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	<title>How To Grow, Profit &#38; Organize Your Business</title>
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	<link>http://www.purchase.com/blog</link>
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		<title>6 Tools To Help You Name Things On The Web</title>
		<link>http://www.purchase.com/blog/marketing/6-tools-to-help-you-name-things-on-the-web</link>
		<comments>http://www.purchase.com/blog/marketing/6-tools-to-help-you-name-things-on-the-web#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 07 Mar 2011 00:00:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Kelly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.purchase.com/blog/?p=3577</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Check out Rob Kelly&#8217;s 6 Easy Tools To Help You Name Stuff On The Web.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.purchase.com/blog/marketing/6-tools-to-help-you-name-things-on-the-web/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Tips On How Local Businesses Use Social Media</title>
		<link>http://www.purchase.com/blog/increasing-web-traffic/tips-on-how-local-businesses-use-social-media</link>
		<comments>http://www.purchase.com/blog/increasing-web-traffic/tips-on-how-local-businesses-use-social-media#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 10 Oct 2010 22:07:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Kelly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Increasing Sales]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Increasing Web Traffic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Groupon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Online Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social Currency]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TechCrunch]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.purchase.com/blog/?p=3404</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When I attended the Social Currency CrunchUp, there was a panel of businesses (all local except one (Levi&#8217;s)) whose members mentioned some tid-bits on how social media was working for them. Here are my notes from the panel: Curtis Kimball, The Creme Brulee Man Sells Creme Brulle, primarily in San Francisco and changes his location (a cart) regularly His customer Acquisition focuses on Twitter Has 14,100 followers) because it&#8217;s so easy&#8230;a majority of my customers come from Twitter or from friends who are on Twitter. Doesn&#8217;t have a fixed address because he doesn&#8217;t have a permit (&#8220;Permitting situation in San Francisco is a nightmare.&#8221;) Dr. Robert Vaksman, Dentist &#8220;Nineteen percent of our traffic comes from Facebook Page (&#62;100 fans)&#8230;and some of them are coming in to the office.&#8221; Uses Twitter and YouTube too Dan Yoo, Stone Korean Kitchen (Restaurant owner with 50+ seats) Groupon has filled his restaurant more than 50 times ($35 worth of food for $15) Had to pay Groupon 50% ($7.50) of what customer paid One thing he&#8217;d like to know is how many of his Groupon customers came from the 94110 zip code (so that he can remarket them). Oren Jacob, Ready, Set, Bag! (Movie maker) [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.purchase.com/blog/increasing-web-traffic/tips-on-how-local-businesses-use-social-media/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Jack Ma: Alibaba Will Be Bigger Than Microsoft &amp; Walmart</title>
		<link>http://www.purchase.com/blog/leadership/jack-ma-of-alibaba-interview-on-charlie-rose</link>
		<comments>http://www.purchase.com/blog/leadership/jack-ma-of-alibaba-interview-on-charlie-rose#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 27 Sep 2010 02:34:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Kelly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Leadership]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Alibaba]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Charlie Rose]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jack Ma]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[values]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.purchase.com/blog/?p=3511</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There was a great interview of Jack Ma on Charlie Rose &#8212; Ma is the Founder and Chairman of the leading Chinese Internet company Alibaba. Ma is clearly an evolved thinker. Here are some highlights: An Internet CEO Does Not Need To Be Technical Jack Ma doesn&#8217;t know how to code He says he uses the Web primarily to send and receive email and browse the Web The Core Competency of Alibaba is Culture Grew from 18 to 20,000 people. We believe the customer is #1, employee #2 and shareholders #3 Average age of employees is 26 &#8220;It&#8217;s the customer that pays us the money.&#8221; &#8220;It&#8217;s the employee who drives the innovation.&#8221; Shareholders come and go (I&#8217;m paraphrasing). What Types of Customers Does Alibaba Target? Focus is small and medium-sized businesses. &#8220;I&#8217;ve seen people make a fortune catching shrimps (small customers) but never make a fortune catching sharks and whales (big customers).&#8221; Has 2 Million Small &#38; Medium Sized Businesses In The U.S. Already What Ideas Excite Jack Ma &#8220;To be a great company, think about what social problem you can solve.&#8221; &#8220;Anything happening in the USA will happen in China (cloud computing, mobile).&#8221; Should US Businesses Be Excited About [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.purchase.com/blog/leadership/jack-ma-of-alibaba-interview-on-charlie-rose/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<title>Questions For You To Ask About Stock Options As Compensation</title>
		<link>http://www.purchase.com/blog/career-advice/stock-option-questions</link>
		<comments>http://www.purchase.com/blog/career-advice/stock-option-questions#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 23 Aug 2010 20:15:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Kelly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Career Advice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Compensation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Equity]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.purchase.com/blog/?p=3496</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[If you&#8217;re considering a new job, salary is of course important&#8230;but don&#8217;t forget about equity (especially in Internet/Silicon Valley-oriented companies). Here are the simple questions to ask related to stock (I&#8217;m gonna keep this simple and limit discussion to stock options): Can stock options be part of my compensation program? If the answer is &#8220;yes,&#8221; than you move on to these basic questions: How many stock options will be offered to this position? What are the total number of shares currently outstanding? (this allows you to calculate the % of the company you could own) What are the total number of shares that the company is authorized to issue? (this tells you what % of the company you&#8217;d own if they issued new new shares) What is the current exercise price of the stock options? (this will usually be a low price unless it&#8217;s a publicly-traded company (in which case you have little to worry about because you will only be exercising the right to buy the stock if you&#8217;re going to sell it for a price that is known to the public (and which will be higher than the amount you&#8217;re paying). How do the stock options vest? (this [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.purchase.com/blog/career-advice/stock-option-questions/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>5 Tips On How To Get To Know Someone You&#8217;ve Never Met</title>
		<link>http://www.purchase.com/blog/business-networking/5-tips-on-how-to-get-to-know-someone-youve-never-met</link>
		<comments>http://www.purchase.com/blog/business-networking/5-tips-on-how-to-get-to-know-someone-youve-never-met#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 06 Aug 2010 01:33:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Kelly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Networking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[LinkedIn]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.purchase.com/blog/?p=3481</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Have you ever wanted to meet someone, even though you don&#8217;t know them? Perhaps you read about them in a book or just heard that they were an awesome person. Here are some approaches I use to get to know a &#8220;desired connection&#8221; better. 5 Tips On How To Get To Know Someone You&#8217;ve Never Met 1) Look up the desired connection on LinkedIn for your common connections&#8230;it&#8217;s not that simple: read on! Firs off, look them up on LinkedIn to see what connections you have in common. If the desired connection is a 2nd degree connection (i.e. a connection of mine is a 1st degree connection to them), then look closely at those 2nd degree connections and determine if you have such a fantastic relationship with any of the 2nd degree connections that you&#8217;d be willing to ask them to introduce you to them. If the answer is &#8220;yes,&#8221; then great&#8230;ask your connection for an intro (but read tip #5 first!). If the answer is &#8220;no,&#8221; then instead focus on trying to add value to those 2nd degree connections and don&#8217;t bother asking for the introduction yet (reason: if you ask a favor of someone, you want them to [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.purchase.com/blog/business-networking/5-tips-on-how-to-get-to-know-someone-youve-never-met/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Groupon CEO Andrew Mason Shares A Few Thoughts</title>
		<link>http://www.purchase.com/blog/entrepreneuriship/groupon-ceo-andrew-mason-shares-metrics</link>
		<comments>http://www.purchase.com/blog/entrepreneuriship/groupon-ceo-andrew-mason-shares-metrics#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 02 Aug 2010 16:46:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Kelly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Entrepreneurship]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Andrew Mason]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Groupon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TechCrunch]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.purchase.com/blog/?p=3389</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I was at the recent CrunchUp and Groupon&#8217;s CEO Andrew Mason shared a few interesting factoids about his business with Michael Arrington. Andrew seemed like a nice guy when we met at the coffee break &#8212; he certainly emulates the casual Silicon Valley entrepreneur style with t-shirt, baggy pants and flip-flops. I think Groupon (and the concept of flash-sales) is going to change the face of commerce &#8212; and the company will also have a dramatic impact on the Chicago Internet entrepreneurship scene (as many of Groupon&#8217;s early employees cash out and start their own Internet businesses). Below are my notes from Mason&#8217;s talk with Arrington: Some Groupon Numbers: $1 million in revenue per day (this is what Arrington heard and Mason didn&#8217;t confirm nor deny it) 1,000 employees 12 million people receiving an email every day (with 2 million new ones added each month) Gross Margin is 50% Repeat Rate: &#8220;97% of businesses we feature want to be featured again.&#8221; Breakage Rate is around 10% (e.g. 10% of Groupon users do NOT redeem their coupons). Groupon Customer Acquisition The top sources of [free] customers for Groupon: Facebook is the top Twitter is a close second The bulk of paid [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.purchase.com/blog/entrepreneuriship/groupon-ceo-andrew-mason-shares-metrics/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>3 Tips For Startup Founders From Paul Graham of Y Combinator</title>
		<link>http://www.purchase.com/blog/fundraising/3-tips-for-startup-founders</link>
		<comments>http://www.purchase.com/blog/fundraising/3-tips-for-startup-founders#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 01 Aug 2010 01:38:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Kelly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Entrepreneurship]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fundraising]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Founders]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Paul Graham]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Y Combinator]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.purchase.com/blog/?p=3440</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[TechCrunch had a good interview with Paul Graham of Y Combinator on what he looks for in an entrepreneur. I find Paul super-bright&#8230;and he has invested in over 200 companies over the last 5 years so he&#8217;s got some data to support his ideas. So listen up, founders (wannabe founders too)! 3 Tips for Startup Founders 1) The Founder Is More Important Than The Idea Graham bets on the jockey, not the horse. 2) The Relationship Between The Founders Is Very Important The relationship between founders is key. Founders are ideally friends for awhile or have worked together on things. &#8220;What we don&#8217;t like is people who only came together for purposes of this startup.&#8221; Reason: If the startup is all that ties them together, that gives little to hold the startup together (especially during crises). Close friends will even keep working on a startup out of loyalty to their pal. 3) The Founding Team Should Have A Clear Leader &#8220;It&#8217;s really bad if we&#8217;re talking to a startup and we can&#8217;t figure out who the leader is.&#8221; Each startup should have one person who is clearly in charge, Graham says. And they should be sufficient ass-kickers. He gives Mark [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.purchase.com/blog/fundraising/3-tips-for-startup-founders/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>What Makes A Good Startup Entrepeneur by Ron Conway &amp; Paul Graham</title>
		<link>http://www.purchase.com/blog/fundraising/what-makes-a-good-startup-entrepeneur-by-ron-conway-paul-graham</link>
		<comments>http://www.purchase.com/blog/fundraising/what-makes-a-good-startup-entrepeneur-by-ron-conway-paul-graham#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 30 Jul 2010 23:49:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Kelly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Entrepreneurship]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fundraising]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ron Conway]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.purchase.com/blog/?p=3377</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Fun panel at today&#8217;s CrunchUp with: Paul Graham, YCombinator Ron Conway, SV Angels Michael Arrington, TechCrunch Here are notes of my favorite nuggets: Ron Conway on data about his 500 startup investments: &#8220;The success rate in our portfolio is going from 10% to 15% right now&#8230;because of the$25 million to $50 million M&#38;A deals.&#8221; Failure Rate was 77% leading up to the Internet Bubble of 2001&#8230;and now is about 40% post bubble (2002 to today) &#8220;Repeat-entrepreneurs&#8221; have about a 66% rate of success in their second startup. Deal flow did not decrease during mortgage bubble. Entrepreneurs have the same level of success regardless of the climate&#8230;it&#8217;s Check out Ron Conway data here for more on the data from his deals) Here are some more Ron Conway thoughts: &#8220;Getting your money back( (from an entrepreneur) is not a bad deal&#8221; Shawn Fanning is one of the top entrepeneurs he&#8217;s worked with. Mark Zuckerberg&#8230;has grown in maturity and saaviness of being a leader&#8230;&#8221;on an algorithmic scale.&#8221; Great defining companies are being created at a much quicker rate than they were 10 years ago. Awesome news for entrepreneurs. An ideal entrepreneur is a little bit crazy (crazy-smart) is good Paul Graham on ideal [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.purchase.com/blog/fundraising/what-makes-a-good-startup-entrepeneur-by-ron-conway-paul-graham/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>5 Steps To Inevitability Thinking (E.g. How To Make It Inevitable That You&#8217;ll Generate $20K Per Mo. In Ad Revs)</title>
		<link>http://www.purchase.com/blog/getting-things-done/inevitability-thinking</link>
		<comments>http://www.purchase.com/blog/getting-things-done/inevitability-thinking#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 25 Jul 2010 21:19:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Kelly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Getting Things Done]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.purchase.com/blog/?p=3306</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I remember when my friend Eben Pagan shared the concept of Inevitability Thinking with me &#8212; it&#8217;s such a simple yet powerful approach to achieving your an objective&#8230;damn, why didn&#8217;t I think of that!? The easiest way for me to share Inevitability Thinking is to give an example (I&#8217;m going to use a hypothetical example of an Internet business I want to build). To do this exercise on your own you would need: A Calculator Google Your Brain A half-hour or so of time But, if you want, you can just read my version of this exercise first. Ok, so here are the steps: 5 Steps To Invetability Thinking 1) Articulate Your Objective First step is to articulate your objective. For this exercise, let&#8217;s assume your objective is to build a content-based Web site that generates $20,000 per month in advertising revenue. Sound good? 2) Identify Your Time Frame? Easy next step: let&#8217;s pick a time period to meet your objective of $20,000 in ad revenue per month. We all want to reach our goals immediately&#8230;but let&#8217;s be realistic: how does one year sound? After all, most things that matter in life take time. One year it is! 3) List [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.purchase.com/blog/getting-things-done/inevitability-thinking/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<title>4 Easy Leadership Tips From Coach Bill Walsh</title>
		<link>http://www.purchase.com/blog/leadership/bill-walsh-leadership-tips</link>
		<comments>http://www.purchase.com/blog/leadership/bill-walsh-leadership-tips#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 23 Jul 2010 00:42:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Kelly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Leadership]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bill Walsh]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Coaching]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Football]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.purchase.com/blog/?p=3294</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I love to read books on leadership. The latest one I finished (which I borrowed from the awesome San Francisco Library) was The Score Takes Care of Itself by Steve Jamison &#38; Craig Walsh&#8230;about the leadership style of football coach Bill Walsh. Why should you listen to Coach Walsh: well, among other things, he invented a new offense now widely used in football and turned the worst team in the league (the San Francisco 49ers) into Super Bowl champs (in just two years). There were four leadership techniques that Walsh shared that I found most useful: Four Leadership Tips From Bill Walsh 1) Making The Best Of What You Have &#8220;What assets do we have right now that we&#8217;re not taking advantage of?&#8221; E.g: Walsh took inventory of his Bengals&#8217; struggling offense which was undersized (meaning running the ball was a big challenge) and not capable of passing for long yardage (quarterback Virgil Carter could not throw very far) (though he could throw decently for short yardage). Walsh then took stock of what he had to work with in terms of field real estate and had an uh-huh realization that  they had 53.5 yards of width on the field (about [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.purchase.com/blog/leadership/bill-walsh-leadership-tips/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Here Are The 5 Major Stages of Startup Funding</title>
		<link>http://www.purchase.com/blog/fundraising/5-stages-of-startup-funding</link>
		<comments>http://www.purchase.com/blog/fundraising/5-stages-of-startup-funding#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 21 Jul 2010 23:17:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Kelly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Fundraising]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Angel Investors]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bridge Loans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mezzanine Financing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Seed Capital]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Venture Capital]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.purchase.com/blog/?p=3266</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A friend of mine recently asked me about the different stages of startup financing &#8211;  so I figured I&#8217;d write it down for you too! There are certainly other sources of startup capital besides the ones listed below, but these five are the top ones; and they&#8217;re typically used roughly in the order I list them. 5 Stages of Startup Funding 1) Seed Capital This is typically the very first investment of money used to for market research and developing product. It can come from the founder&#8217;s personal savings (e.g. from a severance package from the founder&#8217;s prior job) or from acquaintances (aka a &#8220;Friends &#38; Family&#8221; or &#8220;F&#38;F&#8221; Round). Seed capital can be received as a loan on in exchange for common stock. Note: Credit cards/American Express are also used as a startup fund option around this time. 2) Angel Investor Funding Since seed capital is sometimes limited, it is often necessary for an entrepreneur to tap into wealthy individuals outside their friends &#38; family &#8212; this is often called an &#8220;Angel&#8221; investor. You can receive money from an angel investor as a loan that is convertible to preferred stock (often it converts to the Series A round of [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.purchase.com/blog/fundraising/5-stages-of-startup-funding/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>Remote Workers: Check Out Your New Virtual Colleague!</title>
		<link>http://www.purchase.com/blog/getting-things-done/robot-for-virtual-worker</link>
		<comments>http://www.purchase.com/blog/getting-things-done/robot-for-virtual-worker#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 01 Jul 2010 17:33:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Kelly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Getting Things Done]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Working Virtually]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.purchase.com/blog/?p=3255</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Here&#8217;s a cool robot that can cruise around your home or office with a 5 mega-pixel HD camera with zoom due out this Fall from AnyBots. Not bad for $15,000. Applications/Features? If you work from home, this robot can cruise to your front door and show you who&#8217;s ringing your bell This robot can be your eyes and ears at another location (while you stay put) Check out these videos. This one is a corporate video from AnyBots.com (but it shows the robot in action): Here&#8217;s an example of AnyBot checking out a White Board session (so that you don&#8217;t have to be there to collaborate): Here&#8217;s a separate story on AnyBots from Network World:]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.purchase.com/blog/getting-things-done/robot-for-virtual-worker/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
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		<title>7 Easy Steps On How To Set Up A Blog Using WordPress</title>
		<link>http://www.purchase.com/blog/blogging/how-to-set-up-a-blog-using-wordpress</link>
		<comments>http://www.purchase.com/blog/blogging/how-to-set-up-a-blog-using-wordpress#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 30 Jun 2010 03:22:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Kelly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Blogging]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WordPress]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.purchase.com/blog/?p=3243</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[My non-profit friend Emily asked me for advice on setting up a blog. I recommended she use WordPress (it&#8217;s what I use in this blog) for the following reasons: Cost &#8212; WordPress is mostly free (you will have to spend $10 to $20 on hosting stuff (explained below) Flexibility &#8212; WordPress is open-source and has many different developers supporting it with widgets and plug-ins. Google Loves It &#8212; WordPress appears to be indexed by Google faster than other blog platforms (including, ironically, the Blogger platform which is owned by Google). This quick indexing is important in terms of Google sending you free traffic. 7 Easy Steps On How To Set Up A Blog Using WordPress Here&#8217;s a 51-minute video tutorial by blog pro Chris Abraham explaining how to set up WordPress. In it, he explains everything you need to get WordPress set up &#8212; they include these 7 highlights (in that order): Getting Your WordPress Account &#8212; Username, password, naming your blog (At first, your blog name will be [TheNameYouChoose.WordPress.com] (later, you can register a domain name and point the blog to it so that &#8220;WordPress&#8221; is not in your URL) Activating Your Blog Understand the WordPress Dashboard Setting Up [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.purchase.com/blog/blogging/how-to-set-up-a-blog-using-wordpress/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>5 Search Marketing Tips From SMX</title>
		<link>http://www.purchase.com/blog/increasing-web-traffic/search-marketing-tips-from-smx</link>
		<comments>http://www.purchase.com/blog/increasing-web-traffic/search-marketing-tips-from-smx#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 29 Jun 2010 00:21:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Kelly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Increasing Web Traffic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Search Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.purchase.com/blog/?p=3234</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[My Search Marketing Expert friend Dan Rosenbaum was kind enough to let me share a summary of the SMX conference he attended recently. Here are 5 Search Marketing Tips he learned from the conference: 1. Don&#8217;t bother creating separate site to appeal to Bing and Google. Back in the Bad Old Days, it was considered a good idea to code your website in such a way that it would appeal to the half-dozen or so search engines &#8212; each of which wanted to see something different. Now that Google gets the majority of searches, people don&#8217;t do that so much anymore. But with the rise of Bing, there was some concern that Bing might be focusing on different signals than Google. Rand Fishkin, of SEOMoz, showed some experimental data that implies that although Bing and Google are probably weighting their results somewhat differently, the differences are not enough to warrant any particular effort to change the way you&#8217;re producing your site. 2. Post a Video Sitemap. Really. If you have much video on your site, Google was very clear on this point: create, post and maintain an XML video sitemap in addition to your standard XML sitemap. This is, frankly, [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.purchase.com/blog/increasing-web-traffic/search-marketing-tips-from-smx/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>How To Select The Best Domain Name To Attract Search Engines</title>
		<link>http://www.purchase.com/blog/increasing-web-traffic/best-domain-name-for-search-engines</link>
		<comments>http://www.purchase.com/blog/increasing-web-traffic/best-domain-name-for-search-engines#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 28 Jun 2010 01:07:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Kelly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Increasing Web Traffic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.purchase.com/blog/?p=3189</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Did you know that one domain name could easily get you 5-times as much search engine traffic as another similar-sounding domain name!? Picking the best domain name for your business is an important decision&#8230;especially given that search engines will examine your domain name to determine how much traffic to send it. To pick the best domain name for a search engine, you&#8217;re gonna have to consider: What words or phrases are your prospective customers typing into search engines? Should a search engine know about your location? How many domain names should you own to maximize your traffic from a search engine? What&#8217;s the importance of &#8220;Micro-Sites&#8221; or &#8220;Campaign-Sites&#8221;? And more! To help answer those domain name/search marketing questions, I reconnected with my old friend Lana Goldenberg the other day (we worked together at Topica and Hot Topic Media). Lana is now a Search Marketing Coach and was kind enough to share her thoughts on how you should approach using/choosing a domain name that Google and search engines will value. And she even offers you a freebie consultation &#8212; Enjoy! The Best Domain Name For Your Business Q: Hi Lana. For starters, does the name of a web site (i.e. the [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.purchase.com/blog/increasing-web-traffic/best-domain-name-for-search-engines/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Visionary Ray Kurzweil&#8217;s Data Points &amp; Insights</title>
		<link>http://www.purchase.com/blog/leadership/visionary-ray-kurzweils-data-points-insights</link>
		<comments>http://www.purchase.com/blog/leadership/visionary-ray-kurzweils-data-points-insights#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 23 Jun 2010 00:19:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Kelly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Leadership]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ray Kurzweil]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.purchase.com/blog/?p=3176</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I read a great interview with Ray Kurzweil in the San Francisco Chronicle. Kurzweil is a visionary (reading machines for the blind, text to speech technology, music synthesizers, a bunch of artificial intelligence stuff) and he had a few nuggets of valuable insights/data points in the interview. I encourage you to read the entire article, but here were my favorites: &#8230;&#8221;technologies will be another billion times more powerful per dollar in 25 years and 100,000 times smaller in size.&#8221; &#8220;We&#8217;ll reach a tipping point in about 15 years where we will be adding more than a year each year to your remaining life expectancy.&#8221; &#8220;There has been 18 percent annual growth in every form of information technology for the past half century as measured in constant dollars, despite the fact that you can get twice as much of it each year for the same cost.&#8221; &#8220;&#8230;there are 5 billion cell phones for 6 billion people&#8230;&#8221; &#8220;Information-based technologies are affordable only by the rich at a point in time where they don&#8217;t work very well. By the time they are perfected, they are almost free.&#8221; &#8220;The number of bits we are transmitting on the Internet is doubling every year.&#8221; Clearly, this [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.purchase.com/blog/leadership/visionary-ray-kurzweils-data-points-insights/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>3 Easy Steps To Using Google Analytics</title>
		<link>http://www.purchase.com/blog/analytics/3-easy-steps-to-using-google-analytics</link>
		<comments>http://www.purchase.com/blog/analytics/3-easy-steps-to-using-google-analytics#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 21 Jun 2010 20:22:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Kelly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Analytics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blogging]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.purchase.com/blog/?p=3163</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I got asked today how you track links on your blog or Web site. The simplest way to track your Web site/blog usage is to use Google Analytics. I like it because it&#8217;s free and it gives you massive amounts of data in fairly easy to use interface. 3 Easy Steps To Tracking Web Site Usage Through Google Analytics Step 1: Sign Up For Gmail You&#8217;ll need a Gmail email address to get started. This is free and you can create one from here: https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount Step 2: Install Google Analytics Code On Your Web Site/Blog Next, you want to install Google Analytics. Again, this is free and here&#8217;s a great tutorial on setting up Google Analytics. You will have to wait about 24 hours for Google Analytics to start working (to show you stats). 3) How To Use Google Analytics Twenty-four hours after you&#8217;ve installed Google Analytics, you can start seeing your data come in. There&#8217;s a lot of data that will help you track such things as: Number of visitors Number of page views The keywords that people search Google on to end up on your site Which articles on your site are most popular Which countries/cities your visitors [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.purchase.com/blog/analytics/3-easy-steps-to-using-google-analytics/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>How To Give Feedback: The Simple 3-Step Sandwich Method</title>
		<link>http://www.purchase.com/blog/communication/the-sandwich-method-of-feedback</link>
		<comments>http://www.purchase.com/blog/communication/the-sandwich-method-of-feedback#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 21 Jun 2010 03:08:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Kelly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Communication]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Toastmasters]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.purchase.com/blog/?p=3138</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[If you lead a person or team, have peers you work with or even are managed by someone else (with no team that you&#8217;re managing), the Sandwich Method of Feedback is an effective communication tool. I was reminded about the Sandwich Method in my Toastmasters public speaking class the other day. Every speech in Toastmasters is evaluated and the delivery of criticism needs to be done delicately &#8212; I and others use the Sandwich Technique on a regular basis. The Sandwich Method (or Sandwich Technique or Hamburger Method) is so named because the pieces of bread represent positive feedback/compliments while the meat of the sandwich (or innards if you&#8217;re vegetarian) represents constructive criticism. I find this method of sandwiching the constructive criticism between two compliments to be an effective/disarming way to help improve/correct behavior. The Sandwich Method 1) Slice of Bread 1: Start off with positive feedback (authentic praise of something they did recently) Examples: &#8220;By the way, John, I have to hand it to you on that deal you closed yesterday&#8230;that goes a long way towards helping us reach our goal.&#8221; &#8220;Anne, I really appreciate you chipping in for Nicole this week while she was out of the office [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.purchase.com/blog/communication/the-sandwich-method-of-feedback/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>How To &#8220;Recharge&#8221; Yourself To Make It Through Life (Happy)</title>
		<link>http://www.purchase.com/blog/health/how-to-recharge-yourself</link>
		<comments>http://www.purchase.com/blog/health/how-to-recharge-yourself#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 18 Jun 2010 01:37:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Kelly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Health]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.purchase.com/blog/?p=3124</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I was discussing &#8216;recharging&#8217; with some friends over pizza in the Italian North Beach neighborhood of San Franciso the other night. The concept of recharging caught my eye when I read the amazing book: The Power Of Full  Engagement by Tony Schwartz &#38; Jim Loehr. I was captivated by the stories that Tony &#38; Jim told of how they studied professional tennis players. I must have lent my copy of the book out so I&#8217;m going by memory here&#8230;as I recall, Tony &#38; Jim studied two groups of tennis pros: Group A: The Top 10 Tennis Pros (e.g. 1 to 10) (who make millions per year) and Group B: The Lower-Ranked Tennis Pros (e.g. ranked 100 to 500) (who just scratch their way by career-wise) When they studied videos of the two groups of tennis pros, they noticed something odd: there was no real difference in the talent of the two groups (a guy ranked 200 had essentially the same quality serve, forehand, backhand, etc. of a guy ranked #1). Amazing, right? So, what WAS the difference between the two groups Answer: careful analysis showed that the main difference was the way the two different groups &#8220;recharged.&#8221; Examples of recharging [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.purchase.com/blog/health/how-to-recharge-yourself/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>A Few Simple Tips On How To Approach An Employer Who Has A Job You Want</title>
		<link>http://www.purchase.com/blog/business-networking/a-few-simple-tips-on-how-to-approach-an-employer-who-has-a-job-you-want</link>
		<comments>http://www.purchase.com/blog/business-networking/a-few-simple-tips-on-how-to-approach-an-employer-who-has-a-job-you-want#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 15 Jun 2010 21:02:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Kelly</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Networking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[LinkedIn]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.purchase.com/blog/?p=3114</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[You may periodically see or hear about a job you&#8217;d love to have &#8212; so what do you do next? I believe that the best way to approach a job you want is to get the senior most person at the target-employer to refer you so that you get on the fast track for the interview process (with the hiring manager). If you&#8217;re interested in that, here&#8217;s some advice I gave a colleague recently on how to do that through LinkedIn: Identify The Employer&#8217;s Senior Most Person (Who Is Also On LinkedIn) First, go to LinkedIn and search for the senior most person at the target-employer (I recommend you go for the CEO). Note: If you&#8217;re not familiar with LinkedIn, read this LinkedIn For Beginners Article. When I search on LinkedIn I use the &#8220;advanced search&#8221; and enter in the name of the target-employer  in the &#8220;Company&#8221; field (I start with &#8220;Current&#8221; in the drop-down) and then &#8220;CEO&#8221; in the title field. Click Search. Hopefully, up pops the CEO of the target-employer. If the CEO doesn&#8217;t pop up, then re-do the search by trying out other senior titles such as  &#8220;founder&#8221; or &#8220;president&#8221; or &#8220;vice president.&#8221; Click Search. Now you [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.purchase.com/blog/business-networking/a-few-simple-tips-on-how-to-approach-an-employer-who-has-a-job-you-want/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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