PORTAL PARTNER PRESS October 2001

=======October 15, 2001==========
From: Robert Massa

Sent: Monday, October 15, 2001 1:01 PM

Subject: Portal Partner Press 10-15-01
The Portal Partner Press is sent each week for the education and entertainment of the people who own and operate a SearchKing hosted portal. It is intended to help you learn to better operate, maintain and market your own portal. Anytime you have a question about any item in an issue of the PPP, please visit our forums at http://forums.searchking.com and feel free to ask any questions or post any comments about your portal, about SearchKing or about internet marketing in general.
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Portal Partner Press

October 11th, 2001

I Guess it's Official - It's War
Stats
Who are Your Customers?
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Earlier this pat week, the American military began offering its products to the people of Afghanistan. We began bombing and deploying guided missiles into strategic Taliban targets. For a country who has so little to offer their own people, they now have less.
May God Bless and protect the innocent people of Afghanistan.
May God Bless America! 
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Stats.
I didn't publish an issue of the Portal Partner Press last week for the simple fact that I have been pretty much consumed with studying and implementing stats and market segment identification. Today I want to focus on the stats. Next week I'll get into how to identify your market segment.
I'm not talking about the stats we are probably all associating that word to. As internet marketers and webmasters, most of us have a tendency to associate that word, stats, with website stats. I'm not talking about referrers and search engine placements, what browser was being used and whether visitors came to our website from a dot com or a dot net. You know, those bits of info provided by extreme tracker and hit box. I'm not even referring to server logs which tells us what spider came to what page and when.
I'm talking about graphs that tell us how our business, our employees or our projects are doing at any given time. I'm talking about a way to see trends and what to do when those trends indicate a negative direction and what to do when they indicate a positive direction. In other words, what to do if we're losing and what to do if we're winning. In theory at least, we all want to stop losing and keep winning.
I'm talking about a way of tracking numbers. Numbers that give us an idea of what's working and what's not. Numbers that tell us if we're reaching our goals or just staying still or going backwards.
Have you ever heard the old cliché, "the numbers don't lie?" Well, Webster's defines the word statistic as:
a numerical fact or datum
The old saying is true. The numbers DON'T lie. The information being supplied to create the stats can be false either by deception or by incompetence, but the fact remains that the numbers are either stable, going up or going down, and whatever direction the stats are taking, that is a fact.
To turn stats into something that can be analyzed at a glance, we use graphs, or charts. We've all seen pie charts using different size slices and graphs that use horizontal and vertical columns with a line going up or down over a specified period of time. These simply make figuring out your numbers much easier than totaling up lists of numbers.
I've selected to use the standard horizontal/vertical graphs and I recommend you do the same for simplicity if nothing else.
On a piece of graph paper, you crate a horizontal column going from left to right. This horizontal column represents time such as a day, week or month.
The vertical column, going from bottom to the top, represents the money such as income or expenses.
The most important thing to do with stats is to make them real. A graph that shows very little movement quickly gets forgotten about and soon has no value whatsoever. So, the trick to developing some kind of reality with your stats is to make sure that you SCALE the stats properly. There is a neat and easy little trick for this. The way to do your scale is to realize that every stat is different and the trick is to make your stats look more like a mountain range than a straight line. You do this by setting up your graph with 100 lines total. You then take the lowest number you can foresee that particular stat ever going DOWN to. Write that number down. (Keep in mind, the lowest number is not always zero).
Now take the highest number you can imagine that particular stat ever going UP to in a three month period if it's a weekly stat, (which I recommend if your just starting out doing stats), or 12 months if it's a yearly stats.
Now subtract the lowest number from the highest number and divide by 100. That's the neat little trick for finding proper divisions in your stats.
For an example, let's say the lowest you can imagine your sales going down to is $100 per week within a three-month range, (I suggest you keep your estimates rounded off. If you start using projections of say $12.15 to $527.34 then you better kick off your shoes or get on the calculator), and the absolute highest you can see them going up is $600 in a week then $600 - $100 = $500 divided by 100 = 50. Set up your scale at $50 intervals. This means that over that 90-day period you are going to see drastic increases or drastic decreases. Those jumps up or down can tell you what action you need to take to make those stats accomplish your goals for you. I'll tell you in just a minute ho you know what action to take when based on your stats.
If you had set up your scale in increments of say $100, your stats would go from $100 up to $10,000 and within a couple of weeks you would see nothing but a tiny movement which would resemble a heart attack patients flatline on a heart monitor and very quickly you would start to ignore the whole thing. It wouldn't seem real to you.
The next thing is to not get confused over your stats. This comes about from assigning multiple meanings to one thing. In other words, expenses going up in a business are usually considered bad. However, sales going up is good. So in this scenario we have established that lines going up can be good AND bad. This can create problems. For our purposes, we want stats going up to mean good and stats going down to mean bad. So, how do we get ourselves to know that expenses going up is good? The answer is we don't, we trick the stats.
Anything that's going down would present bad stats - we simply reverse the numbers. In other words, we start our expense stats with the lowest number at the top and the highest number at the bottom. Most vertical lines on a graph start with zero at the bottom left column. Not ours. Our expense stats start with the lowest number at the top so when our expenses go down, the stats are actually going up.
Now that we have that worked out, we can all see quickly that ALL stats going up are good and all going down are bad. If our sales stats are going up, that means we brought in more money. If our expense stats are going up, that means we spent LESS money. That is good.

Reading The Stats
Let me start by saying that you, or anyone for that matter, can make stats just about as simple or as complicated as you like. As for me, I'm pretty much a simple kind of guy, especially when it comes to math and numbers. I can't imagine much of anything being too simple for me. So the illustrations and examples presented here are in that range. Simple. It works for me and it will work the very same for you. However, if these simple illustrations don't satisfy your hunger for numbers, I encourage you to do the research and create your own conditions for reading stats. The important thing is that you set up and read your own stats. How you do it is not nearly as important as just doing it. Okay, with that out of the way, let's move on.
There are 6 major, conditions that can be read by stats. These represent the condition of your business, your employee, your project or anything you care to establish stats for at any given time. Each of these conditions can be identified and acted upon to modify the conditions. I will tell you what those conditions are and what actions you need to take for each one to handle them.
The conditions are:
Steep or near vertical down line is a condition of NON-EXISTENCE
A down line at an approximate 45 degree angle would be a condition of DANGER
Slightly down or completely horizontal line, like a flatline, would be a condition of EMERGENCY
A slightly up line would indicate a condition of NORMAL
A steeply up line would indicate a condition of AFFLUENCE
The 6th condition is a condition of POWER
It's important to note that a condition of POWER is not judged on a one-week basis. A condition of power only exists as a normal condition trend at a VERY high, sustained level. A trend means to average out up, down or level over several weeks or months, so a power condition can not be considered power until several units of time have been accumulated.
While I'm on the subject of trends, I want to make sure we all understand how to identify trends easily.
A trend is an inclination toward a general direction or course over an extended period of time. So, the way to chart a trend and make it easy to see on our stats graphs is to use dotted lines.
Our actual numbers are always reflected by solid black lines in boxes that have a vertical value and a horizontal value. Remember that the line along the bottom of our graph represents time such as weeks. The vertical line at the left of our graph represents money.
so we've got
$5------|------|------|-------|--X---| 
$4------|--X--|------|-------|-------| 
$3------|------|--X--|--X---|-------| 
$2--X--|------|------|-------|-------| 
$1------|-------|------|-------|------| 
wk1 | wk2 | wk3 | wk4 | wk5 
(I just realized how hard it was to make a graph using WordPad, so I'm going to assume you get the idea). Now you have to mentally insert the heavy black lines connecting the x's. Once you've done that you will get a mental picture of the lines going from $2 on week 1 to $4 on week two to $3 on week 3 and $3 on week 4 and $5 on week 5. This gives you that "mountain range" look.
Now to identify the trend, we add all the numbers together so we would have 2+4+3+3+5 which equals 17. Divide that by 5, (the total number of weeks we have tracked so far on the graph), and that gives you 3.4
Now draw your dotted line starting at $2 to cover the entire 5 weeks and end up stopping at 3 dollars and forty cents. This gives you your trend and shows that you are in a condition of normal, or a slight increase in your stats over the five week period.
All right, enough about trends. On to the fun stuff - knowing what to do when you find yourself in a specific condition.

Non-Existence
When your stats are going almost straight down, it doesn't take rocket science to know that you are headed for extinction, non-survival, bankruptcy, the fat lady singing. Like I said, all stats are different and all situations are different, so the amount of time you have before total collapse depends on each specific situation. Some may last months in this condition while others may not survive the day. The point is, at this point you are going to have to make some hard decisions whether you like it or not. Of course there is always the option of giving up and calling it quits. Take your hickey and shut the doors, but I'm going to assume that like me, many of you don't have that option and are not interested in knowing how to quit but how to survive. So, the way to handle a condition of non-existence is:

• Open communications.
Talk to anyone and everyone who has even an interest in your business. Partners, family members, bankers, people who have invested in you and maybe most important of all, your customers, (assuming of course, that you have at least one). Make yourself and your business known. Gather as much data as you can as fast as you can. Ask questions of the people that have an interest in your success and find out what is wanted or needed and how and why you are not providing that.
• Once you know what is needed or wanted then DO. Do produce or present what you need to provide a solution to the problem.
Another way of putting this is to find out who would use your product and why. Find out what your competition is doing to be successful and then do what they are doing right and stop doing what you are doing wrong. And you better hurry.
Danger
The formula for handling a danger condition is much the same as handling a non-existence condition. In fact, if you are actually reading your stats and applying the formulas for handling the conditions, you will never get into a on-existence condition because you will see it coming and do something about it.
• Find the problem that caused your stats to go down and correct it. This sounds obvious but the fact is that when your stats indicate a danger condition, those stats are telling you that someone or something somewhere is not doing their job. An employee is lying to customers or just not performing as he agreed to when he took the job. A link to an order form is not working. Shipments are being sent to the wrong address. You're overcharging your customers. Someone is not answering e-mails, etc.
• Handle the situation and remove the danger in it. Fire the employee that is lying to your customers. Fix the link to the order form and set up a process where the link gets checked periodically. Find another provider for shipping services. Stop overcharging your customers and set up procedures to keep it from happening again. If someone is not answering e-mails on time and you don't know if you can get them to change their behavior but you can't fire them, then bypass them and start doing it yourself.
• Don't let it happen again.
Emergency
When your stats are going down only slightly or are staying constant, you are declining and if you don't do something about it, it will only get worse. The way to handle a condition of emergency is:
• Promote! To a business it means promote. To an individual it means produce. Exactly what is promotion? Well, go look it up in a dictionary if you need to. It is making things known, getting things out. Getting yourself known, getting your products out. this is the first step to handling a condition of emergency above all other things that you can do.
• Change your operating basis. If you keep doing what you've been doing that got you into this condition, then you will just end up here again. Find something you are doing that you don't need to be doing and stop it, or find something that your not doing and need to be doing and start doing it.
• 3. Economize.
• 4. Prepare to deliver what you have been promoting.
• 5. You have got to stiffen discipline. When an emergency condition exists, it exists due to an actual emergency or someone is not following the policies and procedures you have set forth. If the condition exists due to an actual emergency, then discipline must be enforced because human beings tend to allow their focus to shift to whatever the perceived emergency is and that can't be allowed to endanger the business.
Normal
When your stats are going up at a slight increase over a period of time, you have a normal trend. When you are in a condition of normal, you handle it by:
1. Don't change anything.
2. Discipline is mild and things are smooth and steady.
3. If your stats go up, even a little, find out why they went up and do more of that without changing anything else you were doing before.
4. If a stat goes down, quickly find out why they are going down and fix it!
5. Now you just jockey these two situations. If they go down, something has made them go down. If you look, you will see what has changed to make them go down. Fix it and rock on.
Affluence
When your stats go up sharply for an extended period of time, you are in a condition of affluence. The way to handle the condition of affluence is:
1. 1. Economize. Now is not the time to hire new staff or to buy new equipment. Avoid the temptation to go into debt for that new car or big screen TV. Make no future commitments. Tighten the budget and clamp it down.
2. 2. Pay every bill you got! Hunt down every penny you owe under the moon and stars and pay it off.
3. 3. Invest anything left over in service facilities. Make it more possible and easier to deliver more of your products or services.
4. 4. Find out what you did to get you into a condition of affluence and strengthen it. Don't let your policies and procedures go lax. Keep doing what you have been doing only do it better.
, Stats, Who are Your Customers?
Once you have stats in the stellar range for an extended period of time, it becomes a power trend. The way to handle the power trend is:
1. Don't disconnect. Keep the lines of communications you have worked so hard to establish open. If you start not answering the phone when the banker calls, you will soon find you are no longer in a condition of power. If you don't stay in communication with your key employees, you will soon find your stats in trouble again. You must take ownership and responsibility for all your connections.
2. Make a record of all your connections. Write down all the lines of communication you are responsible for in as much detail as is possible. Without doing this, you will never be able to disconnect for any reason and expect to continue reaping the fruits of your labor.
3. Write up your job description. Your responsibility is to write down every aspect of what you do and what your job is and how you do it. Include all communication lines, all tools you use, time schedules, processes you use in making decisions, EVERYTHING.
4. Your responsibility is also to get your job description into the hands of the person that will take care of it. Once you decide who is going to take over when you are not there, make sure that they have a written explanation of what they will need to do to do your job.
5. Do everything you can to make your job occupiable.
Once you get to this condition, you have won. You have reached your objective, met your goal and are now ready to enjoy all that you have gained. You may be quite satisfied with your position and wish to hold that position for as long as you live. you can do that now. You may start another venture since this last one was so easy. You may wish to retire and fish for the rest of your days. Whatever you want to do, you are now in a position to actually do it.
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Next week we'll look into finding out who your customers really are and what they want from you and more importantly, how you can give them just what they want for fun and profit.
Have a great week!
See ya' next week. 
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Have a great week! 
See ya' next week. 
Publisher -- Bob Massa 
bobking@searchking.com

PORTAL PARTNER PRESS September 2001

=======September 11, 2001==========

From: Robert Massa
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 11:26 AM 
Subject: Portal Partner Press 9-11-01

Just before I sent this issue of the PPP, I learned of the three attacks on the World Trade Center and the US Pentagon. It is a dark day indeed for America, the World and all Mankind.
Our prayers are with the innocent victims.
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Portal Partner Press
September 8th, 2001
The Trouble with Planning
A Word From Our Webmaster

THE TROUBLE WITH PLANNING
Note:
The purpose of this issue of the Portal Partner Press is to get as many people as possible setting goals for their businesses and start learning how to use effective strategic planning and organziational management to accomplish those goals. I believe the single biggest factor in success is in planning and without it, our chances of success are greatly diminished.
I will be using personal experience to illustrate many of the points I would like to make. I do this in the hopes of establishing an understanding of how important planning is to me and to show that many of the challenges
I face are the same ones that you will need to face as well. Even for those of you whose situation is completely different, I am trying to find things that we can both agree on and see as being real problems that need to be overcome. 
*****************************************
For most of my adult life, I have been self-employed. I have owned and operated several businesses over the last 30 years including candle manufacturing and distribution, toy manufacturing and distribution, TV rent-to-own, furniture stores, pizza restaurants, an advertising distribution service, a collection agency, a printing company, a search engine placement service, a search engine and a web hosting company. Out of the last 32 years, I have worked for someone else less than a total of 4 years all together. Most of them in less than 90 day intervals. It seems that if I couldn't show my employers the benefit of "letting me go" within that time frame, I would simply quit. It would appear I that have a small problem with authority.
All of these businesses made money or at least made me a living. A couple of them made me a LOT of money, yet, most of them are gone. Out of business. Did they fail?
I guess the only official answer would be yes, but in my mind, they all succeeded for the simple fact that I achieved the goal I set out to accomplish. The question is, if most of those businesses are no longer in business, yet I consider them a success, what goal was I trying to achieve?
I left home at the age of 15. I was raised by a step-father who was constantly telling me I wouldn't succeed. Telling me I was too dumb to understand things. I was too lazy to finish anything. It seemed that every endeavor I attempted throughout my adolescent life, he was always there telling me I couldn't do it. In spite of the fact that I was an honor roll student, I was writing for the school newspaper, I was successful as a wrestler and a football player as well as many other extra-curricular activities such as Boy Scouts.
With each interest, it seemed the more success I attained, the more intent he was on convincing me I couldn't do it. This would ultimately result in me losing interest in the subject until I created a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Quitting became easy and yet I seemed to constantly become more determined than ever to "prove him wrong." Quitting one thing and quickly starting another became a pattern. A pattern that involved me setting short-term goals and then once accomplished, I was ready to start something else. All the time I was saying that my goal was to win a trophy for wrestling, as an example, because I knew that would really "get his goat." As soon as I would win that trophy, in my mind, I had accomplished that goal and was looking for the next thing that would really irritate Him.
My stepfather passed away some 15 years ago, yet in those moments when I can be totally honest with myself, I realize that, to this day, I am still trying to prove Him wrong. I am still playing out that pattern.
For example, the rent-to-own business - my goal was to borrow a million dollars. I thought that would definitely show Him I was worth something to somebody. I also thought it would take me long enough that by the time I reached that goal, the business would be well established and provide me the opportunity to live on the profits for the rest of my life, (keep in mind that I was 24 at the time and knew I was the smartest man on earth as do most 24 year olds).
I opened the business, worked an average of 12 to 14 hours a day at least 6 days a week and oversaw virtually every aspect of the day-to-day operations. I was focused and worked hard. I understood my market and was a good salesman. Within 18 months I had secured a one million dollar line of credit from Philco of Oklahoma, (a major distributor for TV's and appliances). Success! That ought to show Him!
Over the next few months I stopped going into the office everyday. I turned over the day-to-day stuff to office managers and within less than a year, it was all gone. I have repeated this pattern over and over. I now realize that I wasn't setting goals, I was setting objectives and that's not the same thing.
About 10 years ago, I realized what I was doing and got it into my head I needed somebody. A person who could take over once I got it up and running and kept it running. Well, I've been through several friends, partners and employees looking for that person and it has never worked. With each new venture, I set a specific objective, work very hard to hit my numbers and then once I do, I lose interest, turn the responsibility over to someone else and in short time, it falls apart.
I see now that those people were all competent. Each and every one of them could have successfully ran my businesses and freed up my time to do something else except for one thing. I did not do my job and my job was to set the goals for that company and oversee the strategic planning and THEN let that other person run it. Without those goals being set and some kind of planning on how to accomplish those goals, there was nothing that anyone else could have done. You see, I had already hit my objective, but I had never established a goal and a plan of how to attain that.
I finally realize that once the goals and strategic planning are set, the company itself becomes a living thing and it manages itself to some degree. Once that happens, anybody who is motivated can run it by simply following the strategies to make sure that the goal is reached. Without telling people where you want to go, it's impossible to expect them to take it there. As soon as you put a driver behind the wheel without telling him where to take you, you are going to very likely end up somewhere other than where you thought you were going. Now try to imagine 5 people or 10 people all sitting behind the wheel and nobody knowing where it's supposed to go. 
YIKES!
See if this sounds familiar to any one:
With each new business, it was basically me. Me unloading the inventory off the trucks. Me doing the books, me waiting on the customers, me writing the ads. Me doing everything. Plan, who has the time?
Eventually, sales and income increase to the point that I am unable to do "everything" so in comes the wife. Now I'm telling her what I want done. Soon, we hire the first employee and I tell him what I want done, then the next employee and the next. Very soon, the entire company looks like a one-eyed dog in a sausage factory. Nobody knows which way to look next.
What gets these companies this far is little more than my sheer determination to make it happen. I am willing to do everything that I can't get someone else to do, except of course the one thing that would free up my time and actually allow me to manage and that is planning. I could set up procedures, you know the old, put the money in this drawer kind of stuff, but I couldn't seem to find the time to tell anyone WHY we put the money in that drawer. This always sets up a situation of everybody doing exactly what you tell them to do but if you're not there or too busy to tell them what to do, nothing gets done. It's not that you have bad employees, it's that you have bad management. Each of those people are fully capable of making decisions themselves on how to accomplish their objectives but only AFTER you tell them what those objectives are.
Even when you have no employees whatsoever and you actually are the only labor resource available, (like most of you right now), you waste a lot of time making decisions that you feel are wrong. You see, there really are no wrong decisions; there are only decisions that conflict with your overall goals and the plans to achieve those goals. When you don't take the time to do the planning, you don't know those decisions are conflicting until after you realize that it's not working. Assuming it's not too late, you then have to go back and do it over again so that it gets put back more in line with your goals. Assuming of course, you have set your goals. You see, a goal without a plan of how to make that goal become a reality is a dream. Are you dreaming or are you reaching your goals?
With each of these businesses, I have basically run it out of my back pocket, probably very much like most of you are doing right now. I was so busy reaching my objective that I could never find the time to plan. To decide on what I really wanted and how I was best going to be able to get that. It's not that I haven't accepted all along the importance of planning, it's just that I wouldn't do it.
I started reading and studying basic business and marketing when I was still a teenager. I used to spend a lot of time reading everything I could get my hands on about successful business people. I read about Carnegie, Rockefeller, Morgan, Vanderbilt and on and on. It became apparent that there was a common theme in all these books. They seemed to always be talking about the plan. So, it didn't take long before I started reading all those one minute manager and the Peter Principle books. Soon I'm reading textbooks on strategic planning and management. I'm sure this all helped me a lot even if I wasn't applying the things from those books. I could at least talk about them.
My point is that it's not that I didn't realize the value of good planning, it's just that I didn't do it in spite of knowing it. My guess is that it's much the same with you. You know the value and importance of effective planning and you know that without it, effective management is not possible. Yet, we push on day after day pursuing our dreams and many of those days we feel like we worked hard but got little accomplished. Why?
I don't really have the answer. All I can do is give you some of my personal experiences and observations and hope one of them strikes a nerve - something that you can see as being real to you, and then offer some possible solutions.

TIME
Where do you get the time? In my case, I used this as an excuse for many, many years until finally I was able to accept that they were excuses. Let me give you a little history on how most of my typical days go.
At some point during the day, I usually tell myself things I need to get done the following day. I don't write them down or anything, I just tell myself. Then the next morning, I walk into my office, turn on the machine and start checking my e-mail. After actually reading very few and deleting sometimes as many as a hundred spams, then I move on to reading my favorite forums. After reading a lot of posts and posting in very few, now I'm ready to get to work doing the thing I told myself yesterday I had to get done. 
Oh wait, it's lunchtime.
After lunch, now it's time to take care of the little day-to-day stuff. Answering customer calls, talking to various people that have some influence over my business. You know the accountant, the electric company, the phone company, the bank, etc. I pay bills or review data and complain about how this or that didn't get done. Time to go home after a 14-hour day.
I have finally been able to again be honest with myself and I now realize that most of the time I spend in a day, working myself half to death, I spend ACTING busy. The truth is I don't really have to be that busy. I spend most days trying to catch up instead of trying to go forward. This is the direct result of not having an effective goal established and an effective plan for getting that goal accomplished. If I would develop a plan, I could schedule and if I could plan, I could delegate, which would free up more of my time to create more effective plans to enable me to capture more of my market better and increase my income.
A possible suggestion: DO YOUR WORK FIRST and then check your email and read forums. Almost everyone I know that has a web business has an alarm on their email so that every mail that comes up beeps them. They instantly drop whatever they are doing and go check the mail. All this in spite of the fact that we all KNOW that the vast majority of email is spam. We are not controlling the mail to help us reach our goals - the mail is controlling us. Disable that email alarm and get into a habit of checking your mail AFTER you finish your work. Another way to look at is, don't try to find the time to do your work after you check your mail, (several times a day), instead, make time to check your mail for business matters after you've done your work.
Make the time to plan and the plan will free up your time. This is a fact that I have proven to myself.

IT'S TOO HARD TO UNDERSTAND. I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO START.
Almost every book or article I've read about planning and management leaves me with more questions than answers. There must be a thousand books out there about planning and the vast majority written by college professors who naturally need to go into great detail. This is fine and I'm certainly not telling anyone NOT to learn and keep learning about planning, but, I've put off planning for years for the simple reason that even though I had read the books, I didn't understand them. I had no reality with them.
Let me give you an example. I just bought yet another planning book over this last weekend. In the index, chapter 16 was titled, "LET'S GET STARTED." Just to get to the point of getting started I had 15 chapters, some 250 pages, to read and exercises with each chapter. Now it was all very important information that needs to be learned. Things like identifying your market, your competitors, your industry etc. Identifying your strengths and weaknesses, reviewing your financial records and allocating capital. Like I said, these things all have a direct impact on your business and your ability to reach your goals, BUT, I need a plan now. I don't have the time or the money to start doing surveys and hiring consultants. So there is no point doing anything if I can't do it all, right? WRONG!
It's not hard to understand the NEED for setting a goal and developing a plan, it's only hard to understand how to use the books to know how to get started. The solution I chose, and the one I recommend is to stop worrying so much about it and just do it! In my opinion even a bad plan is better than no plan and even if it is a bad plan, just having it makes it easier to spot the areas where it is going wrong and then change them. Without any plan at all, there is no way to know if it's working or not.
What I purpose to do is to try to help all I can by showing you what I have done and why, then be honest enough with you to let you know what works and what doesn't. I will keep you abreast of what steps SK is taking to turn the company into a more effectively managed company that is prepared to grow. I will share the information I learn and implement with the hopes that over a period a time we all are able to create plans that increase productivity and income.

FEAR OF FAILURE - FEAR OF SUCCESS
We all have fears that motivate our actions whether we know it or not. Now, in my case, I was finally able to realize that one of the main reasons I kept checking my email trying to LOOK busy instead of just doing my job was due to fear; fear of failure and proving my dead stepfather right, and fear of success and hitting my objectives only to have to be faced with once again starting on something new.
Once we write down what we want, we are in a sense committing ourselves and that opens the door to failure or success. Once we decide on a goal, there are only two things that can happen. Either we attain that goal (success) or we don't (failure). Either way can present some pretty scary prospects. As long as we don't ever decide where we want to go we can't really fail, we were just getting ready to get started. Once we set our goals and make it, what if that wasn't really what I wanted after all? I don't even know what's involved with being rich, so if my goal is to be rich, how do I know if that is what's going to make me happy?
In my case, I was finally able to realize that what my stepfather did has nothing to do with what I'm doing now. I also realized that by not doing what I knew needed to be done, not only would the chance of my failing be much greater, but in addition, I wouldn't be able to do some of the things that I honestly think I would like to be able to do. Such as spending more time with my wife. Building our dream home. Being able to help our kids get their kids through college. So I just forced myself to take the things I had learned about planning and put them to work the best I could.
You want to know something funny? I'm so scared of it that it actually makes me physically sick. I noticed a short while back that every time I would sit down and start writing, within about 10 minutes I would start feeling a little light headed, a little tired, a slight headache and a little sick to my stomach. For years this has kept me from actually sitting down and writing a plan. I found myself un-consciously avoiding it, always telling myself I would come back and do it later when I felt better, which of course I never did because as soon as I started again, I started feeling bad again.
For those of you that are able to be honest enough with yourself and admit that fear has something to do with why you don't do what you know you need to be doing, all I can tell you is get over it. Just do it anyway. Do the best you can and as much as you can and each little bit helps more than you can imagine. It's still not easy for me to sit down and do the planning, but it is getting easier and just this last week the difference it has made in the company is pretty amazing.
It took me about a month to write what should have taken no more than a few hours at most. Just last week we had a company meeting and I revealed the new goals and strategic plans with job descriptions and this week it's like a huge weight has been lifted from everyone's shoulders. We all seem to have a new lease on life. We all know what we're supposed to be doing. We know how and when we're supposed to do it and most importantly, WHY we're doing it. I truly hope that some of you will get to experience this feeling.
I have no way of knowing if you have some fear that is keeping you from setting goals and creating strategic plans, all I know is that if you are, you have to beat it or the very thing you fear the most is much more likely to actually come true. Don't let your fears stop you. Use your plans to overcome those fears and allow you to have the things you really want for you and your family.
As I said, I want to help all I can and I will! In order for me or anyone else to help, you have to speak up. Go to the forums and get involved in the threads about planning. There are several going on now.
In fact, I said last week that I would show you all the next step of planning after the things I wrote about last week. This week I was going to show you the job descriptions and basic procedures for day-to-day operations as well as the lines of communication we have set up. There are a lot of ways to get your plan into action and I'm just showing you the way I chose. Since this week's issue is getting a little long, I will instead post those things in the forums. If you care about your business, you'll go there and read them and get involved. http://forums.searchking.com
Over the next few issues I will start telling you some things I am learning about customer surveys, identifying and satisfying your market, how to predict trends in your industry and so forth, but this is plenty to absorb for this week.
I hope to see you all in the forums discussing your plans.
*****************************************

A WORD FROM OUR WEBMASTER
Are you being Gatorized?
As many of you are aware, Gator, a program for automatically filling out forms and remembering passwords has been listed recently as one of the major scumware programs on the Net by ScumWare.com.
There have been millions of users that have downloaded Gator on to their computers, that runs on their computers to aid the user in automatically filling out online forms and helping the user to manage their passwords used online. What Gator has done recently, is added to their program pop-up ads that are the same size and in the same location as they are found on websites, thus positioning their ads over the top of the website's own paid advertising.
An example of this might be if you went a website that had a paid ad from Chevrolet, then Gator might deliver an ad from Ford right over the top of the paid Chevrolet ad, thus cheating the website owner and the advertiser who paid for their ad to run on that website. For more information on Gator's predatory advertising campaign, go to: http://www.scumware.com
or the scumware forums at:
http://gethighforums.com/bin/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum=ScumWare+- +The+Net+Fights+Back!&number=28
For Gator removal instructions go to: http://www.scumware.com/user5.html
There is a better alternative to Gator - RoboForm
Let me introduce RoboForm - it is a better alternative to Gator. This program is free and has NO ads running. RoboForm will import all of your information seamlessly from Gator, so the transition is easy and painless. RoboForm is fully customizable and you can set this program to your preferences easily. Read the reviews:
From Rebecca Marker:
http://www.freegraphics.com/zz-scumware/roboformreview.html
From ZDNET: http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/stories/info/0,,55388,.html
You can also download RoboForm directly from their site at:
http://www.siber.com/roboform/
I downloaded and have been testing RoboForm for almost a week now and I can tell you that this is a darn nifty little program that is free and best of all, NO ads! If you are running Gator and are looking a better, scum free, alternative OR if you're looking for a program to manage your online forms and passwords, I highly recommend RoboForm!
Mike Rotter
Webmaster, SearchKing, Inc. 
************************************
See ya next week
Publisher -- Bob Massa 
bobking@searchking.com

PORTAL PARTNER PRESS August 2001

=======August 31, 2001==========

From: Robert Massa

Sent: Friday, August 31, 2001 5:04 PM 

Subject: Portal Partner Press 8-31-01

HOW TO AVOID A STATE OF CONFUSION
Let me start off by saying that I am going to be making some statements in this issue of the Portal Partner Press that may come off sounding like researched facts with reputable sources providing the data. I want to make it clear that the statements I make today are only my own conclusions and are of a purely editorial nature. The views I express are my views alone and not necessarily the views of SearchKing, Inc. or any other person or organization that may have some involvement with SearchKing, Inc. These statements are intended for informational and motivational purposes only.
Why is that the American business landscape is no longer dominated by Mom and Pop shops? How did we go from the majority of businesses and services being provided by small companies that had a real human at the helm running the show, to faceless corporate megaplexes where it seems the purpose of the business is to keep customer service to the bare minimum?
There was a time, not so long ago where we knew the people who operated the businesses that provided us with goods and services. We knew the names of the people. We cared about them and they seemed to care about us. Now, our money is taken by teenage, gum-popping girls who seem to care less about whether we got what we expected from shopping at this place as long as we just pay what the machine says to pay and move on so they can get out of there.
In spite of all the signs and ads spouting off about how much this company cares about the service they provide, the actuality is that there is no service at all. Ever try to get someone to help you at a Home Depot? You can finally cause enough of a distraction to actually get a human being's attention for a few moments, but it seems obvious that you are only creating a problem for that human being and keeping them from doing what they see as their real job and that is to provide the absolute least amount of actual personal service so they can hurry up and provide no service to the next person trying to cause enough of a distraction to get some attention. What a joke.
Wal-Mart has actually come up with a pretty good way of giving the perception of service. They actually pay cute little old men and women minimum wage to stand at the front door all day long and say "hello" to everyone that walks in. Gives you a warm fuzzy feeling having a little old woman say hello. That fuzzy feeling quickly turns into a hairball in your throat though as soon as you have to ask someone if the $400 digital camera comes with any accessories. Now you're saying hello to that teenage, gum-popping girl who wants you to just pay what the machine says and get the hell out of there.
McDonalds loves to see us smile. Sounds like they like us huh? Well, take a look at the expression on that 17 year-old's face when you have to ask for ketchup three times. He jerks your bag open and dumps 40 packets of ketchup into it, (one of my little pet peeves). You think he does that because he wants to show you how much he wants to see you smile, or is it because he has no respect for you or the place he works? What a joke.
So why isn't there a little family owned hamburger joint down the street that doesn't treat you like that? A hamburger joint that actually appreciates you spending about $15 on a meal for a family of two and doesn't act like you're really messing up their schedule by standing there waiting for your order. Why isn't there one? Obviously there's a market for a place that would give plain, simple customer service instead of just advertising that they do. So, why?
Popular opinion would say, there's just no way for a small guy to compete with the "big boys." A small guy can't afford the advertising, the payroll, the building, the signs, the inventory. That is NOT the reason.
A lot of surveys and studies have been done on what people want form the places they shop at. Price is rarely the number 1 reason. Things like clean restrooms, friendly employees, easy to get in and out are at the top of those lists. Customer service. The one thing that most people say most often that they want from a business, small businesses can provide and do much more often than the "big boys." So, why are there so few small businesses if it's not the money?

Planning.
The one thing that those "big boys" do that a small business rarely does, is plan. The lack of strategic planning is the single biggest reason that businesses fail. Ever heard that over 75% of all small businesses fail in the first three years? Lack of planning is, by far, the single biggest reason.
What do you think one of the aspects of those big companies strategic plan is? Maybe to eliminate the competition? Well, if Wal-Mart plans to eliminate the competition, (you), and you don't have a plan of how to stop it, regardless of who's got what money, who do you think is more likely to succeed?
I realized this fact a long time ago and if you're smart and really want to succeed, you'll accept this concept and realize it too. So, why aren't I rich? Why am I not one of those "big boys" that small businesses blame for all their problems? The honest answer is that I have failed to plan effectively. I have had a lot of small businesses and I have had a plan for every one of them. That plan is what made all of them start generating money. The problem is I didn't plan effectively. I always did what I needed to get it going, but then dropped the ball, eventually lost interest and ultimately failed. That is going to change!
So, what is the problem? If all you have to do to succeed is plan, why isn't everyone doing it? Well, the biggest reason is that small business owners just don't realize the importance. They fall into the trap of thinking the most important thing is to take care of customers. Take care of the bookkeeping, take care of the maintenance, take care of the inventory, take care of everything but the planning. Now all those things do have to be taken care of, it's just that without planning, you eventually end up with no customers to serve, no books to keep, nothing to maintain and no inventory to take care of. Of course, this can take years. Most small business that have been in business for any length of time, you can quickly see that they are just holding on and not moving ahead, and the few small businesses that are in fact moving ahead, those are the ones that have developed and followed a plan.
We end up with a situation where the owner of a small business is so busy taking care of all the details, that he feels he doesn't have time to do the planning and it gets put off. He starts working 12 and 14 hours a day and just getting further and further behind. This is a mistake and a killer. The only way to reduce the amount of effort to increase production is to plan and then manage the plan.
The second problem that comes into play is that most people don't know HOW to plan. They feel like it is something that must be studied for until you finally possess a degree in business management. Again, this misconception is totally wrong. Anybody can do it and everybody should.
This is important enough, that I have decided to share my own mistakes of the recent past and to share what I've learned about strategic planning over the last couple of months. Yes, what I've learned. I've spent a lot of time recently, reading and studying the basics of planning and management because it has become glaringly apparent that SearchKing, the small business I'm responsible for, is working way too hard for the amount of production that is getting accomplished. It's like we're all standing in a small room facing different directions and someone shouts "RUN," and we all start bumping into each other. I have a lot of dedicated, loyal, intelligent people all standing by wanting to help. Wanting to do whatever I feel is the best thing to do. I'm just not doing a good job in letting them know what to do - management.
There are as many ways to plan and as many plans as there are people capable of doing the job of planning. While there is not any real right or wrong way to do it, (the important thing is to just get it done), there are proven steps that you can take that help to structure and train you to plan quickly and more efficiently. Using my own company as an example, I will show you what those steps are. Keep in mind that I am in a position of having staff already available and many of you are not. You have to focus on understanding the concept and not the procedures and figure out for yourself how to apply those concepts to your specific situation. Also, this is my way of showing my clients and portal partners what direction our company is heading and what you can expect from us.


Let's get started.
GOALS
(This is simply writing down what you want in a given time frame.)
SEARCHKING SHORT TERM GOALS
To build SearchKing.com into the foundation and traffic generating center of the world's largest network of independently owned and operated topic and regionally specific, community focused, search services.
To become recognized on a global level as a developer and provider of easy to install, easy to maintain, affordable products and services geared toward the search service, web promotion and e-commerce market.
To build SearchKing into a top 1,000 internet destination in terms of traffic and be recognized on a global level as a viable alternative search service.
*****************************

PURPOSE
(This is just a general statement of why you have the goals you have.)
SEARCHKING'S PURPOSE
To become profitable by offering our custom programs and services to the general public while focusing on empowering our portal partners to attain their own goals through education, motivation, custom tools and support. To further enhance our portal partners' and clients' success by delivering qualified traffic to our entire network
**********************************

POLICIES
(This is an important step as we'll see in the next step. In order to have a strategic plan, you must establish a general attitude about you and your company. This could be considered a statement of ethics or a code of conduct. Without a code of conduct that your strategic plan can be aligned with, your plan can very easily get out of line and end up being unrealistic. If you have policies that say one thing, but your plan says something else, it isn't going to work.)

SEARCHKING'S POLICIES
We treat all clients, employees, customers, stockholders, partners and associates with honesty and respect.
We always handle bad press or negative image problems honestly, openly and as quickly as possible.
We always handle tech support, complaints or problems as quickly as possible, without dodging our responsibility, at the lowest level possible within the organization.
We never forget that our words and actions reflect the image of not only our own business, but also the businesses of every individual, company, organization and website that carries so much as a link to SearchKing.
We pay our bills when they are due and we expect the same from our clients and partners.
We believe we are leaders and it is our responsibility to lead by example.
We tell the truth.
We keep our word.
We accept that we have a responsibility to our stockholders, suppliers, partners, clients and our families to attain and maintain profitability.
We accept that SearchKing's success is measured by the success of our clients and partners.
We accept, understand and never forget that not everyone is as technically advanced as we are and that in no way diminishes their potential. Therefore, we focus on providing tools and custom solutions that are extremely powerful yet can be operated and maintained by people at the lowest technical skill levels
We respect the rights of others.
*********************************

MOTTO
(This is just a statement that should sum up the entirety of the policies. Something that is easy to remember and easy to communicate to others.)

SEARCHKING'S MOTTO
We do the best job we can do. We take pride in what we do. We do what we say we will do.
****************************
(Now you should be able to see the importance of establishing policies BEFORE you begin your strategic planning. For example, if your policies state that you respect the rights of others, then you plan to send out a million spam e-mails, that is not in "line" with your policies and your entire plan is doomed to failure.)

SITUATION
(This is the way to establish what general obstacles you want your plan to overcome. This identifies why you are not already attaining your goals.
SEARCHKING'S SITUATION
SearchKing is not profitable. This puts SearchKing in a position of being unable to invest in acquiring and training more competent personnel. It also inhibits our ability to invest in and utilize presently available and emerging hardware and technology. It also limits our ability to develop new products to improve our search service, our portal hosting program and our promotional and development services.
Within our entire organization, we have a very high degree of dedication and activity but we are operating at very low production levels. In other words, everyone is working hard but as a group, we are getting too little done too slowly. It's time to start working smarter instead of harder. We lack organization and planning. 
********************************

STRATEGIC PLAN
(Don't confuse strategic planning with procedures. The strategic plan is simply a broad, general overview of how you are going to structure the procedures to accomplish your goals.)

SEARCHKING'S STRATEGIC PLAN
The most immediate and important action needed is to get SearchKing organized into specific departments with individual managers of those departments, responsible for planning and implementing operating and reporting procedures that align with the company's purpose and goals, and to do so without loss of present income or a reduction in the present level of quality in customer service.
We will bring all Bob Massa products, services and properties under the SearchKing "umbrella" in order to form a more streamlined, effective management system.
We will focus on cleaning up the clutter within all our domains to present a more focused, easy to understand, branded service for the purpose of increasing sales and profitability.
We will focus on improving our image and educating the public to the benefits of our products and services through effective public relations. Since we are an internet company, we will put our greatest efforts into utilizing internet PR services such as E-zines, review and award sites, newsgroups, forums, and viral marketing.
We will build, support and maintain a large, well trained and highly motivated affiliate/reseller sales force. We will accomplish this through a simple process of communicating clearly, often and honestly with all our affiliates and resellers and by paying them fairly and always on time.
******************************
All right, are you with me so far? Is any of this making any sense? My point with all of this is that once again, if I can do it, ANYBODY can do it.
So we have our goal, our policies, our motto, our situation and our strategic plan. Now we start coming to the management part. We are still in the planning stages, in fact we have quite a ways to go, but the purpose of management is to see that plans are carried out and in keeping with our strategic plan, it's time now to start setting up those departments because we need to locate and authorize the people needed to see that the plans get carried out. So, our next step is to determine those departments and what will be required from each one.



Developers
Whose major objective will be to identify markets for custom products and to give general projections on cost and time to complete a project.
Promotion Manager
This job's major objective will be to generate search engine traffic for our new products and clients' products. As the product gets developed or a client is secured, there will be an order form generated. This form will be sent to the promotion manager who will then study the product and develop a promotional strategy. They will then secure the domain and develop a site. Once the site is completed and ready to submit, the affiliate manager will be notified.
Affiliate Manager
The major objective of this department is to identify the sources of traffic to the promotional domain and use keyword delivery to direct that traffic to a "sales" page written by the affiliate manger's department. Since the page that places well often is not the page that sells well, keyword delivery will address this issue by taking qualified traffic directly the information that will results in a better conversion rate.
Once the keyword delivery system is in place, the affiliate manager will then notify all affiliates of the new product, the destinations and where to get promotional material for their site.
PR Manager
The major objective of this department will be to establish and build a database of internet sources such as newsletters, e-zines, software review sites, award sites and press contacts. As each new product is developed, Bob will write press releases and articles highlighting the benefits of the new product and then the PR manager will be responsible for distributing this information to targeted sources.
Sales manager
As traffic starts to be generated, all sales, (including free sales), will go directly to the sales manager whose major objective will be to collect the funds and deliver the orders to the installation and tech manager. They will also be responsible for collection of revenues owed and notifying the installation manager of any customers accounts that need to be altered such as being deleted due to default.
Installation and Tech Manager
The major objective of this position will be to see that all orders are installed and working properly in a timely fashion, and to see that all tech problems and complaints are handled at the lowest possible level and directed to the proper departments for resolution.
Stats Manager
The major objective of this position is to collect and maintain weekly reports from each department manager showing the activity and results of those activities from the previous week. To then post the results in a graph form that will be visible to all staff members. The stats are the way to let everyone in the organization know how effective the company is being. Without being able to track stats, there is no way of knowing when we're failing or succeeding.
My job will be to oversee and supervise all departments with my major objective being to produce the articles and press releases needed to keep the partner and the public informed as well as to head the strategic planning board.
Now are we starting to see how all of this fits together? I really hope so, because I just can't over-emphasize how important this planning stuff is.
I hope I have at least been able to show you two things. #1.
• It isn't that hard to do and it is the best way to reduce your workload and get more done
• No matter how hard you think it is, it HAS to be done. Effective planning is the difference between success and failure.
This is enough for this week. Next week, I'll tell you what I've learned about setting up lines of communication and how without effective communication, your plans just sit there and never seem to get done. I will show you how to "make it happen!"
See ya' next week.

Publisher -- Bob Massa
bobking@searchking.com

PORTAL PARTNER PRESS July 2001

=======July 20, 2001==========

Subject: Portal Partner Press 7-19-01

Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 12:43:24 -0500

From: bobking bobking@searchking.com

The Portal Partner Press is sent each week for the education, and entertainment of the people who own and operate a SearchKing hosted portal. It is intended to help you learn to better operate, maintain and market your own portal. Anytime you have a question about any item in an issue of the PPP, please visit our forums at http://forums.searchking.com and feel free to ask any questions or post any comments about your portal, about SearchKing or about internet marketing in general.
*********************************************************************************
Portal Partner Press
July 18th, 2001
Using SearchKing For Time Sensitive Pages
The Portal Plus Isn't Such a Good Deal Anymore

USING SEARCHKING FOR TIME SENSITIVE PAGES
It recently came to my attention that many of our own portal partners were under the impression that only domains could be submitted and indexed to SearchKing. Not true. SearchKing will index ANY page instantly, all we ask is that each page represents different keywords. In other words, we don't allow duplicate listings. You can't have one page from one domain show up more than once for any keyword search.
So, what is the advantage to that?
Well for starters, what about breaking news? About a month or so ago, I read a post in a forum about smart tags. Within 72 hours I saw posts aout smart tags in dozen of forums. So my guess is that hundreds, maybe thousands, of forums were all talking about smart tags all within a matter of hours. Obviously there is some interest in this topic. What happens on the net when a topic gets hot? People start going to search engines and searching for information about that topic. But, guess what. That information isn't there yet.
You see with almost every major search service in the world, it can take days or even weeks to get indexed. There are very few engines that offer instant indexing and of those SearchKing is very likely the biggest. Yet search for smart tags and SearchKing doesn't have any sites listed either.
If I could find a way to get even a certain percentage of people submitting time sensitive information, it wouldn't be long before people would start coming to SK to find that inforamtion. If there is a big news story and you decided to write a page about that news, what good does it do to submit to Google and wait to see if it shows up in 6 weeks. By that time, your news is old news and the public is searching for something else. If you would submit that page to SearchKing, (remember also that you get to pick as many keywords as you like), that page would be available instantly.
What about writing pages just for Mother's day for example. Halloween, 4th of July. All those things don't get searched for much until it's TIME. When it is time, the searches go way up and it could be your page that gets seen. With SearchKing you can wait until the day before AND, your page is very likely to come up right at the very top of the results!
What about closeouts. One of a kind offers. Sale ends Saturday. Two airline tickets for the 24th, and on and on. There's only one good place that I know of to list those pages and get them seen..
SearchKing accepts and indexes instantly as many pages as you want to submit as long as they are not duplicate keywords. Why not take advantage of it?
***************************************

THE PORTAL PLUS ISN'T SUCH A GOOD DEAL ANYMORE
Well, we took the leap and limited the features of the portal plus. If you remember, I first mentioned the problems we had with the pluses several months ago. It has not been an easy decision but now that we've made it, I'm confident it's the right one.
A portal plus now comes with 10 megs of space and a search engine that will hold up to 1,000 urls. That's just about it. It's still free you just don't get all the goodies. All the goodies are now a paid upgrade. The bannermaster, the classifieds, the forums, chat, e-mail, all the things we had to install, are now $5 per month each or you can order them when you first sign up for a one time fee of $49. Not a month or a year, but a one time fee.
Also, we still have the one free portal per person policy. If you have a free portal plus and want another one, each additional one will cost you the one time fee of $29. So, if you wanted a second portal with all the features installed, it would cost you a total of $78 one time. Bummer huh?
The reason for this isn't just about the money. Of course SK wants to make money like anyone else, but it actually has more to do with the fact that I hate it that we give away so much for free and so few even use them. Of course this is bad news for those of you who have actually worked hard, learned to use the tools and built good sites using the free pluses, but it is just too much for free.
The whole idea in the first place was that we would offer all the tools to give you a chance to start your site and not have to pay for anything until your business could justify the expense. Then you could you upgrade to more features and less limitations as your business grew. That just was not working out. We found three key factors holding this whole concept up.

• . It's just a little too much and a little too hard to learn to be able to master quickly. Even with all the support we have in the forums, it is still too frustrating. We realize that we need more documentation to help, but I honestly don't think that is going to be our answer. In spite of popular opinion, there is a lot of documentation, but we have seen far too many cases where people weren't even reading what was available, so it didn't seem that adding more documentation was the answer. We felt the answer was in limiting the features you had to deal with to get the site running. We feel that the less features, the less there is to learn.
• . Far too many people seemed more worried about possibly having to spend some money on their business than they were worrying about using the tools to build their business. We have had well over a hundred phone calls and emails over the last year or so, asking for special scripts or features or upgrades, but everyone that we told there would be a charge involved, with the exception of only two, said, "nevermind". I don't blame anybody for asking. After all why wouldn't anyone assume that if we are giving all this other stuff away for free, why not ask for something else and see if it's free too?
• . If it's free, it must not be worth much. This is the one that probably bugs me the worst. We have close to 4,000 free portals hosted and less than 200 in the directory. The whole idea was that we we were going to turn SearchKing into a portal of portals. Remember those early PPP's when I talked about providing a service that would return a list of portals for a keyword search instead of just a list of urls? Well, it hasn't worked out to well so far and I am pretty convinced a big part of the reason is that a lot of people just want to check it out, and others figure a free program can't be that good, some just want it to spam with it, (which is getting to be a pretty big problem for all of us), while still others feel like there must be a catch. It appears though that the single biggest reason is that there is no motivation, no investment to make you want to get your money's worth out of it. You know the strange thing? Out of those 200 portals in the SK directory I mentioned, the majority of them are th
One other reason we decided to make this move of charging for the additional features, was the affiliates. I believe the affiliate program could make a huge impact for all of us, but not if everyone is going to just take free services. We have to generate some income to be able to pay out. This is just one more step in providing extreme value for PAID services instead of just free ones.
Finally, it's just the right thing to do. $49 for this programis so incredibly cheap it's ridiculous and I'm tired of having people tell me things like, "I just can't afford it right now". My answer to that statement is BULL****. If someone can't afford $49 to build a business, they simply have no business considering going into business. That excuse has never held water. Keep in mind this does not limit anyone that may actually believe they can't afford $49 for a search engine, bannermaster, chat, forums a classified program and vanity e-mail. You can still build your free portal and only take the features you feel like you need as you need them. It's just from now on, we're not going to be giving away programs that we have spent a lot of money on, worked very hard on and and continue to upgrade.
Well, that will do it for this week kids, except for one thing.
I want to tell you how much I appreciate the people we do have. I realize that this PPP may sound like I'm bitter or mad at people who won't pay for something. Nothing could be further from the truth. The more people I find that would take advantage, the more grateful I am to have so many portal partners who have invested their time and money into building something better. Something more honest, more fair. Something that is actually building a better web. From the very bottom of my heart, thank you all so much.
Bob
Publisher -- Bob Massa
bobking@searchking.com

PORTAL PARTNER PRESS JUNE 2001

=======June 6, 2001==========

Subject: Portal Partner Press 6-06-01
Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2001 11:34:12 -0500
From: Robert Massa bobking@searchking.com
Portal Partner Press June 5th, 2001

HOW TO GET MORE HITS WITHOUT HAVING TO PAY GOTO.COM
There has been a thread going on in the forums for a few weeks now, http://forums.searchking.com/NonCGI/Forum35/HTML/000022.html, where the question was raised by one of our senior partners if he was targeting the correct keywords. It evolved into more of a how to get more of the right traffic kind of topic. This has turned into a little side project of mine and the partner to help show all the partners how to get paying customers out of our visitors.
As is the case with life, we ran into some scheduling conflicts and are in a holding period for a few days while this partner takes a vacation, but it has just gotten to the point where we are ready to discuss something that I feel should be of great impotance to all the portal partners, and that is how to quickly and easily get more targeted hits.
With Goto.com's pay-per-click search engine virtually dominating todays' search scene, just about anybody would tell you to just go there and bid on more keywords. There are a couple of small drawbacks to this strategy however. #1 managing your bidding account can be time consuming and a real hassle, #2. you better make darn sure that those paid for placements convert to sales because it can get expensive quick.
Well, I have a little secret that has made a lot of Magic-city.net clients a lot of money. Once I tell you the secret you'll realize that it really isn't much of a big secret at all. It's just common sense and we're all just lucky that too many people don't take the time to think about what they are doing and simply follow the next piece of advice from the guru du jour, which leaves a huge door of opportunity open for poor struggling portal owners like us.
In today's search engine and directory environment, top placement is determined by themed content, link popularity and paid placements. Every search service on the planet, including yours, is trying to do 2 things at least. That is to return relevant results and keep spam out. Actually these two things are the same thing. What this means is that when presented with a keyword/phrase search, the engine is going to look for what it thinks is the most relevant and present that on top. I can hear everybody thinking "DUH Bob, so what's your point". Well the point is that the more competitive a search term, the more those things like themed content and link pop come into play. The more people have sites that have those things and the less likely it is you will be able to create a site that will place on top.
The opportunity that we have in generating free targeted traffic, lies in the fact that the net conventional wisdom is that traffic is what it's all about. For some strange reason that I have never fully understood, the vast majority of net marketers are much more concerned with hits than they are sales. So, everybody seems to be going after the keywords/phrases that they believe will generate the most hits. What this means to us is that for a search on google for travel for example, the engine returns 34,000,000 results. You read that right, 34 MILLION results, BUT, if you do a search for travel agencies in Washington DC. it returns 349,000 results. That's less than 1%.
Granted, the keyword travel probably gets searched for a million times a day while travel agencies in Washington DC only gets searched for 100 times a month, but where do you think you're traffic will come from? Being number 997 out of 34,000,000 results or being number 3 out of 100 hits a month. Not only that but who do you think is a better potential customer? I guarantee you the woman who typed in travel agencies in Washington DC is ready to buy. She ain't just surfin the net looking for who's got the best deal. She is ready to travel NOW! She is not a surfer, she's a buyer!
Now if you still insist on following the conventional wisdom and just insist on trying to get on top for travel, you are going to be investing a lot of time, a lot of money and lot of frustration. IF you are sucessful and actually get a top 10 position on some major service somewhere, you will very likely get thousands of hits a month. Hits do not make you money. In fact, they cost you money. Sales is what makes you money.
There is some value in the philosophy that seems to have driven the net over the last 5 or 6 years, and that is that if I can get even one-tenth of one percent of a million hits, I'm making money. But, there is much more value in getting 40 sales out of a hundred hits a month and if anyone reading this does not get that concept, then this whole article will have very little value to you.
I'm in the search engine placement business and I'm telling you now that getting those little sought after keywords is so easy and so profitable it is absolutely amazing at the amount of traffic it generates and the percentage of sales it can produce. Once you get this concept and apply it to several pages targeting several keyword/phrases, those little 100 hits a months start adding up.
Let's say that you got the travel agencies in Washinton DC page built using that keyword phrase in the title tag, description tag, meta keyword tag, H1 tags and 4% of your 150 words of text and you have that page linked to and from your index page. Out of 349,000 total results Google has, you are very likely one of the very few people that have built a page about that phrase and remember, any search service always wants to bring back what it feels is the most relevant page or site for any searched for term. So for the term travel, that page doesn't have a chance because there are very likely a million other people that have all the basics, plus, the domain name travel.com, plus the link pop, plus the themed content, BUT, for the Washington DC phrase, you are very likely it.
Now, all we do is follow that exact same strategy for things like cheap airline tickets to Maylasia, (2,820 results), Amtrac Train Ticket Prices, (15 results), train ticket prices, (101.000 results, which by the way, the same Amtrac train ticket prices would very likely come up in the top under train ticket prices as well), etc., etc. Not only will this strategy start quickly getting you quality, targeted traffic for free, it is also EXACTLY the thing that starts getting other travel sites to link to you = link popularity, and also established a theme for your travel sites which means that over time, your site DOES start placing in the top for those high hit count keywords like travel and now you have the best of both worlds. High traffic AND high sales.
If you like to to ask some questions about this strategy, or if you would appreciate my personal input on the pages you may be planning on using for this strategy, just get into the forums and let's discuss it where everybody can benefit.
All right, lets all get back to work and start making a good living at this stuff. See Ya next week.
Bob Publisher -- Bob Massa
bobking@searchking.com

=======June 13, 2001==========

Subject: Portal Partner Press 6-13-01
Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 10:42:09 -0500
From: Robert Massa bobking@searchking.com
Portal Partner Press
June 12th, 2001

KEYWORD DELIVERY
Well, the script is finished. It's tested and it works beautifully. The site, --- weeellllll ----- that has a little ways to go yet.
This has been the toughest site I've ever had built in the 6 years I've been marketing on the net. It is just about the simplest program I've ever seen, and yet I've been having the most terrible time in explaining what it is or what it does and what good that is to the person using it.
In spite of all that, the site is up and operational, but what I need is:

• some feedback. Does it make sense? Is it as easy for you to set up and run as it was for me?
• to see my portal partners using it to increase their sales.
This progam is absolutely fantastic and I'm going to once again, attempt to explain how.
Go to your site logs or whatever tracker your using. Look closely at the referrers and notice what sites your hits were coming from. If it was a forum or a link from another site, then you have a pretty good idea of what that hit was expecting to find at your site. Now look closely at your search engine referrers and notice what keywords the hit found you under. Now look at your total uniques for the day and compare that to the amount of sales you made
Now, make a list of the last few keywords you were found under and go to your site. The specific page that got the hits, and compare the list of keywords to the information on your site. Where is the information that relates to that specific keyword? Could you find it in about 2 seconds?
Studies show that the vast majority of web surfers spend less than 5 seconds on a site looking for information. If they don't find what they are expecting to find in 5 seconds or less, it's simply too easy to hit the back button and continue surfing. So let's say that you run a fishing site and you come up in the top of some search engine somewhere for fishing rods. You very likely have a link on your main page to a lot of fishing rods and you actually have everything that visitor was looking for, but since your site is about fishing and not neccessarily about fishing rods specifically, the link to that page is further down on your site than you could find in 5 seconds. Odds are incredibly high that you just lost that potential customer.
Ok, do you see the major problem with the tracker you just looked at for your site? It told you who came to your site and what they were looking for, BUT, it told you that only AFTER that visitor had left. This is the thing I've been complaining about in regards to all trackers for years now. While there is some value in knowing where you're placed at under what keyword, it sucks that the technology can only tell you that after you lost that customer.
That's what this program does. It knows what keyword they were looking for BEFORE they get to your site and allows you to put whatever specific content you want right in front of their eyes. It allows you to know the visitor is looking for fishing rods and the first thing he sees is something like: YOU FOUND THE SITE FOR FISHING RODS.
RODS OF ALL BRANDS ON SALE NOW!
CLICK HERE TO SEE THIS WEEK'S HOT SALE
The guy that types in fishing trips, the script allows that visitor to see the exact same site, (this script changes nothing on your site that is already there), but at the top of the page it now says:
FISHING TRIPS
Don't pay more than you have to for that fisihing adventure. Clcik here to save on your next fishing trip.
Ok, I realize this is probably hard to visualize. I also realize that no matter what I say or how I describe this program, most of you will simply not "get it". I hate that, but I can't help it. For those of you that ARE starting to "get it", I'll show you an example.
Ok, go to http://www.magic-city.net and look at what you see without scrolling down. I want you to simply notice what you see in the first 5 seconds.
All right, now open another browser and go to http://www.yahoo.com and do a search for free website promotion, (three words).
At the number 2 position, you will see magic-city. Click on the link and NOW notice what you see. Now open the other browser and you'll see the difference.
We've all heard from all the net "gurus" many times that the key to internet sales is targeting. Fine, we all understand that, but how do we know what to target if we don't know what the visitor was looking for until AFTER they have left? This simple little script changes that and allows you to know what your visitor wants and then to very easily show them that specific content. I realize that this doesn't sound like too big of a deal, but I honestly believe this is the single most important tool for e-commerce since the secure order form.
I never targeted the keywords free website promotion, yet Yahoo in its infinite wisdom, decides to place my site at the #2 spot for this phrase in spite of the fact that I don't offer free website promotion, I charge for that stuff. So, I'm now getting 35 to 50 hits a day looking for that information and hitting their back buttons in less than 5 seconds. I've got this traffic and it's doing nothing but wasting the time of everyone involved, BUT, I've also got SearchKing and by submitting your site, SearchKing DOES offer free website promotion. I finally, after three years of dealing with this problem, have a way to capitalize on that traffic.
Over the last 10 days or so, I've been watching the trackers on both magic-city.net and SearchKing, and out of those people who are searching for free website promotion I'm hitting over 95% sales to click thrus. (Of course it's a free submission so that's not actually considered a sale. What I'm referring to is the fact that 95% of all those visitors took the exact action I wanted them to take.) Yesterday I had 37 hits for that specific keyword phrase and I sent SearchKing 36 !
The way search engines work today with using themed content and link popularity as a major way of determining relevancy, we all face the same problem. We all have sites that are coming up under all kind of combinations of keywords and phrases yet we all have to decide where to put the links for each one of them. Which link comes up on top? With this script, the first thing they always see could be exactly what they were looking for.
Before anyone gets too excited thinking Bob always gives everything away for free, not this time! This is NOT a free program. Since it is difficult to explain, we will market this program on a 30 day try it before you buy it. Giving everyone a chance to use it for free for a month and see for themselves what it can do. To be honest about it, I'm not even sure what all the possibilities are. So far I've showed this program to about 5 people and everyone of them, (once they "got it"), suggested uses for it that I hadn't thought of yet. I was just focused on the fact that in any sales process, one of the first steps is finding out exactly what it is your customer is interested in.
We have set this up with the idea being it is supposed to make you money. If it does we expect to gert paid and recoup our programming and marketing investments. If it doesn't make you money, simply cancel and it hasn't cost you anything. A large part of our marketing strategy involved our affiliates and you can't pay affiliates on a free program. So, the pricing structure is as follows.
When you place the order, we will require credit card or check information. We will then hold the account for 30 days and if you cancel we will jsut delete the script at our server and destroy the order. If you don't cancel or upgrade within the 30 days, we will process the payment.
There will be a one time $79 installation and set up fee, plus the monthly charge. For the keyword delivery plus you get, one domain and up to 10 keywords and the fee is $29 per month. For the keyword delivery premium, you get up to 10 domains and up to 100 keywords for $99 per month. For the keyword delivery pro, you get unlimited domains and unlimiited keywords for $199 per month. But you only have to pay for it AFTER you have used it and know how to capitalize on it.
Since you are my portal partners and I need you guys as beta testers, I will make you this deal. There will be no set up fee for portal partners if you decide not to cancel after the 30 days. Also, for those of you that are already affiliates, or for those of you who want to become an affiliate, we'll allow you to sign up under your own number and that will save you the 12% of the price. I want to do all I can to encourage everyone to become an affiliate. I have a strategy for promotion with this program that I'm hoping will have thousands of internet marketers using this script over the next 12 months or so and I would like to see all our portal partners have a chance to share in that revenue, but that is strictly up to you.
Whether you try it or not, or whether you use it or not is up to you as well. All I can tell you is that many of you have come to trust me and I don't take that trust lightly. I wouldn't tell you this is good if I didn't honestly believe it was good.
There is already a topic set up in the forums, (http://forums.searchking.com), specifically for the keyword delivery program. I hope to see some discussion in there abut what this thing will do and how we can best capitalize on it.
All right, there's a lot more I could tell you about this, but I would much rather discuss it further after you have seen what it does. for those of you who understand as well as those of you who are just curious and are willing to give me a little feedback, go to http://www.keyworddelivery.com just follow the site instructions and sign up. Be sure to put your portal url in the description field so we know not to charge you the set up if you decide to use it after the free 30 days.
See You in the Forums!
Bob
Publisher -- Bob Massa
bobking@searchking.com

=======June 20, 2001==========

Subject: Portal Partner Press 6-20-01

Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 14:39:42 -0500

From: Robert Massa bobking@searchking.com
Portal Partner Press

June 20th, 2001

AFFILIATE NEWS

KEYWORD DELIVERY UPDATE
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AFFILIATE NEWS
We've sold our first SK chat program AND our first SK affiliate program. We've signed up nine people for the keyword delivery program and two have already upgraded. When you throw in the stuff like the portal program and the pay-per-day advertising scripts, we are actually becoming a software application company. Anyone remember my Portal Partner Press about a year ago explaining the vision I had of SearchKing's goal of being able to create function to any concept? It's actually happening.
The news for the affiliates is that all of these programs are being designed to not only integrate into upgrade features for the portals, but also to be able to become revenue streams for you. Dave is putting the finishing touches on the order form script that will enable us to make any site a destination quickly and easily. That means that getting a script written, developed, tested, the site built and then making the product available to affiliates becomes much easier and much faster.
I noticed this morning that the order forms has already been added to your portal admins. For those of you who have been living in order form hell, like myself, this should make life much easier for you.
Within the next few days, affiliates will be able to offer portals, keyword delivery, chat rooms, affiliate software, pay-per-day advertising as well as the submit your site banners. We are on our way to becoming a regular shopping mall for e-commerce solutions.
If you haven't joined as an affiliate yet, I urge to do so now. http://www.searchking.com/affiliate/affiliate2.htm Start building your downline at least. We're not finished developing programs. In fact, we're just getting started. 
***********************

KEYWORD DELIVERY UPDATE
As I'm sure most of you know, I think this keyword delivery program is the best thing to happen to online sales since the order form. It's versatility and power are just awesome and it should be used by anyone and everyone that has a product or service to sell on the net.
The problem SK is facing, (much like the one we faced when we first started promoting portals), is that it's new, it's different and it's very hard to explain just what it is and what it does on a website. If I am ever going to see this thing on thousands of sites and actually get some credit for all the work the SK team has done, I've GOT to figure out the best way to overcome this problem.
I've got something available to me that few other software development companies have. Portal Partners. I have a way to make offers, get beta testers, get feedback and watch the numbers, much easier and faster than most of our competitors. Last week I once again used the partners and got exactly what I was asking for. Feedback. (Thank you all, by the way!). Here's what the portal partners have showed me.
Offering a try it before you buy it and asking for payment information slows down sales.
Explaining what this program is and what it does is even more difficult than we expected.
Getting people to use it is about the best way of showing the value of it.
The people who do set it up and start using it, start seeing possibilities very quickly.
Based on this information we have decided to make some changes to the program in the hopes of getting more users and more sales faster. The only real change to the program is that we are going to be dropping the try it before you buy it and simply make it A FREE PROGRAM FOR AS LONG AS YOU WANT TO USE IT!
We had too many people who would like to try it out but don't really sell anything on their sites. Having to provide a credit card just to get the program virtually eliminated this market. This thing will do a lot for sites that are community driven as well as sites that are sales driven and I don't want those people excluded.
We had too many people that could not justify providing payment information BEFORE they could see the program without knowing what it was they were trusting us not to charge them for. This is our market and I don't want people NOT trying it over the trust objection.
So, our best answer was to offer it free.
The first challenge to offering it for free is, how do we make money from it and how do the affiliates get paid on sales if the program is free? Well, as I've said many times before, nothing in life is really free. There is a catch and the catch is this.
With every program, a SearchKing ad is displayed at the top of the script. The only way to remove this ad is to upgrade. So here's the deal.
The script is totally free for up to 10 keywords on one domain. The pricing will remain the same, but you only have to pay IF you decide to upgrade. You have the choice to use this program for life at no cost other than having to live with our ads on it. For the serious marketer who understands how to use the program, that will be unacceptable and the price will not be a problem once they see the value. Also, for the serious marketer, 10 keywords and one domain is not enough. They will need more. That is where our sales will come in and where our affiliate pay-outs will come in. As with most everything else our affiliates offer, we will track every customer for one full year and if they upgrade at anytime within that year, the affiliate will get paid.
We have some pretty big changes coming up very soon that involves SearchKing as a search engine and as a hub for hundreds of local and topic specific portals. I need the branding. If I could get 50,000 sites using keyword delivery and displaying our link, that is worth a lot. It is not such a bad thing to offer this program for free.
Dan spent some time last night and this morning making the changes needed on the order forms. Mike spent some time this morning making changes to the text to reflect the new procedures. It should be done by the time you read this, so if any of you were considering using this program since last week but just wasn't comfortable with having to provide payment information, go get it now! It's FREE.
http://www.keyworddelivery.com
Now, you have no excuse not to go get it. If you care about your site. If you care about providing your visitors with a positive experience. If you care about things like increasing your traffic and increasing your sales, then go get it now. Maybe you think it sounds too good to be true. Maybe you think it's going to be too hard to set up to be worth the time. Well, I'm telling you it is easy and effective.
Let me ask you one question, "what if I'm right?" What if for once, someone on the net is telling the truth? What if this thing really is worth it for free? Ok, that was three questions, but my point is simply that you now have no reason not to try it, to use it and to take advantage of it. You have nothing to risk but the possibility that I'm right All I ask is that you visit the forums and get involved in the discussion about the program and let me and your other partners know what you think.
http://forums.searchking.com/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=forum&f=40
Well that's it for this week. I've got some big news coming up very soon and I hope I can start spilling the beans as early as the next Portal Partner Press. See Ya then!
Bob
Publisher -- Bob Massa
bobking@searchking.com

=======June 27, 2001==========

Subject: Portal Partner Press 6-27-01

Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 21:11:09 -0500

From: Robert Massa bobking@searchking.com

The Portal Partner Press is sent each week for the education, and entertainment of the people who own and operate a SearchKing hosted portal. It is indended to help you learn to better operate, maintain and market your own portal. Anytime you have a question about any item in an issue of the PPP, please visit our forums at http://forums.searchking.com and feel free to ask any questions or post any comments about your portal, about SearchKing or about your own portal.
**************************************************************************** *****
Portal Partner Press
June 27th, 2001
AFFILIATE NEWS
SPECIFYING DESTINATIONS
I apologize for this taking so long and causing all the confusion, but I think we're rolling now. As I said from the beginning we are new to this affiliate game and even though I've spent a year visiting affiliate forums and affiliate sites trying to learn all that I could, I figured there would be some issues that we just weren't going to learn in a forum. I pretty much knew it was going to take getting our hands dirty and it did.
The areas we were having our toughest problems with were in the tech issues. Getting SSL, (secure socket layer), working with the apache server in conjunction with Tomcat, ( a secure software for java). It took a lot of teeth gnashing and hair pulling to get it to work, but we've got it licked!
(Look at me !! talking about secure socket layers and stuff. Huh, what do you know?)
Anyway, all that stuff doesn't really matter to you guys as far as just making the sale. What does matter is being able to target your ads to your traffic and send them where they need to go to make the sale. While the "submit your site to thousands of search engines" banner is doing well in terms of getting people to the add_main page, it's not doing so well in terms of making a sale. The advantage of the submit your site banner is it's a hot offer and it will generate clicks , probably becuase it's got the word free in it. The drawback is that in terms of making advertising sales and portal sales by sending people to that page, we are getting the same.05% sales to click thru ratios as everybody else running untargeted banners.
We know this and we knew it from the beginning. Now we are finally able to offer you the solutions.
We will be installing the feature in your affiliate reporting center, (you know, your stats page), to allow you to select whatever product or service you want to sell by clicking a button. Each product or service will have it's own destination, with it's own link and it's own banners that you can use to send them to the exact information you want to sell.
We will still leave the add_main page like it is because it does generate significant click thrus, but to really sell this stuff and make your money, you need to target the offers and by this time next week, you'll be able to do that all thru affiliate reporting center just by clicking on a link. The keyword delivery destination is set up and ready to go. If any of you don't know where to go to get to your reporting center, send an email to Yvonne@searchking.com and to kathi@searchking.com. If any of you have any problems with setting it up, please post it in the forums under the SearchKing Affiliate topic, http://forums.searchking.com, so we can address them publicly and help as many people as possible at one time.
Finally, over the next few days, (Dave says hours), we will have all the separate products set up so that you can select as many or as few destinations as you like. So, if you don't see what you want the first time you go there, just check back because it's coming.
I hope this clears up some of the confusion over the last few weeks about
the program. Also, I hope we all start making a little money.
******************************
Next week I'll have some news about SearchKing the engine. We are going to be implementing some changes that we feel should benefit us all.
See you next week kids! Be good.
Bob
Publisher -- Bob Massa
bobking@searchking.com