Mind you, there are already reporting and taxing mechanisms in place for the same business transactions that the new onerous regulations will address. Sales tax and income tax are already being levied for these. Its just that the new regulations would require businesses to garner information and submit 1099s for every business transaction accumulating to US$600 or more per annum.

That means if–for example–your business buys a computer in 2012, you will need to collect a Tax Identification Number (TIN) for the vendor that sold you the computer before you are legally permitted to pay the vendor for the product. And then you need to go through the hassles and effort of providing a 1099 for the vendor for that purchase, or cumulatively for the year of you bought more from that vendor.

Or in effect, so argues Chris Edwards in Costly IRS Mandate Slipped into Health Bill.

The extra paperwork comprises a kind of tax on labor. The extra gazillion forms will require a large increase in accountant and IRS labor to reconcile the redundant filings. No doubt errors will increase. Risk to identity theft will necessarily increase with wider distribution of TINs.

And while the outcome may increase business honesty and government revenue, at the same time it will decrease efficiency and add significantly to the costs of running both business and government. Whether the bottom line for the government will be an increase in revenue or not is uncertain.

If the regulations kill business, any positive change from the government perspective can only be more dubious. Health care reform apart from new 1099 reporting promises to burden many businesses already on an economic brink. Such businesses know they either cannot afford to hire new employees because of the increase in required employee benefits, or they must lay off workers they could have paid without health benefits. And government control of health care decreases competition in related industries, which historically in various economic sectors has been shown to increase consumer (or patient) costs while decreasing quality.

The recent health care legislation was passed under a mountain of private and public debt. Early news suggests the health care legislation will increase spending requirements for government rather than as promised, reduce it. Interest in government raising taxation must be matched by the opportunity and ability to make a profit. With less profit, there is less to tax. Under a mountain of public and private debt, business, government, and consumers suffer.

And 1099 reporting legislation that has promise to do nobody any good in economic hard times needs closer scrutiny. Am I misguided on this? Please comment.

It turns out that the verb “till” can be used of serving God in a religious sense and “guard” is commonly used of what one does to God’s commands and imposed religious duties. Perhaps more importantly, the combination of the two verbs is used of religious duties at the Tabernacle, the place God dwells and is served by the priests (Numbers 3:7-8, 8:26, 18:5-6 – Wenham).

The Tabernacle is like Eden. The entrance to the Tabernacle faced the rising sun. And on the east side of Eden, Adam and Eve are denied entrance into Eden after the fall. As the priests “tilled and guarded” (or rather served) before the very presence of God at the Tabernacle, so Adam “tilled and guarded” (in a religious sense) in Eden, where Adam and Eve walked and talked with God.

Only after the fall when Adam and Eve disobeyed God is the man cursed to work the soil with difficulty–thorns, thistles, sweat.

But the original context of work was religious service to God. And the priestly functions before God in some measure restored a relationship with God after the separation entailed by the fall. Sin separated mankind and God; priestly sacrifices were necessary to restore the breach.

Interestingly, the apostle John sees a vision of restored relationship in terms reminiscent of Eden. As a river flowed out from Eden to water the garden, so a river in John’s vision flows out “from the throne of God and of the Lamb.” As fruit bearing trees graced Eden, so in the vision, fruit trees are present, “and there will no longer be any curse.”

The text makes clear that the Lamb here is Jesus, whose death on the cross resembled the animal sacrifices in Moses’s day in the Tabernacle. Jesus was “the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” in John the Baptist’s terms. Easter, in other words, is a celebration of the restoration of Adam and Eve’s descendants (or some of them) to the service of God.

Work is cursed, but redeemed … eventually. God was the original source of all that is good and the creator of final good. The purpose of our careers, our callings, our labors ultimately is in respect to our relationship with God and to the cursing and blessing of God.

“Whatever you do, in word or deed, do it everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him” (Colossians 3:17).

Happy Easter!

OK, so maybe I finally have a profound grasp of the obvious. Now how do you accomplish the … obvious?

Think of it this way. First, keyword research. Think of keywords as the titles to your posts, offsite articles and videos, whatever. They can also be your headers and alt tags. Or rather, your keywords get worked into titles and headers that make sense to the reader.

Remember the first rule of rhetoric as taught by the ancient Roman orators: say one thing. Let each video, article, audio recording (like a Roman speech), even every comment say whatever can be put under a single umbrella topic.

Put another way, all the content of your article relates to one keyword or keyword phrase found in your title. The keyword is the umbrella and the all the content fits under it.

And every keyword fits under the umbrella of your site topic. Ideally your homepage site URL is at least representative of the umbrella, so every keyword is relevant to what your URL means in plain English (or whatever language your site is in).

Now it gets a little more complicated. But don’t make it too complicated. Its just that there’s a difference between onsite and offsite content. Onsite content is your stuff. Offsite content is like votes about your stuff. Or independent witnesses. Even if you write it.

Ideally, each page, post, audio, and video ON your site will act like an umbrella term for as many OFF-site pieces of content as possible. To illustrate in keyword terms, the titles of, say, five offsite articles or guest blog posts are subtopics of a single onsite page topic. Actually, the titles need not be subtopics, but should at least be directly relevant to the onsite keyword.

For your marketing purposes, the idea is for your offsite content to advertise your onsite content. Offsite stuff should point viewers to click to your site so that they have a chance to sign up or buy from you.

… Which introduces a complicating wrinkle: Anchor text. Anchor text is the “click here” words that link your offsite content with your relevant onsite content. Anchor texts are keywords, or that’s the way the search engines look at it. Anchor texts are like titles in that they convey a unifying, umbrella topic, notably the one topic of the onsite content to which the link points.

Anchor text in your offsite content should relate that offsite content with your onsite content. As a matter of fact, anchor text can ALSO relate one piece of onsite content (or one onsite page) with another piece of onsite content.

For example, see another post on this blog regarding how to write headlines–isn’t that relevant?–or another post on tips for choosing keywords.

I suppose the old principle of saying one thing was intended to maximize the potential to capture and hold the audience’s attention. Its easier to organize if you have a single guiding light or pole star.

Of course in the internet age, people type in searches looking for one thing. If they find your offsite or onsite content in their search, you have a better chance of capturing and holding your viewer’s attention if your content stays on topic.

P.S. Much of the above I owe to Niche Profit Classroom, with which I am affiliated.

OK, so there are some questions we may not be able to answer. But do you think color has an affect on how you feel?

Waves of visible light hit the retina in your eye. A chemical chain reaction sends a signal down the nerve to the brain. This signal has an effect on the brain that is more than just triggering an interpretation of the scene the eye sees. Hormones and moods are affected depending on visible color.

You may be thinking that individuals and cultures may differ in their reactions. I know a Chinese woman who lived through the Pol Pot genocide in Kampuchea in the late 1970s. She hates wearing black. Why? Because that was the preferred clothing color of her persecutors. In her case, the trauma triggered an intense emotional reaction and color associations in the brain. No black, thank you.

The odd thing is that studies show certain colors are associated with particular mood reactions in a wide spectrum of people.

If you are into online web design and copywriting, that’s good news. We all buy things from emotional motivations. From color therapy or chromotherapy, for example, we learn that:

1) Blue tends to stimulate relaxation, peace, a lower heart beat, and trust. It is also said to inspire creativity. Violet and green are similar.

2) Red has the opposite reaction. Red stimulates energy, action, a higher heart beat. Yellow is similar to red, but to a lesser extent. Pink, by contrast, has a tranquilizing effect.

3) Black and violet tend to suppress appetite; orange to stimulate it. Black also typically stimulates self-confidence.

Perry Belcher, for example, has found that a light blue background (outside the black-on-white text area) best increases conversions in website sales copy (clicks, sign ups, and sales). Similarly, a light gray background converts better than a white one, if you don’t want to use the superior light blue. (Bright or dark blue is too harsh.)

Like it or not, red headlines have been tested and convert best. Amazon’s orange “Add to Cart” button with a blue border has proven to convert to more clicks on that button than competing color schemes.

But I can’t help wondering if color schemes are tested uniquely in mono-cultural or “mono-demographic” markets whether some differences will not show up. Color symbolism in context, for example, may alter results. As always, split testing in time shows any statistically measurable difference.

But why not begin with what has proven to work best and see if you can improve on it?

If I may end with a word of caution: Play fair. Color schemes are better seen as helping to remove unnecessary hindrances to doing business than they are as tools to manipulate suckers. In the long haul, your business will do better using color with the former goal in mind than the latter. In the long haul, honesty is the best policy.

And of course, color does not force anyone to do anything; it is only a possible subtle influence. If you have anything to do with online copywriting and website design, try it.

That may seem simple. But think about it.

If we all did our top priority things first, daily, and avoided interruptions, we’d all be a lot more successful. In fact, most of us often don’t “get” what is of top priority.

Pagan continues that there are three pillars of making money (for information product business): The customer (or “leads”), conversion (meaning sales or sign-ups), and content.

With many leads and great content, but low conversion … you earn little money. With a great conversion rate, but few leads … you earn little money. With many leads and a great conversion rate, but a lousy product … well, your reputation will suffer and long term prospects for making money are low.

You need all three pillars. And these three pillars are your top priorities, according to Pagan, in ranking order: first customer leads, second conversion rate, and third product. If you don’t put the time and effort in your information product business according to these priorities, your business will be less than optimal.

Yes, there may be brief periods where you need to spend more time on, say, content for a new product, but normally you should have a set daily schedule that includes these three top priorities first and proportionately.

Pagan repeats his warning against letting distractions of lower priority tasks interrupt the pillars. Not least because distractions actually take a long period to recover from. Not least because mental focus increases efficiency. Stay in your mental “zone.”

I am not affiliated with Pagan’s limited-admission Ignition Coaching Club, but you may want to get on their waiting list.

One can cloak links in a variety of ways.

1) Of course, one can use various link shorteners. The shortened link will not be in a neat and memorable form of your choosing, but it will be cloaked. Among shorteners are bit.ly (which can be set up for tracking clicks), tinyurl.com, budurl.com, snipurl.com, cli.gs, fb.me, and goo.gl most recently.

2) Create a file in your cpanel named something you like (presumably something to do with the product or service) and put the affiliate link in the html code of the file.

3) Set up a unique domain name and forward it to your affiliate link.

4) PHP Header Redirects.
Use the code: <?php header( ‘Location: http://www.yourtargetdomain.com/new_page.html’ ) ;?>

5) Use Acloaker.com according to the following video, which assumes the use of ftp software wuch as FileZilla.

I saw his point. How could a great, just, wholly-other sort of a Being humiliate Himself, condescending to becoming a burping, unclean-stuff producing baby human? Sort of like a President or monarch morphing into a stray dog or a flea … only far more so.

So here we are in the middle of seasonal stress. Yet still there are things out there that incite our hearts to wonder and awe. A single cell. An evening sky. Galaxies. A colorful and fertile scene shaped by water, valley, and mountain. Mocking such things may be more than in bad taste. How much more so if at an ineffable, holy, unimaginably great God.

Of course, we sometimes chide ourselves for being too caught up in material things (like gifts and presents). There has to be something more important out there than being a Scrooge. Some greater “why” than making a buck and buying your three year old more socks.

Not that socks and money are bad things in themselves. Sometimes errands and work projects are driven by relatively important “why’s.”

Question then arises whether there can be a relationship between the mundane and the wonderful, between retail stores and ultimate purpose, between the material and the spiritual, even between humans and God. Not that there always is, but is it possible?

The story of Jesus’ birth suggests there may be. For one thing, it comes in a context in which God made the material, including our bodies. As God’s creations, we are here for God’s purposes.

For another, The Birth suggests that God did graciously condescend to relate to us mere humans. The Christmas story is that God became a man for a brief period of years and showed humanity something about meaning, ultimate purpose, and that which is most awe-inspiring. He emptied Himself for us.

And that leaves open the possibility of a greater “Why” to our seasonal busy-ness and daily business.

Or at least that is what ideals of success can do. Along the way, many of us lose sight of them.

We are beaten down by failure. Distracted by the “tyranny of the urgent.” Fearful of pain or loss. Entangled in commitment. Sabotaged by our own disbelief.

Or so says Steve Little, who has made a career of helping people achieve their definition of success, partly by unshackling the mind from hindrances.

I for one would grant that there are forces beyond our control. We cannot make other people’s decisions for them. We cannot change the past, in particular past actions by which we became guilty or embarrassed. We cannot change our fundamental nature or the law of gravity.

But at the same time, we can fear our own success lest, having achieved it, we lose it again or it proves unsatisfying. Does that sound strange? In how many ways have we learned to place conditions, obstacles, and warnings as barriers to our success? When we gain success in some way, do we even recognize it or stop to be grateful we have arrived in some measure? And so we defeat ourselves in advance of battle.

If we cannot control everything, we can control how we think:

about setbacks
about obstacles
about things that make us feel afraid
about things that make us feel joyful.

But this introduces another layer in my view. Success or the ideals of success must be seen in relation to Providence and moral principle. Providence may steer and enable me on the path to success as a blessing, or thwart my efforts.

My own ideals of success themselves are best defined by Providence rather than me. Indeed, they are subject to Providence. And the achievement of success can be either a blessing or a curse depending on my obedience to moral principle.

How Providence and human action play out is more than I can say, though at best I can believe in both the good intentions of Providence toward me and in the vital role my thoughts and intentions play in the success I receive. And so …

The first step toward success is for the mind to arrive at it.

… All of which I propose in part because I am interested in your thoughts on the topic and your stories. Your comments are invited. What is success to you?

Peter Rubel

P.S. If the big-picture market is driven by mass psychology and mass mood, so the success of the individuals making up the mass are each driven by their own–our own–feelings and thoughts. In this connection, Henry Ford famously commented, “Whether you think you can, or can’t, you’re right.”

P.P.S. Steve Little (with whom I am affiliated) helpfully divides success into six categories:

- Finance and Money
- Business or Employment
- Recreation and Fun
- Health and Fitness
- Relationships
- Community

Recently Adam Short and Alen Sultanic of Niche Profit Classroom (of which I am an affiliate) held a webinar regarding boosting productivity and regaining a balanced life, especially for internet marketers.

For one thing, they suggest focusing on tasks that make money. That usually means things like building traffic, writing follow up email sequences and sales copy, and improving product quality.

1) Before that, however, comes the first self-management principle: writing “to-do” lists. Brainstorm on paper, on a large white board, and/or online at a place like Base Camp.

2) One can then arrange the lists by priority, with money making potential driving items to the top.

3) Settling goals and deadlines for the items on the list logically comes third. Short and Sultanic recommend goal setting down to the hour of each and every work day … and setting goals for one month, three months, six months, and one year out. Base Camp helps with that too. Cross out the completed tasks.

4) Of course, goals without commitment isn’t going to get one very far. Short and Sultanic stated or implied three means of boosting commitment to meeting deadlines:

a. Remembering the pain of long hours and an unbalanced life. And conversely the pleasure of time off.
b. Find and use a mutual accountability partner. That’s what Adam and Alen are to each other.
c. Reviewing goals and deadlines once in the morning and once in the evening.

5) Quit work on time. That means brief breaks every 45 minutes (or whatever you decide). That means stopping at 5:00 PM (or whatever you decide) rather than at 1:00 AM. In fact, that also means going to bed by 11:00 PM. Otherwise you will miss the most efficient sleep time, and your productivity will suffer from lack of sleep.

You are more productive if you work when you work, relax when you relax, and do not over-work.

6) Follow rituals and rhythms that work for you. Morning hygiene, breakfast, prayer, answering emails, tidying up, business, breaks — whatever. Your mind becomes more efficient following patterns.

In principle, you’ve got only so much time to get things done, and you set your mind to get them done in the time frame that the schedule allows. Ritual and rhythm help focus the mind to the “to-do” list that has been scheduled.

7) Attend to your health. Regular exercise. Enough sleep (seven hours minimum). Proper diet. Your productivity suffers when you neglect these.

Plan each day, then execute the plan for increased productivity. Can you beat that?