Entries Tagged 'Education Specialists' ↓

It seems like everyone thinks eBay's business is off. Except eBay CEO, John Donahoe. In a CNN Money interview yesterday he was asked several times by Poppy Harlow, "Is eBay losing business because of the changes?" To which he finally stated "No, our business continues to move forward in what is a very challenging economy."

"We're simply doing what our sellers have been asking us to do"

I don't mean to be unkind, but in his initial responses Mr. Donahoe's replies sound pretty "canned." Then he just says things that don't make much sense. I understand being on national TV can make a person a little nervous, but - well, here are a couple of examples:
When discussing fees, Ms. Harlow brings out that many are unhappy with the fee changes. She says, "You say prices are not higher when all is said and done, can you respond to the criticism some people have of the fee structure?"
Mr. Donahoe replies:

We're simply doing what our sellers have been asking us to do which is, lower the cost to list on eBay and pay more if an item sells successfully. So what we've done, is on our fixed-price items, we've lowered the listing cost on eBay, so that ...lowers the risk.

Then he says something that doesn't make all that much sense in my book. He says,

We've aligned eBay's incentives with theirs where they only pay fees if an item successfully sells.

There's always a lot of "aligning" and "incentivising" going on with him.

But anyway, next Poppy Harlow asks again, "has eBay lost any business because of the changes?"

Reply?

Any time there's a change, there's a transition."

Hold the phone! What? Change and transition go hand in hand?
Okay then, what was the transition?

Sellers are adopting to the changes.

(Here again, I don't want to be a jackass, but either they are adopting the changes, or they are adapting to the changes.)

We have plenty of examples where sellers...believe many of the changes we've made are exactly in the right direction."

Since he didn't answer the question, for at least the third time, Ms. Harlow asks, "So, have you lost any business from this?" To which Mr. Donahoe replies,

No, our business continues to move forward in what is a very challenging economy.

Well good. 'Cause I thought things were kind of getting screwed up. But everything is fine.

The reporter asks one more zinger at the end. "Any plans to sell Skype?"

We are very please with Skype as a business, and continue to grow it.

Maybe if she asks that question three times he'll finally answer it too.

If you would like to watch the interview for yourself, you can find it here: http://tinyurl.com/donahoe-cnn

Popularity: 32% [?]

John Donahoe is less popular than President George W. Bush. The President took years to get to this point, Mr. Donahoe accomplished it in just one. Exactly one year ago this weekend, Mr. Donahoe was a guest speaker at the Legg Mason Capitol Management Thought Leader Forum. The topic was "Disruptive Innovation," and Mr. Donahoe spoke about his plans for eBay. Let's see how he's done. It get's better the farther you go, as I get more frustrated and sarcastic. This is a long post, get a donut. I'll wait. The following contains actual quotes from Mr. Donahoe's speech. At the bottom of this post, I've included the "concept cards" from his presentation that can be found on the Legg Mason Capital Management website. Oh and along with my sarcasm. Feel free to add your own.

The topic of disruptive innovation and the history of eBay have a lot in common. In many ways, eBay itself was a disruptive innovation. All three of the major businesses that are a part of eBay are disruptive innovations. I'd like to spend a little bit of time talking about how eBay got to where it is and then talk about how we approach innovation going forward. Today we're dealing with phase two or phase three of disruptive innovation. We've had the disruption, now we must disrupt our own disruption. That's part of the challenge.

Okay, does he know which phase we're in? Because that seems like it would be important. And this sentence, "We've had the disruption, now we must disrupt our own disruption." reminds me of the guards in Monty Python and the search for the Holy Grail, see what you think:

We set out a year ago to think about how we could change before we are forced to change. We took a good look at ourselves in the mirror and didn't like everything that we saw. We saw a very successful business and a lot of momentum but we saw that our user experience and ability to satisfy our buyers and sellers wasn't what we wanted it to be. By using a real focus on the customer, we embarked on a series of fundamental changes that will ultimately span a three year period. We started by creating a future vision. This was critical because not everyone felt the impetus to change, given the amount of success we were experiencing. There's a real push to keep doing what you're doing because it's working. We dove deeply into an understanding of our customers, their needs, their unmet needs, and their alternatives. We had to confront some sacred cows. These are often some of the most difficult things to handle. They're perceived as values of the company. For example, we talk about the level playing field. We treat every seller the same. Now, the level playing field really means that the little player shouldn't get shut out. It was never intended to mean that we treat a bad seller the same as a good seller. Intermediation is another one. It doesn't mean that we can't intervene to make a better buying and selling experience. We also had to address some of the cultural and organizational dimensions.

One of the most fundamental activities is "finding", or what most people think of as "search", on eBay. Historically, the core part of our business model started with a search and the results came back with time ending soonest-the items that are ending soonest at the top of the list. That makes sense during auctions because at the last minute you want to bid and win. Today over 40 percent of the items on eBay are fixed price. We have such volume that many of our buyers said that there was too much abundance. They just want to buy a Nike watch and instead they get 12,000 results back. That's too many. They want to get to what they want, faster. We agreed. There's a lot of talk around the Internet about relevance engines for advertising. Nobody on the Internet has more close transaction data than eBay or PayPal. We have the opportunity to build the best finding experience there is. We weren't collecting the data in a way that we could use it, so we had to change that. Tinkering with the finding experience is also tinkering with one of the core jewels of eBay. But we recognized that eBay has more product searches than any other property on the net, including Google. We convert single digits from searches to bids or buys-a fairly small percentage of those searches-and all we have to do is move that by a fraction to have a profound impact on our company. Over the last eighteen months we have set out to make a series of incremental improvements in our finding functionality. We bought Shopping.com, which is a great destination site but also brought us great finding and search technology. We experimented with eBay Express and built a separate parallel site to experiment with relevance-based search. We went completely with relevance-based search in Korea. Finally, we began layering in something called "best match" into our core site. Those of you who use eBay, if you look in your search box, you can select best match as an option which will help you get to the items you want more quickly. Finding is a core area that we're going to launch a series of improvements in during the next few months.

He pretty much admits eBay Express was an experiment to tinker with the search technology. Then talks about relevant search. Relevant search is once again saying, "we know what you want better than you do." How would you like this? You go to Macy's and ask for the necktie section, and instead of the clerk letting you shop, she comes back with five neckties from which to choose. When you ask to see them all, she says "there's just too much abundance over there, these are the Best Match for you."

In this next quote, notice the philosophy being promoted. Would you like working at a place like eBay? Evidently, according to GlassDoor.com, only 28% like it right now... Oh, and see if you can find yourself anywhere in this equation:

Based on our experience, here's how innovation at the core worked. We had to create a mind shift at our company-we had to think bold and not just incremental. We had to create a vision of the future so people could let go of a very successful past. We had to understand that this wasn't going to just happen overnight. While we're doing this, we're running a successful business. We need to drive these principles of disruption at the same time that we're executing a very successful business. Second, we have to look at all parts of the business model-the whole end-to-end user experience. We're using our global portfolio to test and learn. We're testing ideas in Korea, France, Italy and elsewhere around the world. We're testing various pricing mechanisms. All of this requires new infrastructure, whether it's new data, testing or advertising capabilities. Finally, even I may have underestimated how important organization and culture are. Antonio [Perez] talked earlier this morning about needing to get rid of 70 percent of the people to change a culture. We don't have that luxury. We're growing at 30 percent a year. We need to build on the team we have and help shape the momentum in the right way. We had a bit of a restart with our vision. We set off on this and the senior team was all aligned. But we hadn't invested enough in the rest of the organization. So last year in the fourth quarter we took our entire organization through the process.

"Let go of a very successful past"? Wow. They're delivering on this one.

I also like the part he says about "executing a very successful business" - poor choice of words John.

And they have solved the "growing at 30% a year" problem. Now they can focus on getting rid of 70% of the people to change that pesky eBay culture. A year after this speech, is the senior team all still aligned? Well, now that some have departed, I don't think so. And besides that - aligned with whom? The other members of the senior team? or the community? employees?

Okay, here's another quote. This is the last one I'll share, because you can read the entire speech for yourself if you'd like. This one is cute. It tells how eBay is willing to churn out new products even before a business case has been made for that product. In other words, people dream stuff up, they put it on the site, and we either like it or not. Imagine what cars would look like if automakers did the same thing:

We're providing a forum to bubble-up ideas. We have a skunk works in-house. We're creating lightweight, cross-functional teams. We're giving the teams the freedom to focus on the right user experience and then worry about monetization. If we ask for too firm a business case up front, they'll never get out of the gate. We give them the space and energy to move aggressively and we use user adoption as the metrics in the early days. We talk and listen to customers, but for this kind of innovation, customers don't always know what they want. No one would have asked for a widget, but when they saw it they liked it. There's a real balance between being customer-driven and going with your intuitions. We also put the right people on the team - not everyone can do this kind of innovation. We are acting like internal venture capitalists with our resources. We give them just enough to get to the next round. We also know when to cut them off or keep them going. Finally, we involve people from the core business in these ideas, but not too early in the process. People in the core business typically want to kill these things when there's a tight quarter.

Really John? "Customers don't always know what they want?" How would you know for sure if they can't find it? So let me understand, the customers are saying what they want, not getting it, and leaving. Sellers are unhappy, buyers can't find things they are searching for, and eBay has people inventing new things that haven't been asked for yet? Brilliant! I feel so disrupted.

Does anyone know if John is speaking at the Thought Leadership Forum again this year?

UPDATE: Someone posted a link to this post on the eBay discussion boards early this weekend. Evidently, eBay has deleted the entire thread. If you'd like to see what they found so offensive, you can look at the cached version here: http://tinyurl.com/3lrgac

Here is a link to the entire speech: http://www.leggmason.com/thoughtleaderforum/2007/conference/donahoe.html

Here are the "Concept Cards" from the speech (click them to enlarge):

Popularity: 100% [?]

eBay Pulse was "improved" this week, much to the dismay of frequent users. This was a great tool, that allowed users to drill into sub-categories to see what search terms shoppers were using most. Unfortunately, the "improvements" eliminated popular search terms for all but the top categories. This new, gutted tool is pretty worthless to sellers. It's not a tool, it's a toy.

I'm sure some people worked hard on it. I'm sure they had mock-ups, and brainstormed, and used the white boards. There were meetings upon meetings. Probably (having worked at eBay) there were meetings about meetings.

There were also no doubt, considerations about how to display the information.

• "Could we charge for this information instead of giving it away?"
• "Should we filter the results so we don't hurt a weak category?"
• "Should we consider our paid sponsors when displaying results?"
• "How could we turn this into a revenue stream?"
• "How do sellers use this tool?" (This question likely prompted inquisitive looks at each other.)
• "Will it be pretty?"

So, anyway - it was released. Sellers are complaining. I can't imagine why though. Look at this screenshot I grabbed this morning of the Biggest Movers on eBay Pulse:

Now I understand people have a hard time making up their minds about products. But really? Everything is moving up and down at the same time?

Part of the problem with the new tool is the addition of the "Internet Pulse" showing top searches from "selected" blogs. How will I use that information when creating my titles? How can I use it to determine a niche market for my business? The current terms on internet pulse are:

• fashion week
• iphone
• stamps
• coin show
• game
• blog
• xbox 360
• money
• david foster wallace
• launch

How will those terms help me as a seller? They are so broad as to be useless. They will always be broad terms.

The top searches by category are equally as broad. They contain the top searches for the main category only. Under Collectibles, the top ten search terms cover a category with one and a half MILLION items.

I know new things have bugs, so to be fair I thought I'd take another look to see if eBay had fixed the problem shown above. Here is a screen shot from an hour later:

Popularity: 28% [?]

I just got back from my 19 hour visit to Orlando where I spoke at the [tag]Rocketplace[/tag] Conference presented by [tag]AsWas[/tag].

The one day I was able to observe made me wish I was able to attend the entire event. It was full of good content and great people. My favorite part of the day was having lunch with fellow eBay [tag]Education Specialist[/tag]s Sharon Ware and her husband John, Marlene Gavens, Marcia Cooper, and Harvey Levine. I got to hear Harvey, Marcia, and Sharon speak about the "A-Ha" moment that occurs when a person finally realizes they may be on to something with eBay. It was actually quite inspiring.

As usual, listening to others talk about [tag]eBay[/tag] really gets me pumped up. I'm usually the one talking, so it's nice to hear it from other people. It's the same reason why my sales spiked after sitting through the 54th eBay University class in a row. I knew the material, I presented it, but listening to Marsha Collier or Griff, or any of the eBay U presenters was an affirmation and encouragement.

Maybe as Education Specialists we should hear each other teach from time to time. It has a nice effect.

As for AsWas and the Rocketplace: small beginnings this year. But Debbie Levitt did a great job of organizing the event and keeping it on track and I hope they do this conference again.

photo credit: the eMotionBlogster

Popularity: 5% [?]

This article was pointed out to me by a friend at MissionFish. It contains some very good info for sellers who not only want to do some good, but it's also a way to draw attention to all of your listings on eBay.

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Cause Marketing for eBay Sellers: Put the Ribbon to Work for You
by David Yaskulka

Ever see that little blue and gold ribbon in your eBay search results? If not, you likely will soon. Why? Because consumers love what it represents: an eBay Giving Works listing with at least 10 percent of their purchase price helping a great cause.

eBay Giving Works was one of the hot topics at [tag]eBay Live[/tag], and not surprisingly, eBay, many of its most successful PowerSellers, and the top Certified Solutions Providers are ramping up their use of this little ribbon. That ribbon allows small and medium size businesses to run world-class cause marketing programs

How can you put the ribbon to work for your business?

Full article here: http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y07/m06/i26/s03

Continue reading →

Popularity: 5% [?]

[tag]eBay Classes[/tag] - The Basics and Beyond

eBay's [tag]Education Specialist[/tag] program has helped many thousands get started selling online. eBay classes are more available than in the past when people had to wait for eBay U to come to town. But how did those Education Specialists (Trained by eBay) get those classes on the calendar? It's pretty easy to get trained and begin teaching, but it takes a little more work to get the venue, dates, and students. How did you get started? To whom did you speak about classes? Are you all signed up as an Education Specialist but have nowhere to go?

Learning from Others

I used to teach more large groups with [tag]eBay U[/tag] in the days before the Education Specialist program. I like teaching hundreds at a time, and I liked [tag]eBay University[/tag] handling all the arrangements, all I had to do is teach and travel.

Now though, I have to find my own venues, set dates, decide on pricing, teach, handle some of the marketing, make sure books are available, and more. Some of the more active Education Specialists (one was my friend Jack Waddick) gave me some advice, which I could never seem to put into practice. I almost needed someone to hold my hand and walk me through it.

It also seemed that when watching the Education Specialist discussion boards on eBay no one really wanted to share too much information. Advice is often given at a high level, a little too vague for me I'm a bit thick-headed. eBay people tend to be a bit guarded about their strategies when selling, and I think it carries into other areas. Well, I think it's okay to share this info as it may help others get ideas. So I'm going to be very detailed about how things are going locally for me.

After Dinner Conversation

After filling up on Thai food with some friends recently, we ambled out of the restaurant and met a lady with a beautiful Boxer. Being a cat person, I was less than thrilled my friend decided to stop and talk to the lady about her dog. Turned out though, she was someone for whom I'd been searching. She ran the [tag]community calendar[/tag] in my town, and she opened a door for me.

I'm in the process of booking classes for summer and fall. I was frustrated at not knowing exactly who I should speak with to get local classes booked. I have heard many other Education Specialists have the same problem. The guide we've been given gives great concepts and is extremely helpful after you've booked a class. My problem was getting the first [tag]local classes[/tag] once I moved to a new area.

Starting Points

It's turned out many communities have programs through City Hall offering continuing education or [tag]adult education[/tag]. If you march down to City Hall you can just ask who handles those classes. There is usually a few papers to fill out and possibly even a short interview to check on your qualifications.

In my small community there were classes being held on such topics as cooking, dance, learning Italian, and many more. When I mentioned my class to the people at City Hall (more than one City Hall) they wanted to be the first to enroll.

I chose the dates and gave a description of the classes. We also discussed the money. The city supplies the room, the internet connection, and they'll even print up to 50 handouts for the class. They also handle the marketing through a quarterly catalog that is handed out to kids at school to take home. In addition to that, they have a website where people may enroll. I thought it was nice as well that they distribute press releases to the local media. For all of this the revenue is split 70/30 (the city keeping 30%).

Book, Teach, Repeat

Once you've gone through the process once, it's pretty much the same at the next town. Just be careful you don't overbook yourself or saturate your area. Keep the classes at a reasonable size and that should not be a problem.

Can you make money?

Lots of people ask this question. If you work, you may be able to make some money doing this. Do the math, if you can get 10 people in a room and clear $50 per head that's $500. Let's say you do that once per week. A couple thousand dollars a month is a nice income (second income?) in many parts of the country. Add to that a little one on one [tag]eBay coaching[/tag] and a college course and you may actually make a living at this.

Other Areas to Try

How can you take this to another level? In most of my cases the city allows me to offer a small discount to certain groups. This is where you can help fill your classes. You can approach the Chamber of Commerce, Senior Groups, Church Groups, etc. with your classes and give them a discount, or even offer to customize your presentation a little to meet their specific needs. This is basically a second-tier of marketing on top of the City's efforts.

Wrapping It Up

Doing the detective work to find your community's educational classes is really quite easy. I have no excuse for not figuring it out sooner. Once you find the right person, they'll likely help you through the rest of the process. Since the lady I originally dealt with knows her counterparts in neighboring communities, and knows about their programs, I got a lot of help right off the bat.

You can do it too. I know there are some Education Specialists that go to the trouble of qualifying, and they don't press on with the work of booking their first class because they don't really know how to start. Hopefully my experience will help a little.

[tags]learn ebay,one on one,ebay class[/tags]

Popularity: 4% [?]

How are people hearing about your classes? Usually if you’re teaching through an education program through a city, college, or university they provide a measure of marketing for you. Can you add to that? Is it worth it? Where are some good places to add your eBay classes to grow your attendance?

Expanding Your Reach for Free

There are several ways to expand your current marketing efforts. This can be accomplished inexpensively or even for free. Once you’ve honed your message, there is no need to rewrite it for every single place you post it. Some areas you should consider are:

• Craig’s List – Free to list, and a vast audience

• TV and Radio Station Community Calendars – Free to list, and gets you some potential television exposure as a local eBay expert. Look on their websites

• Online event calendars – Often free to list and becoming more popular as a destination for people searching for activities.

• Your eBay Store’s Custom Pages – You get five free pages with a Basic Store subscription, use them to advertise your classes or website

• Blog, blog, blog. – Write about your classes in an off-eBay blog.

• Google Calendar – You can create a calendar of events using Google Calendar. Just add your classes as you would on any calendar, make sure the calendar is set as Public so people can find it. Once they find it, they can add it to their own calendar and sign up for your class.

Is It Worth the Effort?

Many people pay large amount of money to get Continue reading →

Popularity: 4% [?]

I love free things. Anyone on eBay likely loves things that are free too. Some of you already know about this, but for those that don't here is a tip to get 250 [tag]free business cards[/tag].

Who needs them?

Do people ever ask you what you sell on [tag]eBay[/tag]? Do people ever ask for your "card" and you don't have one to give them? Do you ever wish you could put your card in one of those fish bowls at a restaurant to win a free lunch, only to walk away with your hands in your pockets disappointed because you don't have a business card?

You need a [tag]business card[/tag] if you are:

• a seller on eBay
• an [tag]Education Specialist[/tag], training others
• going to eBay Live! in Boston

Not to mention the free lunch thing. Continue reading →

Popularity: 4% [?]

If you're an eBay seller, or you teach people to sell on [tag]eBay[/tag], there is an excellent lesson coming up for your students (and you as a seller if you're smart.) You have 15 days to take advantage of an online phenomena - the [tag]Super Bowl[/tag].

It's no secret that the commercials on [tag]Super Bowl Sunday[/tag] carry about as much weight as the game itself. But do you really know how much weight? Last year Yahoo reported the phrase "Super Bowl XL [tag]Commercials[/tag]" jumped 800% the day after the game. Other game-related [tag]search phrases[/tag] that saw increases included:

• "Appetizer Recipes" (+336%),
• "Chicken Wings" (+97%)
• "Salsa Recipes" (+76%)
• "Mick Jagger" and "Tim Hasselback" spiked during the game.

Searches for Pepsi on Yahoo increased by about 60% post-game, and there were thousands of searches on the term "brownandbubbly.com" after their Super Bowl ad aired.
Searches for ABC TV show (then new) "Grey's Anatomy" increased roughly 400% on Yahoo post-game. The phrase "code black," which referred to a mysterious event in the show, jumped over 1000% percent on Yahoo. The Warner Bros.' term "V for Vendetta" saw an increase of over 400% in traffic. People are searching for obvious things such as the recipes before the game, but during the game there are lots of real-time searches for info on whatever is being shown or discussed. After the game the obvious searches are the commercials as people discuss them at work on Monday.

"Coach - Put Me In"

So how can you get in the game? First if you are teaching eBay classes that they should watch pop culture events for spikes in eBay selling activity, you're a good teacher. If you're just a seller, the question remains:
"How does one know what people will be searching for on eBay?"

Well, Billy Joel, and Prince are playing during the halftime show. Break out the 'vintage' Purple Rain stuff! You can find more details about the game and the venue in South Florida at the official host website (lots of music and stuff going on.) And team details at the Official NFL Super Bowl site.

eBay is a giant 'reflector' of whatever is going on in the world. Sellers can list things related to the death of a famous person before the body has gone cold. And they do. Certain things related to the Super Bowl though are predictable, we know ahead of time which teams are playing, we know where, we know the player's names, we also know that millions of people will be having super bowl parties, featuring food & drink. Walk through a typical Super Bowl Sunday in your mind, and think of all the things you'd need. Now - sell some of those things on eBay.

The other big opportunity is what the big commercials will be discussing. If you can align yourself with these big ads, you will get some overflow business on eBay. For example:

• you may not have a new Toyota Tundra for sale, but if you have a used one you may want it to be ending Sunday night after the game or Monday at lunchtime.
• if you're a seller of sports memorabilia, you will certainly want to have items available before, during, and after the game.
• Garmin GPS has a spot, tens of millions of people will see that ad and go to the Garmin site. They'll see the prices and then go to eBay to look for a deal. I'm using Doba as a last-minute source, and I don't even have to ship them. (In fact, this is a great time to sign up for their free trial for that very reason - and yes I use them in my own business).
• Take a look at who purchased what for 2007.

Take a Play from Their Book
Or in some cases, do just the opposite of the big boys. You can also see how last year's ads were scored by looking at
Super Bowl Search Engine Marketing Scorecard. It shows what marketers did right and what they missed on. (Can you believe anyone nowadays would not put a URL on a [tag]superbowl ad[/tag]?)

Obviously I can't say exactly what products to sell. But hopefully this article will give you some good food for thought. Call it a recipe for food for thought I guess. You can bet I'll be eating, drinking and watching my Garmin GPS listings on eBay.

Popularity: 3% [?]

I will be presenting a webinar for Doba at 10AM Pacific / 1PM Eastern on Tuesday, January 16 entitled:
"Decisions, Decisions, Exploring the SYI (Sell Your Item) Form"

If you are a new seller, you've probably wondered:

• How do I price my item?
• Should I use a Reserve Price?
• Which duration is best?
• How can I set shipping charges?

You have to be a Doba member to listen in, but you can sign up for a free 7-day trial at Doba and then register for the webinar. Once you sign up for the free trial, the cost for the class is $25. Continue reading →

Popularity: 4% [?]

I just ran across this post on Naked eBay and thought it was pretty funny. Sarcastic but funny, and full of good lessons for new sellers.

In our eBay classes, it's common to find new sellers who are terribly afraid of 'losing' in some way. So they make their descriptions short, with a long list of rules about how to be paid, when to be paid, feedback must be positive or else, no returns or else, I've even heard no emails or else. This is a good example of things new (and old) sellers should consider. Then don't do them.

Here's the link: http://naked-ebay.blogspot.com/2006/09/how-to-be-miserable-failure-at-ebay.html

Popularity: 4% [?]

I'm very happy to report that PowerU has added my blog to the [tag]PowerU[/tag] site under Resources > Marketing Tools and Templates. My purpose in writing here has been to help others who are teaching [tag]eBay classes[/tag] by sharing experiences and techniques that have worked for me as a national [tag]eBay University[/tag] instructor over the past five years.

There are many things that are unique to [tag]eBay Education Specialists[/tag] though, such as booking events, dealing with individual students in one-on-one settings, dealing with Chambers of Commerce, etc. I would love your comments or questions on how you handle these situations. I think this will be a great repository of information.

"Am I Helping My Competition?"

I've heard a few Education Specialists (ES's) say, "I'd rather not share how I get jobs, or charge my clients. I'd just be helping the competition." I understand that. In most cases though, there is enough work to go around - and let's be frank - only a few will really do what it takes to get the good jobs. It's hard work and an investment of your time. My point is, since we're spread all over the country - let's help each other out.

If you don't like what you find here, let me know - after looking at the [tag]Education Specialist[/tag] discussion board though, I see most are extremely helpful and kind. I look forward to your comments and hope we'll have some nice interchanges here. [tags]GenuineSeller.com,eBay[/tags]

Popularity: 3% [?]

More eBay Education Specialist news was announced today with the January 8, 2007 release of the "eBay Giving Works" course. The course will focus on training Non-Profit organizations, teaching them how to use eBay as a fundraising tool as well as teaching eBay Sellers how to sell items for non-profits.

I recently taught a workshop for the California Association for Non-Profits and found great interest in the idea of using eBay to raise funds, both by direct selling by the non-profit as well as receiving donations through MissionFish and eBay's GivingWorks program. In fact, in a survey of the attendees new sources of fundraising is the top issue of concern for these organizations.

The course will cost $49 and can be renewed annually for $29. The requirements to be able to teach the class through PowerU / eBay Education Specialist Program will be the same as the Beyond the Basics course.

Popularity: 4% [?]

The January 2007 Education Specialist newsletter has just been release with lots of helpful information. I had the opportunity to contribute one article that discusses setting up an eBay class.

If you're visiting for the first time, I'm glad you're here. I hope you'll consider subscribing to the feed and please feel free to send comments or questions any time.

Popularity: 4% [?]