mattheaton.com

When I was 19 years old I left home to serve as a missionary for my church for 2 years. I served as a missionary in middle and southern Taiwan. It was the single greatest experience of my life. I learned fluent Mandarin Chinese, learned a lot about the people, and most important, I learned what people were missing in their lives. I tried to help fill that void.

When I first got there, I was a bit of a know-it-all. My personality is the “RED” type personality that is the controlling, always right kind of guy (Mixed in with a 1/3 of yellow – the fun loving, jokester guy). This combination of my personality with my intended goals of being the best missionary I could would sometimes clash.

It was suggested by a friend that I read an EXCELLENT BOOK called, “How to win friends and influence people” by Dale Carnegie. This book changed my mission experience, and later profoundly changed the way I work and deal with others on a daily basis.

The book is a FABULOUS tool for anyone that wishes to better understand others and work with them to accomplish a specific goal.

My mission experience was far better for me having read this book, but my business life simply would have gone no where without the advice that I try to employ daily that I have learned from this book .

I am in no way affiliated with this book. I simply want to make others aware of how much worth it has to ANYONE that has to work/live/talk to other poeple on a regular basis. This book is a gold mine if used properly.

It is full or real world examples, and is a quick easy read. I suggest you pick one up and see what it can do for your personal and professional life if you haven’t already read it.

If others have had a positiive experience with “How to win friends and influence people” I would very much like to hear your stories about it.

Thanks,

Matt Heaton / President Bluehost.com

Well, what many don’t know is that we are located in Orem, Utah. Acutally, we are in the old Word Perfect/Novell Campus (If you still remember Word Perfect!).

Utah valley is like a small silicon valley. There are MANY well trained and qualified individuals that are available to join the bluehost team. This is partly because of the many technology companies in the area, and partly because of the clean-cut, home town, good work ethic area that we call home.

Utah allows us to operate a business at a REASONABLE price. You can easily purchase a 3000 sq ft home here for around $200K. We can add people to our team for a reasonable price (Try that in southern California), and we can rent space and get the bandwidth connections we need at a great price.

The bottom line is that operating a business in a place that is cost effective allows us to make money while our customers save money. Where is your hosting company???

Matt Heaton / Bluehost.com

Well, in the past couple of weeks we have hit an important milestone for bluehost. We have broken the 100,000 domain mark (Actually we are at 110,000 as of today).

That is great for us! But instead of celebrating, I am worrying. Why is that you ask? When was the last time you called a company with 100,000 customers and received quality service? Just today I called Delta Airlines (Again?? Read my blog below!) to change my ticket by a day and got someone in India that didn’t speak English that kept saying they had room on the flight I was already booked on. Their customer service is virtually non-existant.

I don’t want that to be Bluehost EVER! We have to maintain our edge. We have problems the same as everyone else, but the difference is our intolerance for indifference. We CARE! Sometimes issues arise and you get shuffled around, but that is the minority, not the majority of the time!

We pledge to always have enough people to do the job right! We have had 24 hour support 6 days a week for a few months now, and as of April 3rd we will have 24 hour support 7 days a week, except Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and Labor Day. Of course, they are all in our office and on site. No outsourcing for us!!! In addition to 24/7 support we have actual trained technicians to help you.

If you can’t stand having someone that doesn’t speak English on the other end of the line. If you hate it when you call into support and feel like you know more than the “technician” on the other end. If you find it unacceptable to wait 10 minutes just to get someone on the phone, then WELCOME TO BLUEHOST. We want you, and you will like us! We are a match made for success! We will maintain our edge for you!

Thanks,
Matt Heaton / Bluehost.com

How do you become successful? What are the ingredients that make it up? These are questions that many people ask themselves. If you haven’t asked yourself this question you need a kick in the pants! Everyone should strive for success!

I am now 34 years young. For me I used to define success as how much money I made. My “worth” was defined by my pocket book. What a mistake that was. It took me making “enough” money before I realized I had misdefined success. I grew up in a family of 10 people! I have three younger brothers, three older brothers, and my sister is the oldest. We had a great family growing up, but because of so many siblings I quickly learned to provide for myself if I needed something. What a valuable lesson I was able to learn while I was young! To rely on ones self helps you grow and gives you satisfaction that you can’t get any other way.

Anyway, back to success… Define success, and then do everything you can to achieve that goal. When I look around at those I work with and others that are my friends I can tell who is on their way to “success” and those who have essentially given up and accepted life as it is. Success takes risks, and intelligent planning! Whatever your goals, give yourself the proper tools to succeed. Don’t set generic goals, of “getting rich”, or “getting in shape”. Instead, say I am going to achieve success by first preparing in this way, and doing this, and getting the proper education, and then specifically laying down a list of things to achieve your goal.

I talk to a lot of people that say if I only did “this” I could change my family life, or my “financial situation”. I then ask them why they haven’t done it, and what they are planning to do to get it done. There is usually no plan, just regret that they haven’t done it. These people will stay in their current state. I KNOW they will. Action is what moves you forward! Everyone of us is capable of bettering our lives. I truely believe that those ahead of the game are those who are simply willing to say, “I reject my current situation and WILL ACT to change it.”

I know this blog entry comes off as very presumptuous. I don’t mean it to be. I just firmly believe that we all have the ability to change our lives for the better if we will work hard and make the decision to do it for ourselves and our families.

Thanks,

Matt Heaton / Bluehost.com

If you want it done right you have to do it yourself. You have heard it a million times right? Well, I am here to tell you if you follow that advice for your business you won’t grow!

Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows that I am an entrepreneur at heart. I love starting new businesses and getting them off the ground. It gives me a sense of accomplishment. Afterward I get bored and need to find others better than me to continue to run the businesses that I start.

One thing I have had to learn the hard way in businesses I have created is that you can’t do it all yourself. A perfect example is an older company I used to run called 50megs.com. I ran it mostly on my own, with some help from my brother on the support side. I managed about 30 servers, did all the programming myself, and sold all the online ads. I thought I was saving a bundle! I didn’t have to have employees and that resulted in extra $$$ in my pocket. I did well with it and in the end sold it to a public company.

The first thing the public company did was 10 times my revenue the first month after they aquired it! You read right, 10X my revenue. I was bewildered by the numbers and asked how they did it. They replied that it was simple. They had a dedicated marketing team that knew the industry and could aggressively sell my ads.

Had I been able to see past the “huge” money I was saving, and invest a little in my company by getting some dedicated sales people, and perhaps free up my time by employing a few developers I could have really had it take off.

I guess what I am saying is that it has taken me 10 years, but I have finally learned that I am not the only one that can make my business be a success. I have now hired many extremely talented people that are better at managing people than I am, better at programming than I am, and better admins than I am. Bluehost is a better and more competent company since I have finally learned to trust others.

Thanks,
Matt Heaton / Bluehost.com

As I write this I am sitting on a plane on my way to Knotts Berry Farm and Six Flags(Magic Mountain) in Southern California with 2 of my children. It occurs to me that the airline industry could learn a lot from the web hosting industry. How you might ask? By LISTENING to the customer!

The web hosting industry in my opinion is completely driven by the market. We do what YOU the customer wants. Those that can provide what the customer needs for a low and fair price thrive. Those that can’t fade into the sunset…

Let me give you an example of what I mean. A couple of months ago my wife and I were flying back to Salt Lake City from a short trip to Manhatten. We flew on Delta airlines who’s hub happens to be Salt Lake City. We were tired and wanted a little extra room. I inquired about upgrading to first class since they made an announcement that there were 5 seats still available. The person at the counter said that because we had “internet” tickets we paid too little and so had a “T” ticket which wasn’t upgradeable for the $100 price they had announced. I asked how I might obtain a different ticket so that we could upgrade to first class. They said I could pay an additional $430 per ticket and then pay the $100 per ticket on top of that to upgrade to first class.

I looked them straight in the eye and explained that I knew EXACTLY why Delta airlines is in bankruptcy. They simply don’t give the customer what they want. Anyone who flies Delta regularly knows their service is extremely poor on all fronts. It isn’t the fault of their employees either. The management doesn’t create an environment where customer service comes first. The employees of Delta are just as disgusted with their own company as most customers are. Compare that with low cost competitor South West Airlines and you can see why South West does so well. It isn’t all about cost. Its about service at a FAIR price.

Being the type of person to get what I want I found a work around to Delta’s poor service. I simply informed the flight attendant when I boarded the plane that I would like to give her $200 to split between her and her coworker for my wife and I to sit in the still unsold first class seats. She quickly obliged. The flight attendants received a little extra spending $$$, I got what I wanted, and the only ones hurt were the dingbats at Delta who set their ridiculous rules to anger the customer.

Businesses succeed when they listen to their customers. They flop when they don’t. We will always listen to what our customers have to say. This includes the good and the bad. We can’t be all things to all people, but we can always do better than where we are today!

Thanks,
Matt Heaton / Bluehost.com