Month: July 2010

By Posted on Posted in Shel's Personal Life

Hiking through the rainforest at night in a rainstorm? Are we crazy? Not at all. We had good flashlights and a naturalist/guide, and it was magnificent.

We’re in Santa Elena/Montverde, Costa Rica, and there are several “night walk” tours available. We asked Cristina, the all-knowing, ultrafriendly concierge at our hotel (Claro de la Luna), which was the best, and she told us it depended on what we wanted: popular or quiet. We chose quiet, and we were the only customers walking with Greyving (our guide) through the former Finca San Francisco de Assisi (Saint Francis of Assisi Farm). Arriving just before dark, we were awestruck by the majesty of the tall trees shrouded in mist, the sounds of the many species of insects, the thickness of the understory.

Dozens of mammal, snake, and bird species live in this reclaimed forest, now conservation land: sloths, agoutis, quetzals, porcupines, and monkeys, to name a few. But Greyving warned us that we weren’t likely to see many animals in the rain, and in fact we saw nothing with four legs. But we saw plenty of insects and spiders, including walking sicks, moths, crickets, grasshoppers—and two tarantulas. He was able to coax one of them—an orange-kneed tarantula about six inches in diameter, which he said was a very common type—out of its hole, and it came within a foot of us. I grabbed for my camera but she skittered off. The other one was busy eating, and couldn’t be prodded out of its tree trunk no matter what. But it’s quite something to peer into a hollow log and see these deep eyes staring at you from a twisted collection of black hairy legs.

This was a female, he said. Females live about ten years and spend their whole lives inside one place, in this case a hollow log. Males spend their days walking around the forest, and as a result—being a tasty snack for many of the four-legged creatures here, and also at risk of being killed and eaten by the female following impregnation—live only a couple of months.

We passed an enormous strangler fig that he estimated at 200 years old. And, he says, in the nearby parks there are some specimens five times as large and four times as old.

In all, it was a fascinating hour and a half.

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By Posted on Posted in Advertising, Copywriting, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, propaganda Tagged with , , ,

Note From Shel Horowitz, Owner of this Blog:

I’m posting this not because I agree with everything Jim says, but because I don’t. I’m not going to tell you which parts I agree with and which I’d argue with, at least not yet. I’d like you to have your say first, and when I return from vacation (this post is being scheduled ahead), I might choose to add to the dialogue.

I proudly call myself a marketer. The problem with doing that is that a lot of people think that marketer=scumbag. I get it. Consumers have been burned before and they blame the marketing most of the time.

But that doesn’t make it right.

There’s a big difference between good marketers and bad marketers. Good marketers want to get your attention and make you aware of their wares, whatever that might be. Bad marketers want to deceive you into buying something that you don’t need for profit.

Good marketing is good business. Too often business owners don’t want to do effective marketing because they don’t want to be lumped in with the scammers out there. Here’s a few examples.

In the online world there are people called information marketers. They sell things like membership program and eBooks, and “systems”. These often come as something like a 22-disc DVD set, or online training program. To sell these products, they use tactics like long-page sales letters. You’ve seen those pages before perhaps? Is the page that is one big single column and you have to scroll 20 times to get to the buy button at the bottom. The page is filled with testimonials and bullet points about why the product/service is so awesome, etc… Then it’s got a ton of bonus items.

Here’s the secret to those pages. Know why you see them so often? Because they work… really, really well. As a matter of fact, pages like that are often the top converting page on the Internet today. And in the Internet business, conversion is job #1. If you don’t convert well, you’re losing the battle.

Does marketing with long sales pages letters make them scammy? Not at all. It’s a tactic, and yes, some of the people who sell those types of products are out to rip you off. However, most of them have really good products to sell you. The problem is that because of the tactic they use, they get lumped in with a certain mindset of consumers who will never buy from them.

What about those annoying late-night infomercials you see online? You know what I’m talking about. The late Billy Mays selling OxyClean or Vince selling a Slapchop. Ever notice the “but wait, there’s more” at the end of every tv spot where you get a “bonus” item for ordering now? Again, it seems kind of marketing wrong, right? Actually, it’s there because it works, really, really well.

The point is this. As a business owner, it is your job to drive more sales, leads or publicity to your business. Bottom line. Good business is good marketing. Don’t leave marketing tactics on the table because you’re worried about how you’ll look. At the end of the day, you’re going to need to find a way to improve your business and beat your competition. It might be time to start looking around at new ways to do that.

For over 15-years, Jim Kukral has helped small businesses and large companies like Fedex, Sherwin Williams, Ernst & Young and Progressive Auto Insurance understand how find success on the Web. Jim is the author of the book, “Attention! This Book Will Make You Money”, as well as a professional speaker, blogger and Web business consultant. Find out more by visiting www.JimKukral.com. You can also follow Jim on Twitter @JimKukral.

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By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, Politics

This letter, except for the first paragraph (which I added), was just sent out by the Nuclear Information and Resource Center. You can also call your Rep at 202-224-3121. Note that this page is keyed to me. Scroll down about a half a screen and then click “if you are not Shel”–before you fill in the petition, especially if you’re modifying the text.

If you’re not familiar with the many problems with nuclear power, do a search in this blog on “nuclear”

Dear Representative,

Nuclear power is NOT Green, has serious environmental and security problems, and should not be supported. If we learn nothing else from the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico–we should know not to put our faith in dangerous technologies when people think they can figure out a fix AFTER something goes wrong.

I have learned that the House Appropriations Committee may take up the FY 2011 energy and water funding bill next week.

I understand the Department of Energy is seeking additional funding for new nuclear reactor loans in this bill: a whopping $36 Billion increase for construction of new reactors, That’s taxpayer money that would go to some of the wealthiest companies in the world, companies like Electricite de France, Areva, NRG Energy, Toshiba, General Electric, and the like.

As you may know, these loan “guarantees” are actually taxpayer loans from the Federal Financing Bank. This is not the time to shell out billions more taxpayer dollars for the benefit of one special interest industry.

Please act to ensure that NO new loan “guarantee” authority for nuclear reactors is provided in the FY 2011 energy funding bill. Please tell your colleagues on the Appropriations Committee that they should vote no on new nuclear power loans.

Thank you,

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