Every time I have ever gone to Starbucks I feel important, I feel like a unique and special part of the Starbuck’s world.  After the fact I wonder why I spent so much on that coffee, but it must be worth the good feeling, because I keep going back.

Is your approach unique?  Does your customer feel special?  Is the buying experience something worth repeating?

Your job as the leader of your company is to make every day and every buying experience in your Tribe is just like Starbucks.

Related Posts:

• I Know Your Mom Told You That You Are, But You Really Aren’t That Special
• Consistency Is Key To Success
• We Learn By Doing

1. Purchase Your Domain Name:

In order to begin you’ll need a domain name.  It’s a good idea to look around and see if your business name has a free domain name available before getting to far along.  Godaddy.com is in my opinion the best place to purchase a domain.  Domains usually cost $9.00 for the year and you can choose if you want to register the domain for more than one year.  If you are just starting out with the concept then a year should be fine, but if you are very certain of your business model, then consider this tip on registering for longer. Godaddy makes it very simple to register a domain and if you have any trouble their live support has always been incredibly helpful to me as well.

2. Setup A Hosting Account:

If you didn’t know already, there are two pieces that you’ll need to launch your site.  The domain that you’ve registered and now a place for that domain to point.  You need to setup a hosting account.  To do this, you’ll need to follow the steps I’ve outlined below.

• Go to Lunarpages and choose “Start Hosting” from the upper left menu as shown below:

• On the next screen simply click “Sign Up Now”

• Fill in your name and domain information, and choose one or two years of hosting.  For one year it is $47.00 so now you are up to your total of just $56!:

• Then enter your billing information:

• Enter your credit card information and place your order:

• Your order conformation will be show and emailed to you as well:

• It will take about 30 minutes for your order to process.  While you are waiting, YOU NEED to update your NAMESERVERS.  Once it does, you’ll receive an email with your login information.  Follow the instructions, and login to your control panel.  Once you are in the control panel you’ll see a button called “LPCP”, click this to launch your control panel:

• Now you should see the following view:

• In this control panel you can configure email, sub-domains, and many other parts of your hosting account.  For now the important thing is to choose “WebApps Pool”:

• When you launch this WebApps console you’ll need to scroll through the options and choose “WordPress 3.0-3″, then choose your domain name, and select the install button:

• On the next screen you choose the directory you want to install in (generally you’ll want to choose document root), and also specify the password for the database that is being installed, and also a password for the WordPress dashboard.  Be sure to generate a strong secure password with a tool like this, or use something like LastPass for optimum convenience security.  Title your blog, “My New Business Name” and click submit.

• You’ll now see the completion page.  You can now click “Admin interface” and you’ll be taken to the WordPress login page for your blog.

• Here enter your username (admin if you left the default) and the password you just specified:

• Here you will see your WordPress dashboard where you can edit pages, add posts, and make changes to your theme.

• Now, if DNS has updated and you’ve done everything right, your new site should look just like this:

WordPress is an extremely flexible platform that will allow you to quickly get the word out about your new business.

I’ve done my best to cover the basics here in this post.  If you do some Googling and take your time you will be able to setup your new site using this method and in the end you will have a stable and SEO friendly site to begin doing business with.  There are hundreds of themes and plugins available as well that can dress up the basic WordPress platform.

If you get stuck on anything, just comment here, or contact me and I’ll do my best to help.  Or if all this seems to technical for you, but you still want to get a site up online for your business, contact ZigZap Tech, my I.T. company and we’ll provide you a quote for whatever you need.

Image: jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

To begin, login to your Godaddy account and choose the My Account tab:

Next on the lefthand side choose “Domain”

If you have more than one domain, you may need to click “View All Domains” to see the listing.

You should now see a list of domains:

Select the one you want to change using the checkbox to the left:

Then hover over the button that says “Name Servers” and choose “Set Name Servers”:

Fill in the name servers your hosting company provided you.  With a company like Lunar Pages you would have received the name servers in the welcome email.  They are mosting likely to be:

ns1.lunariffic.com
ns2.lunariffic.com

Click “OK” and your name servers should update.  It can take up to 24 hours for DNS to update, although it normally goes faster.  I typically see DNS update within 2 hours.

Have more questions?  Feel free to contact me. If this sounds like it is beyond your technical ability, contact my company ZigZap Tech and we’ll be happy to provide you a reasonable proposal to handle whatever you don’t want to handle yourself.  We provide managed commercial hosting, and web development as well.

If you aren’t registered for more than a year or so, you get this message of failure:

Apparently Google feels that you might be a fly by night company if you aren’t willing to spend a little on your domain.  It makes sense that if you are invested for a couple years then you aren’t serious and don’t deserve to be at the top.

Thanks to Chris Brogan I learned this useful tip, and made changes to my own domains.

When a new lead surfaces it’s like a ticking bomb.  The prospect will only be a prospect for a very short time.  Before you know it they become a buying customer and you want to be the first one they speak too, the first one that comes to mind.  Prospects may go through the motions and do their due diligence but they’ve most likely unconsciously or consciously made their selection out of the first few firms that have contacted them.

Does your lead system give you instant notification?  Do you prioritize your pre-sales system so that you can act immediately and reach out to your prospective customer?  If you don’t have your lead system hyper tuned, then take a second look.  Every person buys impulsively at some level.  If you can’t respond to your prospect’s impulse first, then you are not in the game.

Related Posts:

Image: Suat Eman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It really made me think though; do we properly prioritize our time box?  With email we have so much space that my 63,000 messages don’t really affect me, but with time, we are very limited in how much we have each day.

Have you sectioned off your blocks of time so that you can be as effective and efficient as possible?  Have you trained yourself to quickly eliminate and archive the things that are not adding value to your life or the lives of those around you?

Google tried hard today to make my life simpler, easier, and more effective, but in the end it is my responsibility to manage my time and prioritize  what’s important.

Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week.  ~ Charles Richards

Related posts:

Review And Adjust Your Goals

Small Giant Moments

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Interestingly enough just after reaching this point of success, I watched this short video that mentions crossing the line to your boiling point. It reminded me of how crazy it is that a single degree, one final incremental change after 211 other small steps is what makes the differences and turns hot water to boiling water.

Sometimes it’s like that for us in business, we throw so  much against the wall and try so hard day in and day out that we wonder if anything will succeed.  In the end, persistence always pays off.  

Don’t let today’s struggles take your focus away from trying to get the pot to boil.  When it finally does reach that boiling point, you’ll see that all your work was worth it.

One of my all time favorite singers, Ella Fitzgerald said:

Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there’s love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.

Stay the course, focus on your goals, and keep working hard to get there.  You won’t be disappointed if you stay true to yourself and the goals you’ve set out.

Get home earlier.

Sell more this month.

Lose more weight.

It seems to me when statements are started with ‘If I Could Just’ we’ve already made the decision internally that we can’t succeed at the second part of that sentence.

Maybe what we need is a change in verbiage.

I will Finish this project on time.

I will Get home earlier.

I will Sell more this month.

I will Lose more weight.

What we say eventually becomes true, so start today by changing your words.

Image: jscreationzs / http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” ~ C.S. Lewis