Radio Free Enterprise

I’ve just come across a great site that I want to let you know about.

Cool Site Weekly is from Jim Edwards, Internet Marketing Guru and all-around man about town.

I’ve been following Jim’s pontifications for years and have purchased a number of very valuable marketing tools and courses from him. But I really think he has outdone himself this time.

Each week he finds a cool site that you probably hadn’t heard of and explains how to use it with a short screen-capture video.

Jim is the master of these types of streaming multimedia presentations and he puts all his skills to work with his new site.

The current posting offers a video tutorial on Jott, which is a service I told you about last May.

I must say, Jim does a much better job than I did explaining the power of this unique free service and I highly recommend that you watch his video and sign up for Jott.

Jim, if you’re out there reading this, all I can say is YOU GO BOY!

Just came across this very thought-provoking article in the online magazine Slate.

The basic tenant is that what’s ailing the U.S. Auto Industry is that they insist on building cars that generate profit for them instead of cars that generate value for their customers.

The author’s final point is that Henry Ford turned his company into the world’s largest automaker by building a car that simply provided basic transportation and was so inexpensive that even his own workers could buy one. The Model T, introduced 100 years ago, was so successful for so long that Mr. Ford was loathe to retire it even as he lost market share to competitors who offered more bells and whistles.

Whether this approach would have the same level of success a century later is an open question. I recommend you read the article for yourself and then come back and post a comment with your thoughts.

In this time of economic uncertainty and downright trauma, many accepted business tenants are being questioned. One of those is the supremacy of the shopping mall in the pantheon of American retail.

As described by this provocative opinion piece by Chadwick Matlin in today’s Washington Post, shopping malls, which were already under siege by discount megastores such as Walmart, as well as online powerhouses like Amazon, are now facing a daunting trifecta in the form of the economic downturn.

The rapid disappearance of mall stalwarts like Linen’s & Things, KB Toys, and Jordan Kitt’s Music are opening up huge swaths on retail space, reducing foot traffic and impulse buying at remaining stores and adding up to a potential death spiral for mall owner-operators as the reduced sales and customer numbers force ever more retailers to shutter.

Matlin argues that many malls will close and many of those should be torn down to make more efficient use of the land they sit on. Whether anything that drastic will occur remains to be seen, but I wouldn’t rule it out.

No matter what, there is no doubt that the face of American retail is being drastically altered by changing consumer buying habits. Clearly a challenge for most retailers but potentially a huge opportunity for others. Time will sort out the winners and losers. Stay tuned!

Tim Manners believes that the most important success factor for any brand, company or individual offering is Relevance.

Do your prospects or customers really care about what you have to offer. It may sound like an academic question but it isn’t. Every consumer or business buyer is tuned into only one station: WII FM. Their receiver only has enough bandwidth to decode the signal that answers the question What’s In It For Me?

Manners recently published Relevance: Making Stuff That Matters, the first chapter of which is available for free download here.

A great example of Manners’ premise is what recently occurred at Starbucks. After opening hundreds of locations in response to Wall Street growth pressure, they were forced to close over 600 stores in reaction to consumer indifference. They opened a zillion stores in places where local prospects saw them as irrelevant. Those consumers just don’t care about ambiance when all they want is a cup o’ Joe.

Manners further argues that ad agencies are in trouble because their industry, advertising, is becoming increasingly irrelevant and that Apple Stores are succeeding wildly not because of the Mac OS, iPods or iPhones but rather because Apple recognizes retail as a powerful marketing medium and is making the most of it.

Download the free chapter, give a read and come back and tell me what you think.

Ever wonder how to get your own toll free number? Wonder where to go, how much it would cost, how long it would take, what numbers are available?

Well wonder no more. There’s a great, inexpensive service that makes getting your own toll-free number fast and easy.

Just go to Kall8.com, click a few links and within ten minutes your new toll-free service will be up and running.

I’ve used them in the past and I just signed up for a new Radio Free Enterprise number which is 1-866-949-2661.

You can have it forward to your existing number, dump callers directly into voice mail or use it to receive faxes. I have my account set up to email me wav files of voice mails and PDFs of faxes. Pretty sweet!

888, 877 and 866 numbers are only $2 to set up and $2 per month service charge. 800 numbers are $5 to set up and $5 per month. Specialty numbers that are easier to remember and/or spell out specific words can run as high as $25 to set up and $25 per month. They also offer numbers with local area codes for $5/$5 and toll-free international numbers for $50/$50.

Even though 866-949-2661 is a great, easy-to-remember number, I got it for $2/$2, just by doing a little digging in their list of available numbers.

Any way you look at it, that’s dirt cheap! And the per minute charges are very reasonable as well, just 5.9¢ for local area code numbers and 6.9¢ per minute for all domestic toll-free numbers.

If you decide to sign up, please type my number - 866-949-2661 - in the promotional code box. That way Uncle Frankie will get $5 off his next phone bill from Kall8.

I’ve just come across BNet, a great online resource for business owners and professionals.

This video analyzes some of techniques Steve Jobs has developed to become one of the most powerful - and masterful - presenters in the business world today.

Unfortunately, the host of this video (communication coach Carmine Gallo) is not anywhere near Steve Jobs’ league. He almost killed this video for me early on, when he related Jobs’ consistent use of a vision statement (Gallospeak: “Setting The Theme”) at the beginning of every presentation, to what a sales manager might say at the beginning of a sales meeting.

“Good morning! Thanks for coming! I know you’ll be really excited about this: today we make it easier for you to make your quota!”

We can all rest easy knowing that those words have never come out of Steve Jobs’ mouth.

Once you get past that part, there are some excellent examples of how Jobs uses forecasting statements (Gallospeak: “Outlines”), clear transitions from one point to the next, enthusiasm and showmanship to keep his audiences riveted. Not to mention Jobs’ trademark encore remark, “There’s just one more thing I wanted to talk to you about today.”

The video also makes it clear that Jobs prepares and rehearses for hours before every presentation so that the end result always appears effortless.

In spite of Gallo and a couple of rough spots, this is highly recommended viewing for ANYONE who makes presentations of any kind. Unfortunately, BNet does not allow for the embedding of their videos on other people’s web sites so you’ll have to follow this link to watch it on theirs.

But that’s okay because it’s a pretty cool site. So, while you’re there, bump around and see what else you might find interesting.

And, if you need a communication (not communications Carmine) consultant, I hope you’ll give me a call.

Paul Mawhinney has a collection of over 2,500,000 vinyl records he’d like to sell you. It is reportedly the largest record collection in existence.

The video claims that it’s worth as much as $50 million. Paul’s only asking $3 million. He hasn’t received even a single “serious” offer.

The Archive from Sean Dunne on Vimeo.

Economists say that a good is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Why isn’t anyone willing to pony up for Paul’s collection? Because no one values it the way he does.

While some enterprising entrepreneur may step forward to purchase, catalog, market and sell each of these millions of records individually, at this moment it appears unlikely.

From my perspective Paul’s is a cautionary tale for every aspiring business owner whose desire is not to serve an existing market demand, but rather follow his heart. You may want to open a gift shop, wine store, antiques shop or bed and breakfast, but if there isn’t enough local demand to cover your expenses and generate a living-wage profit, you’re doomed to fail.

In our technology-driven society, it can often be difficult to keep up.

From iPhones to the latest social networking site, it seems like there’s always something new popping up that you need to wrap your head around and no time or resources to make it happen.

Until now, that is.