After taking this blog as far as I could I realised that I wanted some control over my own destiny.

Blogger has been good to me and has allowed me to try out blogging over quite an extended time (years!).

I continue with the same subject: Explosive Business Growth, on my Wordpress blog.

So overcome inertia and smash through to my new Business Growth site. Now!

By the way while you're there you can subscribe to get new posts via email. Easier than using RSS really.

As you know I've moved all these posts to my Business Growth blog which is where I'm posting new content.

The latest is a review of Six Disciplines Of Excellence, a book aimed at helping SMEs grow.

So go check it out and I'd love it if you'd leave any comments.

By the way currently the site is best viewed using Firefox as Internet Explorer seems to not display the blog theme as nicely.

It was great, while it lasted. I ca truly say Blogger helped me understand and appreciate blogging.

Anyway, at last I've moved...

I've had a very extended period of trying to write a few postings while I got the Wordpress implementation of the new blog sorted out.

Now if you wait...

You'll see this blog automatically transform into the shiny new Wordpress one. It's still not completely finished as there's a fair bit of housekeeping to complete on the new blog.

Wordpress allows more flexible publishing so hopefully you won't get 2 or 3 posts a day. Although if I get over-enthusiastic please bear with me - normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

My Alexa ranking and page rank has plummetted dramatically, although when I started this I was sure I could keep my page rank!

Still the content remains as good as ever, or at least I hope you think so.

I've had a private members blog for a while too and I may open that up to allow a few more people to join after I've converted it to Wordpress too - let me know if you're interested - email me at secretblog at acornservice dot com.

The new Wordpress version of this blog is located at http://www.business-powerpack.com and it's called "Business Growth And Internet Marketing."

Check it out and leave a comment about it, it'll be most appreciated.

See you there

People have asked me why I keep the blogging to the bank banner going on this blog.

The simple answer is because at the moment it's the one thing that will pretty much definitely help people do better at blogging and at making money from their blog.

Does the book guarantee untold riches?

Not quite. In fact although it has a pretty good set of solid steps you can easily take to get blogging and making money it misses out one thing.

That one thing is the massive emphasis you need to place on choosing the right niche.

You can get a set of keywords that have 5,000 searches per month and you can have keywords that have 5,000,000 per month.

The 5,000 search niche might be ok to choose  if everyone buys compared to, say,  1 in 100,000 buying from the 5,000,000 search.

However, all things being equal...

The money you make depends on the traffic you're exposed to. Which in turn is linked to the size of the niche you have.

So it's essential you choose the right niche.

It had to happen.

If you know anything about Internet Marketing you know there are always seminars running that pluck one person from the audience and teach them step by step how to make money from the Internet.  And of course they do make money!

It's argued that television watching by the younger age groups is dropping as their attention is switched to the Internet.

The Internet Reality
TV Arrives?

The next logical step in teaching people how to use the Internet to make money in a seminar is to have an Apprentice-like competition, not on TV, but on the Internet.

So New York Times Best Selling author Joel Comm (The Adsense Code) is hosting an Internet-based reality show called "The Next Internet Millionaire."

Intriguing title.

The Contestants

And of course there are 12 contestants. They are:

1. Jason Henderson
2. Charles Trippy
3. Nico Pisani
4. Steve Schuitt
5. Thor Schrock
6. Jason Marshall
7. Jaime Luchuck
8. Carly Taylor
9. Christine Schapp
10. Debbie Ducic
11. Laura Martin
12. Alisande Chan

Plus, there's a veritable who's who of Internet Marketers who are mentioned in the trailer credits:

1. Mark Joyner
2. Armand Morin
3. Jeff Walker
4. Marlon Sanders
5. Mike Koenigs
6. Brad Fallon
7. Mike Filsaime
8. Ray Edwards
9. Dave Taylor
10. Perry Marshall
11. Rich Schefren
12. Heather Vale

Although noticeable by their absence  were Alex Mandossian, Dan Kennedy, Michel Fortin, John Reese, Ken McArthur and the ubiquitous Joe Vitale.

According to "The Next Internet Millionaire" web site  the whole thing kicks off on 15th August 2007.

And I'll be there to watch and comment on it...

...Only please let it be better than Tycoon!

 

 

I've said this time after time.

Yet it bears repeating because so few businesses actually do it.

You need to know the marketing cogs, or "the whys", that power your marketing machine.

1. Why is it in my interest to listen/read/watch you/meet you? Also known as "What's In It For Me"
2. Why should I believe you?
3. Why should I do anything about what you say or offer?
4. Why now?

The answers you give to those 4 simple questions tell your prospects whether it's worth their while continuing a dialogue with you.

Does Blogging Answer The 4 "Whys?"

I'm busy, yet I make time to write my blogs.

Why?

Look at the "4 Whys" again:

What's In It For Me?

A blog is one way of allowing you to decide whether you want to talk further with me. You will learn about different business growth techniques and strategies in the blog. Strategies and tactics that can power your business forward, faster, more profitably. Implementing them makes you more money!

Why Should I Believe You?

This blog provides an inexpensive way to get good business growth advice. You can test all the relevant advice in your own business. When you find it works you've answered the second question yourself.

Why Should I Do Anything?

As Yoda in Star Wars says to Luke, "Do or do not... there is no try." Which means you can either do what the blog suggests or not do it. If you do it you find out whether the advice is useful. If you don't you're doomed to simply read stuff off the Internet to while away your work day. At which point I'd suggest you stop reading this blog because I'd rather speak to people who take action.

Why now?

Of course you've heard the phrase "strike while the iron is hot." The reason is that as iron cools down it loses its ability to be shaped. Similarly if you don't take action from the advice on this blog, and others, or more directly through my coaching you'll miss the opportunities that I guarantee you have in your business right now that are staring you in the face that you may be dimly aware of and yet could make you more cash that you're making now.

So think hard. Why this blog? If you've found the advice I give valuable let me know. Equally if you've found the advice really stinks let me know.

And finally, the bottom line behind this post is that you need to get your marketing message sorted out. Just doing that puts you ahead of so many other businesses and gives your prospects something they can understand about what they get from you.

The latest business thinking is a phrase that marketers like to use when they're offering something that they want to appeal to people who must have the latest.

You probably know someone like that...

They must have the latest gizmo, drive the latest car, seen the latest film or used the most recent business school buzz phrase.

And of course the latest business thinking is a phrase that springs readily to an Internet Marketer's pen.

Particularly when talking about search engine optimization (SEO). Because SEO is a subject that gets talked about whenever a small band of people with web sites gets together.

And yet they all agree content is king!

SEO Self-Help

So how can they agree on that I wonder? "Content is King" and yet we still need Search Engine Optimization, surely that's not necessary?

Well of course SEO is necessary but it needs to be integrated with the content. So trying to "do" SEO on a web site or blog without paying attention to how you write copy is a complete waste of time.

There is so much that you can do to help yourself with SEO:

• Write a title with the keywords in
• Keep one page pretty much dedicated to one concept or product or service
• Research and use the appropriate keywords as you write the content
• make sure you do off-site SEO
• Encourage appropriate inward bound links

Above all, write great content, publicize your site and the hits will come.

Then Bob's your uncle and I'm the coolest guy on the planet still!

BuzzNet tags: SEO, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Optimisation, I'm the coolest guy on the planet, latest business thinking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This story has been bubbling under for the last few days as Sir Alan Sugar and Sky agree details for Sky to buy Amstrad.

They've finally sealed the knot as reported in The Guardian.

Of course as an Amstrad shareholder I'm over the moon with the shares racking up a nice healthy premium.

And the good news for us Apprentice fans is that Sir Alan will stay in that role with Margaret and Nick as his faithful sidekicks.

Amstrad now becomes a division of Sky, still run by Sir Alan Sugar.

My immediate thought was that someone like Sir Alan may not take kindly to being told what to do. Because as an entrepreneur he's been used to having the buck stop with him.

Of course in reality, as he himself has said, his customers are the people who tell him what to do. So he is used to having a boss of sorts.

This purchase is definitely a "good" thing for Amstrad. The research resources and leading edge developers will help Amstrad get stuff to market for Sky more quickly.

I'm starting another blog about health and fitness and so I've been scouring the Internet so I can review useful programs.

Don't worry the Power Packed Business Growth Blog is still in the process of being upgraded, or should I say converted to Wordpress. And I may well not use my current web domain, for a number of Search Engine Optimisation reasons.

Anyway, I just had to share this with you:

In the constant fight for fitness a lot of people in the western world need to lose weight. Only problem with that of course is that you can easily get into the yo-yo diet vicious cycle.

Now, I don't normally do this...

I'm going to recommend you pay a visit to this site where they tell you how to melt the fat without losing the muscle.

Sign up for their ‘Big Fat Lies’ mini course. This course gives you the 12 most blatant, self-serving lies about weight loss.  The sign-up form is about half-way down the page. I've signed up as an affiliate but I just think the email course is worth getting itself.

Let me know what you think.

Ok...normal marketing and business growth continues as I wrestle with Wordpress and new domains for this blog.

I've just had an illuminating interview with David Speakman of Travel Counsellors.  David originally set-up Travel Counsellors to do the administration for agents and allow the agents to do what they do best: organise holidays.

The company is now a multi-million pound one that's based in Bolton in the Northwest. David has handed over the UK operation to a management team and runs the Spanish operation in Spain.

I'm putting the full interview into the launch issue of Good Company but one nugget that really hit me and which I'd like to share with you is this:One of the doormen at David restaurants remarked,

"If You Don’t Let Them In You Don’t Have To Throw Them Out"

Obviously referring to the incoming customers. David took this comment to heart and realised that the same was true of taking on staff members. Why take on staff just because you have a vacancy?  Instead it's better to have the management problem of too few staff compared to the management problem of how to get rid of a member of staff.

You may remember from last time that Peter Jones had selected all 4 of the remaining businesses to go forward to the grand finale.

The grand finale looked extremely impressive and again the introductory credits were very like "The Apprentice" in appearance.

And yet...

Tycoon completely failed to impress. Kate Thornton was the compere for the night and did a reasonable job.  Almost all the finalists were dressed in their finery.

The finale set looked nice and big and glittery. Up for the prize was the over £200,000 of profits made by all the companies since Tycoon started.

Then we were treated to half an hour of clips we'd already seen and mini interviews with the people involved, including Peter Jones with amazing stripped socks.

I'd advised closing Justin and Lauren down last week and I had a question over whether Iain's Helicopter business was sustainable.

The Tycoon Winner

In the end Iain won. Which seemed only fair as he'd made over half of the £200,000 profits available as the prize.

Was The Finale Worth Watching?

I can now give a big unequivocal no!

It was like watching paint dry. Who wanted to hear more of what we'd already heard?

There was no drama. There was no reason that the watching public (if any watched) should change their minds about one person or another.

I've never sat through such an insipid production before.

Peter Jones needs to get his production company to come up with a much better format than this.

It was almost as if a group of mates had gone out to the pub after watching The Apprentice and said how great Dragon's Den was too. Then said, "wait a minute, think how amazing it would be if we combined the two!"

As you know I love business programmes. And my reasons for watching, which may be different to others are as follows:

• To learn about someone else's business
• To learn how other people approach business problems
• To learn what not to do
• To see how other people think in business
• Combined with a narrative thread that links the programme and the people together

So for me Tycoon failed to deliver any of my reasons for watching

As I've said before if Tycoon ever comes back I need to be convinced it's much, much better than this before I watch another second.

I've really enjoyed blogging with Blogger. But now I've hit a number of its limitations. One major one is a lack of good plugins to enhance the user experience.

Similarly I've decided not to transfer all my posts to my Wordpress.org blog because of the limitations there.

So I've decided to enhance the blog for us both and the blog is moving to my own domain: www.acornservice.com where my current web site is and will be powered by Wordpress blog software.

If you've any Wordpress templates you think that would particularly suit my blog style let me know. At the moment I'm thinking of going with the rather nice theme we're using for The Manchester Blog.

Anyway, I've been promising myself that I'll freshen my web site so I will see whether it's feasible to roll the blog transfer and freshen up into one project.

My only concern is that I don't lose YOU my dedicated reader in all this as the URL will be different and as I'm unlikely to post much for the next few days.

So to make sure you can still read these posts please subscribe by email at the top of this blog and you'll get the posts by email until you unsubscribe.

Or if you simply want me to let you know when the blog has been transferred send an email to me at transfer(AT) acornservice.(X) and replace (AT) with @ and (X) with com.

Then I'll email you twice (on 2 different days) to let you know the blog has been recreated. Then I'll delete your email from my system.

Either way spammers are unwelcome and your email addresses remain safe with me!

So sign up or send me an email and I'll see you on the other side on a refreshed Power Packed Business Growth Blog.

As you know I coach Chet's clients worldwide and because of that,  as I posted previously, I can't objectively review Chet Holmes book , The Ultimate Sales Machine.

However, now it's the number one best selling business book in the USA and made the New York Times best seller list I want to tell you about the $3,000 worth of free bonuses  Chet offers to anyone buying the book.

Later in this post I explain exactly what's in the book...

Chet is pretty popular as a speaker and shares the platform with a lot of the most famous and expert speakers alive.

So he got 30 famous speakers to give away more than $3000 worth of free training programs when you buy Chet's book.

So How Do You Get The $3,000 Free Bonuses?

Here’s how it works:

1. Obviously, buy the book:
   
   • Amazon (USA): The Ultimate Sales Machine
   • or Amazon (UK): The Ultimate Sales Machine
     
2. Amazon sends you an email with an order number.
3. Go to this site: http://www.chetholmes.com/bookbonus and enter your order number
4. You get a six month free pass to thirty different training programs in every field from health, to wealth, to investing, to happiness!

Who's Providing The Programs?

 It's a bit like a who's who of self-development...

So you've got Tony Robbins, Jay Conrad Levinson with Guerrilla Marketing, Harv Eker, Jack Walsh and so on. And they've all contributed to this bonus bonanza.

How Long Till Chet Pulls The $3,000 Bonuses?

Put it this way an opportunity like this doesn't come round every day. And it won’t last. So do it right now... here's the link again:

• Amazon (USA): The Ultimate Sales Machine
• or Amazon (UK): The Ultimate Sales Machine

And because he’s my friend, do me a favor and let everyone you know who is in business know about this post.

The Secrets Chet Reveals In His Book

Chet’s specialty is doubling sales year in, year out.

He's doubled the sales of more companies than anyone else.

 And the true secret (he continually give examples in the book), is usually about doing two or three things really, really well.

The book shows how just mastering one or two things in your business can double it.

In a special page in the book Chet gives you a pile of bonuses, including a five part $1000 series entitled: “Five Against One: See Karate master (yes, Chet’s a karate master too!) take on five business owners at a time and show all of them, right on the spot, in only 45 minutes, how to double their sales.

There’s five of these sessions, with 25 different types of business owners so there’s something for everyone.

What Do Others Say?

If you recall from my previous post both Jay Abraham and Brian Tracy endorse Chet's book. I won't repeat them here the main message from both of them was that Chet was the best thing since sliced bread for teaching sales, marketing and business success.

When I was on Amazon I found a wealth of reviews on Chet's book and one of the most interesting was this from Mitch Russo who has employed Chet 3 times:

"Be prepared to read the best book of your professional life.  For years I have watched Chet Holmes cause growth and change in an organization. I have personally hired him 3 times, each with spectacular results. .."

And he goes on to explain something I help every company with:

"The idea of the "dream 100" pays for the book 1000 times and this is just the beginning. Simple but amazingly effective, I use this technique with everyone I work with. Chet's description of HOW to build your "dream 100 list" and then systematically and doggedly pursue them is the most powerful sales concept I have ever used. "

It all sounds a trifle incredible doesn't it?  I know Chet, I've heard company CEO's endorse what he says and heard Chet do the same with other organisations.

You've heard of the richest man on the planet: Warren Buffett (unless Bill Gates has overtaken him again). His partner is the nearly as wealthy Charlie Munger and Chet used to work for Charlie where he doubled the sales year on year ...

You get the picture, I'm sure.

And if that wasn't enough you get 2 FREE coaching sessions from people Chet has personally trained in his methods and systems.

Yes, one of those is me!

So click on my affiliate link to get the book from Amazon (USA): The Ultimate Sales Machine, or Amazon (UK): The Ultimate Sales Machine.

Then go and get those Chet Holmes Book Bonuses. 

You may remember in the first episode of Tycoon I suggested Tom and Elizabeth should both go.

...and they have.

I have very mixed feelings about this Tycoon series.

On the one hand it should be interesting to see apprentice entrepreneurs (appreneurs) work in their new businesses and start to make money on the other hand at times you're not sure what on earth they're competing for.

Take yesterday night's episode where Peter was going to decide who should go into the final.

Which out of the 4 remaining businesses would get canned?

If you haven't seen the episode yet, I'll reveal the answer at the end with the title "So Who Went Through To The Tycoon Finale?" 

Suffice to say I was baffled by the criteria that Peter was using to establish exactly which business should go through into the finale.

Can Justin Chieffo Win With A Bag For Life?

Justin almost got an order from Sainsbury's for 60,00 bags for life and he also managed to find a much cheaper supplier of the bags.

I'm sorry almost an order is no order.

And 60,000 compared to Tesco's 250,000? Didn't Justin point out the size of Tesco's order?

And are Sainsbury's really the only other supermarket to express an interest in bags for life.

The most strategic and vitally important supermarket of them all was completely ignored - ASDA. After all they're owned by WALMART - the biggest supermarket in the USA and chain you'd want to get into to sell such a bag!

Justin seemed to be sitting back on his laurels. As an entrepreneur he needs to continually thinking of new ways to get his bags into shops. Plus what about putting ads on the bags?

My Advice: Close Justin down.

Can Iain Morgan Rise Above With His Helicopters?

Iain Morgan became a selling whirlwind and sold an incredible amount of helicopters.

Unfortunately, a good salesman does not mean he's a good businessman.

That said he had made the most money this week and it was around half the total that everyone else combined made.

My Advice: I'm undecided on Iain because you can see his business will saturate the UK market for toy executive helicopters. What does he do then?

Will Lauren Pope's Hair Extensions Win The Day?

Lauren continued to sell her hair extensions, despite her extension suppliers labeling the extensions Goosip instead of Gossip!

My Advice: Close Lauren down. I know extensions are currently fashionable my only concern is that a number of celebs appear to have stopped wearing them now. So it may be a declining market.

Helen James and Cathy Caudwell-Todd

Helen and Cathy only made a small amount of money compared to everyone else but have won deals to get into large garden centres with their clothes ranges.

I think the connection with Dragon's Den will help them too.

My Advice: These two are the ones I would vote for to win. I think that once their excessive prices had been pared down a bit for garden centres they've every chance of selling lots of gardening clothes.

Is The Finale Worth Watching?

I really don't know.

If Helen and Cathy can show large orders, or even sales from the garden centres I think they've got it sewn up for the few viewers who've stuck with Tycoon.

The criteria Peter appears to be choosing the finalists are unclear. And I suspect the same will be true in the final.

My previous Tycoon posting reveals my thoughts on whether I'd watch another series of Tycoon. Suffice to say that at the moment I'm terribly underwhelmed.

"So Who Went Through To The Tycoon Finale?" 

After watching Peter invite Justin and Iain through because of their high sales figures and Lauren for her reasonable one it all looked curtains for Helen and Cathy.

Then Peter decided to let them all through.

So much for being on the edge of my seat with high drama!

I watched a Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmare I hadn't seen last night.

On first walking in the restaurant (Morgan's in Liverpool) looked very well presented and had an unhurried air.

It soon became clear that all was far from well. Obviously!

It was being run by 3 people. A form of company abuse I've across several times before and often (but strangely not always) with the same effects.

Those effects are usually that because decisions are shared they don't get made properly. And in this case the mother and two sisters involved seemed to be forever treading on each other toes. None of them seemed to have any real idea what they ought to be doing at any one time.

Equally the chef they'd chosen was not a stickler for good food and would let completely incinerated sausages out to the paying punter!

And yet they had a second chef who produced an excellent sticky pudding and wound up, of course, becoming the head chef for the restaurant.

Now the thing that really interested me about this programme was that everything was being done as though the business was about to fail:

•  The owner was buying food for the chef to make on the day he was set to make it from a supermarket!
• The owner would "help" everyone do stuff. Such as drying the dishes, waiting on, doing the accounts and goodness know's what else. You go the feeling she felt as though if she didn't get involved everything would collapse.
• The owner wouldn't pay for food prep time

And of course Gordon Ramsey sorted it all out - got the head chef to cook with more focus and to put out good food, allocated the right jobs to the right people and scrapped the (as usual) pretentious menus - I mean mashed potato and apricot? YUK!

And on Ramsey's return a month later the restaurant was continuing to make a profit.

The moral behind this story is for a business to work it needs a unified strategy that all agree to and can contribute to. Anyone who can't needs to go.

After the first episode of Tycoon I pointed out that Tom should be sacked and Elizabeth given enough rope to hang herself.

Although I started watching the second episode I lost the will to live part way through and didn't watch the rest where Tom got his just desserts.

ITV management pulled the show from its prime time slot and shoehorned a shorter version into a later slot.

Thank goodness. 

The editing has got much tighter and it looks as though they've inserted a few new clips of Peter's assessment of what's happening.

In this episode Justin Chieffo  is appointed by Peter to look after his fellow entrepreneurs as Peter has to go away for a few days.

Elizabeth Gets Hacked

I think it's important that anyone on these reality shows needs to remember is that "they return to the real world after the show is finished." Elizabeth wearing a sticky label on her forehead with the word 'FRAGILE' on is not going to endear her to future customers or employers.

So what happened to Elizabeth Hackford?

• 4,000 bottle wrappers were the wrong colour
• She was advised by the Portland Group not to use the name Vtox because it was too much like Detox  
• She didn't appear to like Justin "managing" her

Peter finally gave her the elbow.

And can someone please tell me why on earth they're talking to the doomed candidate on the end of the pier? What is the point?

OK, they're trying to get away from the boardroom firing scene as shown on The Apprentice. But a pier? Why couldn't they fire someone from Peter's Bentley? Or maybe in Peter's office?

And guess what? Lauren said that it was expected by the others.

 Yes she should never have been in the contest!

Has Justin Chieffo Got Management Ability?

Like I said before my wife still believes his carrier bag dispenser is a good idea. So when Tesco ordered 250,000 she looked at me in triumph!

I'm still not persuaded. As I said last time you can use a carrier bag to carry spare carrier bags around in.

Anyway, you can't argue with an order. It could be Tesco wants to test it out.

Anyway, back to Justin's management ability...

It was tested to the limit in his dealings with Elizabeth Hackford.

He didn't help his case by telling her he had to have a meeting with her while she was already having a meeting with Grace, the ex-Big Brother contestant she wanted to use to endorse the drink.

Then he used the weak threat that he would tell Peter about her...

We also saw Justin with his feet up.

When Elizabeth told him he'd embarrassed her and flounced off Justin mimicked her holding a handbag and even said the word "handbags" - not very good for team building with the rest of the troops.

What impressed me most about Justin was that he still had £8,000 of the original £10,000 provided by Peter. Well done!

My Advice: You need people who can run a business. Someone who doesn't understand when to make a stand or not with an employee just can't at the moment.

If Justin doesn't get any further sales close him down next. 

Iain Morgan

Iain Morgan is now demonstrating and selling his executive helicopter. It looks like fun but I wonder exactly how many he can sell.

Apparently he's going to try and get a large order from Argos next time.

My Advice: Iain still seems to know what he's doing from the ordering point of view. My only thought is the quality of the helicopter.

He does need to start selling volumes of the helicopters. A 20 helicopter order requires the same selling time as 2,000. So he would be better off with Argos or an upmarket executive gifts catalogue. 

Lauren Pope

Lauren Pope met up with Philip Green at Top Shop. Of course Philip was involved in a meeting that would normally be beneath his notice.

Philip wanted Lauren to sell from his shop without him investing in anything. That would have meant a lot of work for Lauren and she was right to turn it down.

She did well to get an order for £47,000 from an online company in Leicestershire.

My Advice: Keep up the good work! And also do some promotions too.

Helen James and Cathy Caudwell-Todd

Helen and Cathy met up with Harrods Owner Al-Fayed and pitched to have their range sold in Harrods and to have their launch there too.

They successfully persuaded him and Peter Jones was ecstatic when they told him.

My Advice:  I think these two could do well still getting their product into Harrods needs to be done as soon as possible to get the maximum exposure whilst Tycoon is still running. 

Is It Worth Watching Now?

I am watching again but...

• there needs to be more footage of the appreneurs (apprentice entrepreneurs) working with their suppliers and customers and not simply sitting down at their PCs - it's just boring otherwise
• The Dragon's Den type investment decision meeting needs to be scrapped completely and the figures assigned for further investment provided to each person
• Peter is (presumably) trying to pass on the skills he learnt as he rose to the top. So we need to see more coaching rather than focusing on his investment
• They need to fire early when it's obvious one of the candidates isn't going to make it
• Hire a voice-over who sounds interesting and interested in what's happening

 As there's not much longer to go with this series I will continue to watch but I'd be wary about watching a second series, unless the suggestions I've made were implemented.

Otherwise I'd rather watch paint dry. Oh no, Big Brother's already done that one!

I've been impressed by the way Rob Benwell's Blogging To The Bank 2.0 takes a step by step approach to showing how to make blogging pay.

So much so that I'm going to pay for 27 minutes of my Advanced Blog Coaching for anyone who orders the book through my affiliate link: Blogging To The Bank 2.0

With the coaching you can get help on any of these topics:

• Choosing your blog topic
• Using the free hosts (Blogger or Wordpress
• Choosing a host for your own blog
• Setting up Blogger
• Setting up Wordpress
• Choosing and editing templates
• Using blog widgets
• Choosing and using Wordpress plugins
• Collecting email subscribers through Feedblitz
• Collecting RSS subscribers through Feedburner
• Creating good content
• Blog SEO
• How to attract more readers
• Using Google Adsense
• Setting up and Using Web 2.0 features
• Squidoo
• What to put in the sidebar
• Making money with your blog

Whether you buy through me or someone else I'm sure Rob's no nonsense guide will help you improve your blog.

One caveat.

As I said in my previous post...

If you've written more than 200 posts in a year and you're currently making more than $100 per month from your blog you'll know almost everything Rob explains.

That said, I still managed to get some nuggets I'm using right now!

I thought I'd better let you know what's happening because I've not posted for a couple of days.

I've been working on setting up and making prettier the new Manchester Bloggers blog in Wordpress.

There's a lot you can do with it and Wordpress has so many plugins that really help you improve the reader's experience.

So the Manchester Bloggers blog has been sucking up quite a quantity of my time.

Rob Baker (from ArtisanMC) is also posting to the site but had to deal with a heavy cold, followed by not being able to get in to post because I'd used a capital letter in his username.

Go post something now Rob!

What's Coming Up?

Well, I'm glad you asked me. I've got a few book reviews that are bubbling under:

• Six Disciplines For Excellence (Gary Harpst)
• The Obvious (James Dale)
• Bright Marketing (Robert Craven)
• How To Get To The Top (Jeffrey Fox)

I'm also writing a review of Monday's episode of Tycoon.

So sign-up for the email feed and you'll