Business: July 2006 Archives

I've spent the last four days at the National Speaker's Association annual convention. Imagine 1,700 people who love to talk, give advice, and be the center of attention. Now turn up the volume another few notches.

Despite the occasional din, this has been one of the most fabulous professional growth experiences I've ever had. While Toastmasters is an excellent place to learn how to speak more coherently (especially if you have "um" problems), NSA is a place to learn how to manage the business of being a speaker. They have four core competencies they develop in their members:

Google has snuck out yet another service (no doubt to be terminally in Beta). This one I heard about through an article about eBay stock dropping, despite having both AdWords and Analytics accouts.

I find Google Checkout very intriguing for two reasons.

First, they've undercut most of the reputable merchant account services, even Costco which was the least expensive last time I crunched the rates. Not only are the basic discount rate, per-transaction and monthly/annual fees lower, the fact that you don't need a separate payment gateway like Authorize.Net for real-time processing is another savings. Their simplified rates are also a nice change from the bait and switch experience with many merchant services companies. Many will advertise rates which can only be achieved by brick and mortar or high volume vendors, and it's only when you dig through the fine print that you learn you'll be paying a full percentage point more.