Open up your mind and say, ahh...

Small business owners who are looking for a cheap, simple solution for credit card processing, take notice: Mophie and Intuit have launched an all-in-one package that lets you accept payments and process credit cards on your iPhone 3G or 3GS.

Named the Complete Credit Card Solution, it consists of mophie’s iPhone case with a credit card reader at the bottom, and Intuit’s GoPayment app that takes care of the software side. It also integrates with Intuit’s QuickBooks software, which lets you track invoices and payments.

It works as follows: you, a small business owner, apply for a Intuit Merchant Account that will let you process credit cards in a matter of minutes. The customers swipe the card through the reader attached to your iPhone, and sign their name on the iPhone touch screen. Finally, you send the customer an e-mail or text receipt. Intuit claims that its software processes the credit card “within seconds,” after which the funds are deposited into the businesses’ bank account.

The price of the Complete Credit Card Solution is $179.95 at Apple Retail Stores and soon, claim Intuit and Mophie, on Apple.com. GoPayment, which includes the Intuit merchant account, costs $12.95 a month, with a 1.7 to 3.7 percent discount rate and $0.30 to $0.34 per transaction fee. One account can enable up to 50 users. Finally, there are no long-term contracts, cancellation, gateway or set-up fees.

With this product, Mophie and Intuit took some of the flare out of Jack Dorsey’s credit card processing solution Square, especially because Intuit already has an established user base. However, Square still offers a number of advantages over Mophie and Intuit’s solution: a free card reader, no monthly fee, lower transaction fees, and it’s compatible with both iOS and Android devices.

No business buys a solution for a problem they don’t have.

And yet, most business to business marketers jump right into features and benefits, without taking the time to understand if the person on the other end of the conversation/call/letter believes they even have a problem.

My friend Marcia (we’ve advised each other on various projects) has a very cool idea for large professional firms. As an architect, she realized the firms were wasting time and money and efficiency in the way they use their space. Roomtag is her answer.

The challenge is this: if your big law firm or accounting firm doesn’t think it has a space allocation/stuff tracking/office mapping problem, you won’t be looking for a solution. You won’t wake up in the morning dreaming about how to solve it, or go to bed wondering how much it’s costing you to ignore it.

And so the marketing challenge is to sell the problem.

(Interesting paradox: a lot of people aren’t willing to embrace that they have a problem unless they also believe that there’s a solution… so part of selling a problem is hinting that there’s a solution that others are using, or is right around the corner.)

Imagine, for example, getting the data and publishing a list of the top 50 firms, ranked by efficiency of space use. All of a sudden, the bottom half of the list realizes that yes, in fact, they have something that they need to work on. If you knew that your firm was paying twice as much per associate as the competition, you’d realize that there’s a problem.

When a prospect comes to the table and says, “we have a problem,” then you’re both on the same side of the table when it comes time to solve it. On the other hand, if they’re at the table because you’re persistent or charming, the only problem they have is, “how do I get out of here.”

My blog is one of my key tools in growing business. I use it to promote other people’s good work. I use it to share my way of thinking. I use it to equip you for success, knowing that should you need more than what’s offered on the blog, you’ll ask for a way to work with me. Here’s how I look at distribution and why I think it’s important.

Distribution Points for Your Blog

I currently share my blog in 3 main places: LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. In each case, they are shared differently.

In LinkedIn, I have the WordPress for LinkedIn connection, so that imports my blog in a simple, clean way into the regular fabric of LinkedIn. If I really need traction on a post, I might share it again in my network updates, but I try to use that very sparingly. LinkedIn doesn’t really like a lot of link promotion.

On Twitter, my automated account, @broganmedia shares out my blog post, but I don’t rely on just that. If I think the post is good, I tweet out a link to it, asking a customized question with that link. For instance, if I were tweeting out this story (and I will), I’d say something like, “how many distribution points do you have for your blog?” And then I’d put the link to this post. Make sense?

On Facebook, it’s shared via a note. I don’t do very much with that method, to be honest. Instead, I rely on shareability, as I’ve covered it before. But, lest you think I don’t value Facebook’s addition to my blog, I’ll tell you of the time that Steve Rubel accidentally kept me from quitting Facebook. You see, I was just about to hit the delete button, when I saw that a new message had come in. Steve said to me, “I don’t know why I never saw your blog before now, but it just came across my screen on Facebook.” I thought, “rats,” and kept my page alive.

Email – Sparingly

Now, let me be clear. I love it when you subscribe to my blog via email. If you haven’t, feel free to sign up here (I respect your privacy):

But I really rarely and sparingly send out emails pointing to my posts. For the most part, if I know how to reach you, you probably subscribe to my blog. Secondarily, it feels like a waste of an email touch. I’d rather use those for important things, like promoting Invisible People.

One last note about email: I think it’s great to put a generic link to your blog in your email signature, if that’s what you most want people to do after you email them.

Distribution Elsewhere

There are many more services through which you can distribute and/or promote your blog. I’ve only talked about the three major and one minor method through which I’m distributing [chrisbrogan.com]. By all means, feel free to add other points in the comments, and we can talk about those, as well.

What about you? Where else are you distributing your blog? How have you found the experience? Any questions on what I’ve put up above?