In this episode I break down how to start and operate a podcast. I cover the “Why” you should start one and “What” to expect. And then I drill into the “How”. This covers the exact things you need to do script, record and edit. I cover the “Where” to post your podcast to get the most traffic too.
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Developing an App that offers subscriptions is no easy task. Architecting a subscription service is complex and full of design considerations. This post will elaborate on the areas you need to figure out up front before going down that path.
The App I created is a hybrid architecture which means it uses the one code base for an iTunes and Google Play App. If you are not familiar with App coding it’s beyond annoying… You have to program once in Android and again in iOS. Most Apps/companies have a native setup with two separate code bases for iOS and Android.
Regardless of which architecture you use, implementing a subscription service is complex and full of design considerations. This post will elaborate on the areas you need to figure out up front before going down that path.
I mentioned above that I used one code base. The code/language I used is JavaScript with Phonegap plugins. Even though there is a standard programming language I still had to architect a solution for iOS and Android. Why you ask… well because Apple makes you use their In-App purchase framework and Google doesn’t care what you use.
Seriously, Google has zero care how you implement a payment processor. Having said that I have heard they now have a subscription payment option. However, this was not an option when I began our architecture and development.
Therefore for iOS we used the In-App subscription services that Apple recommends and for Android we used Stripe. We could have used the same Stripe code for both iOS and Android but Apple will not approve any App that doesn’t use In-App purchases. This is as annoying as a new Macbook that doesn’t have a USB port!
On both platforms our pricing is $9.99 a month with a 7 day free trial or $99.99 per year with a 7 day free trial. All the pricing and free trials are easy enough to setup within either iTunes Connect or Stripe. Up to this point we are in the calm water… but now it’s time for the heavy lifting.
Here are the five main consideration areas:
The Initial Payment
Checking Active Subscriptions
Cancelling
Renewing – Without offering another 7-day free trial
Reporting – Who is in trial vs. subscribed vs. cancelled, etc.
The Initial Payments
Apple – This isn’t overly difficult. When you initially load the App you make a service call to iTunes storekit.load method and that will return all the active items in your store. In our case for example it returns four subscription types: Monthly w/ Trial, Monthly, Annual w/ Trial and Annual.
I created a monthly and annual without trial in case a user reactivates a subscription so they do not get the free trial more than once. I was told after development that Apple actually checks this automatically on their end to avoid this situation. But I had already programmed it on my own and cannot confirm that is actually true. If anyone knows are sure please add it to the comments on this article.
Once the store is loaded in the App I just created buttons with the pricing options for the user to choose. If the user taps an offer, I send an buy request to iTunes and Apple initiates and completes the transaction from the users phone/iTunes account.
Android / Stipe – On this path I use the same page for Apple with monthly and annual buttons. When the App initially loads I check the phone type (iPhone or Android). So when Android users tap a selection they are then taken to a payment screen to enter their credit card information.
Now pay attention… Stripe is super simple to implement on the web but not here. That’s because on the web when you click “Pay with Stripe” a pop-up opens and then the payment is handled by Stripe. Essentially you do not have to do anything except send the payment to Stripe and they process it and send you a response. However, in an App you cannot “pop-up” a new window so the basic implementation will not work.
That’s no big deal for “The App Man” though… I just created a JavaScript Ajax call with the Stripe API and then used their PHP API to create a web service to process the payment and return a success or failure response. Sorry to geek out on you but in short the Stripe API allows customization and that’s what I did. Once Stripe works its magic it gives me transaction ID’s that I store with each users account.
Checking Active Subscriptions
As I mentioned before when the App initially loads we have a device check to determine if it is an iPhone or Android. We will now use this to call either iTunes or Stripe and get the current status of the subscription. Every time the user freshly loads the App we need to run a check to see if they are active. When I say “Freshly Loads” I mean that if the App has not been used in over four hours we are going to run this check.
Apple – This is where Apple starts to get more difficult. To check a subscription status you have to do the following. First, when the storekit.load function executes it calls Apple and gets the subscription products (monthly, annual). However, it also looks for and if found returns a value for: sk_receiptForProduct. This is a transaction ID for the subscription that is related to the users phone/iTunes account. Now, if the user has been on a monthly subscription for 12 months guess what… it will return 12 transaction ID’s.
The transaction ID is a encrypted string about 2000 characters long that you then have to encode and send to Apple for validation. Apple will send you back a status ID of the transaction.
Here is what you will run into while developing and testing. In the Apple sandbox environment Apple will renew a monthly subscription every 5 minutes to simulate a month has passed. After six renewals the account will be expire. In theory this is great but in actuality it sucks.
The reason it sucks is because now you have 6 transaction ID’s. Every time you build the App moving forward those 6 transactions stay with your phone. Apple didn’t bother to create anyway to refresh or clear past transactions. So on the second build you will have 12, then 18… As you can see the more you build and test the more calls to the receipt validation service you have to call.
In my case my App wouldn’t load because I was making 40 calls to the receipt validation service to see if my subscription was active. But here is what I discovered through trial and error. Every single transaction ID, although a different sting, returns the same subscription status. So programmatically I just store the final transaction ID and then send that one time for validation.
If the transaction ID is valid the user is send to the dashboard and if not we send them to a renew page.
Android / Stripe – This implementation was fairly easy to develop. To do this I just take the users transaction ID from their account an call a Strip PHP service that I wrote. This returns all the data associated with their subscription. If they are active I send them to the dashboard and if they have expired they go to the renew page.
Cancelling
Be sure to make the terms of your subscription clear and upfront – don’t be an A-hole! Not to mention that Apple will not approve your App if you are being deceptive.
Apple – In order for a user to cancel their subscription they have to go into their iPhone settings, then iTunes and cancel their subscription. In the test environment there is no way to actually do this as of this writing other than waiting for the subscription to expire as stated earlier. I guess we just assume if Apple approves our App it will work.
Android / Stripe – Again the Stripe API allows us to create our own cancel process. Within the App we created a section that shows the subscription status, free trial days remaining and next bill date. We then created a custom PHP service that will cancel the user’s account. The only rub here is that if the user cancels we still need to give them access to the App through the remainder of the month/year they paid for. Stripe has accounted for this within their API so it’s really just a matter of showing the user a nice message like: “Your account has been cancelled and you will still have access to the App until 10/20/20”. Once the expiration date is reached we will pick this up with the subscription status check we mentioned earlier in consideration 2.
Renewing Subscriptions
Apple – Pretty straightforward here… Apple auto renews every 30 days. Upon login we check the transaction ID and if it is expired we send them to an App page with our renew offers.
Android / Stripe – Upon login we check the Stripe transaction ID with and if it is expired and past the “good until” date we route them to the renew page. So if their user account has a transaction ID they will never see the free trial again.
Reporting
Apple – This is where Apple has really dropped the ball. There is absolutely no way to determine how many of your accounts are in free trial vs. active vs. expired from a reporting standpoint. Right now there are two options I have found. Either build your own system or Revenue Cat. Revenue Cat is a startup that can handle this process and has reporting on these metrics. The only issue is that they currently do not work with hybrid Apps. I have been speaking with their CEO and they are expanding their API to accommodate this and many other new features. Needless to say I can’t wait until this is ready.
I have also spoken with several other companies that have created their own tracking and all have assured me that it is a huge undertaking. So beware because your marketing and business teams are going to want to know this data. Apple is taking 30% of each subscription you sell but providing no reporting / metrics at this time.
Android / Stipe – No problems and no issues here. The Stripe interface is mature and well designed to see the status of accounts by many different groupings.
Wrapping Up
Subscriptions within Apps are very popular in concept and Apple is making a huge push for Apps to include them in their offerings. Google Play is also expanding out their platform to support subscriptions and pay for usage Apps. The main issue for a product developer or architect is defining how to accommodate and develop a solution for iOS and Android. From a marketing and usage standpoint we need to also consider reporting.
I started with a solid plan from the beginning and halfway through had to change course several times to get to a final solution. Such is the life of an early adopter. I wanted to share my experience with you so that you can learn what to account for in your App architecture. You likely have a completely different code base and design but the overall considerations will still need to be addressed.
If you need help, please do not hesitate to call me.
Founder of 2 Market Media Hank Norman has been creating TV and media stars for over 25 years. He has worked with more than a thousand of today’s top experts, personalities and celebrities – from Barbara Walters and Steve Harvey to Grant Cardone and Judge Jeanine Pirro. Hank has helped launch cable networks like Oxygen, personality-based networks like The Grant Cardone Network and daytime talk shows like “The View.” Today we know you have to exist online. Hank joins us to discuss why people don’t embrace their online presence and how to find the messaging that works best for you.
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Daniel Alonzo helps people create wealth and achieve financial freedom through massive, passive income so they can enjoy their lives and do what they want to do. He shares his journey, the importance of coachability, and so much more!
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John Sonmez, the Founder of Simple Programmer and author of “Soft Skills: The Software Developer’s Life Manual“ and “The Complete Software Developer’s Career Guide” joins me on today’s podcast! John originally started Simple Programmer in 2009 as a personal blog where he tried to distill what he was learning into simple, easily understandable content. Today, Simple Programmer is focused on helping software developers, programmers and other IT professionals improve their careers and live better lives. Tune in for more from John!
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Steven Kuhn: US Military Combat Veteran, Speaker, best-selling author, and so much more. Join us as we discuss different ads, ad agencies, and making the most out of your existing email list.
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Hoss Pratt is a nationally known authority at lead generation and lead conversion. He is a master at converting prospects into clients and fence-sitters into sellers. Together we discuss how he got into the real estate business, dominating your niche, and passive income.
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It doesn’t matter if you’re a project manager or a large corporation, these are the 9 steps that everyone will need to take to develop an App, website or digital product. In this episode, I thoroughly walk you through each step so you can be on the right track to a successful App or product launch
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It’s critical that you know how to hire the right developers and what to look out for when adding new members to your team. Today I’m breaking down everything you need to know about coders, the differences between good and bad developers and equipping you with all the right questions to ask when interviewing candidates. First, let’s start with some basic red flags to spot “Bad” Developers:
1. Insecurity. An insecure developer is usually a senior programmer, who’s developed a system that only they can understand or is “too hard to explain” to other employees. Their intention is to make it impossible for the program to function without them. They create a system of inwardness, instead of developing something teachable and more useful to the company. They try to create job stability by developing a complicated operating system. This stems from insecurity and is toxic to the work environment.
2. A Silo. This is the person who makes themselves so invaluable to the company, they cannot be replaced. When someone develops an operating system only they can decode, they are a bad developer. A silo is also a person who develops out of insecurity.
3. Complicated Build Environments. How long does it take your organization to get somebody up to coding? If you hire someone and it takes them more than one day to get up them up to speed on your programming system, you’ve got a bad architect on your team. It shouldn’t be more complicated than a full workday to figure out the system. Only a bad developer would program a system that takes a week to decode. Make sure your operating system is neat and not outrageously complicated to translate.
4. There are too many branches. When there are too many branches to code and merge, it makes the system far too elaborate and can take up to a week to translate and run smoothly. This stems from the functionality of your build environments and can lead to unnecessarily laborious work. Be aware of developers who overcomplicate systems and codes that slow down development rather than contribute a teachable, effective system for greater productivity.
Bad developers intentionally makes their work unteachable. If you’re worried about someone else taking your job, you’re already gone. You should be focusing on how to contribute to your company to make it a greater system as a whole. The more people you can help and teach and learn from, the greater an asset you are to the organization.
Enough with the negativity! Let’s jump into some positive characteristics to look for in a “Good” Developer:
1. They finish no matter what! A bad developer might make an excuse, but if you’re a good developer you’re going to get it done. Always hire someone with a high level of integrity. Those are the developers that will always finish the job.
2. A great developer can work within any code base. Unlike an insecure developer who may spend extra time re-coding a system their own way, they will be transparent about any problematic systems and offer a teachable solution.
3. They are neat. When you look a their code, it’s clean and neat. No extra spaces or unnecessary symbols that overcomplicate codes to be unlearnable, (as an insecure developer would do). It’s a simple, obvious thing that makes an enormous difference.
4. They are accountable. They take responsibility for their projects, any issues they encounter and always come through with an alternative solution or offer an updated reasonable deadline if they need more time. They don’t run excuses or keep details vague. They stay accountable for their work and investment in the company.
5. A good developer is simple in their work. They create the most simple solution in the least amount of time. This makes their code easy to teach and utilize on a larger scale.
As you hire developers, it’s very important you chose someone who knows how to demo. It is an art form! A skilled demo is articulate and concise. They don’t get flustered explain a system or release too much information that could potentially jeopardize the company in any way. And perhaps most importantly, they perform well under pressure. Coders are under an intense amount of pressure, time constraints and detail oriented work. It’s important to hire developers that thrive under pressure and are meticulous in their field. These are the kinds of developers you can manage well.
Thanks for tuning in today! I hope these tips help you navigate your way to a more successful, high functioning team. If you have any other questions, mobile app, development inquires, I’m here for you! See you next week! http://www.jeremycallahan.com/
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You need to start building your brand on social media today. Today’s guest is Luke Nelser: CEO of Impakt Media and expert on increasing leads, sales, and brand awareness. He’s worked with the brands in the real estate space, Nissan Corporate, NBC Sports, and Lucas Oil Motorcross just to name a few. Luke and his team know all about leveraging likes to leads, which is exactly what he’s here to share with you today.
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This episode features 5 concrete strategies for you to generate income with an app — even if you have zero coding or app development experience and regardless of the line of business you are in. Let’s start generating revenue!
In this Podcast I give five proven strategies of how you can use Apps to generate multiple sources of income? (MSI). People are always looking for ways generate passive income by leveraging their existing skills or turning an idea into an App. Apps are the perfect vehicle for MSI’s. With as little as $100 you can buy existing Apps on Flippa. With $500 you can hire an offshore team to develop your idea into an App. These low cost entry points give you the power to test your assumptions about Apps in the real world. In this episode I give you five ideas on how Apps are your way to multiple sources of income.
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It’s important that you always have a full sales pipeline – whether you have a business or are an employee. I use specific examples from my business model and mobile apps, but this episode applies to any business.
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In this episode, I break down how much it costs to build a mobile app the same way I break it down for my clients. I’m going to show you exactly how to do it so you can estimate how much your app is going to cost to build.
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I guarantee your App will be successful if you follow these four steps to make your App go viral. You definitely don’t want to miss this one! I will cover the holy grail of how Apps get ranked in iTunes and Google Play and dive into how to create sharing mechanisms so that you get free installs and press.
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The most difficult thing about app development is choosing a platform. Do you go native or do you go hybrid? In this episode, I’m going to take away the mystery and help you make the choice that is right for your applications.
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Prototyping is taking an idea you have and figuring out how to put it in front of someone to test and it’s the first step in app development. Today I teach you the techniques to create your own prototype – from the customer to the design to user experience and everything in between.
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In this weeks episode I talk about how you can easily create an App from your existing Shopify or WordPress website. And double your customers!
Today I’m giving you tools and tips that you can use right now to define if there’s a market — this way you can define your market before you go out and design your product.
Everyone has an idea that is going to be the “next big thing”. Millions of people are going to love and buy it… Oh Really? I hear great ideas all the time but that doesn’t mean there is a market for that product.
In this weeks podcast I teach you how to determine if there is in fact a market for you product by using social hacks and advertising that you can use before you begin building.
Here is the link to my estimates page I reference in the video: http://www.jeremycallahan.com/estimates/
And Calendly: https://calendly.com/
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Here are my thoughts on IBM Think 2018 live from the Las Vegas airport. Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Watson
This episode is for everyone: developers, business owners, QA professionals, project managers, and anyone looking to advance their mobile skills We’re talking about how to expand your existing skills to adapt to a mobile world.
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Today we chat with Mara Seghete, co-founder of the mobile growth platform called Branch. She shares her entrepreneurial journey and provides solutions to help you unify user measurement across different devices, platforms, and channels.
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Over 65% of your traffic is mobile — you NEED a 5-year mobile strategy. Take action TODAY. In this episode, I explain why you need to and how you can get your 5-year strategy started.
Recently, Facebook changed their algorithm and businesses saw their traffic decrease by 70% In this podcast I challenge you to ask yourself “What will your business look like in 2023?” How will mobile change your industry? Most companies are so worried about the next quarter that they cannot even begin to imagine 5 years out I love this quote: “Most people grossly overestimate what they can accomplish in one year and always underestimate what can be done in 5 years.” Your five year plan needs to address how: The Disrupted will become the disruptors How completely new industries will be formed And finally, How to assess and get out of your current technical debt Finally I give you actionable takeaways on how you need to regularly take time out to visioneer what your company and life will be like in 5 years
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Posting video content on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Youtube and your website will 100% lead you to increased sales and leads. When people search for you on the Internet, what comes up? Your potential customers want to know who is behind the company. They do not care about explainer videos or your “About Us” page. It’s 2018 and its time for you to embrace the true power of social media and start posting videos about who you are and what you do.
First, let me be blunt. No one knows who you are or what you do. Even your closest friends and family have no idea what you do for work. They know you have kids, a dog and love yoga because you post that constantly. But what expertise do you have professionally? Its great to be known for yoga but that doesn’t pay the bills.
Show me your expertise and what you do for work. If you are an employee this will help you get a better job. Imagine if you post videos about projects you worked on onto your LinkedIn profile. Imagine if when you interview the HR person types your name into Google and sees videos of you talking about how you contributed to a project. Do you think that would make you stand out from other candidates? You are dam right it would and you’d 100% stand out from everyone else.
Do you own a business and need more revenue and leads? Post a video showing you in action or better yet, give me free advice. Ever since I started posting videos on Facebook I have gotten new clients and closing deals is much easier now. Why? because people see that I am the kind of guy they want to do business with. I’m a real person… know one reads my “About Jeremy” section on my website (Yawn).
And these do not need to be produced. You have a camera in your hand… Think of a topic, turn your phone around, press record. You talking in front of a camera about something interesting. Its that simple! That is all you have to do.
Want to know a secret about me? I was afraid just like you to put up videos of myself. And all I can say is that I wish I had overcame my fear two years ago because when I finally did start posting my business exploded. So stop making excuses and being afraid. Your videos will suck… but its like anything else, you WILL get better.
Contact Me!
jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
Last year Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing stated “more than 500 million unique customers visit it (iTunes App Store) every week”. That means people are searching for Apps as much as they are searching on Google. When someone runs a search for your keywords you are not showing up because you don’t have an App.
It’s not too late to get into the App game. You have not missed the boat. The potential for new customers and expanding your business is right in front of you. 500 million visitors a week!
Today I’m bringing you Steve Young. The creator of App Masters, and a strategically innovative entrepreneur. From Podcasts to Youtube videos, and Online Course, he collaborates with experts in the App industry. His success spans far and wide, and today, we decode just how he does it all!
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In this episode I teach you about 5 things that slow down App development projects and then I give you actionable takeaways on how to speed up your process and get Apps to market faster.
Jeremy’s career began when he taught himself programming in 1998 during the Dot.com-era. Since then, he has worked on globally recognized brands, startups, gaming sites, small businesses and everything in-between.
He loves to give back, and in his free time he launched a video teaching program where he teaches non-programmers how to turn their idea into a published App in iTunes & Google Play.
In this episode I teach you about my experiences with crypto currency, the blockchain and crypto assets. This is based off two books I have read “Cryptoassets” and “The Business of Blockchain”. I have also opened accounts at Coinbase and Binance. This video is about how to learn crypto and start buying alt-coins
Since over half of the traffic to your website, from your social posts and emails is mobile you must have a mobile App. In this video I break down three ways to make money with Apps. Increasing Leads, Reducing Costs and Reducing Manpower
To app or not to app? That is the question. Bringing you strategies and essential tips for the significance of apps and connecting you to people who have achieved success. This week I’m sitting with Jennifer Allwood. Business coach and creator of themagicbrushinc.com, Jennifer teaches artists and creators how to grow their online business and make multiple sources of income.
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No app can survive on its own. Even great apps can suffer if they are not marketed properly. This podcast goes over several ways that apps typically fail and how you can avoid major mistakes in app marketing.
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In order for your app to be successful, you need to market your app. In this episode of To App or Not To App, I share my best tips that you can use today to market your app and get people to download and install your app.
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Great App Ideas That Failed – To App Or Not To App, Episode 11
This week I discuss two great App ideas I had that I developed and brought to market that failed to produce the expected results.
Failing sucks but its part of the journey that has made me an expert at mobile App development. I failed so you don’t have to!
The first thing about any mobile app project is that it has to make money. If there’s no way to make money out of it, it isn’t worth your time. So you have an app. Whats next? In this episode, I share my top tips that you can use today to help your app ideas generate money.
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How do you know if you need an app? Can you generate more sales? Can you reduce your costs? Can you reduce your manpower? Those are the big three. If your idea matches up with those 3 – you need an app! Today I discuss some simple ways to help you decide whether or not turning your idea into an app will help your business.
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You need an app! Your business can not grow and scale without one. Apps aren’t luxury items – they can be utilized by almost any business. Tune in to hear how apps can lower costs, grow your business, and increase outreach. If you’re ready to take your business to the next level then you need an app.
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Here are my 7 reasons Apps fail. At the end of the video I also give you a quiz you can use to validate if your App idea is worthy of development and bringing to market
App-Worthiness Quiz
If you are a trainer, coach or teacher you need an App to take your business to the next level. In this video I break down how easy it is to create an App and make money while you are sleeping.
How much should you expect to pay for a mobile App? There are many things to consider like the features you need, design, user experience, API services and the cost for developers
Today I bring you along as I launch two Apps into iTunes. During the day I battle through numerous frustrations and roadblocks to successfully submit the Apps to Apple.
Here is how I generate free traffic to App pages in iTunes and Google Play to drive App Installs using email, blogs, press releases, social media, contests and many other methods.
It doesn’t matter if you are a drop out or have a master’s degree. In order to be a master in business you must continue to learn to stay at the top. If you commute to work daily use that time to your advantage and learn new skills.
App development is difficult work. Today I failed over 104 times trying to fix a single issue. Every time I changed code nothing seemed to work. But I didn’t give up and finally figured out the puzzle.
The fastest way to evaluate yourself is to press record and see how you answer questions, communicate and express ideas on camera. Once you press record you will get a crystal clear picture of who you are. If you are interviewing for a job, presenting a proposal at work or writing a book turn your camera on and record yourself. Watching you perform is the only way you can fairly evaluate and improve.
Journey with me from when I awake, go to work, have an panic attack, code Apps and show you what a day in my life looks like. I always post filtered photos and videos on the Internet but today I show you what my life is really like from start to finish. It just so happens that I had a full anxiety attack mid-day and decided to post it so you can see that I have struggles just like everyone else.
Think about your business and how you could digitally transform it to make more money or save people time? Utility Apps are Apps that help you or your business do tasks easier, faster and save money.
The first thing I do for my App clients is take all their ideas and create a grid diagram of all the pages that the App will need. This will create a user journey that takes a user from opening the App, registering and using it.
Have an App idea and don’t know where to start? Just like building a home the first step is to contact an architect and begin planning. Here is the easiest way to start and take your idea and turn it into an App.
Here I am in action doing a strategy session to guide my clients into thinking about how to position their idea into an App and create a user experience from launch to payment. This is edited down from an hour session.
Here is the process I have developed and follow to take ideas and turn them into Apps. This is an easy process that anyone can do to get started today.
Ideation – The process of turning your idea into an actual product or business. One of my specialties is helping people and companies take all of their creative ideas and formulate them into a shippable product
The most powerful and effective way to market on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn today is through video. And the best part is it is 100% free! You can create videos, test the results and reach more customers. In this video I explain the impact I have seen on my business and teach you how you can 10X your business
Here is a list of 10 things that if you consistently do you will be successful in any endeavor that you enter. The best use of this list is to take 10 minutes of self-introspection and assess how you measure up to each item. Score yourself 1-5 on each item. The great news is you can change everything on this list instantly.
In todays market you must post videos online to get noticed. If you want to get more leads, proposals and new clients you have to tell people what you do. Social Media allows everyone to get their message out to others. You need to take advantage of the fact that you have a camera in your pocket and can instantly reach and tell people what you do
This is the story of how I thought of and App idea and then learned to program Apps in 2011. The App is called Ball Park Waiter and it allows you to order food and drinks at sporting events and have it delivered to you seat. The App was built but we were never able to convince a stadium or arena to let us use their F&B. To this day (May 2017) no stadium has this even though the idea is 7 years old now
Are you having a debt issue? Here is my simple formula to become debt free. No gimmicks, tricks or shortcuts. You do not have a debt problem… you have an income problem.
Leads! I need Leads! If you send me leads and I get a presentation with that lead I will hand you, Venmo, PayPal, etc, $100
How to continue on when everything you see and hear tells you that you will never accomplish your goals! Find something in your life that reminds you that even though you cannot see it, it is still out there and your’s for the taking if you never give up.
Schedule meetings without the back-and-forth emails. If you are in the business of booking appointments, estimates or meeting clients here is a great tool for booking online appointments. In this video I break down how to easily add it to your website
Every project I have ever been on… at some point things do not go as we had planned. How do you adjust, react and respond when you’ve done all the planning in the world and thing go wrong?
I’ll Do It Tomorrow Is An Excuse Caused By Not Deciding To Commit.
In this video I demonstrate how I integrated Auth0 with my latest mobile App to include social logins from Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter as well as a traditional email/password signup form. You can see the functioning App in both App stores at http://www.10xWorking.com
This utility allows you to only have to create an account at Auto0 and from there with some JavaScript (or many other supported languages) you can use all the other social platform logins.
Whatever business you are in, you must constantly study to become and remain a leader in your industry. Every Saturday I take time to find a quite place and analyze my company without distractions.
I have a great saying that is great to live by. “In my world everyday is a Friday and I’m always on Vacation!”
This is the process we use to take a clients idea and turn it into an App prototype
Email: jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
How I learned the importance of delivering on time in and industry (software development) where missing deadlines is considered acceptable. Finishing tasks on time every time is what differentiates professionals from amateurs.
The most important architectural decision on any App project is choosing between Native or Hybrid. In this video I cover the major points of consideration when choosing a mobile development architecture. Native applications are Apps in the native to the device (iPhone or Android). This means that iPhones are programmed in Swift/Object C and that Android are programmed in Java. Thus you have to have two development teams to program your App.
Hybrid apps are developed using HTML, CSS and Javascript, and then wrapped in a native application using platforms like Cordova. With this approach you can have one set of code that runs on both iOS and Android.
There are tradeoffs to each approach that need to be considered when architecting your App.
Forget what Trump is doing… What have you been doing. How would you assess yourself over the past 100 days. Did you set and accomplish goals or procrastinate?
In 1999 I took a weekend trip to Las Vegas to have some fun and play golf. Back then, the only way to find a golf course was from the hotel concierge, phone book or the best case was a booklet of all the courses in an area.
Vegas has no shortage of golf courses and from all the sources I had I realize every course was essentially charging the same price to play. So I randomly chose Desert Pines and it was horrible decision. It was target golf and I barely got hit my driver all day.
I thought there had to be a better way so I conceived the idea for Course Cam. If there was a way to take a video tours of golf courses in an area before traveling golfers could pick courses that suit their game. Just like those fancy fly-over videos you see when watching golf on television.
Since I had just bought a new Dell computer and lived paycheck-to-paycheck I figured that I would figure out how to build the website, make videos and put them onto the Internet. Keep in mind it was 1999 and at that point no one was putting videos on the Internet.
Back then there was anyone to call for help. Finding someone that had built a website was impossible. But I had a desire to make my idea a reality so I was at Borders (remember bookstores) everyday reading through every book because I had no idea where or how to start. I forgot to mention that I majored in Political Science in college so I was starting at zero.
Learning to program is not easy if you have an instructor let alone teaching yourself. Luckily for me I had three things going for me. First, I have incredible discipline to follow through on goals I set. Second since I was a kid I was always building things like remote controlled cars and skateboard ramps. And finally I knew what I was building. This meant I did not have to do mundane tutorials. If what I was reading didn’t apply I quickly moved on.
I bought a used video camera and went out and started filming course. Then I had to learn to edit the videos and add music. Options were limited but I somehow found a way to make and edit the videos. That was actually easy compared to how in the hell I was going to get them onto the web. Actually, I had to first figure out just how to get them onto my computer. I had to buy a firewire and a PCI card… long story short it wasn’t easy.
Eventually I had a website with 4 different course videos. On one side of the screen was the video and on the other I had a drawing of the hole. I had marker in the video that would change out each hole slide. I love telling that story because I was one of the first people to put video on the Internet.
I had and idea, a burning desire and that is WHY I became a software engineer. Course Cam was not a success financially but it made me realize that I absolutely love to ideas into reality. Engineering is extremely hard work… but helping companies turn their ideas into products is very rewarding work.
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jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
Here are 13 proven methods for in-app marketing that will help to retain, engage and encourage re-use of your App.
If you are capturing an email in your App and website you need to a strategy to combine the customer data and gain insights. This will develop richer segmentation and targeting of future campaigns.
Trigger personalized, real-time messages based on a customer’s location. If you have a physical store location you need to take advantage of bacons and geo fencing.
Heavily track all customer interactions to learn about their customer experience, including preferences, past history, interactions and location. This will allow you to drive more contextual content through all digital channels.
Develop a cadence to communicate with your user over regular intervals you can guide new customers to engage and re-engagement with your App.
While planning your App engagement you need to determine how you can track users across channels. How will you track if App users are visiting your website? If a user follows an email link will that link go to your website or App. You need to develop specific engagement points that you can track across devices.
Ask your users to interact and go deeper into your App. At a minimum you should incorporate asking for reviews and having users follow you on social media. A better practice is to track products users are clicking on and then notifying the customer if that items is on sale. Or better yet, just offer them a discount on a specific product they liked.
Offer exclusive coupons for App users only. This is a great tactic for enticing your web customers to install and use your App. App only coupons can also be an effective strategy to re-engage App users.
Allow users to select what they want to receive and when, what they like and dislike. For instance I might only want to get emails when discounts are above 15%.
Having a message center is enables you to send messages that can be delivered even if a user hasn’t opted into push.
Define and identify inactive app users, and develop a plan to re-engage them. This is the same concept as email funnels. If you are in an email funnel and do not open and email they send you a different follow-up email and a person who opened that same email.
You need to plan and track how mobile push notifications impact your marketing results.
Optimize SMS campaigns to link to specific pages within your App rather than routing all traffic to the home screen. If you are running email campaigns you should always forward users to specific landing page that has a clear call to action and trip wire.
A small discount or even just providing exclusive content can really make the difference in regards to higher opt-in rates.
Contact Me!
jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
Jeremy Callahan is the #AppMan, Expert Mobile App Developer, App Marketer, Front End Engineer, Motivator who gets shit done and Inspires others!
While reading the “Fit for Commerce 2016” report one thing really stood out… Marketers, Product Managers, etc. have no clue of what consumers want from a shopping App. If you have read any of my previous posts then you know how strongly I feel about retailers just re-creating their desktop sites and calling them Apps. New Flash! You aren’t even close to delivering what you customers expect.
I’d like you to ask yourself right now “What are your top 3 strategic mobile priorities”?
In the report here were the top answers:
- Enable consumers to access content from any device – 82%
- Brand awareness/loyalty – 74%
- Bridge the gap between online and offline – 62%
- Drive traffic to stores – 30%
- Encourage consumers to use mobile devices in-store – 18%
- Tools for in-store associates – 18%
For your sake I hope your answers are different than all the people who took this survey because they are absolutely clueless about what consumers actually want from a mobile App.
Here is what consumers answered as their top priorities:
- Place mobile orders for out-of-stock items while in the store
- Lookup information
- Compare price
- Check reviews
- Get advice from friends
The divide is glaring right? Specifically only 18% of marketers have a priority on encouraging customers to shop in-store. What are they worried about? That I will find a better price? This is obviously the case but it is so near sided given that the majority of the shoppers in the store right now want to order items that are out of stock.
The other item with an 18% mark is an App for store associates. Imagine I’m in the store and an item is out of stock or I cannot find the color or size I want. A common problem for any shopper! If I do not have a smart phone the associate (with a hand held device) could immediately look up if that item is available and have it shipped to my home.
So my advice to you is to completely forget about the first four items on this list and to focus on what your customer’s value. I believe one of the problems with Mobile Commerce is that companies are focused on advertising click thru and conversion rates. The better approach is to view your App as an advertisement.
What I mean by saying this is that your App should add value to your customers. Every retail App out there has a path to purchase but very few actually offer users a unique experience that does something other than mimic your website.
If you are in this boat I want you to pick up your phone right now and text or call me. In addition to strong opinions on m-commerce I have hundreds of ideas that can take your App to a whole new level and help you lead the field!
Contact Me!
jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
Jeremy Callahan is the #AppMan, Expert Mobile App Developer, App Marketer, Front End Engineer, Motivator who gets shit done and Inspires others!
It has been 10 days since I attended the 10X Growth Conference in Miami. It was an excellent event that was more than I expected it to be. Here are 10 things, thoughts and ideas I took from the event.
Grant Cardone has already announced 10X Growth Conference 2018. I highly recommend you get a VIP ticket and attend.
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jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
Jeremy Callahan is the #AppMan, Expert Mobile App Developer, App Marketer, Front End Engineer, Motivator who gets shit done and Inspires others!
First, let me break down my definition of Fake News. Then I’m going to point out all the reasons it’s making you a failure.
News is no longer news, its opinion based on how groups of people think. Face it, CNN, FOX, MSNBC are all pushing an agenda. And you either agree with that agenda or you do not. Before I even read an article or turn on the television I can tell you based on the source what their spin will be. The New York Times has an agenda and based on that agenda they create headlines and find reporting that backs that agenda.
My favorite fake news stories are when they quote an “unnamed source” or take a 20-minute interview and cherry pick sentences to back that agenda. Reporting pure facts without opinion accounts for about 3% of what people nowadays consider “News”.
And honestly, you are being taken advantage of. Look at your Facebook feed. How many of the “News” stories are merely click bait? Headlines are created to stir up emotion inside you so that you re-post things that in all honesty make you look like you believe in conspiracy theories.
Here are some reasons why the news can make you a failure.
It cuts into your production
I had a conversation with my developer the other day at the water cooler. BTW, this guy is behind on his development tasks. He starts talking about a few stories he read that day. The entire time he’s into his rap, I’m thinking… I’m paying this guy good money to program and he’s dicking around reading fake news instead of making his deliverables! I confronted him with this fact and he retorted with “I read it on the bus”. I told him the reason he’s behind is because he’s wasting time instead of programming.
It distracts you from goals (if you have any)
The main point here is “If you have any”. Do you have goals? Are they big goals that you are so excited about that you don’t have time for anything else? If you are reading the news, Facebook or watching TV you are not serious about achievement. Sorry, but its really that simple.
Note, if you post business related stuff on Facebook to promote yourself that’s a legitimate reason. But don’t get caught in the vortex of BS and Fake News.
Its as bad of a habit as smoking or overeating
You don’t need me to tell you that you are wasting time everyday on something that doesn’t serve you. Not to mention adding unneeded stress to your life. I know for a fact that if you have been watching the news the past year your heart rate gets elevated and its likely affecting your sleeping and personal relationships.
Choosing a side is bad for business
If you or the company you work for endorses a right or left candidate then you are cutting your potential customer base in half. I read a great letter from the CEO of IBM about a recent meeting she had with the president. Her stance is that they have been working with the government since the company was founded to make the world a better place. They have never endorsed a candidate and never will. In short, working with people leads to success in business and choosing a side is suicide.
You are waiting for things to happen instead of making things happen
If you are reading the news you are a follower. You are waiting for the next big scandal to hit. Have you ever noticed the panels they have on news shows? The experts are pontificating on what they think is happening based on incomplete facts.
If you want to be an expert in your career then I’d suggest that you start making the news instead of reading it. If you are in marketing for instance, start creating content that other marketing people would benefit from. Leadership requires that you pass along and teach others thoughtful and relevant information.
To sum it all up, the news is holding you back from having better relationships, increased business success and being a positive healthy person. Read a book, get a new hobby, work harder at your job, and spend time with your kids! Everyone says “The News is so negative”… So why are you participating?
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jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
Jeremy Callahan is the #AppMan, Expert Mobile App Developer, App Marketer, Front End Engineer, Motivator who gets shit done and Inspires others!
The 10x Growth Conference is March 17 – 19 in Hollywood Florida. If you are an entrepreneur looking to take your business to the next level this is a must attend event.
As my readers know I am always striving to motivate others. The most important aspect of motivating is staying motivated personally. To stay motivated I employ a number of activities like reading, writing blogs, masterminding and of course, attending conferences. And that is why I’m pumped to be attending the 10x Growth Conference in March.
Attending conferences is a huge time and financial commitment. Most people decide to go but never take the important step of defining what their goals are by attending.
My goal in writing this blog is to let you know exactly why I am attending because I want to meet as many people as possible before I get to Miami. So please reach out to me by phone, text, email, smoke signals and let’s get the conversation going before the event.
Here are the reasons I’m attending and what I will accomplish by going.
1. To Meet Grant Cardone
2. Increase My Performance
3. Meet With Success – Speakers
4. Like-Minded Networking
5. Level Up
6. Enhance My Creativity
7. Growth Hacking
1. Meeting Grant Cardone
The creator of the 10x Growth Conference is Grant Cardone. Simply put, Grant has no time for excuses and anything less than maximum effort. If you are not where you want to be in life it your fault and you need to step up and quit making excuses and being negative. He is also a master motivator and works tirelessly towards his goals.
2. Increasing My Performance
I have three businesses running successfully. But lately I’ve been feeling that I’m not operating at the same level I was 13 months ago. Being successful requires you to fairly and accurately assess yourself. And I know that I’m not meeting my personal standard. Every time in the past I have attended a personal development conference I have came out with increased energy, focus and inspiration that has carried me for months after the event.
3. Meeting With Success
The speaker line up at this event is incredible: Damon John, Les Brown and Frank Kern to name a few. My favorite part about hearing their journeys is when they tell about all the hard times they have faced and how they broke through in the face of complete failure.
4. Like-Minded Networking
Let’s face it… Networking sucks! But it sucks a lot less when you are networking with like-minded people. I know for an absolute fact that the people attending this conference are hungry, have goals and they will stop at nothing to make them come true. I had a choice between two events to attend and I chose this event specifically because of the attendees.
5. Leveling Up
Because everyone attending this event is a goal driven success-seeking person I know that by merely being there I will “Level Up” in connections, ideas, creativity and friendships. In traditional business networking events it’s a crapshoot on whom in the room is the person you should be talking to. This event in itself will remove that barrier.
6. Enhancing My Creativity
I have plenty of ideas and everything I do is creative in nature (software development). However, attending events with like-minded people somehow seems to bring that creativity to a higher level. The conference is called 10x Growth Conference for a reason! Because everyone is there to 10x their goals, income, life… it’s a by-product that the creative energy in the room will off the charts. So I am super pumped to come
7. Growth Hacking
How do you get everyone at a conference to know who you are? I mean I’m only an attendee on a standard ticket. So how do I get every one to know that I am the recognized leader in mobile App development? Simple… GIVE, GIVE, GIVE!
In short I am creating a 10x Conference App. In addition to that I will create a post event video, blog and infographic that curates all the attendees content from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. I am still working through the details and will be blogging in the following weeks prior to the conference to exactly what you can expect.
Contact Me!
jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
Jeremy Callahan is the #AppMan, Expert Mobile App Developer, App Marketer, Front End Engineer, Motivator who gets shit done and Inspires others!
January 8th, 2017
Last year a guy on my team asked me how do you start a business? It was a fairly broad question and my first response was… You just start! But it is an interesting question and to answer it for you I am going to start a business today and see if it will gain any traction in the next 30 days.
Here is what I am committing to… 30 days, $500 investment and I will only be working on it about 1-2 hours per day. The goal is to get 5 customers and see if the advertising to sales ratio is a winner.
In November I updated a friends painting website. He is a contractor so I added a booking utility that allows his site visitors to book estimates online. Since we added it, he has had 11 people book estimates via the site.
Its simple, the pick a day/time and then it adds the appointment to his calendar and emails both parties, reminders, etc. It’s a sweet little tool from a third party that is quick and easy to setup.
So my 30 Business is simple. I will add this same tool to websites for $99. Actually the price point is not set but I’m going to begin at $99 and assess the results.
Since I am a developer I created a landing page for the product with all the details of how it works. I added a 3 minute Youtube video as well. To setup the landing page with the video I put in about 4 hours of work. Click the image below to see the landing page I built.
A special thanks to Ryan Robinson @ https://www.ryrob.com/validate-business-idea/ Two days after I started this Ryan randomly followed me on Twitter. I clicked on his page and saw he was blogging about the same thing I was doing. So that inspired me to post about my progress on my 30-Day challenge.
I’ve started a lot of businesses and there is no set formula. I do know that I will make mistakes and learn things along the way. My initial plan is to run Facebook ads to anyone who listed their occupation as a painter or home decorator. I am running $20 per day. I’ll update this post in a few days with my progress
I’m happy you are reading this and I hope it inspires you to take action towards your ideas. Please share, follow, comment and reach out to me if you need any help or inspiration!
January 13th 2017
As I mentioned above I would make mistakes and it happened two days in.
To start I decided to run Facebook Ads. I created an initial test group for anyone with in the USA with a job title of either Painters (house) or Decorators. Since this was the initial test I decide to run the ads for 5 days at $20 per day and see what the results were.
It took about 2 hours to setup the Ad’s but that was over the entire day because Facebook kept rejecting my Ad. They were rejecting it because the URL I entered was missing the .com portion of the URL. I finally discovered the error and after a quick change my ad’s were running.
And that is where the mistake happened… Apparently the .com didn’t save and my ad’s ran for a day and a half with a bad URL. When I checked Google Analytics mid-day I had zero clicks. So I had to contact their support and get a credit for that. But I was out a 1.5 days of seeing the results.
Here is the data on the ads
The bad news is that out of the 307 clicks I got ZERO sales. I started the price at $99 and then moved it down to $29.99 after 150 clicks.
Since the FB ads produced no sales I turned them of and decided to take a new approach. And that approach is email. The truth is that same day I started the ads I found a site that sells emails of painters. So on a whim I bought a list of 5000 for $79.99.
And when I say whim I literally mean a whim… I started thinking after the fact about the quality of the list and that I may have dove in too fast on that one. One of my better qualities is that I make decisions fast and stick to them.
I am going to begin sending emails over the next 4 to 5 days in groups of 200. I will vary the subjects, content, links, etc. to see what get higher opens and clicks. While that is running I am also creating six emails that will send as an auto responder. I will start running the auto responder campaign next week.
To recap: $187.70 spent of $500, Zero sales
Contact Me!
jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
Jeremy Callahan is the #AppMan, Expert Mobile App Developer, App Marketer, Front End Engineer, Motivator who gets shit done and Inspires others!
One of the flaws with goal setting and achieving is that our minds are programed to think in a liner fashion from a starting point to achievement.
Because of this programming, we are handicapped in reaching our goals.
Think about it… You have to finish high school before you can get into college. You have to have a job before you can buy a house. Everything in the visible world tells you that you have to accomplish A, then B in order to get to C.
Therefore, in your mind if you are at point A all your focus is on getting to point B. And that is the primary reason people never follow through and reach their true potential.
For instance, lets say your goal is to get a new job. In order to do this you have to update your resume, look online, submit emails, interview, submit references and then be chosen. This process will take anywhere from 2 to 6 weeks before you start working.
And if you follow the process in that fashion you will fail to get the job you want or stay stuck where you currently are.
Why? Because you are thinking is completely ass backwards! You are thinking of the end instead of thinking FROM the end. Although that wording is similar… they are 100% different approaches that will determine how successful you are in life.
Thinking from the end means that before you even start towards a goal you relax and imagine what you want to be. Imagine what your life would be like if you had the business of your dreams. Imagine how some people would respect you and congratulate you on your success. Imagine how your bank account would grow.
I’ll give you an example from my life. I am leading a team building an App and website for one of the biggest companies in the world. The project will take 18 months to complete, its huge. There are over 60 people working on it. My mental approach is “we always accomplish our goals and launch on time every time”.
Look if I got bogged down in all the bullshit that is happening this week I’d be stressed that we are not going to make the launch date in 18 months. There are people in your office and mine that think if they don’t constantly grind on minor items that the major goals will be missed.
These folks are “Thinking of the end”. They are so focused on A to B to C that all they see is bumps, roadblocks, tunnels and risks. And they will tell you about all the problems that are happening and how “we will never make the launch date”.
I’ve been on teams where people have yelled and screamed during the project. But once we hit the goal we were all best friends that where brought closer because we were successful. Situations like that make you stop and think… If we are going to hit the date in the end, then why the hell are we yelling in the first place? And the answer is because we were not thinking from the end.
So I challenge you right now to think of one area of your life you want to improve. Your relationship with a loved one, your weight, your job… I know there is something you want to be better right now. Now that you have that in mind the next step is to IMAGINE the perfect end.
How would you feel if the end you imagine were a reality? Seriously… How would you feel? Now that you know how you would feel I give you the final piece of the puzzle:
Act as if you already are that person!
If you think I’m telling you to live a lie then you are correct. The only way you can become something different is to convince yourself that you are different already.
Think of the CEO of your company. Do you think they thought “I’ll start in the mailroom and work my way up to manager and then vice president and finally become the CEO”? Hell no, if they did start in the mailroom they knew and acted like the CEO from the first day. And people around them took notice that they were different and going somewhere.
Your CEO was always the CEO in his mind and that’s the difference. They thought from the end and then became that person. The material world had to succumb to their desire. It’s that simple.
I want you to put it to the test right now. Even if you are motivated to prove me wrong I want you to try it. And comment if you agree and especially comment if you think I’m crazy.
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jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
Jeremy Callahan is a Mobile Commerce Expert, App Developer and Founder at Flip Shop Marketing
In this video I break down how to use Front End code and PhoneGap Build to create hybrid mobile Apps. If you are a front end developer you can easily start creating Apps with this method without having to learn Swift, Objective C or Java.
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jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
Browsing social media I see many people distraught over something they have no control over. On any given day you can see people on social media that are letting things outside of themselves control their feeling and behavior. Traffic, air delays, politics… Why?
Everything you see or hear is trying to influence your feelings and emotions… Everything! Have you ever seen that two-minute commercial with the abused pets? Do you compare yourself to others based on the ‘things’ they own? CNN, Fox New and CNBC all have an agenda to push your buttons. This may sound harsh but you are letting others control your thoughts!
I am not saying you do not have original thoughts. I am saying that you are letting things outside or yourself control your well being. Your good thoughts and imagination is being drowned out by corrupt ideas. Have you ever found yourself having an imaginative argument with someone you heard on TV? Thought of a great response to an argument you had last week? Why are you holding onto those thoughts?
Everyone’s mind and imagination is perfect.
The problem is that if we are not mindful of our thoughts, our laziness will kick in and get us watching trash TV or reading mindless posts on social media. Thus, our good thoughts are buried in clutter. And when this happens we develop bad habits.
Personally, I had to stop watching the news and going onto Facebook for the week before the election. I did this because for about two weeks before the election I found my production in all areas of my life going down. I am a very goal oriented success seeking person. And I noticed that my performance was down. So I made a decision to not to participate in consuming news.
What I noticed the first day was that I was now filling my day with productive tasks. Rather than wasting my time trolling the Internet I was getting shit done. After two days it was smooth sailing and I didn’t even miss all the outside noise.
What stands out now, is that things outside of myself were affecting me negatively. I knew it was happening but for a few weeks I was lying to myself thinking it was not affecting me.
And that is what is happening to you right now. The negative thoughts have taken over and are impacting your performance right now… It’s affecting how you deal with co-workers, friends, your spouse and kids. I’ve seen some posts that make me wonder… Do these folks really want to be in this much misery?
I am not just here to point out what is happening to you… I want to help you get out of the rut and move on.
Here are some steps to help you introspect on your feelings:
First, when you are about to vent a thought stop and ask your self: “How does this thought server me?” And the answer MUST be either positive or negative! Keep the good and toss the bad. You must be ruthless in this process; there is no room for gray area. Thoughts are seeds that grow in your mind. Weed out the bad, take no prisoners, go with your gut, and never negotiate.
Second, Respond and do not react. If you are in line at the store and someone starts yelling at you do you react or respond. Instead of reacting by yelling back, a wiser choice is to respond. Perhaps you could walk away, let them in front of you or waive down security. Your enteral response is that I will not outside elements effect me
Finally, realize that you may be emotionally invested in the wrong thing. Emotional investment on its own is a great thing. But we have all wrapped ourselves emotionally into things harmful to our well being. If you are angry about a situation its very likely that you are mad at yourself for getting involved in a harmful endeavor.
Thanks for reading and I was able to help you step back, assess and move on from what ever outside influence is impacting you.
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Jeremy Callahan The App Man
jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
Jeremy Callahan is a Mobile Commerce Expert, App Developer and Founder at Flip Shop Marketing
Here is a quick video on how to test how your mobile site or App looks by using a Chrome web inspector web tools. This will simulate iPads, iPhones, Android Phones and it will also simulate network speed. For example, you could test how your hybrid App will load on a Samsung Galaxy on a 3G network.
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jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
twitter @jeremycallahan
Quite often, and I’m sure this happens to you as well. Friends and family will ask me for advice or my opinion about how they should handle an issue. Like me, your first reaction is usually to offer problem-solving advice. But I want to challenge you to take a different approach that will really help the person who is asking.
You see, when someone is asking this question, what they are really saying is… “I value your thoughts, I suck at making decisions, and no matter what you tell me I’m not going to listen and end up doing nothing anyways”. Look people that are good at making decisions don’t ask for opinions. They’ve made a decision and they are telling you what they are going to do, right or wrong!
Lets pretend the question is… “I’m thinking about getting back together with my ex, do you think that is a good idea”?
I’m sure someone you know has asked you this very question recently. I’m telling you right now you are in a trap. This person already knows you so they know how you feel about what they are asking. Lucky for you, I know the way out of this trap.
First realize that the person asking is struggling with their thoughts. Their mind functions exactly like every other mind in the universe. They are weighing the pro vs. cons and still cannot decide. Every person on the planet is guilty of doing that… Everyone!
Now that you know the nature of the question you can provide some knowledge to really help them. My standard answer to any question is the question: “If you were in a rock band… what instrument would you play?” At this point I get confused looks like what the hell is he talking about. Then in a few seconds I see people’s look go from “What kind of an answer is that” to “Oh shit… I see what you are saying”.
That question cuts to your core about how you see your life in this very moment. It forces the person to think about who they want to be. You have planted a seed in their mind that has forced them to evaluate themselves and determine what they really want in life.
A band is a great metaphor… Maybe at that moment they feel like they are playing bass and keep the beat in the background. Perhaps they are most happy in this situation. Or perhaps they feel like they have been keeping the beat going while suppressing their own talent. We have all been in a position where we feel held back
So the next time you are having a hard time making a decision or someone asks your opinion ask: “If you were in a rock band… what instrument would you play?”
I don’t know about you but I’m the Lead Singer in my life! I do know that you are creative and dreams. I’m not asking you if you are going towards those dreams yet. I’m asking you if you have really sat with yourself and determined what you want? What do YOU want? What is best for YOU?
In order to know what you want… You have to look within yourself. Trust me, the answer is you if you are brave enough to look.
Contact Me!
jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
Jeremy Callahan is a Mobile Commerce Expert, App Developer and Founder at Flip Shop Marketing
You may be shocked to learn that 80% of mobile phones in the world today are Androids. This is an important fact to consider before building an App. You may have strong feeling that Apple is far superior to Android but that has zero relevance to your Apps success.
It simply is not good enough to only have your App in one App Store!
Android remained the world’s most widely used smartphone operating system with 80.7 percent market share, while iOS recorded 17.7 percent market share.*
It’s obvious that you will want to be in both App stores. Most companies take the path of having two separate development teams to build the exact same App for each platform. Before you make this massive mistake I want you to ask one simple question:
Is your App nothing more than a website on a phone?
Did you know that over 85% of the Apps on a users phone are nothing more than websites? Look at your phone right now and prove me wrong. Go down the list… Facebook, Yelp, Your Bank, Instagram, Youtube… I think you understand what I am saying right?
If your App falls into this category then I want you to take a look at this post I wrote about Hybrid vs. Native App programming. In short it says that if your App is nothing more than a website you need to choose a hybrid App development approach and use HTML/CSS/JavaScript. By doing this, you can use the same code base to be in both App stores.
If you have a game like Angry Birds or live car tracking like Uber you are going to need programmers for iOS and Android. Otherwise, make the smart decision and go with hybrid.
But regardless of your development approach you 100% must be in both App stores. It is the fastest way to double your App installs, usage and ultimately your profits.
Take a moment to consider how you will launch your App? You will likely run a press release, Facebook & social media posts, emails, advertisements, etc. Now what if the Huffington Post picks up your press release and posts a national article about how great you are? Consider that if your App is only in iTunes only 20% of the people reading that article could install your App.
That right there would be a massive missed opportunity! Launching successfully is a combination of development and marketing. If you fail to develop for both platforms then you have sold yourself short.
The other important takeaway is that you need to time both of your App store releases to be simultaneous. Once you submit to Apple it can take up to 7 days to get approval. Google Play takes about 3 hours. So always be mindful that whether you are developing one or two code bases that you will need to manage the process so that you can launch at the same time.
* http://www.macrumors.com/2016/02/18/ios-android-market-share-q4-15-gartner/
Jeremy Callahan
jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
http://www.jeremycallahan.com
Twitter @jeremycallahan
App Store Optimization (ASO) is slightly different than SEO because the only things that you can optimize to increase your App store visibility is your App title, keywords and description. In SEO you could rank for different keywords to various pages to your site. In the App store you only have one page that traffic flows to.
Did you know that over 60% of your App installs come from people searching the App store? Right now people are searching for “Dog Collars” on Goggle Play and iTunes. Obviously if you are the first App that appears in the search results you are going to get a ton of free traffic and installs. Free traffic and installs are amazing, so you need to work out a strategy now to rank up.
Researching Keywords
The first thing to do is to research keywords that are related to you App. You can either do this yourself or use Fivrr. Fivrr is an outsourcing site where people post their services starting at $5. So for $5 you can get someone to do keyword research for words that you want to focus on.
Whether you do this yourself or outsource it you want to make sure you use Mobile Action, App Annie or Sensor Tower. These three websites have tools that allow you search what keywords other Apps similar to yours are using. So if you are in the pet’s space, you can put in your competitors App and see how they rank for various words. With a paid version of these sites you can run keyword comparisons and they will also suggest different keywords to go after.
The other option is to use the Google Keyword tool. Although the results are not App related, you will still be able to get monthly search volumes for keywords. They also have a suggestion tool so if you search pets, it will return up to 100 other keywords with the search volume for each word. In the image below you can see some of the suggestions returned when I searched for “pets”.
I believe the best research approach is to go to Google and find the search volumes. Once you have targeted some words, then go over to Fivrr and find someone to research those terms using Sensor Tower, App Annie or Mobile Action.
Once you have completed your keyword research you will need to decide on an App name, keywords and create a description.
There is one key point I cannot hammer home enough. Do NOT use the same keywords in your title as you do in the keywords section. For instance, lets say your App is called “Dog It” which is for purchasing dog products. First, the maximum an App title can be is 50 characters in iTunes and 30 in Google Play.
So a better name than “Dog It” would be “Dog It – Purchase Discount Pet Products”. By using the full character space you have now added the keywords: dog, purchase, discount, pet and products. As I mentioned before you do NOT want to repeat these in the keyword section!
The keyword section is 100 characters maximum and you need to use this wisely. The rules are simple… comma delimited, no spaces and no repeating (hammering, hammering). Here is an example. Since your title has the word dog and pet lets put in the plural of those two:
dogs,pets,puppies,store,treats,toys,collars,leashes,food,training,house,bed,medication,flea,clothing
That is the process of naming your App and finding keywords! A word of caution… you should try to never re-name your App after it is published. Apple for one frowns upon this and I have been rejected when I re-subimitted my App. I think they automatically reject Apps that submit name changes. I was able to get it through after emailing them, but that process took and extra few days.
You can changed your keywords at anytime. Any good ASO person would tell you that you need to constantly be monitoring how your ranking for each keyword using an ASO tools (Mobile Action, et al). Once your App is live you can take full advantage of these tools by comparing your App to any competitors that you set.
The only remaining piece is the description of your App. These can be 4000 characters. I would suggest that you find out the top ranking Apps similar to yours and then go onto iTunes or Google Play and check out their descriptions. I am NOT telling you to copy them. I am asking you look at how long they are and their keyword density. Since you know their keywords from Sensor Tower you can now see how they use those words in their description, keywords and titles. Then it’s either time to write your own or get back on Fivrr and use someone there.
Now you have a plan for App Store Optimization
Jeremy Callahan
jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
http://www.jeremycallahan.com
Twitter @jeremycallahan
Before you go out and spend money on building your App. The first step is to determine if there is a market for what you are going to build. I know you have a unique and great idea but how do you really know if people will use your App. And an even better question is if they do use it… How will they find it in the App store? Simply put you need a mobile app marketing strategy.
You are going to have to market it through both free and paid channels. So let me give you some ideas to see if there is a market and second drum up interest before launching. In other words… Getting emails you can market to later.
The first thing to do is to create a one-page web page. I use Launch Rock for this (www.launchrock.com). This is a very simple online drag and drop tool that allows you to create pages that capture user emails. They have a free version and a $5 per month version. The main thing you must convey is that by submitting their email they will be notified when you launch.
Once you have your page setup you need to start marketing everyone you know and get feedback and support. Pull every email you have from Gmail, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Then use a service like Mail Chimp to send blast emails to these people. I recommend using Mail Chimp because you can setup campaigns and track who opened their emails. Then a few days later you can re-send the email to the people who did not open the first email.
Do not be afraid to beat your friends and family over the head with your emails and App idea. Trust me when I tell you that everyone you know is interested in what you are doing. They are! I know a guy who is a painter that I haven’t seen in years. The other night I ran into him and I said, “Shit, I just had my apartment painted and I didn’t think of you”. I didn’t think of him because I haven’t seen or heard from him in 5 years. But I would much rather of hired him. So make sure everyone you know knows what you are doing.
Every time I have bulk emailed my friends with my new endeavors I get great responses. They just may say “I don’t know anyone who can help right now but if I do I’ll send them your way”. The hidden benefit is that you will re-connect with your old friends. The idea is that you want people to know about you and what you are doing.
The next step is setting up an auto responder campaign. This is a series of emails that you will send over a given period of time. After a user submits their email you can plan a strategy to get the involved in your App. This could be “sneak peaks” of the App. Or you could ask users to take surveys about certain features you might roll out first. Get creative! Ask people to sign-up to help you beta test the App.
Now that you have a landing page you can start promoting it on your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and any other social media pages you have.
You can also start running some ad’s to your landing page and see if you can get email conversions. I recommend running ads on Bing or Yahoo simply because you get the same amount of hits for 1/3 of the price on Google. Plus, at this point it’s likely you do not have any images, headlines or copy. By using a lower cost engine you can refine your ads.
Generally you want a method to capture a users email and then continue to engage them through the App launch. If you are struggling to get users at this stage then you might want to pivot to another idea or refine your message. This step is critical because it will frame your market and get you to create App marketing materials like copy, headlines and images.
Jeremy Callahan
jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
http://www.jeremycallahan.com
Twitter @jeremycallahan
Step 1 – The Foundation
The steps to App building are similar to building a home. If you were building a home the first thing you’d consider is how much home can I build with my budget. In the startup world, we call this the MVP
Minimum Viable Product: So when we talk about product development, I want you to think what are the minimum features that are needed to get this to market so we can get user feedback. Our goal is to get this in front of people and find out how well it works. Then we can make additions and adjustments in the next version.
There are two parts to the foundation
One is the Name, logo, design and URL. At this point I’m sure you at least have a name in mind. Make sure to search the iStore and Android Marketplace to verify that the name is available. If you do not find an app with that name, it is available. For the web URL you can go to Godaddy and run a search.
To reserve the name you will need to create a developer account in the iStore and Android market place and register a new App with that name. This does not mean you have to publish an App. It just means that you have created the initial App landing page. This is the page people see when they search for you in iTunes. Once you have the App registered you have 180 days to publish your App or the name will be lost.
Choosing a Keyword Friendly Name
Names in iTunes can be 255 characters and making the most of this is important for keyword purposes. For instance your app might be to find dog walkers in your neighborhood and called: Dog Walkers
But you have 255 characters so a better name would be: Dog Walkers – Find licensed pet sitters, walkers and trainers in your neighborhood. Now when people search for ‘pet sitters’ your App comes up in the search.
The second step to the foundation is design!
The first step is to create a style guide. The style guide is simply a logo, headings, colors, buttons, icons, etc that will be in the App. You can do a Google image search for “Mobile App Style Guide” and see examples of what you are looking to build. It is similar to the image below:
To create the guide I recommend going on Fivrr and searching for “App Style Guides”. This will return a list of people who will create them for you for as little as $5.
Fivrr is a site where people work for $5 per project. Well actually $5 is just the starting point. For a decent style guide you are looking at around $30 – $50 per request. Fivrr is great for design because you can get several designs for a small investment
The best way to use Fivrr is to find three to four people and then purchase their services. Once you have the results you can pick and choose elements you like and combine those into a final style guide.
People always seem to get paranoid here thinking the designers will steal their idea. If you fall into that category I’d suggest working with us or a designer you feel you can trust. Use a designer you know or someone who you can meet with in person before they start working.
Keep in mind that the reason for the style guide is so you have something to hand off to the developers you hire. This guide will be used for the App and your website (assuming you also need a website).
And it is important that you have a brand identity that you can use from business cards, email templates or anything else with your brand on it. So take some action right now and find a good designer and have them create a style guide for you.
My final thought on design is a visualization exercise. Once you have your style guide I want you to print it out in high quality and as large as possible. Then pin that on your office or bedroom wall… Somewhere you will see it everyday
This will get emotionally involved in your App and seeing a design daily will keep you moving towards your goal!
Jeremy@flipshopmarketing.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
Jeremy Callahan is a Mobile Commerce Expert, App Developer and Founder at Flip Shop Marketing
Let me ask you a question… Of all the Apps right now on your phone, how many do nothing more than a regular website? That right there is the answer to any debate on whether you should make your App with Hybrid or Native technologies. If you are really just making a website for a phone then you are wasting your time and money if you do not go hybrid.
For definition purposes hybrid is programmed in HTML/CSS/JavaScript and using one code base that you can publish into both App stores. Native means we have to program it separately for iOS and Android but we will have better access to the phone features like the accelerometer.
I will also tell you that I have programmed both hybrid and native Apps since 2011. The majority of the Apps are hybrid because I always take the smartest approach, which usually is based on what is the easiest to build and maintain. Plus as I stated before, 90% of the Apps on your phone are just glorified websites.
The Performance Lag. This is worth considering. Hybrid essentially takes the code and runs it inside a browser on your phone. Even though it looks like and App, it is running in a browser. Thus, if you need to call a core phone function (like geolocation, compass, accelerometer) that will cause a lag. Now this lag is a millisecond. Not a big deal if you are showing a map of restaurant locations near a person. But this can be a huge factor if you are Uber and showing where a car is in real time on a map.
The Facebook Effect. Zuckerberg isn’t any smarter than you or me. He is just a guy that hit a grand slam in his first at bat. In the early days of FB they went with a hybrid mobile approach. But they had to reverse course from a hybrid because in 2011 HTML5 had no way of scrolling content on a phone effectively. Since scrolling is a major part of FB they scrapped their approach and went native. Mark then made a few comments that HTML5 wasn’t ready. Group think prevailed and any CTO who made a mobile decision had to choose native because “that’s what Facebook is doing”.
A Real Life Example. I am leading a team right now rebuilding a website, iPhone and Android App for one of the largest corporations in the world (sorry can’t disclose but you’ve saw/used their products today). We have one backend team that is handling all the web service calls and then three separate teams for Web, iPhone and Android. All three teams are rebuilding the registration, login and shopping pages and calling the same backend web services. We get into situations where the Android team has something working and then the web team requests a backend change that breaks their code.
In addition to that, the user experience is different across devices. Hence, we have a design team that makes comps for all three environments. But all three sites do exactly the same thing! There is absolutely no reason (programmatically) that we should not be on a hybrid platform. All three are just glorified websites.
I get the inner workings of how decisions are made. And selling people on one code base being used for three platforms seems like pie in the sky type of stuff. But its not! You are all being sold a bullshit concept that you have to have three separate code bases for the same thing. Let that sink in…
If you are a developer, project manager, CTO… whatever. You need to wake up right now and challenge the status quo. Ask a simple question “Is our App just a glorified website”? If the answer is “Yes” then choosing anything other than hybrid is a major mistake.
Jeremy Callahan
jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
http://www.jeremycallahan.com
Twitter @jeremycallahan
Retailers and brands are putting too much importance on their return on investment and not enough on their Apps importance on the shoppers journey and overall brand experience. If you truly want a kick-ass mobile App check out these 5 ideas to put you above the competition.
Reward Loyalty! Do you know who your most loyal customers are? And if so, how are you rewarding them for engaging through your App? Here are two ideas…Sears just rolled out a rewards program where in-store shoppers to find “Pets” similar to Pokémon Go. They have teamed up with “The Life of Pets” movie and made an in-store game where users are rewarded for finding and capturing “pets” while in the store.
Flip Shop Marketing has an App that allows retailers to put in product image designs of concept products. The idea is that if you have 1000’s of potential products like Shoes or dresses you can reward your customers from Swiping through and liking or passing on product designs. Brands can then offer a discount or cash reward for customers who swipe through 100, 200, 300… products. Not only are user rewarded but brands can use this data to determine what their existing customers actually want and which designs to invest in.
Personalization! Make no mistake about it personalization is here to stay. Eventually everyone will have personalized education and a diet specific to their DNA structure. Imagine how much longer we will all live and intelligent we will be!
Having said all that… you likely do not have a diet or education brand. But regardless you need to know every action a user takes on your website and App. Every single product they looked at, add to their cart, bought or did not buy. Are you tracking this on an individual basis? Are you linking users from your website to your App via their email? You cannot have personalization without data. So first things first tighten up your data gathering. And if you have data start thinking of how you can leverage it in your App!
Image Size and Quality! Gone are the days of small crappy images people. List views or even Pinterest style layouts are not taking advantage of the entire screen space. If there is an image on your site it should be the entire width and height of the device. Plus in every survey under the sun related to mobile, user want bigger images. Weather its news, products, event venues, people want a large visual image. Here is an entire article if you don’t believe me: Size Does Matter!
No Top Navigation! That’s right you heard me… you do not need a banner across the top of your app with the App name and navigation. It’s a complete waste of space. Does Snap Chat have a top navigation bar? Nope, and you shouldn’t either. Users are expecting things to happen when they swipe in an App. For instance, Swiping down on Snap Chat revels the settings menu.
Fast Purchasing! If you have an “Add to Cart” button on your App you suck! You are copying everyone else and using a method that was designed for desktop websites. This is mobile baby and if you use the term “Path to Purchase” you are setting the industry back. There is no “path”… the user should click “Buy Now” and be taken to a confirmation screen.
Make no mistake about it, the reason Uber is so successful is that you never have to pay when you get to your location. Every time you take an Uber it’s like a free ride (until you get an email or bank statement). And this is exactly how buying anything on mobile should be. If you have the users Credit Card make the sale now!
I wanted to post about a great saying “Find A Way”. I’ll never forget how I first heard this saying… It was 1990 and I came back to school
from Christmas break and I see the whole baseball team walking around with these stupid shirts that said “Find A Way” on them.
I had no idea what the hell was going on so I asked and the response was “Find A Way to win”. I was impressed! Think about it for a minute… This saying has no room for excuses; it’s a one-way ticket. No matter how big the problem is or what forces you are up against you can either retreat or Find A Way to Win!
Coach Gary Dreher
The brainchild behind this saying was Gary Dreher our high school baseball coach who was hell of a guy. I didn’t play baseball but he loved me because I worked at the Valley Hi Country Club and used to let him play golf in the afternoon after all the members had left.
I’m not sure how coach came up with this idea but it was genius! If you are down 2 -0 in the last inning… “Find A Way”. When I was failing his Algebra course “Find A Way Callahan” is what he said. I found a way alright… Free Golf! That year the team went on to be ranked #1 in the state of California. And I’ll bet that every guy on that team still lives by that saying!
Years later when I was coaching my daughter’s soccer team that wasn’t so great I adopted the saying! The girls totally bought in and we went on to win the championship. In fact years later when I was telling her friend Samantha about something that wasn’t going my way she fired back “Find A Way Jeremy”. Bam… I was right back to being focused!
So today I’m giving back. I’m putting it out there to help motivate you. No matter how big the problem is or what forces you are up against stop making excuses.
Let me give you a brief summary of how the human mind operates. In short it wants to do the easiest, most un-painful things. For instance, deep in your mind you believe it is less painful to overeat than it is to diet. Because going on a diet is painful and causes you discomfort. But don’t be fooled… You are going to feel like shit for over eating.
The problem is that in your mind you equate more pain to dieting than felling bad inside. That’s because your brain (subconscious to be exact) is programmed to take the easy way out. You may not have a dieting issue but whatever issues you have it’s the same principals that are holding you back.
In everything you’ve accomplished in your life the starting point was you found a way to make a decision to change. So today, right now, I challenge you to “Find A Way” to get past whatever is holding you back!
Be Excellent!
Contact Me!
Jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
Jeremy Callahan is a Mobile Commerce Expert, App Developer and Founder at Flip Shop Marketing
What is holding you back?
I’m going to quit smoking, I’m going to loose some weight, I’m going to start exercising… WHATEVER it is… Let this saying sink in for a moment. I love this saying. I first heard it from my friend Chris Messenger.
It’s too easy to say that the source of your “tomorrow” item is procrastination. It’s very likely your source is DECISION. Think about it, anytime you are unmotivated, depressed or lazy, 9 out of 10 times it is because you haven’t made a decision to commit to do something.
Take for instance “Tomorrow I’m going to start dieting”. What decision have you really made? I’d hate to break it to you but your decision is weak. Tomorrow… are you kidding me? A decision is right now and instant.
You see, a strong decision leads to strong action. Tomorrow isn’t a strong decision… RIGHT NOW is a strong decision and commitment. So what are you willing to commit to right now, TODAY?
And I want you to stop lying to yourself that tomorrow you will actually commit and start whatever it is you are stalling on. You aren’t going to do shit and you know it! You are going to make the same old bullshit excuses and get no closer to something that would make you a better person and improve your life. Because tomorrow you are going to say “I’ll do that tomorrow”.
Which is why I love the saying “Yesterday you said tomorrow”. I’m 100% sure everyone around me hates hearing that statement out of my mouth. But if someone says “tomorrow” to me the next thing out of my mouth is “Yesterday you said tomorrow”.
Look you and everyone else on the planet has the same amount of time in a day, week and a year. Have you ever wondered why some people get more done in that timespan then others? It’s actually a simple answer… Productive people make a decision to get shit done! They make decisions quickly and they rarely change those decision.
Another aspect of people that get more done than others is that they have no problem doing things that they hate doing. Nobody likes making cold calls, dieting, going to bed early, etc. But successful people have developed an inner strength to do things that others are not willing to do on a regular basis. And therefore they reach greater levels of success.
If you want to change your career then make a decision that you are committed to that and do not give in when things get tough. If you get to the gym and don’t feel like being there then that is a trigger that you should work out harder than you normally do.
But whatever you do, do not say “tomorrow”. Everything starts with a decision. So I am asking you to make one right now to being better than you were yesterday.
Have an Excellent Day!
jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
Jeremy Callahan is a Mobile Commerce Expert, App Developer and Founder at Flip Shop Marketing
If you are capturing an email in your App and website you need to a strategy to combine the customer data and gain insights. This will develop richer segmentation and targeting of future campaigns.
Trigger personalized, real-time messages based on a customer’s location. If you have a physical store location you need to take advantage of bacons and geo fencing.
Heavily track all customer interactions to learn about their customer experience, including preferences, past history, interactions and location. This will allow you to drive more contextual content through all digital channels.
Develop a cadence to communicate with your user over regular intervals you can guide new customers to engage and re-engagement with your App.
While planning your App engagement you need to determine how you can track users across channels. How will you track if App users are visiting your website? If a user follows an email link will that link go to your website or App. You need to develop specific engagement points that you can track across devices.
Ask your users to interact and go deeper into your App. At a minimum you should incorporate asking for reviews and having users follow you on social media. A better practice is to track products users are clicking on and then notifying the customer if that items is on sale. Or better yet, just offer them a discount on a specific product they liked.
Offer exclusive coupons for App users only. This is a great tactic for enticing your web customers to install and use your App. App only coupons can also be an effective strategy to re-engage App users.
Allow users to select what they want to receive and when, what they like and dislike. For instance I might only want to get emails when discounts are above 15%.
Having a message center is enables you to send messages that can be delivered even if a user hasn’t opted into push.
Define and identify inactive app users, and develop a plan to re-engage them. This is the same concept as email funnels. If you are in an email funnel and do not open and email they send you a different follow-up email and a person who opened that same email.
You need to plan and track how mobile push notifications impact your marketing results.
Optimize SMS campaigns to link to specific pages within your App rather than routing all traffic to the home screen. If you are running email campaigns you should always forward users to specific landing page that has a clear call to action and trip wire.
A small discount or even just providing exclusive content can really make the difference in regards to higher opt-in rates.
jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
Jeremy Callahan is a Mobile Commerce Expert, App Developer and Founder at Flip Shop Marketing
I have a great saying that is great to live by. “In my world everyday is a Friday and I’m always on Vacation!”
I’ve had this saying for years. I am very grateful everyday that I get to live in San Francisco and see the Golden Gate Bridge the minute I walk outside my apartment. Living in SF literally feels like a vacation because everywhere you look people are enjoying the city from all over the world. And I am enjoying it too.
Tomorrow I am going on a family vacation to a tropical island and all week I have been mentally checked out from anything trivial at work. And I’ve found that when I’m in this mindset, everything is trivial.
I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “Act as if”. Act as if you are the king of the world. Act as if you have a million dollars in your bank account. Act as if you are the owner of the company you work for. And of course… Act as if today is Friday and you are on vacation.
Think about how you feel when you leave work on Friday knowing that you are going on vacation. Are you worried about sending that email or giving a status report? Nope! You could care less about work, your boss or anything else that is causing you stress. In fact, you have cared less and less about most things all week leading up to Friday.
And once you are actually in a car, on a plane and finally at the beach your mind is 100% in a different state of mind. What if you could live in that state of mind everyday?
Here are some tips to get into that state of mind…
I realize that you are most likely not on vacation right now. You are likely not having a vacation anytime soon and stressed about paying your bills and getting by. But I promise you that you have a great life. There is no reason you should feel better on a Friday than you do on a Tuesday! Think about how dumb it is that people feel differently based on the day of the week. If we are lucky we will live to be 90 years old. That isn’t a lot of time to let the day of the week determine how you fell.
So change your mind right now that “Everyday is a Friday and you are always on vacation”!
Have an Excellent Day!
Jeremy@flipshopmarketing.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
Jeremy Callahan is a Mobile Commerce Expert, App Developer and Founder at Flip Shop Marketing
Here is a list of 10 things that if you consistently do you will be successful in any endeavor that you enter. The best use of this list is to take 10 minutes of self-introspection and assess how you measure up to each item. Score yourself 1-5 on each item. The great news is you can change everything on this list instantly.
Have an Excellent Day!
jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
Jeremy Callahan is a Mobile Commerce Expert, App Developer and Founder at Flip Shop Marketing
This is by far the number one question I get asked from clients, friends and people I meet at networking events. So I threw up a quick video on how you can estimate how much it will cost to develop your idea into an App. Nice photo of me as well… It looks like I am the Michael Jordan of programming. Or I have a fat lip. It’s always important to laugh!
Contact Me!
Jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
Jeremy Callahan is a Mobile Commerce Expert, App Developer and Founder at Flip Shop Marketing
It’s a common question we all hear at least 5 times a day. Whether you are at a restaurant, calling the cable company, or seeing a co-worker. “How are you doing” is a common question.
The truth is that the person asking really doesn’t care as much as they are just starting a conversation. So I will ask you a better question. How do you want the person asking the question to perceive you and how do you really feel about yourself.
How are you today?
My advice is for the next week when you get asked “how are you today” your response should be either “Excellent” or “Incredible”. I do not care how you actually feel just say those words automatically and see how your whole situation changes.
First, I know you likely do not feel excellent. In fact when you are asked this question you probably say: Ok or good as a programmed reaction. But Ok and good are horrible messages to send to other people. Answering, “Ok” is like telling me thing are not going my way but the glass is half full. Good is actually worse because you are just blowing by the question to get to what you really want. Which in most cases we come across as we are only there for ourselves.
Answering, “Excellent” is a conversation game changer. It sends an immediate message to the person who asked that you have energy and confidence. You will get reactions like “that is great to hear” and you will notice that the persons body language will also change because you gave them a boost of energy.
Try this as a social experiment. Today when you get asked I want you to reply with “Good, how are you” and 9-10 the person you ask will mirror your response with a “Good, thanks for asking”. Now tomorrow I want you to say “Excellent, how are you”. The difference in responses and reactions will very different and conversation will be much easier.
The second benefit to using this response is it will also 100% change whatever mood you are currently in. I find it almost impossible to say “Excellent” in a monotone, bored or tired way. It is literally a word that snaps you into a different mindset.
You have heard the saying “fake it until you make it” well the same thing applies here. Training yourself to respond with excellent, incredible, amazing, awesome is programming your sub-conscience mind to be and feel that way. It’s a very simple way to program you mind with successful thoughts.
Look at advertising… they don’t use works like good and Ok. They use power words like awesome, amazing, etc. You are marketing yourself every minute of every day to the world. Do you want to be good or excellent?
Try it today! And have an incredible day!
Contact Me!
Jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
Jeremy Callahan is a Mobile Commerce Expert, App Developer and Founder at Flip Shop Marketing
I can bet you that the average software engineer actually codes less than 5 hours per day.
And quite honestly I think that is a high number. I’ve been a developer for 20 years at fortune 500 companies, startups and everything in between. I’ve have at least 15 different jobs and on top of that worked on over 40 “side” projects. So I’m an authority on how much people actually work. And by work I mean writing code and smashing bugs. Not planning, talking, playing Ping-Pong, going to lunch, etc.
Developers will have you believe that coding is hard. It really isn’t. Now if you code for 10-12 hours a day for two straight years that is hard work. And since I have done that for the past two years I can tell you that I am in the 1% of developers that put that effort out.
Why? Because I started my own business (actually 3) and don’t ride a corporate bus to work, have free lunch and dry cleaning. I don’t have time for playing games; I have multiple clients that are expecting results. I’m on 100% commission, I’m also creating personal App’s that may or may not make money. My families well being is on the line every minute of every day.
Any company that is giving all those perks out is getting about 5 hours a day out of their developers. And worse than that you are creating SOFT people. You may think that people are working 10 hours a day. They Aren’t! They are screwing around playing Ping-Pong or trying to learn some new JavaScript framework (if you could see me right now I am making a tossing off hand motion).
I can also tell you that in all the years I have worked (and I’ve worked at the places with perks) developers as a whole don’t produce much. Professionals produce and your team is likely one pro and x amount of amateurs.
So I put it to you right here in black and white… Are you a professional or amateur? I’m going to write an entire blog on the subject of professional vs. amateur programmers in the near future so there is a clear understanding by the development community as to what it take to be a Pro.
And trust me when I tell you that it will have nothing to do with JavaScript frameworks, foosball, college degrees or corporate buses.
If you have free time in your development job go get a second job, side project or create something for you company that will make the company grow. Look for opportunities that produce income… make an opportunity. Do something! be somebody! If you are a “corporate fat cat” you kidding yourself… You are an Amateur.
Contact Me!
Jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
Jeremy Callahan is a Mobile Commerce Expert, App Developer and Founder at Flip Shop Marketing
One of the top questions I get is how to get started in App development. The answer I was giving until today was “it depends”. And by “depends” I meant are you a developer or someone who has never programmed.
But now I can 100% tell you where to get started thanks to an awesome new tool I discovered yesterday.
It’s called Ionic Creator and it is an online drag-n-drop utility that exports code you can either code up or pass onto your developer. Here is the link. And even better you can either text the code to your phone to see it in action or they have a mobile App that you can review your App on so you can see how it would look as an App.
Jeremy Callahan – How to build Apps
It took me about 5 minutes to learn. You can create pages, drag in buttons, lists and then link all the pages together. The styling is pretty generic on the free accounts (I’ve only used the free so far) but it gets your idea into an actual working version.
Non-developers
If you have an idea for an App open a free account today and put your idea into action. Start building out the pages and linking them together. Then in the top right corner there is a “Share” icon. Click that and you will have URL that you can share with developers. Then go Upwork and post a job to get bids from developers to build out your App.
Ionic Creator also creates some base line code. You can export that code as the project base. Email me if you need more help because I can go into this pretty deep. But you need to take some action and create your prototype first.
Developers
There are three export options. Two are free and two are paid.
Command Line Interface (FREE): This is a few command line calls that will create a project for you.
Export Zip File (FREE): What the tool spits out is HTML/CSS/JS in an Angular project. The project zip file contains everything you need to start a PhoneGap project. You could easily take this code and dump it into a GIT repository and then use PhoneGap Build if you know that process. I’m an expert at PhoneGap Build so email me if you want to go this route.
The final option is “Creator Mobile App” (PAID): I haven’t paid yet so I cannot tell you much other than I think it packages everything up and give you a .apk (Android) and .ipa (iTunes) file that you can publish in the App stores.
Wrapping Up
There are a number of other things you get with paid accounts like the ability to have multiple users. This is quite powerful because you could literally have your marketing team creating the App layouts and flows. Then you could hand off to your developers and have them coding.
I am always looking for better and faster ways to develop Apps and am going to adopt this tool in full force. From what I have read online they are expanding out to bring App development to a whole new level.
So quit dragging your feet and take action on your App idea!
Contact Me!
Jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
Jeremy Callahan is a Mobile Commerce Expert, App Developer and Founder at Flip Shop Marketing
Here is a great strategy to determine if there is a market for your App before you build anything using Facebook.
This is also a great method to get followers before you launch. Then once you launch your App you will have a group of people who you can advertise your App launch to and drive up the installs from day one.
First, create a business page on Facebook for you new App idea. Obviously you will want to use high quality photos and the more photos you can post the better. Its best to build out the page, add posts for a few weeks and then run ads.
Once you have some content on your pages you can begin running ads to that page. I am not going to get into the steps to setup ads on FB but I can tell you it is very easy and you can Google or YouTube videos on how to do this.
The hardest part will be creating the copy and images for your ads. I would suggest searching and hiring someone off Fivrr to do this for you. If you haven’t used Fivrr it’s a great service and very affordable. For $5 you can hire people to create ads and do just about anything for you. If you use Fivrr you can hire 3 or 4 people and get different copy/photos/ads for under $30.
Once you have some ads ready go into the Facebook advertising page and start your campaign. You want to setup a “like” campaign. This just means you are going to pay for people to like your page. You can get these “likes” for about .05 – .15 cents per like. Not bad right. For about $50 you can get 500 likes.
For a very small investment you can see if people actually “like” your App. Which at this point hasn’t even launched.
The other upside is that you are going to see the types of users that like your App. You may find that females between the ages of 17-34 love your idea. Boom! Now you have a target market.
Now we get into the next level of determining your market. At this point you have 500 people. Now you can run a new ad group and when you are setting up that campaign Facebook has an audience selection call the “Lookalike”. What they did was take the 500 people who liked your page and created a similar profile of users. You can see below that my Shoe Swipe audience has a “Lookalike” of 1.9 million users. I’d say that is a good size market to target.
As you can see when I launch my App I have two things going for me. One is I can run free posts to the 500 people who have already liked my page and ask them for installs. And secondly I can now run an “install” campaign and target it to the “Lookalike” audience.
Contact Me!
Jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
Jeremy Callahan is a Mobile Commerce Expert, App Developer and Founder at Flip Shop Marketing
When you make the same mistake twice. The second time its a choice. Think about that for a minute… you are choosing to continue to make the same mistake over and over.
Its time for a little introspection… Think about one thing you in your job that you doesn’t work, yet you continue to do the same thing over and over.
Are You Stuck in a Rut?
It makes no difference what line of work you are in these tips will help you let go and move on.
I’ll give you an example of what happens to me and almost every other developer I know. Last week I discovered a bug on my mobile App Shoe Swipe. It was with the back button… when you hit “back” you when back a page, then forward a page, then back again. So you ended up where you needed to be but the screen flashed twice. I could re-create the bug so I thought this was a 10-minute fix at most. 3-hours later I still had no idea what was causing the issue.
I was frustrated and believing that persistence would win. I was like a fly trying to get out of a room by flying harder into the window. I had isolated the lines of code causing the issue, made some changes and nothing working. And just like the fly… I figured the solution was to Try Harder.
If you find yourself stuck in a situation where nothing you are doing is working. I’d suggest you try these techniques:
Find Easy Tasks – Find the easiest tasks you can possibly do and be successful. Recently my best developer on a project was sitting and staring at his screen because he couldn’t solve a bug that was holding up the whole project. He wasn’t working because he had struck out 100’s of times on the same issue. I pulled him outside to get coffee and told him “when we get back to the office I want you to do these three simple tasks”. They were literally text changes. But he needed success! More success breeds more success. If you continue to fail you are going to be less motivated to do anything.
Get Outside & Exercise – The main reason you cannot solve the issue is that you are in a tunnel. Your mind has tricked you into believing that the only way out is the light at the end of the tunnel. The only way to break free is to realize your limiting beliefs are preventing you from success. You have to change the game. Get up, leave your desk and go outside. Take an hour off and go do something else. The sun and or exercise will cause chemical reactions in your brain
Put on Music – If you aren’t listening to music put some on immediately. Music will alter you mood instantly and therefore change your thought pattern.
Do the Exact Opposite – You are not a fly… you have the option to observe the room and fly in a different direction. The reason you can’t solve your problem is because you are committed to your current course of action. Persistence and commitment are great qualities but you can’t let them be your only method. Instead…
Clear Your Mind – Go somewhere quite and meditate. It’s a super easy method and very effective. Go somewhere quite, close your eyes and start taking long deep breaths. All you have to concentrate on is your breathing and nothing else. When you mind wanders to other thoughts just bring your mind back to your breathing. Continuing to ask your objective mind for a solution is insanity. You need to tap into your subconscious mind for a solution.
As for my programming issue above, it turns out a week earlier another developer had added a registration page for new customers. When he added that process he was calling a function that was already called. Hence, when the user hit the ‘back’ button that process was happening two times. DUH!!!!!
It turns out it was a simple 10-minute fix if I was looking in the right spot. Don’t be a fly!
Contact Me!
Jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
Jeremy Callahan is a Mobile Commerce Expert, App Developer and Founder at Flip Shop Marketing
This week while I was talking to my co-worker and he said “your team is delivering on time and needs to slow down so we can catch up”. He was 100% joking. It just happens that my team isn’t facing the issues the other teams are having. But it got me thinking… In development there is only one thing that matters.
It’s as simple as that! Can you deliver your code on time every time? I don’t care weather you code in Swift, Java, SQL or whatever. As an engineer you have one responsibility and that is to deliver on time.
Now I know you are going to say it has to be high quality. And I agree with that. But if you code passes QA then the quality is there, right?
Look I’ve been a developer for 20 years and the one thing that sets me apart is I can close! Just like a top sales person I close 100% every time. Do you?
You are most likely a better coder than me. You know every frame work and all the latest and greatest. Big Deal… So What… All I want to know when I hire developers is do you deliver on time every time?
Think about this… Developers work in 2-week cycles called Sprints. Before the sprint the developers sit in a room and scope out what they are going to work on for the next 2 weeks. So not only are the committing to the work but they are deciding how much work they will do.
It’s the greatest job in the world. I tell you how much work I will do and you just have to accept it. If I’m lazy I can commit to very little and if I’m crazy I’ll over commit. Either way, the developer gets to set the bar and everyone in the company has to deal with it.
So I’ll repeat it again (a little stronger this time)…
The one thing I always stress to my teams is “If we deliver on time we all are going to get a raise and be loved. If we don’t, we are going to have to have bullshit meetings and point fingers. People are going to get poor reviews and possibly fired.”
It doesn’t matter where you went to college, where you work or how amazing you can code.
I have only one question: “Can you deliver a finished product on time?”
Contact Me!
Jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
Twitter: @jeremycallahan
Jeremy Callahan is a Mobile Commerce Expert, App Developer and Founder at Flip Shop Marketing
