Daniel Watrous

Brush Your Teeth

I Love Chocolate. In fact, I like it so much that sometimes my will power will bend to the chocolate, rather than the other way around. But when I find my will power flagging, I have a sure fire way to stop myself.

All I have to do is brush my teeth. With clean teeth I don't even want to eat the candy anymore.

Today in an effort to stop myself from polishing off a bag of Dove Milk Chocolate eggs I went and brushed. While I was walking back to my desk I wondered if there was some way to "brush my teeth" to save myself from the other things that I do that I know I shouldn't. 

For example, I compulsively check my email. There's really no need, but I do it. For some people it might be facebook, news sites, T.V., texting, etc.

I wish there were some way to "brush my teetch" so that I didn't even want to check my email anymore.

So far the best option I've found is to use http://www.nestersoft.com/timeleft/ and work in fixed time chunks. What do you do to stay on task and away from the compulsive but trivial time wasters in your day?

Crowd sourcing logo design

I sent through the process of helping a client with a logo design and some of our communication could be generally applied to anyone using a service like 99designs.com to produce a logo or identity for their website. It can be difficult to achieve the quality that you want with some of the crowd sourcing sites, but there are absolutely some things you can do to improve your chances.

Learn how to crowd source your next logo or creative project

optincrusher customization webcast

Optincrusher-logo

I held a live webcast the other day where I installed optincrusher on several websites. If you're not familiar with optincrusher, it's the most effective way of getting visitors to your site to optin to your email list. If you want to build an email list in WordPress fast, this is the plugin for you. It gets attention without interrupting and provides high engagement for visitors that have interest in your offer.

The optincrusher customization webcast shows you how to use the included graphic files to create a completed customized and brand centered version of the footer that will engage your visitors while staying true to your identity.

It's currently running on no less than 13,645 web pages (possibly many more), and building email lists in WordPress for some very happy bloggers.

Authorize.net for WordPress

Authorize

Just a few months back I released my Authorize.net + WordPress plugin. While it's geared toward membership websites, people have purchased it as a standalone billing mechanism. It installs in minutes and provides blog owners with a reliable way to add a one page checkout that processes credit cards directly on their website. Here are some highlights.

  • Get more sales in fewer steps
  • Find the perfect offer with
    • Single (one-time) payments
    • Recurring payments (ongoing and fixed length)
    • Trail periods and amounts
    • Any combinations of single, recurring and trail payments
  • Increase trust and confidence by running SSL on your site, just like banks do (extra charges apply, but I’ll show you how to do this for as little as $15)
  • Get paid automatically
  • Freedom from PayPal, ClickBank and other processors rigid requirements
  • Effortless installation and configuration
  • Seamless integration with MemberWing
  • Customizable checkout and thank you pages
  • Stand alone use for other business needs independent of MemberWing
The plugin provides a great deal of flexibility allowing both single and recurring payments. The notification callback feature allows integration with membership websites and other API style uses. If you need to use Authorize.net on WordPress, it doesn't get much easier than this.

Running Shoe == Running Success

If one decade of running has taught me anything, it's that running shoes can make or break the habit.  I've posted a bunch on my blog at Maintain Fit about the importance of running shoes over the years, but I think that people still don't understand that running shoes should not be a budget purchase!

A former partner and I built a website dedicated to just this about a year ago.  When we split he kept the site and I was thrilled to hear that it's been super successful for him.  In fact he's been putting a lot of time in recently to not only review more shoes, but to make tools that would help people find the best price among a bunch of vendors when they were ready to buy.

If you're a runner (or want to be), do yourself a favor and make sure that you have running shoes that will help you succeed.

If you think this post is just a blatant commercial plug for my friend who still runs the site, you might be right.  I don't actually stand to benefit from it, but I have a permanently built in passion to help people succeed at fitness from the years that I worked on Maintain Fit.

Honestly, do yourself a favor and make a real habit of running.  You'll look good and feel good.

Where is your tribe?

Early this year Ed Dale suggested I read a couple of books, The War of Art and Tribes.

I just finished reading Tribes last week and I have a mixed review. Closer to the end of the book there were some really great insights and overall I formed some new opinions about leadership.  So I guess he did his job.

If you want to read my thoughts on the book, I've published the here: Where's your tribe?

I'd love to hear your comments on it.  By the way, I love Seth Godin's blog and put a link to it from that article too. There's a lot of clarity to be had in his writing.  Make sure you check it out (and subscribe to get updates from him).

Frank Kern's magic powers

So Frank Kern just posted on his blog about two super powers.  I won't give away the punch line, but if you've heard him speak in just about any venue in the last year then they won't surprise you one bit.

What might surprise you is that he uses a story about a Black orphan girl, daughter of slaves and widow at age 20 to convey his point.

It's spooky how well he gets his point across.  You can read it here.

Cloud hosting comparison

So many companies are moving into the cloud today, but there's still debate about exactly what that means. The big questions are
  • Is it fast?
  • Does it scale?
  • How much does it cost?
There are some easy answers and some not so easy answers.  It turns out that most people don't need to host in the cloud.  All you really need to know are a few of the secrets to choosing the right vendor and options.

I wrote this cloud hosting comparison to answer these questions.  Leave a comment if you still have questions.

The Illustrious WooThemes

Have a look at these themes to make your blog beautiful.

via Daniel Watrous by Daniel on 6/11/10

This post has been a long time coming. I guess I keep trying to think of some way to be clever about it. Well, all cleverness aside, WooThemes strengths are:

  • Beautiful and elegant design
  • Easy to use platform
  • Fast rendering
  • SEO friendly

That’s a lot when it comes right down to it. In fact, of all the themes I’ve used and recommended, more of my clients prefer WooThemes. They love the look and once they start using it they RAVE about how easy it is to use.

The biggest bummer about WooThemes is that in order to really experience their themes requires FOUR CLICKS once you get to their site. I put this short video together to cut some time off of the process for you.

Remember that the job of a theme is to appeal to the eye and help the user do more of whatever it is you want them to do when they get to your site. For that reason I love their categories. The magazine style themes have been great for my clients that want their visitors to click as many pages as possible.

Whatever your needs, I suspect that you’ll find a wootheme that will do the job handsomely.

Finally, on a rather geeky note, WooThemes is so innovative that the WordPress core software has recently adopted part of their platform which enables customizations to site navigation. It’s really a significant nod to the WooThemes developers and should indicate to you the level of quality and sophistication you get with WooThemes.

What are you waiting for, go and buy a wootheme for your blog now.