Category Archives: Business

Listing My Stuff on Amazon – LinkedIn for Job Seekers DVD

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Last night I bit the $39.95/month bullet and listed my LinkedIn for Job Seekers DVD on Amazon as a “Pro Merchant.” I could “list a single item” on Amazon for free, ONLY IF they already have that item in their “catalog.”  In other words, if there is a book or DVD you can already find in Amazon, you can list yours to sell there… but if you want to submit a NEW item (like LinkedIn for Job Seekers) you have to pay $39.95 a month and become a Pro Merchant.

There is lots of help information available for this, although I find it to be a rather complex thing so I ended up reading a lot to do research on it.  Here are my initial thoughts:

  • I need to list this item on Amazon because I think that’s where most of the sales are going to come from.  I think around 80% of my book sales come from Amazon, even though I have a bunch of Happy About affiliates, and I’ve promoted the affiliate program quite a bit since we started.  But Amazon has gazillions of eyeballs and people going there to look and purchase.
  • I got sideblinded when entering the product because it requires a UPC.  DANG. For some reason I didn’t think that little-ol-me would have to have something so formal.  I did a search on UPC amazon and came upon a great blog post, which led me to IWantMyBarCode.com.  I read through the site and based on comments from that other blog post I decided to drop $22 for my UPC – a one-time purchase.  I LOVE the I Want My Barcode site style… not the design, but the personality and the story behind the site.  I ordered it last night (around 6pm) and got my UPC this morning (so I could finish submitting the LinkedIn for Job Seekers DVD this morning).
  • When I submitted the product for some reason it took it as “LinkedIn for Job Seekers DVD by” … UGH.  I clicked the edit link but the only thing it would let me edit was the quantity and some other thing.  I have no idea how to edit the title… but then when I clicked on the actual listing it did NOT have the “by” … so it looked good.  Still bugged me :p
  • I have seen plenty of items on Amazon that have a different “available” or “shipping on” date. I was hoping that I could set the “doesn’t ship until” date to April 7th, which is when the DVD company told me they would have the DVDs in my office.  Instead, the shipping date is TODAY, March 25th.  This is a problem, especially if people want expedited shipping.
  • When I put in my inventory, which is 980 units, I was surprised to go the the Amazon product page and see there was … drum roll… 1 product.  I am not sure it matters, but I was surprised to see something different than what I put in.  I think it would be better to not show 980, or anything over a couple of dozen…
  • Oh yeah, one thing I didn’t ask Amazon about was the price – for a limited time I’m offering it for 49.95 from my website… and wanted to do the same on Amazon, but I can’t find a way to change the price (or show there’s a special temporary price)…
  • Finally, and the most important thing for me, is I want LinkedIn for Job Seekers (the DVD) to show up when someone is looking at ANY LinkedIn book on Amazon.  This is critical.  CRITICAL.  I don’t think this DVD will show up on those product pages because, well, I don’t think that BOOKs and DVDs mix.  This is not good for me, because many people who are looking at any of the LinkedIn books could be potential purchasers of my DVD… especially people who are looking at MY book!  Doesn’t it make sense that my two products are one one-another’s pages? I hope this wall between product types (books vs. DVDs) is something we can get around.

So those are my first impressions.  It really will be interesting to see how many are sold through Amazon, which will likely be people who have NO idea who Jason Alba is, vs. how many are sold through my own network/audience and affiliate channels.

Here’s an image from the Amazon listing page:

LinkedIn Webinar Sales Page Makeover

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I spent some time with Carl Chapman, website and SEO expert, and he made some suggestions to me about this page, which he said confused him (no in-your-face call to action, etc.):

Here’s the new one that I reworked:

Here’s what I did differently … notice the underlines are not included in the changes listed below, but they are different than the old page:

  1. Instead of the text title, this is an image… flashier… jumps out, even has … color (!).
  2. I made the price line more obvious, especially with this red strikethrough, and noting the S&H that the customer isn’t paying for now.
  3. This is broken out from the old statement, which I think is good…
  4. This is bold, green, and on it’s own line.
  5. Buy Now button, instead of a link… this is more clear (there’s your call to action Carl).
  6. Carl mentioned it said “LinkedIn Webinars” but there is currently only one webinar… SO… here’s this italicized statement that the rest are coming.

What do you think?  How else should this be improved?

BTW, if you are interested in the DVD, you can order here. OOPS! I mean, 🙂

Super Freaking Awesome (video update)

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I need to update you on the video thing… last post I asked for some input on a video from my new video editor…and since then we have changed some stuff and started to put out new videos (which are now live, and in production).

You can see all of the videos we’ve put out for JibberJobber user tutorials here, on Vimeo.  They are hi-def, which means crazy big files, but Vimeo handles it well, and the user doesn’t see slow download time (afaik). Also, if they make the video bigger the quality is good.  Cool.

I’ve also been working on the first series that I’ll sell – because it is HD we can’t do downloads as it’s GBs of info – just barely enough to fit on one DVD.  More on that soon!

Thanks to everyone who gave input on the video post from last time 🙂

Looking for feedback on user tutorial videos – thoughts?

I need some input/feedback on some changes I’m doing with my JibberJobber user tutorial videos. I’ve embedded our test video below, but you can see the wider version here.  Notice that the visible quality is horrible – we’ve uploaded it on vimeo.com also, but it is still rendering apparently… so ignoring the visual (and my narration), I’m wondering about the editing and final product.

Here are my initial thoughts/questions (I hope this doesn’t influence your feedback):

  • Is the intro music (just a few seconds) okay? I think it’s kind of cool but I wouldn’t have thought of it…
  • I’m not sure about the music throughout the entire video… is it… good? Distracting?  Okay, or horrible?
  • At the end the video editor put his voice in the conclusion – thoughts?  My initial thought is “don’t say www”… it is not necessary when typing it in.
  • What else – what am i missing?

Again, realize the quality of what you see (not the audio) will look much, much better on vimeo.

Tim Ferriss on losing money (and how to recoup)

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Tim Ferriss is one of my new favorite bloggers… he may not be new to blogging but his blog is new to me.  It’s really brilliant stuff.  Here’s a snippet I really liked from his “Things I’ve Learned and Loved in 2008” post:

You don’t have to recoup losses the same way you lose them. I own a home in San Jose but moved almost 12 months ago. It’s been empty since, and I’m paying a large mortgage each month. The best part? I don’t care. But this wasn’t always the case. For many months, I felt demoralized as others pressured me to rent it, emphasizing how I was just flushing money away otherwise. Then I realized: you don’t have to make $ back the same way you lose it. If you lose $1,000 at the blackjack table, should you try and recoup it there? Of course not. I don’t want to deal with renters, even with a property management company. The solution: leave the house alone, use it on occasion, and just create incoming revenue elsewhere that would cover the cost of the mortgage through consulting, publishing, etc.

Wow, I’ve never thought about that but how powerful. There’s other super-cool stuff in that post, one of which I really like (as an author/speaker) is: Related: You’re never as bad as they say you are.

Read the entire post here.

The Google Guys, inspiration, and mom

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I’m just finishing up The Google Story, a really cool book about the history of Google.  I remember the first time I used Google, and hearing about some of the Google news as it happened, since all of this happened since I started college… anyway, here’s one of the funnest paragraphs from the book, page 275, bottom of the page:

Larry and Sergey, mathematicians turned moguls, were still turning the ordinary into the extraordinary.  In the months following Google’s IPO, the 31-year-old founders became America’s newest and wealthiest young billionaires, and hundreds of other Googlers became millionaires.  The guys debuted on the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans at number 43, with a net worth of $4 billion each.  That was based on a Google stock price of about $110.  When the stock shot up in price to more than $300 in the summer of 2005, each of the founders had a net worth in excess of $10 billion.  Still, this wasn’t good enough for Sergey’s mother, Eugenia Brin, who wanted him to return to Stanford, write his thesis, and finish his Ph.D.

I love it … of course money isn’t everything, and this story proves that again… Euginia isn’t mentioned much in the book, but she is mentioned with much respect… you can find out WHY she was so intent on that goal in the early part of the book… definitely a strong recommendation on reading the book from me!

LinkedIn will be back soon (I hope)

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I’m working on a powerpoint for my presentation on Wednesday… it was due last Friday.  Here’s the message I get right now:

This is one of my great presentation fears, especially when I plan on going online (I usually have a ppt backup, but don’t want to get caught with this message when I plan on going online).