I have Robert Plank’s blog in Google Reader and read an interesting post about quitting your day job. In it he mentioned Eric Holmlund’s day job quitting questionnaire. I searched for the original source for this questionnaire, but didn’t find it. Since Robert published his answers, I thought I could at least list the questions here.

1. Is your job hurting you?
2. Do you have a vision and a solid plan for your business?
3. Do you already have a written goal for quitting your job?
4. Are you committed to the business? (Required)
5. What do you have to lose? (If you have little or nothing to lose, it’s a good time to quit)
6. How long will your savings last?
7. How much income is your business bringing in?
8. What are you willing to sacrifice?
9. Do you trust your gut? (And is it usually right?)
10. Will you dare to do what others only dream of?

These 10 questions look like they cover the important points for making this decision. I’m not quite ready to answer these questions yet. I will start thinking about them. What about you?

If you own an e-commerce site that ships physical products, there is an easy way for you to improve your image. It is your shipping operation! Believe it or not, how you ship is one of the most tangible ways to connect with your customers. Think about online companies that you do business with. What is your impression of their packaging and speed of shipment? I would venture that some companies give you a positive impression while others, well, not so good.

I have chosen to make shipping a positive experience for my customers. Whether they buy through my eBay store or website, I focus on good packaging and fast shipping. I use USPS Priority Mail to do both. The Priority Mail boxes are both free and good looking. You can’t help but give a positive impression with these red, white and blue boxes when compared to the normal brown. Priority Mail also helps with fast shipping. You can ship anywhere in the U.S. in two to three days. With online purchase of postage you get a discount plus a tracking number. (Your customers feel better about their order when they get a tracking number.)

While Priority Mail helps with fast shipping, that is only half of the equation. I know that I have been frustrated by ordering online, then waiting days until the order ships. I make it a point to ship my orders out the very next day. I pack the items carefully and make sure the box is securely closed. (I also include some free product samples as a bonus.) I then order Carrier Pickup and wait for the mailman to pick up my packages.

Using these tips, you can give your customers a positive, fast shipping experience and improve the image of your online business.

One area that I am working on for Ten Foot Table is improving my conversion rate. Part of the solution is improving buyer confidence. I already show the SSL badge from GeoTrust to show that my store is secure. I also post the store policies for people to read and I intentionally made them simple. One new idea I had was to reference the good feedback I have earned as an eBay seller since 2002. I figure that I should get some credit for that 100% feedback rating!

So I searched for a solution and found a great free tool called AUCTIONFB. This tool displays a simple badge that shows your feedback rating, eBay user name, feedback score, and the date it was last verified. It works with several different eBay locales and has ten different color options. There is a registration process, but this is necessary. The tool needs to know your eBay user name and you also need an account so you can change settings later.

I added the widget to my right sidebar so that it displays below my other badges of trust. If you like, click over to Ten Foot Table and see how it looks.

Back in April, I posted that I would follow three internet marketing experts. Now I have decided to follow one more expert that I found on Twitter! Her name is Lynn Terry and she has a blog called ClickNewz. What I like about Lynn is her writing voice and the real help she gives to people just starting out. When you read what Lynn says, you really believe that you can do it. It gives me hope too that I can go it on my own and truly be a Daddy that works at home!

Lynn also has a forum called Self Starters Weekly Tips, which I joined. So far I am only lurking, but that won’t last for long. I like to participate and learn through forums. She also has a weekly webinar and email newsletter that are free! Follow the links I included and look around. Tell me what you think. I think that Lynn has a lot of good advice to share that will definitely be of benefit to you.

As you know, if you read this blog, Joel Comm is one of the internet marketing experts I listen to. Apparently he can’t keep a secret.

For some reason, he took it upon himself to tell the stories of ordinary people who have made some very extraordinary achievements.

You may know Joel as the guy who figured out how to make Google’s Adsense a money-pumping oil well and then turned around and wrote a New York Times best-selling book about it (The Adsense Code)…

…pulling back the curtain so the rest of us can do what he has done.

Many who implemented his recommendations generated significant passive income which continues to this day.

This time, instead of reverse engineering a specific method of making money online, he instead has many of the top internet entrepreneurs in his sights.

• Why did they decide to start selling online?
• What were they doing before they startedselling online?
• Were there any specific, duplicatable qualities that made them successful?

If you’ve ever wished you could have a personal conversation with one of the top internet marketers and ask how they made the transition from “normal” life to Internet Marketing rock star, Joel has gone out and done it, and more.

He cornered over forty internet marketers and forced them to document how they began, what makes them tick…

And not only that, he dug deep and provided us with the rich background of the trailblazers who “laid the tracks” so the Internet, the Web, hypertext, and the browser –which we all take for granted now– could be developed, enjoyed and used in our businesses every day.

He’s given us the inside scoop on:

• The guy who predicted hypertext… in 1945?
• The first spam message, unleashed in 1982.
• The inventor of the modern browser, the “key” that makes internet marketing what it is today.

Joel takes us back to the “glory days” of dialup connections with 300 baud modems and leads us in a revealing romp to the present…

Providing keen insight into the mindset of those early pioneers … many of whom are still active in the marketplace today.

You can get your very own copy of this piece of Internet Marketing history on August 1: Joel’s new book, Click Here to Order.

With all the fervor of a tent-revival evangelist, Joel retells stories such as:

• How the Army helped Mark Joyner become a millionaire (read page 129 and see how he could have
• learned the lesson without the Army).
• Why Declan Dunn became known as “the online guy” (page 64).
• The event where the “Unknown Copywriter” was christened (were you there? And who is this mysterious
• person? Read page 79 to find out).
• The fourteen year old girl who started a simple website that will pay her way through college (page 86).
• One of today’s top marketers who walked out of a job interview at IBM because the interviewer didn’t
• like his tie (no joke…read about it on page 181).

If you’re one of the “gang”, get in line to get your copy. If you want to figure out how these “average Joes” learned how to turn their computers into ATMs, then you will definitely want to claim your copy of this book.

Click Here To Order is a front row seat to one of the year’s can’t miss shows.

You will want to grab your own personal copy as soon as it becomes available.

To get on the priority notification list, go to this website right now!

P.S. What are you waiting for? To get Joel Comm’s new book, where he blows the cover off of the Internet Marketers’ vault of secrets, click here.