Disqus - Latest Comments for karlcw68

Re: Social Media Tips That Are Actually Useful

Karl Craig-West — Fri, 20 Jan 2017 05:35:55 -0000

How about Linkedin?

Re: How to Advertise on a Porn Website

Karl Craig-West — Tue, 29 Mar 2016 11:26:49 -0000

Genius, absolute marketing genius. Now I'm going to have a think about whether we can advertise our web design services on adult sites.
Not sure it'll work but the research might well be worth it :-)

Re: Five Annoying Personal Messages on LinkedIn, and Why You Should Stop Using them Right Now

Karl Craig-West — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 08:43:45 -0000

p.s. not had anyone call me 'stunning' on Linkedin since that barrister woman created a fuss about it.

Re: Five Annoying Personal Messages on LinkedIn, and Why You Should Stop Using them Right Now

Karl Craig-West — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 08:41:55 -0000

I get loads of connection requests from indian web developers. Always makes me smile.

One thing I always do though is respond to everyone who asks to connect with me (assuming you're not an Indian web developer). Usually I just say thanks for connectiing and also try and make an offer to be helpful. It works and I win leads from it.

Re: 50 Essential Cheatsheets, Guides & Docs for Web Designers

Karl Craig-West — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 15:33:26 -0000

HUGE thanks for this. Some nifty tools in there which will certainly help.

Re: The Musings of a New 40 Year Old

Karl Craig-West — Thu, 10 Sep 2015 07:02:22 -0000

Nice one James. Some really great stuff in there, especially with regard for how you relate to and with other people.

Happy (belated) Birthday too.

Re: Praise be! The Pope's feminist statement is a revelation - and I'm atheist

Karl Craig-West — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 09:12:07 -0000

Give the guy a chance, it can't be easy to change the direction of a 1600 year old behemoth like the Catholic church.
And besides, why is nobody taking on the Muslim stance regarding equality for women? A woman Catholic priest is far more likely that a female imam.

Re: The newspaper preparing for a coup - and Labour is doing nothing to stop them

Karl Craig-West — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 08:21:59 -0000

Time for PR methinks? Then we could have coalitions forever :-p

Re: Galloway backtracks after retweeting Holocaust denier

Karl Craig-West — Thu, 09 Apr 2015 14:58:12 -0000

Ironic that his party is called 'Respect' when he has illustrated many times that he has little 'respect' for Jews and Jewish sensibilities.

Re: Digital Darwinism – What can Darwin Teach us About Business Success?

Karl Craig-West — Tue, 10 Mar 2015 14:18:36 -0000

Considering the fact that 80% of business fail within 5 years and 80% of those that are left fail within the following 5 years, you'd think that this thinking would be higher on the corporate agenda.

Re: 5 Books From 2014 That I’ve Read More Than Once

Karl Craig-West — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 08:05:39 -0000

I recently re-read The E-Myth by MIchael Gerber because we're in the process of growing our business and I wanted to make sure our thinking on systemising stuff was heading in the right direction.
It's probably my favourite business book and (just because I'm biased) I highly recommend it.

Re: Small Business CRM – Are You Making These 5 Mistakes?

Karl Craig-West — Mon, 08 Dec 2014 16:39:43 -0000

OK, so I'm guilty of 4.5 of those. Thankfully our 2015 marketing plan includes much more comprehensive CRM activity. So we'll be hitting those intouch training pages hard :-)

Re: 'Silent Intifada' Rages in Jerusalem - Israel Today | Israel News

Karl Craig-West — Thu, 18 Sep 2014 13:11:06 -0000

So where are the BBC and Sky News on this? Typical European biased anti-Israel reporting (or lack thereof).

Re: Is your photo business any good?

Karl Craig-West — Sat, 09 Aug 2014 14:08:30 -0000

I totally agree. This is the same in many industries and you're spot on in pointing out the need to differentiate.
These days you'll die with the competition if you can't convince your market that doing business with you gives them some kind of benefit.

Re: How to Write a One-Page Business Plan

Karl Craig-West — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 08:11:49 -0000

I've often wondered whether a business plan is actually worth the effort if you're not applying for any funding. What do you think?

Re: Klout Perks 101

Karl Craig-West — Tue, 24 Sep 2013 15:22:24 -0000

How about some perks for the UK?

Re: Noam Chomsky on Syria: Israel and America “Enjoying the Spectacle”

Karl Craig-West — Mon, 09 Sep 2013 17:02:53 -0000

If I was a policy-maker in Israel I'd be doing the same. Don't get involved, don't even look provocative, go to the beach, just let them tear each other apart. Israel gets blamed for many things (much of which is justified) but they didn't start this fight.

Although I do find it interesting that the Arab League don't seem in any way interested in getting involved. Nothing quite like 'looking out for your neighbor (fellow Arab/Muslim)'.

Re: 10 Steps to a Profitable Online Business

Karl Craig-West — Tue, 06 Aug 2013 04:27:52 -0000

Brilliant, thanks Jo. I've been working on developing an online business since the beginning of the year and now feel like I can set a date for launch.

Re: Gold – should you invest in it?

Karl Craig-West — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 04:52:32 -0000

My concern with shares at the minute is they're creeping up with no underlying support from genuinely sustainable economic growth. Almost all of the growth in share markets over the last three years has been the result of artificial stimulus, largely QE.

When the Fed suggested cutting back on QE a few weeks ago the markets wobbled and this is worrying since no central bank can afford to prop up the markets like this forever. So, my view is that the markets are weaker now than they were 3 years ago because the current optimism is based (yet again) on someone else's money. P/E ratios are again reaching ludicrous heights for no good reason other than the fact that Fed (and BoE/ECB) keeps promising to pump in more debt to prop up the currently flawed model.

Even more worrying right now is the fact that there is still too much bad debt (so-called toxic assets) in the system. Until banks (including central banks) start seeing these debts for what they are and begin writing them off then they will always have a distorted balance sheet.

Bad debt always comes back to bite unless it's properly tackled and I don't see that that has yet happened.

Re: Gold – should you invest in it?

Karl Craig-West — Tue, 02 Jul 2013 11:00:44 -0000

Some very good points there but gold doesn't go bust, will never be over-exposed to outrageous leverage ratios, isn't subject to government manipulation (QE & ZIRP), doesn't rely on government bailouts and can never be repossessed if I don't keep up the repayments.
Not saying that gold should be your sole investment class but it's a very good thing to have as we attempt to crawl out of a debt-fueled recession at the same time as the central banks pump more debt into the system.

Re: The Best Time To Never Send Email

Karl Craig-West — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 11:41:08 -0000

This is so true: why would anyone open a 'newsletter'? The age old practice of headline writing applies to your email subject line and then it's vital to have something worth reading.

My ongoing mission is that my accountant friends will learn this and stop sending me stuff that simply gets deleted.

Tuesday 10:30am GMT, by the way (and yes I did the research)..

Re: Startups Cannot Afford to Have Indispensable Employees (and not for the reason you think)

Karl Craig-West — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 10:45:06 -0000

I don't think it's confined to startups though. Almost all established smaller businesses face this challenge. But what strikes me still is that, despite Michael Gerber banging on about it forever, very few smaller companies will ever develop proper documented systems that will facilitate growth and minimise the risk of being held hostage to specialists within.

I run a business and I'm constantly looking for ways to make my role redundant to enable me to work on business development and growth. It's not easy but it's very very worth it.

Re: Three secrets to simplicity

Karl Craig-West — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 08:37:32 -0000

Thanks Paul.

A very useful and concise reminder to us all. I'm constantly battling against clients who want the kitchen sink on their home page.

Re: Your office isn't set in 1802; don't make it feel that way

Karl Craig-West — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 08:21:13 -0000

Good article.

I'm still amazed by the number of businesses who still insist on strict 'management by presence'.
I run a small business building websites, there's 4 people in the business and we all work from our respective homes thanks to technology. No office costs, no expensive phone systems, we work when it suits us, and the job still gets done.
Cheers,
Karl

Re: How to Optimize Your Channel For The New YouTube Design [Creator's Tip #69]

Karl Craig-West — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 08:51:03 -0000

Thanks Tim,

great stuff. Just need to get to work on it all now...