DAY #185 -- Launch: T-24 Days!

"I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature."

- John D. Rockefeller

UPDATE: Friday, 09-Dec-2005 10:40 AM

Just like that another Friday is upon us! I got a lot done over the week. However, there is a very sticky problem. The folks at AD*Watcher had send a lot of email and a lengthy discussion regarding the product prior to sale. However, AFTER the sale, I got ZILCH! After the sale I cannot ever get a hold of a programmer there in a timely manner. The installation has a problem, and it was passed off as "a problem with your server". A problem with a LINUX server that's up-to-date? Right.

Today all the problems will get resolved OR I will drop them like a brick and start over, perhaps, even do all this in-house.

UPDATE: Friday, 09-Dec-2005 1:35 PM

OR as I did all morning, was to search for a replacement. Then I used the program that I evaluated and it work great.

In hind site, I was facing the following problems with the Ad Watcher program and what I was trying to accomplish:
1> I was not sure what would happen IF the program "crashed" or the "server crashed" and the program stopped working. When there was a problem Thursday AM, I asked for support. Then the sales person looked into it and said "there's a problem" and I need to have a programmer 'higher up' look into it. All this has taken 48 hours, so far, and still no word on what happened or if it was resolved.

The problem is that 48 hours on the Internet is an ETERNITY! Secondly, in the future IF there is a problem for the end user, our Members, and the software is not working, then I may have 10,000 problems and waiting for a solution does not sit well. I am afraid to say that Ad Watcher's production/sales team made great efforts to sell the program and in my case the company made a sizeable purchase for a license. And it would have cost a LOT to keep using the program.

However, now I have another vendor who has a great product, that does the same services, and I am negotiating a discount, which they said they can do on their web site. The product is virtually the same with one exception --it resides on the users server.

This situation helps resolve several problems:
1. The first is what happens over a system wide outage of the server --in the new scenario, ALL the MEMBERS advertising will not be effected.

2. It costs less. Thus a different benefit can be offer to the Members. Perhaps, something like hosting.

3. Lastly, the Member is utilizing the software with our support --as much as we can provide. In the original scenario, I was not sure what the provider of the software was going to offer. The pre-sales chat was good, however, post-sales support was rather late. Too late to keep working.

All these are powerful reasons for me to re-evaluate exactly how we'll proceed and what software we'll use to make sure the Members are reaching their success.

Well, now I am awaiting the word from the sales department. So far no emails. I have to make a decision in the next hour, and I'll go from there.

Well, the sales person did get back to me, and he's what he had to say:

Dear Sam,

We have reviewed your account yesterday, but unfortunately were unable to find the root of the problem. We will continue investigating it today and hopefully get it up and running in no time. I sincerely apologize for the delays. As a courtesy, we will take off 10 off the next month's payment.

I wrote back that "hopefully" working software does not meet the demands of our Members, and please refund our monthly payment.

I will bet that the 'root of the problem' is in the application, or just that we were not important enough for someone to check it out. The call was for swift action and to get the refund processed.

JUST LIKE that THERE is a BETTER SOLUTION:

I did find a better solution, and more importantly, the programmers who have developed the software are much more open to improvements and enhancements that our Members are looking for.

So, when one door is closed, another door is open. And in business, when you are very careful and persistent you will find out that following a "failure" (I put that in quotes because there are no failures, except when a piece of equipment does not work) often another door open immediately or a little later that is if not the same, is FAR BETTER than even what you could have hoped for. Such is life.

So, you take that door and make sure that you make the very best of it.

NOW I HOPE THAT ISSUE is RESOLVED.

Let me move on to another item --the installation of two ad areas on this site. I added a button for the AffilateMINT site and the BiiG Directory that are suppose to join the network in the coming weeks. The Affiliate*MINT site will be tested next week, open to Members who are GOLD first, and then I'll release it to all the Members.

The button above is suppose to link to it, but I am awaiting the installation of the "ROI Tracking" software so that I can track to see how many are clicking it and what the sign up rate is from the button. I aim to do the same with the 'biig' button, but that will be adjusted when the site is completely functional.

Let me now proceed to why the tracking so important: Often we purchase adverting on sites, ezines, and various adverting channels. There is no guarantee on any of them that anyone will see or even respond to the advertising. What tracking software does is allow the user to see what is happening. What is getting clicked and where the user needs to allocate more capital.

This is essential to success -knowing where to spend the money and knowing the behavior of the customer. When that is known, the Member or the IR has improved the chances of success by many fold!

I have used several of these programs and they uncovered some good and some nasty surprises.

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