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Geaux Saints!

2010-02-08T09:12:10-06:00

Because I live so close to Louisiana (my house is only 5 minutes from the state line and only 5 hours by car to New Orleans), there's a LOT of Cajun influence here, from the food (can you say gumbo and crawfish etouffe, ya'll?) to the multiple Mardi Gras celebrations to the language spoken. The Cajun culture is so pervasive that I almost feel like I live in LA rather than in TX.

After last night, nothing will ever be the same again as when the New Orleans Saints came marching in to Miami and took home the Super Bowl ring in their inaugural Super Bowl appearance. I used to be a BIG pro football fan but fell off the wagon when Jerry Jones fired Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry in 1983 and I vowed never to watch pro football again. I managed to keep my vow until 2008 when Eric asked me to watch pro football games with him. He's a big fan of the Houston Texans, and has his own Owen Wilson jersey. I don't really follow any team nor consider myself a fan of any team these days.

Eric was rooting for "Sheriff" Manning and the Colts, whom I still managed to call the "Baltimore Colts" despite the franchise having moved to Indianapolis many years ago. Guess that's what happens when you ignore something for 20 plus years..LOL..kind of like the 1999 Brendon Frasier/Alicia Silverstone movie, "Blast from the Past." I haven't been in an atomic bomb shelter for 35 years, but my self-imposed pro football exile means I'm still out-of-touch with how today's pro football games are played.. I pepper Eric endlessly with questions like, "They can do that now??"

When the 2nd half of the Super Bowl started, my intuition told me that the Saints were going to take this game, even though the score (and the odds) were against them. The Saints players seemed to have found a great hunger to win that was missing in the first half. And, what better way than a Super Bowl win to say that New Orleans was back after the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005? And win they did.

Eric didn't watch the last 2 minutes of the game, but I couldn't resist, remembering how the Giants pulled out in front of the Pats in the last few minutes of the 2008 game to win the Super Bowl that year. (Now, that was a great nail-biting game!) When the Sheriff was unable to convert anything in the last few minutes of the game and it ended, I told Eric that I thought New Orleans won because they wanted it more. This game goes to show how far desire and passion will take you, even when the world believes you'll never pull it off. You've just got to want it badly enough and not let anything get in your way of your goal..;)

Slideshare

2010-02-05T09:53:00-06:00

Slideshare

The articles I write are one of my primary business assets, and I like to make them work as hard for me as possible by repurposing them in as many ways as possible. One of my repurposing tricks is to create a Powerpoint presentation from that article and upload it to share with others.

One of the places I share these presentations is on Slideshare. Slideshare is the world's largest community for sharing presentations, documents and pdfs. Slideshare is similar to a social networking site in that members are invited to regularly comment on slideshows, indicate their favorites, and download content. The content uploaded to the site spreads virally through blogs and social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Anyone can view presentations and documents on topics that interest them. Slideshare is reported to have over 17 million monthly visitors.

With an account at Slideshare, you can:

Embed slideshows into your own blog or web site.
Share slideshows publicly or privately. There are several ways to share privately.
Synch audio to your slides.
Market your own event on Slideshare.
Join groups to connect with SlideShare members who share your interests.
Download the original file

Even though you can add audio to your presentations (like background music, for example) through Slideshare and save it as a slidecast, I don't choose to do that because the audio and slides are often not in sync. Creating a slide show is free of charge, although you do have to create an account to do so. They offer additional fee-based options for business lead generation.

You can see several of my slide presentations by visiting the Slideshare site and searching for my name. As of this writing, there doesn't appear to be a way to create a profile page featuring my slideshows, similar to what you might find at a social networking site.

Upload your slide presentation here.

ROTFLMBO

2010-02-05T06:49:00-06:00

I've sat in on some long meetings this week, some of which have made my eyes cross. After one in particular, I needed a good laugh to reduce my tension headache and to get my mind off work. One of my clients provided me just what I needed when she forwarded me an audio clip of a southern woman telling of her visit to Vancouver with her husband, whom she refers to as "Left Brain". You can listen to it here.

I love southern humor and southern writing, especially from a woman's perspective. This story reminded me of so many times when my mom and I would get so tickled that we would be doubled over laughing so hard that neither of us could catch our breath. Then, one of us would finally stop, but invariably one of us would say something to set the other off, and there we'd go again....

Sometimes there's nothing better than a good belly laugh to brighten your day, or as we say in the IM (Instant Message) world, Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Butt Off.

Update: Intrepid reader Pamela Ziemann told me that this clip is Jeanne Robertson's work. You can read more about Jeanne on her website, http://www.jeannerobertson.com/ Pamela says that Jeanne is even better when you can see her facial expressions..;->

Week of Feb. 1: What's New at OnlineBizU.com

2010-02-04T09:49:38-06:00

Paid Membership Has Its Advantages!

The teleclasses, downloads, and articles listed below are available to members of OnlineBizU.com as a part of their paid membership. If you're not a member and would like to have immediate access to some great Internet marketing strategies and information, we'd love to have you join us!

New Article: Top 8 Signs of ECommerce Fraud: How to Detect Fraudulent Credit Card Transactions

Today, ecommerce credit card fraud is becoming the rule rather than the exception. Unfortunately, the credit card thieves are becoming smarter, making the fraud more difficult to detect. Here are the 8 clues that tipped me off to the possibility of ecommerce fraud on my web site:...keep reading

New Biz Automation Tool: Thunderbird

Not getting the results you desire from your email program? Perhaps you need to try an open-source email client from Mozilla, who lays claim to the adept web browser, Firefox. Their email client, Thunderbird, is also open-source but has many distinct advantages over Microsoft's Outlook...keep reading

New Download: DOWNLOAD: Wordpress Blog Setup Checklist

Here's a step-by-step checklist on setting up a Wordpress blog from beginning to end in this 7-page PDF file...keep reading

Marketing Tips: The Internet Marketing Secret That Stop Small Business Owners in Their Tracks

2010-02-03T10:23:25-06:00

All of my clients are exceptional at the service they provide for their clients. However, many of them come to me for coaching because they're having a hard time filling their practices and finding clients. Almost without fail, they tell me that this is a marketing problem. It is a marketing problem, but not the type they think it is.

When I ask them to describe their ideal client or target market, I'll get a very general and all-encompassing answer like, "Oh, I want to work with entrepreneurs who are kind, loyal, courteous, have a great sense of humor, financially stable, etc." -- you know, in essence, the Boy Scout motto that covers a very large percentage of the world population. That's a great beginning general descriptor about the type of client with whom they would like to work, but the description is, unfortunately, flawed.

Why?

Because it's simply not specific enough.

Oftentimes, I'll respond to their answer with, "I want you to open open up your local telephone directory and turn to the yellow pages listing with the heading 'Loyal Entrepreneur'." They are momentarily stumped, as, of course, no such listing exists in any phone directory I've ever seen.

Then we begin to work on the process of finding ideal clients in their target market by determining the demographic, industry, income, position, etc. I know without a doubt that the more specific they can be in their description, the easier their marketing becomes. So, I encourage my clients to identify as many specific characteristics as possible so that they can actually reach out and "touch" their ideal client -- they know where the clients hang out on- and off-line, what they read, what groups they belong to, what they do for fun, etc. The point of the exercise is for these business owners to determine where they can obtain names and contact info or lists of people who are real, living, breathing, members of their target market that they can call, email, invite to a meeting, or send a mailing.

Once my clients have gathered this very specific info on their target market, the next move is to articulate the top 5 challenges of this group. Since my clients continue to tell me that they have "marketing" problems, I have more specifically defined "marketing" into these specific challenges:

1. determining what business you're really in (i.e. you're not selling career coaching but instead are selling a proven system to help someone land a dream job)

2. defining and refining your target market with very specific descriptors

3. determining how to find the members of your target market

4. understanding your ping vs. your pie (the benefits of working with you as opposed to the features of the services you offer and what makes you unique and different enough that they should work with you instead of someone else)

5. determining how to creatively and inexpensively promote your business online to your target market

Does this sound like anyone that you know?

Take some quiet time and determine the top 5 challenges for your target market. If you don't know what these challenges are, ask members of your target market. Once you've articulated these challenges, focus your marketing efforts around these issues. You can address them in your web site, your elevator speech, your business card, the articles that you write, the talks that you give, the flyers and brochures you design, and in the conversations you have with prospective clients. Your target market needs to know you feel their pain and you've got the remedy that will help make that pain disappear.

So, now I've revealed to you the true secret of online marketing. Are you ready to harness the power of that secret and take your business to the next level?