As many of you know, Keyword Scout was one of my first successful ventures years ago. Then, I was 16 years old, and even though I was new to the software business, I was able to pack in over 1000 paying customers within the first 6 months.

For those of you who read my book, you already know the rest of the story. PayPal closed my account, with no reason. This means all of my liquid cash was frozen and unaccessible. All of my customers’ subscriptions were cancelled. I had no monthly recurring revenue.

I tried to follow up, but no one at PayPal would talk to me. Every time I called or emailed, I was told I had to speak with the employee who limited my account. The problem? He didn’t have an email and he never returned voice mails.

So, I started trying to get customers to sign up again with a new payment process and some did, but many did not answer their emails. This is expected with cancellation of subscriptions – most will not resubscribe until they need it again.

The company had a slow and painful death. If you’re interested in the full story, you can find it in my book.

I own a company called Slide. It’s functionality doesn’t matter, so I’ll save you the time and won’t explain it. 

I’m sitting here on a Friday night, watching HotJar recordings of my users, to see where I can improve.

This particular user filled out his/her information, and like many other users, is too lazy to read the labels on the buttons. So instead of clicking “Save” like they should, the user clicks the “Delete” button.

But it doesn’t stop there. I figured this would happen, so I threw in a confirmation box before people did this.

Guess what – the user clicks confirm, immediately! Boom, account is gone. They are redirected to the homepage, so not knowing what they just did (because they refuse to slow down and read) they go to login again. For the next 3 minutes, I watch the user attempt to login again, and sit there, puzzled when they receive an error.

As a web developer, it’s not just my job to write good code, but to build a good UX (user experience) by having a detailed UI. More on this in my book.

However, the changes I have to make are:

• Make the save button blue
• Make the delete button red
• Make the save button the same size as the delete button or bigger
• On the confirm dialog:
  • make the confirm button grey
  • the cancel button blue (this will encourage clicking cancel subliminally)
  • change the confirm button label to “Delete” – in hopes by chance they may finally start reading labels
• After account deletion, have a page that explains why the account was deleted

Most people who make money, generally choose to keep quiet about it because it brings unnecessary complications into their lives – one being beggars.

I get hit up on Twitter and Instagram daily by people looking for handouts. Sometimes they want free consulting, or sometimes they want money.

The world owes you nothing

Contrary to what you may think, nobody owes you anything. No one owes you health, love, respect, loyalty, friendship, happiness or money. For some reason people think they’re entitled to my help and get upset when I don’t offer it. If you can’t respect that, then I probably won’t respond.

I already helped

The reason I wrote a book is not to make money. In fact, it costed more to write it, edit it, promote it and launch it, than it generated in royalties. The book was my way of telling my 60,000 word story to as many people as possible, as I was getting tired of repeating the same story to everyone in my life. So when someone hits me up for help and they haven’t even read my book (not even a pirated version), I lose interest in helping immediately.

Okay so $8.00 is too much to spend on an ebook that I sunk thousands of hours into. You could ask your library to stock it. Every library has a form you can fill out and they’ll buy and stock a book for you – just go request it. Or, have you read my blog, or any of the content I put out across the web? I’m chatty and I’m always writing or giving out free knowledge somewhere. Google me and scroll through the first 10 pages. You’ll find lots of material to keep you busy for the evening.

People pay for my time

I charge for my time. You don’t work for free and neither do I. My consulting starts around $300 per hour and companies are happy to pay for it when they think I can help them with something.

As always, if you’re an enjoyable and pleasant person to be around or to talk to, sure I don’t mind helping with the odd question, and neither do most entrepreneurs.

Until recently, there has been little effort on trying to create retirement income plans except for the formulation and acceptance of the 4% rule. Pfau has built a short career in the retirement field, but he is one of the best in the economics of retirement planning. In his book, he explores through models for retirement planning and approaches driven by expectations. The volume is for readers good with statistical analysis and have the financial expertise to implement high-level recommendations.

The author in a methodical approach and lengthy analysis of historical data and projections defines every method that he has suggested for retirement income planning. He lays out the processes and assumptions that he has merged in his simulations using Monte Carlos simulations which have become a fundamental ingredient in financial planning.

Pfau suggests spending and investment tactics with possible outcomes based on predictions of the future economy.it also states the relationship between spending and returns with ways to modify to compensate changes which occur in conjunction with pensioner’s personal goals and risk tolerance. The book focuses on critical investment advice, highlighting the benefits of delaying Social Security payouts and explaining ways to come up with bond portfolio.

Wade groups his approaches as either probability based which require analysis using simulation software or safety first depending on its risk of failure. He generates a sampling table (pg. 32) of retirement income strategies that classify them into two approaches. Using graphs, he illustrates and makes it clear to those planning to be involved in managing their retirement funds should be patient to study to study the possibilities to invest wisely.

With analysis of William Bengen’s 4% rule which state that safe spending rate from accumulated wealth is 4% for the amount at the beginning of retirement and the same inflation-adjusted dollar amount annually for the next 30 years at most leaving no money at the end of that time. He finds the process as justifiable due to its high chances of success but that not all as other factors can come in.

In chapter 3 which familiarizes us with the sequence-of-returns risk whereby one could fail due to considerations in costs of investments based on the analysis of the returns to wide-ranging indices of asset class returns.

Finally, he sums up with the description of how to approach retirement planning. He describes an outline approach used by McLean Asset Management; his advisory firm which he is the director of retirement research in developing plans for his clients. His approach is reasonable and detailed and assumes that clients have an assured degree of investment sophistication thus allowing them to make informed choices but that not the case as many clients may be highly educated but lack sophistication. The final chapter lacks the summary of all that had come before and did not recommend the approach one should use among the analyzed. The volume is a comprehensive and well-written guide to retirement preparation for those with financial knowledge.

The author starts by claiming that the world has become a lonely place and no one feels indeed connected with someone. The world over the last century has increasingly become detached from our societies and that a large number of Americans have never interacted with their neighbors.

In social media, big businesses have introduced new tools to make it a mass marketing platform to mass audiences. Marketers have come up with automation tools like HubSpot and Buffer to pump out streams of generic memes and article reviews. Social pages such as Facebook and Twitter are now filled with ads and company promotional posts. Tools such as Instagress, Salcedo, and Archie have been used to set out automation to make company likes, comments and follows. This has taken out the ‘social’ out of social media.

The power of Intimate attention.

The secret is connecting with one person at a time. While prominent organizations are sending emails to thousands of subscribers based on their list, you will send one email to one person. As ‘goliaths’ are sending filling their social media pages with memes, you just answer a question for one person in an online group. While Goliaths are using social channels, i.e., Bullhorn you will start a real conversation with a person. Kevin states that it helps in beating the competition from big companies.

He clarifies in simple terms and handy techniques on ways to create a loyal fan base who will respond to call for action and ways to deal with trolls, beggars, and complainers.

Kevin pointed out businesses and individuals who don’t give their responses even though having given them a lot of money for products and services and when he asked for contribution to his book he got no response

Kruse emphasizes the value of personal attention, intimate attention (as he called it) in a modern world of fake or shallow connections. He claims that it is better to have a small and an engaged list than huge list emails and followers. Stories from high profile folks such as millionaires, rock stars, and celebrities have confirmed that it becomes a nuisance when they attempt to develop personal connections with their followers.

Kevin states that the real key to intimate attention is the consistency such as replying to each mail and messages on social media.

The book also has a portion where there are records of highly successful people’s mini-interviews as it provides more understanding and perspectives on how Intimate Attention can be cultivated on difficult platforms which are suitable for their businesses and it increases revenue.

The content of the book is useful and functional to readers. Through practical illustrations especially in “text me” part, it becomes an effective method of leaving a mark in a reader’s memory. He shares his experiences which becomes an essential aspect in couching readers. The book is a useful guide for small business owners, freelancers, bloggers and leaders who want to grow their active audience.