Category Archives: Reviews and Interviews

Find Investors: InvestEngine.com

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There’s a new site in town and it’s called InvestEngine.com. I’d like to tell you a little bit about it, because I think it’s a great idea.  Maybe we can help it get off the ground. If you’re reading this from the US, be warned…this site is in the Ukraine, so make sure you do due diligence.  Not all of the rules or processes she talks about will apply here in the US. That being said, check her bio…she knows what she’s doing.

Hi, my name is Tina Bychkova, I am 27 and I am the founder of Invest Engine – online platform that offers free business plan software for entrepreneurs and the opportunity to post these plans online to find investors. Before I started my journey as an entrepreneur I devoted five years of my life to working for major international companies such as Samsung Electronics and Nissan Motor Company. There I did pretty much everything in the field of marketing communications: ads development and placement, communication with journalists, organizing PR and customer events. But Internet technology has always been my passion and in 2009 I started my first company – Invest Engine. Apart from my job I love capoeira – Brazilian martial art, hiking, scuba diving, painting and learning foreign languages (I speak English, Russian and French).  

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Book Review: Enchantment, by Guy Kawasaki

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[The short version if you're in a hurry: Buy this book. It rocks. I love it. Two thumbs up.]

Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions

Enchantment

Let me start by saying that once I started this book, I could not put it down.  I read it in one sitting.  It’s that good.  Coming in at just over 200 pages, I can honestly say that Guy hasn’t wasted a single page.  This book is filled with ideas and practical ways to implement them in your business.

If you don’t need this book for yourself, one of my thoughts while reading it was that it would make a very cool gift for anyone that’s thinking of going into business for themselves. It will motivate them and give them some very solid advice on how they should be doing business.  Ok…now that I got that out of my system, let’s get on with the official details. I’ll wax poetic again at the end of this post. lol.  

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WordPress Affiliate Platform Plugin

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If you sell any type of products, services or memberships from your website, then you might want to consider using the power of affiliate marketing to get yourself a huge sales force that works only on commission.  Imagine having tens or even hundreds of other websites actively advertising and sending customers to your website to buy your products, and it doesn’t cost you a cent unless you make a sale!

The concept of affiliate marketing is fairly simple:  You’re offering a product for sale.  Let’s pretend it’s an ebook priced at $10.  Of course you’d like to have as many people as possible helping you sell it!  That’s where setting up an affiliate program comes in.  An affiliate is someone who signs up with you to help sell your product on a commission basis.  You don’t pay them a cent until they refer a customer to you that actually buys something, then you pay them a percentage of the sale.  If you give your affiliates 20 percent, then they get $2 for everyone they send to your site who actually purchases your ebook.  No sale, no commission.  This works out well for the affiliate too, because many people don’t have their own products to sell, or they don’t want to be bothered with setting up the infrastructure to make it work.  

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Book Review: Who Cares? Creating a Culture of Service in Your Business

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Who Cares? Creating a Culture of Service in Your BusinessAnyone who has attended my seminars, or has read my blog for any length of time knows that I am all about legendary customer service.  Not only is it the right thing to do, but it’s a surefire way to stand out from the crowd and keep your customers coming back.

This week I got an interesting book from the library.  Who Cares? Creating a Culture of Service in Your Business, written by Scott A. Brown.  This short (196 pages) book echos pretty much everything I’ve been saying.  It’s a must read for anyone in service, retail, or hospitality.  

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