier Microphone
Rocketfish USB Gaming Headset

Software
Adobe CS3 Masters Edition
Adobe Photoshop/Premier Elements Package (used to use, but great for price)
Camtasia Studio 5

PC Rig
Dell XPS 420 Quad Core/ 4Gb ram / Radeon 8600GTS Pcix8/ Radeon 6200 pci
3x Dell 228WFP

This is the compliment of my last article on Top 10 Free Article Submission Sites.  If you missed that, read it here.

For the complete list of Article and PR Sites listed in this post, download the .pdf here

A PR submission site differs from an Article submission site in that you are not submitting an article. Duh.  I know it sounds retarded, but soooo many people screw it up and end up just wasting their time and effort.  

An example of an article might be: “Top 10 Tricks for Covering Genital Herpes.” 

In contrast, in a Press Release, you are submitting some sort of an announcement that you feel is newsworthy in hopes that it will get picked up somewhere and shared.  Web 2.0 has kind of blurred the lines between everything, so the distinction is a bit more fuzzy than it used to be.

A complimentary Press Release might be:  “Zolcor announces Weenie Paste -Subhead -Cure Embarrasing Herpes Breakout in just 10 days”

[Read the rest of this entry...]