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© Chad Barr 2009. All rights reserved.

And attaching photos is a piece of cake. Even my dog Noodles agrees since you can see him wagging his tail.

Often times during my seminars I ask for volunteers to allow me to demonstrate their sites effectiveness. Most cringe and avoid any eye contact with me. You can almost read them silently say: “please, not my site.” In fact, that may be just the reason why many become our clients since they know that they need to invest in getting their talk and walk in sync.

Your Walk is who you are, what you do, how you do it, why you do it and so forth. It is the action you convey. By being aware of what messages you are sending through your actions, you can adjust them in order to align them so that what you do also tells your customers how your products and services meet and/or exceed their needs and wants.

Your Talk is what you say, the language, that connects you and your customers with what you can do for them. One of the most powerful ways to talk about your business today is through your website so that it says what it needs to say and how it needs to say it. The quality of your website speaks volumes about your business through your powerful language, audio, video and visual messages. Another and probably even more powerful ways of talking about your business, is to let your customers do that through testimonials and commentary.

Here are a few tips to help you analyze both Your Walk and Your Talk online and offline. Go through each of the tips and individually consider Your Walk; and then repeat it with analyzing Your Talk. Make a list of action steps you can take to get them in sync so that your online and offline walk as well as your online and offline talk are synchronized through and through.

1. Is your value proposition (VP), which defines how your clients are better off by virtue of working with you, prominently displayed on your home page? What sections of your site demonstrate and prove your value proposition? If your VP talks about dramatic growth of your clients, you should incorporate testimonials and articles demonstrating and explaining such growth for you and your clients.


2. What is your vision and mission statement and how does your site substantiate them? A client investing six-figure investment with us shared with me that he felt we have similar philosophy. When I asked him to articulate further he said that it was based on similar vision and mission statements that he read on our web site.


3. Are you using effective language to increase credibility through your clients’ list, testimonials, case studies, client results and your intellectual property and expertise? Do your articles show examples and how-to tips based on successful track record with your clients?


4. Who is your audience and what is your market and what are the products and services that may greatly benefit them? Are you constantly adding new such products and services and receiving happy clients’ testimonials that are displayed on your site?

By refining and aligning what your website is saying about you and your business, not only will you eliminate the cringe, but you may find that you are finally proud for the whole world to see it.

© Chad Barr 2009. All rights reserved.

© Chad Barr 2009. All rights reserved.

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Many of you know that I love to brag about my wife who has a remarkable voice and is the cantor at Temple Emanu El in Orange Village, Ohio. I have decide to share with you some of my favorite music selections from the most recent services of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. Hope you find this to be as moving spiritually as I do.

Click on arrows below for music selections to start

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Below are pictures I took from my beautiful Hyatt room and another of Alan and Patricia during a rare odd couple contrarian disagreement that needed a resolution once and for all.

•  To share his “take” on the affairs of the Jewish people and all humanity through the lens of Jewish Tradition and from his vantage point as an American congregational rabbi.


• To reflect on Jewish texts, traditions and Holy Days so as to imbue today with the timeless truths of Judaism.


• To give us all a Jewish place to share our thoughts on the ideas and issues that are important to our lives.

Click here to visit the new blog and enjoy.

1. Start speaking professionally, deliver your expertise and talk about how to improve your clients business with web strategies.
2. Add testimonials and clients list to your web site.
3. Start a monthly electronic newsletter and deliver genuine value to your target audience.
4. Write and publish your intellectual property in print and on the web
5. Network and discuss how you help your clients
6. Comment on others’ powerful blogs with useful tips
7. Write a book or start with a booklet
8. Get interviewed on radio and TV
9. Work your referrals aggressively
10. Create a breakfast club and invite your target audience to attend a breakfast and learn.
11. Purchase a database list of your target customers and send them powerful valuable content to entice to opt-in to your newsletter list. Once they do, keep offering them value.

1. Public speaking and/or speaking in webinars
2. Publish your intellectual property in print and the web and often
3. Search Engine Optimization and Paid advertising
4. Leverage social networking especially online communities
5. Blog and comment on others’ blog
6. Publish a book
7. Create a valuable electronic newsletter

The three screen shots below represent the scrolling through the home page of this site that its main focus is to help you become more productive with your time management issues. I suggest they help us become more productive by eliminating most of the text and getting a grip of their home page.

2. It enables individuals (Customers, suppliers, your staff) to interact with each other, share their experiences of using the products and services, create additional exposure and buzz.

3. It is often quick and rapid to implement.

4. It is often quite economical.

5. It reaches beyond borders and with global exposure.

6. It creates a virtual 24×7 salesman.

7. It allows your customers to interact with you at their convenience.

8. It enables your customers to get instant answers to their questions.

9. Dramatically improve your time to market, which means, leverage the Internet to rapidly introduce and launch new products and services.

10. Stay better connected with your customers, suppliers and your own organization.

11. When the first car was introduced, there were probably quite a few people rejecting the new technology and insisting they keep using their horse. As Henry Ford said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a better horse.” Are you the one to embrace technology or reject it?

12. One of our clients that sells large and expensive machinery used to have to take pictures of their inventory, print them and FedEx them to interested buyers. The buying decision took days or weeks to be made. Then came digital cameras and email, and we expedited the process significantly. And then came a fully integrated web site that enabled the customer to make an instant buying decision.

13. We have just scratched the surface with what is available to be done with the Internet and how to strategically use it to grow our business. Don’t find yourself left behind.

1. Read the Wall Street Journal, Business Week and such publications and pay attention to what is reported and discussed both in print, online blogs and online forums.

2. Read books on the topic of innovation, Internet marketing and such

3. Attend workshops / seminars

4. Follow blogs of successful thought leaders

5. Meet smart and interesting people, ask questions and start a dialog

6. Create or join a mastermind group

7. Write often

8. Solicit the advice of experts

9. I get tremendous amount of powerful ideas from an online community my company implemented and I moderate http://www.alansforums.com

10. Speaking in conferences or webinars has always generated tremendous mount of great ideas for me when listening to my audience questions

Ideas are all around you, all you have to do is start paying better attention.

Click here to view Nuno-ID new site.

Click here to view Nuno-ID new branded newsletter.

Click here to view all New Sites Launch category or our portfolio page.

Home Page:

Newsletter:

1. Unless you have good, interesting and valuable starting content on your forum why would anyone spend time there or consider joining? They are not going to.


2. I would suggest you create a repository of intellectual property (IP) that is available to forum members only and is uniquely position with how-to information.


3. Market to all of your current and previous clients, prospects and anyone you know and share with them the exciting new place / community you have created (after you built the initial content) and invite them to check it out and join.


4. I would charge for membership yet select a smaller group of subscriber that would become the initial group (for free) to start the momentum of posting going.


5. Promote and market your new site and forum in every possible media: news release, networking events, verbally with anyone you talk with, speeches, newsletter, blog, your paperwork (invoices, correspondence), get people to interview you on their blogs (written, audio and video podcasts).


6. Feature the best of the posts in your monthly newsletter (assuming you have one) and create enticements to have new members join.


7. Strive to become “the place to go” for the greatest and latest of your industry wisdom.


8. When possible discuss “success stories” and share on your site and inside the forum.


9. Create a referral network both domestically and internationally that would send your target audience to the forum and to you.

Any others that come to mind?

1. Become an entrepreneur


2. Live on less than 85% of your income and invest the rest


3. Invest in your health and life balance


4. Create proper business and personal insurance for you and your family


5. Invest in your continued learning and education


6. Hire the best (staff, advisers and consultants)


7. Re-invent yourself often


8. Find a successful mentor with a proven track record


9. Constantly look for ways to help your clients improve their business and life


10. Give a lot


11. Laugh a lot

Your turn please.

2. Willingness to take risk knowing that the potential outcome and success can be enormous.

3. Strong desire to work for myself and exit the “employee” mentality

4. Have complete control of decisions and my own future and destiny

5. Ability to enjoy discretionary time and life balance

What do you think?

Don’t miss this.

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Aviv’s passion is to help leaders and teams define their purpose and develop and realize their potential for greatness.

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My presentation “Advanced Internet Presence” focused on:

1. Hot to create instant credibility on the web


2. How to leverage the web to deliver value


3. How to attract customers with Internet marketing gravity


4. Blogs, bogs and fogs

Click here to download the PDF copy of my presentation.

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I was chatting with my 16-year old son the other day, noticing that he was no longer using his email address to communicate with his friends and us, his parents. I asked him why, and here are his answers:

1. Email is too slow to get a response to, often contains Spam and viruses and at times it is lost in cyberspace.


2. Since most carry cell phones and use instant messaging, he is usually able to instantaneously get a hold of everyone he needs to while being able to conduct a meaningful “digital” conversation.


3. With services such as FaceBook and MySpace, he can quickly and easily communicate with his friends without getting spammed.

I can definitely recognize the benefits of such technology and its access for the younger generation and even us, the so-called more mature generation. Won’t it be great to send a how-to question to your business partner or software company and get an immediate answer to your question? How about an innovative idea sent to your team and an immediate conversation that starts virtually? The possibilities are amazing. Yet, what about the many “interruptions” one may receive?

It’s amazing how often times we are able to learn various pragmatic ideas from the younger generation. But until we enable all our clients to text message us their question, leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Click below for interview recording to start.

1. Enables you to publish your knowledge and wisdom for others to benefit from.


2. Allows you to promote and refer to it on your web site and newsletter and reference interesting threads.


3. Makes it easy for your visitors to subscribe so they may automatically receive your posts via RSS feed.


4. Gives you the flexibility to react to other blogs, news, current events and interesting posts.


5. Lets you promote your products, services, speaking engagements, articles and white papers.


6. Entices others to engage in a conversations and debates with you and others.


7. Positions you as an object of interest, an expert in your field and have other bloggers and web sites refer to your blog and posts.


8. Makes it easy to summarize your presentations and email the notes to attendees prior and after your event.


9. Creates the tool to allow the discipline to produce content to strengthen your brand and marketing gravity.


10. Evolves into a repository of interesting information – a knowledge base.


11. Sharpens your knowledge as you focus on developing and delivering interesting, new and valuable content.


12. Becomes fun as it evolves and once successful creates a community around your work.


13. Permits you to capture your clients’ questions and respond by writing a new post or refer to an old one.


14. Expands your network to reach out to clients, prospects, colleagues and business partners while allowing them to reach out to their network featuring your wisdom.


15. Pushes the envelop by augmenting the written words and creating additional channels of delivery methods such as audios and videos.


16. Strengthens your Internet strategy by adding another domain that creates content for Google and other search engines to find and index.

What are your thoughts?

By attending this session you will learn how to:

1. Create instant credibility on the Web


2. Attract customers by creating Internet marketing gravity


3. Leverage the Web to deliver value to your clients

I hope to see you there.

Chad

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Thank You all,

Chad

It is that exciting time of year again. The trees are changing, there is an amazing fragrance in the air, the birds are back and their vocal chords are louder then ever, my convertible top is already down, my dog is in a better mood and so are my wife, neighbors and even clients. In my front yard, the beautiful white weeping cherry reminds me of the latest snowstorm already long time forgotten, while my gorgeous sour crab apple trees scream: “spring is here.”

I love each season with the changes it brings. Some anticipated and planned while others a surprise or a new challenge. Life is great and especially the journey.

(Click on images to enlarge):

My weeping cherry tree

My crab apple trees

My dog, Noodles

What a great world we live in today.  Especially as our electrical grid is improving almost daily.

Note: I was going to actually post this topic during that ride but decided it was time to enjoy the view and a conversation with a beautiful lady in the car.

“These people represent the finest talent in the profession,” noted Alan Weiss, Ph.D. who conducts this college. “They are the best of the best in terms of methodology, integrity, client satisfaction, and contributions to the profession. And they are highly innovative.”

As both a college presenter and a participant, I was fortunate to be among 12 of world-class consultants and got to spend three intense days working on challenging case studies, role-plays and group exercises. On day two, we were given a couple of real-life critical business challenges by the management of the Ritz Carlton. It was fascinating and a tremendous learning experience to witness how we applied our knowledge, problem solving abilities and experiences and worked as a strong team to solve these challenges while present the solution to the delight of the Ritz’s management.

My presentation, “Advanced Internet and Technologies Made Simple” focused on practical technologies to help consultants in their business. I started with a short video of one of our clients from Australia, Michael Harrison. Last year, prior to becoming a client, I received an email from Michael inquiring about our services. After a brief email exchange we started a Skype session which instantaneously allowed us to be connected between the US and Australia while clearly hearing and seeing each other. I demonstrated this technology to the group and asked Michael to record a brief introduction. Here it is:

I demonstrated the ease of using the Flip Video to record workshops and testimonials and immediately making them available on the web, such as in this demonstration. Thank you Libby Wagner, Dr. Guido Quelle, Kim Wilkerson, Phil Symchych and Katherine Radeka for the permission to use this.

Click here to download my presentation converted to pdf document (9.47MB)

Dr. Alan Weiss brilliantly shared with us many exciting concepts. Among them:

1. The importance of focusing on media pipeline just as we are on our prospect pipeline.


2. How to reduce labor intensiveness.


3. The need to constantly develop new intellectual property.


4. Why we need to get our of our comfort zone.


5. Importance of process over content.

On the last day, we had the honor and rare chance of seeing Walt Mossberg, the technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal. He delivered a fascinating 90 minutes presentation. Among the many topics he discussed was the analogy of the Internet to an Electrical grid. Similar to our electricity where you just plug in such devices while some are always connected, the same is with the Internet. Although we have made some tremendous progress, within a few years, EVERYTHING will be ON the Internet. Meaning, you will not have to say: “Are you online?” or “Let’s connect” since the Internet will always be on and for all the devices and gadget we will be using.

Finally, some awesome sunset pictures I took. Life is Good!

1. Diversity – being able to quickly decide which products and services to embrace and release to market and which to discard while offering the right range of their customers’ needs.


2. Management – the human factor of making the proper decision, leading the company and creating strong relationships with customers.


3. Technology – The best and most successful distributors where using advance technologies while constantly looking for the next best solutions to embrace. I found the opposite to be true. The ones complaining about the economy, suppliers and their customers’ loyalty were the ones to use antiquated technologies and way of thinking.


4. Serendipity – Or what many referred to as luck and being at the right place at the right time. It was interesting that the majority or all of the most successful companies did not talk much about luck but their ability to take control and influence their future.


5. Locality – For many, being local helped them focus and develop strong relationships with their customers. I found the majority who held such belief to be smaller organization size as well as revenues and profits.


6. Customer service – They ALL claimed that the key was customer service yet many complained about lack of customers ‘and vendors’ loyalty.

What are the keys to your success?

After my speech and before dinner, we all assembled in Alan’s suite and got to brainstorm and discuss some great topics, while hearing some great stories over red wine. I pulled out my flip video, shot some great ones and uploaded them to YouTube and Alan’s blog. Here is a great sample about asking for referrals:

Click here for the boom box story.

Click here for seven more videos.

Click here for the frog story.

The first VM was a garbled message from a prospective client interested in talking with me about our solutions. The message was probably recorded using his cell phone making it almost impossible to recognize the complete phone number. Luckily I was able to make sense of the company name and after a quick Google search, I found them on the web as I was able to match the web phone number with the incomplete phone number left on the voicemail. Since I return all calls within 24 hours (unless they are clearly telemarketer calls) I called his company. Their main message stated that they are closed for the holidays. I left a brief message, letting them know who I am and explaining that I am returning their call. I left my phone number and email address twice, and suggested my availability to connect. Finally, I made the recommendations that they check the calendar, as I believe the holidays are over by now. I figured if they don’t have a sense of humor, it would not be a good match anyways.

The second VM was from a company specializing in training and documentation. I was not sure if this was a sales call or an interested prospect so I called her back, got her on the phone yet she barely remembered who I was, This sure made me feel really special. She then immediately jumped into her sales pitch telling me how long they’ve been in business, the type of products they sell, the awards they won and more blah, blah, blah. I was waiting for a question or two but quickly lost my patience when she started her third paragraph. I stopped her and said: “Not Interested.” Meekly she replied: “oh ok” and hung up the phone.

The third VM was from a sales trainer who luckily left a clear phone number and company name. I found his company on the web (where would I be without my Google?) and I quickly realized what his main focus was. Unfortunately I was unable to find any clients’ testimonials on his site or whom he had a chance to work with. When returning his call he immediately gave me his value proposition (good but a bit too long) and told me that he works with technology companies JUST like mine although would not name any of them. And I was born yesterday, I thought to myself. He asked me if I read all the marketing material he sent me. I told him that I have no idea what he is talking about as they all end up in the garbage. He then suggested he would stop by my office to introduce himself so we can talk about my business and what projects I may have in the works. I quickly and politely explained to him that I have no need for his services and do not meet with people who cold call me. He realized that I was getting ready to hang up the phone when he said: “look for me, I will be famous one day.” I hung up the phone and thought to myself, dreams are one thing but illusion and desperation are another.

My favorite was a call I received today in my office. It went like this:
Him: Mr. Barr?
Me: Yes
Him: This is not a sales call.
Me: (silence, although thinking … yeah right)
Him: We are in your neighborhood tomorrow morning and would like to stop by and introduce ourselves.
Me: Not interested (click)

How many of such calls or voice mails do you get and is it possible that you or your staff are making such calls and leaving similar voice mails?

1. Today is Thursday, March 27. In the morning I will be out of the office visiting with a client and in the afternoon I am traveling to another client …


2. Please stop and listen carefully as these menu options may have changed …


3. This call may be monitored for quality control …

When I call and get a voice mail, I simply want to leave a brief message and in the fastest way possible. I know that since I got the voice mail this person is either out of the office, away from their desk or on another call. I do not need to be told the day it is – I have my own calendar, or what this person’s schedule is – I truly don’t care, or learn new menu options – I have other more interesting things to learn, or the fact that my voice may be recorded.

My favorite message would probably be: “I am out, leave a message now.” But since we all want to probably sound professional and polite, here is mine: “Hi, This is Chad at extension 112. Please leave your message and I will get back with you as soon as I can. Thank You.”

The only reason I record my extension is to make it easier for the caller to get a hold of me next time they call.

Since I am already on this topic, when leaving messages why not make them pithy and succinct?

I am proud to announce that my blog made it into the social media category of this site. See screen capture below and click on image to enlarge:

I hear people complaining about the strength of the dollar weakening in comparison to other world currencies especially when the media is reaching for our attention with the stories and news of recession. So how do you leverage these economic challenges to benefit your company?

1. Expand your market – We get more inquiries and new business than ever before from place such as Canada, Europe, Australia, South Africa and Asia. I do not know if this is because of the exciting work we do and our marketing gravity, perhaps serendipity or the weak dollar. What is apparent to me is the fact that organizations and entrepreneurs outside the US are reaching out for help and expertise and a way to get better return from their own currency. Seize these opportunities, branch out and go global.


2. Help change your customers’ perception – In his blog entry Marketing in a recession, author Seth Godin writes about how in good times people buy because they feel they deserve it or just want it. Yet in tougher times they buy from a defensive position to avoid trouble or seize the opportunity. Change your marketing message to help your customers better understand why they need your products and services now.


3. Better use of technologies – Whether you are a large organization or a single entrepreneur, smartly using technologies enables you to deliver your expertise to your clients to help their business, build stronger relationships while allowing technologies to perform the work they should. So instead of receiving orders via phone, fax or a non-integrated web site and having to manually key them into your computer system, why not completely integrate them with your system through the Internet to automatically receive them in your warehouse or your receivable department? Instead of shipping hard copy books and CDs why not send them digitally as eBooks or an MP3 downloads. Instead of having to travel and visit your clients for meeting and training, why not use the Internet to conduct online live meetings and even archive them for future views?


4. Improve your web site – In his blog entry Progression in a recession, Dr. Alan Weiss talks about the importance of changing your web site to broadly describe your services and the importance of technology to reach out overseas prospects and partners.

Your web site and the Internet are both critical tools in helping you market your company, announce new products and services, deliver new offerings and reach global customers. So rather than listen to the negative news (how else would they get your attention) and act scared and indecisive, why not make a bold move, seize the great opportunities around you and make a positive difference for you and your customers’ success.

Testimonial from Terry Schmidt of www.ManagementPro.com:

Testimonial from Lisa Broesch of www.inblissconsulting.com:

Testimonial from Don Yaeger of www.donyaeger.com

Testimonial from Sara LaForest of LaForest Consulting:

Slides show presentation:

(to view the slides presentation in full screen mode, click on the “view” link above and then click on “full screen” on the bottom right)

Click here to download slides presentation. (pdf 23.22MB)

Click here to download article handout. (pdf 561kb)

Note: Video testimonials were taken with my Flip Video camera

1. You are wasting my time navigating your site, thus aggravating me.


2. You are telling me that you are unable to meet your own deadlines and finish your commitments.


3. Marketing your own company is not a priority for you.


4. The methods you and your Webmaster are using are amateurish.


5. There is a good chance these pages will never change.

Here are my recommendations:

1. Finish developing all the content necessary for all pages on your site and only then should you launch your site.


2. Eliminate all pages from your site that content is not ready yet.


3. If you can commit and guarantee that the pages or your entire site will be available on a certain date, it is ok to announce the following: “Thank you for visiting this page, please check back on xx/xx/xx when this page will be launched.”

The examples below not only illustrate my points above, but they also demonstrate business negligence. These pages have been there for over a year. I suggest they either take the page or site down or complete writing the content.

(click on images to enlarge):

How easy is it to contact you by phone or email or even get your address?

Take a look at the examples below or visit our web site for an effective example.

(click on images to enlarge):

Enjoy,

Chad

Make sure your web master does the following: When developing the navigation for your site, all available links within your own site should open in the same browser window. Opening your own site in multiple browser windows is not only a poor design error but also irritating to the visitor. However, if you decide that you must link to other sites from your own web site, make sure you open up the link in a separate browser window while keeping your site open in the current window. This logic will enable the user to visit the new site, and when closing that window or tab they will be returned to your site which is still open. Otherwise, they are gone and probably will not be back.

Click here for an example of a hyperlink to another browser session and click here for an example of a hyperlink in the same browser window. (You will have to press the go back arrow to return to this page.)

Here are three ideas that have been instrumental in impacting mine:

1. Opportunities are all around us, we just have to learn to pay better attention to them.


2. If you don’t ask the answer is always NO.


3. When serendipity takes place, I seize the opportunity to create additional serendipity.

When was the last time you or your web development partner decided to test your site to make sure it properly displays and works through the major web browsers and even some older browsers? If you think this may not be a big issue, you should read the rest of this post.

We always attempt to take advantage of the latest in programming languages that is available to us when developing web sites for our clients. We also focus on the latest and greatest in browser technology. I come to realize that this might create serious challenges with individuals using older technologies who are not quick to upgrade their software and Internet browsers.

Below are three screen-capture examples from David Newman’s blog. Notice the books on the right hand side displaying properly in Microsoft Internet Explorer browser (click on images to enlarge):

In the next display using the Mac Safari browser, notice that only four books are showing on the right hand side and several are actually missing:

Below is the example using the Firefox browser, which happens to be my default and favorite browser. Notice that the books are displaying diagonally from right to left and are actually distorting the text of the post:

Here is an interesting chart showing that the most popular browsers are Microsoft IE7, IE6 and Firefox (which is constantly gaining popularity.)

Which brings me to my final point and recommendation that you test your web site(s) using these top browsers as well as Safari. Or you too may be surprised that what you intended to be shown is not correctly shown.

As I write on this quite often, blogs are a powerful tool to enable you to rapidly publish content about you and your company. If done well, they can add tremendous credibility for your organization and create an online dialog between you and your customers. However, I would also like to caution you that if in the wrong hands, blogs might become a competitive advantage for your competitors.

We use Constant Contact as our email distribution engine when electronically delivering our clients’ newsletters and ours. We find it easy to use, extremely stable and it generates good successful results. While reviewing newsletter services available from other companies, I came across an interesting company by the name of iContact. When visiting their blog, I was surprised to read their own post from 1/22/08 and 1/28/08 reporting serious issues with their products and how they fixed it. As an Internet and software development company, I do believe in taking action, communicating with customers and being responsible when software defects are discovered. However, I do not find this public open admission to be a good business practice. It’s one thing to contact and notify the customers affected, let them know of the issues and how you have taken care of it now and for the future. It’s another to openly broadcast this message on your blog, scare away potential new customers or even existing ones and give your competitors great research ammunition to use against you.

(Screens capture from iContact blog. click on images to enlarge):

(Click on image to enlarge)

What intrigued me further was the fact that each carton had huge letters and fonts displaying on each: “Smoking Kills”, yet you would think they were giving them away.
What is it about human nature that:

1. Even when individuals have clear and factual evidence that prove they may be in danger or possibly even death, they still elect to do it?


2. Even when organizations and leaders have been proven that there is a “better way”, they elect to either not do anything or select the more economical non-proven way?

(click on images to enlarge)

1. If you think you are giving too much of it away, you are on the right track.


2. Your clients will wonder if this is how much “free” advice you give them prior to becoming a client, how much would you then be giving them after they become a client.


3. It helps me to constantly push the envelope and re-invent with new ideas so I do not become otherwise stagnant.

My strong position remains that it is intrusive, poor business practice and unethical to add “strangers” to your list without their permission. When I get such obnoxious emails I view these individuals as desperate spammers, poor business people whom I would never do business with.

Checkout the following irritating example. Without my permission, I was placed on this email newsletter from someone (monica@monicawofford.com) whom I’ve never met before. Below is the newsletter that opened up in my email (click on images to enlarge):

I immediately realized that this has no value for me, so I paged down to the bottom of the email to look for the unsubscribe option. There, all the way at the bottom of the page I noticed the “Update e-mail preferences” option:

When I clicked on it I realized a serious problem with this person’s logic. The email address embedded into the preferences option was not my own but their generic newsletter1@contagiousconferences.com address which would not allow me to unsubscribe. Here is what this screen looked like:

Now I started to get irritated. But quickly thinking on my feet, I realized I could simply reply to her original newsletter email and tell her to unsubscribe me. So I did, and within seconds of sending my email I got an email reply from her server (see below):

Apparently and in order to reduce the spam she receives, she decided to use this SpamArrest software (intrusive and I would NEVER
recommend it) which forces a first time user (such as me) to click on the link and request her permission to accept the email. Now I was livid. First, this confirmed that we were complete strangers who never exchanged emails before. Second, this demonstrated the hypocrisy of her trying to protect herself from the spamming techniques she was using on others.

I did click on the link to make sure she hopefully gets my email. The screen bellow did confirm that my email was hopefully sent.

Smirking, I looked at the screen pondering how better this world would be if these amateurs were arrested by the spam police.

I met him about six years ago and have worked closely with him ever since. His impact on my business and my life has been absolutely remarkable. Several years ago I approached Alan with the idea of implementing and building an online community to attract his followers and allow them to better stay connected with him and each other. The result was Alan’s Forums, a unique and special type of online community attracting the best of global consulting minds. I’ve been also fortunate to work with him on many other exciting projects both on the receiving and giving end including the development and implementation of his terrific blog www.ContrarianConsulting.com.

During the podcast interview we discussed many questions such as:
What are the three most common mistakes consultants make?
What do the most successful ones do?
How to stand out in the crowd?
How do you keep reinventing yourself and increasing your creative output?
How to leverage Requests for Proposals?
What kind of role does serendipity play with strategy?
What should we do differently or more of in times of a recession?
What are the five secrets of living a fulfilling life?

And we even discussed the topic of retirement and living and leaving his legacy.

I know you will enjoy this podcast, will find it fascinating and Thank You! Alan.

Click below for podcast to start

That story actually serves multiple purposes, depending on which point I
am making.

World wide, about 100 Million transactions per day, 50 Billion transaction per year are being screeened online
for fraud, using a Neural Network model (in combination with business
rules). The market leader is Falcon, owned by Fair Isaac, formerly HNC.

Learning points:

1 – Because of the huge volume, the learning is remarkably precise.
Conversely, you need sufficient volume to tease out the signal from the
noise.

2 – You need the “feedback recording” of events in order to make such data
capture a sustainable organisatiopnal activity: credit card companies
“know” when they hit a false positive (they call, and then pass the transaction),
the false negatives are claimed (disputed) after the client receives their
statements. These data are fed back in to the application ot make it
“adaptive”

3 – There are costs for false positives (spoiled surpises, like yours – that’s what everybody expects if you tell the story right which makes it
so much better), and false negatives, fraudylent transations that were
accepted. If you put those in the equation, you get “better” models, that
is, better tuned to the business needs. (another example of asymetric mis
classification costs I always use is credit cards: when accepted +$200
profit, when defaulting -$5000 write-off, therefore you cannot afford to
err very often).

Below is the screen capture of the home page. Notice the “Fast Forum Access” option on the right hand side to enable you to click on in order to access the online community forum. So far so good. (Click on images to enlarge):

When entering the first forum page (screen capture below) notice the very few number of posts at the top right of the screen. Not only are there meager 13 posts, they are all from three years ago and showing no activity since. This alone should have been a strong enough reason to realize this strategy is not working and to either research it further or take the forum down and remove any reference to it on the web site.

When paging down (next screen below) I was amazed to see 5826 registered users. Something did not add up for me. How could you have thousands of users with so few posts?

I scrolled back to the top (screen capture below) and clicked on “Memberlist” and then sort by “Joined Date” in “Descending” order. When I clicked on the “Sort” button, the amazing devastating answer became clear to me. This forum registration page is being spammed by despicable porn sites and similar other web sites. Just reviewing the “Username” is enough to tell the story, but when clicking on the “Website” option … oh my!

I have tried contacting the owner of this site a couple of times in the past 2 years. I emailed her to contact me immediately and stated that I have some critical information about her sites that is potentially harming her reputation. No reply from her yet.

What are you thinking of?

“You sure have a great taste” said the lovely sales lady, commenting on the gorgeous bracelet I was looking at.

“Thank you” I said.
“For a special lady I assume?” she asked.
“My beautiful wife of course” I said.
“Would you like me to check on the price for this?” She asked.
“Why not, it couldn’t hurt” I said.
“$18,000!” she said.
“EIGHTEEN THOUSAND?” I yelled. (Oh, did it hurt)

Probably noticing the nice Hublot watch I was wearing she continued: “May I show you something else?”
“Ok” I said.
She pulled out this beautiful watch that I immediately fell in love with. How did she know? And she even told me that it looked great on me. (Yes, it was a man’s watch and I believed her)

Unknowingly, several minutes later, the phone rang at my home in the US and it was 5 AM. My wife, still sleeping, answered and heard a friendly gentleman voice.
“Mrs. Barr?” he asked.
“Yes, and who is this?” she asked.
“This is John from the fraud department at MBNA. I just wanted to make sure you knew that a large purchase was just made overseas with your husband’s personal credit card.” He said.
“Where was it?” asked my wife.
“At the Tel Aviv airport in Israel.” He answered.
“Oh, that is fine said my wife. It is my husband I am sure buying me a surprise present.”
“I am so sorry.” He said. “I just ruined the surprise your husband was planning on for you.”

Several hours later, I was greeted by my wife, who came to pick me up at the Cleveland airport. With a huge smile she asked: “How was your trip and did you buy anything special?” I replied: “Great, and I got myself a little present at the airport. So do you like my new watch?”

It was a quite ride home that day.

(Note: Please see the note from my colleague Tom Breur from Holland regarding this story)

I encourage you to check out her new web site and explore this very smart individual with a great commitment, passion and energy to her clients and her business. Click here to view her new site.

(Click image to enlarge)

Site Objectives:
1. Strong and clear Value Proposition
2. Provocative questions to engage visitors
3. In your face, clean design and clear navigation
4. Calls to action on all pages
5. Testimonials and client results for credibility
6. Big Blocks to promote main products and services
7. Passive income products
8. Visitor registration to electronic newsletters
9. Less is more. Reduced text on home page

So what are some simple and basic ideas of marketing your blog?
1. Include it in your email signature file.
2. Print it on your business card.
3. Verbally mention it in your discussions and presentations.
4. Mention it when writing your articles.
5. Leverage in your emails especially using my idea above of driving direct value to your current and future clients.

This prospect is not a dear new client.

This is one of the topics I study, track, research, write about, consult others and help develop. So let me share my bias with you.

I am writing an article for my blog with the title of: “The slow death of blogs” and please don’t misunderstand me, blogs are a powerful business tools and are here to stay and evolve. I am referring to individuals that were convinced by someone or thought it is a good idea to start a blog. But they rarely post on it. Not only is it a poor reflection on them but it is also a sad underutilization and a waste of this powerful tool. Their blogs are doomed by google and more importantly by their possible readers and will eventually close down – It’s only a matter of time. Unfortunately, some are members of this forum and some I personally reached out to and recommended they start posting on their own blog. Well guess what, they did for a short while and then stopped. They may get their last minute of fame and get featured in my article.

So if you are thinking of starting a blog here are some pointers:

1. Minimum 3 posts per week but if you missed a week here and there, not a big deal.


2. Length of each post from one sentence to an article length (1.5 page) although I recommend you keep it short and with bullet points. Write effectively and don’t over think this point.


3. You can always break your posts into sections or to be continued which may create anticipation.


4. The key is INTERESTING and VALUABLE stuff. But you already knew that I am sure.


5. The other key is that there is much more to putting together a successful blog than just starting to blog.


6. A blog is a tool for rapid publishing giving 100% of the control to the author of the blog enabling you to basically fire your web master (well not quite but almost.)


7. Finally, the power in creating a rich experience for the user is by combining text, images, audio Podcasts and videos on your blog. See Alan Weiss for a great example of a fascinating blog. Mine is another of course.

There are other members on the forum that have interesting blogs. Ed Poll, Aviv Shahar, Dan Coughlin, Pam Harper and Michael Harrison among others.

Here are some articles I wrote that you may find of value before you make your final decision:

Blogging in the new year
How to make your blog posts more interesting
The importance of web site evolution
How to improve your marketing exposure

(Click image to enlarge)

Some time ago, Dan started a new blog by the name of: Cool Book of the Day, which actually is a great idea, allowing authors to feature their books. However, I have two key issues with this blog:

The first is Dan’s decision to use Google ads in an attempt to possibly make money. Please look at the first two screen shots (click on the images to enlarge) and tell me how are ads about losing belly fat, quitting your job, and pushing hard the love button, help in establish strong business credibility about the book, the author or Dan’s blog. I believe it ruins everyone’s credibility. Realize that the two screen are capturing the same identical blog page but demonstrate how Google controls changing these ads at different times.

(First google ad)

(Same screen a couple of seconds later with a different google ad)

I read blogs using a blog reader, which allows me to review multiple blogs instantaneously to quickly pick and choose the entry I may be interested in reading. It also saves me the time it would otherwise take to visit each blog in order to check if any of them has anything new to read. The concept has been there for a while and it uses RSS technology, but that is for another article. The reader I happen to use is the popular Google reader. Take a look at the screen shot below, which shows the same identical blog above through my Google Reader. Notice that it does NOT show the Google Ads. This is a huge consideration if you are thinking of utilizing Google Ads in your blog.

(Same screen of above blog page displayed in Google Reader

The second issue I have is more about the content. It seems to me that the author of each book had to simply answer several questions about their book rather than Dan interviewing them and writing his own review. But that would probably take some work.

Finally, his blog uses the Amazon affiliate program. This means that you are able to click on a book, which will then take you directly to the proper Amazon page. If you are then interested in ordering it online, the blog owner (most likely Dan) will earn some dollars. I do not have a key issue with this concept since I do the same on my own blog. The difference is that I believe you need to have a disclaimer about this in order to create credibility. Mine is at the bottom of the “About Chad Barr” page, which states that I will donate 100% of the affiliate program income to my favorite charities.

This article is intended to demonstrate how some decisions have the potential to ruin your credibility utilizing the wrong Internet tools and concepts.

An oversight? Perhaps. But if you are not paying attention to important requests that affect proper communication and project success, you are increasing the chances of communication breakdowns and failures. I realize we all may suffer from dementia at times but the fact from my experience is that this situation is ubiquitously common.

The exception to this rule is when someone, erroneously or not, decides to include me and other recipients in their distribution list. Unless the content contains an error that needs to be pointed out, or all recipients need to know that I should not be included in future email updates, I simply hit the “reply” (to sender only) and ask the sender to keep me out (opt-out) of their distribution list.

Since I hopefully got you reading this far and since I know you would agree with me that we all get tremendous amount of emails and spam let me also suggest the following:

1. Reduce the number of emails you are sending and replying to.


2. Keep your email pithy.


3. No email jokes please. Let me share with you that I either delete them without reading or reply to sender with a request to stop sending them to me. This is an example where I choose not to hit “reply all” since I want to reduce the chances of others I do not know on the distribution list deciding to become my “friend” and add me to their distribution list.


4. Which brings me to the last point. When sending an email to people who do not know each other and unless previously agreed by all as expected, use the blind copy (bcc) option when sending your email. This way you are not revealing email addresses of people who would rather remain anonymous. I am one of these people.

Did I follow my rule number 2 of being pithy? Well, this is not an email and you decide.

This was my rant for the day and I do feel better now … I think.

Progress of Music and Technology

The picture above pretty much resembles my LP vinyl records collection I had growing up at my parents’ home. Mine contained roughly 4000 LPs that I managed to purchase and collect from the hard-earned money I made playing my music gigs back then. To make sure my records sounded great, I even purchased a Dual model turntable, which served me well for quite a few years. It was 1972, I was sixteen back then and life was good. Then came the digital CDs, my first Sony Walkman player among the many other players I purchased. As technology advanced, I had to re-invest in this digital revolution and replace the old with the new.

Today, it is my iPod that holds thousands of songs, audio books and movies. This one tiny device, that fits in my pocket, replaces my walls covered with vinyl records, cassettes and CDs as well as the various players: turntable, cassette player, reel tape and walkman I used to own.

I still remember the days when going to the music store and listening to the new records while having to signal to the store clerk, controlling the music, to skip the selection to the next song. Today, at my leisure, I visit my favorite iTunes online store. There, I can instantly listen to and watch excerpts of songs, movies and audio books and immediately purchase, download and listen to the ones I want.

Life is great.

Let me illustrate this progress through pictures:

I still remember this radio at my grandparents home when growing up

Then my first Reel-to-reel tape recorder

And my turntable

With my cassette player

With the thousands of cassettes

And thousands of music CDs

And thousands of vinyl LPs

Replaced with this awesome iPod

And my iTunes where I purchase, download and organize my music

And listen to it all using this outstanding Bose headset

In my quest to constantly improve our clients’ web sites and develop better and new successful Internet strategies for their business, I come across and review many web sites on a daily basis.

To illustrate and discuss the “good, bad and ugly” techniques used by others, and us, I am starting a new blog category today. “How to improve your web site effectiveness” will be devoted exactly for that purpose, discussions and illustrations of such practices, both good and bad. Please realize this category will reflect my personal bias and opinion, which you are welcome to disagree with. I would really like to hear your opinion and your sharing of other sites and concepts you think are bad practice or helpful.

This following site: www.singletongroup.com used to be a consultant web site and had all the basic elements of such a site. Recently it was changed to the following page:

(click image to enlarge)

Please realize that this page is the entire site now. There are no other sub pages to navigate. My assessment:

1. If this person is on vacation and it is their way of communicating such message, I see it as a poor sense of humor that would turn off customers.


2. If this person’s server was hacked (high jacked by someone else) I hope for their sake they recognize this soon.


3. If they decided to retire, I believe there are better ways of announcing it. But then again, they may not care.

I love a good sense of humor and I believe you can easily leverage it in your writing and professional web site development. However, this is definitely not such an example. Watch out what message your site conveys.

When logging on to their site this evening, I noticed the price for the identical flight was much cheaper. I called the elite desk line and got Buzz Savage, their pleasant helpdesk manager, on the phone. He explained that the rule states that in order to rebook the flight at the different rate I must make the change exactly within 24 hours of booking the original fair. Although I had passed the 24-hour mark, he will make the necessary adjustment and take care of me.

It was a great pleasure to talk with Buzz and hear his story. He retired quite a few years ago and decided to go back to work. Sitting in his family room where he now works daily, all customers’ calls are directed right to his home phone. He said he loves his job, and Continental takes great care of him. I asked him what is one of the greatest attributes about the company that most people do not know. He said, the focus of everyone in the company to service the customers and make it a great place. He then proceeded to tell me that even though he is already working remotely from home, they are working on the technology to soon allow him to work remotely from anywhere in the world.

These four most recent blog posts illustrate four different companies with four different mindsets of servicing their customers. Which company would you want to do business with and which company most resembles your organization?

I shared with her the great service experience we just had at Nordstrom and the no-questions-asked and friendly price adjustment policy they had. “We are not Nordstrom” She said. “I noticed” I replied.

I mentioned to her why this is illogical and does not make any business sense. Forcing the customer to return the boots for full credit while waiting for the salesperson to put them back in stock and then allowing the customer to repurchase them seemed absurd.

She thought about it and then said: “Bring your boots tomorrow and I will process the credit on one register. You will then have to wait 20 minutes so I can then process the sale on another register so I don’t get in trouble.”

It’s amazing for me to see how two different organizations (Nordstrom and Dillard’s) empower their employees to make the proper decisions to serve their customers.

It was taking forever for the service reps to take care of each of the irritated customers. Even my attempt to get more help fell on deaf ears. Almost an hour later and finally it was my turn to be served. The condescending representative seemed to be a natural extension of the poor mindset already shared by the other company’s representatives and she also seemed to enjoy her acquired power. I then realized that the faster I get served, the faster I will be on the road for the 4 hour drive to Utah. It took a tremendous amount of self-control for me to not comment on the attitude I was noticing coming from her and the others in that office.

Almost relieved and with the paperwork finally in my hands, I rushed downstairs to their car lot to get my rented car. To my amazement the car was not there. When I questioned the service rep he said that he does not know when my car will be ready although he hopes it will be soon. I told him that hopes won’t get me far and I need the car NOW! He then told me that I may select any car I want from the lot. Glancing over, I noticed they were all small cars and I told him that I reserved a 4-wheel drive SUV to safely drive in the mountains of Utah. He did not seem to care while telling all the customers coming down with their paperwork that they also may select any car they want from the lot. There was an almost frenzy like feeling in the air.

With my pulse beating faster, my self-control gone and my voice increasing in volume I told him he has three options: 1. Go down to his competitor’s lot and get me an equivalent car to the one I rented. 2. Get me into the Cadillac Escalade I just noticed on his lot. 3. Call his manager to immediately resolve this problem. He explained that the keys to the Escalade are locked inside and he cannot leave his post since there are customers to serve. Demandingly I reminded him that I am one of these customers and he better get me the car now while I can direct the rest of his customers.

Perhaps it was my demeanor, my loud voice, the face twitch I started to develop, the fact that he started to get tired of me or perhaps his realization of the customer service responsibilities when he suddenly left. Several minutes later he came back with a brand new SUV handing me the keys while I am still in the midst of directing the customers’ traffic to select any car they see on the lot. What can I tell you? I had to have some sense of humor about this dreadful situation.

As I climbed into the car, almost two and a half hours after my landing, I realized the senior moment I had when booking my car reservation and forgetting to use my gold membership with Hertz, which would have prevented this from happening.

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”

“There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.”

A question was asked today on one of the online forums I help implement and moderate:

“How do you organize potential book commentary, blog posts relevant to an upcoming article, news stories that could be adapted to a speech, etc. so you can find them when you’re ready for them?”

I find my organized digital world much more efficient and faster to search than my paper world. To solve this challenge I created multiple folders on my disk drive. Here are a few to help me better organize myself:

Chad’s Publishing – Is my resource folder for my writing ideas. It contains a word document labeled “Titles” with the headlines of future articles I would like to write. Each time I think of an idea for an article or a blog post, I add it to this document. In this document you will find titles such as: “How and when to fire your web master”, “What they haven’t alerted you about Google alerts”, “Why technologies fail and what to do about it”, which are all articles, blog posts or Podcasts I am planning on doing in the future.

When I read interesting articles on the Internet, I copy and paste each one (and only the important sections) into a word document and I assign it the appropriate title I choose. Assigning it the proper title when saving the document is the most critical step as it allows me to quickly find the resource I am looking for in the future. Inside each document is the content with the date and attribution information. So if I just read three articles about three different subjects such as: disaster recovery, Internet marketing and security, I would name my articles starting with these words and followed by more identifying information in the title. When reading Books, magazines and other publications, I summarize interesting things I read and use the same concept as above. When writing my articles, if I wish to quote another source, I quickly scan my folder and use the proper article with the proper attribution.

Review Articles – This folder contains web articles I copy and paste into that I did not have the time to read yet but I feel they may be of interest to me in the future. I review this folder when I have time and either purge the document if I have no interest or rename it and place it in the “Chad’s Publishing” folder for future resource.

Process Visuals – This folder contains the charts I find or create to be used in my future writing.

Screen Shots – This folder contains the screen capture of various web sites I visited (good and bad) that I plan on writing about.

Stories – This folder contains stories I like to use in my speeches and my writing.

I know all about Google Reader, Internet browser’s favorites, social bookmarking sites, making hard copies and cutting out articles from newspapers and magazines and other methods. Although they have their place and benefit, when it comes to organizing my writing, I find them to be ineffective and a big waste of my time. The system I outline above keeps my writing organized with the proper resources available when I need them. Occam’s Razor – “All other things being equal, the simplest solution is usually the best.”

Me: who is in charge of the backup system?
CEO: That’s Bob.

Me: I noticed only four tapes in the computer room and I was wondering were the missing Thursday tape was?
CEO: (proud and boasting): You see Chad, we have implemented this great backup procedure several years ago. When Bob came in this morning, he brought back with him the nightly backup tapes from Wednesday, that he took home with him last night. He then put last night’s server tape backups in his brief case so he can take them off site. This way we always guarantee that we have one off site set of tapes. (At this point the CEO had a big smile on his face probably waiting for me to acknowledge their great backup procedure.)

Me: May I ask you several questions?
CEO: Sure, go a head.

Me: How important is your backup system?
CEO: If disaster strikes, we would be dead in the water without them with possible terrible consequences to our business.

Me: Does Bob ever take a lunch break?
CEO: Sure every day.

Me: Does he always carry his brief case with him when he leaves for lunch?
CEO: Rarely.

Me: So I guess if a major disaster took place when Bob is out to lunch, such as; fire, water or earthquake, wouldn’t you agree that you would be dead in the water when he returns?
CEO: (speechless, no sound)

Me: Or if a major disaster strikes your business when Bob is at home and for some reason the tapes he has at home are damaged. Wouldn’t you agree this terrible scenario is the same?
CEO: (starting to make a sound)

Me: Would you like to know what Bob needs to change?
CEO: Absolutely.

Me: Keep all tapes off site and have Bob bring with him the tapes with the appropriate label for the day. When he gets into the office, have him put these tapes in the server and pull out the previous night server backup tapes and place them in his brief case to take home with him. This way you still have three days backup tapes off site if disaster strikes.
CEO: THANK YOU! We shall implement immediately.

Final and additional notes:

1. There are remote backup services available that will enable you to backup your system to a remote server eliminating the need for tapes.


2. Most reliable services are superior to backing up to your own tapes but are much more expensive.


3. If disaster strikes, recovery of software and data from these remote systems could take significantly more time than from your own tapes.

When talking with one of our new web clients today, he said that he really likes the way I utilize pictures and videos on my blog. Another colleague emailed me a copy of his blog to comment on. It was painful. Not a picture in sight, just text upon text.

Think about powerful papers and online publications such as The Wall Street Journal and Business Week. Both, among many others, are loaded with outstanding text content accompanied by pictures, audios and videos.

So add some sizzle to your blog and remember, a picture is worth a thousand words. It will break up the monotony of your blog and will make it by far more interesting and unique.

Now where is that picture I wanted to place here?

After about 45 minutes of hearing him talk, I decided to stop asking questions and see if he may ask me a question or two.

There was silence.

After about 5 minutes he looks at me and says: “Let me ask you a question”
Excited, I was for a moment as I heard my voice say: “SURE, GO AHEAD”
He then proceeds and says: “Since you are one of the new parents at the school here, do you have any questions for me?”
“NO”, I shouted. Turning to my wife and asking her how her day is going.

Broadway Baby:

Nothing:

I’m The Greatest Star:

It’s a Hard Knock Life:

Little Girls:

Something Wonderful:

Stepping Out:

Sara Lee:

Seasons of Love:

The Wizard and I:

You There In The Back Row:

I would like to wish you a fabulous and safe New Year and may this coming year be an amazing one for you, your family and your business.

Best Regards,

Chad

Final Reflection:

1. Time with family is precious.

2. Life is too short. Try enjoying each every moment.

3. Engage in conversations with people. You will discover some amazing wisdom.

4. Take time to observe and reflect. That’s when most of the learning and appreciation may take place.

5. Education is key to our future and probably the key to reducing hatred among nations.

6. Technology knows no borders, helps create and establish communities, makes staying in touch seamless and if used well can greatly increase efficiency and effectiveness.

7. We often take things for granted. Gas prices, Choices, Life style, discretionary time, freedom, relationships, peace and health to name a few.

8. Wars are asinine.

9. Life is great.

Signing off,

Chad

And the birthday girl again, my daughter Sharon:

I couldn’t help but also post this next picture depicting a rainy day in Jerusalem (the only one we had this week) with a creative blue umbrella (plastic bag) covering this guy’s hat.

We had dinner with the kids at the fabulous Moroccan Darna Restaurant which was a great way to wrap up this marvelous week.

As we started to reminisce about the time we were playing together in a band (over 30 years ago) Eitan said: “why won’t we go downstairs and have a little jam session?” His son built a beautiful recording studio in his house where we all escaped to for the next several hours and really brought out some great memories.

The fingers did not move as fast, but we still sounded pretty good. That’s me on guitar and my friend Eitan on the drums:

And just some additional sounds and smells from around the market:

I then met my family at the Jerusalem open market (Mahane Yehuda) to do some shopping. It is an amazing place bustling with interesting people. The great smell of the fresh food and its sight is just amazing and tempting. I found myself having this immense craving to taste most of it:

We came across this amazing Halvah (Sesame Candy) store with every possible flavor available. It was just too hard to resist the aroma and temptation created, especially when we were offered to taste it. We purchased several kilos to take back to the US with us:

This next store had amazing spices and tea of all kind. I thought I already figured out their tricks and was prepared to say no. “Here try some”, said the nice man at the store. Who am I to argue? I found myself purchasing another $200 worth of stuff I probably did not need, but I couldn’t say no:

Although the fruit was quite appealing, watching the seller stand there with a cigarette and ashes dropping was not:

The cakes at this store were to die for. I watched my daughter buying there and what struck me was the fact that the seller has his hand covered with protective plastic yet he never took it off when picking up the cakes and exchanging the money. Oh well, it tasted too good to worry about it:

Perhaps not the most sophisticated method of transportation but it was quite effective to transfer the bread on the cart to the stores:

The open market was a place where several suicide bombers previously attacked and killed many shoppers. You would not know or feel that, walking the streets of the market today. But suddenly, at one place of the market, we see a huge crowd of people gathering watching something with great interest while taking pictures with their cell phones. When i asked one of them what is going on, he tells me that they found a suspicious suitcase. I don’t get it. What is it that intrigues people to put themselves in harms way for a quick thrill? Luckily it turned out to be nothing and we returned to our shopping spot.

I observed so many interesting people doing their business:

Among them was even this Jerusalem beauty selling at her clothing store:

And of course my own family beauty, my wife, daughter and son-in-law:

I met this awesome guy and started a great conversation with him. He immediately cut up some fruit for us to taste:

He then told me that he loves to sing so I put him to the test. I took out my new Flip Video gadget and started to record. (See my next post to view it)
He did not believe me that this amazing gadget is a video camera, so I let him watch his own recording and promised him that I will upload it onto YouTube:

We had to say goodbye to this marvelous place and as we were walking out of the market we saw this young kid selling Israeli jelly donuts. Ok, so I had to get just one.

The best part of the day is the fact that it is my daughter’s birthday today. Her neighbor from across the hallway, stopped by with a sign she prepared saying Mazel Tov and welcome Mom and Dad. She was so sweet and also brought with her some flowers and balloons to hang on the door. You guessed right, she made us all take part in helping her hang up the sign on the door and decorate it.

We had a great time and after a terrific dinner we went out to an amazing dessert place to further celebrate. We had everyone sing Happy Birthday in Hebrew and English and as you can see, my daughter is enjoying watching her husband singing. Happy birthday Sharon:

(Click on images to enlarge)

(Front cover)

(Back cover)

The young lady who was helping us pick out the games, decided to give us a discount since she seemed to like us. She was probably in her twenties and to my amazement she then took out a calculator and while struggling to figure something out, looked at the storeowner and asked frustrated: “how much is 10% of 157?” This actually happened on two different occasions at two different stores. Although the majority of Israeli citizens believe in great education, this proved to me the importance of a good education.

Many thousands of years of history are contained within the walls of this fascinating city. We walked towards Jaffa gate in the old city staring at the ancient walls, various religious places and the tower of David

(Ancient walls)

(Religious places)

(Tower of David)

We entered the colorful Arab market where storeowners hustle to negotiate their deals. “Make me a great offer,” said one, while another yelled: “How much do you want to pay for this?” It is common and almost expected to hear the seller name a price and the “negotiation game” begins.

(My daughter Sharon engaged in tough negotiation)

(My daughter and wife with Adnan, the store owner, displaying the new wall hanging addition for the Barr family)

We then took a sharp right turn and entered the area of Roman ruins called the Cardo followed by some great Israeli shops.

(The Cardo)

I went to visit one of the friendly storeowners I met last year who greatly impressed me. A devoted Orthodox Jew, (pious), who has great love and passion for his religious studies, life and people. Since it was my daughter’s friend who originally sent me there, I walked into the store hoping to be recognized for the connection and said:
“Do you know who sent me?”
“God of course” he said.
We chatted for a couple of minutes when I asked: “So how is business?”
Unexpectedly he replied: “It depends”
“Depends on what?” I said.
“On the person of course” he answered.
Curiously I asked him to articulate further.
“Look it” he said, “God may grant you success and at times even put you to the test. It all depends what you decide to do with that wealth, how you use it and how much you share and give to others that makes the difference.”
I delightfully purchased something at his store, listened to his wisdom while he was talking with several other visitors and thanked him for the meaningful few moments together.

We then entered the Jewish section of the old city, walking towards the holiest site of the Jewish people, The Western Wall.

(Old city streets)

(Dome of the rock and the western wall)

(The western wall)

On our way out, this sign caught my attention. It lets people know this week’s biblical portion, when exactly the Sabbath begins, when to light the candles and when the Sabbath ends. It also lets people know that any question they may have about Jewish laws, there are Rabbis standing by to answer those questions. Just make sure you don’t call these numbers during the Sabbath.

(Sabbath sign)

It’s amazing how busy the restaurants are during the day as well as quite late at night. A common site in the majority of restaurants is a security guard standing at the entrance and checking for weapons. I am not sure what kind of a deterrent this is to a terrorist, but it seems to make the visitors and perhaps the restaurant owners feel better. This country loves to party and I was glad to take a part in it and get my tasty Israeli Latte having my choice between the hopping coffee shops of Café Hillel and Café Aroma. Interestingly, all restaurants charge a small fee on their bill (2 Shekel = 50 cents per person) for their security guard.

I decided to take some night shots of Jerusalem before calling it a day. Actually an outstanding day!

(Old city at night)

(Old city at night)

Since you probably already know my love for playing the guitar, I could not resist this great piece of “a guitarist” artwork, made out of forks and spoons, of which I became the proud owner:

(Guitar player)

I struck up a great conversation with this retired teacher who left his teaching position of 30 years to start carving wood faces. We discussed the challenges of making ends meet as a teacher in Israel, and his love and passion for his new profession while being able to live quite well now. It was interesting to hear him quote some of my favorite Mark Twain quotes in Hebrew. This time nothing was lost in the translation:

(Teacher becomes a wood carver)

(Wood carving work)

We walked around, engaging in some great conversations with the artists while investing in the local economy. We then sat down for a tasty lunch of Israeli sandwiches, salads and coffee. Did I mention yet that Israel probably has the best coffee I have ever tasted? Perhaps a close second may be the one I had in Italy several years ago:

(Hafuch Chazak or Strong upside down coffee or simply a latte)

I then ran into an Arab woman who was baking Pita bread. It looked and smelled so awesome, but I just had my lunch. When she noticed me taking her pictures she demanded I buy some of her bread as well:

(Arab woman baking Pita)

(Arab Woman demanding I buy the Pita)

When it comes to clowns, they seem to be able to speak a universal language. This clown was walking around mesmerizing the kids with his stories and making balloon animals:

(Clown)

I met Iris, an artist, who makes beautiful stained glass. The Chanukah dreidels caught my attention among the coasters and lamps she makes. It was a good financial day for Iris and I have a lot to carry back now to the U.S.

(Stained Glass)

(Dreidels)

(Menorah on a moving car)

It only took me several minutes to adjust to the Israeli driving style. It is road rage on steroids here. If you are familiar with the chicken game, it is naturally played here by the majority of drivers. When drivers put on their left turn signals, for example, it is their way of saying “watch it buddy, I am pulling to the left lane whether you like it or not.” I guess I felt back at home thanks to my early driving training when growing up in Israel, which also helped make the drive to Haifa take less than two hours.

(Haifa Bay)

We first visited one of my wife and daughter’s favorite clothing stores – Flowers, located at the top of the Carmel mountain.

(My daughter, Sharon, trying on an outfit at Flowers)

We then continued to visit my father who is at an independent living facility in the city of Naharia, located by the Mediterranean Sea and 40 minutes north of Haifa. It is a beautiful and growing city which unfortunately was in the news last year when it was bombed quite heavily with Haifa during the war with Lebanon. As we were entering the city, I noticed the welcome sign. In Hebrew it said: “The city for those who love life” yet in English it was translated to say: “The city for fun lovers.” Since I moved to the U.S. 29 years ago, and in my quest to constantly improve my language, I am always fascinated with colloquialism. I got to reflect on some of the “cute” language mistakes I make at times and forgave the one who wrote the sign.

Great visit with my Dad and we even got to entertain him and his friends, the wiser generation, singing some songs of Chanukah. We immediately gained new friends and fans, as I realized how easy it is to impress the older generation when you simply give them love combined with music.

(Me, my Dad and my wife)

After 9.5 hours in the air, we touched down at the Tel-Aviv airport and were greeted by my daughter and son-in-law who are studying this year in Jerusalem. They arranged for a private taxi driver to take us to Jerusalem. Since one of our suitcases was too large to fit in the trunk, the driver started to mount it on the roof of his newly purchased Mercedes. “Here, catch the rope on the other side” he yelled. I immediately realized, that I was just volunteered to help and suddenly recognized the great responsibility placed on me to correctly secure my own suitcase. What if it flew off the roof? What would I be able to even say to him? I believe my rope tying technique sucked out all the remaining oxygen from that poor suitcase. It was a beautiful day in Israel, great scenery and we were finally on our way. “Do you like my new car?” asked the driver. “It’s great” I replied, while my hand is reaching out of the window to check that the luggage is still perched securely on the roof of the car.

We made it safely to my kids’ apartment in the beautiful Rechavia neighborhood of Jerusalem. After a brief siesta we were on our way, the four of us, to explore the streets of this beautiful city, the work of great artists while experiencing the savory, culinary delights.

(Click on images to enlarge)

Homes in Rechavia neighborhood

Homes in Rechavia neighborhood

Jerusalem homes overlooking the old city

Jerusalem homes overlooking the old city

Jerusalem across from the old city

Artist work on Ben Yehuda Street

Walt tells me that he is on his way to deliver a speech in Tel-Aviv. I ask him about his interview of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, what must it have been like and how he was able to get the two of them in the same room and so well behaved? He talked about that special moment and said that the excitement in the room was unbelievable that many of the people in the audience had tears in their eyes.

I gave him some pointers about traveling in Israel, the four of us started to board business first while Walt and I are now discussing the iPhone. My wife (jokingly) asks us if we wish to sit together? I was just about getting ready to answer as both wives look at each other, smiled and got to override our decision.

Be back soon reporting from Israel,

Chad

p.s. the entire interview of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs is available on iTune

With life’s opportunities all around us, how often are we able to seize the moment and take the shots we need to take so we don’t miss the most beautiful and rewarding ones?

(click on images to enlarge)

(Click on image above to enlarge)

How would any interested individual contact this ad without a name, a phone number an email address or a physical address?

Make sure your contact information is clearly visible on all of your marketing material.

His life-story attribute that resonated with me most was his tenacity. Although he became quite successful at an early age, he almost faced business financial ruin and was on the verge of bankruptcy. This did not deter him from taking additional risks and rebuilding his enormous success and wealth again. He said in the interview today:

“Life is short and you don’t want to be an old guy counting his last heart beat thinking about all the things you wanted to do that you didn’t do because you were scared. What’s to be scared of in life? In the end it all ends the same.”

Imagine visiting a web site or a blog for the first time, finding it interesting and book marking it for future visits. Then, on your future and subsequent visits, nothing has changed, no new content, nada. How many times would you keep on visiting this site before giving up? I say probably no more than three times.

To further illustrate my point, here is one final story that happened to me just recently: I am quite busy helping my clients leverage software, technology and the Internet to grow their business. Busy enough that I somewhat neglected to frequently update my own blog. When talking recently with one of my colleagues and discussing a point I wrote about on my blog, he went to my blog to check out my point and then said: “oh wow, I see that you are now posting much more than ever before, I will now then subscribe to your blog.”

And by the way, the same logic applies when subscribing to receive the content of other Blogs posts via RSS feed. How long before you remove the feed from your reader if no new posts have been entered?

I suggest you get into the discipline of posting interesting new content, at least once a month on your site and at least three times a week on your blog.

(Note: My definition of RSS technology – It enables people on the web to subscribe and automatically receive content from all the sites they are interested in. They may read, listen or view text, audio or video content immediately when it is published on the various sites. This eliminates the need to manually and separately visit all these sites to see if new content has been published.)

While chatting last night with several of the college participants, I came to realize that most entrepreneurs do not recognize the awesome power of progress and evolution, especially when it comes to their own web site. By that I mean, the commitment to the continuous addition of valuable content, products and services to your site and your business. I am referring to content such as:

What would possibly then be the impact on your business if you did that?

For evolution to take its place and be most effective, the best time to start is right now.

It has been 29 years since I moved to the U.S. and made it my home and the journey has been simply unbelievable. I’ve been fortunate to create and live a great life and as this Thanksgiving holiday weekend comes to a close, I wish to thank you all:
My dear wife Laurel, daughter Sharon, son Yoni, son-in-law Hillel and my entire family. My dear mentors, friends, colleagues, clients and of course YOU, the reader of this blog.

I would not be the person I am without all your great support.

Click here for a special holiday message from us (may take a couple of minutes to load)

Thank You!

Below are some pictures I took (click on images to enlarge):

At Snow Canyon St. George

Snow Canyon – St. George

Sunset – St. George

Bryce Canyon

Bryce Canyon

Sunset – Bryce Canyon

1. It’s a great professional development tool for you and your company. It is a rapid publishing platform focusing on delivering wisdom and knowledge while building a community.


2. To be a successful blogger, you have to be unique, passionate about your topics and love what you do.


3. Post often and at least 3 times per week, or not at all.


4. Talk about compelling topics people are interested in.


5. Solve people problems and be the expert in your niche. Introduce a problem and solve it. Use video and audio. Take a look at this great example from Tim Carter of Ask The Builder.


6. Blogs that start with www.AskTheNAME.com where NAME represents your line of expertise, are a great idea.


7. Ask yourself, what problems is my blog solving?


8. Do not start a blog that you don’t care about or that you are not going to post on and often.


9. Comment on other blogs, which also creates a link back to you blog and drives traffic to you.


10. Refer to other blogs and topics on your own blog and writing.


11. When visitors comment on your blog, welcome them by responding with your own comment, email them and the ones that comment often consider featuring them on your blog.


12. Do not “force” people to register to enter a comment on your blog. But consider moderating and approving each comment.


13. The reason people don’t care about radio is because it is not niche focused. Podcasts on the other hand allow you to listen to content you care about and listen to it wherever and whenever you want. You can also fast-forward a Podcast, pause it anytime or simply delete which is not possible with a radio station.


14. Google loves blogs and solving problems sites.

Ideas to make money with your blog (monetize):

1. Create credibility so people contact you


2. Sell your products and services


3. Affiliate marketing


4. Direct Ad Sales


5. Find a Sponsor


6. Google AdSense

One example of the success of this concept is with singer Marie Digby. She video recorded several famous songs and uploaded them onto YouTube. When visitors searched for the song by the original artist they also found her videos, which quickly brought her fame and the signing to produce a new album.

Seth Godin also talks about this concept in a couple of his blog entries:

“What makes an idea viral?”

and

“Is viral marketing the same as word of mouth?”

Here are some of my takeaways:

1. Strategy is the what, tactics is the how


2. Planning kills strategy. Strategy is top down, planning is bottom up.


3. Strategy starts with the end desire. Paint a picture of the future.


4. Being good at what you do trumps being at the right place.


5. The key to strategy is to make enough good decisions, not one perfect decision.


6. Strategy is organized serendipity


7. Strategy is a continual process, not an annual event.


8. Ambiguity is the norm.


9. Process visual charts of the Strategy Quadrant, The Strategic Profile and Risk /Reward Ratio which I will publish shortly.

How do you recognize a good strategy?

1. Anyone in the company is able to talk about it.


2. Executives in the company held directly responsible for implementation


3. Executives constantly looking and reviewing its effectiveness.

Lastly, some points of interest:

• If IBM were still a punch card company they would have been out of business many years ago. They are in the information exchange business.


• Steve Jobs: “We wait for the next big thing and we then jump at it”

1. Technology for technology sake makes no sense – Why purchase a faster processor when the old one is just fast enough? Why upgrade immediately to the latest software version when you are barely still using 5% of the functions of your current software? Why get the latest and “hottest” gadget when it is still not tested enough or has enough technology and integration acceptance? For technology to make sense, it must increase the following: Usefulness, productiveness, efficiency, and fun.


2. Learn to exploit your technology – Imagine how much fun and success you main gain if frequently you learn to implement one new idea with your software and hardware. Imagine if you implemented several.


3. Get an expert – If you find yourself aggravated figuring out new technologies or stagnant for a while, consider contacting an expert and let them help you gain the knowledge you need in a short time.

Here are some fun and productive ideas to get you started:

1. Listen to books digitally and download them to your iPod or a CD and listen in your car, plane ride or during your power walk.


2. Subscribe to your podcasts of interest and download to your iPod and enjoy listening while learning new concepts.


3. Implement software to better organize your ideas, projects and calendar.


4. Learn how to better search the Internet for the information you need.


5. Explore the digital world of video or audio recording and share your favorite events with your family or clients.


6. Better plan and forecast your future with simple spreadsheet calculations.


7. Use your computer for video conferencing so you may talk and see your family.

I suggest you don’t just purchase technologies because it’s the cool thing to do. Make sure it also makes personal and business sense to do so. Once you do get it, learn to leverage your investment and gain the most out of it. And remember, the cool stuff you get today will anyways be old news in a short time clearing the way for newer and cooler technologies to take its place.

Isn’t innovation great?

It was 1968, I was 12 years old growing up in Israel. After waiting for over a year, the phone my parents ordered for our home, finally arrived. There was great excitement in our home, and we even built a small credenza to proudly display our new arrival. What made it even more exciting was the fact that we were one of the first families on our block to have our phone installed. The technician installed and tested it and then left. Exhilarated, I picked up the handset, the beautiful tone sounded loud and clear, I placed it next to my ear and I then realized … I had no one to call. None of my friends had their phones yet.

(Click image to enlarge)

They’ve attracted 70,000 developers to build free plug-ins interfaces to their web site. Once approved by FaceBook, these plug-ins provide utilities for users to improve their online experience. They may play games, share reviews of books, movies, vacations, dress up their profiles and much more.  Software developers who contribute may sell advertising, promote products and services and gain tremendous exposure.

Sounds like a win – win great opportunity to all involved.

One such phenomenon is the popularity and growth of social networking web sites. These web sites are places, primarily for individuals of all ages, who are looking to learn and share their interests and get in touch with people all over the world. What makes the web so perfect for this to work is ease of joining such networks, its availability which is 24×7 and the frequent access to great minds.

According to comScore, 155 million users visit such sites each day! Sites such as ClassMates, MySpace, FaceBook, LinkedIn, NewsCorp and eBay to name a few.

My organization has also been involved in implementing and building such communities. One such example, of a very exciting and successful community, is the one we’ve done for Alan’s Forums. It is a place attracting the smartest of consultants from all over the world who join for debate, networking and ideas exchange. The other, Substance & Forum, is a new community we are getting ready to launch which attracts the elite of tax mind in this country.

Click below to view the presentation:

Click below to view the presentation:

Here are his Secrets to success:

1. Passion – Do it for love and not money. The money the comes anyway.


2. Work – It takes hard work with much fun.


3. Focus – Practice, practice, practice.


4. Persist – Through failure as well as Criticism, Rejection, Assholes and Pressure.


5. Ideas – Listen, observe, be curious, ask questions, problem solve and make connections.


6. Good – Get damn good at what you do.


7. Push – Physically and mentally to overcome self-doubt, shyness, feelings of whether you are good or smart enough.


8. Serve - Deliver to others something of value.

Click below to view the presentation.

(Click image to enlarge)

Alright, alright now. Before you go and dismiss surveys as a needed interpretation tool (because I told you so in my previous post) check this out as also reported in the wsj:

A study released by the National Bureau of Economic Research and prepared by Duke University professors found that teachers with master degrees had no impact on students performance regarding their math and reading year-end standardized exams. The factors that had impact were: experience in classroom, attending competitive undergraduate institutions and higher scores on licensing exams.

They therefore concluded that teachers with strong credentials should work with students who most need them.

So what does that mean and what do you think:

• Should these teachers work with the slower student or the most gifted?


• Shouldn’t we give more thoughts to what makes a superior teacher and invest in this?


• Next time teachers flaunt their master degree accomplishment, what would cross your mind?

See, and I told you to be careful with interpreting surveys results.

p.s. The study above examined teachers’ credentials alongside the scores of 75% of its students in grades 3 – 5 from 1994 – 2003.

The WSJ reported a study which was conducted at UCLA and concluded that women are “chattier” than men by 3% (I know my wife would debate that.) It also suggested that muscular men are twice as likely to have more than three sex partners than their less muscular buddies.

So I ask the following:

• What segment of the population was tested?


• What was their age group?


• How many were tested?


• What was their ethnic background?


• What part of the country was the study conducted at?

I could probably go on and on with additional such questions. Interestingly, I see more and more such surveys conducted on the web by companies such as eMarketer, Project Implicit, The Wall Street Journal and many more, which shows a growing trend and an accompanying public interest. Although I enjoy reading many such surveys and implementing survey technologies for our clients I believe there is inherited danger in their findings. The interpretation of the results should not be held as an absolute truth but rather as a rough guideline.

And other than that, I don’t feel strongly about it.

Good Surveying.

Chad

1. Focus on markets transition and try to catch them at the right time.


2. Enter new markets with a sustainable differentiation.


3. Listen and take direction from your customers.


4. Develop a strong leadership team.


5. Innovate, innovate, innovate.

So how do you know it’s the right time to enter or exit a market and how do you know you have the differentiation needed?

(Click image to enlarge)

1. Deliver direct and clear points and eliminate vagueness.


2. Support with examples.


3. Frame the issues with clear definition of what each one is and what it is not.


4. Communicate on a level the other can understand.


5. Test your assumptions as feedback is given and received.

Here are my top five tips:

1. Review your bank and financial statements often and scan for unusual activity.


2. Shred your sensitive paperwork.


3. Prevent leaving your financial data or credit cards exposed at home or the office.


4. When shopping online make sure the site is secured and encrypted.


5. Stop replying to emails requesting your confidential information or ones with tempting offers.

If you wish to learn more, I’ve previously written several articles describing ways to better protect your identity:

Are you fish bait? How to Prevent Thieves From Stealing Your Identity

Basic steps to Protect your identity – How to keep your private information secured

(Click image to enlarge)

Clicks believed by advertisers to be fraudulent: 14.6 percent

Money paid by advertisers for bogus clicks: $800 million (2005)

Advertisers who said they were victims of click fraud: 75 percent

Advertisers who said they reduced click-based advertising or plan to: 37 percent

Revenue lost by Google, Yahoo and other Web sites, as a result: $500 million

Advertisers who request refunds because of fraud: 7 percent

Average refund: $9,507

Source: Outsell Inc.

This article appeared on page C – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle. Click Here to read original article.

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(By Portia Nelson)

He ate ~ It wasn’t what I ate

He spoke ~ It wasn’t my language

He dressed ~ It wasn’t what I wore

He took my hand ~ It wasn’t the color of mine

But when he laughed ~ It was how I laughed
And when he cried ~ It was how I cried.

(By Amy Maddox, Age 16)