Basically, I started off with the idea that $99 per year hosting was a great offer. Realistically though, other hosting companies offer it even cheaper. Even though businesses can save money on hosting, they don’t reinvest it into their site to maintain it. A light came on at that point and I saw a need for “small business website management,” that is a service that updates, adds pages, creates forms, etc. for small businesses on a monthly basis.

Still being stuck on the “hosting” side of things, I built my site around the idea of web hosting for $30-$40 per month with “two free updates and one new page addition” per month.

I designed the cards, set up a landing page that continued the same message, created the web sign up forms, and sent the cards off. Two weeks later, not a single person called or filled out the web form. About 10 visitors went to my landing page.

On the bright side of all this? Close to 1,000 businesses have at least seen my name and logo – this could help as I continue my marketing efforts.

Keep a list (using pen and paper – not a computer) of everything you want to accomplish today. Next to each task, put estimate the time it’s going to take you to finish each task. Then prioritize.

I usually prioritize my tasks by doing the sub 10 minute tasks first, then moving onto the tasks that take up the real meat of my day (the ones that bring in the paycheck). Once those are done, I can move on to the “luxury” tasks or the ones that would be on tomorrows list.

What helped me over the “self confidence hump” you ask? A well known sales speaker who I admire really isn’t that natural in front of the camera either. I realized it was time to get over my fear and just do it. I have everything to gain and nothing to lose.

Here is my first post:

Why don’t you subscribe to my YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/hostwell.

Seth said:

Without a list, you can see how making intelligent decisions is impossible, so we resort to confusing activity with productivity.

Back to your office: do you have a list? Have you figured out which metric you’re trying to improve? Can you measure the impact of the choices you make all day?

Chuck said:

Small businesses that use processes create a winning environment that puts them in a different class then their competition.  And they are more likely to survive and be profitable.

I’m mostly posting this for myself so that I can come back to these articles and treat them as homework. But if you do this, would you blog about it and post a link below?

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Mondays are always here. Last Monday rocked. I got a ton completed and it felt good. Today, I started using Posterous and absolutely love it. It charged me. But it hasn’t given me the “productive feeling” I had last Monday.

This morning I’ve come across three posts/emails about change…which leads to success.

1. I first read Seth’s Hierarchy to Success – My attitude hasn’t been my number one priority. And like many small business owners, I’ve focused too much on the tactics and execution. It’s been nearly a year now since I started Threadless Media (the parent company to Hostwell and I feel like Approach, Goals, and Strategy are just starting to fall into place.
2. Then I opened up Chris Brogan’s email newsletter which has a completely different tone than his blog – There he talks about finding and breaking three patterns. Find three things you do habitually and switch it, just for the sake of it. Drink Starbucks? Go to Dutch Bros. Sign up for Chris’s email newsletter.
3. Then in my Google Reader I read a post from a blog I didn’t know I was subscribed to. Titled “This Is Your Chance. Don’t Settle For Not Taking It” Dave encouraged me to remember “This is MY chance” and change is hard, but stick with it.
4. Bonus: Dave Delaney’s 18-Minute Plan for Managing Your Day (I didn’t do it this morning, which is why I’m not 100% on track).

What do you do to encourage change and success?

Thanks to Webweavers htaccess redirect article I was able to:

1. Redirect my www to my non-www URL.
2. Create a 301 redirect for a direct mail campaign I’m working on. (Basically I didn’t want to put www.hostwell.cc/hello.php – I want to print /hello and have it redirect my prospects to /hello.php – so I used a 301 redirect.)

While I’ll call that a success, I’m still trying to figure out how to:

1. Strip the ‘.php’ ending off all my URLs.
2. Redirect my /index.php file to http://hostwell.cc/

If you know how to do this or know of a straight forward tut dealing with static (non-dynamic) URLs, please leave a comment below.

Of course, it was a bit more difficult than that… I spent about 5 hours writing, re-writing, and sending a few tests to myself before my wife looked over the copy. She always has great suggestions because she is not savvy in the same areas I am. She asks questions that help me realize I need to re-write a few things. Here is how the final version read:

Howdy Chris,

Call me crazy, but I’d like to think you should get more from your website hosting company. So much so, I started a web hosting company to fix a problem many small businesses experience.

Most small business websites do not get updated frequently. Because of this, these websites do not:

1. Get many visitors.
2. Get many leads.
3. Rank well in Google or other search engines.

If you experience any of these, you may be left feeling like your website is not an effective marketing tool.

Hostwell can solve this problem.

When you become a Hostwell customer, your normal web hosting needs will be met. In addition, I’ll update your website content for free. Specifically, I will:

1. Update 2 pages of content on your site per month – free.
2. Add 1 new page to your site per month – free.

>> View all of Hostwell’s benefits [link]

How does updating my site solve this problem?

Adding new content increases your website’s ability to rank better in the search engines. With better search engine rankings, you’ll receive more visitors and more leads.

Is Hostwell right for me?

Hostwell is right for you if you are a small business that:

• Does not or cannot update your site frequently.
• Does not update because of cost.
• Wants your website to become a better marketing tool.

*Type in “newsletter” into the secret code field when signing up and you can send out an email newsletter to 100 of your customers each month for free.

What is included with my Hostwell hosting plan?

• Unlimited support (phone and email)
• Branded email accounts (e.g. bob@hostwell.cc)
• Email setup (I will walk you through your email setup or set it up for you – in Outlook, Apple Mail, etc.)
• 99.9% uptime (your website will be up for your visitors)
• Unlimited Storage
• Unlimited Bandwidth

Host Better – Improve Your Website – Get Started Now! [link]
Host your website at Hostwell for:
$360 per year ($120 savings)
or
$40 per month

After clicking the send button and re-reading it, I noticed one sentence I would have changed. I said:

Call me crazy, but I’d like to think you should get more from your website hosting company.

I was a bit presumptious…what I should have said is:

Call me crazy, but I’d like to think small businesses should get more from their website hosting company.

I guess I took Brian’s first advice too seriously and used “you” too much in the opening statement.

Results

The results weren’t what I was really hoping for, but I did get a few people interested, which is great! One of my recipients, Jim Grammer, even Tweeted about Hostwell and said:

Bob Potter’s new Web hosting service for small business makes *total* sense. Is your Web site stagnant? http://hostwell.cc/story.php

To be honest with you, that is exactly the kind of response I am hoping to invoke with Hostwell.

• Design – 1.4 hours
• Website Development – 11.6 hours (includes both site and blog setup/coding)
• Writing Content – 14.3 hours (writing, editing, having my wife edit, etc.)
• Hosting – .6 hours (setting up hosting account, email, etc.)
• Email Newsletter Announcement – 5 hours
• Social Media – .5 hours

Why did I spend so much time on my newsletter?

While I enjoy writing, I do struggle with it at times. I start writing something only to erase it, then start with something else. I’ll finish it, read through it and decide it doesn’t send the message I want to get across. So I start over. Then I have my wife edit it and offer suggestions. After a few test sends and with an increased heart rate I push the “Send” button as it goes out to my contacts…hoping for the best.

Room for Improvement

There are a number of things I can improve upon:

1. I write my website content in Coda so that I can see it on the website. Being visual, it really helps me develop the copy (at least I think it does). As you can imagine, writing it in Coda and constantly going to my FTP client to refresh and upload the file adds lots of time. It’s a bad habit and one I really need to correct. My goal is to write the content in something like Evernote and then add it to the site once it has been fully edited. I imagine I’d spend 20% less going this route.
2. When I started designing this site I had a few ideas. Most of which came from Jason’s mockup of Basecamp, Freshbooks, Mail Chimp, 37 Signals, and a few other websites. Why did I “borrow” from these fine websites? Because I look up to them and because I borrowed Seth Godin’s philosophy that there is no reason to try and come up with something entirely new – he basically says, “don’t start from scratch.” If I had started from scratch, I would have spent far more hours designing something and it wouldn’t have added any value.
3. I didn’t do much “marketing” before hand. I’m more of “gotta have all my ducks in a row” kinda guy. Plus I’m better off focusing on one task than figuring out how to generate some interest and do it effectively. Throughout this process I wished I had a partner to help with things like this.

1. Develop my business.
2. Grow closer to God, my wife, and family.

The best and easiest way I know how to track my time is to use Rescue Time. I used it from December through March, but uninstalled it because I wasn’t quite ready for it. The data was interesting to look at, but I wasn’t using it to take actionable steps. However, this morning I installed it with the purpose that:

1. It will be a source of accountability to me.
2. I can visually see (and graphically – they have some cool charts) where I’m spending my time.
3. I can evaluate and realize just how much time I am spending on activities that aren’t part of my business strategy and goals.