My Birthday Blog

Happy Birthday to ME!! Today is the day. I am 45. Odds are I am half way through my life and if you count in 5-10 final years of dementia and incontinence, I probably only have about 30 lucid years left! The thing is, I was supposed to be a millionaire by now. Last time I checked my portfolio, that was not the case. So it's time for my half-time review. What has happened that has kept me from this goal and what can I do to reach it by 50? (Since 50 is the new 40, I will technically beat my goal by 5 years!) So I weighed my life's pros and cons and am definitely happy with my life as the pros outweighed the cons.

Pros:
Wonderful Family, A Son who beat Leukemia, hundreds of loyal friends, a great Church Home, My own Company, which is in it's 8th year, a Family Shore Home, flashes of decent musical ability, and a great charity - Tommy's Gifts for Kids.
Cons:
I need to be in better health if I am going to reach 90! I am not a millionaire. I am not close to being a millionaire.

Is being a millionaire THAT important. No. It is not. But I DO want to be able to provide for my children and wife, pay for the kids' college, buy the home that I will spend the rest of my life in and I want to never need the phrase "overdraft protection" in my life again!

How will I achieve this?
By continuing to give customers a great value and great service.
By being more consistent with maintaining rate integrity and collections.
By consistently reviewing my monthly, quarterly and annual goals.
By keeping my priorities in order.
By just plain continuing to work my ass off.

So Happy Birthday to me and thanks for checking in.
Future Millionaire,
Pete

Summertime!

Summer's here and the time is right for dancin' in the street! The time is also right for preparing for the Fall business surge. Most businesses experience a lag in the Summer and a big bump leading into the year's end. So what can you do now to best prepare yourself for the busy season? Here are a few tips:

1. Update your website. Making frequent changes to your site will help with search engine optimization and keeps your content fresh.
2. Organize your contacts. Prioritize your contact database by category and importance. Make sure to reach out to clients who have used your products or services previously at this time of year and see if they need you again this year. Remove dead contacts and clean out your e-mails!
3. Start a blog! A blog is a great positioning tool and a great way to reach out to potential clients. Linking your blog to FaceBook, Linkedin and twitter will optimize the effectiveness of the blog.
4. Clean out your files, desk and office space. Reducing the clutter in your life will make you a better organized and more efficient professional.
5. RELAX!!! Even if you don't have the time, MAKE the time to relax, recharge and have some fun. You only live once and there is no substitute for the value of spending time with Family and Friends and enjoying some quiet time of reflection.

So enjoy the rest of your Summer and if I can help you with anything at all, please don't hesitate to contact me!

Bless me Readers!

Bless me readers for I have sinned. It has been 6 months since my last submission!

The good news is that I have been very busy. When you are a one man show, sometimes you can't do anything but the jobs. So that brings me to this blog's topic. The sin that is "deviating from the plan". I had every intention of learning more about Search Engine Optimization and sharing my wisdom. But then I landed a number of great projects and I was juggling tasks like a circus performer!

So how do you do your job but still carve out time for your branding (such as this blog & networking), growth (such as cold-calling & RFP's)and company maintenance (such as bookkeeping, invoicing and collections)?

The answer? Caffeine. Copius amounts of caffeine. Sometimes you have to suck it up and pull an all-nighter. Which I have been doing a lot of lately. I told all my clients I was taking a vacation day and I cleaned house. Literally. My desk is back in order, I made 50 phone calls to past clients looking for new business. (That worked to the tune of about $2300 in business!). I got my collections in order and reviewed my quarter 1 goals. I threw out dead files (into the recycle bin & re-used the file folders). I made changes to my website and I updated my samples page.

Now my next challenge is to grow. To have a studio space and to hire someone. This will be a step back to take a step forward and I can't afford to do it! So how do I make this happen? Tune in next time and see what I have done! Have a great Summer! I hope we speak again before it has ended.

-Pete

Hey - I'm back from the SEMA show in Vegas where I went to support Riggio Innovations. We had a very successful trip. Here's how we did it. After deciding this was the perfect venue for showcasing the line wrench, we reserved a booth and chose appropriate supplemental marketing purchases. We paid for a banner that hung from the aisle sign for our row. It hung 20 feet up from the floor by wires. We also chose a kiosk ad that was attached to the "You are here" show directory. These purchases drove a ton of people to our booth saying "we just HAD to see this wrench!" We placed a display in the new products showcase and I held a press conference at the convention's media center for roughly 25 journalists and automotive magazine reporters. Probably the most important element was obtaining a list of attendees at the show and contacting them prior to the show with a link to our website with the video from my last post. The result was a staggering 1000+ attendees who want to buy the wrench who gave us their contact info via a lead capturing device we rented for the show. These are critical. More importantly, over 20 leading tool manufacturers CAME TO US to express their interest in manufacturing out line wrench!! We signed 11 non-disclosure agreements and are ready to begin negotiations.
This tremendous success validates the cost of participating in an event like this. It wasn't cheap, about ten grand for flights, accomodations, exhibitor space, supplemental marketing opportunities brochures, flyers displays and booth banners. However in the long run, this will prove to be a very small investment compared to the return. The lesson here is that when considering a marketing vehicle, it's OK to spend a bit as long as you are marketing to the proper market segment. Here's a shot of me and Rich Riggio at SEMA. Take care - next we'll talk about the follow ups and blogs.

Trade Shows

For the Last few weeks, I have been helping a client - Riggio Innovations - prepare for the SEMA Show in Vegas. Riggio has created a new ratcheting, retractable line wrench and we are bringing it to market. The experience has been great and we are seeing success prior to the show. We have identified attendees who it makes sense for us to meet with and have set up appointments. We have jumped onto every tool forum we can and have spread the word. That generated a nice response, which validates the strength of targeted marketing online and non-traditional marketing. We set up a demonstrative website - http://www.riggioinnovations.com - where interested parties can check out a video of the wrench in action.

The lesson here is that trade shows, expos and sampling opportunities work, if the attendees are who you want to meet. simple. Next, make sure you have supporting displays, decor, handouts and literature. Keep design elements simple, clean, eye-catching and consistent. Don't have blue signs and yellow logos and green literature. Consistency develops he brand.

Also - I am mentioning them in my blog! The video is above as well as on you-tube and the link is at the signature of my client's email.

I'll write when I get back from the SEMA show and let you know how it goes.

SEO Bogdown

OK - It's been a while. I have a few projects going on and my Customers come first! So I had a customer ask me to build them a website. I had heard about a neat little trick to boost search engine performance. It's hiding text in same colored footers. Problem is...... Google is and has been on to this practice and it actually penalizes you. So, we need to re-think our page one content. We need to make sure what we do is in print and within the first 60 or so characters for optimum performance. It is very important to couple the visually effective with effective content. So now I am going to officially leap head first into the world of SEO. I am going to enlist the help of professionals and share my knowledge with you. What I do know that you can do today is encourage anyone who you know to link to your site from theirs and this will help. Send out a blast and have people open your site. Also - search for your site on google & yahoo & msn, etc and click on it once you find it. do this from an off-site computer such as at a library, etc. As I come up with more info, I will share. Thanks and have a super day - Pete

Spread the Word!

You've got your blog. I've got my blog. I think everyone in the world should read what I have to say. I want to know what you have to say. So here's the question..."What's the best way to get your message out there?" Let's talk pay-per -click. This is where you bid for a position or rank on search pages. People are funny, though. Human-kind's need to be the best has folks fighting it out over who is going to be in the first position. I have clients who pay $15 per click! Their justification is their cost per closed lead. So, if they're cool with it, who am I to argue with them. But here's the thing, human kind has another need - the need to shop around. Most consumers will check out almost every result on the first page of their search. So while #1 & #2 competitors are dukin' it out for the top position around $14-$15, I'm getting the third position for $3! If people are looking at the top 4-5 listings anyway (because of the basic human nature thing that we are comparative shoppers that I just talked about) then they will see my information, too....at a fifth of the cost! Pay per click is cool, too, because you can narrow who sees your listing and can click on it. You can narrow those parameters by zip code or region and you can also set a limit as to how much you spend per month. Now the trick is to find the best keywords to represent what you do. You can subscribe to services that will give you that information, but the poor man's way is to judge by the price of the clicks! A 5ç pay per click price is 5ç because nobody is clicking on "bananas" when they are searching for tool sheds. My advice is to sit down and think about the words best representing your product, service or message and invest in them for your pay per click campaign. Next time we'll embark on an adventure together. An experiment in search engine optimization! Follow me as I spread the word of Blog. Together we can find out what works and more importantly - what doesn't. You can play along and apply what I learn to your spreading your word! Thanks and talk to you soon.