STERLING HERE:

We used to do our own writing, now we have a copywriter doing it for us. That was one of the first things we hired out!

1. How do I protect my business idea and still present what I want. I know getting a non-compete clause signed is one way.

2. How do I go about finding the right one. How do I know who’s the most qualified for the right dollar amount?

3. How do I know what price is best?

We’re definitely installing a forum for the upcoming membership site. We’re still thinking over whether there will be a free forum or not. There will be more details on that soon.

I guess I’ll just have to try it. I was led to believe that it was broken but I hadn’t actually tried it. Thanks again.

Do you guys plan to add a forum where I can ask the community questions like this? Currently I have to attach my questions to a blog post, so it’s not clear if or where I should post a question unrelated to one of your blog posts.

Or would you guys like to reserve the forum for people who sign up for your course?

We’re using the “Subscribe to Comments Plugin”, actually. Either there is a fix out there, or our designer did something to make it work.

Thanks for the list of plugins. That helps me a lot. What plugin are you using to subscribe people to the comment stream of a post when they add a new comment? I would like to use “Subscribe to Comments” but it is currently broken for WP 2.5

We use the latest version right now, 2.5.1.

Here are a few of the most important plugins we use:

AddThis: for social bookmarking
AllinOne SEO: for SEO
Top Commenters
Democracy: for the polls
Google SiteMaps

There are many others that we discuss on the course. Maybe I’ll do a blog post in the future to chat about some others.

hth ~megan

Thanks for doing such great work!

- Caleb

WordPress provides for all the following CMS features:

• Identification of all key users and their content management roles
• The ability to assign roles and responsibilities to different content categories or types.
• Allowing editors to check content before publishing
• Facilitate the publishing of content to the site
• Separation of the content from the layout. The content is in the database and the layout is separate from this in a template system

Here’s a helpful resource on CMSs.

http://www.opensourcecms.com/

I just did extensive research on CMSs to decide what to use on our membership site. In the end I decided that WordPress was the best choice for us.

WordPress can be used for far more than blogs.

We now know where we need to lead to next. One things for sure. Our webdesigner was decent but our programmer stunk it up. There is no continuity in our site.

So, we are ready for the next trial. The biggest thing is finding a CMS to license so that we can use it until we build our own later.

Any ideas?

Have you tried http://www.elance.com or http://www.rentacoder.com.

Concerning a CMS, I recommend trying WordPress. It’s free, flexible and I use it on all my sites now.

What type of business do you have?

I just went through a consulting firm called Eureka! Ranch and we’ve developed some great ideas for my business. It’s been a long hard road for 1.5 years trying to find out what it is my customers want.

I appreciate the Jott.com and mind mapping techniques to work when I’m driving and in situations I’m not at my computer or able to type on my blackberry.

Anyway, I’ve run through 3 web designers now and the most difficult thing I’m going through is finding a web designer that is on time, eager to help and provide details and suggestions with out putting me on retainer.

We’ve decided to fail fast and fail cheap with every new move we make.

I need a web designer and a person who owns a CMS that will license it out to me for providing simple websites to help generate usage to my business.

Does anybody have suggestions? Even Craigs List seemed give me some duds.

Another useful site for the colour-pickingly challenged is colorblender – http://www.colorblender.com – it’s very easy to use and like kuler you can save swatches of the colour schemes you create.

You’re 100% right. Our current site design was really only appropriate for the few weeks when we were launching fast and then seeing what happened with the show.

We are looooong overdue for a new site design. We’re as excited as you are!

We apologize to anyone who was affected by this. This is oddly out of character for Glazer/Kennedy. We had no reason to thing that this is what would occur. I mean, they do use renegade marketing techniques, but there are lines (if not with the FTC then ethically).

I also want to be clear that we made ZERO money for the recommendation.

All the same, I still stand by Dan Kennedy’s teachings as a whole and will continue to recommend his books and teachings. I plan to share many of the insights that I gleaned from The Phenomenon including a mind map in the near future.

I want to be clear that I in no way condone hidden continuity. This is a BAD way to market and make money. Continuity, when properly disclosed and opted in for, is a great business model as GK has done in the past with their newsletter.

I’m not sure why things were handled in this way in this case. I do know that a lot of different people were involved in The Phenomenon project and have heard that some things were not always handled as they should be. Perhaps this is one of them.

The new site design will have the same address. If you return hear on Thursday at Noon (Eastern time) the new site will be available.

@Wayne,

Wow! Kind words. We’re glad you like it so much. What made it the best episode ever for you? That might help us duplicate the experience again in the future :).

@Megan,

It is interesting to see the consumer response to the “forced continuity” method. You’re right, that Google search turned up some intriguing reading.

@Brian,

Thanks for the kind words. We recently had a blind man take our coaching course. As our community expands, we run into all kinds of people with different circumstances. Having a podcast as one of our primary channels, it’s no surprise that it appeals to the blind.

Please let us know if there are things that we can do better to provide accessibility for the blind.

@Mark,

A review of Ning and other services is a great idea. It is something we talk about more extensively in our coaching course. The biggest hold up I have with Ning is that I usually prefer to host things on my own servers where I have more control. Their are advantages, however, to using hosted services such as Ning (e.g. updates are automatically taken care of for you).

@Reggie,

Thanks for mentioning us on your site.

“Reggie”

Have either of you looked at http://www.ning.com for developing a online
community?

I look forward to a review.

Best,

Mark

Brian in Nashville TN

love your podcast tho, Megan

Wayne
Wayne’s Take on LOST podcast at http://waynestakeonlost.libsyn.com/