Your Web Coaches

Chances are, there’s something you’re settling for right now. Something that annoys you periodically but you haven’t gotten around to dealing with it yet. We’ll tackle that problem in bite-sized steps over the coming weeks (and I’ll make the list of parts clickable as the series gets published), in this Heart-Centered Technology Tip 6-part series on upgrading:

• Part 1: Taking Stock (or: Meeting Your Fears Where They Are)
• Part 2: Laying the Foundation (or: Back Up Your Stuff)
• Part 3: Preparation (or: Getting Out Your Ingredients)
• Part 4: Documenting (or: Show Your Work)
• Part 5: Testing (or: Run That By Me Again)
• Part 6: Postmortem (or: Monday Morning Quarterbacking)

So when I say “upgrading,” you can think of software, hardware, services, or pretty much anything. I’ll be using my experience updgrading this very blog as an example, but you can substitute your specific technological annoyance.

Last week I talked about meeting your fears of changing/upgrading/etc. Today we’ll talk about the single most important step to take before making any kind of technological change or upgrade:

Back up your stuff!

If you are already doing this on a regular, scheduled basis, and your last completed backup was less than a week ago, congratulations, you are doing a great job, you are way ahead of the curve, and you can skip this post.

For the 99% of you who are still reading, I know you’ve heard it before (maybe even from me, or maybe from Johnny’s post last week called you’re totally going to lose everything). You’ve probably heard the joke about there being two kinds of computer users: Those who have lost data, and those who will.

Trust me, you do not want to move from the second category into the first.

Case in point: Me! As I write this, I’m looking across my desk at my old laptop, which contains all the family photos and assorted documents that I didn’t move over when I got my new laptop more than a year ago. I was using my old laptop as a repository for this stuff…until it refused to boot up last week. And when I applied my arsenal of disk-rescue tools, I got confirmation that the hard drive is basically hosed and can’t be resuscitated.

I did rescue the important stuff off the old laptop on its last gasp, and I count myself extremely lucky that I even had a last gasp to work with. I might have never seen my family photos again.

And for my current laptop, the one I use to type up these posts, I do have a backup system in place that I’ve been using for six months or so. It’s the same one my dear Johnny B. Truant uses: A web-based online service called Mozy.com.

I love Mozy because it makes backing up so easy I can forget about it. I signed up, and a few minutes later my data (all my data — everything on my computer) was being backed up to a server that will remain safe even if my house burns down. Every day (actually in the wee hours of the morning while I’m sleeping but the Internet isn’t), Mozy automatically connects to my computer and backs up only the files that have been added or changed since the last backup.

So the day after I rescued my family photos and moved them to my current computer, they were safely backed up by Mozy. And now, the most I’ll lose, if my computer dies on me or anything else, is one day’s worth of work.

A few more Mozy details: It works on both Macs and PCs, the basic plan costs $4.95 per month for unlimited data from one computer, and they even have a 2GB totally free plan, which lets you back up, you guessed it, up to 2Gb. Check out Mozy’s options if you need a backup solution.

Now, why is this applicable to an upgrade situation? Because upgrading can sometimes have unforeseen consequences. Maybe the software driver is incompatible with an existing setting on your computer. Maybe the new hardware won’t be recognized. Any number of weird things could happen.

So it’s always a good idea to have a complete backup of your system pre-upgrade…so if the worst does happen, you can go back in time and restore the working system you had immediately before the upgrade started.

Take it from me. I have lost data in the past, and I narrowly escaped losing data just this week. Don’t let it happen to you!

Until next week,

Wendy Cholbi, your friendly neighborhood swim-goggle-wearing technology coach

Did you get all tingly when you read this post? Try these:

• How to upgrade anything, part 1 of 6 (Heart-Centered Technology Tip)
• How to pass the point of no return (Heart-Centered Tech Tip)
• How to avoid Upsell Hell (Heart-Centered Technology Tip)
• Congratulations, you are already a social media maven!

Gmail! I love Gmail.

Gmail helps me corral my email into one place so I (hopefully) never miss it when you send me something. I say hopefully because, well where technology is involved, ya never know!

Last time I talked about email accounts, only it was all about making it look all hip & professional, using the free email account you got when (if) you’re using Godaddy for your domain name. (For just-about-every-important-thing-that-you-need-to-know-about-domain-names, don’t miss Wendy’s cool, downloadable & free ebook)… long sentence, where was I?

Emails. Your custom email. Gmailzzzzzzz

So here’s the techno problemo you can solvo with Gmailo. Silly.

Two Things About Gmail

There are many, many other things that make Gmail cool other than these two things I’m about to mention that make Gmail really cool for me.

Numero Uno
The advantage of having an internet hosted email account (an email account with an internet email service provider such as Yahoo, Hotmail, or Gmail) is that no matter what computer you’re using, if it has internet connection, you can use it to access your email. From anywhere. In the world. Just need an internet-enabled computer. Score!

I like this option for traveling without my laptop or for when my computer (usually a hardware kinda thingy but software too) goes haywire like during some mercury retrograde periods.

Numero Dos
Corralling your email. Oh yes, yes, yes! The point of this post! I have several different email accounts. Quick example: mynde_mayfield@yahoo.com, Mynde@CStars4U.com, Mynde@CognizanceCoaching.com, LifeCoach@FreeFromFear.net… I could go on.

If you are like me and also have several different email accounts, then using Gmail to corral all your various accounts into one Gmail account is the bomb! I then ask Gmail to send it to my main email client (I’m on a Windows-based machine so I’m using Microsoft Outlook). And voilla, I’m receiving email from up to 5 email addresses in one place, where I like to read it!

Did you get all that?

I’m a little pressed for time this morning. I have family folks visiting for this wonderful week ending in fireworks. You know the one… the 4th o’July! Woot! \o/

So instead of doing the whole screenshot-y thing which I normally like to do, you’ll have to check out some other cool resources I’ve dug up and if those don’t work, book me for your techno-session. You’ll get a video recording and notes of what we covered so you can look at it anytime. Just sayin!’

Resources

• Accounts Tab in Gmail settings (video, 5m 24s)
  
  • Tell your Gmail address to display a different email address (specifying a different “Reply to” address) – cool for being super sneaky and basically “masking” your email address label so it says what you want it to say
  • Getting email from other accounts using a POP (sounds scary, keep watching though) – this is the corral part, where Gmail swoops in like an Intertubes Superhero and gathers all your email into one location. w00t! \o/ It then stands-by at attention, awaiting for your instructions for where to send it unless you like to read it on the web, using someone else’s computer from a coffee shop in Italy. double w00t \o/ \o/
• More on using Gmail settings (video, 2m 21s)
• If you don’t have a Gmail account, here’s another short video (2m 25s) on how to set one up.
  

Attention: there may be some very short advertising slickness on the front end of these; be sure and hang tight for the quality Gmail goodness!

Yee-Haw! Email Corralled

Your several email addresses are now nicely organized and being checked for you by Gmail. But what if you aren’t in Italy using someone else’s computer accessing the Google website to log in and retrieve your email? What if you are using your own computer which might be a Mac or Windows based machine?

How do you fetch the Gmail emails from Outlook or set it up for Apple Mail?

• Setting Up Your Email In Apple Mail
• Setting Up Your Email Account in Microsoft Outlook 2003
• Setting Up Your Email Account in Microsoft Outlook 2003

This Rodeo’s A Wrap
So that is how I use Gmail today. Seriously makes things a lot easier for me. And I get to tell people “it doesn’t matter what email you send it to.” It all comes to one place anyway – my Inbox!

Besides, in the-not-so-distant-future, things can change and I may not need all those various email addresses anymore. Hmm. Yes. Things are always changing. Reminds me of one my favorite online astrologers, Lance Ferguson, whose sign off is: “As times change.”

Speaking of signing off…

Over & out for now!

Did you get all tingly when you read this post? Try these:

• Claiming Your Free GoDaddy Email Account
• Using Aweber to Build Online Relationships
• Using Paypal To Get Paid On The Web
• Using Blogger’s Custom Domain Feature with GoDaddy

Here’s one from the YWC mailbag that also got asked during our Web Creation Workshop:

What’s the deal with the “www” in a web address? Sometimes I see a link that looks like http://www.yourwebcoaches.com/ and other times I see links that look like http://yourwebcoaches.com/. What’s the difference? Are these always the same thing? Why do some sites include it and some leave it out? Can I leave out the w’s when I’m typing a web address?

OK, great topic! In fact, I’ve written a free ebook called 10 Tips for Choosing and Using a Domain Name that goes into detail with definitions, strategies and suggestions for domain name mastery. I’ll answer this “www” question right here, and if you have more questions or comments, I’ll use them to improve the next revision of the ebook.

Let’s start by breaking this this nebulous area of confusion down into some specific questions:

What does the “www” mean?

The simple answer is that it stands for “world wide web.” In the Internet’s olden days, “Web” wasn’t synonymous with “Internet” (technically, it still isn’t, but these days the terms are used so interchangeably that it would be futile to protest). There were other ways of using the Internet: Email, file transfer (FTP), usenet, and more. So the “www” simply meant that the address pointed to a website and not some other type of Internet resource.

What do you call the “www” part of a web address?

A domain name comes in the form yourdomain.com (or yourdomain.org, or yourdomain.name, or many other variations). YourWebCoaches.com and ebay.com are both domain names, for instance.

Anything before the domain name, separated with a dot, is called a subdomain. So the “www” in www.YourWebCoaches.com is a subdomain. The “tickets” in tickets.ebay.com is a subdomain. If you have a blog on Blogger.com and you have an address like yourdomain.blogspot.com, the “yourdomain” part is a subdomain.

A domain name without any subdomains is called a naked domain (ooh, racy, am I right?)

Those of you using Blogger may be interested to know that the prudes folks who run Blogger won’t let you use a naked domain to host your blog. Yes, you can use your own domain name, but it has to be non-naked (it must have a subdomain, whether it’s “www” or something else). This leads to a complication when using your own domain name with Blogger: You have to figure out a way to point the naked domain to your “www” subdomain. Mynde’s post on using a custom domain on Blogger includes instructions on doing this if you registered your domain name with GoDaddy.

Why do some sites have a “www” and some leave it out?

Now that we’ve left the olden days behind, the vast majority of URLs do point to websites, whether or not they contain a “www.” That subdomain became ubiquitous and therefore nearly meaningless. Although “www” is still probably the most common subdomain, and many websites still use it, it’s becoming more and more common to just drop it entirely.

Yes, that’s right: More and more website owners are getting naked with their domain names. Rowr!

So it’s merely a choice made by the site owner, whether to use the “www” subdomain or get naked.

Are “www.yourdomain.com” and “yourdomain.com” always the same thing? Can I safely leave out the www when typing a web address?

I would love to give you a simple answer to this question, but because it’s up to the individual website owner whether to include “www” or not, different websites are going to act differently. Usually, the www-containing version and the naked version of a domain point to the same page, but sometimes they don’t.

The simplest rule of thumb I can give is that if a naked version of the domain doesn’t work, just try typing “www” before the naked domain and that should probably work.

Bonus question that wasn’t asked, but I’ll answer it anyway: If I’m a website owner, should I use “www” or not?

Definitely go naked!

Let me clarify:

• As a site owner, you should always make sure that people can get to your site whether they type the “www” or not. This means pointing the “www” subdomain and your naked domain to the same place. Most web hosts have a setting that lets you do this with a few clicks.
• But when you mention your site (in conversation, when linking to it, in your advertising, on your business cards, etc.) just drop the w’s. They’re cumbersome to pronounce, they take up space, and the “.com” (or “.org” or whatever) is enough to identify your web address as a web address.

Whew, that’s enough nakedness for today, thankyouverymuch! Stay tuned for more “Ask a Web Coach Wednesday” questions by subscribing to the blog, and feel free to send us your own question. You might get featured here!

–Wendy Cholbi, your friendly neighborhood swim-goggle-wearing technology coach

Did you get all tingly when you read this post? Try these:

• Small-Business Tree seasons of growth and change
• Using Blogger’s Custom Domain Feature with GoDaddy
• Search Engine Optimization for Blogger
• Why did we switch to Wordpress if we’re always hyping Blogger?

Chances are, there’s something you’re settling for right now. Something that annoys you periodically but you haven’t gotten around to dealing with it yet. We’ll tackle that problem in bite-sized steps over the coming weeks (and I’ll make the list of parts clickable as the series gets published), in this Heart-Centered Technology Tip 6-part series on upgrading:

• Part 1: Taking Stock (or: Meeting Your Fears Where They Are)
• Part 2: Laying the Foundation (or: Back Up Your Stuff)
• Part 3: Preparation (or: Getting Out Your Ingredients)
• Part 4: Documenting (or: Show Your Work)
• Part 5: Testing (or: Run That By Me Again)
• Part 6: Postmortem (or: Monday Morning Quarterbacking)

So when I say “upgrading,” you can think of software, hardware, services, or pretty much anything. I’ll be using my experience updgrading this very blog as an example, but you can substitute your specific technological annoyance.

OK. Here goes Part 1:

Taking Stock (meeting your fears where they are)

If you’re annoyed by having a less-than-current software version or an old computer, and you’re pretty sure your life would be improved by the upgrade, then why haven’t you actually gotten around to the upgrade process yet?

That’s a serious question, deserving of compassionate consideration. It’s not a tough-love just-do-it exhortation or a way to lay a guilt trip on yourself. Because you do have a reason, and it would be nice to know a little more about it.

Your initial reaction is likely to be a tape that you’ve played in your head so often that it feels completely normal to you. Reasons like these contain a seed of truth, but they often mask the real (multiple) reasons we have for not getting started:

• I’m too busy
• I can’t afford it
• I’m just too lazy
• I haven’t found the right (research, service provider, color, you name it)

Do these sound familiar? They sure do to me. I used all of them (well, except for #2 because the software is free) when I was justifying to myself why I hadn’t upgraded YourWebCoaches.com to the latest version of WordPress.

It’s interesting to find out what lies underneath these surface reactions. If you can ask yourself about the deeper reasons without getting into negative self-talk or self-blaming, you may be surprised by the fears that lie underneath these seemingly mundane reasons, and by the solutions that arise spontaneously when those fears come to light.

A quick word about the “I can’t afford it” reason. This may be completely true and valid. I’m certainly not going to tell you how to spend your money! But very often, I’ve found this reason masking a feeling of “I’m not worth it” lurking underneath. These feelings of not-deserving come in all shapes and sizes. And entire books and blogs have been written on this topic, so I’ll just skim the surface here and say that acknowledging this feeling, and showing yourself some gentleness and compassion, is both powerful and empowering.

Here’s how I teased out one of the ways I found myself using my fears to keep YourWebCoaches.com trapped in WordPress 2.6 (the latest version at this writing is 2.8):

Surface reason #1: I’m too busy.

Response/question: Well, somehow I’ve found time to write blog posts, market and teach classes, and do lots of other assorted tasks. So am I really too busy?

Surface reason #3: I guess I’m not too busy after all, which means I must just be lazy because I haven’t made the time.

Response/question: Hmm. I get that I’m feeling the need to call myself “lazy,” which doesn’t feel very good. I want to let go of things that don’t feel good. If I let go of “lazy” just for a second, even though it might be true, what else might be true? If it looks like I have time, but haven’t used it to upgrade the website, what other reasons might I have?

Surface reason #4: I haven’t found the perfect time to do the upgrade. I have to do it on a weekend, which is when I have the least time available.

Response/question: Oh, this is interesting. Why do I have to do it on a weekend?

Undercover reason #1: It has to be at a time when web traffic is low so no one will notice the changeover or find that the blog is down.

Response/question: Why would the blog be down?

Undercover reason #2: Because when I upgrade the software, I might break it. There might be plugin incompatibilities or I might not know how to upgrade the theme. I might screw it up. And if that happens anytime except Sunday at 1am, the entire world will know that I, a self-styled technology coach, can’t even upgrade a WordPress blog.

Response: Oh, no wonder I’ve been afraid! I’ve been secretly worried this whole time that doing this “simple” upgrade might expose me as incompetent. And I know that’s a huge trigger for me. So how can I acknowledge that fear, help myself feel competent, and also be OK with the fact that yes, something might go wrong?

Once that fear came to light, I was able to be more loving with myself. After self-medicating with a small piece of high-quality dark chocolate (yes, it really does help), I was able to tell Mynde that I wanted to do the upgrade and commit to a timeframe. And the best part? She offered to support me if I needed it, so I was no longer alone with my fear of incompetence.

That was Friday. I upgraded to WordPress 2.8 on Saturday night, and here we are on Tuesday celebrating the process. Of course there are more steps to cover in parts 2 through 6, but the first step was really asking “what’s true?” about all my reasons.

So if you are contemplating some kind of change, but are holding off, you must have reasons. Good ones! You just might not know exactly what they are. And finding out just might clear the path for you to take one more step.

Until next week,

Wendy Cholbi, your friendly neighborhood swim-goggle-wearing technology coach

Did you get all tingly when you read this post? Try these:

• How to upgrade anything, part 2 of 6 (Heart-Centered Technology Tip)
• How to pass the point of no return (Heart-Centered Tech Tip)
• How to avoid Upsell Hell (Heart-Centered Technology Tip)
• Congratulations, you are already a social media maven!

Two quick examples of why it’s great to actively sell to your existing customers:

1. “Is everything delightful?”

The other day I had lunch with a friend at one of my favorite local restaurants, Farm Artisan Foods. We were enjoying a sampling of tapas-like small plates, including a truly delicious salad that included herbed goat cheese, pickled beets, and roasted red peppers. Our server stopped by and asked “Is your salad wonderful?” and all I could do was nod (my mouth was full!).

What a funny question, I thought. Isn’t it a bit presumptious to say something like that? And I was still thinking about it  several tapas later when she did it again: She asked “Is everything delightful?” after we’d gotten everything we’d ordered. We said yes. Because it was true.

My conclusion: It was presumptious, and it was also great marketing. Here’s why:

• Shows confidence in the product. The folks who run this restaurant seriously know their stuff. The chef makes a big deal about local, sustainable agriculture; the servers know everything about the dishes; the menu is seasonal. She knew full well that the salad was wonderful and the tapas delightful, before she asked. The leading question made it easy to agree. Presumptious, in a good way.
• Trains customers to think your product is exceptional. Many restaurants have their servers come out at some point during the meal and ask “Is everyone doing OK?” or “How’s the food tonight?” or some similar open-ended question. Most customers respond “OK” or “fine” or occasionally ask for some more ketchup. When I, as a customer, am asked to agree that the food is wonderful and delightful, I actively think about the fact that the food is in fact wonderful and delightful. This interaction just went from a mundane check-in to a celebration of fine dining.
• Acknowledges that the relationship doesn’t end with the sale. Once I’m in the restaurant and am eating, the sale is made. Why bother spending any more time or energy making me feel good about my food choices, or asking my opinion? There’s probably something sophisticated I could say here about customer retention, but basically it boils down to feeling appreciated as a customer. Not only will I go back to the restaurant, but I’m blogging about the experience two weeks later because my server asked me my opinion of the food in an interesting way.

2. Flowers for Father’s Day?

For Mother’s Day, I ordered flowers for my mom. Actually I ordered a real live plant because she likes them and no flowers would have to die to demonstrate my filial affection, but the ordering process was basically the same.

I wanted to support a local business, so instead of going with a national toll-free florist service, I looked up local florists in Denver, read some reviews, and settled on 5280 Flowers (it’s the Mile High City, get it?). I ordered straight from their website, despite the fact that the pictures aren’t very big and the ordering process isn’t quite as smooth as with an ecommerce giant. The flowering plant was delivered the next day, Mom was thrilled, and I was a satisfied customer.

End of story, right?

Not quite. Last week, six days before Father’s Day, I got an email from 5280 Flowers with “Father’s Day” in the subject line. It was a bit of a clunky email; not exactly perfectly formatted. Also, the first line was somewhat ominous:

“Fathers Day. Do not forget. Sunday June 21.”

But I read the email anyway because I was in the market for a Father’s Day gift. I wanted to send my dad something, but I would never have thought of flowers. I mean, we’re supposed to get our dads ties or mugs or weird electronic gadgets, right? Definitely not flowers, so why would I even consider shopping at a florist?

Well, as it turns out, this local florist also sells gift baskets, ranging from your basic Chiquita Banana fruit-cornucopia to teddy-bear baskets for new moms to … wait for it … barbeque and snack-food themed baskets for dads.

Perfect! So I called them up and ordered a custom basket, because several of their packaged baskets had different things I wanted, and the website had a clear message on every gift basket page telling me that baskets were customizable.

This business got an extra sale from me by showing me (in the right place at the right time) that they could provide more than flowers. They built on a previous interaction (my successful flower purchase) and offered me more. And I snapped it up and was happy to pay them.

Bonus tip: 5280 Flowers has two domain names: 5280Flowers.com and 5280Gourmet.com, so they can market themselves as a gourmet gift-basket shop even to people who would never buy flowers. The sites are interlinked and similar enough that I went back and forth a couple of times without realizing I was doing it. This kind of smart marketing is one reason that I recommend buying multiple domain names (they’re cheap, after all). If you want to know more about domain names, how to choose them, how to use them, and what all that domain-name jargon means in plain English, you may want to download my free ebook, 10 Tips for Choosing and Using a Domain Name.

These two examples are straight from the leafy canopy of the Small-Business Tree. Yes, they both fall into traditional marketing, but they’re also great reminders that marketing isn’t just something you do to get customers. It’s something you do all the time, even in your interactions with existing customers.

And the florist example is also a great case study in the art of the upsell. They successfully upsold me three times: First, by getting me to shop with them for Father’s Day in the first place. Second, by offering customizable baskets so I had the option of going beyond the prepackaged deals. And third (or maybe this is just a part of the second one), the custom baskets are more expensive than the packaged ones, and I didn’t blink.

For more about respectful and successful upselling, check out the latest product I’ve purchased from Dave Navarro (@rockyourday) and Naomi Dunford (@ittybiz), Upsell 101. They’ll tell you exactly why I fell for the florist email, and how to get your own customers to fall for similar promotions…without being a Sleazy Marketer.

How am I doing with the lessons I’m learning from Upsell 101? Well, I’ll report back after I see how many of you click through to download my two free ebooks! (I linked to them a couple of paragraphs ago. Here they are again: The Small-Business Tree and 10 Tips for Choosing and Using a Domain Name.) Yes, those are upsells, even though they’re free: I’m asking you to do more (pay more attention and give me your email address) than just read the blog post you’re already reading.

I’ll let you know how it goes! Happy Father’s Day, everybody!

Did you get all tingly when you read this post? Try these:

• How to avoid Upsell Hell (Heart-Centered Technology Tip)
• Don’t be a cactus like the U.S. Mint
• Are you our Right People?
• Answers to your questions about the Web Creation Workshop

Did you know that if you buy a domain with GoDaddy, you get one free email account with it?

Why is this important for you to know?
Well, I hear a lot of requests from our Web Creation Workshop participants and my one-on-one clients for a more professional looking email. You know, they want to dump the mynde_mayfield@yahoo.com email and get something that matches their website like mynde@yourwebcoaches.com.

So this post is all about getting your free GoDaddy email activated so that you can plug your new, professional looking email in everywhere on your web presence.

The “How-To-Do-It” Part

The first thing you’ll want to do is sign in to your GoDaddy account. Once you’ve signed in, hover over “Email” in the top navigation and select “My Email Account” under Email Management.

Now look for the yellow box in (about) the center of your web browsing screen. You can see in my example below that I’ve highlighted the portion you’re looking for and it says “Free email with domain – Personal Email (1 GB Total/1 Box).” Directly to the right of this is a hyperlink “Use Credit” with the total number of available “free email boxes” in parenthesis to the right. Let’s click it!

Once you click “Use Credit,” the right hand side of your web screen will refresh and present a panel that lists the domain(s) available to use your free email credit with.

Select the domain you want to use (if you only have one domain name with GoDaddy, then there will only be one option) and scroll down the panel and click the green continue button.

Once you’ve clicked the green continue button, you’ll see that the center of your web browsing screen will either show the domain’s newly created email under Email Plans (just below the yellow box from above) or add it to an existing list of domains. In my example below, I’ve highlighted the newly created email which you can see sits between several other email accounts assigned to various domains I previously secured with GoDaddy. If this is your only domain with GoDaddy, you’ll only have one “Manage Account” link to click.

After clicking the Manage Account link for your email box, your browser will open a new tab called Email Control Center (see screenshot below).

In the smaller pop-up that says “You have new or unused email plans!” Click the “Add Address” button. On the very right hand side of the new screen that’s shown you’ll see another gold “Add” button. Click it!

A new pop-up called “Create Mailbox” will appear in the center of your web browsing screen. Fill in the blanks including the Email address, domain and password.

Leave the “Space for this mailbox” as-is (you can change any of these settings later if you want to reallocate more or less space among other free email accounts if you have other GoDaddy domain names).

Also, I never check the “catch-all” checkbox unless you want a lot more spam. You can click the “What is this?” hyperlink to get GoDaddy’s explanation of what this checkbox option does.

Finally, click the gold “OK” button at the bottom of the pop-up when you’re finished.

You’ll see that once the pop-up closes, you’ll be returned to a web browsing screen that shows that your recently added mailbox is pending setup (I’ve highlighted this in the screenshot below). It can take up to a few hours for GoDaddy to do it’s behind-the-scenes thang, however, most of the time, it takes less than an hour. I just keep refreshing the screen (by hitting my F5 key) and waiting for the status to change to active.

Once it is active, go ahead and begin plugging in your new email that features your custom domain in it all over the place (web pages, blogs, biz cards, forums, etc.)

Using Your Free GoDaddy Email

Just so I don’t leave you hanging, GoDaddy does offer a web browsing ability where you log in with your GoDaddy ID and password and read/send new email from your new GoDaddy email account.

This is handy but not something I use mostly because I have so many free GoDaddy emails, it’s kinda of cumbersome.

Next week I’ll talk about what I do use, to corral all my emails from various custom domains, into one place, my Outlook Inbox.

In the meantime though, GoDaddy has a thorough email help section online that can step you through connecting your GoDaddy email to Microsoft Outlook or your Apple computer.

Helpful Post?

If this post supported you, please consider buying Mynde a cup of coffee.

Did you get all tingly when you read this post? Try these:

• Corralling Your Email With Gmail
• Why it’s OK to get naked on the internet (Ask a Web Coach)
• The Look & Feel Never Comes First
• Using Blogger’s Custom Domain Feature with GoDaddy

I recently visited Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, where I watched a movie in the new Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon theater. Yep, it’s actually named that. I’m even linking to it to prove it’s true.

Anyway, in a filmed introduction to his eponymous theater, Mr. Nimoy himself said something like “The event horizon is right here, it means the place that something is happening.” And I thought to myself, “Oh come on, Mr. Spock should have a better understanding of what event horizon really means.”

According to astronomers, the event horizon is the invisible boundary surrounding a black hole, the boundary beyond which gravity is so powerful that even light can’t escape. It’s more or less synonymous with point of no return, which is the farthest you can go and come back safely.

Aviators, for instance, calculate their point of no return based roughly on how far they can travel on half their fuel (the other half gets them back home), also factoring in wind speed and other conditions.

And what about us small-business owners and internet entrepreneurs? I happen to believe that most of us face our own points of no return on a regular basis. In the old days when you had to do things like raise capital and invest in infrastructure to start a business, it was more visible: When you spent all the money, it was gone, and there wasn’t a second chance.

Today, when you can start a blog for free, sell digital products with a few clicks of your mouse, and broadcast to the world in real-time, we don’t have some of those physical markers of “going into business” (or for that matter, “going out of business”).

So we get to make them up. We get to decide, yes, I’m really doing this. I’m going to create something, market it, find people who need what I’m selling. I’m going to think of myself as more than an unemployed freelancer, more than a work-at-home mom. I’m a real, live business owner with a real, live business.

That’s the first major point of no return.

If you’re teetering on the edge of this precipice, or you think you might have a business idea but aren’t sure it will work, or just don’t know how to get started, do yourself a favor and check out the two-week workshop I’m doing, in which I’ll help you use the Small-Business Tree metaphor to map your next steps. There’s a free one-hour audio recording of the call I did last week to introduce the workshop, too (Tip: If you sign up to receive the recording, you’ll get a 30% discount on the workshop, so you’ll pay only $50 instead of $72).

But even after we decide, for ourselves, that we’re charting a new path, we face decisions every day that are miniature event horizons. Which marketing plan do we choose? What do we name our product? Who do we hire to coach us or advise us? When is the launch date? What’s next?

And that can get daunting, and even discouraging. So much to do. Such a full calendar. So much fear that the path we’re choosing will become a dead end.

As I was considering this predicament, synchronicity struck: I happened on a Twitter conversation that went like this:

I tweeted that I was loving this conversation, that I was thinking of doing a blog post on the topic. And Imran tweeted back to me to encourage me, and then followed up asking me if I’d done it yet! Which I chose to view as a cue to actually do it (instead of putting it off to next week as I was thinking of doing).

See? Right there: Point of no return. I’m about to reach it right now, as soon as I hit the “publish” button on this post. If you’re reading this, I’ve passed it. I can’t go back to the stage where I was waffling about what idea to post on the blog, and which week I should write about which topic, and would anybody read anything I write anyway?

And I love being past that stage, utterly unable to return. Sure, there will be future opportunities for waffling and worrying. And I’ll do my share. I may even whine about it here on the blog (it’s my blog, and I’ll cry if I want to…but sometimes I’ll sing!).

But each time I take action — whether it’s posting, tweeting, connecting with a colleague or client, sending an email, launching a product — I’m passing another one of those points of no return. Because face it, as Imran so wisely pointed out, those points are going to show up whether we want them to or not. Whether we’re ready or not. So why not face them consciously, make a decision, take a step, no matter how small?

What step can you take today to take you further along a conscious path? What heart-centered way can you use technology to smooth the path for you? Mine will be hitting the “publish” button (and responding to comments and tweets). Care to leave a comment to share your journey? Hitting the “submit” button on the comment form is a point of no return — I invite you to step across your own event horizon!

Until next week,

Wendy Cholbi, your friendly neighborhood swim-goggle-wearing technology coach

Did you get all tingly when you read this post? Try these:

• How to avoid Upsell Hell (Heart-Centered Technology Tip)
• How to upgrade anything, part 2 of 6 (Heart-Centered Technology Tip)
• How to upgrade anything, part 1 of 6 (Heart-Centered Technology Tip)
• “Is everything delightful?” or, why market to your existing customers

Alright, so if you’ve been hanging out on the blog, you already know I help the ladies get their tech-savvy on. If you’ve hung out long enough and poked around, you might also know that I help people get “jedi” with their fear too!

If you’re interested in getting jedi with your fear, then keep reading.

In this two-part teleclass, I’m going to dig into one of the main principles in Fearless Living called Expectations.

Now this isn’t the warm & fuzzy Law of Attraction kind of expectation, where you are in joyful anticipation for what’s coming next in your life. No. This is a different kind of expectation. A sneakier more covert kind and we’re going in to do some investigation and see what it’s all about… plus, equip you with a new “light-sabery” kinda tool so you can get your jedi on too!

Here’s what you get:

• You get to dump the “Waiting, Wishing, Hoping” game once and for all
• Powerlessness: the number one cause of it, you get to delete that too
• You get to finally figure out how to stop taking things personally
• Disappointment: we’ll be poking that with some really sharp sticks
• Other crappy feelings like resentment, bitterness, irritation and annoyance: you’ll get a game plan for what to do with those
• We’ll crack the big nut of “finding your life purpose” (using more sharp sticks)
• You’ll get a 4-step process for taking back your power in *any* situation
• You get me, fearless facilitator & life coach, injecting some fun into this serious biz of cracking down on fear
• You get some notes and interactivity (if you use your computer to connect to my online classroom)
• You get a recording of both one-hour classes

By the end of our phone time together, there will be no more arguing with “what is” because of constantly comparing it to what you think should be/should have happened in your life. You’ll be able to get on with what is actually happening right now, today… to enjoy it and celebrate it, and it’s only $47 bucks \o/

So say Yes to you, pay “the man” and mark your calendar (2 pm Pacific on 7/23 & 7/30). Afterward, you’ll receive a personal email from me with the rest of the teleclass details.

Questions? Email me at mynde@yourwebcoaches.com.

Ready? Go!

P.S. For more info on me and why I’m qualified to talk about this stuff, please visit http://www.FreeFromFear.net.

Did you get all tingly when you read this post? Try these:

• Life Logging It
• A Cure for Uncertainty
• Are you FLI?
• A Fearless Truth Teller

One of these things is not like the others...good for that one!

Ah, it’s Friday again, which means it’s Small-Business Tree day here on the blog. And I (Wendy) just held a free call where I talked about the Tree for an hour, which was great fun. I’m even doing a two-week workshop starting next week where I’ll get to help My Right People nurture their own trees.

Also in tree news, I’m working on a prototype for a new Small-Business Tree program that will lead some more of My Right People through daily exercises to help them map the tree metaphor onto their unique businesses (if this appeals to you, you may want to subscribe to this blog, because you’ll hear about it here as soon as it’s ready for prime time).

So, all this biggification is fun and exciting.

And scary as hell, too.

I’ve had this voice in my head for the past couple of weeks telling me that I really don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing. This is different from my usual voices that tell me that I’m incompetent (my old familiar friend), or that I’m doomed to fail (come on, who doesn’t think that once in awhile?), or that I will be living in a van down by the river soon (thanks to Pam Slim for reminding me of that SNL sketch in a way that’s actually useful and funny!).

This voice is specifically about direction, about “What’s next?”

Even though I’ve got plans and ideas and projects, none of them seem to be quite organized enough or good enough to go live with (note the operative word here is “seem”). If I let myself, I can get easily swamped in doubts about the commercial viability or contribution-to-the-world factor or a dozen other variables.

So here’s the big risk for today: Trusting that my plans and ideas and projects are good enough for now, and proceeding with the most important thing I can do to build any kind of commercial success or contribution to the world, which is just being myself. The real, tree-hugging, swim-goggle-wearing, less-than-perfect, sometimes-angry, sometimes-scared, but also sometimes-funny, often-compassionate, frequently-craving-doughnuts me.

This might involve tweeting about what I ate for breakfast, or what I’m reading. It might also mean sometimes taking a few days away from Twitter because that’s what The Real Me needs to do. It might mean giving myself much more time and pampering than I think I need to launch a new product… but for a different product, it might mean going ahead with less than 24 hours’ notice to the world, because screw timetables, I’m having fun, dammit.

It might mean publishing this post without figuring out what I’m doing wrong that is making the words smush up against my pumpkin picture up there. Gah.

Being The Real Me means that sometimes, I may spend several hours working on a web project that’s never going to be commercially viable, just because it’s challenging or fun. And sometimes I might screw up and watch a website blow up in my face (O hear me, Internet gods of irony: If you are planning on doing this to me when I update YWC to Wordpress 2.7, which is long overdue because of precisely this fear, could you make sure it happens just when I get mentioned somewhere that will make me famous overnight? Thanks.).

One thing I know for sure: Being The Real Me means consciously accessing my roots whenever I’m deciding what to do next. I have enough experience at this by now that I know that if I don’t (or worse, if I do and then ignore the clear message I’m getting from myself), I’m being less than The Real Me. I’m not giving The Real Me a chance.

And you know? The Real Me deserves a chance. So does The Real You. Come be real! Leave a comment or @reply me on Twitter and let’s have a Real Conversation!

–Wendy Cholbi, your friendly neighborhood tree-hugger-with-swim-goggles!

Did you get all tingly when you read this post? Try these:

• Taking a bite out of the Deadly Carrot of Fear
• Disguised Learning, or Real-Life Business Tree Roots
• What are the Roots of Your Business?
• “Is everything delightful?” or, why market to your existing customers

Ok here it is. I’m finally following my own advice.

Next week is our last session in the Six Week Web Creation Workshop. The session is affectionately referred to as Marketing 101 and it’s where we begin exploring the idea with our participants about two-way communication with their web site visitors.

You see, many people believe that if you build a website, their customers will come. Like putting up a huge banner on a store front that says “OPEN FOR BUSINESS.” Then we sit around, watching our phones, email boxes and our web site and wonder where all our perfect customers are.

It gets quiet and stays quiet.

And so we (really me, I should just cough it up and admit all the we’s are really me’s)… so we I begin rereading and rewriting my copy, install Google Analytics so we I can see exactly what is not happening down at our my electronic storefront and since we’re I was busy being busy, doing business-related stuff, it felt like work. Busy work, not busy-getting-paid work.

Sigh.

Uh Oh Toto

And then I realized this wasn’t Experian Kansas anymore. I wasn’t building huge e-commerce web sites where the audience was captive (and sometimes very angry about their credit history even though Experian simply reports the data passed on to them. Everyone has an excuse story for why Experian is the villain when the #1 piece of advice I give everybody when they ask me about maintaining and building a good credit score is pay your bills on time.) I digress although I did manage to creatively weave in the whole point of wanting to write this post which is excuses and my new ebook about them.

But back to me and my electronic storefront, because wait…

It Gets Better

I realized that most of the adult bill-paying population needed and wanted a credit report, at some point. So people were basically signing on, clicking buy and boom! Transaction. Conversion. Ding Ding! Dollar signs. Like billions of them. And the item itself (at the time) only cost something like $12.95. How did they do that? Or rather, how do I do that?

Enter Isabel Parlett and her groovy explanation of “transformative services.” Not only does she have the secret recipe on taking your existing copywriting and pulling out the essence of it which helps you be compelling and honestly, with all seriousness, helps you find the words you need to rock the world, but she also painted a new landscape in which I was able to see that coaching services were not widgets (or credit reports). And I began to see the light… that if you are selling transformation, it’s a waaaaaaaaaay longer sales cycle. Not visit, click, buy, ka-ching!

So you’re wondering where I’m going? (Secretly, so am I. Because it’s currently 9:10 a.m. Pacific and this post is writing itself because today is Thursday and that means it’s Mynde post day as per my agreement with Ms. Wendy Cholbi… the other half of YWC and side of your screen… over there, on the right).

Back To The Point

So I’ve got transformation services for sale, chasms to cross and an electronic storefront to do it all on. One thing I don’t have is customers exploding my email box with requests to be transformed and that’s because, it really takes establishing a few critical things before someone is ready to do that kind of work with you. Trust. Expertise. A clear definition of what they can expect to get working with you. Oh and the biggie, the storefront owner (me) has to very clearly identify the transformation-seekers problem(s).

So how do I (you) do that? Enter “the free value-added giveaway.” And what’s it for? It’s for helping your perfect customers cross that huge “transformation services” chasm, that one between Visit and Buy. It’s for helping your perfect customers get a feeling for the work that you do, in a very low-risk way. It’s for building your brand and establishing your expertise. It’s a place for putting their problems down in writing and for you to help them solve them, with your special coach-y juice.

On YWC, we have THREE free value-added giveaways. And everyday, someone, somewhere, asks to download one. Every day. But before they get their thingy, they must provide their name & email address. And here we are, back at Marketing 101. Building your first list.

If You Build It, They Will Come

In our last week of Six Week Web Creation Workshop, we cover the ins and outs of “double opt-in’s” all the way through to installing that little gadget on your web presence that collects a name and email address. What we do NOT cover is that free thing you’re going to give away.

So I guess, in essence, if you create it (your freebie)… they will come is more accurate.

Now you may be panicky by now, thinking something like, “I have no idea where to begin with creating my freebie. None!” If this is you, than you might be ready to have a few web training sessions. If you do have a few ideas, but haven’t really finalized them, you still might be ready for some extra special 1.1 lovin’ from YWC. If you have a GREAT idea for your freebie and just need the hand holding, help-me think-this-through-and-give-me-your-technical-expertise options, we can rock some serious freebie-giving out, you perfect YWC customer you!

Not only was the creation of YWC’s threebie freebies fun and way easier than I ever thought possible, I have now actually followed my own advice for my life coaching web site. I’ve put together a freebie (an ebook) that talks about that nagging feeling you get that sounds like “Is this all there is?” or “I’m pretty sure my life was meant for something more, I’m just not sure what…” It’s about excusing yourself from doing that great stuff you know you want to do and give back to others and thereby make the world a better place. It’s called “Getting to The You With No Excuses.” Is that Over The Rainbow enough for you?

Helping You Grow Your Self & Your Biz

If you want some help with either letting go of your excuses OR creating your first freebie OR setting up the automated email response thingy-ma-bob that will actually deliver your freebie, please proceed directly to the Hire Us page. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Just use your YWC “Get-out-of-I can’t-do-this-technology-stuff-alone” jail card.

If you don’t even have a website yet but want one and you think this “I don’t know what to give away for free thing is” is a good problem to have, you’ll also want to check out the next Web Creation Workshop. We are putting our summer schedule together and plan on doing at least a couple more workshops before the end of the year. You can join others in the waiting room or download one our freebies although I recommend you head to the waiting room because we’ll probably be offering some kinda of early bird discount on the next workshop and notifying the folks who are patient enough to wait with us while we figure our tree biz stuff out.

Before I go, here are a couple of questions to get you started thinking about your freebie:

• What is already right under your nose, that you take for granted or think is silly or nothing or not good enough? I’m flashing a neon sign at it right now. It says “Look Here.”
• Do you have any audio recordings of some topic you’ve presented on a teleclass for instance? Get busy getting it transcribed or getting the teleclass scheduled. 60-minutes will do ya just fine and (hint hint) that’s where 10 Tips for Choosing & Using Your Domain Name came from.
• Do you have a blog? Think about writing a series of blog posts on a topic. One post at a time creates a fabulous ebook (that’s where the Small Business Tree ebook came from).

Ok, although I’ve had a lot of fun writing this post, it has gotten way out of hand and so I’m signing off until the next Mynde post day which is Monday.

Tootles!

Did you get all tingly when you read this post? Try these:

• Life Logging It
• The Look & Feel Never Comes First
• Corralling Your Email With Gmail
• “Is everything delightful?” or, why market to your existing customers