Wordless Wednesday:Early Bird

Early Bird: Australian Magpie © Des Walsh

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The One Dollar Trial a Gift that Keeps on Giving

You’ve seen those promotions, maybe you have signed up for one or more - $1 for a month’s trial of an online course or membership site? And no obligation to continue after the trial period. Sound good?

But how do people make money out of that sort of arrangement?

Well, anyone who has ever signed up for one of these deals will know, how you pay your dollar is that you give your credit card details. And once the trial period is up, unless you have remembered or been reminded that you are now about to enter a new phase, where you will be paying some multiple of a dollar - ten, twenty, thirty or more dollars a month - your credit card is now going to be debited for that amount.

But what if you were new to this sort of deal and not a suspicious type of person and had some idea that maybe someone would contact you close to the end of the trial period and ask you did you want to now pay a lot more money to continue?

If that was your view, you could well be in for a big surprise.That’s true too even if you knew how the system worked but had not put any arrangement in place to remind you to make a decision close enough to the end of the trial period not to unwittingly incur the next payment (and perhaps the next and the next).

Whatever your approach or understanding, the longer you left it before you checked your credit card statements, the bigger the surprise.

As the blogger known as TheAntiHype asks in his witty but fundamentally serious post on this subject, titled The Forced Continuity Credit Card Dance, if we are going to get into these low cost (or no cost) trials, we need to have a plan and a system in place:

Work out your business strategy. Decide what you need and only buy what you need to move your business on when you need it. 

Check carefully whether you’re signing up for a one-off payment or some regular recurring membership site. And above all - keep records of what you’ve done.

Good advice. Don’t fall into the trap of buying that “gift” of a dollar trial and then unwittingly allow that to transmute into a bigger gift from you back to the course or membership site promoter, a gift that if we are not careful can keep on giving.

As TheAntiHype suggests, we should heed the advice that the Sgt Phil Esterhaus character used to give to the officers about to go out onto the mean streets in the television classic, Hill Street Blues, “Hey, let’s be careful out there!”   

Surfing on a Monday

Catching up on a bloated reader has highlighted some new and some inspiring happenings around the blogosphere.

Liz Strauss is test driving One Big Planet, a new online world of ecommerce. Liz thinks this is a great find:

You’ll find it as part of your social network, and it will make the way you buy things online easier, faster, and more intelligent…..it leverages the power of the Internet, an intelligent algorithm, Web 2.0 and your personal preferences. read more…………. and Liz has seen it in action! You can tune in and take a test drive April 29th.

The Anti Hype, my colleague, aka Mark Wilson looks at How to find your voice as a blogger, something every blogger has to do. Mark asks: ” How do you stand out from the crowd? There are Who songs to illustrate this point.

Aaron Abber from FullTiltBlogging has a great feature on his blog, the daily blog summary. This saves me time, I can check out Fulltilt Blogging and find some good reads. Aaron is running a free mentoring program. This program started last week with a 2 hour online class - I was impressed. Yes I said free, and you have to do the homework. I have done the homework and have seen a couple of my readers and fellow forum members join too. I think that is exciting. I also am enjoying being accountable. There may still be a couple of places, check this page. Maybe see you on the inside?

On the Entrecard Front I see John Chow has 10,000 Entrecard Credits for one lucky EC member this week. has another contest running where there are prizes.

Then there is $7,000 Entrecard Party the Marcus Hochstadt’s Internet Business Guide. Both contests will be drawn on May 1st.

Photo of Surfing at Rainbow Bay © Suzie Cheel.

Why Small Business Works for America Video Contest

Here’s an interesting challenge. Make a 30 second video which answers the question “Why does small business work for America?” and you could be on your way with an all-expenses paid trip to Washington, D.C.

The prize includes participating in the 2008 National Small Business Summit, June 8-11, where, the organizers say “you can interact with business leaders, entrepreneurs and policymakers to share your experiences and find new ideas to boost your business”. Oh, and there’s a $5,000 cash award too. And staying at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C.

Sponsors of the Small Business Works for America Video Contest are the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) and eBay.

The selection process is: initial review, then entries posted on YouTube for you and others to rate them, then a selection of semi-finalists and an overall winner, by a panel of judges.

Criteria are:

Originality (50 percent)

Overall creativity (25 percent)

How well the video answers the “Why Does Small Business Work for America?” question (25 percent)

Guidelines include:

1. Exciting, passionate, fun, modern, smart, cool, adventurous and entrepreneurial.

2. Video can be in any style: live action, animated, etc.

3. Take risks. Be fresh.

The objective is that when people have watched your video they should be “intrigued enough to visit the NFIB site and find out more”.

To participate, you do not have to be a small business owner, but you do have to be a “legal resident” of the United States.

The Small Business Works for America Video Contest opened on April 1 and entries can be submitted till May 15, 2008.

Note: I have no involvement with NFIB or in the contest. The NFIB asked me to publicize the contest and it looked like something some people would want to know about. If you decide to participate and your video is selected to go on the contest YouTube site, please leave a comment here to let us know.