I had what I thought might be a similar situation recently with a leading woodworking supplier in the UK called Axminster. I basically had a bad experience and seeing as how the order was less then €30, I expected them to give the polite brush off at best. Instead they went the extra mile and made sure I was MORE than happy at their expense.

The lesson here is not the moral one that you should treat all people with a bit of respect but a business one. Rather then going elsewhere like I would have done had they not responded, I turned around and placed two more orders for €500. So although they may have lost on my first order, they most likely were able to get my lifelong business worth a hundred times any loss.

I know it is a cliche for most but the foundation of business is customer satisfaction. It is far cheaper then advertising (I didn’t mention how many times I have told people they are the place to go to), and the return on investment is higher then any other method.

The hardest part has actually been sourcing good quality timber in Ireland. B&Q (otherwise known as Home Depot in the US) only has pine and even the timber they do have is as crooked as a Worldcom executive. After a few weeks of research I was able to find 2 places in Ireland that fit my needs (straight good quality hardwood timber).

The first is actually a really cool place which I would use exclusively but its a 2 hour drive each way (ouch). It is called the Lisnavagh Project. Basically it was a family farm that looked to providing quality Irish hardwood locally. They have loads of different timbers and if you are worried about your carbon footprint, the trees are felled within Ireland (most times within the farm). I’m no environmentalist so I prefer it because it is really high quality timber. The downside is that it is truly rough sawn and you need to do a decent amount of work to get it to finished quality.

The second source is Strahan Timber. Although they are a more commercial operation and probably sell 100 pieces of pine to 1 hardwood, they are very nice and easy to deal with. I use them as more of a location solution as they are only 15-30 minutes from where I live. The timber is in reasonable shape considering it is American Oak (Any time you ship timber halfway around the world it distorts). A good run through the thicknesser and its ready to use.

If anyone has any other sources (Preffereably on the Northern side of Dublin or in Meath), feel free to post a comment.

By the way, the picture in the upper left is the last piece I completed. A commisioned entertainment center made from English Oak (Grown in Ireland) and finished with just a few coats of Danish Oil.

So back to the early launch. The interest was very high with just over 70 eBooks being snapped up, 186 free First Chapters going via email, and something like 8 pages of queries in less than 5 hours. This is the number sold and emailed before midnight as the books continued to fly out overnight. With all the feedback coming back resoundingly positive, I could not be happier. I really enjoyed this project and know that this is only the beggining. There is a great deal more marketing to do and I hope to extend the success of launch day far into the future.

Thanks to all the Off the Top of My Head readers and I promise more and more value to those who have “invested” in The Online Business Guide.

What makes this guide different is that not only was it hand written by myself based on my own experience and success (no ghost writers here), it is a pure content eBook. If like me you have bought a few eBooks in the past that boasted 50+pages of content, you will know that they usually have more like 5 pages of real content once you strip away the advertising and self promoting. My guide is pure advice.

In addition to the already useful and complete guide, anyone purchasing a copy will also get the latest chapters emailed to them as soon as they are complete. These chapters will be written in the same helpful and easy to understand writing style and will focus on specific techniques which are extraordinarily useful for promotion of your new business and adding profitability.

This product is launching on March 27th but Off the Top of My Head readers can get an advance copy at a reduced price. When it launches, it will be offered at $37. In the run up to launch, you can secure a copy (Plus the bonus chapters as they are released, as well as bonus material emailed on the 27th) for the low price of $25.

To get your guide right away (it is emailed to you within 24 hours of payment, although within an hour in most cases), just use the payment link below:

Yes, I Want a Discounted Copy of The Online Business Guide

No Longer Available - See Launch Above

archive give my head

If you archived your head, you need to file Form 453a and submit it in triplicate. We will then ship you your head back

rock gambler solid maniac fish

I like that, there is already a Devilfish in poker so maybe I will use Maniacfish

jeff buckley hallelujah and poker

About the only gambling Jeff Buckley did was not waiting 30 minutes after eating (Ok, I know I have made a lot of fun of Chris Penn so I have established I have no respect for the dead but I did truly like Jeff Buckley so I feel kind of bad about writing that - Not bad enough to delete it though)

what is the flight time from dublin airport to jfk airport

For a direct flight its between 5 and 7 hours depending on wind. If you have a 5 minute stopover in Shannon, it is around 12 hours.

partnership for tanning

I hear the sun is running a pretty good deal right now

how to get into a forum after you are banned from it

AnthonyCEA, is that you?

pinch a loaf tshirt

They make a specialty product for everything these days. In my time we pinched a loaf in a plain white t-shirt. Kids these days are spoiled

street taco mexico dangerous eat

Street tacos are pretty dangerous but I would still have one of those before I would step foot into a Taco Bell

selfgrowth scam

Yeah, the products in those emails never work

If you lived in an arcade when you were young like I did (Before Nintendo and Playstation), then you will find this pretty funny

The intro music is cool too

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For all I know this “report” is link bait

It was a lovely evening and I was browsing the Internet as usual doing several searches on Google. As you are aware Google is the biggest and the most well respected search engine out there and its the only search engine people rely on when it comes to good, quality organic traffic. On this occasion I started to search for specific things or niches to overcome my boredom. Anyway, I was browsing the search engine when I decided to type in various keywords such as :-
make new friends

how to get a tattoo
learn to play soccer
be successful
make money
become invisible
fly to the moon
be rich
have a baby
Fall in love
set up my own business
write a book
get in shape
Make Money on Ebay

…when I was shocked to discover that these keywords and phrases or anything that you could think of were appearing under a website called 43 Things
 
I tried several other phrases lots of times to see whether my mind was playing tricks on me but to me astonishment all these various phrases were actually appearing on Google on the 1ST PAGE OUT OF MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF RESULTS!
 
This told me several things that were going on. Firstly this new social networking website 43things.com was well optimised on Google and secondly the traffic was ‘FREE’ and these pages had good PR, which means this would not only be a great way to create backlinks but would also help you make sales for affiliate products.
I was immediately impressed with 43 things so I decided to check what other people were doing and how they were pulling in lots of traffic to their website using this website. 
Before I take you to the website itself have a look at all the screenshots below or try typing in common words or phrases on Google that would get lots of searches on Overture. The examples below help to illustrate the above points.

Go to Google now and type in something like “Learning PHP” or “Learn PHP” (type it without quotes).
 
As you can see above the keyword “Learn PHP”  or “Learning PHP” is on the first page of Google out of 123,0000 results!!!
The 43things.com website is well optimised for this keyword. Notice on the right hand side how many people are actually paying for this keyword, using Google Adwords. 
 
Lets try another keyword phrase on Google.
This time type in “Learning to sing” or “Become a singer”
 
(See Below)
 
Go ahead and type in other keywords that you are passionate about and be amazed. 80% of the time the 43things.com website will appear on the first page on Google – now that is amazing!
 
Again the phrase is on the first page on Google – with the 43things.com website showing the results.
 
Notice the number of people paying for this traffic using Google Adwords. Also do not forget this is out of a million results. Not only are you getting FREE organic traffic but you can take advantage of this ‘traffic’ – here’s how.
 
How to use the traffic from 43things.com
So you are probably thinking so what? Here’s how it REALLY gets interesting.
Log on to http://www.43things.com and heres what you should see (See below)
 
This is the homepage for 43things.com
When you go on the homepage notice the phrases people are actually using and searching for to find out more information about. For example, if you type in the phrase “Live in LA” on Google the 43things.com heading will appear and it is that link that will generate tons of traffic to your website or blog.
The phrases highlighted in bold are getting the most responses and traffic so try experimenting with different ones.
 
Step 1
The first thing you should be doing is to create an account and register http://www.43things.com/xs?mid=1  by clicking create new account.
Fill in your details fully and enter your password etc.
Step 2
Once you have registered on 43things.com you will be able to log in with your user id and password. So go ahead and log in with your user id and password.
 
After you have done that you should see something like this.
 
The box highlighted indicates what you can type in and ’share’ with others. For example, if you are passionate about “repairing computers” then go ahead and type that phrase in.
If other people have already typed the same phrase you might want to see their responses or you might want to phrase it in a different way so when Google starts to index your paragraph you can have a better chance of getting traffic to your site.
 
So what? How do I get traffic?
 
Ok ok ok, I will get into this now.
 
Step 3
Remember when I told you that people are typing in different phrases and different goals and objectives that they want to do?
For example, type in ‘learn to play the guitar’ as one of your 43 things. 
Not only do you find that lots and lots of people want to ‘learn’ to play the guitar (over 6000 people alone want to learn to play the guitar) but you have uncovered a ‘hungry” niche that you can fill. So for example, if you if had a free report on learning to play the guitar you can use an opt-in form, and build your list and direct people to your website!

Isn’t this spam?
 
No this is not spam for several reasons.
 
Firstly you are giving them an opportunity to find out more information and in a way ‘helping’ them.
Also notice some people who have used this as a good way to talk about their blog or band or e-book on guitars. If you’re clever , you’ll post your paragraphs on high traffic pages (preferably with page rank) and you’ll link to your own web pages within those paragraphs.

For example, if you had an affiliate link you could embed it within your paragraph so when people click on the word “More information” <--This would be a link that can take them to your affiliate page where they can find out more information.
 
Let me give you a good example of how this is being used.
 
Go to google and go ahead and type in “Write a book”.
 
 
You should notice several things here. Firstly the phrase is on the first page out of millions and millions of results, which shows the power of 43 things in terms of optimisation.
 
Secondly people are constantly clicking on the link and reading and replying. See below to see what I mean.
 
Notice the time frame between the last reply – people are replying after hours or days so people are actually reading this page.
Also notice I have crossed out the 2 links due to the fact that these links are nothing to do with me, but are just an example. However, if you do want to see the full page just click here.
http://www.43things.com/things/view/220
 
Imagine if you had a product or a free report on writing a novel? These people have cleverly used this method to their advantage and cleverly put a paragraph, giving a quality response to the title. Also notice that they have titled their paragraph so that it does not look like its “spam”, its a quality response. 
In order to leave a paragraph you just click “I want to do this” (below)
 
Step 4
Now you have a chance of leaving a good quality paragraph and focus on your niche. You might want to leave your link within your text so when people click on your sentence it will look more like a professional quality link. For example, 
this is an example of what I am talking about 
If you hover your mouse above the link then you will see that it looks like its embedded in your text. This is a clever way of disguising your affiliate link.
 
Now going back to the “write a book” example. 
You will notice that over 12,000 people on 43 things want to write a book, and also it is on a PR6 page (hover your mouse over it, if you have a google toolbar page rank installed on your browser)
 
That’s how simple and powerful this method really is.
 
I have included some tips on how to use this method to your advantage.
 
FOCUS on people who need help. For example, over 3000 insomniacs are looking for ways to get more sleep on a PR5 page.

FOCUS on markets related to your own sites - 12,000 people want to fall in love on a PR6 page. Can you help these people with a product or link to a service? Is there a way you can use to direct them to something you created?
You’ll find them (plus all the others who visit this page but who don’t write or register, at 43things.com/things/view/33 )
 
If you see the value of this then you will not only start making commissions but also get good backlinks which means more endless traffic to your website or blog.
I hope this has not only given you lots of ideas but it will open the way for your  future plans to get more traffic for your products in the future

Thanks for all the help Snoop!

Anyway, I travel back and forth between Dublin Airport and JFK on a regular basis and I have never seen a Customs Officer even once. Well maybe I am telling a slight fib as once I saw one chatting up a Customer Service girl. I always figured that maybe the rows of scanning belts you just walk by didn’t swing into operation until later in the day. Obviously with the big budget advertising campaign the government put together, surely they checked the occasional bag for an evil pair of Jimmy Chou Shoes (I admit I have no idea what those actually are but I heard they are popular) or a dangerous iPod.

Well today the figures were released from Customs on the number stopped and those required to pay fines. The period was the extremely busy holiday season so get ready for some giant numbers. After all, according to the Governments own reports, the period from Nov 1st to Dec 31st is when most of you scammers of VAT do your evil work.

So here they are, presented in alphabetical order for clear viewing:

People Declaring Goods and Paying Duty/VAT voluntarily: 24
People Stopped, Found to not have declared, and charge Duty/VAT: 4

I decided against the pie chart to make it easier to understand. 28 people paid VAT!!! That is a crackdown!! It seems it cost the Government a couple of million to claw back around €100

Makes you wonder