Author: Steve Slisar

Steve Slisar has been training people how to use computers since 1994, opened a training centre in 1999 in Dee Why and by 2005 had 3 training centres and created over 35 individual courses that include Screen videos with audio commentary, training workbooks for those who prefer to read to learn, and exercise files that are used with the tasks in the workbooks so you get practical experience in the software you are trying to learn. Now the creator of 5 of the most popular online MYOB training courses in Australia.
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Want to be a ‘B’ keeper

Why did we single out the letter B? Well, because it is a combination of Business and book (as in Book keeper). The real reason is we wanted to have a catchy heading to make you read this BLOG post. But if you are serious about becoming a bookkeeper then you may want to take a look at the Wikipedia definition of a bookkeeper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookkeeper)…. Sounds pretty boring doesn’t it?? Still, a necessary evil in our modern capitalist world, and a great way to earn a living as an independent contractor. Yay!!

The real reason for this blog is to let you know that we have started a social networking site for people who are learning, know how to use or want to know how to use MYOB Accounting software (the best selling accounting software in Australia).

To join the network, get to meet other bookkeepers and improve your knowledge please feel free to join and build a ‘sphere of influence’ that will help you provide a better service to your customers and build a level of confidence to perform at your peak (great marketing words aren’t they). Apart from the humour it is important for upcoming MYOB users to get to know other users, build a community and improve their skills in an ever changing taxation environment.

The website address is myobtraining.ning.com I hope you can join us 🙂 and share your wisdom.

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Sketch your own website banner

Want to have better looking graphics on your website? Now you can do it yourself with a great website that helps you create banners for your website.

This website is just like an image editing program, but it’s on the Internet rather that installed on your own computer. This means that you can access and use it for free from anywhere. This website is indicative of the growing trend of software applications that you can use on the Internet. They call this type of application “Software As a Service” and it seems to be the way that all programs are going because the owner of the program has complete control of usage.

I hope I didn’t go off track then, but I find “Software As a Service” a very interesting business model… It’s like hotmail, gmail and most online applications, in that you are offered something for free for a while and then when you realise just how valuable it is in your daily life. It starts to become important and (most interestingly) valuable to you and it’s probably at that point when the industry will reach the stage (that they are touting will come), the stage where these “valuable” service become “paid for” services.

Anyway, back on track, the good news it that these services are currently free so get to know them, learn how to use this type of program and get some better results on your website.

The website that I’m talking about it www.bannersketch.com

Please feel free to subscribe to my blog and leave a comment 🙂 Steve

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Create your own flash intros for free online

Here is another example of everything becoming free online. I’ve just discovered a website where you can create your own flash animated intros without having any experience using Flash.

You can create either html or swf files from the site and if you decide you want to use more of the features that they have to offer, you can join the site for less than $5 per month. Have fun with it.

http://www.flashberry.com/builder.html

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Specific is terrific for your website and online marketing

Many website owners believe that they can create content and plonk it anywhere on their website and they’ll be inundated with emails and calls. They are missing the fundamental fact that people who are browsing the internet have potential 10-30 other website to visit until they find the one that they think is the best.

Here’s a couple examples of the goals I have for some of my websites.

  1. Get website visitors off your home page (otherwise they’ll bounce)
  2. Get people to take a short tour of what you can do for them (using images and maybe audio)
  3. Give people a reason to interact with your website (like a free sample or information report)
  4. Know the website goal and how to measure it (eg. the number of people visiting the website compared to the number of people who actually get to your Contact/subscription/ordering page etc).

Some fantastic news for you is that Google has all the tools to help you attract website visitors, funnel them to goal pages and measure your success. Advertising with Google costs you money, but most of the other tools are completely free (like Google website optimiser and analytics).

A great aspect about Google Adwords is that although it costs you money, you actually attract very specific potential customers to your website, customers who have typed in very specific search words and/or phrases. Better still you only pay for actual clicks to your website and not the people who just see your add.

So remember that when you promote yourself online you are looking for people who want something very specific so you need to find them and then funnel them to your own specific goals for them.

If you need some help please call me on 0413 007 481 or email steve@slisar.com.au

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Landing Pages to focus your website

A landing page is a web page that contains specific information on it that will appeal to website visitors who are looking for something specific.

For example, if I send an email newsletter which promotes Microsoft Excel Training and I insert a link to my home page (eg: www.slisar.com.au) then people who click on and follow the link from the newsletter may be a little disappointed. Why? Because they were expecting to find information about Microsoft Excel Training but now need to navigate around my website to find the information.

So, I create special “landing pages” that cover a specific topic and when a website visitor gets to the page they are pleasantly surprised because they see all the information they were searching for. This is an example of a landing page: http://slisar.com/main/page_landing_learn_microsoft_excel_online.html .

You could put special links on your landing page that “funnel” website visitors to exactly where you want them to go and thus acheiving your website goals. Notice that the URL of the above “landing page” contains keywords that are used to search for the service offered? This is one aspect of Search Engine Optimisation and makes your website attractive and “Relevant” to Search Engines.

After creating some specific landing pages I can create ads on Google Adwords, Microsofts adCentre or promote these ‘landing pages’ in email marketing campaigns so that when people click on them, they get a very specific response and are funnelled to the webpage that you want them to get to.

Creating these pages is possible using the 123ezy website builder and I have used this technique to successfully attract thousands of people to my websites and online services. If you need some help with your website design or Internet marketing, please contact me in Australia on 0413 007 481 or email me at steve@slisar.com.au

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Sell in the US – no warehousing or shipping

Have you heard about “Drop Shipping”? It is used to describe the process of YOU selling a product without having to buy it first, store it or deliver it, and some people are making thousands and thousand of dollars doing it.

The concept has been around in the US for years and although it sounds simple, you are best to know a little bit about the products you sell. Why? Because you will be the person that customer call if there is a problem…. you are the middle man 🙂 Continue reading Sell in the US – no warehousing or shipping

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Want to use bigger words in your letters and correspondence?

Have you ever wondered how people get to know about new big words? These big words are almost like a tool, used in the daily grind of work and communication with other humans and they can often lift the status of the person wielding the words. But now it is easier than you think to do it yourself.

Do you work at a computer each day? Well, you have instant access to dictionary.com, don’t you and then when someone says that you are being supine in your approach to learning new big words, you can ask them not to be so pejorative, but to leave the room precipitously.

Happy Big Word day!

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Auctions! Exciting? Ebay – everyone’s pouncing at it

In the Neanderthal period of the Internet, when everything ‘internet related’ was worth 50 times it’s commercial value, no one understood it’s real value, compared to bricks and mortar businesses. Anyone who had computer programming experience was writing software programs for the internet.

Online auctions were the buzz because rather than someone just searching for a product to buy, contacting the seller and then negotiating over the phone (like we all used to do with the Trading Post … “tell’em they’re joking about that price”), online auctions made you come back to the website time and time again to see if you’d won the auction.

Ebay used some fantastic, “operate your own business” campaigns to make ordinary people realise that they could operate a business from home just by selling unwanted items and as a result bulk sellers make about 80% of all sales in online auctions. This is where we meet the next fork in the road for online auctions. Ebay with it’s market clout is trying to force all their sellers to use only Paypal as the method of payment, PayPal is an online payment system owned by Ebay.

In view of this turmoil, other online auction websites are promoting themselves like ravens to get some of the spoils of this turmoil and one of the biggest launches is that of Telstra owned business, Sensis, which owns the Trading Post (an other big Australian online portals like the Yellow and White pages).

If you want to check out some other online auctions here is a list:

http://www.tradingpost.com.au/ 

http://graysonline.com.au/ 

http://oztion.com.au/ 

http://webshop.cashconverters.com.au/items 

and a new service that is currently going to be launched: http://offerme.com.au/ 

One more thing that you might like to know is that almost anyone can now start an online auction website because the software that allows you to create is available for free! Yes, the Open Source movement has created many software programs that take all the hard work out of setting up and auction site of your own…. all you have to do is add products.

Happy buying and selling

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Who wants to create their own movies?

Movies are something that you may not have thought about creating for yourself. I mean, why would you? Who’s going to see them anyway?

I helped a client create a movie from their last ski trip only last week and it tooks us less than 4 hours from the client not knowing anything about Microsoft Movie Maker. Not only did we create the movie, but we shortened selected video clips, created transitions between clips, muted the audio from the video clips and even put two sound tracks going in the background to add a real ‘feel’ to the movie.

When I say video clips, these are snippets of video that we get from a video camera (and let’s face it, a normal digital camera is also a video camera these days) and combine in an order that we choose and re-arrange if needed.

Finally we converted the video into a movie file format (just a  couple clicks) and before you know it, the movie is ready not only to burn to a CD, but also to easily publish to YouTube for the whole world to see your creation (if you want them to). Thought I’d just throw in a small comment here … more and more businesses are creating their own video/movie style ads and placing them on YouTube to build awareness and it’s easier to do than you think..

Let me know if creating a movie is something that you’d like to learn more about?

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How do you sell your household stuff “online today”?

The reason for the question is that our Dee Why office is closing and we have a whole bunch of things that we want to get rid of, but it is not worth going through the trouble of listing each one and paying for each listing in an auction site like ebay.

We have things like filing cabinets, office chairs, office desks, cork boards, folding machine, VCR player, lightbox, paper binding machines (2), air conditioning unit, display stands etc.

My first step was to do a search for some of these things at Google.com.au, this provides a valuable first step as it shows you the various classifieds sites that people use to sell their things. Here are a list of some free classifieds sites… there are many more than you think:

www.craigslist.com.au

http://sydney.gumtree.com.au/

http://cracker.com.au/

http://www.annonz.net/?r-New-South-Wales

http://www.dclassifieds.com.au/public/main.aspx

http://www.ozfreeonline.com/

http://www.freead.com.au/PN_zClassifieds.html

http://www.elist.com.au/

http://www.search4stuff.com.au/

http://www.localnote.com.au/

http://www.simpletrade.com.au/ 

http://www.adoos.com.au/ 

There are also websites where you can go to list your business like http://sydneyexchange.com.au/ .

What I found most interesting is that people are even using online image storage areas like picasa (part of Google), www.flickr.com  and others to show the images of their products and then provide their contact details. Just like this lady who is moving house: http://picasaweb.google.com/householdgoods/FurnitureForSale

So, there’s a little bit to think about next time you want to get rid of any household or office ‘stuff’. Happy selling…. by the way, i also used our email newsletter to let people know that we have things for sale 🙂

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Office Equipment sale on 3rd May

We have a lot of equipment that we no longer need in our move from Dee Why to Brookvale and they will be available for sale on Saturday 3rd May from 1pm to 4pm. Items available include: Computers, monitors, keyboards, powerboards, power extension, power cables, printers, fax machine, folding machine, binding machines, water cooler, Taymar display stands, office desks, office chairs, bar fridge, coffee maker, filing cabinets and more….

The address is 26 Oaks Ave, Dee Why (opposite Woolworths)… see you there

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New Domain name transfer policy

The auDA, the organisation that managers Australian domain names, announced on Monday, 14th April a relaxing in the rules to transfer domain names from one licence holder to another for any reason.

There are still some restrictions, particularly designed to protect companies and individuals who own trademarks from domain name hoarders who buy them for the sole purpose of selling them to make a profit.

For more information follow this link: http://www.auda.org.au/news-archive/auda-14042008/

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Steve’s Outa Dee Why

“Dee Why is growing up and all the buildings are being demolished to make way for a new modern suburb, so I’m moving to Brookie” says Steve Slisar who is moving his business from Dee Why where he has been operating his computer training since 1999.

 As a result of more students using online training, having more sophisticated and specific requirements and the development that is currently going on in Dee Why, Steve is closing his Dee Why office and moving to Brookvale. His new training centre is smaller than Dee Why and as a result he has computers, desks, chairs, binding machines, kitchen appliances, stationary and many more items up for sale.

The sale of the Dee Why office contents will take place on a Saturday very soon and you’ll be able to name your price on some items. To be informed about when the sale takes place, visit his website at www.slisar.com and join his Email Newsletter by clicking here.

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Steve Slisar builds local online learning community

Today (11th April 2008) EzyLearn Pty Ltd director, Steve Slisar, launched the companys’ first “Community” website for Sydney’s Northern Beaches where the company began teaching people how to start using their computers in 1999.

“With websites like MySpace and Facebook, ‘Social Networking’ is what all the talk is about these days. It’s how real people can collaborate with other real people in a fun and interactive way on the Internet and it’s part of what they call Web 2.0” says Steve Slisar. “I’m excited to see how our customers take to this new technology… seeing that many of them are beginners and have only recently used computer for the first time”.

EzyLearn’s launch today of the Social Networking site also means that they are able to provide a very similar service via their 123ezy website business to website clients.

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Howard Gov’t Funding dried up

This announcement is regarding the Workskills program that was initiated by John Howard and the Australian Federal Government.

EzyLearn computer software training videos, workbooks and exercise files were being used at training centres in Dee Why, Chatswood and Perth to help Workskills students gain the qualification of Certificate II in Business.

When the Rudd Government took control of Government they initiated quotas that were in the contract offered to RTO’s (Registered Training Organisations) and we found that this made it impossible to enter new students into the Government enrolment system.

As a result, Steve Slisar (director of EzyLearn Pty Ltd), decided to make a selection of his online e-learning computer software training courses available for free at a website called www.freecomputertraining.com.au.

The good news for potential students is that the Rudd Government has a new initiative that has promised more places for a larger spectrum of the community.

Register with this blog to make a comment (see top right of the webpage) or join the EzyLearn “free computer training” newsletter, to be informed about developments regarding Free Computer Training. Click this link to join the email newsletter: http://www.freecomputertraining.com.au/main/page_product_gallery_email_newsletter.html

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EzyLearn starts the EzyLearn Educator program

Today Ezylearn started the EzyLearn Educator program to help build a national team of trainers and training centres who use EzyLearn content to teach people how to use their computer.

“We have various Internet Portal websites that use our training content and felt that it was now a good time to bring together all the people who have used our conten” says EzyLearn Director, Steve Slisar.

The Ezylearn Educator program is designed to specifically inform Ezylearn trainers about changes to the content and delivery, as well as opportunities that arise in the computer software training market place. “It fits well with our new business opportunities programs where anyone who wants to use the full range of EzyLearn computer training tools can do so at a very economical price compared to other course material that is currently on the market” says Steve.

EzyLearn Educators have training workbooks, online e-learning videos and exercise files that they can use to help them deliver a full and comprehensive range of products to their clients.

Anyone interested in learning more should visit the Business Opportunities section of the EzyLearn website or subscribe to the EzyLearn Educators Email newsletter, by clicking the following link: http://www.ezylearn.com.au/_mgxroot/page_10728.html