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Ask the Reader: Partial or Full Post in RSS Feed?

Recently, a number of people have been asking me for my opinion about how much of a post one should show in their RSS feed. On Feedburner (which I know has been on the fritz lately as far as numbers are concerned), you can choose to have either your entire post shown, or just a piece of it with a link to read more back on the site.

(To change your setting in Feedburner, login and click on the “Optimize” tab, and then click on “Summary Burner” at the bottom)

I have always shown the full post, but a number of people have made a good argument for only showing the beginning portion or a teaser.

On one hand, people subscribe to RSS feeds to conveniently read material off-site. So why would we want to make things inconvenient by having them come back to the blog to finish the post?

On the other hand, it’s evident that by showing the full RSS feed, we’re not maximizing the amount of traffic on our sites because the subscribers have all of the content they need off-site. Plus, don’t we want our readers to engage in the comment section and possibly click on other things on our site to stay on it as long as possible?

It’s a toss up, and I’m really interested in what you think.

Are you for a Full Post, or a Partial Post in the RSS feed? Which do you prefer, and why? Is there a “happy medium” you’d like to share?

31

The Podcast is Coming, and I Need Your Help, Please!

I’ve very excited to announce that the Smart Passive Income Podcast, the podcast that I’ve always wanted to start ever since 2008 when I first mentioned it on the blog, will go live very soon! I’m actually testing out a brand new mic and the sound quality is frikin’ awesome! I can’t wait to get on the mic for you.

Before I can begin crunching out killer shows and getting my podcast into iTunes, I need your help.

I would be so appreciative if you took less than 2 minutes to fill out an anonymous 3 question survey about the upcoming podcast. It will really help me fine-tune exactly what the show will be like, because really what matters most is what you want, not what I want.

Again, please help me out by clicking here and taking this very brief survey.

Thanks so much for your undying support, and just to give you a little bit of inspiration, here’s my desk setup with the mic stand up:

pats-podcasting-stuff …and yes, that is a floating bookshelf.

Cheers everyone! Thanks again!

Link to Survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6NDSMHQ

50

A Fatal Attraction For Blogs and Businesses

It’s in our nature to always look at what’s not working, first.

Take for example, the report card shown below. What stands out to you?

report-card1 Probably that “F”, right?

If this was your report card, even with 7 “A+” marks, you probably wouldn’t be able to get your mind off of that “F”. Of course, an “F” is a failing grade, so there’s definitely a reason to be concerned.

Now, let’s see an example of a report card that is nearly perfect and see how we feel about it:

report-card3

If your son or daughter gave you this report card, you’d probably be very, very proud. However, can you not help looking at that “B+” and wonder what happened?

Again, we are attracted to what is wrong.

This is why bad news grabs our attention more than good news. It’s why missing a slam dunk is more often a big deal than making one. It’s why some ideas die, businesses fail, blogs get abandoned and why we’re so infatuated with trying to fix what is wrong, instead of first trying to understand what’s behind the things that are working for us.

So the next time you’re looking to really improve your business, blog, or whatever you do online, don’t dive right into what’s wrong. First look at what’s going well and try to understand why. You’ll be surprised to find that often the solution for what you’re trying to improve may very well be behind something that’s going well in your business already.

I can’t take credit for the little report card demo. This was a variation on something I learned in the book Switch, which I’ve been raving about lately. If you’re looking for something to read, I definitely recommend it.

Here’s to a great weekend! Cheers!

89

How Would You Like 5 Million Dollars?

5-million-dollars Here’s the scenario:

You have a business idea that you could build up and sell in 3 years for $5 million – guaranteed. However, during those 3 years, you will be required to work an average of 75-80 hours a week.

Would you do it? Why or Why not?

I had asked this question to my fans yesterday on my Facebook Page, and the response was incredible. Within a few hours, over 25 people responded with various reasons why they would or wouldn’t go through with it. All had very valid, but different reasons.

What’s the purpose of this exercise?

The purpose of this thought exercise is to get you to really think about what’s important in your life. Thinking about this may put things into perspective as far as the lifestyle that you live now, the lifestyle you’d live while working 80 hours a week, and the lifestyle you’d have after you sold your business 3 years later. What’s important to you? It may have an effect on what you end up doing now.

Please assume that the $5 million is totally guaranteed (don’t ask me how, it just is. This is a hypothetical thought exercise people!), and you must do all of the work yourself (i.e., you can’t outsource any part of it).

Finally, I still have a few new versions of The 4-Hour Workweek to give away. I’ll select one random commenter (I’ll email the winner on Friday, 1/29) to send it to free of charge, so long as you answer the entire question:

Would you do it? Why or Why not?

signature

101

Help Me Name My eBook and I’ll Send You The (NEW!) 4-Hour Workweek!

When I heard that Tim Ferriss was releasing an expanded and updated version of The 4-Hour Workweek (with 100 pages of new, cutting-edge content), I was super stoked. The original was one of the most inspirational books I’ve ever read, and I’d like to partly credit my lifestyle as it is now to Tim and the words in his book. So, I pre-ordered a copy of the new one.

Oh, and I also pre-ordered 9 other copies for all of you!

All 10 books were delivered to my front door this morning, and I’m so excited to announce that from now until after the new year, I’ll be giving away 9 copies of The 4-Hour Workweek for free! I’ll be giving them away here on the blog, to my fans on my Facebook Page, and I also have a special giveaway that is only for those of you who have subscribed to the RSS Feed, so make sure you subscribe to get more details about that later.

See, even Gizmo enjoys Tim Ferriss…

4-hour-work-week

Before we get to any giveaways, I need your help… Click to continue…

12

Do You Pass the Test? An Online Entrepreneur Mindset Exercise

online-entrepreneur-test Imagine you’re in this scenario:

You have an online business as a graphic designer coach, which means you teach other graphic designers how to make money with their talent. You have a coaching program that has videos and tutorials about how to contact potential clients and really expand their own freelance graphic design business.

To promote your $497 coaching program, you decide to hold a free webinar where you’ll be giving a short presentation and then pitching your course to whoever is watching. 300 people come online to watch your presentation. At the end of your extremely helpful and convincing webinar, you tell your audience about your coaching program, why it will sky-rocket their graphic design business, and where to get it. You also tell them that if they have any questions, to shoot you an email. You go to bed with dreams of seeing an inbox full of transactions in the morning.

You wake up to see that you have 75 unread messages in your inbox! Payday baby! But wait…

You open your inbox to see that you’ve only sold 4 programs, and the other 71 messages are questions from the webinar. 71 emails that you have to go through, some of which are a bit lengthy.

At this moment, how you would feel?

Go ahead, really think about it for a second… Click to continue…

10

A Reader Asks: “Why Can’t I Make Good Money Online?”

Yesterday, I received an email in my inbox from an SPI reader asking for some help. He said it was cool if I posted our conversation on the blog for others to read, but he wanted to remain anonymous for some reason. I respect his request, so for this post – let’s just call him Joe.

(I’ve condensed and edited the conversation below to get the point across)

Joe: Pat, I need some help. I’ve been a blogger for a couple of years now. I’m a fantastic writer and I believe I have premium content on my blog, but for some reason I’m only making a few dollars a month from my advertisements. I see that just your Adsense Advertisements alone on your monthly reports pull in upwards of $2000 and more. What am I doing wrong? Why Can’t I Make Good Money Online? Any advice? Please be honest. I want to succeed. Click to continue…

11

What Would Happen if Google Shut Down? Would TSHTF?

Here’s the story:

I remember back when I was in middle school, my dad would sometimes come home from work and talk about how he “Googled” something. I had no idea what he meant, so I looked up “Googol” in the dictionary (from the bookshelf in my room) and found that my Dad was doing something related to “The number 1 followed by 100 zeros.” I still didn’t know what he meant. This was before Google really became what we know Google to be today. Click to continue…

6

6 Months of Passive Income Polls From You – The Results

Each month since the beginning of The Smart Passive Income Blog, I’ve put a different poll in the sidebar. I’m sure many of you repeat visitors know this, and I thank you all for your quick input. There’s a new poll in the sidebar, so feel free to answer that if you have a few seconds to spare.

Today I’m showing you the results of all of the previous polls on SPI. Here are 6 pie charts with information about all of you. Please know that these are just from readers of my blog and the sample size for each poll is an average of about 130 people.

Comments are welcome. Enjoy! Click to continue…

20

So What Projects Are You Working On?

istock_000006031387xsmall Today I made a list. It’s a list of things I’m currently working on and projects that I could potentially work on in the future to earn more money. As you know, I have my LEED exam prep website, my iPhone app company, the Smart Passive Income Blog, and 5 other things that I’ve mapped out and have actually done some research on how much I would have to invest to execute them. I have 8 things on my plate that could potentially help me get to retirement sooner.

It’s tough to think about all 8 “projects” at the same time – I think that’s the problem I’ve had ever since middle school when we were first introduced to attending more than one class per day. I knew I had homework for Math, Science, English and Band, so I had difficultly choosing which one to work on and when. Yes, I would get everything done, but not one at a time. Usually, it was by working little by little on each. Click to continue…

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