Wes Cutshall

I just finished reading the book Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion.

Before I give my review I want to share how I discovered this book, because it’s a lesson in marketing all on its own. I was watching a Jake and Amir video with a character that I had not seen before. The guy was energetic and polished and the skit was funny. I was curious who this guy was, but wasn’t going to spend any time Googling him. The next day, and this is where my memory fails me, I saw something about Gary Vaynerchuk and his new book “Crush It”. I realized that was the guy in the video, and now the whole skit conversation made sense. I watched the video again, and then saw a “related video” that was a video review of Gary’s book. I watched the review and he gave it a good rating. Later that day someone I know on Facebook said they just got done reading Crush It and that they really liked it and it was going to change how they did business. That was enough for me to order the book and see if there was anything in it that I could incorporate into my business. It was an interesting series of events that lead to me buying the book, which I would have to argue proves the point of some of the things Gary says in the book.

I’ll start my review by disclaiming that I’m definitely not the perfect market for this book. I didn’t purchase the book for the reason that the book was written. I have a successful business, I’m not trying to turn a passion of mine into a new venture, I’ve already done that. Having said that, I still felt that the book was rather weak when it comes to giving people help in starting their crushing new venture. Most of the book is spent convincing you that you can make money off of your passion, instead of telling you how you can do this. Even when Gary does talk about how, it’s mostly pretty vague.

So what did I like? Gary made some very good points about using social networking sites to expand your personal brand (or your business brand). His book discusses creating your personal brand, but it’s easy enough to see how you can extrapolate that into your business brand. Before reading the book I wasn’t really on board with using sites like Twitter to do anything. I knew people used it, it just wasn’t for me. I use Facebook but mostly just to see what other people are up to. I had read some tweets of poker pros during the 2009 WSOP and found that most of them used Twitter too poorly to be worth my time. But Gary’s point is that you can build your brand by engaging in conversations that are related to your passion. Not just by posting links to your site. If you sell flower arrangements you can have conversations online with people who love flowers. Through these conversations, and profile links back to your site, you can expand your brand and increase your coverage. You become someone who people recognize on forums, blog comments, and Twitter feeds. This did lead me to realize how Naming Force could use Twitter to update users (and anyone else watching) when naming assignments get upgraded to larger awards, and how this would be better than just emailing registered users. The social sharing aspect of sites like Twitter increases the power and value of your message. Now I can acquire new users on Naming Force because their friends are following us on Twitter, and they start following us on Twitter – and using the website.

The book also drove me to finally use this domain name for something. I always thought I could probably find some good topics to blog about, but the book showed me I had a reason to do so. You don’t have to answer the question, “Who cares what I have to say?” you just have to realize that you have things to say on topics that individuals are interested in. That in itself can lead to you expanding your personal brand, and your business brand(s).

In the course of developing my business I’ve had only a few things that I haven’t been able to do on my own. I encourage small business owners to do as much as they can by themselves to reduce costs. There is nothing hard or complicated about submitting a trademark application to the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Before I started my business I assumed that getting a trademark was both hard and complicated. I now have 5 trademarks for different websites and each one I submitted online without much work or knowledge. The process is pretty simple, you submit your name, choose the category for your trademark, enter some other details, and pay your fees. Sometimes, after submitting, you might be contacted by a law office working for the government that usually wants to clarify your classification. The classification is what your business will be using the trademark for, such as something like “personal computers and personal computer accessories.” Usually, at least in my experience, you just have to authorize them to change or update the categorization of your trademark. After the initial trademark submission you’re about 3 months away from getting your trademark registered. When you’re done you’ll get an official certificate for your trademark.

In some scenarios you might need a trademark in other countries. I’ve had two different experiences with this.

After I found someone in the UK using one of my trademarks in a domain name I decided to secure the trademark in that country in order to help me secure the domain name at a later date. Luckily the UK is part of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). In layman’s terms the WIPO allows you to extend a trademark from your home country into another country, without submitting a trademark in that country. So you do not have to set up a business in that country, or hire a firm in that country, in order to get a trademark in that country. This process was also done 100% online, and in the end I received the trademark and eventually acquired the domain name after the owner abandoned it (I had encouraging him to give up the domain, which he refused to do, but then he didn’t renew it).

A similar scenario came up with a domain name in Canada. With help from a legal team (this kind of stuff I do outsource – usually because I’ve failed on my own) I was able to convince the domain name owner to turn over the domain. After attempting to transfer the domain I discovered that Canada’s domain names (.ca extension) work quite differently than our own domains. In Canada you can only get a domain name if you own a business registered in Canada, or have a trademark in Canada for the words in the domain. Also, Canada requires that your either have a business with a physical address in Canada or hire a company with a physical address in Canada to be your agent in order to register a trademark. This sounded like a real pain, but in the end I was able to find a law firm to represent me, submit a trademark application for the word mark, then transfer the domain using the submitted trademark serial number in my registration. Receiving the official trademark was just a formality as I mostly wanted the domain name.

In the end it was all worth the effort and saved me thousands of dollars.

I just got some of my websites set up in Google Ad Manager and it’s pretty cool what you can do. Previously I had all of my ad networks running directly on the websites, simple cut and paste of the network’s code. If the ad block was Google AdSense, I had the ability to load alternate ads if Google couldn’t find ads for the keywords on the page. This increased the number of ads being run, but I didn’t have a lot of options for really maximizing my ad revenue. For example, one of the networks, Advertising.com (owned by AOL), only pays for impressions / clicks from U.S. visitors. Without subscribing to an IP geolocation database, which I’ve found to not be accurate – at least at the city level, I didn’t have a way (or reason) to limit ads to displaying to U.S. visitors only. So although I was registered with ad networks that allow me to monetize non-U.S. traffic (CPX Interactive), if my ad block is for a U.S.-only ad network I was showing ads to thousands of people a day who I cannot make money off of. With Google Ad Manager I have the ability to set certain ads, which can be ad network JavaScript code, to only show for certain geo-targeting settings, and when these values are not met other ads can show in the same ad slot. And in a reverse scenario of what I described earlier, if the goe-targeting settings (for example) restrict an ad network’s ad from showing for a user you can allow AdSense to show ads in its place.

The main purpose of Ad Manager is to allow you to accept direct ads from advertisers and run them on your websites, among your ad network ads. This too is a feature I want to take advantage of, but even without utilizing this (yet), using Ad Manager for managing your ad networks is a pretty awesome if you want to maximize your ad revenue.

A year ago this month I made the big jump. I had been working as a web application developer, and occasional graphic designer, for 11 years. I had written web-based applications for Conoco, Dupont, Shell, Texaco, Pennzoil, and Dow Chemical, among other lesser known companies. In 2004, after inspiration from Mark Cuban’s not very successful TV show, I developed my first website commodity. Mark asked the viewers, “Are you a dreamer, or a doer?” I was a dreamer, but wanted to be a doer. I had had many ideas in my life but never pursued any of them. Not too long before watching the show I had had an idea that was worth doing. The idea was FidoFinder.com, and to this day is my favorite and most well-known website. 4 years and 4 more websites (1 – 2 – 3 – 4) later, I was financially ready to stop working for someone else and be my own boss. Convincing my wife was another story.

The best advice I received was to discover what circumstances had to be present for my wife to be as comfortable as she possibly could be with me leaving the security of a full-time job. For her it was mostly financial, and we had to have a backup plan. She believed in me, but she didn’t trust that something couldn’t happen to disrupt the websites income. For all you poker players, she felt we were basically in a coin flip race. We’ve got pocket Queens and failure has Ace King.  It seemed like the longest 6-8 months that it took to let the business continue to build before we had met the self-inflicted requirements for us both to be comfortable with turning our backs from the hand that had fed us for many years. I was ready, but I know Leslie felt sick to her stomach when she thought about it, even if it was the “most” secure she was going to feel with the idea.

So one year later, and 2 more websites (1 – 2) in the portfolio, I’ve never second-guessed the decision. Of course, not having to get up at regular hours, drive in Houston traffic (an hour each way at just about every job I had), or meet deadlines makes the decision seem even smarter. Although there are things I miss about the job I left, in the end I don’t know anyone that would give up the work environment I have. So today I’m celebrating (roughly) a year or working for myself…and never looking back.