Brainstorming :
a group problem-solving technique that involves the spontaneous contribution of ideas from all the members of the group; also: the mulling over of ideas by one or more individuals in an attempt to devise or find a solution to a problem.

I would probably wager that most people don’t brainstorm correctly.  In fact, most brainstorming sessions are self destructive and render future brainstorming sessions less effective.

Let me illustrate what I mean:

Your Mastermind group gets together to figure out the best way to increase income in the next 6 months.  You each bring your hot beverage of choice and gather in the “war room.”

What happens next is a series of posturing, cheap shots, veiled threats and finally all out war.  You or one of your group leaves devastated, one of you struts away and the rest are just glad to have survived.

Most of you are now ready to keep your ideas to yourself, fearful that next time you’ll be the one exiting on the bottom.

So, what lead to this brainstorming result?  An incorrect approach to the whole idea and a misunderstanding of what brainstorming really is.

Churn and burn…

Brainstorming is not a session to churn and burn ideas, yet this is how most brainstorming sessions are conducted.

Brainstorming sessions are to be churn and THEN burn sessions.

Notice the definition: “a group problem-solving technique that involves the spontaneous contribution of ideas from all the members of the group;”

And THEN we have: “also: the mulling over of ideas by one or more individuals in an attempt to devise or find a solution to a problem.”

Brainstorming is a two step process.

Let’s look at our illustration again, this time in two parts:

Your mastermind group gets together to figure out the best way to increase income in the next 6 months. You each bring your hot beverage of choice and gather in the conference room.

A designated member begins by describing the problem and stating what the proposed goal is to be.  You say the first thing that comes to your mind on the problem, no matter how silly or insignificant you might think it is, and it’s written down.  Your ideas begin to feed off of each other, building stronger and stronger.

Like sleet you rain down ideas that bounce off the table. All of the ideas are written down.  This creates a “warm rising atmosphere” of ideas that form against the “cold front” of the problem.  Thus creating the brain”storm.”

Your group spends about 1/3 to 1/2 of your time in this first stage. When the “storm” begins to die down you then turn to stage two, analysis.

Here you go down the list and discuss the pros AND cons of each idea, writing them down as you go.  After going through the list you then start eliminating ideas: costs too much, takes too long, etc.

What you will end up with is one to a few very strong ideas, well thought through and a Mastermind group that is jazzed up and eager to meet the next challenge head-on.

To your “brainstorming” success,
Zachary
==================================
I’m giving away copies of The Magic Story:

The Magic Story reveals the story of Sturtevant, a starving artist whose life was changed overnight after he purchased an old, ragged scrapbook for 3 cents.

Within the scrapbook he found what he said was a “magic story”. Everyone he told the story to prospered by it. It seemed to change people’s lives for the better like magic.

You can get a copy of the book and the audio here:
http://ZacharyMcCullough.com/MagicStory/

Thanks again,
Zack

Hey everyone, need some help.

Ellen (my wife) entered a contest to design a sewing room. I told her she needed something unique to get the judges attention, so she made a design called “6 Daughters, 6 Wedding dresses” and submitted it.

Well, she made the top 10! (of thousands of entries)

Now the help part… I told her if she could make the top 10 I could probably win it for her… {open mouth insert foot}

Soooo… Go vote for her, please? (you COULD win a $500 fabric prize for yourself, or YOUR wife, for voting… She could vote too… )

http://reg.taunton.com/webapps/ultimate_sewing_room_voting.html
vote for this one –> “6 Daughters, 6 Wedding dresses by LRae”

The sewing room prize will go nicely to helping make their dresses
(Yes, I really have 6 daughters, 2 sons too)

Thanks!
Zack

PS, Send this on to everyone you know!

We even setup a website where we are going to track her progress:
http://6Daughters6WeddingDresses.com

************************************************************
Last Chance Until November 2009…
************************************************************

If You’ve even thought about attending BigSeminar 12…You
Better act now!
http://ThatOneBigSeminar.com

Armand just talked with the hotel staff and they told
him they have a very LIMITED number of seats left.

Register Your seat NOW…You will not have another chance
until November 2009.
http://ThatOneBigSeminar.com

***********************************************************
Can You Afford To Wait A year?
************************************************************

You’ve heard the news…even the best case scenarios don’t
sound very attractive.

Markets are tumbling, companies are cutting back to stay
afloat…act NOW while You still have options.

Click Here NOW and Register Your BigSeminar 12 seat…
http://ThatOneBigSeminar.com

************************************************************
You have two options…
************************************************************

1. Maintain the status quo…let politicians, greedy
corporate executives, financial “pundits” and Wall Street
crooks wreck havoc with the economy and jeopardize Your
security.

2. Garner the skills and connections needed to take back
control and run Your own business…independent of the
mayhem.

Armand has said this many times…the recession is VOLUNTARY and
I choose not to volunteer!

What do YOU choose?

BigSeminar WILL fill up with or without You…can You afford
to wait one more year before You attend?

Here’s the link…Click it NOW…Register…take control of
Your future…
http://ThatOneBigSeminar.com

Best of Success,

Zachary McCullough

PS – I look forward to seeing You in Atlanta on the
3rd, 4th and 5th of October!
http://ThatOneBigSeminar.com

PPS – Don’t forget you get access to our $1771 Online Business
In A Box Package when you register.

PPPS – I’m staying at the Embassy Suites on Akers Mill Road,
nice rooms, nice walk (2 blocks), Awesome breakfast!

From Frank Deardurff:

I attend several live events each year for many reasons. Some people have asked don’t you get tired of going, or haven’t you already heard those speakers? Well the answer is I may have heard that speaker before but they could be sharing different information or if it’s the same information I might catch something I didn’t catch previously. I mean many of us do the same thing with a good movie to see if we see something else or just remind our selves of why we liked that movie.

The other answer is NO I don’t get tired in going to live events truthfully I get energized in going and here’s why.. I meet so many people at these events that share their thoughts and ideas as well as friends I’ve met at other events so it almost becomes a reunion. Think of all of the connections you can make at a live event. The people attending are most of the time just like you, either right in the same place in their business maybe a little ahead or a little behind but we’re all looking to grow.

A Live event that I will be attending very soon is the http://www.ThatOneBigSeminar.com it is the Biggest seminar I go to each year this will actually be my 11 time attending this event and each time I learn something new and walk away with a ton of contacts and business possibilities.

I think that Big Seminar is such a great event my business partner (THAT’S ME) and I have put together a FREE bonus package for anyone that registers their seat through us. This package has an actual value of over $1,770 dollars in retail value and I’m giving that to you for attending http://www.ThatOneBigSeminar.com.

So here is the “Internet Business In-A-Box Bonus Package” we’ve put together for you:

• Pre Big Seminar Teleseminar – To make sure you’re prepared to get the most from the event. ($99 Value)
• 12 Months of our 100 Domain Gold Package Web Hosting – From That One Hosting. ($564 Retail)
• 12 Domain Registrations – One a month for the First Year. ($122 Retail)
• “Ask That One Online Professional” – 12 interviews with online experts that explain how to get it done. ($247 Retail)
• 12 Months Membership to Ask Database – To find out what your web visitors really want. ($359 Retail)
• Lifetime Access to “WordPress Strategies” – Learn how to put pages online without a webmaster. ($97 Retail)
• “WPMember” Software – To create your own membership site with Wordpress. ($37 Retail)
• “Affiliate Tool Generator” Software – Lets you create a dynamic affiliate center for your products ($97 Retail)
• Post Big Seminar Webinar – To explain how to get started with everything in your bonus package. ($149 Value)

THAT’S $1,771 of TOTAL VALUE!

The reason we’ve selected these items for this package is so that you will have EVERYTHING you need to either get started or move ahead online.

Don’t let this opportunity pass you by, the next http://www.ThatOneBigSeminar.com is not until the fall of 2009 imagine how far ahead your competition will be in one year if you don’t take action now.

Visit http://www.ThatOneBigSeminar.com to get the details!

I wish you all the best and much success in everything you do!

Frank Deardurff – That One Web Guy!

and me too!
Zack

Frank Deardurff (That One Web Guy) and I have been offering
hosting to a select group of clients for over 6 years.

http://thatonehosting.com?z=zackcracked

This hosting is by invitation only.

You see we are very careful about the content that we allow
on our hosting.

I’ve talked to Frank about opening it up to a few of our
other clients and he agreed that I could do it.

So here’s the offer, you can get domain hosting from us for
only 47 cents per domain on our Gold Hosting Package.

http://thatonehosting.com?z=zackcracked

Yup, only 47 cents. Frank thinks I’ve lost it since I cracked
my skull last month. But we’re only going to open this up for
a little while. Then we’ll zzzziiiiiipppp it back up.

The address is http://thatonehosting.com?z=zackcracked

Use this referral code to access the Gold package
price directly: zackcracked

Hurry up before Frank makes me close the order page down.

To your success,

Zachary

The last couple of months have been jam packed with life stuff. You ever have that happen? One day you sit down and go… wow, where did the time go?

On the home front we’ve been busy.

• We had a new baby, she’s doing great!
• Two children joined soccer teams, I think soccer is designed to take over your life, kinda like the Borg “Resistance is Futile”
• We built a new playground for the children, one of those “ready to assemble” ones. I bet we have 50+ hours into it.
• We began to remodel our dining room. Very, very messy work.
• I cracked my skull while running to the basement to stop a water leak.
• We’ve had a house guest from England for a couple of weeks who was a big help in several of the home projects.
• We’ve had another house guest for a few days while her parents were IN England.
• Plus all the other normal busy home items.

Here at the office we been piling on the projects too.

• The Ask Database has gotten a few new features, like iFrames for blogs. We have a several more feature about to release there too. http://AskDatabase.com
• Frank turned a year older and offered his Ask That One Professional for 1/2 price. Check it out here: http://askthatone.com/?=birthday if you use that link you can STILL get the discount!! (don’t tell him I gave you the link) 
• If you use an affiliate program you need my Affiliate Tool Generator. It will provide you with a very nice place for you to send your affiliates so they can grab your tools quick and get promoting. http://affiliatetoolgenerator.com
• Frank and I have been providing Hosting services for special clients for some time.  I finally convinced him that we should go public with it. http://ThatOneHosting.com
• You want Hosting for 47 cents a domain? We’ve got it! Jump over to That One Hosting , you can sign up and be running in just a few minutes!
• Did I mention I cracked my skull? Frank doesn’t know I’m telling anyone about the hosting yet. LOL hurry, before he finds out and makes me pull it down!
• Frank has just launched his WordPress Strategies site. It’s not a monthly fee, just one price and you’ll learn all the sneaky little tricks we’ve been doing to use WordPress on sites that you would never guess were WordPress!!!
• Also, we’re working on a big, Big, BIG top secret project. Make sure you check out ThatOneBigSeminar.com where you’ll get in on our big announcement.

Ok, that’s all I have for now. More updates soon.

You can do it!
Zack

Time and time again affiliate programs are dominated by a few so called “Super Affiliates,” those few affiliates make 80% of the income out of your affiliate program.
So what can you do to turn your junior affiliates into Super Affiliates?
Get a great Affiliate Tool page and follow these tips:

• Make sure that your product is reliable and that your website works. By working, I mean your website has the best visitor to sales conversion you can squeeze out of it. Test, tweak, test, tweak don’t stop. Affiliates only want to refer their potentials to sites that generate CASH $$$.
• Really good affiliates check out company they are promoting. They don’t want to waste their time and efforts on fly-by-night organizations. Spend the time to make yourself look good and solid.
• Keep an open line of communication going. Make it easy for them to contact you and if you have trouble with your payment systems, just let them know, most affiliates are quite understanding. And if they make you a lot of money, listen when they offer suggestions for improvement.
• Recurring Commissions, one time payouts are good, but if you can create a program with recurring commissions (like a membership site) affiliates might just beat a path to your door.
• Don’t go all MLM on them. 1st tier and 2nd tier commission are good, start going past that and you begin to look like a scam.
• Make ‘em pretty, make ‘em light. Affiliates love attractive banners and ads, but hate bloated graphics. Make sure you optimize all of your affiliate images.
• Tracking and Sales reporting are a key component. Affiliates often worry about getting burned by a merchant. Give them a place where they can see how they’re doing and feel confident they are getting the commissions they deserve.
• Top affiliates want your tracking to stick. By this I mean, if your sales are tracked via cookies make sure the cookies stay active for months or even a year!
• Pay your affiliates often. $25 – $50 minimums are good. Affiliates that get checks each month think about you more when they are ready to do more promotions.
• Regular payments make affiliates happy. Make sure you hold funds back to cover your money-back-guarantee period, and then pay your affiliates quickly after that.
• Your affiliate program terms should be short, clear and to the point. Address acceptable use, spam, malware and the consequences for violating your terms.

In summary, the merchant affiliate relationship is based on money and trust. Both are hard to replace when lost.

Building Super Affiliates takes a little work but pays off big in the long run.

Give them the tools and the confidence they want/need and they will make you A LOT of money.

Zachary

Before you can start managing and recruiting affiliates you need to be sure you have a good affiliate and a great Affiliate Tool software program in place. Automated affiliate tracking of sales and commissions is a must.
Bring on the affiliates!

• The content of your affiliate pages is very important. These pages give the search engines the fuel to bring potential affiliates who are “program shopping” to your website.
• Be sure to load up on keywords like, affiliate program and earn commissions. Include your product name in there too.
• Make your terms clear and your stance on SPAM known.
• Make sure you have plenty of sign up links with calls to action.
• Think of your affiliate program as another “product” you are selling. Go beyond your website and let the world know it open. Forums, affiliate directories, articles, blogs, etc.
• Branch into affiliate networks, you can pay to join and they’ll expose you to the thousands of affiliates they have on board. Watch out though, You could pay by the dollar or by the percent. Make sure it’s worth your while.
• Look for “Super Affiliates.” People who are marketing in your niche. Approach them and offer them a higher commission to promote your product. Many are willing to promote for you and this can lead to additional affiliates from their “lists.”
• Post-screen your affiliates. Check them out and make sure they are advertising your product in ways that won’t tarnish your good image. If they aren’t, drop them FAST.
• Watch out for fraud. High return rates from one affiliate’s sales could indicate foul play.
• Delay your commission payouts by about 30 to 45 days to allow for returns, refunds and charge backs.
• Communicate with your affiliates regularly. Affiliates can get busy and forget about you and your program. Regular contact will increase an affiliate’s promotion rate for your product.

Finally, go above and beyond for your best affiliates. Offer them special promotions, send them a thank you gift, and bump up their commission rates now and again. Make them feel important, they are!
Birds of a feather flock together. Super Affiliates will usually share a good product with their peers. The beneficiary will ultimately be you!

Zachary

Netizens (citizens of the ‘Net) are sick to death of the sheer volume of marketing material landing in their Inboxes lately. And can you blame them? I spend over $125 a year on SPAM blocking software and STILL get junk floating in about this drug or that many of them don’t even have order links in them!

Alas, email marketing is important for my businesses online. It’s not evil, it’s not immoral, it’s a valued ecommerce strategy for attracting customers. It’s akin to standing in the bazaar and calling for customers.
The challenge of eMail marketing

Those of us who use email promotion legitimately, suffer at the hands of our would be clients because of the actions of the unstoppable spammers. You can’t even pop an email off to a website owner any more or you’ll look like one of the automated Trolls wanting to put you on the top of the search engines or some such nonsense.

Filters and report-everything-as-spam happy users send countless valid communications into bulk/spam folders, never to read again. Legitimate companies are hurt the most.

Direct eMail Marketing and the Yellow Blinking Light

The unfortunate result is that caution must play the lead dog in your email marketing campaigns. Protect your back side. Spam related shutdown of your business, even if only temporarily, could be the end.
So, with all that in mind the following should be implemented when working with an email list:

• Provide a link in each message to the details of the list your client is on. You never know when they will forget who you are or what they signed up for.
• Use a double opt-in strategy. This is where the prospective subscriber gets a message asking them to validate that they did, in fact, want to get your email messages.
• Avoid “spammy” words like: free, click here, bonus offer, make money and get rich. These will get your message on the fast track to the automatic junk folder.
• Secure your list. Either via password on your own system or using a secure service online. You don’t want any viruses getting through, farming your list and sending spam out on your behalf.
• That being said, keep your virus protection software up to date.
• Try to avoid co-optin forms where a user signs up on one form and gets added to untold number of email lists. This can lead to spam reports in a hurry. If you do use co-optins, be sure to combine them with double opt-ins on your part of the list.
• Keep the content of each of your lists relevant to that list’s purpose don’t mix and match.

Lastly, be detailed in your list history. Just a list of names and email addresses is not enough to prove you are legit if you are accused of spamming. You need to track names, emails, IP addresses, dates and times of subscriptions and double opt-ins.

Once you get it up and running your system can continue to serve you well into the future.

Zachary

Ok I need to preface this post with a few data points to tie it all together.

#1 – Last year we bought a house in the Historic District of town. We needed a bigger place. This house had good character and strong construction.

It was owned by a fraternity for the last 40 years… and boy was it rough. (I got it for a song!) 3 stories, 10 bedrooms, full basement and a large yard on a street only 1 block long was a good setup for a family with smaller children.

Being a “Zack-of-all-trades” I like fixing things up.

#2 – a few weeks ago we had an earthquake, the early report tied the largest quake on record for the area.

So…

Monday night near midnight after taking care of my evening bathroom routine, and as my eldest son and I pass in the doorway, one of the toilets (there are two in this bathroom, {frat house}) made a strange gurgling/burping sound.

When Wesley came out he said “Dad, the toilet won’t flush.” Sigh, now about midnight i trudge in there and sure enough, full toilet. So in my alertness i flush the other toilet. bad move. water everywhere.

What’s a guy to do now? Plunger? right. I get busy and manage to get the water levels down, but the next flush fills it up again. More plunger. “Dad? What’s that smell?” Great. Both showers are filling up and the water isn’t clear, if you get my drift!

Here’s some advise: don’t plunge a shower… Ol’ Faithful comes to mind.

I remove toilet #1 and now the flange at the floor level is BELOW the level of “water” in the showers… boy THAT was smart. Now with water EVERYWHERE I realize I don’t have a pipe snake to clean out the pipe.

I was a MacGyver fan, and he would say coat hanger = pipe snake. It’s all clear that far in. Now 10-3 gauge wire with ground = pipe snake. All clear to about 3 feet. But it’s still plugged up.

Off to Wal-Mart for pipe snake, liquid plumber and a new wax ring.

Home again, 1:30am. Snake to about 10 feet and I hit something. It won’t break loose. In goes the liquid plumber stuff. 13 minutes later I hit it with the snake again. No go. More liquid plumber (more than half the big bottle) about 7 minutes later… SUCCESS!

Everything drains. I reasemble the toilet and flush several times on each toilet. I run the showers on HOT for about 15 minutes and clean them up. Mop up the mess and head for bed. 2:30am I’m out cold.

FAST FORWARD to 7:30am….

“DAD! The toilets won’t flush!” (sound of me crying). It seems I didn’t use any toilet paper in the toilets before my dance of champions.

We are now back to the full toilets and full showers and floor full of water and it is now “raining” in the first floor bathroom.

It’s time for drastic measures. I move to the basement and have the kids flush the toilets on the first and third floors. Now having identified the soil pipe for the 2nd floor, I proceed to beat the pipe elbow with a hammer until I smash a large-ish hole in it.

The house is full of cast iron pipe, and for those of you who don’t know it: cast iron pipes are right next to diamonds on the hardness scale. You just can’t cut the stuff.

Well the big hole is empty and so is the pipe. The blockage must be in the first-second floor section.

I’m now required to remove the sink and a section of wall in the first floor bathroom. Did I mention that it’s “raining” in this room?

With the wall open and the soil pipes exposed, I can tap on them and wouldn’t you know, one is hollow and our problem pipe sounds like a rock.

I break out a drill to drill a series of holes in the pipe. I’m thinking a 4×3 grid and then hammer should make a hand sized hole that could be fixed with a rubber sleeve.

After about 5 minutes of drilling hole #1 is made. Has anyone thought about the fact that there is 12 feet of “water and stuff” above this hole? I didn’t.

Picture in your mind a firehose attached to a septic tank. Lovely. I do manage to plug this up with my thumb while one of the girls gets me a bucket. I manage to drain it a half gallon at a time.

Pipe empty, 11 more holes and it hammer time. You get this:

I use a rubber glove, but the sharp edges make that pointless. Dig, dig, dig. I get the “stuff” out and feel something odd. At first I think it’s a plastic “tea cup” from one of the dolls. But, no… it feels like tin.

Very carefully I wiggle and pull, pull and wiggle and finally get the thing out. I’m stunned, shocked, I’m speechless (those of you who know me are amazed, I know). It’s a BEER CAN! and not just one of those 12oz ones it’s like 20oz or something!

I can’t believe it! (frat house)

Guess what? it’s still not draining. I have the twins fetch me the hose and we try to “hydro-power” the blockage out.

No go. it will slowly drain but it’s not right.

I send my oldest daughter to the basement to watch the hole I made there. More hose power and no clearing. I grab the pipe snake and jam it in there. About a minute of jabbing later there is a big noise and the pipe drains!!!

I holler down to see if the “stuff” came out the hole.

I heard this very puzzled response waft up to me:

“Yes, it came out… but there’s a can stuck in the hole…”

What?!? “A can, there’s a can sticking out of the pipe…”

So there you have it. Pipe Surprise.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been shocked, 40 years as a Fraternity House.

This summer I’m fixing the fireplace… I just hope I don’t find a “Pledge” in there!

Go hug your kids and teach them about not putting cans in the can!

Zack

ps. We’ve been using this “main” bathroom for over a year. Clarissa thinks the quake dislodged the cans. Go figure.