My wife Maryellen bought a computer today.

Long time computer junkie that I am, I would normally be very interested in the specs, but I wasn’t. I just told her to go to Sam’s Club (she likes shopping there) and buy whatever she wanted.

Because you know what? The “specs” really don’t matter anymore.

There was a time when it really mattered. Like I said, I’m a computer junkie - I’ve built and repaired more computers than I can count. I can remember setting up a new sound card in DOS, and the absolute magic that Windows 95 was (where plug n play sort of worked!) I was always concerned with processor speed, cache, megahertz, gigahertz, RAM, Video RAM, etc etc.  (stay with me - I do have a point to make.)

But today, computer specs hardly matter anymore - almost any machine you buy off the shelf will suffice nicely. And they are now dirt-cheap - Maryellen bought a new Hewlett Packard with fairly high specs, with a beautiful 22″ LCD widescreen monitor, for about $700. Are you kidding me? At one time, I spent $500 on just a video card. And $200 for another 4 megs of RAM. And put em’ in myself…

My goodness, computers have been reduced to TV’s in terms of buying new - buy one, when it doesn’t suffice anymore, you buy another. No need to ever buy parts or fix them or such.

So how’d you like to own a computer repair shop today? (see, I told you I had a point)

Really - ten years ago, there were no less than 7 local computer repair shops in my area. Today, there might be one. And I’ll bet business isn’t so good.

Same with video rental stores - remember how many there were ten to twenty years ago? My goodness, they were everywhere… and now they’re almost all gone.

They say hindsight is 20/20, but in both of these businesses, I feel the end was clearly in sight. In fact, in one of my first business ventures back in 1991, one of the many things I did was sell local ads on the boxes you brought your videotape home in. I’d provide the video stores with my boxes (so they didn’t have to buy boxes), and also paid them a few dollars for using the boxes with the ads pasted to them (making this a no-brainer for video stores.)

So I got to know a lot of video store owners - and I remember asking a few “doesn’t this seem like a limited lifespan business?” Pay-per-view was just getting started, and if that wasn’t HUGE writing on the wall, I don’t know what is. Plus, I also knew that people would rather own many of the movies - if the price was right (and in 1991 it wasn’t, but that would soon change with DVD.)

But none of the video store owners thought their business would ever end. I know quite a few of them lost a LOT of money in the end. And really, with a little objectivity, they could have seen this coming.

And that’s my point - if you are starting a business, be truly objective in the viability of your business. Because I’m sure it sucks royally to spend 5 years building something up, and then seeing it go under a few years later.

I wrote in Start and Run a Real Home Based Business that almost all business relationships will end sooner or later. That client you have that gives you solid work month after month…  guess what? That relationship will eventually end.

Be it change in management, new ownership, fires, floods, locusts eating your client’s crops, recession, falling sales, change of direction, or even “just because we want to look at someone new”, the business relationship will eventually end. And you need to be ready for it (it’s one reason I don’t take on any job that blocks all of my time - I will never give any one client my full attention for more than a few days. Even 300+ page jobs, of which I had 2 last year, were done over a period of time, with outside help.)

I was reminded of ”all business relationships will end” today. When I got fired from my last job (2001), I started freelancing the e-commerce programming I did at that job. This eventually turned into copywriting (which I knew had to happen, as the software I specialized in was being phased out), but even to this day, I still had 2 old e-commerce clients who kept the old software and needed me from time to time. I kept these clients because I enjoy the “logic buzz” that programming gives me - kind of keeps that left brain occupied.

Anyway, one of the “remaining two” was my very first, meaning we had been doing business together since 2001. Well, two years ago, they had major shakeups, new management, etc etc… I sensed the relationship changing. Where it used to be ”just call Dan, tell him what we want, Dan does the work and sends a bill”, it became “send us a complete itemized estimate for this project and we’ll think about it”. Basically, it became very formal and corporate. Which bugged me a little because that’s not me. It also bugged me because I really did exceptional work for them - always on time, always right, I made little modifications for free, etc. But the new people didn’t “know” me. I could just hear them saying “who’s this shorts-clad Night Owl schmuck sitting in some NY basement that we send a grand to every now and then??”

Then, last year, they got to a point where they didn’t pay me for work I did. I had to chase them for payment (and I *detest* that. I hate being bullied by corporate idiots.) I finally got paid when they decided I was too valuable to let get away (I am literally one of a scant handful that works with this particular software). But you know, I can be a formal, unfeeling corporate prick too - after that, I started insisting on prepayment for any job. They whined, but I held firm, and for the past year, they paid prior to me tapping a single key.

Well, today we spoke, and I sensed it was the end. There’s a problem that their software can’t handle, why can’t I make it work without more hours, why should they pay for further development (errr, because that’s how it works?) Then I found out they were talking to another company, and would upgrade to newer software, etc etc. Which doesn’t bother me - I kind of expected this two years ago. And I’m pretty busy writing anyway - the EDI (which is the e-commerce stuff I did) is extra lunch and DVD money, really. 

But this did make me think a bit - here I’ve been working for them for 8 years. For six of those eight, the relationship was perfect. And for eight of those eight, I did *stellar* work. And it didn’t matter.

Almost all business relationships end, folks. Don’t ever forget that.

I recall some website writing I did for this one company. They advertised on Google adwords, and had a budget of $2 a day. For their business, that meant 2 clicks. 2 clicks a day, and they were done. And they complained after 3 days that my writing wasn’t bringing in business… well, it’s kinda hard to judge from 6 visits (to be fair, I didn’t know their PPC budget when starting the job - I just assumed they would deliver eyeballs.)

I told them they had to get more interested people to the site. So they changed their keywords, and made it so their $2 budget would bring in 10 people a day. No effect - now the problem was the keywords were awful. Yea, they were cheap keywords… and they were useless. The client actually expected the web copy I wrote him to “make up” for the fact that the leads were lousy. That’s not going to happen.

On the internet, you have to have quality visitors. Period.

You can’t fool around on the fringes with your Pay Per Click keywords. The fringes are great for filling out your marketing, but you cannot expect copy to make up for bad leads. If you are a local carpet cleaner, you need to have “{your city} carpet cleaning” as a keyphrase. I don’t care how much it costs. If you design websites for florists, you need to have “web design for florists” as a keyphrase. You can’t omit these in favor of, say, “flower seller internet design” because the latter is cheaper. You won’t get the same quality visitor. 

It’s this simple: No writing, no expensive design, no nothing will help you until your site is visited by people who want/need what you have/do.  

Great web copy can work magic with the right visitors. I prove it every single day. Give me people who are interested in your product and service, and I’ll sell them. It’s what I do. But you do have to deliver those eyeballs.

From the old blog last year - still funny today.

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Spam subject lines are funny.  I don’t trust spamblockers, so I get it all. Here are a few that I recently got:

Big Your Piano - Be a Real Man  (what??)

Emanuel Sando has been plagued by a series of spills at big-time events!!  (who?)

Museum Hysterectomy!

Give little bro another few inches  (errr… no)

Cordela sent you a zebowel.hk greeting  (yea, choose “zebowel” as your domain name - that’ll get me to click.)

Biggerer (I assume this was conceived by the same person who came up with “it’s thickerer” for the 1970’s era “Chunky” candy bar commercials.)

She waits for you by cold river (Millie, I hope)

Since I blogged about it, I should probably say that the colonoscopy came out fine.

You know, I find it mildly funny that  the result I was hoping for was for the doctor to say “yea Dan, you know that horrible day of prep you went through?? It was completely unnecessary”.

Which is essentially what happened.