So, what’s your problem?

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Submitted by Matthew Needham on 16 Comments

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photo credit: Alex E. Proimos

This post was inspired by a comment from Eleanor at Give A Brick in response to a guest post here from Eric at Bluepop13.

Eleanor said :

“I love asking questions to to get clarification or spark additional conversation.”

This gave me an idea.

What if the readers of this site came together to solve a reader’s problem?

With this in mind I thought we’d try something new here.

I’m going to ask readers to submit a problem, via the comments below. I’ll select a problem which is most in keeping with the ethos of this site and both I and the other readers will attempt to solve the problem or provide options for you to consider.

Who knows, if we get enough problems and responses, then maybe we’ll run this as a regular feature.

So, if you have a problem and you don’t mind sharing, write an outline in the comment section below.

I’ll contact you to ask for more info and both I and the other readers will try and solve your problem via the post and the comments.

So what are you waiting for?

Enter a brief outline of your problem in the comments section below.

Cooking, gardening or relationships are not the subject area of this blog! You might want to save them for the Sunday papers!

Stay on topic…we write for both owners of a business or those working in a larger business, we write about leadership and entrepeneurship; lifestyle and how to make a difference.

Boring legal bit:

All advice is provided in good faith and any decisions taken from the advice provided are at your own risk. Neither The Big Red Tomato Company Ltd or the readers of the Big Red Tomato Company blog will be responsible for any action you undertake. Actions should only be undertaken following appropriate advice regarding the suitablity for your situation.

Too shy to share?

The Big Red Tomato Company would be pleased to provide advice or ongoing support to you or your business. Please contact us through the contact page and we can discuss a suitable package to meet your needs.

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16 Comments »

Ben
Twitter: 6aliens
said:

Ok I have a problem.

I currently have 3 projects that I’m working on that will generate money. All will do well (I hope). I just don’t currently have the time to work on them all at once to get them started.

What should I do?

[Reply]

Matthew Needham Reply:
February 22nd, 2010 at 10:11 am

Thanks for sharing Ben. I look forward to seeing how this these comments pan out.

[Reply]

Eleanor Edwards
Twitter: giveabrick
Reply:
February 22nd, 2010 at 12:27 pm

Hi guys,
Great post Matthew

Ben, are the three projects dependent on each other? If not, could you choose to give one project your time, get that set up and to a point where it is running itself a little more and then focus on the next one?

The other option is to use James’ technique and stop sleeping but I know how you need your shut eye That said, would pulling a couple of all nighters give you enough time to get these projects set up? If so, I’d probably be inclined to sleep less to lever enough time to get it done.

Or one other thought I just had: could you take a week off from your day job and use the extra hours to get these projects set up?
Eleanor Edwards´s last blog ..1 Minute Motivator: Stop

[Reply]

Matthew Needham Reply:
February 22nd, 2010 at 12:32 pm

Thanks Eleanor for your comment, although you’re supposed to be submitting your problems now not providing solutions (just yet!).

Thanks for your thoughts.

[Reply]

Eleanor Edwards
Twitter: heavenandel
Reply:
February 22nd, 2010 at 1:56 pm

OK, now I see why my lengthy suggestion to Eric never showed up I did misunderstand. I thought we were meant to be helping each other with suggestions! Sorry
Eleanor Edwards´s last blog ..Life Without Limbs? Life Without Limits!

Matthew Needham Reply:
February 22nd, 2010 at 2:00 pm

No, your lengthy suggestion was caught by Askimet! I’ve just retrieved it.

Yes we are going to help each other, but the idea is that people submit their problems in outline, I go to them and ask them for more detail and then we do a new post just on that problem and then all the comments refer to that problem just to keep track and get good quality imput.

Sorry if my post confused!

- 22 February 2010 at 7:48 am

Eric Saylor said:

Hey,

So, I’ve been popping in and out of this blog for awhile now. I like the content and I like viewing it because this blog is quite similar to what I (and the co-writer of my blog) have in mind for our blog. We have been training people on sales and small business tactics for awhile now. We just finished a sales training with 100+ people and make money on our own ventures, BUT we want to offer that to people online. We have a passion to help small-businesses because we’ve seen so many fail for such simple reasons.

PROBLEM: So, our problem is how do we create a more interactive experience outside of just posting content about relevant issues? We love writing and we love helping, which is great for blogging. We love others insight. Maybe some people could just go to our blog and suggest differences for us via email or comments. We’ll never take offense. How do we provide readers and small business owners with the tools to succeed?

By the way this is on topic because we want to help achieve in providing answers to entrepreneurs and future leaders. Sorry if it is too vague! Appreciate any insight you have to offer!

Thanks

[Reply]

Matthew Needham Reply:
February 22nd, 2010 at 10:12 am

Hi Eric, thanks for your comments and for sharing your problem. Yes, you’re definitely on topic. We’ll see what other problems come and you never know we may solve your problem!

[Reply]

Eleanor Edwards
Twitter: giveabrick
Reply:
February 22nd, 2010 at 12:50 pm

Hi Eric,
I’ve done as you’ve suggested and visited your site. Added you on Twitter too so I can keep a track of what you’re blogging about

What you’re doing is great. Your content is easy to read and interesting. The biggest thing that put me off was that there was nothing personal and warm about your site. Same on Twitter too. You have your business name instead of your real name on Twitter. Personally, I like to see a name and if you really must use a logo, why not add it to the corner of a real picture?

I’m all for branding but people like to see a warm face to put a face to a name. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t got the most alluring face in the world. I hate having my photo taken I go for the warm and friendly look because it suits my branding but others go for something more outlandish and others look mean and tough. It depends on the feeling you want to portray. But I really do believe having a real name and picture on Twitter is a must.

The other thing I would suggest is you change your front page to display extracts of posts rather than the whole thing. This will allow your visitors to skim. For example, your lead post is probably of less interest to me since I’m not anyone’s boss but the one about relationship marketing is something I would like to read. (And will go back and do after I’ve finished here )

Also, on your ‘about’ page, why not add a photo of yourself and Jason? If you want a community feel, you’ve got to make yourself seem warm and approachable. If you get people invested in you as a people, they’re much more likely to come back.

Take Ben and Matthew as examples. I’ve never met them in person but I feel already like I know them and like them. I regularly visit their sites to see if they’ve added anything new and will always aim to add a comment to show my support and encouragement because that’s what you do for people you like and respect. When they send out a tweet, I recognise their ugly mugs before I see their names too (jk) which is proves to me that real photos are the way to go.

Sorry this has gotten so long but there is one other really big thing that I suggest you change right away – your logo. After adding you on Twitter, I visited the website named in your Twitter image. RBA.com does not lead me to your website. If you were to add this logo to gravatar.com so that your image shows up any time your add a comment somewhere, people would read what you wrote, want to find out more but then would end up at someone else’s place. What a waste of traffic

I hope you find this constructive rather than harsh. I’m no expert so feel free to ignore me. I was just sharing my impressions as someone who’s never been to your site before.

Eleanor
Eleanor Edwards´s last blog ..1 Minute Motivator: Stop

[Reply]

Eric Saylor Reply:
February 22nd, 2010 at 5:19 pm

Eleanor,

First off, any feedback is definitely better than no feedback. I really appreciate your thoroughness. The one thing we’ve been lacking so far is understanding how people view our site and get from it. I also appreciate the insight into to Twitter. It is funny you mentioned that about us getting some pictures up about us, we’re planning to get some photos done thursday. Not like a giant photo shoot, but something that will allow us to be recognized. We are still using wordpress.com, can you display extracts of posts on .com? If so, i’d love to know how!

Thank you so much for your feedback.

-Eric
Eric Saylor´s last blog ..The World’s Best Boss

[Reply]

- 22 February 2010 at 7:50 am

Life Without Limbs? Life Without Limits! said:

[...] by Eleanor Call me a dinosaur if you like but I’ve been a bit slow at really ‘getting’ YouTube and the like. If I visit a site that has a video, it takes a lot to get me to watch it. I headed over to The Big Red Tomato Company this morning to read a post that Matthew said I’d helped inspire. [...]

- 22 February 2010 at 12:19 pm

Eleanor Edwards
Twitter: heavenandel
said:

Hi,
I already added a couple of comments as suggestions to Ben and Eric but I think WP has put them in the spam bin Therefore, I’m posting this with an alternate email address in the hope it might work better this time

Here’s my problem:
The GAB site is getting increasingly popular. We have daily posts that have a lot of encouraging comments. Each post ends with a clickable link that says ‘if you enjoyed this post, please give a brick (£1)’ as well as some basic information about the charity and our charity number. The link is a trackable link to Paypal with the £1 box filled in. All folks need to do is add their paypal details.

I know from the tracking that we had over 1000 visits to that Paypal page in less than a month. However, so far, 37 people have very kindly given a brick. I’d like to know if there’s any way to find out why people decide to give a brick and then change their mind.

Or am I being unrealistic? Is it true that people need to be exposed to things several times before using them? And if that’s the case, should we just keep doing what we’re doing, be patient and wait for people to get to know Give A Brick and what we’re about?

I guess what I really want to know is what more should I be doing from the online side of things. We have offline stuff that we’re working on (e.g. making contact with local schools, local newspaper exposure) but purely online, could/should we do more and if so, what?

I look forward to hearing what folks think
Eleanor Edwards´s last blog ..Life Without Limbs? Life Without Limits!

[Reply]

- 22 February 2010 at 1:30 pm

Ralph said:

My problem is that I don’t know what my blog is about – or maybe that I think my blog is actually about me and I am afraid that this is suicidal. Self-help and self-development seem quite prevalent niches and if that is what I am best suited for, how can I be distinctive, interesting and addictive. So there!

[Reply]

- 22 February 2010 at 6:52 pm

Eric
Twitter: bluepop13
said:

My main problem is finding my niche for my blog actually. This may come as a surprise to some but not to me. I like blogging about life events and about what I think will benefit my readers the most. I have my own style but not a particular niche just yet.

Other than that I just am figuring out what I want to do about monetising my blog for later down the road.

Love any feedback!
Eric´s last blog ..Build Your Blog With Fire In Mind

[Reply]

Matthew Needham Reply:
March 3rd, 2010 at 11:15 am

I know what you mean Eric, I sometimes have the same problem and bounce around outside of my area regularly. I think that’s fine as long as your adding value to your audience.

[Reply]

Eric
Twitter: bluepop13
Reply:
March 3rd, 2010 at 11:57 pm

You make a good point, Matthew!

Add value and figure out what niche you like writing about as you go but as long as you’re adding value you’re doing something right.
Eric´s last blog ..Build Your Blog With Fire In Mind

[Reply]

- 3 March 2010 at 7:03 am