Category Archives: Business

Today I (tearfully) retire my email signature

13 Replies

I’m a strong advocate of having an email signature that helps me know who you are.  I want you to know who I am, and what I can offer you.  Thus, I created and have used this email signature for a long, long time:

In Outlook (with html):

In Gmail (no html):

After getting a comment on my LinkedIn blog (it’s pretty funny), and another comment on Young PR Pros (in jest, of course), I decided it was time to try something else.

So here’s my new signature:

I could only do this since I redesigned JasonAlba.com (it used to just be a blog, but now has a landing page with all my other stuff).

I worry that people won’t know about all the cool stuff I do, and not know what I’m about.  It’s kind of scary.  However, I wonder how many people previously sifted through my other signature… how many JibberJobber signups I got because of my sig, how many book sales, blog readers, CEO Webinar purchases…

It’s kind of like when you come up with your 30 Second Commercial… you feel like you are leaving so much out, and how in the world could you cut stuff out??  But you have to.  And so did I.

It’s a new day, and perhaps I’ll regret it, but I doubt anyone will suggest I shorten my signature.  Scary but good… that’s my gut feel right now.

My mind is in marketing mode

Leave a reply

I’ve realized two things since I’ve started my business:

  1. My business evolves and matures, and is differnet than what I thought it would be (and will probably be different in two years than what I can conceptualize right now).
  2. I have a lot of cool stuff that I can put a value on.  Aside from JibberJobber, I have books, webinars and consulting.  All of these are revenue stream opportunities.

Over the last few months I’ve been thinking a lot about revenue streams… or should I say opportunities?  There are many things that make up the composition of “ideal” in my business:

  • Automated.  Has to be something that won’t require me to do any fulfillment.  JibberJobber upgrades are one example.  Book sales through my publisher is another example.
  • Repeat value.  I have to provide *stuff* that is valuable, or else I won’t feel good about hawking my warez.  Is this stuff that helps people, or businesses (more of an emphasis on people)?  Really??  If it’s just vapor-value, I don’t want to do it.  Don’t want to worry about returns, complaints, and certainly not diminishing my brand.
  • Complementary.  I hear you can make good money selling stuff on ebay.  Or getting into an MLM.  Or flying a plane, or doing brain surgery. Okay, that’s extreme, but you get my point.  I want to stay within a certain boundary of what I provide, produce, offer and sell.  Would any of the people who buy one product be interested in another product, or other products, I have?  
  • Seizing the window (of opportunity).  I hate to miss a window of opportunity, so the info has to be timely.  LinkedIn is timely, so the book does well.  What else is timely, and what might I be doing that isn’t timely?
  • Not fad-based.  Would have been nice to have gotten in on some fads, but really, I am not interested in producing a fad unless I can sell for a grundle of money.  I want something with long-term, sustainable value.

Understand, I have my “product line.”  I’m not looking for other mousetraps, or products, or services… I’m just thinking about how to better market my stuff.

Want to join me on the journey?  Your welcome to – I’ll blog about it here!

Dear Skype, You Failed Me :(

Leave a reply

but I still love youToday I had a very cool radio interview. Well, it was a recording and essentially a podcast… it was being recorded, and it will be linked to from a newspaper in central California.

But about 10 minutes into it Skype hung up the call.

DUDE. Seriously, what the freak?

I love Skype, and I use it all the time. But for “mission critical” stuff, like live or recorded interviews, I’m gun shy. Make that, skype shy 🙁

I’m For Hire (not what you think – read on)

Leave a reply

bicep.gifI’ve been thinking about this for a long time… and don’t want to send the wrong impression out, so please read on.

First, just to squash any rumors, JibberJobber is still #1 for me. No doubt about that. Big time #1. Things are going fast and furious with the business.

Now that we got that out of the way…

I’m also a new author (the book just hit Amazon yesterday). This book has been making its way through the blogosphere, and career experts have given enthusiastic thumbs-ups on this, and I’m excited about it. In fact, I just bought 200 because I’m going to 3 conferences in the next 6 weeks and figure I can move them all. There are a number of reasons I wrote this book, but notice that it’s directly related to the career/networking space I’m in, and I didn’t find this to be a deviation from my strategy at all.

So now, down to business. I’ve been doing Internet work for about 10 years. All kinds of stuff – I’m good at some stuff and not into other stuff (I’m not a graphics/layout designer). Here’s what I’m offering:

1 hour phone consultation – I’ll spend an hour with you talking about whatever you want. Usually this is geared around what I’ve done with JibberJobber (getting it from zero-to-market in 2 months, and/or marketing, blog marketing strategy, etc.) . I’ve done this a number of times in the last year and feel pretty confident that this will be an hour packed full of good information. You can record the session as long as it stays private. $250/hour.

3 hours of website analysis – I love checking out your website/blog strategy and giving feedback. This usually takes about two to three hours, as I go through the entire thing, and some extra stuff (to see how it’s marketed, possibly checking out the competition, etc.). If I don’t take the entire three hours I’ll spend the remainder with you on the phone if you want. $500

If you want to hire me, let me know – Jason at JibberJobber dot com