Here is how Marla Cilley, better known by her nom de guerre, FlyLady, runs her business. Every morning she rolls out of bed and starts nagging. She sends a first e-mail to her 400,000 subscribers at about 7 A.M., reminding them to get up and get dressed. Throughout the day she'll send about ten more e-mails from her Brevard, N.C., home, nagging them to polish their sinks or plan a healthy dinner. She'll also pen an essay or two on topics ranging from the evils of perfectionism to the importance of self-love. Her office administrator will send a few more e-mails, giving subscribers tidying tips. By the time Cilley's last e-mail - "Please go to bed!" - goes out at 10 P.M., her flock has received about 15 messages. Last year sales hit $4 million.
It may seem odd that Cilley, 51, should spin such gold from nagging, something most of us do our best to avoid. Yet her customers - almost exclusively female middle-aged homemakers, who call themselves FlyBabies - cannot get enough. They log on to flylady.net and purchase thousands of dollars' worth of FlyLady-branded products - kitchen timers, license plate holders, ostrich-feather dusters, books, calendars, mouse pads, T-shirts, tote bags, sink stoppers, water bottles, and lapel pins. They convene at occasional Flyfests around the country, where Cilley gives personal encouragement. And every day they send her about 5,000 grateful messages - so many that Cilley has had to hire a team of six offsite readers to help respond to the deluge. "You are the mother I never had," one recent e-mail read, "loving, caring, understanding, available with a big hug and a kick in the butt when needed."
Cilley is not the only entrepreneur to command a cultlike following among legions of housewives. Jeanne Bice, "head quack" at quackerfactory.com, a QVC clothing company, presides over her website's chat groups in the Quack a Smile Club, building such customer loyalty that she can easily pack a Princess Cruises ship (princess.com) for her annual Quackers Caribbean cruise. Stacy DeBroff, creator of MomCentral.com, parlayed her parenting-advice site into a career as a bestselling author, marketing consultant, corporate spokesperson, and frequent guest on the "Today" show. Her books, website, newsletter, national media tours, and appearances reach millions of women, many of whom bond over MomChat on DeBroff's site.
Yet Cilley says she didn't set out to become a guru. The FlyLady juggernaut began innocently enough, after Cilley married her third husband in 1996 and found that neither of them knew how to keep a tidy home. When the mess became unmanageable, Cilley turned to the Internet, finding clutter-busting pointers on a website called Sidetracked Home Executives (shesintouch.com).
Before long Cilley started posting her own tips on the site's message board, eventually building a grassroots following with her no-nonsense, country-girl wisdom, along with her unbridled joy over her newly uncluttered life. She began individually mentoring other slobs in the group, and in 1999, FlyLady's listserve was hatched, with just ten women as subscribers.
Even neat freaks can benefit from viral growth. The original subscribers recommended the list to friends, and before long Cilley's following was large enough to win her write-ups in "Woman's Day" and "Ladies' Home Journal." "We never set out to have a business," Cilley says. "We set out to help people. And the business grew because of their needs."
One of those needs, apparently, is to find out how great the latest FlyLady products are. Anytime one of her FlyBabies e-mails a gushing testimonial praising one of her offerings ("I first bought the FlyLady calendar last year, and I LOVE it!"), Cilley forwards it to her entire mailing list. The testimonials typically result in a sudden sales surge of several hundred of the mentioned item.
Cilley's growing enterprise presented new demands - namely, how to keep up with the crush of fan mail. Kelly Burns, a devoted subscriber, volunteered to help in 2000. Today she and her husband, Tom, work at Cilley's distribution center as two of FlyLady's 24 paid employees.
Cilley attracts new subscribers by writing a self-syndicated column that appears weekly in 225 newspapers and doing a live weekly call-in satellite radio show with Leanne Ely, a nutritionist and cookbook author, on worldtalkradio.com, where "The Fly Show" is rated No. 1 among more than 70 weekly shows, drawing about 140,000 listeners. Ely has also launched a successful Internet enterprise (savingdinner.com), with no small thanks to Cilley, who promotes it to her subscribers.
Now FlyLady is looking to expand her self-help empire. Her followers, she points out, face bigger issues than clutter. Already having penned bestsellers on controlling household and "body clutter" (weight and emotional issues), she is at work on a third book, FlyLady's take on spirituality. And now, with a full-time product-development officer (Jack Sgroi, whom she hired away from MiddleRiver Aircraft Systems), she is anticipating subscribers' needs with a spate of new products, including more efficient mops and roadside emergency kits.
As Cilley constantly tells her loyal FlyBabies about getting their houses in order, "If I can do it, you can do it." But when it comes to creating a business out of nagging, she flies alone.
more at:http://flylady.net/
Sunday, August 19, 2007
ForSaleByPublisher
ForSaleByPublisher is a directory of websites that sell advertisements on their websites directly to advertisers, as well as a community for website publishers to discuss the direct advertising market. Ad Networks can be very helpful in generating some income for websites, but publishers who sell directly to advertisers are able to make more money, whilst charging lower prices.
Unlike ad networks, selling ads straight to advertisers cuts out the middle man, saving you money. As a publisher, you’ll be able to take more control over the ads shown on your site and possibly get in on longer ad deals. Advertisers, on the other hand, can find better, more pertinent websites to host their ads, while avoiding network fees. ForSaleByPublisher makes it extremely easy for publishers and advertisers to connect without having to spend precious time on hours of research.
More at:http://www.forsalebypublisher.com/
Unlike ad networks, selling ads straight to advertisers cuts out the middle man, saving you money. As a publisher, you’ll be able to take more control over the ads shown on your site and possibly get in on longer ad deals. Advertisers, on the other hand, can find better, more pertinent websites to host their ads, while avoiding network fees. ForSaleByPublisher makes it extremely easy for publishers and advertisers to connect without having to spend precious time on hours of research.
More at:http://www.forsalebypublisher.com/
How To Get Maximum Ad Revenue On Your Websites
PubMatic.com's purpose is to help websites increase its revenue per ad, maximize click throughs and get consolidated reports instantly. PubMatic is an account that can be set up in just a few minutes, like Google AdSense for instance. PubMatic.com is free for its Alpha users, and the wording that they use seems as if they are impying that when they do launch the beta version of their site it will no longer be free, so if you are interested in possibly using the service, hop on it while you can still give it a test spin for free.
PubMatic is focused on serving the needs of publishers by providing an industry leading platform that allows publishers to maximize their revenue while simultaneously reducing complexity.
Being a publisher is difficult these days. On the one hand, publishers want to focus on developing rich content and sustaining a user community based on common interest. On the other hand, they're forced to spend ever more time and energy running the "business" of being a publisher.
More at:http://pubmatic.com/
PubMatic is focused on serving the needs of publishers by providing an industry leading platform that allows publishers to maximize their revenue while simultaneously reducing complexity.
Being a publisher is difficult these days. On the one hand, publishers want to focus on developing rich content and sustaining a user community based on common interest. On the other hand, they're forced to spend ever more time and energy running the "business" of being a publisher.
More at:http://pubmatic.com/
TaskBin is our "company" management tool
TaskBin was born out of a very strong need at MangoSpring. MangoSpring believes in what we call "Naked organizations". Everyone needs to be on the same page. Everyone should have access to everyone else's task list. We do not believe in status reports and weekly status meetings. Everything should be transparent and flat. TaskBin is our "company" management tool.
The idea is that everyone in the group begins and stays on the same page. The site is easy to use and as simple as typing in the test box, clicking on a time and priority and pressing enter. By understanding the progress and priorities of team members, others can work smarter and collaborate in a more meaningful way. Information such as, time, date, who created the task, when it should be finished, and the progress helps everyone stay abreast of what is going on within the group and with specific projects. Members can be a part of more than one group and can personalize their task bin. Every group member’s TaskBin is shared with everyone else in the group and is organized by timeframe: ‘today,’ ‘tomorrow,’ ‘this week,’ ’sometime soon,’ etc.
more at:http://www.taskbin.com/
The idea is that everyone in the group begins and stays on the same page. The site is easy to use and as simple as typing in the test box, clicking on a time and priority and pressing enter. By understanding the progress and priorities of team members, others can work smarter and collaborate in a more meaningful way. Information such as, time, date, who created the task, when it should be finished, and the progress helps everyone stay abreast of what is going on within the group and with specific projects. Members can be a part of more than one group and can personalize their task bin. Every group member’s TaskBin is shared with everyone else in the group and is organized by timeframe: ‘today,’ ‘tomorrow,’ ‘this week,’ ’sometime soon,’ etc.
more at:http://www.taskbin.com/
Fuzzwi ch lets anyone create animated shorts using a pre-made cast of characters and backdrops
Fuzzwich Mini-Vids are short accessible animations that are dead simple to make. Mini-Vids are built to be used conversationally as video messages and have zero barrier to entry.
Fuzzwi ch lets anyone create animated shorts using a pre-made cast of characters and backdrops. Just drag and drop elements into the screen, change backgrounds, try out different soundtracks (If neither Wagner nor Timbaland are your cup of tea, try some Benny Hill or George Clinton), and presto, you’ve got your very own cute and clever video short. Once you’ve finished your screen gem you can take a gander at the wonderfully weird and wacky animations your fellow Fuzzwichers have come up with. It’s really insanely simple—your two year old toddler could whip up something brilliant.
More at:http://www.fuzzwich.com/
Fuzzwi ch lets anyone create animated shorts using a pre-made cast of characters and backdrops. Just drag and drop elements into the screen, change backgrounds, try out different soundtracks (If neither Wagner nor Timbaland are your cup of tea, try some Benny Hill or George Clinton), and presto, you’ve got your very own cute and clever video short. Once you’ve finished your screen gem you can take a gander at the wonderfully weird and wacky animations your fellow Fuzzwichers have come up with. It’s really insanely simple—your two year old toddler could whip up something brilliant.
More at:http://www.fuzzwich.com/
Joopz is a web-based text messaging service that enables “web texting” – two-way communications from the Web to any mobile phone
Joopz is a web-based text messaging service that enables “web texting” – two-way communications from the Web to any mobile phone in the U.S. and Canada... and back.
Along with all the features offered by traditional web-texting services provided by messengers like MSN and AIM, Joopz also boast a variety of more complex options including group messaging and their trademark “two-way” texting service (allows the message recipient to send a text back directly to the PC from which the text was sent, instead of only to the recipient’s mobile device). For the absent-minded user, Joopz also has“Reminders” options which let you keep track of your schedule and commitments by sending you a “reminder” text. Currently, Joopz messages can be sent from any web-enabled device worldwide to US or Canadian cellular phones. Their basic service is free of charge and allows users to send ten texts per month and have access to most of the advanced features.
More at:http://www.joopz.com/
Along with all the features offered by traditional web-texting services provided by messengers like MSN and AIM, Joopz also boast a variety of more complex options including group messaging and their trademark “two-way” texting service (allows the message recipient to send a text back directly to the PC from which the text was sent, instead of only to the recipient’s mobile device). For the absent-minded user, Joopz also has“Reminders” options which let you keep track of your schedule and commitments by sending you a “reminder” text. Currently, Joopz messages can be sent from any web-enabled device worldwide to US or Canadian cellular phones. Their basic service is free of charge and allows users to send ten texts per month and have access to most of the advanced features.
More at:http://www.joopz.com/
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