Elijah, Author at The At Home Couple

Inspiration Has Worked It’s Magic Once Again

If you’re reading this, then that means you’ve (probably) noticed our new blog design! We started this blog way back in July of 2008 as a way to connect with other like-minded people who share a passion for ideas, blogging, the web and various entrepreneurial adventures.

Since then, TAHC has become something much more… it’s become OUR FACE online. If you’ve been reading this blog since the beginning (Lori we love you) you’ll know that it hasn’t been an easy ride, and even to this very day our life on and off the web remains hectic – in a good way!

In the tradition of new beginnings, we decided a new look and feel was long overdue. You’re probably a little surprised at the “non-marketing” look of the new design, but rest assured, how we market this site online was at the forefront of the overhaul “to-do” list.

Since when have done anything conventional on TheAtHomeCouple.com??

The new design was born out of the following inspirations:

We wanted the new site to have the look and feel of our apartment. So we did a custom arrangement of some of our personal items for the header, snapped a picture and gave it some “texture” in Photoshop.
We’re both big fans of typography and the magical powers of a great font, whether it’s online or in print. Rather than have a “logo” we opted for a super simple font – can’t tell you which one though!
It’s all about wood. We’re both second generation hippies, therefor have a super-deep relationship with anything earthly and natural. There’s something comforting about the thought of sitting around a wood table with friends (like at the cottage on a Saturday morning after a late night around the fire) and that is the vibe we attempted to catch with the background texture. It’s like the same feeling you get after an AWESOME cup of coffee (Jay).
Imagery is essential. Our old theme didn’t have any thumbnail features on the home page, or inner pages for that matter. All of the images had to be input manually, which was a pain sometimes. It was essential that our new theme had robust options regarding images, dynamic resizing and custom thumbnail options.

Choosing a new WordPress theme was not fun, and it took forever, but we’re REALLY excited with the end result!

You can expect the site to show a few more changes over the next couple of days, and if you have any thoughts or suggestions – please let us know!

Honesty is always appreciated (especially if you’re not a douche bag).

Cheers,

Elijah

Latest Facebook Page Updates In Plain English

Alright – this is going to be really straight forward.

There are lot’s of updates coming up with Facebook – pretty epic stuff. The main three areas I’m concerned with are Facebook Pages.

Changes To Facebook Pages

Photos – Everyone’s noticed this change to personal profiles, and now pages – photos that are tagged as well as most recent additions will be seen in thumbnails across the top of your pages main content area.

Navigation – Next up, we have a major change for marketers (in my opinion) – Facebook as taken the “tabs” which use to be where the new image thumbnails are, and moved your tab navigation to below your profile picture and description etc… I guess us marketers got carried away (ha!).

Wall Filters – Next up, you can now choose to show the top posts from your page, or posts from everyone, on your Page wall. Most popular on your wall vs. most recent in chronological order – the choice is yours and can be toggled if you click on the Most Recent link below the featured thumbnails.

Admin View – This is MASSIVE! Finally you can use Facebook as your Page. Add comments on your fans walls, like and share content as your page, get notifications when people interact with your content etc.. This is huge for online marketers because we can now actively promote the page and engage people in a very personal way.

New Settings – Despite what people may believe, Facebook has worked really hard over the last few years to give it’s users more control over how their content is displayed on pages. You can now edit the order of your “liked” pages in the left sidebar area of your page, as well as featured users etc. More control for marketers to align themselves with other power users on Facebook.

Facebook Changes For Designers

If you’re a design junkie and like customizing fan pages (me) then there is a HUGE update coming regarding the degradation of the FBML app/tabs and the mass switch over to iFRAME.

This is great, overall. It means that with some coding knowledge, one can now embed almost ANY website or content into their Facebook Page. March 11th is the big day.

Anyways – that’s the latest with Facebook. Visit the links below for more info.

Click here for more on the Facebook Pages iFRAME update.

Click here for the latest updates for mobile users.

Click here for more on the changes to Facebook comments.

How are these changes affecting you?

(Sneak Peak) New Year = New Blog Design + New Plan

Blogging is my first true love online. Whether it’s the creative outlet to write anything I want or the excitement of getting that first comment on a new blog post – I still have huge plans for myself as an expert blogger and social media guy.

With that in mind, I’ve spent nights tossing in bed over the last month trying to muster up the (courage) to give TheAtHomeCouple.com a new face and plan.

I’ve always taken pride in the fact that this blog doesn’t make us money (excl. random affiliate sales and adsense trickles). We keep our money sites separate from our personal blog and this has always worked for us.

But to be perfectly honest… I want more… TAHC could be so much more!

So I finally made the decision to start a FRESH design – take a SNEAK PEAK below:

I know it’s not much – but it’s going to be EPIC!

Veronica and I have also been carefully crafting a master plan to take TheAtHomeCouple.com to higher levels i.e. increased branding, free resources and MORE video posts, tutorials etc… More awesome stuff to make you think, teach you something and/or inspire you some way in your life on and off the web.

Inspiration has always been my drug of choice.

Cheers,

Elijah

Does Life Really Start When You’re 30?

Hey everyone – today is Veronica’s 30th birthday! YAAAAYYY! I’m leaving in an hour to go meet her for dinner, but before I leave I wanted to share my thoughts on getting older (I’m 30 in September) and the whole concept of “my 30’s were the best years of my life” – which I’ve been hearing more and more from people around me.

In my personal opinion – YES! I totally agree and have always been excited for my 30’s. I don’t know if it’s because being in your 20’s is still considered “young” or if 30 years is what it takes to really understand what’s necessary to succeed in life, but I definitely think turning 30 is where the party is at.

Here’s why:

My 20’s was primarily occupied by self discovery, confusion, experimentation and laziness.
Being a 20-something sucks, and society considers someone who is 30 to be more experienced than a person who is 29.
The best stories anyone older than you tells are about something that happened when they were in their 20’s. Turning 30 automatically makes you an awesome storyteller! Well, it hasn’t been scientifically proven yet, but this is what I believe!

(20 minutes later)

Anyways – I have to go hit the subway! I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Cheers,

Elijah

The Cold Call Diaries: Silence is Golden

If there is one thing that most entrepreneurs and new business owners hate doing, it has to be cold calling. The name in it self doesn’t suggest an activity which is warm and rewarding, but on that is frigid and uncomfortable – and rightfully so, cold calling can suck big time.

Especially when people hang up on you.

Over the last week I have been actively cold calling potential business leads for a few hours each day. My background is in customer service, so speaking with people I don’t know comes fairly easy to me. But it’s not as simple as that. Just because you used to be in sales, does not mean you’ll be good at converting cold calls into warm leads. Let’s revisit that one more time…

Converting cold calls into warm leads.

If you’re trying to do anything more than this (at first) you will fail. Last Monday I spent an hour calling up small businesses asking if I could speak with the person who manages their marketing – in hopes to pitch and hustle them on potential business opportunities.

This is wrong.

I discovered through trial and error that I have a better chance if I’m speaking to the owner i.e. whoever is on top and calls the shots. They make the decisions at the end of the day. They write the checks. They have the power.

Secondly, why the hell would someone listen to me if all I was doing is trying to pitch them? This isn’t telemarketing, so don’t pick up the phone and try to sell right off the bat. You might find this weird, but similar to generating leads on Facebook, you shouldn’t cold call and think about making the sale.

Whatchu talkin bout Willis?

Seriously, if you do you are skipping over the entire process of engagement and going straight for the kill. Your potential lead will hang up (which a bunch of them did) or insist that they have no use for your service (which they probably do).

There’s my two cents. Today I did about 3 hours of cold calling in total. Made 2 appointments to meet up and got 5 people requesting more info via email (very interested).

That’s potentially $1000’s in new business over the next 30-60 days.

Not bad.

Cheers,

Elijah