A Tale of 2 WAHMs

While talk of goal setting on any business blog is usually at the first of the year, we never like to be the same as everyone else. Also, I believe any time of year is good for setting new goals. Why wait?

If you’ve been keeping track on this blog, you’ll know I’ve officially switched my occupation to “Fiction Author”. But just because what I do with my time has completely changed, doesn’t mean I don’t do similar tasks. This week I learned that I too need goals to keep me moving forward.

Always sitting open on my computer is my current novel-in-progress. But it’s not just a goal to finish. It’s a long term goal, and something I won’t be done with for a long time. You could compare it to the content sites I’ve done in the past - something that’s great for long term income, but not so great for short term. So I let it sit for the most part, adding to it and revising for only a short time every day.

More important right now (least I want to become a “starving artist”) are my short stories. I realized today if I want to sell that novel to an agent once it’s done, I’m going to need some small published works. Sure it’s not required, but it looks a lot better on my part. Gives my talents a bit of an edge, assuring the agent I must be half way decent if I’ve already been published. One foot in the door, you could say.

So the short stories are where the daily goals come in. I’ve quickly discovered I can crank out a 1,000 word story in a matter of an hour or two. Revising of course takes a bit extra time, but the first draft comes easy. So I write, every day. Sometimes 2 or 3 stories, sometimes just one. But at least I get something finished daily. Some of them go to contests at a writer’s community (no monetary prizes, but good practice, feedback, and recognition). A select few get revised, rewritten, and sent to various publication that actually pay.

Which is where another daily goal comes in - submission. If I’m actually going to be published, I need to submit the stories. I’ve decided I would alternate between contests and publications, so I’m beefing up my portfolio of accomplishments. That, and of course, there’s the chance I’d get nothing from the contest (or a whole lot of cash - I’ve seen them $1,000 and up) while the publications pay a smaller, set amount.

Today I submitted a story to one publisher, and a query to another magazine (for those who don’t know, a query is simply an overview of what you want to send, which you then wait for them to reject or request the story - works the same for publishers and agents). I also wrote a new short story, which happened to win a daily prompt contest (not bad for something I wrote in about an hour and a half), and am starting to work on another.

The point here is, regardless of what your business is (and yes, writing is a business!), there are certain things we all must do: Set goals, take constant steps to meet those goals, and of course, never stop learning.

Some might see my now past profession of SEO as a “waste of time”, since I’ve decided to start completely over with my career choice. I’ve never been one to think anything we do with our time is ever a waste. At some point, we’re glad we did it, even if we don’t think it useful at the time.

Today I thought about how I fought so hard with making my largest site valid with W3C. Codes needed to be tweeked, new website language learned, and page layouts rearranged. When I ran the check on the first page, I had hundreds of errors. I thought I would NEVER get them all fixed, but some how I did. Hours and hours later, it was all fixed. Every page after that was easier, since I was getting the hang of what the validator wanted out of me.
What I realized is I’m now doing the same exact thing with writing. Instead of “validating” my stories though, I’m running them through grammar checks. It’s the same concept really. The only difference is instead of lines of codes I’m working with sentences. Is one harder than the other? Well, I’m not sure. You would think words would be easier because they are in a language we know, but sometimes they can be much more difficult.

Regardless, what I’ve fought with in the past did benefit me in many ways. Not only have I fixed the site so it brings me a residual income while I work on writing, but it’s also set me up to handle tasks like grammar check and making things “work”. I know as I go on my writing will get better, just as my SEO rankings did.

Of course, we can’t forget that my current knowledge of SEO and websites is going to help tremendously should I ever want to create a website as an author. I know how to write for the web (which is different than “book” writing), know quite a bit about marketing online, and can put up a SEO-friendly website in a matter of hours. That puts me at an advantage online for sure.

The point of this post is to never stop learning, and nothing we learn is a waste of time. You never know when tasks you do today will come into play in the future.

No, this is not a late April Fool’s joke (unlike the time we said Mommy’s Helper was for sale….tee hee). After 3 years and a whole lot of work, we’ve decided it’s time to sell DirectSalesHelpers.com. Not just the site either, but the entire business. We’ve decided to go in different directions online, so we’re giving someone else the chance to run the site.

With the sale of the site you’ll get:

- Domain name “DirectSalesHelpers.com” and also “DirectSalesSuccessKit.com”

- All pages and content you see on site

- 800+ Subscription list (double-opt in subscribers, newsletter is weekly)

- 80+ Direct sales Articles

- Exclusive rights to the following books and ebooks:
*Direct Sales Success Kit (digital and book - value $29.95)
*Team Training Articles (digital - value $9.99)
*Online Party Success (digital - value $9.99)
*Number Crunching Make Easy (digital - value $14.95)
*Offline Event Kit (digital - value $9.95)
(Book and ebooks do NOT have resell rights on them. They have not been previously sold for resell, only sold at retail)

- Free Ebooks:
*ABC’s of Marketing
*Choosing Your Business

- Free Viral Mini Courses:
*Money Saving Mini Series (119 subscribers)
*Reinvesting Into Your Business Mini Series (67 subscribers)

- Affiliate program in place through PayDotCom.com:
*(http://www.directsaleshelpers.com/affiliate.html)
*Direct Sales Success Kit - 27 affiliates promoting
*Online Part Success - 9 affiliates promoting
*Number Crunching Made Easy - 5 affiliates promoting
*Make More Sales with Offline Events - 5 affiliates promoting
*Direct Sales Success (in print) - 10 affiliates promoting

- 2 Affiliate Centers:
*http://www.directsaleshelpers.com/affiliate-center.html
*http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/dsh-affiliates/
(Many text and graphic creatives for affiliates as well as the ecourses are set up for the affiliates to give away.)

———————————–
Income Information:
———————————–
2005  - $1900 (from April)
2006 - $1950
2007 - $3300
2008 - $550 (January - June)

$2500/year average

Sources:
- Weekly newsletter with general Direct Sales article and small link to product pages
- Special announcements on sales and discounts, plus new products
- General traffic

General Information:
- Site has no ads at all, and has no “featured” spots for sale of any kind.
- All income is from sales of ebooks and books
- Largest income source from announcements to the list (included in sale of site)
- Best income around Christmas with discounts on book and ebooks

—————————————
Visitors:
—————————————
July 2008 - 1328 unique visitors
Over 40 visitors a day average

*Visitors from Newsletter and Article Traffic, plus referrals. Very few (less than 10%) from network marketing. We do very, very little network marketing for this site.

—————————————-
Newsletter List
—————————————-
- Currently 866 confirmed subscriptions (as of August 2008)
- 62 confirmed subscription in July 2008
- Averages 2-3 new subscribers per day
- Average CTR of Sales Announcements: 10-20%
- Double opt-in subscribers through Aweber
- List was purged and moved in February 2007

—————————————–
Marketing & Other Stats
—————————————–
- Around 80 different articles (included in sale) submitted on various article directories, each with links to the newsletter page.
- Over 9,000 incoming links according to Yahoo!
- 40 Pages indexed in Google
- Google PageRank 3
- Domain Age over 3 years old (Established 2/3/05)
- Website opened in April 2005

—————————

The offer price is $25,000.

Sound like something you might be interested in? If interested, you can email us at contact @ directsaleshelpers.com.

Oh yeah - real dangerous for me, lol!  I’m thinking maybe I need to start building sites solely for the purpose of selling them.

I’m almost ashamed to say I didn’t know how to set up a wordpress blog.  I honestly can’t say I didn’t know how but more like I had never given it a try.  I was too busy thinking it would be too “techy” for me.  I always thought it would be much harder than what it actually is.  (See what I get for doing something like thinking?)  So, I always had a business partner install one for me or hire someone else.

Do you have the problem of not knowing how to install wordpress? (Or was I the only one left? lol!)

Anyway, thanks to some mentoring from a friend and business partner of mine, Val Selby of WorkingWahm.com  I installed my first WP blog!  That girl so needs to be an online business mentor!

It’s actually not going to be used as a blog this time though but rather as a content manager for a website.  I was already well-aware as to how much simpler using a blog template to manage a  website was but boy oh boy … WP blogs are about the coolest tool ever to build a website, isn’t it?  I can honestly say they rock!

Wordpress really makes building a website so much easier.

I’m not quite ready to show off this site just yet because there’s too much that needs changed and I’m testing things which means creating a bunch of posts and pages just to delete them, lol.  As soon as it’s ready to go, I’ll be sure to share.

The reason this is so dangerous for me though is because I love building websites - too much - and knowing how to install WP just made that task so much easier.  The last thing I need to be doing is building sites every other day … good reason to start building just to sell them

Okay Anik Singal of AffiliateClassroom has made me one very happy person, lol!

If you personally ask me, I’d have to say the man is a genious!  Anik has managed to take two of my favorite forms of marketing - affiliate marketing and article marketing - and mashed them together to create an absolutely knock-out article directory.  (Not that you could tell by my past few articles about affiliate marketing are two of my favorite subjects, lol!)

First of all yes - just like the subject line says - this article directory pays you to submit your articles so others can pick them up and publish them.  Now am I the only one who thinks that’s just the coolest thing?  (Come on … I know I’m not the only internet marketing geek out there, lol!)

So the name of this new directory is AffSphere.com.  There’s two really cool (must-see) videos on the site that explains it all but I did want to share a few of my own thoughts with you before you head over to watch them. 

Honestly - I couldn’t wait for the videos to get finished so I could sign up.  I’ve already submitted three of my most recent articles and since it’s 1:00 AM right now, I’m sure you can guess what I’ll be doing first thing tomorrow.  Yep, I’ll be pulling out all of my other articles and submitting those as well.  Of course, the more articles you submit, the more cash you can earn.  (Ooh, I so like the idea of this, lol!)  This is definitely not your typical article directory.

It’s very affiliate friendly, has 8 different ways for you to earn (watch the video for more details), and the articles are reviewed by humans.  I personally prefer to wait a little longer to have my articles reviewed by humans - this way I’m guaranteed this is a quality directory with quality content.

With this directory you not only drive traffic to your website but it also allows you to share in their traffic by hosting your own adsense and banners directly on the site.  You even earn a share of the adsense income made on any of your article pages.

By joining, you automatically become an Affsphere which means that any time someone joins AffSphere from any of your article pages, they’re automatically added to your downline.  You will then get credit for all the submission activity they do - five levels deep.  Plus, AffSphere will be offering courses in the future and you will earn a commission if anyone in your direct downline purchases one (lifetime commissions!)

Those are just a few reasons to submit as many articles as you can.  (And have I mentioned this is all f*ree to join?)

Oh and I am absolutely amazed as to how many cateogries there are to choose from so you can find the best category for your articles.  I’ll be honest with you - I get so tired of having to “settle” on a category just because it was as close as I could get to the category that I would prefer it to be under just because the directory doesn’t offer enough categories.  I really don’t think I’ll have that problem with this directory.

Well I really could go on and on but like I said, it’s one o’clock in the morning here (after that now, lol) and I would like to head to bed - besides - I don’t want to risk the chance of this sounding like a bunch of hype (which is exactly what I end up doing when I get really excited about something, lol!).  I think this was an awesome idea and I’m thrilled to be a part of it.

Not to mention, the videos on the site do an excellent job describing exactly how everything works - I might as well let them tell the story.

I’m gonna go to bed - you head on over to AffSphere, watch the video (click the banner at the top of the page) and then sign up.  It’s free and you’re submitting articles to directories anyway (aren’t you?) So, why not make some additional cash with them too!  So, you’re gonna sign up, right? 

(And you’re going to let me know you think this is just as cool as I do.  Don’t be afraid - admit you’re an internet marketing geek who likes to make m0ney too!)

So what are you waiting for?  Head on over to AffSphere and grab your f*ree account now.  I just know you’ll like it!

Each affiliate manager service has their own set of services to offer but the general consensus is this: Someone who handles every aspect of your affiliate program. An affiliate manager can help you free your time to concentrate on other important aspects of your business such as product purchasing or creation, customer service, shipping as well as everything else needed done in order to run a successful business.

As I’ve said, each service has their own list of services that they offer but some things that one can do is affiliate recruiting (building you an entire sales force), motivate your affiliates to be more active, participate in training and consulting both the affiliate owner and your affiliates in order to create a knock-out affiliate program.

Depending on the manager that you choose, this person may install and set up your program as well as create a “one stop shop” for your affiliates to obtain everything they need in order to be a more successful affiliate.

The aspects of an affiliate program that most managers handle are crucial to your program. How well your affiliates and your program are taken care of could make or break your program. Dare I repeat myself? Crucial.

If you don’t take care of your program and your affiliates … your competition will. Long gone are the days that you simply set up a program, offer some links and asking some friends to promote your products.

With all the new software available making it much more simple, everybody and their brother has an affiliate program now. It’s become more of a competition to gather affiliates.

And let me tell you … affiliates are well aware of this. They now know they can search for the best programs available. They’re looking for not just the best commission plan … they’re looking for the programs with the best conversions. Best conversions come from who affiliates that are properly trained and armed with the proper material to get the job done.

Managing a successful program has become a full time job all in it’s own. Hence the creation of the affiliate manager position.

————————————
Anita DeFrank & Val Selby of YourAffiliateManagers.com offer a full service solution to assist you in building and/or managing a successful affiliate program. Their goal is to recruit, motivate and communicate with you and your affiliates … meeting the needs of both the affiliates and the merchant … and bridging the gap between the two. Visit www.YourAffiliateManagers.com to obtain overall, maximum success with your affiliate program.

At one point I would have told you I didn’t care to write but did it anyway. Go back a few more years and I would have told you I despised writing.

I figured out what my problem was. My confidence level just wasn’t there. It’s amazing what a kind word from just one person can do.

While helping my inlaws get a cabinetry company off the ground, we created our own catalog. While we were creating it, I took on the job of doing a lot the writing - just because I was the only one who had any experience at all.

One look by my in laws and their jaws literally dropped - yes, literally. They had an idea of what I did online but never got into the details. They were just amazed out how nicely the wording came out (and I was too to be honest with you, lol)

Anyway they were just so shocked and had no idea I could write that they just fell all over themselves bragging it up - showed it off to all of our dealers and sales reps - just really made a big deal about it.

Ever since then - my writing has improved dramatically. For example, I recently built and launched a brand new website. I had a rough start - which turned out to be that I simply needed a break - but then eventually the words just came flowing out onto the pages!

It’s amazing what a few kind words and making someone who you respect and admire “proud” will do to your confidence. And when your confidence level is up - your work actually improves too!

It just goes to show that you MUST have confidence in yourself to do a good job and convince others that you do a good job as well! 

It’s been a long time coming - too long. 

With my husband and I both getting laid off - it gave me just the fight and the push I needed to kick my online career in to high gear.  I was comfortable before.  I didn’t have to fight so hard.  Things were moving smoothly enough for me online and I had my regular pay check from my part-time job.  Things were fine. 

Then the company we worked for started going down hill and all hell broke loose.

It’s been pretty hard for a while and it’s probably going to be tough for a little while longer.  But that’s okay.  I’m kind of glad it happened. 

Like I said, it gave me the push I needed to move up a notch in my online career and we’ve decided that it’s probably a good idea of I stay home full time again - something I’ve missed terribly. 

It even gave my husband a  little push as well.  He’s finally going to start his own business that he’s wanted to do for so very long. 

So you see … it’s true what they say … when life hands you lemons … make lemonade.

But what’s almost finished?  Oh yeah … the rambler got rambling yet again. 

My new service - or actually, I should say OUR new service.   A good friend of mine, Val Selby and I are starting yet another business venture together. 

We’ve been friends for quite some time now and already have been working together on other projects.  For example, she’s one of my two head moderators of MommysHelperCommunity.com (the other being another good friend of mine who can’t go unmentioned, Lauren Haugh) and the three of us own MyWahmSpace.com.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before but Val and I are going to be affiliate managers  We’re going to be helping affiliate program owners start and/or run successful affiliate programs.  I am so excited about this turn in my online career. 

And the funny thing is … I’ve never considered what I do a career until we started this.  There’s nothing more rewarding than not only calling it your career but knowing that’s exactly what it is.  More importantly - it’s not just a “j.o.b.” — it really is my career.

One of the things that has me excited the most is the fact that I’ve already taken on 3 clients and we haven’t even launched the site yet.  These clients were picked up by mere chatter of what we were doing.  One had even gone as far as to say: 

I have to say that you picked a great market.  Affiliate Managers are in high demand now.

And while I was aware of that thanks to the research I conducted … it sure was nice to hear this from someone else!

Then she went on to say:

My program is up and running (over 120 affiliates) and they are doing well but  there are a few things I need that I just dont feel like doing. (smile).

Which is a very common plea that we’ve heard over and over again.  Between that and the fact that a small business owner wears so many hats that it’s difficult to find the time to slip on that affiliate manager hat.

The two of us have joined our skills and dished out the work to the one who does best in each aspect of the business - making it so much more enjoyable for us. 

It’s also come to my own attention that this is truly something I was born to do!  Now I think - duh - why haven’t I been doing this forever?  But then again, I wouldn’t have the knowledge on how to run a successful affiliate program that I’ve gained over the years.

And another thing I  found out from my research is that we’re able to do this affordably.  I was blown away at what the average Affiliate Manager charges!  There’s no way your typical small business owner or work at home mom could afford not alone justify paying the prices some were charging.

So, sticking to my true blue work at home mom colors - we’ve kept our pricing very affordable so that those who are serious but don’t have money coming out their ears can still aford us.

So stay tuned as I’ll be announcing the official launch very soon.  I completed most of the site already, just wating for Val to finish up a little bit of her part and we’ll be ready to go. 

But be sure to keep a close look-out because it could be any day now … and we’ll be offering special introductory pricing to a limited number of clients.  If you get in on the introductory pricing … you will keep that pricing no matter how long … as long as you stay a client.

And while I have affiliate marketing on the brain … be prepared and expect to be getting some affiliate marketing training here on the blog in the next few days!

All the talk about being accused of spam and if you don’t know any better … you just might be thinking … oh well, right?

The thing is … spam is a lot more serious these days than people really think it is.

Just to give you an idea … here’s an excerpt from my (hopefully) soon to be released ebook Producing Newsletters That Get Results

What Could Happen

Getting accused of spam could harm your relationship with your ISP (Internet Service Provider). The last thing you want is to have your internet connection interrupted as a result of a spam complaint.

Web hosting companies and law enforcements have cracked down on spamming - big time. Hosting companies simply do not tolerate it anymore. If you have your own hosting and you’re accused of spamming you very well could loose your hosting account. This of course depends on whether or not the accuser can prove it. This is a very simple task. All they have to do is pass the entire email onto your hosting company.

The FTC also has a page on their website that shows people exactly how to submit spam to them - again very simple. Simply forward the offending email to spam@uce.gov The FTC takes all the emails forwarded this address, sticks them in a database and uses them to pursue law enforcement actions against the person who sent it. For more information, feel free to visit the FTC Spam Home Page.

And I know this because I have reported spammers in the past.

To answer your question no, I don’t take spam lightly. I don’t have the time to deal with it. A simple forwarding and I’ve done my share to help stop the spam.

But you don’t have to take my word for it …

Here’s a quick overview according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) of provisions in place:

- - You cannot use false or misleading header information.
This must be accurate and identify you or who you are affiliated with.

- - You cannot use deceptive subject lines.
You cannot use one subject line to encourage someone to open the email and have the contents of the email say something different.

- - You must offer an opt-out method.
This is so that the receiver can choose to not receive any other mail from you. There is a misconception about this law that says this is for mailing lists only. By law, this is not so. This includes any commercial emailing at all. This includes business opportunities.

- - The email must be identified as an advertisement and you must include a physical postal address.
You must let it be known that you are sending out a solicitation email which is an advertisement. You also must include your postal address along with opt-out instructions.

As I said, that is only a brief overview …

Be sure to read the entire CAN-SPAM Act before sending out your next email.

I mean no offense here but … even if we’re considered friends doesn’t give you the right to bombard me with links to your website or telling me about your newest business venture.  If every friend did that to me, I’d have an email box full of spam from just friends.  Heck, I don’t even send my own mother links to my newest website!

And remember … Ignorance is NOT an excuse! Familiarize yourself with all the laws and abide by them with every single mailing you send out.

And if all that doesn’t bother you … maybe this will …
Each Violation is subject to fines up to $11,000.00

Spam sucks - just don’t do it - it ain’t worth it!

Internet Marketing!!!

I couldn’t believe it!

Okay, I don’t know if anyone else feels the way I do but I know NOONE who knows anything about online marketing, internet marketing, online sales, yadda, yadda, yadda … none of it.

I used to get a little excited if I heard of someone who had a paypal account but everybody and their brother has at least bought something from Ebay and they’re all pretty familiar with Paypal. Heck, my MIL even got a Paypal account a few years ago, lol.

We have a Sunday school that sits in front of our house - actually the yards connect. So, there’s a lot of what we call our “neighbors” who are in and out of there on a regular basis. But our “neighbor” spans probably about 5 or 6 miles, lol! (Everybody here goes to this Sunday School except for us - we were members of another church before we moved here.)

Anyway, hubby was out in the yard trying to once again get our pool “un-green” and someone was at the Sunday School. He come over and was talking with him about this new system they put in that requires no chemicals and all that stuff. He said he had tons of stuff at home that he no longer uses and wanted to give it to us.

So eventually they started chit chatting (you know, the thing “guys” don’t do but do it for hours …) Anyway, they start talking about what they do for a living yadda, yadda, yadda … and this gentleman says he and his wife just started their own home based business  online. 

(They sell Shaklee - which is pronounced with a short “A” not a long “A” like I thought, rofl!)

My husband gives the normal response as in yeah, my wife does something online. She works with work at home moms … lol. He really doesn’t have a clue. (Although, he’s getting a real lesson in affiliate marketing lately, lol!)

In the meantime I come home from the grocery store and they call me over. Next thing I know, we’re sitting across from each other talking about internet marketing and John Reese, auto-responders and lead generators and websites .. and Oh my gosh I was so excited!! (How pathetic is that? LOL!)

Turns out - unfortunately he’s “fallen” for quite a few “newbie mistakes” and has lost a good bit of money. He’s only been in business for about 5 months now but has lost a good bit of money with almost nothing in return.

He ended up getting signed up to a company that gives him something like 40,000 leads a month for something like $70 a month. Ouch! Then he paid for an automated process that sends out his message automatically to these 40,000 leads. (No offense to him - especially if he reads this - I invited him and his wife over, lol) but we wonder where all this spam comes from? From these companies that sell this crap to poor suspecting newbies that just want to build their business - that’s where!!

I mean really - where does this company get 40,000 leads a MONTH!?? And they have how many customers? How many other people are they sending these same leads out to?

Did you ever get a rush of the same spam message from three different people at one time? Yep - there ya go!

He’s been sending out these messages for five months now. Yes it takes time for a business to grow but what kind of leads are these that he can send out 40,000 messages a month to supposed “leads” and not get a single visit to his website from it? That’s 200,000 supposed people who should be interested in getting something like this AND nothing? Not even one visit???

I was so excited to share my knowledge with him … mainly to help but also because I’m excited to share something with someone offline - kind of to show “what I’ve accomplished” and “what I know”. Know what I mean? If I show any of my friends or family any ebooks I’ve written or websites that I’ve built. Sure, they’re nice and say ‘hey, that’s great’ but they don’t really “get it”. Ya know?

So in return for the chemicals, I gave him a couple of my ebooks to help get him started plus threw out a few tips. (Okay - a lot of tips.) I overwhelmed him a bit a couple of times, lol! But he’ll get it - just needs to take it one step at a time. I keep telling him - if I can learn it, anyone can.

But I couldn’t allow him to continue to waste his precious money on this stuff! So, I had to share some of the RIGHT and EFFECTIVE way to build his online business. And of course - since it was perfect for where he and his wife are, I had to give him a copy of Kickstart Your Online Business which will give him a really quick boost without overwhelming him too much.

It actually worked out to be a good thing for the two of us. This morning he was so surprised at all the information I had given him about building a website that he replied with a “hope you’re keeping a tab because I know mentors aren’t cheap!” Oops - guess that IS what I’m doing, isn’t it? I AM being a mentor! lol!

I’ve been a mentor to many people over the years - especially here but don’t usually get paid for it. Although, I have made a few bucks here and there because they usually end up buying some advertising from me or some of the things that I recommended were using an affiliate link to it wasn’t all for free (but certainly no where what a mentor gets paid, lol!)

Anyway … back to whats being good for the two of us. I told him nope, no tab … I enjoy doing it. Besides, I can’t just sit here and say nothing, ya know? Especially when I know he’s loosing money. But, I told him that if he wants someone to take care of his website later, I’d be happy to “be for hire”. And he replied that if he goes with one of the ideas I gave him - he will certainly be putting me on his “payroll”! Definitely works for me!

Sooo, I just had to share this. Anyone else know anyone offlline who “gets it”?